Chapter 26 - Dawn by wynnebat

Summary:At this very moment, Hermione Granger is a tiny muggleborn child who's tried half a dozen spells. No one is scared of her. No one knows to expect her.

"We're really doing this," Pansy eventually says, breaking the silence. "We must be insane."

"We're saving the country." Hermione tears her gaze from the sunrise across the treetops of the Forbidden Forest to find that Pansy is already looking her way, something resolute in her gaze. It's too solemn of an expression for a child, but Hermione's probably isn't better.

Notes:femslash100100 - around the clock prompt table - dawn

Warnings: dubious morality, murder, imprisonment through potions, referenced child abuse

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter 1Chapter TextHermione Granger hasn't broken a rule in her life.

Hermione Granger has broken every rule in the book.

For one shining moment, both are true.

Then she opens her eyes to darkness, the scarlet hangings of her four poster bed only barely noticeable during the night. Hermione smiles into that very same darkness and slips out of her bed. Her robes are brand new, the fit not quite right. They hang down her shoulders and Hermione absently pokes at her nearly flat, boyish chest. Someone save her from puberty. It will be even less fun the second time around. Her shoes are sensible at least, even now. She's always been a sensible girl. She slips out of the first year girls' dorm room, then out of the common room, then into the castle proper. It's dark and quiet. The only noises are from the portraits' occasional whispers and the rare movements of the suits of armor. Hermione is careful, but there are no professors to be seen. She's cant say whether it's too early or too late for rounds. All she knows that it is warm, and it is lovely, to be in this castle once again and to know that even if she gets caught she will only face detention.

No prefects roam the hallways. And why would they? It's the night on the day of the welcoming feast, when most students have either eaten themselves into a food coma and have fallen into slumber or are staying up late in their beds to catch up with their friends. It feels as though she is the only one to walk the corridors, her and the ghosts passing by.

Hermione only stops once she reaches the top of the Astronomy tower. She won't sit on the ledge—the information in her brain is too necessary for her to do something as silly as get herself killed, and also she's never liked heights—but she'll lean out, watching the sky as it lingers in darkness for as long as it can before dawn arrives. It's early, then, not late. Gaze on the horizon, mind wandering, she still catches the sound of soft footsteps making their way up the tower. Hermione doesn't bother turning around; after years of planning, she knows the presence behind her as well as she knows her own.

Pansy's magic is familiar, and so is her disgruntled huff as she sits down on the ledge, folding her robes out to prevent creases beforehand. "I should put a tracking spell on you."

"You found me eventually, didn't you?" Hermione says, forcing her gaze away from the sky. With one look comes a choked laugh. It rises from deep in her chest and fills her with mirth. "Dear god, you look so young."

She's teasing, but it's true: Pansy looks like a child. So does Hermione, she has no doubt, but it must be so much more galling for Pansy. Eleven is too young for her to even try to use makeup to hide her baby face. She's shorter than Hermione and will always be, though the difference between their heights will shrink in the next decade until it's only a centimeter or so, plus the height Hermione's hair gives her. Her nose is more prominent than Hermione is used to. Either Pansy grows into her nose, or she's been covering it up through makeup and glamours. Hermione actually can't say which is more likely; even in the middle of a war, you'd have been hard-pressed to find Pansy looking any less than perfect. Hermione doesn't feel guilt for making comments on Pansy's nose when she'd actually been this age; Pansy had been a little witch of a kid and started each and every one of their fights. There had been a lot about Hermione's teeth, her hair, her blood all mixed in there. It's old news. Hermione can't even recall the hurt that came from Pansy's words, the pain of war easily overcoming schoolyard girl's squabbles. It's been too long.

"At least I was a cute child," Pansy sniffs, patting the spot next to her. "Sit down already."

Hermione rolls her eyes, but allows herself to be argued onto the ledge. "If we die, you're the one explaining what happened in the afterlife. Dumbledore would be so disappointed in the both of us."

"Would it still be Dumbledore?"

"I can't imagine anyone else."

"Potter. He's self-righteous enough to be a bother even after death."

"He's a perfectly sweet eleven year old boy now." Hermione tries to be irritated, but she's too used to Pansy to take any real offense. That's what Slytherins do: they're all arrogant and snotty around you for too long until you begin find it endearing. It's terrible. Hermione wants a refund. Still, Pansy had been the only one willing to believe in Hermione's idea. Even when the ministry collapsed, when most of the original Order of the Phoenix was killed in one fell swoop, when Harry died, Pansy stayed. At first, Hermione trusted the unbreakable vow Pansy gave to her to stay loyal to the ideals of the Order. Later, Hermione just began to trust her. That's another thing Slytherins are good at: worming their way into your space and getting you to trust them.

Better Pansy than Malfoy, anyway.

"Ew," Pansy just replies. "That doesn't make it any better. I can't believe I agreed to this."

Agreed, brewed potions, and researched, too. Hermione could have done it without her—somehow, she's certain—but it would have been a great deal harder. "Second thoughts?" Hermione asks. "I know how tempting it is, what with Voldemort currently possessing our Defense professor."

"I'm pretty sure that vow—which I agreed to under duress—still applies. Also, no thank you, I still remember how Quirrell smelled. I could never ally myself with someone like that."

"Of course not," Hermione says, rolling her eyes.

"You barely make the cutoff, by the way. I'll brew you some proper hair potions this week."

Hermione plans to disagree, but Pansy does make great hair potions, among other things. Perhaps her vanity has rubbed off on Hermione. She hasn't looked into a mirror yet but it'll be soon and it'll probably be terrible. "Oh, fine."

"Fine," Pansy says, smugly.

Hermione doesn't know what the other girl has to be smug about; she's just signed herself up for at least two hours of work on top of their already busy schedules. This early in the school year, they have their work cut out for themselves. Hermione runs through the plan once again in her head, ignoring the urge to panic over everything that could go wrong. It's taken a year of constant work to get where she is now; it's far too late to regret this.

And she doesn't, not really, not when darkness turns to dawn and Hermione can feel the morning sun on her face. She's at Hogwarts again, out in the open with no need to worry about the Undesirable No. 1 bounty on her head. At this very moment, she's a tiny muggleborn child who's tried half a dozen spells. No one is scared of her. No one knows to expect her.

"We're really doing this," Pansy eventually says, breaking the silence. "We must be insane."

"We're saving the country." Hermione tears her gaze from the sunrise across the treetops of the forbidden forest to find that Pansy is already looking her way, something resolute in her gaze. It's too solemn of an expression for a child, but Hermione's probably isn't better. It doesn't matter; Pansy is the only one who can ever know that there's a woman behind this small body of hers. "I've calculated our odds and created dozens of backup plans. I'll start work today after classes."

"I'm only here to look beautiful, aren't I," Pansy huffs, but she's only joking. Has to be, since her role is just as important as Hermione's. Since Hermione trusts her enough to carry it out.

Hermione smiles. "It's too early for that—you're cute at best."

"Granger—"

Hermione avoids the elbow to her ribs with a muffled shriek, then carefully gets off of the ledge, her feet meeting the hard castle floors. She offers her hand to Pansy, helping her off. "Come on, Parkinson. We have work to do."

"Charm the mirrors first, or I really will put a tracking charm on you."

The first thing Hermione does is head back to the Gryffindor tower, where she takes stock of her possessions. It's been a decade since she'd packed for Hogwarts the first time. The trunk is packed with books, most of them old favorites that Hermione hadn't been able to leave at home, along with newer wizarding books and robes. There's a pouch of muggle and magical money at the bottom of the trunk, all mixed together alongside a note from her parents. The content is uninteresting, but it's signedLove, Mum and Dad, and Hermione blinks tears from her eyes as she reads her mother's smooth handwriting.

Still, she slips the letter back in her trunk and gets to work.

Right now, all she has to do is successfully impersonate an eleven year old.

It's harder than expected, for a certain measure of hard anyway. This isn't nuclear physics—or time travel. It's just an exercise in patience, of which Hermione has never had much of when it comes to people and learning, and a touch of acting. Hermione isn't bad at it, per se, but dear god is it boring to pretend to fail at spells until both her patience and the clock run out and she can succeed. Pansy isn't that much better. Hermione hears her voice behind her in Potions. Hermione is in the front row; Pansy, somewhere behind. It's irritatingly comfortable to have Pansy at her back.

"Drakey," Pansy is whining in a terrible impersonation of her former self. Pansy used to speak to him with obsessive affection; now, Hermione can hear the amusement in her voice as Draco tells her to cut it out with that nickname. "But I don't want to."

She's a mouse playing with her food, not that Draco is aware of it. So is Hermione, in a way. They've both arranged this set for themselves in a way that will profit them and has the best chance of an outcome they want. It's hardly self-serving to save the world from Voldemort, but the way they're doing it? Cheating their way into the past through a combination of arithmancy and potions, creating plans to defeat Voldemort without having to duel him, forcing the wizarding world to right itself without Voldemort running around tearing things down again? Well, Harry wouldn't approve, that's for sure. But her Harry is gone and the one that sits in his place, complaining about the creepy dungeons with Ron, will be happy in this life. That's close enough to right and selfless, Hermione decides.

