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Hermione had always been fascinated by the catacombs beneath the city of lights. She had done the tour often with her parents when she was little, so it was with a little nostalgia that she decided to visit them again on her own as an adult after all these years. She was on much deserved holidays and had nothing better to do, not to mention she deserved this treat after surviving yet another war. However, it was different from what she remembered. It didn't seem as scary, as dark or even as big a place as she recalled.
She fell back to the back of the group, a bit disappointed that her memories did not match reality. Had the war jaded her so much that all these bones, empty eye sockets looking down on her, or grinning skulls did not bother her one bit? Or maybe the tour simply used to take them through other, more impressive galleries?
She bit her bottom lip, glanced around, and, when no one was looking, she slipped beneath a cordoned off gallery and disappeared in the shadows with a pounding heart.
She was still a rule abiding person by nature, but this wasn't hurting anyone. She just wanted to recapture that feeling from the past, or any feeling for that matter. She felt so numb since defeating yet another dark wizard alongside Harry and Ron. It had been weeks and everyone told her to give herself time, that everything would return to normal, but it had not. Actually, her heart beating so wildly at her daring disobedience of the tour guide's rules was the most alive she had felt since.
Just in case, she grabbed her wand from her bag, cast lumos, and then wandered throughout the labyrinth of bones.
Meandering on her own in the near darkness, every breath and footstep she took the only sound in this monument to the dead should make her feel fear, she knew, but instead she was at peace.
She walked until she glimpsed a faint light and movement ahead. Thinking she had caught up with her group somehow, she quickened her pace, but as the light grew bigger, she realized all it was was her own reflection.
"What a strange place to put a mirror," she thought to herself as she inspected the mirror surrounded on all sides by skeletons.
The surface didn't even look old or tarnished in any way.
"Strange," she muttered and pressed her finger to check its smoothness, but she went right through it.
Not having expected the surface to yield, she lost her balance and toppled forward, landing on the cold, hard ground.
"Just bloody fantastic," she grumped as she picked herself up and patted her jeans to get rid of the dirt on her hands and knees.
"Eh! Vous là!" someone yelled in her direction, a flashlight blinding her momentarily.
Hermione sighed. Great. Now she would get in trouble for trespassing. She stashed her wand away and held her hands up to show she meant no harm, then explained to the irate guard she got separated from the group and then got lost in the dark. The man was not understanding and although she was not fluent in French, "stupide touriste" did not need much of a translation. He did, however, walk her back to the exit and slammed the gate in her face, then pointed at a sign.
"Eet eez closed," he said in a terrible accent.
Hermione looked at the sign with a frown. It did indeed say the catacombs was indefinitely closed for repairs where it had before indicated the times of departure and rates to visit the catacombs.
Did she hit her head? Sleepwalk here? She couldn't ignore the evidence in front of her eyes, but she doubted she had imagined the tour guide and fellow tourists.
"Strange," she muttered once more.
"Indeed," A man said behind her.
Hermione whirled around, fighting her natural instinct to grab her wand because she was in Muggle territory, or so she thought before seeing the man floating down towards her in a flurry of red cape.
"Do we know each other in whatever universe you come from?" he added.
"What? Why would I? I have no earthly idea what you mean."
"That's the most feeble excuse I've been given yet. How did you cross universes, by the way? I've been trying to patch all entry points, but you've still managed to sneak through."
Hermione massaged her temples, trying to make sense of what this strange man hovering in front of her was saying after what had just happened to her, putting two and two together.
"Ah," she said when realization dawned. "I guess I did stumble into another dimension," she admitted. "I didn't mean to, however. There was no sneaking involved whatsoever."
"No?" the man finally set foot on the ground, his cape falling limp around him. "Why don't we discuss this around a cup of tea?"
"Yes, please. That would be lovely."
She could really use a cuppa after such a shock. And here she thought these kinds of things only happened to Harry. Her jaw nearly dropped when the stranger casually opened a portal of golden sparks without a wand, then bowed to let her pass through it first. She carefully set a foot on the other side, but it was as pleasant a transition as you please. There was no comparison to apparition, floo, or portkey travel. She might as well be stepping through a simple Muggle door. On the other side, she was greeted by an enormous mansion richly decorated with large round windows here and there.
Turning around, she caught her host unclasping his cape which promptly flew up the central staircase.
"Alright. I'm going to need some kind of explanation here," she told him.
The man smirked and damn, she only now noticed how very handsome he was. She averted his knowing gaze, hoping she was not blushing. Would he notice if she cast a glamour so it wasn't noticeable? Bugger. Seeing how powerful he was, he would not only notice, but point it out. He gestured for her to follow him and she meekly walked after him, hating how small and insignificant he made her feel compared to him without even trying. She was well known in the wizarding world, sure, and she thought she was bright and talented, but she would bet she couldn't do a fraction of what this man was capable of.
Soon, they entered a cozy room that reminded her of the Gryffindor common room, but with a hell of a lot more books. It was, basically, paradise to her, so she wondered for a few seconds if she might have died deep in the catacombs of France and gone to heaven. She could live with that idea, or… die with it, she supposed. It almost made more sense than having walked into another dimension by accident, in which a red cape floated around serving tea. Hermione gaped.
"How are you doing that?!" she burst out.
"Uhm? Doing what?" he replied with an elegant raised brow that almost distracted her.
