Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his whole universe belongs to J. K. Rowling and her associates. I'm just having a good time playing with it all, and I - unlike the owner - don't make a penny from it.

A/N: Set in an AU where Voldemort was defeated by some unspecified means around Christmas in the Trio's 7th year. It's based in part on the plot device from Bingblot's 'A Long Way Home' which I've just read - again. I like Bing's writings a lot, but I'm really not in the mood for teary forgiveness and eternal happiness right now, so I've decided to take the initial setup, move it to a time and place of my choosing and give it what I think is the darkest twist I've given a story yet. And no, I really don't hate Hermione (which should be evident by my confession that I read and re-read Bingblot's stories). It's just her bad luck that she was the leading lady in the story that set me off.

Her biggest mistake

Romford, Greater London, May 19th 2006

A thoroughly depressed Hermione Granger stepped off the train at Romford Station after a mercifully short day at work. Well... Actually it was her boss who'd sent her home early. Arthur Weasley knew all too well that today of all days, her mind wasn't at her work but at Hogwarts eight years prior, the day she made the biggest mistake of her life. She hadn't been really happy ever since that day, and the only times since then she was seen smiling - albeit sadly and wistfully - was when she looked at her son. What had happened that day wasn't known to many, but the Weasley family knew a little bit of it, so when Arthur had come to the office after a meeting with the Minister, he'd been surprised to find her there at all; taken one look at her dull eyes and defeated attitude and sent her home, knowing what this day meant to her. She still didn't know what had possessed her to make her take the train rather than apparating to the designated apparition point at the station or directly home, but the decision was about to be added to the things that haunted her.

Today was a Friday, and her parents had long since volunteered to have James over for the weekend, so she now had two and a half days to wallow in her self-inflicted misery. She wasn't quite sure if that was a blessing or not. Of course there wouldn't be anybody in her small flat - which she hated but still lived in because it was only a couple of hundred yards from her parents' house - to yell at her for drinking herself into unconsciousness tonight, but there wouldn't be anybody to comfort her tomorrow either, not that there could ever be any real comfort when it came down to it.

Suddenly she was pulled out of her depressed musings when she walked straight into the back of another passenger on the platform. "I'm terribly sorry," she squeaked automatically as she righted herself, taking in the sight of the person from behind.

She had torpedoed a man. He was thin, shorter than average even when she counted in his slouching, and had black hair in a limp ponytail. He wore scruffy black dragonhide boots (Dragonhide? As far as she knew, the only wizard in Romford and neighbouring towns was her son, and the adult wizards she knew - almost all Weasleys - knew better than to look her up on this date), well worn - most would say worn out - black jeans that looked like they'd been slept in, and a heavy, black leather jacket - much too heavy for an unusually warm day in May - with a black canvas rucksack slung over one shoulder. She surreptitiously gripped her wand as the stranger began to turn, and as he turned more she saw 4-5 days worth of beard on his chin and cheap plastic-framed glasses on his nose. A feeling of dread assaulted her as she took in the full frontal view of the man in front of her. The picture she already had was completed by the black t-shirt under the open jacket - this man's colour-scheme definitely matched her mood today - and a sharp, sallow face with thin, bloodless lips. The feeling of dread intensified to just short of a full blown panic attack. She really wanted to... She really didn't want to... She had to! She moved up her gaze a few inches and looked straight into a pair of dull, lifeless green eyes below an unmistakable scar. Her breath hitched and her vision blurred.

"H-H-Harry?"

Harry looked around at the platform with complete disinterest, not really taking in what he saw. A complete lack of interest had been the norm for him for years now - if you're indifferent to everything, not much can hurt you after all. His indifference went so deep that although he knew that his new house was in this town, he didn't actually know where he was. Oh, he knew he was in Romford, but he couldn't tell anybody where that was if his life depended on it, and he couldn't care less.

Harry Potter was a wizard, that much he knew. He didn't remember much magic though, not that he really cared about that either. He could apparate, although in order to do that he had to know where he was going, and that cut the usefulness down to near zero. He had a picture of his new house so he could apparate there if he needed to, and he would probably remember the station for a couple of days so he could go there too, but that was about it. The only other place he really remembered was the Settlement in Minnesota, but even he knew that he couldn't apparate that far. He could shave magically too, whenever he managed to remember the charm, and he could cure a hangover - the only spell he'd used regularly over the last many years. He'd forgotten how many.

He knew he was in England. During a bout of lucidity a while back he'd commissioned somebody to find him a house here, away from magical folk, but he'd long since forgotten when, who and why. A while later there had been a letter in the envelope with money that came to him from time to time (yes, he'd forgotten how and why, but he gladly took the money anyway) with a description of a small two bedroom house in Romford, and he'd just have to mark 'yes' or 'no' in order to buy or reject. There was one witch registered in the area, but that was the best they - whoever 'they' were - could do on the budget he'd given. Harry marked 'yes' - not that he knew why - and half an hour later he'd forgotten all about it. Snow, poor quality Brown Sugar, ganja and booze in copious amounts will do that to you.

This morning he'd had an envelope again, but this time it held a different kind of money and a set of keys. The money sparked enough recognition that he had an idea where he was supposed to go, and according to the letter the keys would take him to the train station there, a short walk from his new house so he would see where the local shops were on his walk there. He even remembered why he wanted to go there in the first place. When he was lucid - as rare as it was - he was well aware that he hadn't taken care of himself. On the contrary! His diet over the last indeterminable number of years had mostly consisted of tinned baked beans, bourbon and whatever dope he could get his hands on, and he didn't think he had much time left, so his thought had been that if he died in England he would be able to lie next to his parents - wherever they were. And if he couldn't, he guessed that he wouldn't care overmuch seeing as he'd be dead. Free... Harry Potter didn't live any more anyway... He existed, and Romford - wherever in England that was - was as good a place to wait for death as any.

