Slightly longer than the other chapters have been, and my apologies for taking so long to update! I hope you enjoy it, please R&R! :)
The problem with going back in time to a place you know very well, Hermione thought, is that it's far too easy to forget. She had just walked through the barrier onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and the all too familiar excited feeling had settled in the pit of her stomach. The bustling platform was just as she knew it, parents and children everywhere. The hooting of owls, the shrieks of younger siblings, the smell of the scarlet steam engine. Apart from the way everybody around her was dressed, she might have never left the present day at all. She stopped walking and closed her eyes, heaving a deep sigh. She had to keep focused! She had to remember that she was new to Hogwarts, that nobody knew who she was!
"Watch it!" sneered an angry Slytherin boy as he jostled roughly past her. Hermione realised he had a point – standing stationary in the middle of a crowded platform wasn't the best way to behave. She stowed her luggage and quickly got into the nearest carriage, just as the station guard blew his whistle. When the train began to chug out of the station, Hermione's panic once again kicked in. She ran a hand through her hair in agitation, making it look even messier than usual. She was on her way to Hogwarts fifty years in the past! What now?
Now you find a compartment to sit in and try to pull yourself together, Hermione told herself firmly. She began to edge down the train, glancing into the compartment windows as she went. The compartments near the front were completely full as Hermione had expected. Those were always the ones that went first. The throng of students started to thin out about halfway down the train, and Hermione relaxed a little. Throughout her journey so far she had somehow expected to see Riddle at every turn, reflected wherever she went. But there had been no sign of him.
As she continued on her way down the corridor, the compartment door behind her opened and she barely had time to react as a long pale arm shot out and closed around her wrist. She was pulled roughly into the compartment and the door slid shut behind her. Thrown back onto the seat, Hermione found herself nose to nose with Draco Malfoy, who was still gripping her wrist tightly as he leaned over her. His other hand, trembling slightly, was holding his wand aloft.
"Let go of me!" Hermione exclaimed angrily, attempted to wrench her arm from his grasp. But Draco didn't budge.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed quietly, his face as pale as Hermione had ever seen it.
"Me? What are you doing here?" Hermione retorted, her eyes narrow and defiant despite her astonishment.
"Don't play games with me, Granger! Just answer the question!" snapped Draco, twisting his grip on her wrist.
Hermione cried out in pain. "Let go, you're hurting me!"
"Good!" said Draco, his eyes gleaming maliciously. But he slackened his grip a little all the same. He didn't want her to go off on the defensive. "Now tell me what you're doing here!"
"It's a long story," said Hermione, lifting her head to look Draco directly in the eyes. He saw that her expression burned with hatred and realised how much he loathed her in return. "I might just tell you if you let me go!"
Draco saw that violence was futile and dropped her wrist as suddenly as he had grabbed it. He sat down opposite, on the very edge of his seat, and watched as her fingers traced the red marks he had left on her wrist. He wasn't sorry. She deserved all she had got.
Hermione glared at him, but curiosity had the better of her. Just what was Draco Malfoy doing so far away from home? Before she had time to ask, Draco had taken the opportunity of her glowering to get his question in first.
"So? Out with it, Granger!" he spat, his eyes glinting malevolently but with the same feeling of curiosity as Hermione.
"I..I came back in time," Hermione replied, somewhat lamely. Draco narrowed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief.
"Well yes, obviously you came back in time!" he said through gritted teeth. "But why? What could Potter's bushy little sidekick possibly be doing in the 1940s?"
"I came back to… meet him," Hermione said slowly, her eyes fixed on a speck of dirt on the compartment floor. She knew she had to give Draco an explanation, but she was determined to look anywhere but at him as she said it. "I don't know why. I thought- I thought there might be something I could do. To stop him."
She chanced a glance at Draco as she said this and saw that he was wearing an expression of incredulity. He scoffed and ran a hand through his white blonde hair. When he lifted up his head, she was thankful not to see his trademark smirk. Instead, he looked dumbfounded. Hermione's heart sank slightly. He didn't believe her. As much as she hated Draco Malfoy, it was comforting to see a familiar face after all those weeks alone in London. But he didn't believe her.
"I don't believe you, Granger!" Draco said, almost on cue. But not in the way she might have expected it. "That really is why you're here, isn't it? The know-it-all mudblood has foolishly risked everything on a whim! What do you think you're going to do? Reform him? Turn him into a changed man? What, do you think you can just give him a flash of your smile and everything will turn out rosy?"
