9. Alone

Hermione is alone for the first time since-

when exactly

-since her last shower at Shell Cottage 48 hours ago, or really since that gruesome one hour after she left her childhood home and erased her life from her parents history, before she reached the warmth of the Burrow.

She realises it's the first time in almost a year when she has the luxury to take time to shower. She doesn't have to think about Horcruxes and Voldemort or her parents, or death. Though when she closes her eyes, all she sees is all the bodies aligned in the Great Hall and it's too much. She doesn't want to think. She desperately wills her mind to go blank.

She removes her layers of clothes carefully. Fire and curses have ripped the fabric and reached her skin. She rapidly catches sight of her body in the mirror before looking away.

She looks like a ghost, bruised and battered.

As soon as the water touches her skin, she hisses. Pain radiates from the opened wounds and burns all over her body. She welcomes it, allows the water to clean her body. Her soul.

She doesn't know how long she stays under the spray, but when finally she steps out, she feels numb.

Almost mechanically, she applies Dittany all over her skin. Some burns and wounds scar, criss crossing her body everywhere.

They may never fade.

In a foolish attempt, she massages more Dittany onto the scar on her arm -Mudblood- but with no surprise, the word stay there marring her skin angrily.

Magic is darker than what she ever thought it could be the day she got her Hogwarts letter.

She feels older, aged beyond her years. She certainly doesn't feel like a nineteen years old.

She's exhausted.


A/N : Well. Alas the fluff didn't last...