In Time
Title: In Time
Rating: hard R
Pairing(s): Remus/Hermione
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: In the fight for the last of Voldemort's Horcruxes, Hermione finds herself out of time.
Warnings: obviously a large age difference, though she is 18.
Author's Notes: written for mk_tortie for hp_springsmut, I hope to goodness this is something you'll enjoy. I went a little too plot heavy I think, but I kind of got swept up in the idea of a romance between these two, so thanks for introducing me to a new pairing! Also, thank you to my betas, confiteor_3 and Tiffy.
“Hermione, duck!” Harry shouted, and she threw herself to the floor, narrowly missing the jet of red light that shattered the glass case behind her.
Hermione pushed herself up to her knees, barely registering the small shards pricking her palms. She had to find it. Somewhere in this room, somewhere in the maze of broken furniture, bottomless cauldrons, and discarded toys was a bronze raven.
“Petrificus Totalus!” she shouted, pointing her wand at Malfoy and striking him square in the chest. He fell forward, his rigid head smashing through the basin of a stone birdbath. Blood flowed freely, staining the blond hair crimson and causing Hermione to cringe slightly.
“I’m alright!” she called out to the shadows. “Go!”
Harry nodded, ducking behind her down another alley of Hogwarts hidden treasure. Never when she and Ron had pledged to leave school and stay by Harry’s side in his hunt for Horcruxes did Hermione think they would be searching the Room of Requirement for Ravenclaw’s paperweight.
Not far in the opposite direction of Harry, Hermione heard an enormous crash, and Ron skidded into view.
“Hermione, move!” he yelled, and she jumped to her feet, sprinting forward as Ron continued firing jinxes at Goyle’s hulking figure. Soon her path was blocked by an enormous rolltop desk, and she flung herself to the right just in time to hear the bang of the wood splintering.
“Ron!” she cried, whipping around in fear. He was crouched low on the ground to evade the curse, and now the unique angle gave him the advantage to aim a stunning spell at Goyle’s left foot. Almost as if in slow motion the great oafish lump of Gregory Goyle thundered to the ground, missing Malfoy’s stiff form by inches.
“Where’s Harry?” Ron panted anxiously, Hermione tugging him out from under Goyle’s tree-stump legs and helping him to his feet.
“This way,” she gestured, running back toward the demolished desk but skidding to a halt.
“What is it?” yelped Ron, and Hermione felt him push past her down the path to the left. “Hermione!”
But Hermione wasn’t paying attention anymore. She could see something gleaming dully inside the mahogany desk, something that resembled a wing. Wincing, she pried a handful of thin boards loose. It was there, a solid bronze eagle clasping a sapphire the size of a tennis ball.
“Ron!” she shouted eagerly, clasping the heavy weight with both hands and hoisting it from the desk, feeling a sharp tug around her midsection. “I’ve got it! I found it!” Hermione heard a bang and a shout behind her and spun around. “Harry!” she cried. “I’ve got it, I’ve got the Horcrux!”
But Harry was staring at her slack jawed, backing away as she ran at him. “Where did you come from? Who are you?!” he shouted, tumbling backwards and landing on an intricately embroidered bolster that issued a thick cloud of dust and an indignant cry of its own under the boy’s weight. “What are you doing in here?”
“Harry, stop it,” Hermione snapped. “Where’s Ron?”
“Who’s Ron?” Harry asked. “And who’s Harry?”
An enormously frustrated noise escaped her as Hermione held her hand out to him and pulled him back to his feet. “What are you talking -” Hermione faltered, staring into Harry’s thin pale face but finding a pair of puzzled brown eyes meeting her own. “But…” her voice trailed away. “You’re not Harry!”
“No,” the raven-haired young man replied, a curious smile on his lips. “I’m James,” he continued, holding out his hand. “James Potter. Head Boy? And you are?”
“I - well, I’m Hermione,” Hermione spluttered, staring open mouthed at the sight before her. It was impossible, she thought. James wasn’t alive, let alone a Hogwarts student. But Harry hadn’t been wearing his Hogwarts uniform and James - if it really was James - was certainly not wearing a Gryffindor sweater with a Head Boy badge as a fashion statement.
“Er, hi Hermione,” he laughed, taking another step backwards. “Ah, are you okay?”
Clamping her mouth shut and trying to narrow her wide hazel eyes, Hermione nodded. “I’m fine,” she breathed. “I just… I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure what’s happening. What are you doing in here?”
James ruffled his hair in the back with one hand, his grin turning sheepish. “Biting Banshee,” he said, throwing up his hands in an impish admission of guilt. “I left one in here last week when Lestrange nearly caught me with it, and now I can’t find it. Speaking of,” he interrupted himself, “what’ve you found? A Horkup?”
“Oh!” said Hermione, startled as she looked down at the ornate paperweight still clutched in her hands. “It’s a - er, it’s a paperweight that I lost,” she lied. “Bellatrix Lestrange?”
“What?” James laughed again, his face just as confused as hers. “No, Rodolphus Lestrange, the Slytherin prefect? Did you mean Bellatrix Black?”
“Oh, yes, um, sorry,” Hermione stammered. “I guess I was just thinking about a, er, rumor I heard.”
“Sorry,” James said, staring at her curiously, “What house are you in again, Hermione?”
“Ravenclaw,” she lied again, thankful that she was not wearing school robes. “I’m in Ravenclaw.” James nodded vaguely, his eyes still staring suspiciously into hers. “And, well, now that I’ve found this, I’ll just, um, be on my way.” Hermione smiled broadly, brandishing the paperweight in front of her and making to skirt past James towards the door.
“Hold on a minute,” James began, but Hermione’s wand was drawn too fast. She cast a quick stunning spell and James crumpled limply to the floor.
“Sorry,” Hermione whispered feebly, stepping over him and running down the path. “Harry?” she called out experimentally, but the path she had seen him disappear down last was no longer there; a great emerald green wardrobe blocking the way. In fact, the only objects she recognized were the rolltop desk, which was whole once again, and an oversized one-armed statue of Mungo Bonham. James hadn’t appeared in the Room of Requirement, Hermione realized with dread, she had. The only explanation was unexplainable. To see James Potter alive and Hogwarts Head Boy, Hermione would have had to gone back in time; and she most certainly hadn’t used a Time-turner.
Hermione had no way to be certain if she was correct or not, but laid her wand flat on her palm and whispered “Point Me,” the tip of the wand instantly spinning north. Hermione knew that the Room of Requirement was on the East side of the seventh floor corridor, so if she headed west then at some point she was certain to find a wall, and if she followed it long enough, a door. The leaden ball of guilt in her stomach growing, Hermione left James where he lay and wended her way past endtables, bookcases, piles of antique armchairs and ottomans, finally glimpsing solid stone. Two minutes later she was outside the room, and quite at a loss for what to do next.
“I need somewhere to hide,” she whispered, pacing in front of the door which had just vanished. “I need somewhere to hide. I need somewhere to hide.” To Hermione’s amazement, the door was there again when she opened her eyes, but her heart sank immediately after turning the handle. The room was the same, a cathedral sized hall filled with broken and dusty remnants from centuries of the castle’s inhabitants. Apparently, the room made no distinction between hiding objects and hiding people. Hermione could only think of one other place that surely no one would find her, but the kitchens were seven floors beneath her. From the dark night sky outside, Hermione could only assume that she was out of bed out of hours, making the journey easier and more dangerous at the same time. But before she could make a decision one way or the other, the wall before her began to change, a door growing between the stones.
Tapping herself sharply on the head, Hermione muttered a disillusionment charm and pressed herself flat against the grey stone, hoping against hope that James would not notice the slightly wavy outline of her figure. She needn’t have worried though, James only grumbled angrily under his breath before pulling a silvery cloak from his back pocket and throwing it around himself, his feet turning in the direction of Gryffindor tower before disappearing completely.
A midnight run to the kitchens now unnecessary, Hermione tried to focus on what was. If she admitted it, she was more than weary, and little could be accomplished or uncovered until morning. “I need somewhere to sleep,” she sighed, pacing the corridor again and facing the door. Much to her relief, Hermione opened the door not on the previous room, but one with a large featherbed, a fireplace, and a wardrobe. Inside there were hundreds of pajamas, silk or satin, cotton or flannel, nightgowns and pants and shirts, even an old-fashioned one piece in fire engine red, complete with feet and a buttoned flap in the bottom. Hermione pulled a simple cotton gown from the pile, folding her clothes as she removed them and setting them neatly at the foot of the bed. Once nestled between the cozy sheets, Hermione let her mind relax but kept her hands clutching the bronze eagle tightly.
