A/N: Okay, first off, let me explain with some simple maths. Laziness plus lack of inspiration plus hormonal internet plus Doctor Who finale plus Deathly Hallows plus squeeing plus feeling UC in incredible amounts (Tonks/Snape (amongst others), was a request, interesting one at that) equals horrendously long gap between updates. However, it is 2.30am, I just edited this chapter, and I think I might be in a writing mood (which is good because I'm running out of chapters quite quickly). If it's any consolation, it's been grating on my mind a lot and I do feel guilty when I think about all you lovely people who have read and reviewed my story. Also, I just wanted to add, nothing will be changing in the slightest to fit in with the Deathly Hallows. I think JK has made quite sure that this won't fit in, but there's one tiny thing that happens in a much later chapter that could be linked, but it's so inconsequential that it barely matters. Anyway, apologies for the long wait, and I assure you it will not happen again. (Not this long, anyway).
By Any Other Name.
by Flaignhan.
Chapter Six: Common Sense.
"I think it's high time I gave Hermione a wake up call," Ron said to Harry, grinning evilly.
"I'm telling you, it'll only backfire," Harry assured him. Ron shrugged and went into the living room, where Hermione was sprawled on the floor, half-covered by her sleeping bag.
"Hermione," Ron called loudly. "Wakey wakey!" He frowned when Hermione didn't stir. Not only was it unusual for Hermione to sleep so late, but Ron knew that she was a very light sleeper too, so for her to not even react when he called her name was extremely out of the ordinary. He nudged her with his foot, like she had done to him the previous morning.
She didn't move.
"Hermione?" Ron dropped onto his knees and began shaking her by the shoulders, still not getting a reaction. "Harry! Something's wrong!"
Harry dropped the day's edition of the Daily Prophet and arrived almost instantly in the living room. "Harry, what's up with her hands?" Ron asked, holding her arm up so Harry could see her blistered palms, carefully avoiding making contact with them.
"Dark magic…" Harry whispered. "Oh she can be so stupid!" he cried in frustration. "Why did she touch it? She's supposed to be clever!"
"The barrier?" Ron asked. Harry nodded.
"Pick her up, we're going to St Mungo's," Harry instructed. Ron complied immediately.
Within seconds, they had both apparated into the reception at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Luckily, there were large numbers of wizards and witches with varying degrees of injury, and the place was pandemonium as per usual. Once they had pushed their way to the front of the queue, ignoring several shouts of "Oi! We were here first!" the receptionist took one look at Harry, and then saw Hermione in Ron's arms. A healer came rushing towards them guiding them into a private room, where Ron set Hermione down on the neatly made hospital bed.
"What happened?" the healer asked quickly, checking Hermione over. He frowned when he came to her hands.
"We think it was some sort of dark magic, it didn't affect her until today. So there was a delay of about…twelve hours at least." Harry looked at the healer. "Is she going to be alright?"
"I've never seen anything like this before," the healer told him, a grim expression on his face. "We'll get some experts in; I can only do so much."
"Will she survive?" Ron pressed the healer for a definite answer.
"Until we know what she's been cursed by, we can't say." He left the room quickly, leaving Harry and Ron standing next to Hermione's bed in silence.
"Harry, what if she-"
"She won't," Harry said through gritted teeth. "She won't because we need her."
The healer returned with a group of important looking wizards, who quickly surrounded the bed where Hermione lay, showing no apparent signs of life. Harry and Ron were pushed to the edges of the room, unable to see what the healers were doing to Hermione. After a few minutes, Harry and Ron were told to go and wait outside while they tried to treat her.
After hours of pacing, impatient sighs and frustrated hands running through hair, one of the healers emerged from the room. Harry and Ron immediately went over to him, desperate for an answer as to how their friend was coping. "We haven't cured her," the healer told them, trying very hard to keep eye contact, "but she's conscious, we just don't know how long she'll stay like that."
"Well make an estimate," Ron growled, but he was held back by Harry.
"I don't care how much it costs, or how many people you have to get here to treat her, but you have to make her better."
"We can't cure her if we don't know what's wrong," the healer emphasised, not unkindly.
"Which is why you need to get the very best people in," Harry told him. The healer took a step back, obviously wary of the teenage boy in front of him who was making such high demands.
"With all respect Mr Potter, we have all the dark magic experts from this hospital working solely on her case." Harry breathed in deeply, and the healer was beginning to look quite worried.
