INVISIBLE STRING

1.THE RETURN

The Professor was handing out homework essays she had corrected and as Hermione got hers, she couldn't help but feel some sort of pride at her mark.

O- incredibly good - as always, Miss Granger

But it didn't feel as good as it used to.

Hermione just wished her life would go back to normal, that she would feel the same kind of happiness she used to.

She didn't want to feel like this, she wanted to adjust and adapt again, get over the events and move on with her life. Hermione didn't want to fall behind on the plan of her life she so furiously created in first grade. She hyperfocused on it for a whole week, creating all kinds of lists and drawing pictures.

In the end she magically consealed the whole paper and shrinked it down. She had been carrying it in her locket around her neck ever since.

She was not following it anymore.

But she wanted to get back on track, she wanted to.

In the afternoon, right before Ron called, she looked at it again for the first time in a long time.

Her lanky and childish handwriting was cutting into her eyes like a sharp knife with it's sharp edges and round corners. 11 year old her had put so much effort into creating the board, had neglected every other responsibility for that week to never have to do it again.

She only noticed she was crying when the warm tears hit her cheeks.

Ever since Voldemort had been defeated, Hermione had been feeling kind of numb. The girl had done her research, she knew she was feeling like this because she couldn't believe it was over, because her body had been in alart mode, her senses hightened for so long, that her body and soul needed time to realize and recognize it was actually over.

She still caught the goosebumps on her neck and back every time a sound suddenly stood out of the mix or noises. How easily she was startled by a light breeze or a change in the temperature.

"Have you been crying?", Ron asked as his face appeared in the fire. Hermione's room was one of the only ones in the Gryffindor tower with a fireplace attached. Harry and Ron used to feel jealous when they shivered in the cold winter while Hermione's room was warm and light up.

Now she was sitting in the quietness of the dark, all alone.

And now Ron was more than grateful for the fireplace in his fiancée's room. He knew she was having a hard time. Ron tried talking to her, talking her out of going to Hogwarts on her own, even proposing to come with her, but Hermione hadn't wanted that. He had decided to become an auror and not go back for 7th year, Hermione didn't want to make him do something like that just for her.

She felt like she couldn't ask something like that from him.

"No", Hermione said, her voice still presenting with a shiver of tone.

"Oh 'mine", she loved the way he said that. Her heart still jumped at the sound of his voice, heart beating against her ribcage and threatening to spill out from beneath her bones. Of course the nickname had been used by many of her friends, but nobody said it quite the way Ron did.

She loved his voice. In second year, when Hermione had been cursed by the basilisk, she had only heard his voice as she was caught on the cages of unconsciousness. She had heared how everyone was talking around her, she had so desperately wished to be able to help Harry and Ron. And she had heard him read to her.

Although Ron had still been claiming to not like her as much as Harry, he had come into the hospital wing every day, never missing more than one, and he had read to her.

Little woman, wuthering heights, Emma. All of the books she told him she liked. The books he told her were stupid Muggle romances without action or wizards.

She still remembered how the younger Ron had stumbled over some words, how he repeated some sentences over an over again until he understood the point of the written.

"Talk to me", Ron's voice was quiet, Harry was probably sitting in his room in their shared flat and he didn't want their best friend to hear everything of their conversation.

"I'm just so... scared", Hermione sighed, her hands furiously trying to wipe away the tears in her eyes.

But no use, they just kept coming and coming.

Ron nodded sympathetically. He was the only person on the planet that could make her instantly feel better. Aside from Harry maybe. But still, it was different with Ron.

They had loved each other for so long, on and off, and on and off, a game of confusion, jealousy and angst shaped their friendship ever since they befriended through Harry.

Hermione leaned back, scared her tears would somehow put out the fire. Of course she knew it was enchanted and the flow of her tears wasn't strong enough, but maybe that was only a cover for her true intentions to hide her sadness from Ron.

She didn't want him to be worried.

"Talk to me about your day", Hermione whispered, "Please"

And Ron understood the plea for distraction, reading between the lines and smiling slightly at his soon to be wife.

"Well, Harry and I had classes today. And our professor, she's a bloody nightmare by the way you'd love her, was going on and on about protection charms and danger and blah blah blah, I honestly kind of zoned out."

Hermione smiled.

Another constant in her life.

"Ronald Weasly, pay attention in your classes!", she half heartedly screeched. Ron knew better than to mess with her on the terms of classes.

"Yeah... Whatever. So as I was saying, I kind of didn't pay so much attention to her talking and then that bloody--", he took a deep breath, only overacting slightly to amuse Hermione, 80% being his true sincere rage, "She called on me and humiliated me in front of our whole class! Even Harry laughted!"

Hermione grinned.

Just the way it used to be.

"Well I see you had a great day then", she teased, twisting a strand of hair between her index and middle finger.

Ron let out a puff of air. "Yeah sure. At least I got some of Mum's casserole, turns out Harry and I are both equally shit at cooking."

Hermione laughed again, her concerns not forgotten, but temporarily moved to the back of her mind.

The girl let go of her hair, her hand playing with her engagement ring instead.

"I'll show you some recepies on Christmas", she grinned at the way Ron's eyes lit up - literally in the fire - and he eagerly nodded.

"I'm looking forward to it! Oh and did I tell you about-"

As Ron was going on and on about his work life and Harry, Hermione felt herself dragged away from her thoughts more and more.

It was like Ron was opening a cage, finally setting her free.

But as the fire went out and the stone lost its heat, as the cold freezed through her body and the breeze from the window made her shiver again, she felt herself getting locked up again, brought back to that place of darkness and discomfort.

And the disturbing part was, that there was nothing she could do about it.