Four years had passed and she could be forgiven for forgetting about a promise made to her when she was only fourteen years old. It wasn't precisely that she'd forgotten the very short friendship she'd forged in the winter of 1993. There were times where it had seemed like she'd convinced herself it was a dream or a kind of fugue state. That part of her who still believed it was stress that conjured a pair of demigods from Merlin knows where could be very convincing. Then she'd look at the silly flyer Dave had drawn all over or the little pink fountain pen Roxy had given her and then she'd remember herself - they had been her friends and she missed them profoundly. And when she remembered, she'd spend the next few hours in a strange melancholy funk. But it wasn't all that frequent and as time passed, those moments came less and less often.

There were other things she had to worry about - terrible things.

As those years passed, things had gotten gradually worse. It started with Cedric Diggory's death and it continued to go downhill from there. Her life had become a steady stream of never ending misery, with one death coming right after another. Until she was here, four years later, starving and cold on a futile hunt for Horcruxes in a last ditch attempt to finally end Voldemort's reign of terror.

The one person they had trusted the most, Albus Dumbledore, had left them with nothing but scraps of information; mere hints - rumors at best - that were almost worse than nothing at all. There was something of Hufflepuff's and something of Ravenclaw's and the snake. They had one Horcrux in their possession. They'd figured out how to destroy it: The Sword of Gryffindor. Sadly, they didn't have any idea on how to obtain the sword so they could use it. So they were in this limbo, fugitives and on the run trying to kill the fragments of a mad man's soul with no idea where most of those fragments might be and with nothing to destroy them with.

Hermione thought that things couldn't really get much worse. She could have kicked herself, because the moment she thought things like that was the moment that they inevitably DID get worse. Ron had left them near the beginning of September. It was now mid-November. The weather had turned colder which made foraging harder. Neither of them was any good at hunting. Ron had been passable at it, but he was gone. He'd managed to snare a rabbit the day he'd left. It had sustained them for a day or two after... and it'd tasted like ashes in her mouth.

Her mother had told her that when bad things happen it was important to keep putting one foot in front of the other. She'd said that it was important to go on and push through because it couldn't rain all the time. That's how she put it. It can't rain all the time, Hermione. If she could have talked to her mother right now, if she'd even remember she had a daughter, she would tell her that it most certainly could rain all the time. That sometimes it was nothing but infinite rain.

Pulling the damnable Horcrux out from underneath her jumper, she glared at the filthy thing. Someone shook her shoulder. Looking up, it was Harry. His hand was held out as if he knew - he always knew - that she'd been wearing it for far too long. With a tired sigh, she pulled it off and gave it to him wordlessly.

They did that a lot now. Not talking.

She'd timed it once. They'd actually gone almost five whole days without saying a word to each other. Non-verbal noises didn't count, of course. It would officially be five days once today was over. She got up to go inside the tent without a word. It was his turn taking watch. She'd probably cry once she got inside, it was the only workout her voice got now.

"We'll have to leave tomorrow morning," he murmured as she grasped the tent-flap. "We've been here too long."

"Okay," she whispered back, thinking to herself that he'd ruined it; four days without talking - a now standing record. She wasn't entirely sure if she was happy about that or not.

The tent-flap closed with a swish behind her. She stood there for a moment, wavering on her feet, light headed and heart sore. Numbly, she walked to her "room" which wasn't so much a room because there weren't really rooms in tents, as far as she was concerned. But it was a walled off space she supposed she could call a room. Ron and Harry had insisted she take it as it was the only place in the tent that could be considered private and a room. They seemed to think as the only girl she'd need it. She would have been offended but she didn't want to sleep in the bunk beds. The small full bed in the room that wasn't really a room wasn't comfortable but it was the softest of palace beds compared to the bunk beds. Plus, it'd be easier to cast a silencing charm in a room. Ron snored badly. Didn't much matter now, she guessed.

Shuffling inside her room, she sat and then stood up again, at odds with what she ought to do with herself. She thought about reading more 'Tales of Beedle the Bard' or maybe more of their research material, but then decided against it. Her eyes couldn't take any more of either of those things. It was all tied up in Horcruxes and she just didn't want to think about it anymore.

She didn't know why she did it, but she dug into her beaded bag, throwing out book after book until she found it: a thick book with a lime green cover and no title. There was no logical reason for her to pack this book and the four other books associated with it. It had no useful purpose on this quest but when she'd been organizing things before they'd left she'd put them in without even questioning the decision. She still couldn't really justify her thinking process, other than the thought that she couldn't bear to leave them behind.

Running her fingers over the cover, she inhaled deeply and opened the book, flipping forward to what would have been the title page had the book been given a proper name. Instead there was a strange green symbol shaped like a house made of blocks. 'Earth's Sessions: Volume I' had been overlaid on top of the house logo and just underneath in smaller script was 'Universe A & B: The Full Account As Dictated By Rose Lalonde Et Al.'. There was a blank page and then a forward that was no doubt unique to this copy and this copy alone.

What you hold in your hands is a labor of love. Each page was carefully transcribed from my handwritten notes. It encompasses hours of research and interviews. Nearly five years of work stretched over two universes, and I confess my work isn't done. This is only the very first printing of this history and I've given it to you. It is the most complete and accurate telling of our tale, told to you by those who lived it.

I apologize that this tome has yet to be given a name. I made the classic mistake in thinking that everyone had a say in this book's title. John has been insisting we ought to call it Homestuck, because we spent so much time screwing around in our homes. Everyone else hates it and has argued with him ad nauseam, to no avail. Fact is, none of us have come up with anything better. Of course, this means that John has already gotten his way and inevitably that will be the title of the book. After all, he is and has always been our friend-leader. I'm sure you can sympathize.

Enjoy the book, for what it's worth.

R. Lalonde

Hermione made a sound that was laugh adjacent thinking about her friends, secretly wondering what those arguments might have sounded like. Her fingers traced the words as she gazed at it thoughtfully. This book took her back to a simpler time. Sure, back then there were still scary, terrible things that happened. But it all seemed so remote... so disconnected from them in a larger sense because there was always an adult there at some point. Just as Harry had once said, they'd nearly always had help. And now here they were, fighting for their lives and there was no one to help them. No adult to cushion their fall.

He is and has always been our friend-leader. I'm sure you can sympathize.

Those words in particular lifted themselves off the page. Yes, yes, she could sympathize. She'd follow Harry into Hell if he asked, even now. It didn't make the journey any easier though. She skipped forward a bit, occasionally stopping to read a favorite passage at whim until a photograph fell out. Picking it up delicately, she gazed at it, smiling down at her fourteen year old self. She was squeezed in the middle with Roxy on her left and Jane on her right. Dave was behind Roxy, blank-faced and giving her bunny ears while John was behind Jane making a very silly face.

She looked down at that photo, at her happy face with her cheeks pink from the cold, and she didn't recognize that girl anymore. Her face crumpled in anguish, curling in on herself as she pressed the photo to her heart. She wept silently for god knows how long; letting out keening, gasping breaths as she sobbed for everything they'd lost. Getting control of herself marginally, she put the picture and the book away. Absently she remembered that it was four years in September. Four years and they weren't here.

She wasn't all that surprised that once again things hadn't worked out as she'd hoped. Forgetting then that she had more believed something would happen at a certain time rather than simply trusting in hope that it would when it was meant to.

welcome to ACT 2! The next official update will be 6/12. But I thought I'd do a small update for Mother's Day.

published: 5/11/19