Love, War and Friendship - The Wizarding Way

The counsellor arrived three days later dressed entirely in a violent shade of pink that made Harry cringe the moment he saw her. But looking at her face he could see why someone like herself could help the grief stricken. She had soft blonde hair and a happy expression that could cause even Snape to burst into smiles. Setting up her things in McGonagall's office she asked to interview Harry first and though he worried this was only because of his name she showed no sign of hero worship as she extended her right hand in greeting.

"Veronica Sheppard."

"Harry Potter."

Veronica flipped open her brief case to retrieve a large yellow notebook. "Yes I know," she said without looking up as she settled herself down in the chair behind the desk. "Now I'd like to ask you some questions about Hermione Granger."

Harry nodded, taking her frantic motions towards the tiny tin chair as a sign that she wanted him to sit. Pencil aimed and ready to write she began firing away questions faster than he could answer.

"How long have you known Ms. Granger? What's your relationship with her? How do you think the death of Fred Weasley has affected her?"

"Uh...do you mind slowing down a bit and repeating all those?"

Veronica's eyes widened slightly in what Harry could only assume was annoyance. "How long have you known Hermione?"

"I met her on my first day at Hogwarts so six years."

She jotted something down on her sheet before continuing. "What is your relationship with Ms. Granger?"

"She's my best friend. Oh, and my girlfriend."

"You sound like you're not used to saying it. How long have you been dating?" Veronica leaned forward in interest her blonde hair sweeping over the notebook and covering the writing that Harry had been trying to read.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "We never really said we were going out or anything we just ... were. But she said she loved me in August. So I suppose you could say it's been about two months."

"Love? That's a strong word for a pair of sixteen year olds to be throwing around."

Harry's face flushed red. "We've been through a lot together."

"Do you love her?"

"Yes."

"Hmm." Again her pencil ran across the page making notes.

"I assume you know Fred Weasley then?"

Harry frowned. It was common knowledge to most of the wizarding world that the Weasleys were like a second or even first family to him. "Of course I did. He was my best friend's older brother."

"Were you close?"

Harry was silent. How to answer this one? He and Fred had parted on discontented terms and had unfortunately never had another chance to patch things up. "Kind of at one point."

"At one point?" Veronica murmured to herself. "And what changed that?"

Did she have to be so evasive? He hoped she would be a little bit more sensitive when she was talking to Hermione. "I - uh -" How could he answer that? Might as well be truthful. This whole thing was for Hermione's sake. "He went out with Hermione for a couple weeks this summer."

"Was this before or after she said she loved you?"

"Before."

"And did she ever tell Fred that she loved him do you know?"

Harry felt his fists clench. "I don't know," he answered through gritted teeth. Was this interview ever going to end?

"How close would you say they were after the break up?"

"I didn't think they were but other people ..."

"Other people?" Veronica prodded on with no mercy.

"Other people thought they were."

"Hmm."

He wished she would move and give him a good look at her paper. Could she really figure out how to treat Hermione by asking things like this? This was all so stupid. Perhaps a cheering charm was all she needed.

"How do you think his death affected her?"

"I don't know. She didn't seem to realize what had happened the first few days -"

"Shock," Veronica interrupted nodding satisfactorily as she scrawled some more on her pad.

"Right. Anyways after the funeral I thought she was ok but then she stopped eating and basically functioning normally."

Veronica nodded, her blue eyes looking through him. "Well we're done can you send in Ron Weasley please?"

Harry let out a silent sigh relief that the interrogation was over. Letting the door slam behind him with a bang he bumped right into Ron.

"Is it my turn?" Ron asked glumly. "I don't see why I have to do this."

"Because you're her best friend."

"Maybe I was."

"You are," said Harry in a more forceful voice than he meant. "I know you still care about her."

Ron didn't answer. His neck red and face guilty he opened and shut the door in Harry's face. He entered sullenly ready to ignore the stupid therapist.

"Hello," she greeted him cheerily as he sat down. "I presume you know who I am and you - let me get this right - are Ronald Weasley, brother of the deceased Fred Weasley?"

Ron's eyes hardened at the mention of his late brother. "It's Ron," he told her sharply in a tone that clearly said: piss off.

"Alright...Ron," she replied, peering into his eyes as if she were trying to get a glimpse of his soul. "What is your relationship with Hermione Granger? Are you two close?"

Relationship? Ron froze, his ears heating up. How did she know? She'd only seen Harry...did he suspect something?

"We - we don't have a relationship," he stammered shortly. "There's nothing going on between us. She's going out with Harry."

"Ah." Veronica jotted something down onto her pad. "I didn't mean a romantic relationship. I was merely speaking of a friendship or - "

"We were best friends."

"Were?"

"Yes. Past tense. Over."

"May I ask why?"

"When was this?"

