Author's Note: Re-edit. I hate the way this chapter looks, since there's so much dialogue that's all spaced out.
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Here we shall discover what has happened to our dear Hermione. How much does she remember? What will become of her? Why won't anybody call her by her first name? Most importantly, does she know when she is?
Three weeks worth of newspapers covered the many unoccupied beds and chairs of St. Mungo's High Security Ward. As Hermione had come to find, the ward stayed generally empty and harbored the more "minor" criminals. All dangerous witches, wizards, and magical creatures were collected immediately by Aurors once their major wounds were healed. You couldn't be too careful these days.
The small handful of patients in the room, tethered by powerful magic to their beds, watched quietly as the young witch bustled between the countless newspaper clippings, viewing each article and picture carefully. It was the second time this morning she'd gone through them all and breakfast had only just been served.
From down the hallway came the sound of tuneless humming and a squeaky wheel; Nurse Catherine with a pushcart of medical supplies.
"Good morning, sweetheart." Catherine greeted her favorite patient sweetly, beaming as Hermione paused in her reading to grin weakly back. The powerful nurse went about giving medicine to two very silent and sickly-looking wizards, checking their vitals and marking their charts, completely ignoring their glares and complaints of discomfort. Her third patient, however, was full to the brim with cheer.
"Good morning to you too, sweetheart." The youthful wizard cooed, his blue-tinged lips twisting into a lopsided grin. Catherine threw the man a weary glance before snatching his medical chart off the end of his bed.
"I'm not in the mood for your mouth this morning, Jeremy." A hearty laugh escaped his bruised throat and he shook his unruly mess of brown hair emphatically.
"I was just thinking," Jeremy began, his gruff voice reverberating through the quiet room, "that you could give me a shave, eh?" He brought a hand to his face and rubbed at his growing beard.
"Keep dreaming." The healer replied hotly. He merely chuckled as she set a cup of medication on his bedside table. His left eye crinkled good-naturedly; the right remained closed and crusted with blood.
"How come you don't treat me as nicely as you do Miss Graingier?"
"I actually behave." Hermione muttered distantly, her pallid face full of concentration as she read the Daily Prophet's "latest" article on fall fashion.
"I wish you wouldn't." Jeremy sighed. "I imagine 'naughty' Graingier would be quite a sight."
Catherine reached the last patient in the room, careful not to disturb some of the older articles and loose newspaper clips that had been set aside. The patient, an aging hobgoblin, looked up questioningly as the nurse checked his pulse.
"So," he whispered, "what's with the girl?"
"You're new." Catherine stated, turning to grab his medication off the pushcart. The hobgoblin nodded and waited for the nurse to continue. Instead, she turned to look at Hermione.
"Graingier, dear, I expect a shower to be open on one of the regular floors. Care to go?"
"…yes. Thank you." Hermione pushed herself off the edge of the bed she had been leaning on and stretched. This ward, of course, did not contain showers for regular use. It was too dangerous to move a High Security patient around. She grabbed a thin cotton robe from a nearby chair and slipped her arms into it. With shaking, still-bandaged fingers the too-thin witch pulled the soft fabric over her hospital gown and quickly pulled her long and embarrassingly unwashed hair into a hasty bun. Jeremy waited until Hermione and Nurse Catherine were down the hall and well out of earshot before speaking.
"Graingier has been here longer than any of us," he said, casting a sidelong glance at the hobgoblin.
"How long?"
"By Tuesday it'll be two months." The hobgoblin stared down at the scarred wizard with narrowed eyes.
"She doesn't look that sick to me."
Jeremy shrugged and turned his eye away from the glowering creature. "I came here four weeks ago, sent from ward to ward until I ended up here. Can't say I remember much about that first week, but what I saw of Graingier, she mostly slept. Sometimes she just walked around in a daze…that's when I noticed then that she didn't have any restraints on her- she's not a criminal like us."
"Criminal?" The hobgoblin sneered. "I'm no criminal. I didn't do a damn thing wrong."
"Sure you didn't." Jeremy's gravelly voice melted into a deep chuckle. "Anyways, that girl was completely unresponsive. I'd begun to think she'd had her soul sucked from her or something. But one night she sort of…became conscious, I guess."
The young witch began to stir in her bed, catching Jeremy's eye. Her bandaged hands moved to touch her face and rested on her temples as if to relieve some great headache.
"Hello?" she called tentatively. The girl hurriedly pushed herself up in bed and scanned the white washed room with wide brown eyes. It was very dark inside the ward; at night the lights were dimmed and the High Security ward was usually kept locked up.
"Remus?" her voice came again, softer and more timid. Jeremy sighed and readjusted himself on his pillows.
"Some of us are trying to sleep, you know." The girl jumped slightly, obviously unaware that someone else had been in the room.
"…this is St. Mungo's?"
