A/N- A lovely reviewer asked last chapter, thought it might be relevant to y'all. This story is canon ~compliant~! Mostly.

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September 2nd, 1999

Hogwarts

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If one more person asked for her autograph, Lily Evans was going to throw her goblet across the Great Hall. She denied everyone who asked, hoping that was the kind of thing Hermione Granger, apparent war heroine who was way too old to be attending Hogwarts, would do.

Lily had been working on her private project when she bungled something up. Apparently, whatever she did sent her to some alternate universe, or a very bad dream. All she had to do was get back to her notes and reverse it, but instead she was dragged about from class to class and admirer to admirer. She'd have to remind herself never to become famous when she woke up.

"You didn't forget to cast the Nargle repelling spells, did you?" the dreamy blonde Ravenclaw next to her asked, and Lily had to refrain from screaming in frustration. The day had been horrendous, from people inquiring about things she had no idea about, coursework she was certain was above her level and worst of all, everyone asking where a certain Ron and Harry were, neither of whom she had yet to actually meet. She did not have the patience to decipher the well-meaning Ravenclaw's riddles right now.

"Why do you ask?" she managed levelly after composing herself.

"Well they're the prime suspect when it comes to garbled brains, you know. That, and they're the only reason you'd willingly eat asparagus."

Lily dropped her fork in alarm. "I did forget those spells, didn't I?" she said with a hesitant laugh. Although she was mostly certain she was trapped in some bizarre dream sequence, blowing her cover would probably send her to dream-sequence Azkaban, or at least St. Mungo's, neither of which she really wanted to deal with.

"No matter, I'm sure our friends will be more than understanding."

It wasn't until they came down to sit that Lily began to panic. The redheads looked vaguely familiar, although she couldn't place why, but it was when James and Alice Junior rounded the corner that she began to feel faint.

"Mione!" the red headed girl exclaimed, wrapping her in a tight hug from behind.

"Ah, hey…you!" Lily tried, patting the arms that had come around her neck. She managed to greet her and whom she assumed was her brother—who was exceedingly awkward around her—well enough before taking a sip of her pumpkin juice, trying to get a closer look at the two dark haired boys who were engrossed in a conversation with someone further down the table. In the mere moment she turned away to look at her plate, the boy of particular interest ran over, swinging a heavy arm onto her shoulders as he sat, causing her to practically choke.

She sputtered on her pumpkin juice while red head chastised him gently—where had she seen that before? Feeling like she was going to throw up, Lily gingerly put her fork down.

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[Ginny's Pov]

"Harry James Potter, you lot managed to survive a year out in the wilderness, don't you think death-by-choking is a little anticlimactic? I can hardly—Mione?" Ginny asked in alarm, the group quickly turning to where their bushy haired witch had fallen out of her seat in a dead faint.

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September 2nd, 1977

Hogwarts

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"Buggering fuck" Hermione screamed, throwing herself onto the couch in the mini common room of the Head Suite. She had finally gotten a moment to herself after classes and shot up to Lily's room, hoping she'd be able to find whatever brought her to this twilight zone and use it to get the hell out of there. Of course, she could do no such thing because the room was locked and she didn't know Lily's password. She heard James mumble the password to the Portrait outside the suite earlier—The Reign of Gryffindor was definitely his idea, she decided—but her own room? There wasn't even a portrait she could try and sweet talk. Just solid, spelled oak.

"Why didn't I think of this earlier?" she lamented aloud, completely beyond discretion at this point. She slumped forward, her head in her hands as she tried to control her breathing when something nudged her leg.

"What?" Hermione asked, her voice a bit sharper than she intended as she tried to spot the source of the distraction. Of course, until it hopped into her lap. Could it be?

"Crooks!" Hermione exclaimed, picking up the considerably younger, considerably less squashed faced kitten. How he grew to be so ugly, she had no idea (no wonder the older Sirius didn't recognize him), but the half-kneazle had a look of utter disdain for everything around him that Hermione had seen nowhere else. It was definitely her Crookshanks.

The cat in question came up as if to demand attention, but then stopped short of Lily's hand. It sniffed at her curiously and then snarled.

"Oh you clever beast, of course you know I'm not Lily" Hermione crooned, scratching under his chin the way his older version liked. After a moment of hesitation, Crookshanks settled back into her lap, apparently trusting her like he would years later.

"So this is how you knew Sirius, huh?" she said to the bandy-legged cat. "How you knew the rat? Oh you wonderful thing, I should let you eat him now." Despite herself, she laughed at the idea of setting this relatively harmless looking kitten on him.

