Then Shall I Know

Part II

Stay Close to Me While the Sky is Falling

The world's on fire

It's more than I can handle

Tap into the water, try to bring my share

Try to bring more, more than I can handle

Bring it to the table

Bring what I am able

I watch the heavens but I find no calling

Something I can do to change what's coming

Stay close to me while the sky is falling

Don't wanna be left alone

Don't wanna be alone

-World on Fire by Sarah Mclachlan

Chapter Four: The Headmaster's Office

"Curiosity is not a sin.... But we should exercise caution with our curiosity... yes, indeed." -Albus Dumbledore, Goblet of Fire

September, 1977

Habit had compelled her to reach out in the first place, but she wasn't quite sure what had made her complete the insane act of actually stepping through the looking glass into the room beyond. As she did just that, Hermione thought to herself that it only made sense. If magic was real, and she was a witch--capable of turning porcupines into pincushions and conjuring the light of the sun--what was so extraordinary about taking a stroll through a solid piece of glass?

Hermione opened her eyes, having closed them in a defensive reflex. The room in which she stood was...exactly the same as the one she'd left.

"So much for that," she thought, speaking it aloud without realizing it.

"I wouldn't be too disappointed yet, Miss Granger," said a familiar voice. Hermione turned to face Albus Dumbledore.

She held her head high, refusing to become a coward at the very moment her rule breaking was discovered--but something very different from fear made her confidence waver. The room had looked the same, but now that she saw it more clearly, there were marked differences--the greatest of these being Dumbledore himself. He looked...younger, for one thing. For another, his beard was actually longer than it had been when she'd last seen him...

"Of all the things to stare at in my office, you've chosen my beard?"

"I..." Call Guinness, she thought to herself, Hermione Granger is finally speechless. She wondered irrationally if wizardkind had a record book.

"Please, sit down," he said, gesturing to a high-backed velvet contraption that faced his desk. Hermione felt slightly sick--she was sure she'd have remembered a chair like that. Exactly what had she gotten herself into? "It's only a chair," the Headmaster assured her. Without anything coherent to say, Hermione sat, but her eyes continued to mark the subtle differences from the room she'd...left? minutes before. She felt very disoriented--and Dumbledore wasn't helping:

"I have instructed myself to tell you that I will take good care of you, until such time as you are returned to me," he said with a completely straight face. Hermione gave up trying to make sense of her situation and just stared. "Ah," he said, noting her lost expression, "I see that had the desired effect. You are, I take it, completely at a loss to understand your situation?" She nodded. "That is as good a place to start as any," he said, cryptically. "Particularly because, until a few moments ago, I would have been just as befuddled as you are."

Confusion gave way to curiosity once more, and, spying a dish of lemon drops on the desk corner nearest her, she reached for one and looked up for approval. He nodded, took one for himself as well, and gestured to what looked like a stone bowl with runic carvings on it, sitting on a low table near to Fawkes' cage. The light emanating from the liquid substance within told her that he older man had most likely been using his pensieve not long ago.

"Do you recognize that device, Miss Granger?"

"I've had one described to me, sir," she said cautiously. He nodded at her approvingly and took another lemon drop.

"An extraordinary thing happened to me while using it, a few minutes before you arrived." Hermione felt she had to say something, here.

"But--no one was in the room, when I--"

"Don't worry, I'm getting to that," he waved her off. "During my inspection of a memory of ten years ago, I was interrupted quite rudely by--" here, he leaned forward and looked at her intently, "myself."

She looked at him rather blankly, owing to the fact that it was quite normal to encounter oneself when exploring one's own memories. His odd statement earlier about his 'taking care' of her until she was 'returned' to him came swiftly to her mind, and her eyebrows furrowed slightly as she looked at him. The expression on the renowned wizard's face all but told her to pursue this line of thought to the logical conclusion.

"You...have the ability to talk to your own memories?" she asked, her voice hardly over a whisper. The power implied in such an action...

"Yes indeed," he said, bowing his head slightly in response to the awe in her voice. Another, more extreme thought came to her as he was still nodding from her first comment.

"That would mean that--that this has already become a memory," she said, struggling with the absurdity of what she was thinking. "Professor, you're not telling me that the mirror is a Time Turner?"

