It took a single step

The situation Hermione found herself in seemed to be impossible, defying the basic laws of nature and magic. But reality is never impossible, nor can it contain paradoxes. Reality simply is. Which means that facing a seemingly impossible reality, or a paradox, is not due to reality itself being somehow flawed. It signals a flaw in one's knowledge or thinking.

The mirror she's been pulled through did not contain an Hour-Reversal Charm. She knew that with near-absolute certainty, one resulting from the fourteen reports she's read on it and due to her own detection charms. The sensations the... displacement... generated were different from those she knew from her own experiences with a Time-Turner.

But the mirror spat her out into what looked like a rarely-used storage room in Hogwarts and the first person she saw from a window once her senses stopped making the world blurred and nauseating was Professor Kettleburn... and he was too young and his right hand was the color of freshly polished copper. He was too young... And she remembered him having a flesh-and-blood right hand even in 1999... And *everyone* she could see from that window wore clothing too old-fashioned even by wizarding standards of her own times.

An artifact supposedly incapable of causing time travel sent her seemingly back in time, into a past different from the one she remembered and supposedly impossible? After all, she couldn't have caused Kettleburn's right hand already being a prosthetic one if the mirror simply sent her back in time, and she couldn't have remembered him always having a natural one if somebody else changed her timeline. An impossibility, or so it might seem. But reality is never impossible.

So Hermione grabbed a tattered cushion from a decrepit chair and found herself a spot on the floor that would hide her from a cursory glance into the room. Next she pulled out what seemed like a half-folded, half-crumpled copy of the Daily Prophet from the bin by the door. And then, seated in her temporary hideout, with the cold wall of the castle behind her back, she checked the front page of a paper that didn't seem aged by more than a year.

It said 1968.

The Prophet, and the spells she'd used to try to check she wasn't dreaming or hallucinating or such, let Hermione put together a first draft of a theory that might explain her situation.

Somebody might have used time travel and created an alternate timeline, one in which Professor Kettleburn lost his right hand. One where Albus Dumbledore became the Headmaster in 1964, according to a brief mention in the Prophet. This wasn't a change in Hermione's original timeline, it was a parallel reality, and the mirror she's entered was connected with the one she's been spat out of into this parallel timeline. The difference between the dates in those two timelines was likely caused by how long the time jump that caused the reality split was.

Hermione's own timeline was safe and unchanged. She wasn't more than thirty years in her own past. She was more than thirty years in the past of a reality that must have split away from her own timeline at least a few years earlier, though there was also the possibility this reality was independent of her own. The big problem was...

There were half-real cracks visible just under the surface of the mirror three steps away from Hermione, as if Hermione's travel might have damaged the mirror's enchantments. The cracks were fading but that was likely just a result of the mirror powering down.

There was a very real danger she was stuck in somebody else's 1968 and trying to go back might splinch her or worse. Finding a safe way back home might take *months*.

****

"I have to admit that sending a corporeal Patronus to deliver a message is certainly a novel way of asking for a meeting, Miss Granger. Few witches your age can cast the charm as such and while I'm willing to admit I've been toying with the idea myself, no texts I've heard of mention the possibility of using a Patronus to convey a secure message. That idea alone would be a reason for me to meet you, Miss Granger. However, and please accept my apology if I'm wrong on this, I feel you hope this to be more than just a presentation of that one idea. So what brings you to Hogwarts, Miss?"

Albus Dumbledore was both alive and a bit younger than the one from Hermione's memories. His hair contained the same amount of silver but his face seemed less worn out, his wrinkles less prominent. And everything that Hermione has been able to learn about him since she has ended up in the different timeline told her he was just as firmly on the side of good as the one she used to know, even if he was also as weird and controversial as her reality's one.

"I have learned of the technique thanks to another you, Headmaster."

His bright blue eyes suddenly felt like two piercing lances of inquisitive caution.

"It has been almost nine hours since you've sent your Patronus, Miss Granger. Too much for an ordinary Time-Turner, even if one was to consider a Time-Turner ordinary. How bad is the timeline problem you are dealing with?"

The speed with which Dumbledore understood the basics of the situation was maybe a bit frightening, given he's had to work with just one sentence. Was it possible that he's had to deal with more time travel problems in his past?

