D: I ended up having to lead shift the last two nights and getting out later than I expected. That said, please excuse the late update. Cheers!-KH

Falling Grace

Hermione had never been called to the Headmaster's Office before.

Well, that was a lie. In Year Three she had been called to Headmistress Noble's office on account of being mistaken for Claudia Rothschild. She was the other girl her year who had bushy brown hair; who had pushed Timothy Lewis into the girls lavatory that morning. It didn't take the Headmistress long to look at Hermione in her nervous laugh and shaking hands to realize they had the wrong girl and send Hermione back for her afternoon courses.

But there was no mistake in this. She had the letter in her hand. The letter addressed to her standing on the Hogsmeade Platform. The thick parchment with Dumbledore's personal seal. Summoning her. To his office. Not Claudia Rothschild. Hermione Granger.

The letter felt heavy like a court sentence. And had the curiosity of one to Ron. "What is that?" he asked, trying to peer over her shoulder and read it in the light streaming from the train's windows. "Hermione—"

"It's nothing," she lied, tucking it into the corner of her pocket. "Professor Babbling wanted to talk to me immediately about my Ancient Runes O.W.L, apparently she thinks there was a discrepancy in the examination and wants an avadavat to be sent to the Ministry in the morning post."

He didn't seem at all convinced, but Tonks put an arm around his shoulder and started guiding him to the carriages off in the distance. "She'll be at the feast in no time Ron, let's get you in that carriage with Neville shall we?" she said as Ron headed a loft while Hermione disappeared towards the station house.

Hogsmeade's Station House was one of the oddities about the village that she and never noticed or appreciated until it had been tainted in the war. It was two stories and spacious. Made of stone, it resembled a station you might see in a lonely hamlet you hear about but can never find on a map. Though not as large as a muggle train station maybe, it was definitely larger than should be warranted for a lonely village. She had passed through it time and time again at the start of term and for holidays, but typically, she didn't think it served any practical use expect for those few days a year when students came, or left, the school. There was no need for a community that was purely magical to rely on such rudimentary form of muggle transportation. That's what floo powder and port keys were for.

But the war had given the stationhouse a darker image. Flitch had escorted the Slytherins and underages to the station house where many had crammed in the windows to see the flares and explosions centered around the castle. The Station House was on the edge of the village, and had a somewhat decent view of the bombarded castle. McGonagall had summoned for the train as soon as it was clear there was to be a battle. It would take her students to safety, but wouldn't be there till morning. So as students watched Hell engulf their school, many watched and others made fortifications of their new stone barracks.

When the Battle of Hogwarts had concluded, the Heads of Houses determined that exams would not be held. There was still a month of school to finish, but the state of the castle was not one conclusive for learning. Not when every student seemed to know someone lying dead in the Great Hall. The students had cots brought to the Station House, and after the House Elves had packed up all the Students Trunks, the train, long since arrived, took on her passengers leaving the station house empty.

Hermione had helped organize the surviving Prefects load the train. She stayed behind, returning to the Station House and seeing the empty rooms mirror the Room of Requirement. It was part fortified as though they thought they'd be the next target after Hogwarts had fallen. Someone had started blocking the windows with shield charms and bits of wood. She recognized some of the Ancient Runes for "protection from harm " freshly carved into the wall. She had heard more than one story of older students who had sent the first and second years home in the fireplace.

Then there were the items that had been left behind. Someone had taken the House Banners and draped them in the corners of the Great Room in the days before they left for home. It was only when she left the Station House the last time she had noticed someone had emblazed the names of the Dead on their Houses Standard.

That was another thing, she tried not to think about as she entered the not yet pockmarked building. Five families had requested to have their children's bodies sent back to them rather than lie on the hill at Hogwarts. This had been the building where their coffins had laid. Amanda McCullough, Uriah Hudson and Persephone Edwards draped under three Hufflepuff flags while Wendy Dahl's Ravenclaw and Oliver Basswood's Slytherin caskets rested at their sides. They had sat here with an honor guard the night before the Hogwarts Express returned a second time, now draped in black on her sides, to pick up the last of the students.

"Fireplace is down the Hall and on your right Miss Granger," the conductor with a jolly mustache smiled, calling her out of her memories "First door on your right if you don't mind."

