The World Around Us

Hermione was a little afraid, this she would admit. Malfoy had talked to her, then walked off, claiming something about another decade, and now, she walked through the halls and recognized no one. She even saw adults she didn't recognize. She headed to Professor McGonagall's office.

"Thank god you're here, Professor," Hermione sighed in relief as she shut the door behind her.

"Who are you?" asked Professor McGonagall, confusion written plainly on her stern face.

"Who... who am I?" faltered Hermione. "Hermione Granger, your student, I-"

"Oh. You're Miss Granger." The Professor looked very stern indeed. "Lodging has been set up for you on the seventh floor, did Mr. Malfoy not tell you that?"

"Well - well yes, but why don't you-"

"Recognize you?"

"Yes! Why..."

"You've travelled twenty years in the past, Miss Granger. No one is sure how, only that your friend Malfoy-"

"He's not my friend-"

"That Malfoy travelled with you, and somehow you ended up here."

"Why is everyone acting so weird about this?" Hermione asked, truly confused.

"It is a weird situation, and we're trying to return you home as soon as possible."

"How did you know about Malfoy, and all that?"

"Professor Dumbledore let me know."

"I see, so, we're staying-"

"On the seventh floor, in guest rooms just past the statue of Poseidon. The password is "mermish". Now if you'll excuse me, Miss Granger, I have work to do. I will see you in class tomorrow afternoon."

"Will I be studying with the Gryffindors?"

"Yes, the ones of your year."

"Thank you for answering my questions, Professor," said Hermione timidly as she walked towards the door.

"It's quite alright, Miss Granger. Do get along with your partner for the time being, won't you?" And as she said this, Hermione could have sworn McGonagall smiled a little.

"Of course, Professor," replied Hermione as she walked out, shutting the door behind her. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

"You alright?" called a voice to her left. She jumped.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I-" Hermione looked over at the girl who'd asked. She looked oddly familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.

"What is it?" asked the other girl with concern. The girl was a fourth- or fifth-year, no older.

"I - nothing," Hermione said, closing her mouth with a puzzled expression on her face.

"Well, alright then," the girl replied, frowning. "I'll see you around, then." And with a smile and a small wave, the girl was gone down the hall.

"That was weird," muttered Hermione. "but then, what about this isn't weird?" She trudged her way up to the seventh floor and found Draco sitting across from a shiny black door with a silver french handle. He looked bored.

"Granger," he greeted, nodding darkly, "I see you've decided to join me. Unfortunately, I don't have the password."

"Too bad, isn't it?" agreed Hermione. She lent close to the door and whispered, "mermish."

When the door opened, Draco's eyes widened and he looked at her.

"You know the password? What is it?"

"Just come inside, Malfoy, we'll discuss it later."

"I'll have you know-"

"Oh, get stuffed."

Inside the guest apartment, as soon as they walked in was a big common room. Two tall bookshelves leaned against the wall on either side of a large fireplace. A couch, directly facing the fire, and two high-backed chairs furnished the room. This was all to their left. To their right, a large table with fancy chairs sat, filled with plates of food. Hermione looked at the food, simply stunned, but Malfoy sat down immediately and dug into some chicken.

Catching on, she sat down as well, and they both ate their fill, sitting in silence with only the sound of the fire to keep them company.

"What's the password?" asked Malfoy, glaring at her.

"Well, you won't get anywhere with that attitude," Hermione replied, glad to have something over him. "If I give you the password, I want YOUR word that you'll try to get along. We're stuck here together, whether we like it or not."

"Why would I want to get along with you, a disgusting little -"

"Don't finish your sentence, I swear to god I'll hex you into next week if you do."

"Tell me the password!"

"Stop being such a spoilt brat, Malfoy. What are you going to do, tell your daddy? He's probably still an adolescent."

Hermione stood up from the table and fingered through the books on the shelves. She turned to the staircase directly opposite the door and headed up it, assuming the bedrooms would be found up there.

There was a hallway next to the staircase that she figured was to the bathrooms. Not feeling like anything but some sleep and time to think, she reached the top of the stairs without hesitation, and looked for a good room. It was obvious that the four guest rooms resembled the four houses, and sure enough each room was in the house colors. Naturally, she chose the Gryffindor room, and fell back on the bed.

"At least I can stop and think, now," she thought to herself. But no more than five minutes showed her that it was freezing in the room. Obviously, there was no heating. Sighing, she realized her only option was to go sleep on the couch in front of the fire. Gathering the scarlet duvet with gold lining, she trudged downstairs to find Malfoy already on the couch with his green and silver duvet.

"Realized it was too cold, huh?" she asked, sitting down on the couch.

"Get away from me, Granger, just sod off and leave," he replied cruelly.

"It's fucking freezing upstairs! I'm not leaving the couch," she told him distastefully, glaring and wrapping the blanket around her. She mentally chided herself for swearing. The situation did leave a little leeway for swearing, given the conditions, but still...

Cocooned in the blanket in front of the fire, she felt slightly warmer, and a little better. She'd had hardly any time to think about the situation.

