Sorry for the delay this week, I've been busy. Next chapter should be back to my Tuesday-Wednesday timeline.
Hope you like this chapter! Things are about to start moving, get ready.
Word count: 2278
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Chapter 4: a vision in the darkness
After that initial discussion, dinner is a quiet affair. Under Hermione's mostly absent gaze, Remus, Luna and Daphne conduct whatever business they had planned on conducting before Hermione had interrupted their evening—something that she almost feels sorry for, but doesn't because of the scare they gave her earlier.
Hermione still has many questions, since what answers she got didn't exactly tell her everything she'd wanted to know. For example, she still doesn't know what it is, exactly, that this 'Resistance' is doing—she's never heard of them, after all, and history has always proven that secret societies were never all that secret.
Still, at least they've reassured her that she can probably somewhat trust these people, if only because they seem to personally know Harry, and Harry worked with them—she knows her brother; he wouldn't work with bad people.
She's so absorbed in trying to follow the conversation before her—a report of some kind, it seems, from Daphne, who appears to know an awful lot about the e Soulmate Researching Department's (or SRD) efforts to find her—that she doesn't notice Ginny coming back with a full pitcher of water.
"Your water, sir," she tells Remus, even though his glass is still about half full. Remus nods seriously, and nods at Ginny to put the pitcher down on the table. Hermione can't remember hearing him order water, but she supposes that she could have easily missed him gesturing at the waitress.
"Oh, thank you," Hermione smiles, clearing a small space on the table so the redhead can put it down and shaking her earlier thoughts away. It hardly matters why Remus ordered water, after all, and honestly, Hermione is rather glad for it—she finished her drink a while back, and she's feeling quite parched now.
"You're welcome," Ginny smiles back, before nodding politely at the other occupants of the table and leaving.
Hermione pours herself a glass almost immediately and downs half of it one gulp, or so it seems.
"Thirsty much?" Daphne smirks.
"So, what if I am?" Hermione replies, shrugging. "It's just water, it's not like I'm downing shot of tequila after shot of tequila."
"True," Daphne concedes. "Then, please, go ahead," she says, gesturing at the pitcher.
Hermione huffs in amusement, but she does refill her glass.
She's halfway through her third—who'd have thought she could get this thirsty—when Remus clears his throat and calls Ginny over for the bill.
"Ready to go?" Luna asks, looking at Hermione with eyes that are almost too wide to be real.
"Ready to get my answers, yes," Hermione retorts, standing up and grabbing her coat.
Remus smiles at her sympathetically, but nods. "And you will get them. But first, I assume you live not far from this place?"
"It won't hold us all, if that's what you're asking," Hermione states, taken aback. She frowns. "It's much too small for that."
Remus simply huffs a short laugh. "No, that's not what I meant—just that you should leave first, grab what you need, and meet us back here. We won't all be leaving at the same time, so you'll get about twenty minutes to meet us back here."
"I'll be driving," Luna pipes up enthusiastically, shiny silver keys dangling from her index fingers, and Hermione bites back a laugh at how that makes Daphne and Remus groan.
"See you soon, then," Hermione says.
Twenty minutes is plenty of time to get to her place and back, but she still finds herself running, heart hammering in her chest. She has a feeling they wouldn't wait for her long if she didn't show on time, and the idea of this one chance at getting answers slipping through her fingers is terrifying.
She can hear her heart pound in her ears as she slips the key into the lock, and her hands are shaking with adrenaline so much that it seems to take her forever to actually open her door. It's a matter of seconds to grab what little cash she's collected and hidden through the small apartment (if it can even be called that), and she pens a letter quickly, stating to her landlord that if she's not back in time to pay him next week, he can sell whatever she's left behind.
It's not like those things are hers anyway—most of them she found or salvaged, and while it would suck to lose them, they don't really hold any sentimental value to her. Everything that does, she already carries with her in case she has to run.
Or, as it turns out, in case she has to join some so-called 'Rebellion'.
Locking the door behind her turns out to be just as difficult as opening it had been—a mix of the fatigue of the last few months finally catching up to her now that she actually has an end in sight, she's sure, and of the excitement-tinged fear that curses through her veins at the idea of following strangers to god knows where.
She leans against the door for an instant, hit by the sudden feeling that she will never see this place again. She feels almost dizzy for it—this place might have been crap, but she had chosen it, and it had been safe. She'll miss it.
She jogs back up to the bar—she doesn't have a watch, so she isn't sure how long she took, but by her count she has a couple of minutes to spare.
She doesn't have to wait long before a black van pulls her to her. It looks worn down, like it has seen better days—it looks like it belongs in this place, and that thought makes Hermione smile.
The side door slides open and Remus offers her a hand. "Get in," he says.
"Couldn't you get any vehicle even more cliché?" Hermione snorts as she gets in, the door sliding shut behind her—the sound of it so final it seems to echo down to her bones.
"I'm sure we could have, if we had wanted to do," Remus replies, amused smile playing on his lips. He frowns when Hermione sways a little, and he scoots over, hands hovering above her arms nervously. "Are you alright? Maybe you should sit down."
Hermione blinks, surprised to find her vision surprisingly blurry, but sitting does help. "It's nothing," she replies, waving the concern away with a tight smile. "I pro'a'ly just got a li'le d'zzy f'r a mo'ent, I'll 'e 'i'e." She yawns and frowns. "I just got a little dizzy, I'll be fine," she tries to repeat, but her speech is just as confused as it was seconds before.
Her tongue sits heavy in her mouth, and opening her mouth again asks for more energy than she has.
