April by the Black Lake was dry and often sunny. This day was 11°C, blissfully warm, with grasses greening and soft beneath her. Flitwick's latest lesson on repelling acromantula had left her full of scratches after she'd dashed through a kilometer of bushes. Her self made healing crème spread across her arms and legs, healing the surface cuts and left a potent antibacterial smell. Hermione's fingers worked, softly humming as she picked the brambles out of her clothes. Noticing she'd soon have to apply her charms. They were getting small again and no matter how she attempted to transfigure the base materials they were now feeling thinner and insubstantial. She ground her teeth, hoping they'd last the next month till their upcoming Hogsmeade weekend.
Not far away she could see Hagrid feeding the hippogryphs. The full herd of them healthy enough to gang up, pinch from the man's pockets, then jump back playful and curious at what their quick beaks had stolen. Hagrid could be heard making a loud argument of, "Wait yer turn! You, you already had yer share!"
Hermione chuckled. Beside her she felt the massive body of black fur shift and lean heavier into her leg for the briefest moment as she shook. Seeing another hippogryph sneak up from behind Hagrid as he was busy scolding the others and steal the whole string of pigeons, Hermione shook harder.
Her grim huffed. The black dog laying in the grass had been lazily watching the hippogryphs and it seemed to think this to be just as funny. It'd been lingering around Hagrid's hut, appearing when she would. Hagrid hadn't connected the companion grim's appearance with her particularly chaotic break schedule but she had. Hermione took to talking with it, finding even having a creature's ear helpful when puzzling out the administration issues around Hagrid's case. It wouldn't be easy, but it finally seemed possible. Hermione thought she was almost as enthusiastic about the possible trial as Hagrid himself. Hagrid had a lot of questions and while Hermione couldn't answer them all the law firm who finally responded, of the eleven they contacted, definitely could.
When she noticed the shadows had shifted into early afternoon she swore, "Damn I'm going to be late."
Well, not truly late, but she stayed at Hagrid's an hour later than she meant to. She had to get back in the castle and turn back to this morning. Her morning presence was rather important for keeping appearances. Hermione soon found if she made two meals a day in the great hall no one noticed anything awry.
As she jogged up the hill her grim gave a soft woof. She turned, gave it a smile and a wave, then shot off towards the nearest castle door. Right as she began to open it a group of fifth year Gryffindors passed. Hermione paused the door, holding it open just a crack till they'd gone. Not as if this group would know where her other selves were supposed to be at that moment, but she was always careful in public environments. That was the beauty of the library, Flitwick's office, or Hagrid's hut. Few willingly spent time there. Hagrid hadn't caught on yet, being a new teacher and completely unaware of the normal student schedules. Flitwick knew, told her he knew on their second meeting and had been blasé about it. Stating something like, "I'm not your Head of House. How your House is run is none of my concern." So yes, Flitwick's office had become a favorite.
Another favorite was the empty classroom on the seventh floor near the entrance to Gryffindor tower. It's where she headed now. Though on the way up Hermione found herself avoiding first Peeves, then saw a stern bun and tall stature of McGonagall and had to duck out of sight down side stairs until she passed. The woman had personally signed her up for Runes and Muggle Studies at this hour. If she saw another Hermione wandering the halls, well then she might also notice just how much time she now spent with Flitwick and Hagrid. How Hermione's face had matured. How many of her transfiguration attempts were now wandless. Or how she'd started to read the lines between the ministry's regulations and utilize the gaps.
The whole rule "never be seen" was a contradiction as McGonagall and the Ministry approved her to attend 30 person classes each time she used their bloody time turner. So clearly it was a fuzzy rule equating to "just don't mess up" or the Slytherin favorite "just don't get caught". This she found she was rather good at, once she'd put her mind to it.
She hid in one of her favorite abandoned classrooms and turned back time to this morning. The same group of fifth year Gryffindors had just exited the portrait hole, blurry eyed, and carrying OWL classwork as they meandered to breakfast. Hermione meandered after, trying to not look as chipper as she felt.
When the group of them entered the great hall Hermione saw a head of messy black hair slumped over a plate.
"Hey Harry."
"G'morning," He responded around a piece of toast.
