Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me
The Beatles - Across the Universe
--
Hermione sat on the floor, gazing down at the scars on her arms. She couldn't remember how she had got all of them. Frowning, she traced a particularly big one running across her left wrist. That was from her first week at St. Mungo's. She had broken a mirror and used the biggest shard. They had moved her into a restricted ward after that, without visitors. After the mirror, it was a fingernail file she had bewitched to become razor sharp. Then she had conjured pocket knives and razors... anything she could think of. In the end, they bound her magic and she was moved to a windowless room, completely bare except for a bed.
---
"Do you like me?"
Ron looked nervously at Hermione. They were in the middle of heaving their trunks on to the Hogwarts Express for the journey back to King's Cross after they had just finished their sixth year.
"I-I mean... erm.. as more than a friend?"
Hermione had looked at him surprisedly.
Ron blushed a furious shade of crimson and stammered on. "I just.. I mean, we'll be going with Harry soon to find the last Horcruxes.. and I just thought.. in case we-- you should know. That I do..." He looked at the floor, his ears reddening to match his face, as he said almost inaudibly, "..like you."
When they got off the train that day, Ron and Hermione were holding hands.
---
"Miss Granger, it's time for your Sleeping Potion."
Hermione was still sitting on the floor, tracing her scarred arms. She didn't look up.
The handsome, dark-haired healer entered and sat down on the bed in front of her. He bent down until his eyes were level with hers. "Miss Granger... we want to help you. But we can't do that unless you let us."
He always said that before he gave her the potion.
His eyes were locked on hers, but her eyes were focused stubbornly on the floor. "Fine," he said, leaning back. He placed a small glass vial full of a purple potion on the floor next to her. "It's Unbreakable glass, so don't get any ideas," he said, eying her arms. He got up, looked at her for a moment, and left.
Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione followed the Healer's feet untill he had closed the door. When she heard his footsteps trail away, she picked up the glass vial. She stroked it's smooth surface with trembling fingers. Dreamless sleep. No Ron. No more woeful nightmares, disguised as beautiful dreams of alternate realities that might have been. She drained the vial in one gulp. The room began to blur almost immediately. She couldn't even muster the strength to drag herself over to the bed, but slumped down on the floor, her arms and legs caught in awkward positions underneath her exhausted body.
"No! - Let me go! NOOO!" Hermione jerked awake.
Someone was screaming in the hallway outside her door.
"Stop! LET ME GO! Let go of me, you fucking-" there was a loud kick on Hermione's door, followed by the scurrying of feet and several yells of "Impedimenta!" followed by "Incarcerous!"
Getting groggily to her feet, Hermione stumbled over to the door and opened it very slightly. She frowned as she tried to make her eyes focus on the slim figure laying immobile on the floor, bound by thick ropes. He was unconscious and his silvery blond hair was splayed across his face. Even though he looked older, even though his hair was longer and had lost it's once glowing sleekness, and even though she hadn't quite woken up yet, her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened in instant recognition.
She had always known Malfoy was alive. After the night Dumbledore died, no one ever saw him again. When Snape had come back a year later to give the remaining members of The Order Voldemort's location, he had said Malfoy was safe. Hidden away somewhere in the muggle world. She remembered feeling bitter satisfaction at the irony of his situation - forced to live with the people he most detested.
As she stood in the doorway, staring at his motionless body, she wondered what had brought him back. Sure, Voldemort was gone, but there were still plenty of people who wouldn't mind seeing him dead. His father's old enemies, fanatic former followers of The Order - hell - even she wouldn't shed a tear if his body turned up in a ditch somewhere.
The Healers surrounding him looked at each other. A short, bald one said to the Healer who had given Hermione the Sleeping Potion, "Adair? Would you like to do the honors?" Adair raised his wand. "Mobilicorpus." The Healers walked along with Malfoy's body bobbing next to them in midair, descending down the hallway.
Hermione watched them disappear around the corner.
---
"Well, it was about damn time!" Fred grinned and patted Ron on the back. "Didn't think you had the stones to tell her--"
"Fred!" Mrs. Weasly shot him a menacing look.
"Oh, come on, mum, we all knew he liked her--"
"Ever since we first saw them together--" quipped George from across the table, his mouth full of treacle tart.
It was a late summer's night in the beginning of august, and Harry, Hermione and Ron had arrived at The Burrow earlier that day. Naturally, Mrs. Weasly had prepared a huge dinner, and everyone was gathered around the kitchen table, eating dessert.
"So, ickle Ronnikins - if I may call you that," said Fred airily, "-could I suggest that you name your first child after your most handsome brother-"
"Oh, give it a rest," interrupted Ginny wearily. She turned to Ron. "So, how was your stay at the Dursley's?"
"Don't ask!" replied Ron, sounding relieved that the subject was no longer about his and Hermione's possible offspring. "Harry's elephantine cousin is the stupidest git I ever met--"
"I see you've already forgotten about Percy," said George.
--
Later in the summer, before they had gone with Harry to find the first Horcrux, Ron and Hermione had sat outside in the grass, in back of The Burrow. Ron was pulling a loose string from the frazzled sleeve of his robes.
"Do you think he'll be able to do it?"
"Do what?" asked Hermione, knowing perfectly well what he meant.
"Kill him. D'you think Harry will be able to kill him?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Well, Dumbledore obviously thought so..." She pulled a few blades of grass out of the ground. "... and he has us."
Ron smiled. "Yeah."
--
Sometimes at night, as she lay in her bed at St. Mungo's, trying not to sleep, she wondered if he still would have done it if she hadn't said that.
---