Hermione began to sense light behind her eyelids, and it irritated her. Why wouldn't they shut the damn curtains? Everybody was determined to jolt her awake. She didn't want to. It felt so peaceful like this, in the dark, completely alone. 

But the light was too bright. Her eyes were scrunching up. Defeatedly, she tried to peek out. Her vision was blurry. She could make out a tuft of black directly above her. That must be Harry, she thought. Maybe he's here to take me to one of his stupid Quidditch matches.

She opened her eyes and clear vision returned to her in a few seconds. She blinked. This was a strange assortment of people around her. Harry, Ron, Ginny. Madam Pomphrey. And, a few paces away, Malfoy.

Malfoy!

Everything came rushing to her at his sight. Ron and Ginny weren't talking to her. She'd been practicing the Momento Oblitus spell for weeks with Malfoy. She'd finally found the correct way to do the spell. And it was just seven days to Christmas!

But there was a strange memory too. Her parents were there. They were telling her...

"But it was all just a dream," she said aloud, relieved. 

Harry looked concernedly at her.

"Nothing to worry," she said. "I just had a horrible dream. But none of it's real."

Madam Pomphrey looked meaningfully at the rest of them, then left. Harry spoke softly. 

"What did you see in the dream, 'Mione?"

"Oh, it was terrible," she said, sitting up. "I dreamt my parents were... were... dead."

A hush fell upon the surroundings. Everyone there looked uncomfortable, sorry, and sympathetic, or a combination of the three.

"But that's no problem. I've been having weird dreams like that. I just woke up, didn't I? Why are you all so worried?"

The party there looked at each other, silently deciding the best way was to break it gently to her instead of talking in circles. Taking a deep breath, Harry stepped forward and sat down beside her. 

***

Hermione stormed out of the hospital wing in a blinding rage, deaf to the shouts of protest behind her. She couldn't see more than two paces away and she hardly cared who she knocked over in her path. Her feet directed her to her dorm by muscle memory because her head was too full to process anything but anger. 

She burst through the portrait and shot towards her room. Once inside, she slammed the door behind her, pointed her wand randomly around the room, and bellowed, "Expulso!" Her bedside lamp blasted, shards of glass flying. Hermione did not register the piece that lodged itself in her calf. Instead, she pointed her wand somewhere else, and shouted, "Confringo!" Books shot out of the bookshelf and rained down, while she shouted again, "Diffindo!" and slashed through the curtains. She'd been thinking she was a mere few days away. One week. One! She'd given up everything to research the spell. Every waking moment was spent thinking about it, worrying about the correct way, and finding relief in the fantasies her brain conjured up. And all this time they'd been dead!

Hermione threw away her wand and began smashing objects by hand. She threw her chair across the room, broke its legs apart, and then shattered the windowpane using it. She picked up a piece of the glass and tore her bedclothes and what was left of the curtains. Whatever touched her hand flew across the room until the entire place was in ruins.

Once the anger subsided, she fell on her knees and screamed, then cried in agony. Her Mom and Dad were dead. She'd never see them again. Her father would never tell her how proud he was of her. Her mother would never bake her favorite chocolate cookies again. Her father would never make her and her mother laugh with his best imitation of Charlie Chaplin. He wouldn't tell her the names of all the stars in the sky at night. Her mother wouldn't tease her about her boyfriend. They'd never have a game of cards together. They would never watch her mom's favorite soaps on TV, lying on the sofa and passing about her father's best popcorn, in which he always put an unhealthy amount of butter despite her mom's protests.

And she couldn't even attend the funeral. She didn't even get to say goodbye.

The pain was agony. Her body felt like it was being hollowed out using a scalpel. Her head hurt like it was going to split in half. Most of all, her heart ached to the point of physical pain, longing for just another day with them, just one more chance to tell them she loved them so much, and to beg them to not leave her alone, please, please. 

She sat with her back to the wall, her hands holding her head and her elbows on her knees, trying to gorge the torment out of her head. She must've been there for hours because the night had passed and there was a hint of grey in the sky. She saw the rosy pink clouds at the horizon through the shattered window but felt no such light within herself.

There were urgent knocks on the door more times than she cared to count, but she didn't respond once. She didn't want anyone to be with her. The loss of all those people during the war belonged to everyone because everyone had known them, loved them, and cared for them. But this loss was hers. She had felt its entire blow. She needed privacy to deal with it.

It would help if you tried to sleep, a half-hearted voice in her said. But of course, she couldn't sleep. Memories of her parents kept her painfully awake, awake enough to feel the grief slowly marking her, leaving a permanent imprint on her, all through the day.

***

She's been in her room for two days, Draco thought tensely, pacing around the common room. Two days and she hasn't eaten anything. 

