Harry stared, wondering what she was getting at. "Well?"
"Harry... I'm sorry you resent my having owled off that complaint. But I had to, don't you see? If the whole story about you learning to fight was a lie, then obviously something horrible was going on, but even if it was true..." She stopped and drew a breath. "Well in that case Professor Snape needed someone with authority to tell him he was taking the lessons too far, because it's not right for him to incapacitate you, not even in an effort to help you."
A sole tear dripped from her lashes; Hermione wiped it away and just stared at Harry with wide, sad eyes.
"Incapacitate me?" Harry frowned, and shook his head. "But that's ridiculous. So I had a sore back for a while, and then my arm took the worst of a fall, and you saw some bruises on my neck one time I think--"
"Harry, someone concussed you!" Hermione cried out, clenching her fists. "Somebody concussed you so badly that Ron had to spend the whole night down here to make sure you would wake up and be all right!"
Oh no, Harry thought. That's right... she doesn't know the Lumos was at fault. Ron was under orders not to tell her about my magic, so he told her... what did he say in that letter?... oh yeah, he told her that I'd been concussed before he ever got down here that night, and he didn't know how it had happened... Hermione might not have given it much thought at the time, but ever since then I've been sporting injury after injury... so she put five and five together and got forty-six...
"Snape didn't concuss Harry!" Ron stormed in, only belatedly adding, "Professor Snape, I mean. He wouldn't!"
Snape inclined his head slightly, though whether at his correct title or to acknowledge the assertion, Harry didn't know.
"Ron, not two months ago you still thought he was... er..."
"Oh, I never really thought that!" Ron insisted, shaking his head so quickly that his red hair became a blur. "I was just mad at Harry 'cause we don't like Sn--... I mean, 'cause Snape hates Gryffindor... I mean--"
"That will do, Mr. Weasley," Snape drolled.
Hermione was sighing by then. "The fact is, Ron, you can't possibly know how Harry did or didn't get that concussion. You weren't here to see."
"I was here, though," Draco put in, bending down to set his mimosa on the coffee table.
"Oh, and I'd sure trust your word on the matter," Hermione shot back. "For all I know, you're the one who concussed him in the first place!"
"I am the one who hurt him, yes," Draco admitted, shrugging slightly. "Bowled him right over and into a stone fence. And you're right that there's no excuse for it. I was playing too rough. We toned down the rugby after that, though obviously not enough."
"Rugby!" Hermione breathed, shaking her head at Harry. "That's a Muggle sport! You expect me to believe you've been playing rugby with Draco Malfoy, who'd sooner die than so much as breathe the same air as a Muggle?"
Draco barked a laugh. "Do I have to quaff a Diet Coke before you realize you're exaggerating a tad?"
"Why do you think we didn't tell you?" Harry exclaimed. "We didn't think you'd believe it, and sure enough, you don't! So Draco made up stories about beds and brooms and I don't remember what else, and Professor Snape took all the blame on himself, and you still don't believe us, even after Family Services came down here to investigate on your say so! Even after they cleared us, for crying out loud!" Realizing that he was gesturing a bit wildly, Harry forced his hands to calm.
"Why didn't Professor Snape tell me the problem was rugby, then?" Hermione all but snarled.
Harry was about to say that Severus hadn't known about the rugby, but that wouldn't work, would it? Because Severus had clearly known about Harry's concussion, hadn't he? And any decent parent would ask questions about a how a thing like that could have happened...
"Because we knew you wouldn't believe that," Harry tried again, glancing desperately around for some help. He tried to think of something else to convince her, but his mind was going blank. Shite, he felt like swearing. It was so easy to dream up stories to feed the stupid casewitch! Why can't I come up with anything now?
"Honestly, 'Mione, I wish you would have told me what you were thinking," Ron broke in to say as he caught Harry's eye and then looked away. "I'd have told you there's no way Professor Snape would hurt Harry or let this one do him any real harm. I'm not blind. I saw the bruises too, you know, but I knew better than to go mental like you did! I just figured Harry and Malfoy were roughhousing a bit."
"A bit!"
"Yeah, well at least they're about the same size," Ron went blithely on, avoiding Harry's gaze by then, as if afraid he might crack a grin at the novel pleasure of the two of them outsmarting Hermione. "Listen, maybe you don't know what boys in the same house get up to, but I sure do. Now, don't get me wrong. It's not like I enjoy the thought of Harry getting into a little friendly competition with a sodding Malfoy, but I'd sooner believe that's the case than think anything really bad is going on down here."
"And I suppose you had bruises like that when your brothers used to roughhouse with you?"
"No, I had worse," Ron admitted. "A lot worse. Like I said, they were a lot bigger than me. But Harry's all right here, really he is. Family Services, Hermione? That's just low of you, it is. What the hell were you thinking?"
"Maybe," Hermione hotly retorted, "that Malfoy never seemed to have a single bruise on him!"
"So Harry's still got his pride," Draco scoffed, snatching up his mimosa again. "Or did, until you decided to tramp down here and smash it all to bits. He didn't want me casting constant healing charms on him, and he didn't want to go to Severus with every last thing."
"Harry, you've gone awfully quiet," Hermione remarked, actually reaching out and tapping him on the shoulder.
Of course he had, because too many thoughts at once were colliding inside his mind. Sodding Malfoy.... Ron's words, but they'd resonated inside Harry and sparked a potent memory, one that had never really been out of his mind. At least we won't have to worry about him being around sodding Malfoy, Ron had said.... Or would say, rather. It was a part of his dream, a part that had yet to happen.
At least we won't have to worry about him being around sodding Malfoy all the time, Ron was going to say, and then Hermione was going to add that Harry would blame himself for not stopping Draco from leaving the dungeons, no matter that without magic Harry had no chance at all of stopping Draco from doing anything...
That's it, Harry thought, something akin to excitement starting to hum in his mind. That's it, that's the thing I can change! In the dream, Hermione still doesn't know that I have my magic back! What if I tell her? I'll change the future, like Draco was talking about yesterday! I'll make it so that my seer dream--if it even was a seer dream, that is--can't possibly ever come true!
"I'm fine," he finally answered Hermione. Oh, Severus was just going to kill him, but he had to do it. He had to tell, and he knew better than to wait until they could talk the whole thing over. His father would talk him out of it, he just knew it, the same way Snape had talked him out of worrying about Draco in the first place!