Chapter Twenty-One

Kingsley

Reintroductions

When Mad-Eye approached Kingsley just outside of the Ministry to ask him if he was interested in joining the newest incarnation of The Order of the Phoenix, the seasoned auror laughed out loud in his big, booming tone that always drew stares. What a question to ask! There should have been no doubt in the retired auror's mind that he would want to join the organization that had played such a large part of his life in his younger years. While he had certainly lost his fair share of friends and comrades during the First Wizarding War, he was more than willing to jump right back into the fray. He had skills and connections that would come in handy to those prepared to fight the forces of Darkness again.

Albus Dumbledore had always been one of his greatest heroes. He hated that that fact was a source of contention with his little witch. Despite being the wizard's niece, Hermione had odd notions of trust and loyalty. More than a dozen arguments had been fought and finally just dropped about whether or not he should throw his lot in with the man she called 'manipulative', 'untrustworthy', 'Machiavellian', 'wily' and about a hundred other terms that generally meant he was as bad as You-Know-Who. They generally had to 'agree to disagree' to return to some semblance of peace between them.

The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

Kingsley incinerated the scrap of parchment with a discreet spell as soon as the Secret-Kept townhouse came into view. Even after over forty years of living within the magical world, he still felt like an overeager first year seeing the castle for the first time every time he witnessed a cloaking or concealment charm dissipate. He approached the front door with a wide smile on his face. Just as he was preparing himself to knock to inform the inhabitants within that he'd arrived, the front door was unceremoniously yanked open.

"Best not to knock on the front door," a smirking Sirius Black explained. "Don't wake to wake up the old bat."

Once inside the safety of the long corridor just inside the front door, Kingsley embraced the younger wizard in a tight hug. They had not seen each other since just before Sirius was wrongfully arrested for the murder of Peter Pettigrew and the Muggles. There had been a time when they were very close friends and allies in the first war. Sirius clapped him on the back with his loud, barking laugh before dragging him around the decaying building for the official tour.

"Molly Weasley was just about finished with dinner the last time I checked," Sirius announced when they had nothing but the basement left to explore. "I'll meet you down in the kitchen shortly. Time to feed the hippogriff."

If he had not just been introduced to the impressive creature named Buckbeak, Kingsley would have assumed that his old mate was using some kind of new slang term he was unfamiliar with. Chuckling to himself, he began to descend the large staircase that would take him back down to the ground floor. He was stuck inside his own mind so much that he almost missed the girl on the stairs.

"Oh, good evening! You must be Auror Shacklebolt."

Kingsley's eye shot up from the stairs he had been looking at when he heard the familiar cadence of a voice he never expected to hear again. A young girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen surely, with the same features as his Hermione was smiling at him! He did not realize he was holding his breath until he attempted to make some effort at communication. Exhaling loudly and hearing his heart pounding in his own ears, he extended his hand, only half-convinced that he wasn't seeing a ghost.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt."

The specter of the great love his life merely smiled as she took his trembling hand in hers.

"I'm Hermione Granger."

He was certain he was losing all grasp on his sanity. Blinking at her several times as if half-convinced she would disappear, he must have seemed a big, lumbering fool to the girl who was not going anywhere. Kingsley dropped her hand and without so much as a 'nice to meet you' ran down the remaining stairs as fast as he could. Terrified to look behind him to find that he was hallucinating the girl, he did not pause before opening the front door.

Moments later his feet were touching down in front of The Hog's Head pub in Hogsmeade. In his rush to seek out answers it was a wonder he did not splinch himself. Taking quick stock that all parts of his body were still attached, he threw open the front door to the dingy pub.

When Hermione disappeared years earlier, the heart of the pub had gone with her. She made it a personal goal and mission to clean up her father's pub to an exacting standard that used to bring in much more desirable clientele. Almost from the moment she was gone, so were all of the improvements she'd forced Aberforth to make over the years. Kingsley stepped inside the main room, his eyes focusing on the only soul within.

"Good evening, son. I haven't seen you in a while. How have you been?"

Kingsley chose not to answer the query into his well-being. His focus was entirely on what he had just witnessed. Stalking up to the bar, he decided to go a few steps further. His reflexes had been honed through many years of hard work as an auror and Aberforth was many decades older. Kingsley's fist reached across the bar to grasp the elder wizard's collar.

"Hermione. Granger," he spat out through clenched teeth.

Aberforth's eyes widened slightly at the use of the name. Recognizing that he had gotten his point across that he was not a wizard to be trifled with, Kingsley released the man's collar.

"Either you have a granddaughter you never told me about, old man, or you have an even bigger secret to tell."

Dumbledore sighed heavily and gestured to the younger wizard to take a seat. He swiftly filled up two glasses of fire whiskey to calm their nerves. Neither man said a word until the first glass was emptied and refilled.

"Did Hermione leave because she was pregnant?" Kingsley asked, terrified to know the truth. "Pregnant with a baby she knew wasn't mine?"

That had been his first assumption once the initial shock wore off and he realized the girl standing in front of him was not a ghost. They had certainly not had the most perfect or idyllic of relationships. Sometimes where there is great passion there is also great jealousy and short fuses. Both parties involved were deeply in love almost to the point of being unable to see straight at times. She'd promised him… promised him that no matter what happened, he was her wizard. Had she lied? Told him what she wanted him to hear? Was this Hermione Granger girl named after her mother and given a false last name to hide the fact that her father was condemned to spend the rest of his life locked up in Azkaban? It, unfortunately, made the most sense.

