20. The pain of others

As Hermione looked, she could see Isaac's memories and emotions gradually emerge from a dark blur, reconfiguring themselves, taking physical form. Colours pulsed, lights shattered into tiny balls and shadows raced up the walls that were coming into focus around them. A bedroom with scuffed, pale green walls, cheap rented furniture, a glaring light bulb with no lampshade protruding from the ceiling. Two figures were standing in the room, a man and a woman, their faces gradually forming from shadow. Isaac Edwards was one, only much younger, in his 20s perhaps, his face free of the perpetual dourness that haunted him in the waking world. The woman she had never seen before. She was as young as Isaac, gentle-faced, wavy blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, her eyes magnified by wide-rimmed glasses. In her green sweater and brown corduroys, she had a sensible air about her. She held a wand in her hand, looking Isaac straight in the eyes as they stood a few feet apart from one another. He too had his wand in his hand. She still wasn't quite used to seeing him with a wand.

The scene was complete before Hermione, and she knew it must also be the same for Rachel. She understood her role. She had to make sure that Rachel couldn't escape the scene, or be released from it. She had to see what Isaac wanted to show her. And Hermione had to close the door, lock Rachel into the picture.

Now the younger Isaac held up his wand, half pointed at the girl and half off into space. Keeping her eyes fixed on him, the girl raised her wand in the same way, mirroring him.

'Ready?' he asked in a gentle voice.

A look of fear flashed across her face, but after a moment she nodded. He moved the position of his wand so that it pointed at her face, at a point on her forehead between the eyes. Swiftly she did the same. He began to murmur an incantation, indistinctly at first so that the words couldn't be made out. She took up the incantation, softly at first then more clearly.

'You are the night to which I am opening.'

Their lips moved in perfect synchronisation, their eyes locked together like lovers. Now light began to leak from the wands and gush into their foreheads, as if there were holes there. After a few moments the streams of light burst at a single point from the backs of their heads then curved downwards, drawing an arc around their necks, weaving them together, then spiralling ever downwards, crossing and pulling a sinew of light around and around their bodies. When the interlocking lines reached the ground they began to rise, now spiralling up and drawing new lines around them, the process continuing until their bodies were hidden by a palimpsest of light.

In the next scene they lay outstretched on the bed in the same room. Their faces were pallid and their movements sluggish and drained of energy. Isaac reached out his hand, touched the girl on her cheek and gently moved her face round so that she was looking at him across the bed.

'Was it what you expected?' he asked gently.

She didn't answer to begin with, or couldn't. Her eyes struggled to focus on his, moving jerkily in their sockets, the pupils bleached of their colour.

'Kirsten,' he said more firmly, as if she couldn't hear him. 'Did you hear what I said?

Finally she seemed to see him.

'I never want to leave,' she replied, softly but plaintively. Then she looked away.

Time after time the scene repeated itself, always in the same room, first the two of them standing in front of each other and casting the spell, then sprawled on the bed, coming down from its effects. Sometimes they spoke to each other, in little fragmented conversations that grew more and more incoherent. Sometimes they kissed languidly and fell asleep. Other times he would be restless, getting up and pacing the room or looking distractedly out of the window. One time he tried for minutes on end to wake her, collapsing onto the bed next to her when he finally succeeded. And over time, always growing in his mind, was the need to break free of that place, and the hope, ever fainter, that he could take her with him too.

'Why do you make it stop?' she said to him reproachfully, her head lolling against his shoulder. 'Don't let it stop … There's nothing for us out here.'

Once again they stood in front of each other in that same room. An indeterminate length of time had elapsed. They were emaciated, dishevelled, their eyes glazed. She looked as if she could barely stand up, but her hand didn't tremble as she raised her wand to his face. Slowly he followed her. Pain was visible in her eyes as she looked into his.

'Isaac,' she said. 'Don't mourn for me.'

