Part III – Magic and Belief



The water was freezing cold, even in the middle of summer. The current of the waterfall beat down upon the water with just enough force to keep Hermione’s head under. She felt as if someone was hitting at her arms and legs, beating on them with a throbbing cadence. She knew how to swim, but for some reason she could do little more than let the power of the water take control of her body and force her under.

She felt the rocks and mud of the river’s floor under her feet and panicked. Her chest felt as if it was going to explode any moment, yet still she didn’t fight for her life. She had been fighting for her life since she was twelve years old, yet for some reason she was giving up and letting this water claim her life without so much as the slightest, feeblest resistance.

Thinking of her mother, father, and friends, the enormity of her plight weighed heavily upon her, as heavily as the water that anchored her to the muddy floor, and as heavy as the water that began to fill her lungs. She was deep in darkness, all alone, and she was going to die.

Tired, afraid, unable to fight, she was about to give up, closing her eyes to the last wavy rays of sunlight that danced upon the top of the water, when she felt someone claiming her life for her. A hand reached for her hair first, pulling on it hard, then for an arm, and then finally a pair of arms hankered around her waist, circling tight, pulling her upward easily, away from the mud and darkness, away from the fear and death, toward the air and sunlight above.

A man had hold of her. He pulled her to the top of the water, where they both floated for a moment. He seemed to struggle in the water, almost as if he couldn’t swim, so she knew not to struggle within his grasp. She wanted to offer him words of encouragement, but she was besieged with the urge to breath, her eyes barely opened, her chest still tight, choking and gasping for air, yet aware she had on only a thin cotton pair of knickers and bra.

Once he was able to get them to the embankment, he placed her on the grassy shore. Nude at the waist, in a pair of wet jeans, long dark hair sprinkling her face with water, he looked down upon her, his chest going up and down as he took in deep gulps of air. His hands on her shoulders, he looked at her with concern as he asked, “Are you mad?”

Still unable to breathe, let alone answer his insane question, she lay quietly. He pulled a wand from his wet pocket, performed a spell on her that she had never heard before, and suddenly it was as if someone had pulled all the water out of her lungs. In the process, she still had no air in them, so she gasped, and fear made her turn over to her side, her chest heaving profoundly.

He placed another reassuring hand on her shoulder and said in a gentler voice than before, “Easy now, take slow breaths, in and out, in and out.”

She closed her eyes and did as he commanded, breathing slowly, in and out. She tried to sort through everything that just occurred. She walked under a waterfall, then for some odd reason, she walked right into a river, didn’t even try to save herself, even though she knew how to swim. Thank goodness, this man, really, a boy no older than she, was there to save her. Furthermore, thank goodness he was a wizard.

She sat up and the first thing she saw was that her clothing, wand, and shoes were nearby. He looked quickly over his shoulders and saw them as well. “Yes, I know you’re a witch,” he said in haste. “What I don’t know is what in the world you’re doing here. How did you get here? This place is highly protected.”

Standing up, he shook his shaggy hair and then bent down to throw her dress to her. She caught it, but couldn’t help but stare up at him. Who was this boy? He seemed so familiar, yet she knew he didn’t go to her school.

“You’re a wizard?” she asked.

“I did use a wand to save your life, so excellent deduction skills. Ten points for the witch with the suicide wish,” he snarled, bending down again to pick up her wand. “And you’re a witch, so ten points more to me.” He threw her wand to her.

Her mind reeled in confusion at his words. No. It couldn’t be, but it had to be. The exact precision of his voice, his familiar demeanor and expression, his clipped tones, the way he said, ‘ten points for the witch, etc, etc’. She closed her eyes again and finally said, “I must be dreaming. This is all a dream, or a hallucination.”

“What are you going on and on about, witch?” he asked.

She tried to get up, but he was quick to get back down to his knees beside her, and he forced her back to her bottom. “Stay down. You almost drowned, for goodness sakes, and besides, you seem partially demented.”

“You don’t understand, there’s something terribly, terribly wrong here,” she began. “I, I have something very difficult to ask you. May I ask you a question?”

He rolled his eyes. “What?”

“What’s your name?”

“Oh, yes, that’s such a difficult thing to answer,” he said sarcastically. “Tell me your name first, and how you came to breach my wards. No one should even know of this place. It’s highly magical.”

“Fine,” she said, coming up on her knees beside him, and placing her dress over her trembling body in the process. She noticed that he watched her intently as she placed her dress over her shivering frame, and she knew she blushed, as did he for some reason. Once the dress was over her, she sat back down, crossed her legs, and said, “Of course you know I’m a witch. My name’s Hermione Granger, and I’m on summer holiday from Hogwarts, and I’m staying at the Muggle camp, Camp Donne, beyond the woods. I took a hike, and felt compelled to follow the path to the waterfall.”

“Compelled?” he echoed. “As in, you really wanted to see the waterfall, or actually compelled, as in someone used the Imperius on you?”

She was quiet for a moment and said, “Now that you mention it, I felt an actual compulsion. I HAD to find the waterfall, and once I did, I couldn’t help myself, I had to walk underneath it.”

“You didn’t walk under the waterfall,” he scoffed.

“I most certainly did,” she argued.

He looked back over toward the raging waterfall. “You would have died. So far, your story has no credence, and has more holes in it than a sieve. For one thing, there is no Muggle camp beyond the woods. If there were, I’d know about it. I’ve spent the last three summers near here at a potion’s camp, because I want to be a Potion’s Master someday, and believe me, there’s no Muggle camp called, Camp Dunne, near here.”

“I said ‘Camp Donne’, named after the English Poet, John Donne, 1572 to 1631, the father of Metaphysical poetry, who coined the phrase, ‘For whom the bells tolls’, although people always gets that wrong and credits it to…”

He interrupted her with, “Miss Granger?”