She's one of the few Gryffindors not overtaken by nervousness when Snape finally appears. Even the Slytherins sit up straight and look attentive at his presence. Draco's an exception, looking smug and prepared for preferential treatment. Pansy is, too, but Hermione knows that it's because she's always regarded Snape as a rival in potion-making. She'd improved upon his potions in her spare time and made her own competing ones, but it's hard to compete with a dead man. Now she can do it properly. Hermione chances a peek to the back of the room, catches Pansy's gaze, and has to hastily turn back again. Otherwise, she'll smile, and one can't just smile in Professor Snape's potions class.

Classes in general are less enjoyable than she remembers. Maybe if she were studying the seventh year curriculum, which she'd never gotten the chance to properly sit through, she'd be more interested. A decade has left her memories of first year incomplete, but not to the point where she can't remember exactly where to find the books she needs for essays or how to dice fluxweed.

Or, how to pronounce a spell.

She tries to stop herself. She really does.

But it's that Charms class, and nostalgia is a heady thing. Ron and Harry are already thick as thieves, sitting together at the desk behind Hermione's. Next to her sits Neville, but he hasn't said a word beyond a few quiet hellos since the beginning of the year. Hermione turns around in time to see Ron poke at his feather despondently. Elsewhere in the room, someone sneezes, sending a few feathers into the air.

"It's Levi-o-sa," Hermione says, completely unable to help herself. Ron's just trying so hard, bless his heart, and he's doing it so wrong. She says it gently this time around, a small smile slipping in without prior thought. "Win-gar-dium Levi-o-sa. Try it again?"

Ron shares a look with Harry, then shrugs. "Alright, fine." He clearly doesn't expect it to work. "Wingardium Leviosa!" There's little enthusiasm in his words and his wand movement is a few degrees off. Still, the spell is a simple one, and despite Professor Flitwick's warnings, it would be very hard to manage an adverse effect from a first year spell. When the feather lifts a few inches from the table, Ron makes a wordless exclamation of surprise. "It worked! Harry, you do it now. Win-gar-dium Levi-o-sa."

She doesn't get a thank you. Ron's innocent happiness is enough, and so is Harry's afterward. Hermione isn't the first in the class to manage the spell this time around, but she wouldn't have been even if she hadn't helped the boys. Being a know-it-all is both too attention-grabbing and too exhausting. Hermione's spending her nights in preparation for Voldemort's defeat. She doesn't have time to keep up an act of her eleven year old self. Hermione doesn't want to be the best student at Hogwarts. She just wants to save it, wants to make sure that generations of muggleborns like her will be able to study here.

By the time she turns back, Neville is watching her, his mouth opening silently as he repeats her pronunciation in his head.

"Levi-o-sa," Hermione says to him, expectantly.

It takes him a few tries, but he manages it.

It hurts to be a friendly acquaintance to Harry and Ron, but Hermione doesn't try to befriend them. She's not the girl she used to be; she doesn't know how to be the Hermione Granger who was Harry's best friend and Ron's once-girlfriend. She indulges her selfishness by strengthening her relationship with her parents instead. Hermione writes home every other week like clockwork and her owl returns the next morning with a letter from her parents. Hermione cherishes this small interaction more than she can say. It's not strained by years of lies, memory alterations, and lack of trust. Her parents are delighted to hear about everything she's learning and call her their darling girl. Hermione isn't twelve anymore, but she's still a daughter, no matter how old she is.

Her parents send her a bundle of books for her birthday. Pansy makes good on her threats and covertly delivers hair potions and an enchanted hairbrush, similar to the one Hermione would frequently borrow from her in the future.

Even though she doesn't mean to befriend Harry and Ron, Hermione manages something, anyway. Almost by accident, she starts a study group. She doesn't notice what's happening the first time; that time, all she does is help Harry and Ron find the books they're looking for as they frantically write papers due the next morning. They take a seat at her table, but she assumes it's out of convenience. The second time, Harry asks for help with using a quill, and the third, they just sit down next to her with a few hellos. It's easy, comfortable, and despite the fact that it doesn't factor into her plans, she lets them join her. She's missed them so much that she prefers even these young versions of her friends to the nothing she had before. They're alive and whole—or more or less whole—and so very young. Ron is insecure and arrogant by turns, Harry is lost and confused by his fame. Both are still growing into the men they one day will be and Hermione can't wait to see it happen.

Still, she's too busy to tutor them properly or nag them about their grades. Neither will fail out with or without her interference. Hermione steers them the best she can and leaves the rest up to their own work ethic, even if she does at least order planners for the both of them. Honestly, how they expect to simply keep track of all their assignments in their heads is beyond her. Hermione can do so with the ease of an adult mentality, but at eleven she would have been hopeless even with how comparatively little homework first years are assigned.

A few weeks into their study times at the library, and a week after Hermione began sitting with them during meals, Harry asks, "What book are you reading? That's not for class, is it?"

"Books don't have to be read just for class," Hermione says, looking up from the page. "You can read them because you want to and it's fun." It's useless, she knows. While Harry never stooped to Ron's level of literary disdain, he's also never found peace through reading. "It's an in-depth look into the ward structure of Hogwarts."

"Oh," Harry replies. "That's interesting."

Hermione laughs at Harry's expression. Boys, honestly. "Come on, I'll find you a quidditch book. I think you'll like Quidditch Through the Ages."

"Thanks, Hermione. How do you know the library so well, anyway?"

"I absorb knowledge like a sponge," she says, cheerily.

Harry looks perfectly content to believe it.

Strangely, Hermione finds that her older personality has boosted her popularity. She would have thought it would be the opposite; these days, she comes off as an absentminded bookworm instead of a teacher's pet, which doesn't seem like it would appeal to eleven and twelve year olds. But Lavender and Parvati tell her she's refreshingly calm—whatever that means—and Neville has even willingly asked for her help with his potions homework. There's another person at Hogwarts who Hermione sees regularly in charmed mirrors and weekly meetings in dark corridors, but she and Pansy ignore each other in public. It's not worth it to call attention to themselves, to be the poster children for Gryffindor muggleborn and Slytherin pureblood friendship. Pansy is tight-lipped about her family life, but Hermione doubts her parents would approve. Neither would the rest of Slytherin house. Gryffindor wouldn't either, except Hermione couldn't give a damn about their approval. It's been a long time since she cried in bathrooms.

Chapter 2Chapter TextOn Halloween evening, Hermione is seated across the table from Harry and Ron. Coincidentally, Pansy is at the same spot on the other side of the hall, and catches Hermione's gaze. Hermione feels a sudden ache for Pansy's older self; even after two months, she hasn't grown used to how young this Pansy looks. But they'll both get there one day at a time. For now, all there is to do is stand against the flow of time, to watch and to strike at the very moment that they'd planned for.

Quirrell runs into the Great Hall, screaming about the troll. He promptly faints. Hermione grabs a buttered bun from the table before they're all ushered back to their dormitories. She pinches their robe sleeves to make sure they don't run off in search of adventure.

A week later, Harry and Ron overhear a suspicious dialogue between Snape and Quirrell. Hermione tells them adults are often strange and suspicious, and that they shouldn't worry overmuch about it. Everything will work out.

Neville nearly gets eaten by Fluffy when he gets lost on the way to the bathroom. Hermione consoles him with a stash of sugar-free candy.

Pansy blows up Daphne's cauldron in potions. For the next two weeks, she keeps looking over at Harry's cauldron as if trying to decide if it's worth it, while Hermione gives her warning looks. Co-conspirator or not, there will be retaliation.

Harry earns his spot on the quidditch team when he saves Neville's Remembrall from cracking when it mysteriously flies into the sky. Pansy mutters, "Traitor," into Hermione's ear. When Hermione looks her way, she's already comforting Draco that maybe in a few years, he'll grow into his natural quidditch skills too. And it's all Madam Hooch's fault about his broom grip, of course. The joy on Harry's face when McGonagall storms outside and announces him as Gryffindor's new seeker is simple and fierce. He already knows all the positions, having read Quidditch Through the Ages cover to cover and conversed about the sport with Ron. They'd even gotten Dean and Seamus involved, and even Neville had been able to give input on the two quidditch games he'd been coerced into attending. Hermione had simply sat back, said that she is above broom sports, and enjoyed the muffled sounds of excited conversation while she read.

A certain map goes missing from the Weasley twins' possessions. 

There is no midnight duel. Hermione and Pansy are too careful with their favorite boys to allow them to do something so silly. Instead, they carefully encourage them to compete against each other in class, which neither Harry and Ron nor Draco are enthused about until they believe the other side is trying to beat them.

Hermione finds a pretext to stay at Hogwarts for the winter holidays. Pansy does the same.

On a cold December day, they kidnap their Defense professor.

It's a plan that has been in motion for more than a year. They've prepared for this day in the past and in the present, brewed the exact combination of potions to achieve the result they needed, and stalked the man incessantly through the marauders' map. It had been Pansy's idea to attack while he was distracted with his quest for immortality, for what would distract Voldemort more than his deepest desire? They first considered attacking him while he made one of his attempts on the stone, but it's too risky to do so within Hogwarts. Even with most of the students gone, the professors, ghosts, and portraits are all here, and Hermione has never quite been able to pinpoint how much of what goes on in the castle somehow finds its way to Dumbledore's ears. 

