Author's Note: First time posting here on FF. I've written before but rarely post it up online. I have a general idea of where this is going but between real life commitments and my own dissatisfaction with my writing style, I can't promise to update often. I will try though, or at least make a note of it if I choose to put this on indefinite hiatus. Reviews would be most welcome.

Also, I don't own Harry Potter.

Summary: The war left Hermione scarred. Realising that dealing with what's left is as painful as doing what's right, Hermione makes a decision for herself to leave the European Wizarding World for Australia in the hopes of finding her parents. A year after her disappearance, she meets the two men who will help bring her back home. Hermione/Viktor or Hermione/Charlie depending on the direction the story goes.

For Hermione Granger, the quiet of the night had meant many different things at some point or another in her life.

In her first few years at Hogwarts, it had been a time of exploration and centering, giving her some time to catch up on her schoolwork and reading, as well as an opportunity to get away from her peers and have a little quiet time. While she appreciated being a part of the Gryffindor 'family', she had never been an overly social person and having to hang around her loud housemates would take its toll on her. As such, she'd excuse herself to hide away in the library where no one would bother her. Hardly anyone would miss the know-it-all (unless an assignment was due) and even her best friends simply considered her library sessions to be a quirk of hers that they'd have to accept. Of course, fate would have it that classes would eventually be the least of her worries and as day turned into night; her attentions would eventually be focused elsewhere. On these quiet nights, Hermione would explore this whole new world she'd been thrust into, eager to find a new way to approach the world around her.

After Voldemort returned at the end of her fourth year, the quiet nights had been a time of contemplation and planning. The war loomed on the horizon and the tension amongst the Order only served to remind her how easily things to come to a full-scale war, one that could easily have her family caught in the crossfire. At the end of each day, she would quietly ponder how she'd end up in such a situation. Learning she was a witch had already shattered her image of the world and forced her to accept that her very understanding of the world . The entire situation however had been insane. She had grown up in Muggle peacetime, only to have her thrust into the Wizarding world, fresh out of a war, and now it was about to be plunged into conflict once more. She put on a brave face for Harry and Ron, but she had honestly been terrified.

As the Order reformed (yet the adults tried to shield the children from the harsh truths that occurred beyond the walls of 12 Grimmauld Place and Hogwarts) she found herself asking Bill and Charlie what it had been like growing up at the close of the last war. Being eleven and nine respectively on the night the Dark Lord was defeated they, unlike their younger siblings, had some awareness of how dark those times truly were. However, while Bill would try to shield her from the truth, Charlie had been forthcoming with the fear and anxiety they felt growing up. Wondering if either of their parents would be home that night, intentionally avoiding looking at the Weasley clock for fear of what it would show, and trying to remain strong for their younger siblings. Charlie admitted that the brave front that Bill and he had been forced to put up was the main reason they were so detached from the rest of their siblings, and also contributed to being a major factor for why they left the country when they graduated. They needed to be free. Free from the weight of being the elder siblings, the ones to assure the rest that their parents would be alright, the ones that were not allowed to shed any tears or show any fear, even as children.

Knowing that she wouldn't be able to handle the anxiety if she had to worry about her defenceless parents while at the frontlines of the war next to Harry, Hermione had already begun to plan how she would protect her parents. She read up on wards, safe havens in the Wizarding world and finally, memory charms.

When the inevitable war broke out, the quiet of the night was the embodiment of her fears; the unknown. Had she properly planned ahead? Had she not learnt a crucial spell? Was there something else to Dumbledore's gifts that she wasn't seeing? Were Snatchers lurking about just outside her wards? Would her wards even last? The questions plagued her every time she looked out of their tent and into the woods surrounding them, whenever she closed her eyes and saw Bellatrix Lestrange's face, and every time she tried reminding herself that they would make it through the night.

So when the war finally ended, she believed that the quiet of the night would give her some level of solace once more, and she hoped that she would achieve a level of normalcy, but she didn't. Between the events she was pressured to attend, the prying eyes of the public, her friends trying to move on and dive into their relationships in an attempt to pretend that things were already back to normal, her reluctance to just jump into a relationship with Ron, her inability to track down her parents... Her nightmares... Her fears. Her guilt. Her regrets.

Despite winning the war, Hermione, like so many of her friends, did not walk away unscathed. Gone was the girl who would spend her Sundays sitting in her father's reading room, trying to impress him with how much knowledge she could retain. Instead, that girl had grown up, been forced to fight, and despite saving everything she held dear, had lost everything. Her parents were lost to her, wherever they were. She was unable to look any of her friends in the eye anymore, memories of the war immediately coming up to mind before any other. To top it off, she was unable to even walk the streets without people staring at her in a mixture of reverence and fear. It was too much.

She couldn't handle it, and so she suffocated under the pressure.

And one quiet night, Hermione Granger snapped her wand and vanished.

Coming Up in the Next Chapter: We see where Hermione is a year after she ran away and her first encounter with Charlie Weasley since then.