Hermione stumbled for as long as her feet would carry her. Her lungs were burning — she couldn't breathe — but it had nothing to do with the running. She turned a corner, then another, the sound of her pounding blood and hoarse gasps drowning out the footsteps frantically following her.
"Hermione!"
She ignored them; in fact, Harry's voice barely registered in her brain.
"Hermione — wait — stop!"
Rita's dead. Rita's dead and they killed her and it's all my fault! I'm the one — it's me who's responsible for her murder.
What had they done to her? Cruciatus? Did they know it was Hermione who had put her up to it in the first place?
"It's not me," Rita's voice echoed through Hermione's skull, "it's her. That Mudblood friend of Harry Potter's! She told me to come here!"
Everything in Hermione's body went frigid and she found herself tripping over her own feet, coming to a crashing halt against a wall. She caught herself with her hands and felt a sharp pain on the heels of her palms which promised bruises or scrapes. But the pain grounded her, brought her an inch closer to reality, and she blinked stupidly as Harry and Ron stumbled to a stop, cornering her.
"Hermione," panted Harry, "this wasn't your fault."
"Of course it's my fault!" she seethed. "I was the one who told her to go do that — I threatened her! If I hadn't done that, she would still be alive —"
"You can't know that," Ron insisted. "She could've been in the Department of Mysteries for loads of other reasons —"
"Oh, please. Are you really that thick?" Hermione could see the hurt in his eyes but didn't care; she felt like an explosion about to go off. Why couldn't they understand? "Regardless, this" — she snatched the newspaper from Harry's hand, accidentally tearing it down the middle — "this isn't just a 'statement.' This is a warning. They know what we're trying to do and they're telling us to stop — or else."
"Maybe they found out she's an Animagus on their own," suggested Harry. He looked angry now. "Look, it just — things happen, alright? You can't let this get to you."
"How can you say that? I —"
"You didn't kill her, Hermione!" Harry's words echoed sharply off the flagstones; Hermione felt as though she'd just been slapped. "You can't be responsible," he said, softer this time, "because if you're responsible for this, then Sirius's death is my fault, too."
"Harry — you're not —"
"I'm not, am I?" He glared at her. "Then act like it. You've got brewing to do, haven't you?" She nodded. "Good. We'll walk you there. Make sure Malfoy knows you need murtlap."
How hadn't she noticed her scar was on fire? Or the tears on her cheeks?
Before she could mount a protest, Harry and Ron began to march her down to the dungeons, Harry's hand on her back, Ron's hovering by her elbow. They encountered nobody — thank God. Everyone must have still been in the Great Hall. Hermione heard her own pained sob in the empty corridor; her chest hurt.
"Come on, Hermione," said Ron encouragingly. "You're alright."
"You will be," Harry promised. "And… look" — his voice lowered — "she was probably going to die anyway, after what she'd written. You didn't hear McGonagall's speech after Ron and I joined the Order. This is war, Hermione. It's — it's shit but if we don't learn to cope with things like this, we're finished."
Hermione gulped, the endless sounds of her distress punctuating Harry's speech. It was logical, she knew, but something had overridden her rationality and all she could think of now was the injustice of it all. That, and the fear.
"It's down here, right?" They came to a stop at the junction between two corridors. Hermione nodded, and Harry steered them to the lab. When they'd come to a stop, Harry stepped forward and knocked smartly on the door.
Hermione winced. What must Draco be thinking inside? No professor had visited them in months, and Hermione never knocked.
The door cracked and Draco peered out, his head ensconced in a bubble. He looked suspicious but, when he saw who it was, he stepped out into the corridor, alarmed. "What's happened? What's going on?"
"Calm down, Malfoy." Harry handed over the ripped newspaper. "Just make sure she gets murtlap, and don't upset her."
"I'm not the one bringing her here in tears," muttered Draco as he examined The Evening Prophet. He stilled. "Skeeter's dead?" He looked between the three of them, frowning; when his eyes landed on Hermione, his face softened in understanding and he tucked the newspaper under his arm. "Come on, we've got to finish the deer hide before we can do the stirs." He pulled his wand and cast a Bubble-Head Charm on Hermione's head before she could wipe her eyes one last time.
"What, do we smell that bad?" joked Ron.
"Wolfsbane is poisonous, Weasley. Would you like to come in and have a whiff?"
"I'm good, thanks." Ron squeezed Hermione's arm before he let her go with an encouraging smile. "Remember what Harry said." Then, he and Harry both let her go and watched her disappear into the lab, Draco close behind.
As soon as the door settled shut, she felt his arms come around her, pulling her close against his chest. She wished she could remove the charm and press her cheek against his robes, smell him. He would stroke her hair.
"It wasn't your fault," he murmured, and Hermione couldn't help but laugh.
"I told her to do it, just like in fifth year, with Umbridge. She was there because of me."
"Alright, but it still isn't your fault. What did Potter say? Maybe Weasley's right, you should listen to it."
"He said this is war and I should learn to… cope."
"Merlin, Weasley was right."
"But I don't want to!" she cried, fighting free of his hold. "I don't want to become indifferent — clinical about death. That's what's meant to make us different. They don't care — but we — we do. It matters." She felt the sobs coming back; her vision blurred, smearing Draco into swatches of black and green and white. "I know this is war, but I don't want to let it turn me into a monster!"
"So don't let it." Draco stepped closer and gripped her shoulders, surprisingly strong. "I promise you, Death Eaters don't react like this when someone's killed, even if it's on their own side. But you also can't help anyone if you're like this."
"So what do I do?"
"Find the middle," he said simply. "You feel bad Skeeter died. Good. Use that to motivate you to — I dunno. Whatever it is you lot do to finally make this all fucking stop."