They track his movements out of the castle instead, following him out into the Forbidden Forest, waiting until he locates a unicorn to drink from. He is grotesque in this state, his mouth open like a dementor's as he nears the unicorn herd. It scatters, but one remains, too slow to avoid the thing that Voldemort has become. They'd meant the unicorns to be a distraction, not true prey, and hadn't intended for them to be hurt. One falls anyway.

Hermione and Pansy are close behind. 

"Stupefy," Hermione calls out. She knows she's missed him when Quirrell turns his pale face toward her, but instead of raising his wand to her, he begins to flee. "Fuck," Hermione murmurs, chasing after him. It would be a comical picture--two tiny schoolgirls running after their errant professor--were it not for the unicorn they were too slow to prevent him from wounding and the fear pounding inside her chest. Fail, fail, fail, and Hermione can barely breathe. She can't do this again. She can't lose everyone she cares about to this man. When she gets a shot, she takes it, but there's not enough strength behind her stunner. 

Weak as he is, this is still the darkest wizard of their time.

Hermione runs as fast as her legs can carry her, ducking behind trees when Voldemort casts a spell in her direction. In the chaos, he's turned away from the castle, toward the forest's east side. Hermione loses track of him only for a few moments. It's enough for her to spin around and see him approaching her with those familiar words on his lips.

Light flashes. A spell hits him from behind. There's too much blood rushing through Hermione's ears, but she recognizes it as another stunner. When he falls forward, Pansy's figure is revealed behind him. She's breathing deeply, just as Hermione is, and her eyes are bright under the moon's light.

"Are you okay?" Pansy asks, stepping over Voldemort to stand next to Hermione. "He didn't hurt you?"

"I'm fine," Hermione replies. Her voice hitches. She swallows once, then again. Fighting has never been her strong suit. Distracting Voldemort from Pansy once it became clear that her first stunner failed, that Hermione could do, but she's always been better in an academic environment. War hadn't left much room for classrooms, but it still held true. She plots and she plans, that's where Hermione is most comfortable. At least now, she has time to take a breath. "I am. Do you have the--"

"Of course," Pansy says, and lifts a vial from the pockets of her robes. Her mouth twists as she sticks her wand in Quirrell's mouth to pry it open. Once his mouth falls open, she empties the vial into his mouth.

They both carefully watch as his skin becomes even ashier than it already is. He looks almost peaceful under the effects of the Draught of Living Death. It would be unseemly to do something like this in a duel--overdose or addiction could result from such a high quantity of potion, even a complicated but relatively benign one like this. But Hermione isn't worried about Voldemort's mental state. "Mobilicorpus."

Hermione stifles a hysterical laugh as she realizes she's lifting the Dark Lord through the air like a stack of wood. The man who would one day rule over all of wizarding Britain, send muggles fleeing from the British Isles, brutally murder Hermione's dearest friends. Quirrell's face is slack with sleep. While his head covering slipped off during the chase, Hermione doesn't look at the second face on the back of his head.

"We're going the wrong way," Hermione murmurs after a few minutes, reorienting herself.

"I know," Pansy replies. She keeps walking.

Hermione follows her. Soon, they reach their starting point again, and Hermione realizes why they're here. She kneels down beside the fallen unicorn and touches its pulse. Still alive. Without needing to be asked, Pansy casts a second levitation spell on the body in the air in the same moment that Hermione cancels hers. Then, Hermione gets to work. She cleans the wound thoroughly with magic and water, then mends it the best she can. Her knowledge of healing spells is patchy and more suited toward keeping someone alive until she can get them to a healer, but millimeter by millimeter, the unicorn's skin mends. Hermione shivers as she gently touches the unicorn's soft hair. She doesn't take a single strand, doesn't even move her hand, just lets the fallen animal absorb her magic through her touch. She can feel it pulling at her. She'll have a hangover the next day, but it's worth it.

Next to her, Pansy doesn't move. Hermione reaches with her other hand to link her fingers with Pansy's and to press gently against the unicorn. "See? It's okay. You can help it."

"Only because it's unconscious," Pansy says in reply. She doesn't move at all and looks to be barely breathing.

"Or because Pansy Parkinson is an eleven year old girl."

"With a twenty-one year old soul. I have too much blood on my hands to do this."

"It's accepting your magic," Hermione says with a shake of her head. "I think it doesn't care."

"Last resort," Pansy murmurs, leaning into Hermione's side. She only looks away occasionally to check on their sleeping prisoner. Her gaze is quickly drawn back to the poor unicorn.

Hermione can't say how long it takes. Time and magic and perception itself feel different this close to a creature so magical, so rare. Eventually, the unicorn's eyes open and it gazes at them with its dark eyes. Hermione breathes in and can't seem to find that breath again. Slowly, the unicorn stands, and their hands slip off. She squeezes Pansy's hand. If the unicorn has any complaints about them touching it, or holding a man hostage near it, or anything else, it will air them now. But instead, the unicorn gently presses its snout to Hermione's forehead, then does the same gesture to Pansy. It's warm, not at all wet, and when Hermione looks up the rest of the herd has appeared. She watches them until they disappear into the night.

"That's approval, isn't it," Hermione breathes.

"It is," Pansy says. "It's a good sign. We're not using the forest for pure reasons, after all."

Pure is relative, but Pansy is correct. They take the body deeper into the forest, further than any human usually treads, then even further. Every so often, Hermione thinks she catches a glimpse of the shine of unicorn hair, but it's a trick of the moonlight. When they reach the cave where they had prepared their materials, Hermione helps lower him into the cauldron that they've stashed inside the small cave, hidden behind all the enchantments they could muster. Cauldrons aren't made for bodies this large. They make it work. Voldemort must continue to live until his horcruxes are destroyed, otherwise he will plague them as a wraith and return once more. Hermione will do much worse for peace, safety, happiness. Her own and the rest of the country's. She used to be a better person when she was actually this age. Hermione doesn't regret the woman she is now, but it's a bittersweet thought, the idea that twelve year old Hermione never would have approved of this.

They tip him in head-first. There is nothing left to do but watch as the clear liquid of the cauldron turns to a substance that looks like amber. Yellow smoke rises up as the potion settles. Within twenty minutes, there is no smoke, and the top of the cauldron is hard as stone. Trapped in a substance that looks like amber, Quirrell looks peaceful as he sleeps. The potion will keep him stable and barely alive for years, up to a decade if necessary.

Hermione exhales in relief. The most nerve-wracking part of their plan is complete. Compared to facing down Voldemort--even this weak shade of him deep inside Quirrell's head--the rest will be a breeze. At least the horcruxes can't flee from them or completely alter the timeline.

"Good riddance," Pansy says after a couple spells to check on the potion's temperature and consistency.

Hermione smiles. Good riddance it is. It's a paltry resting place for the feared Dark Lord, and therefore very satisfying.

Pansy takes over cleaning and erasing their presence from the area while Hermione checks on the spellwork defending the cave and hiding it from sight. They trudge back to the castle, using one of the passages that is marked as caved in on the marauders' map. Not even Filch bothered setting up traps for students near it. And up until last week, it had been caved in, in truth. Hermione spent long hours making sure the tunnel wouldn't suffer another cave-in until she was done with it. Her feet take her to the Astronomy tower again, and Pansy joins her, creating a dome of warmth for them to sit under. There are no snogging students or prowling professors. Just them and the stars above. Still chilled from their winter wanderings, Hermione huddles close. It's been a while since she's had human contact; Harry and Ron are not huggers. Pansy is easily accepting of Hermione's affection and gives her own. It's a girl thing, Hermione tells herself, her cheeks warm from the effect of the spell's heat.

"Cheers," Pansy says, with no champagne to celebrate their victory.

Hermione wants to be proud of them, but, "There's still so much more to do."

Pansy pokes her in the shoulder, but her sharp nails don't penetrate Hermione's layers of clothes. "That doesn't mean we can't take a victory when we had one. It's more than we had before."

"I know," she says, and takes Pansy's hand in hers for warmth.

Dawn is just as lovely tonight as it was on that very first night.

There's a school-wide search for Quirrell next morning when he doesn't show up for breakfast. Hermione has a big breakfast with as much strawberry jam as she can stomach. It's her reward for acting concerned over a man who would take the Dark Lord into his body and allow him to be near innocent students. The mood is uncertain and gloomy in the Gryffindor common room where all the lions who stayed at Hogwarts for the break find themselves a few days later. Quirrell is still nowhere to be found. No one had particularly liked Quirrell, not even studious Ravenclaws or the best students at Hogwarts (among which Hermione still counts herself despite keeping back most of her knowledge), and yet it's their first brush with mysterious disappearances.

"It's creepy," Ron says after a long period of silence. "No one just disappears like that. I heard he didn't even take his stuff."

"Maybe the vampires finally got to him," a fifth year offers.

"That's stupid," Ron replies, but he doesn't look entirely convinced.

Next to him, Harry shrugs. "He was terrified of them. Maybe they got revenge for whatever happened over the summer."

"You mean, get his butt kicked? Couldn't have been anything else. I bet he doesn't actually even know any defense spells."

"Ron," Hermione admonishes, secretly amused at being able to be in tune with her younger self. The proper twelve year old Hermione would have said, and the older one says now, "He's a professor. Of course he knows his subject. We shouldn't doubt him. I assume there were... extenuating circumstances." Like being trapped in the Forbidden Forest, like making the choice to house Voldemort in his body in the first place.

