Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot and my love for Blaise Zabini.
Sound reached eighteen-year-old Hermione Granger before any other sense could.
As she muddily swam into consciousness, she heard the voices as if they were simultaneously coming from the left and the right and above and below. It hurt her head to listen.
"… we must do something, Albus…"
"They look barely eighteen…"
"...look like this?…"
The trickle of voices faded with dizzying pain as touch returned. She tried to move her fingers. Sharp needles pricked the one joint she moved, and the sensation crept up her arm in a twisted dance of raw pain. Her chest hurt most of all, as if something very heavy had crushed all the bones beneath and mercilessly burned the hot skin above.
Hermione struggled to open her heavy eyelids. Her head throbbed angrily as if on fire, a feeling that made her suddenly reminiscent of the drawing room at Malfoy Manor.
For a heart-stopping moment, Hermione's confusion outweighed her senses and she wondered if she was back under Bellatrix Lestrange's wand.
She involuntarily gasped. The voices to the side immediately fell silent.
"Was that–?"
"Yes, I believe so."
A pattering of footsteps followed the voices. The footsteps stopped beside her; she could identify at least two pairs, which meant it could be Harry and Ron, two Order members, or two Death Eaters.
"It's alright," said a voice that sounded vaguely familiar - but not like Harry's or Ron's. Feminine. "You're safe now."
A hand touched her shoulder, and Hermione twisted away, ignoring the pain that ripped across her chest. She tried to adjust her eyes to the bright light but she could barely make out the woman's face above her own.
She was still at Hogwarts; Hermione could tell that much from the texture of the stone floor beneath her hands. Through her groggy vision and watering eyes from the incredible pain in her chest, Hermione squinted at the tapestry on the opposite wall.
She could hardly see it, but she recognized the flashy gold thread and long red rope. Barnabas the Barmy. So, she thought, she was in the seventh floor corridor.
Intuitively, Hermione's eyes widened in horror. "Fred!"
At least, that's what she meant to say. Her voice made only an intelligible sound, but it hardly mattered when Hermione remembered now: She had been standing in the seventh floor corridor with Harry and Ron after their experience in the Room of Lost Things, Ravenclaw's diadem dangling from Harry's burned hand. Fred and Percy had been in front of them when the outside wall suddenly blasted open - the result of an attack by the Death Eaters.
Hermione's flood of memories stopped then, and she fought desperately to remember what happened next. There had been some bright light, a wall was crumbling down, and Fred, he'd been standing closest to the wall. She gasped aloud as she remembered flashes of debris blocking her vision, but her wand pointed at Fred. A bright shield had erupted from her wand, a great white light, and then nothing -
"Fred? Is that the name of the young man that came with you?"
Hermione suddenly jerked her head to turn towards the second woman's voice that she now recognized.
"Professor McGonagall?"
Relieved, and reminded of the dangerous situation they were in, she tried to lift herself from the ground, gasping from the dust in her throat. "Professor," she coughed. "They're all - they're all in the corridor! The wall was blasted open -"
"Don't excite yourself, dear," said the other woman, who put a warm hand on Hermione's shoulder again and eased her down. Hermione turned and saw it was Madam Pomfrey crouching beside her (except was it her imagination, or did the nurse look younger from what she last saw her, nearly one year ago?). "Your wounds will get worse."
Hermione knew the priority wasn't her wounds. It was finding Harry and Ron. She forced herself up in an attempt to look around the corridor despite Pomfrey's protests - and cried out, immediately crumpling forward and clutching at her chest.
Tears formed in her eyes, and she hated her weakness even as she felt her chest throb angrily beneath her dirty old Hogwarts robes. She thought again of the drawing room of Malfoy Manor, but this time with a different purpose. If she reminded herself of the excruciating pain she'd felt then, then perhaps her body would think this pain less harsh.
After some moments in which she could faintly hear her professors mumbling words to each other in the background, Hermione shakily tried again until she sat up straighter. She turned her head towards her teacher, ready to ask McGonagall where in Godric's name Harry and Ron were, and froze at who she saw.
Beside her, her hand went limp around her wand. Her mouth dropped open.
It couldn't be…
Hermione made as if to reach out her hand before pulling it back. It couldn't be possible.
"Aberforth?" she asked uncertainly.
The face of a man with the long, grey beard standing behind Minerva McGonagall had appeared troubled and concerned until now. At the sound of his brother's name, the man's expression became curious and a little guarded. Hermione wanted to tear her eyes away but instead drank in the sight of his spectacles, his familiar blue wizarding robes, his perceptive blue eyes…
"No," the wizard said finally. "I am not my brother, though I wonder how it is that you know him."
