A/N: Disclaimer: I do not own any universe mentioned in this story. (This story was edited June, 2018, but published June, 2015)

Once Upon A Dream

By Montley

Hermione's eyes were plastered to her Transfiguration textbook. At this time of night, the only thing on her mind was her OWLs, but unfortunately, the library closed far too early for her liking. Thus, she was in her dorm room, her curtains closed around her, and her wand lighting her textbook.

Hermione must have been mumbling to herself again, for Lavender piped up, groaning, "Go to sleep, Hermione."

Hermione sighed. In her desperation to study she must have forgotten to cast a silencing charm around herself. Exams were coming up far too soon, in three days' time, yet, Lavender was right. The brain needed sleep in order to perform well on any examination, something Hermione always had to remind herself of.

"Sorry," Hermione whispered, and Lavender grumbled in approval. Hermione shoved her textbooks off of her bed in a tired haze and untucked her covers to climb inside. Once in, she pulled her covers up and ensconced herself inside them as she drifted off into a deep slumber.

xXx

I.

Hermione's eyes blinked open, and sunlight immediately struck her vision. Hadn't she closed her curtain? Maybe Lavender or Parvati opened them to make sure that she was alive. No matter. Hermione sat up, her eyes still blinking away her slumber when she caught sight of him.

He sat on the corner of her bed, which now was covered in a purple, satin, duvet. He had black hair that framed his chiseled, stern features. He was rather handsome, and Hermione did not mind looking at him. On the other hand, his attire had an altogether different sort of appeal. He wore such garish clothing, it caused Hermione to hold back a chuckle. He seemed to be dressed as a prince from the middle ages with puffy sleeves and a red cape. Perhaps she might still be dreaming. Though his eyes were obsidian black, and they looked upon her with utter disgust.

"Erm, who are you? And why are you watching me sleep?" Hermione asked to the strange man sitting across from her.

"Tom," he clipped.

"Right then…I'm Hermione."

"I believe that I may have been cursed, by the old coot no doubt," Tom went on, muttering the last bit to himself.

"So, you're, a, uh-," Hermione started to say.

"Wizard, yes," Tom finished. "And you are a witch, I might presume."

"Yes," Hermione stated. "Are you a student?"

"At Hogwarts," Tom answered, "though I haven't seen you before, if you attend."

"I'm a fifth year Gryffindor."

"Ah, that makes sense."

"Why?"

"Seventh year Slytherin."

"Oh, gotcha," Hermione said with a nod, slowly realizing that this boy couldn't possibly be a figment of her imagination, or her mind was doing a good job of convincing her that he was real. Just for good measure, she reached out and prodded his puffy sleeve, feeling the feathery fabric under her fingertips as Tom watched perturbed by her touch. "Wait, what do you mean you were cursed?"

Tom rolled his eyes and lifted up a piece of parchment. "I awoke to this."

Hermione leaned in closer and read the parchment: Kiss Her.

"What in the world," Hermione muttered, perplexed.

"It appeared in my diary before I went to sleep. I had ripped it out in anger, it wasn't my handwriting therefore it had to be removed," Tom informed her. "I awoke in this strange room to this page from my diary in my grip and to you sleeping in front of me."

That was when Hermione noticed her surroundings. She was no longer in her own bed, there was no roaring fire in the middle of the dorm room, and there certainly was no Lavender or Parvati, but more importantly, her textbooks were no longer on the floor next to her. Instead, the walls were still reminiscent of the castle, but adorned with fine silks of purple, signifying royalty. The only bed in the room was the Queen-sized one that she had been resting on. On the opposite side of the room she could see a window the size of the wall looking out onto a balcony towards the bluest sky.

Then, she noticed her own attire. It was almost garish enough to match Tom's, but the tightness of the dress almost rivaled his ridiculousness. It was a floor-length, blue gown. Why on earth someone would wear that to sleep was beyond her, though it was definitely from the middle ages like Tom's horrid ensemble. Then, she noticed slight heaviness on the top of her head. She reached up and tore whatever the object was off. A tiara. A fucking tiara.

That was what pieced it all together.

"I believe, Tom, that we might be trapped in some sort of fairytale," Hermione told him. "Look at us, look at this room, and your note."

"A fairytale?" Tom sneered. "As if I wasn't disgusted enough already."

"Did you kiss me?" Hermione suddenly asked, afraid of the answer.

"Yes," Tom answered, "I surmised it was a way to leave, for my wand is also gone, as I bet yours is as well."

Alarmed, Hermione began searching around for her own wand, but she had no luck. "That's wonderful, no wands! Just fantastic!"

"You were very receptive to the kiss if you'd like to know. It certainly woke you up," Tom added with a wink.

