Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the intellectual property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of Stephenie Meyer and JK Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

This chapter was beta'ed by ChocolateMango and hammondgirl from the Project Team Beta.

Understanding Empathy

28th August 2005

White rooms. White walls. White lighting. White sheets. White pillows. White curtains. White tiles. White uniforms. Everything was snow white. Everything in this facility was snow white except Hermione and her clothes. Like a sore thumb with her crimson red cardigan, her pencil gray skirt and the navy blue blouse she was wearing, she stood out in the bleak place. Every time she walked into the hospital, she hated it. It was all too plain. It needed color. The drab color was always suffocating to her. Even the name of the hospital contained the word white: White Hill Hospital.

"They've been doing quite good these past days and were wondering if you'd stopped visiting," the jovial nurse said, breaking Hermione from her inner musings.

"I've been out of the country," Hermione simply answered, as she looked down and stared at the nurse's shoes. Those were white also.

"Oh, that's so lovely. How was your trip?" the nurse asked, obviously fishing for fresh gossip to share with her colleagues later.

Hermione didn't answer. She had reached her destination. Like everything in his hospital, the double doors were also painted white. It was quite unremarkable except for the small plaque on the right side with black lettering that bore the words: THE PERMANENT RESIDENTS WARD.

Dismissing the nurse, Hermione pushed the doors open. There were eight beds in the ward, five of them being occupied. She walked confidently to the furthest corner of the room where twin figures were staring out the tiny window. Like every time she came for a visit, Hermione always found them at the same place.

Hermione's parents turned at the sound of the approaching footfalls.

It was entirely Hermione's fault that her parents were permanent residents of this ward at White Hill Hospital. It was one of the only times in her life that Hermione regretted being such a perfectionist at heart. Even in her spell work.

She'd deliberately lied to her two best friends by telling them that her parents were hiding in Australia. Instead of being Down-Under, Hermione had sent them to live across the Pond in the state of Maine, on the Atlantic coast of USA. It wasn't that she did not trust those two, she'd trust them with her very life. But Hermione reasoned that less there were people who knew the real location of her parents, the latter would be safer. But the little white lie on her parents' new country of residence wasn't the worst she'd done.

When Hermione had erased herself from her parents' memories and implanted the false twin identities of Wendell and Monica Wilkins instead, the spell used was not a simple Obliviate, like what she'd made Harry and Ron believe. True, in essence, it was still an Obliviation charm, but a variation of it. It was just a bit more advanced and of Hermione's own making. She'd deliberately modified the spell to better hide the identities of her parents. It was a progressive spell. Something that became more potent with time as Wendell and Monica Wilkins interacted with more and more people under those fake identities.

Therefore, when Hermione had been able to track her parents where she'd sent them to hide, the counter-curse backfired. After the Final Battle at Hogwarts was won by the Light side, she was going to look for her parents right away, but the devastation left by Voldemort and his regime had wreaked havoc in the country. Following the final demise of their leader, quite a few Death Eaters ran amok and sought revenge on families that had been instrumental in their defeat. Thus, instead of collecting her parents right away, Hermione participated in the pacification of the Wizarding World by tracking down the renegade Death Eaters with Harry and Ron as well as the surviving members of Dumbledore's Army. It had been hard; it took two more years before the last Death Eaters were rounded up, and by then, the damage had already been done.

Her parents, Richard and Helen Granger, had lived under the false identities of Wendell and Monica Wilkins for some three years. Those fake identities had become so well ingrained in her parents' minds that when she lifted the spell off of them, the two pairs of conflicting identities had gotten badly messed up. This was the reason why the Grangers were permanent residents of this mental facility. In a strange way, Hermione found herself in the same situation as Neville Longbottom. Her parents did not remember their daughter or anything else from their former lives, nor their fake ones for that matter.

White Hill Hospital wasn't a wizarding hospital, it was a muggle one. After the reversal of the memory spell on her parents had gone awry, Hermione had sought medical advice from a wizard hospital in Salem, Massachusetts. The healers had only confirmed what she had already discovered. It was a form of memory degeneration, a mixture of short-term memory loss and Alzheimer's. Her parents had no memory of their past lives, and everything that Hermione had told them was either forgotten the following moment or the following day.

