Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter, not me. All characters and plot that are in her books are hers.
Authors note: I will post on this fanfiction every week to every other week. Now that I'm working on another fanfiction (I will post the 1st chapter soon) I will be alternating posting on this and posting on my other fanfiction. My new fanfiction will be called On the Other Side of the Mirror. A quick summary;
Hermione Granger, along with the rest of last year's 7th years, is back at Hogwarts to study for their N.E.W.T.s. But, at the sorting, there's a transfer girl who looks like Hermione's mirror image. She calls herself Cleopatra Flamel. Who is this girl, and why is she here? But, as Hermione quickly finds out, the closer you look, the less you see…
Also, thank you to my reviewers!
Darkness - suffocating blackness… The big shiny thing in the sky - where was it? Where were the other, smaller shines? Where was mama? Papa?
"Mama?" She whispered, frightened, as a gust of wind pushed her backwards, "Papa?".
Stones… darkness… wind… light! There was light!
Light and darkness, swirling around her like they were to fighters in a battle Papa always watched on the big, black screen… wait… Papa!
There was a blinding flash, and then she was falling down, down into the darkness, never to go back to the shimmering light…
Hermione awoke with a gasp. He looked around quickly, and then slumped when she saw that she was still in the closet with Harry.
She had had dreams like this one for as long as she could remember - she supposed it was of right before her parents'... before she was found by the orphanage.
Settling back down, Hermione turned over to see Harry shifting restlessly. He was tossing and turning, his part of the blanket thrown off to her mattress. Hermione quietly got up so she wouldn't wake him when Harry let out a whimper. Hermione froze, recognizing the signs of a bad dream. She stretched her hand out to wake him. She would rather be awoken by someone else than have to go through her nightmares, so Harry probably did as well. She tapped him on the shoulder a bit hesitant, but Harry didn't awake.
"Harry!" Hermione urgently whispered as he whimpered again. She shook him harder this time, and he jerked up into a sitting position, breathing heavily. He grappled for something on the shelf besides him, grabbing his glasses and jamming them on.
"Are you alright?" Hermione asked, sitting back on her mattress. Harry nodded slowly. Hermione frowned. He was lying, she could tell. She watched him stare up at the ceiling, his breathing slowly steading. After a few minutes, he turned back to her.
"Thanks for waking me." He said shortly, and laid back down. Hermione laid down as well. The stared into each other's eyes for awhile. In Harry's eyes, Hermione saw fear, confusion, and hesitation. She slowly brought her hand over to his mattress and laid it on top of his, hoping to comfort him. Harry took her hand and squeezed it. He looked into her eyes for one last moment before he closed his. Hermione watched as he fell back asleep, his breathing back to normal.
Hermione closed her eyes as well, knowing that she had succeeded in making Harry feel comforted. The strange thing was, with Harry still holding onto her hand, she was too.
When Hermione awoke again, Harry was still holding onto her hand. He awoke a few seconds after she did, quickly pulling his hand away with a blush on his cheeks. After a moment of awkward silence, Harry went back downstairs to change, taking his mattress with him. The two met up in the kitchen.
"What do they typically like to eat on Sundays?" Hermione asked Harry, who was quietly setting up the table. He was reaching up to get the cups from the highest shelf.
"Bacon, milk, and usually a pastry - they go out to get the pastry, though." Harry replied, putting down a napkin. Hermione was suddenly struck by an idea on how to get on the Dursley's good side. She quickly checked the time - it was 5 - and started.
During her cooking, Harry finished setting the table, washed the windows, and went out to tend to the garden. He was drawn back in at around seven, however, at the smell of doughnuts. When he entered the kitchen, he saw that Hermione was frosting homemade doughnuts! Hermione could tell that his mouth was watering at the sight, so she slipped one into his hand and mouthed;
'Eat it in the cupboard.'
Harry gave her a giant grin and went off to his cupboard. Hermione looked around, quickly shoving a doughnut into her mouth. She didn't know what was going to be leftover for her and Harry after Vernon and Dudley came through, after all. A few minutes later, Hermione had finished the doughnuts and some bacon, Harry had come back out from the cupboard, and Dudley and Vernon were coming downstairs. You could tell by the loud footsteps, one slower and the other faster, making a pitter-patter sound. The two came into the kitchen, sniffing at the food.
"Good morning!" Hermione said, fixing her smile, "I made homemade doughnuts and bacon - I hope you like it!".
