At first, there was nothing.
No light. No pain. No thought
.Just a slow, gentle falling. Like sinking through deep water. Like being caught between breaths, too far in to turn back, too far down to remember the surface.
Then–movement.
Not hers. A hand, small and pale, reaching for something off-screen. A voice, soft and laughing. A sofa, a pair of legs–someone chasing someone else around it. The edge of a memory, but not her own.
She saw it as though through glass. A living room. Dim evening light. A boy's face, maybe five years old, flushed with joy as he darted around a coffee table. Laughter trailed after him–his brother's, younger and brighter.
Then the warmth faded.
Now a door was closing. An adult voice, low and strained. Bills on a table. Words like "redundancy" and "tight month." A kitchen gone quiet. The boy stood still in the hallway, watching.
Hermione should have looked away, but she couldn't. She didn't know why she was seeing this. She only knew that it felt... familiar. Not the language. Not the places. Not the people.
The weight.
That bone-deep, silent kind of tiredness. She recognized it.
Now the boy was older–maybe ten or eleven–sitting at a school desk, hands folded. Children snickered nearby. A teacher ignored it. He blinked slowly, unmoving, as if it didn't reach him. But she felt it in his chest–how badly he wanted to be seen. Just once.
Hermione watched it unfold. Fragmented scenes. Quiet defeats. Days stacking like bricks, too heavy for such a small frame.
And slowly, the glass dissolved.
It was no longer a window. No longer a dream.
It was me.
My hands. My thoughts.
I felt the pressure on my shoulders, the ache in my chest when someone said, "Grow up," but I already had.
I stopped asking questions. I stopped crying. I stopped hoping. I just moved forward. One step. Then another.
Then–
a train.
A seat by the window.
A man in black.
A strange watch. A voice like I'd heard it before.
He asked if I was happy. I said I didn't need to be.
He said to live. That he'd take care of them. That I'd understand.
Soon.
And I–
I was starting to–
A sound.
A voice. Far away, at first. Then nearer.
"Hermione…"
Something pulled at the memory. Tugged her back. The scene blurred, like paint under water.
The boy's face turned toward her. His expression unreadable.
"…Please come back" A woman's voice. Cracked with grief, desperate.
And then he was gone. The scene shattered like glass dropped on tile.
Light slowly bled through her eyelids. Her body felt like it was made of stone, heavy and completely unmovable. There was an insistent beeping sound somewhere in the background. A warmth in her hand, a slight pressure.
She opened her eyes. The ceiling above was unfamiliar.Off-white, speckled. The air had the distinct hospital smell. Something whichshe was all too familiar with at her parents' dental clinic.
A gasp. A sob.
"Oh my god–Hermione?"
Her mother. Tears streaked down her cheeks as she bent over her. Hermione blinked up at her, confused.
Her father was there too. Pale, unshaven, eyes red and wide with disbelief.
"She's awake," he whispered hoarsely. "She's awake–she's back."
Hands held hers. Foreheads touched hers. There was a flood of words–relief, gratitude, love.
They were saying things–her parents. Rapid, emotional, familiar syllables rushing into the silence. Her name over and over. "Hermione." As if afraid she would disappear again.
But the words didn't quite land. They floated around her like mist, half-heard and far away. She blinked slowly, like each movement cost more than it should. Her arms wouldn't lift. Her mouth was dry.
She opened it anyway. "Mum?" she croaked. That broke something in her mother. A sob escaped her lips as she cupped Hermione's face with trembling hands. "Yes, baby. Yes. We're here."
Her father stepped aside to call for the nurse. Hermione watched him go, still frowning slightly, not because she didn't recognize him–but because everything felt a beat off. Like a song played in the wrong key.
Nurses came first. Then a doctor. The light above her eye. The reflex tests. The soft, clinical questions.
"Can you tell me your name?"
"Do you know where you are?"
"What day is it, Hermione?"
She answered some. Others, she let drift past. Her throat ached and her mind was still swimming. She caught words like "coma" and "two weeks" and "miracle," but they felt distant.
The doctor's eyes narrowed once, perhaps sensing her confusion ran deeper than simple grogginess. But Hermione met her gaze without expression, then let her eyes drift closed again. A subtle signal. "Oh, she's still exhausted," her mother said, brushing back her hair.
"Of course she is." They stepped back, quieted down.
Hermione let herself sink into the pillows. She wasn't pretending. Not entirely. The confusion and weariness was real.
---
She woke up later in silence. It was nighttime. The ward lights were low now. The beeping of different machines was still there, but muted. Less intrusive.
The room was empty. Her parents had gone home, finally convinced by the nurses and the doctors.
She was alone. And awake. Truly awake.
She sat up slowly, gripping the guardrails of the bed for support. She looked around.
An IV line in her hand, a blanket covering her lower half. Glow from the nurses' station seeped into her room via the clear wall.
And then she caught her reflection.
Bushy mane even more wild after waking up. Two large buck teeth. A pale, small face. Wide brown eyes.
She stared at it. The girl in the window stared back. And then, for a moment, just for a moment, she saw something else – an outline, of another face. That young man's face. Overlaid.
A boy.
Older.
Eyes more tired. Jaw more set. A different shape to the sadness. Yet determined.
Her own.
Hers and his.
She slumped back in bed, eyes closed, as memories rushed back in. Slowly first, like a trickle, then faster.
A class laughing and mocking. His brother's laughter. His parents' pride and sadness. The watch. The man in the train. His parting words: Go on and live. I'll take care of them.
Hermione's eyes snapped open. She knew. She remembered. Everything.
She finally understood what had happened. They were never different. Never separate. Never Hermione and the young man. He was her. She was him. Not two different souls living different lives. But one soul just continuing its adventure in the next life.
She hadn't been lost. Or reborn.
She had simply… remembered. What used to be.
Hermione looked at her hands again. Finding them familiar yet so strange all of a sudden.
A dry laugh escaped her. And then another. Short, breathless. Not the laugh of someone amused, but of someone who couldn't believe the incredulity of the situation they were in.
"Well," Hermione muttered, staring at the ceiling, "that's not how reincarnation usually works."
She shook her head, a ghost of a grin on the corners of her mouth.
"Of all the people I could have been, I got Hermione. Fitting, in a way." She smirked. "Lucky me."
Her voice was light, yet the weight she felt she had been carrying had never felt this light.
She didn't feel lost. Not anymore. This was his chance, as her, as Hermione. And for the first time in a long time, he felt curious. Truly curious. And excited.
Hermione got out of bed, removing the different machine attached to her, and dragged her IV stand with her. She ignored the sudden beeping of the machines, even as she heard the distant voices of nurses clamoring outside. She didn't care.
She turned to the window, the city lights of London flickering in the glass. Her reflection stared back–familiar yet altered.
She slowly grinned.
It wasn't kind. It wasn't hopeful.
It was sharp. Ironic. Just a little cruel.
They thought they broke me. And maybe they did. But I learnt to live with the cracks.
She let out a soft snort.
This world doesn't know me yet.
But it will.
She looked back at her reflection, a grin ghosting across her lips.
Nice to meet you, Hermione Granger.
Let's show this world what we've learnt.