AN: I know. I'm rubbish. Positively rubbish! This is hopefully a {albeit late} Christmas present to you! It's KIND OF important, KIND OF a filler but I need to establish a narrative since the last chapter was very much CONTEXT then preview of what this fic is essentially. Anyway, I hope you like this! And I hope you all had a very merry Christmas!
Chapter Two
She'd overslept.
Her blankets had come loose from where she'd dragged them to under her chin, and were haphazardly strewn across her legs. One arm was splayed above her head, as though she was basking in the glow of the winter sun, whilst the other rested on her stomach, and she nestled deeper into her pillow. There was that unfamiliar stinging in Hermione's eyes when she blinked them open, that vague sensation of being doused in sobriety when she had just seconds before been deep in sleep. She hadn't woken to it in a long time, and when she craned her neck to peer groggily around her room, she was surprised to see that the sun was already soaking it. Usually, Hermione woke early enough, or didn't sleep at all, and was privy to watching the first tender and unsure rays of light explore their way across her dormitory, finding first her crimson drapes then stretching eagerly to devour the rest.
She took a minute. It was rare that she had anytime to herself these days, so she stole a moment; Hermione languidly stretched her legs, pointing her toes so they brushed the bedframe, and flexed her arms and fingers. A slow breath trickled from her lips, and she could taste the remnants of jasmine on her tongue.
Frowning, she retracted her limbs and sat up. Last night had been an odd one. For all her late night wanderings, she had never come across someone else- she'd never planned nor expected to. Least of all Malfoy. And yet…
Hermione pressed the base of her hands into her eyes so hard her skull ached in protestation. She couldn't shake the image of him sitting alone against the wall, where even the shadows kept their distance. The bite in his voice she felt as though it was cutting into her skin with the cold.
"I'm just my father's son."
A small, frustrated growl tore from her throat and she kicked her blanket off and jumped to her feet.
Coming back to finish her eighth year had been a blessing and a curse. Admittedly, Hermione had very nearly declined the offer and twice, she had come close to owling McGonagall to change her mind even after accepting. The fact that Harry and Ron weren't there to make her laugh and keep her from locking herself in the library was difficult for her to stomach. She had been subjected to the privilege of their company for seven years, had lived with them, had shared the same bed with them when they were on the run. They were a family, and they'd been through a lot together. To go back to nothing so suddenly was jarring.
Hermione often felt the loneliness manifest itself as a cold and numb weight in her chest. Though Ginny and Luna were in their seventh year, and Neville had returned too, she frequently felt out of the loop with them. They had bonded last year when continuing Dumbledore's Army, and their shared resistance was like a golden thread tying them to one another. She found that everyone was like that.
Every person she looked at had some kind of string connecting them to someone else.
Hannah Abott returned and there was a red string tying her heart to Neville's. Hermione had stumbled across them holding hands, faces close together, whispering as though the rest of the world had simply dropped away. She had found it difficult to look away at first, enthralled and taken off guard by the sheer innocence of the scene. Then, she had averted her eyes, and continued walking. The remaining teachers all had a grim, grey line connecting them; this one was fraying, and Hermione knew it was the terrible guilt that they had outlived many of their students. The sight of Colin Creevy's mangled body, looking somehow tinier in death than he did in life, pervaded her mind more often than she'd like to admit. It hit her when she least expected it, when she was reading a book or copying down notes. Sometimes, Hermione felt like she was the only one in the school, the only one in the entire world, with no string at all.
Now she knew that wasn't true, because Draco Malfoy had no strings too.
She had been surprised to see him in Hogwarts, despite the whispers that had leaked from compartment to compartment on the train. When she arrived, her heart had constricted and the thought of seeing the Great Hall, cleansed of the blood and bodies that had littered it when she'd last stood there, meant Hermione decidedly avoided it, opting to wander around the castle instead. As it had turned out, her feet took her to her one solace, untouched by the wrath of the world: the library. She strolled through the aisles, fingers brushing the spines of books she had committed to memory, and stopped.
The gleam of his white hair, no longer slicked back but loose and ruffled and falling into his eyes, caught her attention first. It was always what people noticed about him, perhaps because it was so traditionally Malfoy. Hermione always thought it was superficial to focus on his alabaster hair, and though she could admit his eyes had every so often left her breathless (for more unsavoury reasons than just because they were pretty), it was the wry smile that she looked for. It was rare, and she was never the cause of it though she couldn't say it bothered her. She merely found it bizarre. It struck her when any semblance of human emotion was wrung from him, and she both longed for it and detested it because it made it simultaneously harder and easier to hate him.
