shades of grey

Hermione dreams in shades of grey and blood and broken glass.

She's lost sense of time, edges and scraps blurring together in a mass of unfocussed synergy. She's lost sight of everything but Death. She remembers some things, scattered images of fire, of pointing her wand and the after-burn-smell in stale air and dead, and cemetery plots. The emptiness is too full to ignore, and the spaces are pregnant with silence. The little pieces of Harry are sharp and jagged, unable to fit into place the way they used to; Hermione keeps a safe distance because she isn't immune to the razor-sharp edges, and she doesn't want to be.

They're broken.

She stares at her hands for hours because they feel foreign, still sticky with blood that isn't there, her shoulders and chest too heavy with guilt and making it hard to breathe. She dream-sees the face of Ron, bloody and broken; sees his body in the oak and dirt with the marble stone next to ground and space. It feels like the universe is collapsing in on them, raped their lives of innocence. The pieces don't fit together anymore - she and Harry don't fit together anymore - and she births new rage.

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