DISCLAIMER: All characters and settings are the property of JK Rowling. I'm just the girl who likes to play in her world.

Chapter six: No Fairy Princess

Severus looked from her retreating back to Lucius and saw him fire a curse at her. He gave a small smile in his mind, when he saw her slight movement to get her wand. It was about time somebody got one up on that prick, he was always creeping around anyone who he thought could prove useful to him; his current project was none-other than Severus himself. He eyed Malfoys now Pinkie Purple blotchy skin, it was quickly turning into first degree burns. Serves the bastard right, it was pretty cowardly to fire when a person's back is turned.

"That bloody wench is going to regret doing that; nobody makes a fool of me without the consequences." He heard the blonde whisper deadly to Knott, who was helping him get up off the floor where he had landed from the power of his own curse. Severus believed that Lucius would keep his word, he always did. His eye's drifted up to the bushy brunette's bent head; she would never know what hit her once Lucius was through with her. Giving a mental shake of his head he turned back to his own breakfast. What did he care, by the looks of things she already had her 4 lumps of bodyguard to fight her corner.

Finishing his last bit of toast he got up and stalked out of the great hall. It was going to be time for class in 10 minutes and he had to go all the way down to the dungeons to get his books, then all the way up to the astronomy tower. Not that anybody would notice if he was late he thought to himself miserably.

-.-.-.-

Hermione took her timetable out from her pocket where she had shoved it this morning, it was neatly folded so when she unfolded it out could see the crease lines going from top to bottom, and side to side. Her eyes drifted over the Monday column. She had Herbology in a few minutes with Professor Plantaker, after that was break, Arithmancy, Charms, lunch and double Potions last thing. She was so excited to see what the curriculum was like in this century, she hoped it wasn't too advanced for her or too far down on the other end of the spectrum; that simply wouldn't do at all. Getting up she walked with Remus to Herbology. She knew already that Remus was a studious person but she had never known he had taken Herbology for his N.E.W.T's; it just didn't seem to go with his underlying deadly character. She chuckled to herself which promoted a look from the boy in question that clearly showed he though her to be insane, laughing at nothing but thin air. She gave a little blush and walked the rest of the way in silence.

-Break-

The day had gone ridiculously well for Hermione so far, receiving at least three points for every answer she gave, which was about six in total so far. She could have answered every single question in all of her classes but she thought she would make the others work for it rather than just getting off on her smarts. The only thing that was distracting her through-out her entire charms lesson was the flame haired green eyed beauty sitting in front of her. Every time she had turned round to ask Hermione something her mouth had gone dry and she felt her mind shut down. Harry truly did have his mothers' eyes. While she was sitting there thinking about her friends it had hit her that James looked exactly like Harry but it hadn't fazed her as much as Lilly's eyes. Now she knew why everybody made a big deal about his eyes. She smiled to herself and answered the girls' question, pointing into her text book. Lilly seemed to be a very lovely girl, and she was glad for it, she needed at least one girlfriend in this time.

The bell rang throughout the classroom and they began to pack their things and make their way down to the great hall once again, this time perhaps she could eat her food in peace. She felt empty inside as if she hadn't eaten in days, she was worried that this whole being thrown back into the past had affected her body somehow. She was probably just being silly so she pushed the thought to one side. She sat down opposite Lilly and began to chat animatedly to her about anything that found its way into the girls' minds, but still trying to avoid anything that might relate to her in some way.

"Hello Hermione, Lilly you look absolutely stunning; New shampoo?" James voice interrupted them half way through talking about how she was finding the classes so far and if they were different what she had been taught. It had been decided that her cover story was that she had been home schooled since she 11. Her mother was Kaitlyn, a muggle, and her father was George, a wizard. They had died in a car crash at the end of last year so she had to finish her last year Hogwarts.

"James I've told you before, compliments won't get you anywhere with me, especially not lame ones like that." Lilly had told her James had been at her heels since the beginning of last year. She hadn't accepted any of his offers to go out with him because she knew what his type was like. Hermione had been surprised at first to learn that they weren't the head over heels love birds that everybody seemed to portray them as.

"Aw Lils I was only being nice. Why do you keep breaking my heart?" He made a big gesture as if in pain from his heart, clutching at it through his robes. Lilly gave a un-lady like snort and turned back to Hermione, who she received a knowing smirk from. It was plain that Lilly did like him but she would never admit it, not yet anyway.

"Prongs mate give it up already and stop making a fool of yourself, it's embarrassing to be seen with you sometimes." Sirius mimicked what James had just done but with a demented look all over his face. "But hey it could be worse; you could be Snivellus over there."

