Scars and Suffering

Midnight in the Garden of Scars and Suffering.

By Hell's Angel.

Rating: I'm giving it a soft R as a warning to younger readers for dark themes of manipulation and torture.

Pairing: Hermione/Harry.

Timeline: Hogwarts 7^th year.

Genre: Angst/Romance.

Spoilers: Nothing past book five. This is clear cut AU after Order of the Phoenix.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I don't make any money off anything. I write to suit myself.

Author's Notes: This is probably one of the few things I've written that isn't in Hermione's POV. She's my favourite character and I tend to write from her persepctive. But I hope I got Harry's character pretty right. Either way, you'll let me know if you review. This was intended to be part of a larger story but it never got under way. It can be considered a one-shot with other events tying to it. I have those events written and I might post them at a later date. Anyway, I hope you like the read. Let me know either way, but no pressure.

Damn, I hope I get my Authorship off of this…

~~~~~

He shouldn't have broken the locking spell on the door. He knew that. His instincts screamed it. But he had done it anyway. Harry had always been too curious for his own good. Knowing he had done something wrong, his head started to justify his action. He had to break into the Room of Requirement to get to Hermione. He was worried about her. His worry superceded his knowing that he shouldn't be entering the room. It was all for Hermione; action justified.

Yet there was still some unnerving stab of wrong that impaled his gut with the knowledge that he shouldn't have just forced his way in. If Hermione wanted to be alone - shut away from the world - she had every right to be. She had been isolating herself more and more often after her altercation with Malfoy. He still seethed in anger at what the Slytherin rat had done and said to her. After he had found out exactly what had happened, the slap-in-the-face feeling it evoked, he understood why Hermione had been the way she had been when he'd found her in this very room those many nights ago. So angry and hurt; alone. He knew those very same feelings, once upon a time. And he had wanted to soothe her in any way that a best friend could possibly do so. He had tried desperately. She had desperately clung to him in a way that caused him great confusion - tried to subdue him with forceful passion that had come to dominate Hermione's character. He had fought her off, hiding behind his need to comfort her with words and knowledge of her pain. He'd been scared by the Hermione he witnessed that night. He'd been scared of the woman she had become over the last year and a half. So he'd hidden behind a fear that had no real basis in his mind. That same fear was slowly being turned into some other raw emotion. Not by his own will, but by hers. That same fear was telling him right now that he should turn around and leave. He knew what happened when he was alone with her. He knew what she became. He knew he was starting to lose the fight against her. He knew he wasn't going to listen to whatever his conscience was screaming at him to do.

Calm started to drive him past the threshold and inside the Room of Requirement. Whatever sense of wrong that had been predominant was steadily giving way to a curiosity that needed to be sated by going inside her sanctuary. He quietly eased the door closed when he had passed it, and returned the locking charm to its original state.

The room was dim but not gloomy. Once more, gleaming stars were the only source of light. The scarlet cushions were spread across a portion of the stone floor. A dark drape of fabric spilled across the makeshift scarlet bed and curved around the shadow of a figure lying peacefully still. Soft breathing, not his own, reached his ears.

He wished he could see better in the room. His thought was picked up by the magic that filtered through the room and a few well placed candles immediately ignited in the sparse wall sconces. The candle glow brought relief to his emerald gaze and created a hazy sense of vision; amongst the swirls of soft light the image of Hermione asleep on her cushions, drape carelessly covering the lower half of her body, a rather large amount of skin displayed for him alone. He could hear his heavy swallow in his own ears - wondered if that was his heart thundering rapidly against his ribcage. The teenager in him took a moment to marvel at the sight spread across the velvet cushions. Watching the even rise and fall of her shoulders. A curve of breast half hidden behind a splayed arm. Cinnamon curls haphazardly tickling the glowing skin of her shoulders. Long, dark lashes lying on red apples of her prominent cheeks. She was a sight to behold; male teenage fantasy mixed with the vulnerability of sleep. She was stunning before his bespectacled emerald eyes. And then the best friend in him re-emerged. He started to bury the feeling that had once been an unconscious seed in the farest reaches of himself; the seed that had recently been flowering beyond all control because of the very woman lying asleep before him.

