Our Reality

Elban Fehl

Rating: R
Genres: Horror, Suspense
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 7
Published: 17/03/2014
Last Updated: 17/03/2014
Status: in_progress

Madness is not a state of mind. Madness is a place. What is real? Let us go there, shall we? -- A post-plot AU.

Chapters

1. A Reality, Unforgiven

1. A Reality, Unforgiven

Our Reality

By: Elban Fehl

Rated R

Ship: HHr

The (unlovely) procedure: previous plot and characters are JKR's, WB, etc, etc., blah blah blah.

-*-

I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then - Alice Liddell, Alice in Wonderland

-*-

I lost everyone I've ever loved.

Looking back at the horizon while we ran, I knew Hogwarts would never be the same. That, life would never be the same. They had overtaken our last bastion of hope, and whoever made it out alive saw the consequence of our failures. There had to be at least a hundred hungry skulls lashing out at us in the sky, most covering what would've been any other moonlit night in May. The starry sky covered in their evil disgust, my tears—if I had any left—burned me. I hadn't cried so much, and when we lost—I lost—I just couldn't take it anymore.

My last sight of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry came with the utter destruction of the tower tops, black trails of smoke colliding into them, setting them ablaze. I lost sight of the rest of the survivors while we ran into the Forbidden Forest. The ones that couldn't keep up were caught by snatchers, a scream being hastily squelched by a distinct gurgle to dour silence.

I was alone, and kept running, continuing to see He Who Must Not Be Named—Voldemort—and his Death Eaters forcing Hagrid to carry a very dead Harry Potter in his arms.

He didn't wake up, and when they executed Hagrid in front of us…

That's when we knew.

That's when we escaped.

Most of the faculty created enough of a distraction for us youth to get by them, but I knew that with their sacrifice, like Harry—none probably survived.

I had to stop.

I had to catch my breath.

I tried not making a sound in fear of snatchers still on my heels, but after I had run for what felt like days…I couldn't help but gulp air.

I tilted forward and held myself crying until I was silenced like the rest, tendrils of coldness enveloped me into darkness.

-*-

“She hasn't spoken to us since that day, doctor,” Mister Granger traveled down the upstairs hallway. The homely 1940s British decor ravished the corridor, pictures of the happy Granger family marking the walls. One, especially, stood out in its rather large oval shape of an adolescent mahogany-headed girl smiling off into the camera between her attractive mother and father. The look of innocence, or what stopped the doctor from continuing on with the Grangers, he studied. The look upon her face and the positively radiant glow she had, one couldn't just undertake the notion that something so faultless could be taken away.

Missus Granger stopped her husband by placing a hand upon his arm when she noticed the doctor. “Freddie.”

“This was taken about a year ago,” Frederick had come beside the doctor. His eyes flicked between the doctor's and his happy family in the picture. “When times were different.”

“Such a tragedy,” uttered the doctor, running a hand down the front of his grey beard. He shook his head, looked at the father, and then farther down the hall. He motioned with his head, “Your daughter's room is there?”

“That's where she's been since we begged her to move back in,” stated the very concerned Missus Granger.

“She complied without conflict?” the doctor asked, moving on with the family down the hall.

“She—“ the mother began, but was cut off by Frederick.

“We found her on the floor in the entryway—“

“The floor?” the doctor cocked his brow. His blue eyes almost sparkled surreally behind a wrinkled, aged mask. Years had evidently set on the man, but he kept mobile like the rest. He kept up with the Grangers' stride.

“The letter in her hand—“

“—She'd been waiting on a letter from Oxford—“

“—She always was one who loved education, and we were proud of her for her occult dedication—“

“—We assume that was when—“

The door to their daughter's bedroom wasn't closed, so when Frederick Granger placed a hand upon the wood the door slowly opened on its own. The flat, albeit of the generation, showed its wear when the latches creaked with the door's plodding pace.

Lots of pink and white lace, the room definitely fit the design of a teenage daughter who hadn't quite moved from child to adult. She seemed to be stuck between the dolls lining shelves and the mountain of classic literature. A desk sat alongside a wall with what looked like stationary, an ink well, and a lamp. A record player set aside a windowsill, but hadn't been played for the cobweb clinging to the stylus. White chrysanthemums gave the room its aroma from what felt like, and resembled, a rather dreary, stale atmosphere—the raindrops splattered heavily against the window panes not assisting.

In the centre of the bed lay their uncovered daughter. She wore simple pyjamas, their colour matching the similarity of the room and so much like the teenage years in her physique. She stared at the ceiling, her body seemingly catatonic. The doctor himself stood briefly in the doorway looking to see if her chest rose, and when noting something as elementary as that proceeded forward into the bedroom after getting Mister Granger's blessing.

He sat on the side of the bed closest to the window, carefully choosing not to disturb the environment, and placed his doctor's bag at his side on the floor.

“Miss Granger?” He called out to her. He waited a moment for reply, and then when futile, called out once more. “Miss Hermione Granger?”

“Have we lost her, doctor?” Missus Granger's voice held just above the patters of the raindrops on the window panes.

The old doctor turned to see both Frederick and Emilie Granger still standing at the door when he announced, “I'll try my best to break through to her. But, you will have to sign her over to my authority as we have discussed before I can give her any treatment.”

“Of course,” uttered Mister Granger.

