Nov 20th 1941

Hermione threw down her hands on the wooden table and her fingers splayed across the glossy finish. The 'thump' of her force echoed in the underground facility. "Colonel, by then it will be too late."

Peggy's eyes followed the direction of conversation between Colonel Phillips and Hermione. Her arms were folded behind her back, and she remained silent and apathetic.

Colonel Chester Phillips furrowed his eyebrows, nailing Hermione to the floor. "I've heard your explanation. I sent reconnaissance. There's been no evidence of an attack planned from Japan on our radar," he said.

Anxiety and panic settled in a pit at her stomach. She could see it in his eyes, the way he stood. "You don't believe me."

"We have reliable intel that says they want to execute a six-month cooling-off period after the oil embargo disaster," he said. He took off his service hat, flattened his hair, and somehow managed to stand even straighter. "And they've only just reinstated a new Prime Minister, that General Hideki Tojo. As of right now, they lack the capacity to mount such an operation."

"I've told you that your information would be wrong. This is what happened the last time!"

Terrible things happen to wizards who meddle with time Harry, she'd once said.

Hermione swallowed the emotions that came with her memory. She shifted her weight away from the tabletop and stood as tall as she could, nearly as straight as him. "Pearl Harbor will be the greatest intelligence failure in American History." She bore her eyes to his, demanding his attention. "No one will expect what's coming. Not until it's too late."

He sighed deeply and took a seat at the table between them. Hermione and Peggy exchanged a glance and followed. "How can we be sure that what you say is still going to happen?" Colonel Phillips asked. "From what you and Stark have said about your incident, just being here could be changing the future you knew. Given that you're not only out of time, but from a different … place, every event you think is coming might not even happen."

Hermione nearly sighed in return. "Yes, but water is still wet. This is not a slip of inventory numbers that History forgot about. This will be the catalyst for America joining this World War. The first time you are attacked on your homeland from a foreign enemy. This will change things."

Another silence. "Is it a necessary change?" he asked. The fluorescent lighting darkened the wrinkles under his eyes and around his mouth.

Hermione blinked. Then blinked again. "Thousands will die. Horrible, horrible deaths. We'll continue finding bodies weeks after it all and the death toll will only climb."

"Miss. Granger that is the nature of war. I'm asking if this is necessary to end the War."

Hermione wasn't so sure. It was agreed that this country entering the Allies was the tipping point in their favor in all of the academic research she had known. It had started with Pearl Harbor. So in a sense, yes, it was necessary for the first step to happen if the war was to end.

But she could change it couldn't she? She could … do something else to initiate America going to war. Something without Pearl Harbor. Couldn't she? Shouldn't she?

"I can see it in your eyes," Colonel Phillips said, interrupting her inner turmoil. "You want to save lives. But think on this. Doing that might just lead to the downfall of the Allies. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions more would die if that happened."

Hermione watched his eyes. "You know that America needs to enter the War?"

"You know I do." He folded his hands on the fable in front of him. "That's why we're all counting on Project Rebirth. Question is, how do we make that happen without, as you said, the catalyst?"

Hermione didn't know. There had to be another option, another way to end the war, but Colonel Phillips was right. The war was happening right now, people were dying every day. She was working on a way to end the war with Abraham, but nothing had happened yet, and nothing was stopping the carnage across the sea. She was a nut to the huge machine and she had no power to change anything from here. Not even with her future knowledge.

She leaned back in her chair, boneless. "I don't know," she answered honestly.

Colonel Phillips' jaw rotated and he nodded mostly to himself. "Washington thinks that Hawaii is ready for an attack if Japan decides to end negotiations."

"We know that to be untrue."

He agreed. "I'll get a team out there. Make sure they're ready. We'll see what we can do."

Hermione's stomach flipped and she suppressed the shivers down her back. It didn't feel like it would be enough. "Alright."

Dec 7 1941

On the morning of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hermione didn't sleep. Peggy stayed awake through the night with her, setting down cups of tea and resetting Billie Holiday and The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra records on the phonograph.

When the sun came up, Hermione went down to the labs and began her day with Abraham. There would be no reports or newspaper articles written until tomorrow, as the attack was happening over 6,000 miles away, but she still felt the weight of her knowledge heavy on her shoulders.

Guilt hung heavy in her stomach, and she swallowed back the urge to throw up. Her hands were clammy as she made her way to her station in the lab, and furious blinks couldn't keep away the dizziness that swayed her feet. She knew how many would die awful, horrible deaths, and she did nothing. Continued to do nothing.

