Concurrent Existences
Chapter 19: Sentience
Locked within with no choice.
Forced to listen to a voice.
Implored to follow an inborn urge.
Existence without sentience, a scourge.
All Bellatrix could deduce was that this was all Hermione's fault.
At first the dark witch thought that what she saw was a Dementor, but no Dementor ever went inside the targeted victim.
So much for a lazy Saturday. Morgana, save me.
Void.
One being.
Freedom through the veil.
Hunger.
Compulsion.
Forced to coalesce.
One entity.
Back into oblivion.
Weakening.
Escape.
Hunger.
Hermione and Bellatrix quickly brought Luna back into the Room of Requirement before anyone else could stumble upon them. Luckily, the feeling of chill, terror and emptiness was not that strong from the escaped Dementor. The weakened state possibly reduced the radius that the Dementor could affect.
"What the bloody fuck just happened? Did I really see a Dementor enter goody-goody over there?" Bellatrix knew that it was a Dementor, it felt slightly off and a bit weaker, but she, of all people, would know what being around a Dementor felt like. And no, Bellatrix was not worried for the dreamy-eyed girl.
The two witches levitated Luna onto a conjured bed inside the Room of Requirement turned lab. Hermione immediately began waving multiple diagnostic spells and began resetting the wards that she used a while ago. The otter Patronus reformed as well and perched itself above Luna's stomach.
Hermione's mind raced on how to fix this. There was no knowledge whatsoever about a Dementor entering or even possessing a human being, but there also probably wasn't any Dementor that had fragments of the Resurrection Stone infused within it.
Luna's diagnostics were all normal. The only anomaly would be the darkness swirling just above her like a second layer of skin as well as the magical fluctuations of Luna's magical core. Luna's current state seemed to resemble a recovering coma patient.
No. She couldn't lose Luna. Losing her was not an option.
This wasn't supposed to happen. There must be something she could do. She had years of knowledge and now that she needed it, she had nothing? No there has to be-
"Hermione!" Bellatrix. Hermione's mind started to calm itself down once more. Bellatrix calling her without a pet name means that she meant business. How would she explain this travesty to the dark witch?
Such a cluster fuck.
Hermione sighed and mumbled.
"Really, luv?"
"I said, I experimented on the Dementor I caught back when we were in Azkaban..." Hermione drifted off at the end slowly feeling more guilty. All the excitement she had several minutes ago now becoming an empty void in her stomach. Her girlfriend really could make her feel bad about her less intelligent decisions even without trying.
"You experimented."
"Yes." Hermione was now just waiting for Bellatrix to whack her over the head.
"On a Dementor." The disbelief in her voice was palpable.
"Yes." Oh, Merlin, she felt like she was being interrogated by her parents back when she was five years old for breaking a vase with her magic.
Hermione's eyes could barely hold Bellatrix's gaze as the dark haired witch's eyes bored into her own.
"What in the hell were you thinking?!" Bellatrix quickly grabbed Hermione's shoulder hard and made the slightly taller girl face her. Hermione could see the multitude of emotions swirling around in those dark eyes.
"I-" What was she thinking? She just wanted to learn something new. It wasn't meant to hurt anyone.
"Of course you weren't thinking in that pretty little head of yours. Why didn't you tell me?!" The anger and hurt in Bellatrix's voice continued to grow and Hermione really didn't have any comeback. She had thought her wards and fields were enough, but they weren't. She was prepared, but it wasn't enough.
"Bella-"
"No! I knew about this way back during the first few months when we met. Do you actually think I didn't know about all your random experimentation and magical theory?" No, Bellatrix could not have known about any of that. Hermione was careful during her time in the past.
Back in her small hiding place near Black Lake in the past. She had continued her magical theory and experimentation when she wasn't spending time with Bella. But, for Bella to have known about it?
She had multiple wards placed! She had layers and layers of dampening fields!
But, apparently they weren't so perfect after all.
Her wards and fields failed today. She was so sure of her work, that she didn't think anyone could see through or detect it. Apparently, the dark witch already had in the past.
"You knew..." Hermione was grasping at words. The new revelation that Bellatrix knew what she was doing back in the day was hitting too hard.
"I knew! I knew about it all. I knew about the times you nearly blew yourself up. The time you nearly sliced off your arm. The time when you nearly disintegrated yourself with that obliteration spell. Even the time when you used that bunny for the experiment." Bellatrix had known everything, even about the exploding bunny. The bunny was only supposed to be energized, not primed for detonation.
"Why didn't..." The brunette began choking on her words. She could feel tears slowly cloud her vision.
"Because, I trust you. I was giving you enough time to tell me on your own, luv. I thought we'd have more time then, but it wasn't really in my mind that my pretty mudbaby was a time traveler."
