A/N: I find it ridiculous that J.K.R. didn't mention how the war would mentally affect the witches and wizards who survived it. This fic is meant to deal with that problem, but with a Dramione twist because I'm trash.

PTSD can resurface at any moment (immediately after the trauma, or even years later). PTSD is one of those mental disorders that has other mental disorders as symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, etc…

This fic deals with mental health issues; I urge any of you suffering from any mental health disorder to get help if you already haven't and, most importantly, to stay strong.

The reason Hermione has so much trouble in this fic is because she isolates herself from her support systems, mostly unknowingly. Don't do that. Don't cut yourself off from people. You need them. No matter how much you think they can't help, you have to let them try.

Enjoy and, please, review to let me know what you think!

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Hermione stood staring at her bathroom mirror, her eyes glazed and her expression deadpan. Her sink was running, the steam from the water fogging the glass and obscuring her vision further, giving her eyes another excuse to convince her brain that the reflection she was staring into was incorrect. Is this me? Hermione thought to herself. She couldn't will her limbs to move-couldn't remember how. The water pressure was more powerful than the sink's ability to drain it so, when the scalding liquid poured onto Hermione's bare feet on the floor, Hermione cursed and stumbled into the hallway her bathroom was connected to. Heavy, wet pants fell out her mouth as she stared at the puddle forming in front of her unusually red feet.

Hermione frowned at herself and waved her wand to clean up the mess. Quite sluggishly, she moved out of the bathroom and into her living room, wondering if the pain in her feet should bother her more as she mended them the Muggle way. She didn't trust herself to perform a healing charm; Hermione felt lost in her own home, in her own mind.

Harry and Ron came through her fireplace, their greetings dying in their throats when they found her sitting on the couch with her feet in a tub of water-lukewarm to treat Hermione's burn, but they didn't know that.

"Oi," Ron said, his eyebrows scrunching together. "Aren't you coming?"

Hermione suddenly remembered the hearings being held at the Ministry. "Oh-right-of course-" Hermione spluttered, drying off her feet with her wand after summoning her shoes from her room. "Sorry, I just-lost track of time."

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Hermione's tongue pressed up against her teeth, molding itself against the grooves and squeezing into the crevices. She swallowed hard, trying to look attentive for Harry-What had he been saying?-and cursed herself for her sudden aloofness.

Hermione Granger is not easily distracted-is not vacuous-but lately she's been having trouble urging any form of mental stimulation into the temporarily useless organ between her ears.

It's vexing, to say the least.

Hermione blinked rapidly when Ron nudged her with his elbow, leaning his face a tad too close to hers to whisper in her ear. "Blimey," he said, his words coming out in one airy breath, "Malfoy looks like absolute shite."

She would've reprimanded Ron for his profanity if she hadn't agreed with him. It didn't help that the sight of Malfoy's sunken cheeks and pale complexion-all which brought her unpleasantly back to sixth year-shocked her into silence. Hermione shuddered when Malfoy's lifeless eyes collided with her own. It was only a moment, but Hermione couldn't unsee how unseeing his gaze was.

What frightened Hermione the most, however, was when one little thought involuntarily popped up in her hollow head: How does he mend his feet after he burns them?

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Hermione rested her forehead against the wood railing on the Hogwarts Express and attempted to feign sleep.

Luna, Ginny, and Neville were great, really. Hermione simply couldn't conjure up intelligent thought. She didn't want to kill the mood-happiness was still a foreign concept so soon after the war-so she decided to remove herself from their conversation. After yawning incessantly for ten minutes straight, she thought she had them fooled enough to avoid any suspicion that they might have regarding faking sleep. She was actually tired, when she thought about it. She was always tired.

Harry and Ron, of course, couldn't find it in themselves to come back to Hogwarts.

Hermione's fingers twitched. She didn't know how she felt about being away from her two best mates for so long. First, she thought, I'd have to gain the ability to feel something-anything at all.

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Hermione excelled in her classes, as usual. It was comforting to be thrown into that familiar rhythm: wake up, get ready, show up at the Great Hall, study before class, go to class, study between classes, study after classes-

Being preoccupied didn't give Hermione a chance to notice how empty her head was.

She spent many nights in the library, using the Map (Harry had wanted to keep it to look at Ginny's footprints, but Hermione thought that was absurd and told him such) to reach the Gryffindor dorms without being caught by Filch or patrolling prefects.

Soon it was the Eve of Halloween, yet Hermione wasn't even aware it was October.

