Meet the Kids

Chapter 1

The Hourglass

One of Hermione's least favorite duties as Head Girl was patrolling the hallways of Hogwarts late at night with the prefects. She didn't mind it in general, as every other night it was done with a different prefect. Hermione enjoyed joking with Ron when it was his turn, and lately Hannah Abbott had started confiding in the Gyffindor girl her secret romance with Terry Boot. While Hermione was amused by it and thought it slightly silly, she rather enjoyed hearing Hannah's stories, especially since she had none of her own to tell, and, if truth be told, they did make the patrols much more interesting.

The one person Hermione loathed patrolling with, though, was Draco Malfoy, Slytherin's male seventh year prefect. Luckily she and Ernie Macmillan, the Head Boy, switched off patrol duties, so she only had him once every other week. The last Friday of November, though, Hermione had the unfortunate task of meeting the blonde, malicious Slytherin in the front hall so they could patrol the halls together.

Hermione waited outside the empty Transfiguration classroom, shivering slightly under her cloak. The halls were fairly dark by seven in the evening, and the few lit torches along the wall weren't giving off much light. As usual, Malfoy was late, something she was quite sure he did on purpose.

Hermione sighed and looked impatiently at her watch. He was ten minutes late, a new record. All the other prefects were always on time, if not early. Malfoy was the only one who purposely dared annoy her. She peered around the closest corner, hoping to see some sign of his platinum blonde hair.

"Granger?"

She started, whipping around and pulling out her wand. She glared at the boy in front of her who was obviously trying hard not to laugh.

"Bit jumpy tonight, Granger?" Malfoy mocked, a familiar smirk on his pale, pointed face.

Hermione brushed several strands of her unruly brown hair behind her ear and frowned. She patted her hair and smoothed her robes, trying to make herself look presentable after her "fright." Then she sniffed imperiously to show that he had not had any effect on her whatsoever.

"Good evening, Draco," Hermione said as courteously as the circumstances would allow. She gritted her teeth; it was horrible referring to him as if he were a friend, but Professor Dumbledore had asked that she and Ernie do their best to make the Prefects feel comfortable, which included using first names.

Malfoy scowled, but quickly regained his composure. He eyed her up and down, smirking again. "Why, Granger, you're not planning on cursing me, are you? What a terrible way that would be to start the evening."

Hermione lowered her wand, blushing slightly. Raising her wand had been an instinctive defense, and, after all, she had been startled, but it was true she was itching to hex him. However, good manners, common sense, her Head Girl badge, and the fact that Dumbledore was trusting her to keep peace between the houses kept her from jinxing him into to another state of being. Curse common sense, Hermione sighed inwardly. Sometimes she was almost afraid she'd been born with too much of it . . . at least, that was Ron's theory.

"Nervous, aren't you, Granger." Malfoy's taunting voice brought Hermione out of her thoughts.

"You said that already," she said roughly. "And you startled me. You shouldn't sneak up on people!"

"You're right, I did say that," Malfoy conceded, not looking like it mattered in the least.

Hermione began walking down the hall; if he didn't follow she wasn't sure she'd tell him to. To her mixed feelings of relief and disappointment, he did follow.

"How long are we stuck out here, Granger?"

"Don't whine, Malfoy."

Hermione was half-hoping he would stick out his tongue so she could say he was juvenile, but, unfortunately, it seemed he had grown up a bit. Of course, being seventeen, he was tall and well-built, with just a hint of visible muscle in his upper arm. His face was still pale, but his chin didn't jut out as much and his pale blonde hair was starting to make him look sexy instead of little-boy cute; at least in Parvati and Lavender's opinion. Hermione still thought he looked like an albino, but she seemed to be the only female student at Hogwarts who did.

Just because he looked his age didn't mean he acted like it, though. Hermione was still putting up with almost daily references to her "spoiled" heritage, and she was constantly keeping Harry and Ron from physically attacking the Slytherin. It was even harder to restrain Ron, now, as he had grown even taller and had definitely developed some upper arm muscles over the summer. Every so often Hermione would enter Gryffindor common room to see a little giggling first year hanging onto one of Ron's arms, her feet easily half a foot off the ground.

Luckily, Harry was easier to subdue, especially when Hermione reminded him that the last time he'd physically inflicted pain on Malfoy it had resulted in him getting kicked off the Quidditch team (which he was fortunately back on starting at the beginning of sixth year). And, of course, sometimes all Hermione had to do was whisper "amazing, bouncing ferret" in their ears, and two boys would immediately turn smug, ignoring Malfoy's immature comments and walking right out of the vicinity.

As Hermione told them every time it happened, she was very proud of "her boys," the nickname Padma Patil had apparently related to the trio and then passed onto her twin sister after reading Jo's Boys during the summer. Much to their dismay and to the amusement of others, Harry and Ron were often called "Hermione's boys" in the Gryffindor common room. They allowed it only under the condition that it would be vigorously denied and be made obsolete if the Slytherins ever found out

Hermione checked her watch as they made their way to the top of the stairs leading down to the dungeons. She inwardly groaned at learning it was still a good 45 minutes until eight and her patrol with Malfoy would be over.

"Oh, wonderful," she heard the Slytherin murmur under his breath.

Hermione looked up and smiled upon seeing Nearly Headless Nick, Gryffindor's resident ghost.

"Hello, Nick!" she called, eager for company other than Malfoy's. She heard the Slytherin give a long, regretful sigh, but ignored it.

