Disclaimer: Everything belongs to J. K. Rowling, the idea of the time-travel mirror was borrowed from the TV-series 'Mirror Mirror' (Gibson Group/ Millennium Pictures co-production)

Mirror of Time

Chapter 5: The Marauders

After classes had ended, Hermione declined Lily's offer to join her and her friends in the Gryffindor common room. She was tired after a day full of classes and meeting a lot of new people, together with people who she knew to be dead.

This is harder than I thought to get used to, more so since I can travel between now and then. It might have been easier if I had just been stuck there without any way back, a frown spread upon her face, no, it wouldn't have been easier, at least I still have my friends in my own time, if I had been stuck in the past I wouldn't see them again.

When Hermione finally reached her own rooms, she let herself fall down on her bed, too tired to do anything else. I'll continue my cleaning out of the Room of Requirement tomorrow, I'm just too tired now.

Soon, she was fast asleep.

000

That evening in the 7th year boys' dormitory in 1976, the Marauders were lounging on their beds, talking about the mysterious new girl that had arrived at the school.

"What do you guys think about the new girl?" James asked.

"She's surely a pretty one," came Sirius immediate answer.

Remus rolled his eyes. "The girl just lost her family, Sirius, give her some peace, the last thing she needs now is you going after her."

Sirius turned to Remus in surprise. "You want me to leave her alone? Why would you care so suddenly about who I 'go after'? Or maybe you want her for yourself, that must be it, our Moony has a crush!"

"Shut up, Padfoot, I only met her today, I just want you to leave her alone."

But Remus couldn't help the blush that heated up his face, it may be too early to speak about a crush, they had only just met, after all, but Remus couldn't deny to himself that he had felt some attraction to the new girl. This didn't go unnoticed by Sirius.

"All right, Moony, I'll leave her alone, she's all yours."

As an answer, a pillow flew his way and connected with his head.

Over the noises of indignation from Sirius, James managed to say, raising his voice, "Actually, I meant, don't you think there's something strange about her?"

"What do you mean, Prongs?"

"Actually, I noticed it too," answered Peter, "She's a Gryffindor, but she didn't come in the common room at all today, or yesterday, for that matter, and Dumbledore did say she arrived yesterday."

Remus frowned, "You're right, although she might have been in the library, catching up homework. But did you guys see her face when she first saw us in the Great Hall?"

"Yeah, she almost cringed upon seeing us," responded Peter.

"All right, that's strange, Evans probably warned her about us, but even she wouldn't go as far as to tell her things to make her fear us."

"Leave Lily out of this, Padfoot."

"Did Lily tell you anything about her, Prongs? They did seem to get along well." Remus asked thoughtfully.

James frowned. "Not really, she still tries to avoid me whenever possible, but I am Head Boy, and I at least expected her to let me know about the new girl, but she didn't even say anything. That's what bothers me the most actually, that I wasn't informed. You know, she doesn't sleep in the girls' dormitory, she has her own rooms, but I don't know where. Only Lily knows, Dumbledore apparently asked her to keep an eye on the new girl. I have a feeling there is more to whatever happened to her than we were told."

"So, what do you propose we do, Prongs?"

James pulled out the Marauder's Map. "Let's start with finding out where she is right now and where she stays at night."

The other's gathered around him and they started searching the map. After a long time of silence, Remus uncomfortably broke the silence. "Has anyone found her yet?" Three voices answered in the negative.

"She isn't with Lily and her friends or in the library, or anywhere else in the castle."

"Maybe she's outside on the grounds."

"No, I checked the grounds, she isn't there either."

"But she has to be somewhere, hasn't she?"

The four Marauders looked up at each other, all of them equal looks of bewilderment on their faces.

"If she isn't anywhere on Hogwarts grounds, then where did she go?" Peter asked in a small voice.

"Wherever she is, there's something going on here that's very unusual." James answered.

"Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there?"

