After the War
It was pain like nothing Hermione had ever felt, agonizing and unending. Until it did, eventually end. Not completely, but it ebbed into something manageable, something tolerable. She lay there, alone on the ground in Malfoy manor, paralyzed from fear and her own shaking. She turned her head to the side, examining the cuts Bellatrix had made into her flesh. Mudblood. What she was. What she would always be to them. The Blacks and Malfoys.
Hermione knew her blood status was the reason Bellatrix had chosen to interrogate her first. Not only so she could have the pleasure of torturing a mudblood, but because she viewed Hermione as something lesser than, something weak. Something that could easily be broken. Only Hermione had not given in. Had not told her where she and her friends had acquired the sword. She’d held out and withstood. And she was still alive. She was still breathing and she would keep on fighting until the day that ceased being true.
She heard footsteps coming at her from behind, but she didn’t turn her head to look. Her arm hurt so badly and her head throbbed from it. And in any case, Bellatrix had gone the other way. She wouldn’t be returning for round two from that direction. Before she knew it a pair of legs were in front of her. Tailored black pants and shining black shoes. She flitted her gaze to find her visitor’s face and saw Draco Malfoy looking down at her.
His face held no smugness, no triumph at seeing her hurt. He looked pale and incredibly frightened to be finding her this way. And something akin to concern shone in those gray eyes. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t reveling in her misery. He knelt down beside her and took her sliced open arm into his hand, his wand drawn in the other. She flinched back or tried to, the effort weakened by her fragile state. But his fingers on her skin were gentle as he quickly siphoned away the blood, his eyes darting back and forth between her arm and the door from which Bellatrix had exited. She watched in morbid fascination as he waved his wand again and the gashes began to stitch themselves back together in such a way that they still looked fresh and painful, but staved off infection and the threat of too much blood loss. He made it look like he hadn’t healed her at all.
From his pocket Malfoy withdrew a small potion and uncorked it, lifting it to her lips. She tried to fight him, she really did, but he was stronger, forcing the contents down her throat. And then the pain started to ebb further, lessening so that she sighed audibly in relief. The pounding in her skull ceased too, leaving her to bask in the sweet reprieve the potion offered. There was a noise somewhere nearby and Malfoy was on his feet again, hurrying from the room with a whispered, “I’m sorry.” Hermione was left laying on the ground, in little pain and entirely confused as to what had just happened.
***
Voldemort was dead and Harry was alive. And it was over. It was all over. Kingsley was pronounced temporary minister and the death eaters were being rounded up. Hermione was told that the Malfoys went quietly, without a fuss.
Hermione leaned on Ron as he cried into her shoulder, grieving the loss of his brother. Hermione tried not to think about it, the body count that was steadily rising up as Neville and Oliver recovered more corpses from the wreckage of the castle. It would not do to dwell on the dead, not when the living so desperately needed to rebuild the foundations of their world, of their government. She didn’t know where Harry had gone, surely somewhere with Ginny, who was the only Weasley absent from their table in the Great Hall. Molly was crying, as was Arthur. Bill was watching over his family as though a new wave of death eaters was going to come bursting in at any moment. Percy and George were sitting beside each other, shoulder to shoulder, just staring off into the distance. Charlie was patching up a nasty gash to his leg. And that was how it went, all along the tables. People crying, people staring numbly into the void, people watching over the others and people tending to the wounded. And where did Hermione fit into all of that?
She stared out at all these faces that she knew and grieved for everyone who wasn’t there. Everyone who had been lost.
The trials began the next day. She knew that they needed to get on with things, start the extensive process of rebuilding, but it all seemed too fast. Like she had barely had time to begin wrapping her mind around all these things that were happening and all of a sudden she was expected to testify, to recount the horrors she had lived through.
The trials spanned months. And all throughout them she found herself focusing on the Malfoys. Perhaps it was because she was required to be present at all of their trials, she couldn’t be sure, but she found herself tracking each of them and making mental notes on everything in her mind.
She testified against Lucius, recounting every encounter she’d ever had with him that emphasized his blood prejudice. There was little testimony in his favor, aside from the fact that he didn’t fight in the Battle of Hogwarts, all the evidence was against him. So it came as no surprise when he received life in Azkaban. He took the sentencing stoically and left the courtroom without a fuss. Azkaban itself was being reformed, and now no longer had any dementors, due to their insurrection, so it would not be quite so torturous. And a part of Hermione was glad for that in some twisted way. He was horrible, yes, but being locked away was enough.
Narcissa’s trial was not nearly as cut and dry as Lucius’s had been. She had certainly exhibited the ideals of superiority due to her blood status, but she had never taken the dark mark, despite being offered it. She had sat by and done nothing as her husband terrorized countless others, but she had had no knowledge of his plans with opening the chamber of secrets and she had not been privy to most of his ventures. She was an accessory to a multitude of crimes but nothing more. She was up for fifteen years in Azkaban until Harry’s testimony. He recounted witnessing Snape’s death and the memories that ensued in great detail, followed by his walk into death’s arms in the Forbidden Forest. He skipped the part about conversing with Dumbledore and moved straight into his discovery that he was in fact still alive. He told the court how Narcissa had been instructed to check his body and confirm that he was dead. And how she had discovered he was alive and then lied to Voldemort, risking her own life in the process and directly resulting in Voldemort’s downfall.
