The snow that fell yesterday had frozen overnight into that strange, dry-feeling ice-powder. Hermione could tell because the crunch of it under her boots was more audible than it had been yesterday. She could hear the audible crunch, discern the kind of snow, because apart from her footsteps, there was complete silence in the cemetery.
It was the dead of winter, so the plants were dead and the animals gone. It was several months after he had died, so the cemetery was empty. Nor was snow falling any longer. Frozen snow on the ground, it absorbs sound waves, reducing ambient noise. She'd read about that. So it was the strange sort of silence you could only find on a winter day.
It wasn't disturbing to her. Maybe because she wasn't mourning anymore. That had passed now; there were no more tears, no sobbing. Hermione wasn't even sure she was unhappy – she just felt drained.
When she came to his grave, it wasn't really to speak with him or pray for his soul or something stupid but comforting like that. It wasn't to remember him either. Not really.
It was to be selfish. To think wistfully, constantly, "if only...".
If only she had known. If only she had known.
When Harry died, Hermione wasn't near him. She was fighting another fight. Far off, in her mind. Away from the others. Her and enemies and no one else. She hadn't been there when he died. She hadn't saved him, nor any of the people who died afterwards in the chaos his death caused.
Hermione hadn't known at the time. Or maybe she just hadn't understood. There were spells flying, people screaming and dying and fighting, the very walls crumbling, like the castle, too, was dying in battle.
If only she could go back. Go back to that battle. She could save him. Fire that evil spell that had killed Voldemort before Voldemort killed Harry. Or at the very least... she could have been there. If only... she could do that battle one more time. Do better. And no one, not even Harry, would have to die.
"What if I can do you one better?" A woman's voice called out from behind her, startling her. She turned quickly, her hand on her wand inside her pocket.
It was just a woman. A witch, from the way she was dressed. In all that silence, in her thoughts, Hermione had not heard her approach.
"I'm sorry?" She asked, her voice hoarse and dry as a bone, low, and effortless. Perhaps she'd spent too much emotion recently to feel anything now. She'd finally said goodbye to Ron just last week. They'd been in limbo for such a long time now... and she couldn't hold him there anymore. He clearly needed someone. She just didn't have it left in her to be that someone.
But back to the situation at hand.
"I'm a little disappointed here, you know. I don't write prophecies just so they won't be fulfilled. You went and ruined that. Killed him. And now you only want to redo a battle? It's offensive." The woman said.
Hermione's grip on her wand tightened. She wasn't stupid. That woman was speaking, to her, nonsense, but also saying something she shouldn't know.
"I don't know what you mean," Hermione said tensely, sizing up the situation.
"I mean," Said the woman, crossing her arms and smiling, "You've hit the jackpot. You want to go back, don't you? 'If only I'd known,' all that? I can do you better than that, much better. No one would have to die at all. Hardly fight. Wouldn't that be nice? See, you'd just have to do one thing for me."
Hermione remained silent.
The woman sighed, "So tense, aren't you? My apologies, this is really the first time I've done this. It's a bit of an experiment. Let me try to explain things better, so that you an understand. Why do you think true prophecies always come true?"
Hermione stared, silent. "That's what prophecies are, isn't it?" She finally said.
"Bzzt, wrong!" The woman said, cutting off her last word halfway through. "It's because I make them come true. It's kind of what I do. Never quite like I'm planning. Ordinarily, I would go back and tweak things. Change the little parts. But this time, I'm a bit upset.
"It was all written out, you see. Had already already happened, as I saw it. But maybe we're in a different book." The woman looked at Hermione with a strange edge to her eye, "I don't want to do it all over again quite the same way round. Fulfilling prophecies day and night, it does get boring, don't you know? Maybe if I didn't write quite so many I wouldn't have that problem. Can't help myself, can I?"
"You're rambling," Hermione said coldly, keeping herself at a distance.
The woman smiled at her.
"I am, aren't I?" She said, "Forgive me. Haven't spoken to anyone properly in a very, very long time. Let me get to the point, then. You're a smart girl. I'm sure you've figured out what I'm hinting at. You just need proof to believe it.
