Hermione thought she really should dress for dinner; she couldn't go along in a school uniform. She found a classic "little black dress" with strap shoulders that she immediately fell in love with, and decided that Emma honestly wouldn't mind.

An hour later she looked at herself in the mirror, and was impressed. She'd styled her hair into a coil, and used some of the make up. Her dress was coupled with black tights and black shoes that had a slightly higher heel than she was used to. She had to smile at the overall image, it looked very…sophisticated.

It's not that she never dressed up; but there was no point at Hogwarts, and she seldom went anywhere when she was at home. She could never wear anything like this at The Burrow; Fred and George would take the mickey something terrible.

She practised walking up and down in her new shoes until she was confident that she wouldn't fall over, and then sat down to wait for Rupert to call. To pass the time, she went back over the magazines. Apparently, Emma was worth over £10 million! That was nearly 2 million Galleons! Hermione – well, her parents – were comfortably well off and middle class, but that sum of money astounded her. 'Just for being me! I got something wrong somewhere, and I'm supposed to be the intelligent one.'

Shortly before eight o'clock, there was a knock on the door. When she opened it Rupert stood there, his mouth slowly dropping open. 'Umm…I didn't expect that.'

'What do you think?'

'If I told you, you'd probably slap me!'

She smiled. 'You don't look so bad, yourself.' Rupert was dressed in what could best be described as "designer casual chic"; clothes that probably cost a fortune but looked as if they'd been bought in a charity shop and never put on a hanger. It was actually very similar to what Ron would wear, only his probably were second hand.

He made a big play of offering her his arm, which she took with an exaggerated 'Thank you, kind Sir!', and they walked along the corridor, talking of not much in particular.

Dinner was much better than they thought it would be. David and Jo worked really hard to make sure the youngsters weren't dwelling on their problems – too much.

Jo told Hermione all about how the books had come about, when her train had been delayed, and how the first one was written in a café because she was very hard up at the time and it saved on heating bills.

David regaled them all with stories of his life in show business, and the actors he'd worked with; Bill Nighy, David Suchet and Jim Broadbent. He looked at Hermione and laughed 'Or, Professor Slughorn to you!'

Of course, inevitably, the conversation eventually turned to how Hermione had ended up here.

'I think it was a worm-hole' said Rupert.

'Pardon?' said several voices at once, including Hermione's.

'A worm-hole. It's like a short-cut through space or time.'

'Are you drunk?' asked Dan.

'No, honest! They're valid according to the Theory of General Relativity.'

'He often goes off like this' said Dan, looking at Hermione and winking. 'We tend to ignore him.'

'I don't understand it, though' said Hermione turning to Rupert. 'Can you explain it?'

Rupert picked up an apple from the table. 'Ok, we tend to think of space as being flat, yeah?' She nodded. 'But what if it was curved, like the skin on this apple? If a worm – which is what Americans called caterpillars – wanted to get from one side to the other, it could either go the long way on the outside, or straight through the middle. So, a worm-hole connects two points by the shortest route, even if it doesn't appear to be the shortest to us. Understand?'

'Yes', said Hermione. 'That's clear enough, except for one thing. I'm not from your space. So how does that work?'

The other three looked impressed. They'd understood about a quarter of what Rupert had said, but Hermione was known to be fiercely intelligent.

'Ah!' said Rupert. 'I've been talking about an intra-universe worm-hole. That just stays in our world and crosses space or time. But, if you can cross spacetime, there's no reason why you can't get a Schwarzschild wormhole that actually connects parallel universes.'

Dan, Jo and David had drifted away by now, and were talking about filming schedules.

'Do you think that's what happened?' asked Hermione in amazement.

'It's all theoretical, of course, but I can't think of another explanation. It can't be "magic" because nobody in our world can do it, and your world doesn't know we exist. What fascinates me is that the two ends of the worm-hole ended up connecting you to Emma. The probability of that happening…'

Hermione thought for a moment. 'I'm not sure. I think it's very likely. It's almost like one of us acted as a lightening conductor. Once the hole formed, it needed somewhere to ground so it found one of us as the "opposite pole". The thing is, will it ever open up again?'

'If it doesn't, you're both stuck' said Rupert, sadly. 'I can't see her coping in your world, can you?'

'Not without magic.'

-o0o-

Emma brushed her hair, and put on a cotton summer frock and a pair of sandals. There were various ribbons in one of the drawers, and she decided to tie her hair back. She didn't bother with any make-up; Hermione's was fairly cheap and just a bit…tacky. It was the sort of stuff girls bought when they were twelve and didn't know what they were doing, and didn't have top designers and artists to tell them where they were going wrong.

She walked along the corridor and knocked on Harry's door. He'd changed into jeans and a sweatshirt; Ron arrived a few moments later dressed very similarly. They started talking about Quidditch and Emma laughed.

