Since the excuse of having had Head student duties was accepted by the professor, Hermione spent rest of the Thursday vehemently avoiding talking to anyone. She did not rise to the bait when Colin took pictures of her with his camera. She only said "hello" and "I have to go" to Luna, and to Harry and Ron she only told she was going to the library. She actually did sit in a secluded corner of the library most of the time between lessons and after them. She began making a list of the things that worried her to solve them.

The first thing was, of course, that how had she come here and now. Beside that list point she arranged words to describe any explanations she came up. She knew she probably would not be able to come up with a right answer that way, but this helped her clear her mind of the thoughts. It was possible that this world was all in her head, and if that was the case, it was also possible that she could not find conclusive proof of that, so she did not want to think about that option and instead wrote it down. It was possible that her memories were fake and this was actually her original world, but that would mean that she must have been charmed or cursed in some way, and it was possible to find evidence about that. She underlined this worry thrice. It was also possible that she, or her consciousness, had actually traveled interdimensionally. If she was not cursed in this timeline, that could be the case. In the end she decided that the first thing to solve this first worry she should start from finding out whether or not she had been cursed in this world. For that she would need to gather information about likely curses. She also needed to get her manga back.

Before jotting down the second worry of hers, which was how to handle not remembering how this Hermione had gotten to this point, she blew her nose absent-mindedly. She had used to keep a diary in her past, but she had mostly dropped the habit during the war due to not having time to just herself regularly and in the fear of the diary getting in the wrong hands. She had regularly kept a diary in her timeline at school, though, but she had had a habit of hiding it in different places, and now that she lived on the top of the Gryffindor tower in the head girl's quarters, she did not the have familiar hiding places for it. She underlined "find my diary" also thrice.

Her third worry was saving the wizarding world. She did not know whether or not this timeline was similar in regards to Voldemort and his horcruxes. It appeared that the world had been diverged somewhere around Hermione's sixth year at Hogwarts, although she could not yet be sure about that. But the evidence this far pointed in the direction of Voldemort still having Harry horcrux, and Hermione did not find it very likely that the Dark Lord was dead yet. On the contrary, like Ronald had pointed out, Professor Redlid was quite voldemortlike. But if he was in the position of doing evil deeds very much, he would hardly be here at Hogwarts under Dumbledore's nose. The old wizard would know. Maybe "approach Professor Dumbledore"? She underlined the point tentatively.

After those worrypoints Hermione wrote down "relationships." School did not seem to be a problem to her at all, and her head girl studies depended on human relationships. Besides, her friends and acquaintances had been one of the main reasons her thoughts had gone rather circular. From the beginning people seemed to have tried to eat up all her time and she had not had much time for her research. Even that voldemortlike teacher had gotten in its way rather flashily.

She started from Malfoy, since he had been the most recent tormentor of hers. The boy appeared to be smitten with this timeline's Hermione and she would have to go on a date with him. She did not like the idea at all. She had not liked the boy before, she had hated him, and he seemed all too young and innocent for her this time... and besides, he had not seemed to change his habit of ganging up on others with other slytherins. Even if his closeness made her heart race, it would not be right. He might even have fallen in love with a completely different Hermione. And if the boy was just a very good actor and was scheming something, going on a date was even worse idea. But she could not help going. The contract was magically binding. She had felt it.

Ronald was another difficult suitor. He did seem to be as interested in her in this timeline as in the previous one, but from what she had heard, he was dating Lavender Brown and it did not seem like Hermione had been dating him. She loved Ron, but after the war she had found out that she did not actually want a physical relationship with the boy. She might have mixed friendly love with romantic love, or maybe she only had romantic love towards him instead of sexual attraction? She did not know, and she could not find out here. This Ron was a younger version of the Ron that had actually wanted to be in a relationship with her, and he had not been through all the things her timeline's Ron had been with her. It would be just wrong to use the boy, even if she came to miss her Ron.

Hermione could not count Harry in the suitor problem. At the beginning when she appeared here, he had come closer to her than usual, but that had not happened again and he seemed to be happily in relationship with Ginny. Even if the closeness after the porridge incident meant something, she would not accept Harry's advances and she definitely would not make advances towards him herself. Ginny was a dear friend of hers, even if it was the younger version of her here.

