Summary: Set during HBP. Harry is growing additionally more suspicious of Malfoy's behavior, and he enlists Hermione, Ginny, and Ron to help him get to the bottom of the mystery. After an inexplicable event in the Room of Requirement, however, the Hogwarts students find themselves trapped in an alternate universe, one they eventually determine to be the future. Their future. Left to their own devices in a world in which everything has changed - Death Eaters rising again, a Granger and Potter-led Ministry, and a mysterious new group called the New Order - will they ever find an escape? And more importantly, once they do, will anything ever be the same? (Dramione, Hinny).

a/n: Hiiiii I'm so glad you're here! Just so you know, I'm not J.K. Rowling, which means I own nothing but the plot. I don't even own the title - it comes from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot. Aaaaand, you should know that this story will contain mature language and themes, and I may have to up the rating later. Okay, so with all of that said, here we go...

I HAVE KNOWN THE EYES

I

"Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides,

Who covers faults at last with shame derides."

—King Lear

October 4, 1996, 8:12 A.M.

Hermione learned in grade school that stories that begin in autumn nearly always indicate a prior tragedy. At the time, she imagined it was simply her teacher's rationalization for spoiling the ending of The Great Gatsby when they'd only just begun reading it (why they were reading such a book in primary school, she didn't know), but now, she could see it - the chaos in the way the leaves swirled to the ground, leaving black, skeletal branches; the way the wind never seemed to blow in one direction; the way the cycle of the moon seemed to split open wide, allowing the celestial body to sway out of its practised cycle.

Shakespeare, too, taught her of the power nature holds in determining - or at least helping us to determine - our destiny. If Julius Caesar had opened his eyes to the omens provided by lightning that lit the Roman sky and thunder that shook the streets, he probably wouldn't have been stabbed.

Or maybe he still would have, but it wouldn't have been thirty-three bloody times.

"Et tu, Brute?" she muttered to herself, raising a brow as Ron took the cinnamon bun she'd already reached out a hand to grab.

"I just know he's planning something. Something bad."

Hermione jumped, her musings broken as Harry spoke. "Malfoy again?" she asked, though she already knew the answer. Malfoy was, after all, the Cassius to Harry's Caesar.

"He's been on about the bloody ferret this entire week," moaned Ron, shovelling a forkful of potatoes into his mouth as he spoke. Hermione winced as pieces escaped through his lips.

"On the contrary, Ronald, he hasn't stopped talking about Malfoy since we saw him at Borgin & Burkes in August," she said, eyeing Harry warily. It was currently the beginning of October, and his fixation on Malfoy was seriously worrying her. Perhaps his theory that Malfoy was up to something had merit, but then again, when wasn't Malfoy up to something? In Harry's mind, Malfoy had become less of a nuisance and more of a disease — tainting every thought with dark hunches, erasing any notion of coincidence, and transforming the most insignificant of actions into ones of deep meaning. As if Harry's personal vendetta and endless stream of conspiracies regarding Malfoy weren't bad enough already, he was now attempting to infect Ron with the Slytherin sickness, and Ron, as Hermione well knew, had a weak immune system when it came to the ferret.

"The he you speak of is right here," said Harry, his expression irritated. "And I'm telling you, there's something suspicious going on with Malfoy. I think he may have—"

"Honestly, enough with the theories! Or anything else about Malfoy for that matter," said Hermione, taking a bite out of a piece of bread smothered in raspberry jam. "If I wanted to discuss a topic that gave me trouble digesting, I would suggest Dean and Ginny's inability to stop snogging for longer than five minutes."

Both Harry and Ron squirmed in discomfort as Hermione continued chewing, her expression innocuous.

"Are you trying to make me lose my appetite?" asked Ron. His blue eyes widened, and his mouth twisted into a grimace. He wasn't speaking to Dean, and his familial love for Ginny had been overshadowed by the horror and disgust of seeing her copping off with one of his mates.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware you could lose your appetite," said Hermione, smiling to let him know she was teasing. Stressed about Quidditch, Ron was more sensitive than usual, and any joke made at his expense had to be carefully constructed and considered.

"She has a point, mate," Harry said, chuckling lightly at Ron's expense.

