DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter or anything affiliated with it (except for this story). I know, it's a sad, harsh reality, but hey, I'm just borrowing all familiar things for this story. I'll return them when it ends.

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Okay, so here's another chapter for y'all, and as usual all reviewer stuff is at the bottom of the page at the end of the chapter.

Enjoy!

To the Moon and Back—Chapter 10
It was mid-afternoon now, and the October sunlight streamed in through the large windows and gave a cheerful light to the unnaturally clean room. Several stories below, the leaves on the trees were now brilliantly gold and copper-colored, and in a few weeks they would break free from their hosts for good and drift far away on the crisp, gentle breeze.

As a few weeks had passed, Hermione's worries about how her children were faring at Hogwarts—and away from her—had begun to dwindle with each letter that she received from them. As it had been with her, she knew that James and Lily both missed her, but were having fun at school with their friends and doing well there.

So Hermione herself, feeling admittedly lonely without the ruckus and company that her children had brought her for so long, began to immerse herself in her work and in the family and friends with whom she'd been reunited. It was comforting to her to know that, though she'd been gone for nearly twelve years, the Weasleys and her own mother and father were completely willing to take her back into their company.

She now spent her Friday evenings at the Weasley's, chatting late into the night with Ron, Ginny and the others over cups of hot tea and bowls of homemade chocolate ice cream. Harry had been kept away in Bolivia, where he was stationed in cognito on an Auror mission.

She took a sip of her tea and pulled a worn piece of parchment from her coat pocket that looked as if it had been folded and re-folded many times. Unfolding it with care, she smoothed it out to read the words that were written in Harry's familiar scratchy scrawl.

Dear Hermione,

I couldn't believe it when Ginny wrote to tell me about you. I was so astonished, so stricken, so confused about what was going on to know whether it was really you that she was talking about, though her words were quite clear.

You can't think, you could never even imagine, what it was like to lose you in that battle (or, rather, to think that we had). I blamed myself, and I know that Ron blamed himself as well. Neither of us mentioned that night very much, but we both sensed how the other was feeling. We've been friends too long not to.

Thinking that we'd lost you forced us rather unpleasantly to think about how much you mean to the two of us. It's like you're a part of us, Hermione, like the three of us formed one complete person. I've known for a long time that I was nothing without the two of you, and losing you for so long has made that reality hit home hard.

But you can't imagine my shock at finding out that you're back. Actually, maybe you can, as Ginny's told me that you thought that Ron and I were both dead, killed in the battle. As much as I'm angry that you did it so quickly, I can't blame you for running. I'm sure that I would have gotten as far away from there as I could. In fact, I was tempted to do just that, but Ron brought me back to my senses.

Ginny also tells me that I'm a father! This is something that I really can't believe…though I must say that I couldn't, even now, pick anyone better to be the mother of my children. That's extremely awkward for me to say, mostly because you're one of the best and closest friends that I've ever had before, and I don't want to change that.

Thank you. It means so much to me that you named your children after my parents. I couldn't have ever asked you to do that, but thank you. Through them I have links to both my past and to my future as their dad. I can't wait to see them and hug them, to hold them in my arms for the first time.

Until then, though, do you think you could send a picture, please? I'd love to see them and hear everything that I can about them. I can't wait to see you for real again…I thought at so many moments before that I caught glimpses of your hair or your smile, or heard your laughter for so many years, it will be so good to see you again.

I'm out of time and parchment now. I can't wait to finally see you again.

Take care of yourself, Hermione,

Harry

She wasn't exactly sure how many times she'd read and reread that letter. She did know, however, that she missed her other best friend more than words could say. Hermione had immediately sent photos of James, Lily, and herself to him after his letter had arrived weeks ago. He hadn't written since then, but that no longer mattered.

Because he now lay, unconscious, in the painfully white hospital bed across from the chair in which she'd been sitting anxiously for several hours. He was older now, and there were a couple of shallow lines on his face that Hermione knew had come as the by-product of the stress and anxiety that Harry had experienced for the past twelve years.

But all of his other features were still the same. His nose was the same shape, his ears and chin, the same lightning scar across his forehead. Now, Hermione saw upon closer inspection, he had another, thicker scar a couple centimeters across his left cheek.