What powers did this Horcrux have? Had she really gone back in time, or was Hermione’s imagination playing tricks on her. For what seemed like hours she lay awake and tense, unable to sleep with the constant parade of thoughts going through her mind. Eventually her eyelids succumbed to exhaustion, then her breathing, and without being aware, her fingers.
The paperweight vanished.
Hermione awoke to the sound of her watch ticking beside her head. She had forgotten to take it off last night, she realized as she sat up in bed.
“No!” she gasped, fumbling with the unfamiliar blankets for the heavy brass raven. The memories of the night before came crashing down on her suddenly; the battle in the Room of Requirement, finding the paperweight in the smashed desk, meeting James. “Where is it!” she whispered, hanging down over the edge of the four poster bed but seeing nothing beneath it. Hermione tumbled onto the floor, twisting around for a better angle but still finding nothing. “No!” she wailed, standing up and twining a hand in her sleep-tousled curls.
With another start she realized her clothes were gone as well, a Hogwarts uniform lying across the foot of the bed in their place. Dressing in a hurry, Hermione barely managed to notice the different tie; sapphire and bronze instead of scarlet and gold. Glancing at her watch she saw that breakfast was nearly finished; the first classes of the day would start in fifteen minutes. “Just enough time,” Hermione muttered to herself “to find a copy of the paper and get back here if I’m lucky.” With a sinking feeling of dread, Hermione left the Room of Requirement. No matter what people constantly insisted, Hermione Granger had no manner of luck whatsoever unless one counted the luck of having Harry Potter as a best friend, which Hermione liked to attribute to her keen judgment of character.
Matting her messy hair down as best she could while running down several flights of stairs, Hermione slowed when she reached the first floor, not wanting to draw attention to herself. “You can do this,” she whispered, stepping inside the Great Hall and heading directly for the Gryffindor table, partly from habit and partly to make sure that the Ravenclaws didn’t get a good look at her.
Scanning the length of the table, Hermione spied a copy of the Prophet laying just a few people away. “Hello,” she said quickly, tapping the boy on his shoulder. “Could I borrow your paper for a moment?”
For the second time in as many days, Hermione was struck dumb and gaping at the face before her.
Remus Lupin’s gentle blue-grey eyes were staring back at her, clearly as startled by her as she was by him, but this was not the same Remus Lupin as Hermione had always known. In front of her was a teenaged boy, his sandy-brown hair unruly and his broad shoulders waiting to be better filled out. “Um,” he stammered, leaning back from Hermione as she pressed her lips tightly together in her best attempt at a smile. “Sure, I suppose.”
“Brilliant,” she squeaked, her hand darting out to the copy of the Daily Prophet before spinning quickly on her heel and speed-walking to the doors.
“Hey!” she heard James shout after her. “Hermione Granger of Ravenclaw! Wait!” But before he could so much as rise from his seat, she had disappeared.
Outside of the hall, Hermione ducked into one of the secret passageways and crossed her fingers, hoping that James and Remus would not follow her. But as far as the Marauders knew, there was no one at Hogwarts better than they at navigating the ins and outs of the castle, so who would ever know to hide where Hermione had hidden herself? After a few tense minutes in the shadowy passage with the Daily Prophet clenched tightly in her fist, Hermione heard the bell ring. On the other side of the portrait of Briseus the Bold, she could hear the wave of footsteps that signified the last of the students leaving the Great Hall on their way to morning classes, but she didn’t dare join them.
Another minute later, Hermione pushed the back of the painting open and stepped into the hall. Everyone would have to be in class, she reasoned. The teachers were teaching, and all she had to do was get back to the Room of Requirement unnoticed.
Seven floors of feeling her pulse in her throat later, Hermione rounded the corner. She could hear a strange rustling, something that sounded nearly like a mortar and pestle, and in a moment of terror Hermione realized what it was.
At the end of the hallway, the stone steps behind the gargoyle were rotating. Someone was coming out of the Headmaster’s office.
“I need somewhere to hide,” Hermione thought for what felt like the hundredth time, running a few short paces in front of the bare wall. Just as she saw the gargoyle begin to move aside the door appeared out of nowhere, and Hermione wrenched it open, threw herself inside, and slammed it behind her.
“Hey!” a voice cried, and Hermione screamed. She was in the cathedral sized room of magical contraband again, and also not alone. Someone had been listening on the other side of the door that Hermione had thrown open. He was now lying on the floor, having been knocked to the ground by the force with which Hermione had barreled herself into the room.
“What are you doing in here?” Hermione whispered loudly.
“I was hiding,” the boy said thickly, his hands held over his nose and eye. “Same as you, obviously, or you wouldn’t have knocked me over.”
“I’m sorry,” breathed Hermione, pulling out her wand and kneeling beside him. “Here, let me fix it,” she said, pulling his hand aside. “Oh!” she gasped.
“You!” Remus cried, the signs of a puffy black eye starting to form above his bloody nose. “Hermione Granger!”
For a moment, Hermione thought of running. But where would she go? There was only one way out of the room, and the prospect of coming face to face with Dumbledore was easily worse than being confronted by Remus. Her body limp with defeat, Hermione shoulders sagged backwards so that she was propped against a surprisingly sturdy three-legged armchair. She felt as though she might start to cry.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Remus asked, shifting to his knees and leaning towards her. “Are you okay?”
Hermione nodded, looking up at him wearily. “I’m fine. Hold still.” Remus eyed her suspiciously - James had obviously told him what had happened the night before - but did as she said. “Episky!”
Remus winced, but quickly reached up to touch his tender nose. “Thanks.”
“Tergeo,” Hermione continued, waving her wand over his lips and chin and finally his hands.
Now he was grinning at her, a broad smile that made Hermione blush. “Thanks,” he said again. “So you stun James but you heal me?” he asked. “What makes me the luckier one?”
Hermione blinked. “I didn’t want to hurt him, I just had to get away.”
“And he wouldn’t let you? He was holding you hostage?”
“Well, no. I mean, I was sort of lost and confused and he -”
“Yeah, he mentioned that you were… a bit odd,” Remus confessed, conjuring a cold compress and holding it to his eye. “Did you find what you needed?”
“What?” Hermione asked, thinking of the Horcrux, but Remus gestured to his copy of the Prophet still crumpled in her clenched fist. “Oh, no, I -” She spread it open and looked at the date in the upper corner.
April 17th, 1976.
“Yes,” she said, shakily, passing him the paper. “Yes, thank you Professor Lupin.”
“Professor?” Remus laughed. “Hardly. I don’t know how many eighteen year old professors you know, or how many of them cut class and get stuck in odd rooms with odd women, but whatever the tally, call me Remus.” He held out his hand to her and Hermione took it, surprised at the softness of his touch even though she could feel the scars already formed across his fingers.
“Your hand,” She whispered, staring down at it still clasped in hers.
“Oh,” he said with a start. “Yeah, er, a bad accident when I was a kid.”
Hermione smiled. It wasn’t a lie, not really. “It’s alright,” she said, drawing herself to her feet. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“What?” Remus dropped his compress in surprise. “Tell who what?”
“It should all be clear by now,” Hermione said, turning the doorknob and stepping into the hall. “It was nice to have met you, Remus,” she continued, his first name feeling strange on her tongue. “Sorry about your eye.”
“Hermione, wait,” he protested, but again, she had gone.
Taking the risk, Hermione hurried to the stone gargoyle and crouched behind it, not daring to peer out. She heard a door open again, and footsteps pausing.
“Hermione Granger,” Remus whispered loudly to the seemingly empty hallway. “Come back.”
Holding her breath until she heard the footsteps retreating to the other end of the hall and around the corner, Hermione waited. Her heart was pounding, but even as she stood and walked back to the empty stretch of wall, it continued to thump wildly against her ribs. “Remus Lupin,” she whispered, the name feather light on her lips. “I’m right here.”
The grandfather clock in the library began to chime the hour, a strangely haunting melody followed by five staccato bells. Hermione glanced down at her own watch and saw the hands were pointing two minutes earlier. She had been there for a little over an hour now; nearly hidden behind a large stack of books that each contained at least a mention of time travel. But as the books were moved from one pile to the other, Hermione became increasingly frustrated. There was nothing, no mention of how time travel could be possible without the use of a Time-turner.
Hermione’s stomach rumbled loudly and she frowned. She hadn’t joined the Great Hall for lunch either, and was now lamenting her decision to opt out of dinner the night before. At the time, nerves had been a perfectly good excuse not to eat, but with another resonating gurgle Hermione made up her mind to join the crowd for dinner as inconspicuously as she could.