"That may be the case, but you haven't got the best in the world. If she doesn't get better then you might as well start making your own funeral arrangements, because fighting this war is completely pointless if we don't have Hermione. So if you don't know what's wrong with her, I suggest you find out, for your own sake, if not for hers." The healer nodded nervously and left the corridor quickly, not wanting to hang around to face any more of Harry's wrath.
The rest of the healers filed out of Hermione's room, obviously pleased that it wasn't them who had exited first. When the last one had got out of the way, looking very determinedly at the ground, Harry and Ron made their way into the room, where a very pale and tired looking Hermione was sitting up in bed, only just awake enough to acknowledge their presence. Her hands were covered in thick bandages, much like they had been when Hermione received the bubotuber pus in one of the hate-based letters she had received during their fourth year.
"I feel a bit foolish," she told them quietly, her voice weak. Ron just stared at her, not believing that this was Hermione who sat before them, a shadow of the person she had been yesterday. Harry pulled up a chair next to her bed and sat down beside her. Ron followed suit a second or so later and Hermione smiled tiredly.
"You're an idiot, Hermione," Ron informed her. "A complete and utter idiot." Hermione managed a small laugh and shifted in her bed slightly.
"I wish we had you trying to find the cure…no doubt you'd find it in three seconds flat," Harry said sadly.
"Oh I doubt it, it's one of Voldemort's own I imagine. They won't find a cure," she said this almost confidently, as though she were proud of having something unique wrong with her.
"Then we'll find the cure," Ron said, his voice strong and determined. "Harry's getting them to use the best people in the world as well, so between the lot of us, we will find a cure." Hermione smiled at his confidence. She knew deep down that sometime in the next few days, she'd go to sleep and not wake up again, but the boys needed hope, so she let them have it, even if she herself did not.
"How are your hands?" Harry asked. "They looked terrible when we found you."
"Numb." Hermione replied simply. "It's like when your Dad got bitten by that snake, Ron, the wound kept opening up. Same story here. As soon as my hands start to heal over, they burn up again. They've dosed me up on a pain relief potion though, so I can't feel them."
"What made you think it was a remotely good idea to touch it?" Harry asked frustratedly, ruffling his hair so it looked like he'd just had a particularly eventful quidditch match.
"I didn't think." Hermione told him simply. "I was just so amazed by the spell that I didn't think. I mean, that must have been there for a long time, and to keep a spell like that still as powerful as it was on the first day that he did it, I mean, that's brilliant. Can't you appreciate how brilliant that is?"
"I s'pose," Harry replied reluctantly. "But you knew it was something Voldemort had done, why didn't you just…" he let out an aggravated sigh and sat back in his chair, giving into the fact that he would never know what on Earth possessed Hermione to touch the barrier. She hadn't just touched it though; she had felt it from every angle. It was a bit more than an experimental poke of the finger.
"I'll let mum and dad know, they'll kill me if they find out another way." Hermione's eyes widened at the thought of a hysterical Mrs Weasley and she bit her lip. "She'll find out on way or another," Ron assured her, knowing what Hermione's nervousness was about, "and if they do find a cure, she'll kill us all for not saying anything. So it's probably best if I tell her now." Hermione gave in and nodded, disappearing with a pop.
"Brace yourself," Harry told her, allowing himself to smile.
"Would I be a bad person if I pretended to be asleep?"
Harry chuckled.
As expected, when Ron returned with Mrs Weasley and Ginny following on behind him, there was a huge fuss made. Only when one of the healers ventured into the room and informed them that 'Miss Granger needs to be completely relaxed', did Mrs Weasley begin to breathe, allowing Hermione, Ron and Harry to take a couple of breaths themselves, while they had the chance.
"Would you like us to tell your parents, Hermione?" Mrs Weasley asked, a few moments later. Hermione shook her head. "But surely they should know…"
"They'll only get worried, and coming here would be too much of a culture shock for them. They don't understand it all. Besides, I'll be fine." Mrs Weasley smiled slightly, missing Ron and Harry's dark looks.
"Of course you will dear," she smoothed the bed sheets with a slightly shaky hand, before moving a stray lock of hair out of Hermione's face. Ginny rolled her eyes at her mother's nervous fussing, but said nothing. They had opted not to tell the rest of Ron's family of how serious Hermione's condition actually was, due to the fact that Mrs Weasley would most likely implode, explode, and have a nervous breakdown all at the same time.
Fred and George came to visit later on in the evening, managing to get laughs out of just about everyone, including Mrs Weasley, which even shocked the twins.