Ginny was another problem by herself. She seemed to be completely focused on quidditch, but she also was her closest friend who actually seemed to know whenever there was something wrong with her just by glance. They had in the past shared their future plans and worries with each other, and, of course, had some talk about boys too. Ginny was the friend she usually went to whenever she was overly stressed about school or wanted to talk about her crush or anything. But she did not know whether she could do something like that with this timeline's Ginny. She would not understand quite everything, and there would be a terrible amount of things to explain if she ended up talking with her properly. Ginny was likely to approach her at some point. Hermione decided that she would not tell her anything for now and wait until she knew more herself.

Neville did not seem like a problem. Instead he was happy to chat with her about interesting ideas and helped her get her mind off other things. Maybe she would have to try talking with him more. Luna had approached her today, and it had been a while since she had really talked with her, even in her own timeline, so she wanted to make sure she would say hi to her and underlined "Luna".

Colin was an irritation. It sure had, probably, not been his fault that he landed face first on her butt, but the way the boy acted after that... He had apologised on the spot, but today he had been following her around, until Madam Pince had stopped him from entering the library again. She would probably have to give him an earful about manners next time he did something like that. Hermione sighed.

She was still a bit weirded out about having told her story to Professor Snape. The man's behaviour in the detention had been nothing like what she had expected, and she was actually somewhat grateful for him hearing her out. She now had at least someone who knew about her trouble, and he did not seem to want to torment her for it. Probably. He had not even deducted any points from her during their discussion. But maybe the Professor had some ulterior motives, like reporting it back to Voldemort? Not likely, it was not something that should interest the Dark Lord. Maybe reporting to Dumbledore? Well, he probably wanted to know what was going on with his students. Professor Snape had seemed eager to discuss her troubles again soon, but she had no idea when that would be. Maybe it was okay to discuss them with him? She might not even have a choice in the matter. Maybe he would even keep his promise to not tell anything to anyone. Too bad she could not demand an unbreakable vow for that.

Professor Redlid still had her manga. She underlined thrice that she should get it from him. But how to do that? The man was irritating. It was as if he was just teasing her. She did not trust him, especially if he was Voldemort, to teach him any mind altering spells, like translation spells, and she did not want to spend any more time with him than necessary, so she could not accept the offer of him teaching her Japanese. She should probably learn the language or at least the spell by herself and soon, so that the man would not have an excuse to lure her into his lair. She underlined "learn Japanese" thrice.

After all this pondering and writing, Hermione's mind felt much clearer and her nose was not nearly as runny as it had been in the morning. She only had to take the magically self cleansing handkerchief out about once an hour anymore. She started gathering books for her research about curses, dimensions, and languages. She found plenty of books about curses and some about dimensions, but to her great dismay all the books on language spells were taken, and so were the only two books about Japanese language specifically. Hermione marched to Madam Pince to ask who had loaned them as an ominous feeling build up inside her.

"It was Professor Redlid. Oh, I think he left a message specifically for you, Miss Granger, let me find it..." Madam Pince told her and went through some papers until she found what she was looking for. "This is what it was: 'Come see me if you want to learn Japanese.'"

Hermione thanked the librarian with gritted teeth. This proved her thought about the Professor teasing her on purpose. She would have marched to his office right away, but her grumbling stomach stopped her. It was indeed time for dinner, and this body still required lots of food. She debated herself about whether to ignore her stomach or not, but Madam Pince ended up shooing her towards the Great Hall and she obediently began walking there.

"Hermione! Wait!" Hermione had not quite reached the doors of the Great Hall when the ethereal voice of the familiar ravenclaw called out to her. Despite her annoyed state, she stopped and turned around to wait for the red faced girl catch up with her.

"Luna, is something wrong?" Hermione asked trying to make herself sound appropriately concerned while forcing her own jaw less tight. She did not have time for nargles or whatever right now. She needed to get some food and to find that annoying Professor.

"I'm, sorry," Luna Lovegood panted and folded over to catch her breath. "It's just that I noticed a lot of micidae gathering around you..."

Hermione gave her a stern look. This was exactly what she did not want to hear, but she had learned that sometimes it was good to give the girl the benefit of doubt before jumping to conclusions.

"I'm sorry," Luna repeated and the curve of her eyebrows told Hermione that she was sincere, not that Luna usually was not. "I really wanted to give you something."

Luna dug through her pockets and handed Hermione something. It felt still warm in her hand, coming straight out of a pocket that had been close to the other girl's body. Hermione lifted the small talisman closer to her face to see it better. It was round, made of some sort of stone, and it had a spiral carving on both sides that went from the edges to the center, and there was a short blue thread attached to it.

