Chapter Text
Hermione stares at the book propped open in her lap. With nothing to do but sit in her hospital bed until she’s allowed to return to the castle, Hermione had asked her nurse for something to read.
The nurse had acquiesced—really, she was quite nice. Hermione had accepted the thin book from her without registering the title, or anything else she had prattled on about as she fluffed Hermione’s pillows and checked her vitals.
Her mind is surprisingly blank. She reads the first sentence over and over. The words are sounds without meaning. Hermione moves her tongue with the word there. She likes the way it pushes against her teeth and forces her lips to part. There is something romantic about the way her tongue starts off obstinately pushing an immovable object, before retreating to point toward her throat.
She repeats the word again—no. No, her tongue isn’t fighting her teeth. It’s working together with them, and her lips too—and then inviting her throat to join in. She keeps whispering the word there. What an overlooked gem, she thinks sadly. Her favorite word had always been rouge. She loved the infinitesimal movement of her tongue between the slightly rolled ‘r’ and the ‘zh’ that vibrated in the middle of her mouth.
It just made the word sound so luxurious.
But now, she wonders how many unimportant words like there she ignores. There’s also that. That. It feels so powerful, the way the final ‘t’ bounces off her palate, the way she pulls her tongue from her teeth to her palate, yes, yes—that. That is powerful.
She sinks into her pillows, feeling blissfully empty.
Mum.
What a sad word. It tries to escape her mouth, but her lips fight to keep it in. Mum. Yes, mum is an ephemeral, beautiful soap bubble. It pops out of her mouth with a slight exhale and quickly ceases to exist. It’s too short. It’s too—
She tosses to her side, gazing upon Ron’s profile. His nose is very straight and very long. She remembers suddenly the summer before her fifth year, ages and ages ago, when she and Ron would go to feed Buckbeak when Sirius couldn’t. Under the shy London sun, Ron’s red hair looked like a glorious fire. She remembers how hard she had to fight her hand not to grasp it, hold it, stroke it, eat it… own it… tear it out of his head…
She turns to her nightstand, fumbling with the stupid drawer in which she knows the too-friendly nurse left calming draught. She unstoppers the vial and gulps its contents down.
Ron is really quite pretty, she decides. How natural that she should notice Ron before Harry. First of all, Ron is incredibly tall. Too tall, she thinks critically. Tom—
She closes her eyes, pulling her sweaty hair away from her face. No, she tells herself firmly.
Ron is tall. Much taller than Harry. She and Harry are barely the same height. And then, there are Ron’s eyes. Harry’s eyes are very nice too, she always wished she could have green eyes. Green is nice, she thinks, but Ron’s blue. The dark, dark blue of his eyes—they almost look brown in lower lighting because they are so dark, and really dark eyes are the best eyes. Dark brown—almost black—that pull you closer, encased in thick dark lashes and prominent black brows…
No.
Ron’s smile is also very nice. Very even lips, if a bit thin. Thin lips become him, however. Some people have full lips—lips that are almost feminine—but she doesn’t think about some people—why isn’t the potion working?
She turns over, the thin hospital blankets piled on her legs twisting around her ankles, and yanks the drawer of the nightstand open. She pulls out two vials this time, downing them one after another.
It’s too quiet. She wishes Ron would snore.
She picks up her abandoned book and puts it over her face, trying to block out the sun leaking in through her frosted window. It must be charmed to appear bright—there’s no way London has been this sunny for two days in a row.
Ron would never notice such a detail. He would happily accept that it’s sunny, and smile about it too. So careless. No, care-less. Without a care. Nothing bothers him, unless she goes around snogging people. Good thing she only kisses Tom onc—
No!
Ron. Ronald. Donald. Duck. Lake. Black. Sirius. Dead. Tom—
She throws the book against the wall. She misses by a mile, hitting the gathered curtain at the end of her bed. The book falls limply at her feet, its pages splayed and undoubtably folded.
Ron stirs at the muffled noise. She watches him take a deep breath that expands his wide chest. He falls back asleep, his breathing once again quiet and even.
Hermione tries to copy his breathing, hoping it will bring her sleep as well. She plays the game again. Ron. Rice. Food. Ron. Molly. Weasley. Ginny. Harry. Voldemort—
Ron. Round. Slughorn. Potions. The Prince. Cheating. Jealous. Derrick—
Ron. Harry. Malfoy. Buckbeak. Hagrid. Hogwarts. Dumbledore. Grindelwald. Volde—
Ron. Crush. Lavender. Pink. Black. Dark. Eyes—
Ron. Burrow. Home. Sick. Homesick...
