Patient X

Summary: Hermione volunteers as a helper in St. Mungo's to treat the victims of the war. She has to take care of only one Patient. Someone, who waits for his execution. Lord Voldemort. Hermione tries, sometimes more, sometimes less successfully, to make him feel remorseful. She is torn between the cold-hearted dark lord, her friends and Voldemort's vengeful victims.

Warnings: violence, torture, hurt, addiction

Genre: Drama

Here I stand. I can do no other

(Martin Luther)

Chapter 1: Prologue

It's been several weeks since the great Battle of Hogwarts.

Hermione and Ron came back from Australia where, happy and relieved, she had restored her parents' memories about their daughter.

However, Mr. and Mrs. Granger weren't sure if they really wanted to come back to England. They had started a private practice in Melbourne and they've come to know and value the country, the people and their new life there.

Since Hermione told them that she was going to Hogwarts for another year to complete her education, life in Melbourne seemed like a good choice for them.

'We can still visit each other' they stated with a proud wink to Hermione. Such a gifted young witch was surely able to "apparave" – or whatever it may have been called- wherever she wished in a heartbeat.

Hermione knew that it wasn't that easy to get from Hogwarts to Melbourne by magic, but she was overjoyed to see her parents happy, and so she decided she could put up with minor travel difficulties during her future visits.

Their return to England was less cheerful. The horror of the past war and the grief for those who had been lost overwhelmed them in a single blow.

Ron was increasingly sullen and distant. With each day they spent at the Burrow, the almost palpable absence of Fred and other victims made him more and more miserable. The same was happening to her…

She had to do something. First of all, she needed a distraction to clear her mind. Secondly, this distraction could be beneficial because it would expose her to new, interesting experiences and provide her with an insight into the daily work of healers, a career she'd been considering for some time. She decided to volunteer as a helper at the nightmarishly overcrowded St. Mungo´s.

The hospital had had to triple its number of beds because of the staggering amount of patients. Most of them were victims of Voldemort's reign of terror. Unfortunately, the number of healers and nurses hadn't increased.

As a result, each issue of the The Daily Prophet contained an appeal to the wizarding community – whoever could, should volunteer to help at the hospital for at least a week or longer. Hermione wanted to help.

Together with Ron and Harry, she travelled to London to rent a cheap, one-room Muggle apartment.

For the first couple of days, she would stay at the Leaky Cauldron, but since it would probably be too expensive in the long run, she would move as soon as she found a proper apartment.

School would begin no sooner than in three or four months. Too much had happened for things to go on as before. Many parts of the castle had to be completely rebuilt, new magical protection walls had to be created and new teachers had to be found.. because many of the old ones were dead or unable to work for an unknown period of time.

Everyone had to recover from the cruel hand of fate, deal with their own pain and losses. But Hermione didn't want to sit around and do nothing but wait for better days. Too many pictures tortured her every night before she fell asleep, too much fear still haunted her. Maybe she could get rid of it if she was too tired to think of all the dead faces she saw every time she closed her eyes.

Although Hermione liked Ron's family very much, the Burrow wasn't her home. With all the Weasleys and Harry, who now also lived there, the house was much too crowded and cramped.

After they made arrangements concerning Hermione's residence at The Leaky Cauldron with Tom the landlord, they went to Diagon Alley to buy all the things Hermione would need for her new home. But the trip was not as pleasant as they had expected.

Too many stores were closed. Even Ollivander, who was more or less healthy and at least free again, wanted to wait a while and rest from all the horror he had had to suffer.

Harry was very pensive. Again and again he would touch his scar and stare around without noticing anything at all, but all the while he seemed to be brooding over something.

The evening before the first day of her new job - Mrs. Weasley had invited them to dinner - Hermione managed to lure Harry away from Ginny into the garden outside and approach him for a conversation.

'Harry, why do you keep touching your scar all the time? What's on your mind?' Hermione asked in her familiar, worried, motherly tone.

Harry shrugged helplessly. 'I don't know. I feel so strange since he is gone. You know, all those years we had to hunt him and now… now we've made it. We are safe, aren't we? But what's next? What else shall we be, other than Voldemort's enemies?"

He took a sip of his butterbeer and his gaze shifted to a patch of the garden where four gnomes were trying to crawl into a very tight gnomehole simultaneously. It wouldn't have been a problem if they'd tried to do it one after another, not side by side.

'You know, every time I open my eyes and look around, all I can see are the things he's destroyed. Not just for me, for all of us… So, how can our lives go on? Everything seems to be distorted. I don't know, it feels like we're all damaged inside. Living zombies who haven't realized that they're already dead. And then I think of Snape.. I just don't know.'

Ron nodded as he sat down on the bench next to his friends with a butterbeer in his hand. 'Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? Who could have ever suspected what he had gone through?' The red-haired boy scratched at the label of his bottle absent-mindedly, immersed in thought. 'In a way, he was always a git. But he was also a hero…'

Harry nodded in agreement. 'I wish he had lived just a little bit longer, so that I could have thanked him. Maybe it would have made me feel less guilty about always making fun of him.. About thinking he was so stupid..'

Hermione took his hand. 'But that's the way he wanted it. ' Ron and Harry nodded sadly.

Harry's hand touched his scar again. 'I don't know, actually the scar shouldn't hurt any more, should it? But every time I think of Voldemort, my hand slips to my forehead and I feel it prickling.

'Phantom pain', Hermione decided. 'You're just imagining it. You're so used to it that it will take a while until you can drop this habit."

Harry got up, staggered a moment and started walking around in the garden. 'It's crazy. How can a single man cause so much pain? And when I think of that odd, flayed thing I saw when I was unconscious.. was it him? Is that what's become of him?' The young man turned around to his friends and took a gulp of his butterbeer. 'And he never regretted anything. That's why he became this pathetic splinter of a soul. He became a nothing. Not once.. He never had the slightest doubt that what he was doing was wrong. Such evil... And he never had a single positive thought towards other people. How can a human being become something so vile? I mean…look at me. I had a bad childhood as well, but did I become a homicidal freak?"

Ron leaned back and scratched his belly. 'Well, there's no use to dwell on it… He is dead and if he's burning in hell this very moment, then… Damn, I don't care. He got what he deserves, man.'

All of the three friends nodded. Yes, Voldemort deserved every punishment imaginable .