Rating: Rated M for a small amount of smut near the end. No trigger warnings apply.

Tags: Slow burn, romance, angst, grief, action, alternate reality, post-war, friends to lovers, emotional infidelity, Hermione and Harry POV.

Prologue

August 2001

Harry was working late, trying to finish up a case report before going home, since he'd be in a stake-out for the next two days and wouldn't be back in the office until next week. He dropped his head in his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, under his glasses. He hated case reports.

Fifteen minutes later, he was just putting the finishing touches on it when Hermione ran to his desk. "Harry! Thank God you're still here!"

"Hermione? What's wrong?" He stood and pulled his wand out of his robes as he checked the area behind her, fearing she was being chased. But when his eyes moved back to her, he saw she was smiling.

"Nothing's wrong. I need to show you something."

"What?"

"I need to show you, not tell you. Come on."

"Hermione, I was just-"

Hermione grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the lift. "Harry, this is important and a little time sensitive. Now, come on!"

"Okay, okay." Harry looked back to his desk and shrugged. He could hand the report over to Robards in the morning, before he left for the stake-out. He turned back to the lift and saw Hermione had run ahead of him and was waving him over.

"I know you can run faster than that," she scolded as he walked quickly toward her.

"Is it necessary to run?" he asked as she jammed the button for the lift.

"Yes."

Once they were inside the lift, Hermione bounced in place, overcome with anticipation. She should take time to tell Harry what was going on, but she didn't have the time. She'd just learned that time passed in the other world at the same rate time passed here and if they were going to make dinner-

"Hermione, you're sort of scaring me," he said, cutting into her thoughts.

She waved him away. "Don't be scared. Trust me on this."

"Where are we going? At least tell me that."

"The Department of Mysteries." Then after that, she thought, but didn't say (since she thought it would sound too dramatic), somewhere you'd never imagined possible, not even in your wildest dreams.

"What? I can't get in there. Not without authorization from Kingsley himself."

"That's not technically true," she said as she bounced from one foot to the other. She turned back to Harry and stopped bouncing for a second, then said with extreme seriousness, "When we get there in a few moments, I'm going to ask you to do something very uncomfortable. Just go along with it and trust me, okay?"

Harry put his hands on her shoulders and said, "I need you to tell me what's going on."

Before Hermione could respond, the door to the lift finally opened as the voice inside said, "Department of Mysteries."

"Let's go," Hermione said, grabbing his arm again and running down the hall. She stopped at the black door. Harry's heart was pounding in his chest and it had nothing to do with the run down the hall. He hadn't been in there since Fifth Year, when he'd made a blunder than put his friends in danger and led to Sirius's death.

"So sorry to rush this, Harry. But like I said, it's time sensitive."

Harry nodded. "Okay. How do I get in?"

It was common knowledge that only Unspeakables could get into the Department of Mysteries and even then, they could only go to authorized areas. Lucius had only managed to get in by breaching the highest levels of the Ministry to remove the enchantments.

Now, the wards on the door were stronger than ever and without having your name (in the Minster for Magic's handwriting) on a list Kingsley kept in the safe in his office, like Hermione and the rest of the Unspeakables, the room would recognize Harry as an intruder and retaliate. Best case, he'd go mad, like Bode had in his Fifth Year when he'd tried to take a prophecy without authorization. Worst case, his heart would stop. It worked differently on everyone.

Hermione took his wand out of his hand and pocketed it. Then she grabbed both his forearms tightly and said, "Wrap your fingers around my arms and repeat after me."

"Why? What are you going to do?" he asked as he slowly wrapped his hands around her forearms.

"The enchantments on the door work by finding your magic and using it against you. I'm going to take your magic, so they can't do that."

"You're going to – what?" Harry pulled his arms out of her grasp.

"Take your magic. Just temporarily. Once we're through, I'll give it back."

"How is that possible?" Harry had never heard of a spell like that. But trust an Unspeakable to know of it.

