A/N: Oh my gosh, y'all! Yesterday after posting chapter nine I reached 100 followers! I can't believe any of you are following my story, let alone 100. You guys are so awesome. Thank you thank you thank you!
oOo
Hermione opened her mouth to speak, shut it, and then repeated this process about five times. The fierceness in Remus's words had caught her off guard, but it was the words themselves that she found truly baffling.
Had he...just...no, no I misunderstood. Hermione bit the inside of her cheek in thought.
"I...I'm sorry, but could you maybe repeat that for me?" She requested very slowly, as if each word were a struggle. To Hermione's chagrin Remus had rendered her quite dumbfounded. Obviously, she must have misheard him. You don't go from utterly suspicious to ready to defend with your life in just a few hours. Normal people don't do that. But, these are Marauders, no one ever accused them of being normal people, I suppose.
"No one," Remus repeated. "Is going to hurt you. Not me, not Sirius, not anyone."
"And, and what you mean is that no one is going to hurt me because everyone is just really swell and...nice?" Hermione's neck had retreated into her shoulders with pained discomfort as the witch tried to make sense of what Remus was saying. Even though she was fairly certain she knew what he was saying, this was all just far too strange.
Remus reached out a hand and placed it cautiously on Hermione's shoulder and looked searchingly into her amber eyes. The witch felt herself both relax and grow more agitated under his heavy gaze.
"You're very strange, Hermione Granger." Remus remarked with a half smile.
"Oh gee, thank you." Hermione rolled her eyes.
"And I don't know how you got here or who you are or how you know about my-my condition. I don't even particularly know if your name is actually Hermione Granger-"
"Why on Earth would I have made up that name for myself?" Hermione snapped in irritation. "If I was going to make up a name it'd be something unassuming like Susan or Amanda. Not Hermione."
"True," Remus chuckled, moving his hand from Hermione's shoulder and back down to her elbow, leading them towards the Headmistress's office again. "But my point is, I don't care about any of that. Maybe I will later, but I don't right now. You saved Harry and you saved Lily and you almost died for it. I owe you a great deal, too much to ever payback."
Hermione opened her mouth to object, ready to explain that Harry would have done the same for her and that no one owed her anything, but she stopped herself. Maybe now was not the time to explain how Harry and Hermione had saved each others lives, and really their souls, countless times before. Those were things that future -other reality?- Harry would do, not current baby Harry.
Remus and Hermione passed the next few minutes in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Hermione's mind was running through current happenings and past happenings, which were technically she supposed future happenings. She was thinking about Seamus's accent and Harry's smile and Ginny's boisterous laugh, the Weasley laugh, and she was imagining Crookshank's squished face-
Hermione gasped and threw a hand over her mouth.
Remus turned to her puzzled. "What, what's wrong?"
"I..." I slipped between space and time and didn't leave enough food down for my damned kneazle cat, because I am a horrible pet parent! "I just thought of something, it's nothing, don't worry, let's go." Hermione assured the wizard, but her mind was panicked. Her mind seemed to be panicked quite a bit in the last twelve or so hours.
Fuck, how long have I been gone in my timeline? For Merlin's sake, how does the nature of space-time even work? I don't have time, or maybe I have too much time? For this kind of shite! I can't be dealing with this! Oh, gods, poor Crooks, he's probably pitifully yowling around the flat, maybe loud enough the neighbors heard? And called...called who? Harry! Harry can get into my flat, if I'm missing then the first place they'll check is my flat, see Crooks is alone and Harry will definitely probably look after him. Her guilt at abandoning her familiar assuaged for the moment, Hermione relaxed in time to realize they'd reached the formidable gargoyle that guarded the Headmast-mistress's office.
"There is one thing I would like to know." Remus admitted, releasing Hermione's elbow. Hermione turned her amber eyes to him curiously. "How did you know our names?"
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, genuinely confused.
"James and Sirius and me, you knew our names at Grimmauld Place." He elaborated, not looking down at Hermione. The witch considered a moment.
"I just called you three what you were calling each other." She lied and felt a pang of guilt for doing so. Now's not the time for the truth.
Remus furrowed his brow, but dropped the subject. Instead he said to the gargoyle. "Nekomata."
Hermione turned to the wizard who shrugged. "It's some cat spirit or deity or what have you. McGonagall has an affinity for cats."
Hermione wondered if Remus knew McGonagall was an Animagus and didn't want to say or if, perhaps, McGonagall could not transform into a cat in this world. Why couldn't things just be normal? Hermione had noted during their walk throughout the castle that, besides not seeing a single student, Hogwarts looked virtually the same as she had remembered it, but would the Headmistress's Tower?
