Disclaimer: "Do not lie."—the Bible. Therefore, if you didn't already notice, I am not the proud owner of HP or all things regarding the like.
Of course it wasn't all. It never was, was it? And her abbreviated version of the past few months—or minutes, here—did injustice to the complex life she had led in that other world. Hermione supposed it must have been the shock of realizing it wasn't "real" in her own world that had snapped the careful walls she and the Draco from the other world had built around her Vacuumency-talent. She'd be more careful next time. Hermione could only be extremely grateful that Professor Snape had known exactly where to hit to get her to feel anything at all, and trigger the release of her other cut off emotions.
She observed the selected members of the High Council idly, even in her fatigued and emotional state noting the particulars of each and every person. When you had been living in fear of discovery and capture every moment for the last couple months, habits like observing other people's demeanors and expressions and staying alert didn't just go away. Besides, for all she knew the Order would continue their mass hysteria and lynch her. Although she didn't think that either Professor Dumbledore or Professor Snape would let that happen. Oh, I've missed being able to rely on an adult I trusted! Skye's aunt looked like she was going to kill me there for a while, but I think she came around by the end, judging by her words. She's a lot like Skye that way, knows exactly what to say and when to say it.
Tightening her hold on her emotions, Hermione checked to make sure that her mind-fortress of feelings hadn't suffered from the abrupt siege of complete Vacuumency she'd fallen into earlier. Thankfully, the breach hadn't been long enough to seriously erode any of them, and the protections looked like they'd be able to be reset easily enough, once she was rested.
"Miss Granger?" A voice at the tent opening—that was Madame Pomfrey, holding a potion in her hand.
"Miss Granger, why don't you go with Madame Pomfrey here for a while, and let us discuss your situation for a bit? Thank you so much for telling us your story. I know it was difficult for you, and I'm so sorry for it."
She tried to get up and nearly fell, the Cruciatus aftereffects crippling her nerves and weakening her capacity to hold her own weight. To her surprise, it was Professor Snape who managed to catch her before she hit the ground. "Thank you, Professor."
He nodded a little curtly, but continued to support her to the mediwitch.
Outside, she tensed again, her body screaming at her to flee. All those people, all intent on punishing me—I'll never get out of this mob alive!
But no, she was not in the other world, where a crowd of people like this only meant one thing, that Harry had found someone he wanted to destroy. This was her world, where Madame Pomfrey could scatter the people there with a glare, and usher Hermione to a spot a little apart from the rest unmolested, and they would wait on Professor Dumbledore's decision.
"My dear, I estimated that you'd been under the Cruciatus curse for around forty-five seconds. Is that around right?"
"It was perhaps a minute and a half, Madame Pomfrey. I've built a little tolerance for the particular pain during my training sessions and close shaves when Harry's aurors almost got us."
Madame Pomfrey shot her a half-disbelieving, half-inquisitive look, but didn't ask questions. A true trained professional mediwitch, only asks for the bare bones of the injury and anything non-sickness related is off-limits unless the patient talks first. Keeping in mind that she wasn't supposed to tell others about her ordeal, Hermione kept quiet and waited as Madame Pomfrey quickly calculated her approximate height, weight, and time spent under the curse, as well as the built up tolerance for pain.
"There. That should be the right dose, if you haven't changed since the beginning of the year when we filled out the medical charts."
Swallowing the nerve-number doled out to her gratefully, Hermione sat back in her transfigured sofa and waited quietly for the Order to make their decision.
Back in the tent, Albus had the floor. Severus listened attentively as his old friend began to answer the questions that had been thrown at him by J'avere.
"I believe, High Council members, that from Miss Granger's narrative, I have a strong idea of what happened." He looked around solemnly. "It is said that some decisions change the shape and history of the entire universe. There has long been a theory that there are multiple worlds, parallel to ours, in which, at the crucial moment, a decision was made in one world that was different to another. Until then, says one scholar, the worlds were one and the same, but when this world-changing choice came into play, that was when the worlds split apart and went on separate tracks. I don't know what particular choice led this other world down such a bleak path, but I sincerely hope we do not make that same mistake."
