The previous disclaimers apply to this and all the other chapters to come.
"You just dealt with all the horcruxes with Dumbledore last summer?"
"Horcruxes?" Harry looked puzzled. He had just described how Dumbledore had appeared to his doorstep and how they had found and destroyed all the horcruxes Hermione remembered, except Harry himself. They had even tricked Voldemort to leave his snake without supervision for a moment and killed it with Godric Gryffindor's sword. After that the Dark Lord had disappeared and the Death Eaters had been more or less disbanded. That did actually explain how those Death Eaters were caught and sent to Azkaban so easily, but as usually, Harry had not made the connection. Also, from what Harry told about the ring, it sounded like Dumbledore had not tried to destroy it before and they had did it together around the time Dumbledore was supposed to die according to Hermione's memory.
"Never mind... So, is Voldemort still lurking around somewhere or did you destroy him too?" Hermione asked.
"Dumbledore said he would be destroyed if the things we slashed with the Gryffindor's sword were destroyed."
"But he didn't say that Voldemort is gone?"
Harry shuffled his feet and looked away. The Harry Hermione remembered had learned to not trust Dumbledore without questioning him, but this Harry was younger and had spent more time in his presence. Hermione felt even older than she used to in the company of her friends. She sighed.
"I knew it! He's that Redlid!" Ron exclaimed right at the moment Hermione had opened her mouth to speak again. She decided to ignore the notion for the time being.
"Harry. How are your occlumency lessons?" If Harry was actually capable to occlude properly in this timeline, he might not be as susceptible to Voldemort's manipulation if the Dark Lord was somewhere to be found.
"Dumbledore said I'm good enough after giving me a few more of them in summer." Harry did not exhibit any tell-tale signs of lying or hiding things.
Ron provoked Harry into another debate about whether or not their new DADA teacher was the Dark Lord himself and Hermione tuned them out. Things sure were different from what she remembered. What if this was actually the real reality and she had imagined the whole war and everything? In the end she decided that for now that sort of thinking lead to the whole wizarding world probably being her imagination and said good night to the boys before retreating to the head girl's chambers on the top of the Gryffindor Tower. At least that was how it should have been, she thought.
It had been a long day and she fell asleep right after she had gone to bed.
-x-x-x-
Hermione was not sure whether or not to trust that the suspicious professor would return her manga the next morning, despite having strongly hinted at it. But she did not have a choice in any case. The man was her Professor and held power over her, and she needed to play along in case this was the real world. She knocked on the door of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom before most of the castle was even waking up. The Professor had not said an exact time. She wanted to get the book back as soon as possible.
There was no answer and after yawning for a while, Hermione just opened the door and went in. The room was dark and quiet. The windows showing the still dim dawn were framed by heavy curtains. Someone had to have pulled them back or just left them there. Hermione was slightly alarmed and walked toward the nearest window. Her footsteps echoed softly in the room and the heavy door clicked closed. She glanced back at it, but it must have closed because of her pushing it back. The curtains smelled like garlic and the view was rather calming.
Hermione hopped on the windowsill and took out her journal, where she, or the version of her in this reality, had written about her Head Girl duties. To her surprise she found out that Malfoy had been made the Head Boy. Maybe this meant he had come to some sort of agreement with Dumbledore instead of trying to kill him? She started to wonder whether or not she should try to approach Dumbledore with her questions or ask Harry to ask him. The old wizard had always made her a bit awkward around him, as he reminded her of all the old powerful mentor wizards of the stories she had read.
Her musings were interrupted by Professor Redlid entering the room through a door close to the front. He did not seem to notice Hermione as he rubbed his eyes tiredly and went to his desk. In the morning light Hermione did get the impression that there was something snakelike about the man, but she could not put her finger on it. Who knows, maybe he was actually Voldemort in disguise. It was not as if Hermione dared to rule out things like that in this world. The man waved his hand in a graceful motion and some paper flew from a cabinet and landed on the desk. After that he lifted his head sharply without turning.
Hermione started putting out her things and jumped down to get closer to the Professor. He turned so slowly towards Hermione that his green robe barely moved around him at all. The man stood motionlessly.
"Good morning, professor. I'm here about my book," Hermione announced as she reached the front of the classroom. She purposefully avoided looking at his eyes for more than a couple of seconds at a time. If he happened to be Voldemort, he would be a highly skilled legilimens as well.
The Professor stared the student for a long moment before smiling.
"Ah, Miss Granger. Have you decided whether you want to learn the language or the spell?" he asked. His voice was soft, but a little bit raspy, of sleep, perhaps.
"I can learn them both by myself, but thank you for the offer, sir. I just want my book back." Hermione crossed her arms.
