Hermione was trying not to cry at breakfast the next morning because she woke up screaming, seeing Ginny being cursed by Bellatrix again and again in her sleep. It was exhausting, being caught between two timelines, at the beginning of one war and the losing end of another. Lily and Alice had tried to ask her what was wrong but she just said that she had a bad dream and came down to breakfast. That's where Dumbledore found her.

"Miss Granger," he said. Hermione looked up at him, ignoring all the stares from the students around her. Not many people got visits from the headmaster at breakfast. "Would you mind accompanying me to my office? I will write you a late pass to Ancient Runes." Hermione sighed but gathered up her things. She was so tired.

"Sure, Professor." He stepped back to allow her room to get up and he followed her out of the Great Hall. Four boys were walking in at the same time.

"Hermione?" James asked surprised, looking at Dumbledore. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just tired. I'll see you guys later. Remus will you take notes for me?" He nodded but his forehead was wrinkled in concern. That type of exhaustion was familiar to him.

They walked the rest of the way in relative silence. Some of the students seemed to hurry as the headmaster passed like he would fault them for being late to class. Hermione could have rolled her eyes. That wasn't his style. They reached the stone gargoyle quickly.

"Twizzlers." This made Hermione laugh. "Have you ever had one?" Dumbledore asked her, as they ascended the staircase.

"My parents are dentists so I didn't get sweets much but they were my grans favorite." Hermione smiled at the memory and then sobered at the thought that she probably would never see any of them ever again. Dumbledore gestured for her to sit across from him and Hermione took the seat, placing her bag beside her. She grinned up at Fawkes who tilted his head to look at her. Hermione suddenly felt like he was looking inside her.

"Now Miss Granger, how was your first day?" Hermione looked back at him quickly and saw that he had his fingers steepled under his chin. She knew that he didn't call her here for small talk and she just wanted to get on with it. The exhaustion was deep in her bones.

"Fine," she told him. "I'm sure Professor Williams told you about our defense lesson." He nodded.

"He did and I'm sure you remember our conversation about meddling with time?" She let out a breath.

"Yes sir, but I trust that you remember that I am going to accept any and all consequences of changing the timeline."

"Indeed I do. Tell me Hermione," he said and the use of her first name surprised her, "how is it that you came to this time." Hermione tried to remember. She racked her brain to try and remember the moment that she started to fall.

"I don't know, sir." He nodded.

"Was there a time turner involved?" the question surprised her, something that he seemed to be doing frequently.

"No sir, we destroyed all those when we broke into the Department of Myster-" she stopped herself. Was she supposed to tell him that? He raised his eyebrows in what she thought was amusement.

"Perhaps if you could tell me what happened before you found yourself here?" Hermione nodded.

"Hogwarts was infiltrated. Voldemort had gotten into the school. There were Death Eaters everywhere, Greyback was murdering dozens of students," Dumbledore's eyes grew dark at the mention of the werewolf. "Harry and I were looking for the diadem – it's a Horcrux, we were on our way to the Room of Requirement when Voldemort told Harry to meet him in the forest. Well that's what Harry told me. He was really in the Room. Harry had to turn it into the room where lost things are hidden. Are you familiar?"

"I can't say that I am," Dumbledore informed her.

"Well, if you ask the room to hide something it gives you this room and there's millions of lost things. Ravenclaw's diadem is in there and so was Voldemort, he killed Harry in there. He wanted to kill me too. He tried but Snape told me to stand in front of a cabinet. I was trying to curse Bellatrix and then Snape blew up the cabinet," she was trying to hard to remember what happened next. What was in that cabinet?

"Do you know why that cabinet?" She shook her head.

"I don't know what was in it. All I know is that all of a sudden there was wood and gold everywhere. There was-" Hermione stopped, eyes open in horror. "Sand." Dumbledore nodded sadly.

"It is what I feared, Miss Granger. I think you were caught in a broken time turner and as I'm sure you know-" he waited for her to finish.

"Time turners only go backwards," she whispered.

"I'm afraid so," he said solemnly. "This is your home now, Miss Granger. The old timeline is gone. You must do anything you can to protect it." She noted the fierceness in his eyes, the hardness in his voice. There was no mistaking his meaning.

"I will do what I have to do." He nodded.

"We will do it together." Hermione was going to give Harry the life he deserved. She was going to stop Voldemort before the prophecy could be made.

oOoOo

Hermione made it to Ancient Runes with only a few minutes left of class. She figured that she wasn't making a very good first impression. Remus had saved her a seat next to him and she smiled softly before sliding into it. He had taken diligent notes and she didn't know if he always did or if it was for her benefit. Either way she was grateful.

"Are you okay?" he asked. She gave him a small smile and nodded before yawning. This made him grin.

"Just tired. I didn't sleep last night." He frowned at her then.

"Nightmares?" Hermione looked at him suddenly. What did he know about that? "Lily said that she heard you screaming last night." She was going to have to put a silencing charm around her bed.

"Oh."

"I have them too." As soon as he said it, he looked surprised, like he didn't mean to admit it aloud. Hermione looked at him surprised too. Though she supposed he did have things in his past to have nightmares about. She was going to press about it, see what he did to stop them but he immediately went back to writing and she knew that he didn't want to talk about it.

She sighed and took out her own quill and parchment. She didn't want to write down Ancient Runes. What she really wanted to do she couldn't because the person next to her was too intelligent and too observant. If she was going to be meeting with Dumbledore, she needed to have an organized list of all the things that they needed to do before Trewalany uttered the prophecy up to and including killing the snake himself.

"Hermione?" Hermione looked up suddenly and Remus was grinning at her. "Class is over." She looked around and everyone was getting their things together.

"Oh no, I wasn't paying attention at all." This timeline was doing terrible things to her studies.

"I know," he said with a chuckle. "I took notes for you. Come on, we have charms with everyone."

How he knew her schedule, she had no idea but when he grabbed her bag and put it on her shoulder, she realized that she would have followed him anywhere.

"Would you look at this," Sirius said with a grin as Hermione and Remus turned the corner. You would think that he remembered her from her timeline the way that he treated her with such familiarity. "Moony and Moony Jr.!" his eyes flashed with a mischief that made Hermione just a tad bit concerned.

"Cut it out, Padfoot," Remus said but there was no force behind it. The Gryffindors all spilled into Charms and Hermione found herself between Lily and James. She tried not to fear for her life.

"You'll love Professor Flitwick!" Lily said with a grin. "He's an excellent Professor."

"You only say that because you're his favorite," James joked. Lily apparently didn't find it funny because she turned her seat just a little further away from him. Hermione sent him a 'ouch' look but unlike Runes Hermione was able to stay awake in class. This was mostly due to the infectious Lily Evans who was, as legend had told, brilliant at Charms. Even Hermione was impressed and had to work hard to keep up with her.

Hermione was going to get a run for her money with the lot of them. This was best indicated when James attempted to charm the lily in the window to sing to its namesake but instead it screamed and screamed and screamed.

This was going to be a lot harder than she thought.