Hermione couldn't keep her tears from falling any longer. She was too choked up that she couldn't say anything either. The last time she had cried was when she was about to leave Bellatrix in the past , but it felt like it was long overdue.
It felt like the world was pressing itself upon her.
The stress of keeping Bellatrix safe.
There was the Ron issue still at the back of her mind.
Dumbledore's reappearance.
There was Narcissa and Andromeda's eventually appearance.
There was so much more going on that she didn't know how to keep it all together. How was she dealing with all these facts and calmly going by? It just hit her that there was so much things going on enough to make her even more insane than she actually already was.
Now, she was starting to miss the time limbo, where the only problem she had was finding out how to escape.
Hermione felt the hand gripping her arms soften. She could feel warmth when arms circled around her in a hug. Waves of calm began to resound throughout Hermione's body as the dark witch enveloped her in a loving embrace.
"We'll tackle it all together."
Legilimency. Of course she couldn't hide anything from her dark witch. She didn't even know why she tried to hide a part of her from Bellatrix anyway.
Hermione just buried her head within the smaller girl's neck. Her tears began to slowly subside. She felt her voice would be cracked, so she decided to just keep quiet and stay in the warm embrace.
Funny how the embrace of a murderess and torturess would make her feel as safe as she was when she was in her parent's arms.
"Just trust me with everything, Hermione. I've trusted you with everything, even my life. Please, do the same?"
Hermione just nodded, holding back another fresh wave of tears that threatened to drop. The warmth in which the dark witch spoke just made her feel so much better. It was a bit out of character for Bellatrix to act this way, but Hermione knew that she would only be this way for her and her own sisters.
"Okay, we need to stop with this mushy shite and save Looney. Even I wouldn't want her dead, that's why I didn't even touch her back at the mansion."
Hermione pulled away slightly. "And you wanted me dead?" Hermione's eyes had dried after rubbing it on Bellatrix's robes.
"Dead? Of course not! I wanted you in my bed." Bellatrix leaned closer to Hermione's ear. "That's why I marked you."
"You crazy bitch." Hermione could see Bellatrix slowly lean back.
"Yeah, yeah, you love me." Bellatrix quickly closed the distance between their lips and gave Hermione a searing kiss. A kiss that showed Hermione that everything was alright. Everything between them was the same and the love Bellatrix had for Hermione had never changed, not even knowing about her penchant for experimentation.
Both girls pulled away after a minute, both needed to breathe again.
"I was serious by the way. I may have been under compulsion spells, that temporary Obliviate and other shite before, but I did recognize you on some level. The 'mudblood' scar was actually a curse that would have made any dick that got close to you wither away. It would have made their willies melt right off while keeping them alive of course." Bellatrix had the evil smirk about her and Hermione actually believed her.
The scar actually had a tracking spell and a few other things that must not be named, but Hermione didn't need to know that. The 'mudblood' scar was in the shape of a Raven, but it still had all of the other spell effects still active.
Looks like Ron and any of the Death Eaters that planned to rape her got lucky. Melting privates sounded pretty painful.
A pained groan came out from the side. Both witches reluctantly split apart to attend to the more dire matter at hand.
"We need to figure out how to get the Dementor out."
"What did the experiment detail anyway? What did you do to the bloody thing?" Bellatrix knew that Hermione's magical barriers and wards were nothing to scoff at especially when the brunette was actually ready for it. There was no way an ordinary Dementor would be able to get through those.
"Well... I combined it with the... Resurrection Stone."
"Who's the crazy bitch now?" Just like Hermione to give a Dementor steroids.
Shite.
Feed.
No. The hunger hadn't truly abated, but it could think.
Absorb.
No. Anymore life energy or magical energy stolen would destroy what it had attached itself to.
Hunger.
No. It was sated, yet not. It knew it could never be sated, but it could focus. Hunger wasn't the only thought dominating its mind now.
Purpose.
Yes, it needed a purpose.
But what?
...
"Hello?" A voice.
It could understand it.
It could differentiate it from the static noise and screams it had been hearing all its life. It seemed to slowly gain senses that it was all but numb to.
"Is anyone there? I think I might be lost." The soft voice came out again, but it didn't know how to answer. It didn't really know where the entity calling out was.
In the past, it could detect its victims, its food source, but now it felt blind. It had gained senses, but seemed to lose some in turn.
It wanted to reach out.
It was tired of the static noise and the screams as it fed to satiate its hunger.
It wanted something.
It wanted purpose.
It...
It wanted to live.
Luna was disoriented. The last thing she remembered was a Dementor ram into her before everything had gone black.
As she opened her eyes, the same darkness that had gripped her, greeted her.
Most people would have been scared of the darkness, of being alone, but she had faced worse. There was no point in panicking.
She was alive and she wasn't really feeling any pain, so things mustn't be so bad right? She should have just slept longer in the Room of Requirement.
