"Alright, folks, everyone ready to go?" Walt said, clapping his hands together once as he walked into the room. "It's just me today. Alys and Susan are preparing for our next group of guests actually."

The counseling team was, of course, hoping their program would be fully funded moving forward, but they were preparing for any and every scenario, making arrangements for the next group in hopes that they'd have funding when the time came.

"The only true currency we have in life," he'd said last week during one of their few remaining group sessions, "is the effect we have on others. Seeing the value you bring to those around you can help remove that echo-chamber of self-defeating thoughts that we all sometimes get trapped in. But, as most of us are just dipping our toes into the volunteering world, we're going to start off easy. And as our last group outing, I wanted to end with something fun." The smile that spread across his face was very reminiscent of Alys's excited grin as she announced their karaoke night, so they'd all been worried as they disembarked; what they found, however, was a pleasant surprise.

They stood outside of a large farmhouse, horse stables off to one side, dozens of runs lining the outside of the house, and three fenced-in enclosures with what seemed to be various dog training equipment. A cacophony of dogs barking could be heard from all sides, and at least twenty horses were grazing in the pastures around them.

The sign beside the front porch read, "LeMar Animal Rescue. We take it all."

"Well, that sounds dirty," Seamus said, earning him an elbow to the ribs from Parvati. "What?" he asked, massaging the spot where her bony elbow had hit him. "It does."

"He's not wrong," Draco mumbled beside Hermione, her gloved hand clasped in his still after their portkey.

They'd done little more than notice the sign and shake the dust off their clothing, before a fat, snub-nosed pot-bellied pig grunted its way toward them.

Nicola backed into Dennis beside her as it drew closer. "Nope. Nope. Shew," she said, weakly waving her shoe in the pig's direction. When the animal realized that Nicola was clearly not a friend, it shuffled past her toward Dennis, sending Nicola fleeing in the other direction.

"That is the ugliest animal I have ever seen," she said, stepping further backward still.

"Don't listen to her. You're adorable, aren't you?" Dennis said, squatting until he was eye level with the grubby creature. Two tiny little tusks protruded from either side of its mouth, and Hermione barely had time to consider whether or not this animal was dangerous before Dennis reached forward and began scratching right behind its tiny pointed ears.

The pig grunted again before turning its head to the side, leaning into Dennis's hand and clearly enjoying the ear-scratching.

"Aww, see. She's just a big sweetie."

A woman stepped out the front door, a tangled mass of fiery red hair twisted atop her head, loosely secured in place by a yellow pencil. Her dress was patched all over, and the bottom of her apron peaked out beneath her oversized jumper. Hermione had to blink twice just to make sure she wasn't looking at Molly Weasley's long-lost twin sister.

"Welcome, welcome," the woman said, wiping her hands on the hem of her apron. "You lot must be the volunteers." As she got closer, Hermione could see the obvious differences between this woman and the Weasley matriarch—her face was more heavily lined, and she was quite a bit taller—but her easy smile and welcoming persona, not to mention her flaming red hair, certainly made them pass for at least cousins.

"I'm Becky." She stretched her hand out toward Walt as he stepped forward, taking the lead.

"Hi, Becky. I'm Walt. We spoke on the phone."

"Yes, yes. I'm so glad you could all come and help today. You have no idea how much of a blessing it is to have volunteers." She turned to walk back toward the house, motioning for them all to follow her inside. "It seems as if there's always more to be done than we have enough hands to do."

Becky led them all inside and divided them up into partnered groups, sending them all in different directions with different employees to guide them.

Hermione and Draco, having been standing side-by-side at the time, ended up working alongside Harold, Becky's husband of thirty-two years.

"Folks don't realize," Harold said, his wellies squeaking across the stone floor of one of their dog kennels, "how important it is just to give these guys some love and attention. We do, of course, but with only six of us on staff and over fifty animals right now, it's hard to really give them each the time they need."

They rounded the corner and ended up standing before a row of individual dog runs. As soon as they came into view, at least a dozen dogs came bounding to their chain-link doors, and barking filled the space around them.

