Beginning Notes:

Thank you for the kind reviews along with the favorites and follows! And please, never be ashamed of your English, I understand you very well (:

(did a few small edits after posting this, nothing big)

"Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly,

you leave marks behind, however small.

And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you.

Most of the time, those marks - on your body or on your heart - are beautiful.

Often, though, they hurt."

- Anthony Bourdain

Floating. Hermione was floating, weightless. Eyes shut tight with her heart fluttering so fervently that she feared it might take flight. She saw a chaos of constellations burning bright within her mind, and all the stars, with their sole purpose of ensuring her survival, moved to form one word: swim! And she did just that.

Hermione gasped for air, unsure of how she found herself within the ocean, yet here she was, head above the water, staring at a beach where three people were waving at her to move towards the shore. One of them, a middle-aged man in white clothing that had seen better days, walked into the shallow area, his cotton pants rolled up to his knees. The sky stretched overhead in an expanse of blue. The smell of sea salt accented by smoke coming from the chimney of a small home. None of it reminded her of England, and that frightened her.

Still, she swam towards the group, propelling herself forward no matter how heavy her arms felt. Pain gathered at her chest where the Time-Turner collided against, but it was not the type of pain she expected from salt rubbing her wounds. It was an internal, unexplainable ache. One that had her refraining from clawing at her chest the moment she had been pulled by the middle-aged man and laid against the sand.

"Puede escucharme?" a woman's face overcome with wrinkles entered Hermione's blurred line of vision. There was a genuine kindness deep within her dark eyes, and for a split second, her obvious concern moved Hermione's heart strings. Her hands gingerly touched Hermione's torso to check for any injuries. "Tiene un nombre?" her voice like honey and rose water, something Hermione would enjoy losing herself within.

Spanish. The stranger was speaking Spanish. She didn't remember much from her Spanish classes in Primary, but she knew nombre. "Hermione," she rasped, her very breath shaking her small frame. Hermione closed her eyes when the sun became too unbearable. It was as if her eyes had been accustomed to darkness for many years, where a faint gleam felt like a shower of sparks. "Where am I?" she spoke as more of a chance to clear her throat than attempt to communicate. She knew talking to them in English was futile.

"Extranjero," the middle-aged man that had helped her murmured from behind the woman. "No de España." Hermione could hear him click his tongue, a noise of deep thought as he tried to figure out where her accent was from. She could sense his annoyance of the language barrier that would only prove tedious. She knew España meant Spain. Did that mean she had time traveled to Spain?

But that in itself did not feel right. Time-turners traveled back in time and only back in time. Not to other destinations the traveler wished to go to. For her to be here, Apparition was the only way. And with that thought, Hermione realized that there was something she was forgetting, a blank space moments before her body hit the ocean's dark waters. What caused her to Apparate so far from home? And if Hermione had no idea where this place was, how did she reach it? The more Hermione asked questions, the more she found herself without answers.

And she hated not knowing the answers.

Hermione stiffened when a pair of arms picked her up and cradled her as if she were made of glass. She opened her eyes to see a young man holding her, perhaps at most five years younger than her. There was a jagged scar from his left cheekbone to his lower left jaw, the only disfigurement to his otherwise smooth, dark skin. Hermione could tell that it was certainly not from an accident.

"Debemos llevarla a Marco," the old woman suggested as she motioned to a house on the other side of the beach. "Él habla el mejor inglés."

Inglés. English. Hermione swelled with hope and it returned some strength to her body, but she made no move to tell the young man holding her that she was capable of walking herself. She was actually quite comfortable where she currently was, thank you very much.

"We take you to, uh, safe," the middle-aged man rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly as he attempted a smile. He pointed at the house they were walking towards, nothing fancy, a standard home meant for one person, but it was reminiscent of Colonial Spain. It was right where the pavement met sand, a beach house. It was the only one there, while the other buildings were far behind, a road separating this house from the others. While the architecture was not out of style by all means in 2009, this house looked like it was taken from an old photograph. That fact sounded several alarms in Hermione's head and made her uneasy.

"Friend, help you. Marco, his name," the middle-aged man continued on.

