I've avoided introducing OC's in this chapter, so all the characters should have been theoretically at Hogwarts during this time period. I'm going by the ages JKR set out for us, and improvising with the ones she didn't confirm.
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Hermione was lucky Professor Dumbledore hadn't asked her to make her own way to the Slytherin dormitories, since she had absolutely no idea where they were. She followed Professor Slughorn down a corridor and several staircases, all the way into the gloomy dungeons. The professor seemed inclined to conversation in spite of the early hour, and Hermione tried to keep her story in order, sensing that it would see many repetitions before people tired of asking her where she had sprung from.
"You have no idea whether you're related to the Black family that reside in London?" Professor Slughorn asked for the third time, as they walked along a particularly dark and dank corridor. The sound of dripping water echoed unpleasantly through the dungeons.
"Non Professor. Like I said, I was home-schooled," Hermione said calmly, although she was far from calm.
"Shame," Slughorn tutted. "These pureblood families get so large they can't keep track of everyone these days. Perhaps Regulus might know."
"I...I don't recognise the name."
An image of an antique silver locket swam to the forefront of Hermione's mind. I have discovered the real horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can...
Regulus hadn't been the enemy in the end. It was just a shame he died before anyone realised. Maybe this time another life could be saved. Then again, maybe not.
"Never mind," Professor Slughorn said comfortingly, blissfully unaware of the thoughts running through Hermione's mind. "Professor Dumbledore said your parents died recently?"
"Yes." Hermione said quietly. It wasn't a lie. Frances and Christopher Granger had died only weeks before Hermione's accident with time. Lucius Malfoy had taken great pleasure in displaying their bodies for Hermione to see. He had gone to special effort to bring them back for her, Lucius had told her. There had been something horrible about his fixation with her.
"I'm sure you must be missing them," Slughorn said, as they rounded another narrow corner. "But Slytherin will be your family now, although I should warn you, you haven't arrived at an easy time. I assume you're aware of the political climate in Britain at this moment?"
"Somewhat," Hermione said dryly.
"Then it will not surprise you to hear that Slytherin house is under a great deal of suspicion. My students report harassment from the other three houses, and other teachers turning a blind eye. I tell you this not to frighten you, but to warn you."
Hermione looked at Professor Slughorn in surprise, and dredged up what she could from her memory of the man. He had never been a supporter of Lord Voldemort, but had played a significant part in his uprising, albeit unintentionally. Hermione had never had much time for the man the first time around, and wasn't sure she liked him much better the second.
"There is only so much I can do about it," Slughorn said, misreading Hermione's expression. "Much as it pains me to admit, some members of my house...well, they perhaps do not act as kindly as they should to certain factions within our school."
"Muggleborns," Hermione said softly.
"Muggleborns, half-bloods, and what they refer to as 'blood traitors'. But they won't bother you, and you shouldn't let it trouble you. Within Slytherin, you will find we are fiercely protective of our house members. Besieged on all sides, Slytherin's stick together. Should you find yourself in difficulty, no Slytherin would begrudge you help."
"Thank you," Hermione said, surprised again.
"You're very welcome Miss Black. Ah, here we are."
They rounded a corner and arrived at a narrow stretch of bare, dripping stone wall. Hermione looked at it expectantly. There was no portrait like Gryffindor, or door like Ravenclaw.
"Elementis," Professor Slughorn said to the wall. Hermione stared as the wall simply melted away, leaving a narrow tunnel.
"I will leave you here," the professor said quietly. "And I will contact a Slytherin prefect in the morning, who will approach you and show you what you need to know. The common room is just through that tunnel. The door to the left leads to the Slytherin girls dormitories, and the sixth year is on the first landing."
"Left door, first landing, prefect will find me," Hermione repeated.
"Perfect. I believe Professor Dumbledore asked the house elves to organise a bed and equipment for you, which should already be there. I will see you at breakfast Miss Black."
"Goodnight Professor," Hermione said, stepping into the tunnel.
She walked for a few moments along a damp passage, and then exited into the Slytherin common room. It was a grand room, with high stone walls, but somehow felt cold and imposing. The light was green-tinged and that made the large space look gloomy. It was dotted with leather sofas, and black, low backed chairs with dark stained tables; nothing cosy or comfortable about it. However, in the enormous fireplace there was a fire still smouldering, and that counted for a great deal.
Hermione shivered, pulling her robes around herself. In her own timeline, she had never been inside the Slytherin common room.
"Left door first floor," she muttered, heading towards a dark doorway beside the fireplace.
It was easy enough to follow the stairs up to the first landing, whereupon Hermione stepped through into a small room. It was very different from the Gryffindor common room. Rather than circular, the room was a long rectangle, with four poster beds on either side. There were five beds leading away from her. Four of them had the curtains drawn, and soft breathing could be heard coming from them. The fifth was empty, with the curtains drawn back, and a freshly made bed. It had to be hers, and Hermione marvelled at how fast the house elves worked.
