A/N: This is a Harry Potter/Narnia crossover originally written for (and posted at) the crossover(underscore)hp fest this year on livejournal, for the prompt "Hermione stumbles across a strange wardrobe in the Room of Requirement, and somehow ends up in Narnia. There, she meets a young king who makes her want to forget about her friends and old world, but is too noble to let her. Peter/Hermione." It's canon-compliant through the epilogue in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and through all seven Narnia books; time-wise, it takes place a few years before the events of The Horse and His Boy for the Narnian characters and a few months after Voldemort's final defeat in Deathly Hallows. This is the first part of five (or really, four and a short epilogue).

I own neither series; JKR came up with Hogwarts, Hermione, and everything related; Narnia and the Narnians (with a few exceptions) are Lewis's. I'm just playing in their sandboxes. The title is inspired by a line from the hymn "How Lovely is Thy Dwelling-Place"— One day within thy courts excels a thousand spent away; I think the line originally comes from Psalm 84.

This was beta'd by T. Mad Hatter and Ill Ame, who are both fantastic.

OOOOOOOO

A Year in Their Courts

Autumn

She returned to Hogwarts as an eighth year, turned down Professor McGonagall's offer of Head Girl, and determined to start that year like all the rest: fresh parchment and new quills, and Crookshanks making himself a nest in her textbooks: Standard Book of Spells, Advanced Reading; Charms for Post-NEWTs; What to Do Now You've Killed an Evil Maniac and Saved the World (that last one, she was almost sure, was a joke from Harry and Ron. There was no other explanation for chapters like "Take up Badminton" and "Learn Calligraphy"). All Hermione wanted to do, that year, was return to her lessons and essays and learning, and forget all about horcruxes and Hallows and Death Eaters. And though she knew things had changed—she had changed—she still expected to sink seamlessly back into her books as she always had, and she expected, somehow, that she would find the same camaraderie she had always known. It wasn't that she thought Hogwarts would be the same, of course, but she hadn't thought it would be so different, either.

She had assumed she'd share a room with Lavender and Parvati, until she realized they hadn't returned and the first years had taken over their old room; then she thought she'd be in with Ginny and her year, but there were only five beds. She finally found herself, that first night, in a small room at the very top of the staircase, with an oak desk and only one bed. There was an old, handsome wardrobe in one corner, and the bookshelves were enchanted to expand every time she ran out of space. Hermione unpacked, relishing in having her own room for the first time in Merlin knew when. It wasn't until she was finally finished that she looked around and realized how quiet everything was. "Never mind," she told herself, and Crookshanks looked up from his seat on her bed and purred. "There will be people when classes start tomorrow."

But her classes turned out to be mostly one-on-one, with the off lesson here and there with the seventh years—and without Ron and Harry, she was lonely. Hermione had never realized, or never cared, that without Ron and Harry by her side, she tended to stand alone. And so few of her classmates had returned to repeat their seventh year that she knew very few people. There was Ginny, of course, and Luna—but Ginny and Harry were Working Things Out, and Luna was Luna. Harry and Ron came down as often as their training would let them, for long walks by the lake and dinner at the Three Broomsticks or (sometimes) in the Great Hall; but their visits were few and far between, and they seemed to spend much of that time fending off first- and second-years who wanted autographs.

No one ever wanted Hermione's autograph, and she was beginning to find that there was a gulf—an odd, unexpected gulf—between her friends who were working, or near to it, and herself. She wasn't sure, in the end, if it was the distance or that she was still a schoolgirl or something else entirely, but she stuck more firmly to her lessons and textbooks, and studied by herself in her single room at the top of the tower—Charms and Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts, history and politics and social theories, and even human Transfiguration.

McGonagall was headmistress, but the new Transfiguration professor wasn't an Animagus (or at least not a registered one; Hermione had met enough illegal Animagi not to trust the registry), so she had agreed to tutor Hermione in the evenings, which she did with more zeal than she had ever taught Hermione in OWL- or even NEWT-levels. Hermione was hoping for a cat, in the end, or maybe something that flew. All the books said you could never be sure—and even Professor McGonagall had confided that she hadn't known what she was going to be before her first transformation—but Hermione dared to think she knew herself better than most, and sometimes she woke at night from dreams of padding noiselessly through the halls on velvet paws, eyes shining in the dark and ears pricked to any sound.

