"I pulled on a single loose thread ... and unravelled the tapestry of my life."

- Jean Luc Picard

To begin with, it was all Luna's fault ... for bringing that damned Bavarian Mistletoe to the office Christmas Party.

And then it was Harry's fault for not moving away quickly enough, when trapped under said sprig loaded with festive tradition ... and, ultimately, it was Hermione's fault for choosing that exact moment to lose her brilliant mind, rendering her unable to come up with an excuse not to kiss him when prompted to. Then they were both to blame, for giving into the peer-pressure and cat-calling of their Ministry colleagues, who eventually persuaded them that it was an age-old custom, that it was bad luck not to kiss under the mistletoe when caught, and - which was the clincher - that it was just a harmless kiss for Christmas when all was said and done.

Just one kiss ... after eighteen years of barely speaking to one another ... just one simple, meaningless kiss ... it didn't even have to be on the lips ...

... only that's exactly how it ended up being.

Harry remembered the moment as if the Earth itself had wobbled for a second, only to later blame the sudden stumble - that turned an intended cheek peck into a full-on lip smooch - on all the banana rum that he'd consumed that night.

But whatever it was that had caused the kiss, neither Harry Potter nor Hermione Weasley could have possibly known that it would finally, finally begin to bring an end to the awkward estrangement that had existed between them for so long ... and unveil the real reason for why it had all started in the first place.

What they would do with this new knowledge was a challenge perhaps far greater than any they had ever had to face together before.

That misjudged kissing event had taken place nine months before our story starts.

Harry Potter, former Head Auror and now Director of J.A.W.S.S. (the Joint Auror and Wizarding Secret Service office) and Hermione Weasley, Interior Minister for Domestic Affairs - a position subordinate only to the Minister for Magic herself - momentarily forgetting their infamous policy of Avoidance Where Possible where social situations with each other were concerned, and finding themselves trapped in the spotlight, with Luna Scamander-Lovegood dangling that infernal cutting of German mistletoe over their heads.

But, then again, if she hadn't, Harry and Hermione might never have found out what they had done to the universe ... and what they might have been to each other in another life ...

Nine months later and they were still trying to get to the bottom of the mystery.

This is where our story truly begins ...

It was Harry who noticed the change first, about a month after the fateful embrace under Luna's mistletoe.

Now technically that wasn't true, as almost immediately after the kiss it became clear to both Harry and Hermione that something was wrong. There was a look they shared as they broke apart, a breathless understanding reflected in the other's eyes ... an understanding that this wasn't their first kiss. The sheer familiarity of the other's lips profoundly unsettled them both.

But they didn't really speak these days, so it was impossible for them to discuss it between themselves. Though they both knew that something was profoundly wrong. For Harry's part, it was the sudden ache that was born in his chest that night, a longing to kiss Hermione again. And again ... and maybe never stop. It was so wrong, so alien, under every metric he might apply to it. Hermione was his former best friend's wife and, perhaps more importantly than that, Harry and she had stopped classing each other as friends at least a decade ago.

So why did Harry suddenly burn inside for Hermione Weasley? Why did his body scorch with this incessant need to be as close to her as possible? Worse still, why did he see that exact look reflected in her eyes, too, when he caught her sneaking glances at him when she thought he wasn't looking?

It had made Harry so uncomfortable that night that he left the Christmas party three hours early, just to get as far away from Hermione as he possibly could. His paradigm had been shaken and he didn't like it. He wanted to get back to normality as a matter of urgency.

Harry's sober resolve the next day was to put even more distance between himself and his former friend. He had to to drive away this sudden, white-hot, rampant desire for her, by working from home more or going out for some dangerous field missions again. It would distract him, put his mind to the familiar, not this disgraceful new sensation.

As New Year's Resolutions went, this one was a banger.

