Meet Hermione
For her protection. Every bloody thing was for her protection.
Ron was in charge of training new recruits. Ginny was the best assassin they had. Harry was leading the whole damn thing.
Even Draco sodding Malfoy had more liberties than she did! He got to heal and go to war and she, Brightest Witch of her Age, had to sit here. In a safe house with only temporary visits from those too sick to keep near the others or too freshly liberated to fight with the Order yet.
It made her sick. Her wand tore cobwebs from the ceiling, showering dust over her and the chair she stood on.
Even Malfoy's little. . . Girlfriend? Wife? All meek and sweet was allowed to be a field medic. Surely Hermione's scores must have been at least as good as Astoria's. I mean, she'd aced all the exams the Order gave her when they determined her placement. Theoretical and practical included. She was the brains behind the entire bloody thing.
You can't fight without a brain telling the heart to pump and the arms to move. Maybe she overestimated herself. Put too much confidence in her own powers. Underestimated everyone else's.
Still.
You have one bloody breakdown and suddenly you're too fragile to fight or think.
She wasn't the only one to get tortured. She was in the dungeon for less time than most and she was the one to get them out, breakdown or not. The stupid curse didn't help.
Wasn't it bad enough that she was still in pain most of the day every day without adding boredom and uselessness on top of all that? It'd been a year! A whole sodding year and she still winced when she got up too fast and still felt a fog in her brain, little clouds of unease that overtook her in inopportune moments; making her drop dishes or fall in the shower or scream in pain while trying to sleep.
What's the good of being the Brightest Witch if she couldn't even find a cure? The voices didn't help. The dreams didn't help. Seeing herself as a little girl while she slept, speaking to family members that didn't exist, soft motherly voices calling her nicknames she didn't recognize. None of it helped.
Of course this started after the torture, after the second curse, after returning to find Narcissa gone and after news that her family, the Grangers, had been attacked in their graves.
Who even attacks a grave?! Why couldn't she at least protect them while dead even though she couldn't protect them while living? Her parents caught her trying to Obliviate them all those years ago. They held her hand and wand while she trembled and cried. Told her they'd be safe while she argued they wouldn't. They told her to get some sleep once her sobs fell into their shoulders. Tucked her into bed and told her they'd find a way through it all together.
They hadn't. How could they have?
It was then that she knew. Waking up without Narcissa to heal her this time. Hearing from Harry in a such rare chance to see him, while he sat next to her on the bed like no time had passed at all ---- he told her about the graves and she suddenly could not feel Harry's attempts at comfort.
The horcruxes might be gone but the Death Eaters weren't. It didn't matter that she'd killed those dispatched to harm her and her parents. It didn't matter that she'd held her mother all night trying to heal her from incurable injuries so Helen died hours before Hermione could accept it. It didn't matter that Hermione's father was already dead by the time she woke up to the sound of screaming.
Fighting them off didn't matter. Winning this duel didn’t either.
The war continued. The death toll grew higher. Years passed. And now she was here. Fighting cobwebs.
For protection. As if there were anything left to protect.