September 1998
The return to Hogwarts had been uneventful which Hermione appreciated. Only a few weeks in, and she already felt calmer than she'd ever felt at the beginning of a school year. She was one of fifteen who returned for their eighth year, and only one of five Gryffindors to return. The fifteen of them were given their own common room and personal rooms on a far wing of the castle, hidden behind a painting of a pig who was happily munching his way through a field of green clovers.
The common room held a few couches and plush armchairs, with a roaring fireplace bracketed by two floor-to-ceiling filled bookshelves. Hermione found herself enjoying this space for studying far more than she ever had the Gryffindor common room or the library, which was a shocking revelation to everyone including herself. Neville and Dean found themselves next to her the most of everyone else who shared the space; Neville curled against her side reading his latest herbology book while Dean sat on the floor with his back against the armrest of the couch, toying with his wand and practicing charms. Hermione enjoyed this more than anything, as it helped to somewhat fill the void the absence of Ron and Harry had brought. While she still missed them more than anything, Dean and Neville's company helped her to relax when things started to pick up pace with schoolwork.
Her and Ron's relationship had blossomed, the two still dancing around each other but with much less tension than the past seven years. He owled her weekly, signing the letters with a messy smiley face next to his name and she lived to see it. They weren't quite dating as he had never asked, but she knew his intentions and felt obliged to let him do things at his pace after the war. His and Harry's Auror training was going well, at least from their letters it seemed that way. Hermione felt pleased to know that her boys were going through it together; they at least deserved that.
Her birthday rolled around slowly around the third week into the school year, and Hermione positioned herself on the couch she always did in the common room. She had brand new books on the table in front of her, fingers itching to turn the pages, when the common room door burst open.
In came the five Slytherins that had returned for that year, three of them arguing so loudly that it was unclear what they were talking about. Tracey Davis, Pansy Parkinson, and Theodore Nott were yelling in each other's faces, as Blaise Zabini and Draco Malfoy filed after them like parents who were too tired to try and shush their bratty children. Hermione glared at the group; not because of who they were, but because of the racket they'd brought in.
"Shut it!" Cried a voice from one of the stairwells. Hermione and the Slytherins turned to see Hannah Abbott with her arms crossed, staring exasperatedly at the quintet. "Take your lover's squabble elsewhere, people are trying to relax in their own rooms, didn't-cha know?"
The shock of Hannah yelling at them quieted the group and Hermione stifled a laugh. Her eyes darted up to see if anyone noticed the huff of breath from her nose and caught Blaise and Draco staring at her intently. She stuck her chin in the air at them before turning to the book on the top of her stack. There was shuffling movement behind her as they passed by, now whisper-yelling at each other.
Hermione made it to the second chapter of her first book before someone sat down in the chair beside her. She looked up, expecting Dean or Neville, and instead found herself looking at the side of Draco's face as he glared at the fireplace. She froze, and he continued to stare at the burning fire in front of them. The clock above the mantel ticked out seconds slowly, painfully, and after a minute passed, Hermione lowered her eyes back to her book. Maybe if she ignored him, he'd just go away.
"I'm sorry."
Hermione stiffened, eyes catching on the word 'impossible' in her book, before looking back up to see him now watching her. He didn't look as if he'd even spoken, lips pressed together tightly and eyes hard and cool.
"What did you just say?" She asked, voice trembling and she bit down on her lip hard. His eyebrows creased.
"I'm sorry," Draco repeated.
"For what?"
"For what? What do you mean for what?" He seemed stumped at her question.
"I mean, for what? How am I supposed to know what you're apologizing for; it's been quite a bit since we've last seen each other, you know."
"For. . ." He paused, eyes dropping to her stack of books as he thought. She watched the gears grind to a halt in his head. "Everything?"
"Everything."
He looked up at her repetition. "Yes, everything, the bullying and the assaults and the war, everything," he snapped, lip curling up in a sneer.
"How much did you bet, Malfoy?" Hermione slipped a hand into her book, closing it and holding her place.
"Bet? You think this is based off of a bet?"
"Why else would you be apologizing to me?"
