"CERTA MORTIS!" I saw the black spell that the death eater had cast coming at Hermione, and on instinct I pushed her to the side and took the spell to the chest. The death eater was quickly stunned by some other students, and Hermione rushed back over from where I shoved her.
"HAZEL! Are you okay?" I coughed and looked at my hand afterwards to see it covered in blood.
"I don't think so 'Mione." A student that I vaguely recognized rushed over and performed the diagnostic spells that Madame Pomfrey normally did. She paled when she saw the results.
"What is it Daphne?" Right, that was her name. One of the decent slytherins.
"This is really bad Granger. This spell doesn't actually have a cure. We could slow it down, but the longer she lives from this point the more pain she'll be in. After about a day she'll be insane from the pain, and she'd be bedbound the whole time. I hate to say, but it would be a mercy to kill her now before it's too bad." Hermione stared at her with a shocked and angry look. I grabbed her hand, causing her to look at me.
"It's okay, everything will be fine." I coughed again, spraying more blood. "I was prepared to die when I went into the forest to give myself up in order to keep everyone safe. I did what I needed to, and I'm glad you're okay." I could already feel the pain starting to build up, just a dull throb at this point.
"I can't lose you too Hazel! Not after my parents and Ron." She was crying, and I was thankful as Daphne slowly backed away. I slowly reached up and wiped away her tears.
"I'm sorry that I have to leave you, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life in pain. I need you to do it, I don't trust anyone else." She nodded shakily, taking out her wand even as tears once more filled her eyes. "Don't be sad 'Mione, I'm just going onto my next adventure." She gave me the smallest smile I've ever seen from her, even as she pressed her wand into my side.
"Goodbye Hazel, you'll always be my little sister." She took a deep breath and I noticed she was holding a second wand as well, pointing back at herself. "avada kedavra." There was a massive flash of green light, and I felt her body fall onto mine before everything went dark.
I woke with a gasp, finding myself in a snow covered field, another person next to me. It was Hermione, but younger. We were both wearing the same robes we had been wearing during the battle, but they were much too big on both of us now. I started to shake her in an attempt to wake her up.
"Hermione, wake up!" She sat up quickly, nearly smashing our heads together, and reached for her wand, which was missing.
"Hazel? You're okay!" She hugged me tightly, and I returned the hug with equal enthusiasm. "Where are we? And how are we alive?"
"I don't know, but we need to find shelter. I don't have the wand I was using, and our robes don't offer any protection." We got up and started to walk in a random direction, shivering.
We had managed to walk for around twenty minutes when I tripped over something and pulled both of us down. Against my will tears started to well up in my eyes.
"I'm sorry 'Mione, I screw everything up." She grabbed me in another hug and held my head against her chest as she stroked my hair.
"Hey, hey it's okay Hazel. It's not your fault. We're cold and tired and sore, one of us was bound to trip eventually." She rocked back and forth as she shushed me. We were interrupted by a loud bark from the side, and we turned to see a massive red and black lion/dog rushing toward us. It slowed to a stop a few feet away from us, letting an old man in a lab coat slide off it's back.
"Dear Arceus, how long have you kids been out here? We need to get you somewhere warm. Come with me, I'll take you back to my lab." He reached a hand out to us, but didn't get any closer, seemingly letting us make the choice.
"We need to go somewhere 'Mione, we don't even know where we are." I leaned in to whisper in her ear. "We can run at the first sign of something fishy." Hermione glared at him for a second.
"If you hurt her, I'll kill you." He seemed taken aback by her statement, but nodded anyways.
"Arcanine, lay down so they can get on your back." The massive lion/dog did just that, though Hermione still had to help me up before getting on herself. It was warm, like a heated blanket. The old man got on behind Hermione. "Get us to the lab, but don't go too fast or you might hurt the little ones." I wanted to protest that I wasn't little, but the warmth lulled me to sleep despite the slight pain in my chest.
As we stopped in front of the lab, the man, who had introduced himself as professor oak, offered to carry the sleeping Hazel inside, but I ignored him and picked her up. I frowned at how light she was, but didn't have too long to ponder on it as I followed Oak into the lab. It was dark out at this point anyways.
"There's a bathroom with a shower down that hallway. I'll call my grandaughter and have her bring some of her old pajamas over, though they might be a little big on your sister."
"Thank you Professor." Damn my ingrained politeness. I made sure to lock the door behind me before I stripped Hazel to wash her first. I frowned once again at how much smaller than me she was even though she was only a year younger. And I sighed in relief as I saw that, even though I couldn't feel either of our magic, her transformation hadn't reverted. Meaning she was still a metamorph and, more importantly to her, a girl. I ran a bath and, after looking around, found the shampoo and conditioner as well as a bar of soap and some washcloths. It took ten minutes to wash Hazel, at which point the professor had knocked on the door and informed me he left the pajamas outside the door. I quickly opened the door and snatched them before closing it again. He was right about them being big on Hazel. I quickly washed myself and got dressed, at which time Hazel woke back up.
"Whas goin on?" I couldn't hold back the aww that escaped as she rubbed her eyes. I decided to explain on the way back to the entrance to the lab, so I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the bathroom and down the hall with me.
"You fell asleep on the way here, so I carried you inside. Professor Oak pointed me to the bathroom, and I gave you a warm bath and dressed you in his granddaughters pj's before taking a shower myself and getting dressed, which is when you woke up." She nodded along, before puffing up in what seemed to be indignation.
"He called me small!" I laughed and she gave me a look of mock betrayal.
"Hate to you this Hazel, but you're only a year younger than me and you only come up to my chest. So yes, you're small." She huffed, but she was smiling. "On a different note, based on the animals and technology I've seen, we're either far into the future or we're not on earth anymore."
