I'm paralyzed

Where are my feelings?

I no longer feel things

I know I should

I'm paralyzed

Where is the real me?

I'm lost and it kills me inside.

Paralyzed by NF

.oOo.

Hermione sits on the curb, a cold cloth against the back of her neck held with one hand, the other pinching the bridge of her nose.

"The last thing I needed was to have to come to work tomorrow with two black eyes," she tells Harry. Her friend stands over her with his arms crossed over his chest as the mediwitch looks over her ankle.

"A bruise paste will clear it up in no time," the mediwitch tells her. "I have a bit I'll leave with you. Now, let's set that break real quick. Your ankle will be fine, maybe sore for a day or two." Hermione lowers her hand and winces at the crack when the witch waves an episkey in face, her nose snapping back into place, and she relaxes as quickly. Leaving a small jar of the bruise paste with Hermione, the mediwitch packs up her bag and leaves to check in with one of the other Aurors and, at least Hermione assumes, file a report.

Hermione herself stands, shakily at first, testing her weight on her ankle.

"Well that was the most fun I've had in a long time," she says to Harry, grinning as she pulls her hair back with a tie she keeps around her wrist. The man doesn't smile back and instead frowns, shaking his head calmly.

"I'm glad you enjoyed that, because you gave me a right heart attack," he tells her. "How did you find him?"

Hermione glances over to where the man she had been fighting not an hour ago is restrained, the silver of the magical cuffs that dampen his magic shining. He glowers in her direction, his dark hair falling into his face. Maybe someone who hadn't fought a Dark Lord with no nose and red eyes would have found him intimidating, but as it is, that certainly is not Hermione Granger.

"Complete accident," she admits, shrugging. "I was actually following up a lead on some artifacts that had been showing up at a few shops in Knockturn Alley that may have found their way out of the Lestrange collection, and I literally just happened to bump into him on the street." She chuckles, but puts a hand on Harry's arm. "It's okay, Harry. I'm fine, he's in custody, there's nothing wrong that a little bruise paste won't clear up," she says, raising the little jar the mediwitch had given her into view.

"Granger!" comes a gruff voice from behind her, and Allary Brockert, Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad is limping in their direction with heavy steps, his cane clicking on the cobblestone. "Good catch," he praises, smirking. "Potter. Better not be trying to poach my best Hit Witch."

Harry shakes his head, forcing a small smile. "Never, Brockert. Hermione is far more trouble than we need at the Aurory."

The older man laughs at that, leaning on his cane. "Well. The last Lestrange, bound and headed for Azkaban. How many left on that list of yours, Granger?"

Hermione's eyes narrow, her voice dropping slightly. "There's only ever been one," she says seriously.

.oOo.

Hermione celebrates come night with a few too many drinks at the Leaky Cauldron which results in a bathroom triste she will vaguely recall the next morning. Hannah Longbottom sends her home long before last call, and when she shows up at the Ministry the next day she has two black eyes, a very slight limp, and a massive hangover. Harry sighs when she shows up at his office door, a sound she is all too familiar with at this point. He has a vial of Pepper Up set out on his desk for her before she even takes the chair across him.

She lifts the vial to him in a silent toast before she downs it, slumping back into her chair. "Are you almost done with this?" he asks, only slightly exasperated. "Because it's been four years, Hermione, and I don't really think Ron - "

"Yeah, well, Ron's not exactly here now, is he?" she snaps, standing, but she quickly sits back down with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Harry," she says, and reaches to rub her eye, which only results in a wince.

"I am well aware that Ron isn't here," he says, his voice slightly colder than moments before. "You don't think I miss him every day, as well? But fuck, Hermione. You're killing yourself trying to find Dolohov, and Ginny might legitimately murder you if I get one more two a.m. floo calls from Hannah getting me to check on you 'cus she had to kick you out of the Leaky - "

"Wait," Hermione says, blanching slightly as she cuts Harry off. "2 a.m. floo calls from Hannah? Are you telling me that bint has been tattling on me like a child - "

"She's not tattling on you, Hermione, she's worried about you! So am I, so is Ginny, and Molly, and the rest of your family!"

Hermione slams a fist down on Harry's desk, her voice rising. "I don't have any family, Harry! He took that away from me! There is an entire life I should have had that I don't get any more because Antonin Dolohov took everything away from me. He nearly killed me when I was 16, he murdered my parents a year later, and then he took Ron four years after that. You get Ginny, and you get James, and Jamie and Teddy, and I get nothing because of that monster."

