Author's Note:
Written for the rwhg_ldws challenge on Livejournal.
After Ollivander's death, I had expected this. Maybe not this but something like it.
"It's what I have to do," Hermione told me, twisting her fingers together. "It's something I should have done sooner."
"Hermione, it's not your responsibility--"
"Yes, it is, Ron! Don't you see?" She stood in front of me, the set of her jaw and look in her eyes telling me she had already made her decision. "It wasn't just me. It was Ollivander, and Luna, and Neville, and so many other students, and everyone who was sent Azkaban under Voldemort. Everyone should know what happened! People should be able to talk about it, to know they're not alone. And I can do that and I should do that."
"Yeah, all right," I said quietly, knowing it was the only answer I could give. "What do you reckon we should do?"
***
Hermione threw herself into her new project; contacting other survivors, writing editorials for The Quibbler and The Prophet, and even taking the matter to Kingsley.
The speeches were the worst. Which isn't to say Hermione did badly. She was brilliant as always. I just didn't like hearing them. I didn't like the way her voice would break when she talked about what had happened that night in Malfoy Manor. I didn't like knowing that she had been afraid of losing her mind, that lying there on that cold floor, she had wished for death instead. I didn't like remembering that night; how terrified and helpless I had been.
But I supported her. It was what she needed to do and it was helping others. She had been right about that but she usually is.
***
It happened at the Three Broomsticks. Harry and I had stopped in after work to have a few pints and wait for Ginny and Hermione to join us.
"I'm sick of hearing them whine about it," said some pasty tosser at the bar. I didn't know his name but I knew I'd seen him around the Ministry. "Bunch of fucking whiners should get over it and shut up."
"Maybe you should shut up," I snapped. Hermione appeared beside me, hand on my arm, telling me to just let it go.
I would have if the tosser hadn't turned his attention to Hermione. "It's you. That figures. Come to lecture us to now, have you? Maybe your boyfriend should pay for you to see a Healer so you won't bother the--"
I punched him.
***
"I'm not angry, Ron. I'm not," Hermione told me later, hugging me tightly.
"Because he deserved it?" I joked.
She pulled away, eyes bright with tears. "Because I think I understand why you did it."
"Yeah, because he was a right prick."
"I think you should come to next week's support group. I think you should talk to people."
"What? Hermione, I don't have anything to say... it didn't happen to me," I mumbled. I felt guilty as I said it.
"No, Ron. In a way it did."