"What are you dressing up as for the party?" Ginny asked her that day in the Great Hall. Hermione was so deep into her book that Ginny had to snap her fingers in front of Hermione's nose and repeat her question, eyebrows raised and lips curling into a friendly, teasing smile.

Hermione opened her mouth, her jaw popping from disuse. "What party?"

The freckles on Ginny's nose scrunched together. "The Gryffindor Halloween party that we have every year-you seriously forgot?"

"Sorry, I've just been-"

"Studying, yeah." Ginny bit her lip. "You don't have to...bury yourself in books all the time, you know? You're Hermione freaking Granger-you can get a job anywhere."

Hermione wondered if Ginny could hear her swallow. "I-I don't know, Gin, most employers are still old, pure-blooded wizards who say that they're not prejudiced, but-" Hermione sighed. "I just don't want to give them a reason to say no."

She looked imploringly into her friend's eyes, trying to make her see how much she needed to stand out against the other applications, how much she needed to cover up her blood status.

Ginny thinned her lips. "I just don't want you to stress yourself out, okay?"

Hermione nodded, already turning back to her book as she replied with a relieved, "Okay."

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The library was closed.

Hermione fisted her hands in her hair and tried to control her breathing.

The library was closed.

And for what, exactly? So that Madam Pince could drunkenly snog Filch at the Halloween party-which the professors vehemently deny having-in McGonagall's classroom?

Hermione had an essay due in two weeks and she was only on the fourth paragraph and-

The library was closed.

She paced furiously in front the heavy oak doors, willing them open. She'd already tried every unlocking charm, every spell she knew, and Hermione Granger was three seconds away from casting confringo and then repairing the shards after she was safely inside. She licked her lips and raised her wand-trying to convince herself that damage to school property was okay as long as it was swiftly repaired-when footsteps screeched to a halt behind her, a deadpan, "Oh," falling out Draco Malfoy's mouth as Hermione turned around to look him in the eye.

It was silent for precisely seven ticks of Hermione's rabbit-like heartbeat.

"What," she demanded, "are you doing here?"

Malfoy glared, the fire in his eyes crackling to life. "I was hoping to check out a book, seeing as we're at the entrance to the library."

Hermione's nostrils flared. "Don't patronize me."

"Don't give me material to work with," Malfoy snapped back.

"Oh, I'm sure I breathe wrong in your twisted little opinion-"

"I," Malfoy said, his voice methodical and slow, "am not the one who instigated this-this gratuitous debacle-"

"I don't need this," Hermione said, cutting her hand violently through the air as she turned on her heel and stepped in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. "Good night, Malfoy."

He scoffed. "I don't know how it can be, now that you've tainted it."

Hermione's shoe scuffed the stone floor as she stopped walking, her lip curling as she turned around. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Funny," he said, his eyes flashing. "I often wonder the same thing."

Malfoy stormed off, leaving Hermione to fume the rest of the night. Seamus Finnigan nearly wet himself from the intensity of her glare after he jokingly complimented her on her "Raging Bitch" costume.

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Theodore set down his firewhiskey and cleared his throat. "When are we going to talk about Draco?"

No one but Pansy and Blaise had heard him. They were the only ones sitting in that corner with him, after all. No one else would associate with them; they were the remaining friends of Draco Malfoy-the ex-Death Eater! Pansy, also, had been given a wide berth, seeing as the majority of the wizarding world still hated her for attempting to serve Potter's head on a silver platter to the Dark Lord. They sat in an especially dim section of their Common Room, in which they had once been loved and admired-or respected out of fear, in most cases.

Pansy had her head in her hands, her index fingers pressing into the bridge of her nose from either side. Her uncharacteristic display of distress unhinged Blaise's emotionless mask. "Draco is falling away from us," she said, eyelids squeezing together.

Blaise swallowed and looked down at his folded hands. "We've already tried reaching out to him-what else can we do if he doesn't listen to us?"

"I don't think he can even hear us," Theo said.

Pansy thinned her lips and pulled her hands away from her face. "That doesn't mean he never will. We can't give up-"

She stopped talking, eyes wide and every muscle in her body tensed, when Draco slammed the door to the Common Room open. He had a snarl on his face and fire in his eyes. He was breathing heavily, his gaze conscious for the first time in months. Everyone froze, younger students cowering behind their older friends. They hadn't been afraid of Draco before-he'd been silent and haunting like the Bloody Baron-but now that he'd made a display of himself, the Slytherins were suddenly and painfully aware of his existence.

The newest Weird Sisters song played in the background, eerie without the chatter of teenagers layered over it.

