Chapter 9: Same Place, Different People

Hermione's first day of classes remained to be one of the most bizarre experiences of her life. This was saying something considering that she had broken into Gringotts and escaped on the back of a dragon! It was like she had walked into an alternate dimension where everything was the same, but they swapped the colours around. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had.

She woke up in a familiar room filled with strangers, proceeded to eat with said strangers and then go about her day like normal, but with completely different faces than usual. Thankfully the class contents were the same, or she might have lost the plot.

She kept to herself mostly, just smiling benignly when her friends noticed that she had chosen to do 9 NEWTs (even more than Lily and Remus). Then she patiently waited whilst these new people explained facets of her castle that she had known for years, dragging her around behind them.

Hermione spent the majority of her time intentionally pretending that she knew less than she did. During her time in the future, it appeared that the curriculum had quite a bit more content, which was probably due to the reforms made after the first war. She found that the majority of stuff she was learning was actually taught to her by Harry in her fifth year, with the assumption she worked silently as well. Furthermore she had had a year whilst camping and rigorous training from a skilled auror to sharpen her skills. If she were cockier, she would say that first year auror training would have also been attainable.

Luckily, she had at least one Gryffindor friend to sit with in each class and managed to not get too bored. She fully woke up, however when she stepped into Potions and realised that all of her other friends had already paired up. With the war approaching it seemed that everyone realised the importance of the subject, and therefore everyone was there, and had naturally fallen into their old partnerships.

Hermione shook off the offer to swap with one of them and instead sank into an empty seat. Just as the class was about to begin, the other chair at the table became occupied by none other than her old Professor, and it wasn't Lupin. She noticed how the other Gryffindors stiffened and decided to intervene, but by that time Slughorn had begun to talk.

17 year old Severus Snape was actually very similar to the middle aged one from the future. His long black hair remained flat and greasy and when he turned his head to regard his new partner, his trademark sneer also reappeared. Although the regulation Hogwarts robes prohibited him somewhat, he still gave off the aura of a giant bat.

Distracted by side eying the boy who would one day murder Dumbledore, she completely missed the task they were set and was surprised to hear Snape talk to her. "You can get the ingredients while I set up the equipment." He droned in a very similar way to how he would teach. When she continued to stare vacantly, he started to walk away, shaking his head and sighing.

"If you really are as useless as you look then just copy down the instructions while I get on with it. We're brewing the draught of living death again."

Feeling affronted by his tone and rude comments she jumped to her feet to get the ingredients, well aware that this was a pivotal moment if she wanted to secure his trust in the future. Not that he deserved it, the insufferable bastard.

She soon returned after dodging the concerned looks of the Marauders and heaped the equipment onto the desk. When he reached across her to begin the potion, she none too kindly smacked his hands away and set out preparing the ingredients. Clearly surprised by this action he continued to goad her, "If you wanted to bother reading the instructions they're on page 7." He paused, "Assuming you can read?"

She paused her dicing to look up and glare at him, he chuckled and snatched up a pestle and mortar. When they had finished preparing the ingredients, he lit the cauldron, added the Infusion of Wormwood and then tipped in Powdered Root of Asphodel. Whilst she began stirring it, she noticed Snape take out the Sopophorous bean and sought to annoy him further.

"Don't cut it, crush it, or we'll be here for hours," this seemed to get the desired effect.

"Ah she speaks! I was beginning to think you were deaf as well as dumb." She surreptitiously looked to his hands where he was about to do something equally stupid and smiled, as if saying I'm the dumb one am I? He scowled, "I knew that by the way, I was only testing you."

She huffed and he sneered, " Actually, that's not very common knowledge, did you get your brains from Dumbledore or did you just learn to be an insufferable know it all from experience?" Wow. It's almost like being in his class again during first year.

"We're not related by blood." She bit out, " I was adopted after a death in the family." All my family are gone thanks to you. A snide voice seethed in her head.

This shut him up for a second as they continued working on the potion. "I'm sorry for your loss." He said almost so quietly that she missed it, causing her head to whip to the side, accidentally yanking the ladle out of the cauldron.

"Steady on, you almost took my eye out!" He grabbed it and took over mixing, "You may be decent at potions but that doesn't mean you can get complacent and start coating me in them instead."

Hermione snorted out a chuckle and was surprised to see the corners of Snape's mouth twitch in response. What was happening? First an almost complement and then a smile, she must have inhaled too many potion fumes and was now hallucinating. She shook her head to clear her thoughts.

