"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
-Puck, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Dark clouds rolled and billowed over the heads of the teachers and students eating an early morning breakfast in the Great Hall of Hogwarts. Thunder rumbled occasionally, ominously threatening rain. Up at the Head Table, the mood wasn't much better. A few of the younger teachers ate their food casually, chatting amongst themselves. Many of the others who were old enough to remember ate silently, sporadically casting glances at the Gryffindor table.
Minerva McGonagall and Albus Dumbledore exchanged glances every few minutes, constantly keeping one eye on the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.
Remus Lupin sat at his untouched plate, his shoulders limp. It was fairly obvious that he'd slept very little, if at all, the night before. He stared into the eggs which had long since turned cold, his expression unreadable. It had been nearly twenty years, and he'd have to see it happen today. April 17, 1997 was a date he'd been dreading for a very long time.
At long last, the students and teachers alike filtered out of the Great Hall, on their way to first period. Remus stood slowly, sliding his chair in. He glanced at the wall clock. If he remembered correctly, it would happen in roughly eight hours. A nerve in his stomach twinged uncomfortably.
"Remus?"
He looked up to find the headmaster standing over him, concern written across his face.
"Professor Dumbledore." He forced a small smile. "Have a good breakfast?"
"Remus, I have the feeling that if my breakfast had consisted of nothing but cockroach clusters it still would have been better than yours. I would like to talk to you alone." Dumbledore looked at him gravely through his half-moon glasses.
"I would love to sir, but unfortunately I have a class waiting." Remus said apologetically, brushing off his robes. "Another time, perhaps? If you'll excuse me—"
"Ariel Sinistra is covering for you." Dumbledore interjected. "This will only take a moment or two."
Remus sighed heavily and nodded. "Very well."
"Come, we'll go to my office." The headmaster smiled kindly.
"Butterscotch?" Dumbledore held out a small tin of candy once they had taken their respective seats in his office.
"Er… alright." Remus accepted one politely. "What did you want to see me about, professor?"
"Oh, I think you know." He leaned back in his chair and formed a steeple with his fingertips. "Big day ahead."
Remus snorted. "That's one way to put it."
"How are you?" the older man asked.
"I don't know." Remus answered truthfully. "I… don't know what to think. Um… I'm not looking forward to today, if that's what you mean."
"Understandable." Dumbledore nodded. After a moment he added: "What do you plan to do?"
Remus raised his eyebrows. "W-what do I plan to do, sir? I'm not quite sure what you mean. I quite honestly don't know that one, either."
"You aren't going to try and stop it?" the headmaster raised his chin.
"I've thought about it, I suppose." He answered. "But that gets into the whole chicken-and-the-egg type scenario. I don't know if I could stop it if I tried."
"I think you're right on that, Remus." Dumbledore replied. "It'll be difficult, but you'll have to just wait until it happens."
"I know." Remus replied softly, staring at one of the many gyroscopes on the headmaster's desk. "Lord, I sometimes I wish I could go back to knock some sense into myself." He shook his head.
"Don't blame yourself." Dumbledore chided. "There was no way of knowing at the time, and… well, you have to admit, it looked like the situation you had was working quite well while it lasted." He smiled wryly.
"Professor, what are you saying?" Remus rubbed one of his temples tiredly.
"Well… the school year ends in two months." He answered, folding his hands. "I won't say anything more than that."
"That's not- I- Headmaster, I don't even know what to say to that." Remus shook his head and sighed. "Is this why you signed me on again this year? Is this why you wanted me to come back so much?"
"Besides the fact that you're the best Defense teacher this school has had since you attended as a student? Yes, Remus. There's no sense in running away from your past, present, or possible future."
"I… have to get to class." He stood abruptly. "Thank you for the candy."
"You're a Gryffindor, Remus." Dumbledore said as the younger man turned to the door. "There are all different sorts of bravery."
Remus gave Dumbledore one last glance before exiting. He shut the door softly behind him.