"He's fucking lost it," Theo whispered under his breath. Pansy glared at him, about to retort when Draco snarled-actually snarled, like a rabid, ungodly hybrid creation of Hagrid's-at one of the sixth years who had organized the party. Harper, influenced by firewhiskey, had told Draco to pull his wand out of his arse and have a jolly good time. Although he didn't look it, Draco did indeed have a good time as he proceeded to rant, the back-end of it being: "People have no common decency and-and they think their opinion is the only one-bloody know-it-alls-You'll remove that hand if you want to keep it, Harper-"

Blaise, who had jumped out of his seat the moment he saw the foolish boy's hand hover over Draco's shoulder, grabbed Harper by the robes at the base of his neck and removed him from Draco's line of sight. He grabbed Draco by the elbow and tried to steer him towards their secluded corner, saying, "Draco, mate, what are you going on about?"

Draco ripped his arm away from Blaise. "The deterioration of common decency, weren't you listening-"

"You're scaring me, mate," Blaise said, his voice quiet yet somehow silencing Draco for a moment before the anger returned to his face. He seemed to think about going to their corner. He held Pansy's gaze for a long moment and swallowed when he looked at Theo.

"You wouldn't understand anyway," Draco mumbled. He sniffed, turned to head up the stairs to his dorm, saying, "Just like Granger, think you're entitled to everything you fucking see…"

And before anyone else could say anything, Draco had stormed into his dormitory. The chatter slowly came back when Tracey Davis announced that she had some Muggle thing called "Jell-O" shots, and the hollars of half-wasted teenagers filled the air once again.

"Did he just emote?" Theo said, jaw loose and swinging as if on a hinge.

Pansy blinked. "What the fuck kind of word is emote?"

Blaise ignored both of his friends, a frown coming over his features as he sat back down. "What did Granger say to him?"

Pansy's eyebrows came together in a sudden moment of epiphany. "Wait, I think I'm having an idea!"

"Oh God-"

"Shut it, Theo, it's actually a good one!"

"Out with it, then," Blaise said, impatient but excited.

Pansy's lips curled in a way that made the tiny hairs on Theo's skin stand straight in the air. "We get them to fuck."

Blaise exhaled a breath of air sharply, as if someone had struck him. "Excuse me?"

Pansy repeated herself, emphasizing each word slowly. "We. Get. Them. To. Fuck."

Theo was shaking his head from side to side. "How would that solve anything?"

"You saw how Draco was a moment ago-alive!" Pansy's eyes looked frantic with rage, though Theo and Blaise knew it was from holding back tears. "He hasn't had a single original thought since-well-I don't know when-but one little interaction with Granger and he's alive!"

"I don't know if fucking will solve anything-"

"Oh, it solves everything," Pansy said with an off-handed flick of her wrist.

Theo snorted. "That's only because you're a nymphomaniac."

Blaise spoke before Pansy could retaliate. "I agree with Theo-if they get involved sexually, they're not going to stop fighting. And that sort of intimacy doesn't mesh well with insults and sabotage."

"What do you suggest, then," Pansy asked sarcastically, "they become best mates?"

"No," Blaise said, "I suggest we stir the pot."

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A blade of knotgrass fell out of Hermione's hand when her body tensed. She glared at it a moment before picking it up and delicately adding it back into the bundle lying on her palm.

"What was that, Zabini?" Hermione asked as she added the knotgrass to their potion.

"I was merely wondering," Zabini said, his mouth curved so slightly that Hermione had to squint to see his smirk, "what you said to Draco on Saturday. You know, Halloween?"

Hermione chewed on her tongue. "Excuse me?"

"He was quite worked up about it," Zabini said, not breaking eye-contact as he added another bundle of knotgrass to the potion, "and seeing as how Draco threatened to hex me when I asked him about it, I thought I'd ask you."

Hermione's lips thinned. For the past three months that Zabini had been paired up with Hermione in potions, neither of them had spoken past the occasional, "It's three stirs, not four, Zabini," or the "Don't forget to mince the ginger root, not dice, Granger." Hermione quite liked co-existing in silence; they didn't have to pretend to be nice or civil. They simply acknowledged that each of them could care less.

Hermione was silent as she stirred the potion. "Oh. My run-in with Malfoy was so meaningless that I've forgotten all about it, it seems."

She spoke nonchalantly, peeking up at Zabini in almost a daring way. Hermione knew that Zabini could see through her vague excuse. She wondered if he'd take the hint that she was offering, or if she'd have to spell it out for him.

