I was amused to see that a reader called Bella's back-story in this fic a soap-opera. Ha! Guilty as charged ;)

Please be forewarned that the back story will be lengthy. It will basically be a story-within-a-story spanning the time from her graduation to her imprisonment. Yes, I know people only want to read the Bellamione parts, but to me their romance is only a part of the journey. I may mark the flashback scenes somehow so people can skip them, or put it all in another prequel-type story.

Thanks for reading!


"You're awful, Granger. Completely bloody awful!" Cho cried, her porcelain cheeks turned red with fury.

Hermione merely shrugged, the picture of indifference, though inside she was at the very edge of her patience. "It's not my fault your friend is a snitch."

"I can't believe I trusted you!" Cho threw up her hands in exasperation. "You wanting to get your claws into Harry - ok, that I could overlook. You've known him for years. He's famous. Whatever."

Hermione barely managed to bite back a scoff. "I never -"

"But this?" Cho cut in. "Marietta is my best friend. How could you?"

Hermione paced in irritation, though, considering that they were in a broom closet, she didn't get very far. "Everybody agreed to the rules. She didn't have to sell us out to Umbridge. She brought this on herself!"

Cho shook her head in disgust. "We both know that you could have cast any other spell on that parchment - like a spell preventing anyone from incriminating the D.A. But you picked the most vicious, humiliating thing possible!"

"Oh, it could have been a lot worse, believe me," she snapped.

"I do believe you. Because you're petty and vindictive, Hermione, and I just realized it," Cho declared, with the air of someone offering an unpleasant truth. It made Hermione's hackles rise instantly.

"Well you obviously don't realize that we're on the verge of war! Harry and the D.A. were the best shot we had of surviving it. Now, it's all over, Dumbledore's been sacked, Umbridge and the Death Eaters' kids are running Hogwarts. And all because that spineless twit was so concerned with saving her self!"

"Don't you talk about her that way! Marietta's a good person; they just frightened and intimidated her into telling! It could have been anyone!"

A sardonic little grin flitted across Hermione's face, as she remembered Umbridge's many attempts at interrogating her. "It could have been, but it wasn't."

"Madame Pomfrey can't find a counter-jinx!" Cho accused.

"Well, that's not my problem, is it?"

The Ravenclaw gaped at her in disbelief. "Merlin, I feel like I don't even know you."

"That's probably because you don't know me," Hermione rejoined. "All you ever do is whinge and moan and talk about yourself. You think that's fun for me? You think I wake up in the morning and think, 'Oh god, I hope Cho fucking Chang cries on my shoulder today'?"

Never mind the fact that there was indeed a time when she thought that, wanted that. But the events of the last few hours had given Hermione a sort of desperate clarity. Well, not clarity perhaps, but an all-encompassing purpose, before which all other concerns seemed trivial. Dumbledore was gone, and the school was practically under martial law. She knew she'd never get another chance, not with the Inquisitorial squad and the new Headmistress breathing down her neck and shadowing her every move. It had to be tonight.

But before she left - left for a journey where survival was far from guaranteed - she would speak her mind. "Do you realize that I've done everything - everything - I could to help Harry fight this war?" she said, her tone deliberately calm. "I set up the D.A, I made the lesson plans, I got the Quibbler interview published, I wasted precious time away from my research - just to see it all go to hell so Marietta's mum can keep her job spying on the Floo! I'm a muggleborn, Cho. I can't survive in a world where we lose."

"That still doesn't justify what you did," the Ravenclaw replied petulantly.

"I don't need to justify myself to you. You think that just because you're pretty, you can walk all over people's feelings - well, you can't! I'm not one of your hangers-on, to hover around you forever hoping for a second of your time. I'm done. I've had enough."

"You think I was, what - using you?" Cho demanded, clearly perplexed by Hermione's accusations, as though the thought had never even occurred to her. "Don't you know what I've been through this year?"

"Oh, get over yourself," Hermione scoffed. "People die all the time, all right? And you just have to accept it, and move on, and grow up!"

Cho's face froze in a mask of betrayal, as though she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. In a flash, Hermione felt her cheek sting where the other witch had slapped her. The pain burned hot, then cold, and left her with an inchoate desire to just reach over and wring the girl's delicate neck, and another - more desperate, now undeniable - desire to kiss her.