The school day flew by a bit too quickly for Remus' tastes. He threw himself into teaching, forcing pages of notes onto the students. In the very back of his mind a countdown that had started twenty years ago was quickly winding down to zero. Struggling to ignore the clock, he lectured about Boggarts and Redcaps, Dementors and Lucksuckers. His usual style of teaching was a bit more enthusiastic, more hands-on, but Remus just didn't have the energy that day.
All too soon, fifth period rolled around: seventh years. Remus took a long drink of water from the glass on his desk as the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws filed in and assumed their seats. He'd forced himself to be comfortable teaching her up until now. Today wasn't the day.
"Alright, class. Today we'll be taking notes on a new unit, so if you would please pull out your notebook - and pass your homework to the front of each row, and Ron, if you would collect them and put them on my desk." Turning his back, Remus began scribbling the day's lesson on the chalkboard in front of the room.
"We're going to skip around in the textbook a bit for this chapter, I've decided to cover dark creatures of the forest in one unit, not scattered, as the book has it."
"Professor Lupin?" Hermione's soft voice asked his turned back.
Remus' chalk paused in the middle of its word, and he took a deep breath. "Y-yes, Hermione?"
"I was just wondering if you'd give us the chapters and sections of each creature we're going over." she asked. "I know the Grues are Chapter 17, section 3, but—"
"Though I was planning to give them to you as I covered them, I'll write the figures out on the homework board." He interrupted her, his back still turned. He continued to write out the notes. "Anything else?"
"Why… no." Hermione answered, puzzled at her favorite teacher's unusual shortness.
Remus continued with his lesson, explaining the numerous notes with little enthusiasm. He was never this testy with his students, but his nerves were considerably on edge today, and it would probably get worse as the day went on. He tried to remind himself that this would probably be the last time he would interact with her on a normal capacity, but today he felt that he just couldn't. Tonight would be painful, and he wasn't looking forward to it.
Sighing heavily, Remus finished the notes on the board and turned to start the day's lecture.
Hermione cracked her neck slowly as the bell ending school for the day rang shrilly at three o'clock sharp. It had been a fairly challenging day, and Arithmancy was always a good way to end it.
Hermione glanced at her heavy backpack, filled with homework that was begging to be done. Ron and Harry had Quidditch practice, so Hermione figured the library would be a good finish to the afternoon. If she finished with her homework and studying, she might even have time to read more about the complex spell reversal charms she had been lightly reading for the past couple days.
Hefting her weighty bag onto her shoulders, Hermione bid Professor Vector a warm farewell and made her way to the Hogwarts library. Fleetingly, she hoped that she didn't have a run-in with Malfoy – the boy was more into the Dark Arts as he ever had been, and some strange and disturbing things had been happening sporadically around the castle that were commonly attributed to his him, though no one was able to prove it. Entire wings of the castle would go dark for no apparent reason, showers in the Gryffindor bathrooms once ran red with blood, but changed back to water before the incident could be properly reported, and Parvati Patil had once sworn that she had seen a shadowy apparition of Malfoy in their bedroom as she was changing. Hermione herself had gotten her share of hazing from Malfoy; more than once he had cursed her in passing, either stunning her, making her backpack fifty pounds heavier, or causing her to lurch forward into a wall. There was little any of them could do about Malfoy but to wait the school year out and go after him afterwards; it was common knowledge that he would become a Death Eater on his eighteenth birthday.
As Hermione turned a corridor, she saw Professor Lupin heading towards his office. She was about to hail him, but he was walking swiftly with his head down, hands in his pockets. Without looking up at her, he quickly ducked into his office and closed the door behind him.
Shrugging inwardly, Hermione continued walking. It wasn't close to the full moon at all, but she had the feeling that whatever was wrong with Professor Lupin had nothing to due with the lunar cycle.
Hermione stopped in her tracks as Draco Malfoy suddenly turned a corner in front of her, flanked on either side by Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, still as large and stupid as ever, but not ones to be trifled with.
"Malfoy." Hermione said coldly, before attempting to step past him. Goyle immediately stepped in her way, his hulking body mass posing a formidable obstacle for the girl.
Hermione flushed slightly. "Excuse me, Goyle, but I need to get past." She knew that this wouldn't work, but at least she could say later that she tried, when they were all in McGonagall's office with bruises and broken arms.