She spent more time restlessly roaming the corridors at night that year than ever before; she missed Harry's invisibility cloak (and being squashed beneath it with two boys just as exhilarated with rule-breaking and excitement and danger as she was), but she didn't need it. It seemed none of the prefects dared to take points from war heroine Hermione Granger, and the professors seemed to understand (what, Hermione was never sure—she barely understood it herself. There was no adventure this year, no crazed Dark wizard to defeat, no worrying that Harry or Ron or both of them could get killed, rushing about like fools—and wasn't that what she had wanted? Why, then, this restlessness?). Only the new Divination professor seemed to regard her strangely, in a way that made Hermione feel vaguely uncomfortable, when they met at night. It was odd enough that Hermione had taken to avoiding her in the corridors, if she could; and that was why, when she saw the dark-haired woman turn down the corridor, Hermione stopped in her tracks and ducked into the first door she saw, to hide. She was on her way to the library to tutor a second-year in Charms, but the girl could wait.

The room she had chosen was one she had ever seen before (though at Hogwarts, that was not particularly surprising)—dark and dusty, with old furniture stacked in corners, chairs piled on top of tables and tottering bookshelves looming over her. In one corner was an old wardrobe, which had probably been stately and handsome at one point but was now covered in a thick layer of dust. The door was half open, and on the floor of the wardrobe was a book, lying open in the dust. Hermione tutted and immediately went to investigate: the title was in Latin and the text in Greek, and the only word Hermione could read was the author's name on the cover—Plato.

"Hm," she said, and moved farther into the wardrobe, toward a dusty box which she hoped didn't contain more Plato. People should be more careful, honestly—philosophy was important, and books were sacred, and Merlin knew Hogwarts had its share of mice. She patted the cover of the book absently, in case it had recently been nibbled on.

The box, she realized with a sudden start, did contain more Plato—it looked like an entire collection of books had been boxed in an old wardrobe and forgotten! Hermione resolved to check through the rest of the wardrobe, in case there were other books that had been forgotten and left to rot. She poked her head deeper into the wardrobe but couldn't see to the back. "Lumos," she muttered, and then she climbed inside and started exploring.

After several minutes, Hermione realized with a start that there didn't seem to be an end to the wardrobe! Every second she expected the dim glow from her wand to illuminate the far wall—but it never seemed to happen, and after a moment she realized her wand was illuminating something brown and covered in bark. She stood stock-still and examined the tree trunk from all angles before deciding that perhaps this was some sort of Vanishing Cabinet, and the best thing to do would be to get out at once, the way she came.

Therein lay the problem, though: Hermione had gotten so turned around she seemed to be in the middle of a wood, not a wardrobe—and she couldn't tell which way was out. Nor, she realized after several frantic moments, could she Apparate anywhere. Hermione squared her shoulders. Well, then, there was but one thing to do: keep her wand ready and continue on.

In a moment she came to a clearing, and in it was what looked like a lamp-post, stuck into the ground as if it had grown there. The lamp gave off a warm glow and cast a pool of light around the clearing floor, which was covered in red and brown leaves. The only other light came from Hermione's wand and the stars up above, for the night was cloudless. "Nox," she whispered, stepping away from the post to look at the sky more clearly—she couldn't see any other lights, and the moon had not yet risen; seven full years of studying the heavens had taught Hermione to take full advantage of clear nights like these. And that was when Hermione received her first real shock of the evening.

She had never seen these particular stars before in her life. Hermione was fully confident in her ability to recognize Earth's stars wherever she was on the globe—they were, after all, more or less the same stars, whether you were in Australia or Great Britain. But these—these were nothing like Earth stars. She could not spot the Dog Star, or the North Star, or Mars; she couldn't find any of the normal constellations, or even anything that looked like them. And these stars were terribly large—much larger than Earth stars. In short, Hermione was no longer in her own world.

For a long time, Hermione stood where she was, looking up at the sky in shock. She had traveled through time before, and space; but she had never encountered magic powerful enough to send her what must be galaxies away, to a place where people planted lamp-posts in the middle of a wood, to light the way for people who tumbled out through wardrobes looking for stray volumes of Plato.

Hermione, finally, stepped to one side of the clearing and managed to transfigure a spare bit of parchment into an eiderdown quilt and snuggled down underneath it with the book she could not read, thanking Merlin that her magic still worked and resolving to explore the wood once it was light. She debated for a moment whether or not to set wards up around her makeshift camp, but decided finally that it wasn't worth the risk; she wanted anyone coming from Hogwarts to find her, and she didn't know if there were wizards here capable of tracing her spells.

OOOOOOO

When she woke, there was a large black bird standing over her. "Hullo," it said.

Hermione scrambled to sit up and looked at the bird. "Hello," she replied evenly, gripping her wand more firmly under the quilt.

