"I think I need help

Because I'm drowning in myself

It's sinking in

I can't pretend

That I ain't been through hell."

Papa Roach "Help"

Down A Hole

By: Absinthe Dreams

Last time: And with the sound of a very undignified yell of alarm, Hermione Granger fell down the rabbit hole, tumbling towards her fate in the company of blind darkness…

Hermione Granger did not know how long she had been falling, but it seemed a impossibly long time. So long, in fact, that her cries for help and her initial burst of adrenaline had long abated, and she found herself tumbling in boredom wondering if, and when, she would land. Idly she also wondered if Ginny was up above, searching for her, until the honey eyed girl remembered she was merely dreaming and likely still beneath the large oak tree in the meadow, dozing soundly. Perhaps she would wake just as she landed, or just before. Logically she knew she couldn't feel pain, or die in a dream, so she had little to fear.

Illogically, she still grew apprehensive at the thought of landing. Such a fall would maim her in reality, if not kill her instantly, and while she knew she wouldn't die in a dream she still wasn't looking forward to the experience of such a thing even inside her mind. Perhaps if she pinched herself…

"Ow," she frowned. That hurt. Perhaps she was only imagining it did, but it felt rather real. Hermione snorted, "Right," she voiced dryly into the endless darkness through which she tumbled, "and rabbits can talk, and the earth can suddenly open up. Really, be sensible."

In a game there are Rules.

First Rule, to play you must begin.

Once you begin…

Hermione didn't like this voice, it was too eerie to hear it in her own head without conjuring it there herself. It made her brain itch a bit. She fought to urge to scratch her scalp as it spoke, it would do little good, it was her brain itself that itched, not her head.

You can not stop until the game is finished.

Once the game is finished, it all must end.

So, shall we begin?

"Like I have a choice," Hermione sniffed, for whatever reason her mind had conjured this fanciful dream and there was no escaping it save for waking. A feat that could happen at any time, or seemingly take forever.

We all have choices...

The voice had seemingly answered her, and she frowned, it was the first time it had done so.

You can choose how to play, or when, but you must play, you see…

You've already agreed and so you've already begun.

Hermione scoffed, "I don't remember agreeing to anything." She retorted sourly. The voice didn't say anything. Of course it didn't. She was only imagining the nonexistent male in any case, if she was frustrated by her own dream she only had herself to blame.

Just when she thought she might go mad with boredom, and growing irritable at the sightlessness she experienced in the endless pitch of the hole through which she fell, it all changed. It was a viscous substance she passed through, the membrane thin and glossy. Hermione frowned as she realized she wasn't passing through it, instead it formed a bubble around her. A glossy, perfect bubble, and she realized she could now see it because the earth around her had begun to glow with a soft light that gleamed every color of the rainbow. Like she was inside a rainbow itself, passing through each layer again and again. The colors grew brighter and brighter, fiercer and fiercer, until they nearly blinded her in their luminescence.

In the blinding prism of colored light, a memory came to her. Only it didn't just appear in her head, it engulfed her. She became it. Suddenly, inexplicably, nine years old again and standing in the hallway of her home. She saw through her nine year old eyes, felt every sensation, but had no control in how she moved or felt. Trapped in a memory.

Creeping through the halls of her family home like a mouse, nine year old her pressed her eyes to the crack in the study door. Spying was wrong. Mum always said so. But…Nine year old Hermione knew she'd never learn anything useful if she didn't sneak around. Just a little. Grownups knew nothing, and they were always hiding stupid things from her.

"I know she can't live in a bubble her whole life, Jean, but that's no reason to send her away. I don't care if she marries some Lord or another, and neither does she. Plenty of time for that after she's older, much older," Her father never raised his voice, but there was something in his tone that almost made her younger self want to run away. Race back to bed and shuffle under the covers, but her mother's calm voice froze her, the words matter of fact.

"She's smart, Henry, smarter than most boys, and she's not afraid to show it," Jean sighed, "I wish I could say this world was kind or accepting of smart girls, but…" no longer calm, bitterness laced her mother's voice. "This world isn't and if we want her to be accepted into society she must marry, and marry well."

"Tosh! I married a very smart woman, and any man who doesn't want the same is himself, a fool. Regardless, money makes society tolerate much. I intend to leave you and her my entire fortune. Which I intend to make, shortly," Henry replied, and Hermione grew wistful at her father's teasing tone. "Do you regret your life? Wish you'd been sent to one of those dreadful places?"

"No. I love you, and Hermione, you are my entire world," her mother spoke empathetically, "However, I am quite smart, and while I would have hated school, it would've helped me in many ways. And Henry, Hermione wants it."

