HERMIONE'S TH1RTEEN R3ASONS
Annaleise Marie
Chapter Twelve: Cassette 6, Side A
AN: Okay, I know that I promised this chapter by Monday morning, and then I moved it up to Sunday, and now it's up Sunday night... But anyway, it's up, and that's what important, right? I am sorry for any confusion, though.
Moving on – if you skipped the last chapter, whatever your reasons may be, allow me to bring you up to speed: After Draco left Hermione at the Three Broomsticks, she witnessed a rape. Ginny was raped, Harry neglected to stop it, and Draco believes, although it is unconfirmed, that Theodore Nott committed it. All names were omitted from the tape, so anyone but Draco and the guilty parties wouldn't know who was involved. At the end, Hermione states, "You didn't rape her. And I didn't rape her. He did. But you... and I... we let it happen. It's our fault." The story dealt largely with her world crashing as a result of the incident, and at the end she is face-to-face with Harry.
To those of you who did read, thanks for your faves, alerts, and hits! Special thanks to angelzrfree, KellaOrion, semantics, Dramionelover123, arianscorp, Noodles2, dreamcloud99, Aftermath11, The Forgotten Child, gillianlu, Frib, kumagers54, ashley4948, JaspersEmotionalGirl, Elizabeth Garrison, and aringle42 for reviewing! I really enjoyed hearing your views on the events and the character's reactions!
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Longbottom took a coin from his pocket and started sliding it between his fingers, flipping it from knuckle to knuckle. I guessed it was to keep him busy, to give him something to do other than focus on what he had to say.
"I've been trying to figure out how to say this since I saw you outside of the greenhouses. All evening, in the kitchens, on the whole walk up here... Even when you were puking over there."
"At least I didn't vomit on you, Longbottom," I scowled.
"I appreciate that," he said, smiling and looking down at the galleon in his hand.
My stomach was finally settling. I leaned my head back, breathing in deeply.
"She came to see me in the greenhouses one evening, after classes were out. Hermione did," he started. "And that was my chance."
"For what?"
"Malfoy, all of the signs were there," he said.
"I had my chance, too," I told him. I took off the headphones and hung them around my neck. "At the party. She was upset when we kissed and I didn't know why. That was my chance."
On the street, it's dark and quiet. Light filters out from the front windows of the Three Broomsticks, but other than that, the village is quiet. The world seems deep asleep.
"We're all to blame," he said. "At least a little."
"So she came to see you," I said, to get him back on track."
"Right. You were working late?"
"Yeah. It was time to repot the venomous tentaculas," he said. "Professor Sprout lets the students tend to them, but actually repotting them is a little bit to dangerous for someone who doesn't know how to handle them safely because they have this—"
"Focus, Longbottom," I said, careful not to snap, but wanting him to get on with it.
"Right," he said, clearing his throat. The coin was still passing through his fingers. "Anyway, she'd never come to the greenhouses just to see me before, so I was a little surprised. But you know, we were friends, so I didn't think too much of it. What was odd, though, is when she came over."
"Why?"
He looked at the ground, sighing heavily, and then held the coin out to me. I took it hesitantly, wondering what was so special about a galleon. Upon closer inspection, however, I realized that it was forged.
"That's the master coin for Dumbledore's Army. It's used to send messages, mostly dates and times of meetings to the other members," he explained. "Hermione created them when Umbridge disbanded all clubs at the school, so that we could still meet in secret. Anyway, she wanted me to have it. She said she was done with it, and that she wanted me to have it in case we'd ever need to get the DA together again.
"I asked her why she didn't give it to Harry or Ron, and she said that she thought I'd have more use for it, since they've already been accepted to the Auror's Academy. The DA is really more of a militia, you know. So then I asked her why she didn't need it, and she just shrugged. She wouldn't answer that one. It was a huge sign, and I missed it."
"Giving away possessions," I said. I knew that. Longbottom nodded.
"She said I was the only one she could think of who might need it. I'm going to stay here at Hogwarts, you know, and if anything should ever start again, she didn't want the castle to be vulnerable. That kids should never be involved in that sort of thing. And she's right, isn't she? No one knows that better than us."
I nodded, staring at the coin for another moment before handing it back to Longbottom.
"Anyway, I told her that I couldn't just take it from her, without offering something in return," he said, slipping the coin once more from knuckle to knuckle.
"What did you give her?" I asked.
"I'll never forget this," he said, looking away from me. "Her eyes, Malfoy, they never looked away. She just kept looking, straight into my eyes, and then she started crying. She just stared at me and tears began streaming down her face."