"These are our long-timers," Harold said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise. "They've all been for a year or more, and people don't seem as interested in adopting them for one reason or another."

Hermione scanned the room, taking in rows of dogs along each wall. Most were running from side to side in front of their doors, like the massive American bulldog to her immediate left. His head looked to be the same size as hers, and Hermione wasn't sure she'd ever seen a dog with so much muscle. However, his wagging tail and playful stance—front paws down and his butt up in the air—betrayed his otherwise fierce appearance.

"You two are lucky. I know for a fact that at least three of your crew are going to the barn to muck out the stables, but you two are just going to take all these critters out one by one and give them a nice little break in the play yard for some individual attention."

Having had Crooks since she was thirteen, Hermione hadn't been around many dogs in her life, but she'd always liked them. The idea of getting to spend an afternoon playing with a roomful of them was exciting, if not a bit overwhelming.

As soon as Harold left them alone, Hermione took the leash he'd given them and started toward the first in the row. The bulldog—"Beau, short for Beauregard," according to the laminated sheet zip-tied to the front of his kennel—was almost bouncing from paw to paw as she started to unlatch the door.

"Well, I believe this one may have a heart attack if we don't start with him," Draco said. "But, may I?" He motioned toward the leash in her hands. "I think he weighs more than you do."

She leveled her gaze at him. "I'm fully capable of—"

Smirking, he lifted his hands in surrender. "Be my guest."

She'd already considered giving the leash to Draco to begin with, but after his patriarchal declaration that she couldn't handle it, she certainly couldn't hand it over now. She gave him a self-satisfied smile before turning back to Beau.

Unfortunately, she'd barely lifted the latch from the door before the behemoth barreled through it, leaping onto her and knocking her to the ground in one fell swoop, her involuntary oof barely distinguishable over the sound of the other dogs' baying.

She couldn't get her hands up quick enough before the blasted creature had covered her entire face from chin to cheeks in thick saliva.

"Oh, gods! Get off me, you brute!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, he was pulled away from her by the leash that she hadn't even realized she'd dropped amid her assault. Wiping her face with one side of her scarf, she narrowed her eyes at Draco, but, bless him, he'd managed to hold back his laughter, though the twitch of his lips said it was a very near miss.

"After you," he said, motioning toward the exit door. Beau was still trying to escape his leash and leap on her again, but Draco held him far enough away that she thought she was safe. The cold air hit their faces, and she surreptitiously cast a warming charm on all three of them as soon as she'd closed the gate of the play yard behind them.

Beau never let up. He was just as lively outside, bounding from one side of the play yard to the other without so much as a breath between. Thankfully, he was more interested in chasing after the frisbees and balls or trying to snatch the braided rope from Draco's hands than he'd been in mauling her.

Surprisingly, Draco never even batted an eye when the massive creature leapt on him, leaving muddy tracks down the front of his trousers. Instead, he brushed the dog off as if he didn't weigh as much as a baby Erumpet and tossed the frisbee across the yard again.

"Did you ever have a dog?" Hermione asked Draco as he put Beau back into his kennel. The massive pup was finally tuckered out after what felt like no less than a thousand tennis ball throws across the play yard, and he turned in a circle three times before flopping down onto the cot in the back.

Hermione, feeling much more comfortable with the size of the next one, clipped another leash to the collar of a one-eyed cocker spaniel named Lulu.

"I didn't, no," Draco said, "but my grandmother did. She had a pair of pharaoh hounds, and she lived at the Manor until she died, so I was around them quite a bit until then."

"What happened to them?"

"My father said pets were undignified"—Draco lowered his voice and mocked his father's tone perfectly—"so when she died, he had them sold." Draco shrugged, and they walked outside, Lulu slowly leading them.

Lulu was clearly older than Beau was, with no trace of his exuberant energy; she just wanted to lay right by their feet. So they sat on the one bench in their small play yard, Lulu leaning heavily against Hermione's legs as they took turns scratching her ears.