"I have the power to send you back. Back much further than that distressing battle. You'd be a little girl on a train again, with knowledge being your power to fight the future. I know you'd like that. Lonely, maybe – they wouldn't know you anymore. But you could see them. Save them."
"Mmhm." Hermione said, trying the play the strange woman's gain, "The catch?"
"My prophecy." The woman said, "I want it filled. Properly – I want Harry killing Voldemort or Voldemort killing Harry. And you don't get to kill that Dark Lord till Harry succumbs to his battle wounds, should you unexpectedly choose the second path. Not like you did, ruining everything. Harry was living, if barely, but that counts. He didn't kill Voldemort, but Voldemort still died. Blah. I'm not angry, so don't worry. It's not as if you knew."
Were this woman trustworthy, that might have been emotionally distressing news. Maybe not. Maybe Hermione didn't care exactly how he died.
She wanted to say something to this woman. Be angry. Speaking like that, about him – she should be angry, but she was not. She said nothing.
"There's a reward, too. Past just going back. Well, not exactly a reward. Because I like you, Hermione."
Hermione jumped back in absolute shock. Not about what the woman had just said, but at the fact she had spontaneously moved four meters with neither visible nor audible magic to appear in front of Hermione and touch her face, as if for emphasis while she spoke.
"I like you a lot, actually! And the other gods, the ones who have more 'important' duties – they don't like me anymore. No one likes my prophecies – it was different in the old days. But now I'm lonely. I have such power... more than them, even if I choose to do less with it. I'll make you immortal, Hermione, once you do this thing for me. And if you should fail..." The woman laughed, actually laughed, "Well, it's all the same. Only I'll kill everyone instead. That way, you know. You have incentive."
Hermione stepped back, her face displaying her shock.
"Don't joke about that kind of thing," She said, finally angry.
"I'm sorry," The woman said, brushing her off, "I tend to forget – we gods have, what would you call it? 'Personal morality'. Once you've lived through enough human lifespans, those people don't matter, only the people you know will be there forever do. So you know, I matter, and you matter, and the other gods matter even if we don't like them... Rambling again, aren't I? Killing a mortal thing is very little, is what I'm saying. You'll understand in a few thousand years."
She spoke as if to a child.
"I'm adopting you," The woman said cheerfully.
There was utter silence. No snow falling. No leaves, no wind, no animals. No crunching of snow underfoot.
"I've been thinking about this for a while now. It's not a rash decision. And the prophecy too, that way you understand, and I get my prophecy how I want it, and all. Can't keep talking forever, can I? You still have a lifespan, right now. Well, I'll see you when the prophecy is fulfilled and then we can get that fixed up. I'll be watching you. Enjoy the train, Hermione."
And with that the woman was gone. It was as if she had apparated away, but without the noise. Hermione looked around her, but couldn't see her anywhere. The cemetery was empty again.
It had been a strange event. Hermione didn't feel safe, so she started making her way out quickly, looking over her back as she walked briskly through the crunch of the snow in the silence.
But a strange and foreign feeling filled her. She couldn't identify it, couldn't even describe it to herself. There was absolutely nothing she'd ever felt before that she could compare it to. This feeling was like seeing a new color. She could not define it, there were no words.
But she knew she did not like it. She fell, losing all control of her body. Yet she did not hit the earth – she fell, then she kept falling, tumbling through the snow, the dirt, into darkness. And she kept falling. She was Alice In Wonderland, minus the jars of marmalade on shelves. There was nothing, even darkness was a poor word to describe it. It was emptiness. Like the opposite of a black hole, pushing everything, even light, away from it. Everything but her. She tumbled to its center.
And then she opened her eyes.
Her feet were on the ground. The feeling gone, a sensation she could not remember. In front of her eyes of the Hogwarts Express.
And even if she didn't have the sense of proprioception to tell already, she would have realized from how her vision was so much lower than it had been before.
She was a child again. Eleven or twelve, she would guess. She could tell precisely, because she was clearly about to be boarding the Hogwarts Express.
