A/N: Hi, friends. So, uh, it's been a while, hasn't it? I apologize for the extended delay. It's been a year, and I got really discouraged with some feedback I received on this via pm. I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea; I understand Severus is out of character-lots of characters will be slightly out of character. Please remember that if you don't like this, you don't have to read this.

Shout out to Kyonomiko for inadvertently kicking my butt in gear to get this out. You rock!

Hermione paced up and down the corridor outside the hospital wing. She tried to calm the thundering of her heart, but it could not be silenced no matter how deeply she breathed or how desperately she wished for news.

Draco sat slumped against the wall, his pale face ashen and shocked. Neither of them had expected such a violent action to take place, but Hermione thought Draco was especially traumatised. He had grown up his whole life hearing how safe Hogwarts was, the safest place in all of wizarding Britain, and the one place that no one had to fear the Dark Lord or anyone hurting them since Voldemort and his followers feared no one more than Dumbledore. She imaged that he was probably doubting everything he had ever learned about the place at that very moment.

Heavy wooden doors burst open at the end of the hallway and a whirlwind of red hair barrelled toward them. The familiar face of James followed Lily, and Dumbledore and McGonagall followed closely in their wake. Hermione couldn't quite make out what Dumbledore's soothing voice was attempting to tell Lily, but she knew that the woman was having none of it as her pace did not slow at all. It was only when she was thrown backward by the ward at the door that her forward momentum stopped. She looked wildly about the corridor and her eyes landed on Hermione.

Hermione's guilt bubbled to the surface, and she found herself stumbling over a confession. "Oh, Mrs. Potter, I am so sorry! I don't know why, but I think this is my fault. There's something I haven't told anyone, and I think it might have been what hurt Harry. I just wish I ha—" her words were cut off as Lily pulled her into a tight hug and began to smooth her hand over Hermione's wild curls. Though she still felt that whatever had happened was her fault, she couldn't help but absorb the comfort the woman was offering her.

After a few moments of stunned silence from the onlookers, Lily released Hermione and looked between her and Draco. With a deep breath, she said, "Someone explain to me what the hell happened to my son."

Hermione gulped, but Draco took the lead, apparently understanding how to handle Lily when she was upset. "Mrs. Potter—er, Lily—we're not entirely sure what happened. One minute the sorting was putting us in our houses, and the next Harry placed the hat on his head and there was a loud bang."

Hermione didn't miss the look that Lily and James shared. "So no one knows how the Sorting Hat exploded on our only son's head?" James' voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking the undercurrent of wrath that strung the words together.

McGonagall stepped in. "Mr. and Mrs. Potter, let me assure you that we are doing everything in our power to track down whoever or whatever is responsible for the events of this evening. We want nothing more than to be sure that our students are as safe as possible at Hogwarts."

Hermione braced herself for the explosion of Lily Potter. "With all due respect, Minerva, I believe that you are doing everything in your power to help. You have been nothing but forthcoming. I am, however, unconvinced that you're doing anything to help since you're standing there eating lemon drops." Lilly had rounded on Dumbledore, who, true to Lily's statement, was unwrapping a lemon drop. He paused and blinked owlishly at her from behind his half-moon spectacles.

"Ah, young Ms. Evans. I understand your frustration. However, I think that you'll see that everything is quite all right with young Mr. Potter if you would like to check in on him." The old wizard waved his arm at the warded doorway and the wooden doors creaked inward.

Though she glared back at Dumbledore, leaving very little doubt that the two would continue this conversation later, Lily wasted no time in bolting through the doorway.

Hermione, however, stood back and watched the procession of wizards into the room. She couldn't place why, but she suddenly felt wearier than she had the entire day. She didn't like the nearly careless way that Dumbledore reacted to the attack on Harry.

She stood just inside the door, watching Lily check over a very sore Harry, who complained good-naturedly about his mother's fussing. Dumbledore stood to the side and watched the interaction with a calculating gleam in his eyes, almost as if he was making note of their reactions for future incidents.

The fluttering of cloaks behind her drew both her and Dumbledore's attention but she didn't miss the way his shrewd eyes snapped to hers and seemed to clear as quickly as they had clouded, replaced once more with the generally good-natured gleam that had been present before the incident. The soft clearing of a throat next to her brought her attention upward.

"How are they taking it?" Sev inquired quietly. He watched the couple closely.