But that only seemed to make things worse, as Harry abruptly started to miss Hermione, too, even though he barely saw her around the Ministry as it was. It also made his ex-wife Ginny rabidly suspicious. She associated Harry's new emotional distance with him starting a new relationship and not telling her (which had been a condition of their divorce agreement), and the blazing rows that they thought were a thing of their past - after The Daily Prophet uncovered, and ran, a series of explosive articles on Ginny's own scandalous string of liaisons - returned to haunt them with a vengeance.

It was only when Albus Severus admonished them for upsetting little Lily Luna so much with their fighting that Harry and Ginny called a truce ... and reluctantly agreed to restart their futile family counselling, an initiative they'd entered into for the sake of raising their children in a unified environment, even though they, themselves, had emotionally and legally separated.

But this course of action definitely made things worse.

This was because their counsellor, Dr Bell-Pepper, had suggested dream therapy to get to the bottom of their problems. Harry took his little black notebook from the Doctor with zero intention of writing so much as a rune in it. After all, how would he even explain dream number one - that he had the very first night after the counselling session? Even imagining the entry made him laugh at the stupidity of the exercise.

"Dear Dream Diary, dreamt of my wedding night last night. The sex was so hot that it set fire to the bedsheets. The problem was that I had just married Hermione Granger ... and she did things in the bedroom that even the author of the Magical Kama Sutra had left out! My mind and body were blown to bits. Chew that one apart, Dr Freud!"

And that dream was the first of many for Harry. He wasn't always having sex with Hermione in them, as other dreams of them together were different entirely. They were of simple things, like walks on the beach, birthday dinners with family and friends, even a bizarre one where Harry attempted to braid Hermione's lustrous hair and then tried to stick little daisies into the awkward joins he had made, while Hermione artistically braided the auburn hair of a fictional daughter that they'd had together. The dream left him feeling such a tender longing for companionship that he had to go and cuddle his real-life, ginger-haired daughter for a full hour.

Well, it wasn't as if he was going to cuddle his ginger-haired, serial cheating ex-spouse now was it?

The problem for Harry was that these new dream visions of Hermione Weasley were so tangible, so visceral, that he could almost convince himself that they weren't dreams at all ... but that they were, in actuality, memories. Memories where Hermione wasn't a Weasley at all ... memories where she wasn't even a Granger ...

... in fact, she might as well have been Hermione Potter, such was the intimacy level of Harry's dreams ... as weird as that notion was to his stretched psyche.

This went on for months and months. Harry was driven to the point of starting to think that he was losing his mind. In the end, he had to open up to someone before he went crazy. Ron was a no-go for obvious reasons, so the task fell to Neville, who was employed as Minister for Magical Agriculture, and who Harry had come to view as pretty much his closest friend in adult life. Ron was Harry's best friend pretty much by default these days, as Harry's estrangement from Hermione had produced a knock-on effect with him, too. They had begun to spend less and less time together over the years, now often going months and months without so much as a single word passing between them.

So Harry made his confession over a tankard of goblin ale one night at The Leaky Cauldron. Neville listened, with the obvious skepticism, as Harry told his story. His first response was actually quite logical.

"I don't think it's so unusual," Neville began, calmly. "I mean, after all the problems that you've had at home lately, this is quite understandable ... for example, when was the last time you kissed Ginny before the divorce, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I don't know," Harry spat bitterly. "I try not to think about it ... unless I have some acidic mouthwash nearby!"

"That's my point," Neville guffawed. "You're a bit attention-starved just now, a bit needy, maybe. And then you kiss Hermioneunder the mistletoe. I know it was a long time ago and you barely see her these days, but you two were really close once. You know ... really close. It's probably just triggered something latent in you. Got you wondering what if, maybe."

"Maybe," Harry mumbled, doubtingly. "But I never thought about Hermione like that back when we were kids. I saw her as my sister, really. Nothing more."

"I know you don't really believe that," Neville fired back. "That's the side of you conditioned to pacify the Weasleys talking, that is."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry frowned.

"Just that you've always done your best to keep the Weasleys on side," Neville replied. "I get it, they are essentially your surrogate family, and you don't want to alienate them by suggesting that Ron might have had a real rival for his wife's affections, one probably more suitable for her. So you told Ron what he wanted to hear, what he needed to hear, just to save yourself more drama.