"Because I fucked up, Granger," he huffed, eyebrows drawn down close to his eyes in confusion. "I already apologized to Potter and Weasel, then there was you."
"I'm sorry, you did what?" Hermione stared at him, surprise coloring every feature of her face. He turned away from her again, looking back at the fire.
"I'm not saying it again," he muttered, and she rolled her eyes.
"Okay, whatever, well-" she paused, unsure what to say. "I guess, uh, thank you?"
He glanced back at her, one eyebrow raised.
"Thank you?"
"What do you want me to say, Malfoy?"
"There's a lot you could say, there's a lot I'd expect to hear but nothing close to 'thank you'."
"Well, I'm not gonna sit here and blame you for the things you were forced to do, or were scared into doing," she said quietly, eyes dropping to the book she held. He didn't respond, and she waited as the clock continued to tick, but still no sound from him. When she looked up, he was watching her with a strained expression.
"Scared," was all he said as her eyes met his. "I don't think you understand what it was I had to go through."
"No, I don't," she responded honestly, shrugging her shoulders. "But I don't expect you to understand what I went through either, so I guess we're at a crossroads." She paused, watching him take in what she'd said. "Sorry doesn't cut it, Malfoy. Sorry doesn't fix anything and you being scared doesn't make up for the fact that you and your family and friends hurt me and mine. It's going to take a lot more than a word to heal that." She stood, grabbing her books from the table. Suddenly, the room had grown unbearably hot and she needed to leave, now.
"Do you have to run every time something gets uncomfortable, Granger?" His voice stopped her, and she looked over her shoulder at him. Draco had stood as well, hands shoved into his pockets. "What happened to the Gryffindor that raged inside of you?"
The two stood there as the clock ticked, staring at each other in silence.
"I don't have to listen to you if I don't want to, Malfoy. I already responded to your apology, I don't know what else you want from me." With that, Hermione turned and headed up the stairs to the girls dormitories.
November 1998
The silence of the Quidditch Pitch rang in Hermione's ears. Snow fell quietly down around her, landing in little curls along her gloves and catching on her cheeks where they bit a pink tint into her skin. The silence is why she came - to just exist outside of the realm of the castle for a short moment. If she squinted hard enough towards the clouds, she could pretend to see Harry zooming through them towards a flash of gold, and Ron in place in front of the far-off goals swishing and swooping between the three hoops. Her eyes strayed to the tower of stands across from her and pictured a blur of maroon and gold robes and burnished red braids streak by.
As it was, she no longer attended Quidditch matches at Hogwarts and couldn't imagine anything but her two boys and her best friend making their rounds of the pitch.
A slick crunch sounded from her left and she brought her attention down to the snow covered field. At the farthest entrance of the pitch strode in Draco, blonde head gleaming from the sunlight reflecting off the snow. He had a broom slung over his shoulder, black robes flicking in the wind and revealing the emerald and silver underside. His eyes were closed as he marched in, nose pointed up to the sky, face smooth and pink. Hermione clutched the bannister of the stands a little tighter as he made it to the center, opening his eyes and positioning the broom between his legs. Within seconds he was in the air, racing his way towards the opposite end of the pitch, swinging wide left and right.
She watched him maneuver between the hoops, twirling upside down and then right side up again as he flew. She'd never seen him fly like this before. Typically, his movements were quick and simple, searching for the snitch the only reason to be spinning himself. He had been calculated before, memorizing how the others moved around him and blithely keeping out of their way as he soared. This, this flying was loose and subconscious. His posture on the broom was relaxed, instead of tightly hunched. If she was being honest with herself, she enjoyed seeing him move this way; it felt like he was a totally different person.
The few months they'd been back, that fact had been made clear. Each moment in the classrooms, every encounter in the common room, there was silent understanding of the other. After his initial apology, it seemed he was genuine. When Hermione was paired with Theo for potions, Draco snapped at him for a rude joke Theo made at her expense. When Pansy knocked her books off the table in the Great Hall, he whisked them back up with his wand before yanking Pansy away. It wasn't much, but she could tell he was trying.
