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"Get up, Hermione."
The weariness was bone-deep, stifling. She nuzzled at her pillow and grunted.
"You have to get up." There was a gentle pressure on her shoulder. Even through the thick eiderdown, she fancied she could feel the long fingers.
"Hermione. Be brave. Get up."
She pushed herself upright. "Remus," she said, and felt everything she had managed to forget in sleep rush in upon her. She swayed with the impact, and Remus reached across the gap between them and gripped her shoulder once, hard.
His eyes were brown and kind and inexpressibly sad.
"I can't do this," she said blankly. "How does one do this?"
Remus handed her the black robes, the white stole. "I'm not sure," he said quietly. "I only know that one must, and does."
She dressed. She brushed her teeth. She had a glass of water. Her ability to complete these small tasks made her want to cry, but she forced the urge back down, teeth gritted. She had time for that later. She had to do this now.
"You might want to do something with your hair, dear," the mirror advised somberly. She glared at it, then began wrestling with the sleep-twisted mass of curls.
"Here," Remus said, and whispered something that she couldn't quite make out, something that unkinked her hair and left it flat and sleek against her skull. It still didn't look good -- the ends were split and she hadn't had it cut in nearly a year -- but at least she would not go unkempt to her parents' funeral.
"I used to do that for Sirius," he said, and the pinched pain in his voice made her shudder. Is this what it's like? she wanted to ask. Will I feel like this forever?
Instead, she looked at herself in the mirror, and resolved to be brave.
"My parents were not wizards," she said, and was relieved with how steady her voice was. "And some may have wondered why, since that was so, I hold this ceremony for them."
Harry and Ron gripped her left and right hands in perfect unison and lifted their chins. She didn't need to see their faces to know they were glaring indiscriminately at the silent, black-clad crowd. Love welled within her, as sharp and painful as the grief that came tearing with it.
Braced between them, she raised her voice.
"My parents were not wizards," she said. "But they died at the hands of wizards. And at their funeral -- their Muggle funeral -- I had to tell people it was a gas explosion. Everyone was very kind, and completely oblivious." She let out a harsh sound that was almost a laugh. "Obliviated, actually." Kingsley Shacklebolt met her eyes briefly, then glanced away.
"This is the only place where I can tell the truth about their deaths," she said quietly. "This world, where they never belonged. This world, which killed them. It's the only place where they can be given their due."
She took a deep breath. "My parents are buried in a Muggle cemetary," she said. "But they're remembered here."
People began to clap, then, a slow, steady beat of approval.
"Wait!" she said. "Wait, wait." Be brave, she thought, and continued, as the noise died down to a puzzled murmur.
"So many people on our side see Muggles as charming toys," she said. "As simpletons, or loveable fools who-" she met Arthur Weasley's puzzled eyes and flinched. "As not quite whole. But my parents were whole people. They were good people. They had more in common with the people here in this room today than those people have in common with those who killed them. Magic doesn't matter. It-"
She was losing what she had to say. It was slipping away from her, when she had held it so clear and tight in the dim room, staring at herself in the mirror, and imagining another face at which she would speak.
"It's not the most important thing about people," she mumbled. Tonks nodded sharply, and Hermione bit her lip. "It's not. That's all. Thank you."
She dragged the white stole off her neck and tossed it into the air. Beside her, Ron muttered the spell that kept it hanging in the air, pointed, arrow straight, towards the obscenely blue sky. Harry handed her the black candle. She stepped forward and lit the lower edge of the stole, which caught quickly.
It took only a moment for it to be over.
She sat down so suddenly she nearly dragged Ron on top of her. Harry's quicker reflexes and lesser height helped him sit more gracefully. Nevertheless, he shifted closer to her, placed his arm around her back, as Ron gripped her hand in both of his. Hermione let herself sink into them, into the warmth of them, and cried.
At the reception, Remus found her again.
"My Muggle mother was killed by Death Eaters," he said, as an opening to their conversation.
"I didn't know," Hermione said, remembering, too late, that an expression of sympathy might have been considered appropriate.
Remus didn't seem to mind. "No. Hardly anyone knows, actually. It was in the first days of the first war. The Ministry hushed it up on all sides."
