i am trying to remember you

and

let you go

at

the same time.

Nayyirah Weheed

Harry Potter was sitting on a rooftop, smoking cigarettes, staring off into the distance. Hermione clambered out of a window to join him.

"What happened to us, Hermione?" he asked when she got close.

"A war," she said quietly, reaching out and turning his face toward her. There was a gash on his head. His pale skin was faintly red from the blood he'd washed off. His expression was sad, tired, and angry.

"Who changed? Was it you or me?" he asked as she laced her fingers through his hair and pushed it aside so she could close the wound.

"Me," she said, avoiding his gaze.

"Why? Do you think I won't be able to do it?" he said. "Are you trying to brace yourself that I'll fail?"

She cast a diagnostic charm on him. He had two fractured ribs and bruising on his abdomen. She pushed him back so he'd lie down before she started healing him.

"I think you can do it. But—the prophecy. It's a coin toss. After Dumbledore died—," she faltered slightly.

"Death is just one curse away from us all," she said after a moment. "I can't just sit back and watch, waiting for fifty-fifty odds to land and assume I know the outcome. Not when there are so many people depending on us. What you have, the way you love people, it's pure, it's powerful. But—how many times have you killed Tom now? As a baby, because of your mother. In first and second year. But he's still here. He's still fighting you. I don't want to assume anything is enough."

"You don't think Good can just win," Harry said. The reproach in his voice was heavy.

"Everyone who wins say they were good, but they're the ones who write the history. I haven't seen anything indicating that it was actually moral superiority that made a difference," she said as she murmured the spells to repair the fractures.

"You're talking about Muggle history though. Magic is different. The magical world is different," Harry said, reaching toward her wand hand just as she moved it to heal the next rib. He closed his fingers into a fist and let it drop.

Hermione shook her head minutely and Harry's expression grew bitter. He looked up at the sky. Hermione cast a barrier charm over her hand and then began spreading a bruise paste over Harry's stomach and ribs in small circular motions.

"You used to be different," Harry said, "You used to be more righteous about things than me. What happened to S.P.E.W.? That girl would never have said Dark magic was worth the cost. What happened?"

"That girl died in a hospital ward trying to save Colin Creevey."

"I was there when Colin died too, Hermione. And I didn't change."

"I was always willing to do whatever it took, Harry. All those adventures of ours in school. Once I was in, I was in. Maybe you just never noticed how far I was willing to go for you."

When Hermione woke, she remembered the dream.

She replayed it again and again. It was a memory. Which frightened her somewhat, but there didn't seem to be anything in it that appeared particularly consequential. She tried to place the year it had happened.

Harry was smoking. A habit he started three years into the war. Hermione didn't recognise the rooftop, but that didn't mean anything. There had been dozens of safe houses that Hermione rarely visited.

Having a new memory of Harry, even one that wasn't particularly happy, felt like an unexpected gift. She missed him so bitterly it was hard to breathe sometimes.

She lay in bed and turned it over and over in her mind. Taking note of every detail. The light in his eyes. The nervous, intense way he'd take a drag from his cigarettes and exhale sharply. The exhaustion in his face. The way his hair stood on end.

She wished she'd hugged him. Or taken his hand. Or met his eyes and told him how important he was to her.

Told him how much she needed him. That he was her best friend. That she would follow him to the ends of the earth. That she would never, ever recover if she lost him.

She wished she could go back in time and find a way to fix what had gone wrong. Whatever it was. That she could go back and tell Harry not to go to Hogwarts the day of the final battle.

Go back and warn the Order of what would happen if they lost.

Their argument in the memory was a familiar one. Hermione had wanted the Order to use, well, not necessarily the Dark Arts, but magic that was ambiguously grey. As the war kept dragging on, she'd gotten pushier about it and it had strained her relationships with more people than just Harry.

She tried not to dwell on the question of whether they could have won the war if the Resistance had been willing to use Dark Magic.

The war was over and lost.

She pressed her hands against her eyes and tried to force the question away. Whatever the answer was, it would be as painful to reach as it would be futile.

Oh Harry...

Had she told him she loved him the day he died? Had she even spoken to him?

She couldn't remember.

Hermione curled up in her bed and wrapped her arms around herself in a mimicry of a hug. When she'd been in the cell, she'd wondered if it was possible to die from the devastating loneliness she felt.

She'd felt like her heart had broken.

It still felt like that.

After a few minutes, she forced herself to get up. Lying in bed moping wasn't going to accomplish anything.

She paused at the window. It had snowed. The whole world outside was blanketed. The visual relief from all the dreary grey was almost heartening.

Along with the breakfast that morning, there arrived a vial of—something. Hermione did not recognise the potion. She stared at it and sniffed it but wasn't sure what it was. She set it aside. She hadn't been commanded to take it, and until she was commanded, she had no intention of imbibing any unfamiliar potions.

She made her way to the stairs and stood, staring down them. It was time. She was going to descend the stairs by herself. The fact that she hadn't already done so was pathetic. It was just a staircase. Just a staircase leading to a hall she'd already walked through dozens of times with Malfoy.

