Chapter Text
BOOK I
When Hermione was seven, she'd had an appendectomy. Upon expressing consternation about the subsequent arrangement of her organs, her mother had told her that surgeons could stuff them back into her body absent rhyme nor reason because they would simply reposition themselves. This had sounded rather dubious to a seven year old as sceptical as Hermione — her chronic clumsiness had long-eroded the trust she placed in her person. Still, her mother had trained to become a doctor before moving into dentistry, and Hermione was known to be technocratic on the subject of science.
As it stood, all remaining traces of doubt were promptly erased. For there was no possible explanation for the turbulent roiling occurring her torso bar that her organs were rearranging themselves at speeds yet discovered by tachometers.
Indeed, Hermione felt as though she had been put through a dryer on spin cycle and squeezed through a syringe. Acrobats would weep for seeing her stomach, which was performing an applause-worthy feat of contortionism. Moreover, the roaring in her ears could rival the Hogwarts Express, such that she was almost surprised there wasn't steam emerging from them.
It was the kind of nausea-inducing feeling that Quidditch players craved, and had Harry and Ron been present, they would have undoubtedly shared an excited look and exclaimed: "Again!"
Hermione, quite contrarily, sunk her head into her knees with a low groan and solemnly swore off speeds greater than the leisurely pace of a three-legged tortoise for the remainder of her life.
When the riot in her stomach finally died down, such that it less resembled the French Revolution and more a primary school walkathon, she opened her eyes.
Everything was grey.
Grey wasn't unusual for London, which could unerringly be described a fog cloud of a city. But, looking around it, it seemed as though all colour had been bled from it entirely. Entire buildings were reduced to rubble, like sandcastles that had been half knocked over by a stray foot. People rushed by with all the erraticism of ants, and Hermione felt distinctly like a fish in a tank: small, isolated, and slow, watching the world go by at a pace she couldn't comprehend. Across the street and several dozen yards up, a sallow-looking woman in a black dress swept at the front of her house. Privately, Hermione thought this a rather fruitless exercise, not unlike mopping the ocean floor. The woman must have thought so too, for she did it with all the gloomy resignation of Ronald Weasley starting his potions assignment.
Hermione rubbed her eyes, wondering whether she had developed a cataract in the last several minutes, or perhaps whether her liver had inadvertently replaced her eyeballs. This would confirm her suspicion that organs were, in fact, not intelligent enough to independently rearrange themselves, but would be a rather unfortunate outcome nonetheless.
She sneezed violently. This had the dual effect of reminding her of her splitting headache, and clearing her confoundment with regards to the grey.
Dust.
The whole street was cloaked in it. It blanketed buildings and flurried through the air like a snow. It filled Hermione's sinuses, clogged her throat, and summoned tears to her eyes. Accompanying it was the acrid smell of motor oil and burnt carbon.
There was something decidedly off about the eerie situation. Rather like being in a nightmare, she would imagine.
Bracing her hands against the ground, she made to stand. She swayed like a lush and nearly keeled over.
"Ow," she murmured, bringing her hand to her temple. Her fingers came away a bright, brilliant red. It was an oddly alluring sight against the monochrome hellscape.
"You alright there, love?"
She turned her gaze on the kindly stranger. Concerned grey eyes bored into her own. It was the woman from across the street. Her skin was thin and worn, like tissue paper, and crinkled at the corners of her mouth and eyes.
"I'm bleeding," Hermione said and promptly collapsed, confirming that not even death could keep her from being an insufferable know it all.
This time when Hermione woke, it was to white. A markedly less depressing colour than grey, but uninspiring nonetheless. She seemed to be in a small plain room, bare but for two beds, a desk and some silver instruments.
A motion to her left roused her from her half-slumber. The disturbance in question was wearing an old-fashioned nurses uniform, not unlike something Madam Pomfrey would don. They even looked similar: both in their fifties or so, with silver-streaked brown hair and no-nonsense eyes. But where Madam Pomfrey had a silver Caladrius emblazoned on her uniform, this nurse wore a red cross.
Hermione frowned, glancing around. The hospital looked nothing like what she had seen at Hogwarts, which was stocked with potions and strange magical plants that would find their way around your ankles during the night.
The woman fussed about her bed, evidently unaware that Hermione was awake and positively brimming with questions.
