Disclaimers: Characters and places etc. belong to Rowling, the cover art picture was made using RinmaruGames' Mega Anime Avatar Creator.
So many people were dead, but the war had been won. After helping with rebuilding the wizarding world for a few months, Hermione had packed her things and decided to travel the world for a while. The prejudices against magical creatures old British wizard families held were deep and difficult to disperse, and thus she thought to see whether or not things were the same everywhere in the world.
She had first taken a portkey to Australia, after telling the boys that she needed to search for her family. She had known it was a futile attempt, but Harry and Ron did not know any better. In Australia she had found that the local witches and wizards were actually quite respectful towards magical creatures of the area, possibly because of having to ban experimenting on them when the monster populations had grown so huge that they had begun waging wars against each other. The resulting massacre had left the wizard population on the continent scarce, but strong, as they had to continue searching the leftover abominations and get rid of them so that the muggles would not find them nor they the muggles.
After spending a couple of weeks in Australia's only wizard university, Wonderland University, located near Alice Springs, Hermione left for Japan. The wizarding community in Tokyo was under the city and she was grateful for the advanced air conditioning compared to the heat of the WU as she didn't have to keep casting cooling charms all the time. After getting out of the portkey landing area, she soon found herself in a small cafe, trying to make sense of the colourful portion in front of her and drinking Sencha. Through the window she saw the hectic streets and the certainly more liberal styles of clothing than the British wizards wore. Anything from kimonos to glowing mist bikinis seemed to be normal around here, but Hermione's comfortable muggle jeans went unnoticed in the crowd aswell.
When half of her tea was gone, a little girl with possibly her mother stepped in to the cafe and the girl's eyes met Hermione's. She gasped with excitement and pointed at Hermione and squealed something to her guardian. The woman said something to the girl and went to the counter as the girl approached Hermione. Hermione tried to look as if she was concentrating on her cup and not dreading the girl.
The girl sat bravely in front of Hermione and whipped out a book and placed it in front of Hermione almost spilling her food. Hermione looked up at the girl and the girl told her something she could not understand and pointed at the open book enthusiastically. On the page there was a few pictures drawn in a strange comic style. The one picture the girl was so sternly pointing at depicted a curly haired girl looking at a smiling boy and there were speech bubbles filled with Japanese text. Hermione looked at the girl questioningly and pointed at herself. "You think I look like that?"
The girl pulled away a bit at the foreign language, but recovered fast and pointed repeatedly at the picture and back to Hermione. Hermione leaned over the book to look at it closer. It must have been a so called manga book. She looked at the girl and rose an eyebrow while inching her hand towards the book and the girl nodded. Hermione touched the book to turn a page and felt a sharp sensation melt quickly through her fingers over her body.
Everything blurred and slowed down. The last thing Hermione thought before time completely stopped was that she should have known better than to just touch something a magical person had held without checking whether or not it is cursed.
-x-x-x-
Hermione groaned as she started getting her consciousness back. She heard chattering all around her and something warm was under her chin. The chattering was in English, and not even with an Australian accent. And the closest voices sounded familiar...
"Next time you're doing your keeper's duty, you'd better be on time! Even if I'm good, I can't keep the goals guarded all the time while trying to score myself."
"Oh, shut it..."
"I wonder what Lav-Lav would do if her Won-Won was kicked out of the team?"
"That's a bit harsh, Ginny. It was just this once and it was just the first practice session of the year."
"Well, it's my responsibility now that I'm the captain, Harry... Oh. Morning, Hermione."
Hermione lifted her head and scrubbed her eyes and mumbled her morning greeting back at her friend. She found something sticky on her hand when she put it down. Ginny chuckled at her.
"You have some porridge on your face."
"Oh, great..." Hermione waved her wand and the ruined porridge vanished from her plate, face, and hand. Was this a dream? Would she next find herself naked in the middle of the Great Hall? She had not had that kind of dreams, but she had heard lots of people having them. Nevertheless, she was at the Great Hall right now, and her friends around her looked much less world weary than she remembered them, as did the place itself. There also were several people present that should have been dead. Professor Dumbledore among them. "What year is it?"
"Are you okay? I don't think I have seen you that out of it before," Ginny asked and felt Hermione's forehead. "Is it stress?"
"You sound like mom. She looks okay to me!" Ron said. "Come to think about it, she looks more than okay."
Ron looked at Hermione up and down with a strange glint in his eyes. Hermione felt her cheeks grow warm and coughed, hiding her face behind her bush of hair. Now that she warily looked around her, Ron was not the only one in the student filled place looking at her in a peculiar manner.
Before Hermione had pushed her hair out of her face, owls started swooping down and dropping mail to the tables. An owl with a copy of the Daily Prophet landed unhygienically on her empty plate, but Hermione just dug her pockets to find a couple of knuts to give the owl for the paper. She started skimming quickly through the Prophet. Her friends around her continued their chattering.
It was the 2nd of September 1997. She found no articles mentioning anything about the Dark Lord or Harry. However, there was an article with a picture of Moody and Tonks standing in front of tied up Death Eaters saying that Bellatrix Lestrange among others had been caught and put back to Azkaban. Hermione had to read the article thrice she had not just imagined what she read.