The glass flask Hermione was holding fell from her hands and shattered on the linoleum floor of the lab. Other scientists around the large room stared. Hermione ducked her head, knelt to the ground, and swept the broken glass together. A sharp edge caught the side of her palm and she began to bleed over the remains of her test tube.

She had the unbearable urge to cry.

"Fräulein Granger?" a familiar voice asked above her.

Hermione looked up from the pile of glass to Abraham. "Yes Doctor?"

"The other test tubes are in the storage down the hall. I vill show you," he said offering a hand.

Hermione used a napkin to collect the glass from the floor and accepted her mentor's hand.

He viewed the cut on her palm and collected another napkin on her desk to cover the bleeding. "And we will be going to the nurse's office as well," he said marginally softer.

Hermione could feel the judgement from the other male assistants from the corner of her eyes, and Abraham gave them a very brisk once over. "Continue!" he said sharply, and they jumped back into their duties. Abraham led them out of the room.

"I am fine Abraham. It just slipped out of my hand," she told him as he took the pile of wrapped glass from her and threw it away.

"It is out of character for you to drop your work klein time traveler," he said softly as they walked down the hall.

"I'm tired is all," she answered back with partial honesty.

They walked together down twisting halls. "And it has nothing to do with the war you will not speak of?" he asked with raised eyebrows.

Colonel Phillips warned early on in her training that keeping conversation away from her knowledge of the War would help Abraham to let go of his lost family. She had initially agreed. "You know I shouldn't."

"But it does weigh heavily, no?"

She grimaced. "Of course. Always."

He stopped in the middle of the empty hallway, turned to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I am only a scientist, not a reader of the mind. But you have something that does not sit well, I think." He studied her from over the tops of his rimmed glasses. "I vill help if I can."

Hermione grimaced again. "No one can help this part of me Abraham. It's my own."

"Do you feel guilt?"

The urge to cry came swiftly from the base of her throat again. She did nothing. "Yes."

"Because you can not change what vill happen?"

"Because- I didn't even try."

He studied her again. "You told the colonel, yes?"

She blinked. "Yes, of course, but that won't be enough."

The heat of his fingers radiated down her arms and held her softly. "That is not for you to decide klein time traveler. You are not a god, or a queen, or even a person of great power in this time. You can only do what this world allows you. And that is to guide. What they do with the knowledge is up to men much bigger than you now. They would not listen if you tried. You know this."

She did know this. She had no history with this world despite the fake documents that Peggy and the SSR had made for her. She had no background that would justify her words unless she wanted to announce her status as a time and dimension jumping traveler. And unfortunately in this period of history, because she was a woman, she was already at a disadvantage.

"I feel helpless."

"You feel guilt for something you can not control. This is the way of war, of life." He looked pointedly at her wrapped hand. "Just as much as you could stop a biological reaction, you can not stop the condition of humanity." He motioned down the hall. "Although we should be getting your hand looked at, ja?"

Hermione walked beside him to the nurses office and let a nurse clean and cover her hand. He stayed with her until she was free to go, and he insisted on her returning home to rest for the remainder of the day.

"Eat something. Breathe. Write to that friend of yours in Brooklyn. If what you've alluded to is to be true, we will be busy for sometime, and you will not be able to leave the lab."

Hermione didn't want to leave, but he gave her no choice.

Later in the day, she found herself alone in her apartment staring out her window into New York. Abraham was right, today would be the last 'normal' day for the next few years. She should write to Steve and let him know she probably wouldn't be seeing him soon. And Bucky.

She turned from the window and sat herself down with a spare sheet of paper and a pen.

Dec 9th 1941

Hermione learned that she hadn't changed the timeline much despite her warning to Colonel Phillips. On the morning of December 8th, every newspaper in America had nearly the same headline on the previous day's attack.

"1500 Dead At Hawaii: Congress Votes WAR!"

Apparently despite Colonel Phillip's team whipping the base into action, not enough had been done in time. Ships had been left wide open for attack, planes had been parked in clusters close together, and supplies had been in the same areas. When the bombs came, everything went up in smoke.

Lives were lost. Not as many as originally in Hermione's time line, almost a thousand less actually, but people still died.

It started a mass movement within America overnight. Recruiting stations appeared in every city. Radio shows were documenting more seriously on the effect of the war. Propaganda was already starting to filter through to everyday life.

And Steve and Bucky were not exempt from the Pearl Harbor reaction.

