Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

customary precision. 'There may be important facts buried there. But there is a form of the Memory Charm which is reversible, and I shall be happy to cast that on you.'

Hermione stared at the wand, feeling the stirrings of hope for the first time in almost two days.

Make it didn't happen... she'd wished that over and over again, for the hands of time to turn back and erase the horrible choice that could never, ever be undone. And if erasing the memory wasn't that, it was still a kind of release...

She looked back at Professor McGonagall's kindly face.

'You really don't think I did it?' Hermione said, her voice trembling.

'I am quite certain you would never do such a thing of your own will.'

Beneath her blankets, Hermione's hands clutched at the sheets. 'Harry doesn't think I did it?'

'Mr. Potter is of the opinion that your memories are entire fabrications. I can rather see his point.'

Then Hermione's clutching fingers let go of the sheet, and she slumped back into the bed, from which she'd partially risen.

No.

She hadn't said anything.

She'd woken up and remembered what had happened last night, and it had been like - like - she couldn't find words even in her own thoughts for what it had been like. But she'd known that Draco Malfoy was already dead, and she hadn't said anything, hadn't gone to Professor Flitwick and confessed. She'd just dressed herself and gone down to breakfast and tried to act normal so that nobody would ever know, and she'd known it was wrong and Wrong and horribly horribly WRONG but she'd been so, so scared -

Even if Harry Potter was right, even if the duel with Draco Malfoy was a lie, she'd made that choice all by herself. She didn't deserve to forget that, or be forgiven for it.

And if she had done the right thing, gone straight to Professor Flitwick, maybe that would've - helped, somehow, maybe everyone would've seen then that she regretted it, and Harry wouldn't have had to give away all his money to save her -

Hermione shut her eyes, squeezed them shut really tight, she couldn't bear to start crying again. 'I'm a horrible person,' she said in a wavering voice. 'I'm awful, I'm not heroic at all -'

Professor McGonagall's voice was very sharp, like Hermione had just made some dreadful mistake on her Transfiguration homework. 'Stop being foolish, Miss Granger! Horrible is whoever did this to you. And as for being heroic - well, Miss Granger, you have already heard my opinion about young girls trying to involve themselves in such things before they are even fourteen, so I shall not lecture you on it again. I shall say only that you have just had an absolutely dreadful experience, which you survived as well as any witch in your year possibly could. Today you are allowed to cry as much as you like. Tomorrow you are going back to class.'

That was when Hermione knew that Professor McGonagall couldn't help her. She needed someone to scold her, she couldn't be absolved if she couldn't be blamed, and Professor McGonagall would never do that for her, would never ask so much of a little Ravenclaw girl.

It was something Harry Potter wouldn't help her with either.

Hermione turned over in the infirmary bed, huddling into herself, away from Professor McGonagall. 'Please,' she whispered. 'I want to talk - to the Headmaster -'

'Hermione.'

When Hermione Granger opened her eyes a second time, she saw the care-lined face of Albus Dumbledore leaning over her bedside, looking almost as though he'd been crying, though that was impossible; and Hermione felt another stabbing pang of guilt for having bothered him so.

'Minerva said you wished to speak with me,' the old wizard said.

'I -' Suddenly Hermione didn't know at all what to say. Her throat locked up, and all she could do was stammer, 'I - I'm -'

Somehow her tone must have communicated the other word, the one she couldn't even say anymore.

'Sorry?' said Dumbledore. 'Why, for what should you be sorry?'

She had to force the words out of her throat. 'You were telling Harry - that he shouldn't pay - so I shouldn't - have done what Professor McGonagall said, I shouldn't have touched his wand -'

'My dear,' said Dumbledore, 'had you not pledged yourself to the House of Potter, Harry would have attacked Azkaban singlehandedly, and quite possibly won. That boy may choose his words carefully, but I have never yet known him to lie; and in the Boy-Who-Lived there is power that the Dark Lord never knew. He would indeed have tried to break Azkaban, even at cost of his life.' The old wizard's voice grew gentler, and kinder. 'No, Hermione, you have nothing at all for which to blame yourself.'

'I could have made him not do it.'

In Dumbledore's eyes a small twinkle appeared before it was lost to weariness. 'Really, Miss Granger? Perhaps you should be Headmistress in my place, for I myself have no such power over stubborn children.'

'Harry promised -' Her voice stopped. The awful truth was very hard to speak. 'Harry Potter promised me - that he would never help me - if I told him not to.'

There was a pause. The distant noises of the infirmary that had accompanied Professor McGonagall had ceased, Hermione realized, when Dumbledore had awoken her. From where she lay in bed she could see only the ceiling, and the top of one wall's windows, but nothing in her range of vision moved, and if there were sounds, she could not hear them.

'Ah,' said Dumbledore. The old wizard sighed heavily. 'I suppose it is possible that the boy would have kept his promise.'

'I should - I should've -'