A/N: Shamelessly AU, though I will stick to canon as much as possible. Feedback is love.

A Pocket Guide to Time Travelling

Chapter #1

You Must Not Panic

When You Find A Wormhole

There.

The girl...

She was younger than he remembered, her body still more girl than woman, her front teeth suspiciously large and her hair slightly shorter, her cheeks round and plump with baby fat. The young woman he remembered had perfectly straight teeth, longer hair, and a figure that, though well-hidden behind the Hogwarts school robes, drove his dreams into a lustful frenzy. He stared at this apparition, his mind going away from Peter Pettigrew for the first time in so many years, his eyes trying to make sense of her. She was so familiar, and yet not at all.

And then Remus was there, and the look they shared concerning Hermione Granger slid their friendship neatly back into place. Snape's arrival had heightened the unreality of it all, the sense of Am I seeing this? Are you seeing this? He wanted to laugh, he wanted to scream, to touch her and make her real, interrogate her, hug her and kiss her and push her away, because she was just a child. Hermione Granger. For a moment the three former schoolmates had shared a look that established a sort of solidarity concerning the young witch.

Keep quiet.

Snape, in his infinite coldness, insulted and belittled her rather fiercely, and through the haze of obsession Sirius recognized the signs of a man pushing away from himself that which he wanted but could never have.

Not me. I won't... I couldn't...

And so he had extended his hand to help her down the rickety stairs, had placed his palm on her round little shoulder to guide her down into the tunnel, and when she'd come with his godson to rescue him he felt something he thought had become impossible for him to feel- hope. A simple thing, but incredible. He told himself that it would be easy and simple, to keep her simultaneously at arms' length but within his grasp.

Easy.

"Oh, Neville..."

"Sorry, Hermione... I get so shaky when..."

"Don't think of it as a test. Think of it as just another class. Or make it fun."

The round-faced boy allowed a weak chuckle, quiet so the foul-tempered Professor Snape wouldn't overhear, though he was currently patrolling the Slytherin side of the classroom. "Potions aren't fun."

Despite their diligence to remain quiet, Professor Snape could hear them loud and clear. He showed no signs of hearing them, having no interest in breaking up the silly whisperings at the moment. He was lost in thought, and that was a dangerous way to be when he had a classroom full of idiots brewing dangerous potions.

October.

Her voice in his head, identical to the one across the classroom, snatches of random conversations-

"Twenty bloody years..."

"...learned this last year... advanced the curriculum..."

"You've never heard of this spell? Really? But it's very common... oh..."

"Where I'm from... hardly strange at all... France..."

"When? When did I move to England, is that what you asked?"

"Severus..."

He gave no exterior hint as to the memories flying through his brain, but he did halt in front of her caldron and study its contents with more intensity than he had the others'. She brewed the potion perfectly.

"But you enjoy potions, don't you?"

"Here, Severus, let me show you..."

A tension-heavy sigh threatened to break free of his mouth. He pursed his lips. "Miss Granger, the instructions were to stir counter-clockwise for three minutes exactly, not three minutes and twenty seconds."

She turned her wary eyes up to him and fluttered her hands in her lap nervously. "But sir, I added the horsetail roots twenty seconds after I should have-"

"Ten marks will be deducted, Miss Granger, for your errors." He left her, his mind going back to his youth.

October again, and the tension in his head was worse than ever. Because there in his classroom was the young woman he remembered. Finally she had arrived at that point in her life where he recognized her. If only he hadn't given up, if only he'd worked harder on figuring out the mystery behind Hermione Granger's appearance, disappearance, and reappearance in his life. He might be able to stop it... But did he want to? Would he take back all the study sessions and intellectual conversations they'd had? Would he take back the happiness, brief though it had been, that she'd given him? Half-remembered moments when their arms brushed or she tucked a lock of his horribly oily hair behind his ear?

How furious he'd been two years ago in the shrieking shack, when his future best friend had defended that sack of filth Sirius Black. The future, the past, both troubling him at the same time. And the look he had shared with Black, the sheer awe when they realized that they both recognized her. It really was her. Name and appearance mattered little in the face of her personality, so heartbreakingly familiar to them both.

"I do love you, you know."

"I know." He sank down into the overstuffed armchair and looked up at her, his volatile emotions too much for his young mind to handle.

"Severus." She went down on her knees and took his hands. "Please. I need you."

