Somebody was laughing at her. No, worse – somebody, from far away in the deep, black dark – was giggling.
A mad, inconceivable glee. It made Hermione want to retch.
"Hermione Graaaaangerrrrr," sang the giggling voice. Hermione felt the goosebumps ripple up her arms at the sound.
"Hello?" She called, into the dark. Nothing called back.
"Hello?" She tried again.
Suddenly, a girl appeared next to her in the gloom. The girl wore oversized, tatty school robes with the house emblem scratched out.
"Hi there," the girl smiled, showing a set of protruding, oversized teeth.
"Who… Who are you?" Asked Hermione.
"I'm a friend," the girl replied, her smile not moving an inch. "I'm a Spirit of Guidance. You need a little bit of that, don't you?"
"I suppose so…" Hermione watched the spirit-girl carefully, a gnawing feeling of doubt growing in her chest.
"Yes, yes you do! What a hard time it has been for you!" The spirit-girl skipped around Hermione, round and round in circles, so that it made Hermione's neck ache to keep looking at her. Abruptly, the spirit stopped. She leaned in close to Hermione's ear.
"But why has it been so hard? Aren't you supposed to be the 'brightest witch of your age', and all that?"
"Excuse me?"
"If you claim to be such a clever little witch-"
"I've never said-"
"If you claim to be such a clever little witch," the spirit continued, her voice growing louder. She resumed her skipping around Hermione. "Why can't you figure your way out of this one? Why can't you get yourself home?"
"Stop it," Hermione snapped. She shoved roughly past the spirit and tried to walk away. There was nothing but dark fog around her, but she walked off anyway. The spirit giggled, keeping up with Hermione's stride easily.
"Where are you going, silly? Nowhere fast, it seems!"
Hermione stopped, sighing in defeat. "Do you have anything useful to say? Any – I don't know – 'guidance', maybe?" She asked.
The spirit-girl crept in close again. Hermione could hear the girl's ragged breathing, and the repulsive smell of sulphur. Hermione wrinkled her nose but refused to move. The spirit stepped back in front of Hermione, waggling her eyebrows knowingly.
"I know what you really want, Hermione Granger," she said in a stage-whisper. "I can see into your head. I know what you really, really, really want… But does he want you back?"
"Go. Away." Hermione growled it out through gritted teeth.
The spirit screeched a laugh, clapping her hands together. She started doing cartwheels all around in the mist, singing a tune as she went. It brought bile up to Hermione's mouth.
"Hermione and Tom, sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G…"
"Stop saying that!" Hermione yelled, her hand itching for her wand. "You don't know what you're talking about!"
The spirit-girl collapsed onto the floor, clutching her stomach from all the giggling.
In an instant, the giggling stopped. The girl disappeared.
"Your friends would be so disappointed in you," rang out a booming voice. "Harry would be sickened… And Ron… And Ginny… And all the other Weasleys..."
At the mention of their name, the dark fog faded away.
Mrs Weasley materialised in front of her out of the gloom, and Hermione found herself back at the Burrow. Or a version of it at least – everything looked slightly off, as if all the colours were slightly too bright. Christmas music was playing, tinkling away from the lounge, and Hermione was stood at the kitchen sink; she looked down and saw that she was in the middle of peeling potatoes for dinner.
"...I can't believe that you would be so selfish," Mrs Weasley was saying, pointing a finger in Hermione's direction. "Leaving Ron, and poor dear Harry, all alone in the woods like that. How could you? You've always been a nasty, selfish, arrogant young girl…"
Hermione put down the potato peeler, tears forming in her eyes at the harsh words. "Mrs Weasley, why are you saying all this? I didn't mean to leave them there!"
"Maybe you don't WANT to go home! Maybe you like it where you are, maybe you like the way he looks at you! I've never met a girl more selfish..." Mrs Weasley kept shouting.
"Please, don't say that," Hermione cried.
As her tears hit the floor, the images in front of her changed.
Hermione looked around, confused. She found herself in the defence-against-the-dark-arts classroom, the summer sun blazing its heat through the window. She was sitting at a desk, quill in hand, with Professor Lupin leaning over her.
"Are you having trouble with your test, Hermione?" He asked.
"No, Sir…" Hermione wiped her tears away on the back of her sleeve.
"Good. I expect a lot from you, you know, Hermione." Lupin loomed right over her, his shadow casting itself over her test paper. "I've heard a lot about your magical abilities. But can you prove yourself when it really matters?"
"I… I hope so, Sir…"
"I don't think you can. I think you've been lying to us all this entire time, and that you can't do anything. You're only a muggle-born, after all. How could you really hope to figure this all out?" Lupin leaned his head to the side in mock-sympathy. Hermione felt a prickling of defiance at his derisive tone.
"You can't even work out how to time-travel! How stupid are you, really?"
"I'm not stupid!" Hermione flared, throwing her papers and quill at the teacher. It went right through him, as if he were only mist.
The classroom disappeared. The images around her changed again.
Hermione found herself in the second-floor girl's bathroom. Moaning Myrtle and the Spirit of Guidance were sitting cross-legged on the floor, plaiting each other's hair and singing a Muggle nursery rhyme.
"Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep, and can't tell where to find them…"
Hermione took a step further into the room. Her reflection in the mirror caught her eye – she looked pale, and worn out.
"...Leave them alone, and they'll come home, and bring their tails behind them…"
"Why aren't you helping me?" Hermione asked, walking over to the girls and staring down at them.
"...Little Bo-peep fell fast asleep, and dreamt she heard them bleating…"
"You say you're a spirit of guidance, but you aren't guiding me anywhere! How do I get home?"
The girls just kept singing, their voices echoing off the walls around them. "...But when she awoke, she found it a joke, for they were still a-fleeting…"
Frustrated, Hermione turned her back on them.
There was blood on the mirror. Someone had used it to write the word "TRAITOR" over and over, covering the entire surface so that her reflection was completely obscured.
Hermione could feel herself starting to hyperventilate, the air coming hard and thick to her chest; she couldn't get enough of it. The walls were closing in.
Without a second thought she ran from the bathroom. She kicked open the door and hurled herself out into the corridor. At the crash of her escape, the singing had stopped. As Hermione sprinted as fast as she could down the hallway, the spirit screaming behind her:
"We all know what you are, Hermione! We all know what you really are!"
Hermione didn't stop running until she woke up.