A/N: Hey there, new year, new couple, new story. This is my first attempt at a back-in-time story. Tell me how you like it!

Disclaimer: Own nothing, just my computer and my will to write

Puppy Love

Chapter I: Arrival

Hermione woke up feeling dizzy and disorientated. The room was dark and she was lying on a soft bed, though she didn't remember getting to bed. Moreover, as she looked around, she realized she wasn't in her room. From the silver shining that enter through the window, she made out that she was in the Hospital Wing, but why? She didn't recall needing medical assistance. In fact, the last thing she remembered was walking in the grounds, back from Hagrid's. How had she ended up there? She sat a little straighter on the bed; her head felt funny, but apart from that she didn't feel any pain. The room was empty and quiet; Hermione deduced it must be around midnight. Why was she alone? If something had happened to her, why weren't Harry, Ron or Madam Pomfrey waiting for her to come round? A wave of anger swept past her, and then she felt fear, what if something had happened to Harry and Ron too? But they weren't in the hospital wing, so she discarded the possibility. And went back to wonder why she was alone there, and why her head felt so funny.

Suddenly, the door burst open and two young boys stormed into the room. They locked the door with a spell and hurry to get under one of the beds. Hermione heard them whisper something and then saw a familiar shadow walking pass the hospital wing. For a moment nothing happened, and then the two boys burst out laughing. They rolled out of their hiding place clutching theirs stomachs and roaring. Hermione couldn't see them properly. She was confused, she didn't seem to know them, but at the same time there was something terribly familiar about them. Eventually, their fit of laughter passed and they were able to stand up. In the rush of their escape from whatever they were running away, neither of them had noticed Hermione watching them.

"That'll show Snivelus for trying to mess with us. I might have to do three more detentions with McGonagall, but his going to walk around with that written on his face until he figures out how to take it away, 'cause as sure as hell I'm not telling him," said one of them. He was the taller of the two, had a broad back y gorgeous dark-brown hair (that was all that Hermione could see of him), yet there was something about his voice that made her heart beat faster.

"Neither am I. Too bad Filch caught us before we could get his trunk, I would have loved to plaster the Great Hall with his greasy underpants!" the other one said, sitting on one of the beds, his back to Hermione. There was something familiar about this one too, but it wasn't his voice, it was the way he moved. He reminded Hermione of… "Harry," she said out loud.

Her voice made both voice jump and look around quickly. In the semi-darkness the shorter looked exactly like Harry, but the voice didn't match. They looked at each other wearily and then walked towards her. Each of them stood on one side of her bed and they studied her closely. Hermione studied them too, and her bewilderment grew even more. One of the boys looked exactly like Harry, but he had neither the bright, green eyes nor the lightening-shaped scar. The other one reminded her terribly of Harry's god father, Sirius Black. There was only one explanation for what she was seeing, and it wasn't at all logical.

"Hi," said the boy who looked like Harry. "I don't think we've met. I'm James Potter and this is Sirius Black, who are you?"

But they never got an answer, for Hermione had fainted.

When Hermione opened her eyes again, the scene couldn't have been more different than the previous one. The room was brightly illuminated by many candles and there were five people surrounding her bed. She recognized all of them, but she had never seen them like that.

"How are you feeling dear?" the kind voice of Madam Pomfrey asked her from her right. Hermione looked at her in shock. The woman was at least twenty years younger than the last time she had seen her. She tried to answer but the words got lost in her throat when she saw that next to the nurse there was a ginger-haired Albus Dumbledore looking at her through her half-moon spectacles. The third person in the room was a much younger professor McGonagall, who despite her age still looked as stern and strict as ever. Hermione shook her head slightly to recover from the shock. Her mind was working fast, evidently she had traveled to the past, but how had that happened?

"I'm fine," she said weakly.

"You don't sound fine," said James who was standing opposite to the staff members.

"She looks fine though," commented Sirius matter-of-factly.

"Black!" McGonagall barked at him.

