Destroyer

Remembering and Remembering

I keep remembering–I keep remembering. My heart has no pity on me. —Henri Barbusse, The Inferno

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After arguing with Kreacher, Hermione sat in the armchair leaning forward with her elbows braced on her knees, watching Harry as he slept on the transfigured couch in Grimmauld Place.

She hated this place and didn't know how Harry stood it to come back here. There was like an ominous dark cloud of depression over the entire house. She knew Harry had been upset when he left the Ministry, but it still had been a shock to find him amongst the empty bottles of fire whiskey Kreacher had so helpfully provided him.

She hated seeing Harry so upset, especially after everything he had gone through and done for those ungrateful gits in the courtroom. He was better than every single one of those idiots, and she couldn't have stood it to watch them whisper about him again.

Harry shifted in the bed, his hand falling over the side, palm down. She spotted the scar he had received in fifth year standing out starkly across his knuckles. I must not tell lies .

Her hands clenched together at the sight. Every single wound and scar he bore was a failure of the adults in their lives and the wizarding government in protecting him. They celebrated him and yet sacrificed him over and over without blinking.

They. Were. Rubbish.

The entire lot of them.

She had known that Harry attributed the problems in the Wizarding World to Voldemort and his ideology. She hadn't been able to argue with him about it. Who was she to take away something that gave him hope? She had never had the same belief.

She had known as far back as second year, when Lucius Malfoy had so easily and repeatedly twisted the school board and the Ministry to his own ends. How else could it be explained that the Minister of Magic himself came to Hogwarts to witness the execution of a hippogriff? Completely ridiculous. Voldemort hadn't even been corporeal at that point in time, so it was not as if his presence had driven Fudge to act that way. Yet the integrity of the Ministry had been so weak as to be led by the worst sort of witches and wizards.

Hermione, of course, wanted to help make the Wizarding World a better place. The thought that kept bothering her however was as rotten as the system was; it would take years of work. Who knew what was going to slip into the cracks in the meantime of a system that was inherently cruel and unequal? If only Harry weren't so righteous and determined to save everyone and give them a second chance...

If he could be willing to see things her way, they could rip down the Ministry in a day. Less than probably. Be done by lunch. Not many witches or wizards would stand against the chosen one, and those that did? Well, between her and Harry, they could make short work of them.

Her mouth quirked up in a little smile at her fantasy. Harry would never allow something like that to happen. He wouldn't even kill Peter Pettigrew, who was responsible for the death of his parents or the death eaters that chased them during the Horcrux hunt.

He was too good for this messed up world.

The thoughts came to her again, persistent no matter how she tried to put them out of her head. A damning litany of failures that proved in her mind the Wizarding government was beyond redemption. Dumbledore leaving Harry with the abusive Dursley's, Ron had told her how he had been locked up when they rescued him in second year. Then Voldemort easily manipulated events, so that Harry was forced to participate in the dangerous Triwizard tournament. Then the sham Wizengamot trial the very next year for Harry, simply defending himself from Dementors. Over and over again, they failed him.