Chapter 2
At first, Hermione saw nothing, just darkness until she noticed a small light appear in the distance. As she stared, the light began to grow brighter and brighter, and come closer and closer to her until it surrounded her and she had to shield her eyes. After a few minutes, Hermione lowered her hand and opened her eyes, blinking quite a bit to help herself adjust to the light around her. Once her eyes adjusted she noticed a ring of what looked to be rocks or stones, but brightly coloured, maybe gems, in front of her, six altogether.
Suddenly the gems began to move, circling her, faster and faster until she became dizzy. That's when the images started to encase her.
Blue – that's all she could see at first, the light was coming from something blue, and small, and square. No, not square, it was a cube. She could see it clearer now. It was a small blue cube, and it was glowing in the hands of a man with a red face. Is that his face? What happened to him? Where's the rest of it? Hermione thought while looking into the red skull-like face of the man holding the cube in front of her. Beside him was a broken machine of some kind, and above him, the ship they were on seemed to disappear. Slowly the man began to scream and seemed to disintegrate before her eyes. Her brain itched, she knew these people, the man with the red face, the man in the blue and red suit with a shield, and the cube, she knew that too.
Tes…tessersect…tesserane….tesseract, it was the tesseract. He stole it, from the old man, and the other man, with the shield, I know him. Hermione thought before she watched with horror as the ship she was on crashed into the ice below and slowly sink further into the ice.
Soon the scene before her changed, she saw a group of men on a ship, seeming to be run by a man in a white sweater and moustache, pull the tesseract out of the ice it had fallen into. Again, the scene changed and she saw more men, drilling through ice, finding and pulling the man with the shield out of the ice he had fallen into on the ship so many years ago.
Hermione then saw a different scene, a woman in her mid-twenties was kneeling on the ground beside a plane wreck. She held a gun in her hands and had it pointed at a man with yellow eyes in a black, green and silver suit. As the man approached her the woman turned the gun towards the engine of the plane and fired. The following explosion shook the ground and Hermione watched as the energy from the engine escaped through the bullet hole and seeped into the woman now lying unconscious on the ground.
Again, the scene changed, Hermione was now looking at a man wearing green and black as he stepped out of what looked like a portal in the middle of a large laboratory. The man had a smirk on his face, and held out a sceptre in front of him, as he did so he sent out a blast of energy that swept right through her as a yellow light took hold of her.
Yellow – as the yellow light began to fade from her eyes she saw a young woman, no not a woman, a girl, a teenager thought Hermione. The girl was sitting on a small cot, in a small room with a little television in the corner. Hermione could hear a sitcom on the television, Malcolm in the Middle she thought, but it wasn't the telly that held Hermione's interest. The girl was dressed in something you might see a house-elf wear, it was a dirty, long-sleeved dress. The girl looked much like Hermione had during the war, she looked fatigued, malnourished, unkempt, and her eyes looked as if she had seen horrible things. But what caught Hermione's attention the most was the thrumming she felt coming from the girl. It was similar to that which she typically felt from other witches and wizards, only not quite the same.
As Hermione was studying the girl two men entered the small room and escorted her down a long hall to a larger room with the sceptre in the centre. Hermione could hear men talking, but could not see them. She thought she heard one of them say something about no other volunteers surviving this far.
Surviving what? What are they doing to her? Memories Hermione did not want to surface began to come to mind, memories of her lying on a cold floor with a mad witch above her.
Shaking herself, Hermione focused back on the girl in front of her, the girl seemed to be entranced by the sceptre in the centre of the room. The longer the girl stared at it, the brighter the sceptre started to glow, eventually, it seemed to crack and a yellow stone was floating in front of them. The stone continued to glow brightly and seemed to exude energy into the room. The girl still stood before it, not moving a muscle, entranced by the vision the stone provided of a woman dressed in red.
Hermione was now somewhere else, another laboratory, this time with a metal and glass box in the room that housed a person in it. A man, or maybe not a man, he doesn't look entirely human, Hermione thought as she peered at the red man lying in the box. In the centre of the man's forehead was the yellow stone, not glowing, not quite exuding the same amount of energy it had before, in fact, it seemed to almost be dormant. That is until a large blonde man fell from the sky and struck the box with a large hammer. Hermione stared in awe as lightning seemed to follow the path of the hammer and strike in the same place the hammer did.
The box burst then, glass and metal went flying across the room, and the other inhabitants of the room took cover, as well as taking stances that seemed to say they were prepared to fight if needed. The red man from the box gracefully floated up and perched himself on the edge of what was now left of the box. Hermione watched the following interactions unfold, up until the man picked up the blonde's hammer and handed it to him.
Looking at the hammer Hermione's vision began to fill with red.
Red – Hermione watched as a woman reached inside the wall of an abandoned building and was soon overtaken by a flowing red energy. She saw as the same blonde man from before came to the woman, gathered her in his arms and took her to a place he called Asgard. She watched as a battle unfolded in the palace, as human-like creatures she believed were called Dark Elves killed the blonde's mother, and she watched as the one named Malekith took the red energy from the woman. Hermione distantly recognized the man in green from her previous visions but was unable to process it for too long before her vision shifted again.
She was back on earth now, the blonde was fighting against Malekith, who seemed to be harnessing the red energy and using it to distort the world around them. She watched as eventually Malekith was defeated and the blonde took the red energy and sealed it away.
Her vision then shifted as two people, a man and a woman, dressed in what she now assumed was Asgardian clothing, presented the red energy to an eccentric-looking man. The man seemed giddy at the idea of being given such a rare find. The man they called the Collector said he had a special place for it along with his other possessions. Hermione glanced around the room, noting it was cluttered and very much reminded her of the Room of Requirement when they were searching for the diadem. As she glanced about the room her vision again began to shift, a purple light filling her eyes.
