AN: Thank you to Black_Phoenix24 and CharliPetidei for all their amazing alpha and beta work!
World 3: Draco's POV
With each passing day, Hermione's optimism that she would be naturally returned to the reality she recognized, withered. But the mornings were the most heartbreaking. Instead of the moaning and groaning that accompanied her typical wake-up routine, the mornings were filled with uncharacteristic enthusiasm when she woke up in her familiar bedroom. But the tingling hope that Malfoy would greet her in their common room with a spitting insult and his normal green tie died each day she found him dressed in Gryffindor red.
The days passed slowly as Hermione continued to gather more information about this new reality. The way in which she spent her time was monotonous - she went straight between classes and the library.
Yet, despite her efforts to find answers, the library had failed to yield any explanations on how or why she was in this strange place. After so many days of constant reading, she was no closer to finding a way to get back home.
The fact that she had still made no progress deeply unsettled her. She could feel the discomfort bubbling in her stomach at the possibility that she might not be trying hard enough to find a way to leave. It was impossible to deny that this place, wherever she was, was more peaceful.
It felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Here, they hadn't reached the turning point in the war - Hogwarts was still safe with all the students safely restingin Albus Dumbledore's care. Her best friend was always in class beside her, instead of on the run. And while the threat of Voldemort loomed, there was quite a difference between here and being completely submerged in a war.
In the few days she had been here, she had already slipped back into the comfortable habits of her early years at Hogwarts, habits that would get her killed in a war zone. Instead of constantly checking behind her shoulder, like she would when Death Eaters lorded over the school, she walked through the hallways in the middle of the night, half asleep.
A quiet voice nagged her the back of her brain, asking why go back when you could stay here? The guilt that maybe she might want to stay, burrowed deep inside of her.
But of course she couldn't stay - this wasn't where she was supposed to be, and Harry and Ron, her Harry and Ron, were counting on her.
With these warring thoughts coursing through Hermione all week, and coupled with the stress of classes, she was particularly grateful when Saturday finally arrived.
She woke up much later than she'd cared to admit at 11:30 AM. With the early afternoon sun pouring through the window, she grabbed her book off the nightstand - the one she checked out from the library last night. This book was about hallucinations and all the spells, jinxes, and curses that could induce them. So far, it was also failing to provide any helpful information on her strange current predicament.
At promptly 11:52, realizing that she had agreed to meet Ginny for lunch, she shoved away her blankets to hop out of bed and throw on some clothes, before dashing down the stairs, out the portrait hole, and through the corridors towards the Great Hall.
Ginny was waiting outside the entrance, arms crossed and tapping her foot impatiently on the ground. She ran her eyes up and down Hermione's body, taking in her disheveled appearance, while her eyebrows knitted together. "Did you just get out of bed? You haven't even brushed your hair."
"Yeah, I had a bit of a slow start this morning. Sorry for being late. "
Ginny shook her head, peering at her with uncertainty. "No, it's fine. I don't care that you were late...I just - Are you sure you're alright?"
Hermione nodded her head quickly, trying to shake off the question. Her friends had been asking ita lot since she broke it off with Malfoy. "Yes, seriously. I'm great, Gin. But I am hungry: let's go eat."
Ginny still looked unconvinced as she followed Hermione into the room, taking their seats at the end of the Gryffindor table.
"So how are your classes Ginny?" Hermione asked, taking a chicken sandwich from the heapedplatter in front of them. She hoped that her attempts to steer them away from conversations about her wellbeing weren't as transparent as they felt.
"Oh well. They're okay I suppose - you know me. I was never like you. I never enjoyed school, and I'm just so jealous that you, Harry, Ron, and Draco -" she paused to wince at the last name that slipped out of her mouth, and threw Hermione an apologetic look. "-are going to be completely done in just a few months. Imagine, after you graduate, you never have to go back to school if you don't want to. I can't wait."
"I'm not sure it's as exciting as you make it out to be, Gin. I really don't know what I want to do after I graduate, and I'm not sure I'm ready to decide."
Though if she ever managed to get back to her own reality, she might not even be alive long enough to make it to graduation. She neglected to mention this, thinking it would put a damper in their conversation. She moved her thoughts back to the present, trying to forget about her problems for the moment, wanting to enjoy one lunch with her old friend.
"What extra studies are you taking this year?" Hermione questioned.
"Divination and Muggle Studies. Though I'm really only taking Muggle Studies because Dad kept nagging me to. He's desperate to learn about those Muggle tellys, and he was hoping that the class would teach me about them."