"Of course not!" Hermione replied at once, flushing at his words. She knew she had been reckless and stupid, but to hear Draco Malfoy saying it was almost too much to bear. "I know it was mad, okay? I know it was completely foolish of me to come here without a plan! But you don't understand! You don't understand what it's like! With Dumbledore dead, I… I couldn't do nothing!"
At the mention of Dumbledore, Draco seemed to turn even paler so that he was now as white as death. His wand tumbled from his grasp and landed with a clatter on the wooden floor. He made no move to retrieve it. Gone was the violent, intimidating Draco that Hermione knew so well. He seemed to have turned from a man to a frightened little boy in less than a minute. Hermione stared from Draco to his wand, and her anger at him seemed to return with a vengeance. She could hardly form a sentence in her head at the rush of emotions that the memory of Draco's part in Dumbledore's death had invoked. Before she could say anything, however, Draco spoke so quietly he might have said nothing at all.
"I do know what it's like". The bitterness in his voice shocked Hermione so much that her anger was halted in its tracks. She had never heard him speak like that before.
"Maybe not for you," Draco continued, staring at his hands as they shook before him. "But I know what it's like to feel sad that he's dead. I know what it's like to be the one who almost killed him. I know what it's like to be punished for being a coward."
Hermione wanted to speak, but she was at a loss to know what to say. She thought Draco Malfoy a coward of the lowest degree, as did everybody, but she had never given a thought as to how he might feel. The boy who had been bullied and coerced into committing an act of murder, and who had been unable to do it at the final hurdle. Dumbledore had thought about it, said a voice in the back of her head. Dumbledore would want her to hear him out now.
"I know what you think of me," Draco said shakily, his tone halfway between anger and… could it be shame? "Everybody thinks I'm a coward, no matter which side they're on. And you're right, Granger, as always. I am."
There was something so hopeless and pitiful about the way he said this that Hermione felt sorry for him. This thought penetrated her consciousness with a jolt. Could she actually be feeling sorry for Draco Malfoy? The boy who had tormented her for years? The boy who had become a Death Eater? The boy who had almost killed her beloved headmaster? Almost.
"Not being able to kill somebody doesn't make you a coward, Malfoy," Hermione said, tentatively. "If anything, it makes you the opposite."
"What about running away? Does that make me a coward?" Draco asked plainly, his eyes meeting hers for the first time since he had begun talking about himself.
"Is that why you're here?" Hermione asked curiously. "You're running away?"
"My parents forced me to lie low after that night on the Astronomy Tower," Draco explained, still with the same tone of bitterness. His voice was surprisingly soft when it wasn't throwing insults at her, Hermione noticed. "I was cooped up in the Manor for weeks. They didn't want me to see Bellatrix, or any of the others. I didn't want to either. But I knew what they thought of me all the same, because it was the same way I thought about myself. I couldn't face going back to school this year. I haven't slept in weeks with thinking about how they'll all react at Hogwarts. The boy who tried to murder everyone's favourite head teacher sauntering through the front doors? It wouldn't go down too well. I don't do any of your pathetic Gryffindor bravery, Granger. I'm a Slytherin, I save myself the hassle. I knew I had to get away somehow. I was wandering through the Manor over the summer, trying to pass the time, when I saw it gathering dust in one of the cabinets. I don't know how long it's been there. Ever since I can remember, I suppose."
"What?" asked Hermione, almost breathless with anticipation.
"This," Draco reached inside the pocket of his jacket and revealed a small brass object in the palm of his hand. It was older and shabbier than the one Hermione owned, but there was no mistaking it. His hand closed around it and Draco stowed the time turner safely back into his pocket. "I'm assuming you've got one too."
Hermione's hand had strayed absent-mindedly to the chain around her neck, and she nodded in confirmation. Her mind was busy churning over what Draco had just told her, hardly able to believe it. He seemed to be here with even less purpose than she. And yet, his reasons seemed to make more sense. He had come here with the most natural intention in the world – to hide. And just what had she come for? Hermione wished she knew. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her.
"Why 1943?" she asked. "You could have gone back to any year you chose to hide. Why now?"
Draco shrugged. "I was curious, I suppose. Part of me wanted to see my grandfather. This was his final year at school, you know. And part of me wanted to see him. To see what it was like before it all got so out of hand."
Hermione nodded in response, and they both fell silent, the only noise that of the engine at its steady roar. Draco stared out of the window, at the blur of trees and countryside as it grew darker. He wasn't sure why he had told Granger all of that. He had certainly given more of an explanation than he had received, and that never happened to a Malfoy. Still, Draco thought sombrely, since when had following the Malfoy ways done him any favours? He supposed it was just because he knew her, because there was somebody here with even an inkling of what it felt like to be thrown into the past alone. It was a comforting thought, even if it was Mudblood Granger.
