Flight of Time

A What-if Time Travel Story

Time.

It is such a complex subject. Is time linear? Or is it cyclical? Does it bisect? Is it only just a construct, structured by our human brains? Or is it just a reflection of change, of subjective experience, undirectional and not just a perception.

What is time in our physical realm, but a state of order? Of one thing after the other. Of consequences and results. The follow-up and the aftermath. What is time but just a representation of sequential order, the past, the present, and the near future. What is time but just an illusion?

Time. It is those scene that she sees, of images and visions, delusions and apparitions. Which one is real, which one is her? Like falling into the abyss of oceans, fluid motions, going down, down, down. Until she drowns, until she's lost, until she is no more but a speck into the deep depths of the oceans. A tiny light in the deepest gulf. Overwhelmed. Down, down, down she goes.

"No, not her! Take me! Take me instead!"

She remembers to breathe but she hears no sound. The darkness engulfs her, so deeply it doused her very soul.

"Tell me where you got it MUDBLOOD!"

Her throat is constricted, something was blocking air. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't see. Darkness and abyss all over her.

"Bellatrix! Stop it this instant!"

In the darkness she doesn't know who she was, where she was, what she was. She only knows the darkness, the twilight before time. Like the darkness before light, before it was called day and the darkness night. Before morning came, before the first day.

"Get that bitch!"

"Get that FUCKING bitch!"

Dark, as dark as her eyes, as dark as her own eyes.

"Filthy mudblood, get your filthy fucking hands off her!"

What is time but a punishment, of wrong perceptions, of false pasts?

"Mudblooood!"

"Bellatrix please, you cannot point that. She's holding her."

Time. Of seedlings sprouting into buds then in to full grown trees. Of memories and events constructed and deconstructed in our minds. Of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Of birth day's past and pains of future. Of fate and destinies.

Of life and death.

"Give her to me you fucking bitch!"

Her. You.

"Don't worry. I understand now."

"Stop whispering to her mudblood! Give her to me!"

"Bellatrix… Don't be rash! She might hurt her! You might hurt her!"

"It's okay. I understand now."

"Give her to me mudblood! Stop talking to her!"

Time. Is just another form of magic.

"You have to, you know. Have to be brave, to have courage, and be kind. You are not your blood, your are a gift, a gift from time. You will help him, yes, yes, one day you will. You will be forged from love and compassion, not death and darkness. No, not those. Because they will help, they will make you see. They will love you like their own. I know, I know this. For I have seen it with my very own eyes. And one day you will meet him, again maybe? Maybe, no it's not maybe. Time is confusing. But you will save him, you love him like your own too, a comrade, a friend, a brother. Your love will always save him. So be strong, be brave, be kind. For that is what I was built for, that is me, that is you."

"Ms. Granger please, give her to me."

"I… I can't you see. I can't give myself. I have to travel, I have to go back. I…"

"Ms. Granger, I just want the child. Please."

"No, no. You don't understand. But I do! I understand it now!"

Time. What is time but your own vehicle. Your tool for travel.

"Get your filthy fucking hands off her!"

"Shh… shh… Don't cry. One day you'll start to understand too. One day you'll see."

Chide me, dear stone. That I may say indeed. Thou art Hermione, thou art she. For she was as tender as infancy and grace.

"Hermione! We have to get her Harry!"

"Call him Lucius! Call him now before he escapes!"

"Bellatrix the child! Get the child!"

"Give her to me you mudblood bitch! Give her to mee!"

"Please Ms. Granger."

"Harry! Hurry!"

For a moment she wakes, and sees the chaos in front of her. A mother crazed and unforgiving, another one who is pleading. A lunatic father demoted to a minion. And two pairs of eyes from a far. Eyes that takes her to landscapes unknown, the serene blue of the oceans, and the evergreen life in the forest. She loves those eyes. And as she stares down at the soft crying coos of a child. Eyes of innocence and understanding. Eyes as dark as the lowest depth of the trenches. Eyes as dark and dull as hers.

"It's okay you know. I understand now. I must do this." Twist and turns, the trinket lays heavy on her little chest.

"I know now. I have to do this. Don't you see?" Of glass and gold, and all the sands of time.

"I don't think they see it. But you will. You will be brave, you will be kind, they will show you. I promise."

"Eighteen. Eighteen turns should do it."

And in a flash she was gone.

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Expelliarmus!"

"It's okay now, she will understand. Because I understand."

Then a flash of light hits her. The last thing she sees was his pair of eyes. A glint of understanding pass his, and for a moment before she meets her fate, she whispered.

"Oh. Father."

...

