Three

July, 1998

"Hermione? Hermione! Stay with me!" Madam Pomfrey's concerned voiced echoed in her head.

She was in the pale yellow room again. A girl of about ten or eleven in denims and a pink t-shirt sat in a stiff chair in the corner, playing with a plastic box that bleeped.

"Mada..." Hermione began to say, and the girl looked up, startled. The toy fell to the floor with a clatter as she leaped to her feet, face alight.

"Hermione!" The girl cried, "don't go... wait... I'll call..." she scuttled from the room shouting for Dr Gupta.

Back here. Where is here? Mid-something Midvale. Midvale Psychiatric Home. Wait. Psychiatric Home?

The door swung open again, and the girl returned. Like Hermione, she had brown hair and brown eyes. But the girl's hair was long and flowing – not bushy like the mop around Hermione's forehead that fell into her eyes.

"Dr Gupta's coming," the girl said triumphantly. "Welcome back!"

"Who..." Hermione began, brushing the hair from her eyes.

The girl's face fell.

"They said you might not remember," she said, "but you remembered Mum, and I thought that..."

A name floated through Hermione's mind.

"Atalanta?"

The girl's smile was like the sun coming up.

"I knew you'd remember!" she crowed. "Wherever you've been, when you came back, you'd remember!"

"Atalanta. You are..." Hermione paused. Why did she know this girl?

"Your sister, silly!" Atalanta said. "Surely you remember your own sister."

I have a sister?

Atalanta looked at her with narrowed eyes.

"Did you... Was I there where you were?" Atalanta asked.

"N... no, you weren't," Hermione said before clapping her hand to her mouth. Whoever this girl was, she obviously thought that she played an important role in her life.

Atalanta's eyes grew wide.

"You didn't... I never... How could I not have existed for you?" she demanded.

Flickers of memory permeated her consciousness. Fights over socks left in the middle of the bed, arguments over toothpaste and who had access to Mum first.

"Atalanta," Hermione said, feeling her temper rising. "This isn't the time or the place. You have no idea what it's like..."

"Right," sneered the girl. "No idea what it's like to be Hermione. The special one. The one who was so bright and so promising. The one who left us for a world of what... What goes on in your world, anyway? Dragons and trolls and wizards and brooms?"

"Atalanta, I'm sorry... I can't control this. I can't control the magic, I can't control what happens here," Hermione said quietly.

Atalanta subsided and flung herself into the chair, pouting.

"Magic's not real, Hermione!" she yelled. "Magic's part of your other world – the fake one!"

"It is so real!" Hermione replied sharply. "It is as real as you or I!"

"Whatever." Atalanta bent and retrieved her game.

Hermione sighed; her sister had always been difficult, always self-centered and awkward. Being the eldest, Hermione had taught her many things – and there had been the good times, but where Hermione had gone, Atalanta had always wanted to follow.

And there were some places where Atalanta could not go.

Now, how did I know that?

The door swung open, and Dr Gupta and Mr Granger entered the room.

"Good afternoon, Hermione," Dr Gupta greeted her.

"Dad!" Atalanta flung herself at Mr Granger.

"Darling, how is Hermione?" Martin Granger asked his younger daughter.

"I'm fine, Dad," Hermione said quickly. "Atalanta and I were just... talking."

"Dad, she doesn't remember me," Atalanta blurted. "She says she doesn't have a sister, that she can't control what she remembers, that I don't exist..."

"Atalanta, I didn't... It's not like that," Hermione protested. "I just... It's hard for me to remember."

Dr Gupta nodded sagely.

"It seems," he said, "that while there are similarities between this world and the world that our Hermione visits when she's not with us, there are also some differences. You must not take it personally, little one; your sister has many miles to travel before she can be with us again."

"And I do remember you, Atalanta," Hermione said. "You've grown so much since the last time I saw you. What year are you in at school?"

Atalanta beamed. "I'm not going to the Comprehensive," she said. "I'm at Secondary now, and I'm going to be starting German next year on top of the French."

Hermione smiled wanly. Make an effort, you belong here, she told herself – it felt so true, so right. It had to be real.

