My Once and Future Self

Hermione awoke in a bedroom. Not just any bedroom, but a large, well furnished, well heated, splendidly decorated bedroom. It was also curiously devoid of throw pillows, despite the sofa and numerous chairs around the room. At the foot of the bed she was currently occupying was a change of clothes.

Deciding anything was better than a hospital gown, she grabbed the t-shirt (which looked too large for her small frame and was emblazoned with the words "chasers do it with their brooms") and what appeared to be boxers (adorned with golden snitches happily zooming around in circles) and couldn't quite decide whether to burst out laughing or to find someone and demand a proper set of clothes.

Deciding that the former would probably be considered odd if anyone was to walk by the room, and the latter would be embarrassing, (would you want to wander around a foreign household in nothing but a hospital gown? I thought not), she put on the ridiculous t-shirt and boxers and vowed to avoid all mirrors on the premises.

"Where am I?"

The last thing she remembered was being in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, which this most certainly was not. She had talked to Dumbledore. What had he said? That she was welcome at Hogwarts for the school year. And that he'd explain her situation to the Potters.

"I'm at the Potters'."

She stood in the middle of the room with snitches zooming around on the boxers she had most likely borrowed from Harry's father, and started laughing.

Once her impromptu fit of hysterical laughter had passed, she found herself staring up at the ceiling. "I'm at the Potters' house. It's 1976. I am living in the same building as Harry's father, godfather and my old professor, all of whom are about my age."

Another giggle escaped. She clamped a hand over her mouth, determined to stop the insane giggling she seemed to have become prone to in the last 24 hours. Once she was satisfied that the hysterics had truly stopped, she stood up and moved towards the door.

The next order of business, she determined, was to use the bathroom. Unfortunately, this was easier said than done, which she realized as she stepped out into a hallway that was long, wonderfully carpeted, and riddled with doors. Unsurprisingly, none of the doors were labelled. She sighed slightly and started with the door closest to her left.

It opened into a room that seemed similar to the one she had woken up in, but significantly more lived in. Clothes were strewn across the floor, as were books, papers, quills, a stuffed bear (wearing a small shirt that said 'Sir Tedward' on it), a bag of candy, a sandwich (which seemed to have been there for a while), a telescope, a large pile of dungbombs and Dr. Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start No-Heat Fireworks, several empty Honeydukes bags and a gobstones set. Deciding, rather intelligently, that this clearly wasn't the bathroom, she closed the door and moved to the next one on her left.

She was about to open the door when she heard hushed voices coming from within the room. Unable to clearly make out what it was they were saying, she decided that whoever they were, they probably would know where the bathroom was. Biting her lower lip, she knocked gently on the door. The hushed voices from inside the room stopped almost immediately and after a moment, the door opened a crack, revealing a messy haired, pyjama-clad James Potter.

"Hi." He opened the door fully revealing Sirius and Remus (similarly pyjama-clad) sitting in the middle of what could arguably be considered the largest collection of pillows known to mankind. All the pillows, from the very small roll sized ones they had stolen from the couch downstairs, to the large pillows taken from the master bedroom, had been arranged into a massive fort.

It took Hermione a moment to remember why she had knocked in the first place. "I'm looking for your bathroom."

"Oh," he said, "it's just down the hall, third door on this side. The house elves will bring you anything you need if you want to take a shower too."

She smiled. "Thanks." And with that, she turned with as much dignity as one wearing someone else's boxers can do, and walked off to the bathroom. She pretended not to notice James' quiet snickering behind her.

The bathroom, like everything else, was huge. Tentatively, she pulled her hair back from her face and looked into the mirror. Her reflection frowned back at her, with bushy hair flying everywhere and dark circles under her eyes.

"Not the best look dear, but nothing a good glamour won't fix," chirped the mirror.

"Shut up," she grumbled before turning to the bathtub.

...

