A Time Before Tears

Summary: She's fallen in love with a boy she was never supposed to meet. She's befriended a girl who died when she was one. She's chosen a time she was supposed to have known only in stories and now suddenly, her life has changed forever.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Eggs.

Why did the House Elves always made eggs for breakfast? Did they think that people liked eggs? That people didn't want a little bit of change every now and again? Why didn't they make omelettes, at the very least? Hermione always had eggs for breakfast. She was sick and tired of eggs. She angrily poked them with her fork. Why hadn't she picked up some toast or something? Toast sounded good, but there wasn't any toast left; just eggs.

Everyone could see that Hermione was in a bad mood. They could see it in the way she walked, in the way she talked; she even showed it during class in the way that she spit out answers the day before. James, Sirius, Peter, Noelle, and Valerie all assumed that it had to do with the fact that it was a full moon and she hadn't seen Remus the day before. Lily, who was sitting directly to Hermione's left, chose not to make guesses about the origins of her friend's anger. She sat quietly eating her oatmeal and chatting with James, who sat across from her. Hermione threw an envious look at that oatmeal.

It never occurred to Hermione to talk about what was bothering her. Even though she knew Lily would understand, Hermione kept it to herself. It was inner turmoil (the thing that followed Hermione around in the seventies). Every time she thought she knew what she was going to do, something changed. Example: a little less than a week ago, she had been convinced that she was going to go back to Harry and Ron, but then she'd seen the Boxmora and everything changed, and change was not necessarily something that Hermione coped with well.

Why should she go back when everything she wanted was right here? She had Lily and Remus and she thought that was enough. Hermione didn't want to go back to her own time. Yes, she wanted to see her parents, Harry, and Ron but she could still see them eventually if she stayed here. True, none of them would recognize her but she could explain it to them. She could say that she fell in love.

Would they understand that? Would anyone?

"Hermione's not a morning person, is she?" Peter mock-whispered.

"Don't worry about her," Sirius said. "She's just angry because I crushed her on that History of Magic exam last Tuesday."

"You did not 'crush' me. You barely beat me by half a point and that was mainly because I was sick and feeling woozy!" Hermione shot back at him.

"Woozy," James repeated, shooting a sidelong look at Sirius. "Hermione was woozy."

"Yes. Poor woozy Hermione. I guess that happens when you start drinking at noon," Sirius replied, and James gave a sympathetic nod of his head.

"Poor drunken, woozy Hermione," James added. Across the table, Lily smirked.

"Poor alcoholic Hermione," Peter added.

"I do not drink at noon," Hermione snapped at them

"Then why were you woozy?" asked Sirius innocently.

"Could it have something to do with our dear friend Remus?" asked Peter with an equally innocent voice. Hermione's eyes narrowed even further.

"I've heard he brings you to your knees," James added.

"Or is that just his potion making?" voiced Peter, his tone dripping with innuendo.

"Shut it, you," Noelle said, lightly slapping Peter on the shoulder.

"Let him be," came a voice from across the table. Hermione looked over and saw Valerie - her eyes downcast, skin a sickly yellow pallor, and voice scratchy.

Hermione would have asked her if she was all right, but the incoming mail interrupted her. More precisely, two owls headed straight for Hermione interrupted her. She had no friends in this time, no family, no one that would write her a note or send her a package. But soon, both owls passed right by her. One landed in front of Lily and another landed in front of a second year at the very end of the table.

"I never get mail," Sirius said sullenly crossing his arms across his chest.

"That's because nobody likes you," Peter replied. Hermione waited for an inevitable comeback from James. When it didn't come, Hermione looked over to see him staring at Lily. Hermione followed his gaze and watched Lily glare at the letter that had landed in front of her. She was shaking and Hermione was suddenly very scared.

Lily reached out slowly, almost casually if it were not for the trembling fingers, and took the letter in her hands. The owl stayed until it saw that she had opened the letter. Then, it bowed once and flew away, it flew right over Hermione's head, and over the three other tables before it finally reached the window and was gone.