"Might be decades. But this is not just a time-travel incident, Headmaster. My guess is I'm from a parallel timeline, even though I also come from a time that could be considered future compared to here and now. I'm extremely unlikely to damage your timeline but I only know our timeline, not yours, so any information from my own reality is unreliable in yours. Your reality was different from mine even when I arrived, for example Professor Kettleburn never lost his right hand in my timeline, so this isn't just time travel. However, your world seems quite similar to mine, I'm stuck here for the moment and we’ve been through some very difficult times and I do want to help you keep more people alive, Headmaster. Can I make a few proposals regarding my stay here?"

****

Bella's eyes noticed a door behind the staff table open and let in an unknown witch in a student uniform. Possibly young enough for a sixth or seventh year, bushy brown hair styled to help hide her looks and make her attract less attention. Confident, alert, focused, a hint of a quick-draw wand holster indicative of her maybe being more than just a dueling enthusiast. And seeing a flick of her wrist made Bella quickly scan her housemates to try to guess whether any of them noticed the witch use wandless magic to close the door behind her.

"Welcome, students, welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, we have to invoke one more tradition and introduce a new student who is not a first year. Miss Hermione Granger, leaving Australia after the tragic loss of her parents and returning to her family's roots in Britain, is a talented but homeschooled witch. Therefore, in order to be allowed to take N.E.W.T.s, she will be joining the sixth years and has to be Sorted. It is my hope that whatever House she ends up in, her new housemates will help her learn our customs and find new friends, no matter how late she might be joining them. Thank you!"

The new girl set out towards the sorting stool and Bellatrix has turned towards Andy and shifted her face into a convincing imitation of a sisterly barely secretive gossip.

"Have you noticed her eyes and her hands when she walked into the hall? And her holster? I'd bet she's fought real duels!"

"Seems likely just an Auror child to me."

"You're hopeless. Well maybe not hopeless, I'd bet most of the fools in this hall have not noticed the signs at all, but you have to get better."

"Most of the fools in this hall aren't exceptional Slytherins from a prominent family, Bella."

"Their problem, not mine. Play curious and scoot to the left, I want a free spot for her between us in case she gets Sorted into Slytherin."

And the Sorting hat didn't disappoint.

"Slytherin!"

Pure, unadulterated shock. It was gone in a fraction of a second, to be replaced by a smile even Bella could believe genuine on such an unknown face, and that smile further convinced Bella that she was reading the Granger girl correctly. Gifted, confident, with outside-school duelling experience and so much courage she took it for granted she'd get Sorted into Gryffindor. Well, the Sorting Hat evidently considered her ambitions and her cunning to surpass that courage - and the speed with which she's been able to hide her surprise and embrace an unexpected opportunity spoke volumes to Bellatrix. The newbie knew she'd be swimming with sharks and she gave every sign she was one too.

Bellatrix also saw Granger's eyes scanning the Slytherin table during her walk towards it and picking out some of the important people. Walden, Lucius, Corben, Rodolphus, Rabastan, her sisters. Bella. So she wasn't just a talented backwoods girl, she did her homework and learned who was who even if she wasn't expecting to end up in Slytherin.

Sure, her family name was a complete unknown to Bella. Probably some adventurous nobodys who've tried to find fame and fortune half the world away a few generations ago. Reasonably wealthy, judging by her robes, but no nobility. However, Bellatrix had a feeling the girl had the ability to climb as high as her status would let her. A perfect future subordinate or a lower-class ally, and Andy's damned friendliness towards questionable folk could prove beneficial for a change. So Bella beamed at her new housemate and patted the free spot between Andy and herself that her foresight helped her create.

"Hermione, right? I'm Bellatrix, these two are my sisters Andromeda and Narcissa, these fine young gentlemen are Rodoplhus and Rabastan Lestrange. So why don't you join us and tell us your first impressions of Hogwarts?"

It was a game she's been playing for so long that *nobody* would be able to guess that the fine young gentleman her parents arranged her to marry after graduation was a nausea-inducing psychopathic brute she'd be happy to kill if he ever overstepped the boundaries she'd set.

****

"Is the Sorting Hat somehow damaged in this reality, Headmaster? I know I've never been sorted by this particular hat before - but I'm Gryffindor, so why send me into Slytherin?"

Dumbledore's face was compassionate, with a slight tint of sadness.

"I think you know why, Miss Granger."

"And I think you know why I've asked anyway, Headmaster."

His first response was a slight nod, followed by his fingers tracing the edge of his desk.