"So this is like a fresh start?" I nodded.
"Yup, it's our next great adventure."
"Wait, what are we gonna tell people about ourselves." I pulled her close to help alleviate her worries.
"I've already started to work on that. We'll use Sirus's last name, and you can just leave the rest of it to me 'kay?" She nodded and, though I was a little surprised at her easy cooperation, I was grateful for it.
"Aren't you two just adorable?" It was a teen girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen. "I'm Daisy, I'm the one who brought the pj's. Can I have your names?" She gave off a soothing aura, though I don't think she was aware of it.
"I'm Hermione Black, and this is my little sister Hazel Black."
"How old are you two? Are one of you adopted? And what were you doing out in the cold in nothing but rags?"
"I'm eleven, and Hazel is ten." Daisy looked surprised. "Hazel was adopted but that doesn't matter, and I don't know."
"You're pretty small for a ten year old." Hazel once more looked offended. I schooled my expression into a scowl, which probably wasn't as intimidating as I wanted it to be.
"That happens when you're starved and abused for seven years." Daisy paled.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't know." She opened a door and, with a start, I realized we had been walking the whole time we were talking. "This is the infirmary, we normally only treat pokemon here, but both Grampa and myself have licenses for treating humans as well. Speaking of, where are your pokemon? Did they get stolen?" I discreetly shook my head when Hazel looked at me.
"I never got any. I was too busy taking care of Hazel." She nodded in understanding.
"I kind of did the same thing for my brother. Grampa is too busy most of the time, so I put my journey on hold to watch Gary. He actually leaves in two years, but at this point I'd rather be a doctor and researcher." At that point Hazel let out a very wet sounding cough, which reminded me of how we got here in the first place. Daisy gasped, and I turned to see Hazel's hand had blood on it.
"That can't be good." Was all she said before collapsing, or she would've if she wasn't caught in a purple glow.
"It seems I got here just in time. Alakazam, move her to one of the beds. Daisy, go call Nurse Joy, tell her to bring a Blissey, and a Togekiss if possible, if not their pre-evolutions will work. And make sure she knows it's urgent. Hermione, I'm going to need you to take a deep breath and look at me." He coached me out of my mounting panic attack.
"What's going on? Is Hazel going to be okay?" He smiled reassuringly.
"I will do my absolute best to make sure she's fine. Alakazam can keep her stable until Nurse Joy gets here. Now you'll need to stay out of the way, is there anything you want to keep your mind off of things." I wanted to say no, but worrying wouldn't help anyone at this point.
"Can I get a book on pokemon?" He nodded and left the room, coming back only minutes later with a relatively thin book, only about three hundred pages. I moved to the corner with the book as a pink haired woman came in with a pink and white egg shaped creature and a small thing that was partially in an egg with only it's arms, legs, and head out of the shell.
"You're lucky I hadn't left the pokemon center yet Professor. Now what can you tell me about my patient."
"Arcanine led me to her and her sister in the fields of route one, no parents in sight and they were only wearing torn, bloodstained rags. I brought them back to the lab, and Hazel," He gestured at her, "Fell asleep on the way back. I had Daisy bring some of her old pajamas over while they got war in the bath. Hazel was abused for the first seven years of her life before she was adopted by Hermione's family. They have no idea how they got to route one, but like I said they were wearing bloody and tattered rags, so I can only expect the worst." Nurse Joy nodded.
"Keep an eye on the other girl, make sure nothing happens to her." Daisy returned, wheeling a machine with her. The pink and white egg creature took it and put it over Hazel. A red light scanned her, and everything went silent after it beeped. "Blissey, Heal Pulse, and keep it going! Togepi, Life Dew, as many as you can. Daisy, go get as much MooMoo milk as you can, she'll need the calories and then call my clinic and tell them we need as many ditto cells as they can spare. Samuel, I need you to put out a call to the other professors that we need a Lucario. Alakazm, keep doing what you're doing."
Over the next five hours the lab became a whirlwind of activity, and I just watched in mounting horror. After getting hooked up to a heart monitor, Hazel had flatlined three times, and I'm pretty sure she had a seizure at some point. It was only after everything had calmed down that the Professor made his way over to me, looking very frazzled.
"Everythings going to be fine, Hermione, but she won't wake up until tomorrow with how much anesthesia we used. Do you know how nearly all of her organs got ruptured?" I put my hands over my mouth as a choked sob came out. Thinking quickly, with help from my occlumency, I came up with what I hoped was a believable story, seeing as I didn't know much about pokemon or this world in general.
"We lived on an island with our papa, because the bad people didn't like our family. We were having lunch when they broke in. There was this big pokemon I've never seen before with them that blasted a black light at us. Hazel pushed me out of the way, and it hit her in the chest. She fell down, and I ran back over to her. The big pokemon came closer to us, it spoke in my head." His eyes widened, "It said sorry, that it didn't want to do this, and then we woke up in the field."
"Can you tell me what this pokemon looked like?" I shook my head.
"It's all fuzzy, what it looked like. Everything else is clear, but all I can remember about the pokemon's looks is that I had never seen it before." The professor started muttering.
"Probably a psychic type, was being forced or threatened maybe?, sent them away, was it ordered to, or was it mercy? Very powerful, not just any pokemon can do that kind of damage." He shook his head as if to clear it. "Sorry about that, it's been a day. You can sleep on the bed next to your sister if you want. I assume you don't want anything to eat?" I shook my head. "Very well, I'll see you tomorrow." After he left I curled up on one of the hospital beds, and eventually fell asleep from exhaustion.