Hermione hears him coming and quietly folds the newspaper she is reading.
"Is that the Prophet?" Harry asks. He falls gracelessly beside her, into her step and into her life.
"No," says Hermione.
He reaches for it anyway, knowing she lied and knowing she's just trying to protect him. Sometimes he can see the depth of her emotion, and sometimes he can't, but in a gesture as ordinary as turning away he sees the tears she refuses to let him see.
She withdraws her hand to her knees, and shrivels. "You know they don't tell the truth, Harry—"
"The truth won't sell itself," he replies. The newspaper opens with a papery snap, like a dragon unfurling its wings.
"And—and you know that it doesn't matter that they write that rubbish—"
He knows and she knows, but she talks anyway to ease the tension. Harry lets his face soften behind the paper. He can see without looking that she is wringing her hands because she thinks she can't say the right thing to him. He lets her talk and listens to her voice. The words stretch across his silence, a skin to his drum.
Harry finishes the article quickly. "They say I was at Knockturn Alley last night. Hunting Death Eaters."
She doesn't flinch anymore, even though he's as brusque as always. She doesn't tell him it's a pack of lies, because he knows that already. Quietly, "Harry, you know they're all gone."
He doesn't immediately disagree anymore. "Are they?" He inspects his knuckles. They were bloody once, and raw, from making absolutely certain there weren't any.
She takes his hand and lets her finger touch each knuckle. She wants to kiss them.
"They say I got into a fight."
"I know," she murmurs. Hermione laces her fingers through his to feel his warmth. She isn't cold, but she wants to make sure he's here with her.
"They say I used an Unforgivable, but they don't mention which."
"The Ministry would know if you did. They would know if you Crucio-ed somebody," she says heatedly. His warmth is leaking into her, and out of her eyes.
Sometimes he can see her depths, and now they are endless caverns that stretch into tomorrow and swallow him whole. He can see it all reflected in her eyes and the heat he gave her that's pouring out of them.
He says, "Hermione, they can't put me in Azkaban."
"I know," is her answer. It's the same answer as always. She finds it hard to speak because her tongue doesn't want to taste words.
Harry can't see her depths anymore. "It's terrifying, isn't it?" he whispers.
"That they're so desperate to prove their propaganda rubbish is working, they'd throw the Boy-Who-Lived in prison?" Her eyes are as shallow and empty as her voice. Her depths are invisible, and maybe that's the way they're supposed to be. Anyway, she isn't talking about Azkaban.
He breaks eye contact to glance at the newspaper article. "They say I was—"
Hermione grabs his shoulders and kisses his mouth more roughly than she's ever done before. He sinks into depths he can't see, but it isn't frightening. The warmth he gave her is searing to touch, and he wants to bury and burn his fingers in her hair until she's branded on them. They've always belonged to her anyway, just like the rest of him and whatever that becomes.
Harry kisses her back and she tells him the words she won't say out loud. Her sentences flow from her hands to his neck to the small of her back to the smooth skin under his sweater. She lets her fingertips write paragraphs on his shoulders and reads his replies as given. They taste sinful, more delicious than chocolate.
Hermione opens her mouth wide.
Later, she leans back into him with lips pressed tightly together and he mumbles into her hair, "It doesn't matter what they wrote."
"They don't know that." The top buttons of her blouse are undone and she deftly fastens them. "They oughtn't write about you, Harry, after everything you've done for them—"
"Hermione, they've already sold out their grandmothers. What's one more wizard to them?"
"Very attractive cannon fodder, I suppose."
His laugh lingers on her lips and she kisses him tenderly. Her hands were made for him to hold, and she braces her fingers against his. She can feel every line in his hand, each one a measure of his love. She isn't materialistic, but she is proud to singularly own that love. She is proud to feel his heartbeat so close to hers and know that he doesn't steal anyone else's toothbrush in the morning.
The newspaper lays happily forgotten on the floor, content to be nothing more than lies.
Harry falls asleep but she can't keep her eyes closed. Hermione can still see the aftermaths of the battles they fought and she thinks it's nothing the Ministry should use to further their puerile causes. She can still see the shattered Fountain of Brethren—wishful thinking, but still a beautiful ideal—and the dark shapes she stepped over in Diagon Alley, knowing each one had been an innocent person. And perhaps most clearly of all, when Harry burned the skeletal masks and jet robes in a bonfire near the Little Hangleton graveyard. She stood over the Riddles and cried.
She stands up and retrieves the newspaper and flings it into the depths of the dying fire. The flames sputter and Harry stirs. She flees into the rain, a doe trying to escape the vibrant green headlights that will make her freeze. She doesn't want to tell Harry that it does matter, and not just to her. She didn't tell him that when the Fountain was broken or when Diagon Alley was destroyed or when she watered the Riddles with her tears. If she had, the masks would never have burned and Harry would never have lived to use an Unforgivable.
When Harry opens his eyes, the fire is dead. Hermione isn't there, but he can see her depths somewhere nearby and he feels cold.