"So let her go to school here in London, and live here with us. Why send her away?"

"Because of her upcoming place in society, dear husband. Built on the fortune you are in fact making already, but it depends on more than some common school house. A preparatory school will teach her how to be smart, and also how to hide it, If she wishes to. In order to get the attention of a appropriate man." At her husband's pout she cajoled sweetly, "Don't you want her to have more than we had? Her children could be actual nobility."

"I don't like it." Henry grumbled.

"I don't want her to live elsewhere either, but it won't be until she's eleven, she'll be ready then," her mother, Hermione saw from peeking, wrapped her arms around her father in a rare display of intimacy.

"Well I won't be," Her father complained good naturedly, "I changed my mind, the bubble it is."

Her mother laughed. Her father, after a moment, couldn't help but join her. Hermione, nine and intent on listening, accidentally nudged the door, and both of them saw her. Which only made her father laugh harder and more genuinely and her mother roll her eyes.

"Really, I told you Henry, entirely too smart for her own good. Come here you little sneak," her mother's grin was wide and warm, taking any sting from her words, "and give your father and I a hug. Does your nanny know you've escaped?"

"No, she's already sleeping," nine year old Hermione chirped.

A blink and she was back, tumbling in her bubble, the light back to a muted rainbow flow. Had she gone somewhere? Or was her memory just that vivid? Sprung upon her by the sight of herself in a literal bubble. A bubble that abruptly popped, as the sound of a clock ticking filled her ears. It was so loud she fought the urge to groan. It's ticking and tocking growing faster and faster, louder and louder, until it slowed, as did her fall. Looking down she saw another barrier, this one of glass, and as she hit it, the pieces shattered loudly around her, their jagged edges cutting at her red dress and golden skin.

Just like that the light grew brighter and she was blinded again. The too bright prisms of spastic light jarred her into the memory. This time she was transported to moment when she was fourteen, horridly awkward and sniffling into her pillow.

"I'm sure he felt something for you, but you're just a tooth doctor's daughter," Ginny said it softly, regretfully, but the red headed girl only knew how to be blunt in her words, no softening of facts. Even as she stroked Hermione's hair in comfort her words stole the solace away. The comfort was far from sweet when mixed with bitter truth.

"Lavender is the daughter of a duchess' sister, he had to pick her, her father insisted. He's in parliament you know, and my father needs his support."

Hermione felt, at that tender age of fourteen, as if she'd never known such a hurt. Her fragile heart felt as if it had broken and shattered into a million pieces. Sobs wracked her. Jagged, and sharp, like glass.

"I know my brother was kind to you-"

"He k-k-kissed me!" Hermione blurted out. "I thought that meant we were engaged." she shattered all over again as her throbbing eyes met Ginny's wince through their blurred vision. Was it possible for a person to be made of glass? To shatter so hard inside she died on the outside? If it was, perhaps that's what was happening now.

"Oh Mione," Ginny crooned, obviously feeling guilty for having suggested the match in the first place. It had seemed so right, after all. Ronald was so kind, and she already loved his family. Ginny could have been her actual sister. Why, oh why did he have to suddenly get engaged to Lavender Brown, of all girls? The blonde, syrupy voiced girl was horrid, and stupid. Hermione hated her, and all the other simpering girls who acted dull and dumb to get the boys attention

But at least Lavender Brown was well bred and apparently pretty... given the way Ronald Weasley had looked at the vapid blonde twit, Hermione reluctantly had to admit that she was perhaps not Lavender's equal in that department. Hermione's skin was not fashionably pale. Her freckles too obvious. Hips too wide and teeth too big.

At least, Ronald Weasley never turned so red just looking at her. Not even when they kissed.

"I know it seems bleak, but it's for the best, really, my brother is a utter idiot for not protesting it," Ginny uttered venomously, "I hope she makes him miserable."

Hermione blinked. The ticking and tocking of the clock resumed. So did the lights. Honestly, Hermione was so sick of falling. Tumbling weightlessly had started as a novel sensation, but now she longed to feel the ground. To have something solid and firm under her tightly laced boots.

The falling girl almost missed seeing it, sulking as she was about not being able to wake herself. The large, oak desk soared upward at her and she flailed to the side, nearly missing having her face knocked in by the corner of it as it tumbled listlessly in it's upward ascent. A ink bottle followed next, the ink spilling up from the open bottle, it's perfect spheres of black floating so close to her eyeballs she could see the way the rainbow light glittered on their dark surfaces. Next was a masculine looking cologne in a dark grey glass bottle, followed by a set of all too familiar slippers, rough and well worn. The floated lazily upward some feet away from her as they passed.

