Out of Time
By Rurouni Star
Chapter 7 – 'O' is for Outstanding
"To be mature means to face, and not evade, every fresh crisis that comes."
-Fritz Kunkel
The first class of the week in which Hermione was expecting trouble was precisely the one she got it in.
She entered Arithmancy with trepidation after having used her timeturner, praying that the teacher might have chalked her paper up to a bad day or (and this was actually very close to the truth) perhaps to stress.
Hermione watched with a sick feeling in her stomach as Professor Vector began to hand out homework (as was the ritual for the beginning of class). It seemed to her that everyone else was getting theirs first this time, though this was most likely more from nerves than anything else.
However, when Professor Vector had finished handing them out, Hermione realized that this was not the case. Her paper had not been last at all – it hadn't been handed back!
The frantic fluttering in her stomach increased, and she felt herself growing faint. What if she'd discovered the charm, what if she'd talked to McGonnagal – cheating was very sternly punished, she could be expelled-
"Miss Granger, I'll be wanting to see you after class," Professor Vector told her as she passed, brushing a few raven strands of hair back from her face.
Hermione didn't have a chance to scream her repentance before the woman was at the front of the room, and class had begun.
The lesson was unbearably slow. This was surprising – Arithmancy was usually her favorite class, apart from Defense Against the Dark Arts. But as she looked at the hourglasses on the wall, a shudder went through her – only five minutes had passed. Her stomach churned nervously.
"-I hope you were all paying attention, because this equation is most likely going to be on your final."
Hermione resisted the urge to faint.
Pay attention. I have to pay attention. Take notes-
She fumbled with a piece of parchment in her book bag, nearly tearing it as she pulled it out. Her quill shook slightly at first, but Hermione soon put her unswerving attention solely on the teacher, relaxing as she did what she did best (other than reading, of course).
It was, therefore, a great surprise when the bell rang. Hermione rose to leave before realizing, at the door, that Professor Vector had wanted to talk to her. Her enforced calm disintegrated as she approached the desk with a quavering lip.
"Ah, Hermione," Professor Vector said without looking up. "I wanted to talk to you about your homework."
If Vector had looked up, at that moment, she would have seen Hermione's face go chalk white.
"Y-yes?" Hermione managed.
"Well, as I was checking it, I noticed something rather strange-" Hermione was beginning to see black spots at the corners of her eyes as she lost the ability to breathe. "-have you been reading ahead in the book?"
She blinked. "I- what?"
Professor Vector finally looked up from her work, smiling. "You're using more advanced equations than I would expect at this level. You even took the longer way around problem number four, right here." Her professor pointed at the sheet in front of her, which Hermione belatedly realized was her homework. Yes- yes that equation was a bit unnecessary, why had he done that? Although, now that she looked at it, the second variable was rather shaky, and if you used this equation, you could discount it altogether…
"I wanted to ask if you're being sufficiently challenged in this class," Professor Vector continued. "The option of moving up to second year Arithmancy is available to you, should I recommend you for it, since I am the one in charge of the class. And I do recommend you for it," her teacher added, still smiling.
Oh my.
"I- well, that is-" What do I say? I understand the equations, certainly, but I didn't do them and – well, I rather have enough going on… "I really would like to," she said carefully, "but I'm a bit… overworked, lately, I suppose. And I'd really like to get the basics down before going on to harder things."
Professor Vector nodded to herself. "I can understand that. However, should you change your mind, the offer is always open. And if you choose not to move up this year, it is possible that you could do a short self-study program over the summer and move up next year instead." Hermione's heart leapt at the prospect. She always finished all her summer homework early anyway, and studying advanced Arithmancy would be a wonderful use for the rest of the break.
"You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met, Hermione."
Hermione forced a smile, ignoring the voice – Remus Lupin's voice, strained by some unknown emotion. "I'd like that," she said, perhaps a bit over-enthusiastically. "That sounds very good, I think I'll look into it at the end of the year, if you don't mind."
Vector seemed pleased. "I'm glad to hear it." She glanced at the hourglass in surprise as the late bell rang. "Oh, I suppose I shall have to give you a pass… what's your next class?"
"Transfiguration," Hermione replied automatically, thinking of the paper on Animagus theory she'd yet to get back.
"Oh good," Vector said, signing a bit of spare parchment. "If it had been Potions, I might have had to come along with you. More than one of my students has had their pass discounted in that class…" The teacher's face turned mildly cloudy, but Hermione could tell she was trying hard not to show her irritation.
She tried very hard not to smile at the idea of Snape's face at the missed chance of giving her a detention.
Hermione took the offered slip and smiled at her teacher before leaving the classroom and moving very happily toward Transfiguration. She didn't even have to use the timeturner – for which she was very grateful. The thing gave her jitters just thinking about it these days.
As it happened, however, Transfiguration was her next troublesome subject.