The lines of light moved faster than ever before around them and they were soon lost in the light, the faintest outline of their embracing bodies visible from within. Suddenly the perspective seemed to change, and the onlookers were no longer onlookers, but themselves enclosed within the cocoon of light. Her cold cheek rested against his, her eyes closed, her arms loosely gripping the nape of his neck. Then the light started to crack and dissipate, the dark of the waking world starting to invade, to claim them. It's never happened this way. Something's wrong. His pulse went suddenly arrhythmic, throbbing in his throat. Then the light was all gone and they were in his room again. That hated room. She wasn't in his arms anymore. He looked around the room and its sickly green walls, bare as always. He looked down. She was crumpled on the floor, all the light gone from her, her skin yellow grey. He kneeled by her side, holding her hand, remembering even to check for a pulse. It was still there. But her eyes didn't open, she didn't react to him calling her name, apart from once maybe, when her head seemed to stir. Too late. He could hear her pulse in his head, slower and fainter. He squeezed her hand, looked helplessly at her face and began to count. Counted the beating of her heart. The last few beats. Close to fifty he had counted when he knew that very few remained. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, at least to catch her in life one last time. Then the count stopped.

He began to speak but his words fell silent. The scene began to fall apart, as if the film it was running on had begun to rupture. The walls and ceiling cracked and suddenly the open sky stretched out above them, red and glowering.

No more, said a voice in Hermione's ear. She knew it was Lillian's.

A cool wind was blowing, whipping through Hermione's hair. The land around her was all rubble and overgrown weeds. The earth was twisted and lopsided, as if after a landslide. Downed cables and tangled wires were strewn all over the ground, poking out of wild growths of weeds and coiled around collapsed buildings, seemingly connected to nothing and leading to nowhere.

Up ahead of her, through the tangle of tall grass, wires, dried mud and rubble, a figure was running, slipping on debris and running across the blasted terrain, heading towards an unknown destination. Rachel. For a moment Hermione glanced back behind her. Down the hill, surrounded by a wasteland of neglect, stood a small slate-roofed and brick-fronted house. It looked like an ordinary terraced house that had been detached from its neighbours and dropped down in the middle of a wasteland. Isaac's house. The house where Kirsten died.

She went as quickly as she could across the shattered landscape, glancing around her in the red silence, trying to catch up with Rachel. She passed a series of twisted ridges and dank, tangled hollows until she came to a place that she sensed marked an ending. She hesitated before the invisible boundary, looking out over the uncertain terrain beyond. Where are you running to? It's not a good idea to run around out here unprotected. Who knows who might see you. In the distance she could see the small, dark figure crossing the wasteland. Think, Hermione. Down here you don't need to run.

The next moment she was right in the girl's thoughts, the ground in front of her heaving up and down as she ran forward into the dark. She didn't seem to notice Hermione's presence, or at least gave no sign that she did. I'm free. I'm free, Rachel kept saying to herself. Now all I want to do is run. Out here she was going to find him. This was where he wandered, out in the wasteland.

Suddenly in the distance something came looming out of the red darkness, growing bigger and bigger with every moment as Rachel ran tirelessly onward. At first it seemed like the outline of a mountain rising up out of the shattered plain into the red sky, but its sides and cupola were too regular, too precise to be anything other than man made. He's here, she could hear Rachel saying to herself in elation. She ran towards the great gate of the great building, its towering dome looking down over what seemed like a great expanse of nothingness. Only it wasn't nothing: the building felt connected to everything and everyone. It saw everything and everyone. It saw Rachel as she ran to the gate; it saw Hermione carried along in the girl's thoughts. As Rachel pushed open the tall, carved wooden gate, for an instant Hermione considered bailing out, but a new thought that presented itself made her stay. Lillian is afraid to come here.

