Resistance
Chapter Seven: Schism
The floorboards thudded lightly under Hermione's feet as she flew through the house. Her eyes were half-blinded by scalding tears, and she scrabbled for a doorknob three or four times, before she could actually make it operate. Her breaths were coming in harsh, noisy gasps with a catch in the middle of them. She thought maybe her chest would explode, and she swallowed hard to stem the feeling of nausea.
Behind a small door at the far end of the corridor, was a flight of crooked, rickety steps leading upward. She lurched up them, stumbling, using her hands to help her navigate the steep stairway.
She emerged through another door into an attic, piled with rags and abandoned boxes, one small window at the far end allowing beams of sunlight in which innumerable dust motes danced. She walked toward the honey pool of sunlight, part of her desperately wishing to bask in the warmth for awhile and remember a time when life had been good. She heaved a sigh that was also part sob. She didn't deserve the sunshine. Because of her, Arthur Weasley had been seriously injured, was perhaps even now dying, and she was too much of a coward to even endure the consequences of her actions. Coward! The worst insult a Gryffindor could endure.
Her cheeks were stiff with drying tears that she could not remember crying. She turned deliberately away from the sunshine, and tucked herself into the dimmest corner of the attic, curled up on top of a dusty crate, and for the first time in her young life, really wished that she could die too.
My fault, my fault, my fault, throbbed in her head in sync with her heartbeat. If she had gotten help at the Riddle house, perhaps Voldemort would not have taken her wand. If Mr. Weasley had not gone to Ollivander's in an attempt to obtain for her a new one, then he - he - and here, hot tears fell afresh - he wouldn't have been injured. Everyone believed it, she thought, remembering the way all eyes had slowly drifted to her. Ron's face had been slack and gray, and he had looked at her with something indefinable glittering in his eyes.
If Mr. Weasley dies, we'll all be orphans. All of us. And it's my fault. She thought again, folding her arms around bent knees and burying her head in their comforting circle. I fought with Harry once about his "saving people thing". And I'm not any better. Did I think that I had to prove something to him - to anyone - by saving him on my own?
The crate sitting next to her was filled with dinnerware, she noted suddenly, pretty china plates, with a hand-painted yellow flower just visible through a gap in the protective brown butcher paper. It rustled slightly as she pushed it aside, and withdrew a delicate saucer only faintly smattered with dust; she turned it in her hands, contemplating the gold-leaf edges as if they contained the secrets of the universe. Her throat ached unbearably, and her eyes were burning.
Propelled by an uncontrollable impulse, she hurled the plate across the room, where it shattered quite satisfactorily. She stood then, uncurling herself from her position atop the crate, and selected another plate. She thought of baby Harry in his crib, his large bewildered eyes taking in the death of his mother, as, unaware, he faced down the most dangerous wizard of the modern age. The tinkling of the shards of china hitting the wall and bouncing to the floor was almost musical.
She thought of Bill and Charlie and George and Mrs. Weasley knocking Ginny out of the way of a flying curse. She thought of Mad-Eye Moody surrounded by Death Eaters, fighting to the very last. She thought of Ginny, pale and fragile and still, in an infirmary bed. Crash. Hot tears blurred her vision so that the plates looked only like iridescent white disks, exploding against the wall in sudden plumes of delicate, painted debris.
She thought of Percy and Fleur, their fate an enigma. She thought of Harry, green-lit in that awful cell, beaten, toyed with, tormented. She thought of Mr. Weasley, of the comforting feel of his arms and the smell of his tweed jacket. She imagined him passing by Ollivander's, stepping through the gaping doorway, searching through the mess for vine wands, hoping to find something she could use. Her breath was hitching in her chest; she was practically moaning with each inhalation, as plates flew from her hands with the ease of unbelievable anger, a rising tide of indignation and self-loathing.
"Hermione?" came a voice, cutting so incisively through the noise of breaking dishes that Hermione jumped. She crouched back down on the top of her crate, the other stacks making her unable to see Harry at all, and remained silent. "Hermione, I know you're up here." She could hear his breathing now, and it sounded labored and weary. More guilt assailed her relentlessly.
"How did you know I was up here?" she blurted hoarsely and somewhat stupidly, and stood up from her concealed position. He was standing in the middle of the attic, in jeans and a t-shirt, barefoot, looking like a well-placed breeze could knock him over. His eyes floated over to the snowdrift of white china fragments.
"Other than the sound of shattering glass, you mean?" he asked tentatively, arching his brows quizzically, and looking more like Harry-at-Hogwarts than he had in a long time. A laugh bubbled unexpectedly from her lips, but turned almost immediately into a sob.
"Because this is where I would have come," he answered simply. He looked like he would have said more, but there was a noisy clatter on the stairs, the attic door opened again, and Tonks practically fell into the room.
"Harry, what's going on? I know I said I wasn't going to come up here, but the noise - are you all right?"
"Everything's fine, Tonks," Harry said in a quiet, level voice. His eyes danced over toward Hermione, who was now standing awkwardly by the stacks of crates, with her arms akimbo. "Hermione was … venting."
