They settle into a routine.
Sam's moods shift between closed off neutrality to frustration. He moves between periods of questioning everything to hardly speaking at all; pacing the room whilst Hermione works or shutting himself up in the spare bedroom and doing Merlin only knows what.
It's an uneasy peace, and reminds Hermione too much of returning to Grimmauld Place with Harry for the first time after the battle, intent on no longer being a burden on the Weasley's until she could find a cure.
Her skin feels the same kind of itchy as it did then.
Sam pushes and digs and sometimes it's so much like being around Harry in those first few months that Hermione's not sure why she felt such a need for Sam to stay. Why she still feels it. But then a letter comes from Harry, saying he might be able to get some time off work and maybe drop by the next month with Teddy and Hermione remembers. She remembers sitting on the edge of Harry's bed, her bags in the hallway and Andromeda somewhere downstairs with her grandson.
"You don't have to leave," Harry had said, failing to keep the dejection out of his voice as he watched Hermione pack her final case from his seat on the edge of her bed.
"I can't stay." Hermione had felt her voice break as she said it and she hadn't dared look up for fear she'd catch Harry's eye, knew for sure she'd fold if she did.
"I didn't mean it." Harry's hand had touched her elbow, trying to get her to turn around.
Hermione had felt her breath hitch in her chest, felt tears prickle her eyes and had shrugged him off, stepped away to retrieve a book. "I know. We've been through this. I'm not going because of that, I just -"
"Have to, I know, you said that already. You keep saying that, but I don't -"
"They have more progressive research in this field over there. It's not forever, just - It's my best chance to find a cure, Harry. Don't you -"
Hermione had risked a glance at Harry, his face was dark, closed down and his mouth twisted up into an ugly line. Hermione had winced.
"You really believe that, don't you?" he'd asked, voice full of scorn, but genuinely curious.
"You know I do. You have to see that -"
"Shut up. I see plenty, Hermione. I'm not quite as damaged as you all seem to think I am and I'm perfectly aware of what you're doing here."
Hermione had watched him walk towards the door, he'd had his hand on the frame ready to step out. Hermione had wrapped a hand around her throat, hadn't been sure she could breathe.
"You know what? You think this is what you need, fine. Go. Just -" He'd paused, turned all too knowing eyes back on her and said, "I'm not the only one who's broken. Just admit that this isn't all about better research."
Hermione doesn't send Harry's owl back straight away, but when she does she starts it with 'Sorry' and at the end she smudges her name with a tear wet thumb.
Sometimes they talk - Sam and her.
One afternoon, Sam picks up an old, well thumbed copy of The Hobbit from one of the shelves, starts reading through it whilst Hermione works. She looks up and catches him, carries on for a moment before the need to speak grows too strong.
"It was my granddad's," Hermione says, she rests her chin on her palm, her elbow digging into the wood of the desk.
Sam's got his tongue poking out between his teeth, concentration fully focussed on the book and it takes a moment for him to respond. Hermione watches him lick the pad of his thumb, pull the corner of the page until it lifts and flips over. "Huh?" he says finally, looking up at her.
"The book," she clarifies, "it belonged to my Granddad. He used to read it to me when I stayed over at his."
Sam nods, looks down at the open page for a moment, his face pensive. "We didn't -" he starts to say, but Hermione cuts him off, doesn't make him say it.
"I know."
"Did you read the rest? The other books?" Sam asks, placing the copy open and face down on his belly. He bites onto the nail of his thumb and watches something just behind Hermione's shoulder with absent disinterest.
Hermione shakes her head and drops her gaze. She chews on the rubber on the end of her pencil, feels it crack and break in her mouth leaving a graining aftertaste along the tip of her tongue and teeth. "He died. I never – they never appealed to me after. I tried, but it was too -" Too real, she thinks; Too close. "I couldn't get into it. It just felt – It wasn't escapism."
Sam nods and Hermione thinks he heard her reasoning even though she hadn't been able to voice it. "I had to read The Count of Monte Cristo for a class I took at Stanford," Sam says, voice low and distant. He sounds bitter and sad all at once when he adds, "I felt the same."
