August 31st, 1998
Hermione stirred her tea, not really listening to the metal spoon clank as it hit the ceramic cup. She had stirred her tea so long the sugar had dissolved and the milk was completely mixed in. Hermione had stirred her tea for far too long, and it was certainly too cold to drink now. She hadn't even picked it up since she poured it. She hadn't even really wanted the tea in the first place, but she needed a reason to leave the chaos of the Burrow's kitchen table. She looked out the window blankly, trying to control her breathing. She had been in the kitchen for too long now, surely someone would come looking for her soon, but she hadn't calmed down.
She knew why she was panicking. Harry, Ron, Ginny, and her would be going back to Hogwarts tomorrow. She hasn't gone back since the final battle; she had been too ill to return and assist in the clean-up and rebuilding effort. If she was honest with herself, she had been too scared to even try.
When she picked up her tea, she noticed the tea had gone cold, and that the ceramic cup felt like ice in her grasp. Abruptly, she let go of the cup and watched it fall into the sink.
Hermione clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, trying to fight off the swell of emotions threatening to overwhelm her. Nothing came easy to her these days.
After the war, when the adrenaline and terror and need to win had worn off, Hermione had started shaking. The effects of her torture had been far worse than they originally realized. The shaking, the flashbacks, the nightmares, the trauma. There hadn't been time for that during the war. Hadn't been time for Hermione to realize what had happened and how much it had changed her. After, however, there was plenty of time to process. Logically, she knew the others were hurting, knew that they were processing their own losses and trauma too, but it felt isolating to know she was the only one who was struggling like this. She was struggling visibly. And everyone knew it.
"You alright, Hermione?" Harry said, carrying his own cup into the kitchen. He walked past her to the stove and turned on the kettle. He looked back, seeing her hands shaking over the sink and her cup gone. "Did you drop your tea again?"
"Yeah," she said, forcing her body to relax and trying to steady her hands on the counter. "It just slipped out of my hand, I guess." She shrugged. It wasn't convincing, and she knew it. She looked down and tugged the end of her left sleeve farther down her arm and gripped the edge of it in her hand. The action didn't go unnoticed by Harry, and though Hermione was well aware that she shouldn't feel ashamed of the scar on her arm, the shame settled on her nonetheless.
"It's okay," Harry said, putting his arm around her and pulling her into a hug. "The kettle's still got enough water for two if you want another one." His hand was sitting in her left arm, closer to her shoulder than her scar, but she still moved out of his hold.
"Thank you, Harry." She said. "I'd like another cup."
"Of course," Harry said, nodding. "You know, I'm always here if you want to talk, Hermione. You don't have to do this alone."
"I…" Her jaw clenched again. "I'm trying, Harry. I just… It's hard."
"I know, Hermione. I just don't want you to think nobody is here or that you can't talk about it," he said, handing her a cup of tea.
Hermione added in her sugar and milk and wondered if this cup too would go cold long before she tried to drink it.
September 1st, 1998
There was no tea to stir on the Hogwarts Express, no outward way to release her anxiety, so instead, Hermione took to biting the inside of her cheek. In the months she spent thinking of what it would be like to go back to Hogwarts, she had only considered being in the castle, going to classes, and taking the N.E.W.T.S. She hadn't thought of what it would be like to be back on the train. She hadn't considered the reality of going back to the place it all began. Hogwarts was safe now, she tried to remind herself, but it was hard to believe danger wasn't around every corner. Here, on the train, Hermione thought it felt stupid to go back. Futile even, considering she won a war.
Futile and terrifying.
At Grimmauld Place, her nightmares were plagued with sights from the war. She saw Hogwarts in ruins, Harry dead in the courtyard, Ron dead under that snake, and Bellatrix coming to finish her off with that knife. Hermione hadn't slept much since May, couldn't close her eyes without seeing a world where Voldemort won. She knew Voldemort was dead, she knew the war was over, but that doesn't stop it from happening in her mind.
But the war had taken its toll on her, and she knew that too.
What she didn't know was how she could move on. If she even could.
The train compartment was quiet. She looked across the aisle to Harry, noticing the worried look in his eye. She glanced at Ginny sitting next to him, but her eyes were more concerned. She smiled and tasted blood. Her eyes must have widened because Ron put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
While she was thinking, she had chewed into the side of her cheek, hard enough to bleed. She moved her tongue around her mouth, tasting the blood, and swallowed hard. She smiled at her friends again, hoping to ease their worry. It must have worked because Ron started discussing chocolate frog cards with Harry.
Harry took one last look at her before answering Ron. Ginny, however, kept her eyes trained on Hermione, even though she answers the boys' questions and laughs at their jokes. Hermione pulled her left sleeve down to her wrist. Ginny knew the movement well and nodded her head towards the door. Hermione shook her head. Being in the compartment was difficult, the air felt stale and though it was only her friends in the compartment, she felt like she was being watched.
