Hermione woke to an aching all over her body, the room around her was blindingly bright. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the outline of a figure, it morphed from the outline of a person to a tall, skinny man with his hands reaching out. She recognised Cygnus Black's face and began to scream, he reached forward slowly, then retracted his hand as she began to kick at him. She tried to get up from where she was laying but a force held her down as she began to pick up the vast amount of voices around her.
"Hermione, Hermione please sweetie" A soft familiar voice cooed near her side.
She stopped thrashing and blinked her eyes, finally they adjusted to the room around her. The man at the end of her bed was in fact not Cygnus Black, instead it was a lanky man in doctors robes clinging to his wand and clipboard. She looked down at her feet and saw her mother's hand rubbing at her ankle, trying to soothe a point where the invisible force held down her daughter. The look on her mother's face was devastating; she looked between the doctors and Hermione with such confusion and horror that Hermione wanted to reach out. But hard as Hermione had tried, she couldn't move her arms or legs, she realised there must be some sort of spell holding her down and so she tried to calm herself. Soon she was still.
"we're here sweetie, it's mum and dad" Hermione's father stood next to her mother and forced a smile.
Hermione went to talk, but no words would come out, she flapped her mouth and then stopped trying. She looked over to the tall medic at the end of her bed. He seemed calmer now that she had stopped thrashing around, he gave a nod to a nearby nurse and suddenly the invisible weight that had been pinning her to the bed lifted.
"Miss Granger, I'm afraid that some damage had been done to your vocal cords from the incident, we have something to treat it but we had to wait until you were awake so you could swallow it" The doctor took a small vial from nearby and walked to her bedside. "here" he handed it to her, and Hermione noticed that he was being mindful not to touch her.
She held it to her nose briefly and then drank it in one, the scratchy feeling in her throat that she had only just noticed disappeared the instant the cool liquid passed down her throat. She handed the vial back to the doctor.
He looked at her sadly and then cleared his throat "I am afraid that the other injury you sustained during the incident, well, we weren't able to fully heal it." He looked down at Hermione's bandaged forearm. "the blade used was a very ancient heirloom engrained with powerful dark magic. Sadly, it means the wounds it creates will only ever scar, never heal. I'm very sorry" He moved back from the bed and gave Hermione's parents a respectful nod as he went for the door. "I will come back to give you a last check over in a while, then you can go home." Then he and the nurses in the room walked out together.
Hermione looked down at the bandage on her arm and felt the acidic feeling of sick crawl up her throat. It had all felt like a nightmare she had woken from, but now there was something concrete to show it was all real, and it would never go away. She felt as though she should cry or yell, but her body didn't seem to want to. Instead she stared at her arm until it didn't feel as though it was a part of her body anymore.
"The doctor told us what it means" Hermione's mother was looking between her face and her bandaged arm. "I never realised it was like that in…your world"
My world, Hermione thought, the world her parents could barely touch, the world where she was deemed less than and branded for it. Because some people thought that some blood was better than others. She gave her mum no reply, she only laid back her head and stared straight ahead.
Her parents exchanged a look for a moment before her father spoke "Dumbledore has explained that it's safe for you at Hogwarts, but you don't have to go back 'Mione, not if you don't want to".
"I have to go back" She murmured it softly "I have to finish school". She fell silent again.
Suddenly her mother broke into sobs and covered her face briefly with her hands "why didn't you tell us Hermione" she leaned forward and held Hermione's hand. "You didn't tell us anything about a killer wizard or about the prejudice against people with non-magic parents" she heaved in a moment before continuing "or that girl Hermione, who put you in that situation in the first place"
Hermione turned to look at her mother and now tears sprang from her eyes as well "I didn't want you to think I was in danger; you wouldn't have wanted me to go back to school"
"But you were in danger Hermione, you and your friends were more involved than any other students. Hermione's father spoke now. "since your very first year, can you blame us if we'd have wanted to rethink Hogwarts"
"You don't understand what my life is like, no one does" She choked up "I tried to show one person, all parts of me and I ended up with this" She thrust her arm up and now started to sob.
Her parents had nothing left to say, they had never seen their daughter so undone, and after all they had learnt, it felt almost as though they were looking at a stranger. "I'm sorry Hermione" Her mother said, and she leaned in to scoop Hermione into a firm hug and stayed like that until Hermione could cry no more.
When she got home, Hermione spent the Christmas holiday mostly in her room ripping down wallpaper and repainting her bedroom. The minute she was home, almost everything she owned felt alien and so she decided to change it. The young pink décor reminded her of how naïve she had been, how trusting and hopeful. The rest of the time she spent reading or talking with her parents, she decided to tell them everything, from Bellatrix and Voldemort to the wizarding world in general. On a couple of occasions Sirius brought Harry and Ron to visit, which was strange for everyone to begin with, but after a while it was quite nice seeing the closest people to her getting to know each other. They helped fill in the blanks for Hermione's parents and Harry explained why he had been the focus of Voldemort's plans, having just discovered that he was a horcrux. Hermione was horrified for him, but he made a passing joke about the perks of parseltongue and moved the conversation off of himself. She supposed he would talk more when he was ready, after all the threat of it was at a low now. Given that all known death eaters were behind bars or dead and all the other horcruxes were destroyed by Dumbledore himself. They had all the time in the world to heal now.
