Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, though I wish I could come up with something amazingly similar so I could be a multimillionare. J.K. Rowling is the author of those wonderful novels. This fanfic is my own invention however. DON'T STEAL IT! hehe :P
Chapter 13I scan the crowd for the familiar wash of jet-black hair that I know so well, but everywhere I look is a red head, a blond, a brunette; not a single head of shamelessly messed-up black in sight. My heart is pounding desperately in my chest and I want to stop and catch my breath, slow my pace and cool my face, but the memory of his expression reminds me why I'm so desperate to find him.
"You told me… you told me to meet you," he whispers in my ear, like an ongoing betrayal and I want to slap myself, drown myself for putting that forbidden expression back on his face. I'd promised myself, every single day since that dreadful moment when I awoke to his screams, that I would never let him be hurt again, never again, but I did. "Not now, Hermione, not now…" Harry, who hadn't denied me anything, denied my rights to words… denied my explanation.
"Oh god…" I whisper to myself, "I've got to find him." Flashes of that night run havoc in my mind as my hands begin to tingle and I lean heavily against a shadowed wall and cover my face. "No, please not now." And I am drawn deep into the horrors of our past.
"Ginny! Ginny, have you seen the boys?" I whisper desperately, my search for two of the most important males in my life becoming hopeless. But she shakes her head and says that the two boys were called away by Professor Dumbledore. "Please, Ginny, if they told you anything, tell me!" I'm startled to hear my voice become shrill and high-pitched, but I can't control the shuddering in my heart and the roar of blood in my ears as I dread what the two might be up to.
"Hermione! Calm down, Mione!" She pinches my arm and I squeak, coming out of my stupor for a moment, enough to listen to my friend and recognise that she knows nothing. "They're fine, Mione, they just told me that they had to go and meet the Headmaster about some matters to do with The Order."
"You mean you didn't see the request?" I stutter and she shakes her head.
They told me… they told me… three words in her sentence send shivers down my spine and I spin and head towards the portrait hole, but almost there, her voice stops me. "Is something the matter, Mione?" I cannot answer; all I can do is whisper the password and clamber through the hole in the wall, the words of the letter that Harry received the evening before running haywire in my head.
The dark lord requests a meeting with you, Mr Potter, and he doesn't like to be kept waiting. There is a passageway, which leads from your school to a field long past Hogsmeade. Bring with you who you wish…
There are further words of insistence that the young man, of but 16 years, make his way there stealthily, but I didn't read another word of the letter, I only looked at his face. He will go alone, was what I thought when I looked at him, or he will take Ron or I, but he will not ask for Dumbledore, or Lupin; he will take only the essential.
"Oh Harry…" I whisper and pause, drawing on a desperate, shuddering breath, and lean my hand against the wall to steady myself. "Couldn't you have brought me too, I know you mean so well… but why do you- why do you leave behind another set of able hands." I continue creeping through the hallways, keeping to shadows until I reach the indicated space in the wall. There lies a dark portrait of trees and rocks, but on a hill in the distance stands a figure looking upwards. From a branch hangs a swinging figure and the only sound that the bleak portrait emits is that of sobs. The painting is foreboding and I shudder and rub my arms as an uncharacteristic shiver runs through me. "What happened?" I whisper aloud and the sobbing cuts short and the figure turns to look at me, their form black.
"She forgot that loving is but an experience in life, one filled with pain and gladness. Oh, God! I would have kept her steady… As her friend… her lover, I would have been by her side. That was… that was my place in her life." He grieves and as a wind picks up and he takes hold of her form, weeping into his love's dress-clad feet, I stick my hand through the painting. The wall is hollow backed, the painting a ghostly illusion, and with a single glance at the surrounding hallway, I step through and into darkness.
Before me lies a long passageway, its walls stony and damp with a mouldy residue and as I take an unsteady step in the direction of my fate, I run a hand along its surface. It is clammy and I hesitantly retract my hand and have to repeat to myself, over and over: 'Harry is there. Ron is there. Harry is there.' to stop my feet from turning tail and running back through the illusional wall to the Headmaster or McGonnagol or even Snape. And once there, I would scream at them and yell at them that their prodigy has left the safety of their world.
"Oh God, Harry, I don't think I can do this…" I whisper to no one in particular and take an unsure step backwards. I desperately reflect on the moment when Harry learnt his first unforgivable, his first obliviate, and I realise that I am so sad at the thought that they might ruin him. No, scrap that. They WILL ruin him. There is such a maturity and anger which comes from casting such dreadful things that I hate to think that I will see his immaturity, his youth and his blessed innocence drop away like an unwanted skin. "God, Harry, others would have come along," I sob. But as footsteps resound in my ears, I tighten my hold on my wand.
