Chapter Text
Hogwarts, May 2, 1998
It was a long time after the battle before she realized how quiet it was. Hauntingly so. Spellfire and explosions ceded way to a hushed brokenness. The Hogwarts grounds were filled not with the soft promise of peace, but rather, a different kind of silence. Death’s veil swept over the grounds, the castle, the forest, with a grip so tight she could feel it choking her.
After chasing the last of the fleeing death-eaters to the edge of the wards, Hermione Granger found herself wandering outside the castle aimlessly, wand flitting loosely between her fingers, eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of danger. The group that had chased them with her dispersed, Shacklebolt giving her a solemn nod before herding the group back toward the castle. One more glance, one last check of her surroundings, and she was satisfied. Hermione pocketed the stolen wand, beginning her walk across the grounds.
She stepped over a pockmark in the path, memories flashing across her vision unabated. She and Ron plunging a basilisk fang into Hufflepuff’s Cup. Bellatrix’s wand singing wrongly in her hand as she cut down witches and wizards alike, not even sparing a glance at any of them to see if they were still breathing. Praying that none of those she killed were accidentally their own. Voldemort’s cruel, booming voice. Harry walking into the forest, alone. Hagrid carrying his lifeless body back.
She let out a shaky breath as she found a seat on the rubble of one of the castle’s turrets. Her body ached with exhaustion down to her very core, and it was only then that she realized she was disgusting. Blood and sweat and grime clung to her skin and her clothes like a testament to all she’d survived. All she’d survived, and all many had not. More images flashed behind her eyes. Tonks, Lupin, Fred, all lying broken and battered in the Great Hall. And countless more she couldn’t even start to think about.
She opened her eyes, taking in the scenery around her before her vision fell across a heap down the path. Before she even registered standing, Hermione was already making her way toward the pile, stomach tilting violently at the possibilities. Ours or theirs?
Fenrir Greyback, body mangled by a cutting curse she’d shot what felt like lifetimes ago, lay among the dirt and rubble. He had a massive gash across his chest, which still leaked blood into a pool beneath him. His arm hung on by a thread, merely bone and a little bit of skin at the top where her curse had made contact. Hermione’s eyes followed the trail of blood to where it was pooling, and she froze.
Lavender Brown.
The girl was barely recognizable beneath all the gore and debris. Her left leg jutted at an awkward angle, and there was a chunk taken out of her shoulder, all the way up to her neck. The girl’s blonde hair was matted with blood and dirt, her blue eyes staring up unseeingly into the pale sky, agony and fear still etched across her face in death.
Hermione retched, staggering back. Lavender was in her year. She’d lived with the girl for six years, and although they were never particularly close, that had to count for something. Six years, shared jokes, advice on how to tame her own wildly curly mane, and it had all led to this. Broken, alone, forgotten in the carnage Hogwarts had become.
The tears came before she was ready for them. Hot and angry, washing clean tracks through the dirt and dust which covered her face. She stumbled even further back, legs carrying her faster than she knew she could run toward the castle. All she knew was that she had to get away. Couldn’t see anymore. Couldn’t bear the weight of the last year any longer.
One foot in front of the other. Stride after stride. Rock and dirt crunched under her trainers in a sickening symphony. Don’t stop. You can’t. Around the castle, and up the path she went. The greenhouses were decimated, the glass walls shattered by violent impacts. One was almost caved in entirely. The bridge to the forest was nothing but rubble and ash, a fire still puffing black smoke up into the sky above it.
Her lungs burned, legs wobbled, and she finally allowed herself to stop and catch her breath. Hermione felt her vision blur once more, and it was then that she let the tears fall freely. She gagged again, hands finding purchase on her knees. Once, twice, and then a small pile of vomit coated her shoes. Hermione raised Bellatrix’s wand, and cast a cleaning charm on her trainers, not even checking if it had worked. She began walking again, wiping the bile from her lips as she approached the castle’s door, and saw a figure step out onto the lawn.
