365 days [d.m. + h.g.]

[four]

163 Days After

She hadn't seen Malfoy since that night in the lake and she wished she wasn't waiting for him to waltz into the room she was in. He had a way of appearing every time she was not looking for him. But he wouldn't be walking in today.

She was at the Burrow, laughing with Ginny and the twins as they talked about the pranks, they had been playing on the Order members in every safe house they stayed in.

The Weasleys – minus Ron – treated her exactly the same as they always had, and she soaked up every minute she could spend with them.

When she went to bed that night, she laid next to Ginny and they stayed up far later than they should've talking about anything and everything that came to their minds. Lighthearted chats and conversations about how the war was hurting them.

Ginny hadn't seen Harry since Hermione got attacked and she was getting restless. She confessed that he hadn't even written to her and the brunette felt guilt crawl inside her lungs when she realized he'd written to herand not his girlfriend. Ginny claimed that she didn't even know if they were still dating, she didn't know what she could call Harry.

"I know that I love him. He says he loves me, but he still treats me as though anything he tells me will break me. I'm not a doll, I'm not fragile and I thought I made that clearto him, but he hasn't changed how he acts around me."

But there was no place for relationships in war and she didn't know how to reassure Ginny, so she just held her hand as she ranted and cried and even when she fell asleep. "It'll be okay," was muttered as she dozes off and she was unsure if her or Ginny said it. But it was enough.

165 Days After

Hermione could officially brew wolfsbane by herself. Lupin patted her on the back and congratulated her before he helped her pour it into vials for them to drink the following full moon. She had a calendar dictating the lunar phases hung above her makeshift workstation. She cried. She frantically wiped her tears away, so they didn't spill into the potion.

174 Days After

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." Malfoy shouted, propping Dean against his shoulder, a deep gash slicing through his thigh. "Granger! We need to go! We need to GO!" He yelled across the battlefield and she shot him some sort of hand signal, so he knew she heard him as she threw hex after hex at the Death Eaters approaching, the three of them making their retreat.

She ran towards him as the masked enemies continued their approach, firing hexes blindly behind her. One hit the side of her head right as she reached Malfoy. The two of them grabbed onto one of their emergency portkeys. She was not sure if it was Malfoy's or Dean's, not that it entirely mattered, but that was the thought that captured her mind as they landed on the floor in headquarters.

Luckily people were in the room, so they were on him immediately, rushing about and yelling for bandages and do this and do that. She could feel the weight of the mission weighing down on her shoulders and she had to prop an arm against the wall to prevent collapsing onto the now bloody floor.

She was staring at a crack in the floor, but she wasn't really seeing anything. People were rushing around and shoving past her when she got in the way. There was a buzzing in her ears, and she would've assumed there might've been a fly if it weren't for the clear movements of the healers around her. She could feel warm fingers wrapping around her forearm yanking her out of the room.

Malfoy's face appeared before hers and it was clear that he was yelling. His face was red, and his eyes were crinkled into that sneer he knew how to do so well, and his lips were pressed with hard lines. Grey turned to steel, a violent storm raging behind his eyes. She was not sure what he was saying, but she was grateful for the reprieve of his anger. Even though it probably meant there was something wrong with her hearing. Maybe, or she was just in shock. She was not sure.