Dream and Memories

Hermione yawned. Her watch said it was 11:30. She had been studying all day, and now had most of her homework done. "Time to turn in. Maybe I'm tired enough that I'll actually sleep, and with luck, I won't dream." She walked to the bathroom and changed into her pjs. She brushed her teeth and washed her face, before looking at herself in the mirror again. Dark lines showed under her eyes. She yawned. Returning to the dorm, she climbed into her bed. Then, remembering that when she was at her home and had nightmares she tended to scream, she placed a silencing charm around her bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she slept.

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When Hermione woke, it was dark. She couldn't see a thing around her. "It must be really late…or really early" She groped around in the dark for her wand so she could see. Then she realized she couldn't move her arms. She froze. She then realized she wasn't sitting on her bed, but kneeling. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the bars of a cell. A cell that looked very familiar. She had been here before!

She looked up and saw the reason she couldn't move her arms, they were chained to the wall! "What the hell am I doing back here? I want to get away from here." Then, she heard something. It was very distant and soft, but unmistakable. Footsteps, in the distance, heading this way. Hermione's heart stopped. "Oh, no!" She though, "I know who's coming. Please don't let him get here." The footsteps were relentless. Until, abruptly, they stopped. Hermione was perplexed. Then she heard the sound of a key in a lock. He was coming into the dungeon!

Hermione panicked, and began fighting against her arm restraints. She tried concentrating enough to use wand less magic. "Alohomora" she whispered. Nothing happened. Now she really began fighting. Struggling. Her cheeks felt wet. She was crying! She hadn't cried since…since…since she was first here! Then she saw the shadow. Stepping slowly to her cell door. She stopped fighting and could only stare. The tears ran freely down her face, now. Before she knew it the cell door was open and a man had stepped in.

She knew his face well. A cold hand reached up and touched her cheek, while those cold eyes sucked her in, under his spell. He raised his hand above his head and slapped her. Pain registered through her mind but it couldn't fully reach her. She was almost in a trance, a frightened trance. He slapped her again. This snapped her back to reality.

She tried to back into the wall, hoping that she could disappear. She didn't. Then he spoke, in a voice that had haunted her for a couple years now. "I thought I told you," came a chilling voice that made a shiver run down her spine and the hair to bristle on her neck "I thought I told you to quit crying. It won't help you here so stop!" The tears on Hermione's face dried up and they stopped flowing. He leaned into her. "Now, my dear, you know what I want." "N-n-no. No." Hermione stammered. "What's that? You dare talk back to me?" he sneered, "Well, I know how to take care of that."

There was a sudden bolt of pain through her body. It wasn't the Crucio curse, but a pain inflicting one. She screamed. Then her legs were floating out from under her. Then they lay, stuck to the ground, in front of her. She tried to move them, but couldn't. She fought harder until another, stronger bolt of pain hit her. Then another, stronger yet. Her mind threatened to lose consciousness. The man climbed between her legs, and she knew what was coming. She screamed again, and fought more. Pain flooded her body again. She screamed, "NO!" and then just screamed as the pain hit her again.

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Hermione sat up. It was dark around her. She was panting, her body covered in a cold sweat. She looked to the nightstand where her watch was. It read 3:00. She groaned, and flopped back onto her pillow. That nightmare always seemed so real. Every time she swore that it was actually happening. She took a deep breath to calm her beating heart. It began to slow to normal pace, and her breathing calmed. She knew she wouldn't sleep now. So, instead of even trying she let her memories come. They swamped her mind, taking over. Time to remember back to when her suicidal ways came.

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It all happened after her first year at Hogwarts. It was summer and she was happy. She had made two very good friends at school and her scores were wonderful. When she got home she started almost immediately on her homework for the summer. Her parents had been overjoyed at her great scores and news of her friends. They loved to here her stories about her school, and all that had happened that year. (Needless to say they were a bit frightened about their daughter helping a boy face an immensely powerful dark wizard, but they got over it)

Her life was happy, until after about two weeks. One night, she had been sleeping in her bed. She woke after a nightmare about falling. Not an uncommon dream to have. She remembered being almost drawn to the window, to look out. Then she heard a scratching sound at it, so she got up to take a look.

Suddenly, a bird was there. Before her eyes it changed it's form, into a man! She tried to scream, but no sound came out. Instantly it registered in her brain that it was a silencing charm. She knocked stuff over in her room to try and make noise to wake her parents. The glass of the window vanished. Just then her parents rushed into the room. It had begun to storm, and the rain was pouring in. The, what must be a wizard, floated into the room. He landed and put her parents under the leg locker curse, and they both toppled to the floor. They lay screaming at Hermione to run.

Hermione turned to rush away. She to was hit by the leg locker curse and fell. An owl, that must have been from the ministry, flew in. Hermione would later find out it carried the letter saying how she wasn't supposed to use magic at home and be warned not to do it again. The man grabbed Hermione, and headed for the window. She had been crying and still trying to scream. The last sounds she heard were her parents screaming her name. Then the sound was muffled by the replacement of the glass.

It took a moment to register that she was floating two stories in the air. She tried to scream again, before finally realize it was futile. Instead she started pushing against the man, her captor. Pummeling him with fists, trying to knock herself free. He instead put her under the full body bind. Then he flew away into the night, carrying his freshly kidnapped witch. Her tears falling with the rain.

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Hermione pulled herself from the pool of her thoughts. She sat up and shook her head to clear her mind. She looked at her watch. It now read 4:30. Hermione painfully pulled herself out of bed. She sat on the edge of her mattress, making sure she was stable enough to stand. Then she stood, grabbed some clothes from her trunk, and began heading for the bathroom.

She would take a shower and then go down to the common room to work on the last of her homework. She wanted to learn some more charms on her own, so the free time today would be good. A vague thought shot through her mind. "I wonder if the reason I want to learn so many charms is because I want to have a better defense. With a memory like that I can't blame myself." She paused, halfway across the room. She walked back to her trunk, and pulled out her make-up kit. "More blood to spill to clean my mind." With that thought she walked into the bathroom and closed the door.