A/N: Wow, guys, you made it... I received 15 reviews for last chapter... I'm honored. Thank you so much. I'd like to tell you I'll update as soon as possible if you give me 16 for this one, but I feel like I'm trying to buy your thoughts... sorry if one of you ever felt like that, it was never my intention to do so. I just simply wanted to thank you all the amazing positive response I'm getting out of this story.

So, I'll update on Thursday regardless of the amount of reviews I recieve. Okay? I really, really don't want to press you guys or anything, but if you do leave a review I'll be in seventh heaven.

This chapter is a lot of talking and we get to finally see what Hermione did and why is that the Fight came back with her. Enjoy.

I own nothing.

Chapter Ten – The Sacrifice

"How is that you are back? Don't get me wrong, I'm eternally grateful, but how is that possible? I only made the deal for myself."

Snape had gotten them out the Hospital Wing to have them rest the weekend in their room, much to Lily's anger and Dumbledore protests. It was just a good thing the Heads of the school could no enter the Houses unless invited, just as other Heads were not allowed unless they were also invited. So far Minerva and Dumbledore were personas non grata in the Snakes Pit and young Graham Pritchard was in the doghouse. Everybody knew he was the one to start telling about the fight and, while it had helped Hermione's status in the House and school in general, he had violated the first Slytherin rule and had talked about internal affairs with others. He was wearing his hair in a pattern of green and grey for a month as was the customary punishment, not that it had been a punishment that had been used in a decade.

Snape had also given her and Luna a small two-person carrot cake to have a late, private, birthday party in their room. He had apologized for not visiting her on the actual date as he had been too busy with last minute preparations for the school year, and was truly enraged when he heard nobody had remembered her birthday anyway so it was no big deal. It was then that Luna discovered that not only she was younger, but had been born on a completely different date. As a birthday present, though, she had given her a worn out copy of Hogwarts: A Story she had been carrying around ever since she learnt the brunette was not in Harry's year. Apparently reading Hermione's favorite book was one of the small actions that made her feel at ease for the last three years.

Luna snarled at her opening as the tiny witch got herself more comfortable in the carpet just before Luna's bed, while the blonde witch simply sat at the edge of it. They were still so going to talk about the stupid deal Hermione had done, but she had promised they could start with her Maya's questions as, according to both their accounts, it was her turn. After every fight or disagreement that ended in a physical fight, they would give themselves the chance to play a game of twenty questions, ten each, to try and understand what had happened to make them so mad. The rules were simple, after a question was out it could not be changed and then it would be discussed in length until both of them were satisfied with the information shared. And there was no room to be mad. If one of them got mad enough to draw a wand or dish out a slap then it was game over and they would simply give each other a day to compose themselves to try again. It made for a long session, but so far that was the best way they had come up with to actually resolve their problems.

"Well, it turns out the after-life is pretty much like what the Greek believed it to be. Remember the Fates? The Greek ones?"

"You mean Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos?"

"Yeah, though they go by Nina, Louis and Pumpkin in this century… don't ask why. Well they kinda kidnapped me from what could be called Elysium… not that its much, really, it's just this big garden with warm weather and all the people scattered around with grins on their faces… It was creepy to tell you the truth. Anyway, apparently as I'm a sort of Seer, you know that, I was taken by them to talk business. You see, Voldemort should have never happened. He was supposed to die when he was eight from pneumonia, but we, yes we, because they put me to research, still can't understand how he managed to evade death. Even with all the Muggle medicine he was destined to die. He didn't and ever since they've been trying to kill him. He's like a cockroach." She muttered the last part.

Hermione smirked. That last reference was something she had said about the Dark Lord almost daily for the last year they had been together. "You finally understood that reference?"

Luna smirked too. "You aware you've just used your fourth question right?"

The tiny brunette simply smiled innocently. "And you have just used your third… so far fair game. So, keep telling me about your time with the Fates."

The blonde shook her head amused at the bossy attitude her then/maybe-now girlfriend used. She missed Hermione. Now that she could finally let go of the anger she had been carrying around for years she could finally be happy around her. No matter her feeling of guilt that was always present when she was with Hermione had not disappeared, even after more than a decade had passed since she started feeling it. She was still regretting that stupid choice. "Well, they basically asked me to help them find a way to fix things from the other side. As I was dead I could see what was happening in the living plane and I became something like omnipresent. But, without the actual power to act, I was reduced to tell them what I found and what could possibly be done. Then, I got another shock, the three are called fates and what not, but they are actually only guardians of our lives. Nina is in charge of our before-life and our birth, she decides who are going to be our parents and what not. Louise is in charge of our lives per se, she kinda give us that spark that make us, well, us. And Pumpkin manages our death and after-life, she is the one that says when we die and if we go up or down. And before you ask, the before-life is something of a pool where souls-to-be swim to their hearts contentment's. Well, not really, but you get the picture.