"But Hermione wasn't always a Weasley ... and you're doing her a disservice by adding her to your appeasement policy."

"This is some seriously vague Thestral-shit that you're spouting, Nev," Harry spat. "Get to the point if you have one, instead of going all Trelawney on me."

Neville guffawed at that, at how their batty old Divination teacher had been turned into a verb. "I'm only saying that you describing Hermione as a sister is just plain wrong. I was there, remember, that night in the Ministry when she nearly died. I saw how you reacted to that. That wasn't sibling affection that almost cost you your mind that night. And it wasn't for her, either, when she stuck by you those times when Ron didn't, during the Triwizard and the Second War, putting herself at risk in all sorts of different ways. Sisters don't do that, Harry."

"We were just good friends, and Hermione had a big heart, that's all," Harry tried to argue, even though his words felt hollow as they left his lips. "There was never anything else between us, ever. Not even a hint. We were completely platonic."

"Do you remember that time at the Yule Ball back at Hogwarts, when you remarked to me how pretty Hermione was when she was all dressed up without half the library weighing her spine down?"

"Of course. She looked great that night."

"And that time when you went around for days with a massive ego after loads turned up for the Quidditch trials when you were made House Team Captain, but that paled into insignificance compared to the fact that Hermione had commented that you were 'more fanciable' than ever?"

"Did she say that?" Harry queried with a frown. "I don't remember that."

"I do, because you told me at least half-a-dozen times!" Neville snickered. "I thought it was weird that the comment got to you. I mean, you knew that loads of girls fancied you, but it was only when Hermione said that she did that it meant anything to you."

Harry felt his skin flush. "Her saying that, if she did, does not mean that she fancied me!"

"As a girl who fancied boys, she said you were fanciable," Neville pointed out. "It's the same thing. That meant that her and others like her found you attractive. In short, Hermione fancied you."

"No, no, she was just being supportive. As I said earlier, we were like brother and sister."

"Only the most unsavoury kinds of brother and sister are physically attracted to each other in such an open way, Harry," Neville told him, sagely.

"That, at least, I will give you," Harry allowed. "But saying that I could have placed myself before Hermione as a potential alternative to Ron, but didn't to save myself a row with the Weasley family, is going too far. I never wanted Hermione like that and I'm pretty certain she felt the same."

Neville cocked an eyebrow. "Pretty certain?"

"That's what I said."

"Then why did you nearly go on a date together?"

Harry blinked ... and blinked hard. He had practically forgotten that. How could he have pushed that memory so far back into his mind that it was almost as though it hadn't happened? He felt inert just trying to process the notion.

Neville saw the struggle being borne in Harry and ploughed on relentlessly. "I think there must have been something there, just for you both to have been considering trying it. It was Hermione's suggestion, if I remember right, just because she'd found the engagement ring that Ron was going to give to her, and she wanted to box off all her doubts before accepting the offer. That's so Hermione, by the way, if she really did do that."

"That's what she said happened," Harry confirmed as the memories crashed like rapids over his conscious mind.

"So why did you go on a date with her, if you insist that you only saw her as a sister?"

"It was the way she asked me," Harry explained as he closed his eyes. "It put a seed of doubt in my mind, even though I was smitten with Ginny at the time. She had a talent for doing that, Hermione ... for playing on the implicit trust that I had in her back then. She had the ability to slow me up when no-one else could. Even Dumbledore knew about it, knew that Hermione had this power over me. He relied on it to help me defeat Voldemort in the end.

"So when Hermione came to me with the suggestion, I knew I had to give it a go even though it was the most ludicrous thing I'd ever heard, just in case she was proven to be right again."

"What did she say?" Neville asked, fascinated by this new knowledge of just how deeply Hermione Weasley was ensconced next to Harry Potter's heart.

