Chapter 7

Magic is energy. Most mutable and fixed, chaotic and stable.. Wonderful and terrible depending on who wields it's power. But in the end, magic is energy- neutral, devoid of preference or alignment. I had had the power to begin life and end it, create the greatest loves, and the most tragic heartaches. There is magic in the energy that flows between two people, and weather for good or for ill, this energy can effect our lives in ways we have never comprehended before.

It just takes the spark, the catalyst, to set into motion what few have ever seen play out before. A once in several lifetimes occurance when two people, even for just a moment, fall entirely, perfectly into synch. In that moment it becomes magic of it's own making, as elemental as Fate and just as strong. It cannot be predicted or planned, and the results are never the same twice. Nature creates it in individuality, the perfect wavelength for them, and them alone.

Hermione believed she was dead. Floating weightless through an empty greyish blackness, neither light nor dark- a featureless nothing that spread on passed Infinity. In this place there was no time, only an endless supply of peace and lonliness. They existed here in a strange, hollow harmony. A Limbo where there was neither success nor failure, and knowledge and life meant nothing. A silence that did nothing to detract from the only thought she could grasp..

I failed.

Visions of the corpses of the Wizarding world assailed her, tormented her with the fact that she had failed. The brightest witch of her age, brought down by dark magic and greed. So many lives, good lives, traded for the ambitions of the pureblooded aristocracy. In the end, there were all the same. All dead. All broken and bloody and scattered across the soil like a macabre garden of viscera. Blank eyes that reflected her face in their hollow nothingness.

She hadn't even had the strength to turn the dials back, just long enough to warn them. A few hours, that's all it would have taken. But there was nothing to save there anymore. Men, women, children, all gone. Nobody to carry on the stories, their stories, of the incredible heroism she had seen. The Dark Lord was gone, but what did it matter when nobody was left to be liberated?

She did not know how long she had existed there, in that strange place that was not a place, when she saw far in the distance, a tiny, shining light. It was a hard light, barely larger then a pinpoint, piercing the dusky gloom that had become her world. Steadily she moved towards it, the only anchor in this endless place. Slowly drawing nearer to the burning luminescence until it pressed in against her skin. Torturing her non-existant ears with forgotten sound. Scorching her eyes with light and color, as though waking from a deep sleep.

Hermione didn't know if she screamed, in her agony if she tried to claw her way back to the comfort of the Nothing. Weather she listened to that part of her mind that revelled in the ability to feel again. That the pain mattered nothing compaired to the numbness that had spread into her bones. And it a flash of color and sound, her limbs tingling with the pains of a hundred thousand pins and needles- Hermione remembered living.

She found herself standing in a hospital, nurses and doctors milling around in old fashioned Muggle scrubs and suits. There was a door to the left of her, open a crack, through which she could hear quiet voices. But when she lifted her croaking, sore voice to attract the attention of one of the nurses on shift, the woman looked straight through her. Hermione waved her hand against one of the cream colored walls, watching in disgusted detachment as her hand passed through the solid plaster and drywall.

Her hands looked to her as they always had, small and delicate with slightly long fingers, and a palm that was vaguely squared. A palmist had told her that it was an intellectual, practical hand- not too prone to flights of fancy, but with a touch of the magic about her. That was the summer after her first year at Hogwarts; and Hermione could remember laughing.

But now it seemed such a long way away, the sensation of laughter and joy lost in the malaise left by the Nothing. Trapped behind the memories of the bodies and black magic, clinging on by the barest of threads.

Eventually it seemed there wasn't much else to do but look around, the rational part of her mind supplying that it would be a very good idea to figure out where exactly (to say nothing of 'what' and 'why', which could be dealt with later) she was. She glanced into the room to her left, careful, despite the knowledge that they probably couldn't see her. It was just ingrained, caution and constant vigilance… Hermione shoved back the memory of Alistair Moody almost brutally.

Sitting in the room were two people, a middle aged doctor with a white lab coat, and graying hair. His face was sturdy, reliable, a trustworthy sort of face that set people at ease. His eyes were the color of aged wood, and twinkled from behind an old fashioned pair of wire-rimmed spectacles.

The other was possibly one of the most attractive children she had ever seen. The young boy looked about 6 or 7, and perched on the end of the paper covered bed very carefully. He cradled his arm against his chest, hair the color of ebony falling into eyes of an indeterminate color. His skin was ashen and waxy with obvious pain, and though he was clearly trying to be tough, the tracks of died tears still stuck to his cheeks.

"This is going to hurt, right?" asked the little boy in a quiet voice. The doctor opened his mouth, before looking more closely at the child and shutting it again.

"A bit, yes… But it has to be done, you understand?" He asked after a moment's pause, and Hermione could practically see the hamster running laps inside his mind. The little boy nodded, allowing the Doctor to come near enough to examine the injured arm. It was bent at a hideous angle, right against the bone above the elbow. Blood slowly seeped from a puncture wound left by a sharp fragment of bone that still pierced the skin.

She distantly noted that the old Hermione would have wanted to rush foreward, to save this incredibly brave child from the obvious pain he was about to experience. Knowing magic that could make the process easier- but all her numb heart could manage was a detached concern. Her empathy locked away with joy and laughter, the human parts she had pushed to the side and boxed away, to do what had needed to be done.

The key to that chest lost in the Nothing.

"I'll be back in a moment, alright Tom?" the Doctor asked the little boy with the worn and patched clothing. The child, Tom nodded, but didn't say anything more until the Doctor had left the room, and was well out of earshot. Casting a hateful look down at his useless arm, he shook his head in a child's mimicry of a long-suffering adult.

"I'll show them… They say I can't, but I will. I'll be a doctor, I know I'm smart enough."

And with that, the vision, the dream faded. Hermione blinked hard against the encroaching Nothing, her whole body trembling as she fought against it- stuggling until the last moment to cling to the colors. But it was no use… The Nothing returned in all it's unavoidable emptyness. Hermione felt then, the clear and cutting despair of losing what she had forgotten she once had.

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Hey guys! Just a couple of quick things… One, thanks to everyone who took the time to review the last chapter! Beautiful dreamer, Full moon girlie, ivory, Annikacan (and don't worry about the questions, really!) and Svelte Rose.

As well, anyone who is a fan of Naruto, go check out 'The Almost Date" by Glimia, and tell her what a wonderful first fic it is!