Hermione abandons the exercise, her heart catching on the word homesick. Such a clunky word. First in the throat, then round in the mouth, then pouncing off the tongue like some kind of wild animal, only to retreat with a sharp kick. Homesick. Even its sounds are displaced, as if her tongue doesn’t know where it can find rest.
She leans over to collect the book at her feet, trying to fix the pages that are now folded at haphazard angles. I don’t deserve rest, she thinks meanly. My mother is dead.
What a misnomer; homesick. She isn’t sick with longing over a house. She’s yearning for a time; a time when she was a child, safe in her parents’ arms, safe from wands and potions, safe from the unpredictability of the wizarding world. What she is really suffering from is timesickness.
Or nostalgia, her inner snob corrects her.
She cleans off another vial; it’s obviously not working.
Hermione looks over at Ron, and feels another pang in her heart for the freckled boy in the bed next to hers. She loves him. Every cell in her body screams this love—a love that can only exist after extended separation; intense, forlorn, unhappy, jubilant all at once. She wants to wake him; she wants to speak with him—
How had she messed up so badly that she’d killed her mum? She grips the loose hairs along her temple, willing herself not to yank them out. What if she’s thrown back again, and this time, she hurts Harry or Ron? Or her Dad, too? A more frightening question pops into her head, and she clenches her fists tighter around her hair in fear and worry. What if she is never thrown back again, and her mother stays dead?
The thought is too final, too awful to bear. She springs out of bed and immediately clutches her chest. She bends forward, her face creased with pain. Damn Dolohov, she thinks viciously, breathing as shallowly as she can to avoid irritating her ribs further. Her only consolation is she is sure Dolohov is being tortured right at this moment by his master for failing him.
After a few moments, she’s able to sit up straight again. She lets go of her chest, and notices several strands of hair in her palm. Instead of letting them fall to the floor, she carefully rolls them in her hands until they are a knotted clump and deposits it into her slipper. She’s too familiar with the wizarding world to leave her DNA unguarded.
She stares out the hospital window, trying to make out the shapes of London landmarks through the frosted glass. If she turns her head just right, she can almost make out the very beginning of Diagon Alley…
“Hermione?”
She nearly jumps out of her skin. Ron’s sleep-filled voice calls her name again, and she stands up carefully to take the seat next to his bed. He attempts to reach for his face but the casts around his arms prevent him, and he looks put out.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nose itches,” he says, wriggling his nose.
She itches it. He smiles, and then frowns.
“I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Me too,” she says, looking down at her folded hands in her lap.
“Have you seen Harry?”
“Not yet.”
“Sirius?”
Hermione avoids looking at him directly. “Ron, I’m sorry.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes.”
They sit in silence for a moment, until Ron says, “Harry’ll be devastated.”
“Yeah.”
“We should ask to see him.”
“I tried. They made him go back to Hogwarts.”
“At least we know that means he didn’t get hurt,” Ron tries, as always, to see the positive side of things.
“I don’t think Harry would agree with that exactly.”
Hermione has always been a tad bit more cynical.
“Yeah. He always blames himself.” Ron agrees in a somber tone. They both frown, Hermione at her lap, Ron at the ceiling.
“Hermione?” Ron says, after another stretch of silence.
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you’re alive.”
“You said that already.”
“I really mean it.”
Hermione smiles, and then frustratingly, she bursts into tears. Ron tries to angle his body towards her in order to pat her shoulder, but he’s prevented by his stiff casts, and awkwardly bumps her side with his elbow instead. They both grimace in pain at the contact, and Ron reluctantly settles back into bed.
“I’m s-sorry,” Hermione murmurs, wiping her face, “I’m just a little overwhelmed.”
“Yeah,” Ron breathes, his face pale with pain, “me too. Reckon I can get some pain medicine?”
“Let me call the nurse,” Hermione jumps up, ignoring the jabbing pains in her ribs. She’s just glad for something to do.
She runs out of the room, clutching the back of her hospital gown. Her too-large hospital slippers drag on the floor as she seeks out the nurses’ station. She knows she could have just called for help from their room, but she’s going crazy sitting in that white box. How many times can she play word games in her head before she admits to herself that even if she is the best occlumens in the world, she’ll never be able to trick herself out of thinking about To—
Unbidden, her mind produces the Urdu word جانُو (jaanu), borrowed from the Turkish canım, which itself is a loan word from the Farsi جانم (jānam). In English it translates to ‘dear one’ or ‘dearest,’ but it doesn’t mean that at all. What would be a better translation? Hermione thinks frantically while running past open hospital room doors, seeing brief visions of wheezing old wizards, groaning hags moaning over commodes, young witches screaming with their legs propped up above their heads—
Beloved? Loved one? Darling?
