[A/N: First upload did not go as it should've, whoops! Here's the next chapter- lord knows it's been a bumpy road for me to get it to you. I hope it finds you well, and Happy New Year (in case I can't get the next chapter out before then). Can't wait to hear your thoughts on how this story is ending.]

With eyes closed, Hermione imagined she was asleep in her childhood bedroom; pillow soft, door unlocked, window open. As she breathed in slowly, deeply, her lungs filled with the lightness of autumn air and the grounding scent of fallen leaves. It was soothing. Safe. It was home.

"Do you really intend to lie there forever?"

The voice was her own, but did not pass between her lips. Hermione, frowning, focused on opening her eyes; they were heavy and reluctant and suddenly fearful. When her eyelids finally rose, a forested world came into view at a skewed angle- just off of ninety-degrees. A mound of dirt made an uneven surface beneath her, her eyelashes brushing against a fallen leaf curled at her cheek, and Hermione realized the autumn air was not coming in from any window. Instead, it came from all around her. Her bed was the earth, soft and loving even, and willing to comfort her by bending to her shape. There was a kindness to the dead leaves and their red tones. Still. They reminded her of something cruel, and recent, and painful.

"Well? Get up!" Again, the voice came at her, barking from somewhere above and out of view. Hermione's body creaked as she grabbed at dirt and roots, pushing herself up at the voice's command. "We have so many important things to do, and we're going to be ridiculously late."

Hermione sat upright, and stared. "No."

She nearly collapsed, her arms quivering as they fought to support her weight. Angrily, her fingers dug into the ground. "Not you. Not this place again."

"It's as though your mind is trying to tell you something," the voice smiled from its perch, on Draco's headstone. The voice had Hermione's smile, and her face. She could not look at herself for too long. Her eyes flickered down to the ground she lay on. When she swallowed, it felt as though the earth were in her throat- all sticks and clumps of dirt and stones.

"I get it," Hermione choked out to the Forbidden Forest, staring below, past the leaves and the tellingly soft soil. "He's buried here, in my mind," her voice trembled as her palm pressed down. The earth gave in willingly, too willingly, as though it had only just been made to move. The burial was fresh. "I have to dig him out. Is that what you want me to say?"

"No."

Hesitantly, Hermione turned her focus back to where it was meant to be: herself. It took a while to really see herself; so much soot and dried blood covered the young girl who sat on the headstone. The clothes she wore- Hermione remembered burning them at Grimmauld's Place the day after the war ended. Yet, her memory had collected the ashes. It revived the torn jeans, the singed jacket, and the dark stains of loss.

The girl Hermione used to be stared at her unwaveringly, poignantly ignoring both her clothes and Hermione's white wedding gown. "He's not the only one you buried that day."

"I know," Hermione admitted quietly, but made no attempts to move. "I know."

The girl rose from the headstone and approached her, sat down beside her. The girl waited.

"I thought I freed us." The grave beneath Hermione, the sinking sensation in her legs and shoulders, the memory of how she had gone unconscious in the first place- Will- they all proved otherwise. She frowned, squeezed her eyes shut, and shook her head. "...but now, now… I'm afraid."

On the dark screen of her eyelids played images she would rather not remember, or believe in- of war, of death, of a lost marriage, lost love- Draco, Will. Her friends. Family. Hermione winced. A broken home she had once pushed off her own body fell back upon her, crushing her and burying her in darkness. She struggled to breathe.

"I'm afraid of what I'll lose when I wake up."

The girl shifted beside her, and leaned against her shoulder. Strangely, the added pressure lifted Hermione's ribs- allowing her to breathe a little easier than before. She opened her eyes, and looked to the girl. The girl offered no gentle smile, no cruel judgment. She offered only honesty.

"Sometimes, you have to lose in order to gain."

Hermione's face crumpled; her hand accidentally crushed a dying leaf on the ground, pressing it to change, to nourish something new. She lifted her hand and stared at the remnants.

"I don't want to lose anymore." Tone hushed, Hermione attempted to lift the broken blade off her palm. As though rusted, it crumbled still more. She stopped her efforts. "I'm tired."