While Hermione had never had a dog before, her neighbors had. He was a large Irish Wolfhound named Achilles, and she remembered being so jealous as a small child that the kids next door not only had siblings to play with, but they also had a massive dog, more nanny than anything, that would chase them from one side of their yard to the other. Though her parents had never said having a pet was undignified, they had told her that it was unpractical, as they were all gone for so many hours throughout the day, and that was before she'd gone to Hogwarts. Once she'd gotten her letter, it definitely would have been unpractical to be gone for nine months out of the year and leave her pet behind.

Despite having always wanted a dog as a little girl, Crooks had been a godsend once she'd found him at the Magical Menagerie just before third year. He'd seemed to need her just as much as she needed him, and he'd filled a void that she hadn't ever really admitted to having until that point.

"You could get one now," Draco told her after they'd made their way around the room.

"Oh no, Crookshanks is plenty enough for me. I think he'd do fine with having a dog in the house, Ginny and Harry have talked about getting one, but I'm a monogamous pet owner," she said seriously before flashing him a grin as she unleashed yet another bulldog, this one, Fritz, substantially smaller than Beau. "But you could get one, now that you have your own flat."

Evenutally, they stopped in front of the very last dog. All the others had been bouncing, eager to be released, save those like Lulu who were quite a bit older than the rest. But not this one, he looked up at them with almost human-like eyes through the chain-link diamonds of his door.

"His name is Will," Hermione said, reading the placard. The dog seemed at the very best only vaguely interested in their presence. He was adorable, despite his somewhat aloof attitude toward them, with his poofy yellow coat and fluffy tail curled backward like a pig's. Hermione thumbed through the paperwork stapled to the back of his name card, but she assumed that had any of the dogs in here been dangerous at all, that Harold would have told them so.

Draco knelt down, the dog's deep brown eyes following him as he did. Hermione found no indication of any sort of aggression at all nor any health problems, which was surprising given that all of the "old timers" had some obvious reason for their lack of adoption.

As American bulldogs, despite their friendly nature, Beau and Fritz were marked with an unfortunate and false preconception of aggression, which prevented adoption. The other ten or so were elderly or in poor health. But Will was perfectly healthy, according to his chart.

Draco stood and opened the door of the kennel, but Will never budged. His intelligent eyes followed the movement as Draco stepped forward. When he reached to attach the leash, the dog took a step back, not aggressively, but just a bit wary. Draco squatted again, inclining his hand forward, and Will looked from Draco's face to his hand as if he were almost bored.

Hermione stepped away, thinking that maybe they were too imposing, both of them inside his space as they were, as Draco tried to coax the animal forward.

"Just don't call him any foul names, whatever you do," she said, unable to resist herself. "We definitely don't want a repeat of Buckbeak."

"You're not helping," Draco said before turning his attention back to the dog. "Don't worry, she won't hurt you. I know she's intimidating, but she's all bark, really."

Hermione scoffed, but the sound had barely left her mouth before the dog stepped forward just enough to allow Draco to attach the leash to his collar. As if it hadn't been just a coincidence, Draco smirked at her as they walked toward the door.

Unlike all the others, Will seemed completely indifferent to their presence with him in the play yard. As soon as Draco removed his leash, Will walked from one side to the other, sniffing a few of the toys here and there, but otherwise uninterested in either of them or the various pieces of play equipment.

"I've never seen a dog that doesn't care about people at all," Hermione said as they watched Will walk around the yard only vaguely interested in his surroundings.

"Maybe he just needs a minute to know whether or not he can trust you." Draco lifted an eyebrow at her as they took a seat on the bench.

"As if I'm the one he needs to be worried about," she said playfully.

Draco said with a shake of his head, "He must have been reading the tabloids."

He was referring to the new line of articles that had been published following Rita Skeeter's for The Daily Prophet. It was all the same foolishness really. She was after his money. He was after her good name. She was Imperiused. He was using her. Rita had told them this would happen, and they'd been expecting it.

At least one had caught onto the subtext behind their plans for The Willows, reading into Hermione's involvement with Draco as nothing more than an attempt to finance her desire to push "medieval Muggle malarkey" down the proverbial throats of the Wizarding population.

Though it wasn't why she was dating him, of course, they had hit the nail on the head with the fact that he would be financing a large portion of the work they had planned, at least at first. And she had to give them credit; their titles were getting much more original.