As Hermione’s chair scraped against the library’s polished wooden floor, the bells in the East Tower rang, signifying the end of the day’s classes. With a disgruntled stare at the slow grandfather clock and a satisfied glance at her watch, Hermione pushed open the heavy double doors that lead out to the hall. There was a low thud and a bang as the door met with resistance. Tentatively, Hermione leaned against the other door, wincing at the sight in front of her.
Remus grimaced at her, his hand covering his nose again. “We’be dot to sdob meeding dis way,” he muttered, crouching to gather his dropped schoolbooks while Hermione pulled out her wand.
“Episkey,” she sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Its okay,” he laughed, prodding his twice-broken nose carefully. “You never know I’m there. At least, I don’t think you do!”
Hermione’s stomach gave a very audible rumble and she blushed as Remus laughed. “You alright there?” he asked.
“Yes!” Hermione gasped. “I just skipped lunch today, I was -”
“In the library? I know, I saw you.”
“You saw me?” she blinked. “You were in the library too?”
“Just for a minute,” Remus admitted, his cheeks flushing slightly. “I had to return a book. I’d have said hello, but you looked… busy.”
Hermione looked back at her mountain of books and nodded. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to work out a problem I’ve got.”
“What is it? Maybe I can help?” Remus started over to her table, but Hermione caught his arm.
“No, that’s alright,” she shouted, earning a hearty glare from a vastly younger Madame Pince. Dropping her voice to a whisper, she pulled him back to the doors. “I’m nearly done with it, and um, I was just going to stop for a break,” she lied.
“Well…” Remus hesitated and then nodded firmly, his mind made up. “Come on, I want to show you something you’ll like.” He grabbed her hand, pulling her after him at a run through the castle. Hermione squeezed his hand in hers and found herself wondering how she had never before noticed that Remus Lupin really was an attractive man. Of course, she thought with a sinking feeling in her stomach, the Lupin she had always known was 20 years her senior.
When they reached the stone staircase leading down to the painting of an enormous bowl of fruit, Hermione was out of breath. “The kitchens,” she panted. “Perfect!”
Remus stared at her, awestruck. “You knew where the entrance to the kitchens was?”
“Of course, the twins showed - I mean,” Hermione stammered, “My um, my older cousins, who are - uh - twins, they graduated a few years ago and they, er, they told me that the kitchens were hidden behind a painting with,” she reached out to the pear and tickled it. “A pear.”
Remus smiled in surprise as Hermione pulled on the pear-shaped door handle and stepped through the painting.
House elves stopped momentarily to stare at them, but when Remus called a cheerful hello to them, most scurried back along their ways, carrying bowls and cauldrons to enormous ovens and stoves, preparing for the dinner that night.
“Master Remus!” an elf with brown, protuberant eyes hidden behind thick lashes squeaked. “How is you today?”
“I’m well, Bevvie, how are you? I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Hermione’s mouth fell open as Remus shook the tiny elf’s hand. No one, not even her very best friends would have found his gesture remarkable, but then again, neither Harry nor Ron would have thought to shake hands with a house elf.
“Bevvie is assigned to the Slytherin dormitories this month, sir,” moaned Bevvie. “But I is not liking it as well as Gryffindor tower.”
“Well,” Remus sighed. “I wouldn’t either. But we’d be glad to have you back next month if they’ll let you.”
Bevvie beamed at him, but her smile turned shy as she saw Hermione standing awkwardly behind him. “Master Remus has brought a friend!”
“Yes!” said Remus. “This is my - this is Hermione Granger, Bevvie, she’s in Ravenclaw.”
Bevvie eyed her suspiciously. “Bevvie has not seen Miss Granger in the Ravenclaw dormitories before.”
“Oh, well,” Hermione faltered, tired of coming up with pathetic lies for her sudden appearance. “My family only just moved here from France. My father is a foreign minister so I used to attend Beauxbatons.” She winced at the idea, knowing full well that Hogwarts almost never saw transfer students because most wizarding academies were boarding schools that housed students year round, no matter where their families resided. “My mother didn’t want me going to school so far away, she’s worried about Lord - I mean He-Who-Must - well, um, Riddle,” she finished meekly, staring up at Remus and hoping he would find her story plausible.
“Of course,” he nodded. “Any good parent is concerned about Voldemort with the way things have been lately.” Hermione noticed that Bevvie cringed as Remus said the name, her glassy brown eyes squeezing tightly shut. “Listen, Bevvie,” Remus continued, “Hermione had to miss lunch, she was in the library working on a problem. I was wondering if you might have anything to make her stomach stop rumbling.”
Hermione felt her cheeks reddening again, but Remus only looked amused, and Bevvie had run off, grabbing a tea tray and filling it with more food than either of them could have eaten.
“Thank you, Bevvie,” Hermione said as Remus held the painting’s gilded frame open for her a few minutes later. Awkwardly balancing the heavy tray of food, she extended her hand to the elf too, and something in Bevvie’s smile told her that house elves were more intuitive than even she had thought. Although they had never met, Bevvie seemed to know she was lying; but to the elf’s credit she said nothing more.
“Where would you like to eat your meal, madam?” Remus teased, taking the tray laden with sandwiches, pies, pastries, and pumpkin juice from her and staggering in over-exaggerated mockery at the weight of the mountain of food.
“I’ll never be able to finish it all,” she laughed, shaking her head at his antics.
“Well, it’s nearly six o’clock now, and I am feeling a bit peckish myself, so if you don’t mind me joining you rather than the Great Hall, then I’d suggest a nice quiet hiding spot. Shall we let the Transforming Room decide for us?”
Hermione smiled. “I didn’t even think you or James knew about that place, but you’ve both surprised me.”
“To be fair,” Remus grinned back, “you surprised us as well. Rather violently, even.”
A moment later, the two were walking down the seventh-floor hallway. “Let me,” she said, jogging ahead a bit and pacing quickly in front of the wall. I need somewhere to have dinner with Remus, I need somewhere to have dinner with Remus, I need somewhere to have dinner with Remus.
Hermione pulled open the freshly-formed door and gasped. Remus’ mouth was open as well as he stepped inside. This was a room neither of them had ever seen before; the wall of the round room lined from floor to high ceiling with volume after volume of books. Narrow windows set in niches between the towering shelves let in the slowly dimming rays of sunset, casting a golden light over everything. Two enormous armchairs were perched on the edge of a large stone hearth, a small table wedged tightly between them. Remus set down the tray, the idea of food forgotten by both as they moved, almost magnetized towards the walls, running their fingers gently over the bindings as they absorbed the titles.
Neither of them spoke, though sometimes one or the other would pull a book from its shelf and page through it. Hermione climbed a narrow rolling ladder, and almost absentmindedly, Remus pushed her ahead of him. For over an hour they continued on, until finally Hermione realized she was squinting hard to see the books before her in the darkening room. She glanced down at Remus and nearly fell off the ladder in shock. He was oblivious to her gaze, busy staring instead at where Hermione’s legs fell into shadow above the hem of her Hogwarts woolen skirt. Hermione felt her cheeks grow warm, and though she knew it was impossible for him to see anything clearly in the shades of twilight’s darkest grey, she watched his face with rapture as he absentmindedly bit his bottom lip. She couldn’t help but shift her legs, rub them together.
Startled, Remus looked up into Hermione’s eyes before quickly turning away, striding towards the armchairs, drawing his wand and starting a hearty fire in the hearth. Hermione pulled herself back around the circular room, lighting the lamps at her eye level until the room was once again bathed in a warm glow. Finally she climbed down, turning to find Remus crouching by the fire setting several small pies into a cast iron Dutch oven. Emboldened, she reached a hand out to Remus’ bent head, holding her breath as she combed her fingers through the sandy brown smoothness.
“What’s for dinner?” she teased, and Remus chuckled lightly.
“Slightly stale steak and kidney pies, a treacle tart with two slices missing, and a half-filled flagon of pumpkin juice, I’m afraid.” He stood, nearly a full head taller than her, and tucked an unruly stray curl behind her ear.
Before she knew what was happening, Remus had gently cupped her cheek and lowered his lips to hers. And before she could think any better, Hermione responded. It had been months since her and Ron’s awkward go at being together, and even then it hadn’t felt quite the same as this. You weren’t supposed to bicker when snogging someone. Inept though she seemed to be at romance, Hermione knew that much. But this was even nicer than when Viktor had kissed her, for Remus’ lips almost seemed to be caressing hers, dancing with her in a way that made her stomach start to spin. The idea jolting through her, Hermione gasped and pulled away.
