Thank you to my beta Rosie for all of her help with this (none of this would be possible without her) RavenpuffLove for her willingness to listen to my ramblings and her suggestions. Zorak for her willingness to let me speak about the various twists I have wanted to take and then drop with this. And Missy who reminds me it's my fic and I can do what I want.

Warnings character death (war deaths), darker themes, violence, pregnancy, mentions of past domestic violence, past child abuse, secrets, mental illness, PTSD and just a bunch of angst. Slightly older woman/younger man.

Hermione and Severus are both of age. (And in their twenties.

This a is a time travel fic. Some events may be altered, some may be outright changed and some will not be what they seemed in canon. Secondary pairing is Wolfstar. There will be other rare pairs along the way.

Thank you for reading. Comments/reviews feed my muse but also grateful for folks who just read.

Hermione stood at the edge of the Astronomy tower as she pulled her coat tighter around herself trying to keep out the early fall chill. It was far too soon to be this cold, but it was mostly because of the wind, which was blistering, burning her cheeks. Her curls were wild and untamed. She didn't bother with anything much besides combing it out these days -- it wasn't as if anyone cared what she looked like.

Harry was here on loan from the Auror department and was working with her to help rebuild Hogwarts, along with Luna and a few others. The most shocking, however, were people like Pansy and Draco. Remus was here too having long ago left his son with his mother-in-law for her to raise. That was quite strange to Hermione, but she didn't comment on it. It was not her place. She was not like Ron who felt the need to state his opinion all the bloody time. He thought the Slytherins had gotten off easy, but she disagreed. They were children who had been caught in a trap: all of them were, on which side they had been on. Sometimes she wondered if that was the true cost of this war. Not castles or buildings that could be easily rebuilt, but the lives of those involved. Long ago people like James Potter and Severus Snape were just children, not unlike Harry and Draco or even Teddy Lupin.

She stared across the castle grounds, taking in every single detail that she possibly could: the leaves that were changing to the colour of rust and falling off the trees, the black lake with the boulders around it that stuck out sharply like stars in the night sky. She sat down and shifted slightly back from the edge, trying to be as safe as possible.She was not afraid for herself, but for Harry who didn't need to lose anyone else.

The names ran through her mind like a hamster on a wheel: Cedric, Sirius, Fred, Moody, Tonks, Dumbledore, Albus, and Severus. There were more, many more, but even the few she thought of caused bile to rise in her throat. Why did she feel the need to torture herself? She didn't kill them. Her spells didn't snuff out their lives. Yet because she was alive and they were not, it felt like she was the one to blame.

Hermione knew the term for it, at least what Muggles called it: Survivor's Guilt. Years had passed with it like a burden on her shoulders. She stood up, her joints popping as she did. There was work to do and little time to waste on thoughts of what she should have done. Hermione brushed off the little grime she had picked up on her denims from sitting on the cold stone ground. Surviving was all she had done over the last few years. Some days she barely recognised the woman looking back at her in the mirror. Gone was the plucky young girl who saw the world as something wonderful, and in her place was a woman who struggled to do the most basic of things.

She wondered if Harry and Ron felt the same way she did, although it wasn't like she could ask her former boyfriend. It wasn't even worth calling him that considering how short of a time they had been together. He was with his family as he should be.Since Fred's loss, Molly Weasley could not bear the idea of being parted from any of her surviving children even after the years had passed. Arthur blamed himself as did Bill, George was inconsolable; it was like half of him had died, as if one of his limbs had been cut off. Part of Hermione wondered if Ron blamed them: her and Harry as he had so long ago. He didn't outright say it as he had during the time they were Horcrux hunting, but sometimes she could swear she saw that in his blue eyes.

Harry, on the other hand, was used to suffering. Sometimes it seemed as if her friend had been built for it, as if he was steel and suffering was the fire that created him. But, the truth was Hermione knew that it wasn't the case because she was sure he felt the same sort of pain she did. They were simply hiding it from each other.