"Ah," said Tonks in a voice of comprehension. "Well, I'll leave you to it, then," she said, backing out of the door, but flashing a sympathetic smile at Hermione before she pulled it closed again.
"He's not- ?" Hermione asked, her voice barely intelligible. She approached him, and her feet crunched grittily through the broken china. He held out his hand to her, and she laid her hand in his.
"He's still alive," Harry said quietly. Absently, he stroked her knuckles with his thumb. "McGonagall's doing everything she can. And he's strong. There's plenty of Blood Replenishing potion."
"He was looking for a wand - a wand for me…" she began, tilting her head back to look at him. He pressed her head to his chest, embracing her, and stroked one hand down the length of her wild hair. "He told me this morning that he - that he knew he wasn't my fa - father, but if I ever wanted to talk - " Her voice was high and wobbly.
"He wanted to help you, Hermione. He loves you as if you were his own daughter. He knew the risks." Molly and I - we knew the possibilities… The dead weight was on her chest again, hot froth rising into her throat. She swallowed noisily.
"If I hadn't - " she began hoarsely, and then stopped, seeming to choose her words carefully. "If I hadn't gone off on my own to rescue you…if I had gotten help, I might still have my wand, and he - and he would - "
"Then that would make it my fault, right?" he said, trying to speak lightly, but his mouth was twisted into a bitter contortion, and there was no mirth in his eyes. "If I hadn't been captured, you wouldn't have come for me."
Hermione felt like she was melting into a puddle of liquid, wet and sad and forlorn, curling in on herself.
"Harry!" she said in a protesting little whisper. He shrugged a little, and looked down at his bare feet, as if to wave off her scandalized cry.
"Mind if I have a go?" he asked, gesturing toward the crate of dishes. Hermione looked at him, more than a little mystified.
"You want to - to break plates?" she stammered uncertainly.
"You were," he pointed out, without judgment.
"I was - I was - I'm ashamed of myself, Harry," Hermione finally said, bracketing her forehead with one hand. "I - it's all - there's so much at stake - people's lives are in danger! And - and I come up here and throw a tantrum like a two year old! I'm sorry, Harry."
She stumbled to a halt, as she looked back up at him, and found him staring at her. There was a light in his eyes, but she wouldn't exactly call his expression an uplifted one. She did get the distinct impression that he was seeing something that she was not, and she looked over her shoulder nervously.
"Harry?" she questioned, and he started, as the shine in his eyes was quenched. His shoulders slumped, and he stuck a hand in his pocket. She watched him curiously, wondering what he'd been thinking about when he'd looked at her just now, and why he looked again like the defeated Harry from earlier.
"S - sorry," he stuttered, flushing slightly. "Wool-gathering." He walked over to the crate she'd abandoned, stepping carefully to avoid any stray china shards, and lifted out a plate. This one was one somewhat larger, perhaps a dessert plate. Hermione was stricken with déjà vu, as he examined the plate closely for a moment, before turning and hurling it toward the wall. It hit a little higher than hers had, and made a louder impact. The fragments tinkled to the floor, joining Hermione's already impressive mess.
He reached for another plate, and handed one to Hermione. She accepted it, and looked at him with a slightly bemused expression. He merely watched her, waiting, and she knew he didn't understand why she felt odd throwing plates with a witness, when she'd been so efficiently destroying them before he'd arrived.
"Harry, I - " she said in a demurring tone, trying to return the plate to him. He cut her off.
"Throw the plate, Hermione," Harry said flatly. It was almost an order, and part of Hermione bristled at his peremptory tone.
"I've already made such a mess of - of everything, Harry. And someone else is going to have to clean it up, and - and - " She could no longer tell if she was talking about the china or something different. "I'm okay, really. I'm just going to go now - there's some research I could be - " She started to head for the exit, but he reached out and gripped her upper arm. She stopped and looked at him with mild surprise, knowing that she could have easily gotten away from him in his diminished capacity.
"Just throw the damn plate, please!" he said in a weary voice.
"W - why?" she asked, sounding genuinely confused.
"Why were you doing it before?"
"I - I guess I was angry and - and scared…" she ventured, her brows knit above wide, wet eyes.
"And you can be angry, Hermione," he said, as a flash of that emotion appeared in his green eyes. "This is not okay - what's happened to us - what he's done to us - to everybody - is not okay. And we can be angry." He threw the plate without looking, and when it crashed against the wall, Hermione started. His jaw was trembling with repressed feeling. "And we can be scared. And we can be ashamed. And we can be frustrated. And we can feel helpless. And we can want justice." With every sentence, he threw a plate, and when he finally stopped, looking at her expectantly, she threw hers too.
After a slight hesitation, she had joined him at the side of the crate, and together, they wordlessly and expeditiously began to empty it completely. She began to feel the anger thrum through her, felt as if it were blazing out of her eyes and crackling from the ends of her hair. If I had my wand and Voldemort was in front of me right now…she thought. She was reaching for one of the last few plates left, when Harry sudden stopped, and stalked over to the window, staring out of it pensively.
Hermione dropped the plate back into the crate, where it cracked into several large pieces.