No! The ancient Persian jān means ‘life’, but also ‘soul’. The two ideas are not separated by sounds; they sit unified in the mouth. Jān. Adding the ‘am’ suffix indicates possession, which in English would equate to the word ‘my’. This ancient form of intimacy is jealous, it covets. It says to its lover: my life, my soul.
Here she is, in St Mungo’s, seemingly intact, physically intact, but a piece of her soul has been ripped from her by Dolohov, damned Dolohov, and it is lost to her, lost to Tom, because Tom is dead, and he is dead because she killed him. She is wicked, worse than anyone, worse than Lord Voldemort himself, or at least equal to him, because she knew a piece of herself was in Tom, and she still killed him, she still performed the vilest act known to man, because don’t the Muslims preach that to kill one innocent is equivalent to killing all of mankind?
And now, because of her disgraceful performance, her mother is dead, Lord Voldemort is alive, and Tom is lost somewhere broken souls wait, waiting for her. But she can’t go back, not willingly, not on purpose. She has no control over the loop—she knows this, Dumbledore knows this—but all she wants is for it all to be erased, everything, everything, everything to be erased, and Hermione can go back home again, go back to Tom again, with all that entails: uncertainty, fear, sabotage, secrecy, mind games—
Yet, Tom is there, and it’s worth it to be with him, even if it’s wrong to love him. And it is wrong to love him, for she knows he becomes Lord Voldemort no matter how many ways she has tried to prevent it. The love, the bribes, the compassion, the blackmail—it never leads anywhere, it never changes anything, and she’s stuck, she’s still stuck trying, and her thoughts are racing, racing, racing—and why won’t the potion work?
She finds the nurses’ station.
She opens her mouth to speak, to tell her Ron needs a nurse urgently; he’s in pain.
She faints.
-
They’re discharged the next day, after Hermione is reprimanded for taking so many calming draughts at once. Her nurse is also changed—an older, meaner witch who looks at Hermione suspiciously whenever she is in the room. Hermione feels guilty about the other nurse. She must have gotten in trouble for inadvertently causing a patient to faint.
Ron is excited to leave, despite the fact that they are only returning to Hogwarts for end-of-year exams. There is also the matter of their personal possessions in their dormitories. While Ron has his little sister who can throw all of his possessions in his trunk just to make sure it all makes it back to the Burrow, Hermione does not have the same luxury.
They run into a small problem prior to discharge—the St. Mungo’s healers cut off all Hermione’s clothes when she first arrived unconscious, so she doesn’t have anything to wear back to school but the hospital gown. Molly Weasley protests this arrangement. She absolutely will not allow Hermione leave in such a state. She looks scandalized, and does not let Hermione argue.
After jumping up in that harried way of hers, she rushes from the room, promising to return within a few minutes. Ron smiles, a little embarrassed, and tells her at least she won’t attract so much attention if she returns to school in a jumper and trousers.
She has to admit he’s right, and ultimately, she’s grateful to Molly for thinking of it.
Hermione arrives in the headmaster’s office shortly later, wearing one of Ginny’s bright red Gryffindor jumpers and an old pair of jeans that are a little too loose around her hips. Ron is right behind her, dusting floo powder from his hair, and finally, Molly Weasley, who glides into the room almost effortlessly and ushers them out like a clucking hen. The moment Ron and Hermione are in the hall, she unceremoniously shuts the door.
“Reckon she’s got a meeting with Dumbledore,” Ron mutters, and they begin to make their way to Gryffindor tower.
The halls are mostly deserted, and it’s only when they cross the quad do they see other students—loads of them, in fact. Almost no one is wearing their uniforms, so Ron and Hermione do not stand out. The atmosphere is jovial, with some students outright sunbathing on the lawn, all of them talking and laughing, and some of them even napping under the shade of scattered trees by the Black Lake.
“Oi! You, second year.” Ron calls out to a young boy with dark hair and thick eyebrows to match.
“My name is Manus.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Ron nudges the second year’s arm in a way that’s clearly playful. “Why is everyone in the quad?”
Manus shrugs his shoulders, “It’s a nice day.”
Ron playfully smacks the back of his head, and then boy grins.
“I realize that, MacDuff. The question is, why aren’t they studying? Where are all the stressed out sixth years? The panicking fourth years? I don’t see a single first year even crying.”
