It was hard for Hermione to process, she wanted so much to share with Ron, but he had been so distant, so far from the Ron she grew up with and loved. She waited in her chair until the sun rose before she moved herself to her empty bed. Ron wasn't coming home. She decided she would flew Harry and Ginny about it later while Hugo was eating breakfast.
Hermione's dreams were filled with screams of pain, they resounded through Hogwarts halls, she couldn't find where they were coming from. She wanted to search the castle but was secured to a table the screams were so loud, she wanted desperately to help but she couldn't move. It was that moment that she realized she was the one screaming, that she was the one wailing with such pain. The feeling shook her to her core and her eyes snapped open.
It was a little past eight when she shot out of bed. Hugo would be late for school because she slept in. Hermione thumped down the stairs quickly tying her robe as she went. She shuffled into the kitchen to find Tandy serving up bacon and eggs to Hugo for breakfast. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and surprise.
"Begun your pardon missus. You was still sleepings and the little master was hungries so... I cooked him some breakfasts...I hope is ok missus." The little elf said eyes heading for the floor.
"Tandy, you have saved the day. Hugo would have been late if you hadn't used your own judgment here and I greatly appreciate your actions."
"Tandy did good!" The little elf's ears wiggled as she did a little dance around the kitchen.
"Tandy has one more thing to tells the missus and she hopes the missus isn't mad...Tandy sneaked into the Cauldron last night and she sneaked a looked at the red head grump. Missus, he is as old as you. Tandy wasn't sure if you wanted to know, but honestly missus Tandy was curious and wanted to know. Tandy is sorry if she shouldn't have done it."
"Thank you Tandy, I also wanted to know, but maybe we should have asked his permission first."
"Tandy tried but the grump was too filled with drink to answer straight. Tandy is sorry missus"
Hermione explained that she was meeting someone else today who had dreams like hers and that once Hugo went to school she would like Tandy to accompany her to the Cauldron.
Hugo was happy to be dropped at class and the two continued to the Cauldron where Hermione bought them both a warm butter beer which the elf seemed to thoroughly enjoy. Hermione was giggling at the little elf's beer foam moustache when Malfoy walked in.
He ordered a butter beer and sat down at the table with Hermione, glancing at the elf quickly.
"Really Granger, I get freeing the elves but you don't have to take them for drinks." Malfoy scoffed at her in a half joking manner.
"Draco Malfoy," Hermione greeted him. "somethings never change."
"Tandy this is Draco Malfoy, he is the one with the dreams too." Hermione introduced the little elf.
"Draco please let Tandy tell you your age."
Draco looked displeased he wanted to talk about the girl, not be a part of some party trick.
"I'm 37 Granger, you know that."
Tandy looked to Malfoy who gave in and lowered himself down so the little elf could do her trick.
The elf nodded at Hermione.
"Tandy's had a good break missus, is ok if Tandy works on the garden now?"
"Yes Tandy please do what ever you wish until Hugo is due to come home from school, I am sure he would love for you to make him a snack later, if you would like."
Tandy smiled bright before popping out of the Cauldron.
"What was that about Granger, I thought we were here to discuss the girl."
"We will Malfoy. We will."
Hermione waved a hand a mumbled a quick spell causing their conversation to be private before she told Malfoy of the age difference. Malfoy refused to believe that he was almost forty.
Malfoy mentioned how he had been turned down for potions master. Hermione mentioned that she too had been turned down for a position at Hogwarts. Hermione offered up a pensive and her memory of the test she had preformed on the girls hair but Malfoy dismissed it.
"Don't let it get around, but, I trust you Granger."
Hermione sat silent for a moment processing the words that just came from the mouth of Draco Malfoy. Eventually she snapped out of it spoke up about the lost time, she felt it was connected to the dreams and possibly the girl. The wheels in their heads were turning, the girl was genetically connected to them both and they and Ron had all lost two years.
"She has my eyes Draco, you don't think Hogwarts would...the time turners were all destroyed weren't they..." Her sentence trailed off.
"I don't know what they wouldn't do anymore, someone else could have collected or blood from the battle that day maybe they made a golem." He said as he put his face in his hands.
