Chapter 15 – Perpetual Torment
Hermione awoke the next morning to an owl tapping at the window. She always wondered why they had to wake her up, inconsiderate birds, she had let Hercules out last night so he could go hunting, and he hadn't returned yet, no doubt he would be soon.
She reluctantly let the owl in and took the parchment from it.
The letter turned out to be from Harry, Hermione wasn't too sure if this was good or bad news but she soon found out
Dear Hermione,
I know that you probably hate me right now, and I don't blame you. I was a complete utter idiot last night, I am so sorry I was just jealous but I do love you.
I have decided that I can no longer go on with my life, there are too many things in it happening that I can't control and I don't want.
I do not want Sirius to be gone and I do not want to live every day wishing he was still alive. I want to see my parents and know that I never ever can, I want to hold you in my arms and have you tell me that you love me too. I want to be able to defeat voldemort and save the wizarding world but I do not think I can. There are so many things I want and wish to do but can not and will never be able to. I do not want you to feel bad about this, I know you are still trying to come to terms with your parent's murder, but I can no longer live with the way I feel. It tears me apart everyday. I hope you can explain to Ron for me, I just can't bring myself to tell him.
I hope Draco helps you through this. I am sure he will do. He cares for you very much I know.
If you find me and I am not here do not try to save me. I couldn't bear it.
Forever
yours
Harry
He had been crying whilst writing it, she could tell from all the smears on the page.
She gasped and fled to Draco's room, she was hammering on the door, when a rather dishevelled Draco opened the door,
"What's going on?" he asked
"Harry" she shouted "come on"
They ran from the common room, she didn't know where she was going as she didn't know where Harry would have gone, so she ran to his dorm, the rest of the Gryffindor were sleeping, including Ron
"I will wake him later, I just want to find him" Hermione told Draco, she pulled the marauders map from Harry's trunk
"I solemnly swear I am up to no good" she said and tapped it with her wand
All the black lines suddenly filled the page and she looked eagerly for Harry. And then she saw him. Over on the quidditch pitch. But instead of being a big black ink mark, he was a light shade of grey
"Shit" Hermione said and they ran to Dumbledore's office as fast as their feet could take them
She yelled the password at the gargoyle and ran up the stairs as fast as she possibly could. The whole time Draco in his pyjamas running up behind the also pyjama clad Hermione
"Professor" Hermione said as soon as she saw the old man sat at his desk 'did he ever sleep?' Draco wondered
"Yes children?" he asked bewildered to see his two best students out of breath in his office wearing pyjamas
"Harry has killed himself" she told him, she told him about the owl and the map and the quidditch pitch.
Dumbledore called Madame Pomfrey and they all went to the quidditch pitch and surely enough there was Mr Harry potter 'the boy who lived' hanging from one of the quidditch hoops, quite clearly very dead.
Hermione just crumpled into a heap. And Dumbledore summoned a broom and flew up to cut Harry down. Nobody had ever seen Dumbledore on a broom before but they weren't concerned with that now. All they cared about was Harry. Not that it would do much for him now.
Draco held Hermione in his arms, Draco was also crying and he noticed when Dumbledore returned to the ground with Harry in his arms, he was in tears too.
Madame Pomfrey was absolutely distraught and it wasn't a few more minutes until McGonagall and Snape were out there too. McGonagall just burst into tears and Snape had an absolutely unreadable expression on his face. The closest it could be interpreted to was regret, sadness and shock.
Hermione was in total shock. She was shaking and Draco was getting a little worried about her
"Mr Malfoy, you must take Hermione up to the infirmary and I will be up shortly" the Medi witch sobbed at him.
Draco pulled Hermione up by her hand, but she seemed unable to walk. He picked her up and carried her newlywed style all the way to a hospital bed.
"Draco" Hermione whispered between her sobs "fetch Ron"
So off Draco went to wake up the boy he had grown quite close to and bring him to turn his world upside down also. He didn't want Hermione to tell Ron, he didn't want anyone else to be so upset. It was an awful day and when the news of this got out the whole wizarding world would be in mourning, no that's not true, he thought, voldemort would have a bloody party or something.
Draco entered the Gryffindor common room, he obviously knew the password because of hanging out in there lately, and went up to the dorm he had been in only twenty minutes before. He walked over to the redhead and shook him awake
"Huh?" Ron asked groggily
"Quick Ron wake up" Draco said and threw some clothes at him
"Draco why are you in my bedroom wearing pyjamas?" Ron asked him "you come for a sleepover or something?"
