Her knuckles were cramped, no matter how many times she rolled them, stretched them, massaged them. She was walking through the aisles at the Hogwarts library, but they were going in a circle so that she was walking from Ancient Runes to Transfiguration and back again in an infinite loop.
Somewhere on one of her passes through the rows, a figure appeared. He was enshrouded in shadows, but she could make out a gleaming Slytherin tie and bright, gray eyes.
"Sometimes it feels like you'll be petrified forever, doesn't it?" The serene, familiar voice cut through the darkness.
"Yes," Hermione wanted to choke out, but the words wouldn't come. Her mouth wouldn't move, and her knuckles wouldn't either.
The figure moved slowly toward her, a light illuminating half of his face, so that she could see that it was a young Demetri. "Basilisks are such powerful, majestic creatures, don't you think?"
Hermione was trying to scream now, but she couldn't even breathe.
"They'll never really cure you, will they, Hermione? You'll never be able to unsee…"
Hermione bolted awake, breathing hard and flexing her muscles. She frequently suffered from sleep paralysis, and though she was able to shake off the anxiety from that within a few minutes, her dream was harder to forget.
It had felt so real.
It was the sleep paralysis, Hermione. And you don't need a degree in psychology to understand why you would have a dream conflating Demetri and Voldemort, what with the name scrambling.
But the sliver of Demetri's face she had seen was more vivid than the rest of her dream, which would make some sense if it were the face she knew, but it wasn't—it was softer and harder at the same time, in some ways closer to the way he looked when she had first met him. His features had been softer in her dream, in particular the visible corner of his cheekbone—it was barely a bump on his face in her dream. But the intensity of his gaze and the waxy quality of his skin was just as it had been at the wedding.
Then she thought of a way to tell if the face from her dream was real, and while the idea was as half-formed as her level of consciousness, she began to throw on clothes almost at random, not bothering with any charms for her hair as she tumbled out of her apartment at five-thirty in the morning.
She was heading for the office; there was an object in there that might be more useful to her today than it had been the last time she turned to it in her time of need.
Less than a half an hour later, Hermione was standing in front of the imposing pensieve buried deep within the Department of Mysteries. She had passed no one on her way in other than a sleepy security guard, whose half-closed eyes glazed over her ID as she walked past.
This has to be more useful than interrogating Harry was yesterday, Hermione told herself. The day prior had been a disaster. Other than setting a date for having dinner with Severus and Demetri, she had accomplished nothing.
Now that she was more awake and farther away from home, however, Hermione wasn't at all sure that rushing out of bed would be worth it. Still, it was worth a shot.
She had read many years ago that pensieves could not capture memories of dreams, which was logical, as they weren't true memories. So, her half-asleep brain had thought that if she focused on the picture of Demetri from her dream while she tried to pull a memory, she would manage to catch one if the dream vision of Demetri were as real as she felt it was.
It all felt a bit crazy now, in the sparse gray room facing the large bowl emitting mist.
She closed her eyes, placed her wand at the tip of her temple, and focused on the image of Demetri's face. Hermione felt more grounded with her eyes closed, and more confident in her plan as the image was so clear that she could see flecks in his eyes. She focused on the image with as much intensity as she could muster and gently pulled away from her forehead.
When Hermione felt the familiar friction created by pulling a memory from her head, she took a sharp breath in but managed to maintain her focus until she dropped the memory in the bowl.
She saw familiar images swirling: the Hogwarts library, Demetri's face, a younger version of herself in a Hogwarts uniform. But the Demetri swirling around in the pensieve wasn't obscured by shadows; he was right there in front of her, head-to-toe in a Slytherin Hogwarts uniform. She shivered as she took in what this meant; she had been right. He was a Slytherin, or at least had pretended to be one. And they had met long before the wedding.
Hermione shoved those thoughts aside, endeavoring to gather as much information as possible while the Department was empty and sort through what it meant later.
She allowed herself one deep breath before gingerly placing her finger in the bowl, feeling the familiar sensation of being pulled into her own mind.
Hermione saw herself first; she was walking into the Hogwarts library in the same direction she had been walking in her dream. It was obvious that it was in her first few years of Hogwarts, as she looked rather young, and one open-mouthed breath told her that her teeth hadn't been fixed yet. Hermione didn't want to jump to conclusions, but her younger self's appearance did match up with her second year at Hogwarts when she had been petrified.