"You wouldn't happen to know how I got here, would you?" she asked, stroking its fur. When the cat did not look up, Hermione sighed. "What about my password, hmm? Could you tell me that?"

At this, the kitten jumped swiftly off her lap, his back claws digging into her legs as he lept away. He returned moments later, trotting proudly with a well-worn copy of Macbeth in his mouth. It figures, of course. Hermione also had a verging on unhealthy obsession with the muggle rendering of witches in literature. She pet the cat on the head as a quick thanks and searched through the book, reciting underlined lines and circled names to her door.

"Hurlyburly?" she tried at last, one of the words she suspected Shakespeare made up and Lily had circled. Her door swung open and Hermione almost cried with relief. One step closer to getting home.

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Hermione had been in the past—and yes, It seemed that she was in the actual past—for less than a day, and yet she was certain she had used more profanity in this 12 hours than she had her whole life. It appeared, she thought, pouring miserably over the notes Lily left on her desk, that this would not be an easy fix.

Previous to Harry dragging her out two nights back, Hermione had been working on one of her many projects under the Ministry, this one was of particular sensitive material. She was attempting, as many had before, to recreate the wards that Lily must have protected Harry with as a child. To the best of anyone's knowledge, Harry's survival had been a mix of ingenuity and pure dumb luck, but Hermione hedged her bets with the protection ritual that ended in Lily's sacrifice. In her post-party induced haze, she must have tried to cast them, and given the verging on dark nature of the stuff, ended up catapulting herself into the past.

At least, that was her theory, anyways, when she found Lily's notes lying inconspicuously on her desk. She appeared to be working through creating the wards for the first time. If they had both been working on the wards and they both messed something up, it was likely that they were both thrown out of their time, and needed to work from both angles to get home.

"Wonderful," Hermione said under her breath. "Let me just pick up my telephone and call 1999, ask if a dead woman has been walking around in my body."

It might take days to figure out how to contact Lily and then weeks to try and figure out their mistake, if she hadn't already gotten Hermione strapped to a table at St. Mungo's, of course. She groaned, face planting into her bed, allowing her part-kneazle kitten to nest comfortably in her hair.

What if she couldn't contact Lily, what if she had to live the rest of her life as Lily Evans and marry James and give birth to Harry and—no, she couldn't think about that. All things considered, it wasn't the worst case scenario. She'd been ready to give up her life for Harry—the green eyed plague upon your house, as Blaise would call him—many times before, she'd do it again if she had to. Lily would do it, too. Maybe that's why the two of them had switched, something about them having the most love, being the most willing to sacrifice themselves for him? Love was the primary source of power for the wards. Of course, if that were the case, wouldn't it be Ginny here and not her?

Then again Granger, a niggling voice in the back of her head that sounded suspiciously like Blaise again, protection is about who loves him, not who he loves, isn't it? Which means, as always, it comes down to you.

"Shut up, Zabini!" Hermione said viciously. That snake wasn't even in the country anymore, technically he hadn't even been born, and he was still driving her mad. If Lily hadn't already gotten her future self strapped to a table at St. Mungos, this would certainly do the job.

The grandfather clock in her room chimed the hour, and Hermione sighed. She could work on her theories later, but for now, she had to figure out how she was going to play Lily.

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By the time Hermione made it down to dinner, the Marauder's welcome back prank was in full force. The Great Hall had been transformed into an outdoor concert of sorts, the wizard version of holograms of a band that sounded suspiciously like the Beatles played behind where the Head Table would be. All of the tables were replaced with picnic blankets that ran the length of the hall, students congregating around their respective cloths of blue, yellow, green and red, a shimmering silver for the professors. All in all, it was a charming little display of mischievousness.

"This seems too peaceful for them." Mary said suspiciously, sprawling out on her stomach on the charmed grass. "Too tame."

"Please, you think they did this by themselves? They definitely recruited some Hufflepuffs," Alice retorted, rolling her eyes. "And there's no way they'd stand for something as unsavory as their usual."

"Ravenclaws too," Mary said, gesturing towards the rolling clouds above them. "So that means no proposals," she laughed, Alice joining in.

"Lils?" Alice whispered, leaning over to where Hermione was deep in thought.

"Hmm? I'm sorry?"

"We were just saying that this is much nicer than the usual," Alice informed, a delicate frown forming on her face as she appraised the red head.

