"Trick or treat?" A little girl squealed as Hermione opened the door. She smiled at the sight of little Wednesday Addams holding out her plastic pumpkin, waiting for her treats, and Morticia and Gomez Addams patiently waiting behind her. The Addams Family had been one of her favorite shows as a kid.

"What a beautiful Wednesday you are! And a lucky one too." She reached for a purple candy bag that sat on the counter and handed it to the girl as she knelt down and spoke softly in a playful tone. "This is the last candy bag I have. And it has a little surprise inside."

"Like the Golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?" the girl asked with awe as she accepted the candy bag.

"Hmmm… no. I don't have a chocolate factory." She leaned forward and spoke in a loud whisper r. "But I put my favorite candy in the whole world there. It's from Brazil, and I rarely buy it for myself. It's called brigadeiro. And now you have a whole package of it!"

The girl smiled broadly and clapped her hands in delight, running to her parents to tell them the news – who responded with the appropriate amount of surprise despite having heard the entire exchange. She nodded and bid them goodbye, taking the "no more candies left, sorry" sign that she made earlier that day and putting it on her window, closing the door right after.

On this Halloween night, all she wanted to do was grab a big bowl of popcorn, some soda, and lie back to watch a trash horror movie on the TV.

Hermione Granger wasn't a loner. She just… needed to be alone. Her parents had divorced recently and fled from the country, her mom moving to Australia and her father to America.

Parvati tried to persuade her to go to the Halloween Party at the Leaky, but she wasn't in the mood.

Parvati, and her twin Padma, had been her first friends in Britain when she returned after a decade of studying at i Castelobruxo, the Brazilian School of Wizardry and Witchcraft.

She had been offered the opportunity by Benedita Dourado herself, the legendary headmistress of the ancient school. Hermione had soon discovered that Benedita had once been close to her great-grandfather, and was delighted to have her in the school for a year in an exchange program.

Her parents, being more familiar with the presence of Benedita than of Minerva McGonagall, the headmistress of Hogwarts, made the hard decision to send Hermione to South America for her very first year. The young woman had eventually graduated from the school as the top of her class, never setting foot in the British school.

Just as Hermione had decided to pursue a career in her homeland, hoping to spend more time with her parents, the news of the divorce had hit her like a bludger to the head. The talk was nothing less than awkward and she'd felt like the worst person in the world after hearing that the marriage had been over for a long time, but they had decided to stay together in order to keep up appearances and provide her with a stable home during the time she spent with them in Britain.

They had finished the papers last week, and she needed time to cope with it. Until she decided what to do, she'd taken a job in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures at the Ministry of Magic, where she'd been approached by the twins on her very first day during lunch.

They'd been best friends since day one. Padma worked at the Department of International Magic Cooperation, while Parvati was an intern at the Department of Magical Transportation.

Today was the first day of vacation and the sisters were traveling to India for a week to visit their family. Hermione was offered an invitation several times, but she declined in favor of making her home look like a proper… home.

The house she inherited from her parents was in a good neighborhood in London and had three rooms – one of them already turned into a study and library for the young woman.

The house would be undergoing a full renovation over the next few days. She wanted to completely make it her own. She had never lived there more than three months a year, which helped since she wasn't attached to the actual house.

But she didn't need to worry about any of that right now. Instead, she snuggled with her favorite blanket as Kubrick's 'The Shining' started playing on her screen.

— • —

Oh, his parents would kill him if they found out about him like this. Luckily for him, they would be out of the country for the week. He was at the Leaky, on Halloween night, drinking as much as he could, dressed as a cupid.

Well, "dressed" would be a strong word, looking at his outfit. Some – his mom, for example – might say that he was almost naked. His white gown exposed half of his muscled chest and the white wings were charmed to look as if they were a part of his body. Lavender Brown outdid herself with the makeup and concealment charms, but she had to outdo herself every day, trying to get Ron Weasley to dress properly for work.

He laughed at his own silent joke.

Maybe it was the number of Firewhiskey shots he just had, but Harry Potter was sure that Ron Weasley, his best mate, didn't have tentacles. And the room wasn't spinning. Something was wrong, very wrong.

If he'd known about the pill that a mysterious girl slipped into his cup, he would understand what was happening to him.

But the next thing he knew, Ron had disappeared with Lavender and the girl he'd been dancing with two minutes ago still hadn't come back from the bathroom.

