Justified

Chapter Three

The Hollow Man

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper

-T.S. Eliot

Hermione couldn't sleep.

Well, if she couldn't sleep, she might as well make some productive use of her time. She was alone in the Gryffindor common room; all the others had already retired for the night. She glanced at the large grandfather clock in the southwest corner of Gryffindor Tower; it read a quarter past twelve.

She sighed and shifted in her red plush chair, shuffling through her notes on Dumbledore's potion. That afternoon, Snape had had her research all she could on the properties of echinacea and ginseng while he thumbed through a large tome pulled from the Hogwarts library.

She shivered. She and Snape had spent the greater part of the afternoon working side by side in silence, punctuated only by sharp conversation.

"Where are your friends, Miss Granger?" Snape asked Hermione. "I am surprised they are not all out breaking as many school rules as possible under the pretense of fighting the Dark Lord."

There was a slight sneering edge to his voice, the tone he always used when dealing with Hermione, Ron, and especially Harry. She studiously ignored him, unsure of his motives. She suffered to work with Snape only for Dumbledore's sake.

Snape, perhaps seeing that he had not succeeded in getting a rise out of Hermione, tried again.

"What about your friend, Miss Granger?"

Hermione did not miss the innuendo and emphasis on the world "friend," but could not prevent a flush from staining her cheeks. She continued to work diligently.

"He's landed himself detention, I hear. I'm not surprised; he's just like his father that way."

At this jibe, Hermione could not resist looking up and throwing the Potions master an evil glare. Snape had his dark, inscrutable eyes fixed on her face, and to Hermione's surprise and unease, a small smile lingered at the corner of his lips.

Snape chuckled unpleasantly. "Ever ready to defend your boyfriend, are we, Miss Granger? Why? He's a miserable, whinging prat who believes himself to be more special than the rest on the account of that scar. The boy has delusions of grandeur; he thinks that he can defeat the Dark Lord?"

"Harry will defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!" Hermione cried, unable to contain herself any longer.

Snape smiled, a horrible twisting of his lips. "Do you truly believe that, Miss Granger? Would you entrust your life into Mr. Potter's hands, he who would rather spend his time sleeping than studying---"

"I would trust Harry with my life," Hermione said firmly. Snape lifted a dark eyebrow.

"Indeed, Miss Granger. Well, I might reconsider my obvious crush on Harry Potter before my love blinds me to his shortcomings."

Crimson flooded Hermione's face and she trembled with indignation.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Professor," she said, her voice low and hard.

"Do you now?" Snape asked, no humour left in his sneering words. "I always thought you were bright, Miss Granger. An insufferable know-it-all in class, but bright nonetheless. Can't you figure it out?"

Hermione longed to lash out with a sharp retort, but kept the biting comments to herself. Snape was not worthy of her contempt; he was a teacher as well.

Hermione bent her head over her notes again. She felt his eyes fixed upon her head, but refused to meet them, refused to be baited, and refused to be goaded.

There were times Hermione couldn't help but admire the Potions master's devotion to his subject, but those were few and far between.

Mostly she hated him.

She hated his brooding countenance, his inscrutable dark eyes, his sneering manner (almost rival to that of Malfoy), but what she hated most of all was the Professor's unabashed and cutting frankness.

Professor Snape did not lie.

He never told the whole truth, but when he did, its keen edge sliced deeper than a razorblade.

And Hermione had been nursing her wounds for a long time.

Hermione wondered if it was a Slytherin trait, the ability to cheapen another's emotions. Harry had never been hers, yet she cherished the warmth she felt in his presence. Harry had never given her a second thought, but she offered her love to him unconditionally.

It hurt.

It hurt more than anything.

It hurt when he had spoken of Cho. It hurt when he gave her nothing more than chaste pecks on the cheek. It hurt when she never felt desire in his embraces.

It hurt the most when Hermione knew she would never, ever taste passion on Harry's lips.