"That's true, just thinking about having to live as that maggot gives me creeps." Hermione had been ignoring them up until the point when she heard Snape mentioned. She had heard stories from harry about what happened between the Maraluders and Snape, and it wasn't exactly hard to tell that they weren't friends considering the shouted insults that were flung back between Sirius and Snape at the order meetings back at Grimauld place in her own time. Her eyes drifted over to the Slytherin table. She smirked to herself when she noticed Malfoy wasn't present. Before her eyes could seek the raven haired boy out Sirius's voice was calling to her.

"So Hermione what happened this morning when you went over there? We couldn't really see or hear seeing as we were all the way over here. I heard somebody say that you cursed Malfoy. About time somebody got a good shot at that arrogant bastard." Sirius finished, muttering more to himself than to her.

"I just taught him to not be so naive as to attack somebody where their back is turned. Though I reckon he didn't understand that all too much. He was probably more worried about his ego being bruised." She gave a small shrug, and a sigh. She hadn't really thought about the consequences of her actions until now. In his eyes she was probably on top of his hunting list now. That was just what she needed over everything else.

"I guess I'll be having another run in with him in the near future." She shook it off and smiled at everyone.

"Hermione, I don't mean to sound condescending but I really don't think you understand how this school works. You shouldn't have gotten on the wrong side of Malfoy; he isn't to be taken lightly. He's the best person in our Duelling class; it's very likely that he could take you down with his eyes closed. For his angel like face he has a magic of pure darkness" Lily lectured her, all the time the seriousness of the situation evident in her eyes. Hermione at least had the graciousness to bow her head in shame. Her being in Malfoys' bad books would eventually equal her friends joining her there because she knew that they would defend her from him. But be that as it may they need not worry about it. She had dealt with worse than a teenage Lucius. She had survived two fully fledged death eater attacks and come out of it with only a scar across her abdomen from the latter. She wasn't exactly going to go blurting that out though. They wouldn't even realise how much of a feat that was for a girl of her age, the Slytherins might, but she doubted even they had a full grasp on the truth about the death eaters. When she realised they were still waiting for an answer from her she was about to apologise but shut her mouth again. She wasn't going to say sorry for something that probably wouldn't even occur and she had worse things to be worrying about. She reached down and grabbed her bag off of the floor.

"Well if Malfoy comes looking for me brandishing his wand like a mad man be sure to tell him that I'm in the library, I have work to do." And with that said she turned on her heal and headed for the library; she knew she could always find solace in there. When she reached the wooded door that lead to her comfort zone she realised she still had yet to eat a whole meal, and the empty feeling was still present but she didn't think it was from lack of food. Maybe she'd look for information about medical problems connected to time travel while she was in the library.

-Break-

Potions lesson was a complete wreck, it was worse than Professor Snapes' lessons. This woman was dreadful to say the least and Hermione could plainly see where Professor Snape got his teaching manner from. Professor Levesque was tall with straight but wild brown hair, a small pointed nose that looked as pinched as the rest of her face and brown eyes that stood out against the pallor of her skin. Hermione supposed she would be quite beautiful in an aristocrat kind of way if she bothered to put in some effort. She had already dubbed Hermione as annoying and a book worm, the slytherins seemed to find this funny, especially Lucius; who seemed to have made a miraculous recovery from his burns. The wonders of a good glamour charm would never fail to impress Hermione. The one good thing about this teacher was that she seemed too loath both houses in the classroom not just the Gryffindors. She was sitting with a boy called frank because she had yet been unable to mend things between her friends about her actions earlier. When Hermione saw how appalling this Frank boy was at potions she put that together, with his somewhat familiar face she came up with the last name Longbottom.

"Pardon? Did you just say something Hermione?" Hermione mentally smacked herself; she must have said her thought out loud. She stammered out a lame explanation.

"Yes I just said um ... Lacewings. I need to add the lacewings now." That was lame Hermione. Frank just smiled at her shyly and nodded his head; the boy hadn't even noticed that the potion didn't require Lacewings. Hermione turned back to her potion that was simmering and turning from blue to dark purple. She had never been this clumsy in her life; if she couldn't get control of her mouth she was going to be trouble. Grabbing the used knifes and other utensils she made her way to the sink to clean up, while she was waiting until it was time for the next stage of the potion.

-.-.-.-

Severus had just finished this stage of the potion when he noticed from the corner of his eye that the 'Hermione' girl was washing her things up. Normally he wouldn't leave his cauldron but he felt the need to talk to her, it was after all his fault for this morning and he probably wouldn't have another opportunity to talk to her without them damn Maraluders hovering around. Grabbing the things on his desk he walked over and dropped them all into the sink next to hers. She jumped at the unwelcome noise and looked at him but didn't acknowledge him in any other way, creasing her eyebrows she went back to her cleaning. He guessed she was Mad about him taking her bracelet, bangle or whatever the hell it was. He washed his stuff too and after a minute of silence he finally decided to break it.

