The Silver Envelope

The Hell of Change

Chapter Note

IMPORTANT TW: emotional abuse and suicidal ideation

The stark white floors glared at Hermione from beneath her feet, too bright and too shiny to look at for long. Perhaps if she had taken something for the headache clanging in her forehead, it wouldn't have been so difficult to watch where she was walking
Not that it mattered. After pacing back and forth over this stretch of the corridor for nearly an hour, Hermione had quite memorized the area. She could continue walking with her eyes closed, if she
wanted.
They still hadn't told her why she needed to be here. She'd tried to beg off more than once. insisting that her presence would only make things worse for him. But Harry had insisted, in that
firm, serious way of his that told her something was wrong. Still, Hermione couldn't imagine how she could help Ron. If something had gone wrong with her Memory Charm, she was sure it would be best to let the mind healers of St. Mungo's handle it.
Harry had gone to find Ron shortly after Hermione had left Draco's flat, when she'd sent him a message to inform him what she'd done. He'd written back an hour later, letting her know that he'd found Ron still passed out in the forest. Ron had responded to Harry's revival spell, but he'd been confused enough that Harry had decided to take him to the hospital.
Hermione heard a muffled voice through the door as she passed again. It sounded like Ron, but she couldn't be sure.
His parents had called the day after it happened, insisting they didn't blame her. Ginny had been downright proud of Hermione for what she'd done, while Harry had kept his opinions to himself.
But, seeing as he hadn't reported her, despite the fact that what she had done was patently illegal, she supposed he didn't completely hate her for it.
Depending on how well it worked, Hermione had decided not to hate herself for it either.
Sighing, she conjured a chair and sat, bracing her head in her hands. A healer passed by, and
Hermione felt grateful that they minded their business. She didn't feel like answering the question,
"Are you alright?" again.
A restless, uncomfortable energy buzzed in her, screaming at her to leave. But Harry had asked her to be here early, just in case they needed to ask her questions during Ron's testing. That was fair, she supposed. She'd changed Ron's view of reality. The least she could do was stick around long enough to make sure she had done her job well.
A rushing sound built in her ears. Hermione gritted her teeth, knowing that her vision would cloud
over next. Not again.
As the bright hospital faded into a vision of a dark cliffside, Hermione's thoughts were overridden with visceral panic and boiling anger. She watched with murderous outrage as the distant figure of Draco raised a parasol and lifted her into the air, spinning slowly as they made their way up the side of the cliff. She wanted to scream, to hit something, to raise her wand and blow up the sky itself.
Hermione violently shook her head, trying to make the vivid memory go away. Eventually, she resorted to holding her breath and clutching handfuls of her hair, waiting for the vision to clear.
Slowly, her sight became gray, then finally returned to white floors and sensible shoes. Taking a deep breath, she scrubbed at the wet tracks on her cheeks, jaw still tightly clenched against the throbbing headache behind her eyes.
It had been easier with her parents, in a way. Even though it had killed her to remove herself from their minds, the memories that echoed in her head afterward had been happy, simple. Just comforting images of her muggle childhood, bittersweet and mild. Not these blood-soaked visions
of Rons misery and heartbreak.
Logically, she knew that the dread and rage she felt at the sight of her clutching Draco at the wedding was Ron's, not hers. Still, her mind battled, unable to stop the memories from replaying
from his viewpoint.
She should have protected herself better. Should have kept her mind more separate. The barrier between them had been far too muddy and out of control. If she'd done it any other day, one in which she hadn't just spent the entire night fighting for her life instead of sleeping, she would have been able to shield herself better. She could have stopped Ron's thoughts from infecting hers. It was awtul, not to know whose memories were causing her to feel so contlicted and run down
That was the worst part: the confusion. When she'd woken up to find herself in Draco's bed, wrapped in his arms as he'd breathed steadily into her hair, she hadn't known where her terror was coming from. Was it only Ron's thoughts of betrayal and distrust that had her scrambling away from Draco?
Hermione wanted to believe that. She wanted to think that, once the symptoms of her sloppy shielding had faded and she was no longer plagued with echoes of Ron's feelings anymore, she would be able to happily run back to Draco and apologize for leaving him with nothing more than a hastily scribbled note.
Unfortunately, there was one memory in particular that kept coming back to her, causing her gut to twist with fear every time she recalled it. One that wasn't from Ron's perspective.
From her seat in the hospital corridor, Hermione pulled out the wand, twisting it around in her fingers and searching for any remaining spots of blood
The wand. Not her wand. It didn't feel like hers anymore. Not now that it had seen mangled memories and bloody death and a silvery dragon with fiery breath.
Of those three things, the dragon should, in theory, have bothered her the least.
In her lifetime, Hermione had only known two people whose Patronuses had changed. They were both dead. Tonks was buried alongside Lupin, the person who had inspired her new Patronus.
together leaving their child an orphan. Snape had spent his life mourning a love that had never truly begun before he died as well, and was buried alone.
Not the best odds for a happily ever after.
Now that her life was no longer in danger, the memory of that dragon struck Hermione as a sort of
death sentence.
Her relationship with Ron had been turbulent and toxic and too intense, fueled by a cycle of explosive anger and teary forgiveness that had gone on for far too long. She'd loved him, truly, and because of that, she'd given him too many chances to change.
And even that love, intense as it was, had never resulted in her Patronus changing.
Her feelings for Draco, despite the fact that things between them were still new and tragile, were somehow even stronger than her feelings for Ron ever had been.
That terrified her.
Draco wasn't a safe person to fall for. He was volatile, secretive, controlling, and deadly literally deadly, as he had demonstrated only a few nights ago. True, he had changed since the war, but not completely.
She'd let Ron hurt her over and over. She'd stood by and allowed him to attempt to control her life How could she trust herself not to let Draco do the same? Would she be able to protect herself this time? Or would she remember the way he'd sacrificed himself for her on that bridge, and forgive him for anything?
She ignored the footsteps of another healer approaching. Hopefully this one would pass by without a word as well. Hermione kept her head down, attempting to shut out the swirl of thoughts battering at her skull behind her eyes.
"Ms. Granger."
Startled to hear her name, Hermione looked up. Narcissa Malfoy, wearing slate blue robes and an austere expression. was staring down at her. Hermione blinked. confused at Draco's mother's presence outside Ron's hospital room. Narcissa seemed to be just as surprised to see her here.
Suddenly, Hermione remembered: Draco's father's memory had been wiped after he was attacked
in Azkaban. His hospital room must be somewhere in this ward as well
Hermione stood awkwardly, giving Narcissa a bland expression that she hoped conveyed both her apologies at what her family was going through and her desperate wish not to talk at the moment. If
Narcissa understood the latter message, she ignored it.
"I didn't expect to see you here. Are you visiting someone as well?" Narcissa asked.
Hermione pursed her lips, unsure what she should say. She settled for a simple, "Yes," and hoped that would settle the matter.
Narcissa looked her up and down in that cool, contemplative way of hers. Hermione felt her back stiffen. She didn't like that look. It took in every detail: Hermione's unkempt hair, her sloppy clothes, the weary bags under her eyes. That look called her a mudblood without saying it, or maybe that was only Hermione's imagination. Narcissa elegantly adjusted the bag on her arm, looking around as if checking to make sure no one would see her speaking to such a bedraggled creature in public.