She reached the Hospital Wing quickly – sooner than she'd thought. Stopping outside the double doors, Hermione leaned against the wall, panting. She felt sick and anxious, and while she wanted more than anything to see Blaise, alive and awake, she was terrified he'd still be unconscious. Truthfully, she was terrified of something far worse, but couldn't even bring herself to consider that possibility.
Mentally pulling herself together by reminding herself that she was a Gryffindor, she stepped in front of the doors and pushed them open. With chin and chest stuck out bravely in front of her, Hermione walked past rows of cots to Blaise's and peeked around the privacy sheet, put up as a protection against curious students.
She stared for an instant, then closed her eyes. Stumbling backwards she met resistance, which she barely acknowledged. She turned slowly and looked up at Snape.
"When?" she asked.
"Around 4am. Poppy said he simply stopped breathing. His injuries were just…too much."
Hermione looked down at the floor, trying not to think of body-shaped outlines hidden under crisp white sheets.
"Oh," she said finally.
And she left, without looking back.
Whispering filled the Great Hall with a soft hissing sound, like pouring sand. The Slytherins, unsurprisingly, were silent. A few of their younger students had been crying when they came in, silently and shamefully. Their housemates had quickly hushed them – now the entire table seemed to be carved from stone, and most eyes were focused on their Head of House, accusing him for allowing this to happen while still looking to him for support.
Snape stared back, meeting each and every needy gaze, giving the support that those children so desperately needed. Hermione watched him from her place between Harry and Ron. They were silent as well – Harry because he was thinking of another time, another boy Voldemort had casually killed, and Ron because he was deeply worried about Hermione.
She wasn't crying though. She couldn't find an anchor to reality that would allow her to accept that this was all really happening. Until she did, she couldn't properly mourn. But she was afraid, deep down. Afraid that if she did accept this reality, then, and only then would it become true. If she didn't believe it, then maybe, for a little longer, everything would be alright. Blaise would still be unconscious in the Hospital Wing, and the sheet wouldn't be pulled up over his face.
So she kept her eyes on Snape, wishing he would look at her as well, and give to her whatever he was giving to his Slytherins. She kept staring at him, even when Ron, following her line of sight, made a choking sound and shrunk down in his seat, watching her watching Snape.
Finally, a weary-looking Dumbledore entered through the main entrance of the Hall. Silence spread across the students in a wave, and all heads turned to watch him make his way to the Head Table. When he reached his chair, he pulled it back and stood, looking down at the assembled students.
"I have no doubt that by this time, you are all aware of what has happened. Blaise Zabini, one of the most gifted of our seventh year students, has died." A low whisper of conversation began again, but quieted when Dumbledore raised a hand.
"I am aware that many of you did not know him, so you must take my word when I tell you that he was clever, astute and a credit to his house. We are the worse without him." The Headmaster paused, and looked directly at the Slytherins. "It was Voldemort and his followers who did this to Blaise and his family. They tortured him so terribly that there was no hope for recovery. Remember your classmate, and remember why he died – because he refused to submit and be exploited, and give up his own free will and ambitions. He refused to be owned."
The Great Hall filled with nervous whispers, and more than a few gasps and cries at the mention of Voldemort. Through the muted confusion, Hermione glanced at the Slytherin table. The older students were sneering for the most part, but some looked uncomfortable and uncertain. And the younger students…
The younger students looked fierce. Angry and vengeful, but not towards Dumbledore. They were lapping up his speech like it was honey, and suddenly, Hermione was furious. Furious at Blaise for dying, furious that he allowed himself to be caught in the first place, and furious that Dumbledore was using his death as propaganda.
The little speech was over now – the interfering old bastard had sat down, and food had appeared in front of her. But she was still furious, too furious to move, let alone eat. So she sat there, staring at some unseen point on the wall, until Harry gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow.
"Aren't you going to eat?"
Hermione stood up stiffly, hefted her satchel over her shoulder, and walked wordlessly out of the Hall. Her legs carried her up the main stairway to the first floor, and along to the Hospital Wing. She didn't even pay attention to the pounding of running feet behind her, until she was caught by the shoulder and spun around. Ron looked down at her, panting to catch his breath.
"Where the hell are you going?" he finally asked.
Hermione stared at him.
