As Hermione began to wake, she instantly knew the world had shifted from its proper place. Curled up on her side, she could sense the wall in front of her face - something that shouldn't exist. Her normal double bed in her apartment didn't adjoin a wall. The bed she was in was much smaller, in fact - she could tell if she stretched the wrong way her feet would extend over the side out of the covers. And her covers! - they were different, more textured. She had had lacy, pink bedding until the summer after sixth year, when she insisted to her parents that she would be changing them to a dark green. After that first battle of the second war, Hermione really hadn't felt like a little girl anymore, and had tossed the pink, childish covers off her bed in disgust as soon as she arrived home from school.

She blinked her eyes open slowly and was not at all surprised to find herself in her childhood bedroom. She sat up in bed and turned away from the wall. There was her white dresser and her closet filled with the overflow of her old toys and kids books. Clothes were strewn on the floor in the typical fashion of a fifteen-year-old - no matter how she had been a neat freak to the boys back at Hogwarts, she herself was not much better than them. Her old, beaten pink alarm clock blinked at her, displaying the time 7:08. More importantly, though, it read the date, and as Hermione saw the words July 5, 1995, she jumped out of bed and snatched it in her trembling hands.

What on earth was going on? Last night she had fallen asleep in her own bed, in her own London apartment. Her old bedroom and its furnishings didn't even exist anymore - once her parents had (she winced) moved to Australia, they had packed up everything in their home and taken it with them.

There were three options, she supposed. First, someone had taken the memory of her bedroom from her mind and put together this set-up, and then moved her from her apartment and put her here, all without waking her up. That seemed incredibly unlikely, with how lightly she slept nowadays. And for what reason would they want her to think she was in her old room? Second, perhaps she had been cursed into a lucid dream or some such - trapped in her own mind in this setting? Unlikely as her wards were the best out of all her friends, but technically possible if it was a delayed curse. And why would her mind have chosen this date? Wouldn't it be more likely for the calendar on her wall and her alarm clock to show the real date, which was September 22nd, 2005?

Third and last, the explanation that Hermione was leaning toward at the most - she had somehow time-travelled to the past.

She was unlikely to get proof of it, she thought - but then miraculously, a piece of parchment on her nightstand caught her eye.

Hermione, it read, hopefully your time travel succeeded. We got a reading of success from Harry just after you left, so we'll just be waiting on your success signal! Make sure to stick to the plan, Unspeakable Sapph.

Draco

Hermione sat back down hard on the bed. There was some plan for this time-travel? She couldn't remember anything. Apparently Draco and Harry were in on it too, but she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

She racked her brain, but came up with nothing. Her week had been perfectly normal - going to work at the Department of Mysteries, lunches with Draco, more work until 5, coming home for dinner and sleep. Tuesday she had had dinner with Ginny and Luna, Thursday evening she had gone to Flourish and Blotts to pick up her most recent book order, that was all she had done this week. Perfectly normal. Nothing that even remotely suggested time-travel plans.

Something had wiped her memory of all time knowledge related to whatever she had been doing with her friends. She could try to remember the plans, but that would most likely be of no use. After the end of the war Hermione had researched extensively on how to recover Obliviated memories... for obvious reasons. She had found nothing. She would research more, of course, in this time, but that didn't solve the problem of now... clearly she and Harry and Draco had made plans for what they would be doing in the past.

Hermione sat back down on her bed, scrubbing a hand over her eyes and sighing. She would have to go along like she was alone in the past. She knew a little about time due to being such good friends now with Draco, the assistant manager of the Time Unspeakables. The DoM knew much more about time than the general public knew - time turners were in fact the only method of going back in time that could create paradoxes, rather than the only method of going back in time at all. There were several rituals and even a time machine that made time travel possible, even though she specifically as the Manager of the Death Unspeakables didn't have specific knowledge on them.

Given the fact that she didn't have a time turner with her, she assumed that she was creating a different timeline simply by her changed actions from how she would have reacted to waking up on the original July 5, 1995. So she would have to make a plan of what she would change and fix. Hermione grabbed a quill and parchment from her desk. If Harry indeed had time-travelled like the note implied, well... he would just have to catch up with her.

Hermione stopped at the bottom of the stairs suddenly, heart in her throat. She could hear the faint voices of her parents through the wall. Her parents. The ones she had never gotten back after she had wiped their memories and sent them to Australia.

She was alarmed as she found tears nearly spilling from her eyes, and blinked rapidly. No, she vowed to herself. It won't happen again. If I do anything while I'm here, I'll make sure to keep them alive and remembering me. She already was almost regretting the plans she had made, which would take her from her parents so quickly again. I'll just make more time this summer to visit. And then she stepped through the door to the kitchen.

