At Any Moment II

Hermione I

12 months later...

Bloody Hell! I kissed him!

I mean, well, I'm not altogether too sure what I mean, but what on earth made me do that?

At least I didn't really kiss him, and...well, it was just a peck on the side of the head, but honestly, did I have to bloody write it down as well? If it's any consolation to my poor nerves, I didn't mean to do it. I've no idea what I was thinking of at the time - I was in shock. Well, at least I think I was in shock. If I wasn't in shock then - I am now. No wonder I felt like an insect pinned to a corkboard that night in the Staffroom. He just kept looking at me like I was an unfortunate witness - and I guess I was in a way.

You know, I haven't even thought to open this journal since that night. Too much else going on, I suppose. How was I supposed to pick up the pieces of that last few weeks knowing all the while that someone else was privy to my thoughts - all my thoughts? And then Professor Dumbledore basically told me in front of everyone that I was right to be suspicious all along...and here I am writing in you again!

It feels strange to start all over again, but in another way, it feels like I've found a piece of myself I hadn't thought about for a while. Like putting away something when you know you'll eventually have to pull it out and deal with it...all of it. I don't even feel like I'm being coerced to do it - almost like I need to get it all down finally so that I can move on with the rest of my life.

I honestly forgot to pick you up, 'little book,' on my way out of the Staffroom, but there you were again in my belongings when I finally woke up six weeks after the battle. I don't know which was stranger, really. Waking up at home; my old home, or waking up at home, rolling over and the seeing Crookshanks as he cleaned his 'bits.' Ugh - it's making me sick just thinking about it now.

It was strange waking up at home. It took me about a month or so to stop expecting to hear Mum and Dad lob in the door at odd hours grumbling about the dodgy upper molar that really needed root canal therapy, or how such and such; who's my age, finally had their wisdom teeth 'break through.' I couldn't work out how the place felt so warm and looked after - like someone had been kind enough to infuse the place with some...love, I think. That isn't the right word, but I don't know how to describe it without sounding really pathetic. I can't remember what time I woke up, but it was in the afternoon and I felt hungry. So, I had a shower and then wandered downstairs to see if there was any money sitting in the old cracked sugar jar in the kitchen. I don't know who got the bigger shock when I bumped into an unknown body coming out of the kitchen - Professor McGonagall or myself.

I don't think she was terribly happy about all the swearing I did either, but I got so much of a surprise that I just...well, the words just came tumbling out. I can laugh about it now, but she wasn't happy to think I used 'those sorts of words.'

She really wasn't happy when I quipped that I was a perfect example of Hogwarts 'other' education, with a swear word for every occasion. Honestly, I think I must have still been half asleep, but she didn't say anything, just pursed her lips into a very thin line, asked me why I was up and then shooed me into the living room all the while telling me that she'd organise dinner.

So she did - and she kept me company once everything started coming back to me. I hadn't even realised that my memory was circumspect until she started to try and tease bits of information from me. We talked about all sorts of things that first few weeks, things I didn't write down - partly because I promised her that I wouldn't, and partly because it didn't feel right to betray a confidence. I also have a sneaky suspicion that you know even more than I do, Arcanus.

That feels so strange calling you something specific, when for so long you were just, 'little book.' That actually seems like a really childish name, but it suited you at the time I wrote everything else, and in some ways, it's stranger to know you actually have a name.

Professor McGonagall; though she was just about the only one, believed me when I said that, 'all I saw was a blinding white light and then I passed out.' Didn't sound terribly heroic then, and it still sounds like a convenient excuse for, 'I don't want to talk about it'.

I've never understood why people who weren't present always want the 'gory details' to events they were lucky enough to avoid. It's really rather macabre actually - almost as though they get their kicks out of finding out who lived and who died. Why can't they just appreciate that those who were there really don't want to dissect things to their satisfaction? I think the Ministry of Magic was the worst of all. They wanted to know how I was...where I was, who was around me, what Harry was doing, what other students were around me - who lived, who died, who was injured, who ran away? The list was endless really. I spent so many precious sunny days locked into a room trying to remember what I had for breakfast that fateful morning right up to Professor Snape crying out in the heat of the battle. The rest is a great big fuzzy blank.