Hermione giggled. "That sounds like Arthur. Well, if he ever wants to know anything, you can always ask me." Ginny grinned thankfully at her, before Hermione continued, "I didn't know you were taking Divination again? Harry, Ron, and Ma-Draco," -she hoped Ginny didn't catch her slip up- "were huddled together the other day doing homework for it. Wouldn't you all be taking that together since it's a 6th and 7th year combined class?"
"Yeah, but I'm just taking it because it's a really easy grade. All I have to do is write some crap about how terrible things are going to happen, and Trewlawney loves it. And if you throw in some death then you may even get extra credit. I can't blame you for hating it though, Trewlawney is definitely full of bullshit."
Hermione couldn't help but to hum in agreement. After the disaster of 3rd year, she certainly had no intention of taking it again.
Ginny had started to cackle "You'll find this funny Hermione." She held her sides as laughter ripped through her body, and she gasped for breath. "We were doing crystal balls again the other day. And she looked into Draco's and announced that he was going to die!" Ginny continued to wheeze, "It's complete shit obviously, she always guesses that someone's going to die. Oh, but you should have seen the look on everyone's faces! Everyone was turning red and trying to contain their laughter, Draco especially. But Trewlawney just looked at him with somber eyes and patted him on the back before moving onto the next student."
Hermione joined in on the laughter, and having finished her sandwich, helped herself to some pork sausage. When she reached out, Ginny grabbed her arm and pulled her hand close to her face. "Hermione! Where were you able to get a manicure?" Ginny lowered her voice as she inspected Hermione's nails more carefully. "Did you sneak out to Hogsmeade?
Hermione looked confusedly at her own unpainted, plain nails. "What are you talking about? I haven't gotten my nails done."
"Oh wow! Good for you Hermione, you've been trying to cut that habit for years."
Hermione had no idea what her friend was talking about, but just chalked it up to some weird unimportant detail about this reality. Ginny didn't seem to notice Hermione's confusion, because she launched back into conversation, asking Hermione about her classes. Hermione followed suit, quickly moving past the weird diversion from their conversation.
Hermione had forgotten what it was like to talk about things other than the war. The time passed quickly as they continued exchanging jokes and gave updates to each other on their lives. Not much had changed about her friend between the two realities, and Hermione was glad. Ginny seemed to be the same fiery, bold girl she had always been.
Soon, once the meal left them ripe with merriment and their bellies full, the lunch platters disappeared signaling the end of the lunch period. The cacophony of benches scraping against the ground filled the air as hundreds of students made to leave.
They parted ways at the door as Ginny made her way to the dungeons - she had to meet her partner for a potions project. But as it was a Saturday, Hermione decided to allow herself some time to relax with her friends, and started making her way towards the Fat Lady's portrait hole.
The afternoon hours passed lazily, the wind rustling outside, kicking up the red and brown leaves. Through the window, Hermione watched the Whomping Willow shiver in the brisk autumn air.
Back in the Gryffindor Common Room, she sat on the burgundy couch, nestling a steaming cup of tea while basking in the warmth radiating from the fireplace. She was finishing the last chapter of the hallucination book.
Harry and Ron were sitting on the ground with their legs crossed, playing Wizard's Chess. They hadn't moved in the past three hours.
They were whispering furiously back and forth, but the utterance of the name 'Draco' caught her attention.
"You know, you don't have to avoid talking about him in front of me. I'm fine. Really," Hermione interjected.
Ron shot an 'I told you we shouldn't be talking about this here' look at Harry, while Harry grinned sheepishly at her.
"In that case, do you think you can take a look at my map?" Harry asked. "Its age must be deteriorating the magic. Draco used it the other day and swore to me that it was broken. He said it was wrong."
"I thought the map was never wrong, mate?" Ron questioned.
Harry shrugged. "That's what Lupin told me. And that's what I relayed to Draco at first too. But he swore that when someone was standing right in front of him, the map showed a different name."
"Well I'm not -" Ron started to say, before he was distracted by Harry's knight moving to the square directly in front of his king. "Oi! That was stupid," Ron said, sending his king forward. The miniature stone king picked up his cane and swung it at the knight, puncturing its armor and sending the horse's head crashing towards the checkered board.
"Sure Harry. I'll take a look for you." Hermione replied. "And what were you saying Ron?"
"What was I saying when?"
"Right before you smashed through Harry's knight with your king."
"Oh." Ron shook his head. "I don't remember. Sorry."
