Chapter 2

A/N: All the characters you recognise are JKR's and not mine! Again thanks and hugs to the wonderful beaweasley2 for her alpha reading and to lyn_f for her beta work and her patience! Thank you also to my reviewers; I really appreciate your time and effort.

Thank you to beaweasley2 and Jay for the wonderful banner!

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Chapter 2

Slipping.

Falling, twisting towards the ground.

Darkness. Then a bright light.

Then darkness again.

Heat.

A feeling of compression that stopped her breath.

The metallic taste of blood in her mouth.

Nothing....

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Urgent voices.

Wet on her forehead, in her eyes and nose.

Coughing and spluttering against the water that was being poured over her face, Hermione struggled to sit upright, her arms flailing. Firm hands pressed her backwards and a cloth wiped her face.

"No, no," she said, struggling again to sit up, "Ginny, I'm fine. Let me..."

"Mendacium tamen, ancilla," said a deep voice, shaken and roughened, "permissum mihi magna..."

Another voice, lighter than the first said: "Magister, quid faciemus?"

"Da mihi linteum." This was an order to the other speaker. The voice was smoother now, more controlled.

She felt movement beside her. "Wha...?" Hermione screwed her eyes into slits, trying to focus on the man who was holding her and now wiping her face. She had the worst headache. She could still taste blood.

"Exspecto," the voice spoke again. It seemed to be a command.

What is that word? Hermione tried to force her sluggish brain to function. Wait...? Hermione put her hand to her face, and was shocked to see that her fingers came away from her forehead bloodied. There was a shift in the way she was being cradled, and she felt rather than saw the swish of a wand followed by a sense of magic in the air. She stared blankly at the blood on her fingers. I must have smashed my forehead on the pavement, she thought stupidly.

"Vertere!" The first man spoke again, and Hermione knew he was a wizard.

Immediately, Hermione began to relax, thinking Okay... that's okay...

The man holding her grunted in satisfaction and seemed to turn his attention directly back to her. He wiped her face again, more gently this time, and muttered something under his breath. She could not make out his features in the glare of the sun above them, but there was something familiar about his voice. She tried to push back the fogginess clouding her mind to find the answer. It was still hovering just out of her reach. If she could only just sit up, she'd be able to see his face and recognize him. As she moved forwards again, his face swam once more in her vision, and she felt a violent kick in her stomach. "Ohhh, Gods," she began, but then vomit surged up her throat into her mouth, and she couldn't stop it. The stream hit him square in the chest. It spattered the black tunic he was wearing. He did not pull away from her, although his distaste was evident. With an exaggerated sigh, he wiped her face again with the bloodied cloth.

"Well done, Miss Granger," Severus Snape said sourly in perfectly enunciated English, "you appear to have found me."

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"HAAAAAAAARRRRRRYYYYYYY!" Ginny's bellow brought Potter running to the fireplace in their apartments. His wife's head was sticking out of the flames in the fire.

"What's the matter, Ginny? Is it the kids?" Harry had not realized that he was so unfit. He sucked air into his lungs in great whooping bursts.

"Harry! Headmaster's office. Get here. Now!" His wife ordered in that tone of voice he recognized as meaning 'Don't argue, just do it!'

He grabbed a handful of Floo powder and dived into the fire.

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When he arrived in Flitwick's office, Harry brushed off the soot from his hair and immediately saw a small group of people gathered in front of Snape's portrait on the far side of the room. Flitwick was there, as was McGonagall, Sinistra and Trelawney. There was an excited hubbub of conversation. Ginny grabbed his hand and pulled him forward impatiently. As Harry approached the portrait, the group parted and revealed what they were looking at. Harry stared.

Snape was still staring out belligerently from the frame with the same ancient landscape and belching volcano in the background as before. Standing beside him, however, her arms folded and wearing a frustrated look on her face, was Hermione Granger.

Harry's mouth dropped open. Ginny squeezed his hand.

"Filius called us when he noticed the change a few minutes ago."

