To The Future

To the future

Chapter 1: ‘If wishes were horses’

She sat quietly in her dormitory leafing through a magical theory book. Her gaze kept shifting to an object under her robes. Would it hurt to, really?

Putting the book down she lifted the chain around her neck and examined the small hourglass.

In theory it should be possible, they already knew it went backwards in time. Why not forwards too?

Of course that little detail would be the one thing McGonnagil would have left out. But somewhere it must exist and if anyone could find it, it would be her.

Besides she quite fancied a small research project.... and it was tempting. What would she be like in five years time? Head girl?

With all the trouble she, Ron and Harry got into it'd be nice just to know if they were still here and alive.

She snook across the floorboards cautiously, hoping she wouldn't run into filch or any teacher. It was right now that she began to doubt her plan.

That sounded strange, sort of out of place. Usually the harebrained plans came from Ron or Harry. Infact it would have been nice to include them in it, the cloak of invisibility would be great right now but she knew they wouldn't be interested in this.

She had the sneaking suspicion that that would be because it was perhaps too reckless, not out to save the world but self-satisfying. She preferred not to be judged.

As she entered the restricted section of the library she reasoned with herself, it was harmless. As long as she was unharmed then nothing would go wrong. After all the future wasn't like the past, you couldn't change it by being there, because it hadn't happened. It was a veritable safe haven, ripe for exploration. Digging through the stacks of books she finally found one that looked promising. And it was. The perfect spell was staring her in the face. There was a rattling somewhere down the hall. Filch! She couldn't' afford o get caught, there was no excuse this time. Suddenly a brilliant idea came to her.

Quickly she grasped the chain and turned the hourglass forward as directed whilst reading the rather strange incantation.

Not even in Latin, she had a hard time pronouncing it.

She turned it once ...nehmusiea

Twice... nehmusiea

Three.... nehmusiea

Four.... nehmusiea

Five...and in the tiniest of whisper for the last time nehmusiea

---- 5----years future -----

She opened her eyes to a much brighter room and ducked behind a bookcase to avoid being seen.

This spell obviously wasn't quite as specific as the other way.

But she didn't doubt that she'd travelled forward in time for just opposite of her were her older self and Harry.

She'd changed a lot but so had Harry. Both obviously taller despite being sat down. Her hair was still as wild and long but it had deepened, matured.

And they were both huddled around a desk piled with books. Each absorbed in their own book.

Things looked pretty good here. She didn't know where Ron was but at least she and Harry were alive... and well.

The only problem was that now she didn't know what to do. She could look for Ron or go back home but surely either one of us, them would notice. They were the only ones in the library; they couldn't fail to hear her whatever she did.

Waiting was the only good option, they'd leave and then she could decide what to do.

===

Two hours later it was a lot darker and her stomach was starting to make low rumblings, they were still researching.

Why did they have to be so diligent! She stared at them intently, willing them away. But of course nothing happened.

She kept catching Harry looking at her other self. Mere glances, not very long but puzzling. Almost like he wanted to say something but couldn't pluck up the courage. Most unlike him. And she hadn't even realised yet, Hermione version 2 just carried on reading.

Why hadn't she noticed him looking? *Well, I guess I do get a bit preoccupied sometimes.*

It dawned on Hermione exactly why Harry was doing that. She couldn't see how it could be but……

It was more the way he was doing it, not that he was actually bothering.. Although that did mean something too...wait, no, it couldn't mean ANYTHING. After all, they were. They'd never be ... I mean, it was probably just.

Nothing.

She was imagining it, she wasn't good reading signals, so she must just be wrong. He probably was just waiting for Hermione to say she was tired and wanted to go...yes, he was impatient.

He couldn't wait to get out of there. That was all, couldn't be anything else, what-so-ever

Only problem was that her explanation didn't fit in with what happened next. Hermione, her older self, finally looked up and she looked up exactly when Harry was. For a moment it was strange. They looked at each other. Hermione grew worried. This wasn't right. It didn't make sense. Nowhere did it fit in with the world she knew. Maybe that was the one redeeming quality, the way she could not go insane about it. This wasn't her world. Wasn't the same. Wasn't real yet, even though she was in it but then SHE knew what she meant.

Still. Watching yourself kiss and be kissed by your best friend was unnerving. And she felt a little like she shouldn't have watched. It was her.

But not HER. Because she couldn't envisage her kissing Harry.

Not just that she wasn't wanting a boyfriend right now, she couldn't see herself falling for Harry. Friends are friends. And she couldn't see friends like them being any more.

It was time to get out of this place.

Hmmpf, why hadn't she realised earlier.

*I am so dumb! So dumb!!!* she hit her forehead in frustration.*You’ve been waiting for hours worried about it and you forgot that niggling fact about not needing to*

It didn't matter if they'd heard her, she'd go back and that moment would never exist. So she'd waited there for 5 hours only because her mind hadn't got itself round the problems of time travel theory. Great one Hermione.

------present---term----once more----

She felt a whole lot better back on home ground and home time. Luckily going back hadn't brought her to when she'd left.