Hermione swallowed the bile that found its way into her throat as she pieced the final parts of the puzzle together.

"True love's first kiss breaks the spell," Hermione said in unabashed amazement.

"Repeat that," Tom cautiously replied.

"I believe that you might be my true love," Hermione carefully stated, and winced at this utter foolishness, but rambled on, "If this is any sort of reality, and if whatever you were cursed with pertains to such a thing."

Tom scoffed.

xXx

II.

Something within Hermione jolted. She was outside. How in the world did she get outside? She was standing on some sort of flimsy balcony, and that boy from before, Tom, was nowhere in sight. It was supposedly dark, and yet, some strange light was heating her and the balcony. She felt sweat form under her armpits, and she wanted to rip off her clothes and breathe. Worst of all, this time she had the puffy sleeves. Attached to the puffy sleeves was yet another medieval gown equally as tight as the last, though this one was white and gold, not blue and black.

"Er, Hermione?" a voice called to her. Immediately, she peered around the balcony, and when she looked down she saw Tom clutching the middle of some sort of lattice fence that led to the balcony.

"Oh, hello again," she reluctantly greeted. He looked far more ridiculous than she did, far, far worse than the last, whatever that was. Again, he had puffy sleeves. What was with this apparent curse and puffy-fucking-sleeves? This time his ensemble was comprised of many different shades of blue, even one leg of his tights was a darker blue than the other leg, and very tight, especially around the crotch so that Hermione almost giggled at it. How a person could walk around with a tight garment bundled around their crotch, that at all times defines the size of their genitals, immensely amused Hermione.

"How did we get here?" Tom demanded, distracting Hermione from his crotch.

"No idea. We just vanished. I can't explain it," Hermione replied, glancing down at his crotch once more. "Perhaps there's another note."

Hermione began to peruse the balcony for any sort of clue when Tom interrupted, "R and J…what does R and J mean?"

Hermione looked down towards him, seeing that he was looking confusedly at another note with the same handwriting from before.

"R and J…balcony… ridiculous clothing…" Hermione pondered out loud as she began to pace along the stretch of balcony. "Oh, Merlin."

"What is it?"

"Romeo and Juliet," Hermione groaned.

"Romeo and Juliet?"

"Shakespeare, Tom. Shakespeare!"

"…That-that Muggle, dead poet?"

"Exactly! How do you not know Shakespeare?"

"I know of him! I'm not blind to the world!"

"Romeo and Juliet is one of his most famous plays, and we're in it," Hermione elaborated for him.

"Oh, is that the one where they kill themselves? Such a stupid thing to do, I may add."

"That's the one."

"Tell me that this isn't the scene where they commit that foul act," Tom pleaded.

"It isn't, they just embrace and plead their love."

"Fuck that," Tom groaned.

"Play along would you? I'd like to return to my dorm and study," Hermione snapped, but Tom rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll get this started. Oh, uh, Romeo! Romeo!"

"Your acting is atrocious," Tom commented, still clinging onto the lattice.

"Shut it," Hermione snapped. "Wherefore art thou Romeo?"

"I'm right here!" Tom yelled, one hand letting go of the lattice so he could wave it at her.

Hermione's eyes widened in disbelief, "That's not what wherefore means!"

"The fuck else could it mean?"

"Why! It means why!"

"That's asinine."

"You have no appreciation for Shakespeare," Hermione indicated with a shake of her Shakespearian-knowledge filled head.

"Wherefore would I? He's dead," Tom deadpanned, and Hermione's mouth gaped. "Whatever, get on with it."

"I don't know the rest," Hermione admitted. "I had hoped that that would get things going. Honestly, who doesn't know that bit?"

"You disappoint me."

"Shut up! Just climb up that damn lattice and kiss me!" Hermione shouted in her anger, and Tom's lip slowly melded into a smirk that the Devil could not compete with.

"Didn't get enough when you were asleep, did you?" he teased and had the audacity to wink at her.

Hermione, to keep her anger in control, bit down on her lip as he finally started to climb up that damn lattice. She just needed him to kiss her so that she could get the fuck away from him. Carefully, he swung himself onto to the balcony and stepped close to her. Out of instinct, she took a step backwards with each step he took towards her until they were close to the edge of the balcony. If she took another step she would stumble off, and she'd preferred to prevent any sort of accident.

Tom stood in front of her at a very impressible height that she had to look up at him. She marveled at the small muscles bulging from the puffy sleeves. Though he did have a relatively thin physique overall. Yet, she never would have imagined this figure up close from a man who wore puffy sleeves and a cape back in that strange fairytale bedroom. So, yes, she was attracted to him. At least his face. Definitely not the clothes.

