-x-{X}-x-

Time Twisters

-x-{X}-x-


FULL SUMMARY

[TimeTravel - Dramione] Narcissa wonders if her brother feels guilty wearing black for Bella's funeral, considering he orchestrated her death. Lily cannot ignore her little sister's smile, as Rabastan Lestrange convulses in the dirt, mouth gaped in a silent scream. Dumbledore observes the unexpected friendship between Draco Black and Hermione Evans, and flinches each time he hears the blood drip from their joined hands.

{Time always collects its toll. This spin, the cost was the twisting of their very souls}

After two years of a horrifically bloody war, a desperate batch of remaining Order members partake in a Dark Ritual. It's an attempt to dial back time, to return before Voldemort's resurrection during the Triwizard Tournament… only their plan goes terribly wrong. Hermione awakes as the younger sister of Lily Evans, Draco awakes as the youngest child of Cygnus Black, and the others...

Well, the others don't wake up at all.

SHORT SUMMARY

Narcissa ignores the sharp smile her little brother wears after Bella's funeral, in the same way that Lily ignores the ravenous gaze her little sister aims towards Knockturn Alley. However, Albus Dumbledore cannot ignore the friendship between Draco Black and Hermione Evans, not when he hears the blood dripping from their joined hands. {TimeTravel}{DRAMIONE}{Marauder's Era}

DISCLAIMER

If I owned Harry Potter, I would not have five figures worth of student debt slowly sucking away my happiness. Honestly, student loans are essentially the Muggle equivalent of a dementor. This is all just a very roundabout and verbose way of saying J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter, and I unfortunately, do not.

MAIN PAIRING

Hermione x Draco [Dramione]

BACKGROUND PAIRINGS/ OTHER RELATIONSHIPS

Lily x James, Ted x Andromeda, Frank x Alice, Sirius x [reviewer's decide!], Remus x [reviewer's decide]. I am open to other pairings, feel free to suggest/ vote for your favs in a review ;)


IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hermione's name does NOT stay Rose, and is quickly changed back to Hermione. This change is explained in the first chapter. Also, I've changed the admitting age of Hogwarts to twelve instead of eleven for first year. I've done this so I can incorporate romance earlier.


Relative ages during Hogwarts years:

Previously Graduated: Prewett Twins, Molly Prewett, Arthur Weasley

Just Graduated: Bellatrix Black, Lucius Malfoy, Rodolphus Lestrange [note: Petunia is also in this age group, but obviously not a Hogwarts student]

Seventh Year: Rabastan Lestrange

Sixth Year: Andromeda Black and Ted Tonks

Fifth Year: Narcissa Black and Frank Longbottom

Fourth Year: Marauders, Lily Evans, Severus Snape, Alice Greengrass [future Alice Longbottom], Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadowes.

Third Year: Regulus Black

Hermione and Draco: You'll see ;)


-x-{X}-x-

Time Twisters

-x-{X}-x-


"Awful things happen to wizards who meddle with time, Harry."

~ Hermione Granger, Prisoner of Azkaban.


Chapter 1

Three Flowers, Three Sisters


Lily's little sister is a sharp thing...


At only seven years old, Lily meets fear for the first time. Her little sister, Rose, quietly facilitates the introduction. Sweet little Rose, who Petunia lives to spoil, and who eagerly chases behind Lily and Severus at the park. Silly little Rose, who giggles brightly when Petunia dresses her up in fake jewels for Sunday tea time, and who firmly insists on calling mustard, "mooserd."

Sweet little Rose, who is only five years old, but who the doctors say is going to die.

"So sorry…really sick… unwell... idiopathic etiology…uncontrollable fever… seizure activity… refractory to all treatments… done all we can... intractably comatose… deteriorating respiratory function… rapid decline… unlikely to survive the night…"

Lily stares wide-eyed, not comprehending the large words thrown at her parents by the weary bespeckled man in the long white coat. Her mind and soul refuse to register the mortality of her little sister until Lily hears a harsh thud. To her right, her mother collapses onto the linoleum floor, loudly wailing into her father's arms. Lily sees a flash of blonde hair and scrawny limbs to her left before Petunia is punching clenched fists into the tall doctor's side, and then rabidly clawing at his white coat, shouting.

