Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter or Warner Bros. franchise, nor will I ever claim to. J.K. Rowling owns all of these characters, I just choose to ignore what she did with them.
AN: Thank you for clicking! This story is rated 'M' for adult situations and language in later chapters. This means you should not be reading this unless you are over eighteen in the first place. I will never be ridiculously graphic in my description, but there are sexual situations here. This is my own twist on a timeturner fic, but the last fourth will not be in 1978. Also, this story is a lead in to my Drarry. They are both standalone fics, though. It wasn't stated on the description, so let me tell you this story veers completely off course after the events of Deathly Hallows. It doesn't include or lead to the epilogue, rather Hermione makes her own future. The future Hermione manages is not too far from the truth, if you want a peek at the future she sets forth, the story (Blind) after this one has been started. Thanks and review.
Reminiscent
The fresh coat of gold on the singular plastered wall of the Defense against the Dark Arts Room still gleamed brightly in contrast to the gray stones of the ancient castle. The flickers of the lantern filled with the dimly burning candle above made shadows across the scroll of a fifth years' parchment as Hermione pushed back her curly mess of a ruined bun from her face for the hundredth time that night. She cracked her neck subtly and yawned. Hermione made one more green corrective mark and placed her quill aside. Stiffly stretching her limbs out to relieve herself from the hunched position she had fallen into while squinting to see the hastily scrawled lines of a very distracted student, she made an attempt to straighten herself. Upon realizing exactly how sore she was from hours of hunching over papers, she stole a glance at her clock.
The numbers on the face of the clock were super-imposed in a digital looking blue while several hands behind the blue numbers had initials and were pointing in several directions. She sighed as she watched H.P. tick along clockwise until it had swung a half-face from the Ministry to Hogwarts, in junction with three other hands. D.M., H.G., and N.L. seemed to be constantly on this point of the clock, while if any muggle looked at it, the H.P. hand would sway back and forth between a place around Ministry/nine and Hogwarts/three. L.L., G.W., and R.W. were the only ones that really moved erratically anymore. G.W. passed through Great Peril/seven more often than any of the others, but what was quidditch without a couple broken bones and mild amnesia here and there. L.L.'s hand seemed to teeter on Ministry often enough, but L.L. had a habit of being stuck on Lost/five almost too often. R.W.'s hand often hit Home/twelve and stayed for quite some time. As Hermione stared at the magical clock before shaking her head as to wake herself up and read the blue flashing numbers to herself. The time ticked 2:22 AM and Hermione moaned.
She was irritated with herself then for forgetting to set her clock to remind her to go to bed early. Letting out another exasperated sigh, she glanced at her large cherry wood desk askew with assorted year's homework and removing her wand from under the nearest green blotted scroll, she made quick work of tidying everything back into graded and ungraded piles. She righted the frame of Draco and Harry's wedding, smiling as she caught a bright grin from a well-dressed Harry as he put his arm around Draco. Draco in return smirked and snaked his hand around Harry's back. Draco's eyes alighted for a splinter of a second before returning his mocking grin to his face for the magical camera taking the picture.
The day the couple got married three months ago, the Ministry shut down for an hour while the private ceremony went on in front of the fountain in the lobby. The Prophet still writes about the "Miracle Match" every shred of a story they get. She smiled as the scrolling headline, "THE MALFOYS ARE PART VEELA!" on yesterday's prophet floated to the rubbish bin. She let the paper crumple itself into the heap, thinking to herself exactly how spot on they were for once. Harry and Draco were brilliant for each other, and in fact when Harry found out he was gay, Hermione worried there would be no presentable boy for Harry to bring to the tabloids. Draco had seen his share of the Prophet's ramblings and knew how to deal with it in a way that benefited him, as a team Harry and Draco seemed to be flawless when it came to press. Harry had never been too exemplary in his dealings with the press but if anyone could fix that, it would be a Malfoy.
