Abyss

Chapter 20

She woke up early the next morning, when the light from dawn ran gray in a thin line through her curtains and onto the covers. The sensation of being in a bed and knowing without a doubt that she was safe was something she wanted to savor. She had just been allowed the most luxurious sleep she could remember. Her pillows cradled her from all sides. Her covers were tangled about her legs, and her feet were warm. She was wearing pajamas, clothes of her own that she chose out of one of her trunks, thin flannel that enfolded her in comfort. For a fleeting moment, she wished Belthazar was there, coiled next to her, glaring at her for waking him so early, but she caught herself and pushed the thoughts of the man-snake from her head, just enjoying the security her bed afforded her.

There was a knock on the door. She muffled a groan. Surely Lupin would not expect her to be awake. Besides, he knew the password for the wards that he put up himself. Last night, she had not been quite ready for magic yet, but it nevertheless had been one of the best nights she ever had. In contrast with her timeless experience in Voldemort's fortress, she and Lupin had sat in front of her hearth with a filling, flavorful meal that the house elves were all too willing to give her. She was so pleased with the prospect of comfort food that she did not protest the use of house elf labor, and their clear desire to cater to her made her momentarily rethink her original position - of course, that could be her stomach talking.

Then Lupin asked the house elf for the most decadent chocolate that he could make, which made the elf squeal in excitement at the challenge. By the time she had made it through the resulting chocolate bar, her stomach was content, her eyelids were drooping, and she actually felt like smiling without any reason. She shed the despair of Azkaban for a few hours of happiness, a few hours that she knew were fleeting and that she knew she would not experience again for a long time, not if she was going to face the world the next day.

But she did not want to face the world now, not yet. If only Lupin would stop knocking and disturbing the peace. With a small grin, she threw back the covers, causing Crookshanks, who was sprawled at the foot of the bed, to protest with a few irritated whips of his tail. The grumpy cat acted as though he had never been gone, although he seemed to be missing Draco--or maybe that was the expensive cream. Still, Crookshanks remembered his mistress and enjoyed her attention. She mouthed an apology before going to her door.

When she opened it, she found Harry Potter standing there in his pajama bottoms and a dazed look behind his glasses. She stepped back, startled. Harry had grown since she had been taken--she noticed that he was about two inches taller than before, and his face was more angular with just a touch of fine hair on his upper lip and chin. But his green eyes were just as young and vulnerable as ever as he stared at her from under his eyelashes.

"I..." He ran a hand through his hair nervously. He bent over and picked up a tray. "I thought you might like breakfast here instead of... in the Great Hall."

"Harry," she whispered.

"And ever since you le- were taken, I subscribed to the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler, and I pay extra for an earlier delivery." He showed her the papers on the tray, next to the toast and marmalade. "Especially after fifth and sixth year where I always had to look at your paper to see what new dirt they dished up. Anyway, you might want to read what they have to say about you... so you can prepare yourself."

Hermione turned red. "Have they already...?"

Harry tried to smile but only managed to grimace. "You're Hogwarts Head Girl and you disappeared for five months by Voldemort. You're front page."

"Have you read it?" Hermione said, taking the tray and elbowing the door closed behind Harry. He followed her to the sitting area in front of the fire. When he nodded, she ducked her head and preoccupied herself with her toast. "How bad?"

"Remember when everyone thought I was Heir of Slytherin?" She did not look up, but the toast she had slathered with far too much marmalade was not making it beyond the plate. "I was only twelve. You're eighteen. Voldemort's back, and everyone's scared."

Hermione did not reply but brought out the papers that had been placed face down.

The headlines glared at her like blatant, bloody accusations. On the Daily Prophet, a close-up of the Dark Mark on her arm revealed over and over that must have been taken by a photographer hidden in the Ministry, superscripted by the headline: HOGWARTS' HEAD GIRL TURNED DEATH EATER: Hermione Granger Reveals Her True Loyalties... and Betrayal.

Hermione had forgotten to breathe, and she gasped as she began to see black spots in her vision. She dropped the Daily Prophet and turned to The Quibbler in hopes that the tabloid trash had countered the newspaper with something even remotely resembling truth. Instead, she saw a rather good sketch in comparison to the rubbish the caricaturist usually drew, but she was on the arm of a hooded man who had to be Voldemort - at least that is what she assumed from the Dark Mark over his head. She was in full wedding regalia and smiling at the Dark Lord in nuptial bliss. Below the drawing were curling letters that read YOU-KNOW-WHO AND HIS BELOVED WIFE: "He just needed a bit of love," Miss Granger insists...

Harry looked at his hands and said, "The Quibbler is good for a laugh - your article is between more Sirius sightings and a scandal between a merman and a house elf - but the Daily Prophet article is vicious, and... it's believable."

Hermione's head jerked up, eyes wide. "But you don't... you..."

"I don't believe it," Harry replied quietly. "But I can think of more than ten thousand people who will."

