Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

"Ginny, how long has she been like this?"

"I dunno. Maybe 10 minutes?"

"Oh, Merlin."

Hermione could hear the voices swim somewhere above her. She didn't dare try to move, a throbbing pain encompassing her entire body, even so, through the ache she could feel the acute pain that shot through her arm from her fingers. It was like each and every one had been bent back and snapped.

"Fre..orge?" she changed mind half way on the identity of the twin standing above her.

"'Mione?" another voice called, making the identity of the Weasley redundant as both twins now appeared kneeling at her side.

"We are so, so sorry baby," one of them soothed as he reached out a hand to brush against her cheek.

"George." The other interrupted. "Ten minutes! She was gone for months."

"What are you talking about?" the voice of Ginny Weasley joined the conversation, although Hermione couldn't tell where she was standing from her position on the floor. "What do you mean 'gone', I was here the entire time, apart from when I went to get you and she never moved. What's going on?"

"Ginny, shut up. You're being as obnoxious as Ron." George scolded his sister as he turned back to a confused and pained Hermione.

She heard Ginny leave the room in huff, but she paid no attention to it.

"I didn't - I didn't leave?"

Hermione moved her head enough to look down at herself. Her white sundress was gone and she was dressed in the pink underwear she had been wearing for the wedding... the wedding!

Hermione's breath hitched in her chest as she managed to ask the question she so feared.

"What day is it?" She looked to Fred, pleading through her eyes for things he knew not of.

"It's September 1st 'Mione. It's Remus and Tonks' wedding. It's about ten am and ..." he stopped as the tears started rolling down her pale cheeks.

George moved over to help her sit up against the wall behind her. She clung on to his neck as he moved her. "Did any of it actually happen?" she whispered in his ear as he let her go. Her voice was broken by her quiet sobs but Fred must have heard her question too for it was he who answered.

"Yes, it did. Although it would have appeared to Gin that you hadn't left. You were still here, but you were kind of ... 'fuzzy' around the edges, I guess is the best way to describe it. It was an experimental product," he sighed in obvious guilt. "There were only two of them, we were trying to make a time-travel device that would go back in lots of days rather than hours, like the time-turners would take you."

"It didn't work though," George continued.

Obviously. The word hovered in the air between them.

"George tried it out."

"I ended up living in the basement of this house for a month! And if you think Kreacher is a menace now, try sharing a bed with him... little rodent."

"But George only went back a year. And he was only in contact with the device for at most a minuet. I was there to pull him back."

"But it happened though?" Hermione seemed to have trouble absorbing all the information. It was their wedding still ...Had nothing changed?

"Fred." Her head snapped to meet his, finding it closer than she had expected.

"Where's Sirius?" Her eyes locked to his, begging ... pleading.

"Oh 'Mione," he groaned, "how far did you go back?" His hand reached to wipe away the tear that was trailing a lone path down her cheek but she pushed his hand away.

"No." she stated with such a firm resolve that his heart felt torn in two by her pain.

"Tell me. Where. He. Is." She wouldn't believe it until he told her.

"'Mione ... you know where he is." George answered when Fred couldn't seem to speak to her broken eyes.

And she couldn't breathe. She barely registered being wrapped up in someone's arms as her body slumped over theirs. She could see her tears falling over her cheeks and onto the back of the person holding her. Her hands hung limply by her sides and somehow through her tears she could see the purple swollen fingers of her right hand that had obviously been wrapped around the device that had sent her back and had to have been prized from it for her return.

"Send... Send me back," she managed between the giant sobs that wracked her body.

The hands that held her tightened.

"I'm sorry, but we can't."

"Just give me the orb!" She shouted back trying to push them away from her.

Fred let her go, Geroge backing away also as she tried to pull herself up.

"It won't work 'Mione."

She shook her head, trying to ignore their words as she stumbled to straighten herself to standing.

"Baby, listen to us."

"Shut up!" she yelled angrily, but knowing at the same time that she wasn't really angry at them.

No. She was angry at herself.

For Sirius. Severus. James ... Lily.

Remus.

Her legs gave out as her as her body shook again, the sobs overwhelming any mental or physical strength she had left.

"I'm sorry." She apologized to the Weasley that had caught her.

An orb was pushed under her vision.

"Were not lying 'Mione. It won't work."

She knew that they were right. The orb no longer glowed green but was brown and almost shriveled making her think of an apple that had gone bad.

She pushed away the orb and the hand that held it. "I know your not. I'm sorry ... I just ..."

"We know," George soothed as he patted her hair.

And she knew, even in her broken state, that they didn't really know. But she accepted their comfort nonetheless, letting them hold her while she cried.

oOo

"Are you sure you don't want to tell us about it?" George asked again as he wrapped the bandage around her leg.

She shook her head as her hands gripped the bench top.

George finished wrapping her leg, giving the bandage a wary look, wondering, as she knew, why he hadn't been able to heel the cuts with his wand.

"I've got the dress," Fred announced as he entered the room, the pink gown in his hand.

George helped her stand and she allowed them to dress her, moving her arms and legs as they asked.

"There!" Fred announced as the sound of the zipper gave the finality to their assault.

Fred turned a confused eye to the small ribbon-made bow held in George's hand.

"Meh, didn't need that anyway," he shrugged throwing the offending item over his shoulder.

"Well I hope not!" Hermione giggled as they turned two mischievous grins to face her.

Her smile was short lived but Fred seemed encouraged by it.

"Come on, Shortie, Mum will have the Aurors on us if you aren't down in the kitchen in - oh" he examined his wrist-watch, "two minutes ago."

Hermione turned to her bedside table and picked up her wand - feeling the wand warm her palm in recognition of a long lost friend.

"Hello to you too," she spoke quietly as she slipped the wand into her dress pocket thanking at the same time the wizarding world for giving dresses such things.

She stopped at the doorway as the flicker of her reflection passing a mirror caught her attention.

'What am I doing?' she asked herself.

Could she really bare to walk down an aisle towards the man she loved, the father of her child (her hands wrapped around her stomach, it's flatness reflected in the mirror), only to turn away as she reached the alter allowing another to take his hand?

He obviously could.

And so she took a deep breath, feeling for the first time the inadequacy of such an action, before she gingerly made her way down the stairs following Fred and George into the kitchen.