He wiped at his own eyes and then scrubbed at the rest of his face like a person trying to wake up.
"I should have done something," he said.
The signs were all there, all over, for anyone willing to notice.
"What did she ask you for?" I asked, my voice coming out choked. I swallowed hard.
"She wanted to borrow my Remembrall," he said. "She said there were some things that she needed to remember, and she wanted to know if she was missing anything. Pensieves are very subjective, you know, because they're memories. If she didn't remember something, it would just be absent in the pensieve, and the memory may even be modified organically to make up for the gap."
"And you gave it to her?" I asked.
He turned to me, his face hard. "I didn't know what she was going to do with it, Malfoy."
"I'm not accusing you. But she didn't tell you anything about what memories she was looking at?"
"If I had asked, do you think she would have told me?"
No. By the time she went to Longbottom, her mind was made up. If she wanted someone to stop her, to rescue her from herself, I was there. At the party. And she knew it.
I shook my head. "She wouldn't have told you."
"A few days later," he said, "at breakfast, an owl delivered this package to me. I took it to my room and found these fourteen vials of memories. It didn't make any sense to me."
"Did she send you a note or anything?" I asked.
"No, just the memories. But the first one, when I watched them, was different than the others. She was looking in a mirror, talking. I guess so that no matter what perspective the memory took, I would see her. She said that I would need those, and to watch out for the others, to make sure that some tapes were passed on to all of them.
"But it still didn't make any sense, because she was at all of her meals that day, and her Herbology class. So I started going through the other memories. And that's when I started to piece it together. And I went to find her. I ran into Dean, you know, he got Head Boy, and asked if she had met up with him before rounds. He asked if everything was alright, because I'm sure buy that point I seemed about crazy."
"What did you say?"
"I told him that something was wrong, and that we needed to find her. But I couldn't make myself tell him why." He takes in a weak, shuddering breath. "And then they found her... And it was too late."
I wanted to tell him that I was sorry, that I couldn't imagine what that must've been like. But then I think of tomorrow, in class, and realize that I'll find out soon enough. Seeing the other people on the tapes for the first time.
"I went back to my rooms early that day," he said. "Told Professor Sprout I was sick, you know. And I've got to admit, it took a few days to get myself together. But when I returned, Ginny looked like hell. And then Parvati. And I thought, okay, most of these people deserve it, at least a little, so I'll do what she asked and make sure you all hear what she has to say."
"But how were you keeping track?" I asked. "How did you know I had the tapes?"
"That bench, it's grown over now. No one ever goes to it. There's no reason to, anymore. But one by one, each of you on the tapes ended up there. Today, it was you. And then, in the kitchens later, I saw you with the tape player. Who would give a pureblood something like that? A gift. What a bad lie."
We both laughed, a bit. And it felt good. A release. Like laughing at a funeral. Maybe inappropriate, but definitely needed.
"So why you? Why'd she give the memories to you?" I asked. He shrugged.
"I don't know. The only thing I can think is that I gave her the Remembrall. She thought I had a stake in it and would play along."
"You're not on the tapes, but you're still a part."
Longbottom turned away from me, back towards the path to the school. "I've got to go," he said shortly.
"I didn't mean anything by that," I said.
"I know. But it's late, and I've got to be up early to trim the Devil's Snare," he said. "It's weakest when the sun first come up." I nodded. Sure. For all of us involved, life had to go on. "Where are you going to stay tonight?"
"I don't know. I'll probably go back to my room eventually, just not quite yet."
He slipped the coin back into his pocket. I wondered vaguely if he carried it with him everywhere, and whether that was for safety, or comfort.
"Do you want me to walk you somewhere?" he asked. "Before I go back to the castle?"
"This is where I'm at in the tapes," I said. "But thanks. Honestly." And when I said it, I meant it for more than just the offer. For everything. For how he reacted when I broke down and cried. For trying to make me laugh on one of the most horrible nights of my life.
I felt good knowing that someone understood what I was listening to, what I was going through. Somehow, it made it less scary to keep listening.
Longbottom nodded again, and then he was walking away. I watched the darkness of the night swallow him up around the path to the school.
I put the headphones back on, and pressed play, leaning back against the wall of the Three Broomsticks.
Back to the party, everyone. But don't get too comfortable, we'll be leaving in just a moment.
If there was a string connecting all of your stories, that party would be the point where everything knots up. And that knot keeps growing and growing, getting more and more tangled, dragging the rest of your stories into it.
When he and I finally broke that horrible, awful, painful stare, I wandered down the hall and back into the party. Staggered in, really. But not from the alcohol. From everything else.
