A/N:This is the result of reading way too many "Hermione goes back in time to the Mauraders and falls in love with James and/or Sirius and/or Remus and/or Snape (cross out the ones that don't fit)"-stories that weren't finished. I found some chapters of an old WIP I never posted anywhere, and decided to rewrite it. This is what came out.

Edit: I seem to have double-posted this before... Sorry about that.

FIRST LAW OF TIME TRAVEL

"Hermione. Hermione!" She was being shaken by the shoulder. Couldn't they just leave her alone?

"Jus' fi' mo' mini'ts, mum..." She mumbled, trying to turn away.

There was a chuckle - a decidedly male chuckle - she opened her eyes, and sharp rays of light pinched her eyeballs. She promptly shut them again. "Great Merlin."

Again, the chuckle. "Sorry, just me, Remus."

He offered her a hand, and she took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. She looked around, still holding his hand. She had been lying in a ditch. Raising a hand up to her hair, she found a small twig. It was stuck, so she left it there. Experience had taught her not to try to pull things out of the bird's nest on her head.

"You must have gone a little overboard with the firewhisky last night." Remus said, looking intently at her, his eyes too young.

She swallowed. "I must have."

" I thought- I thought you might be dead, too." He said quietly.

Two years she had spent with them. Two years. And she still hadn't found it in herself to save them.

"They were good people." She said, at last. "I wasn't... Celebrating."

He nodded, and there was a long pause while they both tried to find something else to say. "Can we get out of this ditch, now?" Remus asked. The non-sequitur forced a short, sharp, laugh out of her, but she nodded, and they climbed out of the ditch.

Hermione realized she didn't actually know where they were. "I must've been really drunk, last night." She observed.

They agreed to meet later that day, and Hermione used the time to shower and brush her hair. There was more than one twig, and she used a cutting-curse on it in frustration. Tangled, wet hair fell to the ground. She'd worn it long for so long that the girl in the mirror looked foreign to her.

At least it wasn't a magical mirror - she liked the wizarding world, she did, but - she drew the line at mirrors that commented on your appearance.

Apparating from her flat to The Leaky Cauldron was easy, familiar. She asked for the usual, sat down to read the paper, cast one look at it, and put it back on the table.

It was the only thing people would be talking about for a very long time, probably. Besides, she'd read this one before. Or she would. She shook her head. "Don't worry about the tenses." She mumbled to herself thorugh clenched teeth. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last time she said that to herself. She had gotten used to it, really, she had. It wasn't possible to travel forward in time, after all. Not the way you could travel backwards, anyway.

"Hi." Her musings were interrupted by one Remus Lupin. "Feeling better?"

She bit back a sarcastic retort. "Yes, much." She said. It came out a little drily, but if Remus noticed, he did not let on.

Tom appeared with her order, and asked Remus if he wanted anything. He didn't , he said, but she coaxed him into at least having some tea.

They ate in silence for a while, listening to the chatter around them. It was early in the morning still, but a couple of old witches sat at a table not far from them. They were chattering away about the price of dragon-liver. Like that mattered. Hagrid was babbling about his new motorcycle to Tom, and she wondered if she was the only sane person left in the world.

"Did you hear about Sirius?"

Her eyes widened. Sirius, now abandoned in Azkaban - where he would stay for twelve more years. She nodded.

"I cannot believe that traitor. And all this time we thought he was our friend." Remus' voice quivered with anger. "Poor Peter..." He trailed off, and Hermione felt something break inside her.

"Did you know they didn't even give him a trial?" She whispered furiously, leaning towards him, over the table.

He looked at her, disbelievingly. "A trial? A trial?! He was their secret-keeper, what was there to prove in a trial? And he killed Peter."

Hermione shook her head. "Wormtail." She spat. "The biggest piece of him they found was his finger. Did you know that? He was standing on a sewer entrance." She said hoarsely "He's a rat-animagus, Remus!"

"Where exactly are you going with this?" He said, still quietly, but people were starting to notice their row. "That still doesn't change anything! He was their secret-keeper, Hermione; nobody else could have betrayed them!"

" You-" She realized that at some point she had stood up from her chair. Her fist was clenched around her wand, and she had been about to curse Remus. She closed her eyes for a moment, then sat down, massaging her temples. "No, no one but their secret-keeper could have betrayed them." She whispered quietly and looked up to see Remus sitting down, too.

"Look-" he began, but she had had enough.

"No, you look." She said. Was she really doing this? Yes, she really was. But not here. "Look, can we- go outside, for a bit? Somewhere... More private?"

Screw the laws of time-travel.

Feedback is love!