"So they guard our lives but the one that really makes things happen is Chance. He goes by Red and he is the one that really controls our lives, he and his not-so-small army of imps, that's it. Well, Red was also angry that Voldypants was alive because he had set up ways for him to die countless of times yet the bastard never took the bait and died. Apparently Red tries to make things happen yet we can always change things with our own free will. You have no idea, really, of how angry Red was at Voldydork. Every single day of his life he had had more than one thing happen for him to finally die yet he is still alive… its beyond frustrating."

"But," Hermione tried to understand what she was being told. Having met her own dose of gods she was not going to call her beloved's story a lie. Besides, they both had returned at that was not something one could do with only magic. "If Pumpkin decides when he dies, why can't he die? I mean, he has to have a death date, right?"

"Fifth and sixth, love, you are running out of questions. To answer that, well, it's complicated, really, long story short, Voldymoth do have a death date, November 7, 1935, but since he missed the date Pumpkin gave him six more death dates, all of them which he had overlooked. As Pumpkin had failed, for the very first time, to actually kill him she now has her hands tied and cannot kill him again. That's why they needed my help and as I was already dead I had no reason not to say no. As I've told you, Red had also tried to do everything to kill him as he is technically already dead in the eyes of Destiny, but up until then had failed miserably. Then, dear Maya, you came along and helped them more than you should.

"You were in the Living Realm and you managed to convince him on giving you a chance. You chose to change an event in time and be sent back with your memories, overruling the Fates and Chance and changing Destiny." Luna growled, getting angry at having to remember her love practically travelling to the other side of the world to fix something that was not even her responsibility.

Her low growling was interrupted however, when a small body slammed into her and hugged her by the chest. She sighed as Hermione, for the first time ever, was able to fit her head just beneath her chin as she circled the tiny thing with her arms, settling her to sit comfortably on her lap. Luna sighed. "I love you are so tiny."

Hermione snorted and her soft curls tickled the, this time, older witch's nose as she buried her head on her hair. "I hate it! It's still too weak and it starts crying as soon as somebody raises their voice or I'm hit!"

Luna chuckled, prompting a pout out the little brunette. "I noticed that when we fought yesterday. I slapped you once and you were already crying." She did not apologize; they never apologized for what they said or did when angry. They fought, they yell and then, they forgot. That was how it always was and, hopefully, always would be. "Why is that?"

Hermione sighed. She had to answer the question as they were still playing, yet she really did not want to. "This body was really abused for my first eight years. I came back to a six-years-old body that had been already scarred and… and raped too many times to count…" She murmured the last part as tears started soaking Luna's soft t-shirt. "This body learnt that as long as it was crying the punishments ended faster and were not as brutal. Just as it learnt that as long as it didn't speak it would not call attention to it and avoid people to ask too many questions. I-I managed to call the police on them when I was eight and I got the worse beating of my life when my f-father noticed I had used the phone. Luna, it took me two years, two damn years to overcome my fear, my conditioning, to be able to tell on them and that got me a month in a Muggle hospital because he beat me and raped me so bad I was in coma for almost five weeks!"

The blonde hugged tighter to her chest as she started to sob and tell her tale. Hermione had never told anybody that. Sure, the Matron at the Orphanage knew, as did her doctors, social workers and her current parents. But she had never had someone to tell, someone who could care but not judge nor take pity on her.

"I'm so sorry, Maya, I'm so sorry." Luna murmured in her hair as the tiny witch mourned properly for the loss of her little body's innocence, that, while the older Hermione had been raped too in her past life by Death Eaters, it was simply too traumatic to live as a little child. They were far from innocent, both of them had blood on their hands and had received severe damage to their bodies, yet none of them had suffered before going to Hogwarts… it was wrong.

It was simply unnatural.

XxXxX

"Love, come to bed."

James sighed as he looked out the window in his study. For the last two days he had being seen moping around the Ministry and the Manor. He had been quiet and utterly miserable. He was devastated and nothing that Remus or Lily had told him could make him feel better. "Please tell me this is a nightmare." He whispered brokenly.