Hermione carefully folded the two sheets of parchment and put them back into her pocket, gazing sadly into her old friend's face with regret. If only she'd waited longer, or told him or Ron where she was going…she deeply regretted that she hadn't checked again to be sure that they weren't anywhere to be found before leaving.

But the past was the past, she thought helplessly, brushing away a stray lock of hair that had drifted in front of her face. She adjusted her position in the chair.

A soft creaking noise startled her out of her reverie. Her head snapped around toward the door and saw Ginny coming through it, a weak smile on her face and two cups of tea in her hands. She nudged the door open with her hip and stepped inside, lightly pushing the door closed with her foot.

"Hey," she said softly. "Sorry if I startled you." Hermione shook her head sadly.

"No, not at all," she said, returning her weak smile. "Thanks," she said as Ginny handed her a hot cup of tea and dragged a chair next to hers by Harry's bedside.

"Ron been by yet?" Hermione shook her head, sipping her tea.

"Not yet, he said he'd come by later, though." A silence fell over the two women again as they both looked at Harry, who still lay motionless in the bed, covered in a thin white blanket. They both sat like that for several minutes, lost in their own thoughts and pausing only occasionally to take a sip of tea and draw breath.

"Did you tell James and Lily?" Ginny asked very suddenly. Hermione shook her head.

"No, not yet," she said, and then she added (more to stop Ginny's tut-tutting more than anything else) "I don't want to interrupt their time at Hogwarts so soon. What good would bringing them down here do anyway? It's not like they can even talk to Harry yet; he doesn't have a clue that we're even sitting here now. It wouldn't make any difference in the long run to ship them back here."

"That does make a little bit of sense," Ginny agreed, "but how would you feel if you'd found out that your best friend was in the hospital and nobody had told you?"

"That's different," she retaliated, shaking her head.

"Yeah, with those kids, he's their friend and their father." Hermione sighed, clutching her tea mug in both hands. She knew that Ginny was right, and that normally she'd side with her on the issue. Somehow, though, this time was different.

"I know," she said, giving in. "I just really don't want to pull them away from their studies—"

"Yeah, there's the Hermione that we all know and love," Ron's voice came reverberating from behind them and both women turned around, realizing for the first time that he was there with them. He gave them both small smiles and pulled a chair around to the opposite side of the bed, sitting down in it backwards.

"I was just going to say the same thing," Ginny said, grinning. "Hermione, you of all people should know that there are a lot of things that are more important than schoolwork." This was true, Hermione knew. She had, after all, left Hogwarts forever after her sixth year, choosing love and loyalty over schoolwork. And then, it made sense to her.

"Okay," she said resolutely. "Okay, I'll go write to them now and tell them what's going on." She stood and, briefly placing her hand over Harry's in comfort, turned to leave the room.

"Better write McGonagall, too," Ron called after her, even though he knew that she'd already thought of that.

"I know, Ronald!" her voice came echoing in a disembodied way through the long corridor.

Lily should be studying. She knew that she should, after all, there was a big test on simple ailment draughts the very next day. But, she reasoned, she'd already studied earlier that day, the day before that and the day before that, so there was really no point in wasting more time.

She took a look around the table at the library at which she was sitting with her friends. James seemed to be simply making faces at his own book, probably contemplating the same thing that Lily was wrestling in her mind. Sirius was squinting at his notes—as if closing his eyelids at varying degrees would somehow make the material more comprehensible—and mouthing something silently. Eve and Sita sat there, too, both poring silently over their own notes.

She suddenly closed her book and began to shove her potions things into her bag, the sudden noise causing James to look up. He grinned and rolled his eyes at her, following suit, and the two of them walked briskly out of the library.

"Yeah, studying is dumb," James said lazily, though a hint of laughter was audible in his voice.

"I agree. There are only so many times you can go over the same material. What time is it?" she asked suddenly, "I'm really getting hungry." James checked his watch. Lily, who wasn't much for jewelry, didn't wear one—hers was, instead, clipped to her bag, which she didn't feel like taking off of her shoulders.

"It's 5:00," he said in mild amazement. It was Saturday, and they had been studying since they'd finished lunch at one. "No dinner for another hour at least."

