Chapter 2
Emerging much later from amongst the many tomes, Hermione glanced at her watch and was shocked to discover that it was long past the 9 o'clock curfew. How on earth did it get to be three in the morning? She wondered wildly. Ancient Runes was first class today… She abruptly ended that thought, not yet ready to think about Ancient Runes and the events of the morning. Another thought quickly replaced it. Harry and Ron were probably waiting for her, tired and worried.She had to leave her sanctuary.
She rose to grab her bag and her school robes, which she had long ago cast off, and determined to think about anything but her parents, she found herself wondering whether Malfoy had been trying to get into the Room all day; she almost smirked as she imagined his frustration. Not for the first time in the past week (since his and Harry's "confrontation" in the toilets) she wondered whether Malfoy truly was a Death Eater, a train of thought that was consistently chased by mixed feelings of revulsion and pity. She brushed the pointless musings from her mind though, and after taking a last look at the photos on the wall, she walked bravely out the door—and directly into a girl, a girl she didn't recognize, with long, red hair and bright, currently shocked, emerald eyes.
"You're out after curfew," the girl said, overcoming her surprise.
Hermione noted the red head's Prefect badge with confusion. A Prefect herself, Hermione knew each of the other Prefects by name and face; this girl was not one of them. She frowned in confusion. "Well, I realize, I'd just lost track of time—I was reading, you see—I certainly never meant to be out of my dormitory until three in morning!"
I may not recognize this girl, Hermione thought, brushing aside thoughts of imposters and Voldemort (it would hardly do to become paranoid), but surely she knows who I am. I'm the best friend of Harry-bloody-Potter after all. And if she knows who I am, then she surely must know how stringently — Well, I don't really tend to adhere to rules much at all, I suppose, but I certainly have the reputation of doing so!
The girl paused in her skeptical examination of the now blank wall behind Hermione, to look at her in confusion. "It's only 10 o'clock."
Hermione glanced down at her watch, which currently read 3:21. Strange… It was right this morning… But perhaps the charm is wearing off.
"At any rate, I'm not sure who you are, which means you must be new to the school, so I won't take any—"
"New?" Hermione interrupted incredulously. Clearly she'd overestimated her celebrity status.
"You are in Gryffindor, aren't you?" the girl asked, gesturing to the robe in Hermione's arms.
"Yes, I am…" Hermione replied, nodding slowly.
"So am I," began the girl in a tone that Hermione would recognize anywhere—it was the same one she used when answering questions in class. "I have been for six years now, and I've definitely never seen you before—so it's fairly obvious that you're new."
"Oh," Hermione said blankly, beginning to feel that something had gone terribly wrong. Perhaps I'm dreaming, she mused. Then, more eagerly, Maybe this has all just been an awful dream and my parents are—
"Well, I'm Lily Evans, a sixth year prefect." Hermione's thoughts froze and her eyes darted from the girl's eyes, to her hair, and down to her outstretched hand, which she shook dazedly.
Lily Evans… Lily Evans… Lily. Evans… Oh Merlin this can't be real! But it clearly was, and her best friend's dead mother was looking at her expectantly. "Oh!" She blinked furiously, trying to come to terms with what was happening. "I'm Hermione… And yes, I suppose I am new." She tried to say it like a joke, but there was definitely a very audible question mark at the end of the statement. She winced internally.
Lily looked at her curiously for a moment, but then apparently decided to ignore Hermione's evident insanity. "Well, Hermione," she said, falling into the "Perfect Prefect" role Hermione knew only too well, "you'll absolutely love it here at Hogwarts! What year are you in?"
"Sixth," Hermione replied absently. Her mind was whirring with the attempt at deciphering her situation, but no matter which way she looked at it, the thing was entirely impossible. Which left only one option... "I need to see Professor Dumbledore," she said suddenly, shocking Lily with the urgency in her voice. Was he Headmaster yet? Her frantic mind couldn't remember. "Please, could you take me to his office? It's very important that I speak with him."
"I— Well, I suppose so," Lily replied hesitantly, clearly trying to determine whether it would be better Prefect Practice to send Hermione to the Gryffindor Tower instead. "It's this way."
"I'm not sure what the password is. Do you know?" Lily asked, with a dubious expression, when they arrived at the familiar gargoyle.
Hermione suspected she'd be able to guess that password once Lily was gone and so she nodded, wondering what she would do if Lily wouldn't leave. "Er, yeah, thanks for leaving your patrolling to help me find it!" she said as cheerily as she could, hoping a reminder of her Prefect duties would have Lily rushing off to her task. Hermione inwardly smiled in satisfaction when she wasn't disappointed.
