Chapter One: Lost
Hermione shifted her feet as she peered around the alleyway she currently hid in. Those strange people stood under a nearby streetlamp, and her wand dug into her fingers from how tightly she gripped it. They were all wearing odd clothing, like something out of a storybook. Large plates of armour glinted in the artificial light, and various weapons swung from their belts as they moved around.
Why Kingsley had decided to send her on her own, she had no idea. But here she was, twenty-three and an Auror for only two years, trailing a bunch of oddballs with gigantic weapons. They gave off a bizarre magical aura, which Hermione supposed was why she was sent covertly. If the entire department suddenly surrounded them, she was sure it would've ended up as some kind of battle.
The group spoke an unfamiliar language—Norweigan, maybe?—and Hermione wished she could understand what they said. They seemed to be waiting for something as they stood around and laughed, jostling each other merrily.
A large man with ginger hair that could rival the Weasley's looked to the sky and Hermione startled when she realised a large funnel formed above them. It began to spin rapidly, and Hermione worried she'd have to find shelter from a possible tornado. Would Kinglsey blame her if she decided to abandon the mission?
"You can do this, Hermione," she whispered to herself, steeling her resolve as the wind began to whip around her.
The strangers seemed to think this normal, and they all gathered directly under the forming funnel. The red-haired man lifted his axe, and for the second time in a minute, Hermione startled again.
A brilliant polychromatic light shot down from the funnel's centre, and Hermione watched in awe as the people bathed in it. As they began to levitate from the ground slowly, she realised in horror that they were being transported.
"No!" she yelled, surging out from her hiding spot. She refused to go back empty-handed, and if they wanted to apprehend these people, she'd have to figure out just where it was they were going. Racing forward, Hermione jumped into the light and seized the raven-haired female's foot, trying with all her strength to pull her back.
With horror, Hermione began to levitate too, and the woman yelled down to her in perfect English to hold on tight.
Hermione gripped onto the woman's foot with one hand as they were suddenly sucked up into the sky at an alarming speed. It felt surreal, like using a Portkey for the first time, and she tried to get her bearings. Her other hand clutched her wand for dear life and stared up at the strangers above her.
The speed started to wear on her, and with awe-filled terror, she realised they were in space . Stars dotted the inky blackness that surrounded them outside the beam, and in her surprise, Hermione felt her grasp loosen on the woman's shoe.
Suddenly, her fingers slipped from the strange material, and she began to fall backwards.
"No!" The raven-haired woman yelled, attempting to reach down and grab for Hermione.
It was too late.
Hermione was already falling towards the boundary of the beam. Just as she broke through the barrier, she felt the tips of the woman's fingers brush the back of her hand before everything went black.
The first thing Hermione discovered upon waking was an intense throbbing headache. The second, was that something extremely sharp dug into her back. Opening her eyes slowly and blinking against the bright sun, she looked around to investigate her surroundings.
Where in the seven hells was she?
Mounds of rubbish and scraps of metal surrounded her, and every few seconds a small opening from the sky would dump more piles of the random materials. She recognised a few things: a walkman and computer sat to her right, but then most things she didn't, like the odd-shaped... was that a gun ?
Panic began to swell in her chest as she whipped her head around, scrabbling to the top of the pile she sat on to look around more. Bits of metal dug into her palms. They scratched and tore at the skin, but she didn't care. The only thing echoing through her mind as she took in the miles upon miles of rubbish was not real, not real, not real.
She struggled to catch a breath as she slid back down the mound, grabbing her wand and gripping it between both hands. "You're fine; this is real, but you're fine, Hermione," she said aloud as she closed her eyes and steadied her breathing.
Fine, fine, fine.
She counted to thirty as she slowed her breath, and once her hands stopped trembling, she reopened them. Before she could think of what to do next, something large zoomed overhead, and Hermione looked up in bewilderment.
It was a spaceship.
The vessel was rusted and patched together with all different kinds of mismatched parts, but it was a spaceship nonetheless. It passed over her quickly, and just as suddenly stopped, turning around to circle back.
Hermione watched transfixed as it descended in a straight line down, legs coming out as it landed to the ground and scattered piles of metal and scrap. She gripped her wand tighter, knuckles turning white as a door opened below, and a group of people emerged.
They all wore masks and colourful clothes, none of it familiar in a way that would help Hermione pinpoint where she was. No, instead they confused her further. When they were nearly ten feet away, one of them spoke, pointing a spear at her chest. The language was completely foreign to her, and though she was fluent in both Spanish and French, she couldn't discern anything close to an origin.
When they spoke again and moved closer, Hermione pointed her wand back. "I don't understand what it is you're saying, but I'm no threat to you!"
"Are you a fighter or food?" They yelled back, the rest of the group pulling out a varying array of weapons.
Hermione's wand arm began to shake from the strain of her tight grip, and she pinched her lips together tightly as she thought. If she could cast a quick stun hex on the leader, and then an Incarcerous on the rest of them, she could board their ship and...
And then what?
She had no idea how to fly that contraption, had no idea even where to go if she could figure it out.
But she had to try.
When the person in front of her took a tentative step forward, she made her decision.
"Stupefy!" she cried out, blasting them in the chest. They flung back into one of the other's, and just as Hermione rounded her wand at another, something to her left caught her eye. A different person had snuck up on her while she was distracted by this lot, and just as she made to point her wand at them, they flung their arm out. A sharp piercing sensation hit her neck, and when she cried out and tried to remove whatever it was that had attached itself to her skin, an electric pulse ripped through her body.
It felt so like the Cruciatus that Hermione thought she was back at Malfoy Manor, the far-off sound of Bellatrix laughing maniacally over her as she convulsed. After a moment, the pain vanished, and Hermione lay there wholly numb, unable to move, her vision dazed and mind confused.
The last thing she saw before she passed out was the group of people descending upon her.