After a few minutes of him swooshing back and forth, dipping high and low, he finally noticed his audience of one. Slowly, he came to a stop in the middle of the pitch, staring at her with a blank expression. She gave him the same look, heart beginning to thump. This was the first time they'd been alone since her birthday. With a slight tilt of his broom, he moved towards her and hovered next to the bannister she clung to.
"What are you doing here?" His voice seemed fragile, almost a whisper in the soft wind. She swallowed harshly, the snowflakes on her eyelashes seeming too heavy now and she blinked a few times. Their history and now current, almost, acquaintanceship breathed a heavy smoke around them - both comfortable and frigid.
"I came for some peace and quiet. What are you doing?" She responded, voice just as still in the air.
"Needed to clear my head," he answered, looking away from her and towards the sky.
"Flying does that for you?"
"Does it not for you?" He looked back at her, eyebrows crinkling. "Do you ever fly, Granger?"
"Godrick, no, brooms and I don't get along," Hermione spat out quickly, shaking her head so violently the strands of chilled hair that fell out of her bun smacked her face like whips.
"The Gryffindor scared of heights, huh?"
"No one's scared of nothing, Malfoy, you know that."
The two remained in silence for a moment, the wind careening around them and Hermione wondered how Draco managed to stay so upright and balanced in the face of it.
"Why don't you try it?" Draco broke the moment first.
"Try what? Flying?"
"Yeah, when was the last time you flew?"
"When we saved your ass in the Room of Requirement," she bit out, feeling a rush of heat in her chest at the sight of his face somehow getting paler.
"Oh," was his only response.
"Yeah."
"Well. . ."
"Well, what?"
"What if you flew with someone else first?"
"What, like you?" A laugh died in her throat when she realized his face remained blank. "Are you serious?"
"Forget it, Granger, keep being scared." Draco turned in the air, heading for the ground by the entrance of the pitch. Hermione tensed, brain racing at his statement. Scared. The word kept getting brought up, not only by him but by everyone around her. Professors, fellow Gryffindors, other classmates, they all commended her for her war efforts - how she couldn't have been scared to do all that she'd done.
How was she supposed to tell them? How was she supposed to admit to the night terrors, all of the things she couldn't unsee even when closing her eyes, the blanks in her memory where she knew something horrible happened but she couldn't remember what? Her terror went far beyond the realm of scared, but no one seemed to recognize it. She kept it as a shield, protection from those seeking to hurt her and her loved ones; being scared meant she was ready.
Draco had asked the last time they spoke: what happened to her Gryffindor courage, what happened to her rage? It still existed, she knew it did, but it was trapped under a layer of caution. Every move now was critical, every word and every action calculated to decrease risk and ensure her capability to let that rage escape when needed most instead of wasting that energy. Instead, she lay dormant in her fear and brimming with untouched risk.
She was tired of being scared, but it was so easy to be that way. It kept her safe, it kept others safe, it meant nothing had to be done until the most crucial moment. At this point, she felt broken from the overwhelming fear. Whatever happened to her; did she die somehow in the war?
"Wait!" She didn't realize she had been running down the steps of the stands, two at a time, chasing after him. When she got to the field, her boots slid on a patch of ice and she flopped onto her back. "Oof!"
Hermione sat up, eyes struggling to focus on the black blur whizzing towards her. Suddenly, she was being hoisted to her feet and fingers were probing the back of her skull, or trying to over the bundle of curls she had pulled back. She struggled away from the hands gripping her, looking up to see Draco staring at her with a strained expression.
"Did you hit your head?" He asked, fingers reaching back towards her neck.
"No, I'm fine." She pushed his hand away, looking down at her feet and the broom that lay next to them. "Let's try."
"What?"
"Let's try flying, Malfoy, I don't want to say it again," she snapped, glancing up at him to see his eyebrows crease together.
"I don't know, you just fell pretty hard. . ." He picked up his broom, a hand slipping up and down the handle as he thought.
"I'm fine. Let's go," she reached for the broom in his hands, wrapping her gloved fingers around the handle. He stared hard at her, eyes darting around each feature of her face. With a silent nod, he pulled the broom from her grip and mounted. He kept himself still, waiting for her to join.
