Chapter 2 - Mars, Venus, and Canis Major
Hermione Granger had a massive headache, and she wasn't quite sure where she was.
She heard the sounds of a forest, but she wasn't quite ready to open her eyes, yet.
She was lying prone on the ground. She attempted to raise her head, which hurt quite a bit. But she opened her eyes and she shifted all the same, crawling into a seated position. She sat for a moment and tried to get a hold on her headache and her confusion. It looked like she was in the Forbidden Forest, but she couldn't imagine how she'd gotten there. There was an anti-disapparition charm at the Ministry - she gasped - the Ministry, Harry…
She was jolted from her thoughts when she heard the approach of hooves.
She turned to her left, and saw a centaur approaching into the clearing. Her breath hitched in her throat, as she knew of the potential danger and their possessive nature when it came to the forest. All she could think to do was to be polite and feign ignorance of her location, and how she got there. She took in the centaur's frame, his red hair and his chestnut body. She wasn't sure if she remembered correctly, but she thought his name might be Ronan.
"Hullo…" She called out unassumingly. "I thought I was in the Forbidden Forest, but I wasn't sure. But, you are… Ronan, so, I must be?"
"Hello. Are you from the school?" He asked plaintively, but with a hint of curiosity. Hermione found it odd and without pretext, which she thought quite strange for a centaur. It was almost straightforward.
"…In a way," she murmured. Obviously she wasn't a student still, but she had been at one point…
He eyed her speculatively. "Well, then. What are you doing in the forest?"
"I-" she began, wanting to explain that she hadn't the foggiest, but she paused as she heard the sounds of more hooves approaching. She turned and she saw a centaur that was completely black; she felt a chill when she realized this was Bane. But as she looked further, she felt a small sense of calm and a tug at her heart, as she watched another, blonde centaur approach. This centaur appeared younger, and she knew him to be Firenze.
"Mars has certainly been bright. So it has been for ages past, so it is now." Ronan remarked to Bane, and gazed up at the sky, but then his brow furrowed, as if confused.
Firenze chimed in. "Yes, but Venus may overtake-"
"Firenze! What are you doing? Remember, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?"
Ronan spoke next. I'm sure Firenze thought he was acting for the best," he said in his gloomy voice.
Firenze was more calm than Bane. "Yes we have read what is to come, but the course has changed, not through any action of our own. Venus overtakes Mars."
Hermione couldn't help but sigh. None of this was making any sense. She cast her eyes downward. But Firenze apparently wasn't finished.
"Sirius is rising," he murmured.
Now that really didn't make any sense. It was much too early in the day for that.
She looked up at the centaurs, and her eyes strayed to where their eyes were all trained. "Oh," she mumbled to herself. Was that… Was that a joke?
A young man was approaching. She recognized him at once, though he was younger than she had ever seen him, outside of a lone photograph.
"Canis will provide sanctuary for the Cytherean child," Firenze said succinctly. He changed his stance, and began to walk away. Ronan began to follow, and Bane looked like he wasn't quite finished, but he followed all the same.
So it was then that she realized the question wasn't where, or why, but when. And certainly, still, how.
She'd ended a war and ended up unceremoniously dropped into another.
ł ł ł
Sirius stood before her, longer-haired than she'd ever seen him, his wand lit and trained upon her.
"What're you doing out here? It's after hours," He asked her. But then, he eyed her robes speculatively. "Wait, you're not a student are you? What's an Unspeakable doing in the forest?"
She'd forgotten she was wearing her Unspeakable robes. She looked down, they were singed and torn. A right sight she must look, she thought.
"Some sort of experiment gone wrong no doubt!" He cried, half-jokingly.
"Yes, you could say that. Look I…" She paused. She didn't know what to say really. She didn't know what to do, either. She sighed. But she knew what she could do. Might as well.
"Take me to the castle. I need to have a word with Albus Dumbledore." said Hermione in her firmest tone.
It didn't quite work.
"Look, I'm sure you're a nice girl and all, but what do I look like taking a random person to the headmaster?" She thought for a moment, and realized what she should do.
"Look, I have… Credentials. Bring them to him, or bring me to the gates and bring him to me." She said plainly. He eyed her speculatively for a moment. He seemed to be warring with himself.
"All right, let's go, then," He said baldly, and took off without waiting for her to follow.
They wound their way through the trees and out of the forest. As they trekked she realized they were going quite a roundabout way, but she had told him to take her to the gates, after all. As they finally neared the gates, he stopped short of them, and seemed to be hesitating again. She huffed and kept moving. She approached the gates, and to her surprise, they opened for her immediately. She knew she hadn't even been born yet in this time period, but didn't stop to wonder further on what that meant.
Sirius' face was full of shock. "The gates - they're locked to anyone but students. And I know you're not a student here."
"Well I was at some point - I'm past school age." Hermione said plainly. She honestly had no clue why the gates had let her in.
"You don't look it. And you can't be that much older than me - I'd recognized you. Regardless, if you're past school age, it shouldn't have let you in." Sirius' confusion was only growing.
"Perhaps it's my credentials," Hermione murmured with a smirk.
She strode through the grounds and to the doors which also opened for her without protest. She decided to see just how far she could get. She walked briskly through the school until she met the stone gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office.
"Cockroach Cluster… Sherbet Lemon… Chocolate Frog… Fizzing Whizzbee-" the gargoyle jumped, and she was in. Up the stairs and to the door. She felt the urge to knock though she knew he'd always known she was there in the past. She wondered if he'd know her now.
"Enter," Dumbledore called.
Hermione opened the door and strode in. Sirius was still trailing behind her, she'd honestly forgotten about him until now.
"Hello sir," she began. "You may not know me, or should I say, you may not know me yet. I'll be honest, I can't tell you what I'm doing here, or how I got here. I have more than a few things to tell you, and I must say they're fantastic. They may be difficult to believe, even for you. So I'm going to show you something in good faith in the hopes that it bolsters what I need to tell you," she looked up at the headmaster. His face betrayed nothing.
She took out the Elder wand and brandished it. And it was then that she saw something she'd never seen on the decidedly unflappable headmaster before.
He pulled his own wand from his robes and held it up.
Shock.
AN: It's been a rough week and I really should be working on this huge project for work, but I'm kind of burnt out on it and this story was swirling around in my head. I had a hard time transitioning from the centaur conversation to Sirius's introduction, too, so that took a bit.
It also took me an embarrassing bit of time to figure out how to upload a new chapter…
I figured out the difference between the Anti-Apparition Charm and the Anti-Disapparition Jinx. Is that confusing to anyone else? Honestly all this time I thought it was one spell that prevented the lot of it. So I've changed the language in this chapter and have changed or will change the language in the last.
Centaur speak is kind of hard, hope this was all right. I borrowed generally from the passage from PS, Chapter 15, The Forbidden Forest. Anything that was word for word is italicized.