Disclaimer: Just like before.
A/N: Here's the next one. All of a sudden I've become really interested in working on this, and people are responding to it more now. So all of a sudden Hermione's thoughts kind of coalesced into this. So here it is. –Miss Laine
Title: Lose Yourself
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Harry's eyes twinkled. They were happy and fun. Sure, he was thin and pale and short, but I overlooked that. It didn't matter to me.
After that Halloween, he could have called me a mudblood and I would have forgiven him. He saved my life…Ron, too, I guess…but Harry's the one that stepped forward as it raised its club for that fatal swing. He didn't even hesitate, really. He acted, and saved me.
Yet he never acted like I owed him a thing. It was as if he just forgot all about it…and perhaps he had…because it was what friends do. Forgive, forget, and moved on…
And we were friends, after that. The three of us. Friends forever.
In fourth year, Ron almost ruined that. He was jealous of Harry because he didn't really understand him. That made him angry and stupid, but in the end he came to his senses. He saved the friendship, and in doing so saved himself. If he'd never forgiven Harry, I would never have forgiven him…and we would never have gotten together.
Fifth year Harry could have ruined it…but we had learned our lesson already. We weren't letting him go. No matter what he did.
He shouted at us, he kept secrets from us, lied to us…and then Sirius died. Everything changed after that.
Harry lost the only thing like a parent he'd ever had. No matter that he'd only known Sirius for a little over a year and a half. Sirius was his guardian. That was what mattered to him.
And then Sirius died, because he was rash and brave and young and stupid. Not thinking of the teenager that had come to depend on him so much… Not that I would ever tell Harry that…though now he would agree with me, smiling sadly and nodding.
That is what changed. Harry has started accepting things. It is disturbing and worrisome in some ways, and reassuring in others.
He no longer shouts. In fact, his voice is rarely raised for any reason.
He no longer argues. He almost always agrees with what I say, and if he has any disagreement at all, he just points it out politely. Sometimes his argument is right, and I am wrong. I refuse to let myself feel put-out when he is right.
Because when I was right and he was not, it got a man killed. Harry's so transparent about that. Whenever he admits I'm right about something, I can see the pain in his eyes, as he remembers one time when he refused to listen to me. And then Sirius was killed.
Harry has quit fighting like that. He has quit fighting fate, and he has quit fighting where his life is headed.
The last is what scares me. He no longer struggles against what he sees as inevitable…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We researched it. Ron, Harry, and I. Because over the summer after fifth year, the connection between Harry and Voldemort snapped taut, like a rubber-band springing back.
I first learned of it when my owl started returning my letters to Harry untouched. Over and over, for two weeks straight. Then one came to me from Hogwarts, politely asking me to please send my letters to Hogwarts now. I did, and Harry started responding again, though his responses were short and shaky.
I didn't know why. I was afraid to know why.
The Order refused to tell me. I talked to Ron, and they weren't telling him anything either. He did know something was up, though. His mother spent a lot of time crying for no reason, and both Bill and Charlie looked tired and thinner than usual.
But no one would tell him what was going on.
We got angry. We wrote letters.
We got a response.
We did not like the response.
…Mrs. Weasley escorted us to Hogwarts. She wouldn't say what was going on exactly. The reply we'd been given had been vague and roundabout. But then this…
And I realized what could be so wrong when we were shown to the infirmary.
Harry.
Harry was in the bed in the far corner. He was sitting up, and smiled as we came over, but we could see just how bad he looked.
He told us that he was fine. But of course he always says that. Even then, when there were small bloodstains on the sheets where they'd touched half-healed gashes, and ugly bruises on his face.
Dumbledore took us aside and told us what had happened. Ron was green. I couldn't stop crying.
Our best friend, our mutually most important friend, was in grave danger, had suffered through terrible tortures.
I think if I had had any idea then that there would be many more episodes like this, I would have thrown up. As it was, I cried.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"We've got to do something for him," Ron tells me. His blue eyes are frantic.
He is like an older brother or a father, worried to distraction over the one they see as their charge. Harry.
"He's weakening," I admit. "But why shouldn't he?" I ask, in Harry's defense. He has been strong long enough. Why can't he have a rest?
"His eyes…Hermione…" Ron murmurs. I slide into his lap, resting my shoulder against his chest. His breath is warm puffs on my neck. I think he might be crying…he has cried a lot, recently.
