Disclaimer: The characters, settings, etc. of the Harry Potter series are not mine. I just play with them.

Regarding Time Travel
Two

Wishing for the thousandth time that the apparition point could be moved at least a few hundred meters closer to the castle, Hermione trudged along the muddy path from Hogsmeade with her overnight bag in one hand and her book bag strapped across her back.

She'd had a week to prepare for her meeting with Professor Snape. Most of the week had been spent in a blind panic, and accordingly, Hermione had pushed the impending meeting to the very back of her mind. She had only allowed herself to think about the appointment three times during the preceding week. The first was when she received a letter from Minerva McGonagall asking her to stay the night at the castle so that the two of them could catch up on things. Minerva had mentioned the appointment with Snape briefly in her note, forcing Hermione to think about the meeting and causing a wave of anxiety to overtake her.

The second time she thought about Snape was when she awoke, scared silly, from a nightmare in which he had assigned her detention for bringing him a ludicrous potion proposal, demanding she alphabetize his entire library. The library, she had quickly discovered, was not only huge, stocked full of books, but also contained volumes whose spines bore titles written exclusively in Cyrillic. In her dream, Hermione had been staring at the rows and rows of books in horror when Crookshanks jumped onto her stomach and woke her.

The third instance was when she received an owl from Snape the day before she was to meet with him. Her stomach had tied itself in knots when she had seen her name written in that scratchy, spiky script at the top of the parchment. But she quickly saw that there was nothing to fear in this letter; Snape was simply writing to confirm their appointment for the next day. Seizing a quill from where it lay on her kitchen counter, Hermione had written a quick response on the same piece of parchment before rolling it up and sending it back to the school with the owl that had brought it.

Only this morning had Hermione actually tried to think of what she might say to Snape. As she organized her notes, she supposed she might do well to explain her job and the purpose of her research. While she was packing her overnight bag, she had the idea that to break the ice she might ask him about his own research. Perhaps if they were on the same level, speaking researcher to researcher, he would be more open to conversation and more agreeable.

She wasn't foolish enough to think he could possibly be nice.

It wasn't until Hermione was within the castle gates that she realized she had no idea how to address him. He was no longer her Professor, so the title would probably be superfluous. She thought it would be rather silly to refer to him as Mr. Snape, but it would be down right suicidal to call him Severus.

Frowning, Hermione passed through the front courtyard of the castle, making her way to the steps that lead to the door. She was wondering if she should just go directly down to the dungeons as she mounted the final step when the doors to the castle opened and Albus Dumbledore stepped outside.

"My dear, Miss Granger!" he exclaimed, stepping forward and taking her free hand in his own to shake it warmly. "It's just so lovely to see you! How long is it been since you last visited? Three years now?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, grinning up at him. "Three years, sir."

"Far too long, in any case," he said, offering her elbow to her. Hermione placed her hand in the crook of his arm and allowed him to lead her inside. "How have you been? How is the Department of Magical Transportation?"

"Oh," Hermione said as they passed through the front corridor, turning away from the Great Hall in the direction that she knew would lead them to the dungeons. "Lovely."

Dumbledore smiled at her as they walked onwards. "I do hope Severus will be able to help you with your research. He certainly has been looking forward to this meeting."

Hermione looked up at the elderly headmaster. Had he gone completely senile since she'd last seen him? "He has?"

"Oh yes!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "Couldn't stop talking about it!"

Hermione frowned as she tried to digest this information. Snape couldn't stop talking about their meeting? It seemed terribly odd that he would do such a thing. She had thought Snape would hardly mention the appointment, certain that he would be just as eager as she was to pretend it wasn't going to happen.

"Here we are!" Dumbledore said cheerfully, interrupting her thoughts and drawing her attention to the fact that they now stood before the door to Snape's offices.

It was in this moment, as she watched the headmaster lift his hand and knock on the door, that she realized that the old man had refrained from telling her what sort of thing Snape had been saying about their appointment. When the door opened swiftly and Hermione found herself looking up into the scowling face of her former Potions professor, she knew he'd probably been complaining.

"Good afternoon, Headmaster," Snape said softly. "Miss Granger."

She gulped as his gaze met hers, but offered him a weak smile. She noted that he still referred to her as Miss Granger, just as he had when she was a student. Hermione supposed this was evidence enough that she was expected to call him Professor Snape.

"Hello, Severus!" Dumbledore said cheerily. "I just thought I'd escort Miss Granger down here in case she'd forgotten where your offices were. She hasn't been here for three years, did you know?"

"Oh," Snape said, his voice silky and his eyes never leaving Hermione, "I know."

Hermione gave Snape a tight lipped grin, but it quickly vanished when she realized he was still glaring at her.

"Well," Dumbledore said. Hermione glanced up at him and saw that he was giving Snape a warning look. "I hope the two ofyou enjoy your meeting, and I will see you both at dinner!"

