Vacivitas

Chapter Twenty-One

Trigger warnings: Contemplation of suicide, suicide attempt

Chapter Twenty-One

The next morning, Pinky spends three hours with Hermione healing her.

The compassionate river that runs deep within the little elf runs free, and she sniffles and weeps the whole time she's healing her. With a combination of magic, potions, and creams, they're able to get Hermione to a place where all she's left with is a ridged network of scars that span the full width and length of her back. Fortunately, the cuts on her breasts had been shallow, so Pinky was able to use Essence of Dittany to seal the wounds right up.

Charon Palace was a nightmare. Thick green vines covered in thorns and dead roses wrap around every memory she has of that night, piercing them and holding them in place. She can recall being in school, assuming that Malfoy was cruel, but she had never once imagined that he had the capability of becoming a sadist.

In Sixth Year, Hermione had been hesitant to believe Harry's suspicions that he'd taken the Mark. She had many reasons for that, some being the faint and fleeting attraction of a teenage girl to a suddenly-attractive teenage boy. Most being that she didn't see that type of evil when she looked at him back then. She saw sadness that clung to bone. Darkness that oppressed and suffocated. Fear that painted his skin pale and rimmed his grey eyes in red.

Evil didn't cry.

Malfoy's eyes in the throne room of Charon Palace had already haunted her nightmares that night after he left her in the Floo room. The tightness of his jaw as he clenched his teeth and cursed her. Ignoring her pleas when he cut her and burned her, letting everyone in that room watching her plead in futility. The way he'd dragged her by the hair, tugging it so many times it gave her a blinding headache. His dark, sadistic promises and degrading taunting as he pretended to rape her in the dining room. The false memories still vivid in her mind, as if he really was treating her like a toy for revenge against Harry.

He'd had to do it. She'd had to let it happen.

It didn't make it any less traumatic.

His panic attack was understandable, given she has them herself, but she couldn't help feeling annoyance tickling her sensibilities. He was so distraught over the way he hurt her that he didn't set aside space to stay with her afterward. She'd had to drag herself to her room alone, hanging those horrible platform heels off of two tired fingers. By the time she made it there, she was too sad and fatigued to call Pinky for healing. She'd collapsed in bed, ignoring the burning pain of her back, and drifted into a horrific sleep.

Hermione thanks Pinky for healing her that following morning, and asks for some alone time. She goes to her wardrobe and sifts through her clothing, focusing on the next issue at hand so she doesn't have to think about everything else. She doesn't know what she wants to wear. Now that she has scars, is she going to have to worry about showing her back? Were they going to become a source of shame and anguish for her with time?

Eventually, Hermione takes a long, deep bath. The waters charmed by the tub to be hot for as long as she's laying in it. Rose petals from a bouquet that's been there since she arrived adorn the lavender-scented water, the two scents mingling and creating a soothing concoction.

Though she's been healed, her mind remains wounded. The false memories mingling with the real ones terrify her and keep her heart pinned into the depths of sunken cave. She can't close her eyes without her brain telling her that he's going to barge in and take her in the bathtub while drowning her. She just wants the false memories taken away so she can properly deal with the real ones.