Granger came to the center of the room, surveyed those present with a tenacious gaze, and solemnly sank into a chair: give or take, the disgraced queen. Draco chuckled to himself and prepared to listen with interest. He and Hermione had served in DMLE for almost four years, and in all that time he had never fully understood her. Not to say that he really tried. She kept her distance. For the most part, even from her colleagues, with the possible exception of Potter. No one knew what she did in her free time. And did she have that time?
From the very same Potter, Malfoy knew that the Potter's children (named thanks to the great intelligence of the Boy-Who-Lived in honor of his dead parents) simply adored her. Another comment from the life of his friend that Malfoy preferred to leave unanswered. The Battle of Hogwarts and the events leading up to it generally taught him to keep his mouth shut. If he had boasted less in his time, many things would have turned out differently. So, back to Granger...
After the war, she completely went off the rails. Malfoy, of course, guessed what Granger experienced in his family estate, in Aurors gossipped in the corners, and Potter somehow said a couple of phrases, but no one knew the truth for sure. One thing was clear: Hermione had changed a lot. She was given away by a look, hard, piercing, such as that of his godfather. When he happened to talk to her, Malfoy always wanted to look away and never ask her about anything again. Draco didn't even try to begin the conversation, to be honest. One thing was clear: Granger's instinct for self-preservation was long gone. Thanks to that, in fact, she rose to the rank of senior Auror and confidently prepared to become the Head of the department.
The recruits were scared as hell of her. She was crazy, either in the training hall or in field practice. Potter somehow happened to be paired with her during an operation of neutralization of a Death Eater who had taken Muggles hostage. Potter didn't go into details, but he and Draco had a long drink in the kitchen that evening, and Potter swore he would never go on a mission with Granger again.
Hermione was nicknamed the Mad Fury. Moody joked that she could be sent to Iraq, and she could finish every terrorist there with one left hand. Hermione showed him her middle finger in response. And what happened to the best witch of her generation? Malfoy didn't try to understand her. He was afraid of her. She shunned everyone except perhaps the Potters' children. Harry and Ginny shared custody of their children after the divorce, and when they did not live with Molly, Potter took them to him. Or to Hermione.
Draco shivered under her lifeless gaze and listened. She sat, resting her elbows on her knees, and talked, talked, talked...
"What do you expect to hear from me? Hello, my name is Granger and I'm a war veteran. "Hey Granger, we're proud to have you here!" Bullshit. You don't want to hear that. You don't understand what the hell you're doing here on a Friday night. Are you tired? All of you. There is nothing to talk about with civilians for a long time, they do not understand how it is to dig a grave in the sand for a comrade whom you could not protect from a bullet. And from around the corner a sniper muzzle is already watching, and you are the next. They don't understand what it's like when youngsters are rushing on a mission, and you're trying to drive at least a little bit of sense into their bad heads. And then you hesitate in front of their parents, and something like: "I'm really sorry. They died for their country like heroes. How did they die? Ah, I'm sorry, I'm in the intelligence service, I'm not supposed to distribute confidential information." are on the tip of your tongue.
And you hate this very homeland almost more than the heartbroken parents... And the young ones... You know, another lost generation that has seen enough pathos stories on TV, heard enough of our tales and decided that they also want to become heroes. And as a result, they received a couple of orders posthumously and a place on the honor roll. Was it the same, comrades, captains, majors, colonels? Intelligence, marines, pilots, we are all the same.
And just as lost as our young ones. And here is my favorite, and no, I'm not talking about the fact that we are physically unable to start a family or some kind of relationship. We can fuck everybody, and everybody can fuck us, don't laugh, but we just can't relax enough and let it all go.
Why? Therefore, one has only to take off his T-shirt, and our partner for one night will see the scars, signs of torture, and other joys of captivity. Iraq, Afghanistan, Desert Storm, Libya, Somalia, shall I continue? Psychologists don't help. Let go and move on. What should we let go, tell me? Our losses, which we see in nightmares every night? "Take antidepressants!" Funny. Even in civilian life, we will forever remain soldiers. Then Friday comes, and the boss kicks us home from work, wherever we are now working. Police, intelligence, feds, we're still human. People who hate coming home.
What's there, at home? Crackers from the last century, a can of tomatoes that has seen better times, a TV muttering about something so that it would not be so foul to endure silence. So tell me here, comrades, does everyone have it? So, we come home, scatter in different directions, take off our shoes, carefully fold the form, pour ourselves two fingers of whiskey, and get under the shower. The water is scalding hot, the mirror fogs up from the steam, and we stand under the water, lifting our face under it, and try to get out of our heads that partner who shielded us from the bullet, that rookie whom we did not have time to push aside, the corral of snots that blew up at the stretch, a girl who was not able to wait for her hero to return from another senseless war, the war which gave us one more star for shoulder straps, and she got a funeral. And our country, which would be damned, but we don't know another one and don't want to!
We get out of the shower and go to a bar to try kinky sex with anyone really, just to numb the pain. We feel like nothing! But we remain silent. Because civilians won't understand, so what's the point of trying? They were not in captivity. They don't know what it's like to stare at a wall in the dark, listen to the sounds of prayer, somewhere on the other side of life, and think that these people will roll up a rug and five minutes later they will go on to kill while you're fucking around here. They couldn't break you, so stop sulking! Stand up and fight until the end! And then they bring you a glass of water to devour, and you are ready to sell your soul for a bowl of stew... Why do you lower your eyes, good gentlemen, do your eyes hurt? Did you think we would come here, drink coffee for free, sit in a circle of fellow soldiers, and go earn stars for epaulets further on? I shouldn't be here in the first place, I'm an active intelligence officer, and I have the nickname Mad Fury, but even bitches like me can feel bad sometimes. Why don't go to shrinks? I tried. And you tried. We've all tried. We are trying. We want to live like everyone else. We want everything to be like before. We want a house on the coast and a vacation in Spain. We want not to suffer from chronic insomnia and we want not to swallow handfuls of antidepressants. We want our friends back. But we knew what we signed up for when we went to the next war, didn't we? So who do we blame now? We didn't save them. We didn't prevent it. We failed. Lost. We are cowards. Snotty heroes. And to hell with orders and stars on shoulder straps! We would save those who we still can!"
"Hey, officer, why don't you resign if you're so smart?" shouted someone from the hushed crowd. "You will be like everyone else. Like civilians. Dancing in a bar on Fridays and going to church on Sundays?"
Granger crumpled the coffee cup in her palm and tossed it into the far trash can, a millimeter from the speaker.
"What, Major, served as a sniper during Desert Storm, did you think you would return as a hero? But you lost your leg, you did not save almost all your team and you fled to England from the USA? Yes, but you couldn't run away from yourself. Why did you put on your medals now, if it's so embarrassing?"
"Go to hell!"
"That's what I'm talking about, Yankee. Any other objections?"
For the next ten minutes, deathly silence reigned in the hall, after which those present began to slowly disperse. Hermione came out first. Draco regained his sanity and rushed after her. She stood leaning against the wall and smoked into the darkness. Her fingers trembled.
"Hey, Granger... I... I wanted to, that is, to apologize, or something?" Malfoy hesitated, feeling like an idiot. She spat on the ground and pierced him with her inflamed eyes.
"You know what, go to hell, Malfoy."
And she was right.