Slouch

Harry slouched. Hermione noticed this quite pointedly as he leaned over his Potions homework in the Common Room, squinting with his brow furrowed in concentration. His now very tall back was curled into a perfect half-moon crescent. Hermione shook her head, more in pity than disapproval. He'd been carrying such a large burden his whole life, it was no wonder his body had begun to furl under the strain. It was hard enough living with the weight of your parent's death over your head, and then to hear it, and almost see it as he could.

Harry had described his parent's death only once to her, in painful detail, one night in the Common Room after everyone else had gone home. He described the painful scream and his mother's last words in her pure love for him, his father's desperate cries to save the ones he loved, and that laughing, cruel voice, that could rip apart families and overcome death without so much as the bat of an eye. He'd told her all about his young memories of being told his parent's had died from that cruel scream, and not, as he remembered knowing, from a car crash. He had procured the horrid dread and despair he'd felt so realistically that it made Hermione nearly sick to her stomach. After he'd kissed her on the cheek that night and gone to bed, Hermione sat, staring into the fire, and crying, alone in the Common Room, for that poor boy that was her friend.

But, of course, that wasn't even the start.

Hermione swore that one day she would make Draco Malfoy pay for what he was doing to Harry. Harry had enough to worry about without having to listen to the cruel and persistent 'teasing', but really, it was much worse than that. It was cold, malicious, vindictive, oh, Hermione could go through her entire vocabulary in disgust of what he was doing. Nobody knew as well as she did that his comments were merely the sauce on the wave of unhappiness that swept around Harry's ankles every day. In a clear, jovial mood, nothing could get to Harry Potter, not when he had his two best friends keeping him from wallowing in despair, but when Harry became saturnine and depressed, Malfoy knew exactly when to strike to really pull him down, and just ruin the poor boy's self-esteem and happy hopes. And then, through all of that, Harry was worrying about her, too! About the casual conceited comment thrown her way from some simpering Slytherin. No wonder Harry slouched. He carried that around, caring too much for everyone. Hermione was glad he had gotten over Cho, and she didn't know if he was onto anyone else yet; it was just one less thing to drift across his mind nights when he tried to sleep. A crush was something she didn't know if Harry could take the strain of at the moment, and she was glad he had seen beyond her.

And, Lord, he had enough to worry about and to dream of without a Cho around. He had begun having nightmares again. These, however, were so horrible that Harry hadn't told anyone what they were about. She heard him screaming sometimes in his sleep in front of the Common Room fire, because that was where he slept most night, at the other Gryffindor boys' requests. His nightly awakening in a heart-wrenching scream of agony had taken its toll on their sleep and they'd asked him to stay downstairs when he'd had a bad day; for indeed that was when the dreams were most prominent, which was steadily becoming most days. Hermione, always a light sleeper, usually awoke at his first murmurs, because she, too, had started sleeping in the Common Room, if only to keep an eye on Harry, and she would put Silencing Charms on the Common Room. When he had first started sleeping downstairs, she had hated the insensitive boys that Harry shared house with, but after a few nights, she had begun to understand their requests. His screams were so loud and of such a pain that they easily brought tears to her eyes and she clapped her hands over her ears, screaming with him in her own pain of hearing his. And the worst part was that she couldn't wake him; she just had to let him suffer until his screaming woke him in a dead sweat to find Hermione screaming and crying into his chest, holding her ears, but trying to rouse him all the same. When he awoke, he would always look at her with tears in his own eyes to see her crying and screaming, but he wouldn't tell her what his dreams were about. More than once, though, Hermione had heard his first mutters be her own name, and the pleading attached to it to spare her life. Whether these were visions or just worries, Hermione did not know, but they always ended with Harry's ear-splitting cry of agony and his awakening and then, inevitably, his refusal to tell her of them. They would talk of other things, though, when he awoke, and they grew even closer during those precious, cold nights sitting awake in the scarlet room adorned in gold. One of said nights was the first time Harry had really described his parent's death to her; not just the quick overview he gave to anyone who asked, but in the putrid detail that had made her cry. He'd gone up to the Common Room after that, though; his dreams rarely came twice during the night and afterwards it seemed as if he couldn't bear to look her in the eye again. These dreams were known by all of Gryffindor House and Hermione, as a prefect, had made sure through various threats, that no one else knew. She could do nothing, however, about the whispers that passed through the Common Room before it was abruptly emptied at around eleven every night; no one stayed down beyond that point; they had all heard Harry's screams at one point and no one had any wish to be aroused by the torment that he erupted. Also, she could do nothing about the way everyone avoided him during the day; the Gryffindors in fear because of his dreams, the Slytherins in hatred, and the rest of the school because of rumors and his obvious connections with the Dark Lord. She could do nothing about that, and she knew that weighed heavily on Harry's already overbearing back.

And then there was the Dark Lord himself. Torture and death and the constant stalking, nay, hunting was enough to wear anyone down; to give anyone a persistent feeling of malaise. Hermione had seen her grandmother's dead body once, just before it was buried, and it had the effect of making her wretch for years afterward when she though about it. Harry had seen his parents die, as a mere baby, and then Cedirc and Sirius, and countless other wizards who had merely gotten to the wrong place at the wrong time. Hermione didn't blame him for slouching.

But even a sworn mortal enemy and a cold, malicious inhuman murderer couldn't compare to some things. Hermione tried to imagine what it was like; having only one person in the world who honestly, truly loved you, like only a parent could, and then having that taken away from you; snatched away in the midst of happiness, in the first stages of joy. Her eyes began to well up, watching Harry as he cross-referenced his Potions facts through several different books, taking no notice of her, or the dying fire of the Common Room. It was a Hogsmeade weekend and the happy smiling Gryffindors, cheeks red and bright from the cold had not come back yet. Ron had gone with the third years; at least one prefect always had to, and Hermione had volunteered to stay behind and help Harry with his Potions project, though he was doing quite well on his own.

Harry suddenly straightened up and stretched, arching his back backwards, meeting Hermione's watchful eyes. He smiled.

"Just finished," he said, reaching his arms up. "I think I deserve a snack. Want to go grab something from the kitchens?" Hermione paused. And then again, maybe his slouch was merely from the strain of the overfilled backpack he'd been carrying lately in preparation of the N.E.W.T.'s; it was hard to think anything else when he looked at her like that. If it weren't for the circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, she could almost imagine the Boy-Who-Lived was some other poor soul who lived by himself, wallowing in pools of despair; someone to whom pity could justly be bestowed upon. She smiled back.

"Sure, Harry. Treacle pudding would just hit the spot." Harry yawned heavily as he followed her out of the empty Common Room.