The large ballroom that was decorated with pink silks and dark red carpets, in honor of St. Valentine's Day was filled with people dressed in elegant costume. The women wore immaculate gowns made of the most expensive fabrics. They flitted here and there, gossiping, dancing, flirting and drinking punch. The men in the room were likewise occupied, although they wore dark suits in place of heavy gowns. In the very middle of the dance floor, surrounded by at least a hundred people, swirled a young couple.
The girl was dressed in a sweeping purple gown with white lace and pearls dripping from the skirt. Her dark brown hair was curly and pinned up, making her long neck look lovely. Despite her gorgeous attire, her dark chocolate eyes flashed with fear. The man who currently held her in his arms was not someone she liked in the slightest, although that was not the reason she was scared.
Hermione Granger was a practical woman who knew what could and could not be. She especially knew what was and what should be, and what was happening to her at that very moment was neither. Only a few hours ago she had laid her head down on her pillow in her bedroom and fallen asleep and now she was here in at a party.
She wondered if she was dreaming but after pinching her arm thoroughly, decided against that possibility.
Something was very off and she suspected foul play. What was worse, she was stuck in this nightmarish ordeal with her greatest enemy.
For his part, he didn't seem to have much to say. He was tall, well built and muscular under his expensive black suit. He had silvery blond hair that was slightly long and fell into his silver eyes. He was the picture of aristocratic excellence, but at this moment his face was contorted with confusion.
"Where are we," Hermione finally asked her voice shrill with worry.
"I don't know, Granger. Don't panic," Draco Malfoy said smoothly as he twirled Hermione away from himself and then pulled her back.
Hermione blinked at him in horror and as he swept her into a low dip, she winced.
"Stop it. I don't want to dance anymore," Hermione said feeling her head throb dully from all the spinning she'd done already.
"And you think I do? I've been trying to stop since I realized I wasn't in my bed," Draco snapped and Hermione gritted her teeth.
She tried to pull away from him, but it was as if they were super-glued together. Draco shrugged as she looked at him sadly.
"We need to find a way out of this... illusion," Hermione said craning her neck to look around.
"Do you have your wand?" Draco asked dreading the answer.
"No," Hermione said regretfully.
"Yeah, neither do I," Draco said annoyed with himself.
"There's gotta be a way out. Do you think we can dance over that way," Hermione asked nodding
towards the refreshment table.
"We can try," Draco said and Hermione could feel it as he tried to pull them along in a new direction.
"It's a no go," Draco panted and Hermione smiled wanly at him.
"Do you feel a bit fuzzy," She suddenly asked her eyes narrowed as she felt as if the edges of her vision were waving before her. It felt like she was being faded out of an old television set.
"Yeah, it feels like my essence is dripping away," Draco said eloquently.
"I wonder..." Hermione began, but she never got to finish her sentence, as everything faded to black.
Hermione sat up in bed looked around her room and sighed with relief. She was in her own room, not that dreadful ballroom and Draco Malfoy was nowhere in sight. She sat up a bit further.
If this was her room, where was her rug, and her paintings and the stack of books she kept on her bedside table? As Hermione looked around it seemed that everything she had thought was familiar, wasn't at all.
Slowly it dawned on her that this wasn't her bedroom even though it felt familiar and looked similar to what she was used to.
The bed she sat on was too soft, her walls weren't exactly that shade of light blue and outside of her window she had a tree, which, as she peered out the window, she saw wasn't there.
Hermione hopped out of bed to discover she was wearing a long, lacy nightgown. She owned nothing like this and she swooshed the long white skirt around her legs for a moment. She walked slowly to the door and opened it. Outside was a dark landing leading to some very steep looking stairs. Hermione carefully held onto the banister and made her way downstairs.
There a few rooms, but her intuition told her to open the first one to her left. The room was a sitting room, with big comfortable looking chairs and a mauve sofa. A woman sat straight backed in a moss green armchair, she was knitting furiously and all Hermione could hear was the clack of the needles. The woman had graying brown hair and thin features. She looked quite severe as Hermione walked into the room quietly.
"Hermione, what are you doing not dressed? You know the vicar is coming in a little while to interview you about becoming his maid," The woman said sharply and Hermione felt slapped for some reason. While Hermione's brain was furiously telling her to tell this woman off, her mouth worked on its own.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I'll go get ready now," and Hermione turned and went back up to her room.
Once she'd closed the door, she threw herself on the bed and screamed into her pillow. She couldn't hear anything though and no one else did. Hermione's mouth wouldn't do what she wanted it to, so she tried something else.
She found a charcoal pencil in her top drawer and wrote on the side of her bureau, "I am not from here." It worked. Hermione read the line over and over again, before she quickly rubbed it out and went to dress.
She was scared that not being able to control her actions or speech, she just may lose herself.
The vicar was old and feeble and he had to be helped from his carriage by his son. The son, who happened to be none other than Draco Malfoy, looked around himself with narrow eyes as he took the old man's arm.
Draco hadn't panicked yet but he was wondering frantically how to get out of this situation. He also was worried about what had happened to Granger. She was after all his only link to the normal world. A stately woman opened the door for them and Draco and his father stepped inside.
The ceiling was low in the hall and Draco had to duck his head to avoid smacking it against the low door jams. The woman led them wordlessly into a parlor and asked if they wanted anything to drink.
A girl came in at one point, Draco hadn't been paying attention previously, but as she moved across the room, his eyes snapped to her. It was Hermione, dressed in a simple blue gingham dress, but it was her. He'd know that bushy head anywhere. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, but that was the only sign he got that she acknowledged him.
"Hello, sirs," Hermione said primly dropping a curtsy to the vicar and Draco.
Hermione had wanted to lung at Draco, run out the front door and figure out how to get back to her old life, but she wasn't able to. All she could do was give him what she hoped were pleading looks with her eyes, which really weren't a help. Draco just looked at her strangely, so she gave up.
"Are you very good at washing clothes," the vicar asked of Hermione and for only a second she looked blank.
"Oh, yes sir! I can iron and scrub 'em and I even know a secret to keep them staying fresh while they sit in a drawer," Hermione said happily.
"Oh well that's good," The vicar said approvingly.
In little or no time the interview was at an end and Hermione had been taken on as the maid at Hoffland House. Draco told his father he had forgotten something, after helping him into the carriage and rushed back into the house.
He caught Hermione standing in the hall looking heartbroken.
"Hermione, we need to talk," He said dragging her into the hall closet.
"Sir, it's not right for us to be here in this closet alone, especially with me being an unmarried young woman," She said flirtatiously. Draco stared at her in shock, but noticed that she was gritting her teeth.
Hermione struggle for a moment and then she hand signaled to him that she would like to write something. She took the charcoal pencil out of her pocket where she'd stored it and motioned to the wall.
She quickly wrote upon it: 'Draco, I can't talk! Every time I try it's as if someone else is speaking for me. I want to get out of here. Fast! Please help'.
Draco chuckled and Hermione glared at him, daring him to explain what was so funny.
"The Know-It-All finally silenced, it's a bit ironic," Draco said and Hermione rolled her eyes.
"I want out just as bad as you do. With you not being able to speak it's going to be harder though.
"We'll think of something," Draco said not sounding too confident.
'I know,' Hermione wrote mournfully.
They heard footsteps then and they both froze in fear.