It is a black clad figure, their entire form hooded and face masked in the whiteness of realistic nightmares. "Ms Granger," a voice sneers and I want to whimper at the effect such a voice has on me; feeling drops of sweat roll down the back of my neck and my skin break out in goosebumps. "I do believe we've never been properly introduced." His voice is like the sharp surface of a knife, grating over me and leaving me feeling bare and open to the world. I know who this is.
I sit beside his son in arithmancy and am partnered with him as my prefectural round's partner. I want to take a step backwards, but I find myself rooted to the spot with fear, a tremor of the subtle emotion running through me, and I grind my teeth together to prevent the scream I want to let loose. Late at night, when I walk along the corridors of Hogwarts in the dark dankness of night, I hear the beginnings of this voice from a seventeen-year-old boy and I want to run. "I see that you're not as conversational as my son makes you out to be. He tells me you have quite a mouth on you, Mudblood," he reveals and I find myself growing more and more afraid as I realise that I am discussed by this man's family. "Running off to find your beloved Potter, Mudblood dirt?" he suddenly whispers and with an easy step forward, he has me pinned against the wall, his own face directly hovering above mine. His hand trickles over my skin and into my hair, where his fingers curl around it. "Speak! Or is Harry Potter's slut so afraid without her two men that she can't do a thing." His fingers tug painfully on my hair, pulling my head upwards and I find my eyes meeting his. "Did you honestly think that Dumbledore would come with you? That he would save that stupid boy of yours? That he would save you from the clutches of the Dark Lord?" he hisses at me, and his eyes look over my face, pulling my hair tighter and eliciting a squeak of pain from me. "He cares nothing for you or any of the other students, only his precious Harry Potter, who, after tonight, will be dead and cold at the feet of My Lord." He whispers to me and I choke on tears of fear.
"Oh, my dear, I didn't ruin your precious world, did I? The world, which you seem to see through rose-coloured glasses." He jokes and I bite down on the quiver of lip but cannot contain the tear, which slips down my cheek. I shudder as he nears me and squeeze my eyes shut just as I see the tip of his tongue escape from the confines of his lips. But even with my eyes shut, I can still feel the drag of it across my cheek and I gag and tremble, feeling sullied and dirtied.
Oh please, oh please let this be some awful dream! Let Harry and Ron be in their beds right now and I awake to find this some dreaded nightmare! My thoughts wish and I grieve the return of reality as I open my eyes and find him standing over me, a vulture of shadows. "You taste like the dirt; maggot-infested, shit-covered dirt!" He sneers and before I can flinch away, he spits and I can feel the grotesque substance dripping down the bridge of my nose. "Did you follow after your two friends, Mudblood, to aid them in their adventure? Is that why you're here? Or do you intend to run away like your cowardly race and tell the Mudblood-Lover?" He cackles and a shiver runs up my spine to the base of my neck. He begins to laugh atrociously, "You cannot aid the dead, Miss Granger! No one can help your friends now! They were dead the minute they left the confines of that hallway and stepped away from your brains and Dumbledore's precious walls."
"Granger?" I look up from my hands; tear's blurring my sight but the figure of Theodore Nott is easily distinguishable. Who but the notorious Slytherin could have such a presence and be without one all at the same time? "I wasn't… I mean; I didn't…" I pause mid-sentence, wondering why I am trying to defend myself against a boy whose eyes have already turned a shade of disinterest. I run a hand over my face and when I open my eyes I find myself still face to face with this dreamy-looking boy.
"You're Potter's friend, aren't you?" He asks, his voice a deep whisper and my eyes widen at his question, "And Draco's…" he leaves the sentence unfinished, ready to accept however I choose to end it and I pause in my immediate analysis of this boy. I've spent seven years at school with him but know nothing about him except that his father was captured on our mission to the Ministry of Magic when Sirius fell through the veil in the Mysterious Department.
At the thought of Harry's Godfather I feel a deep sadness settle over me like a suffocating blanket and I suddenly feel the inevitable tiredness creep into my senses which comes from years of constant worry. The death of Sirius was like a harsh blow to everything that I had ever believed to be true and right. How could one who was so right and so wonderful to my best friend in a world that treated him so ill, be killed by someone so wrong? The question that I had asked myself so often came crashing back and I stagger to my feet. I feel crippled by it. A dreadful sorrow seeps into my bones and into my consciousness and all I can think to do is doubt myself and everything that I'd ever fought for.
