When she started to wake, Hermione Granger could only think, in a muddled way, that she was rather cold.

In her confused state, she forgot about the whole magic thing and thought she'd fainted in the bath. Even when her memory started to catch up with her, it wasn't clear any of it was more than some sort of long, convincing dream.

The last thing she remembered was being on a train ... opening a door to see a boy dressed like a homeless person, with uncombed black hair, bent spectacles, and a strange look on his face. She had been on a train, right? Well, it could all be part of the dream. But anyway, in the dream, or whatever, he'd been far too eager to invite her in, and even chased away a red-haired boy who asked to sit with them, claiming the other cars were filled.

"Liar," the strange boy had said as he manoeuvred the ginger boy out of the doorway, slammed it, and used a magic wand — that was what those sticks were, in the dream, anyway — on it. Then sat back down with a self-satisfied grin that seemed a little manic. Well, so did everything else about him.

Then what had happened? After a bit of small talk, entirely nervous on her part, he'd said ... what? She concentrated. Ah.

"Sorry, Hermione." Exactly what you would wish the last thing you remember hearing to be.

Then a red light, then a little pain like being punched in the solar plexus, then lights out.

She was almost afraid to open her eyes, especially since she could feel the cold floor beneath her body, and more than that, feel the cold air passing over it. She could feel the vibration of what must, indeed, be a train through the floor. What she couldn't feel was even a thread of clothing.

She opened her eyes only a slit, and slowly. Even without moving, she could tell she was, in fact, lying on a floor stark naked. It was a little harder to say for sure without opening her eyes fully or moving, but she seemed to have been painted all over with some sort of finger-painted designs. Her parents had always told her Satanist abductions were a myth, but perhaps they hadn't known everything.

She took a chance, finally, and opened her eyes. Without moving her head, she could see the strange boy was still there. Well, if she was going to admit this wasn't all a dream, he did have a name. Harry Potter, a figure out of one of her textbooks. She had even asked another boy, a somewhat shy and pudgy kid named Neville, about the incident that made Potter famous enough to be in schoolbooks. They'd talked while she helped him find a toad, though she'd upset Neville a little by assuming what turned out to be his pet, Trevor was going to be used for fresh potions ingredients. A natural mistake.

Nervously, and only after telling Hermione it was a secret, he'd said his grandmother had claimed the Potters used some sort of family blood magic, and that was what killed the rogue sorcerer Dark Lord, not any demigod behaviour by baby Harry. "But talking about blood rites isn't strictly legal," Neville had added.

Well, suspicions confirmed, Neville. Potter was literally dripping blood in a circle around Hermione and chuckling. Frankly, if you are going to do this sort of thing, even if you're quite young, she thought, I am going to say you are "cackling" instead. With that thought, she noticed he was turning around toward her and re-shut her eyes.

Fortunately, making a blood circle turns out to take a fair amount of time, so when she thought she heard him moving away again, she opened her eyes again and slowly moved her head a little to the side. She noticed she was inside concentric blood rings. She could also, now, read the labels on the ingredients of this ... what was it, a human sacrifice? A sex ritual? She reminded herself that her only goal was making a break for it safely, which meant no shuddering or other sudden movement.

Apparently, he had unicorn blood in one ring, phoenix blood in another, and had been cutting his own hand with some sort of athame on this pass, then healing himself occasionally. As for the finger-paint, well ... Near the little pot of paste, the empty vials she could see had phoenix tears, four-leafed clovers, something just labelled "Lethe," and ... and ... oh my.

In a row, she saw:

"Hermione's Diary."

"Hermione's Tears."

"Hermione's Hair."

"Hermione's Nails."

"Hermione's Skin."

Squinting, she made out the last two, and her eyes widened.

"Hermione's Blood (Heart's)"

"Hermione''s Blood (Womanly)"

Okay, she decided. This tears it.

She had already noticed Potter was starkers as well, except for a jet black cloak, and feared for her chastity, but that might be the least of her worries. The notion of dashing out naked into a train corridor filled with pre-teens and teens of both sexes would have normally paralysed her, but when push came to shove it wasn't a fate worse than Ritual Death, she discovered.

Seizing the moment, She rolled over and dived for the door handle, smearing the blood rings in the process. Potter hadn't noticed for a second, because he was finishing a round of incantation. When he saw her trying and failing to open the door, he shrieked.

"My God! Hermione, that was the only chance! You've ruined the ritual! You're ... you're gone! I'll never see you again, not alive!"

His freakishness had had to take a back seat, as the strangest feeling Hermione ever experienced in her short life had overwhelmed her. It might be a delayed reaction from his incantation since it seemed to pass through her from the direction of the now destroyed circles. It was almost as if she had two minds in her body, struggling for control, both confused, and somehow the other one was very familiar.

Finally, it subsided, and she could focus on the meaning of his latest rant. She was going to die, after all. Well, not without pounding on the door of the compartment and screaming for help.

"I've silenced it, of course," she heard. "But it doesn't matter. Nothing does, really." Then: "Look, you should sit. We ought to talk, at least. I'm not going to harm you, I would never do that."

