A/N: Happy New Year's Eve! May 2019 bring nothing but good things!

Trigger warnings: referenced suicidal behaviour in the bonus scene at the end

The universe spat her onto damp grass and she fell to her knees. Moisture seeped through her dress but she didn't care in the slightest, not when she could sense a wand aimed at her back and the roiling excitement and dread was tearing her insides apart. With slow movements, Hermione rolled to sitting position and looked up at the two men, one with a wand aimed at her heart, another keeping a relentless grip on Narcissa who, it seemed, had managed to make it through apparition without falling over.

"How long's the Polyjuice got left, do you reckon?"

"Not long," Hermione answered. "Only a few minutes at most."

The two men glanced at each other; the one holding Narcissa gave the other a nod of confirmation Hermione couldn't understand. She wanted to ask where they were, as the shrubs around them gave absolutely no indication, but she doubted they would answer truthfully if at all. The weariness in their eyes and the hardiness of their postures gave away a dark, disturbing kind of maturity she had never seen in them before. Doubt began to flicker.

They seemed to find the silent waiting unbearable; the one guarding Hermione spoke:

"So, you expect us to believe you're Hermione Granger, yeah?"

"Like I said: The Polyjuice will fade any minute now, and then you'll see that I am," she answered quietly.

"And you expect us to believe she escaped from—them?"

"I did."

"How?"

Hermione gestured with her chin to where Narcissa stood stiffly. "She helped me. We escaped together."

"How?"

"We—we ran."

"What, just like that? You just ran away?"

"Well it was a bit more complicated than that," Hermione flinched, her ire at being mocked at odds with the assault of memory fragments, magic hurled at her back and the inhumane fury of her captors—

She opened her mouth, desperate to explain, then clutched her stomach as a wave of nausea ran through her body. Her eyes shut and she grimaced, struggling to breathe evenly as her internal organs shifted around, her limbs thinned and her hair grew lighter on her scalp. Only when Hermione's bones had settled and she could release the air from her lungs did she open her eyes and look up at the men from where she sat on the damp ground in her scarred, worn body.

It was difficult to see the pain in their eyes as they looked at her, clearly horrified by her state and yet so overjoyed to see her in any state at all. It warred with their harsh hands which had roughly held Narcissa in place as soon as her pale hair and noble features had revealed themselves.

One of the men cursed.

"Please, she's with me, I told you—"

"Hermione, she's—!"

"I know who she is! I know who you are! And I'm the girl you saved from a troll in the bathroom in first year! Please, you've always trusted my judgement before!"

"Look, y—"

"I'm not mad, I swear..." she rambled on, desperate to make them understand, to repay the debt she owed this quiet unmoving woman who was making no attempt to defend herself. Hermione couldn't hear or understand her own words, but the ceaseless drone of her voice felt like steady flood brimming from deep inside.

"Alright, look. Look."

Hermione stopped talking; everyone turned to the man on Narcissa's left. He seemed deeply worn and let out a sigh before carrying on, almost as though it were against his better judgement.

"We haven't got the time for this. The way I see it, we take the both of you with us," he glanced between the two women, his gaze landing on Narcissa and hardening, "and if you attempt anything even a toenail out of line, we will handle it as efficiently as we see fit."

Narcissa held his gaze a moment, that regal fire momentarily flashing in her eyes, then nodded her consent.

"Right, then. Have you got any more Polyjuice? Because dragging you two through London looking like yourselves will get us all killed in under two minutes."

The three watched Hermione as she dug through the little bag slung across her body. Her hands trembled when she produced the potions and hairs, though she could not say if it was caused by stress or exhaustion.

She hardly noticed the discomfort of transformation.

"Hold tight, then. And do try to keep your mouth shut."

The arm that wrapped around Hermione's midsection was much gentler this time; a strong embrace of homecoming rather than a vice of capture.