Golden Girl Grabs Malfoy Heir by the Gringotts

Granger: After a Lion's Share of the Dragon's Hoard?

Do-Gooder Granger Makes a Grab for Gold

The fact that they were printing the same stories, however, meant that they had nothing else to go on. Eventually—she hoped—people would get tired of reading this and start putting more stock into the articles they wanted printed, namely Rita's.

There were, thankfully, others who they'd swayed, and now the readers who had written in were talking not only about Draco and Hermione, but also about their own struggles mentally following the war. So, if it meant that they were successfully shining a light on mental illness, she'd take the outliers who were attempting to drag her name—or Draco's—through the mud.

"Surely, he knows better than to take stock in that rubbish?" Hermione said, nudging Draco with her shoulder. He lifted his arm, draping it around her so she could snuggle into his side. She bit her lip, watching as Dennis and Seamus drudged through the pasture in the distance, both wearing comically large muck boots, and wondering if now was the right time. "I've been meaning to ask you," she said, "about when we leave here."

They hadn't discussed what they were planning to do, really. She knew she'd be going to Grimmauld and she knew Draco had to stay at the Manor for a few days before he was cleared by the Ministry to move into his flat, but they hadn't talked about what that meant for them. They'd agreed on everything, but what did that mean, practically speaking?

Before she could continue, however, Will, who she'd all but forgotten about, joined them at the bench. As if he belonged there, the dog sat directly on top of Draco's feet and tilted his head backwards to look up at him.

"Oh, umm, okay." Draco gently dropped a hand onto his head, and Will just leaned closer to him. Glancing toward Hermione, Draco shrugged and continued rubbing his fingers through the dog's fur.

"Looks like he needed a minute to know whether or not he could trust you," Hermione said.

"And yet, he didn't want you to pet him. Weird."

Hermione rolled her eyes at him, but he wasn't exactly wrong. It took at least another five minutes before the dog stopped giving her side-eye when she tried to pet him, and even then, he never budged from his spot on top of Draco's shoes.

When they headed back inside, Will was close enough to rub against Draco's calf as they walked. They made it back into the kennels just as Harold was closing the door opposite of them, dropping a large bag of dog food at his feet.

"I see you met Willow."

"Willow?" Draco asked, dropping down to unclip the collar from his leash.

"Yeah, Becky says it's not a boy's name, so she shortened it, but when he came in, Willow was his name. You know, from that movie?" Both Draco and Hermione shook their heads. "About magic and the little elf people? No? Well anyway, that's what it's from apparently. Personally, I think that suits him better. Will is… too common for him."

Draco squatted to pet him again one last time. "Willow fits you," he said, and the dog stepped between his thighs, leaning heavily onto him and dropping his head on Draco's knee.

"Well, he's never done that before," Harold said, taking off his hat and running a hand through his thinning hair before stuffing it back onto his head.

"We couldn't figure out why no one would adopt him," Hermione said. "The others all had obvious health or size issues." She cut her eyes toward Bo, now bouncing on his paws yet again, clearly ready to have another go at her. "But not him," she said, her eyes dropping back to Draco and Willow.

"No, he's in good health as far as we can tell, but he hasn't ever wanted anything to do with anybody before. He's a Shiba, and most of them are kind of standoffish, but even for the breed, he's unfriendly. Hell, I've never even touched him before." Harold nodded toward Draco now scratching Willow behind the ears. "He's been here for almost three years, and we got him as a pup. I don't believe anyone's ever even gotten him out of there to try and adopt him before. Becky says she's known people less patronizing than that dog."

Before the words even left his mouth, Hermione knew what Draco was going to ask.

"How do I keep him?"

After mountains of paperwork—for which Hermione had to quickly conjure Muggle identification—and a date set for a home visit, Draco was all set to take Willow home. Unfortunately, as he didn't have a home yet, that would all have to wait until after the Ministry had signed off on Draco's flat.

As Willow—"It's providential," Parvati said, "him having that name."—had spent practically his entire life confined, Draco had understandably been reluctant to leave him in a kennel once again, but he'd really had no other choice for the time being.

