Another World

It all began with the phrase, "Well, we'll show them, won't we?" spoken by a seventh year Gryffindor named Hermione Granger to a sixth year Gryffindor, Ginny Weasley. Their friends, Harry Potter and Ginny's older brother Ron, rolled their eyes. Well, Ron did anyway. Harry was of course smarter than that.

"What without Harry's cloak or anything? You're just going to sneak down to the kitchens and bring back some food?" questioned Ron, holding the invisibility cloak.

A previously made insinuation had been that as girls, Hermione and Ginny couldn't possibly be as good at sneaking about the castle. The remark had only naturally grated, especially considering their multitude of successful after hours adventures and the boys' multitude of detentions.

"That's right, Ron, and we won't need your silly little map either," said Hermione, glancing at the Marauder's Map in Harry's hands. Harry was without a doubt doing his very best to stay out of it.

"Right," agreed Ginny, although a bit more timidly. She was up the for the adventure, though it was a very fourth year thing to do, but she dearly would have liked to use the map.

"Suit yourselves then. We will eagerly await your return," said Ron, bowing with a grin on his face and gesturing toward the common room's exit.

"Good luck!" said Harry as they turned to go.

"They'll bloody well need it," said Ron, pointing to Mister Filch's position on the map. He was most definitely between the girls' position where they were just leaving Gryffindor Tower and the castle kitchens.

The castle corridors were rarely patrolled by prefects after midnight, leaving only Mister Filch the caretaker and Mrs. Norris, his cat, to deter students from their mischief making and occasional late night rendezvous. There were quite a few romances blossoming between Ravenclaw house and Hufflepuff house this year, more than there had been in centuries. While romantic, especially considering the untimely death of Cho Chang's boyfriend, Cedric Diggory of Hufflepuff house, just three years earlier, it meant that Mister Filch was making extra rounds, which, on nights when he caught students out of bed, did not entirely displease him. But it was true, of course, that he would have preferred to be catching Gryffindors out after hours.

Hermione and Ginny tip-toed carefully down the stairs and out of the tower on their way to the secluded castle kitchens where house elves were busy at all hours of the day and night, almost as though they never slept or rested. It was quite dark, and they didn't dare risk a light, but the challenge of sneaking food from the kitchens while avoiding detection thrilled both of them. It was like a game, albeit a somewhat dangerous one, as neither of the girls wanted to get into trouble, especially with Mister Filch or, God forbid, Professor Snape, who often skulked through the halls in the middle of the night. And then there was also Professor Lupin, who had returned the year before to resume his position as the professor for the Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. If they were caught out of the dormitories after acceptable hours, Hermione imagined that he would be very disappointed, especially if he caught them. It would show far too much carelessness on their part.

As they approached a corridor leading from the dungeons, they saw a shadow, thin and long in the flickering torch light. Ginny bit back a gasp as Hermione dragged her into a recessed area by a window. A mumbling voice told her that it was Mister Filch and his cat. They could only hope that the sinister pair did not come their way. Filch might not notice them, if they were extremely lucky, but Mrs. Norris was a cat, and that meant that her keen senses would pick up on them in an instant. They held their breaths waiting, hoping that the creepy caretaker would go the other way or return from whence he came.

They listened intently as slow, shuffling footsteps started to move in their direction. Hermione thought that she could hear the soft pitter-pat of cat feet on the stone floor as well. The sound made her shiver, despite her own fondness for cats. There was just something unwholesome about Mrs. Norris. Ginny's eyes were getting wider by the second until they heard a voice that made their blood run cold.

"Mister Filch, a word, if you please," called a silken voice from the dungeon corridor. It was Professor Snape.

"Of all the luck!" thought Hermione, hoping that Snape and Filch would retreat into the dungeon for a nice, long chat while they scampered off to the kitchens, or back to the tower in defeat, judging by the frightened look in Ginny's eyes.

"Yes, professor?" questioned Filch, who sounded very near, only a few meters away down the hall.

"I know you usually do a bit of cleaning up down in the dungeons tomorrow, but since I must finish working on some Wolfsbane potions for that damn monster tomorrow, I was wondering if you would mind postponing ..." Snape requested, sounding even more churlish than usual.

Both Ginny and Hermione silently fumed at the potions' master's characterization of their favorite professor. Werewolf or not, he hardly deserved to be called a monster. But then, Snape couldn't quite forgive him for things that had happened in their past, both the remote and the rather recent, and Hermione and Ginny were both aware of that fact.

