When Harry appeared outside the maze, collapsing to the ground and not moving, the blood in Hermione's veins felt like they had frozen, as if her heart itself had stopped beating.

She shot up from her seat in the stands and elbowed her way through the throng of people, struggling to keep an eye on him the whole time.

Someone's hat blocked her view and when she could see again, he was gone from the spot. Panic grew in her chest. "Harry!"

Then she saw him being carried like a sack by Mad Eye Moody, away from the Quidditch Pitch. Where was he taking him? If Harry was injured, the healer's tent was the opposite way—

"Harry!" she shouted, louder now, running towards him.

By the time she reached him, she was confronted with a wild eyed Harry standing above the unconscious form of Moody. Other people had come forward too, encircling Moody and buzzing with noise. And Harry, his wand was still raised towards the crowd, his eyes shifting nervously between everyone, his back hunched in a defensive posture. He reminded Hermione of a trapped animal, bearing its teeth.

She broke through the circle, not caring that she had just shoved aside the Minister of Magic, and watched as Harry's whole being seemed to relax when she appeared. He swayed towards the ground and Hermione caught him before he could truly fall, taking him into her arms.

When Moody was discovered to be Crouch and questioned, she felt Harry tremble and was stunned at the pure fury she saw in his eyes.

When Harry cut off Crouch's arm containing the Dark Mark, everyone screamed, but Hermione was quiet. Numb. She wondered if she was the only one who had seen the helplessness in Harry's face, the vulnerability.

He didn't look like a "vicious brute!" as Fudge later claimed.

He looked like a boy, lost, and with nothing left to lose.

_____

"Will he be okay?" Hermione asked anxiously, after Madam Pomfrey was finally done with healing Harry. "Why is he still not waking up?"

"I've fixed all the external wounds I could, but the mental trauma he's suffered tonight will not be as easy. He's been tortured with the cruciatus—more times than I can identify. His body has also been overworked beyond what it can handle." She looked worriedly at the infirmary bed where Harry lay, twitching and murmuring in his sleep. "I expect that he will wake several times throughout the next few hours, but he might not be in his right mind. If you can't handle that Miss Granger—"

"I'm not leaving him!" Hermione said fiercely.

Madam Pomfrey gave her the first smile of that evening and replied, "I had expected as much."

The first time Harry woke up, he shot up in bed, looking wildly around at the white curtains surrounding the bed as if he expected something to jump out of them.

"Harry," Hermione said softly, careful not to startle him.

"Hermione," he grasped her hand as if reaching for a lifeline. "Hermione, he's dead."

"Who is?"

"Wormtail. Peter Pettigrew. I killed him, Hermione."

Hermione went still, but showed no change in her outward expression.

"I didn't mean it, not really. He was in the way—I was trying to escape and get to the cup—and he was going to try and stop me. So I used the bubblehead charm—the new one that I experimented with—and I left him behind. I think I assumed that he would break free of it quickly like Flitwick had, but when I looked back he was burning. Melting." Harry was babbling. "And do you know the worst part? I didn't even feel sorry. I was glad—glad that he died. Glad that it was painful."

He looked at her as if expecting her to accuse him, as if waiting for some terrible blow. But all Hermione could find in herself to say was, "I'm glad too."

When he froze in surprise, she scoffed. "What, did you think I would want him alive? He's the reason your parents were murdered. He's the reason Sirius spent twelve years in Azkaban, not to mention all those poor muggles he killed. The reason why you grew up without a family. You gave him a chance last year and what was the result? He ran off to Voldemort and crawled on his knees to be traitorous, murdering scum. Wormtail deserved to die and pay for his crimes long ago."

"He deserved it," Harry murmured and fell back to sleep.

The second time he woke up, he was calmer; the solemnity in his expression unnerved her.

"Lucius Malfoy," he said quietly.

"What about him?"

"I cut off his head." Harry held up his wand hand in wonder. "I knew what I was doing this time. I pretended I was back in the Room of Requirement, practicing. That he was just another dummy. But when his head rolled on the ground and I saw the blood trickling down his neck and into the grass, I couldn't lie to myself anymore."

"And if you hadn't?"

"Hadn't what?"

"Hadn't killed him. What would have happened then?"

His expression morphed into one of pain; Hermione hated to see it on him but she forced herself to wait for his answer.

"He would have stopped me from reaching the cup by cutting off an arm or leg. He threatened to break my bones too, actually. Then he would have taken my limp body back to Voldemort and they would toss me around like a doll again. And then I would die."

"And what did I tell you before you went into that maze?"

Harry scrunched up his face in concentration, trying to remember. "You told me... to survive. No matter what."

"That's right. You survived, Harry. That's all that matters, do you understand?" Harry nodded his head hesitantly, but Hermione wasn't done yet.

"Lucius Malfoy was no ordinary Death Eater. His power and influence in the Ministry ensured that many, many others escaped from punishment scot free. He worked directly under Voldemort to spread chaos and propaganda from within during the first war, and I have no doubt that if you hadn't killed him, he would have done the same again. By killing him, you robbed Voldemort of a weapon he sorely needed. By killing him, you gave justice to a man who would probably always slither his way out of the legal system. A man with more blood on his hands than I could possibly know."

"I wasn't thinking of all that when I killed him." Harry frowned. "But I suppose it's for the best he died. He would have killed more people if I hadn't."

"You had no choice, Harry." Hermione said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

He seemed to accept that fact and went back to sleep.

The third time he woke up, he seemed angry. He looked at Hermione with reddened eyes and clenched his hands into fists at his side.

"Why are you trying to excuse what I've done?" he said. "I heard what people were screaming before I fainted. They called me a brute—a monster."

"For cutting off Crouch's hand? After all he's done! After he was responsible for this whole predicament in the first place! He's the reason you were sent to that graveyard, he's the reason Voldemort is back! Whoever points their finger at you instead of him is just deflecting blame for not knowing what he was doing right under their noses!" Hermione stood up from her chair. "That's not even mentioning that he was already sentenced to life in Azkaban!"

"I hated him," Harry whispered. "I still do—all of them."

"I hate them too," she answered, venom in her voice as she thought of the people who had reduced Harry to this broken state. "It's only human to hate monsters like them, Harry."

The word 'monster' seemed to jolt him back to his senses. He stared at her so earnestly she wanted to cry.

"If I'm not a monster, then... what am I?"

He looked so small then, so scared of her answer. Hermione dug her nails into her palm, fighting back her tears, but in the end her bottom lip still trembled when she replied:

"You're a boy, Harry. A boy thrust into a war with no choice but to survive." She reached out and gathered him in her arms, hugging him tightly. "You were strong and brave in a situation you had no control over. You did nothing wrong."

He said nothing but the tears she felt on her shirt were answer enough.