She had been tired for years now, unaware of when the feeling had first settled in. She had felt it during the war, she had dragged it with her through Hogwarts as it and her childhood were destroyed, and she thought she had felt it most palpably as she tried to sleep in a hospital bed. But knowing fully everything behind and before her, and the choices she would have to make-

Hermione's eyes closed again, and the strain in her features slackened. She allowed her shoulders to fall, too, and her body to sink just a little deeper into the earth; this particular spot remembered her body perfectly, having welcomed her home so many times before. Even with eyes closed, she could not trick herself into imagining her childhood bedroom anymore- but this place was still soothing and safe. Home. When she had buried Draco here, she had not wanted to leave. As she did not want to leave now.

"I'm so tired."

"And soon, you'll get to sleep. Just not now," the girl promised, and Hermione knew- without needing to see- how tired the girl was, too. The dark shadows under her eyes had chased Hermione into adulthood, into this very moment in her life. The girl had been there, too, as a shadow following Hermione around. So heavily shadowed and ignored, the girl became an eerie darkness, like a thestral- incapable of being seen by anyone who had not suffered enough to understand the creature. In disillusionment and loss, Hermione finally saw her again. Even with eyes closed, she could see her. The girl sat waiting and determined, and unafraid of her own darkness. Unafraid, as she reminded Hermione of herself and said:

"You know what you have to do."

Hermione did know. Of course, she knew. Hermione turned her head and looked at the girl, up close and more real than any reflection she could ever see in a mirror. Time had distanced her from herself; she had placed time, and a great wound of space between them. But now, events had folded in on themselves, paralleling and collapsing and enveloping her soul so completely- squeezing it, pressuring it, demanding it crumble and change into something new and old- all at once. The sensation was terrifying, and lonely. Her eyes burned from fear and despair, and she did the only thing she could-

Hermione embraced the girl. She pulled her in, and pressed all the girl's darkness, sadness and mistakes into her chest. She embraced the shadow of herself, and it returned into her, sinking between her ribs and rising within her lungs. Hermione gasped, body filled and pained, and she sobbed. She held onto herself, hands clutched to her own shoulders, sheltering the change within her arms, and she cried. Freely. Freeingly.

She knew what she had to do.

"Wake up."

Hermione awoke where she had fallen, at the abbey in Will's dressing room. Her eyes tore open, and her body jerked up before getting to register her resting place; Will had placed her upon the sofa. She left it behind, and ran to leave the room.

When the door swung open and she threw herself out into the cloister, she immediately swung back behind the door.

"Where's my daughter?"

"Please, just tell us what's going on-"

"Be quiet and move!"

The exchange echoed like ghosts through the abbey, accompanied by driven footsteps. Both approached where Hermione hid at the south-end of the abbey. Scattered amongst the footfall were continued confused and frightened sounds. Hermione peered through the small opening in the doorway to observe one armed woman escorting her parents and a priest down the east corridor. Following abruptly after them was a small group of other muggle wedding invitees and abbey members, forcefully moved out from the church's abbey entrance by two armed men. A flash of their faces, of the armed woman and men matched a flash of faces she had seen before, once, just after she had returned from Australia with her parents. She had seen them through a door, similar to now, only then they had been sat in a circle with Will. There had been a sign on that door.

A Remembering: 1996 bombing support group. All welcome.

All welcome, for what purpose?

As the group moved further south, nearer, Hermione cautiously closed the door and waited until the footsteps faded. From the sound of it, all muggles were being moved out opposite of how they had arrived; not out the church entrance, but instead the same way the bride and groom's party had first come- through the discrete southeast entrance of the abbey.

Everyone else, no doubt, was still detained in the church.

The ghosts of voices and footsteps left. So, Hermione opened the door, and steered into the east corridor. She neared the southeast entrance, panicked and wondering if she should go and verify the safety of her parents-

Click.

An explosion threw her sideways. Her body slammed into a column, painted her world red and black. Heat- stone- shards of wood flew outwards from the place her parents had left through. A ringing far more deafening than church bells clang about in her head- only to go painfully silent.