"Liar! You're a liar! You were supposed to save her! How can you let her die! You have to save her! Please! Please you have to save her, she's my sister!"

The tired man looks more than a little heartbroken, and Lily kind of hates him for it. This doctor doesn't know that Rose likes Saturday morning honey and cinnamon pancakes more than anything in the world, or that Rose has a stuffed purple stag named Hornby that she sleeps with every night. This man in the white coat won't have to wake up every morning after tomorrow to find an empty bottom bunk where his little sister should be softly snoring. This man couldn't save her, he doesn't get to be sad.

"You can spend the night here, of course, to say goodbye. I'll make sure none of the staff make a fuss over it."

Lily's cheeks are sticky and her throat clogs up, but she doesn't burst into tears until she feels herself being pulled into a family hug by her parents and Petunia. Then, with an eerie stillness and harsh silence she won't ever be able to forget, they trickle out of the little room with the overused couches and stupidly colourful pictures. ('Were they drawn by the other dead kids that the white coats couldn't save?')

Her mother collapses into tears again when they enter Rose's hospital room, looking upon an unfamiliar version of Lily's little sister: a silent wraith clothed in a sweat-drenched hospital gown, with at least four lines of tubes in her arms, and a misty breathing mask over half her face. Her father cajoles their mom out of the room, leaving three sisters inside the four bleached walls.

('Soon to be two...')

"They don't know what they're saying, of course. They're stupid, I tell you. Stupid people with utterly stupid thoughts. Not one functioning brain between the lot of them, Lily." Petunia hisses, voice nasally from snot. Lily's older sister then stomps up to the bed, all gumption and certainty. "You gotta keep breathing, okay, Rosie?" Petunia softly whisper-demands to the nearly still thing that was once their bouncing little sister. "You're my sister. You'll get through this. You won't-" Petunia's voice breaks, and Lily's older sister takes a deep breath. "You will not die. I'm going to stay right here and I'm not going to let you leave. You understand?"

Rose doesn't answer. She doesn't even open her eyes. There is just the beep beep beep of monitors and the garbled whoosh of air sliding through the mask. Petunia grips the limp hand of their little sister tenderly, chapped lips pressed tight together. Lily steps up towards them, and takes Petunia's other hand. Lily's throat feels too tight, but she forces the words out anyways.

"We'll both be here, Rosie," Lily murmurs. "We'll both be right here beside you until you wake up." Her voice cracks. "You just, you gotta wake up, okay?"

-x-{X}-x-

The doctors end up being wrong. Petunia ends up being right.

Rose doesn't die.

Dawn creeps into the room, chasing Rose's fever away. In the morning a new lady in a white coat comes, calls herself a pediatric neurologist ("a brain doctor, in simpler words. I'm here to do another assessment on your sister.") The prim-looking lady scribbles some notes on a well-used paper pad as their dad answers all her questions with red-webbed eyes. The straight-backed lady nods crisply at multiple points, then summarily announces to the Evans family that Rose probably won't die, but she won't wake up either.

"You'll have some tough decisions to make in the coming days. She is sick and in a lot of pain," she pauses. "It may be more merciful to... help her passing."

This time, it's Lily who nearly claws off the white coat's face.

"How dare you!" Lily screams. 'How dare they say Rose won't wake? How dare they try to tell them to give up on her. Rose Evans is a fighter. Rose Evans will wake up. Rose Evans is too good to die. She is five, and little, and likes cherry pops, and she is going to wake up.'

And by some miracle, Rose does.

In the middle of the sixth night of this nightmare of beeping buttons and sterile smells, Rose's brown eyes burst open, and Lily is so unbearably happy for a moment – but just a moment – because after the five-year-old awakens, Rose starts wailing. She shakes and sobs uncontrollably, weakly pulling at the lines that have become makeshift restraints, repeating "ache" and "oh" until the nurse barges in through the door and pushes a syringe of thick medication through one of the many tubes in Rose's arm.