"We don't have time for this. I promise I'll give it back."

"Are you sure you'll be able to?"

"Yes. In the first ten to twenty minutes, the spell is still unstable and can be undone."

"After that…?"

"It could be permanent," she said simply. He opened his mouth to protest when Hermione said insistently, "Trust me, Harry. I promise it'll be worth it."

"You're asking to take my magic."

"When have I ever steered you wrong?"

"What's worse," he asked quickly, "rubbery, unseasoned wild mushrooms or no food at all?"

Hermione smiled at the question he'd chosen to check her identity. "Trick question. Neither. The worst were those orange berries, outside that town with all the cats, that had us retching for three days straight. It's me, Harry."

"I hate this," he grumbled as he grabbed her arms again.

"I know, now repeat after me, okay?"

"Fine."

"Hermione Jean Granger."

"Hermione Jean Granger," he repeated.

"You will be the vessel for my magic, now."

Harry gulped before repeating the line. As he spoke, gold and silver ropes began spiraling their way up their arms.

"I give it freely in the hopes that you will be a better steward than I."

"I give it freely in the hopes that you will be a better steward than I," he said grudgingly. The gold and silver strings were wrapping around their torsos now.

"Go forth, twice as powerful as before."

When Harry repeated this line, the strings around them began to constrict. Harry felt like he was being squeezed by a thousand snakes at once.

"Now, say this clearly, Harry," Hermione said, her voice strained. Harry could see pain in her eyes and wondered if the ropes were squeezing her too. "Fortiores sumus simul quam nos sumus separati."

He repeated after her, trying to mimic her pronunciation as best he could, but was struggling to breathe. Once the last syllable was out, the pressure tightened and he let out a loud groan. Hermione held on, keeping him from letting go of her. Harry felt like every molecule inside him was trying to escape the confines of his body at once. Just when he thought he couldn't handle the pain anymore, it stopped and he dropped to the ground.

He heard Hermione collapse with a small grunt next to him, but didn't have the energy to check on her, or even open his eyes to see if she was okay. After a few moments, he felt cold hands on his arms and back, pulling him up to a sitting position. When he opened his eyes, Hermione said unnecessarily, "The spell hurts."

"No kidding," he groaned. "It may have been worth mentioning that."

"You were already apprehensive," Hermione replied as she helped him get to his feet. "You didn't need to know about the pain, too."

Harry shook his head. He rarely saw this cold, ruthless (and alarmingly powerful) side of Hermione. But she'd need to be that way in her job, wouldn't she? Being an Unspeakable required even more nerve than being an Auror. "What did that last line mean?" he asked as he watched her brush off her robes and turn to the door.

"We're stronger together than we are apart," she said as she opened the black door and walked through it. She held her hand out to him. "Your turn."

Harry hesitated in the hall for a moment.

"I promise you'll be fine."

Harry took her hand and ran in. He patted his body once he was through the threshold and had reached the familiar circular room that had black marble floors, black walls and ceiling, and was lined with black doors. He tried his best to push away the memories from the last time he'd been in here and focused on examining his body. His heart was working fine and he seemed to be thinking clearly. He took a deep breath and was relieved to find his lungs working properly. He was okay. "It worked."

Hermione took his arm and marched to the third door on their right. "Of course it worked. Come on."

"Do I get my magic back, now?"

"Once we get there."

Harry followed her as she ran through a series of rooms. He wondered first, how Hermione was keeping track of where they were going since they seemed to be making their way through a maze and second, how often the rooms changed, since none of them were the same as the ones he'd seen during his last visit here. As they ran through countless doors, Harry felt around for his magic. It really was gone and the empty feeling made him feel sick.

"Will it hurt again, when you give me my magic back?" he asked as they ran, hoping that thinking about getting his magic back would take his mind off the disturbing feeling of having it gone.

"Sort of. Not as much, though."

"So, you've been through that before?"

"A few times," she said absently as she waved her wand over the next door in a complicated pattern.