Ron Weasley had craved attention for years and then when finally bombarded with it, he didn't seem to care much or give the news much to be interested in. His wedding to Lavender Brown two short years after the Battle of Hogwarts seemed to be a godsend for him. Hermione's relationship with Ron prior to Lavender's rekindling romance was that of a wet cat. It seems he could never do the right thing to make her happy, and in turn, Hermione could never do the right thing to keep him from making her cross. As it was, Hermione and Harry visited Ron at home as little as possible, preferring to meet him as needed for lunch away from his crazy wife.
Lavender loved and hated Harry and Hermione respectively and only put up with them when she absolutely had to, which is why her name had never made it as a hand on Hermione's delicately crafted clock. In truth, Hermione loathed Lavender and was glad that she wasn't expected by Ron to go and see them too often. This was for everyone's benefit, including Ron's, considering Lavender almost killed him the last time Hermione and Ron had lunch without Harry. As it was, Ron was still tirelessly happy with his life. He enjoyed his three children immensely, and from the most recent gossip via Ginny, Lavender was about to surprise him with numbers four and five. She straightened the pictures of Ron's family portrait and Ginny's quidditch shot next to Harry's wedding and she collected her wand and wide-rimmed blue and white Victorian teacup from the desk.
Tiredly moving toward the hall, she flicked her wand toward the lantern, and as it went out, she paused. The swishing of a cloak caught her attention, and as soon as she held her breath, so did the cunning stranger as well. She continued on a second later toward her private rooms and the stranger's back cracked loudly from behind her. In a second, Hermione had totalused the perpetrator, and she ripped off their cloak. Upon seeing him she sighed exasperatedly and dropped the cloak down in a heap. Harry Potter laid there rigid as a board on the hard ground. She spelled him relaxed and cocked an eyebrow in a look that said, 'Did you really just do this?' Hermione helped him up after a quick 'enervate' from the tip of her wand and hugged him. "Harry, why are you skulking about the halls like a contemptuous sixth year? Don't you have a direct flooway to Draco's rooms? And let me mention, I could hear you coming from centuries off." Harry chuckled and straightened his silver rimmed glasses on his nose.
"Draco got roped into patrolling tonight, because Filch is out at St. Mungo's again. Thought I'd try and find him without waking everyone in the school, but I just got off a double-shift doing loads of paperwork, by way of one Percy Bloody Weasley. I figure I'm dragging my feet more than normal. Besides it's not as if I expected Hermione to still be awake at this late hour." He smiled warmly and placed his arm around her shoulder. "How have you been, Hermione?" He directed her toward her private rooms in a casual stroll.
Draco came around the corner in front of them, his wand bright and in front of him. "Hermione, you would be the one to sway Harry back to your rooms." He smirked darkly and sauntered along to plant a lingering kiss on Harry's cheek. "After all, you are responsible for all of Won-Won's flaws." He mocked in Lavender's disgustingly shrill voice. Hermione made a face and lightly punched him in the arm. It had taken a while for Hermione to come around when it came to Draco, but it seemed that they had at least one dislike. Lavender Weasley.
In fact, it would seem that no one in the group could stand Lavender, besides Ginny. On Ginny's count, it was more a family function than it was ever a pleasure to spend countless hours getting spoken at about every in-and-out of Ron being "a sorry excuse for a man." Draco did his trademark smirk at Hermione's punch and walked arm-in-arm with Harry accompanying Hermione to her chambers. Hermione smiled at them both, and Draco looked at Harry knowingly. Harry looked at his watch and rolled his eyes. "Hermione, how are you going to be up in four hours to get ready for class? That's simply ridiculous. I mean sure, Malfoy over here doesn't have a class until ten am so that makes a shred more of sense, but you, I figured you'd grown out of your old habits by now." Hermione just smiled lightly and opened the door to her chambers calling a simple, "Night gentlemen" over her shoulder as the door slammed shut.
