He didn't blow up Marge and make an escape on the Knight Bus this year. Things were already changed, and just because he has better control of his accidental magic. But was it the better alternative? It meant he hadn't had to meet Minister Fudge, mercies be, but what else would change now because he didn't abscond to Diagon Alley the rest of the summer?

For starters, he was stuck with the Dursleys in a life he thought was finally behind him. Hermione was right, like always. He didn't think consequences through. As it was, it was a worthy sacrifice for the changes they could make here in the past.

Ironic, wasn't it, that Percy was the only other Weasley left alive after the battle of Hogwarts. Ron and him had developed some sort of bond through mutual suffering, but even so- or perhaps because of that- it was a strained relationship. Now maybe Percy could find himself at home in his family without having to lose them all first.

Harry rubbed his eyes but it didn't make his head hurt any less. He didn't regret the decision to come back. Start over. It just wasn't as cut and dry as he'd maybe fantasised. The fact that a lot of his success was based off luck was glaringly worrisome now. How on earth could one replicate luck?

Hermione would likely have had a formula ready for that. He nearly teared up, pathetically, thinking about it.

Hermione.

The risks of consciousness erasure were so dizzyingly minimal that they'd barely considered it. The real hurdle had been trying to go as far back as possible. What happened? Has anything happened at all or is Hermione terribly cautious?

He didn't think she would leave them worrying, definitely not without very good reason. Either way something was terribly wrong.

Ron, he scribbled.

I don't think Hermione made it. Not sure exactly but doesn't seem like it. Going to need to do some studying if that's the case.

Harry thought for a moment, how to phrase the rest. After all, Ron wasn't just losing a best friend, but the girl he'd fallen in love with. At least Harry had the idea they were trying dating out.

Maybe it's something unaccounted for. Maybe something like a delay, or

Harry though to himself, but didn't write: or maybe the Hermione we knew is gone forever.

Instead he finished with or we've got to really, really do some studying. We'll figure this out. I know it. Just would be easier if she could help. I honestly think she would find this funny. When she makes it we'll all have a right laugh. And on to cheerier news, apparently you've approved a birthday gift she's sending day of.

You two, knowing I have you too, makes summer survivable. Makes everything survivable.

Love,

Harry

It was hopeful, or he hoped it came off that way, but he felt terribly sick writing it all the same.

Two sharp raps at the door told him it was breakfast time. He was meant to chop fruit and pour milk, as penance for his wizard-ness. Harry had begun to really think about the Dursleys the more time he was here with them, as he'd never done before. Would his mum and dad be anything like Dudley's parents? Would they resent the burden of a second child? Harry would have fantasised of a role reversal when he really was thirteen, dreaming of Dudley learning to live Harry's life, but he knew better now.

The Potters wouldn't have done that.

So why did his Aunt and Uncle revile him so? Thinking about it made his head itch in ways he didn't like, so he didn't.

It was, like many things, just the way it was... as it always had been.

Three weeks later of grapefruit, toast, and other delightful diet guidelines, Harry was exhausted. He didn't know if it was the new Dudley diet, time travel blues, Hermione hysteria, or just a side effect of reflecting on his time with the Dursleys. But he was tired.

Ron had been frantic, in a way that tried for casual, once he'd heard about Hermione.

We've got to, as you said, study that then. That can't be right. There has to be something. An answer, or delay. I'll try writing her too, but I know it'll be ages before you get this, and then before I can write her to try and suss things out. That's the hard bit about being in Africa. I guess France is closer to me than Britain though.

Yeah Egypt is hot, and hotter. Fred and George have already tried trapping Percy in a tomb. To be fair he's more of a pain than I remembered, and I reminded Bill to go look for him.

Talk when we can, but we'll see you in Diagon, won't we? Let's figure that out. Mum's thinking of going right when we get back. Last week of August.

Speaking of, mum's sent some baked goods for your birthday. The Chudley Cannons poster is mine, and I got you that vile pocket Sneakoscope. Thought you need something to colour up that muggle house, and the Sneakoscope's hilarious if faulty. Happy Birthday Harry!

I hope you're wrong about it, and we'll all have a good laugh like you said.

Otherwise his summer was uneventful, only interspersed with the occasional owl. The suffocating solitude was enough to drive one mad, he considered on most days. Then again, maybe that was better than intentionally gaining the ire of the Dursleys just to get acknowledged. Which he may have done a lot more in the past than he liked to accept.