"You are remarkable," Harry murmured, mostly to himself.

"Thanks," she said quickly as she walked through the door she'd just unlocked. A few paces later, she stopped abruptly in front of a large, arched doorway, holding her arm up to keep Harry from passing ahead of her. "Here we are."

Harry leaned forward so he could get a better look at the room on the other side of the doorway. Actually, "room," wasn't the right word, not at all. It was just a series of colorful shapes amidst a backdrop so black, it made Harry think that every color black he'd seen up until this point had been a dull grey, in comparison.

The shapes were moving and twisting constantly into infinity. It was like a mixture between one of those kaleidoscopes Dudley had had as a child and that effect when you put two mirrors in front of each other. He leaned back since watching the shapes was giving him a headache.

"Okay, stand still. I'm going to give you your magic back," Hermione said, turning to face him as she raised her wand.

"Do I need to grab your arms again?"

"Just one. And there's nothing for you to repeat this time, just hold tight."

Harry closed his eyes and waited for that crushing pain again, but it was different this time. Now, instead of feeling like he was being squeezed, he felt like he was being stretched, like the spell needed to expose all the gaps in his cells as it put his magic back into them. It was more uncomfortable than painful and luckily, over quickly.

"There you go." Hermione announced. He opened his eyes and saw her holding his wand out for him.

Harry took it and cast a quick spell, relieved when it worked as expected.

"Okay, are you ready?" Hermione asked, her eyes bright with anticipation.

"Ready for what?"

She cocked her head toward the doorway with the shapes. "We're going in there."

"What's in there?"

"I told you before, it's too hard to explain. It's just something I need to show you."

"Okay." Harry had already trusted her this far. What was one more thing?

Hermione looked back through the doorway and bit her lip. That wasn't a good sign. She hadn't hesitated this entire time, so what was making her nervous now? Harry was about to tell her they could turn around, if she wanted, when she reached into her pocket and pulled out something Harry hadn't seen since the war.

"Is that Dumbledore's Deluminator?"

"Yes," she replied, flipping the top open with her thumb. "Ron's, technically." She placed one hand on the edge of the archway, gripping so tightly, her knuckles were white. Then, she placed the hand holding the Deluminator through the doorway. Harry grabbed the back of her robes, just in case. Several shapes nearby began to encircle her arm, changing shapes and colors as they spun around her.

Hermione clicked the Deluminator and an orange ribbon appeared out the end, making its way through the shapes on and on for what looked like infinity. Hermione turned her hand around the ribbon to catch it with her wrist before pulling her hand, the Deluminator, and the ribbon out of the archway. She handed the ribbon to Harry. "Hold this."

It felt like cold, liquid silk. He kept expecting it to run through his fingers and disappear, but it stayed in place while Hermione returned the Deluminator to her pocket, then grabbed lower down on the ribbon and twisted it around her wrist several times. She motioned for him to do the same.

"We need to hold this tightly," Hermione explained as she wrapped her second hand around the ribbon, "since it'll be our guide once we go in there. Other than holding on, though, you don't have to do anything."

Harry nodded when he had his hands around the ribbon, like she did. "Okay. I'm ready."

"Perfect. Now, we just step in," she said. "And, uh, you might want to close your eyes." She gave him a quick smile, before turning to face the archway. "On three, okay? One, two, three!"

They both stepped in at the same time and instead of falling, like Harry expected, since it just looked like an endless hole with pretty shapes, they floated up. He felt like he expected a leaf would when it was taken by a gust of wind, swirling up and around, every which way, with no idea where it was going to land. He tightened his grip on the ribbon and watched as it seemed to pull them through the shapes.

Seeing the shapes from this vantage point, moving all around him in endless patterns, was ten times more disorienting than viewing them from the room they'd just left. He knew why Hermione had suggested he close his eyes but the sight around him was so spectacular that he couldn't make himself look away.