And Harry mimicked Hermione's accent when he spoke next. "Just one date, a proper one, far away from prying eyes ... I've always had this 'niggle' about you, Harry ... I know you've had the same itch about me, too ... let's go on a date and discuss things and see how it goes ... and if it doesn't feel right, at least we'll know, and we can go on to other partners with clear consciences ..."

Neville barked out a laugh at him. "That was spooky, mate! You sounded just like her!"

"I heard that voice a lot!" Harry laughed, as he clinked his tankard against Neville's and drained his summer ale deeply, before ordering them another round from a waitress who happened to be passing their table.

"So you decided to scratch the itch?" Neville asked, accepting a frothing tankard as Harry slid it across to him. Harry nodded solemnly. "In other words, you decided to go on a date with your sister!"

Harry rolled his eyes in a nonplussed sort of way. But Neville's jokey comment had actually stumped him, stymied his flimsy arguments. So Neville continued on in the void.

"You never did tell me what happened? How did the date go?"

"The first time we tried it was when we were out in Australia getting her parents back, and it was all a bit of a joke to be honest," Harry confessed with a smile. "We started off all awkward, then we stopped being silly about it and tried to be serious ... only to find the fact that we were doing it at all so silly that we couldn't stop laughing and joking about it. We found it hilarious to think what everyone back home would say if they knew what we were doing. So we just decided to abandon the idea and got drunk instead, finishing the night with a hug and going our separate ways."

"And that was it?" Neville pushed.

"Not quite," Harry confessed. "Ron proposed about a month later, in front of both their parents. Hermione told me that she'd said 'yes' under the glare of the attention, but came to me that very night and said that she still had doubts, and wanted to get that niggle about me out of her system for good. I admitted that I was having confusions when I was intimate with Ginny too, and thought maybe it was my own itch about Hermione. So we agreed to try one more date, but take it seriously this time."

"So what happened with that one?"

"Hermione didn't turn up," Harry moaned bitterly, as he bothered the rim of his beer tankard with his thumb. "I sat in that raucous Muggle pub for three hours waiting for Hermione to join me, only for Ginny to rock up and tell me that it was all a prank that she had set up with George and Ron and Hermione, to commemorate Fred's birthday. They thought that he would appreciate the ruse!

"And then Hermione had the nerve to deny any knowledge of it ... said that she wasn't part of the prank, and then had the audacity to say that I'd stood her up, or that I'd gotten the venue for our date wrong!Made it seem like the whole thing was all my fault, or that I'd left her hanging on purpose! There are lots of pubs called Wetherspoons in the Muggle world ... it's hardly surprising that we got our wires crossed about which one we were meant to meet in."

"So she was waiting for you in a different venue the whole time?" Neville asked, with a shrewd look on his face. "One the Weasleys might not have known about, as it was in the Muggle world that you both know about?"

"So she insisted, till she was red in the face," Harry bitched, ignoring Neville's flash of logic. "Which was a cruel lie. Hermione made a fool out of me, as part of her induction to the Weasley Clan. She's never admitted it, but I know I'm right. I just thought she'd be above such nonsense as that ... especially against me. But, obviously, I was wrong about her."

"And you stopped speaking to each other for the best part of two decades!" Neville exclaimed. "Over what may or may not have been a Weasley prank! That sounds like more than just a niggle to me, Harry."

"It was more that just that, but that was how it started," Harry confirmed, ruefully nursing his ale. "Whatever it was, we said some hurtful things to each other in the aftermath and forgot how to apologise. It just grew and grew and got more awkward over time. Then she married Ron, I allowed myself to be happy with Ginny ... even though Hermione had planted this niggle about her with me, too ... then it was all pushed away when kids and careers took over our lives.

"We never found a resolution to our argument, me and Hermione ... and that crack between us became a chasm, one I don't think we'll ever be able to cross. But now this has happened, and I don't know what to do with it."

"It's just a touch of regret, Harry," Neville offered sagely. "Like I said, it's just a case of you wondering what if where Hermione Weasley is concerned. Pop down to Immore Alley and get it out of your system with a pliable Metamorphmagi at Fletcher's Revue Bar, and you'll be as right as rain. Those witches can turn into your weirdest fantasy and make even your darkest woes go away."