Hermione didn't know why she was here in Severus Snape's quarters of all places. They weren't what she had expected, though to be honest, she hadn't known what to expect. The furniture was a rich dark wood, the cushions soft and clean, fabrics of navy blue and evergreen. There was a warm brown plush rug covering the living space. What took up most of the room were the bookshelves that belonged in her dreams. The leather-bound tomes spilled out, overcrowded in a way that the library would never be. Hermione wanted to read all of them, to light the fire and curl up in the armchair, to escape into the books and the knowledge that they held within their pages.

But that was not the reason she was here, as much as that fact pained her greatly.

The wards were still there, the soft thrumming of his magic still present years after the man's death, though they let her in as if she belonged there. The fact that they did shocked Hermione, and left a twisted feeling in her stomach that she could barely explain. There were no words for the feeling. Sometimes, if she looked out of the corner of her eye, she could swear she could see him. But it was surely only foolish wishes that had no place in this reality. The man haunted her in her dreams and when her eyes were open.

It seemed nearly every single night for years she dreamed of Severus. Some were memories of the past, some were of him pleading with her to help him. Others were of them doing downright bloody domestic things, him being younger than she could have possibly of ever known him, but the others were by far the worst: watching the man die. Those were the ones that Hermione hated the most. Watching Severus bleed out on the floor of the shrieking shack, her trying to save him. Shoving potions down his throat, his raven's wing colour eyes turning the cold flat black of death as they stared at nothing. His pale skin taking on the pallor of death.

When she had those dreams, Hermione would end up waking to the sound of her own screams, which left her hoarse and unable to speak. Those nightmares were why she chose to sleep alone and not to share a room with Luna. Her friend did not need to be haunted by Hermione's demons when she surely had enough of her own.

Professor Snape had done his very best with every action he took to be cruel to her, and yet she felt drawn to him in a way she could not express, in ways that she barely was able to understand herself. It wasn't the dreams or even the nightmares that drew her -- they felt more like symptoms than the problem itself. Hermione did not go towards the bookshelves, instead she found herself drawn to the shut heavy oak door in the corner. The one that likely led to the man's bedroom. Hermione knew this was crossing a line. As antisocial as the man was, surely at least someone beside him had been in his sitting room. His bedroom was another story by far. Surely he never would have invited someone he wasn't close to in there, and even if Snape did, it would not had been a student.

Yet here she stood twisting the old brass doorknob in her hand and pushing the door silently open. There was no one here, not even ghosts, what did she honestly have to be afraid of? Nothing, there was nothing that she should be scared of. Hermione wasn't doing this with malice intent, she simply wanted to put her demons to rest and there was nothing wrong with wanting to do that. Or at least that's what she told herself.

The room was similar to the man's sitting room, though it was ever so slightly more lived in: navy blue rug over oak wood floor, heavy four-poster bed with an iron head and footboard, and a steel grey duvet and white sheets. Dark wood wardrobe and nightstands. There was a black cotton dressing gown and nightshirt lain at the foot of the bed. A bottle of fire whisky and a shot glass sat on the left nightstand, and a few books were on the right. A desk was in the corner with more books, a wooden chair with a small dark cushion on it, and papers on the desk had his tiny handwriting all over them. Next to that was a small pile of dirty clothing, likely waiting for the house elves that would never come for them. Dust had settled over everything, leaving a musty smell in the room. Headmistress McGonagall had not yet decided what to do with this room and asked that it be left alone. In that instant, it was clear as day to Hermione the man did not expect to die that night or, if he did, Severus thought that no one would bloody care.

The truth was Hermione couldn't decide which was more depressing. Both thoughts left her with the feeling she had a stone in her throat. She found herself reaching for the bottle of fire whisky, surely Severus wouldn't mind, would he? The man was dead after all. Hermione poured herself a small glass, less than a shot. The goal was to be able to sleep, not get drunk. In some ways it was like time itself had stopped at Hogwarts years ago for those who had agreed to help rebuild it. They had tried to do so, but it had gone like stacking playing cards in a windstorm: it just never stuck. The Headmistress and the rest of them refused to give up, but sometimes it felt like a waste of time. Of course that might just be Hermione's bleak outlook talking.