Hermione came through the door quietly, waving the pass at McGonnagal so as not to disturb her teaching. McGonnagal was very trusting of her, and with good reason, and she almost never asked to actually look at her passes.
This time, however, she surprised Hermione by setting the class a practical task and moving to intercept her.
"Miss Granger?" she asked mildly. "May I have a word with you in the hall?"
A suspicious feeling wormed its way into her stomach, but it wasn't enough to displace the giddy joy that had bloomed there since her talk with Vector only a few minutes prior.
The two moved into the hall, and McGonnagal shut the door behind her. She was holding Hermione's homework in her hand.
Hermione felt like groaning, but she was much too intelligent to do so now.
"I wanted to ask," the teacher said cautiously, "How precisely you attained such in depth knowledge of the Animagus transformation. The assignment was only to go into the general theory."
Hermione tried not to look too surprised. Oh, right – Sirius was an Animagus. Tended to make the whole job a bit easier.
"I was just very interested in the subject," she said brightly. "And I was thinking – thinking about attempting to become one, once I get out of school."
Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say.
"I do not want you experimenting with any such thing while you are here," McGonnagal told her, tight-lipped. "I would expect much better from you, Miss Granger."
Hermione blinked. "Of course not. That's – that's dangerous! I could get myself killed!"
This seemed to slightly assuage her teacher. "Oh. Well, I apologize then. I would like to know, however, how you found this particular bit of information…"
She pointed to a rather long paragraph in Hermione's handwriting, which detailed the needed potions to ease the process. Hermione thought furiously. Obviously, not public knowledge- where could I reasonably get it-
"Oh!"
She quickly covered her surprise at having found the perfect cover story. "I- I'm sorry. I asked you for a note to get into the restricted section, a few weeks ago – the advanced animal to animal theory – and I happened to find some mentions of it in one of the books…" Hermione tried to look shamefaced. "I'm afraid I looked up a bit more on it, which was rather wrong of me. I should have stuck only to the specific subject."
McGonnagal was very relieved at this. "Good, good, then, Miss Granger. I'm afraid I've undermined your integrity as a student… I apologize, again. And," she gave her a particularly proud look, "should you attempt to become an Animagus after you graduate, I sincerely hope you will seek me out as your official mentor. If any one of my students could accomplish it, I'm sure it's you."
Hermione felt her cheeks heat up.
"Oh yes," McGonnagal said, almost offhandedly, "twenty points to Gryffindor for an excellently researched paper. I see no reason for you to stay away from innocent subjects that catch your interest, as long as you do not attempt anything dangerous with your discoveries."
She felt her blush deepen even further, her heart swelling with pride. She would, of course, have to read through the paper and make sure she understood it. An Animagus, what an intriguing concept…
"Th-thank you, Professor," she managed.
McGonnagal opened the door again – and sighed.
"Longbottom, bring your toad to me – I shall have to reverse the swelling myself."
-----
"An O?" Sirius said, shocked. "Who'd have thought!"
Hermione, having used the timeturner once before slipping inside, tried not to laugh. "And being an Animagus had absolutely nothing to do with that paper, hmm?" she said.
He shrugged, not very convincingly. "I might have remembered a thing or two, I don't know…"
"Still earning points for your house, even years after you've left it," she said, her laugh escaping her while she wasn't watching.
"Gotten any dirty looks from Slytherin yet?" he asked with a grin.
Hermione gave him a blank look. "Every day. Twenty points will hardly make a difference when they all hate me utterly anyway."
"Why is that?" Sirius asked, intrigued.
"What, you mean other than the fact I'm muggleborn?" she asked, surprised.
He blinked.
"You – you are?"
Hermione frowned at him. "Why the surprise?" she asked acidly, suddenly feeling a slight clench in her chest. "Expected me to be the school idiot?"
Sirius hurriedly waved his hands in denial. "No, no, I- I didn't mean it like that. I just – you never said anything about it. There's very few true muggleborns at Hogwarts."
She closed her mouth abruptly, her cheeks turning pink in embarrassment. Wonderful. Only partway into the year and I'm already getting defensive. Must be the stress.
"Sorry," she muttered. "It's just the standard reaction so far."
"From who?" he demanded. "You're bloody brilliant!"
Hermione swallowed and forced down her blush, feeling slightly uncomfortable. She'd gotten too many compliments that day, most of them unfounded. "Well, from the Slytherins, like you said. It's not like I don't expect it, anyway."
She frowned and tried to think of another subject to switch the conversation to. "What about you?" she asked. "I highly doubt you're muggleborn."
And Sirius Black's face tightened in a way she'd seen it do when he thought of Azkaban. Hermione winced. "Haven't you heard of the pureblood houses?" he asked unhappily. "Malfoy, Mulciber, Lestrange-"
"Black was one, yes!" she finished, surprised. "I- well! I suppose I just never made the connection. What was it like, growing up knowing about magic? Did you get to study before coming to school at all? Did you always know what you wanted to do, after graduation-" She hurriedly shut her mouth, realizing she'd gone off on one of her mad questioning sprees again. It was a habit she'd acquired a long time ago and only recently managed to suppress – it still came out in interesting situations, though.
