For Cara, who is amazing :D

She's too young for him, who has lived through two wars and is barely a few years younger than her parents, but Benjy knows Hermione is different. He's seen her before, not in his dreams but in a different reality before everything changed for the better. In her, maturity and happiness share a home, and her determination crazes him while her innocence moved him to become a better man.

That's the reason why he asks himself every day why did she choose him when there were more people who could be saved. So he gathers courage and seeks her out, almost fearing her reaction to what he knows and how he feels. But his curiosity is greater than his fear and he looks for her, finding Hermione sitting in her office at Hogwarts.

"I'm sure I've seen you before," he tells her, sitting on her desk without caring for the papers on it. They must be her students' exams and he groans, thinking back to all the Ancient Runes essays he has to grade.

He likes it when she crosses her arms over her desk and looks at him sarcastically. Benjy feels her heart beating faster at the sight of those brown eyes that have been tormenting him since 1981.

"Of course you have," she tells him. "We've been colleagues for six years. Or have you come to tell me you're only now noticing I'm a girl? I'm sorry but someone's told me that before and it didn't work."

"Has someone else really tried that?" he laughs, leaning closer to her. They're inches away and she blushes, avoiding his eyes. If he didn't know her, he'd say she is nervous. But Benjy does know her and he can see her blush means attraction and not nerves. "Wait! Don't distract me with your cuteness. I just need to know the truth. Why me?"

She bites her lip without taking her eyes away from Benjy's mischievous ones. He counts the beats of his heart. One, two, three... Twenty-six, before she answers.

"It wasn't only you. It was the Potter family too. And Dorcas Meadows, Mary Macdonald and Marlene McKinnon. The Longbottoms too. Even Regulus Black."

He stares, surprised. He knows Hermione is the smartest, strongest woman he knows, but knowing she travelled through time to save him and other eight people is too much for him.

He sits on the desk again and she's a goddess in his eyes now.

There are more heartbeats between her words and the kiss she presses against his lips. It's the first time Benjy feels lips so soft and he's had many women since 1981. He knows this is different because Hermione is kissing him and he has dreamed this since the first time he saw her when she was seventeen and she joined the Order of the Phoenix.

"You'll be the end of me, Hermione. You'll never cease to amaze me."

That's when she amazes him again by locking her door with a spell and unbuttoning his shirt. She puts his hands on the collar of her own blouse, her eyes begging him to undress her.

If he had known this would be her answer, Benjy would have asked a long time ago.

Important note: time-traveller!Hermione saving Benjy has been done before by the lovely Sophy (The Crownless Queen). If you read this and like it, check out her fic Hope Bringer. Believe me, it's a great piece.