"Um, Harry..." Hermione interrupted the trio's quidditch talk. "Care to explain this?"
Harry rose up from his seat and leaned over Hermione's shoulder to read the article. Hermione stiffened as Harry's warm breath moved her hair and tickled her ear. Her cheeks threatened to get warmer again, but she did not dare to move. When harry changed his position, she leaned away from him. What was wrong with the boy? He usually kept his distance.
"I don't know," Harry said. "But... As I said promised yesterday before you and Ron had to go to your prefect and head girl things, I have something to tell you. But not here. Tonight in the common room?"
"Alright..." Hermione frowned. For a dream this seemed all too detailed, but things were certainly not like she remembered, even if she had been thrown back in time. Dumbledore should be dead by now. The ministry should be in chaos and Hogwarts supposedly as well. But when she looked at the head table, Dumbledore was sitting in his usual Headmaster spot, Professor Burbage was alive and well chatting with a man she did not recognise. When Hermione's gaze fell upon the man, she thought she saw the man glance back at her, but she was not sure if she had just imagined it.
A nudge on her shoulder turned out to be Professor McGonagall handing out timetables and Hermione easily fell into the school routine, despite having been out of it for closer to two years than one.
-x-x-x-
The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom was filling up. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had learned to be distrustful of each new DADA teacher and had sat down at the back of the class. Harry and Ron continued their quidditch talk while Hermione rummaged through her bag to see if she had a text book for the class there. In addition to the text book she found something recently familiar and out of place in the current environment. It was the manga that she had touched right before she had found herself at the breakfast table.
The boys did not pay attention while she examined the book, like usually. They were used to her reading whatever and they were more interested in that stupid game anyway. She carefully turned the book around and went through it page by page... and nothing happened. She could not even find anything special about it with her diagnostic spells. She also could not grasp the story, as she could not understand the language nor the letters. It almost made her huff and puff in frustration.
When she finally sighed and was just about to close the book, a hand appeared on top of it.
"No reading frivolous fairytales in class, Miss...?" It was the man who had talked with Professor Burbage. His grey eyes were rather sharp up close. So, this was the new DA teacher.
"Granger, sir," Hermione answered and the man took her manga and walked to the front of the class. Hermione glared at his back.
"Good morning, students. I'm professor Redlid. Let me start by taking attendance, as I don't know you."
All the while the Professor went through the list and made each student rise for him one by one, Harry kept making suspicious glances towards him. When he had gone through the students, he told them to read the first two chapters of the text book. Hermione had read the book thrice when she had been preparing for hunting horcruxes with the boys, so she knew the book from cover to cover. She noticed the Professor smirking reading the "frivolous fairytale" behind his desk at the front. That made Hermione's frustration grow. She needed to get that manga back, this far it was the only clue to how she had ended up here.
As the minutes ticked on, Hermione started considering her situation. This could be another dimension or another timeline, or both. However, this far she had not found many things that did not match her previous experience. But, then again, memories can be fallacious. If here was the real world, the timeline must have begun being different at latest at the point where Dumbledore died. But where there other differences..? Hermione buried her head in her hands. If this was not real, this could still be some sort of magical dream dimension, and she had no way to tell whether or not that was the case. With magic so many things that were not real for muggles were actually real and... Her thoughts were going in circles. This was why she had not touched many books on magical philosophy. It often reminded her too much of irrational religious beliefs.
After having fun with the manga for a while, Professor Redlid started quizzing the students about the content of the text book they had read. Despite Hermione's raised hand after every question, he never asked her a thing, just like certain other Professor. When the lesson was over, Hermione told Harry and Ron to go before her as she had something to talk about with the Professor and when she and he were the only ones left, she approached him. He had sat back to his chair and was continuing reading the comic.
"Professor Redlid, may I have my book back?" Hermione asked, keeping her tone polite.
"Oh, I was hoping I could borrow it. It's rather interesting that a girl your age likes to read this sort of things," the professor told her coolly with a hint of smile.
"Please." Hermione paused. "It... was a gift."
"Where did you learn Japanese, Miss Granger?" the Professor inquired. "I did not notice you using any translation spells when you read this."
"I don't understand Japanese, sir," she admitted. "As I said, it was a gift. I meant to learn a translation spell for it later."
"I could teach you."
"Pardon?" The teacher's eyes were tracing her face curiously switching from her mouth and back to her eyes. It was as if everything else suddenly had disappeared from existence, she could not look away. Hermione wondered was it normal for this teacher with such regular features to offer extra lessons right away to every student.
"I could teach you. Either Japanese, or the spell, whichever you like..." he glanced at the manga, releasing Hermione who quickly followed suit. "In exchange for you lending me this book."
"Why do you want to borrow it?" Hermione asked and assessed the man. He looked quite young for a professor. His dark hair had no hint of grey on it and it had not begun to draw back. He only had slight wrinkles on his pale skin around those steel grey eyes. No professor had ever before wanted to borrow any of her books. "Sir?"
"The story is amusing," he told her lightly. "You'd like to learn, I take it? Which is it?"
"I'll have to think about it, but now..."
