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When she closed her eyes, she could see it: the whip crack of purple flame. Sometimes when she tried to take a breath, she could feel the throb of where it had slashed across her chest.
It was a phantom pain, her rational side insisted. Madame Pomfrey had patched her up. She’d taken the regimen of potions herself, and she felt it mend over the course of a few weeks. There could be no lingering damage, surely.
Hermione let out a slow exhale and opened her eyes, taking in the gloomy mist that had rolled over the lake, just visible through her dormitory window. One thing she’d come to realize about both magical and Muggle healing was that neither of them seemed to be of much use for ailments beyond the physical.
It’s not like she was above asking for help. Hermione knew by now when something was within her abilities and when it wasn’t. But who really was there to talk to? What was there to say? Professors could comfort you about O.W.L.s, not imminent mortal danger and your tenuous but critical role in staving off doom for all of humanity. The fact that she’d been struck down in the first, and surely not the last, fight for her life filled her with an indescribable dread, and the threat of Voldemort breathing down their necks only grew more and more grave with each passing year. Already, things had felt tense since the start of term. Something important had shifted in the balance of power, and she, Harry, and Ron were all just waiting for the shoe to drop.
Harry.
Who was she even to be upset when Harry was going through it all ten-fold? Seeing Sirius pass through the veil, facing Voldemort in the flesh, knowing that he was the key to the future of their entire world and had been since he was born. No, her dread was nothing compared to his, and she knew that.
There were lots of things Hermione knew, or thought she knew, or was supposed to know. That was her job, after all: to be clever. Knowing things kept them safe, let them see a few moves ahead in this horrifying chess match.
The sound of the door banging open broke the silence and made Hermione jump. She whipped her head around and saw Ginny in the doorway, looking a little sheepish. “Sorry!” she said, shutting it more gingerly behind her. “I didn’t mean to slam it.”
As Hermione relaxed, she realized her hand had instinctively moved to grip her wand. She let go of it quickly, pulling her sweater sleeves over her fingers instead. “That’s alright,” she said, waving away Ginny’s apology. “Just surprised me.”
Ginny was already by her bed, pulling off her muddy boots. “Practice today was mad,” she grumbled. “Bloody second years don’t know how to handle their bludgers yet.” She pushed up the sleeves of her shirt, and Hermione winced, able to see the dark purple bruises blooming under her skin from across the room. “Almost cracked Harry in the head with one. Imagine what Madame Pomfrey would say if we landed him in the hospital wing again, before we’ve even had a game!”
“Maybe you should be the one in the hospital wing, Ginny,” Hermione said, abandoning the window seat to go perch on the edge of Ginny’s four poster. “Those have to hurt. You could have a bone bruise.” She couldn’t keep herself from reaching out and ghosting her fingers over Ginny’s arm, careful to avoid the marks.
“I’m fine,” Ginny insisted, hesitating before pulling her arm away to rummage in her trunk. Tattered books and socks and Hogsmeade trinkets were flung onto the bed as she dug. “Madame Pomfrey gave me something last term. Damn, where is it?” Hermione narrowly dodged a dense bundle of letters that whizzed past her and landed with a thunk on the floor. Ginny sat up and fumbled her wand out of her pocket, shoving her hair back out of her face. “Accio balm!” she huffed, and after a few muffled sounds of something making its way out of the maze of her trunk, a small amber jar flew into her hand.
Ginny sighed, lazily waving back the scattered objects into her trunk with her wand hand and unscrewing the jar with the other. “I never learn, do I? About just throwing things in wherever. Mum charmed our trunks so deep, it’s a nightmare in there.”
“Mine’s not much better,” Hermione said.
Ginny shot her a look, her lips quirked up at one side. “Oh don’t lie,” she said. “Ron says you organize your quills by class.”
Hermione felt her face grow hot. “I thought you knew better than to listen to anything Ron says,” she mumbled.
Ginny snorted good-naturedly and started to rub the balm into the bruises on her arm. She sucked in a sharp breath, setting her jaw.
“Gin—“
“It’s fine,” she assured Hermione again. “It stings at first, but it really works. These’ll be almost gone by tomorrow night.”
Hermione shut her mouth, watching Ginny apply the ointment. She remembered the last time she’d seen Ginny hurt, laying in a bed beside hers in the hospital wing. Even then, with broken bones and half her face swollen almost past recognition, she’d been stoic. No tears, barely even a moan when her ankle had been reset. She’d always seen Ginny as Ron’s little sister until that night, she realized. After the fight, it was clear she was a peer, that between the lot of them, she might even be the strongest.
When Ginny was finished, the cream left a faint iridescence over her pale skin. It almost made her look like she was glowing, Hermione thought.
Ginny rolled her shoulders and then hesitated, experimentally reaching behind herself and stopping when she winced. “They got me in the back, too, damn them. Would you… would you mind, Hermione?” she asked, glancing at her almost shyly.
Something about that felt new, but Hermione shook it off, reaching for the jar of balm. “No, of course not. Let’s see.”
