Epilogue

Hermione blinked awake.

That morning she noticed something was off. She wasn't in the right bed; she ran her fingers across it and the rough fabric confused her. Where were the silky sheets she had just gone to sleep in last night? Draco's bed was so soft it felt as if you were floating. This bed however was as lumpy and uncomfortable as a rock. She sat up slightly and looked around the room.

Her vision was rather blurry, and she felt as if the room was spinning. She laid back down in a feeble attempt to defend herself from the disorientation. Something felt so wrong, so terribly, terribly wrong. Her vision began to stabilize and the pit in the middle of her stomach began to grow.

This was not Draco's bedroom. Instead, she found herself in small and cramped room with a small window to the left-hand side. Both the walls and floors were a faded shade of white and the wooden door that sat at the back of the room was painted blue. A single black chair across from her. She looked in her confusion and noticed bright swinging lights, the type of lights one might see inside of a hospital.

That was when it dawned upon her. She knew that this room seemed oddly familiar, it was a room inside of St Mungo's hospital, she had been working there for the last three years, how could she forget? But what could have happened in the space of falling asleep last night until this morning? It just didn't seem to make sense. She felt unbelievably groggy, and her head was hurting.

What if something had happened to Draco too. She wondered. And what about Nick where was he? Why was she even here? She didn't feel as though she'd broken anything or was injured in any sort of way. She had decided to get up and look for someone who could tell her what had happened and where her son and his father was.

She rose from the uncomfortable bed; she was wearing white leggings and a plain white t-shirt as she swung her leg around and went to stand, the moment her foot made contact with the cold flooring, and she tried to stand, she almost instantly fell over. Confused she pushed herself up from the floor and tried to walk again. This time she managed to stand for a few moments before her legs gave out and she found herself on the floor once more.

Did I have an accident? Why can't I remember anything? Hermione thought once more concerned as to why her legs didn't seem to be working properly. Nothing appeared to be wrong with them so why was she finding it so difficult.

It seemed that her questions would be answered as in the next moment the door that she had been so desperately trying to reach opened. A man in a mediwizard's cloak entered the room. He had brown hair and blue eyes, a tired looking face with newly forming wrinkles; Hermione recognised the man almost instantly. It was Todd Wilson. It was her boss.

She sighed in relief. "Todd." She started you. "You've got to tell me what is going on."

The doctor stared from the empty bed to the floor at which Hermione laid on, his eyes grew in complete shock and looked at her with an odd look on his face. After realising he had been staring so oddly, he came to her side and helped up, sitting her back down on the bed. He then took a seat in the chair across from her.

"You'll get the use of using your muscles again, it takes some time for your body to remember how to do it when you haven't used them in so long." Todd said to her with a soft smile, he took out a notepad and quill from his top pocket. It seemed well used and was slightly stained in colour as Hermione watched him flip through the pages until he got to a fresh page.

This sentence confused Hermione more than she already was. "What did you mean when you said; when you haven't used them in so long?" She questioned. "I only used them just last night."

"What is the last thing you remember, Hermione?" Todd asked, ignoring her question. He continued to scribble away inside his notepad, he seemed to be documenting.

Hermione thought back to yesterday they had port keyed to a beach in Australia. They had such a beautiful day, then she watched the sunset with Draco they shared such a passionate kiss and that night in bed they joked about what it would mean for them and their future. All she wanted now was to understand what in Godric's name had happened to her and get back home to her family. It felt odd for her to feel that way about Malfoy Manor, but it was true, it had become a home for her over the few months she had lived there, but it felt even odder for her to refer to Draco as part of her family. He too had seemed to creep up on her, she had come accustomed to their strange dynamic, their half-joking and half-not-joking bickering, the mocking sarcasm and the constant competition of who could get in the last snarky remark.

"I was in the Malfoy Manor and just gone to sleep for the night. Next thing I know I wake up here." Hermione said after a moment or so, trying to keep the details about why she was at the manor in the first place a secret.

Todd seemed to shake his head slightly at her comment and wrote down a few more words. "And who am I to you Hermione?" Todd asked her.

Hermione frowned. "Your name is Doctor Todd Wilson. I have known you for the last three years, I have spent that time working under your guidance, recently I've completed the paperwork for the cure of dragon bites. What does this have to do with anything?" She said frustrated by the lack of information that had been given to her.