"Harry, what's the matter?" He raked her with a dismal look, his eyes clearly saying, What's the matter? Everything's the matter! He shoved his hands in his pockets, and leaned against the window with one shoulder. Hermione thought that he looked like he wanted to tell her something, but wouldn't let himself. Too much of that little boy in the cupboard under the stairs, she mused, and smiled at him encouragingly.
"I miss it," he finally said, staring out at the indistinct horizon where the ocean met the sky. He didn't have to be specific; she knew to what he was referring. His magic.
"I know," she said simply. "I'm sorry." It was inane; it was unhelpful; it was cliché. But it was true. She had never meant anything more sincerely in her life.
"Everything's happened so fast," he iterated abruptly, subsiding again into silence. Hermione nodded. Only five days…five days since the world came to an end.
"If we'd - if I'd found you sooner…" she stammered unevenly, but he held up one hand to stop her.
"Hermione, don't," he said, almost gently. "That dampening field was keyed to me. I sat there, tied up, while Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy tuned it to the frequency of my magic. It hurt like hell. And it just - it just sucked the magic away. Yours was only suppressed for awhile. But mine is - it's - " She saw his eyes film over, and she laid one hand softly on his arm. "There's something - it's been there all my life, and I didn't even notice it was there, until I didn't feel it anymore. I don't feel it anymore." He hung his head, and the messy fringe of his bangs hung over the edge of his glasses, obscuring his face from her. "You didn't even know you were doing it, did you?" he asked, and she blinked at him in confusion. "Get another plate," he instructed, and she did so.
Then she noticed. She reached down to get the plate, and when her outstretched hand was still about an inch away, the plate rose the rest of the way to meet her. She had not even noticed it, but Harry had, and it had brought his loss back to him afresh.
Hermione didn't really know how to respond to that. She had been hoping with every fiber of her being that this would be a temporary condition for Harry, like hers had been, only perhaps longer because of his more protracted exposure. To hear him state so baldly that he no longer sensed the active core of magic within him - it scared her, badly.
He looked at her again, abruptly, bringing his head up with an almost wrenching motion of his neck. Without really meaning to, she took a step back, flinching away from the waves of emotion pouring from those blazing green eyes.
"Do you know what that means? Do you know what it all means?" Hermione felt as if she'd been wading in shallow water and the ground had vanished from under her feet. She felt as if she'd complacently gone to class, thinking she was prepared, only to find that there was a major examination that she'd forgotten about. She clutched desperately at something he'd said earlier, in the infirmary. I'm just a liability now.
"You're not just a liability, Harry," she replied softly. The truth was: he'd always been a liability, his presence had always upped the danger factor exponentially. But he'd always had his magical power, his ability to think on his feet, his irrepressible courage in the face of apparently insurmountable odds. How many of his assets had been irreparably damaged? And where did that leave the balance of his ledger?
"This is war, Hermione!" His voice was blistering again. "You can't afford to be sentimental. You have to - " he continued, but she had drawn herself up to her full height, now quietly angry.
"Sentimentality is what keeps us from being Death Eaters," she said, biting off each syllable in a clipped, level, dangerous voice. "Sentimentality has kept us alive so far." He looked like he wanted to argue with her, but she pressed on. "Why do you think I came after you? Why do you think I wanted to find you so badly?" Her voice cracked in the middle of a sentence, and she fluttered a hand listlessly in front of her throat. "I've got news for you, Harry Potter! It had nothing to do with wanting to retrieve our weapon for defeating Voldemort!" He blinked at her, slightly startled. He opened his mouth to speak, and Hermione rushed onward, before he could ask a question that she did not want to answer. "I know you've lost a lot in the last few days. Everybody has, but you really didn't have much left to lose, and it - but don't shut yourself away from sentiment. There are people here who love you - and not because of any ability to do magic." She looked up into his eyes, willing all of her love for him to show in her own, wanting desperately for him to see how much he was needed, even now. "You still have it, you know - the Power He Knows Not."
He was looking at her as if he'd never seen her before, and she panicked, suddenly wondering if she'd gone too far, said too much. He reached out and took the tips of her fingers in his - so that they were just barely holding hands.
"Haven't you wondered yet, Hermione, why Voldemort always used you?" he asked her, his eyes fixed intently on her face. He knew there was nothing worse he could do to me, his words rang in her ears, and she suddenly felt as if she couldn't breathe properly. Something fragile and new and not altogether unwelcome was there, in the dusty, discarded atmosphere of the attic. She could feel it trembling around them, suspended between them. She could hear it in her roaring pulse, in the uneven puffs of breath from her nostrils; she could feel it in the light touch of his fingers to hers.
A banked fire flared up in his eyes, and her hand quivered against his. She parted her lips to reply, but before she could, they both heard a heavy tread on the attic stairs. Harry dropped her hand, and they both turned expectantly toward the door, the moment - whatever it had been or meant - now lost.
It was Ron. He was pale, and seemed to have aged half a decade in the last few minutes. His shirt was dried, stiff, and rusty with blood, and Hermione could still see where it had congealed in his hair. Is Mr. Weasley dead? Hermione's heart had moved up to lodge in her throat, and she could not speak.