Pr...Minerva; she told me to call her that, did fill in some of the blanks for me with a Pensieve she'd dropped some of her recollections into just after it was all over and done with. The light - the blinding white hot light that seemed to consume everything was the rather bizarre ending to it all. She told me then that I should ask you, Arcanus, to tell me what had happened, but I really just was so sick of it all by the time I'd finished being grilled for information I didn't actually have, that I just wasn't in the mood. Not terribly brave of me, but there you have it.

So what made me pick you up now after all this time? You know, I'm not actually sure. What I do know is that even if you didn't realise it, you helped me over a really difficult time in my life. You didn't judge me - well, at least I hope you didn't judge me! Most of all though; quips aside, it was just something that I needed to do, even with your gentle persuasion to write.

God, I still can't believe I bloody kissed him!

Why didn't you stop me?

I know, I know, you weren't there at the time. You had to rely on my gullibility to write it all down, but I don't actually think in the long run that I was gullible. I listened to my Headmaster when he told me I...'was well favoured,' and I suppose that in a way I was. I'm still a bit in the dark about your gift to me, but I got that awful dream laugh sorted out. Maybe Mum was trying to tell me something and it took a Pensieve full of grief to sort it all out into something that helped me to get the whole thing in perspective.

Grief...

That's all that I remember clearly, other than the light, of course. So much pain, so much death and so much hatred focused on the school grounds. No one should ever have to feel that sort of concentrated malevolence ever again - and I hope I never will. Minerva told me I was blocking it all out but that I'd have to deal with all of it sooner or later...or it'd just fester and lead to even more suffering. She said no one should have to suffer that battle more than was entirely necessary.

So we helped each other and ended up very close friends. It's a bit like I got a surrogate Mum without either of us consciously directing things that way. I don't even think Mum; wherever she is, would really mind. She always said Professor McGonagall 'had her life writ large upon her face.' I love to tell her how right she was, but I have the sense that she already knows.

I'm rambling, aren't I? I had thought I'd just sit down and write like I used to do, but it all changed the minute the Headmaster dropped the bombshell in the Staffroom that night. I felt like an interloper - and Professor Snape; probably unconsciously, made sure I felt like I'd intruded upon a student free sanctuary. I can laugh about that night now. I even teased Minerva about it - about how she and Professor Snape looked as though they were about to make a break for the door...as though their sanity depended on it. Minerva pointed out that I certainly didn't look comfortable about the whole thing...and then we had a good long laugh at the idea of Professor Snape hitching up his robes and rushing headlong out of the room in a flat panic.

You know, I still don't know what happened to him after that night, but he was very close to the light - in fact it seemed to radiate from him. I was with Harry and Ron; of course, but Ron thankfully stayed out of arm's reach from me. I think he finally worked out that I'd grown away from him...from both of them, but that this was one final job that had to be done. Our friendship changed and none of us could pin down what we could do to rekindle it. I'm still at a loss to explain it, but it hurts - deep down it hurts so much that I think I'll leave that musing locked away for a little while longer.

Anyway, the battle was as bloody and gruesome as I expected it to be. I almost wish that Minerva hadn't helped me tease the memories out, but it's a silly wish to have continually wondered about a blank that might have surfaced at some moment; when I wasn't expecting it, in the future.

Once Professor Dumbledore had dropped his bombshell and left us all in stunned silence, the noise of the teachers around me squabbling in hushed and panicked tones around me was unnerving. My job was to go to Gryffindor Tower, wake Harry and Ron and bring them back to the Staffroom. I managed to do that fairly quickly - thankfully. Neither of them seemed to be entertaining for which I was very grateful. The thought of interrupting Ron with whatever girl had been stupid enough to believe his, 'you're the only one for me', spiel makes me feel angry and slightly nauseated even now with a little distance. So, after much cajoling and a few small threats I got the pair of them to the Staffroom. Our part was easy - keep each other in sight and form a united front.