Despite the many hurts rending her heart, she would still love him. She would never let go of her feelings for Harry; they were her security blanket to which she returned day after day, night after night. She wrapped herself in a cocoon of Harry-love, feeling safe and protected, just as she did whenever she was with him. Harry was her shield, against Voldemort, against the world.

Hermione smiled softly, although the wounds of her heart still bled, reluctant to heal.

Yes, she would always love Harry.

Her Harry.

Her best friend.

The portrait door swung shut.

Hermione looked up from Dumbledore's potion's notes to see Harry walking in from detention. She glanced at the grandfather clock; it was now half-past midnight. She was surprised; Malfoy had kept him late.

She began to rise from the chair to greet him but was checked by the sight of Harry's flushed face and bright, angry eyes. Harry flicked a glance Hermione's way and then struggled to get past her to his dormitory bedroom.

"Harry---"

"Don't." He whirled around. Two spots of high colour burned his cheekbones. "Don't...talk to me."

Hermione was taken aback by the anger sparking from Harry's green eyes. Passion flared in his face, setting his skin aflame. Hermione couldn't remember the last time she had seen Harry so incensed.

"Harry, are you all right?"

He snorted. "All right? Do I bloody look all right?"

No, he didn't look all right. He looked beautiful, his emerald eyes alight and his complexion heightened. Hermione ventured hesitantly, "Harry, it wasn't my fault Malfoy---"

Harry laughed derisively.

"Not your fault? No, of course not. I'm not blaming you. I'm blaming the whole world, Dumbledore, my fucking dead parents, Ron, Ginny---"

"Harry, stop!" Hermione grasped Harry's shoulders, suddenly frightened. She sucked in a sharp breath; since when had he become so thin? "Harry." Hermione inhaled a deep breath. He seemed to calm under her touch.

Harry dropped his eyes. "I'm sorry," he murmured.

Hermione stared at him. She had memorized every line of his face long ago, the square cut of his jaw, the sharp darkness of his eyebrows cutting across his pale skin, the tilt of his lashes framing his gorgeous emerald eyes, and his strong nose, anchoring his handsome face.

Now Hermione felt as though she was staring into the face of a stranger. Every line was familiar, yet there was something missing. Her security blanket began to unravel at its edges.

"Harry..."

He raised his eyes from behind his glasses. At once Hermione knew what was gone from Harry's familiar face.

It was devoid of any sort of determination.

Hermione no longer saw the fierceness that had animated Harry's features, his drive and protectiveness.

She was seeing the face of someone who had succumbed to resignation, a shell of a man who was wearing Harry Potter's face.

Hermione clung to the frayed rags of her blanket, suddenly finding it thin and threadbare. She shivered, seeing Harry as he was for the first time.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione asked softly.

Harry looked surprised, and then quickly glanced away.

"What's wrong? I just spent the entire bloody afternoon in the same room with Malfoy, that's what. Polishing Slytherin trophies and his ego at the same time."

He had deliberately sidestepped her question. Hermione narrowed her eyes.

"Harry, I've known you for seven years. That's not what's bothering you."

His eyes darted furtively back and forth.

"Harry---"

He turned his head.

Hermione grew angry. Where was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived? Where was her Harry, unafraid to break his neck in Quidditch, unafraid to face unknown dangers?

"I don't know what your problem is, Harry," Hermione began, her voice harsh. "You know that I've been doing all I can to make excuses for you. It's not working anymore, Harry. You can't stall for more time. I can't give you more time. You have to act sooner or later, and it better be sooner before there isn't a later---"

"Oh sod it, Hermione!" Harry yelled.

Hermione stepped back, chilled. Her eyes quickly welled with tears, but she refused to bring her hand up to wipe them away, refused to acknowledge how much Harry had hurt her. He had never spoken like that with her, had never raised his voice to her.

Determination had fled his face, but sullen resentment had replaced it.