She was in the past? How? But Hermione was a bright child. She realized in a short amount of time that the mysterious hallway must have had something to do with it. Looking over at Malfoy, respectively wrapped up in his blanket and staring into the fire, he looked up and over at her.

"What do you want?" he asked her.

"Did you go through a hidden hallway behind a tapestry today?" she said, refusing to be deterred by his rudeness.

"Er, I - no. No, why would I do that?" he lied, not quite sure why he was doing so.

"Oh... well then, I have no idea how we got here," Hermione said, her only theory deflated.

'Way to throw off Granger,' he thought smugly. He didn't even think the word 'Mudblood', though, worried she'd hear him and hex him. Besides, the word was way overdone. 'Yeah, Malfoy, tell yourself that,' he snorted. She looked at him.

"Just, er, thinking about how it sucks to be stuck here with someone like you," he offered, trying to sound mean.

She just laughed. "Nice one, really good, Malfoy."

He hit himself mentally as well. Why was he pulling a Crabbe and Goyle so well? Acting like an idiot with no IQ. Shaking his head as though to clear it, he ignored her and stared into the fire again.

"So, Malfoy, why did you get your own dorm this year?" asked Hermione, geniunely curious.

"Didn't you and all your friends already make all sorts of theories on that subject?" he asked sneeringly, not wanting to talk about it.

"Oh, well," Hermione began in retaliation, "we figured your father couldn't have bought it for you, what with him being a KNOWN scumbag now."

"Don't you DARE talk about my father that way!" yelled Malfoy, enraged.

"Oh whatever, Draco Malfoy, I know you hate him just as much as we do."

"What the hell are you talking about, Granger?"

"I know you talk about all the stuff he buys you and things he does, but he abuses you. I can see it in your eyes," she said knowingly, looking at him with a mixture of hate and sympathy. An odd mixture, one that he did not fancy at all.

"Don't you talk about things you don't understand, you know-it-all. You think you know everything but you're just a stupid, frizzy-haired, bossy bookworm. You think you can press your nose into a thousand books and know everything, but underneath it all you're as stupid as any of us," he finished, watching her reaction.

It was clear he'd hit home. "I - well, I may not be as brilliant as people think, but I do know what I see. And I stand by what I said," she replied, clearly hurt but sympathy still evident in her eyes.

The sympathy only made him angrier. "I don't need your pity! God! I don't need any of it! Any of this!"

"You never answered my original question," Hermione said, ignoring his fit of rage.

"Fine, my dad wanted me to take the Dark Mark but I wouldn't, now he's after me and all the Slytherins hate me for going against the Dark Lord. Happy now?" he asked her with a glare that would make most people quail.

"Yes, and I'm sorry for prying, and I never knew..." The pity on her face only intensified as she looked away, blushing. She felt bad for asking in the first place.

The pity continued to piss him off, but the fact that she sincerely felt bad made him less angry. He felt calmer almost immediately, as though he'd taken a calming draught, and sat in silence for a moment. Then he spoke up.

"Well," he said, trying to sound nonchalant, "I don't fancy that sort of ugly tattoo, you know, I wanted a snake, but the skull? Too obvious. Just wasn't my taste..."

He was regretting saying anything at all. Here he had gone, just blurting out his biggest secret to one of his worst enemies. Sure, he tended to say things without thinking in anger, and really, things were just so bizarre to begin with, but still.

"Shouldn't we be talking about how we're 20 years in the past? I can't believe we can travel back in time and still get hung up on old rivalries. How childish," Hermione said, silently reprimanding herself for being so stupid.

"Why should we be talking at all? Why would I talk to you?" he spat, trying to regain his composure and usual stance.

"Nice try," replied Hermione, grinning lazily. "I still have the password, and really, a little late to try to be rude again, don't you think?"

Damn her. "What's the password, little Gryffindor?"

She ignored him. "So, what sent us back? Why does Dumbledore know we're here? Was he expecting us? And why didn't the future Dumbledore warn us? The future McGonagall?"

"You know Dumbledore, he's an old coot-" he broke off at a glare from her "-and maybe they knew we needed to learn a lesson, or didn't want to change time or something."

"Yeah... maybe..." she muttered vaguely, apparently deep in thought. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to think, the fire dancing along her closed eyelids, distracting her...

She woke up in the dark of night, hours later, curled up in the company of another. The fire still crackled merrily, and she had to think for several minutes before realizing exactly who she was leaning against. Their heads were right next to each other, so that his blonde hair was resting, nestled with her brown.

Before she'd realized who she was up against, she'd moved closer for heat. Now she sat up, repulsed, before wondering what to do. Too cold to go upstairs and leave the fire, too disgusted (and proud) to go back to where she was. Before she could make up her mind, she heard him speak. Straining to hear him, she leaned closer.

"Come back..." he mumbled, reaching up and pulling her back on him. She couldn't tell if he was completely sleeping or not, or whether he knew it was her he was asking to come back. 'Obviously not,' she thought, 'or he'd be pushing me away in disgust.' She paused. 'Much like the disgust you were feeling only a few moments ago.' She sighed, but did not move away. Instead, she drifted back off in the arms of her enemy.