"As soon as Buck and I heard about America joining the War, we knew we had to do something ," Steve's letter had read this morning. "The first step was to learn how to really fight. Bucky's sister Rebecca, I've told her about you haven't I? Well, she helped us sign ourselves up for boxing at Goldie's Gym where her fella goes, at least for the next two weeks. Then around Christmas, we'll head to a recruiting station together."

Hermione wasn't sure Steve would be able to enlist with his list of ailments, but she worried for the both of them nonetheless.

Both sides of the war were heading towards a climax and Hermione had heard a rumor that Johann Schmidt, known as codename Red Skull now, was looking for a powerful artifact to help him win the war with Hydra. On the Allies side, Hermione and Abraham were finishing up the last equations on testing with vita-rays, an electromagnetic radiation emitted from a highly dangerous chemical compound invention of Howard Stark's named Nitramene, that had a surprising amount of stabilizing properties on host cells. They were close to completion, but it was slow going.

The serum was never fully written down or documented, it just remained solely in the doctor's brain. He had confided to her that if he was to give her the entire serum, she would be in grave danger from not only Hydra, but perhaps undesirables in their own government as well. She had respected his decision and never asked for more of the equation to work on than he gave.

Colonel Phillips already had nine men chosen from various sectors across the military to be the first test subject, and possible super soldier. Hermione and Peggy had both seen the profiles of all the chosen candidates. They were all tall, physically adapted men with varying military strengths, multiple years of service in their branch, and had a healthy respect for chain of command.

Abraham had grimaced when Colonel Phillips had given him the profiles, but he took and reviewed them diligently. He was to give Colonel Phillips an accepted candidate by Christmas.

Hermione of course was to help him with that process.

Dec 20 1941

"Absolutely not," Abraham said late that night in the comfort of his apartment, just down the hallway from Peggy and Hermione's.

Hermione lowered the picture of Sgt. Robert O'Mally and put a penned X over his face. "Are you sure about this one? He's a marksman. Speaks three languages."

"Those can be taught. No look at his physiological performance. Married twice. Divorced twice. Anger management. Suffers from relapse in alcohol abuse- no. No, I vant a good man to be able to use the serum."

She looked at the seven of nine men that they had crossed off the list. Only two were left, and Hermione did not think they would stand to the doctors expectations.

Dec 25 1941

Hermione spent Christmas with Abraham and Peggy in her apartment. The only Christmas decorations to be found in their small shared space was the tiny Christmas tree decorated with tinsel and popcorn string in the far corner of the living room. Below it was a pile of various gifts they had compiled together.

They shared a Christmas breakfast together near the radio crooning Christmas carols with poached eggs on wheat bread, and an apple cobbler that Peggy had made early in the morning. Tea was served with an option of coffee that none had yet reached for, and Abraham had brought a bottle of Vodka and Wine for later in the evening.

Hermione smiled over her cup of tea as Peggy went forwards to separate the gifts amongst them. It was an uneven amount between them, so they decided to open each pile of presents by person. Surprisingly enough, Hermione had the most gifts and so she went first.

She received gifts from Peggy, Abraham, and several of the assistants from the lab with Yangee's newest color of lipstick Red-Red, a compact mirror, shoes, several different books, and then oddly enough, a silver whistle from Colonel Phillips, with a small letter to her that said, "To winning the War with the best men."

Peggy laughed at the whistle and then showed her an identical one from one of her gifts as well. "I imagine he'll want us more hands-on with training the man that's chosen for the serum?"

Hermione glanced between the matching whistles. "It appears so." She glanced at Abraham and he gave a minute shrug to her. She carried on, "Whenever we find the right man for the job."

Peggy lowered her whistle and looked between the two of them carefully. "You haven't chosen a candidate from the list for Project Rebirth?"

Hermione shook her head. "Not yet."

"Does the Colonel know?"

"Not yet."

Peggy took a sip of her tea and raised a glass to them. "To your good health."

Hermione laughed and tossed a present to Abraham for his pile.

She realized that while she had sent off Steve and Bucky's Christmas present days ago, there was nothing from them to her. Not even a card. Hermione shrugged the sting off her shoulders and reminded herself of the conditions they consistently lived in. They could barely afford food for themselves, let alone Christmas presents. She shouldn't feel any sort of way. They were living off of almost nothing.

Peggy had opened her presents with Hermione and Abraham had gone last. Hermione felt wonderful when Abraham had seen her gift of a framed photograph. It captured a moment they were together in the labs, heads and hands conspiratorial over an unseen document. He smiled warmly at the picture and traced a finger over the glass. "This is a gift that warms my heart Hermione. Thank you."

She grinned back shyly, but pleased. "Of course."