"It'll help with the pain, but it will make her sleepy again," the nurse tells their parents.

The staff at Cokeworth General run pages and pages of tests during the next month Rose stays in hospital, trying to figure out what happened to her. ("Medical miracle... retained full cerebral function... no deficits despite the seizure burden... anomaly... case study... no answer yet... get to the bottom of it... interdisciplinary team... no answers yet... expert panel... no consensus... exceeding rehab expectations.") For all the poking and prodding, they never find an answer. And in the meantime, Lily, Petunia, and their parents spend every moment in the small four-walled room, cringing every time Rose closes her eyes to sleep.

('Will she open them again?')

Rose doesn't talk much during her hospital admission, and talks even less after she is discharged with a rainbow sticker and apple-flavoured lollipop ("Oh no, she only likes the cherry lollies," Petunia had said to the nurse who offered the sweet. Rose, however, had simply taken the green sucker and mumbled a quiet thank you.) Rose becomes, well, reclusive in a way. She stops following Lily to the park, and nearly rips off Petunia's arms when asked to play dress up.

And she has… outbursts.

The first outburst comes only two evenings after her discharge. She clears her throat the way adults like to do, from her seat at the dinner table, and announces she plans to get her first name changed formally from Rose to Hermione.

Their parents are shocked still for more than a moment, but their mom recovers first. The Evans matriarch carefully places a hand over Rose's smaller one. "Oh but Rosie, your name is a lovely name. Why on earth would you want to change it?"

"Rose Evans died. I'm Hermione now."

And even though Lily knows Rose isn't dead, her little sister's chilling tone certainly suggests it.

Their parents – of course – deny her. Initially. But then, Rose wails and screams and, "if you loved me you'd do this. Don't you love me at all?!" Lily's parents, unable to stomach their youngest's unhappiness so close to having nearly lost the five-year-old, give in to her ridiculous demands. Hermione Rose Evans, is the compromise. 'What bollocks,' thinks Lily, that evening as she flips her pillow and tightly embraces the worn cotton. 'Rose Evans is Rosie's name, and it's a name that fits.'

Petunia, Lily, Rose; three flowers, three sisters. But Hermione shears through their connections with unerring precision, and a cold ambivalence.

The decision to change names is especially strange since Rose (Hermione) didn't fit in other ways. Lily looked like her mother, but had her father's eyes. Petunia looked like her father with their Nanna's sharp nose, blue eyes, and high cheekbones (or so Papa claimed). But Rosie? She looked like no one. No one had curly dark brown hair, or olive toned skin. No one had brown freckles or a pert nose.

Lily is seven when she first asks Petunia what the word bastard means (because she heard Grandmother Evans angrily hiss the word at Hermione when the older woman had thought no one else was in the room.)

-x-{X}-x-

Lily and Ros-Hermione share a bedroom, with a steel-framed bunk bed that squeaks whenever Lily climbs up to her half, and creaks whenever Lily searches for the coolness of the other side of the pillow. Before the hospital, the noisy bed was the loudest thing at night in the sisters' shared room.

After the hospital, Ro-Hermione starts to shake and scream and even cry in her sleep. Her parents and Petunia run in more than once, only to have R-Hermione screech at them to leave her alone, tossing the covers over herself in what would be a pretty amusing burrito (if it weren't for the terrified whimpering and shaky breathing). Out of necessity, Lily learns to sleep through the turbulence. Out of care, she starts to catalogue the names and words she can make out from her little sister's nonsensical mutterings.

Feeling particularly brave one morning, Lily tries to get some answers. "Who's Harry?"

Somehow, their room stays silent the nights after that.

-x-{X}-x-

"STOP IT!"

Lily ducks. Hornby flies by her face and crashes into the lamp shade, the fixture holding its balance for an impressive second before wobbling and toppling over the desk, sucking the light from the room as shards of glass spray across the floor.

"I said stop. Stop looking at me!"

