In retrospect, no one in the various Wizarding communities could have seen it coming. Not even Voldemort, whose determined slog on the pathways of learning to the fabled state of immortality showed a motivation rarely seen and could have explained it. Even then, he would have been wrong and quite ignorant to some of the long-hidden vagaries of Magic.

What Tom Riddle and every other witch and wizard that created Horcruxes didn't know was that the first soul split affected the soulscape from which souls were drawn from for assignment to the soon-to-be-born. It created a mild resonance effect that bled over into the waiting souls in line, and it mattered not if those souls were intended to wield the power of Magic or not. It had a similar effect on those that were recently born even as they asserted growing dominion over their states of self, minds, body, and for those that could, magic.

For those affected, it often dictated their future demeanor and affectations. It had nothing to do with soul bonds, which was another whole kettle of fish entirely. Soul bonds were governed by The Highest of High and the creation of these not delegated to the lesser offices of the ninefold celestial hierarchy. Once a soul bond was created and initialized, it was routed to the seraphim for assignment to any of the cherubims, thrones, or the rare dominion looking for promotion. Once it came to its assigned case worker, it was more often than not protected from those effects anyway. It was a kind of fail-safe that worked throughout the eons.

The more splits a soul suffered, the further back into the line of waiting souls the resonance touched upon like ripples in still pond water. As Tom Riddle had started with his first Horcrux in 1942 with the Gaunt ring, the subsequent creation of four more in a time range from 1943 to 1967 made the soul split-induced resonance more powerful and longer lasting. A lot of those affected souls went on to create the state of being known as war, whether militarily, sociologically, or financially.

Some took no prisoners academically, and by 1967 the soul ripples had turned into a rip current that touched twelve years of waiting souls. One of those was a soul waiting for a twenty-seventh trip down and assigned to a girl named Hermione Granger.

At first, there was no problem. The girl grew normally as her medically-trained parents expected but at the first incidence of accidental magic, the multiple-Horcrux augmented resonance found its first firm clawhold in the psyche of the scarily smart girl to form a sump. From that moment forth, there was no stopping it as it gathered insidious influence but for the iron control of Hermione's mind. It only was unleashed upon her loss of temper. Such as a certain event she remembered quite well, thank you.

In fact, it was one of her very favorites.

"You! You foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach!"

There had been something else said behind her, but she didn't know what it was right then. Within her, there was a link made with something else. The sump had discovered a kinship with the boy known as Harry Potter but it didn't know or care why that was. Any time he was near it grew, starting from Hermione's first meeting of Harry Potter on the train to Hogwarts. As the sump was part of Hermione's very self like an arm or a foot would be, the wards protecting the Castle never detected it. The magical leylines feeding the Castle bolstered it over the years. Neither Harry or Hermione knew that the Horcrux in his scar fed and programmed the sump as it grew over the years to come. It hadn't become Voldemort, but a reasonably similar and tightly integrated part of her psyche buried deep within her.

Had Draco Malfoy known any of this, it still would have helped him at all on that fateful night. Her memory replayed it with every fidelity it was capable of.

SMACK!

With that impact so long ago, Hermione discovered that power came in many forms. She said nothing to Harry or Ron about her discovery that day, but continued in her studies. The eidetic memory she possessed swallowed whole the books in the Hogwarts library and later the books in the Black library. After Harry and Ginny married and reopened Potter Manor, the unconditional access he offered her as one of his oldest friends allowed her to do the same things to the Potter library. After Voldemort was killed, the backlash that came from the rejoining of the soul pieces that waited in limbo before banishment traveled down the long-quiescent path of the ripples and started the reaction in Hermione.

The Golden Trio started their lives. Ron got a position with the Cannons, although he wasn't as good as he thought he was. Harry became an Auror, working his way up the ranks and proving that he deserved the respect that came from killing Voldemort. Hermione started working with the Unspeakables, learning magic upon magic upon magic. They sent her on many research trips, and although the Trio would always have places in each others' hearts, they drifted apart slightly as life intruded.

