Hermione hiccuped, her mind a kaleidoscope of shattered emotions. She didn't quite know what was becoming of her unusual situation; was almost incapable of grasping that this was not, in fact, a dream.
She had just finished sobbing, rather hysterically, in the arms of her mentor, Minerva McGonagall. Not that her teacher knew this, of course.
It was as of that moment that Hermione realized something rather important. She had nowhere to go - no identity - and worst of all, no family or friends.
"Are you alright dear," Minerva asked, handing her a cup of honey tea with a look of concern cast across her shadowed face. In that moment, she was so reminiscent of Molly Weasley that she had to struggle not to burst into a second bout of tears.
Hermione forced herself to nod, pallid features tiredly acknowledging what needed to be done.
"I'm so sorry Professor. May I go to Madam Pomfrey for one second? I suppose it was rather silly of me not to go yesterday." Her entire body was wracked with spasms, the same kind she had been feeling constantly for many months. It usually came in the mornings, when her body had time to adjust to the daily rounds of Cruciatus.
"Of course," her Professor said thoughtfully, looking mildly angry that she hadn't thought of it before. "Absolutely terrible that no one thought to mention it to me. We'll go at once."
She hesitated for a mere second, a suspicious look clouding her expression. "How did you know about Poppy?"
Hermione bit her lip uncertainly. "I've known Dumbledore for a great many years," she said vaguely. That was, in most terms, true. "He speaks of his co-workers often." Also true.
She nodded slightly, as if pacified, and Hermione gave a tiny sigh of relief. She stumbled slightly as Minerva helped her up, but managed to get into a steady pace and walk, only with slight stumbling as her body unintentionally twitched.
Halfway there, a particularly violent spasm shook her, and she fell to the floor with a thud. Professor McGonagall lunged forward but failed to catch her. Hermione winced, her wandless glamor over her bruises fading slightly as she shifted.
Minerva noticed the sickly sheen fade and be replaced with the large purple bruising that extended over her entire body. Her throat clenched up as she studied the fury in McGonagall's eyes.
"What happened to you, Miss..."
"Lovett," Hermione quickly supplied, her frantic mind quickly combining 'Lovegood' and 'Potter'. She inwardly grimaced. "And I'd rather not say Professor. It's private."
"...Johnson," Minerva finished, her eyebrows creased directly over her smoldering eyes. "I do believe that is what the Headmaster told me."
Hermione's face burned. "Johnson was my mother's maiden name," she lied jerkily. "I alternate between Johnson and Lovett, however I prefer Lovett."
McGonagall nodded curtly, though it appeared completely unimpressed. A sliver of panic made itself known inside her pupils as she recalled where they were.
"Miss Lovett, you are not to move." Hermione opened her mouth to protest but years of training had her seal her mouth shut as she flinched from the esteemed glare that McGonagall seemed to have perfected.
"Yes, Ma'am," she promised. She didn't complain as the Professor lifted her in the air with a swift wingardium leviosa, and gently guided her to the infirmary.
"Poppy!" McGonagall called, walking as fast as her pointed shoes would allow her. "A student has been injured." The phrase seemed to roll off of her tongue so easily that Hermione had no choice but to assume that there were students who often got hurt.
"Minerva," Madam Pomfrey barked, her soft dulcet tones reduced to harsh growling. "What are you doing at five in the morning?" Hermione blinked in surprise, and she suddenly reached the comprehension that she had slept through an entire day.
"Madam Pomfrey, please don't be angry," Hermione broke in, her hands raised slightly. "I asked to come see you, I meant no offence." She hadn't forgotten that she and the nurse had been on friendly terms, even leading to Hermione taking up a healing apprenticeship.
Her eyes softened. "I know all my students, my girl, and you are not one of them. What happened to you?" Hermione didn't know how to begin. Minerva gently set her down in a small bed to the side.
"Madam Pomfrey, I would rather not explain. Can you just cast a statistic charm on me please?" Hermione didn't want to watch, but though she had pursued a mastery in healing, she hadn't gotten very far before abandoning the theory to hunt the horcruxes.
The healer nodded, looking more concerned by the second. As she cast the spell, she was speechless as a magnitude of holograms refracted from Hermione's body, spreading out in the air. The number of spells exceeded the entire infirmary, spilling out into the hallways and classrooms.
There was a moment in which no one seemed to breathe, studying the rapid, strange, distortion of torture spells.
Cruciatus, Septumptra, Videlnons, Ascendio.
She knew them all. Bellatrix, especially had a fetish for the fire curse, blackening her skin and healing so that she could go through it again.