“I - um,” Remus stammered, his eyes confused and hurt as Hermione buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, that was just -”
“Wonderful,” Hermione interrupted. “It was just wonderful, but you’re my teacher, you’re - you’re like Harry’s uncle almost! This is wrong, I...” Hermione slid out of his arms. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
She ran from the room, slammed the door shut behind her and leaned her weight against it, pressing her palm to her forehead. “What’ve I done?” she whispered, but before her brain had time to formulate an answer she was flung forward onto the stone floor of the hallway. “Ouch!”
Remus was standing over her, hand still holding the doorknob and his face so full of emotion that she couldn’t tell what the prevailing theme was. After a second, he burst out laughing. “Turn about is fair play!” he crowed, offering his hand to Hermione and pulling her to her feet.
Hermione pulled her wand from her pocket and this time aimed it at her own palm where a large scrape was bleeding. “Episkey,” she sighed with a weary smile.
“Listen,” said Remus, an air of pleading in his tone. “I don’t know what I did exactly to upset you or what you mean about me being your teacher, and I don’t know who Harry is but I can assure you I’m not his uncle.”
Shaking her head as she stowed her wand away, Hermione finally met Remus’ eyes. “There’s something wrong, Remus. Not with you, believe me, it isn’t about you really, it’s just… I know so much that I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
“I’m good with secrets,” Remus insisted, standing in her way as Hermione tried to walk down the hall. “I mean, I don’t exactly know who you are, Hermione Granger from Ravenclaw, and I don’t understand you or how you know about my secrets,” he held up his scarred hands, “but I want to. I’ve known you for less than a day, but I want to know all that I can about you. I do know you aren’t an exchange student,” he continued, staring her down. “I know there’s something odd going on here, but instead of telling someone about it I chose to spend most of my day with you. That has to count for something.”
His shrewd eyes were staring intently into hers, and Hermione felt frustrated. She had always known Remus Lupin was a tenacious person but she hadn’t expected him to be even more stubborn than she.
“Tell me something,” he whispered. “Anything. Tell me why you’re here.”
“I don’t know,” Hermione moaned. “I don’t know what’s happened; I don’t know what I’m doing here!”
“Then tell me where you’re from.”
“When,” she breathed, closing her eyes and clamping her jaw shut.
“What?”
“Not where. When.”
Somewhere on one of the newfound library's uppermost shelves, two clicks and a soft whirring noise preceded the thin tinny bell of an ancient clock as it signaled the hour. Now nine o'clock, dinner in the Great Hall was long over as was most of Bevvie's make-shift meal.
“So what you're saying is,” Remus said, swallowing the last of his treacle tart, gesturing at Hermione with the fork she had conjured for him. “You're from the future. You and this guy Harry, and your friend Ron, you're all about to find the key to destroying Voldemort. And you're in this room - when it’s for hiding things - but then you grabbed a paperweight and all of a sudden were face to face with James?”
“Yes,” Hermione grimaced, curled up in the opposing armchair before the hearth. “I’m sorry, but I think that if I tell you anything else -”
“It will make things change in your time, I understand that. Don’t tell me things you can’t, you don’t need to. But if I’ve never even heard of you before, then you can’t be at Hogwarts yet. You’re saying this doesn’t happen for another seven years? Voldemort is going to be powerful for another seven years?”
Hermione’s face fell, her fingers absentmindedly twining around a curl. “Remus,” she sighed sadly, staring down at her knees. “I’m not even born yet.”
“What?” he gasped. “But you said that you haven’t aged at all, younger or older! You’ve got to be at least a fifth year -”
“I would be in my seventh year.”
“But that’s more than eighteen years from now! Eighteen years and he’s still powerful?!”
“More powerful than ever, but he wasn’t - I don’t know how to tell you what happened, I don’t think I can, but he hasn’t been powerful for eighteen years. Something happened and everyone but Dumbledore thought he was defeated. And in a way, he was…” Hermione stared up at Remus, her face pained with things she could not say.
“It’s okay,” Remus said, lurching forward and pulling her hands into his. “No, its okay, you don’t have to tell me these things! I’ll stop asking. Just tell me what I can do to make things right.”
“I don’t know! I don’t know how I got here, or why!” Hermione blurted. “I mean, there has to be a reason, there must be, right?!”
“Of course!” he insisted, jumping up to pace the length of the flagstones before the fire. “Something caused this; rifts in time don’t just happen by accident.”
“But that’s what I was doing all afternoon; I was in the library trying to find something, some way that I could have traveled without a Time-turner.”
“Did you find anything?” asked Remus.
“Not a thing.”
“Well then… what if it’s in here? What if that’s why the transforming room showed us this specific place; this library? Maybe the book is in here.”
Hermione pulled her head off her shoulder, startled. “Of course!” she agreed. “I saw a few things with time in their title, I just wasn’t thinking of it!” Frowning fiercely at her lack of concentration, Hermione waved her wand and conjured more candles, stoking the light in the hidden room so that even the uppermost shelves were easily visible. “Where do we even start?”
“You said that this room shows you whatever you need,” Remus said “You need books about time travel.”
Hermione nodded and jumped as books moved forwards off their shelves and floated down to form neat stacks on the windowsills. She and Remus both picked up a stack of books, moved to the armchairs and began to flip through them in earnest.
“These aren’t all going to be useful,” Remus muttered, plunking Calhard’s Advanced Magical Theory to the ground. “That only talks about the effects of time travel and what can happen if you’re seen or if you meddle with events to achieve different outcomes.” Hermione reached out to the heavy text on the ground but Remus grabbed her arm. “You don’t want to read it,” he said. “I’ll only make you more worried than you are. You said you’ve done this before, with a Time-turner, but this time was different. Can you tell me why?”
“I don’t know why,” Hermione confessed. For a moment both of them were still as Hermione thought hard. “I didn’t - I didn’t mean for this to happen, I didn’t use a Time-turner to get here. When I met James in the Room of Requirement last night I didn’t know what had happened to me.”
“But you think you know how you got here now?”
“No, not how, really,” said Hermione with a grimace. “Or why. But yes, I touched the paperweight, Ravenclaw’s paperweight, and I think that it transported me somehow.”
“Where is it now?” asked Remus. “Ravenclaw’s paperweight, where is it?”
“I don’t know.” Hermione buried her face in her hands, weaving her fingers through her hair and pressing the heels of her palms against her tired eyes. “I fell asleep last night and when I woke up it was gone.”
“Someone took it?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know!” Hermione wailed in frustration, tossing a copy of The Time Machine to the floor and standing. “I just want to go home!”
Remus unfolded his lanky frame and moved to her. “It’s okay,” he soothed, wrapping his arms round her as Hermione sagged against him, exhausted. “We’ll figure something out. I’ll look for time travel that doesn’t use a Time-turner, you’ll look for information about how the paperweight could get you here, about Ravenclaw. You and I are going to figure out what did this and we’re going to get you home.”
Hermione sighed against Remus’ chest as he stroked her hair. Even now he was the same; she could sense it even though she had never before realized it. He was startled by her panic, just as he had been when she hadn’t been able to face her boggart in her third year, but he still had a calming effect on her, taming her terrors and setting her mind at ease. For the first time in days - no, she thought - for the first time in months, she felt relaxed. She was free because he was holding her there, carefully against him. Hermione could feel the warmth of his skin underneath his white shirt, she could feel it radiate and warm her as well. It was comfortable here, like this, with Remus.
Maybe, she allowed herself to think momentarily; maybe this isn’t so wrong after all. Maybe it was meant to happen, like she and Harry were meant to save Buckbeak. At the time she had been scared, she had been terrified of the repercussions their actions would have on the future, but now she saw how even when knotted in complex ways, the mysteries of time had purpose and meaning. Could this be another twist in time, one that she would appreciate fully only once she was far removed from it?
Above them, the impatient clock chimed ten.
“I’m sorry,” Remus whispered, pulling back from her. “I don’t want to go, but I think that if I stay my friends will send out a search party. I’ve been missing for seven hours, I didn’t turn up for dinner, and,” he said with an irritated stare at the gilded face of the clock on the high shelf, “I’ve just missed curfew.”
“This really isn’t like you,” Hermione smiled, straightening Remus’ tie. “You’re never unreliable, never impulsive, unless -”
“Yes I am,” interrupted Remus, cupping her face in both his hands and kissing her again, softly but with such insistence that Hermione felt unsteady on her feet. “Yes I am,” he breathed against her lips. “Goodnight, Hermione Granger. I’ll find you tomorrow.” Remus smiled at her, pulled his bookbag from the ground near their dinner tray, and left her there beside the hearth, clutching the armchair for support.
