A/N: I cannot believe how close we are to the end!
14th September 1980
Hermione settled back into her bed, rearranging the covers and leaning back against the fluffed up pillows. She wasn't going to admit to James just how exhausted the trip to visit Regulus and Severus had made her, but it was worth it – it had been such a huge relief to see Regulus, injured yes, but alive and recovering. Neither of the ex-Slytherins had been surprised by her revelations, which she'd honestly expected – they were both very perceptive – but she had thought the time travel would have drawn some kind of surprised reaction from them.
James was sitting beside her bed cradling the sleeping Harry in his arms – a surreal view for Hermione. He'd returned from the forced trip home after lunch and a shower with the infant in tow, allowing Lily, Sirius, and Remus to take the opportunity to go home and get some proper sleep. They'd fallen into a comfortable silence after James had scolded her for leaving her bed when she was still weak.
"Do you regret it?" James had been quiet for a while, so his deep voice filling the room shocked Hermione from her reverie. "Coming back here I mean? You left family and friends behind, you said. So, do you?"
Hermione sighed, she'd not fully explained what had happened in the final battle before she'd been hit with the spell, or all of the losses the Order – and wider Magical community – had suffered up to 1998. Fabian and Gideon's guilt over surviving when they'd died in the original timeline, and the fact that their mother had died in their place – an unfortunate and uncontrollable result of fighting directly against the now dead dark wizard –, had convinced Hermione that that kind of information was better kept to herself. She couldn't hide from James though, not after everything they'd gone through together.
"Never." She gratefully grasped the large hand he immediately reached out for her when she extended hers. "James, I couldn't ever regret the life and decisions that led me to you. I didn't tell you everything, and what I'm about to tell you is too upsetting to go further than just us."
"I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to." He carefully leant to the side and lay Harry down in the bassinet Lily had conjured for him before leaving. Then James leant forward and tucked a bouncy curl gently behind Hermione's ear with his now free hand. He cradled her face for a long moment in his warm palm, and Hermione soaked up the love in the gesture. She was so glad every fear she'd had over his possible rejection when she finally told him everything was unfounded.
"By the time the final battle came around, most of the Order was completely decimated." She started. "Dorcas, Regulus, Marlene, you, Lily, my brothers, your parents, my parents, Benjy, Caradoc, all of Edgar's family, and so many more were all killed in the first war. It ended, like I told you, in 1981." She hadn't told them about Harry's parentage and how he'd come to be targeted by Voldemort, and she never would. There were some things better left unsaid. "Most of the Death Eaters were caught and sent to Azkaban, though a lot escaped with the excuse of Imperius. I won't be letting that happen this time. By the time the final battle happened in 1998, so many people were dead. Sirius and Dumbledore both amongst the number. We were desperate to end everything before more died, but Voldemort was just as desperate to win."
James tightened his grip, and leant down to press a kiss to her hand in silent support. "I got hit with the spell that sent me back because I was distracted during the battle." Hermione admitted. A lot of her previous life felt fuzzy and faded with age, but the memories from those last few hours of that life were still sharp and cut deep when examined too closely. It had been a long time since she'd dwelled on it all so deeply. "We'd been fighting for hours, we were all exhausted. Harry had managed to defeat Voldemort, but he was killed trying to save Narcissa Malfoy. She'd saved his life earlier that night."
Hermione closed her eyes and took a steadying breath to try and get through this, "So many of my friends had already died, taking out some Death Eaters yes, but they were spurred on by Harry's death and they were all older and so much more experienced at fighting than most of us. Me and Ron," She'd told them about her double connection to the Weasley children earlier that day, "were some of the only few left, and I was distracted by the Lestrange brothers attacking him. They killed him."
Hermione dashed her tears away with her free hand, bottom lip trembling. "So no, James. I don't regret coming back. Everything I had loved about that life had already been stolen from me. I was given an opportunity to fix everything, and I did. I fixed as much as I could. I couldn't save everyone, but so many people have a life now. Thanks to me. You have a life now."