"Don't you worry, love," Becky had told them as they left, "he'll be here waiting when you come back for him."

The books they'd purchased on the breed confirmed what Harold had already told them; they were typically more aloof than other dog breeds. They learned too that Shibas were intensely loyal and independent, and if you could earn their trust, their bonds were lifelong.

They were all still so abuzz from the time spent at the shelter that they were still talking about it two days later as they gathered into the group therapy room for their very last group session.

"I still don't understand why they wouldn't let me get one," Seamus said, dropping into his normal chair between Parvati and Walt. "Draco got a dog, why can't I have a horse?"

Nicola rolled her eyes as she strolled in behind him. "You're ridiculous. Where would you even keep a horse?"

"We have a spare bedroom. I know a witch who's particularly adept at expansion charms," he replied, shooting Hermione a wink as she took her seat.

Hermione shook her head. "Not a chance."

The conversations died down as Walt sat as well, completing their circle and indicating it was time to get started. No longer as unnerving as they'd once been, their group sessions now were much more peaceful, speaking to their level of comfortability with one another and with their own individual pasts.

The silence that filled the room before Walt began speaking was not the same kind that had once caused Hermione so much unease, but instead, she'd learned to find a sort of tranquility in it. It wasn't always as easy as it had become during group, as was the case during most of her time spent at Malfoy Manor when both Lucius and Narcissa were present, but she was now able to embrace it in a way that she'd never been able to do before.

Walt took a moment to look around their circle, pausing at each of them in turn. He breathed a heavy sigh and smiled his usual kind "Walt" smile. "It's our last night together. Hard to believe you're the same people who started here with us all those weeks ago." Walt cut his eyes to Seamus pointedly.

"Yes, we all know I was a little shit."

Walt chuckled as faced the rest of the group. "All of you have come so far since our first time in this room together. Back then, you were all trying your best to juggle everything on your own, struggling to hold it all together, as one of you put it. But, now, I look at you all, and I see a unit, a group of people who have learned more from one another than you've probably learned from us." He motioned toward Alys and Susan sitting to his right.

"One thing that you all seemed to have in common was your need for independence, a self-inflicted necessity to carry it all alone, but now," Walt said, the furrow in his brow fading into an easy smile, "you've learned to lean on one another. You've learned to trust other people, and that's no easy feat after all that you've been through."

Walt allowed his words to sink in for a moment, taking the time to let them ruminate on the strides they'd all taken during their time here. "Before we get started for the night, I did want to take a minute to thank each of you for dedicating yourself to your own healing here. I asked you all those weeks ago to keep an open mind, to address your past and push yourself, and to support your fellow team members, and you each took that challenge head-on."

Susan nodded and joined in, "The fact that each of you is sitting here tonight is proof of that. You each took your healing seriously and allowed yourself to be vulnerable, and I couldn't be more proud of you all."

When the other two turned to her, Alys spoke as well. "It's truly been beautiful watching you all overcome your fears and your past. Thank you so much for allowing us the opportunity to be a part of your story."

"Now," Walt continued, "I know we'll still be meeting together once a week for a bit, just to help ease the transition back into your normal lives, but tonight I'd like for each of you to reflect on your time here." He picked up his clipboard from the floor, laying his hand down flat onto the first page. "These are the notes from our first few sessions in here together, and we're going to revisit what each of you had to say then and compare it to how you feel now. It was a long time ago," he said with a chuckle, "so in case you don't remember, you each came up with an adjective to describe your feelings using the first letter of your name. Hermione," Walt said, his gaze stopping at hers, "care to start us again?"

She should've been expecting this really, but his question took her off guard and she paused for a moment before nodding and thinking back to that first night in this room. She remembered all too well the way her heart had raced as she took in what she presumed to be judgmental looks from those around her. Now, however, she saw only her friends looking back at her.

Walt looked down at the clipboard in front of him. "You said hollow then. How does that compare to where you are now?"

