An Unlikely Proposal

Hermione Granger walked quickly through the hall, a frown creasing her forehead and her box of S.P.E.W. badges clinking loudly in her hand. An stern older woman in knife-pleated black robes - presumably a professor - passed her and looked at her strangely. She didn't recognise the woman, but said, "Hello, Professor," anyway out of habit and politeness. Hermione's eyebrows knitted together in slight concern at the lack of response from the woman, and the fact that she couldn't place the woman's face at all, but she shook her head and tried to think nothing of it. The woman is a visiting professor, perhaps, she told herself. Or someone here to see Dumbledore. Right.

A few minutes later, a gaggle of first-year students passed her, chatting animatedly. While their school ties and sweaters declared them to be Ravenclaws, their robes did not betray their house affiliations, and she blinked in surprise. Where am I? she thought to herself, alarmed. Or rather, what year is this? In Hogwarts, A History, it says that House crests weren't used on robes until Professor Dumbledore became Headmaster. So that means it's ... well, I don't know, actually ...

She looked around, her panic growing, for a clue as to what year she'd landed herself in. The hall looked the same - there was the same suit of armour that stood in the corner of the hallway leading down to the Charms classroom. It still wheezed in that irritating way that it always did whenever she passed by. The portraits on the walls smiled beatifically down at her. The flags hanging from the ceilings - down to the broken tile halfway down the hall, third tile from the wall, seventh row in the fourth section from the third-floor landing, were exactly as she knew them. Everything was the same.

So it couldn't be that long ago.

Much to her relief, she saw a familiar figure making its way down the hall in her direction.

"Professor Dumbledore?" she called, her voice filled with an odd mixture of relief and anxiety. He looked at her over his ever-present half-moon glasses, and smiled, but there was no hint of recognition visible in his face. He looked much younger - his hair wasn't white, and was much shorter, and there was more of a spring to his step.

Hermione frowned. "What the ... ?" she said aloud at Dumbledore's retreating figure. She was used to getting a friendly smile and a "Hello there, Miss Granger" from him, and this, definitely, threw her off her guard. She'd heard of Time-Turners going too far by accident, but this was way too far for her liking. She frowned, fingered the chain around her neck, and pulled the offending object - a small Time-Turner, the same one she'd used two years before - out of her robes. Oh, hell. How far back have I gone?

A sharp pain in her lower back reminded her how she'd taken a nasty tumble down three flights of stairs earlier in the day after a particularly frustrating Potions class, in which she'd received an eight of ten on her last assignment, had been told by Professor Snape that he was certain that she'd fail her Potions O.W.L. at the end of the year, and as a result had gotten laughed at by Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin contingent. She'd tripped over a trick step, and her books, bag, and S.P.E.W. box had gone flying along with her, parchments and quills and S.P.E.W. pins going everywhere. It had taken her nearly half an hour to gather all of her things together, and stuff them back into her bag, and an additional fifteen minutes to collect all of the S.P.E.W. paraphernalia that littered the landing.

A sharp voice cut through her reverie. A handsome dark-haired boy of medium height, impeccably groomed, with Slytherin stripes on his sweater and tie, and a Head Boy badge pinned to his robes, was striding purposefully toward her, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" His eyes drifted to the Gryffindor crest on her robes, and he scowled.

"I'm Hermione Granger," she said, trying to muster up all the courage she knew she had into her voice. "And you are ... ?"

"Bartemius Crouch," he said, with a note of pride in his voice.

Hermione froze. Surely the striking young man before her couldn't be her DADA professor from the previous year - the one who had fooled the entire school into believing he was Mad-Eye Moody? She scratched the back of her head, and frowned deeply. She thought back to how he'd taken Harry away after Harry had won the Triwizard Tournament and ...

Crouch's voice slowly filtered back into her consciousness. "That's right. The future Minister of Magic. I've got a job lined up for myself in the Department of International Magical Cooperation for next year, but that's only a stepping stone to my real destiny." He chuckled a little, and narrowed his eyes at Hermione superciliously. "Might I ask you what you think you're doing out of your House at this hour?"

International Magical Cooperation - ah, Barty Crouch, Senior. Hermione smiled to herself, relieved that she didn't have his son, an unsavoury character on many counts, before her at that moment.

"What are you doing out at this hour?" Crouch repeated, annoyed, his hands on his hips.

Hermione looked at him blankly. Her watch read "14:37", which couldn't be right if she was being berated for being out after hours. "Have you got the time? I think my watch, er, stopped or something."

Crouch pulled a gold engraved pocket watch out of his robes. "Eight thirty-seven."

"Thank you. I've got twenty-three minutes until curfew, then."

"Curfew's at eight now, don't you remember?" He eyed her prefect badge warily. "You should know these things. I could write you up for slacking on your duties."

She looked down, avoiding his piercing gaze. "Sorry," she mumbled, more to herself than to him.