"Have a fight with your folks, did you?" asked the bird, tilting its head to one side. "Nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be ashamed of."

Hermione, who hadn't spoken to her parents face-to-face since the day she'd restored their memories, blinked. "I haven't had a fight with anyone," she said guardedly. "Why would you think that?"

"Oh, that's what always happens when young girls sleep in Lantern Waste," the bird said with authority. "Always trouble with the boys, it is. Not meaning to cause offense, you know, but you humans would be better off if you did as us birds do, and fled the nest as soon as you were ready to eat on your own. Nothing to be ashamed of," he—for its voice was decidedly male—repeated. "Sometimes these things happen. Why don't you run along home, and tell your mam and da you're old enough to choose your own mate?"

Hermione drew the quilt about her shoulders. "I haven't been fighting with anyone," she said again, "and anyway, I can't just run along home; I don't know how I got here." She thought for a moment, and then—because any talking bird had to be magical—added, "Do you know anyone who would be able to help me get home? I was just there, and then I walked through a wardrobe and found myself here."

The bird's eyes grew large. "Ooh," he said, and then—"best to ask at Cair Paravel then, yes, that's best. Their Majesties will know what to do, you can count on that. Or if they don't, they'll know who to ask, sure enough."

"How to I get there?" Hermione asked.

"Just go east, of course," said the bird, ruffling up his feathers. "East as the birds fly—you'll know you're there when you smell the salt breeze."

Hermione nodded and stood up, folding the quilt. "Thank you," she said.

"Of course, of course, glad to be of service," said the bird. "You just tell the birds you meet that—" and then he stopped. Hermione's wand had slid from her fingers and fallen to the ground. "What's that?"

"What's what?" Hermione asked, realizing too late that he knew exactly what the wand was. She bent to pick it up, but the bird was too quick for her; in a moment, he had grabbed it with his beak and flown to the top of a tree. "Come on," she said, "give it back!"

He took the wand out of his beak with one claw and shook his head. His beady black eyes were trained on her. "That's a wand, that is," he said. "We won't be having any more witches in these parts, no we won't. No more hundred-year winters and no more beasts turning into stone!"

Hermione's mouth dropped open. "I've never turned anyone to stone!" she said. "And—what do you mean, you won't have any more witches?"

But the bird had stopped listening to her. "Witch!" he was yelling. "Witch! Witch!" In a moment, the clearing was filled with beasts and birds of all sorts—and even a few creatures that were neither. Hermione saw several beautiful women, strangely tall and leaf-like for humans, and several creatures that looked like fauns. Hermione backed up and folded her arms, trying to look both imposing and unthreatening at the same time. Without her wand she felt vulnerable and too open to attack, and the crowd all around her was rapidly turning into a mob. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach as she remembered stories of witches being yanked into town centers and burned—without her wand, Hermione would be unable to cast a Freezing Charm, and she would die.

"Kill it!" several voices yelled at once. "Kill the witch!"

"Her wand!" yelled other voices. "Break the wand!"

"Quiet!" yelled another voice, finally—a raven, Hermione realized after a moment spent craning her head. "The witch must be taken to Cair Paravel, and her wand with her; the High King must decide the matter," it said. Then, to Hermione: "I am Swallowpad, and I serve Their Majesties. If you come peaceably, you shall not be harmed."

Hermione nodded stiffly. "Very well," she said, seeing no way out of the mess she was in. "I won't struggle. You have my word."

"Very well," said Swallowpad, and raised his voice: "Will someone bring a horse, that we can take her more quickly?"

Several minutes passed, and then a—was that a dwarf?—appeared leading a plodding pony on a lead. Hermione allowed herself to be placed on the horse by a giant (he looked no more intelligent than most, but rather kinder), and the party set off. There were all manner of animals on four legs, who argued as they went; and in front, leading the party, was Swallowpad the raven. He was a most chivalrous companion, Hermione had to admit: he circled back every so often to reassure her that no harm would come to her without just cause; that the High King would be fair, should she choose to snap her wand and live a redeemed life. Hermione tried to smile, but there was nothing reassuring about having to snap her wand in half.

OOOOOOO

The ride to Cair Paravel took the entire day and much of the next. Hermione was treated kindly, but she wasn't allowed anywhere without an escort. She said nothing, but it was disconcerting that they felt the need for such a guard around her—one girl, even if she was a witch, and a witch without a wand at that.

