Disc: Everything is JK Rowling's. Last I checked, I wasn't her! :(

AN: A new fic that just kept running rampant in my mind! It's a oneshot for now, but I might just turn it into a multi-chapter fic. Not sure yet. But if this does change into something more, it'll be a Sirius Hermione pairing.

Let me know what you guys think...

Playing with Time

Episode I: The Whys and Hows of it all…

Death….

That's all they saw around them.

So many… dead. Small school children… New couples… Promising youth… All gone. Whisked away by death.

The very air they breathed had its sickly sweet stench.

"I can't watch this anymore," Harry said, looking pointedly away from where the Weasley family sat huddled together around a lifeless body of the ever-smiling Fredrick Weasley.

"Harry…" Hermione touched his shoulder in a silent gesture of support.

"Hermione… I…" Harry halted. What was it that I wanted? 'To get away, at least for some time,' came a quick response. "Hermione I'm going to the Headmaster's office." He said, though he didn't know why. What was he intending to do there anyway? Dumbledore had passed away the previous year and after learning about everything Snape had been doing from the side-lines for him, Harry was only raked with guilt when he thought of his old Potions teacher. But maybe that was it…

"Hermione, I'm going to the Headmaster's office," he repeated with a little more conviction. "There's a portrait of every headmaster in there. Maybe I can… I don't know but I need to speak with someone… Hopefully Dumbledore, maybe even… even Snape… to apologize…" he mumbled the last bit with his head hung low.

Hermione bit in her lower lip to keep from crying more. With a last look at the Weasley family, she turned to Harry, "I'll come with you."

With a small smile and nod, Harry offered her his hand and together they walked towards the large gargoyles that guarded the Headmaster's office.

After several random tries at passwords, Harry was suddenly hit with inspiration. "Lily," he whispered and sure enough, the stone gargoyles turned and up stepped the duo, onto the first step, waiting to be carried till the top.

Without a knock, the pair entered the large office and both gasped. The last headmaster hadn't changed a thing in the office, it was exactly how Dumbledore had kept his, not a chair or vial out of place. Why, even Fawkes' iron perch was right where Harry had last seen it on the fateful night Dumbledore had been killed.

"It feels like he didn't even want to be here," Harry spoke sadly as he trudged around the deserted room.

"Maybe he honestly didn't," Hermione agreed softly, knowing immediately whom Harry was referring to.

And just like that Harry began to talk, random things really, about how he had always distrusted Snape, and how Snape had earned every bit of cheek Harry had thrown in his face over the years. How he had always admired Fred and George, their smarts, their zest and most importantly, their sheer perseverance in face all that defied them. How he had always envied Ron his family, wanting one for himself, making him fancy Ginny just so he could be a true and indispensable part of the large yet loving brood.

Most of the things he spoke of Hermione already knew of course, but heard him all out, quietly, letting him speak, knowing he needed to do it all. And slowly, neither knowing how, they began shuffling through the things all around the office. Some were just plain odd, some old and some downright frightening, but all interesting.

Especially one particular hourglass that was boldly defying the laws of gravity.

"You know, even Slughorn has one of these," Harry commented, picking up the hourglass off its shelf and showing it to Hermione. "It indicates the quality of the conversation, instead of showing the actual time that's elapsing," he sighed.

"Really?" Hermione turned her attention towards the hourglass interestedly. But as luck would have, the grime on her, the soot that covered them both, the sheer fatigue that had set in bone deep, something went amiss as Harry went on to pass the hourglass to Hermione and it slipped and fell, making a tinkling impact with the floor, the glass shattering into a hundred glittering pieces.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry," Hermione said, just as Harry made his apologises for his tardiness. They both chuckled, bending down at the same time to pick up the debris around. But just as their hands touched the pale, white sand, it began glowing, some of it sticking onto their skin while some flew in a circle around them. The wind sweeping the sand around, quickly picking up pace.

"What's happening?" Harry asked, out of instinct making a grab for Hermione's hand.

"I don't know," Hermione screamed her answer to be heard over the howling of the wind.

And just as suddenly, everything stopped, the office appearing into view just the way it was before the hourglass broke. Confusedly, they both turned their heads towards their feet, and yet more perplexing was the distinct lack of shards of glass or the sand in the aftermath of the mini-storm they'd endured in the past minute.