"Gas explosion?" Hermione inquired.
"No one could ever accuse the Ministry of imagination," he said dryly. "It's a wonder Muggles continue to use gas, considering how dangerous it seems to be."
"It's not as if they can use cooking spells," Hermione said, more tartly than she'd intended.
Remus paused, and she thought he saw caution in his eyes. "No," he said quietly. "At any rate. I wanted to thank you for what you said today."
"I didn't say it right," Hermione whispered, guilt stabbing at her.
"You said it," he told her. "And the whole Order was here to hear it."
Hermione felt her lips twist. "Not the whole Order," she said.
Remus blinked at her. "I believe it was suggested that he find another place to be today," he said mildly.
Hermione felt her face flush. "He was invited," she snapped. "Who "suggested" it?"
"Me," Remus said. "Actually." He watched her. "Had I known you had a specific target in mind for that speech -- or had I known about the speech - I would have acted otherwise. I did what I believed was required by the role you asked me to play. I'm sorry I failed you in it."
Hermione forced resentment and ingratitude into a tiny, tiny box at the back of her mind, and locked it. "You didn't fail me," she said, and hugged him, a quick embrace that neither of them held long.
Nevertheless, when she stepped back, the pained failure in his eyes had faded.
"Hermione," he said. "I don't believe that teachers should have favourites, and certainly shouldn't acknowledge them if they do. However, I would be somewhat remiss if I did not tell you that of all my students, you are the one who makes me the most proud, most often."
She should have wept at that, or thanked him, or something. Instead, she looked across the room, to where Harry and Ginny were talking to each other, both pointedly ignoring the throng of whispering admirers surrounding them. Remus followed her gaze.
"Ah," he said. "Harry has plenty of people to be proud of him." There was something in that, something faint and bitter and tired, but she was too tired and hurt to pursue it.
"I think Tonks needs you," she said instead. Tonks was leaning against a wall, knuckling the small of her back and grimacing. Hermione couldn't help but be impressed by the vastness of her body, the slow-moving bulk of her.
Remus glanced around. "Oh dear," he murmured. "I think the twins are kicking again." He squeezed her hand. "I was enormously honoured that you asked me to be your Preparer."
"Oh, Remus. I couldn't have chosen anyone else."
He smiled at her, sad and proud and joyous, and she thought, for a moment, that maybe one day there would be more to her than grief.
"Where will you go now?"
"The Burrow," she said.
"Ah," he said. "Well, do owl me if you need anything. Books, ingredients, a break from mollycoddling‚...that sort of thing."
She nodded. "I will," she said, and knew she lied.
The Burrow, she realised quickly, was a mistake. She had thought being surrounded by people she loved -- people with whom she had spent more time than her own family, in recent years -- might soothe her.
But the Burrow was not a soothing place. It was always a frantic hum of clothes-washing and cooking and house-keeping, none of which she was allowed to participate in, insist as she might. Molly Weasley would have made her own bed for her if she hadn't done it immediately after getting up every morning.
Charlie tramped snow through the house in dragonskin boots, booming cheerfully, and the twins kept dropping in to demonstrate new toys, all of which made noises or distressing smells. And Ginny and her mother had several loud, terrible fights about what Ginny called "living with Harry" and what Molly called "living in sin."
"I don't want to get married, Mum!" Ginny howled through the Floo network. "I might eventually want children, but I don't want them right now. And I do not owe you anything to do with my love or sex life!"
"But don't you love Harry?" Molly demanded.
"I adore Harry. I'm going to spend the rest of my life with Harry. But I am not going to marry him, or anyone else. Okay? Okay! I'm going, I've got practice in an hour."
"Why did I ever think it would be nice to have a little girl?" Molly demanded of the air, then spotted Hermione pretending to read in a corner. "Oh, Hermione. I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Hermione said, but went upstairs with her book.
All of the Weasleys had lived. She usually remembered to be pleased about that, but in the early morning, alone in the tiny room that used to be Ginny's, sometimes she polished malicious, pointed taunts that never left her lips.
And then there was Fleur, who was inexpressibly tactful and compassionate.
