Chapter 5

It was quiet inside interrogation room nine. Hermione was periodically writing down specifics for the trial. Malfoy was silent, as was mostly his custom in these sessions. Hermione, though scribbling, was uncomfortably distracted. Half-way through a sentence she would stop and forget where she was going with it. Her mind kept wandering to her get-together with Ron the week before. It had been amicable enough, if amicable meant that no one resorted to throwing things at the other and expletives were nowhere to be found. They still disagreed about the ending of their relationship. Ron was understandably hurt, but he didn't understand. Hermione's feelings for him hadn't just vanished in a puff of smoke, so to speak. Over time they simply dulled into a numb kind of feeling. Kissing him, at the end, had felt the same as kissing a wall, or a pillow. It wasn't his fault, Hermione still cared for him dearly, even loved him, but it wasn't the same kind of love as it had been before.

Hermione sighed as she had to start another sentence over again. My client was in a stressful state of mind- no, that wouldn't work. He was coerced- hardly substantial at a trial.

"I'm sorry."

Hermione looked up slowly. Malfoy was in the same position as before; blankly staring past her at the wall, his mouth closed. She turned to check if there was someone else in the room, possibly apologising for intruding, but there was no one.

"Did you say something?" She said.

"I'm sorry."

This time she saw his lips move as he spoke, it hadn't been her imagination. Hermione set her quill down carefully, clasped her hands together in front of her, and tried to steel herself to all possible outcomes of this.

"What are you sorry for?"

His eyes finally focused on hers, though it still felt like he was looking through her. "For every ill will I did you in the past. Hexes, taunts… the bullying. I am- I regret it."

Hermione's mouth opened in surprise. She wasn't expecting this. She swallowed around the dryness in her throat. "What brought this on?"

"I've had a long time to think about my life, all the bad… only the bad. I thought I might try to clear some of it away since I can," he said, gesturing to her in front of him, and the chains bound to his wrists wiggled against the table. "While I still can."

She sighed. "Malfoy, you're not going to die. I won't let that happen."

"You've gotten far in your stubbornness before, Granger, but it won't help you now. I was stamped with a death sentence when they arrested me. No former death eater or sympathiser has survived going to Azkaban. I've watched them be taken one by one, the cells suddenly empty a week or so after a trial. There was no hope left for them, I'm no different."

"I'm not going to let you give up, this is your life we're talking about here," she said.

"It's not giving up, it's accepting your fate. The cards are stacked against me, the game is fixed, so there's no point in playing."

"No," Hermione said firmly. "I'm not quitting, it's not right what's happening to these people. And they are all still people. A fact everyone else seems only too happy to forget. Four cases before you have landed in favour of the ministry prosecutors, and yes two ended with the kiss, but we can break that streak." Hermione didn't add that she thought it was fishy how easily those cases had been won, and that something definitely smelled rotten when it came to the death eater cases. But she was determined.

"Having a hissy fit in court isn't going to help my case any."

"Excuse me?" Hermione curled her fist on the table. "I do not have hissy fits!" Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her and Hermione straightened her back and tried to flatten her hair down a bit, gathering her composure and said in a calmer voice: "I do not have hissy fits."

They were silent for a moment. "But thank you," Hermione said. "For your apology."

Malfoy nodded. "You don't have to forgive me or anything-"

"Oh I'm not."

A tiny quiver on the corner of his lips, barely a twitch, but Hermione thought she saw a hint of a smile.

"Okay, good." Malfoy shook his head. "I just wanted you to know."

"Well, now I know."

"Good."

"Alright."

There was a knock at the door, nothing more than one rap and the door swung open. Mr. Trist stepped in to the interrogation room. Trist was a tall man, though slender. Hermione wondered he might look a bit like a leaf, if he ever quivvered in the wind he might topple over. She wanted to be that wind. Trist did not observe the room, did not look anywhere except at Hermione.

"Miss Gringer, a word."

Hermione pursed her lips and said "It's Granger," under her breath before getting up and stepping out with him. "What is it, Mr. Trist?"