Forcefully, Hermione grappled with limestone and pushed herself upright again, ignoring the harrowing pain on either side of her abdomen. And her skull- god, her skull-

When her eyes refocused, and fought past the throbbing and the unsettled dust, she saw her path was blocked by a heap of rubble. Turning her head to the right, Hermione found no possible view of what had happened to her parents. There was only the courtyard to her left, scarred by the explosion- but open. Hermione kicked off her heels, grabbed up her dress skirts, and heaved herself through the archway of the cloister. She slid across the raised stone and landed roughly, on all fours, on the other side. Snow, thin and soft, melted briskly into her palms and ran a chill up her spine. A great fire spread out from her right hip to her ribs. Red drops fell and sprawled within fresh snow crystals.

"Fuck."

Hermione hissed, arm trembling as she reached for her abdomen and touched something foreign and splintered. Resisting the reflex seizing her throat and making her gag, Hermione wrapped her hand around the piece of wood protruding from her side. Her other hand gripped at the snow and hidden grass, and she tried to lengthen her breaths and steady her mind. Her breath remained short, and her mind dizzy, but no matter. She yanked the shard out of her-

She immediately retched into the snow.

Get up.

Hermione rolled her eyes at her own thoughts, and scrambled up to her feet. "I know," she muttered, and pressed a palm into the open wound. Pieces of corset probbed back at her, and blood drenched and stained the delicate fabric. She flinched, and focused. On the church doors. A quick sprint away. "I'm going."

She ran as best she could towards the church doors. Unable to leave the plethora of injuries behind, Hermione hoped her fear- at least- lay discarded in the courtyard amongst the rubble and bloodied snow.

When Hermione finally reached the doors and shoved it open, there was only silence. A funeral's silence.

And then there was a rush of breath, to her right. Hermione turned her head and saw so many lives staring back at her. Every single person Ginny had encouraged her to invite had come to see her happily married- the Weasleys, every last one of them, McGonagall, other professors from her childhood, old Order members and even Kingsley had arrived to give the Ministry's blessing. And by the looks of it, each and every one of them had respected her wish to come wandless. They all sat, rigidly still in the altar benches, not even their heads turned to look at her- just their eyes. Hermione caught Ron watching her from the front row, his eyes frantic and nose flared. She glanced further up to see the top of Ginny's head. Her friend was crouched in the aisle, protecting something upon the ground. And in front of them all stood Will. He waited at the altar, the perfect image of a groom awaiting his bride, except something black was presented and tightly grasped in his fist. A detonator.

"You shouldn't be here." Will's eyes widened at the sight of her, a slight tremble to his bottom lip and chin. If there could have only been a moment to joke, she would have said he looked like a groom with cold feet. "Hermione, get out of here."

She shook her head indignantly, and slowly walked into the church. "So you could kill yourself, and everyone in this room?"

Will's eyes followed her every move, until she stopped in the aisle.

"I don't plan to die," he assured her, "but this one decided to be a fighter." At the nudge of Will's chin, Hermione's focus flickered down to Ginny and the limbs sprawled out beneath her- Harry's limbs. Ginny's expression was rigid, clenched, but she mustered a minute nod for Hermione. A gentle rise of Harry's chest followed right after.

Hermione sighed in premature relief.

"You're bleeding."

Will's tone of shock shot Hermione's eyebrows right up. She pressed firmer into the wound, but it did not feel like it was keeping much at bay; nausea, dizziness, and plain pain battled it out for central attention in her brain. Hermione frowned.

"I had an unfortunate run-in with members of your support group," she explained quietly, tensely. "Had they always been invited to our wedding?"

Her ex-fiancé's jaw clenched, eyes wavering between Hermione's wound and her eyes. He swallowed, and it punished him to say, "yes."

"Will." Hermione took a deep breath and a step down the aisle. He jerked back slightly, instinctively, and his grip tightened on the detonator. Her heart tightened in response, excruciatingly so. "Will, don't do this. Put the detonator down. Please."

