Chapter 14
The memory that flooded her mind most vividly wasn't of the floating paper, the moving pictures, or the exploding teapots, it was of her final moments with Ron in the moonlight. She could feel his soft lips pressed up against her. She could feel the stubble of his beard on her skin. She could feel his muscular arms pulling her to him, sending waves of deep anticipation through her.
It slowly faded from her mind as Belladonna's face and voice reappeared.
"There you go." Belladonna said happily. "Things making sense now?"
They were making sense.
"The police...Aurors are looking for you." Hermione said angrily. Belladonna nodded, not the least bit concerned.
"And if you help us, no one has to get hurt. No one else, I mean."
Hermione turned her nose up to Belladonna. If she could have crossed her arms in defiance she would have done that as well.
"I'm not telling you where he is, and even if I did know I wouldn't tell you." Hermione offered boldly.
She watched a moment of confusion cross Belladonna's face as Ian walked into the next room.
"I'm not looking for your boyfriend." Belladonna chuckled, resting her hand on Hermione's knee. "I've got who I need right here."
"Me?" Hermione squeaked. "You've really got this all wrong. I'm nobody."
Belladonna gave her a sympathetic nod. "Of course you are."
Belladonna got up and walked around to Hermione next to her ear. "Have you ever wondered why you have such a weird obsession with teapots?" She asked.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Are you serious? You too? It's called a collectible. A hobby. How am I the crazy one here?"
Belladonna didn't look put out. She continued. "You are very special Hermione. One of a kind. All because of what's. in. here." She tapped on Hermione's head as she said it.
"Ron's going to find me." She said with a huff, having nothing better to respond with.
Belladonna let out a chuckle. "My dear Hermione. Do you really think he had no idea who you were?"
Hermione clamped her lips shut. "Of all the people he could run into, he'd run into you?"
Hermione looked in the opposite direction as Belladonna came back around to sit in front of her. "He used you."
Hermione shook her head. That made even less sense.
"Listen, Hermione. You just have to let me in. The more willing you are, the less painful it is. You don't owe anything to this guy. Besides, if he's who I've read about in the paper's, he's sort of a player. You deserve better."
"Like yours?" Hermione glanced over at Ian. "What a gem." Hermione mocked.
"Don't say I didn't try." Belladonna's easygoing face transformed into a scowl.
Hermione let out a scream. Where before, the prodding and poking felt sharp, this felt like Belladonna had ripped her mind in half. There was no poking and prodding, it was slashing and grabbing.
Hermione's voice went to such a high octave that no noise escaped. Every direction she tried to turn in her mind, Belladonna was there, ripping it to shreds.
"Ughh. Hermione, just let me in." Her aggravated tone gave Hermione a momentary honing rod to pull herself back to reality.
"Noooo." Hermione yelled as Belladonna jumped back in. She writhed in pain as every crevice of her mind was violated.
It went on like that for a time that Hermione couldn't tell. Every moment was filled with random scenes from her childhood, with teapots showing up in more frequency as time went on.
She could feel Belladonna searching, hunting for something. Teapot memories continued to pop up. The time she went with her dad to pick out her first teapot. The endless scrolling through the internet to find the perfect tea cozy. Teapot memories flooded her mind, and eventually transformed into her teapot dreams. The hundreds and thousands of random and wacky teapot dreams flitted through her mind.
"Where is it?" Belladonna screeched, backing out of her mind momentarily.
Hermione fell backwards, sucking in a deep breath bringing herself back to reality.
"Hermione, I'm serious this time. Don't you dare fight me." Belladonna scowled in her direction.
Just as Hermione saw the amulet grow bright blue again, she felt herself ricochet against Belladonna's advances.
Noooooo. Hermione flung her mind towards Belladonna. She wrapped herself onto the foreign entity and was flown away from her own mind and somewhere completely different.
Within an instant, a vision of two children playing at the park sprung toward her. As if she was sitting next to these two ten or eleven year old's, she watched. The girl with deep black hair that ran down her back. Was that Belladonna? The other had strawberry blonde hair that landed on his shoulders. Hermione was certain it was Ian.
