Manacled by Senlinyu

Chapter 38: Flashback 13

"You shouldn't have done that," Harry said, while she was in the midst of casting.

"What do you mean?" she asked, pausing mid-spell to look at him. Her breath caught slightly in her chest and her grip on her wand tightened.

"Using Ginny's injury like that." Harry's voice hard and tight. "You made it sound like it was somehow a good thing she got hurt."

Hermione sighed, and fought against an urge to roll her eyes.

"I didn't mean it like that," she said. "You know I hate it when anyone gets hurt."

"You should have waited. You could have brought it up at the next meeting when Ron wasn't feeling so awful. Did you even comfort him because you cared, or just because you wanted to know where the knife was?"

Hermione's hands dropped to her sides and her eyes narrowed as her irritation with Harry bloomed into offense.

"I wanted to make sure he hadn't cut himself with it. I wanted to make sure no one else found it and got injured with it," she said in a steely voice.

Harry sighed and glanced over toward her sharply.

"But that's what you were thinking about. When Ginny was hurt and you were healing her, what you were thinking about was 'Oh look, nicks in her skull. I wonder if this information will be useful for destroying horcruxes.' Your roommate was lying there while you treated her, and that's what you were thinking about. One of your best friends was crying in your arms because he had to cut up his baby sister's face, and all you were thinking about was that fucking knife."

Hermione balled her left hand into a fist so tight she could feel her nails biting into her palm and the shape of her metacarpal bones under her fingertips.

"I am capable of thinking of multiple things at once, Harry." Her tone was icy. "Or would you rather that the mission had been entirely pointless? That Ginny got hurt and it didn't mean anything?"

"Don't treat it like that, Hermione. Don't treat people like they're nothing but an equation to you."

Harry stood up abruptly and stared angrily at her.

Hermione twitched slightly. She couldn't understand the emotional reasoning that Harry employed. It was exhausting to try to figure out where he was coming from. It ate into mental resources she couldn't afford to give him.

"Either this all happens for a reason or it doesn't," she said with cold rage. "You can't have it both ways. If this is all supposed to be meaningful then you can't get offended when I point it out and accuse me of being callous."

Harry paled further and dragged a frustrated hand through his hair. He stared at her with his eyes flashing for a moment before turning away, his lips curled slightly.

"The way you treat people... sometimes, I feel like I don't even know you anymore," he said.

"Maybe you don't," she said in a clipped tone, staring down at her wand, finishing the diagnostic on Ginny.

"You should have waited, you shouldn't have talked about the knife tonight. It's not like we have a horcrux. You could have waited," he said again as though it were the final conclusion of their conversation.

Hermione pursed her lips slightly and took a breath before responding.

"The war isn't going to wait for us to grieve, I'm sorry you disagree with my decision. I didn't mean for it to hurt anyone."

Harry turned away from her.

Hermione walked into the next room and leaned against the wall, feeling somewhat frozen.