Hello everybody! Here I come with a new story!
This will be my first long story that is destined to be published, so I hope it's worth the time. For now, I have no real idea on the definitive length it would reach but if I had to put an approximation it would be around the 100k mark, I think? I know, I know, it's ambitious but knowing my style I have to be real with myself and you too. Also, I'm already ahead on a few chapters and plan to stay with the same configuration so that I can update regularly.
Maybe once a week with a longer chapter or twice a week with shorter chapters ? Tell me by reviewing so that I can accomodate, please?
It's my first real and serious array in lengthy fictions, before I didn't feel really ready on the commitment part, but now I feel up to the challenge!
I can already tell you definitely that it will be a Dramione, it will be M-rated and with no instantaneous love.
On this note, I present to you the prologue, please keep in mind that it is meant to be short in order to introduce the story, the chapters will increase in length!
Disclaimer: I have no rights on the property of JK Rowling nor make any money from it, I simply like to play with her characters and the universe she created for my personal enjoyment and other people's too.
Hermione woke up feeling sleazy and weak. Although it wasn't really a surprise considering it has been brewing for quite a few weeks already and as the days went, her body gradually fell under a state she has never experienced before. It has finally reached its pinnacle and Hermione felt something akin to a heavily water-imbued sponge deep in the ocean. Sweating like a pig in constant waves for days without ever stopping surely would have that effect on anybody (she wouldn't even be surprised if at this point she would be declared completely dehydrated). Weeks ago she couldn't even envision what that would feel like but now it was the best way to describe her confusing health.
The days came by and went, and Hermione set into a pattern consisting of in and out consciousness. She couldn't discern days from weeks, let alone define which day was Tuesday or Sunday, and even less what hour of the day she was in. It was just a continuous dream-like state, except those weren't dreams she wished to have ever again in the rest of her long life. She felt like someone came into her body and decided to wreak havoc while burning her insides with a crackling torch, all the while laughing like a pleased Voldemort. Scary.
The fire burning through her arteries and flesh seemed never ending, only allowing her a few moments of respite when it felt like being thrown into a giant frozen lake. The feeling of utter dread and frost creeping up in her body while her nerves succumbed to something akin a million electricity charged pulses was ghastly.
She couldn't fathom the reason as to why she was subjected to this living hell in the very few moments of lucidity this boiling allowed her to get. She would incessantly wonder why? What? How? Only, she didn't have any answers or any means to get some this time. Nobody had as far as she knew.
One of the advantages of being known as a know-it-all, a bookworm, and by some even a "bloody mad intellectual which", was that everybody knew that, sometimes, when she falls into her "subject of the moment" trance as Harry cautiously puts it, the best thing to do was leave her be and let her be alone with her books for some days. Unfortunately, she was now subjected to the downside of such a behavior since, surely enough, everyone thought she secluded herself in her library doing another one of her research, and nobody in their right mind would ever disrupt her without facing her madwoman wrath. Well, Malfoy would, but he has never been know for his sanity and respect for other's wishes, has he? Even so, it wouldn't matter since he was presently sent away on a mission somewhere, in China most probably, researching old Ming Dynasty's era magical objects. This all meant that nobody visited her, and thus knew that she was fatally ill, and literally wishing to die instead of being subjected to an additional second of this evil personified.
Progressively, the pyre seemed to be extinguishing, and molding itself into pins and needles, only to leave a new kind of feeling in Hermione. Nerve-wracking restlessness was assuredly a good way to put it mildly. She was trashing up in every direction like a rabid animal looking for something unknown to her. She felt like something was achingly missing from her entity. Something important being excruciatingly ripped from her. Something she couldn't live without. She knew somewhere in a part of her mind that she must find it under any condition or she would without a doubt perish.
But she couldn't move. Her limbs were like incarcerated on her bed. Her fingers felt like she stole them from another's body. Her legs were scalding hot. And she couldn't, for the life of her, fucking move to try to lessen the pain. It seemed the trashing around was actually only her neck manipulating her head into every possible direction. It wouldn't even surprise her to learn that she actually did something impossible for every other person on this planet like moving her head into a 360° position. Even so, she had to try and get out of the pain, she had to find again what seemed to miss and at the same time escaped her.
Furthermore, air was constantly leaving her lungs inexorably. She couldn't determine if the cause was her poor physical state, the pressing feeling of her bone-aching pain or the sealed stuffiness her room provided. Her breath was missing its usual strength and her organs felt even more strained from the lack of oxygen. Even though the pain had already played with her brain and rationality, the lack of the life-giving requirement sent her mind further in fuzziness.
Suddenly, she fell into a coma like state. Assuredly a reaction to the pain and loss of air she mused. Her eyes reached a never ending muted darkness. Her ears couldn't detect anything and her body was floating on what seemed to be a torrent of air. Surprisingly, she had never felt such at ease in her own body for her entire life. A sense of completion began to finally ease into her for the first time in her existence.
She had always felt like something was missing and she wasn't complete. What she felt earlier was only a culmination of a lifetime longing. The only moments in her life when she didn't feel the void as much was when she went into the natural open-spaces, the woods, running along the wilderness. This emptiness was further lessened especially during her Hogwarts days, when she would go jog in the Forbidden Forest with the magical creatures she seemed to go along with. Being at the castle always seemed to fill her body with a sense of belonging like nothing else. And running there was great. Unbeknownst to all, she was an active runner in her free time, sometimes she even went three times a day for a jog. Those were the days filled with stress, anxiety and frustration. The feeling of breath expanding her lungs, the strain on her muscles and most of all, the heavenly feel of air running almost playfully around her was a delicacy to her.
