mumz3l-Neskouiik-Bura - Why thank you!

Chamilia Lutien Tinuviel - Mwahahahahaha! This chapter should explain!

PotterwatchMachine - Ahh I love your long reviews. Yes, I wanted to show how, despite everything, Harry is still good enough to save the baby that could end up being his downfall. Would it be the same if the tables were turned?

- Why thank you!

Chamilia Lutien Tinuviel - Ahh after that last Chapter, I hope that you were not too much disappointed! You may not get much love for the Dark Lord in this Story, but hopefully you will in others!

This is Harry's little whingefest. I anticipate some people feeling that this isn't really, 'Harry', as such, but it's always annoyed me how in some stories he's portrayed as a little superhuman. This is just being human and with flaws, guys and galls. Thank for you reading. xx

Please keep up your lovely reviews! I really do need the motivation and they keep me going! Xx

'I'm not dead. Honestly, I'm not. I'm The Boy Who Lived. The Chosen One. The Triwizard Champion. Quidditch Captain. All of these things suggest bravery, but, Hermione, I got scared. And that's the problem. Since I got scared, I wake up every day, hating myself for being a coward. I'm responsible for all of these problems. Me. I'm sorry, you look confused; I guess that I should start at the beginning, that is to say, what happened when I went into the woods to meet Voldemort.

I could feel my heart beating so hard against my chest. Every step that I took made my stomach lurch a little bit more. I was so scared that I wanted to be sick. Going into battle is different from going into your execution.

He fired the killing curse at me, but I didn't die. Again. Instead, I went somewhere. I learnt something that I think that I'd known for a long time. I think that you had guessed it too. You're smart. I saw it in your eyes sometimes, that look as if you were wondering who I was, whether or not I was safe. I know that sometimes I frightened you and Ron, well, not me, but who I could end up being.

I'm sorry, I'm going off topic, this is err, this is hard. I chose to come back. There was a choice, you see. A long story for another day. Narcissa Malfoy, she asked me if Draco was still alive and I told her yes, she lied for me so that I could get back to the Castle alive, so that we could fight everything again.

Hagrid carried me back. He was crying over me. And then I heard you guys scream. Horrible screams. It was then that I wanted to get up, to tell you all that everything was alright. But instead I waited.

And I continued to wait as Voldemort began to torture Neville. I'm, I'm disgusted with myself, Hermione. I can't lie and say that I was under some sort of spell. The reason why I didn't jump up is because I was afraid. Cowardly and afraid. Since I came back, I began to realise how valuable life was to me. I could feel every breath. I could feel the blood pumping around my veins. I, I guess you could say that I wanted someone else to be the hero for once. I didn't want it to be me.

It was Ron who stepped forwards. I couldn't believe it. I always knew that he had something in him, but never that much courage. He gave me so much courage. So much faith. I knew that I could fight too.