"It's an Amphivena Tail. It should protect you from..." Luna started and stopped before continuing. "I just hope you'll keep it. I worry about you."

"Thank you," Hermione said curtly before quickly turning away to continue her stride and pocketing the trinket. She had gotten used to the girl over the years and on a good day she could just shrug off her supersticious nonsense, but she still often could not keep her opinions to herself. She did not want to upset Luna, since she was a nice person and a dear friend.

The ravenclaw caught up with her and continued walking on her side, but did not say anything. She was still a bit out of breath and their pace did not help, so Hermione slowed down a bit. She did not mind her company as long as she did not pester her about irrational things. They arrived at the Great Hall in peace and Luna followed Hermione to the Gryffindor table.

Hermione sat next to Harry and Luna sat next to her. Harry was pushing his food around on the plate, while Ginny instructed a few first or second years on the rules of quidditch. Ron was being fed by Lavender, which was a nice change for his typical eating habits, even if he did not look like he particularly enjoyed it. Luna struck a conversation about unicorns with Neville and Hermione started gathering food on her plate.

The kidney pie really hit the spot and Hermione started feeling somewhat content. The encounter with Luna had already calmed her down a little bit, and she began wondering was it really necessary to face Professor Redlid about something so petty. With taking all those books he could not have any other purpose than riling her up, and she did not think she would want to give the infuriating man the satisfaction of doing as he wished. She could wait him out... Or she could order some books from Flourish and Blotts. There were many other options than using the library books right now to learn a translation spell, even if all the other options were more troublesome. She sighed and gulped some water.

Harry next to her was sitting stiffly and had not eaten at all while Hermione could observe him. His expression was strange. His face was downcast, as if looking at his plate, and his eyes were wide, but looked like they did not see anything, but it was not so dramatic that Hermione would have suspected him being cursed or Voldemort taking over him or anything like that. However, this was not typical for him. She put a hand on his forehead to make sure he did not have a fever.

At the touch of her hand, Harry jumped and gasped, making all the friends around him look at him. As nothing seemed out of order, Ginny patted his back and returned to her discussion, and others turned back to what they were doing also. But Harry looked at Hermione like he had seen a ghost, only he had not gone pale, but red.

"Are you alright?" Hermione asked him worriedly. His reaction did not make sense.

"Yeah," Harry mumbled, turned back to his plate, and forcefully pushed a piece of kidney pie in his mouth. Hermione looked around. Everyone close to them were engaged in conversations with each other. The students farther away did not pay attention to them, except Malfoy, whose eyes Hermione caught before he pretended not having even looked her way. Most of the teachers were either talking or enjoying their meal properly, but she caught Professor Redlid curving an eyebrow at her mockingly and Professor Snape lifted his eyes from his meal to stare right in her eyes meaningfully as soon as her gaze swept over him. Hermione shook her head uncomprehendingly.

"Somehow I doubt that, Harry," Hermione said quietly.

"Are you..." Harry lowered his voice so that only Hermione could hear. "Are you dating Malfoy?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Hermione lowered her voice to a vehement whisper and leaned a bit towards Harry. She hoped this did not mean that this timeline's Hermione actually had had some sort of relationship with Malfoy or done something that made others think that...

"He gave me something and said it was for you," he mumbled back, barely daring to glance at her eyes.

"What?"

"It was a flower, Hermione," Harry whispered and his eyes looked haunted when he now properly looked Hermione in the eyes. "It was just a regular flower. I almost killed him last year, and then today he just came up to me and gave me a flower... And then he says it's for you? What am I to make of that?"

"What did you do?"

"I gave it back to him. He laughed at me, but I didn't hex him or anything. Are you dating him or not?" Harry's voice broke and Hermione glanced around again, but nobody close enough to possibly hear looked like they were following their conversation. She had not meant to ask about the flower, actually, but she let it drop, for now.

"No, I'm not," Hermione told him. "He does seem to have taken a fancy on me, though. I do wonder how."

At that moment Hermione found herself engulfed by the boy who lived's arms. He hugged her tightly, but let go as quickly as he had grabbed her. He smiled at her awkwardly, relief clear on his face. They turned away from each other and pretended nothing had happened. Looking over the room Hermione noticed that Malfoy's face had gone sour and he all too obviously had turned away from looking at them. Hermione would not have accepted the flower anyway.


Next chapter will be up in about two weeks. New university semester beginning things will take up my time at least this and next week.