The Rising of Merlin

The One With the Time-jumps

Chapter 19 The One With the Time-jumps

The following month and a half went by quickly for Hermione, but that didn't mean nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It was the opposite actually. Of course, it had happened ordinary things as well, or as ordinary as it gets at Hogwarts. Harry had begun his lessons with Dumbledore; apparently he was looking into memories of Voldemort's past.

Harry had also; it's always Harry; found a mysterious book. Or at least she thought it was mysterious, Harry and Ron just thought it was a regular Potions textbook that somebody had scribbled in. The Half-blood Prince, he called himself, or she, you can never be certain. And of course, Harry; why is it always Harry? He won a bottle of Felix Felicis, which he hadn't used yet.

Marcus had successfully passed three classes already; Astronomy, Charms and DADA, much to the amusement of Harry and Ron, who enjoy seeing Hermione, be put out by not being the smartest in school any-more. He was on his fourth subject now; Herbology.

There were also Slughorn's parties. They were so much fun but Harry insisted in not going. So you could say it was only her; and Ginny of course. It's never only her. Well that's not true. These things, these out of the ordinary things which had happened, those were only for her. For now at least. Soon they would be for her and Marcus. She wasn't sure what she would do afterwards.

She had found out a lot and she wasn't sure how she would handle it. She stood outside of Marcus' chambers around midday on Halloween. She knew he would leave later that day so she had left Harry and Ron behind in the common room, so she would have time to talk to him.

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But what was it that made her so impatient to talk to him. Well, it all started a month and a half earlier, a few weeks after the start of term. But no wait, it actually started the same day as their first day back in class. It was on the evening after their talk with Marcus in his chambers. It was nothing really but Ron told her, mostly as gossip she supposed, that Marcus listened to music when he cleaned the castle and he didn't hear them walking up to him.

Hermione didn't make much of it at first, not until a few weeks later when she was on her way to the library. She heard someone talking and when she peeked around the corner she saw Marcus and his cat, Aithusa. He was busy polishing an old armour and he had his headphones on. He was talking to someone but she couldn't see anyone else there. So she crept a little closer and hid in an alcove so she could hear. She sat down and started listening.

"...not the point, Aithusa. You can't come with me in the forest. Hagrid would find it weird." Marcus voice was filled with amusement.

"No, I don't think he would take that well. You would scare the life out of him." He chuckled.

"Yeah, he did actually, now that you mention it. What was it called? Nora, Nobby...no it was Norbert."

"Haha, but that was only a baby. You're a lot bigger than that."

"You know what, I will take you there myself one day. Let you stretch your wings a little."

She heard footsteps and then there was only silence. She peeked around the edge of the alcove to see what was happening. She was greeted with an empty hallway and no sign of Marcus or Aithusa. She knew he could do mind-talk; he had done it with Ron. But with a cat? Hermione was starting to get confused.

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The second thing happened only a few days later. It was on the day of the Quidditch tryouts. They had decided to visit Hagrid afterwards and when they got there they saw Marcus and Hagrid standing beside Buckbeat in front of Hagrid's hut. They were petting him but when Hagrid saw them he abruptly walked back inside the hut. Harry and Ron followed after but Hermione stayed behind and watched Marcus.