Since there wasn't much that the healers could do for her parents, with a few little white lies and some Confundus charms, Hermione had arranged their placement at White Hill. At least there, they wouldn't be regarded as freaks by the personnel of St Mungo's.

"Oh, hello dear. Are you our new doctor?" asked her mother, rather innocently. Her mother's brown curls, that Hermione had inherited, were giving off a fiery colour due to the natural light coming from the window behind her.

"Good morning," she replied. "No, I'm not a doctor."

It was quite a lie because if it hadn't been for her parents, Hermione would never have chosen her actual career. She was after all a Mind Healer and had even progressed to be the Head Mediwitch of the Spell Damage Department. She was thus able to do her own research on whatever was her fancy. It wasn't a secret, however, that Hermione researched extensively on memory-related afflictions. It was, after all, a personal issue.

"So, can we help you?" asked her father.

It was still strange. The doctors had told her that even though they had no recollection of being married or of having been at one point in time either Richard and Helen Granger or Wendell and Monica Wilkins, they still subconsciously stayed together. It was that one little thing that gave Hermione hope. The hope that one day her parents would be able to make a full recovery.

"I am just visiting this facility and I wanted to know how you were feeling. Are you missing anything here or do you feel as if something is missing?" asked Hermione, as she sat down on the empty chair nearest to her dad's bed.

"Are you sure you're not some kind of doctor, missy?" asked her father, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Yes, I'm quite sure, sir," replied Hermione, with a small smile.

It was refreshing to note that her dad, memory-loss or not, was still as astute as ever. They continued talking for over an hour until the visiting hours were over. Slowly walking outside and turning towards the white painted building, Hermione had only one recurring thought before she Dissaparated. She now had a profound aversion for the colour white.

It was lucky for her that it was Friday afternoon and Hermione had the weekend ahead of her. Sitting still on her bed in her lonely flat, Hermione glanced around dazedly. Like every time Hermione came back from White Hill Hospital, she felt exhausted after leaving the dreaded place and a little bit more lost than ever. And like each time, Hermione broke down crying. She cried clutching her pillow until she fell asleep from exhaustion.

The next morning, Hermione stiffly sat in her living room nursing a mug of hot cocoa as she listened to the falling rain. She'd gotten back from Chicago only the day before and only had time for a quick shower before she up and left for work. Month-long vacation be damned. Hermione was a workaholic through and through. Anyway, her trip to the US had been shorter than expected due to her taking a leaf from Rita Skeeter's unofficial handbook.

So, her bags were still unpacked and were in the same place where she'd left them, on the coffee table. Hermione's eyes fixed on them, her cooling mug of cocoa forgotten. She stayed like that for long minutes lost in thought before suddenly grabbing one of her bags and opening it. The bag did not contain that many things anyway. From it, she pulled out a manila folder. She opened the folder and laid out the two different items that she'd recovered from it; a yellowed photograph and two aged documents.

The old Mrs. Grey, from whom she received the two items, had held onto these for a long time. Mrs. Grey had told her that she gone to the same school as her neighbour, Edward Anthony Masen, and that she'd been only one year below him. From what Hermione could gather from listening to the old lady, Mrs. Grey had had a severe crush on Edward Masen and it was apparent that it was also the case for a great majority of the female population of the school. Joan, that was Mrs. Grey first name, recounted how handsome Edward had been. Mrs. Grey giggled when she remembered how Edward's long piano fingers had been the object of her dreamy fantasies.

As she examined the old photograph, Hermione had to agree with Joan's observations; Edward Anthony Masen had certainly been dreamy. Even in the photo in her hands, yellowed with the passing of time, Hermione could entirely understand how almost half of the female population of Edward's old school developed a crush on him.

