Weeks slipped by in a quiet blur, folding into one another until the days lost their edges. Morning light filtered through their curtains in soft gold, touching the room with warmth that felt almost undeserved, while nights settled over them with the heavy stillness of people learning how to breathe again.
Lysander had changed everything. Their home had softened around him. Lavender soap lingered in the air after his baths. The faint scent of warm milk clung to his clothes. The hush of lullabies echoed from room to room, gentle and repetitive, as if music alone could hold back the aching world beyond their walls.
There was something grounding in the simple weight of him. The way his fingers curled instinctively around theirs, trusting without question.
The way his breath steadied as soon as he rested against a familiar chest. His small coos and tender babbles had become the pulse of their days, a quiet reminder that innocence still existed, even now. He had become their anchor without ever trying. A thread of hope pulling them through each hour.
They waited each day for news. For Luna's calm reassurances. For Theo's heavy footfalls at the door, his expression carved by sleepless nights. For any small sign that one of the brightest lights in their lives was still fighting toward them.
And sometimes the updates were hopeful, small steps forward that felt like a miracle. Other days, the quiet was a weight that settled in Pansy's bones, dragging her thoughts into places she refused to stay.
She missed Hermione with a grief that grew heavier instead of lighter. She missed the clever spark in her eyes, the way she listened, the way she challenged them to be better than they believed they could be. She missed her warmth. Her steadiness. Her laughter. She missed her in a way that felt like phantom pain, a wound that refused to close.
One quiet afternoon, while changing Lysander's diaper, she felt that ache pressing hard against her ribs. Her hands moved automatically, folding soft cotton with practiced ease. Neville hummed faintly in the kitchen. Crookshanks napped in a sunbeam. Lady dozed nearby, her tiny snores barely audible.
Then the world shifted.
She did not remember the moment consciousness slipped away from her. Only the sensation of fighting against the weight of her grief until her own body gave in, until the exhaustion folded itself around her like a heavy blanket.
When her eyes had finally closed, it had been in complete surrender, her limbs too weak to hold anything more. She had fallen asleep fully dressed, her cheek pressed into the soft fabric of the pillow, the shadows of the night still clinging to the corners of the room.
Morning found her slowly, timid and quiet, the pale gold light seeping through the curtains with a softness that felt almost mocking. It painted the walls in warm tones that did not belong to the world she had gone to sleep in.
She blinked sluggishly, disoriented, and then a faint rustle of wings cut through the stillness.
An owl swept across the room, its silhouette slicing through the muted light until it landed gracefully upon the bedside table. Its feathers were the color of pale smoke, its amber eyes steady and knowing as it extended one delicate leg toward her.
Clutched in its talons was a rolled piece of parchment sealed with a familiar hand.
Her heart stopped.
The shape of the handwriting, the gentle curves, the way the ink trailed in soft, unhurried strokes. She knew it instantly. Her fingers froze inches away from the parchment, as though touching it might shift the ground beneath her, as though the words inside would pull her into a truth she was not ready to face.
Luna.
She forced her trembling hand to reach out, to take the parchment from the owl with a care she did not possess for anything else in that moment.
The seal broke with too much ease, as if the universe itself wanted her to look, to read, to know.
She unfolded it slowly. Deliberately. Her vision blurred for a heartbeat before the words sharpened.
Darling,
Hermione is stable. For now, at least. But she is not out of the woods. I will not lie to you, love. It is bad. Worse than we imagined.
The words sank into her chest like stones, heavy and cold.
She read on, breath shallow.
She needs multiple surgeries. The damage is extensive. And she is hemiplegic, which means she has lost movement on her left side. She will need an extreme amount of physical therapy to regain even partial mobility. It will be a long road, and I do not know if she will ever fully recover. But she is still here, Pans. She is fighting. And that is something.
Her fingers tightened around the edges of the parchment, her knuckles pale with strain. Every line carved her open a little more. She felt each word leave an ache behind, sharp and echoing. Yet beneath the devastation, something warm slipped through. A trembling flicker of hope.
She kept reading.
I miss you. I miss you so much that it feels like a part of me is missing, like my bones do not sit right without you here. I need you like I need air, and I hate that I have to be here without you. I know why Theo kept you away. I know he thought he was protecting you. But I also know that you would have burned the world down to be here with us.
A tear rolled down her cheek, slow and hot. She brushed it away instinctively, but more followed, tracing quiet paths down her skin.
And I need you to know something. If it were you lying in that bed, if it were you who needed me, I would not hesitate. I would not think. I would be there, fighting for you, healing you, holding your hand through every nightmare and every painful moment, and I would never leave your side. If anything ever happened to you, I would do this for you too, in a heartbeat, because that is what love is.
