In Perpetuum

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1: NIMIUM CITIO

TOO FAR, TOO SOON

PRE-HOGWARTS

A cool hand touched her. It was soft, but reassuring. Her body ached all over and it felt like she weighed a tonne. Moving, at all, proved to be a challenge.

She could no longer feel the cold stone floor of Hogwarts beneath her. It had been replaced by something yielding. Hermione willed her eyelids open and saw the owner of the aforesaid hand.

A silver haired woman sat to the side of her, hand still resting on Hermione’s shoulder. Her lined face looked familiar, but Hermione could not quite place her. Instead, memories of the battle came back to her - jets of light being hurled everywhere, blinding pain. Sheer desperation.

‘Did it work?’ she wondered, fear taking over every cell in her being as a shot of adrenaline raced through her veins sparking her with energy.

“Where am I?” Hermione almost shouted at the woman.

“Do not fret dear, you’re still recovering. You’ve had a number of wounds, most of which I’ve managed to patch up, or rather, stop the bleeding.”

“But where am I?” Hermione repeated her voice tense.

“At the Potter Manor...,” began the woman.

Hermione sucked her breath in sharply at this, not taking in anything else the woman was saying. The name ‘Potter’ reverberating around her brain. The elder Potters’ were dead and had been for a long time. How far had she gone back?

The woman was still rattling on, “so very young...glad that James and Sirius found you when they were playing...may not have lasted much longer...”

Hermione spun her head to face the woman, despite an intense pain in her neck.

 “James and Sirius?”  Her voice was barely a whisper.

“My son and, for all intents and purposes, my other son,” explained the woman, “they were the ones that found you and brought you here. The story that accompanied it was questionable, not that I don’t trust them, it’s just that – well perhaps you could shed some light on how you got here.”

Hermione thought through all that had happened before she arrived here. She wondered how much to tell this woman. She seemed kindly enough, but Hermione reminded herself that this person was a stranger to her. She must firstly ascertain whether this woman could be trusted.

“I can tell you how I got here, but first I need to know where ‘here’ is and more importantly, who you are.”

She had not meant to sound so brash, but it was imperative that she gained the information that she needed so that she could proceed. Her use of the time turner in her third year and very much warned her against tampering with time unnecessarily.

The woman blinked in astonishment at the young girl’s words before launching into explanation.

“How silly of me, not even introducing myself! No wonder you were so afraid. My name is Dorea Potter and I am the Mistress of Potter Manor, where you are now. My sons James Potter and Sirius Black found you in a field, just beyond the gates of the manner. They said you looked like you had been duelling for your life. That was a decided understatement - what on Earth had you been doing to get yourself in a state like this? Where did you even get a wand?”

Hermione had relaxed slightly when she realised that being at Potter Manor was one of the safest places she could be, although she knew that being here meant that she would have to eventually face her best friend’s father and Godfather. She did not know how she would cope seeing them, knowing what happened to them in her time, but that was to be dealt with later. Her time on the run had assured her that emotion came second, especially when considering anything to do with Lord Voldermort. However, Mrs Potter’s explanation had created more questions than it had answered. She asked the question she thought required immediate clarification.

“What do you mean by, where did I get a wand? This is my wand.”

“But dear, how could you have a wand? You certainly don’t look old enough.”

Perplexed, Hermione looked down at her body for the first time since arriving here. She expected injury; after all, she had been hit by several different spells at once. Those were there, sure enough, however, it was what was between the wounds that shocked her to the core. Or rather, it was what she didn’t see that stunned her.

Hermione assumed to see her, very much adult, eighteen year old body before her; however, her assumption was not correct as her physique resembled that of a ten year old.

She lay there, chin pointed downwards, staring at her body with her mouth slightly agape. The pace of her breathing increased while her breaths remained shallow.

“What year is it?” questioned Hermione.

“1971,” replied Dorea with the most curious expression on her face.

Hermione’s shock dissolved as she crumpled into tears. The spell had worked in principle, but the biggest shock was the amount of time that she had been sent back.

 “Why don’t you start by telling me your name and how you got here? It may shed some light on some of the other things that are happening?” said Dorea into the ear of Hermione, whom she was now holding in comfort.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione whispered.

Hermione nodded and took a moment to pause and calm herself down before launching into the story. She told a selective truth. Hermione knew that it would devastate the woman to find out of the death of the family whom she clearly loved so unconditionally. She explained her desperation and how it was crucial that, now she had successfully travelled in time, she do her utmost to ensure the world was forever rid of Lord Voldemort.