About Harry

Hermione

When I take my head out of the fire, the flames turn back to their orangish shade dancing lazily amidst the coals. I stand a moment there, kneeling in front of the fireplace gathering my energies. I feel quivering all of sudden in the middle of this forlorn night. Weariness is menacing to overcome me. I'm starting to feel this is more than I can handle but I'm still of the same mind regarding St. Mungo's. If I can prevent it, I will. They would just made him swallow any kind of potions to calm his nerves, but the problem is the mind. I always felt the magical community is underdeveloped in the mind field. They tend to cure everything by potions or magic. They don't give much space to psyche treatment.

Probably that's why there are so many dark wizards at large. You just need to see what kind of dismal place Azkaban is to understand their policy on wrongdoers. It's all about punishment. They just want them to disappear from the magical community and hopefully never go back. You finish there notwithstanding the gravity of your felony. The same if you have killed or pickpocketed.

That cannot be right. I wonder, if that deranged Death Eater would have received a different attention in all those years in there, would have still nurtured, year after year, all that bitter rancour against Harry that brought him to do what he did. If he should have been in a better environment, his mind occupied with something else instead of boredom brought by inactivity, have the chance to receive some active help like a counsellor, maybe, and just maybe, all this could have been prevented.

But I don't pride myself to have all the answers. Perhaps he was bad at heart if it's possible to be bad at heart. Most probably he was just very much troubled. Like Harry.

I gather all my strength and I go back to the living room sure to find him there. The room is pitch black, but I perceive him sitting on the edge of the bed, immobile.

'What's going on?' I ask resolutely.

He startles at my words that ring into the silence and I see his head turning toward me, but he doesn't utter a sound. To give him time to make order in his mind I decide to prepare a tea, I ask him if he wants one and I perceive a nod.

When I got back with the fuming cups he was still sitting where I left him.

'So, what's going on?' I repeat steadfast giving him a cup.

'I got a nightmare'

'Yes, I spotted' I answer somehow impatiently 'What about?'

'One of my nightmares of the graveyard'

He recounted me of those nightmares several times. They are frightening. That experience in his fourth year traumatized him for life. No surprisingly. It wasn't exactly all unicorns and rainbows.

I replayed in my mind Sunrise words 'He was in an ugly place. He was scared, he was screaming' and I feel a quiver. I take a sip of my hot tea to cast it away and give me the strength to keep on the conversation.

'There was Sunrise involved, I guess...'

'Yes' he admits hasty 'but I don't want to talk about it'

'Sunrise was having a nightmare too, a scary one apparently'

The cup is still in his hand, but he doesn't take it to his mouth.

Outside a car speeds in front of the window with a loud hum, the headlights brighten for a moment the room enough for me to glimpse Harry's troubled expression.

'When you went away, Molly took her down' I let the sentence suspended a moment waiting for a reaction. When it doesn't arrive, I go on 'From something she said it seems she was aware of the nightmare you were having'

Harry neither disclaimed nor confirmed it.

'There is something dodgy going on. There is something you are not telling me'

He finally drinks his tea and after a moment, speaks 'Yes, there is something I'm not telling you' and before I can ask for elucidations, he turns his head toward me 'And I'm not planning to either' he continues stern.

I'm about to press for more openness but he knows me too well and doesn't allow me to.

'Hermione, you are my best friend and I've always told you pretty much everything but this, I'm not going to. So, save your breath'

I feel a bit hurt, but I decide not to pursue the matter. For the time being at least.