And only then did Hermione finally accept what all of this had been about : her inexplicable, directionless longing; her crushing loneliness; her many hopeless infatuations. Infatuations that were hopeless by design, since to have found a resolution would have forced her to confront what she was, what she wanted.

"Do me a favor, Cho," she whispered. "Just... leave me alone."

"Gladly," the older witch bit out, her tone glacial. And, with one last, dramatic flip of her hair, she turned and was gone.

Hardly sparing a moment to feel sorry for herself, Hermione set to clearing out her broom closet, meticulously filing her notes and calculations, and wiping any trace that she was ever there. Truly it was an incredible piece of luck that the pink toad hadn't come upon her personal lab, but with Filch now in possession of a disciplinary carte blanche, she knew that her secret would be discovered in no time.

Soon, the broom closet was just that once more, housing its very own rancid mop and leaky bucket, and one Gryffindor girl with a string of time-turners around her neck. She'd charmed the little hour glasses into a single helix, winding all the way around her neck. The full loop represented the day of the accident through to the present day, and was spelled to facilitate an endless repetition of that timeline, unless certain specific conditions could be met.

Only in the case of temporal stability would the time turner stop, hopefully depositing her in a version of the past where a catastrophic paradox was impossible. It was her best hope for a safeguard against the collapse of the entire fabric of time, but came with the risk that she would be trapped within the cycle of these last few months forever.

Was it all worth it? Her own words to Cho came back to her now: people die all the time...you just have to accept it, and move on...

But she could never accept it. This was different, completely different. This was a mistake that never should have happened. It was a mistake she needed to fix, no matter what the cost.

Grasping the makeshift time turner, she wound it back all the way, but didn't let go."Wish me luck, boys," she muttered to the ceiling, where she imagined Ron and Harry lounging in the Gryffindor common room above. "Here goes nothing."

The dial began to spin madly, and she watched the sand flow down the spiral, all the way to the beginning, as the little cupboard flexed around her, the walls pushing out and in, almost giving way beneath the magical onslaught. The strange spinning went on so long that she feared it would never stop. But then the light shifted slightly, and time stood still.

Hermione let out a grateful breath. Without thinking, she reached for the door handle, and as her fingers grazed the metal, it seemed to waver from existence, but rematerialized. It was just like the locket in Grimmauld Place, fading in and out of being - but nothing bad had come of that.

Yet, her treacherous mind supplied.

Shaking the thought, she took a breath and tried again. The door gave way, opening onto the same old corridor, and were it not for the daylight streaming through the windows, she might have concluded that she hadn't travelled back at all.

Making her way down the hall, she searched for any other signs of the year, the date, the time, but Hogwarts looked just the same. It had probably looked just the same in the Middle Ages, actually.

Eventually she wandered to the transfiguration corridor, and through the open archways, was overjoyed to see that the rhododendrons were in full bloom. She had arrived, at the very least, in summer.

She was admiring the violet flowers, still dazed, when a voice washed over her like a scalding wave.

"Miss Granger."

Oh, God no, she thought desperately. Why, why in the name of all that was good on heaven and earth did it always have to be fucking Snape?

She turned around, wide-eyed with horror, and stared at him mutely.

The Potions Professor, for his part, felt a small stab of joy, having been unable to produce this level of fear in this particular Gryffindor since she was a first year.

"Surely it has not escaped your notice that the term is over, Miss Granger? Or does your morbid enthusiasm for study know no bounds?"

"Um...well..." she mumbled stupidly.

"Did Potter and Weasley forget to collect you from the library, hmm?" he mocked, drawing nearer to more effectively stare down his nose at her. "Have you been living there this whole time, surviving on pure arrogance alone?"

"No, sir. I... umm…" she stuttered, grasping for a plausible explanation. "I forgot my cat."

She felt silly the second she said it, and Snape, judging by the look on his face, shared the same sentiments.

"You forgot your cat," he repeated dubiously. "Tell me, Miss Granger, do you take me for a fool?"

"No, Professor."

"Then why, pray tell, do you - and the rest of the student body, for the matter - insist on offering me the most laughably transparent excuses? You expect me to believe that you let weeks go by before trying to collect your familiar, and then somehow managed to find your way into the castle for that purpose without informing anyone?"