"Like what you see?"

"Just kiss me. Let's get this over with," Hermione ordered, turning her face to hide her embarassment.

"What an awful performance!" a loud voice called out.

"Did you?"

"No, did you?"

And the two of them turned to the side to see a bewildered audience in front of them a whole stage length's away, because at that moment they were standing on a set piece on top of an actual stage for a live performance. The two of them gaped at the audience, who simply gaped right back. Many seats in the audience were empty. Hermione presumed those people had left when (again, she had to presume for she was awfully confused about this whole curse) she and Tom had appeared onstage instead of professional Shakespearian actors. For goodness sakes she only had read each of Shakespeare's plays once. There was no way she could perform it sufficiently.

"I'll kiss you then," Tom said, "if it's only to make all of this go away."

"Got stage fright?"

"Hilarious," Tom said impassively. Then, his arm wrapped around her waist, and he pulled her close. "Here's to getting out of here."

xXx

III.

"Well, we certainly got out of there," Hermione commented out loud after they broke off from the kiss. Yet, there was no Tom. Before, Tom had snogged her very well, so well that she appeared somewhere else entirely, and he was nowhere to be seen. She outwardly groaned and began to look around the forest that she was now in. Thankfully, she did not have puffy sleeves anymore. Instead she wore a black jacket, light-green jungle pants, combat boots, a bow and arrow, and her hair was pleated to the side.

A little ahead of her she saw a parachuting-canister dropping down from the sky. Compelled, she drew herself close to it and grabbed it when it landed. Impulsively, she opened it and saw the next note from Tom's diary: YOU CALL THAT A KISS! it stated fully capitalized. Really? Really! Hermione quite liked the kiss she had just shared. Rolling her eyes she opened the rest of the canister to reveal soup and a spoon. That was when she noticed her gnawing hunger. Thus, she shrugged and began sipping the soup.

In the distance she noticed a cave and walked towards it, for she strangely compelled to. Inside the cave it was dark, dirty and dreary, and someone was coughing and whining.

"Uhhh my leg," the voice moaned. "My leeeg! Hermione! Hermione!"

"Er, I'm here," she called back between sips of soup, only to see Tom lying on the cave ground, his head propped against a rock.

"I've never felt such pain in my life. Look at my leg!"

Hermione drew closer and crouched besides him. His leg was gashed, bloody, and revolting. It was covered in dirt and mud, which would most certainly cause an infection. Though he also no longer had puffy sleeves combined with a ridiculous, garish outfit on, so that made up for looking at his gruesome injury. His outfit was similar to hers in that it was a basic black shirt and pants.

"That's disgusting," she commented, taking another sip of the soup, which at that moment tasted like a five-star meal. "Oh, I found another note."

Hermione passed him the now crumbled up note and his arms shaking he grabbed it and held it up to his cut, dirty face.

"Are they serious?" he sneered. "I snogged you quite well I thought."

"I thought so too," Hermione agreed, and then blushed when Tom smirked at her. "At least there's no audience this time."

"That's true," Tom concurred, and then he eyed her soup jealously. "Give me some of that, I'm so weak."

"You want me to feed you!" Hermione exclaimed unbelievingly.

"Do it, I could barely lift my arms up for that note. Whoever I'm supposed to be now is rather helpless," Tom admitted, his mouth parting for the soup. Hermione groaned, unwilling to part with even a sip of the soup. Begrudgingly, she shoved a spoonful in his mouth, and he sputtered. "Fucking dammit."

Hermione laughed. "Stop being so helpless."

"I swear, in the next one of whatever this is, you better be helpless or I'll make you helpless," Tom swore with a stern look in his eyes.

"Oh, I'm sure," Hermione mockingly reassured. As she fed Tom another sip of soup she looked off into the depths of the cave, noting something rather odd in the upper left corner. She took the spoon out of Tom's needy mouth, placed it back in the soup, stood up, and walked closer to the strange sight. "Do you see that?"

"See what?"

"That strange something in the upper left corner."

"Apparently, I can't even eat soup by myself. You think I can see some strange thing that may just be a part of your inner machinations?"

"No, it's there," Hermione said as she neared it and reached upwards, finally making out what it was. "It's a Roman numeral three! In Times New Roman size twelve!"

"What are you on?"

"Times New Roman…the font."

"The fuck is that?"

"You know the fonts on a computer. It's the form the words take."

Tom attempted to shake his head, but simply spat out a little bit of the soup that hadn't been swallowed.

"Oh. Pureblood, are you?" Hermione asked. Well, Tom wasn't a pureblood, but he was not about to tell Hermione that he grew up in the muggle world surrounded by swine and poverty.