Of course since that was more than an hour ago, he'd forgotten all about it. He'd finished his breakfast - a half g of Dominican ganja and a quarter bottle of Old Grand-Dad - and then automatically put on his special cloak. He couldn't recall why, but he always wore it when he travelled. It also made getting booze and dope a whole lot easier and cheaper. He found the letter again and read the instructions in it, and then he clutched the keys and waited. A few minutes later he was here after an unpleasant feeling in his belly. It was almost as unpleasant as waking up. He'd taken off the cloak in the deserted corner of the station that he'd arrived in, and a few seconds later someone bumped into him.

"H-H-Harry?"

The dull eyes didn't even blink, and the gaunt face didn't change expression at all. "I'm sorry ma'am," he said in a raspy voice, not even focusing on her.

"H-Harry. I kn-know it's you!" She could even hear the tears in her voice herself.

All she got was an unfocused look that lasted maybe a second, and then he turned and began to walk away from her.

"Harry! I'm so sorry. Please don't go. Talk to me," she pleaded, tears not only in her voice now.

There was no indication that he'd even heard her, as he continued his walk away from the station.

Hermione was thunderstruck. She had envisioned this day for almost eight years, and this was nothing like what she'd imagined it would be. She had thought he would rail and rant at her, call her names and maybe even curse her, but he didn't react to her at all. There was no indication of what they'd once been - no indication that he even knew her.

Her mind went into overdrive as she picked up her pace to follow him. Maybe he really didn't know her. And even worse, maybe he didn't know himself either. He hadn't as much as twitched when she called his name, and she'd thought it was a way of punishing her. Ignoring her completely. But what if he didn't know the name was his? The man up ahead of her was Harry, that much she was sure of, but he looked wrong, he sounded wrong, and his reactions were wrong. Then a horrifying thought hit her. The man - Harry, her lost love - reminded her of Frank and Alice Longbottom, the aurors who were now on their third decade in the permanent ward at St. Mungo's, their minds irretrievably gone. She choked back a sob and broke into a run to get ahead of him so she could stop him.

She finally got around him on a small walking path behind the shopping centre, and as soon as she was ahead she stopped and turned to face him. "Can I talk to you please?"

To her relief he stopped, but nothing in his posture or expression changed.

"Harry... It's me, Hermione."

Nothing happened.

"Please Harry, talk to me," she pleaded again, tears flowing freely.

Harry's expression didn't change, and there was no sign that he'd heard her - or even that he knew she was there.

"I'm so sorry Harry. I'm so so sorry," she cried. "I know I hurt you and I know I don't deserve it, but I've been praying for a chance to make it up to you for eight years. Please Harry, let me make it up to you."

She might as well have spoken to a brick wall. Harry's stance and look didn't change at all, and what Hermione finally saw scared her witless.

'It's not that he doesn't react. He simply can't change what isn't there. His eyes are empty, he has no expression and he has no body language at all. It's like he's dead!' She thought quickly as Harry began to move again. 'Perhaps I can shock him out of it'.

"Harry, don't go, please. I need to tell you something." She swallowed hard as she was about to reveal to him just how badly she'd screwed up. "I... I was pregnant Harry. I have a son. We... You have a son Harry. A family."

He reacted, she was sure of it! There was a flicker of life in his eyes - but a tenth of a second later it was gone again, and she might just have imagined it. Wishful thinking. "No," he rasped as he turned away from her. "No, that was denied me a long time ago." He pulled a picture out of his pocket and looked at it, and a second later he disappeared with a thunderous crack.

Hermione's mind stopped processing. She sank to her knees when she finally realised the full price of her mistake and cried her heart out, just like she'd done eight years ago.

8 Richmond Road, Romford, May 19th 2006

Harry appeared in the sheltered garden with a crack, and promptly dropped to the ground. The meeting with Hermione; what she'd said; and the apparition that followed had joined together to at least momentarily pull him out of his stupor. He'd gone from a disassociated mind to fully lucid in less than a second.

"Damn her!" he sobbed. "Damn her to Hell! Why did she have to be here?"

Without even looking at the house he'd bought to die in, he rose shakily. Pulling up a long forgotten memory he stuck his hand into his rucksack and withdrew a blue disc of some indeterminable material that functioned as both a portkey and as a homing device for his money-letters. Clutching it in his hand he whispered "Glorgvok", and a hook in his guts dragged him away from Romford just fast enough that he never saw the perfect clone of his father who peered over the fence, trying to see what had made the sound that normally meant the arrival of guests when it came from their own garden.

Gringott's Bank, Diagon Alley, May 19th 2006

Startling a Goblin took some doing, but Glorgvok Spinesplitter was startled right now. The wards on his office had alerted him to an incoming portkey, and what startled him was the specific portkey he was being warned about. He had manufactured it personally eight years ago, and he'd long since given up on ever seeing either portkey or the holder again. He was aware that the client had just moved to London from North America, but he understood that it was done in order for the client to die in his home country and be buried alongside his parents. Using a portkey to come to his office was not consistent with that.

