Hermione's Suicide

Hermione unwrapped her Christmas gift from her mother. A diary. A book with blank pages. A place for her to write anything and everything she chose. She sighed, causing Ron and Harry to look up at her in concern.

"What is it?" Ron asked.

"A diary," Hermione answered softly, looking at the book affectionately. "It's from my mum."

"You got a book with blank pages," Harry said. "Wow."

Hermione chuckled and tucked the diary safely away.

Harry stood up. "I've got to go meet Cho," he said. "I'll see you guys for the feast?"

Hermione and Ron nodded.

Soon after Harry left, Hermione wrote a letter to her parents, thanking them for the diary and decided to mail it. On her way back she heard voices floating down the hall.

"...We need to do something, Headmaster," one of the professors was saying. "He is a danger if we don't tighten our control on him. We're going to lose him if we don't. He'll never fight for us."

"Are you saying that you think he'll explode again, Donna?" the headmaster's voice asked.

"Yes I do," the female voice replied. "And I think it is in our best interest if stop him before he gets that chance. We have to shut him down." Hermione saw them coming and decided to run. She soon heard another voice shouting. This one she recognized as Cho.

"Why won't you tell me what's going on?" she demanded. "What's so hard for you to say?"

Hermione peeked down the hall and saw Harry say something but she couldn't hear what it was. She saw Cho's shoulder's shake and knew that he had finally told her his biggest secret--the one he hadn't even told Ron and Hermione. Cho went running and nearly knocked into Hermione as she passed.

Hermione stared down the hall at Harry in shock. "What was that all about?" she asked.

Without a word, Harry gave Hermione a look that explained it all.

"You told her you were gay, didn't you?" she asked.

Harry nodded, not even wondering how Hermione knew his secret.

Harry sighed as he walked out of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. He had been working for the twins for three months and counting. He was great for business--everyone came for a chance to meet the Boy Who Lived, as well as purchase the very popular joke products.

Harry was also working for the Order. He was there when Snape came running in, demanding to know where Dumbledore was, saying he knew where Donna was.

She was a Death Eater, and a very good one. Her mission, apparently, had been to get Harry killed one way or another. According to what Snape had learned, she was behind Dumbledore's loss of two years, Draco nearly dropping Harry off of the top of the Astronomy Tower, and Ron's nearly choking Harry to death. She was the mastermind of the trial as well. In fact, she had been the prosecuting attorney. She had been the one to call in her own death, pretending to be Dumbledore, she had been the one to convince the Aurors that Harry was dangerous and needed to spend the time before his trial in Azkaban, she was the one who questioned them.

She would have gone one step further, but she wasn't allowed near the witnesses during a trial.

For the moment, everything was at peace. There were no major battles being fought, the Ministry was safe in the hands of the new minister, the school was safe with the new Defense professor going through a through screening to ensure the safety of both the other professors and the students. The other professors were checked and cleared before being allowed to go back to work. All of this had been done during the Christmas holidays.

Harry sighed again as he began the trek to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch before going back to work. Life was simple these days. He and Draco had moved out of the Burrow and Harry was planning on asking Draco to marry him soon.

Life was good.

"Hello, Potter."

Was being the operative word.

Harry didn't bother turning around. He knew exactly who was behind him and the one thought crossing through his mind was: I knew it.

"Donna Abram," he said.

"You know, if you would have just cooperated and died, we wouldn't be standing here right now, and I wouldn't be about to curse half of Diagon Alley because of you."

"If you curse the alley, that is because of you, not me. I'm not the one holding the wand and I'm not the one thinking about it, so if you do decide to curse the alley, you'll be the one to be blamed for it. I'm not going to have another of your crimes hanging over my head."

"You know, in the beginning this was all just for my mission, but now it's personal. Turn around, Potter," she said. "And see what you did to me."

Harry turned around.

What he saw was a monster. Donna Abram had once been a rather pretty woman with long brown hair and dark brown eyes. She had had an olive complexion at one time, though by the scars on her face any onlooker who had never seen her before would never know what color her skin was. She wore an eye patch over her right eye and had no eyebrow over her left. Her hair was gone, nothing but shiny scars remained on the top of her head, and her remaining eye was no longer the same brown it had been.

"You turned me into this when you left without clearing away that potion," she said. "Do you have any idea how badly that burned? That potion was intended for you and for you alone. It would have killed you and contained your soul, which I was supposed to deliver to the Dark Lord, but no. You had to wake up, didn't you? You had to fight, didn't you? You had to fuck up my face, didn't you?" she yelled.

"Leave," Harry said. "Just leave. Now is not the time nor place for this. If you have a desire to fight me, we'll go somewhere else. No one else needs to get hurt. I'm sorry for what happened to you, I really am, but you're the one who brewed the potion in the first place, and since it was designed to kill me, I'm really not sorry about the way it was ultimately used. If you're looking for pity, go stand on a corner and beg for it, you won't find it here. As for your mission, since you're still alive, I'm assuming that you still have it. If that's the case, you'll have to excuse me, but I'll be cutting this chat short. I've got work to do."

"This isn't over, Potter," she said.

"No, but now that you've been exposed for what you really are, we're on even footing," he said as he walked away.

"I saw Donna today," Harry said as he walked through the door to the house.

Draco nearly choked on the water he was drinking. "What?" he asked.

"I saw Donna Abram today," Harry said again. "She's alive and well, but she looks like a monster."

"How so?"

"Remember that potion she was working on?" he asked. "The one that spilled on her?"

"Yes."

"Apparently it was intended for one person only--I'll give you two guesses, but you'll only need one as to who it was for--and it was supposed to kill and capture the spirit. When it was spilled on Donna, it burned everything. She's wearing an eye patch so I'm assuming she lost an eye and chose not to go Mad-Eye's route with it. And she's still working for Voldemort."