And she did hate him. Hermione remembered the way his jaw had crunched under her knuckles, the sweeping fury of her fist, along with the burning feeling of abhorrence that writhed in her gut in Third Year. She thought it was a waste, how such beauty and intellect was wasted on the mindlessness racism and superiority he was fed as a child.
But she felt that hatred crumble when she saw him on September 1st for the first time since the Battle of Hogwarts because Draco Malfoy was not the same scathing, smirking boy she recalled him to be.
Where the air ignited around Harry and Ron, Hermione was always sure it dropped a few degrees when Draco Malfoy entered a room. It wasn't so much that he was a cold person, more his countenance never held a flicker of warmth, and the inherited, marble like features of his face ensured he looked more like a statue, than a living human being. His lithe chest barely moved when he breathed, and his eyes would regard everything with an air of boredom and callous cruelty. He was impossibly tall, taller than even Ron was, with pale skin, never fused with blush, and blond hair that remained the only thing to be moved by outside influences when the wind threaded through it. But what really struck people were his eyes: two light and icy glaciers, more blue than the summer skies, enough to make even the sun freeze over. What really struck Hermione, however, was the complexity beneath the granite, the rush of blood beneath the paleness of his skin. She had seen him broken last night, and in some sick, twisted way, she wanted to see more. It made her feel less alone in her brokenness.
"You aren't to me."
She didn't know what had made her say it. Hermione knew she was a pennant for wounded puppies and societal injustices, and though Draco Malfoy did not instantly appear to be either of those things, she did not regret the words. He needed to hear them, and truth be told, the Malfoy heir had ceased to be Lucius Malfoy's Pureblood son the moment his aunt had dragged Hermione by the hair and demanded Draco confirm her identity and he'd grappled for a lie to save them a few precious seconds. The purple crescents under his eyes and the way his lips had tightened and pursed so he wouldn't cry out or vomit when the word 'Mudblood' was being carved into her flesh were proof enough that this boy was not the same one she had known before the war.
She didn't know who he was.
One of the few liberties of being an Eighth Year was the separate room that had been created at the top of the Gryffindor Girls dormitories, giving her both the House camaraderie that she loved and the solidarity she craved. Hermione collected her uniform from where it was piled neatly on her drawers. It was only when she caught sight of herself in the mirror, sighing at the bird's nest her good night of sleep had left her with, that her eyes strayed to the clock on the wall and she swore.
She'd overslept.
And fuck, she had overslept massively.
She had missed all of her morning lessons. Hermione rushed to get dressed, and pack her bag for the afternoon, neglecting to drag a brush through her hair because really, what was the point? She shouldered her bag and shoved her curls into a bun to keep it out of her face and to prevent any birds from nesting in it should she have to venture outside.
Luckily, she would be in time for lunch, and her stomach ached for food. She skipped a glance in the mirror and left the room, flying down the stairs and out of the Portrait Hole. Appearances hardly mattered when you'd fought in a war and spent eleven months on the run.
Despite being back all of two weeks, Hermione still felt her feet move a little bit quicker as she walked past the double doors entrancing the Great Hall, and her breath came out in short pants at the din of chatter and clatter that escaped through the tiny slit in the wood. She'd taken to eating her meals in the kitchens, though it was much quieter down there with Dobby gone. That was not to say there had been a shortage of House Elves. Rather, quite the opposite as McGonagall had offered a job to all of the elves who had been in servitude to Death Eaters. Hermione still opposed the outdated serfdom but accepted that repaying the elves in gratitude and manners (which they had likely never experienced before if Lucius Malfoy's treatment of Dobby was anything to go by) was still a success, no matter how small.
Winky greeted her as soon as she'd stepped foot in the kitchen, and the other House Elves stopped what they were doing to eagerly offer their services. They seemed to miss the act of personally waiting on an individual and it made Hermione uncomfortably pleased to know that she was easing their transition, ensuring no other elves descended into drink as Winky had done.
"Missus Hermione!" Winky chirped, taking her hand and leading her over to the small table they always kept set for her. There was already a cup of tea there. "Always on time, Miss. What can I get for Miss today?"
"Just the usual, please Winky," replied Hermione, taking her seat and fixing the elf with a tired but grateful smile. "Thank you."
"Of course, Miss! Winky will get you it right away!"
