We’re Even Now
Ron was red faced and screaming such awful things at Harry that Hermione didn’t dare venture down the stairs. She leaned over the uppermost banister, looking down on the scene unfolding below her. Harry was standing there, calm in spite of Ron’s words.
“Look, Ron, you’re still my best friend. I just need some space while you deal with this.” Harry said.
Ron scoffed, rolling his eyes so dramatically that even from several flights up, Hermione picked up on it. “Right, so just because I’m inconvenient for you, you’re going to kick me to the curb.”
“Ron, that’s not it and you know it. You’re hurting right now and I know that, we all are, but it doesn’t give you the right to be a complete arse to us and just expect us to take it.” Harry snapped, the words in cold contrast to the calm tone he’d been maintaining thus far as some remnant of his control snapped and uncoiled.
“Don’t talk to me about loss, Harry! You and Hermione lost no one! I lost my favorite fucking brother!”
“What the hell has happened to you?” Harry seethed, that final tether on his anger tearing to shreds. “You have become so fucking absorbed in your own spiral of self pity that you fail to notice that the rest of us are struggling just as much as you are! I lost my fucking parents! I grew up in a shit house where I was locked away in a cupboard whenever I did anything that made my aunt and uncle mad! The only people I had left of my parents were Sirius and Remus and I lost them both! Hermione’s parents are god knows where without a single memory of her existence! Don’t act like we aren’t in pain too!”
Ron shook with a rising tide of rage that Hermione knew if she didn’t act fast, the damage would be irreparable. She dropped from the banister, careening down towards the ground floor before catching herself at the last moment with an expertly cast spell, landing lightly on her feet. She shoved Ron towards the door to the townhouse and wrenched it open, using her entire body weight to shoulder him out the door before apparating him to the dirt path that was the Burrow’s driveway.
“You had no right-” Ron began.
Quick as a whip Hermione silenced him with a nonverbal spell, slashing her wand through the air with cold precision. He opened and closed his mouth several times like a fish out of water, gasping for breath. “No, Ronald, you had no right! How dare you speak to Harry that way! How dare you speak of me that way. You’re putting us through just as much hell as we went though during Voldemort’s reign of terror and I am done putting up with it. I’m done putting up with your bullshit time and time again. It is exhausting being your friend and it is exhausting being your girlfriend and I’m done with it. We’re done. Over. Finished.” And with that she released the spell on his voice and disapparated with a finality that would never allow for their friendship to mend.
She hurried back into Grimmauld Place, adjusting the wards to bar his entry as she went. Once she was finished she slumped against the wall and let herself cry. For her parents, whom she may never find again, and for Ron, who would be lost to her forever now.
Harry stood their awkwardly, watching her for long minutes in a silence that was only broken by her occasion sobs. After several minutes he said, “You ended it.” It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer him. Just stayed where she was and cried. Not long after he turned and left, giving her the privacy to fully break down. And break down she did, sliding to the ground and curling in on herself. The war was over but the world was still a shit show and she was trapped in a never ending cycle or loss and grief.
***
Hermione devoted her efforts entirely to locating her parents, who she had shipped away to Australia for their own protection. She knew the continent and nothing more. It had been a security measure, putting herself in the dark of their whereabouts, in case she was ever captured. No one would ever find her, she made sure of that, not even herself. With the war over, it was time to remedy that, even if she had no idea where to begin.
She resorted to what she knew books and went to Grimmauld Place’s extensive library, recruiting Kreacher for assistance. He helped her, albeit a tad unwillingly. He’d grown fonder of her in the passing months, after how she’d avenged Regulus’s death and destroyed the horcrux. He still held a certain disdain towards her blood status, but as long as she kept from saying anything to remind him of it, he was perfectly willing to assist her.
They began with all of the books in the library regarding memories and memory retrieval techniques. She found ways to counteract dark curses that targeted specific memories and curses that caused brain trauma resulting in randomized memory loss, but nothing on how to counteract the spell she had used. She decided instead to try figuring out a way to find them first and worry about the memories bit later.
