II

Face to Face

Harry read the article in the Prophet once over, just to be sure he wasn't hallucinating it. He'd picked up a copy of the paper after seeing several old-west-style wanted posters for one Sirius Black and the same picture on the cover of the popular circular promising an explanation of what made the man so undesirable. An explanation was what he got, and more besides; the man was directly involved in the deaths of his parents!

At first, there was a rage building in his chest, an instinctual urge to jump out, rush out and hunt down the man who had taken so much from him; the man who had seen him to suffer a decade under the meaty fists of Vernon Dursley. He imagined finding this Sirius Black, confronting him in the street, wand drawn and ready to...

Alright, so he'd almost certainly lose that fight, yet that wasn't the main thing deterring him. The real reason he knew he wouldn't do such a thing was the image burned into his mind of Gilderoy Lockhart writhing on the cold stones underneath Hogwarts, dying at the hand of his best friend. She'd had the strength to do such a thing: to end another's life because they were a threat; to bring real suffering upon one who meant the same for her. He had thrown a few incendios in the heat of the moment, but was fairly sure, unless an enemy had their hands about his throat, he couldn't do what she had. Nor could he seek out such a fight; not without one of his friends in danger.

The anger was still consuming him though, and so he was busy practicing staring at the man's portrait angrily when Hermione came into the living room in a tumble of flailing limbs, dragging the metal shoe rack in on her foot. She crashed into the coffee table, sending several odds and ends flying, and rolled limply onto her back on the carpet.

"Fuck!" she cried at the ceiling as she lay there. "God damned fucking shite! Ow!"

He instinctively put his anger aside to ask if she was alright, but she ignored him in favour of slamming a fist against the offending table, which must have hurt, then burying her face into her hands before letting rip a muffled scream of frustration.

"Um, Hermione?"

"What?!"

"Do you need a hand?" he offered, knowing better than to move to help without her permission.

"Argh! No! No, I do not need a hand," she seethed, even though it looked like she did because she was making no effort to get up.

And holding her shoulder in pain. And starting to cry.

"You're sure?"

"Fine! Fine, you want to help? You want to help me out? Go tell the Godforsaken Ministry their underage magic laws are stupid, ludicrous nonsense written by a pack of imbeciles, and make them… make them let me use my own damned wand in my own fucking house! Well, can you do that, huh? Can you?"

He wasn't sure what that had to do with falling over a shoe rack, but it didn't seem the time to question her. "I, um, I can try?"

Hermione stopped dead at his reply, then broke into a fit of something between sobbing and cackling. Whatever it was, it was unnerving as all hell, and went on far too long for Harry's liking. He wanted to go over and help her up, but he also really didn't want to be in the same room as her right then, so he decisively stayed where he was sat, and waited.

"You would, wouldn't you?" she sighed as the madness subsided. "You sodding well would."

"Yeah. If you want."

She bashed the back of her head into the floor a couple of times, grunting with the effort of lifting it each time.

"Hermione, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" she scoffed. "What's right? I thought it would be better this time. I thought I was getting better at this, but noooo, guess what Hermione, you thought wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!"

She lay silently for a while. Harry wanted to press her, but held his tongue; he'd asked his question, and she would answer when she was ready.

"I just… I thought I was learning to deal with this," - she waved at her face demonstratively - "but I'm just circumventing the problem, aren't I? Finding half a dozen ways to alleviate the symptoms, when what I need is the bloody cure. And now, now I don't have any of that, and I am every bit as useless as I was last summer. Worse!"

She stopped to extricate her foot from the shoe rack it was stuck through, violently, like a sullen toddler trying to solve a shape and sort puzzle by breaking it. Harry winced on her behalf, because that was her foot she was abusing.