They spent the rest of the lesson in a companionable silence while occasionally discussing aspects of the recipe and improvements they would make. Funnily enough, Hermione actually found herself enjoying the experience, feeling content, rather than on edge trying to contain her secret. If Harry and Ron could see her now!

When the lesson ended, Snape left with a friendly incline of the head, leaving her to get accosted outside by the Marauders. "What was that?" Sirius began, as soon as Snape was out of earshot.

"What do you mean? I was just getting on with the potion, wasn't that what I was meant to be doing?" She feigned innocence to their feud.

"You were enjoying yourself with him!" Peter butt in, trying to get across to her that that was not normal.

Instead she frowned, "And? I enjoy potions, I've already told you that."

"But you were talking with him, and smiling." James told her as if accusing her of running over his cat.

"I don't understand. We both enjoy potions, we were talking about potions and making a potion together. I don't see what the problem is, I like him." Hermione was amazed at how easily that last part had fallen out of her mouth, realising it was true.

"Sorry Hermione but he's bad news," Remus interjected as a voice of reason, "He hangs out with some really cruel guys and often picks on people."

"Yeah, he's probably only hanging out with you to use you or to bring you down later." Sirius added.

"Well," she replied, annoyed that they didn't believe her to be capable of finding that out for herself, even if she knew it was true already. "I haven't seen or heard about that yet, and even if it is true, then it's up to me to find out. I'm a big girl, I promise. Either way, I like him at the moment and I'm paired with him in potions. Why make my life more unpleasant by ignoring him?"

"On your head be it then" James replied, "You better get used to him seeing as we have Defence Against The Dark Arts now and we're in with the Slytherins again."

The Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher this year was a middle aged man called Professor Cribb, who was a pureblood wizard and ex auror. Although she was hesitant to meet the man, he appeared friendly and did not appear to have any affiliations with dark magic, unlike some of her previous teachers.

She decided to sit at the front with Remus and quickly got out her parchment and quills whilst discussing this year's curriculum. The class soon settled down and the Professor began by announcing himself, making it very clear that he was only planning to stay a year, lest the curse kill him off or something. Hermione rolled her eyes because she had long believed the curse to be nonsense; a combination of coincidence and fear causing the increased number of teachers to disappear.

To Hermione's dread, he had decided that their first lesson back would contain a series of duels to assess where they needed the most help. Determined to make the lesson fun, the man then suggested that they make it into a tournament after a few practice rounds. She originally turned to Remus to begin, but the professor then added in the clause of dueling their classmates from other houses instead. So much for inter house unity!

After they had moved the tables and chairs aside and cleared the room, they were paired off. The first couple of Slytherins she encountered were incredibly cocky and arrogant and it pained her greatly to give up a couple duels to make it seem like she was worse than them. But with the time it gave her, she was able to watch how everyone else was faring.

Thankfully, the Marauders were all pretty good, which didn't really surprise her considering their future career paths. Peter on the other hand wasn't very self-confident and kept making silly mistakes, causing him to throw the majority of his duels. Hermione felt an unpleasant twist in her stomach when she noticed how the boys that she knew would become Death Eaters managed to win the majority of their matches. No doubt that they had had practice. In her perusal she noticed the eyes of her new professor staring back at her as if saying I know what you are doing.

Suddenly the tournament was beginning and she was facing her first opponent. The girl in question had a sneer on her face and a cold look in her eye so Hermione had no problem swiftly dealing with her with a verbal stunning spell. After all, non verbal spells whilst dueling were very difficult to perfect and the first lesson exploring them was planned to happen next week.

At this point, half the class had been eliminated and Hermione thought it best to give up this round because if she got into the third, fourth or final round, she would be noticed. Of the sixteen people that remained, there were more Gryffindors than Slytherins and so she was paired with Sirius. He smiled and gave her a salacious smile, "I'll go easy on you darling,"

She rolled her eyes and dreaded the teasing that would surely follow her gracious defeat. However, she suddenly noticed an odd pair across the room. Lily and Snape were standing across from each other, looking in different directions whilst waiting for the teacher to start the duels. In a small move, Snape turned to look at the girl again, and the look of such abject longing and pain on his face stumped Hermione.