Hermione's gift was that same Broomstick Servicing kit, and it was luxurious. The card was beautifully penned, and contained a muggle postcard of somewhere in Southern France. It was terribly thoughtful, and along with her mother's tarts, delicious.

Hagrid sent that Monster Book again, and now Harry knew just what that meant.

But otherwise than these breaks in monotony, Harry spent most of his time in his own head. He snuck into his old cupboard to exchange schoolbooks on different nights. Petunia still left the key in the same place as always, on the left side of the fireplace on the mantel, behind the Majorca picture with Dudders as a young toddler. Harry wondered who had watched him when that vacation happened.

Reading became a good pastime, even though these spells and potions and charms and plants were subjects he'd long since passed over. Maybe for that exact reason it was interesting- he vaguely remembered the topics, but not really.

With single minded focus he managed his summer work, and then when he had a particularly boring day he would get frustrated and write it up all over again. It never felt good enough, he didn't feel enough.

What if Hermione was really... gone? She, like Ron, was a touchstone. He couldn't function without one of his thirds.

Every word he read and every essay he wrote, he could hear Hermione asking for him to hand it over so she could check it. Then she would try to explain gently (but it really wouldn't be gentle) that Harry'd made a mistake 'here' and 'here' and 'here'.

It was haunting. He didn't stop reworking and rewording the papers until it was the day of the Diagon Alley trip.

It was August thirty-first, a Tuesday, and he was meeting Ron and Hermione as they'd planned. Hermione naturally had already been to Diagon after she returned from France, some two weeks ago, but she wanted to meet up with them to get some potions ingredients and just to see her friends.

She'd apologised actually, for having gone early for her books. She'd just been too excited for the new curriculum, she'd said.

Hermione was found though, in the Flourish and Blott's bookshop, where Harry was scouting out for redheads and she saw him first.

"HARRY!" She was nearly shouting across the shop floor.

Hermione pushed past a display teeming with dancing caricatures that would pull on her clothes if she got too close... mischievous marketing. "Don't get frisky!" A shop attendant, a sallow looking boy with spunky hair, was scolding the prancing conjured dwarves. They did naught more than stick their tongues out at him and he threateningly took out his wand to even less effect.

"Oh, did you like my gift? I know you said you did, but maybe it's easier to spare my feelings over letter. Whollyunnecessary let me say-" She was starting to ramble.

"I loved it, really," he said with a smile a little too sad to go unnoticed. Either way she let out a breath of relief. "Hermione do you, um, remember anything?" He asked awkwardly. He and Ron had phrased this a million times in a million different ways, but it was hard to just let go of their closest friend. Alas...

"What about?" She looked to him with a patient smile.

"I'm kidding," he said just as awkwardly. "I've er, not forgotten the booklist. I'm not that daft. I've got everything, I think."

"Brilliant Harry," she said distractedly. "I've only been in Diagon for oh, ten minutes? Have you any idea where Ron is? He'd chose Blott's for three o'clock, hadn't he?"

"I'm sure he's close," Harry assured her, peering around himself. Aha!

"Hermione," Ron threw an arm around her in a surprise hug. "Harry," another arm hug. "Brilliant to see you again," he said with hearty emotion.

"Where are your brothers, and Ginny?"

"About," he gestured vaguely.

"Excuse me," came a foreign voice from the side. The three's heads swivelled in eerie unison.

It was, of all people, Lavender Brown. "Hermione have you seen Patil?"

"Which one?" She said cautiously. The girls never talked to Hermione much, and that went both ways. It was odd to have Lavender approach her. Novel.

As the two girls chatted- expressively on Lavender's end, and weakly on Hermione's- Ron saddled right up to Harry's side, and they slowly drifted some paces away. Far enough not for the girls to overhear.

"Done any looking about?" Ron asked. "I got here early, but couldn't beg off from lunch with mum and all at the Cauldron."

"Fair, and I'm sure it's good to be with them." He smiled wistfully. "I Haven't really had to chance to get around. Was in Obscurus Books, just before now, and I was beginning to notice... Ron, most books aren't well, mass produced, are they?"

"Wazzit?"

"I mean," Harry frowned. "Most books have only a few copies, and usually it's difficult to get ahold of them. Besides storybooks, and publicity stunts like Lockhart, in the Wizarding World access to information is pretty limited." Ron was looking a little bemused.

"Suppose so. We've got general books, the ones everyone's got- "

"Basic stuff, like starting magical theory or starting potions or starting charms." Harry said patiently. "But listen, I just spent half an hour trying to find books on Occlumency, and after speaking with the shopkeeper, he got me a volume of 'Advanced Occlumency' from the back room. Ron, it's a singular copy. Published in the 1920s, and only a few were ever distributed."