Dec 26th 1941

Hermione tucked her winter coat tighter around the middle to ward off the winter chill as she stepped out of the cab. Her eyes tracked the dusting of snow falling around her apartment building when she closed the door behind her, and withheld the urge to sighed deeply.

Colonel Phillips had not been happy at the rejected candidates he'd selected, and her ears were still ringing from the speech afterwards. 'Best the military had to offer' , was a common phrase shouted through the base, and 'We can't win the War if we don't have a man to do the fighting dammit! ' was another.

After the ensuing two hour argument between Abraham and Colonel Phillips on the qualifications the future candidate needed to have, Hermione felt laden with fatigue. She wanted a hot cup of tea, and to sit curled up with one of her Christmas gifted books near the furnace in her room. Warmth, peace, and quiet.

She was not expecting a short, heavily jacketed figure, to step away from the front wall of her apartment building and step towards her. The thick brown beanie and coarse wool scarf withheld most of the stranger's face from view, but she could recognize those eyes from anywhere.

"Steve?" she squinted against the biting wind.

His eyes crinkled, and the frigid air cut through her coat's warmth as she rushed forwards. "Good heavens Steve! It's freezing out here!" she said, grasping both arms of his thick overcoat.

"Came to -" Hermione could feel his shivers through the layers, "- give you your present."

Her brows furrowed. "My what ?"

Steve's hand dug deep into the depths of his layers and then revealed a palms length, square, wooden box. It was a rich auburn-brown with silver furnished corners and keyhole at the middle of the front side. Hermione stared at the box in his hands dumbfounded.

"You brought me-?"

"Merry C-C-Christmas Hermione." He offered her the wooden box, and she took it with numb fingers that had nothing to do with the cold. He reached into his front pocket slowly and revealed with pale tipped fingers a silver key hanging at the bottom of a thin silver necklace. "And t-this goes w-with it."

She put her hand over the necklace, over his hand completely, and tugged him towards the building entrance. "Come on Steve. Upstairs. You can show me upstairs."

His hand clenched around hers briefly like he was going to protest, and Hermione very nearly thought about using a wandless charm to carry him up to her apartment. But his hand relaxed in the next moment, and Steve let her pull him through the front doors and into the lobby elevators. She quickly pushed the floor she needed to be on, and returned her attention to Steve.

He held the silver looking necklace in a death grip close to his chest and Hermione anxiously put her hands over his. "Merlin, your hands are freezing."

"Merlin?" Steve asked, his small shoulders shaking under his heavy coat, but his eyes wide and studying her face.

"It's a - nevermind. What were you thinking? How long were you standing out there? God, it's below twenty degrees!"

"God had nothin t'do with it. I just wanted to see you."

The elevator doors swung open, and they snapped Hermione's out of her frozen feet. She wrapped an arm around his shivering frame and half dragged him towards her door.

"Hermione, I c-can't just come in! Your r-roommate-"

"She's gone for the next week in Virginia."

He shivered and leaned back. "It wouldn't be r-"

"Steven Rogers! If you think I'm going to let you catch pneumonia because you stood outside to give me a Christmas present for God knows how long, in the middle of one of the coldest nights of the year, you've got a whole other problem we haven't even addressed yet. I will not let you leave like this, now get in and sit down."

Steve blinked owlishly at her, and followed her as she unlocked her door and led him through the living room.

Hermione kicked the front door closed, flicked on the only necessary lights to walk unencumbered, and turned up her gas stove in the kitchen to as hot as it would go. She sat Steve in front of the stove and fetched as many spare blankets she could. In the linen closet, she cast layered warming spells over everything she found before overlapping them around Steve. Lastly, she put the kettle on and prepared two cups of tea.

A few minutes and a cup of tea later, Steve managed to remove his hat and shrug off a couple of enveloping blankets. Hermione poured him a second cup of tea and they sat together in front of the stove, silently basking in the heat.

"Did- Did you like it?" Steve asked eventually, breaking the silence.

Hermione suddenly remembered why he was here. "Oh!" she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet and retrieving the wooden box from the coffee table where she had dropped it after getting Steve by the stove. "I'm so sorry, I was so focused on-"

"It's alright. Not the reaction I was hoping for," Steve shrugged with a small smile and gestured to the stove, "But this is nice."

Hermione grinned and sat back down next to him. "Well I wasn't expecting to find a half frozen man outside my apartment building tonight."

Steve's smile dropped away and he nodded, like she had just confirmed something. Carefully, he lifted the rest of the blankets off his shoulders, folding them back up in precise lines and placing them neatly off to the side.

