Chapter Text
Hermione fled through the corridors of Hogwarts, clutching at the burning pain in her chest as she ran, struggling to breathe. She felt so stupid for going off on her own. The battle was over, they had won, and she’d had a stupid little argument with Ron over nothing! Of course, she was sorry that Fred had died but that didn’t mean she was going to be waiting around to devote all of her attention to him. He’d been ignoring her in favour of spending time with his family, and fair enough, but she’d felt as though she was intruding. Instead, she’d gone to help Madam Pomfrey with some of the minor injuries only for Ron to come and yell at her for not being there for him. It was ridiculous, and it had been ridiculous for her to run off in tears, only to run into bloody Dolohov, who was apparently just hiding out in a random corridor waiting for a victim.
He'd hit her with that stupid purple fire again, and now here she was, probably dying, she had a bunch of time sand melted into the wound from the last time this had happened, and she could feel it vibrating around now, heating up. She thought she’d lost Dolohov, she’d hit him with an Impedimenta and had been periodically dropping Tripping Jinxes behind her as she ran. She reached the Seventh floor corridor and conjured the Room of Requirement with relief, running inside and collapsing onto a sofa. She knew Dolohov wouldn’t be able to follow her into the room, she’d specifically requested that, though the others would be able to find her. She gasped as her chest burned more intensely, and she grabbed for her beaded bag. She had a vial of the same healing potion Professor Snape had brewed for the wound the first time, and she grabbed it, hoping to make the burning stop.
It didn’t. If anything the wound burned even hotter, she tore at her clothing, her t-shirt coming apart easily due to the hole burned in it, and stared at the glowing purple wound on her chest. The healing potion was doing something, but it wasn’t enough, and suddenly the world spun around her. She felt like she was moving, spinning and squeezed into darkness, it was almost as though she was apparating, but it felt wrong. It stopped suddenly, and she leaned over, vomiting.
She must have lost consciousness because she woke some time later. She used her wand to cast a Tempus charm, her watch said it was 7.15 but the room she’d conjured didn’t have a window and she wasn’t sure if she’d slept for a couple of hours, or if it was now night and she’d slept for more than twelve. Smoke poured from her wand and formed into the shape of 5.47am. She stared at it in surprise, wondering what was wrong with her watch. It had been early in the morning when she’d entered the room, had she slept for 24 hours? Surely someone would have come to find her if she had. She moved her wand again to cast the more complicated version of the charm to show the date and waited as smoke poured from her wand, forming the shape of 23/07/1977.
Hermione sat down, feeling stunned. It had been 02/05/1998 this morning. She cast the charm twice more, watching in horror as it continued to summon the same numbers, staring in dismay each time as she watched those last two sevens take shape. How could it be 1977? She wasn’t even born yet. She didn’t even know it was possible to travel back to before your own birth. Time turners certainly couldn’t accomplish it. She looked down at her chest again, the purple scar didn’t look any worse than it had after the first time she was hit. The time sand was no longer glowing orange and red the way it had before she blacked out. It seemed clear that was what had caused her time travel. She had no idea why she’d gone back so many years.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there. After a while she remembered her beaded bag and smiled in relief when she realised it was still in her shoe. She pulled out her reference list and started going over the contents, checking what she had available to her, relieved that she wasn’t completely destitute. Hermione tried to order her thoughts, but she wasn’t quite sure where to start. She pulled out a biro and a notebook to begin making notes, she needed to consider the nature of time travel, whether she could change things, if so, which things should be changed, and what she would do with her future.
She’d done a lot of research on the theories of time travel during her third year when she’d been given a time turner, and she knew it was the time turner itself which created a time loop. The theory of it was really quite complicated but essentially something happened in an original timeline which caused the traveller to go back and change things, but that deleted the original timeline, eventually stabilising time into a loop, so that the events the traveller changed ended up being the one they remembered. It had given her a headache but it matched up with her experience of using the device.
She’d read a couple of books which speculated that travelling without a time turner could result in a person changing time without creating a loop. These theorised that the traveller created another timeline, either deleting their original time or creating a new branch while their original timeline flowed on without them. Hermione decided to hope it was the second option, but either way the result was the same for her. She would never see her friends again. They hadn’t been born yet, and the moment she emerged from this room she would be changing the future, and even a tiny change in the face of the miniscule odds of that one particular sperm meeting the right egg, at the right time, meant that they probably never would. It was a lot to think about.