I let myself slide down to sit on the ground, my back against the Three Broomsticks. If Madam Rosmerta or whoever else wanted to come out and ask me to leave, I welcomed it. Please do.
I grabbed for the bar, then a stool, and I sat. I wanted to leave, but where would I go? It was time for Filch to begin his rounds, but there were no rounds scheduled for me, so I couldn't get caught out of my room. Not yet.
And wherever I went, how would I get there? I was too weak to walk. At least, I thought I was too weak. But in truth, I was just too weak to try. The only thing that I knew for certain was that I wanted to get out of there and not think about anything or anyone anymore.
Then a hand touched my shoulder. A gentle squeeze.
It was Lavender Brown.
Lavender, this one's for you.
I dropped my head down to my knees.
She asked if I needed someone to walk me back to the castle, and I almost laughed. Was it so obvious? Did I look so terrible?
So I looped my arm in hers and she helped me up. Which felt good, letting someone help me. We walked out the front door, through the crowd there.
Somewhere, in that moment, I was walking from block to block trying to figure out why I'd left that party. Trying to figure out, trying to understand, what had just happened between me and Hermione.
The street was damp. My feet, numb and heavy, shuffled across the pavement. I listened to the sound of every pebble and leaf that I stepped on. I wanted to hear them all. To block out the noise behind me.
While blocks away, I could hear that noise. Distant. Muffled. Like I couldn't get far enough away.
Lavender, you didn't say a thing. You didn't ask me any questions. And I was grateful. Maybe you've had things happen, or seen things happen at parties that you just couldn't discuss. Not right away at least. Which is sort of fitting, because I haven't discussed any of this until now.
Well... no... I tried. I tried once, but he didn't want to hear it.
Was that the twelfth story? The thirteenth? Or something else entirely? Was it one of the names written on her paper that she wouldn't ever tell us about?
So, Lavender, you led me in this way to the path back to the castle. I thought about telling you Filch's rounds schedule, that now we'd risk being caught, but I didn't. My thoughts were everywhere, and nowhere at once, and I couldn't translate any of them into actions. I just let you guide me, saying nothing, and I felt your touch. You held my arm with such tenderness as you led the way.
What happened next, or rather, how it happened, I'm not entirely sure. I wasn't paying close attention, and other than that, I had never seen anything like it happen before, and certainly not by accident. It was raining, and though it wasn't a heavy rain, it blurred our vision, already lowered due to the dark and the unlit path.
And then... the whole area around us lit up. It was you. Your wand. And you cursed, because I guess that's not what you meant to do, and it might bring attention from the castle up to the path, and signal that there were students out after curfew.
You cursed, and the harshness in your voice brought the world crashing back.
We all know the spell to end lumos, don't we? Nox, right? But I guess you panicked, Lavender, because that's not what you said.
"Finite incantartum."
And normally, that would work. But again, I don't know if it was something about your energy, the way you were panicked, our proximity to the edge of the grounds, or what, but the world around us felt like it sort of bent, and then pushed back out, and then the air rippled – I could feel it. And I knew that feeling, from the war. From all of the barriers I had constructed and brought down in those years.
You had torn down the wards on the castle, somehow.
God no.
So now I was awake. I was alert. In my experience, nothing good happens when wards come down.
The accident, with the old man. And the younger guy. Did Hermione know? Did she know Lavender caused it?
I told you what had happened, what you had done, on accident. And you just sort of shrugged.
I knew where to go. I didn't need the map. I knew exactly where the next star was, and although I could see it from where I was sitting, I stood up to start walking.
Taking down wards, in itself, is not a life-ending thing. They can be put back up. And as far as accidental magic goes, it's just not that serious of an effect. You could have blown something up, the way Seamus always managed to. You could have... hurt something.
She knew.
Something alive.
And what were the first words you said? "Well, that's not good." But you didn't seem too concerned. And then you started to make your way forward again. But I dug in my heels, stopping you. I couldn't let you just walk away from that.
At the intersection of the main street and the path from Hogwarts, that's where the Hogwarts wards end and begin, depending on what side you're on. Past that point, there is no Apparition. If you try to Apparate off of the grounds, nothing will happen. If you try to Apparate in, you'll sort of hit an invisible barrier, of sorts, and then you kind of bounce. And then you're just standing back where you started. No harm done, but you can't get in.
"It's fine, Hermione," you said testily. You told me to be reasonable. "Dont' worry," you said. "Everyone knows you can't Apparate into or out of Hogwarts. People don't even try it anymore. It's common knowledge. And even if they did, what's the harm? The war's over, we're safe."