"Well," she began, fidgeting a bit. Despite feeling comfortable with this group now, she didn't think it would ever be particularly easy to talk about her feelings. "I don't feel hollow anymore," she said with a smile. "It sounds cliché really, but can I say happy? Maybe not the exuberant kind, but certainly the contented version of the definition." She looked around at the faces of those she'd once considered strangers at best and estranged acquaintances at worst and realized that Walt was right. She had learned quite a bit during her time here, as much from the others participating as from Alys, Susan, and Walt. She wasn't at all underestimating the work she'd put into overcoming her past, but she owed at least a portion of her recovery to them as much as to herself.

"My goal then was to feel like myself again."

"And do you?"

She'd grown accustomed to Alys's questions by now, and Hermione took a moment to consider this, thinking back to the girl she'd been almost a decade ago, before she'd been tempered with the strain of war.

"No, I don't, but I don't believe I ever will," Hermione said, her eyes meeting Draco's, clouds of grey no longer cold and hardened from the past but the dichotomy of molten metal, warm and comforting, and she remembered what he'd said just a few days prior, his reasoning behind not covering his Mark.

"That's not who I am anymore," she said, "I can't change anything that happened, but I did face it all and eventually overcome it." She looked back to Alys and continued, "You told me before I even came here that it's okay to not be that person anymore. I didn't understand that then, but I do now. I've learned that I am inherently different now, and that's okay." She looked back at Draco. "I'm okay."

When she turned her attention back to Walt with a soft smile, he said, "Thank you, Hermione. I'm so glad that you said that. You certainly have no power over the things that have happened to you in the past or the decisions that you made then, but you can take that and, without sounding too trite, allow yourself to be transformed because of it. With the tools you've learned here and the normalization of how you were feeling as a response to it, you've all done just that. Proof of that," he said, "lies in the transformation of each of your Patronuses." He paused, his face turning to one of confusion. "Patron-i?"

"Patronus-ees," Alys said, a few of them nodding in agreement.

"Patronen?" Dennis asked. "You know, as in children."

"Whatever. You all know what I mean. Seamus," Walt said, a sly grin across his face, "what about you? Still feel stupid?"

Seamus rolled his eyes, but his own smile betrayed him. "I'm pretty sure I said that this was stupid, not I was stupid."

"Semantics," Parvati said.

"But," Seamus drew the word out, enunciating over her, "I do still feel stupid." It was one of those very rare instances where Seamus was serious, one of those times where he was no longer joking or deflecting. He sighed, his gaze dropping into his lap for a moment. "I wasted a year of my life being angry at everyone and everything. I blamed all the wrong people for the things we all went through.

"Now," he said, looking sheepishly between Hermione and Draco, "I've learned that there is a lot more grey in war than black and white and that I'm really not honoring Lav or anyone else who died by being pissed off on their behalf. It took me a tick, but I realized that I'd been pushing people away for so long because I wasn't ready to lose anyone else again. It was safer to keep everyone at arms' length, but it's a helluva lot better caring for people. That arms' length business is for the birds."

They all chuckled alongside him as Parvati reached for his hand. Smiling, he added, "Apparently, now I'm sappy."

"Quite the improvement from stupid," Susan said with a nod.

"True, true," Seamus laughed. "Oh, and my goal then was to get my papers signed. That isn't exactly my goal anymore, but I would still very much like to have that happen."

"Well, you have"—Walt looked down at his watch—"oh, about eighteen hours left. Assuming you don't screw up between now and then, I'm sure we can make that happen."

"Great, and then you can all come and watch me fight people."

Most of them shook their head, Hermione included. She wasn't sure how Seamus was able to get in a ring and punch people after all he'd been through, but if she'd learned nothing else, it was that everyone processes trauma in different ways. For Seamus, maybe fighting on his own terms helped him to work through all that. But she thought there was no way she'd ever be at a place where she could sit in the audience and watch it happen without immediately being reminded of everything she'd seen in the war.

"Parvati, what about you?" Walt looked down to reference the sheet from the front of his clipboard. "You said that you felt panicked and insignificant. And you wanted to find where you fit now." He lifted his eyes back to hers, lying the clipboard back down flat in his lap. "How do you feel now?"

