Rewrite the past

Chapter 19

Right after dinner the next day, Hermione walked to Minerva McGonagall's office near the transfiguration classroom. Once there, she stood and waited for her to arrive.

"Hermione, what leads you here?" asked the professor when she saw the girl standing in front of her office's door.

Once inside, Hermione made sure that the door was properly closed so that no one could possible eavesdrop on their conversation.

"How can I help you, dear?" inquired the older Scottish woman upon sitting down at her desk.

"You sure remember Remus' predicament, don't you? Well, in my time, Severus has improved the wolfsbane potion to help Remus with his symptoms. I had a talk with Remus and he knows that we know but I promised him I'd keep it a secret and I might or might not have told him that I know a way to make his situation a little better," said Hermione, realizing just how stupid that was of her when she did not even have the needed ingredients nor a lab to brew it.

"And now you need the ingredients and a lab?" smirked Minerva, quietly enjoying the girl's discomfort.

"Long story short: yes," replied Hermione looking relieved that the woman in front of her caught her meaning.

"I will find a way to keep Horace away from his lab and personal store for quite some time," said Minerva looking at the woman turned girl. "Is Saturday alright?"

Hermione nodded her head yes before bidding her grandmother good night and leaving the office.

Once in the bedroom she shared with Florence and Meggie, Hermione took an old bag out of her trunk. That bag contained so many things from her time she simply could not leave behind.

She took out some of the things: an old photo-album, a diary she had kept since she first came to Hogwarts, some schoolbooks with her annotations.

Meggie and Florence were still up and running about their room so she could not just take out the potions book within her collection. Instead she opted for going through that photo album in her hands and put the others back in the bag.

Sitting down on the windowsill next to her bed she opened the first page.

They were there, smiling brightly back at her through the photo. Her parents. They looked just they way she remembered them and on her father's arm was she herself as a 2-year old smiling child.

Seeing this made her suck in a breath as tears welled up in her eyes, which caught the other girls' attention, making Florence come over to where she was sat.

"Hey, Hermione. Are you alright?" asked her friend, crouching down next to her.

"I- I just miss them so much," answered the brown-haired girl, her voice laced with emotions.

Florence just cast a quick look to the picture in the album and knew who she was referring to.

"I am so sorry, Mione. It must be so difficult for you; we can only imagine. We are always here for you, you know?" The slightly taller, blue-eyed girl took Hermione into her arms to give her some sort of warmth and comfort.

"Three weeks. Three weeks later they were gone," mumbled Hermione, her voice muffled by her friend's shoulder.

A few moments later she let go of Florence and thanked her with a sincere yet sad smile while closing the album again.

Meggie and Florence both decided to go to bed after that, wanting to give her some privacy.

It took her a few moments to compose herself again before she sat ack down and instead of the album, took one of the textbooks into her lap. This was a well-worn issue of a potions book Severus had given her before she left.

Mid-March, 2001, New Headquarters, Scotland

"Hermione? Can I come inside?" asked the deep rumbling voice of Severus through the closed door.

"Come through," answered the young scarred woman.

"I just wanted to give you this before you leave tomorrow," explained the tall man standing in front of her.

He held out a book for her to grab. It was an issue of "Advanced Potion-making" she knew just too well.

"How did you find this?" asked Hermione surprised. She would have never thought she would see it again.

"The Room of Requirements was a second home to me when you were on the run with your dunderheads. It was in a bookshelf when I was in there on a rainy day hiding from the Carrows," said Severus, looking at it sentimentally.

"Why, Severus?"

He knew she was not referring to the fact he hid in the Room of Requirements but rather to the fact that he gave her his personal schoolbook with all his annotations in it.

"It might come in handy at some point, I guess. I wrote the Wolfsbane potion on the back cover just last night. You might have to put it to good use should you become friends with Remus. It is my modified version that he has been taking for years now."

She nodded at him in gratitude, her small smile saying more than a thousand words ever could have said, and then looked at the book in her eyes with adoration.

He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder before he turned to leave the room.

November 1971, Hermione's bedroom, Ravenclaw tower, Hogwarts, Scotland

She opened the book on the very last page and let her eyes wander over the potion Severus had written in there. His handwriting was as spikey yet neat as she remembered.

The instructions were clear and as far as Hermione could tell, it was not too complicated, but the ingredients were rather rare and extremely dangerous. She just hoped that Severus had taught her enough so that she would not be killing Remus with her brew, or herself for that matter.