Chapter Eleven (Hermione Interlude)

Hermione Granger liked to think she was a rather intelligent witch. She hated to think poorly of her friends, but she considered herself the 'brains' of the Golden Trio and was proud of this fact. Ron was… well Ron, and if it didn't have to do with Quidditch or food he really couldn't be bothered to care. She was constantly pestering him to do his homework and study for class and to practice his spells; she despaired of ever getting him voluntarily into a library. And Harry…

Harry just didn't seem motivated to do well in class. She knew Harry was intelligent, and she knew he was more powerful than he let on, but he seemed to have followed Ron's lead on how to handle homework and classes rather than her own. It was almost worse in her eyes that Harry was smart enough to pass all his classes with an A or above without actually putting forth any effort. She just knew that if he actually pushed himself he could easily be up in the top of the class with herself.

It was more than disappointing, but she'd had almost six years to become accustomed to the boys and their deplorable study habits.

Hermione was not oblivious, nor was she particularly naïve. She knew she could come off as a little bossy to others, and she was fully aware that her 'know-it-all' tendencies that cropped up when she was nervous had done very little to endear her to her housemates in first year. And she knew she tended to mother Harry more than was strictly necessary—or appropriate—but she couldn't help it. He was always getting into life-threatening situations, and the worst part was that he wasn't actually looking for them so much as he seemed to blunder into them completely by accident.

She was going to have grey hairs by the time she was thirty, she could tell.

And seeing as how Harry had absolutely no compunctions about throwing himself headfirst into various dangerous schemes with little to no regard for his own wellbeing, Hermione had taken it upon herself to be the Voice of Reason he obviously lacked. She was actually rather concerned about his strange martyr tendencies, and had often considered that he was under some sort of spell to make him exceptionally reckless. She'd discreetly looked up counter-curses to compulsions and other behavioral-modification spells and hit him with them when he was distracted, but nothing had changed that she could tell.

She was completely unrepentant that she'd hit Harry with spells without his knowledge. If he had been under a compulsion, she would have dispelled it and no one would have been the wiser. If he hadn't been… well that was almost more worrying because that meant his behavior was completely his own. She wasn't sure what that said about his mental state, but it made her uneasy.

All of their yearly adventures had given Hermione almost a sixth sense for when Harry was endangering himself needlessly. So it wasn't much of a surprise when she sat bolt upright in the middle of the library when her Harry-senses suddenly went haywire.

"Oh dear…" Hermione sighed, closed the book she'd been reading (a rather fascinating tome about the art of conjuration) and stood, preparing to go find Harry and make sure he hadn't caused some sort of irreparable harm to himself while she wasn't there to watch him.

She hurried down the hall towards the stairs, sure that Harry would have retreated to Sirius' old room in an effort to avoid everyone like he usually did. She met him halfway down the second floor hallway staggering out of a room under the weight of a big black robe, and smiled in relief that he didn't seem maimed or otherwise injured. She paused mid-step when Harry turned to look at her and his strangely bulky robe turned with him.

Oh.

That wasn't a robe at all. That was Death—she was skeptical about his true identity, but lacking any evidence to the contrary she would merely accept it for now—clinging to Harry's back like a strange, bipedal leech. Oddly enough, Death seemed to have both his (unhealthily thin) hands wrapped around each of Harry's wrists and it was this awkward position that had made Harry stumble in the first place.

She mentally took a step back from the problem and attempted to understand what she was looking at. Harry looked fondly exasperated (not an expression she'd ever seen on his face before, but one that suited him), but not excessively bothered by the fact that a grown man was hanging off of him or standing so very far into his personal space. Harry generally hated people touching him, and kept a bubble around him that was nearly physical in intensity when around others. He flinched from her hugs and shied away from claps to the shoulder and back, and she could only remember three separate times where he initiated any sort of physical contact with someone. This made it especially odd that he was exhibiting none of the tense body language he normally did when being touched in a purposeful way. In fact, if she didn't know any better, she'd say Harry looked positively relaxed.

Death, on the other hand, looked almost as if he was simultaneously terrified that something horrible was about to happen, and incredibly ecstatic that it wasn't happening now. Those unnerving electric eyes were staring fixatedly at where he was holding onto Harry's wrists, almost as if he was not entirely sure he was awake. His face for once was not stretched into a manic grin, but rather into a wistful sort of smile that looked like it belonged on the face of someone much older than he currently appeared.

"…Harry?" she ventured tentatively, hovering uncertainly a few feet away. Harry smiled reassuringly at her, and Death flicked up absinthe eyes to momentarily stare into her very soul before returning to his strange wrist-fixation.

"It's all right, 'Mione. He just hasn't touched anyone in a while."

Somehow Hermione figured that was a massive understatement. Par the course for Harry, she thought fondly. She was unable to figure out what had set off her Harry-senses though. He didn't seem injured, and with Death glued to him like that she figured no one would have been able to slip him something without it being noticed immediately.

Fortunately Death enlightened her, seemingly without actually noticing that she was present at all. "It is fortunate our souls are similar enough that you were spared my Touch, little shell. I would have dreaded returning your soul to your body, knowing the pain it would have caused you."

Hermione felt her world narrow to a pinprick.

What. Harry had what.

Souls? Touch? Hermione's mind was running in circles, struggling to comprehend the enormity of what Harry had somehow blundered into while she was otherwise occupied. Harry himself had paled, staring at her wide-eyed, and she knew that he was about to make excuses and promise that he had everything under control.

"'Mione, I can explain—"

Nope. Hermione would have none of it.

If he hadn't had a man currently holding both his wrists hostage she would have latched onto his arm to ensure he couldn't escape. Her expression must have been suitably foreboding, because Harry attempted to make an escape.

Unfortunately for Harry, his passenger did not seem to sense the danger—or care about it—and prevented him from fleeing by the simple process of being both taller and (seemingly despite all evidence to the contrary) physically stronger than Harry and was thus unmoved. Hermione smiled grimly, satisfied that her friend could not wiggle out of this conversation. And it would be a conversation. Hermione Granger could nag with the best of them, but this was a situation that required promises of avoiding future life-threatening situations that threatened the soul, and so they would both be participating, she'd make sure of it. And if she could knock some sense into the boy in the process, well…

She wouldn't mind too terribly much.