"No, Granger, we have something rather special lined up for you today." Malfoy smiled cruelly. "I've been working on it for weeks."
"Five points from Slytherin." Hermione said as firmly as she could, struggling to keep her voice steady. "Gregory, if you don't move, it will be another fifty."
"You see, Granger, I learned recently that you got an unfair advantage back in third year." Malfoy continued as if she had never spoken. "A time-turner, it seems. You got three more credits than any of us did, and you were even able to use it to have more time to study. Does that sound fair to you, Crabbe?"
Crabbe shook his thick head slowly, his beady eyes staring straight ahead.
"You know, Granger, none of us have a chance at beating your picture-perfect grade average, since you got that unfair advantage over the rest of us. That does not please me. Especially when I was second in line for having the highest grade in our year."
Hermione snorted. "Does that really matter to you now, Malfoy? Seems like you're more interested in Dark Arts these days than your Herbology grade."
"Things have to even out a bit, Granger." Malfoy's eye glinted maliciously. "Maybe even out more than a bit. You got so much extra time in your favor, some needs to be taken away."
Hermione's stomach turned to ice, and her heart skipped a small beat. What was he talking about? Whatever it was, she knew he had the power by now to do it. She took an involuntary step backwards.
Malfoy and his bodyguards automatically stepped forward menacingly.
"As I said, Granger, amends must be made. Right here, right now." Malfoy drew from his robes a small hourglass, filled with red sand. "See this, Granger? I got it in a magic shop for two sickles. It's just an ordinary toy, really. Until I do this:" Malfoy, in one swift move, threw the hourglass into the air with a flick of his wrist, and drew his wand with the other hand. As the hourglass peaked and fell downwards, Malfoy flicked his wand, suspending it at eye-level in a haze of red light.
"Impressive, Malfoy." Hermione said, her voice quavering only slightly. "Didn't we learn how to do that in the third week of our first year?"
"Perhaps, Granger, but we certainly didn't learn how to set the clock back, now, did we?" he smiled cruelly. "I was looking through some of Father's old books, stumbled across a most interesting spell. Quite powerful, too. I've been dying to try it out."
"Malfoy—" Hermione started, but he cut her off.
"See, your hourglass traveled in mere hours. Mine? It travels in years." His cold eyes glinted as the hourglass gave a slight twitch in midair.
Hermione gasped in horror. He had to be bluffing. He wouldn't really send her flying back in time – would he?
Malfoy, with a malicious smirk, slowly rotated the wrist that held his wand. As soon as he did so, the hourglass began slowly revolving in midair, encapsulated in its reddish aura.
"Round and round and round it goes… when it stops… Granger goes…" Malfoy laughed at his own rhyme as Hermione's eyes grew wide with horror.
Meanwhile, Remus had just begun tuning in to the conversation that was happening a few feet away from his office. He had heard the voices, but as soon as he heard her raised voice say Malfoy's name, his ears were perked.
He could barely hear what Malfoy was saying, but his gut told him that it wasn't good. And that this was more than likely it; what he had feared for so long.
Remus got up from his desk and made his way across the room to the thick wooden door and opened it a crack to listen to the voices in the hallway.
"…and when it stops, Granger goes…" Remus heard Malfoy's sing-song voice, and immediately stepped out into the hall. To his horror, he saw over Malfoy's back the swiftly revolving hourglass, which was steadily picking up speed. Beyond it, Hermione's face, swathed in the red glow of the hourglass, was masked in horror. Malfoy laughed at her reaction as the hourglass kept turning, over and over and over.
Remus, after what seemed like ages, finally snapped to.
"NO!" He dashed forward and grabbed Malfoy's shoulder, whirling the boy around. In the instant he broke the Slytherin's concentration, the red aura around the hourglass disappeared, and it crashed to the floor with a small tinkle of broken glass. Remus and Malfoy both turned their heads immediately to look at the broken hourglass, its red sands seeping into the cracks of the cold stone floor.
Remus' eyes traveled forward in horror, searching for Hermione. She was gone.