Chapter 10:

Falling Faults

((*))

The weeks following the students return to Hogwarts were among the slowest that the shop at Number 93 Diagon Alley had seen since they first opened. Now they had the spectrum outside the bookends. The Little ten year olds who had to talk their mums into going on a dangerous alley where a madman may be waiting to kill them as they made a pilgrimage to a jokeshop, and then people their own age, fresh out of Hogwarts who, for some reason or another needed to find a place they could sneak away either from the surrounding darkness or the reality of growing up.

George was going through the books that night, trying to see if there was enough in their reserves to consider reaching out and establishing a second shop. After the first season of success, and the untapped gold mine the Ministry and their shield line had been, they had thought about it more. It made sense. Their largest demographic was at Hogwarts more months out of the year than they were outside of it. If they opened a Hogsmeade store, they'd cut shipping prices in half and possibly double profits with students thinking last minute pranks to pull against the prefects and professors.

He'd be lying if he didn't admit the thought of being near a certain prefect hadn't crossed his mind.

No, don't think that way Freddie boy, he thought, shaking his head over the desk and the workbook he had in front of him. It was Hermione that made he want to open a shop in Hogsmeade, it was something she had inspired.

Ever since Hermione had asked about Time Turners, the idea had been in his head. Say someone was sitting in History of Magic and there was a twenty-minute eternity until the end of the class. aAfew turns of the time turner and you'd find yourself getting ready to leave. It would allow you to fast forwards. To jump ahead. It would have to be marketed as an accessory; something you had to hold on to closely or you'd get lost as time fell around you, but that was easy enough. He just had to get the magic worked out to where it wouldn't kill himself or catapult someone forwards or backwards in time. That could be catastrophic.

There was a design, one he'd been playing with for a couple days now. He wasn't sure exactly what the joke or humor would be behind it, but he couldn't shake it out of his head. It was a time turner. Small. Petite, nowhere near as powerful as the one Hermione had issued to her in her Third Year. He was hoping that would be the products saving grace. The Ministry had very strict regulations against meddling with past events, especially given all the Unspeakables from the Department of Mysteries who had died in the course of the Time Turner Trials. But this would be harmless. Besides, to his knowledge he couldn't think of too much red tape surrounding meddling future events—at least not in the form of a fantasy.

He had done some studies surrounding time when they did the Day Dream Fancies early in the season. It was a way for people to escape reality for an allotment of time while other wise occupied. There were a few charms that had to go to work, but a lot of it was properly brewing a potion that would dull the senses while time traveled on and the body stayed still.

He closed his eyes and he was back at the Platform feeling her arms that had closed the gap and wrap around his neck. He could remember how the sound of the station seemed to dim and the morning appeared that much brighter. Had it been minutes or fleeting moments before his mother's cry had broken the spell? He could remember following the train and watching as she disappeared along the bend, looking at him with her deep, sad, brown eyes.

He wasn't sure where this version of Hermione had come from. The one that hid secrets from Harry and Ron, who talked him out of dark moments, who was the only woman in the Burrow who didn't have a problem with Fleur. The Hermione who had those big, brown sad eyes when she thought no one was looking, or when she was trying to be happy. He knew those eyes. Those where the kind of eyes George and he tried to make bright every day at the shop. But even more so when they were Hermione's.

He had noticed over the summer that she seemed to have the saddest eyes when looking or talking to George. He couldn't explain what happened, but Hermione looked, in her eyes and on her face, as though there was a looming axe over his brother and there was nothing she could do to stop it. As if the latest tragedy she had read about or seen in the Prophet had George's name written in flat, black, dying ink.

Don't worry Freddie, Hermione quit Divination, he told himself, you could probably figure out the future better than she could.

He wondered when he'd see her again. He wondered, when that day came, if he'd still be as inclined to her as he had become. If he'd want to hear her laugh at something he said in response to her latest scheme or secret. If he'd still want to bring her an orange box tied with purple string with the latest surprise from the store. She had written him a thank you note for the satchel and he replied with a box of chocolate he said was for her birthday, with the note "What are you thinking?" tucked in one of the truffles like it was an old sentiment they had passed on for years, not just a question asked over summer spells.

Was it possible that he had missed this Hermione for the five years she had been apart of his family?

