The New Me

Disclaimer: JKR owns it all, and all monies go to her and her people, I just do this for my own amusement.

Warnings: Yeah, abit more with the drams and flashbacks, so...

A/N: Well, I must say this was vey quick of me! I basically wrote this out in 4 hours straight, right now. Hermione will be acting totally as a Gryff in this chapter - but you have to remeber that she's really only in Slytherin because Harry wanted her there. If you don't - go back and check the reSorting chapter.
Anyway, read and then let me know what you think! And leave some ideas on what you want to happen!
Chapter 17, part 2 - enjoy!

****************
********************

Chapter 17 part 2

It hurt.

He could feel the skin bruising and the bones breaking as his uncle pounded into him. His uncle grunted and groaned with pleasure as he continued to abuse the young boy.
He whimpered in pain as a new tear was added to his many others. It was never going to stop, not ever.

The pain was just too much and he could feel his mind fading into the vast pit that was unconsciousness.
The last thing he heard was his uncle shouting his release.

~*~

The shout of Remus Lupin brought nearly the entire household to the Blue Room.

The Slytherins were worried – if they were part of Harry’s friends – or just plain curious to what was going on, the house elves were almost tripping over themselves in order to be helpful, and the Founders quickly moved to one of the paintings inside the room.

“Good gods, is that him?” Helga asked quietly.

“I believe so, Helga. It seems that he has entered the second stage of the curse.” Rowena answered solemnly.

“What do you mean, second stage? There was never any mention about a second stage in any of the literature that I found on the Nightmare Curse.” Remus almost shouted at the painting.

“The Nightmare Curse has three stages; the first when you either dream or just remember, the second when the memories or dreams start manifesting physically, and the third when it actually kills you.”

“What? Kills?” Remus whispered, all energy leaving him as he sank to the floor. Madam Pomfrey was still casting healing spells at Harry, which she had begun doing as soon as she set eyes on him, healing the wounds as soon as they appeared.

“Oh, yes. Between the second and third stages there are usually only a couple of hours, do you have the potion ready?”

“It should be done within two hours, is that enough?”

“It should be just enough. But might I suggest that you continue healing the wounds as soon as they appear – it will buy you some time.”

“Right. I’ll go help.” Remus got back up and walked over to the bed, pulled out his wand and started healing his Godson.

~*~

“Why aren’t they telling us anything? He’s my brother, for goodness sake!”

“Why don’t you just ask, or – maybe – they’re really busy and need to heal him or something. I don’t fucking know!” Draco snapped, earning himself several glares from his friends.

“I know you’re worried too, Draco, but don’t take it out on Mione – it’s her family that’s in there.” Pansy said.

“You’re right, I’m sorry, Mione. I’m just…you know – worried.”

“I know. We all are.”

“Pardon me, Miss Granger?” They all turned at the sound of Godric’s voice. They hurried over to the painting he was standing in.

“Yes, Lord Gryffindor?”

“Rowena sent me to tell you that he’s entered the second stage. So, if you have someone you pray to, now would be a good time.”

Hermione paled and swayed on her feet.

“The second stage? Oh, Harry!” Draco caught her just as she fainted dead away.

~*~

It was dark. That much she could say for certain.

It was a sort of oppressing dark, that seemed to press in on all your senses and leave you with a claustrophobic feeling.

Suddenly, crying could be heard all around her. It sounded very familiar. But who was it?

“Harry? Is that you? If you can hear me, answer!” The crying stopped, and she was suddenly afraid that she had lost him.

“M-mione?” A frightened voice whispering her name. Never had it felt so good to hear her name!

“Yes, it’s me! Where are you, Harry?”

“I-I’m over here. H-help me, Mione, he’s c-coming b-back!” Hermione felt a spike of panic shoot through her. She started running in the direction where she had last heard his voice, even though she really couldn’t see anything.

“Harry! Keep talking to me so that I can find you!”

“O-ok. What do you want me to talk about?”

“I don’t know, recite the alphabet or something?”

“A, b, c, d, e…” Harry started singing the alphabet as she hurried along in the darkness, trying to find him.

Suddenly, she noticed that the darkness around her wasn’t pitch-black anymore, but rather a dark grey that seemed to be getting brighter as the singing got more clear.

Finally, she came across Harry, but it wasn’t 17 year old Harry, but rather the 11 year old one.

“Harry?” He gave her one of his little-boy-smiles, the kind that he hadn’t smiled for years, and she could feel the tears gathering in her eyes.

“Hi, Mione. Are you going to get me out of here? I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“I’m going to try, but do you know that you were hit by a curse? Professor Snape is brewing the antidote right now, but I don’t know how long it’s going to take.”

