The Waiting Game
Synopsis: Missing scene from Deathly Hallows of the night Hermione nursed Harry back to health after Nagini's attack.
The Apparition bands compressed against Hermione's entire length. The uncomfortable sensation mercilessly took over her thoughts. A mere second earlier, she was with Harry in Bathilda Bagshot's home in Godric's Hollow. She had been reading Rita Skeeter's book, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, when Nagini had attacked Harry and she had gone running up the stairs to the bedroom where the commotion was coming from. The snake seemed to be everywhere in the room. Its body was so long and menacing.
Adrenaline pumping from fear for Harry and herself; she jumped into the fray and sent blasting spells at the snake. It gave Harry a moment to recover, but the snake turned on her immediately. She dived. Barely a moment later, human hands grabbed at her. Opening her eyes, she gratefully acknowledged Harry's intervening with the snake's attack on her. Then Harry's face dripped with fear. His face contorted, his eyes bulged, and he cringed in pain. That could only mean one thing. HE was coming. Voldemort himself was on his way and very close.
Suddenly, Harry's eyes focused as he fought to remain in the present, desperate situation with her. He pulled Hermione to the window. Holding her tight, he plunged them through the broken window. Her wand hand was free and she quickly tried to turn them in mid-air. Her last glimpse as she fell away from the broken window frame was of Voldemort, wand raised, half way out the window himself. Only his waist and lower half of his body were still in the house. She had never seen him in person before. His disturbing eyes pierced every fiber of her being as she fought to focus on the apparition of her life. He was rage personified. She could only imagine the horrors they would be subjected to if he had caught them, if they were merely half a second later in their escape.
Harry and Hermione Apparated with a thud on the snow covered ground of the Forest of Dean. Oxygen was immediately, gratefully inhaled in waves as she slowly recovered from the airless sensation. The transportation method was efficient, but terrible. The last time she had Apparted under duress, she had Splinched Ron's arm badly. The thought shook her to a sitting position. Immediately, she began assessing herself and turned to Harry to look him over in the dark as much as possible. "Harry." He was making no move to sit up.
"Lumos," she said as her wand ignited. She almost regretted it the moment there was light. Harry lay twitching to the point of convulsions. She scanned him. There was blood on his hand, leaking down from a wound under his sleeve. His head was cut too, blood matting his hair. As far as she could tell, Harry was unconscious. She froze momentarily, but recovered her wits quickly.
She looked about. They would be outside the protective enchantments of their base camp. She continued looking for the markers they had set up in order to step inside the protective boundary and be able to see the tent. Spying the odd rock formation, she took a deep breath and stood up, eerily watching as Harry began to relax, but muttered something about killing a small child. Hermione gasped in horror at what was happening to him. Was he dreaming? Having a nightmare? Reliving a terrible scene? Was he reading Voldemort in his subconscious? Was he becoming Voldemort? Her mind reeled at the possibilities of what was happening to him.
Becoming absolutely petrified at what she was hearing, she screamed at him. "Stop it! Stop it Har…" Her voice trailed off. She couldn't say his name outside the boundary of the Protego Totallum. She had to get him inside the tent, but how? Her head was throbbing, but she ignored it.
Hermione went to his head and lifted at his shoulders so that he was in an upright position. She slipped her arms under his and clasped her hands together over his chest and began to drag her best friend towards where the tent should be. One hundred meters never seemed so far. Finally, she saw the tent and sped up as she pulled his limp form with her. Collapsing from exhaustion at the entrance, the nearness of security and medicine bolstered her on.
What am I doing, she thought. A hover charm would have been much easier. Letting go of Harry, she stood up and felt like she could take charge for a moment. She swished her wand at him and he rose off the floor of the tent and she directed his body over to his bunk as her wand continued to light up the tent. Settling him down on the bed, she took a second to breathe a sigh of relief. Hermione flourished her wand and two lanterns magically lit. "Nox," she said to extinguish her wand.
She surveyed her patient who had begun moaning again that something was going to be too easy. She stared at him in shock as she listened to him. So easy, it is laughable. Harry muttered that he could see his prey through an open window. He's going there again, to a very dark place. Hermione's yelling cracked the ghostly atmosphere. "Stop it! You're Harry Potter! Do you hear me? Harry Potter! Don't give in Harry!"
She began to remove his jacket to look at his arm. "You are Harry Potter," she repeated defiantly as she continued to work. Awkwardly, she nudged the jacket out from underneath him to get it off. She pushed up the sleeve from his sweater and then ripped his shirt sleeve open to inspect the wound. There were puncture marks from the snake on his left forearm. She swallowed, in fear. Dittany! That was all she could think of and hoped, and pleaded to some higher authority that it would do the trick. She went to the kitchen and got a sponge, some water, and the medicine.
Praying that this would work, she set a suctioning spell on the snake bite and hoped she had extracted whatever poison was injected into him. Then she put Dittany on the wound and it healed up. She poured some on his head wound and the cut healed over quickly. All the while, Harry continued to dream; only it wasn't a dream, and she knew it. He would have woken up with all she had been doing to him if he were merely asleep. Dragging him, pulling off his jacket, cleaning the wounds would surely arouse a sleeper. This was something more.
Suddenly, Harry assumed what could have only been his father's voice telling his mother to take Harry and run. Oh my God! Hermione was gasping. He was reliving his parents' murders! Was it through Voldemort's memories, or were they his own being reawakened? It didn't matter. They were one and the same at this point. Harry's body fidgeted and his breathing became erratic. Hermione sponged him down when she noticed him begin to sweat profusely. As she wiped his neck, her hand brushed over a chain.
"Oh my God! You're still wearing the locket!" she gasped. She urgently reached under his shirt to grab for the locket and yanked. But the Horcrux within the locket seemed to have attached to Harry's skin and was not giving him up. Unable to believe what she was feeling, Hermione pulled his sweater and shirt up to be able to see the locket and grip it from a different angle. No use. It was staying there. It was very warm, more than matching Harry's temperature.
Hermione sat back a moment, thinking over the situation. She would have to be very careful if she used a severing charm. She could easily cut Harry as he thrashed about. She decided to wait a moment, and watch as her friend's subconscious was torturing him with horrible visions. Surely, there would be a moment of calm so that she could detach the locket from his chest. She didn't wait long. His voice, full of sweetness and innocence and longing came as his arms stretched upward. "Mummy, up!" As tears threatened to fall, Hermione seized the peaceful second and weaved her charm with delicacy as the magic sliced between locket and Harry's chest, right over his heart. Grabbing the locket, she pulled the chain awkwardly over his head. She spun around away from him and dropped it in her beaded bag. She immediately put Dittany over the mark that was left behind by the locket. It did nothing to repair it. Dark magic leaves traces. The oval burn looked to be permanent, like the scar on his forehead.
Relieved, but not knowing what else to do for him, she tried to make her patient comfortable. Removing his shoes, and belt, she repositioned him on the bed. She covered him with blankets and continued to sponge his face whenever his fever spiked.
Maybe she didn't get all the poison out, she thought. She ran her fingers through her hair in desperation, trying to figure out what to do next for him. As her hands came down in front of her, she realized that she too had been bleeding. "What's this?" She thought for a moment. Oh, the window got me too. She grabbed a mirror and put the Dittany onto the top of her head and it seemed to seek out the blood. A moment later there was no trace of injury, but she noticed she still had a headache. It didn't matter. All that mattered continued to writhe on the bed in tortured anxiety.
At one moment his voice would be Voldemort's, she was sure of it. The next, he would be his parents. Over and over this played through the night as she kept watch. Over and over she would talk to him as she sponged his face, arms, and chest. Hearing him call to his mother broke her heart. Just a couple hours earlier they had stood in front of his parents' gravestone. He had broken down. She had never felt Harry's pain more acutely than she did as she held his hand. She felt very honoured that he was comfortable enough with her to let his feelings out. Mostly, it had come out in anger at Voldermort over the years, but of course the root was pain, anguish and bereavement. A normal life with his own loving parents denied him and turned into an abusive, lonely life with his aunt and uncle.
"Stand aside, you silly girl!" (DH, p. 281)
Desperately, she spoke to him. "You are Harry Potter. You are Harry Potter. You are a Gryffindor. You play Quidditch. You are seeker, and a great one at that. You have friends Harry Potter. You-Know-Who has followers. You have people who love you. The Dark Lord has only people who fear and obey him. You are not alone. He is. Harry Potter cares about people. He only cares about power. You are Harry Potter. Listen to me, it's Hermione. I am with you. I chose to stay with you. You are my friend. Fight to stay with me. Don't lose yourself to him, pleeeease," she pleaded.
Finally, the nightmarish portion of the night ended, and only the fever remained. Hermione would drop ice chips into his mouth do stave off dehydration as she watched him become drenched in his sweat. Harry lay deathly quiet.
Suddenly, she heard her voice say things she had dared not say before. She was becoming desperate. "I've lost him. He left me. Don't you leave me too, Harry. Please, I can't bare to lose anymore right now. My parents, him, school, not you, please not you too. Fight Harry, please fight. Stay with me. Please, stay." Tears welled in her eyes as she spoke of all that she had lost in the past five months. She didn't think she could take any more at this moment. Sobs escaped her, sobs that she had thought had grown silent. She had not cried over Ron in two weeks, certainly not openly in front of Harry for about a month now. She had thought she was turning cold. Though painful, it was a relief that she still had feelings at all. She had begun to wonder about herself and the emptiness she felt in every aspect of her life. There had been no joy, just day to day existence without living.
Hermione made herself some tea to keep her warm and alert through the night. She continued to dab his face and neck with more cool water and maintained her vigil, her ears perking at every noise from the dark forest. The canvas roof of the tent finally began to lighten and she discerned the coming morning with relief. Facing whatever she would have to face with him had to be better in the daytime. Birds began to chirp the day's birth. If only he would wake. His fever was coming down, but she kept sponging him to increase its speed, hoping. If he woke, and he knew her, it would be the best Christmas present she could hope to receive.
Finally, he stirred and his eyes opened wide. They were knowing eyes. They were haunted by the images he had yelled out. She could tell that he remembered it all. It was over. The eyes that looked at her were Harry's, pained but kind in nature. Harry was back. Hermione wanted nothing more than to break down crying in relief. But her patient had questioning eyes. A tension cry would have to wait.
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