The doctor sighed deeply and once he finished dotting down the last of his notes, he flipped the notepad closed and put in back inside of his top pocket. "There is no cure for dragon bites." He said simply.

She stared at the man before him as though he had gone mad. "What do you mean this is no cure for dragon bites? We've only just spent the last six months composing the necessary documents for its official publicization and distribution. Merlin, I even had to start sending Nick to day-care so I could do overtime!" She exclaimed.

"Nick." Todd said softly. "Tell me Hermione, who is Nick."

Now Hermione was starting to get angry. Why was her boss acting so strange, no cure for dragon bites? What was he playing at? And now he was asking who Nick was so though I didn't mention him every day at work. What was Todd playing at? "You know exactly who Nick is, he's, my son. Look Todd, I don't know what kind of joke you're trying to play on me but it's not funny anymore. It's been a strange morning; I just want to know what is going on and then I want to go back home, my son needs me." She said gruffly in complete annoyance.

"There is no easy way to say this Hermione, I will be as gentle as I can." Todd started. "Hermione you were in accident."

"What happened." She exclaimed her braining running a hundred miles per second thinking of any and all possible scenarios.

"But that was a long time ago." He continued and Hermione stared at him with a puzzled look on her face. "It was the year you had graduated from Hogwarts do you remember that year?" He asked.

Hermione thought back to the months after leaving school. "That was the year I found out I was pregnant; I had enrolled in the healer program, but I ended up taking that year off to cope with the pregnancy. I went back to the program the following year and that was when I first met you."

Todd shook his head, a bittersweet smile on his face. "That is what would have happened, Hermione. There is not a single doubt in my mind about that. You are the smartest witch of your age; I would have been honoured to have trained you to be a healer and it would have been a pleasure to work aside you as equals."

With every word that left Todd Wilson's mouth, Hermione found herself more and more lost. He didn't seem to be speaking a word of sense, but still she listened wanting to get to the bottom of all this rubbish.

"It was the night that you had been accepted into the healer program." He continued. Hermione thought back to the afternoon that her acceptance letter came in the post, how excited she was. She had found out only a week before that, that she was pregnant, she was still unsure about what she was going to do. "You and your family had gone for a celebratory dinner." Imagines of her sitting in the backseat of her father's car as they drove towards the restaurant passed through her mind. Their favourite restaurant, she had her classic. It was a great night. She recalled it fondly. "Do you remember what happened after you ate dinner that night?" Todd asked.

A memory flashed before her eyes, her mother was sitting in the passenger side as her father drove and she sat in the backseat as her and her mother laughed at a joke her father had just told. "We drove back home and then had a quiet night, nothing out of the ordinary." Hermione replied, sorry

"Do you remember being at home that night? Do you specifically remember what you and your family did that night?" Todd asked, he seemed to be choosing his words very carefully.

Hermione frowned. What did I do that night? She asked herself. She could remember herself clearly at the restaurant and again the same way on the drive back home, but why could she not remember what she did when she got back home that night. "No, I don't exactly remember what I did one night four years ago. Why should this even concern the accident I have apparently had." Hermione said sarcastically finally get fed up with Todd going around the houses with this explanation.

Todd cleared throat awkwardly. "You never went home that night Hermione. You and your family got into an accident that night in your father's muggle transportation."

As Todd spoke those words Hermione saw an imagine of yellow and blue lights, the same lights she had seen somewhere far away inside of a dream that she had long forgot. A siren sounded in the distance. "What is this madness!" Hermione exclaimed but Todd just continued to talk.

"That night all those years ago, your mother and father had sadly passed away. Your mother had died on impact and your father died later that night inside of a muggle hospital. You were rushed into something called surgery inside that same hospital. No one from the magical community was aware of the accident until it aired publicly to muggles through something called a television and a muggleborn wizard recognised your name. By the time the healers had located you and transported you to St Mungo's it was already too late to the save the life that that was inside of you." Todd said as he wiped his brow in clear distress.

Hermione helplessly sat there as imagines of herself screaming and thrashing around in a hospital bed as several mediwitches stood around her. One of them raised their wand towards her and she watched herself fall into a sedated-like sleep. This scared Hermione and when the flashback stopped to looked round wildly. "What is happening, why are you telling me this, that didn't happen. I only saw my parents a few weeks ago. Heck I was with Nick just last night. Why would you say something like this?" She asked, trying her best to shake off what she had just seen.

