Disclaimer: As usual, not mine, simply borrowed, much to my regret.

A/N: This pairing was requested ages ago by Alia. My first thought for this was one that went completely the other way, featuring a Dark Hermione and a destroyed Britain. I may still write that fic and post it – but this one derailed me, simply because I haven't read a Voldemort-Hermione piece with this theme. I hope you all enjoy it!

A World that Might Have Been

"Playing for Hyde Park's Little League this season are Potter, Weasley, Weasley, Bagman, Crouch, Diggory aaaaannnd Snape!" The fluttering sky-blue robes of the players exploding into formation over the field shifted patterns under the gigantic trees providing shade for the onlookers, dappled sunlight and shadow playing over features narrowed in concentration, children aged eight to eleven intent on their game as only the young could be.

The rich, blood-red uniforms of the Wiltshire Little League spurred forward from their side of the pitch to the thundering applause of the opposite stands. Hermione Peverell shook her head and smiled, watching Lucius Malfoy and his brother-in-law Rodolphus Lestrange loudly calling encouragement to their sons in crimson, both slated to enter Hogwarts next month. Next to them, Augustus Rookwood and Walden Macnair had engaged in good-natured heckling with James Potter and Arthur Weasley, the latter two both staunch supporters of their children in blue. The smile deepened as she watched most of the wives cast a cursory glance at the sky, note that the balls had not yet been released, and return to their chat, Narcissa picking her way over to stand with Molly Weasley and the blond's black-haired older sister.

"This summer's final match is being refereed by Hogwarts' own flying instructor, Madam Hooch!"

As Hermione watched the slender, business-like witch with short, spiky hair and yellow eyes that resembled a hawk's more than a human's, march laughing onto the field with a large box tucked under her arm, the aging witch experienced a moment of dizzying memory. How many times had she observed this? How many games against Slytherin and Gryffindor had begun exactly this way? In spite of the years that had passed since then, Madam Hooch's movements transported her back – or was it forward? – to a world that no longer existed.

A world that had cast the pall of bloodshed over her life and that of everyone she loved. A time of war, fear and division. An epoch where every second child possessed thestral-sight, and no one had escaped the pain and panic of the Dark Mark, even those who cast it against the stars that damnation's green so gruesomely parodied.

Shaken by the strength of her recall, Hermione's amber eyes sought and found the lithe shape of her husband, sitting anxiously on a bench below his players, the coach already assessing their airborne performance. The years had not added a pound of weight to his spare frame, nor lessened the incisiveness of his gaze or mind.

Nevertheless, he was not recognizable as the man she had first met, and a shiver of gratitude made its way up her spine.

As the crate was kicked open, the Snitch, revenge-laden Bludgers and Quaffle tossed into play, he lifted his inky gaze to find her, the same as every game, as if she were his good-luck charm. Scarlet did not plague these orbs, and the face was still as handsome in its severe way as it had been when he had been twenty-two, crowned by thick, jet-black hair now just beginning to streak with grey.

There was no hint of the snake-slit nostrils, the livid vermilion orbs, the skin that possessed a waxen sheen – a creature only partially human, soul distorted by being split seven ways. The only place that man dwelled in this version of time was in her nightmares – though those had come less and less frequently over the years as she had gently turned the course of history off track, water first dribbling to make a tiny stream, then a gentle creek, and finally flooding into a river, forcing the universe to diverge.

She was Albus Dumbledore's last, desperate decision, and his final proof of his life-long declarations.

"But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic."

Hermione herself had proven the self-styled lord's challenge false years before he would have issued it. She recalled all-too-clearly her nervousness at meeting him for the first time, at entering Borigin and Burke's, a place in Knockturn Alley where she would undoubtedly never be welcome, no matter whose world she inhabited.

The young man behind the counter was deeply ensconced in reading, his eyes scanning the page so swiftly it looked as if he were devouring it. Eighteen-year-old Hermione Granger paused in the dimly-lit doorway, staring at the adversary of her life, the man who had hovered over her, a constant threat to her very existence, since she had fallen into the Devil's Snare.

A man she had been sent to destroy. A wizard she needed to. With a deep breath, she stepped into the store.

He glanced up, raked his dark eyes over her, and stood, leaving his book creased open to his place. "How can I help you?" he asked politely, gliding forward with the unnatural grace that would survive his body's destruction and renewal.

Hermione tilted her head at him and gave him a quiet smile, spinning the lie they had crafted smoothly from her practiced lips. "I'm a descendant of Rowena Ravenclaw's and I've heard that one of the owners of this shop is in the market for items belonging to the founders of Hogwarts. I was wondering if you have already located some of them, and if not, might I hire your services?"

Courtesy vanished to be replaced by something like hunger in the young man's face, a terrible, twisted longing that repelled and unexpectedly awakened sympathy in the young witch at the same time. The naked expression of need stoking the fire in the black eyes was unsettling, and Hermione remembered what Harry had told her – Hogwarts had been Riddle's only true home. Like a child seeking relics from ashes, he grabbed hold of anything that represented the happiest part of his life.

