Chapter 59: Strong!

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"Please, tell me what's wrong," she pleads, "I want to help you."

"You can't...it's...it's my secrets. They're just too much! I...I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I know you already think it's suspicious, but I swear I wouldn't keep them if I had a choice. So much could go wrong...and if—when I tell you, you're going to hate me."

"William," she says, tears staining her cheeks. "If it's too much then you have to share it. Please, share the burden, if not with me than with somebody else. Harry, Daphne, Dumbledore, Hagrid...somebody! Please."

My hands are shaking as I rub the sides of my head thinking. I could just share a little. Just a little, but her lie detector is too damn good to sneak anything past her. 

"I'm...ugh, this is going to sound insane. I literally found myself on Platform Nine and Three Quarters a few months ago. I...woke up with a wand that I'd never seen before and the backpack I was wearing when I...left, I guess."

"You were right to be suspicious the first time we practiced Charms. I'd never cast a spell in my life except when I was messing around in the Room of Requirement, trying to figure out how I ended up here." All true.

I look up after a few moments of silence to see her gaping. Obviously this is not what she expected. "William, that...that doesn't make sense!" When I don't answer, she continues. "How could you...if you somehow just showed up here – then how do you know the things you do?"

"I woke up with that knowledge in my head," I say. Still a true statement, if not a complete one. "I woke up knowing who most of you are and what you can do, but I have no idea why I'm here. I...I was telling the truth about my parents being Muggles, because as far as I knew before I got here, there was no such thing as magic." I cringe a bit as I realize how awkward that sounds, but luckily she interprets it in a way that is beneficial to me.

"Well the wizarding world is hidden, which I'm sure you know now. Wouldn't it make sense that it was hidden before you woke up?"

"I...suppose." I have to let that slide...there's no way I can tell her why I knew for certain the wizarding world didn't exist. "I guess talking about how magic breaks just about all laws of physics doesn't really mean much when I can do it myself, here. That's also the reason my Hogwarts letter was unopened, you know. When you asked me what year I was in, I had no idea until you looked."

She cocks her head back at that. "But aren't you the same age as us?"

My head drops into my hands once again. "No...I'm supposed to be...a bit older, even though I don't feel like it here. That's why the clothes in my backpack are too large – I actually shrunk a couple inches."

"You mean to tell me you're supposed to be taller than you already are?"

She is trying to get me to smile but I feel too wretched to do so. "Don't you see, Hermione? I'm too...I might look and feel like a fifteen-year-old again but..."

She blanches. "You're not like...in your forties or something?"

I choke out a laugh. "No, not even close. I only lost a couple years. But still...I don't belong here, in this place, at this age."

"You know, when I think back it sort of makes sense why you seemed more mature at first, and now you're much more playful. I wonder if whatever magic brought you here actually made you fifteen again both physically and psychologically, even if you remember more years than that. Maybe the psychological part was a little slower on the uptake."

I shake my head. Leave it to Hermione to try and come up with a logical explanation for something that clearly has none. "I don't know. Maybe. I don't know..."

She sighs. "I'm not going to lie and say it's not a little odd, knowing that you're not fifteen, but it just doesn't seem like that big of a deal."

My head drops into my hands again and I shake it. "You won't say that when you hear the full story," I say, thinking about what will happen during the Third Task if I let things play out. "But I can't tell you that part, yet. It's...it's the worst part...but I can't talk about it. Not yet..."

Hermione closes her eyes and takes deep breaths. "So you'll...tell me, eventually?"

"If I can," I say quietly. "If I can. I'll tell you everything, but I can't right now."

"Okay." She is silent for a minute. "William, if you came from...somewhere else...that's why you don't have any money or anything." I nod and her eyes fill with tears, then her eyes widen and she chokes out a sob. 

"You were telling the truth before...you don't...you didn't have anybody at all."

I shake my head sadly. "Only you and Harry."

"Oh, William," she says, throwing herself onto me and wrapping her arms around me. "How are you even functioning? I would just curl up and cry! And I pushed you away almost immediately when you didn't have anybody else..." she sobs again. "I'm so sorry! How could you forgive me for that?"

"I know what you're up against, you, Harry, and anybody else who helps him. I couldn't live with myself if I abandoned you guys. Besides, I'm no worse off than Harry was when he arrived. Better off, really, considering what he went through with his relatives. He's a stronger man than I am."

"You're both strong."

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