Chapter Three

Hermione wandered round the library. Professor Dumbledore had given her a note so she would be allowed to look at whatever she liked. She got the feeling that it was meant to pacify her. She sighed. Yesterday, she would have killed for this kind of privilege. Today... For once, she didn't even feel like running a hand along the ropes, much less perusing the Restricted Section at will.

She picked a random aisle and grabbed the first book that came to hand. The illustrations were familiar. She'd read this one before. No surprise, though. She'd read most of these already. But this one was the book in which she'd found references to transfiguration potions but no recipes, the reason she'd gone to Lockhart for permission to get Moste Potente Potions out of the Restricted section to make the Polyjuice Potion... that had nearly turned her into a cat. She put it back on the shelf.

Thankfully, most of the students were home for the holidays, so there was no one to stare at her and ask nosey questions. She had no idea what she would say if they did. She had no idea what she could say.

She took a few more steps into the Potions aisle and pulled out a different book, then settled into one of the overstuffed chairs to read. She was somewhat hoping to find a potion that would get her back to her own time, but she knew the probability of that. She wouldn't even know where to start looking. But she had nothing better to do, so she read. When thirty minutes had gone by and she realized she'd read the same page four times in a row, she closed the book. This wasn't going to work.

A strange noise made her peer around the room. She thought she had heard a sneeze, but she was the only one here other Madam Pince. The librarian was in plain sight and there wasn't any evidence that she had sneezed.

Then she heard it again. This time, she raised herself up out of the chair and began to look for the source.

She found it a moment later, and could only stare. It hadn't occurred to her that even avoiding the staff, she would still run into people she knew. Apparently, Dumbledore hadn't thought of it either. But there, sitting in the corner with his back to the wall and knees in the air, she saw him. His prominent nose was millimeters away from the rather thick book propped up on his thighs, but she recognized him all the same: Severus Snape. A young Snape; he looked to be about her age. His black hair was just as long as it would be in her time, but now it just hung over his face, untied and unruly. He was skinnier, too, like a folded-up scarecrow.

He hadn't paused in his reading, hadn't even flicked his eyes in her direction. Maybe he hadn't noticed her. She would just back away quietly and hide in one of the aisles until she could figure out how to get past him and out of the library without him seeing her. Yes, excellent plan. But the moment she lifted her foot, he looked up.

Hermione knew, of course, that she could not tell him anything substantive in case whatever it was ended up changing something important. She was scared to death that she would mess something up and not be able to get home; or worse, get home and have there be no home to go back to. This was worse than using a Time-Turner.

He studied her for a moment before asking, "Who are you?" The voice wasn't quite as polished as the older Snape's, but the potential was there.

She smiled at him and opened her mouth to introduce herself and caught it in her throat. She couldn't very well tell him who she was. She wasn't supposed to be altering anything. Her name was unusual enough that he that he'd remember it when he caught up to her first year and taught her Potions. So she picked another name. "I'm Jane," she said. "I'm visiting Albus Dumbledore for the holidays." It wasn't really a lie. Her name was Jane...her middle name, anyway...and she was visiting Dumbledore, albeit not by choice.

"Severus," he offered her his hand tentatively, as though he thought she might laugh. But she took it and, against her better judgement, sank down beside him.

"Nice to meet you, Severus. What are you studying?"

He grimaced slightly and turned the book over. It was a book of dark spells. But the response he was obviously expecting never crossed her mind. This was Snape, after all. She just nodded sagely and said, "There's another one three shelves down from that one, I think, that has clearer directions."

He frowned slightly and said, "Show me." She got up and retrieved the volume, grinning. When she returned, and he saw which one it was, he relaxed. "I've already read that one." He cocked his head and just looked at her for a moment before asking, "You've looked at these?"

Hermione felt blood creeping up her neck into her cheeks and nodded into her lap to hide it. "I do a lot of research."

"Well, don't say that too loudly around here. If you are still visiting after the holidays, there's a whole group of... students"...he said this word as though it left a nasty taste in his mouth..."who will make your life hell for wanting to learn."