Her breath broke.
She pressed a hand over her mouth, stifling a sob. The letter blurred before her, the ink swimming as her tears fell faster, as emotion swelled so fiercely she thought her ribs might crack under the pressure.
Luna always wrote the truth. Always spoke the truth. She had a way of seeing into the depths of a person, of leaving no room for denial or pretense. She meant every word of this. Every vow. Every ache.
The final lines felt like a hand reaching across the distance, warm and steady.
So hold Lysander for me. Tell him his mummy loves him. Kiss his little fingers and tell him that I will come home to him soon.
And know that even from here, even through all this darkness, I love you. Always.
Luna.
By the time she reached the end, the parchment trembled in her grasp. Her chest tightened painfully, as if her heart was fighting to hold both the relief and the sorrow at the same time.
Hermione was alive.
Hermione was fighting.
Luna loved her.
And she was here, surrounded by silence and sunlight that felt too gentle for a world where Hermione lay broken in a bed.
She pressed the parchment to her chest, closed her eyes, and let the tears fall in quiet, trembling waves.
Pansy knew exactly what she meant, down to the marrow. If it had been her lying in that bed, if it had been her skull fractured and her body broken, Luna would have crossed oceans with nothing but her bare hands and a fury that could blister the earth.
She would have stood between Pansy and death itself. She would have torn reality apart, thread by thread, before letting anyone take her away.
She would have done it without thinking. Without breathing.
The guilt struck her so sharply she swayed where she sat. Because she had not done the same. She had stood in that penthouse. She had been helpless, useless, frozen, and the shame of it pressed against her lungs until her breath came in small, panicked bursts.
Hermione had paid the price. Hermione had bled for all of them.
A soft, broken sound escaped her before she could stop it. She pressed the parchment against her chest, curling her fingers around the edges as though she needed Luna's ink to keep her from falling apart. She needed to see Hermione. She needed to be there when those brown eyes finally opened again. She needed to promise her that she would never, not once, let her face this world alone.
But what could she say to her? What words even existed?
If she could trade places, she would. Without hesitation. Without fear. She would have stepped into that operating theatre for her. She would have given anything to pull Hermione out of that nightmare.
She wiped at her eyes with the back of her wrist, her breaths ragged but determined. She would see Hermione. She would not waste one more second hiding behind grief or guilt.
The tears blurred her vision again as she reread Luna's closing lines. Luna's love was impossibly steady, a warmth that carried her through the darkest corners of her life. Pansy had always known Luna loved her, but here, in ink, laid bare and unguarded, the truth wrapped around her like a lifeline.
She did not know who she would be without Luna. Without that strange, gentle certainty. Without the kind of friendship that rebuilt her every time she crumbled.
But doubt crept in, sharp as a blade. Could she really face Hermione like this? Could she stand beside her friend and not fall apart? Could she look at her without seeing the fragility, the pain, the life that had been stripped from her?
She forced herself to breathe, deep and steady, though her lungs fought her for every inch. Luna's message was clear. They needed to be strong. For Hermione. For each other. There was no space left for trembling hands or a cracked voice.
Still holding the letter, she rose to her feet. Her legs protested, weak from hours of crying and barely any sleep. She did not remember walking toward the bathroom. Only that the hallway tilted, only that she needed a moment alone, away from Lysander's soft breaths, away from Neville's steady presence.
The bathroom lights flickered on with a hum. White tiles. Clean porcelain. Everything too bright, too neat, too untouched by the storm that had taken root beneath her skin.
Her reflection stared back at her. Pale cheeks. Red eyes. The smear of lipstick she had not reapplied for days. She looked like someone who had lost something she had never expected to lose. Someone whose grief sat too close to the surface.
Her hands found the sink, gripping hard enough that the porcelain groaned faintly in protest. Her breaths came fast and shallow, her chest tight, her ribs too narrow to hold everything she felt.
Then something inside her cracked.
Her arm shot out before she could stop it. The shelf beside the mirror crashed to the floor, the contents scattering across the tiles in a rain of glass and metal.
Bottles burst open, perfume thickened the air, powders and creams dusted the floor like pale ash. She reached into the mirrored cabinet and swept everything out with one brutal motion.
Vials shattered. Serums spilled. The room filled with sharp, chemical scents that wrapped around her like a chokehold.
She grabbed the closest bottle, a heavy foundation she barely used, and hurled it at the wall. It exploded on impact, streaking beige across the pristine tiles. She kicked the cabinet door shut. It bounced open. She kicked harder. Wood splintered. Hinges bent.