"How's your dad?" Harry asked, his voice laced with genuine concern. Ron seemed to take ages to answer the question, as if the reply were some heavy weight that he had to dredge up from the depths.
"Professor McGonagall thinks he's going to make it," said Ron, with great effort. Hermione saw Harry visibly relax, as her own eyes slid closed with thankfulness. She moved toward Ron, ducking into the circle of his arms, as the ability to stand seemed to leave him. She helped him walk over to a crate and sit down.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Ron. I didn't think it would - " Her voice became a rapid murmur, even as she was still vaguely aware that Harry stood in the middle of the garret, watching them. He cleared his throat roughly.
"Reckon I'll go back downstairs," he said loudly. Ron did not even appear to realize that Harry was in the room; the redhead looked dazed and fatigued. Hermione turned when he spoke, from where she was kneeling beside Ron, and their eyes connected with a force that physically jolted her.
"Harry - !" she began, and then realized that she didn't have any idea what to say. She could read his face, but it was a tangled mishmash of emotions; his eyes looked disappointed, disgusted - with himself or with her? - resigned, and - there was compassion there too.
He backed toward the door, as if he was unable to stop himself from meeting her eyes, and she watched him go, even as her fingers absently played along Ron's shoulder, alternately patting and rubbing. When he finally turned toward the door, Hermione stiffened and inhaled suddenly, as if the removal of his gaze was something physical that had been ripped away.
The door closed behind him, and she couldn't even hear the light sound of his bare feet on the stairs.
~~**~~
She turned back to Ron, her expression sorrowful and apologetic.
"Ron, I'm so glad your dad is all right," she said sincerely, and he really looked at her, for the first time since he'd entered the room. He leaned forward, propping his elbow on his knees, and she linked her arm with one of his, leaning against his knees as well.
"Hermione, I've never been so scared in my life," he said, in that dazed, shell-shocked voice of one who has seen too much and simply can no longer process what he's seeing. "I couldn't lose him too. I couldn't lose him too."
"He's going to be okay now, though," Hermione shushed him, whispering soothingly. Ron dragged his eyes from whatever distant horrors they'd been seeing, and met her gaze again.
"He wanted you to have a wand." He didn't say this with an accusing note in his voice, but more with a tone of wonderment. Hermione's throat closed up.
"I - " she tried to say.
"I was against it," Ron said. "I thought we should come back another day, when we'd planned for it. Or that we should try to find some wand merchant who'd make us a deal. But he wanted to. Said that everyone should be able to feel needed."
"Yes," Hermione ventured, tears finally spilling from her eyes. Her skin felt taut, stretched too much over her swollen face. "But I didn't ask him, Ron - I didn't say anything. I wouldn't have - "
"I needed you. Why hasn't that ever been enough?" Hermione did a double-take, thinking that perhaps she hadn't heard him properly. He was still hunched over his knees, wide-eyed, staring, and somehow Hermione knew that they weren't talking about his father anymore.
"Ron, I don't understand- " Liar!
"You always have to be - be performing some brilliant new charm or spell, or doing something to save Harry or help Harry or fight for Harry. That's what made you feel useful and needed. Why couldn't I make you feel needed? I needed you." Hermione flinched away from him. She did not want to have this conversation now, but his use of the past tense did not escape her.
"Ron, of course I need you. I'll always need you." She infused her words with all the depth of sincerity that she could convey, looking beseechingly at him with shiny chocolate eyes.
"Do you love me?" He speared her with a glance, his sorrowful blue eyes looking suddenly clear and sharp. So this is it, then, she thought.
"Of course I love you, Ron," she said truthfully, though her voice fell a little flat.
"Then - then why are - why are we just sitting here?" he asked. He wasn't talking about their location in a dusty, cluttered attic with fragments of china plates all over the floor. Hermione felt her posture draw upward and inward, almost in spite of herself, and she pursed her lips.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," she said in her best Prefect voice, which caused Ron to swear colorfully, but not angrily. He sounded more sad and defeated, than irate. Guilt pounded through her body with the surge of her bloodstream. Can't you even tell him the truth? Don't you at least owe him that?
"Yes, you do, Hermione," Ron said wearily. "When did we start dating? After Dumbledore died? How many dates have we actually been on? How much time have we spent alone? How many times have we - have we - " he stumbled a bit here, but floundered on, "have we done anything at all without you - without your - ?" He couldn't finish his sentence. His forehead was against his palms, his fingers threaded through his hair.
"Without my what, Ron?" Hermione asked, her voice nearly failing her completely.
"Acting like you wished you were somewhere else entirely," he replied hastily, almost all in one breath. Hermione looked at him with wide, hurt eyes awash in tears.
"I never - " she began with a hurt gasp, but then stopped. When he kissed me in the War Room at the Shop, I flinched away from him because I - because I thought of H - Harry. Have I always done that? Dear God. "Ron - " her throat was closing up, and her voice was little more than a croak. "Ron, we shouldn't talk about this now. There are other things - it isn't the time -" Later, please, later, the coward in her pleaded. I don't need another thing in my life falling apart, and neither do you!
He lifted his head from his hands, and looked sideways at her, quizzically.
