The Tricks of Time
Prologue
"Will you please move your arrogant, conceded, infuriatingly pompous little arse Malfoy!? I don't have time for this! "
"I didn't know that you'd noticed my incredibly hot arse Granger, wouldn't you like a closer look?"
"You perverted little prick! Honestly, you'd think that you'd have grown up in the past five years and two months that we've been here!"
"I'm not the one being perverted Granger, you're the one that keeps mentioning my… more private parts," said Draco Malfoy. He spread his arms so that both of his hands pointed inward toward his hips in an inviting gesture.
"Listen Malfoy, I really don't have time for this, and neither do you… We're going to be late for a meeting with the Heads. Not that I understand why we have to have the meeting during the last part of dinner…" Responded a honey eyed girl as she let out a sigh of annoyance.
"Why Granger, I didn't know you cared." The blond haired boy retorted with a smirk running across his lips.
"I don't care about you, I'd be delighted if you lost your badge but I intend to keep mine." She said crossing her arms over her chest and dropping her head in exasperation. She didn't notice that as she did this she accidentally pushed up a necklace that had been haphazardly stuffed beneath her shirt.
"Granger, what's that under your collar?" Malfoy asked dropping his playful tone for a more curious, ominous attitude.
"What?" She asked furrowing her eye brows in confusion as she looked down toward her chest. Her eyes widened at the sight of the small golden hourglass hanging arbitrarily from her neck.
"Oh, it's nothing." She said clasping it in her fist and roughly stuffing it into her shirt between the button holes.
"Yes it is Granger." He said as his eyes narrowing in speculation and curiosity, "Let me see that thing Granger." He grabbed the gold chain from which the hourglass was suspended and yanked on it, hard.
"I knew it!" Draco stated in a triumphant voice as he held the broken chain up in his fists. "This is a Time Turner! This is how you've been getting to all of your classes! This is why you're top of the class, you're cheating time!" He said staring at her with an expression of both veneration and jealousy.
"Give that back Malfoy!" Hermione growled in a dangerously low voice sticking her hand out for it.
"No, I don't think I will Granger…" Malfoy responded grinning maliciously at her. He pulled the chain in closer to his chest in a protective manor. "What I would like to know is how you got this though; they're supposed to be very rare. Plus they're illegal, unless you have authorization from the Ministry, and that's nearly impossible to get."
"Give it back, now!" She said, ignoring his comments. All of the humor in her voice was gone as well and her normally honey colored eyes had turned a much darker shade. The last time he had seen her eyes like that was just before she had punched him when they were in their third year.
"I told you, I think I'll keep it. I could have a lot of fun with this little device." He said his smirk widening. He knew that he shouldn't push her but he was having fun annoying her; besides he wasn't the skinny little boy he had been when they were thirteen he was almost a head taller then her now, she couldn't hurt him.
"I'm warning you Malfoy." Hermione growled as she pulled out her wand and pointed it directly at him. She didn't use her wand though; instead she lunged directly for him trying to pull the chain holding her time-turner out of his hands.
Malfoy wasn't anticipating this however and he fell backward, in an attempt to keep his balance he dropped the time-turner.
"Oh my God…" Hermione whispered looking at her surroundings. They were in the exact same spot they had been only a seeming moment before. But it wasn't a moment before; in fact she wasn't sure when the next time she would be in this spot again was. No, Hermione Granger was not worried about where she was, but when she was.
"Granger, what's happened? We've gone back in time haven't we?!" Malfoy asked her in a panicked voice that matched the horrified expression on his face.
"Yes I think so, but we're still in the castle… We have to hide before someone sees us Malfoy." Hermione responded grabbing his right forearm and pulling him into a closet off of the fourth floor corridor.
"There isn't anyone coming though," Malfoy told her still with a stunned expression plastered on his face.
"But there will be." Hermione's honey colored eyes momentarily glanced up at his steal colored orbs before quickly glancing back at the hallway and closing the closet door.
"Granger, if you don't know what time we're in then how could you possibly know that their will be someone coming in a few seconds?" Asked Draco as he pushed the handle of a mop backwards and swatted at a cobweb above him
"The time-turner broke Malfoy; we didn't set it to any specific time." She whispered hastily, pressing her-self up against the wall to the right of the door.