Despite the darkness, Lily can still make out the silhouette of the beast in the body of her little sister, as the creature pulls at its brown curls with both hands while shaking its head back and forth. Lily wonders if Hermione realizes that Hornby lies limp, impaled by the broken lamp. (Rosie would have.)

"I hate it, I hate your eyes!"

Lily stops even looking at Hermione too much after that outburst. That time… that time was the second time her little sister introduced Lily to fear.

-x-{X}-x-

"She's… wild now," Lily whispers to Severus, three weeks after Hermione's discharge. "She's... unpredictable." Dangerous. Lily runs her hands through the blades of grass, shivering even though it's a warm afternoon. "I'm worried she could hurt herself." And maybe even… maybe even others too. "Mum and dad… I think they might send her away to Nanna and Papa." I think she frightens them too.

Severus sighs from his position beside the oak tree. "Maybe it's for the best, Lily." His face turns grim. "Remember that time you guys found her with the rat?"

Lily finches, blinking away the red fingers and empty eyes and smell of Petunia's puke and the sound of her mother's tears and the despondent, "I needed to make sure he wasn't spying, I didn't mean to hurt him."

Severus's next words pull Lily from the memory. "I think she needs more help than you can give her here."

-x-{X}-x-

The Evans' Family Night used to be much anticipated and much loved by the entire group. But, that was before it's focus changed from laughter and games, and instead became a careful ploy of her well-intentioned parents to unsubtly push Hermione towards their oldest daughter. Poor Petunia, who had been more heartbroken over their baby sister's change than any of them.

(Because as much as Petunia would never break Lily's heart by admitting it, Lily had always known Rose to be the sister Petunia loved most.)

"Come on then Rosie, we can beat the rest of them at charades this time, don't you think? Just like we used to?"

"That's not my name."

Petunia tuts. "Don't be daft, Rosie, of course it is."

Lily shakes her head, and pities how desperately Petunia clings to the memory of the girl their little sister used to be. Hermione doesn't eat honey and cinnamon pancakes, doesn't eat sweets at all. Hermione speaks properly, and doesn't call mustard, "mooserd."

It's painful, watching how desperately Petunia tries to coax Rose out of Hermione. "Come on then, do you want to act or guess the first round?"

"I'd rather play question and answer, instead." Hermione's eyes narrow, her smile sharpens.

Lily cringes. 'This won't end well.'

"If we were all dead," Hermione doesn't pause her morbid hypothetical questioning despite their mother's horrified gasp across from them. "If Lily was killed by a psychopath..."

'Where did you even come up with such a horrible future, Rosie?' Lily thinks, watching their father pale.

"...and Lily's son was left an orphan, would you care for him?"

Petunia is as shocked as the rest of the family at the gruesome question, and the rather horrible implication behind it. "What?!" Petunia squeaks. "O-of course I would! What-"

"LIAR!"

Hermione tackles Petunia to the carpet, roughly yanks at the oldest's blond locks and repeatedly screams "liar" and fouler things like, "you'd lock him in a closet wouldn't you?! Treat him like some slave wouldn't you?! Call him freak wouldn't you?! Wouldn't you!?"

-x-{X}-x-

They take Hermione back to the hospital after that outburst.

It's only been a month since their departure, and Lily can confidently attest to not having missed the looming grey building at all. Some comfort comes in that at least this time the family are directed to an area that looks more like a clinic. It's a welcomed, if small, relief to Lily, who doesn't think her family can ever stomach being trapped in a small, four-walled hospital room ever again.

(Lily roughly shakes away the echo of raspy breathing.)

It's a bright August morning when they enter a building next to the neurology wing, through a beige door below a big sign that reads Cokeworth General Hospital: Psychiatry, Psychology, and Mental Health Department.

"The nuthouse." Petunia whispers shakily next to Lily's ear, careful not to let Hermione overhear. "They're taking her to the nuthouse." Lily lets Petunia hold her hand, and each time her older sister's grip tightens, Lily wonders if maybe Petunia fears one of them might one day grow crazy too.

