Chapter One
"Hello. My name is Hermione Granger, and I'm a war veteran. I'm also a victim of PTSD." The polished lines rolled from her tongue, and as the polite claps faded, so did her script.
She had thought about what she'd say today, but she hadn't been able to form the words beforehand. However, seeing him here, in the place she'd decided could help anyone, fueled her words.
"I first started seeking help almost a year after Voldemort fell. The nightmares were horrible. I didn't sleep, I wouldn't eat. I lost my job and I no longer had a family. I had no one. Or at least I felt like it. Then, one day out of the blue, it got worse. I started seeing her during the day. Bellatrix Lestrange. I'd round a corner and see a glimpse of wild curly hair and hear her shrill cackle. And then it escalated to . . . to me seeing her in any curly headed witches face, to seeing her in the mirror. So one day after a particularly hard afternoon—I'd covered every reflective surface in my house, spray painted doorknobs, cloths over mirrors—and that one day I decided I was going to change that—to make myself feel better. I stood in the bathroom, and I cut my hair."
At this, she fingered the ends of her short hair. It was to her chin, and some kind of mousse seemed to keep it from being an afro of bushiness.
"It was much shorter than it is now. I actually pretty much shaved my head. And, then, when I looked in the mirror, I didn't see her . . . But then I truly saw myself—and let me just say that then I felt worse. I had lost weight, weight that I'm still struggling to bring up. I had deep circles under my eyes, almost bruises, and my eyes themselves were dull and listless. I looked dead."
She took a deep shuddering breath and everyone watched as a tear fell down her face.
"And I realized I truly wanted to be—dead, that is. So, not for the first time, I thought about taking my life. But at that time, I didn't care that my friends would find me hours, days, or even a week or two later. I didn't mind inconveniencing the landlord with my leftover things, or my body, or the mess. I didn't care that the man who was in love with me would lose me, because to me, I was already gone."
She sniffed and bowed her head a moment, wiping her hands under her golden brown eyes. Even now, they had circles beneath them.
With her head still bowed and her hands covered her face, she spoke so quietly that her audience struggled to hear her.
"That night, after a couple glasses of wine and scribing a note of farewell, I took a bath, grabbed a razor blade, and I slit my wrists."
She let her confession hang in the air for a moment.
"My best friend found me. You've all probably heard of him—Ron Weasley." There were nods and a few claps.
"It wasn't very much after. I heard him come in, felt him lifting me from the water, could feel his sobs and panic as he gathered my naked body, apologizing to me for not being there, promising if I didn't make it, he'd be right behind me."
She held her head up, and everyone could see the tears had stopped falling.
"After I woke up in St. Mungo's, Ron wouldn't leave my side until I agreed to get help. So now I'm here. I've been here fighting my demons for the last nine months. Some things are better, some things aren't—but nothing is worse, which is always a win. I'm well rehearsed with fighting—with war—but this is a whole new ballgame. The one you're fighting here is yourself. I've seen people come in, and get well enough to leave in the time I've been here. There are also people here that have been here longer than I, and might be here after I leave. There is no set timeline for this. You will need to be infinitely patient. Knowing the cause of something is only the beginning, but at least we have that—the chance to make things better. Some people don't get that—I almost didn't. So, good luck fighting your demons, and if you ever need to talk to anyone, my door is always open. As you can see, l still have trouble sleeping."
She pointed to the circles under her eyes and as she exited from behind the podium, she was surrounded by the sound of clapping, and even a whistle.
She smiled, but it didn't seem to reach her eyes.
When Shawna, the Chief Counselor, had asked Hermione to lead this months welcome meeting, she'd been very apprehensive. It was, however, a requirement to be allowed visitors. It was well beyond time for her to explain herself to Harry, Ginny, and especially Ron.
As Shawna wrapped her in a hug, she congratulated Hermione on her bravery and her candor. Everyone in group therapy had been very curious about Hermione's issues. She'd only speak openly about her feelings—she'd said nothing about why or how she'd ended up there.
Private therapy was going very well, but Mind Healer Jacob and Hermione were at an impasse. He insisted she needed to confront her demons—that she needed to speak with those present during her torture, to confront them for not helping her even though she knew they couldn't have.
Long story short, she refused.
As she greeted the newcomers of The Mind Menagerie, Hermione was overcome with a sense of camaraderie. Each and every person here had issues not completely dissimilar to her own. She could be open here. She didn't have to pretend, didn't have to be lauded and pressed upon to uphold her war hero status. She was just recovering, as they all were trying to do.
Hermione had made a very close friend since becoming a resident of The Mind Menagerie, another woman with PTSD. Carol was a domestic abuse victim. She and her boyfriend had been together since her teen years, but he hadn't become violent until after they'd been married a few years. It started small at first—finger shaped bruises, a shove here and a violent hair pull there. His quickly developing alcoholism just made things worse, and soon it escalated to black eyes and broken bones.