"Dad," she murmured, seeing it all for what it was now. His desk, from his office. His love of writing, and reading, and how he'd taught her to love books and learning, all of it. Each nostalgic item whizzed by in a fleeting moment. Her eyes watched a fleet of upward falling books tumbling in the mess. Books they had both loved. Hermione fought to urge to pluck them from the air and clutch them to her chest.

Really, she should have known from the cologne. It was his favorite, and once, as a child she'd snuck into his room and spilled a whole bottle of it prying through his things. It had smelled like him for years, long after he was gone, she'd cherished that spot. Until her mother decided to suddenly remodel that room. It seemed it was too painful, too hard for her mother to remember her father, or even see or hear or smell anything that reminded her of him. So it all had to go, and each part. His desk. His books. Even his old fashioned quill set. Each had taken a part of Hermione with it.

This time, the light didn't brighten. There was no one memory of her father that summed up his loss. No singular time that it was awful that he was gone. Or any particular moment with him that was better or more regretful than any other, because there were too many inside her to count or rank. She couldn't chose. He was so much. More than any thought could summarize. It was a million of them, all mixed together.

The wound was too raw, too fresh, and her eyes filled with tears. She didn't want to think of her father, or what her future held without him in it. She kicked aside a dangerous assault of his dental instruments, using her boots to keep the shiny metal pieces from skewering her.

The sound of a clock filled her ears to a much more demanding degree, it's ticking incessant and intoxicating. The tocks, though, jarred through her, and it was on one such tock that she found herself, abruptly, with no due warning or foresight, or even a true recollection of how, sitting on a patch of dying brown grass, the air dense with a lavender smog that surrounded her. There was no tick tock of the clock, and somehow, the abrupt silence seemed almost more deafening and worrisome than the obnoxious ticking ever had.

The lavender hued mist was thin like regular fog up close, but lead to a very short sighted view from a distance, it's purple glow eerie with unfamiliarity. The air even smelled strange, like pungent floral perfume and old books. She looked around, seeing only one landmark, a sign right next to her person. White and painted with childish lettering it proclaimed: "Keep Off The Grass."

"Oh bloody hell, you just had to jump, didn't you Mudblood? Everyone wants to be a Alice, eh?" A very irked voice snapped, and Hermione scrambled back at the purplish fog parted in a swirl to reveal a approaching tall, blonde man, his eyes glinting a flinty silver as he curled his lip at her, his gait purposeful and posture flawless. A peculiar snake tattoo slithered down his forehead in inky tendrils, curling around his eye. Shocking white blond feathered haired crowned his head, his skin pale and eyes grey, lending him a bleached out appearance against the cloying purple mist. He was lean and menacing looking, pale and aristocratic with fine features and a pointed chin.

"You're just like the others, and like them, you'll die," he sneered, "I should kill you myself, the Dark Lord would want it." The disdain, the arrogance, the snake mark on his face, and that voice…

"Weren't you a rabbit?" She asked, aghast. Why was he suddenly human? Well, she eyed his long, white fluffy ears protruding from the top of his head in between his white blonde locks. Sort of human. The rabbit ears seemed to move and twitch just as if they were part of him.

"Draco Malfoy will do," the rabbit eared man snapped, tilting his head at her he sneered down at her. He abruptly plucked his pocket watch from a smart silver vest, his attire that of a finely dressed lord. Tailored vest and coat, pressed breeches and shoes that gleamed with shine. "I don't have time for killing Mudbloods right now, lucky you."

"Yes, you've said," Hermione frowned at him, "You're late, right?"

"Very, but I will tell you this, Mudblood who wants to be Alice," he sneered.

""My name is Hermione," she interrupted shortly, frowning at him, "Not Alice and certainly not Mudblood." The way he said the word made it crawl on her skin, so obviously offensive, demeaning and cruel she couldn't help but deny it.

"Good for you," he mocked with a smirk, "If you want to survive for more than the next five minutes, I might make a point."

"Which is?" Hermione asked expectantly. "And what is a Alice, in any case?"

A/N: More to come. Feedback welcome. I feel I should give kudos where due, because while this fiction is obviously inspired by Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland, it owes its plot bunny mojo also to the Alice in the Kingdom of Hearts comic series, a manga based off a video game and it's good. Lol. Ok. That's it for now. Review. Or at least give this fic a chance to mature, I'm just revving up my creative engines people.