Scars That Heal (Dramione Fanfiction) [COMPLETE]

41 - Owl Feathers

*Trigger Warning - References to Suicide*

As the end of April started rearing its head over the horizon, Hermione entered an almost trance-like state. She just had to knuckle down and revise, revise, revise until the exams were over. It was that simple. Hermione told her friends that she planned to spend more time in the library than with them from that point, and that it wasn't anything personal. She just had to make sure she was doing her best. They took it well, for the most part, and said they didn't mind her "obsessive dedication", as Ginny put it.

"You know, you can do this thing called "winging it"? I've found it tends to be fine," Dean joked.

"You could also do the opposite, called "being prepared and not relying on luck", which is what I'm familiar with," Hermione replied, raising an eyebrow at him.

"You'll do well whatever happens, Hermione," Luna said comfortingly. "I've never seen you fail a test yet."

"I know, I just don't want to chance anything with this one," Hermione sighed.

It wasn't nice being so distant from the others, but Hermione knew she'd thank herself for it later. The library was all but empty most lunchtimes, with most students making the most of the late spring weather by the Lake. Instead, Hermione bent over her books and wrote pages and pages of notes, diagrams and essays. It was for the best.

She found herself slipping into her older moods. Heavy worry and weighted façades made her sad again, spreading a damp blanket of misery over everything. Hermione perked up when she forgot about her work for the moments she was with the others during mealtimes, but in lessons and in her revision time she felt her brain fade to black over and over again. It was bleaching the colour from her life, and at times she started wondering why she was still here. Life wasn't about this kind of crushing worry over pages of questions that determined her luck in the future. Why was she still doing this? Was it worth her unhappiness now?

This wasn't pleasant, and her mind was taking a few turns towards darker memories of times she wished she wasn't around. Hermione wasn't doing well, but she just had to force herself to focus. Hermione thought about her feelings, and how they didn't matter at the moment and she just had to keep on pushing. But it was getting harder and harder.

Then, for the first time in months, the dream came back.

Hermione had been up for three hours longer than normal, going over the seven uses of dragon blood a fifth time when she realised it was nearly midnight. Startled, she left the Common Room and ran to her dormitory as silently as she could. It was past lights-out, and the corridors were very nearly empty. The suits of armour were occasionally twitching, and the paintings murmured to each other as she passed. But she made her way to her dorm, put her things away, undressed and passed out into an exhausted sleep.

Flashes of silver lightening... Shimmers of weather on steel, a weapon charmed that bears a cursed power... Flicks of wrists and spurts of blood. Trickling scarlet pooling in wrist creases and under bodies... Laughter, hollow eyes that flash like rain on the window and seem to rattle in the skull they gleam from. Velvet, velvet curtains that don't soak up the Mudblood, but repel it and let it stain instead. Mudblood... Tainted blood. Undeserving, pathetic, weak Mudblood...

She woke up with a snap. There was immediate terror in her mind: she wasn't safe. Hermione wasn't safe. She had thought the dream was gone. She had thought she was stronger now, but it wasn't enough. She was still weak, Hermione was still a Mudblood. Looking at her arm, Hermione felt a twist of anxiety in her gut. Her heart was still leaping inside her, and sweat had stained her nightclothes. She had to get out. Again, she had to escape.