But then it all went wrong. There was too much chaos. Hagrid laid me down, and somehow my wand stopped being in my pocket. I dared to take a peek open with my eyes. Some Death Eater had it, twirling it around his horrible dirty fingers, probably wondering what price he could get for it; he didn't see me looking at him in horror. I was now wandless against all these powerful witches and wizards who wanted to kill me. But when everyone disapparated, I decided to try and get up, I was behind a load of rubble, they wouldn't have seen me. Draco did though. Quicker than me even managing to lift my head, he had sent Petrificus Totalus at me. Before I couldn't move out of fear, and now I couldn't move because of the stupid spell. I cursed Draco inside my head. That bastard really was on his side. However, as it turned out, he was only trying to protect me. I struggled so hard to move. It was then that I began to hate myself for not fighting sooner, then none of this would have happened. Why did I have to be such a coward? All I could do was listen. Listen as everyone disapparated. I listened as Ron fought him, protected you. He was so brave. I should have been that brave. And then, maybe none of this would have happened. Ron fought valiantly; he took them all on at once. I think that maybe even Dumbledore would have struggled. He was fighting for you. Oh, Hermione, please, don't cry, please don't cry, Hermione. Ron fought so bravely and so well. I'd never paid much attention to see just how good he really was. They were all getting closer. I had to shut my eyes. I had to still play dead. There was nothing that I could do, although I fought the curse with all of my might. And then I heard someone fall down beside me, skin brushing against mine, and I heard their great cackles of laughter. I couldn't even grieve properly for Ron then as he lay down beside me, my mind was already focusing on you in a frantic panic. He was ordering people to go and find you, to fetch you, to bring you to him. He gave them strict instructions not to kill you, and then they all laughed when he said something in a lower whisper. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. Knowing that Draco could work in Occulemency, I wondered if he could also read my mind. It felt like someone was in there listening already, it was a risk, but I begged whoever it was to bring me out of the curse so that I could go and help you. It could have been him, but I took the risk. Whoever it was, they didn't respond. But just as I gave up, there was a familiar drawl, louder than life, yet like a whisper at the same time, I couldn't explain it. Not yet, Draco said to me, not yet. I told him that I'd already lost one friend and I was not about to lose another, but he only told me that they really wouldn't kill you. That they wouldn't ever kill you. It was then that I realised that death might have been the sweeter release. Yet, Draco still promised me that he was leading his group on a false trail, hoping to catch them out, to make them believe that you had disapparated, even if it was just to give you some more time.

But then you came to me. I've never worked harder in trying to lift off a spell. In my head, I was screaming at you to run - wanting to push you away - desperately wanting to carry you away. I had to lie there as I felt his hands pull yours off of mine. I had to listen to your scream that turned into the howling wind as you disapparated.

The spell was lifted, but I just continued to lay there, numb with shock and horror. My brother was dead. My sister was in danger. And it was all my fault. Please, I'm not asking for sympathy. I deserve none. I just need to say it all out loud.

Draco came out of the blue and pulled me up by the scruff of the neck, he was speaking, but I couldn't hear. All that I could hear was your screaming. Eventually, I found the strength to push him off of me and ran for it. I wasn't followed.

I stayed near the centaurs. Near enough to have some form of company, although most of the time I did not want any, and far away enough so as to not offend them by imposing myself on their pack. Centaurs do not get involved in Wizarding Wars at all; they have more sense than that; I knew that they wouldn't turn me into him, and that they wouldn't hate me for being a coward for not saving them all.

Eventually, over time, I think that they came to like me; certainly they trusted me as I was educated in every centaur secret, even if it was past my human understanding of them all.

Still, after a time, the guilt became too much, I was letting down my parents, Sirius, Dumbledore, my teachers, my friends, and most of all you. Rashly, I decided to go on one of my old rescue missions. You weren't there to talk some common sense into me. I apparated outside the forest by Malfoy Manor, ready to swan in without my wand or even a knowledge of where exactly it was, seeing as it was protected by a Fidelus Charm, luckily Draco had been alerted to an intruder and got me before anyone else did. We apparated back to the Forest of Dean, if it had worked for us during our Horcrux Hunting's; he figured that it would work for his own plan. First, Draco gave me my wand back. He said that I had every right to be suspicious of him. He then told me that you were doing as well as you could be under the circumstances, that his mother had grown attached to you, that his father tried to prevent more bad things from happening to you, and that he himself was working to get you out. And not just that, he'd been raising an army.

Hermione, it was huge. There were thousands of them, I wish that you could have been there to see it, still named Dumbledore's Army. All made up of people who hadn't managed to get out before the barriers went up around the country, but who had refused to accept the new regime. We'd decided to plan another battle. One that would be as quick for the people in need as possible, but we knew full well that this couldn't be rushed.

