An unbearable pain ripped through her and she arched up, sure that she should be dead. No pain should be this excruciating.
Her vision faded between black and white. Her eyes throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the way her blood was burning. She felt it singing through her skin, and heat radiated in waves off of her. She screamed endlessly, unable to contain it, until her vision passed into a darker realm several minutes later.
Sleep was restless. She didn't know where she was or how she had survived, but she knew that she could not be dead; this was far too painful for death. Between flashes of black and white, she saw red – and she hated it. If she dreamed, she dreamt of the war, flinched away from the scent of blood – which was suddenly much stronger than she remembered it – and sobbed behind her clenched eyelids for the lives that she had taken.
And then the pain resumed.
And this time, she was conscious when a melodic voice chimed next to her, whispering soft words. "Hush," the voice said, and Hermione noted that it was a woman before she felt pinpricks behind her eyes, forcing her to open them. The room was pitch black, but she could still see. She could see better than she ever had before, and that baffled her. What was this place?
She could see the dust motes shimmering inches from her face and wondered how she was not choking on them. She could see colors that were brighter than she ever remembered them being.
This, she thought as most of the pain subsided, must be death.
"Can you sit?" Another voice, male, asked gently. Hermione felt his hand on her shoulder and flinched fearfully.
She twisted her head around to see him, and studied his face intently. He was pale – much paler than anyone she'd ever seen – and in his twenties. His hair gleamed and glistened in a supernatural manner, and his golden eyes almost screamed compassion. She felt like she should fear him, simply because she did not know him, but she couldn't. He was too open to be frightening.
Unsure of how to answer, she nodded and pushed herself into a sitting position with ease.
"Very good," he murmured.
"You're so very beautiful," the soft, womanly voice complimented, capturing one of Hermione's curls and fingering the texture of it.
Confused, Hermione said nothing, aching to be cautious and wary but unable to be. They seemed odd, surely, but not frightening.
"Are you thirsty?" The man asked.
"Oh, of course she is, Carlisle," the woman chided.
"I-I'm really not," Hermione declined abruptly. No, a drink certainly did not sit well with her.
"What?"
"I – should I be thirsty?" She asked.
She didn't feel… normal. The pain was gone, which she was immensely thankful for, but something was still off. Color was clearer; she could see far better than before. In fact, all of her senses felt stronger, although she couldn't say how. The air tasted different; tangier. It had more flavor. She could smell it, actually, which was certainly different. She could feel every thread that composed the blanket that covered her.
But she didn't feel especially thirsty.
"Yes," the man, Carlisle, said, clearly puzzled.
Hermione's eyebrows furrowed, and she looked to him again.
"What is your name?" the woman asked curiously.
Hesitantly, "Hermione."
"That's lovely," she responded, pleased. "A family name?"
"No," Hermione shook her head, wondering why she was discussing the etymology of her name with a perfect stranger when her body felt as oddly as it did. "My mother has a fascination with Shakespearean literature. It's from The Winter's Tale."
The woman's smile faltered slightly. "Your mother?"
Hermione nodded, looking at the blonde man once again. "I don't mean to be inconsiderate or rude; I'm fairly sure that you just saved my life," she said hurriedly, "but where am I? And how did you save my life?"
"You're still in Forks," he assured her.
That astonished her. Forks could never be quite as beautiful as she was seeing everything in this room. It was too dreary. There was no way that this bright oasis could be within three hundred miles of Forks.
"Where is my family?" She asked.
When Carlisle hesitated, and seemingly decided against answering, she turned to the woman and jumped away in surprise. She was surprisingly and almost impossibly stunning. And her eyes – they were the same as the man's. Gold. Caramel, really, but still dark.
Suddenly, another of them stood at the door. He was also ridiculously handsome, although his skin was marked by crescent-shaped scars. They should have frightened her, but instead she felt an entrenched affection for the younger man.
"Hermione," the woman said, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly, "this is Jasper."
Jasper studied her warily, his face cold and indifferent, reminding her of an enhanced, much more appealing version of Draco Malfoy. A moment after she thought it, his flat face dropped, and his eyes closed briefly before he moved toward her, quicker than anyone she'd known had ever moved, and touched the side of her face with unequivocal care.
She blinked a couple times and tilted her head to look into his eyes. He stared back with an intensity that she had never known, and she simply couldn't break the contact.
She was surprised that her face didn't feel hot with embarrassment.
"I'm sorry," he said tightly, his voice carrying apparent pain.
"I don't understand," Hermione said back, unable to look away from his eyes, which, she noted, were also golden.
He exchanged glances with Carlisle and the other woman, before he stiffened substantially and firmly locked his eyes on hers, his face reverted to distanced and cold.
"Your parents," he said stonily, "think that you are dead."
"Did the car look that bad?" Hermione asked sadly. "Did the driver live, too?"
"The car is demolished," Jasper said quickly, "and the driver died immediately upon impact. But you didn't," he said slowly, his face contorting in guilt and pain. "I didn't want to do it to you," he assured her.
"Do what? I don't – "
"Turn you!" He stood, pacing restlessly.
Hermione froze. There were only two magical groups that could turn people into anything. And werewolves only came out on nights of the full moon. While it hadn't been particularly sunny, it surely hadn't been night time, let alone a full moon.
It all made sense, now. The pain she'd experienced, her enhanced senses, and the unrivaled beauty of the creatures before her.
And why they had been so perplexed by her lack of thirst.
"Oh," she breathed.