But Harry disagreed, and was determined to make Neville see that.

"It isn't that, mate, it's so much more," Harry insisted. "I don't know why I'm so sure about that, but I just am. These dreams I'm having about Hermione aren't so much about me wondering what if ... it's almost as if I'm remembering what was between us. I know how that sounds, mate ... but I just can't describe it any other way."

Neville looked at Harry in deep concern now. "Harry, think about what you're saying. How can any of that even be possible? You know more about exotic magic and time-travel than any wizard going. You haven't dimension-hopped or changed time, so what makes you think that this isn't just you wondering about another way that things could have turned out for you?"

"I don't know, I cant explain it," Harry returned anxiously. "But the last dream I had was the most disturbing one yet. I'd gone to Hogwarts, to hear James' half-term progress report. And his mother was there waiting for me, and she was so proud of him ... because James was 112% better than any other student in his year, just like his mum once was ..."

Neville's eyebrows disappeared into his fringe as he quickly understood. "And so you're saying that his - your son's - mother was ... Hermione? I remember her scoring 112% on a test once."

"Yeah," Harry nodded, running his hands through his hair to massage his aching skull. "Not only that, but Hermione had little Lily with her for the Parent's Evening ... and at one point Lily called Hermione Mummy. Only I'm not sure that the girl's name was Lily at all. It might have been Lilith ... or Laura. Something like that. She looked just like my Lily, apart from her hair colour, but her name was definitely different."

"Sweet Merlin, Harry!" Neville gasped out. "You really need to lay off the ale and cheese before bed!"

"I'm being serious, Nev!" Harry moaned, almost pleading with Neville to understand. "It's like I have these memories from another life. I remember everything as I know it to be ... my wedding day with Ginny, the birth of my kids, all the important stuff. But now I'm starting to remember things differently. And it feels just as real! Only, I don't know which version is the real truth.

"But, and this is the scariest part ... I think it might be the other reality!"

Neville gripped tightly to his chair seat, turning his knuckles a sickly white. "Why?"

"It just feels more right!" Harry cried in his passion. "It's like I should have married Hermione and not Ginny. But more than that - it feels like I did marry her, only it got changed somehow. Or maybe I got a glimpse of what my life might have been like if I had. I don't know, but it's really worrying me. I think I'm losing my mind."

"Look, you're under a lot of stress, that's all this is," Neville declared confidently. "The emotional trauma of Ginny's affairs being splashed all over the papers has left a mark on you, the divorce and fallout only making things worse and dragging it on for all these months. It's understandable that you're suffering, it really is."

"Then you don't believe me?" Harry huffed wearily.

"I believe that you're under immense strain," Neville replied. "But what you're suggesting is impossible. You can't have lived two lives ... one with Ginny and one with Hermione ... can you? Even if someone had meddled with time or something, you would remember all of it so much more clearly than you do now, wouldn't you? You remember all of your life with Ginny, but only snippets of the other life, if that's what you can call it. You're just fantasising, daydreaming, really."

"Yes ... yes, I suppose you're right," Harry breathed out after a minute of deep thought. "I kept all of the memories of my time-travel with Hermione when we used a Time-Turner at Hogwarts. This doesn't feel the same as that."

"There you go then!" Neville exclaimed. "Maybe it is just the stress of everything. Why don't you take a holiday? Take the kids somewhere nice before James and Al-Sev start school in September. It'll do you all good."

"That would require me putting in a formal Holiday Request with Hermione's office," Harry pointed out. "And, right now, she's the last person that I want to see."

"Well, that's just tough luck," Neville grinned mischievously. "I only agreed to come for a beer tonight because I need to call in a favour from you. And that favour involves you going to see the Minister of the Interior for me."

Harry huffed in his frustration. "I should have known that there'd be a price for me spilling my heart out to someone. Go on then, out with it."

