Author's Note: This is the first chapter of 'Stormborn,' and the story itself revolves around Tom Riddle and Hermione Granger. For those who are reading this story for the first time, there is something which needs to be said. Due to my absence, I have had to go back and reread what I have written. In doing so, I have corrected mistakes as I have come across them. This is a revised chapter. When I update a chapter, I list it in the story updates section of my profile. This lists the story, the chapter, and the number of words in that chapter. A useful tool, really.
As another note, due to copyright, I do not own any of the characters (minus the ones I create) or places (again, other than the ones I create) in this story. I am not making any money off of writing this, and neither will anyone find this story in print in any store or on any shelf. What I am doing I do for my own entertainment, and it is my hope that everyone else enjoys what is written.
So, without further ado, let us jump into the story!
Read, Enjoy, and Review!
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Rating: T
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She hadn't meant to do it. It just happened.
Like a storm roaring to life, the magic lashed back. Walls shattered. People flew. It was chaos. The magic, is surged in the chamber. It built in power as each spell was fired, sharp and relentless, and she could hear it singing in the background. It came upon them like a wave crashing upon the shore. She saw it as it lit up the sky, the heavens ablaze with an eerie dance of colors unnamed; there were sapphires and emeralds, ambers and gold, silvers and amethyst gems. Countless in number, the colors swirled. As the wall behind her shattered, Hermione knew the Department of Mysteries was a name fit for a place like this. It was filled with wonder, but it was chocking with danger. Like magic, such wonders weren't to be taken advantage of.
She couldn't believe she was doing this. As she rolled across the ground, green spells flashing over her head, Hermione cursed her raven-haired friend for running head first into danger without so much as a 'how-do-you-do.' Instead of talking to her, Harry Potter charged headfirst into what turned out to be a trap, which she would have warned him of from the start, and left the rest of them, his friends and mentors and allies, scrambling in his wake.
When this is over, I'm going to hex him! Hermione weaved between two spells, blue and green coiling around her, and dunked under a Death Eater lunging at her. She hit him square in the brow with a blasting curse, and turned to the next as the body flew through the air. A shielding spell, followed by a disarming spell, gave the curly haired witch the footwork she needed to slam her fingers into a pressure point. The Death Eater dropped, unconscious, to the ground. In the middle of the chaos, she saw the elder Malfoy dueling one of the Order members; she turned her attention away, brow furrowed as she recalled the layout of the building. Where are you, Harry?
Think, Hermes, think! Hermione blasted one Death Eater's wand to pieces, and caught his chest with another blasting curse. The body lifted up, and rocked across the room. A few dunked out of the way, but several unfortunate fighters were knocked aside when they couldn't get out of the human projectile's path. Speed and luck, is it?
Chaos was everywhere. She caught sight of Remus off to the side, sparing hand-to-hand with a black-cloaked person. Somewhere in the vicinity, she could hear the mad laughter of a woman. Bellatrix Black. Sirius's cousin, at that, and the man in question was yanking Ron out of the way of a curse. He caught sight of her, and yelled her name as she dunked under a spell. Twisting, catching hold the Death Eater's wrist, she managed to use the other's weight against them and send him falling. She slammed her foot against his good, inwardly cringing against the scream that came after.
All's fair in war against muggleborn haters grouped in fours. She disarmed the second, blasted the third, and punched the forth in the face. She whirled around, two spells flashing past her, and she dove forward. She scrambled through a doorway, her mind forging through the hallways she had memorized a year prior, halls which had been laying innocently on Arthur's table in the Burrow, and cast a shielding spell around herself. She came to an abrupt halt when her form collided with a black-robed figure when she darted around a corner.
The two slammed into the ground, wands flying out of their hands. Hermione swore as she rolled, tangled, and yelped when a cold hand grasped her wrist and trapped it by her head. Red eyes glared down at her, the heavier weight keeping her trapped to the ground. It took her only a moment to comprehend who was on top of her, those red eyes leaving nothing to question. The Dark Lord.
Hermione twisted, hard, and forced their bodies to roll. Magic surged beneath her skin, sharpened by her panic and sheer determination. She leapt to her feet moments later, pulse racing. Behind her, she heard a sharp hiss, and then a spell rocketed off the wall next to her head.