"Oh, no problem at all!" Lily replied, "I really have to finish my patrol though, so if you're certain you'll be alright getting up…?" Hermione nodded hastily. "Well, I'll see you around then, Hermione." With a little wave she was off down the hall, and as soon as she had rounded the corner, Hermione turned determinedly to the gargoyle.
"Lemon drops!"
"Cauldron Cakes!"
"Mars bars!"
"Acid Pops!"
"Cockroach Clusters!"
"Pumpkin Pasties!"
Her shoulders nearly sagged with relief as the gargoyle allowed her entrance and she wondered idly whether he didn't start repeating passwords somewhere down the line—surely there weren't that many different sweets...
She reached the top of the spiral staircase and knocked nervously on the door, which swung open almost immediately.
"Good evening, Miss—?" Professor Dumbledore asked calmly and politely, as though late night intrusions were a common thing for him.
"Granger, sir, Hermione Granger."
"Miss Granger, then. To what do I owe your presence?"
"I—" Hermione broke off, feeling lost as she gazed at a slightly younger, uninjured version of her headmaster. Then, hesitantly, "Sir, what is the year?" To Hermione's surprise, the headmaster smiled in apparent understanding. She absently noted a brief rustling of the portraits around them.
"Ah," he said, as though she had just explained everything. "It is Wednesday, the third of September, of the year 1976, and the time is roughly 10:30 in the evening." His voice was dreadfully cheerful considering the situation, and Hermione was at a loss as to how to respond; her mind was reeling slightly from the realization that, entirely unbelievable as it may have been, she truly was 20 years in the past—a supposedly impossible feat.
"Sir," she began, after a silence in which Albus watched her both patiently and expectantly. "Sir, I'm not sure I at all understand…" She trailed off, unsure of how to encompass the full breadth and depth of her confusion in any amount of words.
Here she was, somehow mysteriously landed years in the past, and Professor Dumbledore was acting as though it weren't in direct violation of about a hundred laws—some of them being laws of nature and of magic, not just those of the Wizengamot. This was something that, in spite of the beliefs of certain conspiracy theorists, the Unspeakables hadn't appeared to even be trying to do—at least not in her fifth year. On top of that, she'd had a downright awful day, and her brain was all foggy, and the concept of attempting to tackle her current situation seemed eons beyond daunting. She later counted herself lucky in that the matter of how to get back to her own time hadn't yet entered her mind; she might've had a full-blown mental breakdown otherwise.
"Miss Granger," said Professor Dumbledore comfortingly, "rest assured that you are not the first to travel decades into the past. I am curious to know, however, through which room did you come?"
This, at least, was something she knew, though the knowledge gave her absolutely no comfort or clarity. "The Room of Requirement, sir."
"Ah, yes, as I suspected. Perhaps I should explain?"
Hermione resisted a powerful urge to roll her eyes, or possibly scream, and instead just nodded.
"Hogwarts, as you are perhaps aware, is a semi-sentient being—it has some semblance of awareness."
Hermione nodded. "Yes, sir. Much like the Sorting Hat, but on a significantly broader scope, and with the ability to perform certain feats of magic. The Room of Requirement is a particularly exemplary example of this." Hogwarts a History said as much and more.
"Precisely so—an excellent summary, Miss Granger." She blushed at the compliment as he continued on. "Much as the Sorting Hat gives warnings to the school in times of need, the castle will conspire to help the students, rearranging in order to bring certain individuals together and so on. In very rare cases the castle has been known to directly interfere in the timeline by sending a student to a time in the past when it seems to feel that he or she will be best able to change things for the better.
"Hogwarts' history is littered, lightly, with these appearances—we don't document them, of course," he added hastily, and she closed her mouth on her protest. "Yes, indeed. Each one has come at a time of some significance, from a time which was… Let us say 'less than satisfactory,' shall we?" He paused. "You are the third thus far."
Hermione's mind filtered through this information, finally settling on a single, terrifying thought. "To change things, sir? Is such a thing possible? Or even right? What if I were to cause some sort of apocalyptic mistake!?" She was beginning to feel a bit hysterical. "Professor McGonagall told me! In my third year when I got the Time Turner! 'You must not be seen!' Besides," she exclaimed, calming slightly at her realization. "Harry and I went back to save… someone… and we did, but we hadn't changed anything—in the original timeline Harry had even seen himself! It's the Time Paradox! The future can't be altered." Rather than feeling triumph at this conclusion, however, she merely felt a bit let down, as thoughts of all the people that she could save ran through her mind.