"Let's go to the Great Hall anyway," Lily said, "They've always got pretzels and pumpkin juice or something between meals."

"Not on the weekends, though," James said, shaking his head. "It stinks, but it's true." Lily frowned for a moment, and then, irritated, she shrugged her shoulders.

"C'mon," she said, pulling him down the corridor and through a large tapestry of dancing trolls. They emerged somewhere on the other side of the castle and went down a flight of stone stairs.

"And where, may I ask, are we going?" James asked his twin, eyebrows raised.

"We're gonna go and find the kitchens."

"Are you really that hungry?" he asked in amazement, but his question received no answer. They arrived in the basement, one floor up from the dungeons. It was warm and bright down here, lit with torches and adorned with several large, hanging tapestries and statues.

"It should be around here somewhere," she mumbled, now leaning to get a closer look at a tapestry depicting a large, succulent feast.

"The kitchens? How do you know all of this stuff?"

"Mom. And Hogwarts: a Revised History," James frowned.

"We both read that, and Mom told us the same stuff," he said, "how do you know all of this and I don't?" The corners of Lily's mouth turned up in a mischievous grin, now examining a large hanging of a bowl of fruit.

"I did a little bit of…supplementary research." She smiled and clapped her hands together. "Aha!" she exclaimed. She reached a cautious hand toward the tapestry and began to tickle the pear. To James' surprise, the pear in the tapestry giggled, and a door swung open behind it.

For a moment, Lily and James exclaimed identical glances of apprehension, but curiosity won over in the end as they carefully stepped through the door and let it swing shut behind them.

What they saw made their eyes widen in surprise. Scuttling around an extremely large room were what looked like dozens of house-elves, which until now they'd only seen pictures of. Many, many stoves and ovens were lined up against the walls, and four long tables, exactly in the positions of the tables in the Great Hall, were set with dishes and cutlery for the dinner hour, which wasn't due to begin for a couple of hours yet. Several preparation tables were arranged in the room, where a few of the elves were chopping and dicing vegetables feverishly. One elf made its way up to the two of them and bowed deeply.

"Sir and Miss," it addressed them, "is there anything that you be needing?" Lily smiled sweetly at him.

"Do you happen to have any éclairs or anything back there, do you?" she asked kindly, peering into the elf's large, almond eyes. Its nose was cuboidal, and it was dressed in a sort of uniform. In fact, James noticed, looking around, only a couple of them weren't dressed in the uniform. The elf before them bowed again and zoomed away. Moments later, a platter of éclairs and cream cakes supported between four elves.

"Do sit, sir and miss," the elf said, indicating a table and chairs to their left. Unlike much of the other furniture in the room, this table (along with two others, it appeared) were correctly proportioned for humans so sit at. The two of them sat and the platter was unloaded, along with a tea tray.

"Please don't call us that," Lily said, making a face. "I am Lily, and this is James," she told them. "What are your names?" Two of the elves left, but the other two remained.

"I is Binty," the familiar one said, bowing again. "I is only working at Hogwarts for eleven years, miss, after my masters were killed in the Great War." He bowed his head in respect of the memory of them. The other one, this one dressed in a very odd assortment of mismatched clothing, also bowed.

"I is called Dobby," he said, grinning a toothy grin at them. His eyes were large and bulbous, and his nose rather the shape of a pencil. Lily put out her hand.

"I'm pleased to meet you," she said pleasantly. The elf called Binty looked terrified, and Dobby, apprehensive, but he shook hands with her, and then with James. Lily took a plate and an éclair while James poured them tea. He offered some to Dobby, whose eyes began to shine with tears. Lily was afraid suddenly that he would start sobbing.

"I is sorry," he said, blowing his long nose on a pink and red spotted handkerchief. "But only three others have been this kind to Dobby, treated Dobby like equals," he shuddered at the very idea.

"Who?" Lily asked, though she thought she knew what he was going to say before the words left his mouth.

"Mr. Harry Potter, miss, and his Weezy and Miss Hermione." James and Lily beamed at each other, then at Dobby, who smiled at the memory of the three of them, then a tear ran down his nose and dropped off of the end of it and spattered on the floor. He wiped it up quickly. "I is sorry, miss, but Dobby misses Miss Hermione, it was most sad when—when—" he blew his nose again with a loud honking noise.

