Edited 11.3.22
She couldn't focus. Dennis had arrived and with a look of concern had whisked her away to a cheap backpackers, lodged between a restaurant and a vaguely corporate building. The street light outside shone through the windows and the stark beds with their cheap linen and folded white towels permeated through her thoughts.
Her notes, her lists, the research folder, all looked out of place in the temporary nature of the plain, frankly filthy, room. It didn't seem right to take them out and begin, and the overwhelming nature of the task ahead could not possibly begin here. She couldn't focus. She could barely keep it together. The urge to run, flee the room and make it somewhere safe continued even as Dennis shut the door and sat on the bed next to her. He's been undone somewhat by the girl who'd seemed to replace Hermione Granger. The mythical figure who had crumbled, nothing more than a hollow idol.
Hermione wondered if he knew, really, how she was endangering him. How he would have been better off, safer, back in Diagon Alley. Not happy, really, he'd needed to run anyway. But he wouldn't be with someone who had taken down MLE personnel. He wouldn't have been a target. How long until he realised this? Or even now, casting sideways glances at the tear tracks staining her face, did he still believe she could do this, because she was the heroine, the Gryffindor princess of the Golden Trio?
She couldn't focus as thoughts bombarded her and she couldn't move or summon the strength to keep pretending. Why on earth would anyone want to follow her? It felt like decades since she was the heroine, locked in a magical castle, fed busy work while those magical kind witches and wizards held her hand and promised her the world. The resent and anger she remembered from those years never made it into the mythology, neither did the details of Marietta Edgecomb's face peppered with spots. The boys looks of terror and the horrible satisfaction in it all. The satisfaction beneath guilt that churned in her stomach and kept her up those long nights in the tent, in the darkness with the locket burning against her skin. The facetious voice that mocked her: Hermione Granger was a force to be reckoned with, ambitious, satisfied at the downfall of her rivals, proud and obnoxious enough to lead a group of children to slaughter. Dumbledore's Army.
Perhaps she had groomed Dennis for this, years ago. Back when he had shook hands, shot jinxes, evaded Umbridge. She herself had marshalled them and bound them in oaths and fed them busy work; naïve in the belief that it was enough. That she was enough. No better than Dumbledore, sending children to fight a war. And it was over, they had won and yet here she was, on the run. Hunted again. Numb. She vaguely smiled as Dennis filled the space around her with chatter. She stared at him, unable to focus as he joked about the kebab shop she'd be living over and how they'd go and buy supplies in the morning. He was on his big adventure and Hermione hated herself.
Because she felt nothing, not even guilt, as she watched his eyes flit to her, again and again. She felt nothing as he smiled at her, as his excitement starkly contrasted with the fog surrounding her, stopping her ever vaunted powers of thought. At some point, she'd laid back on the bed, and she must have asked, on autopilot, because now Dennis was speaking of George and how the joke shop was going and the grand plans he had for the orbs and the research. But she couldn't focus, and as he spoke, Hermione pulled him down on the bed beside her.
She couldn't focus on what he was saying. Couldn't pretend anymore. She was no longer the 'Hermione Granger' he trusted and believed in. But she still looked the part, and Dennis laid down beside her, his eyes kind and brimming with wonder. The same kid who thought falling into the Black Lake and seeing the Giant Squid had been cool. Except, as a teenage boy, it was clear he found other things just as exciting and adventurous. His eyes stared into her own, and she thought she could see the mythic Hermione Granger, Gryffindor Princess, staring back reflected in them, as she closed the distance between them. She could give him a reason to follow her, something to believe in and an exciting story from his adventure. It didn't matter that she was no longer that girl, that she was hunted and couldn't focus or thing and everything was out of her control. She just wanted to feel something beyond numb, and Dennis eagerly abandoned words and conversation all together as they formed a tangle of limbs while the Paris night shone through the filthy, slightly fogged up window.
