Zabini came back after a few minutes with another guard. He was looking very pleased with himself. "I have convinced the Chief Warlock to see us later today. He was glad to hear that you have agreed to allow them to use Legilimency to 'clear this whole bloody thing up' were the exact words I believe he used."

"How much later is later?" Hermione asked.

"Now, don't get impatient, Miss—Hermione," he said. "After all, what are a few more hours?"

"They are a few more hours, Zabini, that's the fucking point."

He smiled and gestured to the guard for something. It was the canvas bag that had held the clothes and toiletries he'd brought for her the last time she went before the Wizengamot.

He held the bag out to her and she took it. She looked inside to find different clothes and robes, the comb and brush, the toothbrush and another tube of toothpaste, and more soap, shampoo, and lovely, lovely conditioner.

She looked up at Zabini with a radiant smile. "You are a beautiful, beautiful man, have I ever told you that, Zabini?" she said.

"No, I don't believe so, Hermione," he said, amused. "I do recall being likened to a prince and a god though."

"Yes, those too," she said. "So does this mean I get to take a shower?"

"I have arranged for it, yes."

"You have arranged for it," she said, laughing. "A long shower?" she pressed. "By myself? Without you banging the bloody door down?"

"I have a few more pressing matters to attend to before I accompany you to the Ministry," he said. "And Mr. . . .well, I don't really know what his name is. Anyway, he will remain outside of the shower room. I have made certain of it."

"Good," she said. She turned her attention to the guard, who was looking slightly miffed by the whole situation. She could just imagine the way Zabini had been harassing them all since she was thrown in here. It made her smile happily. "Well, then, what are you waiting for?" she asked the guard. "Unlock these damn chains."

"I will be back to get you in about an hour and a half, Miss—er, Hermione," Zabini said as the guard was leading her out of the room.

"See you later Zabini," she said as the door closed.

She took a long shower. She used all of the shampoo, the soap, conditioner, and the toothpaste. She then sat on a hard wood bench beside the door with a towel wrapped around her, gently combing the knots and tangles out of her hair until it was almost dry. By the time she put on the clothes he had brought her—black silk slacks and a sleeveless maroon blouse—and slipped into the robes, she was feeling quite a lot better, and much more optimistic. She knew that she shouldn't, that she shouldn't let herself hope that this time it would work, that she would be free, but she couldn't help herself.

When she thought she had used up as much time as she possibly could, she put the empty toiletry things back in the bag and pounded on the door to be let out.

The guard took her back to the visitor's room, locked the chains to her manacles back around the iron ring again, and left her alone. She didn't have long to wait.

When Zabini came back into the room fifteen minutes later, she was sitting in the chair with her head tilted back, humming a Christmas carol and counting the stones on the ceiling for the second time.

He stood just inside the door looking at her silently for a couple of minutes. Until Hermione finally said, "Like what you see, Zabini?" without moving her eyes from the ceiling.

"Miss Granger," he said carefully, "I am sure you are quite aware of what you look like."

Her mouth twitched. "Quite," she said. She looked at him then as he was settling into the seat across from her. "Tell me, Zabini, just what would it take to get you to relax and stop calling me 'Miss Granger' in that insufferable way?"

He gave her a heavy lidded thoughtful look that she did not misunderstand.

"Aha," she said with a grin. "Yes, I thought so. A right and proper shag might do it, huh? Well, Zabini, I will say this for you; you certainly aim high."

He smiled back at her lazily. "But not too high, is it, Miss Granger?"

She laughed. "We'll see, Zabini."

"Indeed," he murmured, then abruptly became all business once more and stood up. "Are you ready then, Miss Granger?"

"I told you to stop calling me that," she said. He just looked at her. "Fine, yes, I'm ready. Let's get on with it."

She was really not looking forward to it at all. She had never voluntarily allowed anyone to use Legilimency on her before. Never. And she considered it to be something just short of mind rape.

This feeling intensified when she was once again chained down to the chair at the center of the court room.

No private citizens had been allowed into the court this time—something she suspected Skimble had a lot to do with—so the only witnesses were the members of the Wizengamot themselves, Zabini, and the wiry little man that she assumed was the Legilimens. This helped quite a lot. The last thing she wanted at that moment was to hear Molly Weasley wailing or Ginny Weasley shouting about injustice—or justice, depending on her mood. It was going to be difficult enough keeping certain memories locked off from the probing mind fingers of the Legilimens without that distraction, thank you very much.

