Hermione was in the back garden of her parent's Abingdon home, watching the colourful barges pass along the canal on their way to the horse fair in Oxford, when the doorbell chimed unexpectedly. In truth, she was fetching top-up drinks for them all so they could cool down in the warm Summer weather. It was past two o'clock now and more than socially acceptable to have a small glass of chilled white wine with the selection of bread and cheeses that they were nibbling at on their sunny verandah.
So the doorbell came as a rather unwelcome distraction. That was until Hermione actually answered it.
"Harry!"
It was an exclamation. She couldn't help it. The events of their last day in Australia had made things unreasonably awkward between them. Hermione simply couldn't understand or accept that an alternative version of herself had slept with Harry, and he confessed that he could now think about little else. What that meant, and where it might lead, left them at an impasse that neither knew how to get beyond.
But it seemed now, after barely two weeks apart, that Harry had cracked first.
For not only had he brought himself, but he was also pulling his heavy Hogwarts trunk behind him. It contained, Hermione knew with a heavy heart, all of Harry's earthly possessions. Her heart flipped crazily at the idea, for if Harry ever offered himself to her completely, this might be what it looked like.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked, breaking from the hug she'd clobbered him with on sight.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't stay away," Harry muttered lowly, toeing the gravel path with his battered shoe. "And I couldn't stay there, either. I'm sorry ... I had nowhere else to go."
Hermione knew that the there in this case meant The Burrow. She, herself, had been giving the place and its family a wide berth, but Harry had been left with no choice but to return there. Now, it seemed, he'd had his fill.
"I wont be a burden," Harry promised. "It'll just be for a night. Maybe two. Your Dad mentioned he had a potting shed ... that'd do just fine. If I could just -"
"If you honestly think I'm heartless enough to simply let you sleep in my garden shed when I have soft pillows going spare, then I'm going to be very cross with you, Harry," Hermione quipped semi-sternly. "What sort of best friend do you take me for? We have an attic room that my Aunts often use when they stay. You're welcome to use that for as long as you like."
"No, I ... I don't want to intrude," Harry argued sheepishly.
"You intruded when you saved my life from a twelve-foot-troll," Hermione smiled warmly. "Now, come on in and tell me what this is all about."
"I couldn't stay there, with the Weasleys," Harry explained as they mounted the stairs. "It felt odd. And not just because of ... you-know-what."
Hermione felt her cheeks heat up in spite of herself. She still couldn't picture Harry's description of what had happened to him on that last night in Sydney ... or the rabid jealousy that it hadn't been her that he'd shared that experience with. Although he insisted that it was, or at least as far as he was concerned it was, however confusing this all sounded to her.
"Why? What was wrong?"
"I could feel things ... changing," Harry tried to explain. "Changing back to how they were before we went away. And not because I wanted them to ... they just were. I cant explain it. But I hated it. I wanted to ... I wanted ..."
"What?" Hermione pushed gently.
"I wanted to feel like I did back in Australia, when it was just us," Harry confessed. "And not just on that last night. But before then. I missed it ... that feeling I felt when I was with you ... and just you. I missed the intimacy, I missed the emotion ... I missed you. And I'm scared, Hermione."
Hermione had forgotten how to breathe a moment, but she jerked back to herself at Harry's declaration of fear. It was so heart-felt and genuine that Hermione felt her own heart bleed just from hearing it.
"What are you afraid of?"
"I'm afraid that ... someone's trying to take it away," Harry confessed in a tiny voice. "That feeling. And I don't want them to, Hermione. I don't want to lose it. It terrifies me that I might. I like feeling this ... whatever it is for you. I know my timing is atrocious, but I know now that this is what I want to feel. It doesn't even matter that you don't like me back like that. Will you help me, Hermione? Help me to stop whoever is doing this? Please?"
"Firstly, who said that I don't like you back like that? I never said that," Hermione smiled gently. Harry could barely believe his ears, and language was beyond him now, so he just listened. "Did I - or did I not - travel back in time just to make love to you?"
Harry reddened so adorably that it took all of Hermione's restraint not to pounce on him right there. But she held firm.