Then, with absolutely no warning, he appeared in a room and crashed to the ground, like he'd been dropped from the ceiling. He looked down at his hands and saw the ribbon was gone. As soon as the room stopped spinning around him, he started retching violently.

He felt Hermione's hand on his back and she started vanishing the sick with her wand. He tried to thank her but couldn't stop vomiting. Once the entire contents of his stomach was out, he sat back on the ground and let out a low groan. Hermione handed him a wet cloth and a glass of water. "You didn't close your eyes, did you?"

Harry shook his head, carefully and took the water and cloth. He slowly looked around the room as he sipped the water. They were in an ordinary looking flat and based on the shape of the wall sockets, it was in Britain somewhere. All that for a nearby flat? Wouldn't Apparition have been easier?

When he looked back at Hermione, she was watching him intently. She reached forward and moved his hair off his forehead, then beamed. "It worked," she whispered.

"What worked?"

Hermione stood up and held her hand out for him. Once he was standing, she grabbed his arm and pulled him to a door across the hall. She'd obviously been here before. She led him into a small washroom and placed him in front of the mirror before pulling his hair up out of his face with her hand.

"Hermione, what-?" Harry froze. Bloody hell. He leaned forward and touched the spot where his scar normally was. It was gone. "Where is it?"

Next, Harry noticed that his glasses were slightly different. Then, he noticed a scar on the top of his cheek he'd never seen before. He looked down at the back of his hand where the scars from Umbridge's quill usually were. There were still scars there, but they were different. He checked his arm for the scar Nagini had left behind when she had bitten him at Godric's Hollow, but that was gone, too. There was a different one on the top of his arm instead.

"Tell me what's going on, Hermione."

She opened her mouth to speak but just then, Harry noticed the tip of his wand pointing out of his pocket. He grabbed it quickly and stared, horrified, at the foreign wand in his hand. "Where's my wand?" he asked as panic began to rise in his chest.

"Back in our world."

"This isn't our world?"

Hermione put her hands on his arms and turned him so he was facing her. She took a deep breath before saying, "No, Harry. This isn't our world. This is a world where you weren't Harry Potter, the Chosen One, the Boy who Lived, or the Master of Death. This is a world where Voldemort decided the Prophecy applied to Neville and went to kill him that Halloween night. In this world, Neville's parents died to save him and he survived. Dumbledore trained him, instead of you, and Neville went on to hunt Horcruxes and ultimately defeat Voldemort."

"But that means…"

Hermione nodded.

"My parents are alive?" he breathed, worried if he voiced the question any louder, the words would cease being true.

"They are," she said, squeezing his arms slightly, "and we're going to dinner with them in-" she paused to look down at her watch, "-ten minutes."

Harry was tearing through the flat, looking around wildly. Hermione was pretty sure she knew what he was looking for, but left him alone, knowing he needed to process this on his own for a few minutes. He paused at the bookshelf in the sitting room, touching his fingertips to the glass of the photo she'd suspected he was looking for. She'd seen the photo the last time she was here. It was taken on the day she and Harry had graduated from Hogwarts.

Harry was standing in the center, wearing graduation robes, while his parents stood on either side of him. Next to the photo was another one taken on the same day with Harry and Hermione in the center, arms wrapped around each other, and several Gryffindors around them, including Ron, Dean, Seamus, Lavender, and Parvati.

Hermione watched Harry's eyes flash to that one before settling back on the photo with his parents. "They're alive," he whispered.

Hermione walked to the other side of the room to join him. "Yeah. They are."

"Have you seen them?"

She shook her head.

"And where are we?" he asked, starting to pace the room again. "Is this my flat?"

"Yes, but-"

"How does it work?" He was patting his hands up and down his torso. "This isn't my body. And my wand is gone. But I'm me, in my head, so where is the other Harry?"

Hermione cast a quick spell to stop Harry in his tracks. "Harry. I'm trying to explain, but you need to stop moving around and listen."

