Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, I merely play in the sandbox.

Back in 2012 this was a big deal for me. I had just broken away from writing a ton of Hermione/Draco fics and was searching for something different. The concept of this came about in a bizarre way, but I was so determined to write the story as it came to me. I twisted a lot when I wrote this story because I got rid of Lily and James as a couple. I was disheartened with the character of Lily after reading some stories that bashed her badly and this story was a result of the frame of mind I was in. It was a hard story to write. All that I'd read in 2012 had James/Hermione love stories end with James returning to Lily and I felt that short-changed what a remarkable character Hermione is.

Lily Evans is not shown in a good light here. I was working with the idea that everyone saw Lily from the pedestal she was placed upon and were blind to her faults and real personality.

At the time I knew what I wanted to write but the more I wrote of this the more I found all these unspoken rules for the Marauder's era. I tried to do the story I had in my head justice. At the time I thought I was taking a new twist on the James/Hermione line, 7 years later, I'm sure it is not as unique.

All I have done here is clear up the story and tidy areas that I thought were lacking but for the most part I have left the story as it was when written in 2012. Hopefully, it is still as enjoyable now as it was 7 years ago.

Chapter One

Hermione was not the same girl that had stepped onto the Hogwarts Express at eleven. She had grown up far beyond her years in the time she had spent learning magic. The war that had cost so much and torn so much apart was finally over. Voldemort was dead. It should have been a happy time. Yet how could it be happy when so many people had died – Lupin, Tonks, Moody, Fred, Sirius, Dumbledore, Cedric and so many more. It wasn't just the victims of this war that had suffered. What about the previous war, where James and Lily had died, where the Longbottom's had been tortured and when Amelia Bone's family had been wiped out.

Hermione knew she should feel at peace, but she didn't. She had a nagging feeling at the back of her head that something was wrong. That this wasn't the way the world should have turned out.

She couldn't pin point exactly when this feeling had started. If she was being brutally honest, she'd have to admit to having this feeling since she had arrived at Hogwarts aged eleven. She'd met her two best friends then – Ron Weasley who always hoped for more than she could give him and Harry Potter, orphaned at birth and looking for love, acceptance and a family. That was when it started, the feeling, when she met Harry Potter. She didn't just have a friendship with him. She felt protective of him and fussed like a Mother over his welfare.

The feeling grew the first time Harry showed her a picture of his Dad. He was a gloriously fit man and Hermione couldn't help but feel a connection to him. She knew there was something more to him. People always praised James Potter and Lily Potter for giving the world Harry, yet somehow Hermione knew there was more than that. She knew instinctively that the pairing of James Potter and Lily Evans was wrong somehow.

Hermione started having dreams from the moment she met Harry and she didn't know what they meant but they always involved James Potter. For the most part she didn't remember the dreams, it was like fate was trying to tell her something important, but she couldn't quite reach it.

When people talked of Harry they mentioned all the attributes he got from his Father but the only attribute he seemed to get from Lily were her green eyes and realistically anyone could have given him those eyes.

[x]

As Hermione pondered theories from the past, Dumbledore sat restless in his portrait. He too felt that something wasn't right. He'd been so manipulative in his younger years, throwing people together in matches that somehow didn't suit them. He'd been so intent in destroying first Grindelwald, and then Voldemort that he'd lost sight of it all. He believed now that he'd handled it wrongly, and that the famous paring of James and Lily should have been James and someone else.

Dumbledore had had his reservations even as he set the pair up in school. Lily wasn't like people remembered her, she was manipulative, vindictive and mean. She was the type of muggleborn witch that made the purebloods mad. She had little regard for wizarding customs, thought the muggle world was superior and was not willing to learn or admit that she wasn't better than those around her. Dumbledore was sure there had been good points to her character but after seeing her for seven years straight, he'd yet to have seen them. Lily didn't have a complete set of straight grades and for many years she played James Potter and Severus Snape off each other.

James had been foolish, the image he had of Lily wasn't real. It was an image he'd created over years. He'd put her on a pedestal and become immune to her faults.

Dumbledore vaguely remembered a time when a mysterious student had arrived at Hogwarts and was intent on separating Lily and James, but Dumbledore had stopped her. He realized now how foolish he'd been. He knew who that mysterious stranger was now, and he knew how to change what had already happened. Dumbledore may have been foolish for much of his life, but he realised now that he had the chance to change something and he wouldn't make the same mistake twice. He'd arranged everything while he was still alive as he realized the consequences of his actions late in life.

Dumbledore only hoped he could write this wrong and that she'd be willing to relive the past.