Hermione nodded at the headmaster when he gave her one last parting smile before turning her attention back to Snape. He said nothing as the headmaster left, but simply watched her. She stood before him, allowing him to study her and doing her best not to fidget under her gaze.

"Come along then, Miss Granger," he said after a moment, standing aside in the doorway. "I don't have all day."

"Yes," Hermione replied. She stepped past him and entered his office. She took a seat in one of the chairs that rested before his desk, placing her overnight back on the floor before her and putting her book bag on the ground beside her chair.

She heard Snape close the door and watched him as he glided through his office, seating himself behind his desk. He settled himself in his chair; clasping his hands together, he placed them on the desk and looked expectantly at Hermione.

Under his gaze, she felt her throat go dry. She struggled to remember even one of the ideas she'd had for a conversation starter. "So," she began, hoping something would come to her, "how are you?"

Snape smirked at her. "I have never been worse, Miss Granger. And how are you?"

"Terrified," she replied without thinking. When she realized what she said, she brought a hand up to cover her mouth and stared wide-eyed at Snape as he sneered.

"Indeed?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "And where is that Gryffindor courage I've heard so much about?"

Hermione let her hand drop down to her lap, her gaze following. She shrugged. "I'm afraid it must have abandoned me when I graduated."

Snape made a snorting sound, causing Hermione to glance back up at him. She was displeased to see that he looked highly amused. But as quickly as the expression of amusement crossed his features, it disappeared. He cleared his throat as he tilted his chin downward and glared at her. "I confess that the headmaster did not tell me much about your potion question. All I have been told is that an old friend of his contacted him in the hopes that he would manage to convince me to meet with you to assist you in analyzing a potion."

Hermione nodded. "Yes that's right," she said, and as an after thought added, "sir."

Snape looked very amused by that. He smirked at her as he leaned back in his chair, studying her silently for a few moments. "You are no longer a student, Miss Granger," he said softly, "and while it is kind of you to address me with such, ah, respect, there is really no need."

Hermione stared at him. What was he getting at? Was he testing her? "Are you serious?"

He smirked. "Am I ever not?"

She shrugged. "I don't think I know you well enough to say, Professor."

"That is true," he replied.

They sat silently for a few moments. Hermione studied the geometric pattern on the rug that covered the cold stone floor of the dungeons, all the while sensing that Snape was studying her.

"You needn't look so melancholy, Miss Granger," he said after a few moments, "this is not detention."

Hermione choked back a giggle at this.

"What amuses you?" he asked, and Hermione noticed that he did not use the demanding tone he usually employed when questioning someone. Goodness, it was almost as if he was being nice.

Looking up at him, she saw that he was watching her expectantly. "I had a dream," she explained. "You'd given me detention and told me to alphabetize your library, but all of the titles on the spines were written in Cyrillic and I was unable to complete the task you'd assigned."

Snape smirked at this. "The horror."

"Precisely," Hermione replied, giving him a small smile. Feeling that the ice had sufficiently be broken and silently applauding herself for eventually finding a way to do it, she cleared her throat and decided to push on. "The potions I've brought for you to look at act to transport a person from one time period to another and back again."

Snape nodded, and Hermione took this as incentive to keep going. "Both of the potions are fairly old. They were first created in 1608 by a wizard named Michelson."

She watched Snape's eyebrow rise fractionally at this. "Michelson?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair to rest his elbows on his desk. "William Michelson?"

"Yes, that's right," Hermione replied, nodding.

"Michelson is a highly revered among Potions masters. He was a genius, if you will. He created some of the most influential and important potions ever," Snape said. "Though, in his time, his contemporaries convinced themselves that he was nothing more than a crackpot old fool who enjoyed socializing with Muggles. And anyway, he died in 1608, Miss Granger."

"Er," said Hermione, "not really."

The eyebrow rose higher. "Not really?"

"Well, I know his obituary appeared in the Daily Prophet on the tenth of May that year. So everyone thought he'd died, but hadn't really," she said.

"Explain," he commanded.

"The obituary, which I have with me if you'd like to see it," Hermione said, reaching for her bag, but Snape waved her offer away so she continued. "Well, the obituary was written by his friend James Scott. When I'd searched for books on Michelson and his achievements in the library at the Ministry, I wasn't able to find anything. I guess that was because his contemporaries didn't like him, so they didn't write on him," she paused as Snape nodded to confirm her suspicions, "I thought that if I looked up information on Scott it might lead me to something on Michelson.

"I found plenty of books on Scott, since he was such a political activist, you know, and I happened across his diaries in the Ministry library. I started with the entries in April and May of 1608, and luckily enough, Scott seemed to have a great deal of involvement with Michelson and his experiments."

"They were lovers," Snape cut in.

"Excuse me?" Hermione said, caught off guard by the interruption to her recitation.