"So essentially, you're saying that Miss Granger really did travel to another world, spend months there, and kill that world's corresponding Harry Potter before coming back here?" Datona Fields leaned forward, fascinated. "I know the Split Worlds Theory, we studied it at school in the States. There was a big debate over whether it should be included in the syllabus, because it was not completely proven although there has been a lot of evidence to suggest it."
"Yes, I believe that Miss Granger truly did sojourn for several months in another world, one with a darker future than ours hopefully will be. It is too bad that the journey cannot be revealed to anyone else but ourselves, and we must bind ourselves to utter silence regarding this matter. It would have made a big explosion in the Magical theorists' sphere, indeed, in all of the magical world."
Paton Wiley spoke. "What do you propose we do with Miss Granger?"
"Well, perhaps you'd like to examine the, uh, head so as to verify its authenticity with the theory and with Miss Granger's telling of how it came to be separated from the body?" Danielle Corwin answered for Albus. Severus watched, captivated, as Wiley nodded and went over to the corner of the tent where the head had been hastily hidden away under a cloth.
Severus refrained from speech, but the others murmured among themselves in hushed tones as Wiley slowly scrutinized the head and cast several spells on it. Finally, he straightened and cleared his throat. "Well the head seems to be in perfect agreement with both Miss Granger and with your hypothesis, Albus. It's definitely real, and was most likely removed from the shoulders by a clean-slicing spell like Sectumsempra. And the victim is definitely not school-aged anymore. He looks young still, but the condition of the teeth and the levels of carbon suggest an age of around twenty-five, with evidence of having taken excessive amounts of de-aging potion. Without the potion, the victim could easily have been anywhere from thirty to forty years in age, which fits in the rough timeline Miss Granger provided of twenty years and some between the defeat of You-Know-Who and the defeat of the victim himself."
Severus admired the impersonal way Wiley had reported the facts. But then again, Wiley had a reputation for being the best magical crime investigator, and he supposed it had to do with Wiley's ability to detach himself from becoming involved emotionally with the brutalities. He'd make a good spy, I think.
"Brilliant. Well, High Council, your judgment?" Albus looked around the table.
Slowly, Danielle Corwin turned her wand blue. She's voting blue, not such a big surprise after she identified with Miss Granger in that way, thought Severus. That's one to induct Miss Granger into the Order.
Slowly, Paton Wiley's wand flashed blue as well, surprising Severus a little. I'd have thought as a man sensitive to the victim and having Harry Potter's head dropped in front of him for examination, he'd vote green.
Datona Fields joined the ranks of blue wands, eyes sympathetic. After her, Severus placed his own blue wand on the table. They turned their eyes to Micello J'avere. After a long pause, J'avere defiantly changed his wand to a bright green. Four against one, even not counting Albus he knows he's not going to win this. What is his agenda? Or is he just airing his opinions?
The last one to do so, Albus slowly changed his wand to blue. "Well, it seems we've reached a decision. Before we go outside and tell the rest of the Order, Micello would you like to tell us why you believe Miss Granger should not be inducted?"
J'avere looked around at each face. "I have no personal vendetta against Miss Granger. She certainly seems capable enough to be in the Order. My main concern is giving so much knowledge to a young girl who is obviously powerful and controlled enough to kill her best friend, even knowing that he had turned. Such knowledge that she would have access to, especially in the course of training and position you plan to implement with her Albus, would be a very potential liability and danger if she cannot keep it from her friends or if she herself turns."
"It is certainly a concern that is worth considering, Micello. Perhaps you would be appeased if I had every one of us here who know the true story keep an eye on Miss Granger?"
"It would go a long way to help my fears, Albus, as long as I know you other members will not lack diligence."
"Are you doubting our skill of observation or our devotion to the cause, J'avere?" Severus snarled at the man, hating him for his sly insinuations.
"If you give me cause for doubt, Snape, I surely will bring that up to the Order," the man sneered right back.
"All right, that's enough sniping. Remember, to be effective we must be a united front and trust one another, even those we do not like. Now, let's go tell Miss Granger and the rest of the Order the good news, and induct the girl before the sun rises." Albus clapped his hands, and they all filed out, the tent and its furnishings vanishing as the last one exited.
