A/N. ALRIGHT. Here is my first fic on . Now, I don't do cotton candy fluff, so the first few chapters especially are going to be on the dark side. If you're not into reading about excruciating pain, I suggest you walk away now.

ENJOY!

Chapter one: Survivor's Guilt

The rubble of a school once invincible was shattered around her feet, along with the bodies of the people who made Hogwarts so great. The Great Hall was a graveyard. Hermione Granger felt the weight of being a survivor fall on her so quickly, it stole the oxygen from her lungs. The battle was done. Voldemort was dead. Ever since her fourth year when the Dark Lord returned, she'd been dreaming of this moment, expecting dancing in the streets and the Weasleys twins setting off fireworks and parties that lasted weeks long just because everyone's so happy for it all to be over. Everyone was safe to return to their everyday lives.

So why did Hermione feel so miserable?

It might have been the fact that she was spattered with burns and one of her ribs was definitely cracked. It could be the wound of Dolohov's curse or the fact that the beautiful handiwork of Bellatrix Lestrange along her forearm kept reopening, the blood sliding down to her wrists and off her fingertips. It was none of these things, though.

The tortured wails of George Weasley rang through the room. A few meters away, he was knelt over the body of a man identical to him, save his extra ear, clutching the lifeless body of his twin to his chest and letting out the most heartwrenching, unintelligible cries of loss and torment. Hermione couldn't help but feel this was surreal. Fred Weasley was the lost alive person she ever had the privelege to know - he couldn't possibly be dead. It was inconceivable to her. He should be blowing something up or setting off wizbangs and poisoning younger kids with new products. Her eyes should be open and vibrant and wide and taking in everything around him and saying the words, "Well, Granger, the Devil himself is dead. This is proof - you only live once. What do you say we go and shag on Flitwick's desk, yeah?"

She would have laughed and said something witty about him having to "charm" her first and George would have been finishing his sentences and then they would be smacked by Molly and everything would have been well. But Fred was dead and George was broken and Hermione wanted to rip her heart from her chest to replace George's crushed one.

Lying not too far away was a sight equally as horrible. Tonks and Remus Lupin, looking as serene as they would sleeping in their bed at home, their son in the next room, held one another's limp hands in an eternal rest. The Weasleys were all circled around the twins and Harry was holding Ginny close, stroking her trembling head, and Remus and Tonks had only one another to comfort. Hermione found herself dropping to her knees beside her former professor and his wife, taking their loosely intertwined hands to hold tight betwen her own. The tears started falling as she squeezed her eyes shut to bring their cold, folded knuckled to her lips and pressing a kiss there for both of them.

She remembered how lively and clumsy and smiley Tonks was in her life, welcoming Hermione with open arms and changing hair when she became part of the Order. She remembered how determined the former Hufflepuff was in her work as an Auror and in capturing Remus's heart. Hermione choked at the thought of Teddy and how he'd never know his mother and that just killed Hermione. As the sobs came harder and louder, she bent down and curled herself around Tonks. Though young and wild, Tonks had possessed that maternal quality that came with being in the House of the Badger and more than anything, Hermione needed that right then. A warmth and steadiness that a Gryffindor could never have, a motherly caress that no one in the Great Hall could give her.

"Hermione..." a watery voice said tentatively from behind her, but she wasn't going to let go of Tonks until she woke the hell up and told her what a fool Hermione had been for believing even a second that Tonks would let any bloody Death Eater take her life.

Hermione wasn't going to let go until Tonks woke up and looked at her with a bewildered why-are-you-hugging-me-like-that stare and ask, "Wotcher, 'Mione?" Until those things happened, Hermione was staying right where she was.

The voice persisted, though. "Hermione... Ron needs you...I need you."

Finally, she tore her face away from Tonks's shoulder and looked up at the thoroughly exhausted Harry Potter. His hair was normally messy, but now it looked like he'd been struck by lightning. His glasses were cracked and his clothes were torn and not really even recognizable as clothes anymore - he kind of looked like a house-elf, actually.