This time it's a plump man with an obnoxiously orange bowtie who jovially approaches them with a clipboard. He attempts a joke about the warm weather that only their mother politely manages a polite smile at, and then calls Hermione into a room. Hermione stays in the room with the psychiatrist for nearly two whole hours, before orange-man calls the rest of the family into the room.

"It's called adjustment disorder." He says, smiling while patting the head of an entirely unaffected Hermione. "It'll sort itself out with time."

Her parents sag with relief, her parents who (for some unfathomable reason) still take a doctor's word as absolute.

Lily knows better.

-x-{X}-x-

The next morning, after breakfast, she catches Hermione confronting Petunia in the hallway.

"You're going to have a test." Hermione says coldly. "And when you fail it, I'll stop being confused about you." The youngest nods her head decisively, murmuring to herself about loyalty and closets as walks around a bewildered Petunia.

Lily quietly walks up to her glassy-eyed older sister. "Come on Tuny," Lily smiles, pulling at Petunia's hand. "We can play dress up if you want? I'll even let you put me in pink, if you ask nice enough."

-x-{X}-x-

September comes.

School starts up again for Lily and Petunia. For Hermione, it's her first day of Year One at their now shared public school down the street. It doesn't surprise any of the Evans, not really, that mister and Mrs. Evans are called to the school office for last period on the very first day. Lily and Petunia get to miss their final classes of the day to join the impromptu family-teacher meeting. Petunia happily mumbles under her breath about being rather glad for the excuse to be out of Maths with Mr. Singh. ("Nice enough bloke. But what use will I ever have for algebra, anyways?")

"Mr. and Mrs. Evans," Principal Whettle clears his throat, before eyeing each member of the five Evans crammed into his office. "Thank you for coming in on such short notice. I'll let Miss Applebee takeover. There's been a development with your youngest."

Lily guiltily wonders if they're here because Hermione hurt someone. By the cautious looks shared between her parents, she suspects they wonder the same.

'There isn't any other public school nearby. Where will we send Hermione if she gets herself expelled?'

Instead of listing the grounds for expulsion or suspension, Miss Applebee goes on and on about Hermione's prodigious intellect.

"She came up to me at first recess, asked for the summer review test I give my older students. I thought it odd, but didn't see any harm in it. So I gave her the test for the Year 3's, and she finished it in minutes. I was shocked when I reviewed it; she answered every question correctly! So then, I gave her the test for the Year 6's, and she finished it just as quickly and accurately. I went to Mr. Singh's classroom to get his summer review test for his Year 9's, and the good lord as my witness, she finished that without mistakes as well!"

Principal Whettle cuts in. "We contacted our school board for their gifted students' liaison. I got a hold of the chap. Pleasant fellow, he was. He told me the closest schools would be the one in London and the one in Manchester—"

"Manchester?!" Their mother gasps.

"Principal Whettle," Her father sounds pained. "I work at the mill. The tuition for those sorts of schools—"

"Don't be dim. I'd be offered a scholarship, of course."

"Rose!" Their mother flushes, mortified at Hermione's rudeness in public. "Apologize to your father for your tone this very instant, young lady!"

Hermione look utterly unaffected from her seat, cooly turning to face her parents. "I'll apologize for my words when he apologizes for his." Her eyes sharpen, the way they tend to when she's about to say something hurtful. "Our walls are thin. Do you think I can't hear you calling me a bastard?"

Petunia flinches. Both sisters recall that fight too. It had happened just last week, when their parents had to submit the school uniform and textbook fees. Her parents were talking (yelling) about money in the kitchen, and how little they had of it after they had to pay for Rose's medical bills.

"It's one thing to raise my children, it's another to raise someone else's!"

"What did you just say? If you have something to accuse me of, Robert, than say it!"

"Violet, don't take me for some fool. I thought when she was younger, maybe she just needed time to grow into any recognizable face. I told mother she must be mistaken, because you loved me. But, Rose is grown enough now, yet she looks not a thing like me, and not a thing like you! Clearly there was someone else! She's no daughter of mine; the girl is a bastard!"