"So…" He said rolling his wrist around as if to say, 'Continue…'
"So the knobs for hours, minutes, and days are much harder to turn then the outside ring surrounding a time turner, it controls years. So if I'm correct then we've gone back a certain number of years but to the precise second of our own time. I'm not sure how many years back though, because I didn't see how many times the ring spun as the time-turner fell." She whispered.
"So…" He repeated still rolling his wrist impatiently.
"So in our time dinner was just about to end! That means that the halls will be flooded with students and teachers in about half a minute!" Hermione yelled, glaring up at him in irritated frustration.
"No need to yell, Granger, I was only asking." Malfoy retorted in a defensive voice returning her glare.
"Of course there's a reason to yell! This is your entire fault! If you hadn't gone and tried to steal my time-turner then none of this would have ever happened!" Yelled the enraged girl.
"I wasn't trying to steal it; I was only giving you a hard time!"
"Malfoy, you were giving me a hard time before you found out I had a time-turner! As soon as you saw it though you tried to steal it!"
"I would not have stolen it from you! Why would I?" As soon as that question left his mouth Draco realized how entirely stupid he sounded. He himself could think of many reasons why someone would want to steal a time-turner.
"So that you can change time! Everyone has had something happen to them in the past that they want to change, even if it's something ridiculously frivolous! They still want to change it because humans are selfish animals! It's imbedded in our DNA!"
"Do you honestly think I'm that stupid?" He sneered, almost growling at her.
"I think you're that selfish!" She responded turning away from him to face the wall opposite the door.
"It's your fault! You could have just showed me the time-turner when I asked! But no! You had to be stubbo-"
"Shh…" She said clapping her hand to his mouth quickly and pushing him back into the left corner of the closet. If they hadn't been so worried about the footsteps right out side of the door then they probably would have been appalled and disgusted by the fact that their bodies were pressed right up against the others.
The doorknob to the closet turned and Hermione dropped her hand from Draco's mouth and inched as far back as she could. Neither of them breathed, both knowing that someone had heard them and fearing that that person would open the door and discover them.
"Hmm… What have we in here?" Whispered an airy voice as the closet door was slowly opened.
"Oh, my, no I've never met you before in person, but I have seen you both with my inner eye! You are both destined to do great and wonderful things…. But alas you will suffer in the end; one lover shall die a horrible, painful death leaving the other to grieve in misery until that misery consumes them! Ah, such a tragic fate! So sorry to have to tell you!"
Hermione's eyes widened as she realized that she was looking at a much younger, but still very odd, Professor Trelawney. Her hair didn't frizz out as much at the ends and her glasses did not appear to be quite so large as the pair her older version wore. She was still decked in colorful beads and smelled of very strong eastern perfume though.
"Umm, Professor, I'm sorry, but what year is it?" Hermione asked feeling quite stupid but knowing that her former professor would probably think nothing of the question.
"Why my dear, it is all Hallows Eve, in the year nineteen-hundred and ninety-one! But be weary! For something will happen on this night that will change existence as we know it!" Professor Trelawney told them.
Hermione had stopped listening as soon as she heard what year it was though… She knew what had happened on this night fifteen years ago, or what was going to happen at least. "Oh my God!" Hermione whispered. Her eyes widened in horror and she could feel the tears coming.
"We have to go, now!" She yelled grabbing Draco again by the forearm and pulling him out of the closet, past Professor Trelawney and down the hallway.
"Where are we going Granger?" Draco asked trying not to trip as she pulled him along by the wrist.
"You know how I was talking about being selfish?" She asked stopping suddenly and looking determinedly up at him.
"Yes…" He answered trying to figure out what she was thinking.
"Well, I'm going to be selfish!" She told him, looking him directly in the eyes.
"But you just gave me a bunch of crap about not being selfish and changing the past!" He said, not angrily, but surprised.
"I'm not going to change the past though; I'm going to fix it!" She responded pulling him along again.
"Wait, where are we going?" He asked again shaking his wrist free of her grip.
"We're going on for a broom ride." She responded, her pace quickening.
"Where to?" He asked again, more sternly.
"Godric's Hollow."
Hello Everyone,
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, I really would like to know what you all think… I've never seen this idea in a fanfic before so I'm not really sure how people will take to it. Please let me know what you think! Oh, and as I'm sure many of you have noticed, I desperately need a beta-reader, so if anyone would like to volunteer please let me know via a review. I'd really appreciate it! Oh, and this was a very short chapter, but all of the other chapters will be much longer… promise.
Thanks,
El Ci Aech Johnson