Instead she'd turned up in the middle of the day and had to rush to get to double potions once more, having it twice in one day wasn't an experience she'd want to relive.

And the experience she'd had in the future had been similar too. She preferred not to dwell on it.

Seemed so silly now, going into the future, now she must have changed it because she knew and then she had defeated the point of going forward, she couldn't say now if she would be alive or not.

Why hadn't she thought before rushing off to do that? Would have made more sense. Would have been more like herself. And less uncharacteristic.

####

It was the last day of Hogwarts; Hermione had boarded the train as usual with Harry and Ron.

And she sat in the same compartment with them as usual.

But as they talked and laughed and ate assorted wizards sweets like chocolate frogs, Hermione wasn't thinking straight.

She kept wondering. How had things gotten to be like that? Why? She just couldn't see. It was like some puzzle that she couldn't solve. It bugged her. Nagged her. Ate at her mind.

And on the ride back to platform 9 ¾ she kept glancing up at him from her book, scrutinizing him. What was it? What was she missing, that made it all make sense?

He was Harry. Just Harry. How could that have changed? It may have been five years from now. But that much?

She looked up again. His black hair, the lightning scar.Hhe was the boy who lived But even that didn't inspire her, didn't make her giggle and blush furiously like all the other girls in her year.

She closed her eyes and reopened them to look out over the scenery. What the future held she didn't know. It was like looking at yourself and you were different - and yet you had no explanation given for how you got like that, what made you change into someone else entirely. Someone you didn't know.

If she looked back to now would it all be perfectly fine, perfectly sure. As if time was all you needed to understand. She could only hope.

~

Disclaimer: No I don’t own Harry Potter etc. J K Rowling does.

Author’s Note: so, I carried on. Mysterious it should be unless you’ve read my other story. Though I'm not sure if these chapters after number one live up to my work. You decide.

To the future

Chapter 2: ‘Spiral Down, And Around’

--------The summer between year 4 and 5 ------

She woke up sweating.

A scream stifled form her mouth by her own unconsciously lifted hand.

Again she’d dreamt it.

Recently it haunted her.

Not since her second year had she thought much about it.

It was as if in the night reality and the future terror united.

What she’d seen……

She shouldn’t have

That was it. she never should have gone forward further.

Things you don’t understand are very bad to meddle in.

But as a knowitall she’d presumed….incorrectly.

And her nightmares where as a result.

What was worse though was that they might turn out to be entirely true.

But this is what happens when you go to the future. Twice.

Reaching for a glass of water on her bedside table, she dropped it in surprise at the face she saw reflected in the shiny clear liquid mirror.

It was in the dream. She’d looked just the same.

The anguished figure.

Unsure, uncared for. Even by herself.

Like the dream lingered in her.

No escape almost.

She started to cry.

Why so difficult?

*All I wanted was to know everything would be alright*

Too much to ask for evidently.

////the future 10 years from then////hermione’s trip to the future

Hogwarts was black. Scorched bricks remained laying around.

The lake was sludgy, the grounds bloodied. A site of a great battle.

She tore down the path to hogsmede intent on finding out what this scene was.

The village was no better. The inn flaming. Sign hanging half burnt. The smoke billowing out over the empty area.

How had this become the place she’d live in?

Did she live in this future?

Who had made it so?

///////////////////

she tried not to cry too loudly as she went over the events in her mind.

It was ironic.

She’d done that to them.

Condemned the world.

Every single person no matter who they were, suffered in the future because of her.

Because of her refusal to give up the pleasures of the heart.

To make one person totally happy for a few years, she forsaken the rest of the population for their entire lives.

Generations.

The only thing that made the idea tolerable was that she knew it didn’t have to be so.

She could change the future to something different.

Hoping only that it could be better.

~

To the future

Chapter 3: ‘all a matter of tense’

She looked up sordidly at his face.

He looked so innocent, naïve.

But it gave out a story that was wrong.

Harry hadn’t had life easy.

Yet his features always made up for his mournful figure.

It was at times like these that she wondered most.

How things had got to be that she loved him.

Because she didn’t right now.

And it was hard to see how things would work out that way.

How she could stop it from being so.

Ofcourse it seemed today, a normal school day, that she would never be that girl in the library.

It was impossible she thought as harry flicked a chocolate frog at her.

She was already changed by knowing that. And by the knowledge of his deepest darkest secrets. How could you love someone when you knew all the grossest stuff about them.

Being aware that that wasn’t good for survival of the race also aided the campaign to not fall in love with the famous harry potter.

It was a peculiar concept, rather terrifying in its magnitude.

That if he loved her he’d sacrifice his life.

To save her.

Instead of his fate to save them all.

What a wait it would be to that responsibility on your head. But that only applied it it was true. If it was her future.

But as she noted, Harry didn’t love her. A friend. But not love.

It was fortunate.

Things needed to stay that way.

Or she’d get paranoid that it might come true.

Even though it was singularly comparable to the chance of hell freezing over on its own.

With the help of a congelimara charm it would be practically sure fire, that would freeze anything. But she only made bets she could win.

And this one was that the future she’d seen would never come true.