Last chapter…
Her foot landed on Fred's stray Pygmy Puff, which let out a high-pitched squeal and scurried off between Harry's feet. Shocked out of his memory, Harry glanced blurrily around the shop, but could not clear his vision in time to avoid colliding with Hermione, whose forward momentum had caused her to continue on to a fourth, far less confident step. As the two hurtled into each other, and Hermione suddenly felt a cold, wet sensation on her hands. She watched in surprise as her arms sunk right into the face of the mirror. Hermione got a flash of Harry's memory—She saw Harry at Hogwarts. He held his wand directed towards a skinny robed figure that appeared to be hanging upside down as if an invisible hand had yanked him up by his ankle. And suddenly, before Hermione could pull her arms out of the mirror, there was a loud CRACK, and she saw no more.
~o~o~o~
Something's gone wrong, Hermione thought as soon as she disapparated from the shop. She arrived at her destination with another loud CRACK and looked around dazedly.
This… isn't possible, she thought. Her heart pounded in her chest as spun slowly where she stood in order to scan her surroundings.
Large, foreboding willow tree…
Expansive green forest…
Towering castle…
It was Hogwarts.
Hermione had a terrible flipping sensation in the pit of her stomach. Her mind was swimming with worry. You can't Apparate into Hogwarts! The twins have invented something unbelievably dangerous! The protective wards did nothing to stop me from entering!
Hermione distantly registered many shouting voices mingled with laughter, and turned sharply toward the sound. Over by the lake, she noticed for the first time a figure dangling from thin air, robes hanging down, covering his face to expose graying underpants. Hermione frowned and squinted. There was a circle of students around the dangling boy, some laughing, and some looking excited or anxious. A red-haired girl was marching toward a boy with messy black hair who looked like he had just received a cut down his cheek.
"Harry?" Hermione whispered.
She moved numbly toward the crowd, her mind whirring all the while. What was going on? How could Harry be at Hogwarts when she had just left him standing in Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes?
And then it hit her. The scene playing out in front of her bore a striking resemblance to the flash of Harry's memory that she had received just before her botched Apparition. Could she have popped into the Portable Pensieve? And if so, how did one pop back out of a memory? She had heard Harry talk about his experiences with Dumbledore's Pensieve and she'd read about them of course, but how was she to know if the Portable Pensieve worked anything like a regular Pensieve?
She knew that the twins had claimed that the Portable Pensieve was too small to enter, but apparently that wasn't the case. Even though it meant that the invention had malfunctioned, she felt a small bit of relief in knowing that at least she hadn't been able to actually Apparate to Hogwarts. A voice pulled her back to the memory playing out in front of her.
"Let him down!" the red-haired girl said angrily.
"Certainly," replied Harry, looking smug. He jerked his wand upwards and the upside-down figure fell to the ground in a heap.
Hermione had to stop herself from shouting at Harry. She knew that it wouldn't do any good to shout at a memory, but she could hardly believe that he had hexed a seemingly helpless student and been so cavalier about it. Come to think of it, Hermione thought, I can't remember hearing about Harry using the Levicorpus spell on anyone other than Ron. Of course, Harry isn't likely to admit to using the Prince's spells to me…
The figure quickly stumbled to his feet, but Hermione heard someone shout "Petrificus Totalus!" and the skinny, sallow looking boy keeled over again, stiff as a board.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" the red-haired girl shouted.
Hermione was sure that she didn't recognize the girl, or any of the students gathered around Harry for that matter. She peered at the boy who had shouted the last hex. He was strikingly handsome and had very dark hair that hung in front of his eyes. She had never seen him before either. Just when had this memory occurred?
"Ah, Evans, don't make me hex you," Hermione heard Harry call.
Evans? Hermione's mind was racing. Something finally clicked. Red hair. Evans. Her eyes.
"Take the curse off him, then!" the redhead snapped.
He looks so much like Harry….
"There you go," the boy who looked like Harry said as he muttered a counter-curse. "You're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus—"
Snivellus? Hermione's eyes widened. She had heard that nickname before.
"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!" the newly freed boy shouted.
So this wasn't Harry's memory at all…
"Fine. I won't bother in future. And I'd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus," the redhead spat.
How could Harry have come into possession of this memory? He wasn't alive to see it, obviously, but what other answer could there be? He either received this memory from Professor Lupin, Sirius, or… Snape.
"APOLOGIZE TO EVANS!" the Harry look-alike roared, pointing his wand at the skinny boy.
"I don't want you to make him apologize. You're as bad as he is!" the girl retorted.
"What? I'd NEVER call you a—you-know-what!"
…These people were James and Lily Potter? Hermione's eyebrows drew together as she studied the figures in the memory.
"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can—I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK."
Hermione watched in utter shock as the red-haired girl finished her tirade and spun on her heal, storming off toward the castle. She was second-guessing herself now. There was no way that these were Harry's parents. The redhead clearly loathed this Harry clone.
