The Last Time

Chapter 9

Hermione stood beside Harry's bed and pushed up her sleeves.

You can do this.

She placed her hands on either side of Harry's face, as she had seen Raymond do earlier. The coldness of his skin shocked her, and she almost jerked back in reflex. Her heart was racing; she had to calm herself before she could do anything. She took careful, deliberate breaths, willing herself to slow down, and closed her eyes.

She was aware of everything around her; sounds and scents she'd never noticed before became more acute. She heard Ron's slight fidgeting nearby, the faint bustle of activity coming from elsewhere in the castle, the sound of the autumn breeze outside the windows. The room smelled of soap and disinfectant and clean linen, underlaid by a faint medicinal tang. Harry's face was cold under her palms, his jaw slightly stubbly, and her fingertips rested just at the edge of his hairline.

Just as she began to notice all these things, they slowly faded away. There was no sound but the pounding of her blood in her ears, no sight but an intangible greyish-whiteness. Then she began to see a dim picture begin to form, almost as if it were a television station that was just a little too far out of broadcast range. It slowly came into focus - a person in black robes.

Harry.

He walked toward her, a carefully blank expression on his face.

"Hermione, what are you doing here?" he asked.

"You're dying, Harry." It was a stupid thing to say - of course he knew he was dying - but she was too scared to come up with anything witty or clever.

He frowned. "You didn't answer me. What are you doing here?"

"I came to help you!"

"You can't help me, Hermione. I've made up my mind." His voice was flat, toneless.

"Why? Because of your dreams? Your memories?"

"Yes."

"The ones of your parents?"

He didn't answer.

"Harry, their deaths were terrible. It was a tragedy...but it doesn't mean you need to - "

His green eyes burned angrily. "Shut up, Hermione. You've got no business talking about them, Miss 'I Have Both My Wonderful Understanding Muggle Parents'. I don't need your pity."

She felt as if he'd punched her in the stomach. He may be cruel to you. You must pay him no heed.

"You just don't have a clue," he continued. "You have such a perfect life - your parents are alive, they love you, they think you being a witch is the best thing since dental floss. You have no idea what it's like to be me. The Boy Who Lived. I'm only The Boy Who Lived because my parents died for me. I saw it, Hermione. I don't want to see it anymore."

"Show me, Harry. Show me what you see." Is this how I'm supposed to help him?

Harry snorted. "Show you? Why, so you can feel sorry for me? Make me into one of your little crusades? I'm not a house-elf."

"No! I want to help you."

"Ha! Help me? I don't think there's a book out there that can tell you how to help me, Hermione. You think you have the answers to everything, don't you? 'Let me just run off to the library, I'm sure all the answers will be there, I just have to find them!'" His voice was cold, hateful, mocking.

"Why are you doing this?" She fought to keep her voice steady.

"Doing what? Telling the truth?"

I can't do this...I don't know this Harry. He's so...cold...distant.

"Well?" He stared at her, hands on his hips, taunting her.

"I ought to just leave you here to die," she said shakily.

"Go on, then, get a move on." He turned to walk away.

He wants you to go, but you can't. Just don't listen to him. Turn off your feelings.

"Aren't you leaving?" he asked over his shoulder.

"No." She stood up straighter, strengthening her resolve. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You'll wish you had," he said softly, turning to face her.

The nothingness in which they were standing dissolved and shifted, and instantly they were in a small, comfortably furnished sitting room. A dark-haired man with glasses was sitting on the couch, holding a pyjama-clad baby on his lap. The baby was laughing at the silly faces his father was making. In an armchair near the fire, a pretty red-haired woman was reading a book with the words Baby-Proofing Charms for the Busy Mother stamped on the cover in gilt letters, and every so often she'd look over the top of the book at them and laugh.

That's Harry...that baby there...thought Hermione. And his parents...he's going to show me what happened. Harry stood beside her, jaw clenched, staring vacantly. I'm sorry, Harry. She turned back to the scene before her.

"James, we have got to put Locking Charms on all the kitchen cabinets," the woman said, folding down the corner of a page in the book to mark the spot. "Harry pulled out every single one of my pots the other day and made the worst racket, banging them together. No telling what he'll be into next."

