Summary: "It's just a scar, it might make people see or think something, but you can't let it define you" Harry and Hermione discuss the appearance of scars after the incidents at Malfoy Manner.
A/N: After a nearly 7 year battle with self-harm and cutting, the scene in the movie where Hermione watches the blood dripping from the words carved into her wrist struck an indescribable chord with me. It prompted me to write this. Read. Enjoy. Review.
Hermione woke up screaming every night.
The last two nights, it had escalated in severity so much that she had resorted to casting a sound-proofing charm around her bed so that Harry and Ron or Fleur or Bill did not come charging into the room at her smallest whimper.
After everything she had been through, all she had seen, all the pain she had endured, it took something as simple as the eight letters etched into her skin to make her break.
Not modifying her parent's memories.
Not watching the life leave someone's eyes.
Not the Cruciatus Curse. Not Ron leaving her, nor the horrid pain from the battles and fights she had endured.
The foggy, screaming memories of being pinned to the cold, hard ground, the searing pain in her forearm, and the lingering pain from the curses barely scratched at her acquired brick wall of strength.
The shocking red lines against the pale color of her skin were enough to demolish it.
The comparatively insignificant word carved into her skin was what caused the nightmares to taunt her in her most vulnerable hours of sleep.
She felt it odd, as she ran her fingers over the healing scars, how the word never bothered her when it was said to her, screamed at her, or spat at her. For then it was only a word, only an adjective that also passed a description on the ignorance of the speaker. When it was carved into her skin, carved with a knife cursed to prevent healing, it became all the more powerful. It was then a tangible thing, something that she could touch.
It almost became a definition of herself.
During her summers in the muggle world, she had seen the fads of the teenagers slashing at themselves for attention. She had heard of those who actually struggled with the habit as an addiction, one used to escape from the world. Hermione had never fully understood the phenomena, not until now.
She felt a strange attachment to the red lines, not just to what they said, but to the slices themselves. She ran her finger over the raised scabs, wincing as a twinge of pain shocked through her tender skin.
She vaguely wondered if this was what those people felt, the ones that had the true addiction to the process, this strange pull of attachment she felt to the simple breaks in the usually continuous surface of her skin.
Hermione needed some air, she could feel herself suffocating. Her sore body protested as she climbed out of the soft feather bed and pulled the soft cotton blanket around her.
The door to the cabin seemed to slam abnormally loud in the still night air, the usual crash of the waves on the beach somewhat muted in the background. Hermione sighed and let the cooler air fill her lungs, calming her immediately. She had always loved the outdoors, especially the beach, the misty air took her back to times when she was a young girl, times when she could afford to be carefree.
Hermione jumped slightly, the grip on her wand tightening, when she saw a dark figure in the distance. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she recognized the outline of Harry in the moonlight. He was standing over Dobby's grave. Hermione sighed sadly, moving toward her good friend.
"Hey." Harry whispered, not looking up. He sat squatted down by the shallow grave he had dug by himself, the cursed knife he had left in the sand sitting between his first two fingers.
Hermione felt a pang, of what she could not pinpoint, sit somewhere in her stomach.
"Hey," Hermione started at the weakness she could hear in her voice, Harry glanced up, looking mildly surprised.
"What's wrong 'Mione?" Concern filling his bright green eyes.
"Everything," Hermione breathed, sitting cross-legged next to the boy. "Just emotional overload."
Harry nodded, leaning back to sit next to Hermione, "I know. It is for me too. Last night was the closest I've gotten to losing what I have of a family, and it hasn't even begun to sink in yet."
The two lapsed into thoughtful silence.
"'Mione,"
Hermione jumped.
"It really bothers you doesn't it?"
"What?"
"Where she cut you. You've been running your fingers over it for a few minutes."
Hermione hadn't even noticed it, "Oh, I didn't realize-"
"It's ok. I'm just worried about you." Harry ran a finger over the scars on her arm.
Hermione tried not to wince, "Is that the knife?"
Harry nodded. Hermione's heart skipped a beat.
"Can I see it?" She couldn't even look at him while she said it; the request was almost instant, almost as though it came from something that she couldn't control.
Harry sighed deeply, "No..."
He started, looking at the knife in his palm. "I can see that in your eyes. You want more. I'm not letting you have it."
Tears filled Hermione's eyes instantly, fogging her vision. Were things that obvious? Her perception of the world warped, and her world tilted as the sandy ground suddenly became closer.
"Hermione, Hermione please open your eyes!"
Her head throbbed with each word spoken to her.
"Hermione, please." She knew the voice belonged to Harry, but it had that edge to it, the edge of fear that she had so rarely heard weaving its way in between his every word. Her eyes blinked open, staring right into Harry's intense green ones.
"Don't you do that to me. Ever." Tears glistened behind his glasses. His left hand was pulled up to his chest, flashing a pearly white scar, though faded, Hermione could make out the words, almost as though it was a tattoo. I must not tell lies.
She put her forefinger on the scar, causing Harry to jump slightly.
"You have words too…" Hermione was suddenly very tired, her eye lids drooping.
"They don't mean anything, just like yours don't. It's just a scar, it might make people see or think something, but it doesn't define who you are." He rubbed the scar on his forehead, knowing that he had just contradicted himself, unintentionally, but a contradiction none the less.
"Let's get you back to bed, we'll talk in the morning." Harry helped Hermione slowly into a sitting position. "You okay?"
"No, but I think we will be. I really do." Hermione's knees shook as though an earthquake was occurring, she must have been underestimating the extent of the exhaustion resulting from her torture.
Harry rubbed her back soothingly, pushing the cursed blade back into the soft sand.
It can stay there. Hermione thought weakly, Harry pulling her up and helping her support the majority of her weight. No word, scarred into my skin or otherwise, can decide who am.
"Oh dear," Harry mumbled. Hermione needn't ask what the problem was. She looked up to see Ron standing in the doorway to the cottage, hands on his hips in a way that reminded her oddly of his mother.