Tempus Fugit

Hermione and Draco have been partners in Magical Law for three years, working with civil professionalism that has now become a surprising friendship. When their current case takes them down into the Department of Mysteries to follow a new lead, an unfortunate accident results in a series of trials they never dreamed they would have to endure. As a surprising adventure unfolds, their professional civility, and budding friendship, is tested to remarkable extremes as they try to find their way home.

Slightly A/U, EWE, set approximately seven or eight years after the Battle of Hogwarts

A/N: Hi guys, welcome to my new fic. I've had this story brewing for over a year and I've been writing little pieces of it here and there while working on my others. Quick DISCLAIMER (that covers the whole story): Obviously, I don't own this world or the main characters. This is story is based on the works of J.K. Rowling ...You know how it goes :)

Enjoy

xBx

~ Chapter I ~

"Harry!" Hermione Granger called out from the third floor landing of Grimmauld Place. "Where are you?"

She had checked the kitchen, the first floor sitting room and drawing room, as well as his bedroom, but Harry Potter was simply nowhere to be found. Hermione was greatly confused, not to mention irritated: After his most recent mission with the Auror department Harry had returned severely injured and, while medi-wizards had patched him up well and good, he had been given a week's mandatory leave to recuperate. This being said, Harry wasn't one to just sit around and do nothing, and so he had been assigned – in an advisory capacity only – to the case Hermione and her partner were currently working on.

Hermione had been working in Magical Law for five years, and had been partnered with Draco Malfoy for three. It had started out as a rather strenuous partnership, but the pair had soon discovered that they could work well as a team when they put their old differences behind them – and now they were one of the top investigative teams in their division. Of course, the pair still had their moments, and while they certainly no longer hated each other - one could even go so far as to call them friends - they could still argue like the worst of enemies.

"Hermione?" Harry's voice drifted up from the floor below, and Hermione leaned over the railing to see his face peering out of the library.

"There you are!" Hermione exclaimed, before moving down to join him. "I've been looking for you everywhere."

"Everything all right?" Harry asked, limping ahead of Hermione into the room and re-taking his seat by the fire, elevating his leg onto a footstool. "New lead?"

"Something like that," Hermione said, producing a roll of parchment from the inside pocket of her jacket. "We need information from the Department of Mysteries, and of course an unspeakable isn't going to give up anything without a warrant. So we need our Auror's signature."

Harry took the parchment with a snort of derision.

"Good luck getting information, even with a warrant," he joked, but signed the parchment regardless.

Hermione sighed, "I know, it's a long shot. But it needs to be done," she said, taking back the parchment and returning it to her jacket. "Thanks. How are you enjoying house-rest?"

"It's not too bad – a little tedious, but I have found a good book," Harry said, producing a thick volume from the table beside him, and holding it out for Hermione to see.

"Piracy: The Golden Age," Hermione read the title out loud, and was a little surprised by the topic of the material. "Really?"

"It's fascinating," Harry countered with a shrug. "This book documents everything from the 1650's to the 1730's, it will certainly help pass the time. I've only just started, but so far it's rather gripping. Did you know, that when a pirate broke the ships code, they could be marooned on an island with a pistol, a couple of shots, powder and a bottle of water, sometimes rum? They never walked the plank either - that's a popular myth - it was easier to just throw them overboard."

"No, I did not know that," Hermione grinned. "Well, I certainly won't discourage reading, and I look forward to more buccaneer facts this evening."

"Don't you have a dinner with the girls, at the Burrow, tonight?" Harry reminded her.

"Yes, I do. I'll be going straight from work, but I'll drop in later - catch you up with our progress. Speaking of: I should get back to the Ministry with this, before Malfoy sends out a search party – you know how impatient he can get."

Harry laughed, "You must truly be a saint to put up with the guy – I don't know how you do it."

