Time and Time Again

Chapter One: The Piano and the Pudding

No one knew exactly how long it had been up there. After all, it wasn't exactly the sort of place one expected to find a piano. Nonetheless, in a feat that flouted at least twenty laws of physics — among them the very idea of gravity — perched precariously on the tallest, thinnest pinnacle of the Astronomy Tower, was a piano. And not just a piano, but a concert piano, its dark, freshly polished wood gleaming in the sun.

It first came to the public attention when a second year Hufflepuff, auditioning for the position of Beater on her house team, made one last valiant effort to show off her formidable Quidditch skills to the judges. Swinging her bat at full force, she sent the Bludger zooming toward the Astronomy Tower with one impressive, thunderous crack. It rocketed past the piano, which tottered dangerously in its wake, and kept flying, eventually ending up in a Hogsmeade resident's kitchen sink. (Though the judges were indeed impressed, the poor Hufflepuff did not make the team, as she had in fact been aiming for a straw dummy a good 500 feet to the right.)

Now, Professor McGonagall stood at the foot of the Astronomy Tower, mouth agape, staring up at the piano with an air of utter bewilderment. Five minutes trudged by before the proffesor found her voice again.

"I just don't understand. How on earth did it get up there? And more importantly, how is it staying up there?"

Dumbledore delayed his answer long enough to remove his spectacles from the edge of his crooked nose and wipe them on his sleeve, just in case the piano was actually a speck of dirt. When they were firmly back in place, and the piano still balancing on the Astronomy Tower spire, he responded:

"Perhaps we should also be focusing on the 'who' and 'why'. Why put a piano on top of the tower when it would sound so much better in the Great Hall? It would be impossible to play as you would be in constant fear of having it tip off the top. Who would put a piano in such a ridiculous spot?"

"Some who's mad, obviously."

Ignoring her, he continued: "— Obviously, someone with no intention of actually playing the piano."

"Good, that eliminates all the concert pianists. Who's left?"

Dumbledore quirked a bushy white eyebrow at his companion, letting his pale blue eyes twinkle a little, "I've never seen you so sarcastic, Minerva. Is something bothering you?"

"No! I mean — well, yes. It's just not possible, Albus. Why hasn't it fallen down? There's no possible way a thousand pound piano can balance on that teeny, tiny spire. And there's no spell I know of that could achieve that affect." A small wisp of black hair escaped her orderly, tight bun and Dumbledore actually saw three small wrinkles form around her mouth.

"Nevertheless, I'm afraid to go near it until we have a better idea of what it can do. Once, in London, I had a rather vicious encounter with a tambourine, and I'm afraid of a repeat of that event."

The Headmaster cleaned his spectacles one last time and then gave Professor McGonagall a reassuring pat on the shoulder. He really should give the poor woman a vacation. If the strange placement of a piano bothered her like this, he could only imagine how many new wrinkles popped up in a classroom filled with students who transcended all possible levels of logic and common sense.

He turned to leave; he had a dancing lesson in five minutes that he did not want to miss. However, his companion's gawking expression as she struggled to comprehend how the laws of reason could so easily be offended stayed him a moment longer. Checking his rather unique wristwatch, he sighed. Almost seven, he would be late anyhow.

"Really, Minerva. It's just a prank. A rather clever one, I grant you. But a prank nonetheless."

Her eyebrows came down a little, and her face began to smooth. Still, the wrinkles of perplexity did not vanish.

"Come now, class has almost started. You have students to attend to." With that, he departed at a jaunty pace toward the castle, leaving the piano swaying unpleasantly in the crisp morning air.

"Heads up!"

The warning came exactly two seconds too late. The bowl landed onthe bushy brown head with an audible squelch and thick globs of vanilla pudding seeped out, oozing down Hermione's forehead and nose. Silence descended on the Gryffindor tableas they watched, pale-faced and horror-stricken, pudding slime down her uniform and onto the open pages of a new copy of Hogwarts: A History. With a convulsive shudder, Hermione pushed away from the table and stood, dripping pudding.

Seamus blanched. "Sorry, sorry, Hermione. Here, let me get that."

In a perfect gesture of helpfulness, he gripped the bowl currently covering his classmate's busy head and tore it off. The rest of the pudding dropped out of the bowl and onto her head in a massive clump. Hermione's eyes, once hidden by the seemingly innocent blue ceramic of the pudding bowl, pierced Seamus in a fiery glare.

