in my tomb of silence
The owl from the ministry’s ad hoc Department of Missing Persons had come that morning, after six weeks of waiting. The memory healers had assured Hermione repeatedly that this was the best way to go about it, that if she herself tried to track down her parents and restore their memories it could be traumatic and create further issues. Finally, this morning, they had notified her that her parents had been located and healing would begin immediately. She should hear again from them after one week, another owl carrying details of a treatment plan and a timeline for recovery. That owl, hopefully, would tell Hermione when she could leave for Australia.
The waiting got to her more than anything else. She filled her time with endless research on memory spells, though she wouldn’t be the one working on her parents’ minds. She found herself journaling a lot, something she had not done since she was much younger, planning what she might say to them when she saw them again, trying to make sense of her own emotions, trying to imagine theirs. But despite the research and the writing and endless hours lost in Ron’s arms, there was so much waiting. Sitting, looking out the window, looking for busywork in the Burrow’s garden, in the kitchen with Molly––though Ron was turning out to be a much better cook, and she found herself ceding that time to him, those precious moments where he and his mother worked and laughed and talked quietly together.
The waiting got worse after writing to Professor McGonagall asking to delay the start of her last year until after her parents had been found, although she had studied all the course work and was certain she would be up to speed even if she started close to Christmas. Sending Ginny off to Hogwarts without her, after so many long nights hearing her stutter through accounts of the last year at Hogwarts, terrified her. She knew it terrified Harry, too––he had taken to sleeping in Ginny’s bed alone after she left, and Hermione suspected he didn’t want to leave the Burrow just yet for fear that the longing for Ginny would overwhelm him completely.
She slept upstairs with Ron, or at least tried to. Her sleep paralysis had been going on for months. Ron woke up from nightmares thrashing wildly; it seemed fitting, somehow, that she would be frozen instead. Unable to lift a finger to fix what she had done to her parents. Unable to fight when they had been trapped at Malfoy Manor. Unable to stop Harry from trudging alone into the Forest to die. Unable to keep Ron with them on the Horcrux hunt. Frozen, always frozen.
She was pinned to the bed, eyes wide open, staring at the shadowy form approaching that she knew would reveal itself to Bellatrix Lestrange, unable to fight, to draw her wand, to flee, to scream. Silent tears streamed down her face as she watched Bellatrix approach, growing until she loomed impossibly over the bed––
But suddenly there was a glowing light, and Bellatrix was banished by Ron’s soft lumos. As he scooped her into his chest, Hermione’s body came unclenched and her sobs audible, guttural, as she clenched fistfuls of his soft shirt and gasped for air. “It’s okay,” Ron was murmering to her softly, “it’s okay, we’re safe, we’re at the Burrow, I’m here, I love you, I love you, it’s okay,” and he rubbed soothing circles into her back as she hiccoughed quietly while her breathing slowed. “D’you wanna talk about it?” he asked gently, and she shook her head where it was buried in his shoulder. “Okay. Deep breaths. It’s okay love, I’m here, I’m with you.”
Slowly, achingly, Hermione’s heart rate returned to normal. She peered up at Ron’s face with red eyes. “Sorry I’m always waking you up like this.”
He chuckled quietly and pointed out: “You’re not really waking me up by being completely still and quiet, Mione. And it doesn’t really count if I’m tossing and turning anyway.” A shadow crossed his face at the thought of his own dreams, but he hid it in a kiss to Hermione’s head, her curls tickling his lips. “Besides, I would always rather hold you than leave you in that horrible state.”
She tilted her head up to look at him, a small smile appearing on her face. “I would always rather be held by you than do most things, I think,” she said, and reached up to kiss him, long and soft and slow.
Ron mumbled against her lips, “I’m not sure I can compete with reading Hogwarts, A History, but I appreciate you saying so,” and she laughed against his mouth as he deepened the kiss, and as she arched into him, all the fears that filled her sleeping mind melted away.