"But... not everyone believed them when they said you were crazy and Professor Dumbledore was losing his touch, maybe..."

"Read the article," Harry interrupted, determinedly staring into the fire.

Fingers trembling, she picked up the paper and unfolded it fully so that she could see the article.

As the wizarding world takes sides, one of the least likely candidate for evil has bowed to the terrible power of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, joining his battalions to merge her mind with the master of the Dark Arts, writes Rita Skeeter. Eighteen-year-old, Muggle-born witch, Hermione Granger was taken into custody three days ago and held in a high-security cell in Azkaban prison for her questionable independent studies into the Dark Arts and her long absence in You-Know-Who's company. After the allegations regarding the Dark activities were brought to light, the presumed kidnapping took on a whole new light.

"Throughout my year as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and High Inquisitor of Hogwarts," Dolores Umbridge, Special Assistant to the Minister, presently on leave, commented, "she was belligerent, disruptive, and almost single-handedly planned an anti-Ministry activist group they called Dumbledore's Army. She placed a powerful binding curse on a contract that chronically disfigured a fellow student. She clearly has little respect for authority and does not hesitate to break rules and laws for her own benefit." Ms. Umbridge is still recovering from severe trauma after being attacked by centaurs, an attack she accuses Miss Granger of implementing.

The disfigured student was unavailable, but other students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were more forthcoming. "She put a full Body-Bind on me when we were only in our first year," Neville Longbottom, son of Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom, said. Another student, a Slytherin seventh-year who did not join You-Know-Who during the Valentine's Day Hogwarts attack, claimed that he had seen her in the library during their sixth year, reading forbidden texts from the Restricted Section.

Your Daily Prophet correspondent herself can attest to the malign tendencies of Miss Granger after being blackmailed for over a year into to keep this reporter from revealing any damaging secrets about her.

Ronald Weasley, a former friend of Miss Granger, confessed that she had brought You-Know-Who into the walls of Hogwarts posed as her familiar, a poisonous snake that was clearly against Hogwarts regulations. "I knew there was something funny about that snake when it acted all protective of her," Mr. Weasley said. "He didn't like Harry [Potter] either, and always seemed to have his eyes on someone. It just wasn't right. And look what it turned out to be."

Miss Granger was selected as Head Girl with Ernie Macmillan as Head Boy after being prefect for two years previous. Her free reign about the halls of Hogwarts during the late nights patrolling gave her the perfect opportunity to slip into the Forbidden Forest and practice the illicit Arts popularized by Dark wizards. Her school records are open to the public and show the extraordinary aptitude of a clever witch. But is the cleverness being used for the right side?

Auror interrogation of the girl after she appeared in an abandoned warehouse for no apparent reason confirms that the girl has taken the Dark Mark (as shown in the picture above) and provided You-Know-Who with battle potions, some of which have rendered at least two Aurors incomprehensible with fear - now institutionalized - and at least four other Ministry members dead, as well as five Muggles and the groundskeeper of Hogwarts, Rubeus Hagrid. When her Muggle home was attacked and her parents taken, it can now be confirmed that Miss Granger killed them for her Death Eater initiation. Death Eaters, as our readers are all too familiar, are the followers of You-Know-Who that consist of his innermost circle, his closest friends.

The Wizengamot, in a full press trial during which Miss Granger was absent, debated the evidence and came the obvious conclusion that Miss Granger, under the influence of the Dark Arts and You-Know-Who, and with her intelligence and power, ought to be sentenced to fifteen years in Azkaban before an appeal trial would be permitted. However, Albus Dumbledore, member of the Wizengamot and Headmaster of Hogwarts, used his considerable influence as her school guardian and disciplinarian to protest that Miss Granger was "acting under practiced persuasion and under extreme distress" equal to the memorable methods of Auror torturing during the previous years of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's power. Although Miss Granger's healthy condition upon discovering her in the warehouse belied Dumbledore's idiotic insistence, the Wizengamot were bound to defer to the man's wishes, thus loosing a dangerous criminal back into the wizarding world, a witch capable of killing as well as clever enough to cover her tracks so that the once formidable Dumbledore feels compelled to defend her. What has the Wizengamot, a court of law that professes to keep our community safe from people like Miss Granger, done by letting Miss Granger walk free?

Miss Granger was predictably unavailable for comment, although she was brought out of the Ministry of Magic on the arm of a known werewolf, Mr. Remus Lupin, only to be sent back to Hogwarts! Are our children safe with Miss Granger acting as Head Girl once again, despite her overt proclivities? And what of the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter, with whom Miss Granger was once best friend? Daily Prophet readers will remember when she trailed two venerable wizards in her wake, flirting and teasing like a siren. Now, she is once again thrust into the Hogwarts student body and can exert her Dark influence over Harry, the boy we consider our savior from he who Miss Granger serves. Will we allow it?