Link to Part Two
Rating: hard R
Pairing(s): Remus/Hermione
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: In the fight for the last of Voldemort's Horcruxes, Hermione finds herself out of time.
Warnings: obviously a large age difference, though she is 18.
Author's Notes: written for mk_tortie for hp_springsmut, I hope to goodness this is something you'll enjoy. I went a little too plot heavy I think, but I kind of got swept up in the idea of a romance between these two, so thanks for introducing me to a new pairing! Also, thank you to my betas, confiteor_3 and Tiffy.
“Hermione, duck!” Harry shouted, and she threw herself to the floor, narrowly missing the jet of red light that shattered the glass case behind her.
Hermione pushed herself up to her knees, barely registering the small shards pricking her palms. She had to find it. Somewhere in this room, somewhere in the maze of broken furniture, bottomless cauldrons, and discarded toys was a bronze raven.
“Petrificus Totalus!” she shouted, pointing her wand at Malfoy and striking him square in the chest. He fell forward, his rigid head smashing through the basin of a stone birdbath. Blood flowed freely, staining the blond hair crimson and causing Hermione to cringe slightly.
“I’m alright!” she called out to the shadows. “Go!”
Harry nodded, ducking behind her down another alley of Hogwarts hidden treasure. Never when she and Ron had pledged to leave school and stay by Harry’s side in his hunt for Horcruxes did Hermione think they would be searching the Room of Requirement for Ravenclaw’s paperweight.
Not far in the opposite direction of Harry, Hermione heard an enormous crash, and Ron skidded into view.
“Hermione, move!” he yelled, and she jumped to her feet, sprinting forward as Ron continued firing jinxes at Goyle’s hulking figure. Soon her path was blocked by an enormous rolltop desk, and she flung herself to the right just in time to hear the bang of the wood splintering.
“Ron!” she cried, whipping around in fear. He was crouched low on the ground to evade the curse, and now the unique angle gave him the advantage to aim a stunning spell at Goyle’s left foot. Almost as if in slow motion the great oafish lump of Gregory Goyle thundered to the ground, missing Malfoy’s stiff form by inches.
“Where’s Harry?” Ron panted anxiously, Hermione tugging him out from under Goyle’s tree-stump legs and helping him to his feet.
“This way,” she gestured, running back toward the demolished desk but skidding to a halt.
“What is it?” yelped Ron, and Hermione felt him push past her down the path to the left. “Hermione!”
But Hermione wasn’t paying attention anymore. She could see something gleaming dully inside the mahogany desk, something that resembled a wing. Wincing, she pried a handful of thin boards loose. It was there, a solid bronze eagle clasping a sapphire the size of a tennis ball.
“Ron!” she shouted eagerly, clasping the heavy weight with both hands and hoisting it from the desk, feeling a sharp tug around her midsection. “I’ve got it! I found it!” Hermione heard a bang and a shout behind her and spun around. “Harry!” she cried. “I’ve got it, I’ve got the Horcrux!”
But Harry was staring at her slack jawed, backing away as she ran at him. “Where did you come from? Who are you?!” he shouted, tumbling backwards and landing on an intricately embroidered bolster that issued a thick cloud of dust and an indignant cry of its own under the boy’s weight. “What are you doing in here?”
“Harry, stop it,” Hermione snapped. “Where’s Ron?”
“Who’s Ron?” Harry asked. “And who’s Harry?”
An enormously frustrated noise escaped her as Hermione held her hand out to him and pulled him back to his feet. “What are you talking -” Hermione faltered, staring into Harry’s thin pale face but finding a pair of puzzled brown eyes meeting her own. “But…” her voice trailed away. “You’re not Harry!”
“No,” the raven-haired young man replied, a curious smile on his lips. “I’m James,” he continued, holding out his hand. “James Potter. Head Boy? And you are?”
“I - well, I’m Hermione,” Hermione spluttered, staring open mouthed at the sight before her. It was impossible, she thought. James wasn’t alive, let alone a Hogwarts student. But Harry hadn’t been wearing his Hogwarts uniform and James - if it really was James - was certainly not wearing a Gryffindor sweater with a Head Boy badge as a fashion statement.
“Er, hi Hermione,” he laughed, taking another step backwards. “Ah, are you okay?”
Clamping her mouth shut and trying to narrow her wide hazel eyes, Hermione nodded. “I’m fine,” she breathed. “I just… I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure what’s happening. What are you doing in here?”
James ruffled his hair in the back with one hand, his grin turning sheepish. “Biting Banshee,” he said, throwing up his hands in an impish admission of guilt. “I left one in here last week when Lestrange nearly caught me with it, and now I can’t find it. Speaking of,” he interrupted himself, “what’ve you found? A Horkup?”
“Oh!” said Hermione, startled as she looked down at the ornate paperweight still clutched in her hands. “It’s a - er, it’s a paperweight that I lost,” she lied. “Bellatrix Lestrange?”
“What?” James laughed again, his face just as confused as hers. “No, Rodolphus Lestrange, the Slytherin prefect? Did you mean Bellatrix Black?”
“Oh, yes, um, sorry,” Hermione stammered. “I guess I was just thinking about a, er, rumor I heard.”
“Sorry,” James said, staring at her curiously, “What house are you in again, Hermione?”
“Ravenclaw,” she lied again, thankful that she was not wearing school robes. “I’m in Ravenclaw.” James nodded vaguely, his eyes still staring suspiciously into hers. “And, well, now that I’ve found this, I’ll just, um, be on my way.” Hermione smiled broadly, brandishing the paperweight in front of her and making to skirt past James towards the door.
“Hold on a minute,” James began, but Hermione’s wand was drawn too fast. She cast a quick stunning spell and James crumpled limply to the floor.
“Sorry,” Hermione whispered feebly, stepping over him and running down the path. “Harry?” she called out experimentally, but the path she had seen him disappear down last was no longer there; a great emerald green wardrobe blocking the way. In fact, the only objects she recognized were the rolltop desk, which was whole once again, and an oversized one-armed statue of Mungo Bonham. James hadn’t appeared in the Room of Requirement, Hermione realized with dread, she had. The only explanation was unexplainable. To see James Potter alive and Hogwarts Head Boy, Hermione would have had to gone back in time; and she most certainly hadn’t used a Time-turner.
Hermione had no way to be certain if she was correct or not, but laid her wand flat on her palm and whispered “Point Me,” the tip of the wand instantly spinning north. Hermione knew that the Room of Requirement was on the East side of the seventh floor corridor, so if she headed west then at some point she was certain to find a wall, and if she followed it long enough, a door. The leaden ball of guilt in her stomach growing, Hermione left James where he lay and wended her way past endtables, bookcases, piles of antique armchairs and ottomans, finally glimpsing solid stone. Two minutes later she was outside the room, and quite at a loss for what to do next.
“I need somewhere to hide,” she whispered, pacing in front of the door which had just vanished. “I need somewhere to hide. I need somewhere to hide.” To Hermione’s amazement, the door was there again when she opened her eyes, but her heart sank immediately after turning the handle. The room was the same, a cathedral sized hall filled with broken and dusty remnants from centuries of the castle’s inhabitants. Apparently, the room made no distinction between hiding objects and hiding people. Hermione could only think of one other place that surely no one would find her, but the kitchens were seven floors beneath her. From the dark night sky outside, Hermione could only assume that she was out of bed out of hours, making the journey easier and more dangerous at the same time. But before she could make a decision one way or the other, the wall before her began to change, a door growing between the stones.
Tapping herself sharply on the head, Hermione muttered a disillusionment charm and pressed herself flat against the grey stone, hoping against hope that James would not notice the slightly wavy outline of her figure. She needn’t have worried though, James only grumbled angrily under his breath before pulling a silvery cloak from his back pocket and throwing it around himself, his feet turning in the direction of Gryffindor tower before disappearing completely.
A midnight run to the kitchens now unnecessary, Hermione tried to focus on what was. If she admitted it, she was more than weary, and little could be accomplished or uncovered until morning. “I need somewhere to sleep,” she sighed, pacing the corridor again and facing the door. Much to her relief, Hermione opened the door not on the previous room, but one with a large featherbed, a fireplace, and a wardrobe. Inside there were hundreds of pajamas, silk or satin, cotton or flannel, nightgowns and pants and shirts, even an old-fashioned one piece in fire engine red, complete with feet and a buttoned flap in the bottom. Hermione pulled a simple cotton gown from the pile, folding her clothes as she removed them and setting them neatly at the foot of the bed. Once nestled between the cozy sheets, Hermione let her mind relax but kept her hands clutching the bronze eagle tightly.
