Act One: La Belle Sorcière Sans Merci

Alone and Palely Loitering [1]

When she wakes, it’s morning. So early that the walls of her tiny room are tinged with indigo.
Waking is a shock — because it’s so easy. She simply opens her eyes. To white walls and blue shadows. A Silencing spell keeps the room unnaturally quiet. Her breathing is noisy, she sounds like a hippopotamus. But she doesn’t mind. She’s content to lie on her back, to watch the shadows melt away, to listen to her breathing.

And to remember.

Her memories of the twelve months before May 1, 1998 are jumbled. Long, hazy stretches of black-and-white boredom, punctuated by flashes of pure panic. Brilliant splashes of red, her heart pounding, her stomach somersaulting at the soft silk of Snape’s voice calling her through Phineas Nigellus’ portrait.

‘The sword — you need the sword. I’ll send my Patronus. Look for a doe …’

‘A doe? But wasn’t J- err, what I wanted to say: you mustn’t let Ginny lose her temper. Send her to Hagrid. He’ll know what to do with her.’

‘That is a sensible strategy. And you — you need to —’

‘Yes?’

‘Just — take care of yourself, Miss Granger. I — those two — we — just try to put that magnificent mind of yours to the task of exercising some basic survival skills.’

Abruptly she wonders if he dreamed of her, too.

But why would he? And if she truly shared his dreams, then she knows what — and whom — he dreamed of.

She decides that she must see him. Now.

Her knees are weak, her steps unsteady. How long have I been asleep? She totters to the mirror over the washing basin in the corner. The woman inside the looking-glass is pale and haggard.

But the mirror tut-tuts encouragingly, ‘Finally done with all that lazy loitering, my dear? Tsk, tsk, white as a lily you look! Though I must say that woebegone wight in the other room doesn’t precisely sport roses in his cheeks, either. Though,’ the mirror sniffs, ‘he’s started snoring. The Healer insists that’s a good sign.’

She stumbles from the room. When she reaches his bed, she collapses. Just her muscles, weak after weeks of enchanted slumber. Mostly it’s relief. That he’s alive. Snoring. Still dreaming of damn Lily Potter.

She is not allowed to see him again.

Once the status of her physical and mental health has been assessed, she is remanded into custody while awaiting trial. That means she stays in the tiny white room with the chatty mirror. A watch-wizard is positioned in front of her door. Security spells are added to the window. The room itself is infused with Anti-Apparition wards.

Howlers or cursed objects end up in her room nevertheless. One day, her tea, once poured, sucks all the oxygen from the room. Hermione and the alerted watch-wizard nearly die.

But Hermione doesn’t care.

She only knows that she has tried to save her parents — but that she has killed them instead.

She refuses to see anyone, but discovers this won’t keep Harry or his lawyers away. At least she can choose not to read the letters. From Ginny, Neville, Luna, George, Bill. Even from Molly and Arthur. She is mortified to receive a sombre scroll from Professor McGonagall.

From Ron, nothing.

Suddenly it’s a humid morning in AuguSt The day of her trial. Ginny Potter arrives, armed with new robes and a dozen shampoos and conditioners. By that time, Hermione Granger has turned meek.

At the Wizengamot, she listens attentively.

She is charged with reckless manslaughter. The volleys between the counsels for the defence and the prosecution remind her of a tennis match.

That she was a minor in the Muggle world is a mitigating circumstance.
That she was of age in the wizarding world is not.
That her OWLs have been the best of her year is not counted against her.
That she hasn’t sat her NEWTs yet is taken into consideration.
That there was a war going on is rejected — no war was ever declared.
That she wasn’t a soldier would only have held her accountable like any other civilian.
That she only wanted to save her parents mitigates her liability.
That she used a Dark Arts spell as illegal as they come increases her culpability.

Eventually she stops listening. Only when Snape takes the stand, she looks up again. All of a sudden, her heart is pounding. He’s alive.

For a moment, they stare at each other.

Then Snape looks away.

‘She did the best she could, under the circumstances,’ Snape says at last.

‘It was not enough,’ declares Umbridge.

Snape’s trial forces Hermione to rouse herself from depression. She even agrees to see Harry to discuss the case.

But when she takes the stand and Umbridge reads aloud the long catalogue of Snape’s crimes, the spirited defence of Severus’ actions that Hermione has prepared withers on her lips.

She stammers how he helped them on their Horcrux hunt. How his wand was forced by the Unbreakable Vow. How he, too, was just a soldier in the war.

But she remembers that, according to the Wizengamot, without a formal declaration of war, there is no war.

And assisted suicide is as illegal in the wizarding world as among Muggles.

When Hermione swears that nothing improper ever happened between her and the potions master, or later, the headmaster, no one in the court room seems to be listening to her anymore.

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[1] All textual allusions to ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ by Alain Chartier and by John Keats are entirely intentional.