Hermione hated her for it.
Would it kill the French woman to put her foot in her mouth even once? Would it absolutely destroy her to stop loudly drawing attention to herself so that Hermione could leave the room in quiet tears without anyone noticing? Would it be too much to bloody ask that she not anxiously require Molly's assistance with the baby at the very moment Hermione could not take any more of the Weasley matriarch's incessant fussing?
On the morning she announced her departure, Fleur had dropped in for breakfast.
"Hermione," Molly said, "Are you sure that's the best plan, love? Surely it's best not to be alone right now." She shot a hopeful glance at Ron. "You should at least stay for Christmas, for goodness sake."
"I'll come back for Christmas," Hermione assured her. "I just want to spend some time by myself for a while. Sort some things out." In peace and quiet, she could have added, but didn't.
"But-" Molly began.
"Alors!" Fleur announced in alarm. "The baby, he is ill! His head is too hot!"
"Oh dear," Molly flustered, shooting the baby an aggrieved look before she remembered he was her firstborn grandchild. "Oh dear, his forehead is a little warm, isn't it? Quick, Ron, fetch the ragwort."
Hermione slipped to her feet and out of the room, but not before she acknowledged Fleur's elegant, unmistakably Gallic wink with a virulent glare.
Fleur's face registered shock, then hurt.
Hermione pretended she hadn't seen, and sneaked quietly up the stairs, stepping over the squeaky step. In the wintry morning light that filtered through the tiny window, she began to lay out her few clothes.
Ron poked his head through the doorway.
"Can I help?" he asked, and she saw that it was part-apology for his mother's behaviour, part-apology for not being able to protect her from it.
"Please," she said, and handed him a pile of books to put in the chest.
All went smoothly, until he put the third pile of books down on the bed -- one volume teetered precariously close to the edge - and tried to kiss her. She stiffened, involuntarily, and stepped away.
"Sorry," they said, at the same time, shame-faced and blushing.
There was a pause, then, while they both stared very carefully at other things in the room and waited for the other to speak first. She wanted to nudge the unbalanced book back into the middle of the mattress, but she couldn't move until Ron did.
When he finally spoke, she was immensely surprised at what he said.
"We're never going to work it out, are we?" he asked, sitting on the edge of her bed. The book flipped off and landed on the floor, spine splayed.
Hermione closed her eyes. "No," she said sadly. "I don't think we are, Ron."
He looped one arm around her back and pulled her against his shoulder. There was no seduction in it, just a steady comfort she could lean against. "My mum's going to go mental, you realise. She's probably picked out our children's names already."
Hermione shuddered. "If "Ethelred" is any example, we've dodged a bullet there."
"A what?' Ron asked. "Oh. Yes." He shrugged. "He'll be plain Red by his third birthday. Weasleys are good at nicknames."
"Oh, Ron. I'm sorry."
"Me too," he told her. "I think it would have been great." He sighed. "Another casualty of the fucking war," he said, then covered his face with his free hand. "Oh, bugger, shit and damn."
Hermione found it within herself to laugh, a little. "It's all right," she said.
"You keep saying that," Ron observed. "I'm fairly sure you're lying."
"Well, sometimes," Hermione admitted. "Not this time, really. But I've got to get out of here, Ron."
Hie eyes were rueful. "Yeah. But you'll keep in touch, right?"
"Right," she said, and kissed him on the cheek. Then she picked up the book, closed it carefully, and put it in the chest.
A month before her parents had been murdered, Hermione had found herself a place to live, and she loved it with a passion she hadn't known she could associate with a mere roof over her head.
It was a tiny flat over a second-hand bookshop in Soho, owned by the bookshop proprietor. A kindly, if occasionally confused, middle-aged man, he had let her the place for 1100 pounds a month. Hermione had firmly quashed her qualms at accepting the ridiculously low rent - after all, the plumbing was terrible, and there was far too much tartan in the decorating scheme -- by telling herself that she'd suggest a rent raise as soon as she got promoted.
