Note: I hope you liked my "Fawkes capacitor" explanation of the time leap. It's never satisfactorily explained in the text how Dumbledore was able to Apparate away from Fudge and Umbridge by latching on to the bird, but I can work with that.
I'm posting three chapters at once, because this stuff is routine and not critical to the main plotlines.
(AO3 readers, pretty please don't post spoilers in reviews.)
Chapter Two: Pit of Vipers
That afternoon, as soon as she was able—and the Healer allowed her to leave the ward—Hermione requested a private meeting with Dumbledore. Dippet seemed vaguely affronted when she made the request.
"I'm sorry, Headmaster, but in my old time, I knew Professor Dumbledore best," she explained. It would hardly do to give the man information about his own death, especially since the professors apparently had no idea just how far back she had traveled. For all they knew, she could have come from about a decade in their future.
And that was how she found herself sitting in what she remembered as Professor McGonagall's office, though Dumbledore's familiar collection of instruments and notes currently filled it.
The wizard sat behind the desk, regarding her benevolently. Hermione's feelings warred with each other. Just before she had left, she had received a jolt of information about just how much of a manipulative bastard this man could be. Snape's memories were really far more horrifying than any information about a three-month friendship with Gellert Grindelwald 100 years earlier. But he hadn't done any of those things yet, and it was still so pleasant to see him again, she couldn't make herself resent him too much. The phoenix Fawkes sat placidly on his perch, occasionally looking at her with intelligent eyes. She could not tell whether he knew what he had done—whether this was, indeed, her Fawkes—or not.
"Basically, Professor, I would not have considered going back in time even a year if not for the fact that"—she considered for a second, unsure of how much information to divulge. Then something occurred to her. I was covered in curse marks, she recalled. They already knew something had happened. "There was a battle at Hogwarts in the time that I left," she said bluntly. "Many people were dead, including most of my friends."
Dumbledore's eyes widened in alarm.
"I was desperate and stressed and upset, and I found that Time-Turner in the Headmaster's office, and I just didn't think. I certainly didn't think anything like this could happen. I am generally not so reckless or irresponsible." Her voice was pleading.
Dumbledore leaned forward. "Miss Green, our hearts are both the best and the worst parts of us. I do not know how far in the future you come from, and do not particularly wish to know, but I think your 'accident' happened for a reason."
"Why, Professor?"
"Why do I think that, or are you asking me what I think the reason is?"
"The first," she replied at once.
His eyes twinkled. "Naturally. You are a rational person, I can tell that, but had you meant the other, I would have had to tell you that I have no idea what the reason is. I do, however, believe there is one, because of the fact that Fawkes enabled your journey."
"Fawkes," she repeated.
"It is problematic to consider any magical beasts as evil," Dumbledore said, "because even those that are very dangerous are merely predators, much like non-magical predatory animals. I am not, of course, speaking of Dark creatures. But it is true that some species of magical creature are associated with good magic, and phoenixes are among them. Their tears are the ultimate healing medicine, and their quills can power wand cores. They are very wise, very powerful, and as I said once before, very enigmatic animals. Their life cycle itself is enigmatic. Are they eternal? We don't know."
Hermione would have found his musings on the nature of phoenixes highly interesting in any other situation, but at the moment, his tendency to head down rabbit trails was a little annoying. "So you think I have a purpose for being here because Fawkes was involved," she repeated, not skeptically, but trying to accept the idea by saying it. "What about the timeline that I remember? If I have a purpose, doesn't that mean I'm meant to change something? The timeline was awful, Professor. Fawkes could not have brought me back here in order to preserve it, if he was doing it as a form of 'good' magic."
Dumbledore considered, nodding. "I think it is probable that you are meant to change something, yes. What, I do not know—and please, again, do not tell me when you are from in the hopes of deducing what it is. If we are right about this, it will be something you have to discover for yourself."
Hermione felt exasperated. "But Professor, I could do something to wipe myself out! I could create a paradox! I was told repeatedly in my third year, when I was issued a Time-Turner to take extra classes, that it was dangerous."