"After Fred died. Aren't you supposed to be some sort of grief counsellor? Shouldn't you know that it has something to do with Fred?" Ron exploded savagely. He hated talking about Fred. He hated the sickness that filled his stomach at the memories.

"Well," Veronica said folding her hands neatly in her lap and giving him a sympathetic smile. "Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall have both written me detailed reports on the situation and Ms. Granger's behaviours but I wanted to hear from her friends about what they think. It gives me more insight. It's fine if you don't want to help..."

Ron sighed, her words guilt tripping him into staying. "And what did Dumbledore tell you about me?"

Her eyes twinkled at her success. "You, Harry and Hermione have all been inseparable for years but this year you all started to drift apart. Emotional strain with the added loss can lead to exactly the same behaviours Hermione seems to have."

"So you think Hermione's depressed because of me?"

"No! I just think that the more I know about the stresses and problems in her life the more ability I'll have to help her."

He thought for a moment, his eyes examining the floor boards. "It started this summer..."

And little by little with starts and stops caused by Veronica's incessant interrupting he told her everything he knew about the past four months of Hermione's life right up to his love confession.

"Was that good?" he asked when he was finished.

Veronica smiled warmly. "It was excellent. You're free to leave and send in Hermione," she said reaching out to touch his arm. "But before you do - strictly off the record of course - I think she made the wrong choice. Harry didn't have half the emotion as you when we were talking."

Ron sat up a little dazed, barely seeing the door handle he gripped to leave. "Thanks I guess."

Hermione was waiting outside the door looking like a giant bundle of nerves and sadness.

"You ok?" he asked softly, searching for any glimmer of happiness in her eyes. She shrugged in answer, rewarding him with a gentle smile as he held the door open for her though he noticed it didn't extend to her eyes.

"Hello," Veronica greeted her, hand out ready to shake. She would have to take a different approach with this one. The young girl was exactly as her teachers had informed her: more like a rag doll than a person anymore. Her hair hung limply looking as though it could have used a wash about a week ago. Her eyes were heavy and drooping with a thousand sorrows.

"Hi," she replied in a quiet voice. She sat down neatly and waited. Worry lines etching their way across her face. Veronica could tell she was nervous.

"How are you doing today?"

"Good. I'm good."

"Are you really?"

Silence.

"You can tell me."

Hermione sighed, tears forming in the corner of her eyes before she could stop them. She should be used to this by now. Just about anything made her cry. "No I'm not."

"So then how do you feel? Honestly," Veronica pressed when she didn't elaborate. The notebook she had wrote all her notes in while interviewing Ron and Harry had been put away in her bag. She wouldn't be taking notes on Hermione just yet.

"Sad. Lonely. Miserable. Unhappy. Disinterested. Need I go on?" there was a touch of insolence in her voice sending the hint across that she wasn't going into this as willingly as everyone else might think.

"They told me you might be like this. "

"Be like what?"

"Not want to talk about your feelings just the facts."

"I'm not being like that."

"Tell me how you feel. The nitty gritty. Everything you haven't been able to tell anyone else because you didn't want to scare them. Nothing you say can leave this room. Doctor patient confidentiality agreement."

Hermione narrowed her eyes for a moment, concentrating hard on her fingernails which were in desperate need of a trim. She would do it with magic but these days she seemed to lack the energy to pick up her wand and do anything. "I feel...nothing. I cry for no reason. I'm not sad just empty. Dead. I hate almost everyone and everything sometimes including myself. I can't look in the mirror anymore I hate myself so much. I think of Fred all the time and how I failed him and sometimes...sometimes I just want to die."

Veronica swallowed hard, remembering the feelings oh so well. "Why do you think you failed him?"

The girl before her shifted awkwardly in her chair, her voice now barely audible she whispered, "Because I knew."

"Knew what?"

Hermione burst into tears suddenly. They sprang down her cheeks as suddenly as a rain storm. "I knew he was going to Riddle mansion. I knew he was going to do something like that and I didn't try to stop him or tell anyone about it."

"Honey that's not your fault."

"Yes, it is! If it weren't for me he might still be alive."

Veronica instantly felt a kinship with the girl, her story so similar to her own past. "No it's not. Believe me. I went to Hogwarts when I was your age and my best friend was planning on doing a very dangerous spell using Dark Magic but she made me promise not to tell anyone so I didn't and she ..." her voice trailed off.

"What did you do?"

"Exactly the same as you. I was depressed for months afterwards and I came pretty damn near suicide when my mother put me into counselling and I learned how to get over my guilt."

Hermione nodded slowly.

"That's what I think would benefit you if this is what you're going through. Guilt can be a very overpowering emotion when tied with grief. I think about one session a -"

"It's not that," she interrupted shakily. "I mean it is but it isn't. There's more. I've been feeling this way since before Fred just not as bad."

"When did it start?"