Draco rolled his eyes and laced his fingers with Harry's as soon as Hermione was out of sight. "Harry, I wish she would have lent Dumbledore's old turner to me once or twice, how you keep me up, but I have to deal with my husband's bad manners on my own." Harry chuckled darkly and tugged along at Draco's fingers, pulling him down toward the Dungeons. Hermione listened to the whispered echoes in the hall, and before Harry and Draco's voices had faded completely, she had already slipped under her sheets.
She looked at the replica of the clock that was in her classroom next to her bedside. Sighing heavily at the blue '2:30' staring back at her; she pulled the time-turner out of her bedside drawer and placed it carefully beside the clock. Hermione cast a quick charm on her clock to alarm her of 6:30, so she could go back in time and sleep another four hours before seizing her day. Settled on her plan, Hermione slipped her hand underneath her pillow and hastily fell asleep.
The familiar sonata wafted into Hermione's mind to obstruct her slumber and she lazily reached to quiet the clock and twist her hand around the time-turner on the bedside. She sat up in bed and swung her legs over the side without getting off. Reaching for her wand with her other hand awkwardly, she realized that the time-turner, which should have been around her neck already in a practiced movement, was still held lightly in her hand and connected to the bedside. Worried that she had attached it to something that she might knock over in her stupor, she reluctantly opened her tired eyes.
There was a tall, lean shadow also holding onto the time-turner with a loose grip, hoping perhaps that she might drop her grasp perhaps. Hermione became wide awake in an instant and her wand hand instinctively connected with the shocked intruder's face. His hand came up in pain to cover his face and the one wrapped in the turner's chain went for his wand. Hermione shot an 'expelliarmus' in his direction, and then a 'petrificus totalus' had him on the ground a second later. Hermione stood and lit the room, hastily gathering the robe at the end of her bed to count herself decent. With her wand pointed steadily at the frozen body on the ground, Hermione found her breath hitching in her throat. The young man on the ground was never a student of hers, but a teenage Sirius Black.
Her voice was the first to return to her after having blinked several times to try and drive away the unmistakably handsome frozen face on the floor. "Sirius…" Hermione gasped, as she slowly removed the spell from his form. As his features unfroze the look of shock from his rapidly reddening face, Sirius' eyes went wide in a mixture of pain from the punch that had been delivered and horror that he had been caught. Eyeing her lightly and then making an almost unnoticeable gesture to the door of her chambers which had very suddenly started to swing shut. She totalused the unseen intruder and in an instant had pulled off the invisibility cloak that she knew she'd find there. There, staring back at her frozen on the floor was the spitting image of Harry, but on closer inspection could never be him. She let him go, an instant later motioning at him to go and stand next to his friend. They looked at each other, obviously shocked, and then a second later it seemed that they had maintained their composure completely. They smiled smugly and both crossed their arms as if they had practiced it a million times. Her hand held tightly around their two wands and some of the turner's chain.
Sirius' smile went wider when Hermione couldn't bring herself to speak. "Yes, it's us love; in the flesh." Hermione shook her head lightly and rolled her eyes.
"What kind of joke is this? Who put you up to this?" She spoke shakily. They both looked at each other again and were silent.
"I'm serious. Malfoy wouldn't dream of something like this. Even he knows that this stuff is an uncomfortable…"
James made a face of disgust and raised an eyebrow. "How could Malfoy put us up to anything? He could hardly get himself…" Sirius snickered darkly and they both looked at her again.
"Disgusting and rather nonsensical if you've seen the papers…"Hermione paused again, looking at her clock as if out of habit. Then the idea dawned on her.
"James? Do you have some parchment on you?" He didn't give it a second thought before that unmistakable piece of parchment, she had seen so many times before. She smiled lightly when Sirius also pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill.