Everyone looked at Sirius. "We have to follow her tomorrow, to wherever she is going."

Remus frowned, "Spy on her? I'm not sure that's a good idea, there must be reasons for all this."

"Indeed, and I'm planning to find out exactly what it is." Sirius answered, an adventurous look in his eyes.

"You're right, we have to find out." James agreed, "How exactly are we going to follow her unnoticed?"

Suddenly, everyone looked in Peter's direction, who paled a bit. "Wha…What? Why are you looking at me?"

"Tomorrow, after classes, you're going to follow her in rat-form, Wormtail, and when you find out where she is going, come and get us." Sirius said.

"We'll follow you on the map." James added.

"All right." Peter agreed reluctantly.

000

The next day, classes seemed to pass by very slowly.

James and Sirius kept glancing at Hermione, trying to catch her doing something that could be considered as abnormal for a student. They made sure to walk right behind her and Lily in the corridors and even left their normal place during lunch to sit near the girls.

Remus had tried to reason with them a few times, telling them if Hermione had something to hide, she would make sure to act like everyone else and not give herself away, but he had given up after a while. Why do I even bother, they never listen to reason anyway.

Meanwhile, Lily and Hermione had noticed the strange behaviour of the Marauders. At first, Lily hadn't thought much of it, James had been following her around on a regular basis for years, but then Hermione pointed out that Sirius too kept looking in their direction all the time.

"Maybe he fancies you." Lily joked. Hermione rolled her eyes laughing.

"Possibly, Sirius fancies almost every girl at one point in time." Hermione had heard enough stories and jokes about it during the summer she spent at Grimmauld Place.

Lily laughed too. "You're right, how do you know?" She glanced sideways at her new friend. Hermione smiled but didn't reply.

"Do you know him in your time?" Lily whispered then. Hermione's smile vanished immediately. "You know I can't answer any more of your questions."

"But what harm could it mean if you just tell me if you know him?"

Hermione sighed, feeling once again tears prickling in her eyes, but she willed them back. It's not fair, there is so much I want to tell her. If I could, I would warn them all, but I can't risk changing everything, who knows what the consequences might be.

"Hermione, are you all right?"

She shook her head to clear it, deciding that answering this one question wouldn't really make a difference. "I knew him."

"Knew…What do you…" Lily paled a bit. "He's dead too, isn't he?"

Hermione bit her lip. I've said too much again, if these things keep happening, I'll have to reconsider coming to the past. But it's not as if Lily is able to save him, or herself or James, for that matter.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you, I'm way too curious. I'll try to stop myself from now on." Lily was saying. Hermione nodded, but didn't say anything, she was grateful when lunch was over and classes started again.

Like the previous day, Lily invited Hermione to join her in the common room, but again Hermione declined.

"You'll have to make an appearance sometime, Hermione. People will get suspicious, as you pointed out yourself, the Marauders already are suspicious."

"I know, but I need to do a few things today and frankly, I still need to get used to all this 'following classes in the past', I promise I'll join you in a few days, Lily, give me some time."

"All right then, see you tomorrow."

The girls split up and Hermione made her way to the Room of Requirement. She did her best to walk fast and make it look like she knew where she was going, but at the same time, she made a lot of detours.

The Marauders have been following me around all day, they might still follow me now and I can't risk having them find out where I come from.

Hermione of course knew all too well about the Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map. I just hope they don't follow me on the Map, if so, then there's no way to outsmart them, I guess. And I can't keep running around here without purpose, people might notice, and it would be too suspicious.

Finally, she reached the Room of Requirement, entered it quickly and closed the door as fast as possible. Even a rat wouldn't be able to enter with me, that's the best I can do.

Hermione returned to her own time, quickly dropping off her school stuff in her own room and returning to cleaning out the Room.

