She watched Teddy's figure retreat back up the path to the castle for a moment before she heard a gruff voice. She was suddenly knocked forward as the bounding force of a dog collided with her. The long licks to her face told her at least he was friendly.

"Blimey! 'Ermione? What are you doin' 'ere? Yeh're back?"

As she pushed the boarhound off of her, she could see the large hulking man that had approached. "I'm not-" She paused. "I…I was just coming out for some air." She thought back on Teddy's advice. Asserting her name was not something that helped much so far. She wasn't even sure of the truth anymore. Perhaps it was best to go along with misidentification at the moment.

"Didn' even know yeh were back." He sat down beside her. "Missed yeh, I did." He smiled at her, which she tentatively returned. The dog walked over the edge of the water, no longer interested in the stranger on the hill. "An' I'm not the only one."

She wasn't able to keep herself from asking, "Who else?"

"All of us. Well, that surly bloke of yehrs for one. You were almost everthin' ter Ron an' Harry."

Surly? She made note of the new name. "Where is Ron?"

He looked at confused. "This time of night, he might still be at the shop. Haven't yeh bin by?"

"No…not recently." It was technically true.

He nodded. "Took him a while ter get back ter normal but Susan's a great girl. She really helped him along."

She nodded. She didn't know what else she was supposed to say. She had no recollection of any of these people. So, she watched the dog sniff around the nearby trees.

"How are yehr folks?" He asked.

She looked up confused. "My parents?"

"Last I saw yeh, yeh were headin' down there ter see them. Heard yeh stayed with 'em fer a few years."

Not knowing where "down there" was or anything about Hermione Granger's parents, she replied simply. "They're fine." It seemed like a safe bet to stay optimistically vague.

The man shook his head. "Sad story an' all. That memory charm business is tricky stuff. But I hear Australia's nice. Charlie said there's a fine herd of Antipodean Opaleye in the northern areas now." He tried to send her a reassuring smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

This suddenly peaked her interest. Memory charms. Was that what obliviate was? "What do you know about them?"

He scratched at what she assumed to be his chin underneath his illustrious beard. "Supposed ter be a friendlier breed. But they're a very misunderstood creature ter begin with, dragons. The Opaleye can live in-"

She furrowed her brow taken aback. "What? No, no. I meant about memory charms?" But she did make a mental note to revisit the premise that dragons were real.

He seemed less interested in the topic. "Not much. On account of…you know…" He tipped what appeared to be an umbrella at her before continuing. "But even proper wizards have a difficult time with those. People can end up unable ter spell their own name or remember a thin'. But all of 'em are darned hard ter reverse. Just like with yehr folks. Often can't be… well… without torture…" He shuddered. "Didn' yeh study 'em awhile back? All the charms, potions an' all that?"

Her face flushed. "Just wondering what you knew." Well, she thought, that's not a very promising. Hopefully there were more options and answers than that. Then she recalled exactly what he said. Her parents. He was talking about Hermione's parents and memory charms. Hermione's parents were currently still under the effects of a memory charm. In Australia. Where she herself had lived for several years after uni. She chewed on her lip for a moment. "How long has it been since we saw each other?"

"I dunno. Blimey. 'Bout 10 years or so? Just afta the school year ended. I think?"

It would have been 2005 then right after she graduate university. She had moved to Australia early that fall. She had lived in Australia with her aunt and uncle for a few years… What was the year on the card for when Hermione was last seen? 2005? Somewhere around then, she thought. That fit too…What if…

"Summat the matter? I haven't see yeh for a long time, but I can tell something's eating yeh up."

She looked at his kind face. "I…" she quietly started again. "I honestly feel like I don't know anything anymore."

"Why? Yeh're the smartest witch I ev'r met!" He gave her what should have been a comforting hand on the shoulder, but it came with such force it temporarily knocked the wind right out of her. "There's not a problem they can come up with that yeh can't solve."

Her eyes watered. She studied him again and saw the genuine pride shining through his eyes. It was comforting and filled her a slight warmth but guilt began to fester. The compliment wasn't directed at her but someone else. Or perhaps someone she used to be. In either case, she felt like she was stealing a moment from someone else's life because she wasn't the same girl. The weight of the encounter and the day fell heavily upon her. She smiled back at him and gathered her things. "Well I should probably head back in."

"Right, us too. Come on, Dozer." He called for the dog and headed towards a small cabin. She took one last look around the landscape before heading back up to the castle. The lights began to shine through the windows and glittered in the reflection off the lake. It truly was a beautiful sight.

As she got closer to the doors of the castle, she pulled out the map again. Minerva McGonagall paced the entrance hall. She heard a distant noise muffled through sound of the large doors. Apparently, Minerva McGonagall heard it too and headed off down the corridor.

Taking the opportunity, she threw the invisibility cloak over herself and snuck inside the castle. She held her breath as a student walked down the corridor, but they never paid her any mind. She took a deep breath and trusted the cloak to provide her some more time to wander alone and unnoticed.

