Well hello there! I don't really have much to report here. Just that I hope you reviewers send in some suggestions! I'd really like to hear your input and whatnot.

And yoooooo Scarlet Dewdrop! Shout out to the coolest beta ever! Woo!

Anywho, ENJOY!

Chapter 3

Dr. Talmer had walked into Hermione's room with a confident smile on his face. He had found a great new technique on jogging memory last night and was excited to use it. Hermione would appreciate it.

He knocked on the door before walking in. What he was greeted with made him stop in his tracks. Everything was coated in paper and words. Their timeline. It was everywhere. "What is all this?"

Hermione popped up from behind her bed with wide eyes. "I'm finishing the puzzle."

"You're what?"

She put down the paper she was working on. "I believe you heard me."

"I know I did. It's just hard to process."

"I agree. The short version is that I remember."

"You remember? Just like that?"

She nodded in response while he stood there dumbfounded. "I had an angel in my room last night. Castiel. He was really nice. Well, he made my memories clear!"

"An angel?" How could this possibly get any worse?

"Mmhmm! He had wings and everything! I mean, I didn't expect to see an angel in a trench coat, but hey. Who am I to judge?" Before he could say anything, she continued, "It's really interesting actually. I'm a bit of a different person from these memories. Like both parts of me are trying to collide. It feels weird."

It got worse. "Hermi-."

"But this timeline is amazing really. Although, depressing in most aspects. I knew that I must have had parents, and I did! Both were dentists. They loved me, but they couldn't protect me from the kids at school. Their favored name calling was Bushy Haired Know-it-all as well as Bucktoothed Beaver." She traveled over to the beginning of her timeline which was at the top of the wall by her barred window.

"That's at the very start. It really sucked being the freak. The smart kid that didn't want to play on the playground. Which made me gain a dependency on books and my arrogant sense of self-importance. I believed I was the best and everyone else was stupid just because of how they treated me."

Talmer finally got a word in. "Which is completely normal when placed in that situation."

"Thank you. But that attitude caused more problems for me. Because now people had a reason to hate me. And I didn't even see it." She moved down the line. "Ever since I was little, strange things happened around me. My books would fly off the high shelves when I needed them. Glass broke around me when I got upset. Sometimes, my pencils would sharpen by themselves. I remember when I fell out of a tree and I levitated before hitting the ground."

Talmer looked increasingly worried. He watched as she moved around the room.

"And all of that was explained when I got a letter on my eleventh birthday. A lady in green robes delivered it to me. Told me I was a witch. I didn't believe her at first. Until she turned into a cat. I believed her then."

"A cat?"

"Mmhmm. She was an animagus. That was my main goal in magic practice. To become an animagus." She moved to another wall while Talmer was freaking out. "This is where the school supplies shopping came in. I had never seen a place so full of magic. I was wonderstruck to be honest. I was filled in on history and what not. Got my own bank account too! I felt so grown up. And even more so when school actually started. That's where I met my two best friends Harry and Ronald. On the Hogwarts express."

"Excuse me? Hogwarts?" Hogwarts? Hog-warts!

"I know. Silly name. But it was a fantastic Wizarding school for anyone who wanted to be eaten alive. I obviously didn't know that at the time. I was just excited at the fact that magic was real and I was lucky enough to be the ones that have it. Me! Boring old Hermione Granger. It was unbelieveable. Almost a dream. But it all solidified when I got sorted into a house."

"A house?"

"Yep. I was in the noble house of Gryffindor. The sorting hat asked for me to be in Slytherin when I tried to cheat the hat into sorting me into Gryffindor. I wonder how things would have turned out if I went into Slytherin instead…" She snapped out of her thoughts and moved on. "Nothing really important happened in my school life. It would honestly take me hours to sort all of this out for you. But, the basics are we almost got eaten by a giant cerberus, I got petrified by a basilisk, my happiness was sucked out of me by dementors, I helped Harry survive the worst tournament on earth and the rise of Voldemort."

"Volde... who?"

"Most people fear his name. You-Know-Who is just way too long to say. Ridiculous really. But, this ridiculous man started a war. A war I fought in. A war….a war I lost." Hermione was getting to the end of her timeline. "I lost everyone in that war. And I lost even more after I hid. I helped those in need. Meanwhile, our government was taken over by the Death Eater's. My killing curse didn't hit Voldemort. It hit a low level Death Eater. So, he was obviously at the head of everything in his supremacy. He took over the muggle world too. They served as slaves to the purebloods. Poor bastards."

She gave a rueful laugh. "I learned a lot in those years on the run. Never trust anyone. How to survive on barely anything. I also learned curses that would make Death Eaters piss themselves. Most of them I made up. Just out of spite and boredom. I did it all without a wand too. That silly stick just held me down. My magic needed to be let loose. I couldn't keep it controlled." Her eyes became sad as she came to the last part of her timeline.

"I was captured. I was ready for execution. But, she took me in. She wanted a nice little Mudblood pet. Bellatrix Lestrange. My Mistress. I can't believe I ever called her that. She broke everything in me. My heart, my mind, my body."

Talmer could finally get a word in. And it was only a softly spoken, "Hermione." She paused in her timeline and looked to the man.