George was left alone with Hermione while the others went up to the fifth floor to get something to eat, and Hermione was surprised when he sat down at her bedside, all traces of humour gone. "You're lying to us," he said. Hermione let her head fall back gently against the wall, glancing over at George after a few seconds' silence.
"Don't say anything, please," she begged him.
"I won't. It's just…you know, we care about you."
"And I care about all of you, which is why I don't want to get you all worried and upset."
"But you're dying." George told her, as though she hadn't quite grasped the concept.
"Yes, I know that George," Hermione retorted, raising her voice for the first time since she had been admitted to the hospital. "But what will change if I told everyone?" George looked away, knowing she was right. "There are things worth dying for," Hermione whispered gently, echoing Sirius' words of a few years previously.
"Stupidity isn't one of them though."
"Someone had to touch it. If it had been Harry then we'd have lost everything. Surely that's worth it?"
"Well they might still find a cure…"
"George, Voldemort doesn't write down all the counter-curses to his own spells in a little book. We can't just look it up in a library. We just have to accept that what's happened has happened. And the inevitable will happen. Did you honestly think we'd all make it out of this unscathed?" Her tone was soft, and sympathetic. She was surprised with the ease she had accepted her fate, but when there were no other options, one had to face up to the facts – and Hermione had been a fact-facer all her life.
"I'll miss you," George told her quietly, avoiding her eye.
"See you on the other side, maybe. Not too soon though." George nodded, getting up quickly and leaving the room.
"Where's George?" Fred asked when he, Ron, Harry, Ginny and Mrs Weasley returned, a few minutes after George's departure.
"He went for a walk."
HERMIONE GRANGER: ON HER DEATHBED?
Hermione Granger, one of Harry Potter's best friends, was admitted to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries today, after supposedly coming into contact with dark magic. A reliable source has said that Miss Granger (aged just 18 years) may not recover from the unknown curse that she has come into contact with. Harry Potter has allegedly demanded that experts in dark magic from all over the world be drafted in to work on finding a cure for Miss Granger, a desperate measure which shows how serious the situation is.
Miss Granger, a muggle born, was tipped to be Head Girl, but instead of returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year to take up the position, she has taken a very prominent lead in the war against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, helping the Boy Who Lived and his other best friend Ron Weasley attempt to bring about the Dark Lord's downfall. She was seen in the company of Bulgarian Seeker Viktor Krum on various occasions during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, almost three years ago
Story continued on page 5, column 2.
Hermione threw the copy of the Evening Prophet to one side, her face set in a deep scowl. "Honestly, who on Earth writes this rubbish?" her voice so bossy, that she was almost like her old self once more. She was putting up a brave front for the Weasleys, but her façade wasn't being helped along at all by Harry and Ron, who kept sending concerned looks her way every few minutes, ready to spring into action if she so much as coughed.
"Well you were always going to be Head Girl, so they got that right," Ron told her, ducking the half-hearted whack that Hermione sent in his direction. It was at this point a healer entered the room, drawing the attention of everyone onto himself. He cleared his throat nervously.
"Visiting hours are over I'm afraid," he said, "Miss Granger needs rest." He shuffled quickly from the room before any of them could protest.
"Come on Mum," Fred said, "Let the poor girl get some sleep." Mrs Weasley agreed and stood up, straightening out her light green coloured robes, before planting a kiss on Hermione's forehead, smoothing her sheets once more.
"See you later Hermione," Ginny said cheerfully.
"Yeah, and try to keep out of trouble while you're here," Fred told her, winking at her before opening the door to Hermione's room, letting Ginny step outside first.
"Take care of yourself dear. We'll be back first thing in the morning. If you need anything, just ask-"
"Mum, she needs rest," Ron said pointedly. Mrs Weasley nodded, hugging Ron and Harry in turn, before leaving through the door which Fred still held open.
"Go," Hermione told Harry and Ron a short while later. Ron began to protest but Harry interrupted.
"Those books you got in Diagon Alley, they were about dark defensive spells, weren't they?"
"I…yeah," Hermione hadn't even thought about those. Not that she had much hope of them being any use now. She doubted Voldemort would just pick a spell out of any old book that could be found in Knockturn Alley.
But, she supposed, they weren't just any old books. Malfoy had got them for her, but he hadn't said where from. For all she knew they could have come straight from his library at home. Or, with his power and social status, all over the shopkeepers in Knockturn Alley would bend over backwards to accommodate his needs. Perhaps there was the tiniest, minimal, shred of hope. Hermione broke into a smile.