Hermione doesn't have any regrets. Besides, this method is so much less traumatizing for Harry than Quirrell burning to death under his bare hands, courtesy of his mother's protection. The first time around, he had the nightmares about it for years afterward. They only stopped when his nightmares were replaced by Sirius' fall. Until the dreams and Harry himself were gone completely and nothing could harm him any longer.

Swallowing, Hermione shifts her thoughts away from that subject. Harry is alive and well. He's going to stay that way, no matter how much blood finds its way to her hands. Instead of wallowing, Hermione says, "Who wants to go to the library to do our winter homework?"

Her best friends groan, but they give in soon enough.

As expected, Hermione spends a week exhausted from healing the unicorn, as well as the rush of adrenaline and the all-consuming fear that they would fail. That their actions might cause the rise of Voldemort rather than prevent it. Whenever she wakes up in the middle of the night in cold sweat, she touches a pendant that she and Pansy tied to the cauldron's magics. It hums rhythmically beneath her hand. As long as it isn't cracked, then the potion hasn't cracked, either. He is still trapped and will be for a very long time, until they no longer need him to live.

Although not exactly relaxed, she feels lighter now that the weight of Voldemort's constant presence has been lifted. She hasn't been keeping as much of an eye on Harry, which means it's a surprise when Harry finds her and Ron, and says, "I have something to show you."

She follows, letting him retrace steps a decade old. Even after everything that's changed, Harry still found the Mirror of Erised, saw his family inside, and wanted to show them to his best friends. His excitement is dampened when he finds that neither Ron nor Hermione can see the people on the other side of the glass. After explaining the mirror's purpose, something she'd only heard about previously and never experienced for herself, Hermione hugs him tightly and says, "We can't see them, but how about you tell us about them?"

She and Ron sit down on the cold Hogwarts floors on either side of Harry and he tells them what he sees. He starts slowly at first, glancing over at Ron and Hermione as if to check that they aren't bored, but soon finds a rhythm in his descriptions. He begins with his parents, who Hermione has seen in photographs, not that she can say so now. She wonders if the mirror truly does hold some truth because it hasn't simply created images of family from pure magic or an object's imagination. That is James and Lily from the photographs who he Harry describing, and she has a feeling the other relatives are true as well. Or perhaps that's what the mirror wants her to think.

"Almost all of them have glasses," Harry reveals with a small smile.

"I guess it was inevitable then, mate," Ron says, bumping his shoulder against Harry's. "You had no chance."

"I'll need glasses when I'm older," Hermione offers. "My parents and my grandparents have them."

"Hey, don't leave me out." Ron wrinkles his nose. "Not that I want glasses. What if they fall off? What if they get dirty? What if someone punches me and breaks the glass and the glass gets into my eyes and I go blind? Better to not wear glasses at all."

"That's what unbreakable charms are for," Hermione replies.

Nearly at the same time, Harry says, "That's why you take your glasses off before a fight."

Ron seems content with both replies. When Harry is finished speaking, Ron goes next, although he sounds more contemplative than Hermione would have expected as he talks about the mirror's version of himself. Head boy, quidditch captain, popular, well-loved. Ron almost seems embarrassed after hearing Harry's desires. Hermione only opens her eyes when it's her turn to tell them what she sees. She'd wanted to imagine Harry and Ron's desires without her own getting in the way. And maybe she hadn't wanted to see what she knows she will see.

She likes what she sees, too much so. Of course she does. Hermione's older body waves at her from the mirror. She's smiling and her hair is so perfect that in real life it would take hours of work to get it that way. Her robes are new, bought for this very special occasion, and she's surrounded by all the people she loves and cares about. There's her parents, Ron and Harry, the friends she made throughout the war, her professors, Pansy. Even Crookshanks is there.

"My hair looks amazing," Hermione says, and huffs at Harry and Ron's expressions. It's as though they habitually forget she's a girl. "I'm older and taller, and I'm holding a graduation diploma. I think those are the colors for the highest marks. Everyone I love is with me and happy and--" alive, she almost says, and her throat hurts as she tries to keep the word inside "--and we're all alright. I just want all of us to be alright." She wants them to live long enough to graduate Hogwarts with her. And she wants it for herself, too, wants to walk out of this school instead of being chased out of it, hunted for the crime of her blood and her friendships.

"We're fine," Ron says, looking a little panicked. "Hermione, relax."

"I'm alright, too," Harry offers.

"You have to tell me if you're not," Hermione says firmly. "Both of you. If something's wrong, you have to tell me so that I can fix it. Even if that's just by giving you a hug or helping you with your homework."

She feels better after getting their promises, even if her friends look at her as though she's gone crazy. She feels even better the next day, when instead of seeking out the mirror again, Harry asks for her help with looking through the library's newspapers and school records for photographs and information on his parents, grandparents, and other relatives.

"I want something real," Harry admits, and if she turns her head, she can almost see him in five years, seven (but not ten, never ten, because she never got that privilege). He has a plan and he's going to see it through.

Ron may not completely understand Harry's perspective, but he understands enough to be supportive. "Okay. Tell me if you find anything about my family, too. Mum and Dad don't tell me everything about old stuff like the war. Besides, you got a Weasley sweater. You can be both a Potter and a Weasley. It's how it works."

And that's why Hermione is here--to make sure that Ron never has to think of the war as anything but old, irrelevant, something for stories and history books. She can't protect them from anything, but this? This, she will take care of.

When the students return, their first two weeks of lessons are taught by Albus Dumbledore himself, who spends the first lesson allowing questions about the duels of his youth, the second lesson teaching them the disarming charm, and the third lesson discussing strategies to avoid inciting a duel in the first place. His gaze lingers gently on Hermione when she raises her hand to answer questions. There's no suspicion lurking behind his half-moon glasses, no reproach.

Hermione Granger is twelve years old. She respects her professors. She doesn't kidnap them. She doesn't sneak into the Room of Requirement and slip a priceless historical artifact into a bottomless pouch with the intention of destroying it. She doesn't meet with a Slytherin every week to discuss plans that aren't necessary to discuss in person. 

She does ace her year-end exams. Neither the Hermione of the past nor the future would settle for anything else. Pansy must contend herself with second place in all but Potions, where she takes first. Hermione's brewing is technically proficient but not inspired, as many people have told her over the years. It's alright, she doesn't have to be the best in everything. (Or rather, that's what she's used to convincing herself, but she doesn't mind losing out to Pansy. Pansy never used to be a rival originally, but war does a lot for one's determination and knowledge acquisition.)

"Ugh, Granger," Pansy whines when she sees the scores. They're standing nearly shoulder to shoulder in front of the bulletin board of the highest exam scores of their year. Two girls in different color ties, two would-be rivals if the world were different. Pansy turns to her, crossing her arms. "Know your place."

"I do," Hermione retorts, biting her lip to keep herself from smiling. Pansy's eyes are bright with amusement. "I'll beat you in Potions next year."

It's the first public interaction Hermione Granger and Pansy Parkinson have. Hermione hopes it won't be the last. Even with students milling about all around them and the pressure of the future on her shoulders, this is where she wants to be.

It doesn't last. Within a few days, they're guided onto the Hogwarts Express and delivered to King's Cross Station. Hermione nearly doesn't recognize her parents. A decade has been wiped from their faces and their minds, better than Hermione could have ever done herself. She hugs both each of them tightly, one after the other, and tells them she loves them. Their love is not limitless, as she now knows, and she's more careful with them as a result. As the summer days fly by, her parents simply think she's behaving well because she missed them so much or because boarding school matured her exponentially. Hermione was never a bad kid, but she'd preferred reading to chores and tended to vanish with a book around the time her dad would ask her to fold laundry or load the dishwasher.

It strikes her that it's been years since she opened a book without it being necessary. She still loves knowledge in all its forms, but so much of her time has been spent finding a way to defeat Voldemort. When this is all over, Hermione is going to sit herself down in the library and read on every topic that appeals to her. No defense books, nothing about potions. She'll learn utterly useless information and she'll be happier for it. Maybe she'll pick up a hobby, too. She never did get the chance to learn any knitting spells from Molly.

Chapter 3Notes:Referenced child death.

Chapter TextTwo weeks into summer break, Hermione's mom manages to convince Petunia Dursley to invite the Grangers for dinner. Hermione coerced Harry's phone number and address from him before school let out for the year. He'd been dubious that she would be able to use that information—and he'd been correct. It's Hermione's mother who held the family's persuasion skills. Her father is shyer, while Hermione prefers whacking people over the head with facts. Had the Grangers not had a witch for a child, they would have been the perfect guests to a Dursley dinner party. Upstanding, respectable, upper middle-class citizens and all, they would've even been invited back, not that the Drs. Granger had much time in their schedules for dinner parties and rubbing elbows. 

"I can't believe I got to eat downstairs," Harry says after dinner, when he and Hermione were allowed to go upstairs while the adults continued talking. He doesn't even seem to realize that his words are insane.

Hermione hugs him tightly. "You'll get out of here one day, I promise."

Harry shrugs as best he can while being hugged. "I did ask Professor Dumbledore if I could stay at Hogwarts for the summer breaks along with the winter breaks, when he came by to ask me about Quirrell."