"Well, I'm not finished with it, and I don't even have it with me right now," Professor Redlid told her and spread his hands as if to show her how he did not have the manga with him. Then his smile shifted a bit and his eyes darkened. "I was hoping I could pay you back in advance now."
"When will you be finished with it? It's very important to me." Hermione did not like how the professor's lips curled even more at that and how he tilted his head to look her as if she was some sort of exotic curiosity.
"I don't know..." he mused.
"In that case, I'd better go," Hermione declared and turned to leave.
"Wait, Miss Granger," the Professor exclaimed before Hermione could take another step. "I need to arrange some dark creatures here for the first years to study, and as you're the Head Girl, I need you to help me go through the process, the papers, access to the wards..."
Hermione sighed and turned back to the professor. She was indeed responsible of helping the teachers with their lesson arrangements whenever they asked for help. She spent the rest of the morning fetching documents from the teachers' lounge and explaining the Professor the rules of how they had to be handled in Hogwarts, while he just smiled and nodded at her infuriatingly. She ended up not even having time to get breakfast before having to go to class. Even if the man was not Voldemort, he obviously was evil.
-x-x-x-
At lunch time Hermione was already too hungry to care much about anything besides getting rid of the painful sensation in her stomach. Ginny blabbed on about quidditch tactics to the team sitting next to them at the table and Hermione threw some annoyed glances at the teachers' table while she ate. It had been ages since she had been as hungry as she was now. When she was traveling with the boys, she had not always gotten enough to eat, and her appetite had adjusted with it, but now she was in a younger body again and was not used to being hungry anymore, even mentally.
Neville had sat opposite to her and was now just watching her eat. He looked healthy. He even had gotten a tan, no doubt because of spending lots of time in greenhouses. He had told her he even had gotten one at home as a gift from her grandmother after getting a high score in his Herbology OWL. He had also gotten way more knowledgeable about magical plants than even Hermione herself was after he had decided to pursue a career in Herbology. He had always been good at it, but Hermione used to be able to easily keep up with him with the subject.
"Why do you keep looking at the Professors?" Neville asked her, leaning his head on one hand. "We haven't had potions yet, so I'm guessing it's not Snape, but I can't think why you'd be angry with anyone else."
Hermione shrugged. She was already feeling better after getting something to eat. Talking about Snape, they would have potions next. How the people talked about him had not seemed like he had not taken over the DADA position last year, but nobody seemed to know why he stepped down this year. It was strange to think that the man died as a hero and now was alive again. Hermione had even cried for him... among other casualties. Hermione's eyes found the one located closest to her at the moment, Lavender Brown. She had cried for her also. The girl was clinging to Ron's side, but Hermione found herself devoid of the bang of jealousy she used to feel seeing that.
"Neville, have you ever felt like you had too many thoughts running through your head at the same time?" Hermione asked and sighed. This was not her life, or was it? Why could that annoying Professor not give her manga back so she would have at least some clue?
"Maybe." Neville averted his eyes and his cheeks got pinker. "How do you mean?"
"Like... I don't know... As if everything had lost its base? Perhaps? Or there were just too many things to consider? I don't know..." Hermione shook her head before drinking the last gulps of pumpkin juice she had left.
"Don't you usually know everything?" Neville teased. "Well... When my thoughts get muddled I usually go for walks or work on a garden. Could that help?"
"Hmm. It might be worth a try. Thanks." Hermione smiled at the boy. The red tint on his cheeks had done the opposite of disappearing and he still did not look straight back at her. The colour reminded Hermione of tomatoes and she started pondering whether or not there were magical tomatoes and asked him. Apparently there were magical relatives of tomatoes and they were very rare and had various qualities Hermione had not even thought of.
-x-x-x-
It did not sound very plausible to Hermione that Snape had just accepted Harry and Ron in his class, so there must have been some Dumbledore meddling to make it possible. From what Hermione had heard in her one and half a day of stay in Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn had vanished without giving anyone an explanation as to why.
Today they were brewing blood replenishing potion, which Hermione knew by heart how to do by now. Despite that she did not let her mind wander and got in a good flow after getting the ingredients beside the cauldron. At a steady rate she prepared them and set the fire under the cauldron to the right temperature. This seemed to help her as much as what Neville had told her, but she did not dwell on the thought about the boy and concentrated on the potion instead.
When she had just stirred the cauldron for the last time and only needed to wait for it to simmer, she felt something touch her left wrist from behind. Hermione reflexively spun into action; she pulled her wand out and turned around simultaneously and cast a nonverbal binding charm at her attacker. Hermione's heart bounded loudly as she checked her surroundings. She was in the Potions classroom, surrounded by other students, who looked at her with surprise when bound Draco Malfoy fell down in front of her with a loud thud.