The court had been swayed and offered her a great leniency, even more so than Hermione had been expecting. She received five years under house arrest at the manor in which she would not be able to leave at any time. And it was odd that Hermione was relieved by this fact. Narcissa Malfoy would not face Azkaban.
Draco’s trial was long, dozens of hours spent. Throughout it all he looked just as afraid as he had been that day in the manor. He was pale with dark circles under his eyes and he’d lost a lot of weight during his time in the holding cell within the ministry. Hermione wondered if they were feeding him enough.
Harry testified on his behalf, speaking of how he had always seemed reluctant to become a death eater. How he had been forced into it by his father’s mistakes. How he had refused to identify Harry at the manor when the snatchers had caught them. How he had not harmed Harry in the room of requirement during the Battle of Hogwarts when he had had the chance. How he had been crying in the bathroom about having to kill Dumbledore. And most notably how he had lowered his wand in the Astronomy Tower, unable to kill Dumbledore when the man was weak and unarmed.
The defense focused heavily on the fact that Malfoy was only a child in all of this, how he had been coerced and manipulated and threatened and how he had not killed anyone. When Hermione was asked to the stand she was questioned on how she thought he should be sentenced.
She’d looked at Malfoy then and found him paler than usual and shaking visibly. He was terrified. She said, “I don’t believe he should be sent to Azkaban. He does not deserve to be punished by the actions of his father and aunt. I know for certain that he did not act of his own accord and given the choice I do not believe he would have elected to join Voldemort’s ranks.” She rolled up her sleeve and displayed the word mudblood scarred into her arm. “Bellatrix did this to me when we were captured and brought to Malfoy Manor. She carved it into me with her knife, a magically enhanced blade, essentially a cursed blade. However, you will notice that the scar is not blackened, as is tradition with a cursed wound that is not immediately treated. Once Bellatrix had gone, Malfoy snuck in, healed it and took away my pain.”
“Did Mr. Malfoy say anything to you when he did this?”
Hermione gave a slight incline of her head. “Yes. He told me he was sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Sorry for not being able to get us out, I presume.” Hermione replied. And with that she was dismissed back to her seat between Harry and Ron. They both looked at her as she sat, but said nothing. She had never told them about that before. She didn’t dare look at Malfoy.
After that the trial seemed to fly by. Before she knew it the verdict was being announced. Malfoy was sentenced to three months of house arrest, after which he would return to Hogwarts to complete his final year. He would not be allowed to leave the school during that time and come June he would be free to carry on with his life. Malfoy slumped in his chair as the chains uncoiled from his body, releasing him and the full effect of the words hit him. He was not going to go to Azkaban either.
They filed out of the courtroom and took one of the ministry fireplaces back to Grimmauld Place. As soon as they were there Ron rounded on Hermione. Of the three of them he had been the only one against testifying on Malfoy’s behalf. He was intent on letting Malfoy rot in Azkaban for the rest of his life. He had never been one for forgiveness. Hermione was glad Ron’s testimony had used little more than schoolyard taunting to damn him. “You didn’t tell us Malfoy healed you.” He fumed.
He had been like this a lot since the battle, since Fred’s death- irritable and quick to anger. Hermione understood it of course, but she hated when it was directed at her. “Would it have made a difference?” Hermione snapped back, glaring up at him from where he towered over her.
“No! He’s still a little slime ball, but I had the right to know.” Ron shot back, his voice rising.
Hermione scoffed. “And how do you figure that, Ronald?”
“Because I’m your bloody boyfriend!” Ron bellowed. “And he’s a slimy little git who should die in a cell for everything he put us through.”
“You really think that?” Hermione shouted shrilly.
“Ron.” Harry said evenly, trying to defuse the tension in the room. “He shouldn’t go to Azkaban just for being a bit of a bully.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Ron spat and yanked his wand out of his pocket. Hermione flinched back instinctively and her hand twitched for her own wand, even as Ron directed it away from her and towards the Black family tree, where Malfoy’s face sat, unobscured. He shot a spark of flame at it and it erupted, charing and blackening to match Sirius’s portrait. He glared at in a satisfactory sort of way before stalking from the room.
She began to cry then, still staring at the smoldering spot on the wall as Harry doused it with Aguamenti before crossing over to her and cradling her in his arms. He’ll come around Hermione. He just doesn’t understand it yet. You know how stubborn he is. It always takes him so much longer than us.”
“I can’t do it anymore, Harry.” She cried. “I can’t be around him when he’s like this.”
“I know, I know. But he’s always like this.” Harry said, running his hand across her back soothingly.
“That’s exactly my point.” Hermione said, sniffling as more tears fell.
“I’ll talk to him. Send him back to the Burrow for a bit. Maybe that will help him cool off. Gin and the others won’t put up with his shit for long.”