"Good he had it then," Ron offered.

"Knowledge," Harry mused, "about magic at the very least, is rather coveted."

"Maybe, but you've got to understand a lot of people don't go much past the basics. It's, well, take Hogwarts for example. Only about two thousand and five hundred students at a given time. Hogwarts is the best school of magic in Britain, and it only takes the best sorts."

"What?"

"Some people don't get in," Ron shrugged. "We've got local schools for villages and all. They just learn to live with magic, but they're probably not going to become inventors, or researchers, or be super talented. And you can be talented in different areas. Even if overall your magic ability isn't so strong, you could be really good at a certain type of charm, or a really good flier. Like Mullet, that Chaser from the Irish team. He'd done local school, but was a brilliant flier. Hogwarts is a frontier, frankly it's a bit stressful being one of the students."

"Ron, I have never heard of this." Harry blinked for a long moment. "What... how do people know who goes to Hogwarts or not?"

"Accidental magic," he said. "That's how parents know for sure. Yeah, if your parents went, and in my case brothers, you can reckon you will too. That pureblood stuff is a load of tosh but you can wager if your family went to Hogwarts, you'll have accidental magic too."

"Thought every witch and wizard did accidental magic."

"Nah, it's rather odd to have magic just manifest itself with no direction, you know? So we've got to go to a school where we really learn to control and direct it. Got to be extra careful with the Hogwarts sort. Kids who stay local aren't likely at all to break the Statute."

"This... makes a lot of sense."

"Sure. It's why the Founders founded Hogwarts in the first place. The kids with accidental magic kept getting caught and, um, burned. Alive." They both winced. "A village wizard teacher wasn't enough to mask their outbursts. If they weren't given enough training, they'd get worse and worse and out of control as they got older. Apparently it'd get worse after eleven, and that's why we start school."

"If only Binns taught this instead of treatises from the 12th century," Harry said drily.

"I heard maybe one speech about goblin wars, and that's all I can remember." Ron laughed. More sombrely he continued, "The Hermione thing is... we've got to... figure it out."

"What exactly?" Harry said with frustration. Ron knew, thankfully, that it wasn't directed at him.

"We ought to do something. That's all I'm saying. And I can't believe I'm risking this but," Ron lowered his voice. "down Knockturn, well, they've got all sorts of risky knowledge, don't they- "

The subject of conversation was escaping Lavender's clutches. The other girl was gripping what looked like a stuffed fluffy rabbit, and rolling her eyes at Hermione's retreating back.

She stalked after Hermione, actually right up to the boys, with a smile for Ron.

Dareth I say, Harry thought. History repeats itself?

"Ron Weasley," she says airily.

"Lavender Brown," Ron looks like a wide-eyed doe. He'd not totally recovered from his liaison with the girl in sixth year. Hermione never failed to bring it up- jealousy was one of her weaknesses. It must've been disconcerting to see the two girls next to each other, around four years younger and at relative peace.

"Harry!" Lavender Brown was now turning on him. "I've just heard the funniest thing you know-"

"Oh I'm sure, some brilliant rumour." Harry spoke shortly but Ron was waving her on.

"No no, let's hear it- "

"Let's not- " Harry said wearily.

"Well, Parvati told me that Wiles from Ravenclaw was talking to Lisa, right? And she said Chang thought Angelinamentioned you've got a tattoo, Harry... just no one know what it is, see? And I haven't asked Ange- "

"Cho?" Harry said confusedly, taken aback. "Really?"

"You know Cho Chang?" Lavender Brown sounded downright solicitous for a thirteen year old girl.

"Who's Cho Chang?" Hermione suddenly leapt in.

"She's- " Lavender began.

"Alright! I'll confess. He's got a great, big lion tattooed on his back," Ron said, loudly and confidently.

"Oi!" Harry protested, whirling on the smirking redhead completely seriously. "It's a Horntail, you prat. Making me look like a nancy, are you?"

"Saying that as if you need my help to look it," he snorted, even as Harry thunked him with his copy of Guide to Advanced Occlumency. Harry immediately regretted it- he should've gone with Monster Book of Monsters, as Barnett's Occlumency guide was far too thin.

Ron only tch'd.

"So, do you know her?" Lav-Lav was persistent. "She's a year above us, Hermione," she added offhandedly, with a little look on her face that was screaming pride, at knowing something she didn't. "In Ravenclaw."

