A/N: This is my first published story on here, so I'm like yayyyyy and then I'm like oooohhhh scary. This is going to be one of many pointless author's notes so just ignore me and read on!
Chapter 1
Hermione was having a perfectly normal day until someone conked her over the head.
She had awoken in a fairly decent sized room, laid out on what seemed to be a standard twin bed that may have come straight out the of the hospital wing at Hogwarts. She wondered how in the hell this could have happened. Her head instantly started throbbing when she tried to sit up. She lay back down for a moment and then tried again. Her head was screaming in protest now. White sheets were pressed down into the mattress as she sat up slowly and surveyed the rest of the room. There were maybe 10 other beds in the room, lined up in two neat rows against the light blue walls. There was a door at either end of the room, both of them shut. There were no windows in the space.
Hermione surveyed the rest of the people that were in the room. Four beds were empty and the rest were occupied by sleeping forms. They were all tucked in as neatly and silently as she had been minutes ago.
"Hello?" She called tentatively.
None of them stirred.
Hermione kicked the covers away from her and laid her feet on the carpeted floor. She braced herself against the mattress and pushed herself up off the bed and into a standing position. She swayed a bit on her bare feet. Hermione closed her eyes for a couple of seconds to get the black spots from blinking in and out of her vision. She searched for her wand in the baggy pajamas someone had put her in and under the bed, the mattress, and the bedside table, but couldn't find it. It didn't surprise her. If someone of wizard heritage had indeed kidnapped her, the first thing they would do was take her wand. If a muggle had kidnapped her, they could have possibly thought it some kind of weapon, but it was doubtful. They probably would have locked her up for carrying around a stick. Or maybe they would have thought she liked to whittle.
Focus. She shook her head to clear the nonsensical thoughts.
She tried to apparate, but that was useless as well. (Can you apparate without a wand?)
"Hello?" She called out again. No response.
She had tried waking several of them, but to no avail.
Panic was starting to fill her veins now. How did she get here? Had she been kidnapped? Why wasn't anyone else waking up?
She started toward the door on her right, crouched down low and on her toes so that if anyone happened to walk buy they wouldn't see nor hear her walking about. Hermione desperately wished for some thick wool socks right about now. Or some shoes. She reached the door, and cautiously peeked through the square window at the top of the door. An empty hallway peeked back at her. She paused and listened for any sound. None could be heard except for the breathing of the motionless people in the beds in what she had entitled the blue room.
She tried the doorknob.
Locked.
On to the other door, then.
She tiptoed back across the room, her feet making little noise on the gray carpet.
She repeated the silent process once again with this door.
Locked.
The door, however, had a dark blue button beside it, like a muggle doorbell.
Hermione debated her options. She could press the button and see what happened. Most likely, someone would come for her. She didn't really want to find out who had kidnapped her though. If she didn't press the button, she would be stuck in this room with the others. She definitely couldn't break down the door, seeing as it was made of a few inches thick of solid wood.
Running a hand through her tangled hair and sighing, she came to a decision.
She reached out her finger and pressed down the button. Nothing happened.
Well that was anticlimactic. She reasoned that it would take a minute or two for someone to reach her, so she put some space between herself and the door in case she needed to try and fight.
Moments later, she heard a key jangling in the doorknob, and a short man came in. He was dressed in dark blue jeans and a white t-shirt. He had dark skin and hair shaved close to his scalp. He had laugh lines around his light brown eyes.
"Hello." Hermione said for the third time that day.
"Hello, Ms. Granger." the man replied. "I know you are frightened, but I have brought an olive branch, so to speak."
He held out her wand, handle pointed toward her.
She quickly reached out and grasped it, never taking her eyes off of the man. She could feel the steady thrum of magic flowing between her and the worn wood, and she relaxed a bit.
"You are the fifth one to wake up so far. Some won't make the transition." He said mysteriously as he gestured to the others. "They'll just sleep forever. That's the first test. You must be pretty special to be the fifth one awake. And so young, too. Usually the older ones wake first. I guess it's something to do with them containing more knowledge. Though we've had another like you wake up just hours ago."
"Older does not necessarily mean wiser." Hermione replied, indignant that someone would think that age had to do with knowledge, even though she didn't feel very knowledgeable at the moment.
"I suppose not." He paused, thinking. Moments later he seemed to physically shake away his thoughts. "I've been terribly rude. You must be so confused. Come with me." He took a few steps out into the hallway and sensing that she didn't move, looked back over his shoulder. "Trust me, you're safe. You have your wand, and you will be told how and why you came to be here. Now, come along." He walked out the blue room.
Hermione followed after him, her curiosity throbbing in her head like her massive headache. She kept her wand at the ready as she followed the little man down the hall. Bright fluorescent lights cast a strange sheen on her skin, making her own arms look foreign to her. He opened the door at the end of the hall, leading her into a spacious library. She was enamored with the sheer size of it and instantly fantasized how much information she could learn just by reading one bookshelf. Anything she could and would ever want to know could be found in a book.
Someone in the room cleared their throat.
Hermione jerked out of her reverie and scolded herself for being caught off guard in a strange place. The man who cleared his throat was…Dumbledore?
Ok, Dumbledore is here. This is definitely a dream. He couldn't possibly be here. He was dead.
She remembered the solemnity after his fall, the silent tribute of hundreds of wands pointed toward the sky. Anyone looking down on the scene would have thought that the stars had switched places from the sky to shine on the Earth.
Hermione kept staring.
He was sitting one of the burgundy couches surrounding a small oak table. He had on deep purple robes and his bright blue eyes shone behind his half-moon spectacles. Despite the peculiar circumstances, relief flooded through Hermione. He was alive!
"Professor!" She exclaimed. Maybe she hadn't been kidnapped after all. Possibly just knocked out by a rogue bludger or something. You know, this is why she didn't like Quidditch.
"Ms. Granger. How lovely to find you here. How's your head?" Dumbledore asked.
"Absolutely awful."
The short man started toward her. "Right…er..sorry. I was supposed to give you this medicine ages ago."
He handed her two small white pills and a glass of water. "It helps with the transition."
Hermione looked to Dumbledore for confirmation on whether to swallow the pills. He nodded. She stuck the pills in her mouth and swallowed them with the help of the water.
"Transition?" she asked, her eyebrows raised. "What kind of transition?"
"All in good time, my dear, all in good time." Dumbledore looked at her with his sparkling blue eyes over his glasses. "We'll have to wait for a few others to wake up and join us before the situation is explained. It gets tedious having to explain it to each person."
She nodded, although she was burning with the need to know why she was here. "When will the others wake up?" She thought back to the rest of the people on the beds in the blue room.
A bell chimed somewhere in the library.
The other man said "That'll be another. Be right back." He walked out the door with another two pills and a glass of water. He popped his head back in. "Oh, I'm Andreas by the way. Pleasure!"
"It's nice to meet you as well." Hermione said. The man left again and she went and sat in a seat across from Dumbledore. She hoped the others would wake up soon so all her questions would be answered.