Double Exposure
A/N: This is the same predicament Hermione Granger faces with a decision that changes the endings. A bit confusing, but please read it! I've heard it's pretty good!
This was an opportunity of a lifetime. She would tour around the world studying and recording ways of magic folk with different backgrounds, cultures, etc. The Ministry would pay her a King's ransom, but it would last decades. She may never go back to England again.
Hermione Granger received this letter a month before graduation. It was so confusing! She would be leaving everything she loved if she accepted, including Harry. Or should she apply for the transfiguration job opening since Professor McGonagall would be taking Dumbledore's job now that he's retiring?
When she showed Ron and Harry the letter, they had glum faces and put on a fake smile to say, "Good job Herm! Do what you want to"
What should she do?
one month later
This was it. No turning back. Harry, Ron, Lavendar, and Ginny were seeing her off. Harry was going to be a seeker for the Cannons, Ron was going with a very famous stock agency, Lavendar was making a shop in Hogsmeade called "The Glitz" where she would design awesome clothing, and Ginny still had another year to decide.
She was taking the train from platform 11 2/3 to Algeria. She said her last goodbyes and watched the approaching. A few minutes passed, and she heard a voice on the loudspeaker.
"Last call for train 1134 to Algeria!"
Now was her last chance to change her mind.
Part I: Yes
"Last call for train 1134 to Algeria!"
"Bye! I love you all!" she said and ran onto the train as the doors were sliding. Had she made the right decision?
"Yes." She thought out loud, and took a seat. She was going to be learning for the rest of her life, and was happy.
twenty years later
"Finished!" the exhilarated 38 year old scholar said as she stepped off platform 11 2/3 in England.
The assignment was shorter than she had expected. She had missed everyone so badly, but decided that it was worth it.
She was dead rich too! A fortune equal to Bill Gates was in Gringotts waiting for her. The first thing she did, however, was look up "Potter" in the magical phone book. There were four names. She apparated to the first house to find a "Tom and Virginia". The second and third were also no success, but when she knocked on the fourth door and it opened to reveal
"Harry Potter! Oh my god! You look just like you did 20 years ago!" she exclaimed.
"Excuse me, miss, may I help you?" Harry asked, scratching his head.
"Harry? You don't remember me?" she stared.
He looked at her and shook his head.
"Oh!" she took down her blonde, straight hair and turned it back to natural, made her teeth slightly bucked, changed her eyes back to blue, and shrank a foot. "The ministry made me do that Oh! I've got it! 'Harry, this isn't such a good idea! No, Ron, you may not copy my homework!'"
"Her-Her-Hermione?" he asked, chuckling.
"I can't believe you forgot me! So I looked different couldn't you tell?" she chided.
"It's you! Come in! Meet my wife, Ginny!" he exclaimed, showing her the door.
BAM! She felt as if a train had hit her at full force. In twenty years, Harry had gotten married to Ginny Weasley? No, maybe it was a different Ginny. Must be
She gasped as a red headed wavy haired woman greeted her in the hallway. She smiled, "Ginny Weasley! And I wasn't invited to the wedding?"
"The Ministry put a delocation spell on you. Not even Hedwig could find the infamous Hermione Granger!" Ginny replied, hugging Hermione.
"Oh Well how is Ron? Neville? Seamus? Lavendar? Or even Draco?"
"Oh my god, you don't know" Ginny said, looking down.
"Ron Ron died. He took the blow of Voldemort's spell, saving my life. Draco is on the run, after taking his hatred out on his own father. Lavendar still designs for "The Glitz", quite rich. And Seamus and Parvati are engaged! Lavendar and Ron were engaged, but" Harry didn't have to finish. She understood.
This was when Hermione broke down, right in the hallway of his best friend's home, tears spilling out like rain. Did she make the right decision after all?
Part II: No
"Last call for train 1134 to Algeria!" the loudspeaker rang.
Should she go?
"Oh Harry she turned around and they shared a passionate kiss, like in Casablanca.
Must she go?
"No!" she thought aloud.
"What?" Harry asked.
"I won't go. I won't! I can't!" she sobbed.
"You don't have to if you don't want to! What is your final decision?" Harry asked, gazing into her eyes.
And she gazed back. Back into those green eyes she wanted to gaze into for the rest of her life.
"No! I can't leave you Harry!" she decided.
He pulled into his arms in a strong, reassuring quidditch-player hug. He said, "You know that transfiguration job is still open and I was wondering-"
"Yes." She interrupted.
"Yes what? I haven't even asked the question-"
She put two fingers to his lips silencing him and replied, "Yes to you! Yes I will! Yes to, 'can you read minds even though you hate divination?'! And finally, yes I do."
twenty years later
"Mommy, mommy, he's pickin' on me!" little Rosie exclaimed, tugging her mother's dress clutching her leg.
"But that's what big brothers are for! Especially on summer holiday!" Hermione replied.
"Mo-om! I need a new dress for the danceand it has to be cool!" Daffodil, a teenage witch going into her sixth year yelled from upstairs.
"Hold on! I'll be there in 10 minutes to show you how to make one yourself! Make a drawing and get your sizes ready, okay?" she yelled back, then added, "Hey Harry? Could you take Andrew and Will to Brian's house? I'm kind of busy" she gave the famous seeker a peck on the cheek.
"Got it! Be back in 10 minutes! C'mon Andrew and Will, stop picking on Rosie! We are going to Brian's house!" He held their hands and was gone in an instant.
They were all so happy. No one had seen or heard from Voldemort since Daffodil was born. She's a very powerful witch more powerful than most children. Voldemort knew that, and when she was born, he decided to kill her.
She had been left with a sitter the evening he attacked. He would never have the amount of power he used to have, but he had enough to kill one infant. The babysitter and the neighbors knocking on the door asking of they were alright died, but Daffodil lived. Her scar is a lightening bolt, just like her father's. They knew Voldemort was dead because they found his body with a soul ever-trapped inside.
The babysitter was Ginny Weasley. The neighbors were Oliver and Angela Wood.
But that was over 13 years ago. Daffodil is as famous as her father. But was the bloody guilt staining Hermione's clothes?
Part III: Decisions
Hermione woke up on the train crying. She was on the train to Algeria, and had terrible but wonderful dreams. Was it her future? Maybe
Did she make the right decision?
"No!" she yelled apparating to the train station where the group were getting on a different train going home.
Even if one of those were her destiny, she said, "screw that."
She wrote this entry in her diary that night:
People make their own future through small 'yes or no' questions. Your decisions are your future, so make sure they are the best.