"That's what you say every time we try to do something that a normal couple might do," he pointed out. "'We should help Harry. This isn't the time for that, Ron,'" he quoted without quite mocking her. "If it's not the time for a relationship, and it's not the time to break up, then what the hell is it time for exactly?"
Hermione's eyes stung, and she felt like she wasn't getting enough breath in her lungs. She stood to her feet blindly, pushing against Ron's knee to help herself up. Time to break up, break up, break up, she thought dizzily. He had actually said it.
And then something like relief surged through her like a shot of liquor, burning on the way down, but then soothing with blanketing warmth - with a chaser of guilt.
"Do you want to break up?" she asked evenly, a trace of the acerbic Prefect creeping back into her voice. He looked up at her, with more evidence of the trademark Weasley ire. His ears were turning red.
"I don't want to date someone who doesn't want to date me back," he replied, as caustically as she had. Hermione found herself wondering how they had gotten to this point, how things had been derailed so, from her concern for Mr. Weasley to this.
"I never said - " Hermione began, not understanding exactly why she was fighting for this sad excuse of a relationship, unless it was because the last changes in her life had been so ghastly that she was now afraid of any change at all.
"There were a lot of things you never said," Ron interrupted, and the anger seemed to have ebbed away again, replaced only by a dreadful, sucking vacuum of hopeless weariness. His words were like a slap across her face. She decided to stop denying it.
"I'm sorry, Ron," was all she said. "Maybe if…" she trailed off, and the lingering wraiths of a thousand possibilities seemed to drift silently around the garret. Maybe if we'd gotten to frolic through our seventh year like we should have been able to…maybe if Dumbledore hadn't died…maybe if we hadn't been hunting horcruxes…maybe if Voldemort hadn't attacked with all the subtle finesse of a battleaxe…
"Yeah," Ron said, and they regarded each other solemnly for a moment. Hermione thought randomly that she had never felt such communion, such connection with Ron as she did at that moment. She and Harry were frequently at one accord, of one mind, honed to where they were practically precognitive of each other's thoughts. She and Ron had never had that harmony of spirit.
Until now…she thought bitterly, and the irony was gall in her mouth. The silence seemed to expand to infinity in every direction, like they were the only two humans left in the universe.
"We should go see how your father is doing," Hermione finally ventured tentatively, after clearing her throat. Ron nodded, solemnly, but absently.
Hermione's fingers had nearly closed around the doorknob, when she turned back to Ron, so suddenly that he nearly crashed into her.
"Are we going to be okay?" she blurted suddenly. "Harry is going to need us now, more than ever. We need to be able to handle this." Her eyes were serious and dark, but she felt a hot flush staining her neck and face, as Ron's countenance twisted into a thoughtful and somewhat bitter smile. He looked at her penetratingly, and she turned back toward the door quickly, grasping the door handle and twisted it roughly, plunging through the door and down the crooked stairs.
"He's my best mate, Hermione," Ron said solemnly, following her down the stairs. "I'm going to do my best." As they made their way back to the infirmary, Hermione refused to meet Ron's gaze, wondering, half-afraid, just what it was that he'd seen in her face.
~~**~~
When Ron slipped into the infirmary, Hermione could see the prone forms of Ginny, and Mr. Weasley two beds beyond. They were both still unconscious, though, as far as she could tell, the blood-spattered area had been thoroughly Scourgified. She watched Ron sink down into a spare chair at his father's bedside, and saw Harry, sitting up in his bed, but looking drained, track Ron's movement across the room, then look toward her. She watched him for a moment, her expression clearly troubled, and then backed away, closing the door softly behind her.
Tonks was sitting idly on the top steps, just a couple of meters away from the infirmary door. She slanted Hermione a sharp look, as the younger girl sat down beside her.
"Everything okay?" The Auror asked, nudging Hermione's shoulder with her own. Hermione shrugged with a very unconvincing why wouldn't it be okay? look.
"It's fine," she said dully. "How's Mr. Weasley?" Tonks was not to be sidetracked thusly.
"Well, first you and Harry were destroying the heirloom china of somebody or other in McGonagall's family - " Hermione made a wide-eyed face of alarm, but Tonks waved it off. "Don't worry about it. It can be repaired. All the better to shatter it again later, right?" She nudged Hermione and smiled, but Hermione didn't really respond. "Then Ron goes up, Harry comes down - looking like the opposing Seeker caught the Snitch, by the way - then you and Ron come down, not speaking, and he goes in, while you stay out here. He's not blaming you, is he?" she tacked on, eying Hermione suspiciously.
Hermione smiled then, a little gratefully at Tonks. She shook her head quickly.
"No, no. He's not blaming me." She paused and carefully chose her words. "This just brought up some issues that have been festering for awhile. I think we're through."
"Oh, Hermione, no!" Tonks said, in a soft and sympathetic voice, and Hermione could tell that she was imagining how she'd feel if she and Remus ended their relationship.
"No, it's okay…really," Hermione said, working up a pleasant, positive expression to help her convince Tonks. "I think that it's just another thing in my life that's gone wrong lately, but then - I'm still alive, I can still - " do magic. Those words remained unspoken, but she got the impression that Tonks had understood exactly what she meant.
