Hello, lovely readers! Thanks to everyone who followed, favorited, and reviewed! I hope you enjoy chapter 2 of my little story! Please let me know what you think!
Hermione stood in front of the wall where she knew the door to the Room of Requirement would appear, should she choose to call it. She clutched a small stack of envelopes tied together with some knotted string, and recalled the odd conversation she had shared with Professor McGonagall just a few minutes prior.
"I do apologize for the unexpected summons," the older witch had started, wringing her hands uneasily. Hermione was surprised- it wasn't normal to see her normally formidable former professor look so…anxious. "I..I have a small favor to ask of you. A task, if you will."
"Anything." Hermione had replied sincerely. "Please, just explain how I can help."
"Well…it's the Room of Requirement. There's been a…well...I need you to call upon the room. I need you to ask it to close the circle. It should be a fairly simple task."
"Close…the circle? I don't understand, Minerva. Will the room respond to something so vague? And why call me all the way here, could someone in the castle not have helped? I can't imagine I would have been a more convenient choice than one of the professors."
"The Room isn't always meant to be understood, I'm afraid. I don't have answers to give you, but I may in time. It's perfectly safe, I promise you that. It…it does need to be you. And it does need to be closed. Tonight. The circle, I mean. I can't explain more, I'm sorry."
Hermione felt a bit perturbed at this odd request, but at the end of the day, the older witch had never given her reason to doubt her. "It's alright, I trust you. I'm happy to help, even if it…frankly, even if it doesn't make a lick of sense. Was that all you needed? I'm expected at the Burrow for dinner this evening, and I was hoping to have time to pop into the library first. I have something I need to look into, and if I'm here already it would be convenient- as long as you don't mind of course."
"Yes, that's all I need. Of course you can use the library. Though, if you could take this please and deliver it to Molly once you arrive at the Burrow." Minerva handed Hermione a small stack of envelopes, and Hermione could see Molly's name scrawled across the top one.
Hermione accepted the bundle of paper, then turned and began walking towards the door.
"Oh, and Ms. Granger?" Hermione looked back over her shoulder at her, seeing the peculiar look on her old professor's face, "You should make it in plenty of time for dinner. This should hardly take any time at all, though that may seem surprising once it's all said and done."
Pursing her lips at the odd encounter replaying in her mind, Hermione once again considered the solid wall in front of her. She mulled over McGonagall's request, trying to decipher the best way to do this. Finally, blowing a stray curl out of her eye, she realized there wasn't much she could do to plan or prepare when she had been given her so very little to work with. She started walking back and forth in front of the wall, concentrating on one thought.
"I need to close the circle. I need to close the circle."
Eventually, a door appeared, looking as though it had been there the entire time. She grasped the doorknob with one hand, swung the door open, and stepped through- only to find herself exiting the Room of Requirement, back into the drafty castle corridor where she started. She blinked, disoriented. Strangely, there had been no room through the door at all- it was as if the door opened up into an identical castle on the other side, with her seamlessly passing from one to the other. She hummed in confusion, letting the door fall to a close behind her while she took a moment to gather her bearings.
Suddenly realizing that letting the door close may not be the best course of action, she whirled around and grasped for the doorknob just as the heavy door latched shut with a firm click. She attempted to wrench the door open once again, but it was well and truly stuck. Pulling out her wand, she tried a quick "Alohomora", to no avail. "Aberto", a handy little charm meant to open doors, also did nothing. She ran through spells and charms in her head, wondering if something a bit more creative might do the trick- but she had to admit that the answer was likely 'no' when a counter-sticking charm, attempting to wrench the door open using Carpe Retractum, and finally trying to "Accio" the door towards her did absolutely nothing.
She was left puzzling whether perhaps directing Avifors at the door itself might be abstract enough to allow her to pass through the doorway, or if she'd be facing an immovable door-sized bird instead, when suddenly the door shrunk away, and in not so much as a blink, it had disappeared entirely.
Frustrated, she began to pace in front of the spot once more, thinking "I NEED TO CLOSE THE CIRCLE" as loudly as she possibly could without actually making a sound, but the wall, irritatingly, remained a wall. Finally, throwing her hands up in the air, she muttered "Fine! The circle won't be closed then! Stupid bloody stubborn room." before briskly starting the trek back towards the headmistress's office to let her know what had happened- or, more notably, what hadn't happened. She so hated failure.
She was about halfway to her destination, still clutching the letters Minerva had asked her to deliver, when she took a quick glance at her watch to see how she was doing for time- only to find that the entire face had shattered. She muttered a quick "Reparo" at it- but nothing happened. It remained as devastatingly shattered as it had before she attempted the spell.