"You did," Harry choked out. "And it was all sorts of gorgeous. But why have you suddenly accepted that?"
"Because of something my mum said," Hermione confessed. "She spoke to another version of me, too, one who came from the future, to say that someone was attacking her life ... or mine ... in that time. Oh dear, this is so confusing."
"You're telling me," Harry agreed, scratching his head. "How were they attacking your life?"
"She didn't say explicitly," Hermione replied. "But it has something to do with the first time we met. Apparently, it wasn't as we remember it. Do you still think it was that first day on the Hogwarts Express?"
"Yeah, you came into my compartment as you tried to help Neville find his toad," Harry described. "That was the first time we met."
"Apparently not," Hermione told him, sitting down on the bed. "My mum had forgotten about it, too, but then this other me reminded her. That was important, apparently, because it showed that whatever Dark Magic was at work stretched only to me - and her - and not our family. But that didn't make sense to the other Hermione for some reason, so she went away to try and figure it all out. Or I had to. This is making my head spin.
"Describe this thing you felt, Harry, when you were at The Burrow. Let's start with that."
"It's not easy to," Harry began, sitting next to Hermione on the bed. "I came back from Australia determined to finish it all with Ginny. We never really re-started, but I sort of told her to give me time to get over everything that had happened and that I'd talk to her again after that. She took that as promise enough."
"But something happened when you saw her? You didn't break it off?"
"Not so much that I didn't ... it was as much that I couldn't," Harry moaned. "It was like the words were there, but I'd forgotten how to say them. Ginny gave me a hug, even flashed me in just her bra from the top of the stairs, and then I noticed it going."
"What? This feeling for ... for me?"
Harry nodded glumly. "I remembered ... seeing you. Or, you know, the other you. I remembered how you felt, your skin, your weight, the scent of you ... how you ... tasted. But the details were slipping away like moments from a dream. And I didn't want to forget, Hermione. It was all I'd thought about since it happened.
"So I fought hard to cling on. But it was like the seal had broken. The details kept vanishing. Now I cant even remember what you were wearing when I first saw you ... only that it took my breath away. And I'm gutted to have lost that memory, Hermione."
"Why? It was just me ... of a fashion."
"Yeah ... but not like that," Harry replied, the hint of a cheeky smile touching the corners of his mouth. "I cant remember it ... but it was like looking at something divine. Would you want to forget something like that?"
Hermione shifted an inch closer to Harry so that their thighs were touching. Then she smiled sweetly at him.
"No, and once we solve this, maybe we can create a store bank of those images together. Lets see Ginny and her Dark Magic stop us then."
"Ginny ... who is that?"
Harry and Hermione snapped their heads to the far corner of the attic. It was completely in shadow, despite being just to the right of a sunny skylight.
"Peruvian Darkness Powder," the female speaker explained to the stunned expressions facing her. "Useful for not being seen. Now tell me who Ginny is? I've heard the name a few times, but I don't know who it belongs to."
"Hermione!" Harry hissed under his breath. "That's you! The other you!"
Hermione frowned at him. "I worked that one out myself, Harry. I know my own voice when I hear it. The question is ... what do I want?"
So she asked herself out loud.
"I am trying to find the root of a problem," the future Hermione explained. "And this 'Ginny' character keeps popping up. So I need to know who she is. Hello, Harry ... again."
"Um ... hi," Harry replied sheepishly. He felt the need to cover his crotch for some reason, despite being fully clothed. The Hermione next to him scowled jealously.
"Ginny is our friend's sister," she explained. "She's fancied Harry something chronic since she was a girl."
"What else can you tell me about her? Significant events in her life, that sort of thing."
"Well, the most interesting thing to happen to her - apart from somehow coaxing Harry into fancying her last year - was that she was possessed by the spirit of Lord Voldemort during our second year at Hogwarts. She plays Quidditch a bit, she has an affinity for bats with sinus issues, and she's a smart-mouthed little tart. We also call her ASDA - because her legs are open twenty-four hours! Am I missing anything, Harry?"
Harry couldn't help but laugh. "She writes terrible Valentines Poems! She thinks that telling someone their eyes are like a 'freshly pickled toad' is a compliment."