What powers did this Horcrux have? Had she really gone back in time, or was Hermione’s imagination playing tricks on her. For what seemed like hours she lay awake and tense, unable to sleep with the constant parade of thoughts going through her mind. Eventually her eyelids succumbed to exhaustion, then her breathing, and without being aware, her fingers.
The paperweight vanished.
Hermione awoke to the sound of her watch ticking beside her head. She had forgotten to take it off last night, she realized as she sat up in bed.
“No!” she gasped, fumbling with the unfamiliar blankets for the heavy brass raven. The memories of the night before came crashing down on her suddenly; the battle in the Room of Requirement, finding the paperweight in the smashed desk, meeting James. “Where is it!” she whispered, hanging down over the edge of the four poster bed but seeing nothing beneath it. Hermione tumbled onto the floor, twisting around for a better angle but still finding nothing. “No!” she wailed, standing up and twining a hand in her sleep-tousled curls.
With another start she realized her clothes were gone as well, a Hogwarts uniform lying across the foot of the bed in their place. Dressing in a hurry, Hermione barely managed to notice the different tie; sapphire and bronze instead of scarlet and gold. Glancing at her watch she saw that breakfast was nearly finished; the first classes of the day would start in fifteen minutes. “Just enough time,” Hermione muttered to herself “to find a copy of the paper and get back here if I’m lucky.” With a sinking feeling of dread, Hermione left the Room of Requirement. No matter what people constantly insisted, Hermione Granger had no manner of luck whatsoever unless one counted the luck of having Harry Potter as a best friend, which Hermione liked to attribute to her keen judgment of character.
Matting her messy hair down as best she could while running down several flights of stairs, Hermione slowed when she reached the first floor, not wanting to draw attention to herself. “You can do this,” she whispered, stepping inside the Great Hall and heading directly for the Gryffindor table, partly from habit and partly to make sure that the Ravenclaws didn’t get a good look at her.
Scanning the length of the table, Hermione spied a copy of the Prophet laying just a few people away. “Hello,” she said quickly, tapping the boy on his shoulder. “Could I borrow your paper for a moment?”
For the second time in as many days, Hermione was struck dumb and gaping at the face before her.
Remus Lupin’s gentle blue-grey eyes were staring back at her, clearly as startled by her as she was by him, but this was not the same Remus Lupin as Hermione had always known. In front of her was a teenaged boy, his sandy-brown hair unruly and his broad shoulders waiting to be better filled out. “Um,” he stammered, leaning back from Hermione as she pressed her lips tightly together in her best attempt at a smile. “Sure, I suppose.”
“Brilliant,” she squeaked, her hand darting out to the copy of the Daily Prophet before spinning quickly on her heel and speed-walking to the doors.
“Hey!” she heard James shout after her. “Hermione Granger of Ravenclaw! Wait!” But before he could so much as rise from his seat, she had disappeared.
Outside of the hall, Hermione ducked into one of the secret passageways and crossed her fingers, hoping that James and Remus would not follow her. But as far as the Marauders knew, there was no one at Hogwarts better than they at navigating the ins and outs of the castle, so who would ever know to hide where Hermione had hidden herself? After a few tense minutes in the shadowy passage with the Daily Prophet clenched tightly in her fist, Hermione heard the bell ring. On the other side of the portrait of Briseus the Bold, she could hear the wave of footsteps that signified the last of the students leaving the Great Hall on their way to morning classes, but she didn’t dare join them.
Another minute later, Hermione pushed the back of the painting open and stepped into the hall. Everyone would have to be in class, she reasoned. The teachers were teaching, and all she had to do was get back to the Room of Requirement unnoticed.
Seven floors of feeling her pulse in her throat later, Hermione rounded the corner. She could hear a strange rustling, something that sounded nearly like a mortar and pestle, and in a moment of terror Hermione realized what it was.
At the end of the hallway, the stone steps behind the gargoyle were rotating. Someone was coming out of the Headmaster’s office.
“I need somewhere to hide,” Hermione thought for what felt like the hundredth time, running a few short paces in front of the bare wall. Just as she saw the gargoyle begin to move aside the door appeared out of nowhere, and Hermione wrenched it open, threw herself inside, and slammed it behind her.
“Hey!” a voice cried, and Hermione screamed. She was in the cathedral sized room of magical contraband again, and also not alone. Someone had been listening on the other side of the door that Hermione had thrown open. He was now lying on the floor, having been knocked to the ground by the force with which Hermione had barreled herself into the room.
“What are you doing in here?” Hermione whispered loudly.
“I was hiding,” the boy said thickly, his hands held over his nose and eye. “Same as you, obviously, or you wouldn’t have knocked me over.”
“I’m sorry,” breathed Hermione, pulling out her wand and kneeling beside him. “Here, let me fix it,” she said, pulling his hand aside. “Oh!” she gasped.
“You!” Remus cried, the signs of a puffy black eye starting to form above his bloody nose. “Hermione Granger!”
For a moment, Hermione thought of running. But where would she go? There was only one way out of the room, and the prospect of coming face to face with Dumbledore was easily worse than being confronted by Remus. Her body limp with defeat, Hermione shoulders sagged backwards so that she was propped against a surprisingly sturdy three-legged armchair. She felt as though she might start to cry.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Remus asked, shifting to his knees and leaning towards her. “Are you okay?”
Hermione nodded, looking up at him wearily. “I’m fine. Hold still.” Remus eyed her suspiciously - James had obviously told him what had happened the night before - but did as she said. “Episky!”
Remus winced, but quickly reached up to touch his tender nose. “Thanks.”
“Tergeo,” Hermione continued, waving her wand over his lips and chin and finally his hands.
Now he was grinning at her, a broad smile that made Hermione blush. “Thanks,” he said again. “So you stun James but you heal me?” he asked. “What makes me the luckier one?”
Hermione blinked. “I didn’t want to hurt him, I just had to get away.”
“And he wouldn’t let you? He was holding you hostage?”
“Well, no. I mean, I was sort of lost and confused and he -”
“Yeah, he mentioned that you were… a bit odd,” Remus confessed, conjuring a cold compress and holding it to his eye. “Did you find what you needed?”
“What?” Hermione asked, thinking of the Horcrux, but Remus gestured to his copy of the Prophet still crumpled in her clenched fist. “Oh, no, I -” She spread it open and looked at the date in the upper corner.
April 17th, 1976.
“Yes,” she said, shakily, passing him the paper. “Yes, thank you Professor Lupin.”
“Professor?” Remus laughed. “Hardly. I don’t know how many eighteen year old professors you know, or how many of them cut class and get stuck in odd rooms with odd women, but whatever the tally, call me Remus.” He held out his hand to her and Hermione took it, surprised at the softness of his touch even though she could feel the scars already formed across his fingers.
“Your hand,” She whispered, staring down at it still clasped in hers.
“Oh,” he said with a start. “Yeah, er, a bad accident when I was a kid.”
Hermione smiled. It wasn’t a lie, not really. “It’s alright,” she said, drawing herself to her feet. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“What?” Remus dropped his compress in surprise. “Tell who what?”
“It should all be clear by now,” Hermione said, turning the doorknob and stepping into the hall. “It was nice to have met you, Remus,” she continued, his first name feeling strange on her tongue. “Sorry about your eye.”
“Hermione, wait,” he protested, but again, she had gone.
Taking the risk, Hermione hurried to the stone gargoyle and crouched behind it, not daring to peer out. She heard a door open again, and footsteps pausing.
“Hermione Granger,” Remus whispered loudly to the seemingly empty hallway. “Come back.”
Holding her breath until she heard the footsteps retreating to the other end of the hall and around the corner, Hermione waited. Her heart was pounding, but even as she stood and walked back to the empty stretch of wall, it continued to thump wildly against her ribs. “Remus Lupin,” she whispered, the name feather light on her lips. “I’m right here.”
The grandfather clock in the library began to chime the hour, a strangely haunting melody followed by five staccato bells. Hermione glanced down at her own watch and saw the hands were pointing two minutes earlier. She had been there for a little over an hour now; nearly hidden behind a large stack of books that each contained at least a mention of time travel. But as the books were moved from one pile to the other, Hermione became increasingly frustrated. There was nothing, no mention of how time travel could be possible without the use of a Time-turner.
Hermione’s stomach rumbled loudly and she frowned. She hadn’t joined the Great Hall for lunch either, and was now lamenting her decision to opt out of dinner the night before. At the time, nerves had been a perfectly good excuse not to eat, but with another resonating gurgle Hermione made up her mind to join the crowd for dinner as inconspicuously as she could.
