Revelations
Warning for: reference to unethical medical experiments
Black Lodge, 1st November 2003
“What did you do to the man, Potter? Sing him magical lullabies?”
“Just talking.”
“You’ve got some magical voice, then.”
I snort while cramming the last of my breakfast toast into my mouth. “Just talking, Much-Poshly,” I reiterate. “Now, how’s he, really?”
“Much better, as you can guess,” he shrugs. “Not quite out of danger yet, but much better from when we got him out. Don’t think you need me here, actually, ‘sept for some monitoring that you yourself can do. Wanted to examine him more, but he seems to fear the scanning spells. I think he got experimented on, before we got him out, so he learnt to brace up when someone scanned him. Just another notch against the Unspeakables, I suppose.”
Our eyes are inevitably drawn to the third person at the dining table, then, the only Unspeakable – or maybe, hopefully, former Unspeakable – in the vicinity, who doesn’t seem to have eaten anything, all too focused on playing with the single link of sausage laid on her nearly pristine plate.
Hermione shrinks smaller under our silent regard and lets go of her fork, her hands shaking.
“Mione?” I frown.
“What’s wrong with you, Granger?” Justin adds. “Feeling guilty for what others did?”
I send the tip of his nose a small Stinging Hex.
He retaliates.
“You’re one to talk, Potter,” he drawls. “It’s for you, too. Heard from Susan you tried to put the world on your shoulders or something.”
He winces, then, and rubs his nose. But I didn’t do anything just now!
“…Oh.” My eyes meet with Hermione’s wet ones, briefly, before they focus their best glaring might on Justin. “Oh. Mione? What….”
“I… don’t feel guilty for them,” she grits out, her voice equally wet and her tone wavering. “I…. If they can do it to him, I don’t want to know or find out what they can do to me.”
“But you’re their colleague,” I point out, bemused. “Not that I want you to go back to them, myself, but… they’re your colleagues.”
“No,” she mumbles, looking down at her plate again. “No. I’m a mudblood, even to them. I’m locked out of their best researches and findings.”
Guilt does surface on her countenance, then, before it settles into a stubborn, determined look so familiar to me.
“Mione?” I prod warily. “What did you do there?”
She slumps low, as if about to slide under the table.
“Mione.” I’m alarmed, now. Justin, seated at an angle to us at the round table, pushes back his chair, looking even more alarmed than I am.
“I bonded with someone whom they also experimented on,” she bursts out, at last.
Justin and I flinch and look wide-eyed at each other.
“What… did you mean, Mione?” I get out, at last, after raising an eyebrow to Justin’s pointed look at me – that lazy git. “Bonded? Like to a house-elf?”
She shakes her head. “Almost like you and Tom Riddle, Harry,” she says in a small voice.
I suck in a sharp breath and clutch at the edge of the wooden table as if to a lifeline. – Voldemort! Bonded like me and Voldemort! And she did it willingly?!
Then, unable to hold it in any longer, I explode.
“You gave yourself to a parasite, Hermione?! Did you realise what you did? I died just so that I could be rid of Voldemort. And now you let a parasite in yourself? Where did your common sense go?”
She stands up abruptly. A sob rings out, accompanied by the clattering of the chair toppling down. She flees the dining room, then, without any more words.
I bury my face in my hands, trying not to cry, myself. My breakfast has gone back up, it feels, pooling burningly at the back of my throat.
“I’ll… be in my room,” Justin offers, before his chair scrapes back further from the table and his rubber-soled shoes pad farther and farther away on the wooden floor.
I break down, at last, when no sound is audible but for my own ragged breaths and pounding heart.
I don’t know how long I cry – for Hermione, for what I said to her, for what might happen to her next.
I go to our rescuee’s room – the rescuee who isn’t a parasite when my tears are spent, instead of to my own room or hers or anywhere else. I just… don’t want to be alone, right now, but I don’t want to see her yet or Justin.
The man opens his eyes when I knock at the open door. He’s still covered with a thick blanket up to his chin, but he looks much more alert, now, and not so tense anymore.
“Hello,” I greet him listlessly, while plopping my bum on the edge of the bed.
He blinks.
I give him a wan smile. “My friend said you’re better, now. Good to hear.”
He blinks again… and looks questioningly at me – or rather, my face, it seems, judging from his roaming eyes.
I flush. I didn’t think of cleaning my face, first, before coming here. “I… was just… talking, to a friend. Found something bad.”
I look away and down. – If the man was in such a bad situation when we got to him, how was Hermione’s personal rescuee doing when she got to it? Did Hermione just pick it up and bond it to her, to keep it alive? Can they be detached from each other, now? When did she rescue it, anyway? Is it too late already for them to be separated from each other? Or has it been too late since the bonding happened, in the first place? What would separation do to Hermione if they’re detached from each other, anyway?
I stir only when the blanket shifts and something – the man’s hand, again, it feels – touches my hand that I’ve planted on the bed.
“Sorry,” I mumble, looking back up and grasping the offered hand. “I… lost…. I was lost in thought. I’m all right, really.”
His hand squeezes mine a little, tremblingly, but still warm and strong despite it. I repay him with another wan smile. “I’m all right, really,” I reiterate, though I don’t know whether it’s to convince him or myself.
He blinks… and looks vaguely doubtful.
I laugh a little, reluctantly. “Either you can understand me, or just my tone, and doubt me anyway.”
I doubt that he can understand English, as a faintly wondering countenance is plastered firmly on his face whenever I talk, but teasing him a little feels… nice.
He doesn’t blink in response to this latest chatter of mine, but the look in his eyes – just as black in colour as his skin – turns warmer, more approving.
I grin weakly and squeeze his hand. “Thank you,” I tell him, with all the gratitude that I can muster. “I’m feeling better, now.”
And I do feel better. This conversation, as limited as it is, is still a conversation, and I’m having it with someone who demands nothing from me and never knew me before.
It’s like having a friend, as Luna once said.
And I make this friend on my own terms.
What a wonderful novelty.