February 10, 2017
Author's Note: I should probably hold onto this chapter and wait until the next one is finished, too, but oh well. :)

Reviews appreciated!


Haunted

Chapter Nine


Hermione focused on the folded piece of parchment in Ginny's shaking hand as she followed her and Professor McGonagall to the headmistress's office. Ginny had admitted to using the map to keep an eye on Hermione, and the evidence of her doing so was apparent. Her outrage almost eclipsed her concern about whatever had happened to Ron, though she tried to calm herself with logic.

Ron was in trouble. Professor McGonagall must have informed Ginny. Hermione, practically an extended member of the Weasley family, was nowhere to be found, so Ginny had used the Marauder's Map to find her. That's all there was to it. Ginny had had a defensible reason to consult the map and disturb Hermione's privacy. Eventually, logic did finally win out, and her outrage evolved into anxiety.

The three women were silent as they trekked through the corridors. Once they were safely ensconced within Professor McGonagall's office, the headmistress picked up a quill from her desk and turned an empathetic eye on Hermione. Clearly she had already filled Ginny in on what had happened.

"Ron has been injured, and Molly has requested both of your presences at St. Mungo's. From what I understand, the recruits were ambushed during an outdoor training, but Molly should have all the details when you arrive." She held out her hand, the quill sitting lightly on her palm, as if the slightest breath could make it blow away.

Ginny eagerly approached the quill, touching it with an anxious impatience. Hermione wanted to step back, run out of the room. She didn't want to face what was at the end of that Portkey journey. She couldn't let anything happen to Ron. Not her Ron!

"Hermione?" Ginny said, a begging note in her voice and a plea in her eyes. Her body trembled minutely, her fingers twitched.

Silently, Hermione approached Professor McGonagall's outstretched hand, and before she could give herself time to think herself out of it, she touched the quill. As soon as she did, her body jerked as if she'd been hooked behind the navel and pulled through time and space. The sensation lasted only moments, and Hermione was grateful when it ended.

"Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley called, racing to her daughter to pull her into a tight embrace. Then Hermione was pulled into the hug as well, Mrs. Weasley's warm arms stilling her shuddering and crushing the quill between their bodies.

"How is he?" Ginny asked as they pulled away, voicing the question Hermione couldn't bring herself to ask.

"Still unconscious. Come on, now. Let's go see him."

As they were shuffled out of the lobby, Hermione looked around for anything signifying which floor they were on, and the words "Spell Damage" made her heart jump into her throat.

"But what's wrong with him?" Ginny was asking.

Mrs. Weasley looked harried, her hair wild and frizzy as if she hadn't had time to comb it—or as if she'd run her hands through it too much. She stopped and faced Ginny and Hermione, forcing her lips up into a smile that didn't reach her eyes. If she was trying to be calming, it wasn't working.

"We'll tell you everything, but first… I just want to warn you. They've placed him in the Janus Thickey Ward—"

Both Hermione and Ginny gasped.

"—He's stable, but his Healer isn't sure what's happened to him. Let's just go see him now, and then we'll explain."

They continued down the corridor with more urgency until they approached the door Hermione remembered from her last visit to St. Mungo's during the Christmas holidays of her fifth year. When they stepped inside the ward, Hermione had to blink hard at the sight before her.

Ron wasn't even visible in his hospital bed nearest the door. Mr. Weasley, George, Percy, Bill, Fleur, and Harry were all standing on the side of the bed closest to the entrance, blocking Ron from sight, but that wasn't the image that had Hermione stopping in her tracks. Gilderoy Lockhart sat in a chair on the other side of the bed, reading aloud from a book with his own smiling and winking face on the cover.

"Is he still at it, then?" Mrs. Weasley asked her husband as she sidled up to him. Lines of disapproval surrounded her mouth, which drooped down into a frown. The expression was mirrored on Mr. Weasley's face.

"Yes," he muttered, "but he doesn't seem to need much feedback from his audience, so I think we can ignore him without offending."

Hermione didn't care about offending anyone, least of all the amnesic Gilderoy Lockhart. She and Ginny both pushed through the crowd around the bed, where Ron lay inert. He'd cropped his hair short for Auror training, shaved smooth on the sides and spiky on top. A bandage circled his forehead, and his right arm was in a sling. Besides those two injuries, he looked fine. His face was unlined in sleep. He didn't seem to be in any pain as far as Hermione could tell.

