Love Heals

Hermione was lying awake on her bed, completely unable to fall asleep. She had known the Dursleys were never nice to Harry, that they could even be mean, but she had never expected this. Looking at it now, it was incredible that she hadn't realized it before. Harry was always so small for his age. When he first arrived at Hogwarts when he was eleven, he looked as though he was nothing but skin and bones. She didn't think anything of it at the time. He could have just been small. There didn't have to be a reason behind it.

Harry's home life was always a sensitive topic with him. He'd easily mention that his relatives weren't pleasant people, and hated him as much as he hated them, but he would awkwardly change the subject whenever it pushed that point.

The truth was, she realized as her head sunk further into the pillow, she could have figured it out a while ago, had she wanted to... but she hadn't wanted to. She would make herself believe that Harry was just small for his age, and that was it. It didn't have anything to do with cupboards, starvation, or neglect. There didn't have to be any reason for him to not wish to discuss his relatives, other than the fact that he just didn't like them, if she never asked. If she never looked into it, never studied his odd behaviors, and made up excuses for everything, she would never have to know.

It was true that Hermione had briefly suspected more abuse than Harry cared to tell them about, but this new information was something she couldn't ever have imagined. This was too much. She rolled over and glanced at the clock beside her bed. 2:00 AM. Having no intentions of ever falling asleep, she climbed out of bed and headed toward Ron's room.

Surely he'd be up, wouldn't he? He couldn't possibly be sleeping after that. Hermione walked past Harry's room, and into Ron's. She softly tapped on the door. Ron turned slightly to face her. "Hey, Hermione," he said, and rolled over again. "I didn't think you'd be sleeping."

Hermione went up to his bed and sat on the edge. She paused for a moment, then asked, "What do you think we should do?" He didn't answer immediately, but stared at the wall, lost in his thoughts.

"I don't know," came the whispered reply. He slowly lifted himself up, and sat so that he was facing Hermione.

"We have to tell him. He has to know what we saw," she said.

"All of it?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if we just told him the basics? He doesn't have to know the details, does he?"

"I think he does."

"Why?" He paused, and added, "He'll never talk to us again."

"What other choice do we have, Ron? We can't keep this a secret. Believe me, I'm in no hurry to tell him, but sooner or later he's going to have to find out that we know secrets he's hidden from us for years. He has to know."

Ron groaned. "Why did McGonagall even show that to us?"

Hermione wondered what he meant by that. Was he thinking about how this information would turn out to be useful, or did he feel like she did? Ignorance is bliss. She didn't want to know this about Harry, just because she couldn't handle knowing that her best friend has been abused his whole life. Maybe Ron felt the same way.

"When should we tell him?" he asked her. "Can we at least wait a little while?"

"I suppose we could try, but I'm sure he's not just going to let it drop. He didn't believe that little lie we made up, if you didn't notice. He's going to ask."

"And what do we say?"

Silence.

"We have to tell him the truth." She took in a deep breath, and her eyes shifted from her knees to Ron's face. "If we try to lie, he'll just be even angrier when he finds out."

Ron nodded slowly and reluctantly. "What about Ginny?" he asked.

"Well, if we're including her...."

"But what does that mean, exactly? To what extent do we have to include her? She doesn't have to know everything."

"She does have to know about the Horcruxes, that's definite."

"Anything else?"

"We should talk to Harry about that."

"If he ever talks to us again."

Neither spoke for a moment. Why did this have to be so complicated? Finally, Ron let out a soft and raspy whisper. "Did you know?" Hermione looked at him. Clearly, he was on the same train of thought at the moment.

"No," she said. "Did you?"

He shook his head, and appeared to relax a little. "We should have known," he said. "We had plenty of information."

"There was no way for us to know, Ron. Don't beat yourself up about it." She said that purely to make Ron feel better. Mentally, she was repeatedly kicking herself for missing it.

"What are we supposed to do when Harry refuses to even look at us anymore? He's going to need us, isn't he? He can't do this on his own...."