"Steve you don't have to-"

His eyebrows were furrowed. "Yes I do. I probably shouldn't be staying too long anyways."

Hermione deflated. She hoped … well, she hoped she hadn't hurt his pride with her eagerness to help. Generally, her mothering, nit picking, and know-it-all ways had always seemed to upset the people around her, a trait she never grew out of. She didn't want that person to be Steve.

She changed the subject bluntly. "Well, you know, I'm not really sure what this is. A treasure chest perhaps?" she asked, examining her gift loudly.

His grin crept back with the last blanket stacked. "I'd say you're close, but- you're way off."

She scoffed lightly. "Well then, help a lady?"

He offered her the silver necklace again with a steady hand. "This unlocks it."

Hermione accepted the key attached to the necklace and slowly twisted the lock open. She exhaled a slow breath in wonder and stared at the delicate brass mechanism inside. It had a long slender metal comb adjacently set against an equally long cylinder of minute metal stubs embedded across its surface. It shone in the dull light of the apartment and Hermione couldn't help but stare at its beauty. "It's a music box," she marveled.

The warmth of the stove radiated off her skin and when she met his eyes, she wasn't sure if it was the heat of the appliance that filled her, or her own hammering heart.

"Steve," she gaped. "It's beautiful."

He scratched the back of his head and blushed fiercely. "Well I know it's a little late, but-"

"Nonsense, I love it," She interrupted him. "I really do."

His grin was wide when he pointed at the inside of the music box. "You put the key in the space right there and turn it, and it'll start the music."

Hermione followed his advice. She placed the key in the little opening on the left hand in the box, turned it clockwise three times, and removed the piece with bated breath. She saw the cylinder begin to spin and the metal comb strike the metal nubs on the cylinder in a tinkling melody. After a few moments, she was able to recognize the song. "Over the Rainbow," she whispered and then smiled radiantly.

She felt the weight of Steve's eyes on her. "One of your favorites."

She turned her smile on him. "Yours too."

He scratched the back of his head again. "Both of ours, I guess."

Hermione agreed with a nod, coming back to the box in her hands. She watched the glow of the lights reflect off the silver stubs on the corners and vaguely wondered about the financial value of decorative silver in this time period. Her thoughts came to a screeching halt when she realized that America was still feeling the effects of the Great Depression and she had received a silver decorated music box from Steve . A man who could barely afford food and medicine.

Hermione snapped the box closed and thrust it back out to him. "Steven ! This is entirely too much- I can't possibly even accept-!"

His eyes were wide and he raised his hands in surrender instead of claiming back the music box. "No it's okay, it wasn't much! I got the music box from a friend of a- well another friend who gave it to Bucky cheap because it was broken. The horologist from Sweden down the street owed me favor. That's all."

Hermione didn't like it. The music box was beautiful, yes, but not worth a missed meal, or worse the cost of oil for a warm home during a New York winter. "And the silver?"

"Came with the deal. Bucky's known him a long time. And the necklace was already mine. Well, it was my mother's."

"Steve."

He shook his head as she went to give the music box and necklace back to him. "It's my gift to give Hermione. I've had it since she died, but I think she would have been okay with me giving it to you. She would have- well I know she would have liked you."

Hermione returned both gifts back to her lap. Warmth flushed her face and she tightened her hands over both items. "I'll take good care of them."

He smiled, the light of the stove illuminating the curve of his jaw and the side of his blonde hair. "I know you will."

She smiled back. "You'll tell Bucky thank you too when you get the chance? For helping?"

"I sure will," he nodded. "He had a hand in this just as much as I did. A present from both of us."

Hermione watched his face as he spoke of Bucky. "And how is Bucky? The last I heard, the two of you were going to boxing lessons and then heading to the newest recruitment station for the War."

Steve turned to the oven, breaking their eye contact and rested his elbows on his knees. "Buck pulled a double shift at the docks the day we were heading over. I went by myself, but uh, I'm still working on that," he said.

Hermione didn't press. She could guess what had happened, knew what an F4 was, and what that would mean to Steve. She didn't know if he was physically able to do what the military asked, and frankly, she feared what would happen if he pushed himself to try to reach that limit with his body.

"Well," Hermione answered. "I'm just glad you have each other with everything happening now. It's good to know you're looking out for each other."

Steve half shrugged with a small smile and looked back down at his lap. "Buck's always had my back. He knows that I'd do the same thing for him." If I could was silent at the end.

Thank you all for your wonderful support with each new chapter!