"I want to be absolutely clear, Miss Granger," Skimble said from his high bench, "You have agreed to allow the Wizengamot to use Legilimency on you for the purpose of finding certain memories which you claim will prove your innocence and reveal the identity of the true murderer of Mr. Ronald Weasley, is this correct?"

"Yes," she said. "But—"

"I must tell you, Miss Granger," Skimble said, straightening his spectacles, "I find this whole thing to be extremely inconvenient. Should we find nothing to support your claims, I will be very annoyed."

Whether or not the Chief Warlock was annoyed with her was really not of utmost importance to her. "Sir," she said, "may I please say something?"

"If you must, Miss Granger," he said with a slight wave of his hand.

"I have some conditions—"

Zabini cleared his throat and gave her a quelling look.

She ignored him and went on. "I have some conditions that I respectfully ask you to follow before I let your Legilimens do anything."

"Miss Granger," Skimble said, but he was amused. "Miss Granger, you are hardly in any kind of position to be setting conditions."

"I am aware of that sir," she said. "But I still have to insist that your Legilimens—"

"Mr. Winterburn," Skimble said.

"That Mr. Winterburn," she amended, "Limits his search to my recent memories of no earlier than this past year."

Skimble looked at her thoughtfully. "Is there a specific reason for this, Miss Granger?"

She smiled mirthlessly. "Mr. Skimble, if there was not a reason for it, I would not have asked."

"Point taken, Miss Granger," he said. "Alright, I agree, as long as I have your word that there is nothing beyond this last year that has any relevance to this case."

"You have my word, sir," she said solemnly.

"Is that all?"

"Yes sir, that is all."

"Well then, let's get on with it, shall we?" He gestured to Winterburn and the little man drew his wand and approached her.

Hermione immediately tensed, then forced herself to relax and empty her mind of all emotion. To do this she went to that cold place inside of herself where she went when she killed, where nothing and no one mattered, where she could observe and be ruthlessly objective. It wasn't really that bad of a place to be.

When Winterburn pointed his crooked wand at her and said "Legilimens" in his scratchy little voice, Hermione was waiting for him. Still, the force of the invasion was a surprise. It had been a long time since anyone had used Legilimency on her, and then it had been in battle, when both parties were under considerable stress. This was different. This almost hurt.

The court room swam in her vision, then dissolved and …

It was four days ago and she was curled up in a corner in the dark, rocking herself. The Mother Crier was screaming, 'Help me, Mother! … I love you! … I'm sorry, Mother!' … It was two months ago and she was shuffling papers at her desk. The desk top was so covered in bits of parchment, copies of documents, and stacks of reference books that anyone else would call it disorganized. It wasn't disorganized at all. She knew exactly where everything was … It was seven months ago and she was having tea with Guenevere Bloodstone in her rose garden. Guenevere was smiling and her garnet colored hair was swept up in a French twist. One of her cats, a white one with a green eye and a blue eye was curled up in her lap. Guenevere had just proposed a joint project; a book about the properties of unicorn blood and its uses in the Dark Arts. It was sure to be brilliant and positively scandalous and … It was a year and a half ago and she was at home visiting her mother. Her father's funeral was in two days and her mother was weeping. He'd had a heart attack on his way home from work and—No! No you don't, Hermione thought. Winterburn had either gone back much too far by accident, or he had chosen to ignore the conditions Skimble had agreed to. She used her own limited power of Occlumency to shove the intruding mind back and block it off.

The Legilimens retreated, then pulled out completely.

Hermione gasped and shook her head. Distantly, she heard someone say something, but she couldn't understand them just yet. Then it began to make sense and she heard Skimble ask "… using Occlumency, Miss Granger?"

"He went too far back," she said, panting heavily and glaring at the little man, who just shrugged. "He—that was more than a year ago. We agreed, Skimble—"

"So we did, Miss Granger. So we did." He gave the Legilimens a stern look. "Mr. Winterburn will limit his search to only those memories within the past year that relate to this case."

"Yes sir," Winterburn said. "Sorry sir."