"No, you must come to the infirmary quickly" he explained
"Why
what is it?" Ron asked as he threw his clothes on
"I can't
tell you Hermione will tell you when you get there" the blonde said
sadly
The two boys rushed to the hospital wing and found Hermione sitting on a bed. There was another bed occupied but there were big white curtains all around it.
Hermione was still crying but a lot calmer.
"Madame Pomfrey has given me a potion to calm me down" Hermione explained to Draco. And gestured to an empty bottle sat on the nightstand. There was an identical bottle sat next to this but this one was full of a deep blue potion. Draco knew this would be for Ron
"What on earth is going on?" Ron asked his best friend, she just looked up at him and started crying even harder. She pulled a piece of paper out from her pocket and handed it to Ron, she looked down at her hands and waited.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Ron shouted "did you find him?"
"Yes" she said quietly "at the quidditch pitch"
"Is he really…" he asked
"Dead? Yes" she told him and pulled him to her. Draco felt a bit pushed out now. He knew that they were more upset than he. And that they had been best friends for a long time but this made him feel like an outsider.
"Why couldn't he have talked to me?" Ron asked, he was beginning to lose it and he was a ghostly shade of white
"I feel sick"
"Here drink this" Hermione said passing him the full bottle of potion, she wanted Ron to be calm,
"I will go and get us some clothes" Draco said thinking he should leave them to have a few minutes alone.
"Thank you" Hermione said. She couldn't stop crying and had stopped trying to.
"Is he in there?" Ron asked nodding at the curtained bed
"Yes" Hermione said "I can't believe he would do this, I know I tried to kill myself but this is Harry, he isn't weak like me"
"I know" Ron said "I just don't understand it all, I can't accept it, and I can't accept this one little bit"
He walked over to the curtains "and I won't believe it unless I see it for myself"
"Ron no!" Hermione shouted but it was too late, Ron had gone round to the side of it and disappeared from her view.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he screamed,
Hermione ran round to pull him out from there and Madame Pomfrey came rushing in and glared at them.
"You shouldn't be round here" she said,
Hermione had gone to pull him around but was too mesmorised by Harry to move. He looked as though he was sleeping. She wanted to slap him and tell him to wake up, she wanted to stroke his hair and tell him it was ok and she did love him, not as he wanted her to but as much as she was capable of.
She wanted to tell him that everything would be ok. But she also knew it was too late. She took Rons hand and took him back over to where they had been just before. Ron didn't cry, he just stared into space. He felt totally numb. He didn't know what to do with himself. He felt lost. It was like he had lost his right arm. He was in shock and this was when he had had the potion, Hermione shuddered to think what he would have been like if he hadn't drank it.
Draco returned dressed and with a pair of jeans and a jumper for Hermione. He knew that she wouldn't be in classes today. It was more than likely that the whole school wouldn't be if he were honest with himself.
Dumbledore came to the hospital wing half an hour later and looked very sombre
"Children" he addressed them "I am so sorry for your loss, I don't really know what to say. Such a waste of a precious young life. I need to make an announcement at breakfast and I would like for you to be there, I know this will be hard for you but unfortunately it needs to be done"
They nodded and followed him to the great hall. Draco and Ron both were holding her hands. They all walked to the Gryffindor table and sat there, the other students could tell there was something wrong but they weren't sure what.
Dumbledore stood at the podium and the students looked at him. The enchanted ceiling was pitch black there was a major storm coming,
"students, I have some very sad news to tell you today" he said, they all looked at him expectantly
"Today we have lost someone who we will truly miss, Harry potter was a magnificent boy and a good friend and he was truly worthy of the respect that the wizarding world holds for him. But he was a teenager and some teenagers do feel that they can no longer go on with the problems they face and he unfortunately decided to end his life. I know that this was a terrible terrible waste of a life and I am hoping you will all realise that if anything ever gets that bad for any of you, you know that we are always here for you if you need somebody to talk to. After everything that has happened to Harry to go and throw it all away as he did saddens me so. And I hope anyone who feels the need to speak about their grief", he pointedly looked at the three students sat at the Gryffindor table, "will come to me"
When he had said Harry potter the whole school had gasped, McGonagall wasn't there. She had taken it very badly. And a lot of students were now crying. Draco looked over to the slytherin table, a few looked sad, but most just sat there and he glared at them.