"Does she also think your hair is as dark as a blackboard?" future Hermione quirked.
"You've heard it?" Harry laughed back.
"I have," Hermione confirmed. "But how curious."
"I'm sorry, er ... me," Hermione began. "But what's curious?"
"Just call me Hermione, Hermione, or we will end up going around in circles."
"Aren't we doing just that!" Hermione cried shrilly. "First rule of time-travel is that you must not be seen, especially by yourself. But here we are talking!"
"But can you see me?"
"Well, no ... but I'm not really sure this counts."
"Well I wont tell if you won't," future Hermione laughed. "Or maybe I'll just talk to Harry instead."
There was something sultry in her tone that - if Harry had heard it from another girl - might be construed as a taunt. The Hermione sat next to him certainly took it as one.
"No, you'll talk to me," she spat possessively, shunting so close to Harry on the bed that her thigh was practically atop his. That took his thoughts - and his bloodstream - in a southerly direction at warp speed. "What was curious about the poem? You said you had heard it before?"
"I have," came the reply. "Only it wasn't from a girl called Ginny ... but from a boy called ... Weasley. He was Ron Weasley's younger brother."
"What!" Harry and his Hermione chimed together.
"We used to call him 'Ginger Sinjie', or 'Ginger Johnnie'," future Hermione went on. "Fred and George started the nickname to annoy him, obviously, but it sort of stuck. He was somehow ginger-er than the rest of the clan. And he was just obsessed with Harry, pretty much from the get-go. It was hero worship at first, but it developed into quite a dangerous infatuation as the years went on.
"This is fascinating. I think I see what she's done now, or is trying to do ... the question is how?"
"What who has done?" Harry asked. "Ginny?"
"No ... Molly," Hermione corrected.
"Mrs Weasley?" Harry choked out. "But why would she do ... whatever it is that she's done?"
"Because ... Molly Weasley hates me ... and I hate her right back," Hermione scythed. Oddly, Harry swore he saw the Hermione next to him nod in slow agreement.
"But why?"
"Because she's an arrogant cunt, the worst witch I've ever met," future Hermione explained acridly. "She had her first baby when she was still at Hogwarts, you know. Bill was born when she was just fourteen, conceived on one of Molly and Arthur's Hogsmeade visits. If the Arthur Weasley you know is anything like mine, then you know he's no ladies' man. He just couldn't keep control of his excitement on their first time. And then Molly forgot the incantation for the Contraceptive Charm.
"She told us this as a funny story when we were staying at Grimmauld Place over Christmas of our fifth year. Arthur had just been attacked by Voldemort's snake, Nagini, and everyone was swapping stories, as you do. But I couldn't help it ... I gasped in shock when Molly told that one with a smile on her face. I know how terribly judgemental it must have sounded ... and Molly never forgave me for it.
"And I'd never forgiven her for sending me Bubotuber Pus in a letter, after stories came out that I was cheating on my Harry with Viktor Krum during the Triwizard Tournament."
"Wow," Harry breathed. "So those events happened exactly the same for you as they did for us, then?"
"Almost exactly," Hermione replied. There was the hint of a smile in her voice. "The main difference was that there was something going on between my Harry and me. We were skirting around it in the most silly of ways, but Rita Skeeter's articles made us do something that I've come to learn that you two didn't."
"What was that?" Harry's Hermione asked.
"We looked it in the face ... actually discussed it," the other Hermione replied fondly. "It was painfully formal, and we laughed crazily about it in the years that followed, but you know what we're like, Hermione. I basically interrogated my Harry about his feelings for me. The poor lamb didn't know what hit him!"
"How did that happen?" Hermione asked. It sounded as if she was desperate to know what she'd done wrong in her version of the events.
"After the Second Task, it was clear that something was different between us," came the explanation. "Because I was the hostage taken into the Lake for Harry to rescue. I was the thing that he'd miss the most. Apparently, I was Krum's, too, but Harry would have missed me so much more ... so I was his.