Disapparition didn't knock her off her feet this time, though the assaulting stench of rubbish and grease momentarily overwhelmed her with nausea. The arm around her retracted before reappearing at her elbow and slithering down to her hand. The grip about her fingers held fast and heavy, though certainly must have looked no more unusual than an average pair of hand-holding young people out and about at night.

They moved toward the roadside where streams of Muggles moved deftly around one another; Hermione felt Narcissa behind her, no doubt being held in a similar fashion though with far more insistence. The pressure on her hand guided her through the crowds, around corners and across intersections. Hermione didn't bother trying to catch street names. Her companions had clearly made this exact journey many times before; there was an almost frightening, subtle precision in their movements entirely at odds with the relaxed casualness of their expressions. Hermione nearly overwhelmed herself with the task of appearing nonchalant, and then they were ducking behind a phone booth and that arm once again clamped around her middle.

Another gut-wrenching journey through folds of reality, another street, similar to the ones before except populated by a younger crowd, a more frantic energy. As they waited by a bus stop, the hand crept from her fingers to curl around her shoulders. The empty noise of conversation flowed around her, though Hermione's perceptions had been condensed to only the points of foreign skin against her and the fire in Narcissa's borrowed eyes as the two couples stood opposite each other.

A bus came and they boarded, carefully inserting their bodies into open slots in the crowd. The bus was full, bodies up against her on all sides, and Hermione flinched away from their touches and loud, shouting voices.

"Sorry about this," a whisper landed near to her left temple. His arm reached around to cradle her back in half a hug, holding her closer until all she could see were his shirt buttons. "Nearly there soon, I promise."

They extracted themselves from the bus some minutes later and Hermione inhaled the cool air, starving for it. Her lungs did not breathe evenly again until she found herself standing in a flat. The worn furniture around her suggested a lounge room.

As the door shut behind them, the men swiftly executed a series of security charms and then Hermione's wand flew out of her dress and into their waiting palms. Narcissa cried out and made to reach for hers, then appeared to reconsider.

"Just a precaution," said one as he pocketed the stolen wand. "We'll let you have it if there's any danger, of course, but we've had bad experiences with the Trace before so, while you're here, we live like Muggles. Get used to it." He opened his mouth to say more but choked and swore, grimacing. "Hang on a mo'."

He grit his teeth, bracing himself on his knees while his friend leaned against the wall, fists clenched.

Hermione watched, feeling an inexplicable terror as the Polyjuice faded away. Skin lightened and darkened by turn, hair retracted into scalps, limbs stretched and slimmed.

In half a minute they were themselves again, straightening their clothes and hair, and Hermione screamed.

And then she sobbed.

They rushed to her in an instant, Ron on one side and Harry (still trying to properly don his glasses) on the other, holding her up and then helping her sink to the floor when her legs buckled. Fingers which weren't her own buried themselves in their shirtfronts on her behalf. She could hear their voices, chuckling at her hysterics yet crying on their own. Closing her eyes, she drowned in their touches and the love she thought she'd lost forever the day she was snatched away in the woods. All she had endured since then came alive again in her mind and she realised she had never truly expected to survive long enough to see her friends again.

Yet here they were.

Hermione didn't notice when her own Polyjuice wore off again but when she opened her eyes, she was once again Hermione Granger, in the arms of her friends, wearing a too-large dress. Harry's bright eyes gleamed behind his smudged lenses; Ron was smiling rather foolishly from beneath a mop of—

"What happened to your hair?!"

Chuckling, Ron gently extracted her hand from his strangely maroon-coloured locks. "Muggle dye. Trying to be more incognito and all that but my hair wouldn't stay dark for more than twenty minutes. Weasley magic or something."

Hermione laughed and for a moment they all stared at one another in disbelief, haphazardly strewn about the floor, faces tear-streaked and blotchy and, in Hermione's case, smeared in cheap makeup.

"Come on, then," Harry patted her shoulder. "We'll run you a bath and get you into bed."

