CHAPTER ONE
The ground was bathed in blood, bodies littered the floor tripping those who were still, for a short while at least, living. Hovering above a body was a woman who if you were to base her age on her eyes alone you would say she appeared to be at the end of her life. her eyes had the look of a woman that appeared 80, and yet she was only 20. Those eyes showed a soul that was broken, shattered and grieving. Below her lay the closest thing to a brother she had. His once bright emerald eyes dull, his skin waxy and his chest soaked in blood. She could care less what happened around her, the war was already lost years ago, they all knew it, there was no way for a 19-year-old to beat the most powerful dark lord in history. Behind her, unseen by all, was a young man with platinum, nearly white, hair. Tears stained his face as he watched the young woman break. Even when she was being tortured at his, no not his but his families, manor, she didn't look so damaged. It surprised him how close they became after he saved her from his crazy aunt with the help of his old house elf Dobby. He looked down at his hands, a tiny hourglass inside a circle held by a chain sparkled as a ray of light hit it. Slowly he stepped forward towards the young woman and, making himself visible he held his hand out towards her. Seeing the time-turner in his hand she turned to face him confused.
"We can go back far enough to save him from the curse and escape, I h-hate this, all this death. We can at least save him and flee." She smiled gratefully and wrapped the necklace around them. As she was about to flick the hourglass a curse shot out towards them striking the little machine causing it to spin rapidly in the opposite direction and causing the two of them to fall unconscious. The last thing they heard was a maniacal cackle. Though unknown to the witch, she did not cause their death but instead sent them forward in time, towards their new journey in life and their new destiny.
5,000 years into the future
As she awoke the first thing she experienced was an immense headache, afterwards the rest of her senses slowly followed. she felt soft sheets under her and was beginning to panic as she realized she was no longer in the clothes she wore to battle, meaning she had been captured. She felt tears fill her eyes as she remembered the death of her friends and family. She pushed her feelings aside as she heard people speaking, straining to hear what they said she pretended to still be unconscious.
"What did you find Trance?" a young male voice asked.
"The female had many injuries, she had internal bleeding in her lungs which I was able to stop, broken ribs which I was able to realign and wrap, large gashes which I was able to close, those were, well, everywhere, and she has many old scars. The male had a large laceration on his arm and on his leg that were deep to the bone, I was able to close those and wrap them as well, oddly enough the nanobits are working twice as fast as they would normally. These two look as though they were in the middle of a battle" her voice was sweet and kind and laced with sympathy.
"Where you able to find them in any database Harper?" another male voice asked.
"Yeah, but you won't believe how hard it was. By using their DNA and tracing the word on the females arm I was able to find their identity, and lets just says wow. The girl is one Hermione Granger and the other is Draco Malfoy. They were a part of the mythical battle of magic over 5,000 years ago, and by mythical I mean storybook mythical, like magic and dragons and-and well myths. They both vanished in the middle of the battle. I wouldn't have found anything if the British government didn't document all paperwork and files into their database when the magic wielders became extinct…." Harpers voice stopped when the young girl cried out in anguish. 5,000 years! They bloody traveled 5,000 years into the future, a future with no witches or wizards. She jumped off her bed and crouched down into a defensive position, scanning the room quickly, it reminded her of a more advanced version of the Star Trek movies her father always watched. There were scanners and robotic arms throughout the room, on the bed beside her was a now awake Draco who was attempting to get into a defensive stance beside her but was having a difficult time with his wrapped leg. Across from her stood four people. One stood around 6 feet had a medium but athletic build, he had short brown hair and blue eyes. On his right stood a man a little shorter than him. He had short brown hair with blond tips spiked up and a lean build and brown eyes. There were two others, Draco was drawn to the female standing behind a machine, he assumed that monitored their health, though he was not very experienced with muggle machines so he wasn't a good judge of what was what. Her hair was pulled back by what appeared to be flowers making her pointed ears visible. She wore an orange top that showed her stomach, it had one sheer sleeve and an orange strap. With these she wore brown shorts. The most shocking parts of her though, the thing that drew him in, was her purple skin, and her tail. Hermione was caught off guard by her skin, but was more surprised by the man leaning against the doorway. He had dark skin, like caramel and long micro braids that met past his shoulders. He wore what looked to be a wife beater made of chain mail, leather pants, and combat boots. On his arms he wore long leather bands from his elbows to his wrists. And coming out of his forearms and the bands were what looked to be spikes made of bone. She could practically taste the dangerous aura around him. Keeping her eyes on him she spoke to the group in her strong British accent, one long since extinct.