Her parents were seated at the table, eating breakfast. Her father, Dan, had his reading glasses on and was scanning the newspaper, and her mother, Emma, was reading the latest issue of The Journal of Dentistry - the article this morning seemed to be on the effect of aging on the teeth. It was just the thing they had always done in the mornings, and Hermione reminded herself to keep a tight grip on her emotions.

"Morning, Mum, morning, Dad," she said, and pulled out a chair for herself.

"Good morning, dear," Emma said, and Dan turned to smile at her.

"What are your plans for the day?" he asked. "Have you finished your - what, seventh? Your seventh read-through of The Hobbit, yet?"

Hermione smiled. "Yes, I finished it last night." This was probably untrue - Hermione certainly didn't remember whether she had finished a book the night of July 4 after her fourth year.

Apparently it was, as Dan laughed loudly. "Oh sweetheart, it just seems that that's all you ever read nowadays. I was only joking; I was surprised when you didn't have that in your hands immediately when you got home like you do every year!"

She put on a sheepish face. "Well, speaking of plans, I actually... um, I received a letter a couple days ago inviting me to come stay for a month at Harry's godfather's home with him." She produced the letter she had forged that morning our of her dressing gown pocket and handed it to her mother. "I'm supposed to leave today to stay for a month or so, but I really didn't know if you would let me go, and I just... forgot to ask until now?" She shrugged. "So I was wondering if I can?"

Her parents turned to look at each other, seeming to have a conversation with just their eyes and twitches of their mouths and scrunching of noses. Hermione had long envied how they could do that with each other. It seemed like the epitome of a relationship, to know your spouse so well that you were able to communicate with no words.

Her father eventually sighed and said, "Darling, it's not very helpful to us when you're planning a huge trip and you don't even say anything about it before the day you're meant to leave!" Hermione immediately felt overwhelmed with guilt, a foreign feeling that she hadn't had in forever. How long had it been since her parents had chastised her for something? It was at least nine years, since she had erased herself from their memories. She felt stupid for planning to leave for Grimmauld Place that very day - why hadn't she decided to go tomorrow, or even next week? She knew the answer, of course; every day counted when you were trying to plan and prepare to orchestrate a whole school year. She needed as much time as possible to plan her next moves and gather allies. But it still killed her to leave.

"As it happens," Dad continued, "your mother and I haven't spoken to you about this yet, but this summer we're planning on making some major changes to the practice, and that means there's going to be a lot of extra meetings and work on top of our normal job. We actually were worried that you would be especially lonely this summer because of it." He frowned. "So, as much as we want you to be with us and visit with us these two months that you're home, we understand if you would rather stay with your friends to have someone to talk to."

Hermione smiled. She had known about the office changes ahead of time, since they had had the same conversation with her when she had originally gone to Grimmauld Place. She had been relying on the same result.

"However," Mum interjected, "even though you would be leaving today, we want to meet the people you'll be staying with this weekend. Is Ron staying there too?"

Hermione was surprised. This was not how it had gone last time. She knew what the answer needed to be. "Yes, he'll be there too."

"Then I trust Mrs. Weasley's judgment, I know if she knows Harry's godfather it's probably safe for you to stay with him for three days until Saturday when we can meet him. But make sure you come back home once a week so we can see you!"

Hermione grimaced a little unwillingly. She would have to work that into her schedule. Then she scolded herself. Weren't you just mourning that you wouldn't get to see them all summer after so long apart?

Her dad sat forward, having seen the look on her face. "We really did miss you, sweetheart. Don't make us give up our daughter so quickly."

"Of course not, Dad!" She jumped up from her seat and embraced him, chagrined. "I really have missed you both too, more than you know."

She went around the table and gave a hug to her mother, too. "His house is in London, and there's lots of security on it, so I'll be safe there, as safe as you can possibly be in the Wizarding World. I promise." She would even have to let them into the secret of the Fidelius so they could meet Sirius and Remus.

Mum smiled. "I'm sure you will be, darling. I know you're surely chomping at the bit, so if you're ready you can go pack."

Hermione practically beamed at them, and raced up the stairs.

After she was gone, Dan looked at Emma and sighed. "I don't like that she'll be staying in a house with a man and two boys her age. Who knows what she could get up to?"

Emma laughed at him. "Hermione's never dated anyone, I'm sure her only interest in that sort of thing is purely academic. I doubt she'll get anywhere near kissing Ron or Harry. The worst thing she could possibly end up doing this summer is going on a hunt for some dangerous object that she found too interesting!"

The pair laughed and continued to read. Their daughter had never done anything dangerous in her life, after all.