Vernon and Dudley both stared at the doughnuts. Dudley got out of his superior first, grabbing a plate and putting three of the six doughnuts on it. As an afterthought, he took six pieces of bacon. Vernon grabbed the last of the doughnuts and four pieces of bacon, leaving Harry and Hermione with three pieces of bacon each. Harry sat on the stool farthest from the Dursleys, leaving Hermione to have to sit between Dudley and him. Hermione gave Harry a short glare before sitting down and eating. The two Dursleys ate like pigs, frosting around their mouths and - in Dudley's hair?, leaving Hermione feeling disgusted. She kept her head down, though, eating her bacon in silence, like Harry did.
"I'm gonna go to the park with the gang." Dudley said, his mouth full, to his father. Vernon nodded, standing up and leaving, his plate licked clean. As Dudley left as well, Harry, finished with his bacon, went to clear the dishes. Hermione helped him, and together they cleaned up the kitchen in only a few minutes.
The day passed with Harry and Hermione doing chores, Dudley out to play, and Vernon watching TV. Hermione found a pile of laundry and a stack of bills awaiting her, so she got to work, mentally cursing the Dursleys. She first addressed the laundry. As she watched the washing machine cycle, she thought about what she had done to Lindsay.
It was an undiscovered force. Well, either that, or a hidden one. Somehow, she had, on her will to do so, made Lindsay's wrist to break.
But how? Hermione thought back to the scene. She remembered wanting for Lindsay's wrist to break. Wait… she was looking at Lindsay's wrist at the time, and she had seen it happen in her mind. So it was a matter of will, visualization, and… direction, to do it.
The sciences didn't make sense, which drove her crazy. She was a college level scientist, but this? The problem wasn't that the sciences were complex, but what she had done had defied the whole lot of them. Every rule, every exception...Hermione didn't dare to think that they were all wrong. That she, over a book, had proved that humans were wrong for centuries. Nope. NOT HAPPENING.
A beeping noise jolted her out of her thoughts. It's already done? Hermione looked at the clock on the wall to realize that she'd been standing there for forty five minutes. She sighed, thinking of the bills ahead of her, and put the wet clothes into the drier.
The rest day went without incident, Hermione cooking pizza for lunch and lasagna for dinner. Yet again, she and Harry only got small portions while Vernon and Dudley ate the rest. Her anger only grew stronger, but she coiled it in with ropes. Harry came back to her closet at night, mattress in hand and dirt from the garden still on his face and hands. Another rule the Dursleys had was that Harry and Hermione would only shower on Monday and Thursday mornings, too 'preserve water', so Vernon put it. That didn't stop them from taking showers, though. Hypocrites.
"School ends at three." Harry reminded her (though she didn't need reminding) as they laid down, "Uncle Vernon will be back at around five thirty. Dudley likes to go to the park with his friends after school, so he'll probably be back at six.". Hermione noticed that he said friends with fear and - a bit of jealousy? She filed the information away after contemplating it for awhile.
"Goodnight Harry." Hermione whispered, turning over.
"'Night, Hermione." Harry replied.
The next day started off with Hermione making sausages, pancakes, and eggs. She, yet again, gave some to Harry and ate some herself before the Dursleys came down, hungry from yesterday's pitiful meals. When the Dursleys came down, they didn't notice or suspect a thing, which made Hermione mentally shake her head.
Harry and Dudley left for school at ten minutes to seven, Vernon leaving a few minutes after them. The doorbell rang at seven o'clock on the dot, and Hermione opened it to reveal a woman that looked to be in her mid forties. She had blue eyes and sandy blond hair that was pulled into a bun. The woman squinted her, looking her over, and then said;
"You're Hermione Granger? I'm the private tutor. Amelia Baterberry."
Hermione nodded and stood aside to let Ms. Baterberry in, who was looking rather disbelievingly at her. Hermione saw this and stiffened a bit, feeling rather offended. So what if she was just an eleven year old? Hermione shoved these thoughts aside, however. Ms. Baterberry took her rather heavy coat off and hung it up in the closet before turning back to Hermione.
"Shall we adjourn to the office?" Hermione asked politely. Ms. Baterberry nodded, and they did so. The sat down on either side of the table. Ms. Baterberry handed Hermione a thick packet.
"Today I shall just asses the level you are at." She said, and Hermione started, almost choking as she saw algebra on the first page. SERIOUSLY?
Hermione breezed through the packet, thankful that there were some college level problems on the last few pages. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ms. Baterberry's eyebrows were practically raising past her hairline, which made Hermione immensely smug.