Then the sob came. One wrenching sound that dropped her forward over the sink, her shoulders shaking, her breath snagging on something jagged inside her chest.
Her hand trembled as she lifted it, blood trailing from a cut where she had grabbed a shard of glass. It did not hurt. Nothing hurt compared to the weight inside her.
Her reflection stared back at her in broken fragments. Ten versions of herself, hollow-eyed and cracked down the center. A woman unraveling.
"I should have been there," she whispered. The words rasped out of her, scraped raw. "I should have done something."
But the sentence never found its end. Her voice failed her. Her throat closed around the truth.
She wiped her face with a shaking hand, smearing dust and lipstick across her cheek. That wildness in her eyes frightened her for a moment. She looked like someone fevered. Someone grieving. Someone who loved too deeply for her own good.
Slowly, she straightened. Her spine felt fragile but determined. She pulled her wand from her pocket, steadying her hand with effort.
Scourgify.
Glass reformed. Powders slid back into their containers. Liquids settled. The cabinet straightened itself with a quiet groan. The perfume in the air thinned until only a faint floral note remained.
Only the blood on her palm stayed. She let it.
Maybe it was punishment. Maybe it was an acknowledgment. Maybe it was both.
She reapplied her lipstick with slow, deliberate strokes, painting her mouth into something calm, something composed. A mask she could wear long enough to make it through those doors.
When she stepped back into the hall, Lysander stood there in his pajamas, rubbing his sleepy eyes. His curls stuck out in every direction.
"Pee-Pee sad?" he asked softly.
Her chest cracked open. She scooped him up, holding him close enough that his warmth soaked through her bones.
"No, sweetheart," she whispered into his hair, placing a kiss on his small forehead. "Pee-Pee is fine. We are going to see Mimi."
She felt him nod against her neck, trusting her without question.
And with that, she dressed quickly, gathered her courage, and stepped into the world outside, her heart pounding with a mix of terror and hope.
~~~~~~
Pansy swept into the safehouse with Crookshanks perched in her arms and Lysander toddling behind her like a determined little duckling. Her stride was confident, her chin high, her expression daring anyone to get in her way. She paused only when she saw Draco waiting near the threshold with his arms crossed like a frustrated parent.
"Parkinson, I am warning you," Draco said, weary but firm. "You cannot disturb her peace."
Pansy rolled her eyes and brushed past him. "Oh, fuck off, Malfoy."
The profanity dropped from her lips with the elegance of someone raised among crystal chandeliers and political scandals. Draco let out a sharp breath, perhaps an exasperated sigh, but the moment he turned to face Lysander, every edge in him softened.
He crouched down and picked the boy up with careful hands, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. "Hello, my little prince," he whispered. "Would you like to see Mimi?"
"Mimi!" Lysander's face lit up, his hands clapping together in an excited burst that made Draco smile in spite of everything.
"Auntie is resting," Draco murmured, shifting Lysander slightly in his arms. "Just like the princess in your bedtime book. I need you to be brave now. Can you watch over her and keep her safe for us?"
Lysander nodded with solemn intensity. "Yess." The word came out soft and tiny, but his eyes shone with pride.
"That is my brave boy," Draco said, his voice warmer than Pansy had heard it in days.
They stepped into the room together. The air was still, heavy with lavender and magic, the charms around Hermione glowing faintly like constellations trapped beneath glass.
Crookshanks leaped from Pansy's arms the moment the door opened. He landed on Hermione's blanket and padded his way onto her chest with quiet authority. His deep purring filled the room.
When she did not respond, he touched her cheek with a single paw. Then again, softer this time.
When she remained still, his purring broke into a small cry that made Pansy's throat tighten painfully.
Lysander watched with wide, solemn eyes.
"There you go, Pumpkin," Pansy whispered, lifting him onto the bed. "Go say hello to Mimi. She is sleeping, but I know she can hear you."
Lysander approached slowly, as if sensing the weight of the moment. He reached for Hermione's hand, wrapping his tiny fingers around hers with surprising gentleness. Then he touched Crookshanks in a soft stroke, offering him comfort too.
"You see?" Pansy murmured from beside him. "You and Crooks are helping her heal. Just like the prince in your story."
Lysander did not answer. Instead, he tucked himself against Hermione's side and rested his head on her chest, careful and tender in a way that made Pansy's eyes sting.
"Mimi okay?" he whispered, as if afraid of disturbing her.
Pansy knelt beside him and placed her hands on his small shoulders. "She is okay, my love," she said gently. "She is sleeping now, like the princess who needed time to wake. Give her a kiss. Then we will go find Mummy."
