Chapter Six: Harry and the Healer
Harry closed the door behind him as Hermione rolled onto the sidewalk. He jiggled the handle to ensure he'd locked the door and trotted to catch up with her.
"Another beautiful day," he remarked.
"Yes, it…oh!" she exclaimed.
"What?!" Harry asked.
"I forgot to lock the door!" she answered, digging her key from her handbag.
Harry's heart returned to its assigned location as his shoulders slumped. "Merlin, Hermione! If you keep scaring years off my life, I'm going to drop dead from a stiff wind."
Producing the key from the bottom of her bag, she turned back. "I'll admit this is not the best neighborhood in London," Hermione said, pushing herself back down the sidewalk. Harry reached out and grabbed the handle of the chair before she slipped out of reach. "Harry!"
"Relax." He smiled. "I locked it."
"Oh." Her brows furrowed. "Thanks," she replied as he stepped behind her chair and walked toward the tube station.
"Which brings me to another question," he said. She looked at him over her left shoulder and used her right hand to shield the sunlight from her eyes. "Why are you living in muggle London? More specifically, this part of muggle London?"
She turned back as he waited for a reply. "The foundation I work for does well to accommodate my…needs," she began. "But the pay is exactly what you'd expect for someone in my position."
"I would expect someone in your position to employ their own goblins to manage the finances."
"Don't patronize me, Harry."
"I'm not," he rebuked. "Hermione, you were Head Girl at Hogwarts. You scored higher in charms than any witch in the last 752 years. I'd say you're overqualified for any job with 'assistant' in the description."
"Well, some things have changed," she said, dropping her eyes to the sidewalk.
"And some things haven't," Harry countered. "Hermione, you are worth so much more than this," he said, waving a hand to the haggard surroundings.
She didn't answer.
That's when he realized the magnitude of his mission. In an instant, he understood that the greater disability resided in her head, not her legs. She either lacked the spirit to argue or didn't believe she was worth the argument. Either way, he didn't accept it. The Hermione he knew wouldn't settle for mediocrity. She wouldn't accept anything less than her best effort.
She would never let him push her when she could do it herself.
He let go of the handles and stepped to her side. He answered her before she could ask. "I have no idea where this bloke's office is. I reckon you can lead the way."
Hermione did not look convinced. Her eyes lingered on his for a moment before she dropped her hands to the wheels and began pushing herself along. Harry stuffed his hands in the pockets of his trousers and ambled alongside her. He reveled in the tangible silence that befell them. Part of him wanted to make her angry - wanted to see his Hermione launch a verbal assault.
It didn't happen.
Within minutes they turned down an unassuming side street and she rolled to a stop in front of an abandoned storefront. Harry looked through the murky glass to the forgotten shelving inside. A battered wooden sign hung from the doorway and demarked this establishment as the once solvent "Novelty Notions and Fabric Shoppe." Given the similarities between this storefront and those marking the entrance to St. Mungo's, Harry wondered if it was an alternate entry.
Hermione rolled to the tarnished door and tapped a brick three times with her finger. As she did, a curtain of sparkling light slid over the door and she rolled through. Harry followed, feeling a shiver slip up his spine as he crossed the threshold.
They passed by a nurse's station and continued down the corridor until it opened into a large room. The floors were covered in polished hardwood with a spattering of colored mats scattered about the room. All manner of equipment peppered the walls. To his left, whole sections of the floor moved as if on a conveyor. Beyond that a small pool, with still water, sat beneath the corner windows.
"Hermione!" Morgenstern's voice called as Harry heard her roll away. He turned to see Morgenstern bend and embrace Hermione in her chair. "How are you today?"
"Fine," she replied, still hugging him.
"Are you ready?"
She nodded and Morgenstern stood up with her clutched to his chest. Her legs dangled, lifeless, beneath her. He turned around and carried her to a pile of multicolored mats. Settling her upright between them, he took off her shoes and set them along the wall. Harry looked behind him and found a comfortable waiting area just outside the door. It was equipped with several books, magazines, the wizarding wireless, a leaping fireplace and several squashy chairs. He looked back at Hermione. She answered Morgenstern's questions as her fingers played across a red bolster. Harry noticed their camaraderie. He couldn't help but feel like an intruder. Just as he resigned himself to the waiting area, he saw Morgenstern's hand move to her thigh.
