Hermione groaned as she sat up and opened her eyes. She was surprised to find herself in the hospital wing and more so surprised to find herself alive. Hadn't she run off a cliff, or had that just been a dream? It had seemed so real.

She looked around and raised a brow. The walls that she had always known to be white were now a light shade of blue. When had they been painted?

Just then a woman entered and Hermione blinked. It was the same Madame Pomphrey she knew, though she appeared much younger.

"Ah, you're awake," she said when her eyes fell on Hermione. "We feared we might have lost you."

"We?" was all Hermione could ask.

"Yes," the younger Madame Pomphrey agreed. "The Headmaster, Professor McGonagall, and myself."

"What happened to me? How'd I end up here?"

Hermione was sorely confused.

"Mister Black, a student here, found you at the edge of the lake last night. You weren't breathing and had been unconscious for hours. We hoped that you would remember how you got here. If Mister Black hadn't found you…" She shook her head. Hermione blinked.

"Mister Black? You can't mean Sirius Black, can you?"

Madame Pomphrey looked at her sharply.

"You know Mister Black?"

Hermione nodded hesitantly. She had begun to have the very absurd idea that she had perhaps been sent back in time. Just as Hermione opened her mouth to speak, two people entered.

"Ah, you are awake, Miss Granger," said a voice Hermione knew all too well.

She turned her head and gasped. Dumbledore and McGonagall strode towards her bed, both looking years younger than she had recalled them to be. But Dumbledore had said her name.

"Yes, Miss Granger," he said, his eyes twinkling behind those half-moon spectacles of his. "We know of your origin. You come from the future of Hogwarts, but what we don't and need to know is how you came to be here." He waved his wand and two chairs appeared at Hermione's side. He and McGonagall took those chairs. Then, remembering Madame Pomphrey's presence, Dumbledore waved his wand and a chair appeared beside McGonagall's. Once the nurse was seated, he looked at Hermione.

"I don't know how I came here, sir. This is the past? How far into the past? Madame Pomphrey mentioned Sirius Black."

Dumbledore looked from her to McGonagall and then back to her.

"Sirius saved you yesterday. He is a part of your future?"

"Yes, but I can't say anything. Professor McGonagall's told me all the awful things that have happened to witches and wizards who have visited the past and let the future be known. They could end up changing the future as they know it."

McGonagall smiled and nodded. "I would say that."

"So you know of Mister Black in your future. You understand then that he cannot know of anything about his future. Now, is there anything you can recall of yesterdays events?"

Hermione nodded but blushed. There was some information she didn't want them to know.

"I woke up in my own time to find a black phoenix at my window. Then light filled my room and I found myself in a field of wheat. In the distance I could see my two best friends, though they appeared to be only six years old, and they called for me to follow them. I did and then, after awhile, they stopped, merged together, and a hooded and robed figure stood in their stead. He said he was…" she stopped. Was Voldemort at large now?

"Does it have to do with Voldemort?" Dumbledore asked. Hermione nodded.

"He said he was Voldemort and lowered his hood."

She grew silent. If she told anything else then she might change a bit of the future, for all she knew, she already had.

"You can tell us about this, but to tell anyone else would is unadvisable," Dumbledore said, understanding her silence.

"Well, Harry Potter—he survived many meetings with Voldemort—told me that Voldemort had been nothing more than a skeletal form of man with a high pitched voice, and so I didn't believe the man who was very much whole and had a deep voice. I told him as much but he told me that I, of all people, should know that magic could do a lot for a person's appearance. He was right. My sixth year, just last year, I grew so tired of being the bookworm and the good girl that I took the aging potion and changed my voice. I then sneaked out to Hogsmede were I met a man and…"

Dumbledore nodded and McGonagall and Pomphrey patted her arm. They understood.

"I asked him how he had known when I hadn't told anyone—I had been so ashamed of myself for that—and he told me to look into his eyes and I would know. I did so, and his eyes, which had been a dark blue when he had first lowered his hood, were now a dark gray, the same gray of the man's from Hogsmede and of the black phoenix that had been at my window. It was then I knew him for Voldemort—he had be the man at Hogsmede—and I then knew him for an animagus. An unregistered one like Sirius."

She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

Dumbledore frowned but said nothing for which Hermione was grateful.

"Continue," he said.

"When I accused him of it he just grinned and said that I was the smartest witch of my age. That stirred my anger because Professor Lupin had called me that."

"You know Remus Lupin as well?" McGonagall interjected.

"Yes, anyways. He told me that he had to have me as his wife, that he would marry me. I told him that I would never marry him and he said that I really had no choice in the matter. I then told him that he could force my hand in marriage but he could never force my heart to love him, and it never would. He then said that I needed time to think and sent me running off a cliff that appeared out of nowhere. The last thing I saw was Harry and Ron in my mind before I lost consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was in here, and that's all I remember."

Dumbledore nodded.

"I had figured as much. The truth is you were never in that field and you never ran off that cliff. In fact, you never left your dormitory. You still haven't. You are in a state of comatose there and somehow you have found your way here. We must find a way to send you back or you will fade from your time and be stuck in this past."

"No!"

The door burst open and a handsome black haired boy of seventeen rushed into the room.

Hermione's eyes fell upon the boy and she knew instantly who it was: Sirius Black.

And, judging by the look on his face, he had heard everything.