The Fallout by EveryThursday (reposted)

Forty-Nine

Day: 1571; Hour: 14

Hermione stands in the middle of the Ministry lobby in a swirl of people. There is yelling, cheers, laughter, and people rushing to leave work early. Celebrations have begun, and a boy is handing out free copies of the Prophet, bold lettering exclaiming the war's conclusion. The Minister is grinning on the front, waving to cheering people.

But Hermione also sees the two men scowling against the wall. She sees the woman drawing her wand, and tenses, only to watch her show it to her friend. She watches the reporter running toward a group of Aurors, and waits for the jets of color. She hears screaming, and has to stop herself from reaching for her wand. She sees a little girl crying, expecting the dance of an orange band as she is rushed to safety, but it's only her mother.

"It doesn't feel like it's over, huh?"

She glances over at Dean, at the patch covering his left eye, and she shakes her head. "No."

"But it is. They wouldn't have said it wasn't if it wasn't. You know Lupin's paranoia. If he thought there was even a little bit of a possibility, he would have never told us. We got them this time. We won." He sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than her. "Has it hit you yet?"

We won. Won. Won? Because it's over. Because they are still alive. "No."

Dean shoves a hand into his pocket. The left, so he can reach across for his wand with the right if he has to. And only if he absolutely has to, because he was there when they saved a fake Ron and were given post-war suspension. When Seamus died for her, when Seamus and Justin both died in a mission that was for nothing. When they helped to bring a Death Eater into the Order and exposed everything.

But they still won. Right? Won. Won. The word sounds and feels foreign. Does it make her a winner? Over, she tries. It's over.

She draws the books and pamphlets closer to her chest, Living With Being a Survivor peeking out from above Why We Shouldn't Be Afraid to Seek Help. There's also a listing of funeral services in the pile, contact information for transitionists at St. Mungo's. The warmth of McGonagall's hug has left Hermione's skin, and she tells herself again - it's over.

"Time."

"Always."

Day: 1571; Hour: 16

She is back in the white house, one of the few left standing. Lupin had mentioned her Flooing to the Burrow, and when Hermione had remained silent, he had given her a Portkey and some searching look that flickered his gaze between eyeballs she didn't raise. He had given her another Portkey to the Ministry for when she decided she was ready. She just needs a little time to try and sort out her thoughts. To try and get rid of the shock that's making her head fuzzy.

She'll have to go to the Burrow tomorrow for a belated birthday at Molly's insistence. Two days from tomorrow she will leave the Burrow for her home. Lupin has told her they are moving her parents back then, and she doesn't even know what to do with herself at the thought of finally seeing them, hugging them, having them be solid shapes she can reach out and touch. Once she is able to move her eyes away from them, she will go to the library and get as many books as she can about the mind, prisoners of war, and ways to heal. She doesn't care how long it takes - she'll save Ron, in the way she failed to do before. She doesn't care if she has to research and fight for it every day for the next twenty years. She isn't going to lose her best friends. They are right in front of her, and no one can take them from her again.

She has nothing to pack. She has a few belongings at Harry's home, but if she would have died, it wouldn't have been more than two boxes. She is still wearing a set of pajamas from the hospital, her own shorts and Harry's shirt too stained and ruined to wear again. She keeps the orange strip from her father's old shirt, though, shoved into the bottom of the wand slot in her holster.