Chapter Text
When she woke, there was silence. Not silence around her - in fact there were more than a few voices floating around. But instead, her mind was silent for the first time she could remember. She kept her eyes closed and drifted in the silence even as the words around her began to register.
“...don’t care if you work for St. Mungo’s, the Minister, or Salazaar himself, she is now your top priority. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Mr. Malfoy, of course. But if you’d just let us move her -”
“No. She stays here.”
“But all of our resources are at the hospital…”
“Then move them. The Manor is more than equipped to handle whatever you need to bring with you. She is staying in that damn bed, you will not get in the way of my house elf when he tends to her, and you will do your best to figure out what happened to her. That’s how this is going to happen.”
There was a heavy sigh. “Yes, sir.”
There were footsteps and the sound of a door closing, then she felt the bed she must be lying on dip down as someone sat on it.
“Wake up, Hermione. They say there’s nothing wrong, that you didn’t get hit by a spell. But you’ve been asleep for 18 hours now. Please, just open your eyes.”
A warm hand encircled her own, squeezing it.
She kept her eyes closed, intent on the silence, not allowing the words or their meaning to break the amazing tranquility the silence had brought her.
Eventually she fell back asleep.
She woke again, and her mouth felt like a fine layer of fuzz coated the inside. Voices were drifting around the room again, they must have woken her up. But the blessed silence in her head remained.
“...died in front of her. For gods sake, Draco, what do you expect of her?”
“I expect her to wake up.”
“She will, just give her time.”
There was a pause, and Hermione tried to find sleep again but found it just out of reach.
“Thanks, Gin.”
The fuzzy feeling in her mouth finally overtook her and she opened her eyes. The ceiling was familiar, and the soft blankets surrounding her seemed normal against her skin. Draco’s manor, she finally realized. She was in his room.
“Hermione!” His voice said, and then he was in her line of sight, bending over her and pressing his forehead against her own briefly. She blinked at him.
“She’s probably thirsty, Draco,” the female voice said from somewhere behind him. She didn’t bother to look, but drank greedily from the glass he offered her.
“How do you feel? You’ve been asleep for a while,” Draco asked when the glass was empty.
The silence hadn’t abandoned her when she’d opened her eyes. But she felt no urge to open her mouth, to squeeze the hand that held hers so tightly. She heard his words, she understood what they meant, but the silence overtook everything else. There was no urge to console the man. No reason to answer his questions. No compulsion to do anything except drift.
“Get the healer,” Draco practically barked.
Her eyes wandered around the room as other people filtered in and out, some talking, some touching her, but none saying anything that mattered in the least. She counted the 57 stripes on the blanket that covered her. There were 104 rings around the tall bed posts at the bottom of the bed. The healer clucked his tongue 9 times while in the room.
The numbers bolstered the silence, helped direct the words people insisted on saying into the back of her mind, behind the wall of silence. The silence was so nice, why would she try to break it?
Days passed as she drifted along in the silence. But still, people insisted on speaking, trying to get past the silence in her mind.
One day it was Ginny - she counted the squares that patterned the ceiling that day.
“I hope you know it wasn’t your fault. Draco told me everything - you didn’t have a choice, Hermione. And your spell wasn’t even a curse. It was just….bad timing I suppose.”
“It seems so weird that he’s gone. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling, he was your best friend. I know I hadn’t seen him in years and I could be a bit harsh on him…but the idea of him dying…” That sentence was cut off with a loud sniffle.
“I know you saw George; they let us visit him while he waits for his trial. Everyone you guys trapped at Grimmauld place got taken in, plus a few more they snitched on. He…he never killed anyone, so he might get off with probation they’re saying. But I don’t know what to say to him. Because he would have, right? I know he misses Fred but….what do I say to him, Hermione? What do you say to someone so lost they believe all that shit?”
“Harry did a lot of good in his life too, Hermione. The newspapers don’t even know about this. He’ll be remembered…remembered for who he was. You should know that. No matter what the Resurrection Stone did to his mind, people will remember who he really was. A brave man who defeated Voldemort.”
