Logical

Author's Note: Yes, I know, I promised Chapter 8 of OTM. However, faced with very difficult writer's block, I decided to just sit down and write whatever came to mind. I've never written stream-of-consciousness, so this is a bit of an experiment of my mind and Hermione's. Please, please review.

This is Part I of II.

I don't own anything, and I'm not making any money from this. Please don't sue.

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I am a logical person.

While some people would think that being perfectly logical would be limiting, that logic has boundaries that life shouldn't have, I am quite proud of my logic. I believe that life is far simpler if treated logically. That's not to say that I always act in what others might see as the most logical manner. It's simply generalizing that everything can be treated with logic, and it what I prefer to do.

Logic is not the absence of emotion, nor is it a lack of compassion. I know it seems sometimes that it is a lack of compassion, but that's not how I intend it to be. I don't want to make everyone a number. I don't look at the casualties of war as statistics. Really, I don't. But logically, there is no other way.

I'm a student, supposedly the brightest witch in my year. I'm Head Girl, taking the most challenging courses offered to me. I'm studying to become a Healer, doing work by correspondence and through Madame Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall so that I can take my licensing exams and be a fully fledged Healer upon graduation at Hogwarts. It's a lot to take on, but sometimes sacrifices must be made. It's only logical.

When your world is at war, when every step you take could get you or someone you love killed, when your best friend is both the prime target and the sole threat to the most evil wizard who has ever lived, sacrifices have to be made. When half of your friends and family have gone into hiding, a third have been made into casualties, and the remaining ones are fighting as hard for this cause as you are, logic is the only way to stay afloat.

I used to be far more sensitive. Emotional. When I heard about Cedric... he was the first. I wasn't close to him at all really, but it felt so close. He was dead. Someone I knew and saw each day was dead. My peer, someone with a promising future and a full life was just gone. Not just gone, either. That sounded so peaceful. Everyday. Mundane. No, he wasn't gone. He was murdered. The life was over, taken forcefully, and in cold blood. It hurt so much. I never thought I'd ever hurt so much for someone that I truly didn't even know. Part of it was the growing and developing life that had been snipped cruelly in the midst of adolescence. The other part, the part I found to be the worst later, was the realization that it had begun.

Voldemort had returned.

I had heard of the first reign of terror. I'd read about the bloodshed, the violence, the torture. But it wasn't real. It was black ink on graying pages. It had ended before my memory begun. I wasn't even two years old, and it wouldn't even become my world for another nine years after that. But when Cedric was murdered, it all slammed home in blinding color. Voldemort was back. He'd come for another round of murders and Unforgivables. But there was something different about it this time, something I couldn't see at the time. I wouldn't understand for nearly two more years.

Cedric's death had torn at my heartstrings. I could feel that the wizarding world was on a slippery slope, falling downhill quickly. But the new school year and new classes, friends, and involvements made the impending war and the looming dark clouds easy to ignore. There were problems, of course, but not anything extroardinary. Until, that is, Mr. Weasley was attacked.

I nearly couldn't take it. He was a second father to me. Thankfully, he lived. Voldemort didn't kill him, at least not completely. But it was another forceful blow to me. Emotion filled me and it became harder to concentrate. Harder to do everything I'd been so accustomed to doing. But I pulled out of it. My heart was bruised and vulnerable, but beating strong.

My faithful heart stopped the day Sirius died. No, not died, was murdered. Fell beyond the veil while fighting his own cousin. No, she hadn't thrown him, nor had she pushed him, but she had murdered him in my mind. It was her fault that Sirius, Harry's confidant and godfather, had gone to the otherworld on that day. Bellatrix Lestrange murdered him. I didn't witness it. If I had, my heart might have simply given up on the spot. It didn't. They came later, they told me what had happened and my heart shattered and paused for a split second. But then, faithful as ever, its chambers began to expand and contract rhythmically. Hurting me with each beat. Why should my heart beat when Sirius' cannot? Why does it continue when Cedric's is immobile? Or Bertha Jorkins'? Why did my heart deserve to live more than Lily or James Potter's? So many hearts that were still, while mine insistently drummed on in a carefully timed cadence.

The pain was unbearable. And as they only continued to fall- Dennis Creevey, Susan Bones, Lee Jordan, Terry Boot- it only got worse. With each death, each attack... I knew they were getting closer to us. I'm Muggleborn. My family was in mortal peril. My friends were being murdered, injured, tortured. And the enemy was getting closer to where he wanted most to be.

Finally, Harry told me. He was and always had been the Boy Who Lived. It had never mattered to me. It was just a part of him, just like he was slim or half-blooded. But it mattered now. Harry was, suddenly, the one chance for the wizarding world to survive. Either he would win, or Voldemort would. And the prize for the winner was the fate of the world, and the life of the other. Neither will live while the other survives.

It was that moment, sitting on the floor of my room at home, with Harry beside me on a chair, that I decided that the only way to live through this war was to be logical. Not emotional, logical. This was war. There were bound to be casualties. And if I let those casualties paralyze me, that would only make for more pain and suffering and deaths.

So many lives were cut short that summer. Yes, the lives were human, the suffering was real, the deaths were murders. But I devoted my energies to research and training. Harry was going to be ready to fight, and Ron and I were going to be right by his side. It was only logical. So the lives became simply names to me; the ever increasing stream of black ribbons in the Great Hall were suppressed in my mind to just be more victims the war had taken from us too early. We trained and readied ourselves for the impending battle.

