The Hollow Beneath Hogwarts

26. Bring Me To Life

By Friday, Sloane had managed to hold a session with everyone on her list. To her surprise, most of them had been far easier to work with than she expected. Beneath the sarcasm, tempers, and years of war, they were all just damaged people trying to figure out how to live again.

Everyone except Ron.

Ron had spent the entirety of his session slouched in his chair, arms folded tightly across his chest, sighing and huffing every time Sloane asked a question. It was like trying to pull answers from a brick wall. Still, he hadn't been openly rude or stormed out, which Sloane decided to count as progress. Even if it was very small progress.

Hermione arrived afterward carrying all the patient files for her own meeting with Sloane. Together they completed the table Professor McGonagall had requested, carefully avoiding anything confidential. Hermione was meticulous about it, ensuring no one's trust was broken while still providing enough information for the Headmistress.

She also added her own observations and notes.

By far, Luna had been Sloane's most unexpected patient.

The girl was almost painfully honest. She spoke every thought exactly as it entered her mind without embarrassment or hesitation, no matter how inappropriate the subject might have been. Especially when it came to sex, which, to Sloane's eternal suffering, Luna seemed perfectly comfortable discussing in graphic detail.

Sloane had left that session far more flustered than she had entered it.

Luna had explained, quite sincerely, that she wanted to improve her social skills. In her own words, she wanted to become "less Loony Lovegood and more simply Luna Lovegood."

But Sloane honestly couldn't understand why.

There was something strangely refreshing about Luna. She never lied, never pretended to be someone else, never hid behind masks or expectations. After years surrounded by manipulative people and carefully crafted lies, Luna's openness felt almost therapeutic in itself. Sloane found her charming exactly as she was and secretly hoped nobody ever managed to change her.

Hermione, unsurprisingly, was much harder on herself.

Where Harry obsessed over the people he couldn't save, Hermione obsessed over mistakes. Tiny details. Missed clues. Every decision she believed could have been made better. She spoke rapidly during their session, as if the thoughts had been trapped inside her head for months and finally had somewhere to escape.

Not realising Bathilda Bagshot had been Nagini. Not figuring out Horcruxes sooner. Not noticing signs earlier. Not doing more. Always more.

Sloane quickly realised Hermione carried anxiety like it was stitched into her bones. The girl looked exhausted from constantly trying to hold the entire world together. Thankfully, unlike emotional trauma, anxiety was something Sloane could ease far more easily, and by the end of the session Hermione visibly looked lighter, as though someone had finally loosened a rope that had been tightening around her chest for years.

Blaise's session had been far more emotional than Sloane expected. Much like Draco, he wanted answers. Why had she lied for them? Why had she protected them? Why had she saved them when they had spent years helping people who wanted her dead? More than anything, Blaise wanted to apologise.

Not the shallow sort of apology people gave to make themselves feel better. Genuine remorse radiated from him so strongly Sloane could practically feel it in the air between them. He spoke quietly at times, unable to fully meet her eyes as he admitted the things he had done over the last seven years.

He wanted to know how to make amends. How to live with himself. How to become someone better than the person he had been forced to become.

Sloane could tell he truly meant every word.