"The kick inside is in the line that finally gets to you,
And it feels so good to hurt so bad,
And suffer just enough to sing the blues."
Elton John, "Sad Songs (Say So Much)"
"I killed him."
The only sound in that room after Harry's announcement was Hermione's subsequent rush of tears and her wheezing as she tried to catch her breath. Percy stood there, stunned, but reacted to Hermione with a quick, "Aviary, come and see to her." Aviary's son, Topiary, and daughter, Estuary, were asthmatic. As Aviary summoned an inhaler from a hall closet somewhere, Percy watched Harry's non-reaction to his wife.
"Lift her hands over her head," Harry whispered to Aviary as he attempted to administer the inhaler. Harry, strapped to the bed, barely moved an inch. When Aviary didn't do as told, he shouted, "LIFT her hands over head, Moppleton! Push her hair from her face, push her head back. Moppleton, do it!" Moppleton was lost for a moment as he looked from Percy to Harry, unsure of what to do.
"Do it, Aviary," Percy advised, and as Hermione raised her hands with Moppleton's assistance, her gasps lessened.
"Shall I go get a doctor?" Mulberry, the clerical assistant, asked, poised by the door, as Hermione regained her breath.
"No need, Stu," Percy responded, eyeing Harry's non-reaction. "Pick up your quill; Mrs. Granger will be just fine." The attention returned to the boy lying on the bed as he stared at his wife, who was red-faced and attempting to even her breathing out.
"You're okay, Hermione?" Percy questioned, concerned. Hermione nodded with effort, as she continued to fathom out what she had just heard. Had she misheard? Her husband? Not her husband. She stared at her Harry. "I killed him," reverberated within her mind.
"Did I hear you correctly, earlier, before… In front of all these witnesses – in front of Investigator Moppleton, Mr. Mulberry, your wife and I, did you say that you murdered Professor Severus Snape?" Percy repeated as Mulberry's quill scratched hurriedly somewhere in the background.
Harry looked at Hermione, and they locked eyes for but a second. A part of her still didn't believe it. He saw the hope in her eyes – that she had misheard, that he was lying, that he hadn't said what he'd just said. He took a deep, ragged breath. "I'll repeat it if necessary," he said, almost dripping with frustration. "I murdered Professor Severus Snape in the caverns under Malfoy Manor."
"No, Harry!" Hermione yelled. "You didn't. You're lying. Tell them you're lying. He's lying, Percy, don't believe him."
With almost a sad expression, the most emotion he had shown her in months, tears entered his eyes. "It's the truth. I did it. I remember it, I know I did it."
"Mrs. Granger, if you do not get a hold of yourself, I'll have to ask you to leave," Moppleton interjected, eyeing Harry. Percy nodded as Hermione looked at him pleadingly, then settled herself into her chair.
"What happened, Harry?" Percy questioned, his rumbling voice barely heard by the quill, which stopped for a moment until Mulberry picked it up and manually wrote Percy's words. Harry stared at him, apathetic. "What would bring you to do that? Professor Snape, of all people? He was on our side."
"You're a bright man, Percy. You know how it happened – the Killing Curse. I don't think I need to bore you with the details," Harry contributed. Hermione observed that his voice was the same tone he used throughout Hogwarts whenever he wanted to gloss over a winning Quidditch game.
"Don't get smart with me, Potter. You killed a man, by your own admission. The only thing that can keep you alive at this point is details. What happened down there in the caverns?"
"I told you I did it, Weasley! What else in the world do you want me to do describe about it? How I took out my wand and pointed it at Snape? Do you want to know about his horror-stricken look? The tone he used to plead with me for his life? How I ignored him? What I felt when I said the words? What the hell do you want to know, Percy? What more can I tell you?" he bellowed, his face becoming red, bits of saliva running out of his mouth. He gave Percy a moment to respond. "Come on, Percy, Moppleton? What do you want to know? What can I do to enlighten you? Do you want to know about how I dream about it every night? Can I describe the green light that I dream about each and every damn night? ASK ME A QUESTION, PERCY. ANY QUESTION. Come on."
The tears were flowing down Hermione's face freely. More than missing her long lost professor, though, she sympathized with her husband. She hated seeing in this pain.
Percy gritted his teeth. The loss of Snape had hit him hard. "Of all the men in the world, Harry, why – why – of your own free will – would you murder Severus Snape of all people?"
"My own free will? My own free FUCKING will? Who said anything about my own free will, my choices? Goddamn it, if I had done it of my own free will, you don't think I would have taken Malfoy or Nott or Crabbe or Goyle first? You think I'd attack one of my own. I murdered him, I murdered Snape, but it was not of my own free will."
"I don't understand," Percy muttered, shaking his head, wringing his hands.
It clicked with Hermione in an instant. "The Imperius. The Death Eaters. They used the Imperius on him." She watched him intently as his stiff back slumped down and for the first time since he had returned, he lost that complacent look he had been sporting. The distant façade faded as the truth appeared.
"T-they had us down there: me, Snape, a few others. A few got away, a few were made examples of…" Harry started. In that moment, Dr. Boonyfetter entered, carrying his clipboard as if it were an extension of his arm.
Percy looked up at the good doctor, before Boonyfetter stopped and registered that there were more people in the room than normal. "I didn't realize, Mr. Weasley-"
"No matter, Dr. Boonyfetter, we'll get you when we're done with Mr. Potter," Percy said gently.
