Act One: La Belle Sorcière Sans Merci

No Mercy

Outside the door, Hermione leans against the wall. Her heart is pounding, her temples throbbing. Harry and Ginny stare at her with that strange, composed, observant expression she doesn’t remember from Hogwarts. Harry flicks up a Muffliato around them. ‘So you lied after all?’ he asks her. Instead of blowing a gasket, he just looks at her with quiet sympathy and waits for her answer.

Hermione shakes her head. Her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

Ginny answers for her. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Nothing happened between them. This is just a crush.’ Ginny laughs, obviously relieved. ‘And Ron’s just being a jerk. You know that.’

Hermione does, too — that it’s just a crush, and that Ron’s a jerk. But that is all she has left.

Harry is still looking at her expectantly.

She shakes her head again. ‘I did not kiss the man, Harry. Only the —’ In for a penny, in for a pound, she thinks. And she used to be a Gryffindor, after all. For a fleeting moment she wonders if there will be Houses in Azkaban. Sorting shackles, maybe? ‘— only the hero.’ [1]

For everything he taught us. For everything he said to cheer me up and to help me during the last year, even though he didn’t like me one little bit. For the good things, and the bad.
Hermione knows she can count herself lucky his constitution is still so poor. Had he woken, he’d have hexed her into oblivion and saved the Aurors the task of transferring her to Azkaban.

Strangely, Harry appears to understand. Rubbing his scar, he turns away brusquely, but not before she glimpses the glittering of tears in his eyes.

‘I’ve been reading,’ Harry announces suddenly.

Before, she might have teased him, clinging to glib, bossy comments, so she wouldn’t have to admit to her insecurities and fears. But that part of her has died. Not with her parents; she didn’t even know about their deaths until it was all over. Maybe when she enjoyed Lucius Malfoy’s tender care.

So she just nods and waits.

‘When a man is truly full of pain, his words are proven by his deeds.’[2]

Harry and Ginny accompany Hermione to her room.

Tomorrow the Wizengamot will announce hers and Snape’s sentence.

She curls up on her bed. She’s thinking of what Harry said. Of her parents. Of what her dreams used to be. She’d like to cry, but she can’t.

Eventually, she falls asleep.

‘Not Azkaban?’ she whispers. Her voice comes from far away. But the spell I used destroyed the brains of my parents and killed them. She ought to be sent to Azkaban. And Snape — Snape —

No Order of Merlin for him, but neither a life-sentence in Azkaban.

‘Not Azkaban?’ Hermione repeats. Ginny takes her hands. Luna embraces her. And Hermione’s shaking like a leaf.

‘No Azkaban,’ Ginny reassures her.

‘You’re safe now,’ Neville promises.

But Harry curses: ‘Breaking your wands? Seven years of exile? Fuck them all! I only agreed to that bloody plea bargaining because they promised this wouldn’t happen.’

Snape sits in his chair and looks as dazed as Hermione feels.

‘Hermione, you can’t do that!’ Harry protests. ‘He’s, he’s not some stray house-elf you can take in just like that!’

After the trial, the lawyers have taken over once more, explaining the details of the sentence to their clients. By now Hermione knows exactly what she has to expect, what she can, what cannot do.

The Minister of Magic himself will break their wands.

(Theoretically, their wands could be confiscated and returned to them in seven years. But usually exiled witches and wizards do not survive that long. And if they do, their magic changes so much that their old wands no longer respond to their touch. Besides, breaking wands makes for better pictures on front-pages.)

Then watch-wizards will lead them to the visitors’ entrance and escort them to Muggle London.

That’s it.

Hermione almost chokes. I didn’t want it. At all. But I did kill my parents. That’s it.

Sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night. Guilt twists her stomach until she vomits blood. But during the day, her mind has started taking over again, calculating and courageous.

Now she looks at Harry and smiles. ‘Just watch me.’

For weeks she’s been thinking about her wand. She hasn’t held it since that day in the Shrieking Shack. She’ll only hold it once more, for the Eviction Ceremony.

She doesn’t know how she feels about it. This is the weapon that killed her parents. And the tool that saved Severus Snape.

Most of all, it is a part of her. Like a hand or a foot. She is a witch after all.

Hermione is not ready for today.

She feels sick.

Ginny has packed her suitcase. Dudley Dursley of all people will be waiting for her on the other side. How that’s possible, she still doesn’t understand. But she does realise Harry has truly pulled all the strings for her and Snape that he could reach, with toes or teeth.

Two watch-wizards Apparate her to the Ministry, one on her left, the other on her right.

She’s a criminal, after all. And a hero.

And a girl crying for her mother at night.

The wand breaking is over quickly.

If it hadn’t been her and Severus’ wands, she’d have laughed when the Minister for Magic is incapable of performing — the wands prove too hard for his pudgy hands.

Kingsley Shacklebolt as the new Head of the Aurors Office ends up having to break them instead. He looks as if he’s being forced not only to break them, but eat them — thoroughly disgusted.

Then the watch-wizards herd her and Snape into the narrow visitors’ elevator.

Suddenly Hermione stands pressed against Snape in the miniscule phone box elevator, and all she knows is that she’s not a witch anymore.

The beautiful dream that began with her Hogwarts letter has turned into a nightmare.

And now it is over.

---

[1] reference to chapter one and the anecdote involving Anne of Brittany.

[2] quoted from ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ by Alain Chartier.

Act Two: La Belle Sorcière Avec Merci »