Author's Note: Written for Round 3 of the QLFC. This round's topic: Truth or Dare. Also, on an unrelated note, otters for Corvus!
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Captain
Captain's Topic: Write about a character confessing a Truth.
Word Count: 2951 excluding Author's Note
For Want of a Heart
"I think I would know if something was seriously wrong with me, don't you think?" Hermione asked the dish she was scrubbing.
"Are you… talking to our dishes?" Ron asked.
She whirled around. "I am fine, Ronald!" she growled.
His frown deepened. "You were talking to a book yesterday."
Hermione scowled. "You know full well that magical books—"
"Mione, I checked. It was a library book. A Muggle library book."
Hermione advanced on him, her hands balling into fists. "Don't you dare call me by that cutesy schoolgirl nickname!"
The anger came to her easily. Fighting with Ron was viscerally pleasurable. It was a ritual that she could understand. They'd been at it ever since they'd met, after all.
Ron reddened. "Don't make this about me, Mi—Hermione. At first, it was the nightmares. I understood, because I had them too. The difference is that I finally bucked up and went to the mind healers. You never—"
"I went to St Mungo's, but they, in their infinite wisdom, gave me a Draught of Dreamless Sleep and sent me on my merry way!" Hermione shouted, poking Ron hard in the chest. "You only went because your mum dragged you there!"
Ron stepped back. "I—I was stubborn, ok? Mum practically had to kidnap me before I'd go. There, I admit it. Are you happy now?"
Hermione laughed brokenly; her face screwed up in a crazed smile. "It's not enough, Ronald. It'll never be enough. All those times—"
"What, so you're going to list every single thing I've ever done wrong?!" Ron seethed. "Hermione, listen to me. You can't fix this yourself. Maybe you've been right in the past—"
"A dizzying number of times, actually," Hermione replied snootily.
"Can't you just listen to me for once?!" Ron snapped. He clenched his jaw and then let his hands drop to his sides with a sigh. "I care about you, Hermione, but I can't live like this."
"What are you saying?!" Hermione shrieked. She'd expected his anger. Shouting. Maybe even a raised hand or two, but this… it was like a bludger to the gut.
"You're wasting away trying to fix yourself. I'm not saying you have to stop. I'm saying that I'm done," Ron said tiredly. "I can't sacrifice myself for you. I won't. I've already sacrificed too much as it is."
Hermione's knees buckled, and she sagged to the floor, her face frozen in shock. Her mind flashed with the memory of Crookshanks bravely leaping onto an Acromantula's face as it lunged towards her, only for it to sink its venomous bite into the half-Kneazle's belly.
Is that it? Is it my fault that I lose everything I love?
Ron looked down at her, a sad look on his face. "When you're willing to admit the truth, Harry and I will be there for you."
Hermione chewed on her quill, spitting out bits of feather absentmindedly as she stared at the books on her desk. Most were on loan from Hogwarts, but a fair amount were part of her personal collection. Her ink-stained robes hung poorly on her emaciated frame. After Ron had left, she'd been living on a diet of mostly potions. The mere thought of food made her feel ill. There was something comforting about feeling empty everywhere else except for her mind.
Also, she couldn't remember the last time she'd slept. It was a clever trick, really, once one had access to an unlimited supply of Pepperup Potion thanks to having brewed at least a gallon of it in the basement. No sleep meant no nightmares. The only problem with not sleeping was that it worsened the flashbacks, but Hermione could distract herself with books and her notes.
The lingering pain in her cursed scars throbbed painfully in time with the beat of her heart. Hermione had learned that when other people talked about healing, it was always in terms of her external appearance—how much she smiled, put a glamour over her scars and played the innocent schoolgirl, even though she was nearly twenty years old. Inside, however, she felt positively ancient.
Hermione bit the inside of her cheek. She'd never been innocent. Not really. Not with her nose in a book every day, her mind desperately trying to overwrite her ignorance with the calming surety of knowledge. Sure, she'd tried to play the part that everyone had wanted her to play. She'd worn the pretty dress, gone to the dance. But the night always ended the same—in tears, alone.
As long as she had something to read, she would never be truly lonely. Brushing her fingers against the spines of the books beside her the way one might stroke a cat, she pulled a slim volume up onto the desk. Her eyes ached for a diversion as visions of Dumbledore's crumpled corpse lying twisted on the flagstones near the base of the Astronomy Tower danced in her head. The black, leather-bound cover, unlike the other books, delighted her fingers with a worn, well-loved feel, yet the pages were strangely blank.
"How odd," she said, waving her wand over the cover to reveal any enchantments or curses. There seemed to be none. As her fingers touched the first page, it began to feel slightly warm. A familiar, herbal scent filled her nostrils, but she couldn't quite place it. It gave her a feeling of home that she couldn't describe in words. She felt herself wanting—something. The words scurried around the edges of her consciousness and bolted as soon as she tried to catch them.
