Across Times

A/N: I had computer problems and I lost the beginning of this chapter. Now I have two different versions. If you don't like this, just let me know! I might have to re-write the whole thing. Bear with me, it's either going to be smutastic or presmutty next chapter. Wanted to have some plot.



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“James?” Hermione asked in disbelief. She looked around at his companions, for they really looked too familiar for their own good. “Sirius? Remus?” She said the last name without knowing it, for the young man in front of her didn’t look like the Professor Lupin she knew.



“Do we know you?” Remus asked, speculation filling his eyes. “You don’t look familiar…”



“It’s just our reputation preceding us, Moony,” James countered. “You must be from Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. Who sent you up here?”



“I told you, this isn’t a joke,” Hermione started, the annoyance building up in her again. “You’re just like Harry!” Hermione was flabbergasted because they were really almost the same person. James was acting so much like his son, albeit, it should be the other way around. She was having trouble comprehending the fact that the Marauders were in front of her, in front of where the Fat Lady was supposed to be, in a school that was… She didn’t know. Hermione didn’t know how she got there, or where exactly ‘there’ was. She knew two of these people closely: Sirius after his stint in Azkaban and Remus as her ragged professor.



“I’m…” Hermione started again, before catching eyes with Remus. He looked nothing like he did as Hermione knew him. His hair was a thick chestnut brown, completely free of the early graying she was familiar with. His ratty, torn robes had been replaced with spotless new ones. She took it all in and closed her eyes, breaking eye contact, trying to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. “You… You don’t know me, but I know you, Moony,” She whispered the last part, catching Remus’s eyes again.



Sirius and James looked at each other, seemingly not alarmed by the use of Remus’s nickname. “Why don’t you go back to your house? You’ve already made the Fat Lady leave her post,” Sirius spat while Hermione and Remus kept looking at each other with caution. “Now we have to wait for her.” He gestured to his friends and took a very amusing look of annoyance on his face.



Hermione’s blood began to boil, she didn’t take that tone from anybody. “This is my house!” she practically yelled, turning to look at the other two boys. “Prongs! Padfoot!”



The two marauders continued to stare at her, their faces turning to amusement. “Who put you up to this?” they asked, almost in unison.



Stamping the floor in anger, Hermione’s voice raised higher. “I solemnly sear I am up to no good!” she quoted, vying to get their attention. “Mischief Managed.” Hermione very much hoped that they had made the map by then, not sure if the looks they shared were knowing or questioning.



“Who are you?” Remus asked, pure curiosity in his voice.



Hermione took a deep breath to look at the younger version of her former professor. “I’m…” she tried, stopping as the boys looked behind her at the portrait, the Fat Lady sauntering back into her frame.



“Treacle tart,” James said quickly, before the Fat Lady could get a word in. She huffed and swung open obediently. James took the lead and headed into the Gryffindor common room first, followed swiftly by Sirius. Remus looked back at Hermione, who pleaded silently to him. He took her arm quickly and pushed her up through the portrait hole to the protests of the Fat Lady.



Hermione followed Remus into the common room and the portrait swung closed behind her. The room itself looked exactly the same as it did…well, when Hermione was there. The circular room was light, sun streaming through the high windows. A fire was lit in the hearth, although it was not needed for heat. If Hermione had to say something was different, she would guess that the chairs and poufs were less worn than she knew. She looked around, unaware of Remus’s grip on her still. She looked down at his hand grasping her arm before closing her eyes and trying to shake away the odd feeling that had overcome her.



“Who are you?” Remus asked again. “How do you know about…”



“The map?” Hermione finished. “I’m Hermione Granger. Gryffindor 5th year. Prefect.” She thought for a moment, almost wanting to smile at their confused looks. “How old are you?”



James stepped in front of Remus, causing him to let go of Hermione. “Why does that matter? You have to explain yourself first, Hermione.” He said her name wearily, not sure if he had gotten it right. “How do you know about the map? Start with that.”



Hermione laughed. She knew it would get their attention but now that she had to explain herself, she was in trouble. Hermione couldn’t simply say that his son got it from a friend and it was explained in whole by the young man standing in front of her. “I…My friend got it from Filch’s office.”



“How did it get there?” Sirius butted in, leaving the chair by the fire that his godson liked so much. “We have it upstairs, in James’ trunk.”



How familiar, she thought again. Harry kept the map in his trunk as well. “It gets confiscated,” she said, much to the confusion of the marauders.



“What do you mean, confiscated?” James asked haughtily. “Who the bloody he-“



“How do you know that?” Remus interrupted.



Hermione had to think in the few seconds Remus had bought her. They had to be either 15 or 17, as they had just finished an exam. Since they weren’t bustling to get out of Hogwarts, she was going with 15. That means she had gone back a good 20 years or more. She started to talk her way through, “I really am a 5th year Gryffindor Prefect. I was in Sn-“ she stopped. She couldn’t mention Snape was a professor, not with what she knew about his “problematic relationship” with the Marauders. “My potions class and my friend screwed up his veritaerum potion and I slipped in it. I dropped the ingredients I was holding and they mixed with the puddle on the floor that I fell in. You found me right after I had left the dungeon. My friends were supposed to meet me in the common room before dinner.”



All three of the boys stared at her in disbelief. Sirius and James were gaping at her and looked like they were going to start a rant. Hermione cut them off, “It’s true,” she pleaded again to Remus. “I know you. I know about your furry little problem – and I know it’s not a misbehaved rabbit!”



Hermione pointed to James. “You’re a stag. And you’re a big black, shaggy dog – Snuffles,” she spat towards Sirius.



“How do you know all of that? We’re not registered animagi,” Sirius asked.



“Because I know you too,” she said, with the hope that James didn’t ask if she knew him. “My friends know you guys too.”



“But we must be so much older than you,” James reasoned.



It was time for Hermione to lie. “You are. Remus was our DADA professor for a year. That’s how we know all of you. That’s how we know about the map.” Hermione was hating herself, having to lie so much. She looked at each boy individually again, scrutinizing them as they turned away from her to talk amongst themselves. Remus had seemed to be the most open to her explanation so far, Sirius and James weren’t so fast to accept it.



The Marauders turned to her again, seeming to have come to an agreement. “We have a friend in the girls dorm. We’re going to ask her help for tonight and tomorrow we’re going to Dumbledore,” James said.



Hermione thought for a moment before replying, “I don’t want to bother Lily.” The look on James’ face proved that her guess was right. “I just, know things, okay?”



“Oh…Kay…” James said slowly. “But then what do you want to do?”



“If I could borrow your invisibility cloak, I know a place I could go.”



“You..”



“I know things,” she reminded them.