The kitchens never failed to amaze her. They were yellow and warm, soaked in the transient light that drifted from tiny windows by the ceiling. The walls were lopsided golden bricks, and tall, maybe twice or three times the size of Hermione herself. Set deep into them were crates of food and barrels of beverages, and there were little sprigs of herbs and vegetables that grew from the cracks in abundance. There were little doors, the size of a House Elf, that led off to other smaller kitchens and the room under the Great Hall where the tables would appear for the food to be placed. It was homely down here, and always smelt of fresh bread and ginger. She would have to ask if they had any more jasmine.
She noticed the mug of tea in front of her was half full, and her hand hesitantly went to touch the ceramic. It was still warm.
"There you are."
A voice startled her, and Hermione jumped to find Ginny staring at her. The redhead sat on the chair opposite and Winky squealed as she brought Hermione's soup over for her, wiping her hands on her apron with the excitement of having another mouth to feed.
"Here is Miss Hermione's soup! And Miss! What can Winky get you?"
Ginny smiled at the elf. "The same, please. If you have any leftover."
Winky straightened up. "Yes, Miss! Always food here, Miss! And if not, we's make more!"
Ginny's eyes followed her right until she disappeared into one of the smaller rooms, before she turned back to Hermione.
"You're an awfully difficult person to find," she told her, amused.
Hermione took a sip of her soup. "That's often the case when the person in question does not wish to be found."
Ginny nodded, and she started to play with a sprig of rosemary that curled itself near her head. She said quietly, "Neville said you weren't in Herbology this morning. And when I asked Hannah, she told me you weren't in Potions either."
"I overslept."
"You overslept?" repeated Ginny, eyes narrowing slightly. Hermione nodded, silencing herself with another spoonful of soup. "Hermione, I say this because I love you, but you look like you haven't slept in weeks."
Try months, she wanted to say, but thought it wiser to keep her mouth shut.
Her friend's face was pale with worry, and she dropped the herb she was twirling around her finger to hold Hermione's free hand. "Is it-? Are you having nightmares?" asked Ginny tentatively. "Because if you are, there are potions for it. I know Madam Pomfrey has one that works a treat-"
"I've tried, Ginny," Hermione admitted, eyes lowered to the steam billowing from her bowl, voice even lower. "They don't work for me. I've tried them all."
Ginny swallowed. "There has to be something-"
"Soup for Missus as well!" Winky appeared suddenly and Ginny, in her surprise, removed her hand from Hermione's to retrieve the bowl.
"Thank you, Winky. You're a star!"
The elf beamed then curtsied and left.
"There's nothing. I've tried everything," finished Hermione.
Ginny sealed her lips together so they formed a line. There was a slight frown between her eyebrows. "Well, maybe there's nothing to help you sleep, but you can stop locking yourself away from us. We're here for you, Mione. Luna, Neville and I. Even Hannah is worried-"
"Ginny, listen. Honestly, I'm fine-"
"Is it because Harry and Ron aren't here?"
"I-" Hermione cut off. Of course she missed them. When they weren't by her side or nearby, she felt like she was missing a finger or a hand. They were an integral part to her, like any of her limbs, like the hairs on her head or her heart or her lungs. "No. I mean, it certainly doesn't make things easier… but we needed our own way to grieve. We needed to move on with life."
Ginny's eyes were sharp when Hermione finally met them. She was always sharp, straight to the point and keen to make things as simple as possible. Hermione couldn't decide whether simplicity was boring or cheating.
"And how's that working for you?"
Hermione closed her mouth, holding the eye contact. She replied easily, "I think I'm getting back into the swing of things with my studies-"
Ginny laughed. "There are more things to life than studying, Hermione. How's everything else?"
She finally looked away, licking her lips which had suddenly become very dry and helped herself to more of her soup. She wasn't feeling very hungry anymore.
"Fine," Hermione shrugged. The soup tasted like ash on her tongue. "Just fine."
She wondered if you could use a word so wrongly that it would change its definition to suit your purpose. Surely, if you used it out of context enough. In that case, Hermione wasn't fine at all. And she could not understand for the life in her why she insisted on lying to her best friend's face when she'd cracked in front of Draco Malfoy. Perhaps it was because he knew exactly what it was like to be dragged right through the centre of hell and have no choice but to keep going. She often wondered if she'd ever get out. The image of the bright blue band of light trapped around Malfoy's pale ankle flashed to the forefront of her mind's eye, and she wondered if he would ever get out too, or if they'd both be trapped in hell together.