Hermione often wondered in the days that followed how Professor Dumbledore had somehow convinced the Order to induct her without knowing why she'd brought Harry Potter's head back to them. She didn't know what he'd said to them, but when Professor Snape and Danielle Corwin had arrived at her place under the large tree being monitored by Madame Pomfrey to tell her of their decision and to walk her over to the re-forming circle, the Order had been eyeing her with great trepidation, some fear, and some downright hatred—but all of them had participated, no matter how reluctantly, in initiating her into the Order.
She would start her Order training tonight. It had been several days now, since that eventful, awful night. There were some nights she felt like it was all a dream, and she'd wake up in the latest hiding place, squished next to Luna on one side and Skye on the other. Hermione plucked at her sleeve uselessly, and wondered what had happened to the rest of her friends, and if the world she'd left become any better since she'd left.
At least I'm visiting Skye today. She'd asked Mistress Corwin—Danielle, she asked me to call her Danielle—if she could, and Danielle had said yes. It wouldn't be the same Skye she knew, the older and more assured Skye with the mischievous streak under a quiet and unassuming demeanor. She wouldn't be awake, even. But it was better than nothing. A week from tomorrow, Harry, Ron, and the rest of the students would come back and she'd have to hide even more from them. She wasn't sure if she could look her best friend in the eye and not have nightmares, and that was the most frightening thing of all.
"Hermione?"
"Oh, hullo Mi- Danielle. I didn't hear you come up."
"Minerva gave me the password. Are you ready?"
"Yes, I am. Let's go."
At St. Mungos, Danielle brusquely brushed off the nurse who had accosted them asking in shrill tones if Hermione was a relative. "She's coming with me." The no nonsense tones and well-seasoned glare sent the woman packing, and then Danielle looked enquiringly at Hermione's stifled chuckle.
"You're almost as good as Professor Snape with the glare," she explained.
"I don't think anyone has Severus beat. I hear he practices it in the mirror."
"No!"
"That's what I heard."
The two burst into laughter.
They sobered quickly when they reached the door to the private room where Skye Corwin lay. Hermione tiptoed to the bedside, and gently brushed some hair off the peaceful girl's face. "She looks so young," she whispered. "So young and innocent still."
Sighing, Danielle settled into the seat and watched with tears in her eyes as the girl she'd come to like in a very short time, Hermione, knelt by her beloved niece's bed and began murmuring to her. "Hey, Skye. It's Hermione. I don't know if you can hear me, but in the Muggle world we believe that people in comas are still aware of what's going on around them on some level, so I'm going to give it a shot.
I don't know if you know me at all. Hermione Granger, from Hogwarts. I never really spoke to you much in school, I don't think. But you see, I had this very strange experience in another world that's got all the same people in it as this one does. And I spent several months there, and I got to know you in the other world pretty well. You were older, a lot older, but you were still really pretty and always so comforting to be around. You weren't loud or exuberant like some people, but you were always there for a person when they needed someone to vent to, or cry with, or laugh with. Everyone always underestimated you, but you were the best of us you know. You were the heart of our group. I really miss the other you, but I know that if you're anything like- well, yourself, you're really stubborn and you cling to those you love like anything. And I'm telling you that you have friends and an aunt who love you deeply, and you're not going to disappoint us all by staying in this coma forever. You'll wake up, I know you will."
Danielle discreetly handed Hermione a tissue. She wiped her tears and cleared her throat. "Well, Skye, it was nice to talk to you. I'll come back. Now I think your Aunt Danielle has something to say to you. I'm going to go outside to wait, okay? Goodbye."
Hermione straightened, nodded to Danielle, and left the room. She leaned against the closed door with her head tilted back, trying not to cry for the Skye she'd known whose staring blank eyes she couldn't stop remembering, and the Skye she'd seen, youthful and naïve like a Sleeping Beauty in the hospital bed.
"Miss Granger?"
The voice she'd somehow come to associate as her voice of dispassionate truth and reason in all the mess her life had turned to since the beginning of this year interrupted her, and she opened her eyes. "Professor Snape."