"So this is some muggle thing?" Tom sneered, now wanting to purposefully spit at something. Though, he truly wanted to know why he had no idea what a computer was if it was some muggle thing for he did grow up with relatively good knowledge on the muggle community.

"Oh, don't tell me you're a racist."

"Don't tell me you're a mudblood."

"Fantastic, my supposed true love is a fucking racist. That's absolutely spectacular," Hermione muttered to herself. Then, she walked back to where Tom was crippled, weak, and lying on the ground. Once she reached him she picked up the soup and took some more sips, finishing it. Tom groaned.

"So the mudblood finishes my soup! How the tables have turned against those with Wizarding blood," Tom jeered, his lips forming a pout.

"Honestly, stop being such a prat! Now, what could that Roman numeral mean?" Hermione began to ponder to herself. "Could a Roman numeral one have been in the fairytale and a two in Romeo and Juliet?"

"I suppose it's possible," Tom concurred. "If you aren't hallucinating."

"Right then, we'll look for a four wherever we appear next," Hermione decreed, feeling especially proud of herself for she chose to dismiss Tom insistence that she was under the influence.

"So you believe that these, let's call them scenes, if you aren't insane, are working in a sequence?"

"Perhaps there's a limited amount of them," Hermione suggested as she crouched down next to Tom, tossing the empty soup canister to the side.

"Seven, it has to be seven," Tom declared.

"Why?"

Tom rolled his eyes, "Seven is the most powerful, magical number."

"Oh."

"Yes."

Then, the two of them were silent as they stared at each other. Hermione huffed as she felt how tired her limbs were. With one hand she prodded Tom's chest and stomach to see how comfortable his chest would be compared to the cave floor. He was a slight improvement, though he grimaced with each prod. Reluctantly, Hermione laid her head against his chest, and her arm stretched across his stomach as she curled up next to him and stared at the cave wall. Tom the Racist surprisingly did not complain that he was being touched by her.

"Wait, how are we getting out of this one?" Hermione questioned.

Tom sighed. "Hold on, that note from earlier. We have to kiss again."

"Oh, right," Hermione said, feeling utterly, pathetically stupid.

"So if you had just kissed me when you came in, we could have gotten out of here much sooner," Tom pointed it.

"Er, I guess," Hermione muttered, afraid of the expression on Tom's face.

"Attention, tributes, attention!" A voice echoed throughout the cave, alarming Hermione, so she sat up from her position against Tom. "Commencing sunrise. There will be a feast tomorrow at the cornucopia. This will be no ordinary occasion. Each of you needs something desperately, and we plan to be generous hosts."

"What the fuck what that!?" Tom exclaimed.

"It sounded vaguely threatening," Hermione added.

"Oh, just kiss me already!" Tom commanded. "I want out of here!"

"Now look who's begging," Hermione joked with a wink as she drew herself towards him.

"Fucking mudblood," Tom murmured.

"Enough of that racist barmy, or I won't kiss you, and we'll just have to stay here forever," Hermione threatened.

Tom sighed, "Fine, I'll just have to forget about it if I am to survive."

"There's a good boy," Hermione jested. She placed one hand on his neck and leaned close to him, pressing her lips against his.

xXx

IV.

Hermione began to open her eyes, the ghost of Tom's lips against hers. Now, she was in an alleyway in some city. The best part, it was pouring, and she was shaking and shivering. But, in front of her was Spider-Man hanging upside-down from a brick wall. She recognized him from the Muggle comic books people had been obsessed with. She took a few steps back from him in shock, the rain continuing to soak her, thankfully, normal clothing.

"Sp-spider-man?" Hermione dared asked.

"The fuck is a Spider-Man?" Spider-Man asked, his upside-down head tilting to the side.

So, Hermione took yet another step backwards. Was Spider-Man having some sort of existential crisis?

"Hold on," she stated. "Tom?"

"Duh," Spider-, no, Tom uttered. "Why I am hanging upside from some sort of string? And what I am wearing over my face?"

Hermione laughed and threw her head back. "Holy shit, you're Spider-Man!"

"I'll ask again. The fuck is a Spider-Man?" Tom asked as if it was a drag to repeat it.

"Oh Merlin!" Hermione laughed. "He's a Muggle superhero from a comic book series."

"So this string that I am suspending from," Tom pondered, "isn't string."

"No, not at all, it's web," Hermione informed, a large smile on her face.

"Disgusting," Tom drawled. "Just find the next note, which I presume shall say something about kissing. Honestly, whosoever cast this curse is rather vile."