"I know, Lily," said James, tickling Harry's stomach and making him shriek with delight. "I'll do it tomorrow. I got kind of, er, sidetracked today."

"That's what you said yesterday, and the day before," said Lily. "I'm sure we'll be having this same conversation tomorrow." She continued flipping through the book, ignoring a teasing remark from James about women who nag their husbands too much.

There was a blinding flash of light. Lily and James jumped to their feet.

"The wards!" James exclaimed. "They've been set off. My God, Lily, Voldemort - he's here."

Lily's face went dead white. "No...how could he...Peter..."

A loud sizzling sound came from the hallway. Another flash of light, this time purple.

"He's breaking through the enchantments on the door," said Lily.

"Go...you have to hide...I'll try to hold him off as long as I can," said James, thrusting Harry into Lily's arms with a quick kiss.

"James...I can't Apparate, we put up the wards...I can't fly with him..."

"Lily, take Harry and go! Run!"

Lily ran upstairs to Harry's nursery and slammed the door. "Hush now, Harry, you have to be very, very quiet." She ducked into the corner, behind the crib, muttering under her breath to Harry.

"Peek-a-boo?" he asked eagerly. "Peek-a-boo Daddy?"

"Stop, Harry, we can't play now. You have to be very quiet, okay? Be a good boy for Mummy for just a little while."

A loud blast shook the house for a moment, followed by James shouting curses one after the other. Lily continued to mumble under her breath.

A high, cold laugh echoed from below. "Avada Kedavra!" it cried, followed by a dull thump.

Lily gasped. "James...no...please..." She began to cry softly.

"Mummy?" asked Harry, poking at the tears running down her cheeks.

"Shhh, sweetheart," whispered Lily.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. They slowed...then stopped.

"I know you're in there. Come out, Mrs. Potter...and little Potter..." The voice was teasing, taunting.

"I'm waiting..."

Lily trembled in the corner, biting her lower lip. Harry curled his chubby fingers around a fistful of her auburn hair and shoved it into his mouth, drooling on her robes.

"I see you're playing hard to get. I suppose I shall be obliged to come in after you."

The door opened slowly.

A tall, hooded figure glided into the room, heading straight for the corner where they hid.

"No," Lily whispered, shaking her head.

"My, my, what have we here?" said the figure, laughing. "The mother hen, guarding her precious little chick. How sweet. How pathetic." He moved closer, pointing casually with his wand. He reached up with his other bony-fingered hand and pushed back the hood of his robes, revealing a hideously white, skull-like face with eyes like pools of blood.

"Voldemort," Lily spat, holding Harry tightly. "Get out."

That laugh again...soulless and evil. "Oh, I think not. I'm enjoying this moment far too much, you see."

Lily didn't respond to his taunt.

"When I saw your foolish husband at the door, bravely giving you a chance to escape, I was quite looking forward to you giving me a lovely little chase. You wouldn't have been able to get away, but it would have been extremely...entertaining." He leered at her. "I didn't think you would cower in the corner like a scared little rabbit. I expected better from a Gryffindor."

"I'm not here for your amusement, Voldemort."

"But you are! And I have a little amusement for you as well. A special show, just for you. The death of the last Potter."

"Not Harry - not Harry...please...I'll do anything..." She stood up with Harry in her arms, eyes darting frantically around the room as if to find a way to escape. "Please, kill me instead, don't take my son..."

"Get out of the way...or I may decide to have a little fun with him first...Crucio, perhaps?"

"You're disgusting! He's just a baby!"

"Stand aside," Voldemort hissed. "Stand aside, girl!"

"No! I won't let you hurt my son!" Lily screamed, darting around Voldemort and towards the door.

"Avada Kedavra!" he roared, aiming at Lily. A jet of brilliant green light shot from his wand, hitting her in the back. Harry fell from her lifeless hands, and she landed facedown on the brightly patterned nursery rug.

Harry looked startled at being dropped, and crawled over to his mother. "Mummy!" he said, tugging at her lifeless arm.

