A/N: Before I started this book, I decided to have a strict reply to every review policy, somehow THAT got lost along the way. Sorry about that. Okay, I have two things to admit, One: I didn't know how to spell trey/tray, alright! Neither of them look right! I fail. So yeah. Two: I had absolutely NO idea what the memory was about. I always put myself in these situations, it had to be way worse than two unforgivable curses and extreme violence. Seriously. Why do I do this to myself? Anyway, I tried : ) Also, the Sirius quote is my favourite movie line ever. I just watched the fifth movie again and it made me so sad :'( and this chapter isn't good. Just warning you. It's a total mess but I couldn't work out why so I put it up anyway. Please review, even if it's negative, constructive criticism, eh. Love you : )
Light and dark
Hermione awoke alone on the sofa with his cloak over her body. She opened her eyes groggily just as he came through the door. He looked so different with his short hair and no cloak on that she almost didn't recognise him. He could easily be mistaken for a muggle right now. She wasn't sure if she liked it. He held a tray in his hand that held slightly burnt toast with badly spread butter and a glass of orange juice that was sloshing back and forth dangerously. He looked at her apologetically as he placed it on the table in front of her.
"Sorry, best I could do."
She smiled at him and took a bite of the toast. It was disgusting.
"Thank you."
He let out a small smile before it disappeared, replaced by such a serious look that she was certain she knew what he was going to say next. She swung her legs around so there was room for him on the sofa and he sat down beside her, a comfortable distance away so he didn't feel like holding her to him again, like always. He couldn't risk it right then, he needed to know.
"Miss Granger, I need you to tell me what the memory was about. He has used one unforgivable curse and intended to use another, and the fact that you are so terrified about me learning this one scares me."
He told the truth, it terrified him, and he thought this might influence her decision on whether to tell him or not. Unfortunately, it didn't. She shook her head then spoke in a whisper that he had to lean closer to hear.
"It's not... something I want you to see. I feel so bad about it..."
"Hermione, please. It might help us find him, surely that's more important than your feelings."
She shot him a look that told him this was the wrong thing to say. He put a hand on her arm, searching for something to say but she shook it off and stood up, walking over to the window. She put her hands on the window ledge and peered out.
It was mid-summer and she could see the park across from the house. There were people in it sunbathing, having picnics, swimming in the lake or simply sitting on a bench reading a book and she longed to be among them. She hadn't been able to have an ordinary life in so long, even when Voldemort was defeated she still had so much to worry about with Ron and the death eaters, then just Ron. She had never been able to fully relax and now, watching people who had such small worries and so much time to sort them out, she couldn't help but wish for another life, a simpler life, even if that meant no magic.
She could hear him whisper behind her but refused to turn.
"Legilimens."
She gave in.
Ron stood over her, looking down at her as if she were worthless and whispered the one word that she had been begging not to hear.
"Imperio."
She felt her body fall to the ground, her cheek pressed against the cold ground and her clouded eyes looking into his evil eyes. He knelt down next to her and put his face to hers, their noses touching. She wanted to move away, but she couldn't.
"Crookshanks!"
He called menacingly.
'No, no, no, no.'
She called in her head but she couldn't voice her fears. The fluffy ginger cat slowly walked into the room, unaware of any danger. It hissed at Ron, as always, and he tried to kick it but it jumped out of the way. He turned to Hermione and smirked slightly then with two words, changed her life.
"Kill it."
She tried to refuse, shake her head, do anything but she couldn't. She reached out her arms to grab the bed post, stop herself getting near the cat, but it walked over to her, looking into her eyes, not noticing that anything was wrong. She reached out her hand to pet it on the head just as Ron threw a knife to her. She caught the blade side and felt it digging into her hand, dripping blood onto the cat. She looked at him one last time, trying to will him to change his mind, but he wouldn't. She couldn't stop her hand sturning the knife around and raising into the air then, with her eyes closed, she brought it down.
They were both pulled out of the vision to her loud cries. She lay on the floor, broken and collapsed, arms around her legs and head on her knees, sobbing. She looked at the long scar along her hand and told herself that she deserved it. He approached her and put a hand on her shoulder but she forced it off, refusing to let him comfort her after what he had just seen. She hated herself for that, Crookshanks had been hers for six years and she had loved the cat more than she had ever loved any other animal in her life. Ron had known this would get to her, he wanted her traumatised, he wanted to watch her fall apart, and he succeeded.
"Remember what Sirius told Harry in your fifth year Christmas break?"
She looked up slightly, surprised that he could bear to be near her, let alone comfort her, as well as surprised that he had been there that day. She had been outside the door, listening to what Sirius told Harry, but she hadn't seen him there.
"You heard that too?"
He nodded.
"You're not a bad person, you're a very good person who bad things have happened to. You understand? Besides, the world isn't split into good people and death eaters, we all have light and dark inside of us, what matters is the part we choose to act on, that's who we really are."
It was hard for him to quote his enemy in such a positive way, but he had to admit that Sirius had been right.
Hermione brought her knees up to her chest again and sobbed into them. Harry should have been the one to say this, he should be comforting her but instead he was being tortured by Ron and she had stopped Snape going to save him because she was too selfish to watch another person walk out of her life and not return. She never got the sentimental goodbye she wanted, Harry had ran, her parents had been killed before she could so much as tell them she loved them, Tonks, Lupin, Sirius, Fred, Dumbledore, Dobby, everyone she had cared about disappeared before she was able to say goodbye and now she knew why, she wouldn't have let them go if she had known.
"But I didn't choose to act on the good, I acted on the bad."
He knelt beside her.
"No you didn't, it wasn't your choice, it was his..."
"Like you said, we all have light and dark inside of us, who's to say he is bad and I am good, who's to say my side is that right side. Everyone believes their opinion is right, but what if his is?"
Severus took her hand and she didn't refuse this time.
"What he's doing isn't good. If you're doing the wrong thing, you know. When I was a death eater, I knew I was wrong every time I killed someone, there's a difference between light and dark and good and bad. If you can argue that Ron is doing the right thing, you would be arguing that Voldemort was doing the right thing."
She looked up into his dark eyes, pleading her to believe him.
"He thought he was doing the right thing."
"Did he?"
She tilted her head slightly, searching for understanding but not finding it.
"I can't be good, not after all I've done."
"Good isn't doing everything right, good is knowing when you've done something wrong, and you do know. You can't beat yourself up because you did something wrong under the imperius curse, you can be upset that you've lost your pet, you can be furious with Ron for making you do that but don't you dare be angry with yourself. You don't deserve it, you've spent your whole life doing the right thing."
She looked down.
"No I haven't. I shouldn't have stopped you going after Ron. I was being selfish, I just didn't want to lose you."
He put his finger under her chin and pulled it up, forcing her eyes to meet his.
"So if I left now you wouldn't stop me?"
Her mouth fell open and she shook her head slowly.
"Give me a few days."
He let out a small smile and nodded.
"A few days."