She was standing now, her fist still planted hard on the desk. She expects Harry to snap back at her, to throw her from his office, but instead he barely moves, and when he speaks his voice is soft.

"Sit down, Hermione," he sys, and she listens. Mostly because she doesn't know what else to do.

"If you think you don't have any family, you haven't been paying much attention all these years," he tells her, his voice stern. "You're like a sister to me. Like a daughter to Molly and Arthur. You're the woman that Ginny's brother loved until the day he died. You've lost a lot, I'm not saying you haven't, I would never say you hadn't. But you do have a family. A family that cares very, very deeply for you, and this path you are following - this road to self destruction - it isn't just hurting you. It is hurting everyone that loves you, as well."

He reaches across his desk to where her fist is still planted firmly, taking her hand into his. "Don't let Dolohov take anything else from you, Hermione. Please. Think about a career change - let someone else carry the burden of hunting the man down. Stop hanging out at the Leaky five nights a week. And please start coming to Sunday dinners at the Burrow again, because fuck, it's all Molly talks about when you're not there."

Hermione chuckles slightly, wiping away the tears that have begun to form around her eyes with her free hand, thinking carefully about Harry's words.

Maybe he was right. Maybe it was time for a career change.

.oOo.

James Potter sits in his office, twirling his wand between his fingers. He was bored.

Then again, James Potter is always bored. Bored of his job. Bored of his London flat. He was bored of cafeteria lunches and he was bored of his tiny office that he felt like he had been stuck in since 1981. Most of all, James Potter was bored with his life.

And yet, life went on around him.

His son grew up. Harry had grown into a wonderful young man who had married an amazing woman, who had recently even made James a grandfather. (He refuses to comment on how being a grandfather at 43 was weird and uncomfortable.) His son had grown up and started an amazingly successful career as an Auror, just like his father, and his father's father. He may have been the youngest seeker in a century, but he had also grown up to be the youngest Head Auror in history.

And meanwhile James Potter was still in the same office he been in for what seemed like a century.

Of course, when he had first started his career as an Auror, he had been excited. Hopeful. Ambitious, even. He had all of these naive ideas of what his life was going to be like, of all the good he was going to do.

He had of course also thought that Lily would be right there by his side. That they'd be a family, maybe have their own quidditch team of kids and then grow old together.

The young were always naive, he thought, before reality wormed its way into their lives.

A widower and single father at 21, whose parents had been taken the year before by dragon pox. He hadn't had anyone to guide him, help him, other than his two best friends - not that they were any less naive than he was.

The truth was, he had put on the act of being his old self for the benefit of his friends and his son, but that was all it had been - an act. He had never recovered from Lily's death; it had left behind the shadow of the man he had once been. At least while Harry was still at home he had a pretense to maintain.

That was gone now, too.

Forty-odd years were not long in the life of a wizard, and his forty-odd years had both hardened him, and made him bored with life.

He pauses the twirling his wand, interrupted from his thoughts when he sees the door to his son's office opening. Hermione Granger exits, pulling the door shut behind her. She looks up as she turns from the door, and their eyes met for a moment. She smiles at him - if he can call it a smile - and gives him a small wave, continuing on her way as he raises a hand back at her.

Shaking his head, he goes back to his twirling.

He isn't surprised at the sight of her. Both eyes blackened, a small limp in her step, her hair as unruly as ever. It isn't unusual to see Hermione Granger come out of his son's office damaged in some way. A black eye or two, bandaged or casted arm while she waited for Skele-gro to work its magic. A cut lip here, a sprained ankle there. It was the price of being a talented Hit Wizard or Witch, and from what James has heard around the office, Hermione Granger is the best.

Not that he had seen her in action since she had left the Aurory. Even as a teenager she had been an accomplished duelist - entirely due to his son, or so she claimed - and her three years as an Auror had helped grow that talent. From what James had heard, however, the last few years after she had joined the Hit Wizards had honed that skill to a level not many had seen before. Injury was par for the course, but she was the only Hit Witch - or Wizard, for that matter - in his entire Ministry career to have never spent any time in one of those personally reserved beds the department held for them at St Mungo's.

The trick was, as it turned out, that she was the only person he had ever met that was just as - possibly even more - broken as he was.