"If Dr. Boonyfetter would stay, I think he may appreciate what I am about to say," Harry said. Boonyfetter sat down on a chair in the corner.
"Made examples of?" Hermione prodded, moving closer to her husband, taking his hand, but not being forward enough to sit down.
"Toni Wood survived the Conflict at Peckinwood," Harry revealed softly. "And she was down there with me for a bit… before they tired of her. She was always too feisty to break, and they made an example of her. She was spirited even to the end. Kept cursing that these Death Eaters would pay for making her miss Puddlemere United in the finals. 'Locking me up is one thing, starving me is another, but depriving me of Quidditch? If I wasn't going to kill them before, I sure as hell am going to do it now.' It was all we could to keep each other sane – I talked about Hermione, she talked of Oliver and their son Julian." He laughed internally. " Killed her down there right in front of me and Snape."
"For the sake of clarity, you are referring to Auror Antonia Boonyfetter-Wood, aren't you, Harry?" Percy inquired as Harry nodded. "Let the record reflect that Mr. Potter nodded."
"They buried her in the loose soil underneath my cavern. I-I… it was more than I could take, knowing that she was underneath the ground that I paced day after day, wh-when I had the strength to move at all. The meals stopped coming after the first week… I guess their house-elves were killed somewhere in battle, or maybe they just wanted to do us in, I don't know." Harry looked at Hermione's hands in his. "It was memories of you, of us, our wedding, our baby, our everything that kept me going at first. I didn't need food, all I needed was you, and then Malfoy started coming down, coming to taunt me and Snape. They'd soundproofed our caverns, you see, but even if we wanted to, we were so far apart, we couldn't really talk. I didn't have my wand with me. I had nothing, no way of getting anything, no way of getting out. I dug for a bit, I kept hitting human bone, and it wasn't Toni's because I knew where her corpse was located, in the far right corner from the man-made wall."
Percy exchanged a look with Moppleton, who immediately got up and left; no doubt he was dispatching the Coroner's to get Wood's body, along with any others hidden within the caverns.
Hermione shuddered as she thought of her husband, surrounded by nothing but darkness, memories, and bodies, including the corpse of one of his good friends, left with nothing but to contemplate his mistakes and death. It would drive a lesser man insane.
"They dragged me and Snape out after a bit. Snape looked haggard, older, but no worse for wear, really. Remarkably alert for what he'd been through. He hadn't been touched really except for some holes in his clothes, and it had been ages since we'd had contact with any human. He saw me and said, 'Potter,' in that way he always did, as if he'd just passed me in the corridors at Hogwarts or something – without the implied malice, though. He didn't smile, I mean, if he ever smiled I think the world may have ended, but his lips curled up in such a way… I'd never seen it before, and I remember that very clearly."
Hermione smiled involuntarily. The thought of Professor Snape smiling was almost as incomprehensible as her husband murdering anyone because he wanted to.
"They were bored, the Death Eaters were. I don't know if they ever had any intention of killing me. That would have been too easy. It's Lord Voldemort's style, but not Lucius Malfoy's – and, luckily or unluckily, I'm not quite sure –Voldemort wasn't there. The lot of them were standing there in some kind of larger room – not really a room, more of a larger cave – and Malfoy stood me in front of Snape, handed me my wand, and said 'Kill him.'" Harry laughed caustically. "As if were some kind of everyday occurrence. 'Kill him.' I said no, I wouldn't, and they laughed – the lot of them chuckled. He said it again, I said no again. He said it would be easier without the Imperius… and I said no. And then he performed the charm, and before I knew what happened, a green bolt escaped my wand and Snape was on the floor." He looked pleadingly at Hermione. "I tried to fight the Imperius, God knows I did, but I couldn't. There were so many of them, all pointing their wands at me, and before I knew it – when I could feel through the pain – I was raising my wand… and I tried to stop them. I couldn't." The tears streamed freely. "I tried, damn it, and I couldn't stop them. I killed Snape because I didn't have enough willpower to stop them." He finally looked Hermione in the eyes. "Don't you understand why I don't want you to be with me? I can't protect you from the world, I can't even protect you from myself."
Dr. Boonyfetter, frustrated, nervous and emotionally exhausted from the news about his daughter and his own tortured patient, exercised his physician's right to end the interrogation. "He's too drained. If, Mr. Weasley, you and your assistant would call it a day and let Mr. Potter get some sleep, I'd appreciate it. You too, Ms. Granger. Anything you need to say to Mr. Potter can wait until tomorrow – after a good night's rest."
Percy exchanged a look with Stu and they both departed warily, discussing the facts exposed quietly as they walked out the door.
Almost numbly, Hermione followed suit.
Author's Note: I am done writing the story. All I have to do is post the last few chapters. Keep an eye out for frequent updates as I am a glutton for reviews and probably won't be able to stick to my goal of one chapter a week – try to chapters a week like this one! Special thanks to galtxtr, who recommended my fic on portkey.org and continues to give me constructive criticism with each chapter I write – but thanks to every reader who reviews or not. It's great that you're reading and appreciating the story.
If you are coming back for a second read, you'll notice that I made a mistake with a curse used in this chapter. This is a re-post, and I have since corrected the error. Thanks to all who pointed it out.