"Not at all, professor, not at all," said Mister Filch. Professor Snape was perhaps the one person in the castle with whom he was relatively civil. The only other sure exception was Headmaster Dumbledore. "It's delicate work, I imagine," he added.

"Indeed. This particular potion especially. I always try to have a good supply of it available with Lupin around ... again, though it is incredibly difficult to store," said Snape with a sigh. He could talk about his ‘art' for hours upon end, with or without a willing audience, Hermione suspected.

"The sacrifices you make, professor," said Filch sympathetically.

"Tell me about it."

"I've got rounds to make. I have a feeling that tonight ... I just may catch Potter or perhaps Weasley," said Filch.

"I wish you happy hunting, Mister Filch, and if you happen to catch anyone ... interesting, please assign their detentions to me," said Snape. Ginny and Hermione could both picture the look on his face, sneering with an almost gleeful malice. It was present in his voice too.

"I would be pleased to, professor. You're the only one who takes these matters seriously," said Filch, raising his voice as he called after Snape, whose quiet, almost inaudible footsteps they could hear retreating into the dungeons.

The pair held their breaths as Mister Filch began to move again ...

Ginny Weasley almost wanted to cry as she realized that they, Filch and Mrs. Norris, were coming toward where they had chosen hide. Hermione pulled her closer to the wall and gave her a reassuring we-are-Gryffindors-brave-and-strong look. Ginny bit her lower lip and tried to live up to that for at least the moment. It wasn't easy. She had been terrified of Mister Filch since the end of her first year.

They watched as Mister Filch passed them by and then Mrs. Norris. But the cat paused and turned toward them, her eyes flashing in the torch light. She gave an unhappy, almost surprised meow that was like an alarm going up. They heard Filch stop and begin walking back. The cat stood sentinel as though they were going to bolt, going to run for it, but, frankly, the two girls knew that they were caught.

"What have we here?" drawled Mister Filch with a maniac gleam in his eyes. "Two Gryffindors out of their dormitories. This will not do at all. I am afraid that two of you will be serving detention with Professor Snape every evening for the rest of this week at the very least," Then his eyes rested on Ginny. "And you, I hope his has something particularly nasty for you to do."

Hermione shouldered her way in front of Ginny, angry that Mister Filch still remembered Ginny's first year and the unfortunate incident involving Tom Riddle and the Chamber of Secrets, which had also included his beloved cat being petrified. Ginny had been eleven years old and under the power of an extremely formidable Dark Wizard.

"Leave her alone!" said Hermione.

"Awfully brave, Miss Granger, but you've just earned yourself an extra evening of detention. I'd watch your step, if I were you," he said with an unpleasant smile.

Filch took them to his office and signed them up for their detentions. Neither of the girls felt like saying anything much as they walked back to Gryffindor Tower sometime later. They felt miserable. Ginny only hoped that her mother wouldn't send her a howler. She had never received one before. She sighed softly as they approached the portrait of the Fat Lady and the entrance to the sanctuary of their house's dormitories and common room.

"Cheer up, Ginny. At least we'll be doing our detentions together," said Hermione.

"But with Snape ... Could it possibly be any worse?" she asked as they stepped through the painting.

Ron and Harry greeted them with slightly smug looks, Ron especially. It was unbearable, Ginny believed, to have an older brother like him, especially one that went to the same school.

"We followed your progress with great interest," said Ron, holding up the magical map. "Everything was fine until about here. Then, we suppose, you either spotted or heard Filch and ducked into a little alcove just here," he said, pointing to positions on the map. "Then the greasy git comes up from the dungeons here," he said, making a sort of swooping motion. "I thought for a minute you were safe, but, no, he nips back into the dungeon and Filch, not to mention his cat, come along here. And wham! You're spotted," he said, making series of exaggerated motion, tapping the map, and chortling. "We followed your march up to his office, but unfortunately what the map can't tell us is how many days of detention you got," said Ron.

"Very funny," said Hermione crossly.

"Well?"

"Ginny got four evenings with Snape. I got five. Happy?" asked Hermione.

Ron's face immediately fell and he looked apologetic as he said, "I never thought it'd be with the greasy git himself. Sorry. Rough luck, girls. I figured you'd just have to scrub trophies or help Madam Pomfrey."

"Yeah, sorry," said Harry, no less sincere.

"It isn't your fault. We should have been more careful. It was just dumb luck," said Hermione, shaking her head.