Well, Lavender, there are other dangers in the world, you know. I tried to tell you that, but you wouldn't listen. I started looking for my wand, and you asked me what I was doing.
"I'm going to send up sparks," I said. "Signal to one of the teachers. We should at least let someone know that the wards are down."
"Hermione! Half of the school is out after curfew just over there!" And true, we hadn't made it far from the party. "You'll get everyone into trouble!"
You took my wand, and I almost decked you, Lavender. I probably would have, if I weren't so drained. It had become habit, to always have my wand, and to have it taken from me inspired panic.
And then you walked away, pocketing my wand, telling me you'd give it back to me tomorrow.
You didn't care that the wards were down. You didn't care that I felt like I could die any second without my wand, with the wards down to allow anything and everything in. You just walked away. You got away.
In fact, you got away with much more than breaking the wards, Lavender.
And once again, I could have stopped it... somehow.
We all could have stopped it. We all could have stopped something. The rumors. The rape...
You.
There must have been something I could have said. At the very, very least I could have walked back to the Three Broomsticks and borrowed someone else's wand. I could have stolen your wand, because you weren't holding on to it, and it was sticking out of your pocket for anyone to take.
Actually, that would have been the only problem you had, Lavender. Because you made it back in one piece. But that wasn't the problem. The wards were down, and that was the problem.
The eighth star on your map. Just a block from the Three Broomsticks. That's where the border of Hogwarts grounds meets Hogsmeade. That's where the wards are formed. But on that night, for part of the night, there weren't any. And someone did decide to Apparate in. And someone else saw it. And startled him. And he tried to get away. But he wasn't focused. He didn't move with deliberation.
That was what the Apparition instructor had told us... Move with deliberation. Determination, deliberation... something else. Move with deliberation to avoid...
There were no wards on that night to avoid the whole incident. And one of them, one of the men, died.
No one knew who caused it. Not us. Not the low-ranking Aurors who had been sent to investigate.
But Lavender knew. And Hermione knew.
I never knew the guy who Apparated in. Some people at the school did. He was an older brother of a student who had attended Hogwarts a few years back, they said. When I saw his picture in the newspaper, I didn't recognize him.
I didn't go to the funeral, either. I couldn't. And now I'm sure it's obvious why.
She didn't know. Not about the older man. She didn't know the details.
But some of you were there, at his funeral.
Walking to return a toothbrush, his wife said as we waited on her couch for the Aurors to bring him home. He had walked to the other side of the village to return their granddaughter's toothbrush. They'd been keeping an eye on her while her parents were on holiday, and she'd left it by accident. The girl's parents said there was no need to come all the way over just for that. They had extras. "But that's what he does," his wife told me. "That's the kind of person he is."
And then the Aurors came.
For those of you who did go, let me describe was classes were like on the day of his funeral. In a word... it was quiet. About a quarter of the school took the morning off. Mostly friends of the brother still at school, and students who also had other siblings who would have been friends with him. But for those of us who did go to school, it was quiet. Dull.
Professor Slughorn said that funerals can be a part of the healing process. But I doubted that very much. I had been to many, since the war, and a few when I was younger, but this one was different. Because that night, there were no wards. Someone had broken them. And someone else... yours truly... could have stopped what happened.
Two Aurors helped her husband inside, his body trembling. His wife got up and walked over to him. She wrapped him in her arms and they cried.
When I left, closing the door behind me, the last thing I saw was the two of them standing in the middle of the living room, holding each other.
On the day of his funeral, so that those of you attending wouldn't miss any work, the rest of us did nothing. In every class, the professors gave us free time. Free to write. Free to read.
Free to think.
And what did I do? For the first time, I thought about my own funeral.
More and more, in very general terms, I'd been thinking of my own death. Just the fact of dying. During the war, I couldn't, because admitting that you may die, truly believing it and facing it... well, for most of us that means we've lost half of the battle already. But on that day, with all of you at a funeral, I began thinking of my own.
I reached the intersection. I stretched my hand out, pushing through the air, feeling the very slight resistance and then give as my hand passed through the wards back in place.
I could picture life – school and everything else – continuing on without me. But I could not picture my funeral. Not at all. Mostly because I couldn't imagine who would attend or what they would say.
I truly no longer had any idea what any of you thought of me.
I don't know what people think of you, either, Hermione. When we found out, and since your parents didn't have a service at Hogwarts, or anywhere in the wizarding world, no one said much about it at all.
I mean, it was there. We felt it. Your empty desk. The fact that you would not be coming back. But no one knew where to begin. No one knew how to start that conversation. For the first time that I could remember, the students were without words.
