In response to a prompt by Dramione FanFiction Forum, Sounds Like Dramione.

Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me, but are property of JKR and Warner Bros and no copyright infringement is intended.

Incredible love to my alpha, mcal, and my beta, Lunamionny, for all their help, encouragement, and love as I struggled through writing this fic. 3

Prompt:

"There's so much left to learn, and no one left to fight..."Broken - Seether (feat. Amy Lee)

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The first time she realized that the world hadn't changed with Voldemort's death, Hermione Granger was in The Ministry receiving her Order of Merlin, First Class. Her hands were laced together with Ron and Harry's and they smiled as Bozo flashed his camera at their faces. It felt special. She felt respected. And, most importantly of all, she felt vindicated. No one would ever question her place in the Wizarding World again.

Those feelings lasted only an hour.

As the trio made their way through the Ministry's corridors after their photo opportunity, Hermione came face to face with a sallow face, framed with black hair and inlaid with snarling lips. A Death Eater for sure, but not one that she'd ever met before. He glared at her as if she'd personally offended him, hatred clear in the dark glint of his eyes. His teeth snapped in her direction like a mad dog.

"Mudblood bitch," the man spat at her. "Filth!"

Though he was forced out of her path and dragged away through the Ministry halls, the damage was done. They may have defeated Voldemort, but they hadn't defeated the disease that spread his beliefs.

Hermione Granger knew that she'd only ever be one thing to the Wizarding World: a mudblood.

What was worse: the cursed scar on her arm confirmed as much.

Her friends rallied around her, but it only made her feel worse. When she received a sealed scroll from an official Hogwarts owl, Hermione jumped at the opportunity to return back to school as an eighth year. Harry and Ron thought she was mental for returning to school and rejecting the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's offer to fast-track their auror training. Instead of accepting the Ministry's offer like Harry and Ron, Hermione owled Headmistress McGonagall to confirm her acceptance to attend the special eighth year program for students affected by the war. She corresponded with the Headmistress for two weeks straight in order to confirm the details and to arrange to arrive earlier than her classmates.

The headmistress thought her eagerness to return to school was commendable. Hermione thought it was necessary to her survival.

After the fall of Voldemort, The Burrow had felt suffocating. Fred was dead, Bill and George's disfigurements were constant reminders of what they'd survived, and Ron had kissed her. She hated all the pressure that came with that kiss. Molly seemed to always appear whenever they were alone, whether it was the kitchen or the sitting room or even degnoming the garden. It was frustrating — as if Hermione was going to toss away her entire future by having children at seventeen. No way.

Worse than The Burrow was the home that her mum and dad returned to in Watford. Photographs on the walls without Hermione's face. An entire room dedicated to crafts instead of their daughter. It hurt more than she cared to admit; her mum and dad didn't trust her despite having their memories restored successfully. They promised that it would only take time, but weeks had passed since she'd heard from them.

She wanted to get back to studying at school. Back to the familiarity of the corridors of Hogwarts. The library in particular, her home away from home, called to her.

So, when it was time to floo into the headmistress's office, Hermione barely said goodbye to the Weasleys as she disappeared in a sooty mess, the destination "Hogwarts!" falling excitedly from her lips.

Hermione ate in the Great Hall, went to her lessons, and walked through the halls at a leisurely pace. The only time she hastened her steps was when she recognized a place where someone was killed. Where Fred took his final breath, where Tonks and Lupin fell. So many of the people she loved had been killed in battle. Her brain tried to compartmentalize, but sometimes the memories were so strong that she could smell the burnt fabric or hear a vicious cry of the KIlling Curse cut through the air. So, she spent an embarrassing amount of time in the library. She didn't need a social life to be happy, and the extra time to study was a luxury that she hadn't been afforded enough during her first six years. Things were quiet now.

Sometimes, things were too quiet.

