The battle was over, but Hermione's heart didn't seem to realize it. It pounded insistently against her chest, refusing to let her catch her breath, beating so hard it hurt. She gripped Ron's hand tightly, watching him as he watched his family gather around Fred's body.

"Go," she told him. She squeezed his hand even harder. He didn't flinch.

Instead, he turned to face her with wide baby blue eyes. "Will you be okay?" She knew why he was asking; she had no family here to turn to. No family here to turn to.

"I'm going to my family," she said, and he was distracted enough not to ask about her parents' memories and whether she wanted help or moral support. "I'll be alright. Go," she encouraged again, and this time he did.

She made her way then to Harry, who was surrounded by a mob of people that — for some reason — parted for her.

"Hermione," he said in relief; he looked ready to collapse.

She glanced at the crowd. "I'm leaving. Do you want to come with me?"

He furrowed his brows. "Where are you going?"

"To see family." Her heart was pounding in her ears, and Harry needed to make a decision quickly before she went deaf from it. "America." With another glance at the crowd around them she added, "You'd be out of the spotlight for a while."

He considered it for a moment, ignoring the din around them with the practiced ease of someone who'd been famous since they were a child. Then he looked longingly towards the Weasleys. Ron was knelt over Fred now, and from here Hermione could make out the way his body was shaking. "I think I need to be here," Harry decided, and Hermione nodded.

"I have to go." Her head was going to split, she needed peace. (Why she thought she'd get peace where she was going, she wasn't sure — perhaps it was a sign of how poorly she was doing.)

The Hogwarts wards were already shattered, and with a loud crack, she Disapparated.

Her near-skeletal body swayed with the effort in the soft Malibu breeze, her hand raised to the front door of a familiar opulent mansion. Was Tony even here? Just as she turned to leave, the door opened.

"Miss Granger?" a familiar posh British voice asked. When she turned to face him, he almost choked. "Miss Granger, please come in," said Mr. Jarvis with no small amount of concern in his voice. She reached for the hand he extended to her; Mr. Jarvis was always so kind, of course he would help her.

He looked so old now, so frail.

And with that thought, Hermione collapsed.

Hermione began to stir, her head aching as she tried to place herself somewhere, anywhere in the world. "You landed on my butler." What? She willed her eyes to open, but they refused. "He's ninety years old, you can't do that." American.

"Eighty-four, sir," someone responded waspishly. A man. Posh. Who —

The reality of her situation began to seep back into her mind. Running. Torture. Battle. Apparating across an ocean. She groaned and one of them murmured, "Thank god."

Her eyes finally slid half-open and she saw a stark white ceiling above her — Stark.

"Tony?" Hermione asked weakly, now fully aware of where she was and with whom. "Mr. Jarvis?"

A heavy, calloused hand landed on hers. Though the hand was rough, its touch was gentle, careful. She registered fine fabrics behind it and let her gaze crawl up the attached arm to the face it belonged to. Tony Stark, in all his glory, sat beside her. The room around them was well-decorated, but she kept her eyes locked on his now that she had them.

Dark circles under his eyes made him look older than she knew him to be. "What the hell happened to you?"

She tried unsuccessfully to snort a laugh to lighten the moment. "A war." She did her best to squeeze his hand, but this didn't work very well either. "It's over, though. We won," Hermione added at his furrowed brows.

His hand found hers. His touch was comforting, as it had always been through her childhood. She had often seen him as a faraway older brother figure rather than the more complicated relation of her grandmother's godson. His eyes searched hers for something, and she wasn't sure if he found it. "Your arm." It wasn't a question. "Mudblood."

She wanted to close her eyes against his stare, but she felt if she did, she may not be able to open them again. "She's dead now."

"Good," he said roughly. He coughed. "Want a cheeseburger?"

He cringed immediately after saying it, but Hermione threw her head back in painful laughter. "Give me a few days," she said finally, wiping a tear from her face. "I couldn't stomach it right now."

He arched to pop his back and Hermione realized the awkward crouching position he was stuck in. She shifted her legs slightly and patted the bed beside her, inviting him on. He took the seat, still holding her bony hand in his.

"You look starved," he said bluntly, and the last remnant of laughter dropped from her face. She nodded minutely. "You look traumatized." She sagged into the pillow behind her, letting his hand slip, not wanting to go down this path.

"Yes." She didn't elaborate.

"That scar — it's a slur, right?" She gave another tiny nod. "There's surgery that can remove it."

"It's from a cursed blade," she explained. "I don't think it's supposed to come off."

Tony looked like he was seeing red. "That asshole didn't bet on the best doctors money can buy. It's coming off."

She tried to ease the tension by nudging him with a foot. He shoved her back and instantly cringed again. "You're fine," she said, but he wasn't having it.

"You're — you're staying here." And with that he walked away, calling, "Jarvis!"

The next few days were an exercise in patience. Hermione's body and magic were overextended Apparating as far as she did on as little sustenance as she did. It left her with a lot of time to think.

Dawn was breaking. The thin white curtain on the large east-facing window let through the pale orange light of sunrise. Hermione propped herself up on a pile of pillows and yawned silently, stretching one arm above her. Despite Tony's design sensibilities — grown-up beds are in the center of the wall — the large, comfortable bed was pressed into a corner, protecting two sides of her.