"That was rather stupid of you this morning, Lucius isn't a force to be reckoned with and he'll make sure that you know it next time." He knew she had heard him because for a second or two she had stopped what she was doing.

"That's the second time I've been told that today." Her response came after a period of silence. "I'm not exactly a fairy princess myself though, I can handle Malfoy." She turned her head to look at him and gave him a little smile. Severus was slightly taken back; the only girl who had ever smiled at him was Lily, why would this girl smile at him? Because of him she would most likely be hunted down for the next few weeks if not months. He turned his head down towards his washing up.

"I just thought I'd warn you. Not that you'd need to protect yourself with them idiots around you." She knew exactly who they he was talking about and he saw her smile slip slightly.

"Thank you for your concern Snape but I have to get back to my potion." He plastered a sneer on his face and went back to his potion as well, ignoring the feeling of unease in his stomach. He got a strange feeling from that girl. She acted as if she didn't care what she did, like it wouldn't affect her. He believed her when she said she could handle Malfoy though.

She was the first one out of the classroom when potions had finished. She had to go back to the common room before heading to dinner. She rushed through the portrait hole and skipped the deserted common room, going straight up the girl's stairs and into the seventh year's room. She dropped to her knees in front of the trunk at the bottom of her bed. She searched through it for a plain diary or just a plain paged book. Surely Dumbledore would have given her a diary. She had found everything else she would need; and found it disturbing that Dumbledore had gotten her bra size right in the process, but alas no diary. With a little huff of annoyance she closed the trunk back up and got off the floor. She hadn't noticed it when she came into the room but there was a package with a note on top of it sitting on her bed, just lying there for anybody to read. She was hesitant but still picked it up and opened the letter.

'Miss Granger,
I realised I failed to supply you with a place to write your findings, so here it is. I hope you'll put it to good use.
Time can be a strange thing if you don't know what it's there for, don't you agree?

Professor Albus Dumbledore;
Headmaster at Hogwarts School
of witchcraft and Wizardry.'

She creased her forehead; she would never understand his riddles. Regardless of the riddle she was glad he had thought to send her a diary, it was the only place she could write her research all in one place. She picked up the wrapped book and placed it in her bag. Leaving Gryffindor tower once again she headed for the library, Lily and the others would have to wait until later. She did think about making an appearance at dinner, if only to get a bit of bread, but she thought she would grab something from the kitchens before she went to bed.

When she got to the library the first thing her eyes saw was Snape sitting there surrounded but pieces of parchment and books that were scattered around, some open some stacked in a pile beside him. He was bent over them and was apparently so engrossed by his writing that he hadn't noticed her walk past him and go look for her own books. It only took her a minute to find what she was looking for. She grabbed a few off the shelf that looked to be promising. She walked past him, stopping a few seats up from him and placed the stack of books she was carrying noisily on top of the table. That seemed to get his attention, well at least his acknowledgement. He made a gruff noise and curled his lip at the stack of books then turned back to his work.

"Hello to you too Snape, what are you working on? Oh the Arithmancy essay. I'm going to do mine later. Well it was nice talking to you I'll just be getting on with my research. Maybe we could do this again some time." She said in a mocking fashion and rolled her eyes. She pulled out the chair and sat down. Pulling off the large purple book from the top of her stack ('The Strands of Time') she opened it and looked through the index for what she was looking for. She flipped through it and came to page 224, 'Effects of Time on the Body', she was about to read it when his voice cut through her thoughts.

"Thinking about doing some time travelling Granger?" His voice sounded serious. How could she be so stupid to be researching this in front of somebody? Most of all him. This time travelling had muddled up her sensibility as well as her body apparently. Her eyes widened and she looked at him, fumbling to find a reason for these books, she couldn't very well pawn it off as a class essay. He had all the same lessons as her for crying out loud. She just gave him a goofy looking smile.

Crap.

Authors' Notes– AHHH I haven't updated in ages. I'm so sorry. My computer broke and then I got my new laptop and the internet wouldn't go on it (GRRR!) and then it was Christmas and hangovers galore, I had no time to even log on here ... then new years (And I still have a hangover from that btw! ha-ha)... and so I just thought I'd post this. It's the best I could come up with in my current state of mind.

I have to go back to work again tomorrow (oh give me a sympathy vote here somebody?)

Review if you would be so kind. Love xxx