Breath Mints / Battle Scars

Chapter 49: XLIX

February 26th, 1999

Dappled light across her eyelids - hazy and gray. It's the first thing she's aware of, and the rest comes slowly.

There's pain. An old sort of pain, though. Lingering aches and throbs, some possibly already half-healed. It's forgettable and easy to push aside. The exhaustion is much more pressing. It feels like it takes ages just to muster the strength to lift her lids.

She knows a hospital ceiling when she sees one.

Not Hogwarts. She'd recognize that weathered flagstone immediately. No, this is much more clinical. White and sterile.

St. Mungo's.

Swallowing around a dry throat, she shifts as much as her lead-like limbs can manage, frantically trying to chase memories - even fragments of memories of how she got here. But there's nothing after-

"Hermione?"

A warm, callused hand clasps around hers, and color spreads out over the whiteness as a figure leans over her. She blinks slowly up at him, forcing him to come into focus.

"...Ron?"

The creases all over his face flatten out at the ragged tone of her voice, and he speaks with a winded smile and a gasp. "Bloody hell, we've been so worried!" The hand not holding hers starts to stroke the hair away from her face. "How are you? How are you feeling? Is there pain? I can get the-"

"Ron." It's less of a croak now. More substance to it. She blinks again to fully clear the fog from the borders of her vision. "Please. What happened?"

"Erm - yeah, uh - one thing at a time, Hermione - okay? I think you should talk to a Healer first. Get some food in you, or-"

She grips his hand tight and speaks over him. "Ron, how did I get here?"

The way the smile falls from his face makes her stomach ache. She swallows again, gathering a steady breath.

"What do you remember?" he asks. Even at the best of times, Ron isn't usually so gentle. It's almost terrifying in a way.

She tries to keep the fear out of her voice. "Pansy..." she murmurs.

Ron's brows meet in the middle, and Hermione watches him search for the right words. A good moment or so.

"I'm...so sorry. I know she was - well, sort of your friend."

Hermione's chest throbs, and her gaze drops away from his as it floods back to her; Pansy and her bloody lips, her pale face and searching eyes.

"She was my friend," she echoes quietly, both a correction and a confirmation.

Ron is right to move off of the subject as quickly as he does. "That's the last thing? Nothing after that?"

She shakes her head, working to keep the fear out of her eyes too. "What day is it?"

The oddest memory surfaces at the question. Of Theo, so many months ago - mocking her for asking something similar. Calling her dramatic.

Christ, Theo...

Ron takes a deep breath. "It's the 26th. You've been out for three days."

She sucks back a gasp. "Three...three days?"

He nods gravely and clears his throat. "Harry - he got your Patronus," he says, shifting in his chair at the bedside. "It sort of exploded in front of all of us at breakfast. Gave him a right scare. Me, as well." His fingers flex and then scramble to squeeze her hand again, a movement sort of desperate and unexpected. "Hermione, you have to believe me. Harry - he's going to beat himself up about it for ages if you don't, and I swear to you - I swear it, he didn't waste any time."