Sea of Constellations
Rose_Quartz_Cloud
2. Wise
It was early November already and Hermione had noticed some starch differences to this timeline, not including the fact that she was put into a different house to that of Harry and Ron.
As a Gryffindor, she made plenty of enemies in all the houses but she now wondered if there was more that she was fairly close to Harry that many people judged her more compared to now in which she had become friends with the duo but as a Ravenclaw, they didn't have as many classes together so there was a divide, she wasn't as 'close' to Harry Potter and other friendships had bloomed with other people when it didn't the first time.
One strange group, she now felt a part of, was she was often invited to lunch with Daphne and Pansy.
Harry and Ron mentioned their disapproval in her choice of other friends but as they weren't technically in the same house, they let it go and let her talk to whomever she wanted, but they refused to join her if it was any of the Slytherins.
This made her a bit sad as she originally never really thought horrible of their rival house and she only followed the lead of others in their house and chose to just not speak to any of the Slytherins.
Other Ravenclaw's were friends with the Slytherins and the Hufflepuff's as well, it seemed like other house mingling was normal amongst the other three houses and Gryffindor's now just seemed quite stuck up, seeing the situation from an outside view.
Deciding to just accept this new reality as was, Hermione focused on her studies, even though she didn't have to put in as much effort as she had taken all the classes already but she was also careful not to let on that she was much more knowledgeable than everyone else, for she couldn't afford interference from the professors or she would then face the more severe consequences of time travel.
Hermione had been the most interested in charms originally and now that she was basically repeating the year, she wanted to focus on secret studios in between lessons for professor Quirrell had already tried to distract everyone with the release of the troll in the dungeon, and she didn't actively participate but she was sure that Harry and Ron had encountered the trap dog by now, the only thing was she wasn't sure if they have been able to unlock the door where they originally saw the trap door as she was the one who had the quick thinking of using an unlocking charm…
She found her answer to that question later in the week when at lunch the boys had admitted to accidentally finding themselves in the forbidden corridor and got caught by Mrs. Norris when they couldn't get through a locked door and were cornered where Flitch personally escorted them to Professor Dumbledore for punishment…
Hermione's heart sank at the news.
"I thought for sure we were going to get expelled but Professor Dumbledore only sentenced us to night detention for a month and with a strict warning not to 'accidentally' find that corridor again…." Ron prattled on, proud that they had made it out alive and not expelled.
"He's hiding something" stated Harry suddenly.
Ron stalled his rant and he and Hermione turned to him.
"Don't you think it's a bit weird that we were warned to stay out of there unless we had a death with but we only were there for like 3 seconds before spotted us, its guarded pretty tightly and I'm sure the 'death sentence' must lie on the other side of that door, too bad we couldn't open it…" he explained while finishing up his meal.
Hermione knew what was behind that door. A three headed dog who was in charge of guarding a trapdoor that led into a series of powerful magical traps that would eventually lead to the philosophers stone… and Voldemort was after it…
The stone was safe, realistically… and in a way with their interference the first time, they almost led Voldemort straight to it if it wasn't for Harry's maternal protection that dismantled Quirrell from physically touching him…
She wouldn't be able to go on as many adventures with them this time so instead she decided to redirect their attention to another detail that would lead them to basically researching the stone, like the first time..
"You know, maybe what you said to Hagrid the other night might be useful?" she suggested.
They had snuck out and invited Hermione along to meet Hagrid whom Harry had made another friend.
They discussed what happened at Gringotts and Hagrid got very defensive before herding them all back to the castle before they were caught being out beyond curfew.
"Are you talking about the red stone? That Professor Dumbledore requested being transported to the castle?" asked Harry, interest piqued.
"Yes, that red stone, I wonder what it could be?" Hermione asked curiously.
Hermione liked having classes away from the boys. She found that she concentrated much better than being distracted all of the time answering their questions when they weren't paying attention to the lectures or demonstrations…
Small details she must have missed were taken down in notes and her understanding of the subject increased drastically. Her housemates, whom she didn't really know in her original time were Lisa Turpin, Padma Patil, Parvati's twin sister, Sue Li and Mandy Brocklehurst.
The girls were similar to those in Gryffindor but these one were a bit more quiet because all of them liked to bring books to bed with them, which she appreciated as it made way for integrating bedtime exchanges in the subject matter of which each girl was reading, times is was school subjects and others it was the foiled plot in a cheesy romance book.
"Ms. Granger?" asked Professor Sinistra for the third time.
Daphne gave Hermione a nudge which brought her back to reality. She was currently in Astronomy.
"Yes professor?" she squealed embarrassed now.
"I was asking you to pair up with for this session of looking at constellations. I have just assigned a partner…" she muttered again, hoping she was listening this time.
Hermione turned bright red, not used to getting caught daydreaming and moved over to Draco who was chuckling at her expense.
"You know you're entertaining, Granger, not as much as the Gryffindor's but I'll take it." he told her while trying to pull himself together.
