The truth was ugly.
Convoluted, twisted and unnecessary.
But it was real.
It set you free.
She knew he was standing there.
She couldn't explain it, but she knew the exact moment when he had entered the prison. His steps were soft and hesitant as if they didn't belong in such a place.
They didn't belong.
A place where nightmares didn't differentiate between night and day, they were constant. Her nightmares had become her closest confident. The endless terror of her dreams had seeped beneath her skin and left her shivering late into the night. Her never-ending dreams had remained nameless, taking on a life and had birthed her madness. It was her madness that kept her alive giving her a supernatural awareness to her surroundings. She felt herself knowing his steps.
Her madness whispered his name.
He stood for what felt like endless days. Her madness had decided long ago to forgo concepts of time. Time no longer existed in this place.
There was plenty of it.
The shuffling of his feet briefly alluded her to his presence. He stood in the shadows, the moonlight shone through the magical bars that kept them separated briefly illuminating his face before plunging him back into darkness.
Perhaps she knew his steps because there was a time when she knew him.
Harry Potter.
Who was he to her? To the world he was the boy who lived. The boy who saviour. The boy who saved them from a war that had shed blood for days until he had plunged the final blow. The boy who saved them from a tyrannical blood purist. The boy who could do no wrong.
Who was he to her? He was Harry, just Harry.
Her first friend.
The first to come to her aid against a mountain troll.
The first to make her believe in herself.
Her friend.
At least, he was.
She saw him for what he was, beyond the fame, beyong the name that he had carried on his shoulders from birth. She saw what remained without it. He was a broken boy. The war had broken him.
He had given everything he had, he had lost everything he had in the process. He was now the boy who once lived.
"What are you doing here Harry?" she asked.
He didn't want to be there. She didn't want him to be her.
Harry her friend had died in the war.
She too had died alongside him.
What remained were imposters of who they once were.
He stepped forward out from the shadows allowing her to see his face clearly for the first time. He looked old.
Beyond his 18 years.
"I came to tell you that I will be speaking on your behalf at the trial tomorrow"
She didn't know what she was expecting.
Perhaps his anger, his scorn or on some level his pity.
She had expected her madness to swallow her hole as a result.
She had expected 1001 scenarios but did not expect that.
Harry sensing her discomfort and confusion smiled sadly, the smile of an old man. His smile losing trajectory before reaching his eyes.
"A life for a life"
He didn't elaborate.
He didn't need to.
For years, Hermione Granger had been his backbone. He knew it. She knew it. The world didn't.
It was her intellect that had gotten them through the trials for the philosopher's stone. It was her research that had unearthed the terror of the Basilik. Her quick thinking that saved the life of his beloved Godfather, her endless loyalty saw him through the Triwizard tournament. She had saved him from himself in his 5th year and betrayed him in his next.
But he owed her. A life for a life.
Hermione stood slowly in the dark. Her knees cracking from lack of use. Her hands shaking as she gripped her cell bars tightly.
"Consider it paid" she replied, matching his smile with one of her own. Harry nodded in agreement turning sharply to go before hesitating slightly, his back to her.
"I have to know" he asked quietly.
Hermione sighed.
Life was never so simple was it.
"What Harry" she replied warily.
She dreaded his answer.
For she knew his question.
It was what he had always wanted to know. It was the first question he had asked her. Bloodied, hurt and within an inch of his life.
It was what they all wanted to know.
"Would you go back and do it differently if you could?"
Hermione paused unexpectedly "Of course" she replied automatically.
Her counsel had taught her well.
Harry chuckled softly. Hermione flinched. Her madness coiled. The sound was not welcome. It was foreign, ugly. It vibrated against the walls of her prison.
"Your lawyers aren't here. The reporters aren't here. It's just me"
Hermione stared at the boy who had once held the keys to looking into her soul.
Before she had snatched them away and given them to another.
She felt her heart tickle and her hearth twitch with a feeling long forgotten- remembrance of a time that no longer was.
"Does it matter?" she asked tiredly.
Harry stepped forward, his dead eyes shining brightly.
"Yes. Maybe it's the only thing left that matters"
Hermione looked at him.
The broken boy who once lived.
"He gave me a choice. His life or yours- and I made the only choice I could live with"
The truth was ugly. The truth was convoluted, twisted but it was necessary. Hermione knew truth well. It had twisted her insides. Convoluted her reality beyond recognition.
But it was necessary.
It was real.
But she was wrong. The truth didn't set you free. It left you in chains.
