I do not own anything that you might recognize. The Harry Potter universe belongs to the amazing and incredible J.K. Rowling.

Chapter one

18th of June 1996

Hermione Jean Granger was not one to let go of her sense of logic and give in to her emotions. However what she had just watched, had been horrible enough for her to let go. Having witnessed the death of her best friend's godfather by the hands of his own cousin had been terrifying. Even more terrifying was the fact that she and her friends had been told to leave the room by the rest of the order, and get out of the department of mysteries. Not that they were supposed to be there to begin with. They would not have been, if Professor Snape had managed to teach Harry how to close his mind. They would not have been if Lord Voldemort had not used the connection to show him false pictures of Sirius being tortured.

"Which door is the right one?" she heard the voice of her best female friend ask. Ginny was obviously trying to keep her calm. Hermione was thankful of this, because she recognized that he could not keep Harry in control, if she was the only one who was not freaking out. Not that the others had much energy considering their injuries from the battle, and as Ron and Neville were using their last powers to literally drag the extremely agitated Harry across the floor, much to his dislike.

"I have absolutely no clue" Hermione answered with a deep sigh. She wished she had predicted that the door to the outside world would change place, and be unrecognisable. You see, Hermione Granger was not a person who particularly valued the art of guessing. Especially not when it came to hiding from a bunch of murderous death eaters, who had possible already made contact with their lord through the dark tattoos on their arms. She sighed deeply once again, feeling the pressure of being the person to know everything. It was know mystery that people considered her an insufferable know-it-all, as she since her first year, had been forced to take the responsibility to stay calm, be logical, and thereby keep her two best friends alive. "We will just have to guess, won't we?" she asked, as she opened a random door. It was not the exit. However, something drew her to enter the beautiful rectangular room filled with watches in all sizes, colours and shapes. The room just had this incredible, dancing light, that almost hypnotized her. When she would think back at this in the future, she would think of this as her greatest mistake.

"'Mione, that's not the exit" she heard Ron's voice comment. He sounded almost concerned. However, barely a second passed before one of the other doors opened, and the group of students all hurried to follow her.

"What are we doing hiding in here?!" Harry's voice suddenly pierced through the silence. When Hermione turned around to look at him, she saw that Ron and Neville had been forced to let go of him, to avoid getting injured any further. "She killed Sirius! Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not going to sit in here and wait for the murderer of my godfather to escape, when I can go out there and fight her!"

"Harry, calm down..." Hermione almost pleaded. "She wants you to go out there and fight her. They wanted you to come here. Don't you see it? If you go out there again, you may get hurt. Voldemort might show up. He might even kill you, and I will not allow you to die on my watch."

"Hermione, she killed Sirius! Now, I don't know about you, but I will not let my only family be killed by a murderous maniac and not avenge him! I cared..."

"If you're insinuating that I did not care about Sirius, Harry James Potter, then you're terribly wrong. I cared about him a lot. If you would actually use that bright head of yours to think for a second, you would realize that without me, Sirius would have had his soul sucked out, and I don't know about you, but I'd much rather die. Now focus" Hermione drew a few deep breaths to calm down. She knew that Harry was grieving, and she knew that he had made it a habit to get angry when he did not know what to do. Still, he had been out of line. "Sirius came here to make sure that you did not get hurt. It would be a pretty bad way of repaying him to go out there and get killed by death eaters, or even Voldemort"- Ron shuttered - "oh, get a grip Ronald!"

"Hermione, she killed Sirius! She tortured Neville's parents to insanity, and she killed Sirius!" Harry's stunningly green eyes met her brown ones, and she could see the tears in the corners of them being blinked away.

"You may not care if you die, Harry, but the rest of us do." Hermione walked towards him, and grabbed his hand comfortingly. Her voice then softened greatly. "I know that you wish you got to spend more time with him. I know..." the tears know trailed down his cheeks, though he still worked hard to appear tough, and look angry.

"I just..." Harry seemed to have forgotten that he had a crowd watching him, as he broke down in tears. "I wish that I had gotten to meet him before all of this... I wish I knew him before he was driven insane by Azkaban, and losing his best friend, and..." Harry did not get to say anything more. Before he could continue, the room started spinning, and slowly vanish. The sensation scared the six friends a lot. A suffocating darkness that felt a lot like apparating swallowed them in.

25th of August 1976

The six young people all landed next to a phone booth in Muggle London, at about 8pm in the evening. Confused and light-headed. They looked around at each other, and then at their surroundings. Luna Lovegood, who had been quiet during the fight between Harry and Hermione, fiddled with her Butter-Beer caps. "What happened? The air out here is wonderfully fresh" she asked in her dreamy voice. Much to Hermione's annoyance, the whole group looked at her with their confused eyes. She sighed.

