Scientific Method

...11:32 pm // ...

Hypothesise, observe, conclude.

That's how you go about learning things, her father had said. He used to study chemistry at Leeds University. When Hermione was younger he helped her conduct experiments in the kitchen, always asking, what do you think will happen, Hermione? Hermione would watch wide-eyed as he poured the vinegar onto the baking soda.

A wet cough sounds beside her ear. A shudder crawls up her spine as flecks of something wet land on her neck. Hermione struggles to reach a hand around Harry and rubs at it with her fingers.

Remember to always have a hypothesis before you begin, said her father with soft reprimand. Take into account what you already know and think. What do you think will happen?

Her mind a blur and her body aching, Hermione grapples at her thoughts and grabs onto the first thing she can understand:

Hypothesis: If there were enough light to see, she would see that her fingers are now red.

Support your hypothesis, Hermione. Why would they be red?

They would be red with Harry's blood.

Why?

He's been coughing blood, his insides mangled by a Death Eater Curse. Hermione doesn't know which curse. For the first time in a long while, she doesn't want to know the answers. What curse can cause a person's ribcage to splinter and the marrow to leak through the bones? What curse burns your muscles from the inside? The questions only come out of habit and Hermione swats them aside.

She thinks Harry might be blind, too. She has not been able to extract enough sense out of him to confirm this. She feels his bones move loosely under his skin as she half-carries half-drags him through the tunnel to Honeydukes.

Touching Harry's body makes her stomach churn. Too many things displaced. Too many things torn. Don't think about it, she tells herself. Pretend it's not him. Pretend it's not even human.

Hermione isn't even sure if Hogsmeade is the place to go. If the Death Eaters can take Hogwarts, then surely they can take Hogsmeade in a stride. She refuses to let the doubt crumble her resolve, because then what else would she have to go on?

-

...10:01 pm // ...

The number of Death Eaters has multiplied since Voldemort's return, and they showed Hogwarts no mercy.

Ron clung to her so tightly Hermione thought her bones would break. She held him in the same way. Cowering in a corner, the two children were inconspicuous in the blaze and fury of the entrance hall.

But for how long? Hermione wondered.

Shards of magic shot out of Dumbledore's wand as he launched himself at Lucius Malfoy, with the look of one who knew that this moment would come. Malfoy raised his wand with the look of one who had been waiting for it. It has been too long, said his eyes, said his smile, said the Cruciatus Curse unfurling from his wand.

"Come on," Ron hissed, trying to pull Hermione along the wall. "Come on, get up. Get up!"

She began babbling to Ron about all the Hogwarts rules the Death Eaters were breaking, about how she still hasn't done her Arithmancy homework, if he thought classes will be cancelled now because of this; not caring what she said, just wanting the shape of their distraction. Ron pulled her violently to her feet and hand in hand they ran, blindly shooting Jelly-Legs and Body-Binds at anything that moved. Up the stairs and down the corridors and Furnunculus and Tarantallegra and Densaugeo and hoarse throats and too much fear.

"In here," said Ron, and pulled Hermione down a narrow dead-end corridor. They pressed their backs against the darkest corner, feeling the tremors of battle through the stone. Strange shadows flickered in the main hallway.

Ron grabbed her shoulders and forced her to face him. "Hermione, where's Harry? Where's McGonagall? What do we do?"

His grip hurt and Hermione wanted to say Shut up, Ron, who wants to know the answers to those kinds of questions? Who would damn themselves to such knowledge?

A scream down the main hallway interrupted him. When he spoke again, Ron's voice was a strangled croak. "It's Harry."

"No it's not."

"Hermione-"

"It's not."

"If Harry-"

"It's not!" Hermione's voice merged with the scream down the hall and Ron clasped a hand over her mouth.

"What was that?" asked a voice down the hallway.

"What was what?" another replied.

Hermione and Ron crept along the wall until they saw two figures in the main hallway. At their feet lay a familiar black-haired boy with limbs bent at wrong angles, gasping his breaths.