"No, to my knowledge, Hermione was not pregnant when she disappeared."

"What do you know? Why is there a child in London that looks exactly like her?"

Aberforth came around to the front of the bar. Pointing his wand at the front door, he had the sign flipped to 'closed' and the door locked before he sat down on the stool next to the distraught younger wizard. Kingsley worried what he was about to hear.

"This is all going to sound completely mad, son, but I swear to you on my honor as a wizard that everything I'm about to tell you is the truth."

Kingsley nodded. Aberforth gulped down the rest of his second glass and began to speak.

"On June 18, 1971, I heard a loud crash in my parlor just after ten that night. Thinking one of my girls had broken something, I went there straightaway to see what the commotion was. A witch I had never seen before was lying unconscious in my parlor. Poor girl had hit her head at some point. I had no idea who she was or how she got there, but something about her struck a chord with me. I carefully picked her up and laid her in the spare bedroom.

"Inside one of her pockets was an envelope with my name on it. Curious, I ripped it open. I assumed that she was sent to play owl for me and managed to get injured in the process. Honestly, I wasn't really sure what to expect. Inside the envelope was a long, detailed letter of who the girl was and why she was there. There was also a pensieve and several memories that belonged to a future me…"

"What? The future? How is that even possible?"

"Son, I know it's hard to believe, but she had a time turner around her neck. A peculiar device it was and engraved with a line from one of Robert Burns' poems."

Kingsley's stomach jolted at the mention of Hermione's favorite poet. One of the first gifts he had ever given her was a book with all of Burns' most beloved poems. He used to give her red roses, only red roses because they both loved his poem 'A Red, Red Rose'. How many times had he crooned it to her in their most intimate moments? How many times had he promised to love her 'till a' the seas gang dry'?

"What line?" he asked, afraid to raise his voice above a whisper. "What was the line engraved on the device?"

"'Till a' the seas gang dry'."

He laid his head on top of the bar and unashamedly wept. His Hermione, his Hermione was still alive and stuck in the body of a teenager. He longed to run back to London, take the clearly underage girl in his arms and make her remember how much she loved him once upon a time. It was clearly a foolish idea. That Granger girl wasn't his Hermione yet. Obviously someone had sent her back in time to him. Based on the engraving Aberforth claimed was on the edge of her time turner, he was the one who sent her. How? How was that even possible? There were rumors of time traveling devices in the Department of Mysteries, but he'd never actually seen one before. Wiping at his eyes, Kingsley turned to face the man he had always admired almost as much as he admired his older brother.

"Why did she never tell me where she was from? Or rather, when?"

"Would you have believed her if she did?"

Kingsley could not argue with Aberforth that point. No, he likely would have thought she was barmy. To his knowledge, time travel was nothing more than a fantasy. It did not exist. Seeing the evidence to the contrary in his little witch being ever littler than she used to be, changed his mind.

"So there's a chance that when she disappeared she was really just using her time turner to return to her correct time?"

Aberforth nodded his head.

"Why did she not tell me? Why did you not tell me after she disappeared that that was even a possibility? The hope alone…"

"Could have killed you, son. Hermione did not want you to know. She begged me not to tell you the truth because she was afraid that you would waste your life pining for someone who may not be coming back."

"What do you mean? May not be coming back? If she used her time turner to travel forward in time, she will be waiting for us in the future."

"That's assuming that she was able to use her time turner. We don't know that for certain. You remember what it was like back then. Lots of people disappeared who weren't time travelers. She could have easily been one of them. Hermione wasn't even certain that she would be able to make it back to the future, but she did make it very clear to me that she did not want to disrupt your life with hope."

Kingsley knocked back the rest of his fire whiskey. Without even asking, Aberforth refilled the glass. He hated that Hermione had a point. Always hated when she was right and he wasn't. If he had known that there might come a day in the distant future when he would have the chance to hold her in his arms again, he would have waited until he was old and doddering. As it was, he had not given up hope that she would one day waltz back into their house for over five years. He'd met a witch so very different from the one he was still deeply in love with, but who had provided him the opportunity to move on. Though their relationship did not end in marriage and babies, he would always be fond of Hestia. Others had flitted in and out of his life with less impact.

"What do we do now?" Kingsley asked.

"I wish I could tell you, but I'm afraid I don't know."

Hours later he returned to the Order Headquarters intoxicated and thoroughly depressed. He was not sure how he was going to be in the same room with the girl who would grow up to be the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. Steeling himself for the inevitable influx of emotions certain to overpower him the moment he caught the familiar scent of lavender and ink wafting off of the girl, Kingsley stepped inside the house.

"You can always find someone here willing to drink with you, Kings," teased Sirius when he descended to the kitchen where a boisterous meal was in progress. "No need to run off to do it by yourself."

With a smile plastered on his face that felt fake and disingenuous, Kingsley settled down in the seat directly opposite from the girl. She caught his eye to smile widely. His stomach clenched, but the smile he had morphed into one that was real.

His predominant thoughts as he silently enjoyed the meal Molly Weasley provided was that he was going to have to somehow break into the Department of Mysteries. He had a time turner to steal.