"I-Severu-I need to get back there, he needs help." Hermione tried twisting away from Phil, but he kept a tight hold on her wrist and led her down an alley, one familiar that led to the small underground rooms she had been brought to upon her first day there by Abe. She kept twisting, kept trying to return to the public square, but Phil would patiently drag her along, whispering calming words that he would be alright, that she needed to stay out of it to keep herself safe, that it wasn't anything Severus hadn't dealt with before.

Reaching the entrance to the rooms, Phil pulled her inside, down the hallway, and into the first room which had been empty and quiet. They were alone, unlike last time, and Hermione had quickly remembered Phil's odd behavior upon first meeting him. Knowing she could trust him still didn't quell the slight discomfort she had being alone with him now, and only just seemed to notice his grasp on her wrist, looking at his hand and long fingers easily holding it as he guided her into the sofa and sat beside her. Her mind was whirling, still with Severus as she did want to get back to him, worried that the brawl would have moved him, making her beginning plans of an escape futile, and also warily upon Phil, who had sat beside her, now turned toward her after freeing her from his hand.

It was the first time she actually got to look at him, see him without the makeup he had worn to look more like Voldemort, in clothes that made him appear more sane instead of a costume. He still had a wild look to his eyes that might have just been the will to survive this place now that she'd seen it for a while herself. They were filled with color and emotion, something the others' had lost. He had a shadow of a beard growing on his chin, and his appearance in general suggested he didn't exactly care about personal hygiene as much as someone like Abe had. The only thing keeping her calm had been the sudden appearance of a ginger cat, the same one that had kneaded her to sleep, bumping and winding its way over her feet and ankles.

"What's going to happen to him?" Hermione asked shakily.

"Sirius will seek his justice." His answer was soft, but carried all it needed to to keep Hermione from pressing any further. Phil shifted slightly. "He can take care of himself. It's always astounded me how easy he makes it look."

"He's strong." Hermione added.

"Indeed he is." Phil agreed, pulling the corner of his lower lip between his teeth as he carefully searched Hermione's face. "And so are you."

"I have to be." She said, looking at her hands in her lap that wrung themselves this way and that. "Don't I?" It sounded more affirmative, a reminder to herself than a question posed to Phil, but he agreed nevertheless with a nod.

"If we are to get through this, we all have to be strong."

"We?" Hermione looked away from her hands to glance up at Phil, still with his lip between his teeth, still regarding her with a deepened curiosity.

"We." He repeated finally and then broke his gaze to watch the far wall.

"He said I can trust you." She stated.

"You can."

"How do I-I mean how do we know we can?"

Phil's lips turned up slightly, amused, and he sighed.

"Abe hasn't told you much, has he?"

"He hasn't had much time to tell me much of anything."

"I don't doubt that." He snickered, suddenly running a hand through his hair and he stood up mumbling to himself as he pulled a wand from his pocket and swirled it in the air. A tray filled with a teapot and two cups appeared shortly after, of which Phil poured two servings and forced a cup into Hermione's hands. She latched onto it, the warmth from the ceramic calming on her fingers, watching the cat as it sat there regally, staring back at her, unblinking.

"In the dungeons, there are periods of time when they don't check on you, leaving you to your own musings. As you had seen on your own, or not seen rather, the walls hide everything from sight, yet we are able to hear everything. When Severus first arrived, I had been in my cell, wasting away from hunger. Forgotten. My first instinct as soon as I heard them enter was to gain their attention, but as I listened, what they were saying had caught my attention.

Sirius had wanted to do away with him as you could imagine, saying things like he hadn't been of help, that keeping him there knowing he had been a traitor to the Dark Lord was putting them at jeopardy, that the girl who had jumped through a piece of glass could be anywhere and it was pointless to think she'd be around any time soon." Phil looked pointedly at Hermione who stared blankly back at him, only moving to press her lips tighter together. Phil took his place on the couch again next to her, holding his cup in one hand. A spoon floated in the air, dumping a lump of sugar into it, and with a twirl of his fingers the spoon began swirling in his cup.

"I heard James tell him that this girl was too important to forget about, that she might be able to help them in the long run and that they owed her something, that as soon as Harry was born, they'd have at least a bit of leverage against You-Know-Who, that she beat him once and could do it again. The least they could do was save Severus for her, keep him alive and sane until she arrived even if it took a century of waiting, a sort of incentive for cooperation."

"James was trying to help me?" Hermione whispered. "But he attacked us, when I went through the glass he was trying to hurt us-"

"-he's a servant of the Dark Lord, Hermione. If his intentions are truly to help you then I would say you have sanctuary somewhere in that circle. I wouldn't be so quick to forgive and forget, however."

"You heard all this candidly, right? You were forgotten about after all, do they know you were eves dropping?"