Harry had found the tent suffocating. In a moment of uncharacteristic sharing — while Ron was gone, so she wasn't sure if he knew or not — he'd told her that he slept in a cupboard under the stairs as a child. After that, she let up on him going on so many walks even though it made her worry like mad.

Hermione, on the other hand, had found the tent comforting. In a world hunting them down, the well-warded tent was a refuge. It was warm in the winter, body heat and breath and warming charms helping keep out some of the chill, but cooler in the summer, a makeshift door allowing air to flow through. It was far from comfortable, but it offered more than just shelter from the elements: closed into a space that she herself had helped protect felt like a safety blanket was wrapped tightly around her.

(Very, very tightly. Even her romanticized version of the tent couldn't make up for the close quarters. Body warmth might spread, but so did body odor. Cleaning charms could only go so far.)

She missed the boys terribly, but she'd left them the moment she could. She'd ripped into Ron for abandoning them, then turned around and done exactly the same before anyone could even start to bury the dead.

Dawn had broken. Hermione drew her knees to her forehead and began to cry.

It was the first time she'd let herself cry since arriving in Malibu, and it felt good. Terrible, but good. At some point her cries turned from whimpering little things to huge, heaving sobs that wracked her entire body. She couldn't even say what she was crying over except for everything.

A gentle knock at the door reminded her that she hadn't set a silencing spell like she would've in the tent. She tried to even out her breathing before calling, "Come in." No use in hiding.

Tony crept the door open one inch at a time before poking his nose around it into the room. "Do you want company?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Yes, please." She let her knees rest back on the bed but didn't stretch them out, leaving room for Tony. "I hope I didn't wake you."

"I was on my way up from the lab to get some sleep." He said it so smoothly she couldn't tell whether it was a lie. Probably not, knowing his schedule. "Do you want to talk about it?"

There was simply no way this was the same Tony Stark she knew from childhood and tabloids. "Not really. I'm not even sure what I was…"

As though he had sensed the immense comfort his touch brought her, he covered her hands with his heavily calloused own. She could feel the rough spots and see tiny scars and burns from years of tinkering. "Do you know what PTSD is?"

She snorted. "Yes, and I know I probably have it."

He smiled. "Okay. Good." His face dropped. "Not good that you have it. Obviously. Good that you know. So we can, you know." He sighed heavily and closed his eyes. "You want to see a therapist?"

"I will if you will."

He opened one eye and playfully glared at her. "You drive a hard bargain."

The fourth morning was a Saturday.

"I took mum and dad's memories," she told Tony too lightly. They were having breakfast (crepes with fruit and whipped cream, thank you Mr. Jarvis) and had been making small talk, but after four days he was already used to her bringing up terrible things at terrible moments. He'd encouraged her to do it, after all. Whenever you feel like you need to talk, he'd said yesterday morning. Literally whenever. "I think I'm ready to find them." Even if she wasn't ready, it felt wrong to wait any longer.

Tony halted, his fork halfway to his mouth. He swallowed thickly and something heavy seemed to settle in her stomach. "I… didn't realize you didn't know." He set his silverware down and looked at her seriously. "Hermione, your parents — they died."

"No," she whispered. "They can't have — they didn't. Why would you say that?"

"I'm really sorry." With the deep dark circles under his eyes he looked truly aghast, and Hermione realized that he had lost his parents before she'd even started digging the canyon between herself and her own. The thought that she'd wasted time playing magic school when she could've been spending time with them, it — "I'm so sorry," he said, "I should've told you before, I shouldn't have assumed."

He stood and walked around the table to the seat next to her and offered his hands. She'd grasped these hands so many times before, but this time it wasn't enough.

She dove for a hug and held his body tight against hers, heaving sobs into his jacket. "They were supposed to be safe," she said hoarsely. A comforting hand rose to her shoulder, but she suddenly didn't want it. She smacked it away and pulled away completely to stand over Tony accusingly. "You're lying. There's no way they found them!"

"The government was real cagey about it," Tony said quietly, ignoring her outburst. "I figured it was wizards, so I let them handle since you weren't… available. Happy got their card, we can figure it out together if you want."

Hermione wiped tears from her face — useless, since they were still falling — and slowly sat. "If I find out who did it, you'll need a really good solicitor for me."

He leaned forward and tilted in front of her to catch her gaze. "That's such a stupid word for a lawyer," he said conspiratorially. He swallowed then, realizing this may not be the moment to joke. "Hermione, I'm so sorry."

It was the most serious she'd seen him since his own parents had passed. "It isn't your fault," she whispered. Her voice was hoarse and her throat scratchy; she must have been crying in her sleep last night. It felt like her subconscious knew before she did, like the knowledge was there behind her eyes waiting to rear its ugly head.

"How can I help?"

She looked into his warm brown eyes, so like her own despite their not sharing blood, and it was all she could do not to cry. Those were her father's eyes. "I think I'm going back to bed," was all she said, and dashed back to what she now, dangerously, considered her bedroom.