It was hard to discard his instinctual reaction of Hermione, but he managed to succeed and bring a sense of restraint and sensibility back to the fore. His mind told him to turn around and leave the room, to give her that respect, not ogle her in her vulnerable state. He was loathe to obey his head, hesitant to leave her by herself. He'd come to find her. He was worried about her. His worry superceded his knowing that he should leave; action justified. And his action was to slowly continue easing toward the mass of scarlet cushion and drape, the large expanse of what looked like delicately soft skin.

Harry seemed to find himself sitting beside Hermione quicker than he imagined. Hadn't he been across the other side of the room? He thought he had been. But then he wouldn't have found himself leaning closer to Hermione like he was. His eyes wouldn't have been able to count the smattering of faint freckles dusting the bridge of her nose. The hand balancing his weight on the soft cushions wouldn't have grazed the skin of her upper arm and come into contact with the roughness he felt there. His gaze was immediately drawn to it. Only to find a scar. Elongated, a shade darker than the rest of her skin, half as wide as his palm and just a little less softer than the rest of her. It was only slightly visible under the glow of the candles but he felt he saw it with crystal clear clarity. Emerald eyes locked on the mark; caught another one further up her arm. Then another. And more. Scars. Sections of her perfect skin marred. His gaze hardened, widened with growing anxiety, searched the whole of Hermione on display and found scars scattering her body. When he reached the length of her back, shoulders rising and falling in even breaths, he felt a sickening rage and shock swelling for control of his emotions.

The worst thing he could think of.

And she had to live with it everyday. See it etched into her skin. Prejudice and hatred carved into her very flesh.

He wanted to howl with the anger and pain the largest scar evoked in him. He could barely look at it and restrain his hands from scrunching, his fingernails itching to dig it out of her skin in anyway that he could.

Down her back, crudely carved, large red letters glowing against the hazy hue of the candlelight: M U D B L O O D.

He wanted to throw up.

How could this have happened to her? How could he have let this be inflicted on his best friend? What had happened to her? When? What could he do? How could he make his best friend better from this?

A drop from his eye splattered against the inside of his glasses. With a shuddering breath he removed them, wiped them, put them back on hoping to see nothing on her skin.

M U D B L O O D still glowed in a dancing taunt down her back. He swallowed painfully and tried not to taste the vomit in the back of his throat.

How?

His lips formed her name but no sound scraped from his dry throat. He blinked, furious, hurt; he couldn't restrain his right hand drifting over her body. One finger gently touched the upturned skin, traced the obscenity with feather light care. He saw the goose bumps grow on her skin but he was too overcome with pain to realise her awareness. He traced the hateful word. Once. Twice. He tried not to scratch it out the third time. He didn't go back for a forth. His finger tip was joined by the rest of his hand spread flat on her skin, taking in the warmth the smoothness of her shoulders offered. He wrenched his eyes away from the horrific sight - connected with wells of dark, smouldering, readable brown.

He almost wrenched his hand away from the shock of seeing Hermione awake. But something stronger inside of him made him keep it there. He had to show her he wasn't scared and disgusted by what he saw. Harry had to make her understand that she was still special to him - his best friend - even if she doubted it herself because of what they finally both knew. A whole new realm of understanding dawned on Harry at that point. He was closer to Hermione now than anybody else would or could be.

Harry was hers.

But he didn't truly grasp the entirety of that thought just yet.

She did.

Her dark, smoky brown depths held that knowledge; just beyond his perception.

A deep rise and fall from the shoulders beneath his palm - Hermione taking a deep, shuddering breath. He could tell she was about to say something. He beat her to it.

“Hermione, I'm so sorry.”

“Why?” her voice was deep, scratchy from her slumber. He liked the sound, he decided, raw and natural. A tingle arced across his palm. He had no idea where his reaction was coming from. “You didn't do this to me.”

“I didn't stop it,” he heard himself intone with more honesty than he had ever thought he'd expressed.