She stilled.
His glasses were crooked, she could tell even from there. His jumper was torn, missing a sleeve and darkened with something she only hoped wasn’t his own blood. His jeans were covered with even more of the substance. Her stomach gave another uncomfortable lurch, but she held herself short of collapsing again. Not that she had anything else to throw up.
Her eyes roved over his approaching form, checking for any injuries which hadn’t been healed. Hermione straightened her posture instinctively, putting on a brave face. He couldn’t see her like this. He needed her to be strong. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye, though, even as he jogged over to her and stopped just short. It was as if some invisible force was stopping her from raising her gaze any further.
Although he did not speak, Hermione could feel his gaze pierce right through her flimsy facade of being put-together, and she collapsed into his arms, her weeping beginning anew. She felt his arms wrap around her and he gently lowered their joined bodies to the ground, a small groan escaping his lips at the effort.
She buried her face into his chest, allowing the weight of the day to finally wash over her. His hand stroked lines softly across her back, and she felt him rest his chin softly on the top of her head. There they sat, while Hogwarts burned around them, the silence fragmented only by her broken sobs.
But he was there, and so was she. And that was what mattered. His heartbeat thrummed against her forehead, and she relished in the feeling. He was with her. He was okay. He was alive.
Harry.
xXx
The heat and steam of the showers did nothing to dull the ache in Hermione’s bones. Nor did it serve to dampen the throbbing headache she’d felt developing since the battle’s end. She allowed steam to fill the room entirely before sticking her head under the showerhead, allowing the grate beneath her to swallow the evidence of war she carried. The water leaking beneath her feet was an ugly brown color, tinted slightly red when she scrubbed her hands through her hair.
She reveled in the steam heat for a little longer than strictly necessary. Hot water was still a novelty to her; the bathroom in their tent didn’t take any water past lukewarm no matter how many heating charms they layered over the damned contraption. It wasn’t much for heat in general, really. And after nearly a year of toiling around in the wilderness, she was going to enjoy a hot shower if it was the last thing she did.
She waited until the water began to go cold before stepping out and drying herself off. She wasn’t exactly sure it was possible for Hogwarts to run out of hot water, but it could be that the charms for such had been damaged in the battle. Or that, more likely, the heating charms were designed to taper off eventually in order to stop someone from hogging the showers. She pulled a towel from the rack—courtesy of an elf she’d heard pop in—and breathed in the divine scent of fresh linens for a moment before setting to work drying herself off.
She stepped off the bathmat, using the towel to wipe the condensation off of a chunk of the mirror before wrapping it around her wild hair. She could afford not to use a drying charm this once. It was a nice change of pace, not having to worry about snatchers, or horcruxes, or frigid winds biting at flimsy tent walls.
She took inventory of her body in the mirror, as if detached from herself entirely. Bruising, left knee. Gash, right ribs. Hastily healed pink skin mottled her right hipbone and her left shin. Her chest, just below her collarbone, though, was the worst. A nasty purple bruise ran nearly shoulder to shoulder, and angry red skin lay in its center. She could still feel the phantom echoes of the tiny glass shards when they’d buried themselves into her sternum. She ran her fingertips over where her necklace once lay, digits dancing over the middle of her injury.
She was lucky, she mused darkly. The only reason Dolohov’s bombarda hadn’t killed her was that it made contact with her necklace first. Two glass bulbs, reinforced with the most durable charmwork she was capable of and strung around a leather string. A silvery substance had run through them, whispering its magic to her even in the days when she’d worn Slytherin’s locket. Yet another comfort the war had stolen from her. Another stab of pain shot through her head, seemingly in agreement.
Dolohov hadn’t stood a chance. She’d watched his expression of satisfaction morph into confusion when she’d survived the blast. It had flung her down the hall, her ears ringing and vision blurred when she rolled against the cobblestones before finally coming to a stop. He’d watched her struggle to her feet, his wand held limp at his side, face contorted in disbelief, before he’d raised his wand against her once more. She was faster, though.
