A/N: Thank you everyone for reading a reviewing! You're all awesome. I posted this chapter earlier, but I noticed some glaring grammatical errors that I had to fix.

Oh! If you like Dramione, I've updated my pic Between the Shadow and the Soul (finally) and plan on finishing it in-between Two Things chapters.

Reviews are like sweet, sweet honey!

oOo

On a crowded street, hidden behind spells and bushes, sat a wild haired witch with wide amber eyes; in one hand she held a black ball point pen and in the other a scrap of parchment. There were things she needed to know, facts that needed to be put into place, and it all started here. It all had to start here.

Right?

In the spring of 1982 Hermione had been two and a half years old and her parents had established a joint practice in Chelsea. It had not come as a total shock to Hermione that the building, which in another timeline had been her parents' office, Granger and Granger Dentistry, was currently a small clothing boutique. Well, the clothing boutique part had been a bit surprising, but the dental practice missing entirely was not.

The future is built on the past; billions of decisions from the trivial to the vital -what to eat, what to wear, who to love, what taxi to take- stacking on top of each other are what weave the fabric of the present reality. If one could view the universe in it's entirety, if one could truly see every decision from the fluttering of a butterflies wings to the dropping of an atomic bomb, one could know the future not because the future is destined to happen, but because we have already determined the future with every decision that's been made since the dawn of time. Humanity, whether muggle or wizard, has always been in control of it's own destiny.

Which frankly terrified the shite out of Hermione. She had long since realized that about 95% of the worlds population are idiots.

Or 'eejits' as Seamus called them.

Hermione absently rubbered a hand over her heart as it ached for her partner and stuffed thoughts of all her friends aside.

Understanding the inescapable likelihood of even the smallest details being altered, Hermione had determined to take nothing for granted in this reality. After she had been unable to find her parents' office, undeterred she had made her way to the flat they had shared as a small family before moving into a house the summer before Hermione's fifth birthday.

It was outside of this building that Hermione now found herself huddled behind a rather sad looking rhododendron bush. Three hours she had been out here, inhaling the obnoxious pollens from the Rhododendron ferrugineum flowers.

Three hours.

Or at least, she guessed three hours. Her watch wasn't working. It certainly felt like three hours, it felt like a whole bloody eternity. Hermione glanced at the sun.

Three hours. Her shoulders sagged.

It's time to give this up, Granger. Either they don't live here any more, didn't ever live here or they're on holiday or-or... or something. We don't have the time to waste sitting around.

With a sigh, Hermione began to stand, mumbling under her breath in frustration. It would have made things simpler if her parents lived here, Hermione wasn't in the mood to go searching through public birth and marriage records. She allowed her amber eyes one last chance to scan the sidewalk hopefully.

And then her breath hitched.

And then her hands began to shake.

And then her pulse quickened and the whole bloody world became very, very shaky.

A woman was walking down the sidewalk. A woman with brilliantly dark eyes and skin that seemed to have been carved from obsidian, wearing a face that Hermione saw in her nightmares. A face Hermione cried over. A face Hermione dreamed of touching.

Her mother's face.

And the world very briefly exploded.

The urge to rush to her mother, to wrap her arms around her and cry and cry until there was no water left in Hermione's body hit the small witch with overwhelming force. It was only pure shock that kept her in place.

How had she thought this would be easy? Simple, really, she thought it'd be simple and easy and not in the least bit messy. She'd just see if they were there. See if they had a daughter or any child and then move on. After all, they weren't really her parents, were they? This wasn't her timeline, not her reality, they might not be anything like the people she remembered, the people she had known.

"Mum." Hermione whispered breathlessly, her legs twitching to run.

And then-

And then.

And then a tall man with blonde hair slid his lean arm around Hermione's mother and the witch choked on her sob. The man leaned down and planted a chaste, but charged kiss on her mother's dark cheek and though Hermione was too far away to hear, she knew the sound of the quiet giggle that escaped past her mother's lips by heart. She would never forget the sound of that soft laugh, Hermione had heard it so often when her father would bend over and place a wet kiss on her mother's cheek.