"What other hospitals in Britain do you know of?" he snapped.
"There are at least a handful of private ones."
"Well, this is St. Mungo's, smartass."
"Where's the healer? Is…is there anyone else here?" her voice was rising again, almost on the verge of panic.
"It's shift change." Jeremy sighed irritably. As if on cue, the ward door rattled slightly and in entered a slip of a nurse. She made a noise of surprise as she recognized the young witch's upright figure.
"Miss Graingier, do you need something?" she asked sweetly.
"What happened to me?" she whispered.
The young healer gave a hasty apology, unsure of how to answer, and told her that she would have to wait for those answers. Hermione fell silent then as Sarah did a quick check up on the high security patients. She had barely closed and locked the door before the tiny witch turned to Jeremy. A grave seriousness had settled over her.
"How long have I been here?"
"What makes you think I know?" Jeremy asked, rubbing the sleep from his eye.
"Your wounds are scabbed over- that takes a few days."
"You've been here longer," he replied. "Much longer. I don't know exactly how long, so don't ask." His gravelly voice took on a note of discomfort and he shifted slightly in his bed. Dim as the lighting may have been, Jeremy could easily see Graingier's body quivering in the shadows, her brown eyes glistening on the verge of tears.
But she did not cry, and the strength in her voice did not waver.
"Have I had any visitors?"
"…not that I've seen. Nurse Catherine would know better than I would, though. So, ah, just go to sleep, yeah?"
The young witch laid back down and spoke no more for the night. Her bandaged fingers rubbed the aching spot where her heart was as hope began to leave her.
'Remus, you bastard. Where are you?'
"That next morning," Jeremy sighed, "was pretty damn strange."
Jeremy woke up to find Hermione sitting up in her bed, her curly brown hair drawn into a tight bun. She was calm and patient, waiting for her answers to walk through the door. Nurse Catherine was as surprised as Nurse Sarah had been as she entered the ward with her med cart.
"Morning, sweetheart. Don't we look lively this morning!" she chirped.
"How long have I been here?"
"Goodness, this is the first time you've spoken like this. I-I suppose it's been six weeks now."
"And have I had any visitors?"
"Yes, you had two. Don't you remember?"
"I can hardly remember a thing. Everything is…terribly fuzzy. Who visited?" Hermione's eyes brightened with burning hope.
"Your headmaster and Chief Bagwell. That's so strange, you really don't remember…"
Jeremy lifted an eyebrow in curiosity. The little witch suddenly looked very pale.
"Is this a joke?"
"No, no joke. Why, what's wr-"
"You are telling me that my headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, and Geoffrey Bagwell of Ministry Security visited me?"
"Yes, darling! They came not two weeks ago."
"Oh." Graingier's eyes became wide, her bandaged hands gripping her sheets tightly. "Oh my God."
"You're starting to worry me. Is there something you need?"
"Yes," she whispered. "Where did they find me?"
"In the Department of Mysteries."
"Was I alone?"
"Yes. You were the only one the Aurors brought into here, and nobody was checked into the morgue."
"And what had happened to me?"
"Oh, dear, nobody's really sure of that. They say they found you covered in glass and blood, but nothing in the entire department had been disturbed. At least, that's what they said when they searched your belongings. You were dying."
"My injuries?" she asked softly. "I've been here so long; they must have been quite bad."
Catherine chuckled some as she made her way through the room in her daily routine. "Bad doesn't cut it. Every bit of you, inside and out, was either fractured or bruised. It's a miracle you made it here."
"And what of Dumbledore? He was really here?"
"Yes, chicky! He and Bagwell asked you a few questions, you know." Jeremy looked seriously over at the young witch.
"You really pissed that bastard Bagwell off, talkin' about some Order he wasn't apart of…"
"The Order? God, what did I say?"
"Just that he wasn't supposed to know about it. He was convinced you were some minion of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but the professor talked him out of it. Convinced him instead that you were a harmless victim of a Death Eater attack or some such thing."
"Yes," Catherine interjected, "he did. He said that when you're discharged, you're to go back to Hogwarts under his care."
"I'm to be a student there?" the young witch whispered.
"Yes; I expect you'll be sent school shopping as soon as you're out- term is approaching quickly. You'll probably be excused from summer homework- isn't that nice?" Nurse Catherine asked with a smile.
"Sounds delightful." Jeremy muttered as he finished the last of his numerous pills. "She just looks brimming with joy. I bet she's always had this much good luck with avoiding homework."
Catherine sighed and headed for the door. "Anything else, dear?"
"Yes," Graingier replied. "I'd like today's newspaper."
The nurse obliged her willingly and left that morning's Daily Prophet on her bedside table before taking her leave. Jeremy couldn't help himself from staring at the girl as she looked to the top of the newspaper page. For what seemed like ages, Hermione continued to stare at the headline of the Daily Prophet.