"He doesn't think you had anything to do with...?" Hermione trails off, incredulous. They're sitting on Harry's bed, since there's nowhere else to sit in Harry's room, and she leans back against the cold wall.

"No!" Harry immediately says. "He just asked if Quirrell had been acting strangely in the days before he left." Harry smiles sheepishly. "It told him Quirrell had always been a little strange. He agreed with me."

"But he still wouldn't let you stay at Hogwarts?"

"I need to live with my mother's relatives so that my mother's blood protection continues working. I don't completely understand it, but Dumbledore seemed convinced."

"Protection against who?"

"Voldemort," Harry admits. "He might still be alive. Hagrid thinks so. And Dumbledore, it looks like."

"But Voldemort is dead," Hermione replies. "He was banished on Halloween night more than a decade ago. Dumbledore's theories don't hold water."

"He said that there's a possibility that he didn't die that night. And he asked if my scar ever hurt me, and I said yes."

"Headaches aren't always a sign of Dark Lords," Hermione tells him firmly. "We'll just have to convince him."

How, Hermione has no idea. Even if Lily Potter's protection weren't an issue, she can't just ask her parents to adopt Harry. Sure, the Dursleys would be happy to give him up, according to everything Harry has told her and their chilly behavior toward him at dinner, but her parents are busy professionals who never considered having another child. They're also muggles, and while she doesn't blame Harry in the least, chaos frequently dogs at his heels. The Drs. Granger have no defense against Death Eaters or even wizarding paparazzi. The Weasleys, while kind and welcoming, don't have the funds or time to raise another child. And while Harry is nearly grown, he deserves familial attention.

They don't have enough time to properly brainstorm. Soon, dinner is over, and Mrs. Granger and Mrs. Dursley come upstairs to collect Hermione.

"You have locks on the door's exterior?" says the familiar voice of Hermione's mother, standing just outside the door.

"We're worried about burglars," Mrs. Dursley says stiffly.

"Oh," Hermione's mother replies. "That's... odd of you, don't you think? Come on, sweetheart." She winks at Hermione when they leave the room.

Within a few days, Harry owls to say that the locks have been taken off the door. Hermione continues visiting Harry, partially to spend time with him, partially to check up on his situation and make sure he's healthy. The Dursleys grudgingly bear her presence and Hermione doesn't spend too much time fantasizing about terrible accidents befalling them.

*

At home, she spends long summer days with a glass of lemonade and a fiction book, propped up outside on the wide swinging bench in the backyard. Her parents work during the day, so she has time to herself. She only needs to lie to them once, when she fabricates a play date with Harry and instead takes a trip to Little Hangleton. Thankfully, without any missing fingers or eyebrows from a body not used to apparition. On days when she's not picking up horcruxes, she brings her enchanted mirror out to the backyard, where the trees cover the fact that it isn't a phone she's talking into. The only way she could be even more comfortable is if Crookshanks were curled up next to her, but her parents aren't enthusiastic about the idea. Hermione's twelve step plan for getting her parents to agree to adopt a cat isn't progressing at the speed she would like.

"I know they're not cat people," she complains to Pansy, holding her enchanted mirror against a book of Sherlock Holmes tales. "But it's Crookshanks. Everyone loves Crookshanks."

Pansy simply says, "You should have begun your campaign to adopt that ugly creature—"

"Beautiful cat," Hermione corrects.

"—that's what I said. You should have started months ago. You could have written all these letters to your parents about how lonely you are at Hogwarts, and how you need a hug, and how cold it is, and oh how wizarding animals are extremely intelligent companions." Pansy's attention is split between her nails and the conversation. When she shows off her nails, they are a perfectly even shade of pink. "You would have had them begging to get you a kneazle."

"That's devious," Hermione says approvingly. She wouldn't have actually done it—she leaves her manipulation for destroying Voldemort, not for fooling her parents—but it's a good plan.

Despite how much she's already lying to her parents, she's trying to lie less in her second chance with them. No memory charms needed this time around. In her original first year, Hermione lied to her parents frequently during her letters. At first, she'd wanted to hide how friendless she was, and after, she'd been scared to tell them about sneaking around at night and looking into the mystery of Nicholas Flamel for fear of them telling her to focus on her studies instead of being distracted by her friends. And even later, she hadn't dared to let them know how much danger she'd found herself in. No matter what, she wanted to stand by Harry's side. She still does. Hopefully, it won't mean losing everyone else she cares about.

"Thank you. That is why you should have run this plan by me first."

"I thought it would be easier," Hermione admits. She sighs, blowing a few strands of hair from her forehead. "I don't know what the difference is between now and the summer after the next, when they were happy to get me a pet. Mum and Dad even liked having him around."

"The difference is that their only child didn't spend months petrified after a giant snake almost ate her. I heard that sort of thing freaks muggles out."

"Oh." That, Hermione thinks, really would make a difference.

She's offended that she hadn't realized it beforehand. Despite the young Tom Riddle's best efforts, her time under the basilisk's gaze hadn't traumatized her. Her time petrified is only a footnote to her now. Some things linger, like her discomfort with snakes and her occasional lack of ease about doing to Voldemort essentially the same thing Tom did to her, but it's the later parts of war that truly linger in her psyche. Nagini, swallowing Neville whole. Harry and Ron's pale, cold bodies. The day she found the Order was largely obliterated. Mudblood. Out of habit, Hermione scratches her arm. It's skinnier than in the future, smaller. Bare of the memento that Bellatrix left her with. The scar used to fuel her anger every time she saw it, and now it's only a memory.

On the other side of the mirror, Pansy continues on. "If all fails, take them to Diagon Alley and drop by the menagerie. Pick him up, show him off. Cry a bit. Not too much, just enough to get their sympathy."

"Crying is going too far," Hermione objects. She makes a face. She doesn't cry. Not unless she has a genuine reason. "But I'll practice my sad, pleading expression if that will make you happy."

"It will. Try not to look constipated."

"I never look constipated." Hermione shakes her head at whatever Pansy is about to say. Instead, she brings up the real reason for her call. "How were the Malfoys?" She's glad that it's up to Pansy to deal with this particular segment of their plan. To defeat Voldemort, Hermione would force herself to enter the Malfoy manor again, but she hadn't had to. Pansy already had the invitation to Malfoy's twelfth birthday party.

Pansy accepts the topic change, if only to complain. "I'm recovering from all the activities Lucius and Narcissa set up for us. It's been a full day since the party and I'm still exhausted. No one would believe me when I said I'm allergic to abraxans. And peacocks. And sunlight." She adds, looking disturbed, "I think Narcissa actually likes me this time around. What's wrong with her?"

"You're not trying too hard," Hermione replies.

Pansy huffs. "I'm not trying at all."

"Even better." After a moment, Hermione adds, "For Narcissa, I mean. She's always been overprotective of her son. Who knows what's going through her head."

"It better not be matchmaking. I spent nearly all of my Hogwarts years chasing him only for him to cradle-rob Daphne's sister."

"She's not that much younger than us," Hermione argues, lazily playing devil's advocate.

"Ew," Pansy sniffs. "She used to play with my sister."

"That doesn't mean it's cradle-robbing," Hermione replies, rolling her eyes. She thinks back on what she knows about Pansy's sister. It isn't much. "She's six years younger than us, isn't she? Astoria's two is nothing." Her enchanted mirror almost falls off when she moves her legs to a more comfortable position. Gently, because she knows it's a sore topic even though she doesn't know why, she adds, "You don't talk about her much."

Pansy is quiet for a few moments. Hermione can see the tops of her makeup vials as Pansy reorganizes them. "I find it hard to talk about her." Before Hermione can offer to talk about something else, Pansy looks up into the mirror with a determined look in her dark eyes. "I never did tell you why I switched sides."

"No, you didn't." Hermione extends an offering of her own, a truth. "For the longest time, I didn't care. The Order needed people and we'd already accepted Slytherins worse than you. And then, I just needed someone to believe me and to work with me to turn back time. After I got to know you... I assumed it was something bad. It would have to be to change your mind so completely."

"It was," Pansy says, her words haunting for all that they're simple. "I was born into a dark family and I never intended to abandon their ways. Never. You have to understand that. I loved my family. I grew up happy and safe—and spoiled, yes, but it was a good life."

"While benefiting from muggleborn discrimination," Hermione cuts in. She doesn't even try to stop herself. It's a reflex.

"Yes, Granger, I was just swimming in a morass of evil and privilege from birth. I bathed in muggleborn blood in a dark ritual at five years old, that's how I got my good looks."

"You must have used the wrong blood."

"Fuck you," Pansy says, companionably. "As I was saying, I was happy with what I had. I thought it would never change, that I could go on believing all my bullshit and trailing behind Draco and eventually my life would just snap into place. I would become the next Mrs. Malfoy, the Dark Lord would usher in a glorious new age for purebloods everywhere, and I'd never have to struggle a day in my life." She huffs at Hermione's expression. The mirrors are enchanted in a way that means Hermione doesn't see her own face, but she knows exactly how it must look. "I know, alright? I know. And then I turned seventeen and a few months later, the Dark Lord really did usher in a new age. It was hell. The backstabbing, the attempts to rise in rank, the expectation that you must do horrible things with a smile on your face. Everyone was terrified of him. And they were right to be. He was horrible. To the people who supported him and the people he hated. He'd curse purebloods as easily as muggleborns. All I wanted to do was get far away from him and the Carrows and the Lestranges. I didn't want to live in a world where I could be hurt by my professors and marked Death Eaters and anyone of a higher rank. I didn't want to hurt muggleborns and blood traitors, either. Not like that. Higher ranked Death Eaters could do almost anything they wanted. The Dark Lord would laugh if it was particularly gruesome. And then Greyback attacked my sister."