The next day, Hermione slides The Picture of Dorian Grey across her desk when Sam comes in and sits down.
"Where I went to school, it was amazing. All the pictures moved and could talk and interact with us. I'd read about it before I went, but it never really prepared me, not having grown up with that." Hermione hesitates, hears her voice hitch and says honestly, "Looking back now, I don't think it ever could."
Sam doesn't interrupt; he just stretches an arm across the bad of the settee and pulls the book closer, looks up with obvious curiosity.
"I read this one summer and when I got back to school, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I stayed up studying most of the first week back much to the consternation of Harry and Ron. I was too embarrassed to admit it was because I couldn't sleep."
After that they swap stories – all the books they've read that have creeped them out for whatever reason. It's like swapping ghost stories, Hermione thinks except more personal and she shivers when Sam looks up from his coffee one evening and says, "The Black Cat, Edgar Allan Poe."
"Poe in general," Hermione replies, she cuts her eyes away, looks back with a shy half smile. "Hansel and Gretel. I know it's just a fairytale, but everything about it just horrified me as a child."
Sam nods slowly. "It's always the things designed to entertain children, isn't it?" He pauses and Hermione's not sure he's going to continue. It feels like the mood's broken and Sam seems suddenly more serious, but then he looks up, smiles. "I always hated clowns. Dean thought it was hilarious. But we went on this hunt once, for a Rakshasa that was disguising itself as a clown to lure in its victims – totally made me feel justified."
Hermione laughs and can almost imagine their conversation.
"I hated flying. First year at school we had flying lessons on the school brooms."
Sam raises an eyebrow. "Brooms?"
"I know, clichéd, right? That's what I thought, but they're not really like the brooms you get in the folk lore. Anyway, it was the only class I hated. Well, I didn't like Divination much either, but that's because the Professor was a terrible teacher. Honestly, she was so self absorbed and dramatic. I don't think she taught anyone anything other than how to be a fake."
Hermione rolls her eyes and Sam grins.
"Flying, eh? You know Dean was more than a little scared of that himself. We went on this one hunt where..."
Sam launches into a story about a possessed pilot and Hermione just pulls her feet up, tucks them under her on the settee and listens.
Hermione's owl comes back after a week with a note from Blaise to confirm the postponement of their meeting and the change of location.
She realizes with some shock that she's nowhere near as far along with it as she should be even with the extension and she's glad she asked Blaise for another two weeks instead of just the one she'd been tempted to.
The problem's not just that she's been distracted, though she's suddenly sure she's latched on to that as a form of procrastination. She realises with her head bent over the books on her desk, Blaise's letter in one hand, that the problem is that she's stuck.
Hermione looks over her notes and is a little furious at herself for not pushing harder to find a solution. It's not something she does. She watched Harry and Ron and half on the rest of her house back at school put off assignments they found more than moderately difficult until the last minute, but it's not something Hermione's ever done herself.
"What's wrong?" Sam says. His hair's wet and Hermione feels it dripping on to her shoulder where he's standing over her before she hears his question.
"I can't – It doesn't make sense," she replies. "I just can't decide which is the right interpretation because none of them seem to add up."
"Show me your notes."
"You don't know the language, it's not –"
"Show me your translations."
Hermione twists and looks up over her shoulder. Sam's towelling at his hair, his t-shirt damp around the neck where the water's dripped down. He's close enough that Hermione could lean back in her chair and tip her head back to rest against his stomach.
"I was good at Math, maybe I'll be able to see something you can't," Sam says with a shrug and a half smile. "Sometimes you can look at something too hard."
Hermione forgets about the way she can smell water and soap and shampoo, and instead flushes; feels guilty for not looking harder because she could have put more work into this. Should have.
She pulls her notes apart, spreads them out over the desk and tries to organise them into some form of coherence. Behind her, she hears the scrape of wood on wood as Sam pulls a chair in from the kitchen and drags it up beside her.
Hermione starts to explain, the premise of the chapter and what she's translated so far. Sam listens carefully, one hand still rubbing at his hair until Hermione begins to go into more detail about the interpretations confusing her. He leans in, one arm spread along the back rest of her seat as he looks over her notes.