He changed his mind.
"What about here? Anything?" Morgenstern asked.
Hermione shook her head. "It's the same. I can feel the heat from your hand and a little tingle here and there, but nothing more."
"What about mobility?"
"Also the same."
"Just the two toes then?"
Hermione nodded. Morgenstern's face faltered as he sat back. He tented his fingers under his nose and looked at Hermione with a smile that did not meet his eyes. He gave a fleeting glace to Harry and returned his eyes to her.
"What?" she asked with a voice that knew the answer.
"Hermione," Morgenstern began. Harry, sensing the severity of the conversation, knelt next to Hermione, longing to reach across the inches and grasp her hand in his. "It might be time to change our focus."
"You mean give up!"
"No, I mean move on."
Hermione's jaw fell open in amazement. "Move on?" she scoffed. Harry looked at Morgenstern. His eyes were still fixed on Hermione. "How am I supposed to move on when I can't move at all?!"
Throwing caution to the wind, Harry reached across the distance to take Hermione's hand. She glared at him and batted his hand away. "You might be giving up on me, but I will not!"
She knocked the left-hand mat away and flipped over onto her stomach. Both Harry and Morgenstern jumped toward her as she dragged herself across the hardwood floor.
"Hermione," Harry said.
"Leave me alone, both of you. I have work to do and if you won't support me, I'll do it myself."
Harry was dumbfounded. He stood next to Morgenstern as they watched her pull herself onto a nearby machine. "I've been dreading this conversation," Morgenstern lamented.
Harry looked up at him in question as the healer shook his head in defeat. "I should've said it long ago, but her determination is contagious." He scoffed. "I thought I could produce the miracle she's been hoping for."
Harry looked back to Hermione, working the machine with her arms as it moved her legs in synchronization. He felt Morgenstern's eyes on him and turned back to the healer.
"It's my fault," Morgenstern said.
"What's your fault?"
"Her accident." Morgenstern crossed his arms over his chest and studied her progress on the machine. "I haven't been honest with her. I've allowed her to think that she might regain control of her legs," he drew a breath, "and I know that isn't going to happen. I haven't had the heart to tell her."
Harry's heart sank. He spent the last thirteen months believing that what she'd told him before he left could happen. Her declaration that she would walk again sustained him over his sabbatical. It was the caveat his guilt demanded. It was the light at the end of a self-deprecating tunnel.
It was the light Morgenstern just extinguished.
The guilt he labored to keep at bay snaked through his chest and settled like a weight on his heart. She would not walk again…and it was his fault.
"If anyone is to blame, it's me."
"What?"
"That curse was meant for me. I should be the one on that machine. I didn't see Malfoy. I wasn't even looking for him." Harry squeezed his eyes closed and hung his head. "I can still hear her scream."
***
"Harry! Wait!" Hermione's voice begged from behind.
He didn't hear it. He didn't want to. He knew what she would say and he was not in the position to hold back or regroup. Ron was missing and there was one person responsible. His scar hadn't stopped tingling since Ron disappeared from the fourth floor corridor. He was battling time and the realization that any moment his forehead could explode in agony and leave him without the brother he'd never had.
"Harry! This could be a trap! Please wait!" Hermione panted as she labored to keep pace with him.
"There's no time!" Harry replied, stuffing the Marauders Map into his back pocket. He couldn't bring himself to voice the fear pounding in his chest.
If Ron dies, it's my fault.
"Harry!"
This time she grabbed his arm and held on for dear life. The gesture trounced his fraying nerves.
"What's the matter with you!?" he barked. He spun around as she drew herself to her full height. "You're supposed to be in love with Ron and you're content to let him die?!"
"I am not content to let him die!" Her eyes flashed. "But you can't save anyone if you're dead!"
The hair on Harry's neck stood at attention. "Well, I do have a 'saving-people' thing."
Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and set her jaw. "Now is not the time."
"Too bloody right it's not." He turned on his heel and sprinted through the corridor toward the Quidditch Pitch. Having apparently given up, she raced alongside him without further argument. As he ran down the final staircase leading to the front lawn, he understood that he should apologize to her… and he would…later.
They burst through the main doors and the pitch came into view before him. He saw the swirling bolts of color rising from the stadium. His heart hammered against his chest. His scar tingled…it didn't burn. There was still time. He wasn't too late.