"Well, I s'pose she does." Ron looked somewhat sheepish, but the comment didn't prevent him from resuming the demolition of his breakfast. He finished his potatoes and moved on to eggs, and in that moment, Hermione was quite grateful she wasn't sitting next to him. Chunks of scrambled eggs began flying in every direction, most of them landing on the wooden table. Seamus Finnegan, however, was unlucky enough to receive flecks of sunny-colored dandruff from his place on Ron's right.

"It's just that," Harry began, visibly struggling to avoid bringing the Slytherin up again. He ran a hand through his disheveled dark hair, causing it to stick up even more than usual, and sighed deeply.

Hermione narrowed her eyes but said nothing; Ron simply shrugged as if to give Harry the go-ahead.

"I think he's taken the Mark," Harry whispered, glancing surreptitiously around the table in order to ensure that no one had overheard his theory.

"What?" exclaimed Hermione. Yes, Malfoy was an insufferable prat, but a Death Eater? She didn't see how it was plausible, considering the extent of the previous year's catastrophe in the Department of Mysteries. Lucius had been captured and was presently rotting in Azkaban. She'd presumed that in the absence of his father, the younger Malfoy stood a chance, not at redemption, but perhaps at improvement. Without his overbearing father around, he could claw his way out of the depths of depravity, a pit of cruelty and contempt his father seemed to have worked tirelessly to shove him into. And because Hermione was admittedly idealistic at heart, even when it came to those she couldn't stand, Malfoy being a Death Eater was not something she wanted to consider. "Harry, you can't be—"

"—Serious? I am, Hermione, and I really think that's what's going on. The conversation from the train, the way he's been acting; it all points to it!" Harry threw up his hands for added emphasis, and Hermione's orange juice nearly toppled over.

"Harry," she sighed, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Just try and give this Malfoy thing a rest for a while, alright?"

"Don't you think I've been bloody trying?" asked Harry, exasperation in his tone. "It's just that Malfoy—"

"Gossiping about me again, are you Potter?" a snide voice cut in. "I understand why all of you Gryffindors are obsessed with me, but it's becoming a bit unhealthy, don't you think?"

The trio of Gryffindors looked up to see the disdainful blond in question eyeing them with cold malice and the slightest hint of amusement.

"Yes, well, we heard a rumour you and Parkinson are back together," said Hermione, her voice frigid. "I would say congratulations, but it's not as if she's a catch."

It was true; she had heard Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil discussing Malfoy's relationship status the night before as she dressed for bed. It was with mournful sighs and longing looks that the other girls determined that Malfoy was once again with Parkinson. Parvati acted particularly distraught, and Hermione nearly let out a laugh imagining the girl scratching "Mrs Parvati Malfoy" into her diary with a quill.

Which wasn't to say Lavender had lost her title as Gryffindor's resident trollop.

The way she'd drooled over Parvati's detailed description of Malfoy's newest luxurious robes was more than enough to squash any arguments to the contrary. The tittering over the Slytherin's "gorgeous body," "silky hair," and "mountains of money" had lasted so long, Hermione had been forced to cast a silencing charm around her bed (though not before she heard Lavender say "too bad his family's so undesirable." At this, she could not stifle her laugh).

"You're one to talk, Granger," said Malfoy, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and sneering at the brunette witch in a way that could make poor Neville wet his trousers. He fixed his silver gaze on her and appeared to infuse all the scorn he could into the glare. "You can't even get a moron like Weaselbee to notice you and your pathetic infatuation."

"What did you call me?" Ron asked distractedly, still chewing his eggs as Hermione's cheeks burned.

"Disgusting," Malfoy hissed, upon seeing Ron's lack of table manners. Hermione thought it was most likely the only thing she and Malfoy would ever agree on. "I've always known you Weasleys to be uncivilized, but this—"

"Malfoy, would you just leave already?" said Hermione. For one thing, she was not in the mood to fight with Malfoy; it was exhausting to keep up the argument. For another, she was seriously concerned that Harry was going to yank Malfoy's shirt sleeve up to his elbow in order to inspect the skin underneath it. He appeared to be salivating at the mere idea of determining whether or not a Dark Mark had indeed marred its surface.

