A Slow Cruel Descent

A Fragile Ascent Part 1

Is it possible to know if you're sane?

Hermione had asked herself that question a thousand times that year. She had concluded, after mulling it over the first several hundred times, that it probably wasn't. As she asked it again, the answer was the same.

She sighed quietly and tucked a curl behind her ear.

Perhaps she was insane.

It would be convenient. And easier. Easier for almost everyone.

There were certainly enough people eager to believe it. So many people who considered it the convenient answer. Hermione Granger, poor dear, she lost her mind in the war.

It would have made things so much simpler for everyone. It would have spared Hermione all the tests. All the testimonies. All the skeptical, pitying glances. The pictures of herself splashed across the pages of The Daily Prophet. Spared Harry from having to take advantage of his hero status.

If everyone could just agree that Hermione Granger had lost her mind, everything would be a lot easier.

Some days Hermione wished that it could be that easy. The mad people she had encounter seemed far happier and freer than she was. She didn't feel mad at all.

She felt so sane it hurt.

She exhaled slowly.

Six months. She'd made it six months. Dragged herself through by sheer determination.

Sometimes those months had felt longer than the whole war.

It was an awful thing to think. The war had been terrible. All those years and deaths. Grinding on and on. But at least the war had been shared. There were people who understood. She'd been fighting for something vast and important.

Fighting for herself was much harder. The last six months had been her own unique and private agony.

While the whole world was moving on, she was frozen in time. Waiting.

Six months.

She felt like she'd been drowning the whole time.

A grating sound that tore her abruptly from her thoughts. She blinked and shook her head. Her curl sprang free of her ear and the drab waiting room she was seated in swam back into focus. The door across the room swung open and Draco Malfoy walked through. Her stomach flipped and dropped sharply.

When his eyes landed on her a look of despair came over his face.

She got to her feet and stared at him.

Six months. Six months in Azkaban.

All other Death Eaters has gotten life sentences but Harry Potter had demanded Draco Malfoy's be reduced. Six months was the lowest Harry could convince the Wizengamot to agree to.

Six months and Draco was already nothing but skin and bones. He looked almost like a corpse. Deathly pale. The life seemingly sucked out of him. His eyes were mostly blank. There was nothing but pain in them.

The guard shoved a clipboard into Hermione's hands and she shakily signed her name in triplicate.

"He's all yours," the burly man muttered before exiting the room, leaving her alone with Draco.

"Granger," he said after several minutes of silence.

"Draco," she replied. She didn't ask him how he was. She didn't comment on how long it had been. What do you say to someone who just spent six months having every shred of happiness sucked out of them while they shivered in a desolate cell?