"Once upon a time there was a little girl
In her early years she had to learn
How to grow up living in a war that she called home
Never know just where to turn for shelter from the storm
Hurt me to see the pain across my mother's face
Every time my father's fist would put her in her place
Hearing all the yelling I would cry up in my room
Hoping it would be over soon."
I walked up the stairs to the second floor of the Burrow, making my way to Hermione's room. She had been released
from St. Mungo's yesterday, and had been in her room ever since. She would only allow Mrs. Weasley and I to visit
her; everyone else was told to go away.
I had just got done listening to Ron bitch once again about how he was her friend too, and why wouldn't she talk to him? I bit my tongue to stop myself from yelling at him; he had no idea what Hermione had been through, and I wasn't going to be the one to tell him. Mrs. Weasley had walked over and brought me a tray of food to take to her, thankfully giving me an excuse to get away from Ron.
Sad to say, Ginny wasn't much better; she thought that since they were both girls, Hermione could probably do with some 'girl talk' and she would feel better. I wanted to scream at her that she was just being a nosy busybody and to go away; thankfully, I was able to keep my anger in check.
I knocked quietly on Hermione's door a couple of times and said "it's Harry."
"Come in" I heard her quietly reply. Her vocal chords were still not healed completely. Her Dad had wrapped his hands tightly around her neck when he had choked her, and the Doctors said that her vocal chords were bruised. Unfortunately, there was no magical cure for that and they would have to heal normally.
"Bruises fade Father, but the pain remains the same
And I still remember how you kept me so afraid
Strength is my Mother for all the love she gave
Every morning that I wake I look back to yesterday
And I'm OK"
I carefully opened the door so as not to spill any of the pumpkin juice that was precariously balanced on the tray, and
made my way over to the chair next to her bed. I looked at her laying there and felt badly for her; she was curled up
into a ball, still wearing her nightclothes, with her face tearstained from all the crying she had been doing. I placed
the tray on the nightstand and gave her a smile. "Are you feeling any better?" I asked her, already knowing
the answer.
"My throat doesn't hurt as bad as it did this morning" she whispered "other than that, nothing else has changed."
Her eyes, that used to be glittering pools of chocolate brown, looked dull to me now. There wasn't a spark of life left in them anymore, and it made me angry that her Dad had done this to her. I moved to sit next to her on the bed and grabbed her hand in mine while running my other hand through her hair. I watched as she closed her eyes and sighed; she looked so exhausted. "Why don't you try to get some sleep?" I asked quietly.
"It's not so easy to forget
All the lines you left along her neck
When I was thrown against cold stairs
And every day I'm afraid to come home
In fear of what I might see there"
"I can't sleep" she answered, her bottom lip quivering. "Every time I close my eyes, I see my Dad
coming after me." The tears started to fall down her face again, so I reached out and wiped them away. "I
keep reliving that day over and over again Harry; I'm afraid to go to sleep anymore."
"Bruises fade Father, but the pain remains the same
And I still remember how you kept me so, so afraid
Strength is my Mother for all the love she gave
Every morning that I wake I look back to yesterday."
I looked at her for a moment, and then decided to tell her something I had been keeping from everyone else. "You
remember at the end of last term, when Cedric was killed and I brought his body back to Hogwarts?" She stared at
me for a moment, and then nodded her head yes. "Every time I fall asleep, I find myself back in that graveyard,
watching as Wormtail kills him over and over again." I felt her squeeze my hand and it gave me the courage to go
on.
"Remember when I told you that Voldemort's wand locked with mine? Well, something else happened after that." I heard a small voice in the back of my head, asking why I was telling her all of this, but deep down I knew why; I wanted her to know that she wasn't the only one that was scared of going to sleep. "When they locked together, it caused his wand to start spitting out images of all of the people he had previously killed. The first one out was Cedric, followed by two people I didn't know, and then my Mum came out." I saw Hermione's eyes widen at this, but she didn't say anything, she just let me continue to speak. "She actually talked to me; she said my Father was coming soon, and then he formed in front of me. Everyone's right, by the way, I look a lot like him. He's the one that told me to run back and grab the Cup so that I could get back to Hogwarts; he said he and the other shadows would distract Voldemort so I could escape. Cedric...asked me to take his body back to his parents." I heard Hermione gasp, and she grabbed onto my hand so tightly that it hurt.
"I'm so sorry Harry, that must have been awful for you" she said, as more tears slid down her cheeks. I cupped her cheek with my hand and used my thumb to brush them away, letting it linger for longer than I should have. "First you go through all of that, and then my Dad attacked you..."
"I often wonder why I carry all this guilt
When it's you that helped me put up all these walls I've built
Shadows stir at night through a crack in the door
The echo of a broken child screaming "please no more"
Daddy, don't you understand the damage you have done
To you it's just a memory, but for me it still lives on."