"Has anyone stopped to consider that I'm just Harry Potter? Not Harry Potter the Boy Who Lived, but me, Harry, just Harry? I'm seventeen years old, Hermione, not seventy. I don't know what's right from what's wrong. I'm nothing special, Hermione."

Harry's breath caught in his throat. Two angry splashes of red stained his cheeks, while his eyes were bright. Hermione thought dispassionately how much more beautiful Harry was than Malfoy, whom she had seen caught up in a similar display of passion not three days ago. Harry was real, visceral, and so very alive, even in his apathy, whereas Malfoy was cool, distant, and beautiful as a snowflake. (Credits to Cassie here?)

Every colour that composed Harry's face seemed to Hermione so vivid, so brilliant in that disconnected moment. She could scarcely hear what Harry was saying, only seeing that his lips were red and full, and she wondered how soft they were.

"You are special, Harry," Hermione breathed.

"Am I?" he asked, his chest heaving. "Why am I so fucking special, Hermione? Why? I didn't ask to be me. I didn't ask for my parents to die. If things had gone right, I would have died with them. I would have been a nobody, some poor babe who was tragically lost along with his mum and dad. There is nothing special about me, Hermione. Nothing. The wizarding world better look to another saviour, because I---"

Hermione pressed her lips against Harry's. He broke off his litany, surprised into silence by her sudden actions. She kissed him tenderly, then fiercely, then desperately, feeling no warmth, no passion, no desire in return.

She felt his arms push her away. Gently, but with abrupt force.

Hermione broke off the kiss.

"Harry, I---"

She couldn't bring herself to look at him. At his shocked _expression, at his disbelief, and worst of all, his disgust.

"Hermione, why did you do that?"

Her breath caught. She looked up.

His eyes were grave and pained and all the impassioned colour had drained from his face to leave it pale and wan. It was not the reaction she had anticipated. She had expected reciprocation at the very best, refusal at the very worst.

She had not been prepared for complete and utter horror.

Yes, horror flooded his features, turning them white and pale. He blanched visibly and brought his hands to his mouth.

"Harry---"

"Why did you do that, Hermione?" he asked, his voice bizarrely monotonous.

"Harry, I lo---"

"No!" he shouted, backing away from her. "No!"

More than Snape's knifelike truth, the keenness of Harry's revulsion seared her. The pain in her heart threatened to burst. By sheer force, she willed it to calm, but was unable to stop the pain from spilling over into tears.

"Hermione, why?" Anguish now filled Harry's voice. "I can't! I can't!"

He turned and fled up the stairs to the dormitory bedrooms.

****************************************

Ron could hear them arguing.

He turned abruptly in his bed, kicking the covers despite the chill. He felt strangely violent and moody, although it couldn't have been a better Friday.

The shouts were indistinct, but it sounded like Harry's voice to Ron. He glanced over to his friend's empty bed and wondered what on Earth he could have been doing for so long. Not even Filch gave eight-hour detentions.

Privately (although he would never reveal this to Hermione), Ron thought that Harry was simply being a prat about the whole matter. He thought that the Boy Wonder had perhaps taken this charge to defeat Voldemort a bit too seriously. He was only seventeen after all. Many full-grown wizards hadn't been able to defeat Voldemort, much less a thin, long-limbed adolescent.

Ron sighed. His philosophy on life was so different from Harry's. Ron wanted to live life to the fullest and ignore the tragedies. Harry tended to be withdrawn when faced with adversity, a bit on the taciturn side, and a tad anti-social.

Ron had the sneaking suspicion that Harry was revelling in his newfound self-pity. He probably thought it was romantic: gazing off into the sunset, contemplating his doom, while the world fell into pieces around him.

Like it was really falling into pieces.

Ron had spent most of that Friday with Dean and Seamus, deciding that feeding Rochester's pet horny dino-mole Filibuster's No-Heat Wet-Start Fireworks would be a lot more interesting than wondering where on Earth Harry and Hermione had gone.

