2

August 1, 1999

The lift creaked as it stopped on Hermione's floor, and a female voice announced, "Level four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures." As she stepped off the lift, she couldn't quite suppress a yawn, and she heard Natalie, the floor's head receptionist, inquire, "Long night, Miss Granger?"

She put on the same forged smile she'd been using for months and said, "Harry had quite the shindig last night. You only turn nineteen once, or so they tell me." Natalie chuckled as Hermione passed her desk, casually throwing "Have a great day" over her shoulder as she walked away.

It wasn't really a lie. Harry did have quite the shindig. The fact that Hermione was only present for a small bit of it wasn't really worth mentioning. After leaving Ron at the bottom of the stairs, she had gone to her room and spent another thirty minutes trying to forget the feel of Bellatrix's cold hands on her skin. She washed her face, cast a charm over herself to remove the red patches from her cheeks, and tried to will herself to go back downstairs.

When she finally managed the courage to rejoin the party, thankfully many people had already left, and the noise was much lower and more manageable. Apparently, Harry's loud interaction with Rita Skeeter at the front door, caused quite a few people to leave for fear of being a headline in the next day's Daily Prophet. Though Harry would never admit it, she knew he likely caused more of a fuss than he cared to, simply to wind the party down early for her benefit.

She arrived at her desk at the same time as at least a dozen winged memos in varying colors. She sat down as the bewitched notes began to fly in circles around her head. With a flick of her wand, the notes all unfolded and landed neatly in her inbox. Before she even began tackling the abundance of items on her to-do list, she sighed and pressed her palms firmly against her eyes. It was only 8 am, but she could already feel a headache easing its way in behind her temples.

Despite last night's party shutting down earlier than many anticipated, guests still lingered throughout the house until the early hours of the morning. It's no wonder I didn't get any sleep, she thought, but of course that wasn't entirely truthful. Yes, it's true that she hadn't slept well the night before, but that seemed to be the case more often than not of late. She had always had a touch of insomnia growing up. Her parents used to tease her about staying up late to read far too frequently, but the truth was, she didn't always stay up to read. More often than not, in those days, she read because she was already up anyway. She had fallen into that pattern over the years, and truthfully, she partially credited her insomnia for her love of books throughout her life.

As the years passed by and she fell into the habit of having to research one thing or another to ensure that she, Harry, and Ron survived their seemingly endless near-death experiences, she found that she needed less and less sleep. Of course, she'd had that issue in her third year with the time turner and overexerted herself with so many classes, but Hermione prided herself on her ability to know her body well enough to know what she could handle and what she couldn't. But, when the nightmares started following the events in the Department of Mysteries, she found herself not wanting to sleep at all for fear of what was waiting for her in her dreams. Sometimes it was the same monsters she had already faced, reliving those same moments over and over again. Other times, she was unable to save herself or anyone else. So, it was easier to just not sleep altogether than to fight the demons both while awake and when sleeping.

It wasn't an issue really back then since they were on the run and sleeping in turns for the better part of a year, but now that the war was over, she had hoped that the nightmares would end. Instead, they just continued to progress in both intensity and frequency.

For a few months she brewed her own Dreamless Sleep potion, but her tolerance built up entirely too quickly for that to remain an option for very long. Now, it seemed that she didn't get a single night of uninterrupted sleep, particularly if she allowed herself to fall asleep before midnight. She found that the less time she allowed herself to sleep, the less likely a nightmare would occur, so she started allowing herself to only sleep a few hours at a time to ensure that at least that little bit of sleep would be dreamless.

Last night's dream had been especially intense, which she attributed to the embarrassing flashback she suffered in the broom closet a few hours prior. She forgot to set an alarm to wake her up after only an hour or two, so she slept much longer than normal. However, any benefit the additional sleep may have offered was erased when she awoke at five a.m. screaming and in a cold sweat. Thankfully, however, she hadn't forgotten to put up her normal silencing charms.

In her dream, she was back in Malfoy Manor just as she was in the flashback earlier that night, only instead of the actual events, as if they weren't bad enough, she lived through events far worse than the reality. In this version of events, she was crucio'd and beaten by Bellatrix before being handed off to Greyback.