It was an old picture of the Masen family. Hermione's attention was instantly drawn to youngest member. Mrs. Grey had told her that Edward had fiery copper hair that he used to muss up from his hands constantly roaming in it. The picture seemed like it had been taken the Christmas preceding the untimely demise of the Masen family. The family had posed in front of a Christmas tree. His eyes, green gems according to Mrs. Grey, still remained vibrant and stood out despite it being a black and white picture. His eyes were framed with long, thick lashes. He had full lips, a strong nose, high cheekbones, and a perfect square jaw.

Yes, Hermione could easily imagine how teenage school girls could develop a crush on Edward Masen.

She switched her gaze from the picture to the old documents. Here, before her very eyes, were other pieces of the tragic story of Edward Masen. These were official documents signed by him acknowledging the deaths of his parents and authorizing their burials in their family parcel at an old cemetery near his house. One document for each. There were traces of blood along one edge, apparently from a paper cut; his finger had after run the length of the documents and there were even twin spots of blood colouring the same place as his signature on the two documents. The date of the nineteenth of September of 1918 stood out like a sharp contrast in black on the yellowed pieces of paper.

It absolutely did not matter to Hermione that there was nothing she could have done to prevent what had already happened. In her mind, in an oddly twisted way, Hermione could not stop herself from making a parallel between Edward Masen's story and her own story. Like him, she'd had to make a very difficult decision at the same tender age of seventeen; hers being the enactment of her contingency plan for her parents and his being the arrangements for his parents' burials. True, the two decisions didn't yield the same results, but it was still her twisted way of seeing parallels where they did not exist.

She looked again at the picture of the Masen family and again her gaze fixed on Edward's face. Her eyes fell on the ring that she'd acquired thanks to Harry. It seemed that the auction had been held an eternity ago. She was surprised when she saw a tear fall into her lap but didn't do anything to stem the following tears. Lifting her eyes again to stare at the haunting eyes of Edward Masen, Hermione uttered only one sincere word.

"Sorry."

Author note:

I understand that this chapter is very short but it's still better than nothing right? (Crosses fingers on readers liking the update).

Despite the shortness, the chapter was still quite difficult to write. I wanted to show why Hermione was surprised to hear from her parents (see chapter 3). It will also be one of the deciding factors for her going back in time.

I've actually wanted to write the past timeline first with Hermione and add in a little bit of the new timeline with Edward and Hermione. But in the end, I wasn't enirely satisfied with how it turned out. So, I'll be alternating the timelines for a few chapters before we get into the heart of the story with Hermione and Edward's relationship picking up. And, of course, the story of Tom Riddle, now Cullen.

As always, i'd like to thank everyone who'd favorited, followed, reviewed or just read the story. It's the fuel that authors need to continue working. Kudos go to you all.

Thanks to all reviewers: Astanley1991, Michelle Black a.k.a Elle, Leona Masha, Flyingberry, CosmoGirl666, Sakura Lisel, Sampdoria, ShadowsOfTheDay, Sarhea, Arabellagrace, Nathaliie, Angeldevil11, Amata0221, RainbowJH, Babynora1983, Eddysfer, Erydanes, Irmorena, Ice Demon Ranger, Nsheldonb, NorthernLights25, Crimsonprincess, Vepatinson, HarryHermione EdwardBella, DarkFairy8605, Princess Emarelda, Lisa Francis 96780, Angel, Amjed, Uppity, Dores, I Aim Higher, Jeluem, JIPEE, Ines Marie Pattinson, India and Jovica, Len of March, Love Comes From Pain, Lucky Dude, Manu Qanu, I've Got An Itch, Ptit Con, Sandrine Loves Ryan Philippe, Sim Uley Ter, The Belle Nabab, The Crazy Wizard, Monnbeam, Guest91913, Black Phoenix Ranger, Jesse, Beautiful-Tyrant77, Slytherin of the Sea, Pyra Sanada, Pinkpetal34, DJ Scahlo, Dark-Wolf-Howl, Meldz, Meklittt, Purple Sky Always and Angelofheaven001.

Take care of yourselves and have great day/night.

Love,

Ludo13