Unlike in her dream, her younger self went up to Madam Pince, taking out a permission slip before being admitted (begrudgingly) to the Restricted Section.
Hermione followed behind her younger self. Even though she knew that she was invisible to everyone else in the memory, she couldn't help but duck when it seemed Madam Pince's gaze was about to wash over her. Old habits die hard, she supposed.
Her younger self was clearly looking for something in particular, though Hermione couldn't remember what it was all these years later. She followed as young Hermione wove deeper into the Restricted Section, taking a sharp right turn to follow. When Hermione came around the corner, she almost gasped.
You knew you would see Demetri, she reminded herself. That's how you entered this memory in the first place.
But it was different seeing him up close. There he was, younger than she had ever seen him, though not as young as she was in the memory. His skin was waxier than it was these days, Hermione thought with satisfaction as she examined him. But his bones were softer and rounder than she had ever seen them, just as they had been in her dream. Because it wasn't really a dream; it was a memory of this moment that had obviously been insignificant to her at the time, long forgotten.
"Excuse me, but do you have permission to be here?" Her younger self asked, hands on her hips and nose upturned.
Demetri smiled wanly, a smile that Hermione now recognized as entirely fake. "Of course I do," Demetri said in that velvety voice she was accustomed to hearing, and the familiarity sent a chill down her spine. "Otherwise, how would I have been admitted?"
Young Hermione shrugged in an attempt to seem uncaring, but Hermione saw that her younger self was unnerved as well. "Some people sneak in," she half-mumbled, hands still firmly affixed to her hips.
"You're Hermione Granger, aren't you?" His voice was a half whisper now, and Hermione wondered how she could have ever forgotten this encounter. It was eerie.
"Yes," young Hermione said, her confidence back, "and you are?"
"Leo," he said, and Hermione sucked in a breath at the false name. Perhaps this was before he had settled on Demetri. "I'm pleased to see you recovered, Hermione."
"Thank you," her younger self said, softening. Hermione wanted to shake her and tell her to keep her guard up, but of course, she couldn't.
"Madam Pince just released me a few hours ago," young Hermione continued as a dawn of realization hit present Hermione. Due to the cocktail of potions she had been given, that day had always been a blur to her. She could remember going to the library, but that was about it.
"I'm surprised you're not more out of it," Demetri observed, scanning young Hermione's face as though he wanted to make sure she really was out of it. That's probably exactly what he was doing.
Young Hermione shrugged again. "I am, to be honest, but I'm just happy to be here, no longer petrified."
"Of course you would be," Demetri said, his eye contact unrelenting. Drugs or no drugs, how had she ever forgotten those haunting gray eyes? "I'll leave you to the books, Hermione. I was just leaving."
"Bye," younger Hermione said, waving awkwardly before thumbing through titles.
Hermione was pulled out the memory. For what felt like ages, she just stood there, gripping the sides of the stone bowl.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Focus on your breathing, Hermione.
Hermione numbly conjured a vial and slipped the memory inside before walking back to her desk slowly, in a sort of fog.
I've known Demetri since I was thirteen years old. I didn't remember, but he must have.
Had he gone to Hogwarts before he "transferred" to Durmstrang? If he had gone by Leo, she should be able to find out. Hermione decided to focus on gathering more information with these new clues because if she knew if she didn't concentrate on next steps, she might break down.
When she got back to her desk, still shaking slightly, there was a folded-up piece of parchment on top of her desk that hadn't been there before. She unfolded it as she sat down and immediately recognized the neat scrawl of Viktor Krum.
Hermione,
I admit I am surprised to hear from you, but I am willing to meet. I don't know of anywhere we could conceal our presence, so you may name the place.
-Viktor
It was as enthusiastic a response as Hermione could hope for. She quickly penned a reply asking to meet at her apartment, trying to make that sound as un-suggestive as possible.
After that letter was sent, she wrote another one requesting permission to visit Professor McGonagall. Even before she had been Headmaster, Hermione was confident that Professor McGonagall knew every student at Hogwarts.
A/N: Slowly dropping puzzle pieces for you all is infinitely more satisfying than a jigsaw puzzle (which is saying a lot because I'm a fan). Seriously, hope you're holding up. :)