Catharsis

Chapter Two: Pain

One week after the war

"Hermione."

She was dying. No, she wasn't dying. Dying would be better.

She was enduring pain. Unimaginable pain. The kind of pain that made her wish she was dying instead.

"Hermione, stop."

Why wouldn't it stop? Why wouldn't Bellatrix stop? Why wouldn't she just kill her already?

"Hermione, please, it's okay, you're okay."

She was screaming. She was screaming and Bellatrix was laughing and she couldn't bear it anymore, she couldn't bear it. Why wouldn't it stop? Why wouldn't it just stop?

"HERMIONE."

She gasped, jerking forward into a sitting position, into a pair of waiting arms beside her.

It took her a moment to register where she was, just a moment for the pale blue walls of the guest room in Andromeda's house to erase Bellatrix's laughing face from her vision.

A moment, in which the sobs tearing from her ruined vocal chords were the only thing she could hear, aside from the fading sounds of Bellatrix's cruel laughter.

She could still feel it though, the pain, as though it were real.

Could still feel the echoes of it coursing through her.

"Hermione, you're okay, you're safe."

Draco's voice dragged her mind back to her surroundings. She needed to focus on what was real.

Draco was real.

His arms holding her tightly against his chest were real.

The moonlight filtering through the curtains and casting a silver sheen over the blue of the walls was real.

The soft bed below her, the sheets she was fisting her hands in, that was real.

Bellatrix was gone.

She was gone.

At least physically.

"Hermione..."

She flinched at the sound of his voice, strong and clear beside her ear. Real. He was real.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. It came out broken, soft. She hated it.

But she couldn't stop herself from repeating it over and over as he rocked her, like a robot, programmed to sound as pathetic as possible.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

He didn't hush her, didn't tell her to stop, didn't mention how small she seemed in that moment. He simply held her, and rocked her, until the silver on the walls had morphed into a buttery yellow with the rising of the sun and her whispers had quieted to silence.

She didn't know what time it was when she finally pushed off of Draco, stretching her aching and tired limbs, stiff from sitting in the same position for so long. He let her go easily. It was one of the things she loved about him.

Ron would have held on, forced her talk about it. But Draco understood her. He knew she would talk when she was ready to talk.

But right now, with her eyes red-rimmed, swollen, and dry from the combination of nearly no sleep and hours of crying, all she wanted was a shower. And coffee.

She would need lots of coffee to get through the day.

Because she couldn't go back to sleep. There was too much to be done. Repairs on the castle were still well under way with quite a bit left to go, the ministry was still in shambles as they tried to figure out exactly how to fix the mess that Voldemort and his cronies had left it in, and they were still trying to get a final headcount of the dead so they could notify families.