Summary: Hermione goes back to the Final Battle to save the one person who she believes shouldn't have been allowed to die, even knowing that she'll be ripping herself from every other timeline. AU from beginning of epilogue on.

Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own these characters. The epilogue wouldn't have been in Book 7 if I did.

A/N (Veronika): Thanks of course to themis. ceres, my beautiful beta :) _

I'll Give You All My Futures

Chapter 3: A Curious and Curiouser World

"Apparently she'll only believe in things as long as there's no proof at all. Well, I wouldn't expect anything else from someone whose father runs The Quibbler." - Hermione Granger

February, 2003

After his presentation the crowd had swarmed passed her towards the charmed speaker, Hermione stood quickly and sought to get out of the press of bodies. Luna had found her and escorted her to her father's private laboratory so that her father could ask and answer questions.

Walking around the room staring at the various objects lining walls and tables, some on their own stands, she was thoroughly baffled. Some of the trinkets looked delicate and harmless but she remembered what Luna had once told her, that her mother had died in an experiment gone wrong in front of her and her father. Walking along, she watched as her reflection was caught in several strange mirrors on one wall. Frowning, she leaned into one as she looked at herself.

Her hair had been pulled back and up in a twist, strictly controlled with clips and tiny combs. It took forever, but the end result was definitely worth it. Sighing, she wandered down the room. Reaching the end, Hermione leaned forward. This mirror was black and fogged. Moving so that she faced in front of it she saw that the smoke was clearing, but it wasn't her face that she saw. Gasping she staggered backwards and away from it, almost tripping on the end of her robes.

"Strange," a voice came from behind her. "It hasn't worked for anyone but me even after all these years of experimenting."

Hermione swallowed and clutched her pad and quill to her chest as she tried to calm her rapidly beating heart. Why had she seen that? Seen him?

"If you don't mind me asking Mr. Lovegood," she began, trying to calm her furiously beating heart, "What is it?"

He approached the mirror that was once again black with smoke, a thoughtful expression on his face- the most serious that she'd ever seen on him. Perhaps it was because his eye was focused forward as he stood staring into the mirror. A smile came onto his face as he stared at the glass. Finally, he turned away, once again ease in oddness.

"I was trying to invent a way for people to see their soulmates, drawing of course from Ibid's extensive use of mirrors. I thought I had it working some years ago when my late wife's face finally peered out at me. Unfortunately, it's never worked correctly with anyone else. For experiment's sake, what did you see?"

Hermione swallowed hard. There was no way she was admitting what she'd seen.

"Ah," he said sagely, nodding, "Something odd yes? Luna says that she sees a strange looking rabbit jackelthrope every time. Hard for that to be a soulmate then, eh?"

"Strange indeed," Hermione said, somewhat calmer now. So it didn't work. It couldn't possibly work. Why was she somehow disappointed at that thought? Shaking her head, she knew that Ron had been right all those years ago. She still didn't have her priorities in order.

She didn't have much time to dwell on it because Mr. Lovegood was bustling about in an attempt to make tea and it seemed like just a moment later she was seated on a rather outrageous looking cushion beside a low table, that she was quickly assured was only faux dragon skin, "the actual stuff is far too barbaric and expensive to buy".

After the politeness had passed Hermione set down her cup, she tried to relax into the cushion but was finding it a quite impossible feat.

"So you said that you actually witnessed a time rip then Mr. Lovegood?"

He smiled at her, "I did indeed my dear."

Baffled, but nevertheless trying to gather as much information as she could from the incredibly unbelievable source, she pressed on.

"Would you tell me who it was? You were saying how it's people who cause time rips?"

"Precisely, more specifically witches. I don't believe I've ever crossed acome, come across, my apologies, any wizard inducing Time Rips. They have been all female thus far in my research."

"But who was it, Mr. Lovegood?" Hermione asked, quickly getting frustrated with the man, "It was clearly in your lifetime, correct? What did she do?"

"Call me Xenophilius my dear, no pomp and circumstance here," he said with a smile.

She was assuredly going to strangle him. Trying desperately to keep herself calm, she was interrupted from contemplating the several different ways to transfigure him into something shatterable by Luna entering the room behind her. It cut off the tirade that had threatened to burst out of her instantly.

"I think it would be best if you told her," Luna's whispery voice carried shockingly well in the room.

Xenophilius sighed, "Very well, I thought I was doing quite well in building up the suspense but no matter."

Setting down his teacup, he looked at her (with his uncrossed eye), "It was you, my dear."

"I beg your pardon?" Hermione asked.

