God, I hate him sometimes, thought Hermione as she sat on her bed, the hangings drawn, so that the only thing she could see was the edge of the Forbidden Forest out of the arched window, fringing the Hogwarts grounds in twisted shadows. Her fingers tinkered absently with the golden hourglass that hung from around her neck. Her thoughts chased themselves in her head, focusing on her red haired friend, Ron Weasley. Well, he was supposed to be her friend, but just today, he'd made another snide comment about her being a know it all. It's not my fault I answer all the questions in class. If anyone else bothered with the homework, I wouldn't have to! She'd resisted the urge to slap him across the face and instead fled to her dormitory, knowing her couldn't follow, slamming the door so hard behind her that it made some of Parvarti's cosmetics rattle from their place on her bedside table. Tears built up in Hermione's eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Not over Ron Weasley; not again.
Why can't he just keep his stupid mouth shut and his opinions to himself? she fumed silently. Despite being one of her best friends, Ron had no filter, which resulted in his being completely tactless, usually to the detriment of Hermione. It wasn't that she was overly sensitive, but it was one thing for someone you didn't care about to make fun of you, and quite another when it was someone close to you. Their other friend, Harry Potter, often found himself caught in the middle of Ron and Hermione's bitter disputes. Poor Harry. Hermione felt bad for him, the guilt weighing on her chest every time either she or Ron stalked off in a huff after a round of vicious whispers or raised voices. She was closer to Harry, and the thought that it was always left to him to pick up the pieces and put them back together nearly killed her. One day he's going to get sick of us and our fights and will decide that he's not going to take it anymore. And where will that leave us? Hermione scrunched up her face in shame, clutching the Time Turner closer to her chest, like a talisman. If she were Harry, she would have told Ron and herself to get the hell over it. But then, Harry probably understood what Ron and she knew - that they didn't really hate each other; they just disagreed a lot.
Part of Hermione loved the she could rile Ron so. Sometimes she hated it, his daftness, his inability to understand that the wizarding world and the Muggle world were so vastly different and he refused to take that into account whenever Hermione's childhood came up in conversation, but mostly she enjoyed the fact that she could go head to head with him in an argument and hold her own. Deep down, she knew she harboured feelings for Ron which bordered on romantic, but she could never admit that to herself. She'd rather die. Not to mention what he would think. Even just letting her thoughts drift there mortified Hermione and reminded her of what he'd said. She plotted revenge.
I could hex him as he walks down the corridor, she thought.
"No, that's not original enough," she sighed out loud. I could vanish his clothes at dinner in the Great Hall. Or I could put a Silencing charm on him. At least he wouldn't be able to insult anyone for a while. These ideas circulated in her mind, around and around, like memories in a Pensieve, and all the while she absentmindedly ran her fingers over the Time Turner, flipping it on itself, over and over, the way her dark thoughts ran over themselves again and again.
With a start, she came back to herself, realising that she must have been staring at the sky for hours, the night now falling and the grey of twilight blanketing the grounds of Hogwarts and making the tops of the Forbidden Forest loom taller. It was dinner time. She didn't look forward to joining her classmates in the Great Hall, with all their laughing and their banter and their stress about homework. Besides, it meant seeing Ronald again, and she didn't know if she could do that without wanting to suckerpunch him. She almost stayed seated on her bed, her legs tucked under her, but her stomach growled, so despite her black mood, she pulled the hangings back from the bed and stood.
And stopped short.
There's something different about the dormitory, she thought as she frowned at the room she shared with the four other Gryffindor girls. She squinted, but couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. Perhaps it was the pile of clothes adorning the foot of Lavender's bed that she was sure weren't there before, or even just the disarray of its usually immaculate sheets. Maybe Lavender had come up to change before dinner and hadn't had time to tidy up after herself. But Hermione hadn't heard anything. As deep in her reverie as she was, she would have heard someone enter the dorm and rustle around. A hint of jasmine sweetened the air. Hermione puzzled over it as she made her way down to the now deserted Common Room. She was sure Parvati's perfume smelt like lavender, but maybe she was wrong. She didn't pay too much attention. It didn't matter. All that mattered was the food that was waiting and the glare she was going to give Ron. She walked faster.
