The Day After Tomorrow

IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

01 - IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

SHE wasn't okay. Once again the thought struck Hermione as incredulous how that after the last flash of battle had faded, you were supposed to be okay, everything was meant to be okay.

And now as she stood, panting hard at her reflection in the shadows of the abandoned girl's bathroom, she concluded she was decidedly not okay. She hadn't exactly expected everything to be magically solved as Voldemort's body collapsed, but she had expected a sense of relief, not this crushing weight of she didn't know what.

Her reflection in the cracked mirror remained strained and she winced away from her own face. It wasn't that she was vain, Hermione had always prided herself on being practical and clever, beauty had never been a priority. But even at this point it was obvious that she was past worrying about prettiness and started worrying about her health.

She could see the aftermath of countless sleepless nights from the dark smudges under her eyes. Hermione could not recall the last time she'd slept peacefully without nightmares, in fact she couldn't remember the last night she had slept through without waking with her heart thumping and the memory of war pressed against her eyelids.

In fact, she'd taken to not sleeping at all at this point. She'd walked the hallways the night before, dragging her weary limbs against the stone, her fingertips searching, remembering her early days when there was no Voldemort, no Death Eaters and no Bellatrix. And at that thought, as it often happened these days she doubled over, the memory of Bellatrix carving deep into her arm stark and alive in the quiet of the bathroom and she heaved in heavy breaths.

Once again, she had been teleported into the darkness of her memories, marble pressed against her back, Bellatrix's sharp grin and dark hair falling over and in a tortured twist of fate, she felt herself fall into the memory she had been grappling to escape from since the war had ended.

She could feel the bile rising and knew her body was trying to vomit out the painful memories but found with a tremor that there was nothing in her to vomit. She hadn't eaten for days so instead her body wracked out empty heaving breaths that wracked her bones and left her throat burning with acid and bile.

Hermione vaguely remembered reading in a muggle survival book that you could survive without food and water for days. She hadn't exactly been keeping count of days ever since days and blended into night, but she felt weak and weary which she knew with little effort meant that it had been too many days without sleep and food.

The hollows in her cheeks and the strain every movement cost her was evidence enough. She was still clutching her stomach as she splashed cool water onto her face as if she could wash the memories away with the taste. It wasn't just Bellatrix that haunted her, but everyone she had loved and lost, everything that was once familiar and now changed.

She had been trying to keep up appearances; attending classes and meals, which was what you were meant to do when you were one third of the Golden Trio. But it felt as if she was a ghost going through the motions of her old life, she was most decidedly present in all the ways that mattered.

Harry and Ron had questioned her well-being a hundred times too many. Hermione recalled making her cheeks tug up in what was hopefully a believable smile every time they asked if she was okay and answering, of course, why wouldn't she be? And their shoulders would relax a bit because yes, why wouldn't she be? The light had won, Voldemort was gone, Death Eaters jailed, and their world being rebuilt.

That's why she couldn't tell them no she wasn't okay because they were all dealing with so much, Ron and Ginny with the loss of their brother, Harry with the loss of Sirius, surely, she who had just got her parents back couldn't complain and burden them with more.