Choices

Author's Note:

WARNING! contains spoilers for the Movie DH part 1!

This is just my attempt at continuing the scene after Dobby's burial.

Enjoy!

He doesn't know how long they sat there, the harsh sea wind chapping their faces, his hands blistered from the wooden handle of the shovel. He had just dug a grave. The idea was too surreal to truly contemplate. Harry stared past the crude marker, not seeing, not hearing, not feeling. Numb.

It was Ron's voice that broke him from his reverie. “Harry....Harry I think we need to go now...she's not doing so good.” he said shakily.

Slowly he turned his head, eyes still unfocused and stared at his friends. Since Dobby had apparated them to the seaside they had been running on pure adrenaline, and with Harry fixed on burying him properly. Now that they had time to stop it was all catching up with them.

He took in Hermione and finally saw what Ron was talking about. She was pale and shaking and a fine sheen of sweat shone on her face even though the temperature was cold. Her left arm was clutched protectively to her stomach and she laid limply back against Ron. The worst however, was her eyes, they were completely expressionless.

Harry caught Ron's gaze and jumped to his feet. Ron lifted her by the elbow but her legs seemed to have no strength in them. Quickly, Harry rushed to her other side and wrapped an arm around her waist. Together they began to make their way down the sandy hillside to the house below.

They walked in silence and Harry realized he hadn't even asked Ron how he knew to come here or even where they were.

“Who's place is this?”

“Bill and Fleur's.” Ron answered “I was here....well, anyways, I knew it was safe.”

“Good choice.”

Hermione's eyes were drooping and she had become more difficult to guide as they approached the cottage. When they reached the door Fleur had it open before they could knock.

“Finally!” she exclaimed sounding suspiciously like Molly Weasley “I was about to come get you.” She raked an appraising eye over their bedraggled forms and yelled for her husband.

Bill appeared behind her just as Hermione's legs gave way completely. Ron and Harry struggled to keep her from falling.

“I've got her.” the elder Weasley said and picked Hermione up before the boys could lose their grip. “Go get cleaned up and get something to eat.” he said before turning and heading up the stairs.

In unspoken agreement Harry and Ron ignored his suggestion and followed him up the narrow staircase. He didn't know why but he didn't want to be separated from his friends right then.

He stood by the doorway as Bill laid Hermione carefully on the bed. She rolled to her side, facing away from them, once again pulling her arm into herself.

`When had this all gotten so out of control?' He thought to himself. Logically he knew this was war. That people were going to die. That people were going to get hurt. They already had. But this...this was too close.

As he stood there, he focused on the sound in his head that had been there for the last several hours. He had been able to push it aside, to ignore it, until now. Now, in the silence he knew what it was. It was the sounds of Hermione's screams as she had been tortured by Bellatrix. They repeated, over and over and over again and he didn't know how to get it to stop.

Fleur brushed past him, a bowl and cloth in her hand and he noticed for the first time that her stomach seemed much larger than the last time he had seen her. The knowledge that something good was happening in the midst of such chaos was heartening.

The two Weasley boys and Harry now all stood at points around the room as Fleur worked. Ron and Harry seemed incapable of leaving but also incapable of helping.

He watched as Fleur gently pulled Hermione's right arm free of her torn and dirty jacket and then helped her roll over in order to peel it from the left. He winced as she gave a small cry as it detached itself.

She had rolled over again, blocking her face from view. Fleur cleaned her face and neck, taking time to dab a bit of something from a pot onto the slight cut Bellatrix's knife had left. He swallowed heavily recalling the image of Hermione with a blade pressed to her throat.

Fleur's gasp of “Mon Dieu!” brought his attention back to the scene before him. He found himself walking forward without even realizing it. He came around the end of the bed, stopping next to Fleur where she sat next to Hermione, holding her arm gently.

Confused, he looked to Hermione but saw that she had her eyes shut tight, a lone tear making its way into her hair. Ron had come up to the other side of the bed and Harry was still confused when Ron suddenly turned away and was violently sick in the corner of the room.

Bill crossed to his brother and cleaned the mess before pushing him down into a chair. Harry looked at them, not understanding why Ron had just reacted the way he did. “Ron..what's wrong?”

But Ron couldn't or wouldn't answer. He just shook his head and let it drop forward into his hands, Bill stood supportively next to him with a hand on his shoulder.

“ `er arm, `arry.” came Fleur's soft whisper and his eyes went straight to the formerly unmarred expanse of skin.

There was a rush of blood to his head and his vision narrowed as the word carved into her flesh swam before his eyes.

`Mudblood'

He didn't feel any pain as his knees buckled and he collapsed next to her. Bile rose in his throat and he now knew why Ron had been sick. The letters were an angry red, slightly charred around the edge and somehow he knew that no potion or spell existed that would erase this scar.

“No!” he gasped out, his hand coming up to clutch at hers, fingers hovering over this terrible thing. “No. Hermione. No...I'm sorry.” he whispered, finding it difficult to speak over the lump in his throat.

He hadn't even realized he had been crying until she reached out with the arm that had been so marked and wiped tears from his face. “Don't.” she said so softly he almost couldn't hear her.

With great effort he raised his eyes to meet hers and saw her looking at him through a glaze of tears, the sadness screaming at him.

He couldn't do as she asked though. Couldn't not accept the burden of what had happened to her as his own. He watched as one of his tears rolled down her wrist and slowly crossed the livid letter `d'.

And then he broke. In one heartbeat everything he had been pushing aside and ignoring caught up with him. Moody, Hedwig, months of isolation, Ron's abandonment, the ever present helplessness, Dobby and now this was all too much.

His head came down to rest on the mattress and he sobbed without making a sound as he grieved for all of them.

Hermione was silent but her hand fell down to brush the hair at the nape of his neck.

Fleur rested a hand briefly on his head before slipping off the bed. The door clicked shut behind her and Bill and the three of them were once again alone.

He gradually regained control over his emotions but didn't lift his head for awhile. Hermione's fingers had created a hypnotic rhythm that he wasn't in a hurry to disrupt.

The bowl and cloth Fleur had placed on the floor caught his eye and he picked them up without thought. He didn't meet Hermione's gaze as he carefully began to clean her arm, needing to show his atonement. When the water was pinkish and grey he sat it aside and finally looked at her.

She gave him a tight sad smile and reached up to brush his hair away from his forehead. “We all have scars, Harry. Some can be seen and some can't.”

He didn't say anything, just stared at her and once again they seemed to share a connection. He knew she was thinking about the dance in the tent on that cold night. The night they had stood on a precipice and mutually decided to take the safe path, the easy path. Now however, he wasn't sure that was the right decision. And he could tell by the look in her eyes that she wasn't sure either.