Hermione turned, and began to search for said note. It ended up being pinned to the wall behind her. She snatched it and realized that Tom was correct. It said: Kiss Him. At least this time the note was not insulting either of their kissing skills. She then held in it front of Tom's face.

"For fuck's sake," he muttered. "All right, on with it."

"Hold on," Hermione ordered, and she walked around, finally seeing what she had been looking for. A Roman numeral four was in the upper left corner of the far side of the alley. "There's a four over there."

"Your theory is probably correct then," Tom responded.

"It doesn't seem like we're in any danger, so let's discuss our curse," Hermione suggested as she plopped on the rain-soaked ground, knowing that Tom must be rolling his eyes under that Spider-Man mask. "So, in each of these scenes, as you said, we're being cajoled into snogging one another, which is rather disturbing when you think about it."

"Repeatedly, in different universes," Tom added.

"Who would get enjoyment out of us snogging repeatedly in multiple different settings?" Hermione questioned as she rubbed her thumb and pointer finger against her chin.

"I have an idea," Tom said. "Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore?" Hermione repeated unbelievingly. "Why on Earth would Dumbledore do such a thing?"

"Dumbledore is always speaking about the power of love, kindness, muggle barmy," Tom sneered. "He also does not quite like my personality. Perhaps he thinks some sort of love would cure that."

"Dumbledore has nothing against me," Hermione retorted. "Why would he do this to me?"

"Maybe you were onto something when you spoke of true love," Tom said, speaking the words 'true love' disgustedly.

"Then why not just bring us together, in our own real setting," Hermione countered.

"Perhaps, in Dumbledore's mind, at the very least, it is not plausible or possible," Tom suggested.

"If it's even Dumbledore doing this," Hermione said.

"I bet it is, knowing the old coot."

"You're very disrespectful, aren't you?"

"Just kiss me, so we can get out of here, for good."

"Fine," Hermione snapped, stood up, and approached the suspended Tom. She lowered the mask he was wearing, which revealed his pale, thick neck and then his thin, parted lips. She leaned forward, closed her eyes, and pressed her lips against his as the both of them melted into the kiss.

Hermione backed away and opened her eyes. Tom was still Spider-Man. That couldn't be good.

"I-I'm not doing this," Tom said fearfully as his arm struggled to point towards the sky. It seemed as though Tom was fighting back against the movement, but then he gave in. The arm pointed towards the sky and a beam of web shot out of Tom's hand, pulling Tom with it as Tom screamed.

Hermione laughed, and in a blink, she was gone.

xXx

V.

Hermione reappeared on top of a hill in what looked like the countryside. At the bottom of the hill was a forest. Merlin, where was she now? Though, in the upper left corner of the bright, blue sky was a Roman numeral five. They were getting closer to the end.

This time she was in some orange, flowy dress with a bejeweled belt wrapping around her waist. Her sleeves were moderately puffy and close to her wrists. She could deal with that.

Then, she noticed him, for he was rather hard to miss.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" he yelled repeatedly as he rolled down the hill in a big black blur of cloth and man.

"Dammit," Hermione muttered and threw herself off of the hill.

As she rolled, each part of her body smacked against the ground, full of twigs, rocks, and what would have sent Ron spiraling, spiders. After what felt like an endless nightmare, she stopped rolling and her body lay flat against the prickling grass. She turned her head to the side and saw Tom lying stunned near her. All he wore was black. A mask wrapped around the top half of his face, covering the breadth of his hair, forehead, and nose, but it had holes for his eyes. His shirt and trousers were also black, reminding Hermione of what a pirate would wear, and he also wore long, black boots. Completing the pirate look was a sword attached to his hip.

"Are you all right, Tom?' Hermione asked.

"No! You try being shot up into the air and then suddenly falling down the hillside! At least you chose to fall!" Tom complained, throwing his bruised arms up in the air.

"If it's of any concern to you, I saw the Roman numeral five. We're getting closer to your presumed end.

"Good, soon we'll be done with this Dumbledore-concocted-ridiculousness!"

Hermione grumbled to herself, still not convinced that Dumbledore had anything to do with this, and pushed her body off of the ground. She stumbled forwards towards the woods up ahead and noted that Tom quickly followed her. Honestly, he would be helpless all alone. Pinned against a nearby tree was another note. She tore it off and read: Save each other.

"Save each other?" Hermione pondered as she handed the note to Tom. "No snogging this time?"

"Snogging would have made this process a whole fuck-load easier," Tom said.

"Why? Is snogging your only skill? You haven't proved otherwise," Hermione said.

"I'll have you know, Hermione, that it is not. I am proficiently skilled in any and all magical arts, if I had my fucking wand," Tom replied haughtily.

"Oh sure, sure, I believe you," Hermione said. She then lifted both corners of her dress and muddled into the woods with Tom trailing after her.