Harry had told her that they had been friends and had fallen out, but to see that look directed at just a fellow classmate was unlikely. If she didn't know any better, Hermione would say that he looked like he loved her. The agony in his eyes suggested that his feelings were not reciprocated. She suddenly remembered the reason why they had fallen out, and was even more confused as to why he still loved her. How could this man have joined the monster that he knew would one day seek out to destroy Lily and everyone like her? And then do the same to her son that she died to protect?

Sidetracked as she was, Hermione didn't notice the whistle that marked the start of the duels, and therefore the stupefy that preceded out of Sirius's wand. Unable to stop the instinctive, knee jerk response that had been battered into her all summer, she swiftly put up a wordless shield spell and fired back a wordless Expelliarmus. By the time she had caught his wand and regarded the crumpled wizard before her, she had realised her error in securing that win - it had only taken her about three seconds.

Hermione looked around to see if anyone had noticed her and only saw her professor, who looked surprised but evidently pleased, considering the wide grin that had spread across his face. Hermione groaned at her mistake and went to Enervate Sirius, thankful that no one else had witnessed her blunder.

Upon realising the manner in which he had been taken down, Sirius looked up at Hermione's grimacing form. "How did you do that? We haven't even been taught to do that yet." After looking around to see the majority of the room was still dueling, he looked back at her with wide eyes, "Where the hell did you learn to do wordless spells like that, and to take me down so quickly?"

She fumbled for a credible response and garbled out a reply about Beauxbatons class curriculum being a bit more complex, but it was obvious that Sirius didn't believe her. "How did your family die?" He interrupted, uncaring of the way he addressed her. Hermione's face went stark white as she was hit by the surprise question. Thoughts of how to get out of this situation and the images of her friends and family lying dead clouded and mixed up her mind and she found herself speechless.

Although he was obviously still suspicious, Sirius let it drop and apologized for asking, stepping away from her and shaking his hair out of his eyes. By this point, the rest of the room had finished and the 8 left for the next round were Lily, Remus, James and her, along with 4 other Slytherins that she didn't recognize. It seemed that Snape could not face defeating Lily and was now standing brooding against one wall.

With a shudder, Hermione realised that the boy she was facing looked incredibly similar to the man who had given her the scar that took up almost the entire expanse of her chest. Dolohov grinned cruelly, and she resolved herself to throw this fight in such a way that he would not think her a threat. Or, her eyes widened in horror, become obsessed with her again.

During the short duel that followed, she threw up only defensive spells and her opponent managed to put her out of action in only a minute. His spells appeared harmless, but with the strength that he cast them with, she was left breathless and with a suspected bruised rib. The way that she didn't react to this and how he suspected she was not trying that hard seemed to incense him, which didn't really help with her intention to be inconspicuous.

She sat against one wall for the rest of the tournament and watched her classmates fight, and they were pretty poor to be honest. Remus had also been eliminated in her round along with the two other Slytherins. James and Lily swapped partners before beating them, which left them fighting each other in the finale.

Lily rolled her eyes as James pretended to argue that he could not fight Lily, claiming that she was the winner by default. Hemione couldn't help but assume that this had happened before, but Lily had had enough, "Fight me properly or I will never talk to you again, let alone date you," This slip of the tongue stopped his arguments pretty damn quickly.

"So you've considered it then?" He picked up on, Hermione smiled when she saw Lily's cheeks colour slightly pink, but she remained silent. "Will you if I win? Go to the next Hogsmeade weekend with me I mean?"

"So for beating me and possibly hurting me, your reward would be getting stuck on a date with me? You realise how ridiculous you sound right?"

"Even if you were grumpy with me for beating you, or beating me with some crutches, it would still be time well spent, because I'd be with you," He whispered to her, although the rest of the class could still hear, causing people to either snort with derision or sigh at the romantic notion. Hermione belonged to the former group.

"Crutches! Wow. You not only plan to defeat me and then prolong my torture by having to spend more time with you. But you also plan to maim the girl you like so fully that she ends up on crutches!"

"I was obviously joking…" came a small response before Professor Cribb called the class to order and began the duel. Unsurprisingly, James was still hung up on the previous conversation and Lily used this to her advantage when she defeated the tall boy. He looked quite bashful when he went to join his friends whilst Lily was grinning ear to ear, which softened the blow somewhat.

Whilst the Gryffindors were caught up congratulating Lily or commiserating with James, they failed to notice the angry glares of the Slytherins, preoccupied by being bested by a girl, and worse still, a Mudblood.