"Hello?" Luna tried to reach out, but her voice just trailed on before disappearing into the thick darkness.
It seemed that she could at least now see a bit through the darkness, but barely a few meters in front of her as her eyes seemingly adjusted to the dark. She would cast a spell, but her wand was nowhere in sight and not on her body. Maybe a tiny Lumos with her finger?
"Is anyone there? I think I might be lost." Luna knew weird stuff was going to happen this year. As soon as she had seen Hermione interacting with the new girl, it just seemed that everything was going to get chaotic again.
Luna then just noticed the hovering inky blackness hovering just a few feet in front of her. Was it a new creature? Some type of egg? If it meant her harm, it would have probably already done something while she was unconscious.
No time to be afraid. She wasn't the same person as before.
"Lumos." She could at least create a Lumos with her finger to illuminate the area. A Patronus would have been better, but a wandless Patronus wasn't in her spell repertoire just yet.
The immediate area was illuminated and she could see the inky coalescing void in front of her.
It was the thing that had rammed her in the hallway, but it seemed calm right now.
Calm? How could a ball of darkness exude the feeling of calm?
It could only do that if...
If it was alive.
Luna began to reach out to touch the darkness, but before she could even touch the coalescing sphere, darkness erupted from the orb and latched onto her hand.
Her first instinct was to pullback and runaway, but the two feelings quickly dispersed as a calming aura began to envelop her, as if the darkness, itself, wanted her to be calm.
Luna could feel it probing her thoughts. It seemed to be using some type of Legilimency on her.
She let it. She could feel it's curiosity and let it indulge.
It began to indulge too much.
Luna could see what the darkness could see through her memories.
Her childhood years. The only time she could truly be happy when their family was still together.
The moment her mother died and everything began to crumble as she slowly lost her father to his own thoughts.
She could feel herself relive thousands of memories within a few seconds, as if the darkness was looking and reading everything.
As if... it was learning.
Several seconds later, she knew the darkness had learned everything she had. The darkness knew every single thing about her.
The inky void began to coalesce again, without detaching itself from Luna's hand.
Luna could only watch in amazement as a form began to etch out from the sphere of darkness.
Within seconds, the darkness had reformed right in front of her. The darkness that was attached to her hand was no longer darkness, but a hand that was slightly paler than her own.
Two silver orbs caught her gaze.
The darkness had somehow copied her. In front of Luna, still holding her hand, was an imitation of herself, albeit with a slightly paler skin tone.
I think a Dreamisite is trying to eat my brain. It was either that or too much butter beer.
"Hi?" Luna tilted her head. She could still be polite and greet... it?
"... Luna." The voice that came out of the imitation was pretty close to her own voice, but seemed to be colder and unsure.
This was definitely the weirdest dream ever. She'd need to tell Helena about this.
"Yes? I'm Luna Lovegood, who might you be?"
The imitation tilted its head as if to copy Luna, but the silver orbs still held her gray ones.
"I..."
ooooo
It knew it was a Dementor from its hosts memories and from its own perspective, but now?
It had grown sentient somehow, but needed a stable magical source. The closest magical source at the time was not only too powerful, but had a blinding illumination atop her head that it had to flee.
A perfect host had not been so far away.
It didn't know much about anything and so, it copied. The host that it inhibited had a vast amount of knowledge and memories that it began to explore within several seconds.
Yet...
It still didn't know anything.
It had no meaning.
It had no name.
It had no purpose.
But, it wanted a meaning.
It wanted a name.
It wanted a purpose.
It still didn't have any of these, but it would.
"I..." It had copied its host's form, but it could not take the host's name.
Luna.
Moon.
Volana.
Having a meaning and purpose would elude it for the time being, but for now?
It would at least have a name.
"I am Volana."
Lumos - Light/Illuminate
Dreamisite - Dream Parasite that gives the host weird dreams. Very common creature that is relatively harmless.
AN: Sorry for the delay, Black Desert is eating most of my time along with real life stuff.
Volana is the Malagasy translation of Moon which is also a variant of Luna. Volana just stood out and decided to use it. The OC will in no way hi-jack the story, so rest assured. I normally don't put OC's, but I need this one for something.
Dementors do not have a magical core and are beings of darkness. The Resurrection Stone is part 'darkness' and part magical, that is why it resonated with the Dementor. The Dementor was given the Resurrection Stone that was absorbed and began to let the Dementor develop a magical core, that's why it needed to attached itself and absorb magical energy from a host. Just putting this here to clarify.
Volana, The Sentient Dementor... Hm. I actually need a name for a sentient Dementor. Any ideas? Is that termed coined somewhere?
This chapter was supposed to be longer, but I barely got this out right now.
Thank you for the patience and I hope you enjoy this chapter at least!
Feedback is appreciated!