The Clashing of Kingdoms
Authors Note: This is a short adventure where the main character is Hermione. As you may have realised, from my other fictions, I am not the biggest Hermione fan on the planet—but she is growing on me and she does deserve at least one story.
"All right, Mudblood?" the cold voice of Draco Malfoy muttered in a brown haired girl's ear. Her brown eyes welled up with anger as she added some Bubolus to her cauldron.
"What do you want?" she asked him aggressively.
"Nothing," he said truthfully. "Professor Snape told me to move to the spare cauldron. It just happens to be next to you and this blubbering idiot," he pointed to the boy next to her—Neville.
Neville whimpered slightly as his potion began to spit orange colored bubbles. "Don't Worry, Neville," Hermione quickly took a bottle of vine-weed essence from the shelf and added some to his potion.
"Thanks," he said happily.
"And it's the same old thing," Draco began to sneer. "Poor Longbottom goes wrong and the Mudblood has to help him," he sighed. "What has this place come to?"
"Don't call her that, Malfoy," Neville said threateningly.
"Leave it, Neville," Hermione said quickly. "It doesn't matter."
"Yes it does," he shouted, the rest of the class looked up—including Harry and Ron. "He has no right to call you that," Neville stared at the blonde haired boy opposite him.
Hermione tried to concentrate on her potion. She blocked out the noises of Draco and Neville—one of them was swearing loudly, she wasn't sure which. She began to tip some essence of poison apple, into her potion and then stopped herself.
"No, that's not right," she sighed. "Thank goodness I only but a little in," she stopped. Suddenly Neville went flying into her and her hand realised the bottle and its entire contents into the potion. "Oh no," she squealed.
A cloud of smoke surrounded her cauldron, herself and Neville. She reached for her pocket but it was too late to grab her wand. The fumes from the gone-wrong potion began to get to her and she fainted.
"Wake up, Hermione. You've got to see this!" Neville's voice sounded half worried but excited at the same time. Groggily, Hermione stood to her feet. "I don't know what happened—but it's amazing—you're going to go down in history!"
"What are you talking about, Neville," she asked wearily as she looked around the same classroom they had been in previously. "If I blow up Malfoy, I'm more likely to go to Azkaban."
"Nah," he said. "Well, you might have but we wouldn't know. Look—no Snape!"
"Bliss," Hermione could not understand his enthusiasm.
"Where is everyone? How long have I been out," Hermione asked with a sense of dread.
"About a minute," he replied quickly. "'Mione—I don't think we are in the same time as before."
She considered his statement for a while. "No way—there is only one recording of the Quantum potion ever going wrong. Professor Jampire once added to much—" she paused and her eyes glazed with horror. "—Oh my gosh. He wrote—nobody believed him—that he passed through to another dimension and swiped himself from all of them," she looked around the room.
"You think we are the only ones of us left? That's silly, Hermione."
"No it's not," she began. "If you think about it—you can only be in one place on once with time travel—otherwise you see yourself," Neville nodded. "So, when you cross into a different dimension—not that anyone ever has—you delete the memory of yourself. So that you don't accidentally—get things wrong," she had to make it easy for him to understand. "We may automatically be placed in a point of time though," she added.
"How many dimensions are there?" he asked.
"Well—I don't know. Nobody has even proved there is more than one. My god, Neville. We may be in a time that Voldemort has completely taken over—or wizards don't even exist," he gulped.
"So, how do we get home?" he asked.
"I don't know—and if we are in a place that wizards don't exist," she paused. "We don't."
There was a silence for a moment and the two students were suddenly brought back to reality as someone from behind them coughed loudly to get their attention. They both turned around.
"H—" Neville began but was stopped by Hermione.
"What do you to people think you are doing down here?" the boy asked them. It was Harry Potter, in every way—except the lightning bolt scar that was usually on his forehead—was not.
"We got lost," Hermione said quickly and the boy raised his eyebrow.
Realization crossed Harry's face. "You must be the two transfers. Head-master Snape said you would be here today," he peered at their uniforms. "Ugh. I see you have both been sorted into Gryffindor. You poor things—follow me."
Hermione removed her prefects badge, before Harry noticed and she pulled Neville by the arm to get him to move with her. Neville didn't seem overly pleased with Harry and it was only then that Hermione realised that he was wearing Slytherin colors.
