Hi everyone! This is the first real chapter in this story, in which Hermione finds out how well her plan so far has worked. I really hope that you will like it, and even if you don't, please let me know so I can know what I should improve.
1. A question of time and place
Hermione drifts from and into sleep, never hanging on for long. She finds it hard to separate, one moment she can think clearly, she realizes that something is wrong, and then she falls back into dreams. Always dreams. They are the same, she sees what has happened over the last few years. She sees the faces, all of her friends, dead and alive then, now all dead. She sees it happen again, them falling, them leaving, Hogwarts burning. Houses burning, bridges falling and towers crashing to the ground. And no one to put it out, no one to stop it. She hears the screams, and the laughter. Twisted laughter, from twisted throats. The laughter of the mad and evil. And she sees them too, the Death Eaters, and him. She sees his cold eyes in her dreams, and she shivers with terror. And the others, the mad woman, who has caused her so much pain and suffering. The cold man, taking power for himself over those too weak to resist. Only terror, horror and fear. The end of the world, her world, both of her worlds.
She has a lucid moment, and she thinks. The spell has failed, she has failed, she allowed herself to be distracted. She should have been herself, at that time, just before Hogwarts. With time to prepare, time to plan and time to act. She could have won the war. But she hasn't, she failed, again she failed. And now she is somewhere, nowhere perhaps. She fears that it is driving her mad, the constant noises in the darkness. The weakness of her body, she can barely move, and she hardly tries to.
Above the thudding sound she hears something new. Vaguely like music, but muffled. But still she recognizes it, she can't recall who made it, but it is muggle music, she never cared much for music. High-pitched singing reaches her above a rhythmic beat although she can't distinguish what is being sung. She doesn't have to. Some of the words come to her mind, placed there by having heard them a hundred times. Not all of the words, only two, repeating themselves, over and over again: "Night Fever, Night Fever"
Is she becoming insane? Has she been captured after all, and is this a prison? She wonders, but there is no easy answer. Again she moves her arms through the warm water. She still has not drowned. It must be some magical liquid to keep her alive for interrogation. It is the only explanation. But Hermione can't grasp why she hears the muggle music. It makes no sense. None of his followers would even admit to knowing it, let alone play something like that.
Then she feels something, on her belly. It is hard to feel, she doesn't feel much, her senses numbed by her surroundings. But she can feel something. It feels slippery, like everything else. But it is like a rope, and it throbs, following the rapid pace of her heart. She follows it, it leads towards her, touching where her navel should be. Then she realizes it. The spell has worked, but in the wrong way. She has failed, but only in part. She is a prisoner in another way. It all starts to make sense. She has returned in time, but she went too far. Too deep into the past. She failed to focus on the moment, and she went to the earliest moments.
Before her own birth.
She drifts from sleep to wakefulness, hardly separating the difference anymore. All alone with her thoughts and the occasional muffled sounds, lights, and movements. She no longer hears the noise surrounding her, only when it is different. The gurgling has faded into the background, now that she knows what it is. By now she can even make it out when her mother is saying something, but it remains too distorted to really understand what is being said.
If only she had studied the muggle sciences. Hermione knows that they would have taught her how children develop before birth, she once saw it in a book, but she took another, finding the biography of the composer Mozart more interesting. She should have chosen differently. She could have determined how long she would have to remain like this, how far she had come. And perhaps even track time in some way. But she can't. She knows next to nothing about it.
XxXxX
She has faded away again, losing consciousness, after what might have been months or minutes. She can't keep track anymore. She knows that she has faded, because she can see. Or maybe it is merely a memory, coming to the fore again. At least she knows that it isn't true.
She is walking through Hogwarts, and she instantly recognizes when it was. There was only one time that Ron had been dressed like that, in his special robes. It would have brought a smile to her face if it weren't for the sadness that she feels at the sight. Now the look of the frilly, rather hideous thing shows how wrong she had been. She should never have accepted to be his date for the ball. She shouldn't have gone at all. But it was better than going with Krum, she had found the Bulgarian rather creepy, always watching her in the library. But she should have never given Ron hope like that.