Lysander leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Hermione's cheek. The innocence of it, the purity of his hope, made the room feel warmer for one fragile moment.
"Mummy now?" he asked, turning in Pansy's arms.
"Yes, sweetheart," she said, lifting him. "Let us go see Mummy."
She carried him out of the room, Crookshanks glancing up only long enough to ensure she was leaving Lysander in safe hands. Once they were gone, Draco stayed seated beside Hermione, his gaze fixed on the doorway long after the footsteps faded.
The child's question lingered in his mind. Mimi okay?
It had sounded so simple, yet it struck him like a blade turning in his chest.
He looked back at Crookshanks, who had curled himself over Hermione's heart as if guarding the very beat of it. Draco hesitated before reaching out. Cats had never been his preferred company, yet something about the creature's devotion pierced straight through him.
~~~~~~~
The loud, resounding knock at the safehouse door cut straight through Hermione's shallow sleep. For a moment she was back in the safehouse, back beneath blinding lights and the sting of antiseptic in her lungs, but then the room settled around her and she remembered where she was. A thin line of morning light traced the edge of the curtains. Her heart was still pounding when the door flew open.
No one entered a room like that except one person.
Pansy Parkinson.
She swept in as if making a grand entrance on a Paris runway, her heels striking the floor with sharp certainty. Her arms were overloaded with designer shopping bags, each one swinging like a victory flag. Her hair was immaculate, her eyeliner dramatic, and her expression a perfect mixture of horror and determination as she took in Hermione in her half-sitting, half-slumped state.
"Granger," Pansy declared, her voice slicing right through the quiet. "You look dreadful. Fortunately for you, I come bearing miracles."
Hermione blinked, still half-asleep, still stiff from the surgery and spells. Before she could form a coherent sentence, Pansy set her bags down with exaggerated flair and flicked her wand.
A clothing rack appeared beside the bed, gliding forward with an obedient hum, and Hermione found herself staring at an impossible collection of fabrics. Velvet. Silk. Sequins. Lace. Pastels. Jewel tones. It was like Pansy had stolen a boutique.
"I brought you a wardrobe," Pansy announced, tapping the rack as if presenting a masterpiece. "Not just clothes. A resurrection. We are purging the sad cotton tragedies you owned and introducing you to couture."
Hermione made a weak noise that might have been "Pansy, what?" She was too tired to commit to it.
Pansy did not care. From another bag, she produced a box and tossed it onto the bed. It bounced once before settling, the lid springing open to reveal a riot of wigs: bright pink, icy blue, honey gold, deep auburn, tight curls, soft waves, sharp bobs. Hermione stared as if confronted with evidence of a crime.
Pansy nudged the box with her manicured finger. "Go wild. Pick the one that screams liberation. You are in a rut, and I am here to wrench you out of it."
Hermione blinked, her brain lagging behind the chaos. "Pansy… I am recovering."
"Yes," Pansy said calmly. "Which is precisely why you need something fun. Something small you can control."
The confidence slipped for a moment. Not much. Just enough for Hermione to see the worry simmering beneath the bravado. Pansy took a short step forward, her voice lowering.
"I know none of this fixes anything," she murmured. "I know what you are carrying. I know how heavy it is. But sometimes a tiny change helps you breathe again."
Something wavered in Hermione's chest. Pansy's silliness had always been a mask, but in moments like these, Hermione remembered why she loved her. Behind the theatrics was someone who cared fiercely.
Pansy cleared her throat almost aggressively, as if the softness had startled even her. "Anyway," she muttered, rummaging in a different bag, "Nevie said you might want extra company. Nonverbal company."
She lifted a small, gloriously unattractive pug with both hands and placed her gently onto the bed. The pug blinked up at Hermione, wrinkled face poised between confusion and disdain.
"Lady," Pansy announced. "She is hideous but comforting. Think of her as a living stress ball with legs."
Lady sniffed Hermione's hand once, grunted, then waddled directly into Hermione's lap and collapsed. The weight was warm. Solid. Soothing.
A small, startled laugh escaped Hermione before she could stop it. It felt strange. Rusty. But real.
"Pansy," she whispered, stroking Lady's squishy cheek. "You never stop surprising me."
Pansy's smirk returned, brighter now. "Do not get sentimental. This is simply my designated role in the universe."
The door creaked open again. Neville stepped inside, sheepish and uncertain in the face of the clothing explosion around Hermione's bed. He held a small brown bag, his fingers curled nervously around it.
"'Mione," he said shyly. "You look more awake than before."
Hermione snorted. "That is not a high bar, Neville."
He blushed warmly and shuffled forward. "I brought you calming herbs," he said. "For sleep. And stress. And… everything."