"Excuse me," she said and the woman startled. "May I ask why I am here?"
"If I could answer you child, I would. Unfortunately, we were hoping to ask you the same thing."
"I see," said Hermione politely, swallowing her disappointment. The woman smiled sympathetically.
"I'm Mrs Pedrick. You were carried in by a couple who said they found you several street away, unconscious and alone. Tell me dearie, do you have parents?"
"Yes, I do," she said distractedly. Her parents, where were her parents?
"And where do they live?"
Hermione opened her mouth to answer before reminding herself it was unwise to provide her address to strangers.
"Perhaps if I could floo them?" she suggested.
The nurse sent her a strange look.
"Or phone them?" she amended, revising her opinion of the apparently muggle hospital.
"You must come from a wealthy family dear, for I don't know anyone with a phone," she declared. Hermione's frown deepened.
But before Hermione could utter a further question, an older woman strode into the room. Buttoned up to her neck and wearing a stern scowl that suggested she did not suffer fools, Hermione was immediately reminded of Professor Snape. She felt her instinctual deference to authority rise to the occasion.
"I understand you are to be my newest charge," she said dispassionately, the way one might adopt a problem rather than a person.
"Oh no, Ms Cole; she has parents, you see. Told me as much earlier," the nurse assured her.
To say Ms Cole brightened would be an overstatement, but her frown did perhaps become less cavernous.
"I see. Where are they then?"
"I don't know," Hermione said honestly. "I don't know how I came to be here."
Ms Cole turned to Miss Pedrick. "Was she found near the bombings?"
Miss Pedrick pursed her lips. "The couple who brought her in indicated they'd found her on Buxton St."
The two shared a meaningful look which made Hermione's heart race. Years of being excluded from playground jokes in combination with her sheer contempt for ignorance had made her keenly uncomfortable at the idea of being left outside of an information exchange.
"What bombings?" Hermione asked. Both women looked at her blankly.
"She is rather concussed," Miss Pedrick explained.
Mouth set in a grim line, Ms Cole untucked the newspaper from under her arm and handed it to Hermione.
The frizzy haired girl gasped and clasped her hands over her mouth, face going so white as to reflect the paper she held. Pictured on the front page was a gruesome scene: a street blown to bits and strewn with dark shapes that looked suspiciously like bodies. Above that, a caption: 11 dead, 32 injured and 9 missing. Above that, a headline emblazoned: "Whitechapel Bombed: Blitz Continues to Wreak Havoc on London". And above that, a date:
May 11, 1942.
7 hours earlier.
Hermione opened the door and was greeted with the stern smile of Professor McGonagall, and a strong sense of déjà vu.
Professor McGonagall had been the one to arrive the magical day that Hermione had found out that she was, well, magical. Dressed in a witch's hat and flowing plumb robes, her mother had hesitated to grant the witch entry, and it was only once the witch had transformed herself into a cat and back (and her father had fainted dead away) that her mother had offered the witch a cup of tea. Privately Hermione suspected Jean Granger had been more impressed that the witch had caused her stoic father to pass out than the display of magic, but that was neither here nor there.
"Minerva," Jean exclaimed, pulling the witch into a warm embrace. "I can't thank you enough for visiting us; Hermione was just about to walk me through her seventh pros and cons list on arithmancy vs divination and I am fresh out of wine."
Hermione scowled at her mother. Firstly, she thought this was a highly inappropriate thing to say in front of her Professor. More importantly, it was her ninth list, and this abhorrently inaccurate statement made Hermione look thoughtless.
Professor McGonagall's lips twitched and she followed Jean into the kitchen. The Professor surveyed the space with barely disguised interest. Though more subtle than Mr Weasley, like many wizarding folk she was distinctly out of place in a muggle household.
"So," said Jean, passing the older witch a cup of Earl Grey, "timeturners."
"Timeturners," Professor McGonagall agreed. "A magical instrument composed of pure gold and time sand that will allow you to repeat an earlier hour of the day as a body double. For your puroses, Hermione, it will allow you to take on additional courses."
Hermione had a thousand questions but only one hand, which she raised high in the air. Her mother sighed, while Professor McGonagall's eyes danced with amusement.
"Please proceed, Miss Granger," she said magnanimously.
4 hours earlier
Mr Lariopolis cooed at her with all the exuberence of a man who did not quite comprehend the developmental progress of children.