When the shared eighth year common room and dorms were filled with students, the stillness of the library was a comfort to her. Whatever McGonagall's intentions, her poor judgement about the maturity of the older students made Hermione's days longer and harder. All of the eighth year students that came back to Hogwarts had a shared common room. All houses accounted for in the decor that seemed haphazardly strewn about the room. The comforts of Gryffindor Tower with the oversized arm chairs, Hufflepuff yellow bean bag seats, Slytherin hearths in cool silver etchings, and a replica of The Stacks in Ravenclaw Tower, all had a place in the large common area.

But, Hermione didn't want to sit in a room and pretend that everything was fine, drink firewhiskey like an alcoholic, and then stumble into a bed with some sex-crazed Slytherin. So, she lived out of the library and revelled in the desperate beauty of the written word.

She was hours-deep into a fascinating dissertation on the rune Eihwaz, and its properties when used in wandlore, when her post-war life changed in the most peculiar way.

She looked up to see Draco Malfoy, with hair cropped shorter than she'd ever seen and crisp robes of black with emerald trim, standing over her table. He was so quiet, Hermione wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there. Her eyes met his, steel on coffee, and she pursed her lips before silently returning her attention back to the tome clutched in her hands.

Draco cleared his throat. It was a respectful and unobtrusive sound but Hermione just shifted in her seat and pretended not to hear him. However, with every scratch of moving robes, it was harder to ignore his persistent hovering. She sighed, placed a marker in the book, and laid her hands palm down on the table. Her spine twisted to the side and she let her gaze meander from his hips to his eyes.

Served him right, waiting for her to acknowledge him.

It was the least he could do.

They stared at one another for a long moment. When it was apparent that neither were going to break the silence, Hermione lifted a brow, gesturing for him to get on with it. It was the only nicety that she wanted to provide and even then, it was forced.

He stepped forward, closing in on her space, and she flinched. Draco stopped, took a deep breath, and rounded the table to sit across from her instead. As he tucked himself into the table, Hermione took a second to really look at him in detail. Taut lips, reserved gaze, hair just a touch darker than it had been all through their school years, as if he hadn't seen sunlight in years.

When he opened his mouth to speak, she snapped her gaze back to his eyes and watched him carefully. If he spoke one word against her blood, she'd hex him.

"I apologize." His tone was low, masked in a husky whisper, and nearly disappeared in the space between them.

Hermione leaned forward with her hands on the table and strained to hear him. Her tone, in contrast to his, was unafraid and blunt. "You're going to have to be more specific, I'm afraid."

She watched him struggle. Watched his nostrils flare and his lips twitch into a tight pucker before relaxing back into a straight line. He raised his hand to his hair, jostled it, and then picked at a spot on his robes. He breathed purposefully and she recognized the rhythm — in for four through the nose, out for six through the mouth. He was practicing deep breathing as a form of emotional management.

It surprised her.

"And I'm afraid that there's not enough time in the day to be as specific as one needs," Draco responded monotonously. "You see, my apology is meant as all encompassing. From the shite things I called you in first year up through the — what my aunt did to you at the manor. I am deeply sorry for all of it, genuinely."

She was struck. Lungs seized. Shoulders tense. Hermione waited for the punchline, for someone to jump out of the stacks and call her a fool. But nothing happened. For minutes, the silence stretched between them while she tried to process every word he said. Did he mean them? Why did he care? There didn't appear to be an ulterior motive, but then she wasn't a naive school child any longer.

There was always a motive. Always.

"Stop looking at me like I'm going to attack you," he hissed and then sucked in a breath so deep his shoulders rose. "I'm sorry. Again. For what it's worth, Granger, I would really appreciate a fresh slate. A chance to make amends."

"Why?" Her hands balled into fists and she crossed her arms.

He leaned forward, chest level with the solid oak table between them and flashed her a smile. She'd never seen him smile before, not without menace. It looked displaced. Like he hadn't ever smiled much at all and was practicing how to do it.

"Because I've realized that a lot of the choices I've made have been detrimental to both myself and other people." Draco reached a hand across the table for her to shake. It hung there between them while she eyed it skeptically without moving a muscle to grasp it. "I'm not asking to be friends. I am asking for you to allow me to change."