The castle of Cair Paravel was on the coast, overlooking the sea. Hermione was led through the gate and into a deserted antechamber. She was calm enough to notice that the walls were hung with rich tapestries—most of them featured a lion—and the floor was tiled. She shifted anxiously. Swallowpad, noticing her discomfort, said kindly, "If you have done nothing wrong and are willing to give up your wand, you have nothing to fear."

"Right," Hermione said faintly, as a small door opened and a faun called out, "Their Majesties will see you now!"

She was led—gently but quite firmly—through the doorway and into a bright throne room. Four people sat on four thrones, and Hermione followed Swallowpad's motions, curtseying awkwardly.

"Thou may'st rise," said one of the men, and Hermione stood slowly up again; the one who had spoken sat on the tallest throne, and must, she thought, be the High King. She wondered if the rest were his wife and children—but they all seemed too close in age. "What hast thou found, Swallowpad?" he asked.

"This woman, Your Majesty," said Swallowpad. "She was discovered in Lantern Waste, with a wand; she is a witch, and she does not deny it. She claims not to know whence she comes."

"Is this true?" asked the younger king (prince?), shifting slightly.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Hermione said honestly. "I am a witch, I do own a wand, and I don't know how I got here—though I do know where I was. I come from a place called Scotland."

"How did thou findest thyself here?" asked the youngest of the four, a girl who could not have been Hermione's age, yet.

"I went through a wardrobe," Hermione said awkwardly. "And I came out here."

"Ah," said several voices at once.

"She might be lying, Your Majesty," remarked someone else—one of the fauns, Hermione saw. "It is a well-known story."

"It would not be just to punish an innocent," put in the younger king.

"That is true," the High King said finally, "but neither can we allow a witch free reign. Witch"—this to Hermione—"we cannot know how thou arrivest here, nor why; but we shall not harm thee. But thy wand must be taken from thee and destroyed."

"No!" Hermione cried, and a low murmur went through the room. "Wait, don't—don't snap it. I—my wand is part of me," she explained desperately, "it chose me. Lock it up if you must, I can't do magic without it, but don't snap it."

The High King exchanged a long look with the other three, and finally nodded. "Very well. Thou may'st stay with us at Cair Paravel, in rooms suitable for thy station, and thy wand shall be kept under lock and key, on pain of death. We do this, witch, because Aslan desires us to be merciful in all things, and because thou hast harmed none."

"I, er, thank you, Your Majesty," Hermione managed. She felt naked without a wand, completely vulnerable. But at least it would not be broken, and there was always the chance that when they figured out how she'd managed to stumble into this world, they would give her back her wand and let her leave again.

"Now," said the older of the two women, "thou hast not told us thy name." It was the first time she had spoken, and her voice was like running water.

"Hermione," Hermione managed.

"Then, Hermione, Alambil shall take thee to thy rooms and see thee dressed more comfortably." This seemed to be a dismissal, so Hermione bowed again and backed away, looking around for Alambil, whoever that was.

Alambil turned out to be a tall, willowy girl from a place called Archenland, which was a country to the south of Narnia, the land she was in now. Narnia, Alambil explained cheerfully when they had left the throne room, was ruled by four monarchs—the High King Peter and his siblings: Queen Susan, King Edmund, and Queen Lucy. They had all come out of a place called Spare Oom through a wardrobe, and they had defeated the ruler of Narnia before them, an Empress Jadis. They were, Alambil hastened to assure her, the kindest and fairest of rulers, and as the Narnian court was not particularly keen on ceremony, Hermione would probably come to know them well (Alambil, as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Susan, could vouch for this personally). "For you are a guest," Alambil reminded her. "And I don't think you're a wicked witch, even if I've never heard of any good ones."

"Where I come from," Hermione offered, "witches can be good or evil, just like anyone else."

"It has not been so here," was all Alambil said, and she turned the conversation neatly aside—to the layout of the castle, to Hermione's two rooms, to Hermione's gowns (for apparently she was to be dressed in the Narnian style). She was friendly, and since Hermione was still a little unsure of how secure her place was in this world, she did not press the issue but merely allowed Alambil to dress her for the feast as she explained court etiquette and how to find the Great Hall.

OOOOOOO

At the feast, Hermione found herself seated on one side of King Edmund, who looked at her kindly and asked her, after the toast, to recount again how she had come into Narnia. "And thou didst not mean to come into Narnia?" he asked, when she had finished.

"No," Hermione said. "But that—that is how you came here, isn't it? Through a wardrobe, I mean."

"Yes," King Edmund told her. "Like thee, my brother and sisters and I came from another world, through a wardrobe in a spare room in the home of a kind old man who had taken us in during the war—for we were children then," he added, as if to assure her that King Edmund and King Peter (and perhaps the two queens as well, if it came to that) would never shirk from combat, here and now.