"Oh, Hermione." James climbed onto the bed with her, wrapping her up tight in his arms and holding her close as she started to sob. "I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am that you're in my life, love." He held her close as she cried. He could feel the mingled relief and despair rolling off her, all tangled up together. He stroked her curls gently, and rocked her slowly as she fell asleep in his arms.
He lay there, Hermione asleep in his arms, for a long time, until the mediwitch came in. She frowned at the sight, "I'm sorry, sir. Visiting hours are over. You'll need to leave now."
James sighed, he'd been allowed to stay by her bedside the first couple of nights she'd been in here, but then they'd put their feet down and started kicking him out when visiting hours ended. "Can I speak to her Healer quickly and then come say goodbye before I do?"
The mediwitch sighed, looking harried. "Very well. But be quick about it."
James carefully shook Hermione awake, and smiled when she blinked up at him, sleepy and confused. "I'm gonna go ask the Healer when you can come home, Hermione."
"Your mum would be appalled at your diction." She mumbled sleepily, and he laughed lightly.
"Won't be long." He hurried from the room, pausing briefly to watch the mediwitch start performing diagnostics on Hermione.
When James pushed the door to her room open ten minutes later, the mediwitch was gone and Hermione was lying down. She smiled drowsily at him when he came and crouched beside her bed.
"They've said you can come home tomorrow." James reported back to her, pressing a kiss to her forehead, and then another – fierce and full of love – to her lips. "I'm being kicked out. So I'll be back in the morning to collect you."
"Okay." She smiled, "Love you."
"Love you too."
xxx
15th September 1980
"Say something. Please."
He reached for her, pulling her up his body to straddle his waist. Her warm arousal rubbed against his naked pelvis, and James moaned at the contact, but tried to ignore it for now.
His gaze fell up and down over the gentle slopes of her body. Normally all he'd be able to focus on was the plush feel of her breasts, the spread of her thick thighs around his hips, the sound of her mewls, the sight of her nibbling her lower lip, the smell of her arousal, and the warmth of her mouth and cunt.
For once his focus was on the only 'ugly' parts of her body – or so she thought. There was nothing ugly about her.
He'd been horrified to find out about her scars, and how she got them. Despite her clear worries, they did absolutely nothing except show him just how strong the woman he loved was. He lifted her arm to his lips again and pressed a kiss to the middle of the hateful word. He was determined to erase it with love alone. When she gently pulled her arm back from his mouth, he leaned forward to run a gentle series of kisses down the purple flames permanently scarred across her torso.
"James–" She shifted on top of him and he desperately pushed back his reaction to the feeling of all her bare skin on his.
This wasn't about that. This was about reassuring her that he didn't care about what she looked like, what terrible things had marred her skin, he loved her no matter what. This was about reconnecting. They'd survived the war. A little tougher and harder than before, sure, but they were here and together. That's what mattered.
"I love you." He told her, sincere and tender. "Your scars are a part of you." He trailed his thumb softly down the length of the scar bisecting her torso, all the way from her collarbone down across her hip. "I hate that you felt you had to hide them for so long, and what was done to you to make them. But they could never change how I feel about you, love." He cradled her face in his hands and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. They were salty from the tears she was crying.
"I love you." She whispered, pulling him back in for a deeper kiss. He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close, still ignoring her warm core settled on top of him. She pulled back from the kiss just enough to speak, "Make love to me?"
"Hermione–"
"I'm fine. I've been out of the hospital for the whole day, and I want to celebrate our victory." She rolled her hips down into his and James' mind went blank for a long moment. "We'll go slow."
He nodded and took her lips in his as he slid his hands down her body and took a gentle hold of her love handles. His fingers tightened when she raised herself to her knees before sinking down on him, achingly slow, until he was completely seated in her. They moaned into each other's mouths, him at her wet warmth, and her at the delicious stretch.
Hermione tilted her hips forward and then back, moving glacier slow as she'd said she would. Already it felt like too much. James buried his face against her breasts, taking a pebbled nipple between his lips and tonguing the peak of it until she was mewling.