"It won't help you to write us up though. We'll have graduated by now." They both snickered. Hermione paused again looking at the parchment she knew was the Marauder's Map. She glanced at the two men's faces again and wondered if it would be all right to do what she had planned. A second later she had pointed her wand at the parchment and said that age old swear barely a breath above inaudible. It was revealed to her a second later, and James and Sirius' mouths fell open in shock. She pointed her wand at them again as she glanced down to the names next to hers. The delicate handwriting was undeniable. 'Sirius Black' and 'James Potter' showed perfectly. Had this been some outrageous jest, the two standing considerably shaken in front of her would have any name but theirs. She pointed her wand at the document again and it went blank as she said the words. She shoved it back into James' hands, feeling suddenly very nauseous. As if unable to believe what she had just proved to herself, she started firing off questions.
"Sirius, how old are you? James, who's your sweetheart? Why are you here? What are you looking for?" Hermione stammered out.
They both looked completely aghast with confusion. "How do you know us?" Sirius asked, looking at James the whole time. James stepped forward then and looked Hermione straight in the eyes.
"Let's just tell her, Padfoot. It looks like she knows something about us. Obviously she knows something already. No one would know that unless, they knew one of us personally." Hermione could have sworn she saw a wink in the sideways glance James gave Sirius.
"Sirius here is twenty-one and Lily Evans is my wife." Sirius gave a little huff of exasperation, but the smile never left his face. Hermione straightened rigidly and cocked an eyebrow.
"So you're from 1983? I don't believe you." She said with complete confidence, knowing full well that these beautiful smiles didn't survive past Halloween of Harry's first year in 1981. Sirius' eyes lit again in worry and he looked at his best mate.
Hermione huffed and clutched her head tiredly. After a moment, Hermione spouted the most glorious lie she could dream up in a moment's time."It's 1988 right now, and I've read about you three in the papers." She looks at them once more and sighs.
"I'm the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher here at Hogwarts and I am also the Head of Gryffindor." James gives her a once over and urges her to continue. Hermione finds herself rolling her eyes, as if it was Harry himself making that quizzical expression at her. "My name is Hermione Granger. For obvious reasons I can't tell you much more. And if you know what's good for you and your future, you won't let this get out. I'm the youngest professor ever to teach at Hogwarts." Sirius smiled, then Hermione leaned against her bedpost for support. "So tell me, what are you roaming about in your future for?" James ruffles his hair lightly and smiles.
"We're looking for a potion for our friend." Sirius rolls his eyes at him and copies Hermione's lean against the wall behind him.
Hermione lets the thought sink in for a bit and she realizes what they must mean. "Is this for Mr. Lupin?" James looks a little sick when Hermione hits it head on and she suspects James meant to lie his way out of that one, maybe thought about telling her he needed an enlargement potion for Wormtail. Hermione smiles evenly and nods at them. "You're looking for a cure to his lycanthropy?" Sirius looked almost insulted then, and practically exploded with protectiveness.
"How do you know this? Remus would never tell anyone. Are you working for You-Know-Who or what? Prongs, you can't be swallowing this. Why would Moony ever be…" Hermione put her hand up to quiet them. Slowly she went to her armoire drawer and pulled out a photo album. She looked through her album as the boys slowly started to gain on her, she held them back.
"If you see yourselves then it'll all be over." They didn't need to know that that wasn't the exact truth about timeturners. They seemed to weigh their options and stood back as she searched through the album and quickly procured a moving picture of Remus at what she recognized as the Black dining room with his left arm around Hermione and his right around Kingsley in an awkward paired photo. He was smiling, but obviously tipsy. Although he didn't look as young in the picture, she wouldn't put it past them to think that was what pushing thirty looked like. Sirius pulled the photo quickly from her grasp and stared. Remus went from shaking his head lightly to beaming in his hands and James' eyes widened as he looked over his friend's shoulder.
"What? Moony's looking a little rough around the edges there, but that's him all right." Sirius looked at the surroundings in the picture and looked a little more putout. "How did you?" He broke into a solid smile and handed the photo back to Hermione. Crossing his arms fully convinced.
