She was so tired of the fear.
It kept coming in waves, crashing over her during the most innocuous moments - a birthday party, traveling back to school. The cold panic would seize her, and it was all she could manage to just breathe through it until it subsided, leaving her weak and shaking.
This wasn't the kind of life she wanted to live.
As Hermione left the Great Hall after the start-of-term feast, she skated her fingers over a gash in the stone wall that hadn't yet been patched, swearing she could feel remnants of heat emanating from it from the spell that had caused it. She lagged further and further behind the group she'd exited with, which included Neville, Luna, and Ginny, the latter of whom kept on glancing back at her as if to check if she was alright.
She wasn't. But she would be, she was determined of that.
She decided that this year would be one of getting over - not just over the pain that she was still finding herself sinking into, but also over the previous perceptions of her life and herself. This year would be different. She wouldn't actually be in danger, didn't have to expect that something bad would happen before she left school. She could just...be. And figure out what that meant.
Hermione sighed, thinking that would probably require her to at least attempt to utilize the counselor that McGonagall had shipped in from America. She was still skeptical of the whole situation - she'd never heard of anyone who had doubled up on both a Muggle and wizarding education. It was a fascinating prospect, and she respected this Dr. Wendt for the undertaking. But Hermione was still fearful that, no matter what the doctor did or said, she wouldn't be able to help her. In the end, maybe Hermione was the only one who could do it for herself.
As she contemplated all of these weighty possibilities, Hermione spotted Remus Lupin striding toward the front doors of the castle, his cloak fluttering behind him. He looked tired, but when he saw her, he shot her a small wave and a smile. She absently touched the necklace clasped around her throat, the one he had given her just the evening before. Its warm weight was comforting, and she spun the small hourglass between her fingers as she watched the older man navigate between groups of students crowding the hallway. Firelight glanced off of his scarred cheekbones and flashed in his earthy green eyes, and in those glowing embers she felt deep within her chest a comfort that reassured her that she would get through all of this, even if it took all year. When she looked at the Professor, she felt strong enough to come out on the other side healed.
Of course, she didn't know how exactly to deal with that feeling, but at least it was a comforting one.
Lupin exited the building and Hermione quickened her pace to catch up with the Gryffindor trio, who were already chatting excitedly about the next day's plans. Ginny smiled as Hermione rejoined them and slung an arm around her shoulders. "Hey, slowpoke," she prodded.
"Very funny," Hermione retorted.
"What's your first class tomorrow?" asked Neville, raking his fingers through his shaggy hair. The boy had thinned out even more over the summer, and with the puppy fat fully lost from his cheeks Hermione recognized with slight surprise that he was really becoming the man that was always underneath. Perhaps the confidence of being a Horcrux-slayer didn't hurt, either. She missed the baby-faced Neville a little bit, but it was nice to see him looking so sure of himself.
"Hrmm, Potions, I think," she replied. "And then...Defense Against the Dark Arts." Her stomach flipped.
"Could you believe Lupin is back? I had no idea!" said Ginny. "He was with us all summer and never even mentioned it."
"Yeah, right," Hermione said, absently.
"I for one am looking forward to it," said Luna airily. "Werewolves are said to have different kinds of magic that mere wizards aren't capable of, you know."
Hermione raised an eyebrow at her, skeptical. "I've never heard that."
"It's true," nodded Luna, "they just don't go around talking about it. But I think they get increased power from the moon. Aside from the transformation, of course."
"Alright," snorted Ginny, squeezing Hermione's shoulder in commiseration.
As they made their way up the steps of the Grand Staircase, Luna spotted Hermione's necklace, which she was still twirling in her fingers. "That's a lovely necklace. Is it new?"
Hermione nearly froze in her tracks, but pressed on. "Oh! Ah...yes...birthday gift."
"Not a real one, right?" said Neville, referring to true Time-Turners with a trace of anxiety in his voice. Hermione shook her head.
