Broken

Avoidance

Hermione groaned as her alarm jangled. She had finally dropped off to sleep in the early hours of the morning. Puzzling over seeing Draco Malfoy in the Hogwarts library, Hermione decided it had been a hallucination. Probably brought on by stress and sleep deprivation. Maybe she needed to ask the doctor to increase her medication.

'Accio tablets,' she mumbled and ducked as her bottle of pills flew across the room.

Hermione's anti-depressants had been a big issue for Ron. He couldn't understand her reliance on muggle medicines. Hermione supposed she hadn't helped by saying that the wizarding world was centuries behind muggles in treating mental health. Or by saying that if anyone had the slightest understanding of psychology they could have identified that Voldemort was a narcissistic psychopath. That had been the first night that Ron slept in the room above Weasley's Wizarding Wheeze's. By the end, he spent most nights there.

Grumbling, Hermione dragged herself out of bed and danced from foot to foot on the cold floor as she quickly got dressed. She stuffed her things into her bag and headed down to the kitchen to ask the house elves for some breakfast. She wasn't in the mood for small talk in the Great Hall.

Munching on a croissant, Hermione knocked on the griffin outside Headmistress McGonagall's office. It swung aside and the staircase carried her upwards.

'Wow, Hermione, you're huge! I mean, oh, er, when are you due?' Neville fidgeted with his robes as he blushed at Hermione, squinting up at her from his seat next to McGonagall.

'Hi Neville, I've not long left at all. How are you?' Hermione eyed the fireplace longingly, wondering how long she would need to be polite before she could go.

'I'm great thank you, I've been working with a new mutation of plant that I found while I was travelling with Hannah this summer and I'm getting some really great results. You should come down to the greenhouse and see them, it's really cool!'

'Oh, er, thanks but maybe another time. I can't stick around today, I need to go and pick Rose up from her grandparents. They're expecting me any minute, you see...'

'Oh, yes, yes of course, well it was great to see you Hermione. Tell everyone I say hi and I'll see them over Christmas.'

Silently berating herself for her rudeness, Hermione stepped into the fireplace and dropped the floo-powder into the flames.

'The Burrow,' she said, waving to McGonagall and Neville before being swept along the floo-network. With an abrupt jolt, she stopped and stepped out into chaos.