It was the logical thing to do. And I am a logical person.

Part II of III.

Please review. See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer.

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It was a perfectly calculated move.

It came at the best possible time. Tactical genius.

It wasn't a matter of whether it was going to happen, but when. I should have seen it coming, and in a way, I had. He was going to die. They were going to kill him while Harry watched. It was coming, and none of us could have stopped it.

He had to die. Professor Dumbledore was on the blacklist from the moment Voldemort had returned. Before. Dumbledore was everything that Voldemort hated. The only one that he had ever feared. He was the one that could stand in Voldemort's way. He knew too much.

Knowledge is power. Too much knowledge is a death sentence.

It's ironic. I spend my life studying. Learning.

But a death sentence isn't the worst thing that could happen to me. I have one looming over me already. I'm not stupid, nor am I disillusioned. I don't have time for naivete. The second I fixed Harry Potter's glasses, I labeled myself for death.

It's only logical.

War isn't kind. It's not romantic or pretty. It's gritty and real. It's war.

You can't be emotional. You can't let it get to you, because the second you let your guard down, it's over. Ron is a fireball. Fury and anger and passion. Too much so. One of these days he'll go on a spree. Take them out. He's not naive, either. He knows he's marked, too. Marked from the moment that he asked to sit with Harry on the Express. As if being a Weasley wasn't enough. He knows he's going out with a bang. A flash of green light if he's lucky, a few tortured screams if he's not. He doesn't care. But as far as he's concerned, he's going to take as many of them with him as he can when they blow him up.

But logically, he won't be able to. They won't blow him away. That would be too humane for them. He's explosive and jealous and temperamental. He can be ruthless in his loyalty. He knows too much.

He's everything they want. They won't kill him immediately. They'll tempt him. He has a dark side. We all do. His lays open, however. Every time his anger boils over, his soul lays bare to them. They'll catch him at an opportune moment and tempt him, try to draw him into the fold of the darkness. He won't go, though. They underestimate him. His loyalty lands squarely on Harry's side. Nothing short of the Imperius would turn him from us.

Not that I don't think they'll try it. It would be a logical move. Sometimes, in moments of weakness, that is what I fear. That they'll put me under the Imperius and use my loyalty to get to Harry. That I'll be the one that kills him. They aren't stupid, either. I'm a prime target. I'm a Muggle-born, not even worth a Knut. I'm disposable. But I'm one of the best weapons that they could use.

Logically, I don't have time or energy for fear. I don't have the time to lay awake at night and worry. My energies are focused on the task at hand. Most girls at seventeen are far younger in spirit than I am. They haven't seen what I have. I'm weathered and hardened. I have a purpose in my short life. To keep Harry alive. It seems parasitic, almost.

I'm weathered and hardened. That's what I tell myself when I lay awake at night and worry. It's what I tell myself when images of torture flash through my head. It's my mantra. Emotion will get me nothing but pain.

We're still training. Researching and practicing and preparing for what we know is inevitable. I've made vials of every healing potion in the book, memorized the entire three-volume set of charms and spells. I've spent two hours each weeknight dueling. Harry spends his days similarly to mine. He duels with professors and Aurors, with the most powerful and experienced fighters on Earth. And he's beginning to win.

He's using the Dark Arts. We all are. He has no choice. If he's going to beat Voldemort at his own game, he needs to be prepared to fight dirty.

He hates to use the brutal, medieval spells. They're terrible to watch, but even more terrible to cast. He can feel the Dark running through his veins now, trying to seduce him. I used to wonder how the Death Eaters could commit the atrocities that they do, but now I know. Each Dark spell takes away a little bit of the soul of the caster. I feel it.

Harry feels it, and I feel it in him. He's fighting it. His eyes, the eyes that were once a beautiful green, the peaceful color of rolling hills, are now scalding emerald. They burn into me when he looks at me. It's almost like he's trying to see deep inside me. Make sure I'm still there.

I am. I'm there every time that the fire of his gaze invades me. He's walking a difficult line. Ron is on the edge of explosion, and I'm forcing myself more and more each day into the walls of logic. Harry has to be both. Emotion drives him, but logic leads him.

It makes sense, what he does. It's all perfectly logical. How he sits, facing the fire in the Common Room for hours each night. How he has built up physically and emotionally. How he looks at Ron and I when he thinks we're not paying attention, just to make sure that they haven't claimed us yet.

But we're paying attention. Constant vigilance.

I pay attention when his long fingers clench around his quill or his broomstick. He still plays Quidditch. It gives him an outlet. He plays more aggressively now, though. He has bursts of aggression sometimes. It makes sense. He's trying to keep himself balanced when the world is falling in around him.

So it's perfectly logical when he pushes his broom to four times the speed he'd ever flown before. It's perfectly logical when the windows blow out of the unused classroom that he uses to practice. It's perfectly logical when he slams me against a wall and kisses me with the intensity and passion of someone who will die tomorrow. It's not a romantic kiss. Not hearts and roses and love. It's war. It's matter-of-fact. We don't question what it means. He presses his long, powerful body against mine. Just to make sure I'm still there.

Just to make sure he's still there, too.

He will die tomorrow. Tomorrow is a relative term.

It's only logical.