Pansy lifted her chin. "I suggested an alternative herb."
Neville's ears turned bright red. Hermione's eyes widened. The laugh that burst out of her was so sudden it almost startled her. It hurt a little, but she did not care. She wiped away a tear of laughter and breathed out, "I think I will take both."
"Excellent choice," Pansy replied in a regal tone.
Neville set the brown bag beside her bed, patting her shoulder with gentle awkwardness before crossing to the window. He settled there and began fussing with a small potted plant he had brought, grounding himself the way he always did. Hermione found the sight comforting beyond measure.
Pansy, however, stayed by the bed. Her arms folded as she studied Hermione with the kind of gaze that saw far more than Hermione wished it did. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet.
"Do not shut us out," she said. "We are here. All of us. And none of us is leaving."
Hermione's eyes stung. She swallowed, nodding once. "I know," she whispered. "Thank you. For everything."
Pansy looked away swiftly. "Good. Now put on that wig. It will look brilliant with your complexion."
Hermione lifted the wig from the box, her brow arching in reluctant amusement.
Pansy's smirk softened. "And do not panic about the hair. I brewed something. Your curls will be back within the month. I am quite proud of it."
Hermione placed the wig on her head. It shifted crookedly and made her look like a librarian in a comedy sketch. Pansy nodded with satisfaction as Lady snorted happily on Hermione's lap.
For the first time since waking in the safehouse, Hermione felt something ease inside her. A small, gentle warmth. A quiet promise that she was not alone.
~~~~~~
The safehouse had once felt like a holding chamber for their fear, a place where breaths were taken too quietly and every sound echoed with the threat of bad news.
Yet as the weeks passed, something unexpected took root within those same walls. A quiet blooming, fragile at first, then steady and warm.
The air shifted. The rooms changed. Not because the danger was gone, but because love, stubborn and relentless, refused to be drowned out.
Four families, drawn together by grief and determination, began to move as one. They were not related by blood, but by the force of their loyalty to Hermione, a loyalty that bound them more tightly than any written lineage ever could.
They learned to share the silence, the fear, the hope. They learned to breathe as a single unit, each of them refusing to let her fade into the shadows of what had happened.
Laughter began to return first. Soft at the edges, testing its place in a room still haunted by the scent of medical herbs and healing potions. Then louder. Brighter. Reckless. It spilled into the corridors, rolled through the kitchen, broke through the heaviness that had lingered like smoke after a fire.
Pansy was at the center of it, of course, wielding her razor tongue as if it were a wand capable of banishing sorrow.
She told stories that no sane person would believe, embellished details with the skill of a seasoned dramatist, and took wicked pride in painting every social rival as a fool of the highest order.
She performed for them. She carried them. And somehow, in the rhythm of her theatrics, they found moments where their chests loosened, where their lungs remembered how to fill.
Neville brewed teas that tasted like curiosity in a cup. The ingredients shifted each day, improvised blends that promised serenity or clarity or courage. Some batches worked beautifully.
Others resulted in moments no one wanted to repeat, like the night Draco temporarily lost the ability to speak English and communicated only in a bizarre mixture of Italian swears and what sounded suspiciously like Mermish. Neville had been mortified. Blaise had been delighted. Hermione had laughed until tears ran down her cheeks, her body trembling with relief she refused to name.
Draco was different. Something inside him had cracked when Hermione first slipped into her medical coma, and the fracture never fully sealed. He stayed near her bed through every dawn and dusk, reading until his voice went rough.
He read to her when she slept, when she twitched in pain, when her breath grew shallow, even when he believed she could not hear him. His voice became the steady heartbeat of the room, the rhythm that kept them all grounded. He would not give up. He would not let her drift.
Hermione's parents arrived as strangers to the madness of magic, stepping into a world too brutal and too extraordinary for anyone to learn in a single lifetime. Yet slowly, carefully, they adapted.
They asked questions, timid at first, then bolder. They watched spells with awe, listened to healing incantations like people witnessing a miracle. They joined the clan, hesitant feet growing steadier each day. During the small celebrations after Hermione completed a particularly painful therapy session, they danced. First awkward steps. Then laughter. Long, loose twirls with their daughter's friends as if joy itself were a rebellion.
In the middle of it all was Hermione. Fragile. Exhausted. Bone-deep weary. Yet fiercely alive in a way none of them had expected.
But the shadow was always there. Despite the laughter and warmth, Hermione had not escaped unscathed. She had undergone three brutal brain surgeries.
Each one stripped away more of her strength, more of her confidence, more of the ease with which she once lived her life. The reconstruction of her skull had been the worst. Draco still could not speak of it. Luna still cried when she thought no one was looking. Theo carried the memory like a knife under his ribs.