Hermione bought herself midnight blue curtains to replace the tartan monstrosities, and a white duvet embroidered with forget-me-nots and a whole kitchen's worth of shiny utensils, though she sometimes cheated when she was tired after a long day at work and did it the other way). Her mother had, not unironically, given her a pottery plaque that proclaimed home was where the heart was, and her father, assisted by Ron and Harry, had been in charge of the moving day, which had been accomplished with a minimum of fuss and only two Healing spells.
Crookshanks had argued, noisily and at length, but an inner-city flat was no place for a big cat who was also descended from a species renowned for their attachment to the countryside. And Harry had been happy to host him at Godric's Hollow. After a week, Hermione stopped missing his heavy warmth on her legs at night, and began glorying in the freedom to sleep in as late as she liked without being insistently woken for feeding duties.
She walked the mile to her job at the Committee for Magical Inter-Species Reconcilliation, bundled up in coat and hat and scarf, and gloried at the feel of being twenty, and in London.
Once, thrillingly, she and Ginny had finished off two bottles of red on a Friday night and Ginny (being far too tipsy to Apparate) had had to share her bed. In the morning, Hermione had made soggy pancakes to ward off their hangovers, and they'd talked, companionably, about their jobs and their plans for the future. It had been wonderfully, idyllically normal.
And then, she'd visited her parents for Sunday lunch, just a few minutes too late, and the bounds of normality had abruptly changed.
She hadn't returned to her flat since, and the need to go back her sanctuary ached at her almost as badly as other, deeper pains. She craved solitude, and silence, and a long soak in her ancient, claw-footed bath.
The landlord was locking his bookshop door as she got out of the taxi. She'd yet to see the shop officially open at any time she was there, except the day she'd answered the ad. This was annoying, since from her one brief visit, she'd spotted any number of interesting titles.
Well, she was on leave for another week, and then the holidays would begin. Plenty of time for reading. She stopped to ask when the shop would next be open.
"Ah, I'm going on holiday, actually," her landlord said. "With an old friend. So it won't be open for a while, I'm afraid. Oh, and your young man arrived just now. I sent him up the stairs with the spare key. I hope that's all right."
Ron, she thought grimly. Damn. I thought he'd understood.
She stomped up the outside staircase, bristling indignantly, and took her coat off before she opened the door.
"Ronald Wea-," she began, before she got a good look at the man standing in the middle of her kitchen, and stopped abruptly, her wand leaping into her hand.
"Hello, Granger," the intruder said carefully.
Hermione took a deep breath, and let it settle the rapid beat of her heart. "Malfoy. Get out."
"Granger, you're not following the script," he said. "I believe the accepted response is to either threaten me, or ask me in tones of disblief what the hell I'm doing in your house." He looked around and sneered. "If you could call it that."
"I don't care what you're doing here," Hermione explained. "I just want you to leave. And if you don't, I'll stupefy you and levitate you out the window."
Malfoy's eyes glittered. "He killed my mother, too, you know," he said abruptly.
"Your father murdered my parents," Hermione said precisely. "I want nothing to do with you, Malfoy. Your name revolts me. Not to mention your disgusting pointy face."
He flinched. "How do you think I feel, looking in mirrors?" he asked bitterly.
Hermione looked at him, noticing for the first time the deep bruises beneath his eyes, the way his cheekbones pushed against the stretched skin of his face. He was frighteningly, dangerously thin, and still the echo of his father was in his features, the ghost of his mother in the delicate bone structure.
"You cut your hair," she said, staring at the blond stubble that barely covered his scalp.
"I did," he agreed.
Hermione sheathed her wand and perched on her single kitchen stool. "Malfoy, what the hell are you doing in my flat?"
"I know where Lucius is," Draco said.
Hermione's heart juddered fiercely in her chest, and fury raced through her veins as she jerked to her feet. "Where?" she demanded eagerly, then corrected it to "Have you told the Ministry?"
"No," Draco said.
"Why not?" she challenged.
"They'll try to take him alive," he said bluntly. "I don't want that to happen. But I'm not fool enough to go by myself. I need assistance. Given the circumstances, I thought you might provide it."
Hermione felt her vision narrow, so that Draco seemed to be the only bright point in the room.