Her shoulders shook with an almost imperceptible tremor, and she squared them.

She felt like a frightened child.

She hated it.

She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. Then she pressed her hand against the wall and slowly took a step.

She was going to escape, she told herself.

Before she got pregnant, she was going to escape from Malfoy Manor. Someday she was going to come back and murder Malfoy.

She was going to be free. Free. Somewhere with sunshine and magic and people who wouldn't hurt her.

She focused on the thought until there were no more steps left to descend.

She glanced around. Her hand was still pressed against the wall. She could feel the faint texture of the wallpaper. Touching the walls seemed to help her keep her heart-rate somewhat reasonable.

She went into a tea room, coatroom, and a drawing room. Exploring them all thoroughly. The portrait stalked Hermione the entire time.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Even the cords for the drapes were spelled to be irremovable. She opened sideboards, and cupboards, and linen closets and there wasn't a single thing inside of them that was useful. Not as a weapon she could use. Not for escape.

She shoved a drawer shut with a frustrated snap.

If she was going to find anything with potential, she was going to have to explore the occupied wings of the manor. It was easy for Malfoy to ensure that an empty wing had nothing Hermione could utilise. It would be harder to maintain such care in other parts of the house.

Astoria had struck Hermione as a bit flighty. Given how devoted she was to ignoring Hermione's existence, she probably would not trouble herself with employing the same overabundance of caution that Malfoy did.

Hermione returned slowly to her room and stared across the pristine landscape below her. She felt drained from her "excursion" downstairs. As though she'd run a marathon.

Everything took so much effort.

She rested her cheek against the glass and felt freshly awash in despair.

Even if she managed to conquer her agoraphobia, that was barely even a start. No matter what lies she whispered to herself. The truth was that she remained entirely at a loss about how to accomplish anything more.

She glanced down at the manacles around her wrists.

She'd been considering and experimenting with their abilities for the last several days. Ever since Malfoy had been able to override her agoraphobia. She had started to analyse more carefully how the compulsions worked.

She had been baffled over how they could be so powerful. She'd studied various dark artifacts during the war. The manacles were unlike anything she'd encountered.

She started her experiments by trying to disobey the compulsion of quietness by attempting to scream. The concept was less restrictive than obedience. She was allowed to make noise and speak when spoken to. It seemed like the easiest one to try to overcome. She'd thought that if she fought hard enough she could force her way through by sheer willpower, in the same manner that strong-minded individuals could eventually throw off the Imperio.

She was fairly sure she qualified as at least a somewhat strong-minded individual.

When she tried to open her mouth to scream, she just—stopped. It didn't matter how hard she fought to force sound out. She struggled until the manacles began growing hot.

She couldn't beat them.

Eventually she had collapsed onto the floor, drained to the point that she struggled to remain conscious.

As she lay there, watching the room swim before her eyes, she began to realise the reason the manacles were so powerful. They were using her magic. Wizarding folks had no more ability to stem the magic inside them than they could turn off their adrenal glands. Whatever effort she poured into overpowering the manacles, the manacles had in equal measure to repress her.

She couldn't even scream or rage with frustration when she realised it. She had so much fury inside herself she felt as though she might burst into flames.

She wanted to break something. She wanted to use magic and make something explode. She wanted to do something that would hurt.

She wanted to punch a mirror the way people did in movies. To see the glass shatter and fracture until it looked the way she felt. She wanted her knuckles to split and bleed and feel the pain in her metacarpal bones, through her palms and into her wrists... She was desperate to feel something other than the emotional agony she felt she was drowning in.

But she couldn't.

She tried circumventing the manacles in various ways.

The compulsion went beyond merely not screaming or speaking unless spoken to. She couldn't be loud because she was commanded to be quiet. She couldn't bang a door or stomp. Any method that occurred to make noise; when she tried to do it, she was stopped.

That was when it began to dawn on her that she was also the one controlling the compulsions. She was commanded to be quiet. It was her awareness of being unquiet that activated the manacles. Anything that she considered loud, resisting, disobedient, she couldn't do.

That was why Healer Stroud had been so concerned with ensuring the mental stability of all the girls. If they lost their minds, the compulsions couldn't control them. That was why the screaming girl had been able to attack someone.

The manacles were as limitless in their restrictions as Hermione's creativity.

Hermione tried to focus on something else as she tried to stomp her feet or slam a door. Performing mental arithmancy. Mentally reciting the recipe for a Draught of Peace. The manacles still activated.

She had run out of new ideas about how to try circumventing them.

She turned away from the snowy landscape and began exercising in her room. It had felt awkward with the attention of the portrait but after nearly a month, she no longer cared.

She was so tired of thinking and despairing afresh.

Not that she could stop herself from thinking even as she slotted her feet under the wardrobe and began doing sit-ups until her abdominal muscles felt like they had been injected with acid. At least it was a way of directing her rage.

She wouldn't be able to kill Malfoy. The manacles made it impossible.

She couldn't escape on her own either.

