Harry Potter: The Price of Silence.

Hermione drew a deep breath as she stared at the pristine cream wall that was opposite her window, her chosen easel. She wondered if Malfoy would be infuriated if she ruined his wall with her art. She secretly hoped he would. Hoped he would fly into a vicious rage and smash something. It was always fun to watch him lose his temper, and there wasn't anything else he could punish her with anyway.

Her heart a wild, excited beast in her chest, Hermione dipped her brush into the large dap of blue paint, and placed a broad stroke against the untainted wall. Then she placed another. And then another.

She felt the tightness in her chest ease with every stroke. Felt the noisy chatter in her head - the one that fussed over escape strategies and Order secrets - quiet with every brush of the paint. By the time her art had started to take shape, by the time the image of a lake with tall trees started to appear on her canvas, the voice was nothing more than a gentle whisper.

Hermione painted for hours and hours and hours, and she so enthralled in her artwork, so transfixed as she covered the once cream wall in vibrant shades of blue and jade, that she never felt a pair of curious grey eyes watching her from the doorway.

10th January

"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times," Dumbledore had once said. "If one only remembers to turn on the light."

Hermione had replayed that speech a thousand times over since the start of the war.

In the beginning, she'd used it as a focal point. The phrase had grounded her. Pulled her from the dark direction her thoughts usually took, and gave her strength. She used it to drag herself through battles, to remind herself that the Order could win this war, that there was light at the end of the tunnel, they just needed to hang on and stay strong.

She'd repeated the phrase when she'd narrowly avoided green curses as she'd dragged Charlotte Sheldon's corpse through a burning building, when Jason Aldo had died in her arms two years into the war, and each time they burned the body of another fallen soldier.

It was a phrase that Hermione knew well, but even she had to admit that Dumbledore couldn't have envisioned the way things would turn out. She wondered if he would still be as cheerily optimistic about the future if he could have seen how the bodies would pile high in the streets. If he knew how many children would die in the first year. Or how many of his beloved students would turn their backs on one another and murder their friends on the battlefield.

The world had become a much more sinister place since he'd made that speech. There wasn't a lantern strong enough to banish the kind of darkness that had eclipsed the world since his death. Some places weren't meant to shine anymore. The world was tainted now; all the light had been snuffed out to leave an endless sea of emptiness in its place.

Dumbledore's words had lost meaning to Hermione over the years. As the war dragged on and the corpses piled higher, she'd found it harder and harder to rationalise the words, but now, as she stared out the window and watched Astoria and Blaise wander the gardens together, hand in hand with smiles on their faces, she found herself reminded of them.

Despite everything, despite the war and decay and the state of the world, they had found one another.

Hermione had never believed in soulmates. Always thought the notion of one person being perfectly matched to another was ridiculous - and quite frankly childish. The idea that two souls who were so undeniably suited would somehow eventually find one another - even in the most ridiculous and outlandish of circumstances - had always seemed absurd, even comical...

Maybe it was because the logical part of her brain always relied on evidence and facts to prove a hypothesis, or maybe the war had just made her cynical. Whatever the reason for her stubbornness, she'd never once deterred from her believes on the matter. Not when she'd watched Harry and Ginny take their vows. Not when Luna and Neville had had their first child. Or even when Ron had protested his innocence, and declared it wasn't his fault that he'd fallen for Romilda, they were just simply meant to be.

No matter how heart-warming those moments had been, Hermione still didn't believe in soulmates. Those couples were clearly suited for one another, they loved each other deeply and would die to protect their significant other, but were they destined to be together?

No, not to Hermione's way of thinking.

She thought her beliefs on soulmates was immovable, unchangeable - until she saw the way Zabini and Astoria were together.

Their devotion to each other was like nothing Hermione had ever seen. They didn't merely just love one another, that didn't even begin to scratch the surface of how they felt, it almost seemed insulting to refer to them that way. It was as if their significant other was the centre of their entire universe. If Astoria was Zabini's heart, then he was her blood. Both vital to one's survival, but unable to exist without the other. They needed one another.

Hermione smiled as she watched Zabini twirl his wife in a circle. He pulled her hand towards his mouth and placed a delicate kiss on her gloved knuckles. Snow flurried under Astoria's long skirt as she grabbed his face and sealed their lips together. Hermione had watched them do this almost every day since their returns to the manor.

She thought the novelty might wear off after a few days, that they would grow tired of one another, and their public displays of affection would vanish. It didn't.

They reminded Hermione of a pair of lovestruck teenagers. Their hands always firmly clasped together, lips even firmer together, hardly ever apart and always laughing. Despite the disdain Hermione felt towards Zabini, she couldn't deny that the love they had for one another brought a certain warmth and light to the dark halls of the manor.

Hermione had learned a lot about Astoria since their first meeting. She'd learned that the blonde was always impeccably groomed, her hair and make-up were perfect, and she was always dressed as though she might need to attend a ball or gala at a moment's notice.

She'd learned that Astoria had wonderful taste in fashion. On closer inspection, the clothes she'd stocked Hermione's wardrobe with were all perfect and wildly expensive, most with labels written in French or Italian. The clothes didn't seem as offensive or scary now she knew Malfoy hadn't touched them, so Hermione had been wearing them daily. She only chose simple garments; Muggle denim jeans, T-shirts and long woollen cardigans that were just as soft and warm as she'd imagined they would be.

She still kept her mission uniform tucked under her bed, she couldn't bear to part with it completely.