He did sigh then, low and sad and thoughtful. Hermione Granger's head jerked up and she looked at him with something close to concern. His heart squeezed in his chest with so much intensity that he almost groaned, and he scowled at her heavily before flipping open his marking book to spill red ink across the parchment.

85%

He watched the clock. The soft tick would drive him mad. The sluggish silver hands would drive him mad. Time, what was it anyway? The past was as fluid as the future, as changeable as the present. To prove to himself the universe was not some rigid unmovable beast, Severus shoved his glass inkpot off the edge of his desk. It shattered open with a satisfying crash, spilling a pool of blank ink across the stone floor. He watched the liquid shimmer in the firelight for a moment before rubbing his eyes and turning his attention back to the clock.

Somebody knocked on his door.

"Enter."

The werewolf.

Wonderful.

Lupin glanced at the clock, glanced at Snape, shook his head and conjured up a chair. "You seem quite wound up, Severus."

He lifted an eyebrow. "October 13th, Lupin. If she's going back, she best get a move on."

"You're not going to stop her?" Lupin had the audacity to sound surprised.

"Would you?"

"In your situation, I would give it serious thought." He pulled a bar of chocolate wrapped in foil out of his pocket and unwrapped it to take a bite. "Personally, I can't bring myself to be so selfless. Twenty years ago I had very few confidants."

"You're allowing an innocent young woman to possibly ruin her life because you want somebody for your adolescent self to chat with," Snape muttered. "How very intelligent, Lupin."

The calm werewolf's expression grew uncharacteristically irritated. "You're no better, Severus, and you know it."

"You and I are nothing alike."

"No, I suppose you would share the same sentiment as Sirius on the subject-"

"I do not share the same sentiment as Black, I assure you."

They lapsed into a tense silence, with only the soft tick of the clock sounding in their ears like a whispered alarm. Snape knew, and Lupin knew, that down south in London, at 12 Grimmauld Place, Sirius Black would be working himself into a quiet frenzy over the events of twenty years ago and their consequences, working himself into a fever over Hermione Granger. He wouldn't try to interfere. He would agonize over it more than they were, but he would not interfere.

And risk losing everything.

What about the future, though?

Hermione took the offered chair and allowed herself a moment to gawk around at the Headmaster's office. She'd been in here a select few times, but each time she'd marvelled at the numerous wizarding artifacts and the portraits and Fawkes the phoenix, in full feather at the moment. He was preening himself, oblivious to the world and fully engrossed in his beautiful scarlet plumage.

"I will never be convinced that we humans are the only creatures that take pains with our appearance." Professor Dumbledore had followed her gaze to his familiar, and was smiling at the bird fondly. "He does have his moments of vanity."

"He must be in his prime right now," she said, shuffling her feet nervously. The headmaster didn't intimidate her, not at all, but being summoned into his presence did. Immediately her mind spun wild ideas as to what Professor Dumbledore wanted to see her about. Had she done something wrong? Had something happened to her parents?

"He is approaching that age. I would consider him a teenager at the moment. His appetite is appalling."

She smiled.

"Lemon drop?" The headmaster offered her a dish of candy, and Hermione decided that perhaps he did this with such frequency because he expected people to decline. She wondered if she might be able to catch the famous old wizard off-guard.

"Thank you." She plucked a candy out of the dish and popped it into her mouth. The headmaster's eyebrows rose and his blue eyes twinkled behind his spectacles.

"Very good. Now, I'm sure you're curious as to why I requested your presence, Miss Granger. I will be quite frank with you. You were a student at Hogwarts long before your first year. On this day in 1975, a young witch bearing your name and appearance came to my office with a fascinating tale that I could scarcely believe. She disappeared as quickly as she'd appeared, on February 28th, 1976."

Hermione tilted her head slightly. She was an intelligent witch, and it wasn't difficult for her to guess at what the headmaster was implying. But that would require time travel, and not just a few hours... Decades. Besides that, she had neither the means nor the desire to play around with the fabric of the universe. And besides that, she was quite sure the headmaster would never allow such a thing to happen. "Sir?"

He raised a hand, silently requesting her patience. "I cannot stop it, Miss Granger. You cannot stop it. Nobody can. You see, what will happen has already happened. One cannot change the past, not like that. Changing the events of three hours, that is one thing. Changing the events of twenty years ago, that is an entirely different matter. There are memories involved. My memories, and the memories of those you encountered on your venture into the past. You cannot undo that without damaging the present and the future."

