Disclaimer: Everything belongs to J. K. Rowling. The idea of the time-travel mirror was borrowed from the TV-series 'Mirror Mirror' (I don't know who made them).
Summary: A mysterious mirror allows Hermione to travel back and forth through time between her own time and the seventies. But what will she do when something that starts as a seemingly innocent way to continue her schooling ends up changing her whole world? Major HBP spoilers, follows HBP. Time-travel. Will probably become HGRL.
Mirror of Time
Chapter 1 : The Mirror
Hogwarts was completely deserted.
Even though it was the middle of September, the school was completely empty, except for the ghosts and some house-elves. They were the only ones, together with the portraits of course, left to talk to.
No more laughter from the students could be heard through the halls, no more reprimanding from agitated teachers, no more Filch or Mrs. Norris to chase children out of bed after curfew. Yes, even they had left the castle.
The grounds were almost equally deserted, no more excited Quidditch players, practicing for their next match, no more students relaxing under the trees or near the lake, after a long day of classes. Only Hagrid was still there, faithfully taking care of the grounds and the Forbidden Forest, the only part of Hogwarts grounds with still some evidence of life.
Hogwarts was deserted, closed down after a thousand years of providing education to young wizards and witches.
After Death Eaters had invaded the school last year, which ended in the death of the headmaster, the board of governors had decided it was best to close the school, at least until the war was over. Nobody was allowed to enter the grounds after that, except for Hagrid who had permission to take care of the grounds.
Recently, however, someone else had received permission, both from the board of governors and professor McGonagall, who had officially taken the job of Headmistress, even though the school was closed, to return to the castle and take residence in it for a while.
Hermione Granger had asked for permission to investigate the great Hogwarts library, the Room of Requirement with all the strange objects that happened to be stored there, the office of the late headmaster, Albus Dumbledore and the office of the one person who had betrayed them all, Severus Snape. Hermione hoped she could find out information about Voldemort and the Horcruxes he had hidden somewhere, searching for information that way was what she could do best and it was the best way she could think of to help Harry in his search.
Hermione couldn't help but feel slightly guilty. While she was relatively safe at Hogwarts, her best friends were somewhere out there, facing Death Eaters and the dangerous traps Voldemort had set up to defend the hidden parts of his soul.
But she knew that searching for more information was also an important job and so she had returned to the place where she had spend the majority of her time since she had found out she was a witch, over six years ago.
She had planned to stay here for four months, after which she would spend the holidays hopefully with her friends, and after that she would resume her search in the library of the Ministry. It would be four lonely months, with only Hagrid as the occasional company, but the half-giant had mostly closed himself off from the world after Dumbledore's death and Hermione wasn't too keen to try and get through to him. It were hard times for all of them and she couldn't afford losing too much time, every moment could count now.
Hermione took her residence in some guest chambers close to the library, but she decided to start her work in the Room of Requirement. Harry had told her about the place stacked with objects people had hidden during the course of the centuries, not only junk but also several dark items could be found there. Who knows what more the room could hide?
And thus it happened that Hermione Granger entered the Room of Requirement on one rainy day in mid-September and started to go through all the things stored there.
Three days passed by and Hermione didn't find anything remarkable or exceptionable. Most things had obviously belonged to students who didn't want to be caught with stuff that could get them into trouble, but none of these things could really be called dangerous. Once or twice, Hermione had come across illegal objects, but even they weren't really worth her attention.
It was on the morning of the fourth day, however, that Hermione came upon a very remarkable object.
At first, it had looked to like an ordinary mirror, only showing her reflection, but as she stepped closer to it, something changed.
Her reflection seemed to sway a little and became hazy. Little circles appeared across the surface of the mirror and grew in size, until they covered it fully. It looked to Hermione as if she had been watching her reflection in the lake and someone had thrown a stone into it.
As she watched, she could see something else appear in the mirror. It resembled the room where she was in, but a little less overstuffed and no one was standing there.
What is this mirror and what's going on with it?
Hermione scanned the frame, but the only inscription was made unreadable by all the dust it had accumulated. Against her better judgement, Hermione reached forwards to the mirror.
If only I could read the inscription.
She hadn't planned to actually touch the surface, she only wanted to wipe the dust of the frame, but as she wiped her fingers across the frame, they slipped a little, and before she knew what had happened, she had touched the surface of the mirror anyway.
The next moment, she felt herself swirling and whirling around, as if she was trapped in a vortex and it seemed like she was sucked into the mirror. The last thing she saw before the mirror had sucked her in completely, was the inscription on its frame, now perfectly readable.
The Mirror of Time
000
A/N: Don't worry, I'm not abandoning my other stories, but this story has been in my head for some time, and it really wanted to be written, so I figured I could just as well start it.
Please let me know what you think of this.