Broken
The Watch
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two hours. Someone had given her a watch, and she had been staring at it since,
watching as the seconds ticked by, turning into minutes, turning
into hours. She had ran out of tears long ago, but she hadn’t moved out of her
corner, holding the pocket watch as if it were the most precious thing in the
world, hearing the rhythmic tic, tic, tic
of time moving on, waiting for no one.
had left with the strangers, and they had closed the door again, but Sirius had
stayed behind. She was glad for that, she didn’t want
to be alone in that strange room, wondering if it would all vanish in a second.
Two hours, one minute.
was sitting close to her, but not too close. He had been silent the entire
time, just sitting there and watching the opposite wall, offering silent
company. It had been him that had given her the watch, now that she thought
about it. He had held it out to her by the chain, and when she’d looked at him
in question, he’d merely shrugged and smiled. She still wasn’t sure why she’d
taken it. Two hours, two minutes.
felt him move beside her, and let her gaze dart from the watch to him as he
stretched out his legs and arched his back.
too old to sit still for so long,” he said. “How long have we been here?”
hours, three minutes,” she said, and saw him smile. Only then did she realise
that, with the little ticking sound, the fear had started to slowly faint. It
wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t ruling her every move and reaction. Her heart wasn’t
trying to beat out of her chest, the voice of danger in
her head wasn’t screaming that she needed to run away.
knew that would help you calm down,” he said. “It always works for me.”
fell silent again, and she focused on the watch. Two hours, six minutes. Holding it, watching it, gave her a sense
of control she couldn’t understand, but it was welcomed nonetheless.
dead,” she said, when she reached the count of two hours, fourteen minutes. She
saw him turn to her from the corner of her eye. “How can you be here if you’re
dead?”
didn’t die,” he explained, “I was just trapped inside the veil.”
did you get back?” she asked, turning to him, watching his expression change,
as if he were remembering something painful.
guess I was lucky,” he said, with a small shrug.
did I get back?” Her need to know
what had happened to her was stronger than any reserve, any distrust for this
man she barely knew, that she hadn’t seen in so long.
This man she still wasn’t sure was real.
don’t know much, yet,” he said. “Harry was contacted by Muggle authorities this
morning. They said you were in this hospital, and little else.” He rested his
head back against the wall but never looked away from her as he spoke in that
same soft tone. “We spoke with the police when we arrived, but then I waited
here in the room while Harry talked to the medical staff, and about an hour
after we arrived you woke up. We didn’t even have time
to call anyone else. I was with Harry when he received the call, and we came
here right away.”
how…”
did you get here?” he finished her question, and she nodded. “From what they
said, the Muggle police believe you escaped from whoever was holding you
captive. There were fresh cuts on your feet, and splinters of wood, as if you
had ran barefoot through a forest. At some point you fell into a river. The
current was very strong after weeks of rain, and it dragged you downhill, where
a fisherman saw you.” He gave her a few seconds to take in all that information
before continuing. “You weren’t breathing when he found you, your heart had
stopped but he did something, I think they called it CRP, and got your heart
beating again. You were lucky he was there.”
she repeated, looking away. “Do you-” She took a deep breath before asking a question
she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer for. “Do you know how long it was? For how
long I was…away?”
he didn’t answer, she turned to him again. The expression on his face was sad,
as if he knew she didn’t really want to know, but understood she needed to.
Finally, he said, “It’s been four years and five months, six months this
Wednesday.”
looked up at the roof, trying to blink fresh tears away as she tried to speak.
“It felt so much longer,” she whispered. “It felt so much longer.”
know the feeling,” he said, moving closer to her, so their shoulders were
touching. She shied away from him without even thinking, breaking the contact,
but still somewhere in her mind she was glad for the small touch, the small
sense of comfort it provided. But more so for his understanding, for the fact
that he seemed to know she needed space, and needed company at the same time.
door opened again, and Harry was there. His gaze darted from her to Sirius,
before he asked, “Is everything okay?”
looked down, focusing on the watch in her hands again. Two hours, forty eight minutes.
need me to stay here a while longer, they want me to wait for some detective.
It could take a few hours.”
can stay here with her.”
I was thinking it would be best if we took her somewhere else, somewhere
familiar. Would you mind taking her to Grimmauld Place and waiting for me
there?”
do you say, Hermione,” Sirius asked her, his voice still as soft as it had been
from the moment she woke up. It felt good to be taken into consideration, to be
asked her opinion. She had missed that. “Would you like to go to Grimmauld
Place?”
wasn’t sure she wanted to go there, but she didn’t want to stay in this room
any more, so she lifted her head to look at him again and nodded.
wait for you there,” Sirius said, and after a few more seconds she heard the
door close. “Do you think you can Apparate there with me, or would you rather
use a Muggle taxi?”
felt her heart beating faster again, and it took her a moment to realise she
was scared- Scared of leaving this place, afraid they would find her. She
couldn’t risk them getting to her again, she couldn’t
go back to that place. She wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling her knees
to her chest as her gaze locked on the door. They would find her, they would
come, they always did. If she went out they would get
her, they would take her to her cell again, they would…
hand was on her face, forcing her to turn to him, and even as she winced at the
contact his touch made her feel safer, his grey eyes made her feel calm. He was
telling her it would be all right, asking her to calm down, promising her
nothing would hurt her, but it wasn’t his words that made her feel better. It
was the certainty on his face, the honesty in his eyes, that
made her allow herself to believe him, if only for a few minutes.
are lots of people out there, I’m sure they won’t notice if we Apparate from
here. Is that okay?” he asked, and after a few seconds she nodded, hesitantly taking
the hand he offered and letting him pull her to her feet. “Ready?” he asked, as
he pulled her closer, and she let him hold her arm as the world around her spun
and vanished.