"Oh," said Hermione, wondering when and where they could have come from—not Scotland, or at least not her Scotland; there was no war, there. Then. "How does the magic work?"

"Thy guess is as good as mine," he explained. "For it is all controlled by Aslan."

Hermione made a mental note to ask Alambil who Aslan was. "And you…came here, and defeated the woman who ruled Narnia at the time?"

The king regarded her thoughtfully. "Thou might be more careful whom thou callest 'woman', my lady. Jadis was no human."

"It's just Hermione," Hermione said absently, and decided to change the subject. "Who are the other people at the high table?" she asked instead—though she said people, only perhaps a third were actually human; there were fauns and centaurs, dwarfs and the oddly tree-like people Alambil called hamadryads, and all manner of animals.

OOOOOOO

King Edmund was perhaps a year older than Hermione, and she found herself liking him very much; he was direct and chivalrous, and he spoke kindly to her (even if she half-suspected him of thinking her just as wicked as the witch he had displaced). It was only when his attention was required by one of the other lords at the high table that she allowed her gaze to wander around the Great Hall. The room was enormous, with a vaulted ceiling and windows that looked over the sea. The floor was covered in colored tiles—red, yellow, orange—and the walls were hung with rich tapestries. More than half of them featured a lion in some form or another. On the dais was a long table, and four thrones sat behind it. The tallest of these had a lion on the seat-back (Hermione had to wonder if this held some sort of symbolic meaning, or if the Narnians simply liked lions), and that was where the High King sat.

Since there were four monarchs, Hermione sorted them at first glance, as she would any group of four. It wasn't difficult; the High King was a Gryffindor through and through, down to the lion on his throne. His brother, who was quieter and seemed just a little darker, was a Slytherin, and the girls followed—the beautiful Queen Susan to Ravenclaw, and Queen Lucy, who had not stopped smiling the entire feast, was obviously the Hufflepuff of the bunch. For some reason, this made Hermione feel calmer, more at home, and she dug into the next course with more appetite. For a moment, she spared a thought for Ron and Harry—how would they react when she was discovered missing? Especially Ron, who had once faced a den of giant spiders to save her and who now wanted to marry her.

She missed Ron. Harry, at least, would be all right—he might find some way to blame Malfoy, but there was no danger if he poked around in Hogwarts, looking for her. It was Ron who would be up all night, worrying. After a moment, Hermione put her fork down and took a sip of her wine instead. She was not going to cry; she was going to find out who this Aslan person was, and she was going to find out how to get home again. And even if King Peter wouldn't return her wand…well, Hermione had functioned without her wand once before, when the Death Eaters had taken it. She would be fine.

OOOOOOO

In the next few weeks, Hermione began to acclimate to her new surroundings. Alambil had cheerfully explained about Aslan, the great Lion, but she had added to that no one knew when he would be back ("It's not like he's a tame lion, you know, or at least that's what the Lord Beaver says," she explained), and so Hermione was next trying the library at Cair Paravel. It was more expansive than she had dared to hope, but it was still not even half the size of her own collection.

King Edmund, when he had heard what she was planning to do, offered to help her find the best books on the subject. He was surprisingly relaxed with her, dropping the "thous" and "thees" and not chiding her the few times she slipped and called him Edmund, instead of Your Majesty. He was even curious about her life before Narnia, her school for witches and wizards and her adventures there. The Narnians called him King Edmund the Just, and Hermione was beginning to see that it fit: Edmund was polite, curious, and fair, and he seemed to absorb information about other cultures and places like a sponge. "Ravenclaw," she said absently one afternoon as they sat in the courtyard and read (again) the only book in the entire library on magic.

"Pardon me?" Edmund said, and Hermione laughed awkwardly.

"Ravenclaw," she repeated. "It just—my school was divided into four Houses, and it just struck me that you were a Ravenclaw. I had thought you a Slytherin, at first."

King Edmund laughed. "Were you in Ravenclaw?"

"Almost," Hermione told him. "But I wound up in Gryffindor."

King Edmund laughed again, and Hermione almost didn't mind that they still hadn't found a way for her to get back through the wardrobe; Narnia was more beautiful than home, and Alambil and Edmund were turning out to be fast friends. Surely a few more weeks wouldn't matter, when she'd already been gone so long?

OOOOOOO

A/N: So there's the first part of five. Reviews make my life—constructive criticism always appreciated. And does anyone know how to get this site to accept underscores? And, for that matter, when they cut parentheses out of summaries?