When she'd fallen pregnant a year and a half ago, Paul, her husband, had been ecstatic. And since it somehow made him happy enough to leave her alone and seemed to recover his love for his wife, Carol thanked the gods that she'd fallen pregnant. She was sure he would be a doting dad and, since he was drinking less, maybe he'd even remain the loving husband she'd always wished he had stayed.
Just before she hit her ninth month, Paul had come home early on a Friday, hoping to take her out for a fancy dinner to celebrate a promotion. She'd been laughing at a joke of the landlords when he'd opened the door to their apartment building, and then he'd snapped. Seeing her laughing and smiling with another man—albeit a portly older man—had sent him into a rage, and as soon as he had ushered Carol into their apartment, he'd turned and backhanded her. After she'd fallen to the floor, he'd done the one thing he'd never done before—he'd raised his wand to her.
She still suffered seizures from the after effects of the cruciatus, and her womb still burned with loss. She was the only witch Hermione had ever met that had lost everything in one day. Sometimes, Hermione felt guilty for being so much worse off than someone that had actually lost, versus how she herself had lost a few friends, but none compared to the loss of a child. Her parents weren't dead, not really; they just didn't know she existed. She still had her best friends and her surrogate family, minus one Mr. Fred Weasley.
Carol had lost her home, her husband, her magic, and her unborn daughter all in the same day. Hermione had lost her mind, over something seemingly small and insignificant.
One thing this place had taught her was that nothing was small and insignificant if it made you feel the way she'd felt—the way she still felt sometimes.
She struggled to commit the new faces to memory with their names and her lips twisted a little as her internal bookworm berated her. In truth, it had been quite a long time since she'd studied more so than read.
There were a few of her fellow schoolmates rehabilitating—Dennis Creevey, Oliver Wood, Pansy Parkinson, and Luna Lovegood.
Dennis was burdened with the death of his brother, and held an unhealthy attachment to his camera. He'd worked for the Department of Games for two months until he had come upon his boss playing with his brothers camera. He'd had a mental breakdown, physically attacking his boss and screaming until the aurors had managed to sedate him. He'd been here 15 months, having been admitted just 4 months after the fall of Voldemort. He had one step left until he'd be released. One more thing to do to let his brother go.
Oliver Woods house had been attacked and he'd come home to find his mother torn apart, her heart pinned to the wall with a cross. She'd been a rather prominent muggleborn writer for Witch Weekly, cross examining the similarities and differences between muggle and wizard cultures. His father had allowed his son to take care of everything for the funeral, and then, as his mother's casket was remanded to his father's family tomb, Jonathan Wood had avada'd himself. This had in turn led to Oliver joining the Order, and as he'd fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, he'd also lost his sight. He was a newer arrival. He'd been here two months. When they'd first wheeled him in, he'd stunk of shite and piss. His landlord had come to investigate. After his money had run out, he couldn't pay rent and he hadn't anyone to help him, to teach him to do things while blind. He hadn't wanted to learn anyhow. He seemed to now. He was keeping clean at least, and he was sharing in therapy.
Pansy Parkinson, due to her father's failure, had been given the dark mark alongside Draco Malfoy, and had been given the honor of eliminating Minerva McGonagall. When she'd failed, without even putting forth any effort, she'd been thrown like meat to the death eaters. She'd been sliced and whipped, skinned and raped. They'd permanently magicked her hair away, and although she wore a wig, you could tell her eyebrows were drawn on with an eye crayon. You only ever saw the skin of her face. She wore trousers and long sleeved shirts, and she always accessorized with gloves and a scarf. She'd been at The Mind Menagerie a little less than a year, and the only person she had a nice word for was Luna.
Luna had been there since they'd found her in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor directly after the battle. She wouldn't speak to anyone but Pansy about what had happened, but everyone knew they'd had a few run ins during their abuse. Luna's home and all of her belongings—except for her radish earrings and ring—were destroyed after her capture. Her earrings had been snatched from her ears sometime during her imprisonment, her torn lobes permanently scarred. The standard patients clothes, a grey sweatsuit, covered most of her scars, but, as in Hogwarts, all of her shoes seemed to disappear, confounding the staff immensely. She was missing two toes on her right foot and one on her left. She walked with a largely noticeable limp, and she stared into space most of the time, but she had let Pansy read a poem of hers in group a few days ago, and then she'd read a few pages from a book after dinner. She'd always sat in the large recliner swallowed by the comforter from her bed, staring listlessly out the window. A behavioral change, in this case, was more than welcomed.
As Hermione came to the end of the long line of newcomers, beginning to feel a little too exposed, her eyes widened as the next hand to grab hers was encased in tight leather. Lucius Malfoy's liquid voice washed over Hermione, and she shivered. Although she could hear his voice clearly, the soft timbre almost too familiar, his words seemed to come too slowly, as though they passed underwater. His other hand gripped the top of his serpent cane tightly, and as his blue grey eyes met hers, she felt her heart race.
She flung herself back, clawing and straining away from him, pressing herself into the corner, screeching, "We didn't take anything! I swear! We found it! We found it!"