The walk back from Hogwarts was a blur. The crumpled parchment felt like a lead weight in her pocket, each rustle a whisper of her own failure. There is nothing more for me here. The finality of it was a door slamming shut, the lock clicking into place from the other side.
She didn't go home. She went to the Ministry, her feet carrying her on autopilot through the bustling atrium, up the lifts, and into the sterile quiet of the Department of Mysteries. She didn't have authorization to go further than the entrance chamber, a circular room with identical, vanishing doors.
She stood in the center, feeling foolish and desperate. She had no idea which door led to his office, or if he even had one. He was an Unspeakable. He was, by definition, unreachable.
"Can I help you, Miss Granger?"
She spun around. A witch with a kind, placid face and silvery hair stood there, her robes shimmering with a faint, starry pattern.
"I... I need to speak with Cassian Thorne," Hermione said, her voice sounding unnaturally high.
The witch's expression didn't change. "I'm afraid Mr. Thorne is unavailable. He is on a research sabbatical."
"Sabbatical?" The word was a punch to the gut. "Since when?"
"As of this morning." The witch's gaze was polite but impenetrable. "Is there something I can assist you with? Your project with the Aethelred Vault has been reclassified to monitoring status. All further inquiries should be directed through the Department of Magical Artefacts."
He was gone. He had not just left the project; he had left. He had made himself completely, utterly unavailable.
"Thank you," Hermione mumbled, turning away before the witch could see the tears welling in her eyes. "No. There's nothing."
She fled the Department of Mysteries, the humiliation burning as hot as the grief. He had cut her out so cleanly, so efficiently. It was the most professional, most devastating rejection imaginable.
For the next two days, she moved through her life like a ghost. She went to work, she ate, she slept, but it was all a pantomime. The world had lost its color, its sound. The only thing that felt real was the aching, hollow space in her chest where their arguments, their shared silences, and his rare, breathtaking smiles used to be.
On the third day, Ginny found her. She didn't Floo or owl; she simply let herself into Hermione's flat with the key she'd been given for emergencies. She found Hermione curled on the sofa, still in her dressing gown though it was past noon, staring blankly at a cold cup of tea.
"Right," Ginny said, her hands on her hips. "That's enough of this."
Hermione didn't look up. "Go away, Ginny."
"Not a chance." Ginny marched over, vanished the cold tea with a flick of her wand, and sat down opposite her. "Talk. And don't you dare say it's 'nothing'. Harry says you look like you've been hit with a Jelly-Legs Jinx, and Ron's ready to hunt down Thorne and hex him into next week. What happened?"
The simple, direct concern was her undoing. A sob broke from Hermione's throat, harsh and ugly. The whole story came tumbling out in a messy, incoherent rush—the fight, her cruel words, the empty chamber, the note, the research sabbatical.
Ginny listened without interruption, her expression growing grimmer.
"And the worst part," Hermione finished, wiping her tears with the sleeve of her gown, "is that he's right. I was scared. I am scared. He's this brilliant, complicated, messy storm of a person, and I tried to put him in a neat little box labeled 'colleague' because I didn't know what else to do with him. And when he didn't fit, I smashed the box and blamed him for breaking it."
Ginny was quiet for a long moment. "You were a right idiot," she said finally, her voice not unkind.
"I know."
"And he's an even bigger one for running away instead of fighting for you."
Hermione shook her head. "Why would he fight for someone who sees him as a problem to be solved?"
"Because maybe," Ginny said, leaning forward, her eyes fierce, "he's just as scared as you are. You think someone that brilliant at reading magic is blind to people? He saw you pulling away, Hermione. He felt you building walls. So he did what proud, stupid people do—he left before he could be left."
The insight was so sharp, so true, it stole Hermione's breath. She had been so focused on her own fear, her own hurt, that she hadn't considered his. The man who understood grief so intimately would be hypersensitive to its first, faint whispers.
"What do I do?" Hermione whispered, feeling utterly lost.
"You do what you always do," Ginny said, standing up. "You figure it out. You research. You make a plan. But first, you get up, you take a shower, and you put on some real clothes. You're Hermione Granger. You don't fall apart over a man, even a complicated, brilliant one. You find a way to fix it."
Ginny's words were a lifeline, a call to arms. The paralyzing grief began to recede, replaced by a familiar, stubborn determination. Ginny was right. Falling apart wasn't going to bring him back. He had withdrawn from the field, but the war wasn't over.
She had accused him of pushing people away. It was time to prove she wasn't someone who could be pushed that easily.
She had no idea where he was. No idea how to reach him. But she knew magic. And she knew her own mind. He had started this by teaching her to listen to the magic of the Vault. Now, she would use everything he'd taught her, everything she was, to find a way back to him.
The reckoning was over. The fight back was about to begin.