"I promise Ian. I won't ever leave you. I swear it." Little Belladonna said desperately as she grabbed his hand.
"You'll leave me. You've got magic. And a magic school. You'll forget you ever knew...what did they call me...a stupid muggle." He spat towards her, tears sliding down his cheeks.
"I swear it Ian. I will be back on holidays. I promise, after I graduate, we can go off together. Anywhere. I will always be yours, Ian."
"You're different now, Bells. We're different. And unless you lose magic, or I get it, we'll always be separated."
"Please, that's not true." The girl cried, trying desperately.
"It is, and you know it."
"Then I'll find a way to get it for you. I'll know magic. I'll give you some of mine. I just have to learn it."
Hermione watched as little Ian stopped and turned back toward Little Belladonna.
"You'd figure out a way to give me magic?" He asked curiously.
"I would do anything for you." She said confidently wrapping her young arms around him in a tight hug. "Just don't leave me."
Hermione felt herself being pulled upwards to the sky like on a string and sent to another memory and another.
"Please don't kill me." The man in robes asked. Hermione didn't recognize him, but she watched as Belladonna, now at her current age, pointed a wand at the man.
"Tell me how to get past the enchantment." Belladonna's voice was unforgiving. The man cried out as Belladonna dug into his mind. The interesting part was, that in here, Hermione could dig with her, as if her mind was Belladonna's. She watched as Bella discovered what she was looking for.
Then Hermione was swept away and down to a similar situation, but with a woman this time. Hermione absorbed the knowledge as the woman bled out.
Then a third time with a third victim, learning all that she could.
Hermione then felt a sharp stabbing pain as she was being pulled out of the memory back into the real world.
"How dare you. Now I really am going to kill you." Belladonna hissed at her. Hermione looked at her surprised. Belladonna's face was red and sweaty, almost as sweaty as Hermione felt she was.
Without another word, Belladonna jumped back into her mind. Hermione felt her body tense and shake uncontrollably, as if she had been hit with a thousand volts of electricity.
Then, as if Hermione had been a guide to unlocking a vault she didn't know she was hiding, the flashes appeared before her. The simple teapot, sitting in the center of an abandoned cave with a teacup sitting on one side. Just waiting to be sipped.
Hermione was watching this memory for the first time with Belladonna, but things were becoming clear, quickly.
"Belladonna." She heard a voice call as Hermione woke up from their reverie. Ian swam murkily into view. He was holding Belladonna who had slumped backward. Hermione felt like she had been hit by a bulldozer and Belladonna didn't look much different as Hermione watched Ian shake her. Belladonna wasn't moving.
Hermione didn't waste any time. She felt her ropes had loosened with all of the thrashing and she managed to wriggle one hand out.
While Ian tried to bring Belladonna to, Hermione worked as fast as her numb fingers could take her. As soon as they were free she grabbed Belladonna's wand off of the floor as she half barreled, half fell towards the open doorway. Ian looked up in surprise and as he glanced between her and Bella, she disappeared around the corner and fell into the bathroom. Barely managing to lock it behind her, she heard Ian shouting at her, then his voice getting closer.
She wasn't sure what brought this memory forward, but it was the only thing she could think of.
Determination. Deliberation. Destination. She breathed to herself. She heard Ian slam his fist on the door.
Where to go? Where to go? She tried to clear her mind as Ian yelled at her and seemed to temporarily have gone back to Belladonna. She knew it needed to be somewhere where she could find magic, find Ron, but she had yet to go anywhere magical.
Then a vision of King's Cross Station flashed in her mind. Hadn't Ron said there was a special platform there? Hermione didn't waste time and visualized the entrance.
No lost bodyparts she told herself firmly, though at this point in time she felt every single ounce of her body as it was thrumming in pain.
"Where is she!" Belladonna yelled from the other room. Hermione knew it was now or never. Now or she was going to die.