"Now why would I do that, Granger, when the fun's just starting?" he asked, smirking derisively.

Before Hermione could respond, a familiar, nasally voice broke into the conversation.

"Drake! Come on, you promised we could take a walk outside," said Pansy Parkinson, shooting him a saccharine simper and looping an arm through his. "This filth isn't worth our time or our clever insults," she concluded with a sniff.

Hermione could have sworn she saw Malfoy roll his eyes at Pansy's words, but she was far from surprised. It was no secret that Malfoy had visited a number of different girls' beds at Hogwarts, discreetly of course, yet somehow rumours of his sordid, midnight trysts always seemed to get out. She often suspected that he spread them himself. Anyhow, she supposed that he was with Pansy simply for that kind of benefit; Hermione couldn't wrap her head around the idea of anyone wanting to date Pansy for her personality. Even so, she felt an unwonted pang of sympathy for the Slytherin witch. She couldn't begin to imagine harbouring affectionate feelings for Draco Malfoy, but she knew without having experienced it that it could not be an easy or pleasant thing in the slightest, especially when he barely gave Pansy the time of day, let alone returned her sentiments.

"Must we, Pansy? I'm not feeling particularly well," said Malfoy, rubbing his chest and giving a theatrical cough for added effect. "I also distinctly remember telling you that I despise the nickname 'Drake'," he added under his breath.

"Are you getting sick?" Pansy asked, maintaining her iron grip on his arm whilst tugging him along and fretting over him as if he were a child. "I'll get one of the house elves to send up some soup and tuck you into bed, and then..."

Pansy's voice gradually faded away, and she and Malfoy departed, Pansy looking additionally distressed over Malfoy's health and Malfoy additionally alarmed at the idea of Pansy playing nurse.

"Well that escape route certainly didn't work out for him," Hermione said, imagining the kind of torture Pansy would soon be inflicting on the blond.

"Serves him right," said Ron. "Pansy may be a cow, but it doesn't excuse Malfoy acting like a complete prick."

"Harry?" asked Hermione, concerned when Harry refrained from joining in on the Malfoy-bashing, ordinarily one of his favourite pastimes.

"Sorry, I was just..." Harry trailed off, his green eyes remaining unfocused. Hermione had a feeling she wouldn't like the direction his brain was going, but she was most likely powerless to change its course. Harry had developed a talent for getting her mixed up in things she had no business getting mixed up in.

"Just what?" she prompted, drumming her fingers impatiently on the table.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this," he said, looking to Ron and Hermione for support. "I'd like your help, but if you don't want to—"

"Are you kidding?" interrupted Ron, grinning. "A chance to wipe Malfoy's sodding smirk off his face? I'm in."

"What about you, Hermione?" Harry asked, after returning Ron's excited smile. Hermione realized she had absolutely no choice in the matter. While she couldn't bring herself to stamp out the light in Harry's eyes, further deciding her decision was the knowledge that Harry and Ron were bound to be reckless in their plans if she wasn't there to help.

That is, if they were even able to come up with a plan in the first place.

"Fine," she sighed. "I'm in too."

.

~#~

.

11 P.M.

Very late that evening, Hermione, Harry, and Ron huddled around the Marauder's Map in the Gryffindor common room, attempting to locate the footsteps of a certain Slytherin.

"I know he's here somewhere," Hermione insisted. "It's his turn to patrol the corridors. Prefects can't slack on their duties!"

"Maybe not you," said Ron. "The rest of us..."

"Ronald Weasley!" Hermione jostled him with her elbow and applied her best disapproving stare.

"Come on, Hermione, it was a joke! Merlin, you look like my mum," he cried, and, well, she wasn't exactly disappointed by the comparison - at least Ron listened to his mum.

Hermione didn't like anyone skipping out on patrol; not only did it go against the tacit expectations of prefects, but also, it potentially placed people in danger. Prefects were on watch for a reason, after all, and after facing a troll, three-headed dog, and a basilisk, all in her first two years at Hogwarts, Hermione took the prefect position quite seriously.