But what have you missed Fred? A voice asked again, It sounded like George and Lee. Lord help him if those were the voices of his conscience. What exactly are your affections and intentions towards Hermione Granger?

"Hell's finally frozen Freddie" his Brother's real voice called from his desk, reality slamming into him as he slammed his head upright against the wooden cabinets above his work desk.

He couldn't make out the swear he invoked, but once his mono vision returned, his eyes focused in on his brother, now pulled out of the account book, looking over his Mother's nightly epistle. Something must have happened, he thought, almost giddy. Where they to return to the Burrow? Meet someone from the Order? Where they rescuing or on another one of George's "survival" missions?

"What'd you mean?" he asked, tucking the Time Turner design under a book, as he nursed his growing goose egg," I didn't see anywhere in the paper You-Know-Who'd be offering tap dancing lessons."

Fred felt a wad of paper hit his shoulder, as his brother laughed, "No you idiot— Mum got a letter from the school. Ron's finally written and says they've put Snape in as Defense Against the Dark Arts," George smiled broadly, "Obviously Dumbledore's realized it'll be the only way he gets rid of him."

"Ron say anything else?" Fred asked, as a tea cup came zipping to the air and to his side. George skimmed his mother's epistle for more, "Not much—gave a detailed report on Ginny's romantics but not a line about his own. If he doesn't ask Granger out soon He'll have no one to complain to."

The tea cup almost slipped to the desk, "You think so?"

"She's smart, a spitfire—and she doesn't strike me as the waiting forever type," George said, setting the letter down and closing the large book that kept their accounts, "I'm simply saying while the Weasley clan see her Ronniekins sweetheart, not everyone else does," he said, waving a wand as two tankers zipped from the cupboard, "But never mind that. I'm going to go dig in the back for a good bottle. We can toast to the curse surviving one more year and Hope Snape gets finished off by a three headed dog or attacked by an Inferni."

George exited, leaving Fred to sit at his desk. It wasn't drink worthy, but George had taken the last few weeks to celebrating the small things. The things that could keep you going when the world got darker. Fred wished he could think of one of them now because there was a person he had forgotten about in his weeks of befriending Hermione.

Nah, not befriending. You've always been her friend, he thought. What ever it is they were doing, he could see one person in his head who would have a lot to say if he kept showing up on train platforms with boxes and strings. Someone who might have a lot to say in opposition to him memorizing her laugh.

He'd forgotten about Ron.

He didn't agree with George that she was "his girl" but the had more or less had a conversation identical to this a few summer's back. Saying it would only be too predictable if the two kids who seemed to make the Burrow Home ever summer married into the Weasley Clan. Harry would marry Ginny , his choices were limited and they knew their sister harbored a crush. Hermione though, she had six possible suitors. Bill and Charlie they ruled out immediately; Percy and Hermione, heaven forbid, would produce the most know it all, obnoxious spawn. After Percy's leaving, he was indefinitely ruled out. Hermione could do better. That just left the twins and Ron. They had laughed themselves silly at the thought of either of them and Hermione, the Pranksters and the girl destined to be a Prefect, and had lumped her with Ron.

But the events of the last summer must have meddled his thinking. He could no longer see here as Ron's girl. He certainly didn't want to marry her. He was 17 and she was 16 for Merlin's sake. Besides that, she would never-he could-. There was something that had occurred, so subtly that he didn't want to see her stuck with Ron.

A cauldron of Amortentia bubbled down the counter and he could smell the familiar lilacs and honey that had crept in there as of late. He waved his wand and sealed off the cauldron, following his brother. They were going to need some of the strong, good stuff tonight.

((*))

The first month went by slower than she had anticipated.

In the back of her mind she thought this could happen. It would be difficult to go back and sit through lectures a second time. Part of her thought if she had the memory span of Ron, this wouldn't be too rough. Pick up on things that she had missed the first time around. But after Snape's Inaugural lesson as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts over non-verbal spells dragged on, she realized how long the year was going to be.

Snape had been ghost she hadn't anticipated being jarred by, and yet she was all the same. Sitting in his class, she realized how useful Occlumency would be. If Snape were to peak in her brain, that would be disastrous. Yes, she would be concerned about what he would learn about the War, where they hid and what they were doing—but more intimately, she was afraid what Snape would do if he saw flashes of his death play out in her head. Or, more importantly, if he knew Hermione had learned of his secret love and relationship with Lily Potter.