"No, my dear, it is not. It is something else entirely," Dumbledore said, turning away from her so abruptly that she suspected that there was more to her current situation than he was willing to share with her.

"But--I have gone back in time?" she asked, flushing slightly at what she considered to be a childish desire to hear her suspicion confirmed.

"You have."

"How far--"

"I will come to that in a moment," he said, silencing her with a stern, but not unkindly look. She turned her attention to the window of the study, hoping to see some indication of the time of day or the weather outside and thus make a calculation of how many hours (or even days! she thought, excitedly. I could catch up on all my History of Magic reading!) she'd traveled. However, the location of the Headmaster's office was too high up to give anything more than a view of a rather splendid sunset.

"The nature of your presence here is somewhat delicate," said the older wizard finally. "As you know, Time Turners are fairly rare, and cannot transport their users forward."

"But--I can just stay here, can't I?" she asked, misunderstanding the reason for his behavior. "I mean, just until I've caught up?"

"That would be quite out of the question, Miss Granger," he said, seriously. "We will have to send you back." Hermione pushed herself to her feet, wanting to pace around as she usually did when facing a puzzle or an episode of strong emotion. It always comforted her, made it easier to think.

"You just said that would be impossible," she said, confused.

"Impossible by Time Turner, yes, but not completely impossible--I hope."

Dumbledore's behavior was simply baffling to her. It wasn't even her current predicament that seemed so worrisome--it was that...for once, the venerable old wizard didn't seem to have all the answers. She stopped pacing to stand before his desk again, more than a little bit exasperated.

"But, sir--I don't see the problem...I mean, it shouldn't be all that much trouble just to have me stay out of sight? If it's only for a couple of--"

"Twenty years, Miss Granger."

She sank into her chair, glad that she was already standing in front of it or she might have collapsed to the floor. Twenty years?! That was...impossible. He must be trying to test her, to stop her from indulging in the kinds of wild fancies that had gotten her into this mess in the first place.

"You're joking."

"No, I'm afraid I am not." The fact that he looked at her almost pityingly instead of comfortingly made her more than a little uneasy. It was her own fault, though--a powerful wizard like Albus Dumbledore had the right to have whatever he wanted in his office, and it had been completely unforgivable for her to go snooping around in it as if she were some bumbling first year.

"You have a--" her brain supplied the term 'time machine,' but she dismissed the term as 'too Muggle.' Besides, a machine brought to mind gears and moving parts, and the mirror she'd stepped through had had none of those. "Time-Traveling mirror in your office?" Her mind raced with all the possibilities...

"No, I do not," was his reply, seemingly contradicting the night's events. "In fact," he was saying now, "I can safely tell you that that particular mirror has never before been seen in my office." She looked at him doubtfully. Dumbledore leaned forward, an expression of intense interest in his eyes as he spoke again. "Tell me, young lady--it wasn't, by any chance, the twenty-first of December--"

Hermione gasped.

"I can tell that you are full of questions, Miss Granger--and I would love to be able to answer them for you," he said, looking regretful, "but I can say without hesitation that that kind of knowledge would do nothing but harm your best chance of getting back to where you came from."

Great, she thought to herself, all that little speech did was make me more curious. She also gathered, from his tone, that 'getting her back where she came from' wasn't going to be as forthcoming as saying a spell and popping her twenty years forward in time. She cast a glance behind her and saw with a sinking feeling that the vehicle through which she'd arrived had disappeared from behind them, as they talked. She leapt to her feet, horrified.

"It's gone!"

"It was never really here," Dumbledore said with an enigmatic smile. "Only you took the journey."

Hermione resumed her pacing, her mind awash with worry as she brainstormed silently for solutions, each more ridiculous than the last.

"What are we going to do?" she asked, wringing her hands in distress.

"Have tea, I think." The Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry said a quick spell and conjured up a lavish silver tea set, complete with steaming teapot and a plate piled high with sweets. Then, with a gentle look in his eyes, he walked over to her and drew her over to the ridiculous looking chair, sat her down, and handed her a cup. She was halfway through a chocolate-covered biscuit before she'd realized he'd cleverly manipulated her into calming down. She lifted her gaze to see him looking at her with the slightest twinkle of amusement in his eyes, as if he knew she'd guessed his motives and was waiting for her to say something, which she did, not to be deterred.

