Come Find Me | Dramione

Chapter 15: The Lighthouse

*TW* drug abuse withdrawal, hallucinations, physical abuse

Hermione sat with her knees to her chest on the floor of her guest bedroom, her back against the door.

She was wearing her father's old, oversized Cambridge hoodie and sleep shorts. Her mop of curls was pulled into something resembling a bun on top of her head, and she stared blankly ahead of her, mindlessly picking at the skin around the nails on her thumbs until it tore and bled.

She watched the tiny trickle of crimson pool and spill from the cut, finally bringing her hand to her mouth to suck the blood away.

Flashes of the night before come barreling in. Bruises from her knees crashing to the floor, and mascara stained tears falling from her eyes. A bottle full of little blue pills being flushed down the toilet, never to be seen again.

She didn't have a problem. Theo was wrong, and she was going to prove it.

Hermione wasn't naive. She knew that life without the pills would be an adjustment. She would take a few days to rest and then start her new life without the drugs she had grown so familiar with. And everything would be fine again.

She didn't have a problem.

Isolating herself in the guest room of her cottage, she sent a letter to the Ministry informing them that she had come down with a case of Black Cat Flu and would be absent for a few days. Convincing Ron of her faux illness had been a challenge, but thankfully after a few persuasive Glamour Charms, he had agreed that she quarantined alone.

Theo's words echoed in her ears. "The withdrawal alone was enough to put me on my arse."

Hermione wasn't going to go through withdrawal. She expected to be a bit weak and sluggish, but that was it, really.

Witches and wizards didn't experience drug withdrawal the same way muggles did. She could remember reading about it once while studying for her NEWT exams. The hallucinations were so much more vivid, and there were many cases of witches losing control of their magic completely.

But she wasn't going through withdrawal.

So, all of the protective wards and silencing charms Hermione had cast on the room were a bit of an overkill in her eyes. They were more to keep up the Black Cat Flu ruse.

She bit at her fingernails again. She hated being locked up alone. Her guest bedroom was small, with only a bed and a simple writing desk. Pigwidgeon was resting in his cage in the far corner, eyes drooping in and out of sleep.

Hermione had become very fond of the little owl, especially after the traumatizing loss of Crookshanks a few years past. Pig had seemed to calm with age. Ron despised him, but she had convinced him to let her keep him so that, at the very least, she could communicate with the Ministry.

There was too much work that needed to be done for her presentation to the Wizengamot. She decided to keep herself busy with work, climbing into the bed and wandlessly levitating her research to follow her. After sorting through cases and writing notes in the margins of their drafted proposal, she sealed her work and gave it to Pig to deliver to Malfoy.

Before long, the exhaustion crept up, taking Hermione into a restless sleep.

***

She woke to the sound of her mother's voice. Her eyes peeled open, aching from too much sleep.

It had to be a dream.

She was lying on the floor in her childhood room while a younger Hermione cuddled up to her mother in the tiny iron bed, pulling the butterfly-covered blankets close to her.