A/N: I was seriously going to post this yesterday, but was out of town seeing my lovely little nephews! While writing this I felt myself becoming just as confused as Hermione is, but in the end I feel as though my Muse's whims acted accordingly!
Hermione feels someone shaking her by her shoulders and hears someone calling her name, but the sounds and senses seem distant, like they were coming from the wrong end of a tunnel. She wondered fleetingly why her body felt as if it were underwater, when suddenly the muddled voice became razor sharp within her ears and she opens her eyes, nearly blinded by the harsh light that invaded the room. "What in bloody hell is going on here? Why did you have to shake me like that?" Hermione spits at her unknown assailant.
When the voice spoke again she realised it was Minerva McGonagall, "Hermione are you okay, I had to wake you... You were screaming while you slept and besides you have been sleeping on and off for the past two days." Her ex-head of house replied with concern in her voice. "I didn't wake you for I thought it would be best for you to rest after all that you endured."
"Where am I?" Hermione asks, forgetting that she was at McGonagall's estate in Scotland.
"I took you to my place after the Minister had interrogated you... don't you remember, Hermione?"
The younger witch's mind was muddled, thoughts of being in Malfoy Manor lingered in her psyche. "No... Well vaguely, but the last thing I remember was meeting with the Dark-Lord and receiving the mark." Hermione clamps her hand over her mouth after she had spoke, while the older witch eyed her curiously. Slowly taking her hand from her mouth, the brunette lowers it to her left arm and gently rolls up her sleeve. Gazing timidly at her own skin, she sees the scars she had received at the Malfoy's the night of her torture; plus, a thick ugly white patch marring the 'blood' part of the word 'Mudblood'.
"What is that?" Minerva moves her hand towards the white scar. "You didn't have that before."
Hermione swiftly removes her arm out of her ex-professor's reach. "It's nothing... I must have received it the other night during the battle." She feels herself slightly shaken at the thought of not realising where she was. 'I remember how I got here but it is fuzzy... yet, I remember what happened before Minerva was shaking me very vividly.' Hermoine quietly shakes herself out of her own musings. "Can I have time to myself, Minerva? This past week has been nothing but a headache... I just need an hour to myself, to get cleaned up and a new change of clothes and I will meet you downstairs for tea."
The older witch eyes her carefully before consenting to the younger's request. "Alright... I understand. You still need more time to mourn your lost friends. Meet me in the den and we can talk about what is to be done next." Minerva walks out the room and closes the door.
Hermione stares at the door until she feels that her professor would not intrude upon her again and stares at the large white scar on her arm. Tracing the edges of the scar with the tip of her finger, she remembered the pain that she felt while receiving the Mark- 'But why isn't the Death Mark there? I remember Dolohov acting like a total prat and I know that the Dark-Lord will punish him severely for speaking out against Him. But why am I here? How did I come here? I remember Bellatrix said the Order had fallen, but did Minerva survive? If so how did she take me away from the Manor without a fight? I feel like I had started out here but it feels like a distant memory after last night's events. And for Minerva to say that I was out for two whole days when I know that I was at the Malfoy's just makes no since to me. I think I remember something about being here I mean I definitely remember that I have two separate memories of what occurred at the final Battle at Hogwarts but I don't know why... and I don't know what is real or not." Hermione struggles with her own inner thoughts while she walks around the room looking for her clothes. Realising there is nothing she could do short of casting a memory charm on herself to keep her from thinking about her situation, she trudges down the stairs to the parlour. Thinking maybe if she discussed what she feels with Minerva then possibly the other witch could help her with what is going on.
The coffee table was set with for an afternoon tea and Hermione's ex-professor was sitting on the sofa waiting for the younger witch to come down and join her. "I was hoping you would arrive down here before the tea got cold." Minerva said with a smile when she saw the young woman, but the smile faded from her face when she saw the confusion on the brunette's face. "Hermione are you alright? You seem a bit lost in your thoughts."
Hermione looks at the older woman, "Yes... you could say I am a bit lost." She sits down on an armchair on the opposite side of the table with a sigh. "I want to say first off... those boys were not my friends."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You said before that I probably still needed time to mourn my friends... but they were never my friends." Hermione begins to tell Minerva about what Dumbledore had done when she first found out she was a witch all the way to when Voldemort was defeated, giving only the description of what occurred in the memories that Minerva would understand.
The older witch stares at her incredulously after the story was completed. "Why didn't you ever tell me what had happened? You know I would never have stood for any of this! I would have cursed the man myself if I had known what he did."
Hermione smiles at Minerva's words, but shakes her head to gain back the attention of the older woman to let her know she wasn't finished. "That is not all Minerva... I know this will sound weird when I tell you this, it sounds just as ludicrous to me as well. But, I need to tell it to you because I feel you may be able to help me figure out why I have this other set of memories about what had happened and why I seemed so muddled when I awoke this morning." The brunette spoke of everything that had happened at Malfoy Manor and what she had told the Death-Eaters about the way things had happened. Hermione thought Minerva was going to drop dead with shock when she told her that it was the Dark-Lord himself that had been the one that wanted her within the inner circle.
Once she was finished, Hermione stares at the older witch waiting for her to speak. " I honestly don't know what to tell you Hermione... except that it was a very vivid dream you had. That can be the only thing I can tell you, for Voldemort is dead. There is no way you spoke to him last night except for in a dream."
Hermione stares at her former Transfiguration teacher, "I wouldn't speak his name if I were you Minerva..." the younger witch's voice was cold as ice. "He doesn't like when others speak his name. And if it were all a dream like you said then why do I have a huge white scar in the shape of the Dark Mark on my forearm?" She lifts her sleeve again, tracing the edges of the scar showing McGonagall what the shape of it was. "You speak of things as if you believe you have all the answers. Hell... I even believed you could help me with what is going on. Even now as I speak with you, this scar burns slightly and has become clearer to see from what it had been when you woke me up." Hermione stands up, still staring menacingly at the older woman. "If you can't help me figure out what is going on here, I will find someone who can!" She storms out of the house, leaving a very confused Minerva in her wake.
Every step Hermione took away from the house, the more she could sense the burning of the scar. She stopped when it became almost as unbearable as the first time she received it. Almost as if she were under its spell, the brunette let her finger hover over it momentarily, before finally pressing down onto the very centre of the scar. A flare of pain ripped through her whole body causing her to drop to her knees and her eyes to flutter shut. Gasping out in anguish, Hermione pulls her hand away from the scar causing the infliction to ebb away. At the sudden absence of the torturous pain, her eyes rolled in the back of her head and she passed out unceremoniously into the high grass at the edge of the woods, two hundred yards from the professor's estate.