Parvati exhaled, her cheeks puffing out as she breathed. "Well, I still don't know exactly where I fit," she said with a shrug, "but like Hermione said, I think that's okay. I don't feel insignificant anymore, though, I do still feel a little panicked from time to time." The smile slowly faded from her face as she looked down. She lifted her head, her emotions evident on her face. "I've—I've learned that it's okay to miss my sister and my best friend. It's okay to feel that." She paused, biting the inside of her cheek. "But it doesn't have to define me."

Seamus kissed the back of her hand, offering her an encouraging smile as she wiped her face with the back of one sleeve.

"Thank you, Parvati. You're right. I told you all when we first started that there was no fixing you, because you weren't broken." He looked around at them all again. "You just needed help creating new pathways in your mind, understanding your own new reality, and navigating the redefining of yourself. And you've all done that beautifully." He smiled again, his eyes falling on Dennis.

"Dennis, could you share next?"

"Sure," Dennis said, sitting up in his chair.

"You said you felt distant, separate even. How does that compare to the way you feel now?"

"Umm…" Dennis looked toward the ceiling, one foot tapping against the floor as he thought. When he faced the circle again, he wore his normal crooked grin. "Different? I can't think of many adjectives with a D, sorry," he said, his laugh rolling casually from his mouth. "I felt alone, you know, after leaving Hogwarts. I felt like I didn't really have part of myself anymore. I'd lost an entire part of who I was after Colin died and I moved back to the Muggle world with my family. For a while, I thought I'd never come back, like there was nothing for me here. Not anymore. But now, I… I feel like a part of something again. Like I belong."

"You do belong, Dennis," Susan said.

His grin returned as he met her gaze. "So, yeah, I suppose I feel different."

Walt nodded slowly, before turning toward the circle again. "Well, that just leaves you two," he said, pointing toward both Nicola and Draco opposite one another. Neither of them spoke, though they looked at one another, each seemingly waiting for the other to begin.

"Nicola," Walt said, "ladies first?" When she lifted one hand in acquiescence, he said, "You felt—"

"Noisy," she interrupted, her voice contemplative. "I remember." She blinked, her eyes finding a spot on the floor as she considered her words carefully. "I'd be lying if I said there weren't still days when I have trouble getting out of bed because I can't turn it off. But thankfully those days are becoming fewer and fewer. I've never said this in so many words before, not in this room anyway with all of you, but before I came here, I wanted to die." She looked up and Hermione had been expecting tears like Parvati, but all she found on Nicola's face was resolve.

Draco had told her the same thing, and certainly Hermione herself had had days where she didn't even want to keep trying anymore, but she didn't think she'd ever actually wanted to die. Hearing how Nicola, someone who she'd grown to love and care for deeply over the last twelve weeks, had been that low before, felt like a punch to the gut. She'd seen into her past, seen some of her worst memories, so she could definitely understand Nicola's reasoning for wanting to give up.

"I'd lost my family, all of them. My husband, though there were certainly no tears shed over him, and both of my daughters. Daphne wouldn't speak to me, she refused to even see me. And Astoria…" It wasn't until Nicola mentioned Astoria's name that her resolve crumbled and her tears broke free.

"Astoria was gone," she said, closing her eyes for a moment. "I wanted to die. I felt like I had no purpose anymore. I'd been nothing but a wife and a mother for this chunk of my life, and in an instant, all of that was taken from me. I came here because I had nothing else to lose really. And thankfully, being here changed everything for me. I have a relationship with Daphne again, and even though I may still have days where it takes everything I have to put on a smile and force myself to keep moving, at least now, I can. The noises are still there, but now I feel needed again. I want to keep going, even though it's still a struggle some days. I've learned that I can keep going. I thought I didn't have it in me, but it turns out that I do."

"Thank you for sharing that, Nicola," Walt said. "You are needed, not just by your daughter, but by everyone here as well. I don't say that to add another burden onto your shoulders, but to show you how much you mean to other people. How much a part of their lives you've become."

Hermione reached over to take Nicola's hand, smiling up at her and hoping that Nicola understood the weight of Walt's words. He was right again. Hermione knew she could never replace her own mother or the hole that would always be left inside her at the loss of her parents, but Nicola had certainly stepped in to help ease that pain.