The Great Hall, as usual, was filled with students, tucking into the magnificent food which was already stacked high on each of the four house tables. Hermione, slightly flustered from her rush to get to dinner, looked over the sea of heads, searching for her friends at the table furthest from the door. She spotted the messy jet black hair which belonged to Harry and walked towards him, trying to calm her breathing which had become faster, taking note that he was sitting besides a girl whose red hair reached to just below her shoulder blades. Ok there's Ginny, but where's Ron? Hopefully not here. I don't want to see his face right now. Although, vanishing his clothes in front of everyone would have been fun, Hermione mused and almost grinned at the thought of a horrified Ron standing naked in front of the entire school. How strange it was that Harry had come to dinner without his best friend. Sitting opposite him were three other boys, one of whom looked slightly familiar to her, although who he reminded her of, she couldn't say. Who are they? she wondered, getting closer to Harry.
At that moment, he looked around the Great Hall and Hermione nearly fell over herself as she realised that the boy she thought was Harry was not her best friend. They looked terrifyingly alike and from a greater distance, she never would have been able to tell. This boy had hazel eyes and was missing the lightning shaped scar which marred Harry's pale forehead. This boy didn't slouch - he reclined, an easy going posture, with his arm draped over the back of his neighbour's chair, that suggested confidence and coolness; nothing like the slouch that Harry had, to hide from the eyes that constantly sought him out to catch a glimpse of wizarding fame. In that split second of recognition, she was hit with the realisation of her situation; she knew exactly why the dormitory had seemed different from her dormitory. The fact was, it wasn't her dormitory; or rather, it was, but the contents in it were not the ones she knew it to have. Oh no, oh no, this can't be happening to me. There is no way. How could this be happening? It's impossible! she thought, her breathing getting faster and shallower.
And the other boy! She knew him! Who knew Lupin was young once? He appeared strange without greying hair and worry lines carved into the flesh of his face, but it was definitely him, laughing and carefully cutting up the steak on his plate. I wonder if he knows that one day he's going to end up back in this place, Hermione thought.And it dawned on her that the boy sitting next to him was Sirius Black, the man who had recently escaped from Azkaban, the mass murderer; she recognised the features of the boy, which in years to come would become sunken and haggard, scars from his imprisonment in the isolated Wizard's prison – the same face which just that morning had been staring out savagely from people's copies of The Daily Prophet. Just that morning. She struggled to breathe. A shudder ran through her as she thought about what he would do, so many years from then, where he was nothing more than a boy, laughing with his friends over their stupid antics. What he had already done, in her time. She could hardy believe that anything would drive someone to do something as horrific as killing another person, especially when that other person had once been best friend. After all, I'd never actually kill Ronald, as much as I want to slap him sometimes. What kind of thing would drive a person to the homicide of someone they love?
Her eyes flickered over to the boy on Lupin's other side. Peter Pettigrew, she knew, was the man Sirius Black went to Azkaban for murdering, although looking at them now, there was nothing to suggest that one day they would hate each other to the point of murder. They were laughing and being stupid; Sirius flicked a bit of food at Peter and Peter glared back at the other boy. She stared at Peter, at his squinting, watery eyes and his two front teeth which stuck out more than they ought have, and she felt sick. All that was left of him was a finger. A single finger.
And the boy she had taken to be Harry was none other than James Potter, Harry's father. It was true what everyone said; father and son did look exactly alike, except for the eyes; Harry's eyes were green, not the hazel which were now observing the Hall. The same green eyes, which were now too flickering around the Hall, trying to see what was keeping James' attention from their group of friends.
For an instant those eyes met Hermione's own brown ones and she realised with a strange jolt in her navel that the red haired girl she thought was Ginny was Lily Evans. There were none of her features in Harry's face, nothing to show that he was hers, just the eyes. But as that green gaze held on to Hermione's, something like longing and homesickness and wonder coiled in her chest, and her stomach disappeared into a flurry of furious wings that held her tight and pulled her to the ground. The cold stone floor met her cheek with a crack and the stars winked down from the clear night above, gently mocking the stupidity of humans.