"I don't know, but if Remus is there and he looks happy, no need to question miracles." He nudged James a bit with his elbow, who seemed to be smiling too widely to think clearly. "Prongs, what do you think mate?" James reeled himself back in and cleared his throat.
"I think we can trust, er, Hermione?" She shut the album crisply and put it away. She pulled another book off the shelf and tapped a page of its script and tapped it onto a clear bit of parchment on her desk. The Wolfsbane potion copied perfectly and she folded it until it was small enough to put into hiding on her person. The boys were watching intently but didn't comment.
"Right, well if you want to get your potion for your friend then you'll have to stay right here while I go and sneak past the potion's master and the auror that is visiting him." It was James that spoke up.
"Whoa! What do you think we're going to do, just sit here and look pretty? We've known you for all but two seconds. You tell us that you're involved with Remus and that you're just going to sneak past Slughorn in the basement?" Leave it to James to assume so much.
"James, we can't risk you seeing things about yourself you just can't know. Slughorn retired and we have a new Potions Master now. Someone you definitely shouldn't know about." Sirius and James looked all the more intrigued. It was obvious that she had said the wrong thing by telling things they shouldn't see while they're there.
"Please, don't be difficult about this. Surely Lily told you all about how using timeturners can really screw with the future and events." That did it. James looked at Sirius and wrapped his arm around his shoulder.
"Obviously I can't spoil my future, knowing that Lily will be cross with me." Sirius rolled his eyes and handed Hermione the invisibility cloak after she eyed it boldly. She walked quickly down the hallway after locking the two boys in. It wouldn't change much if Remus didn't change a couple times before the Wolfsbane potion had been created. She would just have to warn them against trying to make it themselves.
She silently 'alohomora-ed' the door to Draco's sitting room and crossed her arms uncomfortably as she made her way past a firmly shut bed chamber emitting noises she did not want to think about. The fire in the grate was just embers now, but it was enough to allow her to see her feet as she made it to the private storage. She let out a breath as she reached for an already prepared potion on the top shelf. Thank goodness for the little things. She didn't want to have to make the whole potion from scratch, especially with those boys in her room having free rein over her pictures and such. Hermione knew she would be guilty of wanting to know what she shouldn't. She crept back through the sitting room, the place even dimmer than it was.
She wordlessly conjured a 'lumos' and quickly made it to the door, just as the door to the bedchambers started to open. Hermione was out the door and down the hallway quickly. Even with the invisibility cloak on, she knew she wasn't exactly safe. Harry would want to know what was going on and she didn't want him asking questions about his father and godfather in her room. She unlocked her door and hurried in.
She handed the cloak back to Sirius after securing her door behind her. He took it and slung it over his arm. James took the tiny potion and pocketed it. "Well thanks Hermione, now we'll be going. He took the timeturner off of her before she had really thought it through and Sirius was shrinking the book that had the potion's ingredients in it and putting it into his pocket. She stepped forward and knocked the necklace out of his hand without thinking, but it was too late.
All three of them were spinning, and the necklace fell to the floor with the sound of broken glass in the same room they had been standing in, only it was furnished differently. She didn't bother looking around, they must have been transported to their target. Hermione Granger was stranded back in 1978 in her night robe with two delinquents who were stunned standing there, staring at her. She took out her wand quickly and obliviated them. Memory spells were not her forte but she was sure that she had obliviated the Marauders far enough to know who she was but not what they had. As they lie on the floor, she removed the miniature book and pocketed them into her robes as well as the broken timeturner bits. As they woke, she pointed her wand at them and rolled her eyes. "You boys shouldn't be traveling if you can't even land on your feet. Now I've given you your potion for Remus. I'm stuck here because of your tomfoolery. I'm going to have to see Dumbledore. You two are going to escort me to him and then return to your rooms."
Sirius sat up and held his head. "Why do we have to do that, Hermione? You aren't our teacher." Hermione rolled her eyes.