A chunk of debris must have knocked her out and messed with her head. She was currently hallucinating. There was no other explanation for this madness. "No, it can't be… I must be dreaming, because you can't be him -"
She flashed a desperate look at Professor McGonagall, whose face was riddled with confusion and apprehension. But not at Dumbledore's presence. At, it seemed, hers.
"Professor, he can't be here. He's -" She cut herself off as a new thought surfaced. "I'm not… I haven't died, have I?" she choked.
The nurse and professor gave matching gasps. and Dumbledore's eyes widened fractionally. "I think not. You seem quite alive to me," he said in that calm voice of his.
It was so bizarre that Hermione forced her eyes shut and focused on breathing. She couldn't allow her mind to play tricks on her right now; she had to compose herself, to think rationally. Now, what was the most important thing right now?
She opened her eyes and fought the fear in her chest. "I need to find Harry and Ron. We mustn't stay here, or the Death Eaters will-"
"Death Eaters?" the three adults interrupted at the same time.
"Yes," she said, quickly. "They're going to come any second now-"
Dumbledore placed a firm hand on her wand arm. "Death Eaters, Miss…?"
Minerva McGonagall gripped the windowsill. "Albus, it can't be! You said they weren't attacking -"
She stopped abruptly when Dumbledore sent her a sharp look.
Madam Pomfrey put a hand to her mouth in horror before turning to Hermione sharply. "My dear, do explain. Why in Merlin's name have you associated with these - these -"
She seemed reluctant to say the name of Voldemort's followers. Perhaps while Hermione'd been on the run with Harry, Voldemort's growing power had made Wizarding society scared to say "Death Eaters" too.
McGonagall stared at Hermione. "Is it true that you've encountered these Death Eaters?" She was so pale that looked as if she was about to faint, but Hermione noticed that her hand had slipped into her wand pocket.
"Professors, please," Hermione implored, slightly apprehensive but mostly urgent. "We mustn't waste time. I've got to find to Harry and Ron."
Yet as she struggled to stand, gritting her teeth against the burning at her chest, the situation struck her again as overtly strange. McGonagall's wariness, all of their surprise at hearing her mention the Death Eaters. The fact that there was complete silence in the corridor. Even the floor felt strange, smooth and warm as she rose on unsteady feet.
She realized why, seconds later.
She was not in her Hogwarts.
At least, she wasn't in the ravaged Hogwarts whose walls were crumbling and whose windows were shattering. She wasn't in the Hogwarts that she'd just been fighting in. No… as she turned this way and that, jaw open, all she could see was the Hogwarts of her memories, walls pristine, torches lit, floor perfectly smooth. No blood or dirt or Death Eaters.
She should have felt relief at seeing the sturdy walls of the seventh floor corridor, the unblemished stone floor, and the intact windows. Instead Hermione felt nauseous.
She spun wildly to face her teachers, instinctively turning to the man who always knew the answers. "Where is this? The Death Eaters..."
"This is Hogwarts," said Madam Pomfrey.
"There are no Death Eaters in the here, we can assure you of that. Our protection wards are quite strong," said Professor McGonagall shakily. "Now if you could just explain where you've come from, and how you know of that - that brand of followers -"
"We only found you and the boy here. The boy, he is Fred? Perhaps the Harry or Ron you speak of?"
Madam Pomfrey shifted slightly to the right to reveal a young man lying on the ground. He was wearing torn black robes, cut at the bottom and ripped at his shoulder. There were cuts all along his arms and Hermione could see a small red blot of blood on his shirt at his chest. He was still unconscious.
He wasn't Harry or Ron or even Fred. It actually took Hermione a few seconds to remember the vaguely familiar face and thick black hair, but when she did think of his name, she immediately fumbled for her wand.
"Blaise Zabini," she muttered suspiciously, eyes locked on his limp form. "Where did you find him?"
"He's not who you're looking for?" said Madam Pomfrey, obviously puzzled. "We found him here next to you."
"But you didn't see anyone else? Did you see Harry or Ron?" Her own fear was evident to herself as she heard her high, anxious plea.
"No," said Professor McGonagall. "Only the two of you were found here."
Hermione raked the spotless corridor yet again with her eyes, but nothing indicated that the wall had ever been blasted through or that her friends had been here with her. Even Draco Malfoy and Gregory Goyle had disappeared from the place she, Harry, and Ron had left them outside the Room of Requirement.
She narrowed her eyes as she stared out of a window. There was yellow strip of light sinking into the mountains, but last she had remembered, it'd been in the middle of the night.