When she spoke again, it was with intense bitterness giving way to despair. "I should be fine. This is my home… that shoe rack has been there six years. It is precisely one hundred and eighty centimetres from the base of the stairs - I measured it myself, double checked, paced it out, and then I still go and trip over the damned thing! How? I was absolutely fine at Hogwarts. I was fine. I was… why do I know my way around some stupid castle in Scotland better than the home I grew up in? When did that happen? Why is this happening to me? Why is this… what did I do to…"

Harry finally got off the couch and knelt down beside her, but she pushed him off and rolled away, hiding her face under the table.

"Leave me alone."

Harry thought that might have been the most stupid thing his friend had ever said. As if he ever would.

"As if I could."

"I hate you."

"Only sometimes."

The single bark of laughter that escaped her throat was brief and rasping, a harsh contrast to the silence that followed. Harry scanned his eyes over her body, checking she wasn't injured in some way she didn't want to admit, then felt uncomfortable with how utterly vulnerable she looked and averted his gaze. He looked instead at the mess her entrance had created; it was going to take some tidying, and it was lucky he had only been drinking water, because there was a puddle next to his cracked glass which would have stained otherwise. That wouldn't be fun to explain to her parents.

"Do you think karma can work backwards?" she abruptly asked, in such a way he had no idea if she was talking to him or just thinking out loud.

"Huh?"

"Karma," she said, rolling over slightly to show a flushed cheek. "The universe itself affecting one's future based on the morality of their past actions. Do you think it can act the other way round? Punish people for things they haven't done yet?"

"I don't follow?"

"Do you think, maybe, I deserved this? It happened in the wrong order, sure, but really, does that matter?"

Harry was lost for words; Hermione quickly snorted at his failure and disappeared back under her mound of frizzy curls. "Figures."

He didn't know what 'figured', but felt insulted all the same. His own temper, so far kept under by shock, flared.

"Well so-rry for not understanding philosophical bollocks. You want to start talking like a normal person, let me know."

He regretted the words before they had finished leaving his mouth, but he didn't take them back. She would sort herself on her own time, and she could let him know when she was ready to give him something he could work with; in the meantime he retreated to the sofa to finish reading.

"You're a git," she mumbled into the carpet.

"You started it."

"I am in quite a considerable amount of pain!"

"Yeah, well, I'm not that peachy either."

That gave Hermione pause; enough for her to drag herself up off the floor and slump onto the couch next to him, then fix him with a sightless stare.

"Why not?"

He couldn't help but smile, his muscles betraying his mind; give Hermione a puzzle and all else is forgotten. He did wish the puzzle wasn't him, but it beat arguing so he indulged. Hell; maybe she could even solve his issue somehow.

"It's yesterday's Prophet… Just listen to this: 'What is recently escaped convict Sirius Black after? What drives the most dangerous wizard to stalk Britain since the fall of his master, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named?' - seriously, can they not just say Voldemort?"

Hermione huffed in agreement - or maybe just because he was talking instead of getting on with reading.

"'Some say he simply fled the dementors of Azkaban, broken by the torment of his many sins, driven as criminally insane as his cousin and fellow Death-Eater Bellatrix Lestrange née Black. Madness runs deep in that family, perhaps? Others make spurious claims his master is not truly dead, and Black works in the shadows to aid His return, fanatically committed to ushering in a new age of terror. All agree on one thing; he will surely want revenge for his master's defeat. His cruel betrayal of the Potter family was evidently not injury enough to sate his dark bloodlust. But worry not, dear readers; the Ministry has assured us here at the Prophet that extra security will be provided at Hogwarts next year, lest Black come searching for target of his obsessions: Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. What this security will comprise is yet to be seen, but we have no doubt the future of our children is in the safest of hands.'"

He looked up from the paper to gauge Hermione's reaction and found her white as a sheet, gripping the seat leather so hard it was a miracle it didn't tear.

"Hell, you looked more worried than I am."

"What? Oh, uh, yes, terrifying."

"Hermione? Are you alright? You're not ill are you?" he asked, realising she looked an awful lot like Petunia had that one time she ate bad shrimp. He scooted away subtly as he could just in case he was about to get vomited on.