Rather than the cold, sharp hands of Bellatrix gripping her, she felt his rough body rubbing up against her, biting, scratching, and tearing her. In her dream, she remembered the pain of his teeth on her thighs, and when she saw the blood on her sheets this morning, she was momentarily unable to understand that it had all been a dream. In the throes of her nightmare, she had clenched her hands so tightly that her nails cut perfect crescent moons into her palms.

This was one of her biggest fears. The irrationality of it angered her immensely, but still knowing the werewolf was dead gave her no comfort whatsoever, particularly in the dead of night when she awoke with the unmistakable smell of him in her room.

She had never spoken aloud about the things that he said or did to her, but they plagued her nonetheless, both in her nightmares and when she was awake. This was happening most recently during what should have been intimate moments with Ron. It was in those moments especially that she couldn't rid herself of the anxiety and fear she felt during the brief but haunting encounter she had with the werewolf.

When he captured them in the forest, it seemed Greyback was completely uninterested in Harry and Ron, though he didn't seem to know at the time the value of his captives. But his eyes instead were fixated upon Hermione the very second he entered their tent. Harry was too incapacitated by the stinging hex Hermione had used to disfigure him, but Ron immediately slammed into Greyback as soon as he touched her.

Greyback didn't even remove his hands from her to stop Ron before the other snatchers had him beaten and restrained. Greyback, giving Hermione his full attention, backed her against a tree, and wrapped one large, hairy hand firmly around her throat and lifted her slightly. Only the tips of her trainers kept her on the ground at all. Frozen in fear, she could do nothing but wrap both hands tightly around his wrist, trying to put her weight on him rather than allowing him to choke her.

His face was dirty and covered with thick, dark hair, and she was instantly assaulted by the smell of sweat, dirt, and blood radiating off him. As he came closer, invading her space, his gaze was one of unmistakable hunger. He slowly slid one sharp nail down the length of her face, and growled, "Delicious girl… What a treat."

Hermione felt her heart stammer as the reality of the situation crashed down upon her, and she could feel the heavy beating in the pulse point in her throat. She lifted her chin defiantly, willing her chin to stop quivering. As she felt him draw closer, she squeezed her eyes shut, knowing he was going to sink his teeth into the soft skin of her neck, but instead she felt his sour breath on her face.

"I do enjoy the softness of the skin."

She tried turning her face away from him, but the grip on her throat tightened, and she felt his hot tongue slide along her cheek and up to her hairline.

Hermione was distantly aware of Harry and Ron being questioned about twenty feet away, but it didn't seem like anyone noticed what the werewolf was doing to her.

Surely, he'll stop. They don't even know who we are yet, she thought. But it felt like an eternity while he buried his face in her curls and crudely ran his free hand across her chest.

She felt him breathing heavily into her ear, then his teeth firmly wrapped around her earlobe. She tried to pull away, but he held her neck even tighter. She was instantly aware, when his teeth grazed across the junction of her neck and shoulder and thought, this is it.

But instead he resisted, whispering in her ear, "Oh I'm not going to bite you just yet. I have better plans for you, sweet thing." Her blood instantly ran cold at the implication, and her mind ran in a thousand different directions, none of which were pleasant.

She felt completely detached from her body as his hand left her breast and trailed down her stomach. He pulled his face out of her hair, and leaned in toward her face. For an insane second, she thought he was going to kiss her. But instead he sloppily licked her lips until her mouth and chin were dripping with his saliva.

Her breath hitched and the tears finally escaped from her eyes when he roughly dragged the side of his hand between the juncture of her thighs. She tried to put her mind somewhere else, thinking of arithmancy formulas and runic symbols, but then she felt the evidence of his arousal on her thigh.

A sob finally escaped her mouth then, which served to only excite him more. She heard him give a feral growl that emanated from the very depths of his chest as he pressed his body against her, grinding his erection into her core.

Just then, a voice beside them caused him to pull back from her, and Hermione felt the hand around her throat loosen slightly.

"See this?" another snatcher said to him, pointing to a copy of the Daily Prophet and shoving it into Greyback's face. Hermione saw her eyes staring back at her from the cover. "'ermione Granger, it says here. The Mudblood who is known to be travelling with 'arry Potter."

Greyback stepped an arm's length away from here, still with a firm grip around her throat. Both he and the snatcher were looking back and forth between her and the newspaper. Greyback stepped closer to her again, causing her to hold her breath, assuming he was going to take up the onslaught of groping her again, but instead he grasped her chin tightly and twisted her head to either side, attempting to get a more thorough look at her.