“Where have you been, mate?” Manus peers at Ron queerly, “Don’t you know Dumbledore canceled all exams? Whole school has been celebrating since Monday morning!”
Ron ruffles Manus’s hair, and tells him he’s not his mate. They walk away, waving at friends as they pass, but not stopping to talk to anyone.
“Blimey, am I happy!” Ron tells Hermione once they’re out of the sun and back inside the castle walls. “Can’t believe no one told us! Bet you’re down about it though,” Ron thinks, sliding her a sympathetic look.
She laughs. “Quite the contrary, Ronald. I’m as elated as you are.”
Things suddenly feel very lighthearted, and the devastating effects of their excursion in the Department of Mysteries feel easier to ignore. They talk of silly things like quidditch, excitement for the summer hols, and what they’ll eat for dinner later now that they don’t have to suffer through hospital food. Despite the difficult exercise of climbing up all the steps to Gryffindor tower, Hermione feels some of the constriction in her chest ease a bit.
They’re at the Fat Lady’s portrait when Ron stops and turns fully towards Hermione so that they are facing each other. It’s an unusual thing to do, and Hermione freezes. He’s very tall, much taller than T—
For one insane moment, she’s scared he’s going to kiss her.
“Thanks for walking me all the way up here, Hermione. You really shouldn’t have.”
Ron rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, misunderstanding her silent stare. “Really, I should have walked you back to your common room—I know your chest still hurts and I made you climb up all those stairs…”
He trails off, because she is still staring at him.
All of the cogs in Hermione’s mind are firing at full speed, turning and turning, in order to comprehend the strange cocktail of words Ron just presented to her as sentences. It is almost as if he is implying she does not belong in her own common room.
As if she is not a Gryffindor.
The idea is too horrific for her to accept immediately. This isn’t her common room. She’s in another house. What house is she in? She certainly can’t ask outright. He’s looking at her intently, expecting her to answer whatever meaningless thing he says next. She resists the urge to hold her face and scream.
“It’s okay, really.” She says, her voice a little too high-pitched to sound natural, “I wanted the chance to talk to you.”
Idiot! she thinks to herself, because now he’s looking at her anxiously as if she is gearing up to say something actually meaningful.
“I… er, it’s about Harry.”
This is evidently the correct thing to say, because Ron immediately begins repining all of angst they can expect from Harry, worrying if Dumbledore will once again give them strange orders not to contact him this summer, wondering if Harry will be allowed to stay at the Burrow, because surely, they won’t use Grimmauld Place as headquarters anymore now that Sirius is dead?
He whispers the last part, as if the word ‘dead’ is on par with swear words like ‘bollocks’ or ‘twat.’ Hermione listens attentively, feeling more and more relieved as he speaks because the history is all familiar. She belongs to a different house, but somehow, she’s still managed to become close with Ron and Harry—close enough that she evidently did spend the summer at Grimmauld Place last year, and is still somehow connected to the Order.
“I’m not sure,” Hermione responds pseudo-thoughtfully, because she already knows the answer to his question, “maybe the Burrow will be the next headquarters.”
“I doubt it,” Ron rubs his nose, “house is too small, innit? Mum would have a conniption trying to find enough room to house anyone who’d need to stay over.”
“But what about when we’re back in school? The Burrow will be almost empty then.” Hermione starts regaining her center. She can play the part. She’s a fantastic actress in 1944; why can’t she also be one in 1996?
It’s just that… normally, she knows her part in 1996. Normally, it’s the easiest role in this play. Hermione Granger: The Cursed Time Traveler. She already knows her lines. They never change. All she has to do is: fake being a teenage witch again, fake being a budding sixth year student, fake being a clueless friend, question all of Harry’s obsessions, badger them both about homework, act jealous of Ron’s relationship.
The Fat Lady’s portrait swings open, and it’s Ginny that exits. She practically collides into Hermione, and reaches over to grab her brother into the same embrace, sandwiching Hermione between the two Weasleys.
It’s a good thing neither of them can see her face. Hermione cannot help but feel a bit emotional between Ginny, and Ron, Mrs. Weasley’s outwardly affectionate nature; they do things very differently in Slytherin.
“Er… it’s good to see you too, Ginny,” Hermione mutters against her shoulder.
“Sorry, Hermione, couldn’t help myself.” She grins. Hermione looks away quickly, suddenly terrified she might cry again if she looks at Ginny’s fresh face one moment longer.