He couldn't stop the way his hips bucked when she rolled herself perfectly on top of him, whimpering. She dug her fingers through his hair, pulling him closer to her breast with the hold she had on him. He pulled back and admired how looked as she rose and fell, impaling herself on him repeatedly, moaning with each movement and new angle. His grip on her hips kept her pace tantalisingly slow so as to not let her reinjure herself by going too fast.
His attention was drawn to where their bodies joined, watching through his slowly fogging glasses with parted lips as her pretty pink cunt, the same colour as her puffy nipples, swallowed his length over and over again. His fingers, dark against her pale skin, pressed bruises into her fleshy hips every time she tightened up around him.
He leant back in, dragging his lips from one side of her chest to the other, leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses in his wake before running the flat of his tongue over the skin of her as yet untouched breast. On a hard thrust down she winced, and James tightened his grip on her hips to stop her moving.
"What? What are you doing?" She tried to move, but his grip kept her still. Unable to move she tightened up around him, smirking triumphantly when he cursed against her skin and she felt him twitch inside her. "Why did you stop me?" She demanded, her lips hovering over his as their breath mingled, searching his hazel eyes.
"I saw your wince. You shouldn't be exerting yourself like this so soon." James looked pained at the thought of stopping now, but he was ever the stubborn Gryffindor once he got his mind set on something.
"I'm fine, James." She insisted, shaking her head when he started to lift her off him. "Please don't stop. I need you."
He stopped trying to move her, searching her gaze for sincerity for a long moment. "Fine. But I'm doing all the work." He wrapped an arm around her waist and flipped them both gently until she was pressed into the mattress beneath him. She stretched her arms above her head, fisting them in the pillow beneath her.
In one fluid movement, he withdrew and then thrust back into her, long and slow, letting her feel every single inch as he pushed in. She let out a high-pitched, pleasurable cry, clenching up around him when he ran one hand up her inner thigh and circled where they joined. His other hand was pressing into the pillow beside her head, muscles flexing as he held himself up and away from her so he didn't crush her or exacerbate her injuries. She bit her lower lip as he rocked in and out of her body, each stroke hitting every one of her nerves and sending them singing.
She curled her hands in her own hair to stop herself from reaching up to pull his weight down on her. She didn't want to do anything that would have him stopping now, the pressure of his thumb against her clit, and the angle of his thrusts combined with the vision of his toned brown skin glistening with sweat above her was sending her hurtling towards the edge at a rate of knots.
James leant forward and kissed her deep. Hermione groaned at the intrusion of his tongue in her mouth, drinking in his taste.
"Fuck–" James bit out the swerar as he continued stroking inside her, her body clenching down on him. His thrusts started to speed up slightly as they approached the pinnacle of their pleasure together.
"Don't stop," She begged as he picked up speed, her eyes closing. She tilted her head back, arching so her nipples rubbed against his chest with every thrust. His thumb sped up, drawing fast and tight circles over her clit as she whimpered and started rippling around him.
"Never," He promised as he deepened his thrusts until she was whining, and he was grunting. Her orgasm started deep in her core and washed out over her body in shimmering waves that left her shaking beneath him, shivering as each of his thrusts stoked the embers and prolonged her climax.
Finally he stilled above her, groaning as his own climax tore through him. He withdrew from her carefully and rolled to her uninjured side. They rested in the aftermath, both shivering and curled together as they came down from their high.
"I love every single thing about you." He whispered into the cooling skin of her neck. He wrapped an arm over her waist and pulled her close, splaying a large possessive hand over her stomach, his thumb rubbing gently over the small part of the scar he could reach.
Hermione closed her eyes and revelled in it.
xxx
17th September 1980
"Hermione!" She jolted in place, fingers clenching in Hermes' long fur, and turned to James in surprise. His tone suggested he'd been trying to get her attention for a short while.