Harry closed his eyes and suddenly it felt like everyone was dancing way too close to each other, and he was just flowing with the crowd.

A person could spend half of their time thinking about the 'what if's' of their life.

'What if I had said this instead of that?'

'What if I'd taken the job?'

'What if I hadn't walked out that night?'

What if, what if, what if…

What if Harry Potter hadn't gone to the Leaky Cauldron? Well, for starters, he wouldn't be in the position he was at the moment, being unknowingly dragged out of the club His body lax and uncooperative from the pills that had been mixed with his alcohol.

Someone dragged his disillusioned body through the streets until his body was dropped on the ground of Knockturn Alley.

When he opened his mouth to moan after his head hit the rocky ground, a quick stupefy was fired in his direction.

"Well, well… not so brave now, right, Potter?"

The man spat on the face of the wizard lying half-unconscious on the ground, kicking his head for good measure.

It didn't get any better from there for Harry.

Blow after blow, kick after kick, landed on his head, crotch, legs, and stomach, leaving the white gown full of blood and mud.

"Enough!" the leader of the group said, raising one hand. "This should teach him a lesson. I don't want the bastard dead – at least not yet."

The pale man on his left snickered, snapping his fingers and yawning. "What the hell are we going to do now? We can't leave him here or check him into St. Mungos."

"There's a muggle neighborhood some blocks away from here," the black man on the right said roughly. "It should suffice and won't leave any traces. That moron, Weasley, will think the git is just away with some girl."

"And we're just going to drop him off at a random doorstep and go?"

"Not our problem anymore. He can rely on muggles to help him, like the filthy scum he is. Guess little Potter should start praying for some muggle deity to save him."

Laughter filled the dark alley, echoing like a horror movie scene.

"You." The leader pointed to the man on his right. "Apparate and leave him there. The less we know, the better. And be quick. The less attention we draw, the better."

The man grabbed the raven-haired wizard on the ground and apparated right on spot, not bothering to take care not to splinch him .

The street was dark and calm, a soft breeze lifting the confetti papers from the ground. The houses had the lights turned off, except one at the end of the road. The curtains at the front window had a soft glow on it, with a sign taped to the glass outside.

"No more candies left, sorry."

Interesting.

The man pondered his choices as the man in his arms began to shiver from the cold.

What if, what if, what if…

A muggle might say that it was the work of a guardian angel that pushed the man to the house with the sign on the window. Whatever it was, it had the man dropping the bruised body of Harry Potter on the ground by the front door.

"Good luck, Potter." He pressed the doorbell and disapparated right after, hoping that whoever found the Potter boy helped him make it through the night at least. Maybe this would help his conscience after what he'd been a part of tonight. Yes, that would do.

— • —

Just as Jack Torrance was trying to break into the bathroom with his iconic line of 'Here's Johnny', someone rang the doorbell.

It was past midnight and the street was quiet, without any signs of disturbance. Hermione wasn't expecting anyone and trick-or-treaters were long gone. Frowning, she grabbed her wand and disillusioned herself, defensive spells running through her mind. She could never be too careful.

She peeked through the curtains on the window and saw no one at her doorstep or in the area near her house. Only the twins knew her address, but they were likely on their way home after enjoying the party at the Leaky, not stopping at Hermione's house for a midnight prank.

Just as she was about to turn around and leave it be, something that resembled wings caught her eye.

Angel wings.

What?

Throwing caution to the wind – but still disillusioned –, the young woman decided to open the door to take a better look at whatever was at her front door. When she looked down, her heart stopped.

A man lay brutally beaten and hurt, trying to open his mouth as if it was the most painful thing in the world. When he was able to, blood sputtered from his mouth.

"Oh my god!"

Her hands started trembling as she scrutinized the man lying on the floor. Who would have done such a horrendous thing? And who had left him at her door? This man looked like he'd been dragged around, judging by the scrapes that covered his exposed body. What was left of his clothes were torn and dirty with mud and blood.

The fight – or whatever violence had left him in this state – probably occurred far away from her house. Granted, the TV was a bit loud, but she would have heard something of this magnitude if it happened near her house. Or someone in the neighborhood would have come to check it out, at least in curiosity.

Whoever dropped this man at her door, had left him to die.

She didn't know what to do and the man was getting paler by second. He started to open his mouth again and she head his broken whisper.

"...H-Help."

