Trigger warnings: Implied violence

"Hey, Hermione?"

God, she felt so tired. Her body had calcified, all of it, except into something far heavier than bone. Lead, maybe. Iron. Is iron heavier than lead? She couldn't move anything, even to breathe.

"Hermione, come on, wake up…"

I am awake. I just don't want to move.

"Madame Pomfrey said you were only hit with a stunner." Hands brushed over her hair, her shoulders. "Didn't even say you hit your head too hard. So you shouldn't be in any pain…"

No pain. Just tired. Thank you, though.

"Come on, don't leave me all alone here." He chuckled. "Well, actually, I think a lot of people are going to want to talk to me soon, so if you stay unconscious maybe I can say I'm too busy looking after you to give any interviews."

Mmm.

"Please, Hermione? I—I didn't actually think we would get here, y'know. I thought about it for so long, b-but… I dunno? It's overwhelming, I guess. I really don't want to be alone right now."

Hermione's brows scrunched, the first part of her body to melt back into movement.

"Wha'shappen?" Her tongue wouldn't listen to her brain. Everything was terribly hard to coordinate…

"Hermione, Voldemort's gone. All the Horcruxes, too."

Oh.

Harry was right. She'd never thought they would get here, either. And though she had fantasised about this moment for years, all she felt now was a curious… blankness.

She opened her eyes. Harry looked down at her, dirty and bruised, with watery eyes. His scar looked inflamed and painful.

Something inside gave way and sensation trickled into her extremities; she felt her diaphragm catch and then release in the first deep breath she'd taken in a long time.

Harry watched and then, faster than she could feel, gathered her to his chest and gasped sobs into her hair.

Hermione sat propped against the back wall of the hall, watching the clean-up. The goblet of water in her hands had been refilled twice now by gleeful house elves. Everyone seemed to think she was more fragile than she felt. The fog had faded nearly an hour ago and the last of the numbness tingled away sometime within the last fifteen minutes. Apparently, she'd been accidentally hit by a Stupefy cast by Kingsley. Merlin, that wizard was strong.

She wondered if that would hurt in a few months' or years' time. That she had been unconscious for the final defeat of Voldemort, and not even because she valiantly fought against the Death Eaters. But because she was so lost in the fray that she got taken out by one of her own.

I'm so lucky Kingsley was feeling charitable, she kept thinking. If that's what his stun did, anything more aggressive probably would've killed me.

Oh well.

She still wasn't totally clear what had happened while she'd been out. Harry had tried to explain, but the poor boy had been such an inconsolable, blubbering mess she could hardly understand every second word he said.

Oh well.

There was time for all that later.

For now, people were trying to sort the bodies and heal the wounded and round up the remaining Death Eaters who, for the most part, seemed utterly stupefied by what had transpired. As she'd sat, recovering, Hermione had seen some of the most pitiful displays she'd ever imagined. The people who imprisoned her, begging for mercy. Sobbing at the feet of the Order in fear. Cowards.

She didn't think she'd ever done that while in their capture. She'd endured it terribly and begged for it to stop when she had been delirious enough to think it might work. And she had given information under duress, yes… But she'd never willingly offered to change allegiances like these wizards were doing, frantically offering up promises of testimony, desperate to betray their comrades in the hopes that they wouldn't be condemned to Azkaban.

The rest had tried to fight their way out. Only a handful had succeeded.

She didn't want to watch this. Or listen to the pain of people discovering dead loved ones. The juxtaposition made her ill.

Her legs wobbled a little stiffly as she stood, but no-one paid her any mind as she set her goblet on the ground and made her way outside.

She wasn't sure when the fighting in the courtyard had happened, but whatever had occurred had left a monstrous path of destruction in its wake. Pillars and benches and trees were all shattered or mangled beyond recognition. Something had produced a sizeable crater in the ground. The outside of the castle appeared to have been shredded.

She saw Harry near the perimeter talking to Hagrid. Of course that's where he'd run off to. She had no idea what they were talking about, but seeing them together brought on an unexpected swell of emotion and she had to swallow back shaky tears. She'd done a fairly good job of keeping herself together, but she knew that at the end of the shock awaited an emotion unlike any she'd ever experienced. And she told herself she was okay with that.

The air stunk of Dark magic, but it didn't carry the blood and death and grief currently suffocating the Great Hall, so Hermione stood amongst the rubble and found a peace in the fresh summer air.

When her eyes opened again, Hagrid had gone, and Harry was waving her over. His face looked terribly blotchy and his eyes still seemed like they may overflow at any moment, but there was a tragic sort of lightness to him that she had never seen before.

His shiny eyes kept bouncing between her and the golden snitch in his hand until she stood directly before him and he gave her a smile. Hermione waited for him to say something, but instead felt his free hand come to her shoulder and gently turn her to face down the hill to where the grounds stretched on for ages. Patches of grass looked burnt or like a mountain had trodden on them. And there, just where the bottom of the hill turned flat, stood two people, embracing.

They were too far away to be anything more than vaguely human shapes, but their fair hair shone dully in the morning sunlight and something anxious residing in the crevices of Hermione's brain finally faded away.

She watched them for a moment, the way they held each other. Crying, probably.