Her entire being had been focused on her brothers. If the twins had taken their mother's death hard, Marlene's seemed to have hit them ten times worse. Hermione was worried about them – had been constantly worrying about them since she woke and discovered who they'd lost in the battle.
The funerals for Marlene and Mary had both been held early that morning, separately of course. The twins had yet to utter a word, either through the service for their fiancée or at the wake being held at the Prewett Estate for the two women. Hermione and Geraint – Marlene's family having been brutally murdered by Death Eaters over a year ago – had got up to speak for her during the funeral service. Mary's funeral had been just as heart-wrenching, and much too empty with her family gone and Dorcas still unresponsive in St Mungo's.
"What, James?"
"I'm worried about you, Hermione. You're just out of St Mungo's. You shouldn't be putting so much pressure on yourself." His eyes darted down to the disgusting word carved into her arm, currently – and for only the second time since she'd arrived in this time – free of a glamour and only hidden by the long sleeves of her funeral robes.
"I'm worried about Fab and Gid, James. They're falling apart in front of me. I don't know how to help them."
"You can't help them if you don't help yourself first, love." James reasoned, holding out a hand to pull her to her feet, Hermes jumping to the floor with a pirrup. Hermione had been sitting in the small parlour as it had a good view of the main hall where the wake was being held. It allowed her to watch her brothers without them noticing.
"I can't focus on myself yet, James."
James sighed, but didn't argue any further. "Fine. At least come out and see some people?"
She agreed, reluctant but grateful to him for being there for her when she couldn't be there for herself. They mingled for a while, speaking to people who offered their condolences, but had clearly only come here to gush and thank them for everything they'd done – which they usually moved onto rather fast. Hermione had no bloody patience for these artless, selfish sycophants who hadn't lifted a finger to help in the fight against Voldemort, and would have been doing exactly the same pathetic bowing and scraping at his feet if he'd won.
Finally, after what felt like hours, but was probably only about half an hour, James steered Hermione over to the small balcony the other Marauders and their extended friend group had claimed for themselves. It overlooked a small grassy hill leading down towards the Quidditch pitch, which stood still, quiet, and empty.
Lily was curled against Kingsley's side on an armchair clearly expanded to fit them both comfortably, and Sirius and Remus had taken over a small sofa next to them – Sirius and Lily's hands were linked across the small space. Neville and Harry were burbling happily between Remus and Sirius on the sofa. Frank and Alice were somewhere inside with both their sets of parents, doing the obligatory mingling Hermione had been avoiding for most of the night. Peter was dateless for the evening – Lorna was busy working – so he'd seated himself on the floor in front of Neville and Harry, conjuring bubbles to entertain them.
"Hey, Pads. It's the situation we discussed."
Hermione frowned at her boyfriend, but didn't get a chance to ask what in Merlin's name he meant. Sirius was up off the sofa, and pulling her away from the balcony and down into the garden towards the expanse of orchard ahead of them practically before she could open her mouth.
"Sirius! What is going on?"
"You need to get away." Sirius stated firmly, sparing a glance back at her briefly, "Right?"
"Right.." She said doubtfully, not understanding what was happening.
"Look, we talked about it before the funerals."
"About what? Sirius, would you stop talking in bloody riddles!"
"Well I'd get it out if you stopped bloody interrupting me, woman." Sirius came to a sudden halt. They'd reached the other edge of the small orchard and come out in front of the lake Prewett Estate had always had. "Hermione, you've gone through so fucking much."
"Sirius, Fab and–" She started to protest. Today wasn't about her.
"Yea, they're suffering. 'Course they are. But so are you, and you keep fucking pushing it down and away like you're hoping it'll disappear." Sirius finally turned to face her, and Hermione stopped in her tracks. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen him so serious – even haggard and half-dead after escaping Azkaban. "Believe me, speaking from experience, it won't. I lost Remus, nearly forever, when mine exploded out. What are you willing to risk losing?"
"It's a completely different situation." Hermione tried to argue, knowing it sounded weak, even to her own ears.