"Don't" I said, a little more forceful than I had intended "don't you dare blame yourself for
his actions or for me getting hurt; I went to your house willingly. When I saw you in the car with him and your Mum,
I...I went nutters. I tried to get my Uncle to stop the car, but of course he wouldn't. I jumped on the Knight Bus
as soon as I got to the Dursley's; I'm just glad I got to you in time."
A small, sad smile was on her face as she said "I appreciate you coming to my our rescue Harry, but you have to be more careful. Voldemort's back now; you know he's going to be coming after you."
"I know" I said quietly; I knew she was right, but that was something I really didn't want to think about right now. I reached over and grabbed the cup of tea I had brought up for her and handed it to her. "Here, drink this, it might help your throat."
"Bruises fade Father but the pain remains the same
And I still remember how you kept me so afraid
Strength is my Mother for all the love she gave
Every morning that I wake I look back to yesterday
And I'm OK
I'm OK" *
She took the cup and sipped from it, wincing as the warm liquid slid down her throat. "Thank you Harry" she
said.
"It's no problem; if I didn't bring it, Mrs. Weasley would have" I replied, smiling at her. I watched her shake her head, as if I had misunderstood her.
"No, not just for the tea, for everything" she said. When I just shook my head, she said "I know I've said it before, but if it weren't for you, my Mum and I would probably be d-dead right now."
Tears started pouring out of her eyes as I reached out and took the cup of tea from her. Setting it back on the tray, I turned back to her and wrapped my arms around her, giving her the hug I knew she needed at that moment. She continued to cry for quite a while until there was a knock on the door.
~*~
I sat there with my head on Harry's shoulder, feeling safe wrapped in his arms, when someone knocked on the door. Thinking that it was Mrs. Weasley, because she had said she would be up to check on me later, I said "Come in."
Needless to say, I was surprised to see Ron and Ginny walk in. I pulled back from Harry and he turned to see who I was looking at. "What are you guys doing?" Ron asked, looking at us suspiciously.
"Harry was giving me a hug Ron; what did it look like we were doing?" I asked snappishly.
"I wouldn't know Hermione, you never talk to anyone but Harry and Mum anymore" he yelled back, his face starting to turn red.
"Ron..." Harry said, the warning clear in his voice.
"No, Harry, maybe we should tell them" I said, looking him straight in the eye "everything."
"Are you sure?" he asked me, his concern evident on his face. "We don't have to tell them anything Hermione" he whispered, so that only I could hear.
"If they want to know so badly, I'll tell them" I said, sitting up straighter. "What exactly do you want to know?" I asked, staring straight at Ron.
"What happened to you that made you end up in St. Mungo's?" he asked.
Harry reached out and grabbed my hand once again, giving me the courage to say what I needed to say. "My Dad".
"What do you mean your Dad?" Ron asked, confused.
I took a deep breath and said "he beat my Mum and I". You could have heard a pin drop in the room at that moment. Ron and Ginny stood staring at me; I knew they would have a problem grasping what I had said.
They had grown up in a loving family, so much unlike Harry and I. "He had been in jail for the last two years; Harry had told your Mum what had been going on with my family, and she had asked Dumbledore to come check on me. He arrived just as my Dad was beating me, and had contacted the police."
"You knew?" Ron asked, looking angrily at Harry.
"Yes, I knew" Harry replied calmly.
"Why didn't you say anything to me?" he asked, looking from Harry to me.
"It wasn't mine to tell" replied Harry, looking at me.
"I didn't feel comfortable telling everyone about it" I replied.
"Then why did you tell Harry?"
"Ron, that's none of your..." I started to say, but Harry interrupted me.
"Because I understood what she was going through."
Ron and Ginny both stared at him, open mouthed. Ginny, the first to recover, asked "you mean you..."
Harry just shook his head yes and said "the Dursley's weren't exactly happy to have me around."
"That still doesn't explain why you didn't say anything to me" Ron said, sounding very put out.
"It's hard to talk about Ron" I said, and as he opened his mouth to say something else, I cut him off. "You come from a loving, caring family Ron; there is no way you can possibly understand the hell that Harry and I have been through."
He looked at me for a moment, still visibly angry, as he asked "so what happened?"
"My Dad got out of jail and kidnapped my Mum. He forced her to come pick me up at the station while he waited in the parking lot" I started to explain, and then Harry jumped in.
"When my Uncle drove out of the parking lot, I saw her Dad in the car and knew something wasn't right. As soon as we got in the driveway, I hopped on the Knight Bus and went to her house."