"So, what do you think?" asked Remus from his position amid the multitude of coloured pillows they had collected that morning.

"Of what?" James asked, passing a glass of pumpkin juice over to Sirius. "Don't spill it. Mum'll have a fit," he added.

"Of the girl who's running around in your underwear, dolt," Sirius said. "What did you think Moony was going on about? The weather?"

James mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'not my underwear. Mum made me give it to her'.

"She's certainly odd," continued Remus, "but Dumbledore seems to trust her, and so do your parents, or she wouldn't be here."

"I don't understand that. I mean, she comes out of nowhere, bleeding all over the place and has one talk with Dumbledore and all of a sudden your parents take her in?"

James nodded.

"Plus," continued Sirius, "we've never seen her before. Clearly she doesn't go to Hogwarts, and she didn't sound foreign. Where's she been going to school? And who attacked her?"

"Or what," added Remus while passing a plate of cookies over the living room wall of the pillow fort to James.

"No. Who. It was a cutting curse, I'm sure of it."

Nobody spoke for a little while as all three of the boys ate their cookies while deep in thought.

Suddenly Remus looked up. "She's headed back to her room."

Sirius nodded and stood; opening the door a crack, he poked his head out and said, "Hey."

...

The house-elves had managed to obtain shampoo, towels, a washcloth, a bar of soap, a toothbrush and a clean change of clothes for Hermione all without being seen. Despite her conscience berating her for not simply finding those things herself and instead relying on slave labour, she had to marvel at their ability to run a household smoothly. Unfortunately, her clothes left something to be desired.

Another oversized t-shirt, this time with the words 'I survived OWL potions' and a loose skirt were waiting for her when she stepped out of the shower. The skirt she could deal with, the shirt she was seriously considering wearing inside-out.

Deciding it was better not to appear ungrateful and rude (as it was either the t-shirt or the hospital gown - she didn't consider going naked a viable option) she put the shirt on and tried very hard not to look down. It probably would have been easier if the cauldron on the front of the shirt didn't keep exploding and sending multi-coloured goo all over the letters (which changed their colour accordingly).

"Hey."

She turned and saw Sirius' head poking out of James' room.

"Would you like to join us?" he asked, with a smirk.

As much as she intensely desired company, she wasn't really sure she was ready to face them yet. Particularly since the more she talked to them, the more likely she was to screw things up and completely destroy the future of the universe as she knew it. On the other hand, she'd really rather have someone to talk to than sit alone in an empty room.

"Sure." She nodded. Immediately she was overwhelmed with the feeling that this was a very, very bad idea. Unfortunately, Sirius had already turned and motioned for her to enter the room. After taking a deep breath, she did.

The first thing she noticed was that her suspicions were correct and it was indeed a pillow fort in the middle of the room.

Sirius, noting her scrutiny, came up behind her and said, "We made it ourselves."

She almost snorted. "I can see that. Very nice work. I like how you've colour coordinated the west wing." She gestured over to the western corner which was made up entirely of red and gold pillows. "And the embroidered pillows at the entrance are really rather spectacular."

Sirius nodded gravely. "Well, it is best to make a good first impression. Where better to do so than the entrance? Would you like to choose a room for yourself?"

She considered for a moment before stepping carefully through the entrance and sitting down in a room made primarily of purple throw pillows.

"Ah, the lounge. Excellent choice," Remus said seriously, amid a torrent of pink and orange pillows.

She nodded dumbly unable to formulate a response in the face of such a blatant lack of colour coordination.

He smirked, noting her dazed expression. "This room is a bit colourful, don't you think?"

She nodded again.

He looked at one particularly pink pillow in the shape of a heart for a moment before casually charming the pillows around him to a gentle blue.

"Better?"

"Much." She smiled, scarcely able to believe that the boy in front of her would one day become her professor.

"Cookie?" James asked. Without waiting for an answer, he levitated the plate over to her and balanced it (rather precariously in Hermione's opinion) on a purple throw pillow that looked suspiciously like it belonged to a chair in the room she had awoken in.