"He has information," she said cautiously, trying to slow the frantic rhythm of the traitor in her chest. "He's a valuable source to clearing up the aftermath…"
"He's running scared," Draco said. "He's holed up in the most loathsome of the many loathsome Malfoy hideaways, and he's so out of it he failed to notice the House Elf stationed there who answers only to me." He didn't look away from her face. "The war's over, Granger, has been for months. He doesn't know anything. Killing your parents was the act of a madman. He's too dangerous to be on the loose."
Unbidden, unwanted, she remembered. She'd only walked through the door. She hadn't even had time to take off her coat before she smelt the stench of burnt hair.
Draco's hand was on her wrist, pulling her upright, face to face with him. They were the same height. "You don't have to kill him" he said curtly. "I'll do it. You back me up."
She wrenched her hand away. "Don't you ever touch me."
"Fine," he snapped. This close, she could see the tremors in his hands. "Are you coming or not?"
Her mother's hair had been so thick and long, and smudged to foul-smelling ashes on her fingers.
"I'm coming," she said. "And I'll do it. If you couldn't kill Albus Dumbledore, Malfoy, you couldn't kill your father. Especially if you're too much of a coward to go after him by yourself."
Draco's breath hissed through his teeth. "I really, really dislike you, Granger," he said.
"I'm deeply upset about that," she snapped, and picked up her coat. "Let's go."
They had to Apparate in from Malfoy Manor, Draco explained brusquely, when she enquired as to why he'd first taken her to the ruins of his former home. The hideaway was apparently Unplottable from every other angle to anyone not of Malfoy blood.
"Why leave it open to those not of Malfoy blood if they come from the Manor?" she asked.
"For Malfoy wives or husbands, obviously," Draco said curtly. "Shut up, Granger - if you know how. I'm trying to pinpoint the exits on this bloody map."
Hermione gritted her teeth. It was the raw edge in Draco's voice when he'd mentioned Malfoy wives that kept her silent.
"Right," he said after a moment, stabbing a long finger at the crumpled parchment. "Door here, biggest window here."
"What about the other rooms?" she asked.
"It's only got one room."
"Toilet?" she persisted doggedly.
"Dig your own hole. I wasn't joking about "loathsome", Granger."
She glanced at their surroundings. Even partially burnt and largely tumbled-down, Malfoy Manor had a terrible, stately grandeur. The image of its former master reduced to covering up his own stool like a stray cat was grimly pleasing.
"I'll take the door," she said, studying the map and fixing the co-ordinates in her mind. "You take the window. We make sure there are no surprises in the room, and then I do it."
"Fine with me," Draco said, a hint of relief in his voice.
Once a coward, always a coward, Hermione thought scornfully, and activated the Protego charm housed in her wristwatch. Draco fiddled with his silver cloak pin, so she assumed he'd done the same.
Unwillingly, she faltered for a moment. The Killing Curse required both intense hatred and force of will to perform, and she'd never attempted it before.
Ruthlessly, she pushed doubt away. I've never let them down before.
"Count of three," she said, raising her wand. "One. Two."
"Three," Draco said with her, and they moved in unison.
It was, after that, ridiculously simple.
She blew apart the door just in time to see Draco vault gracefully through the remains of the shattered window. Their target was hunched in a chair by the fire, shivering under a tatty grey blanket, neatly intersected by the line of their leveled wands. He blinked, then instinctively reached towards his own wand, sitting on the small wooden crate beside the chair.
"I wouldn't," Hermione advised, striding forward to snatch up the wand herself. She snapped it cleanly in two, and noted the slight wince with some bitter triumph.
The backlash of whatever wordless hex he was trying to cast must have been painful, but that wince was evidently all Lucius Malfoy would allow himself. He stared at her, his mouth twisting in distaste, and it was all she could do not to punch him in the face. But physically reduced or not, he was still a good deal stronger than she, and she did not plan to get within reach of him.
Instead she retreated a few steps while Draco stalked round to cover the only other window, and took in the new environment with her peripheral vision. The room and its occupant both stank of unwashed clothes and other, less savory scents. The fire was dying down to embers, and there didn't seem to be any more wood in the woodbox beside it.
