~ Chimera's Call ~
Chapter 4
I can't remember
The first time when I fell
I can't remember
When I first dropped off my cloud
You can't imagine – I know
And I'm too week to tell
I am alone again and silence screams too loud.
(Sylvia Hörner)
~*~
"Nothing?"
"No, nothing."
"I will kill Malfoy. I swear, Harry, I will." Ron sat next to Hermione's prone figure on the couch in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room when Harry returned.
Harry bent over the couch, looking at her anxiously. "Why are you so sure it was Malfoy?"
Ron's eyes flashed when he looked up. "He and his watchdogs were the only ones not in Hogsmeade today, remember? Didn't you see that smirk on his face when he said, 'Come to look for your girlfriend, Potter? Too bad this won't be a fun night for you.' Didn't you? I told you he was up to something!" His voice grew more agitated with each word.
Harry replayed the scene in his mind. At that very moment, he had been far too busy holding back Ron from throttling Malfoy to actually think about the insult. That's what he had thought it then. An insult, nothing new, nothing to worry about. He had thought Malfoy was referring to Hermione having caught cold, after all.
But now . . . He looked down at Hermione, her face ashen and twisted in fear, her knuckles white from clutching the couch so hard. A fine trickle of blood was running from her nose and kept returning, no matter how often they wiped it away. The handkerchief in Harry's hand was covered in dark red stains already. They could not wake her. They'd been trying everything, but she simply wouldn't wake. She wasn't petrified, but somehow trapped in her dreams, which seemed to be getting more unpleasant by the minute.
Ron was right. This time, that slimy git Malfoy had gone too far. Still . . . "I wish we could send for a teacher." Never before had Harry wished to be surrounded by all of Hogwarts professors the way he did now.
The red-head nodded reluctantly. "You're right, but . . ." Ron trailed off, and Harry knew what he was referring to. They'd heard Filch roaring after Peeves for clogging the fireplaces with snow, and the Fat Lady had made it clear that the floo network couldn't be used. And they had seen almost all of the professors down in the Three Broomsticks. It would take a while until any of them could get here with the raging blizzard outside. And the only ones left . . . Harry didn't trust Trelawney and surely Binns couldn't help, and Dumbledore . . . Dumbledore had stayed behind in his office when they had left Hogwarts in the morning, but he wasn't there anymore. Harry had just tried to find the headmaster and had failed. He could be anywhere in Hogwarts right now without them standing a chance of finding him.
Ron muttered some intelligible curses under his breath and turned back to Hermione. "Just when you really need them . . ."
Harry nodded mutely. His glance again shifted down to where Hermione lay on the couch.
Had she ever looked more pale? More frightened? More vulnerable? Harry looked up at Ron to see his expression mirrored exactly in the face of his best friend.
"What do we do if she . . ." He trailed off, not daring to voice his thought.
Red hair shone in the semi-darkness of the common room when Ron shook his head. "Don't even think that. She'll be all right. She's Hermione." Harry fought a wistful smile at the certainty that was in Ron's voice. She was Hermione. That simple. As though it were the cure for everything.
Ron had turned towards Hermione again, speaking low, as though beseeching her. "You will, won't you? You better had, or I'll . . . I'll . . ." He scratched his head, trying to come up with something truly horrifying to threaten her with. "I'll feed your books to Fang!"
Time for drastic threats, Harry thought wryly. If that didn't wake her up, he didn't know what would.
Interlude II
Later on, Hermione couldn't recall what caused her to take up the fight. But as soon as she felt the cold, gentle hand touching her face she unleashed a scream even a banshee would've been envious of. It didn't matter what she hit with her fists and knees and feet. There was only one thought left in her mind. Away from here, far, far away from here.
But no matter how hard she fought, she couldn't escape. Her thoughts were racing incoherently and she went on fighting with only the power of despair, forgetting everything she had ever learned and falling back onto defence mechanisms that were probably centuries old, embedded in her blood.
Finally the grip on her waist seemed to loosen a little and she jerked forward. She heard something akin to a choked whimper when she lost contact to the so-horribly well-known hands.
But she was free!
Not thinking clearly anymore, Hermione fled into the room. When she finally hit a wall at a full run and a sharp pain shot through her body, she collapsed on the floor.
'Wake up, Hermione. Wake up!' she told herself.
There was no other way to leave this horrible reality. When she woke up, she would be in her bed. Safe.
Even though she knew it didn't make much sense, she closed her eyes and tried to regain her composure. If she got up and went along this wall, she might find a door. Doors in dreams always were a way out. If she brought all this down to a rational level, maybe the dream would end all on its own.
Her blood was still roaring in her ears. The only thing she really heard was the pounding of her heart and the sound of her breath.
'Just a moment,' she told herself. 'Calm down and think. There has to be a way out of here.'
It took her all the strength she had to get up and make her way along the wall. The task had sounded easy when she had planned it. But she hadn't known that the path would be uneven. She couldn't remember how many times she had fallen down, each fall bringing new pain, worse than the one before. It felt as if her whole body consisted only of one huge bruise.
She stumbled on. The pain was slowly subsiding; it was as though her body was getting used to it.
When it finally came, the change in the rough wall was so sudden that she nearly missed it. When she didn't find the change again, she was bordering on complete and final panic. But she did find cool metal under her fingers as she went a few steps back.
A doorknob.
Hope flared up in Hermione. She didn't have her wand, but maybe . . . 'Alohomora,' she whispered and turned the knob.
A soft scratching was audible, but nothing else happened. Hermione's hopes were crashing down as fast as they had flared up so wildly.
'Don't let it be closed. Please don't let it be closed.'
Another time she heard the soft scratching noise, but again nothing happened. "Come on!"
She had come this far and now the door was closed? Hermione dropped her head against the cold metal and felt hysterical laughter bubbling up. This was just fate's very own irony. She would be standing in front of the door forever, waiting for it to open up, never being able to leave this dream another way. She had read all about dreams and especially nightmares. Doors were a way out. If only this would open, she would never ever lecture Ron and Harry about their homework . . .
A third time she tried -- a hopeless pulling on the knob, when it finally turned. Waves of joy washed over Hermione. She would be leaving the room that was dark enough to hide all the worst fears of the world. She would return to a world that could be analysed and understood. She would get out of here safely and forget this place. She would wake up and go to breakfast with Harry and Ron and everything would be all right again.
By the time she had finally mustered the strength to take the final step it caught her and the door, her last hope for escape and survival, closed. When it caused both of them to fall, Hermione screamed like she had never screamed before in her life.
***
TBC