Hermione sat on the floor of the Room of Requirement and breathed deeply through her nose. Her bushy hair covered her face as she looked down towards her hands in her lap. The fireplace the room provided crackled happily in the background, soothing her thoughts to silence. Her spine held straight, she looked still as a statue, aside from the slight rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed slowly and deeply. Inside her mind was like a blank slate with no conceivable beginning or end to the smokey gray of her mindscape.
She inhaled suddenly and snapped her head to the only other thing in the room, an old dusty armoire in the corner. A flick from the wand in her lap and the doors jumped open.
For a moment, there was only silence and stillness. Hermione's brow furrowed ever so slightly and then a huge plume of inky black exploded from the cabinet. Standing in the middle was a horrifying creature that could have once been a man. Eyes, like red slits, sat above high and narrow cheekbones and too thin lips framed his face. His skin was nearly translucent and Hermione could see the veins running underneath his skin.
He moved towards her silently, just a whisper of his robe, and towered over her seated frame. Hermione felt a small sliver of dread creep into the vast gray of her mind, a swirl of inky purple that she quickly pushed away. Voldemort said nothing, but a sudden blast of magic forced Hermione to gasp as he trapped her gaze with his red slits.
The iron-like talons that slashed into her mind were punishing with their brute force. But within the haze, they grabbed at nothing, the smoke dancing out of their grasp. They paused, considering, and in an instant their hard form dissolved into an eerie black ribbons that exploded in her head.
The pressure of his mind pressing into hers made a small trail of blood run down her nose and the sensation of it dribbling over her lip shifted the fog with a swirl of red pain. The talons launched forward and dove for the swirl, digging in hard. Hermione cried out at the mental onslaught as the gray fog dissipated to reveal a sunny garden surrounded by high stone walls.
The talons seemed to pause and coil in on themselves until all that was left were glittering black scales of a giant cobra. The reptile crept along the garden observing the soft flowers and the stone wall, meticulously looking for any crack or weakness. The creature hissed loudly when it realized that the wall seemed to repeat itself in a never ending pattern at it slid alongside it. Suddenly enraged at the trick, the giant beast flung its body into the stone wall with a vibrating thud. A small crack appeared and the snake vanished, the iron talons racing forward to scrape at the stone. They scratched, clawed, and dug their way into the wall, pushing forward with all their might. A hole appeared, more like a void between the stones, and the black mass shoved itself forward.
'Gotcha,' Hermione finally grinned.
As the force of Voldemort's mind surged forwards, the wall seemed to vanish behind it and all that remained was darkness.
Inside the room, Hermione unravelled her legs from the floor and shakily stood up. Voldemort's snake like eyes widened, almost imperceptibly as his posture went completely rigid.
Back in her mindscape was nothing but jewelled black obsidian. As the black mass pushed outwards, it seemed to meld and mesh with the surrounding darkness, trapped within her mind.
Hermione's body took two steps forward, until she could feel the body heat of the Darklord against her face.
He stepped back unconsciously, his mind completely enclosed inside hers, unaware of where she ended and he began. Hermione continued her slow walk forward until the creature crawled its way back into the cupboard.
With a sudden snap, the door swung shut and Hermione fell to her knees, hand outstretched and bracing on the rough wood of the cupboard. She breathed deeply, almost panting, ignoring the blood now dripping down her chin. Her small form hunched in front of the cupboard shook slightly and then collapsed onto the hard stone floor of the room. Hermione shivered, and slowly crawled on hands and knees towards the fireplace.
She tucked her legs into her chest and ran a hand through her wild locks. The only thing that kept her moving was the heat of the flames thawing out her cold fingers and allowing her mind to come back to the soft swirling gray.
She tipped her head down onto her knees, her hair forming a protective curtain from the bright light of the flames. She smirked, an unusual expression her normally pleasant face.
'Tenth time in a row,' she thought, dark pleasure of vivid burgundy blooming in her mind.
She shook herself and ignored the slight darkness that tainted the gray in her mindscape.
'Time to work out some steam,' she thought, and the room around her shifted into a rough gym. The cabinet vanished from the corner and three defense dummies lined themselves up on the opposite wall. Hermione threw off her cloak and glanced at the wand strapped to her inner right arm.
'Wandless?' she paused, 'Might as well.'
She unbuckled the strap and threw her wand to the side with her cloak. She rolled her shoulders and then stretched her arms above her head as she approached the back wall. Three quick blasts from her palm disintegrated each of the dummies in an instant, an eerie black glow pulsing from the fallen straw. The room seemed to grumble around her end Hermione chuckled softly. The dummies swirled and picked themselves back up again almost reluctantly. Hermione repeated the patterns over and over until finally panting, she sunk to her knees. The black glow had faded and Hermione finally smiled and closed her eyes.
'Maybe ten was a bit too much,' she thought, considering if her common room were any further that she might keel over before she reached her bed. 'Harry and Ron would definitely get suspicious then.'
She turned around and collected her cloak and her wand, strapping it back into place on her arm. The one time she had forgotten it in her room Harry had almost had a fit, she remembered.
'How could you forget your wand Hermione?!' Harry had screeched. 'What would happen if we were attacked or something?'
'I'm sure we're perfectly safe within Hogwarts Harry. After all, Dumbledore would never let anything happen to the students.'
'But what about Malfoy?' he had whined.
Hermione had rolled her eyes, but turned to face him anyways.
'I'm sure Malfoy would love to torture me Harry, but with you two around I feel perfectly safe.' She had grinned at him and Ron.
'Besides, I was just so worried about my ancient runes homework that I've been completely turned around. I know Professor Babbling asked for twelve inches and I've already done twenty but I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I added a few more? I'm sure that a more in depth analysis of the Eihwaz rune would really be a valuable addition...' Hermione had trailed off when Harry and Ron groaned, her wand completely forgotten from their minds.
Hermione shook her thoughts as she stepped out into the drafty hallway on the seventh floor. Her eyes swept back and forth checking for students and she smoothly walked down the corridor back to the Gryffindor ccmmonroom rubbing a sleeve across her face to remove the dried blood.