Chapter Text
Snape’s voice was icy as he said, “Miss Granger, hold still.”
“It hurts!” she whimpered.
“It would hurt less if you would hold still long enough for me to heal it.”
Hermione couldn’t help it. Her chest was burning. Could he not see that? The flames were unimaginably hot, but also somehow sharp, and they were burrowing into her chest.
Snape placed one hand on her shoulder, pinning her down, and she curled her spine, trying to escape the pain. She couldn’t. There was no escape, only unbearable heat and agony.
Snape cursed, and Hermione looked up at him, surprised. He was staring at the ruin of her chest and he looked worried. He had always appeared so icy and implacable. For the first time she really realised that he was human. And young. So much younger than her other Professors.
“You’re so young,” she told him.
He ignored her. She felt his magic wrapping around her as he uncorked a potion vial, tilting it to pour over her. Hermione’s thoughts were spinning. For the briefest moment she wondered what Snape would have been like when he was her age. When he’d sat his O.W.L exams had he sat and waited for the results, hoping for a better future than this one?
Her chest lurched suddenly, and the world spun violently around her. Her and Snape, who was spinning too. His eyes widened slightly, the only indication of his surprise and panic. The potion he’d been pouring on her was spiralling as well, seeming to stretch out around her as her chest burned even hotter than before, as though the sun itself were trying to burst out of her.
She squeezed her eyes shut crying out. The potion touched her. It sizzled. She screamed again.
A door opened. A woman’s voice, tight with alarm, said, “Severus? Are you alr—Who is that?”
Hermione stopped screaming—her chest suddenly feeling fine—and looked at Snape. Then she looked again.
He said, clearly bewildered, “Mum?”
His voice cracked. Hermione stared at him. This was not her Professor. He was a teenager.
His dark eyes jerked down to stare at his left arm for some reason and Hermione took the opportunity to study him. Same thin face and large, hooked nose, but he was free from wrinkles and not quite so worn looking. His hair was even greasier than it had been just moments ago, and he wore a tattered old Pink Floyd t-shirt. She recognised the prism. The shirt was too large on his thin frame and slightly faded.
He had a zit on his chin.
Snape looked at her, eyes narrowing in dislike. “Miss Granger. What did you just do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” she protested.
She looked down at the front of her uniform and blushed suddenly. Her clothes had been burnt, leaving a gaping hole, and she quickly wrapped her arms around herself. The wound across her chest twinged slightly, but felt surprisingly fine compared to how it had been a moment ago.
“Severus,” said the woman in the doorway impatiently. “What is going on? Why do you have a half-naked girl in your bedroom?”
Snape blushed, his cheeks turning splotchy and red. “Magical accident, mum. She will need to borrow some clothes.”
“What kind of magical accident? What were you doing?”
Hermione watched as Snape glared at his mother and she couldn’t help it—she laughed. She realised that although he looked like a teenager this was still her stern Professor, and he was being scolded by his mother.
To her surprise Snape chuckled. It shocked her so much that she stopped laughing, causing him to glare at her.
Snape said, “It was most certainly her fault, and not mine. I need to find Dumbledore. What is the date?”
Hermione looked at Snape’s mother. She was thin and sallow, much like Snape. Her black hair had a few greys in it and was pulled back from her face. She was studying Snape, concerned.
“It’s the 9th of July.”
“What year, mother?” Snape bit out impatiently.
“What’s wrong with you?” she snapped back.
Snape glared at her. Apparently his glare worked on mothers just as well as students, because she said, “It’s 1976.”
“1976?” Hermione squeaked. “But it can’t be—”
“Be quiet, you silly girl,” Snape snapped.
“Severus! Don’t speak to her like that,” his mum scolded.
“She’s the one who got us into this mess,” he snarled. “We need to go. Albus won’t be at the school but we have to find him.”
“You can’t just—”
“This is important.”
He rose, stalking over to a rickety wardrobe and ripping one of the doors open. He examined the contents with an expression of disgust and pulled out a shirt, tossing it at her.
“Put that on,” he ordered.
Hermione flushed. She looked up at his mother. “Mrs Snape, can I use your bathroom please?”
The woman looked surprised by her politeness, but obligingly stepped aside, gesturing down the hall. Hermione was inside the bathroom before the state of her surroundings struck her. The room was small. The mirror cracked and dirty. She could see mould growing in the grout inside the tiny shower.
This was Snape’s house? She stared around it in bewilderment and then looked at the clothing he’d given her. The ratty old t-shirt he’d given her was even worse than the one he was wearing. She put it on, feeling ridiculous.
