Chapter One
Hermione woke with a start, gasping for air. The last thing she remembered was, on her way back from Minerva's, hearing a loud crack above her and realizing that a portion of the corridor was about to cave in on top of her. She saw two women ahead of her coming that way, but didn't know they'd get there in time to assist. Thinking quickly, rather than risk a shield that might fail if she lost consciousness, she pulled her Time Turner out and spun it, not particularly caring if she went back one hour or five, as long as she wasn't in this bloody corridor as it was collapsing anymore!
She remembered that as she was fumbling for the Time Turner, her DA Galleon had fallen out of her pocket and dropped to the floor, which would have sent out an immediate alert to Harry and Ron. It was an emergency feature she'd added to serve as a backup in case any of them were kidnapped at any point, allowing them to simply drop the coin and silently alert the others that one of them was in trouble. If one of the three was activated, the other two would act like compasses to guide them to the location of the activated Galleon.
Sitting up, she looked around, and found that while yes, she was in that corridor still and it was abandoned, it was daylight now, which made her frown. If it was daylight, then students should be all around her, going between classes. This corridor was always busy. Standing, Hermione began to brush the dust away from her clothes, pausing when she saw a sparkle of sand on the front of her robes. "Oh, bloody hell," she muttered, quickly searching under her shirt for the Time Turner.
It was broken. That meant, Hermione reasoned, she could be anywhere, any time. Broken Time Turners were notorious for flinging people Merlin knew where and when, and Gods only knew how she'd ever be able to get back. Pulling her wand out of its holster, Hermione cast a quick Tempus charm. "Seventh August, nineteen forty three," she read, eyes widening in horror. "Over fifty six years."
Harry and Ron wouldn't be able to find her here. Shite.
The lack of students made sense now. It was summer. Hermione knew she was going to need help, and as much as she knew that Harry liked to cling to that help will always come to those at Hogwarts who ask for it rot, she didn't buy that, especially not more than fifty years into her own past. Dippett was Headmaster now, and she didn't know him from Adam, and quite frankly she was less than inclined to trust Albus Dumbledore if she could help it. The solution came to her quite quickly, and she made a beeline to the nearest secret tunnel out of the school, sneaking out of the Honeyduke's cellar and then into Hogsmeade proper, and apparating as soon as she was clear of the wards. The familiar sight of the Dagworth Estate came into view moments later, and she offered a silent prayer that her grandmother would be as open to accepting a distant relation now as she had been in her own time.
Before knocking, she Transfigured her school robes into something more nondescript, not wanting to paint the picture of a troubled schoolgirl from the off. She'd survived a bloody war. She was hardly some schoolgirl. Raising her hand to the old, cast iron knocker, she lifted it and then tapped the loop against the oak door a few times, stepping back a bit as she waited. A much younger version of Constance Dagworth than she'd ever known opened the door a few moments later. "Can I help you?" she asked.
Hermione let out a slow breath. "Alright, so this is probably going to sound a bit nuts, but I'm your descendant. I just got flung more than fifty years into my own past, and I need help."
Constance looked at her critically. "And just how are you related to me, exactly?"
"If I'm remembering what you've said correctly, a few years ago from your point of view, your son John - a Squib - decided to take his chances in the Muggle world. He cut you off. What you don't know right now and won't until only a few months ago from my perspective, is that John will have a son of his own, in a couple more years. He'll call him John Daniel Granger the third, after himself and after his father. John Daniel the third is my father. I thought I was Muggleborn for the longest time, but eventually, we were able to connect the dots. My name is Hermione Granger."
Constance looked at her with something resembling awe for a moment, and then turned her head slightly. "Mother! Come here, will you?"
Hermione smiled a little. "I hadn't thought about that. I never got to meet her, in my time. I've heard great things, though. Between you and the Healer who replaces her after she retires, well, the great Olivia Dagworth is definitely someone I'd love to get to know."
The older Witch was still looking at her skeptically, although Hermione couldn't blame her for that. She'd needed to go over the documentation at Gringotts five times before she'd seemed comfortable accepting Hermione as a member of the family. She just wasn't one to trust easily. Neither said anything else until Olivia Dagworth, current Hogwarts Healer, came around the corner. "Yes, dear?" she asked. "Who is our guest?"
"Hold your questions, Mother," Constance said firmly. "Would you be so kind as to run a genetic comparison scan? Between myself and this young woman?"
Olivia frowned, but pulled out her wand and did as requested. Hermione stood still, not wanting to hinder the Healer's exam. "Verdict?" she asked chipperly, knowing full well what it was going to show. Constance had made Poppy do this where she'd come from.