Hermione calmed her face by concentrating on not giving herself away. She had an idea who he meant, and "Jane" wasn't supposed to. "Oh. Well, I'm hoping to be back home before the term starts." Another bent truth.

He marked his page with a finger and closed the book to converse with her properly. "What topics do you research?" he asked.

"Well... Right now, I'm researching a perception enhancement spell. But that's... on hold until I get back home." And to keep him from asking the wrong questions, she turned it right back to him. "What are you researching?"

"Dark spells in general, I suppose. Just once, I would like to have... a leg up over those who... hurt me. I am... tired of being walked on. If I had enough power, perhaps those who make mockery of me now would no longer be inclined to do so..." He trailed off, lost in thought.

Impulsively, she hugged him. She understood that he was hurting, and it pained her. He didn't pull back immediately, but it was probably from shock, which was evident on his face when she let go. So she tried filling in the empty space. "And you will achieve that power by gaining knowledge over them?"

"Of course," he said. Then he found his thoughts once again. "How else? It's not as though I have any way of using brute force."

Hermione pulled her head back a little and considered him carefully. He was tall–even if she didn't know that already, she could tell by the way his legs folded. He was also thin, but not fragile. Wiry. There was a toughness there. "True, but there's really nothing wrong with your build. I find it attractive." What? What did I just say? Snape? Attractive? What am I saying?

"Do you know, that was the first time anyone has embraced me." He said it so quietly that she almost didn't hear him.

Carefully, she took his hand and tried to expel from her mind the thought that she was on the brink of changing something important. "Severus, that's terrible. I'm so sorry."

"I don't want your pity, Jane," he said a bit gruffly, withdrawing his hand.

"Severus, you don't have my pity, you have my affections. You don't need anyone's pity...or approval, I suppose...but I want to be your friend. Is that so wrong?" And there it was: the brink. She saw it, but couldn't help herself from walking right over it.

"Jane," he said slowly, "very few people seek me out for anything other than to torment me. I am not a likable person. I think you should wait at least until the end of the first conversation before deciding that you want to be my... friend." He scowled and then added, "And now, I believe we have reached the end. Good day." And with that, he got up and left the library, leaving Hermione sitting on the floor with his book of dark spells.

She sat for a moment staring after him before standing, brushing the wrinkles out of her robes, then trudging back to Gryffindor Tower. When she reached the portrait entrance, she eyed the Fat Lady grimly and said the password Dumbledore had given her, then made her way through the common room and up the stairs to the Head Girl's room.

The Head Girl's room. And she'd just gotten used to calling it her own room. She sighed and opened the door. It certainly wasn't her room now. Walking in and closing the door behind her, she suddenly wondered exactly whose it was. She hadn't spent much time analyzing her surroundings this morning beyond confirming that they weren't her own. If she hadn't been frantic, she probably would've taken the time to look for clues. But now seemed as good a time as any.

The desk chair had a homemade afghan throw over the back that pretty much screamed 70s. On the desk itself was the usual quill and inkpot, with a small stack of parchment to one side, held down by a clacker. Hermione had seen one before...it was basically a key in the middle of a piece of string with two snooker balls at the ends. It was a child's toy, but one that took great coordination to be able to clack the balls together without buggering up the string. More importantly, it was a Muggle child's toy. This was a surprise, to say the least.

Hermione checked the desk drawers for clues, but all she came up with was a handwriting sample sharing a scrap of vellum with several doodles of hearts and flowers... and as close as black ink can come to a rainbow. Girlie stuff, but nothing identifying. She closed the drawer.

Putting her back to the chair, she swept her gaze around the room for anything out of the ordinary. The bedside table caught her eye. It was on the other side of the bed from her own time, covered by a large red doily to protect it from the falling needles of the miniature Christmas tree there. Now how did she miss that this morning? Well, the bedside table had two drawers, and what better place to keep personal effects.

Hermione threw herself across the bed and reached over to the drawer. Jackpot. She pulled out a small brown leather journal inlaid with the initials "LE" in gold. Feeling slightly guilty, she cracked the book open and flipped to a random page. Then another. And another. They were all blank. Of course. The journal was probably charmed to keep others' large noses out. Not that she blamed the girl. She'd done the same thing with her dream journal.