"The Sorting Hat decides based on what it determines best for the student and the school, Miss Granger. Don't get me wrong, I stand by my word that I will let you join our efforts to prevent Voldemort's rise to power. You *are* an adult – and I'm not making an exception for you here, many sixth and seventh years are legally adults and you're older than most. However... You've already learned the main lessons that Gryffindor teaches. Isn't Slytherin actually the best fitting House, given your current circumstances?"

Hermione's hands expressed her unhappy agreement as clearly a her face.

"It might be. But I'll be frank here, Headmaster. You have my deepest respect for how you've never turned into a raging killing machine. I'm not suggesting you should in fact become one, nor do I think I might snap that way, but the sentiment is real. I used to think the wizarding society was positively medieval in my time, even when I was still a naive kid, but the wizarding society here is even worse. And Slytherin feels the worst, a cesspool of slavers, bullies, schemers, opportunists, idiots and full-on psychopaths."

"Such is the reality of our world, Miss Granger. Wizards have been long-lived even long before we have effectively split from the Muggle society and our culture's evolution is slower. The situation is changing, thanks to Muggle medicine getting better and pushing their lifespans closer to ours, but they can't match our healers yet. Even I find myself concerned by some aspects of Muggle society, so don't be surprised that many wizards in fact do their best to make us regress."

"I know. And this experience is a shocking reminder of how much you and others have helped improve between today and when I came to Hogwarts back home, Headmaster. It helped me better understand why things were so bad even in my time. But I'm tired, Headmaster, we've been fighting a war for years and I'm not sure my cover – or my sanity – will last two years in Slytherin."

This confession made a shadow of a sigh escape Dumbledore's lips before he replied.

"I can hardly do more than repeat my words from a few days ago, Miss Granger."

"And I'm grateful for that assurance, Headmaster. Knowing I can quit at any time I might decide to really helps. And I'm sure you know I've already received some money thanks to the improved recipes you've convinced me to share. But saying that me getting Sorted into Slytherin was not a pleasant surprise feels like an understatement of the year."

Dumbledore's right hand, which has been exploring the depths of the top drawer of his desk during Hermione's last few sentences, fished out a greenish ceramic bowl.

"Don't worry too much, Miss Granger. I don't know you that long but I already feel there is a good chance you might be able to help some of them become better people and that in itself might help make your stay here less unpleasant. Sherbet Lemon?"

****

Bellatrix was both intrigued and irritated. She just watched Corban try to frighten Granger into talking about her family, only to get hit by a nonverbal and wandless Confundus he didn't see coming. Bellatrix was in fact quite sure she was the only one who noticed the spell being cast, given how Granger managed to mask the hit by showing Corban onto a sofa.

Hermione's physical response was borderline acceptable, given her parents supposedly died not long ago, and also a perfect cover for the shudder or twitch the spell usually created upon a hit. And Bella knew for sure that she was the only other witch in their year who might be able to cast Confundus like that. And she definitely didn't have as much experience casting it as Granger seemed to have. The one thing keeping Bella's irritation in check was the impression that none of their housemates noticed what Granger did or that she was even better than Bella would have been at it.

Granted, publicly using physical force in this fashion was also a near-certain admission Granger wasn't of noble birth. But while all the intelligent Slytherins already suspected Granger was hiding more than most of her housemates, she *wasn't* suspect of secretly being of noble birth, so that push didn't reveal any secrets as such. And her angry, slightly shrill voice was the finishing touch that hid Corban's Confunded silence.

Granger was... even more interesting than she seemed before. Plus definitely older than regular sixth years, which also helped soothe Bella's ego a bit. Time to act.

"Stop wasting your energy on such a tactless boy, Hermione. Come join me for some nonverbal practice for tomorrow's DADA class?"

And she saw the message has been understood. Naturally. Maybe Granger had Noble relatives or acquaintances, judging from how experienced she was? Maybe Andy's theory she was an Auror child had some merit? Or something else, or a combination? Whichever case it was, her wandless magic was something Bella was actually happy to work on, so she rose from her own chair and checked her robes. After all, there was something about Granger that was making Bella wonder what Hermione's lips might taste like and although she would never let such distractions control her...
...truth was a part of her soul desperately craved such distractions. And Bella certainly knew how to make even a school uniform look more appealing.

Hermione's answer sounded much friendlier than when she talked to Corban. There was also a hint of diplomacy in her tone, or so it seemed to Bella, but that was the norm in the smarter half of Slytherin anyway. Her eyes were still focused onto Corban but she was definitely about to head towards the door.

"I'll be happy to, Bellatrix. I think even Corban understands my point by now."