A/N: I started this as a drabble for the HMS Harmony discord server's 'Two Hundred Word Drabble Tuesday', only I missed the mark a little on the word count so I'm posting this as a one-shot instead. Enjoy! amidland
Pupil: the dark circular opening in the centre of the iris of the eye, which varies in size to regulate the amount of light reaching the retina.
From the Latin pupilla meaning little doll, referring to one being able to see a small reflection of oneself in someone else's pupil.
-oOo-
The tolling of the clocktower bell did nothing to help the ringing in his ears or the piercing headache, to be honest. It felt like his brain was trying to force itself out of his body, his skull near-cracking in two from the pressure. This was a fresh kind of hell for Harry; he'd always been able to ignore his pain to an extent - Uncle Vernon had made certain of that. 'Grin and bear it' was a phrase he'd read in a book one day while hiding out from Dudley in his primary school's library, and while he never really did feel very much like grinning through stomach cramps or clobbered ears, he'd learned to just swallow the pain and carry on.
That didn't work so well when just thinking about ignoring the pain in his head caused even more pain in his head. He screwed his eyes shut to block out at much light as possible as he leaned back against the wall of the corridor to catch his breath. The fact that he'd barely made it halfway back to the common room and was already panting was enough of a sign that he really wasn't dealing with the situation very well at all.
As if he didn't have enough to deal with, considering the Toad and her penchant for grievous bodily harm. He already wore a veritable plethora of scars across his body - carving a short phrase into the back of his hand was frankly a small mercy, particularly because it really was a phrase he happened to quite agree with.
He would not tell lies. He would not stay quiet. He would not pretend that this wasn't happening.
At least the Toad provided him with a form of torture he could actually abide. What the Bat was doing was a different matter altogether, though it was definitely still torture. Harry couldn't see how it was anything but psychological torture. The sessions certainly weren't beneficial, as Dumbledore seemed insistent that they would be. They weren't protecting his mind from the visions he'd been having. If anything, the visions were coming more frequently since Snape had started his sanctioned attacks. They came almost every night with a vengeance. He had absolutely no idea how the other boys in the dorm hadn't throttled him yet, or smothered him in his sleep. Some mornings he woke up wishing that they had.
Pushing himself off the wall, he continued despite his spinning head. It wouldn't do to loiter in the corridors unless he wanted to give up another evening to Umbridge, and he could really do without that tonight. Harry found himself wishing he knew why Snape hated him, and why he was taking such joy in crippling him so. The man was certainly getting some sort of sadistic pleasure from the sessions, but it went beyond that too, and had since his first day at Hogwarts. Up until now he'd just accepted it as one of the fundamental truths of life. Grass is green; the sun sets and rises; Snape loathes him; if you think it can't get any worse then wait. It was just the way it was.
Thing is, these days he found a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Hermione's, and it wouldn't stop facing these 'fundamental facts of Harry Potter' and simply asking 'Why?'. Frankly, the voice had been irritating to begin with, but as it kept causing him to question the world around him, he'd started to think that way too.
'Recompense,' he whispered to the Fat Lady as he finally made his way to Gryffindor Tower. He climbed through the portrait hole and saw Hermione sat by the fire. The second he'd walked in, she looked up and met his eyes. In place of the unadulterated loathing he'd bore witness to in Snape's eyes for the last two hours, he found concern in Hermione's, a clear question being silently asked. 'Are you okay?'
He nodded slightly to her, hoping it looked reassuring enough. A small amount of tension seemed to bleed away from her as she gave him a small, sympathetic smile. It wasn't pitying, or prying. Just sympathetic, if not a little rueful, and he found himself feeling so incredibly appreciative of her in that moment. She knew he didn't need pity or empty reassurance, and so she didn't give it. Only kind understanding.
He jerked his head slightly towards the boys' dormitory and she nodded before looking back down to her book. The pain caused by the movement in his head made him thankful that they could have these moments silently. Merlin only knew that his headache didn't need to deal with conversation on top of everything else.
Up in the dorm, he splashed some cold water on his face, hoping fruitlessly that the change in temperature might provide some kind of relief tonight that it had denied him each and every time he'd tried before. Alas, tonight it didn't seem to break from the trend. He drew the curtains around his bed and lay, still fully clothed, basking in the restful silence.