Before the Vault-Master could take his train of thoughts any further, a visibly distraught Harry Potter arrived in his office, landing less than gracefully in a heap on the floor. After some frantic looking around, his wild eyes finally landed on Glorgvok, and bypassing all formalities the shaking man got right to business.

"I need a portkey to where I was this morning," he said breathlessly, "...and I need it now. The cost can be whatever you want as long as I am out of here really soon." Then he seemed to retreat into his own mind, and Glorgvok heard him murmur "it can't be" and "why her?" over and over.

Most Goblins would've taken this whole spectacle as an affront, but Glorgvok had dealt enough with this client to know that he wasn't in his right mind now. With a shrug he took the young man's rucksack, pulled out the set of keys that he'd used to travel this morning and checked for the starting point, and then placed the enchantment on the sack before handing it back.

"Free of charge, Mr. Potter. Now go."

Harry Potter left Britain less than an hour after returning there from eight years of exile.

Head Girl's room, Hogwarts, May 19th 1998

Hermione was fidgeting. There was no other way to say it. She was incredibly nervous about how Harry was going to react to what she had to say, but she knew she was right. She'd thought it through, weighed up pros and cons, factored in everything she knew. This was the right way to go and Harry would come to see that, and if everything turned out as she hoped it would, it would just be a temporary thing.

Her life had more or less exploded after Harry's defeat of Voldemort just after Christmas. Harry had been grievously injured in the fight and had spent a month in the Hospital Wing, and Hermione had been by his side every free moment she had, and as the month passed they'd grown emotionally closer until Harry finally gathered up his courage and asked her to be his girlfriend. Hermione had been speechless for several seconds then. No matter how much closer they'd grown, she never had seen that one coming. He was Harry Potter after all, saviour of their world at least twice, most eligible bachelor in Britain and surrounding continents who could point at any witch he wanted and he'd get her, and she was just the plain know-it-all. She wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth though, and they'd been blissfully happy in the four months since. Even the sex had been fantastic - oddly enough given that they'd both been virgins until two months ago. The first couple of times had been less than stellar of course, but they'd gotten the hang of it pretty quickly and it just kept getting better. Over the last week though, she had come to think deeper about what they were - or more precisely she was - doing. She was tying Harry down. With the destiny that had been hanging over him, he'd never had a chance of a real relationship, and now she felt that he was settling for her, perhaps out of loyalty or maybe out of fear of the unknown. She was safe - as he'd said a couple of weeks after he'd asked her: They'd been dating for almost seven years without knowing it.

She wasn't going to do that to him. After all... If you love someone, set them free.

...

An hour later, same place

"Y-You're dead set on breaking up with me?" Harry stopped his pacing, and his look was one of complete devastation.

Hermione was at the end of her wits. They'd been talking about this - well, she'd been talking and he'd been trying to say 'no' - for 45 minutes now, and she still hadn't managed to get her point across. "No! Yes... Ohh I don't know what to call it," she cried out in frustration. This wasn't going anywhere near how she'd envisioned it. "I want you to go out and meet - maybe even date - some of the other girls out there. So many girls want you Harry, and you deserve the best; the one that's just right for you. I... I don't want you to settle for me, Harry. I want you to be with me because you know without a doubt that it's the best for you, and how can you know that when you've never known anybody else?" she asked him, elegantly disregarding that she considered Harry the best for her without having known others.

Harry took up pacing again. "I don't want anybody else!" he shouted. "I want you, and I thought you wanted me."

She took a deep breath, hating what she was about to do. "You said you'd always be supportive of what I want," she reminded him.

Harry stopped as if he'd hit a wall, and spoke without even looking at her. "Yes... I did," he acknowledged in a tone that cut straight through her, "...but I never thought that you'd use it against me." He made for the door. "Goodbye Hermione," he whispered, and then he was gone.

Gryffindor common room, May 20th 1998

Ginny looked up from her pre-breakfast revision to see a frazzled looking, red-eyed Hermione. "Good morning," she greeted her, "what's troubling you today?"

"Have you seen Harry?" Hermione asked without acknowledging the greeting. She'd spent all night thinking the whole deal over again, and this time she had actually seen the hypocrisy of what she'd done. She was desperate to fix this, and she knew she had a lot of grovelling to do.

"No, not since he went to your room last night. Was he gone when you woke up?" It wasn't exactly a secret that the only times Harry had been in his dorm these last four months had been to change clothes.

Ron chose that moment to come thundering down the stairs from the boys' dorms. "Hermione!" he called. "What the bloody hell is going on? You look even worse than Harry did last night, and now he's gone."

Hermione flinched. "We... We had a misunderstanding and we broke up. I need to talk to Harry and fix it." Then the meaning of Ron's words hit her like a hammer and she blanched. "What do you mean he's gone?" she asked fearfully. "I'm sure he's just gone to sleep in the Room of Requirement. He'll be at breakfast."

"I mean he's gone," Ron stated flatly. "His robes and books and cauldron are on his bed, and his trunk and broom are gone."

"No!" Hermione whispered as she sank to her knees, an icy ball forming in her stomach. "Please, dear God, no!"

Ron and Ginny looked at each other over the head of their crying friend, identical looks of dread on their faces.

The Burrow, Devon, May 19th 2006

The Burrow was a sombre place on this date every year, and it had been today as well, at least until a frantic Hermione had appeared in the garden and babbled about seeing Harry. That would after all be the first time since 1998.