If only he knew how ironic his statement was?
Hermione said nothing to him but went back to the task at hand. She instructed him that they would take turns with the telescope and write down what they saw and after 10 constellations they would compare notes and discuss.
Draco nodded his agreement on her instructions and they started.
By the end of the session, they had very similar comparisons that they both quickly edited a few sections and they were done.
"Nice to know you can keep up with me, perhaps you should have been sorted into Ravenclaw?" Hermione casually observed.
"Unlikely, every Malfoy for over 3 centuries that attended Hogwarts was placed into Slytherin." he rebutted.
"I was only commenting on the fact that you're intelligent." Hermione replied before leaving him behind her.
She was attempting to be a bit nicer to him as he wasn't being patronizing to her this time but it seemed like he couldn't just take a compliment still.
On her way down the tower, Daphne and Pansy caught up to her before grilling her for her experience with Draco.
"He's really smart, right?" gushed Pansy.
Hermione raised her eyebrow.
"If his family wasn't so stuck up, I'm sure at least a few of them would have been sorted into your house" Daphne snickered.
"That's exactly what I told him before he began spewing the Malfoy family history…" Hermione bemoaned, feeling a slight headache coming on.
"Maybe… you might be that something Draco could use to develop his personality out from under his narrow minded parents?" Pansy slyly suggested.
Daphne and Hermione gasped at her ludicrous suggestion.
"Are you implying that I should try and get to know Malfoy better, perhaps on a girlfriend level?" Hermione paraphrased back at her.
The other two giggled as her reply as Hermione held the urge to roll her eyes.
"I'm sorry but I'm not interested in boys like that, I came here to learn in becoming a better witch" Hermione finally told them, bidding them goodbye as they had to part ways at the main staircase.
Like she thought, Harry and Ron took her bait and went actually researching magical stones in the library one week later.
Hermione was casually doing her homework in one of the back corners, wanting to get ahead of everyone else so she could schedule some time for her own research.
She had been pondering the implications of if they hadn't followed Professor Quirrell into the trapdoor and almost unknowing gave him the philosopher's stone? They got lucky.
If Voldemort had stayed with the professor and not been forced out of Quirrell, was there a chance that he would gather his followers sooner and regain a physical form than that of their 5th year?
She was driving herself mad with which events were more important and if she should intervene or not. For the most part she had been trying not to get involved with much as every choice had a chain reaction and the fact that she wasn't in Gryffindor was really messing with her plans.
She was so caught up with her notes and doodling scenarios that she never noticed Draco sneak up on her.
"Time's manipulation consequences….?" Malfoy read from behind her aloud.
Hermione launched herself on top of her notes, hiding them with her body when Malfoy quietly chuckled, quickly looking out for Madam Pince.
"What do you want! Malfoy" Hermione angrily hissed at him.
"Well I was going to ask for your option on yesterday's charms assignment but whatever I was just reading, looks much more interesting" he smiled at her.
Hermione cursed at herself for writing down such private information. He couldn't know about the time turner, as she didn't officially receive it till third year but even still, he would piece together her makeshift self if he clued in about it.
She realized she would have to convince him of some other reason and mislead him quickly.
Luckily for her, she left out concrete details that would blow her cover so instead she sat up and urged him into the chair beside her.
"I… was merely doing some research into the possibility of being able to take more classes possible near our fifth year. There are some electives I wouldn't mind taking but it is difficult to plan around our core curriculum." she divulged to him.
Malfoy's eyebrow raised as he began to understand what she was getting at.
"You want to apply for time tuner for your future studies…" he hedged.
"Yes" she murmured.
He looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking his head.
"I know of your intelligence but dang, Granger maybe you should have been a Slytherin with your resourcefulness" he parried back to her before leaving her be.
Hermione mentally breathed a sigh of relief, he took her explanation as the truth…
Moment's later Harry and Ron strolled up with a massive volume of magical minerals and their properties.
"Hey, we found several red looking rocks in some books and wanted to show you and see what you thought" Ron questioned while Harry looked pensive.
"What's wrong, Harry?" Hermione asked instead.
"Nothing against you Hermione but you are getting chummy with the Slytherins. I wonder if we should trust you with our secrets…" he speculated.
He had just seen her with Malfoy…great…
"I understand that you both don't agree with who I keep as company but I assure you that doesn't interfere in my abilities to keep my friends' secrets from my other companions…." Hermione told them a bit offended that Harry was accusing her of feeding their rivals their secrets.
He appeared apologetic, now seeing the error of his words and they made him seem like he was implying.
"I'm sorry Hermione" He apologized, trying to take back his blunt statement and accusation.
She forgave him but this little incident gave her more insight of how petty her old house truly was, they weren't better than everyone else and though they had a better reputation than the Slytherins, even historically, Gryffindor's were just as bad. Was she also that bad in her past?
She hated feeling like she was ignorant of her own failures as a decent person or so she thought…