Arriving in another clearing she had been with Harry, Hermione decided she needed to take a walk. She needed a new location.

The hike took her the rest of the day, she didn't stop until she couldn't see anything anymore, lighting up her wand would give her away if she walked by it too long.

For putting up the tent, she would need light, however, so she lit her wand.

A huge explosion burst out of it, blowing away the tree nearest her, and pushing her up into the air.

She landed painfully on her bum. Looking down she again saw Bellatrix wand. Angry at herself for picking that one again, and angry at the wand for being so uncontrollable.

The explosion had created a decent place for her to put up the tent, the ground being nice and flat now. She took out her own wand and set it up, going inside and putting away the food and newspaper before crawling into bed.

The days were pointless now. It was hard getting up when you had no purpose any longer, and no company. She stayed up late trying to figure out how to find Harry and had difficulty sleeping. She kept moving, figuring that Harry and Ron might still be on the run, and hiding at one of the places they had been before.

So she spent her days roaming forest after forest yelling out their names, and nights sitting by the radio trying to get it to work again, to tell her some news.

Unable to keep going at this pace Hermione started practicing spells with her wands, both of them. Where her own one was a trusted good wand, Bellatrix old one did not work. But one day she was trying it out she noticed the newspaper she had left lying on the bedside table weeks earlier. The date was wrong.

With a lump in her throat, she approached the innocent paper lying there.

27 of March 1977

How could that be?

77?

19 years before?

Why was the paper still lying out and about then?

And why did it look so new?

She remembered picking it up and it had smelled of fresh printing ink, a smell Hermione adored.

It must be under a stasis charm. That's it, somebody kept it in perfect condition for some reason.

Hastily, she picked the paper up, desperately looking through it to find a clue as to why somebody would keep a paper from the previous war.

Forgetting her plans for the day, and the need for her to go out and get more food since it had been days since the last time she ate, she delved into it.

An entire day of looking through it, but nothing stood out. There were muggles who had died, but no witches or wizard. So it wasn't a sentimental reason for it. Especially since there was no mention of weddings or births.

None of the attacks or events in the paper had any lasting significance in the wizarding world, Hermione had most of the events of the first war memorized. None of which were mentioned in the paper.

She eventually fell asleep fretting over the paper.

The second she woke up the following day, she pulled out every book she had and found the ones about history.

Cross-Referencing and fact checking for another couple of days led her nowhere. There was no reason for anyone to keep this paper, none whatsoever.

Completely freaking out, Hermione walked out of the tent. The chaos she created in her wake would have left Bellatrix and Harry green with envy. Wielding the wand, she blew up, set fire to, and leveled most of the forest around her. After doing that for a couple of minutes, she started calming down.

Then she cried. Her entire world was crashing down around her, but she was still not alright with what she had read, it couldn't be true.

When she heard voices coming, she ran back into her dome of protection.

The moment she was inside it, the people attached to said voices moved over a nearby hill.

"Definitely magical."

The other man just hummed in response. Both took out their wands and started casting spells, one doing detection magic, the other trying to clean it all up.

"Strange." the first man said.

The other hummed again.

"The signature is conflicting, like two melding together."

The second commented "whoever is, he is strong. I can barely take the stint off the damage."

"Unless it's a she…"

The other laughed "What witch has this sort of power?" Hermione bristled with anger at the masochistic statement.

"The one that follows you-know-who."

They looked at each other in shock. The second man commented, "that has never been confirmed."

"I've gone through the magical signatures after all the attacks. This one is very similar to one that shows up on almost every single one."

Bellatrix

"Except…"

"What?"

"I can't tell exactly why this one is different."

Because I'm not Bellatrix! She thought bitterly, the wand in her hand burning her momentarily. In shock she dropped it, realizing it was not her own wand, but Bella's. She missed what they had been saying until one commented that "they were probably nearby"

In a rush, Hermione started taking down the tent. She remembered Scabior and the snatchers being unable to even notice her dome, but these two weren't second-rate wizards for hire.

They might be tired ministry employee's, but that just meant they had a range of different tools at their disposal which Hermione had no idea of.

She flung the invisibility cloak over herself and collapsed the wards.

"Did you feel that?"

"That way." the second man said, pointing straight at Hermione. Unwilling to take any more chances, she twirled and apparated away.

The second she felt the ground underneath her she started throwing up. Except she hadn't eaten for days and ended up just dry heaving.

Then she curled up and cried for a while.

Come on, pick yourself up! You are a smart, level headed Gryffindor, and you can get through this!

She wiped her tears and found a new resolve. She would get to the bottom of what was going on.

The next day she risked more than ever before, she went to Hogsmeade underneath the invisibility cloak. Harry had managed to not bump into anyone in his ventures, and Hermione prided herself in being way more careful than him.

All of the papers said 1977, just like the one in her tent. Some were on the newspaper stands, some were littered on the ground by careless people. All of them with different dates, except for the year.

She even witnessed a man signing for something and putting down the date -77. She went into the bookstore, the newest publications all saying the same thing. Brand new but on the inside, the date was 77.

She had traveled back in time.

She had left everyone she had ever known behind.

And she had killed a man.

In her despair, Hermione had hidden in the bookstore. She needed the comfort of books around her, a constant in the otherwise chaotic world.

At first, she had managed to hide from the truth of what she had done to Dolohov. Then part of her had excused it by thinking of all the horrible stuff he had done in the past.

Now that she knew the date, she had to deal with the fact that the man might have never harmed anyone before he that fateful Christmas crossed her path.

Part of her doubted that, but guilt clouded her mind. The dusty tomes surrounding her bringing her little comfort.

I killed someone.

I can never change that.

But I can give him a proper burial.

Sneaking out of the store in the wee hours of the morning, she was certain she saw an owl following her. Brushing it off as paranoia, she apparated to the forest where she had killed him.

The stench was overbearing, and again she started dry heaving, her stomach turning on itself in disgust.

Flies, bugs and all other sorts of tiny creatures had collected around the man. In many places she could see bone, bigger animals having had a bite of the corpse. He was more skeleton than man at this point.

Afraid of leaving a signature, she used the man's wand that lay nearby untouched and dug him a grave. Then she levitated the rotting corpse into it and covered it up. She made a gravestone out of nearby rocks and put the man's name on it. But she didn't know when he was born, nor the date he had died.

You mean the day you killed him.

Shaking her head to try and get rid of the thought didn't really help.

"I feel like I should say something." but no other words came naturally to her. After a long pause, she tried to continue.

"Antonin Dolohov was a pureblooded man who followed his master until it brought him to an early grave in the middle of nowhere. May his memory live on to tell of his folly."

It may not be the words that the man would condone, but it patched up part of the hole that had been left in Hermione's soul after she had killed him. She bent down and left his wand on the gravestone. It hadn't helped much, but Hermione knew it was a step in the right direction.

So now that she knows, any guesses to what she will do next?

Thanks to my lovely reviewers AliceEnchanted and lalyta8! And thank you to everyone that is following or has put this story in their favorites.

For anyone interested I put up a poll on my profile where you can vote for pairings for new fics. Those polls have no effect on the stories I have already started on but will help decide on what to write next.

Xx