Chapter Text
Hermione focused all her attention on the potion she was helping George create. After losing Ron during the war and then Harry a few months later on an Auror mission, Hermione was ready to leave the Wizarding World and never return. If it hadn't been for George who had also lost the one closest to him, his twin, Fred, she would have. The two of them had leaned on the other to get themselves through the past four years.
Hermione dropped the crushed dragonfly wings into the brewing potion, gave seven clockwise stirs, and was about to add the essence of frog liver, but then, as her hand hovered over the cauldron with the bottle, a quake rocked the cellar and ingredient vials spilled into the other potions nearby causing them to boil over and mix all together on the table. Hermione dropped the bottle of essence of frog liver onto the floor as a second tremor rocked the shop. She reached for her wand to try and stop what was sure to be a catastrophe from spreading. She was too late. By the time her hand gripped her wand three of the seven other potions had combined on the table and managed to knock the potion she was brewing over and onto her. The conglomerated mass of potions spilled over onto Hermione and managed to cover her entire body. Her wand fell from her hand as she dropped to the ground. She screamed as pain racked her body from what she knew not, especially as after a few minutes of this she passed out, whether from the pain or a side effect of the combined potions she did not know.
HGSB
Hermione moaned as she came to. Her entire body ached. She lifted her hand up to hold her head as it was throbbing in pain. As she did so, her eyes gently opened as she groaned in pain. What just happened, she thought, she had been brewing some potions for George, working on one of the new ones when something happened causing an accident. She slowly sat up, wracking her brains as to the cause of the accident. There had been shaking. The building had been shaking! Oh, Merlin! "George! George, are you okay?" Hermione shouted out to the man who had been her rock, and she his for the past four years.
She got up jerkily, not yet steady on her feet when she noticed a multitude of things at once. One, her voice was different, childlike even. Two, she was much smaller and all her clothing was way too large for her. Three, her teeth were back to the way they were before she had gotten Madame Pomphrey to fix then in her fourth year. Four, she wasn't in the lab for WWW, but somewhere she didn't recognise at all. There were a couple of dusty boxes littering the otherwise empty floor and the little window she and George had to open often to help clear out the potions' fumes, even with the help of their wands, was boarded up.
The familiar feeling of panic was welling up inside her. Where am I? Where's George? And what in Merlin's name happened here? she thought. As the feeling of panic was not abating she sat down again and put her head between her knees. In her head, she heard the familiar voice of George saying, Deep breaths, Mimi, that a girl. Deep breath in, now slowly breathe that out. Feeling better now, Mimi? She followed the instructions the voice in her head was giving her, and slowly she began to relax. She relaxed a bit too well as she fell asleep, tired from her sleepless night and the trauma the potions accident put her through.
HGSB
Some time had passed since Hermione had fallen asleep, and as she awoke everything came crashing back down on her. She remembered the potions accident and waking up in the same yet different place. She sat up slowly and took in her surroundings. She remembered talking to George one time about the shop’s history and what the building had been before he and Fred had acquired it. George had said that it had changed hands frequently up until they got it and that when they did, they had found that the basement had boxes of leftover things from previous owners. It had been so full, George said that they hadn't been able to walk except in a straight line at first. Looking around herself now, she realised that this could have been what the shop looked like years before the twins bought it.
The thought worried her greatly, but she took a deep breath before deciding to catalogue what she had on her person. First, she felt in her pockets and found her coin purse, which she took out and counted out 37 galleons 18 sickles and 52 knuts, a few scraps of parchment, one of WWW's self-inking quills, a couple of hair ties and a few crumpled up tissues. The most noticeable thing missing was her wand, which, while unfortunate, she had not expected to find as she remembered dropping it. Hermione stood and removed her robe after she was sure that there was nothing left in the pockets and laid it next to the pile she had made of the things that had been in her pockets.