“We just want our daughter back,” mimicked Missus Granger. “We'll do anything to get her back again.”

-*-

Voldemort and his sea of Death Eaters sauntered so confidently into our demolished Hogwarts courtyard.

“Ronald?!” I had clung onto him for I hadn't Harry to hold. “Ronald?! Who is that Hagrid's carrying?!”

I knew the answer, knowing Harry for as long as I could remember, and when my mind caught up to those mental photographs of Harry lying limp in Hagrid's arms did I trip over rubble to get to him. No one stopped me. Nothing did, not even the skid marks on my bleeding hands until Voldemort's unwavering power knocked me back with a wave of his wand.

“Silence!” Voldemort shouted, his sick, Slytherin lisp echoing throughout what was left of our stronghold. “Stupid mudblood!”

“Mind your tongue when speaking to your Dark Lord, you filthy mudblood!” bit Bellatrix traipsing behind her master.

“Harry Potter is dead…!” Voldemort approached us unheeded by no one. None of us stopped him. “From this day forth you will put your trust in me…for I am far greater, more powerful—“

His arms opened up to the blackened heavens. “—Than God!”

“I will choose who will live and who will die,” He pointed his wand at us. “As I have done to your beloved Harry Potter…!”

“HARRY!” The scream I made penetrated eardrums as I fought one man, and then another, and more—all in white suits. They had their hands on me, and all I thought, all I felt, all I yelled was his name. He had died, and I could do nothing. They had died, and I could do nothing.

The men's hands became firmer, more in control. Their strength increased right alongside my own until they had overpowered me enough to slip the jacket around me. Disarmed, I could no longer use my hands. I know I had nicked them with my nails as I clawed to stay where I was in bed, stay in the moment, the memories of Harry; but, they resisted my way, and resisted how I fought to remain.

I jerked my elbows from side-to-side, leather belts being fastened tighter and tighter, surrounding me and keeping me close enough so all I could do was roll. My legs were confined, kicking them as we tossed together until I could no longer use them, feel them. They put my head in some device to control me, to keep me from yelling as I did for him.

More darkness enveloped me, dragging a sluggish sort of memory of my room in what looked like water paints smeared.

I felt myself slipping away…becoming numb…

…Hiding from the pain…

…At least for now.

-*-

A black and white-trimmed LeBaron idled in front of what could only be considered a grand palace amongst a prison. Wrought iron gates several feet high kept those from escaping, and from those trying to get in. The building reached tall into the sky, peaking at its centre with small cone structures pivoting towards the dark, rainy English clouds. The building could've been several decades old, or several hundred, the grey hue casting its singular colour. The only differences in coloured brick were the roofs which were just a shade duskier in grey, tiles covering the triangular points.

The sharp crack of lightning woke me from my delirious sleep to see white, and then hear mumblings of male voices. With a ringing in my ears, I could only discern that they were male, and not a word, slowly gaining consciousness. I heard another, a female, and then a shriek of one more among a cacophony of more men. Some sounded worried, while others, amused. My blurry sight transfixed to the gloomy overcast, my head lying on the cool window, my cheek smashed against the glass.

The door opened, and when the first raindrops hit me did I awaken almost suddenly, gaining faculties enough to see those before me.

And, those behind me.

Two large, muscled men had to carry me in fighting, screaming back at those who watched on.

My mother and father held each other, my mother crying into a silk handkerchief. She gave me a wave, I wanted to think, but I couldn't tell. Something slithered in my soul, snaked its way throughout my body, and my mind felt like mush. My sight went cloudy a beat, but I continued to fight them as they took me further in, carrying me under Azkaban Asylum for the Mentally Insane spelt out above a gateway made of the same wrought iron as the perimetre's motif.

I saw him with my parents.

Ancient, the man's surreal blue eyes affixed to me as he pondered. He stroked his long, grey beard, the pellets of rain beating down on him underneath a black umbrella and matching coat. They were talking, but I only saw them those brief seconds when the overly large oak doors shut the scene, and them, from me.

-*-

“You two can't control a little girl?!”

“But sir, she's putting up quite the—“

Going down one repulsively lifeless corridor after another, slate paint peeling from the brick, I never ceased to wrestle with my captors. Though, I'd grown tired, and my voice grew hoarse. When the two men could hear, and feel this, they took advantage and pitched me around every corner at their whim.

I saw residents on their knees cleaning the old, wooden floor by hand with brushes look up at their new mate. All of them seemed to be female, or at least those I saw, and all of them had similar shades of brown coloured hair and similar tints of light skin. Mesmerized by the them, and them at me, I didn't realize another had joined us until I was flung into a padded cell.

I rebounded off the wall and fell on the floor where I saw the extremely man with chiseled features, dark hair, and bright grey eyes. He had appeared in the opened doorway in that short second of time, to hear him ask:

“Must we be so harsh, Crabbe? Goyle?”

The two men in white who had man-handled me merely smirked and shut closed the door.

The room grew quite dark but the light from a small square window. I watched the light dim when I saw the handsome man's eyes peer within, and then disappear like the rest.

I screamed, shouting his name all night long until I hadn't a voice left.

Voiceless in the shadows of my Hell, I tried to say, “I'm trapped!”

And then I was left in utter darkness, those cold tendrils dragging me back into that void of madness.

I fell into the world, and once again I saw Hogwarts castle in flames.

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