“I saw Harry in the common room just now,” Ginny tells them, “He went up to his dorm to pack his things. He said he wanted to meet us in the Great Hall for dinner. You’ll be there, Hermione?”
She turns back to the portrait hole, and Ron follows her. Hermione waves goodbye, but the movements feel mechanical. There’s nothing she wants more in the world than to follow them inside, to return to her cozy common room after suffocating in the damp dungeons for so long.
Ginny returns her wave as the portrait closes, and Hermione is left standing in the corridor alone.
She stares at the Fat Lady for a moment, trying to gathering her bearings. The Fat Lady stares back, and sniffs. Clearly, she thinks Hermione is beneath her.
Hermione quickly calculates her chances of success if she pulls a full Sirius and simply threatens the Fat Lady to let her in. But no—she doesn’t have the luxury of a full mental breakdown.
She turns to leave, not knowing where to go. Obviously, she couldn’t have been sorted into Slytherin. Her blood status would make that impossible. Unless—unless this version of the wizarding world doesn’t care about such things? She decides this is unlikely, because Voldemort is still a concern, and his entire political platform relies on blood-prejudice. Between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, it’s quite easy to decide she must be in Ravenclaw house.
This deduction is easy, it’s natural. Afterall, the sorting hat had recommended she go to Ravenclaw. Perhaps in this version of the universe, she chooses what feels safe.
Her heart stutters when she realizes it was always her mum who had made her feel brave. The traumatic loss of her mother at a young age must have broken her spirit enough that she did not envision herself amongst a cohort of brash Gryffindors.
She pauses. Lost in her reflections, she had wandered aimlessly through the castle and is now very close to the prefect bathroom. It’s not the safe haven it should be, though. She has no idea what the password is. More importantly, she does not know the Ravenclaw password. In fact, she doesn’t even know where their common room is—she may have already walked by it, but there’s no way to know if she has.
What an embarrassing situation! She wracks her brain for a way out of her dilemma without alerting Dumbledore. The last thing she needs is for him to be breathing down her neck, worried about the increasing number of changes, worrying about the fragility of the time loop, the state of the universe—or worst of all, the state of her psyche.
She could go back out into the quad. There must be a group of Ravenclaws sitting together, students she could ingratiate herself with. Then all she has to do is wait until they get up to leave. The only issue is no one is wearing their robes; not on a day like this. How will she know who’s a Ravenclaw and who’s not? Sure, Luna was a Ravenclaw in every iteration of space-time until this one, but Hermione wasn’t, and now she is. Doesn’t it stand to reason that other students’ house allegiances may have changed also?
Hermione runs her fingers through her hair in frustration, forgetting how knotted and dirty it is. She spends a moment picking at a knot before giving up and tying her hair in a tighter ponytail. She must look like an idiot, walking around the castle like a lost puppy, unable to enter any room of significance.
She decides her only real option is to wait until dinner. Once a large enough group of students leave the Ravenclaw table, she can surreptitiously follow them back to wherever the common room entrance may be.
Right at the moment of this very logical decision, the prefect bathroom door that she had been staring at swings open, and she’s left face to face with Terry Boot.
They look at each other, stunned.
“Hermione!” Terry exclaims, “You’re back!”
She smiles, not feeling safe enough to say anything. She is a little more than surprised that he addresses her by her first name.
“Is it true? It’s all anyone will talk about. The Prophet confirmed that You-know-who is back, you know. Insanity! After an entire year of denying it and calling Potter and Dumbledore insane. Michael was telling me you were one of the students caught by the Squad? How did you get away?” He lowers his voice, “Umbridge has been missing since then, you know. No one knows where she is, although Marietta says the minister likely called her back from her post,” with this he slides her a sidelong glance, “Is it true that you and Luna went with Potter that night? That’s incredible. A really good look for Ravenclaw, eh?”
Yes! So, she is a Ravenclaw, and so is Luna! All she has to do now is follow Terry around for the rest of the day until he decides to return to the common room. Hermione swallows her sigh of relief.
Terry talks a mile and minute, so Hermione feels safe just nodding along and listening. He doesn’t seem to expect her to respond to anything anyway. He starts walking, and Hermione falls into step beside him.
“Didn’t you need to use the bathroom?” he asks suddenly, pausing mid-step.
“I—er, I don’t have to go anymore.”
“Oh, okay. That happens to me too sometimes. Have you seen Luna, yet? She was looking for you. She knew you would be released from St. Mungo’s today—well she didn’t know, she guessed, but you know how she is. Did you really fight Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries?”