Harry's thoughts towards Snape had made a radical turn after the War. She feared that Snape's memories, given as he bled out, had meddled with Harry's own recollections of the past seven years of being a student under Severus Snape. He had gone so far, in the post war, to call Snape "One of the Bravest men he ever knew" in a testimony before the Board of Governors, pushing for a portrait of the late Headmaster and a memorial to be put at Hogwarts School. This had bothered Hermione, as well as several others of their classmates. The knowledge of his history as a spy had become subject of the new wave of War Historians. Harry's disclosure in the final battle with Voldemort, that Snape had only turned double agent out of Love for Lily Evans had sent the post war world on a hunger near identical romances. She had seen Flourish and Blotts even marketing "Always: the Severus Snape Story" set to come out for the anniversary of the Battle. Snape had was good, had become Harry's mantra. Snape was a good man and Harry wanted his name to live on as a good man, who was flawed, but at his core good.

Hermione thought that Harry seemed to have forgotten the Snape who had made Neville's life a living hell since his first year. Or the Snape who had belittled him, his father, and Sirius at any moment he could. Or the Snape who had sent Hermione crying to the Hospital Wing with oversized beaver teeth in her fourth year. The Snape who had let his exposed memories be the reason he ended Harry's Occlumency lesson. He may not known that would play a role to Sirius' death in the Department of Mysteries, but Hermione was biased enough to say the old Potions Master hadn't morn that passing. If Harry would ask her what her thoughts on Snape were, she might say he was "complex at best" but she struggled to see what was so heroic about a man who turned repentant after the death of his unrequited love, and spent year after year making the son who survived and any of his friends lives a living hell.

In Hermione's opinion, Neville was among the bravest men she had ever known. In part, for how he was able to rise above the years of damage Snape had contributed to his self-esteem, but also how he had rallied together Dumbledore's Army when the trio had abandoned Hogwarts. Molly Weasley who dueled the woman behind the murder of her brothers and who had taunted her over the death of her son—wasn't that bravery? Or Remus— who had carried the weight of his illness since a child, who had lost his entire world on a cold October night but had persevered and carried on to be a mentor for his dead's friends son. Remus who had lost so much himself, but was still always the first to Harry's side. Wasn't that bravery? Where was the memorial at Hogwarts for the greatest Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor the school had seen in the Pre-War years? Part of her had hoped Harry would make similar public comments on Remus Lupin in front of the board. And she supposed that someday he might—but these thoughts would have to wait for her and Fred's book. She couldn't keep these thoughts on the surface or they'd start screaming out to Snape and she could only imagine how quickly he'd react.

Aside from Snape and the newfound boredom in her homework, the school year was going on as it normally would. It was only in in transfiguration she's was not getting awarded point for her answers and skill at the tasks her Professor's placed before them. No one had called Professor McGonagall out for this, and she tried to be less forward in answering questions in class because she knew McGonagall knew of her past. Hermione had been the one to confess to her for heavens sake. It was all right with her. She didn't care for House Points. Winning the cup every year hadn't saved any lives after all.

((*))

She was sitting in the Common Room on a Wednesday night. There had been a cluster of first years near the fire earlier, but they had already trudged up to bed. She was surprised Ron hadn't come in from running drills, preparing for the Quidditch tryouts. She had thought about sneaking down and doing her homework down there, but something had held her back and she sat curled in front of the fire working on her Potions essay. She'd wait here for them. Harry should be finishing his first private lesson with Dumbledore. She hadn't gotten her summons, but had decided Harry, as always would come first. She'd read the theory of Occlumency before it was her turn at last.

She was on better footing in Sixth Year potions than she had been before. Professor Slughorn had held her after class earlier in the week to invite her to his first Slug Club gathering. She hoped she'd get better at dogging them her second time around but she doubted it. Slughorn was still persistent and repeating time and trying to save lives had made her determined in some areas and more passive in others. But there was always a skivving snack if she needed it and she felt like she would soon.