"You know what, little girly? This picture looks a hell of a lot like you," Greyback said, with the same look of hunger on his face, though now it seemed more from elation rather than physical desire.

She briefly debated about telling the truth, thinking that would make her value higher and his likelihood of hurting her a bit less… at least initially, but then she heard herself yelling, "It isn't! It isn't me!" As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew that her terrified squeak fooled no one.

"Well, this changes things, doesn't it?" Greyback said to no one in particular. Then he removed his hand from her throat and, instead, grabbed a fistful of her hair.

As her knees buckled from the released pressure on her neck, he dragged her across the short distance of forest between where they had been standing and the rest of the prisoners. Slamming her down onto her knees between Harry and Ron and two others, all bound and gagged with blindfolds covering their eyes, he and the snatchers began talking amongst themselves. One of the snatchers pointed his wand at her and her hands were pulled behind her as restraints wrapped securely around her wrists and face to match the other captives.

They must've come to some sort of conclusion, because she was pulled up to her feet by her hair again. I'm cutting this shit off the moment we get out of this mess, she thought. If we ever get out…

"Who's in charge here?" roared Greyback. He pointed to Harry. "I say that's Potter, and him plus his wand, that's two hundred thousand galleons right there." She was held tightly, close to a hard body she knew to be Greyback's based entirely on the smell and the proximity of his voice. "But if you're too gutless to come along, any of you, it's all for me." She didn't have to see his face to sense the sneer he was giving them. "And with any luck, I'll get the girl thrown in," he said, snatching her closer to him, and she began to tremble. She heard the distinctive sound of Disapparition around her and expected the familiar tug in her stomach as she Disapparated as well.

Instead, she felt Greyback pull her against him as he buried his face in her curls again. "You, little girl, will be mine soon. Handing over Potter will earn me that." As he spoke, his free hand gripped her chin roughly, twisting her neck painfully toward his face.

She was thankful then that the blindfold and gag partly obscured her features so he couldn't see the expression of pure fear she knew was written across her face, but, as if he could sense that, he ripped the blindfold from her eyes. Leaning in closely, his yellowed eyes only inches from her brown ones, he growled, "I'm going to gorge myself on you. Peel the meat from your bones and savor every drop of your blood when it hits my tongue."

She tried to look away, but he held her head in a vice-like grip. He ran his nose up her face, breathing in deeply and chuckled, "I can smell your fear, little girl, no matter how hard you try to hide it." He sneered into her face, and Hermione could see his teeth, sharpened into points. He circled behind her, and she could feel both his hands on her waist. She struggled to pull away from him, but his hands bore into her hips, and the restraints on her wrists began cutting into her skin.

Putting one hand on her back and one around her waist, he pushed her forward, so that her backside was pressed harder against his hips. "But before that," he said. "I'm going to bury my cock in your cunt until you scream and cry and beg me to kill you." His voice was barely more than a whisper, but the excitement in his growl was obvious. With every word, he ground his hips into hers, pulling her closer to him with the one hand around her hips. He continued to press himself into her, and she could feel the hardness in the front of his pants rubbing against her. Removing his hand from her back, he placed it on one hip and moved the other hand to the opposite side. His hands bore into her sides, and she could feel his nails digging into her. Moving faster, he snapped her hips against him violently twice, as he groaned and then began grinding his waist against her. She could feel him pulsing and twitching as warm liquid wet the back of her pants. He groaned one last time and said, "That's just a taste, little girl." He muttered "Evanesco," and she continued to cry softly, trembling beneath his touch and too frozen with fear to even move as he stood her back upright. Pulling her tightly to his chest again, he leaned in to whisper into her ear, "I don't give a fuck what kind of dirty blood you have. Everything I want," He snatched her head back with the hand still knotted in her hair and pushed the other coarsely across the front of her pants, "is right here." She felt his rough, calloused hand grip her roughly between the legs and she heard her own hoarse voice croak out, "Please… please stop." He only laughed mirthlessly, a sound like gravel in his throat causing her skin to break out in goosebumps. He pulled his hand away and twisted her neck harshly so she could face him. Her brown eyes met his icy blue ones, and she was unable to look away as he said, "Oh how I love it when they beg."