"You had just lost your whole family. You had been through a major accident and suffered severe damage to the head. The trauma of going through something like that would have sent anyone off of the rails. Even someone as intelligent as you Hermione. I am so very sorry, but you are here, and you have come so far. It's time for you to leave behind all of this fantasy you have created for yourself." Todd said with pleading eyes.

Silent tears ran down Hermione's cheeks. This can't be true. She thought to herself chaotically. Her head throbbed and she could feel each heartbeat she took, pounding like a drum. "This is insanity." She said after a long moment, still refusing to believe this madman. She just wanted to get back to Nick, her little boy, her baby.

Todd sighed. "What you have experienced is not insanity. Hermione you have experienced what we call acute psychosis. And it fairly normal for anyone to through something like this after such a lifechanging event such as your accident, but Hermione the extensiveness of this episode you have experienced is on the cusp of developing into a lifelong mental instability if you do not decide to accept this truth." He said as he pulled out a document from somewhere beneath his robes. "Nick was never born. You have not left this hospital room since the night you were brought here almost five years ago. During your distress after finding out your mother and father had passed along with the unborn child you were carrying inside of you, it became too much for your brain to handle. You experienced something known as survivors' guilt. You couldn't switch off the pain, so it led to your brain doing the one thing it could stop it the cycle you had created. You mind decided to completely shut out what had happened to you, it was though the crash had never happened, it was as though nothing had changed at all. You created a life for yourself. A life for your family; your mother, your father, your child. You made it so you were all together. You kept them alive, Hermione. It is nothing that you should be ashamed about, but I'd be damned if I let you spend another day in this bed living inside of your head. You are one of the most talented witches of this era and this world, the real one, it needs you. You can't sustain the illusion you've created inside your head." Todd finished.

"I don't... I do not understand... it was all an illusion? I'm delusional?" Hermione repeated, tears were now cascading down her face like a waterfall. Her vision begun blurring around her and the thudding inside of her head increased in intensity. There was a tight sensation in her chest as though she was being constricted. Abuse. Car Crash. Death. Miscarriage. These imagines, no memories, flooded her mind all at once, over and over as though it was a record that had been put on repeat. She felt as though she was drowning. As though she was slipping in and out of consciousness. Abuse. Car Crash. Death. Miscarriage. Again, and again until she felt the last moments of her sanity slip away from her like sand in hourglass and just as she was on the verge of begging for the sweet relief of death, the imagine of a small boy laughing and building sandcastles came to her through the darkness and all of the chaos, all of the noise finally came to an end.

"You can be so much more than this. It will take time, but you can, and you will recover. There is an advanced team of healers that are dedicated to treating you, Hermione. Now that you are finally responsive, it changes everything." Todd said with a hopeful gleam in his eye.

The healer pulled out his wand and summoned his Patronus, it was a German Shepard. It ran around the room above their heads in playful circles. "Please let Mr and Mrs Potter know that we have had a breakthrough." He said to the corporeal creature. "He will be so very pleased Miss Granger. Mrs Potter will be shedding tears of joy." Todd said, looking back towards his patient.

That was when he noticed.

Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her age, member of the golden trio and horcrux hunter had made her choice. She sat there motionless, a blank expression on her face and yet it seemed that she was oddly peace. Her eyes were open, but she could no longer see him. She saw through him.

All was well again.

Hermione was sat inside of Nick's bedroom. She watched in awe as Nick drew a picture with his crayons and laughed happily.

"Look mummy!" Nick exclaimed, as he showed her the finished piece. It had the words "I love you daddy" written in large, crooked writing across the top of the page. It was a drawing of three mutated figures. A tall one with yellow hair. A shorter one with long brown locks that reached the floor and the last one, the smallest, sported the same yellow hair as the first. The crayons were enchanted to allow young wizards and witches to be able to write whatever they were thinking and allowed what they drew to move. Hermione watched as crayon Nick built a sandcastle on the beach as crayon Hermione and crayon Draco sat cuddling watching him.

"Let's owl this to Daddy. I'm sure it will make his day; he's been working so hard lately." Hermione said as she scooped Nick up in one arm.

Looking at the picture, Hermione couldn't help but think that the image was absolutely perfect... and that a real-life replica of it wouldn't be so bad after all.

The End