"No, it's not. Kitten, we've all lived through a war and we still can't understand everything you've been through." Sirius turned away from her again, pulling out a pack of fags from his leather jacket and lighting one with a wandless blue flame. He wordlessly offered her the pack, and – needing something to distract herself – she took one hesitantly. He grinned, and lit it for her. "Didn't think you'd actually accept a ciggy." He said with a bark of laughter that was gone and replaced by a dark seriousness again.
"Sirius–" She started, but he just spoke over her.
"Look," he paused and took a drag from his fag, closing his eyes and savouring the smoke as it filled his lungs. Hermione let hers dangle from her fingers, as yet unsmoked. "James came and spoke to me yesterday. He's worried about you. We knew you might need to unload, and that needs to be on someone who isn't going to be hurt by whatever you do or say. So let it out, Hermione. Let me have it."
"I can't just–" She waved her hand, unsure what she was trying to say.
"'Course you can." Sirius smirked humourlessly, "Just fucking let go of everything. You hold it all inside and it's gonna poison you one day." Sirius took another drag from his cigarette, and gestured with the burning stick at her own, half burned to ash but unsmoked between her fingers. "Live a little. Take a drag."
Hermione followed his instructions, taking a long drag and immediately coughing as the smoke burned her throat. "Fuck. That's foul, Sirius. Why would you put yourself through that?"
Sirius shrugged, "Got used to it. Here." He handed her a half-full bottle of firewhiskey he'd produced from Merlin-knew-where.
Hermione looked at him sceptically for a long moment. She shouldn't be out here smoking and getting drunk with her friend when her brothers and father were inside grieving. She should be there supporting them.
"You need to focus on yourself for ten minutes of your life." Sirius interrupted her dithering, as if he could read her bloody mind. He just grinned and wiggled the bottle at her when she glared.
"When did you turn into some wise bloody sage?" She grumbled, but snatched the bottle from his hand, taking a long swallow and washing the horrible taste of tobacco from her mouth.
"When I became a father." Sirius managed to hold the haughty look for about a minute before he cracked a manic grin.
Hermione rolled her eyes, but followed him when he bound towards the lake, dropping the burnt out fag, and transforming from man to dog in one fluid leap as he jumped into the cool water. Hermione hesitated for one long moment, then shook her head and followed him, dropping the capped bottle to the bank and transforming gracefully into her otter.
It was a soaking wet duo that approached the house twenty minutes later; Hermione had lost the haunted look she'd worn all day, and though she wasn't 'happy' per se, she was a lot more relaxed.
"Oh honestly! Don't either of you know a drying spell?" Lily rolled her eyes and waved her wand over them.
James descended the steps from the small balcony, meeting them as they approached. He clasped a hand gratefully to Sirius' shoulder, "Thanks Pads."
Sirius just grinned and nodded, pressing a short heated kiss to Lily's lips as he passed her, heading back up to the balcony to join Remus who was leaning against the railing and looking out at the stars and waxing moon. Remus glanced down at them, a soft smile on his face for Hermione, and then turned and placed a gentle hand atop Sirius' beside him.
"I'm sorry I didn't say anything." James whispered.
"No." Hermione shook her head, "I needed it. You were right. Thank you, James." She leant up to brush a soft kiss against his lips. "I'm going to find dad and see if he needs any help."
"Wasn't this supposed to stop you working so hard?" James asked with a quiet chuckle.
"I'll rest later."
James scoffed affectionately, "No, you won't."
"No. I won't." Hermione shrugged and danced out of the way of his tickling fingers, "You're the one that chose to love me." She teased, glad to find a little bit of levity – knowing Marlene and Mary alike wouldn't want this day to be full of sadness.
"I did no such thing. How could I ever resist loving you?" James leaned down and wrapped his arms around her, his lips hovered inches away from hers.
"Get a room!" Peter called from the balcony, Neville giggling in his arms when he bounced him around.
"You go inside. I'm going to go castrate Wormy for interrupting." James pressed a kiss to her forehead and she felt a little lighter as she went to find Geraint.