"He's not too bad, once you get used to him," Hermione shrugged. "He's saved my skin just as many times as I've saved his. And he's changed - he's not the same boy we knew at school, you know that. I guess you could say we're friends now."

"Friends?" Harry looked at her shrewdly.

"Yeah, it's kind of hard not to be after working so long together. Even you enjoyed yourself when you've joined us for a drink after work, on a few occasions."

"All right," Harry conceded. "But you are just friends right?"

"Seriously?" Hermione frowned. "Are you actually asking if I'm sleeping with Malfoy? We're partners, that's all."

Harry held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, "I'm sorry, but I had to ask. There's a tension between you two - and, you know, all the great couples started as partners. Mulder and Scully; Rabb and MacKenzie. Or how about Booth and Brennan, or even MerDer."

Hermione looked at him, momentarily speechless, before giving her head a quick shake and laughing.

"Okay, where to start?" Hermione said. "Firstly, I don't know how you got a TV to work in here, with all the magic, but it was a bad idea. Secondly, did you seriously just say MerDer?" Hermione couldn't resist a smirk as Harry jumped in defensively.

"Don't judge me, you're here often enough watching with me. And MerDer are a cracking couple-"

"I am not disputing that, but the fact you know the slang means you need to get back to work quickly - and technically they weren't actually partners, just collegues," Hermione teased. "As were Rabb and MacKenzie, come to think on it. And finally, they're fictional - Malfoy and I do not relate. And now I really have to go, because this conversation is getting far too weird; I'll see you later."

Harry made a half-hearted grunt of dismissal, and waved Hermione off, as he went back to his book.

Five minutes later, Hermione wound her way through the Ministry Atrium, briskly making her way from the fireplaces down to the lifts. When the golden grilles clanked open to expel her onto level nine she was met by Draco Malfoy who was leaning nonchalantly against the wall, twirling his wand.

"About time, Curly." Draco drawled, though with none of his former hostility. "What did you do? Walk to Potter's, and back?"

Hermione growled and narrowed her eyes; she hated that nick-name. "For the love of Merlin, Malfoy, stop calling me that! And I wasn't that long; I'm here now, let's get this over with," she said, leading him down the corridor.

"How do we get in?" Draco asked, when they came to the door. It was closed tight, and with no handle there was no visible sign of how to open it.

Hermione worried her lip: she hadn't been down to the Department of Mysteries once, since she had started working at the Ministry.

"That is a good question," Hermione said. "I've only been here once before, and that time the door…just…opened," she finished lamely, thinking back to the days of Dumbledore's Army.

"My, we're full of wisdom today, aren't we Granger?" Draco drawled.

"We just walked purposefully toward it-" she remembered, speaking with conviction and ignoring Draco's jibe, "-or rather ran. And it opened, as if it sensed, and accepted, our belief that we were meant to be in there."

"All right. Let's give it a go," Draco said after a second of reflecting, taking several steps back. If he'd learnt one thing since working with Hermione Granger, it was that she was almost always right. Almost.

Before Hermione could stop him, Draco strode purposefully toward the door, but unlike many years ago the door didn't budge, and Draco smacked into it with a loud crack. Hermione bit back her laughter, but couldn't fully contain the snort as Draco turned and glared at her.

"Anymore bright ideas?" he scowled, as if she had purposefully told him to do that. "And you can stop laughing right now."

Hermione held up her hands in defence, "I'm not laughing," she told him, but the humour was clear in her voice. Draco was spared from replying as the door they were trying to get through opened from the inside, to reveal an unspeakable on the other side.

"Mister Malfoy, Miss Granger. I've been expecting you." The unspeakable stepped aside and Hermione and Draco stepped over the threshold and into the same black circular room that Hermione had visited before. "The Minister sent a memo saying you wished to converse."

"Yes," Hermione said, producing the signed warrant from her jacket, "I understand that the information you can give is limited, but we believe the department can help us with this case."