Hermione expected it. Pansy enjoys talking. There are so few topics she won't speak on—her sister a major one. But it still aches, to hear of yet another one of Voldemort's victims. "Voldemort allowed it?"

"Greyback blamed it on the moon. His pack was running through the grounds of our house and somehow, entirely by accident, he found himself breaking in and attacking my sister. Funny how that happens. My parents were terrified, but they tried to complain to Voldemort. He didn't care. I stayed with my sister at St. Mungo's and watched them give her healing potions and pain relievers until there was nothing else they could do. She wasn't becoming a werewolf properly, but she wouldn't heal. She was my baby sister and I had to watch her die, and then I had to look into the eyes of everyone who stood aside and let her." She's quiet for a moment. "I killed Greyback, of course," Pansy says. Her words are too heavy for her young, innocent face. "Poison. Untraceable. No one could tell if which of his many, many victims or their families did it."

"I remember that. The Order—the original one—raised a glass to whoever it was. We never even knew. We were just glad that he was off the streets."

Pansy nods. "And then I couldn't stay. I couldn't force myself to look at my parents after they backed down after Voldemort's first threat and told me to forget. I couldn't look at my friends, who would still follow him. I packed my things and began to search for the resistance. In time, I found it. And you. She's alive now and everything we did, Granger, it was worth it to get here."

"What is she like?" Hermione murmurs.

Pansy smiles. It's a tentative, cautious smile, but it's there. "Her name is Primrose. I call her Rose. She's six years younger than me. She's—sweet. I always used to tell her to be mean like a proper Slytherin, but she doesn't have it in her."

"What house will she sort into?"

"Hufflepuff. It'll be disappointing for the family."

"And for you?" Hermione asks with a smile, knowing what the answer is going to be.

"I'm good at pretending not to be disappointed." Pansy may sound haughty, but she talks about her sister so gently that Hermione can't believe her to be anywhere near disappointed. "You have to be nice to Hufflepuffs, otherwise they cry and all that nonsense."

"I see, you're doing it out of self-preservation," Hermione says. It's likely that she doesn't sound very serious. She feels gentle, protective of Pansy's sister, of the way Pansy looks right now. Hermione doesn't ever want to see her break apart again. If that means adding Rose Parkinson to the list of people she must protect, she'll to it gladly.

"I am a Slytherin."

It's only after the call ends that she realizes Rose Parkinson would enter her first year when she and Pansy enter their seventh. In the original timeline, she would have been sorted under Snape's headmastership, into a house that the Carrows and other professors scorned. Even with a pureblood name and a Slytherin older sister, it couldn't have been easy for her. Hermione tries to remember seeing Pansy at King's Cross, but if there had been another young girl wishing her off, then she hadn't stuck in Hermione's memory. She imagines her as a tiny Pansy instead, quicker to smile and a little shy.

Hermione touches her hand to the amulet around her neck. It pulses steadily, slow and sure. There are no cracks. There will be no mistakes, no failure, no children dead long before their time.

A few weeks later, she convinces her parents to come with her to Diagon Alley, where Hermione desperately needs to buy some books. With just a little guile and window-shopping, they pass by the magical menagerie. Hermione glances into the alleyway next to the menagerie and there he is. Her parents have stopped to discuss one of the glass craftsmanship displays in the next storefront, while Hermione lags behind.

She takes a step into the alley.

Crookshanks looks at her curiously, his tail twitching.

Hermione raises an eyebrow and opens her arms wide. "Well? I'm not waiting all day."

Crookshanks digs his claws right into her heart, as is his right. Hermione presses her face into his fur and feels happier than she has in a very long time. She doesn't put him down, not even for a moment, and her parents give in under the condition that they take him to a vet immediately, and afterward, Hermione must give him a bath herself. Even that daunting task doesn't dent Hermione's smile.

The summer passes in lazy days and late mornings. Halfway through the summer, Dobby still arrives to warn Harry about terrible things that will happen at Hogwarts. Lucius may not have Tom Riddle's diary anymore, but he and Dobby haven't quite gotten that message yet. She spends the last two weeks of summer at the Burrow along with Harry, where she becomes Molly's knitting student for a while. And Percy's, too, after he starts helping her with her stitches when none of his brothers are around. On their trip to Diagon Alley, Ginny receives a lovely diary courtesy of Lucius Malfoy, and more discreetly, Pansy Parkinson. It's a beautiful thing, the pages a lovely cream, endless and spelled to discourage ink blots. Hermione hopes she uses it well. In any case, it's better than the alternative.

Their second year at Hogwarts results in the abandonment of the Defense post once again. It's Pansy who publicly discredits Lockhart until he flees into the night. He seems to be a personal irritation for her. Hermione understands, although for her, Lockhart is an educational disappointment. And a professional one.

"I hated how every girl fawned over him," Pansy says, nearly pouting. "He had to go."

"You didn't fall under his charm?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

Chapter 4Chapter TextThird year, Sirius escapes, and Hermione makes sure that Pettigrew doesn't do the same. She doesn't like Sirius. She never has. He's brash, half-mad, careless with both his own safety and Harry's. His mind strays to the past too often to be healthy. Harry deserves a better guardian. But Harry wants to live with him, has ever since Sirius' very first offer, and Hermione won't get in the way. Not when Harry's face lights up with so much joy. She complains to Ron about it, but her other friend isn't sympathetic. He thinks Sirius is wicked cool. 

"Never touching a rat again, though," Ron says with a shudder. "Ever."

"Crookshanks can help you with that," Hermione says, attempting comfort.

Ron looks over at Crookshanks, and for the first time, it seems there is an accord between them.

She and Ron are invited to Grimmauld Place that summer. Hermione vanishes for a short time. When she returns, her pocket is heavier, and her step lighter. Her parents don't receive an invitation to the house on account of Sirius not being able to take down the family's anti-muggle wards. It's probably for the best; there are still doxies in the curtains. They go out to eat instead, where Sirius is very favorably compared as a step up from the Dursleys. The Grangers tactfully do not mention that his face has recently appeared on muggle television as a dangerous escaped criminal. They're becoming inured to the oddities of the magical world.

Fourth year, there is no Triwizard Tournament, although Hermione lets herself be dragged along to the World Cup. She places a small bet on Ireland winning and hides her smile when Pansy finds her after the game.

"Did you cheer for Ireland?" she asks.

"No—Bulgaria. The players are hotter," Pansy says, completely unrepentant. "Don't deny it—I know you dated Krum."

"I haven't thought of him in years." Hermione can't help the way her voice turns thoughtful. She likes Viktor. It's hard not to. He's kind, well-mannered, broad-shouldered, so much smarter than his status as a sports star would have you think. Sometimes they hadn't quite been able to understand what the other was saying, but she'd never doubted he was sincere. Still, "I suppose I won't meet him again."

"Pity," Pansy replies, sounding anything but sorry.

Hermione rolls her eyes. Of course Pansy would be jealous of her dating a quidditch star. The thought settles strangely in her chest, and to take the conversation away from herself, she asks, "What about you? Do you have your eye on anyone?"

"Everyone at Hogwarts looks like they're eleven years old, including the seventh years." Pansy sighs deeply. A crowd of raucous Ireland fans passes their section of the field and Hermione steps away, almost knocking into Pansy. They're standing close—closer than she'd realized.

"I wouldn't date anyone at Hogwarts, either," Hermione agrees. "It wouldn't be right for me to be with someone so much younger than myself. And I could hardly respect a professor who would want to be with me at the age I am."

"A professor, hm?" Pansy asks, smirking. "You've really gone through your options. Were you considering Snape?"

"No. Of course not."

"He is the youngest."

"If I had to choose, it would be McGonagall," Hermione says, primly, and then bursts out laughing at the look on Pansy's face. Admittedly, she'd had a crush on McGonagall early on. The professor was just so smart that Hermione couldn't help herself. She'd wanted to be her, too, but the blushing hadn't been entirely from hero worship. Her crush had fizzled over the years, along with her crushes on Remus and Lockhart—the latter crashing steeply rather than fizzling—and she'd fallen head over heels for Ron. They'd broken up, but it had been good while it lasted. Dramatic, push and shove, but good.

It would be nice to be in love again, Hermione thinks, and pushes certain thoughts away.

Amidst all the spells and chaos of the Quidditch World Cup—the good kind of chaos, with no Death Eaters in sight—Hermione waits until Harry and Ron fall asleep. She casts a silencing spell on their tent room, dabs sleeping potion on her friends' lips, and gets to work. By morning, Harry Potter is no longer a horcrux.

The next time she sees Pansy through their connected mirrors, Pansy is covered head to toe in pink, nearly healing skin and very short hair. "Don't even ask," she groans, and holds up Hufflepuff's cup. "I'm never being brave again."