"No, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm not… I need to go and-"

She jumped up as she rambled but immediately wobbled, clutched her head and fell back onto the couch. Harry knew that dizzy sensation all too well from the days he went without eating, and concluded that there was, most definitely, something wrong with his friend.

"You stay there," he ordered, "and I'll go get whatever it is you need, ok?"

"You can't… it's not something you can fetch. It's not something you can fix," she whimpered, sliding down into a pathetic slump, somehow finding even more colour to drain from her cheeks.

"Jeez, you don't look good at all," he thought out loud.

"Thanks. I'm sure you're looking dapper yourself," she bit back, then sighed as she drew in on herself. "Why am I so… why am I like this? What is wrong with me? It's… not just me, is it? This all feels so damned unfair! Tell me it isn't fair, Harry? Tell me I'm not… not…"

"No idea what you're on about, sorry."

"Argh!"

"Well if you made sense maybe I could help, instead of being all crazy about it."

That was, apparently, exactly the wrong thing to say as Hermione shut down completely at the word 'crazy', pulling herself into a ball and rolling away from him once more. They sat like that for a long time, Harry not feeling at all comfortable but stubbornly refusing to be the one to get up and leave when he had been there first. It totally wasn't because he didn't want to leave her alone, annoyed as he was at her. At least she isn't rocking, he thought.

When she eventually came around it was so sudden Harry almost jumped out of his skin. And, naturally, it was a question that brought her out of it.

"Why won't you let me touch your face?"

She hadn't moved an inch, but to Harry it suddenly felt as though she were half as far away.

"Excuse me?"

"Your face, Harry. You told me I couldn't touch it before, and I understand why, but how about now?

The questioning threw him for a loop, so he fell back on the obvious excuse. "I… I just don't like being touched, not by anyone. I mean, I really, really don't like it."

"You let Ginny touch you, I'm sure of it," Hermione pressed, making Harry wish she would go back to being a ball of confusing angst. "Before she kissed you."

"She grabbed my hand sometimes," he grunted, not appreciating the reminder of yet another issue in his life. "Never wanted her to."

"You didn't tell her to stop. Not that I ever heard."

"Have you ever tried telling Ginny Weasley what she can and can't do?"

"Fair point," she huffed, granting him only a moment's reprieve. "You let Luna touch you."

Harry coughed nervously at the way she stressed Luna's name. And because, thinking about it, he couldn't really refute the statement. "Well… She isn't just anyone, you know?" he tried.

"And I am?"

"No, I didn't mean it like that! It's just… I just…" he garbled as he reached for a reason that apparently didn't exist.

"No, I get it. You don't trust me. Why would you?"

Deep in the back of his mind it registered, and was noted as extremely odd, that she didn't say that with an accusatory or sarcastic tone.

"I do! I trust you!"

"But not like you trust her."

Again, no accusation; just resigned sadness. Which was so much worse to hear.

"That isn't it at all!" he protested. It didn't sound half as sincere as it was.

"So, if you trusted me more, I could touch you?" she asked, uncurling herself and leaning in close, not quite touching him through whatever sixth sense she had for that sort of thing. Her hair did tickle his chin for a moment; the scent of her shampoo gently assaulted his nose; her breath blew down his collar. "Hypothetically speaking of course."

Agreeing was easier than unpacking whatever was going on in that mind of hers. Or in his. "I guess so?"

"In that case, all I have to do is find a way to make you trust me. I have to be worthy of your trust. How hard can that be?" she said bitterly.

"I don't think it's that simple?"

The way her arms crossed told him that was the wrong answer. "Whyever not?"

He spread his hands in a pointless gesture, with an equally useless apologetic grimace. "It just isn't, I guess."

"Well, why shouldn't it be?" - she was right up in his face now, mere inches away, so close there was a scent of her in with the shampoo - "No, seriously Harry, why not?"