As she read the letter, Lily's eyes watered. She shook even harder. After she finished reading it, she simply let it go. Hermione watched it's slow, criss-crossing fall from grace: from Lily's porcelain hands to her half-full bowl of oatmeal.

When Hermione remembered to look back up at her friend, she saw Lily's eyes and shuddered. The green - which so closely resembled emerald on good days and the ocean on bad ones - was nearly gone, covered with dark splotches of tears and grief. And when the eyes reach capacity, the tears were expelled and forced to follow the letter's fall from Lily.

James reached out to grab her hand, but Lily snatched it back and tried to hug herself. She was curling into a ball on her seat and Hermione also tried to place a hand on her right shoulder. Lily shrugged that away as well.

"Don't touch me," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Please don't come near me."

It seemed to Hermione as if the entire hall had gone silent. Lily was folding into herself, trying to create as much space as possible between herself and the people around her. When she suddenly stood up, Hermione and nine others stood too, as if to comfort the girl. All ten people converged on Lily, trying to offer her support, but she wanted only space. Her arms wrapped around herself and her shoulders slumped.

James, who had been across the table from her, was the first to be by her side. Hermione was there a moment later, followed by the other nameless people who reached out to help the distraught redhead.

It happened as quickly and as strangely as everything else had: one moment Hermione was next to Lily and the next she was pushed backwards by an unseen force. Her foot caught on the floor and she fell down; her head ended up banging into the Hufflepuff table. She was badly shaken and the back of her head felt very sore. She touched at it with her left hand. It felt wet. She looked, shocked, back up at Lily, only to find that there was a metre radius around the short redhead completely void of people.

Lily was alone.

That was when Severus Snape made his appearance.

His pace was fast and soon he and Lily were hugging. Hermione witnessed, once again, the look of the two of them together- when one person could not be discerned from the other. The only visible difference between the two was that Lily was shaking and Snape was not. Both were crying.

They left the silent hall a moment later.

Valerie was the one who noticed Hermione and ran over. Quickly asking if she was okay and helping her up before she could answer, Valerie dragged Hermione out the door. Hermione's right arm was slung around Valerie's neck and she held Hermione's hand to keep it in place. Hermione leaned on the other girl a lot more than she would have liked.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Valerie asked, holding three fingers in front of Hermione's eyes. When Hermione tried to answer her, she interrupted. "Are you coherent?"

"Valerie, I'm fine."

"Your head is bleeding," she said.

"What just happened?" asked Hermione. Valerie, who was much shorter than Hermione, looked up at the other girl briefly before looking back ahead.

"I don't know," she said. "I think Snape's sister might have died." Hermione took in a breath and leaned a little more on Valerie's shoulder. "She was almost ten years older than us but she and Lily were good friends."

"And she's dead now?" asked Hermione, still trying to get her mind around the idea.

"I think so," Valerie answered.

"Snape was crying."

"I know." Valerie's voice held none of its usual joking tone. "If the James or Sirius make fun of him, I don't think I'll ever forgive them."

"But what happened to me?" Hermione questioned as they entered the corridor that housed the Hospital Wing.

"I have no idea."

"But Lily, she pushed me away with only her magic."

"You don't know that."

Both girls entered the Hospital Wing at that moment and found Dumbledore already there, along with Professor McGonagall and Flutey. They hadn't been at breakfast, Hermione remembered. She saw them rush over to her, but she was starting to feel more than a little woozy. She leaned a little more on Valerie but Dumbledore was there beside her by that time. He reached out and took her into his own arms.

"What happened?" he asked.

"His sister died," Hermione replied as he placed her on the bed. When Hermione's head touched the pillow she felt as if she were falling into a void of blackness; like someone was pushing her into the covers.

Then all she knew was darkness.

~*~*~

Waking up hurt. Hermione blinked open her eyes and found herself in the Infirmary. Of course. Every time she woke up it was to find herself in the Hospital Wing, Hermione mused. Without raising her head off the pillow, she touched the back of her head to see if her wound was healed. It was, but that didn't make the throbbing in her head any less. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked around the room. It was well lit and empty.