As Hermione’s chair scraped against the library’s polished wooden floor, the bells in the East Tower rang, signifying the end of the day’s classes. With a disgruntled stare at the slow grandfather clock and a satisfied glance at her watch, Hermione pushed open the heavy double doors that lead out to the hall. There was a low thud and a bang as the door met with resistance. Tentatively, Hermione leaned against the other door, wincing at the sight in front of her.
Remus grimaced at her, his hand covering his nose again. “We’be dot to sdob meeding dis way,” he muttered, crouching to gather his dropped schoolbooks while Hermione pulled out her wand.
“Episkey,” she sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Its okay,” he laughed, prodding his twice-broken nose carefully. “You never know I’m there. At least, I don’t think you do!”
Hermione’s stomach gave a very audible rumble and she blushed as Remus laughed. “You alright there?” he asked.
“Yes!” Hermione gasped. “I just skipped lunch today, I was -”
“In the library? I know, I saw you.”
“You saw me?” she blinked. “You were in the library too?”
“Just for a minute,” Remus admitted, his cheeks flushing slightly. “I had to return a book. I’d have said hello, but you looked… busy.”
Hermione looked back at her mountain of books and nodded. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to work out a problem I’ve got.”
“What is it? Maybe I can help?” Remus started over to her table, but Hermione caught his arm.
“No, that’s alright,” she shouted, earning a hearty glare from a vastly younger Madame Pince. Dropping her voice to a whisper, she pulled him back to the doors. “I’m nearly done with it, and um, I was just going to stop for a break,” she lied.
“Well…” Remus hesitated and then nodded firmly, his mind made up. “Come on, I want to show you something you’ll like.” He grabbed her hand, pulling her after him at a run through the castle. Hermione squeezed his hand in hers and found herself wondering how she had never before noticed that Remus Lupin really was an attractive man. Of course, she thought with a sinking feeling in her stomach, the Lupin she had always known was 20 years her senior.
When they reached the stone staircase leading down to the painting of an enormous bowl of fruit, Hermione was out of breath. “The kitchens,” she panted. “Perfect!”
Remus stared at her, awestruck. “You knew where the entrance to the kitchens was?”
“Of course, the twins showed - I mean,” Hermione stammered, “My um, my older cousins, who are - uh - twins, they graduated a few years ago and they, er, they told me that the kitchens were hidden behind a painting with,” she reached out to the pear and tickled it. “A pear.”
Remus smiled in surprise as Hermione pulled on the pear-shaped door handle and stepped through the painting.
House elves stopped momentarily to stare at them, but when Remus called a cheerful hello to them, most scurried back along their ways, carrying bowls and cauldrons to enormous ovens and stoves, preparing for the dinner that night.
“Master Remus!” an elf with brown, protuberant eyes hidden behind thick lashes squeaked. “How is you today?”
“I’m well, Bevvie, how are you? I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Hermione’s mouth fell open as Remus shook the tiny elf’s hand. No one, not even her very best friends would have found his gesture remarkable, but then again, neither Harry nor Ron would have thought to shake hands with a house elf.
“Bevvie is assigned to the Slytherin dormitories this month, sir,” moaned Bevvie. “But I is not liking it as well as Gryffindor tower.”
“Well,” Remus sighed. “I wouldn’t either. But we’d be glad to have you back next month if they’ll let you.”
Bevvie beamed at him, but her smile turned shy as she saw Hermione standing awkwardly behind him. “Master Remus has brought a friend!”
“Yes!” said Remus. “This is my - this is Hermione Granger, Bevvie, she’s in Ravenclaw.”
Bevvie eyed her suspiciously. “Bevvie has not seen Miss Granger in the Ravenclaw dormitories before.”
“Oh, well,” Hermione faltered, tired of coming up with pathetic lies for her sudden appearance. “My family only just moved here from France. My father is a foreign minister so I used to attend Beauxbatons.” She winced at the idea, knowing full well that Hogwarts almost never saw transfer students because most wizarding academies were boarding schools that housed students year round, no matter where their families resided. “My mother didn’t want me going to school so far away, she’s worried about Lord - I mean He-Who-Must - well, um, Riddle,” she finished meekly, staring up at Remus and hoping he would find her story plausible.
“Of course,” he nodded. “Any good parent is concerned about Voldemort with the way things have been lately.” Hermione noticed that Bevvie cringed as Remus said the name, her glassy brown eyes squeezing tightly shut. “Listen, Bevvie,” Remus continued, “Hermione had to miss lunch, she was in the library working on a problem. I was wondering if you might have anything to make her stomach stop rumbling.”
Hermione felt her cheeks reddening again, but Remus only looked amused, and Bevvie had run off, grabbing a tea tray and filling it with more food than either of them could have eaten.
“Thank you, Bevvie,” Hermione said as Remus held the painting’s gilded frame open for her a few minutes later. Awkwardly balancing the heavy tray of food, she extended her hand to the elf too, and something in Bevvie’s smile told her that house elves were more intuitive than even she had thought. Although they had never met, Bevvie seemed to know she was lying; but to the elf’s credit she said nothing more.
“Where would you like to eat your meal, madam?” Remus teased, taking the tray laden with sandwiches, pies, pastries, and pumpkin juice from her and staggering in over-exaggerated mockery at the weight of the mountain of food.
“I’ll never be able to finish it all,” she laughed, shaking her head at his antics.
“Well, it’s nearly six o’clock now, and I am feeling a bit peckish myself, so if you don’t mind me joining you rather than the Great Hall, then I’d suggest a nice quiet hiding spot. Shall we let the Transforming Room decide for us?”
Hermione smiled. “I didn’t even think you or James knew about that place, but you’ve both surprised me.”
“To be fair,” Remus grinned back, “you surprised us as well. Rather violently, even.”
A moment later, the two were walking down the seventh-floor hallway. “Let me,” she said, jogging ahead a bit and pacing quickly in front of the wall. I need somewhere to have dinner with Remus, I need somewhere to have dinner with Remus, I need somewhere to have dinner with Remus.
Hermione pulled open the freshly-formed door and gasped. Remus’ mouth was open as well as he stepped inside. This was a room neither of them had ever seen before; the wall of the round room lined from floor to high ceiling with volume after volume of books. Narrow windows set in niches between the towering shelves let in the slowly dimming rays of sunset, casting a golden light over everything. Two enormous armchairs were perched on the edge of a large stone hearth, a small table wedged tightly between them. Remus set down the tray, the idea of food forgotten by both as they moved, almost magnetized towards the walls, running their fingers gently over the bindings as they absorbed the titles.
Neither of them spoke, though sometimes one or the other would pull a book from its shelf and page through it. Hermione climbed a narrow rolling ladder, and almost absentmindedly, Remus pushed her ahead of him. For over an hour they continued on, until finally Hermione realized she was squinting hard to see the books before her in the darkening room. She glanced down at Remus and nearly fell off the ladder in shock. He was oblivious to her gaze, busy staring instead at where Hermione’s legs fell into shadow above the hem of her Hogwarts woolen skirt. Hermione felt her cheeks grow warm, and though she knew it was impossible for him to see anything clearly in the shades of twilight’s darkest grey, she watched his face with rapture as he absentmindedly bit his bottom lip. She couldn’t help but shift her legs, rub them together.
Startled, Remus looked up into Hermione’s eyes before quickly turning away, striding towards the armchairs, drawing his wand and starting a hearty fire in the hearth. Hermione pulled herself back around the circular room, lighting the lamps at her eye level until the room was once again bathed in a warm glow. Finally she climbed down, turning to find Remus crouching by the fire setting several small pies into a cast iron Dutch oven. Emboldened, she reached a hand out to Remus’ bent head, holding her breath as she combed her fingers through the sandy brown smoothness.
“What’s for dinner?” she teased, and Remus chuckled lightly.
“Slightly stale steak and kidney pies, a treacle tart with two slices missing, and a half-filled flagon of pumpkin juice, I’m afraid.” He stood, nearly a full head taller than her, and tucked an unruly stray curl behind her ear.
Before she knew what was happening, Remus had gently cupped her cheek and lowered his lips to hers. And before she could think any better, Hermione responded. It had been months since her and Ron’s awkward go at being together, and even then it hadn’t felt quite the same as this. You weren’t supposed to bicker when snogging someone. Inept though she seemed to be at romance, Hermione knew that much. But this was even nicer than when Viktor had kissed her, for Remus’ lips almost seemed to be caressing hers, dancing with her in a way that made her stomach start to spin. The idea jolting through her, Hermione gasped and pulled away.