Harry and Ron had disapparated a few minutes later, Hermione having told them which books she hadn't been as thorough with whilst searching for information, as well as though that seemed to be most promising. It was only after they had gone did she let her complete lack of energy overtake her, shifting on her bed so she was laying down, her eyelids fluttering shut quickly, taking her into a dreamless sleep, which was probably due to all the potions she had been given.
When she awoke it was pitch black. It was only when she attempted to sit up did she realise that there was a hand over her mouth. She looked up to see Malfoy standing above her, a finger pressed firmly to his lips. Hermione nodded and he removed his hand. "You really are the most stupid, idiotic, senseless, irresponsible, dim-witted, unintelligent, incompetent, foolish, dense person I have ever had the misfortune to meet," he hissed.
Hermione didn't have the energy to snap back a retort at him, so she settled for watching him as he took the bandages off of one of her hands. He winced when he saw the burnt flesh underneath, but nodded nonetheless. "What on Earth were you thinking Granger? You find a magical barrier, and you think, 'ooh, I know! I'll touch it as much as I can!' You know if you'd touched it the once you wouldn't be in hospital. The burn is a 'keep away' warning, no one's ever been stupid enough for it to be their cause of death before. I'm surprised the healers don't recognise it, it's fairly well known…if you're in the right circles." Hermione frowned at his knowledge of the situation, trying to direct her eyes away from the mess that was her left hand. "I…persuaded one of the healers to get me up to date. The story in the Prophet wasn't as farfetched as they normally are. Perhaps they are learning about something called the truth."
"Yeah, because you'd know all about that," hissed Hermione, although she immediately wished she hadn't. Malfoy looked sharply at her, before dropping her hand back down onto the sheets. "Sorry," she mumbled. He ignored her and rifled through the pockets in his cloak, finally pulling out a small vial of gently bubbling liquid.
"Drink," he ordered. She sat up and he put it to her lips, tipping it slightly so she could drink down the potion. She felt tears begin to sting in her eyes as the potion burned its way down her throat, and once it was all gone, she collapsed back against the headboard of her bed. She looked on in amazement as her hand began to heal over instantly, the burns disappearing and leaving her hands looking as though they had never suffered so much as a pinprick. She felt her energy levels soar, although she still felt incredibly weak, and her mind seemed to speed up a little, becoming more and more able to process her thoughts in split seconds.
"What was that?" she asked as she took the bandages off of her other hand to see if that had healed as well. She smiled when she realised it had, waggling her fingers as though taking her hands for a test drive.
"A cure," Malfoy replied, obviously not wanting to let her in on the secret.
"Well you'd better tell me how to make it, in case something like this happens again," she reasoned.
"Granger, you're not stupid enough to touch it again. And if anybody else does, they won't be stupid enough to practically cling to the damn thing," Malfoy drawled, earning himself a glare from Hermione. He sat down in the chair Harry had vacated hours ago and fell silent.
"You need some more bandages on your hands; otherwise people will know someone's been here."
"Not those ones though," Hermione replied, gesturing to the bandages which had been tossed lazily aside. They were covered in all sorts of nasty, infection-induced fluids, which Hermione didn't fancy having on her hands again. Malfoy flicked his wand lazily and Hermione's hands were promptly wrapped in thick, fresh bandages. She raised her eyebrows at Malfoy who shrugged.
"Why are you surprised that I'm a good wizard?"
"No, it's just…"
"Even the most insufferable people can be very good at what they do, and before you make a feeble attempt at being witty or sarcastic, I am by no means calling myself insufferable."
"Intolerable?" Hermione suggested.
"So intolerable that I came here to save your silly little life."
"Well quite," Hermione agreed.
"It's worth it though. A life for a life. I take it you haven't forgotten that you'll be vouching for me at the end of all this."
"No," Hermione replied, "I haven't forgotten. Nor should you forget that the deal only stands if you continue to help." Malfoy nodded.
"I understand your concerns. After all, I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you if you warned me that the Dark Lord was after me, and you led him to a family, making him believe it was mine so my own would be spared, as well as informing me of a planned attack on people who I would like to protect, and of course, if you saved my life then I'd feel completely and utterly betrayed right then and there." Hermione chuckled softly and Malfoy stood up from his seat.
"Until next time Granger," Malfoy said, turning away.
"Goodbye, Malfoy," she replied, pausing a second before calling after him, "Malfoy?" He turned around. "Thank you."
He nodded, and left the room quickly, his dark cloak swirling behind him.