A piercing shriek filled the deafening silence and Madam Pomfrey fainted dead to the floor. Hermione hid her shaking head in her knees as she wept.
McGonagall's trembling fingers grasped her leg as she hugged her. It was rather strange for her to hug a student, rather unorthodox, however, she did it anyway.
"I'm so sorry," McGonagall breathed, and Hermione's eyes suddenly hardened, muscles tensing and shoulders strengthening.
"I don't want your pity," she said quietly, but with a voice that indicated anger. McGonagall withdrew her arms tentatively, but then wrapped them around her again.
"This isn't pity, Miss Lovett," she said gently. "This is empathy."
Hermione couldn't help but accept the hug. However, in half a heartbeat, there was a strange rustling in the middle of the beds and the rush of a curtain. There was the small tap of a footstep and in a half second Hermione had the intruder bound on the ceiling.
Minerva gasped and rushed away, seemingly ignoring that she had done it wandlessly and in a weakened state.
The boy, she recognized him. He was one of the ones from yesterday - the one strangely reminiscent to herself. Sandy, dirty brown hair streaked with wisps of blonde, and a pair of bookish glasses hanging from his sweater. His legs, the only part of him Hermione could see, were covered in small scratches and bruises.
"Miss Lovett!" McGonagall hissed, her kindly demeanor acting as if it was put on hold. "Release Mr. Lupin at once!" Hermione's jaw dropped, her gaze shooting to the student.
Mr Lupin? What the actual fuck? Hermione didn't realize she had screamed the muggle swear until the Professor glared at her so menacingly that she couldn't decide whether she needed to go the the bathroom of just freeze in abstract terror.
Meanwhile, her mind was racing a mile a minute. Remus Lupin? Of course she would be unfortunate enough to end up in the same time as him, and from his build and the weary look she had assumed he had developed far into the future, the same year. Though she felt dead with shock, her body managed to respond to her Professor's command.
"Sorry, Professor," she stammered, still stunned, and waved her hand. The teen unfroze, falling from the ceiling into her arms. McGonagall caught him with an omph, and lifted him gently back to his bed.
"Mr Lupin," she repeated sternly, and it was at that moment that Hermione noticed the large luminescent orb in the sky. It was the full moon. Of course, she wasn't idiotic enough to mention this fact to the other inhabitants of the room.
"You are not to eavesdrop!" She continued, looking rather infuriated. Remus looked properly pacified but still nervous, and it was then Hermione picked up small shuffling. Her ears perked; a year of being a panther animagus had enhanced her hearing by almost thirty.
"Stop," Hermione whispered, trying to pinpoint the sound. Remus's fidgeting increased, staring at her with a sort of wary caution.
There was a second of silence.
"Accio Potter Deathly Hallow Cloak," Hermione bellowed, her voice gravelly and furious. She knew, from countless summonings that would respond to nothing else. The ordinary 'invisibility cloak' summon had no effect on it because it was a hallow, but that didn't mean she couldn't overpower her spell to cut off any other scenario.
There was a whipping sound as the wind shifted, the cloak flying through the air and landing in her outstretched palm. She glowered at the two boys standing there, both very pallid and one clutching a rat in his right palm.
Pettigrew.
She didn't give any indication that she knew, simply allowing her lips to curl in a defiant smile, one that had enraged a certain insane death eater thousands of times.
"Get out," she said simply. The rat fled immediately, jumping out of Sirius's palm and scurrying away, but the boy who was Harry, and not Harry, frowned, taking a non-threatening step towards her. Nonetheless, she raised her hand in an immediate reaction and he raised both above his head. Sirius did the same.
McGonagall looked as if she would interrupt, but Hermione held up her other fist, clenched with the silvery cascades of the cloak in a universal motion. Stop.
The Professor pursed her lips in obvious annoyance but didn't intervene.
"That cloak," James said, sounding like a perfect replica of her best friend, "is a Potter family heirloom. I need it back Miss Lovett."
Hermione glowered at him, a clear testament to her deep dislike. "Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, I suggest you keep your large, disgusting noses out of where you do not belong." Ignoring Sirius's gaping mouth, she threw the cloak at them, hating herself for feeling as if she was giving something away.
It wasn't hers to give; it was James's. And one day, it would be Harry's, and he could share it with his friend, a lonely, bullied, affection-starved Hermione. Despite all that, Rosalie was a whole new person: a person who couldn't make permanent connections in this world or risk compromising the entire future.
