Chapter Title: 10 - The End

Characters: Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Harry Potter

Description: Set during DH during the Final Battle. You know what happens, don't look at me like that

Word Count: 2,072

Date Published: 9/14/2016

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

RECAP, because it's been almost two years... and I'm an asshole. Sorry.

Chapter 1: Fred finds Hermione at the top of the Astronomy Tower depressed because non of her friends are speaking to her and she feels terribly alone and vulnerable. Fred talks her off the ledge, cheers her up, and offers her friendship. She agrees but on the condition they not tell anyone because she's embarrassed how he found her.

Chapter 2: Yule Ball! Ron is an arse! Fred cheers Hermione up. Again. He them proceeds to encourage her to live a little. So she kisses cookie-Krum-cake.

Chapter 3: Hermione is hexed through owl post after the article in the Daily Prophet about her stringing along Krum and Harry. Fred waits up to check on her. Delightful awkwardness ensues.

Chapter 4: The fight! George confronts Fred about keeping something from him. Fred then yells at Hermione and might have, unintentionally, implied that he's only friends with her out of obligation. Hermione does not handle it well. Sirius then mocks Fred.

Chapter 5: Fred spends the next few weeks winning Hermione back. Because she nothing if not stubborn and because Dixie Chic requested it to be so. Sirius mocks Fred some more. A few minor hexes are thrown. Hermione does eventually forgive Fred.

Chapter 6: No longer at odds after their Christmas row, Hermione and Fred attempt to fall back into the easy friendship they had before until guilt and anxiety press their hand. They eventually kiss but Fred refuses to define their relationship until Hermione agrees to tell everyone.

Chapter 7: Fred sneaks back into Hogwarts to visit Hermione in the Hospital Wing after the Battle at the Department of Mysteries. Some berating. Very mildly fluffy.

Chapter 8: Back at odds. Fred's notebook has stopped working because I needed it to be so as a plot point and neither realize why the other has stopped writing. Ron comes on to Hermione. Fred steps in to thwart his brother.

Chapter 9: Immediately following the Battle of Seven Potters. Hermione can't sleep and goes to the kitchen for some tea where she runs into Fred. They argue and realize they both very much care. Then smut happens. Because I wanted it to, damnit.

The silence rang ominous after the fighting gave way to temporary reprieve. Dirty, bloody faces blurred to her exhausted gaze, each bearing a similar look of shock and horror. Everyone looked the same, and panic and frustration curdled in Hermione's stomach as none of the faces dissolved into the one she sought the most.

She had seen him, in the Room of Requirements before the fighting had commenced. Before Harry had run off with Luna, and Ron had convinced her to take a trip to Moaning Myrtle's bath and down through the pipes she'd blessedly missed the first time round.

Fred.

Had it truly been nearly a year since she'd last seen his face? At a wedding of all things, the thought of which now seemed preposterous. He'd made eyes at her from across the dance floor, and she'd blushed hotly, thrilling at the secret of their time together at the Burrow. She had even been making her way slowly, subtly she hoped, to his side when Viktor Krum had intercepted her and she'd been caught, unable to graciously bow away.

And then the Patronus arrived. The Ministry had fallen. There was no more time.

Their eyes had locked. Of course they had. After she'd gripped tightly to Harry and Ron, there was no where else she could look. He was clutching George and Ginny, pulling them both away from the chaos, just as she did with her charges. His lips seemed to be forming her name, eyes wide with panic that she had just enough time to watch change to a look she could only describe as betrayal as she Apparated them away.

The guilt had haunted her for months. Months and months of living in the woods, with harsh, angry words and hardly enough food and nothing to warm her bed except a ghost of an expression because he'd somehow cottoned on in that split second span that she was leaving him behind. Even after the night before, as they lay sweaty and sated in his bed for the third time in as many days and she'd lied through her perfect teeth that she wouldn't.

She had thought she'd never feel worse in her life, but that was before. Before they'd been half starved for the better part of a year. Before her neck had been rubbed raw and her mind trapsed through by a bloody Horcrux for months on end. Before Harry had spoken the taboo. Before they had been caught. Before… before Bellatrix. Before Hermione learned what real suffering was.