To Hermione's relief the office looked almost as it had the last time she had been there. It was of course missing a few odds and ends and where Hermione remembered Fawkes's perch was now a tall, ornate cat tree with a black cat sleeping at the top. The cat opened it's large yellow eyes languidly and watched Hermione and Remus as they approached McGonagall's desk.
The older witch looked over her glasses at the pair from behind her desk and motioned to a chair. "Thank you, Mister Lupin. Miss Granger, have a seat."
Hermione sat down stiffly and looked up at Remus. Was he not staying? Remus appeared just as confused.
"Mister Lupin, if you would wait outside, I'll call you back in soon. There are things I'd like to discuss with both of you, but for now I need to speak to Miss Granger alone."
Remus nodded and Hermione swallowed as she watched him leave. Remus might be content to not know things for now, but Hermione was confident her former Transfiguration professor would not be.
She was correct.
"Now, Miss Granger, I'm not quite sure where to begin." McGonagall leaned forward and folded her hands demurely on her desk. "So, I'm going to offer you the opportunity to explain yourself first, before I make my own assumptions."
"I don't know what you mean, Headmistress." Hermione said honestly. And quite frankly, you won't believe me anyway.
"I don't know who you are, Miss Granger. We've never met, though based on your odd display in the Hospital Wing, you seem to think we have."
Hermione cringed in embarrassment. She would never be taking Calming Draught ever again.
"I've checked the Hogwarts records, even going well passed when you may have attended our school and I find no mention of a Hermione Granger and yet," McGonagall narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice. "And yet, according to Mister Black and Mister Lupin, you seem to possess knowledge you have no right to. You seem to know secrets you shouldn't possibly know. There are very few means by which you could have acquired these secrets and I'm afraid none of them give me any cause to trust you, so before I draw my own conclusions I will offer you again the opportunity to speak for yourself."
Hermione bit the inside of her cheek and sat up straight in her chair. Could she tell McGonagall the truth? Would the Headmistress even believe her? In order to figure out how she got here and how she was going to get back, McGonagall would be an invaluable ally, if she could earn the witch's trust, but the truth was so unbelievable.
"Are you a Legilimens, Headmistress?" Hermione asked.
McGonagall raised an eyebrow. "No, I'm afraid not."
Hermione frowned. "Do you have any veritaserum on hand?"
This time McGonagall raised both eyebrows. "Are you suggesting you need to be potioned, Miss Granger?"
"Honestly, I would prefer not to be, I think I've had enough potions for one day." Hermione chuckled. "But honestly, ma'am, I'm afraid you won't believe me."
The older witch stared at Hermione for a moment, her deep green eyes were not as friendly as Remus's, before pushing away from her desk and moving to a cabinet on the wall. She opened the cabinet door and pulled out a small, clear vile and walked back to her desk. McGonagall placed the vile down before Hermione and sat back in her chair.
"There you are, Miss Granger, but you know, veritaserum does not conjure the actual truth, only what the drinker thinks is the truth."
"Yes, I'm aware." Hermione said, gingerly picking up the bottle. "But at least this way you'll know I'm not intentionally lying."
With a sigh Hermione downed the bottle.
"Miss Granger! You only needed a drop!" McGonagall said startled.
Oh shite, I knew that.
"Oh yes... I knew that." Hermione said with a frown. Get it together, Granger, use your brain. "Yes well, I suppose we can start now. Where shall I begin, Headmistress?"
"What's your name?"
"Hermione Jean Granger." Hermione flinched. She knew that under the influence of veritaserum one was not only forced to tell the truth, but compelled to do so, but she'd never taken it herself and found the sensation a bit startling.
"When were you born?"
"September 19th, 1979." Hermione threw a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.
"Hmmm...as I suspected." McGonagall remarked calmly.
"As-as you suspected?"
"Indeed, I am no stranger to time travel, Miss Granger. Though I will admit this is quite unprecedented."
Ah, so she must have the time turner in this world. Could that be helpful? Hermione wondered briefly, moving that information to the back of her mind for future consideration.
"So am I to assume then that you are either from the future or think you're from the future?"
"Not the future, well, not your future." Hermione said quietly.
"I'm sorry?" The Headmistress cocked her head to the side.
"This-I don't- I mean." It was strange to struggle against the potion. Hermione was trying to phrase the truth delicately, but the compulsion to just spit it out was overwhelming. "I don't think this is my past or the past of my timeline, I think this is a, a well, I think this is another trouser of time."
McGonagall stared at her.
Hermione continued in a rush. "Another dimension or reality so to speak. At first I thought this was a hallucination, that I'd lost my mind, and I suppose that still might be the case, but I'm rather prone to believe at this point that I'm in an alternate timeline."
