packing in favour of one final pass around the Quidditch pitch. Ron had been all too eager
to accompany her, leaving Hermione to "fix" the angry and desperate look in Harry's eyes
on her own.
"You can't know what he would have wanted, Hermione," Harry stubbornly
contended. "Can't you just...? There must be something in the library; the Restricted
Section, maybe. You could use my cloak to go. No one has to know about it. Can you
look? For me?"
"Harry, you can't bring back the dead," she said, hoping to put an end to the
outlandish idea. "Snape used the Killing Curse. No one survives that!" The immediate
expression on Harry's face made her regret her choice of words.
"I did!"
She recoiled at his volume but still placed a gentle hand on his arm. "You are not
to blame. Just because you survived the Killing Curse does not mean anyone who is killed
is more deserving of being spared from it than you." She lowered her tone to something
softer as she saw his eyes begin to glaze with tears. "Besides, you didn't die and come back,
Harry. You repelled it. There's a difference."
She hoped he would finally allow himself to grieve and move on. Dumbledore was
dead, and there was no bringing anyone back from the dead. They had been taught that
lesson entirely too well over the past few years.
July 9th, 1997One week later, Hermione sat in Ron's bedroom at the Burrow, a book on
Horcruxes open in her lap. It was one of the tomes that she had summoned from
Dumbledore's office prior to leaving Hogwarts, and while there were things in the texts
that she would have rather never read, she had other chapters saved with several
bookmarks for later perusing. The subject of death had become something of an obsession
for her. There was definitely no coming back from the dead. However, in-depth research