She scratched then at her bandage covered arm that bore the word that had set her apart from many of her peers for all her years at Hogwarts. Despite Fleur's best attempts, the wound still burned and itched and oozed, festering beneath the now filthy bandage. Her dirty, jagged fingernails pressed into the wound, and gasping shocks of pain radiated up her arm and into her chest, but the effect was immediate. Mind now momentarily cleared by the pain, she looked again through the faces, searching for the most loved face she could imagine in this nightmare.

Her eyes skittered past a crumpled heap of wall, flinching at the stain of blood she could still see through the dust. Hermione felt her stomach roll even as her breath hitched painfully in her chest, and she quickly looked away.

Where was he? Fred.

Heavy, leaden footsteps, hurried now by her heightening panic, brought her around the precariously hanging wooden door that was once the entrance to the Great Hall.

It was the hair that drew her first. The shockingly red hair of the Weasley clan seemed to cut obscenely through the somber mood. They huddled close at the other end of the hall, gripping one another in desperation. The air seemed to vibrate with a low keening that she couldn't quite bring herself to locate, but which caused her cramping guts to run with ice and Hermione could taste bile in the back of her throat.

A broken cry from her right startled her out of her fog as Ron lunged forward down the long row only to slam into the waiting arms of his father. She hadn't even realized he was beside her, so lost had she been in her search for his older brother. His older brother who she did not see in the group of gathered Weasleys who all stood in small clumps, clutching and crying onto each other's shoulders. Every Weasley save Fred, who she could not bloody find, and George. George, who she could only recognize now by his missing ear, whose broken and shaking form was huddled over something low to the ground, whose face was ashen and wrenched, whose curled lips, she realized with a jolt, emitted the wailing cry that seemed to seize her heart.

In that moment, Hermione's ever present curiosity failed her. Feet frozen to the floor, she did not want to see what, or whom, it was George crouched over. She did not wish to ever know what could cause anyone, especially one of the twins, to create that gods awful sound. So great was her desire to simply NOT know that she stumbled backwards, away from the clashing red hair, away from the sorrow and grief that felt like a heavy, oppressive wool blanket snugging ever tighter around her shoulders.

Sinewy arms caught around her waist before she could fall, and she flailed, twisting until she locked frenzied brown eyes with agonized green. Green eyes that she somehow managed to realize through her panic held not only grief, but understanding.

Harry knew. She wasn't sure what exactly he knew, but in that moment she hated him for it.

Chapped lips parted, rasping out her name, but she shook her head frantically.

"No." Her voice sounded foreign in her ears, nearly as hoarse as it had been after screaming for what felt like years as Bellatrix leveled Cruciatus after Cruciatus at her. Oh gods, her chest hurt just as badly, worse, and for a moment her panic was so absolute, her vision washed white as found herself back on that expensive, blood-stained rug.

Obscurely, she felt herself being half carried, half dragged from the room, her jaw working uselessly on remembered screams. The solid, scratching surface of rough stone jarred her back into herself as Harry shoved her against a wall, a wall that gave her a perfect view of the dust and debris covered pool of blood she'd noticed only moments ago. Her vision tunneled, black narrowing her focus until only dirty red remained and moan of grief welled from her mouth.

Her face wrenched to the side even as her cheek burned from the sharp sting. Shocked and furious, Hermione snapped back to stare at Harry, her mouth agape. His eyes were hard.

"You finally with me?" he spat and it was then she realized his hands were locked around her wrists, effectively pinning her arms to the unforgiving wall.

Hermione snarled, tugging uselessly at where he restrained her. "You hit me."

"I did," he agreed, searching her face and she willed herself to relax and search him back. It wasn't the first time this year Harry had used force to snap her out of her own mind. Hell, she'd hit him nearly as much.

Harry's face was coated in grime and sweat, his eyes devoid of emotion, and his glasses filmed over with so much filth an anxious giggle burst from her chest as she wondered how he could even see. He scowled.

"I need you with me," he said cautiously. "I need your help. Hermione?" His voice grew weary, and she sagged, tears burning the back of her eyes as her head became too heavy to support any longer.