Hermione's first kill was on the job. She was wearing a set of robes that she liked that had nothing to do with the Unspeakables. They were white in color, almost ethereal in quality, and she felt quite feminine in them. Across from where she was crossing the street, a man came out of the nearby bar, smelling slightly of whiskey. He saw her and wolf-whistled.

"Hey, sweet-cheeks! How about I take you home and show you something good, yeah?"

She smiled, on suggestion from the activated sump, and pretended to go with him as she pulled the hood up over her bushy hair. Ten minutes later, his desiccated corpse lay covered in newspapers with every bit of his body's hairs weaved into a loop around his crackling waist.

Hermione crouched over the body with her knees bent, shivering as the most electric shocks of pleasure slammed into her body and her magic. Nothing had ever felt like that, and it was another ten minutes before she could walk without her legs threatening to collapse under her. The robes seemed to helping her to walk.

A couple of weeks later, a distracted woman wasn't watching where she was going as she dragged a recalcitrant child from the display of the joke shop. She tread on the hem of a set of snowy-white robes.

A moment later, she lay lifeless in the street. Her rapidly cooling body had been bisected from head down on the center line formed by her nose, sternum, and bellybutton. There was no mess as each widely open eye stared unseeing at the roughly cauterized halves. Those halves were connected to each other by a hairy loop around the woman's erstwhile waist like a ghastly pair of scissors.

The magical backwash surged through Hermione as before, but she was able to shake off the effects a little quicker. She never heard the child screaming and never knew that he never spoke another word in his life. Nor did she care.

After that, the addiction to the climax that came with the surge of that power hit hard. The sump drew up the considerable power of her mind and magical core. In a single restless night, a new facet of her personality was unveiled that begged for release. Hermione took to wearing the white robes more often and organizing what she came to call hunts. She set up lists and used a few thrift-shop Rolodexes to make a randomizer that chose her prey.

A bald wizard.

A woman who looked a bit like Professor McGonagall, but was German.

An older man with a great deal of money that had worked his whole life.

A very obese man that viscerally reminded her of that damned Dursley. The pleasure she took from his death made her scream for several hours and she had to crawl away. The white robes remained white, with no mess, dirt, blood, or anything finding purchase on its fabric.

A month had passed after that. She had been so sated that she purred like the half-Kneazle she still missed. The time off from her hunts allowed the accumulated knowledge from the libraries she conquered to percolate and the sump placed that knowledge into repositories that allowed for instant access at any given moment.

Still, the magic that had created the sump needed periodic recharges and that was what Hermione was doing today in her white robes. There was a woman that had the unfortunate luck to look like a bullfrog and was her next mark.

Her fingers crackled within the folds of the robes, readying the blast of power that would unlock the surge that she so craved. Hermione took aim and released… just as the old woman tripped on a cobblestone. At the same time, she heard someone ask, "So what are we..."

The question was never completed. The woman went down and the magical blast demolished a signfront for the new hotel. People screamed and Hermione cursed her luck. The last thing she needed was attention, so she could get her charge and go home!

Suddenly, literally the last face she wanted to see was in front of her. Senior Auror Harry Potter, green eyes narrowing as the tactical computer in his mind came online. Most magicals had no clue what a computer even was, but she did… and so did her old friend.

She couldn't help it. Hermione laughed. It made Harry raise an eyebrow but he moved away from his partner in a stance that she recognized as presenting two fronts and a lesser profile. Hermione cast a triple Protego that nested each layer inside each other. The younger man didn't waste time and was casting spells to put her down on the ground. Thankfully, the nested shields dispersed them easily and she could ignore the obvious rookie Auror for now.

Hermione waved her hand in a wandless invocation of the Feel Wonderful spell, as she'd been prone to call it. Harry's face screwed up in the look she recognized from Hogwarts as his thinking-furiously face. It didn't take any imagination to see that he was mentally cataloging what she was doing and comparing it against known actions and spells.

The woman was already dying as she screamed, the hairs having ripped out and followed their magical orders to form up around her waist. Hermione hadn't had the chance to think of a new way to kill thanks to the interference of the Aurors and just let the magic of the spell find weakened spots.

She glanced at the senior of the two fondly. Age and the Auror training program had done him good.