"No matter, at least not any more." Hermione's chilling words pull Lily from the spot behind the bannister (above the stairs that her and Petunia had hidden behind to eavesdrop on their parents argument) and back to the present, to a cold metal chair in the principal's office. "You can use the refund on my tuition for this school to get a proper genetic test. Time to put your worst suspicions to rest, father."

-x-{X}-x-

Hermione spends the school year at some smart boarding school in London, with a name that's too long and even has accents. She doesn't come back for holidays, and only comes back for summer break because her school doesn't extend scholarship students' accommodations between academic years. But een then Hermione is absent. During the summer months, the youngest Evans spends all her time locked away in the local library, reading book after book she has on loan from her fancy school, and scribbling rapidly into notebooks that she never lets anyone see.

Lily remembers back when Hermione said that Rose Evans was dead. Lily suspects her family actually believes it now.

No one calls her Rose anymore.

-x-{X}-x-

The summer when Lily turns twelve, she gets a letter with her name spelled in curls of green ink.

"What rubbish," her father huffs out. "Some lark by the kids in the neighborhood. Why, I bet it's that Jenkin's boy and his no good riffraff, wearing those ripped jeans, listening to that loud music. They're always up to some shenanigans. Why I ought'ta—"

"It's real." Hermione cuts him off, in her now typical abrasive manner.

Their mother gives Hermione a patronizing look. "Honey, I know in your books magic might—"

"Magic. Is. Real." Hermione sharply puts her spoon down. "I'm going upstairs."

Lily doesn't ask why her father doesn't reprimand Hermione for her rudeness, or the abrupt departure from breakfast. He doesn't reprimand her for much since that day the envelope from the hospital came, saying Grandma Evans was so utterly, horribly, terribly mistaken.

After the youngest Evans departs upstairs, Lily tells her parents that Hermione is right. She tells them about the community Severus claims to hail from. She tells them about how she could made unexplainable things happen by accident. She tells them the story of a hidden world.

-x-{X}-x-

The next morning, a tall woman calling herself Professor Minerva McGonagall knocks on their door, sits on their red chair, and summarily turns their telly into a tea cup.

Hermione sits on the couch, unmovable, silent, and unaffected by Professor McGonagall's display and fantastical explanation. Well, that is, Hermione stays distant until right before Professor McGonagall attempts to leave, which is when the youngest Evans approaches the stern Scottish woman.

"Excuse me," Hermione calls, waiting until the woman turns and meets her gaze before continuing. "Could I get my letter too?"

Professor McGonagall reiterates the bit about needing to be twelve to attend Hogwarts. ("You're two years too early, my dear.") Then she gives Hermione and even Petunia a pitying sort of look, commenting on the rarity of having more than one muggleborn in a set of siblings.

Hermione cuts the older woman off abruptly with an outstretched hand, and whispers 'shine' under her breath.

The entire room gasps when a little blue ball of flame unfurls in her palm, taking shape of a roaring dragon.

"I'd like my letter now, please."

-x-{X}-x-

"Where's Hermione?"

Petunia's fretting voice cuts through the persistent awe of the magical beings and items surrounding them. Lily blames the loud and crowded hustle and bustle of Diagon Alley for her family losing sight of the youngest. The family and Severus (their guide) panic for but a minute before they see a familiar head of riotous curls exiting Flourish and Blotts.

Petunia gasps at the youngest's puffy eyes. "Hermione, what happened!?"

"Nothing." Hermione hisses, slapping away a dejected Petunia's proffered hand.

Lily tries to recollect if the bookstore they just left had contained anyone who could have hurt Hermione, but she can't recall. She looks around the space her sisters stand to focus on the bookshop's windows. Lily sort of makes out a blond-topped little boy approaching the till, but is dragged away by an excited Severus towards Ollivander's ("the most famous wandmaker in all of England, Lily!") before she can make out the other child's face through the glass.

In stark contrast to Hermione's vitriol at the bookshop, she seems to be in an exceptionally pleasant mood for the entirety of the rest of their shopping excursion. Well, except for that blip in the pet store, where she wanders about with a forlorn type of sadness that has even Severus concerned. But otherwise, the pleasant mood persists for the day and the rest of the summer, right up to when they say their goodbyes at King's Cross.