Mrs. Elizabeth Livingston has formed a group of concerned parents that plan to submit petitions to the Ministry Wizengamot, to the Hogwarts Board of Governors, and to the Headmaster of Hogwarts. She also plans to show her displeasure of the collective decision of the Headmaster and the Wizengamot by contacting Miss Granger directly.

"She has to know that there are people who believe in doing what's right that plan to fight her and what she stands for," Mrs. Livingston commented. "We need to make our loyalties to Harry Potter and the Ministry clear, just as she has shown her true colors. I hope that Harry knows that such a witch cannot be trusted."

The reporters, editors, photographers, and columnists of the Daily Prophet also express their concern that our Boy-Who-Lived not succumb to Miss Granger's wiles like he did in the past, but that he, too, stands up for Hogwarts, the Ministry, the wizarding community, and all that is right.

The article spanned the entire front page and continued through half of the second page. By the time Hermione had finished the article, her face was white and the parchment rustled in her shaking hands.

"Thank you, Harry, for bringing breakfast up here," she said through clenched teeth. Harry, recognizing the signs, stood to leave. Hermione stopped him. "I'm not mad at you, I'm just... furious."

"Skeeter never has anything good, and she's been wanting to smear you since you kept her in a jar," Harry said.

Hermione laughed, the sound strangely metallic. "I'm not mad at her either, and I don't blame her. For the first time, she actually researched, and she researched well. Look at all these interviews. She didn't even have to try."

"Hermione," Harry murmured, "it's not your fault."

"It's his," she hissed. "Voldemort knew. Gods, he didn't have to bring me back with a corpse in my hand. He didn't have to send any of his more secret followers to answer that Skeeter woman's interviews. He just gave me a Dark Mark, let me go, and everyone else is doing his dirty work for him. And it was so easy. He knew. Nothing anybody does is going to surprise me because they've all played his little game."

"Do what I've always done," Harry suggested. "You told me so many times just to ignore it."

Hermione managed a weak smile. "It's not so easy, Harry. You've got a lightning scar from Voldemort. I've got a Dark Mark. They thought you were crazy. They think I'm a murderer. And I am."

"No, you're..." Harry began.

"Yes, I am," Hermione said. "At least six people died from those potions. Harry, I killed H-h-hagrid."

"Then I killed Cedric," Harry said. "And Sirius. And my parents." Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but Harry stopped her. "No. Under Hogwarts, when I first saw Voldemort on the back of Quirrel's head, in front of the Mirror of Erised... he talked about my parents, and he said that I could join him. For a moment, looking at him, even as the possessing spirit that he was, I wanted to join him. He was full of power, even without a body - you could hear it in his voice. Every time I've seen him or shared memories with him, I know that power. It's intoxicating, I admit it.

"I've talked to Ginny, and I remember Tom Riddle. As a sixteen-year-old boy, a memory, he was persuasive. She knew the full effects of his focus, which is why she gave up on you long before the rest of us did - don't be angry at her for it. But... Hermione, Lupin and I... I don't blame you for anything. It's just one more thing that I can hate Voldemort for, for making you feel like this, like it is your fault. You didn't betray anyone."

"I betrayed you, Snape, the Order, my parents, Hagrid..."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"Hermione, he's affected you more than he's manipulated any of us - even Ginny! You did what needed to be done." Harry took the Daily Prophet and threw it into the fire. "You don't need to listen to any of this crap. That's all it is. You were Voldemort's toy for five months - bad things inevitably happen."

At the reference to the Dark Lord's possession of her, Hermione winced.

"Would you have rather died?" he asked pointedly.

Hermione was silent, watching the Prophet burn. "I think sometimes that I should have. But I didn't want to. I still don't want to."

"Huh. Strange. Neither do I. Because then it means that..."

"...he won," Hermione said.

"And if you just hide away and believe everything everyone is going to say about you, accept everything they'll try and do, he'll win." Harry approached her slowly. "You didn't endure Voldemort's torture for all this time just to knuckle under these idiots."

"Professor Dumbledore is not an idiot," Hermione said.

"No," Harry spat. "He only knew he was giving you Voldemort."

Hermione's head snapped up. "What?"

Harry hesitated. "I-I-You said that he had given you the snake. And Tonks said that... I thought you knew."

"Knew what, Harry?"

"That Dumbledore knew - or at least he had an idea - that the snake was Voldemort. He wanted... he wanted to keep an eye on both of you, and it was easier with him charmed to you." Harry was looking straight at her, and her eyes pierced his.

For a minute, she did not say anything. Then she asked, "What day is it?"

"Saturday."

"No classes."

"I hope not."

She let out a heavy breath. "I'm going to be barraged with owls this morning, probably some Howlers and other nasty things like that. I'll stay here until dinner. Then I'm going to go into the bloody lion's den. And I'm..." She bit her lip, not looking quite so cold and hard, like a moving statue. Harry saw a spark of the girl who fought tirelessly for house-elf rights and fairness and justice in the midst of her paler skin and haunted eyes and her lost weight.