"I'm not letting them go." Hermione teached out and brushed a lock of sandy, grey-streaked hair from Remus's closed eyes. "I can't, Harry...please, don't ask me to," she begged hoarsely, barely above a whisper. "I'd do anything for you...Actually, I have. I've been tortured for you, been blacklisted for you." Her voice was gaining strength with each quaking word. "I sacrificed my family for you, wiping myself from their minds! I've killed for you, and would have died for you too, dammit! I'd do anything you bloody ask me, but please, for the love of God, Harry, don't ask me to do this!" The sobs wracked her body and she was finding it harder and harder to breathe.

There was a long pause and she saw out of the corner of her eye, Harry crouching down beside her to be as close to Remus and Tonks and she was. He whispered, "I'm sorry, Hermione...I'm sorry. But you'll have to let go of them, eventually," he added gently. "Why don't you...try saying goodbye? That way they'll understand why you have to leave them for a little bit."

Hermione wanted to scoff, but couldn't. It'd been what she told Harry when he wouldn't let go of a picture of Sirius for days after his falling through the Veil. Harry had told her that he wasn't a child, but did it anyway. So Hermione figured she should follow her own advice.

"Tonks...Wotcher, I guess." Hermione chuckled a little to herself. "Cheers, and all that. You always did know how to turn a phrase. I'll take good care of Teddy for you, yeah? Harry and I both. I'll make sure he gets all the love that you would have given him and tell him stories about how you'd fall over your own feet or scream at Remus until he admitted he loved you." Then she turned to her former teacher. "Professor Lupin...You did always hate it when I called you that after you stopped teaching. You were so much more than a professor, though. You were a friend and a father figure. You defeated demons within and outside of yourself. You were an inspiration and I'm glad you finally stopped letting your lycanthropy define yourself and give into Tonks. I'll make sure to let Teddy know that his father was a Marauder and a hero." She graced each their cheeks with a soft kiss and forced herself to pull away to stand.

And when she stood, she did not follow Harry to the Weasley clan. She ran like hell out of the Great Hall, through the hills of stone that used to be the entrance of Hogwarts, and blindly out into the night.

...~oOo~...

"Ron...we've got a problem," Harry said nervously.

"Bloody hell, Harry!" Ron said, exasperated. His eyes were puffy and wet and he looked like he wanted to strangle his best friend. "You just killed Voldemort, for Merlin's sake! Can you please not have a problem for ten bleeding minutes? If it's another fucking prophecy, I will kill -"

"It's Hermione," Harry sliced into his distraught friend's rant. He knew it wasn't fair to him - God, how he knew - but he knew Ron would be more angry if he didn't inform him that the love of his life just booked it out of the castle as if she was being chased by something.

That sobered Ron up faster than a pail of water. "What's happened? She's alive, ain't she?" The panicked was evident as his words came faster and eyes got bigger. "Jesus Christ, I saw her walking only seconds ago, I swear, where is she, what happened -"

"She's alive Ron, but she just…" Harry motioned uselessly with his hands and shrugged. "Left."

"Left?"

"Yeah. Ran like a bat out of hell."

"Left…to where?"

"Dunno. Out of the Great Hall…maybe out of the castle."

Then Ron looked angry as he started marching past the Chosen One, growling over his shoulder, "Blymey, Harry, there's still Death Eaters out there, why the hell didn't you go after her?" He gesticulated urgently for Harry to come along as they both sprinted out the same way Hermione had.

They ran side-by-side through the rubble of their school, out the front, and when they hit cold night air, they started calling out her name.

"'Mione!" Ron was shouting, his voice rough from crying. "Bloody hell, Hermione, where'd ya go?"

"Hermione!" Harry echoed his friend's calls. "Hermione! Where've you…"

Ron heard his friend's voice trail off and his halted, having a sinking feeling in his gut. "Harry?"

"Ron…c'mere…" Harry's voice was devoid of all emotion and Ron hesitated only a moment before approaching his friend's back and following Harry's gaze, which seemed to be fixed on his shoes.

When Ron got to his side, he saw that Harry wasn't staring at his shoelaces at all. No. He was staring down at a long, thin elegant piece of wood they were both all too familiar with, lying lonely in the grass.

It was Hermione's wand.

A/N. PLEASE RATE AND REVIEW!

*sniffle* every time I think of Lupin & Tonks and Fred, I cry, is that pathetic or what?A