"Alright," he interrupted her before she could ask the book back again. "I'll teach you when I give this back to you, hm?"
Hermione glared at the smiling Professor Redlid and sighed. She could not really do anything if a professor confiscated any of her belongings, whether or not he called it borrowing, and she did not want to miss her chances of getting the manga back peacefully.
"Understood, Professor. When may I get it back?"
"See me here tomorrow morning before class."
Hermione nodded and turned around to go.
"One more thing, Miss Granger," the Professor called out. "Watch out for your friend, Mr. Potter. He might be up to something stupid."
Hermione shrugged and continued her stride. Harry was always up to something stupid, she did not need anyone to tell her to watch over him.
-x-x-x-
Harry and Ron were having lunch at the Great Hall the next time Hermione saw them. She sat next to Ron and piled her plate full of healthy vegetables and meat.
"Did you get that book of yours back?" Harry asked Hermione and even Ron looked curious.
"No. He wanted to borrow it," Hermione answered and her shoulders slumped.
"Why? I don't like him."
"I don't know, Harry. He said he found it amusing." Hermione shook her head. "...Why don't you like him?"
"I dunno, he just somehow makes my skin crawl." Harry shuddered. "And what kind of name is Redlid anyway? Sounds like Riddle to me, and you know who that is."
"Maybe he's you-know-who in disguise!" Ron budded in. "Wasn't his first name Tom too?"
"I think it was Thomas?" Harry looked at Hermione.
"Right, that sounds exactly like him! Didn't you tell us he just scrambled his name to make his Dark Lord name?" Ron sputtered.
"That's right, but would he be so stupid to come here under Dumbledore's nose with that sort of easily discovered name?"
"Maybe he thinks we wouldn't figure it out, or maybe he tries to fool us with such a ridiculous disguise!"
"Or maybe he just happens to have a somewhat similar name. What do you think, Hermione?"
"I don't know. But even if he was him, why would he want to read something like that book? It's obviously just a childish comic." Hermione started putting food in her mouth and hoped the boys would left it at that.
"I didn't know you read childish comics," Ron noted.
"I didn't know you cared about what I read, Ronald."
The boy frowned without saying anything and looked Hermione over again.
"What?" she asked.
"I want to start learning more about what you like to read," he said, smiling at her with a direct stare at her eyes.
Hermione looked away and the boys picked up their previous quidditch conversation. She did not know what to think about Ron right now. She had had feelings for him, strong ones, but... That had been ages away. Maybe even on completely different timeline. Her heart had not thrummed in her chest like it used to when he looked at her like that. His eyes were still quite pretty, despite him being so... young.
-x-x-x-
After lunch Hermione had Herbology with Neville, who shone in class. She was happy that in this world Neville had also found his confidence. In class she was also happy to get her hands dirty plucking weeds and her mind elsewhere for a while. It had been an exhausting day this far keeping up and trying to find out what had happened and when. Professor Sprout was in good health, as she was supposed to be and everyone in class were the ones she remembered from her sixth year. Even Malfoy was there. She wondered whether or not he had tried to kill Dumbledore and what had happened if it was so.
After washing her hands, Hermione was just about to head to the library when the blonde Slytherin blocked her way with his ever present companions.
"Why did you keep staring me in class, Granger? Having a crush?" Malfoy sneered and Crabbe and Goyle laughed obediently.
"You wish. Out of my way!" Hermione said evenly and was ready for battle. The boys did not have their wands out, however, so neither did she take hers out yet. Malfoy took a step forward and the things she had learned in self-defence classes and in the war popped in her mind.
"Stop bothering her, Malfoy!"
The four of them turned to look at Neville with surprise. The boy was holding a small potful of what looked like Venomous Tentacula. As all of them knew how deadly the plant could be, they stepped back from Neville. Head held high Malfoy tsked and motioned his goons to lead the way out. Neville stood next to Hermione watching the Slytherins disappear behind a corner.
"What was that about?" he asked her and put the plant on a shelf.
"I wonder that myself. But maybe it was just Malfoy being Malfoy." Hermione shrugged.
"I was just thinking about going to the library, wanna come with?" Neville surprised Hermione again. Since Hermione was going there anyway, she agreed.
On their way there they discussed the properties of Chamalla in contrast to Dittany and when they got there, Neville found some Herbology books he had not yet read and Hermione went on a search for books about interdimensional travel. After a couple of hours she had found three books that seemed like they might be related to the topic, but it was time for dinner, so she just went to check them out and Neville accompanied her to the Great Hall.
After dinner Hermione washed herself, noting that she did not have 'mudblood' carved on her hand anymore, but she still had the scar Dolohov had given her at the Department of Mysteries. Her body seemed to be younger than it had been before she found her face in porridge. That made sense with the switching to a different timeline theory. She still had all the markings she had had before the war had properly begun.
When the night fell, it found Hermione curled up in the common room, getting more irritated by the bookful of rubbish she had managed to pick up at the library while she waited for Harry and Ron to appear for Harry to tell them what he had not wanted to when others were around.
Thanks for reading this far. I'm looking for betas, by the way. PM me if you're interested. Next chapter coming up next week.