He cleared his throat uncomfortably, looking out of place in the white starkness of the peaceful ward. "Miss Granger, our lessons start now. I'll escort you back. I believe Mistress Corwin is needed for an emergency at her work."
"All right. She's inside with Skye right now, but she should be out shortly."
"Very well."
They stood there for several minutes, not speaking. Hermione could feel his gaze examining her as if to determine what she'd become in essentially a night. No one had broached the subject of her unexpected detour of several months, or of her shocking arrival back into this world. Hermione was starting to grow weary of the way the other High Council Order members had seemed to group themselves regarding her—either pretend it never happened while scrutinizing her surreptitiously, or downright ignore her. Thanks to Professor Dumbledore and most of the rest of the panel that had listened to her story, no one was hostile or showed any inclination for violence. She'd attended general information sessions with the other two newest members of the Order, and met some of the other specialized forces within the Order who hadn't been present at the initiation, and she found herself mingling with them more. It was a relief to be with one who didn't know the tremendous change that had turned her life upside-down.
She missed the old heated debates and focused lessons that she'd come to remember Professor Snape for though, and it was those long ago—and yet only days past—times that prompted her to speak now.
"Draco spoke well of you, you know."
He started.
"He'd speak of you with affection, said you were a strict disciplinarian but he learned immeasurable lessons from you. It was your memory that was the first thing that we shared before we became anywhere close to friends."
"I was dead."
"Yes. In that world, you'd died a month after I disappeared. You'd managed to stay hidden until then, but Draco said that on that day, you saw Draco being chased by Harry's men, and you placed yourself between them and Draco so he had just enough time to escape. But you were killed, bringing down at least half the force with you."
"How- regrettably Gryffindor of me."
The ironic drawl set Hermione off, and she began to laugh. Professor Snape stared at her oddly.
"Sorry," she gasped in between giggles. "It's just that I said the same thing to Draco when he first told me what you'd done, how you'd died, and he nearly punched me in the face for it. I asked him why he was refraining, and he said it was because I was a girl. I told him that was stupid and that I was perfectly proficient taking care of myself, and then challenged him to a hand-to-hand combat with magic as well to prove it."
"And what was the outcome?"
"Stalemate. The others separated us after it was obvious we were injuring each other too much for either Skye or Pansy to patch us up properly, and our hits were tallied and came out equal."
"I am surprised."
She looked askance at him. "Surprised how?"
"If Draco has the skill he does now, I am surprised you were able to fight him to a tie."
"Are you doubting my skill?"
"I certainly cannot judge. I have never seen you in action."
"Well that's certainly being fixed tonight. You're my assigned trainer in just about everything except for the special branches I get to learn. You're teaching me poisonous and healing potions, defense and offense fighting both physical and magical combined, and the art of being unobtrusive and gain entrance to the most sensitive secrets and information. Oh, and memory-recall and all the intricacies of going into the spy business. Enduring pain, that sort of thing. At least that's what Moody gleefully told me when I asked him what sort of lessons I should be expecting. I think he's decided I am a potential threat to the Order, because he either tries to avoid me or he stares at me with that creepy eye of his."
"Thank you for listing the schedule of lessons I must endure with you, Miss Granger, because I truly did not know what subjects I was assigned to train you in."
"Oh, you're welcome." Hermione beamed at Professor Snape, disregarding his disgruntled air. Draco, you said that taking everything he said as amusing would be a good way to deal with him. I hope you're right, and that it works on this world's Snape. Damn it! Professor Snape, not Snape."
The creak alerted them to Danielle Corwin's exit from the private room, and Hermione let Professor Snape explain what would be happening. She hugged Danielle—one of the only Order members who knew what had happened and still welcomed her openly—and followed Professor Snape to return to Hogwarts. It was time to begin training, all over again. Only this time, I have a competent teacher rather than a gaggle of on-the-run outlaws.