"Now obviously we aren't in Kansas anymore, so does someone want to bloody well tell me where the bloody hell we are!" Hermione ground out of her clenched teeth, her hair was crackling with magic. To the others perspective she looked like a tigress waiting to pounce. The young lady stepped out from behind the machine that to Hermione looked similar to a computer, and walked right in front of her.
"Hi, my name is Trance and you are on the Andromeda Ascendant, a spaceship, 5,000 years in the future." Hermione could tell she had a young innocent personality and had a hard time aiming her ire toward the strange being. Relaxing a little bit she faced Draco, before nodding and sitting on the side of the bed, though not fully trusting of the others and still slightly tense ready for an attack. They were thousands of years in the future with no way home. The only people they have seen were there rescuers, and she wasn't about to bite the futuristic hand that was feeding them. She tried to run everything through her head. A- they were in the future. B- they were now an extremely endangered species. C- they were in the middle of space with what appeared to be different species. And D- all her friends and family where dead and she just left a battlefield. She looked down at her hands and shed a single tear before clenching her fist and facing Draco, ignoring everyone else for now.
"Their gone Draco, everyone's gone. What are we going to do?" He sighed and sat down next to her, wrapping his arms around her, he's never once seen her this broken and it killed him. After everything they went through, he couldn't not feel a kinship with his once school enemy.
"We do what we do best, we fight, we move on and fight. Come on Granger, since when have you ever failed at anything. Just think of this as another test. We'll learn all we can and survive, after all were the last of our kind. plus it's what Potter would want you to do" She gave a watery chuckle at that and nodded. As they were speaking the Captain of the ship, Dylan, was thinking of all the pros and cons of keeping them aboard the ship. He knew he would never turn anyone in need of help away and he could sympathize with them having been sent 300 years into the future, but he wasn't sure how well they could adapt to being so far into the future. Surprisingly enough it wasn't Dylan who spoke, but the more cantankerous of the crew, raising the eyebrows of the other members.
"You may be the last pure ones of your kind but your descendants have evolved into a very powerful species. You see when the mage's died out, their superior DNA continued in their non-magical offspring. The slow aging, the enhanced immune system. One of these offspring was Dr. Paul Museveni, a human geneticist who left Earth and headed out to deep space with about 3,000 followers. He genetically altered the DNA of his followers to form a subspecies of humans." As Hermione sat patiently absorbing the information, Harper, Dylan and Trance listened in shock. They never once heard Tyr speak in any way that wasn't considered harsh, nor had they heard the part of the Nietzschean species history.
"This species was made to be perfect in every way. Immune to all human diseases, stronger, faster, and even smarter than the average human. They are called Nietzscheans, and are distinguishable by their bone blades. To us you are called the Elder Mages and are part of the stories spoken to our children at night." He stepped away from the door frame and inched closer, his muscles flexing with each step, never taking his eyes off them he next spoke to Dylan.
"Dylan these two are even more revered to our kind than our progenitor." Harper snorted and shook his head
"Nietzcheans are greedy bastards that would stab you in the back if it benefited them. Self-preservation asses who only care for themselves and would slaughter thousands if it fit their survival of the fittest kick." He said spitefully. In response Tyr walked up to him, grabbing his shirt and lifting him into the air.
"You are an annoying little bug, not all Nietzscheans take joy in the torture of humans, you were unlucky to be in the presence of one of the few prides that do when you were on your homeland. Mind that tongue or I will remove it for you and save us all from many future headaches." Hermione chuckled as he dropped him and shook her head.
"This is all bloody crazy, so what do we do now?" She asked. Draco faced the crew, then her, then the strange girl.
"What are our chances of survival on our own?" He asked out loud. Harper tilted his head to the side.
"Andromeda, babe, can you give the statistics please?" He asked. Shortly after a female voice echoed through the room as a transparent image of a woman appeared. She had short black hair and was dressed in a matching uniform to the man named Dylan.
"Chance of survival of a 5,000-year traveler on their own with no knowledge of the future is approximately 1 in every 6,897,780 people although them being of a mythical-magical background makes it difficult to say for sure. And Harper if you call me babe one more time I will eject you from this ship." She said. Hermione couldn't help but crack a small broken smile at that, these people seemed like a small family with their bickering and it reminded her of home. She had to shake her head from that thought if she was going to get anything done. No point in crying now, that could wait till she was alone.
"If knowledge is the problem I can work with that. If you allow me to, I can cast a spell to catch my friend and I up to the modern time period, the only thing is we would need to be asleep for several days, although I'm not sure if we would be safe enough to do so. It would render us vulnerable for a time." Hermione announced, a part of her yelling at her for giving such information to strangers who may want her and Draco dead. Dylan shared a look with Trance and she nodded, Dylan trusted her opinion as Trance always seemed to know who to trust and who not to. He trusted her with his life and would trust her in this as well.