"I know. And we won't let him. I don't care how much he tries to shut us out or anything, I'm going to be there for him. What about you?"

"Of course."

"Then that's all we can do."

*

Harry woke up relatively early that morning, 6:12 to be precise. Unable to think of anything else to do, he decided to get out of bed. Ginny's bags were lying outside her room. Was there any chance that she was awake? It wasn't too early....

He walked past Hermione's room and peered into Ginny's. No luck. She was sleeping. Harry sighed and started walking around the suite. He needed some time to himself after all. He needed to think.

An hour must have gone by before he finally got bored of walking around, and he headed back to his room. Ron and Hermione were both awake, and were involved in a heated discussion in front of Harry's room. When they noticed he was there, they stopped and looked at him. "Where have you been?" said Hermione.

"Oh, I was just...."

"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

"Ok...."

Harry glanced in the direction of Ginny's room, wondering if she would be awake by now. Ron seemed to sense his thoughts, as he said, "Ginny's still asleep. She will be for a while, knowing her.

He nodded and looked back at them. "So," he said, "care to tell me about what secret McGonagall let you two in on?" They both shared significant looks that clearly told him they were expecting this, though probably not as soon.

Hermione turned toward Harry, took in a deep breath, glanced at Ron, and pulled Harry by the arm. Ron followed them into a room with a couch, a few chairs, and a huge television. They pulled over three chairs, so that the atmosphere closely resembled that in the Gryffindor Common Room.

Noticing the looks on his friends' faces, Harry was becoming more nervous than angry. Whatever they were going to tell him, it wasn't good. Hermione sighed and said, "Look Harry, please don't hate us. We really didn't know what to do...."

"What are you talking about?"

Ron and Hermione glanced at each other again, and Hermione continued. "Well, this is what happened.... McGonagall took out a- a pensieve, and she asked us if we knew what it did. We told her that we knew about it, and so she went and got these memories that Dumbledore had left her. In that letter she got from him, he had said that Ron and I should see these memories. He said it would be significant for winning the War...."

She trailed of, not knowing how to continue. She couldn't stop for long though, because Harry egged her on.

"And...." He said.

"And, well, they were your memories, Harry."

His face fell, and his green eyes darkened. The immense anger was already shooting off him like fireworks. He managed to control it enough to utter an irate, "What?"

"We didn't know what they were, really," Hermione went on in self-defense. "It wasn't clear. She told it was useful information for the War. We didn't know what it was! If we did, we have refused, but--"

"What were they?"

He was fuming.

"They were...well... they were events that occurred in your...past."

At this, Harry was beyond angry. He was livid. Not to mention positively horrified. All the color had drained from his face. It was easy to tell that he was trying to control his emotions enough to get the full story out of them. Through clenched teeth, he asked the burning question.

"What did you see?"

Hermione opened her mouth, and closed it again. There was no good way to put this. She glanced at Ron, who was squirming uneasily in his chair, not meeting her eyes. So he was going to leave this up to her, was he? She turned back to Harry, and sighed in defeat.

"It was some of your memories from encounters with your...relatives."

Harry's face was now turning red, in a mixture of extreme fury, and also embarrassment at the fact that they had seen things he never wanted them to know. Before he blew up at them, he asked, "What sort of encounters?"

"They.... We.... They treated you really badly Harry! They beat you! I didn't know you were that badly abused! Neither of us did! I'm so sorry, Harry. We didn't know what she was going to show us. I know you wouldn't have wanted us to see that, but there was nothing we could do! I'm so sorry...."

That was it. That was the breaking point. Harry shot up from his chair, and cursed. He ran his fingers through his messy hair, and stood there for a second, apparently thinking. He then ran into the living room, with Ron and Hermione following, though far behind because it was not easy to keep up with him. Harry grabbed the floo powder and threw it into the fireplace, fully intending to give McGonagall a piece of his mind.