"No!" Will's voice ricocheted throughout the church, demanding the same respect as a sermon. "I told you already. I'm doing this- all of this, for you! To help you."

"You won't accomplish that by killing innocent people." Hermione calmed her anger, her nerves, and took another steady step forward. "These are people I grew up with, who care about me, and who came here to celebrate our wedding."

Her rationale did not have the intended effect on Will. His eyes narrowed critically on her.

"A wedding that isn't going to happen, because they-" the outstretched arm, the detonator, his hand whipped out to accuse every soul in the room- "tricked you into believing you cannot be happy without them, without magic!"

A bead of sweat slipped down Hermione's face, and she shivered. Was there a draft in the room, or was it her who had gotten colder? She took another step down the aisle.

"Will-"

"You know-" Will shook his head slightly, glancing up into the high ceilings, at the painted view of heaven above. "My mother always used to say: if you're afraid of a monster under the bed, you have to be brave enough to look and see if it's there. And if it is, to kill it." The passion with which he spoke, smooth and confident, and the resolute glint in Will's eyes when he looked back to her- Hermione had seen it all before, in herself. She shivered again, at the reminder. "You have been living with all these monsters under your bed, Hermione. Under our bed. They've made you scream every night! And I can see your hands are already bloody. So, let me do this for you- let me kill the monsters."

Despite how much her head already spun, Hermione vehemently shook her head. "No! Will, they're not my monsters!" She took another step forward but, approaching too close, he warned her with a quick flick of his wrist. She froze just feet away from Ginny, from Harry who began to stir. She stood, just an arms' length away from all the people who had come- for her. Her temples throbbed, and her eyes swelled with emotion as she looked from them to Will. "They're my friends- my family!"

"Hermione, you need to be brave enough to look-"

"You're the one who sees monsters- not me! If they're monsters, so am I!"

Hermione's breath came in heavy, frantic, short bursts and, for a moment, she thought Will was listening. He could hear her in the following silence. And he watched her, observing her in a wedding dress destroyed by debri and blood. The forget-me-nots he had given her were tangled in clumps of wet hair, or they were falling or crushed. The only thing softening the view of her was the sheer veil of light upon her head, drifting in from the stain-glass windows; during the rehearsal, Will had been so vocal about the look of the light on her- his love for it and for her. Even when everything else was twisted, the light blanketed down in perfect angles, in soft tones of red and gold and white. It tried, best it could, to paint beauty onto a disfigured canvas. And, for a moment, Hermione thought Will could see.

"Hermione. Leave."

Her heart broke. "No." She took another step forward, despite another of Will's warnings.

Closer now, Hermione spared a second to glance down again. She could see past Ginny to Harry's face. He was unconscious, still, but trying to wake; the bloody gash on his forehead explained why it was a struggle to begin with. Hermione's nostrils flared, but she tried to focus on what mattered: the rise and fall of Harry's chest, the swell of Ginny's belly- the promise of family.

Will had promised a family, too. He longed for a family, too. Just like her.

"I'll press it, even with you in here," Will declared. However, when Hermione's eyes rose to meet his again, there was doubt, hesitance, and the longing she knew so well. His stance was too rigid. "I'll do it, if I have to."

"No, you won't."

She took another step, around Ginny and Harry. And another, up one step and closer to Will. His only movement was a slight twitch of his chin and shoulders. She tried her best to be gentle, to smile. "You won't do it, because I deserve to live and to have happiness. Peace. We deserve it. We both deserve peace. Neither of us will get that if you do this. Please, Will. Put the detonator down."

He did not put it down, but he did not warn her again as she stepped up to the altar beside him. His eyes never left hers, terrified that if he looked anywhere else he would be lost- knowing the more he looked at her, the more reasons he found to be lost. His lips parted as if to say something, though it could not pass.

Hermione nodded her head softly in encouragement, and eased her left hand into the air. It worked through the tension with care, until it came to rest upon his raised arm. His skin quivered, and she held on.