"Such a clever girl!" he exclaimed when Professor McGonagall introduced Hermione and her purpose. "Taking twelve subjects!"
Hermione and Professor McGonagall shared a distinctly unimpressed look.
"Now, they're dangerous little things in the wrong hands, time-turners are!" he said in a sing-song voice that Hermione found demonstrably patronising. "As a result, we keep them locked up in the Department of Mysteries and don't remove them save for exceptional cases. As we'll be restricting it's use to Hogwarts Grounds, I'll allow you to have a look at it today, but Professor McGonagall here'll be confiscating it until term begins."
Hermione accepted this with only a modicum of disappointment. From her earlier conversation with professor McGonagall, time turners were powerful artifacts with the propensity to be dangerous in the wrong hands. She told herself it was reasonable that the Ministry would want to ensure Hermione was using it under regulated circumstances.
"Now before I forget, I'm going to need you to sign this contract," he declared, passing her both a rolled up piece of parchment. Hermione cast her eye over it and her eyes widened. She was mostly unfamiliar to the law, save breaking a few of them for the purpose of ensuring the Boy Who Lived continued to be a Boy Who Lived, but even she was certain that this contract was wholly absurd.
- The Signatory, having affixed her mark hereto, undertakes an absolute interdiction upon communicating, confessing, conveying, signalling, hinting, winking, nodding, whistling, humming, scribbling, scratching, coughing, sneezing, or otherwise transmitting, whether directly or by implication, any matter whatsoever that she hath seen, heard, smelt, tasted, touched, perceived, dreamt, suspected, or divined within, about, or tangential to the premises and proceedings of the Department of Mysteries.
- For the avoidance of doubt, this interdiction encompasses not only express disclosure but also implication, insinuation, allusion, supposition, telepathy, or any other form of communicative leakage whereby a third party might contrive to discover that the Signatory has ever entered, beheld, or otherwise encountered the Department of Mysteries, or that she hath suffered peculiar alterations of chronology, temporality, or personal circumstance therein.
- The Signatory may upon parchment petition apply to the Ministry for a dispensation from this interdiction; but the granting or withholding of such dispensation shall rest wholly within the Ministry’s capricious and absolute discretion, and no expectation or presumption of favour shall accrue to the Signatory thereby…
There were 43 clauses in total, each one more absurd than the last. How was one expected to communicate any information whatsoever concerning their experiences at the Department of Mysteries by sneezing?
Hermione frowned: if she was ever to become an unspeakable, he would have to start thinking creatively. Alas, Hermione's desire to pursue 12 courses overrode her doubts about the queer contract, and she procured a pen from her pocket, and made to sign it.
"Ah, ah, ah!" said Mr Lariopolis, wagging his index finger. "By this quill, if you please. No ink needed."
He exchanged her muggle ballpoint for a burgundy red quill, which caused her hand to tingle strangely.
She glanced at Mr Lariopolis askance.
"It's a blood quill," he declared, as cheerily as one might state that it's Friday, or that birds could fly, or that Hermione granger was a smart cookie. "It creates a magical binding contract. Genius, isn't it? Avoids the tedium of asking you to read out 13 pages of parchment, and the barbarity of an Unbreakable Vow."
"But that's blood magic!" she said, frowning. "Isn't that illegal?"
"The Ministry has seen fit to carefully curate their definition of what constitutes blood magic," Professor McGonagall said through thin lips.
"Indeed," agreed Mr Lariopolis happily. "Blood magic is illegal, but artifacts invoking them are not. Many wizarding seals and security require blood. The quill is similar—it seals your lips and secures the interests of the Department of Mysteries."
"How does it work?" she wondered aloud.
Mr Lariopolis laughed. "You know, there are several Unspeakables in the Department studying just that. The best theory we've come up with so far is that wizarding blood is another kind of magical core, like that of unicorn hair, or phoenix feather commonly found in wands. But whereas those cores are best channelled through wands (alongside the basic components of a spell), blood is best channelled through runes. Hence their use in artifacts."
Hermioen considered this for several moments. On one hand, that rather took the darkness out of the supposedly dark nature of blood magic. On the other, she could see how harvesting human blood for its magical properties could quickly become problematic. That said, she couldn't imagine that the dragon that gave their heartstring for her wand core had a particularly happy ending either. She filed further contemplation of that ethical dilemma away for later.