The next packet was for science, and Hermione completed it in the same manner as the first. She worked through all of the packets, stopping for lunch at twelve (she quickly made sandwiches for both of them). Surprisingly, she did well on most of the vocabulary she didn't know, basing her answers on Latin, Greek, and other roots. She also completed the Spanish, Latin, Greek, French, German, and Mandarin folders with ease. Social studies, on the other hand, she only could go up to what she had learned in that class. Ms. Baterberry checked Hermione's previous packets as Hermione worked. At the end, Hermione drew a rather terrible owl for art and sung a few songs for music to which Ms. Baterberry covered her ears (there was a reason she'd never liked choir).
"You're college level in math, science, english, and foreign languages," Ms. Baterberry conceded at around two forty five as they packed up, surprising Hermione with the last two, "But you're at a higher level in math and science than the rest. For social studies, you're at 12th grade, but art and music..."
"I would prefer not to take those." Hermione cut in, and Ms. Baterberry nodded, relieved. She left a few minutes later, her impression of Hermione having improved.
The day went on, Harry coming back from school around thee, like he said. Dudley didn't make an appearance until Hermione went to shop for groceries.
She was going out of the house when she spotted Harry, who was still working in the garden, surrounded by five boys, the ringleader being Dudley. Three of the other boys were a little less giant than Dudley was, their stomachs sagging down. They held their fists up, taunting Harry with a few mock-punches. Every time they did so, Harry winced backwards, and they would laugh, grinning at each other. One skinny boy was holding Harry's arms back, a sick smile on his face. The tools Harry had been using were scattered around him. Oh, how Hermione wanted to wipe those smiles off their fat faces. Hermione's anger quickly ignited, for her frustration with the Dursleys was like oil, but she roped it in again with a thicker rope, throwing it to a corner of her mind.
That was when Dudley brought his fist up, ready to strike Harry.
It all happened at once. Dudley's fist was closing in, and the ropes around Hermione's anger began to break. It was only when Harry's face was inches away from being hurt when the ropes broke. Hermione flicked her hand, tunneling all of her anger at Dudley and his hand, practically seeing it breaking like what he deserved -
Crack.
Dudley began to scream, holding his hand like it was broken and toppeling backwards onto the grass. Hermione smiled in satisfaction as Dudley ran into the house, tears flooding out of his eyes. The other four boys backed away from Harry, who was looking very confused, and ran, whimpering all the way like little babies. After they ran out of sight, Hermione turned her attention back to Harry.
"It wasn't me." Harry said as Hermione looked at him, mistaking her satisfaction for fear, "It wasn't - ".
"BOY!" Vernon came running outside and grabbed Harry by the ear, pulling him inside. Hermione, suddenly fearful, followed. She walked into the house to see Harry being shut in his cupboard.
"You'll be in there for two months!" Vernon shouted at the door, which he quickly locked, "Look what you did to poor Dudders - you broke his hand with your freakishness!".
Indeed, Dudley, who had gotten inside, was whimpering in the corner. He held out his hand to show that it was broken. The feeling of satisfaction arose in Hermione again at the sight of the oddly-bent hand, but this time it was coupled with fear. She had done it again.
Hermione walked into the hallway, moving towards Harry's still locked cupboard. She unlocked it with a click and opened the door to reveal Harry, looking up with wide, frightened eyes. Once he saw who she was, he immediately relaxed, scooting over to make room for her on his mattress.
"Here." Hermione said as she sat down, passing him an apple. The two Dursleys had left to go to the hospital after locking Harry in the cupboard, ordering Hermione not to open the cupboard and not to give Harry any food. They said that they would probably stay overnight. Of course, it had only been a few minutes after they left when Hermione had disobeyed both orders.
"Come on," Hermione said after Harry took a couple rabid bites, "I'll make dinner."
Harry looked at her questioningly, and Hermione impatiently answered;
"They're gone. Off to the hospital – they'll be back tomorrow." Hermione replied, pushing the cupboard door open all of the way, standing up, and walking out. Harry hesitantly followed her into the kitchen, where Hermione quickly got to work, making a rather large dinner for two. She was taking four taco shells out of fridge and placing them in the oven to warm them up when Harry began to talk.
"I saw you." Harry said to her. Hermione froze. Did he know? "You flicked your hand at him right before his hand broke.".
Hermione shortly nodded, grabbing some canned beans from the shelf. Despite her outward calmness, inside, red lights were flashing everywhere, spelling out; He knows.
"You did it for me." Harry said, his voice full of wonder. Hermione turned back to him, confused. Why wasn't he freaking out? She had just told him that she broke Dudley's hand while standing ten feet away.
"I can do it too." Harry continued at Hermione's confused look, "Whenever they cut my hair, it always seemed to grow back. One time, I somehow made these ugly clothes Aunt Petunia got for me shrink until it probably could fit a doll. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon called it freakishness – they said that my mother and father were freaks. And I'm a freak too.".