After a while they had calmed her down enough to make a little sense, but her descriptions - intermixed with hysterical excuses - still didn't tell them much, so in the end they had opted for seeing her memory of today in a pensieve. Seeing their friend in that state had shocked the assembled Weasleys - Arthur, Molly, Bill, Fleur, Ron, Demelza and Ginny - to their cores, but none of them understood what could have made him so. They all knew a little bit about what had transpired that day at Hogwarts, but when Hermione tried to tell them the whole thing she couldn't. That was why seven deathly pale Weasleys were now emerging from the ornate bowl for the second time today - six of them nauseous from the thought of how Harry's life must have been since then, and the seventh shaking with fury.

Ginny found her footing, bent over the table and hauled off in one fluid motion, and thanks to both surprise and the fact that six years as a starting Chaser had built up quite a bit of power in her throwing arm, the slap sent Hermione sideways out of her chair and crashing to the floor, and before anybody could react she was standing over her, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"You stupid, ignorant, heartless bitch! If you really hated him that much, why couldn't you at least have shown some mercy and killed him outright instead of just breaking him?" Tears coursed down a completely unhinged Ginny's cheeks. "'A misunderstanding' you said. You destroyed him!" She groped for her wand, but Ron disarmed her before she could get a hold of it.

Ginny rewarded him with a death glare, and then visibly clamped down on herself before turning to Hermione again. "Why did you do that to him?" she asked, her voice shaking with barely suppressed anger. "You of all people were supposed to know him and what that would do to him."

Hermione - wide-eyed, crying and shaking - desperately tried to get her mind working again but couldn't. Seeing Harry in the state he was in had been bad enough, but her best female friend of more than ten years had just hit her and then told her that she'd destroyed the love of her life. She was about to simply close down when Arthur appeared beside her and held a glass to her lips.

The shock of the large mouthful of firewhiskey broke her out of her stupor enough to at least attempt an answer. "I thought I did the right thing," she cried. "He didn't know what love was, and I didn't want him to find out later that he didn't love me like he thought he did. I did it for him!"

There was no sympathy to be found in the wall of Weasley faces in front of her. On the contrary, the most sympathetic she saw was Arthur's expression of intense disappointment, and from there it got gradually worse up to Ginny's shaking rage, not to mention that Bill was hard at work to try and keep his wife from transforming - which would with complete certainty see Hermione flash grilled. Where Harry had been Arthur and Molly's unofficial son, Ron's best mate and Ginny's protector/big brother/first crush; to Fleur he'd been her adopted little brother and confidant, and above all the one who'd saved her baby sister when she couldn't manage it herself. Fleur loved Harry like no-one else, and in a way that she couldn't love anyone other than him.

"How the bloody hell did anybody ever call you smart?" Ginny hissed. "No, of course he didn't know what love was. How could he with what the old man and Tom and the Dursleys did to him?" She stopped and tried to compose herself. "Then you came and showed him, and that's when he found out that he'd been in love with you since your first year..."

"He didn't..." Hermione tried to deny it, but Ginny cut her right off.

"He told me, Granger!" she growled. "Why do you think I stopped fighting for him? He told me that he never knew what it was that made you different until you showed him. He didn't kill Tom for our world, or for the Muggles, or for his parents. He did it because he loved you more than anything and Tom was a danger to you, and you rewarded him with this." She paused again to blow her nose and dry her face.

"You gave him four months to see what love was, and then you told him to go and find it somewhere else because he wasn't worthy of you. Killing him would've been better."

"I didn't..." Hermione protested, only to be cut off again.

"You were supposed to know him better than anyone," Ginny sneered at her. "You should've known that's how he would interpret it after all the crap he'd been forced to do 'for his own good'. How couldn't you know that he could only react in one way?" She gulped down a mouthful of air. "And then today - after eight years - you see him again, and the only thing you do is grab the knife in his gut and twist it!"

Suddenly Ron rose from his chair and disapparated with a crack. The remaining people in the room looked at each other with puzzled expressions, with the exception of Hermione who was trying hard to keep herself from dissolving completely.

Ron reappeared a few minutes later and took up pacing in front of them, completely unfazed with his mother and his wife scolding him for leaving like that. "Dobby came to me the next day," he said softly, twisting a small leather bag between his fingers as he paced, "...the day we discovered Harry was gone. He said that he'd found something in the litter bin in our dorm that belonged to his Harry Potter sir, but he couldn't find him to give it back." Ron swallowed audibly, and the tempo of his pacing went down a notch. "The little guy was quite out of it, and that's when I knew that he wasn't coming back." He stopped and looked at them. "After all, why would he ward his signature if not because he didn't want anybody to find him?" he asked rhetorically.

"Anyway, Dobby gave what he'd found to me, so I could keep hold of it and give it to Harry when he came back," he lifted the small bag and opened it, "...and that cemented it for me." He turned the bag upside down in his hand and held it out for them all to see.

The only sound that wasn't a sharp intake of air or a strangled gasp was the thump that alerted them to Hermione fainting. "That's... That's Lily's ring," Molly whispered, horrified.

"He was... He was going to propose to her, and she..." Fleur couldn't finish.

Suddenly Ginny exploded into action. Before anybody could react she snapped up the ring from Ron's hand and picked up her wand that he'd discarded on the table. "Rennervate" she cried out, pointing at Hermione. Then - just as she came to - the enraged redhead flung the ring at her. "Get out!" she hissed. "Get out you bitch, and pray you never see me again!" Trembling with rage the short woman desperately tried to concentrate on what she was about to do. "I hate you!" she hissed at her former best friend, just before she disapparated with a clap of thunder.