"It is your bloody fault I'm stuck here and I'm going to have to stay here while I try to find a way back, so own up to your mistakes and take me to see Dumbledore." Hermione explained simply as she brushed off her robes from imaginary dust. James stood and they looked at each other.
"Right. Well, you know your way Hermione. We've got places to be." They said quickly and ran out. Hermione crossed her arms, and when they left her, she smiled. They really could pass for Ron and Harry, it's not like they wanted to get caught in the castle at this time anyway.
She let herself out into the hallway as the door disappeared behind her. They would use the room of requirement for shenanigans. She didn't really want them there when she had to explain herself to Dumbledore anyhow. She was somewhere on the second floor and she abruptly started toward his office. When she got there, she notices the pinks and purples of sunrise were peeking through the stained glass and narrow windows. Staring up at the statue of the avian, she started saying every sweet she could think of. After ten minutes of trying, the staircase was revealed by 'ginger snaps.' Hermione felt suddenly very uncomfortable letting herself into his office unannounced, but there he was looking as regal and gentle as ever, behind his desk in his night cap. Hermione opened the door hesitantly and he stood. "I'm so sorry Professor Dumbledore. It is completely inappropriate to barge in here unannounced, but I felt it best to make you known of my presence as soon as possible. My name is Hermione Granger and I'm from the future by twenty-two years." Dumbledore blinked and slid out the chair opposite his desk, offering a seat. Hermione trudged forward, trying not to let the flips of her stomach get to her. Dumbledore was a wonderful man to believe nonsense like this. He was a wonderful man from her time too, even as the most loved portrait in Hogwarts. She had a sudden inkling for Harry to be here. He would appreciate this man sitting here more than her, if possible.
"Well Miss Granger. To what do we owe the honor of this wrinkle in time?" He asked, his eyes twinkling, not unlike a glass of champagne in the light, she could do with one about now. Hermione crossed the room and took the offered seat.
"It is quite by accident that I've ended up here, Professor. I am actually the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher here, or there. I woke up in the middle of the night to find Sirius Black and James Potter hanging over me." A sudden pang of guilt filled her as she ratted them out, but she was a teacher herself and things were to be laid out in the open. Would Harry disapprove?
"They had apparently been doing some time traveling themselves. They were after my time-turner when they broke theirs, but I didn't quite catch on until it was too late. Now I am here with my broken one." Dumbledore chuckled, not unlike those old sweet gentlemen that her mum worked on back in the dentist's office. He opened his right drawer and stood slowly.
"Well, Miss Granger. It seems to me the truth has come out. The time-turner that I keep for myself has gone, which fits perfectly with your story. I shall have a talk with those boys and they shall be firmly punished. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to fix all this, because the time-turner that I had was a prototype still. It was offered to me by a friend of mine and it may indeed be unique. Perhaps, I can offer you a place to stay while we come up with something? Do you have the pieces still?" Dumbledore asked withdrawing a bag from his robes, while Fawkes screeched indignantly from across the room. Hermione was quiet, watching Dumbledore feed his bird. His words washing over her like a bitter poison. So she was to be stranded here?
"Is there any way you could arrange an appointment with your friend?"She settled her eyes on the large glass windows letting in the eastern exposure.
"I wish that was possible Miss Granger, but my friend has disappeared. He may show up any time, but until then I am afraid you are stuck with us." Hermione fingered the pieces of the broken turner in her night robes, as Dumbledore took his seat once more. She sat up a little straighter as the complexity of her situation settled on her shoulders.
"Right. Well, I can do my best to try and fix it myself with what I have until they get back. Can I be of any service to you until I complete my task?" Dumbledore eyed her carefully and crossed his knuckles over each other. In all sense of propriety, Hermione felt herself cross her feet at the ankles at Dumbledore's gesture. It seemed to her that Dumbledore was ready to propose something to her, and of course she was about to take it. Even if it was just an errant thought to have a choice in the matter, she really didn't. After all, she had offered.
