Prologue: The Forés Lacrima
A/N: Characters appear as they do in the movies.
Disclaimer: Guys, I'm not J.K. Rowling.
Living on the run took a huge toll on Hermione, and it was still very evident looking at her. Things that plagued her now were no longer fears of being caught or fears of Voldemort winning—no. Now her nightmares were of the days when she, Harry, and Ron were hunting Horcruxes.
She still could only eat a little at a time, and she was still always cold. Ginny told her these were signs of malnutrition—Hermione didn't doubt that. But the nights of waking up in a pool of sweat were still as frequent as ever. Being tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange did that to a person.
But nowadays, she spent her time working in the Department of Mysteries. It wasn't as adventurous as the careers Ron and Harry had pursued, but Hermione was perfectly happy with that. She had served her time. And it wasn't as if her own job was by any means dull—of course not, but she wasn't coming to dinners with stories of stopping crazed mountain trolls anymore.
Some nights, though, the dreams were so vivid—so real—that she actually thought she was back in Malfoy Manor. Those dreams terrified her.
Still, every morning Hermione got out of bed and went to work. Her life had already fallen apart; she wouldn't let it happen again.
"Good morning," Hermione smiled at Harry as they walked from the fireplaces they had just emerged from.
"Morning 'Mione," He answered in a cheerful tone, "Have you happened to have seen Ron? I've been meaning to ask him something."
Hermione caught a glimpse of hesitation in Harry's voice when he asked this, and this only made her let out a sigh. "No, I haven't. Sorry."
Harry stopped in front of the Department of Mysteries entrance and gave her a hopeful grin. "If you do happen to see him, let him know I've been looking for him, would you?"
"Of course." And with that, he walked off towards the Auror's department.
Hermione sat down and let out an exasperated breath. She knew exactly what Harry was trying to do. After all, there would be no reason for her to have seen Ron before Harry right after the floo. And even then, Harry would see Ron probably as soon as he got to his desk. They worked exactly 1 meter from each other.
It had been exactly two years since the Battle of Hogwarts. In those two years, she and Ron had briefly dated. The breakup wasn't any fault of Ron, Hermione knew. She put almost all the weight of the separation on herself. It was her, they had both realized, who was still dealing with so much from the war and maybe a relationship wasn't what was best for the time being. So, in the words of Ron, they were 'On a short pause just to get all sorted out.'
But Hermione pushed these thoughts to the back of her mind as she began her day. First things first, she had to check her files.
As she flipped through her manila folders, she realized something was off. For some reason, her notes on section K4-1727 were just gone. Not blank, no—they were plain missing.
Hermione frantically skimmed the rest of her notes, searching for K4-1727, but there was nothing. She couldn't have just forgotten to scribe her findings, and she certainly wouldn't have lost it. Even her subconscious mind knew how important these classified notes were.
So, as discreetly as she could manage, she slipped down the shiny, black-tiled hallway and through the matching steel door that led to the Room of Magical Artifacts.
Hermione muttered, "Lumos," and walked down the aisle marked K4-1500 ~ K4-2000.
Eventually, after what seemed like an hour, Hermione spotted what she'd been after. Her eyes landed on a small box marked with her missing file number. "There you are!" She whispered with a mix of relief and annoyance.
Just to make sure, though, she pulled the brown box out and slid off the cover. And there, right where it was supposed to be, was a rather small glass teardrop shape. In its center sat dazzling, golden sand.
Hermione trailed her fingers over the shiny surface and sighed. In her hand was a Forés Lacrima. Its name literally meant Time's Tear. And its function was to literally throw the user to another time.
Time travel.
This piece of magical art, however, had many flaws (thus why it was the last of its kind). One of the issues was that it was almost completely unpredictable. The creators meant it to be something similar to a Time Turner, but the Forés Lacrima wouldn't add the time that you'd travelled to your life. You simply aged in the consistent, linear pattern that those who weren't jumping from different times did. The idea was that the user would be able to jump further from your present without drastic consequences for yourself. This was probably the only upside of the magical trinket. That and it was quite pretty.
She knew how catastrophic tampering with time could be, McGonagall made sure of that. But she also knew how much good just a little bit of tweaking could do, Sirius and Buckbeak made sure of that.
The thought of Sirius depressed Hermione. Right when Harry had gotten him back, he was ripped from his hands once again.
Remembering Sirius quickly led to thinking of Fred, then Tonks, and Remus, innocent Colin Creevey, the ever so boisterous Lavender Brown, Cedric Diggory, Dobby, Mad-Eye, and Dumbledore. Countless others.
The idea of being able to save them, any of them, was so charming, it hurt. But the reality of it all was this: all the Time Turners had been destroyed. And even if they hadn't, changing just one of these events could throw off the entire world they'd worked so hard to save.
This brought up another thought in Hermione's head—another reason to not yearn for the ability to go back, really. One of the other big flaws of the Forés Lacrima was that no one knew how to make it work. As far as the books she'd consulted knew, there was no spell or phrase to get the glass teardrop to spontaneously throw someone into a random point in time. It just did. Now that's not to say it hasn't happened to people, because it most definitely has. But even those people couldn't find an explanation.
The inventor of the curio was just about as perplexing as his creation. He patented his magical object under the name Ralmedus B. Dubole. It was a rather strange name, Hermione knew that much. Possibly a Greek name and a French family name? Whatever it was, that was all that was known of him. Researchers guessed it was created around 1920, but again, that was just a guesstimation.
But Hermione didn't have time to think up the possibilities with this highly temperamental knickknack. She had a job and responsibilities.
So, again, she huffed and placed the Forés Lacrima back in its cushioned box. Right before she placed the lid on, though, the glass teardrop began to glow a blinding gold. The sand on the inside swirled around wildly. Caught off gaurd, Hermione had no time to react to the light suddenly engulfing her and pulling her off the ground. In a sudden flash, she was gone; along with the finicky glass curio.