She lost sight of her wand, and, as she twisted around, she drew upon the magic in her core. It surged forward, shaky and tearing through channels thin and refined, before the barriers she cast closed around her. Hermione took off down the hall, listening to the sounds around her, as the barrier behind her shattered.
Swearing, she whipped around a corner, but she could feel the magic, dark and fluid like water, following close on her heels. She could smell it, like a thick mist upon the ground, as she was pursued deeper into the Department of Mysteries.
Another jet of green light cut through the air. Hermione hit the ground rolling, and then she was up and barreling through a doorway. She didn't turn. She didn't stop. She ran. Never had she been happier for the children she grew up with. Never had she been happier for the years she spent running away from the kids that didn't like her, and those who tormented her.
Hermione was light, movements fluid, as she raced through corridor after corridor. It was colder, the air around her coming out as iced clouds, and she wasn't expecting to stumble into a battle of blood. She wasn't expecting to see a bright red light slashing through the air, abnormally bright in her eyes, nor Sirius's anguished outcry when it hit her. She could see him blasting Bellatrix into a wall, the stones around the crazed witch splattered with fresh blood, and him running towards her a moment after.
Standing, swaying, she felt only the cold. Her gaze moved to the doorway where a black robbed figure stood, wand in hand, and she stepped back as a jet of green light cut through the air and slammed into her chest. Hermione stumbled backward as black hands circled her, and she heard Harry's desperate scream, her name on his lips, and the disbelief in the Order's eyes as her body crumbled backwards.
There was pain. Searing and hot as she fell into ice.
Then there was nothing.
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She was drowning.
Water roared in her ears, her hair whirling around her in an array of color, as her skin glowed milky white in the darkness. Untouched by cloth or injury. She sank, dark hands circling her body, as her lungs screamed for air. Her mouth opened, a wordless, desperate plea escaping into the dark cavern she was being pulled into.
Suffocating, freezing yet flooded with fire.
Hermione struggled against the ghostly hands caressing her body, fighting the urgent need to draw in a breath of pure life. The heat, Merlin, the heat! Molten lava filled her veins, a white inferno, scorching her insides, as her limbs shuddered with phantom pain. It pulsed in time to each beat of her magic, thrumming madly like a drum going to war. The heat, the heat, she could not outrun.
Even as the war raged, it crashed upon her like waves slamming against a rocky wall in the ocean. It dragged her beneath the surface, ripping air and senses, from her as she floundered without anchor. In the darkness, when unseen things caressed her body and brushed against her lips, the only sound was the overwhelming siren's song her magic sang to.
She couldn't feel anything but the warmth, a heat burning her alive from within, coursing through her body. She couldn't see anything other than the flashes of red and green, distorted and rippling through water, as they cut into the darkness lingering in the distance. Screams of pain, of fear and terror, came and went in uncertain bursts of sound. There was light, but all she knew was shadow and darkness and the steady warmth cocooning her shivering, pale form.
I'm dead. It came to her suddenly as she drifted, and she was aware there should only be silence. Yet there was noise, and there was surging magic. The light, the door said to lead to death, was slipping away. She was sinking, the darkness rising up and dragging her into the abyss. My name…my name is…Hermione.
A sharp burst of pain cut through her skin as surely as it ran rampant underneath. Her chest burned, like a blade had pierced her heart, and she could feel her flesh hissing with anger as the heat built. Emerald hues, bright and deadly snaked through the darkness, and coiled around her arm. Agony seared through her, the skin splitting and splashing red into the void, like a knife cutting through soft, warm bread.
Her back pulsed, her spine cracking, and, deep within her, the magic of her birth coiled and lashed out until it cut through flesh and bone alike. She gasped for breath, a scream on her tongue, and then she was being crushed. The air was sucked clean. Her body, compressed and ready to shatter, met air.
Air.
Her body drank it in, as if deprived, moments before she slammed into the ground. It was a jarring impact, her body flipping and skidding across the ground. Her eyes burned, tears leaking down her checks, as her fingers bit into the ground. Damp grass, soft and wet soil, sank around her fingers. She came to a stop, a tree pressed against her hip, as she stared at the sky above. Soil instead of stone. A sky instead of a cold ceiling deep underground.
Hermione's back arched, gasping, as she coughed. The moon watched her, a week, at most, until it was in its full glory. Stars glowed, carefree, above her instead of the inky darkness of the Department of Mysteries.
