Chapter 11
"Manhandled Potter Paramour Treated at St. Mungo's
By Rita Skeeter…"
"Oooooh, that…that…unbelievable bitch! That hag!" Hermione seethed as she read the article in the Sunday Prophet. It was filled with half-truths and innuendo, and the fact that it bore Rita Skeeter's byline made it even worse.
"That was my reaction too," Harry said as he tore the back page off the newspaper and stuffed it inside Hedwig's cage. "Here you go, girl. Feel free to shit on Skeeter the same way she shat on us."
Hedwig regarded the somewhat crumpled paper with disdain. Hermione pouted, slightly annoyed when the snowy owl didn't immediately poop on the paper.
"So how was your first day back at work?" Harry asked as he sat down near Hermione on the sofa. He'd not had a chance to speak with her since he got off the lift that morning, and his interview with Lupin had left him feeling fretful and out of sorts.
Hermione gave him a wan smile and shrugged. "Not too bad. I read through some of my older cases and helped one of my co-workers with some rune translations."
"Sounds like a wildly interesting day," Harry remarked as he thumbed the latest copy of Quidditch Weekly.
"Better than being stuck at home again. How was your day?"
Harry opened his mouth to reply, then paused, wondering how much he ought to tell her. "I talked to Remus about our case. He finally interrogated me about what happened in Bulgaria," he said, then summarized what he'd told Lupin.
"So now you've told him everything you know."
"Yeah. He also had some news for me."
Hermione's breath hitched as she strove to maintain a normal tone. "You mean about…my attacker."
"Yes! So he told you too?"
She felt a tiny shiver run though her and hoped Harry hadn't noticed. "Of course. I have to go in tomorrow at half-past ten and identify him."
A knot of fear entwined with disgust rose in Harry's chest as he reached over and took her hand. "I'm sorry. I wish you didn't have to do that."
Hermione turned her face toward Harry and gave him her most level gaze. "Harry, I'm the victim of the assault. I have to identify him. The Ministry can't prosecute the case without my testimony."
"I know, I…I just wish you didn't have to go through all that again. It could be really…traumatic for you."
She bit her lip, fighting an urge welling inside her to snarl at him for no reason. "Can't be worse than the actual thing, though, can it? I think it's just better to get it over with."
"Do you want me to be there when you identify him?"
"What good would that do? You weren't here when it happened. You don't know what he looks like," she snapped finally, her voice steely.
Something in her tone revived Harry's guilt about the attack. "I know I wasn't here! I haven't been able to forget that since it happened."
Rising quickly from the sofa, Hermione drew herself up to her full height and looked down at him. "Harry, I meant only that you wouldn't be able to identify him anyway, so there's no need for you to come along. I don't need a babysitter," she finished with a note of exasperation.
Harry was nonplussed. Why was she making this so difficult? All he wanted to do was be there for her to lean on. "I'm just trying to be supportive."
"And I'm trying to explain that I don't need you there. I can take care of myself. It's just a police lineup."
That's what Hermione kept telling herself, over and over. I don't need Harry with me. It's only a police lineup. Perhaps by the time she went to the lineup, she would believe it. For the rest of the day, though, she and Harry danced around each other, each afraid to step on the other's toes or say the wrong thing. When they crawled into bed that night, she felt tense and out of sorts; Harry's body language -- flat on his back, staring at the ceiling -- suggested that he felt the same.
^*^*^*^
Shortly before half past ten the next morning, Hermione went to level one, where the Ministry held alleged criminals for questioning. In the short time between leaving her desk in level nine and arriving at the criminal docket, her insides had begun to wiggle like jelly. Perhaps her insistence on excluding Harry had been rash after all. Still, by insisting on going it alone, she'd made her bed and now she'd have to lie in it. And she proved a point to him and to herself, that she'd have to bear this alone.
When the lift door opened at level two, it appeared that no one had got on and the lift had stopped by mistake. There'd been no mistake, however, because someone had got on. It was Harry, who'd scrunched down under his Invisibility Cloak, then slunk into the corner of the lift, holding his breath until the next floor. There was another witch on the lift, and Harry had to take care to stay close to the doors so he could get off immediately when they opened - but not so close that Hermione might accidentally bump into him as she got off. The last time he'd held his breath and scrunched up for so long had been years earlier, at school. I wouldn't be doing this if she'd just be reasonable about the situation, he rationalized before the doors finally opened.