"I said it once, and I will say it again," she growled, trying to extract a little bit of the murderous out of her gaze. "Get out." It was such a shame that she couldn't obliviate them, but the many tales Harry had told her about his father and the rather humorous incidents that had occurred with Sirius had earned them respect in her book. Slight respect.
They nodded seriously, and without much haste, left. They rose another notch in her opinion. She was lost in her thoughts when McGonagall murmured,
"Argumenti," and allowed a jet of crystal clear water to splash the matron of the hospital in the face.
Poppy Pomfrey gasped awake, and immediately the spells appeared as the caster had recovered from unconsciousness. She looked like she was going to pass out again, so the Professor quickly cast the counter spell. The holograms fizzled out and McGonagall briskly helped her to her feet.
"Potions, Poppy," she reminded. "Anti-Cruciatus should be necessary. Do you have any in stock?" She slowly nodded and McGonagall smiled in encouragement.
"I don't think it is enough," she muttered, and the Professor's face fell. Hermione strained her ears to hear as the matron whispered into McGonagall's ear.
"She's been tortured for nearly a year, Minerva," the kindly woman whispered. McGonagall paled, her eyes widening in grief.
"Godric's saggy right - " she swore, only to be cut off.
"Sock, I'm sure you meant to say," Dumbledore said, smiling genially as he walked in. The lilt of his walk, the small steps he was taking, it was too practiced to be natural.
Adding in the atrocious violet robes and Hermione smelled something that seemed suspiciously like a band aid an raccoon threw up in a hot car. She cringed slightly at the mental image and rancid stench. The old man was harboring news, and it definitely wasn't good.
Hermione turned to face him. "Get it over with, Professor," she groused. "Today's not the worst day I've had. I can take some more."
Dumbledore nodded, the surprise registering on his face and was going to talk when Hermione interrupted him, raising her hand and smiling slightly.
"First, Headmaster, there is a very curious seventh year, Lupin, I believe, listening right behind that curtain." She raised an eyebrow, looking at him dubiously. "I knew you were different from before but this is disappointing."
Dumbledore frowned deeply at her, his eyebrows furrowing deeply.
"Miss Lovett!" McGonagall hissed, looking absolutely aghast. "That is not how you speak to the Headmaster!" Dumbledore just sighed, silencing her with a look.
"Thank you for standing up for an tired wizard, Minerva, but she is in all cases correct. I did forget to check for other students." With a wave of the elder wand, he cast a silencing ward that incorporated only him and Hermione.
Looking slightly put out, McGonagall huffed indignantly and went to sit on one of the beds with Madam Pomfrey.
"I'm listening Professor,' Hermione said intently, looking at him curiously. "What's going on?" Dumbledore scratched his beard, looking terribly worried.
"I cannot appoint you as a student," he said rather bluntly. Hermione looked at him with no little amount of irritably.
"I appreciate you coming to tell me this in the morning, Professor, precise I'm sure, however, could this not wait until later? Surely it could have been figured out without my help."
Dumbledore shook his head. "There is nothing I can do. Hogwarts has not permitted someone so advanced to enter her seventh year."
Hermione blinked slightly, going over the words that had left his mouth. "Did you just say, that Hogwarts is preventing me from becoming a student?"
Dumbledore shrugged, a strange gesture on the man she had idolized as a child. "I don't have the words to express the irregularity of this, Miss Granger. I don't know what happened, but you are too advanced for the seventh years. In fact, this morning I found a room with your name on it."
"Wait, wait, wait," Hermione said, still completely confused. "Hogwarts. The castle. The castle talks?" As a girl who had spent her entire life ruled by statistics and rules, she had a hard time comprehending that the inanimate home-away-from-home she had lived in for six years was a succinct, living being.
"Yes," Dumbledore said patiently. "Lady Hogwarts is indeed. She is very happy with your arrival in the past, the very walls are vibrating with excitement."
Hermione couldn't help the small squeak of "she?" that spilled out of her mouth. Dumbledore finally smiled slightly and Hermione couldn't help but chuckle back in return.
"Indeed, Miss Granger. And as I was saying, I found a room with your name on it. Not Rosalie Johnson, or," he said, catching her look, "as I've heard, 'Lovett', but your real name. The room was labeled Hermione Granger."
Hermione clenched her fists. "Does Lady Hogwarts have something against me? I thought she was excited? Why would she display my identity so obviously?" Dumbledore shrugged, for the second time, something that Hermione couldn't help but find extremely strange.
"What was most curious, however, was that the room was the quarters assigned to the new Defense teacher I had appointed this year. Do you have any idea why this is?" His left eyebrow was arched, a mild question laced with a sliver of curiosity.