Hermione wasn’t even sure if she was the one that’d killed him. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to know, in all honesty. All she knew was that he’d been hit by her bludgeoning curse in the head with a sickening crunch, and crumpled over. Before he’d even had a chance to move, if he was even capable of such, Kingsley hit him with a beam of purple light, not even sparing the man a second glance, and moving on. He’d nodded at Hermione once before turning after his next opponent.
It was then she’d felt it. Shrugging her shoulders, twisting her arms, making sure everything was still in order. What felt like a million tiny glass shards had twisted themselves beneath her collarbone and into her chest like shrapnel. She felt the air leave her lungs in a gurgly gasp and blood begin to drip from tens of the tiny wounds. Flipping Bellatrix’s wand into her hands, she huffed healing spell after healing spell, begging the wand not to turn against her. By some miracle, it didn’t and she was able to accio all the glass shards from her necklace out of her chest. A few more sloppy charms later and her wound would hold. Until after the battle, at least.
Only then, did Hermione notice what was left of her necklace lying on the floor, its strap broken, panic setting in. The silvery-grey liquid was slowly leaking into the stone floor of the castle, the glittery fluid melting away like a parting wave. She dropped to her knees, ignoring the shards of glass and rock that dug through her jeans, and clawed at the liquid. Bellatrix’s wand hummed in her back pocket, a mocking whisper at her misfortune. She drew it, drawing what was left of the liquid into two silvery wisps before pointing the tip of her wand to her temple. Both disappeared in an instant. Hermione sighed in relief.
Hermione shuddered. Colder air wafted into the bathroom through a crack in the door. Nearly all the steam had dissipated, and she wondered while dressing herself exactly how long she’d stood there replaying the moment with Dolohov. Longer than he deserved.
She descended the stairs to the Gryffindor common room, running a hand across the bannister with familiar reverence, as if greeting an old friend. When she reached the landing, she found Harry already seated in a loveseat, hair wet from a recent shower himself. She cleared her throat, his head snapping up and gaze softening immediately when he saw who it was. His emerald eyes bore into her own chocolatey-brown orbs, drawing her in and beckoning her over without ever speaking a word.
She made her way over to him, sliding into the loveseat next to him, wrapping her arms around his midsection. He hissed, and she loosened her grip, but didn’t let go. She laid her head down on his shoulder, gazing into roaring fire he’d no doubt conjured himself in the hearth.
“Ron’s in the dorm showering now. I told him to meet us here when he’s done up.”
She hummed, but didn’t say anything.
“Ginny’s downstairs with the rest of the Weasleys. She mentioned grabbing a shower herself, but Mrs. Weasley insisted she get checked by Madam Pomfrey first.”
“And did you?” Hermione questioned, lifting her head.
Harry fixed her with an uneasy glance.
“Harry James—!”
He sighed, her exclamation dying on her lips.
“How did we get here?” he asked carefully, his words measured.
“What do you mean?”
“You. Me. Ron. Hell, everyone. All of this. Voldemort’s gone. But I can’t help but wonder—”
“If the ends justify the means,” she finished, reading his mind.
Harry nodded. “Exactly. I should’ve thought this through. Coming to Hogwarts. Surely there’s something else we could’ve—”
“Don’t. This isn’t on you. It’s all on him. And everyone that was here…” She swallowed. “They all made that choice on their own. Every one of them.”
Harry didn’t answer her. She could tell, though, that her words didn’t have the desired effect. He would carry it. The weight of what had been done. The weight of what he’d done. And there was nothing she could do about it. For now, at least.
She lay her head back down on his shoulder, his own dropping to rest against the top of hers. She tightened her arms around him, not enough to hurt whatever injuries he carried, but enough to convey her message. One she hoped desperately he’d get. I know.
The fire popped, flames roaring.
Her head gave another uncomfortable throb.
I know.