A/N: Thanks for the love, everybody! Holidays are to blame for the time between updates, hopefully the new chapter is worth it :)

Chapter 3: Hermione

As if waking up to find herself face to face with an almost sixteen-year old Sirius Black and James Potter wasn't bad enough, now she was going to have to face the younger Peter Pettigrew, the boy who would cause the deaths of countless people, including the very same boys he was currently in a room with. And Remus, she would have to befriend him all over again, it would have been so nice to have an ally like Remus that already knew everything about her, while this Remus knew nothing. This Remus would be overly cautious around her to be sure that she wouldn't find out about his lycanthropy. She would definitely have to work to prove her trustworthiness to him.

Sirius himself had already been a shock to her. She had hoped that spouting French at the two boys who had barged into her curtained off room would cause them to leave, maybe go find Madam Pomfrey to calm her down. She'd never known that Sirius spoke French, and he did it well, if a little stilting at times, he was probably at the same level as her, which might prove troublesome, seeing as she was supposed to have gotten her whole wizarding education in French, but she would cross that bridge when she got to it. He was nice though, this Sirius, he was so young, and so alive, there was a brightness to his features that she had never seen in the older version she knew. There was hopefulness in his eyes, and whatever shadows may be lurking behind the surface of his face were well hidden, unlike the shroud of darkness that seemed to cloak his older self. She had liked the older Sirius, most of the time; this younger one though, he could really be a friend and not just a protector who lived in his own forgotten memories.

When Sirius finally pulled the curtain back, Hermione was really mostly ready to meet them.

"Oi mates, this is Hermione Kingsley and she's transferring to us from Beauxbatons!" Sirius introduced her with a flourish, then pulled one of the chairs by Remus's bed out to make a circle between the two beds and three chairs. He started pointing out each of the others in the room with a little background information for Hermione. "That's James, you met briefly, he's a bit of a ponce and you'll learn to tune out the rambling. The blond is Peter, he'll eat anything and the house-elves will do anything for him, which comes in handy. And the bedridden bloke is Remus, he gets a bit sick, so we all come in to cheer him up with chocolate and books, he'll help you catch up in any subjects you need."

"You speak English?!" James exclaimed, turning to face her. "And Sirius is the ponce, don't even let him tell you otherwise. I'm amazing."

"She spoke French cuz she thought it would get rid of you, Prongsie," Sirius chuckled, immaturely sticking out a tongue in James's direction.

"She probably thought it would get rid of you too, but you're like a Grindylow with pretty girls, can't leave them alone, flatter them with French nothings. Twat," James responded in kind by launching several already opened chocolate frogs in Sirius's direction.

"I'd speak French to get rid of the both of you any day," Remus offered tiredly from the bed. He gave Hermione a friendly smile. "Welcome to Hogwarts, and don't mind these two, you get used to them. I can help you though, if you need it."

"Thank you, Remus, I'll keep that in mind," Hermione said, relaxing back into her own pillows while James and Sirius were now charming the chocolate frogs to fly at each other while spitting some slimy green substance that Hermione really didn't want to think about.

"I told them not to bug you," Peter said, coming close to Hermione's bed, while ducking and watching out for the flying frogs. "But I'm glad they did, transferring schools is pretty rare. With Sirius and James though, you'll know the whole school pretty quick."

"Thanks, Peter. It will be nice to see friendly faces when classes start on Monday," Hermione said, forcing herself to be polite. This was not yet the man who would betray James and Lily and send Sirius to Azkaban for 12 years. This was just a teenage boy who was used to being picked on in school, but still had to measure up to friends with such strong personalities. If she was going to end up staying in this time, which was looking more likely since she started thinking about it when she woke up this morning, then she would have to consider what she was going to do about Peter. If there was a way to save him, she felt obligated to try. For the sake of the bond between these four boys, she would try to convince him to see the good in taking the morally just side, whether they lost or won, regardless of the advantage of power.

Shortly after James, Peter, and Sirius were shooed out of the hospital wing by Madame Pomfrey, Hermione found herself alone again, on her way to Professor Dumbledore's office to attempt to figure out what she could possibly do in this time without causing a paradox, if she hadn't already…

"Ah, good morning, Miss Kingsley," Dumbledore greeted as she entered his office, barely looking up from the stack of books and papers on his desk.

"Good morning, Professor," Hermione replied, carefully taking the seat in front of his desk and trying not to fidget too much.

"I take it you are well healed from your journey last night," Dumbledore looked up from a paper over his half moon glasses to take in her appearance, wearing a uniform most likely from the lost and found closet.

"Yes, Madam Pomfrey does a great job," Hermione said quickly, jiggling her legs. Enough of the pleasantries, old man she thought, not entirely unkindly knowing that he was skilled in both occlumency and legilimancy.

