3 July 1996
Broken.
Hermione was good with languages, guessing etymology when she didn't know it outright, but she'd never understood the depth of that word before, broken. It was from the thirteenth or fourteenth century, Old English. The original was probably something like brocen or broccen before it was adapted with the introduction of the Grecian K.
It was an adjective, and it meant to be violently separated into parts. Fragmented. Left in pieces.
To no longer function as intended.
As she stood staring at her naked body in the mirror behind her wardrobe door, she decided that, more than anything, it was apt.
It wasn't just her body that was broken, though. The stark purple line reaching from breast to hip was more a symptom of a larger problem than anything else, a physical indication of the discontent that was roiling and bubbling beneath her skin.
It had been over two weeks since the attack at the ministry, and for the most recent two days of that time, she'd been at home.
Well, at her parents' house.
She hadn't seen Fred. Hadn't spoken to him. Hadn't written. Hadn't even allowed herself to look at the little silver key, tucked into her bag, tucked into her trunk, tucked into her wardrobe, tucked… away, far out of sight, like the smallest in a set of Russian nesting dolls.
The key was from before, she was from before, they were from before, and this, now… this was after.
She reached her hand up and lightly prodded the edge of the welt with her fingertips. It stung and she sucked in a pained gasp before sinking her teeth viciously into her bottom lip, stifling it despite the fact that there was nobody around to hear. Her parents had just left for dinner, Hermione requesting to stay home on account of a headache that she was not actually suffering from.
Any concern they had in regard to her demeanor was easily explained away by her supposed anxiety over test scores. It was astounding, really, how effortlessly they bought that pretty lie. That their studious, bookish daughter was simply concerned she'd checked the wrong boxes on a sheet of parchment.
But they couldn't see the brand on her chest, the physical representation of her brokenness. Thanks to the expert spellwork of Madam Pomfrey, the only people that could see it were those that already knew it was there. A clever, notice-me-not type of glamour. If she were capable of such a thing at the time, she would have admired the ingenuity.
Hermione pulled her dressing gown on and crossed the hall to the bathroom she had to herself. She opened the glass door to the shower and turned the handle on the faucet.
She'd always loved hot showers, borderline scalding, but she wasn't able to take hot showers anymore. Not for a long while, anyway. Even if the pain wasn't unbearable, the memory that it brought would be. The memory of lying on the floor of the Department of Mysteries, burning and alone.
Alone.
Middle English, adjective; meaning separated from others. Or, in this case, other. Non-plural.
Yes, Neville had been there, doing his level best to take care of her and Ron, but he wasn't who she'd wanted. Who she'd needed. As she teetered on the razor-thin brink of agony and nothingness, his gentle hazel eyes weren't the ones that she longed to see one more time.
No, those eyes were blue. And they hadn't been there.
Hermione pulled in a breath that night and held it, and now it was like she was still holding it. Even though her lungs were on fire, screaming in protest for any form of relief, she couldn't exhale. Couldn't move forward, but also couldn't go back. She was stuck.
She stepped under the contemptuously tepid spray, trying to remember why she was bothering at all. Why she'd even bothered getting out of bed in the first place.
And the thing about those blue eyes was that, for as much as she craved them, as much as she wanted them with her before, terrified she would never see them again, she couldn't stand the thought of them seeing her now. Seeing the pieces. The fragments. The brokenness.
Seeing her after.
Because what if the parts of her that he loved weren't there anymore? What if they'd been left behind, forgotten on the floor that night?
Taken in combination with everything else that had gone wrong since they'd last seen one another, that horrific possibility was too much to bear.
So, she closed her eyes, dipped her face beneath the water, and continued to hold her breath.