It was then that she saw it, a photograph, and a wizarding one at that. She knew she shouldn't. In any case, Hermione was unable to help herself and was reminded of her favourite childhood saying: curiosity did kill the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. She hadn't known what to expect, but what she saw made her veins turn to ice.

A younger Severus stood with two women, one older, possibly his mother, one younger who looked like -- nope it could not be -- and two small children, a boy and a girl. The other woman looked like her. Maybe a few years older than she was now, but it looked like her. Same bushy curls, brown eyes, warm tanned skin and the same small chip in her front tooth she gained from the fall she took down the stairs a few weeks ago. The chip Hermione insisted she didn't care to fix, that she cared little about what her teeth looked like, more so when other people fussed about them so much.

There was a wedding ring on each of their hands, simple gold bands, but it was stark clear about what those two people were to each other. Though the children spoke far more volumes than anything else. The little boy had skin like his mother, with its warm olive cast, the one that Hermione had despised most of her childhood, and his father's straight and sleek black hair. The girl, who was a mere toddler, had her mother's dark brown curls, but her father's pale white skin, though unlike him she had rosy cheeks.

Hermione tore her eyes away from the woman and the children, unable to process the fact that in all likelihood, it was herself and the children she would one day have, but in the past. The very thought of it gave her a throbbing headache. Snape was smiling, which made him look so different than he had when Hermione had known him. His features were the same, but softened without the harsh sneers the man was known for. The older woman, she assumed, was Eileen Prince, thinking back to the information they had found during the war from that newspaper. She wasn't any more a traditional beauty than her son could be called handsome, but she too smiled softly. Her once inky black hair was mostly grey and silver.

The magic photo showed them each moving slightly. Severus kissed the woman's curly hair, the children waved, Eileen reached out to grasp her son's shoulder lightly. They were happy, far happier than Hermione herself was now. She had heard rumours about alternative universes and that sometimes they crossed over. That would be the only way to explain how they were roughly the same age in this photo and it might explain why she was drawn to the man, because in another life they were together.

The other thoughts, however, Hermione couldn't stop herself from thinking. ' What if that was her? Her from this time? It meant Hermione went back in time and got together with the man. It meant there was a way to go back in time and try to fix things, to change things. It meant she could save people. She could stop Harry from losing his parents. She could stop Sirius from wasting away in Azkaban for twelve bloody years. She could save Fred, Dobby, and Moody. Teddy wouldn't have to lose his mother. And the last part felt like this odd chain sitting around her neck: she might also find a way to that odd family in the photo.'

But that was not Hermione's main goal. The reason to go back was to save those who were lost, but something in the back of her mind told her this would be a one-way trip. However, with all that she had lost now without the strong ties here to this time and space, it wasn't as sickening of a thought as she imagined it might be. If she had to fall on her sword in this time to give everyone a future, she would do so.

It was then that she saw it, antique brass glistening in the candlelight. It was a compass on the edge of the nightstand. It did not point north, though it spun like it was seeking something out. Maybe this was what Hermione was meant to find? Maybe this was what helped the other version of her in the past get there. Time travel couldn't even be described by the brightest witch of her age. Though to be honest, she hated that title. The brightest witch of any age would be able to save someone who was dying in front of her, wouldn't she?

Considering Hermione had found the hint and the strange object in Snape's rooms he might have known something about it. The man had once been the headmaster; it was worth checking with the portraits of the past headmasters. Part of her hoped that maybe Snape had decided to take up residence in his own protrait, finally. It had been painted over a decade ago; it was common practice for head of houses to have one made. But from what McGonagall had said, he had only agreed to it due to Dumbledore's insistence.Yet when the man had been pardoned, the only thing that had shown up in the portrait was a compass, which happened to look quite a bit like the one in her hands. She couldn't begin to think about what the man would feel once she figured out how to work this thing or whatever else helped herself go back in time. She shoved both the photograph and the compass into the pocket of her jumper, leaving the glass of whisky where she found it.