Nobody knew that side of her because nobody expected it from Hermione Granger. The bookworm, to be anything but the cozy type of person, choosing to settle in the couch instead of going outside? What a preposterous idea. Everybody knew she could make an effort if needed, but those were only life-threatening occasions, the type like being chased by Snatchers in a forest, right? But that wasn't Hermione.
She was the epitome of a free-spirit: thirsting for knowledge, fiercely independent and enjoying the abundance of air in the nature. People often wondered, because of her persona and attitude, when looking at her: how the hell could she integrate Hogwarts' Gryffindor House, where the brave dwell? She wasn't a hot-head like the typical house-member, nor overwhelmingly boisterous, her pride was definitely there but she didn't abundantly project it. So, what made the Old Hat tip the balance in his decision towards the red and gold section?
But, more often than not, people didn't know her. Her loyalty rivals any of the Hufflepuff house representatives, it was limitless if you earned it in some difficult way. Her cunning and ambition could more often than not surpass a Slytherin snake's one. Her studious and scholar persona that obtained her her multiple titles and the appellation of Brightest Witch of her Age, was the main reason of questioning towards her sorting, she surpassed every Ravenclaw in the run for erudition.
However, the Sorting Hat did rightfully his job. Her braveness was without bounds if the cause was worthy. Her pride could handicap her like so many other of her housemates', but her rational mind and posed attitude saved her form the overbearing hotheadedness most of the time. What really tipped the scales in favor of Gryffindor was that Hermione ultimately abhorred being repressed. Knowledge is liberty, actions are liberty, and Liberty was Hermione's greatest cause. She would fight for it, hers especially, for eternity.
Hermione was simply put a free spirit. Unrestricted, unbound and limitless. Maybe that's why she loved running amongst the wild so much, she felt as loose and independent as air itself in those occasions.
Being in an unending black pit undeniably allowed Hermione respite from her previous pain and time for lengthy musings to take place. The relief she felt when detecting that the fire and mind-numbing ache weren't there anymore wasn't humanly quantifiable. She felt like finally a true rest was gifted to her... even though she laid on her bed for what felt like weeks beforehand.
After a long while filled with abysses where Hermione nursed her remaining memories of pain, she slowly felt like brightness buzzed progressively on the edges of her consciousness. Bit by bit, the various nerves spread in her body responded once again to her brain transmitters. It started first with her toes and stretched at a slow pace to her legs, going upwards.
The tips of her fingers tingled startlingly as if they were electrocuted by a low current and the feeling went up towards her shoulders at an agonizing speed.
Her stomach felt finally free of cramps and gut-tearing pain. The unclenching of her spinal nerves left a wave of cell-deep relief course through the entirety of her body and made her back sag on the firm and soft mattress of her bed.
Most of all, as she felt her lungs slowly starting to expand more and more at each shallow breath, the air and oxygen it brought proportionally in her organism liberated her mind from the muddling she had felt conquering her as she fell unconscious hours ago. Various rational and well-constructed (on the opposite of the jumbled and undistinctive mess she had before) thoughts finally coursed from her usual bright and ever awake mind.
As she confusedly felt herself waking up, she tried to understand what exactly happened to her. Never before had she experienced such a sickness. What she had to temporarily class as an illness was entirely unknown to her.
As far as she knew (and she knew a lot about the various magical diseases thanks to her research on one of her previous projects for the Department of Mysteries where she worked), long periods of time putting the patient under mind-fuzzing and excruciating pain finally leading to unconsciousness was unheard of. At the first emergence of pain in different parts of her body, Hermione checked externally for any rash or other deformation, and with her wand for internal tears. But, she didn't find anything, so there were no detectable symptoms except from the generalized pain.
Furthermore, she couldn't even attribute it to a curse or a side-effect from a magical object she encountered at her workplace, since she had, for weeks now, been in the research only period of her new project on old Slavic magical rites.
Hermione was frustrated, to say the least, no rational explanation could be attributed to her weeks of suffering. She felt like all her pain and burning came out of nowhere and attacked her unrelentingly without any reason. Why her, in particular? How come? For what? What is the purpose?
Her mind tried to find or supply different hypotheses, but, alas, for now, she had no reliable information apart from her empiric observations so she would have to put a hold on her research up until she could find books and facts. A different kind of restlessness was invading her now. She couldn't wait.
Finally, after her long-winded processing, she tried to open her eyes. At first, her lids felt unresponsive, and then only reluctant to her orders, as if they were stuck together, which would be kind of understandable since the torrent of tears they leaked was all dried up now.
After a while, she at last saw the light in her room. It was muted as if dawn or dusk were the periods of the day. Slowly, she acclimated progressively to the strange clearness of her gaze. Never before has she seen so sharply in her life, over reading tendencies usually tended to destroy slowly one's eyesight and made them wear glasses.
She turned her head to the right of her bed to look at the muggle electronic clock she transformed so that it could work around the magic, and confirmed her fears. It was now April 4th, and last time she looked at the calendar was the day she felt the pains come, it was March 13th at the brisk of dawn. How in Merlin's name has she survived more than three weeks without any food or water?!
She felt herself stop moving and slowly get petrified by the new information.
A few moments after, a tiny high-pitched voice interrupted her musings by speaking right into her ear on the opposite side of her bed. She shrieked, impersonating a young schoolgirl, like never before in her life.
"Good afternoon. Congratulations on your Maturing, Mistress Nymph." it said.
Thanks for reading at least this prologue!
So, what are your thoughts for now? Do you like it so far? Are you going to continue reading?