"So, practically as soon as I was dry, I dragged Harry for one of our epic walks around the Lake for him to explain it to me. He did a terrible - but adorably cute - job, spluttering and stuttering his way through his answers to my examination, but he managed to tell me how he'd liked me as more than a friend for the best part of a year, and that it was getting stronger all the time, and that his image of me coming into the Common Room as his date for the Yule Ball was the memory he now used to conjure a Patronus.
"I practically melted when he told me that. So we agreed to go to the next Hogsmeade weekend alone, without Ron for the first time, and see how it went. As it happened, it went very well, so we took it slow from there."
"So you ... we ... started going out?" Harry breathed reverently. It was as though he'd suddenly come up with a brilliant new idea, the best one the world had ever seen, and he couldn't understand why he hadn't thought of it before.
"Not right away, not even that school year, really," Hermione confessed. "But we were essentially inseparable after that first Hogsmeade date. And then all that drama happened with Cedric and Voldemort returning in the graveyard. My Harry was so wounded ... I was heartbroken just being at his bedside. The effects of the Cruciatus Curse gave him severe PTSD, and lingered with him all Summer. I visited him weekly, wrote to him practically every other day. Poor Hedwig didn't forgive me for all the extra flying for at least six months after that!
"At first, the letters were what you'd expect - general correspondence and notes of concern. But they began to change as our feelings sharpened focus. We'd almost lost each other, before whatever it was that we'd started had even really got going. And we both knew how much we'd have regretted not giving into it fully. So we started to, in what we were writing in our letters.
"By the time we were ready to board the Hogwarts Express again in September, we weren't just writing to keep in touch ... we were pretty much sending love letters to each other."
Harry and both Hermiones felt lumps rise in their throats, as the words hung softly in the air between them. Then Harry looked down, for his Hermione had tracked her fingers up over his hand and was now holding it tenderly, and seemed completely unashamed for doing so, too. Harry just enjoyed the warmth of her touch, allowed himself to feel it in ways he never had before.
"Meeting up again was awkward at first, after all the intimate things we'd said to each other via Hedwig," future Hermione went on. "But by the end of that first train journey, we'd gotten ourselves sorted. We brought Ron in on what we'd decided ... on what we'd become. He was disappointed, as he had started to fancy me, too. Seriously, I never expected three boys in the space of six months would want to date me!
"But I only wanted Harry, and Ron knew that. He accepted it begrudgingly, was over it by Halloween and started seeing Hannah Abbott, but it fizzled out by Christmas."
"But you ... I mean, we ... didn't? Fizzle out, I mean," Harry asked quietly.
"No, Harry. We never fizzled out. We just got stronger and stronger. If anything, fighting Voldemort and all that drew us closer. No-one had shared what we had, could ever replace you in my heart, and I knew it was the same for you. We defeated Voldemort, left Hogwarts, got engaged on my twentieth birthday and married at twenty-five, ten years to the day that we'd first swapped those fateful 'I love yous' with each other.
"Oddly, it was you who remembered that fact, who thought it would be terribly romantic to say 'I do' to me, on the same date as you'd first told me you were in love with me. It was all very sweet. But that's when things started to change. And I'm only just starting to see how Molly Weasley is behind the whole lot of it."
"How so?"
"We didn't let her come to the wedding," Hermione explained. "We, sort of, had to put a Restraining Charm up against St. John and Molly kicked off about it. His obsession had become dangerous. He'd turned up at our daughter's school and threatened to kidnap her if Harry didn't marry him instead of me. He even began the process for a full gender-swap operation, after Harry refused his numerous approaches for a date, thinking maybe he'd have more luck as a girl.
"But it didn't matter about gender or sexuality. Harry loved me, and that was the one thing that nothing and nobody could change. And Molly hated that about me. She tried so hard to prise Harry away from me. She'd send invitations to Weasley parties addressed just to Harry, leaving me out. She'd contrive elaborate ways for Harry and St. John to be alone together, things like that.
"In the end, Harry had a blazing row with them both and vowed never to speak to either again. Molly desperately wanted Harry to marry her child ... she was determined to have him as a son-in-law. I just never imagined she'd go this far."
"So, you think that because we've been in Harry's life for everything important, and bonded so deeply as a result, that Molly is somehow trying to remove us from it now? Maybe put Ginny in our place?" Harry's Hermione asked in quiet horror. "Starting with the first time we met? Mum told me about your meeting with her."