She sent a quick prayer to the heavens.
Destination. Determination. Deliberation. She told herself and then - pop - she felt the familiar pulling sensation and disappeared.
"Fuuuuuucking hell." Hermione blurted out as she landed in an alcove at King's Cross. Although her mind was in agony, her body was now too. What she once never noticed, was now screaming at her in pain. She looked down at her left wrist to see her hand rolled over on itself like a portion of the bone connecting her hand to her arm was completely missing.
Though she was ready to black out on the floor, she was already getting stares from passers by. She used her other hand to feel up to her nose, which currently had small drops of blood staining her shirt.
She pulled herself up off against the wall and dragged herself toward Platform 9 ¾. The special one. She hurried on, avoiding the stares and whispers.
"Oh my." Hermione breathed as she made her way to the platform. It was there. It was actually there. She couldn't believe it. She hadn't been a frequent visitor of King's Cross, but she'd been there enough to know that she had never seen this before.
She walked up to the brick wall Ron had described. Run up to it he had said. Full tilt.
Hermione looked around, then acknowledged that she had very few options.
Here goes. She said as she half hobbled, half jogged to the wall.
"Ooompf." Despite the fact that she couldn't run very fast, her body still slammed up against the brick wall pretty hard. Seriously. She groaned.
"Oh my, are you alright, miss?" A woman in a police uniform crouched next to her as she settled, exhausted against the brick wall.
"Not really." Hermione groaned.
"Do I need to get you to a hospital?" She asked cautiously. "You're bleeding."
Hermione looked up at her. "I need to find some wizards." She said, full out of options.
"Pardon?" The police officer responded.
"That's right. Wizards. And Aurors. Wingardeum Leviosa. Hogwarts. Legillimans. Ron Weasley. Harry Potter. Anything." She offered, hoping any of those words would strike a chord.
"We definitely need to get you to the hospital, dear." The woman said ushering her to stand.
"Err, no, that'll be a'right. I've got'er." A booming voice echoed from behind the woman.
Hermione looked up in awe at the giant figure cloaked in a floor-length leather jacket with a heavy beard covering half of his face.
"Do you know this...gentleman, miss?" The woman asked, concerned.
Hermione was struck silent. If not for the sheer pain she was in, she would have said no and escaped then and there by the look of him.
Before she had the chance to respond the oversized oaf responded for her.
"O'course she does. I'm her...uh...uncle, yeah, Uncle Hagrid."
Though Hermione was ready to flee, there was something in his smile that made him seem more genuine. Besides, at this point he may be her only hope. He gave her a look not to refute him.
"You need to get your niece to a hospital." The woman said. "She looks as if she's been hurt."
The police woman almost made the executive decision to take her to the hospital herself, before Hermione jumped in.
"Yes, this is my uncle...Uncle Ha-grid. He's who I called. I'm in safe hands, promise." She emphasized, looking back and reaching with her strong hand to her "uncle".
The officer looked once more between the odd pair, then gave a cautious nod and continued her patrol down the platform.
"Oi - what were you thinking?" "Uncle" Hagrid asked, rushing to her side and lifting her up.
She was appreciative for the extra support, and he felt like a nice pillow for her to lean on.
"I need to find the wizards. Can you help me?" She asked weakly, what was left of her energy quickly fading.
"O'course I can help y'lass, but ye never get help from muggles. They got their own problems."
"I didn't have a choice. I'm in danger. I need Aurors...or the magic police or whatever it is called." She said, suddenly seeing double of Hagrid.
"First we need to get you to St. Mungo's Hospital though. You look a right mess." He decided.
"Fine." Hermione said weakly. "Then we need to find Ron Weasley..." She tapered off.
Hagrid guided her out to the parking lot with as much inconspicuousness as a bloody girl and a giant could manage at King's Cross.
"Get in." He shuffled her in the sidecar of his motorbike. Hermione wanted to give a 'seriously' look, but had lost the energy to do even that as they raced down the road, then eventually into the air before she hunched over and fell asleep.