"Be safe." Hermione murmurs quietly, gaze focused on Lily's shoulder. The words are just barely loud enough to be heard over the whistling train and buzzing students.

"Okay. I'll miss you." Lily offers while pulling Hermione in for a hug, trying not to be too hurt when the younger girl's arms stay limp at her sides.

-x-{X}-x-

First year happens. It's magical.

-x-{X}-x-

Lily comes back for Christmas, and is surprised to see that (for the first time) Hermione makes the trip back from her fancy school as well. Well, that is, she is pleasantly surprised until her first afternoon back in Cokeworth, when a rather expensive looking owl flies crashed into their kitchen window with a letter.

But a letter that isn't addressed to Lily.

"Professor McGonagall set me up with a tutor." Hermione explains to the curious gazes of the rest of her family.

Lily's stomach tightens, and it has nothing to do with the pleasant smells from her mother's cooking. Suspicion supplants surprise. 'You're lying.'

"Oh, well, that's very generous of her." Their mother smiles. "In that case, Lily, do be sure to give our thanks to the kind professor."

Lily nods tightly. "Sure Mu-"

"Don't." Hermione cuts in sharply.

"Honey," their mother chastises. "It's rude to interru-"

"No. Don't. They don't like mudbloods in the Wizarding World." Hermione scoffs. "If they find out I'm having premature tutelage, they'll be angry and try to get the person who helped me into trouble." She glares at Lily. "Don't say a thing."

'Premature tutelage? Who even talks like that? Speaking of...' Lily scowls. "You shouldn't use that word, Hermione. It's a really bad word."

Hermione sneers, an expression that looks too mean to belong to a girl of ten. "You're stupid and naïve if you think that'll stop anyone else from using it."

That night, Lily ponders where Hermione learned the slur from. 'Is that what triggered your crying fit in Diagon Alley?'

-x-{X}-x-

Two years later, when Hermione's letter comes, Headmaster Dumbledore arrives with it.

He asks for a show of the bluebell dragon.

"No." Hermione hisses, with more icy vitriol than she's ever shown even Petunia or their father.

"Hermione!" Lily gasps at her rudeness. 'For Merlin's sake, this is the headmaster you're denying you rude little brat!'

Their mother sighs. "I like to think we've raised you with better manners than that, darling." (Lily thinks it's interesting how their mother uses terms of endearment to replace Hermione's name, just so she doesn't have to say it.)

"I said no." Hermione bites out resolutely, glaring at the floor, where her gaze has remained since the very minute Headmaster Dumbledore entered their home.

Her parents apologize repeatedly to the Supreme Mugwump, fabricate some poor excuse over Hermione being grumpy after having stayed up too late the night prior. The affable old man recovers from his shock at the youngest Evan's venom rather quickly, and offers a genial smile. "Not to worry, Mr. and Mrs. Evans. I'm sure I'll see her skills in school."

"Yes," Hermione lifts her chin, smiles with sharp teeth, and focuses her eyes on a spot over the bearded man's shoulder. "You will."

-x-{X}-x-

"Hermione Evans."

Alice perks up at the newest name from McGonagall's list, and lightly shoves Lily's shoulder. "Oh, Lils! Is that your little sister?"

Lily nods, eyes not leaving the way Hermione gracefully approaches the hat-topped stool with perfect posture and confidence. 'Did they teach you that at that expensive boarding school in London?' Girls from Cokeworth didn't carry themselves the posh way Hermione did.

Dorcas squints from her spot on the other side of Lily. "Well, I never would have guessed but for the last name. She doesn't look a thing like you, you know?"

Yes, Lily does know. She knows it very well, has been aware of it since even before that terrible fight her father and mother had in the kitchen. And even though Mum forgave Dad when he tearfully apologized after they got that envelope from the lab, Hermione never looked at her father the same after that - when she even deigned to look at him at all. (There's a reason their father lets Hermione get away with anything.)