“It wasn't up to you, Harry,” she whispered. “And I stopped it from getting worse.”

“What's worse than having `mudblood' carved into you for the rest of your life, Hermione?”

He didn't recognise the anger in his voice. But he knew he deserved it in hers. Her words came out in a growl and she shot up like a bolt from the velvet arms of her scarlet cushions. He swallowed, hard and nervously, his gaze drifting between her crackling brown eyes and the hand holding her dark drape up against her chest. His touch on her shoulders was thrown off and he resisted leaning toward her again in her current state. It was hard enough ignoring the shape of her breasts through the drape she held against her. He didn't want to do anything that upset her further. He regretted what he'd done already.

“You don't have to live with it, Harry. That's what's worse.” The growl in her voice seemed to fade as she spoke on. Her eyes dimmed. Her lips betrayed her inner thoughts of keeping quiet. Harry knew this; pleaded with her to continue with his eyes. “You don't have to remember them showing you a dull, jagged piece of metal. You don't have to remember them taunting you. You don't have to remember them cutting into your skin, knowing what they were doing, realising what it meant. You don't have to remember the pain - the sheer fucking pain - of feeling your flesh torn, or muscles breaking, or magic being ripped from your body to break bindings you never thought you'd escape from. You don't have to wake up everyday and see `mudblood' in the mirror, on your skin, and know that you're an ignorant man's ideal of blind hatred and prejudice. And all for the simple fact that you had muggle parents.” She paused, her voice still angry, her chest heaving from her tirade. He wanted to break in, speak reason to her, but she silenced him with the defeat echoing from her tone as she spoke next. “Harry, what's worse is that you can't know what it's like because you aren't one.”

Hermione punching Malfoy in third year. Harry had witnessed it and he'd known that it'd been tremendously painful. He was reminded of that moment because that was currently what it felt like for her to say what she'd said to him. He just couldn't believe her.

What was worse; he couldn't refute her. He had grown up in the muggle world, no less than her, but she trumped him on parentage. Both his parents were magical, even if his mum was muggle-born, like Hermione. But that logic didn't ease the urge he had to argue with her. And he wanted to fight her black and blue on it. Instead he had to suffer the defeat so clearly present in her gaze. Defeat that had his stomach churning violently.

“Hermione-”

She cut him off.

“Just don't!”

With her free hand she went to push him away. Harry stopped her, grabbed her hand, pulled her to him and submerged her in a grip she couldn't wriggle out of. He held her tight against his chest; pulled himself closer to her; ran his right hand down along her marred skin while his left buried itself in her curly tresses. She went rigid - held herself back for the longest of moments.

“You don't have to hold yourself back from me,” he whispered to her, finishing what he had started before. “I don't understand now. But I know you'll let me. You'll tell me in the end. And I'll always be waiting, ready to listen.”

He felt Hermione react from his words, breathing deeply, collapsing into his hold. Her arms slowly wound around him and latched onto what she could hold onto tightest. Her grip was bruising but he endured it. For minutes uncounted, Harry held her to him, feeling all the emotions she evoked swirling freely though his system. He enjoyed burying his nose in her curls and the scent he could sense from his action. His body thrilled uncertainly at the touch of her drape-covered breasts crushed against his chest. He worked hard to trace the skin of her body, her scars, and soothe the awful memories he knew were lurking beneath the surface of her mind.

Time passed further.

Eventually, she pulled away from him, and he let her go. Harry gazed at her as her face came into view. Her dark brown orbs were darker than he had seen them yet. He swallowed at the pain he saw in them. But something else was brewing deeper in her gaze. He didn't notice that her hands were locked on his waist, or that her drape was riding dangerously low on her chest. But the spark he started to recognise, the crackling energy growing each and every second, made him wary of her. Before he knew it, he realised she had cornered him, just like she had the time before; trapped beneath her light weight, her lips sealed to his, the feelings in him she inspired.

He felt weak suddenly, his energy seeping from him freely, heart racing faster under her touch. But her hands were only a simple grasp. She was holding him gently by the waist, hands locked to the shirt covering his skin. And his heart racing faster, blood rushing through his body, he felt dizzy and she was his only anchor. She placed such a spell on him. All sorts of distracting thoughts were tumbling out, over and in his mind. He just couldn't seem to focus.