The old woman elbowed him, "Dile nuestros nombres tambien, idiota."

"I am Samuel," he pointed to himself. The old woman was next. "Ella es Altagracia, y el jovencito es Elias." Samuel introduced last the man holding her, and at the sound of his name, he nodded to her with a small smile. His shyness was almost endearing.

"Mucho gusto?" Hermione winced and hoped her pronunciation was at least tolerable. When Samuel and Altagracia beamed at her efforts of communicating, she almost sighed with relief, but chose to offer them as much as a smile as she could. Although it probably looked like a grimace from the way the corners of her mouth had trouble lifting.

Once they arrived to the house, Hermione was placed on a straw chair and gestured to wait while they went inside, no doubt to explain to their friend, Marco, the situation. Hermione took the moment to survey her surroundings, now with her eyes adjusting to the sunlight, and searched for any sign that would tell her where exactly she was. If she was still in Europe, she had to be by the Mediterranean, for the air was warm but not unbearably hot. The humidity was already making its mark at her scalp, and Hermione scowled as she tried to pat down her rebellious hair with swipes of her palm.

Her toes wiggled in the sand, and she felt tempted to pull out her wand, which she thankfully still felt in her pocket, to dry her wet clothes and get rid of the grains that had managed to get under her tank top. Hermione looked at her top and almost laughed. Somehow, her S.P.E.W button had survived her spontaneous dip into the ocean, still pinned above her right breast in pride. Her new acquaintances had probably wanted to ask about it, but made no move to, or were unable to gather the words with their limited grasp of the English language. She did not blame them at all.

"Excuse me, Miss?" the flimsy door that made up the entrance to the house opened slowly and an aging man peeked his head so that their eyes met. Specks of gray outlined the top of his nearly shaven head, his skin seeing far more summers than she. There was a hint of an accent in his voice, but Hermione could tell he was far more fluent than the people she had met. This had to be Marco. "What is your name? I'm afraid all three of them are giving me different answers." He took on an expression of exasperation.

"Hermione," she answered with a tint of amusement. "If you can think of a nickname that would put them at ease, go ahead."

Marco pursed his lips as he nodded and retreated back into his home. It was rather strange that she hadn't been invited in yet.

Hermione took the opportunity to stretch her legs, since nothing really gave away as to where she was, moving closer to the ocean as she rolled her shoulders. The wind whipped at her hair and face, yet was kinder than the gusts from a mid-autumn storm that often shook but never broke Hogwarts's walls. She folded her arms across her chest, eyes taking in the never ending water in front of her. At times the waves reached her feet, its cold spray an anchor and a reminder that she was truly here and not dreaming.

Remembering the ache and what had happened with Crookshanks, Hermione touched at her chest, expecting scabs and dried blood, but was surprised to feel nothing of the sort. She looked down with furrowed brows, gently tracing the skin where the pieces of the Time-Turner surely pierced through. Believing it to be a trick of the light, she thought she saw glittering gold.

Suddenly, from the corner of her eye she could make out a man walking swiftly through passing carts pulled by animals and women holding baskets on top their heads or resting them against their hips. Hermione turned around in curiosity, putting aside her missing wound to wonder why he seemed like he was trying to appear small despite sticking out like a sore thumb. She used the house as cover, sticking her head out from around the corner to watch him keep his brown leather case close to his body. His old blue overcoat garnered brief stares from the people he passed, but he only smiled politely.

He rounded the corner to head deeper into town, and that was the last of him Hermione saw. She stepped out from her cover and tip toed to catch another glimpse of him, unable to brush off the inkling that he was familiar, or at least something about him managed to put her on edge.

"Miss. Hermione, please enter." Marco stepped out and motioned for her to walk inside.

She mumbled her thanks, doing as he said, and found Samuel, Altagracia and Elias sitting at a small dinner table, whispering fiercely among each other. Altagracia's face softened when she saw Hermione first, and she got up to lead her to a chair, patting her arm as a sign of comfort before returning to her own seat.

"Miss. Hermione," Marco cleared his throat, "do you remember anything? Where you're from? What is your last name? How exactly you got into the ocean?"

