The Time-Meddlers [Harmione]

7. Hermione's Entrance

Hermione Granger pulled her bed curtains closed on the eve of her twelfth birthday. The last few weeks had been among the best of her life. For the first time, she had actual friends. In her other schools, sometimes someone would pretend to befriend her and then try to get her to do his or her homework. When she refused, they left her alone or began picking on her like most of the other kids, calling her a buck-toothed, bushy-haired bookworm and similar insults.

When she'd gotten her visit from Professor McGonagall, who brought her Hogwarts letter, she'd hoped that explained why she was different from all the other kids. She had hoped she'd be able to make friends with her new classmates who were also magical, and she had. Harry Potter had befriended her even before they got onto the platform, and had helped her gain other friends. She felt that she should be happy about how things had worked out, and she was. However, tonight she was sad and couldn't blame anyone but herself. Her birthday was tomorrow, and she knew that nobody would wish her a happy birthday or acknowledge it in any way, because she hadn't told anyone.

How could she expect her friends to remember information they'd never been exposed to? Everybody in the wizarding world knew Harry Potter's birthday, but she didn't know any of her other friends' birthdays. They'd never talked about them. The subject simply hadn't come up. She wouldn't feel right telling everyone that it's her birthday tomorrow, as though she were looking for attention. She almost laughed at herself, because whether she wanted to admit it or not, she did want a bit of attention on her birthday. She decided that the best birthday present she could have was true friendship, whether her friends knew it was her birthday or not. It was with these thoughts that the girl went to sleep, never to be the same again.

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At the stroke of midnight, a Hermione Granger woke up at Hogwarts, but it wasn't the one who went to sleep. Staring at the dark ceiling, the eighteen-year-old woman in a twelve-year-old body gasped as she felt information from the past nineteen days begin pouring into her head. Just when the process was beginning to give her a headache, it was over.

She could clearly remember her first time boarding the Hogwarts Express and helping Neville find his toad, meeting Harry and Ron in the process. However, she could also remember meeting Harry outside of Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. She could very clearly see what he'd changed in this timeline, and found herself wanting to snog Harry senseless for how wonderfully he'd treated her younger self this time around. She was a bit sad that they didn't get along as well with Ron this time, but realized that at this point in his life, he wasn't very mature and shouldn't be expected to be. She was glad that he was alive again, but realized that they didn't have much in common now.

She also wondered what changes Harry had made that he didn't tell anyone about. She remembered Harry's interest in Ravenclaw's Tiara, and now realized what that was about. She felt a bit foolish for accusing him of wanting to wear the Diadem, and fully believed that Harry had laughed at her for that once he was alone. She wondered if he'd made any progress with that. With a grin, she recalled his promise that she'd soon know everything about Voldemort that he did, and realized that he wasn't lying to her when he said that.

She realized that Professor Quirrel wasn't there and wondered how Harry had accomplished that. She also wondered if he'd been behind Professor Lupin getting the D.A.D.A. job. She loved Harry's idea about getting Snape fired. With the reasonable doubt brought on by Dumbledore in the 'in-between place,' she wouldn't feel right executing the greasy git, but she agreed that he needed to get out of Hogwarts because he was doing a lot more harm than whatever good he did.

She realized the negative effect Snape's 'teaching' was having on the wizarding world. With the way he acted, hardly any non-Slytherins continued Potions after O.W.L.s, even if they somehow got his required 'O' in the subject despite his poor instruction. She remembered that even with Slughorn's lowered requirement, only twelve students were in their 6th year class. Consequently, there were a lot fewer Auror recruits every year that Snape taught at Hogwarts, which was part of the reason Voldemort had had such an easy time taking over the Ministry. She wondered just how many careers that single professor had stopped before they began - not only as Aurors, but as Healers and countless other occupations.