CRACK!

Hermione's palm collides with his face, sending him stumbling backwards. His first thought isn't pain; it's confusion. He barely has time to register the sting before he finds himself staring down the length of Hermione's wand, the tip glowing white-hot, steaming in the frigid air.

Everything around them seemed to fade away. He couldn't see the tent, or the trees, or even Ron. He couldn't hear the tent entrance flapping in the wind, nor the sway of the trees, or the birds overhead. In that moment, there was only him, and her, and the wand humming with power aimed right at his bespectacled face.

His mind spins, struggling to process all that had just happened in the last few moments, alongside the sheer fury in her eyes. He had only ever seen her look like this at Malfoy, McLaggen, Death Eaters—never at him. Her whole body was shaking, barely holding back the magic burning at her fingertips, and Harry doesn't move. Doesn't breathe.

The confusion subsides and he understands.

Hermione needs a target. Someone to pour her rage and grief into. And if she needs it to be him, then he will give her that.

He closes his eyes, waiting. Bracing. Hoping, for a moment, that she will finally let go. That she will give him what he deserves.

But the curse never comes.

Instead, her voice cuts through the silence, shaking, raw, and venomous: "It's all your fault. They are dead because of you. I hate you."

Then she turns and leaves.

The world doesn't feel real.

The wind howls through the trees, but Harry can barely hear it over the pounding in his ears. He doesn't move, doesn't breathe, doesn't even open his eyes. The words crash over him, repeating, echoing, burrowing into his skin. I hate you. I hate you.

Barely 10 minutes earlier they had been laughing. He had said something funny, something meaningless, and Hermione had laughed-really laughed, like music to his ears. For a moment, it felt like everything was okay. And then Ron had come back.

Ron had been wearing the locket for around 3 hours now and his mood had immediately declined the moment it was around his neck. He had stormed away into the forest after something innocuous had annoyed him. Harry recalled that as Ron walked away, he had mused on how fascinating the locket's influence was to him. It made Ron angry about anything and everything. When Harry wore it, however, it darkened his thoughts. He had lived with intrusive thoughts for longer than he could remember, but the locket seemed to have a way of bringing those thoughts closer to the surface, less a murmur in the back of his mind and more like his own voice speaking beyond his control.

But when Hermione wore it, nothing changed. At least, as far as he could tell. She was not quite as happy, and her words lacked their usual warmth, but beyond that, she was the same Hermione, strong, and smart, and brilliant, and beautiful. It was just another thing for him to admire about her.

The change in Ron was immediate. Ron's shoulders were tense, his face pale and drawn as he clutched a newspaper in his hands. The locket swung heavily against his chest, but for once, his anger was not directed at them. His expression was something worse. Cautious. Fractured. Broken.

Harry had barely opened his mouth before Ron thrust the paper at Hermione.

She took it. Read the headline. Gasped aloud.

A horrible weight settled in Harry's chest as he stepped forward, reading over her shoulder.

BRITISH FAMILY HOLIDAYING IN AUSTRALIA MURDERED

The article explained that the Granger family had been found dead in their hotel room, the door broken down, the bodies showed signs of torture before death. The methods were unknown. The family left behind a teenage daughter who had yet to be located, but it was surmised that she had not travelled with them.

A photo was printed next to the text. A family portrait. Hermione, standing between her parents, smiling.

Before he could think, before he could breathe, he reached for her, fingers barely brushing her arm in an attempt to grounder her, to do something.

She wrenched away and struck him.

Her breaths had been ragged, and her eyes had been filled with unshed tears. Her grief had been palpable and yet she had skipped over denial and jumped straight to anger.

Now, the sting on his cheek is nothing compared to the aching hollowness in his chest.

For what felt like hours, Harry remains frozen in place, locked in that moment, letting the cold seep into his bones as he turns her words over in his mind again and again. I hate you. I hate you.

Because she is right.

It is his fault.

The space outside the tent is suffocatingly quiet after the storm of Hermione's fury. Inside, Ron is probably whispering reassurances, his voice low, his words lost to the night. Harry doesn't move to follow them, doesn't try to fix it—he already knows that nothing he says will matter.

Instead, he steps further into the cold, assuming the role of lookout. A duty. A purpose. Something simple and clear in a world where everything else is ruined. The night is still, but Harry can't hear it over the screaming in his head.

The thoughts come like a flood, a familiar cycle of blame, but this time, they carry the finality of truth. It is his fault. All of it. His parents died because of him, because of a prophecy that might as well have been a death sentence. He should have died that night, but instead, he was left to ruin everything else. The Dursleys' cruelty was never unjustified—it was punishment, deserved and earned.

And then there was Hogwarts. Six years of proof that he was nothing more than destruction waiting to happen. He had killed Quirrell at just 11 years old. He was a Parselmouth, more snake than wizard. He had led Hermione into danger time and time again—first with the Philosopher's Stone, then to save Sirius and Buckbeak, and now… now her parents were dead because she chose to follow him again. Cedric. Sirius. Dumbledore. Hedwig. Moody. Names carved into his soul, wounds that never closed, ghosts he would carry forever.

He couldn't deny though, none of that hurt as much as those three words had.

I hate you.

Hermione Granger had been the one constant in his life. The only person who had never abandoned him. Not like Ron. Not like Dumbledore. Not like Sirius. Not like anyone else. She was everything he wasn't—brilliant, wise, loyal, passionate, brave, beautiful. She believed in fairness, justice, the fight for what was right. He admired her more than anyone. And now, she hated him.

And he cannot bring himself to blame her.

Hermione hates bigotry, injustice, slavery, the worst things the world has to offer. Now, she had finally realised that he belongs among them.

From inside the tent, there's a faint shuffle. A murmur of voices. Ron, holding her. Comforting her. Harry tells himself he should be grateful. That Ron's always loved her in a way Harry never could. But he knows the truth—Ron isn't good enough for her. No one is.

Least of all him.

Standing alone in the cold, he lets it sink in: this was inevitable. It was only a matter of time before Hermione saw him for what he really was. He isn't sad that she turned her back on him. He is sad that it took her this long.