Outside the compartment, she could run into anyone, and that alone kept her locked in place.
The others are in their school robes already. Their final journey to Hogwarts would be over within an hour, but Hermione couldn't bring herself to get dressed. Harry, Ron, and Hermione hadn't been in uniform for over a year now, and the thought of changing into it seemed like a regression. It felt like she would be pretending the war never happened like she hadn't been on the run for a year, hadn't been tortured, hadn't seen her friends die only four months ago. Harry and Ron looked so familiar and yet so strange in their Gryffindor robes. Images of them from the last year clouded her vision, everyone had been changed by the war, but they looked so much like they had in sixth year.
They looked like children.
Or like ghosts.
She couldn't decide which.
"You should get dressed soon," Ginny said gently. "We'll be pulling in soon."
"I… yeah. I should get changed," Hermione said. She stood on shaky knees and walked to the door.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Ginny asks, her voice full of concern. Hermione hasn't been left alone since the flashbacks started.
"I can go by myself. I should get used to it, no one is going to want to spend so much time in the library with me," Hermione tried to joke.
"Okay," Ginny said. Hermione hoped they would take this as a sign of her recovering, even though it was fake.
Being outside of the compartment felt even worse than being inside. Her chest heaved, laboring to breathe, and her teeth dug back into her cheek. She didn't see anyone on her way to the bathroom. She changed and looked at herself in the mirror.
She barely recognized herself in her school robes. Unlike Ron and Harry, Hermione had never put back on the weight she lost on the run. Her shaking was still there, but less noticeable than it had been in June. Her hair looked even bushier on her smaller frame than it had before. Her eyes looked sunken in with dark circles resting permanently under them.
Hermione glanced at her left forearm. She knew what was under it. She let her arm slip out of the sleeve of her robe. Her heart pounded in her chest. She hadn't looked at the scar since May. She grabbed her shirt sleeve and started pulling the edge up slowly. She could do this. Maybe seeing the damage could help her move on. Her sleeve passed the "od" and she couldn't help the way her breath hitched. She couldn't help the way her hands trembled. She tasted blood again.
"Hermione, are you alright?"
Hermione dropped her sleeve. Ginny was at the door. She fixed her robes and took a deep breath.
"Yeah, I'm fine, Gin," Hermione said, opening the door. "Let's get back to the boys."
Hermione stepped off the train and began walking towards the thestral drawn carriages. Her friends surrounded her. Harry and Ron stood on either side of her and Ginny. It was comforting one moment and debilitating the next. They had never walked like this to the carriages. Ginny had never held her hand, Harry had never put his arm over her shoulder, and Ron had never kept glancing her way like that.
Before Hermione stepped into the carriage, she stopped to pet the thestral. She had never been able to see them before. It was a cold, haunting reminder of what she had lost. And then she saw him.
Draco Malfoy was standing next to the carriage in front of her, frozen. Their eyes locked for a moment and it felt like a punch to the stomach. The war had taken its toll on Draco Malfoy. His grey eyes are dull. He was thin, thinner than the last time she saw him. His cheeks were as sunken in as his eyes. His hair was messy and unlike she had ever seen it. He shook slightly, and she could tell his jaw was clenched. He looked ill. His face contorted, and she knew they were thinking of the same thing. She knew they were both remembering Malfoy Manor. She watched as he tugged down the sleeve of his coat, perhaps an unconscious movement on his part, but she knew he watched her mirror it.
And that was when it hit her.
It was only when she was frozen, outside with one hand on the thestral, her left arm itching under her thick wool sweater, staring down Draco Malfoy that she realized it. And she almost laughed at it. Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, for once in their seven years of knowing each other, were the same.
An arm reached out of his carriage and pulled on his arm. He looked away and the moment was gone. He stepped into his carriage and disappeared without another look at her. But for the first time in months, Hermione felt something, and she couldn't bring herself to feel bad about it, even though it was sick.
Draco Malfoy was broken, just like her.
She didn't see him during the feast, even though she searched the crowd for him. If he was in the Great Hall, he evaded her sight. His friends did not, and instead of listening to McGonagall's speech, she watched them.
She pushed around the little bit of food she had put on her plate and watched the eighth year Slytherins. They weren't doing much, just talking and eating, and from her place at the Gryffindor table, she couldn't hear what they were talking about.
The Gryffindor table was bustling with activity, friends called out across the table, excited to be back to a normal Hogwarts.
But Hermione knew things would never be normal at Hogwarts. Not when the castle still looked the same. Not when she could still see the dead piled up by the professor's table. Hogwarts couldn't be normal when she could still see the blood running through the cracked stones.
Her nails dug crescent moons into the palms of her hands. The inside of her cheek bled. She choked on the air in her lungs.