Over the last months he had loved the little girl as his own. He had started loving her the moment he met her and he could not believe how she had betrayed him so. She was a cute tiny thing, with her soft dark curls, only two or three shades lighter than his hair. She had such deep and expressive eyes, the same color as his, that simply spoke to the world at large.

On the rare occasions she felt asleep on him he would like to watch her closely, trying to find the smallest similarities between them, as if trying to see if she could be his by blood. He knew that when she smiled her little dimples were very similar to his, just as the cute button nose was very similar to his mother's. Her chin was his father's, or so he believed after careful consideration, and her long neck reminded him of his Aunt Georgia.

But after what he had heard from Lily, he knew she would never be truly his, no matter how much she loved her.

"Oh, love." Lily whispered as she embraced her husband of seventeen years fiercely, settling on his lap and letting his tears soak her hair.

"She can't be a Slytherin, Lily. She can't be."

The redhead sighed as she let her own tears fall. It had broken James' heart to know Hermione had been Sorted into the Snake House and he had been almost catatonic when she had come home that fateful Thursday in which their little princess had been accepted in the worst House ever. It had not helped when they heard of her 'accident' with Luna Lovegood, the personification of evil on Earth, and the way the Sorting Hat had defended the choice it had made regarding the youngest Potter.

"If my father were alive he would demand we disown her immediately." James confessed softly through his tears. "Mother would have argued a little, but she would ultimately agree with him, she always agreed with him."

That little revelation made her gasp in horror, but she could understand it. The Potters were a Gryffindor family, just as the Malfoys were a Slytherin one. To have one of their members being sent to another House was just unheard of and, if the Head of the House was strict enough, it could easily be grounds of disowning. "You are not planning…" She let the rest of her phrase vanish in the air, too afraid to ask aloud.

The Auror sighed and hugged his wife closer. "I don't know." He whispered torn. "I don't know."

XxXxX

"Why their death?" Luna asked once they were both calm. "You were given the chance to change one event… why did you choose their deaths?"

Hermione smiled as she cleaned her tear stained cheeks with the cuff of the long-sleeved shirt she liked to sleep in. "Because everything comes down to them. Harry's mental problems started then, just like Dumbledore manipulations and lies, each and one of the deaths we knew were a direct or indirect result of those two murders… and I knew your Mom died helping the Order gain more power… an Order that would cease to exist if the Potters were alive, thus saving her life." She cuddled closer to the, strangely, older girl.

Luna kissed the top of her head. It had been amazing having her mother this time around to help balance the craziness that was Xeno Lovegood. "Why not wish for Voldemort's death while on the womb?"

The brunette's smile turned sad. "Because I could only change something from the timeline where I was already alive… I wasn't able to change anything before September 19 of 1979. I thought that if I allowed them to live then everything would change for the better, in a way it did."

Luna sighed. "But you also changed many other things for the worst." She kissed the top of her love's brunette curls again. She missed the bushiness of the mop that had been her hair, but she absolutely adored her curls. "Without their death Sirius never went looking for Wormtail, Wormtail never killed those dozen of Muggles, he never got the chance to kill your parents." She winced when that tidbit of information made Hermione stiffen in her arms. She had known about that little fact the moment the brunette had discovered it. From the after-life she had kept an eye as close as she could on the brunette while still spying on Voldyfart and she had been privy of what he had told Hermione about her real parents. "With them alive you never met your adoptive parents, parents that loved you with all their heart and never hurt you like that bastard you called father did in this time-life."

The, this time, younger girl's voice was hard as steel. "It was a small price to pay. Yes, they're alive, but so are many other people who never deserved to die." She sniffed, angry at herself that the tears wanted to come back. "You are alive."

"Oh, Maya." Luna sighed as her heart was crushed with the heavy weight of the secret she had been hiding Hermione for now more than a decade. She knew she had to tell her, but as always, she was scared of the girl's reaction. She had known since she saw Hermione making the deal she was doing it for Luna. By that point Hermione had been crazy with grief and all the things she had to see in her twenty-eight years of life. She had had nothing to lose and so much to gain and the only reason she was selling her soul was to have Luna happy and alive. Knowing this, she knew she was unable to reveal her secret, no matter how much it was killing her day after day, because, if she knew, then Hermione would probably kill herself. Luna knew she herself would.

"Little Moon?" Hermione whispered with something that sounded too much like fear. "Are we still girlfriends?"