She couldn't think. She couldn't even move, despite the uncontrollable shivering all over body. He finally let go of her and walked back around to face her. Just before pulling the blindfold back over her eyes, he snapped his teeth in her face, causing her body to reawaken and jump back with fear. She saw his own eyes flash in anticipation just before the blindfold blocked her vision, and she felt the immediate pull of Disapparition as they departed the forest.

She shook her head to clear it and reminded herself again, for the tenth time since she awoke, that it wasn't real. They were just words he whispered in her ear, and he died without taking from her the things he swore to.

"Luckier than some," she said aloud, startling herself out of her own daydream. She scolded herself internally for allowing the remnants of her dream and thoughts of Lavender to come to mind, and she shook her head slightly to force the images from taking over her now.

A knock on the door, however, pulled her out of her reverie fully. She sat up taller, straightening the front of her white button down and quickly checking her reflection in the mirror on the wall beside her desk.

"Come in."

"Hey, 'Mi. I was hoping you'd be in this morning," Ron said, walking in the room, a coffee cup in each hand. He sat one down on the desk in front of her and took the seat immediately across from her. "How are you feeling this morning? You said last night you weren't feeling too well."

"Oh... um… yeah I'm fine. Sorry about that. I think I was just tired." She shrugged, trying to give off the feeling of nonchalance that seemed to come so naturally to everyone else. "Thank you so much for the coffee. I didn't have time to grab any this morning," she said as she picked up her cup and took a sip. She blanched slightly, thinking he always uses too much sugar, but thankfully, he didn't notice.

"I didn't know you were coming into the ministry today." She thought saying this would hopefully take any suspicions off her, and her shoulders relaxed in relief when he didn't try to steer the conversation back.

"Oh yeah. I didn't really get a chance to talk to you about it last night." His blue eyes narrowed slightly at this statement, but neither commented further on her disappearance for most of the night. "George and I had to come in for a meeting to put in some paperwork for the expansion on Wheezes. He's downstairs visiting with Angelina, so I've only got a minute really. I wanted to check on you and see if maybe you'd want to have lunch later today."

She didn't respond straight away, so he nervously tapped his fingers on the armrests of the wingback he was sitting in while switching focus from one eye to the other.

The care on his face was genuine and she immediately felt guilty for the pain she knew she was causing him.

Her face must've shown the remorse she was feeling, because he closed his eyes and sighed in resignation. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

He stood to leave, and she stood as well, trying to reach across the desk in between them to grab his hand.

"Ron, I –"

"It's okay, 'Mi. It really is." He was saying one thing, but his face and the action of pulling his arm further out of her reach said another. "I understand that you seem to be going through something, and I've tried to help with that as best I can –"

"You have, Ron. You – "

"Please, Hermione," he said, holding a hand up to stop her. "Please, just let me say this."

She felt the pain in her chest tighten as she nodded for him to continue, crossing her arms in front of her.

He ran his fingers through his red locks, pushing them out of his face, and turned around. With his back to her, she couldn't see his face, but she could see his hand remained over his eyes. He breathed in deeply once before turning back to face her, and she was surprised to see that he didn't seem on the verge of tears like she originally thought.

"I've tried to help you the best I can, but maybe I'm doing more harm than good. I love you, 'Mi. I've loved you since I was 14 years old." He chuckled and smiled, and she was reminded of the boy he was back then. He's taller now, and slightly slimmer, but the blue eyes, freckles, and friendly disposition remain unchanged, even in the midst of this obviously difficult conversation.

"But I can't do this—" he motioned in between them— "whatever it is between us. I can't anymore. I love you, and I love you enough to go back to just being—" He stopped, seeming unsure of what they are now or what they ever were really. "—two thirds of the Golden Trio."

They both chuckled and rolled their eyes at that, knowing how all three of them felt about the moniker. She remained silent, not knowing if he was finished.

"Perhaps we're better at just being that, ya know?" he continued. He sighed, seeming to conclude what it was he was trying to get out.

"Ron, I don't know what to say." She was ashamed to look at him, but she couldn't bring herself to look away either. He stepped around the desk and pulled her into his arms. There was nothing sensual about it; instead, it felt like the same hug they'd exchanged hundreds of times over the years, a hug between two people expecting nothing from one another. She immediately felt warmth rise in her chest, something she couldn't recall feeling in the better part of a year. At this reminder of how life once was, she finally allowed the tears she had been holding for months fall from her eyes.

