Chapter Text
Hermione
It’s morning. A bright, sunny morning. Not the kind of morning that matches my mood at all. Rolling over, I curse myself for not closing the curtains before passing out last night, stumbling drunkenly into bed.
The morning after always feels like a slow-motion nightmare. My head is pounding. The sunlight stabbing through the window feels like someone’s taken a hammer to my skull. My mouth is dry, like I stuffed it with cotton before going to sleep.
I get up on unsteady legs, my head still spinning from everything I drank last night, and stagger to the bathroom. The journey feels like a disorienting maze. Every movement is sluggish, like I’m wading through fog. My stomach churns with the blurry memory of last night’s decisions, and I can already taste the bitter regret rising in my throat.
When I finally reach the bathroom, it feels like a victory, though the harsh fluorescent lights make everything feel so much worse. I brace myself at the sink, gripping the basin like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
Turning on the tap, I scoop water into my hands and gulp it down, not even bothering with a glass. I look up at my reflection in the mirror.
The mirror greets me with a terrible sight: pale, drawn features, like I’ve emerged from some kind of nightmare.
I stare at her. At me.
My hair’s a mess, my eyes bloodshot, either from the lack of sleep or from the bottle I downed last night. Probably both.
I don’t wait for the water to warm up. I turn on the shower and step right in, letting the icy water jolt me back into reality, or at least try.
The war is over. But victory tastes bitter.
I lost my parents early on. I never had the chance to get them out before the Death Eaters came. They killed them. Burned my childhood home to the ground. But that was just the beginning.
Lupin. Fred. Lavender. The list goes on. Each loss etched itself into my soul.
Dumbledore’s death had been the catalyst. From the moment he fell from the Astronomy Tower, destruction followed—until the final blow that left Voldemort dead.
But none of it compared to losing Ron.
When Harry struck Voldemort down, I remember the relief that washed over me. And then I saw him, Ron, lying on the ground, hit by a stray curse. Blood gushed from his stomach. It filled his mouth. I knew every healing spell in the book, and none of them worked. He died in my arms.
I didn’t even know if the curse came from friend or foe. But that’s war. Sometimes, you never find out.
After the war, I moved in with the Weasley’s, but it was too hard. Losing two sons broke them. Every step felt like walking on eggshells, like grief could shatter everything at any second.
I missed Ron. I grieved for him. For everything he could have been. For what we could have been. For all the untold stories. All the chapters still unwritten.
But most of all, I grieved for myself.
The war took something from everyone. No one came out unscathed. I was no exception. The person I used to be feels like a distant memory, some other girl I barely remember. A girl who ran through Hogwarts corridors, keeping her boys in line, focused only on being top of her class.
That girl is gone.
All that’s left now is anger.
And that’s how I ended up here.
When I heard Hogwarts was reopening for students who missed their seventh year, I jumped at the chance.
I’ve been back for a month now, helping repair the castle. Brewing potions for the infirmary. Cleaning up the destruction that the war had raged on the castle. Assisting the professors with preparations for the new term. Anything to make myself useful. Anything to keep busy. Maybe, if I’m lucky, to forget, even if just for a little while.
So that was my pattern. Work myself to the bone during the day. Try to drink the noise away at night.
Harry didn’t come back. He’s out there chasing down the last Death Eaters. He says two wizarding wars were enough—but I think it’s his way of coping too.
I’ve been given my own space, special quarters for the returning “eighth years.” A small, one bedroom cottage, similar to Hagrid's near the edge of the forest. We aren’t required to return to our house dormitories, which suits me perfectly. I don’t have to see professors while I spiral. They don’t know what’s happening with me, and I prefer it that way.
No pity. No whispers.
So far, being back hasn’t been terrible. I have unrestricted access to the Restricted Section. I can take books back to my quarters. I use the prefects’ bath. No curfew. I’m alone. Just the way I want it.
After my shower, I down a hangover potion and set about cleaning up the mess from last night. A few spells hide the evidence well enough.
I dry my hair with a flick of my wand, tie it into a ponytail, throw on jeans and a T-shirt, and headed down to the Great Hall.
Only a few people are seated at the long, solitary table, the professors and a handful of early-arriving students. No need to bring out all the house tables just yet.
I grab some toast and pour myself a cup of coffee, eating quickly. Just trying to get through the morning.