"I know," I say softly. I trace down his neck with the fingers of my left hand.
I love Ron. I love him more than I could have ever imagined possible.
Considering that I hated him for quite a while in first year, and off and on I've been so angry at him I've shouted at him…
But he has shown me who he truly is. And I love that man. I love him so much…so much it hurts deep within me. "What do you think we should do?" he asks me. He is so lost…
"We need to remind him," I say. "He is losing himself…we are losing him," I tell Ron.
"I don't want to lose him," Ron says into my neck. I turn and kiss his nose softly.
"We can't lose him," I whisper. I look deep into those blue eyes, never once lingering on the red-rims or the dark shadows. His eyes are so beautiful… "He will always be here," I tell him. I am sure of that. Whether he is with us in physical form or not is not the issue. He will never leave us.
"I can't think of anything we haven't done already," Ron says.
"I can," I say softly. Perhaps this will be what Harry needs…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I did not brew any potion today. I have not slept in two days.
I am awake only because of the pepper-up potion Ron and I brew in the third-floor girl's bathroom. We keep vials of it at all times, for when we're about to collapse from exhaustion.
Harry doesn't know about that. He thinks we sleep. He does not know that we were both watching over him last night.
While he writhed and moaned and cried out weakly, clenching at the sheets while he shook and sweated.
When he woke up, Ron was pretending to sleep and I was by his side. He cried for five minutes. He thinks I did not know he was crying…he does not think I hear the soft, uneven breaths for what they are.
I wish he would cry aloud. He needs to. He deserves to.
I don't understand how he can be beaten down so far, torn apart so many times, and always come back. Over and over. Circling the drain…
I wish he would cry… I feel silly sometimes afterwards, but when he wakes up like that I shush him and whisper to him. He does not resist when I smooth back his hair gently, letting my cool hand soothe his fevered brow. Sometimes, he looks embarrassed, but he never resists. He craves the attention so much…as much as I crave giving it…
I suppose to me, Harry is the little brother I never had. My parents were quite happy to have just one child, but it left me without any siblings, obviously.
Harry is that for me. He is the baby brother.
He'd laugh at that.
That would break my heart.
Because he should get angry. He should feel resentful and upset that I would think of him that way. He is, after all, older than I am.
But he wouldn't. Not anymore.
Because he wants an older sister, a mother, as much as I want a little brother…
His parents had no choice, though…
I think of that sometimes…his parents were twenty-one when they were murdered. It is not so long before I will be twenty-one…
His parents were really still just children…just two young adults with their very first child… Dead.
Perhaps it is a Potter or Evans family trait to be destined for great things and short lives…it certainly seems that way… I know. I researched it in the library at some point…
…I stare at the empty cauldron in front of me. I could care less if I brew whatever potion it is that we're supposed to be brewing. Ron is the same. He started the potion, at least, attempting to put the ingredients together in the cauldron.
He stopped after the first few ingredients, though, because the potion turned red.
It was supposed to turn red. He was doing it right…
But the red looked like blood…
He couldn't look at it. Neither could I.
We covered it up with some random ingredient that turned the entire potion a pretty purple, and left it at that.
Harry doesn't notice.
Because he's busy putting on a show.
He sits at his desk, and while the others can't see it I can see the fine trembling in his shoulders that means after this lesson he is done for the day. He doodles on papers and smiles and laughs in response to comments.
He'll wait until everyone else has left Potions before even attempting to get up. We'll have to help him out of the class and back to Gryffindor. And then he'll crawl into his bed, miserable, weak, in pain…
Professor Snape does not bother us. I'm completely certain that Dumbledore has a hand in this. Otherwise, Snape would have given us detention by now. He certainly would have before…
Before he helped, as was his duty as a spy, to keep his position and tortured Harry.
Harry won't say it, but Ron and I know it.
Harry doesn't see the empty cauldron in front of me, or the ruined attempt in front of Ron. His own cauldron is full of a botched attempt at a potion. It is yellow when it should be green, and steams when it should not.
Snape will take it, though. While he does not mark any grades for Ron and I on days like this, since we have been told that we will retake most of our classes over the summer, he will still grade Harry's. He usually gets a D. Or a zero.
I'm afraid that he grades because Harry will not have the chance to make it up later. Professor Snape doesn't think that Harry will make it much longer, either. So he give Harry grades out of his sadistic need to trod on another human being… Grades that in all honesty do not matter.
