Character(s): Harry & Hermione. Whether you view this fic as romantically-inclined or not is completely up to you.

Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing. The Harry Potter series belong strictly to J. K. Rowling.

Recently, I've been going through my hardrive, looking for small, unfinished fics like this one. I hope that by publishing them, someone will enjoy them where they would otherwise be forgotten on my lap-top. I could probably improve this piece, but it's going to be posted as is. This one just so happens to focus on the scars that Harry and Hermione bear after Shell Cottage. And though I've read the books, I really do like what they've done with the movie so I'm going to include one little detail from that. I think you know what little detail I mean. :-)

Constructive criticism is welcome. Please, no flames.

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars." — Khalil Gibran.

Scars

oOoOo

Shell Cottage was always so cozy, especially at night.

Even from a distance, you could hear the soft sound of waves breaking on the shore.

Harry liked this stillness, this peacefulness. Since Dobby's death and consequent burial, he had taken to stealing out in the middle of the night and sitting on the shoreline, listening to the sounds of the night and the breaking of the waves upon the sand. It's cold out here, but he didn't mind.

He enjoyed this stillness, this tranquility. It gave him the time to maul things over in his head and decide what to do next. Every time he even considered his next course of action, however, his mind would curiously draw a blank. So it seemed that even after everything he'd endured, he was still just a clueless teenage boy fighting a war that was way out of his league. Fighting an enemy who couldn't be killed . . . but he could, couldn't he? Dumbledore had showed him the way.

Still, the fact remained that he couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Dobby's empty eyes staring at him, and whispering his name accusingly, forlornly. Harry hadn't reacted in time. If he had only been a fraction of a second sooner—No, Harry decided. It did no good blaming himself for Dobby's death. It wouldn't bring Dobby back. It wouldn't bring anyone back, not Sirius and definitely not Dumbledore, no matter how hard Harry wished it were so.

Worse yet, more recently, Harry had begun seeing quite a different sight behind his eyelids at night. Now, he saw Hermione, fresh tears cascading down her face, lying on the floor of Malfoy Manor and gripping her forearm tightly . . . Bellatrix had hurt Hermione, he knew. More than anything else ever had. He just didn't know what Bellatrix had done exactly. She had refused to bare her forearm to anyone, least of all Harry and Ron, despite their urgings. Harry feared that Bellatrix had left some cruel, twisted insult in her skin. Perhaps Hermione was ashamed of it. Embarrassed by it. Perhaps she feared that Harry would blame himself for the blemish on her smooth, flawless skin. A scar that would never fade, never heal.

But Harry couldn't take the sight of her like that time and again . . . It was too much, too painful . . . And he couldn't bear to hear any more of her anguished screams in his dreams, her agonized cries of "I don't know!" and "Please . . ." as Bellatrix brought the knife down again and again, out of sight but never out of mind.

Silently sitting vigilant on the shore once again, Harry frowned and idly drew a pattern in the sand with a broken stick. Bellatrix would pay, he thought to himself. She would pay dearly for every second that Hermione had suffered at her hands, crying and sobbing, broken and helpless, terrified and so very alone.

Sitting with his knees drawn up, Harry then buried his face in his arms only to be interrupted.

"You really shouldn't be out here, Harry," said a familiar voice sadly, startling him out of his reverie. Harry's head jerked up and his eyes swiveled until he locked onto the source of the voice.

He breathed a sigh of relief. "Hermione."

She sat down beside him on the sand, gently placing her hand on top of his. "If we were attacked . . ."

"We won't be," Harry growled. "They don't know where we are. He doesn't know where we are. They can't find us if they don't know where we are." In all honesty, he didn't know who he was trying to convince: Hermione or himself. After all, there was no telling what Voldemort knew and did not know. No telling if all of the Weasleys barring Ron were secretly being watched . . .

She seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "Still, we've got to be careful." She paused, and sighed heavily. "Harry, what's wrong? I've noticed that you've been coming out here these last few nights, to stare at the stars. I know you only do that when you have trouble sleeping."

Startled, Harry turned and examined her face intently. He hadn't known that she knew. He hadn't seen her watching. He probably shouldn't have assumed that his nightly habit would escape her hawk-like perception when it came to something as important as him and Ron.