She was terrified now, her mind filling with endless possibilities, and why the hell had it taken so long for him to tell her? She could have been prepared, if it was inevitable... She could have...

"You never did disclose to me how it happened, so I cannot tell you any more. I will give you this, a letter for you to give my past self. It will keep you safe and reassure me that you are not a threat to the school. I'm sure this is all quite a shock to you, Miss Granger, but you are a clever girl. You will survive. I recall you not only surviving, but thriving."

"But sir..." She was more than speechless as she took the offered letter and pocketed it. What about her life? What about Harry and Ron? And the Dark Lord, and the Order? This was no time to be skipping off on some wild (not to mention foolhardy) trip to the past. Surely there was a way to prevent it. He was her headmaster! It was his job to protect her, was it not? What happened to his famous protectiveness over his students? He was going to let her go off on a dangerous stint like this with only a few words of reassurance?

The door burst open, and she jumped in her chair, snapping her head around. Professor Snape, out of breath and pink-cheeked, wild-eyed- she'd never seen him so animated. His eyes flew from Professor Dumbledore to her, and to her bewilderment he seemed visibly relieved.

"Ah, Professor Snape. Hello." The headmaster smiled, picked up his candy dish, and offered it to the younger wizard. "Lemon drop?"

"Really now," Professor Snape growled, slapping the candy dish away and sending it skittering across the floor. Lemon drops flew everywhere. Hermione jumped in her seat once more. She'd never seen anyone so blatantly disrespect Albus Dumbledore. "None of that bloody rot, Headmaster. I came to-"

"Stop her?" Dumbledore interrupted quietly.

Hermione stared at her Potions teacher, feeling the first hint of something like betrayal rising in her chest. He knew. How many of her teachers knew? Why hadn't she been told? It wasn't fair, never mind ethical. Time travel was dangerous, dangerous magic that nobody in their right mind would attempt. Using a time turner to attend classes was one thing, but jumping back decades? Who would allow her to do that? How would she do that? And why, for heaven's sake?

"No," Professor Snape said softly. "Not stop her. Her head of house told me she'd been sent up here. I came to... have a word with Miss Granger."

Dumbledore studied him with a gaze so piercing Hermione would have been squirming in her seat had it been her being scrutinized. But Professor Snape stared back at the headmaster moodily, unblinking and unwavering. "Did you?" Dumbledore asked mildly.

"Yes."

"Very well." The headmaster got to his feet, much to Hermione's alarm. She couldn't fathom why Professor Snape wanted to have a word with her, and what about. She didn't relish the prospect of being alone with him. She wanted to run back to her dormitory, climb under her covers and go to sleep. Just go to sleep and wake up tomorrow, on October 14th, 1995.

"But-"

"I won't bite, Miss Granger, I assure you. The vampire rumours, humorous as they are, are false."

Hermione blushed and lowered her head. She heard Professor Snape draw up a chair (quite close to her, she noticed nervously) and sit down, his hands folding in his lap neatly. The soft click of a door closing told her the headmaster was gone. She gathered her nerves and looked up at her teacher uncertainly. "Is it true?"

He inspected his fingernails idly before meeting her gaze. "Miss Granger. There are enough memories concerning your little jaunt through time to answer that question in the affirmative. Yes, it's true."

She swallowed and found her throat quite dry, very constricted. "Do you remember me, sir?"

His fathomless black eyes flickered. "Yes. Hermione Granger, fifth year Gryffindor. Transferred from Beauxbatons, I believe. Your French is appalling, by the way, considering it was your language of study for four years."

She found the nerve to laugh weakly, though her head was beginning to spin.

"Miss Granger, I have a favour to ask of you."

That caught Hermione's attention. She'd never known Professor Snape to ask a favour of anyone. He never seemed to need or want anything, and it put her rather on edge if she was honest with herself. "What is it, sir?" she asked nervously.

He frowned, but it was a different sort of frown than she was used to. He wasn't scowling at her. It was not an unfriendly frown. "I would like you to forgive me, Miss Granger, for being particularly nasty and critical towards you."

She gaped at him, sure she had misheard his request. "Huh?"

"Really now," he said shortly, "it's quite simple. Forgive me, Miss Granger. I apologize for my past behaviour."

Hermione continued to stare at her teacher, confused by this sudden switch in attitude. His voice, though still harsh, had softened, but it was the look in his eyes that truly unnerved her. He was silently pleading with her, his normally cold eyes suddenly much warmer and less frightening, his scowl replaced by an uncertain frown. "By past behaviour," she ventured finally, "do you mean... in my past? Or yours?"