They had more success in that area than they had with the first and she was able to create a locating spell stemmed from her own DNA. It was a tad on the muggle side with a heavy focus on muggle science relating to biology and Hermione was not surprised to discover that it had been a muggleborn witch who had first developed it. That fact made Kreacher’s lip curl, but otherwise he made no comment on it.
Hermione got permission from Kingsley to access the ministry archives after explaining the situation and she spent the whole summer tucked away there. Before she knew it it was September and time for her to pack her things and board the Hogwarts Express for her final year of schooling.
When she and Harry arrived to platform nine and three quarters she looked around, expecting to find Ron somewhere in the crowd, his ginger head sticking out above the heads of the others. But he was nowhere to be found. She loathed the tiny bit of herself that was glad for it, knowing his presence would only create more problems for her. “He isn’t coming.” A voice said, dragging Hermione from her thoughts and her gaze onto the woman standing before her. Ginny.
“I know.” Hermione said softly. “I wasn’t expecting him to, not really.” Her searching for him had been nothing more than an idealistic hope that she could somehow fix things between him, mend their relationship in some way. She knew it wasn’t possible, not after the way she’d cut him off, exiled him from their trio. Their trio had forever been shattered into a duo. It needed to happen, but it still hurt.
On the train she sat with Ginny, Neville, Harry and Luna. It didn’t feel real. This past year she’d been so beyond school that it felt like a dream to be returning now. She’d almost changed her mind, abandoned the idea of returning for this final year after the last year’s forced hiatus. Her parents were somewhere out there after all. But she knew for her future’s sake she needed to come back. Her parents were off somewhere in a blissful unawareness, she didn’t need to bring them back into this world quite yet, not until she absolutely had to.
When the arrived at the castle they were greeted by McGonagall, and it seemed as though she had aged a hundred years since Hermione had last seen her. Upon request, Hermione and Harry helped her to lead all of the first years to the front of the Great Hall to be sorted while everyone else took their seats at the long tables. There were double the usual first years, since the previous batch of first years had never truly been sorted, and muggleborn students had never been sorted at all.
Hermione and Harry hurried to take their places between Ginny and Neville before McGonagall could begin her speech. “I am excited to welcome all of you to Hogwarts, to a real year at Hogwarts. Following the war, I know many of you were hesitant to return after the horrors you were forced to endure throughout the last school year, so I am incredibly pleased to be looking upon you all. And for our first year attendees, I welcome you.”
She gestured to the teacher’s table behind her. “Those of you returning will notice that you do not recognize very many of the faces of this years teachers. Returning to us are Professor Sprout, head of Hufflepuff, Professor Flitwick, head of Ravenclaw and Hagrid, our games keeper and teacher of Care of Magical Creatures. The rest of the teachers are experiencing their first year with us.” She went on to introduce the other teachers and then the sorting commenced.
It was a long sorting and Hermione stopped paying attention about a quarter of the way through, instead staring numbly at her plate and wondering what Ron was doing right now. Probably sulking, if Hermione had to wager a guess. She cast him from her mind as soon as he had come, knowing nothing good would come from thinking of him. Finally the sorting came to an end and McGonagall began to speak again. “We are going to be enacting a few changes this year. Firstly, tomorrow immediately following breakfast, you will be taking a test to determine which year you should be in, aside from all of our new comers and those of you returning for an eighth year. The rest of you will be taking this test to determine whether or not you need to repeat the previous year, seeing as the curriculum was… unconventional.”
She paused briefly, allowing the news to sink in before she continued on. “Next, I am aware that you are all sitting in accordance to house for the moment, but starting tomorrow that will no longer be necessary. There are no longer going to be tables correlating with the houses. Each of you may sit wherever you please.”