"Go home, Senior Auror Potter. I'd hate to do the same thing to that luscious head of messy hair. It makes those beautiful green eyes pop in your face along with that tan," Hermione cooed at him from inside her hood.

Harry, no, right now he was Senior Auror Potter spoke calmly.

"Thank you for the compliment, whoever you are, but I do have a job to do. You're coming with us."

The energy coursed through her body, doing the thing she enjoyed except for a portion she diverted for use for the battle that was coming. She hadn't faced Harry in years. He had to have gotten better and she needed every advantage she could get. She knew that as sure as she knew the sky was blue. She nodded at his assertion and the younger man still trying to get through her shields.

"So you do, and what's your partner's name? He's a little young for me. As far as coming, that could be taken so many ways."

She was, too, just not how Harry thought. Hermione conjured a stool to sit on before her legs gave out and sat primly. The layered Protego shields was drawing power from the bashlash and shrugged off everything that rookie was throwing at them. He apparently heard the question and grimaced.

"Auror Balthasar Zebulon Ramsbottom Rowland, at your service, ma'am."

He tipped an imaginary hat at Hermione! It was like he was in a Western somewhere and he tipped his hat to a lady. Hermione was wondering if he was a Muggleborn when Harry acted. Several spells came from his wand and Hermione used the stool to deflect a stunner at the rather cute young man. His eyes went wide. He yelped and ducked the spell, which gave Hermione her flash of an opening. She grinned as he stiffened, feeling a Glacius Tria aimed at the space between his neck and the collar of his robes. The reaction was amusing.

Hermione turned to Harry and curtseyed. The sump was in more and more control as she smiled at the young Auror.

"Ooo! Such a gracious man and with manners! Senior Auror, you've been teaching him well. Still, he needs to relax. Don't you think?"

There wasn't a chance given for him to answer that question and Hermione knew he would have thought of something suitably snarky anyway. She pointed her wand at Auror Rookie Balthasar Zebulon Ramsbottom Rowland (such a formal name!) and whispered her hindrance charm.

The look on Harry's face made her laugh some more, as the sleeves of his rookie's Auror robe lengthened dramatically. They formed a distinct straitjacket that trapped his arms before melding together to trap his hands. The young man's wand was flipped out of his grasp and threaded through straps that formed by his elbow. The hem of his robe tightened down on his legs and he fell.

Privately, Hermione thought that the sound of the rookie's head bouncing off the cobblestones was a bit sickening. She ignored the aberrant behavior she'd been engaging in and watched as he was knocked out.

It was time for the main event, a corner of her mind remarked. Sure enough, Harry steamed in ready to rumble. She dropped the nested spells and danced around his spells that came far too close to her for her liking. It was only familiarity with his dueling and fighting style that kept her from being overcome too quickly.

Harry had apparently learned in the years that passed not to ever underestimate women. Her knees to his groin was deflected away, so she aimed for the knee she knew Voldemort had tagged him on a couple of times. She whaled away at him even as her wand was forcing out jinx after curse after spell.

He didn't have time to realize that some of them came from the Potter library. Hermione grinned to herself at the irony.

Her eyes widened as he used the turn from a solid hit to the side of his face to shield the action of drawing a second wand.

When did he get a second wand? And why was he closing his eyes?

Her mind came up with a suggestion on his tactics just a split-second too late. A super bright Lumos Maxima from his holly wand dazzled her. She groaned as he threw the tightest focused Bombarda she'd ever seen on her shields and collapsed them. The feedback from that stunned her for a bit, just in time for a Deprimo to rock her around. The last thing she remembered was the fondly remembered holly wand casting a Stupefy as the ground approached her face.

Then, blackness.

The End

-=[ Author's Note ]=-

I had originally intended to make this be a completed one-shot with the purpose of clearing some fuzz from my brain before starting the next chapter of Potters Echoes from Time Unbending. However, a review from maits18 suggested taking a look at this from this story's Hermione's point of view. I admit freely that I hadn't thought of that, but the idea has grown on me – intrigued me, really. I'm not inclined to make this into another epic, but maybe it can provide some answers to questions. I will not partition this into chapters aside from what FFN and AO3 does automatically, but consider it standalone parts of the same story.

-=[++]=-