Hermione shrugged her shoulders, hesitantly looking Veronica in the eyes. "Summer."

"Tell me more," Veronica leaned forward in her seat. "What happened this summer?"

Hermione blushed, suddenly uncomfortable in her own skin. "Well it wasn't just summer. Um..." Under the thrall of Veronica's ceaseless nodding and smiles she continued, feeling strangely relieved as the words left her mouth. "I got an owl from my parents back in June asking if I could stay with Ron for the summer because they were too busy to have me home." Large tears fell from her hazel eyes but she wiped them away quickly, embarrassed by her emotions.

"How did that make you feel?"

"Unloved. Unwanted. Doesn't matter I'm used to it."

"So it's not the first time they've done or said something like this to you? Ah," she murmured as Hermione shook her head. The wheels began to turn in Veronica's mind, everything falling into place. "That explains a lot."

"What do you mean?"

"A common side effect of parental neglect is a heavy need for love and affection which you displayed in your multiple relationships that took place over the summer. Its possible your state of depression chose to rise at that particular time because none of these boys could fill the void that your parents love once did."

Hermione narrowed her eyes sharply. Though it was a perfectly logical explanation of her rash and out of character choices this summer she didn't think it was what she was doing. She hadn't used either Fred or Ron in some quest for fulfillment! And how exactly did this woman know what had gone on this summer? Even Dumbledore wasn't completely aware of all three of her rocky relationships that had taken place and three was hardly a lot. It wasn't as if they were very adult relationships anything. They'd hardly done anything. It wasn't -

"Hermione?" the counsellor asked, giving her a concerned look as she pulled her from her thoughts. "Are you alright?"

"No," she answered, stubbornly sticking out her lower lip. She had agreed to go through with this and even if she thought therapy was incredibly intrusive she had promised Harry this and she would do it. "I want to be happy. How can you help me?" She knew that the counsellor couldn't just snap her fingers and Hermione would be happy again (well she probably could with magic) but she wanted to cut to the chase of the meeting so she could leave before she spilled anything else personal to this strange woman.

Veronica was silent for a moment, folding her hands gently over her pink skirt. "There is no miracle cure here, Ms. Granger," she sighed sounding very much like a younger, feminine version of Professor Dumbledore.

"But you can help me right?"

"Well yes. I think that a majority of your depression may be situational; the stress you've gone through between your friends, the late Mr. Weasley's death and your parents behaviour towards you. I recommend having an hour weekly session with me down in Hogsmeade or if that's too difficult for you I could always come here in the evening. If that doesn't work -"

"What do you mean if that doesn't work? It has to work!"

"Now, now don't get so worked up. I'm simply stating that your depression may be something entirely different altogether. It's possible you have a chemical imbalance in your brain and if that's the case than there are certain remedies controlled by the Ministry that you could be administered to decrease your level of sadness."

Hermione smiled slightly, relief flooding through her veins at the idea of once again feeling happy. She wanted to ask for the drugs right away. Wouldn't that be the simpler way to go? It would make her happier right away but maybe the counselling sessions would work.

***

Ginny sighed in a desperate sort of way causing Draco to give her the same sidelong glance he always did with the familiar, "You ok?"

She nodded, though it seemed as if he was always asking her that lately.

"Alright," Draco shrugged, returning to his homework or rather, her homework. She'd been having a hard time concentrating on any of her History of Magic classes lately...well any of her classes for that matter. She had no idea why but she suspected it may have something to do with Hermione and the imprint she had left on Ginny's soul. It was almost as if she had seared a part of herself onto Ginny's heart. She had only begun to notice weeks ago when she'd had her first panic attack, just moments before Hermione came close to having a mental breakdown over Harry's "disappearance". Ever since then she felt snippets of the other girl's feelings. She knew right now from the recurring lurching of her stomach that something was going on in Hermione's head and it wasn't pleasant.

***

"So how'd it go?" Harry asked, jumping to his feet the moment she entered the common room. She didn't answer right away, seeming as if she couldn't see him. Her eyes were blank, glazed. Finally Hermione looked up.

"It was...ok."

"What's wrong?"

"Depression," she answered, her eyes still looking through him.

The counsellor had said something that was obviously upsetting her.

"What'd you guys talk about?"

"It's personal," she muttered, walking past him towards the girl's dormitory.

Harry laughed. "Personal? Personal? Hermione it's me! I already know everything about you."

Hermione froze, her body numbing and face flaming with anger. "Do you now?" her voice haughty and mad.

"Well yah."

This time it was Hermione's turn to laugh, only her laugh wasn't playful or full of joy. It was hard and sarcastic, used to ridicule him. A sound that could pierce his heart it was filled with such cruelty. "So I guess you know what's bothering me and what I feel and how to solve it then huh? No need to tell you anything anymore since you already know."

Harry took a step back, hands behind his head in frustration. "Hermione that's not what I meant and you know it. I just want to help you, to understand what you're going through."