"I don't know!" he sputtered, trying to pull back but finding the back of the sofa in the way. "Maybe I don't have a reason to trust you."

He felt like an idiot as the image of a fifty foot murderous basilisk reared in his mind, the memory of Hermione whispering in his ear accompanying it. No reason to trust her? And yet, there was still something missing between them. It would be much easier if he knew what it was.

"Have I ever given you a reason not to?"

Lockhart's agonised writhing came to mind, and the way Hermione had left him without a thought. But Lockhart had been asking for it, hadn't he? Hermione had been defending both of them. Just because Harry didn't have the stones to do what she had, did that mean it was wrong?

"How about fighting a basilisk together?" she pressed.

"That's not the right kind of trust," he murmured as it clicked: He trusted her to protect him from others; he didn't quite trust her not to hurt him herself. That was simply a harder trust for him to give.

"Now you're scraping the bottom of the excuses barrel," she huffed. "But fine; I need to give you a reason?"

"Yeah. But how would you do that?"

That stumped her - for all of five seconds. A new record?

She sat back and triumphantly declared, with a snap of her fingers: "Quid pro quo."

"What?"

Was that Latin? Some kind of spell?

"Quid pro quo. It means something for something. I want something from you, so I should give you something in return."

"OK… But if I agree to that, what do you have to give me? I can't think of anything I need from you all that much."

Nothing I don't already have, anyway. Like friendship. And a roof over my head. Am I being a dick right now?

"It is not about what you want from me," she stressed, missing or ignoring the accidental insult. "It is about what I am prepared to give up. Whatever I offer, the less I want to offer it, the more it shows I care about you trusting me. I have to trust you with something as important to me as your personal space is to you."

"I… I think I followed that. OK, I can't think of an argument against it, so sure." Not one she would accept. Not one I wouldn't feel like an arsehole saying out loud. "Any idea what you're willing to give?"

"I know exactly what I should give," she whispered, her confidence dead in an instant. "I'm just not sure I can."

He had never heard her sound so vulnerable: Not in the middle of a panic attack; not when he was putting her blindfold back on; not even when he was doing a fair job of dying in her arms. Whatever she was thinking was, to him, unimaginable.

"Then that's what I want," he asserted, hoping he wasn't making a colossal mistake.

"What? You don't even know what it is!"

"Yeah, but that's not the point, is it? If you want this, then that's my price."

How to win an argument with Hermione Granger: Make her argue with herself.

"Harry…"

"Nuh-uh. It's not negotiable."

He felt like a petulant child saying that, but the stubbornness paid off.

"Alright. Alright, very well, I will do it."

Suddenly the vulnerable girl was gone, replaced by Gryffindor resolve. The way she switched was really something else. "It is sort of poetic really."

She reached up for the back of her head, brushing her hair aside. "Quid pro quo."

As her fingers started working, he realised what she was doing, and his own resolve collapsed. "A face for a face."

"Hermione, we - we don't have to do this."

"Oh, shut up. I hardly need you backing out on me now." Her fingers finished their work, but her hands stayed still. "I do need you to promise you won't talk about this; not to anyone. Anyone at all. I haven't even shown my parents what is under here."

"Jeez Hermione, yeah. I won't say a word." Talk about weight of responsibility… Or should that just be called trust?

"Good. And I do not want any pity, you hear me?"

"Ok," he agreed easily. As no stranger to pity himself, he wouldn't dream of it.

"Ok." She took a deep breath. "Here goes."

The blindfold fell away from her face.

Hermione's breath hitched as she let the silk fall. The phantom sensation of a bitter wind played across the dead, exposed nerves as she waited for Harry to say something… to say anything. The silence was painful. She felt like an insect being studied under an entomologist's microscope; a hideous insect, crooked and warped, a one-winged beetle limping pathetic circles, never to fly again. If he would just say something, tell her she was repulsive, that they couldn't be friends anymore, at least then she would feel able to breathe again. At least it would be over and done with. Coming from Harry, I might even come close to believing it.