She'd been fit when she'd left for her induction on Christmas night. Now, Hermione knew that she was not just fit or able to hold her own, she was better. She was a self- and group-taught machine, and after she'd warmed up and Professor Snape had pitted her in a no-weapons but fists and magic fight against the Auror who'd been initiated at the same time as her—Christopher Harper—she'd instinctively spun into the first simple sequence she'd mastered through sore and aching muscles.
He was good, quick on his feet and extremely speedy with his wand. But Hermione's strategy was sound and had worked for almost all the duels she'd been in: start out with an easy testing of the opponent, and then formulate a plan of full-out attack against their weakest points. As they circled after the initial contact, wands drawn, Hermione was in her element. Taller and heavier than me, bodily attack won't be so beneficial unless I catch him off-balance. Wicked-fast with his spell-work, but can he work wandless as well as he does with a wand? Perhaps that will be the most efficient, get him away from his wand somehow and then attack him magically to throw him off, followed by a physical attack.
And it worked. Twenty minutes later, a sweaty and triumphant Hermione climbed off the man she'd brought down, and helped him up before Summoning his wand from the bottom of the lake at Hogwarts and shaking his hand politely.
The man grinned ruefully. "Ah, you have beat me fair and square, Granger. I'd never be able to live this down in the Aurory if word got around that a bitty girl managed to take down Christopher Harper!"
"Tell them to come and fight me," Hermione retorted helpfully.
"Nah, I'd feel bad! The poor men and women wouldn't know what hit them. You're a worthy opponent any day, Miss Granger."
"Hermione, please. We're going to be training under Professor Snape in defense/offense together, you should address me by my first name."
"Hermione, then. And please, call me Chris."
"I'll see you next lesson, Chris."
"I wait with bated breath, Hermione."
Hermione laughed, and waved the theatrical man off, turning to Professor Snape. "Well, how did I do? Are you more convinced now that I truly am able to defend myself if need be?"
She'd definitely seen an interested gleam in his expression several times, a spark of fascinated curiosity at her obvious comfort with dueling and combat that she'd observed out of the corner of her eye during her pauses between attacks. And as she'd been talking to Chris Harper, he'd looked faintly irritated. Now, he'd managed to school his face back into neutrality.
"You are adequate with hand-to-hand combat. Your wand reflexes need to be faster. Harper managed to Accio your wand at one point and you had to revert to wandless to retrieve it."
"Well hey, I managed to do it at least. Chris never managed to concentrate enough to Summon his wand all the way from the bottom of the lake."
"Nevertheless, your skills in fighting are acceptable and I believe that after Alastor Moody or one of the other high-ranked duelers test you, I think you can be exempted from the usual training in this area, other than the normal Order requirements of regular practice by yourself and with others. I have yet to test your swordwork, or your formal duel skills."
"I'm just as good in a formal duel as I am in an informal free-for-all like this. Sword is tough though, especially if I try and combine either wand or wandless magic along with the patterns and fighting."
He regarded her thoughtfully. "You have changed more than physically and in skill level, I think, Miss Granger."
"Really." She said it flatly, not wanting to go back to the source of her bad mood when she'd just lightened up after her dueling session.
He continued despite her reluctance. "You have learnt what it is to be an adult and to see the world and your choices not in the black and white, good and evil of children, but in the blend of shades and colors the grown adult knows and deals with."
"Yeah, big whoop. It just took a couple months of intense training, the deaths of several of my best friends, and killing my former best friend to do that."
"Life is not pretty, Miss Granger."
"Yes, I'm quite perfectly aware of that." She began to leave the Room of Requirement, her good mood evaporated like the morning mist.
"You will meet me back in the Potions classroom at nine tonight, Miss Granger. Your potions tutelage will begin then. Do not be seen."
She didn't answer.
A.N.: I have a lot of deadlines next week, so I may not be updating as regularly as I usually do until my life gets back to normal. However, I will try to make time for this as always. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, please leave your thoughts behind!
Oh, and just to make clear—throughout this story, stuff is going to be inferred or mentioned that I'm just not going to have the space, inclination, or time to expound on or explain. If you want a full description of something or didn't understand a reference/inference, just ask me and I'll try my best to clear it up, but I'm not going to be able to write about everything that I mention in my chapters, it's just too long and detracts from the actual plot.