Ron turned over again, this time so hard that he heard Neville stop mid-snore. He calmed down. Presently, Neville returned to his previous nocturnal pasttime.

Ron sighed. The truth was, he found it difficult to spend any more time with Harry and Hermione in his seventh year. Hermione being made Head Girl often kept her away from Harry and Ron, and the fact that Harry was absent more than half the time was a big obstacle in spending time with him.

The arguing was getting louder. Ron threw the covers off and sat up in bed. How could the rest of them sleep through that? He cast his eyes on the slumbering forms of Dean, Seamus, and Neville, all of them oblivious to the gradual erosion of the legs of the Trio.

Ron couldn't place the exact time or place he had realized that the equal angles of the Trio were getting more and more obtuse. It had become skewed and Ron often felt like the odd angle out. Perhaps it was because Hermione was so caught up in her Head Girl duties, or because Harry was more preoccupied with his status as the wizarding world's poster boy that it was Ron who felt the effects acutely.

Surely Hermione could feel the effects too? Without Harry's leg, their Trio became a two-sided polygon, a line, incomplete and vulnerable. The last two meetings had gone by without Harry, who was off to who-knew-where. Hermione had said that he most likely needed time alone; they were placing a lot of pressure on him.

However, it was Harry's mandate, his imperative to save the world, just as it was Ron's and Hermione's to stand by him. Ron and Hermione had gone through with the meetings, ready to shoulder the responsibility of finding out what had happened in the Ministry, of thinking of ways to defeat the Dark Lord. Even if they hadn't been inducted into the Order of the Phoenix in their fifth year, it was what the Trio did best.

The arguing had stopped and it was surprisingly quiet in the common room.

Ron stepped off his bed and threw on a jumper. He shivered from the cold; he had come ill-prepared for the changes that had taken place at Hogwarts, the rationing, and the relationships. He slipped into a pair of slippers and shuffled his way down to the common room, unsure of what he would see and hoping to salvage what he had left.

*******************************************

Her eyes haunted him all the way up the dark corridors, back to the dormitory.

They burned themselves into his memory. In his mind's eye, Harry could see them, bright with tears, tears that she refused to shed. Forevermore would he find chocolate-brown the colour of anguish, of hurt, and of betrayal, the exact colour and shade of Hermione's eyes. Eyes that had supported him, held him up, and had always been there for him, eyes he could turn to for comfort. Eyes that belonged to his undying pillar of strength. Harry knew that without Hermione, he would have died a long time ago.

Now, not even Hermione had a plan for him. His pillar had crumbled, faded into the dust of his memories. He had seen it in her pleading _expression. The girl he thought of as his best friend had turned to him for help. He brought his fingers to his lips, unable to recall the desperation with which she had kissed him. She had reached for him and all he could do was push her away.

He was scared. Scared by what she asked of him. Frightened of what she placed on his shoulders. Scared because he knew that deep within, he would never mirror what she felt for him, or live up to what she expected of him.

Harry felt the tears that Hermione had refused to cry well up behind his glasses. He ought to have cared; Hermione, after all, had stood beside him for seven years. Why couldn't he care? Why didn't warmth and passion fill him? He balled his hands and shoved them in his trouser pockets. There was no fooling himself; he loved Hermione, but not that way.

"Harry?"

He looked up to see Ron standing on the stairwell above him.

"Detention's over, I take it." The gangly redhead sprinted down the corridor to meet Harry.

Harry nodded dumbly. Best friend or no, he wasn't in the mood to strike up a conversation. There was a beat of awkward silence.

"You missed supper, you know. Must be pretty hungry, mate," Ron commented, eyeing Harry dubiously.

Harry grinned halfheartedly. "I know. Part of McGonagall's new plan to conserve resources: scheduling all those detentions during mealtimes. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Punish the delinquents by depriving them of food and save on food bills? Why not?"

"Harry." He felt Ron's blue eyes scrutinizing his appearance. Harry was glad for the darkness in the stairwell that hid the tears glittering in his eyes. Another silence passed between the two friends. "Did you see Hermione? She wasn't at supper either."

