Matryoshka Vignettes
He's Alive
By Jeconais
Author Notes:
Hermione Granger - Thu, August 13th 1998, 1:42pm
Hermione Granger sat in a large armchair with a copy of her favourite book on her lap.
It was a position she had been in countless times, and it had never failed to calm her and allow her to immerse herself in the book.
Until now.
So far, this afternoon, she’d calculated the size of the ceiling in square inches, counted the number of leaves she could see out of the window, and watched a spider build a web.
It was the book’s fault. The book was lying to her.
Or rather, the front page was lying to her.
Underneath the signatures of the authors (eight, over a thirty year period) was the untidy scrawl of Harry Potter.
"Thanks for always being there. H.J.P."
It was a lie.
She hadn’t been there when he really needed her.
None of his friends had been.
Only his new girlfriend had been there.
Everything had been so clear after Dumbledore’s funeral. She had been told the secret first — that the Professor had faked his death to allow him to get hold of the Horcruxes —, and she had been amazed at his cleverness, and swore to her allegiance to him.
Then she’d gone to the Burrow, and talked to Ginny, only to find out that Ginny and Harry had broken up. Well, she wasn’t going to have that. Ginny was perfect for Harry. She’d get them back together. She knew about Harry’s jealousy the previous year, as he’d watched Ginny and Dean, and playing on that would soon make Harry realise he was being silly. Besides, Ginny’s idea of just slapping him wouldn’t work.
Harry had been cheerful when he had greeted her at Grimmauld Place, and she was excited to see him. She couldn’t wait to see his face when he realised just how clever Dumbledore had been.
He’d grabbed her hand, and told her he had a plan, and that they’d talk later.
And that was the last time she ever saw him happy.
When he had come out of the meeting with Dumbledore, he had changed. His eyes had dimmed. She hadn’t really noticed it at the time, but when was hindsight not twenty—twenty?
He’d asked her, he’d begged her to go with him and deal with Voldemort.
But she’d said no, positive that Dumbledore knew what was best. And she’d said no again and again. Ron and Ginny had followed her — they’d felt the same way.
That Dumbledore had it all under control.
And so they had returned to school, and Harry had retreated into his shell — and it wasn’t really a surprise. He did that a lot.
Daphne’s words at the funeral echoed around her mind again. They had been haunting her, keeping her from sleeping.
"He understood that you can’t stand by and watch evil when you can do something about it. It was something that everyone else didn’t get. Every time someone died, Harry felt it. Every time someone was tortured, he felt their pain. He knew that it would continue until he defeated Voldemort.
"It was his sense of responsibility, his nobility, and everything else that made up Harry James Potter. I truly believe that forcing him to do nothing was the biggest torture that you could have inflicted on him. His soul had been dying bit by bit."
The words shamed her with their truth. They taunted her with their accuracy. She’d watched as Harry had slowly been torn apart, and not even realised what was happening.
She had failed him as a friend.
She had failed.
Ginny had tried to make him jealous, but he’d hardly seemed to notice. He just took to vanishing from the Common Room.
Hermione had tried to find him, tried to follow him, but couldn’t. It was almost as if Hogwarts was conspiring with him.
She didn’t even realise he knew about her and Ron. She thought she’d been so clever, hiding her relationship with him from Harry. After all, Harry never knew how long prefect meetings went on for, and it allowed them to have some private time before and after.
Some friend she had been, not even telling him that she was in love.
She thought it would have changed things between them, made it harder for him in some way, so figured that hiding it would be best.
She had failed.
And when she stopped being that friend for him, that friend who was always there for him, he found someone else.
Daphne Greengrass — a girl who had made the phrase 'Ice Princess’ a grim reality. A girl who everyone knew not to touch and not to play with. A girl who everyone knew was going to do exactly what she wanted in her life, and no one and nothing would stand in her way.
Only Harry Potter would see that as a good thing.
Everyone had known about how she had dealt with Draco, how the younger Malfoy was more terrified of her than he was of Voldemort.
Her best friend had fallen in love, and she hadn’t even noticed. She couldn’t blame him for not telling her — it would have been hypocritical to do so.
She lightly traced the outline of the words in front of her, his last message to her, and sighed softly.
He had chosen well. He had chosen a girl who didn’t second guess him, who understood where he was coming from, and understood that sometimes you have to fight for what you think is right.
Although she didn’t know it, Daphne’s casual revelation of the truth behind Salazar Slytherin had been like a shockwave through the school. Slytherin House had undergone a huge change.
Snape was no longer the Head of House. Ousted not for his behaviour with Harry, although that was a factor, but because the students had demanded that someone more open—minded be placed in control.
Draco and his allies, far from ruling, had then been treated as pariahs, as traitors who had dragged the name of Salazar Slytherin through the mud.
