The Hollow Man

The Hollow Man

Chapter One - Sacrifices

The cup she had been about to drink from fell to the ground and shattered, spilling its contents all over her kitchen floor, while she stared in shock at the letter she had just received.

Compensation. They were offering her compensation for her loss. As if anything could possibly compensate her for the murder of her parents, almost a year ago. And such compensation was being offered in the form of Death Eater scum, no less, as if having a soulless monster around her house as a constant reminder would alleviate her of anything. How could they? How dared they?

The letter informed her that she was third on the list, so she could have her pick out of a number of Death Eaters. The two names who had priority over her were the Diggorys and Harry, for their losses had happened before hers. The Diggorys had chosen Pettigrew, while Harry had thankfully declined.

White-hot rage shot through her. Those bastards had killed her parents, they had tortured and killed her parents, and those idiots at the Ministry thought they could compensate her.

She started reading random names aloud, in a mock sing-song voice, trying to vent some of her anger.

Rudolphus Lestrange. Percy Weasley. Gregory Goyle. Vincent Crabbe. Marcus Flint. Severus Snape. Theodore Nott. Wait! Had she just read Severus Snape? That was what they had sentenced him to? She could feel bile rising in her throat, and barely made it to the bathroom on time before promptly throwing up.

The man had been a hero, he had probably saved them all through his years of spying. The information of the attack alone should have been more than enough to grant him a bloody Order of Merlin, First Class, not to mention everything he had no doubt endured over the years in his service to Voldemort, all for the benefit of the Order.

And that was how their brave new world repaid him. By rendering him soulless and delivering him to the tender care of someone who didn't know better. Who thought he was a Death Eater and Lord Voldemort's spy, and who had a good chance of having been his student to boot. His humiliation would be endless. Cornelius Fudge had made certain he'd be mistreated until the end.

And it wasn't even a crime.

According to the law, anyone subjected to the Hollowing ceased to have human rights and was to be treated as an object; if she were to kill her neighbour's Hollow One, for example, she would be legally forced to pay them an appropriate sum of money rather than being tried for murder. If she killed her own Hollow One, no charges whatsoever would be brought against her. Why, it would be no worse in the eyes of the law than the cup she had just broken. It was hers to do as she pleased. Crookshanks and Hedwig had more rights than a Hollow One, even Lucky, her pet Fwooper, had more rights than a Hollow One.

And they had turned Severus Snape into that.

She had never quite liked him but, ever since she had understood exactly what it was he went through, after seeing him get to Grimmauld Place in the summer before her sixth year, bloodied and bruised, more dead than alive after a meeting, she respected him immensely. The Ministry had no right to have ever pressed charges against him, let alone convict him.

Tears came to her eyes unbidden. All of the Order's efforts to acquit him had been in vain, she had known as much, but she had expected him to be sentenced to Azkaban which, now that it was no longer populated by Dementors, wouldn't have been an unbearable fate. She had heard Minerva and Molly discussing that, once the Ministry changed hands, it would be a simple matter to get his case re-evaluated. Now that was no longer an option. Severus Snape was lost to them, convicted for having been a self-sacrificing martyr for the cause. The irony knocked her out.

Then it dawned on her. She could choose him. She couldn't bring back her parents and she couldn't save him, but she could choose him and at least spare him whatever humiliation he was bound to endure elsewhere. It was the one half-decent thing that could come out of this entire mess.

Resolutely she picked herself up from the floor and washed her face and teeth, then flooed the Ministry's War Crimes Division to make arrangements.

Hermione Granger had a compensation to pick up the following day.

---

The day had been tiring to the extreme. She had asked for leave from the lab the following day in order to be able to pick up Severus Snape and, being a compulsive perfectionist, she had worked twice as much as usual so that her absence wouldn't be a problem. Now she was sitting on her sofa in front of the fireplace, wondering if she had made the right decision. Reminding herself, yet again, that she had no idea what living daily with a Hollow One would be like.

Her musings were interrupted by a familiar bespectacled face showing up in her fireplace.

"Hermione?"

"Harry! How good of you to call!" Her face brightened considerably at the sight of one of her best friends.

"I was wondering if I could pop by. Were you doing anything?"

"No, not at all. Here, I'll take down the wards for you."

In a few seconds Harry Potter had vanished from her fireplace and apparated with a sound pop into her living room.

"You looked cranky when I called. Is something the matter?"

"No. Yes. I don't know."

"You don't know? Those are words that I would never have expected to hear from Hermione Granger," he joked. "I think I'll put this memory in a pensieve and charge viewing rights. I'll be the richest wizard alive in no time."

Hermione laughed, easing some of the tension she felt.

"It's just that I got a letter from the Ministry this morning..."

"Oh, that." Harry's expression closed and he sat down. "I got one too. Can you believe what they're trying to do? As if it would do me a world of good to have, say, Bellatrix Lestrange walking around soulless in my house. As if it would bring me back Sirius. It's a freak show, that's what it is. And the Diggorys accepted it, I could barely believe it." He shook his head in disgust.

"Harry... I accepted it too..."