Note: This is a new story that I started to document what Hermione's life might have been like if she was to be transported back to the time of the Marauders. It's a tale of friendship and family and romance. Please review and subscribe! I will try to update every two days at least.

Hermione Granger's eyes broke open what sleep had encrusted over the world. It was a Spartan room, an obvious attempt made to distract from its lack of heart with a thick, fluffy blossom-spotted duvet under which she was hidden. Shit, Hermione thought, that experiment was a huge mistake.

Hermione had been working with the Ministry in an investigation of the potential of time-turners to save lives that had been lost before Voldemort's demise, and reunite broken families that had had family members killed or permanently injured as a result of Voldemort's campaign for complete control over the Wizarding World. Weeks and weeks were spent evacuating casualties from locations that they knew would be attacked by the Death Eaters. She had to be careful not to alter time too much, though, because that would have, obviously, had an effect on the Final Battle and might have ruined the outcome. Kingsley Shacklebolt, the newly-instated Minister for Magic, had been highly supportive of the investigation, but the paltry results led him to demand that further actions be taken to save more lives.

And so, Hermione was assigned to a research laboratory where temporal experiments were to be conducted to identify what the problem was with their operation, and why it had not worked to perfection. The last thing she remembered was picking up a chart that showed how far backwards the operatives had been travelling, the furthest had been only one year into the past. That wasn't enough, Hermione thought, because the Second Wizarding War began in 1995 – this was 1998, and there were many more people to be saved if they travelled further back. The operatives were still confined to the used of time-turners, as a more practical and accurate form of time travel had not yet been discovered. Hermione picked up her wand and turned the dull golden hourglass. She had to concentrate – every turn would be an hour travelled backwards, and losing focus might entail disastrous results. She calculated the turns needed to travel three years back in time, and kept her eye on the whirring object before her, which was spinning so fast it had morphed into a rusty blur. By her count, she was already two and a half years back, just a bit more and it-

"Granger!"

A sonorous voice thundered into the room. Hermione swivelled her head around – her first mistake – and glanced at Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had entered to check on the investigation's progress. The abruptness of the voice caused her second mistake – dropping her wand. The minister immediately knew that he had interrupted something very important, as he watched the time-turner gain speed and tornado at the moment of Hermione's loss of control. How many years were passing by? Hermione knew that she had forever been sucked into history, the only thing she could do now was stop the spinning.

"Finite!" – and everything went black.

A soft, kind-faced man stepped into the room that she had woken up in. He was holding a tea tray, on which sat a steaming mug of Bovril and a plate of chocolate biscuits. Hermione turned towards him, with a quizzical expression on her face. "What year is this? Where am I? Who are you?" The man looked at her like a child would at an insect crawling on a hot concrete pavement. "Are you alright, love?" His voice was muffled by nature.

"Please, just answer me. Please." Hermione was begging to know how far back she had gone. The man seemed to understand her sense of bewilderment.

"It is the 6th of December, 1969, you are in my home in Cokeworth. This is our spare room. I'm Charles Evans. Don't be alarmed. My daughter found you unconscious in the middle of the street last night, right in front of our house. Pray tell, how did you get there?"

"Your daughter?"

"Lily. Lily Evans. My family's downstairs, we're spending the day in. Would you like to meet them?" Charles set the tea tray down on the bedside table, and gestured for Hermione to pick up the drink. Hermione did so and the warmth seeped into her bones and gave way to energy that she had never known, as if she had been asleep for years. As she followed the Evans father down the stairs, she could not help looking into a big brass mirror in the corridor. Hermione stopped short at her reflection.

She was a child. A nine year old child. Short, hay-coloured brown hair that ended just below her chin, a small snubbed nose spattered with freckles, wide-spaced, slanty cat-like sea-green eyes. Hermione no longer had hips or breasts, and her drastic shrinkage into a skinny elfin girl caught her by surprise.

"Something wrong, love?" The muffled voice came from the bottom of the stairs.

"…No. Not at all. Coming."

Hermione passed her hand along the balustrade, and made her way into the living room. It was a lively, wallpapered and tartan-cushion-covered affair. Three females sat on a couch, watching the television. One was about her current age – nine, that is – another was about a year old, and one was a curvy, fully-grown woman – Mrs Evans, evidently.

"Daddy, the Rolling Stones are on TV!" the youngest girl piped up.

"And the Soviets are testing their nukes again…" sighed the older one.

"She's down!" cried the mother with a youthful glee. "How are you, my dear girl? I'm Elizabeth Evans, and it's very nice to meet you. How in the world did you end up in the street?"

Hermione knew she had to come up with a cover story. The Evans… could this family be Harry's mother's? If so, this would be a good place to stay and grow up while she figured out what she was to do with her new life. "My name is Hermione. I… I ran away from the orphanage. They wouldn't feed me, and I was so hungry... So I escaped to find food."

"Good god!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "We can't let her go back there. Charles, we can't possibly let her go back there! They're not feeding her – look at those bones!"

Charles glanced at the sorry sight that Hermione was. "Alright, dear, family discussion. Hermione, would you mind waiting in the kitchen while we mull this over for a bit?" Hermione nodded, heading off into the adjoining room, and sat on a tall stool at the counter, awaiting her fate. She tried to ignore the mutter coming from the living room, and instead directed her focus towards solving her conundrum. She had already lived nineteen years and now she was to live even more of them. Would it be better to accept the situation or struggle to get back to the future? Hermione leaned her head back and peered into the living room. Her eyes met with those of Lily, who she presumed was the youngest one. Lily smiled compassionately as the rest of her family was engaged in the heated discussion, convincing Hermione of what to do.

"Hermione, come back here for a minute, will you?" Elizabeth's motherly voice rang out. Hermione's head emerged from the kitchen. "We've made a decision. We've always wanted a third child. Would you like to live here with us?"

"We'll settle all the governmental matters, dear. Just say the word, and you're part of the Evans Family." Charles chimed in.

"Yes. Yes! I'd like that very much." Hermione was glad to be accepted by the new family. Of course she would miss the Grangers, but what's done was done, and it was time to move on. She moved tremulously towards the family on the couch, and they shifted apart to leave a space for her to sit down.

The Rolling Stones were on the television, headlining at the Altamont Speedway in California. They had just kicked into Sympathy for the Devil. The Evans were a fairly liberal family, and they and their children watched as Mick Jagger swaggered onstage. Hermione's head was swimming. She knew what was about to happen. Some black kid was about to be stabbed and attacked at this concert. It had gone down in history. It was alarmingly strange to be able to foresee the future.

And like clockwork, she watched on television as Meredith Taylor, the 18 year old African American was being stabbed to death by Alan Passaro, a member of the Hells Angels. From that moment, she knew that nothing was going to be the same again.