"It's some number of times removed, Constance, but there can be no doubt," Olivia said firmly. "The girl is a Dagworth. Where'd you come from?"
"The future," Hermione supplied helpfully. "I descend from John. Also, technically, I'm a Granger."
"Posh," Olivia said. "Granger by name, if that fool boy insisted on carrying on with a Muggle name of all ridiculous things, but you have Dagworth in your blood, and magic at your fingertips, and that makes you a Dagworth."
"But…" Hermione started. She really was quite proud of being a Granger.
"Dagworth," Olivia said firmly.
Constance sighed. "Come in, Hermione. Best just acquiesce now. Trust me, it's not worth the fight. Besides, it's not as though you'll be able to go forward under the Granger name if you mean to prevent corrupting the timeline."
"I should think not," Olivia agreed. "For years, Constance, you begged for a little sister. Looks like you're getting one."
Hermione stopped dead in her tracks. "Um. Olivia. By chance do you happen to know if Headmaster Dippet is in the market for a Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor?"
The Healer looked at her curiously. "As it happens, yes. Why do you ask?"
She let out a loud groan, and stomped her foot. "I can't believe her!"
Minerva had to have known. The Scottish woman was clever, Hermione knew, and in all the time they'd been talking about her youth, she'd never once mentioned a Professor called Dagworth except for the night before. She'd specifically mentioned that she was a younger sister of Constance's, and she'd only taught Minerva's final year at Hogwarts. Hermione couldn't begin to speculate what was going to happen to her after this coming year, but it was clear that she was facing something of a loop. She'd have to think back more on her conversations with Minerva and see if she could come up with more clues. Maybe this was why Minerva had been so keen to tell her about her past at all. She'd been preparing Hermione for what she knew was coming.
"Can't believe whom?" Constance inquired.
"One of my Professors, where I come from," she muttered. "She told me, last night, that she had a Professor Dagworth for her Seventh Year at Hogwarts. That's this coming year. She also mentioned that, knowing I was related to you, that she believed that her former Professor was your younger sister."
Olivia nodded in understanding. "It's a loop. You were meant to be here. What has been will be."
"I think so, yes," Hermione agreed. "I don't know what is supposed to become of me after this coming school year. Minerva hadn't mentioned."
"Minerva?" Constance asked, perking up. "Do you mean Minerva McGonagall?"
The younger woman frowned. "I do. How do you know her?"
"I don't, not really," she admitted. "I know of her in the sense that one of my dearest friends is the younger brother of her mentor."
Hermione nodded in understanding, remembering Constance telling her in passing that she was friends with Aberforth Dumbledore. "Right. Aberforth."
"I take it I've mentioned him," Constance mused.
"I know him myself," Hermione admitted. "We were in the Order together."
"The what?" Olivia asked.
"Oh. Right. That hasn't happened yet," she frowned. "Long story short, you guys just had Grindelwald. My generation gets a tosser called Voldemort. I'm qualified to teach Defence because while I'm only twenty, I've already seen the front lines of a war and lived to talk about it. Speaking of, Olivia, do you have a Potions lab here? There's a pain potion I'd really rather not be going without. It's hard to sleep without it."
Constance looked horrified. "What in Merlin's name did you go through to require a daily pain potion at your age?"
Hermione met her gaze. "Torture. The Cruciatus Curse isn't very forgiving, regardless of how old, or young, you might be. Our Potions Master developed a specific potion to deal with the long term effects. He developed it for himself, honestly, but by the end of the war, he was hardly the only one using it."
"How did you not lose your mind?" Olivia asked softly. "To cause that sort of long term damage, you'd have to have been subject to that curse for an extended period."
"Occlumency," she replied.
"You're an Occlumens?" Constance asked skeptically. "At twenty?"
Hermione huffed. "I'd gone head to head with a basilisk and lived by the time I was thirteen, Constance, run up against a werewolf by fourteen, seen my world go into open war by fifteen, and watched a loved one die and gotten my first battle scars by sixteen. By seventeen I was actively studying some of the darkest magic you can imagine because it was that or die, and for the eighteenth year of my life I was on the run as the Dark bloody Lord had it in his head that those of my birth should be rounded up and killed. Then the war finally ended. For the next few months it was mostly funerals. This last year I finally got to go back to school and try and finish my education, but I got flung back in bloody time, so that's been put on hold. I'm not terribly concerned about my ability to teach Defense because I was teaching Defense by my Fifth Year, as our Professor at the time was a bit of a cow and decided that regardless of the fact that a Dark Lord was out there, we only needed to learn theory and we had a bit of a problem with that."
