There ought to always be one real person who you truly were, at the center of everything...
Harry stared out at the falling night, the gathering darkness.
...right?
It was almost bedtime when Hermione heard the scattered intakes of breath and looked up from her copy of Beauxbatons: A History to see the missing boy, the boy who had been misplaced at lunch that Sunday, whose dinner nonappearance had been accompanied by rumors - and she hadn't believed them because they were completely ridiculous, but she'd felt a little queasiness inside - that he'd withdrawn from Hogwarts in order to hunt down Bellatrix Black.
"Harry!" she shrieked, she didn't even realize that she was talking directly to him for the first time in a week, or notice how some other students started at the sound of her yelling all the way across the Ravenclaw common room.
Harry's eyes had already lifted to her, he was already walking toward her, so she stopped halfway out of her chair -
A few moments later, Harry was seated across from her, and he was putting away his wand after casting a Quieting barrier around them.
(And an awful lot of Ravenclaws were trying not to look like they were watching.)
"Hey," Harry said. His voice wavered. "I missed you. You're... going to talk to me again, now?"
Hermione nodded, she just nodded, she couldn't think of what to say. She'd missed Harry too, but she was realizing, with a guilty sort of feeling, that it might've been a lot worse for him. She had other friends, Harry... it didn't feel fair, sometimes, that Harry talked to only her like that, so that she had to talk to him; but Harry had a look about him like unfair things had been happening to him, too.
"What's been going on?" she said. "There's all sorts of rumors. There were people saying you'd run off to fight Bellatrix Black, there were people saying you'd run off to join Bellatrix Black -" and those rumors had said that Hermione had just made up the thing about the phoenix, and she'd yelled that the whole Ravenclaw common room had seen it, so then the next rumor had claimed she'd made up that part too, which was stupidity of such an inconceivable level that it left her completely flabbergasted.
"I can't talk about it," Harry said in a bare whisper. "Can't talk about a lot of it. I wish I could tell you everything," his voice wavered, "but I can't... I guess, if it helps or anything, I'm not going to lunch with Professor Quirrell any more..."
Harry put his hands over his face, then, covering his eyes.
Hermione felt the queasy feeling all through her stomach.
"Are you crying?" said Hermione.
"Yeah," said Harry, his voice sounding a little breathy. "I don't want anyone else to see."
There was a little silence. Hermione wanted to help but she didn't know what to do about a boy crying, and she didn't know what was happening; she felt like huge things were happening around her - no, around Harry - and if she knew what they were she would probably be scared, or alarmed, or something, but she didn't know anything.
"Did Professor Quirrell do something wrong?" she said at last.
"That's not why I can't go to lunch with him any more," Harry said, still in that bare whisper with his hands pressed over his eyes. "That was the Headmaster's decision. But yeah, Professor Quirrell said some things to me that made me trust him less, I guess..." Harry's voice sounded very shaky. "I'm feeling kind of alone right now."
Hermione put her hand on her cheek where Fawkes had touched her yesterday. She'd kept thinking about that touch, over and over, maybe because she wanted it to be important, to mean something to her...
"Is there any way I can help?" she said.
"I want to do something normal," Harry said from behind his hands. "Something very normal for first-year Hogwarts students. Something eleven-year-olds and twelve-year-olds like us are supposed to do. Like play a game of Exploding Snap or something... I don't suppose you have the cards or know the rules or anything like that?"
"Um... I don't know the rules, actually..." said Hermione. "I know they explode."
"I don't suppose Gobstones?" said Harry.
"Don't know the rules and they spit at you. Those are boy games, Harry!"
There was a pause. Harry ground his hands against his face to wipe it, and then took his hands away; and then he was looking at her, looking a little helpless. "Well," Harry said, "what do wizards and witches our age do, when they play, you know, the kind of pointless silly games we're supposed to play at this age?"
"Hopscotch?" said Hermione. "Jump-rope? Unicorn attack? I don't know, I read books!"
Harry started laughing, and Hermione started giggling along with him even though she didn't know quite why, but it was funny.
"I guess that helped a little," said Harry. "Actually I think it helped more than playing Gobstones for an hour could've possibly helped, so thanks for being you. And no matter what, I'm not having anyone Obliviate everything I know about calculus. I'd sooner die."
"What?" said Hermione. "Why - why would you ever want to do that?"
Harry stood up from the table, and there was a rush of restored background noise as his rise broke the Quieting Charm. "I'm a tad sleepy so I'm going off to bed," Harry said, now his voice was ordinary and wry, "I've got some lost time to make up for, but I'll see you at breakfast, and then at Herbology, if that's all right. Not to mention it wouldn't be fair to dump all my depression on you. G'night, Hermione."
"Good night, Harry," she said, feeling very confused and alarmed. "Pleasant dreams."
Harry stumbled a little as she said that, and then he continued on toward the stairs that led to the first-year-boys' dorms.
Harry turned the Quieting Charm all the way up, on the head of his bedboard, so that he wouldn't wake anyone else up if he screamed.
Set his alarm to wake him up for breakfast (if he wasn't up already by that hour, if indeed he slept at all).
Got into bed, laid down -
- felt the lump beneath his pillow.
Harry stared up at the canopy above his bed.
Hissed under his breath, "Oh, you've got to be kidding me..."
It took a few seconds before Harry could muster the heart to sit up in bed, pull the blanket over himself and his pillow to obscure the deed from the other boys, cast a low-intensity Lumos and see what was under his pillow.
There was a parchment, and a deck of playing cards.
The parchment read,
A little bird told me that Dumbledore has shut the door of your cage.
I must admit, on this occasion, that Dumbledore may have a point. Bellatrix Black is loosed upon the world once more, and that is not good news for any good person. If I stood in Dumbledore's place, I might well do the same.
But just in case... The Salem Witches' Institute in America accepts boys as well, despite the name. They are good people and would protect you even from Dumbledore, if you needed it. Britain holds that you need Dumbledore's permission to emigrate to magical America, but magical America disagrees. So in the final extremity, get outside the wards of Hogwarts and tear in half the King of Hearts from this deck of cards.
That you should resort to it only in the final extremity goes without saying.