Another day it was Theo. She counted how many times he popped his knuckles.
“I know facts, and I don’t know if anyone’s even told you all that’s happened. Well, the other Aurors showed up a bit after…after your battle was over. You and Draco went straight to St. Mungo’s, we met you two there. He got you the best room in the place, demanded they find out what happened. But it only took a few hours for him to deem the place insufficient and move you here. He didn’t leave your side until you woke up a few days ago.”
“Oh, they finally destroyed that damned Horcrux. Turns out that shit-head had used a tombstone, of all things. The one of his sister, which is a bit sick if you ask me. Anyway, with you being sick and all, they had to call in that annoying Weasley. He managed to destroy it with a sword or something.”
“The healers say that it’s all up to you, you know. You’ve been eating and drinking, and they said all the tests came back clean. Sorry, I don’t remember all the tests they did or what they meant besides that you’re fine. You shouldn't have to deal with them too much anymore, I think they are only going to come back if Draco calls.”
Narcissa made a brief appearance, and she didn’t even count all the piece of corn on her plate before the woman left.
“I can’t say I was ever your biggest fan, Miss Granger. But my son seems to care for you very much, so that will have to be enough for me. I would appreciate it if you’d talk to him so he will stop moping around the house like a child who lost his stuffed dragon.”
Everyday, usually several times a day, Draco was there. Sometimes she didn’t count when he spoke.
“It’ll all be just fine. You come around whenever you feel like it. I’ll be here.”
“If you’d like we could go outside - it’s a lovely day for a stroll. I can show you the grounds again, remember that day? Do you?”
“Just…just look at me, love. Just fucking look me in the eye so I know you’re still in there. You have to come back. You…you have to.”
“Why aren’t you talking? Why aren’t you here? I swear they missed something. Maybe I’ll get someone from the continent here…”
“Please…please come back to me.”
The day Blaise came, he pressed something into her hands. Looking down she saw a red and gold jersey with the number 7 emblazoned on it. The feel of it, the smell of it…it all washed over her and a crack formed in her wall of silence.
“When I was a kid,” he began without preamble. “I had a father who, believe it or not, was worse than Draco’s. He hit me, he hit my mum, put most of the guilt on her. You know the drill. Anyway, one night he went further than usual, and my mum passed out. I…well I thought she was dead. And when he turned to me, we aren’t sure what happened. All I know is that one second he was coming at me and the next he was dead. Ruled accidental magic, and family money swept the whole thing under the rug.”
Blaise reached over and grabbed her chin, turning her face toward his. Her eyes, normally unfocused when people tried to connect with her, met his. She recognized the same conglomeration of emotions that were roiling behind the wall of silence: shame, sorrow, loss, guilt, agony. All present with one notable exception: regret. Her wall of silence fractured, and thoughts began to leak into the silent space she’d created.
“It’s fucked up. And it’ll fuck you up, if you let it. Don’t let it. My mum and I might not be alive today if I hadn’t done that. And those creatures you saved? Nevermind Draco - they are alive because of you. Hold onto that. It’s a fucked up thing that we had to do, but it was necessary, too. Even if you didn’t mean for it to happen.”
He released her chin, and it immediately began to quiver as everything that had been barricaded away flooded into her mind at once. With a strangled noise she doubled over in the bed, body curled around the jersey she pressed into her chest. Blaise awkwardly tried to hug her curled frame from his seated position, and she reached a hand out to clutch his wrist.
The shame and guilt rolled over her, not only that she had killed someone, but that she hadn’t even intended to. And extraordinary guilt ripped choked sobs from her throat when she came to terms with the fact that it wasn’t just another person, it was a friend. A best friend. A friend she’d loved for over a decade, gone by her hand.
The tears raced down her face as she finally began to mourn for the loss. No matter how quickly she wiped them away, they only fell faster as she recognized that she would never see him again. She would never sit in her apartment with him and watch the telly, or eat takeout in his kitchen. She’d never be able to hug him again and tell him how much he’d impacted her life.
“Shh, calm down,” Draco’s voice said from behind her, surprising her as he slid behind her in the bed, pulling her against him through the blanket she was tucked under. Blaise carefully transferred her death grip on his arm to Draco’s hand.