"At least Draco's all right," she said finally.

Harry snorted. "Snape stunned him and shoved him in a broom cupboard."

"Well, that's one way to do it, I suppose."

"Mm. Kept him safe and stopped him from having to hurt anybody. Brilliant, really."

Hermione wondered if Draco had woken up like she had: disoriented and guilty to have missed the crucial moment. Or maybe he didn't give a damn, now that he knew his family had survived.

Harry cleared his throat, as though politely interrupting her thoughts. "Lucius is dead, though."

Oh. Hermione didn't know what to say. Or to think.

"Dunno what got him, exactly, but he's currently under a big pile of rubble. Bit gruesome, actually. I wouldn't look."

Hermione had no intention to.

They watched the last living Malfoys in silence, just far away to not feel like voyeurs to a pain they didn't share. Or perhaps they did; Hermione's family had always been small, and Harry's non-existent. Though, strictly speaking, Hermione's had gone the same way since war broke out. Maybe they could take a parcel of this intimacy for themselves. Just enough to feel like their blood wasn't entirely alone on the dormant battlefield.

A warm breeze passed by and Harry shivered; the snitch glinted in the sunlight. Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"'I open at the close,'" he told her with a shrug. "Figured this is as closed as closure gets."

"Did it open?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

Harry's eyes rushed with unshed tears and his Adam's apple wobbled precariously. As his eyes scanned the landscape furiously, trying to focus to stop the grief, he suddenly squinted.

"They're coming up," he gestured, and Hermione turned to see the two figures striding up the hill. Draco offered a small wave. "I'll leave you to talk to them, um…" Harry breathed shakily and wiped his palms on his trouser leg. "Have you seen the Weasleys? I have—I have a message to deliver to them."

She'd seen flashes of red hair in the Great Hall, though she had avoided talking to any of them. She was ashamed of it, but a family that size scared her—so much potential for loss. She didn't want to step in until they were ready for her, whenever that may be.

Harry thanked her and trotted off to the castle with a solemn furrow between his brows.

"Hey, Granger."

"Hi, Draco."

Draco gave her a nod as his mother caught him up at the crest of the hill. "Potter going back to the Great Hall?"

Hermione nodded.

"Is Severus in there?"

"Uh…" Hermione looked at the castle. People had already begun to spill out onto the grounds, surveying the damage and planning repairs. "I'm not sure. Probably?"

Draco nodded his thanks and jogged off to the castle. The two witches watched him go, both wondering, to some extent, how on Earth he could have the energy or will to do much of anything at the moment.

Eventually, he disappeared from sight and they just breathed together. The air had grown heavier, promising rain soon. Hermione couldn't decide whether she liked that, the prospect of washing all this away.

"Hello." Narcissa said softly. Her voice sounded a little frayed around the edges.

"Hi."

"You all right? I heard something about you being unconscious…"

Hermione shrugged. "Just got caught in the crossfire. It was only a stun. I'm fine now."

Narcissa hummed thoughtfully. "More noble than I, I suppose. I ended up hiding in the Forbidden Forest," and she chuckled at herself, a tired, self-deprecating little sound.

Hermione would have pitied them both, but as it was, she couldn't find it in herself to be anything less than satisfied that they were both alive.

She took Narcissa's hand.

It was dry and dirty; bits of skin blistered from the sword scraped at Hermione's palms. But so warm, too.

Narcissa shifted closer and sighed.

Hogwarts looked a right mess. Hermione had never seen anything like it. Sounds of weeping pierced at her soul in sharp pinpricks; some people had tried to start music and dancing, too, ready to celebrate Voldemort's sudden end, but the rest merely seemed confused. Young students who had crept out of their dorms screamed at the sights they found, some inconsolable with relief that it was all over now.

A mess. And as Hermione took stock of the world (or what was left of it), she found very little that promised a good, easy life any time soon. She wondered if anyone in her generation would live normally after this, and all the rebuilding and reform that would have to happen now. It would take years to fix the Ministry alone.

The sun went behind a cloud, then came out a second later, more blinding than before, and Hermione squinted in its glare.

The rain would start soon and then all this would become muddy and impossible to traverse. They had best move inside.

But for now, it was all right. She could breathe. And even if their civilisation was on its knees (or perhaps its back), beaten and broken by civil war, Hermione could stand comfortably on her feet with Narcissa's hand in hers.

And for now, that was plenty.

A/N: I want to profusely thank all of you who have read this story, whether you've been here from the start, binged it all last night, or somewhere in between. This story has been in my head for nearly 5 years now and though I'm glad it's finally done, letting it go is a little... weird.

There is a pseudo-epilogue in the works (I'm calling it a maybelogue because I'm not super attached to any particular idea of what happens after all this) and it will be posted soon as a separate story. That being said, if you have your own ideas about what should happen with these two, I give my heartfelt blessing to write your own post-BL stuff and/or come nerd out with me on my tumblr!

There's a post on my tumblr, too, briefly explaining what drove me to write this story in the first place and what it became to me over the course of writing it. I also talk about why it ended up being less romantic than intended. Check it out, if you like.

Stay healthy and happy and, if you want some companionship, I'm lonely with an open inbox!
Lots of love,
16pennies