Hermione grimaced. "Lily is furious, as she ought to be. I think James is too. I don't think they trust Dumbledore." She cut her eyes to the elder wizard, who had sidled up next to the distraught parents and placed a hand on James' shoulder in what appeared to be reassurance. Hermione didn't miss the way the man's shoulders tightened. "Lily said something about him not paying attention. Is there—"

Sev's eyes pierced hers sharply and she trailed off. Whatever she had been about to ask, she knew that Sev wanted her to stop. With a slow incline of her head, she let him know that she understood, but she'd ask again later. Something wasn't adding up, and she needed to know how to proceed.

"I know that you don't think it's a good idea, but I'm going to tell them," she said to him. Sev looked at her from the corner of his eye. She continued when he didn't immediately respond. "I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like I need to tell them. It's what my mom calls the itch; when you know you need to do something, but you don't know why. I have to tell them. It's the only way they'll trust me." She swallowed. "Right now, I'm the newest outsider that's gotten close to them. I'm the logical suspect here."

Sev's serious face flattened into a grimace. "I understand. I don't like it, but I think you're right. You need to prove that you don't have anything to hide from them. It won't be easy, and they're likely not to trust you for a while."

Hermione sighed and hung her head. "I know. But if there's any chance of salvaging our friendship—"

"Then you have to be honest," Sev finished. "Wait until after Mr Potter has been released from the hospital wing. We can meet in my office, and I'll ward the doors. No one should know but the Potters and Mr. Malfoy."

Hermione nodded. She was nervous; sharing such an important secret that even she didn't know all the information about seemed a little too reactive to the situation, but since Sev didn't immediately disregard the idea, there had to be some merit to it.

As the room bustled about Harry, she watched on trying to think of the best way to tell the boys that she had lied. She hadn't ever had friends before, and she worried how they would react. She initially thought she'd be upset if someone kept such a large secret from her, but she thought of Sev and his reasons for not telling her about being a witch. She supposed there were some things that people did to protect those around them that didn't always make sense. She hoped Draco and Harry would see it the same way.

The clapping of Madam Pomphrey's hands gained her attention, and she turned her gaze on the mediwitch.

"The boy is being discharged as long as he is watched closely." She levelled a stern glare on each of the witches and wizards in the room, her imperious eyebrow quirked over her eye. "I expect that he'll take it easy and avoid any more pyrotechnics, yes, Mr Potter?"

Harry mumbled what Hermione thought was an agreement and slipped from the bed, careful not to move too quickly out of fear of the mediwitch's reaction. Sev stepped forward and motioned for everyone's attention.

"If you have the time, I believe it would be beneficial for everyone to reconvene in my office. I believe Ms. Granger has something she would like to share with you all." All the eyes in the room turned to bore into Hermione's head. She felt like a bug in one of her science projects, pinned down by the penetrating gazes, but she smiled wanly at the motley crew as they followed Sev out of the hospital wing.

As they all filed out into the hallway, the gentle clearing of a throat drew everyone's attention. Dumbledore stood behind the group, hands clasped together as he looked down his nose at Hermione. His stare was sharp for a moment before it cleared. If she hadn't been watching him closely, she thought she might have missed it. "Miss Granger, a word, if you please?"

She met Sev's eyes, who motioned the group forward. "Miss Granger, we'll be in my office. I trust you can make it without an escort?" Without waiting for a response, the man whirled away, leaving her alone in the hallway with Dumbledore.

She waited for a moment before she spoke. "Professor?"

"Miss Granger, I can't help but wonder whether all of this hullabaloo—" he waved his fingers "—is worth revealing the circumstances. It is, after all, a delicate situation that requires the utmost care."

Hermione met his gaze. She was silent for a moment, weighing her options. Everyone respected Dumbledore at Hogwarts; it was undeniable that he was a powerful wizard—even her little knowledge of magic didn't allow her to question that—but his demeanour didn't sit right with her. After surviving the first war, if it was as bad as Sev had explained to her, she thought he ought to be more alert, more proactive, when one of his students was attacked, especially in such a violent manner in front of the whole school.

Instead, he seemed more concerned with hiding this secret, her origin, than getting to the bottom of the situation.

She cleared her throat. "Professor, with all due respect, I don't have any other options. If I am to remain friends with Harry and Draco, I have to tell them." She didn't miss the way his eyes narrowed.

"Very well, Miss Granger. Do be careful." He turned and walked down the hallway as she watched, robes swishing about his ankles.

