A Fragile Ascent Preview

Author's Note: I wrote a two chapter sequal to A Slow Cruel Descent. I know some people felt dissatisfied with where the story ended and wanted it expounded while others liked the inconclusive ending. So, this is for those of you who wanted to know what happened next. The first part is now up.

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Is it possible to know if you're sane? Hermione Granger asked herself the question for the thousandth time that year. She had concluded, after mulling it over the first several hundred times, that it probably wasn't.

She sighed quietly and tucked a curl behind her ear.

Perhaps she was insane.

It would be easier. Easier for almost everyone.

There were certainly enough people eager to believe it. So many people who considered it a convenient answer. Hermione Granger, poor dear, she lost her mind in the war.

It would have made things so much simpler for everyone. It would have spared her all the tests. All the testimonies. All the skeptical, pitying glances. The pictures of herself splashed across the pages of The Daily Prophet. Spared Harry from having to take advantage of his hero status. Spared Ron from the awkward conversations about their presumed relationship with her had never started.

If everyone could just agree that Hermione Granger had lost her mind, everything would be a lot easier.

Some days Hermione wished that it could be that easy. The mad people she had encounter seemed far happier and freer than she was. She didn't feel mad at all.

She felt so sane it hurt.

Six months. She had made it six months. Dragged herself through by sheer determination.

Sometimes they had felt longer than the whole war.

It was an awful thing to think. The war had been terrible. All those years and deaths. Grinding on and on. But at least the war had been shared. There were people who understood. She had been fighting for something vast and important. Fighting for herself was much harder. The last six months had been her own unique and private agony.

While the whole world was moving on, she was frozen in time. Waiting.

Six months.

She felt like she'd been drowning the whole time.

There was a grating sound that tore her abruptly from her thoughts. She blinked and shook her head. Her curl sprang free of her ear and the drab waiting room she was seated in swam back into focus. The door across the room swung open and Draco Malfoy walked through. Her stomach flipped and dropped sharply.