Previously:

No matter, she will show every pureblood prejudice what it is to really deal with someone from the muggle world.

Unfortunately, today wasn't that day, because one moment she was turning the halls with fellow bookworm Penelope and suddenly she's instantly transported by a pair of too bright yellow eyes into a world unknown.

What is it with Hogwarts rendering her unconscious.

...

Chapter 3.2

"Well. Didn't I say the mirror will be of great help?" He looked so smug, eyes alight and a cocky smirk. A smirk! Her tiny self can't help but gaze at his tall figure.

"2 chocolate frogs, maybe three" He held his slender fingers up. She has no comeback for that, not when he's being vague and aggravatingly pompous.

"That many to fit your gaping mouth, close it child. It's unbecoming of you"

Still, the surrealism of the moment got to her and instead of snapping it shut, she just laughed. Laugh like she had never been before. And she thought for a moment, she never really laughed as care-free and spontaneous as this. The lightness in her heart didn't allow her to be morose however, so she did what any 13 year old kid would do.

She hugged him.

Okay... maybe not all 13 year old girls will go running towards a stranger and just hug them to be left breathless. And not all fully grown man, will return that hug warmly. However, they were no strangers and he just let her snuggle closer, even if something strange flicker on his face.

When they were all settled, sitting side-by-side on the ground, she realizes they were in a field. An endless horizon of grassy meadow, unmoving cloudy skies to shadow their place, and cool to their skin wind. It was otherworldly, but she thinks it was calming.

"I'm not dead, am I?" She doesn't look at him and just continue to stare off into the vast space. Her legs were stretched out, while her elbows props her up.

"Just petrified, child"

"There's a reason why I can understand it, isn't it?"

"Yes. However, not everything is at seems. Comprehension does not make you allies. You should learn from this, a weapon cannot distinguish their targets. Their aim is where the hand guides it to be."

She is afraid of what that meant, for her. It sounded like a warning, admonishing her of what lays ahead of her future. The danger lurking in the shadow, that even her, a child, could eventually become a victim, a pawn.

"It kinda sounds like Professor two-face." She observed, gauging his reaction to her deduction.

"It's Professor Quirrell child, not two-face" She doesn't agree, but didn't voice it out."… And it is actually a she." Ahh evasion it is. He neither lies but still, she could've have appreciated a forthright answer.

"Well, she is a big menace"

"It's a basilisk Hermione, of course she is."

As days rolled and every minute pass, she finds herself looking forward spending all her un-conscious time with him. He conjured places so she won't get bored. He taught her the fundamentals of wandless magic, transfiguring pebbles into butterfly, controlling the movement of water, conjuring blue fire that won't burn her sheets.

He taught her about the goblins, the necessity of war, in preserving their knowledge and culture away from meddlesome wizards. Something that was clearly not in the books. And he tweaks her knowledge of magic by introducing the sciences, mathematics, cosmic theories, historical facts, by analyzing human psychology and how nature works, because there is no such thing as too much knowledge for a precocious child. They reason and debate subject of different matter until all talks of academia wear her out, and he just hum tunelessly to her or read her a leisurely book, his masculine velvety voice inducing her into a trance of perpetual calm.

It was weird not to feel sleepy, or hungry. Sometimes she just lays her head on his lap and closes her eyes as she hears the running stream of the nearby river, smell the moist grass in the air and feel its tips on her fingers. The insane detail her senses recognize, the amount of colour each leaf has in the tree's canopies, the variation in its shape. Wondrous thing that is, magic, it leaves her breathless. Truly marvellous.

"Can I be as good in magic as you?" She asks, her eyes still close. He could hear the awe in her soft voice, and he cherish such moments with her.

"No child… You will be much more."

...

She never ask him why he's in her head, or why he chose to be in her head and not, shall we say, in a notebook or a necklace.

But she did ask his name.

"My name?"