The People's Blue Rock Settlement, Minnesota, October 31st 2006

Buffalo Runner wasn't quite content when he returned from his trapping area this morning. No catches for three days was not normal. He didn't have to bait his traps these days of course - nobody did anymore - but he was old enough and respectful enough of the old ways that he felt a responsibility to keep his people's traditions alive. He was too old to run with the buffaloes now, but he could still prepare and set his traps for fox, badger and bobcat like the Hunkpapa had done for centuries, and keep the knowledge alive for another generation.

As he passed through the Sacred Woods just outside the Settlement, he decided to veer off his path and go see how He-lives-in-silence was faring with his construction project.

The People knew of the European Dark Wizard's campaign of terror in the late seventies and early eighties, as well as his miraculous defeat at the hands of a toddler, and they'd been properly appalled when he had gone against Nature and come back again, only to be defeated by the same boy once more. Only Buffalo Runner and two of the Settlement's Elders knew that He-lives-in-silence was that boy.

He'd been given his Sioux name after being nameless for nearly two years, living by himself on the outskirts of their community. He'd just turned up from out of nowhere one day in the fall of 1999, and set up his tent just outside the Settlement's boundaries. He'd been tan and strong back then, with only his expressionless eyes betraying that all was not well with the young man, and the older girls and young women of the Settlement had all but swarmed him, attracted like moths to a flame to the aura of tragedy he projected. As they'd all failed, a few young men had tried their luck too, but nobody of either gender ever came anywhere near. These days he was slow, pallid and emaciated, and The People had long since learnt to leave him to himself since he apparently preferred it that way.

A few days ago, a couple of boys had reported that He-lives-in-silence had begun tying poles and branches together in a clearing just east of the Sacred Woods. They speculated that he was finally building a hut to replace his tent that burned up a couple of years ago, but Buffalo Runner had his suspicions about that, and since he was close to the clearing he might as well go and get them confirmed.

Despite his suspicions, Buffalo Runner was surprised when he arrived in the clearing. In the centre stood a raised platform, and on it lay He-lives-in-silence stretched out on his back, dressed in new jeans and a new, white t-shirt. Below it a pyre was built, and among the firewood the old man could make out his boots, his beat-up leather jacket and the rucksack he always kept close to him. Squinting a bit he could see that the young man's chest still moved, and with a soft sigh he sat down a respectful distance away, to guard him and keep him company in his last act on this earth.

It wasn't that Buffalo Runner approved of what he was doing - consciously discarding your own life was not in accordance with Nature - but whatever merited a suicide that took seven years to complete had to be exceptionally bad. He pushed bad things away himself, and this young man had certainly earned the right to remove his bad things in any way he chose. Buffalo Runner leaned back on his heels and began his silent vigil.

It was several hours later, when the sun had begun its descent from its zenith, that Buffalo Runner felt a change in the clearing, and when he reached out with all his senses he found that there was nothing more alive on the platform. He-lives-in-silence lived no more.

Lacing his voice with all the magic available to him so that it would carry, he rose and began the chant to alert the Spirits that a warrior had left the mortal plane behind and was coming their way, and beseeching them that they treat him with leniency for he was a saviour who had sacrificed much.

As the chant came to an end, Buffalo Runner turned to see most of The Settlement standing in silence behind him, paying their respects to a man whose life had treated him badly. He raised his voice again for one single chant of the name of the deceased which was repeated by all, and then everybody left the clearing in silence. They would come back in three days to light the pyre laid by He-lives-in-silence and send his body to rejoin his essence, and in the meantime the ancient magics evoked would keep the place clear of anything that might harm He-lives-in-silence's remains.

Department of Family and Inheritance, Ministry of Magic, London, November 3rd 2006

"I, Harry James Potter, being of sound mind and body, declare this my last Will and Testament, written by my own hand at Gringott's London on the twentieth day of May 1998." The weedy man at the head of the table looked up from the parchment in front of him, looking for objection from those present. The only one not to display a sombre face was the short redhead near the other end of the table who was glaring Fiendfyre at the near-catatonic brunette across from her and probably would've done more if not for the restraining hands on both her shoulders.

"If there are no objections, I will continue with the reading of the Will in its entirety." No-one objected.

"Hello and thanks for coming. By now you may have managed to deduce that with a few exceptions you're here because you were to have been my family, had I ever been allowed one."

Hermione quite vividly felt a punch in the gut. While she was sure the dig wasn't aimed at her exclusively, she was without a doubt a major reason it was there. Harry hadn't needed it though - she was already as depressed as she possibly could be, only trying to hold herself together for James' sake. After all he couldn't be blamed for anything.

"As the first order of business I hereby inform the Ministry of Magic for the British Isles as well as the International Confederation of Wizards that I have obtained copyright protection of my name and image. Furthermore I inform those parties that I have reached an agreement with Gringott's London that the Goblin Nation will enforce this protection in perpetuity, with any fines and/or forfeits going to the Goblin Nation to be distributed at their pleasure. I declare that any public use of my name and/or image without my expressed permission is in violation of the copyright and must be destroyed within a week from the day this is read. I hereby grant permission to use my name and/or image to Xenophilius Lovegood for the article and interview written by Rita Skeeter for The Quibbler in February 1996. I also grant permission for the use of my name and/or image to be used in one chapter of 'The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts' detailing the second defeat of Tom Riddle, also known as Voldemort, with the proviso that said chapter is to be approved by Ronald and Ginevra Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood and Padma Patil who were all there in the end. All of those mentioned still alive must approve the chapter. If none of them are alive, the chapter cannot be approved and thus cannot be published. Lastly I grant a one-time permission to every periodical in the Magical community to print this Will in its entirety within a week after its reading. Printing it after the week is out will be a violation of the terms and a punishable offence.

