They landed on hard soil, the cloying smell of damp forest floor invading her lungs. Hermione kept her eyes closed and breathed as steadily as she could, knowing there was no way to hide the trembling that had overtaken her body.

"Alright, team?" Char's voice came from her left as the woman smoothly disentangled their arms.

Hermione nodded shakily, eyes still shut tight. "I'll be fine, just need a mo'," she said, her voice somehow strong and steady despite her body's tremors.

"Sure, take your time!" their guide responded cheerily, continuing her earlier conversation with Malfoy. Hermione felt a bone-deep gratitude at the woman's ability to make her feel like she was doing a passable job at pretending to be normal. After a few more deep breaths that did very little to help, she forced her eyes open and zeroed in on Char and Malfoy standing nearby, counting on her increasingly tunneled vision to be a dear and block out most of her surroundings. Somewhat surprisingly, it kind of worked.

"Ah, there we are, then!" Char said with a smile as Hermione made her way toward them. Malfoy stiffened a bit as she neared, but Hermione kept her eyes determinedly on the woman in front of her, plastering a polite smile onto her face as Char cleared her throat dramatically.

"Welcome to the Forest of Dean! Our small team…"

There was a ringing in Hermione's ears as she nodded along, her mind vacillating between the desire to take in all new knowledge presented to her and the overwhelming need to get the fuck out of there. She settled for breathing. Really, it was all she seemed to be capable of.

Ohp, and walking, here we go, the social-self-preservation part of her brain chimed in with a start as Malfoy discretely bumped her on his way to follow Char. The woman was taking long strides, enthusiastically pointing this way and that, and Hermione caught phrases like "past nine months" and "centaur herds across the UK" and "main tent" before she gave up hope of absorbing any information and focused instead on simply making it through the evening.

When the tour had (apparently) finished, Char guided them to an open space in the clearing with several pockets of trees providing privacy from the other tents. "I'll leave you to it!" she said brightly. "Dinner's in about an hour over in the main tent. Let me know if there's anything you need, or if you can't find me, anyone on the team will be happy to help."

"Thanks again, Char," Malfoy said, shaking her hand, and Hermione followed suit with what she hoped was a grateful smile. "See you in the main."

Neither of them spoke for several moments. When Char was out of sight, Malfoy turned around to face her. Hermione was staring fervently around their campsite, eyes unblinking as she tried to shove away the memories boiling up inside her. Before she became entirely rooted to the ground, Hermione took five long steps forward, peering this way and that to confirm the surrounding tents were visible. Anything that would make this different from her last experience in the Forest of Dean, she would take.

"Right," she said, her own voice echoing in her ears so badly that she wasn't even sure how she sounded to the outside world. "Let's set up here."

Malfoy didn't say anything, but she heard him lower his gear to the ground and begin preparing the tent. Hermione looked back, panicking slightly when she saw the frame laid out further back in the shelter of the isolating trees—where most normal folks would set up a tent, she supposed.

"No!" she said, knowing her voice was shrill even if she couldn't hear it properly. He looked at her in surprise but again said nothing. "No, I'm sorry, no, I meant right here." She indicated the ground around her with her arms. "Right" (she drew a shoddy outline in the dirt with the toe of her shoe) "here."

Frowning, Malfoy nodded and collected the pieces he had taken out. Together (Hermione was pretty sure she contributed, as tent-setting was something she could effectively do on autopilot), they set up their shelter for the next couple of days. She let out a small sigh as she confirmed that she would be able to see signs of other humans from the tent flap. Researchers, too! she thought vaguely. The best kind of humans!

She wandered over to a stump several meters away and sat down heavily, forcing her eyes to take in the proof of company, of relative safety, of a regular old camping trip with nary the threat of a Snatcher in sight. Time passed, in all likelihood, but Hermione wouldn't have been able to say how much. All she knew was that Malfoy came out of the tent after a little while and told her it was time to meet the team for dinner.