Harry was a bit surprised. Hermione wasn't at supper either? That was unusual. "I saw her. She's in the common room," Harry said shortly and tried to continue into the dorm. Ron stood in his path and looked at him through ginger eyelashes, concerned.

"Harry. Something up? Detention get to you?" Harry tried to return Ron's goofy smile. "I mean, I know Malfoy's an awful git, but you can't let him get to you like that." Ron grinned. "Would you hear that, coming from me, Ron Weasley, Professional Malfoy Hater." The grin dropped and Ron adopted a serious tone. "Listen, Harry, I don't know what's bothering you. You've been withdrawn and anti-social. It's harsh, mate, I know. But you've got to buck up, Harry. They're counting on you; we're counting on you."

Harry clenched his jaw, suppressing the frustration and rage he felt ever since had left Malfoy. He returned Ron's gaze with solemn certainty.

"It's nothing."

Ron looked at him skeptically, raising a ginger eyebrow.

"Look, I haven't exactly had the greatest afternoon." He struggled to find the right words. Lying to Ron was not as difficult as lying to Hermione, but there was the slight possibility his tongue might still betray him. It was hard to get used to, lying, despite the fact he had been lying to everyone all year. About his classes, his ambitions, his feelings. The shroud of deceit had fallen sharply between the boys, and Harry could sense, however vaguely, that Ron had felt the change.

"Okay, Harry, I get it." Ron sighed. Harry could see the resignation on his friend's face.

Harry smiled, but it was more of a grimace than a grin. "Thanks, Ron."

"Anytime, Harry," he replied. The red-haired boy placed his hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry looked at it. "By the way, there's a meeting tomorrow morning in the empty Charms classroom. Did Hermione tell you?"

"She didn't say anything." Harry remembered dourly he hadn't given her much of a chance. He had fled at a crucial moment, unable to face the fears that had threatened to capsize his already floundering sanity.

"That's not like her." Ron frowned, leaning against the stone wall to think. With Ron, thinking was a function of his entire body, not just his mind. Harry watched him furrow his brow with a barely audible sigh.

Oh, but it was like Hermione. It just wasn't like Harry Potter, or the Harry Potter that everyone thought they knew.

"No, it's not," Harry answered. It was hard to fool Ron this way, he thought. It took his resolve not to sprint away into the safety of their bedroom, to what little privacy his bed offered. He looked at Ron. "You coming to bed?"

"Nah," Ron waved off the suggestion. "I'm going to nip to the kitchens. Feel a bit peckish."

Ron brushed past Harry on the way down. Halfway down the stairwell, he turned. "By the way, you are coming tomorrow, right?"

Harry gazed earnestly into his friend's face. He couldn't imagine Hogwarts without Ron; he knew every habit, every _expression that had ever graced his best friend's face. Ron stared back, grinning slightly. "Ol' Herm scheduled it for eight o'clock in the morning. She told me not to be late, and gave that Look. You know, the one she nicked from McGonagall. Can you believe her? She hasn't changed a bit."

No, she hadn't. But Harry had. At one time, he might have shared Ron's amusement at the image of a very huffy and determined Hermione, glaring at them with sharp eyes and frizzy hair spilling over her face. The way things used to be. He gazed thoughtfully at Ron's face, letting his sorrow rest there, in its familiar lines, contours and planes.

"I can't, Ron."

Ron was taken aback. "What do you mean? Don't tell me you have a Saturday morning class. Not like you would attend." There was bitterness in the boy's voice. Harry knew he was responsible, for Ron's disappointment, for the tears Hermione wouldn't shed, for everything.

"I can't, I just...can't. Tell Hermione that...tell her...tell her something, Ron." With that, Harry turned and walked away, leaving the red-haired boy leaning against the wall, brow half-furrowed, with surprise on his lips.

*******************************************

The tears wouldn't spill.