He furrowed his brow, which was as much of a frown as the spell would allow him to do. She lifted the spell and went to stand across from him. "Ready to listen?"

He waved for her to continue.

"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "You and I are currently in the other Harry and Hermione's bodies." As if in response, the nasty scar on her stomach, that she'd discovered the first time she'd arrived in this world, thumped with pain. She winced slightly before continuing. "While we're here, our consciousness replaces theirs but I don't know where they go. I do know that when they return, they won't have any memory of the time we spent in their bodies. I also know that when we return to our world, no time will have passed."

"Okay…" he said, frowning slightly as he thought through her explanation. "Why were you in such a rush to get here?"

She motioned toward the clock on the wall. "I also figured out that time in this world passes at the same rate as time in our world. And I read in Hermione's planner that we're going to dinner at your parents' house at 6:30pm. I wanted to be sure we arrived in this world after work, when Harry and Hermione would be together at this flat, but before they left for dinner. Hence the rush. But we got here at the perfect time. Also, they're leaving for a long trip tomorrow, so this may be our last chance for a little while. Then, there's the question of whether or not the portal between the two worlds will remain open for as long as my calculations suggest and-"

She cut off when she saw his eyes start to glaze over. That was enough technical talk for now. Harry nodded and began pacing the room again, this time slower than before.

"I wanted you to have a chance to meet your parents, Harry, but we need to be careful. They have a history with you and you, well, don't know them."

"Yeah," he muttered, still walking around the sitting room. He stopped to sigh and drop his head in his hand.

"Is this okay? We don't have to do this. We can go back if you-"

"No!" he said, snapping his head up to look at her. "I want to go. Obviously, I want to go. I want to meet them. We can - we can make it work. Maybe, we'll say I fell off my broom recently and have been struggling with my memory or something."

"Okay. That's not a bad lie, given your current job."

"What do you mean? I'm not an Auror?"

Harry stopped at the edge of the room and Hermione went to stand in front of him again. "No, Harry. You're not an Auror. You actually work at a Quidditch shop and teach flying lessons. I'm not an Unspeakable, either. I'm pursuing my Potions Mastery and work in a Potions shop down the road from your shop."

"Oh, wow."

"There's more."

Hermione looked down at her hand where there was a simple, but large, engagement ring. Harry wondered what job Ron had in this world, that helped him afford a ring twice the size of the one he'd given Hermione in their world. As he thought of her different engagement ring, he remembered his different wand. Did Neville have the phoenix wand in this world? The thought made his heart ache, slightly.

"Harry, um, our lives are really different in this world." She looked back up at him and Harry could tell she didn't want to say the next thing.

"What is it?" he asked, his tone gentle. "You can tell me."

"We're engaged."

"Okay… How is that different? We're engaged in our world."

She closed her eyes and said, "We're engaged to each other."

"Oh."

Hermione cracked one eye open and saw Harry watching her curiously, like she was a rare creature. At least he didn't look disgusted.

"How do you think that happened?"

"No idea," she said honestly. "But we need to pretend to be engaged tonight. Okay?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "I can do that. We can, like, hold hands and I'll wrap my arm around you every so often. That's nothing more than we've done before, right?"

"Yeah. So, uh, are you ready to go?"

"I think so. Do you know where we're going?"

"Yes. I looked it up when I was here, earlier today." Harry had a thousand follow-up questions but decided it would be best to save them for later. Hermione held her arm out for Harry to take. He gripped her forearm with one hand and the foreign wand with the other as she Disapparated them away.

They reappeared on the doorstep of a familiar house, but it took Harry a few moments to figure out why it looked so familiar. His heart stopped. "Shit. They live here."

"Yeah," she said as she wrapped a comforting arm around him.

Harry hadn't been here since that night during the war with Hermione. And the house had looked much different then. "Did I grow up here?"

"I think so."

Harry could feel tears sting his eyes. Hermione handed him a handkerchief. "You can't do that, Harry. You can't cry."