Hermione was thinking along similar lines, wondering how she had never felt sorry for Draco before. It was true he had never given her any reason to, but she was usually so understanding towards people's feelings. But then he had never opened up to her in such a manner. If somebody had suggested to her that he might tell her all that he had, she would have laughed openly in their face. The idea was ludicrous! This whole situation was ludicrous!
"So what are you going to do?" asked Draco abruptly, breaking the silence.
"Wh-what?" Hermione responded, startled out of her reverie. She couldn't even begin to guess what he was talking about. Draco smirked slightly. Even in 1943, he enjoyed having the upper hand over her.
"What are you going to do when you get to Hogwarts? What are you going to say your name is?" Draco asked her, with the air of speaking to a small child. Hermione glared at his tone, but couldn't help feeling rather astonished.
"Hermione Granger, of course!" she retorted at once.
"Are you insane, Granger? You can't use your real name!" said Draco, incredulously. "I thought you had more sense than that! If you've got any chance of meeting Tom Riddle at all, you've got to invent yourself a nice, safe pureblood name that somebody will have heard of!"
Hermione bit her lip. She hadn't even thought about that. She hadn't thought further than alighting at Hogwarts. How stupid she had been not to have given this more thought over the past few weeks!
"All right," said Draco, with patience that surprised even himself. "I've been brought up on this sort of stuff, and you ought to go for something French. French was the very essence of nobility amongst pureblood ancestors. There was a fairly well known family that died out only twenty years ago, my father told me about them. Twenty years from our time, that is. They were the De Macheforts and I don't think any of them were at Hogwarts in 1943, but I can't be sure. If I were you, I'd go for that. You'll just have to hope nobody knows more about them than you do."
Hermione nodded, as she had done almost constantly throughout this speech. She felt reassured by Malfoy's knowledge of the pureblood world, into which she would almost certainly be plunged. She knew from Hogwarts: A History that Muggleborn students had been far fewer fifty years ago when compared with her own time. She was glad that Malfoy was here now, else she would almost certainly have begun telling the entire school that she was a Granger through and through!
"You also have to start acting more like a Slytherin," said Draco, spitting out the words as though the idea pained him. "I realise you're the very epitome of a Gryffindor, but you're at least going to have to try."
"Why?" asked Hermione, shocked. This was the last thing she intended to do!
"Fuck, Granger!" cried Draco, half amused and half irritated. "You really haven't thought this through, have you? The only way Riddle is ever going to pay you a second glance is if you get sorted into Slytherin!"
"Into Slytherin!" Hermione repeated, her mouth falling open in horror.
"Yes," said Draco grimly, who was just as disgusted at the thought of Hermione Granger becoming a Slytherin as she was.
Hermione lapsed into silence once more and stared out of the window, vexed. She really had bitten off more than she could chew! Malfoy was right, of course, it had been the stupidest idea of hers yet that she could get Tom Riddle to give her the time of day as her Gryffindor self! But the thought of being a Slytherin, wearing the green uniform and sleeping in the dungeons utterly repulsed her. Slytherin house represented everything she detested! It was everything she had travelled back in time to rebel against! And yet, she saw now that it was the only way to carry out her vague plan. She would have to become a Slytherin, and unfortunately, the only person who could possibly help her was the only person she would never have asked!
Draco looked across at her, noticing the way she fidgeted in her seat and twiddled a strand of her hair as she thought. She was clearly very agitated. And no wonder, Draco thought, when she had journeyed back into the past as unprepared as she was! It surprised him slightly that the conscientious Granger could be so careless and unorganised. But then, she had never truly been around purebloods that mattered, or at least thought they mattered. The Weasleys barely counted as purebloods at all! She could hardly be expected to know how much a good family name mattered in Slytherin house, because she had always been sheltered from prejudice amongst her precious Gryffindors. Well, she would be in for a shock when she found out what it was really like. Draco didn't know why he was taking such great pains to educate her and prepare her for what she was undertaking. He supposed it was because it prevented him from thinking too much about his own reasons for being here. But Draco rather thought he would enjoy Hermione Granger's transformation from Gryffindor Mudblood princess into haughty Slytherin new girl. It would give him something to think about for the time being, anyhow. And it was also when Draco reflected upon how his fellow Death Eaters would react, if they saw him helping a Mudblood, that he thought it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