"Hermione," Harry said, "are you going to be okay?"

"No."

"I'm with you. All the way."

She forced herself to curl her lip into a half-smile. "That makes more difference than you know."

He smiled back. "I have a good idea."

An owl tapped at the window next to her bed. Hermione turned around to see the red envelope it was holding. It was followed by another owl.

"Can you go down to the Infirmary and get some Headache Potion, Harry?" Hermione said, maintaining a level voice. "I'll deal with these."

Harry was hesitant to leave, but Hermione opened the door and pushed him out. "When you come back, don't let anyone in. The password is 'Joan of Arc,' Remus' choice, so don't smile at me like that. Just... you don't have to go through all this for me. But thanks."

When he finally left the common room, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. It was decidedly odd to be around Harry again, like old times, when she felt so different. Although she felt at home in Hogwarts, she did not feel welcome. Just the aura, the emotional response of the people she knew were in the Great Hall who heard the gossip and were reading the articles, enveloped her with its animosity. She was glad there was only a month and a half left. But she would address the issue of students and professors of Hogwarts, especially the issue of the Headmaster, later.

She approached the window, grabbed the Howler and the ordinary letter from the owls, and slammed the door behind them. In the distance, Hermione saw all the morning owls coming toward Hogwarts, little clusters of them. Some of them were doubtlessly for her. The pit of her stomach grew ever deeper and the hole of her heart only widened. It was so much easier when she shut off her feelings. She hoped the tenuous walls she had built would hold.

The Howler in her hand was vibrating and smoking slightly. Resigned to her fate, she tore open the letter. The female voice emanating from the Howler was multiplied to a shrieking, haggish volume that reminded her of the portrait of Sirius' mother.

"HOW DARE YOU, YOU LITTLE SLUT BITCH! YOU PARADED AROUND POOR HARRY LIKE YOU THOUGHT A MUDBLOOD LIKE YOU WAS BETTER THAN HE WAS! HYPOCRITE! HOW COULD YOU? HOW COULD YOU JOIN YOU-KNOW-WHO AND IGNORE YOUR OWN MUGGLE BLOOD JUST FOR A LITTLE BIT OF POWER! WE'RE GOING TO FIND YOU AND WE'RE GOING TO BURN YOUR..."

The Howler went on like that, yelling at her still, silent, white form before it crumbled into ash. The people all the way in the Great Hall probably heard the Howler. And only more would come. She wondered if Gryffindor Tower would sell tickets to hear the many Howlers curse and berate and shriek at her. There were more owls tapping at the window, and she saw new Howlers.

Throwing the ordinary letter - apparently from a Mr. Leonard Finney whose letter contents resembled the Howler, but in more literate, if just as biting, language - into the fire, Hermione opened the window and left it open for the onslaught of owls. Slowly, methodically, she applied herself to her task.

---

While between letters and Headache Potion, she and Harry made small talk as Hermione unpacked a few of her things, mostly clothes, and Harry threw the regular letters and some of the small packages particularly nasty people sent into the fire. When the Howlers became too much, Harry quickly asked her to help him study for N.E.W.T.s. It seemed like such an insignificant thing when the whole world was against her, but she wanted to do well on the N.E.W.T.s, like Lupin had said, and it was a useful distraction to recite textbooks verbatim when Harry asked her a question. His presence, his companionship, and his faith in her lightened the situation, especially when he made a joke about what some Howler had just screamed at her. It wasn't Ron's humor, which would have made her laugh even if it was horrible, but it helped.

Harry told her that there was a group sitting in the common room, listening to the Howlers, mostly Gryffindors, but also other students from other Houses. That was when he introduced her to the new student-initiated system that had occurred after the Valentine's Day attack in which most of the students, especially the younger years, broke down the more stubborn House boundaries - some of them justified themselves by referencing the violence and uncertainty of the times and the need for security and solidarity, but Harry said that real friendships were being made. The fifth- and sixth-years, and especially the seventh-years, found it more difficult to interact with each other, although the vastly diminished number of seventh-year Slytherins lent itself to a degree of necessary integration. Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass were the only Slytherins left in their year, although, according to Harry, they had hoped that Millicent Bulstrode would decided to stay as well. They no longer slept in the Slytherin dungeons, where there were still some students who were too young and inexperienced for initiation but who still openly supported Voldemort. Instead, Hufflepuff had taken them in, as well as any other Slytherin who felt ostracized by their own House.

Hermione listened, fascinated in spite of the screaming in the background and the packages that she sometimes could not throw into the fire quickly enough harming her hands by secreting substances that made her skin itch, decay, transfigure. At least she was comfortable using her wand now after countering so many hostile magics.

