Teapaper

    Hermione had always been known to be efficient and thorough if a bit quick acting. She was only truly methodical when she was feeling rattled. And someone had certainly come and rattled her cage, kicked it a few times too for good measure even.

    She hadn’t reopened the shop after he had left. Instead, she opted to slowly clean every inch of her small flat. Now that her original task was done which included taking all her plates out of the cupboard, wiping out the inside, then rewashing all her plates to put back Hermione had plopped herself in the bathtub and was carefully shaving her legs while an audiobook played from the CD player.

    Today was surreal. She thought, running a hand down the back of her calf to feel for missed spots. While her current vision might have been very dark and blurry, the inside of her head paraded memories with a crystalline clarity through her consciousness, inviting the memory of the pain to dance on her skin as well.

    The war hadn’t ended at Hogwarts on day one. No, Voldemort, coward that he turned out to be when faced with the reality of his own death had turned tail and fled, leading Harry on a merry chase that lasted an extra three days. The fighting at the school had never stopped; not even when Harry limped back into the fray dragging a bag with Toms severed head in it did the fighting stop. Instead, they fought to the bloody end with Toms head shoved on a pike for display in the great hall.

    The power of zealous belief had been terrifying those few days until somehow, someone, killed the very last active combatant for the Dark Lord. The end had been a surreal feeling for all involved as they took a collective breath and held it, waiting for the next wave that never came.

    Hermione had been bathed in death by the end. Everyone had been. Her curly hair had matted and was now a maroon- brown mix, her cheeks decorated with streaks of dirt and gore on them, just like every other inch of her body. Spells weren’t clean work. At some points during the fight she had wondered if it wouldn’t have been cleaner if they’d all fought with guns. Dead children would still line the halls but at least they wouldn’t have been the product of an entrail- expelling curse or whatever other viciously nasty dark magic that was flung at them. 

    The halls had been soaked in red by then and the ground a stinking, sticky thing to walk upon.

     No one had ever thought to explain how magical blood had its own special properties if collected, much like unicorn blood. Though, she supposed the general populace would never think to ask such questions. Perhaps it was in an excerpt in a book in the restricted section, but it certainly wasn’t something that was common knowledge taught to students. Once the fighting had stopped, they were quick to find out that the thick coating of blood on the floor was enough to count as collected.

    A scrawny fourth year missing his shoes had stepped into a bloodied hallway to search for his sister and promptly began boiling alive. An order was given for everyone to don shoes and gloves if they were to be moving about the castle. By then it was of course too late- by then, it was a common and terrible, hands-on knowledge even as the echoes of that boys screams faded to but an hours-old memory.

     She had wondered how many had fallen into the blood during the fighting and simply were never noticed. 

    Hermione had nearly made it out safely, trying to make it to Hagrid's hut when a body between her feet shifted under the weight of its own bloat and caused her to slip and fall, bashing her cheek against the sticky stone. It had been a quick and piercing pain behind her eyes. So intense it had been that it had made Bellatrix’s practiced ministrations seem almost middling on the scale of pain.

    Hermione couldn’t give you a personal account of what had happened next except tell you that the next thing she knew was the softness of an infirmary bed and the feeling of her wrists strapped down. Later, she had been told she’d torn her own eyes out to stop the pain. She'd then been told it hadn’t worked.

    The joys of magic meant eyes could be regrown, but it still took time. And truthfully, after the curse she’d been saddled with had finally shown its face as her own wounds had healed, the peaceful nothingness of blindness was preferable while her eyes took all the time they wanted to properly develop. 

     Satisfied with the smoothness of her legs Hermione grabbed her scrub and began exfoliating, the bite of the crushed shells mixed with her loofah against her shin was comforting and she scrubbed away, hearing her hand squelch satisfactorily in the foamy lather she’d worked up.

    She’d talked more today than she had in months. While her job was social enough, the letters from Harry had dwindled quickly after Albus was born. She didn’t blame him. It was hard to write while knowing the consequences, she was sure. Still, it wouldn’t kill him to at least send some sort of word on how everyone was doing.

    Once her legs were smooth enough for her liking she out the loofah for a washcloth and squirted some soap on it, guiding it to the nest of curls between her legs. She’d given up on shaving THAT not due to blindness. There just was no point. Nobody would be seeing it anytime soon.

    She finished her ablutions and slipped in to bed, dressed in a silky nightgown she’d splurged on the final time Harry had taken her shopping. As she shifted between the cool sheets it occurred to her that despite the hours talking today, nothing had hurt. There were no jolts of pain to be soothed. She fought sleep if only to lay there, painless and aware, just a little longer. It had been so long. 

    She supposed she had the acidity of the man that had sat before her to thank for that.