What…what…Hermione closed her eyes, her body shuddering as a cool wind swept across her skin, as thoughts raced through her mind. One after another. They kept jerking, swinging back to the same question, over and over. Where am I? How did I get here? Where am I?!
She carefully sat up, hair tumbling around her in thick, untamed waves, and examined her surroundings. Her limbs protested, and, as she checked herself for injuries, she noted how little she was clothed. Her skin was dirtied, bruised and bloodied, and, when she pressed her hand to her side, it came away stained and angry.
Blood.
She was bleeding. Hermione swallowed, and she carefully climbed to the feet. She used the tree as leverage, a steady presence to hold onto, and nearly lost her balance when a deafening crack, like thunder, shattered the silence. Her gaze leaped from shadow to shadow, her body quivering. Had one of the Death Eaters followed her? Did one of them grab onto her, somehow, and came with her into this place?
No. She shook her head. It was unlikely. If they came with me, they would be here. But, if it isn't them, than who?
"Kira!"
The voice was strained, and, as she stumbled, Hermione felt her brow furrow in confusion. She heard movement echoing around her. The sounds of wood snapping underfoot was loud in the darkness of night. Again the name was shouted to the winds. Leaning against the tree, she saw lights coming in her direction, blinding and bright, before an elderly woman came around a tree. Shock cut across the woman's face before she was at Hermione's side, taking her arm and pulling Hermione's worn and battered body close, and murmuring in her ear, "Sweet Mother, Kira, I thought I lost you. Come. Come! The school is not far."
The elderly woman pulled her away from her tree, and Hermione stumbled as twisted roots caught her ankles. It took a moment to notice her feet were bare, the skin darkened by mud and stained with rivulets of crimson. As she took in her surrounding, she noted how familiar it was. It took a moment for her to process the woodland for what it really was. The Forbidden Forest. She was back at Hogwarts, somehow, and the events prior to her arrival bore no compatibility to how she came to be at the school. It did not explain the injuries.
It did not take long until they were out of the forest. Another person rushed to their side, and they spoke in hushed voices in a tongue she did not know. The man was dark-skinned, darker than she thought possible. The man glanced at her, and made another comment in that strange tongue. Yet, somehow, the words twisted and stilted in the backdrops of her mind – '…it was an ambush...injured...moon madness...he will help. He must...' - that made little sense to her foggy thoughts. In the distance, over the man's shoulder, she saw Hogwarts rise out of the mist and darkness like a fortress aflame during a siege. She could see her beloved school, the lights cutting through the darkness like a beacon for ships lost on the ocean, as surely as she could hear voices murmuring on the wind.
"Who goes there!?"
Hermione started, and nearly lost herself when a low growl slipped past her lips like a wolf growing out a warning to those invading its territory. At her side, the woman wrapped an arm around her, voice low as she whispered, "Calm, Kira. You must be calm. Calm. Let not the moon madness steal you."
Hermione glanced at the woman, confusion radiating out of her.
Why does she call me that? Moon madness? Kira? I don't understand…
"We are guests. The Headmaster and Albus Dumbledore await our arrival!" The man leading them called out, his voice echoing into the darkness.
Hermione saw the light of lumos light up the darkness before a young man, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, appear from the fog like a ghost. Her gaze swept over him, from the light wave in his dark hair, to the violet-red irises regarding them with an intensity that made her skin crawl. A growl built up in her chest as his gaze swept over them.
Clinging to the woman, weak and lost in the situation as it unfolded, the man's gaze fell upon her. She held his gaze, and felt a slight pressure in the back of her mind. As if a beast slept within her, a force shoved back. Slammed into the probing sensation, and drove it out from her mind. Hermione noted the slight furrow in the teen's brow, and he was quite before he said, "I see you are all unwell. Come, I shall take you to the infirmary and alert the staff to your arrival."
Using the elderly woman as a shoulder to lean upon, Hermione frowned. Something was itching at her senses, a piece of knowledge she knew she should know. As she eyed the back of the student in front of her, it came to her.
Before her was a hunter in its element. A genius without rival. Tom Marvolo Riddle.
Hermione's knees gave out as she realized the truth of the situation at hand.
Somehow, in some way, she had landed herself fifty years in the past.