When she stepped out of Snape's quarters, she ran headlong into Remus. He looked downtrodden if anyone had ever. He had lost two people he had loved in his lifetime, Sirius and now Tonks, and both were dead by the same force. Hermione knew she might have the power to bring both of them back, and wouldn't that be wonderful if she could?

"You know no one is allowed in there, don't you?" Remus asked, scratching his chin as he did. "I thought Minerva made that quite clear."

"I…"

"It's fine, Hermione, I am just teasing you. I was on my way to supper, are you coming?"

"Yes, but later I have something I need to talk to you and Harry about for that matter."

"Happy to," he said, as he placed a hand on her back, encouraging her to continue.

Hermione sat down next to Harry at the head table. Her friend looked the same as he always had, and all of her thoughts of leaving came to a crashing halt. Harry was not Ron, Luna, or even Neville. This man who she loved dearly would miss her. They were to each other the sibling that neither had. But the truth was, what if this did work? Harry wouldn't need a sister-like friend because he would grow up with Lily and James Potter in his life. Wasn't that worth a chance? Sometimes when you stood on the edge of a cliff, you simply had to close your eyes and just jump. Malfoy sat on the far end of the table and he was just staring at her, as if the man was seeing someone or something from his past. Draco didn't look angry - if anything he looked as if he was seeing someone he cared a great deal about.

Someone poked Hermione sharply in her ribs.

"Quit staring at Malfoy," Harry mumbled, with food still in his mouth. "Someone might think that you like him or something."

Hermione didn't bother to give anything so utterly stupid a response. Beyond that, Malfoy was following Luna around like some sort of lost puppy. The Ravenclaw was like a strange bright light to the world. Because of that, she could easily understand why someone who had been through so much, who had lived with darkness only to turn away from it, was drawn to someone who could see the best in every situation.

Harry quickly started another conversation with Neville, who was directly across the table from him. Hermione picked at her food when she caught McGonagall giving her a worried look, because she had placed quite a bit of food on her plate, but she hadn't eaten any of it. Harry was doing the same, though he was far better at it.

"You should eat, Hermione," Luna whispered, from her seat in front of her. "The Nargles are more likely to get you if you don't. They cloud your mind, you know, and that's the last thing someone who's thinking about important things like you are needs."

"I will, Luna," she said softly, tearing a piece of her roll off and plopping it into her mouth. Hermione placed a hand over her mouth and added, "it's just…"

"Hard," Pansy added softly, her pale cheeks turning pink. "I am sorry… I didn't mean to intrude in something that wasn't my place."

"It's fine," Hermione said. "No one expects you to sit here silently. We all did what we had to, and you are paying your debt for the choices you made. I see no point in adding more punishment on top of that."

"Weasley disagrees with that," Draco snapped, crossing his arms over his chest, blond hair falling over one pale blue eye. "He thinks it even with what Potter said, even bloody Professor Snape. You know the man who was on your side and died for it? That he too should be left off that monument or whatever else you want to call it that they are planning that's taking forever. They hate us, Granger, every single bloody one of us. It doesn't matter what we say or do; your kind will see our kind as monsters. Slytherins -- the monster under your bed since the twelve freaking hundreds."

"It's not Slytherins who people have a problem with," Lavender growled from the far end of the table, her face marred by Greyback's scars. "It's Death Eaters!"

"Really?" Pansy shouted, turning sharply to face the dark-haired girl. Then quickly snapping to look at Neville. "I wasn't a Death Eater any more than you were! And Draco? He only joined them to protect his mother. Not unlike many of you! Longbottom, what would you do to save your parents? Anything? And don't you dare bloody deny it! I can see it on your face."

