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"Watch it," Malfoy snaps at her in Potions.

It's Hermione's birthday and so naturally she is in a sulky mood. There are four reasons for this. First of all, The Daily Prophet has got wind of it and has chosen to do a third-page splash on her re-sorting into Slytherin to mark the occasion, thinly covering its disdain for that by lauding her supposed attributes and successes. It means she will be dealing with post from strangers for at least the next week. Some of it will be dangerous. Secondly, she's opened her presents, which had included a box wrapped with more love than skill from her boyfriend containing a book she already owns and has, in fact, previously recommended to him, and a silver bangle with an amethyst that she can't imagine ever wearing. Despite that - or because of it - she is wearing it anyway. She tells herself to be grateful.

But of course it's too big and so of course it slides off and almost falls into the cauldron she is sharing with Malfoy. Seeker-quick, he catches it and that's when he hisses at her to be careful. He's right, which makes her even more irritated. She curses herself for taking the time to drop her post back in the dorm, for pausing to stare at the card from her parents again and wonder if they still mean it when they sign love, Mum and Dad. That's the third thing.

No. That's not it. It's not that they don't love her. It's this.

It had taken the Australian Ministry about six days to find them. She'd unravelled her own enchantment in six hours. And then she'd spent six weeks living with them at home, watching them flinch when she raised her wand to do the washing up or summon the newspaper.

[Home, which doesn't feel like home any more, is where her parents can't hide the fear in their eyes. Home is where they look at the daughter they love, always, and see the woman who enchanted them so powerfully they'd spent almost an entire year in another country not knowing she existed. Home, where they can't hide that they think they've lost her to a world they don't understand.]

She'd gone to Grimmauld Place for the rest of the summer. Harry had offered her a room, and she'd accepted even though she hated that house. It was a short trip to her parents' house in Highgate. Close enough that she could see them often, far enough away not to hear snatches of their worried conversations, to witness in brutal reality the rebuilding of their lives.

Love, Mum and Dad. She'd had a little cry over the card and been two minutes late to Potions and - here is the fourth thing - of course there was only one spare desk and it was next to him, and now she is stuck with a surly Malfoy holding her bracelet.

"This doesn't look like something you'd choose," he says, turning it over and over with his long, quick fingers. She's never noticed his hands before. Strong, capable. Expressive. Pianist's hands, her mum would call them. "Birthday present from the Weasel?"

"Not that it's any of your business, Malfoy, but yes." She's gone for airy and unconcerned but she can see his smirk and knows she hasn't nailed it. She tries not to dwell on the idea of Malfoy having opinions about her taste in jewellery.

"What a moron," he says, emphasising the second half of the word with unnecessary relish. He looks genuinely amused as he continues, "Shall I throw it in the potion so you don't have to wear it?"

Hermione almost can't help it. She almost laughs. But she loves Ron, fiercely and protectively, and so she doesn't. She snatches it off him. She doesn't put it back on though, just drops it into the tiny bag she wears tied around her waist.

[The bag that has a tent, a month's worth of food, a spare wand, a bag of clothes and a pouch of money in it. She's fine though. She is.]

She doesn't have a good comeback and she knows he can tell she almost laughed anyway. She grasps at straws.

"If you crush those instead of chopping them it'll be much more effective," she says snootily, eyeing his board. "Maybe focus on that instead of my love-life."

He's actually a good Potions partner, which Hermione finds much more annoying than if she'd had to help him. A fifth reason to sulk, not that she needs it. A sixth: still being at school at nineteen.

"You really are an unbearable little swot, aren't you? No wonder they didn't come back with you."

This is a violation of their strange, unspoken truce. Her head flashes up. He's frozen next to her, staring down. She can't read his face.

The game is over.

"At least they had a choice," she says, sticking the knife straight into his jugular, very quietly and very calmly. Draco Malfoy is on parole. He has to be here. Hermione doubts he would be otherwise.

They finish the rest of the lesson in silence.

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She meets Harry and Ron in Hogsmeade the weekend before Halloween. Seventh and Eighth Years are allowed down to the village every weekend, but it's the first time they've come up to visit. Auror training, Ron has explained in his letters when she's suggested they get a room for the weekend, offered to come to London, is brutal and often on weekends. Aurors don't work nine to five, five days a week, so neither do the trainees. Hermione thinks they could have found a workaround, longs for a night wrapped around something that's not her own thoughts. But he and Harry book that weekend off and so that's that.

Hermione wants to see Harry too, of course she does. But she's nineteen and she's survived a war and she's just started having regular sex with the boy she fancied for three, possibly four, years. She wants to see her boyfriend. We'd have plenty of time together if you hadn't gone back to Hogwarts, he has pointed out ruthlessly in one letter when she pushes him on it. So she leaves it. Fighting that way is pointless.

Ginny is finishing Quidditch practice so Hermione heads to Hogsmeade alone. Not to the Three Broomsticks, of course, it's far too busy there. They've got a private room in the Hog's Head instead. There won't be any privacy otherwise. Hermione slips out early, so no one can ask her about her plans. The moment anyone hears Harry Potter is in Hogsmeade they'll be mobbed by everyone who knows any one of them well enough to say hello.