Still Rachel ran, now down a long aisle lined on either side with towering bookshelves, the great cupola high above her head. 'Where are you?' she suddenly shouted out into the silence, her voice echoing around the endless rows of shelves. Suddenly she stopped, slightly out of breath, her head bowed down. There was blood on the floor, an ugly puddle of blood on the stone floor, a smear leading away from it down the aisle. Now Rachel was running again, following the splashes of blood, veering round a corner onto a perpendicular but identical corridor. Far up ahead a solitary figure was staggering forward, a trail of blood dripping in its wake. 'Caleb!' Rachel shouted. The figure kept advancing slowly but now every moment she was gaining on him. 'Caleb!' she shouted again. At last he stopped and turned. Hermione knew his face from the class photo. He was handsome, but his face was white and there was a deadness in his eyes. In his hand he held a bloody knife and his trousers were saturated with blood. 'It's no use,' he said, his words not obviously directed at her. 'I still can't feel it.' 'I can,' said Rachel, the exhilaration clear in her voice. 'Caleb, I've felt it tonight. All it takes is the slightest shift in perspective. Our own pain is so weak. It's nothing. It's gone in an instant, annihilated by the pain of the other.'

Helpless before the pain of the other. The words spelled out by the incantation came back to Hermione, and for the first time they seemed to make sense. But suddenly the scene began to fade into a dark, blurred distance, disintegrating and reconfiguring itself again. It was as if Hermione was being prised from the scene. I'm waking up.

Hermione woke with her head and arms sprawled on the kitchen table. Her neck felt twisted and stiff and she slowly lifted it, her head reeling and her heart pounding.

'So you want to feel the pain of another?' said a voice. Ginny Weasley stood in the doorway of the kitchen, a black look on her face. Hermione swayed to her feet and took half a dozen faltering steps towards her.

'I know who you are,' she said coolly.

'I suppose you would. You're getting so good at this now,' replied the figure who still spoke with Ginny's voice and wore Ginny's shape. 'But you understand why I'm here as Ginny, don't you?'

'Yes,' said Hermione. 'To parody what happened to Rachel tonight.'

'There's no parody, Hermione,' said the figure. 'I just wanted you to enjoy the kind of insight that Rachel experienced.'

The woman who looked like Ginny shot out her hand and grabbed hold of Hermione.

'Are you willing to see what Ginny sees?'

Hermione made no attempt to resist.

'Where shall I begin?' she continued. 'There are so many places.'

The kitchen disappeared. In its place was the memory of Ginny ascending a staircase. Hermione recognised it straight away as the staircase in Grimmauld Place, the one that led up to the top floor. Ginny stepped onto the landing and pushed open the door that led into the attic room at the top of the house. Harry was standing in the middle of the room, wand in hand. Little streaks of light burst from the end of it then began to chase each other round in small circles in the air. For a few moments they seemed to weave themselves together before splitting apart and shooting off into different corners of the room.

'What are you doing?' said Ginny. Her tone was curious, but contented. I was happy then. I thought he was too. Things were getting close to normality. Or they seemed to be.

'Oh, just experimenting,' said Harry, lowering his wand. 'I want to see

what wands can do, other than the usual things we learned in school or were forced to use out there.' His expression darkened for a moment: the memories of the Battle of Hogwarts were still too fresh then.

'Why don't you come downstairs?' she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

'I will in a little while,' he replied, a little distracted.

Now I know what he was doing up there, said Ginny's voice. He worked there for weeks on end, making your present. He gave me presents of course, but not like the one he gave to you.

Now they were outside, in the woods not far from the Burrow. Ginny was walking alongside Ron. 'How did they get so far ahead?' he was saying. 'Ah, there they are,' he said, pointing to two figures standing close together under a tree. Look at him touching you on the arm. He was down that day. What were you telling him to make him feel better? Why was it that you knew what to say and I didn't? I spent so much of my time in these woods when I was growing up. Harry and I walked here loads of times too. This is my place, not yours.

Now it was just Ginny and Harry, in their bedroom at the flat they lived in after Grimmauld Place. Harry was stretched out on the bed, reading a book. Ginny came in and jumped up on the bed next to him. 'What are you reading?' He looked up from the book, which had a stray piece of paper half-pressed between the pages like a bookmark, only not at the page at which it was open. 'Oh, it's about animism in Siberia,' he replied. 'Oh right,' said Ginny. 'Where did you get that from?' 'Err … Hermione lent it to me.'