A hand touched her back, rubbing it gently, and she heard someone whispering encouraging things. She was hunched over the table; the voice was Harry talking to her.
"I'm not feeling very well," Hermione said, letting go of her own arm and excusing her behavior to her friends. The friends that hadn't died last May. "I think I'm going to head up to the dorms and rest, but I'll see you all in the morning."
She took one last look at the Slytherin table and walked out of the Great Hall.
She could get to the common room easily, but that wasn't where Hermione wanted to go. She found herself walking down staircases instead of up them, heading deeper into the castle. She wasn't looking for him. She wasn't going near the Slytherin common room. She wasn't going to search out Malfoy. She had said her piece on him, and she shouldn't be looking for a reunion. It was nice to know she wasn't the only one suffering, but she was under no delusions. She knew it was dangerous to fantasize about encountering him, but she couldn't help it.
She wasn't going to the Slytherin common room. She wouldn't be able to get in. No, she would go to the kitchens. She would have a cup of tea, maybe some toast if she could stomach it, and then head up to bed. She tickled the pear on the portrait, entered, and looked around, trying to find a stovetop.
In her search, she saw him.
He was sitting on a counter, bent over with his head in his hands, his elbow rested on his knees. There was a plate next to him, but it looked untouched. He didn't move, and if he knew she was there, he didn't make it known. She was intruding, she knew. If he hadn't been in the Great Hall, he wasn't looking for company to share a meal with. In the back of her mind, she could see her fantasy playing out. He was right there. He was right in front of her, she could say anything to him. But she didn't, she stayed silent and watched Malfoy sit there.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, not moving. Hermione stayed still, not speaking, unsure if he was addressing her. He peaked up from his hands, looking directly at her. "Are you going to answer me or just fucking stand there?"
"What?" She asked. She wasn't ready to talk to him. The moment they had shared by the carriage meant nothing here, they hated each other, and no amount of being broken was going to make Malfoy be nice to her.
"You lot are going to start following me around already? Potter going back to old habits? " He scoffed, removing his head from his hands and sitting up straight.
"Nobody is following you, Malfoy," Hermione said, her heart thudding against her ribs. "You aren't even on Harry's radar. It's my attention you've caught.'
"Wonderful," He said, rolling his eyes. "Well, there's nothing to see here, so you can go back to your merry band of idiots, Granger."
"I wasn't following you," Hermione said. She found a stovetop and a kettle. "I'm in need of a cup of tea. Maybe you shouldn't be so suspicious, Malfoy. Not everyone has bad intentions."
"You think they'd let me back if there was any doubt about my intentions?" He laughed harshly and pushed himself off the counter, walking towards her.
Hermione ignored him. She pretended she didn't know how close he was. She pretended that she couldn't feel the warmth of his breath on her neck.
"Do you think I don't know what you and Potter did?' He whispered.
Hermione jerked away from him. She kept her back to him, petrified to let him see her face. She kept looking at the kettle, hoping it would boil faster.
"I don't know what you're talking about," She said, her voice wavering slightly.
"Don't play dumb, Granger, it doesn't suit you," He said, pulling her arm and forcing her to turn and face him. "Why did you do it?"
She tried to yank her arm out of his grasp, but he was holding her too tight. She was sure if he held on much longer, he'd leave bruises. She realized she didn't mind. What were a few more bruises compared to the scars that littered her body or to the blood that pools in her mouth when she gets nervous. What are a few more cracks on an already broken vase?
She didn't respond. She didn't have an answer for him, not one that he would want to hear.
They stared at each other. Neither moved. He didn't loosen his grip on her arm, and Hermione could feel her arm throbbing. She wasn't sure how, but they were having another moment. He had her pushed against the counter and he was so close to her. Hermione realized for the first time how tall Malfoy was. She had to look up to stare into his eyes, bending her neck up as he bent his down. Up close she could see how tired he looked. She wondered if he wasn't sleeping either. What nightmares plagued his sleep? Was the worst day of both of their lives the same?
"It doesn't matter," He said, breaking the silence. He let go of her arm and stepped back from her. Hermione missed the warmth he had provided. She hadn't realized she was cold.
"It doesn't change anything, Granger." He said, turning around and walking out of the kitchens without so much as a second glance back at her. She watched him retreat, watched him disappear through the portrait hole. She stared at the entrance, almost waiting for him to return. He wouldn't. The kettle whistled. Hermione turned away after what felt like an eternity. She grabbed her cup and poured.
She hopped up on the counter and stirred her tea. She turned back to watch the door again. She stirred her tea and tried to breathe, waiting for the throbbing in her arm to dissipate. She thought about the encounter with Malfoy, how upset he'd been, and how he'd treated her. He hadn't been afraid to set her off, hadn't been afraid to push her. She lifted the teacup to her lips and smiled.