A light shuffling and a quick in-take of breath drew their attention and like naughty children caught after curfew, Harry and Hermione stared wide-eyed at their Head of the House.

"Oh, Professor, we're so sorry…" the young duo began.

"Goodness gracious!" the professor exclaimed. "Who.. What..?" then she took a calming breath, while the youngsters gawked to see their normally poised professor flustered. "How did you get in?" The professor, with a better control over her emotions, began again. "What are you doing, snooping here in the headmaster's office? And most importantly, who are you?"

And it was the last question that got her the complete, undivided attention of the duo.

"What do you mean, who are we? I'm Harry Potter and that's Hermione Granger. We're your students for the past…" Harry began but McGonagall cut him.

"I think I'd remember my own students, Mr. Harry," she said sternly, in just the way Professor McGonagall could.

"I think we'd best let them talk first, Minerva," said an amused voice from just beyond the Professor.

"D- Dum- Dumbledore..?" Hermione stuttered in shock while Harry watched the jewel-coloured robed Headmaster smile and walk towards them. His very dead headmaster smile and walk towards them…

…o0oo0oo0oo0oo0o…

"So, you're saying an hourglass got you here?" McGonagall asked her future students sceptically. "Why you?"

Despite their new predicament, the duo snickered, "Trust me Professor, you'll be asking that question to us far more times than we'd care to count."

"This hourglass…" Dumbledore cut in. "Would it be something like this?" he asked, silently summoning the exact same hourglass Harry and Hermione had been marvelling over before they were brought where they were.

"Yes!" the two exclaimed together.

"Ah, I see," Dumbledore said, considering the said hourglass intently.

"So you have it Albus. Can we just use it to send them back from where they came from?" McGonagall asked cautiously. While she was all gaga about anything magical, especially sports, but playing with time was something she just drew the line at. One could never say what would come off it. Time travelling was un-lawful at best and downright sinister at the worst of times, and so as a principle, she made sure to not promote it.

"No, we can't," Dumbledore shook his head, still staring at the hourglass before looking up at his co-worker. "It's one of my own inventions, actually. Something I wistfully designed in the my younger days to turn back time and correct a few of my graver mistakes. It's a long and extremely taxing process, and I only ever made enough to go back a couple of decades, for one reason or another, I never did succeed in making more." He sighed wistfully. "But, that's that. It's a lost artifice and its sole purpose was turning time back, not ahead. You know as well as I, Minerva, how tricky time turning is, forward much more so than backwards I dare say."

"But, can we do anything at all to help these kids get back?" McGonagall asked then, her worry for her students, whether they be current, past or this time even future students, winning over everything else.

"I'm afraid we can't. The sand, it only turns time one way - backwards," Dumbledore gravely shook his head but turned next to his future students. "But help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who seek it. Tell me, are you two done with your education?"

…o0oo0oo0oo0oo0o…

And that was how Harry and Hermione found themselves looking at the large group of the assembled students in the Great Hall that looked just the same as they remembered back in their school days, as opposed to how they had left it a few hours back.

Just so much had happened since….

They had been asked to stay under the protection of Hogwarts and re-start their studies, and been instructed quite sternly by one Professor McGonagall to take their studies here seriously. Since the term was almost ending, seeing as they had transported themselves back in time by almost two decades yet had arrived there on the exact same date, so, they were to re-do the fag-end of their sixth year for now, for once take their exams and then move on to their missed seventh year with the next start of term that was a few months away.

"May I have your attention students?" Dumbledore clinked his goblet and drew on the attention of the of all the students.

"We have here two new transfer students who will be joining in with all you sixth years tomorrow onwards. I'd like to believe that you all will welcome them warmly in your midst and make sure they feel at home at Hogwarts. This is Miss Hermione Granger and this is Mr. Harry Potterer," Dumbledore announced.

