Chapter Twenty

A New Question

Darkness enshrouded Hermione. She felt no pain, nor could she feel her body upon the ground, it was if she were floating. She could hear only hear faint whispers, but at most she could only make out a couple of words. The few words that she could understand reverberated around her, and she felt as though the world was beginning to spin. As the spinning sensation grew more and more intense, so did the volume of the whispers.

'—Four days past —'

'—two minds—'

'—made one—'

'—an age old—'

'—wrongs made right—'

'—Banished—'

'—new age—'

'—feats of courage—'

The whispers grew quiet once more, but lingered on the very border of Hermione's hearing, when a familiar voice spoke:

Confusing this all is, is it not so?

Then you might want to know,

A comforting thought.

You have not been caught

As a fly helpless in a spider's web.

You wish to be back in your bed,

Safe from harm.

I do not wish to alarm,

But I must confess.

Things have been set in motion

Of which you had naught the slightest notion

Now everything is a mess

However it must get worse from here

Even now the end grows near.

Let me comfort you still with this:

Fear not things to come, for you

Shall not hit and miss

But strike and follow through

To the end.

The voice faded off to silence, and there was not a sound except for the whispers. Another voice began to speak, 'When it is time you shall know what to do. Worlds collide, and many wrongs righted. Worry not about getting back, for it has been taken care of. They will aid you in your time of need, as you have aided them…'

Fading once again into silence the voice was replaced by the vision of small children playing with the sun to their backs. The one on the tree stump turned as though it was looking at Hermione, and with one had appeared to motion for her to come towards it, then a voice called out, 'Hermione… Hermione…'

Hermione slowly opened her eyes. From the limited field of vision that one gets from lying with their head on a pillow she could make out the blurry outline of someone standing over the bed.

'Hermione.'

Hermione did not recognize the voice that was speaking. Looking at the figure as it slowly came into focus she found that she didn't recognize who it was either. The girl who stood beside her bed didn't look more than a year older than herself. How tall the girl was, was impossible for Hermione to gauge from the bed. Her eyes were a light brown and she had shoulder length wavy black hair. The girl was dressed in the same attire as Hermione and everyone else for that matter with standard issue woodland patterned BDUs. The name tag on her jacket read Vectorin. While Hermione was still looking over Vectorin another figure joined up beside her. This one instantly recognizable, it was Kit.

'Mornin' Hermione,' said Kit.

'Where are we?' asked Hermione.

'Back home at Camp Williams. And this,' he said indicating to Vectorin, 'Is Staff Sergeant Dalane Vectorin just finished up her training back in The States. Now hurry up and get ready to roll we've got formation in an hour and I'll be explaining all that happened, and a few other things,' said Kit.

'Okay,' said Hermione sitting up.

Hermione stood at parade rest as Kit walked onto the platform that over looked the field that they stood on. The sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky, as a breeze swept through the ranks of Dumbledore's Army.

'At ease,' said Kit.

Hermione let her hands drop slightly and focused her attention on Kit.

'Many of you are wondering just what happened, and how did we get back. Well I'm not quite sure how they figured out how to bring us all back home, but they did. And right now the Empire is marching forward to complete victory thanks to our efforts in the time we were with them. And I can assure all of you that we will one day fight along side them again. But for now we mustn't concern ourselves with that. Before we left you all were performing the final event of Basic Combat Training.

'Now there is no need to continue with that training, as you all finished it during your training to become Imperial Stormtroopers. So with a few final words I will dismiss y'all back to the real world, and I wouldn't advise having the planned DA meeting tonight. Give yourselves sometime to readjust to y'alls usual surroundings again.

'It has been a pleasure to help all of y'all to become professional soldiers, and I look forward to seeing all of y'all again. When you get back to your barracks you will find the clothes that you wore when you walked in here and you wand. Change back into those, however I want all of y'all to keep your current clothes and take them with you. And wear them under your normal Hogwarts robes, but don't worry if you wear normal clothes over your BDUs your BDUs will become invisible.

'Atten—shun!'

Hermione snapped to attention.

'Present… arms!'

Hermione brought her right hand up in a crisp salute.

'Order… arms!'

Hermione snapped her right hand back down.

'Good luck on all of your exams, O.W.L.'s, N.E.W.T.'s and anything else. Remember LDRSHIP, The Three General Orders, and everything else that you have learned here. Dismissed!'

Following the advice that Kit had said the DA meeting was cancelled and everyone walked back to their common rooms. The trio talked as they slowly walked down the corridor towards the Gryffindor common room.

"You know, it's kinda weird that now there are probably hundreds of us running around fighting Rebels in another galaxy. And I don't care what anyone says that Thrawn guy's eyes gave me the creeps,' said Ron, shuddering slightly.

"Hermione is something wrong. You seem awfully quiet, is something wrong?' asked Harry, looking concerned.

'No, I'm just a bit tired that's all,' said Hermione feinting a yawn.

Hermione was in fact going over in her head what she had heard before she woke up earlier that morning.