Because she'd been a healer, Hermione hadn't been there for the entire battle. Something in their strategy had gone wrong. There had been far more Death Eaters than the Order had anticipated. Voldemort had cast a killing curse and Harry had fallen. Then he had commanded Lucius to confirm Harry was dead.
Harry hadn't been dead.
So Voldemort cast another killing curse, and another, and another, and another. After half a dozen killing curses, Voldemort had gone and confirmed for himself that Harry was dead. For insurance, he had Harry's body dragged up into the air and hung from the Astronomy Tower. Everyone watched as Voldemort cursed Harry's body with a fast acting necrosis curse and the entire thing rotted away before their eyes.
Harry's blank green eyes — Hermione saw them every time she closed her own. The expression on his face; the realisation he had failed had been written into it in death.
Hermione shook as she thought about it.
Her best friends had died before her eyes. By some extra cruel twist of fate she hadn't been allowed to follow them.
They had left her behind.
She squared her shoulders and forced herself to step into the hallway. She had faced all manner of horror. She wasn't going to be defeated by her own fractured psyche and a hallway.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Her breathing grew fainter, and she clenched her hands into fists until she could feel her nails sinking into the skin.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
She froze and looked down. One of her hands was dripping blood into a trail on the floor.
It was the same shade as her dress.
She stared down at it until a puddle the size of a knut gradually collected by her feet.
Then she continued down the hall. She counted the dripping sounds instead of her footsteps until she reached the end.
She had no destination in mind, so she turned around and started back, trying the knobs of doors along the way. Some were locked. Others weren't. She peeked into more empty bedrooms filled with shrouded furniture. She would return and explore them all carefully later. Perhaps something that might prove useful would be found in them.
She was shaking as she re-entered her room. Feeling drained, she immediately crawled into bed.
As she fell asleep, she dreamed of Ginny.
Ginny — from near the end of the war, with hair cut above her shoulders and a long cruel scar down one side of her face. She was huddled next to a bed and looked up sharply at Hermione as though startled.
Ginny's expression was twisted in anguish, covered in tears. She was sobbing uncontrollably.
As Ginny opened her mouth to answer, the dream faded away.
When Hermione woke the next morning, she knew she must have been dreaming. What had she been dreaming about? She couldn't remember. Something — something sad. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and tried to remember it.
She couldn't bring herself to go near the door that day. She huddled by the window and looked out at the misty gardens that lay outside. There was a hedge maze to one side. She traced her way through it with her eyes.
She studied all the grounds of the estate that she could see. Trying to take note of anything that could be useful. Where would she go if she were trying to hide? If she were trying to escape?
The day passed slowly.
Having a sense of time once again was vaguely unsettling. The steady ticking of the clock constantly caught her attention. A continuous grating sound. If she let herself listen to it for long, it made her fingers begin to spasm with each click of the gears.
She found that her mind had a tendency toward wandering and losing itself. She would interrupt herself from some odd thought and realise hours had passed.
As the day drew to a close, she stared at the door.
She should make herself go out again. She hadn't even seen Malfoy since she'd arrived. She had intended to try to watch him. Study him. Arm herself with some kind of understanding of him.
All those plans had faded away during the last two days.
She stood up and moved slowly towards the door. As she was wrapping her fingers around the knob, there was a sudden pop behind her. Starting, she turned sharply and found a house-elf standing behind her.
“You is to get ready for tonight, mistress is sayin,” the elf said, averting its eyes and then popping away.
Hermione felt as though her heart were in her throat. Her hands started trembling.
She considered for a moment not readying herself.
Undoubtedly, if she did, Malfoy would appear and force her to. Who knew what else he might do to her if she provoked him. The compulsions in her mind stirred...
Her brain automatically began cataloguing the things she had been instructed to do.
She wasn't sure if the compulsion made her rationalise obeying or if obeying actually was the rational choice.