Confined

I

The wizarding World was at an abrupt halt after the war unfolded at Hogwarts, mourning, shock, sadness, terror, and anger sweeping over all those who were affected. 6 Beloved people perished in the battle, Colin Creevey, Lavender Brown, Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape, and Fred Weasley.

People were grieving in their own ways, Harry blamed himself for the losses even though they had agreed to fight alongside him. He moved in with the Weasley's, getting away from the Dursley's. It was a hard transition, the Burrow was overwhelmingly filled with grief. Each family member deeply mourning the loss of Fred, the Burrow was in a rare state of disarray and unkept, Molly was unable to bring herself to do any sort of housekeeping or even cooking for that matter.

Ron was on a rage rampage, he spent most of his days in the woods near the Burrow blasting hex's at nearby trees and rocks watching them shatter and splinter. It was the only thing that was bringing him at least a bit of comfort allowing himself to get rid of some of the anger he was holding towards the entire situation.

Hermione went home and brought back her parents' memories. She spent the first two days basically curled into her Mothers side telling her parents of the details of the past several months they had missed. Her Father was angry at first but when he saw the state that Hermione was in he gave in and they spoke for hours. As mad as he wanted to be that she wiped their memories of her he was glad that she was home safely and pretty much physically unscathed, mentally she was struggling a bit.

After the 3rd day of doing nothing but crying mere weeks after the battle, Hermione filled out an application to be accepted into the Magical Law Enforcement down at the Ministry of Magic. She wanted to do something meaningful with her life after the battle and she thought this would be the perfect opportunity.

She spent several hours compiling her cover letter and getting together her highest marks from Hogwarts to add to her application and looked over the entire thing several times to make sure it was her best work before neatly putting it in an envelope and sending it off with an Owl. It was up to the Ministry now.

After sending the Owl off she paced back and forth in her small room picking at the loose skin around the bed of her nails. "How barbarically stupid of me, they aren't going to accept me! I just fought in the battle, they aren't going to want someone like me!" she mumbled to herself. She picked at her nail again and peeled back a bit of skin making herself bleed, "Ouch, bloody hell" she said, sticking her finger in her mouth and groaning.

"Hermione? Harry is here to see you!" her mothers voice called from downstairs. "Coming Mum!" she yelled back. What on earth could Harry be doing here in Hampstead, London? She grabbed her old brown cardigan off the back of her desk chair and threw it over her jumper before walking down the stairs. Harry was standing in the front room talking with her Father and she smiled slightly at him.

"Harry!" she said running over to her best friend and hugging him. "Moine' I haven't heard from you in days, I've written to you several times. I had to come to make sure you were alright." Harry said, hugging her. She sighed, "I know, I just... I just don't have anything to say right now, I am still processing everything. We've barely had time to breathe in these last couple of months. It's a lot to take in" she muttered into his neck.

Harry sighed releasing his friend and looking at her, "I know, it's hard to believe it is over. I had to get out of the Burrow for a bit...things there are heavy, it's hard hearing them constantly cry over Fred. Is it bad that I don't think I can cry anymore over any of this? It's almost like I've become numb to it all." he said slowly. Hermione shook her head motioning for him to follow her to the parlor to sit on the couch so they could talk, "No honestly I am not surprised, we have been through so much these past few years and suddenly just like that it's over. It is almost as if none of it happened but in fact it has. A total shitstorm of a nightmare." she said sitting down on the small couch.