"No, sir," she responded, not needing to fabricate her look of bewilderment. "I have no idea."
Dumbledore just sighed. "I tried to change it several times, but the only thing the castle let me alter it to was Rosalie Lovett. And that isn't even the strangest thing. Miss Granger, well… May I call you Hermione?" She only hesitated for a second.
"Of course, Headmaster."
"Hermione, I received an owl from the previously mentioned Defense Professor, demanding to know why he had been released." Hermione opened her mouth in confusion, but Dumbledore shook his head silently and the confusion died on her lips.
"Hogwarts can send letters?" Was all that came out. She sighed, rolling her eyes at her stupidity. "Sorry, that was incredibly idiotic," she amended, ignoring the small, infuriating twinkle.
"Indeed, it was something that I, too, was not aware of." His response was carefully worded as if he wasn't telling the whole truth. Hermione decided to let it go, just that once time.
"So… where am I involved in this?"
Dumbledore just scratched the back of his beard thoughtfully. "You are intelligent Miss Gr… I mean - Hermione. The castle refuses to accept anyone else. What do you take that to mean?"
Hermione held her head in her hands. "I'm the new Defense Professor, aren't I?"
His eyes glowed brighter, with something akin to amusement. That damned twinkle.
"Will you stop twinkling?" She growled, then realized what she had said. "Sorry Headmaster," she apologized reluctantly.
She was officially losing it.
Months or torture and she didn't crack. Ten minutes, no, five, with the eccentric headmaster and she was already on the brink of insanity.
"I fucking hate the past," Hermione muttered vehemently, looking miserable. Dumbledore and his terrible twinkling just seemed to continue.
"Hermione, as we are both teachers at the same institute, I insist you call me Albus." Hermione gutted him with her eyes.
"Not the time Dumbles." She hesitated for a second, but couldn't manage to completely disregard her habit of obeying authority. She muttered a quick apology after.
Despite all that, as well as the fact that she was twitchy and mentally deprived from any actual conversation, caused her to explode as his eyes glinted with humor.
"Stop the fucking twinkling!" She snarled, just as he cast the sound ward away. There was a moment of silence as Madam Pomfrey returned with the potions, looking extremely scandalized. Hermione sighed, bringing her head to her palm.
"Did that just…?"
Dumbledore nodded, the laughter glinting in his eyes. "I believe the entire castle now knows your absolute distaste for sparkly things. As well as your enjoyment of the f-word."
"Oh grow up, Dumbledore," Hermione sighed. "Well, this is a fucking fabulous way to start my academic career."
McGonagall started, "Did she just say academic career?" Hermione almost laughed at the expression of horror that had made itself known on her mentor's face. Minerva had no idea that Hermione actually made a very impressive teacher, and rarely swore.
She blamed the slip of tongue on her the other members of the golden trio. It also could have possibly been the potions that Pomfrey had given her the day before.
Yes, that was most likely it.
Hermione had only a few weeks to prepare her schedule. She sighed again, running her fingers through her thick, still very bushy, hair. She wasn't here to model after all, and never usually bothered doing much with it at all.
Brushing a strand that repeatedly floated in front of her face, she eventually asked the matron of the hospital wing for a rubber band. With that in hand, she'd tamed the rabid beast others called hair, and got on with it.
She had known, from the loud Hogwarts buzz that they were receiving a new teacher that year, one that none of the students had suspected. Rosalie Lovett was rather irritated about the whole thing, to be honest.
Because the school year had already begun, Dumbledore had been teaching defence lately, and would continue for at least another week until she recovered. The story was that she, or as the students were calling her, 'The Professor' was injured by Death Eaters in a supposed 'raid'.
It wasn't exactly a lie.
This made most of the students very eager to meet this alleged death eater fighter, and made them excited to learn from her. However, she was unsure how they would react to her age. Though mentally nineteen, she existed in seventeen year old body. That wouldn't be very promising to anybody, she had reluctantly admitted to herself.
Herself, if she had attended seventh year would have been extremely apprehensive of learning from a teacher whom was the same age as herself. A rustle in the corner of the room alerted her and she whipped her hand around to face the person.
Remus Lupin, stood, hands up in the universal symbol of surrender as he halted in his advancement.
"Hello," he said cautiously. His amber eyes were soft with an unidentifiable emotion. "My name is Remus. I'm afraid we got off on the wrong foot."