Hermione gave a weak smile and entered the room. The last time she had been here, Madam Rosemerta's broken pot of Floo Powder rested on the floor, someone having gone and nicked it in the heat of battle to get students out. The Ground had been scorched beyond repair with the consecutive green flames marking another student's plight. There had been a layer of soot then. Now the room was pristine. Not yet ravished by that which was about to claim them all.

She had only traveled by floo a few times in her life. She didn't care for it at all. She took a scoop of powder in her hand and ducked her head under the mantle. The first time she had done this, Fred, George, Ron and Mr. Weasley had come to pick her up for the Quidditch World Cup. "Clearly," Fred had warned her then, "Speak Clearly. Ask for the Burrow."

"Headmaster's Office!" she bellowed, dropping the powder and disappearing in the cloud of green, coughing in ash and stumbling to the floor as she landed in a familiar place.

It wasn't that the office was familiar, but more so the elderly wizard standing in front of it. He extended his good hand, the one that wasn't wrapped tight. He was wearing the purple robes he favored for the start of term. His beard had been combed and gathered together in the middle and his half moon spectacles seemed to shine, but that could have been his blue eyes.

"Miss Granger, " he said with a pleasant air, "please, have a seat."

((*))

"I understand you've been traveling," Professor Dumbledore said lightly from behind his desk. If it was under any normal circumstance, it would be as though he was asking her about her Summer Holidays and if they had gone abroad. She wasn't sure if he was being humorous or if Professor McGonagall had not told him just how far she had traveled, "I hope you are enjoying yourself?"

She had never before had a one-on-one with the Headmaster. It had always been herself with either Harry, Ron or both standing by her side; and in full honesty, they met with McGonagall more then they had ever met with Dumbledore.

But there he was in the office she had stood in with the inquisitor's Squad not too long ago. More recently, she had been in the office as Professor McGonagall occupied it. What was Missing was the Portrait of Dumbledore behind the desk and the tartan tin that held the biscuits McGonagall was so partial too. They would meet every now and again, sometimes with Neville, sometimes just them for Biscuits and tea, discussing what was going on beyond Hogwarts and what was still needed in recreating their world.

"I suppose you could say that," Hermione answered dubiously, her thoughts pushed back to the present. "Headmaster, what exactly do you—"

He cut her off. "It must be an excellent world if you don't have to take your wand on vacation Miss Granger," he winked this time. She was certain of it. "And a world that you and your friends very much deserve to see."

He motioned towards the Pensive sitting on the shelf near them, the soft blue from the basin visible from where she sat. "If you were to look in there, you would find Professor McGonagall's memories of meeting with you this past summer, in addition to my own of the meeting that followed," his eyes moved to the distance, which seems more years than meters. "You can be assured that I know as much as you both on what has happened for the past few months."

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you before term ended," Hermione explained, nervously gripping the side of her chair, trying to dig in with her nails into the wood. "I honestly thought that it was all a dream—I was waiting for the nightmare to end and I'd wake up back in Switzerland."

"I fear," Dumbledore said, looking back at her, with a sad smile, "Your nightmare is still to come."

She had first supposed, after Dumbledore lectured her on traveling in time and failing to report said travels to a Professor, he might give her some wisdom, some hope. Something to hold on to in the coming weeks as they try and find a way to make things right. She was looking forward to the Dumbledore she had chosen to remember. The kind, grandfather of the school who could always seem to make things right. Not the Dumbledore who once wrote of the Greater Good and Grindelwald and sent three teenagers on a quest to destroy horcruxes without the slightest hint how to do that.

"Sir?"

"Since Professor McGonagall came to tell me of your travels in time Miss Granger, I have spent some of my evenings going through books on the matter. I was able to get into the surviving area's of the Department of Mysteries and dig deeper but I have been unable to find reasons to why you have appeared at this time," he appeared to age as he said, "Nor have I discovered any solution to return you back to your correct year safely and unaffected. There was an accident in the 1890s that led to the witches death, not her survival."

She hadn't thought much of that. Getting to return to 1999. She had thought she where was she in that year, and if that's what was keeping her in the past. Surely she was in a hospital. What would happen if she had to return to then. To that time. Was this fall through time the only thing keeping Hermione Granger alive right now? Or was she even there at all?