Ginny smiled and turned, stripping off her shirt and flinging it somewhere close to her trunk. Hermione hissed through her teeth. The deep purple stood out starkly against the pale white expanse of Ginny’s back. It spread from between the valley of her shoulder blades, under her sports bra, to the top of her rib cage on her left side. “Is it that bad?” Ginny asked, sweeping her flaming red hair over her shoulder to pull it out of Hermione’s way.
“No,” Hermione answered reflexively, and then added, “Well, it’ll be better after this, right?”
“Yeah.” Ginny glanced back at her as Hermione dipped her fingers into the cool balm. “You don’t need much. Just enough to cover.”
“Okay…” Hermione scooped a little more onto her fingers and readjusted herself on the bed, gently placing her other hand on Ginny’s waist as if to keep her steady.
She felt Ginny’s muscles tense under her touch as she began to rub the balm into the bruise. “Tell me if you need to stop,” she murmured as she ran over the injury as delicately as she could. Ginny just shook her head and sat still as a statue as Hermione traced the bruise from her ribcage up to her back. She carefully lifted the cotton bra strap to dip her balm-covered fingers under it, trying not to blush.
Ginny’s body was a study in contradictions: fine-boned and seemingly delicate but with clear strength lying just beneath the surface. Her musculature hid, secreted away in the lean curves of her arms and her back, but Hermione could feel it beneath her hands.
She was jealous, maybe. Ginny seemed so strong, but Hermione…. The memory of the curse haunted her. She felt like she was made of smoke, under threat of blowing away at any moment.
Finally, her fingertips were cresting over the top of the bruise between her shoulders. She finished off, her hand falling to wipe the excess off on her jeans. Ginny’s back shimmered like dragon scales.
Neither of them moved. The wave of melancholy had seized Hermione again, and maybe that’s why her heart was hammering so hard in her chest. Her fingers tingled, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the balm or from touching Ginny.
“You were so brave last year,” Hermione heard herself saying. The words tumbled out of her like they had a mind of their own. They had never spoken about it, the two of them. Hell, even Harry and Ron hadn’t wanted to talk much about it after. “We shouldn’t have even… shouldn’t even have dragged you into it but you… you fought them off. Even when I… when I…” she trailed off. When she couldn’t, she meant to say. Even when she couldn’t. She hung her head, fighting the familiar sting of tears.
Ginny turned to look at her slowly, eyes big as moons in their sockets. She gripped Hermione’s hand hard, pulling it to her. “Are you serious?” she breathed. Her other hand reached out, tipping Hermione’s face back up. Her gaze was fierce and penetrating. “Hermione Granger, we’d all be dead a dozen times over by now if it weren’t for you.”
Hermione shook her head, avoiding Ginny’s eyes, but Ginny slid her hand up the side of her face and held her firmly facing her. “Do you think my dullard of a brother could charm his way out of a paper bag without you? Do you think Harry would have lasted this long on his own, running into Voldemort’s arms every chance he gets, without you?” Her fingers slackened, tracing the shape of her jaw with a feather light touch that made Hermione shiver. Ginny swallowed hard, and Hermione saw the emotion swimming in her eyes, heard it in the subtlest waver in her voice. “Don’t you ever sell yourself short again, Granger. Not around me. I swear…” she whispered.
Hermione took in a shaky breath, trapped in Ginny’s gaze. She wanted to reach for her. She wanted to run. She wanted to hide in the library. She wanted to feel the strength in her back again. “Gin—“ she began, but whatever she meant to say was lost to Ginny’s lips pressing against hers, her fingers tangling into Hermione’s curls.
She kissed back, the thrill of it twisting her stomach into knots. She held on to Ginny desperately, pulling her body closer, brushing her thumb against her sharp cheekbones. She hadn’t known she’d wanted this—or did she? Ginny, who always made her laugh, who forced her to take breaks when she’d become too entrenched in studies, who listened at night when Hermione was sorting out the details of a plan. Ginny, who could scorch a Death Eater with a hex faster than Hermione could blink. Ginny, who was strong and beautiful and kind and brave. Ginny, her best friend.
Finally Hermione just barely pulled away, her chest heaving and lips trembling. Ginny’s thumb brushed over her bottom lip, tracing down over her chin and traversing the side of her neck. She shivered again, fingers flexing against Ginny’s bare waist. “I didn’t… didn’t plan for this to…”
Ginny breathed out a chuckle, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of Hermione’s mouth. “Even you can’t plan for everything, ‘Mione,” she teased. But she pulled back, putting some space between them. “But if you want to stop, that’s fine, really. We can just… forget about this.”
Her eyes told Hermione that she meant it, that she would take this on for the both of them and bury it somewhere deep if they had to. The very thought made Hermione’s soul ache.
She reached for Ginny’s hand and squeezed it, linking their fingers together. “Please,” she said, leaning forward to press a kiss against her delicate shoulder, the column of her neck, the cut of her jaw. “Never stop.”
By the time she reached her lips again, Ginny was grinning and pulling her down to the mattress as they reconnected. And for the first time in a long time, Hermione wasn’t thinking of death or prophecies or grief or the foreboding dark halls of a corridor deep in the Ministry. For now there was only red hair, soft lips, and a new rhythm thrumming in her heart.
For now, there was only Ginny.