"Who are you, then?" she mumbled to the book.
"I should say the same to you! Who are you and where did you find me?" the book demanded.
Hermione stared at the book in shock. Maybe Ron was right; she really was cracking up.
"Er—nice to meet you, then. I'm Hermione," she replied, indulging the book.
"Your name is unfamiliar. How did you get ahold of this book, anyway? It's private, you know!" The voice was snide yet soft, and Hermione felt herself somewhat taken by its authenticity. It reminded her a bit of herself lately, to be honest.
"You're not a Horcrux, are you?" She felt silly even asking. The feeling of vertigo and nausea, like a weight that was utterly wrong for the vessel that contained it, was utterly absent. Still, it was creepily similar to what had happened to Ginny.
Instead of answering directly, it snorted loudly. "If I tell you that I am, will you give me back to my rightful owner?"
Hermione frowned. That was not exactly a proper magical book response, in her extensively-tested opinion. At least this book wasn't trying to eat her face like a certain Monster Book of Monsters.
"I know you're not. Don't ask me how I know." Hermione smirked as the book made a gasping noise.
"You've actually seen one? What was it like?" The voice was enthralled, and Hermione had to hold back a snicker.
"I'll tell you if you tell me your name," she replied.
"Well, that's a problem then," the book replied ruefully, "because he never gave me one."
"He?" Hermione asked. Someone had obviously lovingly crafted this book.
"Yes. He. And don't even think about asking me who he is. He's charmed me to self-immolate if I do. I'm not even allowed to talk to people unless they address me directly, but as you can probably guess, that's fairly unusual."
Hermione checked with a cursory wave of her wand. The book was telling the truth. "How can I find him to return you, then?"
The book seemed to pause for a moment. "Well, I probably shouldn't tell you this, but he did create a Blood Trace that links me to him. You could find him that way. But it's fairly obscure and difficult magic."
Hermione grinned knowingly. "Then I'm the witch you're looking for."
The ritual to activate a Blood Trace was fairly intricate and needed to be performed under a full moon. Since it was three weeks away, Hermione had plenty of time to busy herself with planning for it. There was the added bonus that her new book friend, whom she'd nicknamed Thorne (as in, "thorn in the side" in a loving sort of way), was a witty conversationalist who kept her on her toes. As she promised, Hermione told him the whole sordid tale of the Horcrux hunt, and he marveled at how strong she and her friends had been to break out of Gringotts. He went a bit silent when she mentioned that Voldemort had been vanquished once and for all, but that made sense. After all, the book wasn't new, but it wasn't that old. Though Thorne wasn't willing to tell her much about the wizard that had crafted him, Hermione could tell that it had probably been made during the First Wizarding War.
Hermione could only imagine how horrible it must have been to be old enough to witness what had happened during that dark time. Sirius and Remus had been utterly tight-lipped about everything other than superficially positive stories about Harry's parents, which had been no help at all. Harry had, of course, told Hermione the whole story about Professor Snape and his years of torment for the cause, but even Hermione could tell that Harry still only half-believed that the life he'd seen in the pensieve had really been that of the surly, cruel Potions master.
Hermione believed that none of them deserved to die, but part of her wondered if that was simply her selfish desire not to be forced to remember them in graphic detail every time she closed her eyes.
Thorne had been created when his master was only twenty-one years old. Hermione could hear the delighted and naughty tone in his voice as he told her this. He, too, had been forgotten on a dusty old shelf. The Blood Trace had burned him whenever his master was injured. At some point, though, his master had been severely wounded.
"I was supposed to disappear if he died. But somehow, when the pain eventually ceased, I didn't. Maybe he screwed up when he made me. We both tend to think far more highly of ourselves than we probably deserve," Thorne confessed.
The little black book soon went everywhere with Hermione. She even began to sleep, but only with the book tightly clasped in her arms, the calming scent of its pages filling her mind with a deep, dreamless restfulness that finally banished her nightmares.
The night of the full moon arrived, and even though she'd prepared adequately, Hermione felt reluctant to begin the Blood Trace ritual. Thorne had become a close friend in such a short time. He made her laugh when she was sad and snarked at her when she wasn't taking care of herself. At his urging, the potions that had sustained her were replaced by real food and real sleep. He glowed warmly against her chest at night, protecting her.
"I have to be honest with you, Thorne," Hermione said, squeezing his cover tightly, "I...don't want to return you to him."
"I know," he reassured her, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "It has to be done. I need him. It's hard to explain."
Hermione felt her chest ache with selfish longing, but her sense of justice won. "I'll do it," she said, kissing his spine.
The book purred under her lips and she knew that Thorne was kissing her back in the only way he was able.
