8 Chapter 8: Pretence!

After another few minutes of discussion with Kent, Hermione came out.

Without looking back she ran to her room and shut the door tightly.

She couldn't hold it in anymore.

Inside the familiar walls of her room, she finally let go of her pretence.

Kent would be surprised seeing her like this. He wouldn't have thought that occlumency was more than just protecting your mind from legilimency.

...

Thinking about the future, Hermione's expression turned sad and nostalgic. It looked like she had gone through countless vicissitudes of life. Her eyes gradually moistened with drops of tears rolling down her cheeks.

It was hard, even for a highly skilled occlumens like her. Keeping her real self under the vineer of a childish personality was harder than she anticipated, especially after seeing those familiar faces, remembering the joyous times, the sad times and mostly the last two years of her life in the future. She along with Harry were under the constant hunt of the dark lord's underlings before she died under the curse of the said dark lord.

Hermione was indeed from future. She didn't know how she returned to the past after dying but she was happy that she got a chance to correct the countless mistakes and wrong decisions she made in her life.

But there was a single variable in all this. It was her brother.

Kent Granger didn't exist in the future. As far as she could recall she was the single daughter of her parents.

It didn't just end there. Kent was far mysterious than she thought at first.

First of all, he was far more intelligent and mature than what a kid of his age should be even if he was a genius. Maturity and knowledge just don't come out of nowhere. It comes with experience.

Kent was also more confident and sure of himself which is generally seen in adults.

She had a guess that Kent might be same as her, that is, adult consciousness inside a child's body.

Her suspicion deepened after their fifth birthday.

He had came up with a set of martial arts which "could" shape the body to it's fullest "potential". She didn't take it seriously at first but as an excuse to observe him more closely, she decided to accept Kent's offer and exercise with him. He even came up with a nutrition drink, although it tasted bad but it was better than those potions she drank in her Hogwarts years.

But within a week, she got an unexpected surprise. The combination of the exercise and the nutrition drink worked like a charm. She could literally feel the changes it brought to her body. Although it might not be as instantaneous as those potions but it felt more natural.

And within one year, her physic changed from a normal girl to an athlete's or even better.

This also deepened the mystery of her brother.

Sometimes she was tempted to use legilimency on him but her moral integrity stopped her from doing so. Although during the war against Voldemort, she had picked up the rudimentary legilimency skill but it was rough and rude. It wasn't as subtle as of those highly skilled like Dumbledore.

And more importantly, Kent wasn't her enemy.

She never felt threatened living with Kent under same roof. Instead she felt a little safer and she tended to believe her intuition more than her eyes, the war had demanded so. When friends as close as your brother abondon you and betrays you for comforts of life, you've got to develop some skills.

But she wasn't sure if he knew about magic though.

But her doubt was soon cleared one year after her fifth birthday when Kent suddenly started practicing the same martial arts but with a short stick in his hand.

She had watched him carefully during the practice and noticed his graceful manipulation of the stick with his fingers.

It was also one of the reason Hermione staged such a scene yesterday about her nightmare. Accidentally revealing the name 'Harry' in front of Kent.

Another reason was, she wanted to know if Kent was indeed from the future.

Today's incident confirmed her guess.

He was indeed from the future. She didn't believe any of his "visions seen in dreams" excuses. The portrait of Hagrid, the drawings of Hogwarts castle, potion classroom. Even the gloomy expression on Snape's face was spot on.

Divination was much more complicated and vague than that. As far she knew all the prophecies were vague.

She had to admit that her brother's drawing skills were superb.

'It makes things easier and also a lot more complicated than before,' Hermione sighed.

Easier in the sense that Kent's biological age was same as her and mentally he was also an adult like her. She could at least relate to someone in her age group, be it her brother.

And it was harder in the sense that she wasn't sure if they were the only ones who came back from the future. And also which future did Kent come from? The parallel universe theories are pretty complicated.

Putting away the distracting thoughts, Hermione pondered, 'maybe I should teach him occlumency.'

But she immediately scrapped that idea.

'No! I need to observe him more,'

It was not that she suspected Kent was an enemy but on careful thought, she found that she didn't know him as well as she believed.

She was also sure that he hid many things from her just like she hid many things from him.