When Bill and I stepped out of Dumbledore's office, it was on heavy feet. Neither of us wanted to make eye contact, because to do so would be to finally see the acknowledgement of our failure reflected in the other's face. It would be real in a horribly tangible way. Instead, I counted suits of armor as we passed them. Two different portraits hung on a 6th floor wall that in our own time hung on entirely different floors. Finally, though, leaving the last staircase behind and approaching the grounds, I felt the air around me somehow settle solidly, and our heads turned almost of their own accord. Reality weighted our shoulders.

The new Dumbledore's parting words echoed in my ears. "You have made a great sacrifice, the two of you. Your world is gone to you now forever." He paused. "I give you as long as you both need to come to terms with this– as well as take a well-deserved rest."

The smile he turned on us– on me in particular, I felt disconcertingly– hadn't reach his eyes. "I must ask you, however, to please keep to yourselves for the time being. There are perhaps dangers here different than those you knew, and you may find yourselves on uneven footing. Rest. If you can draw up for me a detailed timeline of events you consider important, I would greatly appreciate it. And when the time comes that you feel we can begin to plan our assault, send word and we shall meet. I must give much thought…"

We had been given rooms at the Hog's Head, and turned our steps toward Hogsmeade. Though it was late summer, I thought I could feel a hint of autumn already, and wished I had brought a better cloak.

I couldn't get Dumbledore's face out of my mind. Despite the familiar features, the identical voice, the manner of speaking, he was so… wrong. His eyes, same pale sky blue, didn't look at me the same way; we had no history, no trust. I had come to know Albus Dumbledore well in the last desperate years since Harry died… this one was a stranger wearing a much-beloved face.

Unconsciously, I found myself shrinking slightly towards Bill. Though I had begun my magical education as the best friend of his youngest brother, as people began dying like flies and we fought back to back, we'd drawn together from sheer necessity. He was a good man; I trusted him implicitly.

More than that, though… abruptly, he was the only solid thing in a dizzying, alien landscape. And as long as we both lived, he was the one person who would truly understand my mind, and I his. A terrifying thought, and yet, I was so glad nonetheless. Being stranded without even this lifeline to my own time was an unthinkable chasm from which my mind shrank.

And then we reached the Hog's Head and I could've laughed.

The same smell of goats, the same faintly disreputable dirt coating the same shadowy, uneven tables….

Bill's eyes crinkled in the same delight.

Our rooms were on the second floor, adjacent to each other, and with a flimsy shabby door between them. I absentmindedly warded the outer hall door with half a dozen spells as I looked around, stretching my arms above my head tiredly.

The room was nothing special, but I felt my face pull into an involuntary grimace as my eyes fall on the bed. Lumps stood out everywhere, even through the threadbare faded quilt, and as I watched, one of the lumps moved.

"Immobilus!" had left my lips before I could even stop to think. Approaching hesitantly, I found a doxy frozen into an angry, snarling countenance. Surrounding it were not one but two massive nests of glaring bedbugs.

Shielding my eyes in absolute disgust with one hand, I vanished the bed altogether and conjured an armchair to collapse into instead.

•••

Despite the exhaustion that pulled at my eyelids and fogged my brain, I set to work on a basic timeline before I slept. Details would come later, but I wanted to at least write down the most significant murders, set down on paper events such as "Voldemort takes over Ministry of Magic", "Voldemort recruits dementors, giants, and werewolves", and "Voldemort hears Prophecy". This last I penned slowly, the quill scratching loudly in the silence, hesitant and halting.

The prophecy…. We had a few years till it was made. Would we still be fighting at that point?

I thought again of my two best friends and couldn't bear it. I would make peace for them.

Yet the facts, laid plainly on the table, were not pretty. Voldemort had a huge following, he was nearly at the height of his power. I made small notes on the sides for Horcruxes; which ones he might have made, and where they could be. Our Dumbledore had helped us track down a number of them in the future, but here we would be starting from scratch.