But that was not her father.

Hermione choked, Hermione wanted to vomit, Hermione died just a little bit.

Hermione looked down at the parchment in her hand and crossed her own name off her list.

oOo

The fire danced and crackled, devouring the the dried wood and brush with a ravaging hunger, casting shadows that moved eerily across the witch's skin, obscuring her moonlit features. Behind her the tent was pitched, but Hermione preferred the comfort offered by an open sky, a holdover from her year on the run. Tiredly, she gazed down at the scribbled list she'd been keeping.

Where the fuck are we, Granger?

Where the fuck, indeed. It's 1982. McGonagall is head of the Order of the Black Cat and headmistress of Hogwarts, Gideon and Fabian Prewett are alive and well, -quite well- James and Lily Potter are alive, Alice and Frank Longbottom are dead, Sirius is not in Azkaban, Remus is not with the werewolf packs, -was he ever?- Dumbledore is Minister of Magic, Peter Pettigrew is still the betrayer and is missing, Voldemort is gone for now, and thanks to a prophecy Neville is the Boy Who Lived.

Prophecy. Hermione thought back to her conversation with Sirius in the kitchen.

"There was a prophecy and it seemed to point to two families- the Longbottoms and the Potters."

Hermione rubbed her temples with a weary sigh. She would then have to assume that the prophecy was either the same and the boys were born at the end of July or the prophecy was slightly different and the boys were born at a different time or the prophecy was completely different and Hermione had no idea why Voldemort would have assumed it involved the Potters and Longbottoms. Fucking divination.

The witch bit the inside of her cheek, furrowing her dark brow in thought. There were simply too many possibilities, too many paths to consider. Just one decision could ripple and snowball and further widen the gap between this timeline and Hermione's own. It was far too much to take in all at once, she needed to focus.

Hermione pulled more parchments from the leather bag by her side and laid them on the ground a safe distance from her fire. She was quite sure the number of Horcruxes- seven- would likely be the same and if Tom Riddle maintained his flair for the dramatic, then the Horcruxes would likely be the same as well. Even if they weren't the same, she had no other place to begin anyway.

A flick of her wrist sent a few of the parchments floating in the air where Hermione could examine them more carefully. She had written everything she could remember about each Horcrux- the what, when, where, and why of each item- recalling in meticulous detail everything she had ever discovered herself or been told. Though Hermione had not been involved in the destruction of all the Horcruxes, there was only so much one could keep from one's best friend and Harry had always been in need of a confidante.

For a time, before Ginny had moved in, Hermione had lived at Grimmauld Place with Harry, the two of them clinging together in a way only orphans could. Siblings in all but blood. During that year and a half, over many cups of tea and butterbeer, Harry had shared more with Hermione than he ever had during their time at Hogwarts, even more than when they'd been alone in the tent. Hogwarts had brought them together, war had solidified that bond, and peace had only strengthened it; a fact Ron was eternally jealous of.

Bah, Ronald! Think about our dear ickle Ronnykins in nappies, Granger, he is only a toddler after all.

With a derisive snort, Hermione waved her finger and a parchment floated towards her hand.

The Ring

Has Resurrection Stone

Heirloom of Gaunt family

Found in Gaunt home

Cursed Dumbedlore when he put it on

Destroyed with the Sword of Gryffindor after being used to kill the basilisk

Hermione's mouth twisted in the ghost of a smile. It was a start.

oOo

The pain was eclipsing. It was hollowing. It burned from the inside and liquified your organs, leaving an empty husk in its wake.

Immeasurable.

Immense.

Humiliating.

Remus awoke on the floor of the Shrieking Shack with a heaviness in his bones that seemed to be pulling him towards the center of the earth, sinking him into the floor. He knew better than to move. He knew better than to blink. He knew better than to do more than breathe.