So it had been with genuine enthusiasm that Tom Riddle had invited Hermione out to dinner. Their quest for Ravenclaw's known remaining heirlooms: her Goblin-cast diadem, her formidable Rowen staff and her personal letter-box containing her private correspondence with Salazar Slytherin had taken them the better part of two years. Those two years had been, without a doubt, the best of Hermione's life thus far. Free of the threat of the very man she had come to view as a partner, spending their days locked in research interrupted by frequent Apparitions to foreign lands to conduct their searches – many of them dead-ends, but none of them wasted, had been like living in a fairytale.

For the first six months, he had maintained his aloof purity, answering little in response to queries about his life, but as their proximity brought about the kind of comfort he had never before experienced with another human being, Riddle had begun to answer her, then to voluntarily impart information, then to display sincere reciprocal interest in her. His intelligence was unquestionable, his power daunting, and by the end of their twenty-two month tour of the globe and libraries, three trophies in hand, Hermione had found the idea of leaving him unpleasant.

"Will you be staying in London?" he asked stiffly. After more than a year of easy camaraderie verging on flirtatious behavior, Hermione felt the gap between them yawning wide at their impending separation, and she scrambled, desirous of continuing their association, her initial purpose in seeking him out utterly eclipsed by what she had learned of him and with him.

"I think so – I'd...I'd like to continue seeing you," she blurted, and colored, aware of her gaff. It was 1951, and women were not nearly so forward in expressing their wants.

"You do?" he asked, and she could hear the tinge of nervous hope in his voice. It gave her the courage to push the rest of her words out of where they seemed ready to dive back down her throat.

"Yes. We make a good team. Maybe we could hunt Hufflepuff's next."

His slow smile was guileless and charming, and Hermione could feel warmth steadily filling her stomach, expanding her like a balloon as he answered, "I'd like that."

So she had stayed, and they had looked. The day they had finally talked Hepzibah Smith into parting with Hufflepuff's Badger Cup, promising her that they were founding a museum of Hogwarts' valuables – after all, a castle that had stood for a millennium had many fascinating artefacts – Tom had taken her out again to the first place they had eaten dinner together and shyly offered her an emerald set in a gold ring.

"I know you didn't go to Hogwarts, but the emerald is for my house and the gold...I think you would have been a Gryffindor. Your honesty, courage and loyalty are traits they value highly, and would have made you a credit to their ranks."

"Do you value them?" Hermione asked. He arched an eyebrow at her as if she were blind.

"I wouldn't be asking you to marry me if I didn't."

Hermione remembered all-too-well her initial spurt of panic tied so intimately with pleasure that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. The future Lord Voldemort was asking her to marry him.

Except...he was no longer the man who would become Lord Voldemort. He had not killed Hepzibah Smith for the Hufflepuff cup, he had not stolen the Peverell ring from his mother's mad family. His one and only Horcrux, the diary made at sixteen, had been unmade after he had seen the look of total disgust on her features. The damage done by his re-integrating soul had hospitalized him for three months, but afterwards, the hardest edge of his ambition had faded, relegated to memory, to another track in time. He was more content merely to find, to focus on the creation of the museum they had promised, to exalt in learning about new magics, in linking disciplines together. His NEWTs were some of the highest on Hogwarts' record across the board, and Hermione found his mind exhilarating, sometimes so intoxicating it rivaled any drug she had ever read about. She had accepted his proposal without hesitation.

The few Death Eaters Riddle had gathered before her arrival in his world had gradually dissipated, and, as most of them settled down, their anger at his total derailment from dreams of glory also washed away, their lives consumed with living, with having their children, with learning to treasure the luxuries of peace above all else.

They had been married in three months in a simple ceremony with no more than a few friends present – her family lived in the future, his had been broken before his birth – but neither minded. They had taken a name not associated with the family that had abandoned him, a name from Slytherin's line, Peverell, as the marked beginning of their new lives together. They were content in one another.

And so they had remained.

"I don't believe it – Harry Snape has snatched the Snitch right out from under Draco Malfoy's nose! Hyde Park wins!" The bellowing of Ludo Bagman's much-practiced voice jolted Hermione once more to the present, just in time to see her husband buried underneath an avalanche of delighted youngsters, grinning at their instructor of many years as he laughed with them, a deep rumbling sound that, forty years later, still sent butterflies careening in Hermione's stomach.

She watched the bean-pole thin shape of Severus Snape vault into the field, followed by his wife, Lily, to grab their son and congratulate him, Lily peppering the slender face with kisses, causing Harry to twist away from her, the epitome of offended almost-teen dignity. Minnie Potter, daughter of Hestia and James Potter and named for Hogwarts' Transfiguration teacher, was ducking away from similar punishment at the hands of her proud parents with Ronald and Ginevra Weasley, the last of a long line of Quidditch players – the only child who had never tried for the Little League was Percy.