A small part of Luna wanted to tell her she had just two more questions, yet she knew this was neither the time nor place to tease her so badly. She smiled, her guilt just intensifying. "If you'd have me, love."

Without losing a beat, the young brunette gently detangle from the blonde's arms and straddled her lap. Just then they were barely eye to eye. "I love you with all my heart, Luna. I always did and I'll always will. But this body is not what it used to be… do you want me? Even when it's damaged?"

Luna smiled sadly. "I've noticed you are lacking two pieces of meat on the front and about seventeen inches of height, but I'm a little girl again too, Maya, and I don't care. We'll grow." She sighed. "And for the damaged part, well, tell me in all honesty we were always without a blemish. You and me had our own share of scars before, both mentally and physically and we worked together just fine. Sure we are both a little insane and we are a little too masochist to be called normal, but we are soul mates. Or at least I'd like to think we are. I say we treat this situation like that one time you had to leave to America to gather reinforcements for months and I stayed behind to keep fighting. We were at odds with each other, in different countries, doing different things, sleeping alone, suffering alone, but we were still together. Do you want to still be together?"

Hermione smiled softly and leaned in to gently kiss her girlfriend's lips. The kiss was sweet, quick and chaste, more of a peck, really, than a proper kiss, but it felt like coming home again after a long, tiring battle against evil. When they parted after a few seconds they were both dazed at the feeling. No matter if the kiss had not been as those they used to share before, it was still a kiss between them and it had been way too long since they had tasted each other.

"I don't think I'll be able to do more than kiss, Little Moon, for a few years… I don't think this body will let me forget the beatings and abuse soon. I'm sorry."

Luna chuckled as she embraced the girl to her again, feeling elated yet so guilty to have her so pressed to her developing breasts. "Don't get me wrong, love, but I don't think my body will agree to have sex with a tiny girl that barely looks nine. I love you, Maya, so, so much. We'll wait, because I'll be damned if we don't kill that bastard and live the rest of our time in the Living Realm together. Then, I'll wait for you for thousand years and we'll be together again."

Hermione frowned at that. "What do you mean? Wait for a thousand years?"

The blonde silently scolded herself. She did not finish telling the girl in her arms her tale. "When you made the deal you gave us, the Fates, Chance and I, an out. You gave us the chance to change things too, so the Fates decided that they could send me and the ones of the Fight that wanted back with you. You see, they couldn't have sent us back; they lacked the power to alter our Destiny as easily as he did. But once he opened the time for you, we could possibly sneak in and got sent with you."

Luna smirked at her girlfriend's shocked face. "But before that hatched, he discovered us and, well, he helped us. He had been asleep for centuries now, the last time he had been woken was when a young Greek Amazon Queen went to him and begged mostly the same you did… but because it was a matter of the heart rather than a true evil megalomaniac on the loose, he stuck to the deal and claimed her soul as his for the eternity to serve him as a liaison between the living Muggle world and him. Just like the deal you did, every time she dies she is sent back in another body, with another name, and another destiny to fulfill but with the end goal of feed information to him. As she is Muggle he was not aware of what was happening with Moldypants. That's why he agreed to sent you, because he needed a witch's soul as he had none. Soon after you left to find Kukulkan and his featers he realized you were doing the deal for something bigger than a broken hearth, although that was a big reason too, but to try and save the world. If the Dumb Lord had continued for a decade or so more, probably the entire world would've ended at war and, some years after that, all life on Earth would be non-existent. Now, what is a God with no people to adore him and feed him with their vital force? Nothing. So, he agreed to reduce your sentence to just a thousand years… once you are done with them I'll be waiting for you with the Fates and Chance, because love, we have a job offer."

Hermione blinked confused at the long rant her love had just delivered. For the first time in her life, both of them, she was speechless. "Uh?"

"Remember those imps that worked with Chance?" She asked and was rewarded with a dumb nod. "Well, they used to be mortals at one point or another, they are sent to the living world to make things happen and to, well, live a little. Red offered us a spot in the army. What do you say?"

The brunette was crying again and it scared Luna a little. Had she been wrong in accepting Red's offer? Her fears were clamed, though, when Hermione smiled brightly. "As long as I can be with you again, I don't care if I'm hell or if I have to serve more than a thousand years as C'Thulon's slave. Working with Chance, though, that I'll love!"

Luna winced. "Don't say his name!"

The, this time, younger witch was confused at that. "Who? C'Thulon?"

The blonde sighed. "And you said it again."

