The next three weeks were the longest that Hermione could remember.
Perhaps she went to class…? She wasn't paying any attention. She vaguely made efforts to complete her homework assignments, remembering nothing of them when they were finished... Each day, as soon as she could, she raced straight to Harry's bedside in the infirmary. Often Ron would have beaten her there. Ginny always came in as soon as she could, breathing hard from running through the courtyard.
The three of them would sit and chat, almost as if things were normal.
Almost.
Next to them, Harry lay unmoving, barely breathing, and pale as talcum dust. Each day he seemed to grow thinner and weaker in front of them. His skin had taken on an eerie translucent sheen. The circles under his eyes had deepened to a bruised blue-black.
Outside the windows, the grey December days were short and listless.
……
In the evenings, when Madame Pomfret eventually insisted that they leave, Hermione went straight to the library to research countercurses. Every night. She refused to lose hope, gritting her teeth a little harder with each book she put aside – but there was nothing. Nothing! Neither she nor Dumbledore nor anyone else had been able to find any record of a similar curse. It was as though it had never been used, never been documented, as if it had come straight from the depths of hell.
……
Inside of himself, Harry drifted…
He realized he was conscious…or…sort of…he had a funny, foggy feeling, as though he were half-dreaming and half dead…
…was he dead?
If he could have moved, he would have frowned, as he tried to force his plodding, heavy thoughts to make sense of where he was.
But he didn't seem to be able to move. Still feeling drugged and dizzy, he tried to concentrate.
After some time, he realized that he could feel his body…well, sort of feel it. He seemed to have fingers and toes, and could vaguely feel his head. None of it would respond when he tried to do anything with it.
But the strangest feeling of all was what was supposed to be in between his toes and his head, wasn't. He couldn't feel anything at all. It just wasn't there.
He felt emptiness swirling out of his chest, as though the middle of him had been sucked out by a whirlpool.
He thought he heard Hermione's voice – and then he felt someone touch his forehead. 'Mione, he thought vaguely…Is that you? He wished he could see her.
He felt her take his hand and rest her head against it. Her hair tickled his skin. He thought she was speaking, but it was as though his ears were stuffed with cloth. Hermione, Hermione! he thought, feeling a little more awake. I want to open my eyes – I want to see her –
He concentrated with all of his might on opening his eyes – and instead was rewarded with a sudden rush of pain washing up over him – a piercing noise, a suffocating sensation -- and then grey fog, and nothing.
……
Three days before the Christmas holiday, Hermione sat alone in the infirmary, watching over Harry. She curled her fingers around his hand again, as she did everyday, willing him to squeeze back. He didn't.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against their hands and sighed, her head swimming. She felt as if a vast black hole had opened under Hogwarts and she was helpless to keep them all from falling in…
It's killing him, Hermione thought.
Maybe he just doesn't want to come back.
Hermione heard the door open. She turned to see Dumbledore walk casually into the room. Hermione looked up at him expectantly but he ignored her completely and instead strolled slowly towards the open west window, looking thoughtful.
Hermione watched curiously as he stood in front of the window. He seemed to think for a moment. Then he raised one hand in front of him. Clearly and quietly he said:
"Accio wand."
Hermione sat, confused. A wizard was never without their wand….Had Dumbledore thrown his wand out the window?
She wouldn't be surprised if he did something that odd… no, she saw it now, in his other hand. But then what was he doing?
Dumbledore stood there, unmoving, for several minutes. If he knew she was watching (and Hermione was sure that he did) he made no sign. Instead he waited, very still, with one hand outreached, until…
…a wand flew gracefully in through the window, and landed on his outstretched palm.
Harry's wand.
Hermione gasped, stunned. She felt a stab of grief deep inside of her. No witch or wizard should be able to call another's wand. Yet there it was. Ownerless. It looked small and wrong on Dumbledore's old, massive palm.
Dumbledore closed his fingers around the wand, an expression of thoughtfulness on his face. He turned to look at Hermione.
"Miss Granger, I believe you can help us with a small task."
Then he handed her the wand, and then sat down as if to wait.
Completely puzzled, Hermione held Harry's wand awkwardly in her left hand, staring at Dumbledore. She felt depressed and a little sick. It was simply wrong to hold another wizard's wand. It was as if Harry were dead.