"Atalanta's every bit as bright as you were. Are." Martin Granger said to her, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking Hermione's hand. "I think that soon you will be back at the books and the chemistry set the way you used to be."

"Dad," Hermione laughed, "it's not chemistry, it's potions."

An uncomfortable silence filled the room.

Martin cleared his throat, and Atalanta shuffled over to her chair.

"Yes, well," Dr Gupta said hurriedly, "let's see if we can test your reflexes..."

"How often does this happen?" Severus asked Poppy as the pair of them stood before the catatonic girl, who was staring, unseeing, at her books. The watery sunlight failed to permeate the gloom that surrounded the black-clad man.

"We didn't notice it at first, but she was comatose for weeks," Poppy replied. "But now, we can see that it happens more and more. Twice a day, sometimes. She'll stop whatever she was doing and sit. And I've noticed something else, Severus; these episodes are lasting longer and longer."

Severus shifted his weight carefully on his cane and grunted. Poppy looked at him, concerned.

"Was... Did anything happen to her that would cause this?"

Poppy nodded. "Dolohov hit her with a curse at the end of the battle. We don't know what it was," she added, forestalling Severus' next question. "Ginevra Weasley and Kingsley, and neither of them heard the incantation exactly. Ginevra said that the light of the curse was blue, and that's about it."

Severus frowned.

"It is – was – unusual for Antonin to throw careless curses. It must have been something slow-acting, something that we'd not notice, at first."

"What do you think happened?"

"There are several hexes and curses that can Petrify an individual: they have similar effects to that of the stare of the Basilisk. But most of them are more involved than the 'point and shoot' method of casting that you describe – and none of them involve a blue light."

Poppy nodded sagely. "You will be ... researching, then?" she asked.

Severus cleared his throat and grimaced. "I have tendered my resignation as Headmaster this morning. Minerva has not exactly offered me a position, either as Defense or Potions master. She said she preferred that I 'explore my options' before making any long-term decisions. Potter, of course, wants me to move into that hellhole in London that the Black family infested for so many generations."

Poppy pursed her lips.

"Minerva's encouraged him, I'm sure," grumbled Severus. "The woman apparently does not believe that I'm fit to be let off the lead."

"Well, I'm keeping you here, Severus," Poppy said firmly. "You're still healing, and I don't want you rupturing anything."

Severus stared hard at the catatonic girl, who held a quill loosely in her ink-stained fingers.

"What was she doing?" he asked.

"Writing to her parents. She writes to them every night, and every morning, she burns the letters. She modified their memories and sent them..."

"To Australia, yes, I know. Damned foolish thing to do. The Dark L...Voldemort barely even knew they existed. And she was with Potter; with the luck of that boy, nothing could have happened to her." Severus shifted impatiently, his dark dressing gown swishing against his pajama bottoms. Poppy would still not let him dress properly.

"Well, something did happen to her." Poppy clicked her tongue. "It's a shame, really. She intended to go and retrieve them this summer, but then these episodes began to become more frequent, and it's not safe for her to leave the Hospital Wing until we know what's happening to her."

"Indeed. Well then, it appears that I will have a project this summer, whether I like it or not," Severus replied ruefully.

"Severus, nobody is asking you to..."

"Poppy, if the foolish girl had not gone with Potter, if Potter had been less hot-headed, if I had not..." he trailed off. "Let us consider this a beginning."

"A beginning to what?"

Severus turned away and hobbled back to his bed. He sat down upon the edge and gingerly touched his neck, brushing the lank hair away from the white bandages with a grimace.

"Is it throbbing?" Poppy asked.

"Yes, it is throbbing, and it's hot, again," he croaked and fell silent as the school matron tended to his wounds, gently changing the dressing.

"A beginning to what?" she asked quietly when she was done.

Severus scowled at her – the interfering witch and her pesky questions! "Atonement, perhaps?" he said quietly, fingering the new bandages. "Penance?" And then very quietly he added, "Peace."

AN: This still doesn't belong to me.

Thanks to Subversa for making this legible and Savine_Snape for the Brit-pick.