Trench-Coated Angel (one-shot)

The first time she saw him, there was a massive Death Eater attack in Manchester.

As the new Auror of the Department, twenty-five-year-old Hermione Granger was immediately sent to this mission, even if she did not want to. The Second War had finally ended and the scars from the said war were still healing; it was a wonder as to why she chose to become an Auror in the first place. The-Boy-Who-Lived had opted to fly off to Australia and take a break for a while, together with his new wife, Ginny Weasley-Potter, to start his life anew. Ron Weasley, on the other hand, chose an easy work in some random pub in Diagon Alley; like Hermione, his scars from the Second War were still raw and healing.

The moment her supervisor came inside her office, she knew that another grave attack from Death Eaters happened. Her blood ran cold just by listening to his instructions and it took all of her willpower not to have a panic attack. Images from the war, the tortures she had to endure and the screams that almost deafened her ears… all of them rushed back into her mind and almost broke her down.

Contrary to popular belief, Hermione Granger is still, and will always be, human. Even though she was hailed as the brightest witch of her age, that did not exactly mean that she was the bravest person that had ever graced the Wizarding World. The Second War shook her and nightmares still visited her at night. Her parents, now un-Obliviated, kept on pestering her to see a psychiatrist but she sorely refused – after all, with that brain of hers, her ego was bound to be hurt.

Thus, here she was now, running frantically over a house that bore the infamous, green, Dark Mark. Even though Voldemort had fallen, his followers still ran amok. Their vow for vengeance was so great that their attacks became frequent and dangerous. In fact, the Death Eater attacks multiplied from the time when their Dark Lord was still their commander.

The screams of the people still reached her ears and she tried her best to calm herself down.

"Constant vigilance," she muttered to herself, muttering a powerful Aguamenti to douse the fire that was destroying the whole street. Silently terrified, she blindly grabbed an injured civilian one after another and brought them to the designated apparition spots. Oh, how she longed to apparate along with them and disappear from this godforsaken ruin into the safe confines of her humble apartment!

Her mind was then brought to the present when a whizzing Killing Curse barely grazed her ear. She released a horrified scream and turned around, instantly stunning the Death Eater who would have been responsible for her imminent death.

Fear gripped her heart and she wryly smiled. How the mighty Gryffindor Princess had fallen. It was tiring to keep up a pretense of bravery when all she could feel was helplessness and terror. It amazed her how people marvelled her obvious bravado, looking up at her and making her an inspiration when she herself desperately needed one.

'The war is done,' she told herself for the umpteenth time. It was a little trick that she developed ever since she woke up in St. Mungo's - bloodied, battered, and almost broken. That little phrase, although simple, helped her wake up from another nightmare-filled sleep and urged her to continue living.

It was funny how the fire in her eyes had considerably dimmed from all the horrors she had witnessed. It especially wavered upon being tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange in the Malfoy Manor. People said she had changed, but then again, who wouldn't when you were forced to be at the front, defending a side in a war that you never wanted to be part of?

Her friends were worried about her, especially the Weasleys. They kept on persuading her to resign from her job as an Auror, seeing that it wasn't healthy for her. But Hermione refused to listen; she still firmly believed that doing this would cure her for the brokenness that she now felt. She must be strong again, be the Hermione Granger they used to know, so that in the end, everybody would be happy again.