"Indeed. Carry on then."

Winterburn once again pointed his wand at her and said, "Legilimens."

It was a month ago, the day Ron was killed. She had lunch with Harry at the Leaky Caldron and he brought his eldest daughter, Lily, with him. She was a pretty little girl with Ginny's flaming red hair and freckles and Harry's grass green eyes. She was six and a half, she told Hermione proudly… It was later that day and she was in the library in London, doing research for a chapter of the book she was working on with Guenevere Bloodstone. She had read through hundreds of pages about unicorns in mythology, and the symbolism of unicorns in cultures all over the world. Her eyes were starting to hurt and she was getting another of her headaches. She decided to call it a day and … It was still later that night and she had just taken the tea kettle off of the stove, lit a fire in the hearth, and sat down with her cup and a very rare copy of Wyked Olde Sungs by Richard Rookvane. The fire was crackling, and she wiggled her cold toes closer to the flames. Then suddenly the fire flared green and—nothing. There was a gaping blank space in her mind where the memory of what came next should have been and wasn't. It was like being lost. Hermione hated that feeling and distantly knew that she had screamed, but then it was gone and … Moody was just leaving, and Lavender Brown slipped by him and sat down across from her in the seat that Moody had just vacated. 'I know you didn't', she said again in that strange way. Not the way most people said it, but like she knew because she had a reason to know. He was in love with you. He never said it, but I knew. I knew … It was you he wanted, not me. It was never me. It was you … I would have given anything—anything for him to look at me just once the way he looked at you … That's why I had to do it, you know? … I killed him, of course. I had to. I couldn't stand it anymore. And then . . . and then I made it look like you did it. And that seemed right. That seemed like the way it should be. He loved you, after all—"

Hermione threw the Legilimens out of her mind with a triumphant scream, then slumped in her chair, almost unconscious. She heard the little wizard talking with the Wizengamot, but she didn't care what he was saying. She felt Zabini touch her arm and ask her if she was alright and she wished she could summon the strength to turn her hand over and clasp his, but she was so tired. Her head hurt like she'd just woken up from an all-night binge with the worst hangover in God's creation. The kind where, even though you know it's impossible for bones to actually shatter like glass, you are still convinced that your skull is going to do that very thing at any moment.

"Miss Granger?" Skimble said, and she fervently wished for her wand so that she could curse him. "Miss Granger, can you hear me?"

She groaned.

"Miss Granger, this is very important," Skimble said, raising his voice a few octaves higher, just incase she couldn't hear him.

"What?" she forced herself to say. Her voice sounded strained and parched, like she'd been eating sand. "What is it?"

"Miss Granger, the Wizengamot would like you to allow us to create a duplicate of this memory," Skimble said. "We will need it as evidence if we are going to pursue a case against Miss Lavender Brown. We would also like you to agree to testify against her, when it comes to that."

Hermione shook her head, then whimpered because, bloody hell that hurt. "What?" It was impossible. She couldn't possibly be hearing what she was hearing, they didn't just say—

"We would like your permission to make a duplicate of this memory for our—"

"I heard you," she said. She lifted her head and looked up at him, then down at her arms. They were no longer chained to the chair. The chains had fallen away and she could lift them, if she wanted. Which, of course, she couldn't. They wouldn't obey her and—

"Do you agree to allow us to—?"

She looked back at Skimble and blinked. "Yes, you can copy it if you …want. Zabini?"

"What is it, Hermione?" He knelt by her left hand and looked at her with a concerned frown.

"I think … I'm going to pass out," she said faintly. Her vision wavered, then sharpened just a little when Skimble began speaking again.

"And about your testimony, Miss Granger?" he asked. "It really would—"

"Testimony?" she said.

"They want you to testify against Lavender Brown," Zabini clarified. "They're going to arrest her."

"Arrest her," Hermion muttered. Her vision went blurry again. "Yes, I'll … testify. Silly bitch … she should have … used a memory charm … so much easier … and nothing left to … to …"

"Well then, Miss Granger," Skimble said grandly, "You are free to go. You have the Ministry's deepest apologies, and …"

But Hermione wasn't listening anymore. The blurriness started to become grey around the edges, then black, then she did exactly what she had warned Zabini she was going to do and passed out.