"Is that from Ron?" Luna asked, hopping over the trick step with a light grab of Neville's arm to steady herself.
Hermione bristled. "Oh, no. Uh...Viktor." She could've sworn she saw Ginny glance at her suspiciously, but she ignored it.
"Wow. And the flowers too. I tried to talk to one of the fairies that was dancing in the roses, but she just flew away. Pity. I wanted to ask if they really kept Capmunks as pets." Hermione didn't ask what a Capmunk was - she just wanted to be past this topic of conversation as soon as possible.
They bid Luna goodnight and entered the Gryffindor Tower through the Fat Lady's portrait - a Sixth Year let them all know the password was "acta non verba" - and Neville peeled himself away from the pair of girls and dragged himself up the stairs of the boys' dormitory, yawning. Hermione made to follow Ginny, but Ginny stopped and turned back to her. "Didn't you hear? You're in a different dormitory this year."
Hermione also stopped in her tracks. "What?"
"You didn't talk to McGonagall?" Hermione shook her head. She hadn't. She'd just wanted to get back to her bed, shut the curtains around her and wait for sleep. Ginny leaned against the wall of the girls' stairwell and crossed her arms. "You have your own room. The private hall is behind the unicorn tapestry up there."
Hermione was taken aback at this. "I...what?"
Ginny laughed. "Merlin, Hermione, where has your head been at? Yeah, everyone coming back for an Eighth Year is getting one. Something about privacy for the older students. Bloody lucky. I think Lavender and Parvati have their own rooms, too."
"Upset you won't be able to sneak Harry in?" asked Hermione, smirking.
Ginny flushed and shook her off. "As if I won't be able to."
"How's Lavender?" enquired Hermione, remembering the girl had been mauled by Fenrir Greyback during the Battle the May previous. With a shudder, she also remembered that it had been her who had driven Greyback off to his eventual death. She swallowed.
Ginny sighed. "Far as I can tell it's a bit like Bill," Ginny replied. "I saw the juice dripping off of her steak at the feast. Don't remember her ever having a taste for red meat before."
Hermione made a mental note to talk to Lavender about any wolfish symptoms she might be having. "As long as she's all healed."
"Physically, yes. But she hasn't been talking much." Ginny sighed again, and then crooked an eyebrow at the other witch. "Viktor didn't give you that necklace, did he. And not Ron, either." She said this more as a statement, and not a question.
Hermione's eyes widened in surprise, having thought she'd evaded the conversation before. "What?"
"That's three 'What's' in the span of two minutes, Granger," responded Ginny with a smile. "You're usually not so off-guard." Hermione sighed, a hint of a groan in her voice, letting a Fifth Year girl climb past them with a small black cat in tow. Ginny watched the girl walk up the steps, then when she had left their view, shook her head. "It's alright, it's alright. I'm not gonna push. But I hope that, if you eventually want to talk about whatever is going on, you'll remember that I'm here to talk to. I don't have to tell Harry anything you don't want me to."
"It's not that," Hermione replied. "I just...I don't even know."
"Check that off as the first time, then," Ginny grinned. "Well, I'll miss you in the dormitory."
Hermione laughed. "I'll be right down the hall."
Ginny laughed as well and began to mount the steps again. Hermione followed. "Just make sure you don't stay too far away in that brain of yours', too."
The private bedroom was quite cozy, and Hermione wondered if it had rearranged itself to her tastes before she had arrived. A plush four-poster bed was situated in the middle of the room with light yellow curtains tied away from the sides. A dark wooden desk was set next to a couple of large bookcases stocked full of cloth and leather-bound tomes; a small fire crackled in the fireplace across from the foot of the bed. A cozy burgundy reading chair was perched next to a wide glass window, which overlooked the back of the castle toward the Forbidden Forest. Hermione could see the half-moon slung high in the night sky through its dimpled glass.