Then one day Draco came rushing into the tent that we shared. He was even whiter than normal, his eyes dark and frantic as he ran his hands repeatedly through his hair. I asked him what was wrong but he wouldn't answer me, he only kept on saying that the battle needed to be done, and that it needed to be done soon. Something was up I knew, he'd gone to Malfoy Manor to check on you just days before. The last few times that he'd been, he hadn't been able to see you. This time, I knew full well that something was up. Other people in the camp were whispering too. All copies of The Daily Prophet disappeared. I thought that you were dead and threw myself at Draco, hitting and kicking him because that's what I wanted him to do to me as punishment for failing you. They all promised me that you were alive, but wouldn't say anything more, only that we should go into battle now. It was too soon, I argued, too soon, far too soon. As we argued, some members of the Camp snuck out and decided to begin without us. They were all bloodthirsty widows and orphans, ones who had more of a reason to fight and who had lost all restrain. Soon, they had lost their lives. It was all the more reason not to fight now, I said. But Draco disagreed. They all went off without me. I expected people to flock back injured and remorseful. I had grown used to seeing Draco's apologetic grin, and felt almost smug at the thought of them all coming back to me like that. Hours passed. Days passed. It couldn't just have been the journey. I knew that I was all alone again. Thank God Draco is smarter than we thought. As Secret Keeper, he gave me the address before he went to his death.

So here I am. It's not been a brave tale at all. It's been down right cowardly. But all I can do is ask for your forgiveness, even though I deserve none.'

'I give it freely.'

'What? Hermione, you can't say that.'

'I can. And I will. You're here now, aren't you? You tried. Harry, for goodness sake, you're human, not superman. I know what it's like to be scared. And now you do too. I guess you could say that you've grown up. You've grown up and lost that wonderful sense of childhood naivety which we had when we took him on for the first time in our First Year. You're here now. I forgive you. More than that. I understand.'

'Thank you.'

'He gave you the address, but how did you actually get in undetected?'

Harry looked up in surprise; he had been rocking Rose in his arms as Hermione changed into new clean roes. She looked at him now, torn between confusion and excitement at the thought of her friend up to his old tricks again.

Harry grinned, his pearly white teeth sparkling at her. 'I disguised myself as a Death Eater.'

'It was you.' Hermione gasped. 'The other day, you were the one who took me past Bellatrix Lestrange, you stroked my hand.'

A flicker of worry passed over Harry's handsome face. 'No.' He said slowly. 'No, that wasn't me, Hermione. Draco, perhaps?

She bit her lip. 'No.' Hermione shook her head, brushing her eyes in annoyance as yet more tears threatened to spill. 'He was, he was dead by that point.' Angrily, she swallowed, trying to rid herself of the lump rising in her throat, as she folded her arms firmly across her chest.

Seeing her in distress, Harry made to go and comfort her, by first placing the baby on the bed.

'No!' Hermione suddenly whipped around shrieking. 'No!'

'Shh.' Harry whispered desperately, rushing over to her with Rose still in his arms. 'Please, no, no noise. They'll find us. Just, what is it?'

'I'm sorry.' Hermione whimpered, reaching out with shaking hands to take Rose. 'Just give me her, please, just give me her. Let neither one of us ever put her down again, ok?'

'Hermione, we're going to have to stop holding her at some point. That's just what you do with babies.'

She shook her head vehemently. 'Not with this baby. Harry, bad things will happen to her, I just know it. Please, please don't ever let her go.'

Had the situation not been so deadly serious, Harry might have been bewildered, but he understood straight away. 'Hermione,' he said cautiously. 'Hermione, I have something to ask you.'

'What is it?' She asked, her eyes not leaving the baby, as she discreetly began to get ready for feeding her.

Seeing the lifeline between the two of them, the upmost care that his friend gave the innocent baby, Harry just couldn't do it.

'When will someone next be checking up on you?' He finished lamely.

It was night time. Harry sat in the armchair, Rose in his lap, snuffling gently as she slept, and Hermione in her bed, her back to him so that she faced the door. It didn't take him too long to figure out that she was crying.

Quietly, and with Rose still leaning up against his shoulder, Harry clambered into bed beside Hermione, and held her close.

'Oh, Harry it hurts.' He heard her whisper. 'It hurts so bad. I can't sleep. I can't think. I don't even know who I am anymore. Make it go away, please, make it all go away.'

Harry reflected on what she had said, stroking her familiar curly hair, the hair that he had looked out for, for so many months now. 'Do you really mean that?' He asked seriously. 'And answer honestly now. Do you really mean that now?'