"Ah, but you would have been issued a very basic model. It is possible, even in this time, to have a Time-Turner that does not allow its user to create a paradox. The magic required to do so is quite difficult, from what I have read, and so it is not used except in devices that can travel back those greater amounts of time. There would have been little reason to charm your third year Time-Turner to do that."
"But—how?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "This is beyond me, Miss Green, but I believe it has to do with the creation of magical anchors in the new time. Your existence here is dependent not on what happened in a future that is no longer even set in stone, but on the fact that you did appear in this time, brought here by a Time-Turner that anchored you here. It is not a loop, you see. Your appearance in this time will always be true, because of the way the device was enchanted."
Hermione was overwhelmed. "At some point, there will be two of me."
Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "Are you telling me that at the moment, you—the, ah, other you, that is to say—have not yet been born?"
Damn. She had not meant to give anything away, but that had slipped out before she realized the implications of it. She would have to be more careful. There seemed no way around this one, though. "That's correct, Professor," she said.
He looked troubled. "You have gone farther back than I had been supposing, then," he said. "Tell me two things, if you will, please. First—is Hermione Green your real name, and how old are you?"
"My name is Hermione, but my surname is actually Granger," she said quietly. "I thought it might be a bad idea to give that name."
"That was very quick thinking."
Hermione smiled faintly at the compliment. "And I am eighteen years old. I left my time early in May, so it should have been my seventh year, but due to the same conflict that ended in the battle, I was unable to attend Hogwarts for any of that year."
Dumbledore looked very concerned at this. "Why is that?"
"I am Muggle-born," she said, "and in my time, it was basically illegal for me to exist." The professor's eyes widened and then narrowed in anger, but she continued. "We were prohibited from attending Hogwarts. I did attend through six years, but then something happened…." She trailed off, unwilling to say anything else.
"And that terrible event is what you intended to prevent by going back in time a single year," he deduced. "I see. Clearly, though, Fawkes understood that there was much more damage that needed to be repaired." He looked up and met her eyes with his blue ones. "Miss Green, if you cannot be sent back to your own time, then it should still be possible to send the other you—the one that is not yet born—back in time to yesterday, since we know that it is supposed to happen. Fawkes himself may make it happen once again when the time comes. In fact, it is very likely that he will."
"Professor," she began despairingly, "I can't stay here the rest of my life. I wanted to save my friends."
He looked at her with old, sad eyes. "And you may well do that. But it may also be that you will not be saving them for yourself."
"Professor—"
He put up a hand. "Miss Green, we cannot send you back. I have no idea if it will ever be possible. Since you are here, and since you did not get to take your seventh year, what I can offer you is the opportunity to do so. You can gain your educational credentials and make a chance for yourself in this time, and along the way, I hope you will discover whatever it is that you are supposed to do."
Hermione understood that his words were final, meant not to comfort her, but to get her used to the idea. She slumped in the chair. Tears came to her eyes, but she nodded.
"Obviously, we cannot tell the rest of the school that you are a time-traveler. Professor Slughorn and Headmaster Dippet are already sworn to secrecy on the matter, of course, as am I. We have agreed that you must have a plausible cover story. And if Muggle-borns are persecuted in your future, it is probably best that your cover story be something other than that you come from an unknown family of Muggles—not to mention that it would be difficult to explain why you did not attend Hogwarts from your first year." He considered. "I do not know how much you know of my background—"
"Quite a bit, actually, Professor," Hermione said with a grin.
"Then you know that my mother was purportedly Muggle-born?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
Dumbledore nodded. "She wasn't—not really. Or perhaps she was, but all Muggle-borns are mislabeled and are actually Squib-born. That is my guess. In her case, she was the daughter of a Muggle and a Squib."
"Ah," Hermione said, understanding. So that was why, according to Rita Skeeter's biography, Kendra Dumbledore had denied being Muggle-born.
"She had a younger brother, to all appearances a Muggle, but it is probably fair to consider him a Squib as well. He married a woman who was a known Squib from a minor wizarding family, which is now extinct. The daughter was the last. They had no children… but since we are speaking of people who were not recorded by those witches and wizards who obsess about magical bloodlines, it should be easy enough to forge records of their Squib daughter—my first cousin, that is to say—and her Muggle husband Green—and yourself. You were taught magic by a private tutor, let us say."