The diminutive Headmaster nodded vigorously. "I saw it when I came in. They are still not animate. We were wondering if you had heard from Hermione recently?"

Harry shook his head, still staring at the picture on the wall.

Sibyll Trelawney moaned quietly. Everyone ignored her.

"We need to find Hermione," McGonagall said decisively, pursing her lips in concentration as she cast her Patronus.

"Find Hermione Granger, and ask her to contact me here at Hogwarts," she called out to the silvered cat, which nodded and fled the room.

"She hasn't responded to my owl," said Ginny frowning, "I hope that she's okay."

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When Hermione woke up again, she thought she was on her cot at the dig site. The events of the previous afternoon returned to her slowly as she moved awkwardly on the bed, and her eyes snapped open in shock. Her head still pounded as she moved, and she put her hands up to her forehead to feel the wound that she remembered being there. Her fingers encountered material, tightly bound around her head. She sat up carefully and swayed. A small guttering oil lamp stood on a low stool by the door on the other side of the small room; its light gently illuminated the door and the plain walls but kept the area she lay in near darkness. She could see that the floor was covered with a layer of rushes that emitted a sweet and slightly musty smell. There was a second low wooden stool by the side of her bed. A goblet of water had been carefully placed upon it. She noticed that her bed was a stuffed mattress covered with soft woollen fabrics and some sort of animal skin. Her eyes followed her fingers as they ran through the soft pelt and then settled on her bare knees and lower legs dangling over the edge of the bed. She was wearing a thin shift of fine cloth, rather than the jeans, T-shirt and boots of the dig. She stiffened as she realized that she was also not wearing any underwear. Her heart began thumping irregularly when she realised that her wand was also missing.

Her mind was sluggish. Her memory was returning, but in fragmented slow motion, like an old black and white film from the early days of cinema. She remembered falling towards the mosaic in the excavated house. She must have hit her head when she fell. Putting her fingers against her forehead again, she moaned a little at the swooping sensation in her stomach as she tried to stand up.

There was a slight scraping noise from outside the door to the room, and the door opened to admit a small, anxious-looking figure in a knee-length tunic. He was carrying a wide wooden bowl in both hands in front of him. The oil lamp danced on his rather fine but worried-looking features.

"Mistress," he asked, nervously, "are you needing the bowl again?"

Hermione smiled. Did he think that she was going to be sick on him this time?

Oh shit! She remembered whom she had been sick on earlier, and a hand flew to her mouth, causing him to flinch and offer the bucket towards her.

She held up her hand. "No – it's okay," she reassured him. "I'm feeling much better. No bowl needed, I hope."

He seemed to relax a little and flashed a quick relieved grin in her direction. Nevertheless, he placed the bowl on the stool by her bed and withdrew out of her reach. He remained hovering in front of her, almost wringing his hands in indecision. His behaviour and mannerisms made her think of house-elves.

He cleared his throat.

"The Master is not here, but he will be home presently," he began. "I am ordered to serve you. Would you like something to eat or drink, Mistress? I can offer you some wine, or perhaps some milk? We have honey, olives and bread..." The little man danced once more on the balls of his feet nervously in front of her. He was looking at her as if she might explode or disappear.

She smiled again, seeking to reassure him further. "Yes, I am hungry. I would like something to eat, but first, please will you tell me where I am, and who you are, and who your Master is?"

The little man drew himself up proudly. "I am called Pertus, Mistress. You are in the house of Severus the Healer," he replied in a singsong fashion like a child, as if remembering long practiced information, "in the street of the courtesans, in the district of the Faun, in the city of Pompeii. It is summer, in the first year of the consulship of Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus."

There was a pause as her befuddled mind sorted out everything he said. The implications were utterly impossible... There is no...did he say Pompeii in the first year... of...? No! Hermione's mind suddenly began to work in overdrive as she struggled to assimilate his pronouncement to what she knew about the history of Pompeii and the first year of the consulship of Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus.

"Oh," she said and fainted.