As he let his mind wander, the voice in his head circled back around to asking why it was that Snape hated him for what must have been the hundredth time. This time though, an answer made itself suddenly known. Well. Not an answer per say, but a means to discover what the answer was. It was beautiful in its simplicity. It had been staring him right in the face for countless hours. If only he knew what Snape was thinking.
Legilimency.
-oOo-
Hermione was right, it turned out, that if Harry applied himself he really could be a brilliant wizard. Of course, he knew that not many adult wizards could produce a corporeal Patronus, while he had at just thirteen, but learning that charm was more of an act of self-preservation than strict determination. He'd say the same about his learning new spells for the Triwizard Tournament last year - it wasn't determination, but necessity. Plus, he'd been given a helpful hand by Crouch Jr, so really that didn't count at all.
Learning Legilimency though? That was sheer determination, with just a slight sprinkle of spite for the dungeon bat. He hadn't needed to learn Legilimency; his life wasn't on the line if he didn't learn it. He'd wanted to, and had managed it in a little over two months. That, he knew, was singularly unbelievable, and he knew he just had to share this achievement with somebody else. Somebody who would understand truly how impressive an achievement it really was.
She hadn't believed him at first, but he was expecting that. There was no dismissal though, just a healthy doubt that he'd really done it, and so she'd offered a way to settle the matter. He could prove it to her, she said, by performing Legilimency on her. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. Snape had shown him how unpleasant the experience was - how painful and violating it felt.
'You won't be doing it out of spite, Harry,' Hermione said to him. 'We both know that Legilimency can be passive, and doesn't have to be invasive. Snape only makes it so unpleasant because he wants to, and I know you won't do that to me.'
Still, he wasn't swayed. She reached over the desk they were sitting at in a quiet corner of the library and held his hand. Looking up, he found her giving him a kind yet sincere look. 'I trust you, Harry.'
And well, really, there was no coming back from that. He steeled himself and agreed as she told him that she'd focus on something that he'd never be able to guess and if he could tell her what it was then that would be proof enough.
His striking green eyes met her amber-brown, and after a moment of concentration an image formed in his head. Wrapping being chaotically shredded from a Christmas present by a six year old Hermione to reveal a hand-knitted blanket. The wool was the greenest green he thought he'd ever seen, and the girl beamed as she rubbed the corner of it against a chubby cheek, before launching herself at an elderly lady and giving her the biggest hug a small child could possibly manage.
The image dissolved and he grinned slightly at Hermione who was looking at him with barely veiled anticipation. 'Your grandmother gave you a forest green knitted blanket for Christmas when you were six,' he whispered smugly.
She smiled at him but raised her nose snootily into the air. 'Wrong,' she said triumphantly and his smug grin gave way to a small frown almost instantly. She didn't give him time to argue though, and continued with a teasing smirk, 'It wasn't forest-green, it was emerald-green.'
He rolled his eyes but smiled at her pickiness. She launched her upper body over the table and wrapped her arms around his neck. 'That's amazing, Harry. Two months! I'm so proud of you.'
As she pulled away, he could see on her face that she really was. He could see her excitement at his achievement, her pride in him, and even a small amount of vindication at all of his arguing that he was a barely average wizard coming crashing down. The beaming smile she wore warmed him within, and filled him with the impulse to go and find another obscure piece of magic to begin learning immediately.
Harry met her eyes again, and unintentionally found another image forming in his mind. He immediately made to withdraw but the image held him for a moment. This wasn't a memory of Hermione's, but what she was seeing right now. He was looking at his own emerald eyes. There was a soft smile on his face that he didn't realise he was wearing. Nowhere in this image of himself was the freak who had lived in a cupboard; there was no hint of a clueless boy who was good for nothing but getting the people he cared about into life-threatening danger.
Instead, he saw bravery, He saw care and kindness and he knew nobody but Hermione ever saw this smile. He could feel her slight awe of him, and the burgeoning feelings of something much deeper, much more significant than friendship or kinship. He didn't rightly know what love felt like ten minutes ago, but now he thought he might.
Rapidly he averted his eyes as a flush adorned his face, and he saw Hermione looking out of the window in a manner that would have fooled him for completely casual, if not for the rosy blush she wore on her cheeks. Was that how she felt about him? About reckless, dangerous, stupid Harry Potter?