"You are not wrong," the unspeakable agreed, with an air of maddening superiority. "I have reviewed the case of which you speak- " Draco rolled his eyes and gave a quiet scoff, and Hermione knew what he was thinking: No one was allowed to know what the Unspeakables did all day, but they had no problem nosing into every other departments' business as and when they liked. This double standard did not sit well with him.

"- If any of us can help, I believe Payne is the one to turn to: he is currently working on something in the Time Room – I believe you are familiar with that room?" He added, looking rather darkly at Hermione.

Hermione shuffled uncomfortably and mumbled something incoherent as the unspeakable closed the exit door and the room began to spin, taking Draco slightly by surprise and causing him to stumble with the dizzying disorientation. When the walls came to a stop the unspeakable declared "Tempus Cubiculum" in a commanding voice, and a door behind them sprang open, revealing the same room Hermione and her friends had visited in their impromptu extra-curricular visit they had embarked upon in their fifth year.

"Payne is inside," the unspeakable gestured toward the open door, indicating that Hermione and Draco should proceed without him. "I have my own work to conduct, I trust you can find your own way out?" He addressed Hermione directly once again, giving her another cold look. "Our security measures upon entering have been upgraded, as you can imagine. But the exit procedure hasn't changed."

Hermione grimaced and nodded curtly, before moving off into the time-room with Draco at her heels.

"Something tells me he doesn't like you," Draco commented quietly as the door closed behind them, smirking good naturedly at her.

"Probably has something to do with the mess I left behind on my last visit," Hermione said wryly.

"It most definitely does," a voice joined in, from a desk at the end of the room. "I'm Fredrick Payne," he announced, rising from his seat, and moving around his workstation. "I've been reading over the case file, what is it you want to ask me?"

"How did you get the case file?" Draco asked suspiciously.

"That is irrelevant, and not what you are wanting to ask – erm, Miss Granger?" Payne called out to Hermione, who was studying the shelving unit on the back wall, behind the desk. "Given your past, I must ask you to please step away from the new Time-Turner collection."

Hermione scowled and mumbled something about "no proof it was me", as she took a step away, while Draco chuckled.

"If you've read the file, you know we are tracking a serial killer," Draco stated, while Hermione chewed her tongue, still bristling from the thinly veiled insult. "You should also know, that each victim appears to have been a seer – we believe they made a prophecy shortly before their demise."

"Yes, I know these things," the unspeakable confirmed, but said no more – much to the annoyance of the other two.

"It might be helpful if we could hear the prophecies," Draco said, and edge to his voice that told Hermione he was slowly losing his limited patience.

"It might be," the unspeakable agreed. "But the only people who can retrieve a prophecy are those who make it, and the ones whom it is about. I cannot help you there."

"Can you at least confirm that the victims made the prophecies?" Hermione asked with a pained sigh - getting information from an unspeakable was like trying to draw blood from a stone. A very dry stone.

"I could, but it would take time," Payne said. "You've seen the Hall of Prophecy, Miss Granger, you know the size of the room."

"Yes," Hermione nodded, slowly losing her own patience at the painfully long experience this was turning out to be. "But it's considerably smaller than it used to be. However, if you're too busy, we could happily peruse the shelves ourselves."

Hermione moved toward the door that was situated next to the Time-Turner shelves, "if my memory serves me, the Hall of Prophecy can be accessed right through here, am I right?" she asked innocently, placing a hand on the door. Draco smirked appreciatively at her audacity - over the past three years, the pair had started to rub off on each other with some amusing effects.

"That will not be allowed," Payne huffed. "You are not an unspeakable – it is too much already that you are allowed in here while we work. I can offer you my assistance to a degree, but no more can I allow – sir, please," Payne turned to Draco, becoming more flustered by the minute.

Draco had moved over to the desk, where Hermione had been a moment before, and was now poking through the contents of Payne's work. "I must ask you to leave that well alone. If you will kindly vacate the department, I will send a memo to your office with the information I deem relevant to divulge."