"So—I am to be passed off as your half-blood first cousin once removed," she said slowly, thinking it out.
Dumbledore nodded. "Unless you have an objection?" he asked kindly. "It would be safest of all if we could pass you off as a pureblood, but they keep track of genealogy too well."
"I have no objections at all," Hermione said. A smile formed on her face. "And I thank you for—well, taking responsibility for me by doing that."
"No trouble at all, Miss Green," he said benevolently. He stood up. "Now, the new term begins tonight. The students will be arriving in the next hour or two. I will tell Professors Dippet and Slughorn what your cover story will be, and in the meantime, you should come down to the Great Hall to be Sorted with the new students."
Hermione's eyes widened. "But Professor, I've already been Sorted, at age eleven!"
"Of course, of course… but I suspect, Miss Green, that we Sort too soon. If you are here for a reason, to change something, then we should let the Sorting Hat have its say. Your House placement may be important."
Hermione wanted to protest, but she realized it was futile. Oh well, she thought. I'll still be in Gryffindor. She stood up, reached into her robes to feel her beaded bag, and followed the professor downstairs.
By the time the school train arrived, Dippet and Slughorn had been told the cover story. Slughorn seemed very jovial about it, almost as if it pleased him to be able to talk about teaching "Professor Dumbledore's cousin." It probably does, Hermione thought sourly as she waited. Always glad to boast of a student with an important connection, even if it's a fabricated one and he knows it. Bloody Slytherins.
Mercifully, Dippet had decided to have Hermione Sorted before any of the new first years. She was immensely relieved. She knew she was going to be a spectacle and a source of gossip as soon as her presence was announced, but it would be less so if her Sorting took place before, rather than after, the first years'.
The students filed into the castle, the little ones looking scared and anxious as they headed to the front of the Great Hall, the rest of them looking excited, smug, bored, and—for a few of them—disdainful as they took their seats at the House tables.
"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts," Dippet said. "Before we begin Sorting our new first years, I have an announcement to make. We also have a new seventh year, a cousin of our own Professor Dumbledore, who will be joining us for her final year of magical education. Please welcome Miss Hermione Green."
Hermione walked to the stool to the applause of the students. She looked out at the Great Hall, noting curiosity on the faces of most, before Dumbledore dropped the Sorting Hat on her head.
"Ah, you are quite a paradox, aren't you?" the hat's voice spoke in her head, emphasizing the word "paradox."
Hermione jolted. "You just said that to get my attention, didn't you? Well, you have it now," she thought.
The hat chuckled. "Your memories say I've Sorted you before, but I have no such memories of that. A paradox indeed, Miss… Green, is it, this time?"
"Get on with it. You know what to do."
"I Sort the students of Hogwarts, yes. But what to do with you, what indeed…."
Hermione was on the verge of losing her temper. When did the Sorting Hat become snarky?
"You are not the person you were at age eleven," it said suddenly.
"What?" A sense of dread suddenly filled Hermione.
"You have had to learn how to survive at any cost. You have had to look the other way when your friends and mentors revealed that they were flawed, broken human beings, because of the greater good." The hat placed peculiar emphasis on the last two words, and Hermione shivered. Did it know what that phrase meant to her now?
"You yourself have known darkness. You have been ruthless. My, my, what is this—capturing a journalist, confining her in insect form, and blackmailing her into writing what you wished. My goodness. Watching your best friend use the Imperius Curse on innocent goblins to steal from Gringotts. You would have cast it yourself, had it been you, would you not?"
Yes, and I would have done it better. Hermione did not voice the thought in conversation with the hat, but it seemed to hear her anyway, for it chuckled again.
"And your parents' memories—"
"We're not discussing that," Hermione said sharply in thought. To this day she was unsure if she had done the right thing.
"As soon as you entered the magical world and learned that there were people who were prejudiced against you, you were determined to prove them wrong. To prove yourself," the hat said pointedly. "You seized every opportunity. No, Miss Granger, your new name is well-chosen, for this time, you belong in SLYTHERIN!"