"An excellent argument of course, however, I'm afraid it's only partly correct. You felt no sense of compulsion to act as you did whilst in the past, did you?" He peered inquisitively at her over his half-moon glasses, and she shook her head.
"No, sir, but what—"
He raised his hand to pause her question. "The greatest power we are given as wizards is one that we share also with muggles and with squibs. This is the power of choice. We always have a choice. Miss Granger, you and your friend Harry could have done things any infinite number of ways. In fact, you may very well have changed things in some unnoticeable way. Certainly, I presume, someone would not have been saved had you not Turned, as you did."
Hermione quickly realized that this made quite a bit of good—if not mind-boggling—sense. "Those others then, the two that have come before me, did they succeed?" she asked, almost fearful of the answer.
"Alas, I cannot say," he replied regretfully, "I was never privy to the details of the first's timeline, and the second chose, instead, to return to her own. Both instances were long before I became headmaster, of course."
Hermione gripped the seat of her chair tightly as the full realization of her situation hit her. What if she'd been trapped here? "I can go back?" she asked, eager to confirm. "I can go home to Harry and Ron?"
Albus' benevolent smile returned to his previously serious face. "Most certainly! The castle would not force you here against your will; it has merely given you an opportunity, a choice."
A flood of relief began to sweep through her until, "A choice? Do you mean that I must choose between changing the future, and going back to it?"
"Alas, my child, yes," he replied gravely, "a weighty decision to rest on the shoulders of one so young."
Hermione nodded absently. Choose between saving Harry—giving him the life he deserved—and going back to him and everyone else she knew? Admittedly, it was a dreadful decision to have to make, but really not much of a choice... The panic began to fade as her mind settled into the task of analyzing the situation. Soon though, she came to the question that a character in one of her favourite series of fantasy novels asked repeatedly: Why me?
"You say the castle chose me, sir?"
"Quite so, Miss Granger. It starts with the conviction that things are happening wrongly, and a deep desire to right them, but the castle chooses only those it feels are worthy of the task."
Hermione's mind flitted back to fifth year. It's like Hogwarts wants us to fight back! A strange, empty feeling welled up inside of her along with a sense of resolve. "How long do I have to think about this?" she asked in as business-like a tone as she could manage after her rollercoaster of a day.
"As long as you like, essentially," he said a bit vaguely. "As long as nothing drastic occurs that will meaningfully affect the timeline, you are able to leave. I will caution you though, the more time that is passed in thought, the less time there remains for action."
She nodded her acknowledgement. "You said that it's Wednesday?" Professor Dumbledore inclined his head in affirmation. "Then might I return to you Friday with my decision?" she asked, as though negotiating a company deadline.
"Certainly you may," he replied kindly, "so long as you feel prepared to give it."
Hermione nodded once more. "Thank you, sir, for being so straightforward with me. I have just one further question before I go." She paused in apprehension; the question was one that she had been searching avidly for an answer to for quite some time—the entire school year, in fact—and if anyone would know the answer, it would be this man. "Do you know of a curse that causes flesh to char and die, to become resistant to all healing and regeneration?"
"I do." Albus replied simply. His voice held a question, but she ignored it.
She hesitated only a moment, but when she spoke her voice shook slightly. "Is this curse fatal, sir? Even if isolated in the afflicted limb?" The expression on his face allowed her no time for trepidation, and was enough to confirm her dreadful suspicions.
"I'm afraid it is, Miss Granger. Who—"
"You, sir," she interrupted quietly, trying to keep the anger and resentment out of her voice. He should have told him. Harry should have been told, she thought in a mix of fury and sadness. The portraits lining the walls began whispering furiously amongst themselves, and Albus' gaze became piercing for a just moment—the only sign of alarm that he permitted to show. Hermione ignored it, rising from her seat. "If you don't mind, sir, I think I'll return to the Room of Requirement now."
"Not at all, Miss Granger. Do let me know when you have chosen." His voice was again cheerful.
"I will see you Friday, sir," she replied firmly, moving toward the door. "Goodnight, Professor."
"Goodnight. Oh and, Miss Granger?"
She paused. "Headmaster?"
"Thank you for being straightforward and honest with me as well." She smiled tightly at him and shut the door.