Things had been better between them, enough so she was afraid to rock the boat, but this had been weighing on her long enough she had to broach it with him.
"Harry, I have news about Sirius Black."
He quirked a dubious brow, "Morning post hasn't arrived yet."
She shook her head, "No, it's not that. I know they say he's a criminal, but-" and she told him what she'd discovered about Black. Harry listened. She detailed the large gaping hole of lacking DMLE arrest records, missing trial transcripts, unenforced human rights, and broken Wizengamot laws regarding Lords.
Harry listened, but eventually cut her off with a slightly incredulous huff, "You're defending him?"
Her face fell. This is what she'd been worried about. "No I'm not, but the fact no one else did tells us a lot."
Harry grumped something unintelligible. She reached out to grasp his hand.
"It likely means the details of how that night played out aren't true. At least not what we and the rest of the public have been told. I know what you heard in Hogsmeade, but what if even they didn't know the whole truth." She implored, "Anything could have happened. Wouldn't you like to know for certain?"
Harry deflated, sitting quiet for so long and staring at his cold eggs she thought he wasn't going to respond. When he did it was with a half hearted shrug, "I guess."
She let go of his hand. For a moment lost for words. "Harry?"
He didn't look up, "Look they're going to find him and kiss him eventually. What does it matter as long as they get him?"
Hermione fretted her lip, teeth digging in till she felt a sharp sting and she had to stop. She'd given him what reasons might mean most to him. Now she was going to state hers.
"Snape wasn't guilty of chasing the stone and we thought he was," she reminded. "He could be innocent."
He scoffed, "Oh ya and he's a great guy. Real swell."
Hermione thought about what to say and then stopped. Harry, regardless of his opinion on it, wouldn't be the one deciding what happened. Only the Ministry could get the trial process started. A process she'd come to understand with Hagrid's case was painful and had so many steps most wizards wouldn't try it or would quit after the first few. Well Hermione wasn't most wizards. Hagrid would get his case and if she had to use her own college savings to get a lawyer to draw up the required papers and submit them, then she would. The law firm who finally wrote her and Hagrid back at least seemed helpful and willing once she'd affirmed she could pay. That wasn't a letter or response she'd told Hagrid about. He got so attached to people. There was no reason he needed to feel indebted to her just because she'd done something right, something she was more than capable to do.
Harry nodded, his point made, and went back to eating breakfast across from her. Such a response once would have left Hermione doubting herself. Now, while it was disappointing, she tried to respect his desire to be uninvolved. It's OK if Harry wasn't as enthusiastic about any of it. Or all of it as his current mood suggested. However, his lackluster response to Black's situation made her hesitant to tell him of Hagrid's equally illegal and dubious missing trial.
Hermione watched the boy across from her. Her own mashers and sausage sat untouched, the fat congealing on the plate. Her appetite deserted, she just sat there.
The silence hung over them for the next few minutes before Hermione remembered she did have things needing done. Rising, she bid him well and stalked out. Her training sessions with Flitwick had her stamina increasing. Her balance and her muscles had never felt so strong, no matter how much she had to twist around and avoid the pixies he conjured and shot at her. First it'd been pixies, then he'd tossed her in the lake with grindyloos, then he'd conjured a fake basilisk for which she had to scramble and conjure a rooster. She'd gotten the rooster but the damn thing hadn't cawed, hooted, whatever, and Flitwick had his fake basilisk bite her.
Stating, "Defensive charms are all well and good but if it doesn't work you need to dodge."
He'd had her make three more attempts before she could both dodge the 20 meter not-basilisk and conjure a cawing rooster. By the time she'd figured it out she'd great pleasure stomping forwards and setting the damn feather duster loose on the thing.
So yes, she now "stalked". She hadn't realized she'd changed her posture and how she walked until the Weasley twins pointed it out and at the time they'd just set a dung bomb off in her dorm. They'd thrown it in, had warded the door so Lavender, Parvati, Fay, and herself couldn't get out. Then they proceeded to soliloquy on the other side of the door about how much she'd grown up and how great she'd become. Then to questioning whether they were considered acquaintances, the big brothers she never wanted, or potential Hogsmeade dates.
By the time she broke the door down they were laughing so hard she knew there needed to be some boundaries drawn. If the twins communicated best through actions, then she'd reciprocate. Hopefully something which said, "Let's be friends but never do that to me again."