"I wouldn't oppose to this more often, it's just that I am hungry and it seems like we're going to have to wait for this to play out for dinner." It really was rather enchanting work, but it wasn't as if she could enjoy it. The fleeting nature of the happiness of everyone around her left a rather sour taste in her mouth.

Eventually, Frank and Sirius came by, the former sweeping Alice into a dance while Sirius simply picked Mary up, lifting her onto the make-shift stage to declare his adoration for the witch through song. Through the fog in which she seemed to be watching the happenings, Hermione had to admit Sirius had an excellent voice.

"Care for a dance, Head Girl?" a familiar voice asked behind her and she was quickly hoisted to her feet by a grinning Remus Lupin.

"I'm not sure I'm any good," Hermione said before thinking, resisting the urge to hit herself on the forehead. What if Lily had been trained in ballet, or something?

"Maybe not, but I'm likely worse and you'll get a good laugh out of it." Ah, so Remus could tell she was upset. He would be the most perceptive of the bunch.

"I'm just not up for it, Lupin" she replied, pulling out a textbook from her bag. She was surprised when instead of being deterred, he plopped down next to her. Young Remus was certainly more bold than his older counterpart. He tore out grass by the fistful and placed it unceremoniously into her lap until she could no longer ignore him by pretending to read.

"You're ruining a perfectly good charm, you know," Hermione admonished, watching the wobbly mountain of green on her left knee shake as she spoke. Annoyance flushed her cheeks, and Remus laughed.

"There she is," he said, taking his leave with a wink, leaving Hermione to squint after him.

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"So," Mary whispered, leaning across the table conspiratorially with Hermione and Alice. "Why don't you think James danced with you?" The three had settled down for dinner after everything was put back in order.

Shite. Why hadn't he danced with her? This would have been the perfect opportunity to sweep his Lily-Flower off her feet!

"Haven't you heard, Mary? Lily's finally warded him off. Only took him five and a half years, I think he gave up last winter."

"Well I know that's what he said, but I didn't think he was serious."

"Do you think he's really done it? Moved on, anyways?" Hermione asked, hoping she sounded casual enough to not betray her rising anxiety about the issue.

"I think so," Alice replied. "I'd put my money on McKinnon before the years through."

"McKinnon!" Hermione exclaimed, unable to stop herself. Further down the table, the Marauders shot her a look, so she quickly settled back down. "I thought she was one of Sirius' girls," she whispered furiously.

At this, Alice laughed. "He just likes taking the piss with her. I heard she helped him with legal proceedings after his uncle, since his hag of a mum has him blacklisted anywhere reputable. Besides, you know she'd never touch him while he was with all those other girls anyways," she said, giving Mary a pointed look, who only shrugged with mock sheepishness.

"What can I say, he's got a big ego but the man can back it up." Alice promptly gagged and Mary rolled her eyes. "You were saying about Potter?"

"Oh right, its just, James has spent all his time pining after you…" she said, turning to face Hermione.

"So McKinnon won't have to worry about any secret trysts," Mary pieced together quickly. "Its madness, but you may just be right!"

"I don't know," Hermione cut in desperately.

"Oh stop it, this is no time for your crippling self-doubt, you're safe from Potter's advances, embrace it. Besides, if James goes for it, you can finally have a shot with Remus!" Alice said, waggling her eyebrows.

"Of course! There's no way he'd so much as breathe in your direction if James was still after you." Mary exclaimed, suddenly dropping her register to a teasing, sultry tone. "Loyalty is so appealing in a man, don't you think? Did he make any moves on you?"

Hermione felt her cheeks flame.

"He did, didn't he!" Alice exclaimed, and Hermione figured telling the truth would be better than letting Alice run away with her imagination.

"Hardly, he asked me to dance," her companions faces lit up, "but I said no." The rejection left them undeterred, and they laughed and teased the way Ginny had when she found out Hermione was still writing Krum. She hoped Viktor wouldn't be too upset when she didn't reply to his owls right away. She hoped she could reply to them at all, for that matter.

"An almost dance with Remus Lupin!" Alice said wistfully. "Everything seems to be going your way, eh Head Girl?"

"You have no idea," Hermione replied with a moan, wondering how everything could be going so entirely, spectacularly wrong.

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[Guest: Well there's a bit more Remus for ya!] [Guest: Feminist Lily forever! I feel like Hermione was, as the brains of the Golden Trio, cheated out of working on causes she would rock out on, including SPEW!]