"Um . . . Sorry, again?" Bushy eyebrows drew together and eyes narrowed. Seamus took a careful step back, and then another. Steam — actual steam — rose from her pudding-covered head in a steady column. He cast a wary eye onto her fists: white and clenching and unclenching in theMorse code for murder.

Gulp.

Harry rose slowly from his seat, hand stretched forth placatingly, and tried to soothe the savage beast. "Hermione? You're scaring the first years."

And then, Hermione erupted in a volcanic glory that rivaled the Pompeii disaster.

"YOU CLUMSY OAF! I TOLD YOU TO BE CAREFUL WITH THAT PUDDING, DIDN'T I? NOW LOOK AT ME!"

Cowering behind the bowl, Seamus squeaked the word "sorry" several times over.

Hermione combed a handful of pudding from one frizzy brown lock.

"Now I shall be late for Potions." With one last withering look at Seamus, she grabbed her book bag and stormed out of the Great Hall, slicing a path through a group of Ravenclaws.

Ron looked at a still-shaking Seamus and managed to dislodged the bowl from his grip. "The pudding catapult was a bloody brilliant idea, even if it was a rotten place to test it."

"I honestly didn't think it would go flying like that."

"Because, naturally, a catapult never sends things flying across the room." Harry said, scooping a last fork-full of scrambled eggs into his mouth before heading down to the dungeons.

The school bells chimed in the usual chorus. It was three minutes after seven.

Late! Late! So late! Very, very, very late. Hurry, hurry. Stupid Seamus and his pudding catapult. Fifteen minutes in the bathroom and I still haven't got out all the pudding. Fifteen minutes? I'm so late. Late! Late!

Hair sopping wet from her attempt to rid it of the pudding by shoving it in the bathroom sink and uniform smelling strongly of pudding, Hermione raced down to the dungeons. Using uncharacteristically foul language to describe her rotten luck, she rounded a sharp corner going a speed that put lightning to shame.

Though the laws of physics had been kind enough to turn their heads in the case of the piano, they showed no such kindness to Hermione. As every scientist, driver, and lab mouse knows, when turning a corner, whether it be on the road, in a maze, or in the hallway, you have got to slow down or you will loose control.

Hermione skidded frantically out of control, colliding with an oncoming object gathering considerable momentum. Suddenly, she was on the ground, face down in something soft.

She opened her eyes and saw nothing but a thick wall of black. Just as she was congratulating herself on managing to land on the dungeon's only rug, she began to notice that the rug smelled vaguely of expensive cologne.

"Damn it, Mudblood! Get off me!"

The rug pushed her roughly off and wrinkled his nose in disgust as though she were an enormous cockroach. He began to check his person for any imperfections the unwanted contact might have caused. Results: Severely mussed hair and a damp school uniform.

"Ugh! Why am I all wet? Absolutely disgusting!" Draco Malfoy glared at Hermione, searching her up and down. At last his eyes came to rest on her drenched tangle of hair. He let out a sharp bark of a laugh.

"You look like a drowned rat, Granger. Had a little fight with the Giant Squid, did we?"

Hermione fought back the urge to slap him. Settling instead for a murderous glare and ringing out her hair over his arrogant head, she sprinted the remaining ten yards to the Potions classroom.

When she reached the entrance, she came to a screeching halt. Taking a moment to compose herself, she held her breath and pushed the large, wooden door open.

"Sorry, I'm late—"

"Sit down, Miss Granger, and twenty points from Gryffindor." Snape's beady eyes flashed at her from under a greasy sheet of black hair, his pale face drawn into a satisfied sneer.

With a tiny nod of concession, she hastily found her seat beside Neville and began withdrawing text books from her bag. Just as Neville had finished telling her exactly what potion they were making, Malfoy sauntered in, hands in the pockets of his dry robe and hair slicked back and orderly. Every Gryffindor looked expectantly toward Snape, but he didn't even glance up from the book he was reading.

Hermione glowered at Malfoy, biting her tongue at the injustice of it all. Malfoy caught her glare and smirked, before taking a seat next to Pansy Parkinson.

However, she did not have much time to imagine the many ways Draco Malfoy could meet his unfortunate end, as Neville's potion decided explode just then, spewing boiling hot, purple liquid on them both.

The rest of the day just sort of spiraled down from there.