Amused by the green bedsheets, Hermione checked the cupboard beside the bed. There was a selection of robes that it was too hard to see in the dark. The drawers beneath contained underwear, and a green lacy thing that Hermione assumed was Slytherin nightwear, and she wondered if asking the house elf for everything a pureblood Slytherin girl would wear might have been a little too far. Nonetheless, she donned the skimpy nightgown.
Crawling between the sheets, Hermione rested her weary head on the pillow. She was exhausted, but sleep wouldn't come. When it finally did, it was fractured with nightmares; her dead parents, dead Harry, dead Ron. And always, above all, was the high pitched laughter of Lord Voldemort.
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When morning dawned in an obscenely short amount of time, Hermione awoke with a jerk. She lay there, her heart pounding, unable to remember where she was or why she was there. Then it all came flooding back. The veil. The time turner. Dumbledore. Slughorn. And Hermione Black.
It all seemed too fantastical. Hermione opened her eyes, half expecting to find herself back in her cell, awaiting execution. But there was no mistaking the green sheets or bed hangings. She was definitely in the Slytherin dormitories, which meant she was definitely in 1976. It was too much for Hermione to process, so she pushed it to the back of her mind. It was a coping technique she had used to cope with the deaths of everyone she had ever loved. A way to stop herself going insane, and it served her admirably here.
"Who are you?"
The voice was female, and deeply suspicious. Hermione sat up in bed, and turned to see who was talking. The speaker was a tall, pale girl with dark curly hair. She was very pretty, but had a rather ugly look on her face.
"Hermione Black," Hermione said quietly, preparing herself for the ordeal to come. "New student. Arrived last night. And your name?"
"Black?" The girl interrupted. "Related to Regulus Black?"
Hermione sighed. She should have realised using the name would create questions she couldn't answer. "No idea, never met most of my family. And you are?"
"Arabel Selwyn," the girl said, giving Hermione a look that suggested she didn't entirely believe her. "Why would you arrive in the middle of the night?"
"Stop the inquisition Arabel," another female voice called. Hermione looked up to see a girl leaving the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, long wet red hair falling past her shoulders.
"You must be Hermione," the redhead said kindly. "I'm Lucinda Davis, Slytherin Prefect. Professor Slughorn left me a message telling me you had arrived, and needed a bit of helping finding your way around."
"Please," Hermione said. Then, feeling slightly uncomfortable with being observed, she left the bed and headed for the bathroom the redheaded girl had just vacated.
Dressing as a Slytherin girl seemed considerably more of a task than dressing as a Gryffindor. For some reason all of her robes had hundreds of buttons on them, and they were far more form fitting than anything Hermione had worn in her old life. Hermione didn't know whether it was the different house or the different era. Far more irritating than the robes was the underwear. There was a great deal of it in her drawers, and virtually all of it was black. Some of it was green, and some was silver. All of it was lacy.
"Unbelievable," Hermione muttered, wrestling with a suspender belt. "Slytherin girls wore this every day?"
A quick glance at the girls Hermione was sharing a dormitory with was enough to show her she was wearing the same as everyone else though. There were two other girls in her dormitory; one was still in bed, and the other was a short stubby blonde girl that Hermione hadn't gotten a good look at yet.
Feeling uncomfortable in the close fitting robes, Hermione waited. When the other girls were ready, they showed Hermione down to breakfast. But it wasn't like any breakfast Hermione had eaten at Hogwarts before.
The Great Hall was absolutely silent when Hermione walked in with the Slytherin's. Any conversations that had been taking place outside the Hall immediately ceased. The staff table was full, and Hermione looked up and met the eyes of Professor Dumbledore, sitting in the throne-like chair at the centre of the table. He gave her a solemn nod.
At first Hermione thought the hall had fallen silent at her entry, and a dozen panicked thoughts ran through her mind. But then she realised no eyes were looking at her. In fact every gaze was directed towards the far end of the ceiling. Hermione followed their gaze as she sat down with Lucinda, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Nobody was eating either. They were all just staring.
The silence continued for several minutes and was beginning to get unnerving, when there was a rustle from the rafters. Suddenly hundreds of owls burst into the great hall, carrying letters, packages and newspapers. The noise of the wings beating filled the hall, but still nobody made a sound, even as their mail was dropped onto their laps. They were all still waiting for something.
Hermione was just about to whisper something to the girl beside her, when Professor Dumbledore stood up, a newspaper in his hand. Immediately all attention turned on him. It was obvious that this was what everyone had been waiting for.
Professor Dumbledore looked very serious as he stared around the great hall. The twinkle Hermione had come to expect to see in his eye was gone, and he frowned around the hall. At last, he raised the newspaper, and began to read.
"Eleanor and Darren Vance. Helen Abbot. Hortense and Horace Hibert. Edward Blackwell. Selma Prewett. And George, Susan, and young Bernard Montgomery. May their sacrifice never be forgotten."