"It's alright." She gave a subtle push, down, and at first Will resisted. His muscles locked, terrified, but not once did his finger threaten to press down on the trigger. She encouraged him again, promising, "it's alright. You can let go."

He expressed in his eyes what words could never do justice to: letting go was not in his nature. Holding on was. Fighting for what he loved, and holding onto it for dear life was in his nature. As it was in hers.

Her other hand, bloodied as it was, reached for the one at his side. Without hesitation, he held onto her hand. His muscles released an immense pressure and pain. That right wrist, so tense before, slackened beneath her palm. His arm lowered, and she immediately took the detonator from him.

The second it was out of his hands, Will broke and embraced Hermione. She held his shaking form, feeling herself inside it, and rested her head upon his shoulder. Her hands clung to his back, desperate to pull him closer- closer until he was utterly safe within her arms, within her. But she could hear sirens beyond the church doors. The detonator was a firm reminder between her hand and his skin. Yet, there was relief to be had in the embrace, in the moment, and it bathed over her and made her light. She closed her eyes. She felt at home.

"Now, sleep," she sighed into Will's ear. As she kissed his hair, her wish seeped out in a spell through her lips and fingers and into him. His body slumped in her arms, and the weight of his slumber sent her stumbling and falling backwards.

She landed on the ground, still holding him, and now level with Ginny who was holding Harry much the same. The women locked eyes. As others began to rise from the benches and take action to find the armed muggles, and the other guests, the two friends simply looked at one another. Ron was at Hermione's side, relieving her of the detonator she still held, and easing Will off her body. Still, she looked to Ginny.

"Is Harry alright?" Hermione asked faintly. The sirens grew louder. Yet, Ginny heard her.

"Yes. He's fine. Hermione," Ginny spoke, but the sirens were too loud now. And Hermione could feel the color of them. Red and blue. She had once been covered in their light and sound, bleeding as she was now. But this time, she was not screaming. She was not afraid or confused. She was not restless.

"Good," Hermione breathed. The arms that were holding her up collapsed, and she hit the altar floor with a dull thud. Her hand rested at her waist, on the blood, and felt the life of her draining out- wasting away. Her eyes were still open and seeing, seeing the painting of someone's heaven above her; the image of it was not quite what she had in mind for herself. But, if this was to be it-

"Hermione!"

She knew what she had to do. There was one more wrong to right, one more person to save. It was not like she had much of a choice, anyway, given the gruesome circumstances.

Every sense felt like it was coming from a far distance, fingertips of feeling just barely reaching her. Yet, she felt the burst of something rushing out. She felt an urgency. Love. Magic.

Arms, arms Hermione had not felt in a while, wrapped around her and tried unsuccessfully to lift her up. Though her vision was beginning to fail her, she liked to believe she was seeing Draco one last time. She just wished he did not look so forlorn and desperate, and angered.

"Don't you dare," he warned, unheard and unseen by Ginny- who landed beside Hermione and was calling her name. Draco shook his head, all judgment above her- blocking her view of the heavens. "Don't you dare go."

Can't you just agree with me this one time?

There was still enough in her to smile, just enough to smile at him, but he for once could not encourage the humour. Draco's eyes glistened hopelessly. And then they were gone, as her eyes drifted closed. But his voice was there, still so desperate and angry.

"No!"

She wanted to feel that way, too. Desperate and angry. A part of her did feel that way. Desperate to stay, angry to leave when finally, finally she could sense him so real around her. Cradling her. In such warmth. And she could smell that awful cologne clinging to his clothes, which had grown on her over the years much as he had. She could feel his palms and fingers, lightly calloused and gentle as they stroked her arms, her face. The firm press of his lips upon her forehead nearly did it- nearly made her so desperate and angry enough to stay right there, in his arms, and alive and well-

She did not want to go. But Hermione was going, one way or another. And Draco deserved to stay. She was desperate for him to stay, at least. So, she pressed her hand upon that wound with all she had left, and fought one last time to heal- to heal him.

And as the sound of Ginny calling, "Draco?" reached her ears, and the fingertips of feeling left her, Hermione did as Will had. As everyone has to, in the end.

She let go.