Prologue
It hurt. It hurt a lot. So much so that Hermione Granger thought she was going to be sick.. She tried to draw in a deep breath and found herself choking, desperately gasping for life-giving oxygen.
"Hermione!" she heard a voice yell from far away. So far away, she thought, her head starting to cloud. Come here, she thought. She tried to form the words to make them leave her lips, but they weren't working. "Please," she managed to whisper feebly.
The world around her was growing darker, like the sun setting fast on a short winter's day. She felt like she ought to be acting quickly, having quick reflexes, and quicker wit, to get herself out of the place she was in.
But what place? She thought to herself, drowsily. She tried to move and the pain exploded within her, driving away the lovely dreamland she felt herself going towards.
"Don't move!" she heard a voice shout yet again. "Please, 'mione, don't move!"
"Okay," she promised, aloud but barely a whisper, her wheezing evident. Okay, she thought.
But what now?
Should I continue? How she got there is a long story that started months before…