426Hermione Granger sat motionless, staring rigidly into the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room. Next to her was her best friend, Ronald Weasley. Neither said a word as they watched the fire in the heath crackle and glow.
The Last Battle had commenced last week, Dark versus Light. The Ministry of Magic had refused to take part, deciding to leave the fighting to the Order of the Phoenix.
The fire flared up. A tear dribbled down Hermione's face.
Harry had fought valiantly against Voldemort. He, wand in hand, had saved Hermione's life when Voldemort shot his death day curse. She was cornered and wandless with the menacing creature advancing with a tortuous grin on his face. As the fatal curse released from his lips, Harry dived in front of Hermione. The flare of brilliant green light hit Harry and all at once, she found him lying on the ground motionless. In that moment a blaze of brilliant gold and red light burst out of Harry's chest and struck Voldemort dead.
Dumbledore later said that the entity that came from Harry was love; Because Harry had selflessly sacrificed himself for Hermione, he expelled a great uncontainable force that demolished Voldemort's entire being. Once Voldemort died, all of the remaining Death Eater and Dark creatures were easily captured and brought down. In the explosion that occurred when Love and Hate fought, both the Dark Lord and the Boy Who Lived were killed.
The light had come from Harry- red and gold. The fire blazed on dancing reflections in her teary eyes.
"At least he'll be with Sirius and the rest..." Ron said quietly. Hermione sobbed on.
Harry wasn't the only one to die. Remus Lupin, among others, was the most important to die. He was murdered right after he completed the task he lived to do; kill the traitor who caused the death of his best friends. Wormtail had stood no chance against Moony's fury.
More tears welled in Hermione's eyes as she thought about her old professor. He had led such a tough life. Three weeks before the Last Battle, the Ministry had decreed that all werewolves, giants, and merpeople were to be outlawed and treated as traitors to the ministry. Many dozens of the creatures had gone into hiding, some near the very grounds of Hogwarts; the Hogwarts that would never be the same again without Harry.
Ron grabbed her hand and brushed a lock of long curly brown hair out of her face. He hugged her and let the witch cry onto his shoulder. She heard his muffled sobs and hugged him tighter, knowing his loss was as great as hers.
"It was meant to be," Ron murmured, patting her back. "It was meant to be," he repeated to himself.
Hermione stemmed her flow of tears and gave Ron one last hug. "I'm g-going out," she said weakly, standing up. Her height, almost 5'10, barely reached Ron's chin. It was the dead of night. Ron understood.
"Here," Ron said, handing her an old piece of parchment and a liquid-like silver cloak, "take these."
Hermione nodded and slipped the Invisibility cloak over her head, causing her whole body to disappear. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," she whispered to the parchment.
Ink lines spread over the parchment. Hermione's sharp eyes spotted Snape in the dungeons, probably looking for curfew-breaking Gryffindors. Filch and Mrs. Norris were stalking the library. Only recently had Mrs. Norris been restored to her human body, as it turned out she had once been Filch's wife until a QuikSpell went wrong. The two had become inseparable, plotting together to make new punishments for rule-breakers in Hogwarts.
Seeing her path outside was clear, Hermione snuck out of the silent Common Room. As it was a cold winter night at nearly one in the morning, all of the other students were asleep.
The Fat Lady was snoozing in her portrait, unaware of Hermione passing by her. Hermione crept down staircase after staircase, not even watching where she was going. After six years in Hogwarts, she was accustomed to all the hallways and secret passageways.
Taking a short-cut through a picture of the third floor, Hermione made it to the front doors in a fraction of the time it would have taken a first year. Closing the doors behind her, Hermione stepped out into the cold. The grounds were silver-white with snow and all the trees were bare and ice-laden.
"Mischief managed…" Hermione didn't need the map anymore.
She slipped over to the lake, the cold not as icy as her once-broken heart. She slipped cloak onto her lap, in part because the night was dark enough and far enough from the castle as to not be seen, and partially because her legs were cold. Hermione sat down on the snowy grass near the frozen lake. The ice was not scuffed at all and reflected the clouds above clearly.
When the clouds parted, a full moon peeked out. Silvery light danced softly on the ice. Hermione gazed deeply into the ice and remembered in her third year, how Harry had saved her again. Suddenly, as if her memory came alive, a howl pierced the night air. It took a few moments before the word 'Werewolf' popped frantically into her grief begotten mind. Hermione leapt to her feet and grabbed the Invisibility Cloak and Marauders Map. Fear turned her blood to ice. Ignoring her shaking limbs, Hermione crept quietly up to the castle, making no sharp movements for fear they would alert the werewolf to her presence.
Another howl sounded, nearer this time. Suddenly, a crash in the trees signified the creature bursting out of the Forbidden Forest. The large man-wolf sped after her, obviously smelling her on the winter wind. It raced towards her, moving faster than any mammal on the earth.
Hermione gasped and began running. She was still too far away from the castle for anyone to hear her screams, so she didn't waste her breath. 'Oh, so you can handle Death Eaters but not one lousy werewolf,' she mentally scolded herself half-heartedly.
"Stupefy!" she shouted. The spell had no damaging consequences to the animal, but instead encouraged the ravaging beast.
She heard the werewolf's paws approaching rapidly and she tripped over a protruding tree root, landing hard in the freezing snow. She rolled over, facing towards the large gray animal. It growled aggressively at her, trying to see if she was a threat.