"I know," he said as he patted his eyes.

When his eyes were dry, he took several deep breaths and tried to regain his composure. He could do this. He could bury his emotions. He did it all the time in his job. He handed the handkerchief back to Hermione, who was watching him worriedly as she bit her lip. "Are you really okay?"

Harry nodded silently as he looked back at her. They watched each other for a few seconds, then he threw his arms around her and pulled her close. "I have no words," he murmured into her hair.

"You don't need any," she replied as she rubbed his back. "I know."

After a few minutes, Harry was finally ready to knock on the door. His mum answered a moment later, almost as if she'd been waiting, right next to the door, for them to arrive.

"Harry!" she cried, pulling him into a firm embrace. "Thank you so much for coming." He slowly wrapped his arms around her. What he really wanted to do was push her back and get a good look at her, but he didn't mind the chance to collect himself. This felt so surreal. He was hugging his mum. Tears stung his eyes again but he blinked them back, quickly.

His mum hugged Hermione next, then focused back on Harry. He took in her appearance and tried not to look like he was gaping at her. Seeing her in real life was so much more satisfying than all the photos he'd memorized by now. Her eyes were exactly like his, her hair was a deeper red than it appeared in the photos, streaked with occasional strands of grey, and she had faint lines around her mouth and eyes - which made sense, since she was twenty years older than any of the versions of her Harry had seen.

She was smiling widely but it didn't quite reach her eyes, which looked nervous. Harry got the sense she was almost as excited to see him as he was to see her. Why was that? Didn't they see each other all the time?

Harry saw movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up to find his dad standing several paces away, leaning casually against the doorframe. He nodded when he saw Harry.

Harry drank him in as he crossed the room, stopping a few feet in front of him. James, like Lily, was better looking in real life than he was in his photos. He also had slight lines around his face and a little grey in his black hair. He looked very similar to Harry but with square-framed glasses and hazel eyes. He watched Harry warily and after a few moments of awkward silence, Harry hugged him, unable to hold back for a second longer.

He felt James relax against him and wondered again what was going on between his parents and the Harry in this world. "It's good to see you, son."

"It's good to see you, too," Harry said sincerely, which made James smile widely.

James looked over his shoulder and nodded to Hermione. She smiled back as she went to join Harry. James pulled her into a hug and whispered in her ear, "Thanks for this," before turning toward the kitchen and inviting everyone to help themselves to dinner.

Dinner was more awkward than Hermione was expecting, and it didn't seem to be related to the fact that Harry and Hermione were imposters. It was clear from the questions James and Lily were asking that they didn't know much about their life. This seemed to be a reunion for them, as well as for Harry.

The dinner also seemed to be the kick-off for a big trip the four of them were planning to go on for the following two weeks to see the Seven Wonders of the Magical World. Most of the conversation over dinner centered around that. James and Lily kept pressing Hermione for details, since she'd been the one to plan the trip, but she kept her responses vague, just rattling off the facts she knew about the Seven Wonders from her reading. She made it seem like she wanted to surprise everyone by not giving too much away up front.

At the end of the dinner, James pulled Harry outside while Hermione helped Lily clean up in the kitchen and they both got a hint about what was behind the awkwardness tonight.

"I appreciate you reaching out," James said once Harry and he were outside. He leaned against the railing and looked out at the garden, which was lit by floating lights. "We've missed you."

Harry leaned on the railing next to him and struggled to keep his voice even as he said, "Yeah. I've missed you, too."

James turned to him and gave him a small smile. "I hope this means we can put all that behind us. The war tore so many families apart, I hated that it hit ours, too. We were just trying to keep you safe. One day, when you have children of your own, you'll understand. And about Hermione... I'm so sorry."

Harry just nodded, at a loss for anything else to say. His dad nudged his side, then turned back toward the garden. "What do you know about this trip? Is Hermione hiding the details from you, too?"

"I know next to nothing," he replied, which was the truth.