"Thanks," she said as she rescued the plate of cookies from a fate reminiscent of Humpty Dumpty.

"So. Do you have a name? Or should I just give you one?"

James snorted and Remus looked as if he was torn between the desire to corner Sirius and lecture him on his lack of manners and to laugh hysterically - the interesting mixture of which came out sounding like a half-strangled cough.

"Hermione Granger." As soon as she said it, she wanted to slap herself. Why on earth did she give them her real name? What exactly was going to happen when a thirteen year old Hermione Granger (with equally bushy hair) wound up in Remus Lupin's class room?

Sirius nodded, seemingly oblivious to her internal dilemma. "I'm Sirius Black, this is James Potter," he pointed towards James who was perched royally on a stack of red pillows, "and Remus Lupin," he gestured over at Remus, who waved politely. "And where are you from?"

"Beauxbatons." There, finally an intelligent answer.

"You don't sound French," Remus said curiously.

"I'm not." The best lies are based upon truth, right? "My parents live in London, I just go to school in France."

"Why?"

"Erm... well, they thought I ought to learn another language..." She racked her brain for every bit of knowledge she had on the French language. Which, probably due to her habit of learning everything about any subject she set her mind to, happened to be quite a bit.

"Oh," Sirius said, though he seemed rather unconvinced.

"You go to Hogwarts then?" she asked, despite the fact that she was well aware of the answer.

"Yeah. It's brilliant." James said, speaking for the first time since the cookie fiasco.

"I'm transferring there this year."

Immediately she lauded her own brilliance. All three of the boys' interest sparked at this tid-bit and they immediately launched into a thorough explanation of how wonderful Hogwarts was (of which she was already very convinced), where to go and where not to go (which she, of course, already knew), what to expect, and one hundred and one reasons why Slytherin was a rather nasty house to be associated with.

"So you're Gryffindors then?"

"Of course! And there isn't a better house to be found -"

"McGonagall is strict as hell but definitely fair -"

"Best bloody Quidditch team in the school -"

"--You'll find her classes are very good. She teaches Transfiguration -"

"--Had the cup for the last two years."

"--Hufflepuff is a bit of a joke really, and the Ravenclaws, well, they're alright, but the Slytherins are a right nasty bunch, largest collection of pig-headed slimeballs in Britain," Sirius finished with a snort.

"What's your favourite class?" Remus asked suddenly.

"Favourite? I'd have to say Arithmancy." She paused and thought for a moment. "It's absolutely fascinating, and I love working with numbers. But I enjoy all the subjects."

James stared at her as if she had just grown another head.

Sirius made a strangled noise that reminded Hermione of a dying cat before leaping back and knocking over the pillow wall to the ballroom. He sat up amid a pile of matching red and white pillows and gaped at her.

"All of them?" he finally managed to choke out.

She smiled. "Well, no. I rather loathe Divination."

Sirius let out a bark-like laugh and fell back into the pile of pillows causing an explosion of feathers to rain down upon the occupants of the room.

"Is he... alright?" she asked tentatively.

"Oh no," said James, "he's never been alright. But you needn't worry, this is normal."

Hermione nodded again, doubting that the word 'normal' should ever be used within a ten-mile radius of the name 'Sirius Black' and then sneezed violently as a feather tried to fly up her nose.

Suddenly the door opened and Mrs. Potter stuck her head into the room. "James have you seen--"

She paused for a moment and then smiled at Hermione. "Oh, there you are. Come dear, Albus wants to speak with you." She turned around and looked at her son whose hair had managed to trap a significant number of feathers in it and said, "and James, clean up this mess and put all the pillows back. Before dinner, if you please."

James nodded, causing several feathers to fall out of his hair. His nose twitched.

Miranda Potter smiled, and closed the door just in time to muffle James' sneeze.

...