"You don't need my permission," she informed him, still watching the way his hand lingered over the table. It twitched imperceptibly. She wondered if it was a sign of dishonesty. "If you want to change, that's on you. Not me."

"Right." He withdrew his hand and slid it against his robes under the table. She'd gone through the motion enough herself to recognize when someone was hiding slick palms. "Sometimes forgiveness is a two person job. I should have known that you wouldn't be ready so soon."

The chair scuffed against the ground as he pushed himself away. Hermione watched him rise and brought her lip between her teeth. He'd extended an olive branch, but now he was closing down; the sincerity was fading from his face. She was aware that she was directly responsible for this moment, for the sheer loss he felt at having his effort to make amends be so resolutely rejected s. Not unlike how she'd felt when her parents' memories were restored and they'd asked her for time to digest her actions.

"Wait." Hermione unfurled her hands and held them out to stop him from leaving. He stood as still as a thick tree in the wind. Only his eyes moved to meet hers. She tried to lift her lips in a kind smile, but even she could tell that it fell short. Baby steps. "Would you, er, like to study with me?"

His shoulders loosened visibly and he responded to her offer with a curl of his lips. Not unpleasant, maybe thankful even. Draco sat back in the chair opposite her and grimaced. He patted down his robes and withdrew a shorter wand than she'd seen him use in the past.

Of course, Harry had wrested his old wand from him in a scuffle at the manor. Hermione breathed sharply through her nose, forcing the memory away and squeezing her eyes shut until it disappeared from her thoughts.

"Accio rucksack," Draco whispered, jabbing his wand out to the side. It took a full minute, but his bag zipped into the library and crashed into his outstretched hand. "Runes? I've decided to write my paper on Mannaz."

"When I study, I do so silently," she advised him as she cracked open the dissertation she'd started earlier. Her finger traced down the page as his replying snort filled the space between them.

She was relieved when he didn't attempt to rope her into any conversation about their homework. When she took out her scroll and began scribbling, she could feel his eyes on her but refused to engage with him. As a quiet man, Draco was tolerable. Hermione didn't want to ruin her entire evening by tempting the beast.

So, when she finished her schoolwork, Hermione silently packed up her bag and left the library. Not a word to Draco, nor a spare glance in his direction.

The castle was so familiar to her after all these years, that she wandered through the corridor without having to consider the turns she was making. Hermione knew precisely how many steps there were between the library and the first staircase, how many stairs she had to climb, when the staircase would swing to allow her to skip an additional two minute walk on the fifth floor. The swamp laid by Fred and George during her fifth year still blocked off part of the corridor; McGonagall had declared that it was 'a reminder of what it means to be Gryffindor in the face of tyranny'.

At the thought of Fred, she came to an abrupt halt. Her feet toed the mossy, wet edge of the sectioned-off swamp.

His face flashed through her mind; his beaming smile, that playful wink, the way he'd search a room for her when she entered it. She remembered once, when she'd been so upset over Ron, Fred had charmed his ginger hair to mimic the texture of hers. She'd never laughed so hard in her life.

And he was gone. All that was left were memories. This swamp. This moment.

The walls began to close in on her. The light from the torches flickered and her vision swam with their movement. Her hand clutched at her tie and she yanked at the knot until it finally loosened under her panicked movements. But it wasn't enough. She needed to breathe and she needed to sit before her legs collapsed from beneath her.

She unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt and used both her hands to yank her collar away from the base of her throat. No matter how much she moved it away from her neck, it still felt as if something was clawing at her throat and trying to suffocate her from the inside.

Hermione's shaking hands flew to her hair as she backed into the stone wall behind her. Her fingers curled at the roots as if the desperate movement would help her remember how to breathe.

"Not here," she whispered as she squeezed her eyes shut. "Not here. Not here. Not here."

With her heart raging against her sternum, Hermione tried to take a step forward. To push herself away from the wall and force her feet toward the shared eighth year common room. A sharp pain shot from her navel to her shoulder and she buckled to the ground. Hands and knees scuffed against the unforgiving flagstones, she cried out; from the pain and from her devastation.