She’d thought it would take her time to mull it over, but really the conclusions she came to were rather quick. Yes, she would certainly try to change the future. They were currently in the very beginning of Voldemort’s first rise to power, and if he could be defeated earlier, without the need to wait for a prophecy that would cause him to go about murdering babies, then she had a moral obligation to see to it. She’d never be able to accomplish such a task herself though. She knew where and what his Horcruxes would be, but the only viable option she had was to go to Dumbledore. She wasn’t happy about it. After Harry had run off to die she’d gone and watched Professor Snape’s memories in the pensieve and had been horrified at the old man’s actions. She didn’t trust him, but she would have to get this information to him, and she’d need to convince him to help her somehow.
She pulled a tin of spaghetti out of her beaded bag and warmed it up with a heating charm. She’d asked Fleur to go shopping for her while they were staying at Shell Cottage so she now had quite a supply of nonperishable foods in her bag. If she had any hope of facing Dumbledore without giving away all of her secrets she needed to learn Occlumency. Harry had recounted his lessons with Professor Snape to her, and the only thing she knew about it was she needed to empty her mind and calm her emotions. It wasn’t much to go off, but better than nothing so she decided to start practicing.
She spent four days practicing meditation and making lists. She didn’t find it that difficult to clear her mind, and she practiced with a decoy detonator letting it randomly startle her so she could quickly blank her thoughts and emotions. She had no idea how it would work against a real Legilimens but she just had to hope it would be alright. She made a list of all of the things she planned to tell him about, and some of the things which she didn’t. She still didn’t really feel ready but she was starting to go a bit stir crazy with no-one to talk to so she finally pulled the portrait out of her beaded bag, asking, “Excuse me Headmaster Black are you there?”
She’d realised that being polite to the former headmaster was more likely to get a response. He entered the frame immediately and demanded, “Who are you? How are you summoning him.”
She stared at the man, and asked slowly, “You don’t know me?”
“Obviously not girl, we’ve never met. Who are you?”
She immediately felt stupid, but cleared her mind and kept her emotions calm, a portrait couldn’t legilimise her but she may as well practice. She understood what had happened and wasn’t quite sure why she’d expected anything else. Phineas hadn’t travelled through time with her, she’d just brought an empty canvas with her. She concluded that the Phineas Black of the current time had access to this portrait, but she didn’t know much about how the magical signatures of paintings worked. She was aware there was nothing to stop Phineas from relaying everything she said to his relatives and it would be bad news for her if the Black family found out about her. She needed a fake name, and the first thing that occurred to her was, “My name is Penelope Clearwater. I’m sorry for disturbing you, and for the poor introduction. I need to speak to Headmaster Dumbledore, I was wondering if you could tell me if he is at Hogwarts currently?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, “Why should I tell you that?”
“He will wish to meet with me. Do you know where he is please?”
“He has gone home for the holidays Miss Clearwater.”
“Oh. Are you able to get a message to him, perhaps through one of the other portraits?”
Phineas smirked, “What is your message?”
She blinked, “Please tell him… hmmn. Please pass on the message that Penelope Clearwater has a riddle for him, it’s ‘why did the Peverell brothers cross the river?’”
“Miss Clearwater, I do not know how you acquired an additional portrait frame for me but I do not appreciate my time being wasted.”
“It isn’t! Please pass my riddle on, the Headmaster will wish to meet with me.”
She waited as Phineas left the frame and she could only hope that he was in fact relaying her message somehow. After some time he returned, clearing his throat, “Miss Clearwater the Headmaster will meet with you. He asked if you would be able to make it to Hogsmeade by 2pm?”
“Please tell him I would prefer to meet in his office at Hogwarts. If he can just provide the password to pass the gargoyles I will meet him there are his earliest convenience, as I am already in the castle.”
Phineas looked around the room they were in curiously but said nothing. When he returned again he gave her the password, ‘sugar quill’ and told her the Headmaster would be in his office at 2pm. Hermione nodded. She thanked him before popping him back into the bag.