...

"Richard. Do… Do you hear that?"

"I can't say I do sweetheart. What is it?"

"I hear a crying."

"Oh Richard over here!"

"Poor thing. Don't worry we will take care of you. Don't you worry."

"Yes, we will. We'll take care of her Helen. Don't you worry."

"Hermione. She will be our Hermione."

Time. Is the first magic she has ever experience. It is her fate. It is her journey, her destination.

...

...

...

There are things this world we cannot explain. Mysterious events, science and math cannot answer. Of flying pigs and white crows. Things that are impossible. Things like Magic.

It was beautiful, yet deadly. Majestic on it's own. She relished in it, embraced it. Her small hands couldn't wait to learn every bit of it. She was happy, happy beyond her entire childhood. She loved magic. It was a simple explanation to her unique childhood. Even when it started to hurt her, even when it punished others, or even when it paralyzed her. She loves magic.

"Intriguing isn't it. That the very same spell one Lily Potter used on her son, worked on you." She didn't dare move, but continued to stare at him.

"I know I have enemies, I know what you are, what you will become. A target. My own weakness."

"Were they good to you?" He was imposing. He sat regally. For an orphan he still very much look like a King. A king who knows his own thrown. Even if that throne is a plush chair pushed up against her bed. Her bed, she guesses, as she lays flat on it.

"They were, no are, they are the best. They taught me what cannot be taught."

"By me?"

"Yes."

For a moment they stared at each other. The two people whose understanding are the same. Eerily it was him who knew. She shouldn't have been surprised, but the way the crazy bitch screamed at her had her thinking - that at least she cared for her child, so maybe just maybe... That could have stopped the pain, but the bitch was never really known for her intelligence. At least she should know, like she did. She knew the moment her boney hand grabbed her hair harshly. Didn't they have the same hair. Pity. But it was him who did. One look and he knew. Just like as she knew. When she ran for her life, for escape, she bound up in a room. In a nursery. Her nursery apparently. And one look at the small child in the cot, she knew. She then knew why she kept her time turner, she knew how she was adopted, she knew the pull she felt the moment she stepped into the room. She knew she was holding herself, sending herself on a journey unknown.

"I have always wondered, you know. Who could she be, how could she affect me so. Why does her magic sing to me. Why a filthy mudblood could cause me such pain. When I saw the curse from Dolohov's hand reach your chest, my chest too constricted in pain. I didn't hate it, I was confused, intrigued. Always left wondering, searching for clues or answers. I was always left dumbfounded, I thought I was falling fancy to a mudblood. That thought nauseated me more than killing you. But your death seizes my breath, it kills me inside. Her curse engulfing you, like a ray of green embers embracing you. For the first time in my entire existence, my heart stopped. You may not be produced from love, from an ideal partnership, but you are mine. I should have hated you, the moment I held you. But that is what magic does, your birth may have healed something deep in me I knew not was broken. However don't mistake me for a saint, for that I will never be."

"I will never, it's atrocious to think." She said to his back, tracing his silhouette lucent from the light seeping from the open windows. He didn't face her as he spoke, lost in his own thoughts.

"I protect what is mine, you need not worry of that. She… she will not harm you again. Nor anyone for that matter, not till I walk this earth."

"And what of my friends."

"I am not as unforgiving as you make out. I gave them a choice."

"What? Death or surrender?!" She spat. Her anger made him whirl from his spot. Their glares similar.

"I made them choose to live, and quite frankly they didn't even think twice. They took their leave. I gave them their freedom!"

"And you just like that don't you!" She accused, eyes blazing with hate. "Playing God, judging who gets to live and not!" He didn't deny, why would he. He took pleasure knowing he can end their puny life and it was by his hands they got freedom.

He didn't respond back. Any truth will just hurt her, and he has caused too much pain for her that he couldn't stomach anymore. She was what makes him human, his very own flaw. But she was the one to make him sane also.

"Will I at least get a choice?"

"You above all deserves one. What would you want then? What would you have me do?" He asked, facing the window once more. Her very vision tugs at his heart and he cannot be anything less than the dictator he is.

After a long stretch, she finally whispered. "Nothing. All I want is nothing."

And at that moment, Lord Voldemort once again lost what was his.

AN: This is just a mini plot bunny hopping around my mind. I know I should be working with all my WIP especially after being MIA for a year. Sorry about that. :( But this hopped in my mind, and I've always loved a TimeTravel fic. What if Hermione is the Dark Lord's daughter, what if during her torture at the Manor she suddenly realized something, what if she is the daughter of Bellatrix and Voldemort. What if indeed.