She wandered thru the winding halls passing a few students along the way chatting amongst themselves. As she rounded one corner she quickly ducked behind an alcove behind a statue as she saw the people she knew to be Harry and Ginny walking down the corridor. It took her moment to remember with the cloak they would not see her anyways and left the safety of the alcove to eavesdrop on their conversation a little better.

"I just cannot believe it!" Ginny nearly shouted at him.

"I didn't think that-"

"You didn't think that letting our 11-year-old son keep the map and an invisibility cloak would be a bad idea?"

Harry's face flushed and he rubbed the back of his neck. "I didn't think anything would happen."

"Harry, you had them when you were that age and used them to go after a bloody madman who was trying to kill you! More than once! How could you not consider that there was a possibility something would go wrong?"

"Well, I mean it's not like Teddy hasn't stolen them every year for the last three years…" He trailed off.

"Teddy what?" Ginny spun around to look at him. It appeared that she had not been aware of this information prior.

"Look, Gin, keeping that map at home would only drive us mad with checking on his location all the time like it nearly did Teddy's first year."

"You didn't think that I wouldn't have wanted to do the same for our own son?" She slapped his arm.

"Hey! I just-"

"Harry James Potter, if you offer me one more excuse I will fix you so quickly with a Bat-Bogey Hex you won't know what hit you." She looked at him fiercely with wand in hand.

Harry hesitantly reached out and smoothed down her shoulders. "Gin, it's going to be alright. Everyone is fine. It's going to be okay, you know that right?"

Ginny's eyes shined a little brighter and her anger visibly deflated within her. "It's just…Hermione's here. She is really finally here and performing magic and we can't even find her…all because of your stupid arse."

He chuckled and leant his forehead against his wife's. They stayed that way for a moment in silence.

"Harry, I just don't think I can do it again. If we lose her again, I just…" Several tears trickled out of Ginny's eyes. "I would hate to sit back and watch it happen. Again. But even more, I hate that she has just spent years now, wandering around. Alone. When I saw her yesterday, I just… something snapped."

Harry sighed. "I know." Another moment of silence stretched out between them.

Ginny swallowed and began again. "I know I can't blame her for wanting her family back, but every time I think of her, I blame her parents. For no real reason than existing. I blame us for letting her go. I blame Voldemort for setting this all in motion. And well, everything else. But I blame everything. Every stupid thing I can think of. She spent years working on a way to get her parents back. But it all backfired. We lost her. We keep losing her. Every time we go through this I feel…I feel like another piece of me goes with her."

"Gin…" He paused and looked around.

"What?" Ginny asked noticing his unease, placed her hands on his arms that will still wrapped around her.

"I thought I heard someone…" He said.

Their eavesdropper walked backwards away from them picking up speed the further she made it down the corridor away from them.

Ginny seemed genuinely heartbroken about not being able to find "Hermione." But why? And why did it appear as though Harry had attacked her the night before if they missed Hermione so much? And what could she make out of her conversations with Teddy and the large man by the lake? They all seemed to care so genuinely, but it didn't add up.

Was she cursed? Or sick? Or had they done this to her? From the conversation between Harry and Ginny, it seemed as though this might the result of a misfired spell while trying to remove the memory charm from her parents. Well, she countered in her head. That is if she was willing to believe that she was Hermione Granger and what they all said was true.

She was finding it harder and harder to completely refute the idea that at some point she was someone else. That magic was real. That there was another life she had forgotten. That the life she knew was a lie.

She kept moving without thinking yet somehow, she had ended up standing outside of what appeared to be a library. A library was as good a place as any to sort herself out. She quickly walked in and away from the front, hopefully avoiding anyone that would notice her invisible presence.

She wound her way through the shelves until she was near the back and found a table that was tucked out of the way and would provide her the opportunity to see anyone that maybe coming towards her. She found herself on the map and saw that there were no others in the library aside from Irma Pince in an office near the front. Probably dinner time. At that realization, she felt her stomach grumble. Soon, she thought. There were more important things first. She folded up the map and grabbed both that and the photo.

If Hermione Granger was as well-known as the children made her out to be then she may be in one of these books. But where to start? She kept thinking to herself that all she needed was a book that would begin to explain how all of this came together. But she wasn't sure she would even recognize a book like that if she saw it. She ran her fingers across the bindings. "I just need a book to understand where this all started," she mumbled to herself. Suddenly, she saw something move out of the corner of the eye just before something slammed into the side of her head.

"Ouch." She rubbed her head and braced searching for an attacker, but only found a book on the floor. "Hogwarts: A History…"

She picked it up. She felt the worn leather and grooves of the letters in the title. She felt a slight spark. Electric. Energizing and painful at the same time. She looked around again. Where had it come from? Was this more magic? Could it be that this book would help her? She shuffled through the pages. It appeared to be written entirely about the school.

Well, it was a start.

AN: Thanks to all of you who have reviewed, favorited, or followed this story! It really means so much to me.

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