Chapter 1 The Smallest Piece
One Hermione Granger sat rather sullenly on a rather conventional trunk looking like a rather normal teenager. Which wasn't true. The trunk was deceptive, normal on the outside, and filled with all sorts of magical anomalies to someone in the muggle world. For a witch like Hermione though, it was all considered the norm.
Having sent her parents off the moment before, she was left by herself with said grumpy expression across her face and a great desire to take back the past few minutes.
'Stupid bloody parents,' she thought angrily to herself. 'They just don't understand where I'm coming from, I can't keep myself from danger, I have to be with Harry for the war.' She kicked her heel back, driving it with a dull thud into her trunk and wincing painfully.
The entire car trip to London had been done in a rather doleful silence. Hermione hadn't met up with Harry and Ron over the summer so her parents were driving her again. That seemed to be a mistake, because they couldn't stand the fact that their baby girl was off to try saving the world and probably die in the process. A world which they weren't part of, although Hermione had tried to tell them that the muggle world was being affected too.
It hurt though, and Hermione drew her knees up and cradled her head in the created space. Her face became suspiciously heated and blotches formed across her cheeks as a minute later tears were gently weeping down from her eyes.
A good sob later, Hermione checked her watch to realize she only had five minutes to go until the train would leave. She slowly got up from her trunk, stretching her legs luxuriously as she did so as they had become rather cramped from the extended odd position. With a grunt, she looked at the time to see she only had three minutes to go. Hermione grabbed her trunk and began to drag it forcefully across the station to where the barrier to the magical world lay. A smile was already forming on her lips as she anticipated the reaction her friends would have on her new appearance, minus the signs of crying.
There was a minute and a half to go as Hermione aligned herself with the barrier, ready to just push through with the ease of having done so over a dozen times already. 'Quick, quick,' she thought to herself as she calmed her racing heart, thoughts cast back to when Dobby the house elf had sealed the barrier against Ron and Harry. 'What if the barrier seals or the train leaves – No… no, that wouldn't happen.'
As Hermione began to push forward, the edge of her cart already grazing the barrier, there was a sudden lurch and a black haired man banged into her trunk and somersaulted over sending the trunk crashing to the ground in a loud crash.
"Oh no, oh no!" Hermione cried out, darting forward to gather up the spilling things.
The man apologized profusely as he tried to help her clean up the mess, grumbling under his breath all the while for her having had her trunk in such an awkward spot.
With a sudden scream, Hermione dived to the ground, the items in her arms spilling out as she caught sight of her wand. She cast a quick glance around before dipping her head, too many muggles to perform magic. On all fours, Hermione panted heavily while shoving her wand up her sleeve in what she hoped was an unnoticeable manner. Lameting her fate, it wasn't until a moment later that she caught sight of the time, 15 seconds to go!
The nearest items were thrown into the trunk as Hermione dashed around at an inhumane speed. Ten seconds. Her lungs burned. 'Just one last trip should do it,' she thought, smiling to the man who had helped her. He was trying to say something to her, but she didn't have time to listen.
Five seconds to go. The trunk wouldn't close after the final items were deposited in. Not caring, she glanced around and slammed the cart against the barrier only to be thrown five feet back as her cart ricocheted diagonally and narrowly missing the man who had tumbled over it before.
"What are you, crazy?" he screeched at her, his eyes wide as he had quite obviously seen the sight in front of him. A sight which had included a hysterical girl had thrown her trunk against a solid wall only to, unsurprisingly to him, be thrown back. "You belong in a mental hospital!"
Hermione watched dimly as the man walked away, shaking his head in disgust. The pall of shock that hovered over her shrouded her from the curious looks she was getting, sitting with her legs stretched in front of her with a firm look of dismay across her face. Fifteen feet away her trunk lay, still half open with robes hanging out and a Witch Weekly magazine laying on top, moving pictures and all.
Three minutes later, Hermione, her trunk, and a bathroom stall met with a privacy ward and a rather powerful cleaning spell. Well, the bathroom stall met the cleaning spell. That being done, the contents of the trunk were quickly expelled, for the second time today.
"Where is it… where is it? Ah!" The last item that had been haphazardly discarded over her shoulder shattered against the wall. "Reparo, Accio Time Turner!" she shouted in quick succession, grinning triumphantly as the device magically repaired itself. Suspiciously, she cast her eyes around to make sure there wasn't a single grain of sand left out of the turner, for that could have dastardly results in the calculations.
Satisfied with the results of her search, Hermione waved her hand in a lofty manner, and her trunk was neatly packed, shrunk, and stuck in her pocket.
"Hmm, a good twenty minutes should do the trick." It was five minutes after the train had left, so it would leave her fifteen to board the train. Peering over the top of the stall, Hermione quickly dissolved the privacy ward and set the time turner and let it spin as the world spun around her.
A nauseous feeling clawed up from Hermione's stomach to her throat. Why couldn't she see? Why was it all black? The spinning wasn't stopping, if anything, it was going faster and faster as she squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the sudden blinding flashes of light quickly followed by spells of darkness. Shivers ran up her body as the air became frigid cold and than sweat broke across her brow as it became unbearably hot before repeating the cycle over and over again over a dozen times.
Just as the dizziness was overwhelming her mind, she was slammed onto the ground, tottering on two wobbly feet before collapsing to the ground and becoming heavily sick in the toilet.
Why the hell had she reacted like that? She had gone back hours before, and the experience had been nothing like what a few minutes had been. It didn't make sense, but a quick glance at her watch told her she only had ten minutes to make it to the train on time.
Whether the missing five minutes had been used up when she was sent back remained a mystery to her, but one she shouldn't have overlooked.
Strolling casually to the barrier, a brown curly haired witch kept one hand in her pocket, fingering both her shrunken trunk and wand, and leaned casually against an apparently stone wall. To any muggles that were looking, the laid-back action was ironic for the next minute she disappeared. Luckily for her, no muggles were looking.
With the taste of almost failure still lingering on the tip of her tongue, Hermione didn't stop to talk to her friends. Although she didn't see Ron anywhere, she did see Harry's familiar mop of hair, he was standing with three boys, two blondes and a brunette. Maybe Dean, Seamus and Ernie Macmillion? She registered the red head beauty that Harry was arguing with as Ginny, while the other three howled with laughter.
'Hm,' Hermione thought. She hadn't remembered the four of them being that close in previous years, or Ginny and Harry being that volatile from the sound of the argument, but maybe her absence over the summer had changed a few things. Her descent onto the train went unnoticed and she resolved to catch up with Harry and Ron later as she settled into a compartment for the meanwhile.
If she had bothered to look closer, she would have realized it wasn't Dean, Seamus, and Ernie that 'Harry' was talking to. She also would have immediately seen the hazel eyes replacing the usual emerald green of her best friends eyes, but she would have spotted that shade of color in the red heads eyes instead of Ginny's usual chocolate brown. Instead she leaned back falling asleep quickly as twenty years in the future a desparate Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley searched for the third member of the Golden Trio. And outside of where the privacy ward had been set, twenty years in the future, a missing grain of time turner sand lay innocent of all the trouble that would come.
A/N: Hi! Abrista here, hope if you're reading this you're enjoying it, and any feedback would be great, good or bad! This is my first fanfiction for a while, and I dont know how the beginning came off because it felt a little rushed, but I have good plans for future chapters, I promise. And lots of twists and turns, and forgive me in advance if anyone is a little out of character. But please read and review!
-Abrista