"I'm required to ask you to make a report concerning prisoner eight-four-seven, seeing as he was moved to a high security interrogation room. You need to list any aggressive behaviours. Is he hostile? Has he shown any violent tendencies in your sessions?"

"Uhm," she said, thinking back to when he practically choked her on the table. "Not in my presence, no." Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. "And I feel like him being in room nine is a bit over the top."

"He attacked several Azkaban guards, you feel it's over the top, I call it necessity."

Hermione scoffed. "Oh please, we both know he didn't attack any guards."

"I don't like your tone, miss Gringer." Trist tilted his head to the side, as if she had shrunk down half her size and being scolded like a child. "These are quite the allegations. Are you saying that the guards lied?"

"No," Hermione said through pursed lips. "Of course not."

"See to it to finish making a report on the goings on in your sessions. I need it on my desk before next week, you know, for the evaluation." Trist grinned and his ever punchable teeth practically shone to mock her.

"Evaluation?"

"Oh, right, I forgot - you're not a real lawyer, a pity." Trist shook his head and sighed, quite dramatically. "All prisoners need to have a psych evaluation before their trial. So that we can determine how stable or unstable they might be in a courtroom. To take appropriate precautionary measures."

"I'll get you the report," Hermione said stiffly.

"Good." Trist turned around to walk away. "The cage takes two men to lift and I want at least two weeks notice."

Hermione wanted to yell at him, or throw things, but instead she settled for a very childish finger to his back as he walked away and sticking out her tongue. That man riled her up like nobody's business. She turned back to the interrogation room.

"Sorry about that," she said and sighed.

"A psych eval," Malfoy said.

Hermione sighed. "Yes, apparently so." She rubbed at her forehead. She had completely forgotten about that, and needed to make sure she didn't have any more slip ups. "But it's going to be alright, we'll have you prepared for it."

Malfoy shook his head. "They'll have me in a cage. All death eaters do their trials that way. My father…" he swallowed. "And others."

"But you weren't a death eater," she said firmly. "You were a kid, nothing but a pawn-"

"Stop it."

"What?"

"That's all bullshit. I was a death eater, end of story."

"Malfoy-"

"No!"

Hermione jumped a bit in her chair and swallowed. "Please, calm down, just-"

"No," he said forcefully, with a bite to his tone. A threatening sort of finality. "I bear the mark, I committed crimes, witnessed foul things that I didn't even try to stop."

"You would have been killed if you had tried to stop any of it," Hermione quickly shot in. "The circumstances were impossible."

"Well maybe I should have died then!" Malfoy shot up out of his chair, then jolted because of the bonds on his wrists and curled his lip up at them. "Instead of doing nothing." He janked hard at his chain, which obviously pained him. "Like a coward."

Hermione took a deep, albeit shaky, breath and then stood up carefully. Overly aware of how her legs shook by the memory flashing in her mind of him standing by as she was tortured on his living room floor.

"There was nothing you could have done," she said as calmly as she could.

He scoffed. "There were a million things I could have done, Granger. A million variables that would have meant more than just standing still and watching. As if I were nailed to the floor seeing these people be tortured, watching them scream, plead, and wish for any kind of relief. Watching them bleed on the floor."

"Stop, please."

"Watching them pay for the made up crimes plastered to their names because of a mad mans' idea of heritage, of royalty, of blood."

Hermione closed her eyes to the onslaught of images. Her hair splayed across the hardwood floors and the weight of someone pinning her down. She couldn't breathe, there was no room for her ribs to expand. Please, please, I don't know anything, please. Then a hot, manical breath in her ear: liar. And the searing pain splitting her every vein. The life being sucked out of her through a blade that scarred her arm forever. Hermione screamed the air out of her lungs, expelling all breath from her body.

In a flash two guards were in the interrogation room. One flew to Malfoy, grasping his arm and shoulder, pushing him face first onto the table and holding him down by the back of his head. The other came to Hermione to help her up. She was on the floor, how did she get there?

"Are you alright, miss?"

