Hermione missed breakfast due to the agony in her hands. It felt like they were on fire inside of her skin, like the very nerves were lit up with flame, screaming and yelling at her. Her earth magic was helping her to block the nerve pain, but it was exhausting to do so constantly, and she was already running on very little sleep.

Madame Pomfrey spent most of the morning casting careful spells to repair nerves in her arms and hands one by one, each one cast sending a streak of electricity and fire through her arm that she couldn't block out. After she was done, she coated Hermione's skin in a salve before carefully wrapping her hands in bandages, which also took a lot of time. It was only at lunchtime that Hermione was able to finally see her friends.

"Keep those on," Madame instructed, as Hermione awkwardly changed into clean robes a House Elf had brought up. "If that salve doesn't properly sink in, you could end up with garish permanent scars, to say nothing of the nerve damage you might have!"

In her eagerness to find out how it had all finished, Hermione went to lunch as soon as she was finally released. She paused at the entrance to the Great Hall, scanning the room, before moving to the Slytherin table and plopping down next to Blaise. She was exhausted already, the pain she had sapping the little energy she had from her quickly, but she was glad to see her friends.

"Hey," she said, smiling tiredly. "How did it—"

"Merlin, Hermione!" Hermione looked up to see Tracey, her eyes wide with horror. "What did you do to your hands?!"

Hermione looked down at her hands, heavily bandaged, with shiny red skin with blackened lightning trails still showing on her forearms.

"Umm," she said. "I burned them."

"You burned them?"

Tracey had her hands in hers a moment later, fretting over them and asking if they hurt, while Millie looked sickened.

"Burned?" she said, ill. "How?"

"I made a mistake," she admitted. "I miscalculated how strong a magical source would be. I'll be okay, though."

Tracey and Millie rolled their eyes, and Tracey huffed "Hermione" in exasperation before giving her a hug and reluctantly returning to her seat, sniffing and going "honestly" and muttering into her sandwich. She kept shooting worried looks at Hermione, but she left her to eat in peace.

Blaise was looking at her in amusement, a smile playing on his lips.

"How was it with Snape?" he teased, and Hermione groaned.

"I've got detention for a week," she moaned. "How fair is that? Do the purest Light magic ritual ever to be seen in these halls, and I get detention."

"You're exaggerating," Blaise said mildly.

"Okay, so not the purest Light magic ritual," Hermione grumbled, "but still! It has to rank pretty high up there!"

"Your motives were not pure," Blaise laughed. "Entirely selfish, Hermione. It may have been a Light ritual, but your magic is Grey."

"It's violet, thank you very much," Hermione said snippily. "And we helped Myrtle, didn't we? That wasn't selfish."

Blaise paused to consider.

"That's true," he admitted. He looked at her sideways. "I didn't expect that from you."

Hermione blinked.

"Why not?" she asked.

Blaise shrugged.

"It didn't really benefit you in any way," he said. "You tend to just do things for yourself, or for those you care about."

Hermione froze.

...what?

Hermione had a fairly accurate self-image, she liked to think. She was smart, she was ambitious, she cared fiercely about her friends, but she was aware of the pitfalls in her personality too. She had a tendency to rush into things and make bold moves without analyzing all the possible repercussions, she had a cruel revenge streak a mile wide, and she was entirely too worried about what others thought of her. Hermione knew she wasn't perfect, that trying to be was an impossible task, but she tried to improve herself as a person bit by bit as she went.

But she had never, ever thought of herself as selfish.

And Blaise's remark hurt.

Of all mornings, she thought dimly, did this have to come up this morning? When she was already exhausted, her arms aching with dulled pain? Did they really have to do this now, when Hermione knew she wouldn't be able to hold back much?

But Blaise had made his remark, and it needed answered.

Mentally shaking her head, trying to clear it, Hermione looked back at Blaise, who was grinning at her, teasing, but Hermione had recoiled.

"Are you saying you think I only do things for my own benefit?" she asked quietly. She tried to keep her voice even, neutral, but there was a steely note in her tone that couldn't be denied. "That I'm a selfish person?"

Blaise's eyes went wide as he seemed to realize his error, and he hurriedly tried to backtrack.

"No, I'm not—just what you tend to focus your energy on—"

"I helped rescue Harry from the muggles, at great personal risk to myself!" Hermione said, trying not to get too defensive. "I helped Neville get a new wand—"

"Yes, but they're 'yours', you know?" Blaise tried. "You do things for those you care about, sure, because they're 'yours', but otherwise—"

"I made 350 galleons worth of books with nothing but my magic and sheer will for the Weasleys!" Hermione snapped, her patience waning fast. "You can't claim that they're 'mine', can you?"

Blaise winced. "No, but—"

"And Susan's glasses," Hermione went on. She knew her voice was getting wavery with anger and emotion, but she couldn't hold it back. "I didn't even know Susan then. I just helped because I could. Not because I had any ulterior motive – just because I could." She was livid, on a roll now. "Those who have the ability to take action to help others, they have the responsibility to take that action! So I did, and I helped her change her life!"

