Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe or its brilliant characters owned by and brought to us by the brilliant J.K Rowling.

November 1999

All Harry had left behind was a letter, written in a hurry on a crumpled piece of parchment at the Burrow. When Hermione found it, she could hardly believe it, for a minute or two she thought it could only be a stupid joke, that any minute he would walk into the room with a playful grin and snap a photo of her reaction, although if she was honest with herself it would never be in his character to do something ridiculous like that.

November 2001

Hermione had believed in him, that he was only going away for a long holiday, to see the world and try to find himself after all that happened in the war and the losses that came with and long before its events as well. But when a few months turned into an entire year, then two—without letters, without a single postcard or a single photograph of him posing in front of a pyramid or surrounded by a tropical jungle, or even the bustle of any metropolis in the world, Hermione's certainty that it wasn't just a holiday, it wasn't just him traveling and trying to see the world sunk in.

November 2003

She imagined him having every intention to return, but not being able to because he'd been stranded on an island, a forest or a desert and without any effective means to contact her for help. She passed her Auror training, specialized in missing persons and homicide investigations. The missing persons was obvious to anyone who knew her, but the interest in homicide was the fruit of a deep fear that plagued, darkened and weighed on her heart, because a part of her dreadfully thought him to be dead.

Her best friend, her dearest friend had up and left with no intention of ever returning and it hurt more than the cruciatus curse—it hurt more than words could ever describe. The thought that constantly plagued her mind as she lay in bed at night trying to fall asleep was that Harry left without even saying goodbye and more than that, he'd unknowingly taken a huge amount of her heart.

Ron didn't want her anymore, was tired of constantly having to postpone their wedding and to content himself with what he had brilliantly described as just a shadow of herself. Where had the old, passionate, idealistic Hermione gone? Aside from work and her never-ending search for him, it seemed every other waking moment was just tears and more tears. Couldn't she see they were all hurting because of it too?

November 2005

Six years had dragged on by. Her search for him had bared no fruit—just a whole bunch of loose threads and no sign of Harry Potter anywhere. The international wizarding police and even Interpol had had no such luck, she'd exhausted all of her options. Still, she refused to give up, her life's mission had turned into finding Harry Potter, dead or alive, even though the blasted git didn't deserve it and she was wasting away her youth.

Until Teddy Lupin became ill and the little boy who had been the single light of her life—the last thing that palpably linked her in a way to her runaway friend needed her more. So, she along with the boy's grandmother became each other's family in a way, along with Hermione's now widowed mother and their drive became to keep the boy alive and happy, cancer-free.

November 2008

There were ups and downs when it came to her feelings on the matter. Sometimes Hermione hated him with all her might, after all they had been through, all of their years of friendship and fighting through together he had left her in the cruelest way imaginable. He had left Teddy, his godson, his responsibility, and Teddy was ten-years-old now, growing more and more each day. The prospect of him leaving for Hogwarts soon filled her heart with dread—they would miss him, she and Andromeda, because he was their little boy. But Hermione spitefully hoped Harry would miss him the most because he'd intentionally abandoned his godson and everyone who he claimed to have loved.

Their lives could have been so, so different...

Still, Hermione never stopped searching.

And Ron and Luna got married and were expecting their first baby, the most precious gift.

It could have been Hermione and she could have had a baby of her own. And happiness too...