Disclaimer: Do I own it? thinking heavily No, not what I can remember.
Chapter 1 – Purely an Ordinary French Girl
Hermione read the letter from Dumbledore twice again the morning she would be leaving, and focused on the part where it said what she should do.
You disguise yourself in some kind of way. An hour before estimated passing through the barrier you drink the potion which you have received. Then you must pass the barrier to Platform 9 ¾ with all of your fellow students without being noticed. But instead of following them, you will enter Platform 9 ¾ 21 years ago.
She had tried to disguise herself; wearing a big black cap which she had tuck in all of her hair under, sun glasses, a black jacket and a long jeans skirt, something Hermione Granger never would have worn.
She checked her watch. Yes, it was exactly one hour before she'd be there. She pulled out the bottle from her bag and drank the potion quickly. It tasted awful, she had never tasted something that awful before and she had to struggle with not throwing it up again.
She returned to the letter.
You will go with the train together with your new fellow students. If anyone asks about you, you simply say you're an exchange student from France. You speak so good English because your father is an Englishman and you have spoken that at home, and you will take the cover name of Alyssa Martin.
When arriving to Hogwarts, you simply take a seat at the Gryffindor table, telling the others that you have already been placed there. Later in the evening, around eight o'clock, you come to my office.
The worst part of this thing was that she had no one to talk to about this. She couldn't even tell her parents. And she wondered what Harry would say if he was told that she was the one getting his parents together...
"Honey," her mum's voice called from downstairs, "it's time to go, isn't it?"
Hermione looked around in her room for one last time before going downstairs, taking her jacket on and exiting the house. Her father was already in the car and they drove silently to King's Cross.
"I don't think I'll be able to write very much because it'll be a busy year, with the NEWTs and everything," she said when they had gotten out of the car..
"Sure, honey," her mum said. "Just promise you'll tell us if you've got a problem, right?"
"Of course," Hermione said.
She gave her mum and dad a hug each, then waved and walked towards the barrier. Suddenly she heard familiar voices, and she dived in behind a corner. It was Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas walking towards the barrier, talking avidly about quidditch.
She checked her watch. One minute left until she had to enter, otherwise it wouldn't work and time would be changed forever. 30 seconds... Seamus and Dean had gone through the barrier and no one else was in sight, so she simply jogged over there and entered.
She noticed immediately that it wasn't the same feeling. Passing through the barrier did usually go quick, but now the whole world seemed to spin around her for over a minute before it calmed down and she stepped out into Platform 9 ¾.
She was a little early, which probably was the reason why there weren't many students there yet. She decided to enter the train, though, and found herself an empty compartment. She sat down and leaned back, as she tried not to concentrate on the bad feeling she had in her stomach.
Eventually she heard voices from the corridor outside; the train was obviously starting to be filled with students. Five minutes later there was a knock on the door and a girl with blond hair to her shoulders and blue eyes, about her own age, stuck in her head.
"Hi, are these seats taken?"
"No," Hermione answered. Okay, here we go.
The girl entered and after her followed another girl with dark red hair. When Hermione saw her beautiful green emerald eyes, she almost past out. Of course she had counted on meeting her, but not as this point.
"I'm Amy Jackson," the blonde said. "This is Lily Evans," she added, with a gesture towards Lily.
"Alyssa Martin," Hermione said. Dumbledore had said that since she had no wizard relatives, she could use her original name. It would be the simplest that way.
"I haven't seen you around," Amy said.
"I don't usually go here," Hermione started. "I... I'm an exchange student from France."
"France?!" Amy announced. "That's so cool."
"But you talk like you've lived in London for your whole life," Lily commented.
"My parents are from here," Hermione said. "We speak English at home."
"But you do speak French, right?" Amy asked.
Oh, no. She hadn't been prepared for this! She couldn't possibly live in France without speaking French, could she?
"Yes," she said thereby.
"Teach me some!" Amy said.
"I-I'm not much of a teacher, actually."
"Just a phrase or so," Lily said.
Think, Hermione, think. She had been in France once, at age five, and she could only remember one single phrase.
