Hermione woke early the next morning. She had never been a particularly early riser except on school days, but as she had gone to bed quite early the night before, she found that she wasn't able to sleep any longer. She swung her feet over the edge of the bed, and braced herself for the coolness of the stone floor. She walked quickly over to the wardrobe, where she had hung her clothes the night before, and found that they had been freshly laundered by the Hogwarts House Elves.
As she ate her breakfast of tea and toast at the table in front of the fire, she noticed a movement in her peripheral vision. She looked over to find that someone had moved into one of the portraits on the wall. "Excuse me, Miss Bennett, but Professor Dumbledore would like to speak to you in his office as soon as is convenient," said the unknown person. "Thank you. Please tell him that I will be there as soon as I have finished my breakfast." With that, the man left the frame, obviously on his way to give Dumbledore her message.
Hermione quickly finished her toast, gulped down her tea, and set her dishes next to the sink. She would deal with them later. She cast a quick freshening charm over herself, and headed up to Dumbledore's office.
Within minutes she was seated in front of Dumbledore's desk. "Well, my dear, I have arranged for Professor McGonagall to escort you to Diagon Alley later this morning to purchase your supplies for the upcoming term. You are scheduled to meet in the entrance hall at 10:00 sharp. She has only been told what is necessary; that you are a new student who has come here under special circumstances. Should you choose to confide more information in her, I can assure you that she is perfectly trustworthy." "Thank you, Professor, but I already know that. We are actually quite close in the future. She is my favorite teacher back home, and I am very familiar with all of her work within the Order of the Phoenix." "Ah, you know about the Order! Good, very good!" he exclaimed. "Now, while I have you here, Miss Bennett, I would like to discuss with you the rules of time travel." "Yes, Professor, I am quite aware of the rules, as I was in possession of a Time-Turner in my third year in order to take all of the classes I wanted to." "Really, in your third year? That is most impressive! However, I believe from the little you have told me of the future, that should you feel that something could be tweaked, that you should feel free to do so. Seeing as you have been thrown into the past, the future that you know no longer exists, as your mere presence here has disrupted the timeline."
This gave Hermione a lot to think about. When she had first learned the rules of time travel, the most important thing was to not disturb the timeline. However, this was a completely different situation from the tiny hour-long time jumps that she had done. Now she didn't have to worry about running into herself on the street, because she hadn't even been born yet. She now had the ability to save so many lives. She could give Harry parents, save Sirius from twelve undeserved years of imprisonment, bring Peter to justice, or prevent him from ever joining Voldemort in the first place! She could prevent poor Remus from being left alone in the world! She even had the knowledge to destroy Voldemort before he even heard about the prophecy. She would need to tell Dumbledore all about the horcruxes, of course, but that would have to wait, as she needed to get ready to go shopping with McGonagall.
There really wasn't much she needed to do to prepare. She returned to her rooms and quickly charmed her dishes clean and into their proper places, put on some natural (but pretty) makeup, and attempted to tame her hair. She picked up her wand, and started toward the entrance hall.
At 9:55, McGonagall arrived, pleased to see that Hermione was early as well. "You must be Miss Bennett. I'm very pleased to meet you. My name is Professor Minerva McGonagall," said McGonagall in her usual professional tone. "Pleased to meet you, as well, Professor," she replied. Even after twenty years, her favorite professor looked very much the same. Sure, the McGonagall standing before her lacked a few of the wrinkles that Hermione was accustomed to, but that must have been from the stress of Voldemort's first reign.
"Shall we go?" asked Professor McGonagall. "Yes, of course." They then ventured out onto the grounds, toward the winged boars at the main gate. Once they had passed through, McGonagall stopped. "We are going to apparate to Diagon Alley. I gather that you do not yet have an apparition license?" "No, Professor, I never had the opportunity, what with my parents in hiding and all." "I see. Well, we'll look into that later. For now, let's take one thing at a time. Take my arm." The instant Hermione had a good grip, she felt the sensation of being squeezed through a tight rubber tube, and a moment later she was standing at the entrance to Diagon Alley just behind the Leaky Cauldron.
"This way, dear" said McGonagall kindly. Hermione followed her through the crowd to the towering snowy white building of Gringotts. No matter how many times she visited the bank, Hermione was still awed by its size and beauty. She followed McGonagall to the counter, and stared around the lobby as the professor arranged to withdraw some gold from the Hogwarts vault.
About half an hour later, Hermione had a bagful of gold and was walking with McGonagall toward Flourish and Blott's to purchase her books. She was pleased to see that the list of supplies from this time period was quite similar to that of her own.
She and McGonagall decided to divide the list between the two of them in order to get done more quickly. The professor took the ground floor, while Hermione ventured upstairs to find her half of the books. She had just found the last one when she accidentally ran into someone. "Oh, I'm so sorry, are you alright?" she asked them before she looked up into startlingly amber eyes. She knew those eyes... "Oh, it's quite alright. It was my fault, anyway. Are you a Hogwarts student? I've never seen you around before?" he asked. "Yes, I'm a transfer student. Hermione Bennett." She extended her free hand to him. "Remus Lupin," he said taking her hand in his and giving it a warm shake.
At that moment, the voice of Minerva McGonagall floated up the stairs. "Hermione, dear, are you ready to pay for your books?" "Yes, Professor, I'll be down in a moment." With a quick "nice to meet you," she joined her professor downstairs at the counter.
"Who was that, Moony?" said a voice from behind Remus. "She was quite pretty. Maybe you'll get a go at her this year." Remus turned to see his mate Sirius Black, who had been skulking in the shadows. "Yeah, that'd be a first. Moony liking a girl," said another voice from behind Sirius. His other friend James Potter emerged to stand next to Sirius. "Just because I'm not always chasing after girls like the two of you does not mean that I have never liked a girl" he retorted. "Hey!" exclaimed James. "I'm only after one girl, mate." He got a dreamy look on his face. "And I will have you know that I don't have to chase after girls. They come to me," said Sirius "but that's beside the point. What I'm getting at is that even if you did like someone, you never did anything about it. Moony, my friend, this year we are going to get you some action." Remus sighed. He knew that once Sirius set his mind to something, there was no stopping him.
The three boys paid for their books, and left the shop.
Hermione was exhausted. She had never been a fan of shopping, and her day had been dedicated to nothing but. After purchasing her books, she got fitted for robes and a uniform, bought all of her potions supplies, and she had plenty of money to spare, so she bought a beautiful tawny owl at Eeylop's Owl Emporium.
She now sat in an armchair in her common room, reading and feeding her new friend owl treats. She had named her Artemis, after the huntress. She thought it suited her quite well, actually. She had bought the owl more for company than anything. After all, she really didn't have anyone to write to. She didn't want another cat, because she felt like that would be cheating on Crookshanks, however odd that may seem.
Finding that she couldn't read any longer for tiredness, she ventured up to her dorm, and quickly fell asleep.
Her dreams that night were filled with pairs of amber eyes…
AN: So, that's chapter 3. I hope you liked it. If you didn't, I deeply apologize.