Hermione's breath was coming in fast spurts, her whole body was quaking. She glanced at Malfoy who was struggling against the guard who told him to be still and subsequently punched him in the back. Malfoy groaned but slackened his muscles to be still.

"Y-yes, I'm alright."

"What happened, did he attack you?"

"What?" Hermione looked at the guard, who held no compassion in his gaze, but stared with contempt at Malfoy.

"Get him out of here," the guard said and Malfoys' chains were released from the table and instead the chains around his ankles and wrists linked together and he was pulled up, a new bruise forming on his cheek.

"Wait," Hermione said weakly as he was escorted out with more force than she thought necessary. But it was difficult to speak, difficult to breathe. She'd had an episode. She needed to get back to Grimmauld.

Getting through the floo while forcing her legs steady was a battle. Once through to Grimmauld she calmly took her coat off and let it fall to the floor. Her eyes were glazed over, her movements mechanical. She was in the kitchen now, the tap running in front of her into an empty basin. Hermione stood in front of it for minutes, not moving, not seeing. Her hands moved under the water and splashed droplets over her face. By the time she turned the tap off her clothes were soaked, water dripping down her chin and fingers to the floor.

Next thing she knew she was lying in the bathtub - how did she get here? There was no water in the tub except for the tiny amount still leaking off of her clothes. The buzzing in her ears was too loud to hear anything around her, there was nothing except her heartbeat, loud and obnoxious, and the buzzing. Always the buzzing.

She rest her forehead on the cold tile and closed her eyes to the noise. She did not want to succumb to the memories and the horrors. It wasn't always a trip down memory lane, sometimes it was just the clenching in her stomach, a knot that wouldn't go away. A nervousness, like a frightened mouse jumping and hiding at every passing shadow. Today it was numbness. This time she felt nothing around her, she was in a shell inside her own head incapable of espacing.

When she opened her eyes she was lying in her own bed, three layers of blankets on top of her, the topmost one a patchwork quilt from Molly Weasley - a christmas gift from two years since.

Hermione moved her hand from under the covers and stroked the images of the quilt, letting herself feel the tiny bumps of seams on her fingertips. Finally she could breathe. Because it was over. There was nothing to flee or hide from, no war or chase or search for things to destroy. No enemies come to take them away.

Her eyes focused beyond the blankets and saw Harry slumped in her reading chair, flipping through a book. She wondered when he had gone home and how long he had taken care of her while she was stuck in her mind.

"Harry?"

He looked up, setting his book down carefully he slowly got up and walked over to her, making sure not to make sudden movements - he had learned this a long time ago.

"You're back," he said, sitting down on the bed, taking her hand in his. "You came back quicker than last time."

Hermione nodded with a shudder. "How long?"

"Five hours," Harry said. "I tried all the tricks, I suppose they worked. I didn't know the trigger but I could guess."

"Harry…"

"I know," he said. "I won't try to talk you out of it. But you know how I feel. This is dangerous and unhealthy."

Hermione moved her other hand over her face, then put it on top of their joined hands. "Thank you," she said. "I may not have it under control but…"

"You're managing."

She nodded. "I'm so-"

"Don't apologise Hermione, we all have demons we have to fight. I'm just relieved I was here so you didn't have to fight yours alone."

"I should go do work…"

Harry shook his head. "I think you should rest, drink some tea, eat biscuits and lots of chocolate - Lupins' orders," he said with a grin, standing up. "And then you can do work."

Hermione huffed out a laugh and nodded, letting Harry go downstairs to fetch her some tea and biscuits. She let her head relax onto her pillow, stretching her hands over the blankets, feeling the soft material against her skin. Letting it soothe her as her heart raced with every minute Harry did not return. But then he did, and she could breathe again.

After an appropriate amount of time for a rest period - well, an approved minimum rest time by Harry Potter's standards - Hermione grabbed her case files and rifled through the pages to find the psych evaluation forms.

There was too much to do.

Too many things to work on to make it happen.

And only six weeks till the trial.