It was this moment that apprehension and regret slammed into her gut. Why did she agree to this? With him, of all people? They'd barely spoken since the war and the last time they spoke, they'd argued, and now here she is, trusting him with her life. All because of her pride and the need to push back every inch of her screaming, flight not fight. But she tuned the clamor in her head out, shrugging out her shoulders and planting a foot on one side of the broom before swinging her other leg up and over behind Draco. Without letting herself think too much about it, she braced herself with her hands on his shoulders. The handle she had on the tension and rage slipped as she settled on the broomstick.
"I'm ready," she said, tensing her jaw to let the words come out naturally instead of chattering.
"Hold tighter," Draco said without turning to face her. A snap of electricity fizzled down her arms and she grimaced, moving to wrap them around his waist. His back straightened from the contact, stomach quivering below her forearms as he sucked in. Slowly, he relaxed his muscles, and she noticed how scrawny he'd gotten.
She had been expecting a build like Harry, how he'd filled out over the years of being with the Weasley's and Quidditch. While Harry was still bean-pole thin, there was definition to his stomach and chest that hadn't been there in their younger years. Draco, on the other hand, felt little more than skin and bones. He had been gaunt in the face when they returned this year, and he'd looked even worse at his trial where she had been a witness, but Hermione was now realizing that his health had diminished far greater than she'd thought.
Suddenly, his chest twitched under her hand, the heartbeat below it beating rapidly, and then her feet left the ground. Taking a sharp breath in, Hermione clutched Draco a little tighter, feeling the curves of his ribcage through his robes. The air brushed past her lightly and she opened her eyes, not having noticed that she closed them.
This - Hermione realized a tad bit too late - was a mistake. White simmered below her, far below her dangling legs, and the air around her buffeted her face while simultaneously thinning out. A whine grew behind her ears as she stared down at the pitch. Her lungs picked up pace as the air started to run out; she couldn't gasp it in hard enough. In front of her, Draco was speaking, but his voice sounded underwater and croaking, like a frog learning to talk. Her mouth opened to answer, to tell him to speak English for Godrick's sake, she didn't understand a single thing he said, but her tongue would only move to swallow, gargling the very air she struggled to take in. The white began to run out on the pitch below them; she watched as ink spots blotted out sections of the snow covered field, until there was no field below them, and Hermione fell.
November 1998
The Hospital Wing. Hermione knew that smell from miles away; she'd only spent years both being in it and visiting her boys in it. Her eyes watered as she tried to open them, blinking against the pale light coming in through the window. The sanitized pillow beneath her head crinkled as she forced herself upright. Hands flew to her shoulders, gently pushing her back into the mattress.
"Madame Pomfrey wants you to rest up, Hermione," Dean's voice spoke through the haze in her head. As the glare in her eyes dissipated, she saw Ginny, Dean, and Neville surrounding her bed. Hermione drew in a breath and found that the air filtered into her lungs clearly and calmly.
"What happened?" Her throat was dry. Ginny helped prop a pillow behind her head as Neville got a glass of water, straw at the ready. She took a sip, staring at the three in front of her, trying to connect the dots in her memory. Dean glanced over his shoulder, before looking at Neville and Ginny. When Ginny nodded, Dean spoke up.
"Might be best if you ask him." Dean threw his head back in the direction of the door, and stepped to the side. Draco had been leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. He didn't move to come closer, only looked up to make eye contact with her.
"You fell off the broom," he said casually, as if it was an everyday occurrence. Ginny bristled beside her.
"Bollocks, Hermione doesn't fly, everyone knows that, why don't you try for a little more realism with your tales, Malfoy?" She spat at him, her hair falling into her face as she moved forwards. Neville took a hold of her arm, keeping her in place as she continued. "Damn it, what's wrong with you? She could've died, you wanker!"
"Language, Weasley. I'm sure your mother would drop dead if she heard you speak like that," Draco hissed back at her, eyebrows pinned low. He'd thrown himself away from the wall, hands in his pockets as he stared her down. Ginny snarled.