It's now been a couple of weeks since the party. So far, Lavender, you've done a great job of avoiding me. I suppose that's understandable. You'd like to forget what we did – what happened with us and the wards. The repercussions.
But you never will.
Maybe you didn't know what people thought of you because they themselves didn't know what they thought of you. Maybe you didn't give us enough to go on, Hermione.
If not for that party, I never would have met the real you. But for some reason, I am extremely grateful that you gave me that chance. However brief it was, you gave me a chance. And I liked the Hermione that I met that night. Maybe I could have even loved her.
But you decided not to let that happen. It was you who decided.
I, on the other hand, only have to think about it for one more day.
I turned away from the path, from the wards, and walked away.
If I had known that guy would have gotten splinched so badly, torn completely in half, I would've borrowed someone's wand. I would have sent up sparks. I would have signaled until someone finally came, or run to the castle and found someone to tell. But I never imagined that would happen. Never.
So instead, I walked. But not back to the party. My mind was racing. I couldn't think straight. I could barely walk straight.
I wanted to look back. But I kept facing forward, refusing to see it again.
I walked down the path. Slowly, so slowly, not really planning on going back to the castle, even though that was where the path led. I was without purpose, without aim.
We walked together, that night. Different routes, different roads, but at the same time. The same night. We walked to get away. Me, from you. And you, from the party. But not just from the party, as it turns out. From yourself.
And then I heard someone shout out. "You can't Apparate there! What are you doing?" he called. And then a loud, earth-shattering scream. I turned, and the younger man fell to the ground. But something was wrong. Something about the way he was shaped... it was all wrong.
It was like Hermione said. He was splinched, torn in half, dead in an instant after he screamed. The older man ran to help. I ran to help. The man asked me to go tell his wife that he was okay, because he was supposed to be home soon.
Eventually, though, I did come to the castle. And there was, of all people, Professor McGonagall rushing down the stairs.
I can't follow her map anymore. I'm not going back to the castle yet.
And I told her, I burst out with it – that the wards were down...
But she cut me off. She told me to calm down. And that's when I realized how hard I had been crying. How much I was struggling to catch one good breath.
I crossed the street and moved further from the Three Broomsticks.
Over the past few weeks, I had avoided the place. To avoid the reminder, the pain, of my one night with Hermione Granger. I have no desire to go in there twice in one night.
She told me the Aurors had been alerted, that they were on their way.
I pulled her map out of my pocket and gave it one last look.
I was shocked. I couldn't believe you actually told someone, Lavender. But I shouldn't have been shocked. Because as it turns out, you didn't call them.
I crumpled up her map, crushing it into a ball the size of my fist.
At breakfast the next day, when everyone replayed the events of what happened the previous night, that's when I found out who called. And it wasn't to report the broken wards.
I tossed the map away, and it bounced once on the street and then fell into the storm drain.
It was to report an accident. An accident caused by the broken wards that didn't send him back to his starting point, and then by a man startling him as he tried to go back. An accident I was never aware of... until then.
But that night, after talking to Professor McGonagall, I wandered around the castle. Because I had to stop crying. I had to calm down.
That's what I'm doing now. Staying away. I wasn't crying the night of the party, but I could barely hold it back now.
And I couldn't go back yet.
So I walked without thinking about where I was going. And it felt good. To just not care, to just go.
I walked for hours, imagining the mist outside creeping in, growing thick, and swallowing me whole. The thought of disappearing like that... so simply... made me so happy.
But that, as you know, never happened.
There were a few moments of silence, and I waited. But it was over, her voice didn't come back, and the tape stopped.
I opened the tape player to flip the tape. I was almost at the end.
Gods. I let out a shaky breath and closed my eyes. The end.
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AN: This chapter is the first one that is almost nothing like the original. The bare idea is there, a bit of the narrative, but given that the original involved a car wreck and wizards don't seem to use cars often, I had to change almost all of the details. It made it a pain to write. I think it translated well, all in all, though.
After this chapter, we have just three more to go! And now is when I would like to ask you something specific, as readers! I've had a few people ask me if Hermione is really dead, or if there's any chance that she may be still alive, trying to teach a lesson, or something. Now, truly, Hermione is dead. But these questions intrigued me. Now, enough background, on to the question!
How many of you would be interested in a bonus chapter – a "fake" chapter of sorts, or an alternate ending, after everything is posted, that deals with this possibility? I'm willing to write it, but I'd like to see how many of you would even want to read it.
Review with your opinion! Time is running out to make the decision!
The next chapter will be up Tuesday morning if all goes well, Thursday morning at the latest.