Hermione had sat herself down on the plush red chair again. She closed her eyes, refusing to let the pain in her heart overwhelm her. Hermione was first and foremost a practical young lady; that particular avenue was closed to her. She would not fret over it.

Her mind could tell her heart that, but her heart still controlled her tears.

She heard footfalls behind her and she tensed. It wasn't Harry's gait.

"Herm?"

She turned.

"Ron."

"Is everything all right? I heard yelling."

"Everything's fine," she said.

Ron gazed at her sternly. She felt a fresh wave of tears erupt from her heart, but her mind ordered them to stop.

"Harry's not coming."

Hermione looked into Ron's grave blue eyes and nodded, unable to speak. She wasn't surprised. In fact, she wasn't sure how she felt, other than heartbroken. All other emotions couldn't be felt over the sheer blanket of pain that covered her.

"Something's going on with him." Ron slid easily into the seat opposite her. He leaned forward over his long legs, elbows on his knees. Hermione did not meet his expectant stare.

"I know," she replied, evading his question. Ron leaned closer.

"What happened to him, Hermione? He's not the Harry I remember."

Was he? Or was the boy they remembered an illusion? Were her feelings for him merely friendship covered by a smokescreen? She thought back to the thin, small eleven-year-old she had first met on the Hogwarts Express and compared him to the tall, thin seventeen-year-old that had pushed her away in the Gryffindor common room. Were they the same person?

"I hardly see him anymore. Didn't even know he had detention until you told me, Hermione. Do you think that perhaps him skiving off class and skipping meetings might be something more than just worrying about You-Know-Who? He's changed, Hermione, and I don't know why. Sometimes I feel as though I'm losing him. Do you think it's something I said?"

"Ron, I hardly think something you might have said would cause Harry to skip all of his classes and refuse all social interaction."

Ron eyed her doubtfully. "I dunno, Herm. Sometimes I get the impression that he's avoiding us. Avoiding the world. Avoiding his responsibilities."

Tears shattered her vision like shards of crystal. "Do you think I haven't noticed?" she responded softly. Hermione stared into the empty fireplace. "He's been having a rough time, Ron. He can't fly, Hagrid's gone, Malfoy is---"

"Oh blast, Hermione. Everything's nothing but excuses! He's got to stop feeling sorry for himself. You're not helping matters. Stop making excuses for him."

"He makes them for himself." Hermione's tone was sad.

But what excuse did he have for pushing her away when she needed him, wanted him?

For a long time Ron and Hermione sat in silence, remembering a time when the room had been warm and cozy, with a bright fire glowing in the hearth. Now not a log burned in the fireplace and they had resorted to wearing extra layers. Ron's freckled face shone in the moonlight as he gazed at his friend's familiar countenance. Presently, he ventured:

"What did you say to him, Hermione?"

Hermione abruptly looked up from the empty fireplace. "I didn't say anything, Ron."

No, she had not said anything.

"Oh come off it, Herm. You know what's going on here, why won't you say anything? What did you say to Harry when he came through here? What would make him run off like that?"

"Are you implying that it's my fault, Ron Weasley?" Anger replaced pain.

"No," Ron answered, "But I want some answers, Hermione, and you're the only person I might get them from. Merlin knows I don't have any."

"I don't have any either," she said. It wasn't strictly a lie.

Another silence fell over the two of them. Wearily, Ron broke the silence once more. "What's the meeting going to be about?"

"Without Harry...we can't...it's..." Hermione was at a loss. Everything had depended on Harry's coming: the plan, their safety...her heart.

Ron leaned forward to place an arm comfortingly around her shoulders. "I'm sure he'll come, Hermione." She looked into the face of the one she knew she could count on, the face of Ron Weasley, who hadn't changed through their seven years of friendship. "He'll come, Herm." His cheerful words belied the doubt in his blue eyes.