By the end of September, all that remains of Voldemort is charred husks of magical objects and a pile of bones that will soon be dragged away by the forests' creatures. Hermione banishes the no longer usable cauldron. Her hands shake too hard to complete the spell on her first try. Voldemort is gone forever. It's a relief, of course it is. It's also terrifying.

"We thank you," a centaur tells them as the leave the forest, and Hermione says nothing in reply. She won't confirm or deny. He smiles at them anyway, his expression gentle. "To a better future."

"To a better future," she murmurs once he's out of sight.

She meets Pansy's gaze and feels the steady beat of her own heart in her ears. To a better future. The best possible one: where everyone survives.

Fifth year, there is no Umbridge, no Dumbledore's Army. It's better this way, Hermione tells herself, but her heart aches at the loss. It's an old ache — so much is different in this time. There is peace and happiness, and Harry's easy grins are worth every moment, but Hermione has no idea what to do with herself in her free time. She can do whatever she wants, period. She could drop out of Hogwarts (she is not going to drop out of Hogwarts), she could take up professional quidditch reporting (she is not going to do that, either), she could give up studying with the knowledge that she will never make such a huge difference in the world again (absurd).

Hermione ends up spending a lot of time with Ron and Harry, who at fifteen are mostly on their way to becoming their adult selves. There's less of a mental barrier between them. It shrinks by the year as they grow older and better able to understand her, but something will remain even after they're grown. She is still a time traveler in their midst.

She's thought about it, sometimes, just telling them the truth. I traveled in time, she could say, and they'd be creeped out and awed. They would accept it, she thinks, and they would hardly hate her for never telling them the outlandish truth before, especially when she tells them that they've always been friends in both timelines. It's only the fact that they will ask what happened to them that stays her hand. Death in battle is grizzly, sad, and nothing she wants them to hear. She doesn't want to scare them, these two boys-men-friends of hers who have never faced worse than a duel with some Slytherin bullies.

She spends a lot of time with Pansy, too. They're friends outside of their hobby of killing Dark Lords, though in public, they argue more than they just talk. She notices Pansy more and more now. It's impossible not to—Pansy herself makes sure that she is noticed, makes sure that everyone knows who she is and what she wants, and that she better get it. Even now, she has most of Slytherin house wrapped around her finger, including Draco Malfoy. Of whom Hermione is not jealous of. If she sometimes notices the way Pansy leans against him when she's tired, or tugs at his hair when she's bored, she's only happy that Pansy managed to rekindle a friendship from her past. She's good for Draco, it's plain to see.

"Hermione," Harry eventually says, sitting back and pushing his Charms textbook out of the way. They're at the library again, this time writing a paper on the history of levitation spells. Or rather, Ron and Harry are, while Hermione takes a moment or two to notice Pansy practicing transfigurations across the library. "You know that Ron and me, we um, accept you?"

"Sure," Hermione replies, only half listening. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. That's not what I— okay. If you want to tell us, or want our help, or anything...?"

Hermione hums in agreement. She does have very helpful friends. And oh, look at that, Pansy's taking off her tie. "Help with what?"

"Your horrible taste in girls," Ron says from Harry's other side. He yelps as Harry elbows him, then immediately follows up with, "Which we support you with. Mostly. You know my sister Ginny also likes girls."

"That's not what this is about, Ron, stop trying to set them up," Harry says. "We're being supportive."

"I am being supportive! You know how many people I'd trust my sister with?"

"Your sister is going to be with whoever she wants to be," Harry says. His voice is firm. With the benefit of future knowledge, Hermione hides her smile at just how firm Harry is about Hermione not being interested in Ginny. "Besides, Hermione's into Parkinson."

"I am not," Hermione retorts. It's a reflex. She's said it so many times to herself that it's easy to say it aloud. "Pansy is— not my type."

Ron and Harry look at her with pity.

Hermione ups their OWLs study times out of spite.

*

Harry and Ginny are together by the time Hogwarts lets out for summer break, while Hermione continues to assert that she isn't pining, nor does she even notice Pansy. The fact that she calls a Slytherin by her first name is irrelevant, your honor.

Sixth year, Snape continues to be their Potions professor, Sirius steps in as their Defense professor, and Hogwarts enters a state of barely controlled chaos. Hermione has no idea what Dumbledore was thinking. She knows too much to believe him to be as barmy as the rumors claim, but what else is there? Sadism, maybe, she decides, as she searches for an alternate route to avoid Sirius' prank of the week. How he manages to make time for Harry in between driving Snape mad, Hermione has no idea. Maybe he doesn't sleep. 

"It's his form of flirting," Pansy says as they watch Snape storm off to yell at Sirius. Hermione's in too much shock to remember that Hermione Granger and Pansy Parkinson aren't publicly friendly enough for chatting quietly as they watch the soap opera that is the Hogwarts professors' interactions.

"You're joking." Hermione watches as Snape nearly trips in his haste to skin Sirius alive. "I know what flirting looks like and it's not that."

"Do you know what flirting looks like?" Pansy asks. "Look at them more closely. They're brimming with passion for each other."

"The passion to kill each other," Hermione corrects. "Violently and with a lot of blood."

When Sirius and Snape somehow manage to strike up a truce three quarters of the way through the year, Hermione covers her ears at Pansy's conspiracy theories. She doesn't want to even entertain the possibility. Whether they're secretly fucking each other's brains out or have decided to take their rivalry to underground dueling rings instead, she doesn't want to ever know. Harry joins her in anguished denial.

"Why can't he date someone nice instead?" Harry groans. "Tonks and Remus should teach him how to date nice people."

"I don't think Sirius wants a nice person," Hermione says. Maybe what Remus and Tonks have isn't for him.

"I guess you'd know." At Hermione's look, Harry splutters, and mumbles, "What? You and he have similar tastes."

Hermione has never heard anything more horrifying.

Seventh year, Harry and Ron survive. It's all that matters. Hermione spends the day of their would-be deaths half a step from bursting out into tears. She came back in time in order to save everyone, of course, but most importantly, she just wanted the Harry and Ron to be alive again. Harry smiles easier than he ever had the first time around and Ron has never abandoned their friendship out of jealousy. They've been able to grow up without the shadow of Harry's adventures. All Harry is famous for is defeating Voldemort as a baby, and it's been so many years since then. McGonagall has less lines on her face. Neville never beheaded a snake, but he's still grown into his own, taking the long way around with some nudging from Hermione. Even Draco's less of a little shit than he used to be. Pansy did some great work on him over the years. He no longer even sneers at Hermione when she takes a seat on Pansy's other side, in a courtyard or in the library, and begins talking about her day.

It's their last year of Hogwarts. Hermione has lost the carefulness she used to have, the worry that someone will care too much if she sits too closely to Pansy. The Gryffindor and Slytherin divide is being chipped away at, word by word, friendship by friendship. Often, Pansy's sister joins her, and Hermione's never seen anything more adorable.

It gets less weird to see Pansy being kind as the days pass, although sometimes Hermione looks at her and barely recognizes the person sitting next to her. "You're so nice," Hermione says one day, a few minutes after Rose has left for a group project with her own group of friends, and Draco has vanished hours ago. Harry, Ginny, and Ron hadn't deigned to enter the library today, so Hermione feels no compunction about staying here with Pansy until as close to curfew as they can cut it. "Don't deny it, you are."

"What gave you that mistaken impression?" Pansy asks, turning a page in her book. She doesn't look up, apparently deciding she must be rude in order to derail Hermione's argument. "I've hexed at least three people this week."

"Were they those girls being mean to your sister?"

Pansy purses her lips, looks up at Hermione through dark eyelashes. "Yes, but that doesn't mean anything. I've done terrible things, as you very well know."

"I've done terrible things, too," Hermione says.

"You're a Gryffindor. You're supposed to bravely do terrible things."

"That's not how the Sorting Hat phrases it," Hermione replies, shaking her head. "And you're brave, too."

"Granger, have you been reading too many self-help books? I'll have you know I don't need anyone validating my self-esteem. I do a fine job of it myself."

"I just thought you needed to hear it." And maybe that's it, although the urge to compliment Pansy hasn't faded. There's just so much she wants to say, so much so that she doesn't know how to begin. She's grateful and awed by the sheer weight of Pansy's support through the years, by the fact that she's been able to rely on her for help and sanity and, yes, kindness. "Your sister would agree with me."

"Just transfer to Hufflepuff already," Pansy orders, but she's smiling at the corners of her mouth.

"Maybe I'll transfer to Slytherin instead," Hermione lightly threatens.

Pansy laughs. "No way. You may be Head Girl, but I rule my house, and I don't like competition. Now, which potion did you write your paper on?"

Hermione lets her change the subject, basking in the fact that she'd gotten away with complimenting Pansy. It's completely ridiculous. She's not a teenager anymore, not really, and there's no need for butterflies in her stomach and heat in her cheeks when she considers saying more. Maybe Pansy really is her type, because Hermione's never been able to resist secretly brilliant people who are good deep down. Pansy's goodness is harder to find than Ron or Viktor's, but Hermione can't say it's not appealing, to know just how much Pansy values her compared to most of the world. It's alright; Hermione can care for everyone else for the both of them.

For the first time in her life, Hermione actually takes the NEWTs. It's exhilarating to prove to the proctors just how accomplished she is. By fifth year, she'd started to abandon some of her earlier caution with spells, and by her NEWTs, Hermione is comfortable pulling out all the stops. If Pansy beats her in even one category, she'll eat her shoe. Or maybe send Pansy a venomous plant. It'll both make her feel better and Pansy will be pleased to chop it up and store it.