The school wasn't as well lit as Hermione remember it to be but they walked the same usual corridors to the Gryffindor Common room. The portrait of the fat lady was still there but there were hardly any other decorations.
The fat lady looked at Harry nervously. "These two are for your house," he spat the words out. The portrait lady swung forward instantly and Harry left.
Hermione smiled at the lady and stepped through. "Thank you," she stated as Neville came through.
"Oh, that's a word I haven't heard in a long time," and the fat lady closed on them.
"I'm not sure this is a nice dimension, Hermione," Neville said quickly but Hermione was focussed on something else.
"Its about to get worse," she said sadly.
"Hi," standing to the right of them, were Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley. "You must be the two new students," it had been Draco who had spoken.
Hermione nodded. "Yeah. I'm Hermione," she shook their hands and smiled at Ron. "This," she gestured towards Neville Longbottom, "is Neville."
"Are you really?" Draco asked quickly.
"Um, yeah—" he shot her a confused look.
"Hey, everybody!" Ron shouted. "It's him—the boy who lived," people looked up and began to make their way across to them.
Neville stood rigidly and turned towards Hermione, she shrugged. "What's he talking about?" Neville whispered to her.
"Apparently in this world—you're, Harry," she whispered back and Neville gave his usual look of being terrified.
"Can we see it, please?" a girl asked him sweetly, it was Ginny and she was standing alongside a girl that Hermione knew to be a Ravenclaw in their dimension—Luna.
"See what?" he asked.
She giggled. "The scar silly," she thought it was a joke.
"Its okay. We won't make fun of you," it was Susan Bones—Hermione was trying to make mental images of where everything was different.
"You do have one, right? On your shoulder?" Draco asked.
"I might," he mumbled to himself—undoing the top buttons of his shirt. He pulled it down just enough so that they could see the top of his shoulders.
"Oh," exclaimed Luna.
"Wow," a student that Hermione had never seen before stated.
"Do you remember anything?" Ron asked.
"Uh, well," suddenly Neville's face lit up—it didn't matter if he got the story that they had heard wrong because in his eyes, they didn't know the truth. "All of it," he said sadly and two girls cooed and lead him to a chair.
"Do tell us," they asked sweetly and Neville began a heroic story about how, when he was one, he thought the Dark Lord.
Hermione rolled her eyes and settled herself down on one of the couches. She stared across at the bookcase opposite her, The usual books were not there. 'Hogwarts A History' had been changed for 'The Domination of Wizards,' she shuddered and someone sat beside her.
"Hey," came the voice of Draco.
"Great," she thought. "In this dimension Draco Malfoy has a crush on me," she turned to face him. "Hi."
"It's Hermione, right?"
"Yeah."
"I'm Draco, Draco Malfoy."
"That's an interesting name," she sighed, this was going to be a boring conversation.
"It means Dragon," he said densely.
"You do know I'm a Mudblood, right," she hated to call herself that—but she needed to know.
"Shush," he said quickly, startled by the news. "For Christ sakes. Don't go spreading that around," he said.
"Why?"
"Where the heck have you been the last sixteen years?" he asked.
She shrugged. "I don't understand you." She hated this. The smartest girl in the school was about to get a lecture of her biggest rival.
"Hogwarts hasn't excepted non-purebloods for sixteen years. Ever since Snape became headmaster of Hogwarts. He-who-must-be-named, has terrorized the school for the past six years. In a hope to kill him," he pointed to Neville. Hermione was fascinated but did not want to know the fall details—after all, she didn't want her understanding of her own dimension to change.
"That's terrible," said Hermione and he nodded. "What about, umm, that Potter guy?"
"He's not nice. One of the biggest bullies in the school. Snape worshiper—almost always with him. No friends—you should stay away from him. Thinks he's God," Draco snorted.
"And your friend, Ron?"
Draco smiled. "He doesn't like to tell anyone—but he's loaded. His dad was the Minister of Magic—got murdered last year when the Death-Eaters found out—paid a bundle for it," he said.
"That's terrible," Hermione exclaimed.
"Yeah—but it happens all the time," Draco shrugged. "Don't you read the Quibbler?" he asked. Hermione shook her head. "You don't?"
"Sorry," she replied meekly.
"Well—here," he pulled out a copy from his pocket. "Make sure nobody with authority sees you with it. There not allowed in the school," she nodded but Draco went on. "Luna," he turned and pointed but Hermione obviously knew he was talking about, "smuggles them in—her fathers the editor. Only reliable source you can get hold of."