"I would," the despondent man muttered. "But, I wouldn't have to if the Death Eaters would have simply left them alone. I understand why Ron feels the way he does. His brother is dead and nothing will bring him back. Sometimes I feel the same as I am sure most people do at this table. Though sometimes I wish my parents could be given the kindness of death.The truth is sometimes my mother gives me something when I am crying. Or my father stares at the birds outside of the window in their room. It gives me this tiny bit of hope that they are still there. And then some Medwizard goes and crushes that. They remind me that they aren't there, at least not in the way that they used to be."

"Malfoy, the reason why people see you as monsters is because they remember the first war," Harry said, staring at his mostly full plate. His body shook, possibly with anger, though most likely due to how upset he was. "They remember people like my parents and all the others who aren't mentioned as much. Your aunt killed Tonks, her fucking niece. We don't do that. Not even…"

"My father?" the blond murmured. "To you people he might be nothing more than a Death Eater, but to me? I can't forget the man who bought me my first broom or taught me to play chess. To you, he's just a monster, but to me, he will always be my dad. Nothing I can do will ever change that. Like Snape will always be my Godfather. I think it's clear I am not welcome here anymore; it's not like I am hungry anyway."

Draco threw his napkin onto his plate and stood sharply, even proudly from his chair. The man took three calm assertive steps, and then bolted. Hermione could hear something that might be crying? Surely it wasn't that, was it? Maybe it was. Malfoy was as human as the rest of them and just as broken. There were no winners and losers in war, only pain. Luna stood, shoving her plate aside.

"Why do care about Malfoy?" Seamus asked, shoving a chocolate biscuit into his mouth. "Looney Lovegood?"

The blonde ignored him, focusing on Hermione and Harry.

"He's not a monster, you know that, right?" Luna said over her shoulder. "He's…been through so much, but it's not my story to tell." Sighing softly she added, "Draco tried to do everything he could to help and protect me during my time at the Manor. He's a good person who has made bad choices, not unlike some others in the world."

Luna walked in the same direction that Malfoy had. Pansy followed her, throwing Harry an angry look before she did so.

The photo and the compass sat in Hermione's pocket, feeling heavier now than they ever had. She needed to do this, not just for Harry or those considered on the side of the light, but for them all. Though she was going to have to tell someone before she left. Harry deserved to know - even if it wouldn't matter in the end. Because there was no sure-fire way to make sure it would in fact work.

Remus said nothing, staring blankly at the back of his hands as if the scars that covered them were the most interesting thing in the world. He seemed rather just out of it.

If this object was what Hermione thought it was, she could just as easily be wrong, it was a coin toss. Maybe the photo wasn't proof of time travel, but an alternative universe. Maybe Snape just had a wife who looked like her. A lot of people ended up with a broken tooth, didn't they? Even thinking about all the other possibilities, something in the pit of Hermione's stomach told her this compass would get her into the past. To a situation that would lead to that photo.

And whatever happened, the world would be better because of the choices she made. It might be a silly feeling, but sometimes you just had to trust your gut. Hermione reached for the compass, clenching it in her fist. Harry was gathering his things and McGonagall opened her mouth to say something, but then shut it. The woman realized everyone was kind of just done with it all. Keeping them here was like trying to shove the lid back on the pot after it exploded. It was useless.

"Harry?" Hermione said his name more like a question, "I need to talk to you, with Remus."

"Sure, let's go to the Room of Requirement," Harry said, pushing his glasses up his nose and then smiling at her.

Remus followed after them quietly, his shabby robes hung off his thin frame.

Just as Hermione felt in her gut that she was supposed to go back in time? She also knew she was going to miss Harry more than anything and he would miss her. Still, she repeated to herself over and over, this was to help Harry and everyone else. There was no way to know for sure that what she was assuming was correct, and it could be rather bloody off from the truth.

Hermione followed Harry out of the Great Hall and away from the stares of her former classmates.