Fred's name fell from her lips just as she heard a set of footsteps approaching her from behind. Her mouth trembled as she forced herself up and swiped at the tears in her eyes.

The person who approached her was not Draco, as she suspected he might follow her from the library to harass her further, but a younger boy with longer brown hair that curled around his ears and wide-set eyes. He donned Slytherin robes, less pristine than Draco's but still crisp as if freshly laundered.

"What's wrong with you?" The sneer on his face was classic 'upper-class, privileged Slytherin'. Hermione's shoulders tightened further and she crushed her robes into her balled up fists. "Has the Mudblood been crying?"

Her bottom lip dropped. Her mouth was parched. Her first Instinct was to grab her wand and hex the git. But that instinct was thrust aside because her ears still felt as if they were filled with cotton and the hallway was continuing to sway.

"No quick retort from the brightest witch of the age?" He laughed cruelly and stepped forward. She paced back. "Finally going mental, Mudblood?"

He stepped again and so did she, the back of her heel coming up against the edge of the swamp. Trapped. Her chest heaved under a strained breath. She tried to tell him to leave, that his words couldn't hurt her. But nothing left her mouth except another panting breath.

It felt like impending doom, like the world was closing in around her and all she could hear was thundering thoughts circuiting her mind.

The Slytherin boy snorted. His hands rested on the lapels of his robes and his lips curled up into a malicious smile. "You're so weak, aren't you? No Potter here to save you. Weak, nasty mugglespawn."

"Stop." Hermione wasn't sure if the word actually left her, or if it only resounded in her own head. Her hands quaked as she tried to find her wand. She couldn't remember which pocket, which side. Every thought she had fizzled out before it made sense.

The Slytherin laughed at her again and mimicked her shaking hands. "You're pathetic — nothing special after all, are you, Mudblood?"

Her fingers wrapped around the porous wood of her wand and she brandished it directly at the boy's chest. The tip of the wand shook despite every effort she made to keep it steady.

The boy immediately aimed his wand at her in response, level and threatening. "No one's afraid of you. While you were camping with Saint Potter, the rest of us were here, training with the Carrows, you know."

Hermione wasn't sure how it happened, but one moment, the sixth year was in front of her, and the next he was sprawled on the floor. Malfoy pinned the boy to the hard stone with his knees and struck the younger boy with flailing fists.

"Think you're a badass, do you, Baddock?" Wham, knuckles straight into his jaw. Malfoy growled and held him up by the collar of his shirt. His teeth bared. "Not so tough now, mate."

She watched, transfixed, aching , and mute. Draco continued his assault mercilessly until his body went suddenly, inexplicably rigid and he collapsed to Baddock's side.

Hermione looked up and saw a figure in Ravenclaw robes approaching the scene, his wand aimed at the two Slytherins. She quickly realized the two boys had been stunned. Her breath whooshed out of her and her knees wobbled. Her entire body felt faint.

Michael Corner leaned over the heap of bodies on the ground and flicked his gaze to a stricken Hermione. "What happened, Hermione?"

She flinched, expecting a slur from him, too. Hermione swallowed around a knot in her throat that felt like it was made of glass and closed her eyes as she drew a deep breath in through her nose, and then exhaled it steadily through pursed lips.

"Well?" Michael demanded, swishing his wand and arranging Malfoy and Baddock against the corridor wall. "Why did Malfoy attack a housemate?"

Her eyes fell to Malfoy's face, still tense despite being unconscious. "I think Draco Malfoy just defended my honor."

Michael raised a curious brow in her direction and then dropped his gaze down again. Hermione chewed her lip and swiped her clammy hands against her robes. She couldn't stay there. Didn't want to be around when they were rennervated. Avoiding Micheal's gaze, she spun on her heel, just shy of splashing into the swamp, and swept through the corridor towards the common rooms.

When she got to the portrait of the knight who guarded their common room, she whispered the password with a hoarse voice and ignored the call of her friends as she rushed through the common room to her dorm. She closed the curtains around her bed and placed a spell on them for privacy.

She cried into her pillow until she fell asleep.