"And Harry?" Tonks prodded gently. Hermione looked blankly at her.
"Harry?" she echoed.
"Are you - is it because of Harry that - you - you and Ron - ?" she fumbled around, and Hermione blushed when she realized what Tonks was getting at.
"No, no, no," she said rapidly. "This - this was… inevitable. Harry had nothing to do with it." Keep telling yourself that, came a snide voice in her mind. "You never did tell me how Mr. Weasley was," she remembered suddenly. Tonks' mouth drew up on one side, and her eyes grew misty and distant.
"He's holding his own. Minerva got the bleeding stopped, and that was the main concern. If his blood was adequately replenished in time, then he should be fine," Tonks finished softly.
"If I - " Hermione began, but Tonks halted her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Hermione, nobody blames you. Arthur wouldn't blame you. So you shouldn't blame yourself. It could've as easily been Remus or me that got you a wand, but Arthur thought of it first. Have you tried them yet?"
It took Hermione a moment to figure out what the Auror was talking about, but then she remembered the discarded bag of wands, and the clatter they had made when the bag had fallen from her slack hand.
"I can't - I - I dropped it in - in the - " she stammered, feeling ashamed once again. Mr. Weasley risked his life to get you a wand, and you can't even bring yourself to see if any of them work!
"You should give them a try," Tonks suggested companionably. "That way, when Arthur wakes up, you can show him which one works." When Arthur wakes up…the simple words made Hermione's eyes tear up yet again.
"But Ron and Harry are - " Hermione tried again, feeling weak and childish. Tonks smiled, and Hermione got the impression that Tonks knew much more than she had been explicitly told.
"Gryffindor courage," Tonks quipped encouragingly, jerking her head in the direction of the infirmary. "Go on, then." Hermione looked wistfully at Tonks and sighed noisily, before getting to her feet, and rushing through the infirmary door before she talked herself out of it.
The bag that Luna had given her was propped against the wall next to the potions cupboard now, rather than out in the middle of the floor where she had dropped it. Her face burned with shame, as she realized that someone had had to move it, someone else who knew that she had spit upon Mr. Weasley's sacrifice. Waves of recrimination washed over her, threatening to sweep her away. She picked up the bag, and made herself walk over to the bedside by which Ron sat. She did not look at Harry, even though she could feel his eyes on her like physical weights.
"How is he?" she asked, in the hushed voice reserved for abiding places of the ill or injured. Ron nodded vaguely without looking at her, his eyes fixed on his father's face.
Clinging…the word drifted incongruously into her mind. That's what Ron was doing - what they all were doing, really - but for Ron, it was personalized in the form of his father. He was clinging to the little family he had left, to the concept of a world that had vanished forever, and he was going to have to pull himself up, or he was going to fall. Hermione watched him silently, thinking, worry creasing her forehead. She could feel Harry watching them, and it sent a prickle between her shoulder blades.
"He's stable for now," Ron said, his voice rough and raspy sounding. "McGonagall said the next 24 hours are crucial. If he makes it that far…" then he'll be all right. Mr. Weasley was pale, but seemed to be resting comfortably. There were fading pink weals slashed across his neck like the claw marks of some kind of ferocious beast. They disappeared beneath the neckline of the gown he wore, and Hermione was forcibly reminded of Harry's description of the altercation with Malfoy in Moaning Myrtle's loo. Blood swirled in the water. Harry stumbled backward in unadulterated shock and horror. Myrtle was shrieking at the top of her …lungs?
She leaned down to kiss Mr. Weasley on the forehead, intending to take her leave, and let Ron wait and watch on behalf of his father and sister. Perhaps she would see if Fred would keep him company - knowing him, the incorrigible Weasley was probably in the War Room with Remus, plotting the Order's next move. When she leaned down, the bag containing the wands swished forward with her, and clanked against the metal edge of the bedstead.
Ron's eyes went to the bag and froze on it momentarily. Hermione stiffened and looked warily at him, expecting some kind of verbal castigation. Instead, he did something that Hermione thought odd. He looked over his shoulder at Harry, and then back at her, holding her gaze with a dark blue, pensive stare.
"I hope one of them works," he said somberly, before turning back toward his father.
"Thank you," she whispered, and made her way out of the room. She could feel Harry's eyes on her, and heat flooded her face, but she did not look at him.
When she saw Tonks, still sitting casually at her post at the top of the stairs, she held up the bag, as if for her inspection.
"Could you get Fred?" Hermione asked. "I thought - I thought Ron might want Fred in there…for awhile. I'm going to go - " she indicated the wands she held, and jerked her head in the direction of the bedrooms down the hall.
"Remus wanted him to look at something, but they're probably done. I'll get him now," Tonks said, standing to her feet, and starting down the stairs. "Good luck," she tossed over her shoulder to Hermione, as she disappeared from sight around the corner.
"Thanks," Hermione said to the empty hallway.
~~**~~
She went all the way to the farthest bedroom at the very end of the hall, and then sat on the bed farthest away from the door, the one by the window. She had already stowed her trunk underneath that bed. She placed the bag on the mattress beside her, and peered inside, not terribly enthusiastic about examining the wands. Whichever one of them works will always remind me of what it took to get it, she thought solemnly, feeling incredibly despondent.