She blinked, trying to clear the hot tears from her eyes, and found Draco frowning down at her.
"Wait here."
When he released her, she felt her posture curl over and realised she was cradling her chest again. Sure enough, Draco returned with a handful of pickled murtlap.
"Can you unbutton your own shirt, or shall I?"
Her face got even hotter; she was sorely tempted to let him do it for her but weakly insisted, "I can do it myself."
He watched, patient, as she worked the buttons down to her navel, and then he stepped nearer to press the slimy murtlap to her scar which was shimmering in waves of pulsing blue.
"I feel like I spend all my time like this lately," she grumbled.
"Covered in goo?"
"Well, yes. Crookshanks won't go near my bed anymore, the smell is so strong. But I meant in pain…"
"It's not as bad as before?"
"Before? No." Nothing will ever be that bad, not even when Dolohov cursed me.
"I can do everything tonight — you can —"
"No! No, I want to brew. Please — I need something to do. I can't just sit here again."
She felt him eyeing her and hated it, hated being examined like this. She pushed past him and went to the benchtop, one hand holding the murtlap to her sternum whilst the other picked up the blade and began a strategic shaving of the deer hide. After a moment, Draco did the same beside her.
Hermione blew out a long, slow breath. At least the crying had stopped, and the hot sticky tears on her cheeks had begun to dry.
Fuck you, Rita, she thought vengefully. Fuck you for slandering a fifteen-year-old girl until she got hate mail at school. Fuck you for everything you did to Harry and were probably about to do to Dumbledore.
But you didn't deserve whatever happened to you.
I'm sorry.
Hermione watched a youthful Dumbledore, radiating power, pick up the wand, and then the world faded into mist until she was spat back out into reality.
"Oh, come on!" cried Ron. "That one was, what, five seconds?"
Hermione silently agreed. Beside her, Harry looked just as frustrated, but he was collecting his things and heading for the door. "Come on, we'll be late for Defence. Thank you, Minerva!" he called behind him.
It was a blessing, then, that the memory had been so frustratingly short. They slid into their seats in the Defence classroom, winded, with barely a minute to spare. Hermione unpacked her things hurriedly and was still unscrewing her inkpot when Professor Snape entered the room and, to her dismay, announced, "Today will be a practical lesson."
Hermione took a moment to close her eyes before, with a sigh, packing her things away again.
"Today, you will learn how to avoid Unforgivable Curses," said Professor Snape, surveying the room. "The nature of the Unforgivable is such that it cannot be countered with magic. Thus, it is worth knowing how to physically dodge a spell. You never know what an opponent may cast until they have already cast it, and you would be lucky if they verbalise an incantation at all.
"Keep the desks as they are. You may hide behind them if necessary. You will work with a partner: One of you will cast an 'Unforgivable' — shall we say, a Stinging Hex, for the purpose of this exercise — and the other will attempt to survive the encounter."
Already, the room had begun to pair off. Harry and Ron sequestered themselves in the corner and Hermione went to Neville, her usual partner, only to find him with Dean. She stood there, searching the room stupidly, until Snape appeared at her side.
"Mr Malfoy?"
And then Draco was standing opposite her, both of them staring at each other.
Besides sitting next to him in Ancient Runes, Hermione never interacted with Draco outside of the lab, and in Runes they barely spoke to each other. This was completely uncharted territory she didn't know how to navigate; she saw the same moment of surprise in Draco's eyes before he returned to a neutral sneer. She envied his ability to do that, to be something he didn't feel.
"Er — shall you go first, or me? To cast, I mean…"
"I'll go first." He twirled his wand in his fingers and adopted an offensive stance. Hermione heard jeers from his housemates, keen to watch the Mudblood scramble over furniture for safety.
Bloody disgusting.
Hermione steeled herself and focused on Malfoy's wand, the minute movements of his wrist, deaf to the noise around her of people casting and tripping and shouting.
She dodged the first hex easily.
The second one, she threw herself behind a desk just in time.
The third one he did nonverbally. It went askew a little, definitely not in the direction he intended, flying way over her head as she ducked.
The fourth one caught her calf just as she tried to leap out of its way. She cried out and crashed onto the floor, the impact on her shoulder hurting almost as much as the hex on her leg. For a moment, she just stared at the ceiling until her breath returned and she was able to push back to her feet. Draco was standing there, watching her, wand twirling anxiously in his fingers.
"Right." Hermione brushed down her robes. "My turn."
By the end of the lesson, Hermione felt bruised and battered. Things had improved slightly when Professor Snape had allowed them to use magic to disable their opponent, during which Hermione had made ample use of the Silencing Spell, but pretty soon Tripping Jinxes and Tongue-Tying Spells were flying across the room. At least two people had to go to the Hospital Wing.
Hermione stared unseeing at the blackboard, trying to will her brain to remember how to read instead of think about how much her body hurt. Professor Snape's writing was not the easiest to decipher at the best of times, even with her extra practice reading his labelled specimens for her "extracurricular brewing."
Cocking her head, Hermione reread the assignment listed. "You go on ahead," she told Harry and Ron, the latter of whom was sporting an increasingly dramatic bruise on his temple. "I'll catch up."
They limped away gratefully, following out the rest of the class until Hermione was alone with Professor Snape. He raised an eyebrow at her from where he stood in the corner of the classroom, magically repairing all the furniture that had been damaged by his scrambling pupils. "If you've come to complain about your assigned partner, Miss Granger, I'm afraid —"
"That's not why I want to speak with you," Hermione insisted quickly.
"Oh?"
"I know you're the Half-Blood Prince."