Professor Snape blinked rapidly, then laughed. She thought her head might explode. Professor Snape was laughing. And he had a nice laugh, a soft chuckle. "I suppose I should clarify that. I mean the past five years that I have been your teacher. You have to understand, Hermione... Miss Granger..." He halted uncertainly, then pressed on, skipping over the awkwardness of his using her given name. "I wanted you to hate me. It would have saved me a world of grief, you see."

"I don't understand," she admitted.

Professor Snape looked at her intently, his black eyes oddly warm, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "We were friends, Miss Granger. Twenty years ago, you and I were very good friends."

"Then it doesn't matter if you apologize or if I forgive you," she argued faintly. "The outcome will be the same. You can't change the past, Professor."

"It may be this conversation that allows us to become so close, though." He shrugged, his normally rigid frame loose and relaxed. He was talking to her as though she was his equal. Hermione decided she quite liked this, unnerving as it was. He rifled around in his pocket and pulled out a pocket watch, scrutinizing it thoughtfully. "I thought I'd gone mad when I saw your name on the school register five years ago. Then I understood. There were signs, of course. Little hints that you would drop here and there, probably to relieve the strain of carrying such an enormous secret. For months I wondered why you hadn't confided in me. Then... three years ago... that night in the hospital wing when you lay petrified, looking so much like a corpse." His intense gaze returned to her face, and he sighed. "You didn't want me to change it. To stop it. So I won't, Miss Granger. I put my faith in you. I'm sure you will not disappoint."

Hermione stared back at her teacher, a man who was a stranger to her. Friends. Good friends. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to scream. It was madness.

Professor Snape got to his feet and pulled her up, embracing her in a fierce hug. She nearly keeled over in shock, and it was a good thing he held on to her. She would have hit the floor otherwise. His hands rubbed her back gently, and she could feel it in his arms, the familiarity he knew would exist between them. She hugged him back, though she was confused and frightened of this. It was all so fast, and so unbelievable...

He released her gently. "Go on, then. The headmaster is only stalling. I suggest you fill your pockets with anything you think you may need."

This was definitely the best advice Hermione had received thus far. She nodded mutely and exited the Headmaster's office, racing down the stairs and down the corridor towards the Gryffindor common room. Any minute now... it could happen any minute now... Unless she was dreaming. She rather hoped she was dreaming.

She gave the password to the Fat Lady, barrelled into the common room and up the stairs to her dormitory. Something flickered in her peripheral vision, she snapped her head around and stared at the doorway but it was dark and empty. Strange. She turned around, and for a frightening moment her vision blurred and she saw patterns, white dots dancing in front of her eyes. Her head spun and she experienced sudden, nauseating vertigo, but it lasted hardly a second. Her vision came back and she felt physically fine, if a bit worked up. The shock of it all was getting to her, perhaps.

She went to her trunk, flung it open, and began rooting through her things, in search of what, she wasn't sure. In the back of her mind she saw Professor Snape, looking at her without malice, with something close to wistfulness. Friends. Hermione laughed softly, went to sit on her bed, and stifled a yelp of surprise.

There was somebody there. The duvet curved around a figure curled up on her side, lightly snoring away, a tousle of blonde hair poking out and spilling onto the pillow.

Bugger.

She looked around the dormitory, so familiar yet so obviously different. The beds were in the same place, but there were posters stuck on the walls that she didn't recognize, stuff strewn about on the floor. A can of hairspray sat on the windowsill. She took it all in, turned on her heel and fled down the stairs into the common room. It was different as well. The furniture was switched around. There was a large couch near the fireplace that she didn't recognize. Her heart fluttered in her chest, panicking.

The portrait was swinging open, a student coming in late. Hermione watched him as he stumbled tiredly across the common room. He must have felt her eyes on him, because he stopped, turned around, and stared at her, eyebrows raised in bemusement. He was a tired-looking but rather handsome boy, with a mess of shaggy hair and kind grey eyes. "Just got out of the hospital wing," he said wearily, eyeing Hermione as though her gaping stare was nothing new to him.

She recognized him. She knew those eyes, that tired manner, that voice. His name slipped from her tongue unwittingly."Remus Lupin."

The boy's eyebrows climbed even higher. "Yes?"

She fainted.

"Wake up now, dear."