Lily's nails dig into the oak wood of the Gryffindor table bench by her skirt as McGonagall slips the Sorting Hat onto Hermione's curly mane. 'Not Slytherin,' Lily prays, despite the fact that her best friend wears a snake on his robes. 'Not Slytherin.'

"So," Marlene eagerly sing-songs from her seat across them, "Another Gryffindor then?"

There's a pause before Lily can bring herself to respond. "Probably Ravenclaw," Lily shrugs, unwilling to voice her true suspicions. "She's always been so smart, skipped ahead like eight grades in muggle school. Eight. She even went to a fancy gifted school in London before here, with a scholarship and everything." Yes, Ravenclaw, Lily hopes, will be Hermione's saving grace. Lily has never known her little sister to be brave, and has not known kindness from the youngest since before her sickness (the mutilated dead rat in the yard certainly hadn't). And Hermione may be cunning, but Hermione is muggleborn, and Slytherin will break her beyond repair.

'Ravenclaw, please. Please, please, please.'

Four minutes pass, the ragged hat on Hermione's head remains silent.

Lily acknowledges the lie of Hermione's welfare being the sole push behind the middle Evan's fervent prayers. Lily doesn't want to be the sort of bigot that thinks that every person sorted into Slytherin is evil, and Severus's own sorting disproves that belief (as does Professor Slughorn, their genial Head of House). But, Hermione is the smartest person Lily has ever known. What does it say about her little sister if even her brilliance is outmatched by her ambition, cunning... and ruthlessness?

Six minutes pass. Lily leaves the worries in her head to tune into the growing whispers around her. The hat's protracted silence had already incited conversations amongst the crowd.

"Why's it taking so long to sort her?" A new Gryffindor asks.

"Hatstall," she hears Remus murmur distractedly a couple seats down, his own interest piqued towards the sorting.

"Never seen one this long before." That prat Potter observes.

"Last one was Professor McGonagall," Marlene contributes. "Even she was only six minutes, according to my uncle."

Ten minutes pass, Lily notes that Headmaster Dumbledore hasn't taken his eyes off of Hermione even once.

"I heard Nicholas Flamel was nine."

"Well, I heard Merlin was ten, the longest ever."

"Do any of you lot even read? Hogwarts: A History clearly states that the longest hatstall ever was Morgana Le Fay. She was eleven and a half minutes."

Thirteen minutes in, and the hat's booming voice shocks the whispers away. He sings not a house but a hymn.

"Once you'd be the pride and joy of any founder,

now only one place for such a hungry power…"

Lily's stomach lurches. 'No.'

"SLYTHERIN!"

Lily isn't sure she's still breathing. Then the air comes gasping back when a smirking Hermione heads not towards the Slytherin table's designated section for first years, but instead trounces up to a pleased looking blond boy sitting in the second year area. The boy shoves over his neighbour to make room for her.

Lily nudges Marlene with her foot. "Hey, Marly. What was that boy's name again?"

Marlene turns from the sorting back towards Lily, asking over the loud cheering as some first year boy with a charming smile gets placed into Ravenclaw. "Who?"

Lily forgoes all social niceties and blatantly points to the blond across the hall, the one currently whispering something into a smirking Hermione's ear. Lily can't remember the name of her sister's new friend, but easily remembers his sorting (how could she forget such an atypical one from just last year? The hat had barely hovered over his head before yelling his house).

Marlene turns and squints. "Oh, the blond? That's Sirius's younger cousin. His name is…" she puts a finger to her chin, thinking a moment, before snapping her fingers. "Oh, right. His name is Draco Black."


Lily's little sister is a sharp thing...

with pointed eyes

and a crack that masquerades as a smile.


End of Chapter 1


If you enjoyed and would like to see more of this world, please leave a review :)!

I'm hoping to do either a Narcissa point of view, Sirius point of view, or Draco point of view next ;D


Author's Note: Yes, I am well aware I should be finishing my other fics. Yes, I know I'm starting another project I probably won't finish. Yes, I'm going to do it anyways ;P