"How do you know?"

"She's still alive," Harry answered. "And she was still looking for me and talking about her mission. I told you we haven't seen the last of her."

"What about the diary, is there any more of that that you've read?"

"So far I've read eight entries. The last one I read talked about Dumbledore actually asking Hermione to get Ron to help her help them kill me. I think I'm going to let Dumbledore see it--he still doesn't remember anything and the medi-wizards can't find anything wrong with him."

"Speaking of," Draco said, setting down his glass, "I've been doing some thinking about that. We all know Dumbledore's far too strong to be subdued by a normal spell, but very few are immune to potions and, obviously, Abram was good with potions. Maybe she was using a potion on Dumbledore."

"That would explain why they can't find any traces of spells on Dumbledore."

"They couldn't find them on Ron either and Ron has the same memory loss, even if it isn't for the same amount of time."

"But you remember, don't you?"

Draco nodded. "She cast a spell on me, Harry, I remember. And that night, I was seeing what I was doing, but I was powerless to stop it. It was almost as if I were under Impervious, but I've been under that so many times that I can shake it off as good as you can."

Harry nodded slowly. "But wouldn't they have found it?"

"Not if they weren't looking for potions. Potions and spells have different signatures on the body. If you're looking for a spell, you won't find a potion and vice versa. Next time you see Dumbledore, tell him to go back and see if they can find a potion on him."

Harry nodded slowly. "I've got a meeting with him tomorrow," he said. "I'll tell him then."

"It's called the Impervious Draught," the medi-witch explained. "It works the same way as the curse, except that it isn't fightable and once the potion is out of your body, you don't remember a thing because nothing was actually committed to memory."

"And it's in both of their systems?" Harry asked.

The medi-witch nodded. "Yes, we found it in both of them."

Harry sighed. "Is there any way to get the memories back?" he asked.

"No, I'm afraid that there isn't. Like I said, nothing was actually committed to memory. If there had been memories, we may have been able to do something regarding memory retrieval. Given time, they will return to their normal selves, Mr. Weasley much sooner than Headmaster Dumbledore for obvious reasons."

"Is there anything I can do to help them?" Harry asked, hoping that there was some possible way to fix this madness. He really needed information only Dumbledore could have--information about Donna.

The medi-witch shook her head. "There's nothing to do but wait," she said softly.

Harry was walking home with Draco when it happened. A Death Eater stepped out of the shadows in the alleyway. Harry instantly had his wand out and pointed at the person behind the mask. "Show yourself," he softly ordered.

The Death Eater brought a gloved hand to the mask and pulled it off. "You should know who is going to kill you before you die," she said. Harry's eyes narrowed on the scarred face. Behind him, Draco pulled his wand from his robe.

"I'm not the one who is going to die tonight," Harry said softly. "Draco?" he said softly.

"I'm not leaving," came Draco's reply. "There's not a damn thing you can say that's going to change my mind."

"I wasn't going to ask you to leave," Harry replied. "I was going to tell you I love you."

"That had better not be your goodbye," Draco said.

"It's not."

A silver jet that looked like an arrow sped passed Harry's ear. Harry turned as the arrow hit the brick wall behind him. The battle had just begun.

Silently, Harry sent the Reductor curse Abram's way. She flew into the dumpster a few feet behind her as he and Draco split up in order to make the duel harder on the ex-professor.

Abram slowly got to her feet. Apparently the time in which she had last battled Harry, she had gotten much slower.

Draco sent a curse flying her way before she had fully gotten to her feet. She flew back into the dumpster and cried out in pain before going limp. Draco raised his wand again and Harry knew exactly what spell he was about to cast.

"DRACO, NO!" Harry yelled.

"Harry, if we don't kill her, she'll just keep coming after us!" Draco yelled back.

"She can rot in Azkaban," Harry said calmly.

"She'll just get out and come after you again," Draco said softly, he and Harry now side-by-side. "I'm not going to let her have that chance."

"And I'm not going to take the chance of either one of us ending up in Azkaban for killing her a second time," Harry said sternly. Harry held out his wand and called for the Aurors.

Instantly Tonks was at Harry's side. "What can I do for you?" she asked, not really seeing who had called.

"Death Eater," Harry said softly.

Tonks looked over at the dumpster where Donna lay, unconscious. "Abram," she said softly. "We've been trying to catch her for ages," she muttered. She looked back at Harry and Draco. "Please, for the love of Merlin, tell me she's not dead."

"She's not dead," Harry said softly. "At least I'm fairly certain she's not."

Tonks sighed. "Well, if she is, I can assure you that you won't be charged for her murder again," she said. She sighed heavily and held out her wand, calling for backup.

Another Auror appeared seconds later and helped Tonks take the Death Eater away.

"If we meet up with her again, Harry," Draco said softly, "I don't care what you say, I'm killing her. No one messes with the one I love and gets away with it."

"Well if she gets out and comes after us again, I'll help you," Harry said softly. "What do you say we go home?"

Draco sighed heavily. "Gladly," he said.

Donna Abram was given the Dementor's Kiss the next morning.

This will be the very last entry in this diary. I've finally realized what it's going to take to put Harry on his guard. I'm going to give him this, though I have no idea if it will help him or not. I have no idea if he'll be able to read this because I'm fairly certain that they've put a spell on me to ensure that I don't tell him what happened. I think that's why I can never say the words.

I always knew it was going to take something drastic to open his eyes. I'm going to give my life to help save his. Suicide. I know they say that suicide's not the answer and that problems are never permanent, but I know that in this case, I have no other way to tell Harry that something's wrong. I have no other way to alert him to the fact that things are not as they seem. I can only hope he doesn't hate me for this.

Merlin, save him, because I couldn't.