"You don't think mum will send a howler when she finds out, do you?" Ginny asked Ron, who was an expert about such things. He had received three himself over the years. Ginny, poor girl, looked very close to blubbing about the very idea.

"To you, Gin? Of course not! She would never send her ickle baby girl a howler over mere detentions," Ron reassured her in the most annoying way possible.

"Let's all go to bed then. I think I've had enough excitement for one night," said Hermione, rolling her eyes.



The next morning when all the students gathered for breakfast in the Great Hall, Hermione and Ginny found their usual seats among the Gryffindor sixth and seventh years. The rest of the house gave them sympathetic looks, having heard about their daring midnight exploits and their resulting detentions from Ron and Harry. The better part of a week of detentions with the potions' master seemed harsh to the lot of them.

"What do you expect he'll have you do?" asked Seamus Finnigan, who had served a detention with Filch a year earlier and turned over a new leaf as the result.

"It won't be that bad, I imagine," said Hermione, mainly for Ginny's benefit.

Two Slytherins in the hall had tried to scare the poor girl with tales of disemboweling live kittens. Hermione had assured her that it could not possibly be true, though Ginny was still pale at the very horrible and gruesome thought. She barely picked at her food until Ron nudged her and threatened to tell their mum that she wasn't eating properly. Then she took only a few sullen bites of her eggs.

"Maybe you'll get off easy and only have to make potions for Madam Pomfrey or something. You could both do that with your hands tied, right?" said Ron encouragingly. He was still rather regretful about sending his little sister out after hours to be caught by Mister Filch, not to mention the abominable sentence of detention with Snape.

"Of course," said Hermione, who was having no trouble with her breakfast. She was in her last year and not nearly as afraid of Snape as Ginny was. In fact she had come to have a grudging respect for the man as a professor. "It will probably be something like that. Making wound cleaning potions is always rather interesting and fun even."

"You don't have to cheer me up. I know it's going to be horrible, but I can handle it," said Ginny, looking up from her plate. "It is only a couple of hours, after all. It's not like it's eternity or anything."

The potions' classroom was quiet when Ginny and Hermione entered that very evening, resigned to their fate of detention with the disagreeable professor. Ron and Harry had escorted them to the dungeons with glum looks on both their faces. The four were fast friends, something like the Marauders of old, and when something so dreadful happened to one of them, it actually seemed to happen to all of them. Though they went back to the common room, Harry and Ron felt as though they were serving detentions as well.

The girls, on the other hand, really were having detention with Professor Snape. As they entered his domain, the soft sound of a potion bubbling caught their ears. Snape, they saw, was standing over a cauldron, adding ingredients and with an intense look of concentration on his face. He seemed to take no notice as they watched him. His delicate hands moved with practiced speed and grace as he dropped aconite into the mixture. If the man had not inspired such anxiety and possibly loathing in the two girls, Ginny more so than Hermione, they would have found the sight mesmerizing. As it was, Hermione found herself acknowledging that what he had, his ability to brew complex potions, was a precious gift and a true talent.

For an instant Hermione thought she could see a smile come to his lips. It softened his features and made him seem less hateful, less contemptuous, and more human.

Then he looked up and sneered at them, finally realizing that he was being watched.

"Enough staring. You have work to do," said Snape. Hermione glanced away quickly as his dark eyes met her own.

The pair spent what felt like an eternity under Snape's scrutiny as he divided his attention between the potion and supervising their cauldron scrubbing. These were not ordinary dirty vessels for preparing potions. They were ones that, in Snape's words, Longbottom had been at, which meant that the cauldrons had all manner of ill-prepared potions caked, cooked, and seared into them, many of which gave off a pungent aroma when exposed to water and cleaning solutions. Their hands were all to quickly becoming chapped and irritated and their nails broken as they labored silently at the difficult and unpleasant task.

"I didn't know you had helpers tonight, Severus," said a pleasant, but tired voice from the doorway.

"Lupin, the moon won't be full until tomorrow night. What are you doing down here?" snapped Professor Snape, glowering at the werewolf in the doorway.

"Just visiting, I suppose," said Remus, winking at the two girls as he leaned against the door jam. "Are you brewing the potion now?"

"I have a limited store of it put away, but, yes, I am brewing an additional cauldron," said Severus. "In case I am called away unexpectedly and ..." he shrugged. His eyes looked suddenly haunted as he absently gave the explanation.