I wrote out a list of people who would die, and when. I noted Order strategies that had failed. I wrote an entire paragraph on the sneaking, horrible Peter Pettigrew, Gryffindor spy turned Death Eater, and then another on Severus Snape, the Death Eater who had turned spy for our own side. I frowned heavily at Pettigrew's dates: He had most likely not turned spy yet, or even considered it. I knew that it had been his terror at isolation following graduation from Hogwarts, finding himself suddenly separated from his powerful friends, that had driven his betrayal. How could any of us trust him this time around, though, knowing his disloyalty?

I pushed that thought away and turned to Snape. It would be excellent if we could bring him to our side sooner– I knew few wizards could have ever done such a flawless job of double agent– but his catalyst had been the threat to Lily's life. With luck and hard work, that might not ever come to pass. We would have to discuss Snape with Dumbledore.

Finally, I wrote down the basic outline of my own time at Hogwarts, distant though it was, and what came after; possibly the information would be useful to Dumbledore. I kept this part of the timeline brief, however. It would be a long time before those memories could be examined without pain. Voldemort's return and second reign of terror took up the whole last third of the parchment.

And finally, protective spells and enchantments placed over the page to prevent anyone reading its contents without my express permission just in case, I put my head down and was asleep instantly.

•••

When I awoke, it was dark and still; the early hours of the morning. I could hear Bill muttering through the thin walls and stretched, rubbing my aching neck. My otter Patronus then melted into his adjacent room.

The talk that followed between Bill and me was long and arduous and meticulous, despite our exhaustion. We had trained against weariness.

Simply finding the child Voldemort and killing him was clearly no longer a viable option, so planning and intelligence would be key. We would have to hope that, this time around, our knowledge could keep us enough steps ahead to finish him before it was too late. We disagreed slightly, however, on how to immediately proceed.

"If we could head him off early–"

"We need to find the Horcruxes. There are three, maybe four, of them already–"

"Yes, but that's only half the job– there's still Voldemort himself–"

"Our Dumbledore thought he made the Ring first, that's got to be decent to track down, we already know he hid in in the Gaunt place–"

Bill wasn't distracted by my musing. "–no Harry this time–"

"–or do you think he did the diadem..?"

"–no magical protection from Lily–"

"–come to think of it, we're going to have to do the Diary too, Merlin, that's one we never had last time–"

But Bill stopped, eyes wide, and my own voice died at the look on his face. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that wherever his thoughts had gone, I wasn't going to like hearing them.

His face was very white beneath the scarring Greyback had wrought on his features. "Hermione…" He hesitated. "It's all well and good with the Horcruxes, it really is, we can definitely work at that, but do you think…. Do you think…. Is it our job to make sure things go right this time, with Lily and Harry, Godric's Hollow…?"

I stared. He could not be implying what it seemed.

Harry, my best friend Harry, the boy I would gladly die to have been able to protect, the boy who had suffered years of abuse from his Muggle relatives, years of suffering and loneliness and grief, who'd wanted nothing, nothing more than an ordinary life.

I had to clear my voice twice before it could be heard, but then it rose dangerously. "Let Voldemort kill Lily all over again? Leave Harry orphaned all over again?"

Bill was defensive, crossing his arms tightly to cover his own discomfort. "Do you have a better idea for finishing Voldemort off? Getting rid of Horcruxes is the first step, but do you have any idea how to kill the actual wizard? You're powerful, I know you are, but do you think you could stand against him and duel to the death, beat him and kill him?"

I tried to picture it.

Voldemort falling, my green Avada Kedavra hitting him square in the chest as I got through his guard somehow and surprised him.

Insane laughter bubbled through my lips, almost scaring me.

He continued fiercely. "If the Horcruxes were all gone by the time he went to Godric's Hollow, he'd be finished for good. This is it, Hermione. Our only chance. It's for the greater good."

The laughter stopped abruptly. Dumbledore's motto. Dumbledore's and Grindelwald's. And it was wrong.

"No," I said flatly. "No. We're here to protect our friends, not set them up for miserable lives."