"Granger," Aberforth grunts. She and Ginny have been in a couple of times since the start of term. He never gets friendlier. She likes him for it.

"Aberforth," she returns. "How are the goats?"

"Still there," he acknowledges. "You're the first one. Through the back."

It might be a private room but it's hardly luxurious. It's empty, bar the old chairs with their brown leather cracked and worn and the scarred and stained table. But the fire is blazing merrily, keeping out the October chill. Hermione has reason to know that its usual occupants are there for some highly suspect card games. They don't start till later though. She cleans it with a couple of flicks of her wand, and sets a few candles floating around the room to cheer it up.

Aberforth pokes his head in and gazes in horror at the polish gleaming on the newly-exposed wooden floor.

"It took years to get it like that," he tells her.

"It was disgusting," she says firmly. "I'm sure your patrons won't mind."

Still scowling, he plonks down a dusty bottle of butterbeer.

"You lot gonna want food?"

"Yes please," she says, thinking of Ron's appetite. "Whatever you've got is fine. Can I swap this for something a bit less sweet?"

He grunts with something that might almost be approval, and shuffles back out. Aberforth returns moments later with an even dustier bottle and a filthy glass. Hermione eyes him, suspecting he's picked it deliberately, but doesn't comment.

"Thanks," she says. When he's gone she cleans the glass and inspects the bottle. It's a Hag's Nose, one of the nicer Wizarding beers, dark and refreshing. It's only 11am but she opens it anyway, and pulls out a book.

She's half a chapter into Banishing Beauty, the latest Wizarding fiction bestseller, and as far as she can tell, completely atrocious, when Harry and Ron finally tumble through the fireplace.

"Sorry, sorry," Harry says, "had a late night."

Ron pulls her in for a kiss. "Missed you," he says. In the aftermath the room flickers with that awkwardness they still haven't solved now that they're trying this new dynamic.

Aberforth, who she decides she really is fond of, reappears.

"Don't leave the room," he tells them, banging down a tray with a couple of drinks and three plates loaded with pie, mashed potato and gravy. There are no greens. She opens her mouth, meets his glinting blue eyes, and closes it. "I don't want my pub overrun with idiot kids."

"We won't," Hermione promises, grinning at Harry. A rush of love steals up over her and she leans over to squeeze his hand.

"Good spread," Ron comments around a mouthful of pie, clearing his plate at a speed that only made sense if you had to fight off five older brothers at mealtimes.

"Tell me all about Auror training," she begs. It's far too early for lunch but she picks at it anyway. She'd woken up early, breaking out of a nightmare in the dark pre-dawn. The days are short in Scotland now, and the Great Hall's ceiling doesn't lighten until after breakfast even on days she gets a good sleep.

So they tell her, and for a little while, in that warm room, full of warm food and cool beer, Hermione feels like a girl again. Ginny joins them and demolishes a plate and a half of pie and mash.

"Another round?" Aberforth asks. He's already got the bottles.

"Thanks Aberforth," Harry says.

"What's that you're on?" Ron asks Hermione, noticing her bottle is different. He wrinkles his nose. "Oh Hag's Nose. I dunno how you can drink that stuff."

"I don't like butterbeer," she says. It's not a big deal. It's just a bit sweet for her.

"Since when?" he frowns.

She shrugs. "I never really did, just didn't know what options there were."

"And I spose you learned about the options in Slytherin," he mutters. His ears are red. She's too confused to be annoyed.

"No, Ginny and I come down sometimes. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he says. "You're just a bit different these days."

This is a bit of a leveller. They've gone through a war, so she feels she's entitled to be a bit different, but she doesn't want to mention it. She imagines asking what does that mean? They'd be straight into bickering again, like they'd been all summer. She leaves it.

"Let's go for a walk," she suggests quietly instead. "Give Harry and Ginny some privacy." The other couple has pulled back to the two armchairs near the fire and are engrossed in a play-by-play of some Quidditch set piece Ginny is teaching her team.

Ron lets himself be persuaded out into the village with the promise of a snog to make up for the weather. He's looking handsome in new robes, she notes as they step into the light. A few other girls notice too, she can tell. Not all the looks are just drawn by seeing them together.

"Do you reckon it'll die down?" she asks as they come out of Honeydukes a few seconds after entering. It was packed with younger students, one of whom had squealed 'that's Ron Weasley' and knocked over a jar of Bonfire Toffees, which had promptly caught on fire. The fire had spread to his cloak and Hermione had ducked straight back out of the shop.

Ron is gasping with laughter. "Do you want it to?" He leans back against the wall of the shop, shoulders heaving. "One of the funniest fucking things I've ever seen. Did you see his stupid face?"

Hermione can't help joining him. It remains funny for the next half hour as they stroll around the village. Every time they stop laughing, Ron imitates the kid's face and collapses again.