"That's my working theory, but I don't know how far her action goes or even how she's doing it," came the reply. "But I have to believe that replacing her youngest son with a daughter has to be part of it somehow. She might be trying to place this Ginny as a rival to me from the very start, maybe including love potions or other forms of Entrancement magic. I know she's got previous with that."
"You do? With who?" Harry asked.
"Sirius," Hermione volleyed back bluntly. "She was obsessed with him when they were at Hogwarts, despite the age gap. She had him under a spell for at least six months when he was thirteen or so. Ever wondered why they were so cool towards each other every time they met? There's your answer. Sirius feels violated by it, as would I."
"You ... you sound like you know Sirius," Harry began quietly. "More than I would expect you to."
"That's because I do," Hermione replied. "Harry - in my timeline, we brought Sirius back ... right after we revived your parents. They showed us how to open a portal at the back of the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. Sirius fell right out, as if the fight there had just finished, just with four more years of memories from his time in the afterlife."
Harry gripped Hermione's hand as the concept crashed into him. "We did ... what? How?"
"There was an incredibly complex piece of magic performed when you were a baby, that allowed you to survive Voldemort's attack. It was supposed to trigger a chain of events that would bring your parents back to life when you duelled Voldemort for the final time during the Battle of Hogwarts. James and Lily's souls reside within your wand, Harry. And when you cast Expelliarmus against Voldemort with it, they were supposed to emerge and kill him, while he was held defenceless in Priory Incantatem by you. But, and I don't know why, that hasn't happened, has it?"
"No," Harry whined sadly. Then he sat bolt upright. "But ... I didn't use my wand against Voldemort. I used Draco Malfoy's! Mine was broken!"
"Ahh!" Hermione breathed in something like triumph. "That may be the key, Harry! You haven't completed the circle yet!"
"The question is ... can he?" younger Hermione asked. "I mean, this timeline doesn't seem completely right either, judging by what you've said."
"Go on."
"Well, look at it," Hermione continued. "For seven years - as far as we've both been aware - Harry and I haven't ever seriously considered getting together romantically. Then we pop off to Australia for a month and - and I think I can speak for Harry here, too - suddenly it's all we can do to keep our hands off each other. It's like a dam has broken - as though what we both truly want has abruptly burst into the open."
"True," Harry nodded with a grin.
"And this timeline you describe," Hermione went on, addressing her future self. "That sounds like the most beautiful dream I could ever have. I hate that I didn't live that myself! But maybe we weren't allowed to. Harry says a fortnight with the Weasleys is making him forget what we shared in Australia, as though somehow our affections are being denied to us. Could that have been happening to us forever? Could Molly have done something to purposely keep us apart?"
"That's the theory I'm running with," came the reply. "I just need to know how far it goes. I've been travelling through time, nailing down anchors in our timeline. You both need to understand something ... as soon as we saved, then flew, on Buckbeak we joined our hearts together in the most profound of ways. The universe ordained us that night ... made us meant to be. I'm pinning my hopes on that ... that no matter what Molly or Dark Magic tries to do, our love will prevail above all of it."
"What anchors?" Harry asked.
"Key events in our relationship," Hermione explained. "I went to watch over you after Lily and James were killed so you'd be safe, I told Dumbledore about the time paradox, so he would tell James so he could prepare you. I gave him your phoenix wand. Then I went see you in Sydney ... relived our first time pretty much as it happened for me. And don't worry, Harry ... you get better and last longer as time goes on, trust me!"
The Hermione, at Harry's side, couldn't help but giggle at that, as she curled her head onto his shoulder in a consolatory sort of way. But he did his best to ignore all of his own inexperienced failings for now. For he felt a sheer rush of affection for Hermione, for both of them, for the entity that was Hermione Granger in that moment. She was the girl that had cared for him and watched over him so diligently for pretty much his entire life.
And if what he was feeling for her now wasn't love he was pretty such nothing else ever would be.
"Tell me," Harry asked to the future version. "Can you feel this?"
Then he turned bodily and drew his Hermione to him, holding her tenderly tight, closing his eyes at her touch.