She wanted desperately to ask Dumbledore what he meant, but her tongue felt like lead in her mouth. "Uh…." she mumbled, feeling like an idiot…but she was prevented from asking anything by another entrance. Minerva McGonagall burst dramatically into the infirmary, chalk dust still on the front of her skirt.
"Albus?" she asked, rushing over to them and sounding more than a little irritated. "You don't possibly think…a stand-in? Drawing it out? What about the risks?"
"Calm yourself, Minerva," Dumbledore replied. "We shall explain the risks to our dear Hermione. But I think you underestimate her. I do think the risks are quite manageable. She is, after all," with a wink at Hermione "the brightest witch of her generation."
How does he know about that comment? wondered Hermione. A sudden, sad memory of Sirius flashed across her mind.
But wait – what? Me? Risks? What is he talking about? "Professor?" she began again, feeling more than a little panicky -- but Professor McGonagall continued the conversation as if Hermione were not there at all.
"Let us not get our hopes up, Albus. Nor the childrens'! It has been a very long time since this countercurse was tried – and it has never been done against an Unforgiveable curse! Never! I think it is madness. I really do!"
Dumbledore smiled more broadly, and leaned back in his chair. "Well, it may certainly be madness," Dumbledore replied, his eyes twinkling again at Hermione. He really seemed to be enjoying this conversation that was making no sense to her. "But many a mad project has proved fruitful, in my experience…"
McGonagall didn't say anything in response to this. Instead she turned to look at Hermione, her lips pursed, seeming puzzled.
Hermione looked back and forth between the two of them, waiting. She was too anxious and confused to even ask a question. She was still holding two wands.
After a long pause, Professor McGonagall turned back to the headmaster. "Albus, do you really think it's right to use her? It'll be hard work. And it is dangerous, you can't deny that."
Hermione felt her heart pounding in her chest. She finally made some words come out of her mouth: "I'll ..ahem…I'll do anything for Harry," she said, louder than she meant to. "I will. I really will. Just tell me what to do." She felt herself gripping both wands too tightly.
Dumbledore smiled kindly at her. "I know you will. And I happen to think you will do very well. But Professor McGonagall is right – it will be dangerous, and difficult. You should know the risks."
He settled back in his chair, and seemed to grow more serious. After a pause, he spoke more quietly than before, gazing intently at Hermione.
"I think…and Professor McGonagall agrees" he looked over his glasses at her, as if to confirm this – "that Harry is suffering from the effects of an Unforgivable Curse." He paused, and his eyes did not waver from Hermione's. "The killing curse."
Hermione felt as if she had been kicked in the chest.
"What?" she gasped. "What? What?" She looked frantically from one to the other, struggling to calm down enough to make a sentence. "How… how is that possible? He would be dead! There's no countercurse once you've been hit!...Is he…but he isn't dead…?
"What do we do? What on earth can we do?"
"Shhh, my dear," murmured Dumbledore, touching her arm lightly. "He is most definitely not dead. No, not yet." He turned to Professor McGonagall. "Minerva, would you like to explain?"
Professor McGonagall looked as if the last thing she wanted to do was explain anything, casting a quick furious glance at Dumbledore. But she leaned forward and said, "Miss Granger… There's a very old magic…so old, it took us weeks to find any mention of it. But it seems the killing curse can be…um…transferred."
Hermione just kept staring, trying to make sense of what she was hearing.
"It doesn't have to be cast by a wand," continued Professor McGonagall. "It…it can be placed in an object. In this case, a knife, most likely."
She gestured towards Harry, lying still, behind them. "And when that object then touches a person…when it touched Harry…well, it's just as lethal, but it kills more slowly, that's all."
"More slowly," said Dumbledore quietly, "and …it can be interrupted."
McGonagall whipped around to face him, her face reddening. "We don't know that, Albus –" She turned back to Hermione. She almost seemed to be pleading. "Please, Hermione, this has never been done before. I'm truly not convinced we can do anything. You must understand that Harry is very likely still going to die. I'm sorry, but I won't lie to you."
She closed her mouth abruptly. Dumbledore had not moved. Professor McGonagall seemed to deflate a little. She sat back in her chair. Her hands rose to fiddle with her hair. She sighed. Her eyes glistened.