"Wonderful" Hermione hissed to herself, not really caring if anyone heard her, "This has been just the most DELIGHTFUL day. After months of work, my Animagus is a ruddy bear; I come all the way to Hogwarts only to get asked to perform a task equaled in it's deceiving simplicity only by it's infuriating lack of context; I uselessly waltz through a magical door like I'm Alice falling through the bleeding looking glass, and on top of EVERYTHING ELSE, my watch, charmed to be imperishable, has managed to shatter beyond even magical repair!"
Hermione continued to mutter angrily to herself, when suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her. Turning around, she was surprised to see McGonagall, who had somehow managed to come from the opposite direction of her office, despite the short amount of time since Hermione left her there.
"Please explain yourself", McGonagall said tersely.
"Minerva, I apologize- something's wrong. I went to call the room, just like you asked. I told it I needed to close the circle- but nothing happened. I stepped right in and it stepped me right back out the other side. It didn't create a room at all. It was like…stepping through a mirror, I'm not sure how else to describe it. But I ended up right back where I started, with nothing to show for it. Oh, and the door- once it closed, it wouldn't open again. Perhaps if you could give me a bit more to go off of, I can try again another day?"
As Hermione explained this, she fiddled agitatedly with the parcel of envelopes she still carried- she so hated to admit that she had failed at something, especially to her former professor- and, glancing down, she suddenly noticed that the top envelope was addressed simply to "Minerva", which caused her to double take. She could have sworn it had said "Molly" before. Had she set her parcel down and mistakenly picked up a bundle of Minerva's own mail?
"Oh! How odd- It also looks like I may have mistakenly taken your mail, I apolog–" As she said this, Hermione reached her hand out to offer the stack of letters back to McGonagall, and looked up to meet her gaze again. As she did this, Hermione froze- Minerva McGonagall had murder in her eyes, and was pointing her wand directly at the young witch's heart. Hermione faltered, her hand falling back to her side, still clutching the letters.
"Minerva– professor, what-"
"You," McGonagall said coldly, "are coming with me. I don't know who you are, or how you managed to infiltrate this castle. But we will be getting to the bottom of this immediately. I'm taking you to Professor Dumbledore straight away."
Hermione tried to say something in response, but McGonagall merely glared at her suspiciously, still brandishing her wand, and Hermione decided it would probably be prudent to hold her tongue until she had a better grasp on what was going on.
Several tense minutes later, Hermione stood at the entrance to the Headmistress's Office, still exceptionally confused. McGonagall, still carefully pointing her wand in Hermione's general direction, calmly uttered "Cauldron Cakes". Hermione couldn't help it- she threw Minerva a befuddled look at the password, which the older witch met coolly. She was a bit surprised that it had been changed so quickly from the "Fortuna Major" that had granted herself entrance a mere 20 or so minutes earlier. She was even more surprised that the studious Minerva McGonagall went for something like "Cauldron Cakes"- sweets had always been fun-loving Dumbledore's norm for passwords. It didn't quite fit.
The entrance opened, and they stepped inside. Hermione's eyes drew, involuntarily, towards the portrait housing Albus Dumbledore- Minerva had said she wanted to speak with him after all- but the space was curiously empty. She then glanced towards the ornate desk- and heavily sat down in a fortunately placed chair. Her eyes wide, her mouth open, and her jaw trembling, she stared at the man behind the desk like she had seen a ghost. In a way, she had.
"Good evening, Minerva. Who might this be?" Albus Dumbledore asked genially, his piercing gaze curiously taking in Hermione.
Before Minerva could speak, Hermione found her voice and leaped up, no longer caring about the wand that was still trained on her.
"What. Is. Happening." Hermione asked shrilly, her eyes wild. "You-" she said, jutting a finger towards Dumbledore, "shouldn't be here! This is not possible."
She whirled around towards McGonagall. "What did you do? What did you make me do, with The Room of Requirement? With the circle? Is this..is this a hallucination? Did I die. Am I dead? What is GOING ON."
As Hermione carried on, clearly in a bit of a panic, McGonagall's eyebrows slowly raised higher and higher, while simultaneously, she brought her wand lower and lower, until it hung uselessly at her side. She found Hermione's panic, as well as her utter familiarity with herself and Albus, quite genuine. Unsettling, in the case of the latter, but genuine.
Meanwhile, Dumbledore continued to watch Hermione serenely. Hermione, suddenly realizing she had been making a bit of a scene, clamped her mouth shut and slumped back into the chair, her erratic breathing the only indication that she had been anything but calm moments earlier. She watched Dumbledore warily as he rose from his own seat and calmly glided towards her. Once he stood directly in front of her, he reached his hand forward and Hermione, realizing he held something, flinched. Dumbledore merely smiled, gently took the lid off of the tin, and kindly asked "Lemon drop?" while proffering the sweets in her direction.