"My Dad had started in on my Mum and I immediately; he blamed me for putting him in jail" I explained "he knocked my Mum unconscious and then came after me."
Harry squeezed my hand, hard, as he said "I used magic to open the front door when I heard her Dad yelling and then her screaming. When I walked into the sitting room..." Harry looked down at the floor for a moment before he looked back at me, sadness evident in his eyes. He took a deep breath and said "her Dad had her pinned to the floor, and he was strangling her."
"What?!" Ron asked in disbelief.
"It gets worse" I said "but I need you two to promise me that you won't mention one word of this conversation to anyone."
"We promise" Ron and Ginny said together.
Satisfied, I continued. "Harry knocked my Dad off of me as I lost consciousness."
"We rolled around on the floor, he punched me and I got in a couple of good hits myself" Harry continued. "I pulled my wand on him and he just knocked it out of my hands. He ended up slamming me against a wall, ready to punch me, when..."
"When my Mum shot him" I finished. Ron was speechless and Ginny's eyes looked like they might pop out of her head.
Ginny was the first to recover; she ran to me and flung her arms around me. She sat there hugging me for quite a while. I knew she was crying because I could feel her tears soaking into my nightshirt. I had tears in my eyes too, but none fell this time.
Ron just stood rooted by the door; I could tell he really didn't know what to say. Finally, he opened his mouth and said "I'm sorry for acting like such a prat; I shouldn't have made you feel like you had to tell us."
"You didn't 'force' me to do anything" I said, as Ginny detached herself from me.
"You were being a pain in the arse though" said Harry, smiling good-naturedly at him.
~*~
Our time at the burrow was a little easier after that. Ron and Ginny eased up on Hermione and let her have her space while she and I spent more time together. I would go into her room in the morning and we would work on our summer course work and talk; we were really comfortable with each other.
One day Mrs. Weasley came into the room and asked to speak to Hermione alone. I walked downstairs and played a game of wizard's chess while I waited. Ginny had invited a girl from her year over for the day; she was a Ravenclaw and her name was Luna Lovegood. I couldn't help noticing how she continually stared at Ron while Ginny was talking to her. I knew Ron could feel her staring because he kept fidgeting in his chair. I couldn't help but laugh at his unease.
Mrs. Weasley came down a short while later and said that Hermione wanted to know if I would go back up to her room. Something about the way Mrs. Weasley was acting made me feel uneasy; I agreed to go up and told Ron I would see him later. I knocked twice on the door and heard her quietly say "come in".
When I walked in, I immediately knew something was terribly wrong. Hermione was sitting up in bed, hugging a pillow and sobbing. I walked quickly over to the side of the bed and wrapped her in my arms, hoping to give her some kind of comfort. I hated to see her so sad and upset all of the time.
"Hermione, what's wrong?" I asked.
"I-It's my Mum" she said, her voice choked with her tears. "Dumbledore just sent an owl to Mrs. Weasley, she...she..."
I started to picture all of these horrible things that could have happened to Mrs. Granger in the Psychiatric Hospital she was at, but none of them got close to what Hermione said next.
"She'd been acting really calm these last few days, and the Doctors thought she might be getting better. They found her unconscious in her room this morning; she had slit her w-wrists." Hermione clung to me as she said this, and I lightly rubbed her back, trying to soothe her any way possible. "T-They don't even k-know where she got the knife; they think she snuck it from the k-kitchen." She pulled back from me a little bit while leaving her hands wrapped around me as she said "she's in a coma Harry, and they don't expect her to come out of it." She looked sad and confused as she said "Mrs. Weasley said that she and Mr. Weasley would like to be my legal guardians; I'm supposed to give them an answer tomorrow on whether I want them to be or not. I don't feel like I have a choice; my parents are gone."
"Gods, Hermione, I'm so sorry" I said, hugging her to me once again. She was basically an orphan now, and I knew exactly how she felt. I sat there holding her like that until she calmed down a little and said she was tired and wanted to go to sleep. I leaned over and planted a light kiss on her forehead, telling her goodnight, and then made my way to Ron's room, where I was staying.
I told Ron what had happened, not thinking that Hermione would mind since she told him everything else, and then went to sleep. It didn't take me long to fall asleep; I may not have been doing anything to tire me out physically, but I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. Some time later, I was awakened by someone screaming. I jumped out of bed and ran out of the room when I realized it was Hermione.
I ran into her room and found her thrashing in bed, calling out my name and screaming "no, don't hurt him!" I sat next to her on the bed and started shaking her and calling her name, hoping to wake her. Finally, her eyes fluttered open and fixed on me. Breathing heavily, she said "Harry?"
"Yes luv, it's me. Are you ok?" I asked, noticing her face was flushed and covered by a sheen of sweat as she forcefully wrapped her arms around my neck, as if hanging on for dear life.