" I…" Hermione began, but stopped short, feeling a shiver of magic probe the periphery of her consciousness. Immediately, she looked down to avoid his gaze, realizing now how reckless she'd been. She should have disillusioned herself, or made a portkey, or even brought a watch before embarking on this journey. It was times like these when she was forced to admit that she and Harry weren't so different after all, despite her claims to being the best-prepared and most strategic member of their little group.

"The truth, Miss Granger, if you please," Snape commanded.

But Hermione suspected that telling another person about her experiment could prove disastrous. There was no knowing what effect his knowledge would have on this timeline, or on her future (past?) ability to make this journey in the first place. No, it was critical that Professor Snape learn nothing.

"Harry…" she began tentatively, watching his face contort in a sneer from the corner of her eye, "Harry asked me to help get his broom…"

Snape let out a triumphant bark of laughter. "I should have known that Potter was behind this! He's here now, isn't he?" There was an unholy gleam of anticipation in his eye. "Take me to him!"

"Yes, sir," she agreed morosely, but inside, some well-suppressed part of her was grinning madly. The Potions Master would certainly loathe knowing how easy to manipulate he made himself. "Harry's going to the Common Room."

"Very well. But do not imagine that your cooperation will save you from punishment today, Miss Granger!"

With a theatrical flourish of his cape, he turned and stalked toward the castle, clearly expecting her to follow. But Hermione had other plans.

"Stupefy!" she called, catching him right in the back and watching him fall in a tangle of black robes.

Oh my God I've hexed a teacher, her mind wailed helplessly on repeat, while her body carried her forward, snatched his wand and pulled up his sleeve to look at his wristwatch. Giddily, she realized that her invention had worked; it was the right day and the right time.

Though guilty and horrified by her own brazenness, Hermione couldn't help but feel a sort of self-righteous vindication at finally having put a bully in his place. If only there was a way for him to remember how she, the poor muggle-born student he had so unjustly persecuted for years, had got one over on him! He was so quick to turn his back to her, believing her completely harmless - but she wasn't harmless anymore, was she?

Obliviating the Professor, she was about to readjust his sleeve when the edges of a dark tattoo caught her eye. Drawing back the fabric, she studied the mark on his forearm with a clinical fascination, having never seen one up close. It seemed somehow ironic to her that a movement whose members believed in their own superiority due to blood status would allow themselves to be branded like cattle. She doubted that any of Voldemort's followers could appreciate just how muggle a practice gang tattoos were.

Leaving Snape sprawled on the flagstones, she donned Harry's cloak and made her way to the grounds. The feeling of being watched niggled at the back of her mind, though she knew it was impossible, so she skirted the edges of the treeline, half-hidden, just in case. After today, she promised herself, she'd either quit this cloak-and-dagger business completely, or work very hard to be good at it.

After giving the matter some thought, she decided not to risk shadowing her other self at the picnic with her parents, but apparated directly to the lone stretch of highway where the crash had taken place. The sun was scorching and the wind was humid, but it was still an uncommonly beautiful day.

She milled about by the roadside, trying to figure out the best vantage point from which to make her intervention. Before the Slytherin-Gryffindor game, she'd had a theory that the best way to change the outcome was not by targeting Ron's Keeping, but Harry's Seeking - an indirect approach, but the simplest possible path towards the same goal. Simplicity was key, because the more she did to interfere, the more uncertainty she introduced to the equation. It had worked then, and hopefully, it would work now. All she had to do was cast a well-timed immobulus to stop the car, and hopefully distract its passengers from the their argument.

The minutes dragged long as she waited, sweating beneath the cover of the invisibility cloak, until finally, a speck appeared on the horizon, approaching quickly.

Was it the right car? It was hard to say from that distance. She squinted as it sped towards her, seeming to float above the asphalt, which had turned luminescent with reflected sunlight. Trying to catch them a few kilometers before the accident site, just to be safe, she raised her wand beneath the cloak, and held her breath…

The car advanced upon her, closer and closer, till she could just make out her father's funny hat behind the glass.

This was it. The moment of truth.

"Immobulus," she exhaled softly. A pale jet of energy shot forth from her wand tip, arcing through the air with grace, heading faithfully towards its target.