Harry was becoming the top potionier of his class and Hermione was siting back, holding d her tongue. She was still giving him dirty glances over the Half-Blood Prince's book, because that's what she had done the time before. She knew wondered how much she should change with that. Sectumsempra hadn't saved their lives when they were on the run had it? Did Harry need to know that? What good would come of Harry and Draco dueling and Harry nearly gutting Draco? Did that jar Malfoy to questioning his own mortality?

No but it did keep someone's mortality—it would save Ron.

She had wanted to throw it in the lake. She wanted to snatch when Harry left it in the common room and swap it out with her own. She had already started changing the covers when she remembered the bezoar. Ron's life depends on that book just as much as anything else. She knew there would be other ways to tell Harry about a Bezoar. She could start morning survival tips. She could insist they always carry a Bezoar. She could insist Fred and George not sell to Romilda Vane, but it'd take more than a threat to tell their mother. They'd want to know why and she had a feeling if she told them one thing—one foreshadowing—it wouldn't take long before her carefully constructed web came crashing down.

Or she could just let things happen as they had before.

Regardless of how she was beginning to feel about him in the future, she needed him to be alive for her to feel that way. She didn't need him to meet his end on his seventeenth birthday thinking he was passionately in love with another girl. She needed him. Harry needed him. They needed him alive. She had seen what Fred's death had done to the Weasley clan, she didn't need to see what Ron's death would do. Ron had said that he was the least favorite, but that was nowhere near the truth. She knew better.

Maybe the book is a fixed point, she though to herself before dismissing the thought. She had pushed off this essay as long as she had for Potions with all of her extra research on the topic of Fixed Points. There was not a fair deal written on the subject, the most recent piece she had found was by Prof. John Smith of Nottingham in his essay's "A Journal of Extraordinary Travels" written in the late Edwardian era, and it was a loose discussion at best.

Not tonight, she told herself. Tonight she had to write an analysis of the Amortentia Potion. Not over a flimsy topic of points that were fixed and being forced to play god in determining who lived and who died.

She had a rough outline. She could remember what she had said last time, she remembered that she had gotten top marks on it. But there was something different about the potion this time. She could still smell fresh cut grass—her dad would cut the yard at night and they slept with their windows open. She could smell the fresh cut grass in the morning dew every summer in her childhood. It was a staple. It was classic. And the smell of parchment—that went without saying. Even the muggle library Hermione had grown up with could tell she liked the smell of books.

But the third. She had always identified it as the smell of Ron's hair. Cinnamon and mahogany oil. But that smell wasn't as defined as she remembered. She could definitely trace this smell to the Burrow, but it was just that familiarity. It smelt like fresh soap and pine—like when Mrs Weasley set on a cleaning spree of the Burrow. It bothered her that she couldn't place it. She had been in a relationship with Ron for seven months before the accident that returned her to her sixth years. Shouldn't that be the first smell that came to mind? Why was it something so radically different?

There was a shuffle at the Portrait hole and she could see Ron coming through, a bag at his side and a broom in hand. His cheeks were read from the chill of the Autumn air. "You were out there longer than usual," Hermione said, moving her books from the side cushion where they had sat, making room for him.

"I wasn't the only one that decided to start practicing," Ron said, tossing his bag on the floor and leaning the broom against the mantle before he collapsed in the space she had just made for him.

"Who else was out there?" she asked surprised, pushing her potions essay aside. Is this what not doing homework felt like for he boys? She may grow to like that.

"D'you know Cormac McClaggen?" Ron said, opening an eye from his other wise exhausted pose.

Did she yet her sixth year? "Just in passing," she said, raising her shoulders and looking back at her essay wearily, "He's a seventh year, right?"

"He's an arse, that's what he is," Ron continued, lifting his head up from the couch as he leaned forward, his arms on his lanky legs, hunched over to talk to her. "Spent the last two hours critiquing my form when he—"

"Don't give him the time of day," Hermione interrupted, leaning into the couch with the essay and quill in hand, "Your five times the keeper he could ever be and he's just trying to get into your head."

Silence followed as she scratched the words into her parchment. After a few moment he turned and looked at her surprised, "You think I'm that good?"

"We don't sing McClaggen's our king," Hermione smiled. She missed this. She missed what it was like early in their relationship after the war. When they were still trying to determine what the difference between friendly and flirty would be. When any exchange could easily be read as the other, but they'd always have a tell. For her, her head would tilt to the right. For him, he'd play with the curl at the nape of his neck. He was doing it now, and she was trying to suppress the smile that would betray her.