Outside the tower windows, the moon was setting in a clear winter sky. The cold always burned away the clouds, leaving the castle awash in a harsh purity of light. Rays slanted into the room, drowning all color in a flood of silver and shadow. To Hermione, it was the saddest thing she had ever seen; the reduction of such a cheerful space to melancholy loneliness.

"He will come if we wait, Herm." Ron smiled. "He will come."

**********************************************

You are coming tomorrow, right?

Harry glanced at the clock beside his bed. The hands read You should be sleeping now. He had lain in bed for the past couple of hours, unable to fall asleep as the accusing voices of those around him replayed in his head. Everything was falling away from him, even his friends. He stretched himself out on his bed, wondering where the trio of his happy past had gone. Then he had not cared about Voldemort, about the state of the world around him. He was happy. He had the friendship of his friends. He had Quidditch. He had Sirius.

He had been normal.

Now he was the wizarding world's Messiah, the godson of a criminal not yet cleared of his crime, and the unattainable love interest of the story's heroine.

He didn't think he could face her; he couldn't take seeing the pain he had inflicted upon her. He didn't even think it was worth it to hurt her, couldn't explain what had possessed him to do so, other than the overwhelming horror that had risen in his chest. Wasn't their relationship only natural? Didn't he care for her?

"Hermione," he said into the darkness.

How had so many years gone by without him noticing Hermione's feelings? Surely he should have known. Her eyes followed his every move, she leapt to his side at every opportunity; she gave and gave and never expected anything in return. He had thought he returned her devotion equally, but things spiraled out of control, before he even realized there was an issue needing his attention. Harry had never fathomed such an outcome to their relationship. He thought that Ron and Hermione would always be his two supports, buttressing him against the elements. He never considered that one leg he leaned on might possibly turn, throwing him off balance. Harry only had one place to go when his thoughts overtook him, the people who were always his first and last resorts. But now he found himself being the one they turned to.

"What do they want from me?" Harry whispered. His mind mocked him.

They want you to be someone you aren't.

Coward.

They give and give to you, but you can't give anything in return.

Useless.

They trusted in a façade before, but now they're seeing the real Harry Potter, aren't they?

He covered his ears with his pillow, hoping to push the thoughts away, but they kept returning. Malfoy's sneering voice rose above the din in his mind.

You don't know the first thing about duty or loyalty, Potter. You expect loyalty from your friends, the Mudblood and the Weasel, yet you give them nothing in return. With you, everything is always about the great Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. What about your duty to them?

Ron and Hermione's faces swam in front of him, silent and tortured.

"I can't be who they want me to be," he said softly, to no one in particular. He wrestled with the eleven-year-old boy within him, the one that had rushed into the chamber that housed the Philosopher's Stone. The one that compelled him to go to the meeting against his wishes. He didn't want to. He wanted to let someone else shoulder the responsibility for a change. The wizarding world was a heavy burden, and unlike Atlas, Harry didn't possess Titan strength.

However, within his eleven-year-old mind, he did. He could take up the sword and spear and fight, or die in the attempt. At the same time, his seventeen-year-old hatred, grief, and loss burned brightly within him. And a nameless fear. A fear that held him captive in its glistening black claws. The thing Harry feared was failure, and the adoration of the world. If he failed, he would be responsible for more death than anyone he had ever read about, each person Voldemort slaughtered and tortured would be added to his chain of sorrows. But if he succeeded, he would be a hero, truly the Golden Boy of the wizarding world. In the darkness of his heart, Harry didn't know which was worse.

Ron's words swam through his inner eye as he felt the wings of slumber begin to close over him.

They're counting on you; we're counting on you.

They were counting on him.

McGonagall.

Sirius.

Ron.

Hermione.

But it wasn't Ron's face nor Hermione's eyes that flitted across his mind before he faded into sleeping consciousness. It was Malfoy's voice.

You're scared, Potter, admit it.

He laughed softly to himself, a laugh full of scorn and derision. He was right, Harry thought. I am scared.

He let his aching heart lull him to sleep.