"And now for you, you pathetic little child," said Voldemort, gliding slowly towards Harry. "I will finally be rid of you and your meddlesome family once and for all." He raised his wand, level with Harry's head. "You'll be with your dear Mudblood mother soon enough, little Potter."

"Avada Kedavra!"

Another jet of brilliant green light shot from his wand. It hit Harry, making him howl in pain...and then rebounded onto Voldemort. The light swept over him, dissolving his body from the outside in, his face contorted in a soundless scream of agony. As his body faded away, a smoky grey mist rose from where he had been standing, almost coalescing into...something...and then swooped out the door.

Harry continued to scream, clutching his mother's body. "Mummy...Mummy...." A deep, jagged cut glared against the creamy baby-smooth skin of his forehead.

The scene faded away, and Hermione was back in the nothingness with Harry. She'd known the basic facts of his parents' murder, but to have it laid out in front of her in vivid detail - the desperation on James Potter's face as he went bravely ahead to try and off Voldemort alone, Lily Potter's fierce maternal protectiveness as she tried to save her son, and the twisted glee in Voldemort's voice as he mocked her - was more terrible than she could have imagined.

"Are you happy now?" he asked, almost imperceptibly, not looking at her. "Isn't that what you came to see?"

She didn't know what to say.

"I don't want to see it again. My mum...she was terrified...she had nowhere to go...she couldn't do anything but wait, like a caged animal. She tried to protect me, but she couldn't, unless she died...and he laughed at her, and taunted her...."

"Harry..."

"Why did you stop me, before?" he whispered. "You and Ron...I couldn't see you, like I see you now, but I could hear you...you told me to come back. Part of me wanted to...but I was afraid...afraid of what would happen if I did. If I die, I won't have to see it anymore. I won't have to hear her cry."

Hermione's heart ached at the tone of his voice. He looked so lost, so afraid, she didn't know what to do; and a torrent of words spilled out of her mouth before she could think.

"Don't be afraid, Harry. Look what your mum did for you...she tried to protect you; with the last breath she had, she tried to make you safe. Your dad tried to fight him off alone to give you time to get away. They did it because they loved you. You were the most precious thing in the world to them. Did you see their faces, just now? At the beginning? The way they looked at you...your dad, when he held you, he was so proud and happy."

He didn't respond, and she began to panic. Oh God, I can't do it. He's too far gone... he's giving up...

"Harry, don't make their deaths in vain. Don't give up. You will find a way to beat him, and Ron and I will help you. If you die now, then he wins and your parents' deaths mean nothing."

Harry didn't move. He stood looking at his feet, not meeting her eyes.

Plink.

A single tear dropped onto Harry's shoe.

He sat down hard on the ground - if there was a ground, in this nothingness where they were. Hermione dropped to her knees beside him. He didn't acknowledge her at first, and then tentatively, he rested his head on her shoulder. It surprised her. It wasn't like Harry to lean on someone.

I hope I'm doing the right thing...I want to help him...

Hermione put her arm around his shoulders. Harry stiffened at her touch, for just a moment, and relaxed. She felt his tears soaking her robes, and heard the sobs that shook his body; but the anguished, terrified sound from the night in the common room was gone, replaced with sounds of relief and acceptance. How long they sat there, Hermione didn't know.

"Not to be rude or anything...but this is really awkward."

Hermione jumped. She was back in the hospital wing, standing at Harry's bedside with her hands on his face, and he was smiling.

"Oh! It worked!" she said, jerking her hands away, and she noticed his skin was no longer icy cold, but as warm as her own.

"What worked?" Harry asked, reaching for his glasses and putting them back on. He sat up in the bed, looking around.

"Harry!" said Ron, grinning. He hesitated for the briefest of seconds, and then gave Harry the quick thump on the back that was his version of a hug.

"Ron! But what...how...Hermione...how did you..." Harry sputtered, totally confused.

Hermione looked at Ron, who shrugged, and looked back to Harry.

"Honestly, I don't know," she said.

"The important question is, are you okay?" asked Ron.

Harry looked confused for a moment, and then nodded. "Yeah.... I um, yeah, I think so."