"Unfortunately your use of the time-turner is contingent upon you testing it in the Department of Mysteries, and your access to the Department of Mysteries is contingent upon you signing the contract, dear," said Mr Lariopolis gently, evidently mistaking her silence for refusal.
Hermione bit her lip nervously. She didn't strictly like the idea of blood magic, but she really did want this time-turner. Sighing, she signed her name. The ink was viscous and blood red, causing her stomach to stir uncomfortably.
The wizard looked hopefully at Professor McGonagall, who shook her head. "I will leave you in the capable hands of Mr Lariopolis, Miss Granger. I have no interest in signing that contract."
Mr Lariopolis nodded his understanding and clapped his hands together. "No matter. This way, if you please."
Mr Lariopolis herded her through the ministry like an over-energised border collie. Hermione, who opined that distance was impediment to efficiency and was the less important aspect of the space-time continuum, was a naturally fast walker, but even she struggled to keep up with the pace of her self-appointed sheepdog. This was a shame, for Hermione had never been inside the Ministry, and would have loved to take a moment to bask in her surroundings.
Paper airplanes whizzed passed her ear like small swallows, and queer magical lifts ascended and descended without warning out of thin air. Hermione nearly shrieked when one appeared not two metres in front of her and disappeared into the ceiling.
In spite of his speed, Hermione could begrudgingly admit that he was a rather good tour guide: as he walked, he laid out the history of the Ministry of Magic, and explained the function of the various offices they sped past. Hermione could barely retain the information, so over-stimulated was she, but it was exciting nonetheless.
Mr Lariopolis was leading them into the bowels of the Ministry, and the sun-baked hallways of gave way to black marble and eerie green torchlight. At one point, they made five right turns in a row, suggesting that either Mr Lariopolis was intentionally attempting to confuse her, or that the Department didn't obey the ordinary laws of physics.
"Here we are!" he declared in front of a sleek black door with a silver snake head protruding from the middle. "Please prick your finger on Bartholomew's left fang, you'll be granted entrance in accordance with Clause 43 of the Contract."
Hermione looked between Mr Lariopolis and the snake-like handle, and his encouraging nod suggested that the latter was indeed the Bartholomew in question. Hermione extended her hand tentatively and yelped when Bartholomew, seemingly weary of her hesitation, promptly bit her.
"Now Bartholomew," Mr Lariopolis chided. "That's no way to treat a guest."
He smiled sympathetically at Hermione and cast a quick episky on her hand as the door shimmered, becoming translucent.
"Excellent, if you'll follow me."
The man put a bracing hand on Hermione's shoulders and steered her through the corridors. The Department of Mysteries branched beneath the Ministry like a beehive, with heptagonal rooms consisting of seven doors opening to reveal an identical heptagonal room, which bore another heptagonal room that led to another helptagonal room.
Mr Lariopolis navigated them through the maze at a pace that gave Hermione vertigo. At one point, he opened the wrong door, nearly toppling into what appeared to be outer space.
"Whoops," he said happily, slamming the door and turning to the one on his left. Hermione mentally reread her contract, attempting to recall any clauses relating to child endangerment or negligence. She came up painfully short.
"How do you know where you're going?" Hermione asked curiously after their fifth door.
"Ah, a good question! Time is my department, so I'm currently navigating on memory. But between us, all of the departments are navigated by the doors according to the subject in question's relevant arithmantic progression. Accessing space is rather straightforward, for instance (truthfully, you just take the same door each time), but accessing the time department is rather more complex because it isn't linear. And as for love — well, it's incalculable. You simply have to wander around trying different doors until it pops up. And it does so in the strangest places too! The time department is linked to prophesy, and to a lesser extent to death, so it makes sense that their doors only differ towards the end. But love remains quite the mystery; it appears wherever it wants, whenever it wants. In 1547 it was lost for three whole years if you can believe it."
"That sounds terribly inefficient," she opined, wrinkling her nose.
"Yes, well, love often is. Ah, here we are!" he declared, ushering her through her seventh door. This one did not open to reveal another heptagonal room, but instead a large atrium. The walls were a familiar black marble, but unlike the rest of the ministry, they rose up high into nothingness, blending with the sky in a strange, blurred sort of way.