"Sir," her voice came cautiously. "Wh-"
"Don't give me that 'sir' shit. My name is Jeremy. Use it."
"Jeremy, what is today's date?" The scarred wizard paused for a moment to calculate.
"It should be August 6th." Hermione sighed in response.
"Bagwell is indeed chief of Ministry Security? My God, I've stepped into A History of Magic." She chuckled, seeming more delirious than happy. Reality was teasing her.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm really in 1977?"
"Of course! Christ, what kind of meds are you on?"
Grainger's body, swamped by her bleak hospital gown, began to shake in little spasms. Jeremy was surprised and quite unsure of what to do, especially when the girl's eyes started to glitter with unshed tears. But with a deep breath she swiped them away and opened up the Daily Prophet in her lap.
"We're going to need more newspapers." She said softly. "I need to see what I've been missing."
The day after Jeremy's 'chat' with the hobgoblin, Hermione was officially released from St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. The heavily scarred wizard watched forlornly as Catherine came in to help the young witch prepare herself. Ministry officials were to come by in the afternoon and pick her up, in lieu of the ever-busy Dumbledore.
The young witch sat beside her hospital bed as Nurse Catherine stripped them of their sheets. She was wearing a fashionable set of baby blue robes (brought to her by Nurse Sarah) and had once again pulled her long hair upwards into a tight bun. Jeremy's eye flickered over Hermione's exceptionally pale skin and noted that not a scar was left on her. Only her bandaged fingers remained unhealed.
"You'll study hard, won't you? Seventh year is so important…" Catherine was saying. Hermione nodded vacantly in response. Everything still seemed so unreal to her; there were so many questions that needed to be answered, so many things she couldn't remember and so many things that would absolutely have to go unspoken. Nothing could be settled until she saw Dumbledore again- she would indeed have to return to Hogwarts as a student.
"Let me change those bandages one last time before you leave," her healer went on as she continued to clear away the evidence of Hermione's stay. "In all my years, I've never seen such a strange splinch!"
Jeremy watched curiously as Catherine took out her pieces of gauze, tape, and iodine- simple Muggle remedies. Never before had he seen the young witch's bandages being cleaned, nor any of her scars and wounds before they had been healed. The nurses usually led her away from the leering eyes of suspected criminals and into one of the more private rooms.
"You know, my dear, we still don't understand it. We haven't been able to use magical cures on your wound. Must have been some powerful dark magic!" The large woman chirped as she began to unravel Hermione's old bandages from both her hands.
"No, not dark," Hermione muttered, "Just powerful."
Jeremy's single working eye widened in surprise as the nurse tossed the old, dirty bandages into the hazard bin and began to wipe clean Hermione's fingers. Or, rather, what was left of them. Her left hand was intact, though a bit scarred, and Catherine seemed to be very pleased with it. With a little more time, she promised, it would be right as rain. The nurse didn't even bother to bind it.
Her right hand was a different matter. A good portion of her three longest fingers were missing. Simply not there, as if a searing blade had cut cleanly through them. Jeremy twinged in disgust as he saw that flesh had not grown over where the fingers had been sliced. The whiteness of the bones, the blood, the pinkness of the inner flesh were visible, as if someone had stopped the blood flow but forgot to replace the skin. Catherine doused the fingers with iodine and had just finished wrapping them up as a Ministry official arrived. Hermione hugged the curvy healer and gave a terse goodbye to Jeremy (much to his delight).
"I'll see you again, Graingier!" he called out as she followed the official out into the hall. The young witch snorted in that 'uh-huh, sure we will' sort of way before slipping out and disappearing from sight. The Ministry official was a short, balding man who remained absolutely silent until they reached a Muggle car parked nearby St. Mungo's entrance. As she buckled up, he turned and handed her a very, very familiar looked envelope.
"We're heading straight for Diagon Alley. I'll pick you up in three hours and take you to your room. Whatever shopping you don't finish today, you can do tomorrow." He grunted. Obviously this man had far better things to be doing than driving a young witch to go shopping.
"I-I don't think I have any money," Hermione protested. An exasperated sigh came from the driver's seat.
"Just read the letter."
The young witch looked down at the envelope she had just been handed, blinked for a moment, and then began to laugh. McGonagall's handwriting was unmistakable; it was definitely a letter from Hogwarts. In neatly scrawled cursive, the Professor had addressed the letter to 'Hermes Graingier'.
Hermione chuckled all the way to the Leaky Cauldron.
Old Time, in whose banks we deposit our notes
Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats;
He keeps all his customers still in arrears
By lending them minutes and charging them years.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
Author's Note: Yep, Jeremy will play a very important role later. He's a bit like Sirius, isn't he? I can't remember if that was intentional or not, but it sure works just fine.