"Do you think she set aside leisure time for flying? It's been ages since we've flown together or, more accurately, since I've flown circles around you."

"Hah! Right," Harry replied, remembering that in this world he was a flying teacher, so was probably an even better flier than he was in his own world. Maybe having his father teach him how to fly from a young age had helped with that. His chest clenched.

"I'd pack a broom," Harry said, turning to smile at his dad, who was wearing an almost identical expression on his face.

Meanwhile, Hermione and Lily had just finished cleaning the kitchen. Lily hugged Hermione out of nowhere and said, "Thank you so much for all of this."

"Oh, uh, it wasn't a-"

Lily pushed back and gripped Hermione's shoulders firmly. "I know you're going to say it wasn't you, that it was Harry who reached out, but I know my son. The handwriting on the letter was his but I'm positive the words were yours. And you set up this whole trip. I just - don't know how to begin to thank you."

"It was-"

"Have I mentioned yet how excited I am about this trip?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes. A few times."

"And have I told you how much I love you and how perfect you are for him? And - Gods, I've missed him so much. You too, of course, and I - just, thank you, Hermione. Thank you." She gave Hermione another hug before finally stepping away.

"You're welcome, Mrs. Potter."

Lily waved her hand dismissively. "Are we back to that? After what we went through in the war? Please. Call me Lily, once and for all. No more of that Mrs. Potter nonsense. That just makes me think of James's mum."

Hermione nodded and thought of the other Hermione, who wouldn't remember this conversation. Or this dinner, for that matter. "Okay. Uh, thank you, Lily. That was a lovely dinner."

Lily grazed her arm. "You're so polite, dear. Now tell me, how are your parents?"

I have no idea, Hermione thought as she cast around for a decent lie.

"What is wrong with him?" Harry asked as he paced the room for a third time. They were back at their flat, having just returned from Godric's Hollow. "Cutting them off like that. Doesn't he know how lucky he is?"

"We don't know what they did," Hermione pointed out.

He turned to glare at her. "So you're taking the other Harry's side?"

"I'm not taking any sides. I'm just saying, I don't know, it's common for people to take their loved ones for granted. And now they seem to have sorted it out and this trip should help them reconnect. So, they're going to be fine."

"I want to see them again," Harry said quickly.

Hermione had been afraid of this. She placed a comforting hand on his arm. "They're going on holiday, Harry. We need to go. Even if we stayed, they wouldn't be here."

"Why don't we go with them?"

"That can't be a serious question. A thousand reasons just popped into my mind and I'm sure if I sat here and thought about it for another few minutes, I'd come up with a thousand more."

"It's just two weeks, Hermione. Fourteen days. That's all I'm asking."

"Harry. We barely managed to get through dinner, just now. If it hadn't been for that argument between this Harry and his parents, we wouldn't have been able to fool them. And we'd - we'd have to pretend to be together, like, for real. Share a room, hug, kiss, the whole deal."

"I know and I don't care."

"What if I care?"

Harry took her hands and squeezed them as he gave her a pleading look. "Please? It's my parents, Hermione. My parents."

"Harry… this is a really bad idea. We could change things in this time and that would-"

"Please. I'm literally begging, here. Tonight was perfect but it - it wasn't enough."

"And what if fourteen days isn't enough? What if at the end of the trip you're begging for more? This isn't our life, Harry. We have to go back."

"We will. I promise I won't ask for any extensions. When we return from the trip, we'll go right back."

"Harry, the other couple should be here for this. It seems important."

"They'll be fine. They have the whole rest of their lives to make up with my parents."

"The other Hermione planned this trip. We don't know anything about-"

"We both know she took notes. I'm sure they're around here somewhere."

Hermione sighed and looked down at their clasped hands. "Please," he said again.

She was quiet for a very long time and Harry left her alone with her thoughts. He was sure she was going to deny him again, and was bracing himself for the disappointment, so he was shocked when she eventually said, "Fine."