Next, she tried to figure out what to do about the way too big clothes she was wearing; her knickers and jeans had fallen to her feet when she had removed her robes, so she decided to deal with those first. She stepped out of both of them, also managing to step out of her shoes, and pondered what to do now. She decided having knickers was the most important thing, so she took them in her hands and tried to picture having them be the right size clearly in her mind. Thankfully it worked, so she slipped them on again, but unfortunately, it took a lot out of her; she wouldn't be able to do this with all her clothes. The next thing to deal with was her bra; it had no purpose on her now childlike body. She used the fun little trick all girls seem to know to remove the bra without taking her top, a Weasley sweater, off. With the bra now removed and in the pile of the other things she had taken off, Hermione focused on the way too big Weasley sweater, that Molly had gifted her a couple of weeks ago at Yule. It was now like a dress on her, so she decided that that was what it would become. She focused on the neck and shoulders part first and imagined it fitting her as it did before. When that was done she rolled up the sleeves a couple of times before putting her hands on her now nonexistent hips and imaging it cinching there. Happy with her new outfit, but rather tired now, Hermione slipped on her boots and put a hand on each and visualised them fitting. With clothes that now fit and very little energy left, she glanced out the window and saw that night had fallen. She'd have to stay here tonight she decided, so she grabbed her now unused clothing and curled up and fell asleep quite quickly, exhausted from all the wandless magic she had used to get her clothes to fit.
HGSB
Hermione slowly woke the next morning to the sound of a bustling street above; this shop clearly didn’t have the sound dampening wards Bill had helped Fred and George install when they bought the shop. Running a hand through her hair to try and tidy it a bit, she grabbed one of the hair ties she found yesterday, and french braided it to contain the chaos that was her hair. Stuffing her bra and robe into her coin pouch, she stealthily made her way to the door that would lead to the shop. Pulling it open slowly, she listened for a bit and then peered out; seeing no one, she darted into the shop and then behind a display. No one had noticed her leaving the cellar storage. Thank Merlin! she thought. She had no idea how she’d explain her presence.
As she left the shop, she looked around and noticed clearly how different and yet the same the Alley was. Ollivander’s shop was there, but many others from even the first time she had visited the Alley with Professor McGonagall were not. Pulling out two knuts from her coin purse, she paid for a Daily Profit to find out the date, feeling slightly surprised when it only cost one. She looked at it in dismay; it was May 12th, 1974. It was as she feared, she was back in time. Her eyes watered… she was stuck her. Hermione had done an incredible amount of research on time when Professor McGonagall had given her the time turner third year. While there had been accidents in time before any attempt at all by those who tried to leave the time they were thrown into ended up killing them. The only way forward was to live through it. Thankfully she didn’t have to worry about paradoxes and making sure not to change anything. The idea that a single person could unravel time was ludicrous and egotistical. Just her presence in the shop’s cellar changed everything.
With a plan firmly in mind, Hermione made her way to Gringotts Bank, hoping that their inheritance department would be able to help her create a new permanent identity. Just because it wasn’t illegal didn’t mean she wanted to advertise her time travel to the ministry or others.
Hermione walked confidently through the doors of Gringotts and headed straight for the queue for the next available teller. As she waited in line, she was surprised as always how easy it was for a magical child to roam unaccompanied. In the muggle world, she would have had many well meaning people ask where her parents were or if she was lost already. Here, in the wixen world where parents could put tracking spells on their children, it was assumed your parents had just sent you on an errand and knew where you were as what self-respecting wixen parent wouldn’t know where their child was. As she reached the front of the queue, she walked swiftly to the next available teller and said politely, “Greetings, Teller, I am here to see the Inheritance Department.” She gave a slight head bow as she greeted him. She would have gotten some strange glances from the other patrons, but the standard Gringotts procedure was to have silencing wards surround the area the client and teller would be conversing.
The dverger’s eyes widened in surprise, it was rare indeed for a wix, yet alone one so young, to know their proper title. “Greetings, young one,” he replied, showing her the respect she had shown him, “I will call a clerk to escort you to the Inheritance Department.”
“You have my thanks,” Hermione replied. Thanking dverger wasn’t done. Many even called them goblins, a derogatory term forced on them in the treaty signed with the wix after the last “Goblin Rebellion.” Hermione had learned of this from Bill Weasley and was still affronted that such blatant prejudice was allowed to run rampant and even be taught at Hogwarts.