"Oi, and maybe some dinner in there, too."

"I see you've changed, Ron."

"Well, you know wha—shit, Hermione, are you all right?!"

"She has a leg injury."

Hermione gasped for breath as she gently returned to the carpet after a failed attempt to stand. Narcissa's voice, cool and logical from where she lingered against the wall, soothed Hermione's distress and accelerated it all the same; this was not a confrontation she had been looking forward to.

"What kind of injury? When? From tonight?!"

"No, several days ago. An overuse injury, most likely."

"And you didn't try to heal it?"

"Ron—"

"I did everything within my limited power to ease her pain. But, as I am sure you are already well aware, she is rather obstinate when she has already decided herself against something."

All gazes turned to Hermione, propped on the floor with sparks of pain still shooting through her lower legs.

"Please, I'm sorry—she's right. She helped! Please, Harry, I'll be all right. I just need rest, that's all."

Harry seemed hesitant to believe her, but, after a tense moment's consideration, nodded sharply and helped Hermione to her feet.

"She won't hurt us, I promise," pleaded Hermione as she was steered from the room. "Please, you've got to believe me. Don't treat her like a prisoner."

"We won't, as long as she doesn't behave like one." Taking care to keep her supported while he pushed open a door, he sighed. "Don't worry, Hermione." He pressed a towel into her arms. "Have a shower and then we can... catch up."

Hermione looked into his eyes and saw only earnestness there, yet her doubt lingered, the distinct feeling of being a scolded child driving her gaze to the floor. The chaotic turmoil of her exhausted emotions continued to spasm; she could not bear to think she had brought Narcissa into such hostility.

As the door shut and she was left on her own in the bathroom, she did not feel the typical relief of solitude.

The bathroom gave the same impression as the rest of the flat. That is, of being the cheap home of very messy bachelors. But the running water felt warm and she watched in mild fascination as the pool around her feet darkened, the grime easing away from her skin. Her blood still rushed, chasing the nearest danger, completely ignorant to the relative safety in which she found herself.

The soap wouldn't stay in her hand properly and so after the third time it slipped to the ground, she gave up on it entirely and reached for the bottle of generic Muggle shampoo.

Her fingers got caught in her hair almost instantly and she tugged, violently, through the foaming bubbles to try and disentangle the unbrushed nest atop her head. Her scalp hurt and the urge to rip all this useless frizz from her head became overwhelming, a fire driving her fists—

She stopped. Tried to move her hands away from her hair and pressed them sharply against her closed eyes instead. The water continued to beat a steady rhythm against her back.

What would Narcissa make of this shoddy little place?

What was she saying now?

God, Harry and Ron had promised to be reasonable, but she knew their tempers and Narcissa was prone to saying inflammatory things in the most infuriating of ways—!

Hermione turned off the taps. Her hair had been quite thoroughly rinsed and for a moment all she could do was stare at the dozens of strands stuck to her hands, looping around her fingers and wrists. She smeared them across the tiled wall, liking the idea of the image they left there.

But then it was violently overridden with the thought of Death Eaters storming the flat, looking for evidence of her presence here she plucked all her hair from the wall and flushed it down the toilet.

Her legs twinged still as she pressed the towel against her skin to absorb the rivulets of water running across its surface. For a moment, she eyed the pile of clothes she'd been wearing. To don them again seemed the obvious choice—she had nothing else—and yet...

Voices. Ron? He sounded upset—

Without thinking, Hermione wrapped the towel around herself and rushed out the bathroom door. When she burst into the lounge room, dripping wet and wide-eyed, she found three pairs of eyes looking at her in surprise, a heavy silence descending upon them all.

"Hermione?" Harry stood from the sofa. "You all right?"

The ensuing pause gave Hermione the distinct impression that the four of them were all on drastically different pages.

"I'm fine, Harry."