"Yeah? You're agreeing? We're staying?"

"Yeah."

He beamed, then kissed her on the cheek. Hermione flinched instinctively. "Oh, right, about that," he said, dropping her hands.

"What?"

He looked nervous.

"Just tell me, Harry. We're about to be married, after all," she added sarcastically.

"When my dad took me outside, he asked me if we were okay. He thought we were fighting or something because of how we were acting around each other. I think, uh, we need to learn how to be more natural when we, uh, touch and stuff."

Hermione hmphed and crossed her arms over her chest. "I was just fine. You were the tense one."

"You just flinched when I kissed your cheek!"

"I wasn't expecting it!"

Harry sighed. "Fine. We're both tense because, well, actually, I don't know. We used to be really close, yeah?" He remembered during the war, when they'd been alone in the tent, they embraced all the time. She was always lying her head on his shoulder or grabbing his hand, but tonight, it had felt weird for some reason.

"We're not as close as we used to be," Hermione said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, I guess not." Harry still saw Hermione pretty often, but not as much as he saw Ron. Somewhere along the way, she'd become less of his best friend and more of his best friend's fiancée.

"Fine," Hermione said, clearly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. "I'll be less tense and try not to flinch."

"I think we should kiss."

Hermione took a large step backward. "Excuse me?"

"Kiss. Like, you know. We're going to have to kiss a few times on this trip and it'll be better to get it out of the way, without an audience. Don't you think?"

"No. You're mad." Hermione turned and began walking to the bedroom.

Harry followed after her. "Come on. Please? It won't be that bad, I promise. Actors kiss people they aren't actually dating, all the time."

"We're not actors," Hermione pointed out.

"We sort of are, for the next two weeks."

"I'll just wait for the performance."

"Come on, Hermione. Just kiss me. It'll be really quick, less than ten seconds. We can push back the weirdness and begin to-"

She kissed him, mostly to shut him up so she could focus on her current task. She placed one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his chest and after pressing her lips against his for a few seconds, she turned her head and moved her lips, surprised when he moved his lips in time with hers.

Wow, he was kissing her back. That was...weird...but not unpleasant. She ran her tongue along his bottom lip, then sucked on it slightly before pulling away, figuring she might as well commit to her role. Then, she was overcome with embarrassment and began searching through the papers on the desk again, acting as if nothing had happened.

"You're good at that," Harry said quietly, rapping his fingers on the edge of the desk.

"Thanks." When she was finished searching through her current pile, she looked up to find Harry watching her curiously, still rapping his fingers on the surface. Hermione placed her hand on his. "Please stop that."

Harry nodded and pulled his hand away. Hermione snapped her fingers in front of his face. "The kiss was supposed to remove the weirdness, not make it worse."

"Yeah. I'm good." He wasn't, though. Just after he'd told her she was a good kisser, he'd been about to make a quip about how Ron was a lucky wizard, then, he thought of what Ginny and Ron would think of Hermione and him pretending to be together for two whole weeks. They were going to hate this.

As if sensing his thoughts, Hermione pressed her finger into his chest and said, "You're telling Ron and Ginny, by the way."

"Yeah. I figured."

"Okay. Now snap out of this weird trance and go scour the flat for any information about our lives you can find. I need to look through the other Hermione's notes to learn as much as I can about this damned trip."

Harry went to the doorway, eager to be useful in some way. He stopped before leaving the room and said over his shoulder. "You are the best. Do you know that?"

"Yes, I'm great," she said absently, reading through what looked like a journal. "Now go, lover, before I hit you with something painful to move you along."

A/N: New story time! This one will be long and hopefully fun. I'm going to use their trip to explore new types of magic and sites. Updates will come every few days (except perhaps this week because work is insane right now).

My beta for this story is Lancashire Witch and I got this idea from a Tumblr prompt by johnburtonlee. So thanks to both of them. You can find me on Tumblr at Alexandra-Emerson. Thanks for reading!