Hermione rolled over so that she was lying on her back, facing him as he was propped up on one elbow. Her face and eyes shone with tears over a year old. 'Of course I do.' She said softly. 'End it all for me now, Harry. End it all for me now, please.'

'What if I told you that there was a way.'

With a trembling hand, Hermione reached for his face to caress it. 'Please, do it, I can't live like this.'

Harry took the hand and moved it gently away, although he still held onto it. 'No, Hermione, not like that. I know of something that I can do. A theory, as it were.'

Hermione just looked at him, waiting for him to carry on.

As he spoke, Harry felt the words catch at his throat in betrayal. 'Everything is pre-destined. I have been hit with the killing curse twice. And twice, I have survived it. Why? Because it is not my time, I am not to die in that way and by him, my death date has been set already, it is a fixed moment in time.'

Hermione nodded again to show her understanding, as she did so, her expression slightly softened, and became similar to the one that he had grown up with, this young girl in the classroom, so eager to learn. It was this that encouraged him, and so he pressed on. 'Ok? So, um, bear that in mind, ok? Where I went to, it gave me the choice to come back after Voldemort, well, after Voldemort killed me. I did, but unsuccessfully.' He blushed slightly. 'See, but here's the problem. That wasn't supposed to happen. Look, feel here.' His warm hand took Hermione's and placed it over his beating chest, sure enough, there was a steady heartbeat. 'Now,' he looked uncomfortable, but pressed on. 'What's his like? What's he like, Hermione?'

Hermione thought of him on top of her. She thought of how he whispered in her ear, and yet no breath tickled at her neck. She thought of how, when pressed against him, there was none of the steady beating of his heart that she could feel now beneath her hand over Harry's chest.

She understood at once. 'Oh, Harry.' She breathed.

'Shh.' He warned, sensing tears. 'You're right. He's not supposed to be here. He's supposed to be dead. But he's not. And I have to change that. Yet, see, here's the thing, Hermione; Because technically speaking, he's supposed to be dead, he cannot die if I were to kill him now and here.'

'But, but he has no Horcruxes!' Hermione's beautiful face creased into a worried frown.

'Shh, hey, hey, it' s ok, I know. But nonetheless, his own death has made him immortal. He couldn't be killed by me because I should be dead in this life, someone else would have to do it, and use dark magic too. And if he finds the means of making yet more Horcruxes, then we really do have a problem. However, there is something that I can go do to go back to where I was, and wake up again in the Battle of Hogwarts and then defeat Voldemort, none of this would ever have happened. You'll be safe. We'll all be safe. Ron will be safe too.' He added softly, his green eyes looking away in regret.

Hermione felt elated, the best that she'd felt in nearly two years. Normally, this kind of idea would make her scorn it, but this time, she was without hope and she needed some. This time, Hermione was delighted with war. Her tears of sadness turned into ones of joy, as she grasped onto his hand firmly. 'Then do it'. She sighed. 'Do it, now.'

And then her baby sneezed.

Both of them looked over the sleeping infant, still so small as she nestled into the crook of Harry's arm.

'Ah, you see,' Harry said tenderly, 'this here is our biggest problem.'

It took Hermione only seconds to work it all out, and with a sudden rush of love and affection, Hermione took the baby from him and held her close. 'I will not leave her.'

'You would not be leaving her. She would cease to exist. And you would remember, nothing.'

'And so that makes it right?' Hermione cried, now startling to gently rock the disturbed baby. 'Harry, how can you say that? She's real. She's as real as you or I. How can I let you do this and say that she doesn't deserve the chance to live?'

'Nobody is saying that.' Harry murmured, placing a soothing yet tentative hand on hers and the baby's back. 'Please, Hermione, nobody is saying that.'

'Harry, she would cease to exist.'

'Well, yes.' Harry began to look even more uncomfortable, like he was hiding something. Hermione knew that look all too well. 'But listen, Hermione, listen. If a death is a fixed account in time, then shouldn't make logical sense that a birth is a fixed account in time too? Maybe not the date, maybe that changes, the centaurs said that it would, but that the event would always be consistent, Hermione?'