Though still frantic, and thinking about how to acquire the athame, she turned around. Only now did she notice the compartment was bigger than it should be, had no seats, and in fact was empty of all but her, Potter, and the ritual supplies. And with a terrible sigh, she saw Potter vanish them as well, all but a few vials. He took one and said, "Engorgio," and it grew to the size of one of the missing seats, which is what he changed it into, somehow. He gestured invitingly to the seat, then noticed Hermione was finally covering herself with her hands. In what he probably thought was a gentlemanly gesture, he took off his cloak and handed it to Hermione. She whipped it around herself, then looked at him. For a boy who looked to be nine or ten years old, his visible male reaction looked particularly obscene to her, somehow.

Realising after a pause what was bothering her, Potter cut a little of his hair off with the knife (which then vanished somewhere before she could track it) and pressed it somehow into another one of the vials. It became soft like cloth and he shaped it with more incantations into a cloak like the one he'd given to Hermione. After he put it on, he looked down at himself and added, "It's an effect of the potions ... now the ritual's ruined it'll go away in a bit."

Hermione found the nerve somewhere to ask where her clothes were. It turned out, Potter had put their clothes in their trunks, then shrunk everything in the compartment, including the seats, and stored them in the next compartment over. "Nothing not ritually pure is allowed in a ritual space."

"Wonderful," Hermione replied. Potter approached her, and she still couldn't see the athame anywhere. Alas. She was about to charge him, anyway, as he touched her head with his wand and used yet another incantation. This one seemed to summon a raw egg on top of her head, from the sensation she had. Then she noticed she couldn't see herself, or only vaguely.

"Sit there, and I'll be back with the trunks and seats," he said, pointing at the seat. And then he vanished.

When she tried the door again, of course, it wouldn't open.

Potter came back after a short wait. She had actually seen the bare compartment slowly shrinking back to its original size. Despite her fear and anger, it was fascinating, she had to admit. When the door opened, she felt a compulsion like a push that let him get all the way in and lock it again before she could try to flee. After making them both fully visible, he got rid of the magicked seat with a wave of his wand and then expanded the original seats, the trunk racks, and the trunks. He opened her trunk and her clothes were on top. He left them in a pile on the seat where she'd been sitting, pants and bra on top, and turned his back to open his. "I won't look," she heard him say.

What a gentleman! She thought sarcastically. Now, he won't look? After knocking me out, stripping me naked, putting me spread-eagled on the floor and rubbing potioned finger-paint into my private parts? But she had no better idea than to get dressed, so she did. It was a huge relief. On afterthought, she put her school robes on over a tee-shirt and shorts. They had to be no more than a couple of hours away from the station in Hogsmeade. That made her think of Hogwarts: A History, which made her think of The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, where she'd first read about Potter.

She thought of how she'd have to amend the section on the Potters to add that the boy became an insane cultist as he got older. The thought made her quietly laugh.

"What?" she heard Potter ask.

"Nothing," she replied. A little anger finally surfaced. "I was just thinking how they'll have to revise The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts to say Harry Potter grew up to be a sick freak who does blood rituals, is all." Oh, wait. No, no, no! With a potential killer you do not set them off, she thought. But set him off, she had.

The look on Potter's face at the word "freak" was a sight not to behold. She felt the inside of the compartment shaking - or was it just her? It took him a while, and a quite visible struggle, to gain control of himself again. "I suppose … no, I know that it must look that way to you. Look, if the ritual had worked, I wouldn't have needed to explain anything. I didn't bother thinking about how it would look to you, because you weren't supposed to wake up. I should have stunned you harder, you're surprisingly resistant."

But unfortunately for him, she'd seen a flash of silver as he arranged his trunk.

Apparently, Potter had unlocked the door after all, as a woman with a cart full of sweets and sandwiches came in. This was Hermione's chance. She paid no attention to Potter, who was mumbling to himself behind her.

"You must help me!" Hermione said, looking the older woman in the eye. "This boy kidnapped me and assaulted me. He's insane, you must tell the driver or the prefects or someone! He's trapped me in this car!"

"Two pasties it is, dear," she said. Potter paid her after taking another two for himself and two small mugs of tea.

"No!" Hermione cried, "Please, you must help me." She grabbed the woman's arm.

Unfortunately, she just patted Hermione's hand and said something soothing, then left with surprising agility.

"It's like you didn't hear me say Confundo, Hermione. She didn't hear a word you said. No one will," she heard.

Potter was smiling but it was more of a sad smile than a smirk.

"You can leave, you know. I don't need you to be here, not anymore. It's not like I would have kept you from going to the loo or something."

"Oh?" Hermione demanded. "Didn't you need 'Hermione's Urine' for your bloody rituals?"

"Already had it. Saliva, too. It's in the mixture." Stop talking to him, she thought, feeling a little ill.

Then, after a pause, "I wonder if it really did fail. I mean, entirely. It sure felt like it was working."

Potter looked at her intently, then searched for and took a couple of books out, but left the trunk open. She could barely see a hint of silver in one corner.

"Well, if you don't need it, I'll go try to pretend I have any human dignity left and visit the loo," she said, pushing past Potter in a huff, and hiding her hand in his trunk from view with her body. She stalked through the door. She passed the treat cart and had an idea.

"Here you go, Potter, it's some strange sort of jelly babies," she called out when she returned. She lobbed a box of "Every Flavour Beans" at Potter, underhand. With good reflexes, he caught the box, but it occupied his hands and attention just long enough. Hermione pinned the smaller boy's knees with hers, pushed him roughly against the wall with her left hand, preventing him from reaching his wand, and with her right, held the athame steady, pointing at his left eye.

"Can you Confundo this?" she asked.

Notes:

Nobody promised it was a good plan, mind you.