I declare by my signature and my blood that I had nothing to do with the first defeat of Tom Riddle on Halloween night 1981. Tom was defeated by Lily Potter. I hope the blood supremacists choke on that.

Now for the good stuff: Dobby the House Elf, I give you one hundred Galleons from my vault, provided it still holds that much. Buy all the fancy socks you want and waste the rest my friend. You were always there for me and I thank you for that.

Remus Lupin, I leave you your finest work. The Marauders' Map is once again yours to bequeath as you see fit. I would also say that I'm sorry for leaving you behind, but only if the tally comes out to your advantage. You abandoned me for twelve years, and I suspect you're still the one owing me an apology and an explanation. If Remus is no longer alive, I leave the Map to Fred and George Weasley.

Arthur and Molly Weasley and their children and children in law with the exception of Percival, I leave each of you one hundred Galleons to go and get sloshed in my memory, still provided that I have that much to give away. Invite Remus along too if he's still around. He's a cheap drunk so it shouldn't take too much from the rest of you. I also leave my Firebolt to the Weasley family as a whole. Let the one who needs it the most have the use of it. Don't enshrine it people. Use it like it was meant to.

To the Goblin Nation I leave the Black and Potter seats in the Wizengamot, in the hope that your proxies will be able to use them to abolish the insane degrading of a race that is far superior to my own in terms of magic, honour and morals. Strange that the ones to treat me humanely aren't human. My own kind have consistently screwed me over since I was a year old, Goblins never have.

If the Minister is still Rufus Scrimgeour, I leave a few words. Rufus you're a twat! You are to protect and serve the people, not the other way around. You were given a golden opportunity - coming after Fudge people expected very little of you, but all you did was try to make yourself look good and keep your pasty arse in the comfiest chair of the government. If you're not Rufus, I don't know you and I probably don't care about you.

To the sheep that make up Britain's wizarding community I leave my wand provided it can be found. If you can find your arses without a map, I invite you to ram it up there so far it'll irritate your sinuses. You people are useless, spineless and undeserving. Thirty-five thousand individuals who couldn't even be arsed to lift their wands to defend themselves against fifty criminals, and you wonder why your community is going down the sewer. You have my contempt.

Anything I own that's not given away at this time is to be converted into Muggle currency. If you have my body I want to lie beside my parents wherever they are, and if all you have is this Will I want a headstone there. The stone is to be no more than half the size of my parents'. It is to have no frills, ornaments, images or decorations. It is to have my name and dates in as simple a manner as possible and absolutely nothing else. The Goblin Nation will oversee this as well. Once that is paid for, what is left is to be distributed in equal shares to UNICEF, Save the Children, and SOS Children's Villages

Finally the really heavy stuff. I was denied family by those who should've stood by me, and I'll be damned if I will give them my Families. I therefore as the last living member declare the Families Peverell, Slytherin, Gryffindor, Black and Potter disbanded and defunct from the day this is read. Also, since I have no doubt that golddiggers will flock with my 'lovechildren' once my death is known, I declare that I have no children, and no matter what any mother of any child may claim, nobody but those specifically mentioned in this document will receive anything, be it name, valuable or recognition.

Given under my seal, and signed by my hand and in my blood

Harry James Potter"

The silence would've been deafening, had it not been for Hermione breaking down. She'd been hurt that there was no mention of her at all, and that she was even excluded from the group specified to approve the chapter about Harry's defeat of Tom Riddle. She had expected to be hurt of course, but that didn't make it any easier. What really got to her though was the last paragraph. It clearly denounced everything they'd been to each other, and it condemned James to forever be the bastard son of a muggleborn witch. In a magical Britain that was still as obsessed with heritage as ever that was about the lowest you could be, and her dreams of James attending Hogwarts as hers and Harry's son suffered a brutal death right there and then. When his time came he would go to school in America, and she might even go there to live. It wasn't as if she'd be missed by anybody but her parents.

If she had seen Ginny Weasley's eyes at that moment, she would've had another reason to leave Britain as soon as possible.

Minister Scrimgeour sat like he'd been petrified. Not only had Harry Potter just killed five Ancient Families, but he'd killed the Minister's career as well. As if the frank opinion he'd expressed wasn't enough, Scrimgeour was the one left with the task of ordering the removal of every statue, bust and plaque that honoured The-Boy-Who-Lived, everything that related to Voldemort's first downfall in Godric's Hollow, as well as renaming Harry Potter Square in London and Harry Potter Close in Hogsmeade. Harry's declarations had cut so deeply and precisely that he was effectively taking the people's hero away from them, and he would not be able to survive that politically.

Ron and Bill shared a long look before they grabbed hold of a woman each. Bill took his wife and Ron took his sister and then proceeded to steer them out of the room, as far away from Hermione as possible before something could happen. Neither woman had had any contact with her since that day in May, and the men had kept what contact they had short and impersonal. It was mostly when they went and picked up James for his playdates with Bill's and Fleur's eldest daughter that they met. James was a universally well loved boy, and they had all agreed that he wasn't to blame for any of this, but that didn't make it any easier not to blame his mother. They also both made the same conclusion that Hermione did: This was going to hit James hard in the long run, and they both independently vowed to see what could be done to make it easier on him. They couldn't know that Hermione had already taken it out of their hands.