"Well, you know that it's Sally-Anne's birthday next week ... by the way, you are still coming to the party, aren't you?" Neville began, anxiously.

"Wouldn't miss it," Harry grumbled. "Be good to let off some steam, if I must. You're not asking me to bake her a cake, are you?"

Neville laughed. "No, Harry. I remember that disaster you tried to make for little Lily's last birthday. Didn't you triple the amount of frozen gelatine in the recipe, or something?"

"It had the virtue of never having been tried," Harry mused with an impish grin.

"Yes, Harry, but sponge cake ... proper sponge cake ... I mean real, proper, perfect sponge cake," Neville insisted. "Should. Not. Bounce!"

Harry guffawed at that. "True, true. Lesson learned. So, if I'm not going to be a contestant on the Great Wizarding Bake-Off, what do you need from me?"

"I've managed to get my hands on a really rare species of Devil's Snare," Neville revealed. "It only grows in a specific part of the Australian Outback. But I pulled in a favour and snagged myself a cutting."

Harry frowned. "Most husbands tend to buy their wives plants that don't try to strangle them when they aren't looking! Problems at home, buddy? I know a counsellor if you're in need of one!"

"Shut up, Harry," Neville retorted to Harry's teasing. "Anyway, you know how Sally is always on the lookout for exotic plant varieties? Well, she's been after this particular genus of Snare for years. And it's cost me three months salary just to get a small cutting."

"So where do I fit in to this?" asked Harry.

"I need you to get me a waiver to bring it into Britain," Neville explained. "It's the only variety of Snare that flowers ... and the seeds of the flower make a very potent narcotic in the wrong hands. It's illegal in fifty countries, including here. But Sally just wants to study it, to test out a theory that the flowers could also have medicinal purposes, not just ones that induce the most hypnotic hallucinations!"

"And she wants to do all this at Hogwarts, I assume?"

"That's where her lab is, so yeah," Neville replied. "You can go to inspect it for yourself, if you want, to make sure that it's fit for purpose and impervious to any mischievous students."

"Don't be daft, I know Sally wouldn't be using it for nefarious reasons," Harry retorted. "But how can I get you a waiver? This is an issue of law, one I can't circumvent."

"Not strictly so, no," Neville began. He looked cautiously at Harry. "But it is a serious matter for the Interior ... and the Senior Department Minister is the only one who could rubber-stamp a waiver like this. What I need is a personal touch to do a bit of gentle persuasion or, failing that, some good old-fashioned emotional blackmail!"

Harry felt his jaw tighten. "So that's where my visit to Hermione comes in? You want me to ask her to overlook the law?"

"Pretty much."

"I'm sorry, Nev, but you know I can't help you with that," Harry returned with a dismissive nod. "I thought you were going to ask me to deliver a birthday party invite or something. This is too much, I'm sorry."

"Harry, come on, mate," Neville implored. "I wouldn't ask if I had any other choice. But Sally is desperate for this gift, you'd be doing me a massive favour. I don't want to call this in as a Debt Collection, but I will if you force it of me."

"How very Slytherin of you," Harry scoffed. "That business with you telling me about my lovely ex-wife and her revolving knickers policy, before The Prophet did, was a matter of personal honour. This is hardly the same thing."

"Oh, but it is," Neville quirked. "You see, I promised Sally I would get this for her. You don't want me to break my word to my wife, do you? Think of how dishonourable a wizard that would make me."

Harry frowned. "Who knew you could be this callous? Fancy a change of department? I could use a few more cold-hearted bastards like you on my team."

Neville chuckled again. "You'll do it then?"

"Well if you're going to bully me like this, I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"Good man," Neville boomed, banging his tankard against Harry's. "This calls for another round! My shout, isn't it?"

Harry nodded and watched as Neville headed to the bar. He sighed ruefully, wishing that the task his old friend had set him was as simple as the one they'd engaged on tonight ... after all, getting drunk was so much easier than making a personal request of Hermione Weasley.

In fact, there was no task more difficult these days in the world of Harry James Potter.