"If you wish to, you could take one of our lock down rooms so you can feel safe. It is only able to be opened from the inside so we can't go in, only Andromeda, our ships intelligence, would be able to check on you and that is only to ensure you are ok." Hermione gave the captain a thoughtful look as she considered his offer. She knew that he was trying to show them they could trust him, and at this point they really didn't have any other option. She looked at Draco and did something she never did before.
The crew looked on in confusion as Draco's eyes widened in surprise before gaining a look of concentration.
"Ok we'll be asleep for a week and will wake up disoriented and may become sick. 5,000 years of information is alot and we will need to see if we can gain information from the ship's motherboard if it is still called that." He nodded and they faced the crew. "Is there a way to connect to your ship's motherboard? I will be able to receive the information from her historical files, I will then be able to mentally connect with my…friend and share the information with him. We will be in a sleep-like state for a week, when we wake we will tell…Andromeda… to inform you."
"Of course, Tyr will lead you to the room and Harper will show you how to connect to the ship's core." Dylan said with a nod. Trance gave them a smile and handed them each a small cup with three pills in it, red, purple and green.
"The red one is for your physical strength, the purple is for mental strength and the green is to enhance healing. They are all plant derived, if you would feel more comfortable you do not have to take them, we will not force you." Hermione did not need magic to see that she was sincere but took no chances. They did not have their wands on them but she could feel her magic pulsing all around and inside her and knew they no longer needed their wands as a conduit, she would think on the why later. For now, she waved her hand over her cup, a light blue color, almost smoke-like, formed between her and the medicine. She smiled and nodded to Draco before swallowing the pills. She noticed Tyr watching her closely causing her cheeks to warm slightly.
"Better than Madame Pomphrey's potions. Uck! Those tasted bloody foul." Hermione laughed at Draco's remark and gave a bitter smile at the memory before nodding to the two men standing in front of her. She and Draco slowly followed them out of the room and down a corridor, everything was a shiny metallic color reminding her that they were indeed on a ship in the middle of space, millions of miles from home, thousands of years from her time. As they went by Hermione noticed a window on the wall, looking out she saw thousands of stars surrounded by such darkness she never before saw. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes as she looked out.
"It's real, it's real and we are alone." She whispered. Draco, having heard, turned and awkwardly wrapped an arm around her shoulders, taking a look out the window she sighed.
"Yes it is, but we are not alone, those who love us never truly leave us, they're always with us, watching, guiding, protecting us always." She gave him a tearful smile before picking up her head and walking on, following behind Harper as Tyr led on. Tyr having enhanced hearing couldn't help but notice how strong she was to handle such a situation. One of the strongest minds he has seen so far, he wondered what it would be like now with the two Mages in their midst, would it help a near pointless cause and give Captain Hunt the power he needed to succeed in his intergalactic mission? Harper unknowingly was thinking along those same lines, maybe there was hope after all. They were soon led to a large dark room, which upon entry lightened to show an empty space with what Hermione believed to be a computer in the middle and a large screen stretching across the back wall. Hermione immediately walked towards the computer and faced Harper.
"Show me please." She spoke it with more command than she had intended but if the young man noticed he said nothing. He quickly grabbed a wire that was connected to what appeared to be a head phone and looked at her.
"You put this in your ear and it will connect to the nerves in your brain allowing you to see into Rommie's mindscape." She stared skeptically at the headphone before nodding and grabbing it from his hand. Before placing it into her ear she waved her hand, surprised at how easy wandless and wordless magic seemed to come for her now, maybe their magic intensified with the travel they made, she would speak to Draco about this later but for now she had to focus on her task again. In response to her magic two large mattress-like pillows formed on the ground, both were red in color and seemed big enough for two each. Draco, understanding what she wanted, laid on the one to her left and closed his eyes, waiting. She gave both men a smile before dismissing them with a nod of her head towards the door. When they left she warily looked at the piece in her hand before laying down herself.
Draco could see her put the earpiece to her ear in his mind's eye and sighed waiting for the influx of information. To say it felt weird to her would be an understatement, it was like swimming in jelly. She wanted to start out slow starting from the files from their time period. At her thought the visions appeared, it was like reading the news and viewing memories at the same time. She felt another consciousness with them and knew it was the ship's intelligence 'Rommie.' As she and Draco watched their history before them a small piece of each of them shattered knowing that there was no going back. That there was not a single person from their time left, not even direct descendants. They were surely and truly alone in a new world.