"What happened?" Ginny asked, tentatively reaching out to touch Ron's face.

Harry cleared his throat. "We were ambushed while running flying drills. Three other recruits went down besides Ron, but the flight instructor stopped the attackers before anyone else could be hurt."

"Death Eaters?" Hermione croaked, her voice finally unsticking from her throat.

Harry nodded grimly, his lips tight.

"I fought Death Eaters once!" Lockhart exclaimed over his book. "I read a book about it! There were hundreds of them surrounding me and an escaped convict, who I'd caught single-handedly, I'll have you know. They wanted to kiss me because I'm so handsome, but I fought them all back with my pet reindeer, Porky!"

"Those were Dementors, you dimwit," Harry said with a roll of his eyes. "And I'm the one who did all that."

"It looks like he's still stealing people's stories," Hermione said with an impatient scowl.

"Well, he should steal someone else's stories somewhere else," George replied in disgust. "We're trying to have a touching moment here!"

"What's wrong with him?" Ginny asked as if Lockhart had never butted in. Her jaw was clenched tight; Hermione could see the strain from the tension in the pounding vein at Ginny's temple.

"He's been enchanted," said Mr. Weasley, his voice low and tired. He sighed and his whole body rose and fell with his exhalation. The lines in his face, usually formed by his good-natured smiles or a laugh, seemed carved from exhaustion. Hermione could just imagine him remembering Fred's death. All of the Weasleys were somber, the reminder of their fallen son and brother nearly tangible. "The Healers aren't sure what he's been cursed with. He seems to be sleeping, but all attempts to wake him have failed."

Hermione frowned as she eyed Ron's serene face again. After months on the run sharing a tent, she was as familiar with Ron's sleep habits as she was with her own, and usually he slept with less dignity: limbs askew, mouth gaping open. Seeing him so still sent a piercing pain through Hermione's heart. He did not look like he was asleep; he looked closer to death.

"Were the other injured recruits similarly affected?" she asked.

Mr. Weasley sighed again, and the tension in the room increased. In the silence, Lockhart continued to read aloud from Gadding with Ghouls, oblivious of his inattentive audience.

"No," Harry answered instead. His eyes blazed behind his round glasses. "No, the senior Aurors think this was a targeted attack."

Ginny's eyes widened, and Hermione's hands lifted to her own mouth, covering her shock and smothering a gasp before she could utter one. This was the price Ron paid for being Harry Potter's friend, for being his brother in arms in every way two men who didn't share blood could be brothers.

Hermione used to wonder what it would feel like having a brother—any siblings at all—but she'd learned when she'd become friends with Harry and Ron, after they'd saved her from a troll and she'd covered for them in front of Professors Snape, McGonagall, and Quirrel. They were her brothers, though she still hoped that Ron could be something more. If he ever recovered from this attack.

She slowly reached for his hand, the one laying on top of the sheets next to his body. Grasping his fingers in hers, Hermione willed Ron to give her some sign that he knew she was there, that he was okay, that he would come back to her.

The others chattered around her as Ginny asked more questions and Harry and Mrs. Weasley answered them. An unknown length of time passed when Mr. Weasley touched her shoulder and gently said, "Hermione?"

"Oh, wha—yes?"

"We're going up to the tea room. Would you care to join us?"

The Weasleys filed out one-by-one, but Hermione couldn't part from Ron. Not now. Not when he needed her.

Even before she shook her head in answer, Mr. Weasley smiled and patted her arm. "Look after him for us."

"Of course," she replied, her voice low even though the volume wouldn't bother Ron. She tried to rub some heat back into his fingertips, but it was her fingers that were freezing, rendering the gesture useless.

Would she have been able to stop this attack if she had been there? Would she have been able to save Ron, at least? She chewed on her lip as she studied his face, her fingers itching to run across his eyebrows and the bridge of his long nose. Like the students of Hogwarts, had she failed to protect him, too?

"Hey!" Lockhart leaned over the bed, one hand at his mouth as if to shield his lips from eavesdroppers. However, the only other occupants on the ward, the Longbottoms and a barking, fur-covered woman named Agnes, were at the end of the room, their beds hidden from view by curtains.

"Yes?" Hermione answered patiently.

He pointed to Ron. "I think this bloke and I are best friends!"


At the end of visiting hours, Bill, Fleur, Percy, and George returned to their homes after receiving hugs from Mrs. Weasley and promises to keep them updated on Ron's condition from Mr. Weasley. The remaining three Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione returned to the Burrow.