The two women just stared at her for a moment, before Olivia finally let out a soft chuckle. "Oh yes. You are a Dagworth. I'll put a call into Armando and let him know my younger daughter is interested in taking the Defense Post. He'll likely test your skill, but I somehow doubt you'll fail to meet his expectations. Well, honestly Armando is pants at Defense. He'll likely have Albus test you."
"Oh, joy," she said sarcastically.
"Are you not fond of our Head of Gryffindor?" Olivia asked, looking amused.
"I'm not fond of some of his methods," she said carefully.
"Out of curiosity, what House were you in?" Constance inquired.
Hermione considered the question. There was the truth, obviously, but as much as she wanted to be honest with her family, she knew that what House she chose to claim right now would impact the next year of her life, and the last thing she wanted was for Albus bloody Dumbledore to get it in his head that they should be friendly. So, that in mind, the only possible answer was to choose the one House he only affiliated with if he had no other recourse. "Slytherin," she replied.
Hermione wasn't nervous so much as she was frustrated. Olivia had lectured, over the last week, on etiquette and expectation of a woman of her supposed station for this era, wanting to help minimize how much of a sore thumb she was when they finally let her interact with the general public. It would be alright if people saw her as odd. As far as Olivia was concerned, the Dagworths had always been a bit out of the box, so that wouldn't even be blinked at, but she couldn't outright be suspicious. They'd also gone over Hermione's repertoire of spells and potions meticulously, careful to take note of which ones were not yet invented and therefore she best not make use of or mention unless the situation was truly dire.
On the positive side, there were a handful of spells which had become illegal in the last fifty something years but were still perfectly legal today, and Constance and Olivia had brought her up to speed on those, insisting that it would be very odd if the Defense Professor didn't know of them, even if she had a preference not to use them commonly. Some of the spells Hermione could clearly see why they'd been restricted, but others she really didn't understand the issue with, and if she ever made it back to her time, resolved to look into the Wizengamot transcripts for when those laws had been passed, and why.
With a sigh, she gripped her new wand - Olivia had insisted she not have anything tying her to the future - thirteen inches, ebony, phoenix feather core, and the pair of them Floo'd directly to the Head's office at Hogwarts. "Ah, Olivia, welcome," Armando Dippet greeted, "and this must be your younger daughter, Hermione. I am curious why she wasn't educated at Hogwarts as Constance was."
"Hermione struggled with power regulation as a child," Olivia said simply. "Chester and I believed it best to educate her ourselves, and not risk her losing control whilst surrounded by other children."
"I take it this obstacle has been overcome?" the Headmaster inquired.
"Yes, sir," Olivia said, demurely. "Hermione, I do believe it would be prudent for a demonstration."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Would you like to duel me yourself, Headmaster, or would you prefer to let Professor Dumbledore have a go? I'm gentle with children. I don't hold back with grown Witches and Wizards."
"Ah," Armando said, stepping back a bit. "There's that Dagworth charm I'm so fond of." He flicked his wand and sent off a Patronus, no doubt to Albus. It was a raven.
"Patroni rarely have avian forms," Hermione mused. "Are you an Animagus?"
"My Patronus mirrors my Animagus form, yes," Armando confirmed. "Can you cast a Patronus as well, or is that simply book knowledge?"
She snorted. "I'd be a pretty poor Defense Professor if I couldn't cast a Patronus and teach others to do the same. There isn't much of an alternative in the way of defending against Dementors."
He nodded in agreement, although didn't get a chance to respond before the Floo came to life and Albus Dumbledore - much younger than she recalled - stepped through. It was odd to see him alive again, even more than it was odd to see him younger. She'd been perfectly free to resent her former Headmaster in peace with him being dead and buried, for everything he put Harry through, but alive and guiltless in any of those actions yet, she found it difficult to reconcile her feelings toward him. At this point, he was merely a man who'd brought down Grindelwald, turned down a shot at being Minister for Magic, and returned to Hogwarts to teach. He was the very picture of pious, and it unnerved her.
"Ah, Albus," Armando greeted. "I was wondering if you might have a friendly duel with Miss Dagworth here? She's applied to take the Defense Post this coming term, and I'd like to see what she's made of."
The Transfiguration Professor frowned. "Here, or elsewhere?"
"Oh, that seems sensible doesn't it?" the Headmaster mused. "Shall we adjourn to the Great Hall? That should suit."