The quantity of letters was not lessening, so she charmed her cauldron to accept the Howlers and cover them with a lid so that the small explosions of the unopened letters would not hurt anything in the room. Then she began to prepare herself for that evening when she would have to face the microcosm of the rest of the world, except these people would be able to do what all the other people were threatening to do. They could make her eyes ooze like jelly and her hair catch on fire - or they could cause her mouth to close over, her stomach to wither, her heart to expand (she pushed that thought away because it reminded her too much of her father's tortured body), or they could just kill her, consequences be damned. She imagined that the consequences would not be too severe.

The thing she kept telling herself, over and over, like a mantra, was that she had suffered all the tortures Voldemort had devised, and she still survived. All she had to do was survive this one last enduring torture, and she would beat him at his own game. She would not give him the pleasure of crawling back to him on her hands and knees, not after all she had been through with her head bowed, her mind pliant to his honeyed voice and insidious manipulations. He would not break her, not if she had any strength or intelligence left.

This is what she told herself, but her breath quickened and all her muscles tensed into tight knots when she started toward the Great Hall for dinner. Harry was with her, and he would have offered her his hand, but she had been avoiding contact with him almost unconsciously, and he did not want to break the tentative camaraderie he and Hermione had re-cultivated. She was different than the Hermione he remembered, but that was only to be expected. He tried not to think too hard about all that had been done to her, but when glimpses of possibilities - things that she had said during Snape's interrogation - flashed through his mind, he shuddered and understood, if only marginally, why she had changed. He felt guilty for making her a target, but he also knew that she had insisted on being his friend, just as he insisted that he be her friend now, and that he should not blame himself, any more than she should blame himself, for something that Voldemort and Voldemort alone was responsible for.

Finally, she took a step out of her room, closing the door behind her, checking to make sure that the wards were up and the door password-locked. Then she clenched her fists tight with her right hand near her wand so that she could draw it if some child decided that it was their duty to duel her. She knew more curses than she cared to after spending so much time with the Death Eaters that she was afraid of dueling in case she hurt someone too badly, but it was better to be prepared nonetheless.

The corridors were quiet. The portraits watched her, and she could hear the low vibrations of their gossip after she had left their hall. Harry stayed in front of her, as she had requested - if he was seen walking behind her, they would interpret it as "trailing in her wake." She did not care if she looked subservient to Harry this time instead of the Dark Lord, as long as she was not perceived as acting superior.

Outside of the Great Hall, she could hear the murmur of the students. Hermione and Harry shared a fortifying look before Harry opened the doors.

Upon seeing Hermione, everyone in the Hall became utterly silent. Hermione froze at the entrance staring at the configuration of the tables, which had been moved from four rows of Houses to a square. The professors were still at the High Table. Hermione did her best not to look at them, still unwilling to account for how she reacted to the revelation of Dumbledore.

She kept her eyes on Harry's elbows, but she could feel the same aura of hostility that she had felt in her rooms, but here, there was a denser concentration, not like daggers, but more like fixed beams of magic. She vaguely remembered a time when she had been welcome, but the past was so far away now, so far removed from her consciousness as though it was less than a memory and more like a dream. Everything had changed, not just her. She had been wrong. Hogwarts was no longer home. How strange that she felt more familiar with the post of Voldemort's bed and the tables and chairs of Snape's laboratory than in a place where she had spent more than six years.

Harry led her to the Gryffindor side of the square, although Hermione could see other Houses interspersed with those of her own House. Harry sat next to Neville and glared at Dean to move over. Dean glared back, but he stood up and sat next to Ryan, leaving a gap between Hermione's seat and the next Gryffindor, a quiet fourth-year. Hermione could see red hair in the corner of her eyes, which meant that Ginny and Ron were sitting next to each other nearer to the Hufflepuffs. Harry was not looking their way at all.

Hermione stared at her empty plate, wondering whether she ought to eat anything and wondering when the first insult would hit.

Halfway through Hermione's perusal of the ceramic, Ron stood up and walked over to her. Harry still did not look at him and grabbed a roll instead, intent on butchering it with his butter knife. Hermione, however, looked up, quasi-hopeful that perhaps he had thought about her predicament long enough. But when her head tilted toward his, he spit in her face, right on the side of her mouth, a place where he had kissed her in sixth year when they had realized that they were totally wrong for each other. Hermione closed her eyes against the shock but did not bother to wipe it away.

"Death Eater's whore," he hissed. "I bet you made them scream, ordering them around in your prissy, I'm-so-much-better-than-you way when you knew they made you cheap. I bet you liked it. I bet you let them play games with you, and you wrapped your legs around them and didn't even think about what we'd do when we found out."

"Jealous?" Hermione spat. She knew it did not help, but she could not resist.

"Of a two-bit traitor like you? Not a chance. Only angry that I didn't see it when I still could have stopped it. Before you killed innocent people or drove them crazy or... I suppose you want to see what's left of Hagrid's hut. Do you want to see the charred ruins you left behind?" Ron said, his hands braced on the table so that he could bend over and stare straight into her eyes. The intensity of the hatred she saw there made her drop her eyes first.