Replacing the journal and scooting forward so she could see into the drawer, her questing fingers found a pen. A rollerball pen. In fact, it was a Parker pen, something she'd find on High Street. More Muggle technology. It made sense, really. Keeping a quill and an inkpot by the bed would just be an invitation to disaster. Especially waking up in the middle of the night, feeling her way through the drawer in the dark to find the journal to record that perfect dream...

The last thing in the drawer, way in the back, was a photo. Two, actually, but only one of them moved. Both were of the same boy. A tall, thin boy with spectacles and unkempt hair that stuck up in the back. He kind of looked like Harry, actually.

Hermione dropped the pictures. It wasn't Harry, it was James. James Potter. She couldn't have asked for a better clue as to whose room this was. "LE"? Lily Evans. She was Head Girl her last year at Hogwarts, as Harry's dad was Head Boy.

She rolled over and threw her hands over her face. Harry's gonna kill me. At least it's Christmas, so there's no chance I'll meet them. Unless I'm stuck here. Where's Ron when I need him? "Bloody hell!"

She lay there across the bed, staring up at the ceiling, and tried to piece it together, figure it out logically. She thought about all of the things that led up to her predicament, starting with why she was even at Hogwarts over Christmas. After dealing with the Death Eaters at the Department of Mysteries, being knocked on her arse by Dolohov's purple flame spell, and being prescribed all those daily potions just to keep her alive, her parents were... wary, to put it lightly. But she was still alive and well, eager as ever to do the whole magic thing, and they didn't want to stifle her growth. The next Christmas, however, when three students never came back, and then at Easter break another two... Even with the "official" word being that they were "removed" from Hogwarts, word got out that the Death Eaters were picking students off. If it had been possible, her parents would have kept her at school over the summer as well as Christmas break. As Muggle as they were, they still knew that if anyone could protect their daughter, it would be Dumbledore. Ironic, really, since keeping her at Hogwarts led directly to this mess.

She thought about spending yesterday in the library, and how it was so entirely different from her experience there today. She realized that she had left a mess in the lavatory and wondered briefly if anyone had found it and guessed what had happened to her. She wondered if time were continuing while she was here, and if anyone missed her. Snape at least would be able to vouch for her presence in Hogwarts the night before...

And then it hit her like the Hogwarts Express. Snape. He had given her the pass for the library without even asking why she wanted it or even a scathing comment about her bookish habits. He had seen her in the hallway after curfew without deducting a bazillion points from Gryffindor, let alone giving her detention. He knew! He didn't ask why she wanted the pass because he checked his calendar. The dates must be etched in his mind! And he didn't ask her about breaking curfew because he knew about the potion. He must have gone in there to double-check, and possibly do a quick cleanup while she was standing there braced for the tirade. He remembered her and knew that she was going to be a part of his past. If he hadn't given her the pass, he would've created the paradox himself and erased that part of his past... But what exactly would that have done? Not meeting her certainly wouldn't make him decide to give her the pass. He must've been ensuring his past for a reason, but whether it was himself or her he was protecting, she didn't know. Obviously, though, he believed he had to let her come. But why?

Dumbledore would know. Her Dumbledore, anyway. And then she realized that he probably did know. He was the first person here she talked to. If he knew about her and Harry using the Time-Turner to save Sirius and Buckbeak before they'd actually done it, surely he would remember this little episode. At least it would've happened chronologically, from his perspective.

And that led to the next thought: if Snape and Dumbledore knew she were here and had not tried to prevent her from coming...had, in fact, passively encouraged her to do so...then was she here for a purpose? How was she to know what was acceptable to do and what would create paradox? This was the past, not her past. She had no idea what was and what wasn't supposed to happen.

She thought about it some more before eventually deciding not to care. It was too much for one person to handle. She had a feeling she would be able to sympathize with Harry a bit better when...if...she got back. She was just going to do what felt right, and any repercussions would be dealt with later. The future would go on with or without her.

She hoped.