Zabini sighed, his lip curling at the end. "Look, Granger," he said, his voice lowering and his eyes darting, "I don't know what you said, and you obviously don't wish to tell me, but you need to say it again. To Draco."

Hermione's eyebrows came together. She opened her mouth to speak, but Zabini cut her off.

"He looked alive, Granger," Zabini said, his eyes flashing. "For the first time in months he looked alive."

Hermione wanted to tell Zabini that the same could be said for her, but class had ended and Zabini was out the door before Hermione could open her mouth.

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Hermione's eye twitched when it caught a hint of green, silver, and blonde coming around the corner. She ground her back teeth together and lifted her book higher, hoping he wouldn't look into the corner of the library that she was occupying. He stopped walking when he saw her and, feeling the heat from his glare, Hermione met his eyes with a nasty curl in her lip.

Malfoy bared his teeth for the briefest of seconds, his gaze tearing away from hers and focusing on the bookshelves beside him. His palm grazed over their bindings. He was searching for a particular book, his hand stopping on a gap in the endless sea of leather spines. Almost painfully, Malfoy's eyes traveled to Hermione's hands, and he lifted his face to the ceiling as he closed his eyes so tightly that Hermione couldn't see his eyelashes.

"Granger," Malfoy said. "I need that book."

Hermione, who needed it for her final project in Charms, bit her tongue. "You couldn't have asked for it nicely?"

"Would you have given it to me if I had?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "That's not the point."

"Really?" Malfoy asked, advancing to the other side of the table Hermione was sitting at, his knuckles going white against the wood as he leaned on it. "Then what is?"

"Common courtesy. You didn't even ask-you demanded that I give it to you," said Hermione, closing the book and holding it closer to herself, subconsciously afraid that he might snatch it from her grasp.

"No," said Malfoy, sneering and leaning closer. "I said that I needed it. I didn't demand anything of you."

"Yes, well," Hermione said, trying to ignore her sudden recollection of her conversation with Zabini as Malfoy spat fire at her from over the table, his eyes emitting enough light to make dying stars cower. "I need it, too. Did you think of that?"

Malfoy leaned closer, his features distorting in Hermione's eyes and swirling around the room. "What puts your need above mine, princess?"

Alive, alive, alive, Zabini's voice hummed in Hermione's ear, and she swatted at the air in a vain attempt to rid herself of her subconscious.

"This is ridiculous-I was here first-can't you find another copy?"

Malfoy scowled. "You should know that there are only ten copies in the wizarding world itself; it would be impractical for Hogwarts to house more than one."

"What do you suppose we do, then?" Hermione asked, frustrated.

"I suppose you should let me have a turn, seeing as Flitwick requires a proposal for the final project tomorrow-"

"No," said Hermione, her eyes narrowing. "I'm using this book for the final project. If you do it too, then we'll have to share the entire year-"

Malfoy sat down in the chair adjacent to Hermione's, pulling the book towards himself. "No, Granger, I'm afraid I've already written my proposal. I just need a few quotes. I am not switching topics-the night before-to please your incessant nagging-"

Hermione groaned, rested her forehead on her folded arms, and tried not to think about the dull thud in her temple. "Fine."

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Pansy was pleased with herself, very pleased, as she flipped through an old copy of Witch Weekly and listened to Draco rant. All she had done was ask Draco how his trip to the library went-a simple, unassuming question, really-and he went completely bonkers. Blaise was trying to hide his grin by taking a sip of tea.

"That's too bad, Draco," Pansy cooed, resting her chin in the palm of her hand as she cocked her head at him. "Mean old Granger wouldn't share? After all that work we'd done writing your proposal last night?" Pansy tisked. "She really hasn't any manners."

Blaise rolled his eyes, hoping he wouldn't regret his decision to reveal Granger's proposal topic-and the rarity of the tome-to Pansy over dinner the other night.

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Word Count: 3,500~

Hope y'all liked it! This has been sitting in my drafts for 3ish years, lol. I have a few pivotal scenes/chapters written, but there's still a lot left to do-this means that, if y'all want, you can drop your opinions/suggestions for content and if I use it I'll credit you before the chapter begins. I believe in a more interactive fandom experience (as long as y'all don't get mean or nasty).

And I'm gonna be frank with y'all, too-I've got a lot of shit going on (grad applications, senior theses projects, etc) so if you want this fic to be updated, you've gotta let me know you like it. I only have time to work on one fandom thing rn, so if I don't get a lot of responses for this, I'm just gonna move on to my next idea (not posted yet).

Until next time,

-GG222