000

Peter had been following Hermione all through Hogwarts, wondering what the hell this girl could be up to. Finally she had stopped in an empty corridor and started pacing around. It took Peter a moment to realise where they were and what she was doing and at that point, the Room had already opened. The girl closed the door so quickly that even the rat couldn't slip in. But at least I know where she went.

Pleased with himself, although a bit confused over the strange behaviour of the girl, he returned to the boys' dormitory.

"So she went to Room of Requirement? Whatever could she be doing there?" Sirius wondered aloud, after Peter had told his friends what happened.

"Maybe that's the place where she is staying and nothing out of the ordinary is going on." Remus commented, from behind the book he was reading.

"I highly doubt she would be staying there, Moony, since there are enough other available rooms in the castle." James objected.

"From what Wormtail just told us, it seemed like she thought she was being followed."

"Of course she thought that, Padfoot, since we've only been following her around all day."

"Shut up, Moony."

"What strikes me, is that she obviously knows her way around in the castle, while she is supposed to have never been here before. You have to admit that's a bit strange." James said thoughtfully.

"There's something else," Peter piped up, "all the time I was following her, she never looked behind her. It was as if she knew who was following her, and she didn't expect to be able to see them."

"As if she knew about Wormtail or the Cloak."

Remus lowered his book, looking highly sceptical. "Come on now, Prongs, you can't truly believe she knows about that, when she has only been here for a few days."

"But she seems to know the castle like she's been here for years, Moony, don't tell me you don't think that's odd."

Remus sighed. "All right. I admit there's something going on here we don't understand. But there is probably a good reason why it is happening and why we don't know about it, so give it a rest."

James and Sirius rolled their eyes at the same moment.

"Always being the reasonable one, Moony, lighten up for once. What harm could it be if we just try to find out what she is doing in one of the most interesting rooms of the castle."

"Besides, as Head Boy, I think I have a right to know what's happening there, how else can I make sure she doesn't break the rules."

Remus raised one eyebrow. "Sure, Prongs, that's your main concern." He sighed. "All right then, but how exactly are you going to find out what she's doing there?"

For a moment, silence reigned in the dormitory.

"Well, I hadn't thought of that one, you can't just go to the Room and ask for whatever room Hermione Granger asked for, can you?" Sirius finally responded.

James shook his head. "No, the Room doesn't work that way, we've tried it before, remember?"

"Right."

"What if we ask for a gate?"

Everyone stared at Peter. "What?" At least two voices asked at the same time.

Peter blushed. "Well, uhm, I just thought, since we…we can't see her on the Map, it…it might mean she left the castle…and since she went into th-the Room…I supposed it c-could mean she went through s-some gate in the Room."

The other Marauders kept staring at a now beet-red Peter for another moment.

Sirius broke the silence. "Well, I suppose he has a point."

"But," Remus answered, frowning, "I thought the Room never showed itself on the Map."

"It does sometimes, when there's someone in there who doesn't care about being seen. But it's unplottable when there's no one inside or when people need it to be. That's probably the reason why we can't see her, she doesn't have to leave the castle to disappear off the Map." James answered.

"Does anyone have a better idea to get inside of the Room then?" Sirius asked.

"Well, if she doesn't leave the castle, but stays in there, it must mean she lives there, and I suppose you could ask for Hermione's rooms or something like that." Remus answered hesitantly.

The other Marauders nodded. "Let's go to the Room of Requirement then, and try out if we have found something that works." Sirius picked up the Map and was already half out of the dormitory before he had finished his sentence. James quickly pulled out his Invisibility Cloak and followed his friend, Peter hurried after them, and after a moment of hesitation, Remus decided he was actually quite curious too, and followed his friends.

000

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A/N: I'm really very sorry for making you all wait so long, I just don't have much time to write this right now, because I have a lot of papers to write. I'm working on my stories and I promise to post as often as possible. Right now I'm working on the next chapter of 'Hunted'.

Thanks to my reviewers, it's you who keep me going…