But still, she was walking by his side, towards the great hall. She couldn't say a word, only observing from her own eyes. She knows that she will be able to change things, but that will take time. An infinity of time. Slowly she sees the others, and she already knows what her eyes will see. They dwell on the girls, especially those she considered beautiful. She should have done the impossible thing, asked one of them. But she couldn't. She didn't dare to. Afraid of being judged, afraid of being laughed at again, afraid of being disappointed. Well, she was disappointed, she thinks bitterly, and she disappointed everyone.
If only she had managed to preserve the peace. Ron wouldn't have left them, and wouldn't have died. Harry wouldn't have seen it as another death on his conscience. And he wouldn't have left the castle, going all alone to face him. She only found out when Neville told her, and it already was too late. Harry never came back, he died. And with him hope died. But that was not what she was seeing now. She was seeing her own feet, remembering how she had looked at them for most of the ball. She hadn't danced, not for a single moment, but she also hadn't left. She had stayed, and she had watched others having fun. Like she had done so often.
The scene fades, and she sees nothing. Only the blackness of her prison. Her warm, comfortable prison. She wants to be free from it, to be out in the world. But she knows that even birth will not set her free. She will be helpless. And she will have to be careful. She can't betray what she knows, not before it is the time. She would only be called insane, and might even attract attention. The wrong kind of it. Obliviators could ruin everything, even this last hope.
And she needs a plan. Something to do for all those long years before she can go to Hogwarts, and get a wand. She will need a letter to do that. She can't go alone to Diagon Alley to purchase one. But that will take many years. And she needs it to perform any kind of magic.
She wonders what she can do without magic. She can study, but only muggle subjects. She can't yet travel, not for years. Anyone would immediately pick her up, and return her to her parents. The growing girl dreads these years, all of them spent in helplessness. She knows some of the terrible things that will happen, and there will be no way to stop them. None at all. She can't tell the Potters about what will soon happen to them. She can't save all those poor people who will still be killed, like the muggles blown up by Wormtail. She can't prevent Sirius from going to prison. She can't warn the Longbottoms about their terrible fate. She can't do anything at all. Nothing for many years.
She would have cried, but she can't. Not really. Only her head shakes, she can't even sob.
XxXxX
Again she is dreaming, she is seeing. But it all is blurry. Which her dreams hardly ever are, especially not the ones that she can actually observe. They are always clear. Except for this one time. She can also hear sounds, just like the muffled sounds she heard only moments before, but they too are distorted.
Finally everything clears up and she can see. It is a place that she has never seen. She sees a room with off-white walls, with smoke hanging in the air. There are yellow-brown lamps casting their light into it, and Hermione sees a man sitting next to her. He has long red-brownish and rather unwashed hair. He holds a cigarette in his hand. He wears a faded blue T-shirt and looks as though he isn't entirely present. But she can catch what he says: "… like I said."
She then hears another voice, a woman's: "Neil, Shirley", her field of vision turns to reveal a middle-aged woman, who looks as though she is the really proper kind, unlike the man. "I know that it is your child, but really, this is no place to let it grow up. I told you before, and I'll repeat it now. It is filthy. You have to move to a better place."
"But mom", the voice sounds as though it is being spoken by her, but she doesn't know it. "Our place is more than good enough. Neil and I have been living here for years now, and our little baby star will shine all the brighter here."
"You're not even married, for goodness sake. I want you to come home, Shirley, your father wants it too. It would make him very happy.", the prim lady replies.
"Dad said that he didn't want to see me again until I did exactly as he told me. And I won't. I'm happy! Why can't you see that? I love Neil, and I will live the way I want to!"
"Yeah, what Shirley said.", the man says and her sight focuses on him again, "Our love is real. You don't like me, which is OK, I guess. You can like whoever you like, but don't tell other people who they should like or not. That is really heavy."
Whoever she is looking from looks down for a moment, and takes a pull of a cigarette she hold. Hermione can clearly see the large belly of the woman, but she doesn't know any Shirley, or any Neil. This has to be a dream. It has to be. She wonders who these people are. She feels as though she is in Shirley's head, but at the same time, she can't be, because she doesn't know her. She feels that she is losing her grip on the conversation, and everything fades away again, back to blackness. Back to endless dreams.
XxXxX
Please tell me what you think of this so far. I know that she is dreaming a lot right now, but the big reason for that is that unborn children spend a large part of their time asleep, and I figured that having the thought processes of an adolescent would only be a bigger drain, and further increase the need for sleep.