"L'addition s'il vous plait," she said.
"Which means...?" Amy wondered.
Hermione blushed slightly. "Check please," she said.
Lily giggled. "Something more?"
"Why don't you tell me about Hogwarts instead?" Hermione said.
"Sure," Lily said. "It's quite a good school, actually."
"I've got sorted into my house already," Hermione told them, "based on references from my old school. Gryffindor, they said, is that good?"
"That's great!" Amy exclaimed. "That's where we are, too.
"What are the other houses?" Hermione asked.
Of course she knew about the other houses, but she had to bring up something to talk about so that they wouldn't ask her questions about France or something that she just couldn't answer.
"Hufflepuff," Amy started, "for the stupid ones. The ones without some kind of special talent. The wimps."
"Don't talk that way!" Lily said.
"Only because you like that Hufflepuff boy," Amy said irritated.
Oh, no. This mission would be hard enough without Lily liking another boy.
Amy turned to Hermione. "Lily's so into a Hufflepuff guy named Marcus, but he's already got a girlfriend. The Gryffindor hunk James Potter is just so into Lily, but she hates him and no one understands why."
"He's such an idiot," Lily said. "He and his stupid gang keep terrorizing the weaker students, they're so mean."
"But he's getting better," Amy protested.
"Anyway, on with the houses," Lily said, clearly not enjoying the subject. "Then there's Ravenclaw, with all the brainy students."
"And last, there's Slytherin," Amy muttered in a dark voice. "Idiots, avoid them."
But before Hermione had the chance to say anything, the door was opened and a boy with black hair stuck in his head.
"Hey, Prongs," he shouted back out into the corridor. "Over here!" Then his gaze wandered over to Hermione. "Hi, who are you?"
"This is our new exchange student, Black," Lily said. "Alyssa Martin."
"Can't she speak for herself, is she dumb or something?"
"Shut up, Black," Lily said.
"Hey, stop fighting," Amy said and smiled widely against Sirius. "We do have a guest here, you know."
"It's okay," Hermione said, still staring at the seventeen year old version of Harry's now dead godfather. "I'm Alyssa, like you were told."
"Exchange student, huh?" Sirius said. "From where?"
"France," Amy said. "Cool, huh? But her parents are British."
Another head appeared behind Sirius'. Seeing him startled Hermione, because he looked exactly like her best friend besides the eyes, a little longer and messier hair though. His eyes fell directly upon Hermione.
"I'm James Potter, who are you?"
"Alyssa Martin, exchange student from France," Sirius informed him. "But I've found Evans for you."
"Yeah, right," James said, still staring at Lily. "We are supposed to go to get our Head Boy and Head Girl information."
"Right," Lily said and rose. "See you later."
Lily and James left, and instead a short and not very good-looking boy appeared. Hermione recognized him as Peter Pettigrew.
"Alyssa, this is Peter Pettigrew," Sirius said. "Peter, this is Alyssa Martin, exchange student from France."
Although Hermione hated Wormtail more than anyone she'd ever met, for destroying the life of her best friend and killing his parents, she felt kind of sorry for him and forced out a "nice to meet you".
The boys joined the now two girls in the compartment.
"France, huh?" Sirius said.
"Yeah," Hermione said. "Paris."
"That's cool. Play quidditch?"
"Sirius' like the most avid quidditch fan in England," Amy told her.
"Oh," Hermione said. "No, I don't."
"Too bad. I'm a beater."
"I'm a chaser," Amy said.
"And James, remember James right?"
"I met him like five minutes ago," Hermione said and smiled.
"Yeah, anyway, he's the seeker. All on the Gryffindor team."
(A/N: I know there's some disagreement whether James is a seeker or a chaser, but I decided to make him a seeker because... that's more interesting, simply. If anyone finds that very annoying, tell me.)
"Alyssa's going to be in Gryffindor," Amy said.
"Great!" Sirius said.
"Yeah, great," Peter echoed.
Did he suffer from such a lack of intelligence that he couldn't think of anything better to say than just the same thing as his friend just had?
Hermione smiled.