I didn't like the fact that you lent him a book. But I told myself that I wasn't being fair. There was no need to be so possessive, so jealous. But my instinct was right. Every little gesture of yours was an attempt to encroach on my territory, to influence him, to prise him away from me.

Now the scene was at a party, a bizarre party thrown years earlier by Luna at her father's place. Ginny pushed through the crowd, looking for Harry. Finally she found him, standing on the party's fringes, talking in a low voice to Hermione. His face was clouded with worry; she was looking up into his eyes, touching him on the arm. There you go again, reassuring him, soothing him. Your hand touching him. In what world do you think it's your place to do that? You smug, traitorous whore. If I had a knife I'd cut those delicate little fingers of yours clean off.

Or at the Burrow, a bunch of them sitting round in the living room. Ginny looked around at Harry, in time to see him exchange a look of quiet complicity with Hermione. I could go on all night with all the little scenes and moments I've witnessed between you and him over the years. But nothing can compare with the other night. How he leaped up to save you, ready to give up everything for you. And the look of triumph on your face! I'll never get over that. I never knew just how far you have him wrapped around your finger. You've won, Hermione, you've got him now. What do you plan to do with him now? Ruin him like you've ruined yourself? Good luck to you. To be honest, if it all ends in disaster, I won't mind.

When Hermione opened her eyes she was sprawled on the kitchen floor. She pulled herself up onto her side and looked up. The figure in Ginny's form still stood there, a look of bitter satisfaction on her face.

'How was that?' she asked in a cool voice.

'Excruciating, but all true,' Hermione replied bleakly.

'Do you see things more clearly now?'

'I suppose so.'

'Has it made you stronger?'

Her limbs aching, Hermione dragged herself to her feet.

'Yes. It has. I think I could do you some serious damage now.'

Ginny's mouth curled into a smile.

'Haven't you done enough harm to me already?'

'I'll make you take off that mask first,' Hermione replied.

'No you won't.'

'Won't I?'

'You're good, but not that good. No, Hermione, if you want to lash out then it's this face you'll be hurting. Will you enjoy it? If you manage to really hurt Ginny, properly maim her, you might actually feel bad enough to really take me on. Only thing is, what will Harry say when he sees you fantasising about torturing Ginny? Do you really want to test his loyalty to you that much?'

Hermione looked at the ground then back at the figure before her. So clever of you, Lillian, as always.

'Take off the mask and we'll talk.'

The next instant Lillian stood before her.

'Aren't you going to congratulate me?' said Hermione.

'Oh yes, congratulations,' Lillian replied. 'You managed to create an opening in the circle. Feel free to apply whenever you like.'

'No thanks,' said Hermione with a smirk. 'But I thought you'd be more pleased. I thought you liked challenges. I thought you liked it when I outdid you. Or are you worried you'll lose?'

Lillian's eyes burned coldly.

'I'm not worried about losing, Hermione,' she said after a few moments. 'I'm destined to lose and you're destined to win. It's just that I have to make sure that you win the right battle.'

'Is that another puzzle for me to work out?'

'Something like that. But I'll be helping you, don't worry.'

Hermione looked at her insouciantly.

'Was there anything else?'

Lillian smiled.

'One little thing. While you were off frolicking in the wasteland, you were neglecting poor Harry. I'd go and pay him a visit if I were you.'

Hermione felt her throat go dry.

'You understand,' she said slowly and deliberately, her gaze fixed on Lillian, 'depending on what I find, I may have to come and kill you after all.'

A vaguely melancholy look drifted across Lillian's face.

'That wouldn't be such a bad thing. But you should remember, if you provoke me, I have to respond.'

Hermione eyed her coldly.

'It must be terrible to be you,' she said.

'It is,' whispered Lillian. There was no triumph on her face.

In an instant Hermione was in the flat above Armin's shop. The spare room where Harry slept was plunged in darkness. Lumos, she said in a loud, agitated voice and flashed her wand through the air, casting light on a broad sweep of the darkened room, first at chest height, then lower. The lower sweep soon revealed a limp body sprawled on the floor by the far wall.

