Three

"There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space, except that our consciousness moves along it."

– H. G. Wells, The Time Machine

13th March 2004

Hermione is 31

I've never been overly superstitious about Friday the thirteenth, but I'm feeling very guilty about my trip yesterday, and it feels like a bit of a bad omen.

When I got back from 1998, I spent the day in bed, alternately scolding myself and then sulking about being scolded. I finished Severus' crossword puzzle...he isn't (wasn't) very good at History of Magic, it seems...and then I buried the newspaper deep in my bottom drawer, like I was hiding a horrible secret.

It isn't until I sit down to fill in my travel log that I realise that I am going to secret him away. I stare down at the page for the longest time before I pick up my pen...cold, now...and write: 17th March 1988/5.2 hours/Cornwall, England.

More than half of it is the gods-honest truth, I soothe myself, and suddenly I find myself dreading Julia's weekly visit. Childishly, I wish that it were possible to Travel to the future so that I can see if she is going to be suspicious. But it doesn't work that way...the future is something that writes itself hour by hour and is yet to come.

Julia West is my teacher. She, along with my own mother and Minerva McGonagall, are the women whom I've built myself upon...each of them, in their own way, are role models for me.

My mother reflects the balance that I will never have. She's a wife, a mother and a professional, and throughout my entire life she seems to have kept those roles flowing in synchronous harmony. All right, so she buys more frozen meals than most women would admit to, and she doesn't vacuum under the couches, but in the end she seems to have her life mostly figured out.

Professor McGonagall reflects my idea of the perfect witch. She dedicated her entire life to pure magical research and the education (mine included) of magic folk. She is talented. She is strong. She speaks her mind and doesn't let anybody intimidate her.

Julia reflects all that I should be. Disciplined. Brilliant. A patient teacher. A Traveller who embraces all the challenges and facets of her chosen role. A Traveller who never breaks the rules.

Each woman has shaped a decade of my life, strongly influencing part of who I have become. First my mother (Hermione, the Muggle), then Professor McGonagall (Hermione, the witch), and then Julia (Hermione, the Traveller).

It is an honour and a privilege to have been chosen as a Traveller, and the first time I ever met Julia West really did feel like the test that it was...

5th August 1999

Hermione was 19

I arrived at Julia's house via Portkey from Professor McGonagall's office.

"Not even I know where she lives," Professor McGonagall had said as she pressed the cool, round Sickle into my palm. "You're walking into a secret, my girl...are you sure?"

I nodded because my faith was concrete: I was meant to do this, I was meant to follow this path.

Normally when you arrived somewhere, you could roughly sense where you were. The Secrecy Wards were so thick beyond the little garden that I felt like I was drifting on a cloud, disconnected from earth.

I smoothed my robes nervously, and then I started to walk up to the little cottage...utterly charming beneath a bright and fragrant growth of wild roses. But a voice calling my name halted my stride, and I whirled around, my heart beating wildly.

Julia sat in the shade of a large tree at a white-painted, wrought iron garden set. A bone-china tea set and a plate of scones were set on the table, but my attention was riveted on her. She was old, like I'd expected... about as old as Professor McGonagall herself, but that was where the similarity ended. Julia West had her robes rucked up to her knees, and her wrinkly, blue-veined feet were bare, her toenails painted a vivid scarlet to match her robes. Her mouth was a bright red pucker, and little chips of diamante glinted in the frames of her glasses. Her eyes were green, like Harry's, and crystal sharp.

"Sit, sit, my dear," she said in a voice that might have belonged to a woman half her age. I felt my cheeks warm as I abandoned my stiff and straight posture of greeting. She had greeted me like I was an old and welcome friend, but instead of setting me at ease, her warmth and open friendliness made me nervous.

"So... Professor McGonagall has seen fit to send you my way, has she?" she said, pouring two cups of bergamot and citrus scented tea without asking if I wanted some. I found it odd that she didn't call her friend by name, but perhaps she was formal in that regard only.

"Yes, ma'am," I said, accepting a cup of Earl Grey. Her fingernails were painted red, too. It was like she'd saturated herself with colour, like she'd made every effort to be bold and bright.

I expected her to launch into a job description then, to detail what sort of secret research I'd be involved in. To be honest, I'd probably expected the job to be a private sector type of Unspeakable. That was as far as my rigid and organised mind had managed to take me.