This, she decided is where Ron had gone wrong. He'd always yelled and reacted and it was this reaction the twins lived for, so her response needed to give as good as gotten. Preferably better thought out than theirs and with results so nasty they'd think twice before victimizing their new friend again. It's just Hermione had never pranked anyone before and the line between good fun and going too far remained rather blurry to her.
So she planned and planned as she was wont to do. Before she solidified anything she needed to know exactly when they would be in their room and when they'd be in class. Hence, she'd taken to using her time turner and a newly learned disillusionment charm to hourly survey their movements. She discovered they skipped exactly half their classes.
She suspected they traded off which ones they went to, efficiently sharing information between them like the fancy dual core computer processor her parents had bought for their dental practice. It was slick and many of the twins' mannerisms reminded her of how it calculated behind the scenes and popped out the results on unsuspecting administrators.
Then just the night before her breakfast with Harry she heard Lee Jordan complaining about his polyjuice essay. Due this very day for the start of their month long project, and didn't she just know ten ingredients which would cause volatile, ultimately harmless, explosions when added.
Leaving Harry at breakfast she had to use her turner again to properly set it up. Her fourth time reliving that morning she snuck into the dungeons. It only took five minutes to get the ingredient she needed, climb over the twin's favorite potion station, and apply a time-release sticking spell. Her only concern was if they finished too soon and prematurely removed their cauldron from heat. A common mistake in polyjuice's early stages, but the twins were smarter than they let on. She'd guess potions was one of their best classes.
Hermione shouldn't have worried. As the fifth year Gryffindors and Slytherins ran out of the dungeons covered in orange and growing tufts of hair she hung out near the stairs just long enough for the twins to see her.
"Still acquaintances, but almost friends?"
By then Winno had shown her the Room of Requirement, which she could fit out with mini-rooms and a sign-in sheet to record which of her past selves was in which partition. It was a marvelous system and she no longer had to protect her bed against her dorm mates finding her sleeping at odd times. With a turn for academic pursuits, a turn for sleep, and a turn for Winno's deemed "relax time", Hermione and Crookshanks had successfully commandeered the Room of Requirement against all other users as at least two versions of herself would be occupying it at any given moment.
The passing days got a bit funny for her. Well, maybe time was funnier for everyone interacting with her outside classes. Flitwick, Winno, Hagrid, and the Lawyer, for them it seemed they spoke to her every day.
Sometimes in the mess of days she forgot how often she wrote to her parents. The older Grangers were thrilled. Judicious use of school owls left them writing and receiving more letters than ever. Hermione wondered what the neighbors thought. Perhaps speculating on the Granger's new and illicit owlery, or as innocent as her mother's overzealous feeding of the local wildlife. The stream of owls into and out of their suburban back yard no doubt had been noticed. When asked her mum waved off her concerns, saying write as much as she wanted. Hermione, who literally hadn't seen her parents in years metaphorically clung to each letter they sent back.
With each month longer without seeing them Hermione got a bit more glum. How many birthdays had she celebrated now without them? She couldn't tell them how old she was getting or why, so was avoiding the count, neglecting the hour tracking that she'd been so fastidious about in the fall. But winter and then the beginning of spring seemed to stretch on forever. The distance from her parents seemed greater than ever. There was so much she couldn't tell them.
It was the second, almost third, week of April that her last good shirt gave out. When Hermione went to apply a resizing charm, she waved her wand and the collared shirt shuffled then refused to do anything. Hermione blinked, her wand lowering. Then she looked, truly looked at the state of her uniform. While the skirt was fine, she hadn't grown taller by more than a few centimeters, her tops were another matter.
She held her once thick and soft jumper up to the light. The light came through. Hermione mulled. Reassessing how much she'd miscalculated and just how much trouble this might get her in. One school jumper worn and washed continuously over a 300 day winter made it lose threads. Her bras... Well.
There was no way she could go to McGonagall's class. Hogsmeade, yes she'd have to go to Hogsmeade. Too bad the next Hogsmeade weekend was eight days away. Hermione's forehead fell into her hand to get massaged. Fingers working, head moving side to side, she groaned.