She may not have thought of getting to return to 1999, but she had spent some time thinking about taking the long way back. By living each day over again. Each Day—

"Sir what am I supposed to do now?" she asked evenly, speaking before he could cut her off. "If there's no way for me to return, do I just continue on as though nothing has happened?"

He smiled, that characteristic Dumbledore smile. "I understand Professor McGonagall gave you some strict guidance on what not to do."

"She wants me to do everything exactly the same, " Hermione swallowed, remembering the warning in McGonagall's words. That she could spoil the peace that was to come if she made the slightest deviation from it. But she didn't want to believe it. She didn't want to believe she was doomed to seeing the platform of students die all over again. She thought of Fred. There was an indescribable pain that pinched her chest at the thought of seeing him again, his eyes looking without seeing as a hollowed laugh froze on his face.

No. Not again. Never again.

"Sir, I know we can't make changes without consequences, but surely—surely they don't all need to die?" It sounded more like a question than she wanted it to. She wanted it to be a statement. What more, a sure one. One he couldn't disprove. One she wouldn't allow him too.

"I agree," he said evenly, "Do you remember your third year? The counsel I gave you at the end of term?"

Her third year was nearly six years ago—but that was her time turner year. Probably the year she could remember best. That was the year that Harry and she had gone back to save Sirius, but only at the Headmasters' suggestion.

"You sent Harry and I back to rescue Sirius," she said mechanically, "Well, Sirius and Buckbeak. They were a package deal. We couldn't get the one with out the other."

"That's correct," he smiled, and then nodded on, "Was there anything else you had wanted to change?"

"I think Harry would have been alright if we had apprehended Pettigrew," she said, clawing his actual name out of her mind and not Wormtail, "That night he escaped and was able to rejoin the Dark Lord."

"Excellent," Dumbledore's enthusiasm surprised her. How was this Excellent? she had thought, "Sir, if we had caught Pettigrew, Voldemort wouldn't have been restored to his body for a little while longer. We could have had time. We could have prepared."

The old man tilted his head and raised a finger, "There are some events in time Miss Granger, that we refer to as 'Fixed Points.' When the first Time Turner Trials were conducted by the Ministry of Magic in the late nineteenth century, it was discovered that there are some events we can't correct, we can't realign. Saving Sirius and Buckbeak, those were flexible points. Those were events that could easily be re-written. The book was not yet finished. But in the case of Peter Pettigrew's continued betrayal, the ink was already dried. There would have been severe consequences had you and Mr. Potter attempted to re-write a fixed point."

She had thought of this a little, what would have happened if she and Harry and pursued him. But the thought was far in the distance as she thought of the events to follow. Dumbledore looked at her again, his finger down but his gaze strong, "I did not call you in her to discuss what you can and can't change, Miss Granger."

"You didn't?" in her mind that was the only reason he would have called her in. If not to present a plan that would return her to her own time.

"No," she noticed Fawkes now, perched on the windowsill, tiling his head to look at her as though even he could see she was out of place.

Dumbledore leaned into the chair, "My only guidance to you is the same which I gave to you those years ago. More than one innocent life can be spared. I am conversing with a Hermione Granger who has seen the war and witnessed the pain it causes. I trust that you'll follow your instincts, but please remember there are consequences that are sometimes out of our control. That there are some deaths that cannot be avoided," he sighed, "And you will bare an extra cross for knowing the difference. A friend saved may lead to a friend condemned, and only you will know the difference and have to live with that knowledge."

Shed be lying if she didn't find some peace in that, if though a haunted peace. How was she to determine which of those she was to lose was unavoidable?

"The reason I called for you Miss Granger, is because of what you know. You are in grave danger," he began again, "Even with a memory charm or modification potion, if you were to fall into enemy ands even for a moment and they pry at your mind—"

She wanted to tell him there wasn't such a time where this would happen. Where she would battle but never fall into their clutches. But then the air turned thick and she could fathom burn of a knife at her throat and words carved on her arm. It was becoming hard to breath. If Bellatrix was to read your mind—

No, she wanted to argue, there was no way she would go back here. They would find another way. There had to be another way—

"Miss Granger, once the term begins to settle, I would like to meet with you during your free periods to help you learn Occlumency," he said gently. But she still couldn't make out the words. The air was still so thick. As though she was back in that stale dining room, Bellatrix muttering Crucio in her ear, sharing the secret to insanity she had once shared with Neville's parents.