Hermione let out a little whimper of fear, but the werewolf took it as a challenge. All she saw was a flash of sharp teeth before pain ripped through her arm. Hermione gasped in pain and the werewolf lifted her up by her wounded arm and threw her, claws digging deep into the fresh wound.
When she landed, Hermione tried to take back the shout that erupted from her throat. Upon discovering its prey was still alive, the werewolf grabbed her waist, holding on so hard that Hermione felt a few ribs snap under the pressure.
It picked her up easily and flung her into a beech tree nearby. Hermione hit the old tree, the rough bark scratching the back of her head as she slid down the trunk. Ice tinkled down and broke upon her mangled body. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
The werewolf approached, probably to eat her. Hermione closed her eyes tight then heard the call of another werewolf in the woods. Forgetting about Hermione, the Dark Creature sped into the Forbidden Forest to join its pack.
Hermione let out a squeak as she felt the blood gushing from her arm. She glanced warily over at it and saw fang-sized holes on her elbow. The bone was snapped and was sticking out at a nauseatingly off angle. The nails of the beast had scratched deeply into the rest of her arm.
She coughed, and then stopped midway, choking as pain clenched her broken rib cage. Perhaps it was the fact that she hit her head too hard. Perhaps Hermione had become overwhelmed with panic. Either way, struck with a sudden desperate idea, Hermione stood shakily and propped herself against the huge tree. Putting her miraculously unharmed Marauders Map and Invisibility Cloak in one hand, Hermione reached in her robes for her Time-Turner.
She quickly decided to go back an hour and stop herself from going outside. Hermione gave it a spin, but too late noticed the crack in the hourglass. She barely had time to register it before she was covered in the sands of time.
Hermione felt time rush by her, but it was much more time than the hour or two she normally went through. When she finally stopped, Hermione felt worry wash over her. The tree she was leaning against was much slimmer and shorter than it had been seconds ago.
Looking up, she saw the tree was in full bloom, indicating that it was summer in whatever era she had landed in. Above it was the dawn air, around the time people would be at breakfast.
Hermione limped whimpering up to the castle, the pain in her arm almost too much to bear. Though she knew a spell to heal the broken bones, her mind was too shocked to remember it. So Hermione tied the cloak around her arm as a makeshift splint and hobbled towards the castle doors.
When she passed the Great Hall, she heard no one. School most likely hadn't started yet. According to the temperature outside, it should be full of students within a month. It was sweltering hot but Hermione did not unpeel her bloodied clothes from her body for fear of further injury.
The witch stumbled determinedly up to the Hospital Wing. After thirty minutes she made it to the sterile white infirmary. She had to stop along the way many times, catching her breath next to almost every torch in the castle.
When she stumbled in, the only person there was a nurse in white robes. "Help," Hermione gasped out before collapsing on the tiles.
When Hermione gained consciousness, she first noticed the rough cotton sheets surrounding her. She then realized that two people were standing over her. "Do you know who she is?" asked an old, deep voice. It was vaguely familiar to her, but her tired mind couldn't place it.
"No," said a high voice, "She just walked in, all bloody and asked for help before fainting!" The voice sounded very distressed.
"I see a Head Girl badge on her robes. Do you know why?" the first voice asked. Hermione had a feeling from the tone of his voice he already knew the reason.
"I don't know, Headmaster. But I found these in her hands," the female voice said. There was a rustle and the man gasped.
"An Invisibility Cloak and Time Turner! I wonder our mysterious guest was doing with two of the rarest items there are? Why she would carry a blank parchment around, I don't know. Maybe these items are more common in the future."
Both Hermione and the female voice gasped simultaneously. Hermione's eyes flew open. "You're right. I-aaaahhhk," she stopped as the sudden movement in her ribcage sent her swirling in a torrent of pain.
"Didn't you heal me!" Hermione asked the brown-haired Madam Pomfrey. She looked so different. Her wisps of grey were gone, replaced with more eloquent, brown, shoulder-length hair. Hermione only recognized her from her piercing gray stare. Hermione's eyes moved to Albus Dumbledore. His appearance was quite unchanged except that the length of his long beard had been shortened a smidge.
"Oh dear! You must know that healing potions don't stop the pain! They only mend what is wrong. If you put a band-aid on a scrape, it doesn't mean the wound doesn't hurt! The potion I gave you only patched you up!" Madam Pomfrey stated as if were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Perhaps its different from the timeframe that she comes from my dear lady," Albus mused wisely.
"What year are you from?" he asked, turning his attention to Hermione.
"2008," she said shortly, the pain a dull fire in her ribcage.
"You are now in 1978; School starts tomorrow, luckily for you. What manner of being attacked you?" he asked calmly.
"Were-werewolf," she managed to gasp out. Suddenly it hit her. She was thirty years in past.
Dumbledore looked grim. "Miss…" he stopped, eyes asking her name.
"Granger, Hermione Granger," the witch said, worried that it could get worse than it already was.
"Miss Granger… I'm sorry, but you have been given lycopthery; the curse of the werewolf," he said sadly, patting her shoulder soothingly.
Hermione blinked in shock. It was true! She hadn't even remembered that a werewolf bite forces the person to become a werewolf. "The good news is we have another student who is also a werewolf,' Dumbledore said.
Hermione had a gut feeling she knew who it was,
"Remus Lupin."