Author's Note: Once again, I'm awful. It was 2016 the last time I updated I think. To be fair though a lot has happened in my life since and hopefully this summer I will be a little better about updating.

Warning: This is an M rated story for a reason. The war outlook is much darker than the real HP books and mature and taboo topics will be addressed in later chapters. Please be warned.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter (or Sirius Black and Fred Weasley would be alive and embarrassing Hermione by flirting shamelessly with her) I also am making no money off this story. Basically I'm broke all around and own nothing for myself.

Thank You! To any and every one that has reviewed and read this story despite my awful updating habits!

January 2nd, 2000

"The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone." ~Rose Kennedy

Anna ran up the stairs knowing she would need help. People didn't love Hermione the way she did but they still respected her as Harry Potter's friend so surely someone would do something. It wouldn't even be breaking any rules no one would be putting themselves at risk by helping her. People may only have cared about themselves and their lives but helping Hermione this time wouldn't do anything but save her life.

"Wake up!" Anna said shaking one of the men she had talked to over the year.

He groaned turning over slightly awake but not fully aware.

"Wake up, I need your help."

She seemed to have gotten his attention because he opened his eyes fully and looked at her through the darkness of the night. She could see him register who she was before he sat up in his bed.

"What do you need?"

She explained to him on the way down the stairs what had happened. He had tried to argue but when she told him just how bad it was some sense of humanity was shaken in him. When he saw Hermione at the bottom of the stairs he had nearly thrown up. It had taken all of Anna's power just to get him to agree to touch her.

He carried her to the top floor of the building which had never filled up again after the murders and the round up. People had preferred having the comfort of other bodies nearby before they fell asleep. Only a dozen people stayed on the fifth floor anymore and that would be the most privacy Anna could hope for. He laid Hermione down on one of the cots fearful he may have injured her more just by picking her up.

Her chest was moving up and down but only slightly. The gash on her head from the Hogwarts Battle had been reopened and her face was swollen to the point of being unrecognizable. Anna did her best to finish ripping the shreds of fabric so she could see the extent of the damage. The word dirt had been scratched into her skin with the knife, and her arms had been slit only enough to make her lose blood without dying. Her right leg had been broken severely. But overall it was hard to tell the extent of everything because of the black and blue colors that covered the majority of her body.

"If she wants to walk again we need to set her leg." The man said.

He had been a healer once, what seemed like a life ago but never had he seen anything like this.

"I can see her bones there's no way we have the tools to set that. Besides she's barely alive wouldn't that-"

"She could regain consciousness because of the pain, she could die from the shock. But what matters is if we don't do something about her injuries she'll die anyway."

"The others…" Anna said looking around the room at the few sleeping bodies.

"This won't be the worst thing that's woken them, trust me. Besides there are no kids on this floor."

Anna did as he told her. She ran around grabbing the extra blankets from empty cots. Carefully he placed one of them under Hermione's leg and wrapped the sheet around loosely handing one side to Anna and keeping the other.

"The sheets aren't clean but it's probably less dirty than our hands. I need you to be ready to hold her down if she does wake up."

Anna nodded keeping her eyes on what she knew was her friend's face. She couldn't see Hermione but somewhere behind the destruction she knew her friend was in pain. She didn't want to watch what he did to her leg, she had seen medical shows when she was young and in all honesty seeing Hermione beaten up was enough to make her hurl let alone putting her bone back where it should be.

He did a countdown, just to prepare Anna for whatever might happen. She could hear a snap and crunch as he pushed her leg back into place. Just like he thought Hermione's eyes bolted open. She tried crying out but the damage to her body made the sound come out as loud groans. Anna could see how much she was panicking and worried that she would work herself into a fit that could kill her.

"Hermione," she tried looking the girl in the eyes, "it's me it's Anna. I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna… I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Hermione. But I've got you now, I've got you… I've got you."

…

Eleven weeks and two days. Anna hadn't stopped feeling guilty for a single hour. A moment might pass when she was out with the others where the guilt didn't swallow her whole but every minute she spent with Hermione she couldn't get away from the nagging feeling.

Andrew checked on the two of them, every once in a while he would drop in just to make sure Hermione hadn't gotten any worse and he would say hello to Anna with a smile. In many ways he became a father figure for the girl, he gave her some of his food portions since he knew she gave most of her food to Hermione, he made sure she slept every night for at least a few hours. It had been comforting to have someone else around while Hermione had slowly healed.

He had even managed to pull some of the nails out of the floor board in one of the buildings. With Anna's help he nailed bed sheets to hang from the ceiling around Hermione's bed. Many of the others had wanted to drop by and see what had truly happened to her. Rumors had gone around ridiculously quick about why she stayed hidden away. Anna was sure to put every rumor she heard to rest, but it didn't stop people from trying to ogle at the girl while she recovered.

Hermione had slept for most of the time. Once Andrew had set all of the bones he could she fell back asleep and didn't wake up for almost a week. Anna had done her best to keep all her wounds clean she had even tried to give Hermione a better haircut than the botched job the woman did, but it was no use while she was lying in bed.

Every time Hermione woke up Anna would have food for her to eat, even if she moaned she wasn't hungry. They had quickly learned Hermione wasn't well enough to swallow the bread that Anna had snuck away from the dining building. Anna had gotten water and mashed the bread around until it was practically a soup then helped Hermione swallow.

Andrew warned her that Hermione may never get better. He was worried about how her body would recoup without nutrition and proper care. If Anna didn't spend most of her days hiding away protecting Hermione the best she could he would have been sure that she wouldn't survive. But Anna refused to believe that Hermione wouldn't pull through.