She tried to concentrate on his gentle murmurs, the soothing feel of his hand stroking her hair. Not to escape the agony ratcheting through her body in a tidal wave, but to help her take a breath and face it. She was drowning in it, and the sobs came so fast it was hard to even catch her breath. The perpetual motion of his hand on her hair and his voice in her ear helped calm her body to the point where she could breathe.
Breathe in between memories of Harry that hit her like a punch in the gut. Breathe in between thoughts of who he had become that sliced into her heart like a knife. Breathe in between her trying to figure out how she was supposed to live in a world where her best friend simply didn’t exist.
It took hours before she surfaced from the tidal wave.
.
.
Between Draco and Est, Hermione wasn’t able to do much for herself. Est insisted on bringing meals to her and wouldn’t even let her take them in the dining room. He also cleaned anything and everything, not even letting her fold her own laundry. As frustrating as it was, it was also endearing to see his fierce loyalty turned on her. No one had tried to take care of her in a long time.
Draco, meanwhile, was intent on keeping all bad news away from her. He changed the subject when she tried to discuss work and wouldn’t bring up any topic that remotely related to Harry. Luckily, her other friends brought her news of the outside world so she wasn’t completely cut off.
Ginny was the one to tell her that she’d missed Harry’s funeral, and the two women cried together over the man they’d both known and admired. And she resolutely kept her memories of him separate from the monster he’d become.
Despite Draco’s over-protective nature, Hermione was glad that he was there. He held her every night, even when she couldn’t sleep for the tears. And during the day he spent too much of his time trying to distract her - books, visitors, conversation. He tried everything and anything to keep her mind occupied and not focused on her grief.
“Draco,” she said a week after she’d finally come out of her state of shock. He stopped reading aloud from the book in his lap, looking up at her. “I think it’s time for me to go.”
“What? Why?” He demanded, a scowl immediately pulling on his face as he snapped the book shut.
“It’s time,” she said with a shrug. “I need to get back to my life. Get out of this bed. Take care of myself.”
“Are you sure?” He asked, moving to the edge of the seat to get closer to her. “We don’t mind having you here. Est has been through the roof having someone to dote on.”
She smiled softly and slid her legs off the edge of the bed. Leaning forward, she bracketed Draco’s face with her hands. “I’m sure,” she said simply and leaned forward to kiss him. His hands came up to possessively hold her waist and he deepened the kiss, drawing her into his lap where he sat in a chair.
His kiss wasn’t harsh or demanding, but his lips were insistent on hers and his arms held her just a little too tightly. She broke the kiss and nestled her head into the crook of his neck, sighing gently and just enjoying being with this man who so badly wanted to see her taken care of.
“If you go,” he said into her hair, “you’re not allowed to go off scaring me like that anymore. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said with a small smile, her heart swelling in her chest every time he showed her his soft side, a piece of himself he usually kept well hidden around everyone else.
That night Draco solemnly delivered her to her apartment, insisting on walking through the empty rooms to ensure it was safe before kissing her goodbye. Hermione stood for a moment by the Floo, looking at the space that was usually such a retreat for her, but somehow felt cold and empty after being away from it for so long.
She didn’t give herself much time to sink into melancholy. First she went straight to the kitchen, throwing away all the expired food and putting on the kettle for a cup of tea. While the kettle heated she took the little clothes she had had at the Manor - all clean thanks to Est - and meticulously put them away. Then she turned on every light in the flat, lighting a candle in her bedroom and the living room for good measure.
By then the tea kettle was whistling, and sitting down with a cup of tea she began to make a list.
- Talk to Gregor
- Clean flat
- Call mum and dad
- Go food shopping
- Get a cat
- Make more friends
She underlined the last entry on her list twice. After so much time to mull over everything that had happened with Harry, she finally realized that she’d become much too isolated. Maybe if she had other friends, other people in her life, she would have had more perspective to see his downward spiral. But she’d been so desperate to cling to the only friend in her life, she’d been blinded to his faults. Maybe she’d talk to the one girl at dance class who always said hello.