I’m pulling a book out of my bag when I hear my name.
“Hermione, may I have a word?” It’s Professor McGonagall.
I steel myself and nod.
She sits down next to me on the bench “you’ve been here a month now, and we are very grateful for the help you’ve given us in preparing for the term,” she begins. “While neither myself nor the other professors see you as a typical student anymore—and you've been granted certain freedoms—you must understand that when the younger students return next week, they will look to you as a role model.”
I nod slowly, my brain still foggy from the night before as the potion and food hadn't quite kicked in yet.
“You won’t be Head Girl this year, but I expect you to set an example nonetheless,” she says firmly. “People look up to you, Hermione. I expect you to act accordingly. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Professor,” I murmur.
“Also, when it's just you and I, you can call me Minerva. We did fight together Hermione. Nothing will change that.”
Finishing my breakfast quickly, having filled my morning quota of politeness, I made quick haste of leaving the Great Hall.
-----------------
Walking out of the hall, I saw them arriving for breakfast. My fellow classmates who had also arrived early. My fellow classmates that I would be required to be friendly to.
Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, Greengrass, and last of all, Draco Malfoy.
The five of them had also arrived early to Hogwarts, and had also been assisting in the reparations of the castle. Despite our shared experience during the war, there remained an unspoken distance between us, a mutual understanding to stay out of each other's way.
I knew they had been spies for the Order, but I hadn’t had much to do with them during that time. They had their handlers, and that wasn’t me. But their part was integral. Feeding information back that kept the casualties lower than what they could have been. Keeping us up to date on Voldemort’s comings and goings.
And while I didn’t hold the same level of animosity toward them as I once had, I just didn’t have much to say to them. And they seemed to feel the same.
Anger. That’s all I felt. Deep-seated anger that burned through me. Memories I would have much preferred not to have, burned forever in my eyes.
No, I was no longer the Hermione Granger that people knew. And keeping people away meant no one had to see that.
My task for the day had been potion making. Calming Draught. Dittany. Sleeping Draught. Potions were good. They gave me the ability to calm my mind. The task of making potions allowed no room for error, and that attention to detail left little room for my mind to wander.
The issue was now, once everything was done, dinner had been consumed, when there was little to do to quiet my mind, I reached for the bottle.
Reading helped. Reading and alcohol. Only for so long though, after a while my mind started to wander back to the flashbacks of war. The blood, the injured, the destruction, and worst of all the deaths.
And today was a bad day. It was like my mind had been quiet all day, so all the ugly thoughts came back in full and harder than ever. I saw Ron’s blue eyes, silent tears streaking out, as the life bled away. I saw Remus’s body lying in the rubble, leaving behind a wife and child.
Another child that would grow up without his father.
It was late. Late enough that the castle was silent, every student and professor tucked away in their beds. Everyone except me.
I needed a new book. Something to drown out the noise in my head.
That’s how I ended up here, drinking straight from the bottle in the shadows of the Restricted Section. Tonight’s poison was whiskey. Not my first choice, but it was all I had left.
The burn down my throat almost felt good. Almost.
With my wand raised for light, I scanned the shelves, eyes half-focused on the spines. Old parchment and dust thick in the air. The smell of secrets. The kind of smell that clung to your robes and followed you out.
My hand landed on a book, Secrets of the Darkest Arts. Appropriate, really. I tucked it under my arm and slipped into the far corner, sinking into the battered sofa that had become mine these past weeks.
Read and drink. That was the pattern.
I’d just cracked open the book when I heard it, a creak in the wooden floor.
Footsteps.
My heart jolted. No one ever came this far back.
“Nox,” I whispered, plunging myself into darkness. I sank lower into the cushions, clutching the neck of the bottle, every muscle taut. Whoever it was, I prayed they’d just turn and leave.
But they didn’t.
Light. The faint glow of another wand. Growing closer. Shelf by shelf.
I rose, tossing the bottle behind me, wand snapping into my hand. Duel mode, always my instinct now. The war left me that way. Always ready. Always braced.
The footsteps stopped. Just a shelf away.
Adrenaline surged through me, sharp and cold, cutting through the alcohol’s haze.
The light broke through the darkness, and for a second, my stomach lurched. Of all the people it could’ve been—it had to be him.
“Malfoy.”