"Harry!" Hermione screamed. He felt her hands grasp his upper arm and thrust him out of the way. As he crashed to the ground, time stopped. From his peripheral vision he saw the tousled blond hair of Lucius Malfoy. He saw his face obscured by a dark hood and he saw the light resulting from a sickening black curse. He saw it spiral toward the place where Harry had been - the same place Hermione threw herself into.
He heard his voice echo through the midnight air. "NO!"
The curse hit her in the small of her back. Her face contorted in agony a split second before her voice filled the air with an excruciating wail. She crashed to the ground at his feet and lie motionless.
"Hermione!"
The back of her shirt was torn open and the blood poured from her singed skin. He pushed the hair away from her face and saw the pain etched in her unconscious expression. Visions of Cedric Diggory exploded in his vision. She looked the same.
That's when he realized she was dead…and Malfoy was laughing.
Only Rita Skeeter ever possessed the audacity to ask Harry what it was like to kill Voldemort. Harry always appeared humbled by the question. Not surprisingly, this reaction only increased the image of a stalwart hero who would not disgrace his opponent.
It was a façade he never intended to establish - one more log for the hero-worshiping bonfire that followed the defeat of the Dark Lord. In truth, he couldn't have answered Rita's question if he tried.
The look on Hermione's face, and the realization that she was right to be cautious, was the last thing about that night he could remember.
***
"But she wasn't dead," Morgenstern's voice broke the silence.
Harry blinked a stinging tear from his eye and looked across the room. Hermione moved to a bright green mat and, with her back toward them, worked with an exercise ball. "No," he replied. "She wasn't."
"What's the next thing you remember?"
"Waking up in the hospital wing," he offered with nonchalance. "My bed was screened from the infirmary but I could sense someone in the bed beside me." He looked down at the floor, unable to keep his eyes trained on her any longer. "I heard him talking to her, encouraging her to wake up - to get better."
"Ron," Morgenstern offered.
"Ron." Harry drew a breath and looked up. "I don't know how it happened, but everything changed," Harry harrumphed. "Somewhere inside I understood what she'd done for me. She thought she was giving her life for mine and I believed the same. I was ecstatic she was alive…that they both were alive. But seeing them together, as I had for months, was different. He held her hand and brushed the hair away from her forehead." Harry returned his eyes to the floor in front of him. "That's when I realized she didn't need me."
"That's why you left."
Harry nodded. "Not that the other excuses weren't valid. But I could've dealt with everything else if…" He paused. "If things were different."
"Things are different now," Morgenstern said.
Harry felt his heart flip in his chest while the guilt churned in his stomach. He knew he shouldn't be happy that Hermione and Ron's relationship had ended. Regardless of his desire, he couldn't leap at the chance. It was too soon. And for as much as he adored Hermione, she showed little indication that she felt anything but friendship in return.
Harry's eyes traveled up Morgenstern's tall frame. Morgenstern crossed his left arm over his stomach and the fingers of his right hand played at his chin while he watched Hermione. His eyes sparkled as she tossed the exercise ball to the side and picked up two hand weights from an adjacent rack. His expression was not lost on Harry.
"Things are different now, aren't they?" Harry remarked. "Why am I not surprised you noticed that?"
Morgenstern looked at Harry, raising his right eyebrow in speculation. "As I told you before, I care for her physical, as well as emotional, well-being. I'd be remiss if I didn't notice."
"She's hard not to notice. After all, she is beautiful," Harry said, trying to press Morgenstern for a confession.
"Yes, she is."
"And single," Harry continued.
"Yes, she is."
"So, what are you waiting for?" they chimed together.
The growl in Harry's voice gave way to bewilderment. He stepped back from the healer and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "What am I waiting for?" Harry asked.
He didn't get the next sentence out before Morgenstern fell to laughter. The absurdity of it annoyed Harry. "What's so funny?"
Morgenstern gathered himself and turned to Harry. "You are. You're blissfully obtuse."
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Harry barked.
Morgenstern looked between Harry and Hermione and wiped a tear from his eye. "Harry, I'm not interested in competing for Hermione's affection," he chuckled. "Not that I don't adore her, of course, but if I had any interest in a relationship I'd be asking you to dinner."