Hermione shook off her sleepiness, but she couldn't get rid of the lingering memories of her nightmare. It had seemed so important, and now she couldn't remember the whole thing. She had less than 24 hours to figure out what was going on with Draco before he was released. She had to make sure that he didn't hurt anyone. She had no idea what his angry alter-ego would do if left unchecked. She mentally cursed the hospital policy that if no diagnosis was made within the psych hold period she'd have no grounds to keep him further.
Lost in her thoughts, she had ended up outside Draco's door. She looked inside and saw him peacefully sleeping, though his restraints had been refastened, so she felt safe going in to see him. She sat next to his bed and pulled out her notepad. She looked over the notes she had written about Draco's condition so far and tried to connect the pieces.
Malfoy, Draco
Exhibiting bouts of extreme rage. Rage is characterized by physical violence, yelling and a heightening in blood pressure.
Possible triggers: alcohol, anti-psychotics, endorphins?
Rage seems to be isolated to the incidents, while in a calm state, patient seems more subdued than normal.
Possible causes: anger sensors being triggered by alcohol and narcotics? Multiple personality disorder?
Hermione wanted to scratch out the multiple personality disorder option, but it seemed to fit so well. All her research showed the contrary, though, stating that a wizard's magic counterbalances any chemical imbalances. She guessed that meant that every witch or wizard had the inherit ability to choose actively between good and evil.
At the bottom of the page, she jotted down her memories of the dream
Yellow bound book
Horcrux
Grey eyes
Well, the grey eyes clearly indicated the dream had to do with Draco's condition. She just wished she could remember what happened in the dream. She didn't actually remember Draco being there, only his eyes.
She jumped up, struck by an idea. She dashed out of the room, not bothering to notice that Draco's eyes opened as she left. When she got to the nurse's station, she stopped, and realized she'd been running. Calming her heart rate, she waited for the nurse on duty to get off the phone.
"Can I help you, Miss Granger?" the nurse asked.
"Out of curiosity, is there anywhere in the hospital that I could get access to a pensieve?" Hermione asked, a little out of breath from running as well as the excitement she always had when she found a new way to deal with a problem.
"Yes, I think so," the nurse said. After checking a floor list, she said, "Check in memory loss recovery. They're on the East wing of the 4th floor."
Hermione started to go, when she realized she didn't know which way was East in the underground building. "Um, which way is East when I get there?' she asked, blushing at the foolish question.
The nurse smiled easily, and replied, "Take a left when you get off the elevator, you'll see arrows pointing to the memory loss recovery wing."
"Thanks!" Hermione chirped, hitting the button to summon the elevator. Once she got in, she waited impatiently for it to arrive on the 4th floor, tapping her foot. On floor 6 the elevator opened, and Nancy stepped on.
Nancy looked over her acquaintance's stance and chuckled. "In a hurry, Hermione?" she asked.
"Actually, yes. I don't have a solution yet, but I think I know how I can get close," she said, grinning.
"Good luck!" Nancy said as the elevator landing on floor 4. Hermione dashed out of the elevator and turned left, verifying that she was following the right sign. It seemed memory loss recovery had more funding than the psych ward, for the front office was very posh and upscale. A stereotypically gorgeous blonde witch was sitting at the desk with her back to Hermione, who cleared her throat carefully to get the witch's attention.
To Hermione's surprise, the lithe blonde witch at the desk was Luna Lovegood!
"Hermione!" the girl greeted her dreamily. "What brings you to my office?"
"Luna, I thought you were still working with pregnant witches on level 2?" Hermione questioned, her grin completely insuppressible as she saw her old friend.
"Well, delivering babies was nice," Luna said fairly, "but I thought I could do better here. Besides, Neville and I are still together, and his parents are in this ward. I'm still hoping I could help them in some way."
Hermione's heart ached for poor Neville and his parents. She was happy to hear that Luna and Neville's relationship had lasted longer than her and Ron's had. "I'm so happy to hear that you're still together. How is everything?" Hermione asked, momentarily distracted from her mission.
"It's wonderful. We actually were hoping to get together some of the old crowd for a dinner party sometime soon. It's been so long since we've been all together."
Hermione smiled at Luna, but she knew in her heart she was right. The real world had separated them all in ways they'd never imagined, but they all attempted to remain friends. "That would be great Luna, I'd love to attend. Now, back to why I'm here, I was wondering if I could use a pensieve." Hermione sincerely hoped her plan would work, and this moment was the clincher.
"Of course, we have a lab in the back with pensieves. How long do you need it?" she asked, pulling out the appropriate form.
"Just a few minutes, no more than an hour," Hermione replied, grateful for Luna's help.
"Okay, that will be fine, just fill this out, and then I'll take you back," Luna said, handing her a clipboard and quill. "Oh, do you still have privileges here?" Luna asked.
Hermione nodded, filling out the simple form. 'I work at the Diagon Alley Rehabilitation Center, so I have limited privileges here, but equipment use should definitely be permitted." Having finished the form, she handed it back, and Luna stood to take her to the back.
Hermione followed Luna through a hall full of patient rooms, all of which held patients who had lost memories or cognitive abilities due to either obliviation, imperius curses or other situations. The father she got, the worse the patients were, until finally they reached the back lab.
The room was dark and cool, but when Luna flipped on the light, Hermione saw that there were 4 tables, all filled with pensieves of various sizes and shapes. She was surprised at how many different forms the pensieves took, though it merely had to be a basin of sorts, so it also made sense.
Luna pointed out a couple at one end and said, "The older pensieves work for older memories, as they hold more magic. The larger one is, the more powerful it will be. Smaller and newer ones are best for recent memories."
"Is there one that could help me recover a dream?" Hermione asked, intrigued.
Luna pointed in the far corner. There was a sparkly pensieve that shone all the colors of the rainbow.
