Two Households
August 27th, 1996
It didn’t seem possible, but Number Twelve Grimmauld Place had somehow become even more dark and dreary in the past year. With only Sirius, Professor Lupin, and Buckbeak calling it home, the house seemed to have begun to reflect the dreary countenance of its inhabitants more and more as the days marched on.
Sirius, racked from the guilt of watching Moody die by a spell meant for him, had only grown more volatile with his continued house arrest. Professor Lupin played mediator most days, keeping Sirius’s temper from affecting the rest of the Order, but even he was affected by the poor mood of the house.
Grimmauld Place was, however, still better than sharing a tiny room at the Burrow with Ginny, and Hermione had to admit that no matter how depressing the house was; Harry loved it and that made her happy. He always seemed so small when he came back from living with the Dursleys (not that she’d ever tell him that), but was back to himself in no time after a few games of exploding snap with his godfather. Sirius too was more himself after Harry’s arrival.
The past few weeks of summer had passed in blissful monotony. Hermione spent most of her time combing through the Black family library (which Sirius seemed somewhat apprehensive of, but let her do anyways), while Ron, Ginny, and Harry wandered about the house causing trouble and doing whatever it was they spent their time doing (she wasn’t quite sure). It was blatantly obvious that they were all trying to avoid the fact that the war had begun in full force, and that they were still being locked out of Order meetings.
That was how Hermione had ended up climbing into the attic with Harry, Ron, and Ginny after being kicked out of the sitting room by a rather annoyed Molly. It was practically routine by now. Tired and weary looking Order members would begin flooing in and suddenly they were being shooed away while the adults strategized about the war.
“I’m just saying,” Hermione pulled herself up the ladder into the attic, brushing dust from her jeans, “the Black family is known for their ties to Dark Magic. There could be all kinds of dangerous things up here.”
“‘Mione,” Ron glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow, “are you telling us you don’t want to look at some very dangerous artifacts?”
She pursed her lips. He did have a point, of course. Most of the stuff up here was probably both very illegal and very dangerous. Which meant a lot of it probably had a lot of historical and magical significance. Significance that would be lost on her three friends.
“Fine, but don’t touch—” She was cut off by a loud thud as Harry predictably touched the first thing he saw and set off some kind of sentient alarm clock which began jumping up and down and snapping its teeth at him.
Ginny and Ron took this as an open invitation to begin touching stuff as well, opening chests and poking at the strange objects that covered the room. Hermione sighed, sending a quick prayer to whoever was listening to please not let her friends die in this attic, before she began a more careful excavation of one of the boxes.
There wasn’t much in it. A large sneakoscope that looked suspiciously like one Fred and George had “accidentally” broken the previous summer, a foe-glass that showed nothing but a blurry figure, and a few books.
Hermione pulled the books from the box, careful not to touch any of the other objects. The top one was a slim leather bound journal, with pages worn from use and age. The title was still clear on the front, Diary of R.A.B. embossed in silver lettering.
“Find anything good, Hermione?” Ginny asked, setting down a broken Cleansweep she’d been fiddling with.
Hermione slid the diary into her other hand to read the title of the next book. Secrets of the Darkest Arts. She shivered, the feeling of dark magic creeping out of the book. Maybe there was a good reason all of this stuff was in the attic. “No, just a diary and a book on Dark Magic.”
“What’s that gold thing sticking out of it then?” Harry asked.
She looked closer at the diary, seeing a small flash of gold between the pages that she hadn’t noticed before. “Maybe someone forgot a galleon in it.”
In a moment of pure reckless Gryffindor, Hermione tilted the diary, letting the golden object slide out from between the pages into her free hand.
Light from the small window in the wall caught the object perfectly, making the gold shimmer and shine. The dark attic seemed to glow gold in the brief seconds between when the object left the diary and hit the palm of her hand.
A time turner, sparkling with magic and promise had tumbled from the diary and into her hand. Hermione’s first thought was astonishment because she’d believed every time turner in the country had been destroyed a few months ago, her second thought was that of course the Blacks had an illegal time turner stashed away in their attic.
Her first thought really should have been not to touch it. She’d said it herself that things in the attic could be dangerous, but that thought had seemed to slip her mind as she caught the time turner in her waiting palm.
“Hermione!” Ron yelled, reaching for her, but it was too late.
A beam of golden light erupted from the time turner and she just barely saw her friends shrink back from the light before she was being violently thrown backwards.
It felt strangely like a muggle rollercoaster her parents had taken her on when she was younger. The sensation right as you drop and you feel as if your organs are suddenly in all of the wrong places.
There was none of the gentle backwards flow of time she had gotten so accustomed to in third year when she’d been running herself ragged with a time turner. No, this felt more like an extreme version of portkey travel (which she already didn’t like).
After an indescribable amount of time Hermione hit a wood floor, hard. She closed her eyes, inhaling through her nose a few times to push away the nausea creeping slowly up her throat.
“Well this is certainly unexpected.” Her head shot up, only to see Albus Dumbledore leaning across his desk to peer down at her with those knowing blue eyes. “Would you like a lemon drop?”
“Professor, thank God,” Hermione sighed, pushing herself to her feet. “Sorry to worry you, I believe I accidentally touched a portkey at headquarters.” Disgusting, she was still covered in dust from the attic. She began a half-hearted attempt to clean herself off.
The bowl of lemon drops made a slight scratching sound as he pushed it across the desk. “You seem to know me, yet I don’t believe we’ve ever met before.”
Hermione paused, taking a moment to look at the books in her hand and the time turner she was clutching in her other. She prided herself on rational thinking which was why she had assumed she’d traveled via portkey. Portkeys made sense, time turners that worked without spinning them very much did not. Now was not the time to have a breakdown though, no that would be very counterproductive.
She simply needed to examine the facts and come to the most logical conclusion available to her. The time turner in her hand was a damning piece of evidence, as was Dumbledore’s lack of recognition. So, she’d likely traveled back in time. That was something she could deal with.
Time turners were only supposed to go back in time a few hours, but Dumbledore didn’t recognize her. That meant she must have gone back at least six years. That was impossible, as far as she knew, but it was the most obvious conclusion
“Hermione Granger,” she said, because it felt sensible to introduce herself. “Would you mind telling me the date?”
“August 27th,” he tilted his head, examining her, “1977.”
Now, it was time to panic.