"Evans! Hey, EVANS!" the boy shouted after her.
It has to be, though. A redhead named Evans. A boy who could be Harry's twin. Snivellus?
"What is it with her?" Harry/James asked, trying to appear unaffected by the girl's outburst.
"Reading between the lines, I'd say she thinks you're a bit conceited, mate," the handsome boy replied.
"Right. Right—" Harry/James started. He pulled out his wand suddenly and in a flash the boy called Snivellus was hanging upside-down again.
"Who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?" Harry/James asked cruelly.
"NO!" Hermione heard a voice cry.
It wasn't until she saw the Harry clone and the handsome boy turn to stare at her that she realized it was she who had screamed the order.
"Do we know you?" the handsome boy sneered.
Hermione's eyes grew impossibly wide. She felt her stomach stink to her ankles. This is not happening, her brain insisted.
From all she had read about entering a Pensieve, and that included an entire tome called Reliving The Past: The Pensieve Owner's Manual, the viewer was an invisible entity in the memory. No one in the memory could see, hear, or feel the viewer. But she had forgotten herself in the memory, feeling pity for this memory of Snape, and had screamed at James Potter to stop tormenting him.
And he had clearly heard her.
No, not possible, Hermione said to herself. She whipped around and looked behind her, positive that she would see some other witch or wizard to whom the handsome boy had just spoken.
No one.
This is bad, Hermione's brain now asserted. So very bad.
"Well?" the handsome boy demanded. "Gonna introduce yourself or what? You Snivelly's girlfriend?"
Hermione looked at him, frozen in place. Her chest was heaving. She felt sure that she was about to faint or vomit or possibly both at the same time, if that was possible.
"Dumbledore," she managed to choke out. "I need to see Dumbledore."
"Oh, we've got a snitch in our midst boys," the handsome boy said nastily. "You want to run and tell Dumbledore about poor Snivelly, do you?"
"Come on James, let him down. This has gone far enough," came a quiet voice. Hermione glanced at a boy with shaggy light brown hair who had been reading a book. His face held the longsuffering look of someone much older than himself.
Suddenly it hit Hermione like a bludger to the stomach. This was Remus Lupin. Which meant that the handsome boy currently shooting daggers at her was Sirius Black.
"Be cool Moony," replied Sirius in a composed voice. "We're just trying to figure out who Snivelly's new savior is."
HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING? Hermione's mind screamed. You can't Apparate back in time! Oh something has gone terrible wrong. How am I going to get back?
The solution struck her rather suddenly, and she was surprised that she hadn't thought of it sooner. She felt around her neck for the Apparition-Aide. I'll just pop back… and kill Fred and George, she thought frantically. It should work. Just pop back…
But when she pulled the device out from beneath her cloak with shaking fingers, she immediately realized that there was something wrong. It was hot to the touch and a thick spiral of orange smoke had begun curling out from its edges. Remembering Fred's story ("sure it got a little hot, and sure it exploded upon my arrival back at the shop…"), she quickly removed the chain from her neck and held the gadget at arm's length. Sure enough, without a moment to spare, there was a bright flash of orange light, and the Apparition-Aide exploded, falling into charred pieces at Hermione's feet.
"What the hell was that?" Hermione heard James Potter exclaim, but she did not look up. She stared at the blackened pieces of what was her only way home.
~o~o~o~
There was a loud crack, and then an eerie silence settled over the room.
"What just happened?" Harry asked, breaking the quiet. He was clearly still in a bit of a daze from being shocked out of his memory. The mirror lay on the floor at his feet, but he saw nothing in it save his reflection now.
"Hermione disapparated, right?" Ron said, looking to his brothers for confirmation.
Fred pretended to do a headcount before proudly holding up four fingers. "Excellent observation little brother. There is one less person here than there was a moment ago, and I don't see Hermione anywhere, therefore she must have disapparated!"
Ron scowled at him.
"Where did she Apparate to?" Harry asked.
"Right this way, gentleman," George said, striding out of the back room and into the shop. "The talented witch should be waiting right outside the shop for us." The group followed him out the front door, but when they emerged, none of them could spot a bushy head of hair.
"Where is she?" Ron asked, sounding slightly nervous.
"Er… She probably came in when we were still in the back room. Must've have missed her in the crowd," Fred offered. The group reentered the store and split up to find Hermione, but met back up at the front counter empty-handed.
"Did something go wrong? Where is she?" Harry asked. He felt the first tugs of panic. Fred and George shared a tense look.
"I'm sure she just… er—" George started.
"How much for the puking pastilles?" a very young boy interrupted. He held up a green box imploringly.
"Can't you read?" George spat, pointing toward the sign beneath the puking pastilles.
"No," the boy answered simply. George's mouth twitched.