She tried to clean some of the soot from her face before emerging into the hallway. Snape was hissing at his mother who looked angry and bewildered. He stalked up to Hermione, which didn’t have quite the same effect sans billowing robes, and tugged her along by her elbow.
“Where are we going?”
“Hogsmeade.”
“How?”
He scowled at her. “We are going to Apparate. Obviously.”
“Umm… Are you of age?”
He jerked to a sudden stop. “Fuck.”
She gasped.
He rolled his eyes.
“You are still my Professor aren’t you? Not really the teenager version of yourself?”
“We shall see. But if I really am a teenager now then I am not being paid to put up with your incessant chatter, now hold your tongue Miss Granger.”
Hermione harrumphed, but said nothing else.
Clearly Snape had decided it was not worth risking that he might break the under-age restrictions on magic, so they took the Knight Bus. Hermione was not a fan. Snape dragged them to the Hog’s Head where he bullied the bartender into contacting Dumbledore somehow, and now they were standing outside the gates of Hogwarts.
Dumbledore swept up to them looking cold and forbidding. Hermione was in a poor mood, as Snape had quite rudely refused all of her attempts at conversation. Icy blue eyes swept over her and she shuddered. Dumbledore did not look very friendly right now.
“You summoned me, Mister Snape?”
Snape visibly restrained himself from sneering. “Myself and Miss Granger here have just travelled back in time. From sixteen years in the future. I thought that might warrant your prompt attention.”
Dumbledore’s eyes widened. He looked at Snape again. “And you decided to inform me of this?”
There was a defiance to Snape’s stance as he straightened. “I joined the Order of the Phoenix in 1980.”
“You will forgive my surprise, I hope.”
Snape wilted slightly.
Dumbledore looked at her, curiously, his expression much more friendly now. “And who is this?”
“Miss Granger,” Snape said dismissively. “One of my students, and the cause of our current predicament.”
“Granger…” Dumbledore mused, as he stepped forward to tap on the gates.
“She’s Muggle-born,” Snape snapped.
“Ahh. Wonderful. And she has mastered the intricacies of time travel?”
“Clearly not,” Snape snorted derisively.
“Come, walk with me. As we make our way to my office you can tell me what occurred.”
“Why don’t you begin Miss Granger? Enlighten us as to what hare-brained stunt of Potter’s ended with the lot of you little idiots breaking into the Department of Mysteries.”
Hermione frowned and said, “I didn’t think it was possible for you to get even meaner than you were as a teacher.”
“I am not currently on the clock, and I do not receive overtime regardless.”
She sniffed.
Professor Dumbledore prompted her gently, “You were going to tell me about the future?”
“Yes. I can tell you, definitively, that you should not hire this man to be a teacher.”
Snape smiled cruelly. “Do you think I wanted to deal with you brats and your little temper tantrums?”
Hermione huffed.
“Miss Granger?” Dumbledore said, a tinge of bite to his voice.
“Fine. Harry—that’s my best friend—thought that Sirius… Err, Sirius Black, was in danger. He believed Voldemort had him in the Department of Mysteries. I told him it was a trap, but he wouldn’t listen so we all went. Death Eaters attacked us, they wanted a prophecy, and then we were fighting them. One of them cursed me with some horrible fire hex and then I was in the Hospital Wing and Snape was there, being a git, and then suddenly we were here, and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON!”
She suddenly burst into tears, to her intense embarrassment.
“Oh dear,” said Dumbledore sympathetically.
Hermione found there was suddenly a handkerchief in her hand. She buried her face in it. It smelt slightly of lemons and chamomile, and she immediately felt calmer, though despair filled her as the reality of her situation washed over her.
“I am very sorry Miss Granger. I will do my best to assist you. How did the time travel itself occur?”
She sniffed. “We were in the time room. The Death Eaters broke a lot of the Time-Turners. I was pretty much covered in time sand.”
Snape said, “I was attempting to heal her wound when we were suddenly thrown back into my teenaged bedroom. My teenaged body. Miss Granger appears as she did before the time travel occurred, however.”
“Curious,” said Dumbledore. Then, to the stone gargoyle, “Toffee Knuts.”
They ascended the spiralling staircase and moments later Hermione was seated in an armchair, eating a sherbert lemon, being poked and prodded by several silver instruments.
“Were you thinking of anything in particular, when the time travel occurred?”
“No. Mostly I was just thinking about how much it hurt.”
Snape said, “You said that I was young.”