"Good evening, Hermione," replied Nick, giving her a jovial smile and a small bow. "Good evening," he said more stiffly to Malfoy, who didn't even look up from examining his fingernails.

Hermione forced a smile onto her face, inwardly fuming about Malfoy's behavior. "What are you doing tonight, Nick?"

"I was just discussing Peeves with the Grey Lady," he said amiably. "We heard a commotion a few minutes ago somewhere in the dungeons and we thought Peeves might have knocked something over."

"Did you see anyone?" Hermione asked worriedly, craning her neck to look around Nick; staring through him always gave her headaches.

The ghost gave a wobbly shake of his head, immediately putting up a hand to straighten it and cover up the visible organs. Hermione had long since gotten used to seeing Nick's head tip over, but she was amused to see Malfoy looked slightly sick and paler than normal. She didn't see how different it was from the Bloody Baron, although come to think of it, Malfoy didn't seem to like his own House's ghost, either.

"We should probably go check out the dungeons," Malfoy said in a bored voice, a grimace still on his face.

"Exactly my idea," Hermione approved, and then sighed at how pompous she sounded; as Harry and Ron were constantly telling her, sounding like Percy was not a good habit.

"We thought we saw a shadow," Nick called after them as they two students hurried down the dark stairs after Hermione had thanked him for the information.

"Then it couldn't have been Peeves," Hermione murmured under her breath. "He's a poltergeist." Malfoy gave a silent nod. She waved to Nick before turning the corner. They were stopped by the sight that met them. There were several doors lining the walls, passages that led not only to their classroom but also to other parts of the dungeon. A burning torch had fallen from its bracket on the wall and lay on the ground on top of a pile of papers that were swiftly going up in flames. Hermione yelped and Malfoy gave an indecipherable shout that echoed along the hall. She rushed toward the paper and started beating at the fire with her robes.

"Your wand!" Malfoy yelled frantically.

Hermione whipped out her wand and pointed it at the fire. "Aquada." A thin jet of water burst from her wand, extinguishing the flames with a hiss. She sighed in relief. Malfoy ran over to her and, forgetting about their enmity for once, sat down on the floor next to her. Hermione took several deep breaths as he began sifting through the burnt crisps of paper.

"Nothing," he said in disappointment, as another fragment disintegrated in his hands. "It's all burned." The parchment was indeed scorched black; any words that had been on it were clearly gone for good.

"What happened?" Hermione said at last, bewildered.

He gave her an irritated glance. "How should I know?"

"It was rhetorical!" she hissed.

"I-" began Malfoy, sounding equally annoyed.

"Shhh!" Hermione looked up, hearing muffled movements in one of the passages.

"What was that?" Malfoy whispered after a moment, their previous spat forgotten.

She put a finger to her lips, indicating for him to be quiet. Slowly Hermione got to her feet, tip-toeing down the hall and peeking into doorways. It had to be a student; Peeves wouldn't walk and a teacher wouldn't skulk about, especially not if they'd known about the fire.

"Granger!" Hermione nearly swore as Malfoy's loud shout rang throughout the dungeon.

"What?" she snapped, pivoting. She was itching to get back to searching for the person who'd started the fire. Unless there was a secret passage she wasn't aware of, there was only one shadowy passage at the end of the hall for the person to be in.

"There's something written on this piece!" he exclaimed. Hermione, her curiosity aroused, rushed over and leaned over his shoulder. He pointed at a small corner of one partially burned paper.

L. Finn

The rest of the sentence had been burned away.

"What do you think it means?" Hermione asked after a moment.

Malfoy turned to her, still clutching the paper, and jumped when he realized the closeness of their proximity. "Who knows? We need to find a teacher. Professor Snape might be here somewhere." Hermione sighed. Snape was her least favourite teacher, but since they were in the dungeons, he was probably the closest.

As they started for his office, just in case there was a slight chance he hadn't heard the commotion, Hermione saw something glittering on the floor under the pile of burnt papers. Without waiting for Malfoy she ran to the charred spot on the floor and brushed the parchment away. A shining gold hourglass lay beneath burned black debris. Hermione picked it up gently, her eyes wide, and her mouth dangerously close to falling open. There was only one thing it could be, but- she didn't have hers anymore and did any of the other students at Hogwarts really use a Time-Turner?

"What is it?" Malfoy asked, approaching her. He stared interestedly at the hourglass and reached for it. Hermione reluctantly let him examine it. Malfoy, obviously unaware that it was a Time-Turner, held it up to the light from the nearest torch.

"Be careful," Hermione said nervously, afraid of what he might accidentally do. "It's a-"

Time seemed to slow and she broke off, staring in horror as Malfoy started to turn it over. She opened her mouth to warn him, and tried to grab it. Hermione clamped a hand on the bottom half of the hourglass just as Malfoy turned it over completely. She heard him yell at her for lunging at him, but Hermione felt like she was swimming under water, unable to hear anything. Suddenly she had lost her grip on the Time-Turner and was falling, Malfoy with her. Just as her eyes began to close she saw a face bobbing around the corner of the farthest passage, brown hair, and worried blue eyes staring at her.

Hermione yelped, and the drowning feeling was broken likes shards of a mirror. She was tumbling rapidly through space, Malfoy's hand clutched in her own. She heard Malfoy yell obscenities, including one with her name in it. The last thing Hermione saw before black oblivion swallowed her was his frightened face, his gleaming blonde hair seemingly like a halo.

Oh, dear God, was Hermione's last thought, as she slowly lost consciousness, if I'm dying and Draco Malfoy's my Angel of Death, I don't think I'll like wherever I'm going . . .