"Not only did she not feel like a golem but her hair was human or the potion wouldn't have worked, and just so we are clear that is definitely her natural colour."
Their conversation had stalled, and they were almost out of time. Hermione reached into her bag and brought out a book. She pushed it across the table to Malfoy.
"This is every dream I remember, Draco, these include my thoughts and feelings about the dreams. I don't want to end up in 's because you have decided I am crazy after reading these."
"I'm sorry Granger, I can't promise that." he said almost with a grin.
"I haven't written mine down, but I can recount most of them." He said seriously as he took the book and shrunk it to fit in his pocket before moving to leave. "I am working on setting up a parent teacher meeting with all Scorpious' teachers, you should do the same. It will give us a chance to look around maybe see her again. I am setting it up for Saturday. See you there." He stressed.
With that he headed out the door, leaving Hermione enough time to pick up Hugo. When she arrived home Tandy had a plate of different small pieces of fruit with some cheese and crackers for Hugo to eat.
"Missus the grump is upstairs he is been very rude since he gots here."
Tandy nodded when Hermione looked from Hugo to the elf. Hermione moved from the kitchen and silently ascended the stairs. The muffled words of anger and frustration that often came from Ron could be heard while he ranted to himself about the day and the estate of his own life. Hermione listened outside Ron's study door until the ranting died down. He was still mumbling to himself when she heard him say a string of words that caused her to simply break.
She flung his door open and screamed bloody murder at him after casting the Snape's charm. She kept screaming the number three over and over again. When the confused Ron finally got her to calm down she had become to calm.
"Enjoy your new life with your new child Ronald. We don't need you around anymore." Her tone cut through him like ice.
"What...Hermione? What are you talking about?" Ron genuinely seemed oblivious to the words he had spouted in anger just moments before Hermione's outburst. His confusion just angered her further.
"Ronald don't try to pretend that you didn't just talk about having three children and I am certainly not with child. So bloody explain yourself or bloody sod off!"
"I don't know what you are talking about. I only have two kids Hermione, you know that. It's treatment like this that sends me off you know."
"Ronald Weasley! Don't you bloody pretend that your leaving everyday is my fault for talking to you this one time. This wasn't my idea of our perfect life either, but we have it now and I love my children."
"Yeah, more than you will ever love me."
"Are you sodding jealous of our children? Ronald! You need to go stay at your mom's tonight."
"Why? So you can meet with Malfoy again? You know you can't go around playing with Malfoy on the side without someone saying something."
"Ronald, I am not the cheater in this relationship. I have let your dalliances with Lavender go for the past year, but not tonight. I have not seen Malfoy other than to talk. We met one time for a few hours of conversation in a public location and I picked up Hugo after. Unlike you, you repeatedly don't come home to our children, because you are busy drinking or fucking your feelings away. I am a witch Ronald. I have scryed your location on more than one of your nights out and they almost all end up in the same place. Her bed. So don't you try and tell me that I am the one who has jeopardized our marriage by having a single conversation with another man when you have repeatedly stuck your penis in another woman. "
Ron's face had turned purple up to the tips of his ears.
"Ah piss off Hermione, at least I haven't been caught with our worst enemy."
"Ronald," her tone was ice again, "One Malfoy changed years ago and you know it. Two he was never our worst enemy. Stop fuelling the old bullshit, he married Astoria and you know she runs that house she makes him a better person when it comes to dealing with his blood issues. Three I have been talking to Malfoy about something both he and I saw on the platform when we took Rose to school, I would have talked to you about it first, but you were on your way out when I was done tucking Hugo in."
Ron's face froze, his eyes trailed to the floor, he couldn't even look at her. His mind was racing but he couldn't bare to share his thoughts. He should pull the memory and get her to watch the damn thing in a pensive, but he won't. What he saw the day he brought Rose her favourite bear last year. He didn't want to relive that memory so instead he bottled it up, pushed it away, and boozed to forget.