"All this magic! I didn't even see you cast a spell, or hear you, for that matter. And it's not even some first year spells either. Wordless, wandless magic at this kind of level… how? Who are you?"
"That's what you want to know?" he asked instead, sounding amused. "Not where you are? How you can return to your own universe? Find your way back home?"
"Do you make a habit of answering a question by another?" she shot back, getting annoyed by his nonchalant attitude.
"Seems you're picking up on it too. I've been told I'm a bad influence."
Hermione rolled her eyes, then accepted the cup of tea the Cape was holding out for her by its edge. She observed how the cloth seemed to undulate when she did. She thought the wizard had charmed the Cape, but maybe it was sentient, like the sorting hat?
"Should I thank it?" she asked him.
"If you must, but you shouldn't encourage it. It's a bit like a very friendly Labrador."
She considered the warning seriously.
"I can live with that," she said before looking at the Cape's collar since it didn't have an obvious face like the sorting hat.
"Thank you, Cape. You're much nicer that the sorting hat. He never offered me a cup of tea in all the time I've known him."
The Cape bowed and she giggled at his gentleman's manners
"It's a cloak, actually," the wizard said and promptly got wacked behind the head by the Cape, making her laugh again. "But I guess it's the Cape of Levitation now," he muttered. "And to answer your earlier question, I'm Dr Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme-"
Another man, dressed similarly, but much broader, walked by the open door at that moment and pointedly cleared his throat.
"I was the Sorcerer Supreme-. I guess I'm just some random sorcerer now."
Hermione looked between this Dr Strange and the now empty doorway, nodding knowingly.
"Ah. Politics," she said. "I'm Hermione Granger, no title, so I guess I'm just some random witch."
"A stranded one," he observed, getting back on topic. "And you use a wand to perform magic? How… archaic. May I see it?"
Hermione hesitated, but her host had been rather kind to her all things considered, so she held it out for him. Instead of snatching it from her hand, as she had expected, he merely looked it over, then, with an elegant gesture of his fingers, her wand gracefully floated up towards him, turning this way and that as if it was dancing, until it was inches from his own hand.
"May I?" he asked, glancing at her.
She nodded. Her throat was dry, as if the sorcerer had put her under a spell. On cue, the Cape nudged her shoulder, and she sipped her cup of tea while Strange swished, flicked, and twirled her wand, producing an indecent amount of golden sparks from its tip. Finally, he held it out to hand it back to her.
"Amusing," he said.
Her mouth dropped open. Her wand was her most precious belonging. Without it, her magic would be severely limited.
"Amusing?" she repeated, voice tight with outrage and anger.
"Can you do any magic without it?"
"Yes, but nothing impressive. Like I said, simple spells. Levitating or summoning objects, locking or unlocking doors, repairing objects-"
"That one," Strange said. "Show me."
Hermione glanced around for something that needed fixing, finding nothing until her host smashed his teacup on the table. At least he had that in common with the wizards of her world: he was a real drama queen.
"Reparo," she murmured as she waved her hand over the broken cup.
The pieces immediately jumped back together to become one. Strange picked it up to inspect it from every angle.
"Seamless," he mumbled, more to himself than to her if she had to guess. "The very fabric of reality."
"What else?" he asked, sounding excited now, as if he had just found a really good book.
Hermione turned towards the chimney she had spotted and cast incendio at the logs lying in its center. A fireball roared to life in the hearth.
"Your control is admirable. It's a shame you limit yourself with a wand."
"It's how I was taught," she shrugged but she had to wonder if it could have been otherwise.
Strange looked at her for an uncomfortably long time before he spoke again.
"How would you like to learn my way?" he asked.
"Didn't you collect me to know how I crossed dimensions?"
"If you accept to be my pupil, we'll have ample time to discuss that," he said dismissively. "Like I said, it's not a tear in reality that has been used before that I know of. In fact, I'll ask the Sorcerer Supreme to keep an eye on it for me," he added with the evil sort of chuckle she associated with dark wizards,but she knew he was just being petty.
And Hermione was actually considering his offer. It was very tempting, if she had to be honest. Learning the kind of magic Strange practiced was not only appealing to her need to add to her knowledge, but she also thought it could come in very handy when the next dark wizard inevitably stirred up another war back in her dimension. No matter how powerful he would be, no matter what kind of dark magics he used, he would never be ready for something like Dr Strange. She could be the sorcerer of her own dimension, because she was pretty sure they didn't have one. Add to that she was officially on holiday back home and no one would even notice she was off world.
Feeling eyes on her, Hermione looked at her host who was staring at her as if he could read her every thought, what with that all-knowing smile of his. And what if she accepted and had a little crush on her teacher? It wouldn't be the first time.
"Why the hell not?" Hermione answered, accepting his invitation. "I'm not so sure it will work, our magic might be too different, but at worst, we'll always have Paris."
The Cape covered her for a brief moment as if it was hugging her, before flying up in circles around the room. Strange's eyes were twinkling, and if hope and optimism had not been stomped out of her numerous times over the years, she could almost believe the attraction was not one sided for once. And in the grand scheme of things, even that did not matter, because she could finally feel all the emotions that had eluded her for too long: enthusiasm, hope, lust, greed, selfishness, giddiness, peace, and dare she say, happiness, and so much more to look forward to.