We did that, but what the teachers didn't explain to us was that Voldemort would be so prepared to mow down anyone in his path to Harry; that he would be so cold blooded and calculated with Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix LeStrange on either side of him. Each with a smile - a grim visage - plastered to their faces as some poor hapless student or teacher got too close to their objective. It's one of the clearest things that I saw from Minerva's Pensieve. They enjoyed the blood and killing. In fact, I suppose it's not too far of a stretch to say they relished the pain and suffering as their own twisted form of ambrosia.

Professor Snape and Minerva huddled close to the three of us; protecting our flanks from the dark creatures whom Voldemort seemed to have attracted to his 'cause.' I was glad they were there and I shed more than a few tears once it all started to come back to me with all the, 'what ifs' that spiralled away from the knowledge that without them there, I wouldn't be writing this.

I have no idea how long the battle around us wore on, but it was as though all of the terror was encapsulated into random and jerky acts. Minerva told me it was all over in a little less than an hour, but it seemed like days from where I was standing. I know I kept looking worriedly at Harry because he'd spent most of the year as a basket case, but he seemed calm - unnervingly calm, and that in itself was more than a bit worrying.

Voldemort's end was almost the biggest anti-climax of the night. All Harry did was lift his wand and quietly say, 'Avada Kedavra' and that was that. Well, it wasn't quite that, but in that instant I knew that Harry had wanted to do anything other than utter those two words. Minerva immobilised LeStrange easily as she was about to repeat the curse back to Harry, but the biggest surprise was when Lucius Malfoy addressed Prof...Minerva the way he did. He'd been counting on the shock to cause us all to lose our concentration - and it worked too. It was all in Minerva's Pensieve and I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen my own shock reflected back at me. Minerva had already told me the whole story before we went into the Pensieve, but it was still a shock to realise that it wasn't some black joke being played out in front of me.

I have tendrils of memory from that night, but until Minerva helped me 'join the dots' it was just a vast jumble of sensation and fear. That's what the Aurors' at the Ministry couldn't understand. They thought I was being deliberately vague, but I wasn't. Even now as I write this, it all seems so much clearer than it was when I actually lived through it. It's surreal, as though I'm recounting something I witnessed as a bystander, not as an active participant. I think that's partly why I had no concept of time during all of it. Because time stopped except for a few clear moments, and most of them were gleaned from Minerva's Pensieve.

The only two people who didn't look surprised with Malfoys statement were Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall. In fact, Professor Snape moved slightly in front of Minerva; as though unconsciously shielding her, and stayed still as Lucius Malfoy continued to rant at our little group. He cast Crucio on both Harry and Ron, with a casual flick of his wand and then turned to Minerva and me. I don't know how I found myself so near; almost behind her, but I was and it's probably what saved me in the end - that and the light. As Lucius Malfoy lifted his wand, the hatred crackling around him intensified and as he started to cast his curse, Professor Snape yelled, 'No!' very clearly and leapt in front of the pair of us.

And then all I was left with was light. A burning, almost iridescent light enveloped all of us, and when I tried to look around Minerva's memory...all I could see was more light radiating across the whole school. It was as though the very texture of the landscape had been consumed. I must have fainted then because I don't remember anything else. Even the Pensieve couldn't tell me what I'd missed and Minerva herself told me she had been unconscious for nearly a week following it all as well.

It took a long time to get rid of my puzzlement once Minerva had started my journey with me - so long and so tortuous, and in some ways it still seems distant - another lifetime ago, in fact. That's partly why I started writing again. I decided it was time to make sense of the chaotic jumble and move on.

And then I realised that I'd bloody kissed him!

I wonder; if I ever see him again, whether or not I could tell him that was inadvertently channelling my mother and be done with it?

No, maybe not...