The hat shouted the final word to the whole hallway. Hermione sat on the stool, shell-shocked. She had had an inkling of where this might go as soon as the hat implied it was not going to place her in Gryffindor again, but she assumed it would be Ravenclaw. This—
She realized she had to get up. Without even looking at Dumbledore, she walked stiffly to the Slytherin table, which was applauding her only halfheartedly. Several faces looked outright suspicious.
They know I don't have a pureblood surname and they think I'm related to Dumbledore, she thought unhappily as she sat down on the bench.
The black-haired, sour-faced girl sitting to her left peered at her. Her face looked vaguely familiar to Hermione, but she could not place it. She nudged her friend on her other side, a brunette with short, curly, immaculately coiffed hair, who smirked and tried to stifle a laugh. Hermione glared back at them. So her hair wasn't styled into a perfect 1940s fashion. Whatever.
Dippet was now welcoming the first years to Hogwarts and beginning the traditional Sorting. Hermione felt relieved that the attention of most students—except, it seemed, the older Slytherins—was not on her anymore. She gazed up at the staff table. Dumbledore looked back at her impassively. His expression was completely unreadable. Hermione remembered that she had not told him where she had previously been Sorted, so perhaps he was not as surprised as she was. Or perhaps he was worried instead. She looked away and glanced at Slughorn, who met her eyes and beamed.
At least one person is happy I'm here, she thought. For some reason, the idea that Slughorn was pleased to have her in his House cheered her. Whatever else he might be, he was a good person who took care of his chosen students very well. He had been thrilled with her participation in the Slug Club in her sixth year, after all.
The first years were soon Sorted, each House gaining about eight new members. Hermione thought that classes were a little larger in her time, but it probably made sense given the boom in the Muggle population in the intervening time. Most of the difference was likely made up of Muggle-born and half-blood students. The idea brought a smirk to her face.
"And now," Professor Dippet said with a smile, "let us feast!" He stepped away from the podium and Hermione smiled as food appeared on the table before her. She picked up her knife and fork and began to cut into a steak.
She was enjoying her meal when the girl on her right tapped her shoulder. Hermione swallowed her food, set down her utensils, and turned to her. She was black-haired like the unpleasant-looking girl on Hermione's left, but her face was not unkind. Her hair, too, was curled into a nice-looking 40s style, not left to hang down her back greasily like the other girl's.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said in businesslike tones. "I am Lucretia Black, seventh year Slytherin prefect."
"Hermione Green—but of course you heard that." She shook Lucretia's hand.
"The girl on your left is my cousin Walburga, and to her left is Druella Rosier. We are your year-mates and you will be sharing your dormitory with us. Druella is betrothed to Walburga's little brother Cygnus Black. He's a fourth year."
What? Hermione suddenly knew she had to keep her face in place and not betray that it seemed outrageous and archaic for seventeen-year-olds—let alone fourth years—to be betrothed to each other in Britain in the 1940s. But of course, she knew it had to be a hardline pureblood thing. Otherwise they might decide they wanted to marry someone with less than ancient wizarding blood, after all. She knew it, and she could not let these people see what she thought about it. She had to pretend that it made no impression on her.
Another realization struck her like a bolt of lightning. Walburga Black looked familiar to Hermione because she had seen her before, as a shrieking, mad portrait. This was Sirius's mother. And—oh my God—Cygnus and Druella, they were the parents of—of—
A mad cackling female voice filled Hermione's memories. A knife on her arm, cutting a vile word into her flesh. Crucio. Polyjuice. Gringotts. A burning cup. Ron and Ginny, dead in flashes of green. Hermione clutched her wand instinctively. It was no longer the wand she had purchased from Ollivander, but the one she had taken from Bellatrix Lestrange at Malfoy Manor.
Great Merlin, she thought. Who else was she going to recognize? What other ghosts from her past, or future, or whatever, would come back to haunt her?
Fate, time, the Sorting Hat, or the bloody phoenix had an evil sense of humor, for as soon as the thought passed through her mind, Lucretia spoke again.
"As I said, I am the female Slytherin seventh-year prefect. We are fortunate this year, because the seventh-year male prefect is also the Head Boy. That's beneficial to whichever House has a Head Boy or Girl, of course. Tom!" she called out to someone else on the other side of the table.
