10 December 1998
In the beginning, the friends she grew up with watched her with worried eyes and spoke gently and with encouragement. They told her to wait, to let herself heal, that the magic would come back and she would be fine. The days ran together like the blood from their wounds though, and as the weeks went by, she remained safe and whole at Grimmauld Place. She watched them with worried eyes as they began to ignore the gentle words of encouragement she spoke, and she waited for the dam to break.
The weight of the bandages in Hermione's arms was insubstantial, but her entire body trembled with the heaviness of Lavender's gaze when the next group of the injured arrived. She was used to physical pain – they all were – but she found the sting of rejection was different to the pain she had acclimated to when the other girl tossed her head and walked away, hands pressed to her abdomen instead of accepting Hermione's help. It chipped at her heart When Charlie sneered at her openly and told her to leave (because walking away was too much when the bones in his foot were crushed like sand) it felt like a piece of her soul had flaked away, and that pain nearly brought her to her knees. She retreated to her room and stared at the thin layer of dust that had accumulated on her wand, and she tried again to light her it. She remained in the darkness, and nonsensical as it was, she considered the stabbing behind her eyes as not-quite-failure and she was elated for three minutes; during the fourth her body seized and she was lost to nightmares where she killed men and women and children; or perhaps she only dreamed that she seized.
13 December 1998
It seemed as though the groups assigned to Harry's missions always came back alive, and this night was no different. The sound of bitter laughter rang throughout the house as he sat before Madam Pomfrey because the only injury he suffered was when Tonks tripped and caught his forearm with her nails. Later, tangled in the scents of cigarettes and whiskey, the soldier facade broke away and left a teenaged boy with crossed arms with a petulant scowl.
"Everyone else wakes up in the morning knowing it might be the last. I wake up knowing it could be someone else's last. This is because of me. It's not fair that everyone else risks their life while my biggest risk is a splinter from my wand."
"Right, mate, but you're the Chosen One and all. Aren't those missions better than no missions? At least you're doing something. That's better than nothing." Ron shrugged and squinted into the bottle to gauge the level of the liquid before taking the last drink and setting the bottle upside down.
Harry didn't respond, but Hermione's eyes burned holes through the night as she ignored the way that theirs' slanted towards her. Ron's words might have been conversational if she hadn't known he was deliberately prodding her for a response. She shivered and said nothing; it hadn't gone unnoticed that her coat wasn't enough to protect her from December. For the first weeks, one of the boys would cast something of a warming charm or pull her close enough to share body heat... but during the last, neither one had made either gesture; she felt their coldness so much more acutely than she did that of winter.
18 December 1998
The moon was still in the sky when the explosion tore her from a happier dream with a bang that stopped her heart. Everything and nothing roared in her ears and her vision fogged, and as she leapt out of bed she forgot her wand had failed her and grabbed it out of habit. The dust made her fingers slip as he half-fell down the stairs and lurched into the kitchen, but she had forgotten it had failed her and she held fiercely to the impotent stick of wood, clutching it like the lifeline it used to be.
Hermione wasn't alone; the sounds of battle in the kitchen had brought the entire Order and they stood together, suddenly united by the defense of their makeshift home in a way they hadn't been in far too long. In the middle was Harry Potter, surrounded by broken glass and singed wood, locked in a solitary battle against the world. Her eyes were wide as she took in the scene of a dangerous, angry boy who had given too much and lost too many, all too soon and too close together in his life; a broken man who knew he still had more to lose, but was unwilling to give his very best, very first friend; a human being who refused to accept an outcome he was powerless to change.
"WHERE IS HE, KINGSLEY?" A violet flash from his wand brought cans of food crashing at his feet.
"We don't know, Harry. His unit was captured. We are trying to find them, but-" Kingsley's voice was low and the ends of his words blended together with the beginning of the next a smooth tone that was meant to soothe, but the Minister of Magic was cut off by an inarticulate roar and the flight of the kettle that shattered into the space of wall behind his head.
