Chapter Four

The shadows at the top of the stairs twisted unnaturally, elongating like stretched ink. Hermione’s breath came in short, sharp bursts as she pressed closer to Harry, her fingers digging into his arm. The firelight flickered—once, twice—then plunged the kitchen into absolute darkness.

A frigid gust of wind howled through the room, slamming cupboard doors shut with violent force. The scent of rosemary turned acrid, like burning hair.

“Harry!” Hermione screamed, her voice raw. She reached out blindly, grasping at the air where he had been standing just a second before. Her fingers brushed nothing but empty space.

Four seconds.

That was all it took.

The light returned in a sickly pulse, dimmer now, casting long, wavering shadows across the kitchen. Hermione stood alone, her chest heaving, her long brown hair whipping across her face from the residual wind.

“Harry?” Her voice cracked. No answer.

She spun in place, wand raised despite its uselessness, her brown eyes wide with terror. The salt line was undisturbed. No scuff marks. No signs of a struggle. It was as if he had simply… vanished.

Hermione’s hands shook. She could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Think. Think. But panic clawed at her throat.

Then—

A whisper.

From the hallway.

Not Harry’s voice. Not Ron’s. Something else. A sound like dry leaves skittering over stone.

Her bare feet stumbled backward until her hips hit the edge of the table. The wood groaned under her weight. The air smelled metallic now, like blood.

Upstairs, something heavy dragged itself across the floor.

Hermione’s breath hitched. She had to move. Had to find them. But the house was shifting around her, the walls breathing, the very air thick with something ancient and hungry.

Her wand trembled in her grip.

The silence that followed was more terrifying than the chaos. Hermione's pulse roared in her ears as her grip on the table edge turned her knuckles white. Jaime and Charlotte—she could see their faces so clearly it burned. The way Charlotte's nose scrunched when she laughed, how Jaime's hair stuck up at the back no matter how many times she smoothed it down. They'd never know what happened to her. The thought carved through her like a curse.

Then—

The creaking stopped.

The oppressive weight in the air lifted so suddenly Hermione staggered forward, her bare feet slipping on the polished floor. The fire settled into a normal, flickering glow. The roast chicken no longer smelled suspiciously perfect—just slightly overcooked, like something Molly Weasley might have left in the oven too long.

Hermione whirled, wand still useless in her hand, her breath coming in shallow gasps. The salt line remained undisturbed. No footsteps upstairs. No whispers. Just the faint crackle of the hearth and her own ragged breathing.

Hermione’s fingers trembled as she lowered herself onto the chair, the wood creaking under her weight. The silence pressed against her eardrums, thick and unnatural. She forced herself to take slow, measured breaths, her chest rising and falling beneath the thin fabric of her blouse. The air smelled stale now, the earlier scent of food replaced by something musty, like old parchment left to rot.

Her eyes darted to the window—still dark. No hint of dawn. Just an endless, suffocating black pressing against the glass.

She turned her head toward the clock.

3:25.

Her breath caught.

That wasn’t possible. She had checked it just minutes ago—3:37. Time was moving backward. A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat, but she choked it down. This wasn’t just dark magic. This was something else entirely.

The fire crackled, too loud in the unnatural quiet. Hermione’s fingers twitched toward her wand, still useless in her grip. She should be panicking. She should be screaming for Harry, for Ron, for anyone. But instead, a strange numbness settled over her.

Her gaze flicked back to the clock.

Hermione’s breath hitched as she watched the clock hands tick forward—3:26, then 3:27. A fragile, irrational relief flickered through her. Maybe she had misread it earlier. Maybe the house wasn’t warping time itself. She exhaled shakily, her fingers unclenching slightly from the edge of the table. The steady, mundane movement of the minute hand was a lifeline, a scrap of normalcy in the suffocating wrongness of the manor.

3:28.

Her throat tightened as she counted the seconds, tracking each shift of the hand with desperate focus. The fire’s glow cast long, wavering shadows across the kitchen, but the oppressive dread had receded—for now.

3:34.

She swallowed hard, her pulse a dull throb in her temples. Her thoughts strayed to Harry—his lean frame, his quiet strength, the way his hands always found hers in moments of fear. And Ron—towering, broad-shouldered, his presence filling every room he entered. The memory of their sixth year flickered unbidden: Ron’s lips on hers, the heat of his hands, the way he’d looked at her like she was the only thing that mattered—before he’d ruined it.

3:37.

The minute hand inched forward.

Then—

A shimmer. A breath of wrongness.

The clock’s hands twitched.

Hermione’s stomach lurched.

3:23.

The breath left her lungs in a rush. She jerked back, the chair legs scraping against the floor. No. No. She hadn’t imagined it. The house was playing with time.

Hermione’s fingers dug into the edge of the table as she watched the clouds outside the window twist unnaturally, shimmering like water disturbed by a stone. The darkness didn’t just persist—it reset. The same thick, starless blackness she had seen minutes ago swallowed the sky again, as if the night itself had been pulled backward.

A time loop?

The thought slithered through her mind, cold and suffocating. She had read about temporal anomalies in the Department of Mysteries, but nothing like this—nothing so deliberate, so hungry.

Hermione’s breath caught in her throat as the lights flickered—once, twice—then plunged the kitchen into absolute darkness. Her wand slipped from her numb fingers, clattering against the floorboards as a sudden, impossible exhaustion dragged at her limbs. The air turned thick, syrupy, pressing against her skin like a weighted blanket.

"Sleep."

The voice was velvet-soft, a woman’s murmur, as serene as a lullaby. Hermione’s knees buckled. She barely had time to register the cool wood of the table grazing her cheek as she slumped forward, consciousness unraveling like a spool of silk.

Author's Notes:
If you're reading this on Chyoa then the story will begin to branch a little starting next chapter, the story will remain the same but told from slightly different angles, their will be a 'main' branch if you just want a point A to point B story but if you want a bit of exclusivity in some scenes then check out the branching lines, if you're reading this on A03 then I'm afraid you only get the main branch line.