Running

Chapter 2

Facing the Past

Hermione smiled slightly as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry came into view, it's many stone towers and floors rising up from the hill it was perched on. She could see the lake glimmer slightly from the sun a ways away, and smoke rising out from the chimney of Hagrid's Hut.

The big main doors swung open for her as she walked up the front doors after having gotten out of the horseless carriages. She knew, of course, that they weren't really horseless. She also knew what the 'horses' looked like, as she had witnessed a death in their seventh year. Not that she really liked thinking about it. It was slightly gruesome.

"Ah, Miss Martins. I trust your trip up was well?"

Hermione turned towards the stairs to see Dumbledore standing at the end of them, his eyes twinkling.

"Yes, thank you," Hermione replied, instantly going into 'Athena mode' as she had started calling it. She gazed around; trying to look amazed, and hoped it worked, "This is an amazing school. Very big," she said.

"Yes, I suppose it might be to some. There are many rooms that even I have not been in."

"I just hope I won't get lost."

"I am sure you won't," he said.

Hermione, like usual, saw a different meaning in his words. He wasn't saying that she would not get lost, because any normal person new to the school could.

"Er... don't tell, all right?" she said.

His eyes twinkled. "You haven't changed. We will speak later, though. Now is not the time. Would you like me to show you to your rooms?"

"Yes, that would be great," Hermione answered, smiling at him.

Dumbledore left her in her office, with instructions on how to get into her rooms.

Her office was bare except for a few shelves and a desk. A picture of a unicorn stood on one wall, beside a window. Hermione told the password to the unicorn and the portrait swung open.

She entered into a room much like the Gryffindor common room, but smaller. A fireplace stood along one wall, with large windows on the one next to it. Two arm chairs and a couch sat by the fire, with a coffee table and a rug spread out in front of them. One wall held two doorways, while the other, the one that the doorway Hermione stood in was, held one more doorway.

She knew the door just a few feet down the wall from her led to the staff room. Dumbledore had told her so. The corners of the room were slightly rounded, and most things were left bare so she could decorate for herself. She soon discovered that one of the doorways led to a bedroom with an adjoined bathroom, which also had another door out into the common room.

The room was simple, yet Hermione loved it. It was comfortable, in a homey kind of way, and she soon set forth to make it even more like her home. She conjured up a pot with a kind of leafy green plant out of nowhere, and set it in the center of the coffee table. The fireplace she put a couple candles, along with some of the bigger ornaments she owned. She threw her blanket, along with one of her pillows on the couch, before going to her bedroom.

A four-poster bed, with plain white quilts and draping sat on one wall, with a dark wood bedside table beside it. She turned the draping of the bed to dark blue, along with making the curtains a dark purple color. The carpet was a color she couldn't quite place. Somewhere between purple and red, along with some blue mixed in.

Two large windows, with their curtains sat on the wall directly across from Hermione. Their tops rounded slightly, before coming to a point. A wardrobe sat against the wall opposite the bed, and on each side of it stood one wall shelf, held up to the wall with gold colored holders shaped like angels.

Hermione started unpacking, transfiguring the plane shaped lamp on the bedside table to a lamp with a beaded shade over it. The shade had a pattern on it of gold and dark purple beads, while leaving enough room for the candle to sit without melting them. Of course, magic would save them anyway, but that wasn't the point.

She stuck a picture on her bedside table, one of a dog she had once had when she was little. The dog was a little Pomeranian, with a toy stuck in its mouth. It looked cute, she had to admit. Besides, it wasn't like she could put any up of friends or family, in case someone happened to come in. Those pictures she kept in a box, which she pushed under her bed.

After hanging up her clothes in the wardrobe (which was bigger than it looked on the outside, with the help of magic) she put the book she was currently reading on her bedside table. She put a box of chocolates, which replenished itself regularly, and a book full of poetry in the drawer of the bedside table, in easy arms reach for those days that she felt sad, and only wanted to curl up and sleep, and not face the world. She placed a medium sized, tan teddy bear under the table, and stuck a little flag she had kept from a World Cup Quidditch match in his arms.

On one of the shelves beside the wardrobe, she put her favorite fiction books end to end, with her book holders holding them up. Other special belongings went on the other, along with her jewelry box, which was nothing but a black box with a dragon on the lid. The rest of her fiction books were left in her trunk.