"You arrived via Portkey," she said. It was a statement, yet I couldn't help but feel the weight of a question in her words. "Tell me... how does a Portkey work?"

My mouth fell open and my tea sat untouched as I wove my fingers together in a parody of a prayer. I floundered because it was such an unexpected question. I couldn't help but feel woefully stupid and unprepared.

"Um...The Portus... encrypts the object with a destination and it... it takes you to that place at a preset time?" There was a note of query in my own voice then, because I wasn't sure what she wanted to hear. Unease made me shift in my chair, and I had the sinking feeling that I'd failed on some basic level.

But she merely blew across the surface of her steaming tea and narrowed her green, green eyes thoughtfully. "And can you tell me how Apparition works, too?" she asked after a long moment in which I thought she was going to send me back to Hogwarts, to set me on the obvious path.

I brightened. I was good at Apparition: top in my class when we'd taken lessons from Wilkie Twycross. I sat up a bit straighter and smiled before saying, "Destination, Determination and Deliberation. Concentrate very hard on these three fundamentals and step across space, light as a feather."

"Bah!" she exclaimed loudly, and I jerked with alarm, my eyes widening. "Twittering Twylie strikes again!"

No... that wasn't wrong...I'd given her the answer from Apparition for Beginners verbatim.

She sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes as if I'd made a fundamental error in my statement. This interview wasn't going at all like I'd dreamed. In my dream she had been impressed with my flurry of O's and she'd ooohed and aaahed at my complex and pretty spellwork. She'd welcomed my brilliance with open arms.

My eyes must have been wide with alarm and consternation because she flapped a crimson-tipped hand and smiled kindly. "The Ministry has taught that claptrap for years and years, Hermione... Don't you worry yourself that it is all you know...nobody has taught you better, after all." Her smile took on a sly edge, then. "Although you're Muggle-born... haven't you ever approached it analytically before, wondered about the mechanics of it?"

My mouth dropped open because the answer was a resounding no. When I'd arrived in the magical world, I left Muggle science far behind. Latin incantations, wand flicks, runes and arithmantic matrices, the History of Magic... those had become my new world. "No," I said fearfully, my voice small and ashamed.

"Never mind, my dear. I have a doctorate in Physics, and I still don't understand everything there is to know..." She rubbed her gnarled hands together. "I'm going to have to Obliviate you if you don't want to study with me after I've given you the facts, dear. What I am going to share with you is an incredible secret... something that could destroy the world you and I know if it were discovered by the wrong people. You're a bright witch, with a good mind; I'm sure what I will say will be difficult to grasp at first. But I do hope that you will accept the challenge. I've gone for too many years without having somebody to Travel in tandem with."

I nodded numbly, then. My mind was already having trouble grasping the meaning that skidded under the surface of her words. What did Physics have to do with magic? Was everything I'd been taught wrong? What, what, what had Professor McGonagall been thinking? But on the other hand, the idea of gaining a vast and secret knowledge was intoxicating, compelling.

"What would you say if I were to tell you that I was born in 1970?"

I chuckle. I'm sure I'd given Julia the best afternoon of entertainment she'd had in decades, sitting open-mouthed and bewildered through her explanation of how Apparition really worked.

It took me a very long time to get my head around it all. I run my finger along the spines of the Physics textbooks that share a shelf with my magical ones and the volumes upon volumes of observed history I've written.

It's quite an abstract notion, in the end.

What it boils down to is this: Space and Time are not disconnected. They are woven together in a four-dimensional fabric that encompasses us all. When magic folk Apparate, they create a wormhole in this fabric and use it to travel through Space along a single line of Time. Sure, magic folk have managed to travel through Time, too, but only via Time-Turner, which is basically like using a thread of Time as a glorified bungee cord (Julia's words, not mine). And then there's the inconvenience of having to live through each moment of time again until you get back to where you started.

But here's the beauty of it: If you know how, and if you unclutch your brain from all its preconceived notions and you have the key, you can Apparate (essentially create a wormhole, yes?) and travel backwards and forwards at will and whim through Space and Time.

I can't remember if it was Dumbledore or Peter Parker who said: With great power comes great responsibility. But they were right.

That's why there are so many rules that come with this knowledge. I can't even start to imagine what a Dark wizard would do with this sort of ability. Now I remember why yesterday's trip was so dangerous. I didn't just endanger Severus Snape's future... I endangered the future of everybody.

I vow to put the encounter behind me and to follow the path of the righteous Traveller once more.