"You said before that you have a job at Hogwarts teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. My current Professor, Mr. Quirrell has gone on a sabbatical for his mental health quite suddenly and I was wondering if you would be interested in taking his place until the end of the year?" Hermione took in a sharp breath. This sabbatical of his most certainly could not be the very same where he took Voldemort in under his wing. There must be a time when Quirrell meets him in the flesh though, she figured. She felt a little sick then, as if she was assisting in some heinous crime.
"That would suit me quite well." Hermione blurted out before she lost her words completely. Dumbledore clapped his hands together with a sense of joyous finality.
"Of course, you know the rules and regulations already then. Was I the one to hire you?" Dumbledore was naturally inquisitive it seemed and Hermione has to remind herself not to produce the next answer simply.
"You did not Professor, but Minerva did. I do know you agreed with her choice though." She tried to not focus too much on that happy day in the Headmistress' office, with Dumbledore and Snape mounted on the wall as her interview went on.
Minerva was going over the regulations when Dumbledore's portrait chuckled lightly and said,"You know Minerva, that our dear Hermione has these memorized. Hogwarts would be honored to have the likes of her teaching the children." Snape simply crossed his arms as if the whole of the conversation was insufferable in the first place, his eyes giving away the amused glimmer that in life she had never had the honor of seeing.
"So it is decided then that you will be expected to start on Monday. For now, I will advance your paycheck to you so that you may fetch some more suitable clothing. Minerva will help you become accustomed to the lesson plans that are in place for the classes. And, if you don't mind me asking my dear, but what house were you in when you attended Hogwarts?" Hermione stood, as did he.
"Gryffindor, sir. No house is greater than the other, but Gryffindor is where I've always fit best." Dumbledore gave her a small smile and opened another drawer. He withdrew a leather pouch and handed it to her carefully.
"Splendid, my dear. I hope you and Minerva do get on well. There is a suitable set of rooms next to the Prefect's bath. Please make yourself at home. I will have Argus place a set of teaching robes there for you, so that you have something to go to town in." Hermione let out a sigh she didn't know she had been holding. Dumbledore must have always been this agreeable.
"Thank you Profess-"
"Albus. Call me Albus, I am sure you have that liberty there as well." He interjected showing her to the door. "If you need anything, I am sure Minerva will be of assistance to you and I will let you know if I should hear from my friend. Hermione, I am very sorry to hear that you ended up in this place, but I do hope you'll make the best of it." The Professor paused a moment, closing the door once more. "I am sure you do not need reminding that you should tamper as little as possible with events, even if they are incredibly enticing? Being twenty-four years in the past is very dangerous. Even the littlest word may change the future."
"Of course, Albus. I will do my best. Thank you." He opened the door once more for her and she was down the hallway and by the Prefect's bathroom before she had really registered her footsteps. There were three or four doors that she questioned to be the one Albus must have been talking about, but only one swung open on its hinges, almost mechanically. Hermione laughed at herself. It was funny to imagine mechanics in the magical world. It was just about as funny as imagining magic in the muggle world. As she passed through the doorway and the door closed quietly behind her, she fell quiet. With all the hominess of the red duvet on her four-poster, along with the stain-glass window that looked almost like it could be shared with the Prefect's bathroom altogether, Hermione could not find the strength to accept this as home.
Hogwarts would always be special, but as she sat in her night-robe on the freshly made bed and looked at the bare desk, she felt incredibly homesick. Draco would not come banging on her sitting room door, looking harassed after a particularly trying class with a cuppa in tow. Harry would not send her short notes by owl on random mornings as she was enjoying her orange juice in the Great Hall. But as she let herself lie back with a light bounce to her shoulders on the bed, she knew she had gone mad. Virginia Greengrass would not ask vapid questions intermittently throughout lecture. With a humph! the youngest Greengrass would have been proud of, Hermione rolled over half-hanging off her bed and tried to recapture those four hours of sleep.