Seeing Hermione motionless, her curls shaved away, her body wired and wrapped in enchantments, had nearly broken them. It haunted them all. The image lived behind their eyelids, a constant reminder of how fragile this victory truly was. They had almost lost her. That truth sat beneath every smile, every joke, every moment of joy.
Yet Hermione fought. Even on days when she trembled through simple exercises. Even when her left side refused to obey her. Even when she cried in frustration because the world no longer moved the way it once had.
She fought.
And because she fought, they stayed by her side. Together. Unmovable. Unbreakable. A family formed in crisis and strengthened through love.
~~~~~~
The kitchen felt like a place caught between worlds, suspended in the hush that only comes after a long day spent holding back tears. The lamps burned low, casting a golden glow across the worn stone counters and the chipped blue teacup resting in Pansy's hand.
The cooling charm hummed softly from the pantry door. The kettle sat half forgotten. Her bandaged hand throbbed in quiet pulses she tried not to notice.
She stood barefoot, her toes pressed into the cold tile, and stared at the kettle as though it might give her answers if she looked long enough. Her shoulders were slumped in a way she would never allow during daylight hours. Every part of her felt stretched thin.
Footsteps whispered behind her, light as air, careful in their descent across the kitchen floor. She knew the cadence without turning. Luna moved as though the world beneath her was made of delicate glass.
"Do not say anything whimsical," Pansy murmured, her voice low and tired. "Not yet. I have nothing left for it."
Luna did not respond. She settled onto the far end of the long table and tucked her legs beneath her, quiet as a prayer. The silence that settled between them was not weightless, nor was it heavy. It was simply there, pressing gently on the space between their hearts.
Pansy tried to breathe past the ache that had lodged beneath her ribs for weeks. When she spoke again, her voice came out rough, like a door opening on rusted hinges.
"I thought she was going to die."
The words trembled in the small kitchen, fragile and stark. They hung in the air like something sacred, something cracked and holy.
"I thought she was going to die and there was nothing I could do. Nothing." Her hand tightened on the teacup until her knuckles blanched.
The kettle shrieked then, high and sharp, breaking the spell. It felt like an accusation. Luna rose without a word and tapped her wand to the stove, silencing the sound. The quiet that followed was louder somehow. Pansy did not move. She held herself frozen, eyes burning, throat tight.
Luna stood a breath away, close enough to feel the warmth of her presence, but not close enough to crowd her. She waited.
When she finally spoke, her voice unfurled slowly, soft as twilight.
"You know," she whispered, "when a star collapses, it looks like nothing but ruin. Its own weight becomes too much, and the collapse feels final. It looks like an ending."
Pansy closed her eyes. Her chest rose, then fell, uneven.
"But then," Luna continued, her voice drifting like a tide, "the explosion comes. And the pieces scatter into the dark. Stardust thrown across the universe. Those fragments become new things. New light. Entire worlds."
Pansy's fingers loosened around the teacup. Her voice broke when she finally spoke.
"And you think that is Hermione?"
"I think she burned so fiercely that the universe could not help but tremble," Luna murmured. "And now she is in the quiet part of the collapse. The part where everything looks broken. But she is not gone. She is becoming something new."
Pansy let out a small, cracked sound, not quite a sob and not quite a laugh. "You make everything sound beautiful."
Luna turned her head then, her eyes luminous in the dim light. "Pain does not erase beauty. It reminds us how much beauty mattered."
Something inside Pansy faltered. She lowered herself into the nearest chair, her strength finally slipping through her fingers. Her body folded in on itself, like someone trying to become small enough to escape their own grief.
Luna lowered herself into the seat beside her. She did not reach for her. She did not try to heal her pain or patch over the cracks. She simply sat with her. A quiet witness. A steady warmth. A companion in the dark.
"I do not know how to do this," Pansy admitted, her voice trembling. "I know how to fix problems. Even big ones. This is different. I cannot fix this. I cannot force myself to be strong enough for this grief."
"You are not meant to carry it alone," Luna said softly. "Grief does not shrink when you hold it tight. It softens when someone sits beside you."
Pansy opened her eyes and let out a long breath that felt like a surrender. The dam inside her chest shifted, the pressure easing just enough that she could inhale without burning.
The kitchen fell quiet again, the kind of quiet that belonged to people who loved each other enough to share silence. Outside, the stars were turning, scattered across the night sky in a slow, celestial dance. And somewhere in that immeasurable dark, a collapsed star was beginning its quiet transformation.