"Her - Rosalie Lovett," Hermione said, injecting a small amount of warmth into her smile. "It's alright. I know how curious students can be." He grinned as well and she suddenly noticed a rather roguish look to his grin. It appeared Remus Lupin wasn't always the bookish Professor she had always thought of him as.
"I don't want to overstep my boundaries, Rosalie," her muscles tightened. "But I was wondering what happened… to you." Hermione had already glamoured her scars.
"I'd honestly rather not say, Mr. Lupin," she responded. "I take no offence, but it's just rather private. I'd rather not tell anybody, not even Professor McGonagall." He nodded, about to walk away, but Hermione grasped his arm firmly.
"Mr. Lupin, it's not personal, I assure you." He looked at her for a second, before smiling and stopping his efforts to go back to his own bed. He took a seat at the chair beside her.
"Can I ask what you're doing instead, Rosalie?" Hermione chuckled, his inquisitive nature shone through even then. It appeared the wolf wasn't able to completely diminish the natural curiosity that emitted from Remus.
"Can you keep a secret, Mr. Lupin?" Hermione's voice was quiet. "Even from your friends?" He, as she had done before, tensed. His eyes suddenly liquid yellow, he bit his back teeth so hard Hermione thought she heard a crack.
"Will it harm anybody?" There was a slight moment of silence. Then Hermione laughed, the first in a long time. She didn't quite know what had brought the chortle on, but it just kept going and going, ringing endlessly in the empty wing. Remus eventually relaxed.
"Hardly," she responded, "I'm not going to make you swear an oath or anything, I'd just rather not be disturbed by that bunch of rowdy troublemakers while in the hospital."
A smile quirked at the edges of his mouth. "They grow on you," was all he said, his eyes gleaming, rather similarly to Dumbledore's.
She bit down the scowl of irritation; the words 'stop twinkling' floating on the tip of her tongue. Then she gave a dramatic bow, wincing as the her spine cracked.
"Meet Professor Lovett," she grinned, "your new Defense instructor."
His mouth dropped open, his tongue lolling just as she imagined Padfoot's mouth. She gently brought her fingers to his chin and closed his gaping jaws.
"You won't tell anyone, will you Mr. Lupin?" Her voice was quiet with warning and he seemed to understand. His mouth seemed to repeatedly fall open despite Hermione reaching over to close it every few seconds.
"No," he murmured. "Of course not Professor." She sighed, and though unprofessional drew him in for a hug. He seemed confused, but slowly untensed his muscles and hooked his wiry arms around her shoulders.
"How are your wounds, Mr. Lupin? Healing up?" Remus looked at her, a sliver of worry in his pupils as he wondered if she knew. He scratched the back of his head nervously, in the same manner that Hermione had seen Harry do a hundred times. Perhaps James had picked it up from Remus?
"I'm not injured, Professor. You're mistaken, it's just an upset stomach." Hermione raised an eyebrow, but she wanted to establish trust between her and the bookish Marauder. She crossed her arms, looked at him with a stern expression.
"Mr. Lupin," she said softly, "contrary to popular belief it is not hard to spot a werewolf." He flinched back and Hermione inwardly winced. She reached over to draw him into another hug and he eventually returned it, still trembling slightly.
"W-what?" He croaked eventually, when she released him. His hands were pallid and shaking and she could see the thin sheen of sweat on his forehead.
"I am not an idiot, Mr. Lupin," she scoffed, "and you should not lie to your Professors. Classmates, I fully support lying, but not in a basic demonstration of trust." Remus looked at the ground in shame, but Hermione forced him to look her directly in the eye.
"Being a werewolf is not something that should be hidden, Mr. Lupin." Hermione stated in the firmest voice she could muster. "The Ministry is full of fools who can't recognize justice if it danced in front of them naked. It is a truly terrible sin that you've been forced to suffer so much and feel ashamed of who you are for no good reason."
He slowly nodded, as if just beginning to comprehend that she didn't hate him for what he was. Without ado, she sighed and opened her arms again. He didn't hesitate and hugged her back.
Hermione knew that it would be a difficult year, but at least she started it with a solidified friendship.
"Well, Mr. Lupin. Would you like to help me plan my second class?" Her voice was hopeful, her lips quirked upwards in a curious smirk. Remus grinned, already shuffling some papers that had been on her lap.
"Of course Professor."
Hello! I forgot to introduce myself last chapter. My name is Kathie and I'm so happy to be writing this fanfiction! I'm planning to start the next chapter already, so I hope you're all ready for quick updates. Please review and comment, as an author you know how important it is to encourage other authors too. I will update every 4-7 days approximately with updates about 5,000 words.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.
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