Perhaps I should tell Professor Snape that…
'Sir, in case you haven't figure it out, your grades are pointless and insignificant. Do you think the little letters you write in your stupid little book will ever matter?'
I am sure he would have no response to that.
But I do not do it. Because even Professor Snape is entitled to his few comforts, and it's not as if Harry even cares what his grades are.
He does try. He works hard when he can, but it is not often.
Potions ends. The bell rings harshly, and students leave in a flood. I see Neville pause, eyes sweeping over the three that are left. Dean and Seamus have also been more…watchful…lately. It is as if…I think Harry must have talked to them. He does that…
Harry's new goal recently has been extracting promises from other people. He has not asked anything from myself or Ron, but I think he has already gotten what he needs from the three boys that share his and Ron's dorm room, and I think perhaps he's spoken with a few professors. Perhaps Professor Snape. Though I doubt that man would ever grant Harry any sort of assurances…
Harry tries to stand up. He sweats hard, trying to walk on his own.
We give him a vial of the pepper-up we carry. We can't give him too much, Dumbledore has warned us. Harry's magic is in a balance with the wards that are on his bed, and if his magic fluctuates too much it would disrupt the wards. The potion in his system makes his magic spike somewhat.
Harry knows this as well. He never asks for more than what we give him… He never asks for it at all. We make him take it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sometimes I wonder if there is something more practical I can do, and on those days I skip classes. I go to the library, lying and telling Harry that I am working on some project and am excused.
He knows I am lying, but he does not say anything. He lets me have my lies. My comforts.
And then I search through the Restricted Section. No one stops me. When Madame Pince once tried, I threw a book at her. I smiled at the book's broken remains on the floor… She never came back…
I find nothing though…
Dumbledore has found something I think…
He will not say…
I think perhaps he has found a way to kill Voldemort…
I think perhaps he will never tell what he has found…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
People tend to underestimate how much I know. Oh, sure, I'm miss 'know-it-all' to them, but they do not equate that with intelligence. They do not think that perhaps I am more than just good at lessons. Fore example, Malfoy thinks only Dumbledore and Harry watch him. He does not even notice when my eyes land on him.
He does not know that I know…he was the one that attacked Harry over Christmas break… That was just before Harry was assigned a professor at all times…
I think their reasoning that it would help keep Harry from being taken was only part of the reason…
They knew that if he was cornered in a hall by anyone that had a problem with him, he could die. Because he will not fight back when he thinks he is at fault…and if he didn't think he was at fault, he would fight back so ferociously he could end up killing his attacker before he even realized what he'd done…
And that would be worse to him than death…killing…
Any death makes him sick…
When we were in Care of Magical Creatures, taking care of a clutch of baby boa constrictors, one died during the night. Hagrid said it happens. They don't all survive. That's just the way it is. Some are weaker than others.
Harry couldn't take it though. He told us its name, even, and I remembered that he could talk to snakes. I wondered how many times he'd talked with just that one…
We withdrew from Care of Magical Creatures. Hagrid understood…after Harry finished throwing up into the bushes at the edge of the forest, he understood perfectly. We still visit him, but snakes of any kind are never mentioned…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I want to have a normal life. I want to grow up and have a career, get married, have children, be happy. I want to see my best friend get married, be at my wedding to my other best friend…I want to laugh and do silly things and be carefree.
I want to get the highest grades possible on the NEWTs when I take them. I want to be known in the world. I want them to see how I can change the world…
But they may never see that…because everything I want comes second. Harry is first. Ron is…well, perhaps he is second, and the rest of me is third… Or maybe they're tied…tied together…
Harry has taken my chance to be great, perhaps, but I do not care. Because he gave me that chance in the first place. He gave me friendship and love when I didn't have it. He has shown me how important I am to him…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That is all I need. Him. To be my little brother, to be the thing I can lose myself in…
And if…when…if…he is gone, I will have Ron. And we will lose ourselves in each other…
Because we will be lost…
Harry…
Little brother…
* * * * * * * * * * * *
A/N: This is the part where Hermione starts crying. She doesn't want to lose her little brother. Some people have suggested that I need to make these things a little longer and go into more depth about character's feelings and emotions about events. I'm working on it. It's just difficult to keep it with the vague and blurry feeling I've been letting it have and still make it clear and sharp. Hm, maybe I'm not making sense…
Well, thanks for reading and plleeeeeeeeaaaasssseee review!