On the other side, Lucius and Rodolphus were together demonstrating a technique for Draco, while Bellatrix knelt in front of her youngest daughter and praised her three spectacular goals. Narcissa nodded her goodbyes to Molly, Mulciber fired a friendly parting shot at Ludo and everyone began to move towards the lavish picnic that was always spread at the end of the League season. Children were talking excitedly about their coming year – at least five members between the two teams were headed to Hogwarts, and as Hermione slipped an arm around her husband's waist she could hear the age-old argument about Harry's house placement between Severus and his jewel-eyed wife start up again.

"Are they still on about that? I hope he goes into Ravenclaw. It would serve them both right," she muttered. Tom squeezed her against him, burying his face briefly in the wild curls that she had not, in sixty years of living, learned how to tame.

"Not a chance. Severus is waging a losing battle. Harry'll be a Gryffindor, his heart is written on his sleeve. His younger sister, though...she has promise. She could be a Slytherin."

Ahead of them, eleven-year-old Draco was on an intercept course with his rival in the air. But there was no hint of the bully that Hermione had known as a child as the platinum blond stuck out his hand, the gesture absurdly adult for someone whose face still bore the roundness of babyhood. "Good game, Snape," he said. The black-haired Seeker murmured something gracious, Draco responded, and then they were running, broomsticks forgotten to be slung over their fathers' shoulders, potato salad a far more interesting prospect than any further worry about the match.

"What are you thinking about?" her husband asked as they slowly winded their way towards the enthusiastic picnickers.

"Can't you just read my mind?" she teased. She had met him late enough that he had already been studying the arts of mind-reading, but had stopped shortly thereafter, and she had never known him to attempt them on her.

"Of course," he dropped his voice mockingly, "I know everything...I always know."

"Hah! Except when one of our sons causes trouble and then you never know a thing about it," she retorted, but she was smiling up at him and there was no bite to the words.

"What are you thinking about?" he repeated as they lapsed into silence again.

Hermione studied the picture before her, the mixture of purebloods, half-bloods and Muggle-borns, Lucius Malfoy's inborn contempt subdued instead of sharpened over the years, easily talking to Ted Tonks, silver-headed cane flashing in the sunlight as he expounded upon his dislike for the current Ministry bureaucrats. Hermione had found she agreed with many of Malfoy senior's political stances – the whole world had shifted, but Cornelius Fudge was still stubborn as a mule and blind as a bat. Further on, towards the lemonade, Edith Crouch and Victoria Bagman erupted in screams of surprised laughter as their over-active sons doused them in water from their wand-tips, narrowly missing each other and drenching their mothers instead. Harry, Draco and Minnie were sprawled carelessly on the grass as the Weasley siblings carefully approached them, laden with drinks for the quintuplet.

"I'm watching them play. I was thinking about how content I am right now. My life has been...blessed," she finally answered quietly.

"Has been? And will continue to be – you're just sixty, Mrs. Peverell. After all, I still have to conquer the world." The laugh in his voice told her that such dominion was not on his mind, and he continued, "Or at least find Godric Gryffindor's shield. How that could elude us for more than three decades..."

The arm Hermione had wrapped around her husband tightened. Her life had been blessed. And thanks to the last-minute efforts of a desperate, dying wizard, so had the rest of those around her.

Arm in arm with her husband, Hermione Peverell walked across the viridian green lawn to enjoy the future that she had – with a little skill and a great deal of luck – created.

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A/N: Thanks for reading! Please review and tell me what you think!

DanniV: Thank you – I'm glad you checked out the video, I really enjoyed it myself!

Violettachan: Hmm, yes...I thought about their moment of getting together, and that would have required a lot more backstory than I wanted to write. I hope it didn't detract too much from the fic for you! And I'm glad that you enjoyed the Bill-Hermione one-shot!

Jacobsbooo: Greyback-Hermione!? That is probably the most difficult pairing I've ever even heard of – what a challenge! I will definitely be looking into how to make that one happen. Thanks for the suggestion!

Maddie50: Heehee, I liked putting them at Krum's. Fanfiction plays a lot with whether he's good, bad, or indifferent and canon never gave us any answers. I'm glad you enjoyed this one too!

Shogi: Your review made me blush! Yeah, when I got the request for a Lucius-Hermione pairing, I was like, "What?! Gross!" But I actually ended up enjoying it. Thank you so much for the effusive praise...this little ficlet is entirely out-of-character for our dear Dark Lord, but I hope you don't mind too much! Sirius-Lily? Another one I haven't really considered...but it could definitely be interesting...hmmm. Wheels turning. Thanks, as always, for another thought-provoking idea!

Hessel: I've not explored much in the genre, having only just started being interested, thanks for the rec. And thank you for reading!