"C'mon Hermione, what's going on? Are you sick?"
She shook her head.
"Then why are you going to the Hospital Wing?"
"Ron, please just leave me alone," she said quietly, looking at the floor.
"I bloody well will not!" he yelled, startling her. He took a breath, and continued, more gently. "You've been quiet and tired and so distant all year long, and since we got back it's been worse, even worse than that time before Christmas. And today you've, you've been like the walking dead. I'm worried about you, Hermione!"
She couldn't look at him, couldn't see that kicked-puppy look she knew he would have on his face. If she did, she'd break down. Her throat was already getting thick, and her shoes were going blurry because her eyes were filling up with tears.
"Mister Weasley, I suggest you return to your common room. I need to have a word with Miss Granger."
Hermione's head snapped up at that cold voice. Snape was there, behind Ron, arms crossed and looking particularly malevolent.
Ron opened his mouth to say something stupid, but before he could earn himself a detention, Hermione touched his arm.
"It's alright," she said. "Go."
He gave her a look, perfectly conveying his belief that she had gone completely insane, but after shooting Snape a nasty glare, he headed off down the corridor towards the main staircase.
"Thank you," she said.
Snape nodded, and started towards the Hospital Wing. Hermione trailed behind him. She slipped through the door before it could shut in his wake, and followed him to the bed she had glimpsed early that morning. The crisp white sheet was still pulled up over its occupant, and she had a sudden memory of one Halloween, when she had been very young. Her mother had been ill, and unable to make her a costume, so her father, rather than resorting to a cheap, plastic one from a shop, had cut two eyeholes out of an old while sheet, drawn a silly, smiling mouth below the holes, and she had gone as a ghost. She had loved that costume, simple as it was.
She fought back a giggle, and the urge to charm two eyeholes into the fabric.
Snape stood off the one side, and she slid past him, up to the head of the cot. She reached for a corner of the sheet.
"Miss Granger," he said, his voice low and warning. She ignored him and pulled.
And there he was, his pale, bruised face looking slack and strange. She supposed she should be thankful that his eyes were closed. This wasn't Blaise anymore. It was a husk, a battered, broken shell, and everything about him that had mattered – his laugh, his smile, his mind, his soul – they had all gone somewhere else.
She replaced the sheet, pulling it smooth, and stepped back. That was when the tears started; great wracking sobs that dragged the air in and out of her lungs in choking mouthfuls. And when she started to collapse, she felt herself caught up and settled in a lap. She began to moan, a pitiful wounded sound, and dug her fingers into rough cloth and flesh.
Snape held her for over a half hour, while she sobbed in the ugliest manner possible, and he didn't comment on the large wet spots on his shoulder from tears and mucus. Finally, once she started to calm down, he held a cloth up to her nose.
"Blow."
She did, and was mildly impressed when she saw it was a self-cleaning, self-drying handkerchief. She made a mental note to invest in one. Then, the ridiculousness of the situation hit her. She, an almost-adult, had been curled up in her much-despised professor's lap, sobbing her heart out and admiring a self-cleaning handkerchief, all while she was directly beside the body of her dead…dead friend.
Hermione scrambled to her feet and blushed.
"Thank you," she whispered, looking away. Snape stood up and came closer to her. She flinched slightly when he slid two fingers under her chin and tilted her head up. His eyes bored into hers.
"If you tell anyone about this, I promise you will fail Potions."
She let out a watery chuckle, and sniffed loudly.
"Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. I never even told anyone about…" she trailed off, one hand helplessly gesturing at the body on the bed.
Snape nodded, and looked down at her until she began to fidget under his scrutiny. He released her chin and stood aside.
"You should return to your common room, Miss Granger," he murmured, "I'm sure Mister Weasley is beside himself with worry, and probably convinced that I've cut you up for potions ingredients."
She turned to go, and took a few steps before she paused.
"Thank you, sir. I…" she trailed off, unsure of what, exactly, she wanted to say. Snape just nodded again, a glimmer of sympathy and sorrow in his black eyes. With that small comfort of understanding and being understood, she fled.
She stopped dead in her tracks, and stared. Her letter was still resting on the window ledge, where she had left it. She had to clap a hand over her mouth to stifle the grief-stricken moan that threatened to escape from her lips.