Hermione also received a number of letters on rich thick paper with neat black handwriting throughout Christmas, though she didn't tell anyone that. They sat on her desk until the idea of throwing them away plagued her so much she stuffed them into a drawer. The stubborn part of her wanted them gone or burnt, to never see anything to do with Bellatrix ever again and Harry and Ron agreed with that sentiment. But the hope in her wasn't as numb as it seemed at that moment and so she couldn't bear to burn the letters just yet. Sometimes she would wake in the night, shaking and breathless, swamped by dreams of the Black mansion floor. On occasion the role of Cygnus Black would be taken by Bellatrix and she would watch the girl she had confessed her love for carve a slur into her arm. Somehow those dreams seemed worse, because she knew the feel of Bellatrix's hands better and so the dream felt so real, she had to scrub her skin in the morning so she wouldn't scream.
Eventually it was time to return to Hogwarts, the morning of her departure was tense, her parents rambled the entire time about how she needed to contact them regularly. In the end they came to the agreement that Hermione would take a mobile phone with her in order to message and call her parents alongside the letters she sent anyway. When they got to the platform, they met the Weasleys with Sirius and Harry, and Hermione noticed that Harry's eyes were darting about the train station. It made Hermione nervous and so she waited behind a little for everyone else to go through so she could say her goodbyes to her parents. When she was done, she turned to go and saw Sirius waiting for her.
"I told the others that I would wait for you, thought you'd want a bit of space" Sirius gave a warm smile.
She smiled back but didn't say anything, the nerves had thrown a lump into her throat. She went to walk towards the platform, but Sirius stepped slightly in her path.
"Hermione, could I have a word briefly" Sirius nodded his head towards the side of the platform, where there were no people.
She looked at her watch, they were early anyway she supposed, so she nodded and went with him a few steps out the way of the platform.
"Listen Hermione, before, when I asked Harry to bring you to me at the station. I did that because I wanted to speak to you about Bellatrix."
Hermione felt instantly worse, the last thing she wanted was a lecture on why she should stay away from the girl who almost got her killed. "yes, I'm going to stay away from her, so you don't have to warn me".
"actually" Sirius looked around to make sure that no one was listening "I was going to ask you if you thought she had really changed, I was apprehensive of course but, I myself understood how she must have grown up."
"well now you know that she hasn't changed, still as loyal as ever" Hermione avoided Sirius's gaze.
"Look, me and Dumbledore agreed not to discuss this, for her sake. But I think you ought to know what happened" Sirius checked around him a final time. "It wasn't Dolohov who killed Cygnus Black, it was Bellatrix".
Hermione frowned and stared at Sirius's face, trying to work out if she'd heard that right.
"You know that Bellatrix lead us to the house to find you and Harry, but when we found you, me and Dumbledore went to get Harry and check the house. When we came back Cygnus was on the floor in front of Bellatrix, dead."
"so, Dumbledore decided to cover it up" Hermione was confused.
"The ministry was looking for someone to pin the whole thing on, if they knew what Bellatrix had done, they'd drag her through the mud. After what she did to her father and how she helped us stop her father in the end. Dumbledore beliefs she can be redeemed, especially now she's in the custody of her sisters." Sirius looked at his pocket watch. "you have to go, I just wanted you to know, so that you had all the facts when you went back. You're a very bright young woman Hermione, and the Black family churns out some very complicated individuals. I trust your judgement, so whatever you decide, I will support you."
Sirius ushered Hermione through the platform and followed her with her trolley, before she could even think of a reply, she was on the train and looking for her friends. Eventually she found Harry and Ron in an otherwise empty carriage and she sat down.
"Hey, you okay 'mione?" Ron asked as he stuffed half a sandwich that Mrs Weasley had made into his mouth.
"Bellatrix was the one who killed Cygnus Black" Hermione felt no need to soften the news.
Harry shook his head "I knew Sirius was being easy on her for a reason, he's been defending her since it all happened" He tightened his fists in anger at being kept in the dark.
Ron choked down his sandwich "surely the ministry needs to know, she's not even of age to be performing any magic, let alone…that"
"Apparently her helping us be found and killing her father was reason enough to think she might be redeemable, instead of a death eater in training." Hermione suddenly realised something. "She must be on the train then if Dumbledore is covering for her." She hadn't even thought about that much, she supposed she'd just tried not to think of Bellatrix in general.
"What do you plan to do then, when we get to Hogwarts" Ron asked tentatively.
"I'm going to focus on my studies and try my best to avoid her" She offered her short answer.
"Do you think she will keep her distance then" Harry raise his eyebrows and his tone was slightly snippy.
She side eyed him; he really could get angry. "I don't know, do you plan to confront her" Judging from the number of letters she had received, she guessed that Bellatrix wasn't planning on avoiding her.
Harry sighed "I've been told to avoid her, the last time I confronted her didn't end well for either of us, even if I could happily curse her"
"I had to stop mum from doing it herself after she found out what happened to you 'mione" Ron chimed in.
Hermione smiled weakly, it was meant to be a nice sentiment meaning that Mrs Weasley cared for her, but any reminder of the event made her feel worse. It had taken her a few weeks to remove the bandage from her arm and look at the scar on her arm, it was pale silvery lines now. She was thinking about asking McGonagall about what glamour she would recommend, but that meant talking about it. It also felt a lot like putting off dealing with things which also wasn't a feeling Hermione enjoyed. She put it out of her head for now, it wouldn't be an issue until it got warm enough for short sleeves anyway. Suddenly Ron spoke and stirred her out of her thinking.
"uh, what about you Harry, now that you know you have a piece of you know who, like, in you." Ron cringed at himself but felt it should be talked about.
Harry had calmed down enough to relax, but his face was still dark. "well Dumbledore thinks that now that the piece of Voldemort in me is the last piece, that the effects will die down. But I still feel so angry sometimes, I think it's just going to have to be something I work on."
"I guess it's good you're a seeker then, no contact needed if you don't want to." Ron half joked.
Harry puffed out breathe in slight amusement and gave a small smile, then they moved the topic to easier things and passed the time of the journey.