There was grey showing in Lucius's long, pale hair, and the glitter in his eyes was one part malice and one part insanity. They looked nothing at all alike, but she was unavoidably and uncomfortably reminded of Bellatrix LeStrange.
He's old, she thought. Old and mad. And unarmed. She forced the thought back down. Not that old. About the same age as my dad, who will never get any older.
"Before I do this," she said, her voice wavering slightly. "I'd like to hear you confess. From your own lips. You unspeakable bastard."
"Draco," Lucius said instead, ignoring her completely. "Always a disappointment to the family. I can take it that you and your little Mudblood friend are here to capture me?" He regarded them both with infinite contempt.
Now, Hermione thought, and felt fierce intent flare through her. She no longer doubted that she could carry out her purpose.
"Not capture," Draco said harshly. "Avada Kedavra!"
Hermione blinked as the green light blasted across the room. She barely recognised the emotion that swept through her first as immense relief, so swiftly was it followed by total shock.
"You really did it," she said jerkily, surprised by the childish astonishment of her tone.
Draco stared at the body, slumped in its chair. Lucius Malfoy's head had slumped. His long, unkempt hair had fallen over his face, concealing whatever expression might appear there. "Yes," he said, his own voice strange. "I did."
He cast Priori Incantatem twice in quick succession. Covering up the traces, Hermione thought, appalled at the cool precision.
"Come on, let's go," he said, and grabbed her wrist. He was breathing in sharp, short gasps, and so, Hermione realised, as they vanished, was she.
As soon as they Apparated into the Manor, Draco burst into tears.
Hermione turned on her heel and began to walk out, but the grating sound of his sobs made her hesitate.
"It was a good thing you did," she said mechanically, and wondered who she was trying to convince.
"Oh, shut up, Mudblood," he said harshly, dragging the back of his hand through the unceasing flood of tears, snot smearing unbecomingly across his cheek. "What the fuck would you know about anything? About family, about pride?"
She didn't think about it. She just balled her fist and punched him in the stomach. Draco abruptly stopped crying, instead struggling to breathe. "Shut up!" she shouted. "He was mine to kill, you bastard! I told you. He killed my family. Damaged my pride. I could have done it. I could!"
"Everything's damaged," Draco gasped, pulling himself upright. "Everything's broken." His silvery eyes, awash with tears, looked blind, reflecting her own disorientation back at her. Their breaths echoed each other: she brought air in while he exhaled.
She didn't know exactly who'd made the first move, whose lips had descended upon whose. She only hoped, afterwards, that they hadn't been hers.
They clutched at each other in the dim hall of Malfoy Manor, her teeth in his neck, his hands clawing against the curve of her back, pinching harshly at her breasts. His trousers came off in a tearing wrench. She couldn't remember tugging off her jeans, only the chill air against her suddenly bare legs as she lay supine on the cold stone floor, and tugged him on top of and into her.
That was it as far as preliminaries went. She was, she realised dimly, still wearing her coat, and Draco's robes frustrated her efforts to get at his bare skin, to touch something, until she tugged them up to his waist and slid her hands under the thick wool. He was hissing through his teeth as he pumped into her. His eyes were fixed on a point just past her shoulder. It didn't hurt like it could have done. She was wet.
"Fuck you, Malfoy," she grunted, and twisted her legs up over his hips, forcing an angle readjustment. She let out a small noise when his thrusting began to grind over the right spot. "Look at me, damn you!"
He met her gaze. His own eyes were no longer mirror-bright, leaking tears. There was anger and lust in them, and some terrible, desperate eagerness she knew was reflected in her own expression.
"Yes," she said, not knowing what she was urging, or agreeing to. "Yes. Yes. Oh, fuck!" She felt the first surge of warmth in her lower belly and tightened her thigh muscles to compel it forward, still gasping out encouragement. After that it was only a few moments before she arched her back and clutched at him as her hips bucked uncontrollably. He buried his face in her hair as he convulsed.
They lay together for a moment, breathing unevenly. Then Draco rolled off her, tugged his robes back into place, and sat with his back against the wall.
"Going to tell your friends about this, Granger?" he asked. He didn't specify which this.