"You can't even face us, can you? Can't even face something that you caused because you couldn't accept that you had been left out of something, couldn't except that maybe someone knew what you were up to," Ron continued. Other people were rustling behind him, standing, agreeing. "You might as well show the Dark Mark to all of us instead of pretending to hide it. We know it's there."

Hermione stood up, pushing her chair back with an ear-splitting shriek against the stone floor. She pushed up the sleeve to her robes, baring the Dark Mark for all to see.

"Is that what you wanted, Ron?" Hermione said. "Can't any of you think straight? I have a Dark Mark, right there on my arm, and I'm here. I'm here talking to you while everyone else who has a Dark Mark is elsewhere. I can't be here to spy, everyone knows I have a Dark Mark. I can't be here to ingratiate myself, no one will take me."

"Rules change," said one Slytherin fifth-year. "Maybe you're meant to show that the Ministry can be cheated. You should be in Azkaban."

"Maybe I should," Hermione said. "But I'm not. And look, I'm under Ministry surveillance now." She held her wrist out at an angle to show off her new 'accessory.'

"Surveillance, maybe," Ron said, sneering, "but what's to stop you from convincing a portrait to let you into a dorm and murdering someone else."

"Don't talk about things you don't understand!" Hermione shouted at him, her hand hitting the table in frustration.

"I understand," Neville said. "You're no better than..."

"Than the people who tortured your parents?" Hermione said nastily. "How would you know? For your information, I've met Bellatrix Lestrange, and she didn't like me any more than she likes you."

Neville swallowed at the mention of his parents, then pointed his wand firmly between her eyes. "If you ever mention my..."

"You'll do what, Neville?" Hermione said. "Finish Voldemort's work for him? Become a murderer yourself? You'll be slaying innocent blood, and no one here has the sense to see that. Don't any of you know that you can't buy everything the Daily Prophet gives you? If you believed everything the paper says, you'd still believe that Professor Dumbledore a doddering old fool, Harry's an attention-seeking lunatic, and Cornelius Fudge is a paragon of virtue. We learned differently in the DA, though, didn't we? We learned that the Prophet is not to be trusted."

"It was different after they admitted You-Know-Who was back," Colin countered.

"Colin, don't be so..." Hermione was unable to finish her sentence because Neville had hit her with a Body-Bind, and she fell over backward.

"You did that to me once, remember?" Neville said, his voice level and sure. Hermione could see the hard glint in his eyes, and she noticed that no professor had moved from the High Table.

"How could you insult my parents?" he barely whispered. "How... you saw them and acted all nice and now you insult their memory by saying the name of the person who tortured them as though it was nothing? And you accuse me of murdering you if I decided to kill you? Killing you would be justice."

"Neville, come off it," Harry said.

"Harry, she doesn't care about anything. She doesn't care that she's killed people or that she's betrayed everyone..."

"Neville, you don't..." Harry began.

"Filthy Mudblood whore," said someone. Hermione did not know who, but all she knew was that this person had kicked her.

"You're You-Know-Who's servant and you walk in here like you own Hogwarts," said another person, kicking her the other way.

"Prancing around the halls like an innocent little swot when you were learning the Dark Arts the whole time - only to become his follower, his stupid, little puppy dog?" This one was Daphne Greengrass, who, according to Harry, took everyone who joined Voldemort as an affront to Slytherin honor.

She could see Ron coming at her now, and Dean, and Ginny, and so many others, swarming at her, trying to get at her. Some drew their wands. Hermione thought she heard an adult voice, but only one, and that could have been her imagination.

She could not stop them from kicking her, or spitting on her - none could develop a coherent thought in their mass fury, and she fortunately was not hit with any spells. Neville plunged his foot into her stomach while Ron kicked her ear. She was back in the cell with three hundred Crabbes and Goyles. She could not stop them until...

"You should have died," she heard from Ron. He might have been crying. "You should have died instead of done what You-Know-Who or Wormtail or whoever told you what you do. I would have looked him in the eyes and died before I'd have helped him, instead of given in like a coward. You bloody weak traitor of a slut."

The babbling of the insults around her coalesced into a single foreign language that transported back in time to Swiss street strewn with shattered glass, and a dark energy seemed to pulse outward. And she could move again, could move her limbs and shrink away from the kicks to protect herself and catch her breath.

The pulse of magic - accidental magic, she realized, the same magic that had burst all the windows down a tourist street in Switzerland, accidental magic caused by Dark knowledge that surfaced under frustration - pushed all the children away. When she did not have to curl into a ball to keep herself from being kicked, she chanced a look. The lot of them had fallen about twenty feet from her, some against tables and chairs, others luckier by skidding on the floor. This accidental magic startled her, but although she did not know why it had not revealed itself before under the stress of Voldemort's torture, she was going to take advantage of it.