When Hermione got off the lift at level one, Harry followed a few paces behind her so that she wouldn't hear him breathing or back up and accidentally trip on his cloak. He had to do some fancy footwork so that no one else would run into him either. As Hermione made her way carefully through the criminal arraignment area, Harry had to stop short a few times to avoid bumping into several Ministry employees who crossed his path. He was relieved when Hermione finally reached the booking desk and spoke to the clerk.
"I'm Hermione Granger. Captain Lupin asked me to come in this morning to identify someone."
Nodding absently, the clerk opened a leather binder full of sheaves of parchment, then scanned the top page and grunted, "Okay. I'll tell him you're here." He launched a parchment airplane into the waiting area; it zoomed past Hermione, then floated down a long hallway and made a sharp left turn.
Harry remained hunched against a long wall, watching and waiting as quietly as possible under his Invisibility Cloak. Fortunately for his back and knees, he didn't have to wait long. Remus Lupin appeared at the end of the hallway and beckoned Hermione to follow him. As Hermione walked briskly around the counter, Harry followed her as carefully and surreptitiously as he could, hoping desperately that he wouldn't stumble or otherwise break his cover.
You're an Auror, Potter. . .Get a grip. Stealth is part of your business.
Yeah, but I don't usually stake out or follow my own girlfriend…
Good point…
Lupin led Hermione briskly to one of the rooms set aside for identifying alleged perpetrators. He entered the room first, then held the door open while she walked through. Harry was glad that Hermione seemed hesitant to enter the room, because it allowed him to enter close behind her -- and it confirmed, to him, that she wasn't totally fearless about this encounter. As the door closed, it barely missed snagging on the Invisibility Cloak. Harry wanted to breathe a sigh of relief then, but his relief was short-lived. In the center of the room, a Ministry clerk sat at a small desk, an eagle-feather quill poised in his hand, waiting to take notes. At the other end of the room, locked inside a heavily barred holding cell, was a tall, scruffy hoodlum with scraggly blond hair.
Hermione apparently was not prepared to see any of her assailants at close range, especially not this one. Her eyes went wide, then the slightest tremor became visible in her right hand and along her right jaw line. Harry recognized that tremor; he'd not seen it often, and in this situation he was sure that it meant she was terrified. Well of course she's frightened; that worthless scumbag tried to--
He couldn't continue the thought. Fighting back his desire to comfort her, Harry bit his lip to keep from yelling obscenities across the room.
Lupin nodded to the clerk, then began calmly, "Hermione, I need to ask you, for the record. Is this the person who tried to violate you on the morning of Sunday, August twenty-fifth?"
The tremor in Hermione's jaw and right hand became more pronounced as she appeared to struggle to find words. Unable to speak, she nodded slowly.
Lupin suddenly looked tired and sad. "I'm very sorry, Hermione, but you'll have to speak in order to make the identification official."
Harry had stayed closed to the door so that he could leave quickly when the time came. At that moment, though, he wished he were closer to Hermione so he could look into her eyes; he was sure they would show what was reflected in her posture -- fear, anxiety and defeat. She stood quietly, her head slumped slightly, her shoulders shaking almost imperceptibly. Across the room, the blond thug leered through the cell doors, an ugly snarl on his lips.
"Yes," Hermione said quietly. "Yes, that's him. That's the man who…who…" She stopped suddenly, unable to go on.
"WHO DID WHAT, MUDBLOOD?" the blond thug screamed from the cell. "WHAT DID I DO? YOU THINK THESE MINISTRY STOOGES WILL BELIEVE YOU? I'M A PUREBLOOD, AND YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A MUDBLOOD WHORE!"
"MR. GUDGEON, DESIST!" Lupin yelled back, pointing his wand toward the cell. Suddenly Elfric "Jester" Gudgeon was slammed against the back well of the cell, spread-eagled, with his wrists against the wall.
"It's okay, Hermione," Lupin said quietly, in his most soothing voice. "He can't hurt you; he's magically bound to the wall now. Sometimes we have to keep recalcitrants like him locked up that way."
Hermione nodded slowly. Harry sensed that her shoulders were shuddering less, but she still seemed terribly shaken.
"That's the one. That's the disgusting piece of filth who…stuck his…penis…in my face and…tried to make me… suck it." She spoke haltingly, the words struggling to leave her throat.