But, just as the spell was about to hit home, it wavered, flickering in and out of existence as the wand, and the locket, and the door had done. Fate played its devastating hand; the spell failed to rematerialize, and the car continued onward.

When it was was level with her, the car seemed to slow - but no, it was only time that had slowed, slowed to a crawl. She watched in frozen horror as the side window inched past, and inside: her father gripping the wheel, her mother drawn back to yell at her…and the other Hermione, face etched in fury, slowly turning toward the window, meeting her gaze through the glass…

She knows I'm here, was her only thought before a charge of energy sliced the air and everything exploded.


Consciousness found Hermione sprawled yards from the roadside in a painful heap, though mercifully still beneath the protective cover of the cloak. She'd learned her lesson after nearly being strangled at the Ministry, and had charmed the fabric to stick to her until she herself removed it.

But then, if you'd died here, they never would have found your body, a voice in her head supplied unhelpfully.

As the ringing in her ears died down, a cacophony of sirens and shouting assaulted her senses. The sleepy country road had given way to utter pandemonium, as emergency services, police, and numerous gawkers jockeyed for position, trying to conduct their business. Rising to her feet with a grunt of pain, Hermione approached the scene slowly, as though in a trance. The smell of charred fuel was in the air and the black smoke hung heavy all around like fog, but she tried to search the wreckage nonetheless.

"Dreadful business," someone said nearby, and Hermione suddenly noticed that she was surrounded by a group of onlookers. The elderly man who had spoken, dressed in full gardening kit, though he affected a tone of grave disapproval, was obviously straining to peer through the crowd for a glimpse.

A woman beside him tsked loudly. "Terrible!" she exclaimed, then, with poorly concealed curiosity : "Who was it, do you know?"

"Probably some drunken twat up from the city," offered a third spectator, drawing disapproving glares from the first two. "I mean, what kind of moron goes out in a blaze of fire when he's the only one on the road?"

"I think it was a whole lot of them in the ambulance, actually…" the woman corrected tartly.

Hermione didn't waste time to hear more, but Apparated directly to the hospital (the same they'd been taken to the first and time), neither knowing nor caring that the loud pop of her disappearance, mistaken for gunshots by the muggles, caused mass hysteria and a police investigation that would inconvenience the unfortunate gawkers for weeks to come.

Frantically rushing through the casualty ward, still invisible, Hermione tried to find the room they'd kept her mother in. She'd spent so much time there that she'd memorized every crack in the linoleum, every strip of peeling wallpaper. It was the same door, the same biting smell of disinfectant that brought bile to her throat.

And...there she was, just as she'd been in memory, her face obscured by bandages, full of tubes and cords and pain.

"No…" she choked on a sob, "No, please, no."

Oh god, it's all been for nothing. The disappointment was absolutely crushing, and she'd never hated herself more than in that moment.

Just then, a couple of nurses bustled in, and Hermione clasped a hand over her mouth to hold back her cries.

"I think we need to change her bandages," the elder said to the younger, motioning to the chart hanging by the bed.

"Not already?" the younger one protested. She had the sort of nasally voice that grated on the nerves like nails on a chalkboard. Hermione remembered her from last time.

The gray-haired nurse rolled up a table and arranged some bottles and gauze. "Well it's a rather nasty head wound, we don't want an infection."

They began their work in silence, but Hermione couldn't bear to look. She was grateful, at least, that her mother seemed to be unconscious and couldn't feel what they were doing.

"How are the rest doing?" the younger one asked.

The other sighed, bone-weary. "The men are in surgery, but the passenger side definitely got the worst of it."

"What about the girl?"

The girl? What girl? Hermione wondered. And then: Oh. Right. Me.

"Down the hall in critical care. I hear it's pretty touch-and-go, they're not sure she'll make it."

The younger nurse shook her head sadly. "So young, too."

Hermione's feet carried her out to the hall and down the corridor before her mind had even processed what it was that she'd actually heard. Critical care was a small ward with curtained off beds, but today there was only one occupant.

Approaching the cot with trepidation, what she saw above the blankets - blue-lipped and deathly pale beneath the glare of the fluorescent lights - was her own battered face.

"Well, fuck," was all Hermione could say.