Hermione had to admit she thought this was a good idea and she was glad for the opportunity to sit with Luna. “We are in the process of reworking this school and that means reworking the way our houses are organized. We will no longer be pitting them against one another for the House Cup.” General uproar emerged at this and McGonagall quickly quieted the muttering with a severe look. “Do not worry, you will still get your Quidditch. And the Quidditch Cup will still be up for grabs. Points will still awarded to students for an end of year tally, but it will be tracked by year rather than house. Unfortunately we do not have the space in our house common rooms and dorms for all of you, since we are only designed to house seven years worth of students, not eight. To remedy this, a new tower has been added on to the castle for all of the eighth year students, though your classes will remain with the seventh years.
“Finally, classes will not be split by house any longer, but instead be a random mix of students within the respective year. Now, I know you are all likely very hungry, so without further ado, did in.” In an instant the feast appeared on the table before them and everyone began to eat as thought they’d been starved their whole life. Hermione was a tad more hesitant.
Looking up at the teacher’s table with all of the unfamiliar faces before her, she felt the absence of all of the rest with an even greater potency. Lockhart, all of his memories stolen away. Remus, dead on the floor of this very Hall. Moody, lost when they’d transferred Harry from Privet Drive. Snape, bleeding out from Nagini’s bite, memories flooding out of him. Slughorn, hospitalized from a stroke after all the stress of the previous year. Professor Burbage, executed for her love of muggles. And all of the rest, unable to face this school after all of the student’s they had lost. Even Binns had retired, that decrepit old ghost who couldn’t be stopped even in death.
Across the Hall she found Malfoy, staring down at his own plate in some sort of trance, sandwiched between Pansy and Blaise, both of whom were eating, but slowly as though they didn’t have the right to be there. Nott was ignoring his food altogether, his head on Pansy’s shoulder, eyes closed, as if that could possibly help him shut it all out.
Her gaze flitted back to Malfoy, wondering if he would eat anything at all. As if he could feel her watching him, his eyes flicked up to meet her. They held each other’s stare for a long moment, no animosity in either’s face. Hermione was the first to look away, unwilling to share her grief with Malfoy for more than a moment. He looked so… broken.
She looked down to find Ginny dumping food onto her plate with a whispered, “You need to eat.”
***
McGonagall led the way to the tower and told them the password- periwinkle. The common room was just as large as Gryffindor’s which was odd, seeing as it was only going to be housing ten students. “You will each have one roommate.” McGonagall explained. “Blaise and Ernie, first door on the left. Harry and Neville, second on the left. Draco and Theo, third on the left. Pansy and Lavender, first on the right and Hermione and Hannah, second on the left. Your trunks are already inside. No classes tomorrow, so sleep in.” With that she left the common room.
It was already pretty late so Hermione immediately headed up to her room, glad to find that her door was directly across from Harry and Neville’s. Hannah entered a moment later and began decorating her side of the room. Hermione hadn’t brought anything to put up so she just sat on her bed and pulled out a book on recovering lost memories that she had brought with her.
Once it got to midnight, she turned out her night, aware that Hannah was likely trying to sleep and closed her book, marking the page with a dog ear. She pulled the covers up around herself and turned onto her side, facing the wall. An hour passed, then two. By three without sleep claiming her she was too frustrated.
She sighed and rolled out of bed, slipping across the room and out the door as quietly as possible with her book in hand, prepared to read in the common room where her light could not be bothersome to anyone. Book already open, she slid into an armchair and tucked her legs underneath herself.
After a bit she felt eyes on her and looked up to find that Malfoy was across the room, in the darkest edge a book open in his lap, but his eyes trained on her. He looked away when she caught him, pretending to be reading again. “You’ll strain your eyes.” She said, just loud enough for him to hear. The words were not kind. She told herself she was being practical, not trying to make conversation with him. His eyes snapped back up to meet her own and she forced herself to hold his gaze this time. “Reading in the dark, I mean.”
“You testified for my freedom.” He said, barely audible, ignoring her words completely.
“And you healed me.” She snapped back, certainly unkind now. “We’re even now. I don’t owe you anything now.” With that she closed her book with a satisfying slapping sound. She ignored the way he flinched at the noise and the way her heart tanged in response and stalked back up to her room to glare at the wall from the comfort of her bed with its too warm blankets.