The single fluorescent lamp buzzing in the Spice Shop's small bathroom gave her skin a waxy, gray tone. Black rimmed eyes, powder burns, a mangled ear and matted hair stared back at her. Dark liquid oozed from rows of ugly stitches. Her teeth chattered endlessly and her body ached for the warmth of the electric blankets.
Breathing shot jolts through her chest. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. Swallowing against her cottony throat burned. The thermometer had read one hundred and three. Hermione sagged against the door jamb.
George said to call him.
So tired. She craved sleep. She pushed against the wall and reached for the workbench. The floor came up hard. Her head bounced. Round puffs of hairy dust fluttered under the lowest shelf. She pushed but couldn't get her knees under her.
She needed George, but she was so tired.
Hissing and crackling. She mumbled something and then the pain in her chest roared when they hauled her to the workbench. The white haired veterinarian folded an old stethoscope back into his satchel. His mouth mimed, "Infection." Freddy nodded and ran a hand through his fluffy mop of black hair. Pain shook her out of her stupor when something stabbed into her side. The old man poked a small round tube into her side, taped her up, and then sat her in a chair. Black blobs of goo and brown liquid flowed into a plastic bowl.
Another needle went into her arm and gathered blood into small vials. A new IV bag filled her with more medicine sent icy chills all the way from her elbow to her shoulder. Then they brought her broth and a canned protein shake.
She was working on a cup of tea when Father Timothy showed up with two nuns and her baby. Snuggling him into her chest steeled her resolve to fight.
-/-
She looked like a zombie. The massive doses of amoxycillin left everything smelling like dried bubble gum, but it cleared up the goo flowing out of her side in two weeks. Yoghurt with some jelly helped soothe the stomach protesting her current digestive abuse. Buttermilk helped more, but she had yet to find a single solution for the flavor.
The memory of her friends cursing and beating her and burning in the fiery place still rubbed her emotions raw, especially since it replayed every time her eyes closed. Their hatred still hurt. She had truly expected them to be happy to see her, perhaps welcomed her as a long lost friend, but not one of them had.
The death certificate flipped over and over in her fingers. She laid it with the wire tag that had been tied to her toe. It was so clinical. Cause of death: exsanguination. The bullet almost missed. It barely clipped her jugular, but it was enough. The blast had torn her ear, but that was growing back.
Ironically, the paperwork said Jessica Mallory had died again. That wasn't right. It was actually Hermione Granger that did the dying this time. What would the girl's parents do when the body turned up missing? Would they even be notified? She thought back to her own horror of arriving at her parents' house, expecting a warm welcome and finding death. She would put it right.
Just not today.
Her joints creaked in protest as she shuffled between her workbench and bookshelves in the spice shop. Bellatrix's wand swished an incendio across the top of the bunsen burner, but nothing happened. Her magic still wasn't working, but she could mix potions just fine. The sparker clicked the fire to life and she ground through a dozen Wesen specific allergy remedies, birth control, and fertility supplements for Freddy's customers.
It was just as well. There were some nice things about magic, like charming brooms and mops to do all the cleaning. All the rest was just trouble and pain. How many times had she fantasized of waking up a normal girl without a single scrap of magic, just so she could leave Hogwarts and all its drama behind forever. She resented their intentional ignorance of the other 99.999% of the world's population, and worse, the implication that being the brood mare for pureblood society was the highest possible ambition for Hermione Granger.
She hated the accusation that she stole magic. Not a single soul ever asked her if she wanted it. Not even Harry attempted to learn HOW she got it. What the hell was she supposed to do with love potions and transfiguration spells in real life? Oh, and don't dare question divination. They ought to ask the question: Why did ancient pureblood families consign their matrons to blood sacrifice in the Contaminatuo? Never speak of Lord Malfoy's estate receiving a forty-year land stamp tax exemption in exchange for Draco's great great aunt's "contribution." She still remembered that sweet, old woman's heart squirming in her hand.
Dumbledore's cheerleading effort to save the world from Voldemort's existential threat had kept her there. Now she knew that nobody else in the entire world even paid it any attention. The European Magical Parliament and MACUSA viewed it as another kooky British political squabble. Wesen treated it like last week's weird Wizard cult shenanigans in an infinite history of weird wizarding cult mischief... And the muggles? Nobody wanted muggles involved - they would just do what they always did...
She bottled up the green, blue, and orange liquids and then counted out the compounded pills and suppositories. Washing out the mixing bowls and scouring the retorts was easy enough. It was better than good. Even with the nightmares of the fiery world, she would never trade a single scrap of the peace she had now for her old life back. The ancients, Demons, I suppose, had been dragged out of her. The gritty tracks in her throat were a testimony to the power the priest had harnessed against them. They had been like children tugging against the bumper of a delivery truck. Luckily, she had plenty of healing potions. She was basically living on Wiggenweld, Skelegrow, blood replenisher, and a dozen others on top of a meat and dairy heavy diet to replace the dead tissue.
Freddy brought her over to his duplex for a proper shower. His mother gawked and gasped at the gristly rows of stitches and her sallow complexion as she wrapped her in clingfilm. The woman's knobby fingers gently coaxed the mat of blood out of her hair and left her feeling human again.
Mostly.
A quick rap on the door brought the priest and half a dozen nuns into the tiny living room. Nestled in white blankets was a special surprise. Mark was coming home to her! Freddy's mother bounced the baby and announced, "I told them it wasn't right to keep this precious boy, what with you back in the land of the living."