The sun was beginning to set outside and I realized how hungry it was. Neither of us had eaten since– 20 years in the future. The insane laughter threatened again.

I cleared my throat. "We'll think of something. We have years until Harry's born. We'll come up with a plan…. Surely we can kill Voldemort somehow…"

Bill's face was shadowed, unconvinced, but he let the matter slide for now, and I pushed back from the desk he had conjured.

We only had to go downstairs to scrounge up some greasy, stale bread and cheese, but food had rarely tasted so wonderful. I tried to ignore his eyes on me while we ate. I knew the idea of planting Harry as a final weapon hadn't left his mind.

•••

When our stomachs were full, we returned to work, determined to examine every detail as we fleshed out my timeline.

"The Order could definitely use some work. They weren't taking it seriously enough at this point. We need more people, and more serious training. Fidelius Charms need to be standard, remember all the people who got caught at home with their families, that could change. Caradoc Dearborn, Marlene McKinnon… Amelia Bones eventually… there were a whole lot of them. And we know where the major attacks happened and when. If we were prepared, and laid ambushes instead…"

I was gathering momentum.

"And–" I narrowed my eyes. "Snape. He's still at school. This will be his Seventh Year, he won't change sides for years still. We need a spy, someone on the inside. With that–" My eyebrows drew together. "I wonder if Snape could change earlier."

Bill was regarding me thoughtfully. "A spy. He'll have one himself soon, when Pettigrew turns. If we stole that advantage away and used it against him instead…." He paced up and down the room, thinking hard. "The obvious choice is me, but I can't see Voldemort allowing someone with tainted werewolf blood into the inner circle. He'd know, even if I don't transform. To him, my blood's dirtier than a Muggleborn's. And the werewolves weren't Death Eaters, they weren't allowed to be. He wouldn't let someone so low into his ranks. At most, I'd be some low servant. Useless as a spy… I'd never be privy to important enough information." He frowned and broke into low mutters, running through potential candidates.

"Andromeda Tonks? Is she Tonks yet? Snape himself… yes, maybe he could be persuaded early…. I can't imagine turning any of the other Death Eaters into Order members, Snape was a special case, it'll have to be the one of ours pretending…. Unless the Malfoys? They regretted supporting him in the end, they'd have gotten out if they could…. But they don't have Draco yet, that was a big factor in their thinking…. Do you think Sirius could do it?" he said abruptly.

"Sirius? Sirius Black?" Was there ever a less likely candidate? The man wore his heart on his face for the world to see! Merlin, he'd already left home, broken for good with his parents, joined with the Potters!

"He's from a good family, though. If we could make it look like he regretted his actions–"

Bill had given me an idea. My timeline, spread out before us, held the answer. I pointed at the list of deaths.

"Alphard Black died this summer," I said slowly. "Or will die. I can't remember the exact day. If we could make it look like he had a daughter…. He was strange, from what Sirius said, maybe it wouldn't be out of the question for him to have hidden away a child from the rest of the Blacks…. I don't think he had much to do with them really, look, he left all his inheritance to Sirius…"

That would mean me, of course. I would be the spy.

Naturally Bill didn't like it. He waxed immediately on the dangers– Occlumency, brutality, the Dark Mark and the murders Voldemort might order me to commit– but I barely heard. This was the only way. He would train the Order and hunt for Horcruxes. Meanwhile, I would try– carefully, so carefully– to plant doubt from within Voldemort's ranks, perhaps find those select few I could sway to our side, and meanwhile, transform myself into the perfect Death Eater, one whom he would grow to trust, one who could pass information to the Order and help bring about his demise.

Part of me wanted laugh: If I succeeded in my infiltration, I would be the only Muggle-born Death Eater in history.

The rest felt cold, though. A Death Eater… in the field under Lord Voldemort's command…

And yet, we had a plan once more. And already I was itching to begin.

•

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A/N sorry for the delay everyone! And thank you SO MUCH to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, each one made my day! Next chapter sees some more action and characters introduced *wink* :)