"Why did you let them do it?" I suddenly moan at him and before I know it, my hands are around his neck and I want to squeeze so tightly that his last breath will escape him and they will know the pain that we went through. The look on his face as I launch myself at him is like a boy being told his favourite dog has died and that he won't get to say goodbye and hence, he doesn't block my attack. "Surely you knew! Surely you couldn't have missed such plans when your own father was behind it," I hiss. He falls to his knees, my hands growing bolder and stiffer as his own grow weaker and his nails begin to claw at my hold, "Didn't you realise what they were going to do? Didn't you want to stop another generation from being killed? Didn't you, Theodore!" His hands have stilled in their relentless scrambling to unbind my hands from around his neck and I pause mid-strangle and stare into his eyes. They're deep and blue and like buckets of the ocean. "Dear God, why didn't you? Why didn't you try to stop them?" And we both blink as tears drip from my eyes onto his cheeks, rolling over their murky white surface and down to the hollow of his neck.
"I remember you from my sixth year," he whispers and my hands fall away and I bring them up to smother the tears, which creep down my cheeks. "You missed out on a lot of school at the beginning of the year. I saw you once. You were supposed to tutor me when we came back to school but you didn't come and I ended up accompanying Draco to the hospital wing."
"You were there?" I whisper, my eyes growing wide with fear and anguish. "Then you saw Harry and I?" He nods and gets off his knees and grips my elbow, drawing me in close. He's not much taller than me, only a couple of inches, but it's enough for him to have to lean down to whisper in my ear. "It was impossible for me to be brave, Granger. In my world, you can be brave and die or you can be weak and live; and fuck this bloody world, but I didn't want to die!" His words cling to my skin and send a shiver down my spine. "I grew up with a man who wanted nothing more in life then to send his child to a cold and lonely deathbed. I spent every night with a man who told me through my dreams that the world was a place of horror and grievance, a world where my only place in life was at the foot of a demon where I was to swear my allegiance to a figure who I knew would never win." My eyes widen at his words and my fingers curl around his elbow and try to pull him away. But as I try to get this boy and his subtle, scaring words away from where they're embedding themselves in my mind, his hands take hold of my shoulders and draw me further into his folds. "But just because I knew the truth and realised what a fool he was, doesn't mean that I was willing to give up my life. I'm not a saint, Granger, and I'm certainly not some messiah like bloody Potter; willing to put my life on the line for anyone. I spent every god given day on this earth being tortured by a man who I thought was meant to love me, the man who was meant to play the part of caring father, but who instead thought that my dying for some ridiculous thing was such a better livelihood. And if I didn't sacrifice myself for his ways than he would, all the same, rather see me dead." I scramble away and back myself up against a wall.
"I don't want to hear anymore, Nott." I tell him, but he just laughs and takes another step to invade more of my personal space.
"Don't you get it, Mudblood? We children of the Death Eaters: Draco, Blaise, Christian, Pansy, are all victims of a world that wishes to makes our decisions for us. We're all party to a world that deems itself worthy and high enough to make the decision about whether we live or die. But I, I was told to die and I didn't want to. Do you hear that, Mudblood?" I duck underneath his arm and head off down the road, desperate to get away from his yells. "I didn't want to die just yet!"
I run away, my feet beneath me clumsy and I stagger, faultering mid-step as I feel tears rolling down my cheeks. "Why am I crying for him?" I sob and begin to run again, Theodore Nott's voice dying in the background, but in my ears I hear another's.
"What are you doing, Malfoy! You're a deatheater's son!" I croak at him as I return to the present world, and suddenly his body, which was pressed so hotly and perfectly up against mine, is tense and stiff.
"But I don't have a choice!" His voice suddenly breaks and his eyes are wide and almost frightened, "There are bonds, Granger which you and your little, fucking friends can't see, but they're there, and they're cutting."
"Oh God, what have I gotten myself into?" I whisper, my words brushing against my cheeks as I run so determinedly after my broken friend. Listening to the words of these boys is like awakening a part of myself that I thought was dead and buried, a part of me which feels so alive but so doggedly drenched in sadness. The scars, which their families have littered their minds with, are like looking at a photo of Harry, Ron and I, and seeing the wounds which we've been forced to bear. "God, Harry, they had no say in it either…" I whisper just before my vicious running sends me tumbling head on into another friend, apologies and explanations rushing from my lips before we have landed.
"Hermione! It must be my lucky day!" Seamus' voice fills my ears and I cannot contain the smile which tugs at my face as we both clamber to our respective feet. "Where are you going in such a rush?" he asks casually and I suddenly remember where I was going.
"Harry? Seamus, have you seen him?" I ask breathlessly, even standing still and talking to my friend, I find my eyes darting across the street to the straggling children and the group of friends, hoping to find him hiding somewhere amongst them all. "I have to find him, so if you've seen him, please tell me." I plead and he scratches the back of his head.
"Well I saw him a little while ago, he was talking agitatedly to Ginny for a moment and then he headed off back towards the school." Before he's even finished his sentence, I have taken off again and I can hear him puffing along after me. "Hermione!" He calls in worry, "What's this all about, Mione?" He calls but I can do nothing until I've reached the front entrance of the school.