The lighting suggested that she hadn't been asleep much more than a few hours. Valerie had obviously gone off to class; Dumbledore and the other professors must have returned to work. A shuffling sound in Madam Pomfrey's office told Hermione all she really needed to know: the matron of the Wing was there. Hermione took that as a warning of more potions to come, and chose to flee instead of receiving them.

Normally she would have waited and received all of the medication she needed (Madam Pomfrey was only trying to help her), but she'd rather not be late for class. She sat up, turned, and intended to put her feet on the ground, but an odd throbbing in her left temple stopped her movement. Quickly, she lowered her head into her hands and tried to wait out the pain.

Why did her temple hurt, when it was the back of her head that she hit?

Taking a few deep breaths and deciding that the pain had sufficiently lessened, Hermione lifted her head and turned her body so that her feet were dangling off the edge. Then she pulled her feet back up and under the covers. Where were her shoes? Did Valerie take them?

Well, that was a stupid question. Valerie would never take Hermione's shoes. On the other hand, James, Sirius, and Peter would probably think it a hilarious joke. Her earlier irritation came rushing back at her as she threw a dirty look at the empty room.

"If you're in here snickering, you can stop now," Hermione hissed, just loud enough for three people under an invisibility cloak to hear but still quiet5 enough to not arouse the attention of the matron.

Hermione waited a few moments for an answer, but realizing that either the boys really weren't there or that they would never come out voluntarily, Hermione decided to go to her dorm to collect a new pair of shoes. That way, she could also check the time and make it to class.

~*~*~

The corridors were nearly empty; like Valerie, everyone seemed to be in class. Hermione wished she had the Marauders' map with her, because then she would not have to bother with attending class. Instead, she could do what she intended to: find Lily. She was worried about the redhead. Not only had the other girl suffered the horrible loss of a good friend, she been so distraught that her magic had involuntarily lashed out at people. At least Hermione thought it was involuntary. If Lily could actually do that type of magic... It would be too amazing to think about.

As Lily climbed the last of the stairs she was surprised to find herself panting with the effort. When was the last time she'd felt out of the breath upon climbing a staircase? It didn't matter, she told herself, that she was losing muscle mass. She'd been through a lot and if maybe she wasn't as healthy as she might have been that was perfectly acceptable. The portrait of the fat lady opened just seconds before Hermione reached it and James came out.

The fact that he wasn't in class didn't surprise Hermione; when Lily missed class, Jams missed class.

"Have you seen her? Is she-" Hermione cut herself off. The person following James out of the common room wasn't Sirius or Remus or Peter. It wasn't even Lily, Noelle, or Valerie.

"Ron?" she whispered in disbelief. Both boys looked up and saw her standing there.

"I thought you had a meeting with McGonagall," James said, walking closer. Hermione stepped back, keeping distance between them as she pulled out her wand and pointed it at the boy who could not be here.

"You okay, Hermione?" Ron asked.

"Did you forget something?" James asked, walking forward despite the open threat of the wand. Hermione looked carefully at him. His black hair still stood on end, his glasses were still slightly askew, but behind above those glasses a scar zigzagged toward a pair of emerald green eyes.

"Harry?" she choked out. her wand drooping in her grip. Ron glanced at his watch.

"You're going to be late." His comment was offhand, as though he didn't think anything of seeing her standing there, as if she hadn't been gone for six months, as if she had not travelled back in time and fallen in love, as if she wasn't the complete stranger she felt she was.

She was home.

"Seriously, you okay?" Harry asked. She stared numbly at them both as her heart both leapt and dropped at the realization that were really and truly standing right in front of her.

Harry and Ron were standing in front of her. They were there. They were now.

Hermione spun around and began running. She ran with no thought to the fact that her feet were bare and her toes were freezing. Her hair fell out of its bun and still she ran. She was scared, terrified, and running for her life from the two people she was supposed to love most.

She was home.

~*~*~

The statue of a gargoyle stood tall in front of Hermione as she stared numbly at it, both hoping and dreading that she was really back in the nineties. Could this be real? There was only one way to find out. She walked forward and said the password. Nothing happened. She said it again. Still the gargoyle moved, and just as relief flooded through Hermione's body, the headmaster stepped out.

