Chapter Text
Every day since Hermione Granger was petrified, Harry had come by the hospital wing to see her and sit next to her for as long as he was able to. If it were during a weekday, he would bring his notes from class and read them to her; if it were the weekend, he would instead bring a book to read to her. He did it often enough that he was actually making good progress on Hogwarts, A History (he will never tell Ron, but he is starting to see why Hermione loves that book so much). When he was not reading something to her, he would be doing his homework while talking with her about it, letting her know what he was learning and commenting about how he wished she could read his papers; she could always see something he overlooked. Madam Pomfrey has repeatedly told him that she, in all likelihood, cannot hear him, but, well, it was better than sitting around doing nothing. It was better than leaving her alone, like Harry was left alone for most of his life. Or, at least, that is what Harry told himself as he walked into the hospital wing, a bouquet of blue and white flowers in hand.
“Hello, Hermione.” Harry, with as much cheer as he can muster, which is admittedly not much, greeted the girl lying in the hospital bed. “I remember you telling me last year that you liked periwinkles, so I sent Hedwig in with an order and got you some. Didn’t know which color you liked, so I got a mix of blue and white ones. I hope you like them. If you ever get me some, I like oak-leaved geraniums and lilacs, especially purple ones.” He grabbed an empty vase from the nightstand next to her bed and, taking out his wand and pointing it inside, muttered ‘aqua erupto.’ After the stream of water filled the vase, he placed the flowers inside it and returned the vase to where it was.
“Today’s Sunday, so I don’t have any new notes for you, and I was in a bit of a rush after I got the flowers, so I forgot to bring you a book,” Harry told her as he sat in the chair next to her, and he mentally went over the list of topics he could talk with her about. To his dismay, he realized that he had exhausted just about every idea that he knew Hermione would find interesting, and even the ones he would find interesting. How could he not when he spends hours here talking to her? After some thinking, he realized there is something he hadn’t talked to her about. Something Hermione once suggested, but Harry refused to even consider it. She can’t hear him, so it couldn’t hurt, right?
“Hermione, you told me once that I should talk about my problems with other people, that it would make me feel better. Of course, I told you that I’m fine, and you looked like you didn’t believe me, but didn’t push it, and thank you for that. It is... hard to talk about this.”
“You probably wouldn’t be surprised to hear I am not fine, not really. But maybe with you like this, I can tell you everything. Maybe it will make me feel better if I know someone is there when I say these things, even if she can’t reply to them or actually hear me. It might sound cowardly, but Hermione, I… I’m afraid. Afraid that you would reject me like everyone else did if you found out everything about me. I want to tell you everything when you are awake, I really do, but I just can't risk it.” Harry snorted. “Maybe it makes me a bad Gryffindor, but I can't afford to lose your friendship. I don't want to go back to a time before that, where I was alone with no one to help me.” Harry blinked and rubbed his eyes. It would be so easy to tell her to forget it, to just run away and pretend he didn’t say anything. Hermione couldn't hear him anyway, so what is the harm in just dropping it? Instead, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was a Gryffindor, he smuggled a dragon through Hogwarts, he went looking for the Philosopher's Stone, he survived his life before Hogwarts, and he can do this.
Harry scooted his chair closer to Hermione's side. “All my problems involve my relatives, but where to begin with them?” Harry asked in a low voice. “I suppose that is the question of every story, isn't it? I think I could start with my name. That is the most important thing to someone, isn't it? Who they are?” Harry rubs his forehead as he thinks back to days he would rather not remember. “You see, my relatives would never call me by my name; it was always ‘freak’ or, sometimes, ‘boy.’ I didn’t even know my name until I started primary school. Imagine my shock when I learned that my name is ‘Harry Potter’ and not ‘Freak.’ Uncle Vernon gave me such a beating when that was reported to him. 'Freaks do not deserve names, and the teacher finding out about that only caused him trouble' or something like that.” Harry snapped his fingers as if he were remembering something. “Speaking of names, would you believe that I didn’t learn the names of my parents until Hagrid told me them when he came to deliver my letter to me? My aunt and uncle wouldn’t talk to me about them unless it was to talk about how they were drunks, drug addicts, didn’t care about me, died in a car crash, and every other horrible thing you can think of. Hagrid was furious when he found that one out and, I won't lie, I was angry too. All my life I was told they were worthless, and I had learned it was a lie.”
His confession was cut off by the sound of shoes tapping against the stone floor as Madam Pomfrey approached the two of them. “Good afternoon, Mr. Potter.”
“Good afternoon, Madam Pomfrey.” Madam Pomfrey nodded and waved her wand over Hermione to cast a diagnostic charm. Harry fidgeted nervously in his seat as she read it over, and she gave him a very slight smile.
“Calm down, Mr. Potter. Nothing has changed with her; she is still healthy besides the petrification. You, on the other hand…” There was a pause as she looked appraisingly at the twelve-year-old boy in front of her. “Should I have your lunch sent up here so you can eat? Merlin knows that if I don’t, you will probably wind up in the bed next to Miss Granger.”