"Yes. It is hard to call you… Mister." She doesn't say it's because she has grown close to him. Or that he's the only person she can be honest with, where she can be herself and not hide behind books, expectations and rules. She didn't say she feels at home with him nor voice out that he deserves a better honour than be called 'the voice'.She doesn't have to say it because he knows her that much. Just as much as she's conscious of his one true name.

"Well, what do you want to call me?"

She bites her lips a little too hard, unsure if she could voice out what she wanted.

"I can call you my, my… my Old Man!" She tries to joke but is uneasy. So he did what he usually does when she's being unsure of herself.

"I am not an old man!" He jokes. Pretending to be insulted as he gasps hilariously.

"Well you are old-er." And when she giggles at his affronted look as he attacks her with tickles, all he could think of, is that if someone sees him - they will gag. Die of shock, more likely.

Still none of it matters, for she is special to him, and much, much more. So she writhes in the faux agony from slender fingers mercilessly attacking her sides instead of the dark curses he usually bestow others.

"Stop it old man! I can't breath!"

She didn't think she could miss someone as much when she woke up days after. The sadness in her eyes was more because she won't be able to see him again. Well, maybe not like that anyway.

...

It was later that day of "awakening", that she found out the great basilisk was still just a myth and for some unknown reason the young Weasley girl was found unconscious in the girls bathroom. Coincidentally gorgeous Gaston… ehem sorry, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart thought the petrifying monster was in the forbidden forest. The same forbidden forest she ended up semi-dead and saw a literal two-faced man. Hermione is just thankful she didn't end up like the man, thoroughly obliviated he couldn't even remember his own name.

Still, she couldn't be any more satisfied that the man honoured Hogwart's tradition of its dynamic employment as he gets shipped off to Janus Thickey Ward.

Adieu Gaston!

The day before she left for the summer, she visited the throne room. It was there in the row for Hogwart's Student Awards, that she saw, the same albeit younger face.

She didn't realize it then, but their lips curve the same way, his nose slim and turned up slightly just like hers, he has a mole above his right brow whilst hers is under her left eye. But most striking of all, is that they have the very same eyes. Both as hazel and gold as the plaque where his name was engraved.

Tom Marvolo G. Riddle

Medal for Magical Merit

'Harry is my friend.'

'I know child'

'I.. I don't want to betray him.'

'I am not asking you to'

'But you are HIM, and I can't do this to you.. I will not..'

'He is not me.'

She is however a smart child. One day she knows she has to choose, and her heart already knows who.

"Well, well, well. Look who it is. Granger, dreaming of a grand medal bestowed upon you?"

"Shut up Malfoy." She replied sharply. Why is this git everywhere?!

"I seem to have touched a nerve. Well, just watch yourself Granger, you'd probably ace all your NEWTS you'd get yourself a whole shelf of awards." Uh huh…

"Hermione Granger, recognized with highest distinction. Order of Merlin - Medal of Magical Merit – Founder's Honour." Wait a minute…

"Wha..?" Was THAT suppose to be an insult? She would really like those achievements…

"Yeah! Cause you know?!" No she doesn't. " You have big brains in that pretty… PRETTY BIG HEAD of yours!" What in seven level of Hades is going on with this kid.

'Shush child. Maybe if you shut up he'll go away.' The voice rebuke, just as irritated as her, probably even more.

"Of course Granger. You're such THE know-it-all you'll have an entire display cabinet filled with your rewards!"

"Because… I'm smart?"

"Yeah a know-it-all!" He smirked triumphantly.

"So basically, you're calling me intelligent with a pretty big head"

"Well… yeah?!" The boy sputtered. This is the very reason she wonders if growing up in the muggle world made her smarter. It surely refined her schoolyard comebacks. Too bad she won't need much of it dealing with this pale one.

"Wait… what?" Draco asked confusedly, more to himself than her. Oh dear lord, Hermione never felt such sympathy for a lost puppy the way she does for Draco Malfoy.

The two ended up staring at each other, one thoroughly confused the other just weirded to her bones.

"Shoo Malfoy! Shoo, shoo!" She gestured with her hands and the boy scampered away, scowling nastily at her.

Draco Malfoy truly was an enigma.