“That’s ok. As long as you’re here, he can’t come back. I don’t want him to come back.”

“What do you mean, he can’t come back? Who can’t come back, Harry?”

“If I’m focussed on you, it puts the curse on hold for a while.” He said, morphing seamlessly into 17 year old Harry. Hermione threw herself at him, wanting to give him a hug, only to stop short when he flinched away.

“Harry…I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s ok. I’m just a little jumpy. You can hug me if you want to, just take it a little easy on me, ok? I’m still a bit sore.” He opened his arms to her and she gently stepped close to him, letting her arms embrace him.

He wrapped his arms around her in turn, and they stood quietly like that for a while; Harry’s chin resting on top of her head.
After about ten minutes or so, Harry tightened his arms and then let her go and stepped back. He smiled sadly at her and said;

“You have to wake up now, Mione. But don’t worry – I’ll break out of this soon, promise.”

“What do you mean, Harry?”

“You have to wake up, it’s not safe for you to be in my head anymore. He’s coming and the curse could end up affecting you too if you stay here any longer. So, please for my sake, wake up!” When he shouted the last, Hermione could feel a jolt of magic run through her body and knew she was waking up.

~*~

Sitting up with a jolt, she noticed that she was situated in on of the chairs next to Harry’s bed. Her neck felt stiff and she had a pounding headache just behind her eyes.

“Ow, damn it, Harry…” She muttered under her breath as she rubbed her temples with her index and middle fingers.

“Oh, you’re awake, Mione? We thought you’d be out for another hour or so, you’ve already been out for two.” Pansy said from a chair on the other side of the bed.

“Two hours?! But it only felt like ten minutes or so…” Pansy nodded at her and she felt the headache begin to loosen its grip.

“Has there been any change to Harry while I was…asleep?” Hermione wondered.

“Well, Harry stopped manifesting his memories physically for a while, and he seemed to almost relax for a bit. But then he tensed up again right before you woke up. And the Professor went to bed because he was magically drained from all the healing charms he had been casting – the same goes for Madam Pomfrey. Sev told us that the potion should be ready in a couple of minutes, so hopefully, this will be over soon.” Draco said, clasping Harry’s left hand with his own.

“Good, because when he wakes up, my brother will have some explaining to do.”

~*~

Pushing Hermione out of his mind had taken quite a lot of strength from him, and he lay panting with exertion on the ground.

He almost didn’t notice as the scenery changed around him again.
When the image stopped blurring around him, he found himself back to his 13th birthday, summer after second year.

He was standing in the kitchen of Number 4, making breakfast for his so called family. He could hear them rummaging around upstairs, getting ready for the day.

This was one of the worst days of his life.

He had suppressed the memory of this day so far back in his mind, he didn’t consciously remember it anymore.

Carefully placing the bacon, scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes, mushrooms and buttered toast on the pre-heated plates and setting them on the table, he waited nervously for his Uncle, Aunt and Cousin to come down the stairs.
They appeared in the doorway seconds later.

“You better not have burned our breakfast, freak.” Dudley grunted as he collapsed on the chair in front of his plate.

“I didn’t burn it.” Harry mumbled, his eyes downcast. Never look them in the eyes, that was a lesson he learnt the hard way.

“Don’t talk back!”

“No, Uncle Vernon.”

“When you’ve finished your chores go down in the cellar, boy, and wait for me there.” Vernon said, pointing his pudgy finger at Harry, who paled.

“Yes, Uncle Vernon.” Harry mumbled, dread filling him as his mind started running through scenarios as to what his uncle would do to him.

The Dursleys left the kitchen, leaving Harry to do the dishes and tiding up.
Trying to drag the inevitable out as long as possible, but still not taking long enough that he would be punished for it, Harry made his way down the stairs into the cellar, stopping at the sight that greeted him.

Long chains with manacles were bolted to the floor and ceiling, whips and knives of different sizes and styles lined the walls and different branding irons were laying in a steel bucket full of hot coals.

“Oh, no…” He whispered, his eyes locked on the branding irons.

“Oh, yes, freak! Now get over here before I’m forced to come get you!” Uncle Vernon said from his right. He spun around, staring fearfully at his tormentor, wishing desperately that he was back at Hogwarts. His sanctuary.

He made his way over to his uncle carefully, not wanting to go, but not having the strength and courage to do something about it.
It was ingrained so deeply in his mind that he had to obey this man, that his body moved on it’s own accord, before he could even decide what to do.

~*~

The occupants of the Blue Room froze their every word and every movement as a whimper came from the bed they were gathered around.

Turning slowly around from the painting that the Founders were residing in, Hermione, Draco, Pansy and Blaise were shocked to see Harry hovering four inches above the bed, covered in a red glow, duvet on the floor.