Hermione clutched her wand in her fist, trying to process the events amidst the throbbing in her head. Something wasn't adding up here; that was obvious. Hogwarts was perfectly intact. Harry and Ron were nowhere to be found, and Pomfrey and McGonagall seemed not to remember either of them. And for Blaise Zabini of all people to be here in this strange situation - Hermione frowned down at the Italian boy who was her age.
Zabini chose that moment to groan and force his eyes open to a world that wasn't his.
The four standing above him watched (Hermione warily, her wand pointed toward the Death Eater's chest) as he inched himself up from the ground. He appeared to be in better condition than she had been when she'd first woken up; within seconds, he was pushing himself into a sitting position.
The moment he glanced up and noticed the four people in his company, Zabini swore. His dark eyes immediately darted back and forth as if to search for an escape, but the four had formed some sort of semicircle around him as he sat up against the wall.
Professor McGonagall took a tentative step forward. "Are you alright?"
"Get away from me," Blaise said in a low voice. He wrapped his hand around his wand, which was on the ground beside him.
"Dear," said Madam Pomfrey, nervously fingering her own wand. "Like we told your friend here, you're at Hogwarts. You're safe."
"Safe?" he said incredulously. His eyes landed on Hermione, and though his face remained impassive, she spotted the recognition and surprise in his eyes. "Far from it."
Hermione didn't reply.
Removing his steady gaze from her, Zabini pressed his mouth into a firm line. "Hermione Granger can enlighten you. Surely you know she is the cause of this, with the company she keeps."
Hermione's grip on her wand tightened. "Are you playing at something?" she demanded. "What did you do?"
"Me?" He eyed her wand apprehensively but spat out, "I didn't do anything. You and your Potter were the ones who brought this upon yourselves -"
"I mean this!" She swept the scope of the corridor with her hand. "What happened to it all?"
Had he responded strangely, like Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey with their "Hogwarts is still safe", Hermione knew she would have felt even more frightened. But Zabini seemed to know exactly what terrifying alterations had happened to Hogwarts, by the brief astonished look on his face as he took in the intact corridor.
And when his disbelieving eyes landed on the quiet man next to McGonagall, Hermione knew her mind hadn't produced Albus Dumbledore out of her imagination after all. Blaise's mouth dropped open.
Professor McGonagall stepped up. "Mr. Zabini and Miss - Miss Granger, was it?"
Hermione flickered her eyes away from Zabini. "Yes," she said, picking up on her teacher's hesitance.
Zabini seemed to temporarily find his voice again, though she observed that he was still staring at Dumbledore with a strange look Hermione could not identify. "I wouldn't blame you for forgetting. She has been gone for quite a while."
"Gone from where?"
And that made Blaise and Hermione stare openly at Minerva McGonagall, who still looked wary - but also genuinely perplexed.
"Professor?" said Hermione tentatively.
"Miss Granger, Mr. Zabini." Dumbledore finally stepped forward, his blue eyes fixed upon the two.
He had been silent up until now, but there was comprehension in his eyes that Hermione wanted to cling to. Dumbledore said slowly,
"I think that it would do well to explain when you've come from as well as where."
Hermione stared at him. And then she looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since she swam into consciousness, and saw that his hair was not yet completely grey, that there were not as many lines on his face, and that the weight in his eyes was not quite as heavy with the experience of two wizarding wars.
Slowly, slowly, she lifted a hand to her mouth, understanding. She looked at the clean corridor with a new light, noticed the evening sun again, saw the old style of McGonagall's and Pomfrey's robes, and trembled, her head spinning around and around. She felt light and dizzy and weighted down at the same time.
"Bloody hell…"
Hermione instinctively spun to the Slytherin sitting on the ground, and when his eyes met hers, she knew Zabini had met the same conclusion.
She sank to her knees, frozen in shock. She didn't understand. Questions raged through her mind at alarming paces, and she didn't understand why, why they were here, why Blaise suddenly looked so terrified, and why he was lifting his hands to his neck and yanking on something gold - a chain she knew well, from running her fingers over one just like it for her entire third year.
She knew what dangled at its end.
The seventh floor corridor was silent as Blaise reached pulled out a cracked gold hourglass, bent and broken. Hermione looked on in horror as a thin golden substance slipped between the gaps of his fingers.
The fine sand from the Time Turner hit the stone floor with an air of finality, as if proud to announce the arrival of two disbelieving time travelers.
It's here. I have been working on this story since November 2014, and though I am not done with it, I want to begin to share this story which is dear to my heart. Please let me know what you think of it so far :) I am so excited!
xo Summer