'This is so weird! It's just like watching one of the films.'

A rather decrepit old waiter old waiter eventually appeared pushing a trolley. He served them braised steaks with boiled potatoes, peas and carrots. For deserts there were treacle tarts and custard. Emma didn't eat much.

'Not hungry?' asked Harry, spearing a potato that was going spare on her plate.

'How comes Hermione isn't the size of a house if she eats this every day?'

'She's like you' replied Ron. 'Doesn't eat enough to keep a sparrow alive, my mum reckons.'

'I'd like to meet your mum. In the books she's really nice, all your family is.'

'Mum's great' said Ron. 'Dad can go off on one occasionally, and once he gets started there's no stopping him. I sometimes wonder how she puts up with it; must be love, I suppose.' Emma smiled; another difference.

She looked around the room. 'I don't know how I'm going to ever get back.'

'We don't even know how you got here' said Harry. 'If Dumbledore doesn't know, what chance have we got? What was that you were saying earlier about worm-holes or something?'

'It's just something I've heard Rupert talking about, and you see them in sci-fi films.' There were two blank looks in front of her. 'Science fiction – space travel, that kind of thing – sometimes has them. It's a sort of way of travelling across the universe in the blink of an eye.'

'Doesn't sound possible' said Harry.

'There are time turners, though' said Ron.

'Yeah, but that's magic, and no-one in her world has it.' He turned back to her. 'So, what will you do if you can't get back? Will you stay at Hogwarts?'

She shook her head. 'There's no point, if I'm not magical.' She shook her head and looked sad. 'I suppose I'll have to leave and try to find some kind of work, in the muggle word.'

'Mubbluls' said Ron, with a sympathetic smile. 'This might sound a bit…strange, but you might have to go and see Hermione's parents. I suppose they'll have to be told at some stage, and they might feel better if they can meet you.'

'I know. She might have to do the same with my family.' Her eyes welled up, and she wiped them with her hand. 'I've got to face facts; it might come to that.' She sniffed and looked away.

Harry patted her on the shoulder. 'I'm sure Dumbledore will come up with something; he's the greatest wizard this world's ever seen.'

Emma might have found that far more comforting if this world had existed for more than a few years, but Harry was trying to be kind, so she nodded.

'I'm sure he'll do all he can. Thank you both for being so good to me. Can I ask you a favour?' The boys nodded. 'I don't really want to sleep in there tonight; would one of you mind if we swapped rooms?'

Ron said 'To be honest, I don't fancy it myself. Look, why don't Harry and I share, and you can have my room?'

'Would you mind? Oh, thank you.'

Emma went into the room and got herself a nightdress. She almost baulked at the thought of using Hermione's toothbrush, but decided it was her only option until she could get her own. That brought home to her exactly how out of her own place she was; he didn't even have a toothbrush here. Ron came along shortly afterwards and gave her his key.

'Good night, Ron, and thank you once again.'

'Good night, Emma. Sleep well, and don't worry; we'll work something out.'

She smiled at him, because he was being kind to her as well, despite losing his potential girlfriend, and walked off. Ron watched her go and shook his head. She wasn't Hermione; Hermione would be working on a solution, not worrying about the problem.

-o0o-

David Yates yawned. 'It's been a long day; I'm off to bed. We'll meet up in the morning and decide what to do next. 'Night all.'

By general agreement, they all decided to turn in. Rupert walked Hermione back to her room. She stood by the door, and he put his hand out to lean against the wall.

She looked up at him. 'I had a lovely evening. It was good of you to talk to me, and try to look out for me.'

'It's not a problem' he said. 'I know it must be hard for you, but I feel like I've known you for ages. We're part of a team.'

She reached her hand up to stroke his cheek. 'Thank you for that. You're like Ron, you know, but different. I can't imagine him talking to me about theoretical physics. I can't think of anyone I know doing that.'

They gazed into each other's eyes. By almost telepathic agreement, her arm curved around his neck and his arms were around her and they kissed long and deep. Eventually they broke apart, and she bent her forehead onto his chest.

'Thank you for that, as well' she said in a whisper.

Going into her room she shut the door and leaned back against it. Was what she'd just done so wrong? Probably no worse than sleeping with Viktor Kron, she decided.

She was as much an outsider here as she was in the magical world, in all honesty. She had no pedigree, no right to be there. She needed alliances. "Make the most of what you've got" was her motto for life.

If she was to be stuck here then at least she had a foot in the door, and there were worse people to be stuck with than Rupert, who was like Ron plus. If Emma was worth that much money, he probably was as well. With £20 million they could have a good life together, if it came to it.

She headed for the bathroom. 'I'm sure Emma won't mind me using her toothbrush.'