Caught unawares, Hermione could not move as she faced a man with more wrinkles on his face than stars in the sky, a man whose life had been slowly stolen from him after a decade of fighting the Dark Lord, a man she barely remembered.

"Are you looking for me, Miss Granger?" Professor Dumbledore asked.

"No," she said, taking a step away and keeping her wand in her hand. "I wasn't looking for you."

She remembered being shocked by how young he looked when she went back in time, but this was worse. It felt like Dumbledore had aged a hundred years in a single moment. She'd only just seen him, helping her into the hospital bed.

"Are you feeling well?" the headmaster asked.

"I- I don't know," she answered, trying to keep herself from crying.

"Have you finished your meeting with Professor McGonagall?" Her mind was moving very, very slowly. Each thought felt like it took a minute to pass.

She had come back to her own time.

Harry and Ron were alive.

She was with Harry and Ron.

Dumbledore was old again.

Had it all been a dream?

It had been late March.

What happened to June eighteenth?

She was supposed to be meeting with McGonagall right now?

She was supposed to be meeting McGonagall!

Was this the day she left? Was McGonagall fighting Death Eaters at this moment? Was she losing?

"Where's McGonagall? Is she okay?"

"Was she not in Hogsmeade?"

"No. I was there, but she was attacked. Isn't she back here?" Hermione asked, trying to remember exactly what had happened that day, because while she had spent months researching the red and blue spells, she had nearly forgotten all of the other details.

"Who was attacked?"

"McGonagall! By Death Eaters. Is she okay?"

Dumbledore didn't stop to question her. He turned and ran as Hermione had only seen him do the night of the prank. Desperate to understand, desperate to focus on anything that was not about herself, Hermione tried to run after him. But soon her feet grew too cold to move, tears streamed down her face, and her breathing grew more and more laborious. Gasping for air, Hermione doubled over and wept.

Stretching out her arm, Hermione balanced herself using the wall and barely managed to stand upright. What was happening? She was dizzy and felt like throwing up. Her head was pondering and breathing was not becoming easier. She felt like she was falling backwards. Had she changed anything? Had she really gone and come back? If so, what had become of them? Were Lily and James still dead? Did Sirius go to jail? What about Valerie and Noelle? What about Peter and Remus? What about Remus?

It hit her then: if she had really returned, the seven of them would not be waiting for her to come down for breakfast. She would never again hear their jokes and laughter. She would no longer be able to help Peter with History of Magic, or have Remus hold her hand tightly as they travelled up to the roof. She wouldn't be able to sit under the stars on Halloween night with Lily. She would never get to see a more perfect charm performed on a dress. She would never see Peter and Noelle play checkers in the middle of the night. She would no longer be witness to the love that bound Lily and James together. She would no longer get to hug Remus goodnight or have him wake her up with a kiss. She would no longer get to hear any McGonagall jokes. She would no longer get to be a part of the legends and heroes that were the Marauders. She would never again witness Lily's power.

She was home.

~*~*~

The next thing Hermione knew, she was waking up in the Hospital Wing (again) with absolutely no recollection of how she had gotten there. It took her a moment to remember what had happened and another moment to hope it was a dream. Maybe, she thought, she had dreamed she'd gone back into her own time.

If she kept her eyes closed one more minute, if she held her breath one moment more, if she wished hard enough, then it could all have been a dream. She could be waking up to find Valerie by her side and Dumbledore to her left. It wouldn't have been the first time she dreamed of going home.

Cracking her eyes open, Hermione looked around and saw Harry and Ron having an intense discussion with the headmaster. Harry and Ron... Her heart sank. She was back and - though she couldn't understand why - that thought made her terribly sad. Why did she feel like her heart had been ripped out? Why couldn't she move when she realized that Remus and Lily weren't here?

No one noticed Hermione waken, and that gave her tired heart the chance to calm, and her mind the chance to comprehend. And now that she really saw Harry and Ron, Hermione allowed herself to feel the immense joy that came with their presence. The first time she had seen them, she had been too overwhelmed and too filled with doubt to let herself believe they were standing right in front of her. But they were. Her best friends, whom she had longed to see, were currently less than four metres from her, and no other feeling of comfort and joy could compare to this.