[x]

Over the years, Hermione's dreams had gotten progressively out of control. She started with simple blurred dreams of James, which evolved to forgetful dreams of James and the Marauders, yet still they changed. She began dreaming of other people from the past, people she forgot as she woke. She saw these people without rose tinted glasses and saw them as they were not how they were remembered. She saw Lily as others saw her. She was what really made Pettigrew a traitor and she was how friendships were forged and broken. Like the articles that Rita Skeeter had written in her fourth year, nothing was ever as it appeared.

The dreams started to become more complicated and she started to remember more and more of them as she got older. Her dreams started to show her what had happened in the past versus what should have happened. She had two distinct dreams after the end of the war that had led to her seek help from Dumbledore's portrait.

The first one was beautiful and mysterious. It was a Hogwarts's ball, a masquerade ball and there she was, dancing in the most amazing gown with the attractive Head Boy she'd always felt pulled to. James Potter looked radiant as he twirled her across the ballroom but what startled her most was the look of pure love reflected in both James's and her eyes. It was like they belonged together and for a moment she wondered if the pull she felt towards James Potter was more than an infatuation of her mind.

The second dream she had was of the night Voldemort had come to Godric's Hollow. Except neither James or Lily were in sight. The pictures decorating the walls spoke of a happy family. James, Hermione and little Harry. In this dream, Hermione realised she was married to James, not Lily and Harry was her child not Lily's. Voldemort came with the intent of killing Harry and those who stood in his way but none of it happened like it had in the past.

Here Hermione was standing in front of Harry, protecting him with a determined look upon her face. She had no fear as she raised her wand and shouted the two most feared words in the Wizarding World: Avada Kadavra.

Voldemort fell down in an instance and lay dead on the floor. Harry was alive, Hermione was alive and someone else James was alive too. The reign of Voldemort had ended.

These dreams worried Hermione because she didn't know what they meant. She felt like she should have told someone about her dreams earlier. She'd made a decision and raced to the Headmistresses office, knowing she'd let her in immediately to have words with Dumbledore's portrait.

Dumbledore hadn't looked surprised to see her appear through the door and nodded in her direction when she sat down before him.

"Have you ever thought that perhaps James and Lily weren't a well-suited couple?"

"Do explain Miss Granger."

"Don't you think they've been put on pedestals since Halloween 1981? James and Lily were wrong for each other and they wouldn't have got together in the first place if it wasn't for your meddling."

Dumbledore didn't look surprised by Hermione's knowledge. He looked defeated and guilty.

"If James had married someone other than Lily, Voldemort would have died when he came to kill Harry and he would have died for goo. Pettigrew wouldn't have betrayed anyone, and countless lives would have been saved."

"You seem to know a lot about how things could have been. How did you come by this knowledge?"

"I've seen it Dumbledore. I have seen the past as it did happen and how it should have happened. It was me he was meant to marry Sir and I suspect it was you who stopped that from happening the first time. I have always felt a pull to the past, meeting Remus was like finding a lost friend, seeing Sirius was like discovering family. I've always felt a pull to Harry, a pull to keep him safe and protected, a pull that kept me Mothering him. I have always wanted what's best for him. I don't belong in this time; you and I both know that."

"You are correct Miss Granger. This has happened before, but I was foolish. A strange girl arrived in the past and I treated her as suspicious when I should have welcomed her. I didn't see the bigger picture and I didn't allow you to succeed. I manipulated those around me just like you claim Lily did. I have been manipulating people for so long that I lost sight of just how horrific that made me. I heartedly regret a lot of the things I have done in the past and the sacrifices that I have let the Wizarding World give. Miss Granger, in the second drawer of the desk you will find everything that you need to return to the past. The letters should be given to my younger self and McGonagall as soon as you can get them too us. The letters will explain everything about your 'false' past. There is enough money there for you to live quite happily for many years, oh and don't lose the adoption certificate as you'll need to give that to my younger self as well."

"I'm glad you could be so understanding Sir."

"A man can admit his mistakes if he opens himself to the world. Remember all the spells you have created. I believe Verus Diligo will be most affective when dealing with Lily Evan, for she can be rather sly. Take the time turner from the shelf. It's already set for you. Don't worry about anything else. I'll be your guide, protector and knight. Goodbye Miss Granger and good luck."

Hermione smiled one last time at the former Headmaster in his portrait frame before she let the time turner whisk her away.

Unknown to Hermione…not so far away from Hogwarts a boy with uncontrollable raven hair collapsed unconscious on the floor as the world he remembered started to change around him…