"Debe molestarla tan pronto?" Altagracia scolded him with a sour expression. She seemed displeased, and Hermione did not know why. "No deberíamos alimentarla primero?"

Marco waved her off before returning to his conversation with Hermione. He grabbed an empty seat, turning it so that the back faced the table and rested his arms on its top rail to place his chin on his forearm. "They told me you appeared out of thin air." His eyes never wavered from hers.

"I'm from England," Hermione answered, purposely avoiding the other questions. "Where is this place exactly?"

"I had guessed as much as to your accent." Marco pointed with his chin to the map on the white wall behind Samuel. "We are in Spanish Guinea. And you are quite far from home, Miss. Hermione." He shifted slightly. "If you choose not to answer my other questions, than please answer this: are you a witch, Miss. Hermione?"

Hermione felt her blood freeze, frost coating her veins, as she stared at him, the look of surprise filled her features. She opened her mouth to tell him to not speak so loud, to not accuse her such things, to not ask such a question in front of Muggles if he himself was a wizard. But Marco raised his hand to stop her for he knew what she was going to say.

"They do not understand us." Marco watched the way she worked her jaw to stop herself from saying anything. "Judging by Sam's expression, he eagerly awaits a translation." Marco sighed, and his right hand slowly inched towards his trouser pocket. "But he will not receive it for I will Obliviate them." His voice was low and hoarse, his features mirroring the tension now lacing his voice.

"No!" Hermione stretched out her hand, thinking of her parents, thinking of Mr. Lovegood, and remembering what she did to them what felt like so long ago and yesterday at the same time, "stop!" her chest ached as her emotional distress rose.

Hermione nearly choked when the world around her became yellower, golden even. Everything slowed, but not to a complete stop, and she watched in amazement as Marco's hand returned to where it rested on the chair, and his chin lifted slightly. Like he was rewinding.

"We are in Spanish Guinea. And you are quite far from home, Miss. Hermione." The world no longer had its golden color, returning to the hues Hermione was accustomed to.

"What?" Hermione blurted out, blinking once, twice, three times. "You just said that." She absentmindedly rubbed her chest.

Marco raised one brow as he said, "I'm afraid you're mistaken. You just asked me where we are."

Hermione opened her mouth, but found herself speechless. It was as if she had used a Time-Turner to go back the moment before Marco attempted to raise his wand to Obliviate his friends. She let out a stuttering breath, it as fragile as she was at the moment. "Send them home." She inclined her head to the confused faces of the people who she met on the beach.

"I don't—"

"Send them home," she said, no commanded, through gritted teeth. "Clearly this is not a conversation for them. Whatever questions they have, you can simply lie to them later." Her voice became cold, trying to show him the seriousness of the situation. "For is that not what wizards like us do?" Hermione's crest fallen expression seemed to move Marco, and he quickly told his friends to go home to their families and return tomorrow morning.

Altagracia was the first to speak her discontent, but the sadness that she saw in Hermione's eyes made her hesitate before ultimately following Marco's wishes and motioning for the other two to follow her. It was a type of sadness that was universal and didn't require words to convey it. She didn't leave without placing her hand on Hermione's shoulder, giving it a motherly squeeze to rid Hermione of whatever sorrow she was experiencing. Hermione gave her a smile, an honest smile from the heart she had managed since arriving.

She took note that Altagracia called her Hemmy, but with the 'h' being silent, it sounded more like Emmy. Hermione quite liked the nickname, thinking to use it as an alias if she met anyone from her past that she would meet in the future. As confusing as that sounded, it made sense. Samuel and Elias bid her farewell as well, and Hermione watched them go with a heavy heart.

"You were going to Obliviate them without a second thought," Hermione whispered the moment Elias closed the door behind him. "Even though they are your friends, you weren't going to hesitate."

Marco reeled back in shock, "how did you know?"

"That doesn't matter." Hermione shook her head in irritation, a little mad at herself for being unable to reign in her emotions. "What matters is that you're a wizard, and I'm a witch. And we managed to meet out of pure coincidence, because somehow, three Muggles who found me happen to be friends with a wizard. But I don't think it's a coincidence." She got up to pace back and forth. "I don't remember how I got here, but judging from your description, I must have Apparated." She paused for the space of one breath and chuckled dryly. "But I've never been here, never seen this place. So how could I have ended up in Spanish Guinea?"