"Er, no, not really." Harry shrugged awkwardly. "I've seen her around, 'spose."

"Right," Lavender nodded, her eyebrows waggling.

Harry very vividly and suddenly remembered her face after it was mauled, ripped apart and chewed by Fenrir Greyback, after he'd thrown her listless body off the North Tower. Harry felt sick.

"See you around then," he said in a slightly forced, cheery tone. "We've got some more shopping to get done."

"Alright, and I've got to get mum out of Twilfitt and Tatting's," Lavender rolled her eyes. "She won't even get me those new shifting robes she's got." The girl didn't need any input about these 'robes', but instead wandering away into the crowd with nary more than a hearty wave back to them.

"I saw her, too," Ron whispered in Harry's ear as they made their way into Blott's. "After Greyback." He squeezed Harry's hand quick with his face drawn grim, and it looked a little comical on his too-young face.

Harry was thankful, so thankful, he wasn't alone, and he squeezed the hand back. Despite their up and downs, this was his best friend. For life.

Now they had to figure out what happened to their other.

"How were the Dursleys this time around?" Hermione asked with her mouth turned downward disapprovingly. She was careful about the Dursleys, naturally defensive of them, as they were Muggles like her family, but the story about the car and the bars on the window last summer made her mildly reproachful. She wasn't sure what was exaggeration on part of the twins or not.

"I'd rather have been on holiday in France," Harry offered, not really wanting to get into it. "Or Egypt for that matter. I've had a very dull hols, comparatively."

"Three weeks in Egypt and you'd look like burnt toast, Harry. You've got such delicate skin," Ron quipped.

"Hold on, Ron, look at yourself," Harry warned him. "I think it's more than a bit of sun dapples- what would you say Hermione? Spattergroit?"

"Really clever, Harry," Ron said deadpan. Both shot Hermione very invested looks but she only looked mildly amused, and a little confused.

"Spattergroit," she said uncertainly. "Right."

"Oh, it's um, a wizarding disease," Harry offered. She really didn't catch any of their hints. Nothing. He and Ron shared a look again. It was maybe time to accept that constantly dropping hints wasn't going to get their Hermione back.

"Oh, alright." Hermione flushed a bit. She hadn't yet gotten over the need to have the answers ready, at all turns. It was sort of endearing now, what with all they've been through. "Do you actually need anything from Blott's, Ron? Harry's looking like he's got all the books already."

"I've got everything, including that Monster Book of Monsters from Hagrid."

"Mighty suspicious," Harry said with a straight face.

"Isn't it obvious?" Hermione tossed her hair. "He's going to be teaching Care of Magical Creatures!"

"Brilliant," Ron said. "Can't wait to fight a dragon."

"No spiders?" Harry phrased innocently.

"Do not remind me."

"So apothecary?"

"Right on."

The Slug and Jigger's apothecary was as strangely dim as always. Light shifted through dust in the air, casting strange shapes among the jars of body parts, the barrels of slimy bits, powders, and more.

"Would you look at that," Harry murmured. His friends perked up from the dried herbs they were picking through for the 'most curled' Haliwinkles.

"Is that Snape?" Ron shoot Harry a look of total fear. "Now- now, don't you go over there out of some misguided good will, Harry. I reckon he'd still got a few curses lodged up in him."

Hermione jolted, a look of complete confusion on her face that neither noticed.

"He's not going to curse me," Harry said mildly. "And I wasn't- well, now that you mention it, I'm sure he'd love a chat?"

"Don't tease." Hermione was smiling all the same at Harry. Though he imagined she was greatly confused as to what had tempered his antagonistic patterns with the Professor. Ron and him so easily forgot it wasn't their Hermione, which was the greater issue at hand today.

Stepping through the apothecary was without further incident. They continued to put Hermione on edge unconsciously, as Ron would listen dutifully to her explanation of swallowtail wings needing to be chopped not powdered in conjuncture with betony, and Harry would send indecipherable glances towards Snape.

"And if the wings look too thin, that's means they're preserved Ron, and we need them fresh-"

"Hang on," Harry interrupted suddenly. "Betony would work better without swallowtail wings. Mad Dog, right?"

"Er, Harry, chapter fourteen says we've got to add it right before the counterclockwise turns." Hermione answered hesitantly. "I've just read it this morning, and all. So you've looked at the upcoming classwork? That's really brilliant, really, even if you've not remembered it all. Ron, you could do to-"

"I think the twins do enough experimenting."