"Good." He scanned her up and down. "I'll go get you some clothes, wait here," and he disappeared up the hall behind her.

Still clutching the towel to her chest, Hermione stood there. The water running down her legs ran over the ridges of her feet, soaking the old carpet.

After an agonising breath, Ron asked, "Shower nice?"

Hermione nodded.

"Good. Glad to hear it." He seemed to consider something, then began to slowly make his way towards her. The smile he gave her felt gentle and yet there was something else in it which made Hermione weary, made her want to hide from his eyes as they darted across the fresh scars and marks speckling her arms. "Hermione," he said quietly. "You know we've missed you, right? And we're so glad you found us."

Hermione nodded. "I know."

Ron opened his mouth again, raised a hand as though to offer a hug, then dropped it by his side again and settled for a nod. "Good."

For so long, Hermione's life had been moving in fast motion. And now she could hear the screeching of the brakes as everything around her came to a violent halt, tossing her around as her inertia spent itself. She had been clinging to the possibility of this reunification, and yet hadn't anticipated the vertigo of reacquainting herself with the rest of the world which she had been absent from for so long.

It grew most acute when sitting at the worn dining table, slowly spooning food into her mouth as Harry and Ron not-so-discreetly observed.

She wondered what they must be looking for. Evidence of Cruciatus? Clues she'd gone mad? Or a sign that she was still disguised somehow, a Death Eater infiltrating the enemy?

"More soup?"

Hermione startled at Harry's voice. His eyes seemed different, somehow. "No, thank you."

"All right. There's a whole pot-full in the fridge."

Ron chuckled. "You should've seen me, Hermione, the first time I had to use that thing."

"Yeah, he thought it made the food. Ask and you shall receive. Like Hogwarts!"

Hermione laughed as Harry and Ron did, wondering if they felt the strain of how painfully awkward this all was. The sound of Narcissa's shower kept time, counting each silence and beating against Hermione's peace of mind—what remained of it.

The mirth faded as the joke grew stale and Hermione dutifully continued to feed herself while her guards watched. Her eyes flicked up to where they sat, slouched opposite her against the table, and she made some observations of her own.

As they had dragged her and Narcissa through Muggle London, she had experienced the distinct feeling that she no longer knew her friends. They had grown into different people through experiences she couldn't share, she could see it in the habitual gestures she didn't recognise; the way Harry held his shoulders, the way Ron pressed at his temples when he was thinking. All alien movements in her dearest friends.

No wonder they looked at her as though they couldn't work out which parts of her were real.

"Hermione?"

She stopped eating, looked up at them with eyebrows raised.

Ron sighed and carded his fingers through his longer hair while Harry seemed to be carefully measuring her mood.

"We don't need... details—unless you want to give them, of course. You know you can tell us anything!—but we would like to know what... happened. And how you got here." He gestured to the bathroom with his chin. "Both of you."

Hermione nodded, set down her spoon, but Harry interrupted her before she could open her mouth, his voice betraying all the desperate emotion he felt, "Not now! It doesn't have to be tonight. You need rest. Tomorrow, if you're ready, or even a few days after that. Just—whatever you need."

She managed to finish all the soup and watch as Narcissa ate hers, damp hair still dripping down her elegantly straight back. Hermione observed, one arm wrapped around her own knee as she curled up on the dining chair. While Harry and Ron had grown into near-strangers, Narcissa had reverted back to the cool aristocrat. It was a daunting thing to suddenly be so alone, her allies reborn as strangers, but when Hermione watched Narcissa's perfect posture and unruffled countenance, Hermione only saw a frightened woman taking refuge in old habits.

Polite silence reigned until Harry brought her to a bedroom.

"Sorry there's only two, but if you're not comfortable, Ron and I can sleep on the couch and—"

"It's fine." Hermione despised how small her own voice sounded. "Really, we've been sharing a tent for weeks. I think we can handle a bed."