As her heart slowly got quieter, her cheeks grew warm. She looked at the boy she had felled. He did not even have his wand out, he must have just walked too close to her. There was enough space to walk farther away, though, and she did not see a reason for him to get that close... Maybe he had had something to say. In any case, she released him from the charm.
"Twenty points from Gryffindor and detention after class, Miss Granger," Professor Snape's smooth voice drawled as the man himself walked towards Hermione. She cringed. "Well? Stop staring and continue your potions!"
The students shuffled to do as the Professor said and Hermione caught a worried look from Harry, before he turned back to his cauldron. Professor Snape reached Hermione and Malfoy, who was starting to gather himself up from the floor.
"I'm sorry," mortified Hermione finally got out of her mouth, quietly. Suddenly she remembered her potion and turned to finish it, as now it must have simmered enough.
"Mr. Malfoy, are you uninjured?" Professor Snape sounded worried, unlike with students usually. Maybe it was because of that student being in Slytherin. Or maybe it was just for Malfoy. Harry had told her in her original timeline that Professor Snape had taken an unbreakable vow to protect the boy.
"Yes, yes..." Malfoy mumbled. It sounded like he had gotten up. It had just been a binding spell, and the binds should have protected his fall.
"Good," Snape said. There was that small, familiar, swooshing sound that left from his robes when he turned dramatically. Hermione started pouring her perfect potion to vials.
Nobody was talking in class. There were quiet pops as some of the cauldrons were boiling and some scratching sounds of quills on parchments and crackling of the fires under the cauldrons. It smelled steely all around with a hint of mint. Hermione's work was done.
"Granger?" whispered Malfoy. He had not left from behind her.
"Didn't I already tell you I'm sorry?" Hermione asked him, turning around, vials in her hands. Malfoy flinched.
"No... Yes.. I mean, I just wanted to ask when you're free so that we could discuss Head student activities," he continued and shuffled his feet.
Hermione took a long look at the boy. His face pointed towards her feet, but he looked at her from under his brows. The puppy-dog look was only ruined by the greyness of his eyes. Puppies' eyes were supposed to be brown, this way that pleading look seemed somehow much less innocent.
"Tomorrow at breakfast, or after school, I suppose?" Hermione suggested to get it over with.
"At breakfast, if we could meet in the kitchens?" Malfoy answered.
"That's fine. Now, if you'll excuse me..." Hermione walked past the blond boy to give her finished potion out for assessment. She was the first to finish her potion, as usually, and the first to return it, but this time she could not just prepare for leaving, because of her detention. Head girl was not supposed to get detention, she was sure of it, but she did not remember reading about them getting replaced after such occurrences here in Hogwarts. But, who knows...
Hermione took out her copy of the Hogwarts: A History. She had always carried it around in case of emergencies like this. She placed it on the desk in front of her and started to read as the other students started getting ready to leave one after another. The magnificent tone harboured so many of the secrets of the magic school that she had been entranced from the first page the first time she had opened the book before she got to Hogwarts. These days it evoked nostalgic and warm feelings while gathering most of her attention so that she did not worry about anything.
There was peace in reading this familiar book. She could find the calmness in these familiar procedures. Sentence after sentence, page after page, picture after picture... Ingredient after ingredient. She just needed to do something she was used to doing and her mind was tranquil. No disturbing mess.
When the classroom started to be quiet again, Hermione lifted her eyes from the book. Harry and Ron were stubbornly just standing there, even though the other students had already left. They were taking turns glaring at Snape and looking at Hermione worriedly. Hermione smiled at them and made shooing motions with her hand and finally they left. She put her book back and went to stand by Professor Snape's desk, where the man was sitting. Hermione was almost happy that she would no doubt end up having to use his hands to scrub cauldrons or something similar, which let her mind get in a calm flow state again.
"Follow me," Professor Snape just told her and rose to walk to the back of the classroom. Hermione followed him through a heavy oaken door and she felt tingles as the wards let her through. The door shut behind her and she turned to look back at it before noticing the Professor already sitting behind a desk, similar in style as the door, and looking expectantly at a cushioned chair in front of the desk. She would have expected a much more uncomfortable chair, but the room was all around more ascetic than the desk and both of the chairs. His was, of course, much more luxurious looking. It was covered in black leather. She went and sat down in the more humble one. There were no cauldrons in the room.
"Are you really Hermione Granger?" Professor Snape suddenly asked.
What have you thought about this story this far? Still looking for betas. Next chapter coming up at the end of this week or at the beginning of next.