Hermione knew they would get nothing more now and so she moved toward Draco and the desk, "come on, we're not going to get anything right now, we may as well just leave."

"Fine," Draco grumbled, not happy about the wasted time. "But I'm taking this-" he picked up the case file with a flourish, "-back with us."

As a result of Draco's hasty removal of the files from the desk, a rapid succession of events unfolded, which appeared to run in slow motion in front of Hermione's eyes:

Whatever Payne had been working on, prior to their arrival, was contained in a dish that - when Draco roughly pulled the file - was dislodged and went spinning to the floor. Payne gave a strangled yell of dismay at the same time that Hermione shrieked and jumped to the side to avoid the contents of the dish that she wrongly assumed would spill out, smashing into the shelving unit as she did so.

"Watch it, Granger!" Draco called out, automatically reaching out to grab her arm and pull her safely away from the tumbling shelves.

"No, no, no, no," Hermione moaned as Time-Turners began to shatter around her. "Not again!"

The last thing Hermione saw was a Time-Turner falling gracefully toward the floor, the hour-glass inside it spinning madly, before it landed in the dish, causing a deafening explosion. Hermione felt herself being pulled toward the blast, rather than pushed away from it - registering dimly in the back of her mind the unusualness of such a consequence - and was acutely aware of Draco's hand still clutching her arm, before everything went black.

###

When Hermione awoke, her entire body ached and her ears were ringing. Opening her eyes, she blinked rapidly to rid the darkness, only to find that the darkness wouldn't leave. Pulling herself up with a groan, she fluttered her hands along the ground around her, searching for her wand. When she found it she lit it, and alleviated the sudden fear that the explosion had rendered her blind as her surroundings were brought to light.

Another groan somewhere from her right, told her that Malfoy was here with her too – though where 'here' was, she wasn't entirely sure.

"Granger?" Malfoy croaked out, "What the hell did you do?"

"What did I do?" Hermione repeated, clearly offended. "What did you do? You knocked that thing off the desk-"

"Yes, but you destroyed the Time-Turners," he countered. "Where are we?" He asked, lighting his own wand and moving to stand.

Hermione held her wand higher, and stood up with him, surveying their surroundings. It would appear they were in some sort of cave or chasm; they were surrounded by solid rock and dirt, with no visible way out. Hermione moved her scope of vision to the floor, and soon discovered the broken remains of a Time-Turner.

A worrying thought struck her, as she bent down to examine the ruins. "I think the more pressing question is: when are we?" she said quietly.

"What do you mean?" Draco asked warily, coming to crouch next to her. "What's that?"

"A Time-Turner – or what's left of one." Hermione said, sitting back down on the floor and conjuring a glass vial to try and syphon as much of the sands from the Time-Turner's hour glass into it as possible.

"So, you think we've gone back in time?" Draco voiced, and Hermione nodded. "But that doesn't explain why we're in the middle of a cave – I didn't think Time-Turners could transport between locations?"

"In my previous experience, they don't – not really," Hermione admitted, stoppering the vial when a majority of the sands had been collected. "When I had one in third year, every time I went back an hour I would come out near enough the same place: Maybe a classroom or two away from my original spot, or the next corridor over. Sometimes a few floors up or down – either way it was still inside Hogwarts. Location isn't affected; I can only assume the anomalies were to tie into the Statute of Secrecy – wherever I came out was entirely deserted," she rambled. Her mind was already three steps ahead of her mouth and she was dreading having to voice her hypothesis out loud: once it was spoken, they would have to seriously consider the possibility.

"You had a Time-Turner in third year?" Draco asked incredulously.

Hermione glared up at him, "big picture, please."

"Right," Draco gave his head a quick shake. "So according to your theory, we should be in the vicinity of the Department of Mysteries – somewhere in the Ministry?"

Hermione nodded, but didn't speak - she couldn't.