"Sorry professor, but it is true," he answered cheekily, giving the older woman a broad, bright grin that made Hermione's stomach clench for some reason.

"Sorry, Miss?" Dumbledore addressed Hermione

"Granger, I'm Hermione Granger" she answered looking up at him.

"Miss Granger, I'm Albus Dumbledore, but something tells me you already know that," he continued, his eyes twinkling.

"Actually, yes, I do."

"I thought so. And may I ask had you seen my beard so red before, Miss Granger?"

"No sir," Hermione answered not sure if Dumbledore knew what was going on or if he was just being weird as he sometimes did in that kind of situations.

"Ok, that settles it. From which year do you come Miss Granger?"

"2007, how did you know?" she began, but Dumbledore answered her question before she had finished it,

"It's not the first time we have a visitor from the future. You see Miss Granger, every now and then the castle feels like transporting people in time. Nobody knows how that happens, or how to revert it," he explained. Hermione was panicking. She had been sent to the past and not even the greatest wizard in the world knew how to return her to her own time. However, before she could say anything Dumbledore continued. "Don't worry, you are not stuck here forever, when the castle feels you've accomplished whatever reason it had to send you here, you'll be sent back to your age."

Hermione didn't feel in the least way reassured. She had read "Hogwarts, a History" at least twenty times and it never mentioned compulsory time-travels. She supposed it was because there was no explanation for the jolts in time; still she was planning to sue the writer of the book as soon as she returned. However, there were more important things to deal with at the moment. The three adults were looking at her with weird expressions on their faces.

"Excuse me, Professor Dumbledore what am I going to do until I can go back to my time?" she asked trying to keep her voice calm.

"You can attend classes normally. I see you are head-girl, what means you are in your seventh year, in which house are you?"

"I'm a Gryffindor sir," she answered

"Brilliant, I knew it!" Sirius exclaimed happily, but shut up immediately when he saw the look on McGonagall's face.

"Ok then, it will be arranged for you to join the Gryffindor classes. Professor McGonagall here is head of your house. You can tell her which subjects you were taking so you can continue life as normally as possible." He turned to go, but suddenly he retraced his steps. "One more thing, Miss Granger, are you familiar with the rules of time-traveling?"

"Yes, I had to use a time turner in my third year and- err- my head of house told me everything I needed to know," she said. To her left, she saw James and Sirius exchanging surprised glances.

"Very well then, I trust you will respect them. If you need anything, feel free to come to my office. James is head boy; he'll tell you how to find me."

"Miss Granger, I need to go with professor Dumbledore. Why don't you come tomorrow to my office so we can discuss your schedule? The boys will take you to your room and tell you anything you need to know, as soon as Madam Pomfrey says you are good to go."

"Thank you professor," said Hermione.

"I think you can leave now if you are feeling ok," Madam Pomfrey said, while she checked her pulse.

Some time later Hermione was walking out of the Hospital Wing with James and Sirius on her side. The castle was deserted and they made their way to the Gryffindor tower in silence. Every now and then Hermione saw through the corner of her eye the boys exchanging glances. Everything felt so weird. Hermione had walked down those corridors accompanied by two boys, one of them whose last name was also Potter, so many times, but she was not with her friends and at her time. She felt tears forming in her eyes.

Sirius, who had been watching her more closely than she knew suddenly stopped.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" he asked looking at her directly. James too saw that she was crying and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry, you heard Dumbledore, you'll be back in your time in no time, ehm, well you know what I mean. And in the mean time, you get to know the coolest students Hogwarts ever saw, or will see," he said winking. Hermione gave him a watery smile. He was so much more confident than Harry, and yet he had the same warmth in his eyes.

"Come on, lets keep walking, we can talk in the common room. It'll be empty by now. We can fill you in on everything you need to know about the school and you can tell us something about you," said Sirius pushing them slightly forward.

