The Professor's Widow
Chapter One
A Blast From the Past
The dungeon cold didn't permeate her skin anymore. After years of working in the depths of the castle, her body was used to the chill. Even now, in the summer months, the dungeons never warmed up. Hermione was both preparing for the coming term and preparing for the release of her book. Her house may have been undetectable, but it didn't stop the slew of reporters chasing her through London. She preferred the solitude of the castle before the students arrived. Hermione was working in her private lab directly off her office, and the wards were set to the gills. But that didn't stop the crashing sound of electricity ripping through the air and the sudden appearance of a person in her space.
She drew her wand with a steady hand and met the intruder eye to eye. Her gasp was audible. "Impossible," she muttered. "Reveal yourself. What trick is this?" Her wand was pointed directly at the jugular of a man wearing the face of Severus Snape.
"Miss Granger, lower your wand this instant!" His voice barked just as it always did in her memories.
Her wand hand shook, but instead of lowering her wand, she fired a complex glamour removing charm. Snape dodged it moments before the realization of what spell it was settled in on him.
A smirk swept across his features, "You believe me to be an imposter, Miss Granger?" and his eyes swept across the space taking in the minute changes to the lab space. A strange expression settled upon his countenance. He spoke calmly and slowly, "I believe that I have succeeded, and I am from the past."
Silence resonated in the dungeon lab for a moment while Hermione stood stock still processing his words. Yet, she never lowered her wand. "Prove it."
In a somewhat surprising gesture, the professor lowered his wand, "ask me something only I would know…" the smirk returned, "like perhaps which ingredients you stole from my stores in your second year or, hmm, what occurred with Professor Lupin in the Shrieking Shack in your third?"
Hermione rolled her eyes and chuckled, "you'll have to do better than that, Professor. Those have both been headline stories in every news rag from here to Paris."
The Professor's dark eyes drew narrowly. "They what?"
Hermione slung another easily deflected revealing spell in his direction, "tell me something only you would know about yourself. Something you would have written in your private journals."
"And why, Miss Granger, would I tell you such a thing or expect that to mean anything to you?"
"If you expect to prove to me your identity, it's the only way I'll believe you."
He started to respond, but she interrupted him -
"And if you are telling the truth, you'll need me. If you truly are from the past, and who you say that you are then, then you clearly don't know what year it is or what's occurred."
There was validity in her words, and he sighed. His hand disappeared into his pocket. "There is a page torn from my Potions journal. This missing page occurs after a series of pages about failed time travel potions and my experiences with them. It's in the 1996 journal."
Her eyes lit with the same brightness as when she knew the answer in class. "Don't move." She swung through the door to the office. A few seconds later, she returned with his 1996 Potions journal in her hand.
His eyes raked over his private Potions work in her hand. He watched as she scanned through what seemed to be familiar pages. He couldn't help but to notice that the journal was full after the missing page. "Do you believe me now, Miss Granger?"
Her wand had been put away, and she walked nearer to him than he cared for. Without warning she reached up and touched his cheek gingerly. He flinched out of her reach.
"I'm sorry." She pulled her hand to herself, "I just cannot believe it's really you. I have so many things to ask you, to tell you, to show you." She stared at him. "But- oh, forgive me, there must be some things you want to know….I'm not sure what I ought to say, though, with time being as fickle and what not"
Her words lingered as if she was allowing him to decide what it was he should know, "When is it?"
"It's July 2010. I don't know for sure the day. I lose track in here sometimes when school isn't in." She shrugged.
He stepped back and sat at the potions table. 2010. "14 years."
"So that makes you from 1996, then. Makes sense with the page torn out."
He could see she was lost in her own thoughts. Her mind was working in that calculated Granger way. "Have you met with Narcissa and Bellatrix at the hou- at Spinner's End, already?"
His head snapped quickly in her direction. For him this meeting was only days old, and it was protected by an Unbreakable Vow, and yet, Hermione Granger clearly knew the intimate details of this visit. He met her eyes, and he began to see the weather of age. She was not the teenage girl that he had seen in his classroom a few months before.
"How did you come to be in possession of my journals? And why are you here," his hands swept around to indicate the room, "in my private lab."
She snorted a laugh, "How much should I tell you? I don't want to ruin time by sending you back with information of the future."
He thought for a moment, "I don't believe that the potion will work that way. If my calculations are correct, I am a more or less a copy sent forward through time." He paused, "I cannot say for certain, but if anything, I believe the potion will crumble in my molecules, and I will dissolve into nothing."
Hermione's brow furrowed, "May I look at the instructions of the potion? I am assuming that the torn page is there in your pocket."
His hand tightened on the paper, and he seemed reluctant. "How do you expect to understand the complexities of a potion like this? And why would I trust you with that kind of information?"
Hermione sighed, "I am a Potions Master, myself, and am currently the Deputy Headmistress of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I believe that qualifies me to look with some level of both expertise and trustworthiness." Her arms crossed, and she stood in a way that reminded him so much of Minerva he had to hold back a laugh.
When he didn't move she added with clear frustration, "Severus Snape, I hold so many of your damn secrets in my head, show me your idiotic potion recipe so that I can see what we need to do!"
"You've clearly grown less afraid of me with age." He pulled the torn page out of his pocket and laid it on the workspace in front of him.
Her eyes drank it in. She immediately summoned parchment and a quill. She began to write complex arithmancy equations. He watched her intensely. She paused every few minutes to ask him some clarifying question like, which direction did he stir, and what was the cauldron made of. When her quill finally stopped its hurried pace, she looked at him and said, "We'll need to test your blood."
He nodded his head, "I am aware. How long did your calculations give me?"
"Six months? A year at best? But I would say that largely depends on the freshness of your mandrake. Do you agree?"
He nodded his head. He drew in a breath and asked, "I don't believe that anything I learn in my current state will impact the past. Would you agree with that?"
Hermione revisited the papers in front of her. She reread, and quickly, she recalculated a few equations. "I couldn't say with absolute certainty, but I do believe that you are correct in that assumption."
Severus Snape stood to his full height, "Then, I must ask, Miss Granger, how did I die?"
AN: Thanks for reading! Leave some love and review if you are interested in more of this story :)