"My hunger became stronger than my silence, I'm afraid. Before they could leave I got their attention."

Hermione winced. Phil chuckled.

"I ate the best that night than I had in my whole life. Promising to not out them to their leader, to keep what I heard silent, I managed to secure three hots and a comfy cot during any of my stays there."

"Wouldn't that tip Volde-You-Know-Who off? Getting all that special treatment?"

"Not necessarily. He could care less about what happens to the prisoners in his palace, the only thing he cares about is that it gets used."

Hermione sat back in the sofa, thumb rubbing against her cup, she watched Phil, still running his fingers in small circles, the spoon still following his command. The cat lifting a paw to lick it, seemingly bored with the story but not planning on leaving.

"You can do wandless magic." She pointed out and Phil's fingers finally stopped, the spoon freezing for a moment in time before clattering to the side of the cup, lifeless, with a ting, his hand dropping to his side.

"A few small things here and there, yes."

Hermione watched his cup, then looked back at hers. Phil, sensing the silence would last, continued.

"I had no idea who Severus was at the time, but this girl, as soon as they had mentioned she had defeated Him once, had left little doubt in my mind. I knew who she was, had seen her before with my own eyes and couldn't believe it when I had heard it. I was convinced that it was just some strange coincidence, they had spoken of someone else, but no matter how hard I had tried to puzzle it all together, the one thing I kept returning to was the fact that Severus was linked to the girl who had jumped though a piece of glass and had taken down He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It had to of been the same person I was thinking of, and this glass she had jumped through...very curious, indeed."

Hermione shifted a bit uncomfortably now, using her knee to steady her cup, unable to avoid a glance at Phil who had raised an eyebrow over his hinting stare.

"When I was sure the Death Eaters had gone, and after my insatiable hunger had been satisfied, I had called out to this Severus, and asked him to tell me his story. He was a hard one to crack, but patience pulled off. I daringly opened up to him, telling him of my own experiences, and within the week had confirmed my suspicions. This girl was the exact one I had read about, week after week, the same girl who had stood by and aided The Boy Who Lived. This girl, Hermione Granger, was being waited for and I couldn't wait to help her."

Hermione's eyes narrowed, and then widened as she grasped what he was saying. Phil's donned a grin.

"I don't-I can't understand." She said breathlessly, although it was apparent that he just admitted to being around during her original time. "You remember me from that time?"

Phil gave a slow nod, his fingers picking themselves back up and he twirled them again, the spoon bouncing back to life and following the command with fervor as if it was happy to be put to work again.

"But how is that possible? That can't be possible unless you're a time traveler, too." She gasped.

"Yes." He said. Hermione's jaw falling open on its own.

"You were there in the second war?" She sounded like she still couldn't believe it. Phil nodded again, a continuance of his first, and then shrugged.

"Not exactly in the war, I observed it more or less." Phil lifted his cup to his lips, the spoon freezing so he could take a drink, and then allowed itself to be tossed about in the small currant of movement until it finally lifted itself out of the tea, tapped a couple of times against the rim, and floated back to the tray. "I was busy trying to locate my way home."

"The glass." Hermione sighed.

"The glass." Phil repeated. "As you've experienced, it's quite a tricky thing to keep track of. Never where you need it."

"But you obviously found it." Hermione looked around them, searching the room as if she needed proof they were still in nineteen-eighty and not suddenly back in her own comfort zone.

"I did, though it took years of painful searching."

"That's how you knew about me." Of course it made sense, having spent years there while she was still at Hogwarts, making headlines with Harry and Ron.

"How did you know about the glass?" She asked. "From what I gathered the only people who knew about it had been me and its creator."

"Creators." Phil corrected. "Let's not forget there was more than one person to invent it."

She looked to Phil in awe, her eyes rolling slightly in disbelief.

"You were Lovel Stemm's partner." She mumbled.

"Unfortunately so." Phil answered.

"Unfortunately? This was quite a breakthrough in time travel, I'd think that's more than unfortunate."

"Have you even met the guy?" He snickered. "He's as batty as they come. Mad. Genius, but mad."

"He seemed like your typical paranoid hermit when I spoke with him." Hermione said sarcastically. "I thought that was just due to the fact he had been driven crazy after your little mishap with not sending correspondence back to him. He felt awful about it, guilty for putting you in that position you know."

"As he should. I had sent the first few letters to him explaining that the glass shifts every time it was used, that it wasn't predictable, but he asked me to stay. For science, he said. If I had only gone back when I wanted too I wouldn't have gone through that war, nor would I be going through this one."

Hermione pouted, suddenly feeling guilt of the sympathetic nature. She was drawn to the cat again, who had been staring back at her, or, glaring was more the proper word for it. The eyes in the squished face had only been dark and impatient, and the loud mewl it let out was definitely not something happy. It's tail flicked as it stood, went over to Phil, and nibbled at his pant leg. Phil shook his foot, lightly kicking the cat away from him.