"What are we going to do, sir?" she asked more calmly, hoping that he had an answer.

"I am fairly convinced that I can send you back the same way you arrived," came the unexpected answer. "But--" and he held up a hand to stop her excited reaction, "I am afraid that the particular...artifact...only works its magic during a solstice." She set her teacup down hurriedly and jumped to her feet, moving to the corner of the room where she had recalled the mirror standing. There wasn't anything on the oriental carpet she'd remembered stepping out onto, nothing but blank space and bookshelves. A quick glance behind her told her that Dumbledore was still seated at his desk, the slightly apologetic look reappearing on his face.

"It's September, Hermione," he said, shocking her. "In just about twenty-four hours, the train will be bringing this year's students for their first day of school."

=====

Hermione awoke as she normally did, with the light of the sun falling on her face from the window. She realized almost at once that something was wrong, however--the light was coming from the wrong direction. Her eyes traced around the room as her sleep fogged brain tried to recall the circumstances that had brought her to the strange bed. The memory of Dumbledore's strange pronouncement came back to her suddenly, and she was wide-awake at once.

What in Merlin's name was she going to do? If it really was September, as he'd told her the night before--and he'd had no reason to lie about something like that, given her reaction--she had at least four months until whatever magical means she'd used to come here was available again. And even then it might not work; she'd gathered that from his tone of voice.

She sat up carefully, distracted by the myriad possibilities and problems inherent in her situation. She seemed to be missing something--something important...ohhhh! The last vestiges of sleep fled from her as her mind supplied the important connection she'd missed last night. If she had gone back exactly twenty years, and Harry had been born roughly seventeen years ago, that meant she had arrived at Hogwarts at the beginning of his parents' seventh year. Professor Lupin's seventh year...Sirius Black's seventh year--Peter Pettigrew's seventh year.

Oh, god.

To think, last night she'd been confused by Professor Dumbledore's seeming haste to send her back where she'd come from! Although the more she thought about it, as she paced on the rug in front of the bed she'd slept in last night, the worse her feeling of dread intensified. For Dumbledore would never have risked his own future by meddling in the past, and that meant he was in all likelihood completely ignorant of the doom that threatened to destroy the lives of the only people she cared about in this time period.

Considering who else's (albeit temporary) doom it was, and exactly how it would come to pass, Hermione knew she couldn't tamper with anything either. She resolved to speak to Dumbledore as soon as she could; she'd simply have to be sent away somewhere secluded and safe until the winter solstice.

As if her thoughts had summoned him, she heard a discreet knock on the guest room door, and the voice of the Headmaster asking for permission to enter. It was granted. Before he'd even had a chance to greet her, however, Hermione had started speaking in a strained voice.

"Professor, I simply can't stay here for four months!" She opened her mouth to continue, but he lifted a hand to stop her, his eyes conveying a wearied sort of censure.

"I had hoped that a good night's sleep would have calmed you somewhat," he said.

"It did, but then I started to think about the whole situation--"

"And worked yourself up again." She nodded.

"The problem is, sir...well--I know what's going to happen," she said, remembering at the last moment to try to keep the miserable tone from her voice. It wouldn't do to even imply that the future wasn't bright; the implications of what a mere tone of voice could do sent her into a renewed frenzy. "You've simply got to send me back, or away somewhere where I can't change things!"

"Sit down, please, Miss Granger," he said in an infuriatingly calm voice. Wasn't he listening? She sat at the very edge of the mattress, her hands twisting in her lap anxiously. "I'm afraid my resources aren't equal to the task of hiding a seventeen year old girl for four months," he said, pinning her in place with a stern gaze when she looked as if she wanted to interrupt him. "Nor would the questions that would arise from such a drastic action be prudent. You are in your seventh term at Hogwarts--no matter what the year--and you are much more comfortable here than anywhere else."

Her heart sank as she started to understand his intent. Surely he didn't mean for her to take up classes as if she belonged here?

"But, sir! I could change things by my simply being here--not to mention what I could accidentally let slip--"

"Time is not something to be taken lightly, but it is also not a completely passive thing, Miss Granger." She stared at him, confused; on examining her lost expression, he surprised her completely by coming to a half-kneel in front of her, taking her hands, and saying, earnestly, "it may very well be that you are meant to be here, Hermione."