Not caring about her headache or aching feet, Hermione got out of bed and, before she really thought about what she was doing, she was hugging them both. She could think of nothing important enough to say out loud or ask. She could think of nothing except for the two people in front of her, the two people she had missed so much. For a moment she thought of nothing as she allowed herself to be swallowed up in her immense relief that they were alive. Right then, nothing else mattered.

"Hermione!" Ron yelled, turning to return her hug. "We were so worried."

"I was so worried," she responded, knowing and not caring about the fact that she must have sounded like a loon. "I love you both."

"What happened?" Harry asked. Hermione's first thought was that Lily would never have asked that. She, like Petunia, didn't believe in questions. Lily...

"Are your parents dead?" Hermione asked without tact. A little piece of hope remained within her heart. Maybe Lily and James hadn't died. Maybe Lily had used the knowledge that Hermione gave her - the list of Death Eater names, the history of the attacks - and won the war for Harry. Maybe Voldemort had disappeared another way.

"Yes," replied Harry, his eyebrows drawn together, and her heart broke in that single word. Yes. Yes, Lily and James Potter were dead. Yes, Hermione had changed nothing. Yes, Hermione's best friends were gone. Yes, the girl who had woken her up that morning her a laugh that sounded like a blow horn was gone, forever.

Tears streaming down her face once more, Hermione backed until she hit the bed and wept the bitter tears of a girl who had the chance to change history, and failed. She wept the tears of a girl who lost her best friends in a way she could have prevented. She wept the tears of a generation lost to a war she could have stopped. She wept until she sobbed. She sobbed while two pairs of arms wrapped around her - two pairs of arms that she knew and loved, but two pairs of arms that did not make up for the loss of other pairs of other arms.

After what seemed like hours of grief pouring forth from her eyes, Hermione lay down against the pillows of the bed and cried more as she shut her eyes and tried to push away the memories that she should not have had, of people she should never have met.

"I must ask to speak with Miss Granger alone," the soft voice of the wrong headmaster said.

"I won't leave her like this," both boys said together.

"I must insist. You may return in the morning," the headmaster commanded. His voice left no room for disagreement. The opening and shutting of the door signalled their departure. Hermione did not see it because she had sunk into bed and pulled the covers up over her head, only to feel them be pulled down a moment later.

"Shutting your eyes will not make problems go away."

"Headmaster-" Hermione choked on her next word. He put a hand to her cheek and nodded.

"Lily and James Potter died in 1981, protecting their son from the most dangerous wizard in history. Unbeknownst to anyone but themselves, Peter Pettigrew was their secret keeper in a complex charm called the Fidelius Charm. He betrayed them that night. Sirius Black, who was thought to have been their secret keeper, was put in Azkaban as a result, only to escape three years ago. Noelle Lestrange is still residing in that prison on thirteen counts of murder and forty-seven counts of using an Unforgivable. Valerie Alexandria kept her alliances, turning into a spy for the Order. Remus Lupin -"

"Is still a werewolf and worked here for a year," Hermione finished, crying. Dumbledore nodded.

"So I changed nothing?"

"You do not know that, Miss Granger."

"But you just told all of that as if it should have been news to me but it isn't. It is exactly what I remember."

"Time is a complex thing. There is no way to know how the world would have turned out if you had not gone back. Our world might be a lot darker." Hermione said nothing, but turned onto her side and shut her eyes, willing the world to fall away from her, but not before she could ask the first question that popped into her head.

"Why did you stop the Ball?" It didn't make any sense to ask this. She could have asked about the survivors. She could have asked after McGonagall's condition, but none of that seemed as important to Hermione as the question that had been plaguing her ever since she had gone to the Ball on Halloween.

"Excuse me?"

"The Halloween Ball," Hermione clarified. It seemed important to her to know the answer to this question, though she had no idea why. "Why didn't you keep having it? It was three hundred years old."

"Because it was to happen on the anniversary of the death of two of Hogwarts' greatest students and they deserve a night to themselves."