"On my signal, grab Harry and run," Ron whispered tightly, raising his wand to his chest, and he seemed surprised at his own words.

"You're mad!" hissed Hermione.

She was about to say "but what about you?" The words were on the tip of her tongue and never came through. If not Ron, then who? Not her, surely? So let it be Ron. Let it be Ron and not her, and the thought twisted her stomach.

Only upon realising Hermione's silent acquiesce did the thought finally sink in. Was she not going to stop him? All the times Ron wondered what it was like to switch places with Harry Potter. Was he really going to be a hero at last? Did it all come down to this: the weakening of grip, the violence of heartbeats, and the transubstantiation of blood to ice water. This was a hero? Say it, Ron thought pleadingly at her. Say your line and stop me.

They stared wide-eyed at each other, disbelieving, as the Death Eater's footsteps came closer.

"No, I'm sure there was something," he said. "I'll check. You keep Potter quiet."

The Death Eater was nearly on top of them before they gathered the wits to do anything. In near unison, Ron and Hermione raised their wands and let loose a volley of spells, some relevant, most not, and all knocking the Death Eater against the opposite wall. Spells learnt in class, learnt at home, learnt from friends. Illicit hexes traded from the more resourceful Hogwarts students, in abandoned classrooms and darkened corridors. The Death Eater floated, fell, grew boils, lost the bones in his legs, grew, and shrank.

"Stupefy!" Hermione finally managed, and the hooded figure twitched once, stiffened, and was still.

"The other one!" Ron gasped hoarsely. "Hermione-!"

She had the presence of mind to duck at Avada but the green light still seared the air behind her closed eyelids. The Kedavra was a slow serpentine whisper. There was a crash beside her. There was Ron, suddenly very still, and suddenly there was no space for thinking.

"Expelliarmus!" Hermione shrieked, leaping to her feet. "Expelliarmus! EXPELLIA..." Tears stung her eyes. Her concentration buckled.

The Death Eater's wand twitched, but didn't leave its master's hand. The wizard, a tall and sallow man, smiled condescendingly, raising an eyebrow.

"What are they teaching the youth at Hogwarts these days?" he asked, deftly blocking Hermione's hexes. "Dumbledore was a bigger fool than I thought, letting a generation of weaklings flourish beneath our feet." With a flick of his wrist, Hermione rose sharply off the ground and hung suspended in air, invisible fingers tightening around her neck. "The things I could do when I was your age, girl. You'd be amazed..."

"What kind of a man are you to do that to a child?" came a steely voice behind them.

Hermione's throat felt consumed by fire as her vision faded into white, but any Gryffindor at anytime could recognise McGonagall's voice.

"Put the girl down at once, Avery," McGonagall demanded.

"Professor!" Avery simpered. "I'm flattered you remember me. Ah, surely you must have after assigning me all those detentions."

"Avery, the girl! This is unworthy, even of you."

"We're hardly the best judges to say what is worthy of anyone at the moment."

The invisible fire spread from Hermione's throat to the rest of her body and she let loose the scream she had suppressed. Hermione thought she heard laughter, but couldn't be sure.

Then: McGonagall's voice and a flash of white light. Avery cried out in fury and Hermione fell to the floor in a heap.

"Run, Hermione! Get out of here and take Harry with you!"

"Crucio!" Avery bellowed.

Hermione felt her body consumed with pain a thousand times worse. Sear and shred. The world turned red. Claw and cut. A world away, McGonagall cast an outraged spell. With Avery distracted, the pain was gone and Hermione lay gasping for breath on the floor.

"Hermione!" McGonagall shrieked. "Get out of here! Get up, you foolish girl, get up!"

Hermione crawled to the wall and pushed herself up on wobbly legs, trying to ignore Avery's livid glare as he began to block McGonagall's barrage of curses. Hermione stumbled to Harry's body.

She dropped to her knees beside him and winced at the pain. "Harry?" she hissed. Hermione grabbed him by the shoulders and his head lolled back. At least he was breathing. She pulled him to his feet and slung his arm around her shoulder.