Harry managed a small grin at that comment. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea now that you mention it. More time with Hermione and time off from classes sounds like a win-win. Hardest part would be getting Ron to deliver some books, so I have something to read to her.”
Madam Pomfrey tutted at him. “Mr. Potter, you are forbidden from hospitalizing yourself so you can spend more time with Miss Granger; your father already did that when your mother caught dragon’s pox.”
Harry stared at the healer in surprise. “My father did that?”
“You heard me, and to this day I don’t know how he convinced Remus, Peter, and Sir- someone else to hospitalize him, but he did. All because he wanted to spend more time with your mother. I swear, your father was obsessed with your mother, and it only got worse after they started dating.” Harry wanted to ask her about these three friends(?) of his father, but Madam Pomfrey cut him off before he could say anything. “Now, lunch?”
“What?” Harry was confused for a moment before nodding. “Oh, yes, please send it up here if it isn’t too much trouble.” Maybe he could get more of the story out of her later.
“I normally eat my lunch in my office, so it won’t take any effort to tell the house elves in the kitchens to prepare another meal and send it to you.”
Harry quietly filed away the fact that house elves work at Hogwarts for a later time; maybe they know where Dobby is hiding and what his next plan to maim protect him is. “Thank you, Madam Pomfrey.”
“You're welcome. But I expect you to show your face in the Great Hall for dinner. I run a hospital wing, not a dining room.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Madam Pomfrey walked away and, after she finished checking on the rest of the students and left the hospital wing, Harry continued. “Maybe I should move on to food next. My relatives would make me cook all the food, starting when I was five, and if it was not perfect or I spilled something, they would hit me and not allow me to eat anything. Even when it was perfect, I was lucky to get their leftovers. You should see my cousin Dudley, calling him a pig is an insult to actual pigs, and Uncle Vernon is a walrus in human form. I probably wouldn't be allowed food for a week if they heard me say that.”
At first it is difficult but at some point Harry started to find it easy to tell her things that would horrify anyone with a heart, the beatings, the days of starvation locked up in the dark, the broken bones, ‘Harry hunting’, his uncle’s desperation to stamp the magic out of him with brute force, the frying pan his aunt would hit him with, the fact that he cannot remember ever getting hugged and told he is loved by someone, how nobody ever helped him so he gave up trying to ask for help from anyone, how the headmistress of his school was told by a teacher that he was showing signs of abuse but she did nothing besides call his relatives and they responded by hitting him harder and filing a complaint against the teacher that got her dismissed. At one point, he stopped telling her these things so he could eat his lunch, but once he was done, he continued his story by talking about Marge’s dog and him being stuck in a tree all day, and how nobody did anything besides mock him. All of that and more was on Harry's lips as the words poured out of him, the longest time spent on the cupboard where he lived, and it was the only bedroom he knew for most of his life. He told her all about it and about how he knew that Dumbledore knew about his sleeping conditions at least, his Hogwarts letter was addressed directly to the cupboard after all, but he said nothing to him, did nothing. And, on that note, Harry finally reached the end of his long confession.
“I had hoped coming to the wizarding world would change things, but I think nothing I say or do will ever matter. Dumbledore sent me back to them last summer, despite knowing I lived in a cupboard before coming here, and this summer I know he is going to send me back to them again. I begged and pleaded that he not last year, that he send me anywhere else, but he insisted that it was for my own good.” Harry snorted derisively. “My own good? Hermione, last summer, my aunt hit me in the head with a frying pan for screwing up, and my uncle locked me in my room with a cat flap for food to go through and put bars on my window so I couldn’t get out. He told me I wouldn’t be able to leave, to go back to Hogwarts. I wonder if Dumbledore would have shown up to get me or just left me behind if I missed the train. We’ll never know since Fred, George, and Ron showed up in a flying car and broke me out of there, but before they did, I was afraid. Afraid I could never see Hogwarts again, sure, but I was also afraid that I would never get to see you again. Not seeing Ron would have been bad enough, but I know I would have missed you more than anyone else here. During those days I was trapped in there, I was afraid I was going to die, Hermione, die and never see you or Hogwarts again. Maybe they will kill me this summer, and Dumbledore will not care. Will anyone but you, Hagrid, and Ron care?”
There is a long silence after that, but eventually Harry forced a smile onto his face. “I don’t know if it has really made me feel better, Hermione, but I am glad I could tell you all of this, even if you can’t hear a word I am saying. I don’t think I could ever tell you if you could hear me. I want you to keep looking at me as just Harry, not as a freak or someone to be pitied. That might be worse than how Ron and the others look at me and see the Boy-Who-Lived, how the first thing they ask is to see my scar.”
Of course, what Harry didn’t know was that Hermione was aware of everything going on around her, of every single word he had said to her.
And she was screaming.