"Can I come in?" came a voice from behind her, and she turned so suddenly that she thought she heard every vertebra in her spinal column pop. Harry was standing in the doorway.
"You shouldn't be out of the bed," she reprimanded him half-heartedly, trying to ignore how nervous and jumpy his mere presence made her. She didn't understand why things had changed so fast. Is it because I admitted it to myself? Or because Ron and I broke up? Or is it just the way he's looking at me… right now? Dammit!
"I'm fine," his voice was flat, dismissive of her concerns, and his green gaze was intent on her face. She felt her cheeks growing hot. "Hermione, I - "
Desperate for something to do, she groped in the bag and pulled out the first wand that her fingers came in contact with. She did so with an expansive, reckless gesture, and saw Harry flinch as the untested wand swept in front of him in a wide arc
"Sorry," she mumbled, embarrassed, and turned the wand toward the empty corner, giving it an experimental swish and flick. What looked a little like soap suds frothed from the tip of the wand and dripped listlessly onto the floor. Hermione and Harry both looked at the viscous liquid with a measure of disgust, and Hermione discarded the wand on the mattress behind her, pulling out another one. This one was longer and more tapered than the first, and blasted a hole in the far wall, which thankfully, enclosed a closet. Plaster dust flew up in a small poof, and Harry coughed.
"Hermione - " Harry tried to say, sitting down on the bed, on the opposite side from her. Hermione pulled out a third wand, her eyes taking on that manic Hermione-gleam. The third wand rattled the window noisily in its pane and rumbled through the planks of the floor. "Hermione - " he said again, as her hand delved back into the bag. Lightning-quick, he reached over and grabbed her wrist. "Hermione, stop!" he finally managed to get out, and they sat motionless for a moment, staring at each other.
"I'm just trying to find out which wand - " she began, protesting innocently.
"I know what you're trying to do," Harry said cryptically, and Hermione knew that he wasn't talking about wands.
"Harry - " she said hastily, but Harry cut her off again.
"What's wrong with you and Ron?"
"What makes you think there's something wrong?" Hermione said, lowering her eyebrows at him quizzically, but her voice was high and false. She tried a fourth wand, which simply did nothing at all. Harry continued to gaze at her with a don't try to fool me expression. The fifth wand sent such a power surge around the room that the lamplight brightened and dimmed, and Hermione could almost feel her hair stand on end. The light out in the corridor blew out. Harry was evidently prepared to sit there and watch her all night. She picked up another wand.
"We broke up," she blurted suddenly, not looking at him.
"Why?" he asked in a bewildered voice that somehow set her teeth on edge. Could he really be so clueless?
"It wasn't going anywhere," she said in an airy, casual way that still failed to fool him. The sixth wand sent a stream of fire toward the wall that ignited the curtains. They both shot to their feet, exchanging looks of alarm and helplessness.
"Here," Harry said suddenly, withdrawing his wand from his back pocket. "You left this in the infirmary. Remus gave it back to me. I don't really know why."
"Harry, your wand doesn't work that well for me," she protested. The flames had climbed the linen panel like ivy on a trellis, and the valance was now on fire.
"You'd rather beat the fire out with your hands?" Harry asked sarcastically, looking around at the mattresses, which had no bedding on them as yet. Throwing him a frustrated look, she grabbed the wand from his hands and cast Aguamenti. It took three attempts before a sufficient enough stream of water was created to put out the small blaze. The smoke was making both of them cough, and the curtains now hung from the window in drippy, gray, tattered shreds. Harry moved to the window, and opened it, allowing a delightful fresh breeze to circulate around the room.
"Thanks," Hermione said, handing the wand back to Harry. She picked out a seventh wand from the bag, looking at it rather warily.
"So, it wasn't going anywhere?" Harry said, picking up the thread of their conversation from before she'd set the room afire.
"Harry!" Hermione protested, her tone clearly saying that she didn't want to talk about it. She looked at him sideways, and noted his pallor and the sooty circles beneath his eyes that had nothing to do with the recent fire. "You should be in bed," she said, in the same tone in which she would have commented on a need to complete an essay or study for an exam.
"You can't just send me to bed because you don't want to answer my question," he noted wryly. She tried the seventh wand, in an attempt to avoid the conversation. A soft wind rustled around the room, sweeping the remainder of the smoky smell away, and a note of music sounded, low and vibrant.
"Wow," Hermione breathed, reverently, holding the slender, delicately carved vine wood wand in one open palm.
"I think you've found your wand," Harry remarked, looking not at the wand in question, but at her. Her fingers closed around the wand and she folded her arm, bringing the wand in close to her chest.
"At what price?" she asked, thinking of Mr. Weasley's frail, scarred form in the bed down the hall.
"At least you're needed," Harry said miserably, looking balefully at his wand, as if he'd like to snap it in half and hurl both pieces across the room. Hermione gave him a reproachful look.
"Harry - " she began to say, in a don't be ridiculous tone.