Hermione blinked at him. Then she said, “Oh, no, no, no. That’s ridiculous. I was thinking that. Briefly, I wondered what you might have been like when you were my age.”
His jaw tightened and he glared at her with murder in his eyes.
“It’s not my fault! It’s not like I even wished it. It was just an idle though. And it didn’t even work. This isn’t you as a teenager, you’re still a nasty old man.”
“You should feel fortunate you did not meet me as an actual teenager,” he said ominously.
Hermione shuddered.
Dumbledore said cheerfully, “Well, I do think that’s what did it, unfortunately. Magic can certainly work in mysterious ways, at times.”
“How do we get back?” Snape asked.
Hermione and Dumbledore both blinked at him, surprised.
“Get back? My dear boy, you cannot get back.”
Snape’s eyes were endless pits of darkness as he turned to look at Hermione.
She explained sheepishly, “You can’t travel forward. Other than in the normal way of just experiencing time normally, of course. Time-Turners only go backwards, and never this far.”
She was braced for anger, and it was certainly there, but something about him also softened. He stared down at his arm again and she realised what he was looking at—the pale, unMarked skin.
“What do we do now then?” he asked quietly.
“If you are truly affiliated with the Order of the Phoenix then you will tell me everything you know about Voldemort and about the war. We pour over every detail, ensuring we have any advantage we can. Then, on September 1st you go back to school and try to pretend none of this has happened. We think of an identity for Miss Granger and attempt to integrate her as well. The two of you begin new lives.”
Snape looked offended. “You want me to sit in classes? As a student?”
“Mister Snape. The knowledge you now have is dangerous. You know that. Any changes in your behaviour will be noticed, or do you think your current friends would not have concerns were you to suddenly drop out of school?”
He grimaced. Then he looked at Hermione. “Miss Granger here is as Gryffindor as they come. Her lack of subtlety is inevitably going to get us all killed.”
Dumbledore looked at Hermione for a long moment. He pulled a large book from his desk and flicked through it, looking thoughtful, only to abruptly pause. He looked up at Hermione.
“Hermione Jean Prince?”
Hermione blinked at him, bewildered.
Snape snapped, “What?”
Dumbledore turned the book towards them.
“What does that mean?” Hermione asked.
“You must be related to the Prince family,” he said, looking between her and Snape with interest.
“She most certainly is not,” Snape said irritably.
“Who are the Prince family?” Hermione asked.
“You are not a relation. My mother was the last of them,” Snape said cooly. “And you were a Granger in the Book of Names in our time.”
“Are you certain?” Dumbledore asked, cocking his head slightly.
Snape smirked. “Do you really think you would have been able to resist telling me should a random Muggle-born girl turn up as a Prince?”
Dumbledore smiled slightly. “You are correct. That is not something I would be able to contain my curiosity about. How did this happen then?”
“Perhaps… I had wrapped my magic around Miss Granger as I attempted to see to her wound. That may have interfered with her magical signature upon our arrival here.”
“I wonder if that will have registered with Gringotts,” Dumbledore mused.
“What does that mean?” Hermione asked.
“It means,” Snape said bitterly, “That you may have just inherited the family estate that was denied to me.”
“What about your mother?”
“She was disowned,” he said shortly.
“What? Why?”
“Because she married a Muggle,” he said flatly.
“Wait, what?” Hermione asked, astonished. “You aren’t a pureblood?”
Snape laughed. “No, Miss Granger, I am not.”
“But… but you’re a Death Eater. You’re the Head of Slytherin! This makes no sense.”
Dumbledore sharpened slightly. “You are a Death Eater?”
“He was a spy,” Hermione explained quickly, not wanting to give Dumbledore the wrong impression.
Snape looked mildly surprised at her words, but said only, “I do not need you to defend me, Miss Granger. I am sure it is of no surprise to the Headmaster that I became what I became. I realised my mistake however. Far later than I should have, but I changed sides all the same.”
Dumbledore said coolly, “You will forgive me if I cannot take your word for it.”
Snape smiled slightly, though it was not a friendly expression. “I am well aware of how you operate.”
“Indeed. You consent then?” he asked, pulling out his wand.
Snape smirked smugly. “I do.”
“Legilimens.”
Hermione watched them with interest. Snape’s smug expression disappeared instantly, replaced with anguish. Dumbledore looked fierce as the two stared into each other’s eyes. They remained there, locked like that, for quite some time. Hermione grew bored, and focused her attention on the puffing instruments.
She felt a slight shudder in the magic of the room when they finally tore apart.
Dumbledore said softly, “Occlumency is not merely a matter of talent and knowledge. It requires practice and strength. Practice that you, in this body, have not yet had.”