And Draco. She smiled slightly in admiration for what Daphne accomplished. The boy had looked awful, he’d lost weight, his hair was always filthy, and every waking hour when he wasn’t in class had been spent in the library.
For the first day after Harry’s funeral he had been loud and boisterous, fighting for his place in Slytherin, because of the overwhelming hatred among his former colleagues.
The second day everything had changed.
Hedwig had flown into the school and dropped a letter in front of him. A Howler.
Everyone knew that Daphne must have sent it, and everyone had held their breath while he opened it, an expression of pure terror on his face.
The Howler had been much shorter than everyone expected. Only four words.
It wasn’t a bluff.
Draco had seemed to fold into himself. He’d turned and run out of the Great Hall.
She had received an owl at the same time. Her message was different.
It was a bluff, so when he asks you for help in five weeks, say no.
D.
Daphne had been right. It had taken Draco five weeks to ask her for help. And she had moved closer to him, and whispered in his ear. "Drop dead."
Draco had started to cry and abandoned all dignity. He dropped to his knees and begged her for his life.
If he’d really been dying, she would have helped. But she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving him on the floor.
It was a resigned Draco who had turned up on the last day of school. With his family bankrupt, he’d had no one to turn to for help — except for Snape, and no one knew what had happened to him. He’d simply disappeared, abandoning the Potions classes to a substitute.
And Hedwig had flown in again with another Howler. She’d figured out that Daphne was sending them so that everyone could hear what was going on.
"You’re not going to die, Malfoy," the voice said — Daphne must have been whispering, as the Howlers amplification made it normal. "But now you know how the victims of your terrorism have felt. Live well, because next time there won’t be an elaborate charade. I’ll just kill you."
The final threat had been more chilling because Daphne’s voice hadn’t changed. It was a statement of fact, and Draco had known it.
The blond placed his head into his hands and cried in relief.
But seeing the final victory over Malfoy hadn’t filled her with glee. It reminded her too much of what she had lost.
Harry. Ginny. Ron. And how the four of them would have loved this.
While Ginny had forgiven her, their friendship had never recovered. They were polite to each other, but the closeness that used to exist had been broken.
The arguments she’d had with Ron had spiralled out of control. And no amount of time spent in a broom cupboard could make up for the hurtful things they’d said to each other, as they’d dealt with their grief in the worst possible way.
And so she had finished Hogwarts as she had begun it: with no friends. The only difference being that she’d had a wonderful friend. And she had lost him.
After the funeral, Dumbledore had approached her, his eyes twinkling, and for the first time she had really looked at him. Not as the Supreme Mugwump. Not as the Headmaster. But as a man.
And she did not like what she had seen.
She looked him in the eyes and had then slowly turned on her heel. Every time he’d tried to talk to her, she’d responded with monosyllabic answers. Never rude but never friendly, always leaving the impression that she’d be happy if they never talked again.
If only she’d done that when it had mattered. If only she’d listened to her best friend.
If she had, she would have been there for Harry. She might not have been able to fight as viciously as Daphne had, but she would have had Ron and Ginny with her, and the numbers would have made the difference. They would have been able to keep Harry alive, and still deal with the three Death Eaters.
She paused.
Three Death Eaters.
One dead from the Killing Curse. Two dead from a Cutting Curse. That’s what Daphne had told them.
But there had only been two dead Death Eaters at the church. Two Death Eaters. A dead Harry and a dead Voldemort.
There was a missing body.
She shook her head slowly and thought back to another throwaway comment. That Daphne had visited Snape’s dungeon beforehand.
Another thing popped into her mind. A mental picture. Daphne looking at her watch, her Muggle watch.
And then, when she had walked out, Daphne had taken the ribbon from her hair and placed it in a snakeskin purse. A particularly striking purse, most likely a Nagini-skin purse.
Daphne had said that she had collapsed after the fight.
But Nagini had gone by the time they had returned the next day.
She mentally went through Daphne’s final words and gasped.
Daphne never said that Harry was dead! Just that his eyes closed, and that she thought it was the end.
There was no way in Hades that Daphne would accept his death so passively. Daphne had chosen Harry, and she would not let anyone, even death, stop that.
All of her thoughts left her with one inescapable conclusion.
He was alive.
Harry was alive!
She leaned back in the chair and smiled, and then reached for a quill. She had so many people to tell.
She stopped and looked at her hand. Deliberately, she placed the quill back down.
She wasn’t going to fail again.
She would give him the privacy that he wanted, that he’d earned, and let him and Daphne find their home, and then in time, say, perhaps five years, she would send him a single letter, telling him that she knew he was alive, that she had known for years, that she was sorry for everything, and ask to meet him. She would promise him that even if he said no, she would take his secret to her grave.
She traced his words with her fingers again. She hoped that she would be allowed to be there for him in the future, but even if not, she could be there for him now.
She smiled gently, turned the page and started to read.
Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry was founded by Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin.