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He could see her; her silhouette clear beneath the light of the full moon. Even from a distance he could see how her robes fluttered about her, hiding how truly fragile she had become. Such a change in a few short weeks. He could pinpoint exactly when it had started. Potter and Weasley probably thought they could say the same but their words would be untrue.
It had started before she got the paper. It had stared with that first owl. The tawny one with not a thing odd about him, the ordinary run of the mill owl. He didn't know why he kept watching it though. He dropped a thick sheet of crème paper on the table in front of her and immediately flew away. Potter and Weasley didn't notice. She was puzzled, he could tell by how carefully she unfolded the sheet.
There was no flash of light, nor any chilling, high pitched laughter. It seemed it was merely a sheet of parchment. What was written inside however, was enough to spark such a dramatic change. Later when she was leaving the entrance with Professor Dumbledore she threw it into the fire, obviously hoping to destroy it. He summoned it just before the fire claimed it. It read:
My dear Hermione,
I thought Potter was your friend?
Wasn't he supposed to protect them?
It was unsigned, but when he looked back to that morning he knew she had known who had sent it the moment her eyes fell upon the crimson blood that served as ink. She had paled a little. He wondered sometimes if she'd hoped; if in those few seconds before a second owl came with the Daily Prophet she'd hoped with all the hope in her little Gryffindor heart for it to be a sick joke.
Then the paper came and she saw the headline. There was no anguished cry, nor were there any silent tears cascading down her cheeks. The single sign anything had happened was the honey colour of her eyes dulling imperceptibly. It was so indistinguishable that her best friends only found out after the headmaster called her to his office. And so she had fallen. She was still the same hand waving girl whom annoyed him endlessly but it wasn't the same. When she waved her hand it hung limp.
She began to pick at her food, telling everyone who questioned her that she went to the kitchens whenever she felt hungry. And they believed her. Now though, under the light of the moon, the wind whistling in and out of an abandoned tower he could see just how small her wrists were; with her head in the shadows he could see how sunken her eyes had become.
She watched him silently, not moving as he came closer. Still, but for the gently swing of her legs as they dangled over the edge. He flew a few feet in front of her, silently watching.
She drew back, throwing her features further into the shadows; and from this darkness her voice whispered,
"Would you catch me if I fall?" He didn't answer.
His grey eyes gave nothing away and she sighed, sliding from the ledge; freeing herself. She'd wanted to imagine her hair floating softly around her, gently tickling her face with its strands. But she knew it wouldn't happen the way it was first imagined; and so it didn't. Her hair whipped around blinding her from having a final beautiful view before her world would be forever black.
Idly she wondered how far away the ground was; she was tired of the wind knocking her hair into her face.
The breath was knocked out of her as a pair of strong arms encircled her waist, halting her plunge. She found herself staring into grey eyes again.
Hardly noticing his descent as he stared deep into her honey brown eyes, he realized something.
He was falling too.
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