Hermione watched as he disappeared around the corner, his shrewd gaze pinning her once more before he rounded a corner and was out of sight. As she walked to Sev's office, she replayed the afternoon in her mind. She couldn't put her finger on what, exactly, was off about Dumbledore, but she didn't trust him.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Everyone was assembled in the room by the time she arrived. She'd known Sev for quite a long time, but she'd never seen him play the host. However, here he was, passing out cups and saucers as Lily heated a kettle. With a wave of her wand, the kettle floated to each person in the room.

Once it reached her, she tried to shoo it away with her hand, but it kept nudging her insistently until she heard Harry chuckle across the room from his seat on Sev's worn out sofa. "You might as well accept the tea and be done with it? Mum is pretty persistent when she's worried."

Lily scoffed next to him but didn't correct him. She allowed the kettle to fill up her cup and fixed the tea to her liking—two sugars, no milk.

After a few moments, Sev stood from his chair, clearing his throat and directing all attention to himself. "It's been a trying day for everyone, but I believe Hermione has something she needs to tell you all."

Her heart lodged itself in her throat when everyone looked at her expectantly. She wanted to do this—needed to do this. But old fears reared their ugly heads: the taunts, the names, everything she had come to expect from others. She wasn't sure if she would be able to take it from these people, the group of individuals she'd somehow bonded with so quickly despite knowing them for such a short period of time.

She took a deep inhale and met Severus' steady gaze. She could do it. She would do it. With that, she took a deep breath.

Hermione looked between the two boys, James, and Lily sheepishly. Steeling herself, she said, "I know I haven't known you long, but there's something that I've been keeping from you. Given the events of tonight, Sev and I think it would be beneficial to tell you all."

Draco wrinkled his nose up at the nickname. "Sev? Since when did you allow nicknames, Uncle Severus?"

Hermione stifled a laugh at Snape's long-suffering sigh. "I don't allow nicknames, but it has unfortunately stuck despite my insistence otherwise. That, however, is not the point."

Hermione nodded. "The point is that I've been keeping something important from you that I think could be part of what happened to Harry tonight." She cast her eyes downward before steeling herself to go on. "My name is Hermione Granger, but I'm not a half-blood. I'm Muggle-born."

Silence reigned for a moment before Harry started laughing. "That's what you've been keeping from us? I'm sorry, Hermione, but what's the big deal?"

She shook her head. "It's more than that." She looked at Sev for support and he nodded at her. "Apparently, I have altered time in another dimension. Where we are now—it's an entirely new dimension. The only thing the same across both as far as I'm aware is that we're all here. Every event from my birth onward has been altered."

Draco was the first to speak. "What do you mean, a new dimension?"

Severus answered for her. "We don't know much. Professor Dumbledore seems to be much more knowledgeable in the particulars than we are." Hermione tuned out, listening to an explanation much like that he gave her parents. She focused instead on their reactions.

Harry and Draco looked wonderstruck and confused more than anything. Lily and James followed along, brows scrunched as they listened to the intricacies of the situation. When Severus was finished, he leaned forward in his chair. "Above all else, Miss Granger needs protection in this timeline. She is not a threat to you."

Lily and James looked at each other in disbelief for a moment before James spoke, quiet rage simmering below his words. "Severus, our son was just attacked in front of the whole of Hogwarts, and you're telling us that she needs protection right now? What about our son?"

Hermione swore that she could cut the tension in the room with a spoon, it was so thick. When no one moved or said anything, her heart sank. Slowly, she lowered her cup to Sev's desk and closed her eyes to still her shaking hands. "I understand that you don't trust me." She swallowed a self-deprecating laugh to mask the disappointment that she felt. She tried to tell herself that it would be okay; she'd been without friends for so long that it wouldn't hurt too much to lose them. And yet— "It's a crazy tale. I wouldn't believe it if it didn't explain so much, but—"

"But without Miss Granger, you would not be here to be having this argument." Sev cut in. Both the Potters paled significantly. "If what Dumbledore has told me is correct, you were killed the night he attacked you in Godric's Hollow. This set into motion a chain of events that led Voldemort to target your son year after year, hellbent on his destruction. And, without Hermione, he likely wouldn't have made it because—like you, James—your son seems to run headlong into danger with a reckless abandon that rivals even his godfather."

Draco spoke over James' protests. "So why is this such a secret? It's not like Voldemort knows in this time?"

Sev shook his head. "It stands to reason that if Dumbledore found a way to contact himself in this dimension, then one of Voldemort's followers, if not himself, found a way to contact him here. If we're to play this smartly, we need to maintain Miss Granger's cover and—"

"And we need a plan of attack," Lily breathed. "Severus, this is crazy. They're just children. We've been fighting this since he was in Hogwarts."