Hermione shook her head no, and then promptly burst into tears. Minerva looked quite alarmed, but Dumbledore remained calm as he surveyed the emotional young witch. Finally, Hermione forced herself to take several deep breaths, calming herself. She hastily wiped her face with her sleeve, and stared at Dumbledore with a confidence and clarity that had been missing a few moments prior.
"I apologize- this evening has…well, it's not gone quite the way I expected. I'm not usually so…erm. Open with my emotions. You're actually him. I thought it must be some cheap trick or charm, but…but you are so utterly you. You're Albus Dumbledore.
"I am."
"Well. As delighted as I am to see you, truly I am, this means that I appear to be in a bit of a pickle."
"Oh?"
"I'm not quite sure how, or why- but I believe I may have traveled…well, back through time. It's the only explanation that would make any sort of sense."
Albus returned to his seat, and Minerva claimed another. Hermione quickly told the professors as much as she could, without revealing anything she shouldn't. No mention of the war, of Dumbledore's death, of Harry, or Horcruxes. Just the basics- her name was Hermione Granger, she wasn't exactly sure how or why, but she had traveled from the year 1998, McGonagall had somehow orchestrated it, unwillingly or not, and it all came down to the Room of Requirement.
"Something about…well, closing a circle. That's what you told me I needed to ask the room, Professor. I needed to ask it to close the circle."
McGonagall looked absolutely flummoxed that she had, in any small way, caused any of this to happen. Dumbledore looked thoughtful, and finally said "Most think of time as a line- straight and true, continuing ever forward. However, Ms. Granger, if someone were to fall back in time, into what they consider the past, and then continued forward…well. Time would then be a circle, would it not? I believe that our dear Professor McGonagall, from your present time, was well aware that you had made this journey, and understood that the circle would need to be closed. She knew that for what she remembered of the past to occur, you would need to actually make this journey still."
Hermione considered this, before nodding slowly, a thoughtful look on her face. "It…it does make sense, when you put it like that. I had something…similar…occur in my third year, with my Time Turner- to a much smaller scale, of course, that night was just 3 turns, but…Oh l, I suppose I've already said too much. Bugger. I apologize, it's hard to see familiar faces and reconcile that with the fact that my face isn't familiar in return. This does beg the question- how did this happen? I no longer have a Time Turner, and I'm not aware of any other means to travel through time."
If McGonagall or Dumbledore were surprised by Hermione's admission that she had somehow gotten her hands on a Time Turner as a 13 year old, they didn't show it.
Dumbledore smiled. "The Room of Requirement works in mysterious, though fairly predictable, ways. If a chamber pot is required, well, a chamber pot appears. But its magic runs deep, and if something more…profound is required, then I would imagine it would be up for the task."
"So…so the room can help someone travel through time? If someone knows to ask, and truly has a need? Then this is fine, I just need to go and ask it to take me back!"
"I fear it's not quite so simple- a chamber pot is simple. Bending time is not. Merely wanting to travel through time would not be enough, I would imagine. However, closing a loop in the timeline- a loop that, were it left unopened, would surely cause the very fabric of space and time to falter? In the face of a requirement of that magnitude, the room would be compelled to act. No, you will simply need to wait until the timeline dictates you return to your time."
Hermione sighed, her momentary hopes dashed in the face of Dumbledore's cool logic. He was surely right, especially considering the room hadn't appeared for her again after she stepped through the door and into this new time.
Suddenly, McGonagall pointed at Hermione's lap.
"Earlier, you said you had my mail. Is that…is that meant for me, perhaps?"
Hermione wrinkled her brow, and looked down at the clutch of letters she was still holding.
"Oh! They must be. They were initially addressed to someone else, but I suppose you must have charmed them to be innocuous until I fell through. Here."
Hermione handed McGonagall the small handful of envelopes, and the older witch made quick work of the string holding them together. She rifled through them, one eyebrow raised, before handing 3 of them to Albus Dumbledore and keeping one for herself.
Albus set two on the desk in front of him, and glancing at them, Hermione could just make out a date in curling handwriting on the one closer to her- "6 June, 1994". She furrowed her eyebrows, confused, before raising them in surprise. She knew that date. It was the end of her third year- a date she had just vaguely referenced, in fact- it was the day she and Harry rescued Sirius and Buckbeak. While she had blindly accepted Professor Dumbledore's vague instructions on that fateful day, over the years, she had wondered how he'd known exactly what to say, and exactly what would happen. How he'd known two 13 year olds would be able to play such a dangerous and complicated game and come out the victors. Now she knew- because she traveled back in time to this very moment, Professor Dumbledore now had instructions on how he himself would instruct her in the past (in the future?!) on that pivotal day. Though it hurt her head to think about it too hard, that realization, more than anything else, finally calmed her- she was meant to be here, today, in this time. She had always been meant to come here. Time was marching on, exactly as it should.