"Surely you have not forgetten the danger plaguing our world as we speak," Crouch said in a soft voice that sent chills up and down Hermione's spine. "Grindelwald is roaming the land, wreaking havoc wherever he goes. He is close to defeat, and I have every confidence that we will win. However, until our victory is sure, we must take every possible precaution against any unnecessary casualties that could happen here at this school. The past two years have been wrought with tragedy - the Chamber of Secrets was opened two years ago, and a cold feeling of terror covered the school like a shroud of death. We lost a Muggle-born student that year, and another student was expelled shortly thereafter. And last year ... "

Hermione had stopped listening at the mention of the Chamber of Secrets. She did some quick calculations, and felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. Because of her fall down the stairs that morning, the Time-Turner had taken her back to 1945.

The words 1945 and Barty Crouch Senior chased each other in circles through her mind. Deep in thought, Hermione focused on the four letters on the cover of the box in her hand, and suddenly, without preface, she blurted out, "I really think you should join S.P.E.W."

"S.P.E.W.?" Crouch asked, blankly.

"Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare," Hermione said, proudly. "I started it because it's been brought to my attention that house-elves are sorely mistreated within the household and elsewhere," she explained. "They don't know any better, and one of my goals for this organisation is to educate the house-elves, to show them what sorts of lives they could lead outside the home. There are many different opportunities for them in the magical world, and we need to help them realise their full potential. And I think you're someone who can benefit from learning about how house-elves could be protected, and how their living conditions could be made better, and how your improved treatment of them could greatly alter their outlook on life."

Crouch laughed. "Wait a minute. Doesn't that spell spew? Isn't that rather counterintuitive, really? I don't know how many people would be interested in joining a club for the betterment of house-elves called 'spew.'"

Hermione's face flushed with indignation. "It's not 'spew', it's S.P.E.W. And it's the purpose and the principle of the whole thing that matters most. These creatures deserve better than what they've got. I know of one house-elf who's been freed and is happy with his freedom, and wouldn't go back to indentured servitude if his life depended on it."

Crouch frowned. "House-elves are good-for-nothing creatures who have no use but to serve others. They exist to be loyal to one family and to serve them for their entire lives. To take that away from them would be to take away their livelihood. They like being treated the way they are. It gives them a sense of purpose. It's what their parents have done, and their parents' parents before them. Why can't you understand that?"

"You can't enslave house-elves! Do you know what kinds of conditions you subject them to? Yes, you," said Hermione, seeing the puzzled look on his face. "They're so sheltered, they don't know what it's like to live with the proper conditions that should be expected by your average creature. The way they're being treated - no wages, no sick leave, poor working conditions - has got to be against some sort of human rights law. Or the magical equivalent thereof," she added hastily. "It's positively shameful, the way I've seen them treated. The hard work they do, the tight restrictions that have been placed on their livelihoods, the way they're sorely underrepresented in the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures - just about everything about their lives makes me angry! It's totally barbaric!"

Barty Crouch listened impatiently, tapping his foot against the stone floor. "Little girl, shut up. I do not have time for your stupid drabble. And house-elves are not human."

"I am not a little girl! And I'll give it to you that these house-elves aren't human, but they are living creatures, and they, like you and me and everyone else, should be treated with a modicum of respect!" Hermione cried in an impassioned voice. "Please, join S.P.E.W. It's a great cause, and the house-elves and I will thank you. All you've got to do to show your support is to pay two Sickles for a membership fee, and you'll get this badge and - "

"Two Sickles?!" Crouch cried. "Do you have any idea how much money that is? And for a meaningless cause like yours?"

Hermione blinked. Two Sickles wasn't that much money, was it? Even in 1945? And how dare he call her campaign a 'meaningless cause'!

"I'll make it one Sickle for you, just please show your support and promise me that you won't enslave house-elves when you do get a house, and have a wife and son of your own!" Hermione cried desperately, paying no mind to what she was saying any longer.

Crouch looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face, reached into his pocket, and tossed a coin into her S.P.E.W. box. "Here you go." He took a pin from her, and fastened it to his robes next to his Head Boy badge. "I'll think about everything you said." She didn't catch the slight note of condescension in his voice. "I'll see you around, Granger," he said as he turned to walk away.

Hermione turned in the other direction, toward the staircase, and walked down it, frowning. He's going to fire Winky anyway, in fifty years, and she'll spend a year and a half being miserable. Nothing's going to change that. Really, am I going to make that much of a difference? I know I said some things I shouldn't have, but I don't care anymore about all of those warnings against going back to the past to change the future. It'd be wonderful for my cause if Barty Crouch Senior took my advice and was kind to his house-elf. That would be one less distraught house-elf for me to worry about, and he could potentially spread the word to others who mistreat their elves. And perhaps all of this would prevent him from getting killed at the end of last year. She sighed tiredly, as she found her overstuffed bookbag that she'd hidden behind the pedestal of a bust of Godric Gryffindor, and slung it over her shoulder, pulling the Time-Turner out of her robes again for the journey home.

She took one last resigned look around at the Hogwarts of 1945 and bade it a silent farewell, determined more than ever to further her cause to save the elves from their sad lots in life. And before she flipped the small hourglass around to begin her return, Hermione Granger, president and founder of S.P.E.W., stood at the bottom of the stairs, not three feet from the spot where she'd fallen that morning, and opened the box in her hand, and saw among the mass of pins bearing her organisation's acronym, one shiny gold Galleon.