He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. He pulled one hand to cradle the back of her head like a child, but it didn't feel demeaning at all. She felt comforted and protected, a feeling that only he and Harry were capable of giving her, and it was cathartic to feel it from him again after so many months of pressure and difficulty. He continued to rub her hair and back while she sobbed into his chest.

After a few moments, the tears finally stopped. She sniffled a bit and then pulled away from him, mortified at having soaked his shirt front.

"Ugh," she said, rubbing the front of his shirt. She reached for her wand on the desk behind her and cast a tergeo to remove the remnants of her tears. "I'm so sorry, Ron."

Looking down at his shirt, he shrugged. "It's fine. Good as new." Looking back up at her, he gave her his characteristic lop-sided grin, and she immediately saddened again at the thought of what could have been.

"I mean about everything. Us—" reconsidering— "well, me, really. I'm sorry about me." She frowned, looking away from him, pushing back the tears threatening to resurface. "I can't get out of this … fog. I don't even feel like me anymore."

She felt his hand on her arm, causing her to meet his eyes again. "Hermione, you're still you. You're still the same person you've always been."

The honesty in his voice was unmistakable. He had been called hot-headed and hasty routinely throughout the time she knew him, but he was always truthful, to a fault even. There were times in their past that his truthfulness had hurt her, but now, he had grown into a much more caring and sincere man than the boy he was in school.

"You're my best friend. You have to say that," she said, giving him a knowing grin.

He looked away, feigning a look of contemplation. "You're right. I do." Smiling back at her, he said, "Doesn't make it any less true though. Come here," he said, as he pulled her into another hug. Despite everything, he still gave the best bear-like hug, as if all the frustration from the past few months didn't even matter. "I'm here, if ever you want to talk." He leaned back, placing his hands gently on her arms. "You know you can always come to me about anything."

He was searching her face, looking for the pain she showed him briefly moments before, but she slipped her mask back into place.

"I know, Ron. I know. I'm fine, really. I'm just not sleeping well and being my overly dramatic self." She smiled, hoping he wouldn't see through her walls again.

He took a second to consider what she was saying before acquiescing and stepping away from her. "Okay. Just know I'm here for –"

Just then her door was opened, and a similar freckled face poked through the gap. "Oi, Ron! You two in here snogging or what?" George shook his head indignantly. "We've got a meeting this morning, remember, little brother?" Looking to Hermione, he said, "Morning, 'Mione, love."

"Morning, George. How's Angelina?" she asked. The two had been dating since just after the war, but they were both pretending like it was nothing serious. Everyone else, however, was waiting on George to propose any day.

"Beautiful as ever, she is. They've got her run ragged down there, trying to plan the International Quidditch tournament. It's six months away, and I love quidditch as well as the next bloke, but you'd think it was tomorrow the way they're all acting." Turning his focus back to his brother, he said, "But we really do have to go, Ron. Time is galleons."

"Okay, I'll meet you in the lobby."

"Always a pleasure, Hermione," George said, as he turned from her office.

As George left, a bit of the awkwardness she'd felt for months returned. Ron cleared his throat then smiled at her, nervously adding, "Yeah, so, we're good, right? Friends?"

She returned his grin. "Of course, we are."

She sensed there was something else he wanted to say, but the confidence he showed beginning their conversation was gone.

Thinking she understood his hesitance, she said, "Ron, there's no one else. If that's what you wanted to ask."

He gave a small sigh and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand nervously. "I know I have no right to ask, and it's none of my business at all, I just… I needed to know." He was clearly struggling, anxious about getting this part out.

"I understand. Really. It's nothing like that. It's me –"

"It's not you, it's me." He laughed. "Yeah, I get it. I just— when that time comes, and I know it will, just tell me about it, okay? I just don't want to be caught off guard. Is that asking too much?"

"No, not at all." Shaking her head, she added "But, you don't have to worry about that."

—

"You're a catch, 'Mi." He reached out to cup her cheek gently. "I do have to worry about that." He dropped his hand, clearly remembering they were just friends again. "Anyways, George'll kill me, if I keep him waiting any longer."

When he reached the door, he turned to add, "Seriously, I'm here if you need me. Always."

She didn't say anything, just nodded in understanding, and he closed the door behind him. Sitting back down at her desk, she rested her face in her palms and breathed in deeply trying to rein in her emotions.

Undoubtedly, there were so many people who cared for her, willing to help her if ever she asked. So why do I feel so alone?