"Bloody hell—How young are you? What do you even need these for? It's not like you need to skive off classes. What are you going to do, skip your bedtime story? Honestly!" George bellowed. The boy squeaked and dropped the box before darting off and disappearing into the crowd.
"Lovely customer service there, George," Fred muttered.
"We have bigger problems right now, don't you agree? Such as, oh I don't know, losing a witch!" George hissed.
"WHAT?" Ron and Harry shouted at the same time.
"Back room!" Fred ordered. The group shuffled back behind the curtain to the stock room and Ron immediately started in on his brothers.
"HOW COULD YOU LOSE HERMIONE?" he barked as soon as the curtain was shut.
"Now, don't panic. She'll turn up," Fred reasoned.
"What do you mean, 'she'll turn up?'" Ron demanded incredulously. "It's not as though she's a lost quill! We can't just retrace our steps and stumble across her!"
"Something funny happened when she bumped in to me," Harry said, staring at the Portable Pensieve, which still lay abandoned on the floor.
"What?" asked George, eagerly.
"Just before I heard the crack, she sort of sank partway into the Pensieve," Harry said.
"Not possible," George said warily.
"Not all the way, just up to her elbows," Harry said. "Maybe it wasn't deep enough to let her all the way in."
"Fred, when you popped into the Quidditch World Cup stadium… you said there were still people there?" George asked quietly.
"Yeah. Loads of them. And there was a game going on," Fred said slowly.
"You don't think…" George trailed off.
"Well, I was thinking about the World Cup…" Fred said.
There was a pause, and then slowly everyone's gaze turned to the Portable Pensieve, still lying on the floor. Ron was the first to break the silence.
"ARE YOU SAYING YOUR MIRROR ATE HERMIONE?"
~o~o~o~
"Well, are you going to say anything?" James Potter demanded, but Hermione was still staring at the wreckage of the Apparition Aide.
"If that was a dungbomb, I'd get my money back. I don't smell anything but smoke," another voice called.
Hermione's head snapped up and she gaped at her best friend's father, then at Snape, who was still frozen stiff as a board at their feet. I can't say or do anything that might affect the past, Hermione thought hysterically.
"Convincing impression of a trout out of water," Sirius snapped at her. "Now we're going to go back to teaching Snivellus here a lesson, unless his secret admirer would care to intervene on his behalf?"
Clamping her hands over her mouth, Hermione shook her head. Then, without a word, she turned and sprinted towards the castle doors. She heard the crowd start up again as she went.
"Oh, Snape that's got to hurt—abandoned by two girls within minutes. Although, to be fair, this is most likely the first time you've interacted with so many girls at once," she heard Sirius taunt.
Then James shouted, "Flipendo!" and she heard a dozen or so cheers.
Barely pausing to open the doors, Hermione bolted through the entryway and toward the stairs. Up and up she went, her legs burning by the time she reached the seventh floor. Her eyes scanned the wall for a familiar stone gargoyle. Panting furiously, she approached the statue at a trot and immediately began running through a list of possible passwords.
"Cauldron cakes," she wheezed.
Nothing.
"Fizzing Whizbees."
Nothing.
"Chocolate frogs."
Nothing.
"Pumpkin juice."
Nothing still.
"You're getting closer," said a soft voice.
Hermione spun around, still panting, only to come face to face with a slightly tousled and equally winded-looking Remus Lupin. Hermione could think of nothing to say to her former professor without causing damage to the fabric of time, so she fell mute.
Lupin squinted curiously at her before speaking once more.
"Listen, I know that James and Sirius were a bit out of line, but you heard what Snape called Lily. It's certainly not worth telling the Headmaster about," he said reasonably.
He gave her a gentle smile, and Hermione felt the need to say something.
"I'm not going to tell on them. I just need to talk to Professor Dumbledore," she blustered.
"I'm a prefect," he said, helpfully tugging at his badge. "Is it something I could assist you with?"
Hermione swallowed hard, knowing that Lupin did not believe her and was trying to distract her from Dumbledore.
"No, it isn't," she said shortly. "Cockroach Clusters," she tried.
"You were closer before," Lupin said offhandedly.
She shot him a warning look, but said nothing.
"You're wearing a cloak," he commented.
Hermione paused and looked down at her outfit.
"So?" she replied.
"It's the end of June. Why would you need a cloak?" he asked.
Hermione froze. That was a very good question.
"I get cold easily," she stammered. "Look, if you're a prefect then you know the password. Please tell me what it is."
Before Lupin could decide whether or not to trust this strange girl, the statue of the gargoyle leapt to the side, revealing the very person that Hermione was hoping to see.
"Ah, Mr. Lupin, I see that you have shown my guest to my office for our meeting. Thank you," Albus Dumbledore said, smiling calmly.
~o~o~o~
Did you know that readers who leave reviews live, on average, seven years longer than those who don't according to a recent clinical study?* It's true!**
*Conducted in my imagination.
**It's not.