Hermione drew the ritual circle under the huge harvest moon using her own blood. She chose a magically-enlarged rose thorn as the item to pierce the skin of her finger, incanting as she did so. It was a fitting choice. Her blood filled it to bursting with her willingly-given vitality. Once the circle had been completed, it filled with a dark liquid that pooled dark and viscous around her ankles. Hermione could feel the heat and wetness against her bare legs. As the ritual dictated, she was completely naked, a crown woven of holly and vines resting on her head.
With Thorne in her arms, she danced, turning, kicking, and singing the ancient ritual in a hot-blooded voice that seemed to come from outside of herself.
She'd read that blood magic was heady, for it came from the heart and not the mind, but the experience of it was beyond any pleasure that she'd ever felt. She was raw, open, and her emotions swirled freely around her in a way they never had before. It pulled power from what she'd always considered a weakness—her fallible, human heart.
Hermione could feel her body shifting, the sensation of the book in her hands heating and folding in upon itself until it, too, had changed.
Hermione squeaked with surprise as whiskers wiggled against her cheeks, and she kicked her webbed, furry feet, speeding her deep under the circle's watery depths; a raw, beating heart clasped carefully between her forepaws.
The water darkened and she swam for what seemed like forever. The heart glowed and beat surely in her paws, its voice whispering in her mind.
Not far now, it said. Keep going, you clever, wonderful witch.
Hermione did a backflip in the water at the praise she'd received, her keen eyes spotting a bright light below her.
A small form was curled up tightly and encased in a giant air bubble. His limp body floated, his eyes closed tight. As she watched, he shifted with a horrible pained cry and changed form. A blue heron. A tiger. A skunk. A python. A seagull. A snail. A trout. Still, he slept on. The painful sounds wrenched from his form were the only reminder that he could feel every crack and jerk of his body rearranging itself.
The heart in her hands leapt towards the bubble prison. Hermione squeaked and paddled with her back flipper-feet as quickly as she could. The buzzing pleasure of the blood magic was still coursing through her veins. She rammed into the bubble and passed through it easily. Standing on her wobbly hind legs and using her tail to balance, Hermione lifted Thorne up to the floating body and pressed with all her might.
Dark fluid pooled around the heart, slithering up against the chest of the unconscious wizard. As it touched him, his body shifted into an otter, his fur mirroring her own glossy coat. The wetness pried apart his chest, showing a hollowness under his ribs where his heart should have been. The heart knew what to do, slipping deftly inside the cavity. Hermione could hear Thorne's voice sigh with pleasure as he reconnected to the rest of his body.
"Thorne!" Hermione cried, but he was gone.
The wetness receded, sealing up the otter's body as though it had never been there. Hermione grabbed the otter in her front paws and pulled him through the bubble into the dark water. She could not bear to leave him, not now that she knew the truth about Thorne.
The darkness bore her home, and soon she was standing in the shallow pool of her blood magic circle. Stepping out of the circle and into the grass, Hermione's otter body melted away into her human form. The sudden weight in her arms told her that she wasn't the only one who'd been transformed. She fell to her knees and dragged him as far as she could go. Then, she lay panting on her side in the grass, savoring the sensation of the night air on her aching body.
The moon still shone brightly enough for Hermione to get a good look at the man lying unconscious beside her. His black hair fell over most of his face, highlighting his pale, hooked nose.
Hermione's eyes were wide as she caught her breath. "Professor?"
He opened his eyes and gasped in horror. Something seemed to hit him and he staggered back, clutching at his chest.
"What—have you done?" He choked out the words, his eyes squeezed shut with the pain of it.
When he reopened his eyes, Hermione could tell that he'd been listening to a voice that she could no longer hear.
"I returned Thorne—your heart— to you, so you'd better take better care of him this time, or I will not hesitate to take him back." Hermione's voice was cool. She did not know if the cruel wizard before her would care for the young heart he'd taken from his own chest and banished to the bookshelf decades ago—the heart she'd grown to love.
He was silent for a long time, staring at her fearfully. When he finally spoke, she could hear his trepidation, but his voice did not falter as he said it.
"He—I am already yours, Hermione." His voice was Thorne's voice; he was speaking from the heart.
When he gathered her into his arms in the exact way that she'd always dreamt of being held, Hermione could feel something shift and correct itself—her mind, her body, her heart.
"I've been broken for a long time," she confessed, her heart growing light, "but your heart healed me."
"No," he said, and she could feel the truth of his words rumbling through her body, "you healed yourself. You just needed the support to allow you to do it."
Hermione's eyes grew misty. "Now, look. I'm getting all teary-eyed, you dolt. You really are a thorn in my side."
He smirked, his eyebrow arching at her in a way she'd only ever dreamt about. "Oh, is that so?"
"Naturally," Hermione replied, her lips whispering against his, "and I wouldn't have it any other way."