Mrs. Weasley immediately busied herself in the kitchen and demanded Ginny's help with dinner before Ginny could sneak up the stairs with Harry and Hermione. Hermione offered her own assistance and was immediately steered up the stairs, though Ginny rolled her eyes at her mother's antics (behind her mother's back, of course) as Hermione reluctantly ascended.

She and Harry climbed to the very top of the stairs, to the room he shared with Ron whenever they made a visit to the Burrow.

Harry had invited Hermione and Ron to live with him at Grimmauld Place, and Ron, excited by the prospect of moving away from home and enjoying Kreacher's cooking again, had readily accepted. Hermione had had nowhere else to go, though Harry hadn't known that. He didn't know her parents' memories were still lost, didn't know they still lived in Australia as Monica and Wendell Wilkins. She'd moved into 12 Grimmauld Place under the guise of supervising her friends and coordinating Harry's efforts to clean out and redecorate the house again, to make it livable to his tastes and comforts.

After the trials for which they had been required to give testimony and the funerals of friends who had died at the Battle of Hogwarts, they'd spent a solid week of their summer cleaning and exchanging furniture. They hadn't left the house or spoken to another living soul once the entire week, and had employed Kreacher to do their shopping and take Floo calls on their behalf. Then it had been time for Hermione to return to Hogwarts, and from Ron's letters, she'd come to understand that their progress had slowed quite a bit since she'd left.

Ron's bed creaked as Harry plopped down on it. He patted the space next to him, and Hermione joined him there, slowly sinking onto the mattress as if afraid it would swallow her whole. Harry leaned into her shoulder, his body radiating a warmth Hermione couldn't remember feeling for so long. The temptation to let herself go, to collapse into Harry's arms and unburden herself of her woes, strangled her. Maybe Harry felt the same way or maybe he had grown to recognize her despair, because he slid an arm around her shoulder and let his head fall against hers. They sat for a moment, awkward in their closeness, uncomfortable in the embrace, until Hermione sighed and closed her eyes and let herself lean against Harry. She was the one who held all the tension. She was the one who was awkward and uncomfortable. But once she accepted his comfort, she couldn't deny how much she'd needed this. If only Ron was there with them.

Harry broke the silence, and Hermione's eyes fluttered open. She already felt more refreshed.

"Ginny told me what it's been like for you back at Hogwarts. I guess you hadn't told Ron about it. He would have been up in arms over the way everyone is treating you at school."

She grit her teeth, but she honestly couldn't blame Ginny for filling Harry in. She wondered how detailed she'd been in her letters. Did Harry know about Malfoy following her around? Did he know that Ginny had asked for the Marauder's Map for Hermione's sake? Had he ever searched for her on the map before he'd lent it to Ginny?

"No, I… I hadn't said anything to him. I didn't want him to worry. Or you, either."

An amused smile quirked the corners of his lips up. "Can't help but worry. Something always seems to go wrong at Hogwarts; only now you're there without us to help stop it."

She placed a hand on his arm, her whole body filling with warmth over the rush of fondness that flooded through her. "You can't always be the hero. Some evils are personal. I'll be fine though."

By the way her released his hold on her shoulder and leveled her with his steady gaze, he didn't seem to believe her.

"Are your parents still angry with you?"

The abrupt change in subject, and the absurdity of the question, baffled Hermione. "My parents?"

"I know what happened in Australia. At least. I have my suspicions."

"W—what do you think happened in Australia," the question fell out of her dry mouth like a statement, lacking inflection. The sudden spike in her heart rate sent a rush of adrenalin through her veins, making her feel slightly dizzy. She hadn't been prepared to have this conversation with Harry yet. It was one thing for Luna to know, but what would Harry think of her if he knew the truth? She didn't want him to know how badly she'd failed.

"You went to Australia to find your parents and return their memories. Next time we see you, you're distraught at the mere mention of them. And then you spent all summer at the Burrow or Grimmauld Place."

Hermione gulped and dug her shaking hands into Ron's sheets to still them.

"They were angry with you, weren't they? For what you did? Altering their memories and sending them away?"

It took a moment for Hermione to react because she had expected a different conclusion. Once she realized Harry truly didn't know her secret, all she could do was stare.

"Ron and I, we assumed you were giving them space to come to terms with the year they lost. Maybe that's why you never seemed to go home and never brought them up."