She changed into a light green nightgown, braided her hair - which was beginning to become fussy again as the bewitched products combed through it faded - and curled into the welcoming reading chair, propping the window open and pulling her knees close to her chest. She could see Hagrid's hut, the currently-stilled Whomping Willow, and a small wooden cabin at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Hermione tilted her head as she looked at the orange glow flickering through the cabin's front window. Since when has that been there? she wondered. Hagrid's abode was the only one she'd ever remembered being on this part of the grounds. Small white pumpkins were beginning to blossom from green leafy vines in the cabin's fenced-in side yard, and a light plume of smoke jetted from the stone chimney on its roof. She felt lonely again, staring at this mysterious home, with its unknown occupant, now feeling sequestered away even further from her classmates. But maybe this solitude could be a good thing.
That is what she hoped as she laid her head down a few minutes later, her stomach thumping with the nerves that always preceded the start of term and her hand absently running across the hourglass necklace still clasped around her neck.
There was no way to tell if it was moments or hours later, but at some point after she had fallen into the clutches of sleep, Hermione careened back to consciousness in the hallway in front of the Great Hall. It had become a familiar place in her nightmares over the summer, but perhaps due to her being back at Hogwarts, it felt more real now than it had since the Battle.
And the Battle was what she was in the midst of, she could tell. She was standing, still wearing her nightgown, barefoot and hair braided, on the cold stone walkway she had just navigated through with Neville, Ginny, and Luna that very evening. But her feet were standing in something...dark. And wet.
She recoiled. It was blood. A puddle of blood that was much too viscous, much too deep.
It was clear that whoever had spilt that amount of blood must be dead.
Hermione groaned quietly as she turned her head to look at the opposite wall, knowing what she would see. And she was correct: there were the bodies she'd remembered, the ones that had been crudely cast aside by the Death Eaters. She cringed as her eyes moved to the broken form of the older woman with the mangled, bloody face. The woman - whoever she was - was crumpled against the wall under a portrait that had been slashed in two. It looked to be this woman's blood that Hermione was stepping in.
She turned away, dragging her feet out of the viscera and stumbling back to clutch against the door of a closet. There was no action in the hall, but she could hear distant screams and yelling. The sounds of fighting juxtaposed with the cryptlike stillness of her present location made her feel nauseous. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing in hard with the determination to not cry, to not break, to remember it was just a dream and the Battle was over, it had been over for months, they had won.
I am safe I am safe oh god please I am safe-
A high, shrill voice pierced the indistinguishable din leaking in from the rest of the castle. "I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself..."
This isn't real he is dead I am safe I am safe-
Suddenly, a strange yanking sensation tugged at her mind, not pulling her forward but being pulled by her. Not physically - rather, pulling invisibly in the darkness behind her squinched-shut eyes. The yanking heaved forward from the black, and it was almost like her entire being reached out to clutch at anything it could find in the oblivion. A dazzling bright blue light shot across the backs of her eyelids, and a moment later she could hear the first sound be made in the hall since she had arrived in her dreams: a loud THUMP.
Hermione slowly turned and pried her wet eyes open. They widened at the sight she now took in, completely flabbergasted. It was Remus Lupin.
But not Lupin as he'd looked during the Battle, even - instead, it was a Lupin that was also barefooted, wearing a henley shirt and loose pajama pants and a completely befuddled expression. He tilted his head at her, stunned. "Hermione?"
"Professor?" she responded, utterly perplexed.
"What...what is going on?" Lupin turned slowly on the spot, finally seeing the blood and bodies strewn across the hall. "Hermione...what's happening?"
"I don't know..." She pulled away further against the door, feeling the cold wood against her palms. Is this Lupin, or a nightmare's trick?
"Why...why are we here?"
Hermione looked around, shaking her head. "I...I was sleeping."
Lupin straightened up. Hermione could see the soft hair of his chest poking up from the unbuttoned collar of his shirt; his large, strong hands squeezing shut into fists tight enough to make the blood drain from them. There was a small tear in the ankle of his pants, and he had a scar low on the side of his neck that she had never noticed before. She could see everything with such complete clarity that he seemed more present than a dream, more real.
