/ what she knew /

Hermione's fist was inches away from the wooden exterior of the headmaster's door when she remembered that she did not need to knock. She grimaced good-naturedly to herself. Even after five years of being the top witch in her year she still forgot that Dumbledore's study couldn't be entered by knocking. Withdrawing her hand from the door she said, "Erumpent Horn." The wooden door in front of her slid back, giving her view of a long, spiraling staircase that reached from floor to ceiling. A small door was placed at the top, providing access to one of the very, very few locations in the school she had not yet be privy to: the headmaster's office.

She began to climb the stairs, her heart thumping in her throat. She had managed to coax the password to the headmaster's office out of Harry, but when she'd asked, his bright green eyes behind large glasses had looked slightly suspicious. He had known her long enough to perceive when she was up to something. Oh well. He wasn't here now, and that was good enough, though deep inside her she couldn't help slightly wishing that he'd appear out of nowhere, blocking her from mounting the steps and showing her sense. But of course that wasn't going to happen. And she wanted to get to the bottom of this. Didn't she?

Dumbledore's withered hand...his sudden meetings with Harry...his long absences...they couldn't be coincidences, could they? The later must surely be connected to the former. And the more she thought, the more the truth was revealed to her, and the more her stomach heaved within her...no, she couldn't jump to conclusions. She had an inference. Not the truth, not yet. And until then...well, she could hope. She clutched her Transfiguration papers closer to her chest and fingered the quill that she had stuck half-hazardly behind her ear. Catching sight of herself in the mirrored surface of the stairway banisters, she saw she looked quite flustered, her hair a mess, flyaway and bushy as always. She found herself wondering if she looked like this all the time-she sure hoped not. Without thinking she nervously patted her hair down in the way Harry so often did every morning, each time without avail.

"Miss Granger," the old, kindly voice said, voice perfectly smooth, not indicating anything except detached politeness. "So good to see you. Please make yourself at home."

Hermione startled. She had been so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed that she had entered the Headmaster's Office. "Um-sorry sir. I should have announced my presence."

"Quite all right, I assure you. What brings you here tonight?" He glanced through his half-moon spectacles at Hermione's wrinkled Transfiguration papers, bringing Hermione back to herself.

"You see, sir, I'm ahead of the class, I mean, just a little bit, so I thought, you know, that I could try some advanced stuff and Professor McGonagall agreed and so I was looking as this book, sir, about how to transfigure a needle into a dog and I…"

It came to her belatedly that she was rambling. She trailed away as she met his kindly but intense blue stare. He was not convinced, she realized. He had never been. He had known the moment she had walked in the door that she was here for more than a few mildly irritating Transfiguration problems.

"I, ah…" Words failed her. Eloquent speeches materialized in her mind and then faded away, leaving her empty. She was stripped bare by his inscrutable gaze. He held out his withered, useless hand.

"You want to know the truth, don't you," he said. It was not a question. He stared at his shrunken hand as though it held all the answers.

Hermione stared at his hand also, highlighted by the light of a sickle moon. It looked as though someone had taken out its bones and wrung it out like a rag. Wrinkled. Mutilated. Disgusting. She nodded mutely, almost unaware she was doing it.

Dumbledore let his hand drop. "You know about the horcruxes," he said without preamble. "You know what Harry and I are facing."

"Yes, but why does Harry have to do it?" Hermione burst out, the question that she had been holding onto for so long finally forcing its way out of her.

"First of all, because of the prophecy," Dumbledore said. "And second of all…" He fell silent, studying his hand.

"You're busy," Hermione said breathlessly, after a moment of silence. "You are gone from Hogwarts for long periods of time." She stopped, waiting for his affirmation. He gave a curt nod, his eyes still focused on his hand. She took a deep, shuddering breath, heart beating violently, wishing herself anywhere but there in that moment and yet needing to know the answer, or needing to confirm the answer she already knew as true. She didn't know which.

"Your withered hand was caused by something definitely magical," Hermione continued, "and probably cursed. You have been hunting horcruxes, so I am guessing it is something of that sort that caused this." She gestured at his hand. Silence stretched between them.

"You guess correct." He looked up at her now, wry amusement in his eyes. Hermione couldn't meet his gaze. She stared down fixedly at her lap.