The meal passed in a nerve-wracking blur. Hermione did her best to appear normal but was quickly losing sight of her typical baseline mannerisms. She paid exhaustive attention to the behaviors of the people around her, laughing when they laughed, forcing food past her lips (don't forget to chew, don't forget to swallow), and maintaining a pleasant smile throughout the meal. Once or twice she thought she noticed curious glances from their new companions, but Malfoy was there, smoothly intercepting any questions sent her way and redirecting the conversation with apparent ease. At one point, she was relatively certain she managed a light laugh and something along the lines of "Just not feeling quite myself tonight, I'm sure I'll be all settled after a good night's sleep" when a worried researcher asked if she was alright.

Finally, the meal was winding down, conversations naturally splintering off into smaller groups. Char was one of the first to rise from the table. "Showers are in the blue tent behind the main," she said, stifling a yawn. "We get started pretty early each day, so I recommend an early night—at least until you get settled."

"A shower sounds like just what I need," Malfoy said, stretching as he stood and excused himself. Hermione rose shortly thereafter, her mind ready to tear her head apart from the inside at the pressure. She said a general goodnight to the remaining diners and walked quickly—but not too quickly—back to their campsite.

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

Hermione barely made it into their tent before her legs gave out. No longer worried about nearby muggles, she cast a silencing charm on the shelter and crawled over to her sleeping bag, clutching her wand tightly and hugging her knees to her chest, pressed as far back into the corner as she could go.

RUN

Shaking violently, she tried to shut her mind to the panic, tried focusing instead on things she could see and touch and hear and smell and taste, but textbook grounding techniques had no place where all five senses built into a pressure that pulled ruthlessly at the trigger.

Tent, sleeping bag, water bottle, wand, rucksack.

RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN

Canvas floor, denim jeans, wool sweater, vine wood wand.

RUN RUN RUN RUN

Crackling fire, wind in the branches, nighttime woods.

RUN RUN RUN

Campfire smoke, wet leaves.

RUN RUN

Blood.

RUN

Somewhere in the fog of her mind, Hermione realized she must have bitten her tongue. The coppery tang slithered around her mouth as she began to rock back and forth, muscles twitching from phantom nerve damage as her brain augmented the crackling fire and moaning wind into cackling laughter and a low, vicious growl. She bit roughly into her jeans, muffling the whimper that forced its way past her lips. It's over, it's over, it's over, she repeated to herself, trying in vain to override her mind's panic. She needed to get out, needed to be able to find her escape and take it. But her wide eyes took in nothing in their frantic state—her vision had blacked in from the edges, and the tunnels in front of her revealed only darkness.

Then someone was gripping her arms and she turned feral, thrashing and clawing to escape the hold, knowing she would do anything, anything, to avoid going through it again.

RUN

This time she wouldn't be dragged from her tent, wouldn't be tortured by a madwoman or promised to the savage pleasures of a bloodthirsty beast of a man. She would fight until her wand broke, until her strength deserted her, until her last breath.

RUN

"Granger, hey, Granger!" A voice was breaking through her wide-eyed blindness. She continued to flail in the tight corner of the tent, hoping to throw off her attacker and break away, but the arms stayed firm around her and she realized she was no longer holding her wand. "It's over, Granger, it's over. You're safe."

Hermione thrashed her head back and forth, unable to grasp any truth in what she was hearing. She needed to run, she had to get away. But her captor was much stronger than she was, and all of the strength and breath that she had planned on devoting to her escape seemed to have vanished, and in that moment she knew she had lost.

Until she felt the hands on her arms move—ever so slightly, up and down, pressing but no longer gripping. Her body naturally rocked in time with the movement, back and forth, back and forth, as each gasping breath seemed to fill her lungs a bit further, never finding release.

"That's it, just like that," she heard, and for the first time focused on the voice that was slowly pushing light back into her vision. "You need to breathe, Granger. Come on, out, too. Like you're blowing on your tea. Winter Palace, yeah? Breathe it in, blow it out."

