The trio runs down the staircase, momentarily escaping the madness of battle. Hermione's mind is still lingering on the whereabouts of the diadem as the Slytherin house point Hourglass shatters above them, with glass and emeralds raining down. At this moment bodies also rain down on them. The trio halts and look to each other in shared horror.
Greyback is tearing at something that Hermione dully recognizes Lavender Brown.
Ron lets out a pained whisper, "Oh no, not Lav."
Thoughts turn into actions as the witch blasts the werewolf away from the girl.
The trio rushes to Lavenders side and Hermione kneels down and begins assessing her injuries. They are severe. Greyback twitches and moves as if to stand weakly, but before he can a crystal ball makes contact with his head. He crumples as thousands of shards scatter, leaving nothing but the sound of inhuman whispers of prophesies unforetold in the air.
"Harry, we have to get her to the Great Hall, she has lost too much blood!" Hermione exclaims. Harry nods grimly and levitates her body. Another crystal ball is thrown. It whizzes over Hermione's head and breaks. The whispers come again.
"Do you guys hear that, what are they saying?"
"Hear what Hermione?" Harry calls over his shoulder. Him and Ron have already continued their path down the stairs.
"You hear the whispers?" Comes the airy voice of Professor Trelwaney. So it was her who threw the crystal balls. "It turns out you possibly do have a knack for divination. Oh my dear, but you don't." She gasps, startled by a realization. Her buggy eyes look anywhere but Hermione.
"What are you trying to say Professor?" Hermione bites out in exasperation, she has more important matters to get to. More lives to save. She compartmentalizes the feeling of Lavender's blood on her hands, far away from the front of her conscious.
Finally, the divination professor's eyes meet hers, but they are no longer the professor's. They have gone white. "Oh curious girl. Warrior and wanderer. She fell. She will fall again. She rose. She dragged him down with bloodstained hands. She will."
Hands push hard on her back and she is sent over the edge of the corridor, flying into the spot left vacant by a recently moved staircase.
She falls for what feels like an eternity. Until it isn't.
The combination of getting the wind knocked out of her and ache of holding her breath while underwater renders the fallen girl gasping for breath. Unable to register her surroundings, all Hermione feels is a resounding pain vibrating through her body. Blinking bleary eyes open, she sees floating candles. Too similar to the ones in the Great Hall. Her lungs squeeze. She coughs up blood.
Grunting, Hermione pushes herself to her feet whilst drawing the wand. Wordlessly casting protego duo, she takes in her surroundings while settling into a shaky dueling stance, unsure of the allegiances of the people in the room. Students are scrambling back from her table to the edges of the hall, how strange considering the number that fled Hogwarts because of the war. There is a shocking number of younger ones, considering they had all been apparated to safety.
Slowly, the fishbowl effect on her hearing lessens and she is able to register that amongst the cacophony of screams there is a voice speaking with authority.
"I repeat. State your name, means of arriving here, and intent. You will be apprehended in the next thirty seconds of continued lack of response."
Hermione's face contorts in confusion. How do they not know my name? And
who is speaking. Why isn't their automatic response to help me or curse me?
She rotates clumsily on her feet, searching for the source of the voice, only to find a man resembling Dumbledore standing at the head of the table she landed on. He has his wand drawn, and a few unidentifiable professors stand slightly behind him.
Something is painfully not right.
She makes the hasty decision to answer the mans questions. Maybe in the process she can figure out the answers.
"My name is Hermione," her voice cracks but she pushes on after clearing her throat, " I was just upstairs you see, on the staircases. Next thing I know, I was falling, and I landed here." She frowns and looks up, as does the likeness of Dumbledore. There is no evidence of her falling through the ceiling. And the moving staircases are not above the Great Hall. "As for my intent," her brow furrows, "I did not intend to end up in the Great Hall, so I do not have a complete answer for you on that either."
She scans the cluster of professors as they murmur to each other. Her eyes nervously snap to the sides of the hall. Students are being escorted out. There is no one she recognizes. What is this? Where is this? It is not the Hogwarts she left behind. The room is not in the same condition she had last seen it. When is this?