"Wait - Hermione- don't tell Draco that I told you about this. He asked me not to mention it to you. I think he was feeling a bit embarrassed that he couldn't figure out what was wrong with it himself. And… with it still being awkward between you two…" He scratched the back of his neck, his ears turning a little pink.
"Don't worry, Harry. I won't mention it to Ma-Draco."
Harry smiled gratefully at her. "Thanks Hermione."
After turning the final page in the book, Hermione closed it, letting the book rest in her lap. She watched Harry and Ron play their last moves before Ron's rook ultimately cornered Harry's king, granting him victory.
As Harry and Ron reset the pieces, Hermione got up to start packing her bag.
At the sound of books thudding against each other, Ron looked up. "Aw Hermione. Are you leaving? I thought you might want to play the victor!" He dramatically puffed out his chest and pumped his fist in the air. Harry stuck his tongue out at him.
"As fun as that sounds Ron, I'm rubbish at chess, and I'm about to head off to the library."
"But that's all you've been doing the past few days. You spend all your time in the library and we've barely seen you! Besides, you're not terrible at chess. Harry is terrible at chess, and you're definitely better than Harry." Ron smiled widely at Harry, who stuck his tongue further out, glowering playfully.
"Sorry Ron." Hermione tried to forcefully push her last book into her satchel. It was filled to the brim with textbooks, books, and notes, the leather seams noticeably starting to stretch. Sighing, she dug around her bag, looking for things to rearrange. A couple of books seemed not to be reaching the bottom of the bag and after some more rummaging, she found the culprit.
At lunch, her owl had dropped off her mail order of cherry flavoured sugar quills. Too distracted by her conversation with Ginny at the time, she had haphazardly thrown them into her bag. But now, they had fallen to the bottom.
She pulled the quills to the top, unwrapping one and popping it into her mouth. Placing the rest to the corner of the bag, she was finally triumphant in shoving her books down, and snapped the worn bag buckle shut. A few of the sugar quills still stuck out of the gap in the corner, but they weren't going to fall out, so she slung the strap around her shoulder, waving her goodbyes to Harry and Ron.
During her walk to the library, she continued twirling the quill in her mouth, enjoying the cherry flavour that flooded her mouth.
Her mood was dampened a bit when she passed Malfoy in the hallway, still adorned in his red Head Boy badge and his neck encircled in a Gryffindor tie.
She tried to avoid looking at him in the eyes, shooting him a tight smile in acknowledgement. But he just stared at her lips.
Hermione cursed internally - this was why she normally only ate her quills while studying alone. The quills always tended to stain her lips, and they were surely already painted an embarrassingly bright cherry red.
His eyes stayed fixed on her lips, his eyes squinting suspiciously at her, until he was out of sight.
She picked up her pace while rubbing at her mouth with one sleeve. Turning the corner, she was relieved to see the welcoming library doors, grateful for the solace that the empty library normally offered.
She hastily dropped off the finished book at Madam Pince's desk, keeping her head down to avoid inciting a glare at her half finished sugar quill, before throwing herself into the bookshelves.
Hermione ran her fingers along the spines, carefully reading the titles. Grabbing a book about lucid dreaming, she pulled it out of its slot and plunked down at a table.
But the book would have to wait. Her Herbology essay due on Thursday had been put off long enough, so she took her favorite grey feathered quill out of her satchel along with some parchment and poised her hand to start writing.
She made a mental note to buy new quills from Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop the next time they went to Hogsmeade. The end of the quill had been frayed from chewing on the end. The bad habit was especially exacerbated when she was stressed.
For her Herbology paper, she wrote about aconite and the eight different locations in the world that it naturally spawned. All aconite sources around the world had originally come from one of those eight locations. The quill scratched quickly against the paper as she detailed the historical reasons the plant flourished in these specific areas.
Before long, the sun had set and she made her way back to the Great Hall for dinner. She chatted merrily with her Harry, Ron, and Ginny, and fortunately, Malfoy was nowhere to be found. After dinner, while her friends returned to Gryffindor Tower, she headed back to the Head's Dorm in favor of some peace and quiet that would allow her to finish her essay.
Passing through the common room, she ignored Malfoy who was sitting on the couch and staring into the fireplace. Once in her room, Hermione cast some silencing charms and finished her essay before going to sleep.
Sunday passed much in the same way as Saturday, starting with a late wakeup, and followed by a relaxing afternoon reading. And for the first time in a long while, she wasn't excited for classes to resume the next day.