"It's true! When we meet up in real life, I'll prove it to you," Tom said desperately as he caught up to her.

"Are you eager to meet up in real life?" Hermione teased.

"The two of us were brought together for a reason, and I'd like to find out why," Tom admitted. The farther the two of them walked, the darker it suddenly became, as if the sun was already setting in the sky.

"I told you why in the beginning," Hermione countered. "True love nonsense."

"It is nonsense," Tom agreed. "There is no such thing as true love."

"Says you," Hermione muttered.

"I'm correct. True love is what some lonely dead person made up to make him feel better about himself."

"Maybe that's the same person who cast this curse."

"You think Dumbledore invented true love?"

"Hold on," Hermione ordered, and held her hand up in front of him, staring at the ground in front of her. "Don't step there, that's quicksand."

"Another thing some dead person made up!" Tom exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air behind him.

"We don't know what universe we're in, Tom. We don't know what can exist where," Hermione forewarned waving her hands around herself.

"I see," Tom said. "Though it's not as though some flying pig is going to start attacking me."

The moment after Tom said that, some rather large creature jumped on top of him. It wasn't a flying pig, but it knocked Tom to the ground with it on top of him. Hermione stared with wide eyes, identifying the creature as some sort of unusually sized rodent.

The creature bit Tom's forearm, and he groaned trying to swab it off of him. His blood started to seep out of the wound, and Hermione knew that she needed to act. She darted forward as Tom continue to wrestle the creature. Hermione noticed Tom's sword dislodged from his waist on the ground next to him. Seizing the opportunity, she bent down and picked up the sword. The creature still struggled on top of Tom, eager for his next bite of human flesh.

"I've got you!" Hermione claimed, and she lodged the sword into the rodent where she knew its heart would be. The rodent howled in pain. Taking that as a good sign, she pushed the sword into its body further until it ceased moving. Noting that it was dead, Tom was finally able to pry the creature off of him.

"Salazar!" he exclaimed with wild eyes. Hermione smirked at him, and the two of them were gone once more.

xXx

VI.

Again, she was somewhere new. Honestly, this bit was getting old. Now, she was in some sort of cellar made of what appeared to be sand. Her face was covered by some mask and her clothes were khaki, full coverage, and functional, exactly what she preferred to garish, puffy sleeves. In the upper left corner of the cellar was the Roman numeral six. If Tom had been correct about the number seven, then after this, they only had one more scene to go.

Speaking of Tom, in front of her, she saw the most amusing sight in her whole entire life. Tom was frozen in carbonite. His expression within said carbonite was shocked and scared, his mouth completely gaped open and his limbs stretched out like a pathetic, whining infant. Merlin, if only she had a camera. She could not help it; she laughed out loud, clutched her stomach, and fell to the ground in uncontrollable merriment. Little did she know how robotic and deranged her laughter sounded on the other side of her mask.

After a few minutes, she contained herself, and sat up. She moved her hand in front of her face, noticing that she was holding some random object. She opened her hand and saw the crumbled up piece of parchment. She grabbed it with her other hand and unraveled it with both. It was another instruction: Save him.

Or she could just sit here all day waiting for a camera to come into her midst.

Hermione stopped herself from doing that, because who knew whether or not this strangely familiar universe contained such luxuries as a camera. So, she sighed, stood up, and approached said frozen Tom. Somehow, she knew exactly what to do to lower him from the wall and unfreeze him. Her fingers mindlessly adjusted buttons and knobs on two different control panels, and soon enough Tom was glowing red and melting. Of course, just as fate designed, his lips were the first part of him that unfroze, and they wiggled around, breathing in the air that he had been deprived of. His fingers fidgeted as they were unfrozen. He was soon revealed to be wearing a white shirt paired with a dark vest, pants and boots with a utility belt wrapped around his waist. His feet came next, and soon enough, he toppled over onto the ground. Again, Hermione laughed. But, she crouched next to him on the floor anyway and pulled him into her lap.

"I can't see!" Tom shrieked, the lids of his eyes twitching. "I can't fucking see!"

"Merlin, you're so helpless," Hermione commented. Her gloved hand pat the top of his head in order to soothe him.

"Who the fuck are you?! The fuck are you saying, you swine?!" Tom yelled, his hands trying to fight her off. Hermione was understandably confused. As she struggled against him, Tom's flailing arms ended up knocking Hermione's mask off of her head.

"What is wrong with you?" Hermione scolded, and Tom's arms stopped flailing helplessly.

"Hermione?"

"Yes!"

"Why did your voice sound so demented?" Tom questioned, and Hermione glanced at the mask on the ground, realizing Tom's struggle.

