Merlin managed to catch the girl with the bushy brown hair before she hit the floor. He had seen that she was unsteady on her feet but he hadn't expected her to collapse in front of him. "Is she alright?" he asked, looking up at Gaius over her head. Even though this girl had only just appeared he was clearly concerned for her well-being.
Almost reluctantly, Gaius left the eerie corpse on his table to take a brief look at their sudden visitor. "Well, it looks as though she just fainted," he said, although he didn't get particularly close to her.
"Can you wake her up?" Merlin asked, lowering her to rest on the floor instead of in his arms. He found the way she dressed odd, but then he wasn't used to seeing a girl in anything but dresses and skirts. What kind of land did she come from, where women dressed as men?
"I could," Gaius admitted with some hesitation. "But Merlin, I just told you that whatever killed that man -" he gestured back to his examination table, "- died of an unnatural disease. And now this girl appears out of nowhere in my study?"
"Could be a coincidence," Merlin suggested with a shrug.
"And if it's not?" Gaius asked, wondering if the boy had even considered the possibility.
"Well we won't know unless we ask her." Merlin had a grin on his face. He knew he was right, and he was hopeful that Gaius would see his reasoning and agree with him.
Gaius exhaled through his nose, staring down at his charge. He still wasn't sure if Merlin realized there could be some danger to waking this girl if she was the cause of the plague. If she was some kind of sorceress, one powerful enough to conjure such a strange disease, there was no telling what she could do. However, a fainting spell could be a sign of a brain injury, and there was only one way to check for that.
"I'm only doing this because it's my duty as court physician," he told Merlin as he picked up a stoppered bottle from a nearby table. "Brace her shoulders, she won't like this."
A dreadful stench filled Hermione's nostrils, bringing her out of her stupor. She gagged on the smell, instinctively trying to struggle away from it but something was holding her in place. A sneeze forced the worst of the smell out, though it still lingered.
"What was that?!" A voice asked just above her as she sneezed again. Whoever it was also sounded disgusted by the smell.
"Wake-flower," said an older voice. "There's some debate on if it should even be called 'flower', but it gets the job done."
Hang on, that wasn't right. If she had fainted, she should have been brought to the Hospital Wing. It should be Madam Pomfrey's voice she was hearing. One more sneeze cleared the last of that offending odor and Hermione's eyes flew open. She found herself staring up into a pair of brilliant blue eyes. For a second she thought it could be Ron looking down at her, but then she saw his hair was far darker than her friend's. Glancing quickly around the room, taking in the stacks of books, parchment and the almost archaic science tools, only confirmed her fears: she wasn't in Hogwarts anymore.
"Take it easy," said the boy above her. Whatever was holding her shoulders loosened a little. It wasn't hard to guess now that it was the blue-eyed boy holding her. "We're not going to hurt you."
An older man was stepping away from a table - presumably where he had just placed the bottle of this 'wake-flower' that had revived her - and knelt in front of her to ask, "How are you feeling?" He had white hair nearly down to his shoulders and was wearing a sort of robe that was as yellow as old parchment. And his voice, when he spoke she could hear a stern tone that told her he would not stand for lies, but it also held concern and years of experience. In a way, his voice reminded her of Professor Dumbledore and that thought brought her a little comfort.
"Better," she answered simply, sitting up so that the boy was not holding her.
"Good, and do you remember your name?"
"...Hermione," she answered after briefly hesitating. "My name's Hermione." She knew why he was asking these questions, it was a basic test to see if whatever had caused her to faint had also brought on amnesia. Why had she fainted anyway? It was all a bit fuzzy to her…
Oh. Oh no. A sense of dread filled Hermione as everything came back to her. She'd gone into the past, much farther than she would have ever intended to go. She was probably breaking at least fifty laws just by sitting there, not to mention all of the things that could change just because she was here. She was going to be in so much trouble when she got back…
"And what year is it?" the old man inquired, continuing to test her memory.
When Hermione had been reading in the library, the answer would have been January of 1994. However, she didn't dare say that out loud. She had no idea how far backwards she had gone, better to be safe than sorry. "What year should it be?"
Her question drew a brief laugh from the man. "A year when it's dangerous for young girls to use magic."
"Magic?" Hermione felt a tiny bubble of panic rise within her. She was already breaking enough laws as it was, best not to break the Statute of Secrecy too (at least, not intentionally). "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh come now, girls don't just appear out of nowhere in the middle of the day," the old man was clearly not fooled by her act.
"It's okay," said the boy behind her encouragingly. "I have magic too."
"Now tell me, were you sent here or did you come yourself?" the man asked her. "If you came yourself, it was fair foolish of you to do so now of all times."
Hermione bit her bottom lip. She was already going to be in so much trouble, how much more would she be in now if she admitted that she was a witch? "It was an accident," she finally blurted out. "I never meant - "
"Merlin!"