"POTTER!" Kingsley's roar overpowered Harry's and in a moment he stepped forward into the younger man, invading his space and forcing Harry to change the angle of his wand lest it snap between their chests. In a daze, Hermione focused on the width of the black man's shoulders and the sheer force of his presence; and then he spoke again, quieter, but with the same echo of command.
"Calm yourself. This. Does. Not. Help. You will return to your quarters and you will be accompanied. You are not permitted to leave the threshold of these doors. You will do nothing, and you will not leave this house." The sound of his surname and the crisp taste of an order flicked something inside Harry's soldier soul, and he lowered his wand and blinked before he slumped against the wall.
"Granger, step forward. You will supervise-"
She saw Harry's spine straighten and his lips twist, and she cringed as the shade of his eyes return to a poisonous shade of green, and she braced herself because she knew this was the moment when the dam would break. She still wasn't ready when it did.
"No. If I need a babysitter then fine. But not her. Anyone but her." The meaning of the words he spat paled in comparison to the ice in his voice. His eyes caught hers and he advanced, cold and cruel, needing to hurt her so that she would share in his pain. He didn't stop until she felt the wall against her shoulder blades and his breath against her face
"What would you do if I decided to waltz out of here? Cry? Tell me about rules and breaking them, and the greater good, and plans, and that everything happens for a reason? You couldn't do shit, Hermione. You're living here in safety and you're not doing a fucking thing. Why in the hell did you even grab your wand? It's not like you can use it. You are fucking worthless." He spun around and launched himself back up the stairs, and she didn't breathe again until his door slammed shut so hard it made the windows rattle.
She didn't know the right words to speak and so she simply stood before them, shaking in pajamas that set too low on her hips and a shirt that pooled over her narrow shoulders and gaped at the neck. Not one person moved to her; they wouldn't even meet her eyes. She turned then and fled to the safety of her own room and collapsed against the door. Her breath was ragged and it hurt to expand her lungs; she took shorter breaths but found there wasn't enough air, and then she panicked because she couldn't breathe. Raw noises broke from her throat, the dust on her hands turned to mud from the tears she didn't know she was crying. She lost track of time, but the sun caught a glass shard from the mirror she broke not so long ago, and she was captivated by the face reflected back to her.
Her eyes were vacant; unfocused. Her hair had lost it's usual ferocity somewhere between last night and right now, and it hung past her shoulders in limp strands. Her cheeks were starting to hollow. Her clothes had fit a month ago, but each pound she lost was a new souvenir marking the decay of her relationships. It hadn't been intentional – she'd never been so vain as to try to lose weight, or wear makeup, or dress in clothes that highlighted the curve of her waist or the shape of her leg; she ate when she was hungry and she dressed in what was practical… but it began to take too much to go down to the kitchen; each time she lost her appetite because conversation stopped and the friends she had turned into people she knew. The food she managed to get down turned volatile in her stomach when the people she knew chose to bleed and break and almost die rather than accept a potion, a balm, a salve, or a bandage from her hands. She was willful, and it really seemed something of mind over matter to ignore the hollow ache in her stomach. The sharp twist that woke her up at night was harder to disregard though, and she would slip down the stairs to eat a couple pieces of bread in the dark, but that wasn't enough to maintain the weight. She blinked, and it was enough for her to avert her eyes.
She cradled the mirror against her side and used the doorknob to haul herself to her feet. She fell in the direction of her bed and crawled back between the sheets. It had been twenty-nine days since she cast the shield that saved their lives at the cost of her magic. She'd have done it again in a heartbeat for the price of magic but when she lay awake at night, she wondered if she would do it again at the cost of her friends. She didn't sleep that day, or that night. She wouldn't sleep for a long, long time.
When he first arrived, Draco had conjured a hammock between two trees in the back. Living in such close quarters was a challenge for him – even at Hogwarts he had only shared a room with three others. In the hammock, he could close his eyes and forget, just for a while, that his world hadn't changed in so many ways it was difficult to differentiate between up and down and left and right. Tonight wasn't different for him, except for the part where his eyes were open as he replayed the worst day in Hermione Granger's life.