"And you know what I want, Harry? I want to stop fighting. I want to feel like myself again. I just want to feel period. See," she held out a trembling finger, a single glistening tear upon it. "I have so many of these but no reason. I don't know why I have all this pain. It's not all because of Fred. I don't even know if any of it is anymore." Hermione stopped to take a breath. "So you see I'm sorry that I can't comfort you and help you understand what's going on because I don't know. Harry it's my own mind and I don't know what's wrong with it." Her knees felt weak and about to collapse as she grasped the edge of the sofa, awaiting his response. She wasn't sure she could take it if he carried on the fight, as she was sure he would. All these spurts of anger and irritability took a lot out of her. To her surprise strong arms encompassed her.

"I didn't mean to make you feel that way," said Harry softly. "The point isn't that I need comfort. I want to understand this so I can comfort you. I want to be there for you, Hermione and more than anything I want you better."

Hermione smiled gently against the hand cradling her face. "At least there's still one thing in my life that makes sense."

Harry grinned back; pleased to know he still meant something to her. "I'll always be here for you, to talk or ...anything. Remember that ok?"

She jumped at his words, knocking his hand aside as she stumbled into a hazy memory of an ordinary day seven years ago.

"Hermione?"

Hermione shook the cobwebs from her mind at the sound of Harry's voice. She struggled hard to keep a smile on her face. "I'm fine," she whispered, though of course she was not. Up until now she had completely forgotten that day, the last time she had ever heard her father tell her he loved her. Maybe the counsellor had been right. Maybe everything she'd been doing or feeling for the past few months had been because of parental neglect. Because even the knowledge that both Harry and Ron truly loved her could not fill the gaping hole that one simple memory created in her heart.

"I - I'm fine," she repeated. "I'm fine."

***

She's not fine, Ginny thought from her seat on the couch behind Hermione. Her stomach jumped urgently, proving her theory. It bothered her to be so in tuned with Hermione's misery. Slowly, very slowly she had begun to get over the death of her brother and having to be so exposed to someone else's pain only made her want to dive back into her own.

"Ginny?" Draco whispered in her ear, noticing the disturbance in her thought patterns. "You -"

"Yes," she smiled honestly. "I'm fine."

***

Ron wandered the school grounds aimlessly wondering briefly if Veronica had mentioned her thoughts on his relationship with Hermione to her. She was probably done. Before, back when they had been best friends he would have rushed back to the common room with Harry, eager to hear what the counsellor had diagnosed her with. He would have sympathized and listened, maybe even started one of their infamous little arguments to cheer her up. He was sure she enjoyed their fights as much as he did. In fact he missed them. He missed Harry and Hermione and the closeness their had once been between them, before things had changed. He couldn't count how many times he wished he had not fallen in love with Hermione. If you asked George he would say it was inevitable. Two guys and a girl only spelled trouble. He hadn't meant to fall in love with her but he still felt as if it were his fault. His feelings for her were the main reason the threesome's friendship had failed. He was sure of it. He should have never acted on them. He always knew she cared far more for Harry than she did he. It had been evident since the start and showed in all of her actions. And Harry had always loved her. He would protect her with his life. That was what Ron wanted, to find someone who would risk everything for him.

"Hey," a quiet voice came from his elbow.

Ron looked down in distaste to find Ravey standing beside him.

"We haven't talked since -"

"Since you told me everything you ever told me was a lie?"

Ravey looked away unhappily. "Right, about that. Ron I never meant to hurt you. I only did it because I had to. It was part of the act. It wasn't meant to -"

"What do you want Ravey?" Ron interrupted again, barely able to look at her.

"Well it's about the necklace I gave you. I -"

"It's with Hermione. I gave it to her to figure out whether or not it was true that you were Dumbledore's granddaughter but now I know the truth. You can take it back anytime."

Ravey stamped her foot hard against the hard earth. "Will you just let me finish for once? I don't want the goddamn necklace. I want you to have it."

"No thanks. I've had my fill of dark magic."

"It'll keep you safe."

Ron laughed. "Nothing's safe these days."

"Take the necklace. It will protect you. You're going to need protection."

"From what?" this time he looked her directly in the eyes, trying to figure out what she was trying to tell him.

"The Dark Lord. He'll come after you. You're going to need the necklace. Please, just take it."

Ron froze at the mention of You-Know-Who. Ravey had at one time been exposed to as much dark magic as Draco. "Why? Why me?"

Panic rose in Ravey's blue eyes, tinting them violet. "Please don't ask me anymore. He'll know I'm talking to you. He'll - no Ron, just please promise me you'll wear the necklace."

"I promise," he agreed quickly. "But Ravey -"

"I gotta go." And with a flash of turquoise she dashed off, cloak flowing behind. Ravey knew something and it must be something bad.