"Dobby," James began, "Hermione Granger isn't dead." The elf's head perked up, the baseball cap that teetered on it threatened to fall off. Dobby beamed.

"She did not die in the Great War?" Lily shook her head.

"Nope," she said thickly through a large bite of pastry. "She's our mother." The elf's eyes widened, making them look more like large green tennis balls than ever.

"You is the children of Miss Hermione?" Dobby asked them in awe. They nodded.

"Yep," James said, smiling. "And Harry Potter is our dad," he said to the elf before Lily had the chance to stop him At this bit of news Dobby looked like he was going to zoom through the roof. His rather ugly face split into a wide grin, and he began bouncing on the balls of his large feet.

"You is Harry Potter's children!" He exclaimed in disbelief. Turning her head, Lily saw that several of the other elves had stopped their work to stare at the two of them. She very suspiciously placed the half-eaten cream cake down onto the plate in front of her. After a moment the bustle resumed and James took another éclair from the stack on the table, taking a large bite to save himself from having to talk.

Ten minutes later the two of them were making their way back up to Gryffindor Tower, laden with extra éclairs and sweets that Dobby and the other elves had insisted on giving them. It was only after they promised Dobby to tell Harry and Hermione hello for him—and allowed him to come and visit them in the common room—that they left the kitchens back through the fruit bowl tapestry.

James and Lily had just turned into the corridor along which hung the portrait of the Fat Lady and the entrance to the Gryffindor common room when they were stopped by someone calling their names.

"Lily," Sirius shouted from behind them, "James, wait up, guys." He jogged to catch up with them, clutching a stitch in his side and panting. He held a slip of parchment in his hand, which he held out to them.

"What's up?" Lily asked.

"Professor McGonagall found me in the library after the two of you had left," he explained, leaning against the stone wall. "She said to find you as soon as I could and to give this to you." James took the parchment from Sirius and unfurled it. Lily looked over to read it too.

When you have received this letter, come to my office immediately. Make sure you are wearing Muggle clothing, and be sure to bring a coat for the cold.

Professor M. McGonagall

"That's weird," Lily said, sounding nervous. "What do you think she wants?"

"I dunno," James shrugged. "But by the tone of the letter, it's got to be something important. We should probably get going, then," he said to Sirius, who nodded.

"I hope everything's okay," he said, wishing them goodbye and good luck before setting off back down the corridor.

Quick as she could, Lily threw open her trunk and dug toward the bottom for her Muggle clothes. She quickly pulled on a pair of jeans, top and a rose-colored sweater before dashing back out of her dormitory and meeting James, who now wore jeans and a blue sweater, at the foot of the staircase.

They set off directly toward Professor McGonagall's office before they realized that they weren't quite sure where it was. Lily knew that it was, she thought, on the third floor, but she'd never actually gone there before. It was, therefore, very lucky that they ran into Nearly Headless Nick on the fourth floor and he kindly pointed them in the right direction. They soon found themselves, with Nick's help, in front of a very ugly stone gargoyle. The two of them stood, looking at it questioningly for several moments.

"You'll need the password," the Headmistress said, descending a spiral staircase that had magically opened right from the wall. Jams and Lily glanced at each other, and McGonagall beckoned them to follow her up the winding staircase until they came to a landing. They pushed open the heavy door with the large brass griffin-head doorknocker and entered the office.

A moment later they were hit with a wave of bushy brown hair as their mother hugged them both at once. She kissed them both atop their heads and pulled back to examine them.

"Mum!" James said, embarrassed to have his mother hugging him in front of the Headmistress of the school. Hermione smiled at them, but Lily could tell from the faraway, sad look in her eyes that something was wrong.

"Mum?" she asked with a small smile. "So you've finally got the accent down, have you?"

"What's wrong?" Lily asked, her green eyes boring into her mother's brown ones as if looking for the truth. Hermione sighed.

"Your father's back." James frowned.

"But that's a good thing, right?" Her eyes began to well up with tears and she turned away from them, blinking hard.

"He's been injured, badly," she said. Lily gasped and James' mouth fell open in concern.

"But—" he began, but Lily cut him off.