She turns her head and stares at the line of a small scar disappearing into Sam's hairline, the droplet of water caught on his cheekbone. She looks, not for the first time, for the similarities in bone structure to his brother, finds them in the set of his face as he concentrates and pulls one page of calculations closer.
Hermione licks her lips and smiles at the way Sam's tongue pokes out through his lips as he writes something.
"Try that," he says and Hermione looks away a moment too late.
Sam's smile falters then widens in the corner of her vision.
"I -" she says, looking down at the page, where Sam's shifted some of the figures around. It works! And Hermione's not sure how she didn't see it before.
Sam misjudges her quietness and starts to explain his reasoning, carefully pointing out parts of her notes and something he noticed in the text, still open at the back of the desk.
"I think I have a book you might like," Hermione says, voice soft.
Sam's lips tilt up to one side, curious. "Yeah?"
"It's a bit of a hobby," Hermione says. "I'll bring it down for you later."
"Thanks," Sam says back. His thumb brushes Hermione's shoulder and he pulls back, standing up. "I'm going to," he gestures to the hallway and the bathroom, towel hanging from one hand.
"Thanks," Hermione says, a sudden burst of sound as Sam walks away.
He smiles over his shoulder. "It's good. Glad I could help."
Hermione takes the corner booth, sits facing the door. She holds her cup in one hand, swirls it until the liquid begins to form a miniature whirlpool and stares into the abyss of her tea.
Sam had been at her desk when she'd left; books spread open and notes covering a sheaf of parchment as he worked on the book of Arithmancy puzzles she'd leant him; that he's hardly put it down.
He's quiet.
There have been fewer questions. Fewer everything except hunched shoulders and a creased brow as he cross references one page against another. All the anger Sam had turned up at her door with – it's not gone, but it's not there either. No immediate focus for it except numbers and symbols.
She's not sure if she should be so relieved that he's just swapped one crutch for another, but this one at least she finds easier to deal with.
It's an apathy Hermione can relate to.
She bites her lip.
It's easier than large hands on her waist and lips pressed against hers that she really should not still be thinking about.
Hermione puts her cup down. It clinks loudly against the Formica table top and the tea inside sloshes to the right with the sharp movement, spilling over the side.
"Great." Hermione frowns and reaches over to claim one of the napkins to clean up the mess.
The bell on the door rings as the tea's staining the paper brown. Hermione scrunches the napkin up, pushes it to one side and looks up at the newcomer. She grins at the grimace of distaste on the man's face, stifling a laugh as he looks in her direction.
He narrows his eyes and Hermione lets the laugh go as he turns to head in her direction.
"You have got to be kidding me, Granger."
Zabini's looking around with distain, his gaze pausing in horror at the occupant of the next table who engaging in a very exuberant conversation whilst digesting what looks to be half a pig.
"Are you planning on sitting down?" she asks, still smiling. Sometimes she finds herself a little surprised at the fact that she looks forward to conversations with an ex-Slytherin so much.
Blaise looks at the seat, clears his throat and looks back at Hermione. "I was actually hoping you were going to admit to some kind of perverse sense of humour I was previously unaware of."
"Sorry," Hermione says, voice full of mock seriousness. "If it's any consolation, I can promise you the coffee will make up for any lowering of standards this requires on your part."
Blaise mumbles something that sounds like, 'I doubt it,' but he starts to slide his coat from his shoulders, folding it carefully over one arm before reluctantly taking a seat.
Hermione waives the waitress over, orders Blaise a pot of coffee and herself another Earl Grey.
"Just trust me," Hermione says, pushing the cup across the table.
There's a strange sort of pleasure in watching him lift the cup tentatively to his mouth like it might be poisoned or contain off milk.
Hermione can't contain her laugh. She doesn't want to. It feels good to let it out and Hermione's relieved by the chance of reprieve from the atmosphere in the house where she too often still feels slightly guilty for every smile or laugh.
Blaise narrows his eyes and sniffs at the coffee. "So glad I could prove a source of amusement to you," he snarks.
Hermione smiles. "Sorry, it's just you look so stiff."
Blaise cocks an eyebrow at her. "I just want to be sure you're not trying to trick me into consuming substandard coffee."