"Really?" Hermione asked, quite shocked.
"Yeah—and on the last page they print a list of all those poor muggles that have been killed," he said sadly and it seemed strange coming from his mouth.
"Muggle killings?" she asked with a croak.
"Yeah. Look," he opened the page for her.
Hermione scanned her name down the list on the back page. There were at least two hundred names and they were all in alphabetical order. Her eyes rested around the G's and she flinched.
"What's wrong?" he asked sensing her tension.
"Nothing," she said quickly—reminding herself this wasn't her proper place.
"Okay," he said shortly.
Hermione heard Neville shout, "it's terrible."
"I've got to get us home," she mumbled.
"Excuse me?" Malfoy said.
"Nothing," she said quickly.
"You're mental," he told her.
"Look, can you keep a secret?" she said. It wouldn't matter if he couldn't—she would be out of there soon.
"Sure."
"Myself and Neville, we don't come from here," she told him.
"Figures. That's why you transferred," he replied.
"From where?" she asked him.
"Well, how am I supposed to know that?" he asked.
"Great," she said happily—he didn't know. "Look—we come from a different dimension," oh well, if she was going to upset the fabric of the universe, she may as well do it properly.
"I don't get you, girl," he looked quite worried.
"Okay. We were in potions class, you punched Neville and my potion went wrong and then myself and Neville got sucked into another dimension."
"English, please," he looked utterly confused and Hermione smiled slightly.
"Okay. You said so yourself, 'where have you been,' the truth is, I don't come from here at all. Where I come from, a different dimension," she added, she loved the sound of it. "Harry, is the boy who lived, you are a slytherin—he's a Gryffindor. Dumbledore is Headmaster, Luna," she pointed, "is a Ravenclaw and non pure-bloods are admitted to Hogwarts."
He laughed. "You really are mad," he said.
"No!"
"Then why the hell would you come here? It's awful."
"Well, we didn't mean to. Remember—you pushed Neville and my potion got messed with."
"No, I don't remember."
"Of cause you don't. It happened in another dimension."
"Okay," he said slowly.
"And I want to go home," she added quietly.
"Don't we all," he said sadly. "Say I did believe this. How can I help?"
For half an hour, the two discussed how they could get Hermione and Neville back to their own dimension. Eventually, they decided that the best way was to create the same potion Hermione had made before—with the same mistake—and hope it worked. Neville joined them and they told him what they wee to do.
"We'd better go now," Draco mumbled. "The professors won't be in their rooms—they'll be in the Great Hall."
They followed Draco back down the dungeons. Neville had wanted to do more exploring—to see what else had changed but Hermione had said no.
It took Hermione less than ten minutes to complete the potion, minus the ingredient that had messed it up. She held the bottle above the cauldron.
"Wait," Draco said, he was standing a great distance away.
Hermione and Neville both looked at him curiously. "What?" she asked.
"I'm sorry for hitting you, Neville," Neville nodded. "And calling you what I did," he told Hermione as she had told Draco what he had said to her before."
"You're not the same person," she reminded him. "in a way."
"But still—I am," she smiled at his apology.
"On the count of three, I'll drop it in," she began. "One, two, three," the same smoke filled their longs.
Hermione's head hurt and she leaned back from the cauldron her head was crushed against. Neville moved off of her slightly and Hermione looked up to see Draco standing over her.
He offered her his hand. "It didn't work?" she asked him and he stared at her blankly as he pulled her to her feet.
Hermione looked around. Harry and Ron were staring at the two of them with wide eyes. Professor Snape pulled Neville to a standing position and suddenly Hermione jumped back from Draco.
"What did I do," he asked. "Bloody hell, Granger. I help you up and you treat me like dirt," he sighed.
"That's how you treat me," she mumbled, not looking him in the eyes.
Draco watched her momentarily and the realised exactly what he had done. He made it obvious to the other slytherins that he had wiped his hand on his cloak.
"Class dismissed," said Snape. "Miss Granger. How is your head?"
"Fine, Professor," she said quietly.
"Then if you and Mr. Longbottom would please join me. I have a feeling we may have something to discuss. You were gone for quite some time," he added.
Hermione nodded. "Yes Professor." She followed Neville and Snape into the office. "You're going to love this," she sighed and shut the door firmly behind her.