Her face had finally healed, her nose was crooked but she finally looked like herself again, and the gash had healed over just leaving a scar from her forehead down through her eyebrow. She had a small scar above her lip but it was hardly anything.

Her body was what took its time. It had taken about six weeks for the bruised coloring to fade and disappear but there were some damages Anna didn't know what to do about. Hermione's right leg might never be the same. Andrew had done a good job of setting it in the right place but there was a chance it wouldn't heal right.

She had broken two ribs. The best Anna could do was keep her still and hope they started to heal without puncturing her heart or lungs. It was a dangerous game to play but there wasn't another option. Andrew had wrapped her up tight in the sheets which were now soaked with her blood. He said it was the closest thing he could do to a cast, which was what she really needed.

All of the cuts and gashes had started to heal over but they left scars. Her forearms looked as though she had tried to kill herself, and the last time Anna had seen her stomach the word dirt had scarred over. But it had been over two months and she was still alive, Anna had to feel good about that.

Hermione groaned when she opened her eyes for the first time that day. It was hard enough to pry her eyes open let alone force herself to stay still until she could sleep again. The sheets wrapped around her were hard with dried blood which was uncomfortable to sit around in. Screw what Major had said, this was her real punishment.

She had never before felt the type of pain that her body was in constantly when she woke up every day. The mush bread hurt her to swallow, breathing was a challenge, and she didn't even want to think how embarrassing it was for Anna to change the sheets every day because she had gone to the bathroom.

It should have broken her. By anyone's account it was the worst thing to have ever happened to her and the pain continued through each day. But if she started to think negatively she would lose the determination she had felt the moment she stepped out to confront the Death Eaters. Maybe it had been stupid, but she finally felt like she was fighting back. Wherever Hermione Granger had hidden inside of her was gone, she was herself again. And she didn't want to go back to just accepting what was being given to her.

Anna fussed over her the moment she realized Hermione was awake. It was a daily occurrence for Anna to nearly burst into tears as she checked Hermione over. She was far too emotional but Hermione had a suspicion that Anna was so happy she couldn't stop herself. If Hermione had died Anna would have been alone, and that was no position to be in within Mudblood Town.

"Hey, no moving." Anna said securing Hermione back down in the bed.

"I feel better."

It was true. Compared to the past few weeks she felt like a real person again. Her chest still hurt but she wasn't afraid of snapping her ribs in two every time she moved. Her leg was finally starting to gain some more feeling, which made her happy because for a few weeks she thought they might have amputated without telling her. She was in no way good but she felt better.

"You tell me that, I believe you and let you move, then you die… You don't get to die! Lay down!"

Hermione chuckled only a small bit as it didn't feel pleasant. Anna had become a mother bear and it was a funny sight to see. The younger girl had been frantic for weeks trying to keep Hermione alive. She didn't even know if Anna was eating or sleeping because any moment she was awkward Anna was by her side.

As far as Hermione was concerned she had some guardian watching out for her. Maybe fate still needed her to do something big because Hermione couldn't think of another reason she was still alive. Science, logic, and luck had been against her but she was still breathing. If she didn't know better she would think she was immortal.

"This is disgusting." Hermione whined after Anna fed her the soggy bread.

"You're the one who can't swallow don't be mad at me."

"You're scared to push me. I'll never get better if I don't push myself. Sooner or later I have to try real food and walking. I can't lie here forever."

"Don't see why not, lying here is more fun than being outside anyway."

Hermione knew the girl wouldn't let her do anything extreme in the next week or two but she hoped to be able to get around before long. She hated being confined to a bed, and even worse she knew the Death Eaters would notice her disappearance. She didn't like hiding away and letting them think they won. She wouldn't stay in the shadows and let them think they had beaten her down.

It was some sort of miracle how far she had come in her recovery. She was back to a ridiculously small weight and Anna hadn't kept much on her frame either but they had their lives. Hermione had thanked Andrew many times over; Anna was lucky she knew someone who had been a Healer before the muggleborns started getting rounded up. Honestly the fact that Hermione hadn't gotten an infection or had a bone snap and kill her yet was amazing.

She was holding on to the hope of being able to walk again. Andrew had been the most concerned with what her leg would be capable of. Without real medical attention her bone could never grown back correctly which would make it a useless limb.

"I'm going to walk again, Anna." Hermione said feeling sure of herself, "And one day I'll walk right out of here to rescue Harry. We'll stop him in no time." She was careful not to use any of Voldemort's tabooed names.

"You don't have to rescue Harry you just have to find him." She said casually forgetting that she hadn't mentioned anything about that conversation to Hermione.

"What?"

"Um, okay um, don't be mad. Cause it's been a long time and I just… okay don't be mad. The night you were beaten I overheard the Death Eaters talking about Harry. It was something about needing to find him and his friends again. I think they wanted to do some public death for all of you but it makes it sound like he's gone missing."

It was even more reason to push herself to get better. Anna had just given her the biggest motivator she could have possibly known. If Harry had escaped wherever they took him she could escape. The soon she could walk and get out of the town the sooner she would go find him. He might even have Ron with him; she could see her family again because those boys were her people.

"Thank you, Anna." She said sincerely not explaining to Anna what she had meant by it.

Once she was better she would go. Somehow she would find a way out and she'd take Anna with her. Anna had given her life in return she'd give her a new chance at living. Together they could make sure Hermione got well and they would both get out alive.