Hermione lay awake in the darkness of her room. A streetlamp breaks through the blinds, and in the cuts she can see rain beat the glass. For hours she had been trying to busy her mind with productive thoughts to keep memories at bay, but as soon as sleep threatens to take her she can only see one thing: Ron. Flashes of the two of them together sidle into her head:
A Sunday morning in bed. She was reading the paper when he rolled over and sleepily nuzzled her shoulder for attention…
She laughed, tossing the paper down and embracing him, together rolling deeper into a cloud of white blankets…
The warmth of his lips, smiling and pressed against the side of her neck…
His head lost in a tangle of her wild hair, one hand on the small of her back, pulling her close, another gently pushing her reading glasses off her face as he as he rose to meet her lips…
A kiss through laughter as he blindly fumbled to lay the glasses on the nightstand because she'd kill him if he just dropped them on the floor beside the bed…
Glasses out of harm's way, he brings his hand up to cradle her face, and the laughter subsides…
His hand in her hair, he kisses her deeply, shifting his weight on top of her…
Her hand traces his spine…
Warmth…
Lips…
Ron…
Memories are heavy tendrils wrapped around her stomach, and she squeezes her eyes shut and groans.
Think about something else.
Anything else.
Her new home had been furnished, but inhospitably so. There was plenty of dusting to be done. She rose from her bed, and the wrought iron frame creaked in protest. For a moment, she just stood there in the orange glow of the streetlight. Wearing simple cotton shorts and a matching bralette, she closes her eyes and allows the chill to seep into her exposed skin.
Think about something else.
Anything else.
The amulet.
Her eyes snap open. How had she forgotten? The wooden floorboards creak beneath her as she pads quietly out of the room and down the corridor to the office. While her bedroom consisted only of a deep sagging mattress and vintage bedframe, and her living room was merely a dingy couch gnawed beyond its prime by vermin, this was the sole room the Ministry had fully equipped.
Entering the room, she flicks her wrist and whispers "Incendio."
As a fire ignites in the hearth in the far corner of the room, and on the wicks of various candles throughout, she silently thanks Mr. Ollivander for forging a ring from the handle of her wand. Without it, discreetly using magic around Muggles would have been tricky.
She surveys the room, not yet accustomed to the layout of her new surroundings.
A plush Persian rug sprawls across the floor, snaking beneath the legs of an overstuffed chair and matching couch. A large oak desk overflows with paperwork and quills. Boxes of files are piled around the room in various states of assemblage, some pristinely set to the side, others partially open with bits of protruding parchment. She begins sifting through boxes laid out along the floor next to a bookshelf full of dusty research manuals, searching for what she knew would confirm where she had seen her strange neighbor's talisman before. A few moments later, she pulls out a tattered edition of the Daily Prophet.
The image of a young man glares at her from the front page. A shock of dirty blonde waves whipping around his face as silent winds tear around him, his full lips pressed into a grim line as he clutches his robe closed. The red amulet gleams from beneath the folds from a chain around his neck. Hermione's heart plummets and she steadies herself against the wall. Heart racing, she re-reads the headline beneath the image:
7 Muggle families murdered; former Hogwarts prodigy still at large
Officials are seeking Aries Kane, 28, in connection to a string of recent London-area homicides
Hermione lets the paper fall to the floor, exhausted. She hadn't wanted to believe it at first, thinking perhaps her memories were finally slipping away from her. But it was confirmed: she was living next door to someone who was, in some way or another, connected to the wizard who had just spent the last four months viciously killing innocent men, women, and in two cases, children.
Suddenly, a strange sound pulls her away from her thoughts.
She peers down the hallway to her front door.
From the other side of it, there is faint scratching, then a loud thud that makes her jump.
She braces herself at the rattle of the doorknob.
Another, louder thump.
Someone was trying to break into her home.