It made no sense to her.
"Let's get away from here," he told the receding girl, extending a hand to her with a friendly nod. Hermione didn't move, however - she didn't know what "away" even meant. "It's alright. You're safe," Lupin continued, adamantly. He nodded once more at her, encouraging.
Not knowing what else to do but knowing she had to get out of this hall of carnage, Hermione placed her hand in Lupin's, allowing him to lead her away down the hall and to the left of the Grand Staircase. Here was a narrower passageway, and within it Lupin chose a door and pulled her inside the room.
They seemed to be in the Herbology stores, and Lupin clicked the wooden door shut behind them. Voldemort's jeering voice calling "One hour...one hour...one hour..." seemed to reverberate down the hallway, but it was muffled in this green and damp room. Hermione dropped into a wooden chair situated next to a potting bench, feeling somehow exhausted even though logically she knew she was currently asleep. She stared down at her feet. The blood she had been standing in was smeared all over them and beginning to dry into a sickly deep maroon shade, cracking across her skin as it withered. The nauseous feeling returned.
Perhaps spotting her horrified expression, Lupin realized what the girl was looking at and pulled a ratty towel from a bin of laundered linens. He ran it under a tap, wetting it, and then walked over to Hermione and slowly kneeled in front of her. He glanced up, wordlessly asking her consent. She nodded. Lupin took her small foot in his large palm and, cradling it, held it in place against his knee as he quietly ran the wet towel across her skin, wiping away the remnants of the terror she had transported herself to. Had transported him to? Her breath hitched slightly as she felt his deft fingers pull across the top of her foot, his eyes gazing down at his work. What is happening? her frenzied mind repeated over and over to itself. The crusted wine-colored blood reddened once more, then disappeared onto the rag as he throughly cleaned first her right, then her left foot. Once he was done the towel had been made quite pink, but her skin was finally clean again. The rag momentarily rubbed against the edge of her nightgown, and Hermione saw that it deposited a pinkish stain on the fabric, a stain made up of water and sopped-up blood.
Lupin tossed the towel into a nearby metal bucket and looked back up at Hermione, her bare left foot still perched on his knee. His eyes were filled with such sympathy and sadness, it almost took Hermione's breath away. "Is that better?" She nodded once again. He pursed his lips, thinking. "I think you brought me here, somehow."
She leaned forward immediately. "I don't know-"
He raised his hand and gently let her foot back down on the floor as he stood back up. "I don't think you meant to. But, well...I know I'm really here. And we're having the same dream." Hermione looked at the dingy window of the Herbology stores and saw a pale shaft of light begin to peek its way through the glass. Is that the sun? she thought, confusedly. But the Battle isn't even over yet. Lupin followed her gaze and also noticed the light making its way into the room. "I think we've come to the end of the night," he observed, and not a moment later, Lupin disappeared from view with a POP, leaving her alone once again.
The edges of her dream began to swim at the corners and then shuddered in and out of view, making the whole room look like it was fading away around her, with only her own self still remaining in full sharpness. Hermione looked down at her hands as wisps of blackness overtook her, and she fell away, further and further and further until...
Hermione's eyes shot open. Sunlight streamed in from the window. She was in bed, in her new dormitory, at Hogwarts. It was the morning of September 2nd, and her eighth year was beginning today.
She sat up, looked around, then swung her legs out from under the covers. She shivered as she saw what she thought she would:
A reddish stain on the hem of her nightgown, one that she would swear on a thousand copies of Hogwarts: A History hadn't been there when she had laid down to sleep the night before.
She stared, and stared, until finally, out of blind astonishment, she muttered to herself:
"What the fuck?"
A/N: Thank you all so much for sticking with this story! I hope you're enjoying it, and feel free to leave any thoughts in the comments. Song referenced in chapter title is "Golden Slumbers", by The Beatles.