Mrs. Weasley came into the room just as she said "I had a dream that you were fighting Voldemort and he k-killed you." She buried her face in the crook of my neck and started to quietly cry. "Why does this keep happening to me?" she wailed, crying harder. I looked at Mrs. Weasley, who had a pained expression on her face that probably mirrored mine. She walked over and sat on the other side of Hermione on the bed, placing her hand on her back.
"It's ok dear, it was only a bad dream" she said in a calm, motherly voice.
Hermione looked at her and said "my whole life has been a bad dream Mrs. Weasley."
Mrs. Weasley and I stayed with her until she had calmed down again. Mrs. Weasley started to make her way out of the room and I had just gotten up when Hermione grabbed my arm and said "please stay."
I looked towards Mrs. Weasley and saw a disapproving look on her face. "I'll be back in a second" I told Hermione, and then walked out into the hall.
"I don't think this is a good idea Harry" she said, her tone full of motherly reproach.
"Why is that Mrs. Weasley?" I asked. "Could it be that you actually think I would take advantage of Hermione in her delicate emotional state?"
"Of course not!" she replied, as if insulted that I would suggest such a thing. "It's just not appropriate Harry."
"How do you figure?" I asked. "She is scared to death right now; she's lost her Mother, her Father, and she just had a nightmare in which she lost her best friend. She wants me to stay with her because she's frightened, and I'm the one she's most comfortable with right now. After some of the nightmares I've had, I understand exactly how she's feeling at this moment."
Mrs. Weasley stood there in the hallway, sizing me up for a couple of minutes, before she said "I guess it would be ok. I'm sorry I doubted your character Harry; I know you're a good boy."
I gave her a small smile and turned back to the room. I walked in and quietly closed the door behind me, and then made my way to the bed. "Are you doing any better?" I asked her.
"Yeah; I'm just exhausted." I looked at the black circles under her eyes and thought of something that could help her.
"I'll be back in just a second" I told her and made my way quickly back into the hall. I saw the kitchen light on and hoped it was Mrs. Weasley.
When I walked into the kitchen, I almost sighed in relief when I saw her sitting at the table with a cup of tea. "Mrs. Weasley, do you have any dreamless sleep potion?"
"Of course; why didn't I think of that?" she said as she got up and made her way to one of the cabinets. She pulled out a small vial of light blue liquid and handed it to me. "Make sure she drinks it all."
"Thank you" I said as I took it from her and made my way back up the stairs. I went back into Hermione's room and handed her the vial. When she looked at me questioningly, I said "it's dreamless sleep potion; drink up."
She looked at me for a second and then drained the vial quickly. I took it from her and put it on the bedside table, and then crawled carefully into bed behind her; I decided it would be best if I lay on top of the blanket instead of under it. She rolled over so that she was facing me and snuggled her face into my chest. I wrapped my arm around her waist and wrapped my other arm under my pillow. Feeling more comfortable and relaxed than I had in a while, I watched as her eyes slowly closed as the potion took affect. I watched her sleep for a little while, noticing how peaceful she looked while she slept, and then drifted slowly off to sleep myself.
~*~
I had decided to agree to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley being my guardians simply because I had no where else to go and no one else to watch over me. Dumbledore had concocted some story about my Dad and they would be burying him any day now; I think the Police were convinced that some robber had shot him in a botched robbery attempt. Whatever the reason, I was glad my Mum was not being blamed for his death.
Unfortunately, since Harry had used magic to get into my house that day, the Ministry of Magic had scheduled a disciplinary hearing. Dumbledore had held them off for quite a while, but they finally insisted that he show up at the Ministry and explain his actions. I felt bad and asked if there was anything I could do; Dumbledore said I could go along if I felt strong enough, just in case I was needed as a witness. Of course, I agreed to go; after Harry had helped me so much, it was the least I could do for him.
When we arrived at the Ministry, we found out that the hearing had been changed to one hour earlier than the time we were given. We rushed down to the courtroom where the hearing was to be held, and found about fifty people waiting for us. I started to get a bad feeling as I saw Fudge glaring at us from his seat above us. We sat in three chairs that were in the middle of the room as Fudge looked at Dumbledore and said "you were supposed to be here an hour ago."
"That's not what I was told when the hearing was scheduled" Dumbledore replied calmly.
Fudge just glared at him and said "let's get this over with."
*="I'm Ok" by Christina Aguilera (Stripped album)
~A/N>Thanks for all of the great reviews and support for this story. I'm going to try to update again
Monday or Tuesday. I'm sorry for the spacing of the song lyrics, when I converted the file to HTML form, it crammed
all the sentences together, so I had to double space them to get them to convert the right way.