"I... I need time to think." she sighed, while forcing herself to focus on the facts, instead of Neville's broken nose, and Ginny's pained face. Time. Harry had just said that he wanted more time With Sirius. The argument had been in the room of time. Time seemed to be a key word in this. And then she realized what was going on, as she looked at the others in horror. Harry had said that he wanted time with Sirius, before Azkaban and before James' death, in the room where the people of the ministry produced time-turners. "I have a vague idea... I just... I just hope that I'm wrong." The others sent her looks that showed even more confusion than before, which led her to look at Harry. "Harry, it's very important that you repeat to me exactly what you said before this happened."

"I... I said that I wanted to meet Sirius before his life was..." - Harry seemed to follow Hermione's train of thought, and mirrored her horrified expression. "You can't possibly think that... That the strange room granted me the wish?" he still had tear stains on his cheeks, and it was obvious that he had just left a battle. Hermione sighed deeply. "But that means that... Hermione, we have to find Bellatrix Lestrange! We can... We can prevent Sirius' death, we can save Neville's parents..."

"Harry, we can do no such thing..." Hermione sighed, as she moved closer to him. "Look, I know that you're angry and sad, but Harry... If we kill Bellatrix, we might change something crucial in the time-line. We can not change anything here. We... We need to speak to Dumbledore." She then concluded. "Ginny, how bad is you ankle?"

"Well, I can't walk all the way to Hogwarts if that's what's on your mind, but shouldn't we... You know, make sure that we actually did travel back in time?" Ginny looked mildly sceptical, as she poked her ankle to find out how much it hurt. After feeling the pain, she realized that it was a mistake.

Hermione sighed. Ginny was right, of course. Dumbledore would think that they had all gone insane – well, except Luna who already was somewhat insane – during the battle, if they had just lift the ministry in an odd way. "Yes, we should... Um, Ron, I need you to carry Ginny... We have to get to the Leaky Cauldron. If we indeed did travel back in time, we can floo to Hogsmeade, and walk to Hogwarts from there."

The group walked through Muggle London, towards the leaky cauldron. It was not a short walk, and the awkward and deadly silence amongst them made it even less pleasant. They were all consumed in their own thoughts. What worried Hermione, however was how Harry would react to seeing his parents and godfather again. After having known him for years, she knew that he was not very rational in emotional situations, and that she would need to tell him on more than one occasion that he could not change anything. If he did, the consequences could be fatal, and they would likely return to a world that they did not recognize. A world in which they might not even exist. Hermione sighed. She could not think about that yet.

"It is so much warmer than before we left" she heard Luna's dreamy voice conclude. It was true. The weather was warm and dry, even though it was evening and England was not known for its warm weather. Hermione vaguely remembered the heat wave last summer, that had encouraged her parents to try forcing her out of her room, where she had spent her time reading... Until she went to the Burrow, and then Grimmauld place, that is. But Luna was right. It was very much warmer than it had been, when Harry and her had left Umbridge in the forest with centaurs. It felt like so long ago, and it almost stunned Hermione when she realized that it had only been hours earlier. She silently prayed that Umbridge was getting exactly what she deserved. And by a bunch of Filthy Half-breeds to make it even more perfect. This had been one of her greater ideas, but also an idea that made her wonder if she had been placed in Slytherin, had she been a pure blood.

"It really is..." she heard Ginny answer. When Hermione looked at back at her, she had a bitter expression on her face. Ginny was not a person who enjoyed receiving help from others. She preferred being somewhat independent, and being carried through London on Neville's back was not something she took lightly. "But then again... In our time you-know-who has control over the Dementors although the Ministry refuse to see it, and having them floating around really does suck out the warmth of summer"

They walked in silence until they reached the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione recognized that this was for the best, though, considering the current mood they were all in. They must have scared quite a few muggles on their way there, considering how obvious it was by looking at them, that they came from a fight. Hermione felt a sting of pain run through her body, but forced herself to ignore it. She opened the door to the small pub, and walked in. She did not waste any time approaching a stranger, asking if she could look at his issue of The Daily Prophet. As she looked at the front page, her eyes grew wide in shock.

"What does it say?" Ginny asked, looking at her. They were all somewhat anxious. Then again, no one could really blame them considering what they had just been through.

"It says that it's..." Hermione sighed deeply, and looked at her friends. "It's the 25th of August. 1976."