"I've done something awful, Seamus. You were right, Malfoy was bothering me, at first, but now… now there is so much more at stake than just us." I whisper and push the doors open in time to see Harry crossing the landing.
"Harry!" I cry after him and he pauses mid-step. "Don't walk away from me, Harry James Potter!" I scream, my voice shrill with a terrible ache within me, as I watch him turn his back on me. "I… I…" I can't seem to form the words, which I so desperately want to tell him. Words which speak of not only the passion that I feel for the blond haired boy, but the adoration that I feel for this ebony-haired boy and our rugged red-haired siblings, without even having to look into their faces or see their forms. I want to tell him about the terrible fits within me and the self loathing and doubt which streams through me every time I see even a drop of my own blood. And so I scream.
My voice ricochets about the opening of the school like a banshee's cry and Harry pauses in the constant shaking of his head to look back at me. "Why won't you look at me?" I whisper and raise my eyes to meet his own shadowy green ones, feeling a great desperation run through me. "Seven years I've watched you make mistakes. I've watched you take risks and I've seen you dream about a life which is so different to what it is now, and I've let you do all those things because I knew that they would one day help you to become the person you are now!" I sob at him, clenching and unclenching my hands by my side. "But I don't know who I am, Harry! I've lost where I'm going and what I want to do! I don't have any purpose in my life but to wonder…"
"Hermione? You don't have to do this…" Seamus who stands back and watches it all has taken a step towards me and his hand is reaching out towards me. Out of the corner of my eye I see it and I shy away, desperate to explain, to plead, on my own.
"No!" I scream, "The only purpose I could find with my life, Harry, is to wonder how long it would take for Voldemort's blood to become my own and for me to one day turn on you! I have to do this, Harry." I cry at him, "With him I feel something again. With him I've found a purpose!" Harry shakes his head and takes a step away from me, "NO HARRY!" I scream at him, but before I can lunge forward, Seamus' arms are around me and they're holding me back. "SEAMUS, LET ME GO! DON'T DO THIS, HARRY!" I swing my arms about and finally they connect with some part of Seamus and his hold slackens enough so I can run forward and wrap my arms around Harry's neck, burying my face in his shoulder. "I never denied you anything, Harry, not one single thing." I whisper to him but his face doesn't turn back around. "He's not perfect and he's definitely not for me, but the passion that is there; that is for me. Every single thing that I feel is real, Harry. For the first time since that dreaded night when you left me and took Ron, I can feel happiness again, I can feel sadness, anger, bitterness. It doesn't matter what it is; only that I can feel it again." I tell him and remember the wounds that cover Malfoy's back, remember the darkness in Nott's face and wonder if it could all just be a hoax, something created to instil in my mind a sympathy. But then I ask, where could they have found such eyes; eyes which I see everyday in the mirror and in the faces of my young friends; eyes darkened only through the darkest of moments. "They're all so ruined, Harry, just like you and me. They have scars which only we could see and believe…" I speak into the curve of his neck and feel the hairs underneath my fingers raise up on their ends. "If I have to choose between him and you, I think I'll fall apart and I'll never be put back together again because neither choice makes me who I want to be. Before, Harry, I didn't know who I was going to turn out as," I tell him and slowly feel his head begin to turn back towards me, "But with him, I have some idea. With him I feel like my heart is breaking in sorrow at the way life has treated him, but also growing with this something that I've never felt before." His head curves into the fold of my head and I breathe in his scent.
"Go on…" he whispers and I sob, my hands holding him tighter, hoping that he won't pull away.
There is a wetness on my neck, "I know you don't and won't ever approve, but God, Harry let me make this mistake, let me become the person who I am meant to be…" he shudders and I realise that the wetness that I can feel are his tears, "because, Harry, whoever that person turns out to be, they won't leave your side." I plead with him desperately, wanting him to hold me back and let me go at the same moment.
Author's Note: Oh my gosh, golly gee whiz, this has taken a while, hasn't it? I am so sorry to you all for the horrible time that it took to update this story. I've been so busy this semester with University and the fact that I turned 18 in August and gained somewhat more of a social life, but now that Uni is over, hopefully I'll be able to bring out a couple more chapters than usual. Though, I can't make promises because I'm trying to finish editing and rewriting my book whilst also beginning something new and a little different to my usual interest in fantastical dramas with a tinge of romance. I'd just like to thank you all for being so patient and whoever reads this chapter is such a champ for sticking with the story. Thanks to all the reviews I go, I can't believe I've gotten 241 reviews, in comparison to some stories its shit all, but to me it s a lovely, lovely number :). You get to see a bit more of Theo in this chapter too, I hope you liked it, and I'd love to hear all your comments, but be gentle. Thanks to my Beta- Takita, too.
Cai