Umbridge hadn't even bothered with laying a compulsion against escaping. That was how certain she and Healer Stroud were that the girls couldn't get the manacles off. That detail was the only loophole Hermione currently had to exploit. She could do things with the intention of escaping.

She had reviewed everything she knew about the manacles carefully. Hannah had made no mention of anyone ever getting them off despite whatever laxness or camaraderie had been developed with the gossiping guards. The manacles had a trace in them but rather than just get someone to take them off, Angelina had attempted to steal the trace.

Quite a number of people had managed to escape Hogwarts. All the people Malfoy had killed. No one had ever successfully escaped entirely because none of them could get the manacles off.

What had Hannah said? Unless Hermione could cut her hands off, she'd never escape.

How did the manacles come off?

Two Death Eaters had come to Hogwarts the day the new ones had been put on. Yaxley and Rowle. They had been called up when the guards started stunning all the women, and they'd been gone when she'd been rennervated.

Only Death Eaters bearing a Dark Mark could remove the manacles.

She had two options. She had to find a way to make Malfoy either kill her or help her to escape. There were no options that excluded him. It didn't matter if the Manor had an entire set of camping gear, a basket of portkeys, and a weapon she could somehow touch, it would all be useless to her if she couldn't get the manacles off.

She snarled quietly to herself in frustration and rolled over and started doing push-ups until she couldn't lift herself off the ground any more.

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

Draco Malfoy, where is the chink in your perfect armour?

As if on cue the door opened and Malfoy walked in. She turned her head to look at him, still too tired to try dragging herself off the floor.

He stared down at her, something flickering in his eyes after a moment.

"A Muggle thing, I'll assume," he said.

Hermione rolled her eyes and forced herself to stand up. She felt as though her whole body were made of jelly.

He glanced around the room. His eyes landed on the vial of potion Hermione had refused to take earlier. He summoned it across the room wandlessly and caught it deftly in his right hand.

"I realise that, being a Gryffindor, there are certain obvious things that you will always somehow fail to comprehend. I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised that you somehow missed the implicit instruction that you should swallow this," he said, his mouth quirking in faint bemusement.

Hermione crossed her arms stubbornly. While it might be strategically advisable to seem docile and obedient, as a former Potions Mistress, Hermione was far too paranoid to agree to such a thing.

"What is it?" she asked.

Malfoy's expression grew gloating.

"I'll tell if you swallow every drop like a good girl," he said, flashing a malicious smirk.

Hermione did not budge. Malfoy smiled faintly as he stared at her.

"Come here, Mudblood," he commanded after a moment.

Hermione glared at him as her unwilling feet carried her across the room to him. They didn't stop until she was mere inches from him, so close her robes brushed against his.

She stared balefully down at his shoes.

"Look at me, Mudblood."

Her chin raised itself until she was staring into his eyes. He was still smiling.

"Surely you are aware that I'm not going to kill you," he said. His eyes were dancing with cruel amusement. "After all, if I were, I imagine you'd feel obliged to come running."

Hermione glowered. Yes, she knew, but poison was only one of the innumerable things he could dose her with. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and it made her ears roar.

"Open your mouth," he commanded, unstoppering the vial and then proceeding to upend it into her opened mouth. "Swallow all of it."

Hermione's mouth closed, and she swallowed. The potion tasted bitter, with a faint tingling effect on her tongue and throat as it slid down to her stomach. She felt it pause there for a moment before it dispersed itself into her system.

It felt like an egg was cracked across the back of her mind. Something cold oozed over her consciousness until her mind felt entirely enveloped inside it. As though someone had plucked out her brain and placed it inside a tank of ice water. Her body was there, but her mind was—not. It was like experiencing herself in third person.

Her heart rate dropped to a steady beat.

She should be panicking. It was as though her consciousness had been severed from her endocrine system. There was no surge of adrenalin or norepinephrine. No fear.

It was merely an observation: she should be panicking. She was not.

She looked up at Malfoy.

She was aware that she hated him. This was a piece of information that seemed of utmost importance, and yet she couldn't feel it. Hatred was a construct rather than an emotion.

He was staring at her intently.

"How do you feel, Mudblood?" he asked after a moment. His sharp eyes were taking in every detail, studying her face, and eyes, and posture as she stood before him. Her hands had stopped spasming; she realised when he glanced down at them. It was as though he were cataloguing her. Hermione felt her skin prickle with awareness, and a faint shiver ran down her spine, but she couldn't feel a corresponding wash of fear. Just awareness.

"Cold," she answered. "My brain feels cold. What did you do to me?"

"It's intended to acclimatise you to the estate," he said, stepping back as he continued to carefully appraise her. "So that I am no longer obliged to monitor you in person."

Hermione said nothing. Her brain was analysing.

The unfamiliarity of the manor upset her. The unknown. It made her panic. The potion blocked that. She could go wherever she wanted now.

The potion blocked everything she realised. She wasn't sad. Or angry. Or ashamed. Her grief was gone. Her rage.

She was—nothing.

She simply existed in cold nothingness.

She looked up at Malfoy. "Is this what it feels like to be you?"