Scars That Heal (Dramione Fanfiction) [COMPLETE]

49 - Crumpled Pages

*Trigger Warning - Brief Mentions of Scars and Self Harm Scars*

The end of July pulled nearer, as did the day when Hermione and her friends would get their results. Nobody could bear the thought of receiving them, but equally they were desperate to know how they had fared. Everything else was slowing down for the summer; the Quidditch league Ginny organised was over (won by an enthusiastic team of fourth-year girls), the younger students' lessons were gradually petering out into hours of pretending to take notes, and the hot weather became more bearable. The days were still long and sunny, but no longer with the same oppressive heat as before.

Hermione was feeling very strange about all of the change. It definitely wasn't an entirely bad feeling, but there was an edge of uneasiness there too. She was thrilled to be moving on with her life. She had Draco, a house, and a job to look forward to in just a few months. Her school days were over, and she was an adult. Hermione would be turning twenty years old that September, and the next year was a new millennium. Everything was moving forwards and for the better, even though there was still a disconnected falsity to quite how soon she would be leaving Hogwarts.

It was making her think back, too. At everything that had happened since the Battle, and before that to her days at Hogwarts with Ron and Harry. At the trials and tribulations, and all the petty things like housepoints that an older Hermione knew didn't really matter as much as a precocious eleven year old Hermione felt they had. But more things had changed in the past year than ever before. She had survived her father's death, her friends' and her own depressive episodes, her suicidal thoughts, even just the stress of exams and general school life. Hermione was very proud of how far she had come.

But with all this pleasant reflection on past and future came the uncertainty. She was leaving Hogwarts. Everything she had become so accustomed to in the last seven years would be over. No more breakfasts under the morning sky-ceiling. No more lakeside lunches and Quidditch pitch laughter. No more weekend visits to Hogsmeade, to spend her pocket money on sweets and books. No more nights in the Tower with Draco. Sure, they would have a whole house to themselves to do whatever they pleased in, but the Tower was a place of comfort for both of them.

And who knew what lay ahead? Certainly not her. For all Hermione knew, she and Draco's house purchase could fall through and they'd have to search again, she could be fired or reconsidered in her job, her mother could die too, her mental health could reverse as it had done so many times before, she and Draco could break up, no matter how impossible any of those seemed from this place in her life. It could all come crashing back down. But she didn't know that it would. Hermione told herself sternly that as she couldn't know all the bad things around the corner, she couldn't know even that they would happen. Everything could keep improving. Nothing was fixed, certainly, but that meant so many good things could happen. She could get promotions, and change jobs to something better. She and Draco could stay together forever. She could rebuild her relationship with her mother, and help her to heal just as Hermione herself had already done. It could all be so good, as well as so bad.

The general nostalgia was infectious, and everyone Hermione knew in the seventh year was getting very wistful about Hogwarts. She and her friends were making efforts in those final few weeks to do everything they had done before as younger students for a final time. They snuck out of their dorms together,  and took food from the kitchens out by the Lake for a moonlit feast. Dean and Seamus went to play Quidditch together, but when Ginny went to fetch them she reported that what they were doing in the broomshed was definitely not Quidditch practice. Luna went with Hagrid to visit the Thestrals, and even managed to persuade him to let her ride one again. Hermione took a bath in the Prefect's bathroom, only to be joined by Draco. They visited the library, and left slips of parchment with written encouragements to future students inside random books. Madam Pince saw them moving her precious books and nearly collapsed, but seemed mollified when they explained their actions.