"He's going to be okay, isn't he?" Hermione shrugged as a tear fell silently down her cheek. Professor McGonagall patted her arm comfortingly and offered her a handkerchief, which she accepted gratefully.

"I hope so, sweetheart," she said, "but there are no guarantees. I came here to see if you wanted to come to St. Mungos with me. That's where he is at the moment, and Ron and Ginny are there too—"

"I'm coming," James said instantly. He slung his bag more securely over his shoulder and looked up at Hermione. "When can we leave?" He threw an expectant look at Lily, who frowned in contemplation. "You can't seriously be considering not coming," James said, rolling his eyes.

"I'm not," she said, "just…thinking…we're going to miss a lot of work and stuff here…"

"Miss Granger, you hardly need to be concerned about your grades," Professor McGonagall assured her from behind her desk. Hermione beamed. "Yes, you are quite the image of your mother when she was younger."

"Okay,then," Lily said, smiling again. She secured her knapsack and she and James stepped closer to their mother. "When can we leave?"

"Right now," Hermione said, taking a small flowerpot off of the mantle of the fire that roared in the Headmistress' grate. "Just say 'St. Mungo's.'"

James and Lily stepped closer to the fire and James took a pinch of shimmering green powder, throwing it into the fire and stepping into the grate. He called out the destination and disappeared into the whirl of emerald flames.

"Thank you, Professor," Lily said, smiling at McGonagall, who returned the smile. She wished Hermione and Lily both the best of luck as the two of them disappeared, one after the other, into the green flames and emerged again in the large marble lobby of St. Mungo's Center for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

Within minutes, they had scaled the staircases to the floor where Harry was being held and, with Hermione's help, they found his room. Before they entered, though, Lily paused.

"Mom," she began, "what are we going to see when we go in there?" Hermione sighed.

"They have an intravenous line so that they can give him fluids and potions, but that's all really," she told her daughter, hand on the doorknob. "And he's a bit bruised and has a couple of cuts on his face." James and Lily nodded, faces set. Hermione pushed open the door.

It was late afternoon and the pre-sunset rays were streaming in through the large window. The room, Lily saw, could house three occupants, but at the moment the only bed she saw was the one in which her father lie.

She couldn't take her eyes off of him. He was tall, she could tell, though not as tall as Ron was. His hair was untidy, like James', and she knew that if his eyes were open they would match her own. She recognized Harry Potter from the photographs in history books and the ones with her mother and with Ron and Ginny, but now he looked a little bit different.

Older, almost. He had a few fine wrinkles in his face, but not so many that he looked like an old man. The thin, lightning-bolt shaped scar was still etched on his forehead, and he had a large cut across one cheek and sported a shiny black eye, which was swollen and puffy.

She spent so much time looking at him that she hardly noticed that Ginny and Ron were standing at the back of the room and talking with Hermione about something, leaving the two chairs at the bedside vacated. Lily dropped her backpack to the ground and sat in the nearest chair and James followed suit.

"Do you think he can hear us?" James asked. Lily shrugged.

"Maybe," she replied, "I know that some people who are in comas in hospitals can tell when they have visitors." James nodded. He put his hand on top of Harry's and began to speak.

"Hey, Dad…"

Yay! End of chapter 10!

Okay, guys, I'm really really sorry that I haven't been able to update in forever. But I haven't abandoned you, I promise. School has been absolutely insane, though. It sucks, but there isn't a lot I can do about it.

So anyway, reviewer feedback:

THANKS FOR REVIEWING!

Haha, I know, I'm ripping you guys off. Next chapter you can have individual comments, kay? I do have to say that random person you don't know's review made me laugh out loud.

For the first time, nobody was able to answer the questions (gasp!), so I guess that this time I'll have to make them easier. The twist, obviously, was Harry's fatal wounding. With the Latin, I was looking for a translation; meretrix dormiens means sleeping prostitute. So now you all know a bit of Latin. As for the new questions:

Will Harry live? If you think so, go to question 2. If not, go to question 3…

If you think he will, who will be the first person he sees when he wakes up?

If you don't think so, what will Hermione's first move be after his death?

Which couple will be the next to become pregnant?

Okay! Have fun with those ones for now 

The scoreboard, of course, will remain as it is until more people get questions right!

Ciao, amigos

Callista Rose