He grimaced, and Hermione inwardly cursed herself. Probably thinks I'm a juvenile little child. Despite all of her hard work, many older people still talked down to her. The only way to avoid this was to prove herself beyond doubt – she was always slightly upset with herself whenever she showed a childish tendency, sometimes undoing any and all chance for genuine respect.
"Sorry," he muttered, "Just a reflex. The less you know about the Blacks, the better, believe me. I was disowned, anyway."
Hermione dearly wanted to know more, but she knew when to shut up. At least he hadn't been unhappy with her for asking too many questions, like she'd thought before.
Surprisingly, though, he continued. "It was slightly vexing, watching older people do magic all the time, knowing you weren't allowed to unless they were in the room, supervising. They allow younger children to get permits, in case you didn't know, but the only magic anyone in my family was interested in teaching me was rather… unpleasant." His lips tightened to a line. "I wanted to be an Auror, but I never said anything about it after the first time. I decided when I was sixteen that I'd be the one to bring in my brother to Azkaban."
Hermione felt her mouth drop in disbelief. "You – your own family?" she said incredulously.
He blinked, as though just realizing she were there. "You didn't grow up with them, of course," he told her. "You wouldn't understand. I saw more disgusting things in my time at that house than anyone should ever even read about in one lifetime. It's probably still chock full of dark magic to this day, though I don't think any of the family's still alive."
This was a bit much for Hermione, who was used to thinking of family along with the dull ache that came with wanting to go home, every once in a while. Remembering her parents' faces happily, thinking of Christmases together and summers spent trying to fix her house in her memory so that she wouldn't forget it while she was gone… "Surely they loved you at some point?" she asked almost desperately.
Sirius' lip twitched. "I'm sure I shouldn't be talking about this with you, come to think of it. You should be working on… Muggle Studies, was it, today?"
Hermione frowned. "No homework this time. Or well, there is, but it's just thinking up an appliance to study for a project."
He leaned back in the chair and shook his head. "Arithmancy, then?"
"Done," she replied curtly. "Look, if you don't want to talk about it, you're free to say so, but condescending to me-"
"They did, once," he interrupted softly. "A long, long time ago."
And his face took on such a pained, wistful expression that she forgot her irritation and immediately felt bad for asking.
"Sorry," she mumbled. "I- I'll work on Potions then, shall I?"
"Isn't your first one of the week tomorrow?" he asked absently, still staring out into nothing.
She frowned. "I'll work ahead. Can't ever work ahead too much when you've got a schedule this packed."
Sirius shrugged, looking pensive, and went to light a small fire in the fireplace. Hermione sighed, suddenly feeling the weight of her three hours of sleep the night before. She was beginning to wonder what school would have been like without the added responsibility of a convict to hide – then she realized that it might have been even worse. There just wasn't any telling with mucking up time.
Maybe, the thought struck her. Maybe I never went through school without doing this at all… maybe I only told myself because I knew it was going to happen…
Hermione bit her lip unhappily. All theories she'd ever read on time travel said that time could not be changed. That all changes merged into the timeline anyway, because of the path of least resistance law…
She didn't realize she was drifting until the dancing flames in the fireplace blurred, sliding together to form one coherent light source, reflecting through glass-
Thompkins.
She held her lantern up to the book quietly, trying to pretend like she wasn't out of bed and that she wasn't in the restricted section and that it wouldn't get her into much worse trouble than it ever might have before.
But this was too important – it was her last hint, and it was too important to be ignored. They could expel her, after this. If it was true, it wouldn't matter…
Hermione gasped, eyes opening wide.
The fireplace burned merrily across from the table where her head had lay.
"You ought to get some more sleep," Sirius observed quietly, sitting next to it and not looking back at her. "Otherwise, you might not get back to your commonroom one of these times."
She felt her heart beating wildly in her chest, and she moved her hand up to clutch gently at it, trying to still it.
Those things were going to get her in trouble. She knew it.
Thompkins.
"You're right," she murmured as she kept her head down, gathering her things. "Sorry."
He didn't say a word as she slipped out, moving toward her commonroom. But Sirius Black was an intelligent person, as she knew very well by now. He would figure it out, one of these times. A chill ran down her spine, and she pushed it away as she realized the timeturner had fallen from her robes, fumbling to put it away again.
She trusted him, yes. Trusted him that he wasn't a murderer, that he had both their best interests in mind and Harry's as well. Trusted him that Scabbers was a wizard named Peter Pettigrew, even.
She did not trust his judgment.
Sirius Black was not going to find out that she had a timeturner in her possession. He was not going to find out that she'd been having insane visions related to a dark and dismal something that she'd begun to suspect was their future.