Until her hands, once perched just so innocently on his waist, clenched around his shirt. He couldn't have stopped her, or what she was doing, even if he had somehow gleaned the knowledge of what she was about to do. It was late into the night and it had been a long day. He was beyond any coherent form of calculating thought. He was physically exhausted. He'd taken that out on his school uniform. Rumpled sleeves, some of the buttons undone, his tie beyond loosened from around his neck. She really made her move easy. He had made it easy for her. His easily distracted mind quickly caught up to awareness when she expertly pulled his shirt - tie and all - over his head and left him sitting before her in much the same state as she: topless waist up, although she still kept her modesty with the infuriating drape riding just a little lower across her chest. Harry consciously fought to keep his gaze at eye level. And he really consciously fought to regain his crumpled shirt from her tightly clenched fist.

He made several highly jerky attepts to seize his shirt back. She evaded him every time.

He tried not to let his mind stray to the burgeoning confusion fighting for domination of his thoughts. He felt trapped once more. Some darkness welling stronger in her brown orbs before him; he shook at a tremendous surge of emotion he couldn't place or identify. He suddenly felt very exposed before her searching eyes.

After a few, torturously elongated seconds, Hermione effortlessly tossed his removed belongings behind her. Out of his reach for certain. One of her arms returned to its post holding the dark drape against her chest and the other, his eyes following it surreptitiously, drifted towards his bare skin. The urge to shy away from her touch briefly took him. But she wasn't forceful in her advance, and she wasn't aiming to hurt or overpower him in a way that would have such a violent effect. Harry felt a sense of ease overwhelm him as he thought back on his previous moments with her; she wasn't wrenching him onto her cushions and covering him with the feather weight of her body, the push of her feminine curves and the fervent press of her full, glistening lips. She was only reaching - reaching out for him. That thought made him loathe the idea of even drawing away from her in this instant. Even in his heightened mindframe, in such an uncomfortable state of undress, Harry remained seated and allowed his best friend to take hold of him. She was in need and he wanted nothing more than to be the anchor she desperately needed to stay afloat.

He was expecting an arm to lock around his neck, Hermione to bury herself back in his embrace. Instead, she merely grazed his chest with the very tips of her fingers. Chills sizzled over his skin. He fought to shake them off; hide all reaction to her gentle touch. Then she brushed his own memorial of pain; long, wide and dark like hers. Only his was more jagged, centered over his chest bone, stretching against taught skin until it stopped above the place his racing heart thundered. Like he had himself, Hermione traced his scar, her dark brown gaze locked and intense as she studied and memorized the imperfection.

Her touch so gentle, lingering, possessing. Harry felt his scar sear anew with her soothing brush.

She broke their strained silence this time.

“Sometimes I forget that we each have our own reminders.” He watched, hypnotised, her gaze falter from his chest back to his eyes, her throat bob with her thick and heavy swallow. “We both have memories we can't or won't share. The hurt too real and too new to be relived just yet. Our scars still too raw.” Her still gentle touch and her soft look were betrayed by the force behind her words. Anger still laced through her, something he would endeavour to banish from her in their near future.

“In time, we'll heal, Hermione,” he answered as steadily as he could muster. “That's all it takes.”

“Is it?” she returned quite quickly. Her aggressive change, subtle as it was, did not go unnoticed by Harry. “They can say it but it doesn't make it so. Time doesn't heal all wounds, Harry. It won't heal these ones.” The last comment was coupled with a gesture pointing clearly to the marred flesh of her hidden back.

“Hermione,” he unconsciously felt his tongue dart out to lick his lips as he thought about what he was going to say next. Her gaze immediately followed his movement, her eyes narrowing just the slightest bit. He immediately felt a heat spread through his body and hoped to the high heavens that it wasn't showing on his expanse of revealed skin. “Hermione, know, with all of your certainty, that one day I'll ask you how got your scars. And you'll answer me. Answer me honestly with all the conviction that you possess.”