"And how would you know this is an alternate timeline, Miss Granger?" McGonagall asked. Hermione found the calmness in the other witch's voice unnerving.
"Because Lily and James should be dead."
McGonagall placed a hand over her chest. "Dead?"
"Yes, you see, in my time James and Lily Potter were killed by Voldemort on October 31st, 1981 and as this is 1982 and they are quite alive, this cannot possibly be my past."
"And Voldemort, what of him in your supposed timeline?"
"Dead."
"So, he might really be gone?" McGonagall said more to herself than Hermione. "How did he die in your timeline?"
"Harry Potter killed him." Hermione replied. "He was The Chosen One."
"The Chosen One?"
"There was a prophecy, that a child would be born who could kill Voldemort, and Voldemort believed Harry was that child and he went to kill him. But he couldn't, something went wrong and his spell rebounded. Lily threw herself in front of the killing curse and her love, it was old magic, powerful magic, it saved Harry and defeated Voldemort."
"And this happened on October 31st, 1981 you say?" McGonagall brought a hand to her chin and tapped her finger against her bottom lip.
"Yes."
"Miss Granger, how long do you think you've been here, in our time?"
"I'm not sure, I woke up on the floor of the Ministry and Floo'd to Grimmauld Place maybe an hour before the fight at the Potter's Cottage. In my time that's where Harry lives and I was going to go see him and Ginny."
"How did you end up asleep on the Ministry floor, Miss Granger?"
"I'm...not sure." In a rush Hermione explained her morning at the Auror meeting, the panic attack, and running into an abandoned room.
"And that's the last thing you remember before waking up here? Running into a room?"
"Y-yes." Hermione frowned, twisting in her seat. Something was tickling at the edge of her mind, like a little scratch. The potion was compelling her to say more, so she opened her mouth, but no words came out. There was something else, something she couldn't remember, but almost. She could almost remember.
"Is there more, Miss Granger?" McGonagall asked, seeing Hermione's face twisted in turmoil.
"No, no I don't know. I think maybe? But I-I can't remember."
"Hmm..." McGonagall leaned back in her chair. "You told Mister Lupin and Mister Black you had important information to give to the Minister? Regarding Voldemort's defeat. What that the information?"
"No." Hermione stopped there, she had a few questions of her own. "Is he gone, the Dark Lord, is he gone?"
"Yes, Miss Granger. And there was also a prophecy that Voldemort, it seems, was quite terrified of, just as you say he was in your time. Voldemort disappeared on October 31st, 1981."
"How?"
"I'm not quite sure, no one is sure as the only survivor was a small child, a one-"
"Neville." Hermione gasped, her hand going to her throat in despair. "Neville Longbottom."
"Why yes, indeed. Is there a Neville Longbottom in your time as well?"
Hermione nodded, looking to the floor as her heart broke for her friend. Even in this timeline he would grow up without his parents. "You could say he was my first friend at Hogwarts."
So were things reversed then? Neville was the Chosen One and Harry was...normal? Would James and Lily suffer the fate that had befallen Frank and Alice? Tortured to insanity?
No, Hermione would never let that happen. Things would be changed. Things would be stopped.
Hermione turned back to McGonagall, her amber eyes hard. "He will return, Headmistress, as he did in my time."
The color drained from McGonagall's already pale face. "How?"
"Magic, dark magic, long forgotten. Horcruxes. You must find them and destroy them before he has a chance to return." Hermione reached across the desk and grabbed McGonagall's hand. "If you don't destroy them so many will die, so many. But it can be done! I've done it."
McGonagall looked down at her hand now held in Hermione's for a long moment before pulling it out and turning her gaze to the younger witch. "I have a proposal for you, Miss Granger."
Hermione pulled her hands into her lap. "What proposal is that, Headmistress?"
"I will help you return to your time-"
"You believe me!" Hermione interrupted breathlessly.
"You are either telling the truth or you're mad. Either way, I will help you. When you live for as long as me, Miss Granger, you learn there are more things between heaven and hell than can be dreamt of in any philosophy."
For as long as me...?
McGonagall continued. "I will help you and in return, while I am testing my own theories about how you came to be here, you will find these Horcruxes, if Voldemort has made them, and destroy them."
Hermione frowned. She'd done this before, she did her time, she'd already fought in a war. She didn't want to go through that again. Hermione had already seen friends die, she'd watched their pain and experienced her own. The names and faces of the dead flashed through her mind and she grimaced.
This is your chance, Granger. We couldn't save them then, but we can save them now. Hermione squared her shoulders and looked McGonagall in the eye. "Alright, I agree."