Terry goes on and on in this fashion. He asks so many questions at once that it would be impossible to answer any of them in the time allotted. He hardly pauses between sentences. Hermione does her best to follow along, both mentally, and physically. Boot makes a sharp turn, and begins climbing a twisting set of stairs Hermione has never noticed before. It is narrower than Gryffindor tower, and steeper too.
“Did you know they’re saying Malfoy was amongst the Death Eaters? Ernie swears they’re going to print it in The Prophet any day now; he says his uncle saw him being carted off by Dementors with his own two eyes, but you know how he tends to embellish—”
The dim, cramped staircase stops suddenly in front of a very tall door with a singular but massive bronze eagle knocker. The impressively detailed sculpture has its wings extended, and they cover almost the entire expanse of the wide door. Terry stops speaking long enough to lift the small loop on the bottom of the eagle’s tail feather and knock it three times.
Hermione listens carefully as she waits for him to speak a password, but he doesn’t. In fact, it’s the first time since she ran into Terry that he’s completely silent.
She begins to worry that he might be expecting her to say the password, but no—he’s not even looking at her, he’s looking at the bronze eagle. Then, the eagle opens its beak.
“In a hot bath, I soak. Into the water, I bleed. I age, but do not die. I smell until I’m no good.”
Terry smiles, turning to Hermione. “Too easy this time, eh?”
Hermione has the distinct impression that he’s dying to impress her. Before she can say anything, he turns to the eagle and says, “I’m tea.”
The door opens without a sound, light bursting from behind it. Hermione is briefly blinded, but Terry walks through the opening confidently. Hermione scurries in behind him.
Immediately, she’s struck with the width and breath of the room. It’s magnificent—not just in its massive size, but it’s ornate ceiling, resembling a solarium with model planets and constellations hanging according to their celestial locations and built to scale.
The windows retain the gothic arches seen throughout the castle, but are unique due to their bronze casements and occasional blue stained glass. The floor is covered with wall-to-wall plush royal blue carpet decorated with drawings of historical events. She’s standing on an elaborate weaving of the 1752 Goblin Accords. And then the shelves; oh, the shelves! Rows and rows of books, all the way to the ceiling, stacked impossibly high, in all sorts of colors, and bindings, and sizes. It’s gorgeous and exhilarating. It’s glorious.
Despite her pleasure, she sticks to Terry like a lost child. Despite the beauty of the room, it isn’t exactly covered in signs that point towards the girls’ dormitories. She’s not keen on making a fool out of herself by trying to find it.
Hermione feels awkward lurking behind Terry, but she can tell by the way he puffs out his chest as they walk by other students that he’s proud to be seen with her. The sorting hat was right then, she thinks. She’s a sort of celebrity here.
Terry is talking her ear off again when Hermione spots a blonde head of hair levitating a trunk down a set of stairs off to the side. It is unmistakably Luna Lovegood.
Hermione hurriedly excuses herself. She is certain Terry is used to people leaving him mid-sentence anyway.
“Luna!” She greets her, and she surprises herself by pulling her into a hug.
“Hermione!” Luna returns, with a slightly dazed but pleased smile, “I knew you’d be back today.”
Hermione beams at her. She’s never been so happy to see Luna in all her life.
“I’ve got to go to my dormitory and pack my things.” Hermione tells her.
“That is a logical thing to do, and say.” Luna responds.
“My dorm is the fifth-year dorm.”
“Correct, but only for one more day.”
They nod at each other in agreement, as if this were the most natural conversation in the world. Hermione tries again.
“I’ll just go up then, back the way you came.”
“Are you thinking of visiting my room?” Luna asks. “What a shame I’m no longer in it.”
“Ah, yes,” Hermione clenches her jaw, “It doesn’t make sense to visit you if I know you’re not there.”
“That depends. Perhaps you want to examine the aura I leave behind once I’ve vacated a space. It’s a very accurate way to capture a color on a friend you see too often.”
Hermione has no idea what this means.
“I don’t think I’m interested in capturing your color at the moment. I think I’d better go pack my own things.”
“Then, you should.”
Luna gazes dreamily up at the constellation Andromeda while she waits for Hermione to formulate a response. Hermione is horrified to feel her cheeks heating up the longer they stew in silence. Eventually Luna ceases to stare upward and instead turns her penetrating stare at Hermione, her silver eyes shining.
“You seem a little confused, Hermione. Are you alright?”
“Me?” Hermione stammers, “Yes, completely alright. I just—I guess the spell that hit me affected my memory a bit.” Her face is on fire. “I thought my dormitory was here, but it’s not. Your dormitory is up this staircase.”