'Harry!' she shouted, pouncing on his prostrate form and rolling him over onto his back. His eyes were open and seemingly staring at a distant point, his hands covered with blood. She quickly reached for his wrist and located his pulse, which was there. Then she tried to shake him awake, the blood on his hands smearing on her clothes.

'Harry, wake up!' she shouted. Her next thought was to locate the wound. It wasn't hard to find: his t-shirt was torn at the chest and drenched with blood. She pulled up his t-shirt and whispered healing charms over and over, until the horizontal wound on his chest closed up and once again resembled an old scar.

By now Harry was half-awake and groaning, rolling his head from side to side.

'Harry!' Hermione shouted again, looking for a sign of recognition in his eyes. But the eyes seemed to search in the dark for another.

'Leave me alone …' he murmured.

'Harry, what's wrong?' said Hermione, his change of mood at seeing her suddenly affecting her more than his injuries.

'I'm sorry,' he continued in the same distracted tone. 'So sorry … I don't deserve to live.'

He broke from her gaze and looked limply at the wall. She turned and followed his gaze then held up the wand light.

Bloody writing was dripping down the wall. It read:

Nothing worse than a traitor.

At the foot of the wall lay a jagged, blood-stained shard of glass. Hermione understood that it had been used to reopen the wound in his chest and write the words on the wall.

'What happened?' she asked, although she already had a pretty good idea.

'Mum's right,' Harry groaned. 'I am a traitor.'

Hermione began to understand the scenario that had been played out for him. Perhaps one of Lillian's helpers had been sent on this particular mission. Or more likely Lillian herself had twisted time to come and torment Harry personally. She felt lightheaded and vaguely nauseous. Then she threw off the sensation.

'Harry,' she shouted, laying her hand on the side of his face, searching for his gaze. 'I'm responsible for this. If anyone should be punished, it's me.'

She reached out for the shard of glass and put it back in his hand. Do it, Harry, if you want. I won't mind. It might even make me feel a bit better. His hand gripped the glass, as if he meant to use it, but then he let it fall out of his hand. The shard cracked in two as it hit the floor. His expression seemed to clear. She even thought she could make out the vaguest of smiles.

'Covered in blood again,' he said at last in a deadpan voice. She let out a nervous laugh of relief.

Blood was all around them: on the floor, on the wall and on their bodies, faces and hands. She pulled herself upright and stumbled forward, broken glass crunching under the soles of her shoes. She reached back for Harry then half-hauled him onto his feet. He switched the main light on and they looked around at the blood-splattered room and the bloody message daubed on the wall.

Harry raised his wand to erase it, but Hermione put her arm out to stop him.

'It is true, Harry,' she said. 'And I really am sorry.'

'Don't worry,' he replied. This time he erased the message.

'I didn't think she could get to me,' he said.

'It's alright.'

'I was just sitting here. Waiting for something to happen I suppose. Then it did. My mother was here. Here in this room. But she seemed so angry. I've never seen her angry. The look on her face was terrifying. She said she was so disappointed in me. She never thought me capable of betrayal.'

Hermione found it hard to look him in the eye. She looked down at his hand and saw that it was shaking as he spoke.

'I was stupid.'

'No, you weren't.'

They quickly went about cleaning away the blood from the rest of the room then sat down on the bed.

'Is Armin …?' Hermione began.

'No,' said Harry.

'Maybe it's for the best.'

'Yeah, otherwise he might think I'm a rather deranged house guest.'

For a moment their laughter echoed round the room.

'We got one of hers tonight,' said Hermione.

'What do you mean?'

'We freed her from Lillian, I think. But so much has been happening I haven't even had a chance to try and find out the consequences.'

'What else has been happening?'

She replayed some of the night's highlights in her mind.

'I'll tell you everything,' she said. 'Just not right now.' She took hold of Harry's hand and clasped it tightly. 'But after tonight, there's one thing I've decided.'

'What's that?' said Harry. She looked at him and smiled.

'From now on you and I have to stick together. No matter what.'