A new round of catcalls poured from the holding cell. "Mudblood bitch…Potter's whore…shoulda killed you in the war…" Gudgeon's voice grew louder as he repeated the epithet in a maniacal, sing-song voice. "Mudblood bitch…Potter's whore…someone wants to settle a score….We should've offed you when we had the chance," he snarled in a dangerous tone of voice. "Maybe somebody'll finish the job--"
In a flash, Lupin's wand was pointed toward Dudgeon's throat. Lupin yelled, "Langloc!" and Dudgeon's lips flapped emptily, but not soon enough. Lupin knows that spell too? Harry wondered, watching in horror as Hermione leaned against the wall, her body shaking as she stifled huge sobs. Unable to do anything without giving himself away, he retreated closer to the door while Lupin encouraged Hermione to sit down.
"I'm sorry I had to put you through this, Hermione," Lupin comforted her. "You did admirably well under the circumstances. Gudgeon is a bloody toerag. I should've known he might confront you this way."
Pointing his wand at the holding cell, Lupin muttered, "Impedimenta!" The air a few feet in front of Gudgeon shimmered as a temporary shield went up.
Lupin then nodded toward the clerk, who made to leave the room.
Seeing his chance, Harry sneaked out quietly behind the clerk and made his way out of the criminal arraignment area as quickly as he could. He knew that if he'd stayed another second, he might have tried to keelhaul Gudgeon. After seeing the way Gudgeon had taunted Hermione, Harry could only imagine what Hermione might be feeling after confronting her attacker.
Ducking inside the nearest men's toilet, Harry pulled off his Invisibility Cloak and leaned against the wash basin. He was sweating profusely and felt pale and shaky, thoughts of what he'd just witnessed swirling in his brain.
"You don't look so good," the mirror above the wash basin commented dryly.
"I feel like shite," Harry said honestly, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his palm.
"Perhaps you shouldn't go sneaking around the Ministry under an Invisibility Cloak."
"Perhaps you should mind your own business."
Thoroughly annoyed, Harry stuffed the cloak in his trouser pocket, then took a lift back to his office, where he sat and stewed, unmolested, for the rest of the morning. Lupin was busy with other cases in the arraignment area, the Aurors in the nearest cubicles were out on assignment, and Harry himself was waiting for Tonks to return from wherever she'd gone that morning so they could start on a new assignment together. For someone with his personal history and tendency toward brooding, this was an unhappy confluence of events. Hermione's latest ordeal -- identifying Jester Gudgeon -- had left a deeper imprint on Harry than he realized, and while he sat with nothing to take his mind off the situation, a claustrophobic feeling rose in his chest, squeezing at his heart until he suddenly felt dizzy again.
Panic. The same panic he'd felt in the Department of Mysteries when he thought that Dolohov had killed Hermione. Voldemort was gone, but remnants of his Death Eater organization still pocked the countryside. Maybe the person who'd been stalking him and Hermione really was a Death Eater, or someone with ties to the Death Eaters. Harry knew that terrorizing him or anyone close to him -- especially Hermione -- would be just the kind of thing a Death Eater would do to strike fear in Wizard folk across England, Scotland and Europe. Worse yet, there was no way to know how far the stalker would take things, just how far she would go to get whatever it was that she wanted. . . .
A thought came to Harry, crystal clear and sharp as a knife. He had no choice. If he wanted to protect Hermione -- and he wanted that with every fiber of his being -- he would have to cut himself out of her life.
For her own good, I've got to leave Hermione.
^*^*^*^
Author's Note -- This is very short chapter for me - less than 2,500 words. Many thanks to my betas once again, and to everyone who has commented on any part of this story. At the rate I'm going I won't finish it until sometime in 2006. Sorry about that. Real Life has continued to kick my butt and basically stomp all over my muse; my mother has been sick off and on since April, and 12 members of my immediate family (including my parents) had to leave their homes due to Hurricane Katrina. I've also got a few short pieces in the works, which will push chapter 12 back even further, so I appreciate your patience for the glacial pace at which I post new chapters and stories.
That reminds me: This is the last R- or NC-17 rated story you'll see from me under this pen name Due to RL issues, I'm separating my "mature" stories from the ones more suitable for younger people. I've actually posted a couple of stories on Portkey under my new pen name for mature stories: oh_honestleigh. Eventually I'll be moving all of my previous "mature" stories to that pen name. I know, it's kind of elaborate, but it's what I need to do. That's my punishment for picking this pen name originally - it's just much too close to my real name L Anyway, thanks again to all of you who have ever reviewed any of my stories. I really appreciate your comments more than I can say. And now I'll stop before my author's note becomes longer than the chapter.