Hello my lovelies,
Welcome to my newest story. It has been a while since I've posted anything, but I have been fairly active in regards to my reading. I follow a ton of excellent stories and have a bunch favorited if you want to check some out.
I definitely have clichés that I like, primarily I love a BA Hermione. I also love fix-it stories because I am a sucker for a happy ending. So here is my contribution to the semi-classic 'Hermione goes back in time and fixes everything.' In a departure from other elements of this cliché I am avoiding romance being a central focus, in fact, I have no plans for romance at all at this point in time. Oh dear… I wrote that sentence how I speak… How embarrassing as a writer.
Getting back on point, I don't know exactly where this story is going, I have a direction in mind, but this is a new experience for me. I am sailing in uncharted waters.
A few disclaimers before you read any further, I don't own any of this as it all belongs to our Empress and Goddess, Queen JK Rowling. I also find most OFCs leave a bad taste in my mouth, so most of the characters I mention are coming direct from cannon, or direct from the Harry Potter Wiki, even if its just family names, I like to keep things in line with the rules already set out for us. However saying that, this is fanfiction and this goes AU during the Battle of Hogwarts. It is also Hermione centric and will revolve around her dealing with her multiple issues and what it means to live life during a time of war.
I hope you enjoy what my brain has spat out for you, and as always, reviews are welcome and appreciated.
Hugs and Kisses,
zsarah.
```August 16, 1974
She walked on silent feet up the corridors she once called home as she readied herself for the last critical task in her plan. The midmorning sunlight warmed the stone floors of the empty hallways she knew like the back of her hand while an unnerving chill ran up her spine. She pressed past the itching of nervousness and focused her steps on the goal ahead of her. It was with a learned grace that came from experience in her surroundings and time fighting and running for her life that she approached her destination.
This was the place she once thought was safe her safe haven and home. Once upon a time, she had thought the castle walls were an impenetrable shield. But this wasn't her home yet, and she was no longer that naive. She had been shown the fallacy surrounding her more than once in her youth, and with age and experience came the wisdom that this was just an illusion of protection that the young were both fortunate and disadvantaged to have.
When she was a child, she had thought that the danger lived outside and that this fairytale come true would keep her protected. Now she knew the school housed something far more dangerous to herself and her plan than anything she would find outside the fantasy of sanctuary.
In a tower guarded by a gargoyle lived a man whose schemes had lead to the ruin of the world she had come from mere months ago. There were dangers outside, yes; but they were the dangers that a wand armed with skill and knowledge could defeat. The danger within was of a different sort. It was the danger of manipulation and politics; the belief that that one man could know the greater good for all. And the worst part, this man who played with lives as though they were chess pieces did so with a twinkle in his eye, a grandfatherly smile and the delusion that what he was doing was truly the right thing.
After three months of careful preparation, she was ready to take on the world, as well as Albus Dumbledore. With her thoughts carefully hidden behind a thick maze of occlumency and a reference from Horace Slughorn her in hand she walked up the to the statue guarding the headmaster's office ready to end the set up of her plan and get starting changing the future.
With her alias secure, contacts made, and information gathered, all she had to do now was get a job.
When the invasion of Hogwarts succeeded, those who were left alive after the second wave of attacks fled into the Dark Forest. They weren't many; a couple of dozen witches and wizards. Students, professors and everyday volunteers who had hoped to make the world a brighter place, left the last stronghold of resistance after the death of Harry Potter.
The first of those survivors to fall on their first night in the woods was Ginny Weasley, giving and taking life for the rest of them to survive. Her death was the catalyst that gave them all hope tinged with cynicism that they could survive long enough to turn the tide of the war.
So the motley group, hidden within the confines of the forest and fleeing between safe-houses, hunted by all manner of man and beast, cobbled together a plan to send one of their own back to before it got this bad. And with the deaths of Luna Lovegood, Victor Krum, Hector Dagworth-Granger, Dennis Creevy, George Weasley and Filius Flitwick, seven years after their planning began, Hermione Granger found herself in the same place she started, the middle of the Dark Forest on May 2, 1974 thirty years from the past she had left behind with just over three months to prepare.