"I think it was the mask that I was wearing doing that," Hermione revealed, and Tom did not deign to reply. "Here, let's get you up and out of here."

As she stood, Hermione gripped him underneath his shoulders and heaved him upwards. He flung an arm around her shoulders, which made the whole process easier, and she wrapped one arm around his waist to get him walking.

"Where are we?" Tom demanded.

"It's very familiar, but honestly, I'm not sure," she replied, and that was then that lights turned on that even Tom could sense in his blinded state to reveal a whole entourage of laughing, disturbing-looking creatures. One of them was an enormous sluggish looking creature that appeared to be the kingpin. Hermione recognized him somehow.

Then, the kingpin slug began to mutter something indecipherable, and that was when Hermione knew exactly where they were. That creature was Jabba the Hut, and the two of them were trapped in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. She had watched those movies as a kid with her parents, adoring Princess Leia and Han Solo with every viewing. How could she be so blind? No, that was incorrect, Tom was the blind one. Of course he and she were Han Solo and Princess Leia, respectively. So, she knew exactly what was coming next. Tom was going to be dragged into another form of imprisonment and she, into stripper-like, handcuffed, slavery. Hermione was always up to help Harry Potter defeat Voldemort, but this, no, she was not about to become some slug's stripper slave.

"No thank you," Hermione said, interrupting Jabba the Hut and his unintelligible sounds. Then, she tried to yell at whomever (it couldn't be Dumbledore, could it?) cursed them. "LET US LEAVE! I SAVED HIM!"

The entourage of aliens exchanged perplexed looks, and if Tom could open his eyes, so would he. Her shouts ended up not being in vain, as they quickly vanished from Star Wars.

xXx

VII.

This was it.

Fine.

There was a good chance that this was the final scene. Hermione appeared in front of a small window. She stretched her head to look outside the window, and spotted the Roman numeral seven in the upper left corner of a very blue sky. Looking down, she realized that she was in some sort of tower crafted with stone. At the bottom of the tower were thorny bushes with Tom lingering in the midst of them. What alerted her most was some brown, bushy material leaving the tower and landing in the bushes. Her eyes traveled up said brown, bushy material and landed on the top of her own head. Her eyes widened as she dawned in realization where they were. Rapunzel. So it begins with a fairytale and ends with a fairytale.

The worst part though, both she and Tom were wearing medieval, extravagant attire paired with puffy sleeves once more. How she detested these fairytale worlds and their evil, puffy sleeves.

"I've got the note right here!" Tom called up to her. "It says Kiss Her!"

"I figured out where we are!" she called back. "We're in the fairytale, Rapunzel. It's the one where she's locked in the tower by some evil witch and has long hair that her prince climbs up!"

Tom glared at the mound of hair in front of him. "You mean this disgusting gnarl is your hair?"

"If you don't like it," Hermione snapped back as she began to pull her hair back into the tower, "then you don't get to climb it, and we don't get to leave."

"No!" Tom shrieked and leapt onto the hair that Hermione was pulling up with her. He gripped onto the hair with a disgusted grimace, and she flashed him a look of fury, so he quickly altered his expression into a strained smile. He began to climb up her hair, and Hermione groaned with each one of his movements. The fairytale never illustrated how, with each movement he made, painful this experience actually was. It felt as though multiple insane toddlers were pulling at her hair all at the same time.

"So," Tom started to say when he was near the top, "you really think that I'm your true love."

"I-I mean it's possible, it'd explain a few things about this curse," she replied.

"Or, this is just one insane dream," Tom suggested with a smirk as he gripped onto the edge of the tower window. She took a step back to give him some room.

"That feels too real," she finished.

Tom climbed into the tower from the edge of the window and approached her. He smiled at her. He actually smiled when he stood in front of her.

"You should know, Hermione, that for a mudblood, you're not terrible," Tom commented, a breath's length away from her.

"Unbelievable," she said with a smile and a shake of her head. "Racist to the end."

Tom shrugged. "Still better than a muggle."

"You should work on that stance," Hermione advised. Tom reached his hand towards her and pushed some of her hair behind her ear. "Times are changing."

"If I had been correct, then this is it, our last stop," Tom reminded her as he leaned in close to her eager lips.

"I know," Hermione replied glumly as he finally pressed his lips to hers for the last time. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed him to her as his hands traveled to the small of her back, the two of the allowing the kiss to become deeper. His tongue brushed up against her lips, and she opened them for him, and his teeth grazed against her bottom lip. Merlin, his kisses were intoxicating to her, but it had to end before she truly became addicted to his touch.

Therefore, she pushed him away, and stared into his dark obsidian eyes that turned confused.