All in all, a normal full moon.

Besides him an Animagus stirred and Remus extended his awareness towards his friend. It'd been just him and Sirius for over half a year now, since James went into hiding and Peter-

Well, Peter. Remus preferred not to think about Peter.

"You're looking beautiful in the morning as always, Moony." Came a chuckle from said Animagus.

Remus struggled to form words in a now human mouth, his tongue feeling oddly shaped in his small, weak jaw.

"Piss..." he huffed, "...off."

Sirius's barking laughter was not unlike the dog he often became. "Ah it's indeed mornings like this that I live for, waking up on the dirty floor of an old shack to the gentle musings of my own werewolf." Remus could hear the grin in his friend's voice. "The soft light filtering in from the ragged linen curtains, the dust and debris littering the floor, it's like a romance novel."

Remus considered a few more colorful expletives and then decided it wasn't worth the effort to speak. Sirius was just seeking to lighten a tense mood, he couldn't begrudge his best friend that.

It had been four days since Hermione had disappeared and the pair were no closer to tracking her down than they had been the morning Remus discovered her missing. In fact, they may have actually regressed into the negative. Remus certainly felt as though he was somehow farther from finding her than he was before.

The first place the wizards checked had been the Hogwarts grounds, more out of familiarity than any real hunch - shite always seems to be going on at Hogwarts, it's like the place attracts excitement- but their wild haired witch was not there. Nor was she at Hogsmeade or anywhere in wizarding London or, Remus suspected, anywhere in wizarding Britain. The werewolf had the sinking suspicion Hermione had left the magical world for the mundane or worse, the wilderness. Remus suspected she had not divulged everything to him in the library at Grimmauld Place, but Hermione had mentioned the first time she'd gone Horcrux hunting, she and Harry -my best friend's son, Godric this is fucking weird- had spent months hiding out in a tent. He had no doubt that Hermione could very easily slip off the radar, as the muggles say, and he'd never find her again.

Remus was trying to decide why that particular fact seemed to bother him so much; it didn't make a great deal of sense. Why should he care if the witch was gone for good? It'd almost make certain things easier, for starters he could finally convince Sirius to let him go back to his own flat. Remus shouldn't be worrying about her, hell, he shouldn't even trust her.

They'd only known each other for, what? A week now? Yet there was something indescribable about the way his mind responded to her, like he knew her, like he'd always known her. It was so bizarrely comfortable. It made him wonder, in her own timeline -gods, it's all insane!- what was her relationship with the other Remus. Were they friends? Were they more? Could those sort of bonds stretch out across space and time and tap into the most basic sense of camaraderie?

The smell of her had taken him off gaurd immediately after he'd stepped through the floo at Grimmauld Place and had only intensified when he'd seen an Auror robed witch stupified on the floor. It was both intoxicating and alarming, familiar in the most unfamiliar sort of way. Remus knew he'd never met her before, a scent like that wasn't something a wolf couldn't just forget, but she had commandeered his senses all the same. Her smell was woven in with magic and power and he hadn't realized how it had rooted into his life in just a few short days until it was gone.

Gone.

Poof, just like that. As if a genie had snapped his fingers and altered reality. As if it had never been there, as if she had never been there. But she had. Remus hadn't made her up. He wasn't quite that creative if he was being honest with himself. The whole situation was insane enough that it almost had to be real.

The werewolf groaned and reached a heavy hand to his forehead. This was far too much thinking for a post-full moon brain.

Remus, his green eyes still closed, felt Sirius stand besides him and heard the tell tale shifting of clothing that meant his friend was dressing. Without prompting, Sirius quietly walked over to the werewolf and gently coaxed him to sit up, holding onto Remus's back in support.