"Well, if you stick to your job, I won't have any reason to imitate your mother again," she said, returning her eyes to the old, yellowed parchment on which the magic map was drawn. Its charmed capabilities never ceased to amaze her, despite her reservations about its uses - well, Harry's uses.

"Found him!" Harry exclaimed, pointing to a set of tiny feet labelled "Draco Malfoy."

"You did? Where?" Ron brought his face so close to the page that Hermione's vision was blocked entirely. She rolled her eyes at Ron's usual abandonment of observation skills.

"Sixth floor," answered Harry, "but he's on the move."

"Sixth floor?" Hermione said. "No, no, no, he's supposed to be on the third floor! Stupid git," she whined indignantly. "He's messing up my schedule! I worked on it for weeks!"

"Don't you get what this means, Hermione?" asked Harry, his expression triumphant. "Malfoy is sneaking off somewhere he's not supposed to!" Harry snatched his invisibility cloak from the chair on which it had been resting and swung it over his shoulders.

"He's on the seventh floor now," said Ron, still transfixed on the map. "Wait, no, he's...he's gone."

"How is he gone? That's not possible."

"Ron's right," said Hermione. "He just disappeared." She bit her lip, wondering how this new development was, in fact, possible. In all the years Harry had possessed the map, never once had he mentioned anyone simply vanishing.

"Crabbe and Goyle just reached the seventh floor," said Harry. "Let's see if they disappear too."

The three Gryffindors watched noiselessly for a few minutes, but Crabbe and Goyle hardly moved; the pair made a few steps here and there but did nothing to suggest they were planning on leaving the seventh floor in the near future.

"We have to go up there," Harry said firmly, keeping his eyes locked on the small footsteps drifting across the parchment as if he feared Crabbe and Goyle would soon pull a vanishing act like their blond leader. Harry's jaw was set, and Hermione realized arguing was futile. She wasn't prepared to fight a losing battle and could only do her best to make sure they weren't caught.

"Ron and I are prefects, so that will excuse us from getting in trouble if we're seen. You, on the other hand, better stay under that cloak. I don't care if Malfoy shows up with a Death Eater flanking either side of him. Do you hear me, Harry Potter?"

"I hear you, Hermione," Harry said, smiling slightly in spite of Hermione's admittedly bossy attitude.

"All right, then. Let's go before I change my mind."

.

~#~

.

11:19 P.M.

"What the—?"

"Shh," Hermione scolded, elbowing Ron in the side.

"Merlin, woman, why do you insist on hitting me all the time?"

"Because you never shut up!" she hissed, placing a finger on her lips to indicate a request for quiet. "And don't call me 'woman' ever again!"

They couldn't very well inspect what Crabbe and Goyle were doing if Ron immediately gave away their presence. She could only assume that Ron had been about to question the strange appearance of two little girls, probably first or second years, standing around the seventh corridor and looking a bit dazed. One held a stack of biscuits in her hands; the other was gripping her wand tightly. Hermione suddenly felt an invisible force pull her back and knew that Harry had something he needed to say. When they were safely behind a wall and out of sight of the girls, Harry took off the cloak and showed his friends the map.

"Look here," he said, reminding them of the location of Crabbe and Goyle's footprints.

"Yes, we get it, troll one and troll two are up here," said Ron as if it were obvious. "That's why we're out of bed and strolling along the seventh corridor."

"No, don't you see?" Harry shook his head. "They're in the exact spot—"

"—Where those little girls' footprints should be," gasped Hermione, her eyes widening in realization. "Those aren't girls! They're Crabbe and Goyle."

"Bloody hell," said Ron, scratching his head. "That's a disturbing thought. Crabbe and Goyle, wearing skirts." He gagged, and Hermione might have laughed had it not been for the increased speed with which her mind was racing.

"If Crabbe and Goyle are using polyjuice potion to guard the seventh floor, then Malfoy must be here somewhere," she said, more to herself than to Harry or Ron.

"But, Hermione, the map doesn't—"

"I know, Harry, the map doesn't lie," she said, waving a dismissive hand in his direction. She nibbled on her lower lip as she continued to think, attempting to come up with an explanation to satisfy the enigma that was Draco Malfoy at the moment. "Seventh floor, seventh floor...What's on the seventh floor?" She snapped her head up to look at her bewildered companions.