This isn't normal, her mind scream, but Hermione is already too far gone for the sharp burst of panic to do anything but make her heart beat faster. "I think I've been drugged," she tries to say, because this feels like what she imagines being drugged feels like. She's not sure what comes out, since her speech sounds so slurred to her ears, so she tries to repeat herself.
Daphne's voice, when it pierces through the haze that now surrounds Hermione's mind, seems to come from very far away.
"Is she alright?" she asks, groaning as she contorts from her place on the passenger seat to peer at the back seats.
"She should be," Remus hums. "Is it supposed to act this fast? I thought we'd have more time… She nearly collapsed on the street."
"Well, she did drink a lot," Daphne says, but she does sound a little concerned. "Hey, Luna, is this normal?"
"She'll be fine," Luna's voice confirms. To Hermione, it sounds almost like a lullaby—added to the slight rocking of the van as Luna drives and the way Remus lowers her slowly onto the seat so she's half lying down, it becomes impossible for Hermione to keep her hold onto reality.
The darkness welcomes her with open arms, and Hermione sinks into it gladly.
.x.
Awareness comes to Hermione in waves, in faraway sounds that caress her ears like a summer breeze, there an instant and lulling her back under the next.
"Here, Daphne, you should take over now."
"What, tired already, Lovegood?"
"No, but I think Remus would appreciate some more room to spread his legs, and I'm the shortest one here—I can stay in the back with Hermione."
A huff. "Fine, whatever, just pull over and we'll switch."
…
A hand running slowly through her hair, fingers untangling painful knots.
"Shh, sleep, you're going to be just fine. We're almost there, you know—you're going to love it there, you'll see."
The gesture is so soothing Hermione eases back into it, throat vibrating a little.
"Is she waking up?"
A hum. "No, I don't think so."
No, Hermione isn't waking up, but there is something there—a door, almost, standing just at the edge of the field of darkness Hermione is in. It hovers there, too, shimmering slightly, at the corner of what would be her eyes if she was awake, and when Hermione tries to reach for it, it seems to shift away, taunting her.
She reaches for it again, and again, and again, until it feels like she hits something.
It rings in her head, something sharp like glass shattering into a thousand pieces, and Hermione falls.
.x.
Hermione opens her eyes in a room she doesn't recognize. The concrete walls around her are a dirty grey, and the white ceiling seems to press down on her.
Her body feels tired and slow when she tries to move it, her limbs following her thoughts with some delay or not at all. It is an odd, uneasy feeling, where she feels like she was submerged in a vat of molasses, struggling to stay afloat.
The cotton sheets are rough on her skin as she pushes them away, and the tile floor is so cold that her toes curl on themselves, a shiver passing through her.
Overhead, a rough, angry voice shouts something Hermione doesn't understand, and her body flinches back before she knows what's happening.
A shrill alarm starts ringing after that, and Hermione's blood freezes in her veins. Run, her brain seems to be telling her, but no matter how hard Hermione tries to start moving, her body doesn't obey her. It walks slowly, steadily, toward a sort of bathroom corner Hermione hadn't really noticed before.
Under the white ceiling lights, the sink and shower curtains look very dreary; like the setting of the horror movies her father loves to watch and that Harry and Hermione peeked in on from the stairs.
She doesn't look in the mirror when she gets to the sink. Instead, she rests her hands on both side of the cold, white ceramic, eyes burning with unshed tears as she heaves a long sigh, before reaching for her toothbrush.
Hermione wants to recoil—wants to scream—when catches sight of her arms, so pale and thin she can see the blue veins snaking up, the skin inside her elbows marred purple from painful needle marks.
Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Those words echo in her head, but Hermione doesn't understand until she looks up into the mirror and doesn't recognize the face looking back at her, with its pale skin, silvery-blonde hair hanging limply around her face and eyes so blue Hermione could get lost in them.
In other circumstances, Hermione is sure that this woman would be gorgeous; but here, she looks half-dead already, and Hermione's heart ache at the thought.
Almost as if she hears her thoughts, the woman looks down at her right wrist, left fingers coming to rub at a scarred patch of skin there—and suddenly, Hermione knows exactly who the face in the mirror belongs to.
This is her soulmate, whoever she is—wherever, she is. Somehow, Hermione just saw where her soulmate was, and it isn't a happy place.
In fact, Hermione would bet anything that the SRD have her already. These few moments Hermione just witnessed certainly seem to fit with the stories Harry told her in the dead of night.
The woman Hermione still doesn't know the name of—but now desperately wants to—looks so down that Hermione can't resist the urge to try to send her some comfort, to tell her 'I'm here, you're not alone' and hope that it is enough to help her, even for a single second.
Hermione doesn't expect the reaction she gets—in the mirror, the woman's eyes widen in horror and her toothbrush slips through her now limp fingers, a silent 'no' falling from her lips.
In the blink of an eye, Hermione is ejected from her place behind that woman's eyes, flung back toward the empty, warm darkness she had forgotten even existed.
This time, when she blearily blinks herself awake, she's in her own body, even if she doesn't really know where she is.
The sunlight blinds her as it hits her eyes, the metallic sound of the side door sliding open echoing inside her head almost painfully, but the fresh air that rushes in makes her shiver and immediately wakes her up more effectively than anything else could ever have.
"Where are we?" Hermione asks, choosing to tackle the 'who drugged me' issue once that was settled.
In the early sunlight, Daphne's hair shines like a halo around her head, making her look like some holy messenger.
"Welcome," she says, grinning widely, "to Hogwarts."