"And why shouldn't I? I mean, he is a God, the oldest of them all, why would I not say his name if only out of respect? All gods love attention."

Luna shook her head in the same manner a mother shakes her head when their kid did something just moronic. "Because every time you say his name, he wakes up to peek on who dared to speak his godly name. He hates to be woken, that's why he is such an ass with his deals. He is not like the other gods, he is a cranky bastard."

"Oh."

XxXxX

He sat staring at the roaring fire on his Common Room, mulling over the events of the last couple of days. Ever since he went home for the summer he had been feeling it more than ever. There was something nagging at the back of his head. There was something going on and he was not entirely sure what it was. He was getting concerned about that.

Sometimes it felt like he was living a dream he was not supposed to be dreaming. Sometimes it felt like he was living a life he was not meant to live… like if something was totally wrong and there was something he was missing yet he could not remember what it was.

He knew it started when he was nine. He remembered waking up one spring day and that that feeling was there and then it would not leave him alone ever again. That was the point in his life he had turned a little more serious, a little more concerned with his studies and a little more aware of his surroundings and the people he knew.

Sometimes he looked at Sony and wondered who it was possible for him to be alive when something told him he was not meant to live, when he knew he had been so excited when he was told his mother was pregnant and how he had always loved his little brother. Sometimes he watched how his father chased his giggling mother and then he would feel so happy they were alive, that You-Know-Who had not killed them, but he also knew they had always been alive and they would be for years to come.

When he first saw her, though, there was something telling him he needed to remember her. Sony said she was that girl he had seen in the library before he went to Hogwarts, but the truth was that he had felt he knew her there too, that had been why he asked her mother about her. She was magical alright, but she was Muggleborn and that meant that he had not seen her in any magical party they had had as he had previously thought. That had left him so confused.

Just as he, sometimes, had felt like he was to do something in school, something that was his responsibility but that it was now not needed to be done. He had felt that in his two first years, when he walked by the place Quirell had died, or when he went near Myrtle's bathroom, even when he was in the air playing Chaser sometimes he felt the impulse to go search the Snitch… but he did not know why that happened.

Spending the summer with her had been difficult because a part of him was angry his mother was dotting so much on her, but the other part was relieved she was safe and sound. That she too was alive and, although with a difficult childhood, she was somewhat happy. He also felt a little guilty when she was around, like he had done something, something bad to her before but he could not remember.

It was easier to ignore and avoid her. Playing he was mad at her had been easy as part of him did hated her a little, but it was merely the cover he used to not be near her. Too bad Sony followed his steps and was now he really did hate her. She did not deserve to be hated, she did not, but his little brother hated her, and that was going to be problematic.

That she was sorted into Slytherin was confusing. On one hand he felt that it was not problem, that she did not exactly belong there, but that it was okay for her to be a Snake. On the other hand, he was a Potter and taught to hate Slytherins, she too was a Potter, if only by adoption, and she had to be a Lion. That was how things were always and how things should be.

"Hey, Harry!" His little brother entered the Common Room ten minutes before curfew, followed by Kim and the other firstie that had taken to hang out with her.

"Hey, Sony, Kim, Miss Bates." He greeted them with a soft nod as he continued looking at the mesmerizing fire, ignoring the blush that graced Maeve.

"Guess what?" Sony said frowning, a bad signal as when he frowned something either sad or bad had happened. "The Royal Court has a Queen."

"Really?" He asked distractedly.

"Yeah, and guess who is she?"

Harry shook himself out his own mind. He could guess alright, something was telling him the answer, and he was fine with that answer. "Hermione?"

"Can you believe it?!" Sony cried exasperated, how it was possible they shared their name with a Slytherin?

"She's even been named their Basilisk!" Kim huffed frustrated. She could not believe she had wanted to be friends with such an evil witch.

"What?" Harry murmured confused.

"The Slytherins had labeled her their Basilisk." Sony repeated, a clear repulsive frown in his face.

Harry snorted amused, much to the surprise of his companions. Then, much to their shock, he started laughing softly. He could not believe it, such a tiny thing being compared to one of the largest beast to ever roam Earth! Something told him, though, that the name was simply perfect as she was the Snake Queen and fit her glare just fine.

As he laughed, though, he did not consider he had never seen Hermione glare.

A/N: No, she didn't sell her soul to Trigon... that thought never crossed my mind until it was pointed out to me... she sold it to C'Thulon. Brownie points to whomever tell me where he's from, and which pair of characters we'll see thanks to that.

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