"I'm not tired," he said automatically. And it was the truth. Fearing the images that would reawaken once his eyes closed, his body had learned to disregard sleep.

"Nightmares?"

Harry didn't answer, which, to Hermione, was as good as a yes. Her eyes softened and she squeezed his hand. Dimly, Harry couldn't help but notice that ever since Malfoy Manor, she always wore her sleeves down, even now. She did so to cover whatever Bellatrix had done to her, he supposed.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she said softly, startling him once again.

"Sorry?" he echoed bitterly. "You? What do you have to feel sorry about?"

"I should have stopped you," she said simply. "From saying his name. I could have. I was just a second too slow—"

"Hermione," he began exasperatedly, "if anyone has anything to be sorry about, it's me! I mean, it's completely my fault! What Bellatrix did to you . . . I can only imagine." He shivered at the thought of being at the mercy of such an insane witch as Bellatrix Lestrange.

But Hermione, surprisingly, shook her head and smiled forlornly. "It could have been a lot worse," she said. "And I'm tired of this blaming thing we have. Can't we just call ourselves even and say that it's no one's complete fault?"

She sounded tired, and his answer was near-automatic. "Deal."

The two then descended into a comfortable silence, and together, they sat in the sand and stared at the twinkling stars. As isolated as Shell Cottage was, it seemed like there were millions more stars in the night sky than Harry was used to seeing. The only other place that even came close to the beauty of it all was Hogwarts, and he didn't want to think about that. Still, he couldn't just let the issue drop. He had to know.

His voice cut through the silence like a knife. "Did she . . ." But Harry couldn't complete his sentence. The words were too difficult to find. Did she hurt you? Torture you? Crucio you? Stab you?

"She did enough," said Hermione quietly. "It was a cursed dagger. I . . . I'm not sure the scar will ever heal properly."

Harry hesitated, knowing that he would like to see her scar. It was tangible proof of his failure to protect her, to keep her safe and well, and at the same time, he wasn't entirely certain that he did want to see it for fear of having a new scar haunt his waking dreams. But he did want to see it, to see what he was accountable for, and to know how much damage had been done.

"Can I . . . see it?" he asked.

At first, she hesitated. Then, wordlessly, with lips pressed together in a thin line, Hermione drew up her sleeve and revealed her scar to Harry, which seemed luminescent in the moonlight. Harry gasped upon seeing it and instantly felt a wave of guilt wash over him. Carved into the tender flesh of her forearm was scrawled the single word 'Mudblood.' It looked fresh. So fresh, in fact, that it was still oozing, that it could have been made mere minutes ago. So Bellatrix had not only harmed Hermione, but marked her in such a way that she would have to carry the insult forever, never able to cleanse herself of it.

It was an injury of the worst possible kind.

"I keep trying to wash it away," she half-laughed, half-whimpered, "as if somehow that would matter . . ."

He looked away. "I'm so sorry, Hermione. I—"

"Don't be," she said curtly. "We all have our scars, Harry. Some can be seen and some can't. I guess it's about time I began catching up to you, isn't it?"

Instinctively and as she spoke, her fingertips trailed across the 'I must not tell lies' carved into the back of his hand, courtesy of Dolores Umbridge, while her chocolate eyes rested on the lightning-bolt scar that was seared into Harry's forehead.

His eyes met hers, emerald-green upon chocolate-brown. "She shouldn't have done that," said Harry quietly. "Not to you, Hermione. Not to you."

"At least I can cover mine up," she said with a small smile. It didn't quite reach her eyes. "Yours is pretty much obvious, unless you pull up your cowl or wear gloves."

"But I sort of like your scars," she went on. "They give you a personality. They made you into the person you are today. If my scars lets me be the person that I was always meant to be, then I guess they're okay."

Harry flushed with warmth even as he remembered all of the times he'd wished that his scars would just disappear. Then, the two descended into another comfortable silence as they looked out across the sea, watching the crimson and gold hues of the Sun illuminate sky to the east as it rose over the distant horizon. In that moment, they knew that dawn was near, and that maybe, just maybe, everything might turn out all right after all.

Please, read and review to let me know what you think. I love random messages. :-)