"As much as I understand the English language, Miss. Hermione," he said with a tone of thinly veiled embarrassment, "I'm going to need you to speak slower." His look was almost pleading.

"My apologies." She gave him a sympathetic nod and sat back down. "But before I repeat myself, what year is it, Marco?"

Marco scratched his temple, unsure of what to make of her question, but he humored her anyway. "It's November of 1926."

Hermione swore loudly, pushing her chair back, the wooden legs screeching against the floor, her voice drowned out by the noise until it was even lost to her own ears. Marco winced, bringing his hands to his ears. In fifty three years, her mother will give birth to Hermione Jean Granger in the middle of the night. In sixty five years, she would meet Harry and Ron. In seventy eight years, Harry and Ginny would decree Hermione as the godmother of James Potter II.

It might not be the sixteenth century, but she was still definitely going to strangle Crookshanks. Even if she had to wait until the cat was born to do it.

Φ

As night bled into the blue sky, Hermione felt her world fall apart to the sound of the evening church bell. Dinner sat heavily within her stomach, and she tried her best to not empty the contents of her meal within the ocean. Since she managed to convince Marco to send his friends home, he answered as many questions from her as he could. But every answer he gave her only made her heart sink further and further. At first he started with the basics, telling her that he attended Uagadou School of Magic and had graduated fifteen years ago. He traveled back and forth between Spanish Guinea, Spain and England, and would only be staying for a little over two weeks before setting out again.

It was sheer luck that she managed to catch him before he left. He did not reveal to her as to exactly what his job was, but she knew it had something to do involving all three magical governments of each country. Hermione had learned long ago when not to pry.

Marco briefly mentioned in passing that another English wizard was within town, a magizooligist documenting magical creatures along the western coast of Africa. But that no longer gathered her interest when he had shown her the newspapers he got during his time in England, the headlines about Grindelwald. She had excused herself and went outside to clear her raging thoughts, leaving behind a very confused Marco.

From what Hermione remembered, Gellert Grindelwald was born in 1883 and attended Durmstrang Institute. He had befriended Albus Dumbledore during his time in England searching for more information on the Deathly Hallows. However, Dumbledore's motivations and intentions were different from Grindelwald's, and Hermione knew that a story like this could only get worse. Grindelwald became one of the most dangerous Dark Wizards of his time, and Hermione found herself right smack dab in the middle of it.

She cursed lowly, kicking her sandals against the sand in frustration, watching the grains fly into the waves that managed to get close. She was done with war and had no means of participating in this one. She knew how this would turn out, so her meddling would not be needed. Grindelwald would be defeated in time, at least by 1945. Without her help.

As of right now, Hermione needed to calm herself and assess her situation. She could easily Apparate to England and speak to the Minister for Magic or even seek out Dumbledore himself, but something was telling her not to, perhaps the same voice that had told her to double check her things to see if she had taken anything of Ron's where she ultimately found the prototype Time-Turner. Finding that the ocean, in all its radiance under the bright moon, provided no comfort to her anxiety, Hermione marched towards town, walking aimlessly with the help of the scattered street lamps to provide her sight.

She smiled at a woman holding her child, happy that the mother greeted her kindly before disappearing past her. However, it did little to ease the worry that settled in her mind and projected long kept fears. As pretty as Hermione found the town of Bata to be, it was not a place she imagined spending the rest of her life if she was truly trapped in the past. Hermione had no idea that Bata was even a city until she arrived her, however she arrived here. The blank space within her memory made her uneasy. She knew she was forgetting something, something important. But she was too scared to say it out loud, to admit that someone had gotten close enough to her to Obliviate whatever had transpired before she found herself within the Atlantic Ocean.

Maybe even left to die if she had not woken up.