His mind flashed a picture of that group up against his will. There was maybe nine or ten students moving as a together down the hall. Their behaviours were as familiar as were their faces but they weren't quite right. The girls stood out the most, the platinum blonde with Hermione's eyes, the dark skinned red head, the curly haired blonde with unmistakable green eyes, a girl who reminded him of Neville, and the hardest to picture was the pug nosed red head. He couldn't help but stare in that moment and it seemed to burn the image into his mind.
By the time Ron had arrived home that night, he had decided it was Hermione's fault. She should have gone to the school. She should have seen. She should have known. She was the one who was supposed to plan for everything. She had let him down, or at least he convinced himself that she had.
That night his dreams began, he blamed Hermione for those too of course. Her nightmares were affecting him causing his brain to process her stories as his own dreams. He really did do a good job of convincing himself that none of it was real at all. He glanced at Hermione with the blank stare he had learned to display since his last visit to Hogwarts.
"Leave, go to her, for all I care. Tonight is not a night for you to stay here." Hermione raised her arm and pointed to the door, she showed him no emotion on his way out.
"Hermione." He managed through his gritted teeth just as he stepped over the rooms threshold. "I swear...I .." He stumbled to make something plausible up rather than talk about those girls.
"Go Ronald" She said all to calmly not turning to watch him slink out of the house.
`~~~~~~()~~~~~~
Malfoy sat in his favourite chair holding Hermione's notebook. He had put the notes out of his mind for the majority of the day, but as soon as things had quieted down he found he couldn't keep his mind from them. Astoria was having a rough day and had headed upstairs to bed, she cried for a whole day last year when Scorpius attended his first term at Hogwarts. She was maybe a little too attached to the boy but at least it wasn't to Weasley proportions.
He poured himself a glass of brandy taking a small sip before he put it down again. He let out a deep breath as he caressed the corner of the book with his finger before finally opening the cover.
"Never was cut out for Gryffindor." He whispered to himself with a bit of a chuckle before skimming through the notes on paper.
The beginnings of her dreams were filled with almost the memories of his own, sometimes differing colours. One of the notes mentioned the return to Hogwarts but the sorting hat had been brought out again. There was screaming and pain in another of her dreams, as he read further he realized the screaming and pain was in most of them. Sadness in the eyes of her friends when they look her up and down in yet another still. It was only last night she discovered the screaming in her dreams was coming from her dream-self. The dream that struck him the hardest was one of the last in the journal where Hermione described being tied down while McGonagall reprimanded her. Telling her that if she would just let go they could all finally go home. She wrote that in her dream she thought she heard a animal cry out and it just caused her dream-self to go into fits of utter anguish. The dream McGonagall always frowned and left her alone in the room that looked and felt like a prison cell.
Malfoy couldn't put it down so many of the things from their dreams were the same. The cell, the sadness in friends eyes, the sound of screaming and crying in the halls. He was determined to flew Blaise tomorrow and ask if he knows of anyone else from school who has had strange dreams. He wrote Hermione a quick message and sent it by owl.
"If she is sleeping just leave the note outside the front door" He instructed the owl as he tied the note with an easy to remove ribbon.
They owl flew fast as he could fly remembering that the house he headed to had treats. Hermione heard a gentle tap at her window and she moved to let the owl in. She gave him a few treats in exchange for the note and owl made his way to the edge of the table while he waited patiently for her to read the note.
H,
If you haven't already spoken to Potter. Please do so in the morning. Your dreams are very similar to mine, except the part where you are crazy. That is all you Granger.
D.
She huffed and crumpled the note throwing it into the fire.
"Draco...Malfoy... telling me to contact Harry as if I wasn't going to do so already." It was at that moment she realized that she had intended on speaking to Harry this morning before she spoke with Malfoy something which she had not done. Hermione turned her attention to the owl again. She created a new piece of parchment and wrote with a bit of fury back to Malfoy.
D,
Goddammit Malfoy! I was going to speak to Harry this morning, I ended up not remembering as I was rushing a bit today. Thanks for somehow making me feel like I never left Hogwarts.
H.
She strapped the note to the owl, gave him one more treat and he hooted on his way out.
Draco could only chuckle fondly at Hermione's reply.
She made her way to bed, she cried for a long while over her husband's behaviour before drifting off to sleep.
