Born From Madness (Harry Potter Fanfic)

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Hermione stared in surprise at the sight of Betty White standing in front of her while her mind was going a hundred miles per hour trying to figure out what she was even looking at. Was this some sort of strange dream? Had she been murdered by the crown and this was the afterlife? Her mouth opened and shut a couple of times as she was trying to figure out what she wanted to say, but words refused to get out of her mouth. 

"Interesting invention I created, huh?" Betty White suddenly asked while she walked over to stand beside Hermione, "The Crown of the Past, I called it. You put it on and it connects you to people it deems you should talk to. Seems I was the one you needed to talk with, I see." 

"I-- I don't-- I don't understand..." Hermione admitted to her. Betty smiled before wrapping her arms around Hermione's arm. 

"Come on, let's wander," Betty told her as they walked through the whiteness of the world around them. 

"What is this place?" she asked Betty pointing at the blankness around them. 

"Not entirely sure. I think this might be the outskirts of your own mind." Betty suggested to her, "It's the empty part that allows you to come up with some of your more brilliant plans. This is the place where your ideas start form before becoming an actual thought." 

"What is it that I need to talk to you about?" Hermione asked. 

"Not sure-- this is your mind, what are you wanting to figure out." Betty advised her. 

"I think I'm going insane." 

"Oh?"

"Everything's so complicated now. With this horrible Umbridge woman walking about and giving awful punishment for silly reasons and making it hard for us to learn how to defend ourselves, and Voldemort back and then this mystery woman coming back and forth between Hogwarts and we're not even sure what she's looking for... and the person, who could inform us about it has managed to escape."  Hermione rant, shaking her head, "he wasn't any help anyway. He kept insisting I knew who the woman was." 

"But you do know this woman, Hermione. You do." Betty claimed. 

"I do?" 

"You've know for some time now, actually. I think what's holding you back is you don't want to admit it's who you think it is." Betty informed her. 

"But-- but it can't be... can it? I mean-- that would make her-- you know?" 

"Hermione you're in a magical world, you've just witness a man come back from the dead last year, you've seen men turn into werewolves, time travels and many other things I could list. I think you should stop yourself from putting limits on your imagination." Betty suggested to her. Hermione felt her heart stop. 

"So that would mean-- the woman is Iracebeth?" 

"The one and the same." 

"But how has she survive for so long?" 

"Our family comes from a very long line of survivors, Hermione. We don't go down without a fight. You know I din't go idly myself. I put up a good fight before I died." Betty explained to her. Hermione shook her head in disbelief. 

"But-- that would make her over a hundred years old, maybe even two hundred? How could that be possible? No one could survive that long?" Hermione asked her. 

"Even the most hostile of creatures can find ways of surviving in unlikely places." Betty told her. Hermione's eyes widened. 

"The House of Black! You don't think?" Hermione asked, lightly tapping her fingers against her chin.