The nuns stared and asked questions until she pulled up her shirt and displayed the rows of stitches zig-zagging the weeping staple holes covering her flaccid belly. It was like they expected the whole thing to be some sort of strange dream that would evaporate under dawn's scrutiny.
Then came the question. "So, what was it like being dead?"
She told them the whole thing. The part about being demon possessed and trying to save them and her baby by killing herself. The part about getting up off the floor and trying to help the other girls, then seeing herself dead and getting sucked into the floor and ending up in the burning world. She recounted the demons being dragged out and the being stuck there for thousands of years and how everyone hated her and was constantly trying to kill her, but it never worked. Then she told them about being dragged back out of that place and waking up in a drawer in the morgue.
They all stared. The word dribbled out of all of them in one voice.
Hell.
The veterinarian's words echoed in her head, "Happen to see Hades while you were down there?"
-/-/-/-/-/-
Along with the boxes of diapers, baby supplies, bottles, and the breast pump, the priest had left a blue cover church book that must have been printed forty years prior. This one opened without issue and she found the passage about casting the demons out of the man. Then she found the passage about the dead man being raised. She laughed out loud when the woman in the passage said, "He stinketh." She read it over and over and over, searching for the preparation, ritual offerings, ceremony, or spells required, but like the thunderous voice that tore her free, there was none. It made no sense. That's not how either magic or the ancients worked, but it was what happened.
Her hearing returned fitfully. It was a few days before the ringing and hissing was gone. A throat full of gravel made it hard, but her voice was coming back as well. The priest visited and said some prayers over her and the baby. She sipped some water, then croaked out, "Sorry about your church."
"Nonsense. The church isn't the building. It's the people."
Yet another thing that made no sense.
He continued, "Mark is beautiful. Such striking green eyes."
Her face was hot as her smile bubbled up. It felt so dopey, but she couldn't help but smile every time anybody complimented her baby.
He brushed over her shoulder. "How long were you possessed?"
"Since I was nine. I was dying of bone cancer and my parents made a deal with witches."
He nodded. "And they were murdered."
"By a street gang in Perth. Beat their skulls in with cricket bats. I did... Things... For the ancients. Very bad things."
"I'm so sorry for your loss." Genuine concern radiated off him. He actually meant it.
She pulled at him. But he bounced the baby a bit and laid a warm hand on her shoulder, "You're forgiven."
Her stomach knotted. All the pent up guilt and shame overflowed and she was sobbing. It was impossible to ever forgive that. Not her, and not what she had done. And then he repeated it again. The words burned into her like fire.
Wiizarding Weekly announced that Harry Potter might finally be charged with something and granted a trial, date to he determined. Rita Skeeter dutifully reminded readers that he had robbed Gringotts and had used dozens of types of illegal magic while fighting at Hogwarts. Hermione steamed when old bugface recounted the deaths of those poor students while he was on the warpath.
A week later, she was back in the church. Freddy had protested her moving out, but it simply wasn't fair to him. He also protested her retuning to work nights with him making potions. She countered that not only did she need the money and the continued potion doses, it wasn't healthy to stay cooped up. Her joints stiffened and locked when she stayed still too long.
The next article sang the praises of The Ministry's squib exile pogrom which was rebadged as muggle integration efforts. They cited the success of transferring world renowned antiquities curator, Dr. Argus Filch, to The London Museum. Her breath sucked in and fury rippled through her chest as she read a partial list of the Hogwarts custodian's curriculum vitae. Why had Dumbledore NEVER ONCE mentioned the man's FIVE PHD's, including his research into removing ancient and complex dark curses from antiquities?
Then came the wedding markets. Unsurprisingly, there were a herd of muggleborn girls as young as twelve being married off to avoid exile. Sold was probably the correct terminology, as the events resembled livestock auctions. Predictably, the rest of the world enacted more sanctions against Wizarding England for sponsoring the sex trafficking of minors. Maybe it would have made her blood boil if she wasn't bleary eyed from feedings every two hours then pumping half an hour in between, twelve diapers, and ten-thousand changes of clothes per day.
The whole world disappeared into the sour milk and diaper cream scented haze of single motherhood. She was working, going to school, and raising her baby while living with Ellen in a tiny "Mother's" quarters at the church. The one single moment she clawed to retain was morning chapel with Father Timothy.
As the months passed, the line between Hermione and Kay blurred and then disappeared. The girls only called her Minnie, though. They listened to her in ways that they wouldn't with the church women. They saw one like themselves with scars and burns and words carved into her arm who made it out and was having a normal life with school and a job. A few had attempted suicide, and they pulled in closer to her when they learned she had as well. November second, two thousand brought Mark's first birthday. He smeared icing and ice cream all over his face while twenty-one twelve and thirteen year olds and a half a dozen babies between two and four months old gobbled down cake like it was going out of style. Pinky was the only other one of her class who made it. All the rest left their babies and disappeared.
It only dawned on her when he was eighteen months old that her magic never came back. It was no great loss. Actually, it was pretty nice. She got nearly all of the good with none of the downside. She could see Wesen just fine, and magic too. She could manipulate people by touch, and harness both occulemency and legillimency by focusing into people's eyes or on their thoughts. Every aspect of potions was still a breeze, easier in fact with almost two years of professional practice. She could automatically adjust for potency, Wesen species, and their specific medical conditions without so much as a glance at the recipe, but she couldn't make a witchlight.