Except now he knew she didn't see him like that at all. The Harry Potter that Hermione saw wasn't reckless, he was brave in the face of adversity. That Harry wasn't dangerous, he looked at the hand life and fate had dealt him and faced the consequences with his head held high. Hermione's Harry wasn't stupid, he was fantastic, he filled her with awe.
He didn't feel very much like the Harry Potter that she saw, but a memory surfaced of an eleven year-old Hermione fixing his glasses on the train. He watched as the crack in the glass sealed itself up and disappeared. Somewhere in his chest, he felt a part of him being fixed in the same way. Really, he never knew that it was broken in the first place. Never knew there was something inside that needed repairing. But that fluttery feeling he'd felt within Hermione was starting to echo within him too.
He didn't feel like that Harry Potter at all, but damned if he wasn't going to try to feel like him from now on.
-oOo-
'Oh!'
Harry never knew one single sound could be so heart-rending. He fell to his knees beside her almost before she'd even hit the ground. She lay completely still, her eyes vacant, and Harry suddenly felt unbelievably empty inside. Completely hollow. Like nothing mattered anymore. Nothing at all.
He was vaguely aware of Neville scrambling for cover somewhere beside him, his face covered in blood. Somewhere above him, the Death Eater who had hit Hermione with the spell pulled off his mask. Harry saw him with some vague recognition as the man's wand pointed at him, but fired off a spell - any spell, really - at the man and he was no longer a threat.
Looking down at Hermione again, he was filled with an unequalled cold. Her amber-brown eyes were entirely unfocused, unseeing. Neville was knelt on her other side and was saying something or other, but he couldn't make it out between the murmured pleading, praying, and begging that was coming from his own mouth and the ringing in his ears.
Neville grabbed his hand, the one that wasn't holding his wand, and forced him to press two fingers to Hermione's neck. There was something there, a beat travelling through his fingers and into his own chest. It seemed to kickstart his own body like one of those electric machines he'd seen on the television at the Dursleys. He looked up to Neville for confirmation of what he was feeling, not daring to believe what might yet be his own wishful thinking playing a dreadful trick on him.
'A pulse, Harry,' Neville said as firmly as he could with his broken nose, 'I'b sure id is. She's alibe.'
He could feel his heart racing through his chest, bolstered by the pulse from Hermione's neck where his hand still lay. 'Yeah?' he asked, in such a weak voice that it was barely audible at all.
Neville smiled tenderly and nodded. 'Yeah.'
'Oh, thank God,' Harry choked through the tears that he didn't realise had been rolling down his cheeks. That hollowness still hadn't abated completely, but it wasn't so encompassing that he couldn't do anything else. He wiped his face and looked back down to Hermione.
What would she think of him? For weeks he'd been trying to be that Harry that she saw, that inspired her with awe, and yet he'd dragged her all the way here against her better judgement and he'd fallen back on the old reckless, life-threatening Harry and she'd almost been killed. Really he wouldn't be surprised if she never wanted to speak to him again. Never even wanted to look at him again. It hurt to think about, but he truly did understand.
Neville grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him free from the pit of despair he'd let himself start to fall down. 'We need do bove, Harry,' he said firmly. Harry took a deep breath and nodded. He still had to get her out to safety, she needed medical attention. He stood, handing Hermione's wand to Neville, and putting one of her arms around his shoulder while Neville did the same on her other side.
They'd get out. They needed to. Hermione wasn't going to die tonight.
-oOo-
The first rays of sun shining through the windows of the hospital wing were well needed. Much more of the dark of night and Harry wasn't sure whether or not he'd be able to keep fighting the exhaustion that was weighing heavily on his body. The light helped though; it told his body that it was daytime now so there was no time to sleep.
He adamantly wouldn't sleep. Better yet, he wouldn't even move from the seat beside Hermione. They'd tried to get him to move, to leave, to sleep. Merlin knows they'd tried. Dumbledore wanted to talk to him about something, everything apparently, but that could wait. Madam Pomfrey had tried to get him to move to one of the other beds while she treated him, but she'd ended up treating his injuries where he sat. Their friends had tried to talk him into going to the dorm and getting some sleep, even just for a couple of hours, and to come back in the morning, but that wouldn't do.