They sat together until exhaustion pulled them toward sleep, until the tea in the kettle turned cold, until grief settled into something gentler.
~~~~~~
Pansy had always fought the world in the only way she knew how. She took hold of whatever chaos life hurled at her and bent it to her will. She perfected what others abandoned.
And now, with Hermione caught somewhere between survival and the long climb back to herself, Pansy stepped into the role she knew she had been born for.
If she could not heal the wounds that carved through Hermione's body, if she could not erase the pain still burning beneath every scar, then she would give Hermione something that had been stolen. Something soft. Something essential. A piece of herself.
Hermione's curls had always been more than hair. They were a constellation of her spirit. They framed her thoughts, wild and sharp. They flew behind her whenever she stormed down a hallway in righteous indignation. They frizzed, danced, tangled, and snarled their way through every part of her life. They belonged to her in a way the world could never take.
So Pansy stayed awake night after night in her laboratory, sleeves rolled to her elbows, eyes burning from hours spent reading ancient formulas by candlelight. Vials simmered and popped around her.
Strange, iridescent brews shifted from violet to indigo to molten gold. Her hair was tied back in a messy knot she would stab anyone for commenting on. Her hands were stained with crushed petals and powdered minerals. She never stopped until the potion gleamed with the kind of perfection that made her heartbeat stumble.
She would not allow patchiness. She would not allow lifeless strands. If she brought Hermione's hair back, it would return with glory.
And when the first soft spirals appeared along Hermione's scalp, when the faintest curls began to unfurl like tender shoots awakening from winter, Pansy had to turn her head for a moment. Her throat tightened. Her vision blurred. She would never admit it, but her heart nearly burst.
Hermione hadn't planned to look at her reflection that morning. She only meant to splash her face with cool water. But something moved in the mirror, a flicker of gold that caught her attention. She hesitated. She knew she wasn't ready.
She lifted a trembling hand and reached for one of the curls. It bounced against her fingertips and sprang back into place with the same stubbornness it always had. Like it remembered her. Like it had missed her.
Hermione choked on a small, broken sound that escaped before she could swallow it. Tears gathered so quickly that her vision blurred, and she gripped the sink to steady herself. The sudden weight of emotion was too much, too tender. This was her. This was a part of her soul returned. This was proof that something lost could be found again.
Behind her, Draco watched her as if witnessing something sacred.
He had missed her like this. Alive in ways that had nothing to do with pulse or breath.
She met his gaze through the mirror. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence carried more meaning than words could have held.
Draco stepped forward slowly. His movements were careful, as though he was afraid that rushing would shatter the spell. When he reached her, he did not touch her right away. He lifted his hand to hover near her hair, close enough that she felt the warmth of his palm brushing the air beside her cheek.
His hand rose, fingers trembling slightly, and slipped into her curls. He cradled the strands with a tenderness she never expected from him, tracing the shape of each twist as though he was greeting an old friend. His touch was gentle, but it carried weight. It told her everything he couldn't say.
Pansy filled the doorway like she had been summoned by fate itself, arms laden with silk bags, potion vials, and something that looked suspiciously like a tiara constructed from delicate glass butterflies.
Her expression was one part judgement, one part theatrical exasperation, and entirely unimpressed by the sanctity of the moment she had interrupted.
"Well," she announced, voice slicing through the tenderness like a jeweled blade. "I leave the two of you alone for ten minutes and return to find the bathroom transformed into a bleeding Shakespearean tragedy."
Hermione blinked very slowly, a breath leaving her that sounded like half a sigh and half a laugh she was too tired to chase.
Draco stiffened slightly behind her, but he did not let go, his hand still threaded protectively through her curls, his body still curved around hers like a shield.
Pansy swept into the room with her hair in a razor-sharp bun that looked capable of homicide. Her eyes took in every emotional detail with clinical precision, the way only Pansy could. She dropped her armful of parcels on the counter with a theatrical thud that should have come with a dramatic overture.
"I assume the crying means it worked," she said in a tone so dry Draco nearly choked. Her eyes softened though. Just a flicker. Enough to betray the pride beneath all her practiced dramatics.
Hermione turned toward her slowly. The mirror behind them reflected the scene with ruthless honesty. Hermione's restored curls. Draco's stunned, reverent expression. The quiet shimmer of tears drying on her cheeks. Pansy's eyebrow arched to the heavens.
Hermione could not trust her voice yet, so she simply nodded.
"You look like a goddess," she whispered. Her voice trembled with a reverence she tried and failed to hide. "A chaotic, righteous, untouchable goddess. Exactly as you were meant to be."
Hermione let out a small laugh. Pansy immediately rolled her eyes as if offended by her own display of tenderness.