She couldn't think straight. All of her energy was focused on holding onto the baby girl, and keeping her safe from harm. Even if that harm was Harry.

'Well, that's my theory anyway.' Dejected, Harry Potter held up his hands and slipped them back into his pockets.

'There's just a problem with that theory, Harry.' Hermione then said through gritted teeth. 'You want me to give her up, so that you can go back and be a hero again, and not a coward, and then I'll have my copy of this baby again in a few years time. But she won't be the same. She won't be the same Rose, because Voldemort won't be there to rape me. She won't be Rose, because her daddy will be missing from her genetic make-up.'

Harry bit his lip, his head hung so that the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, his only alert soilders now. But when he grimaced down at the child, his features suddenly changed to spread into an enormous grin.

'Hermione?' He whispered in his excitement. 'Hermione? Look at her.'

'What? Harry, what are you on about?' Hermione's gaze deliberately avoided Rose.

'Look at her. Hermione, please, look at her.'

'Harry, I can't.'

He knew from the pleading expression in her eyes why she could not. Never before had she said aloud the father of her baby. And now that she had and that it was out in the open, she was afraid to look at her, incase the glowing red eyes of Lord Voldemort looked back.

When Harry spoke again, his voice was much gentler. 'Please, Hermione, look?'

Hermione struggled with herself, but eventually did so.

'Does she look at all like him?'

Relieved, Hermione shook her head.

'Does she look like you?'

She nodded.

'Just, like you?'

Hermione looked up, confused.

'Anybody else? What does she look like, Hermione? What does she look like?'

'Um, skin like mine.' Hermione started awkwardly, confused as to what Harry was up to. 'With freckles on the nose. My brown eyes, I think. Small like me. She'll grow up to be slim, I reckon.'

She shot a dirty glance at Harry who ignored it. 'What else? What else is there?' He persuaded her. 'What's her hair like?'

'It's newborn hair, Harry, she'll loose it all in about a week and then it'll grow again.'

'In the same colour. What's her hair like?'

'Brown.'

'Like?'

'Like mine?'

'What kind of brown?'

'I don't know, chestnut?'

'So, a sort of reddish-brown then, yes?'

'Well yes, I guess, I don't know.'

'Where would she get the red hair from?'

'Harry, what?'

'Tell me, Hermione. Where would she get the red hair from?'

'Harry? I don't know, I-'

'I do. Ron Weasley.'

Hermione sighed. 'The dates don't add up, Harry.'

'But they could do.' Harry rose from the bed in excitement and began to pace in thought. 'Not in this life maybe, but in the one that should have been. Hermione, how could a dead man have a child? Genetically and logically she may be his, but in reality, how it was written, she should be Ron's. Hermione, you won't loose her if we go back. You'd gain her again with Ron.

Hermione blushed. She'd only kissed the boy, and already Harry was matchmaking them into having a family together.

'And this only goes to prove even further that this reality isn't reality. It's just a dream world. Hermione, all I have to do is to wake up - well, go to sleep here really, and then we'd be back where we're supposed to be.'

'Harry, Harry I just can't take that chance.'

He twirled around in surprise. 'What?'

She looked away again from him. 'I'm sorry, Harry. But I know what happens here. I hate my life, it's true, but wouldn't be so much better if you got us both out of here? We'd know what would happen then. What if you die in the Battle? For real this time?'

'Hermione, that won't happen, I-'

'Why?' She became scornful. 'Because you're The Boy Who Lived, and because a couple of centaurs told you so. I'd like something a bit more reliable than the alignment of stars please, Harry.'

Harry could have cracked a grin, she sounded so wonderfully bossy again.

'And anyway, Harry.' She looked at him suspiciously again. 'You have the power to do it. You've had the power to do it for a long time. Why didn't you do it before? Why don't you just do it now?'

'Because I need you to tell me that I can do it.'

'My permission?'

'I need someone to tell me that I have the ability to do it.'

Comprende? It's confusing. I know. But review me your questions and I'll do my very best to answer them! Much love. xx