Monica Granger stood nervously next to her daughter's bed as she waited for the doctor to finish his check up. "Is she going to be alright?" She had no idea what had happened, she came into her daughter's room after hearing Hermione shout. Offering milk only seemed to make whatever was bothering Hermione worse it seemed, as her little girl promptly fainted. 'Well I'm definitely never going to offer her milk now. Maybe tea would be better,' Mrs. Granger thought after checking to see if Hermione was alright, and then called a doctor. After Mrs. Granger assured her husband that everything would be absolutely okay, Mr. Granger eventually went ahead to open the dental clinic for the Saturday. But only after the doctor came to the house four hours later.
"Your daughter's going to be perfectly fine, nothing to worry about," said Dr. Gibbons. "She should be up in an hour or so. Just to be sure, she's never had this happen to her before?"
"Only once, in Year 4, but nothing like that ever again," said Mrs. Granger.
"What exactly happened?" questioned the doctor.
Mrs. Granger seemed a bit hesitant to tell him. It was a rather embarrassing thing for Hermione, her daughter wouldn't like her telling anybody, but decided to do so anyway. "Well that was when, er, she got a mark off for grammar in an English test. She fainted in class."
That was a bad day. Dealing with a shell-shocked Hermione was not what she expected. Hearing her daughter whisper quietly to herself, "Off by a comma, off by a comma," didn't help. Her perfectionism was one of her greatest strengths, but that girl just couldn't cope with failure. She did talk to Hermione about how it was okay to be a little bit off, but she wasn't sure how much her daughter actually got out of it. 'Well that's what you get for having such an exceptional child,' Mrs. Granger had thought back then.
"Well, just to be sure, have her come to my office next week and we'll do a checkup. Until then, just watch for any unusual behaviour." Dr. Gibbons stood up and Mrs. Granger walked him to the door.
Almost exactly as predicted, an hour later Hermione woke up. She felt tired. 'Well that's because you overslept, sleeping in only harms your sleep cycle,' she berated herself. 'Besides, being tired is the least of your problems right now.'
Oh yes. She was ten. She fell through the Veil while untamed Time was fluttering about and now she was in the past, ten years old. 'Don't panic, panicking won't do anything,' she thought calmly. Hermione sat up and took a few deep breaths. Her mind slowly became cleaerr, and she knew what she had to do. She had to get back.
After all, she had tea with Harry and Ginny. You never wanted to break an appointment with that fiery redhead. Harry learned that lesson after chasing after some criminals and left Ginny at a restaurant by herself. When Harry finally made it to the restaurant, Ginny had time to stew in her own juices. The Bat Bogey Hex that Ginny casted was still talked about by the patrons of the restaurant in low whispers, looking around to see if they could see a certain Weasley female.. Even now, if Harry sneezed too hard a small bat screech could be heard.
Hermione thought things out further. She couldn't do anything now. She didn't have any access to her wand or any magical items, in fact, she wasn't even supposed to know what magic was! Maybe she could find a wizard… they wouldn't mind a missing wand would they? When Hermione was younger, the thought of doing something illegal would have never even crossed her mind. Time with Harry and Ron changed that. It was actually pretty simple once she thought about it. To find a wizard, she'd just have to get to the Leaky Cauldron, and then a quick reach into some robes, and voila, she'd have a wand. But having a wand wasn't much help now that she was underaged…
To be able to cast underaged magic she'd have to break into the Ministry, get into the Improper Use of Magic Office, which was in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, which meant it was constantly surrounded by aurors. So she wouldn't be able to cast underaged magic. 'Maybe if I can find potion ingredients…' Hermione thought.
As Hermione thought about where in the muggle world would she be able to find some wild moondew, her mom came in through the doorway with a hot cup of earl grey, pleasantly surprised to see her daughter up and about. "So how are you feeling hon?" Mrs. Granger sat the tea down on the table and sat next to her.
"Oh, uh good." Hermione didn't really know what to do in this situation. This was her mom, but it wasn't her mom. Her mom was in the futur- alternate future? Her real mom was on a cruise with her dad, travelling to Bermuda.
"When you're feeling ready come down for brunch," and with that Mrs. Granger leaned over and gave Hermione a kiss on the forehead. She got up and went downstairs. Hermione watched her go. She reached over for the tea and gave it a light sip. One cream and one sugar.
Hermione decided that this was her also her mom. After all, they were essentially the same person; it was just that this one was younger. It wasn't like this version of her mother was a completely different entity… right?