"How can we even fight something that we can't find?" James said.

Hermione's mind was whirling, trying to keep up with the feud between the friends. Something was just beyond her grasp, an idea that was taunting her, but she couldn't quite reach it.

Severus continued. "We'll come up with a plan. Someone has to have seen something." His voice softened. "Lily, James, I know you don't want to talk about it, but do you have any idea where Wormtail might—"

James barely contained his snarl. "I don't know if anything I know about the bastard is the truth. I haven't seen him since the night before he betrayed us. If I could tell myself then what I know now—"

Something clicked in Hermione's head, and she gasped out, "That's it!" Every head in the room turned to look at her, expectant gazes on their faces. "Sev, you remember that afternoon you explained to my parents and I what was happening, right?" He nodded. "Well, later that afternoon, you told my father that there was something called a Pensieve that could be used to view old memories. That's what you said Dumbledore would use when he finally talks to me about what happened, when he finally explains it all to me—if he explains it all to me."

Sev nodded, not at all surprised that she remembered such a small detail if his expression was any indication.

Hermione continued. "The only person who has all the knowledge in this situation is Dumbledore, and—" she swallowed, bracing herself for the backlash at her next statement. "I don't trust him. Something about him seems off, almost like we're a specimen he's observing for reaction."

Lily pursed her lips. "We've noticed. Since that night, the night that Voldemort attacked, he's seemed off, but we can't do anything to prove it."

Hermione nodded. "I don't have much experience in magic—I've only known that I'm a witch for a few months—but I know when to trust my instincts. There's something off about Dumbledore. And if we can find a way to access his memories—"

Snape's eyes narrowed, and he let loose a disbelieving snort. "We can. He keeps a copy of his most important memories in vials in his office, conveniently alongside his Pensieve. We would need a distraction—"

"I think I can handle that," James cut in. "I bet I can have Sirius here within the hour to help out, for old times' sake." His eyes glowed with mischief.

Severus nodded, and Hermione fought the hope she felt rising within her. Despite what she'd expected, they had accepted her explanation, despite how outlandish it seemed, without much fuss, and now they were plotting how to take memories of one of the most powerful wizards that the wizarding world had. It was overwhelming, and she spoke without thinking. "I'll get the memories."

The room went into a frenzy as all the adults protested and Draco and Harry chimed in that they would help her. With a swish of Sev's wand, a loud crack echoed through the room and silenced everyone. He spoke. "I understand your desire to prove yourself, Hermione, but you don't know what you're looking for, and we can't risk you being caught bumbling around the Headmaster's office." His tone softened at her crestfallen expression. "We will go together. I will guard the room and instruct you on what you're looking for. Once you have it, we'll leave. I have a personal Pensieve that we may use." Another wave of his wand sent a wardrobe door open and featured a glowing blue pool of what Hermione thought was water. "Draco and Harry will stay here." He ignored the boys' protests.

James and Lily stood from the couch. "We'll get Sirius here. Remus is—currently indisposed," James said, avoiding Hermione's gaze and setting her curiosity aflame.

She watched Severus roll his eyes to the heavens. "I'll likely regret this, but we're in accordance. We'll meet back here at half after midnight; Dumbledore is likely to be in his quarters by then. In the meantime, we'll get the children to their common rooms."

"Um, Professor? What common room should we go to?" Harry glanced at his feet. "Seeing as how none of us were sorted, we don't have a house." There was a slight waver to his voice, though Hermione saw that he tried to paste a valiant smile on his face.

James chuffed his son's head. "Harry, we all know you're a Gryffindor. The Potter men are always Gryffindors."

Lily laughed at her husband and reached over to brush her son's hair from his face. Hermione's heart clenched at the display of affection; to think that this wouldn't exist if the warp hadn't occurred.

Severus sighed, pinching his nose. "As I'm sure I won't be getting any sleep tonight, you can sleep in my room. Just don't touch anything. Understood?" He levelled an imperious glare at them.

Draco stared at Sev in awe and whispered to Hermione, "What did you do to Uncle Severus?"

She laughed. "There's a lot you have to learn about Sev, apparently."

James snickered as Sev ushered her and the boys out of his office to get and into the adjacent room. As they were walking away, she heard him giddily whisper to Lily, "Just wait until I tell Pads that we've convinced Severus Snape to help us break into Dumbledore's office."