"None of you have any infinitesimal concept of what I went through with the Dark Lord. The Daily Prophet told only the barest surface of the truth," Hermione said, struggling to her knees. She felt like she had after Nott had beat her, though not as badly. "Do you want to know what happened? Do you want to hear the torture I went through? A Death Eater's whore isn't apt because they don't want the sex, but a whore gets paid. Instead, I was threatened with..." She shut her eyes against the vivid images that wanted to resurface and brand themselves once again in her mind.

"Ron," she said, her eyes still closed. "You think you could have stood Lucius or Wormtail sticking themselves into you, screwing themselves into your body, over and over and over? You think you could have watched your family die in front of you while you were helpless to stop it? Do you think you could watch them torture Ginny, make her body unrecognizable to your eyes, and still stay strong, still survive? Do you think you could stay all self-righteous after that? Do you think you'd be able to withstand watching yourself be broken by Voldemort? I think you'd sit at the foot of his throne when he was finished with you, just as he did with me, like a loyal little bitch. I think you'd give in."

"I'd die first," he shot back.

She sneered. "And what would that accomplish? You'd be dead. You couldn't do anything. You lie there on the ground, useless, soulless meat. Martyrdom doesn't do anything but create ideal fairy tales about death. Is that why you really hate me, Neville, because I made it through all the torture without losing my mind? Is that why you hate me? Don't any of you understand? You would have done the same thing I did. You aren't anyone special. I withstood him as long as I could, and I brewed the potions, not because he told me to, but because they gave me a means to escape. You Slytherins should appreciate that. I didn't know where the potions were going, I just wanted to get out. Like any of you would. You all think that you'd do something differently, everything differently, but you're all so self-righteous you don't see how ignorant you are. I'd like to just see each and every one of you go through Voldemort's personal breaking trials and come out on the other end unscathed. I'd like to see you without an involuntary Dark Mark."

Everyone just stared at her.

"Do you want to know why I'm here?" Hermione continued. She had no idea what she looked like, had no idea that something within her seemed to be glowing darkly, or pulsing. She did not know that she appeared to be a being electric with Dark power, like Dumbledore when he was furious and in his glory. It stunned everyone, either making them more suspicious of her time with the Dark Lord or simply rendering them thoughtless. "Do you really want to know why? Since you all seem so keen on the bad reasons, let me give you the real reason. This. This is why I'm here. To get spit on, to get cursed and to be given Howlers, to be distrusted and despised. So that I can learn that the right side isn't the good that I remember it to be, that you can be just as evil as any Death Eater. Voldemort brought me here so that I had no choice but to come back to him, begging like the bitch you think I am."

The power began to decrease, shrink within as she concluded. She began to shake, from the beatings, from fatigue, from misery. "But I'm not. You can hate me. You can curse me into oblivion. You can kill me. But I'm not going back. Because I'm on your side. I fight for the Light. I fight for order and laws and the preservation of the wizarding and Muggle communities. If you don't believe that, I'll go somewhere that does. But I'm not going to go back to him because a bunch of school kids convinced me I'm not loved or desired. I have a place to go that isn't here."

Suddenly, her head whipped to the side, toward the High Table, where all teachers but one were still sitting shocked in their seats. Professor Dumbledore had risen. Professor Snape was absent. Her gaze trained itself on Dumbledore.

"You," she snapped. "Aurors and medical specialists and certain kinds of researchers or professionals are Dark wizards fighting for the right side. You know that. You could have let me into the Order. I was of age. I was able. If I was inevitably going to fall to the power of the Dark Arts, you could have at least made sure that I was on the right side. Instead, you isolate me, and you practically deliver me into the hands of the enemy. Nothing you do or say is going to explain it away, and we are going to talk now. I am not wasting another minute of my time with anyone in Hogwarts ever again, with one exception because he knew to believe me. Harry may not have believed initially, but at least he stood by me when no one else here did. When I leave, I want you to take a good look at yourselves and determine whether the person you see is the person that you wanted to be. Did you want to be a bigot, a torturer, a person who acts on pure impulse, a potential murderer? Did you want to condemn an innocent person simply because a source you know has lied horrendously in the past has said something you thought you wanted to hear? Then ask yourself why you wanted to hear it."

She sighed, strength quickly ebbing, presence collapsing into a lost little girl with bushy hair and a hollow face. "Professor Dumbledore, I would like to talk to you now, in your office, about completing my N.E.W.T.s early and leaving Hogwarts."

Carefully, as though she had run a marathon, she made her way through the people that littered the ground. No one moved; no one tried to trip her. They just stared at her, mouths and eyes wide open - maybe sad, maybe angry, but she did not care anymore. Professor Dumbledore, too, was headed toward the back exit, and he met her in the corridor outside of the Great Hall, matching her quick strides that were masking an increasing fatigue. Gods, that took so much energy out of her, and she did not feel any better. She felt empty, as though something had been torn from her. And she felt cold. They were silent, the two powerful mages, until they reached the griffin that let them through when Dumbledore told it the password.