"We're obviously still underground," Draco continued slowly, the gears of his mind hard at work and soon coming to the same conclusion Hermione had already reached. "But where's the Ministry? If a Time-Turner only moves us through time..."

Hermione closed her eyes, knowing what was coming next. "Granger," Draco said slowly. "When was the Ministry built?"

Hermione swallowed and shook her head, silently begging him not to make her answer. But of course, Draco ignored her, "Granger!"

Hermione sighed and opened her eyes, "The Ministry of Magic succeeded the Wizard's Council in, or around, 1629," she said quietly, relaying the information she had read a few years back. "But the current site of the Ministry wasn't the original: the Original Ministry was lost in the Great Fire of London, in 1666 and the current Ministry was built in the years following."

Draco was silent for a while, digesting this information, "So what you're essentially saying is -"

Hermione shook her head, "Don't say it! Please, don't!"

"Why?" Draco frowned, "we both know it -"

"If we've gone back a few hours, we can just wait it out!" Hermione explained, struggling to ignore the panic bubbling. "A few days, we can wait out – hell, a year, we can easily wait out! A couple of decades, wouldn't be great, but we'd fix it somehow – we'd be able to find another Time-Turner, or get this one fixed, to take us forward. But if you say what you are about to say – if it's true, then…" Hermione trailed off.

"We're screwed." Draco finished quietly, and the panic Hermione was trying to hold back finally exploded. She dropped her wand and ran her hands through her hair, her breathing becoming faster and deeper as she started to hyperventilate.

"All right, Granger, suck it up," Draco said, though his concern was clear. He knelt down in front of Hermione and made her look at him.

"Breathe, Granger," he commanded her, putting his hands on either side of her face. "Breathe. You're no good to me in this state – we don't even know if your theory is correct – there is no use panicking about it until we're certain. For all we know, that explosion could have blasted us to another location – maybe we have just gone back a year. And if not, we'll figure it out. But first, you need to breathe, so we can at least get out of this cave. Damn it, Granger, I will slap you if I have to."

Hermione's breathing steadied again as she focused on Draco's breathing with the intention of mimicking his rhythm, and got a grip on herself. "Sorry," she said, feeling foolish for losing it so quickly.

Draco shrugged, before getting to his feet and helping Hermione to hers, "Don't worry about it. Something tells me it won't be the only meltdown to occur before all this is over – I'm sure we'll both be enjoying those delights," he said dryly.

Hermione picked up her wand and let out a long breath, "okay, what do we do?"

"First, we need to get out of here- " Draco started,

"But there's no exit," Hermione interrupted, "this chasm is tiny, and sealed off completely."

"But there's no magic stopping us from apparating: if we've gone so far back that the Ministry doesn't exist, or if we've been blasted out of the site, it doesn't matter – either way, there's no magic."

Hermione nodded, realising the logic of this statement: "You're right, apparition should be a safe option. But where are we going to apparate to? If, Merlin save us, we have gone back a few centuries, we can hardly apparate out into the middle of London dressed like this."

"Malfoy Manor," Draco said after a moment. "The house has been there for centuries: we need to find out when we are, while keeping a low profile. And if we're going to find help anywhere, it will be there."

Hermione thought for a moment, trying to think of an alternative, any possible alternative – Hogwarts was potentially an option, but like Draco had said, a low profile was probably a necessity, and turning up at Hogwarts would have the opposite effect. Finally she nodded. "All right," she agreed, bending down to scoop up the broken remains of the Time-Turner, and shoving them into her jacket pocket, along with the vial.

Draco held out his hand and Hermione obligingly took it. Draco pulled her closer, making sure he had a firm grip on her hand, before taking a deep breath and disapparating them out of their prison.

A/N: Thanks for reading, I hope you're intrigued :) I'll have the next chapter up in a fortnight.

Please leave a review, let me know what you thought - and if you can name the TV shows which the 4 couples I mentioned are from, you'll get a mention in the next post and bragging rights :)

xBx