A.N. Hi everyone. I am thinking of writing a new thing, because I need a writing outlet that is just purely for fun and has no stakes. I can't make any promises about how long it will be or how quickly it will be done, but I can promise to only put up things that are fun to write and hopefully therefore fun to read. Writing my last one was really useful for me as a writer, so I'm thinking this could be helpful too.

This is sort of a teaser intro, the rest of the scene to be picked up in a proper full first chapter. I wanted to get a foot in the door with tone and concept. What do we think?

Chapter One

Humans have an inherent desire, when confronted with something new and strange, to poke it with a stick.

In many cases this is metaphorical. They investigate. They prompt reactions, they find out how things work, they use their highest cognitive faculties to divine the mysteries of the universe.

Unfortunately for Hermione Granger, she was human. Even more unfortunately, the stick and the poking were very literal.

So it was that, in the summer before her third year as teacher of Charms at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, upon opening a mysterious panel she had discovered at the back of a castle wardrobe only to discover an even more mysterious statuette of a hooded witch, Hermione reached out and tapped the statuette with the tip of her wand.

Stick. Poke.

She knew almost immediately that she had made a mistake. As the wardrobe dissolved around her, and the world went dark, the thought that she was only falling victim to a classic consequence met sooner or later by humans, most cats, and anyone else with a desire to know things was unlikely to have comforted her. Curiosity killed the Hermione.

Happily, Hermione was far too practical to be worrying down this philosophical line of thought in the moments after her wand touched the statuette. She was busy panicking.

After that, she was busy, briefly, being nothing at all.

…

Hermione awoke some time later to find herself, of all places, inside of a Hogwarts wardrobe, facing a half-open panel and a small statuette.

Feeling that she might be pushing her luck, she reached out her wand to poke the statue a second time. When this produced no reaction at all, Hermione released a breath she had not realized she'd been holding, and she sank back against the wall of the wardrobe in relief.

Once she had calmed and felt something like normal again, it was a matter of moments to pick herself up, dust off her robes, and shove the statuette into a pocket for later investigation. In the meantime, she ought to get herself to the hospital wing to figure out what had just happened. Because if nothing was going on now with the statue, then perhaps something had been going on with her head the first time.

She was rounding a corner on the fifth floor when her skin went cold and her stomach sank and something really extremely strange indeed happened for the second time so far that day.

Hermione stopped dead, and the strangeness in question stopped and stared right back at her. He was carrying a stack of books, and he had been walking at quite a determined pace, so this meant that he almost teetered on his feet as he caught himself short to look at her oddly. Half-bewildered, half-accusing.

Hermione's heart had started again, as her eyes traveled over every inch of the wizard's face, and she managed a croak: "Remus?"

At this, the man's brows came down, inquiry turning to confusion. "Sorry," he said, "Do I know you?"

Hermione could only gape.

"And how did you get in here?" Remus added, a note of irritation coming through. "This part of the Castle is out-of-bounds until term begins."