Xenophilius smiled, "Well, there seemed to be many branches of what could be called splits in time due to the war. So many different outcomes possible, and all that bishcosh. But there seemed to be indicators of something greater than that, a rip in time. But," he said holding up one finger, "I didn't find it. Something happened around the great battle yes, but! It was closer to home that I found it. Searching through the use of runes and in consultation with several different sources on the importance's of constellations, I identified the location that I could see this wonderful rip. Shockingly, right outside my home! It was a walk, but well worth it. It was a sight to see."

Hermione had been pacing for the past two minutes at least. Though she wasn't writing anything down, her right hand still held her quill, carelessly flicking the feather against her robes. She was so engrossed that she hadn't noticed that there had still been a few flecks of ink left over on the nib of the quill, now the dots were splattered on the robes.

"Hermione?"

Her head abruptly snapped up to look at Luna, whose words had broken through her train of thought. Xenophilius had apparently left the room, though the garish Time Turner he carried was still left on his seat.

"I'm sure that you'll know what to do; so you really shouldn't worry should you?" Luna asked.

Hermione just stared at her for a moment, temporarily at a loss for words, before she resumed pacing, still flicking her quill against her robes while her left hand nervously twisted her still new ring.

She couldn't change everything about the past, like strangling Riddle in his crib… She stopped pacing for a moment. No, she doubted that she could do that. She resumed pacing. So first, she thought, isolate a possible event great enough to split time.

Riddle's first rise to power as Voldemort. Well that would be a crucial point in history, to be certain, but what would she be, what would Harry be if that happened? If Riddle was stopped at any point before the war, it would change everything... Would she mind? That stopped her again. She had the power to rip time now. No, that wasn't right. She had already ripped time in the past, she was just going to do it now, again. She continued pacing.

Cyclical time made her head spin. If she ripped time by choosing to go back in time, the rip happened in the present, not the past. Right? Dealing with hypothetical situations such as these, with little or no data involved made her wish that she had indeed transfigured Xenophilius when he'd been in the room. Who was to say that a decision she'd made hadn't already ripped time? Once again she stopped. He had said that the Time Turner was used,but really who was to say that it hadn't already occurred and she was worrying about this for nothing? Well, his enigmatic manner for one, (she began pacing again) though many would argue that he was always enigmatic. So it was something that she would go back in time to do or change. That much was apparently? certain.

Not Riddle then. Something else. The only other convergence of different paths in time that she could think of would be the war, just like Xenophilius had said. Oh, bloody hell, there could have even been a time path where he didn't witness the time rip, then where would that leave her? Her head began throbbing again.

But then there were thousands of different options- what could she have done differently or extra? What would going back solve? Would she kill one of the Death Eaters who had escaped? Would she save someone? Killing a Death Eater could be a marked difference, but if she had already done that did that mean that she just had to look for a disappearance? Maybe a body that no one had found because she had dispatched of it in the past? Or if she saved someone, would their body never have been found until the day she returned from the past? Would that mean she had to hide them to keep present events the same?

Hermione firmly stopped pacing, one hand was still nervously spinning her ring while the other continued tapping her quill. Finally a part of her snapped. Throwing the quill to the ground her other hand grabbing her left to jerk the ring from her hand. Shocked, she stopped. Slowly, she lowered her hands to her sides. She hated these stupid habits that she had been picking up. If it hadn't been for that awful potion concoction of Molly Weasley's she might have picked up biting her nails too. Turning slowly, she breathed a sigh of relief that Luna had left.

Walking over to one of the outrageous cushions, she sat down. Ron. What was she doing with Ron? She knew that her own problems were causing these nervous habits, so what did he have to do with it? She had said yes. She was going to marry Ron, that's what she was going to do with him. Forcing her hands flat on the table, she barely stopped herself from spinning her ring again. This was going to drive her mad.

"Think Hermione. Just think!" she stood abruptly and began pacing, again. "What you need to do is research... Find disappearances and discrepancies. Goodness knows it'll be difficult, but that's where you're going to start. There's no way that you'll be able to find the rip you supposedly cause by sitting around like a lump."

Already she was calmer; she had a course of action. Start with the war. If Xenophilius Lovegood had found it certainly she, the most brilliant witch of her age, could as well. Catching her reflection in one of the few plain mirrors of the room, she saw her smile widened. She was happy. With the stress of the previous days, she knew she deserved it. Looking around, she snatched up her pad and after scribbling a quick note of thanks, which she tore off and left on the table, Hermione prepared to Apparate. One last look made her grab the damn Time Turner to take with her.