On the morning of graduation, Hermione receives a letter from her parents that makes her teary, and she ends up hugging Ron and Harry tightly as she tells them how much she loves them and is proud of them, even if they only manage three NEWTs each when their letters arrive next month.

"Thanks, Hermione," they each say without quite as much enthusiasm. Boys, honestly.

And then, caution to the wind, she hugs Pansy, too. They're out in the courtyard, the graduation ceremony almost finished setting up. Hermione couldn't care less how many people notice. (A lot. A lot of them do. But by now, most of them are either used to it or too elated about graduating to care.) Hermione can't find the words to express how happy she is. A little sad, too, because she will no longer see her friends and Pansy every day, but mostly happy.

"I'm going on a graduation trip," Pansy says softly, her mouth close to Hermione's ear. "You should join me."

"Where to?" Hermione asks. If it's in London—

"Paris," Pansy replies.

At that, Hermione forces herself to pull away. It's too distracting to both hug Pansy and come up with a proper argument. It's distracting to stand so close, too, but Hermione makes do. "I can't— I'd need to change my start date at the DMLE, and create an itinerary, and pack, and—"

The castle bells interrupt her words, ringing louder than she's ever heard them. It's time for the ceremony. At the head of the group stand their professors, past and present, with Dumbledore at the head. She and Pansy are pulled apart to sit with the rest of their respective houses. In the middle of the ceremony, Sirius pulls the grand fireworks display he and the Weasley twins have been working on for the past few weeks. It's partly a send-off, partly an advertisement for the brand new Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes shop in Diagon Alley, of which Sirius is a proud sponsor. The new Hogwarts alumni are sent off by boat to the Hogsmeade train station, where for the first time they have the option of simply apparating home. Hermione gets on the train; not only is it her final duty as head girl to keep the peace, but nostalgia is a wonderful thing.

Pansy joins her while completing her own final prefect rounds, saying, "Don't worry, I'll owl you the itinerary."

She doesn't listen to a single word of Hermione's denials.

Secretly, Hermione doesn't mind. Maybe Pansy is right and Hermione needs a break from it all. Just a little one, a week during which she doesn't have to bear the weight of her own expectations. In a country where she hasn't lied, hasn't killed, hasn't set foot in except for a long-ago trip in another life. Hermione has rebuilt her life here in Britain brick by brick; in France, there will only be the woman she is now. And there will be Pansy.

Back at home, her parents are less thrilled about Hermione's minor change of plans. They're already reluctant over Hermione's insistence to move to London. Ostensibly to be closer to the ministry of magic, and also because Hermione is ready to fly free again. It's easier this time around; there is no price on her head, and she knows that if she ever needs to return, her parents will welcome her back. There are no frosty arguments, no loss of trust and memory. Still, her parents consider Pansy a bad influence. Hermione can't tell if it's because they realize she's more than a little head over heels or because Pansy's encouraging her to run off to another country for eight days. Hermione's final doubts are laid to rest when she receives Pansy's itinerary. With only a few small changes, this will be the best trip she's ever taken.

Harry and Ron are happy for her. Or rather, that's how Hermione chooses to interpret it. In reality, they both seem overly amused.

"If you decide to get hitched, at least floo call me and Harry so that we can be there," Ron says to her when she visits them at the Burrow a few days before the trip.

Harry nods. "And Ginny, she'd never forgive you otherwise."

"Very funny, you two," Hermione replies, sighing. "This is a graduation trip. To celebrate graduation."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what Pansy wants to celebrate," Ginny says, poking her head through the open door. She dodges Hermione's pillow with years of quidditch-honed reflexes and continues on her way, calling out, "Dinnertime! And after, I want my boyfriend back for a while!"

At least Molly is thrilled for her and not under the mistaken impression that she and Pansy plan to elope. Ginny leans over to whisper that it's because Molly is still hoping for Hermione to fall for Ron's gangly nonexistent charms—Ginny's words—but Hermione steadfastly ignores her. She'll be like Athena. The pursuit of knowledge will be her boyfriend. Besides, she's too busy deciding on her packing list to consider dating anyone.

Pansy arrives on the doorstep of her parents' house that Saturday at nine on the dot. Hermione's aware that Pansy has largely shed her former prejudice against muggles—it's been replaced by apathy, by and large—but it's still nice to see her being perfectly polite and friendly when she greets Hermione's parents. While Hermione collects her suitcase and manages to find her purse from where it's been collecting dust under her bed, Pansy inquires about the Grangers' honeymoon trip to Paris years and years ago. Hermione had all but forgotten them telling her about it as a kid, while for the older Grangers it's a fond memory that they're happy to share again.

From there, it's a quick apparition to the ministry of magic, where they arrive to the portkey office and take the trip with two other people. The two men are a decade or so older than them and seem just as excited for their trip, although they aren't going just as friends. Sightseeing takes up the rest of their day. Hermione and Pansy weave in and out of the muggle and magical districts of Paris. By evening, she's nearly dead on her feet, but follows Pansy, who deigns only to eat in the wizarding district. It's a beautiful restaurant, perfect for the first evening of their trip.

It's a weekend evening in early summer, and the restaurant is otherwise filled with couples. There are flowers at their table and soft magical lights surrounding them, causing the rest of the restaurant to nearly vanish in the glow and color. The bubble of privacy spells around them only adds to the effect. Hermione's never had something like this. The last time she'd been on a date, she'd been a proper teenager, and dating at Hogwarts or while on the run was a much different experience.

"It's almost as though you're trying to seduce me," Hermione says, laughing. She expects Pansy to counter her words, to say that something like that would never cross her mind. It's a joke, that's all it is. It's a joke right up until the point that she realizes she's in Paris, deciding on her dinner options, exhausted after a day of touring the city of love. Oh no, she's never going to be able to tell Harry or Ron they're clueless again without sounding like a hypocrite. "Are you?"

Pansy raises an eyebrow, takes a sip of her wine. She doesn't confirm or deny.

"This is so Slytherin of you," Hermione grumbles with too much affection. She would worry that she has the wrong idea, but Pansy would've shot her down had she only felt friendship. Pansy always enjoys letting people know exactly where they stand with her. It dawns on Hermione, like the crashing of waves against rock. "You like me." She means to question it, to savor even a moment of uncertainty, but Pansy's expression doesn't leave any room for doubt. Again, she says, "You like me." Perhaps even something else, something stronger, something Hermione can't yet say.

"Don't strain yourself," Pansy huffs. "I know emotions aren't your forte."

"That doesn't mean I'm an idiot. You like me." She doesn't know what else to do other than repeat the words. Somehow, they don't arrange themselves in ways that make any sense. "Why? How? When?" She needs all the facts.

Pansy rolls her eyes, but she allows it. "Why—because you're annoyingly cute and time travel caused brain damage. How—I don't know, it just happened. I realized I couldn't go a day without thinking about you. When—" She stops for a moment and shrugs, a forced sort of casualness in the line of her shoulders. "A while ago. A long while ago. I'm not admitting anything more."

"It's not a competition," Hermione replies. Swallowing, she reaches out across the table, palm up. Pansy's hand settles in hers, and across from her, Pansy herself looks lighter. "I'm not poking at you for weaknesses."

"I realized it a few months after we finished our mission," Pansy admits, her gaze centered on Hermione. "For a some time after, I wasn't sure I could accept it, but I then I admitted to myself that I already had. All that was left to do was decide how I would act."

"And you decided to take me to Paris." Hermione feels terribly warm all over. It's the warmth of a sun, a bluebell light, a small touch. Pansy is right—Feelings aren't her area of expertise. She can say all she likes about Ron having the emotional depth of a thimble, but when it comes down to it, Hermione tends to push hers down until they're completely subsumed by classes or the mission. She hadn't wanted to admit her own feelings even to herself for fear of heartbreak. Hermione should be used to heartbreak, but she doesn't think she could bear it coming from Pansy. Swallowing, she says, "Why—you believed in me when no one else did, back when I first proposed this idea. I remember when I introduced the concept to the new Order. Everyone thought I had gone crazy after Harry and Ron's deaths. But you—you just asked what I needed from you, and you gave it to me."

"I wasn't doing it completely for you," Pansy argues, something tentative about her words.

"No, of course you weren't. I didn't need you to. I just needed someone in my corner. And after a while... I found that all I needed was you. How—well, that's easy. Have you seen yourself? When—today, a year ago, maybe since before we even left the future. You're right, this isn't my forte. But I'd like it to be."

"Granger—"

"Hermione."

"Stop making me cry, I have makeup on," Pansy says through a smile. She doesn't look anywhere close to crying.

Hermione could kiss her.

Hermione could kiss her. 

And Hermione does, leaning in across the small table until her lips press against Pansy's. Their hands are still joined. Somewhere far away, there's a whole world beyond their table, but Hermione can't think of anything except the softness of Pansy's lips. She hopes that Pansy had been optimistic enough to book them a single room because she doesn't plan to leave Pansy's side for the rest of the evening. And the trip, and the summer, and maybe it's because she's giddy with joy, but Hermione wouldn't mind the rest of their lives as well.

Notes:Thanks for reading!