It was the third afternoon since that night and Draco was worried out of his mind, more than he'd thought he could ever feel for anyone other than his mother. Hermione had not come out of the room for more than forty-eight hours. He knew that she'd not even slept. He could hear the occasional sob, something hurtled across the room, a bang of fists against the wall, all through the day and night. Potter and the Weasley sidekicks had come every now and then to knock at the door, once, twice, then sigh, turn around, and leave. It was funny, but Draco felt they weren't even trying. He felt like it was all part of a show that they had to upkeep to make Hermione, or perhaps Draco, believe that they cared. Was it true? Or just a figment of his extremely paranoid brain? Draco didn't know the answer, and right now was not focused on finding. Right now his priority was Hermione.

He hadn't tried knocking, not even once. Originally, because he knew she'd need time to grieve. For the first five to six hours, that was his theory. Then, as time passed, he thought that who Hermione needed was her friends and not him, a virtual stranger, and had hence let the others do the job. Now though, when Hermione was clearly desperate for help and unable to ask for it herself, Draco knew he had been stalling. He knew it had to be him. He climbed the stairs, then stood hesitantly at the door. He knew she wouldn't respond, so on an impulse he tried to push it open. Surprisingly, it gave way even without an Alohomora. Hermione had not even bolted the door. Had it been like that from the beginning? Or had she slid open the bolt at some point, hoping for someone to help her?

Draco pushed the door open, and his eyes met ruins. Almost everything in the room that could be destroyed had been; some noticeable things left intact were the ceiling and the walls. Despite the curtains having torn away, the room was so dark it took his eyes several seconds to adjust. Perhaps it was a darkening spell on Hermione's part. If it was, she sure knew how to do it effectively.

Draco's sight met Hermione's, who scrambled up from the floor, alarmed, her wand gripped so tightly in her hands her knuckles looked paper-white. She looked ghostly pale, and her hair was a mess. Her cheeks were excessively tear-stained, and Draco could see her arms and legs bleeding from several cuts and scratches. He felt a pang of grief looking at her. If the word 'wrecked' or 'shattered' took a human form, it would look like Hermione. 

Draco took a step towards her, but she shrank further into the corner of the room, her eyes showing panic at someone seeing her in the condition she was in.

"Granger - " he began, but Hermione cut him off. "Don't," she said. "I don't need comforting words." Her words sounded hoarse.

"Granger, you can't stay like this. Everyone's worried about you." He knew it was probably not the best thing to stay, but that was all he could get out.

Hermione smiled bitterly. "Nobody seemed very concerned for the past two months when I was clearly screaming for help. Now that I'm not, everyone's worried."

Draco looked down. It was true. No one had cared about what she was going through for two months, when she had no one to talk to, when she ate her meals alone and didn't put her voice to use for days on end.

"Please leave me alone, Malfoy," she said. "Please."

"I can't," Draco replied. "I'm not going out."

"Malfoy, I gave you enough time to grieve and rebound when your father was arrested. I think it's only fair I demand the same," she said frsutratedly

"You did, but then also directed my friends to me and then later encouraged me to talk about it. You also helped me get over it. I think it's only fair I do the same for you."

"Why don't you understand?" Hermione said through gritted teeth, tears spilling from her eyes once more. "I need to be alone. I don't want anyone's help."

"Obviously, I can see you're doing great without help," Draco snapped, pointing toward the room at large. 

"I told you, I need time and quiet. I know grief, and I'm not scared to let it sink in! I can deal with this on my own! 

"Yeah? Well, guess what, Granger, your Gryffindor courage failed you this time, because you're afraid. You're afraid of what would happen if you let someone get close to you again, if someone aided you to get past this and then left you the way the redheads did. You're afraid of asking for help. And you're afraid, Mudblood, of even trying to recover on your own and getting out of this blasted room!"

"I AM NOT A MUDBLOOD!" Hermione bellowed. "MY PARENTS DIDN'T BELONG HERE, BUT I AM NOT GOING TO LET YOU INSULT THEM IN DEATH!"

"But you already did that!" Draco shouted back. "You failed to show the courage you showed for years! You insulted your parents by not showing trust in them and by not believing they'll stay with you throughout your life! You failed them in their hope that you would move on! And that, Mudblood, is what makes you a disgrace to them!"

"SILENCIO!" Hermione roared, and Draco felt his larynx shut. "EXPULSO!" Draco was thrown out of the room onto the floorboards with a crash, and then the door shut. 

This time, Draco heard the bolt shifting from inside, locking the door.

***

A/N: Not a very eventful chapter, but I loved writing this. Probably the next chapter is going to continue this too. Did you figure out from my writing that I'm way better at describing grief than happiness? 

Honestly, when I was describing Hermione thinking about what she would miss about her parents, I felt a little teared up myself (not exaggerating). I don't know about you, though. What do you think?