"You should be in Saint Mungo's," she whispered. Tears burned at the back of her throat, as painful to squeeze out as the words. "You...have poison in your blood."

Her words reverberated around the room. Portraits, pretending to be asleep, cracked eyelids with alarmed faces. Phineas Nigellus said sharply, "You said you would not tell anyone anything, Dumbledore."

"I have not," Dumbledore said calmly, not turning around. "This girl has figured it out for herself."

Phineas Nigellus gave Hermione a distasteful glare before vanishing from his portrait.

Dumbledore angled his body towards Hermione. "Finish your thought, my dear," he said gently.

A long moment passed. Conflicted emotions wrestled inside Hermione. She raised her gaze from her intent stare into her lap, her chin wobbling and her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"No," she said. A tear slipped down her cheek. And then more violently, "No! No, I won't!" She stood and ran to the door without thinking, her hand on the knob. She was pinned in place again, however, by his gaze,

"If you can not finish the thought," Dumbledore said, "then I will. I have poison in my blood. There is no cure. Within a year I shall die." He stared impassively at her, his good hand resting on the back of his chair.

Hermione couldn't stop staring into his warm blue eyes, at his mangled hand, and back again, as the words echoed and reechoed in her consciousness, each time making less sense. She felt as though an irrevocable freezing charm had been placed on her. She couldn't move, or breathe, or feel. Her mind was stalling, a treadmill pedaling again and again. She couldn't call up any action or emotion other than buzzing shock.

"Hermione," Dumbledore said gently, "now you know there is a price to knowing things others do not know. Remaining ignorant protects you of many things."

"It will not protect us from Voldemort," Hermione said, finding her voice.

"That it will not," Dumbledore agreed. Gesturing to Hermione, he flicked his wand and a cup of tea appeared, ready made and steaming hot. Hermione accepted it numbly. Her hands felt like stiff boards, unable to curl around the object she was straining to hold.

"Hermione," Dumbledore said quietly as she took a few hesitant sips of the tea, "do not, under any circumstances, share what I have just told you will anyone. Do you understand?" His tone was stern.

Hermione nodded stiffly.

"Do not feel sorry for me for my nearing death," he said softly. "I have had a long, and perhaps some would say, fruitful life. I am quite ready to be put to rest."

"I am not sorry for you," Hermione said, her words cutting. "I am sorry for the wizarding world, who, as you full well know, will not be able to go on without you."

"Ah, but you are wrong about that, Miss Granger," Dumbledore replied. "We all have reservoirs of strength inside us. If we draw upon them and put them together, there is nothing we can't do."

"We need you," Hermione said earnestly. Her words fell, dead upon the air. Dumbledore bowed his head, suddenly seeming very weary.

"Remember I have made mistakes too," he said. "and although I'm a wizard, I'm also a flawed human, as you might do well to remember." He glanced at his watch. "Now," he said briskly, "would you like to be Obliviated before you go? I am quite accomplished at memory charms, so I can promise you I will erase no more of your memory than you wish. I can even provide you with the memory of hot tea while erasing the rest of our conversation. Would you like that?"

Hermione stared at him, hands trembling at her sides. She wanted to have the pain of this knowledge leave, didn't she? No, a voice said inside her. No. "No sir," she said aloud.

Dumbledore stroked his beard and sighed. "I thought you would say that. Well, it is past your bedtime. I'm afraid the Fat Lady is not as cheerful at these late hours, so you better hurry on now, and quickly."

Hermione gulped down her tears and left without finishing her tea, and before she could burst into tears, fled into the hallway and down the stairs. A cold draft came up the dark corridor. Moonlight danced through the windows, sending shivering beams to the floor; painting the branches of the Forbidden Forest an unearthly sheen of white. The lake was a black mirror, reflecting the sky.

Outlined in moonlight and dark sorrow, a silhouette of a girl stood, the white light catching at transparent pearls that glittered like a necklace across her cheeks. Her hair blew in the nighttime breeze from the open window. It drifted across her face, blotting her silhouette in an inky blackness. The clouds covered the moon, and she was covered from view.

Her secret, laid bare before the moon, would be kept locked in her heart for a year longer.

She would bear the pain of it all alone.