Purple – Hermione looked on as a man dancing and singing to a Walkman grabbed hold of a small steel-looking ball from on top of the podium in front of him. As he placed his hand on the ball her vision began to change, she was now looking at the same man fighting with a green woman, a raccoon, and … a tree? A tree? A walking, talking, tree? After everything I've seen, I didn't think anything could surprise me.
Hermione then watched as the four, now five having been joined by a large man with red markings on his body, sat in some kind of aircraft. They were talking about a nova core or corp, some scavengers, and someone named Ronan. This Ronan had apparently been working for someone else, however, she never caught the other person's name, but she did know that he had planned to first use the steel ball to exact his revenge on someplace called Xandar.
She now stood in front of the man from earlier, Starlord, she remembered he called himself and watched as he began to dance in front of a blue man wearing a cloak with the hood up. He continued to dance until he saw the steel ball fall towards the ground, the purple stone falling out of the ball. At this point, Starlord dove to the ground and grabbed the glowing purple stone from inside the ball. Finally standing up again, Hermione could see that the energy from the stone was going to kill him until she noticed the four people with him grab onto him and form a chain that the energy was running through. In doing so they were able to contain the purple energy for a short while.
Again, her vision changed, Hermione now watched as the purple stone, in the steel ball once more, was handed to men dressed in white that she heard were from the Nova Corps. The group of five were walking away joking about being the Guardians of the Galaxy when Hermione's vision again changed.
Green – "I am a guardian of this reality and this planet and you, Dormammu are trespassing" she heard a man's voice say.
Turning, she noted that she was not on Earth, she was on a floating rock, with a large face floating before her, and a man wearing a cape standing before the face.
Hermione then watched as the being, Dormammu killed the man in the cape. As he killed him, Hermione noted that the necklace he wore began to glow green and it seemed as if time had shifted. She watched once again as the man in the cape approached Dormammu, and was again killed. The process continued to repeat itself, enough times that Hermione lost count after sixteen.
The feeling of having time shift was one that Hermione was familiar with due to her use of the time turner in her third year. However, Hermione knew this man was no wizard, she felt the thrumming, but like the girl earlier, it felt different than those in the wizarding world. As well, she could not see a time turner on the man, the only thing he wore around his neck was a pendant shaped like an eye with a green stone in it.
As Hermione continued to study him, an light orange filled her line of sight.
Orange – All she saw was a cliff and the man with the red face from earlier.
"It extracts a terrible price." Looking around Hermine could not see the person who spoke those words. It seemed as if they had been carried to her like a whisper on the winds.
"It requires a sacrifice, it requires that which you love most."
Hermione continued to look at the cliff, her eyes wandering down the edge of the cliff where she could faintly see two outlines on the ground.
Her vision began to darken until once again she was staring into darkness.
In the darkness, she saw the six stones again, but this time they were placed into a golden… glove? No, not a glove, a gauntlet. She watched as a large purple man placed the gauntlet on his hand and flexed his fingers.
Space, a voice caressed her thoughts, but Hermione wasn't entirely sure the thought was hers. The blue stone in the gauntlet began to glow.
Mind, the voice came again and as it did the yellow stone began to glow as well.
Reality, like the two before it, the red stone began to glow as the voice came to her.
Power, the purple stone began to glow.
Time, now the green was glowing.
Soul, finally the orange stone began to glow with the rest.
It has begun, the voice whispered in her head, the one who seeks the stones has started his quest, he seeks the power the stones hold, he seeks to create a new universe, Hermione was now certain that the voice in her thoughts was not her own.
As she stared at the purple man in front of her with the golden gauntlet, a thousand questions began to bubble up inside her. The voice, however, cut her off before she had a chance to ask them.
But you Hermione Granger, you will not have to seek out anything. You are our champion, you will create balance, the voice whispered to her. The light from the stones in front of her began to get brighter, and the image of the purple man faded away until all that was left was the stones, the light, the darkness and her. Hermione's heart began to beat frantically in her chest and the energy and light coming from the stones in front of her grew rapidly.
Her vision began to darken, despite the bright light, her breathing came out in small pants and her heart was beating so fast she was sure her chest would explode.
She was lying on something soft, and warm. A comforting voice was speaking to her. She could smell disinfectant, and potions, and something particularly medicinal in the air. St Mungo's? Is that where I am? As she continued to lie with her eyes closed she focused on the voice beside her.
"The duel between Godric and Salazar was said to have lasted nearly ten hours according to Godric's private diaries…" it was a book, her favourite, Hogwarts: A History, and she could now identify the comforting voice beside her as her best friend.
"Who knew all it would take for you to finally read that book was for me to end up in the hospital", she said, her voice was scratchy sounding, and her throat was both sore and dry.
"MIONE!" Harry shouted, "Thank gods you're awake, I've been worried sick over you."
Hermione turned her head towards Harry's voice and finally opened her eyes. Only for Harry not to be greeted by the warm brown eyes he had come to love within his best friend's, his sister's, face.
Instead, golden eyes with something shining just beneath the surface peered up at him from beneath Hermione's eyelashes.
A/N: Hey guys!
Thanks for reading this chapter, I know it's a little bit longer. I hope you're enjoying the story so far!
If you haven't been able to tell this story, while trying to remain somewhat true to the source material, will obviously be OC. As well, I am trying to figure out a regular posting schedule, it'll most likely be once a week eventually, but for now, I'm posting when I can.
As always, leave a review, let me know what you think, and I hope your day (or night) is filled with happiness!
Until next time.