Her mind sped up, calculating hundreds of different options, several of them impossible, but a few of them still feasible. She detached herself from the situation and removed the conflicting emotions. It was easier to think that way.
It certainly wasn't… good that her parents thought that she was dead, but that could be fixed. She would owl them and explain that something had come up in her world – the wizarding world – and would profusely apologize. They would be upset that she had left so abruptly, but that couldn't be helped.
She'd read about… about vampires that fed only off of animals; she didn't know how this group survived, but that was how she would do it. She didn't exactly revel in killing animals, but, much as she loathed to think it, that was better than killing people. And animals were killed all the time for food, although she had always preferred not to think of that when she ate meat.
Hermione tugged her lip into her mouth as she thought, unconsciously noting that her canines seemed sharper and slightly more pointed than before. But that made sense.
She groaned. Harry and Ron would not be pleased.
"Hermione?" The woman called.
"Sorry," Hermione muttered. "I'm ah… working through my life. More importantly, how my life just changed."
"I don't recall anyone mentioning how your life just changed," Carlisle said cautiously.
"Well, no," Hermione admitted, "but because the crash was during the day it isn't very difficult to put the pieces together."
Coolly, "You've heard of us before?"
Shocked by the ice in his voice, Hermione turned to Jasper and said, befuddled, "Of course I've heard of you. Even muggles have heard of vampires."
"Muggles?" Carlisle repeated slowly.
"Forgive me, I thought that the term 'muggle' was relatively… well, old. Perhaps it's newer than I thought."
Or you're older than I thought, she said to herself.
"It means a non-magical human."
"Non-magical?" The woman asked. "What does that mean?"
"Well… they can't perform magic, of course," Hermione said bluntly, confused. "How have you – oh. OH. You – you don't know about the wizarding world at all, do you?"
She felt for her clothes, which she suddenly realized were not her own, and with a touch of panic, she asked, "Where are my clothes?"
"We ah… we had to get rid of them," the woman said. "They were drenched in… in your blood, and it was very tempting for our family."
"Where are they?"
"Well they're – "
"Esme," Carlisle said carefully, noting the fear in Hermione's voice, "can you bring her clothes?"
"Of course," she murmured.
"Wizarding world?" Jasper asked, never straying from the topic of discussion.
"I-I don't know if I'm meant to say anything to you, but… well, it surprises me that you have never heard of it, at the very least. You are vampires… you've a right to know."
She inhaled, realizing that she hadn't taken a breath since the initial notice of the air's scent, and shook away the oddness of the feeling. "The wizarding world is the world for all magical creatures, but the main species, I suppose you would say, are humans with magical abilities. Vampires live there, of course, but most don't typically make homes anywhere. The Ministry – the government – doesn't exactly approve of them. There are centaurs, giants, thestrals, hundreds of creatures, really… I am, or maybe was, a witch. I'm not entirely sure how the turning process works; I know that my blood isn't pumped by my heart anymore, but do I still have blood?"
"Some," Carlisle answered, the doctor in him unable to refuse a medical question. "Not as much, but you have some."
Esme had returned during her speech and dropped the pile of Hermione's clothes at the foot of the bed. Jasper's entire being seemed focused on them. "Sorry," she said to him softly, reaching to the foot of the bed and frantically searching for her wand. She'd never moved so fast.
She pulled her wand from the pocket of her jacket and skimmed her fingers over it, feeling a throb of magic pulse through her. It was weaker than she was used to, but a small trill of relief permeated through her nevertheless.
"Hermione?" Esme asked softly.
"Sorry," she said again.
"The humans in your world know that we exist?" Jasper asked.
"Yes," Hermione confirmed. "And most of you know that we exist."
"Not the ones that we've encountered," Carlisle corrected. "And we've met quite a few."
"I can't really explain that," Hermione said, gnawing on her lip thoughtfully. "I-I wish I could."
"You're taking this remarkably well," Carlisle noted.
Hermione shifted uncomfortably and shrugged. "I can't exactly change it, can I?" She asked, immediately guilty for Jasper's flinch. "I've a rather cold talent for removing myself from a situation and thinking about it as logic would have, opposed to how my emotions would have it. I can be very detached when I need to be."
And I've needed it a lot these past few years.
She wasn't even sure that she knew who she was anymore. The war had been an endless swatch of logic, which, for Hermione, meant very little time for emotions. She'd been in charge of strategy maneuvers, and had put her nearest and dearest on the front line and had been unable to acknowledge her fear for them. It was logical. She'd killed Death Eaters because they were the enemy, without giving herself the time to mourn them or revel in her guilt. It was logical.
It was for the better. It didn't feel good when she reattached her emotions to her thoughts, but it was for the better.
"Are you thirsty yet?" Esme asked.
Hermione shook her head, then shrugged uneasily. "I-I can drink, I just don't particularly feel a thirst for it."
Jasper frowned, "You haven't had any yet?"
"No."
"Forgive us," Carlisle said. "This has never happened before. Can you smell the blood on your clothes?"
"Yes," Hermione nodded. "But it smells the same as it always has, only stronger. I-I don't especially like blood," she muttered.
"It shouldn't matter," Jasper said. "You should still have a craving for it."
"Here," Carlisle said, handing her a plastic cup. She scrunched her nose up. She'd smelt it across the room before, but it was much less appealing when it was closer to her nose.
She stopped breathing, an uncomfortable sensation, but easily achieved, and took a gulp of the blood. "That's disgusting," Hermione announced, setting the cup on the bedside table with a grimace.
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Author's Note: Please review!