"I'm sure you're questioning what our plan is? And what we have researched in order to get you back to your time?" His blues eyes twinkled behind his glasses, he'd heard her thoughts.

"Yes sir."

"Unfortunately, we have not made much progress on the research," Dumbledore said gently, looking back down to the books in front of him. "There simply aren't any recorded cases of such travel. And with the time turner which brought you here having been destroyed, we have no way to examine the changes which were necessary to the instrument in order for the trip to have been possible. Minerva and I believe that it would be best for you to begin making a life here, in this time. As we have now met you both in this time as well as your previous time. If we can research further into the paradox, we might be able to reverse it, but considering the scale, that is highly unlikely."

Hermione sighed and felt her legs stop jiggling, she had been barely clinging to the hope that her situation could be solved overnight, of course it was going to be a more long term problem.

"This is not cause for despair though, my dear, if I understand correctly, we may now have the opportunity to prevent your future from ever occurring," the old wizard once again fixed his eyes on her. Hermione felt his gaze and looked up from twisting her hands together, nodding to herself as she understood his meaning.

"Yes, I know how to kill Voldemort. If we can kill him before he kills the Potters, Harry will be raised by his family. There will never be a second war, and no battle at Hogwarts," Hermione drew her brows together as her face became more determined and her eyes brightened. "I could fix everything. James, Lily, and Sirius need never die, Remus can have a normal job, and Harry will be happy and loved. No more hiding, discriminating, or senseless deaths…"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Miss Kingsley, this will be a very serious undertaking," Dumbledore warned as Hermione trailed off, her earlier nervousness replaced with eager determination. He kept his eyes trained on her until she calmed down and nodded with understanding of how dangerous her new quest would be. "Now, tell me what you know so I may start to make a plan."

Harry's face flashed in her mind, telling her of how power-mad Dumbledore could become when faced with the three hallows, and she made a quick decision.

"Horcruxes, Professor, Voldemort intends to make 7 of them. I believe at this time he would have managed the diadem, the cup, and the diary. He will make the locket soon, and hide it in a cave sometime in 1979. The next one won't be made until 1981, when he tries to kill Harry Potter," Hermione said quickly, carefully leaving out any mention of the ring. She would have to find the ring on her own, there was no way she was going to let the headmaster anywhere near it. Which meant she would need to learn how to cast and maintain Fiendfyre, or else get possession of some Basilisk venom. "We believe the diadem is hidden somewhere in Hogwarts, the cup was held in the Lestrange vault in Gringotts, and the diary was being protected by the Malfoys. Has Bellatrix even married Lestrange yet? And Narcissa to Malfoy?"

Hermione wondered briefly if the Horcruxes might be held somewhere else now, or if Riddle had already decided which followers would maintain the pieces of his soul. Likely Malfoy had always had charge of the diary, it was also quite possible that Bellatrix had been the one to be entrusted with the cup and not the Lestrange family as a whole.

"Bellatrix married Rodolfus just this past summer and I believe Narcissa Black is engaged to marry Lucius Malfoy in the new year, after graduating," Dumbledore chuckled lightly at the confusion on the young girl's face as she tried to piece together the people from the world she knew with the one she was currently in. "I will discuss the Horcruxes with some trusted colleagues and we will decide what to do with this knowledge. I have suspected that Tom was up to something of this nature, but seven Horcruxes? Surely even he wouldn't consider such atrocities on that level…"

"You were the one who convinced us to look for seven, Professor, in my time. You believed that he liked the poetry, and the magic, of the number 7, that surely that must be the safest number to have in order to ensure immortality," Hermione watched the older man's face fall as he considered this.

"Yes, I suppose. The cost of creating a Horcrux is so great, immortality was truly the goal?"

"Yes, we believe so."

Both Hermione and Dumbledore remained silent, the young witch thinking about how she was going to start a new life when clinging to the old one was going to be her motivating force in her dangerous quest, while the old wizard was thinking how times change and yet, truly, they don't. Someone, somewhere will always be trying to redefine what true greatness means, when all they had to do was look to their deepest heart of hearts to find what really matters. The clanging of the bells dragged both out of their thoughts and Dumbledore cleared his throat as Hermione stood to get to breakfast on time.

"Well, Miss Kingsley, you may look forward to a note from me when a plan has been formed. And please reach out to either myself or Professor McGonagall if you believe there is any other information from your future that we may be able to use. We will continue research into your time situation, but if there is no success in a week, I believe the changes to the timeline will be far too great to undo."

"Of course, Professor, I understand," Hermione said, voice fading softly as she tried not to think too much about the life she had lost and focus more on the lives she would be saving.