The longer Hermione looked, the odder it became. It was as though she were watching the sky on triple speed; the clouds streaked by at an unnatural pace, and the afternoon seemed to be dimming before her very eyes. What's more, it seemed as if she were seeing it through a long-exposure lens; colours, clouds and stars lingered slightly before trailing into nothingness. The sight was surreal and made Hermione's head spin.
Several people swept past them in flowing white robes, giving the impression of ghosts. They nodded to Larry as they passed, and one of them — a particularly pale and suspiciously translucent witch — quipped: "Afternoon Larry!".
"That's Madam Whither," he whispered to Hermione. "She's been working in the death department since 1666. Bit of a workaholic in my opinion, but she makes the most delicious scones."
Hermione did a double take and peered back at the woman just in time to see her past cleanly through a wall. A thousand questions buzzed in her mind, and she hurried to catch her guide, her short legs pinwheeling to keep up.
But before she could open her mouth to ask any of them, Mr Lariopolis stopped suddenly.
"If you'll wait here a moment," he said. Without waiting for an answer, he disappeared through another door. Hermione hesitated only a second before pressing her ear against it. She yelped when it opened a mere second later, nearly sending her sprawling on the floor.
"Here we are," he announced, ever unflappable. "This one's one of our more recent models — a 1977 edition. It makes for a much smoother trip back in time, and it's a little less conspicuous than the traditional hour glass."
He handed the object to Hermione, who brought it to her eyeline curiously.
It was gold and circular, no bigger than a twenty pence coin, and attached to a long, fine chain. It consisted of two thin concentric circles, the smaller of which cradled a small hourglass filled with brilliantly purple sand. It was beautiful, she thought absently, and then scolded herself: more importantly, it was practical.
"… and I'm sure Minerva would have told you the most important rule, which is that you must not, under any circumstances, let yourself be seen by your past self. Dangerous things happen to wizards – and witches – that meddle with time."
Hermione blinked; the man appeared to have been speaking for some time while she was lost to her thoughts. Fortunately the rules regarding the use of her time-turner were her seventeenth question of Professor McGonagall earlier that day, and she was not forced to ask him to repeat himself.
"Wonderful! Now, let's take you to one of our experimental chambers so that you can take it for a spin," he said with a waggle of his eyebrows. Hermione's eyes twitched with the effort of not rolling them and she followed him down a hallway at his usual breakneck pace.
As they neared the end, Hermione felt the temperature of the room rise noticeably. Not being particularly in tune with her senses, it was generally a given that if Hermione could feel it, something was wrong. She halted in front of a door which seemed to be epicentre of the heat radiation.
"Excuse me Mr Lariopolis, what's in this room?" she asked.
"Ah! That, my dear, is my more recent experiment. Theoretically, it would allow one to travel back in time and change it, therein altering the time loop. A true time-turner if you will," he said smugly.
"Isn't that terribly dangerous?" Hermione asked, frowning. In her mind, there was a vast difference between making a decision and remaking that decision once you had available information about the consequences of said decision. The idea seemed skin to receiving a mark on an assignment back, editing it, and asking for a remark. It was, frankly, dishonest.
"Yes, well, we don't intend to actually use it. It's for pedagogy," he sniffed, looking somewhat put out by her lack of enthusiasm.
Privately, Hermione felt pedagogy was a poor use of resources, but suspected this opinion wouldn't find favour with Mr Lariopolis. She was reminded of the day of her sorting ceremony. After several exchanges which seemed to increasingly frustrate the hat (who had, purportedly, "not an inkling" of where to put her), the had had asked where whether she it was more important to know or to act. She had queried the purpose of knowing if one didn't intend to do anything with the information. It had, she felt, been the answer that had seen her sorted into Gryffindor.
"I'll have to obliviate you in any instance, so you may as well take a peek," he said jovially, and opened the door.
Before she could protest on all accounts – morally, to perusing something she found ethically repugnant, and personally, to the idea of being obliviated – a searing cloud of heat enveloped her.
It felt as though she were being embraced by the sun. Her bones liquified, her blood boiled, her nerves screamed, her vision went white. It was pain and ecstasy and horror and surprise, all compressed into a single second.
In her last moments, Hermione wondered whether she might follow in the phantom footsteps of Madam Whither, haunting the halls of the Department of Mysteries evermore.