Luna blinks. “It’s unusual that a spell aimed at your heart would affect your memory.”
Hermione says nothing. Frankly, she’s certain if she opens her mouth again, she’s surely only going to put her foot in it.
This strategy seems to work, because Luna’s eyes go out of focus, and her dreamy smile returns. “Are you embarrassed about it? You shouldn’t be.”
Hermione goes with it, fidgeting with discomfort. “Memory is linked to intelligence.”
Luna seems to find her insecurity about her intelligence believable, because she says, “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”
“That would be great, thanks Luna.” Hermione smiles a genuine smile.
“My dorm?” Hermione prompts, and Luna nods towards the winding staircase just next to the one they’re standing by. Hermione squeezes Luna’s arm in thanks, and practically skips away.
The staircase is even narrower than the one leading up to the common room. Hermione runs up, taking two steps at a time, and almost falls face first a few times. She catches herself with her hands, and for a few seconds climbs on all fours. She feels giddy, like a child about to open a gift. She’s silently thanking God as she reaches the landing, praying that the room is empty.
Five identical four-poster beds sit in a circular room with blue and bronze drapes to match the curtains, which match the carpets, which match the duvets.
Hermione will have to get used to the color scheme.
She begins frantically searching each bed, looking for her trunk, or her books, or really anything that indicates it’s hers. She doesn’t know when another girl might walk in, and it would look very bad if she were caught looking through someone else’s things.
She abandons the first bed when she finds a leather notebook inscribed with the initials SL. The second bed is empty—nothing under it, nothing in the nightstands or the drawer-chest, and the wardrobe is empty, too. The third bed looks promising—the nightstand is stuffed with texts and notebooks, and underneath it she finds a Gryffindor scarf, but the clothes in the wardrobe are all old frumpy witches’ robes—nothing muggle about any of it. Hermione is still a muggleborn—she would have muggle clothes in her possession.
She moves onto the fourth bed and immediately retreats when she finds a pile of racy underwear in the drawer chest. She turns to search the fifth bed when Parvati Patil enters the room.
No. Padma.
Hermione is caught red-handed. Padma must have seen her rummaging through the drawers of the fourth bed, and now she’s hovering between the fourth and fifth beds, not knowing which way to look. She’s trying to think of a plausible explanation when Padma walks up to the fifth bed and plops herself down very unceremoniously.
Padma grins at her, “Luna said you’d be back.”
Hermione tries to smile back, but she is utterly confused. If the fifth bed is Padma’s, which of the three other beds is hers?
“Funny how Luna sometimes knows things before they happen.”
Padma shrugs, “I keep telling you she’s a seer.”
Hermione scoffs. This seems to be in line with her character because Padma’s grin widens.
“Such a skeptic. I heard you had quite the adventure with Harry.” Here, she wiggles her eyebrows, much to Hermione’s horror.
“Luna was there, too.” She says, not really knowing how to fend off such an attack. Next thing she knows, she’s getting hit with a pillow.
“Hey!” She protests, but Padma only climbs on top of her. “I cannot believe you didn’t wake me! Tell me everything! What happened? Luna said you all went to the Department of Mysteries and fought You-know-who!” She whispers the last bit of the sentence in awe, “Is it true?”
“Erm, yes.”
“Did you really get hurt? You look fine! Flitwick wouldn’t tell us anything!”
“I’m fine now.”
“Well, tell me! What happened?”
“It would be easier to talk if you weren’t crushing me!”
“Oh, sorry.” Padma sits up next to her. She then kicks her trainers off and scoots up to lean against the fourth bed’s headrest. She’s so comfortable there that Hermione isn’t sure which bed is hers, the fourth or the fifth?
“Well, as you probably know by now, Umbridge caught us.”
Padma is watching her expectantly, but Hermione is determined to keep things vague. She can’t be absolutely sure events transpired as she remembers them without confirming with Harry first, so it wouldn’t do to say something inaccurate. Also, she doesn’t know the extent of her friendship with Padma. Part of her had assumed she wouldn’t have been able to forge sincere friendships in Ravenclaw because her housemates would be too jealous to befriend her sincerely.
“Anyway. We… we got word that someone was in danger—”
“Who?”
“Just someone.”
“Harry wouldn’t tell you?”
“I—yes, he wouldn’t say. But it was really important. And we shook Umbridge and the Inquisitorial Squad off somehow and—"
“How?”