The rest of Hermione's day went by pretty fast, in no time she found herself eating brunch, finishing a novel from her father's study, hugged her dad, ate dinner, read another book and went to bed.
She stayed rather quiet throughout the day, her parents just thought it was a side effect of her little incident that morning. What they didn't know was that inside Hermione was doing everything in her power to stay calm.
Laying in her bed at night, waiting for herself to fall asleep was one of the best times for her to think (well almost every time was a great time to think for Hermione, this just happened to be a slightly-better-than-most time), but thinking was the last thing Hermione wanted to do. If she had access to a potion making kit she could just brew up a quick batch of dreamless sleep potion. She closed her eyes. That didn't really help; she was as awake as ever.
Why couldn't she have been less intelligent? The problem with having brains is that you couldn't stop thinking about everything. She didn't want to think about what was happening right now. No, she just needed some sleep, and then think later. She tried to clear her mind.
She did fall asleep eventually, but it was rather restless with tossing and turning deep into the night.
Hermione woke up the next day once again, bright and early. She started groping for her wand- oh wait. Her wand wasn't here. She was in the past. Or maybe that was a dream and her wand was just under her bed, and she would be in her nice little flat. She got up and opened her eyes. Nope, still in the past. She had to stay organized and focused right now, or she might just faint again. Which simply wasn't productive.
Hermione started to go over her mental checklist.
'All right,' Hermione thought. 'Let's see. First thing's first. I'm a child. I have gone into the past and I'm a child.' Hermione started giving little gasps. She was in the past, she was in past and she was a child, she was in the past and she was- No, she had to stay calm. Deep breaths.
'I'm a child and I have no wand,' Hermione continued in her mind. 'I have no access to wizards or witches or any type of magic and won't officially have access until next September when I turn eleven. Or rather when I turn eleven again.' She thought about the positives, this did mean that she could brush up on studies that she neglected during her Hogwarts years; things like Chemistry, and advanced Maths. Yes, she could just work on that, keep her mind busy from the thought of her current situation.
Potions and Arithmancy were all right, but she practically mastered them. Polyjuice potion at age thirteen, perfect on OWLs and NEWTs for both courses. (Well near perfect. Snape docked points in her OWLs for her Pepperup Potion because 'it wasn't the right shade of orange', even though both he and Hermione knew it the perfect shade of squashed butternut squash. She didn't allow Snape to upset her. Even if it did ruined her perfect average. Hermionie did feel better after hearing one of the Weasley twin's fireworks blew up his office.)
'Besides,' she thought. 'It's not like I'm going to get my hands on a new Charms textbook anytime soon." Yes, she needed something new to focus on, something to fill her mind with as she waited for her eleventh. With the thought of learning something new, she felt a bit cheered up and went downstairs to make her and her parents some breakfast.
She put on a robe and went downstairs to the bright kitchen. The sunshine streamed in as Hermione looked around, her brow furrowing. Hermione felt that something was wrong, something was making her morning a lot less breakfast-y. What was the problem? More thinking.
"Well normally I just cast Flindero and-"
Oh she could just hit herself. Of course she can't do that! No wand remember? She berated herself. Maybe her now youthful brain was slow. She decided to get her mind working. Listing out all the charms she knew would probably do it. A while passed as Hermione had her eyes closed, whispering charms quickly under her breath. Her listing eventually became slower, spells stopped speeding out of her mouth, they came out slower and more hesitant. Eventually she stopped. Her eyes opened.
Hermione could no longer list all the spells listed in her (old? Soon to be new?) textbooks. 'Well I thought that might have happened,' she reasoned. 'My brain isn't fully developed. I did remember having trouble memorizing prime numbers at this age.' She tried to list out the prime numbers. More furious whispering that eventually petered out at the end. Hermione could only go up to 2971 before she stopped. No, not that good at all. Only the 429th prime number and she had to stop.
Hermione didn't know what to think now. She lost her life, she lost her magic, and now she lost her brains? She felt a bit lightheaded. She needed to sit down. She tottered over to a stool and climbed up before sitting down at the counter.
She was very determined not to faint again. No, use in fainting, no way was she doing it again. Hermione gave a little 'eep' and fell face forward onto the table.
A/N
Oh Hermione, always falling unconscious. Since Hermione is physically ten, her brain isn't fully developed. So that fantastic memory that allowed her to memorize all her textbooks by heart isn't all there. Not yet that is.
In the novel the fireworks go off, I believe, before the OWLs, but in the movies they occur during an exam. Lets just say they went off during the exam.
As always, constructive reviews on how to improve my writing are very much welcome!