As she made this realization, Dumbledore had torn open the envelope in his hand, and began to read it.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, a twinkle in his eye. "It appears that I have written a letter to myself- how absolutely delightful. According to my elder self, you will be joining our 7th years on their noble pursuit of knowledge, and will be taking your NEWTs with them at the end of this school year before returning to your time. I am sure there is a fascinating story there, considering you are a year older than our current 7th years, and surely have already taken this course load... Of course, you can never share that story, but I'm sure it's fascinating, nevertheless. We'll need to have your Sorted straight away.
Hermione looked at him sharply.
"Sorted? School? Professor, while I am extremely grateful for the offer to stay here, I can't help but think that wouldn't be wise. Really, I should hunker down in a hidden room and wait. Who knows what effect I could have on the timeline if I integrate myself? Plus, would I even be here long enough to take classes? I'm sincerely hoping I won't be here long."
"Ms. Granger, I must insist- we won't be shoving you in a broom closet to twiddle your thumbs until you leave us. And yes, there will be plenty of time for learning- this letter here indicates that you won't be leaving home until the last day of term.
"The last day of term?" Hermione squeaked, "Why, that's nearly nine months away! How am I meant to be here for the better part of a year?!"
"No, not nine months- nearly 5. While I imagine you fell sometime in September, you have arrived to us in February."
Suddenly, Hermione realized she had much more pressing questions beyond the month she landed in- namely, the year. She asked, and balked when McGonagall's answer came.
"Today is the 5th of February, 1978. You fell just shy of 20 years, Ms. Granger."
Though she had come to terms that she had fallen through time, and likely a long ways, she had assumed it would have been less than 10 years- possibly just before coming to school herself as a first year. It couldn't have been later than that, because then Dumbledore and McGonagall would have known her. But 20 years? It was unfathomable.
"Ms. Granger" Dumbledore gently nodded to the letter in his hand again. "Just to reassure you- nothing that you do here will harm or affect the timeline. It has all already happened, just as it will happen in the coming days and months. My older counterpart has assured me that you can live your temporary life here, with little need for large scale secrecy, and without fearing that a single step out of place might change or harm things. Of course, we can't advertise that you've been displaced from time, but aside from a broad cover story- perhaps you've been homeschooled these last 6 years- you should feel comfortable going about your life here without fear. If you're going to be here for 5 months, you should feel comfortable settling in and making friends."
Hermione nodded slowly. She herself had seen first hand the cyclical nature of time, of how it always fulfilled itself, sometimes in unexpected ways- like that letter now in Dumbledore's possession, dated 16 years in his future. She thought again of that fateful day, so many years ago from her perspective, when she and Harry saved Sirius Black- it had felt like a choreographed dance at the time, where they had to plan and watch and perfect their every move. However, in the end, it had all perfectly played out like she had remembered it the first time around. Not a single moment out of place. While he had been so careful to recreate that day with Harry, there's no way she could have perfectly orchestrated that herself without outside forces at play.
With this particular adventure in time, she had a distinct advantage- she had no idea what was going to happen when it came to the small things, the day-to-day. She wasn't burdened knowing her every move like she had been while rescuing Sirius, so she could confidently make those moves without thought or worry. They had all already happened before, and so she knew, no matter what she did, they would happen again. She felt something inside herself slightly relax, not even realizing she had been tense until the relief of that realization came.
McGonagall then brandished her own letter, bringing Hermione out of her thoughts. "While the need for some secrecy with the majority of the student body is, of course, prudent, I have instructed myself that there are two students within my own house who should be made aware of this…occurrence with more transparency. Of course, Ms. Granger, you can't share with anyone, these students or myself or Albus, details of our futures. I'm sure I don't need to stress the importance of keeping the natural order of things a mystery. But, for whatever reason, there are people who will be aware of your travel to our time before it occurs in 1998, and according to this letter written in my own hand, they each can be trusted with a bit more than the rest. Use prudence, of course, but if you need a friend or a sympathetic ear- these two boys will be there for you, it seems. Of course, Albus and myself will be there for you too, but…well…we are quite old, from your perspective. I'm sure peers your own age would be much more comforting."
Hermione didn't know exactly how to feel- so, she would have two friends. Two people she wouldn't need to lie to, at least not entirely. She wondered if she would ever meet them again, once she returned to her own future. Startled, she wondered if she already knew them.
"Professor, can I ask- who are they? The two? I wonder if their names will be familiar to me."
"Fellow 7th years- they are quite a handful, especially Black, but they will be good and loyal friends to you, I'm sure. I'm quite fond of them and their little group, mischievous as they are, but please don't ever tell them I actually admitted to that out loud."
Hermione blanched. Black. It couldn't be.
"Their names are Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black. I'll fetch them immediately- we'll need to bring them up to speed in private."