“We just did. So—”
“Urgh!” Padma sighs, flopping herself back on the pillows. “You’re no fun. I got more details out of Terry!”
At this Hermione laughs, and it feels and sounds refreshingly natural. Padma laughs too, and it seems all is forgiven. It must be normal for Hermione to be dodgy; Padma seems to expect it.
“I’m sorry, Pads.” Hermione has no idea how this term of endearment slips out—”It’s best not to say too much.”
“Anything for Harry, huh?” Padma says knowingly.
“We’re just friends.”
“Oh, and I dance just for fun.” Padma rolls her eyes. Hermione gathers she’s a rather serious dancer from this statement, and stows that information away for later.
“Believe me. He’s like my brother.”
“I wonder if he knows that.” Padma says, pulling a trunk out from underneath the fifth bed. She begins to haphazardly empty her drawers by dumping their contents into the open trunk.
Hermione watches this in half-horror, half-amusement. Padma does not seem to notice.
“He likes Cho.”
“Still?” Padma glances up at her without pausing her packing, “After that Valentine’s Day fiasco? Come on, now.”
Hermione smiles. “That was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”
“Bad for her, not so much for you. She still complains about you—only behind your back though. Last time I caught her doing it I thanked her for making Harry realize who he really should be in love with.”
Hermione listens to this speech aghast. She is strangely touched that Padma would defend her—something only Ron has previously done. Her heart is in the right place, even if she is completely wrong about Harry. Hermione can see that topic may be a never-ending argument with Padma. It’s better not to take the bait.
Padma continues to pack her things, which is really just her throwing her items into her trunk and then forcing it all in with a few charms and a little bit of brute force. When she finishes, she turns to Hermione and asks, “Aren’t you going to pack yet? I’m starving.”
“Go down to the Great Hall. I’ll meet you there in a bit.”
Once Padma is gone, Hermione searches the fourth bed in earnest. The nightstands are organized; a bottle of water, some pain potions, a brush, a comb, her hair ties, two blue and bronze ribbons, and a journal. She flips through the journal quickly and sees her own handwriting; she keeps meticulous notes of all her classes, dates, times, topics of discussion, homework, suggested reading—and something even more interesting. Experimental ideas is written in her neat script, with a bullet point list beneath. Somehow, the Ravenclaw version of herself is even more studious.
Her desk is neat as well. Notebooks in one drawer, textbooks in the other. Quills and ink bottles in the slim drawer in the center. Her wardrobe is filled with muggle clothes—finally, something as familiar as her fifth-year study material!
She glances furtively at the offending drawer again, wondering at herself. Why did she have lingerie as a sixteen-year-old? At this point in her life, she should be drooling after Ron, and he should be hopelessly oblivious. She doesn’t have use for such things.
Unless… did being sorted into Ravenclaw change that, too? Maybe she isn’t in love with Ron, maybe—Hermione sits down with a thud on her bed, her head almost spinning. Is it possible that Padma is correct about Harry? Does she have a thing with Harry Potter?
Oh, God!
Hermione jumps up, rubbing her temples, feeling absolutely sick. This is disgusting. This is all wrong. Harry! Impossible. Harry! And after Tom Riddle?! Not in a million years, not in a million timelines—just no! He’s her brother! Is Padma just guessing, or does she know something? She is Ravenclaw; they’re not exactly known for making guesses willy-nilly. She wouldn’t say anything unless she felt absolutely sure. Ravenclaws do not like to be proved wrong.
Hermione tries to calm herself, looking at the drawer again. She convinces herself she’s acting like a fifty-year-old ninny. It’s just underwear. It doesn’t mean anything. Loads of teenagers buy that kind of thing; it’s normal to experiment at this age! To assume Harry is in love with her—that she’ll have to turn him down—that she’ll break his heart—it’s all so very presumptuous! She’s definitely putting the cart before the horse.
It's just underwear.
That’s all.
She dumps it unceremoniously into the bottom of her empty trunk, copying Padma. She’s surprised at how easy it feels, how frankly good it feels not to give a rat’s arse about organization. She begins to dump all her things into her trunk, not caring that her clothes will get all wrinkled, or that her books will be crushed; their pages folded or ripped.
They’ll be as good as new in a year anyway, she thinks viciously. If she’s being forced to re-live the same nightmare year again and again, all because she can’t get it together enough to defeat Tom Riddle, or whatever the hell she’s even supposed to do, she may as well give into her baser instincts.
She slams the lid shut, and kicks her trunk for good measure.
She goes down to dinner, the pain in her big toe a reminder of the consequences of letting loose.