“Will I now?” she asked.

Her gaze, drifting freely over him, toyed with every shred of thought tumbling through his mind. He wondered how her eyes could be so dark and boundless; smouldering with an intensity that had his body crackling like a livewire with nervous energy.

“You'll answer me because I'll have answered the same question about mine.”

No retort for that.

Just silence.

Truth and acceptance just detectable behind her smoky gaze.

Harry clenched his jaw refelxively. He was growing steadily more uncomfrotable with her gaze unfalteringly locked on his person. He had to get out of the room. That much was clear. Her hold on him, lulling and dangerous and alarmingly attractive, was getting too much for him to bear. Once more she was dominant and possessive, just like his memories circling thorugh his mind of that night locked in this room with her so on edge. Space, now, and distance was crucial. He was beginning to sense that unfounded fear once more.

He made a swift effort to get back to his feet, movements loud even in his own ears. Quicker than he could have seen, Hermione snatched at his wrist in a very firm grip, froze him in place for a second too long. It was almost the same as what happened last time. A mimic of motions; the grabbing, pulling and positioning; the emotions a turmoil in his own consciousness. Once more she pulled him to her. Slower this time; no rough or brutal force. Almost over her body, her scent suddenly invading all of his senses, her lips so close to his; that was when he realised he wasn't resisting her actions. His growing reluctance - that fear - tried to surge anew. Another breath of her intoxicating smell, so pungent in his closeness, and he was soothed of all resistance. He could do nothing but follow her now.

Locked in her gaze - blissfully helpless.

Her lips were so close to his. He remembered their touch. Skin tingled with the hope of another gentle graze from them. She stopped - the hair of a feather separating them. Then she used her adavantage and lowered him into the velvet arms of her scarlet bed, never breaking the small distance blocking them from the ultimate goal of lips brushing lips. His wild obsidian hair spread against a particularly comfortable scarlet cushion and Hermione poised herself above him, unmoving, braced on her forearms. Her drape separated skin contact, but Harry was gifted with the sight of tempting cleavage just in the bottom corner of his view. Heat returned to him, and this time he was sure his cheeks were turning rosy.

The sudden snap, crackle and pop of a low burning hearth caught his attention. A fireplace, filtered from a thought - he didn't know whose - appeared to his left. Low amber light replaced the candles he had summoned earlier. The dull orange flames were now, besides the stars, his only light to go by. And Hermione still hadn't moved from her perch above him. Her eyes were searching, though. Looking into his. But he knew they were seeing more than just his own emerald gaze. Finally, she blinked, decided it seemed, and moved closer to him.

A rigidness seized him. She felt it immediately but didn't stop her action. His confusion suddenly flared back to to forefront of his mind. He wanted to run, put as much space between himself and the entrancing Hermione. The smallest of touches against his lips. Barely a graze but far from chaste. Then he was seeing her face again, her body lowering onto the cushions beside him. A hitch in his chest and the breath he had been clinging onto escaped in a hiss from the back of his dry throat. She settled on her side, facing him, with a decent amount of space between them and a drape separating skin.

A simple whisper and his world snapped back to normal.

“Good night, Harry.”

He instantly looked in her direction.

Her dark brown gaze was hidden once more, long dark lashes resting on the rosy apples of her prominent cheeks. One arm helped to cushion her head against the velvet softness of her scarlet bed. Her other snaked out toward him, crawling at a slow pace across his chest to rest upon his scar.

Nothing more.

He was at complete ease. It felt like nothing more natural could occur than for him to be where he currently found himself; sharing a bed with his best friend, allowing himself to be vulnerable alongside her. The hand resting on his scar spread warmth and comfort into his body and Harry found himself wondering how he could have done without such contact before. His eyes grew heavy and his body lax with the newfound peace settling on him. Before he closed his eyes, he clasped his hand with Hermione's, brought it softly to his lips, then replaced it over the constant pounding of his settling heart.

“Good night, Hermione,” he returned, then closed his eyes to the world.

Beside him, Hermione's lips curved in a smile coloured by comfort and possession.

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