"Get out of here!" McGonagall bellowed behind her. "Now! Run!"

So she did.

-

...11:46 // ...

Remember, they don't have to be huge important observations. If you make good small observations, the big ones take care of themselves.

Observations

Analyse later, Hermione. Observe first.

She wants to cry.

Hermione reaches out and fumbles for the tunnel wall. She leans against the cool stone, breathing through her mouth. Burnt skin, burnt blood; she resists the urge to vomit. Harry gurgles with every breath and the sound makes her want to scream.

Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle. These were the students she didn't see during the chaos. There were others. Death Eater children safe and smirking in some sanctuary while Ron...

"Harry?" she whispers. "Harry, I'm going to put you down now, alright?" She shifts her hold and his head rolls limply to one side. "We'll rest a bit, then we'll go on again..." Slowly, Hermione kneels and lays Harry flat on his back. She checks his body once over, just to make sure no limbs are at wrong angles. "You know I'd do something if I still had my wand, don't you? I started teaching myself some healing spells, Harry, and... and..."

And?

Ask questions, Hermione. That's how you come to know things.

What if she doesn't want to know?

Hermione crawls to the opposite side of the tunnel and presses herself against the wall, as far away from Harry as she can. She digs her fingers into the uneven rocks jutting out of the ground. Grit. Grime. The kind you can feel on your skin hours after you touch it, but can't see.

What do you think will happen?

She closes her eyes and buries her face between her knees. As she suspected, it makes no difference. The darkness is the same whether your eyes are open or closed.

-

...10:54 // ...

Harry had asked the same question fifteen minutes ago. (Thirty minutes ago. One hour ago. It didn't matter.) They were hidden behind the statue of the humpbacked witch in the third-floor corridor, and Hermione tried to open the secret passage. Harry was the one who used these tunnels, not her, and Hermione couldn't for the life of her remember the password.

Hermione's father taught her that part of being a good scientist is knowing how you work, and Hermione knew that she worked best in silence. (Harry's wet broken breathing. The grinding of his bones. The echoing screams from downstairs, terrified and terrifying.) She worked best in a vacuum, completely devoid of distracting sensations. (The smell of damaged flesh. A split lip: a coppery taste. The burns from an invisible fire that never quite left her body.)

It struck Hermione how ridiculous the situation was. She only wanted to get into the passageway, after all. The password was the only thing that stopped them. Fred and George would know what it was, and it was utterly unreasonable it was that they weren't here to help her.

Fred and George won't help anyone anymore.

Why do you think this is so, Hermione?

She didn't need to think. She knew.

What have you observed?

The answer to the question involved the dirty matted colour that appeared when two clashing shades of red mix.

When Hermione remembered the password, she screamed it out. She squeezed through the small opening, tugging Harry in after her. His body collapsed on her and they landed in a heap of grunts and flailing limbs. Hermione heard the squelch of shifting muscle, and felt her own insides churn in nausea.

"We have to stand up again, Harry," she hissed. "We have to keep moving."

The door to the passageway closed with a soft sucking sound. The darkness was absolute. They walked, or attempted to. Harry's left leg was useless and he leaned into Hermione for support.

Halfway through the tunnel, Hermione realised her wand was gone. It was near the entrance, somewhere, lying where it had dropped when she fell. Keep on going, she told herself. Keep on going, it's too late now.

It was then that Harry asked the question. He leaned in with his lips to her ear and pushed the words out through a broken throat. Blood trickled from his mouth onto her neck and she promptly threw up. Harry fell away from her and slammed against a wall. A sharp gasp of pain escaped him, vaguely registering in Hermione's mind as she hunched over the ground on her knees.

"What do you think will happen?" he asked, gasped, rasped.

Hermione didn't answer. Why would she damn him with such knowledge? Instead, she stood again on shaky legs, steadied Harry against her body, and continued through the darkness.

-

You can learn anything as long as you go about it properly, her father said, washing the Petri dish. Hypothesise, observe, conclude. You can learn anything at all.