Slowly, she walked towards the window, and picked up the roll of parchment. She unrolled it, and started at what she saw – while the writing was still in the same, smooth unidentifiable Dicto-Quill hand, it was not what she had written.
I miss you too.
Quietly, her face carefully expressionless, Hermione tucked the parchment into her robe, and walked out of the room.
She threw herself into her studies. N.E.W.T.s were still coming, regardless of the fact that the entire Wizarding World was holding its collective breath. But the expected attack never came. Occasionally, a family would turn up dead, slaughtered with the Dark Mark floating over their home, but there was never anything more.
Still, school was school, and Hermione needed the structure it provided and the focus it gave her. It helped her to get through those first awful six months after Blaise's death. She barely looked up from her books during that time.
But somehow, despite everything, June did arrive, sunny and warm as ever, and the students of Hogwarts did write their exams and finish their year.
Hermione, Ron and Harry were quickly ushered off to 12 Grimmauld Place, and were quickly inducted into the Order of the Phoenix.
From then on, things started to get much worse. The number attacks began to slowly and steadily increase – families fled to the Continent, trying desperately to escape the approaching war. For two years, the Order of the Phoenix prepared, and trained, and waited. Finally, on his twentieth birthday, Harry insisted that they begin to actively seek out Voldemort.
We've waited patiently for too long, he had said, angry and frustrated after yet another attack. Voldemort is picking us off, while we wait for him to come for us. I refuse to wait any longer.
So they stopped waiting. And after a long, hard and unhappy year of searching, they found him.
Holed up in cave, magically dug off of an abandoned Tube line in London, Voldemort had hidden under their very noses for years. No one was more surprised and furious than Snape, who felt deeply and privately responsible for failing to ferret out such an important bit of information.
And so, on one cool, beautiful spring day, The Order of the Phoenix, backed up by a battalion of Aurors, attacked from all sides. Voldemort had set up far too many alarms and wards for them to stage a surprise attack, and shortly after they began their campaign, the caves and tunnels were quickly crawling with Death Eaters. But once in, they were unable to escape – Dumbledore, in an astounding display of power, erected anti-Apparition wards around the entire area, effectively trapping everyone inside – Death Eaters, Aurors and Order members alike. The Order meant to finish it once and for all.
The battle was fierce, long and terrifyingly cramped. Curses rebounded off of walls, and spells met and exploded with appalling intensity, often in the combatants' faces.
But finally, they reached the centre of the infestation, where Voldemort waited.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, managed to live yet again. Quickly, and without ceremony, he killed Voldemort once and for all, losing his scar in the process.
And that was that. The Aurors and Order members collected the dead, injured and captured, and returned to the surface.
Ron, Hermione and Harry, barely out of their teens, became heroes overnight. They accepted the accolades and praise with embarrassment, and tried their best to escape the limelight. Ron went about his Auror training in Edinburgh, and Hermione was offered a position at the Ministry in research. Harry, realizing he still had far more money than he knew what to do with, declared he had no desire to do anything of consequence (at least for a few years), and traveled to Canada where he rented a flat on Globe Alley in Toronto's Wizarding area, determined to enjoy some measure of anonymity.
The casualties of war were honoured, in a simple, cylindrical memorial erected in the main lobby of the Ministry of Magic. The names of all victims and presumed victims of Voldemort were inscribed around it's outer wall, while inside the half circle, a small fountain gently gurgled out into a smooth pool. It was almost unanimously considered an improvement over the Fountain of Magical Brethren.
Hermione didn't cry at the opening ceremony, but rather a few days later, alone in her dark flat.
She was going to be starting her job at the Ministry in a few weeks, and she was excited, overjoyed and terrified. The prospect of it delighted her: researching and experimenting; working on challenging problems which she could find solutions to; giving her practical, logical mind free reign.
But until then, she wasn't quite sure what to do with herself. Weeks after the battle, there were still celebrations and parties. She found herself a little sick of it all, particularly when her mind traveled, inevitably, back to Blaise. And once her mind began to travel in that direction, puzzling thoughts regarding Snape were never far behind.
So she tried to lose herself in Muggle London, and spent her days wandering the city, exploring places she hadn't been able to safely visit in years, until finally, one day, she made her way to Covent Garden, where she found a small, lovely café. And inside that café, she discovered something that was not entirely unexpected.