She pulls him into an alleyway between two houses. It's about as private as the village gets.

"Want to go to the Shrieking Shack?" she murmurs, running a finger up his chest.

"The shack ?" he asks, looking horrified.

"I can't think of anywhere else private to go," she says. "And I'd really like to."

He looks down, then realisation dawns. His ears go red, and his eyes go a little hazy. She smirks.

"Oh right, well. Yeah I suppose. We could er charm it to look different or something. Not sure I'll get in the mood thinking about when we were last there."

"Deal," she says. Her skin is thrumming with the promise of meeting another's.

Awake.

It's almost enough. The wooden wall digs into her back. She hopes it'll leave a mark. Something to keep her in her own body. She can't turn her mind off.

[At the start of the summer, after the battle, Hermione had woken from her bad dreams and turned to Ron and he'd quietened her with his kisses. They'd slid quickly into physical intimacy once they'd started. That first kiss down, their feelings acknowledged. It had been a match on an oil spill. She'd spent lazy afternoons lying in the sun counting his freckles and she'd felt like a girl, just a girl.]

She likes his kisses, but she's still in her head. And so when he's inside her, gasping how good she feels and how much he likes her, she can't stop her mind cataloguing all the things she's seen, all the things she has to do.

It feels good. It doesn't feel good enough. The feeling good rises, builds, plateaus, and ebbs. She wants to cry. She holds him to her after so he can't see and stares at the opposite wall and tries not to think about how she never comes close to that peak she had felt that one time with his mouth on her, right back at the start.

They'll get there, she thinks, when she's better.

"That was amazing," Ron says, kissing her. She loves the part after, the feel of being in his arms, of feeling skin against hers. Safe. Cherished. A girl again. "Was it for you?"

She doesn't know how to talk to him about this. His physical confidence - all his confidence really when it comes to her - feels so fragile. She's scared to poke it, see it crash back down.

"Mmm. We should get back," she says softly. "We've been gone ages."

As they dress she thinks fondly how he still hasn't lost his awkwardness around her, how his years burn while he gets dressed even after fucking her against a wall in the Shrieking Shack.

She loves him. She can't understand why it's not enough yet.

We'll get there.

When they get back to the door of the Hog's Head, Malfoy, Nott and Zabini are stepping out. Ron bristles immediately. Hermione thinks about the flush of Ron's cheeks and her wild hair and wants to die. Then she reminds herself that she doesn't care what these three think at the best of times and pulls her chin up haughtily.

"What the fuck are they all doing here?" Ron hisses. "You didn't tell me about this."

Malfoy's eyes swoop down her body in a way she doesn't remember them doing before. They drag back up, slowly. Deliberately.

"Granger," he says, cordially, like a greeting, like it's something they do, and steps back to hold the door open for her. She knows exactly what he's doing, knows he's going to make a show of watching her pass him to get under Ron's skin. He has a gift for reading people's weaknesses, the poisoned twin of empathy.

"Pathetic, Ferret," she hisses, glaring up at him as she steps past, wishing she wasn't so much shorter. He smirks down. But let him look, let him try to wind Ron up.

It works, though, that's the thing. Winds Ron up like clockwork. [How could you not tell me they were here, He's a fucking Death Eater Hermione and you're living with him, Did you see how he looked at you, Harry do you think-]

He's still angry with her when he steps back into the Floo an hour later.

Forty-nine minutes after that her wand is at Malfoy's neck. They're in a corridor in the Dungeons. She's got the Map now, Harry finally, finally bringing himself to let it go for a little while. So it was easy to corner the blond, hunt him down like the rat he is.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she snarls. "Haven't you done enough?"

"Merlin, Granger, how could I possibly have resisted?"

"Aren't you -" she doesn't know what she's trying to ask, why she's so angry, and she stutters. Aren't you sorry? Aren't you ashamed? Haven't you changed at all?

Malfoy steps forward, brushing her wand to the side. He's menacing, suddenly, even though he hasn't drawn his own. He's so tall.

She doesn't just feel awake. She feels alive.

"I don't think you're angry with me, Granger," he murmurs. He's very close to her now, his grey eyes almost charcoal-dark in the dim stone tunnel. "I think you're angry that your idiot boyfriend is fool enough to rise to something that obvious. I think you're angry that he's not here. And I think you're angry that you had to fight a fucking war."

She holds his gaze. She's so angry she can hardly breathe. It feels good. His eyes flick down. She spins around before she can think about where they were landing, and walks away.

"And by the way, Slytherins aren't fucking house-elves. We don't need you here to save us," he calls after her. She pauses, and turns back.

Awake.

"You protect them then," she says lowly. "They all look to you. I can see them, waiting for you to do something. But you can't, can you? Because you were stupid and blind enough to follow your father into a war you didn't believe in and couldn't win."

Alive.

His mask fractures, disintegrates, reforms.

"Stay out of my way," she yells and this time she does walk away.

"Gladly," he snarls after her.

Seen.

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OK I will keep posting here as requested 3