He whimpered again, his hands flying up to cover his face and his body curling into a foetal position to try and protect itself.

His muscles kept twitching, as if invisible blows were landing on him.

“Dear Gods, he’s entered the third stage!” Rowena whispered, fear evident in her voice.
The others gasped at the news, too stunned to react straight away. A split second later, Draco started barking out orders.

“Mione – go get Lupin. Pansy – see what’s taking Severus, the potion should be done by now. Blaise – help me cast healing spells at him, maybe that can help him some.” Jumping to do his bidding, Hermione and Pansy threw the door open and started running, splitting up as they got to the staircase. Hermione went up it, heading for Remus’ bedroom, and Pansy headed down, making her way towards the Potions laboratory.

“Remus!! Remus, wake up!” Hermione shouted as she pounded on the door. About two seconds later the door was opened by an exhausted looking Remus Lupin, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Hermione? What’s going on?”

“It’s Harry – he’s entered the third stage! You have to come quickly!” She shouted, turning around to run back down the stairs.

Remus was wide awake from the moment she said Harry’s name, taking off after her, hoping that he wouldn’t be too late.

~*~

Pansy knocked quietly but hurriedly on the door to the Potions Master’s private lab.
She knew better than to start pounding on the door and shouting, that could startle her Head of House enough that something could go wrong, and then where would they be?

“Professor Snape? It’s really quite urgent.” She said through the door. She heard Snape sigh in annoyance before he opened the door.

“What is it?” He scowled.

“It’s Harry, sir. He’s entered the third stage of the curse. Hermione’s getting Professor Lupin and Dray and Blaise are casting healing spells at him.” She answered urgently.

Snape swore quietly before turning around, going to collect two vials of a green potion.

“It’s just finished, I was on my way up, actually.” Leading the way, Snape quickly made his way up to Harry’s room, mentally cursing the boy’s luck. He always managed to get into trouble no matter where he was. Although, he had to admit to himself that he was more fond of Harry now, after he had been sorted into Slytherin and he had found out a bit about the young man’s life thus far, than when he had been a carbon copy of his late father.

When Snape and Pansy entered the room they were met with the sight of Harry now floating two feet above the bed, arms and legs stretched out to the side as if something was holding them there, surrounded by a green light, face contorted in pain and making sounds deep in his throat like a wounded animal. His pyjama top had been removed and on his chest wounds were appearing rapidly, fading into scars before their eyes.

Hermione was holding her self, tears silently pouring down her face as she saw her brother being tortured.

Draco and Blaise were still casting healing spells for all they were worth, Blaise utterly silent and with a stony look on his face, Draco with tears running down his cheeks, muttering;

“Don’t you die on me now, Harry. Don’t you dare die.”

Remus was sobbing brokenly at the foot of the bed, having tried to touch Harry on the leg for a direct magic transfer, only to be shocked to the core by the energy surrounding his cub, and been unable to get up since.

Snape hastily made his way over to Harry, uncorked one of the vials, and poured the contents into Harry’s now open mouth.

For a moment, it looked as though he was going to choke on it, but then his throat started working and swallowed the potion quickly.

Harry quickly dropped down on the bed and the glow seemed to disappear when suddenly, he stopped breathing.

~*~

Hermione burst in to action, throwing herself forward, landed on the bed, tilted Harry’s head back, opened his mouth and started doing CPR.

After a minute of his sister working furiously to try and save his life, Harry drew a shuddering breath, opened his eyes, shot to the side of the bed and promptly threw up.

“Harry! Are you ok?” Hermione asked him, holding his long hair back from his face as he continued to dry-heave for a minute or two. Collapsing back on the bed, Harry closed his eyes and said quietly;

“No. But I’ll be ok. So tired…may I sleep, Mione?”

“Sure, Harry. Just rest and we’ll talk when you wake up.” She said softly, stroking his forehead gently.

“Ok. Hold me? Please?” Hermione gently worked her right arm underneath him, placing his head on her chest and wrapped both arms around him, using her left hand to stroke his hair as her quickly went to sleep, this time without dreams or memories. She turned her head to look at the others, meeting each of their eyes in turn.

“You might as well get some sleep, guys. I have a feeling he’ll be needing quite a bit of sleep after this, and there’s no need for us to get even more sleep-deprived than we already are. I’ll stay and watch over him. Thank you for helping him.” She whispered quietly, as not to disturb her brother.

The others nodded and silently made their way out of the room, leaving the siblings to their rest.

Answers were sure to be found in the morning.

As Hermione and Harry slept on, the Founders watched over them from their painting, praying that things would work out for the best.

*********************
********************************

A/N2: Well, there it is!
Until next time!
//LoveGD