The older witch swooned from the corner. "I can feel it! Almost like a sweet memory. It shows we are still connected ... that you, Hermione, can still go on to become me. But this is Time Magic ... and who knows when that might change."
"It also sounds like Dark Magic," Harry replied bitterly, letting Hermione go with painful reluctance. "Do you have any idea what Molly might have done?"
"Just one, and it's oh so vague," Hermione replied.
"Try us," Harry urged.
"Okay, the only link I can find is St. John's possession by the diary Horcrux," Hermione explained. "He was never purged of it and I'm sure there must have been some lingering effects. It may have accounted for portions of his madness in later years. Not only that, but Peter Pettigrew lived in that family for ten years, then a year after the possession. Being so close to St. John - with Voldemort in his mind - must have triggered something, maybe even caused his Mark to burn.
"And Molly would do anything for her kids, I have to give her that. But I also knew she was desperate for a daughter, and determined to break the Curse."
"Curse? What curse?"
"The Weasley Curse to deny them daughters," Hermione explained. "D-don't you know about that?"
"No," Harry returned worryingly. "We knew that Ginny was unusual - the seventh child of a seventh child, because Molly was the youngest of seven children herself, but we heard nothing about a Curse. What was it?"
"Grindelwald promised them a daughter who would lead a Pureblood revolution in Britain, in return for support on his campaign across Europe," Hermione explained. "When he was defeated, the Weasleys were among a number of families who were cursed to never have daughters, so that Grindelwald's Promise could never be fulfilled. That ... that must be what Molly is doing! Trying to break that curse."
"Or ... trying to prevent it ever being cast in the first place!" the other Hermione breathed in horror.
"Worse than that," Harry whispered darkly. "What if she's trying to turn it on you?"
Both Hermione's gasped deeply. "What do you mean?"
"Think about it," Harry urged. "You said that we didn't meet as we remember, yeah? And that your Mum said we wouldn't meet at all if we didn't get involved in this? Well, what if, somehow, Molly has turned the Weasley Curse into the Granger Curse ... as an ultimate revenge against you? Against us? You always said it was strange that you had very little magical ancestry at all, that even in Squibs and Muggleborns magic can sometimes skip generations. But it was just you. What if Molly has done something in the future, and it has affected the beginnings of the Granger family way back in the past? A family that died out over generations?"
"By preventing them having daughters!" Harry's Hermione cried. "We wouldn't meet because ... I'd have never been born!"
"But how would she do that? What would she need?"
"She'd need a Granger girl ... a Granger daughter," Hermione from the future hissed in abject terror. "My daughter! I have to go."
A blinding rent opened up in the air of the attic. Harry shielded his eyes against it, but kept his head long enough to scream-
"Hermione! What do we do? I don't know where - or when - you have to go, but let us help you in the here and now! Tell us what to do!"
"I'm going home, to find out what that bitch has done to my daughter, to my Sophie," Hermione called back angrily. "If I fail, or if Molly captures or kills me, find out all you can about a Hector Dagworth-Granger. He was the one who placed the curse on the Weasleys in the first place. If you have to, steal a bloody Time-Turner and go back and place the damned curse yourself! Just do not be seen!"
"And what about Sirius!" Harry yelled. "What about my parents?"
"If we assume that this Ginny scrut is the person I knew as St. John Weasley, Voldemort's essence lives on inside her," Hermione replied. "You have to find a way to draw him out in her and engage her in battle. Hit her with Expelliarmus using your Phoenix and Holly wand and complete the cycle. Your parents will emerge and they'll know what to do next."
"And what about me?" the younger Hermione asked. "Will I just cease to exist if Molly wins?"
"Yes, but Team Potter never loses when we work together," came the smiling voice again. "Do what you can. If I am able, I will return to help you. If not ... I hope to be you later, Hermione Granger. My my, it's ages since I called myself that! Hermione Potter has such a nicer ring to it, don't you think? Oh, and Harry ... put a ring on it, will you, honey?! I don't like seeing my wedding finger without that band of beautiful Welsh Gold wrapped around it!
"I love you."
And then she was gone.