Hermione shivered, knowing all too well what he meant: in case Voldemort summoned him and did not allow him to return alive. His other obligations would still be fulfilled. He had merely stated fact, and his words were by no means self-pitying, but Hermione felt a twinge of something, compassion or empathy, for the professor.

"Thank you, Severus," said Remus with a nod.

He stepped closer to watch Snape stir the potion, which was simmering nicely.

What happened next can only be described as a peculiar twist of fate. In a blink of an eye, a bottle of cauldron cleaner, some obscure magical draught that contained a potent mixture of cleaning agents, shot from Ginny Weasley's wet hands and into the air. Hermione spun to try and catch the flying bottle, tipping over a sudsy cauldron full of cleaner and seared potion ingredients, which splashed toward the cauldron of Wolfsbane potion, and Professors Lupin and Snape. The bottle glanced off Hermione's hand toward Remus, who grasped for the slippery glass container. Snape, whose speed and graceful movements had earlier been remarkable, unfortunately fumbled for it as well. The bottle, not to mention fate, had other plans, however, as Remus's feet slipped on the damp floor and propelled him into the table where the anti-werewolf potion was being brewed and into his greasy-hared colleague. There was an almighty kaboom a split second later as the contaminated cauldron water, the concentrated cleaner, and the Wolfsbane potion all intermixed and exploded upon Remus, Severus, Ginny, and Hermione.



The first sound Hermione was aware of when she opened her eyes was Ginny coughing quietly nearby. She groaned softly as she sat up. Her head felt as though it were about to split right down the middle. That had been some explosion. Glancing around, Hermione was surprised that the classroom was not in worse condition. The air was filled with slightly acrid smoke, and the floor, not to mention the walls and everything else, was damp with an oozy gray mixture of potions' ingredients, water, cleaning solution, Wolfsbane potion, and glass fragments. The same mixture was also coating their robes. But the room and its occupants all appeared to be in one piece.

Hermione winced as Professor Snape, his face livid with rage and splotched with the gray muck, rose shakily to his feet, yanking Ginny up with him by the sleeve of her robes. The poor girl was trying desperately not to cry. Lupin was still lying on the floor, massaging his temples, obviously afflicted by the same sort of headache from which Hermione was suffering. Despite the pain in his eyes, he appeared to be ever-so-slightly amused.

"One hundred points from Gryffindor for nearly getting us all killed and for general idiocy!" snarled Snape, thrusting Ginny away and looking at his stained robes.

"Severus, it was only a simple accident. Aren't you being a bit harsh?" questioned Remus, sitting up very slowly.

Hermione could have told him that Snape was simply being Snape, but she felt that the best course of action was to say nothing.

"Harsh! They blew up my classroom! No, you blew up my classroom. You are all Gryffindors and you all blew up my classroom!" said Snape, wiping his face on his sleeve, which only served to transfer more of the slime from his robes to his face.

Remus chose to ignore the outburst as he helped Hermione to her feet and asked, "Are you all right, Miss Granger? Miss Weasley?"

"I ... I think so, professor," answered Hermione.

Ginny could only bite her lower lip and nod. Snape was still glowering at her.

"Maybe we ought to visit Madam Pomfrey to be sure. Potion accidents are tricky things," said Lupin, noting a few small cuts on their hands and faces from the glass fragments that been in the explosive mix.

"We're all right. Honest," said Ginny in a quavering voice, sniffling slightly.

"Severus, I trust their detention is over for tonight," said Remus, putting a protective arm around each of the girls and making it clear that they would be leaving with or without his approval.

"Get out," Snape told them, looking at the mess. "Just get out now."

As Remus and the girls left the classroom, they could hear the sound of Snape slamming the door to his nearby personal rooms. Remus chuckled and shook his head as they walked out of the dungeons. He had not expected visiting Severus to be quite so entertaining, although he was still tempted to go see Poppy about a headache potion or something.

"I can't believe what just happened," said Ginny, shaking her head.

"Just an accident," shrugged Lupin, giving her a reassuring smile. "It could have happened to anyone."

"He's right, Gin. Don't fret."

"But the points ..."

"We will earn them back somehow," said Hermione.

"Of course you will," said Remus. "For starters I am awarding you twenty-five points for handling yourselves so well in a crisis."

"What?" questioned Ginny.

"Well, you didn't panic or anything or talk back to Snape when he lost his temper," said Remus lightly.

"Thanks, professor," said Hermione.

"Don't mention it. Now, you two should get cleaned up and go to bed. You really look dreadful."