"Well, there's the Room of Requirement," Harry offered. "But I don't see how—"

"That's brilliant!" Hermione nearly shouted until she remembered to keep her voice down. Crabbe and Goyle weren't the most perceptive boys, but Hermione shied from taking any unnecessary risks. "The Room of Requirement is known as the place where everything is hidden, and it transforms itself to become the place you need it to be," she explained to Harry and Ron, who were dressed in countenances somewhere between trepidation and excitement. "So wouldn't it make sense for it to hide its occupants if that's what they need it to do?"

"Hermione, you're a genius!" Harry engulfed Hermione in a hug. "Now we just have to figure out how to get in."

"Malfoy and the other prats working for Umbridge weren't able to reach our DA meetings even though they knew about them," Ron said with a frown. "Only after Marietta ratted us out were they actually able to get in."

"But they got close, remember? The door would disappear on them. If we could just get there before Crabbe and Goyle and—"

"—Use the door before it disappears, we'd be in," concluded Harry. "But seeing as Malfoy's already in the room tonight, we won't get the chance."

"Tomorrow then?" asked Hermione.

"Tomorrow," said Harry with a nod.

.

~#~

.

October 6, 1996, 10:44 P.M.

As it happened, Malfoy didn't go to the seventh floor at all the next day, nor did he reach it the day after that. Hermione could tell Harry's impatience was swelling and about to burst, and try as she might to stop it, her patience was beginning to wane as well. Inquisitiveness was one of her dominant traits, and whatever Malfoy was doing in the Room of Requirement certainly stirred her ingrained curiosity.

While some still saw her intrusive nature as annoying, the majority of people no longer minded it; in fact, they had come to expect Hermione's myriad of questions and understood that she wasn't trying to be nosy. It was just her nature. And therefore in the two days of waiting for action, no one noticed that Hermione seemed to ask a lot of questions about Slytherins - Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle in particular. Harry and Ron, however, could tell that the Malfoy mystery was eating away at her and eagerly soaked in any information she managed to gather, which, if she were being honest, was next to nothing.

"Bugger," Harry muttered on the third night of non-action on Malfoy's part. "Why isn't he doing anything? Why isn't he going back up there?"

Neither Hermione nor Ron had an answer for him.

.

~#~

.

October 8, 1996, 10:55 P.M.

On the fifth day, the Gryffindors finally got what they were waiting for. Malfoy was heading up the fifth corridor on his way to the Room of Requirement. Harry, Ron, and Hermione raced out of bed, Harry in the cloak and Hermione and Ron in their prefect robes.

By the time they reached the seventh floor, all three were panting, and Hermione knew she had sweat dripping down her brow. She and Ron decided to let Harry try to get in first, seeing as he was invisible and wouldn't alert Malfoy that anything was amiss. He cast a hurried "Muffliato" on his shoes and took off in a sprint as he spotted Malfoy heading for a door that had just emerged from the wall. Malfoy entered the room quickly after a nervous glance around the seemingly empty corridor, and though Harry attempted to run in right after him, the door disappeared with even greater speed than it had formed. Hermione listened as Harry's laboured breaths returned, and she braced herself for the inexorable rant that would follow the failed mission.

"No! I don't understand. I was right on his tail!" Harry said, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses and looking apoplectic with frustration. He attempted to stamp his foot, and Hermione had to choke back a laugh when it didn't make a sound.

"Not sure what to tell you, mate," Ron said, his expression sympathetic. "You're the one who turned it into the DA room for us last year. We don't know any more than you do."

He was right, of course, which frustrated Hermione to no end. There had to be a way to get in and discover what Malfoy was doing because otherwise, she was going to end up pulling out her frizzy hair and wailing like the mad banshee she was turning into. And, as usual, it would be all Malfoy's fault.

a/n: I promise the action will continue to grow with the story, especially after the time travel occurs. I'm really excited about it, and I hope you are too! I've only seen a couple of "traveling to the future" stories on FF, and none of them have been what I was looking for... which meant I had to write one myself ;) Special thanks to Beth (aka RainThestral93) for the beta!