She'd shared more with Nicola than she'd ever been able to share with her parents, not just at their ignorance of the Wizarding world but also because of Hermione's need to protect them, to shield them from the worst parts of her world. But with Nicola she didn't have that worry; she'd been able to share with her not only the worst parts of the war but also the worst parts of herself, the trauma that had been born from war, and Nicola had loved her through it.

"You are needed," Walt said again, nodding once more toward her before turning his attention toward Draco. Walt lifted one hand toward him. "Draco, you said you felt defenseless and that you wanted to be in control again. Can you compare that to where you stand now?"

Hermione remembered the way he'd spoken twelve weeks ago, the way he'd delivered his words as if they were lines in a play, devoid of emotions, his eyes fixated on the wall across from him, unflinching and unmoving. He'd been rigid, shielded then. But now, he sat in their circle, as much a part of it now as any of them, his eyes free of his Occlumency shields and his fingers no longer reaching for the comfort of the Malfoy crest sitting on his pinky.

"I still feel defenseless," Draco said, his gaze finding hers. "Every day, I have to fight my desire to hide from it. It'd be so easy to just Occlude like I've always done, but I don't feel like I need to any longer. I've learned that it's okay to be defenseless. I don't have any reason to defend myself anymore. And even when I thought I'd been in control before, I never really was."

He sat up, his elbows resting on his knees as he hastened to add, "That's not to say that I'm not to blame for my own bad decisions, but I had very little control over anything then. Now, I do. I had no control of my life in my past, but I control my future.

"I feel," he continued, "deserving, which is laughable considering that ten years ago, I thought I deserved the world. But I thought that for all the wrong reasons. Based on who my father was or my last name or the amount of gold in my family vaults. I thought I deserved something special, and when all of that turned to ash, I realized how wrong I'd been."

Draco swallowed, his gaze dropping into his lap before he went on. "It took being here to learn that I'm worth more than that. I am more than that. I'm not only capable of loving another person but that I'm capable of being loved back, and that I'm deserving of that." He lifted his eyes, meeting hers again. He spoke as if he were talking to her, not the whole group or to answer Walt's question, but directly to her. "Not because of some arbitrary or senseless reason, but because I'll do everything in my power for the rest of my life to make sure that I am the type of man who has earned that. The type of man who deserves it and never takes it for granted."

Hermione's breath caught in her throat at this open declaration, reminding her of when he'd first told her he loved her.

"I don't want you to ever question how I feel about you."

"You are deserving of that, Draco," Walt said, cutting through her thoughts and drawing her attention. She blinked, remembering where they were and turning her focus back to their last night in group.

"I want to close tonight's session by pointing out something that each of you said that was similar," Walt said, folding his hands in his lap. "Each of you said that you either didn't achieve your original goal or you still feel some semblance of the way you felt when we first started. And yet, none of you feel as if you failed here. Why?"

He looked around at the faces of those in the circle.

"Because," Parvati said slowly, "it's okay to still not have it figured out?"

"Because it's okay," Walt said with a nod. "Thank you, Parvati. You all conceded that it's okay. It's okay to feel stupid or panicked or defenseless. It's okay to not be the person you were a decade ago. You've all learned one thing that we want everyone in the world, wizarding or otherwise, to understand, and that's that it's okay." Walt lifted his hands in emphasis as he spoke to them.

"All of you felt as if you didn't belong or that something was wrong with you or that you were broken, but instead of fixing those things, you learned that it's okay to feel them. It's normal, expected even, to feel them."

He dropped his hands back into his lap, lacing his fingers together. "We talked about the difference in thoughts, emotions, and actions when we first started here, do you remember? You really have no control over your emotions. You can't help how you feel about something. You can, however, control how you respond to it, to some degree. When your brain is being hijacked by these wayward thoughts, it's hard to do that though. But, by controlling your thoughts, changing the way you approach yourself and the things you've gone through, you can change your life."

Walt's eyes landed on Hermione last of all as he nodded again. "And that's exactly what each of you have done."