Hermione pressed her palms into her eyes and tried to focus on her favorite brew, tried to imagine herself snuggled into her coziest reading chair with the perfect cuppa in her hands. She breathed in the rose and cinnamon, held in the promised warmth, and let out a shaky breath to cool it. This time, when she dragged her hands away and opened her eyes, she saw scared, grey eyes staring back at her.

As his presence finally registered, the panic roared its head with a vengeance, locking her back in that drawing room as her verbal tormenter for years stood by, watching her physical torture with a pale face and horror in his gaze, never once moving, never looking away. Just watching, watching as her body was burned and broken from the inside, as her screams echoed off his ancestral walls, as her muddy blood dripped onto his carpet. Her eyes went wide and wild again and she let out a strangled sob, trying to back up further as tremors wracked her body.

His hands were off her in an instant. "Fuck, no, Granger, I'm sorry," he muttered. "But you have to… please, breathe. Please. I'm not going to hurt you. No one's going to hurt you. See?" He nudged her wand toward her with his foot from where it had landed on the floor of the tent. "And here, I'm going to give you mine." Malfoy turned so she could see the holster strapped to his waist and slowly, slowly withdrew his wand, keeping the hilt toward her and the tip aimed at his torso. Hermione flinched backward anyway, panicked eyes locked on his weapon as he lowered it to the ground and rolled it to her. Then, somewhat uncertainly, he sat back on his knees and brought his hands out in front of him, elbows straight and palms facing upward, lowering his eyes as he did so.

"Please, Granger." Malfoy took a deep breath in, letting it purposefully out. "You're safe." Another breath. "It's okay."

Slowly, Hermione's breathing began to slow. The tunnels in her vision opened up to welcome the evening light inside of the tent, and she heard the sounds of nocturnal activity in the surrounding woods. Her next breath in brought the strange comfort of earthy moss and fresh soap to her lungs, and her exhale joined the breeze that whispered through the branches. She felt her face and realized she was crying. Like a switch, the tears stopped.

"Okay."

Cautiously, Malfoy glanced up at her, but she could only stare at the ground where their wands lay, focusing on keeping her breathing even. They stayed like that for several minutes, his body supplicated before her and his eyes downcast once again as she simply breathed, in and out, her gaze unfocused. Finally, she began to edge out of the small space she had backed herself into, unlocking her legs and gingerly inching them outward against the protestations of her muscles.

"Can I…" Malfoy cleared his throat, obviously out of his element. "Can I do anything? I could—they have tea, in the main tent?"

Hermione simply nodded, still not meeting his eyes. Now that the panic was winding down, she felt a wave of humiliation sweep over her. She needed to be alone, and while she would have preferred roughly a dozen years of solitude, she would take whatever she could get.

"Right. I'll just… right."

If she hadn't been coming down from the single most intense panic attack she'd ever experienced, Hermione might have been somewhat amused by his awkwardness as he fumbled for kindness. As it was, she was just grateful when he was out of the tent.

She took a moment to gather herself and perform a mental body scan, hoping Malfoy would have the sense and decency to take his time coming back. Shaking and sore, she noted blithely, but no apparent bruises that she could see. She prodded at her arms and legs and hissed as her finger pushed at her knee. Rolling up her pant leg, she saw the imprint of a distinctly human bite radius and cringed at how much it was already swelling. It looked nasty, but it was nothing that couldn't wait until morning to tend to. Right now, she could barely lift her wand, let alone perform an effective healing spell.

Glancing down to retrieve said wand, Hermione noticed that it wasn't alone: Malfoy had left his by her side. She looked at the pair blankly for a moment before picking hers up and returning it to her leg holster. Almost as an afterthought, she rolled Malfoy's toward his side of the tent, snorting half-heartedly when it didn't even make it to his sleeping bag. Gingerly, she took off her shoes and slid into her own sleeping bag, turning onto her side and resisting the urge to draw her knees back up to her chest, which would only cause her a morning of misery filled with tight muscles and locked joints.

Sleep claimed her quickly—she barely had time to send a prayer to the universe that a returning Malfoy would take the hint and leave her be when she felt her eyelids drop heavily, and she finally surrendered to the darkness.