Hermione presses a hand to her chest, mock affronted. "Like I'd ever do such a thing."
Blaise takes a small sip and looks up at her in mild surprise. Hermione grins as he takes a longer sip before putting the cup down.
"Not bad, Granger. It'll do."
"So glad it meets your approval," Hermione jokes back.
"Acceptable though your peace offering is, can I inquire as to why there was a necessity for a change in location?" Blaise asks, leaning back in his chair.
Hermione looks down at the tabletop, picks up her tea cup and swirls it again. "I have a houseguest," she answers, knows even before she looks up that Blaise is going to look like the cat that's got the cream.
"I thought you liked your solitude? That's why you ran away here, right? Why you left all your friends back in Britain."
It hits as hard as Hermione knows Blaise intended it to. They've had this argument before, Blaise just keeps pushing her on it. She looks up at him, cheeks hot. "I didn't run away," she argues. What she wants to say is that she didn't leave anyone behind.
Blaise doesn't bite, he lets it drop. When he finally speaks he says, "Anyone I know?"
"It's not like that," Hermione replies, knows she was too quick.
"No?"
"No," she replies. "To both questions." She feels lips against hers, angry almond eyes flashing as Sam had pulled back.
"Hmm, I see."
It's a natural impulse to want to argue that point with Blaise. With anyone else Hermione would. Blaise though is different; he looks closer and pays more attention to words - even Hermione's. It's a natural fear, she assures herself, that he'll find something in them that Hermione's not willing or ready to face.
"How's Draco?" she says instead.
Blaise raises an eyebrow, lowers it only when Hermione flushes in acknowledgement of the obvious avoidance.
He sips his coffee and Hermione watches, reads more into it than she's sure Blaise wishes she could.
He shakes his head, a barely there movement, but enough for Hermione to read the warning.
The first time Hermione really talked to Blaise was during the trials that followed the war, or more specifically, during Lucius'. They'd both been waiting outside Courtroom Ten during a recess, the majority of the rest of the trial's occupants retiring to the canteen.
Hermione hadn't felt hungry, the rehashing of the events of the war making her stomach flop too uneasily to bear the various food smells there. Instead, she'd waved Ginny on ahead and sat down on one of the benches in the corridor. Blaise had been leant against the wall opposite when she'd looked up, his foot twitching in a rare show of emotion. Even then when she'd hardly known him past their brief encounters at school it had stood out enough that the motion had made Hermione tilt her head and pause in consideration.
During recess on the second day of Lucius' trial, Blaise had nodded at her and said, "Granger."
During the third, he'd been absent, appearing after five minutes with a coffee and a cup of ginger tea which he offered her. By then Hermione had some idea of why he was there, knew for the first time too that not all of the students seeking refuge in the Room of Requirement were from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.
"He has a job," Blaise says. "At the Ministry."
Hermione's eyes widen and she smiles. "That's great news."
"It's more of an apprenticeship. Part time." Blaise ducks his head in avoidance, a tact he doesn't use often from what Hermione's observed of him, but it's more frequent when it comes to Draco, when it comes to the war too. "His medication – the potions only do so much as you know."
"It's still good, Blaise," Hermione says, voice soft.
"Yes. Of course," he replies, his back perfectly straight, posture unaffected as he sips from his drink.
Hermione hears the unspoken concern in his words none the less. Ron was not the only one to come away from Voldemort's last stand, damaged. And whilst Draco was not so terminally affected as Ron, the war had still left him with other, additional, hindrances on top of his illness like a society that was still not as accepting as it would like to believe itself.
"So -" Blaise says, pulling the carefully wrapped book Hermione had brought with her across the table and leafing through the translation lying on top. He looks up with a smirk, "- have you told Potter about your house guest yet?"
Hermione bites back a wince and scowls across at Blaise. "Why did I become friends with you again?"
Blaise's smirk widens and he arches an eyebrow. "My intelligence and wit, of course. Who else could provide you with such a challenge, Granger?"
"Oh right. Of course. How silly of me to forget."
When Hermione gets home, Sam's waiting for her and it's not as reassuring as she thought it would be.
He's turned the chair from her desk around; positioned it so that it's facing the door, so that the first thing Hermione sees is him.