"Don't sit behind the desk," Hermione said, aware that she was giving orders to the Headmaster of Hogwarts, but at this point, she had lost all respect for him. "You are not going to say anything about Voldemort, because you let it happen, and there is no excuse for what you did. No prophecy can change the face that you could have killed him then and there, or you could have told me."

"You were already deep in the Dark Arts, Hermione, I was not sure if I could..."

"Shut up," Hermione said. "You expected me to go to his side, didn't you? Nod or shake your head."

His lips thinned, but he nodded.

"You did not have enough confidence to believe that I could have put the burgeoning Dark Arts within me to good use. Why?"

"Because you..." Dumbledore began.

"Reminded you of Tom Riddle? Professor Snape?" Hermione asked.

Dumbledore's countenance was cold, and power was beginning to emanate from him as power had emanated from Hermione in the Great Hall. But he nodded in response to Hermione's inquiry.

"Well, guess what, Professor," Hermione said. "I'm not either of them. I'm Hermione Granger. I did not ever want to follow the Dark Arts. I wanted to control them, counter them, not use them. That makes me different from Voldemort or Professor Snape. And I'm sorry I wasn't priority enough for you to think about my individuality."

"Hermione, I cannot allow..." Dumbledore bellowed.

"You will allow!" Hermione shouted back. "You may have gone through the war with Grindelwald as well as Voldemort, but you don't have a single clue either. You're so jaded with war that you can only see me as a representation of myself that can be categorized and used appropriately. You don't see me any more than you see Harry. You never did."

"Voldemort has apparently changed you," Dumbledore said. "He has won."

"He will never win as long as I'm alive," Hermione hissed. "I'm never going to be on his side, and you and he have collaborated beautifully to make sure I'm never on your side. But one way or another, I'm going to fight him. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I am going to fight him somehow."

"Miss Granger..."

"No," Hermione said, slamming her fist down on the desk and waking Fawkes from his nap on the perch. He glared at her - of course he would, now that she was blatantly not loyal to Dumbledore anymore. "Listen to me. I don't care how you do it, but you are going to arrange the N.E.W.T.s so that I can individually take the tests as soon as possible. I am not going to leave my room, and only a few people know my password. I will have house elves send me food, but I no longer want to associate myself with Hogwarts students or teachers. Do you understand that?"

Dumbledore did not respond, but he emitted frigid waves of dissociation. She wondered if he was going to curse her. If he even thought about it, she would curse him first. She had little to lose.

"And after I have taken the N.E.W.T.s, I am leaving this school and never coming back. Ever. If I have children, they will learn French and go to Beauxbatons, but they are not coming to Hogwarts. Their children can go if they want to, but not mine. Have I made myself perfectly clear, Albus? You will do these things?"

Dumbledore looked down at her, a little girl and a hard woman trapped in the same tortured body, and for a moment he felt real pity.

"This is amenable," he replied.

Hermione seemed to slump upon his answer. She turned to exit his office. Before she left, she said, "You know I've been on your side all along. But your side won't have me anymore. I'll not work against you. Just... leave me alone when I'm gone. I am no threat. Just... I'm unwelcome and... I won't join him."

She felt herself falling apart as she spoke, and she fled from the office, ran full speed all the way to her rooms, gasping out "Joan of Arc" and slamming the door behind her. The cauldron was still shaking with Howler explosions, and Crookshanks was hiding under her bed, but otherwise, all was well and peaceful, the eye in the midst of a storm.

She shed her clothes, the school robes that she had bought was seemed like centuries ago. They were torn now from the abuse, and she felt no guilt in throwing the fine material into the well-fed fire. She retrieved her folded pajamas from the bed and slipped them over her body as though she were slipping on comfort and peace and innocence. The bed looked so soft now, so inviting with all the covers and pillows.

But something was out of place. A bundle wrapped in parchment, obviously sent by owl but not put into the makeshift furnace she had created from the cauldron. When she read the outside of the parcel, she knew why - the owl had been given specific instructions on where to put the parcel. Miss Hermione Granger at Hogwarts School, on the bed in her bedroom.

The script was vaguely familiar, but it did not imbue her with any sense of danger, so she opened the parcel. There sat a cloak, a perfectly ordinary cloak. She picked up her wand from the bedside table, where she had put it as she had removed her clothes, and cast a few spells to determine whether there was any charm or curse on the garment. The cloak was completely unenchanted.

She unfolded it and held it to the light. It was too long for her. Much too long. And it smelled different, not like bought clothing, but rather like worn clothing, the particular smell of the wearer...

Revelation stopped her breath, but only for a moment. Then she wrapped the cloak around her and climbed into the bed, her body, heart, and mind troubled, but at least comforted and familiar. She fell asleep eventually, embraced by the cloak that smelled of the Dark Lord.