Part II – A Secret Knowledge – Hermione

The first time she saw him, he looked at her as if trying to soak up every second of the time they spent together. She doesn't understand why, after all, he's been in Azkaban since she was a toddler, and it's not as if she's pretty to look at. (She should know.) And, anyways, she's far too busy trying to figure out the puzzle of what really happened on a Halloween night twelve years ago to decipher the looks shot her way by an escaped convict (who's also the god-father-of-her-friend) on a moonlit night in the present.

Later, after the dementors attack and she saves his life, she realizes that the DADA teacher that turned out to his old friend (as well as a werewolf) had also given her weird looks (even if they weren't exactly the same), and she recalls a few strange remarks from a potions professor that she had never really liked. She says nothing about her idea, but fingers the time-turner underneath her robes.

Then the Tri-wizard tournament happens, and she's so torn between worrying for Harry, dealing with Skeeter, and being ignored by her idiot of a best friend that she doesn't remember the strange glances and her wild theory until he visits Hogsmeade and they go to meet him, where she attributes the strange feeling in her stomach for worry at his safety.

She doesn't see him again until the summer after Voldemort rises again, and the long, worry-and-frustration-filled days are spent cleaning the house he so obviously hates. He is taken aback when he sees her, and, while she pretends she never notices, her mind is racing anyways, and the stolen time-turner is taken out, just for a second, from where she had hidden it. She puts it back when her name is called, but after that she searches the house for confirmation, because her crazy idea might not be so crazy, after all.

It takes a while and school has almost started before the tattered photograph is rescued from the equally battered Charms book. It's strange, seeing the older version of her with the younger version of him, but she expected it, anyways. She nods once, puts the photograph back where she found it, and smiles a secret smile next time she sees him.

When she hears he was kidnapped, she's terrified, because she doesn't know whether he's still alive before she goes back, and her heart feels strangely relieved when she's faced with a wand at her throat and the knowledge that he was never there in the first place. Then the wild fight begins and the lights of a thousand spells race by, and she sees him fall into the veil. Her heart breaks then, but Dolohov's spell catches her before Bellatrix can die by her hands.

The day after she wakes up, she retrieves the time-turner and it hangs around her neck again.

She lets time pass by now, waiting for the moment when she'll see him for the second time. (First, for him.) Her old professor, who probably knew the older her as well, will look at her sometimes and god she's so tempted to ask him, but her Gryffindor recklessness has been tempered by Slytherin steel, and she knows she shouldn't. And besides, who is she to grieve for him, when his godson and old friend so obviously have the greater right?

And then there's the Horcrux hunt, and what are such trivial things as a love she may not even feel compared to saving the world?

When Bellatrix tries her hand at making her talk she lies through the screams, because the crazy-eyes woman doesn't deserve to hear the truth, and maybe this way she'll meet him again. (She's almost given up on ever going back, anyways) But then they escape and the most loyal being she'll ever know meets his end at Bella's blood-soaked hands. Before she can catch her breath, Gringotts happens and she wears the murderer's skin for an hour, and she can't wait to wash the feel of Bella's body off her skin, but they have another Horcrux to find, another battle to fight, and revenge is taken from her while she saves the lives of the werewolf and the pink-haired auror.

In the aftermath of the battle she thinks of him, and she wishes he was here to see this, but can't help but remember that he never will.

Amidst all the celebrations, she doesn't notice the sand leaking from her broken necklace.

She cries herself to sleep that night, because it's finally all over, but everyone is so broken now, and maybe she was wrong all along, and she only fell in love (Because she finally knows that that's what happened,) with an idea of what could be.

But then she wakes up in the Hospital wing in what is so obviously a different time, and she can hear his voice, and she smiles as Madam Pomfrey scolds him with an impatient, "Mr. Black!"

Because she had known all along.