Hermione sat at the long table in the library, her fingers tracing the grain of the wood. The silence of the room felt heavy, though the noise of other students stirring in the distance provided a constant, low hum. She knew what she had seen in the corridor, and she knew the truth of the accusation, but she said nothing. It was a difficult thing to hold a secret in the shape of a person, especially when that person was Harry Potter. Every time she looked at him, she felt the urge to scream the truth, to tell the professors that he was not a thief of hearts or a brewer of illicit potions. She wanted to tell them that his innocence was as plain as the scar on his forehead, yet she kept her mouth shut.
Harry sat three tables away, surrounded by a small group of people who were discussing the latest developments in the investigation. He looked tired, the skin beneath his eyes dark and bruised from lack of sleep. He did not look like a man who had spent his afternoon being interrogated by a panel of senior staff. He looked like a man who was simply waiting for the next blow to fall. He kept glancing toward her, his green eyes searching for some sign of a verdict in her expression, but she gave him nothing. She looked down at her book, pretending to read the same paragraph for the fourth time.
A girl from Ravenclaw walked past her, dropping a heavy stack of parchment onto the table next to hers. The sound made her jump, and she felt a sudden, sharp prick of guilt. She was being selfish, holding onto the knowledge of his innocence as if it were a weapon she could use against him later. She watched Harry as he leaned forward to listen to a question from a classmate. He was being too patient, too quiet, and it made her want to weep. If she spoke, the investigation would change; if she stayed silent, the suspicion would continue to fester around him like a bruise.
"You've been staring at that same page for twenty minutes, Hermione."
The voice belonged to Greta, who slid into the seat across from her with a practiced grace. Greta did not seem concerned about the scandal currently tearing through the house, or the fact that half the faculty was currently debating the morality of Harry Potter. She looked perfectly composed, her robes neat and her hair pinned back with precision. Hermione blinked, trying to shake the fog from her mind, and forced a smile that felt far too tight on her face.
"It is a complex passage," Hermione lied, closing the book with a soft thud.
Greta leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. She watched the way Hermione’s hands trembled slightly against the tabletop. She knew the girl was holding something back, a tension that lived in the set of her shoulders and the way her gaze kept darting toward the boy in the distance. Harry was watching them now, his eyes fixed on the space between them, waiting for a break in the silence. He looked vulnerable, stripped of his usual confidence by the sheer weight of the accusations.
"It is more than a complex passage," Greta said, her voice dropping an octave. "You look like you are carrying the weight of the entire school on your back."
"I am just thinking," Hermione replied, her voice steadier than she felt.
"You are not thinking, you are hiding," Greta countered.
Hermione turned her attention back to the room, scanning the faces of the students around her. She saw the way people whispered when Harry walked past, the way the air seemed to shift when his name was mentioned in a corner. The accusation was a rot, and she was the only one who held the cure, yet she felt paralyzed by it. If she told them he was innocent, she would have to explain how she knew. She would have to admit that she had seen the moment of the supposed 'dosing', or she would have to admit that she had felt the effects of the potion herself.
"People are saying he did it quite convincingly," Greta said, her tone casual, as if she were discussing the weather rather than a criminal allegation. "They say he is a master of the subtle art of the charm, that he knew exactly how to make it look like a mistake."
"He is not that clever," Hermione said, the words escaping before she could filter them.
"Perhaps he is more clever than you want to admit," Greta replied.
Hermione felt a flush creep up her neck. She wanted to defend him, to shout that Harry Potter was many things, but a calculating manipulator of potions was not one of them. He was too honest, too blunt, too much of a hero to play such a low, dirty game. But to defend him was to reveal her own position, and she was not ready to stand in the light of his defense. She preferred the shadows of her silence, even if the shadows were starting to feel claustrophobic.
Harry moved then, standing up from his table to head toward the exit. As he passed her table, his gaze caught hers for a fleeting second. There was a plea in his eyes, a desperate, silent question that made her heart ache. He did not stop, he did not speak, he simply moved on, leaving a trail of hushed conversation in his wake. Hermione watched his back as he walked away, feeling the hollowness in her chest grow.
"He is waiting for you to say something," Greta observed, her eyes never leaving Hermione's face.
"He is not waiting for me," Hermione whispered, though she knew it was a lie.
"He is," Greta insisted. "The whole school is waiting to see if you will be the one to tip the scales."
Hermione looked back down at her book, the words blurring into meaningless shapes. She thought about the way the pink liquid had felt in her hand, and the way the scent of the potion had seemed to strip away her defenses. She thought about the accusation she had leveled at him, and the way he had accepted it with a grace that felt like a knife to her ribs. He was letting her ruin him, and she was letting him.
"You could end this right now," Greta said, her voice softening, though there was no warmth in it. "You could walk up to him and tell the truth. The tension would break."
"The tension is not the problem," Hermione said, her voice sharp.
"Then what is the problem?" Greta asked.
Hermione looked up at the ceiling, imagining the vast, empty space above the stone arches of the library. She felt the truth sitting in the back of her throat, heavy and metallic. She knew that if she spoke, the entire structure of her defense—the bluff she had been running since the beginning—would collapse. She would no longer be the victim of a crime; she would be a participant in a lie.
"He's letting you pay for this on purpose. Ask yourself why."