Headmistress Sprout was just overall sad. That a former student of hers had died this young was bad enough, but he'd made a few oversights in his Will to make it even worse. Even though she knew he wouldn't want it, she was now tasked with going back to Hogwarts and remove his award for special service as well as the pictures and plaques that commemorated the successful Gryffindor Quidditch-team that he'd been a part of. That wouldn't go down well at all, but what could she do?

Oldchurch Cemetery, Romford, September 19th 2025

The stone was as unobtrusive as the woman resting below it had been for most of her life. It was square with sharp edges and no frills, just like the one that stood in memory of her lost love in the other end of the country. His was black basalt however, with white letters, where this one was red granite with golden letters. She never was quite able to get past her Hogwarts House - the place where she'd had a sense of belonging.

"Happy birthday mum." The young man knelt in front of the stone, kissed his fingertips and transferred the kiss to the stone.

Hermione Jane Granger

19-9-1979 - 19-5-2018

Beloved daughter

Devoted mother

The only thing to last forever is regret

...was written in shiny, newly polished letters.

"I see gran has already been here," he commented on the high shine as he placed his wreath of wild flowers alongside those already there.

The last line on the stone was courtesy of uncles Ron and Bill, and it had been debated rather heatedly before James himself had cut in and placed it there. The line above it was his and he wasn't particularly proud of it, but it had felt like the right thing to do. Truth be told it wasn't entirely correct. He did have early memories of her as a devoted mother, but after her chance encounter with his father she just fell apart and lost interest in life - her own and everybody else's. He knew now that she really had wanted to be the best mum she could and that she'd tried her level best to be what he needed her to be, but she'd lost the spark that day and it never returned. The physical distance between them once he'd gone to Salem hadn't made their mother/son relationship any easier, and he suspected that she would've ended things ten years earlier if it wasn't because he was still underage.

In a way, he mused, him being so far away - as hard as it had been for him - must have been sort of a relief for her. After seeing gran Weasley's pictures of his father he could plainly see that he must have been a painful, constant reminder to her of what she'd lost. Except for his eyes - which gran Weasley said were nearly identical to his grandfather's - he was an exact copy of his father, and seeing him all the time couldn't have been easy for her.

"It's been three years mum, and I'm sorry for that," he began talking to the memory of her again, "...but they've been busy years and I have much to tell you now." He looked over his shoulder at the statuesque, bronze-coloured woman with the baby in her arms. "I've... I've gotten married mum, and we have a daughter. You remember I wrote you about dating Spring Flower in my sixth year I'm sure. Well... We got married two years ago, and we moved up to her people last year. She's an Oglala Sioux if I haven't already told you." He swallowed audibly. Saying the next was hard, even if the 'listener' was long dead and buried.

"I... I've found my father," he finally ground out, "...or at least I've found out where he hid himself and what happened to him." He swallowed again. "When Spring and I got married it was a traditional American magical ceremony. We even had it in the formal garden at Salem. The thing was... we wanted Spring's people's blessing as well, so we went to Blue Rock in Minnesota - that's where she grew up - to get married the Sioux way too." He shook his head at the way Fate's strings were sometimes interwoven.

"The Elder who performed the Rite said I looked exactly like someone who lived around there twenty years ago, and then he told me about a man they called He-lives-in-silence. He lived among them for seven years and they never heard him say a word mum!" James was still as shaken as he'd been the first time he heard that piece of information.

"The Elder knew his original name, but he wouldn't tell me. Well, at least not until I asked if it was him. It was! Spring even saw him a few times when she was a little girl, but she was only five when he d-died so she can't recall him looking like me. She remembers him as someone the kids were afraid of because of how he looked."

This was harder than he'd thought it would be. He still had a hard time picturing the shy, righteous, kind-hearted teenager that his mother, gran Weasley and all the Weasley aunts and uncles had told him about, as being the indifferent, silent ghost of a man whose end had seen him become part of Settlement Lore.

"I told him that Harry was my father, and a little about what had happened to make him leave Britain, and he said that he understood a few things better, knowing that." He heaved in a too large breath and had to let it out again quite explosively. "Then he told me that he'd been with him when... when he died." James made no attempt to stop the tears that trickled down his face.

"He... He did it himself mum," he whispered. "In a way it was both simpler and much more elaborate than what you did." He thought back to that day seven years earlier when his grandfather - knowing what the day meant to his daughter - had gone to check in on her and found her lying in her bed, her hands neatly folded around her wand on her chest, dead from having shot the killing curse at herself. Ironically his father had died in the exact same position, only he hadn't had his wand on him.

"He built a funeral platform and climbed up and laid down on it, and then he just waited to die mum." He swallowed and shook his head. He'd never been quite able to wrap his mind around what his father had done - the conviction it would've taken to just lie there and wait for death to take him. Everybody had always told him that whenever his dad got into his head that something needed doing he would see it done come Hell or high water, but he'd never thought that he would've been capable of taking it to such an extreme.

