Epilogue – Spring 2010

Hermione was enduring yet again, the usual hustle and bustle that came about the Burrow every Sunday morning. After Hermione had married Ron, Mr and Mrs. Weasley had insisted that she begin to call them mum and dad. She was embarrassed and felt so foolish for the first year or and a bit, but, though she'd never admitted it, it gave her a wonderful homely feeling.

"Hermione, could you pass me out those plates, darling?" Mrs. Weasley called to her from the opposite end of the kitchen. Hermione pulled them out and floated them over to her.

They both spent a few more minutes in the kitchen, preparing the weekly Sunday family dinner when Hermione thought of something. "Hey mum?"

"Yes dear?"

"Do you know what time Ron'll be back?"

"It's hard to know, he still hasn't left work." She said, giving her famous clock a glance.

"But it'll be getting dark soon…"

There was a great banging from above, as someone came running full pelt down the stairs.

"Who ever that is, if ye break the stairs again, you'll be fixing it this time, without magic!" Mrs. Weasley yelled. The pounding stopped, they could hear could hear the person still making their way down hurriedly, but much quieter.

"Hermione?" It was Harry. "Hermione, could you come with me a second please, it's important."

"Is everything alright?" Hermione and Mrs. Weasley said at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah, nothing too serious, just work stuff."

"Okay." Hermione nodded and wiped her wet hands off her apron. "I'll be back in a second, mum." She followed Harry upstairs, she nearly had to take the stairs two at a time to keep up with them. He led her all the way up to the attic where the ghoul had once been, slammed the door and locked it behind them.

"Harry?"

There was no light in the room, save for a tiny box in the middle of the room a soft golden glow was emanating inside of.

"Harry, what on earth is going on? I thought you were looking after the kids with Ginny?"

"Okay… ehm… well…" Harry was pacing up and down the room, occasionally obscuring the light from the box. "You remember that thing the other Aurors and I were working on? The one we consulted you on, you told us to discontinue?"

"No, Harry, you didn't..."

"Well, we got it to work anyway… you can see the selected persons future quite clearly now."

"Harry, what did I tell you? You can't mess with time! The multitude of things that could go wrong is unimaginable!"

"Shhh! But we're not messing with time, we're not actually going into the future… just… observing it, you know, so we can see what the enemy's up to."

"Harry… What did you do?"

"Don't worry! It's nothing too serious. But well you know we all tried it on ourselves first, to make sure it worked? Well we thought we might need to try it on someone outside the Auror office to see if it'd still work… and I kinda tried it on… you."

"Harry, what did you do to my future?"

Harry could swear he could see her eyes flash red in the dark. "Nothing! Nothing! I just thought you should see what I saw…"

"No, no, Harry, I can't look into my future… it's too dangerous."

"Hermione… please… please," he put his hands on her shoulders. "You're my sister, you have to trust me."

She sighed. "Okay, okay, okay… I'll kill you if this goes wrong."

He nodded and they walked over to the box, he picked it up and said; "All you need to do, is look inside."

"How will it know it's my future?"

"Um… Your hair sample…"

"My hair sample? You know what, I don't even want to know." Hermione took the box from him and opened it.

She felt her feet leave the attic floor and was sucked into the box, as she looked up, the lid closed above her and she was in a kitchen.

"… Harry? Hello?" She looked around, inspecting. "I wouldn't mind a kitchen like this," she muttered. "It's a nice bloody kitchen." She smiled, looked around again, and noticed an open door with a faint light outside of it. As she went to inspect, she looked to her left and saw a closed pair of double doors with the same faint light coming out of it. She continued her inspection, outside the single door was a wide dark open hallway. Hermione shivered. It was a really creepy hallway, there was only one source of light, and that was coming from an open door not too far down with an orangey-yellow light; a tell tale sign of a lovely warm fire.

As she approached the door, she could swear she head her own voice, come from the room with the fire in it.

"It'll just go and check on the cake!"

Hermione jogged back to the kitchen and finally caught sight of herself, pulling a hot chocolate cake out of the fancy oven. "Ooooh… smells lovely."

"Um… Hello…?" Past Hermione called. "Can you see me...? Hear me…? No…? Okay then."

Past Hermione sat down at the island counter and watched her older self fuss over the cake. When Future Hermione finally turned to face Past Hermione, she got a good look at herself for the first time.

"Woah Hermione, what have you done to yourself, you need to lose some years." Future Hermione looked at least ten years older. She looked right into her future-self's eyes, just as she did this, her future self looked up and looked her dead in the eye too. Past Hermione was frozen, staring herself in the face, but after a few seconds, the Future Hermione broke out of her stare and simply whispered to herself; "Weirdest déjà vu of my life."

"Hermione, love? How's the cake coming? Did you burn it?" a familiar male voice called cheekily from the hallway.

"Quiet you!" Future Hermione called back, smiling.

Past Hermione was so engrossed in watching her future self; she didn't notice the owner of the male voice enter the kitchen. Only when he circled the island counter and wrapped his arms around Future Hermione, did Past Hermione get a good look at him.

And when she did, she felt her breathing catch, she couldn't swallow and her heart stopped for two beats and then picked up double time.

"Draco…" she whispered.

Future Hermione was still fooling around with Future Draco.

"No, see, look, not burned at all. Perfect cake." She smiled.

"Made by a perfect housewife, yeah?"

"Yeah, aren't you happy you married me now?" She laughed and kissed him. Past Hermione's heart was breaking, tears were welling up in her eyes, that vision there of a possible future for the two of them, was the single most painful thing she'd ever had to witness.

"You may be forty-one, but you're still the hottest thing going." He teased.

"Shut up, you, I'm sure the kids probably wouldn't appreciate hearing that."

Hermione choked on the air in her own lungs. Kids?

Watching all of this… a monster had a hold of her heart through her chest and was trying its mightiest to pull it from her chest. That is how Hermione felt. She looked up, saw the box opening, next thing she knew she was on her knees back in the attic clutching her chest and hyperventilating. It hurt… it really hurt. Years of pent up denial and avoiding of her deepest darkest feelings all came flooding out at once and it felt as though someone was pounding her heart with a sledgehammer. She didn't register, Harry kneeling next to her and putting his arms around her, or his Lumos, all she could take in was that there was a floor beneath her and she was so heartbroken she couldn't even cry. The only other thing she knew, was that she was still well and truly madly in love with Draco Malfoy.

Sequel?