She'd never particularly hated shopping, but this wasn't planned. The gates to the damn school were warded and heavily monitored since Black's escape. In theory she'd be allowed to go if her Head of House could sign a waver for the special trip, but then McGonagall might ask how much Hermione used the Turner for her clothes to be suddenly two sizes too small (not so suddenly for Hermione). In retrospect, it'd have been less suspicious to go to McGonagall about this in December before she'd gotten so free with the turns and resizing charms.
Plus, Hermione was quite certain her Head of House wouldn't be as relaxed about it as Flitwick obviously was. He'd known almost immediately when she'd massively increased her turns after Christmas, and it was this in combination with her wandless magic which got him to reach out to her. She'd always been good in his class, but the time turner gave an edge, and his additional forced "office hour study" had her gaining ground fast ahead of the others. What Flitwick taught her wasn't exactly on the curriculum or approved by the ministry who so strictly tried to monitor wand use. No, the man who'd done so much for her, would not get in trouble because she needed some shirts.
She put on her last good shirt. It wouldn't button close at the top. McGonagall might be blind to Harry's skin sticking out of the holes in his hand me down clothes, but then Harry didn't have boobs he was trying to cover. No this wasn't planned, but failure would bring the wrath of McGonagall down on her. She'd avoid that conversation at all costs. She could do this.
Then she remembered the two people who'd never once used the gate in and out of Hogwarts to supply Gryffindor parties. She smiled so big and snatched up her muggy see through jumper. It only took one extra turn backwards to find Fred and George.
When she'd monitored their activity she hadn't expected it to become so valuable. The boys who'd snuck Butterbeer into every House Party for the past three years and never been caught once. Yes, her acquaintance with them was going to pay dividends.
It took one turn to find them, but when she realized their dormmates would be there as well she decided she'd have to take advantages of their "scheming time" which they generally took during the fifth year class History of Magic. She hid in an alcove in the boys' staircase and turned back to their unintended and unauthorized free period. Oh yes she now knew they hadn't attended History of Magic in months. She knew they'd be there. Likely alone. When she came closer she found they hadn't even closed their dorm door.
Her eyes skirted around the mess inside to make sure no one else was around. Turner chain once again tucked securely under her last collared shirt and threadbare jumper she stepped into the Twin's chaotic domain. They'd been crouched over something on a bed but whirled around at her entrance. Hermione had to dodge a rolled up pair of socks, a pillow, and a dubious pink something which plopped on the wall and left a greasy sparkling mess as it slid down to the carpet.
"Fred. George."
"Granger. What. Can. Our. Esteemed. Glorious. Fabulous. Miraculous. Selves." Their response bounced between them. The false cheery smiles beamed all the while.
"Do for you?" They finished together. The one she thought was Fred broke character slightly, glancing warily between her, their contraband on the bed, and his eyes finally landing on the door as if he expected a teacher to be following her.
"I need to sneak to Hogsmeade. Preferably today while classes are running."
"Granger are you assuming we're aware of a secret way into the village?" This was George, his false smile holding strong. A bit of teasing had snuck into his tone. Next to him Fred's mouth twitched up.
"If you tell me how to get there I'll help you with potions brewing next year."
George's eyebrow ticked up before he shot back, "What's the hardest one you've ever finished?"
"Polyjuice in my second year. Then the base for wolfsbane this year."
They blinked, then one gawked. The other scoffed.
"Circe woman! Why you brewing wolfsbane?"
Her mouth twitched too. She hadn't been planning to ask them about this for a while, not till she had more things figured out like how she was going to source the actual aconite. However needs must. She refused to embarrass herself and admit she was going shopping, because then they'd want to know more, and so her best sideline of that was just to bait them with something else. By their reactions it was working.
"I figured some enterprising, good hearted businessmen might be willing to sell it for a quarter of the normal price so long as they don't have to pay me to brew it. It's bloody difficult timing, but I've not messed up so far."
The twins looked at each other for a long moment before their faces lit with a pair of wide matching grins.
Fred's once fake grin became much more real and relaxed. He turned turned to his brother then back to her. Bartering, "In addition to helping next year meet up with us a few times this summer and you have the passage."
"Passage?"
Their grins became devilish. "Oh Granger."