"He… Fred…"

So fast she was dizzy, Harry shifted his grip to her shoulders and shook her, hard, her head thudding jarringly against the wall at her back. "No, Hermione."

She gaped at him, motioning as well she could toward the doors of the Great Hall. "But, Harry…"

"It will wait, Hermione. He will wait until later. Later," he enunciated forcefully, his hold bruising, tone laced with so much authority and conviction that Hermione couldn't seem to help but comply. Nodding, eyes closing, she exhaled shakily in concentration. They had found over the past six months of experimentation that Hermione had a bit more natural talent for Occlumency than Harry could claim. And while it made her stomach queasy and her head throb, she had proven able to suppress the baser emotions that sometimes threatened to leave her a worthless mess of emotions on the floor.

Now, however, Hermione barely managed to force the raw, brittle emotions that even now threatened to overwhelm her behind the same rudimentary Occlumency shields she used to block the lingering effects of her guilt over her parents, over lying to Fred and leaving him behind, of her anger and hurt over Ron's betrayal, of her torture. They certainly wouldn't hold against even the slightest mental probing, but they provided enough distraction she could avoid the more crippling symptoms of her stress. Hermione refused to admit they were the only thing keeping her functioning and even to her inexperienced mind her shields felt bruised and blurred and tattered.

Hermione feared "later" with more conviction that she feared Voldemort.

She was slow to open her eyes after repressing so much. Harry was watching her, guilt warring with determination in his steely gaze. Despite being pants at Occlumency in general, he compartmentalized far better than she did.

Shuddering, Hermione reached up to grasp the wrists that still held her shoulders and nodded to his questioning look.

"What do I need to do?" Her tone was even, flat, the trained soldier with a mission to complete.

Harry sagged in relief. "The diadem. The Grey Lady said he hid it in the Room of Requirements, where I hid Snape's old potions book."

At that, Hermione glared but nodded. "We need to go now."

Harry nodded, started to pull away. "I'll go get Ron."

Her eyes went wide, and her gut twisted. Panic flared hot in her belly and she grabbed at Harry's retreating form. "No, Harry…"

"I'm here," a gravelly voice cut off her protest and they both looked up to see Ron standing by the tettering door, eyes rimmed red and puffy, nose raw, wavering where he stood. Neither spoke a moment and Ron sneered, turning on the spot and striding heavily toward the stairs. "Haven't got much time," he called over his shoulder before powering his way up the stairs.

Obediently, Harry and Hermione followed.

The cheers were worse than the silence had been. They felt forced and false amidst all the death and sorrow and destruction, and Hermione felt her resolve wavering, felt the tiny pinpricks of overwhelming grief and fear and terrible rage whispering through her chest, tingling in her cheeks, along her scalp, in the palms of her hands.

They had won. But Hermione felt nothing so keenly as loss.

Fred.

She couldn't think any further than his name without her chest seizing up in panic, breath punched from her abused lungs, sobs she still repressed racking her shoulders. She had to get away.

So she climbed.

Step after step after step. And then another. She told herself the burning in her chest was because of the innumerable steps she climbed, out of practice as she was after a year on the run. And it almost worked. By the time she reached the bottom of the Astronomy Tower steps she felt numb.

Hermione stared at the archway to the door for long moments, remembering flashes of memory and muted sensations from third year when she had climbed up these steps at what she had so very mistakenly thought was her lowest. Snatches of Fred so unwittingly coming to her rescue, of all that had happened since.

She didn't cry. Hermione wasn't sure she would ever be able to cry despite the pervasive sadness that was now clouding the blessed numbness. An uncomfortable urgency settled in the pit that was her stomach. She was meant to be here. Unsure why, she felt with an absolute certainty that she hadn't felt in perhaps ever that Fred wanted her here, wanted her to go back to where it had all started for them more than four years previous.

So she climbed.

A/N: And that leads us to my very first fanfic, The Journey Back. Which you can find under My Stories and is complete so you won't be left hanging for several years as I try to convince myself to come back to this story and just finish it already. See?! I told you it wasn't abandoned! Questioning smiley face emoji? Reviews welcome!