A hand searched over the back of her own, wrapped about it in a light grip and lifted her hers up and out, to be placed gently against the soft skin and solid form of a boy's cheek. She latched onto it like a lifeline tossed into the abyss. Her face tingled, a sob caught in the back of her throat; she would have cried if she could.

"You don't hate me?" she whispered.

His voice was so gentle, anyone else might not have heard it. Her ears picked out every word, as he must have known they would. "Why would I hate you?"

She could feel his jaw working under her palm; the edge of his mouth playing at her index finger, hinting at a dimple.

"Because it's hideous. I am hideous."

"No, you're not."

She ran her thumb across his lips. They were smiling at her. That couldn't possibly be right.

"You're just saying that," she said glumly as she realised the harsh truth. "Everyone just says what I want to hear, but they don't mean it. They never mean it. I knew I shouldn't have done this."

She tried to remove her hand, to put her blindfold back on and spare him the horror of her visage, but Harry's held hers in place.

"Let go of me, Harry."

"No. Not yet."

"What makes you think it's your decision?" she snapped, tugging again to no avail. "Let go." You stubborn idiot!

"Don't you trust me, Hermione?"

That was a low blow, except… had he said it teasingly?

"That is not fair," she pouted, but she stopped trying to move her hand, because he had a point.

"Yes it is. Quid pro quo."

Or is he just getting his money's worth before he tosses me aside for someone less ugly?

"Fine! Gawk all you like, stare at the blind freak to your heart's content!" - as she spoke her hand made its own way down under his jaw, as if to throttle him - or else to trace his sculpting. "Go on, really enjoy yourself!"

She felt him shake his head, so slightly she might not have seen it could she see. "That's not what I'm doing."

"Then what on Earth are you doing?"

His jaw moved a few times, playing with words until he found the ones he was after. She was happy enough to wait; every second of silence was another inch of his skin under her touch.

"I'm memorising it."

"What?"

"Memorising," he repeated with more certainty. "Every inch, every detail, so I never forget."

Hermione laughed at him. She couldn't help it, he was just so utterly absurd. Sure, she was doing the same to him at that moment, but...

"You're absurd. Why would you want to remember this?"

"Uh, so… you know how in horror films, how the monster's scarier when they don't show you it?"

Hermione hadn't ever watched a proper horror film, but the concept held true in books. That was not the meaning in his sentence she focused on.

"Oh, so am I a monster now?"

"Are you going to let me explain or not?"

Way to throw my favourite line back at me. The cheek!

"Sorry."

On the topic of cheek… Her hand shifted to the edge of his face until she found his ear, mapping the width of him.

"Right. Well, the reason it's scary, I reckon, is cause - cause no matter what the monster is, your imagination is always going to come up with something worse." He paused in obvious discomfort as she played with his earlobe. It was a dangler. "So, um, so when you finally see it, it's not half as bad as you thought. If I forget what you look like, even just a tiny bit, my mind's going to fill in the blanks. It's going to fill them in with something worse. Do you want me thinking of you like that, or the truth?"

A knot in her stomach unravelled as she understood his silly metaphor. Or was it a simile? Was she the monster or not? Was he being endearing, or just odd?

"And what is the truth?"

"It's just a bunch of scars."

She sighed in frustration. Is it endearing if he's too stupid to be anything else?

"Harry, there is a massive, gaping hole where my eyes should be!"

"So?"

"So?" she spluttered. "So it is-" - or am I the idiot here? - "You actually don't mind it, do you?"

"No."

"It doesn't bother you?"

"Why would it?"

"Not even slightly?" she grilled.

He simply shook his head.

"But it is disgusting!"

"No, it isn't. Neville picking his nose and wiping it on his toad is disgusting. Oh… don't tell him I told you that."