"Easy Hermione," Blaise said, worry in his eyes. "I didn't mean—"

"And last night!" Her voice got louder as she spoke, her anger building, and she glared at him. "I scorched my nerves binding myself to the spirit of the school so others could have the choice to pass on! I might have permanent nerve damage because of it, but I gladly accepted that cost, so others could have that choice again!" There were furious tears in her eyes, now, as she stood up. "You can't say I give a damn about the ghosts of the school – I don't even know them all – I just wanted to help!"

Hiding her face, Hermione turned and fled from the Great Hall.

"Hermione—!"

Blaise's aggravated voice called out after her, but Hermione ran from the Great Hall, dashing tears from her eyes as she escaped. She was furious that she had tears in her eyes, and even more furious she cared so much about Blaise's good opinion that she was so upset in the first place.

Unable to hold back her emotions for much longer, Hermione ran out the front doors and around the side of the school to one of her favorite courtyards – hidden from sight and out of the way – where she promptly burst into tears.

She wasn't a bad person! How dare Blaise say he thought she was selfish! All people were a little selfish, and that was just natural, but she was good! She helped people when she could, and she did, and just because Blaise hadn't noticed her doing good things didn't mean it was okay for him to make assumptions like that…! How dare he! How dare he!

She hiccuped, choking on her own sobs.

Hermione felt just so frustrated with herself for crying over this. She knew part of it was she was exhausted and still in pain, so everything seemed more dramatic than it was – but knowing why she was so easily upset didn't seem to help her heart from aching and her eyes from crying. Even being able to rationalize it, she still felt upset, and it wouldn't just stop because her brain had said so.

A gentle wind touched her hair, as if the air itself was trying to comfort her, and Hermione could feel the protective nature of the earth reaching for the earth elemental inside of her. Giving in, Hermione laid flat on the ground, face down, cradling her head in her arms and letting her magic out as she cried. The earth elemental reached into the ground as the air reached out toward the sky, and the feeling of being connected to the universe slowly helped calm Hermione, and with a deep breath, she slowly settled herself down, sinking inside herself to look at her magic.

She could feel the air and earth magics inside of her outstretched, connecting with the world. Her core was still spinning and wobbling, ever-unstable, but somehow, her entire magical container wasn't flickering and unstable anymore. Her walls were solid, now, and though her core spun like mad, her magic itself felt fairly calm.

"We all felt that, you know."

Hermione looked up to see Luna Lovegood looking down at her. Hermione blinked.

"What?"

Luna sat down next to her on the grass, tucking her knees up against her chest.

"We all felt that," she said. "There was this sharp burst of pain and energy, like you had gotten hurt, and we all looked over to see you running from the hall in tears…"

She offered Hermione a sad smile, and Hermione rolled over and sat up, rubbing her eyes furiously.

"The bond isn't supposed to work like that. It wasn't like I was actually in pain," she said. "I was just—he hurt my feelings—"

"If your heart is in pain," Luna said, "why did you think we wouldn't feel your pain?"

Hermione bit her lip. Luna tilted her head.

"Did you know our bodies can't register the difference between threats?" she asked. "Our minds respond to all perceived threats the same, whether it's a hungry tiger or an angry friend."

Hermione looked up at Luna.

"…I think I read something about that once," Hermione admitted. "The same fight-or-flight responses flare up and make us scared."

Luna nodded. "So if the bond recognizes when one of us is injured or in pain…"

"…it registers with the others, even if it's not an actual threat," Hermione said dully. She wiped her eyes again. "I didn't think of that."

"It's alright," Luna assured her. "I'm sure we'd all much rather know when one of us is hurting, emotional or physical, Hermione."

"I don't," Hermione said viciously. "I don't want anyone to know when I'm hurting like this."

Luna looked at her kindly.

"We're your friends, Hermione," she said. "We're here for you to lean on us. Why would you not come to us over a pain of your heart the same as you would a pain of your body?"

There was a silence, the wind rustling in the trees.

"Because I don't want to think about it like that," Hermione said quietly. "I don't want to think about why his remark hurt so badly. I don't want to consider why I would have been able to shrug it off if Tracey or Theo had said it, and why I couldn't when Blaise did."

"Didn't we have this conversation?" Luna said mildly. "I thought we—"

"Yes, and I did accept it, and I was doing fine," Hermione snapped. "I was just enjoying spending time with him and sharing in his light and all that, and not making it into a big deal, but then he said that, and—" she broke off, wiping her eyes furiously once again "—and it's not like he feels the same about sharing my light if he's making remarks about how he thinks I'm selfish, is it?"

Luna paused. "With Blaise, I'm not sure being 'selfish' is a bad thing to him, really…"

"Oh, be quiet," Hermione snapped. "Let me sulk and mourn in peace."

Luna watched her quietly as Hermione wiped her eyes and sniffed over and over again, refusing to let anymore tears come out. Luna didn't leave, though, and once Hermione had managed to stop crying, she moved over to rest her hand on Hermione's shoulder, avoiding her bandaged hands.

Hermione could feel the steady thrum of Luna's magic though her hand. It was peaceful, calm, and slowly Hermione felt her own emotions start to calm, accepting the pain she'd felt instead of fighting against it.

"My heart hurts," Hermione finally admitted, some time later. "And I don't like that its hurting."

Luna gave her a sideways hug, sitting next to her on the grass still.

"Now that you've admitted that to yourself," Luna said, "it can start to heal."