"Really?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I designed it myself," Luna said, unsure as to why Hermione was confused.
"Of course you did," Hermione said, smiling. "Well, I guess I'll get to it. Thanks again!"
Hermione made her way to the far corner, and stood over the garish pensieve. Of course if Luna created something it would be as dreamy and whimsical as possible. Shaking her head with mirth, Hermione tried to focus on what she remembered of her dream.
She pulled a strand of silver from her temple, focusing as hard as she could on the dream. She only hoped it would be good enough. Placing it in the bowl, Hermione took a deep breath, then pitched her head forward into the bowl.
She fell forward into the world of her dream, but this time, she was a third party bystander. She watched as the dream played out, and the memories came rushing back. Her doppelganger was every bit as scary now as she had been the night before. Hermione crept up and tried to see the writing on the book, but there was none. She supposed since she never knew the title, she wouldn't be able to see it now. She saw the doppelganger whispering in her dream form's ear, and Hermione knew the dream would be over soon.
Then, something unexpected happened. The doppelganger turned and faced Hermione. She couldn't interact with anyone, she was just visiting a memory, right? The doppelganger seemed to think otherwise, and eyed Hermione greedily.
"Smarter than I thought, aren't you, girl?" the doppelganger asked.
"This isn't possible," Hermione said, backing away from the evil look in the doppelganger's borrowed eyes.
"Why, didn't you want to come see me?" it asked, and before Hermione's eyes it turned into Draco.
"Help me!" Draco said, pushing the book into her hands. "You're the only one who can."
And with that, Hermione was pulled back out of the pensieve. It was absolutely the strangest and most off-putting experience of her life so far. Hermione immediately collapsed to the floor and began sobbing. She had prepared herself to relive a nightmare, and that had taken a lot, but she hadn't wanted the nightmare to take over and continue! Not only that, the Draco look-alike had exuded such emotion, such sorrow. Maybe that was another clue, but she couldn't understand the emotion fully. She tried to dig deep and understand it, but just came up with more maybes. Was it regret or sorrow? Maybe it was pain or pleading. She decided instead to go to the library and see if she could find that book again.
Lucky for Hermione, she hadn't left the hospital yet, so she still had a key. She went down the hall back towards the elevator, stopping only to say goodbye to Luna.
"Bye Luna!" she called on her way past the desk, "It really helped!"
"Anytime, Hermione," Luna replied with a mysterious smile.
xxx
Hermione arrived in the library and combed the shelves for any book with yellow binding. It looked like someone had restocked the shelves while she was gone. She checked every book in the section she had been in, but none of them were the book from the dream. Hermione rubbed her temples with frustration, trying to will herself to remember where she'd seen the book.
Her stomach growled, and Hermione checked her watch. It was 2 o'clock already. Only 19 hours left to save Draco! She was just about to leave and get some lunch, when a book caught her eye in the section near the door. The section was labeled "Holistic Medicine," and it looked like it was rarely consulted. There was exactly one book that was dust free, however, and it had a yellow cover.
She pulled the book down, and realized she had seen it before. It was Body Mind and Soul; a holistic approach to magical healing, the book that she had disregarded the night before. She took it with her to the cafeteria, mentally blessing whatever being brought her attention to it.
xxx
Lunch was dreary, but as it was Sunday it was a little better than usual. Sunday was a common day for visitors, since most people worked during the week and Quidditch was on Saturdays. Hermione still didn't understand Quidditch. It was like some kind of cult. There were quite a few visitors in the cafeteria, and Hermione had to wait in line, but when she got there, they changed the food pan just before her, so at least her meatloaf was fresh.
She picked through the meatloaf, mashed potatoes and vegetables mindlessly, while poring over the book. She came to the same section that had caught her attention the night before. It explained how a soul could be split in times of trauma or stress, and once again Hermione was reminded of horcruxes. This time, though, thanks to her dream, she knew horcruxes were a clue and not just a coincidence.
She grabbed her mobile and dialed up Ginny's number.
"Hey! How goes saving the lost cause?" Ginny's greeting was a little harsh, but Hermione probably deserved it for ditching the first family dinner since harry and she had gotten engaged.
"Actually, I called to talk to Harry, is he home?"
"Sure here he is."
Hermione waited for a moment, but her heart filled with hope when she heard Harry's voice.
"Hey Hermione, what's up?" His voice sounded a little odd to Hermione.
"Are you okay? You sound… off."
"We're still eating leftovers from yesterday, I think I'm about to pop."
"Okay, well gather up your intestinal fortitude, because I have some serious questions. Okay, what do you know about horcruxes?"
"Um, when a wizard takes another's life, their soul splinters and goes into the nearest inanimate or animate object, if it's prepared correctly."
"Do you know anything about preparing the object?"
"No, and please don't tell me you're considering making a horcrux, Hermione. I doubt Malfoy would actually try to kill you. Well, wait, no I don't."
"No, no I'm just testing a hypothesis, bare with me. Okay, so if a person was in a room where all the objects were imperceptible to magic, like they are in Azkaban, and they killed a person with their bare hands. Is there a chance their soul could splinter but stay within their body?"
"I suppose so, but that wouldn't be very good. I've lived with an evil piece of Voldemort in me before, and it's not pretty."
"Remind me of your symptoms, please."
"I would black out, or have visions, and there were some physical ones, but that was mostly pain in my scar."
"Thank you so much, Harry, you've been a huge help!"
'Of course, any time. But Hermione?"
"Yes?"
"Make sure you explain this to me when all is said and done. I want to know what my answers led to."
"Don't worry, if this is true, and I succeed at what I'm going to try, I'm writing a damn book."
Hermione shut the phone, mulling over her assumptions and suspicions. It was time to go see Malfoy.
