"Missy, that's an interestin' necklace ye got there, haven't seen one like that in quite a while," the older women said as she gazed at Hermione with narrowed eyes.

There was something about her that reminded Hermione of Professor McGonagall and sure enough, there was a cat lurking about who was almost certainly an animagus, but however curious she was about just what exactly was going on was decisively outweighed by the dreadful, inescapable knowledge that she had mismanaged her mischief and over-turned her Time Turner and was definitively not where or when she ought to be. She saw the senior witch, for she could be nothing else and wasn't the angle of her nose something like Neville's Aunt Augusta, regarding her quizzically and noted the long, old-fashioned dress, the cap and apron, the snuff-stained fingers and drew back, trying to arrange her arms in such a way that her robe would look like an eccentric dress of the period. The cat-animagus looked at her steadily with those great, green eyes and swished its slender tail; she wasn't the least part Kneazle but there was no doubt about her abilities.

"No, uh, no ma'am, madam, that is, it's rare…it was a gift you see, well, I borrowed it and I must get it back straightaway, I hadn't meant," she rambled and she fleetingly thought, how Ron would laugh at her fumbling, how poor a liar she was, when the truth was, she could lie quite well when she needed to so whatever it was that made her a witch, perhaps the brightest of her generation, told her she was not in terrific danger so much as making a great fool of herself.

"Ye'd best be going, I've seen my share and there's not much left to surprise me, but if young Mary comes along, well, ye two are peas in a pod, and she's one for finding even more trouble than she ought and untrained, what a shame, can't think what the Academy was thinkin' but New World, always convinced they know better that their elders, jest as ye do, don't ye, missy?"

From a distance, Hermione suspected the older woman would look dull and unremarkable, entirely unthreatening, but standing before her, Hermione had a new sympathy for butterflies about to be pinned and thought Professor McGonagall would very much enjoy giving over supervision of her recalcitrant Gryffindors to the powerful witch who'd rendered Hermione as still as Petrificus Totalis with a quarter of the effort; McGonagall could go on holiday, as she often commented was far overdue for her, somewhere sunny and hot like Barbados or Mustique. The prospect of being joined by another witch, one who was supposedly just as partial to problem-solving as herself, made the whole situation well-nigh intolerable. She wanted to reach up and twist the crystal and get herself back to the shadowy corner of the library from whence she'd departed but she didn't see how she could with Aunt Augusta's long-lost relative and the cat watching her so intently and she wrinkled her nose and brow in concentration.

"Ye needn't hide it from me, child. Jest go around the corner, we don't need anyone else, the Baroness or any of the Muggles to see you. Have a care when ye turn it- it needs a flick of the wrist and it works better if ye jest whisper Tempus sacerdos, tempus like a lullaby to a wee babe and sacerdos like ye're being chased, and ye'll be back where and when ye ought to be and no one of us the worse, certainly not old Bridget Brannan," the woman, Bridget, said.

"Oh! Thank you, you're the first to give any helpful advice and the books are so frustratingly…oblique. I wonder," Hermione said, eager to leave but even more eager to learn something she couldn't have found otherwise, something secret, when the cat trotted forward and placed its two front paws on her worn trainers and meowed most commandingly and tossed her calico head so her pointed ears gestured in the direction of the corner Bridget had just indicated.

"Ye best listen to Professor Plum here, she's the unchallenged authority on Mary and she's bound to be here any minute and then the jig is up, most definitely up I'd say. Shoo, child. We've work to do here and if ye've got a Time-Turner, ye haven't any time of yer own to waste!"

Hermione knew when she'd been given sound advice and scuttled round the corner as directed, rather gracelessly but there was no Ron to mock or Harry to awkwardly console her and there ought to be, so…

"Tempus sacerdos!"

NB Tempus sacerdos is a spell I invented which should mean "Time pries" as compared to Tempus fugit "Times flies" which is already a spell in HP canon!