"How long did you stay?" Hermione asked, and Phil sighed heavily.

"When did you get your cat?"

"My cat?" Hermione asked, Phil nodded.

"What does that matter?"

"You asked me how long I was there, didn't you? I was in the Leaky Cauldron the day you and that red-headed family showed up to stay with Harry. I remember your cat causing a commotion with someone else's pet rat."

Hermione flicked her eyes back to the cat in the room with them, it was stubbornly headed back to Phil, eyes solid black and narrow. It's front paws lifted onto his knees, and the claws came out to dig into the fabric. Phil grimaced in pain, swatting the cat away.

"You hold on." He told it. "We're getting there." He looked back to Hermione. I had arrived in your time a few days prior to your stay at The Leaky Cauldron. I had given up searching shortly after that, time losing all meaning to me, and remained there until I read an interesting article in the paper early one morning. Mr. Arthur Weasley of the Ministry of Magic was under watch and on a criminal hold for obtaining a bewitched muggle artifact that had a hand in the disappearance of his daughter-in-law."

"The clock. He had brought it into my house to help build a crib. The glass was the face plate of the clock."

"Indeed it was. I felt my stay had been long enough, I wanted to get home, and now obvious to where I could start my hunt for the glass again, I paid a visit to your residence and didn't have to look very long."

"You managed to find the clock again after I went through it."

"Easier than I expected. It actually scared me a bit as it was still in your house, right there on the mantle. Your blasted cat practically laying on it, keeping guard I guess you could say."

"Doesn't the glass move after use though?"

"It was supposed to. It had every time I jumped through, but then I noticed that when I had used it there wasn't anyone else around." Phil growled again, the cat had once again dug its claws into his leg, this time deeper and with more strength. Hermione looked down at the cat on his lap, her heart beginning to race.

"That cat doesn't seem to like you very much." Hermione said and Phil grabbed it with both hands, lifting it off of him and promptly placed him on Hermione's lap, one of its paws landing in the tea still in her mug, which caused an angry hiss in return. Hermione quickly rid her hands of the cup to use them to steady the cat, who turned into her, its head pressing against her chest, rubbings its face all over her, all signs of anger leaving only to be replaced with ferocious purring. Phil continued to glare at it, running his hands over his clothes to disperse the cat hair that clung to him.

"He's been a right, bloody nuisance since I travelled with him."

It didn't take long for Hermione to know what that meant. She grabbed the cat from her chest, both hands around its middle and lifted it up to look straight into its face. It appeared pleased with itself, eyes slowly blinking, she could have sworn it was smiling at her.

"Crookshanks?" She exclaimed, the cat kneading the air in front of her face as if waving slowly, his purrs growing louder.

"I figured I could train him to sit on the clock once I found it again to hold it steady and get through. If it works, something holding it steady, then the glass should remain in one spot and not escape."

"Crookshanks!" She yelled again, satisfied it truly was her half Kneazle, and clutched the cat to her tightly. He seemed not to care, allowing Hermione to hug him as tightly as she wanted.

"Something living." She stated between placing kisses on the cat's head.

"Something mortal." Phil added. "But there's only one way to test that theory." He said, sadly. "And unfortunately I haven't been able to locate where the glass would be in this time line. I jumped through it without Crookshanks holding onto it, so I'm certain it wouldn't be in the house you had lived in-if it's even built yet, and you've since gone through so it may have shifted again."

"We're certain it's still a clock?"

"As long as no one has tampered with it, I think it's safe to say it has remained in that form."

Crookshanks adjusted in Hermione's arms, front legs sprawling out in front of him, back legs tucking in to better sit on her lap. He dared not move out of her grasp. It felt good to hold a part of her future, an actual object from her time she was familiar with besides baby Harry, it even felt good to know there was another displaced person right there next to her even if he did first come off as crazy and strange. Knowing she wasn't alone came as a comfort, but how much could she trust him?

"Severus said I could trust you." She said and Phil straightened his back, puffing out his chest proudly.

"I'd like to hope you would." He said. "We're in this together, aren't we?"

"I sure hope I can." She mumbled, shifting to face him more directly and sucked in a deep breath. "I've been planning an escape. Well, trying to at best. It's just been hard to do so as I don't know my way around this place. It's all changed from what I knew, and now that Severus and Sirius-" She sighed in aggravation.

"You don't think you're the only one planning escape do you?" Phil had a laugh to his voice. "It's risky to even think about, it doing it alone is even riskier. C'mon. Put the cat down and lets go get something to eat. There's people you should meet."

Hermione refused to lower Crookshanks and he happily remained purring as she stood, adjusting his arms to her shoulder, digging his nose into her ear. She kissed him relentlessly and followed Phil out of the small room.