Harry opened his mouth, rubbed the back of his neck, and relented.

"Thanks for the pyjamas." The worn clothes hung off her body, but they were soft and smelled clean.

Harry nodded and for a second they just looked at each other; Hermione felt her mind reaching out, ready to catch an emotional lifeline. How would they ever find each other again?

Arms surrounded her, embracing her with tender pressure and she heard a hitched breath by her ear. "I'm so glad to have you back." When he pulled away, his eyes were shining. "Good night."

The stiff mattress absorbed Hermione's body and she found herself drifting along the surface of sleep. The body beside hers emanated warmth and she drifted towards it, finding gentle heat and soft lines. Arms and legs crossed she drew nearer, so thoroughly intertwined that, as she descended into sleep she hoped never to be undone.

[BONUS SCENE]

Harry shut the door, exhaling and wishing he could expel his stress with some of the carbon dioxide.

Hermione was not well.

But she was here. And he felt ashamed of how resigned he'd been to the belief that she was dead. She couldn't ever know how they'd given up hope of her escape, of coming back to them as anything more than a trophy corpse.

But she'd done it, somehow. He couldn't imagine what she must've had to do to break free of Voldemort's grasp, didn't think he really wanted to know. And now it had all left her a bit of a quivering shell of the witch he knew before.

Harry didn't know what to do.

He came to a halt in the lounge room where Narcissa Malfoy still stood in cheap Muggle garb but somehow managing to look as imposing as she could muster. Ron stood nearby, wand ready by his side.

Harry sighed again.

The sound of running water started.

Narcissa flinched, her eyes suddenly darting between the two young men.

"What?" snapped Ron.

"You are leaving her alone?"

"You reckon we should hop in there with her? Hermione's not—"

"Ron," Harry hissed. Rubbing his scar and wrestling with the warring feelings of suspicion and fear, he asked, "Mrs. Malfoy, why do you think we shouldn't leave her by herself?"

Narcissa's eyes flitted about, lingering on the hall where the sounds of the shower came from.

"She has been through a great deal, you understand."

"Yeah, we figured that much, thanks."

"She has showed… extraordinary strength, through it all, of course. One would not expect any less from her. But she has not made it through unaffected, so to speak."

"Stop bloody dancing around the issue and just spit it out!"

Harry couldn't find it in himself to argue Ron on that one.

"Naturally, I was not intimately familiar with her personality until recently, but I know enough to have grown concerned."

"Concerned why? What the bloody hell do you mean?"

"She suffers nightmares. Of a horrible sort. She can't tell the difference between dreams and waking. She has terrible episodes where she cannot think clearly at all and her body betrays her. She has… attempted to harm herself."

"She's what?!"

"Shh! Ron, keep your voice down!"

"Did you let her?!"

"Of course I did no such thing! I took her wand and watched her for hours until the sun rose!"

"And when was this, exactly?"

"Several days ago. Within the week, I should think."

Harry sighed, rubbing his hand down his face and sinking into an aged sofa. "And since then?"

"She has shown... moderate improvement."

"'Moderate.' But still not enough for you to be comfortable with her in a room twenty paces away!"

"You wait until now to tell us this? What if she—if she tries something?"

"I told you as soon as it became relevant, did I not?"

"Bloody hell—" Ron strode off in the direction of the bathroom, tossing Narcissa a nasty scowl as he passed.

"Ron, stop, come on." Harry braced his hands on Ron's shoulders, halting him in his tracks, and thought he had never felt so exhausted. "Charging in there isn't going to help anything."

"How do you know?"

"I agree with Mr. Weasley." Narcissa seemed mightily disappointed in this fact and the young men couldn't say they felt much better.

"Why don't we give her ten minutes. Then we'll knock and just... see."

"'Just see?!'"

A/N: Bonus scene was written purely because I got thoroughly stuck and couldn't finish the chapter without filling in what happened outside the shower for the sake of continuity in my head