“I - um,” Remus stammered, his eyes confused and hurt as Hermione buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, that was just -”
“Wonderful,” Hermione interrupted. “It was just wonderful, but you’re my teacher, you’re - you’re like Harry’s uncle almost! This is wrong, I...” Hermione slid out of his arms. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
She ran from the room, slammed the door shut behind her and leaned her weight against it, pressing her palm to her forehead. “What’ve I done?” she whispered, but before her brain had time to formulate an answer she was flung forward onto the stone floor of the hallway. “Ouch!”
Remus was standing over her, hand still holding the doorknob and his face so full of emotion that she couldn’t tell what the prevailing theme was. After a second, he burst out laughing. “Turn about is fair play!” he crowed, offering his hand to Hermione and pulling her to her feet.
Hermione pulled her wand from her pocket and this time aimed it at her own palm where a large scrape was bleeding. “Episkey,” she sighed with a weary smile.
“Listen,” said Remus, an air of pleading in his tone. “I don’t know what I did exactly to upset you or what you mean about me being your teacher, and I don’t know who Harry is but I can assure you I’m not his uncle.”
Shaking her head as she stowed her wand away, Hermione finally met Remus’ eyes. “There’s something wrong, Remus. Not with you, believe me, it isn’t about you really, it’s just… I know so much that I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
“I’m good with secrets,” Remus insisted, standing in her way as Hermione tried to walk down the hall. “I mean, I don’t exactly know who you are, Hermione Granger from Ravenclaw, and I don’t understand you or how you know about my secrets,” he held up his scarred hands, “but I want to. I’ve known you for less than a day, but I want to know all that I can about you. I do know you aren’t an exchange student,” he continued, staring her down. “I know there’s something odd going on here, but instead of telling someone about it I chose to spend most of my day with you. That has to count for something.”
His shrewd eyes were staring intently into hers, and Hermione felt frustrated. She had always known Remus Lupin was a tenacious person but she hadn’t expected him to be even more stubborn than she.
“Tell me something,” he whispered. “Anything. Tell me why you’re here.”
“I don’t know,” Hermione moaned. “I don’t know what’s happened; I don’t know what I’m doing here!”
“Then tell me where you’re from.”
“When,” she breathed, closing her eyes and clamping her jaw shut.
“What?”
“Not where. When.”
Somewhere on one of the newfound library's uppermost shelves, two clicks and a soft whirring noise preceded the thin tinny bell of an ancient clock as it signaled the hour. Now nine o'clock, dinner in the Great Hall was long over as was most of Bevvie's make-shift meal.
“So what you're saying is,” Remus said, swallowing the last of his treacle tart, gesturing at Hermione with the fork she had conjured for him. “You're from the future. You and this guy Harry, and your friend Ron, you're all about to find the key to destroying Voldemort. And you're in this room - when it’s for hiding things - but then you grabbed a paperweight and all of a sudden were face to face with James?”
“Yes,” Hermione grimaced, curled up in the opposing armchair before the hearth. “I’m sorry, but I think that if I tell you anything else -”
“It will make things change in your time, I understand that. Don’t tell me things you can’t, you don’t need to. But if I’ve never even heard of you before, then you can’t be at Hogwarts yet. You’re saying this doesn’t happen for another seven years? Voldemort is going to be powerful for another seven years?”
Hermione’s face fell, her fingers absentmindedly twining around a curl. “Remus,” she sighed sadly, staring down at her knees. “I’m not even born yet.”
“What?” he gasped. “But you said that you haven’t aged at all, younger or older! You’ve got to be at least a fifth year -”
“I would be in my seventh year.”
“But that’s more than eighteen years from now! Eighteen years and he’s still powerful?!”
“More powerful than ever, but he wasn’t - I don’t know how to tell you what happened, I don’t think I can, but he hasn’t been powerful for eighteen years. Something happened and everyone but Dumbledore thought he was defeated. And in a way, he was…” Hermione stared up at Remus, her face pained with things she could not say.
“It’s okay,” Remus said, lurching forward and pulling her hands into his. “No, its okay, you don’t have to tell me these things! I’ll stop asking. Just tell me what I can do to make things right.”
“I don’t know! I don’t know how I got here, or why!” Hermione blurted. “I mean, there has to be a reason, there must be, right?!”
“Of course!” he insisted, jumping up to pace the length of the flagstones before the fire. “Something caused this; rifts in time don’t just happen by accident.”
“But that’s what I was doing all afternoon; I was in the library trying to find something, some way that I could have traveled without a Time-turner.”
“Did you find anything?” asked Remus.
“Not a thing.”
“Well then… what if it’s in here? What if that’s why the transforming room showed us this specific place; this library? Maybe the book is in here.”
Hermione pulled her head off her shoulder, startled. “Of course!” she agreed. “I saw a few things with time in their title, I just wasn’t thinking of it!” Frowning fiercely at her lack of concentration, Hermione waved her wand and conjured more candles, stoking the light in the hidden room so that even the uppermost shelves were easily visible. “Where do we even start?”
“You said that this room shows you whatever you need,” Remus said “You need books about time travel.”
Hermione nodded and jumped as books moved forwards off their shelves and floated down to form neat stacks on the windowsills. She and Remus both picked up a stack of books, moved to the armchairs and began to flip through them in earnest.
“These aren’t all going to be useful,” Remus muttered, plunking Calhard’s Advanced Magical Theory to the ground. “That only talks about the effects of time travel and what can happen if you’re seen or if you meddle with events to achieve different outcomes.” Hermione reached out to the heavy text on the ground but Remus grabbed her arm. “You don’t want to read it,” he said. “I’ll only make you more worried than you are. You said you’ve done this before, with a Time-turner, but this time was different. Can you tell me why?”
“I don’t know why,” Hermione confessed. For a moment both of them were still as Hermione thought hard. “I didn’t - I didn’t mean for this to happen, I didn’t use a Time-turner to get here. When I met James in the Room of Requirement last night I didn’t know what had happened to me.”
“But you think you know how you got here now?”
“No, not how, really,” said Hermione with a grimace. “Or why. But yes, I touched the paperweight, Ravenclaw’s paperweight, and I think that it transported me somehow.”
“Where is it now?” asked Remus. “Ravenclaw’s paperweight, where is it?”
“I don’t know.” Hermione buried her face in her hands, weaving her fingers through her hair and pressing the heels of her palms against her tired eyes. “I fell asleep last night and when I woke up it was gone.”
“Someone took it?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know!” Hermione wailed in frustration, tossing a copy of The Time Machine to the floor and standing. “I just want to go home!”
Remus unfolded his lanky frame and moved to her. “It’s okay,” he soothed, wrapping his arms round her as Hermione sagged against him, exhausted. “We’ll figure something out. I’ll look for time travel that doesn’t use a Time-turner, you’ll look for information about how the paperweight could get you here, about Ravenclaw. You and I are going to figure out what did this and we’re going to get you home.”
Hermione sighed against Remus’ chest as he stroked her hair. Even now he was the same; she could sense it even though she had never before realized it. He was startled by her panic, just as he had been when she hadn’t been able to face her boggart in her third year, but he still had a calming effect on her, taming her terrors and setting her mind at ease. For the first time in days - no, she thought - for the first time in months, she felt relaxed. She was free because he was holding her there, carefully against him. Hermione could feel the warmth of his skin underneath his white shirt, she could feel it radiate and warm her as well. It was comfortable here, like this, with Remus.
Maybe, she allowed herself to think momentarily; maybe this isn’t so wrong after all. Maybe it was meant to happen, like she and Harry were meant to save Buckbeak. At the time she had been scared, she had been terrified of the repercussions their actions would have on the future, but now she saw how even when knotted in complex ways, the mysteries of time had purpose and meaning. Could this be another twist in time, one that she would appreciate fully only once she was far removed from it?
Above them, the impatient clock chimed ten.
“I’m sorry,” Remus whispered, pulling back from her. “I don’t want to go, but I think that if I stay my friends will send out a search party. I’ve been missing for seven hours, I didn’t turn up for dinner, and,” he said with an irritated stare at the gilded face of the clock on the high shelf, “I’ve just missed curfew.”
“This really isn’t like you,” Hermione smiled, straightening Remus’ tie. “You’re never unreliable, never impulsive, unless -”
“Yes I am,” interrupted Remus, cupping her face in both his hands and kissing her again, softly but with such insistence that Hermione felt unsteady on her feet. “Yes I am,” he breathed against her lips. “Goodnight, Hermione Granger. I’ll find you tomorrow.” Remus smiled at her, pulled his bookbag from the ground near their dinner tray, and left her there beside the hearth, clutching the armchair for support.
Link to Part Two