The castle seemed unusually quiet that night as Hermione and Ginny made their way to Gryffindor Tower. The halls were deserted, and all the lights, the candles and torches, seemed pale. On most evenings students could be found walking to the library or the classrooms for either extra study or possible detentions. Or going to the hospital wing for one thing or another. Or visiting friends and significant others in another house. Or returning to their own common rooms for the night after extended conversation in the Great Hall after dinner. But that night the halls were empty of both students and staff.

And when they reached the top of the stairs leading to the common room, the portrait hole was open and the Fat Lady was missing from within her frame. The two girls paused and peered into dimly lit the room, wondering what was going on.

"I don't like this," Ginny whispered as they entered the inner of sanctum of Gryffindor house.

The common room was usually bustling with activity well after dark. The chairs were normally full of talking or studying students, and other lively activities, such as Exploding Snap and Wizards' Chess, were also taking place here and there throughout the room. But this evening, not long after eight o'clock, it was completely and utterly deserted. And the portrait had been suspiciously open. Had everyone left at once? Why? And where would they have gone? Hermione felt sick with dread as she thought of the possibilities: an attack, an evacuation, a disaster. Horrible things might have happened during their absence, while they were secluded in the dungeons or when they had been knocked out for who knows how long.

"Ginny, check the sixth year dorms. I'll check the seventh," said Hermione.

"Right," Ginny agreed. "I hope this is all just a joke or something," she muttered as she climbed the stairs to the room where the girls of her year lived and slept.

The room was empty and dark. But what was a thousand times worse, what couldn't be explained by some emergency or special gathering or anything Ginny could think of, was that the room wasn't exactly like she remembered it from earlier that day. The beds were different, positioned differently in the room even, and covered with linens that were not the same. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"I've walked into the wrong dormitory," she told herself out loud.

But then she looked at the shape of the room and the windows and realized that this was the room she had been sleeping in since September and immediately raced back down the stairs where Hermione was waiting for her.

"Everything has changed," said Hermione.

"We have to tell someone," said Ginny, nodding her agreement.

"Professor McGonagall," Hermione said, starting toward the chamber of their head of house.

Meanwhile in the dungeons of the school Severus Snape was standing in front of his mirror, combing his freshly washed hair. There was nothing for it. The slime from the explosion had to be gotten out somehow.

"My goodness, professor, twice in four years! This is unexpected!" the mirror commented.

Snape only snarled at it and continued combing. He had learned long ago not to dignify the mirror by answering its constant barbs, which most people might have considered well meaning.

His post-explosive detention evening was turning out to be pleasantly student free. Most evenings he found himself dealing with his Slytherins as part of his duty as head of house. While he cared deeply for the students of his house, they were not always a pleasure to be around. The intrigues that went on in the dungeon were often simply beyond comparison. Gryffindors were famous for pranks. With Slytherins it was a different story entirely. It was vicious rumors, veiled threats, and political alliances for them. And it fell to Snape to handle the resulting dramas caused by those three things. It was, of course, not always easy.

This evening, he was surprised to find, only involved a quiet sit by the fire with a good book and perhaps a drop of brandy. Then he noticed something strange. The bathrobe he was wearing ... the shade of green was too pale, and it was a bit large. Had it somehow been bleached or altered? He had been lost in thought much of the evening, pondering his classes, the stupidity of his Gryffindor students, and how nice it was to have a bit of peace and quiet. Now that he finally took in his surroundings, he realized that his rooms, his furniture, his things had all been shifted around. In fact he was quite certain that some of the things in the room were not his at all.

He was immediately annoyed.

"Those deuced house elves and their annual cleaning!" he fumed. "I shall certainly speak to them about this first thing in the morning!"

And with that, he decided to turn in for the night.

Hermione and Ginny, upon finding Professor McGonagall's rooms unlocked and empty, left Gryffindor tower to find Professor Lupin. A constant source of quiet strength and comfort, surely he would know what was going on and what to do about it.

They were more than a little frightened as they dashed down the stairs and through the castle corridors. Both girls could admit that to themselves. Their house mates were gone, vanished into thin air, and an eerie, unnatural silence had settled over Hogwarts. Not since the days of the Basilisk had the place felt so unwholesome or unsafe to Hermione.

Their footsteps were abnormally loud as they raced down the passage leading the Lupin's rooms. A shadowy figure emerged from the doorway just as they reached it. Ginny shrieked aloud.