In moments, a devastatingly handsome young wizard came over. Walburga Black shrieked—Hermione winced; it was already far too similar to how it would sound in her portrait—and scooted down the bench out of the way. The wizard sat down to Hermione's left and offered a smile and a handshake.
"Tom Riddle, Miss Green. Welcome to Slytherin House."
Oh Merlin, oh God, no. Hermione glanced at his hand, trying not to look at his eyes. There was no way to avoid a handshake without looking uncouth and suspicious to boot. Neither would do her any favors in Slytherin. He had that ring on his finger. That ring. He had killed his father. Was it a Horcrux already? Hermione shuddered, shaking his hand and pulling away as quickly as she could without it being rude.
He seemed vaguely put off that she did not want to look him in the eye. "Are you all right, Miss Green?" he asked in what he must have thought sounded like a considerate tone.
"Of course," she said quickly. "Just nervous." It wasn't even a lie, after all, though it might be the understatement of the year. Of fifty-four years.
He smiled coolly. "It passes. Perhaps it would pass sooner if you got to know some of us."
Hermione would have preferred to get to know shrieking, bigoted Walburga Black.
"So—Dumbledore's cousin, is it?" Riddle said.
And so the interrogation begins, Hermione thought. "Yes—first cousin once removed, on his mother's side," she recited glibly.
"Right. And how is it that you're just now coming to Hogwarts? Why now?"
Hermione raised an eyebrow at his blunt questioning, but continued with the story she and Dumbledore had elaborated after their private meeting. "I had a tutor," she said. "Professor Dumbledore and my parents thought it a good idea for me to be educated away from Hogwarts until I was of age. Wanted to avoid the appearance of nepotism, you know." She plastered a fake smirk on her face at the word "appearance," hoping to imply to these snakes that the appearance of it was all that she objected to.
Riddle smirked back, sending another shudder down Hermione's back, not least because it did not reach his eyes. They were not red, but dark brown, but they were cold as ice.
"Is that so," he said, not really as a question, not even asking—or speaking—to her. "How interesting."
Hermione shrugged. "Thank you, but I know it isn't really." She tilted her head up, braving his eyes for a moment. "What about you? You… you must be a very good student, to be Head Boy." It sounded dumb, but she could think of nothing else to say.
"Oh, Riddle has been top of the class ever since first year," Lucretia Black put in. "No one has seriously competed with him, not even those Ravenclaws."
"Indeed," Hermione said, trying not to sound too impressed. "Well, he'll have some competition this year." Oh no, why did I say that? Am I trying to bait him—Voldemort?
Riddle, however, did not seem offended. He raised his eyebrows. "I presume you mean yourself? I look forward to it." There was an undercurrent of challenge in his voice, and a strong thread of arrogance. It was obvious that he did not believe for a moment that anyone could challenge him on the academic front.
Sod it. She might have just been sorted into the snake house, but Hermione still had Gryffindor qualities, whatever that old hat might say. She was not going to let a seventeen-year-old Voldemort intimidate her, not when she had faced his horrifying inhuman older version.
"So do I," Hermione said fiercely. "I cannot wait for classes to begin tomorrow."
He smiled another of those insincere smiles. "I hope you don't find that you have overrated your magical skills with no one to compare yourself to until now. No one your own age, that is," he said. "Teachers always hold back from what they are truly capable of. I think you'll soon learn, Miss Green, that I do not."
He turned to his plate, which had magically appeared in front of his new place at the table, and continued with his meal.
As soon as the chills stopped flowing over her skin, Hermione tried to finish hers as well. But one thought kept passing through her mind, no matter how hard she tried to push it out. That was a threat, she thought. Barely one hour and I've already been warned by Voldemort himself.
End Note: I have kept, or only slightly adjusted people's birthdates from the Black Family Tree if they are reasonable. I've nudged the dates of Lucretia and Walburga Black forward one year (the document says 1925 for them) so I don't have to invent female OCs for Hermione's dormmates. I have not kept the dates of Cygnus Black or, as you'll see in a future chapter, his father Pollux Black, because they would be teenage fathers if I did. There are other canon, fanon/possible canon, and quasi-canon details that I am changing, but I'll say more about that when they come up.