While they'd decided to stick with Hermione's original name, given that she was muggle-born and no one would've really heard of her family anyway, they had thought for long and hard about Harry's name, it had to be something he would quickly acquiesce to, even when distracted, so it had to be closer to his own name, while it had to explain his uncanny resemblance to one of the students who was in the same year as them, as Harry had much happily found out from his two Professors just that afternoon. And so they'd settled on Potterer, a name gained from the first and famous Linfred Potterer who was believed to be not just the originator of many magical medicinal potions, earning him the beginnings of the Potter fortunes, but also the first and foremost Potter. It was his nickname, Potterer, given to him by the muggles he lived around, that had gone on to get contaminated and was later turned to the modern day Potter, over the generations. (information gleaned from Pottermore)

And so the sorting began. "Once a Gryffindor, always a Gryffindor," Hermione chanted like a mantra in her mind, as the old battered hat was placed and her head and with a large smirk, the hat roared, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Just as the loud applause from the table that sported children with red and gold ties died down, Harry took the now vacant chair and "GRYFFINDOR!" the hat roared once again.

Hand-in-hand, the two made their way towards their table. Harry faltered in his steps, his eyes misting over as he saw a red-headed witch smiling her welcome at them and his chuckle was just a bit watery when suddenly a boy with a messy raven mop, just like his, tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention back to him, making her snap angrily. She turned to her plate with a scowl while the boy couldn't keep his infectious smile away. Harry stood there rooted to the spot, staring at the young couple.

"Harry," Hermione squeezed his hand hard, and with a tilt in her head had him walking towards two empty places slightly further down the table. All through dinner though, Harry's eyes rarely left the two bickering teenagers.

…o0oo0oo0oo0oo0o…

Harry was all over the place with sheer joy at the almighty dip his life had suddenly taken. "Hermione!" he exclaimed first thing in the morning, as soon as he saw her waiting in the common room for him. he ran towards her, wrapping his arms around her waist as he lifted her clear off her feet and turned them round and round for a few times before setting her down again.

Hermione simply being thankful that one, he hadn't dropped her, two, there was no one in the common room to see Harry's antics and three, he looked just so exuberantly happy.

"What happened?" she asked, righting herself by leaning heavily on Harry.

"I just spent the entire night with the marauders! Dad, Sirius and Lupin… all of them.. Hermione they are all just so like I had imagined them!"

"I'm glad to see you so happy, Harry," Hermione smiled. "If we had to get stuck up in time, I'm glad we got this one."

Harry nodded, his smile as infectious as his father's, making Hermione smile with him. "Me too, Mione. I'm finally getting a chance to spend some real quality time with… them all. And honestly, I've never been happier, even if it means that I have to bear a healthy dosage of that rat for every second I spend with the others."

Hermione nodded. She'd wondered about it herself while looking at Peter Pettigrew the previous night. He'd looked so miniscule, so harmless that it was difficult to believe that he'd been the one to almost single-handedly destroy Harry's life.

"So, what…"

"Ah, there you are newbies," James came trudging followed by a sauntering Sirius, a sleepy Peter and a watchful Remus.

"Can you be a little more respectful," came an annoyed voice from the opposite stairs, and very irate looking Lily descended the stairs, followed by her own set of friends-cum-roommates, Kia and Aurora.

Hermione smiled at her roommates in greeting while James muttered something under his breath and did a complete flip from his teasing, telling Lily how beautiful she looked that morning.

Rolling her eyes, Lily invited the duo in the common room to join them for breakfast, and somehow, as a large gang of nine, the group made their way to the Great Hall to start their day.

"Oh, this is turning out to be such a promising day already," Harry grinned from ear-to-ear walking in the middle of the large group, so as to not miss a thing of their on-goings.

Hermione shook her head, though lovingly, and walked out with him.

Unbeknownst to her though, a pair of grey eyes were watching her carefully, weighing and categorising everything about her.

…o0oo0oo0oo0oo0o…

"So, I was thinking…"

"No, Harry. We can't."

"At least hear me out…"

"I know what you're going to say. And the answer is NO!"

Silence met Hermione's statement, so she tried to reason out with her best friend.

"Harry we'll end up changing all of the future if we interfere with this time."

"And what exactly was it about our time that you didn't want changed, Hermione? Me being an orphan, you being ill-named for your blood status or all those times we, as children mind you, fought the adult's war and lost our childhoods to it?" Harry snapped and stomped off in a flurry of robes, away from the library, away from her…

That had been two weeks back, about three days into their arrival in this time. Not that Hermione hadn't been expecting it. The second she'd found out that she was here during the 'marauder era' she knew this was a row she was going to have with Harry, sooner rather than later.

And he'd just proved her right.