"Why haven't we left?" he asked her softly. Though, he leaned in again, eager to continue their kiss.

"I'm not sure."

In that instant, the two of them heard a shriek and watched as the witch from the fairytale Rapunzel reared towards them. The two of them exchanged a shocked look before the witch pushed Tom out of the tower. Hermione, stunned, stared as Tom smacked against the stone wall of the tower and landed in the thorny bushes. He rolled off of the bushes and landed flat on the ground. Thorns jutted from his eyes.

"I CAN'T SEE! AGAIN!" Tom exclaimed, his body flailing.

Hermione turned to the witch in order to scold her, but instead, the witch smacked her with a frying pan, knocking her unconscious.

xXx

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut the moment she knew she had disappeared from that last universe. If Tom had been right about the Roman numerals, she'd be back in her dorm room at Hogwarts. At least she hoped. All she knew what that she was lying down on a bed somewhere, but the first universe had been that way, so she really had no idea.

"T-Tom?" she called out and bit her lip.

No response.

Therefore, she opened her eyes and was greeted by the dark red curtain of her dorm room bed. She smiled, sat up, and parted her curtains to look around. At the moment she was the only one in her dorm room for the other beds were made and clean. In excitement, she threw herself off of her bed and dashed out of her dorm, eager to see her actual friends and not some snarky racist, who was, admittedly, a fantastic kisser.

The first person she saw in the common room, already dressed in her uniform and her red hair in a plait, was Ginny Weasley.

"Morning Ginny!" Hermione greeted, and the younger girl whipped around and glared at her.

"WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN!?" Ginny screeched.

Hermione fearfully took a step back. Never before had she encountered a furious Ginny, but she had heard whispers of the dangers of crossing her.

"Er…my dorm room," Hermione answered.

"Save it, Granger," Ginny snapped. "I've been in your dorm room practically hundreds of times in the past two days looking for you! Lavender and Parvati woke up two days ago to find you missing, your bed unmade, and you never came back, and you tell me you've been there this whole fucking time! This is worse than when Umbridge questioned us about you! We chose to cover for you, because we don't want that fucking toad punishing you, but honestly, Hermione, you're ridiculous!"

"Wait," Hermione interrupted. "Did you say two days?"

"Did I stutter?" Ginny sneered.

"Shit," Hermione muttered to herself and slapped her hand on her forehead. She only had one more day to study for her OWLs.

xXx

After her OWLs, which Hermione was not sure in the slightest how they went, she scoured Hogwarts to find her snarky, racist, true love, Tom, the seventh year Slytherin. No one third year or older in Slytherin would speak to her, unless it was to insult her, so she took to stalking first and second year Slytherins in the hallways for questioning.

Ginny, Harry and Ron did not believe her when she told them about her dream boy, so she needed him for validation of some sort. At the very least, Ginny, Harry, and Ron knew that Hermione had 'left.' She did understand their feelings on the subject though. It is awfully ridiculous to tell someone that you had been sent to different fictional universes with some random Slytherin, who is supposedly your true love, for apparently two days. Hermione wouldn't believe it either if someone said the same to her. Thus, she began to doubt herself that it actually happened.

Tom ended up being nowhere to be found in Hogwarts. Every first and second year she tracked down denied his existence.

Perhaps she had made it all up.

xXx

Hermione moaned in pain with each step she took. Neville helped support her as she meandered along. The curse that Dolohov sent at her before did its damage, but she had reawakened to consciousness and witnessed Dumbledore appear to help them take down Voldemort at the Ministry.

She took another step and stumbled to the ground. Neville wrapped his arm around her as they watched Fawkes get hit by the Killing Curse, but Fawkes smacked against the ground, alit with flame and was resurrected from the ashes. And then, Voldemort's red eyes made contact with hers, and they flashed with recognition.

"You-, Hermione! From that dream-curse!" Voldemort shouted, his slit eyes as wide as they could stretch, as he tried to disarm Dumbledore again. Dumbledore turned towards her and winked as he blocked Voldemort's attempt. The wink was so fleeting Hermione thought that she could have imagined it.

"Voldemort's my true love…" Hermione gasped with wide eyes. It all made sense. Tom. Diary. Slytherin. Racist. Merlin, it had all been real."

"What!?" Neville exclaimed.

"What!?" Harry repeated from the other side of the room where he was trapped.

Voldemort scoffed.

The End.

A/N: I hope that you all enjoyed the story!

The dialogue of the announcement Tom and Hermione hear in the Hunger Games portion is straight from at least the movie. I don't actually own the book (libraries are my friend), to copy it from there. Therefore, I do not own it.

Love,

Montley