His Past, Her Future {Book One}

Chapter 3. Hit By A Hippogriff

Hermione rolled over onto her side and let out a painful groan.

She felt like she had been hit by a Hippogriff.

Disorientated and dazed she could barely make out anything a foot away from her but she managed to awkwardly stand, one hand clutching her stomach.

She thought about calling out for help but didn't trust herself to open her mouth - it was an effort enough not to throw up.

She stood for a minute using her free hand to steady herself on the wall beside her.

Waiting for the pain to subside, the room around her gradually swam into view.

It was definitely the same room but...different. Cleaner. And where had all the boxes gone?

Her stomach lurched and Hermione doubled over from the waist, her hand abandoning the wall and covering her mouth.

Deciding not to think too much about the changed room, she awkwardly stumbled towards the closed door - Hadn't it been open? - her thoughts instead on a stomach settling potion.

However what she found on the other side of the door did nothing to help her stomach.

Voices that had been indistinguishable from inside the closed room now floated clearly through the half opened doorway.

Someway down the hall a young boy that looked to be around Hermione's age was in the midst of a verbal match with an older woman.

The boy's back was turned but the woman was facing towards Hermione and her identity if not obvious from her screeching voice was clear from Hermione's view.

Mrs Black's screams of outrage and distaste were once again filling the hallways of 12 Grimmauld Place but this time however they were not coming from a portrait and would be a lot harder to quell than with a curtain.

Hermione turned away from the scene resting her back against the wall, breathing hard.

The room before her suddenly made a lot more sense, not that it was a good sense.

But that was a problem she would think about later, right now she had more pressing issues - namely, she was stuck in the room of a house full of mudblood-hating purebloods and she had to think of a way to get out.

Although they may not be able to tell her muggleborn status from first look she doubted the Blacks were known for their hospitality to strange girls that wandered into their house.

Hermione slid her back quietly down the wall and on her hands and knees started searching for her wand, hoping with all her might to find it where she had woken.

Luck didn't seem to be on Hermione's side this morning.

Wandless and weak to the stomach Hermione ran through her only remaining options. Her immediate thought was Sirius, but from the snippets of the fight she was catching from outside the door, which was interspersed with words such as "blood-traitors" and "disgrace", Hermione gathered it was likely that the young boy outside was in fact Sirius and he wasn't exactly approachable right now. If the fighting stopped and the woman left she thought that she might be able to approach him then. He would at least not hex her on sight...she hoped.

However hope of waiting was immediately thrown out of the water when sharp footsteps signalled movement towards her room.

There was no where to hide in the small room and so Hermione gathered what little strength she had and thought of perhaps the one person who perhaps could help her Albus Dumbledore, and the one place that has always been safe Hogwarts.

Hermione, being as well read in Hogwarts a History as the headmaster himself, knew she couldn't directly apparate inside school grounds so she had aimed for Hogsmeade instead.

With a soft pop she had found herself, thankfully with all four limbs attached, on the streets of Hogsmeade a little bit up from the Three Broomsticks.

However she did not have much time to celebrate her attached limbs before a cold wind made her uncomfortably aware of her half dressed state.

Unaware until now, she was still only dressed in her pink wedding-ready lingerie.

The streets were thankfully bare but with her quickly bluing skin and the amount of energy her apparition had taken she doubted whether she would make it all the way up to Hogwarts in her current state.

Not knowing what else to do, but hoping a teacher might be out for a drink, Hermione, hunched over and still holding her stomach, staggered up the street towards the Three Broomsticks.

Opening the door and stepping inside, she had little more than two seconds to enjoy the warmth of the pub before her body finally gave out, her legs crumpling beneath her, leaving Hermione once again swathed in darkness.

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