"I think *not*, on the whole," she said, moving awkwardly to sit against the same wall. She didn't trust her knees well enough to stand. "Considering I would then be detained while charges for Accessory to an Unforgivable Curse were pressed."
He sneered, but it seemed more automatic response than anything. "Surely not," he said "Not the Golden Lady of the bloody Golden Trio."
So that's the real reason he brought me, Hermione thought, wondering if she had enough energy left to argue the point with him. She decided not, and instead got to her feet, and tugged on her knickers and jeans. During the process she discovered a slick, wet patch on her coat lining, and grimaced.
"Fucking *war*," Draco groaned. It was almost the whine she remembered from their school days, but with a hard, resigned note she'd never heard before.
"Necessity makes strange bedfellows," she said, surprising a harsh, shocked laugh out of him. "I don't *like* you any better, Malfoy."
"Likewise, naturally," he said. "Would you mind leaving? I'd like to be alone."
She shrugged, and settled her coat around her. "By the way," she said. "Magic isn't the most important thing about people."
He blinked up at her, blank incomprehension washing across his pale face.
"I just wanted someone to tell you that, sometime," she added, and left before he could reply.
And that, she decided, was a victory of sorts.
She should, she knew, feel something more than she did about Lucius Malfoy's death. Remorse. Satisfaction. Fear. Something, at any rate, more than a sense of inevitable completion. She considered the likely reactions of Ron and Harry to what she'd participated in. Even that failed to produce any sense of guilt, although there was a minor twinge of shame when she thought of Albus Dumbledore. Maybe remorse would come later. If it did she would deal with it then.
There was something she did feel immediately guilty about, though, for which she could possibly make immediate amends.
She lit the fire in the grate and knelt down in the rug by the small fireplace, speaking the Floo address in a voice that was reassuringly normal.
Pale, pointed features formed in the flames, looking slightly startled. Hermione took a deep breath.
"Hello, Fleur," she said.
"'Ermione! You look terrible! Are you well?"
Hermione bit back her first response. "Actually, that's partly what I called to talk to you about. I don't suppose you could recommend a good London hairdresser, could you?"
Fleur's beautiful face registered eloquent surprise, then pleasure. "But of course! I will have an appointment for you tomorrow!"
"And I don't suppose…" she took a deep breath. "I owe you an apology," she said abruptly. "For quite a few things, actually, but you've been just wonderful over the past week and a half and I haven't given you the least bit of gratitude for it. I hope you can forgive me."
"You English," Fleur said, tossing her head expressively. "It is fine, I assure you. I will come with you to the salon, yes? Jacques is very formidable."
Hermione realised, after a moment, that she was smiling. "That would be nice," she said. "If you have the time."
"Of course! Bill will watch the baby. Do you need to do anything else in town? We could make it a day." There was something young and eager in her voice that even the careful, well-practiced tones of aristocratic ease could not conceal.
With a shock, Hermione realised Fleur Delacour was lonely.
"Actually," she said, "I could do with a new coat. And a few other things."
"Good, yes," Fleur said, nodding rapidly. "I am sorry, Hermione, I must leave for dinner now. But we will speak tomorrow morning?"
"Yes, of course. Au revoir."
"Good night," Fleur said happily, and faded back into the flames.
Hermione stared at the fire for a long time, while the room grew steadily warmer. She felt silence creep in and wrap itself around her like a blanket. When the room was warm enough, she took off her coat and hung it at the back of her closet.
She ran a bath, and lit some candles, carefully laying them out around the bath so that the little flames reflected in the water. Then she took off her clothes and stood in front of the bathroom mirror. There were tiny bruises at the curve of her hips, and a larger bruise on her shoulder that she suspected came from a bite she hadn't noticed.
"But not too bad," she said aloud, and shivered as her voice echoed in the dim room.
The mirror steamed over. Her reflection was only a vague, fleshy blur topped with a mass of dark hair. It could almost be her mother's reflection, she realised, and was surprised at how little the epiphany hurt.
"You're not too bad," she said reassuringly. "Ill-advised shagging aside. You'll make it."
Her blurry mirror-self nodded firmly.
"I never let them down," she said quietly, and stepped gingerly into the bath.