Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter.
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**Together**
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Hermione knew something was wrong the moment her Port-Key deposited her back in Wizarding Britain. It was the worst possible timing, of course. She was emotionally and physically drained after a long weekend watching her parents.
They weren't her parents anymore. They were Monica and Wendell Wilkins, the people she had condemned them to be forever with that one Obliviation.
She was the brightest witch of her age. Most of the time, that was a good thing. Sometimes, sometimes, it wasn't. Sometimes, it meant that her spells were a little more permanent than she intended them to be. Sometimes, it meant that she was never getting her parents back.
Harry and Ron were waiting for her as she stepped away from the landing area. Their faces were solemn, sober, and they were doing that thing they did when they had to upset her, and were afraid of her reaction. Their shoulders bounced off of each other as they shifted on their feet, and their eyes darted between watching her approach and side-eying each other.
She never felt more on the outside of their bromance than moments like these, when she was their surrogate mother, and they were afraid of disappointing her.
"Hiya, Hermione!" Ron said with incredibly fake joviality. "How was Australia?"
Hermione cut straight to the point. "What is it?"
Her boys exchanged a glance. Harry sighed, and cut to the chase.
"Tom Riddle is back."
His words sent a jolt of electricity up her spine. Her wand was out before Harry took his next breath. She scanned their surroundings. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but this was Voldemort they were dealing with.
Hermione thought she was drained, she thought she didn't have it left in her to feel this furious, this murderous, to feel this terribly, horribly dismayed...to feel.
She was wrong.
She burned.
Every fibre of her being filled to overflowing with fury, rage flowing in her blood, in her veins. She came back from visiting her parents, from watching them from afar because they didn't remember her, because of Voldemort, to this?
How dare he come back? How was this possible?
"How?" she growled. Her hair was sparking with magic, but Harry and Ron didn't back away, the way so many of her other acquaintances would have. Instead, they stepped closer. Just like that, the gap was bridged.
This was familiar, this was something they knew - banding together against a threat. It had been Voldemort, then it had been all the tiny difficulties they had faced rebuilding their lives after the war. Now, inexplicably, it was Voldemort again.
She could practically feel the cold, clammy chill of their little tent, back when they were on the run. She remembered the sad, broken tilt of Ron's shoulders, the determination that had seemed to be the only thing keeping Harry on his feet.
She remembered Harry's body, wan and still, so small crumpled on the ground.
They had worked so, so hard to defeat that monster, to make him go away.
And now he was back?
"He was picked up outside the graveyard in Little Hangleton," Harry was saying. "They have him in a top security holding cell in the Department of Mysteries. He's claiming he doesn't remember a thing, that he doesn't remember being Voldemort."
"He's lying," Ron inserted. "He lies like he breathes. This is just a ploy to gain our trust, to make it easier for him to set up his plans for world domination…"
"They want me to make a decision," Harry cut Ron off. "Since I'm the Boy Who Lived, and all… Hermione, I don't know what to do. What if he's lying? What if he's not? What if he really doesn't remember? Does that make him innocent?"
Voldemort had taken their childhood - Harry's from the beginning, Hermione and Ron when they were first-years. He had stolen Harry's life - Harry, who could have been more than just the Boy Who Lived, Hermione, who could have had her parents her whole life - Voldemort had broken the world.
Hermione's hands were shaking. She stared at them, fascinated. A hot ember of rage cooled until it settled in her chest, burning hotly. She remembered everything Voldemort had done, but she understood Harry's dilemma.
What if Tom Riddle was simply Tom Riddle? A tiny voice in her head asked, had Tom Riddle ever been simply Tom Riddle? Or had he just been foetus Voldemort from the start?
The world wanted Harry to decide, Harry alone. But he didn't have to.
"We go in to see him." She looked up, her gaze hard. Her anger was reflected in Harry's sharp emerald eyes, and the sharp cut of Ron's jaw. "We go in together."
Because that was how they defeated him the first time.
That was how they always did it.
Together.
a/n: review :)