On Monday after breakfast, she was making her way to the dungeons, passing the same portrait of the girl crossing the lake, that she had walked past almost a week ago, right before the craziness had all started.
And as she was passing the same alcove that Malfoy had cornered her in before, an arm darted out, capturing her hip, and pulling her inside.
She was met again by the face of Draco Malfoy, except this time instead of his lips on her face, he had her wand trained on her face.
His face was flushed with red, and his left arm was curled into a fist on his side.
War hardened, and more alert than the last time he had pulled her into the alcove, she had her wand in her hand in an instant, ready to cast a spell at her attacker. But he was faster - with a quick Expelliarmus, she was wandless, and all she could do was stare longingly at her Vinewood in his left hand.
She opened her mouth to scream at him, but again she was too slow - he beat her to it.
"Who are you?" Malfoy demanded. His face was scrunched up looking as if he was about to cry. "What have you done to Hermione?" he screamed.
The blood drained from her face, and she tried to step backwards, but only met the wall. "What do you mean?" she laughed nervously. "I am Hermione."
"No. I know you're not. So stop lying! I don't know how you tricked the Marauder's Map, but I know you're not her."
"I am Hermione!" she insisted, but her heart started to splinter at the scene in front of her. She hadn't come face to face with him since the day she broke up with him, but there were deep purple bags under his eyes, his cheek bones protruding more sharply out of his face than she remembered.
It looked like he hadn't slept in days.
She may not have liked the Draco Malfoy she left behind, but from what she could tell, this one was kind, and clearly loved whatever version of Hermione Granger he remembered. It wasn't fair that he had to go through this. He didn't deserve it. And, if it weren't so important for her to keep her facade, she would have started to comfort him.
But Malfoy was still rambling on, raging about how she wasn't Hermione Granger.
"You made a particularly convincing imposter. But you got a few details wrong!" he panted. "Hermione loathes artificial cherry flavors. Did you know? She once threw up in a Muggle sweet shop when she popped something in her mouth that she thought was cinnamon, but had turned out to be cherry. Needless to say, she doesn't like red sugar quills. She only eats the blue coloured ones."
"I think you're overreacting a bit Draco." She hoped the name didn't sound as foreign coming out of her mouth as it felt saying it. "Just because I've decided to try a new sweet does not mean I'm a different person."
"Enough! Stop! Just stop! Stop. Lying. To. Me! You're not her. I know you're not her. It's not just the sweets. That was only the last straw. You're different. "
"And how exactly am I different?"
"Did you know I can count, on my hands, the number of times Hermione has woken up past nine AM in the past six years? How is it that you've woken up past 10 every single day?" He looked manic, his whole body shaking as he gestured wildly with his left hand, as if he was trying to emphasize his point. But all it did was make him look more like he was going off the rails.
She opened her mouth, prepared to spit out some bullshit about how it had been a stressful week and how she needed the extra sleep. But, he cut her off again.
"You've been trying to cut your nail biting habit for years. FOR YEARS! And I'm supposed to just accept that you woke up randomly one day and stopped biting your nails?"
Hermione glanced down at her unmarred nail beds, realizing that this must have been what Ginny was referring to at lunch on Saturday.
"Let me save you the trouble. Your nails are pristine." he spat. "And if that wasn't enough, you always hated when other people bit on the end of their quills. We had one of our biggest arguments about it, because I used to do it, until you yelled at me so much that I stopped. Your writing quill, it probably needs replacing, yeah? You haven't stopped chewing on it since Tuesday, which was coincidentally, also the day you broke up with me."
His wand was still trained on her, his arm shaking with his uncontained rage. He was so close to her that she could hear the grinding of his teeth, and see the vein pulsing in his pale neck. And all Hermione could do was gape at him in shock.
He laughed mirthlessly. "You look surprised," he shook his head scornfully, huffing out an exhale. "Like I said, you were a convincing imposter, and you may have fooled other people, but you haven't fooled me. I know her better than anyone else. I love her. You don't understand! I need her. I'd die for her. And I swear to fucking Merlin, if you've done something to her, I'll kill you myself. So I'd suggest that you tell me where the fuck she is!" He used his left arm to swipe at his running nose, but his wand dug deeper into her neck.
"Alright. Alright." Malfoy was a blubbering mess, and she could see there was nothing left for her to do. He was clearly relentless in his pursuit to uncover the truth. She held up her left hand in surrender, while slowly moving her right hand to lower his wand. "Let's go back to our dormitory. I'll explain everything there."
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