The Writings on the Wall

The Writings on the Wall

"Hermione I don't want to talk about it."

"Tough," she snapped. "Harry. Listen to me. Ever since June you've been a different person. I can't find you anymore." Her voice began to crack but her face remained defiant. "I've lost you." It was here Harry saw her expression break. It plunged into sorrow, her brown eyes sparkling. "And I hate it." It was here she began to cry.

Silent tears trickled down her rosy cheeks. The old Harry would have wiped them away and given her a consoling hug. This Harry barely felt a spark of emotion. He just stared at the brick wall.

He was in the cellar at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. It had come to be a safe haven. Hermione had been the fisrt to venture into it. He liked the fact that the walls were bare. He scratched things into them with rusty nails he found on the floor. Sometimes, he fell so far into his mind that he wrote things he never expected his own hand to write.

Harry turned from Hermione and folded his legs underneath him. The cellar was cold but the chill didn't reach him. The hard stone floor numbed his knees as he knelt for days at a time scribbling on the bricks.

Hermione's tears turned into sobs. "I hate it. I hate that you aren't there any more. I hate that everyone's different without you. I hate that you can affect me like this. And most of all I hate that I can't do anything about it. I miss you, Harry. I miss you so much it hurts."

Harry closed his eyes. He never intended to hurt anyone but he knew more people would end up hurt if he went back.

Everyone he loved was taken from him. He couldn't stand to see anyone else killed because of him.

"Hermione. I can't You know that."

"Harry. You can. You're the strongest person I know. You've been through so much but still..."

"Exactly. I've been through so much and I've had enough, I can't do it any more. Goodbye, Hermione." He shut his eyes tighter and folded his arms, willing himself away from this place. When he opened his eyes, Hermione had gone.

***

The next few days, Harry lost himself in his thoughts and scratched away at the wall.

One the third day after Hermione's visit, he heard footsteps on the stairs. This pulled him out of his temporary stupor and he looked at his newest scribbles.

'Harry misses his dad.'

'Harry loved his mum.'

'Harry wishes Sirius were back'

'Harry'...

The last one wasn't finished. He wondered vaguely what he would have written if Hermione hadn't walked into the cellar again.

She was carrying a tray piled high with food and drink.

"I'm not hungry," he muttered.

"Nonsense," she said swiftly setting the tray down in front of him. "And anyway. It isn't all for you. I thought I'd come and join you."

"I don't want company," he said in a monotone.

"Well I do, Harry, so you'll have to live with it. I told you before. I miss your company so if you won't come to me, I'll come to you."

"You've got Ron," Harry said.

"Yes," she replied, "but I've not got you. Ron's great at being Ron, but he just isn't you. And it would be exactly the same if Ron was in your position. He's working his socks off trying to be you as well as him and it isn't fair Harry."

"Fair? Who said anything about life being fair?"

"I'm not talking about life Harry. I'm talking about us, your friends. You're too young to have to think about life like that."

"But people expect me to. I'm Harry Potter therefore the fate of the world lies on my shoulders."

"Don't," she said softly. "Stop talking like that. No one expects you to be that person."

"Yes they do."

"Well I certainly don't. In my first year I met Harry Potter, a little boy with an unfortunate past. I've spent the last five years getting to know him and building up friendship, trust and love. Recently, this boy I know changed from Harry Potter to The Harry Potter. It's not you, Harry, it's a make-believe hero that everyone thinks you are but you aren't. Yes, you're brave. Yes, you're determined, but you don't have to be. It's your choice. You are your own person."

Harry stared at the wall. Hermione followed his gaze and stood up. Her delicate fingers tracing the marks on the wall. She smiled slightly.

"Why are you smiling?" Harry asked.

"I'm smiling at this." She indicated the writing. "These are your feelings. These are your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams. You've never said them outloud. That's what makes me smile. You can pour your heart out to a brick wall, but not to your best friends. That's your pride, Harry. You have pride that challenges Draco Malfoy."

Harry stared back at the wall. He looked at the first words he scribed there.

'Harry Potter is everyone's hero. He is the one to determine the future of this world. He is almost sixteen. He is me.'

He didn't remember writing that, but he remembered thinking about it afterwards. He wrote everything on the wall in the third person. It was as though he didn't know who he was any more.

He looked at the floor, his shoulders hunched and his back curved. Hermione sat down again and put her hand on his shoulder. He hardly felt it.

"Harry. Are you going to come back upstairs with me? Everyone misses you."

"I can't," he sniffed.

Hermione ignored this. "My parents have booked a holiday for us for the last two weeks of the holidays and I won't be here any more. If you stay down here there'll be no one to come down; no one else dares to. If you come up then I won't go; I'll stay here."

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. "Why would you do that?"

"Because I'm trying my best to help you, and if that means missing my holiday, I will. You're more important to me. Well?"

"I don't know. I don't think I can."

"Well if you don't, I give up, Harry. I honestly do. It's hard work trying with you and if I'm not appreciated..." she didn't finished her sentence but instead got quickly to her feet. "I'll come back down tomorrow. Make a decision."

***

Harry didn't curl up in the corner like he usually did when he was tired. Instead, he picked up the nail and closed his eyes. His emotions swam in front of him and flooded out through his hand.

When he came out of his torpor, there was almost double the amount written on the wall. He lay back and read through what he had written.

It was just like what he usually wrote apart from a few major differences. He gasped at them and hastily stood up. He ran out of the cellar and ascended the stairs in search of Hermione, without a backward glance.

***

Hermione read all this later and let the tears flow freely down her cheeks. During the course of the night, Harry had stopped writing in the third person and begun to scribble in the first person. Hermione searched the bricks for the turning point. She found it, in the bottom corner of one wall. Two lines written one above the other...

Harry loves Hermione.

I love Hermione.

FIN