The possibility scrubbed at her chest like sandpaper, and her feet moved sluggishly as if she were a lonely wanderer, a woman with no destination, only an endless journey. Hermione already knew deep within herself that the possibility was, in fact, reality. But hearing it given voice was such a terrible, final thing. 'Someone took a memory away from me.' The words weighed heavily on her shoulders and tasted bitter in her mouth, even though she had not even said them. She felt guilty whenever she used it on others, with the exception of Dolohov and Rowle, and from this feeling of emptiness, unable to figure out its origin, it was very clear as to why.

Hermione turned the corner, wrapping her shawl against her tightly but it did nothing to warm the numbness that crawled from the inside. It was not a chill that a fire could whisk away. She was instantly, acutely aware of her sorrow and had no means to make it disappear. But there was a bubbling anger within her stomach, boiling like poison as she thought of what she would do to the person who dared use Obliviate on her. Several hexes she learned from Ginny would do the trick, enough to satisfy her and try not to swiftly kick the bastard into the sun.

A rough shoulder bumped into hers, and she mumbled an apology, never picking her eyes up from the ground as she turned another corner. Hermione could have sworn she heard 'bugger' being said from a clearly English accent, but by the time she turned back to investigate, the street was empty. Evidently, she shrugged and continued on.

After thirty minutes, Hermione Apparated back into Marco's home, accidentally scaring the poor man out of his mind with him proclaiming that his hair nearly fell out. She shot him an apologetic look before pouring herself a glass of water with a wave of her wand. The trembling in her hands, no matter how much she tried to soothe them, would not go away, and she didn't need Marco to know that. Marco bid her good night once he managed to stop his heart from beating out of his chest and saw that she had returned safely. He entered his room after telling her had transfigured the living room couch into a bed and used curtains and sheets to separate it from the rest of the household and give her some privacy. Hermione downed the glass of water and voiced her thanks at his retreating back and not just because of what he had done.

Marco had taken her in almost without a thought. He reminded her very much of her father in the sense of seeing the good in people and knowing when to trust someone. Marco trusted her despite the fact she barely revealed anything about herself except that she attended Hogwarts and had Muggle parents. Yet all that mattered was that she was no threat to him, only a lost woman who knew not where to go. Marco couldn't just abandon her, which would have been against his principles. She silently promised him to a treat of breakfast tomorrow morning as a form of gratitude.

Hermione knew that tonight she would find no chance of sleep. She removed her S.P.E.W pin and tossed it onto the bed. With a point of her wand her clothes wash away into a nightgown appropriate for the time period, something simple that any ordinary woman would own. She pushed through the curtains that made the walls of her makeshift room and collapsed upon the bed, pressing her face against the soft pillow with a low huff. Hermione placed the S.P.E.W pin underneath her pillow as a form of comfort. It had only been mere hours since her arrival into 1926, but she ironically felt as if it were a life time since she last saw her friends and family. She missed Harry, Ginny, her parents, hell, even Ron too. They were all familiar, people she knew, people could read like the back of her hand. Here? She was a stranger, a woman out of time who only knew of this period through books alone.

Tomorrow she would decide what to do. Whether to stay in Africa for a little while longer or make way to England and find someone who would be empathetic and trustful enough to listen to her story. Hermione needed to figure out what past she was in, the issues of timelines. The 'what ifs,' the 'maybes.' She refused to believe that fate brought her here, however, for she did not want her destiny to be read from her palm or through a tea cup. Then came the issue of her sudden ability to rewind time, but it was not as simple as that. Hermione didn't want to call herself a human Time-Turner, but something triggered the pieces of the hourglass that contained a time reversal charm that seemed to rest within her chest. And it didn't seem like an easy fix, most likely requiring surgery.

But Hermione would do as her mother told her before she let herself be taken to the wizarding world, to Hogwarts at the tender age of eleven. She could still picture the memory: her mother holding her gently at arm's length, the moment before an emotional hug.

"Chin up, and be bookshelf sturdy. Allow yourself to become strong, and always let them know how smart you are." Her mother gave her a watery smile. "You're a Granger."

And bookshelf sturdy she would be.

End Notes:

Now, I am a native Spanish speaker, but I'm from Latin America, so I could be wrong as to how the people of Spanish Guinea speak.

Your reviews are kindly appreciated. Again, sorry for any mistakes.