"I pray everyday that yours does."
"That's enough!" Headmistress McGonagall had stormed into the room, clapping her hands together so tightly that Hermione felt it reverberate in her skull. Draco stared at Ginny with fury and disgust. "The both of you - ten points from each of your houses for the horrible things you've said."
Neither one cared. For the seventh and eighth years, house points were nothing more than sequins on an otherwise blank roll of parchment; meaningless and ugly reminders of childhood.
"Now, Mr. Malfoy, I think I and the others here would be interested in knowing just how Ms. Granger made it onto a broomstick a hundred yards up in the air," McGonagall spoke quietly, turning to Draco as he relaxed back against the doorframe. His eyes remained on Ginny as he answered.
"I went to the pitch to do some flying; I like to practice every now and then, not all of us have the fortune to be able to be on their Quidditch team." Ginny rolled her eyes, crossing her arms as he continued. "Granger was in the stands, doing I don't know or care what. We talked. She mentioned she didn't fly, I asked if she'd ever tried. She said not really. I offered to fly with her, she could try it out. She accepted and got on the broom, behind me. When we made it up into the air, she started to struggle to breathe; I tried talking to her but she wouldn't respond. All of a sudden, she lets go and falls off."
Draco turned his attention to Hermione.
"I cast Immobulus as quickly as I could and raced to catch you. You were passed out when I reached you. I brought you here."
The room remained silent for a few moments. Ginny tapped her foot impatiently, glancing between Draco, Hermione, and McGonagall. Dean rubbed the top of his head, looking at the ground, as Neville brought a hand up to his face, fingers pinching at his chin.
"Ms. Granger? Does any of that sound familiar to you?" McGonagall asked, turning to her. After hearing Draco talk, the memories rushed back to her, especially the moment that the air gave out around her.
"Yes, I-I think I had a panic attack," Hermione answered. The three Gryffindors looked at her in shock.
"You got on a broom, with Malfoy?" Ginny cried out, her finger pointed wildly in his direction. "What the hell was going through your head?"
"Ginny-" Hermione started.
"Ms. Weasley, I will not hesitate to throw you out of my hospital wing." Madame Pomfrey appeared from her office, Pepperup potion and her wand in her hands. Ginny flushed, anger radiating in waves from her hunched shoulders, before she slumped down into a chair beside the bed. "Ms. Granger, if you wouldn't mind taking this."
Madame Pomfrey poured her a glass of the potion and Hermione thankfully swallowed it, feeling the shadows lift from under her eyes and the ache from off of her shoulders. A drop of ice slid down from the top of her head all the way into her belly, cooling and easing the knot of tension there. Steam billowed from her ears and she grinned.
"Thank you," she said, smiling at the older witch. Madame Pomfrey smiled back at her before turning to the group around her.
"Give her another hour to rest up and she'll be free to go." With that, the healer hustled back to her office, sending a look of warning to Ginny on her way.
"Well, I see no reason why there should be a party in here," McGonagall started. "Let's leave Ms. Granger alone for the hour. She should be up for company afterwards." The tone in her voice told the five students that this wasn't a suggestion but an order. Draco immediately turned on his heel, pushing open the door and walking out. Ginny stood reluctantly, gave Hermione a pat on the arm, and followed Dean to the door. Neville leaned down, giving her a slight hug, before heading out as well. McGonagall stood in the doorway a moment, watching Hermione closely.
"Ms. Granger, a word of advice."
"Yes, Headmistress?" At Hermione's use of the title, McGonagall pursed her lips.
"The saying 'keep your friends close, and your enemies closer' doesn't always work out the way we want it to." McGonagall glanced out the door. "And while there's no longer a war, I'm sure you understand you still do have enemies out there. Maybe not the ones you had before, but enemies nonetheless. Be vigilant."
With a nod, McGonagall slipped out the door, leaving Hermione to mull over what the headmistress had said. Unfortunately for McGonagall, Hermione would have to disagree with her at the current moment - she didn't know many enemies of hers that would risk a hex from Ginny Weasley just to see her in the hospital wing for an hour or two.