The four of them walked in silence down a few flights of stairs and into the abandoned Great Hall. Hermione suppressed a smirk of amusement at the look of bafflement on Albus' face as she pulled out her wand and immediately began Transfiguring the dais into a dueling platform, not unlike the one he himself had set up their second year for Lockhart and Snape to duel on. She then went on to set a number of wards to keep them from sending stray spells carelessly around and unnecessarily damaging the rest of the hall, freeing the Headmaster and Olivia up to sit comfortably and watch without fear of being hit. When she was done, she turned back to Dumbledore. "Shall we?" she asked, pointing at the platform.
He chuckled. "Well, Armando, at the very least, she knows an extensive battery of wards and I would not be surprised if she's got a good head for Arithmancy given the upper level Transfiguration she just did."
"I was thinking the same, Albus," the older Wizard said, nodding. "Let's see what she's got."
She and Albus moved to bow to one another, then each took a few paces and assumed position, waiting for Dippett to fire off red sparks and signal their duel to begin. A moment later, the sparks came, and Hermione unleashed herself, neither she nor Albus holding back. The pair traded hexes and curses back and forth, vacillating between blocking and dodging to avoid hits, understanding in each of their eyes when one or the other would take the hit from a minor hex to reserve the power to cast a split second later. All the while, they were silent. She'd long since gotten past the need to speak her spells, for the most part. In a battle, your ability to be silent was life and death, and she'd wanted to live very much. After nearly twenty minutes, it crossed her mind that as long as Dumbledore was on his own two feet and she didn't have the environment around her to draw on for Transfiguration-applied dueling, this was likely not going to end in her favor, at least not any time soon. They both had stamina, both had power, and both had great skill.
The question, she mused, was if he had an ounce of cunning, because she knew she certainly did. Dropping nearly to the ground to avoid being hit with a wide beam stunner, she took advantage of her location and hit the floor below him with a hex which turned the area below her opponent to ice. Albus staggered, slipped, and fell on his arse a moment later, the wind knocked out of him by the impact. She was back on her feet within seconds, her wand at her throat. "Yield," she said firmly.
"Assuredly," he agreed, smiling a little.
Hermione fixed the ground and helped him to his feet, begrudgingly admitting to herself that she'd relished in a friendly duel with someone who had it in them to be her equal in that regard. She'd worked so hard to become the best for the sake of survival, and it had made her all but unbeatable in her peer group. She and Harry could go at it for a while, and he'd occasionally bring her down, but few others stood a chance. Begrudgingly, she realized she'd never had a friendly duel with Minerva, and was rather regretting that at the moment.
"Hire her, Headmaster," Albus said with a wide smile. "Did you just see that?"
"The defeater of Grindelwald knocked on his arse by my twenty year old daughter?" Olivia mused. "Yes, we had front row seats to that show, Albus."
Albus' head whipped around. "You're twenty?"
She shrugged. "Don't tell the students. I'd ideally prefer if the upper year boys do not get it in their heads I'm dateable."
"Just wear your hair in a bun, my dear," Olivia advised.
She prayed to Merlin she wasn't blushing. "Some people are into that look."
"Hex those people," the Healer suggested. "You've got far too much professional ambition to be thinking of suitors."
Hermione nodded. "Yes, Mother."
It was odd to use that honorific at all, much less toward someone who wasn't Jean Granger, but Hermione understood it would be out of place if she didn't address her supposed mother in such a manner. Ultimately, while Minerva had been clear that Hermione had only been her Professor for one year, that didn't technically mean that she wasn't meant to keep on teaching after Minerva's graduation. For all she knew, Minerva and her older counterpart had been plotting for years to prepare her for this journey, and that while she was here, safely in the modern world her older self was sitting down with Minerva, talking about how it all began.
Hermione's real question, the one coiling in her gut, was now that she was the Professor and Minerva was the student, could it be possible for something less platonic to develop between them? There were only a few years between them now, instead of the decades that separated them before. Had Minerva spurned her fairly rudimentary advances this last year because she wasn't interested, or because she was already involved with her own older counterpart? Or, maybe, was she going to learn now to see Minerva only as a friend, to see things from her mentor's point of view and come to terms with why a Professor and student could never be together, even if that student is of age? She had so many questions, and only a few answers so far.
She did know one thing for certain: Hermione knew she was meant to meet Minerva, along with Elise Olivander, at the train station in Hogsmeade on September the first. She wondered if Walburga Black and Jillian Carrow really had been standing in Thestral shite.
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