Likewise, she was determined to try harder with her parents. They only talked a few times a year and on Christmas - but if there was a chance she could fix that relationship she was going to try.
Her life had seen a huge change; between her relationship with Draco, her renewed friendship with Ginny, new friendships with the Slytherin boys, and the loss of Harry, she knew things wouldn’t be the same as before. And she was going to do everything to make sure her life got better, not worse.
Feeling a sense of urgency to start her list, she went through her flat and cleaned the place thoroughly. She tidied up the books and blankets she’d left out, used magic to lift all the furniture to clean under everything, and scrubbed the bathroom by hand because she was convinced it was the only way to get it truly clean.
Lastly, she pulled out the only thing under her bed: the Draco box. Whether Ginny was right that it had been a bit of an obsession or whether it really had been a way for her to mentally connect to the outside world, she knew it was time for the box to go. Taking out the tie from their first kiss, Hermione smiled and tucked it into her drawer - after all, that was a memory both she and Draco shared.
The box went into her sink, and with a quick spell it was aflame. She watched as it collapsed in on itself, consumed by the fire. Unexpectedly, there was no sadness or regret. She was no longer a spectator - she and Draco were together, and the box was just a part of her past now.
.
.
It took her over a week to go back to the Ministry. Instead of taking her usual walk, she Apparated right into her office. It looked the same, with paperwork scattered over her desk where she’d last left it and her spare jacket still on the back of the chair. She sank into the couch and looked around, debating what she wanted to do.
Malfoy was obviously not returning to the department - his undercover work was done. So now she’d be forced to pair with a new partner, likely Richmond, Harry’s old partner.
But the very idea filled her with dread. The paperwork and research involved with cases didn’t excite her. The idea of going on monotonous missions was exhausting. And thinking about getting into a duel…well, she knew she wasn’t ready for that. Not now, and she didn’t know when she would be able to spar with someone else without seeing Harry bleeding at the end of one of her spells.
Shaking her head she got up and walked twice around the room, trying to remember all the good parts about her job. But every good thing was simply a memory. When she and Harry got called into a home where everyone was stark naked and they’d laughed for half an hour when they returned. The way Harry would fidget with his hair as he sat on the couch when she went on a rant. And more recent memories of getting closer to Draco with every day they worked together.
With a flick of her wand she turned the lights off and left the room, walking quickly toward Gregor’s office. It was just after hours, so the department was mostly quiet. She didn’t even know if her boss would be there.
“Granger,” he said in surprise when she peeked into his office. She gave him a little wave and he gestured her into the empty seat across from him. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”
“I’m not exactly back,” she said slowly.
“Of course,” he said nodding, looking at her with sympathy she didn’t want to acknowledge. She averted her eyes, studying the wood grain of his desk. “Take all the time you need. Your position will be here whenever you decide to come back. I’m still working on finding you a part -”
“I quit. Sir.” She interrupted him before he could go any further. Raising her eyes she looked at him again, noting the shock before he carefully hid it.
“Ah, I see. Anything we can do to change your mind? You’ve been an exceptional Auror here, Granger.”
“No. It’s time for me to leave. I never wanted this job in the first place, no offense, and now it all seems rather pathetic. Again, no offense, sir.”
“None taken,” he said with a sigh, sitting back in this chair and watching her for a moment. “I suppose this means I don’t have to reprimand you for keeping the whole Malfoy-undercover thing a secret.”
“I guess not,” she said with a small smirk, glad to see him smile back In return. She hadn’t known what to expect from the rigid man, so it was a relief to not have to argue about her decision.
“It’s been a pleasure,” Gregor finally said, rising and extending his hand to her over the desk.
“Same here,” she said, shaking his hand firmly before turning around. Walking past her office she made for the lifts. She thought she deserved one of those decadent coffee drinks from the coffee cart today.