The phoenix let out a small coo that called her back, and she looked at the headmaster with what she imagined where haunted eyes. "Occlumency?"

"You know how the battle ends. If Voldemort was to learn we are after the Horcruxes, Harry will be pushed that much farther to find and destroy them. "

"The Horcruxes," Hermione said, "They're fixed points aren't they? We can't change the search for Horcruxes, their vital to defeating Voldemort?" she blurted out surprised. "But could we start now? Voldemort is centering his efforts in causing panic and corrupting the Ministry. He won't come for us till next summer. I already know where they are—we could get them now and then—"

Dumbledore gave her a piercing look and she connected the dots. No, they weren't dots, they were chains. And they were chains that were going to weigh her down.

They could get the Locket now, they could destroy it even, but what about the lives that would be saved as they fled the Ministry? She had already thought of the Cattermoles. What would there ripple effect be? The Locket had forced Ron away, but its destruction had oddly brought them back together.

Harry—Harry hadn't known he was a Horcrux until the very end. Until he had gone threw Snape's memories. And he only knew of those memories because they had stormed the school to look for the Diadem that was tucked in the Room of Requirement. Where Ginny had been sent into Battle so they could get in the room. What would happen if she had stayed locked in the room during the battle? Who would have killed Bellatrix? Would it had have been Molly Weasley still? Who would have died because Ginny wasn't dueling the Death Eater?

Bellatrix—she could see the black mane and shrilling laugh as though she was sitting across from Hermione. Not Dumbledore. It was on the hunt for Horcruxes they learned the importance of the Sword of Gryffindor. It was by her being tortured they learned there was something more sacred and special hidden in Gringotts—

You're going to have to back again.

"The Hunt for the Horcruxes are going to have to stay the same," the Headmaster said in a soft voice, as though he had peaked into Hermione's head and knew the horror's to come. "Nothing can change from that. You're right it is vital for the Defeat of Voldemort, but more so for Harry developing to that point so when he discovers the role he must play, he can. "

"You're still not going to tell him, are you?" she asked, her voice sharper than she had intended.

"He isn't to know until the very last moment."

His words wrinkled like sand paper against her skin. She looked at him again and couldn't see the Magical Grandfather she had pretended he was at times in her childhood. She couldn't make out the sparkle in his eyes, or hear the words that seemed to always make sense.

She was remembering how much she had blamed him her seventh year. How much she had secretly hated him.

How she had spent nine months on the run, sleeping in a tent with two boys who could take on a horcrux more than they could properly explain their feelings and frustrations. She hated that they were forced to learn from Rita Skeeter about Grindelwald, about Arianna. She hated how she had been forced to wipe her parent's memories and send them on a journey to safety rather than accompany them there—no that wasn't Dumbledore's fault. She would have always stayed—but at the time, she had thought about it. After Ron had left, when she had the Horcrux around her neck. She thought about leaving Harry too. About leaving and showing up in Australia—

"I will send you a note when we decide to start our lessons," Dumbledore said, standing from his desk. He glanced out his window and smiled, "But we best go down to the Great Hall. It looks like the last of the First Year Boats has crossed the lake. Come Miss Granger," she was suddenly called back from her thoughts, "Let's join them."

She didn't say much as they made her way down to the Great Hall. She could see the thick bandages around his hand and she already knew what the ring had done. No matter what she did, it was too late for Dumbledore.

She snuck into the Great Hall as it was still churning with students talking. Waiting for the first years to enter the Hall. Ron caught her eye and waved her over, scooting to share an extra seat.

"You're mental you know? Going to file an avadavat for a prefect score?' he said shaking his head, "Let that be your lesson to you Colin, don't let your mind go as you do your OWLS," he warned to the boy sitting across from them, who just smiled behind those blond curls as his brother on the other side of him asked what an avadavat was.

It was too late for Dumbledore, but who else was it too late for?

((*))

She couldn't sleep the first night back.

In her first year, she had a similar problem. Her mother had foreseen this, knowing her anxious daughter would be far too excited (or worried) about starting term at a new school, had pack her a small case of low-dose sleeping pills to help her get a good nights rest before the term began. She had made a habit of keeping a few tucked in her trunk as the years went on, usually just for the first night of term.