"Be realistic, Hermione!" he snapped, and she was brought back to their conversation in the attic not too long ago. "You can't pretend I'm useful just because you - just because I - we're friends." He began ticking points off on his fingers. "I can't fight because I've no magic. I can't leave because you would all still be here fighting for your lives, and I could never escape that or forget that. I can't even - I can't even - " he stopped for a moment, his breathing harsh and uneven, and then finished his sentence. "I can't even die."
Hermione went perfectly still, wand still at her chest, and looked at him with round, shocked eyes.
"Harry!" she whispered, and he looked abashed that he'd unburdened himself on her.
"I've - I've thought about it," he admitted softly, and appeared stricken when her eyes slowly brimmed with tears. "But - but as long as I'm alive - as long as Voldemort's looking for me, then that's - then that's one more moment that some of his concentration is on me, instead of on killing someone else."
"I need you," Hermione murmured, referring back to his previous statement. Harry looked up at her suddenly, green eyes ablaze, as if that was not what he had expected to hear.
"Hermione, you're so - you're so strong and brave and - and brilliant. You don't need me. I don't think you need anybody." He was smiling a little, and Hermione knew he meant it as a compliment, but it still stung. I needed you. Why hasn't that ever been enough? Ron's words resounded achingly in her ears.
"It's a façade, Harry," Hermione said, with a watery smile. "The past few days I've never been so terrified and broken and lost. You saw me upstairs. And there's no valiance in being buried behind a book. You think I'm strong? And brave? If I am, it's because you give me strength and courage. When I look at you and think about everything you've been through, knowing that somehow that your sense of honor and nobility and your strength of character have remained intact, it - it gives me - you give me - hope. It makes me realize that maybe the future is - will be a good one, a strong and honorable one - sometimes I'm hoping for it, in spite of all this, in spite of myself." Harry appeared mesmerized by her words.
"Even now?" he asked.
"Yes," Hermione nodded, her heart in her eyes. "Even now. Especially now."
He was looking at her avidly, his eyes moving as they flitted over the features of her face. She saw the yellowish, puffy places that were partially healed bruises. The hemorrhage in his eye was smaller, but still present, and there was a nasty split in his lip that had not fully healed. He had new glasses on, and his hair was shiny and clean. He needs a haircut, she thought almost maternally. He appeared torn, a smile trying to play across his lips, but the dark shadows of what he had gone through still murky in the otherwise brilliant green of his eyes.
They were sitting on the bed, their legs hanging over opposite sides, but their torsos nearly lined up in the middle. Harry was leaning back on his good arm. Hermione's eyes wandered absently down to his still splinted fingers.
"I think," Harry said, in a low, hesitant voice, "that that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me." Hermione's cheeks flamed, and suddenly his face seemed very close to hers.
"I'm sure," she whispered faintly, trying to sound casual, "that Cho - or Ginny - have said loads of nicer things to you than that." He shook his head deliberately, his eyes never leaving hers, and Hermione wondered if it was normal to feel so skittish and antsy - or like something skittish and antsy had taken up residence somewhere in her abdominal region.
"No," he replied, and his hand was on top of hers. "Do you feel it?"
"Feel - feel what?" she stammered, even though she knew what he meant. She wanted to cry - the entire situation was ludicrous. They were losing a war; he'd been stripped of his magic and had a warrant on his head; she had just broken up with their other best friend; they had lost dozens of people they knew in one day. Then why is this stupid smile on my face, she wondered. All her arguments with Ron against this type of thing applied here as well; she had never doubted their validity and truthfulness.
Except I wasn't in love with Ron, she finally told herself, and found herself returning Harry's gaze with an intense one of her own.
She wasn't sure who moved first. All she knew is that Harry's lips had just barely brushed hers, when the door clattered open. Hermione started violently enough to knock the discarded wands off the bed, where they landed noisily and rolled to various and random positions in the room.
Neville was standing in the doorway, looking mortified.
"I'm - I'm sorry. I was - Remus said Harry should - " he stammered, his face about as red as Hermione imagined hers to be. Harry was facing away from her, but she could see the red stain on his neck and ears as well.
"No," Hermione sprang up and hastened to speak, "no, we weren't - there was nothing going on. I was trying out the wands, and - " Neville looked as if he just wanted desperately to leave, though Hermione could have sworn that something like amusement glinted deep in his eyes. "You aren't going to say anything, are you?" she said with quiet desperation, flinging away all pretense, and drawing a visibly surprised reaction from Harry.
"It's not any of my business," Neville mumbled, his eyes fixed somewhere over her right shoulder. He started to edge toward the door.
"Don't leave," Hermione said, in her best hospitable voice. "I was just - I was going. I need to show them my new wand, anyway. Ron would probably like to - " She flung one last helpless look at Harry, and fled for only the second time that day.
TBC
Well, I hope you liked this chapter. Not a whole lot happened, but there was some important dialogue, and a couple of subtle plot threads that will be seen more later on. I wasn't really sure about this chapter myself.
Please leave a review on your way out. I'm trying my best to stay caught up with replies to all of them, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job. I'd love to have so many that it was nearly impossible to keep up with, though! But I guess that goes without saying for every writer!
As always, thanks!
lorien
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