But upon returning to her flat with an extravagant hot beverage in hand, she realized she didn’t want to be alone. And instead of turning on the telly and folding herself in a fuzzy blanket like she used to do, she make a few Floo calls. Within an hour, her flat had more people in it than it ever had before. She still had the fuzzy blanket wrapped around her shoulders, but Draco was next to her with his arm around her. Ginny sat on her other side on the couch, in charge of the remote. Theo lounged on the floor, leaning against Ginny’s legs, while Blaise took the cozy armchair. She’d told them to invite Goyle, but he’d declined when they realized she didn’t have a card table.
“This is what muggles do for fun?” Draco asked as Ginny flipped form one channel to the next too quickly to be able to see much of anything.
“Not exactly,” she said with a laugh, reaching out of her blanket cocoon to snatch the remote from Ginny. She tried to explain why the telly was a fun pastime, but none of the men were buying it. Ginny was more used to the idea, but still wasn’t excited like Hermione thought they would be.
“Seems barmy to me,” Theo said, having long ago gotten up to peruse the bookshelves crammed into her living room.
Hermione rolled her eyes and left a sitcom on, hoping maybe staying on one channel would catch their attention.
“So what’s the plan now?” Ginny asked, nudging Hermione with her foot.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, now that you’re not an Auror. What’s next?”
“Oh, I’m not sure,” Hermione admitted, snuggling in closer to Draco’s side. “I’m set for a while at least, but I’ll have to get another job soon. I was thinking of seeing if any of the bookshops in Diagon Alley needed help.
“I’m hurt, Mi,” Theo declared from the other side of the room.
She cocked her head on him, wondering what ridiculous idea he was pursuing now.
“You have a job waiting for you at Nott Manor. I’ve personally been offended that you didn’t started weeks ago.”
“Theo,” she said in exasperation. “I told you I’d help you go through that place. It’s not a job.”
“It is if he pays you,” Blaise pointed out, pointing his bottle of soda at her.
Stubbornly she shook her head. “I couldn’t. I really don’t mind…”
“Mi, do you realize how fucked up that place is?” Theo asked, face serious for once as he faced her completely.
“Well, no, but…”
“But nothing. It’s going to take months to break through all the wards and old magic that has a hold on that place. Plus there’s curses, artifacts, and gods know what else filling up the place that I’ll need someone to go through. The Nott Estate can more than afford to employ you.”
She opened her mouth to protest again but Malfoy squeezed her shoulders.
“Does it sound like a job you’d enjoy?” He asked her, looking her in the eye when she turned to him.
“Of course,” she said, “but…”
“But nothing,” Ginny said. “If Theo can pay you to do a job you’ll actually like for once, why wouldn’t you take it?”
Hermione opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Everyone was looking at her, and she scowled at them, desperately racking her brain for why she was against the idea. Then she realized there was no reason, beyond blind stubbornness. Even if it didn’t work out, she’d be no worse off than she was now. And in all honesty the work itself sounded more exciting than anything she’d done as an Auror in years.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “Wipe that smirk off your face, Theo. I’ll start on Monday and you’ll have to be there for at least the first couple of weeks, maybe longer depending on the blood wards.”
“You got it. Thanks, Mi.” With a wink he turned back around, pulling down a random book to flip through from her collection.
The rest of the night passed in relaxed ease, and Ginny even got interested in the show after a while. When Theo began to fall asleep, they decided to call it a night. She made sure to hug every one of them before they left, even if the men pretended to be above such things. She’d called, and they’d answered. And it was a relief to have these people in her life.
Draco she stopped when he turned to leave. “Stay the night?” She asked simply, glad when his response was immediate.
It’d been difficult to sleep on her own over the past few days given how used to sleeping beside Draco she’d gotten while at the Manor. But she’d pushed through. As much as she wanted to hold tightly to everyone in her life now, she also knew she didn’t want to become dependent on them. And she knew how easy it would be to fall into that.
There were more things in her life she wanted to fix. More she wanted to do. And while she knew it took time, she was impatient to get where she wanted her life to be. It was just one small step at a time as she continued to process the loss of her best friend and acclimate to the new life she was building.
But right now, it felt right to lead Draco down the hall and do nothing more than curl up against his chest, wearing his shirt, and listen to him breath as they both drifted off to sleep.