His face is dark, eyebrows drawn down and mouth set in a thin, angry line.
Hermione turns around, shuts and locks the front door, heaving out a sigh. When she turns back, she simply puts her satchel down on the entrance table and says, "So, what's wrong?" and leans back against the table to wait for whatever's triggered Sam's mood.
Sam doesn't answer, but his eyes narrow into slits as he watches her.
Hermione rolls her eyes, taps her foot against the floorboards and counts to sixty, giving him ample opportunity to respond.
Sam stays quiet though and Hermione scoffs.
"You can either tell me what I've done to upset you or not, Sam. I'm just a witch. I'm not psychic and I refuse to play guessing games because you seem to like the power trip it gives you."
Sam cocks his head, like he's considering how far he can push her.
Hermione doesn't give him chance. "Fine," she says and straightens up, starting to pull the new tomes Blaise had given her from her bag.
She's just lifting the first one free when Sam says, "I was looking through some of your books."
Hermione frowns, confused and looks over her shoulder at Sam. "O-kay," she says slowly and tries to think of some reason why her library would have darkened Sam's mood so drastically. He hasn't been this antagonistic since he discovered she was a witch.
"The ones in your bedroom," Sam adds.
It's clear from his tone he's expecting Hermione to be having some kind of revelation right now, but she's really no closer to understanding than she was before. The hairs on the back of Hermione's neck prickle at the insinuation that she's being slow. "I think I'm missing something. Care to be a little clearer?"
Sam stands up. "I was having some problems understanding some of the Arithmancy theory and you said there was some more of your school text books were in your room."
Hermione nods, because she'd told Sam that, said he was free to take any of them and then her gaze slides down from his face to the book in his hands. Hermione reads the title without thought or intention and her heart sinks, understanding blossoming fast. 'Oh, bugger!' she thinks.
Sam's responding smirk is twisted and cruel. It's full of hate and betrayal as he says coldly, "You could have saved him."
Hermione hesitates and feels her stomach turn with guilt and shame. "No," she answers, dropping her head. Then more firmly she looks up, meets Sam's eyes and says "No," again, more firmly.
"You're lying."
Hermione steps forward, takes the chance of putting herself closer even though her wand feels too far away where it's tucked into the back of her jeans. She wonders whose reactions would be quicker; hers or Sam's and is pretty sure she's too out of practice to pose much of a threat right now.
"Did you read any of it, Sam? Did you read about the sacrifice that kind of magic takes? Did you read any of the other books in my room on Horcruxes, on the kind of magic it takes to split a soul?"
Sam's hesitation tells Hermione enough.
She reaches for the edge of the book. "No, you didn't, did you? Just read enough to know there are ways you can cheat death and tie yourself to the mortal plane. If you're prepared to take the steps needed, if you can take a life -"
Sam opens his mouth to argue and Hermione pre-empts him.
"- an innocent's life, Sam. And Dean would have had to take it, not you. You couldn't take that burden for him. That kind of magic comes with very strict stipulations. But even so, you have to be willing to split your soul in two as well, make yourself less than human. Make yourself less than most of the things you've fought. Even demons. Their souls are still whole, just twisted and tortured. You have no idea what that kind of magic does to someone."
"And you do?" Sam asks, but Hermione hears the unspoken 'how' that's laced with suspicious resentment.
"Yes. I do. Because I spent the best part of seven years of my life fighting what this magic creates."
That's not entirely true. Hermione knows that Voldemort was not solely a product of the magic Tom Riddle used, but it's close enough.
"Fighting one person that this created. One person - one thing that tore apart an entire society for decades. You'd risk turning Dean into that?"
Sam lets go of the book. "I just – I saw it and thought."
Hermione nods, but can't quite meet his eyes when she says, "I know. But I wasn't lying when I said there isn't any magic that could have saved Dean. I – loved Dean. I wish there was, but this was and will never be an option."
Sam nods, his mood deflating into something far more dejected, and Hermione feels bad for a whole different reason.
"I'm sorry," he says.
Hermione touches her hand to his elbow. "Me too," she says softly, sincerely, and she really is. "I would have done something if I could."