Trees and Tea
Disclaimer: JKR owns it all except the plot, which is my twisted imagination's.
It was so long ago, but she remembers it like it was yesterday. The day she found out that she was a witch, but not only a witch, something more, much more. Hermione Granger is not her name. It is Sarah Wells, and she is the keeper of the universal balance and she has gone to hell and back many times. So many, that now, she doesn't feel pain. Pain is just a word now, just a memory. Like all the other emotions she use to feel. The day, it was a Thursday, when she was eight, a few days after her birthday. This is how it begins.
At the Wells estate, it was a cold night, three hundred years ago. A scream, a hit man, killed a man and a woman. He didn't kill the boy, the one in the basement, the basement that not even his parents knew about. He grew up as a stranger, a drifter, than a husband and a father. He died and the family named vanished as well. The boy of his creation was now a Granger, a squib, and a human, never to know about magic.
The Wells estate was abandon and the Malfoy's moved in and took over an account and started a business. For them it all went up. They became rich. The line of squibs known as the Grangers became a middle class, muggle family, where magic belonged in stories like 'Peter Pan'. Until 'Hermione,' for she was in a prophecy, one that was to come true on her sixteenth birthday.
But the day it begins for her, it was a few days after her eighth birthday and her family got into a car crash, she was the only one 'dead.' She wasn't 'dead' though, she was kidnapped by Dumbledore and at Hogwarts in July. She was told the prophecy. She was told about everything. But she wasn't told about what to DO about it.
In the past seven years, she had been raped numerous times and been starved by death eaters in their dungeons many times also. But the only person the world knew was the perfect Hermione Granger, Harry Potter's best friend. Not the Sarah Wells destined to save the world. That's right, Sarah had stopped Voldermort all those times, not Harry. Also, she could have killed him, but she wasn't suppose to. Not yet.
Now it was summer again and she was at Hogwarts, or as most thought, skiing in the Alps. She was all alone besides the teachers and they were no fun. She was the only student… or so she thought.
The sun was setting and she was sitting in a big oak tree on the edge of the forest like usual to watch when she heard a noise coming from bellow her. She looked down to see Blaise walking out of the forest looking quite upset and tired. He hadn't seen her but he heard her when she broke a branch, not really unintentionally. He looked up at her with eyes as big as Hogwarts plates and trust me they are big.
"What did you here?"
"What did you hear?" she said, to aggravate him, even though it was true. All she had heard was 'what did you hear.'
"Stop copying m- GRANGER…IN A TREE!"
"Well I would call it watching the sunset FROM a tree, but I suppose you could say that."
"Again, what did you hear, Granger?"
"What did you hear? Stop copying m- Granger… in a tree. Again, what did you hear, Granger?"
"Stop being an echo and answer the question."
"When a man and a women love each other very much…"
"I didn't ask for a sex talk Granger." He sighed. This was going no where.
"You said answer THE question, not a SPECIFIC question. But since I'm such a generous person I'll answer the question you desire. I heard you walking underneath me, and then you asked me a bunch of questions. Then you sighed heavily, much like a woman. Then I said this long explanation about what I heard." She rambled on. Blaise lightened up quite a bit knowing his secret was safe.
"Well I'm heading in, want to come?" Hermione said as she climbed down the tree.
"Sure." They headed up the walkway. They started talking about why they were at Hogwarts during summer and got on about families and friends and were on funny times when they reached the Entrance Hall.
"Which way to your room?" Blaise asked.
"Follow me." Hermione lead him up a flight of stairs and to a suit of armor on the right.
"Evealray Ecretssay suit of armor." she said. The words were foreign, of a lost language. The suit of armor dissolved into air to reveal a passage. They both stepped through and the suit of armor reappeared behind them, casting the passage into darkness. "Ightlay."
Torches along the walls lit in an instant to reveal a dark and dingy passage with mold and dust covering the walls. There was a stench in the air that was worse than Snape's hair and the floor wasn't worn at all, as if it was rarely walked.
"Stay close, it's hard to find a way out of here if you don't already know it." They walked only about ten meters before they entered a door on the left. The door was made up of rotting wood, rusty hinges and a few nails that hadn't disintegrated yet. The door looked like it was built at the beginning of time. The inside was just like that of the passageway except it was a flight of spiral stairs leading to what looked likes the tallest tower.
"We aren't climbing those, are we? It will take all night!"
"If you insist." She sighed as if he had just made her climb up the Eiffel tower's stairs. She started up. He followed, looking like he was on death row.
She stopped about one story up and said "Navisiblay Levatoray " Then she stepped on thin air and waited.
"You expect me to step on to thin air with a Gryffindor?"
"No. I expect you to either step on here with me or climb the rest of those stairs. Thirty two flights isn't that bad is it?"
He took her offered hand and hopped on feeling a sensation of rising very quickly and the next thing he knew they were directly under a trap door. Hermione pulled it out and a rope ladder fell down which Hermione started to climb. He followed and once on solid ground, looked to find himself in a fixed up tower. The walls were black with gold and silver stars, the ceiling also. There were a few twin beds with curtains in on area, a kitchen like area and a couch in front of a fireplace with a black box above it. A 65', wide screen, plasma, black box. It was just like an apartment.
"Tea?"
"Sure…you live here?"
"Live, no. I stay here, kind of when ever I feel like I need to get away from houses, points, homework, and school."
"Weasley and Potter stay up here too then?" he sneered, gesturing to how there were three beds instead of one. She laughed.
"The deal with the beds. Strange story actually. Others come up here, yes. Harry and Ron, don't know it exists. Think I'm in the library. Who can spend as much time as I spend here in a library?"
"Who else comes up here?" he asked. It was widely known that every development a student made about the castle's secrets were known at least by a few high people. Usually Draco or himself knew, and Draco would have told him about this place.
"A few Ravenclaws found it once and they were really nice, so now we see each other sometimes but not as often as we use to." She handed him a cup of tea and sat on the couch, gesturing him to take a seat as well.
"What's with the box?" Blaise said, breaking the few moments of silence. He gestured to the 65', wide screen, plasma, black box hanging above the mantle.
"That 'box' is a really expensive muggle television. It shows movies and shows. See?" She clicked it on with the remote and showed him how the objects moved.
"What's that then?" He gestured to the remote.
"A remote control. It shoots a laser telling the television what to do. You tell it what to say by hitting these buttons."
They talked about school or life at home or anything really. Soon though, they both fell asleep on the couch, just as the sun was rising.
A/N: Please review and tell me what you think. Good? Bad? Long? Short? Hope you liked it and I'll try to get another chapter up soon.