Hermione felt she'd been sitting there for an eternity. She looked from McGonagall's exhausted face, to Dumbledore's, pensive and unreadable, and then down to her own two hands. The two wands looked old and worn out in the grey light. Her mind was racing, but she couldn't bring herself to speak.
"I'm sorry," McGonagall repeated in a very low voice.
And then, as she turned to look at Dumbledore, something seemed to change in Professor McGonagall's face. Expressions passed by too quickly for Hermione to read…disgust? Sadness? …Humor?
After a long silence, Professor McGonagall sighed. Dropping her gaze to her lap, she tugged at her skirt to straighten it, and then turned back to Hermione.
"Ah, well, …if professor Dumbledore thinks he can…interrupt…this curse, well …" She sighed again, but the spark had returned to her face. "I suppose you'd better explain your theory to us, Albus."
Dumbledore smiled, looking satisfied.
……
Harry returned to semi-consciousness again. It was not as easy this time. He felt himself struggling up as if through layers of heavy blankets. He had no strength to fight them.
His thoughts moved slower now. Dully, he noticed that he couldn't feel his feet as well as before. It was as though the empty feeling from the middle of his body was spreading.
What happens when it fills my whole body? he wondered.
I guess I'm dying.
Dulled and sickened …he didn't have the strength to care.
Vaguely he heard more voices near him, but they seemed so very far away and small…sleep, said a sickly sweet voice in his mind. Unable to resist, Harry fell back into the fog.
……
Three theories, three simple spells, thought Hermione determinedly to herself. She drew her cloak tighter around her against the wind and forced her legs to move faster. Her boots made slapping noises on the flagstones.
It was another grey day, but the sun had peeped out from the clouds at noon and raised everyone's spirits just a little. Just like the last day he was here, she thought...
…her thoughts moved, against her will, back to their conversation in the courtyard, weeks ago…
…How could I have believed him? Damn us both!
Her chest was tight with grief.
But the sunshine was almost gone now, and Hermione had pages and pages to read before midnight tonight. Her hands were clutching her books so tightly that she would find later that she had left sweat streaks on the book covers.
Three theories, three simple spells. Together they will work.
They have to…
Ducking into the castle, she raced up the stairs and entered the Griffyndor dormitory.
"Why such a hurry, dearie?" complained the Fat Lady after her, but Hermione didn't hear her, and wouldn't have stopped if she had.
She flew up the stairs and into her empty dormitory room, ripping off her cloak, and flung herself down on the bed. Grabbing the pile of books, she began rifling through them, looking for the pages that Dumbledore had marked for her.
Three theories, three spells. She nearly bashed her elbow against a bedpost in her haste. She heard Dumbledore's voice in her head, as he had passed each spellbook to her:
"First." he had said, his brows furrowed together in concentration. "We will first draw this curse out of Harry before it kills him. You will find the spell that we will use here" - he pointed - "page four hundred and thirty-two of Whigley's Compendium of Countercurses.
"Second. Once it has been drawn out, it can be destroyed. That is a simple spell. Here, End Any Curse in Three Easy Steps, page six hundred and eighty-six.
"Third," Dumbledore had looked at Hermione over his glasses with an expression she could not read, "and most delicate…As Professor McGonagall knows, this sort of curse will only be drawn out if it is called by the cursed person himself. This, I must admit, was …a difficult problem."
McGonagall had rolled her eyes at that. "Difficult?" she snorted. "Difficult? Is that what we call it? Let no one accuse you of overstating the case, Albus."
"However," continued Dumbledore smoothly, as if she hadn't interrupted, "I have reason to believe that with a particularly clever spell, we may be able to do so…" He smiled, clearly proud of himself, and said slowly,"…using Harry's wand." He turned to look at Hermione meaningfully, and then slowly handed her the last book he was holding. It was open to a page titled Anima Transverseum: The movement of personal characteristics.
"Someone young, and gifted in magic, needs to stand in for Harry for this undertaking to succeed." And with that, Dumbledore would say nothing more, and had sent her back to her dormitory to study.
Hermione sat up on her bed for a moment, and wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans.
That person is me. I need to do this.
Dumbledore had made it sound so simple, but what if anything went wrong? This had never been tried before. What if it made things worse? What if she couldn't do it? What if she killed Harry?
It will be fine, she thought fiercely. It will work. It has to. Dumbledore can do anything.
And she forced her shaking hands to keep turning pages.