Hermione made the rest of the way in silence, trying to figure out how she had ended up there. It had been around seven, and she had been walking back from visiting Hagrid. He had been alone because Ron and Harry were at a quidditch practice. She couldn't remember nothing out of the ordinary happening and then all she knew was that she had waken up in the hospital wing. What had happened to send her so many years into the past? Why her? Was it a coincidence or the castle had chosen to send her for a particular reason? She was so concentrated in her thoughts that she didn't realized they had arrived to the portrait of the Fat Lady, and not until Sirius shook his hand in front of he face did she reacted. Everything looked exactly the same, it was unsettling.

"Here we are. I don't know if in your time it's the same, but anyway, the password is moonshine."

"Right you are," said the Fat Lady. Hermione wondered why she wasn't upset with them for arriving so late and waking her up. She tended to be in a horrible mood whenever she, Hermione, or her friends arrived at this time.

"Thank you sweetheart," Sirius said charmingly. "Have you lost weight? You look fantastic!" he added winking. The Fat Lady winked back and moved forward to reveal the whole in the wall. Hermione rolled her eyes; there was the answer to her question. At least to one of them.

Inside the common room- which also looked as if no time had passed- James and Sirius leaded Hermione to her favorite chair in front of the fire, not that they knew it was her favorite.

"So Hermione, you said you are from the year 2007. It must be very cool to live in the future," James said from one of the chairs.

"Yeah, it is. But I can't tell you what it's like. It's against the rules."

"Told you Prongs, she's Head Girl, she's bound to abide by every rule ever written," said Sirius.

"You have no idea," Hermione said smiling. And they didn't. They didn't know how seriously she took rules and order. They weren't aware of the fact that in some years she was going to nag Harry and Ron into fallowing rules and instructions. And specially, they didn't know that she knew their biggest secret.

"Ok, you can't tell us about the future, but you can tell us something about yourself," said James messing his hair. Hermione had never seen Harry do that, on the contrary, he tended to flatten his hair, yet the way he moved his hands and his gestures when he spoke, the resemblance was remarkable. Hermione felt tears forming in her eyes again. It was as if she had suddenly realized where she was and that she was not going to see her friends for Merlin knew how long.

"Hermione, don't…" Sirius began awkwardly.

"Don't cry," said James sounding kind of bemused, "Sirius can't stand to see a woman crying, he just doesn't know how to deal with it." For some reason this remark made Hermione laugh. She had heard from Remus about Sirius' reputation with women.

"Ok, laugh at me… I'm just a poor guy, nobody likes me, I'm the laughingstock at school," he said pretending to pout. For the first time since she knew him- or had known him, she was having troubles with tenses- Hermione found that adorable.

"Somehow, I find that hard to believe Sirius," She said patting his head sympathetically.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you," James warned her.

"Why not?"

"Well you see, my friend here bears a strong connection with dogs and what may seem to you as an innocent gesture could wake up the animal in him."

Hermione grinned. She had seen the animal in him, but they couldn't know that. Perhaps she had spent too much time with Ron and Harry, because she decided she would use her knowledge of the marauders to creep them up a little.

"So, are you going to tell me what Prongs and Padfoot wrote with pimples on that boy's face?" The boys looked at each other shocked.

"How do you know?"

"I heard you in the Hospital wing"

"But we didn't say anything about pimples."

"I know the spell." James and Sirius eyed her with a newfound respect.

"So guys, this has been lovely, but I'm exhausted. Could you tell me which one is my dormitory?" Sirius told her and then watched her disappear behind the door that led to the girls' rooms, but James was lost in thought.

"What is it?" Sirius asked him when he saw the expression on his best friend face.

"Do you remember me calling you Padfoot?" Sirius thought for a couple of seconds, playing in his head the conversation they had had ever since they entered the Hospital Wing.

"No, I don't. But hey, it's late and you know my memory is not at its best when it's been more than two hours since I've eaten."

James threw a pillow at him and they went to bed, the worry of how Hermione knew about Sirius' nickname on the back of their heads.