Dumbledore strode over to them,
"I have a lot of work to do now, informing the ministry and Harry's family and the such like. I would like for you three to return to the heads common room. There will be no classes today and I do not want you near the hospital wing for the time being. If you have any problems then please seek out professor Snape whilst I am tied up. Unfortunately professor McGonagall has had to retire to her rooms"
Draco nodded at their headmaster and got up. Hermione and Ron followed him. Ron was just blank. He showed no emotion and Hermione was scared for him.
When they arrived at the heads room Hermione just sat on the sofa with her head in her hands. Ron just stared at nothing in particular and Draco just sat there not knowing what to say or do. He was a lot more used to death than these three.
When Draco had been young he had a nanny, she was so nice to him and his father had found out she had been hugging Draco, there was nothing wrong with this anymore but Lucius had come into the nursery one day to find the young woman hugging a very upset Draco who had fell down in the garden and grazed his knee.
"What is the meaning of this?" he had demanded
"Draco hurt himself" she explained
"And this requires this?" he had asked "I thought you were trained in first aid?"
"I am sir" she said "I did a healing charm on his knee, but he was a little upset"
"No child of mine will be mollycoddled in such a manner" he had shouted and then muttered the killing curse at her. She had fallen down dead, and Draco had cried. To which he had been subjected the cruciatus curse "no child of mine will cry, it is a weakness" he told the small boy and lifted the curse
Draco had been three years old.
Draco sent for some tea from the kitchens and poured Hermione and Ron a very sweet tea. "Here it helps with shock" he told them
Hermione took it gratefully and wondered what she would do without him
Ron also took his and muttered his thanks.
They seemed to sit there for what seemed like hours but in reality it wasn't all that long. When mr and Mrs Weasley knocked on the door, Hermione and Ron didn't even acknowledge the knocking and Draco being the only one of sound mind answered it. Mrs Weasley was red faced and had obviously been crying, she pulled her son and Hermione into a big hug and they all cried. Mr Weasley spoke to Draco
"How have they been?" he asked
"Not good" Draco told the older man "I don't know what to do"
"It is a hard situation to know what to do" Arthur said "but sometimes just being there helps"
"Yes sir" Draco said
Arthur Weasley was surprised, he never imagined a day when a Malfoy would call a Weasley sir. It went against everything their families believed in. but he was glad this boy was different from his father.
"You children are coming to the burrow for a few weeks" molly told them "you shouldn't stay here, you need a break"
"Yes mum" Ron said
"Thank
you Mrs Weasley" Hermione said
"how many times have I told
you, call me molly" the red headed woman told her
"Sorry" Hermione said "should we pack?"
"Yes dear, you go and do that, I will go with Ron and help both him and Ginny"
And with that she was gone. Hermione went up to her room and started throwing stuff into a bag.
"Hermione"
Draco said from the doorway
"yes" she said and looked up at
him. There was a sad look to his stormy grey eyes and that made her
feel even worse than she already did.
"I will miss you" he said
"Oh Draco, I will stay if you want, you are sad too" she told him
"No go" he said "It will be good for you"
"But what about you?" she asked him
"I will be ok" Draco said
"Ok, if you're sure" she said and continued packing. Draco walked in the room and sat on the bed.
"I'm sure" he said "I feel so bad for you Hermione, first your parents, then Harry. It seems you are destined for perpetual torment"
"I know" she said "you would think I was a bad person the way all this shit happens to me"
"You aren't a bad person" he said grabbing her hand and holding it.
"What makes you so sure, even I'm not sure anymore" she said "maybe I should have just told Harry I would be with him, then at least he wouldn't be dead"
"Hermione he wouldn't have wanted you to stay with him for that" Draco told her and pulled her to sit next to him
"And you mustn't tell yourself that. You did what was right, it wasn't just because of you it was a collection of stuff, just like he said in the letter"
"I
know" she said and put her head on his shoulder "doesn't stop
me feeling guilty"
"I know" he said and kissed her forehead
A voice shouted up the stairs "are you ready Hermione?"
"I'm just coming" she shouted back and grabbed her bag
"Draco" she said turning to him
"Please don't" he said "please just go and be ok"
"I will" she promised "but let me tell you something first"
"Ok what is it?" he asked
"I want you to owl me if you want me to come back or anything, you're hurting too, I know you are" she said
"Ok but I will be fine" he said "Malfoy trait, unfortunately"
"Goodbye Draco" she said and went downstairs leaving him in her room.