"Right. Enough sentiment before I burst into hives," she muttered, turning sharply toward her array of vials. "I brought two curl-setting elixirs, an enhancer for shine, three restorative scalp tonics because you have no idea what that hospital bed did to your follicles, and a silk bonnet embroidered with protective runes. You may thank me later."
Hermione let the warmth swell in her chest. Gratitude. Love. Relief. Pansy was a storm in designer boots. A one-woman crusade against despair. She carved beauty out of grief and forced the world to follow her lead. She had never once left Hermione to drown.
"I saw my reflection," Hermione said softly. "And I looked like me again."
Pansy froze. Her hands hovered midair, a bottle suspended between her fingers. Her expression shifted in an instant. Her throat moved once as she swallowed.
"Good," she murmured. "Then it was worth every second."
She cleared her throat like someone who refused to linger on sincerity for longer than three seconds.
"Now sit. You have clearly been using whatever soap was closest and I am offended on a molecular level."
Draco snorted. Hermione covered her mouth to hide her smile. A warmth bloomed in the bathroom that felt like home, stitched from devotion and chaos and small acts of love that mattered far more than any of them would ever admit.
~~~~~~
A bittersweet goodbye had ushered Hermione's parents out the door only moments before, the echo of their final hug still lingering in Hermione's chest as the latch clicked shut.
For a long time the safehouse had felt like a place held together by medical charms and whispered fear, a place where everyone breathed too carefully, but tonight something had shifted. The rooms carried a different rhythm now, one stitched from warmth and familiar noise, one that felt almost like life returning to its rightful place.
Hermione sat at the head of the long table, her body still tender from everything she had survived, leaning lightly against Draco's shoulder as he pretended not to steady her with the arm wrapped discreetly around her back.
The dim lantern light softened the room, catching on wooden plates filled with Luna's cooking. It smelled like rosemary and butter and something sweet tucked in at the edges. Comfort. Home.
The table was alive again.
Theo had launched into a full lecture on why leaving a toddler alone for forty seconds created the perfect conditions for artistic expression, although he was whispering parts of it because he knew Pansy was seconds away from throttling him.
He gestured toward the tablecloth, which now sported streaks of beetroot juice, spiraling in lines that looked vaguely magical if one squinted. Lysander, in his highchair, clapped proudly with every mention of his "art."
Neville tried to help in his gentle, earnest way, explaining the stain-lifting qualities of beetroot when mixed with mint oil. Pansy stared at him as if weighing whether she should believe a word he said. Then, with a dramatic toss of her hands, she declared the cloth "utterly ruined," which only made Neville stifle a laugh and Theo look deeply offended on beetroot's behalf.
Across from them, Luna reached over and laid her hand on Pansy's with serene certainty.
"Do not worry, my love," she said, voice warm and matter-of-fact. "A little charmwork and it will be perfectly fine. And even if it were not, I think it looks expressive. Rather like an abstract depiction of emotional growth."
Pansy blinked. "It looks like a murder scene committed by a beet."
Luna nodded as if this confirmed her point. "Exactly."
Draco's chuckle rolled through the room, low and soft, and Hermione felt it through his shoulder.
She turned slightly to look at him, at the faint smudge of flour on his sleeve from helping Luna in the kitchen, at the way his eyes crinkled when he failed to hide a smile. There had been a time she thought she would never hear him laugh again, not truly, not freely, but here he was, his chest shaking with quiet mirth as Lysander proudly declared, "I paint with power!"
Hermione lifted her hand to wipe a smudge of beetroot from the child's cheek when he looked her way. She felt an ache rise in her throat. Not painful. Something gentler. Something grateful.
So much had happened. So much had nearly been lost. The surgeries, the fear, the nights she could not sleep, the days she could not lift her own left arm without shaking. Yet here she was, sitting at a crowded table, surrounded by people who had held her through every moment of it.
Pansy arguing dramatically. Neville soothing in that quiet way that had always made her feel grounded. Theo fussing over Lysander's masterpiece like it belonged in the Louvre. Luna radiating calm that made even the mess look intentional. Draco at her side, warm and steady, as if the rings of Saturn could orbit his ribs.
Hermione looked around the table. Her table now. Their table. And something inside her shifted.
This was her life.
Messy. Imperfect. Loud. Filled with stubborn love and conflicting personalities and tablecloths that would never survive a single Longbottom-Nott evening without acquiring new battle scars. It was everything she never thought she would have.
Hermione curled her fingers around Draco's as he reached for her hand beneath the tablecloth, his thumb brushing the back of her knuckles as if checking she was really there.
She smiled. Soft. Honest.
This was home.