"The Elder came by and saw what he was doing, and he sat down to guard him and so he wouldn't be alone, and when dad was dead he performed the chant to clear the way to the Spirits for him." He felt more than he saw his wife and daughter come up to stand beside him. He really couldn't see much right now as the tears blinded him, but by now they were cleansing more than from frustration or grief. He'd thought for some time that he'd come to terms with his parents' actions, but as usual Spring was right when she said he needed this. He had accepted already before his mother's suicide that both his parents had been emotionally crippled - his father from the horror that was his childhood and from what Dumbledore and Britain's magical community had put him through later, and his mother from being the outcast all her childhood because of her intelligence and from her almost complete lack of self-confidence in anything not related to academics - and that a small mistake born of insecurity had been blown completely out of proportion because of it, so that it eventually caused the deaths of two fragile, lost people who just happened to be his parents. What he hadn't worked through, most likely because he didn't know it was there, was his anger. Subconsciously he'd been angry with his mother for causing the whole thing, and with his father for disintegrating just because his girlfriend did something stupid - something that could've been resolved in an hour with a level head and a bit of thought.

Now though, he was beginning to understand that his mother couldn't have done anything differently, and that his father couldn't either. For better or worse it had been who they were - what their lives had made them. His mother would always let her mind overrule her emotions, and his father would always suffer from fear of rejection and from his belief that he wasn't worthy. It wasn't like they'd set out to deliberately keep him from experiencing a home with a mum and a dad; it had just happened that way because all the wrong conditions had been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

He turned slightly and put his arm around his wife's waist, drawing her closer. "Mum, I'd like to introduce Spring Flower - or Joan Granger as she's known in this part of the world - my wife. I know you didn't approve when I wrote you about dating her because I was in sixth year and she was only in third." He cracked a lopsided smile that everybody who'd been at Hogwarts in the nineties would've recognised as his father's. "Well... She was fourteen and the most mature student in the school, and we stuck together mum. If what you had with dad..." His breath hitched. "...if what you had was anywhere near what we have, I guess I can sort of understand why you both went to pieces." He paused to compose himself. "It doesn't make it right and I miss you so much, but I forgive you both."

He reached over and took the small, light brown girl from her mother. "This is our daughter," he announced, pride obvious in his voice. "She was born on April 1st, bringing a bit of joy to uncle Fred on his birthday, but I'll tell you about that later." His expression turned sad for a brief moment, but the loving smile came back quickly. "She's got her mum's wonderful eyes and my impossible hair. Poor girl, although one out of two isn't all bad. We've named her Hermione," he said bashfully, "because both Spring and I thought that the world needed a Hermione Granger in it. Buffalo Runner - he's the Elder I told you about - has honoured her with a Sioux name as well. He acknowledged her connection to dad and called her She-came-from-silence, so that's how she's known in the Settlement." James turned sombre. "She will get to know everything I can find out about her grandparents, mum. I promise you that."

He gave his daughter back to his wife and knelt before the stone again. "I suppose that gran has already told you that she's debating moving to America with us, but now I've told you too. After granddad died last summer, she doesn't have anything left here but memories of you and him. I don't know what she'll decide, but we'll always come by from time to time to see you if she moves with us." He steeled himself for the next one. "I promised to tell you about Hermione's birthday. You know it's the same as uncles Fred and George, but only Fred knows that. Uncle George died in March, so Hermione showing up meant that uncle Fred still has someone in the family who shares his birthday. We haven't been told why, but the two of them had gone and gotten themselves seriously drunk, and uncle George being uncle George decided to show the world that he was still better than most on a broom. The Welsh Green he was trying to provoke into a race didn't think so, so she made flambé of him." He gave a watery chuckle. "Of course aunt Angelina was being herself, so instead of crying at the funeral she stepped up to the grave and read him a ten minute riot act. She doesn't take it well though, so aunt Demelza forced her to move in with her and uncle Ron. Now there's a wager on whether Angelina will kill him or he'll kill her." He rose once again.

"The Weasleys all send their love." He winced. "Well... Almost all of them. I'm afraid aunt Ginny and aunt Fleur still haven't forgiven you, and they probably never will. They've agreed that Hermione doesn't need to know that though, and I guess that's something at least." His arm went back around his wife's waist.

"Good-bye mum. I'll be around from time to time. I hope you've found dad and that you're together as you should've been." The little family turned and left the cemetery, both adults lamenting how much damage one little mistake could cause, but on the other hand something positive did come from it for him, despite the shadow it had cast over his childhood. Had James' parents been together, he would never have gone to Salem and he wouldn't have met Spring, but despite it working out for Spring and himself personally, in the end that one mistake had left the world a much poorer place.

Fin

There it is. I don't really like it much so I wasn't going to upload it, but the Missus found it, liked it (probably because despite everything it's actually somewhat nice to Ginny), and demanded it published, and what Mrs. Itsme wants, Mrs. Itsme gets.

Let me reiterate: I do not hate Hermione! On the contrary, I like her character and the almost endless possibilities it offers. Some may see this fic as bashing her, but it honestly isn't meant to, and I don't think it does.

I wrote this fic when I was at the darkest point of my life so far, and I was feeling less than charitable towards everybody, fictional or real. I read Bingblot's fic and decided to explore what could happen if Hermione's mistake wasn't resolved as it was there, so I simply imagined what either character would do in the situations that appeared on the screen and just picked the worst results each time, and the result came up dark enough to match my mood at the time. Hermione made one mistake. It wasn't even that big, but the consequences were. Harry made even more: He overreacted and failed to apply one ounce of common sense to the problem; he tucked his tail between his legs and ran, rather than trying to solve it, and by the time they met again nothing could save neither the situation nor him. I can honestly see canon-Harry react like this with the carpet pulled away from under him.

One mistake can go unnoticed or it can cause complete destruction. Hermione failed to think something through and things spiralled from there. In real life a man failed to put up a small yellow sign, and as a result I lost my hand and a young family lost their husband and father.

I'll shut up now

/Itsme