"Here you are, old friend, drink up." Sirius cooed, gently putting a vile smelling bottle of pain potion to Remus's lips. The werewolf wanted to gag, but he drank it down all the same and nodded his thanks.

"I was thinking," Sirius sighed and Remus had to struggle against the urge to make a sarcastic comment, "that maybe we should take a break for today and go back out on the hunt for our wayward witch tomorrow or even the day after."

Remus finally opened his eyes and glared, shaking his head at the blurry form of Sirius Black in protest. They didn't have time to sit around and rest.

"Yea, I didn't think you'd be too keen on the idea," Sirius admitted as he carefully moved around his friend and began applying dittany to the wounds and cuts across Remus's torso and arms. "But honestly, you're in no position to go galavanting about on a wild witch chase."

"Been worse." Remus croaked.

Sirius nodded. "True, but you've been better too." It was harder just the two of them; Pads was accustomed to scouting ahead, not controlling Moony, that had always been Prongs's job. The dog barely matched the werewolf in size and was certainly outdone in wild temperament. When an Animagus made the shift the wizard remained, when a werewolf made the shift they weren't afforded the luxury of a human conscious.

Remus winced as Sirius bandaged up a particularly nasty cut along his shoulder.

Sirius frowned. "Sorry, mate." To which Remus merely nodded. "It's just," the pureblood continued, "if we had some sort of idea, a place to begin, but right now we have nothing."

"McGonagall." Remus pointed out.

"Abso-fucking-lutely not." Sirius snapped. "I am definitely not telling Minerva that we lost a suspected time-space-universe-whatever traveler. I'd rather cut off my own prick."

Remus cocked his head to the side, noting with pleasure the pain in his muscles was easing, and gave his friend a knowing look.

"Alright, probably wouldn't do that." Sirius conceded. "But I'd definitely consider it!"

Remus snorted. "Your prick," he began slowly, growing more accustomed to his own voice again, "is your only hobby, Pads."

"Why are we friends?" Sirius deadpanned. "Is it the constant verbal jabs? Your quick witted tongue? The way my self-esteem literally shrivels at the sound of your voice? I'm obviously a masochist."

The werewolf gave a small amused smile.

"No wonder you and Hermione got along so smashingly." Sirius muttered. "Ungrateful, the lot of you. I invite you into my home for your own protection, form a bond of host to hostee, stick my neck out so to speak, and how is my kindness returned? With utter bullshite-"

Remus snapped up. A bond? "What are you on about?"

Sirius had not stopped talking. "-I figured I just needed to keep everyone else out, I didn't realize I'd need to keep you two in. Fucking ridiculous and here I am slaving away-"

"Sirius." Remus growled more forcefully.

"What?"

"What bond?" Bonds were magic, bonds were useful, bonds were old blood.

"Oh, the host bond?" Sirius asked, packing their medical supplies into Remus's old backpack and handing the werewolf a clean shirt and pants. "It's why I was so insistent on the two of you staying at Grimmauld Place."

Remus raised his eyebrows, inviting Sirius to continue as the werewolf dressed.

"Old magic, not entirely Light but certainly not Dark. When you invite another witch or wizard into your home it creates a bond that protects both parties. It meant that Hermione couldn't harm you or me, but we couldn't harm her either. I'd know right away if she tried," Sirius patted his chest right above his heart. "I'd feel it here. The protection of a host is hallowed, it's part of the reason vampires have to be invited in, to host is a sacred duty."

Something clicked in Remus's brain as the post-moon fog was clearing. "Does it work with non-bonded parties?" He asked suddenly.

"Come again?" Sirius raised a black eyebrow, not following his friend.

"You said she can't hurt us and we couldn't hurt her, but what if someone else tried to hurt her when she was under your protection, what would happen?" Remus asked, a grin almost twitching at his lips.

"Well I'd," Sirius stopped suddenly, grey eyes growing wide. He snapped his head around to gape at Remus. "I'd feel it."

"So we have a place to start."