“Yes?”

“Do shut up.” He stood up and said, “Now, where was I? Oh yes ...” He began only to stop as he looked back down at her. She suddenly scooted far away from him, her hand over her mouth, and her eyes opened wide, full of fear. “What’s wrong with you now, you crazy girl?”

“You told me to shut up!” She stood up and pointed her wand at him.

He pointed his wand right back at her. “Well, you were droning on and on, like some know-it-all, when I was talking. I was trying to prove my point about why I knew you were lying, but you were trying to prove how smart you were, instead. I know who John Donne was, I just misheard you before, that’s all, so there was no reason for you to tell me his biography!”

“But … but … What’s your name!” she yelled, her wand still pointing steady at him.

“I’ll tell you in a moment after I finish telling you why I know you’re lying!” he maintained. “And put that wand down before you hurt someone. You probably don’t even know how to use that thing. Where did you find it? You can’t be a witch, as I was about to say, because you look to be around my age, but I know you don’t go to Hogwarts, because I’d see you there, if you did.”

“Something tells me you do see me there,” she said more to herself than to him.

“What?” he asked.

“Please, what’s your name?” she almost moaned.

“In a moment. I have a point to make,” he persevered. “I was also going to say that you couldn’t know magic or you’d have saved yourself.”

“But I didn’t have my wand!” she whined.

“Stupid thing on your part, wouldn’t you say? If you were a witch, surely you wouldn’t have gone into the water without it, COMPELLED or not,” he snapped, holding his wand out toward her. She stepped away from him and accidentally stepped upon a batch of small flowers. His hands went out toward her and he yelled, “Stop it, you’re smashing all the specimens that I collected this morning, you stupid girl!”

“Stop calling me stupid!” she hissed, but he paid her no mind. He reached out, took her wand in his free hand and pushed her aside. Holding both her wand and his in his right hand, he knelt down to the small heap of weeds and flowers on the ground, and under his breath said, “If that stupid Muggle ruined my whole day’s work, she’ll wished I had let her drowned.” Standing back up, he turned to face her and asked, “Now, let’s start with the basics, if that’s not too hard for your simple brain. What’s your REAL name, how did you get here, and who gave you this wand?”

Hermione stomped her foot in frustration and insisted, “Apparently, you were always like this, weren’t you, Severus Snape?”

He looked so geniuely taken aback that she knew his name that she almost felt badly for shocking him like that. Then she rushed up to him, pointed her finger hard into his chest and said, “Listen here, you overgrown troll, my name really is Hermione Granger, as if I’d make something like that up. It’s the summer of 1996! I’m a witch! You’re a wizard. Your name is Severus Snape, as if you’d make something like THAT up! I don’t know what year it is in your time, but I gather it’s much earlier to you, probably in the 1970’s! I think that waterfall is some sort of time-travel portal, and I gather I was drawn to it because of a vial of potion that you and I both drank right before school ended in June.”

His eyes were still wide with wonder, so she continued, her finger still poking his bare chest.

“You ARE a Potion Master in my time, a pompous arse one, at that. I am staying at a Muggle Camp called Camp Donne, and I did walk under a waterfall, which I did feel compelled to follow, and most importantly, and you’d better never forget this one, I AM NOT STUPID!”

Then she took both their wands in her hand and using her wand, pointed it at a nearby bush, and blew it to a hundred tiny bits.

Hermione threw his wand to the ground and said, “You told me if I took the potion I made from page 254, the Invidia Encontra potion, it would wipe away some feeling of envy that I felt, but the only thing I feel right now is extreme and utter anger, so thanks a whole lot, Professor Snape!”

She huffed away in frustration, and once she was back over near the waterfall, she tried to Disapparate away, but she couldn’t. Then she started to walk back on the rocks, to walk back underneath it, toward the other side of the shore, but she felt an arm snake around her middle, pulling her back, pulling her close to him.

Out of breath, from her tirade and frustration, she pushed the arm away from her, turning to face the only person it could be. “What do you want?” she asked.

“Are you going to try to kill yourself again?” he asked with as much snarl as he could.

“I’m going to try to get back to camp!” she huffed.

“Oh, to 1996 you mean?” He laughed at that.

She pushed him, because she felt like it, and because he was getting on her last nerve. Nevertheless, apparently she pushed him a bit too hard, because they were standing too close to the edge of the waterfall, so he slipped on the rocks, and fell right into the water.

He bobbed under and then back up, then he held onto a rock. “You stupid girl! Help me back up.”

“I’m not saving you!” she declared.

“I saved you!” he argued.

“That’s your problem,” she pointed out. “Now, why can’t I Disapparate away from here?”

“As if I would tell you even if I knew! Are you seriously going to leave me hanging onto a rock, with the current beating down on me, and the waterfall ready to crash upon me, knowing I can’t swim, and knowing that my wand is on the shore, when I risked my life to save you?” he shouted over the roar of the water.

She stared at him and said, “Maybe I saved your life the first time I lived this time, and it was my biggest regret or something, and the potion I drank was meant to bring me back to this time, to make me relive it, so I could NOT save you this time. Have a nice time drowning!”

“You stupid girl, that potion doesn’t work like that!” he bellowed. “If there’s one thing you’re most envious of, or one thing you’re most desirous of, that someone else has, it stops that feeling, and means that you no longer feel lacking of it, or deprived of it, because it’s replaced with something else!”

“Talk about droning on and on, trying to sound like a know-it-all!” she seethed, adding, “And STOP CALLING ME STUPID!” She took her wand and pointed it at him, but instead of saving him, he sunk to the bottom like a rock. She would wait a few moments and then she would save him.

Really, she would.