This nights dream was all too vivid. She dreamt of childbirth. Lonely, painful, childbirth. No one there to help her, no one there to catch the child. She manages herself in the dream. Once the afterbirth passes a muffled spell is cast outside her door. The dream breaks up and when it resumes she is alone in the cell with no signs of what has transpired but she hears the sound of her door shutting. There was a resounding sense of loss and the silence that filled her cell. That sense of loss doesn't leave her after these dreams. In fact the feeling only becomes worse for her after each one. The loss she felt caused her to wake to tears streaming down her face. Hermione without thinking transcribed the dream and her feelings into the book with a quick wave of her hand. It wasn't until moments later she remembered that she had given to Malfoy to read.
Malfoy was mid-conversation with Zambini when he felt the heat of the magic in his pocket. He paused while he read the new dream and shivered. He did not wish such events even his worst enemy...
Hermione flewed Harry and Ginny while Hugo ate. Tandy wanted to take the little master to school which allowed her the morning to spend with Ginny and Harry who took the day to come to Hermione's side. They discussed their own dreams though none compared to Hermione's worst. They contacted anyone they could think of that was a student after the second wizarding war and ended up of a list of twenty names that had dreams of Hogwarts.
Hermione pointed out that all the people who were having dreams all had children in Hogwarts. Ginny was in her element she was organizing a get together of all twenty of the students including her stubborn arse of a brother. They would meet with the teachers, allow a select few to find some time to look around the school as well as meet for drinks after to discuss the dreams and anything else that may come up. Ginny can be very persuasive, she found out Malfoy had a meeting on the Saturday it gave her president to request the rest of the meeting and Ginny managed to break down McGonagall after a long effort to drop the idea.
McGonagall sat in her green arm chair next to the painting of Dumbledore.
"Oh dear Albus, do you think they know? Did they find out what we have done?"
"I don't think so Minerva, I am afraid that this has just begun. I believe we will end up revealing everything for better or for worse before this year is up. She is coming Minerva. Very soon and we must prepare."
The painting huffed and threw his arms up as he mumbled to himself about a meddling trio...time to let the next generation do theirs.
"We will have to move them. Maybe a day trip to Hogsmeade is in order."
Albus nodded and Minerva drank her tea threw pursed lips.
~~~~~~()~~~~~~
McGonagall stood at the base of the newest staircase in Hogwarts waiting for the students to send them off on their well earned day at Hogsmeade. She decided not to wait any longer, frowning she ascended the stairs to their common room. There were ten doors with names scribed in silver on each of the doors. Though each one of them served as a daily reminder of what she had done she couldn't bare to stay away.
"Ehhem" Minerva cleared her throat loudly from the common room.
Starr was the first to exit her room, she was petite, her wavy blonde hair hit past her jumper and her big bright green eyes sparkle with a bit of a mischievous glint. She went to say something but Minerva covered her lips with her finger to say shh and surprisingly the girl listened. It was only a moment before the remaining students pushed their way into the common room laughing not being at all affected by the look on Minerva's face.
"Oh you bloody students are going to be the death of me." Minerva huffed as she lead them down to the front door for their fun day at Hogsmeade.
At the front door she half fawned over the students as they left the building straightening collars and fixing out of place hairs.
"Don't stay out too late. I know your fun time is precious so I will not keep you any further." With that ten students headed out the door.
Not a moment too soon Minerva thought as the first crack of the flew resounded through the hall.
~~~~~~()~~~~~~~~~~~~
An emaciated hand wraps around a half open stone grave. The hand's blackened finger nails are long and unruly but distinctly feminine.
The collective voices repeating one word in latin over and over. It created a hum of sound just outside the room holding the stone grave. Resurgemus the crowd of voices repeated. The voices repeated the word until they heard the clatter of the lid of the stone casket.
~~~~~()~~~~~~~~~~
Both Starr and Lyra stopped dead in the path on the way to Hogsmeade. The colour drained from the whites of their eyes, "Resurgemus has been cast, she is coming." They repeated the warning four times in unison before the colour returned to their eyes and they finally began to return the strange looks they found their friends to be giving them.
~~~~~~()~~~~~~~
One small voice spoke up from the crowd.
"She has risen."