afraid for, when you fight?"
"Hannah Abbott," Hermione said without having to think about it, and then felt a little bad, because Hannah was trying hard and she had improved a lot -
"Would you feel okay about trusting someone else, like Tracey, with final responsibility for protecting Hannah? If you knew Hannah was about to walk into an ambush, and you came up with a plan for protecting her, would you feel good about letting Tracey say whether or not you were allowed to do it?"
"Well... no?" said Hermione, puzzled.
The green eyes of the Boy-Who-Lived were steady on hers. "Would you trust Hannah to have the final say in whether she needed protecting?"
"I -" said Hermione, and then paused. It was strange, she knew the right answer and she also knew the right answer wasn't actually true. Hannah was trying so hard to prove she wasn't afraid, even though she was, and it was easy to see how the Hufflepuff girl might try too hard -
Then Hermione realized the implication. "You think I'm like Hannah?"
"Not... exactly..." Harry ran his hands through his mess of hair. "Listen, Hermione, what would you have suggested doing, if I'd warned you about an ambush by forty-four bullies?"
"I would've done the responsible thing and told Professor McGonagall and let her take care of it," Hermione said promptly. "And then there wouldn't have been darkness and people screaming and horrible blue light -"
But Harry just shook his head. "That's not the responsible thing to do, Hermione. It's what someone playing the role of a responsible girl would do. Yes, I thought of going to Professor McGonagall. But she would've only stopped the disaster once. Probably before any disturbance happened in the first place, like by telling the bullies she knew. If the bullies got punished just for plotting, it would be by losing House points, or at worst a day's detention, not anything that would really scare them. And then the bullies would have tried again. Fewer of them, with better operational security so I didn't hear about it. They would probably ambush one of you, alone. Professor McGonagall doesn't have the authority to do something scary enough to protect you - and she wouldn't have overstepped her authority, because she's not really responsible."
"Professor McGonagall isn't responsible?" Hermione said incredulously. She jammed her hands on her hips, now openly glaring at him. "Are you nuts?"
The boy didn't blink. "You could call it heroic responsibility, maybe," Harry Potter said. "Not like the usual sort. It means that whatever happens, no matter what, it's always your fault. Even if you tell Professor McGonagall, she's not responsible for what happens, you are. Following the school rules isn't an excuse, someone else being in charge isn't an excuse, even trying your best isn't an excuse. There just aren't any excuses, you've got to get the job done no matter what." Harry's face tightened. "That's why I say you're not thinking responsibly, Hermione. Thinking that your job is done when you tell Professor McGonagall - that isn't heroine thinking. Like Hannah being beat up is okay then, because it isn't your fault anymore. Being a heroine means your job isn't finished until you've done whatever it takes to protect the other girls, permanently." In Harry's voice was a touch of the steel he had acquired since the day Fawkes had been on his shoulder. "You can't think as if just following the rules means you've done your duty."
"I think," Hermione said evenly, "that you and I might disagree about some things, Mr. Potter. Like whether you or Professor McGonagall is more responsible, and whether being responsible usually involves people running around and screaming, and how much it's a good idea to follow school rules. And just because we disagree, Mr. Potter, doesn't mean that you get the final say."
"Well," said Harry, "you asked what was so awful about having to ask you first, and it was a surprisingly good question, so I examined my mind and that's what I found. I think my real fear is that if Hannah is in trouble and I come up with a way to save her that seems weird or dark or something, you might not weigh the consequences to Hannah. You might not accept the heroine's responsibility of coming up with some way to save her, somehow, no matter what. Instead you'd just carry out the role of Hermione Granger, the sensible Ravenclaw girl; and the role of Hermione Granger automatically says no, whether or not she has a better plan in mind. And then forty-four bullies will take turns beating up Hannah Abbott, and it'll all be my fault because I knew, even if I didn't want reality to be that way, I knew that was how it would go. I'm pretty sure that was my secret, wordless, unutterable fear."
The frustration was building up inside her again. "It's my life!" Hermione burst out. She could imagine what it would be like with Harry messing with her all the time, constantly inventing justifications not to ask her first and not to listen to her objections. She shouldn't have to win an argument just to - "There'll always be some reason, you can always say I'm not thinking right! I want my own life! Otherwise I'll walk away, I really will, I mean it Harry."
Harry sighed. "This is exactly where I didn't want things to end up, and here we are. You're afraid of just the same thing I am, aren't you? Afraid that if you let go of the steering wheel, we'll crash." The corners of his lips twisted, but it didn't look like a real smile. "That's something I can understand."
"I don't think you understand at all!" Hermione said sharply. "You said we'd be partners, Harry!"
That stopped him, she could see it stop him.
"How about this?" Harry said at last. "I'll promise to ask you first before I do anything that could be interpreted as meddling in your affairs. Only you've got to promise me to be reasonable, Hermione. I mean really, genuinely, stop and think for twenty seconds first, treat it as a real choice. The sort of reasonableness where you realize I'm offering a way to protect the other girls, and that if you automatically say no without considering it properly, there's this actual consequence where Hannah Abbott ends up in the hospital."
Hermione stared at Harry, as his recitation wound down.
"Well?" said Harry.