"Scott and Michelson were lovers. They lived together, Miss Granger. That is why Scott was so involved with the experiment," he said.

"Oh," Hermione replied, nodding. "I see. Well, I guess that explains the vast amounts of praise for Michelson that Scott included in his accounts."

"Indeed," Snape said, smirking again.

"Anyway," Hermione went on, "Scott wrote that Michelson consumed the potion to leave their time period on the fifth of May, and took the potion to return back to 1608 along with him. Except that he never came back. So, that's why they said he died and that's why the obituary was printed."

"I see," Snape said. "And you managed to brew these potions for yourself how?"

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, a smile appearing on her face as she leaned forward slightly, "that's the really lucky part. At the end of the entry in which Scott writes about accepting that Michelson isn't coming back, which was really quite sweet and nicely written, you know, Scott copied the recipes for the two potions from Michelson's notes!"

Snape smirked at her, tapping his forefinger lightly on the surface of his desk. "You have a copy of the notes with you, I imagine?"

"Yes, Professor," she replied.

"And the potions?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, nodding. "I have three vials of each with me."

Snape nodded and stood from his chair. "Then let us adjourn this meeting to my lab, and I will take a look at what you have, Miss Granger."

---

Snape's lab was warm. Hermione had noticed that while the rest of the dungeons were terribly cool and damp, Snape's personal lab was quite warm and dry. Hermione didn't know if this was attributed to the numerous bubbling, boiling, and simmering cauldrons he had dispersed throughout the room or a warming charm he might be maintaining, but she didn't really care either way as long as it stayed as pleasantly temperate as it was right now.

When they entered the room, Hermione set her overnight bag down in the corner by the door. She set her book bag down next to it, but made sure to take the makeup bag she'd placed her vials of the potion in and her copy of the notes out of it. With these things in hand, she made her way over the table Snape stood beside.

She placed the items down onto the space he had cleared for them and stood beside him. She watched as he reached into his robe pocket and pulled out an eyeglass case, and she tried not gasp as she saw him retrieve a pair of spectacles from within and set them on his nose.

"Why are you gawking?" he asked as he lifted the first leaf of parchment and began to read.

"You've glasses now," she said.

"I see you're still mastering the observation of the blatantly obvious," he murmured as his eyes skimmed the page.

Hermione giggled at this, and Snape turned his gaze on her and glared. "Funny now, am I?" he asked.

"Well," she replied, "yes, rather."

Snape gave her a very odd look before directing his attention back to the parchment. Hermione waited silently as he read the first before placing it back on the table and picking up the second. He read through the second, third, fourth, and fifth pieces of parchment in less than five minutes. Once he had restacked the papers neatly, he picked up the makeup bag and unzipped it. Hermione watched him as he took out one vial of each of the potions.

"The green one takes you away from the present," Hermione said, "and the yellow brings you back."

"Yes, I gathered as much from the notes," Snape said as he took the vial of green potion and held it up before the light. "This is well brewed, Miss Granger," he said as he set it back on the table and picked up the other vial filled with the yellow potion, and doing the same with it as he did the green. "This is as well."

"Thank you," Hermione said softly, blushing as she realized that this was the first time Snape had ever praised her work.

"Honestly, Miss Granger," Snape said, as he took off his glasses and set them atop the pile of parchment on the table, "I believe that if you've followed Michelson's directions to the letter that there is no reason why these potions won't work. The rats the headmaster said you'd been testing are more than likely off somewhere in the distant past, running around and spreading disease."

"Oh really, Professor?" Hermione asked eagerly, not noticing that her hand had somehow ended up on Snape's forearm. "Oh, do you really think so?"

"Yes, Miss Granger," he said, sneering as he looked down at where her hand touched his arm, "I really do."

"Oh!" Hermione said, pulling her hand away quickly. "I'm sorry. I was just so worried that you'd say that they weren't safe and that I wouldn't be able to conduct my experiment."

"They aren't safe," Snape replied. "Who can say when and where you would be transported? Who can say what is waiting for you in the other time period?"

Hermione frowned. "But Professor, those are dangers inherent of any experiment dealing with time travel."

"Yes, I realize that, Miss Granger," he snapped, "but my opinion remains that these are very risky experiments for you to conduct on your own."

Hermione sighed and frowned down at the vials. "I understand."

"However," Snape continued, "I will discuss this matter with the headmaster after dinner. I'm sure he'll be able to concoct some plan that will allow you to do your tests."

Her head snapped up when she comprehended his words. She stared at him silently for a few moments until her face broke out into a wide grin and she felt compelled to speak. "Oh thank you, Professor Snape! Thank you so much!"

Snape gave her a small smirk that Hermione thought bordered on a smile in return. "You're welcome, Miss Granger."

----
Notes: The colors of the potions come from the colors of the stones of the rings in C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew

Thanks very much for reading! And thanks to those of you who have been kind enough to review!