Hermione snapped out of her horrified stupor and decided to act. With quick resolve, she decided to bring him into her house, as she didn't think he could make it to a hospital the muggle ways and he wasn't in any state to apparate. She didn't even know if this man was muggle or not, for goodness's sake.

The young woman levitated the raven-haired man to the guest room on the first floor and started working on a series of spells she learned with Anne, the chief of the hospital wing at Castelobruxo. During her fourth year, every student attended an obligatory class of medical aid on the battlefield, preparing themselves for any occurrences that might happen during a mission, assignment, or any trouble they might cross during their life.

At that moment, Hermione never felt so grateful for spending extra time in the hospital wing perfecting her techniques. If she hadn't, this man would have probably been dead in minutes.

Her scan showed internal bleeding, broken ribs, a concussion, a broken wrist, and multiple cuts in the abdomen and around the lips.

Hermione never worked so fast in her life. This man's life, for whatever reason, was in her hands, and she wouldn't fail. She couldn't fail. His wrist had a wand holster whose disillusioning charm was beginning to fade, which proved that he was a wizard. Great, she thought. The young woman opened the emergency kit she got from the kitchen and started searching for the right potions to stabilize him for the night while she developed a plan.

Her scan showed that his heartbeat was starting to get weaker until she couldn't see it any longer, and still Hermione couldn't find any potions to help. In a sudden, and desperate, epiphany, she decided to recur to the muggle methods and started CPR. She counted out the thirty chest compressions, willing his heart to start again before leaning down to breathe into his bloody lips.

"One... two..."

Nothing.

She repeated the chest compressions and breathed into him.

Nothing.

"Come on! One, two, three…"

Only when the diagnostic spell showed his heartbeats once again, did Hermione allow herself to stop and take in the sight before her.

The man's raven hair was matted with blood and he was wearing something that at one point had been white before all of this mess.

The gown, the wings… oh.

He must've been dressed as a cupid.

When the shock left her body, Hermione started to laugh. A cupid. Cupid.

She did CPR on a freaking cupid. There was nothing more ironic than that. Soon enough the tears began to fall, laughter turning into sobs as the adrenalin finally drained from her body.

How could anyone do that to another person and leave him at a doorstep? Whoever did this to him, they meant to kill. This was a muggle neighborhood, no one could've helped him make it through the night here. Only by chance, had he ended up at her doorstep.

Oh lord.

She shakily got to her feet, finally able to calmly look through her potions stock. She gave him a dose of blood replenisher and sleep potion, gently massaging his throat to make him swallow them, before picking up some dittany.

She couldn't even see his wounds properly from all the blood. She sighed as she found a damp cloth and began to clean him, afraid that a cleaning spell would be too harsh on his wounds. She couldn't help but notice his muscular chest or the long, dark lashes that fluttered as he went into a deep potion-induced healing sleep. Even with the dittany she used, some of the gashes were too deep and she had to transfigure some t-shirts into bandages to wrap his chest, where the worst of the damage was. Then she started on his broken bones. By the time she was done, she was exhausted.

She transfigured his clothes into plain sleep pants, leaving off a shirt so she could check the bandages covering his chest later. She grunted as she turned him to one side, removing his bruised wings. After a moment's hesitation, Hermione took his wand away and locked it in a cabinet, as a safety measure. She still didn't know who this man was or if he was dangerous. If there was anything that Benedita Dourado had taught her, it was to keep constant vigilance.

She cast a warming charm in his shivering body and covered him in blankets, warding the room so that she would know the instant something happened.

The young woman went to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee for herself. It was going to be a long night.

— • —

A/N: Hello! This wasn't the story that i planned on posting after "I'll Bring Back Your Love In Seven Days", but… something inside of me told me that it was the right thing to do. It's even more AU-ish than the previous one, hence Hermione and Harry not knowing each other. Again, we have Brazilian references in this story. And to clear something up, I'll have to say this: I am eighteen years old, born and raised in Brazil. I'm not using cultural references for clout, as someone accused me in a review on another story. I know what I am writing about. It's not on my plans to write Portuguese quotes in the middle of it – even though when I did that, it had a reason and a background for the character to do so. When I write something in another language that's not English, I put the translation in the notes.

Sorry for venting, but it was something that really bothered me when I read and I felt that it had xenophobic undertones to it. I hope that you liked the chapter and that it captured enough of your attention for you to follow this journey with me. Big thank you to the best beta in the world ( sonofahorcrux).