“That does not make sense,” Snape said stiffly. “Occlumency is a mental art. I still have my mind.”
“Imagine yourself as a ballerina, thrown suddenly back in time to before you trained in the art of dance. Your mind may remember how to perform a perfect grand jeté, but your body does not possess the strength or training to execute it.”
“That will need to be rectified immediately.”
Dumbledore nodded serenely. “Indeed. And Miss Granger must learn as well. I will expect the two of you to practice together.”
“You cannot be serious. I may be willing to lay myself bare before you, but I hardly trust the insufferable know-it-all to go rampaging through my mind.”
“It is important that the two of you trust each other.”
“I do not see why it should be. She is a child. Surely she will not be involved in this. I do not require her trust, merely that she keep her head down, difficult as that may prove for her.”
“I’m just as involved as you are, Snape,” Hermione said peevishly. “We came back in time together.”
“You are a child. You have nothing to offer beyond the ability to parrot textbooks and a foolhardy willingness to throw yourself into danger.”
“And you don’t see how my ability to ‘parrot textbooks’ might be useful? Our knowledge of the future is going to be a great asset and it’s ridiculous that you don’t think there is any value in my eidetic memory. Besides which, I’m Muggle-born. I have no choice but to fight, and it’s rather more a matter of danger throwing itself at me.”
“The Headmaster does not need you to recite the Standard Book of Spells at him.”
Dumbledore said mildly, “Actually, that may indeed be helpful. Standard textbooks are rarely at the cutting edge of magical advancement, but over such a time period there may indeed be changes worth considering. Also, Miss Prince, your assumption is not quite correct. You are, apparently, an heiress now. We will have to carefully concoct a plausible genealogy for you, but you will at least be a half-blood.”
She considered that for a moment, then said, “Well, I’m still going to fight. It’s the right thing to do.”
Snape muttered, “Ridiculous Gryffindor recklessness.”
“What’s your excuse?” she snapped back at him.
He stared at her for a long moment without responding and she smiled slightly, pleased to have stumped him. He looked back at Dumbledore and his expression was almost pleading.
Dumbledore said coolly, “Even if I had time to teach you myself, I would not. You both must learn. Your treatment of Miss Granger is short-sighted. The two of you will be friends—publicly at least. You are going to spend time together, to defend each other. She will need your guidance not to give herself away, and your protection.”
Snape’s impression of a surly teenager was perfect. He said nothing, but his expression made his distaste clear. Hermione thought about what they were saying. She would learn Occlumency, but Snape needed to practice it as well.
Hermione had felt a confusing mix of jealousy and relief that it wasn’t her when Harry had told her of his private lessons with Snape. On the one hand, she would have loved to learn mind magics. On the other, the idea of letting Snape loose in her mind, to mock her for her thoughts in addition to the things she said out loud, was horrifying.
Dumbledore was saying they would practice against each other, which would at least even the playing field, but Hermione couldn’t help but think Snape would not withhold his mockery just because she could mock him back. She looked at Dumbledore, wondering if he had really considered how this would work.
He smiled kindly and held his wand up. “If you do not mind, I would like to examine your thoughts as well.”
Hermione nodded easily. She felt much more comfortable with the idea of having Dumbledore in her mind than with Snape.
“Legilimens.”
Thoughts and memories whirled around her. Love for her parents, for the way her mother would carefully braid her hair back, for her father holding her in his arms as they danced together. Joy over new books to read, over being told that she was a witch, the promise that one day she would be able to turn into a cat too. Sadness as she sat alone under a tree watching other children play, knowing she was not welcome to join them and not understanding why.
Anger and fury burned through her. Malfoy’s face flashed before her, his satisfaction over the unjust fate of Buckbeak. The dark satisfaction she had felt afterwards, remembering the slap. The same feeling as she placed a hex onto the signup sheet for the D.A., and later, seeing Marietta’s face. Rita Skeeter, in a jar.
Hermione felt suddenly ashamed. She knew how Dumbledore would interpret this. It was her darkness. She wanted him to see her light too. Her anger at Rita Skeeter had been on behalf of Harry. She’d wanted to protect him. To stop the Prophet from selling lies, from undermining their cause.
Marietta was the same. She couldn’t stop their members from betraying them, that was impossible. But she could make certain they would know if someone had told. Marietta had been a traitor. She had been willing to take them all down, and for what? To give her mother a career boost? She had deserved to be labelled a sneak.
