Hermione had been in a coma for four days by the time she had woken up.
Four days, gone. And the four years previous to them, also gone.
She spent another week in St. Mungo's under observation while they ran diagnostic spell after diagnostic spell and gave her every potion that might be able to help with retrograde amnesia. Magic had the ability to mend, fix or otherwise improve many medical conditions far beyond that of muggle medicine but brains –
Brains were a funny thing.
Tampering with the millions of tiny connections in the average human brain as it fired electrical impulses that controlled thoughts, senses and movement was ill-advised at the best of times. That didn't even take into consideration the section of the brain that took care of automatic actions like breathing and blinking.
So seven days and no recalled moments later Hermione was released into the care of Aurors Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. They brought her back to her flat where she sunk onto the cushions of a squishy green couch in stunned silence.
"D'you, erm, want some tea?" Ron asked.
Harry and Ron were standing in the middle of her living room with completely different looks on their faces. Ron looked utterly lost and his floundering had provided him with a distraction his mother had ingrained in him.
"Yes, please," Hermione responded vacantly.
The emptiness in her voice was one she couldn't seem to shake.
Her whole life felt empty now, and panicked, like she was adrift at sea. Paddling and paddling until she had no energy left and couldn't help but let herself sink.
"Hey," Harry bobbed his head and moved to sit on the small coffeetable in front of her, knees jutting out on either side of her own. "I know you're lost right now, Hermione, but it will get better, I know it will."
"You don't know that, Harry," Hermione whispered, afraid her voice would crack if she used it. "You heard the Healer, I might never get my -"
"First of all, yeah you might never get your memory back but what about all the good things? You're okay now, you have us, you have Crooks, you have the rest of your life to make up for those lost memories. Here," Harry leaned over and grabbed the box of tissues that was sitting on a sidetable by a lamp and handed it to her.
The Hermione she remembered hardly ever cried but it seemed that this new Hermione barely needed to be prodded for her waterline to start shimmering.
"Four years, Harry. Four! And I don't understand how I got here at all!" she squeaked. "I don't recognize myself. I don't know who I am."
Harry inhaled slowly and squeezed her shoulders in his warm hands, tipping his forehead closer and closer to hers until their heads rested against one another. His eyes searched hers, flitting back and forth across her face. Hermione let a strangled tiny sob escape before leaning forward and pressing her face into Harry's shoulder. He held her until her trembling shoulders stilled, seconds or minutes later, she couldn't be sure.
When she pulled her warm face free of his embrace, she brushed back the errant hairs that had been dislodged from her braid and placed her cool fingers on her cheeks. Her face was puffy and damp.
"Better?" Harry's eyebrows rose minutely.
"Mhm," she sniffled. "I'll be right back."
She rose and started in the direction of what looked like the hall before she slowed to a stop, and half-turned back.
"The bathroom is…?" she asked hesitantly.
Harry's eyes had followed her short journey and he barked out a laugh, cutting the solemnness and shattering it to a million pieces when he threw his head back.
"Through the door at the end, on the left."
She just wanted to get to her destination. Hermione hardly looked at anything of her apartment, passing through the hall quickly and closing the bathroom door behind her. With her back pressed onto it, she sunk down to the floor and took a few calming breaths before opening her eyes again.
There was a sink to her right with sparkling exposed pipes beneath it, and a washcloth hanging over the basin. The walls were cream and the shower curtain was gold and –
There was a pressing, building pain in her hip and Hermione wiggled down to the floor. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew her wand and lobbed it at the bathtub with a choking, grating grunt. Red sparks exploded and skipped over the porcelain and onto the tiled floor as it tinked and rolled away under the curve of the tub.
How was she supposed to live here? It felt like a stranger's house.
How was she supposed to live this Hermione's life?
She was supposed to be finishing up her last year at Hogwarts with Ginny and Luna, not living this foreign life four years in the future in a new millennium with her own business to run and a fiancée.
Her heart had broken to pieces at the look on George's face when she had asked him to please get Ron for her, and she could have probably forged her own horcrux with the pain he had shown when she had handed the glittering ring from her left hand back to him.
"I can't keep this, George," she had explained. "I don't know what happened and I'm sorry I said what I did about – about – when I blamed you."
"It's yours, Hermione," his voice had cracked as he took a step back when she had reached her closed hand out to give it to him. "Keep it."
It was burning a hole in her back pocket.
And nothing about this life made sense to her. She couldn't see her own train of thought through the decisions she had obviously made after her Hogwarts graduation.
Ginny explained she'd passed her NEWTs with flying colours and immediately gone into work for the Ministry, helping reform policies through her position in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She'd moved briefly to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement before retiring and buying a tiny bookshop in Hogsmeade and moving into the flat above it.
Bookshop wasn't a real shocker but –
Hermione was hardly content with sitting around and letting other people reform the country. She had opinions and ideas and the motivation to see them all realized! What had lead her leave it all behind and sequester herself in the tiny wizarding village outside Hogwarts?
"You don't need to come, Hermione, don't feel like you have to," Harry said, sipping his tea.
"No one will be mad if you just want to stay home. We could cancel," Ron suggested, and Harry nodded. "Harry and I could come over and… watch the tele or something."
"No, no," she shook her head.
After splashing water on her face and forcing herself to get out of the bathroom and walk back to the sitting room, Hermione had found the boys waiting with tea and biscuits.
"Don't cancel the party on my account, please. You deserve a birthday party, Harry," she pressed.
"Are you sure? It's no problem," Harry countered.
"No, I'll be really ticked with you if you don't go, alright?" she gave him a small smile, which he returned.
When they went to leave an hour later, Ron pressed a thick envelope into her hand.
"George asked me to give you this."
WOAH.
Can you say overwhelming enthusiasm? Because I can.
I didn't have anything else written when I posted the first chapter but I was feeling the feels so here we are.
Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who read, who reviewed, who connected on tumblr. I wouldn't be writing if it weren't for your professions of love and shared appreciation.
More soon!
