Catharsis

Chapter One: Broken

A/N: Hey everyone! Thank you so much for your patience over these past couple months as I worked on this fic. As this fic does start a couple years after the first one ends, the structure will be *slightly* different. It will be alternating between the present and the past, so even though it's different, I hope you still enjoy it! I wasn't supposed to post until tomorrow technically, but I'm impatient so I'm dropping it just a little early. Love you all, and hope you like it!

~.~.~

Now

The bells above the door tinkled merrily, greeting Hermione as she unlocked and nudged it open. The chilly morning air followed her inside and she shivered slightly, closing the door quickly behind her and pausing to let the semi-permanent warming charm of the store sink into her goose-pimpled skin.

It was one of her favorite things that she had picked up from the other storefront owners in Diagon Alley, the warming charm that only kicked in once it got below a certain temperature outside. It was quite clever really, and it made the cooler months of the year more bearable when she had to sit by frosted windows and watch the snow drift past lazily.

She dropped her bag next to her desk behind the front counter of the shop, before shrugging off her thick, forest green peacoat to hang on the chair she occupied for much of her days here.

A small smile graced her lips as her eyes flitted past the date, realizing that it was just a couple days away from the bookstore's two-year anniversary.

Two years.

She dropped into her chair behind the counter, pulling forward the stack of parchments that contained the receipts she needed to go through from the previous day, orders she needed to prepare, and any other paperwork she may need to complete throughout the day.

She grabbed her favorite eagle feather quill, but slowed as she pulled the quill towards the papers, simply staring at the order on the parchment in front of her, not really seeing it.

Two years.

She couldn't believe it had already been two years since she and Blaise had opened the shop together, couldn't believe that meant it had been nearly two and a half years since the end of the Second Wizarding War.

After the war, she, Harry, and Ron had thrown themselves into helping where they could. She had originally wanted to work at the ministry, in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but she realized that it would be a long time before she would be able to do any good there. The only open positions at the time were a handful in other departments, such as the Department of Magical Games and Sports, which she really had absolutely no interest in.

So she had put in her name, which now held apparently quite a bit of weight to it, and she was on the shortlist of interviewees that they would bring in as soon as a position opened up within the DMLE.

Once she realized it would be quite some time before she could begin making a difference in the ministry, she decided to throw herself into other endeavors.

The past couple years had been a blurry haze of assisting to establish charities, non-profit organizations, and attending events and trials for the ministry, all in the name of rebuilding what had not only been lost in the last war, but also to change the conditions within the wizarding world that had allowed for such widely accepted views of pureblood supremacy and prejudice against all those who weren't a witch or wizard.

And of course, in between all that, establishing and opening her bookshop in Diagon Alley.

The Beloved House of Ataraxia had initially been just a fanciful dream she had never thought would come to light, or at least not for quite some time.