All through the past fortnight, Hermione had only thought of what Harry had said. Even now, as she sat in common room, a plethora of books askew in front of her, she studied Harry.

He was sitting on the couch near the fireplace, with James on one side and Sirius on the other. All three putting in their heads together in the game of wizarding chess they were playing against Remus.

This is what he has always wanted, she realized, what he had always craved for and yet been denied over and over again. But now that they were here, by some sheer dumb luck, should they really be wasting the opportunity offered?

She looked at the three boys around Harry. James, Sirius, Remus, none of them had deserved to die. Not so young, at the very least.

And here they were, Harry and Hermione, in their era, with them in school, with knowledge of the future and the correct information to actually make a difference. So, should they just sit back then…? Could they just sit back then?

Hermione lost herself to her thoughts, wondering if 'coincidence' was really a word she wanted to use here or turn this incident into an opportunity, as a chance offered to them by fates, call it her new destiny and use it for the best of her abilities.

While Hermione sat there thinking things through, Sirius nudged Harry's side with his elbow. "Granger's staring at you, mate."

Harry's heart skipped a beat. They hadn't spoken for two weeks! Could this be it? Will she finally see things my way, understand my reasons? But when he looked up, his heart crashed again.

He scowled, "She is not looking at me, merely thinking. I happen to be sitting in the same direction she is looking at while lost to her over-driven mind."

"So, why have you two not been all chummy like the first week you were here?" Remus asked, right after he instructed his rook to move a few steps ahead.

"Lover's spat?" queried James.

"Nah, we are not lovers, nor are ever likely to be," Harry shook his head, hoping the group around him would bite the bait and not ask for the reason behind the obvious spat between the friends.

They did. Almost.

"You're not?" Sirius asked, rounding out to stare at Harry.

"But.. I was so sure you were dating," James eyed the two new kids in confusion.

"If you two were never dating and hence aren't broken up, why the fight?" Remus, once again, nailed the hook right on the head.

"Do you think I have a shot with her?" That was Peter.

The three other marauders along with Harry turned to Peter at that question and bitingly, in unison, replied with a resounding NO.

Harry wisely chose to ignore Remus' question, but answered James'. "We're not. Never were. Never will be. What we have is so much more than all of that. There was a time when everyone was against me, I only had Hermione, and she made sure I sailed through it all. Through all my tantrums, my grief, my highs and my lows, she was there, silently doing what is best for me, literally saving my arse a hundred times over. I love her, I always will, but I don't think either of us wants to complicate that love and lose the other over the bitter feelings that are bound to arise if things don't work out. It's just too big a risk. We're much better as we are. She's my best friend, my wingman, my conscience, my teacher, my… my mother. For the longest time, she's been all the family I've had…" Harry trailed off, his gaze clashing with Hermione's as her far-away look faded and her eyes searched his.

"Shit! What was I thinking!" Harry groaned, immediately getting off the couch and walking towards Hermione, just as she got off her armchair and ran towards him.

Within a few seconds, he was swamped by her frangipani fragrance, her riotous curls blocking his view of all else as she squeezed most of his breath out with the bone crushing hug she gave him. He didn't complain. He'd never have Hermione hugging him any other way, anyway.

So, he squeezed her right back.

"I'm so sorry," they both spoke together and then chuckled.

"You were right we shouldn't be messing around here…"

"You were right we need to do something about this…"

"What! What are you saying?"

"Wait! What are you saying?"

"I was saying you were right, like always might I add," Harry said, rubbing his nape sheepishly.

"I don't believe in coincidences, Harry. I know we were brought here, right here, for a reason. You were right. We can't and we shouldn't just stand back and let things happen. We have a chance to make a difference," she looked around at the common room, not particularly caring that most were staring at them, "we can help and so we must."

"You're ready to do this? For real?"

Hermione gave him a big smile and nodded.

"Are you serious?" Harry asked, his shock at the new turn of events making his voice go all high and loud, still not quite believing Hermione was ready to change the past with him.

A naughty glint entered Hermione's eyes as she shook her head. "No, I'm not. He is Sirius, remember?" Hermione pointed at Sirius who stood laughing behind with his friends on her joke as she winked at Harry.

"That I am," seconded Sirius, as Harry pulled Hermione into one more bear hug and then tucked into his side and dragged her along to their table.