"You and Ron—you talked about me?"

Harry flinched. "We were worried about you. We know something happened in Australia. You came back different."

Hermione couldn't muster up any anger, though she had a sense that she should be angry. Ginny was spying on Hermione and now she had just learned that Ron and Harry had talked about her behind her back. If they'd been so concerned, why hadn't they come to her? Why hadn't they asked her?

But that wasn't fair, was it? They had tried to talk to her after she'd returned from Australia, and she'd given them her phony story about successfully finding her parents and returning their memories. She'd insisted on her story every time someone had asked. Was it their fault that she hadn't been a good liar?

"Maybe I can talk to them," Harry continued, and Hermione shook her head to clear her thoughts, which he took as an answer. "Your parents have no reason to listen to me, but if I can't convince them that you did what you had to do, maybe I can convince them to be mad at me instead."

"Why? Why would you do that?"

This conversation overwhelmed her, and Hermione wanted nothing more than for Harry to drop the matter. Fortunately for her, Ginny burst into the room just then, an annoyed expression on her face.

"I know Mum is trying to be hospitable by not putting the two of you to work today, but let's be honest, shall we? Even if any of my brothers still lived here, she'd still ask me to help with dinner. It's not a woman's job to cook, you know!" She paused at the sight of Hermione's tense face and Harry's frown, her brow creasing in confusion. "Did something happen?"

Hermione forced herself to release her grasp on the bedsheets and stood up. "No. I need some air."

As she passed Ginny and fled down the stairs, she had no illusions that Harry would keep their conversation to himself. Maybe he would have once, before he and Ginny began dating, but now?

She slipped out the rarely used front door and into the waxing darkness. A gentle chill had accompanied the arrival of October at Hogwarts, but here in the south, a warm breeze met her on the front step, ushering her into the yard and out into the field were the Weasleys played pickup games of Quidditch. The field was barren now, the grass browning, the wind a little too strong for a casual game.

Turning to face the breeze, she looked back over the Burrow with its brightly lit windows, and a sadness Hermione did not expect overcame her. She had thought reuniting with Harry and Ron would ease her, and while her few moments with Harry had comforted her in a way she hadn't felt comforted in ages, everything felt wrong.

Ron lay in an enchanted sleep at St. Mungo's, a patient of the long-term Janus Thickey ward, and there seemed to be no solution for his curse. Harry had suspicions about Australia, and knowing how much he liked a good mystery, it wouldn't take long before he uncovered the truth of her trip there. The Weasleys had always welcomed Hermione into their home, accepting her as part of the family without a second thought (with the sole exception of those months during fourth year, when Mrs. Weasley had believed Rita Skeeter's tripe about Hermione's romantic exploits), but they weren't her family.

Spending time with the Weasleys, seeing Harry—and even seeing Ron, prone as he was right now—had not made her feel better. In fact, it made her feel more isolated.

There was no one for her. Not at her parents' home, not in Australia, not at Hogwarts, or the Burrow. Hermione was completely alone.

Not completely, her mind whispered as Malfoy's face floated to the center of her thoughts.

Malfoy was alone, too, wasn't he? She remembered the look on his face when they'd stepped inside the Room of Requirement earlier that day and he'd seen for himself what a mess the Fiendfyre had made. For a single moment, he'd been broken. All his hopes and expectations, whatever they were, had been riding on the Room of Requirement, and it had taken one second for those hopes and expectations to shatter. The next second, he'd composed himself, hiding his feelings and his motivations behind a mask.

Malfoy had lost just as much as Hermione had. Confined to the castle due to his probation, he could not see or contact his parents. His father was in Azkaban anyway and unable to receive visitors. All his friends had turned against him. The entire school had turned against him, just like Hermione. They were both unlikable and alone. Birds of a feather, as he'd said once.

The thought both saddened her and filled her with determination. Determination to do what, she wasn't sure. She needed to change. She needed to make a difference. And she would do it without anyone's support, if necessary.

Hermione was alone, but that would not weaken her. She would become stronger.


TBC


Original Prompt

Pairing(s): Draco/Hermione
Prompt: Soon after they return to Hogwarts for their eighth year of schooling, Hermione comes across Draco being taunted and tortured by a mob of students of all ages. All the horrible memories of her own torture in Malfoy Manor come flooding to the forefront of her mind. What does she do?
Preferred rating: Any
Squicks: None
Other comments: Go dark or as hopeful as you want.