"Everyone?" she whispered. Her limbs had started to feel cold, like she'd just gotten out of an unheated swimming pool.
"What people really believe doesn't feel like a belief, it feels like the way the world is. You and I are standing in a private little bubble of the universe where Hermione Granger got Memory-Charmed. Everyone else is living in the world where Hermione Granger tried to murder Draco Malfoy. If Ernie Macmillian -"
Her breath caught in her throat. Captain Macmillian -
"- thinks he's ethically prohibited from being your friend now, well, he's trying to do the right thing as he understands it, in the world he thinks he lives in." Harry's eyes were very serious. "Hermione, you've told me a lot of times that I look down too much on other people. But if I expected too much of them - if I expected people to get things right - I really would hate them, then. Idealism aside, Hogwarts students don't actually know enough cognitive science to take responsibility for how their own minds work. It's not their fault they're crazy." Harry's voice was strangely gentle, almost like an adult's. "I know it's going to be harder on you than it would be on me. But remember, eventually the real culprit gets nailed. The truth comes out, everyone who was confidently wrong gets embarrassed."
"And if the real culprit doesn't get caught?" she said in a trembling voice.
...or if it turns out to be me after all?
"Then you can leave Hogwarts and go to the Salem Witches' Institute in America."
"Leave Hogwarts?" She'd never even thought of that possibility except as an ultimate punishment.
"I... Hermione, I think you might want to do that anyway. Hogwarts isn't a castle, it's insanity with walls. You have got other options."
"I'll..." she stammered. "I'll have... to think about it..."
Harry nodded. " At least nobody's going to try hexing you, not after what the Headmaster said at dinner tonight. Oh, and Ron Weasley came up to me, looking very serious, and told me that if I saw you first, I should tell you that he's sorry for having thought badly of you, and he'll never speak ill of you again."
"Ron believes I'm innocent?" said Hermione.
"Well... he doesn't think you're innocent, per se..."
The whole Ravenclaw dorm went silent as the two of them walked in.
Staring at them.
Staring at her.
(She'd had nightmares like this.)
And then, one by one, people looked away from her.
Penelope Clearwater, the 5th-year prefect in charge of first-years, looked away slowly and deliberately, turning her head to face in another direction.
Su Li and Lisa Turpin and Michael Corner, all sitting at a table together, all of whom she'd helped with their homework at one time or another, all looked away, their faces suddenly nervous, the moment she tried to catch their eyes.
A third-year witch named Latisha Randle, whom S.P.H.E.W. had twice saved from Slytherin bullies, quickly bent back over her desk and started doing homework again.
Mandy Brocklehurst looked away from her.
If Hermione didn't burst into tears, then, it was only because she'd expected it, had played it out in her mind over and over again. At least people weren't screaming at her or shoving her or hexing her. They were just looking away -
Hermione walked very straight up to the staircaise that led toward the first-year girl's dorms. (She didn't see Padma Patil or Anthony Goldstein looking at her, those two lone heads turning to track her as she left.) From behind her, she heard Harry Potter saying in a very calm tone, "Now eventually the truth's going to come out, you all. So if you're all that confident she's guilty, can I ask you all to sign this paper right here, saying that if she later turns out to be innocent, she gets to say 'I told you so' and then hold it over you for the rest of your lives? Step on up, one and all, don't be cowards, if you really believe you shouldn't be afraid to bet -"
She was halfway up the stairs when she realized that there would be other girls inside her dorm room, too.
The stars hadn't quite come out yet, only one or two of the brightest ones visible through the reddish-purple haze of the horizon, though the sun had fully sunk.
Hermione's hands dug into the harsh stone of the parapet guarding the small balcony, where she'd ducked out of the stairwell after realizing that -
- she couldn't just go back to bed -
- the words echoed in her mind like 'You can't go home again' ought to sound.
She stared out at the empty grounds, the fading sunset, the sprouting grass so far below.
Tired, she was tired, she couldn't think now, she needed to sleep. Professor Flitwick had told her that she needed to sleep, and there'd been yet another potion with her dinner. Maybe that was how wizarding society treated horrible traumas to innocent young girls, just made them sleep a lot afterward.
She should go to her room and sleep, but she was afraid to go someplace where other people were. Afraid of how they might look at her, or look away.
Fragments of thought chased themselves around a mind too exhausted to finish or connect them, as the night fully set in.
Why -
Why did all this happen -
Everything was fine a week ago -
Why -
From behind her came the creaky sound of an opening door.
She turned her head and looked.
Professor Quirrell was leaning against the doorway she'd walked through, silhouetted like a cardboard cutout by the light of the Hogwarts torches lit behind him, in the open door. She couldn't see his expression, though the doorway behind him was bright; his eyes, his face, everything she could see from here lay within night's shadow.
The Defense Professor of Hogwarts, number one on the list of people who might've done this. She hadn't even realized she had a suspect list until that moment.
The man stood within that doorway, saying nothing; and she couldn't see his eyes. What was he even doing there in the first place -
"Are you here to kill me?" said Hermione Granger.
Professor Quirrell's head tilted at that.
Then the Defense Professor started toward her, the dark silhouette raising one hand slowly and deliberately, as though to push her off the Ravenclaw tower -
"Stupefy!"
The burst of adrenaline overrode everything, she drew her wand without thinking, her lips formed the word of their own accord, the stunbolt leapt out of her wand and -
- slowed to a stop in front of Professor Quirrell's raised hand, rippling in midair like it was still trying to fly and making a slight hissing sound.
The red glow illuminated Professor Quirrell's face for the first time, showing a strange fond smile.
"Better," said Professor Quirrell. "Miss Granger, you are still a student in my Defense class. As such, if you consider me a threat, I do not expect you to just look at me sadly and ask if I am there to kill you. Minus two Quirrell points."
She was entirely unable to form words.
The Defense Professor flicked his forefinger casually at the suspended stunbolt, sending the hex shooting back over her head, far into the night, so that they stood again in darkness. Then Professor Quirrell walked out of the doorway, which swung shut behind him; and a soft white light sprung up around the two of them, so that she could see his face once more, still with that strange fond smile.
"What are you - what are you doing here?"
A few more steps took Professor Quirrell to a higher part of the balcony's ramparts, where he put his elbows down on the stone, and leaned over heavily, looking up into the night.