Not Quite Dark Magic

Aftermath

In the wake of the battle Hermione found herself sequestered to her room for healing. The infirmary was inundated with more serious injuries, as were the living rooms and kitchens. Anyone who wasn't on the verge of dying was not to interrupt the healing process. Meals were sent to her rooms. She wasn't allowed to leave her room until certain hours.

Draco sat by her side faithfully. After the first night of sharing her bed with him she couldn't understand how she had fought the urge to do so for so long. She was sore and exhausted and somehow he knew just what to do to ensure she rested. When her nightmares jumped her awake, he was always there to soothe her until the feelings passed.

Her Occlumency had been failing her since the final battle. She knew she had overused it, knew that her mind had only held on because it was in pure survival mode, but now that the war was officially over, it was taking a sabbatical and forcing her to face everything she'd been putting off and hiding for all these years.

It was awful, but in the weeks following the battle there wasn't much else to do besides face her demons. So she tried to do it, with some grace.

Many people had died during the final battle. So many that they had decided on having a group funeral for the other members to attend, and family's could decide if they wanted to do something more intimate.

Justin Finch-Fletchley had perished brutally in battle. As had Susan Bones. Dennis Creevey and Ernie Macmillan and so many more that Hermione hadn't even known. She watched as their bodies were levitated off the burnt Manor grass and she asked Kingsley all of their names and ages. A lot of them were barely legal. Most of them were below the age of thirty.

She thought about their families, about their parents and their children and how she wanted to remember each and every one of them so she could give them the respect they deserved. Because she lived. She lived and she wasn't sure it was fair. They'd all fought, and some of them had been there since their DA days and they still died. They made it through everything else just to lose their lives in the last moments before freedom. Hermione was having a hard time wrapping her head around that.

Pansy was in the hospital ward, and though they weren't allowed to visit her while she was there, Neville assured them she was going to recover.

"The snake venom would have killed her, but I guess when I chopped its head off the venom vanished from her system..." He touched the back of his neck and averted his eyes.

Hermione put her hand over his. He was sitting beside her on her bed, having snuck out from his room. She imagined it was lonely without Pansy in there and he was hardly allowed to visit her himself.

"I know what it's like to think your partner is going to die. But you saved her."

He'd nodded, but she knew it wouldn't be enough until Pansy was awake and healthy and back in his arms.

---

The moment she was cleared to be released from her room, she had run out of the front door. She didn't know where she was going, but she'd stopped when she reached muggle London. The sun was setting and the pink and orange hues in the sky reminded her how painful beauty could be.

Draco hadn't been cleared to leave yet. He was under investigation through the Ministry despite the claims from the Order that he had been a valuable asset and Voldemort would still be at large without him. But the Order— despite being the only stable entity during Voldemort's reign— wasn't the Ministry, and didn't get final say. Kingsley— after Hermione had gotten into a screaming match with the temporary appointed Minister of Magic (someone so irrelevant she couldn't remember his name)— assured her that he would get it all sorted and Draco wouldn't step a toe in Azkaban.