The silence held for moment, during which whispers echoed through the hall. Then Professor Dumbledore sat down, and placed the newspaper beside his plate. The spell was broken, and voices filled the room. People reached for the mail they had ignored a moment ago, or grabbed breakfast and began to eat. Chattering filled the air.
Across the hall, Hermione saw a matronly looking woman leading a sobbing Hufflepuff girl from the hall.
"What was that?" Hermione asked Lucinda. It was unlike any Hogwarts breakfast she had ever seen.
Lucinda looked upset. "It was the names of people who have died since yesterday. The Daily Prophet prints them every morning, so we know if our family is still alive or not."
Hermione shivered. It was one thing to know the war had broken out twenty years ago. It was another thing to sit there and listen as the names of the dead were reeled off. Hermione had the sudden realisation that the world she had entered into was not the same as the one she had left behind. Lord Voldemort was attacking in the open at full strength, and many of the people beside her were preparing to join him.
Hermione glanced up and down the table at her new companions, and received several shocks immediately.
The short, stubby looking blonde girl Hermione had noticed in her dorm was sitting across from her, and to her astonishment she realised that she recognised her. Alecto Carrow smiled at Hermione before returning to her cornflakes, her pudgy sixteen year old face not holding a hint of her older self. If it hadn't been for the turned up nose and stumpy body, Hermione might never have recognised her.
It was hard to watch Alecto cheerfully eating her breakfast, while knowing the plump girl would grow up to be responsible for the bloody death of Professor Flitwick, among countless others. But Hermione managed to keep herself under control, at least for another moment.
No sooner had she pulled a piece of toast towards her, than a smooth male voice behind her spoke. "Are you the new student Professor Slughorn mentioned this morning?"
Hermione turned around, and found herself face to face with Rabastan Lestrange. Instantly her body went cold, and her fingers clenched around her wand. Hermione's heart was racing and she knew she was pale. This was the man who had tortured Neville's parents. The man who had killed Colin and Dennis Creevey during the final battle. The man who had watched, laughing, as his sister Bellatrix tortured and killed Molly Weasley.
"Are you alright?" Rabastan asked, the concern in his voice genuine.
Hermione worked hard to slow her racing heart, and focussed on Rabastan's face. He had to be only sixteen, with an earnest-looking olive skinned face, and short brown hair. This wasn't the monster that had killed so many people. Hermione had nothing to fear from this boy, yet. But, she reminded herself, although he might not know it, he had everything to fear from her.
"I'm fine, sorry. A lot of new faces, got a bit confused. Yes, I'm Hermione Black."
"I'm Rabastan," he said, smiling at Hermione. It made her uncomfortable. It was probably meant to be reassuring, but it reminded her of a snake right before it sank its teeth into its unwitting prey.
"Are you any relation to Regulus?" Rabastan continued, taking a seat beside her. Hermione edged away unobtrusively.
"She doesn't know," Arabel interrupted, leaning forward. " I asked her this morning. Maybe Reg's would know. Hey, Regulus?"
As the girl called down the table, Hermione looked up curiously, and got her first glimpse of Sirius's brother; the man they had never met, but had heard so much about from Kreacher.
Regulus was smaller than Sirius, and not as handsome as his older brother had been. Older brother was, Hermione corrected herself, remembering Sirius must be somewhere around too. He was slender and pale, with the same floppy black hair as his brother, but a face that was very different.
"Yes?" Regulus sounded annoyed.
"New student. First name Hermione, last name Black. Any relation?"
Regulus looked more curious, and left his conversation to come over to them. "You're called Black?" He asked Hermione, not sounding as if he really believed her.
"Yes," Hermione said firmly. "Hermione Black."
"Never heard of you," Regulus sniffed, turning away.
"Never heard of you either," Hermione muttered, and Lucinda chuckled beside her.
"Never mind Regulus," she said fondly. "Family is a bit of a sore spot. Goodness knows, they've disowned enough members."
"Oh," Hermione said politely.
She tried to take a bite of toast, but it tasted like cardboard on her tongue. Hermione had expected to be caught off guard by things in this era, but nothing could really prepare her for the terrifying bizarreness of being introduced to people who were long dead in her time. It felt deeply, intrinsically wrong somehow.
The rest of breakfast continued in much the same way. Most faces were new, but every so often Hermione would see someone she wasn't expecting, and her stomach would jolt uncomfortably.
Professor Slughorn approached Hermione and gave her a timetable for the week, and reading it, she saw she had Transfiguration with the Gryffindor's first. As she stood up to go, someone shoved past her in their hurry to catch up with a group of dawdling boys up ahead. Hermione only caught a glimpse of a pale face and greasy hair, but it was enough to make her stop where she stood and stare after the boy who had just nearly knocked her over.
After watching him bleed to death, nothing could have prepared her for seeing Severus Snape alive and well, laughing with his friends on the way to class as if he had nothing to be afraid of, and the whole world at his feet.
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Thanks for reading.
Cas