"I'm fairly sure it's a useless step, if you use thistle-boiled water instead as a base..." Harry muttered to himself.

"Maybe you're thinking of a different potion, Harry. And Ron! Not experimenting, just read, like Harry has," she spared him an approving smile, "and Snape may lay off us all a bit more." Harry winced. He'd never considered how being friends with them may reflect poorly on Hermione. It actually made a lot of sense.

"Professor Snape!" Ron crowed. "That's got to be the first time you haven't said it, Hermione, it's Professor Snape! Ha!"

"And it's Ron Weasley." Snape raised a disapproving brow as he swept into their aisle of live preserves. "Harry Potter," his narrow gaze slipped over, "and of course, their minder. What nefarious plot brews today?"

An unexpected saviour came to their aid before Harry could turn any redder, knowing the man far too well to act properly upset as he might've once done.

"No need to cow the children, Severus! Intimidation only goes so far, I say."

If anything Snape looked intimidated himself by the jolly, rosy cheeked intruder.

"A good helping hand, some kind words- well. Severus you may find encouragement is what brings a flower to bloom, ergo a student to blossom." Their aisle was becoming quite crowded with the tall, imposing figure of Snape, Ron, Hermione, Harry, and their newest addition... Horace Slughorn. "My," Slughorn patted his round stomach in a self-congratulatory way. "Is that Harry Potter?"

Snape seemed to be refraining from rolling his eyes into the back of his head, giving instead a terse nod.

"Sir," Harry said respectfully. He did his best not to look as though he recognised the man that, for all intents and purposes, should be a complete stranger.

"Severus you must tell me, has Mister Potter inherited his mother's gift for potioneering?"

"I could not say," the Potions Master managed to say, carefully avoiding disparaging Harry in front of a clearly meddling Horace, and careful to make it clear that, under no circumstance, was he willing to delve into 'Harry's mother's gifts'. Without further ado, and obviously ignoring Slughorn's opening his mouth to jovially share more of his bitter Hogwarts days, Snape walked out of the aisle soundlessly.

"He's always been prickly," Slughorn said conspiratorially to the three teens. "But how's he for a Professor?" Harry knew the man was once the Potions Master himself, and likely genuinely curious.

"He's..." Hermione struggled to settle on a word respectful enough and yet still honest. The silence stretched out awkwardly and Slughorn's right eyebrow rose.

"I was his Professor," Slughorn suddenly said. "I imagine you couldn't have known that, my I'm being rude. Horace Slughorn, at your service. I've been rather quiet in my retirement, oh yes, but I still have interest in where my students have gone off to. It's a unique and wonderful experience, being a Professor, and through it helping shape so many lives."

"That's a lesson I don't think Snape picked up on," Ron snorted. "Wonderful? Helping?"

"Ron!"

"Well, come on... prickly is an understatement, innit?"

"Ron," Harry said, but with little admonishment. Slughorn was watching raptly.

"He hates you, Harry, you've got the least reason to defend him- despite anything- "

"He's a, er, multi-faceted- "

"Multi-faceted- " Ron repeated mockingly.

"Strong feelings towards Severus, I see." Slughorn said wisely, his eyes shrewd. "He was always a brilliant student, but that may not always translate into teaching ability, hm?"

"Well, yes," Hermione latched onto the man's words. "Everyone's got a different, ehm, style."

Harry was wondering when exactly Slughorn had gone into hiding last time. When had Voldemort become suspicious of his Horcruxes and past of Tom Riddle being connected? Because in 1993, the old Potions Master looked perfectly in place in Diagon in daylight.

"Wonderful meeting you three," he said warmly. "Harry, and er,"

"Hermione," she offered.

"Ron Weasley."

"I knew a Weasley once! Septimus, bright lad. Shame, really..." The man trailed off, eyes unfocused before he snapped back to reality with a roll of his shoulders. "Well, I'd hope to see you three again. Never know what paths life will take you upon!"

When the man had meandered off, Hermione wondered aloud, "I can't imagine what potions would be like with him."

"Meh," Ron said. "But it wouldn't be Snape, at the very least."

"Oh, at least try to call him Professor!"

"Oh, look," Harry announced. "Swallowtail, fresh."

"You really should buy it Harry," Hermione said as she gripped her jar.

"I think I'll manage," he smiled.

A/N: Theories on Hermione? Do y'all like the characters introduced thusfar? How's the whole adjustment phase? I've got some fun plot points coming up soon, really excited to see reception on those xx