She and Neville went to the infirmary for treatment for their third degree burns. While they were healing quite speedily thanks to the wonderful lotion Madame Pomfrey applied, she had absolutely no treatment for the potion's side affect: a gaudy array of purple spots up and down their face and arms.

Nonetheless, undaunted by her disfigurement and fully healed of her burns, she returned to the remainder of her classes. Ignoring the general pointing and laughing from a group of Hufflepuffs, she took a test in Arithmancy, which she felt she passed with flying colors.

There was that at least. One single untarnished spot on one perfect blemish of day. No, she had done a tally. This was undoubtably the worst day of her life. Hands down. It had even beaten out the day she got a C on a test in Transfiguration. However, the day finally showed some sign of ending its miserable trudge when the dinner bell rang at six. Hermione gathered up her text books and walked straight past the Great Hall (Lest the pudding catapult return.) and made a beeline for the Library.

Ah, the Library. Her sanctuary. Wrapped in a world of leather-bound books, mahogany shelves, and the crisp, clear smell of parchment, it provided in its cozy sunlit corners a small refuge from the hustle and bustle of the world outside. Hours upon hours had slipped carelessly by while she lounged in her favorite chair--- the one closest to the window --- and nestled her nose deep within the yellowy pages of her favorite book. In the Library she found peace --- just like a clam finds peace in its shell. In the Library every trouble and worry and fear vanished without a single troubling trace.

She walked in, letting the familiar cold blast of air hit her. The minute she threw the door open everything felt better. The easy tranquility of the Library washed over her like the cool waves of the ocean. She breathed deeply and exhaled the jumbled turbulence of a very stressful day.

Making her way through the familiar ocean of books and tables, she chanced a glance out the window that looked out on the Astronomy Tower. There was the piano, actually looking a little sinister in the fading red light of the sunset. She let a smile play across her lips, only for a moment though. It was a prank worthy of the Weasley twins. Poor Professor McGonagall had certainly felt the effects of it, having given her class a thirty minute lecture on modern physics. Hermione, however, did not catch a word of this lecture, as she did a very un-Hermione like thing and ignored it. Instead, she busied herself with whispered incantations to remove the purple spots. By the end of the lecture, she had them all removed or significantly faded.

Drawing her eyes away from the mysterious musical instrument, she turned toward her chair. That familiar, comfortable, favorite chair ---

That someone else was sitting in.

Draco Malfoy sat in her chair, basked in her sunlight, and read on her table.

Normally she would never have confronted him on something like this. But it was her sanctuary, her haven, and he had violated it. Corrupted it. And besides, she was having a very bad day.

"Malfoy. Move."

Malfoy glanced up from his book lazily. He regarded her with his cold, gray eyes for a moment and then sneered.

"Go away, Granger, the sight of you is making me sick."

"Malfoy, that is my chair. I sit there everyday. So move now."

Hermione dropped her heavy text books down on the table. They landed with a satisfying, jolting thump that made Malfoy bolt upright.

"This chair doesn't belong to you and I can sit in it as much as I damn well please. Now, go away." He slid his book closer to him and began reading again.

Well, she couldn't really argue that she owned the chair. With a sigh of frustration, she grasped her textbooks and stalked over to the opposite side of the Library and settled on a table by the Ancient Runes section. However, whatever soothing effects the Library had were gone now; its magic snatched away by Malfoy's presence. Hermione rushed through her homework, then gathered her things and left.

She walked down the hall on the verge of tears. She knew it was petty, but she had wanted her chair. It had been such a rotten day. The pudding, the potion, the purple spots --- had it been too much to ask for a simple moment's peace in the library? Apparently so. Well, she thought, wiping away a stinging tear before it could roll down her cheek, at least tomorrow will be different. Yes, of course, tomorrow will be something to look forward to. There's always tomorrow.

The bell chimed. It was seven o'clock.

Suddenly a deep, thick darkness enclosed around Hermione, as though a giant had snuffed out the sun. The air went stale, and she felt as though she could break a of it piece off, it felt so still. The world went deathly silent except for a distant tinkling in the distance, muffled but sharp, like a . . . .

"Heads up!"

The warning came exactly two seconds too late.

Thanks for reading. If you liked it, please review. If you didn't, review anyway. If I don't know what I'm doing wrong, how will I improve?

--- Sunflower Fortunato