Anger rose again, accompanied by the disappointment she had felt for being betrayed. Suddenly she was experiencing the sharp pain of her teeth growing, of everyone laughing at her, looking up at Professor Snape and expecting him to put it right. Instead, he humiliated her and she fled, in tears. He sneered at her. Insufferable know-it-all.
It echoed through her mind and her cheeks flushed. Dumbledore pursued the memories, watching Snape’s treatment of her and her friends, lingering over her dread of practicing Occlumency with him. Of spending time with him.
She didn’t want to think about that though. The thought that he was now the only person she had was hovering at the edge of her awareness, and she wasn’t ready to give into that despair. Instead, she thought of Voldemort. Of everything she knew about him. Surely it would not be much, not compared to Snape’s knowledge.
Hermione met Harry on the train and told him who he was, much to her own amusement. They fought to reach the Philosopher’s stone and she showed Dumbledore his own retelling of those events. Then, the Basilisk. Her thoughts went straight to that moment in the library when she had guiltily ripped a page out of a library book.
Her thoughts wavered, trying to pull another memory. She felt her stomach drop when she’d realised Snape was innocent and recalled lighting him on fire.
She forced her mind back to the Basilisk. Tom Riddle’s diary which had possessed poor little Ginny Weasley, making her open the Chamber of Secrets. Dumbledore’s attention sharpened and he examined the events of that year over again, Hermione pulled along in the wake of his attention as he searched her mind for every detail.
He didn’t linger on much of anything else, merely skimming her memories of the next 3 years. He released her.
Hermione blinked, surprised to realise she had tears running down her face. She quickly wiped them away.
Snape was staring at them, bored. “Surely you can see why I’ve no wish to teach the insufferable girl Occlumency. She will likely prove just as incapable of it as Potter did.”
Dumbledore looked at Snape with clear dislike, before it smoothed away into a small smile, his eyes twinkling slightly with mockery. “To the contrary. She performed far better than you did.”
Hermione looked at him surprised.
“Miss Granger managed to redirect me several times, kept her own thoughts organised, and deliberately presented memories she believed would be of interest. You are unwise to underestimate her so, and even more unwise to continue to belittle her. You must work together. Your petty insults serve no purpose in this time.”
Snape stared at him stonily.
Dumbledore looked to Hermione. “You must be patient with him, however trying it may be. Some of his cruelty was necessary subterfuge, though certainly some of it went too far. But it is a mask he has worn for far too long and he may have trouble discarding it now. I believe the two of you will find familiar ground and prove capable of working together effectively. Eventually.”
There was a threat to the words and Hermione nodded. She would do her best to get along with Snape. She was certain at least that if they failed it would be his fault and not hers. Dumbledore would have no cause to reproach her.
“Now, we need to consider your cover story. This is going to be difficult. The only plausible explanation is that you were homeschooled, which is going to raise eyebrows with how well educated you are. And, it must have been outside of the country since your parents are unknown here. Have you travelled anywhere that you are familiar enough with to pretend to have lived?”
“I think it would be better if I pretended to have attended Beauxbatons. You could have Madame Maxime falsify records for me, correct?”
Snape sneered, “There are plenty of witches and wizards who speak French well enough to catch you out in that lie, including the Malfoys.”
“Et ce serait un problème, si ce n’est que je parle parfaitement français. Je ne comprends pas pourquoi vous supposez que je proposerais une telle solution si je n’en étais pas capable, ni pourquoi vous éprouvez le besoin d’être aussi désagréable.”
Dumbledore smiled widely at her. “Vous parlez français? Formidable. Et connaissez-vous le pays?”
Hermione looked at Snape, who clearly did not speak French. She switched back to English for his sake, though she couldn’t help being a little snooty as she said, “My mother was French. She grew up in Nantes. I’ve only visited twice, but I believe I could be convincing enough. I’ve never been to Beauxbatons itself, but I have been treated to quite detailed descriptions of the school and their traditions.”
Snape asked coolly, “And if you meet someone who has been there? It may not be likely but it is not outside the realm of possibility.”
“Beauxbatons is much larger than Hogwarts. I wouldn’t be expected to be well known there, assuming I had kept my head down.”
“And you think you can manage that?”
“I intend to try, and even if I cannot I will simply say that I have changed. Perhaps I used to be quiet and demure but then my parents died, I moved to a whole new country, and I became friends with you. Anyone would understand that might be trying.”
He snorted.
Dumbledore said brightly, “That’s settled then. I believe we should make our way to Gringotts and see if they are willing to recognise you as the Prince heiress. It would be a boon if we do not have to provide for your living expenses from Order funds.”