"Alright then, Hermione. Why was casting a powerful shield the first thing you did?" The almost Dumbledore questions, less assertive and more conversational now. What a ridiculous question. Who wouldn't throw up a shield charm in her situation? She holds in a huff.
"In the midst of a war, it is a refelx. And utterly stupid for someone to not do so."
"At this point one would be able to have accessed the threats in the room and determined that none exist, Miss Hermione. I kindly ask that you lower your defenses and we move to a more, ah, neutral place for further discussion." Blue eyes begin to take on a twinkle behind half moon spectacles.
Interestingly, this man really does sound like Dumbledore. Her heart clenches and breathing escapes her once more. His wand. It is the same as Dumbledore's.
"Dumbledore." She gasps, a tear running down her face. The weight of all to happen bearing down on her.
She meets Dumbledore's crystal blue eyes. She trusts this man with her life.
Hermione dispels her shield, and shifts out of her dueling stance, but still keeps her wand tightly clenched.
"Wonderful, thank you, Hermione. If you would graciously take a seat at the table you find yourself on. We can have a conversation. Headmaster Dippet, Professor Merrythought, and myself will sit opposite you." His tone has grown less conversational. Probably because of her outburst. She had forgotten he doesn't know her as she does him.
She squints as she stumbles off the table, maintaining a constant observance of the room. Everyone but the three mentioned have cleared out.
Suddenly she makes sense of what this Dumbledore said. He had called another man Headmaster. So this was a time before Dumbledore became Headmaster. According to Hogwarts a History, he was appointed in 1964.
It cannot be possible to have traveled this far back. Based on everything she knew to be true. The witch's lips flicker in a wry smile. At one point she had believed magic to not be real. Anything could be possible.
She needs a backstory. A good one. Her next sentences are perhaps the most important ones to ever be said. She had already told them she came from a war, perhaps she was lucky enough to happen upon Grindelwald's war to use that as a cover, instead of admitting being from the future.
"Pardon, what is the date?"
"September 30, 1944." The woman professor responds, eyeing her suspiciously.
Hermione weaves her backstory in her mind. She was fighting in the war against Grindelwald. She had been homeschooled previously. She was a half-blood. Her parents were gone. Her goal is to be as vague as possible while staying as close to the truth as possible. But she somehow needs to get Dumbledore to trust her.
"I feel it only proper to have a better introduction of ourselves. I am Professor Albus Dumbledore, in charge of teaching Transfiguration. This is Headmaster Armando Dippet on my left, and Professor Bakdkd Merrythought in charge of Defense Against the Dark Arts here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But you seem to have known some of this already, Miss—?" Dumbledore inquires, outstretching his hand.
"I cannot give you my last name, it could endanger the people I left behind." The witch out of time begins softly. She reaches to meet the professor's hand only to find her hand crusted with blood.
Her body wretches forward in a dry heave, scenes of a werewolf ripping a girl's body apart play across her mind. Had the boys been able to save Lavender? Were her boys safe? Did they think she had died? Were they even still alive? Her mind splinters into hundreds of other questions that race too fast for her to grasp onto coherently.
"HERMIONE!" A familiar voice booms. Her mind whips forward and her vision streams back into focus. Wheezing, she notices her hand clenched tightly between two older ones. She focuses on that feeling. A small comfort.
Dumbledore regards Hermione with a look of sympathy, "I apologize for not holding more importance to your words of where you have come from."
Dippet adds on, "I think we should let the girl rest and continue our conversation tomorrow."
Merrythought's nose scrunches, "I hardly think this girl's comfort matters more than the lives of all of our students and staff."
Hermione forces herself to think of something to say, but her mind is still far away, thinking of the time she left behind.
"I think it best our guest rests up. Let us take her to the infirmary, which we can ward for everyone's safety." Dumbledore finalizes. He stands and walks around the table. "Come, I think you are also in need of some Dreamless Draught, that'll do the trick".
Hermione makes to stand but black dots overtake her vision within seconds.
— Not Even 10 minutes Ago, Great Hall—
Dark magic radiates off the girl in waves.
Tom is ushering shrieking students out of the Great Hall. The girl staggers up and casts a powerful shield charm.
How intriguing.