"Your right," he said, smiling for the both of them. "You going to come watch the trials this weekend? Maybe you could lead the song?"

This time she did laugh, "No, I won't be leading any songs, but I'll be there."

"Promise?" he said faintly, and she was taken aback to a few other times he and thrown out that word.

"We'll go with him. We'll follow him and destroy Voldemort for good this time," she had said when they left Hogwarts their sixth year. "You're family's safe. We're all safe. We'll see them again at Christmas time, just you wait and see," she had said as they laid next to each other that first night on the run. "It'll get better—we'll find another Horcrux and it'll get better," when he started to lose hope. "When all of this is over, we can try to be more than this," she had said that the night before he left. Hoping it'd be enough to keep him to stay. Each time he responded the same way. Except towards the end. That last promise, that had become sarcastic, more a mockery than a whisper of a hope he held out now.

"Someone has to make sure you and Harry don't get killed with Beater tryouts. Fred and George are one in a million, it'll be tough to replace them" she dismissed, continuing her essay.

That had seemed to shut him up. He was still sensitive about his brothers for some reason, Fred in particular. She thought she could see a touch of red in his ears. "Have you heard from them?" he asked, "Since your buddies with them now?"

"Owl Post works both ways, you want to hear from your brothers you can write them" she said as a matter-of-fact. But she coupled with it, "That's what they said to tell you if you asked. They're doing well though."

He leaned back into the couch and she couldn't make out what troll response he had to that. She had gotten one letter. She had written to say thank you for the bag and Fred responded with a box of chocolates for her birthday a few weeks earlier. She was meaning to write him back. She supposed she'd do that in a little bit. She could do that now, that'd be less time she'd have to spend on this essay.

She could do that and then review the journal, see what major event she had to be preparing for and how that could save any of the name she had scribbled down in her book.

"It's late—I'm going to head up."

"But Harry's not back yet," Ron started, "We said we'd wait up."

"It's late and I have to finish some things before I go to bed," she explained but she was becoming short, "Besides, Harry always tells us to go to bed rather than wait up. He's with Dumbledore, it could be a while yet."

"Just do you writing down here, you've been doing it all night in the common room," he said motioning to her spot. "I've got some stuff to work on myself. Why do you have to go up to your dorm when—" his voice stopped and his face took on a shade deeper than normal "Do you have to writing someone Hermione?"

"I don't have to write to anyone Ronald," she said briskly, waving her wand and as her scattered contents began to stack themselves. "Besides, it's none of your concern who I choose to correspond with."

"You aren't even friends with Fred—"he scathed, "Why are you writing him? He's not interested in—"

A golden bird flew out of her wand before she realized it, its beak hitting Ron square in the forehead before it burst into a golden ball of feathers, "Good Night Ronald," she said evenly before ran up the stairs.

She could hear his feet follow behind her. She hopped on the first floor landing of the tower and watched as the stone steps smoothed in a slide, and could hear Ron swear when he landed in the Common Room again.

In full honestly, she hadn't not meant to send the bird out to him. That wasn't supposed to happen for a few weeks yet. She was going to be too wrapped up in trying to save their lives she had decided not to interfere with Won-Won and Lav. The golden dart had just come through so naturally. Like a non-verbal reflex.

Neither Lavender or Parvati were in her dorm when she arrive, so she threw her bag against her bed stand and started changing into her night clothes. There would be no letter. Not tonight. Not until she had cooled down.

She had missed so much about Ron, but she hadn't missed the trait that had survived their camping amongst the horcrouxes and into the post war: his jealousy.

AN: I'm sorry this is so wordy. It's less conversation than I had originally intended. I'm glad some of you enjoy the Post-War memories Hermione falls into, I particularly love writing them. Kind of had to have a Snape vent... any who...Next Chapter is going to be a bit of a long one, but we need to start covering distances. First lesson with Dumbledore and we may end at Hogsmeade where there may be someone coming to see if a joke shop would be a good idea. I wonder who that could be...

Thank you all for your lovely support. We cleared 100+ follows last chapter and I very much appreciate it! I apologize for any uncorrected errors. Editing while on cough medicine is not the best idea.

Until Next Week...~KH