Somebody was tapping her cheek gently. She groaned, irritated by the intrusion, and slapped the offending hand away in annoyance. But the hand persisted, patting her cheek, until finally Hermione opened her eyes and scowled at the blurry face leaning over her. "Where am I?"

"The hospital wing at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." A matronly woman swam into view, looking down at her with concern.

She sat up slowly and looked around. Indeed, it was the hospital wing. And the woman attending to her was Madam Pomfrey. Considerably younger than the last time Hermione had seen her. Still, a sigh of relief came from her lips like a puncture in a balloon, deflating the panic in her chest. The expulsion of air brought everything rushing back to her, the bizarre and surreal conversation with the headmaster and Professor Snape, the boy in the Gryffindor common room. Hermione's hand went to her pocket and she found the letter Professor Dumbledore had given her. "I need to speak to the headmaster."

Madam Pomfrey shook her head. "You need to rest and recuperate, child."

"No." She swung her feet out of bed, placing them on the floor. "I need to see the headmaster. It's urgent."

"Do relax, Miss." Albus Dumbledore, looking almost identical to the Dumbledore of Hermione's time, approached the hospital bed and smiled at her. "Madam Pomfrey is correct. You need to rest."

Hermione fished out the letter and offered it to him. "I don't know what it says, sir, but it will explain... well, me, to you."

Professor Dumbledore took it with an amiable smile. "I will peruse this later. It's quite late, and I do believe we all must be off to bed."

And with that he left. She lay back in her hospital bed and stared at the off-white ceiling, her mind racing with panic as her situation began to sink in for her. She might be stuck here. She might never see Harry and Ron again. Her parents... oh God, her parents.

Madam Pomfrey reappeared and forced a bottle of shimmering purple liquid into her hands. "Drink it," she prompted.

It was the first time Hermione truly desired the overwhelming effects of a sleeping draught. She downed the whole thing, grateful for the numbness that came on immediately. She fell asleep as the world faded around her.

When she woke, though her situation inevitably rushed back to her mind, Hermione felt much better, almost surreally calm. She also woke to the Headmaster studying her over steepled fingers, his piercing blue eyes pondering. He smiled as she sat up in her bed.

"Good morning, Miss Granger. It is October the 13th, 1975. How are you feeling? I daresay there are side-effects of time travel that are less than pleasant."

His immediate acceptance of her brought a flush of wonderful warmth flooding through Hermione's body. He believed her. She sucked in a breath of relief and exhaled slowly. "I feel fine, Headmaster. Much better than yesterday."

"My future self has advised me to place you in your fifth year to ensure you do not miss out on an education. I understand education is very important to you, Miss Granger."

She nodded, the unreality of the situation beginning to take over.

Dumbledore continued, "Very good. You will start classes tomorrow. The cleverest witch of her age... I must say, that is not a description I would give lightly."

Classes. Hogwarts. Remus Lupin. Her sharp mind immediately began to connect the dots of a truly bizarre situation. She'd met her former Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor... years before she'd met him in her own time. Had he recognized her? And Professor Snape, with his odd treatment of her and his impassioned plea...

Forgive me.

"But sir," she said faintly, hardly aware of herself speaking, only knowing that she needed to communicate this to him, "I can't just... I can't be here. I can't go to school. I know several current students, what if I-"

"Miss Granger. In your time what is occurring now has already occurred. Thus I am led to believe that no damage will be done by your presence. And you cannot simply put your life on hold until we find a way to send you back. It may take months. Years, even. I don't mean to upset you," he said quietly. "I have arranged your sleeping quarters, classes, and school supplies, so you needn't worry about that. You're fluent in French, correct?"

"Your French is appalling..."

"Erm, yes..." She found herself rather preoccupied with thoughts of Professor Snape, cold, callous Professor Snape, and the very brief reassurance he'd given her, the rational and welcome advice, and the hug. "Professor... sir..."

"You are a transfer student from Beauxbatons," the headmaster said smoothly, patting her shoulder. "And if you're feeling well enough, lunch is almost over and afternoon classes start in ten minutes."

She would find young Snape, go to him and... and what? Ask if he would like to be friends? Hadn't he been interested in the Dark Arts when he was younger? She had no real excuse to talk to him, and besides that she couldn't tell him anything, couldn't truly talk to him... and it was madness anyhow. Snape, a friend? Severus Snape? She would make one more go of explaining to the headmaster that she couldn't do this. "Professor Dumbledore-"

"No time like the present, Miss Granger."