She hadn't checked to make sure the pills where there when she left her family earlier in the summer. In part, because the Hermione Granger that came out of the war could fall asleep at anytime, at anyplace and in any case. How many times while in Australia had her mother found her daughter asleep, leaning against the window seat? When the family came back to the Burrow following Fred's death, hadn't Ginny found Hermione later that afternoon asleep in the stair well above the twin's bedroom?

So long as she was exhausted and could will herself so, she ran to sleep as Harry had ran to death in the Forrest. Sleep was never a problem in the early days. It was only when she came back to Hogwarts the nightmares increased her. When she came back to Hogwarts she couldn't sleep in the four poster bed in her dormitory without dreaming about a werewolf kill Lavender.

Now that a living, breathing Lavender was asleep in the bed across her, she couldn't even approach the gods of rest without tossing and turning.

She swung her legs off the bed and grabbed her dressing gown and the book that Fred had given her. The leather felt cool and familiar in her hands, as though it was an old friend. He was smart to design it after a Hogwarts library book. If either Lavender or Paravati were to turn and see her exiting in the light now bathing the room, it would look like the classic Hermione Granger, trying to capture the last few hours before term started, studying for a NEWT class.

She'd typically go to the Common Room, but she kept climbing, going to the little alcove at the top of the staircase. It was from this spot she could look out the window and see the unblemished hill across the lake not yet dotted in white tombs. She waved her wand and four little balls of blue light started dancing around her, adding to the moonlight streaming through the window.

The First night Fred had given her the book, she had started a quick outline of what was to come. The Battle of the Lightening Tower at the end of the Year. The Battle of Hogwarts the year after. The Hunt for Horcruxes taking up the middle. Every night since, she had tried to add an event she could remember: something from their life on the run, or a life that had been lost. Last night she had added a tick mark for Ted Tonk's death in the weeks before their capture and time at the Malfoy Manor.

She looked at the time line again, thinking of Dumbledore's words of "Fixed Points" and the easier to maneuver changeable events. She could feel that anger she had flash earlier when meeting him rise again. Innocent lives can be saved yes, she thought to herself, but we're supposed to accept we can't save them all? Who was time to determine whose death was fixed who's was flexible? Death be not Proud, that was the book that sat on her father's desk at work. Death was unbiased. Death was supposed to not be a respecter of persons. Not a non-negotiable reaper sitting on a battlefield waiting to collect his particular souls.

She skipped a few pages in her book and started writing names of the dead, and when they died. She looked down at her feeble list and knew there were more, but she couldn't remember yet. But she continued. Hermione had read most of the obituaries that had been published in the Prophet after the war and next to the names she added who they'd be survived by. Who would stand on the hill in front of her in two years and say "Thank you for helping defeat the Dark Lord" while their eyes begged "Why couldn't you save my child? You saved so many, why couldn't you save one more?"

She looked down at her final entry. It was Fred's name, May 1998 scribbled behind it as so many on the list. She had written his family members below it, but she added another name now, her own.

She closed the pages and returned to the cover one, scrawling "Mischief Managed" in the corner and watching as the ink seeped in and the book returned to its empty self.

She had been on the fence for so long about what she should do. Should she stand on the sideline and allow time to happen as it had before? Or should she try and be the wise Guardian of Time the Headmaster had supposed she would be.

I'm going to save them, Hermione told herself, the words almost escaping her as she sat atop the top stair in the staircase I'm going to save them all.

AN: I know this isn't the happiest (or most entertaining) of Chapters, but I felt that it had become necessary.I was surprised at how many people where looking for Dumbledore earlier. Also, I felt as though there are some points that Hermione is eager to relive-getting to save people she cares for-but there are going to be situations (*cough*Malfoy manor *cough*) where she's is going to dread. Consequences are going to be a theme of this story and you'll soon learn to see why...

Also, please note when Dumbledore is talking about fixed points it took all I could no to revert to "Wibbly-Wombly-Timey-Whimey" References. I kid with that, but I do think there are some fixed points in Harry, Ron and Hermione's stories that can't be altered and I hope that I'll do a good job showing them as our story goes on.

Fred will be back next chapter and I will say that he has someone who keeps getting stuck in his mind. Stay tuned for next week! Thank you for all of the support, you guys are all stars.