A/N: Hi everyone! This story has been spinning in my brain for awhile and I finally decided to sit down and write it. I've got about 3 chapters written but I'm going to try to upload one a week, or maybe two a week if I can keep up. This is a time travel Severus Snape/Hermione Granger pairing so leave now if you hate that pairing (or time travel). This is currently rated M for language and violence but there will probably be some sexual situations much later in the story. This will be a little slower on the love story side of things and Hermione will be resorted. This ignores HBP and DH as it starts at the end of OoTP. Hope you all enjoy!

Disclaimer: Any characters and situations you recognize are not owned by me, but rather by the amazing J.K. Rowling.

Chapter 1

Hermione Granger was dying. Yes, there was no other way to describe this feeling. She must be dying. She knew she had been hit by a spell, but having silenced the caster right before he voiced the words she had no idea what he had cast. She vaguely remembered a purple light shooting across the room at her chest and then she had felt the way she felt now. Floating, suspended in a peaceful white light. Okay, maybe she wasn't dying, maybe she was already dead. Isn't this how the afterlife was often described? Peaceful, light, no pain, no worries? If so, then yes, she was already dead. Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to care about that. This peace, after the chaos of the spells, shouts and desperation that she had left behind in the Department of Mysteries was just too lovely for her to try and think further into it. She couldn't even remember if she had actually managed to cast stupefy at the man she had silenced before everything had went all peaceful and white. She really didn't care about that either.

But then it turned out maybe she should have bothered to care just a bit, because suddenly her entire body was jerking up, arms flinging out in front of her and then swinging back, her head repeating the movement a scant moment later. She hung there, suspended in the whiteness, her heart beating almost out of her chest and her once quiet mind spinning at lightning speeds, trying to figure out what the hell was happening. Was she actually not dead? Was this some sort of after-life punishment? All her rambling thoughts were cut off abruptly however, when she was suddenly flung forward and had the highly alarming sensation of flying at dizzying speed through space. Everything remained white, and it didn't look like she was moving but it felt like it and the whole situation was so disorienting that she had to shut her eyes tightly to keep from vomiting.

And then just as suddenly as her forward flight had begun, it stopped, and she only had a brief moment to recognize the stomach dropping sensation of falling before she realized she was hurtling downwards now at alarming speed and then color burst back into her world. So much color everywhere that her eyes slammed shut again, but only for a moment. They flew back open a second later and all the color quickly resolved into a very blue sky with a few lazy white clouds floating through it. She glanced down, big mistake, and found that she was hurtling at insane speed towards a lovely green meadow. She found her voice then and screamed. At the same moment she realized that she had control of her body again and flung her arms forward where her eyes connected with her right hand still holding her vinewood wand. Her brain took only a second to flash back to the appropriate spell and she flourished her wand and screamed, "Arresto Momentum!" the moment before her body would have slammed painfully, and probably fatally, into the ground. As it was, she found herself suspended parallel to the earth below, the gently waving stalks of green grass lightly tickling her nose. Gulping, she took in several steadying breaths and then whispered, "Finite Incantatum". Her breath whooshed out of her with a quiet oof as she hit the grass and earth with a much softer thump than her headlong rush of a minute before would have suggested.

Groaning, she rolled over to face up to the sky. What the hell just happened?! She thought in bewilderment. One minute she was so sure she was dying, or dead and the next she was laying in a green meadow somewhere after nearly actually dying by headlong impact with the earth. Speaking of somewhere, where was she? Carefully, so as to keep her head from spinning too much, she levered herself up on one arm and rolled to the side to look around her. Blinking rapidly in shock, she rubbed her eyes hard with her other hand and the stared again, because there in front of her was Hogwarts, in all its glory and Hagrid's hut not too far to her left. Rolling to her back again she took a deep breath and pushed herself to a sitting position and found herself face to face with the Forbidden Forest, not a hundred meters from where she sat. So she was at Hogwarts. But why? And how? She'd just been at the Ministry of Magic in the Department of Mysteries, hadn't she? Speaking of, she glanced down at her chest swiftly, expecting to see her clothes charred over her chest and a gaping wound, even though she hadn't been experiencing pain. She blinked again in confusion at the jumper she wore, that while streaked with dirt, was still in one piece with no char marks, or rips, or well, anything. She quickly patted her chest and upon feeling no pain she breathed a sigh of relief, but a frown of confusion still pulled her lips down. She glanced back up at the Forbidden Forest and pushed herself to her feet a bit unsteadily. What the bloody hell was going on?! She swayed on her feet for a moment and once she felt like she wouldn't topple over with the next gust of wind she slowly turned around to face the castle and started the long walk, thinking furiously the whole way.