She had been creeping her hand over to Harry's nose, but she stopped at that titbit of grossness.

"Does he really?"

"Yeah! And then it runs away and hops all over our beds!"

She didn't hear him laugh, but she felt it reverberate through him.

"Eww! That's gross! That might be the grossest thing ever!"

"Says Ms Hole-for-a-face."

She should have been annoyed, she knew that. She should have bloody well slapped him for being so impertinent. What she did, instead, was giggle, and caress her idiot friend's cheek tenderly.

"You're a git, Harry," she said softly.

"Yeah, but what're you gonna do about it?"

Her giggle was turning to full blown laughter. "I'll hex you!"

"Bet you'd miss. Your aim must be terrible."

"Oh, why's that?" she asked, 'dangerously'.

She knew full well what he meant, but she wanted him to say it explicitly. She could properly slap him if she said it outright, and slapping him in a friendly way seemed like a fun idea. If only the couch had loose cushions…

"Your eyesight's worse than mine," he clarified, with a smile so broad she could hear it. Not that she needed to. - it was right there in his cheek, stretching all the way up to his eyes.

"Oi! That is it, you asked for it!"

She drew her hand back to deliver his punishment, but he took the opportunity to leap off the couch away from her. She jumped up herself, suddenly not caring if she tripped over the furniture again - which she did, several times - because Harry was there to pick her up when she did. The ensuing chase was every bit as one sided as any game of blind man's bluff, but Hermione didn't mind, because that made it a challenge. Almost enough of a challenge to take her mind off the unfortunately not-so-shocking revelation in the pages of the Daily Prophet.

It ended with Harry grabbing her from behind; more contact than he had ever made with her on purpose, and not a hint of hesitation in his body.

"Boo!"

"Gah!" - she tried to struggle but he had her tight, and athletic she was not - "Alright, you win, you win."

His hands went to her face, alarmingly, but then he was placing her blindfold over her scar and making an admirable mess of tying it under her hair. The moment he was done she twirled and threw herself against his chest, wrapping her arms around and squeezing him tight.

"Thank you, Harry."

He stiffened, and she cursed herself for pushing him too far.

"I probably shouldn't be hugging you, should I?"

She didn't let go though. Not just yet.

"I, uh… I'll let you off. This is a one-time thing though, you can't just go grabbing me whenever."

Permission was permission, so she snuggled into him good and proper.

"Uh huh. Sure thing, Harry. Whatever you say," she crooned, certain it wouldn't be the last time she found herself there; determined it wouldn't.

He coughed pointedly. "So… Are you going to let go?"

"Nope. If this is the only one I get, then I am making it count. It is hardly my problem that you failed to set a time limit."

"Huh. You know I volunteered to cook tonight? So you're going to have to let go at some point."

"Oh hush, it is not that bad," she said, running her hands over his wiry yet muscular back. "Besides, mum and dad aren't home for twenty minutes, which gives me plenty of time."

"You're not keeping this going for twenty minutes, are you?"

"No, of course not. Don't be so ludicrous." - she pulled away, though not enough to relinquish her hold - "I meant plenty of time to run my hands all over your face."

"You already touched my face," he protested.

She scoffed. "Hardly. It will take a lot more contact than that for me to memorise it perfectly."

"Memorise?" he gulped, like a man condemned.

Her smile was deliberately menacing, because he wasn't completely forgiven for being a moody prat, and she wasn't entirely happy despite the amazing progress.

"Oh yes. What was it you said… Every inch? Every detail?" - she placed one hand on his cheek, the one she hadn't yet explored, and thought her friend was rather better with words than he knew - "So I never forget."

A/N

Well, this chapter bent me over backwards for a paddling. A quick spellcheck the day I was going to upload it turned into a deep hatred of how I had written it and writer's block on how to fix it. Not like it was one of the scenes I've been looking forward to since this fic's inception - not at all. Looks like I'm uploading on Saturdays now.