Hermione jumped at the sound of the new voice, but she wasn't the only one. The blue-eyed boy and the white-haired man shared a look.
"Arthur," the boy said, straightening up quickly.
"The body," the man said, as if that perfectly complimented the name the boy had said. He was a little slower to get up, but the boy was already dashing off towards the doorway.
Hermione watched him go, the man not far behind him. She silently mouthed the two names she had heard, and then her hands flew up to cover her mouth. She knew approximately when she was in time now, and it was much, much farther back than she had thought the Time Turner was even capable of. As the boy, the one she could only assume was Merlin, opened the door and the old man stepped in front of a table, Hermione scrambled to her feet and moved to a spot where anyone in the doorway wouldn't be able to easily see her.
"Ahh...I'm on my way. Sorry I'm late," Merlin said to whoever was on the other side of the door.
"Don't worry. I'm getting used to it," came a resigned voice. He must have made some kind of gesture because Merlin immediately said something about a Gwen giving him an item. Whatever it was must not have been that important though, because the person on the other side of the door - the Arthur?! - continued, "Tell Gaius my father wants to see him now."
Merlin shut the door and turned around. "Gaius," he started to say, but the old man cut him off.
"I heard," Gaius said, moving away from the table now.
As Merlin questioned why Arthur couldn't tell Gaius himself, Hermione let out the breath she had been holding. She could relax a little now that the door was closed. The less people who saw her, the better. But how long could she stay hidden?
When Gaius called Merlin a 'dogsbody', she remembered that Gaius had mentioned something about a body only a few moments ago. The body must be on the table that Gaius had stepped in front of, she reasoned. But why did they need to keep Arthur from seeing it?
She took a few steps toward the table as Gaius and Merlin set about gathering a few items. She realized she shouldn't poke her nose into affairs anymore than she already had, but her inquisitive nature was all but demanding she look at the body on the table. Just a quick look, she told herself, a glance as Gaius was gathering what he needed…
The sight of the body sent a chill down Hermione's spine. She'd never seen or read about anything like this. The corpse was as white as the ghosts she had seen wandering Hogwarts, the lack of color broken only by the veins that were visible underneath. It was the eyes that unsettled her the most though. They weren't just glazed over, they were completely white, no sign of his iris or pupil.
"What - What is that?" she asked out loud, recoiling from the sight. Gaius and Merlin turned to look at her, as if they had forgotten she was there for a moment. She looked between the two of them, waiting for some kind of answer.
Finally, Gaius spoke up, "That is an excellent question." He came to stand at the opposite side of the table from her. "Whatever killed this man was not natural. And then a girl appears in my study with no explanation?" He looked her up and down, probably looking for some kind of reaction from her. "I don't suppose you have anything to do with this?"
Hermione was horrified by what he was implying. "No! I would never… why would you think that?!"
"I have to consider all possibilities," Gaius said, although to Hermione he didn't sound as though he had dismissed her as a possibility. She was certain that if Arthur hadn't said that he was wanted, Gaius would have questioned her a little more harshly. He did seem satisfied with her answer for now as he pulled out a plain brown cloak. She expected him to put it on to go wherever he was needed, and was surprised when he handed it to her. "Here, put this on."
She took the cloak hesitantly, looking up at Gaius. "What is this for?"
"To cover up!" He said as though that were obvious. Hermione looked down at her jeans and purple sweater. She thought she was pretty well covered. Gaius must have seen her confusion because he continued, "You're wearing men's clothes. We can't have you wandering around Camelot wearing that. I'll see about finding you something better to wear after I deal with whatever killed that man."
"I don't plan on wandering Camelot at all," she said under her breath, but she pulled the cloak around her shoulders anyway. It was a far too large for her, some of the fabric folded on top of itself on the floor, but it meant that not one piece of her clothes was visible underneath.
Gaius nodded approvingly before picking up a satchel from the table. "Come along Merlin, best not keep Uther waiting any longer." Merlin looked like he wanted to protest leaving, but he fell in step behind Gaius, leaving Hermione behind with the corpse.
Hermione took a few steps away from the main table, wanting to add some distance between herself and the unsettling body. Now that she was alone again, her thoughts turned to how she wasn't supposed to be here. She ran a hand through her hair as she thought about all the laws surrounding the use of items like the Time Turner. It was bad enough that she had come here, but she had seen and spoken to two people. She just hoped that her being here wouldn't change her own time too much.
"So?" Merlin asked after he and Gaius had gone a few steps up the hall.
"So what?" Gaius questioned, keeping them moving at a brisk pace.
"Do you think she has anything to do with…" Merlin wasn't quite sure how to bring up the body without someone overhearing and questioning them, so he left it at simply "-that?"
"I think it's unlikely," Gaius admitted. Merlin's grin came back, he'd been right about something. "However, at this point I won't rule anything out," the old man continued with a note of caution in his voice. "Now, no more talk of this until we're away from prying eyes."