Time
"So you're sure you didn't do anything?" James asked for the fifth time at breakfast.
"No, I didn't!" Sirius insisted. "She just ran off."
"Didn't pull her chair out for her? Made the wrong move?"
"No!" Sirius insisted. He was very worried about Hermione. He thought the evening had beein going well, till she ran off. She acted like he had some sort of disease. She wouldn't even let him touch her, something she had never objected to before.
"Maybe Lily knows," James said, as Lily walked up to them, looking grim and holding a photograph.
***
Hermione threw her pen down. She was finished. She had written a letter to Ron telling him about Sirius. She felt so guilty for being with Sirius.
Maybe breakfast would help. Hermione checked her watch. Nine. Sirius would probably already be done with breakfast. She could sneak in and grab a piece of toast.
Hermion stood up and began picking things up from around her bed. The dress she folded neatly and placed on Lily's bed. Shoes, put away. Cloak, folded and put in her trunk. She reached absentmindedly into the pocket of the cloak for the photograph of herself and Ron. It wasn't there.
***
"I need to talk to Sirius," Lily said to the table. She shooed Remus and James away from the table. They grumbled but eventually went off to go ride their brooms.
Lily sat down across from a forlorn Sirius.
"How is she?" asked Sirius.
"I know why she is so upset," Lily told Sirius. He leaned forward.
"It's because of this." Lily took out a photograph of a smiling Hermione and a certain red-haired boy.
***
Hermione threw up her hands in frustration. She had torn apart her bed and trunk looking for the photograph. Clothes lay everywhere, and still no photograph. It was hopeless, she'd lost it. Hermione began putting clothes back in her trunk. She reached carelessly for a dark jacket. Her hands didn't recognize the material. Hermione turned to look at it. It was the jacket Sirius had given her to wear on their first date. Hermione took the jacket and put it on. She was more confused than ever.
***
"So it's a picture of her old boyfriend?" Sirius asked. He looked at the picture and scrutinized it. Hermione and the boy–Ron, it said in the photograph's caption–were laughing and hugging each other. She sure looked happy.
"And that's why she acted so strangely," Lily said. "She must have seen the picture, remembered him, and felt guilty."
Sirius looked at the picture again. The boy looked so familar. There was something about the red hair and freckles that reminded him of a guy who went to Hogwarts. His name was–Arnold? Arthur. Arthur Weasley.
Couldn't be him. Hermione went to Beauxbatons before she came to Hogwarts. "So you see now, then." Lily told him gently. "Hermione must still be in love with him." They were so busy discussing this that neither noticed the date on the back of the photograph.
1996.
***
Hermione glumly headed off to breakfast. She would ask Lily if she had seen the photograph. Hermione entered the busy hall and headed for the Gryffindor table. She realised too late that Lily and Sirius were sitting there.
Holding the photograph of herself and Ron.
"What are you doing?" Hermione cried, running up to Lily and Sirius. From where she stood she could see the 1996 on the back of the picture. She didn't want them to see the date and she sure didn't want them to see her and Ron together.
Hermione snatched the photograph from Lily's grasp. She looked into Sirius' eyes for a split second and wished she hadn't. She could never resist his eyes.
"Lily, you just took the picture from my things?" Hermione asked incredulously. Lily squirmed. "I was worried about you," she said. "You wouldn't tell me what was wrong. And you walked out on Sirius here."
"And that gives you the right to take my personal things?" Hermione was raising her voice, but the fact that she had come so close to being discovered made her blood rush.
Lily opened her mouth to apologise but Hermione would have none of it. She turned to Sirius instead. "Sirius, I–" she began. Sirius stood up from the table and started to walk away.
"Sirius, wait." Hermione called. She followed him out into the Entrance Hall.
"I saw the picture," Sirius said. "I know you're still in love with him."
"No, I..."
"What?" For the first time Sirius turned and looked into her eyes. A ray of hope was in the dark pools of Sirius' eyes.
"I don't know." Hermione said truthfully.
Sirius snorted in disbelief, frustration and sadness. "Well, if you ever figure it out, drop me a line," he said before leaving the Entrance Hall.
Hermione sat down on the cold stone floor in silence, her thoughts crowding her head. "Good morning, Miss Granger," said a pleasant voice. It was Dumbledore.
"Hello, Professor," Hermione said half heartedly. He helped her stand.
"Why do you look so dejected?" he asked kindly.
"Oh, it's nothing." Hermione looked in the direction where Sirius had left.
"Mr. Black, no doubt."
Hermione looked back at Dumbledore in surprise.
He laughed kindly. "Do not look so surprised, Miss Granger. Your feelings for one another are hardly a secret."
"What should I do?" she asked, knowing he didn't know the whole story and therefore could not give her sound advice.
Dumbledore stood in silence for a moment. "It is a horrible thing, Miss Granger, to waste time."
Her meeting with Dumbledore in his office came back to her. She only had one year in 1975. "I see what you mean." Then another thought came to her.
"You know what my task is, don't you?" Hermione asked. She remembered he hadn't let her see the parchment with Professor McGonagall's instructions on it.
Dumbledore answered, "Whether I know the task or not doesn't change what you have to do, Hermione. Do not waste time. Wasting time is, I think, is the worst thing anyone can ever do. Good day, Miss Granger." He tipped his hat and went into the Great Hall.
He knew what her task was, she could feel it. Why couldn't he tell me? she thought. It would so much easier if she knew what to do.