"Hermione, this isn't healthy."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Isn't this what we've been trying to achieve?"

He walked closer to her. "This…..this isn't what we worked for. This is a step back. A fabricated past? Magic? Hermione, something very bad happened to you and now your mind is making up a story to make everything less painful."

Hermione could feel anger bubbled up within her. "Make things less painful? You think this is less painful than anything?"

"I didn't-."

"I was tortured within an inch of my life every day! I watched everyone I love get ripped from me. My only friend in the world was Death! And what is supposed to make it so unrealistic? Magic? Really?"

He hesitantly approached her. She may as well have been a rabid animal at that moment. He rested a heavy hand on her shoulder. "You need to calm down."

She ripped herself away from him. Her face scrunched in anger as she yelled, "Don't tell me to calm down! I finally solved my puzzle! I finally know everything! And what do you want to do? Tell me it doesn't matter!" She began to rip down all of her work. Every last page.

"I don't need to prove anything to you! I don't need your approval! I don't need any of this! I'm not crazy!"

He was desperate for her to understand. "I didn't say you were crazy!"

"I'm not crazy!" All around her, the windows started to crack.

"I finally reached my goal! I'm better now! And the one person in my life that isn't dead thinks I'm more of a nut job than when we started!" The threatening sound of the strain on the already damaged windows reverberated around the room. All of the pent up magic made the air heavy. It was suffocating.

"I was right when I was nothing more than a pet! Death is my only friend! He'll always be there! Unlike you!" With the last part screamed out in desperation, the windows finally gave out and shattered everywhere. Talmer ducked down and covered himself from the blast. Hermione could feel angry tears run down her cheeks.

"You were supposed to be there." Talmer looked up to her with those bright green eyes. Now swirled with confusion.

"Why can't I just have one person that I can actually see? That's actually there?" Talmer got up from his position and she expected him to run away. To tell the world of her dangerous outburst. But no.

What he did was wrap his arms around her gently and told her in the softest tone he could manage, "I'm right here." She broke down. All the glass went back to its place as she squeezed him tightly. She felt safe in his arms. He believed her. He wasn't afraid of her. He was there for her.

The orderlies had rushed in when they heard the shattering noise, but there was nothing wrong. Only a doctor helping his very first patient. For the rest of the day Hermione showed Jon every paper she created in order. And whenever they read one, it was thrown into the trash. When Hermione asked why he wanted her to do that, Jon had told her "The puzzle is done and what's past is past. It may hurt, but the only way to move on is to look to the future. It'll be a struggle, but I have confidence in you." She had smiled so wide.

Talmer obviously had many questions for her. And he would definitely get home and freak out over the fact that the girl he was treating was magic and there was a magic school somewhere in the universe. She had made it perfectly clear that there wasn't the same magic in this world. And, well, everything was destroyed in hers. Gosh he was giving himself a headache trying to wrap his mind around everything.

But life went on after the incident. After all the pages were gone, he had given her a fresh notebook to write on. "What's this for?"

"Anything you want really. You can write your feelings, how your days go, or what your plans for the future are. This is your notebook. You can do with it as you please." Hermione nearly cried. She had dropped the book with shaky hands and covered her mouth. For a moment, Jon thought he had screwed something up. But as her eyes crinkled slightly and her cheeks took on a happy glow. Her hands moved away to reveal a dazzling smile.

"I haven't had something of my own for so long." She couldn't keep the smile away. "I have something."

He picked it up off the floor and gave it back to her. "Yes. And get used to it! You're officially my favorite patient, so that means special treatment."

She felt like she was on cloud nine. Being held for so much time. On the run, she didn't have time to own anything besides the clothes on her back and her knife. Sometimes she would steal books, but they weren't hers. She would always have to dump and burn them. There wasn't enough space for something as trivial as books.

But, despite all the progress she made, she still wasn't in the clear. Memories of that kind brought damage. PTSD, nightmares, anxiety, depression, and some extra spices to make things even more fun. Not to mention the paranoia she'd been not so magically cursed with from the war and a shot self-esteem from all the dirty curses etched into her skin. And now that her magic had forced its way back to the surface, she couldn't keep it under control like she used to. More things broke, exploded, heated up, iced over and more around her when she would get upset or nervous. It was like she was a little girl just discovering her magic all over again.

The patients had started noticing these things. One in particular. Martin. He was nervous man that was obsessed with clowns. What she's seen of him, he could be scared away with a mean glance. But just because he wouldn't approach her, didn't mean he wasn't watching.

They were even in group therapy together. Which made for a lot of suspicious glances sent her way. It was a small price to pay after Jon told her what he had to do to get her there. Group therapy meant being able to socialize, which meant being even closer to her release from the hospital. She was checked out after the sudden memory retrieval. The doctors titled it as a normal miracle in the world of trauma induced amnesia.

The patients were still afraid of her, but that was all ignored. She didn't really care anyways. All that mattered was that she was getting better. And hopefully one day, she could live her life again. Just what 'living' meant, she'd have to figure out all over again. She wasn't quite sure anymore. The future had never given her much concern. It reminded her too much of divination to be perfectly honest. But this time, she wanted to be ready.