He was going to be sitting exactly where he was, by her side, when she woke up. Nobody was going to tell him otherwise. Remus had been and tried to talk to him. He'd even held onto Harry's arm in an attempt to guide him away from the wing, only to be met with Harry's shield charm, which he'd then held in place until the rest of them got the hint. He was not moving.
Only once in the last six hours had Harry gotten up from the chair, and he'd spent about an hour and a half before that debating whether or not he could withstand the need to relieve himself indefinitely so as not to let Hermione out of sight. Eventually he'd relented, but had cast his Patronus to watch over her while he was away even so.
That was an interesting change. His Patronus had changed since he'd cast it last in front of the DA. Prongs had given way to a new form - a large, regal and wise looking owl had flown from his wand to sit on the headboard of Hermione's bed and watch over her in Harry's absence.
A shifting on the bed pulled him from his thoughts. Hermione's head turned to face him as her eyes slowly opened, squinting at the light that had started to fill the room. 'Harry?' she murmured sleepily.
'Hermione?' In an instant, he was off the chair and kneeling by her bedside. 'Are you okay?'
She shifted slightly, stretching as she woke up and winced in pain. Harry's heart immediately dropped through his chest. 'What am I asking, of course you're not,' he muttered bitterly to himself. She looked at him, shocked at the venom in his voice and hung his head. 'I'm so sorry, Hermione. I know it's my fault, and I know you probably hate me, but you can't hate me more than I hate myself right now, so I just needed to tell you that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you were hurt and I'm so sorry you were even there in first place -'
A gentle hand under his chin stopped his rambling, and he looked up at her through bleary, tear-filled eyes. She wiped a tear from his cheek. 'I don't hate you, Harry. It's not your fault,' she whispered.
That voice in his head that he'd grown so accustomed to over the last few months made itself known as he whispered hoarsely, 'Why?'
She stroked his cheek softly as he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. 'You need to forgive yourself, Harry, but as far as I see it, there's nothing for me to forgive.'
'But- If it weren't for me,' he whispered, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat, 'you wouldn't have been there. You wouldn't have been hurt.'
'If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be here at all.' Harry just looked at her uncomprehendingly and she smiled softly. 'Read my mind.'
His eyes went wide and he leant back a bit in shock. 'What?'
She reached her hand up, wincing slightly as she did so, and gently removed his glasses. 'You're a Legilimens,' she whispered. 'Read my mind.'
Harry hesitated, but she sounded sure and he trusted her. He leaned forward until he could see her eyes clearly, since she'd removed his glasses, and ended up so close that he could smell the vanilla in her hair from the shampoo she used. Looking into her eyes, he concentrated, and soon enough images started appearing in his mind. Scene after scene, like a home video, and all of them were of him and Hermione.
There was the meeting on the Express, the troll incident, the conversation at the potions riddle before he fought riddle, him filling her in on their classes while she was petrified - she'd never even told him she'd heard all of that! It moved on and he watched as she woke up while he covered her with a blanket after she'd fallen asleep in the common room while doing an assignment in third year, then him protecting her from the werewolf Lupin.
The images went on through fourth year with him helping to cut her food while her hands were bandaged after the bubotuber pus incident. He watched himself practically race out of the lake with Gabrielle in his arms, coming immediately to check if she was okay. Then this past year, he saw images of that Harry he knew she'd seen in the library months ago. He watched himself teaching the DA, demonstrating his Legilimency, thanking her for looking after him after the Toad's detentions, and a bunch of small things too. The images faded after he watched her come down to breakfast as he was already making her a cup of tea, just how she liked it.
Slowly Hermione slid his glasses back on his face, and he saw her looking over to him with a big smile and glistening eyes. 'I love you, you prat,' she whispered.
And well, really, there was no coming back from that. He leaned forward and watched as her eyes fluttered shut, and he closed his too as he kissed her softly, chastely. Pulling away, he saw her beaming a beatific smile at him, looking like he'd just fulfilled all of her wishes, while having no idea that she'd just done the same for him.
He smiled at her, even as his eyes-watered and tears overflowed and he began crying in earnest. 'Thank you,' he managed to say hoarsely, and her hand returned to his cheek and stroked the tears away.
'No, thank you, Harry.'