After she was finished in her rooms she went out to her office, where she piled the bookshelves full of Arithmacy books and books about other subjects, that were actually based on fact. She put everything 'professional' in her office, along with a few things to make it look like her own. She remembered going to the various Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers office, and marveling at how different it looked from the previous teacher.

Thinking about Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers made her wonder who the teacher was now. After all, they didn't exactly post that all over the Daily Prophet, and no one other than the teachers knew until the first day of school. And the teachers didn't exactly release it everywhere either.

Hermione frowned as she realized she was hungry. She had been unpacking for a while, after all, and she had skipped breakfast after sleeping in late. And she also needed a shower.

So, she showered for the first time ever in her new shower, dried her hair, got dressed, and then left the room, only to wonder where the teachers ate. Where did they eat during the summer? School started in a week, and this was the time teacher usually returned. Hermione had never been here during that time, and of course had no clue where the teachers ate.

She decided to go to the kitchens. It was a few hours past suppertime, so, why not let the helpful house elves help her out? They would, she knew that. She just hoped they had food. Which was actually a stupid thought, once she thought about it more. Of course they had food, the teachers needed to eat somehow...

She sighed, shaking herself from thoughts that were somehow confusing her. She was tired, needless to say, and even though the shower had woken her up a bit, she knew she would have to turn in early that night.

After pushing on some shoes, which she had accidentally left behind in her room after finding it more comfortable to walk around in bare feet, she headed down to the kitchens. She knew the way perfectly. She had taken Arithmacy, and her office was right near the classroom. She could find her way from it to the kitchens pretty easily. Maybe not blindfolded, as the castle seemed to like changing itself when people did that... she knew from experience.

She shook her head slightly at remembering it, and pushed it away after coming to the portrait that led to the kitchens. She tickled the pear, and after it giggling for a moment, the picture swung open. Little house elves in the usual Hogwarts house elf uniform came bustling up to her immediately, asking her what she wanted. After ordering, she sat down at one of the tables, only then noticing that someone else was in the kitchens also, who wasn't a house elf.

"You must be the new teacher," he said, standing up and sitting across from her. Hermione recognized him at first glance. It was Harry Potter, to her surprise. She tried to let it not show, though. If he noticed, she could say it was because he was Harry Potter, after all, and not because she used to be his best friend.

"Er... yes, I am," she answered.

"I'm Harry Potter. I am the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," he said, holding his hand out across the table.

She shook it and said, "Athena Martins. The new Arithmacy teacher."

"I must ask, how did you find your way down here? I never knew someone new could know their way to the kitchens."

"I asked a portrait," she lied smoothly. Except she didn't exactly like lying to Harry. But she knew she had to, in order to keep her act up.

"Yes, I guess that would work."

Neither of them spoke for a moment, as Hermione's food came. She felt Harry's eyes on her, and when she looked up and met them, they looked slightly confused, along with a lot of other emotions. Too many for her to think of at once.

"You look familiar," he said.

"Er..." was her only reply, as she looked down again.

"I know what it is," he said a moment later. "You remind me of my friend. She disappeared a while ago, though. I haven't seen her for five years..."

"Hermione Granger?" she asked quietly.

"Yes, how'd you know?" he asked.

"I read it in the papers," she lied, her voice still quiet.

He nodded in reply, which Hermione only saw from the top of her eyes, as she was still looking down. Her appetite was gone by now. She really did want to tell him the truth. And why not? But she knew the answer to that. It would just complicate things more. She could not keep the weight of that on his shoulders, and not tell Ron... and of course he would want to tell Ron. Ron was his only best friend left, really.

So, no, she couldn't tell him. But sitting here, across from him for the first time in five years, made her feel like she wanted to cry. She had put aside her thoughts of Harry and Ron a couple years back as well as she could. But now after coming face to face with one of them, they were resurfacing. And all she wanted to do was go back seven years and change how she did things. Then she wouldn't be sitting here across from Harry in the Hogwarts Kitchens. Instead she would be sitting across from Harry and Ron at maybe the Burrow, laughing and smiling.

"Um... I have to go," she said, standing up. "It's been a long day."

"Oh, all right," he said, pulling himself from his own thoughts.

Hermione smiled slightly at him, forcing it out, before fleeing as fast as she could without attracting unwanted attention, and went back to her own rooms. And as memories came flooding back like a wave breaking against a cliff wall, she collapsed onto her bed and cried.