Anger
(Picking up just moments after their narrow escape from Nagini, controlled by Voldemort at Godric’s Hollow. In what should have been year VII at Hogwarts...)
“Harry?”
Hermione looked frightened that he might curse her with her own wand. Her face streaked with tears, she crouched down beside him, two cups of tea trembling in her hands and something bulky under her arm.
“Thanks,” he said, taking one of the cups.
“Do you mind if I talk to you?”
“No,” he said because he did not want to hurt her feelings.
“Harry, you wanted to know who that man in the picture was. Well . . . I’ve got the book.”
Timidly she pushed it onto his lap, a pristine copy of “The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.”
“Where—how—?”
“It was in Bathilda’s sitting room, just lying there. . . . This note was sticking out of the top of it.”
Hermione read the few lines of spiky, acid-green writing aloud, “Dear Bathilda, Thanks for the help. Here’s a copy of the book, hope you like it. You said everything, even if you don’t remember it, Rita.” I think it must have arrived while the real Bathilda was alive, but perhaps she wasn’t in any fit state to read it?”
“No, she probably wasn’t.”
Harry looked down upon Dumbledore’s face and experienced a surge of savage pleasure: Now he would know all the things that Dumbledore had never thought it was worth telling him, whether Dumbledore wanted him to or not.
“You’re still really angry at me, aren’t you?” said Hermione.
He looked up to see fresh tears leaking out of her eyes, and knew that his anger must have shown in his face. Harry was about to quietly say that he wasn’t, that he understood it was an accident. But, a new rage was still bubbling up inside of him. He looked at Hermione and her tears no longer moved him as they once would have.
“You broke my wand…” He said through clenched teeth; “You didn’t think before you acted.”
Hermione shook her head;
“You would have been killed…” She started.
“I may as well be dead with no wand!” He snapped back. “And this isn’t the first time you’ve crippled me like this Hermione; in Potions class when you emptied my cauldron and cost me points from Snape! Who was more than happy to give me poor grades! The way you started arguing with Umbridge a few years ago, knowing that I would be the one punished for speaking up while you walked away without getting anything.”
He saw Hermione look at the scars still on his hand; “I shall not tell lies”
“Or the way you’ve bickered with Ron over the years, wasting so much time on petty arguments when we had bigger problems to solve!”
Everything came spilling out of Harry’s mouth, no longer holding back the years of built up frustrations he had towards her.
“Through it all Hermione I could have let it slip, if it wasn’t for the fact that you are so stuck up! You wave your intelligence and arrogance in our faces like it’s a Prefect badge on your chest. I love you as a friend, but it’s built up too much!”
Hermione began to lower her head down with another sob; but stopped herself, with a strong will she forced herself to look up into his face and stared hard into Harry’s eyes.
“You’re absolutely right Harry,” She said with a deep breath meant to calm and steady her voice.
“While I can’t be more sorry than I already am I at least can find a way to prove to you that I’m committed and show you that I’m not what you say. If you can think of a way for me to make it up to you say it now and let’s get it over with. Whether you hate me or not we are in this together.”
Harry was taken aback for a moment by her words; he hadn’t expected her to answer in such a fashion. Part of him wanted to apologize immediately and tell her to forget it. But, then Harry began looking at her as if for the first time. She was dressed in her muggle clothing, a fitted sweater and tight jeans that hugged her skin. Her eyes still watered from her previous tears but her chin was up and her face determined.
'We've never really been alone like this before...' He thought to himself.
Harry felt a lump form in his throat as a thought entered his mind...
Growing up with his Aunt and Uncle had been hard from the mental anguish he suffered, but there was also the physical part of it too.
He remembered all too well the stroke of his Uncle Vernon’s cane upon his backside. The hard, heavy strikes that knocked the air from his lungs and stung his bottom for days afterwards. He looked down below Hermione’s waistline to her shapely rear end which seemed as if it was presented like a trophy before him.
"Has Hermione ever been spanked before?" Harry wondered to himself.
