Harry Potter and the related characters are the sole property of J. K. Rowling. No malicious intent or ill will is meant by using those characters and events in this fictional work.

"Mione?" Harry asked, one arm draped around her body, holding her close to him. His fingers danced along the skin of her shoulder and trailed perilously close to her chest, teasing and raising goose-bumps on her alabaster skin.

"Hmm?" she replied, a half-response, half-moan.

He turned his head, his shaggy black hair falling into his eyes, covering the scar that held a lifetime of painful memories, yet no longer physically hurt. "Coming back here, now, does it make you regret anything? About us? If we can't get back home, you've got to live the last five years over again, and..."

"And I will marry you, all over again, if I have to," she whispered, turning her chin up a bit and looking into his green eyes. "Unbreakable vows...can't be unbound, even by going back in time." She kissed a patch of skin just above his collar bone, peppering short pecks along his neck, up to his chin, finally landing on his lips. "I love you, you daft man. How could you possibly think..."

"Things are different," he interrupted, shrugging. "I thought, maybe, with certain things having changed..."

"I love you," she told him again, cutting him off. "I know parts of you are still not used to having someone love you as deeply, as honestly and purely as I do, but Harry, I have been through hell and back with you. I would do it all again if I had to."

He kissed her fiercely, his lips capturing hers and a growling moan, filled with desperate desire, left his mouth. He pulled her body over his, for the second time that night, finding her entrance easily and thrusting upward hard. He caught her surprised scream in his mouth and chuckled as he began to move. "You were there," he moaned between kisses, "Whenever I needed you. Whenever I needed someone, it was always you."

"And it always will be," she said, rocking her hips against his. As she moved, kissing him, she thought back and realized, he was right. It had always been her.

Their first year at Hogwarts, she stayed by Harry's side on his journey to save the stone, even when Ron had been injured. She had been the one to think of the answers Harry needed to get inside the Chamber of Secrets, even though she'd been petrified when he realized it all. She had been the one to travel through time with him, the first time, to save Sirius, someone she'd never even met, for the sole reason that he was Harry's Godfather. She'd been more afraid of his participation in the Triwizard tournament than anything. She'd used Victor Krum's crush on her to distract him, giving Harry an advantage.

Her heart was always, always, with Harry, even when she physically wasn't. She'd been terrified that something awful would happen to him, that even The Order wouldn't be able to stop, so she took it upon herself to send up protective spells and enchantments for him, some without his knowledge or consent. After Dumbledore's death, years of obliviated memories flooded back to her, kisses and nights spent hidden away with him in the owlry, walks around the lake, midnight rides on his broomstick in his attempt to make her love to fly. It all hit so fast, so hard.

And the year leading up to The War, she was the one to stay with him, fight with him, hunt down Voldemort's horcruxes with him. She wiped her own parents' memories to protect them, but also so she could stay with Harry without them worrying about her. Those weeks alone together, after Ron had run off, were some of the best moments of her life. She realized she loved him, truly loved him, then, and after the final battle had been won, and he came back to her, alive, she knew she'd never let him out of her sight again, she'd never risk losing him again, and she'd never love anyone the way she loved him. She snapped back to the present moment with one realization: it wasn't always her, no. It was always him.

"Mione," he moaned, slowing his motions but making his thrusts more forceful and deep, bringing them closer and closer to the absolute edge. "Darling," he murmured, craning his neck and kissing her again, a strength in his lips and tongue that seemed to pull out the little dregs of resistance they had left.

It was quiet, but powerful, and several objects flew off of the shelves, knocking over some furniture and shattering a window. It wasn't the first time they'd expelled accidental magic in the throes of blissful passion, but it was the first time it had happened quite so unexpectedly, in the newly built wing of Hogwarts. He kissed her as he calmed her, his hands smoothing over her back as his own body tingled and twitched with the remains of his release, and he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, lavender colored smoke dissipating beside the bed. "Did it again, have we?" he chuckled.

She nodded into his chest, giving one final rock of her hips and a soft moan of his name. "I told you. I'd make our vows again, and again, and then again. I love you."

"I love you," he whispered to her, kissing her forehead. A shrill shriek hit their ears, then, and at first, Harry opened his mouth to scold Hedwig, but she wasn't in her cage. He looked around, confused. "What in blazes..."

"The Sneakoscope," Hermione said, pulling herself away from Harry and running toward a collection of fallen and strewn objects. She waved a hand and mumbled something, urging the mess to clean itself up. Another flick of her wrist and her night-robe flew into her hand. She wrapped it around herself and then knelt down to pick up the whirring, whistling, spinner. "Someone's coming," she said, raising an eyebrow. "Someone who can't be trusted."

"Ron," Harry said, sitting up. He grabbed his own robe from the bedpost and pulled it on, springing to his feet. He threw himself in front of Hermione and raised a hand, firing a loud, "Protego" into the air just as their door burst down.

Ron stood behind the cloud of dust, his wand raised, his eyes wide and filled with rage. "I remember everything," he said through gritted teeth. "So clearly." He took a step forward. "You're meant to be my friends? And you...do...this?" he shot a hand toward them, indicating their state of nearly-undressed and obvious post-coitality. "And you..." he aimed his wand at Harry, "You had the power to change things, fix things, and you wouldn't. My mum cries herself to sleep nearly every night, George is completely off his rocker...did you know he hasn't been able to produce a patronus since Fred died? He hasn't laughed, not the way he used to. As for Fred, he comes and goes, but ghosts need to have unfinished business, something left undone, a regret of some sort...do you know...do you know that my brother is proud of the way he died? He's completely at ease with getting himself killed...because of you!"

Hermione saw the spark before Harry and threw up another, stronger, shield. "Ron, stop! Please!"

"One way to make this all go away," Ron barked, taking another step closer. He tilted his head though, when he noticed neither of them had their wand. "Hold on, how did you..." Before he could finish speaking, a white blur flew through the air and a pile of fluffy feathers landed on his head. "What the...ow! Ouch! Bloody owl," he spat, waving his hands frantically, trying to ward off Hedwig's pecking and nipping. In the flailing and chaos, he lost the grip on his wand and it hit the wall of the room.

Hermione held out a hand and shouted, "Accio," grasping tightly when the crooked handle flew into her palm. She held it out, trying to make a moral decision of some sort. There were a number of jinxes and hexes she could infuse into the very core of the thing, or she could dig deeper into the restricted section of her mental library, delve into slightly darker arts, and use Ron's own wand to strip him of all magical ability entirely. She was just about to make the choice, when someone else rushed into the room.

"Petrificus totalis," the voice shouted, and a whip of green light wound itself around Ron's waist, forcing his entire body to straighten and go completely rigid. He fell backward, like a plank of wood, his eyes frozen in a wide-open stare.

Hermione, clinging to Harry, looked toward the door, her pained eyes meeting the fury and fierce protectiveness found on Ginny Weasley's face. "What are you...how did you..."

"Malfoy sent a patronus," Ginny said, sliding her wand back into the pocket in her cloak's sleeve. "It clicked and scurried around the common room until someone paid attention. I followed it up here, and..." she shook her head and looked downward at her stiff brother. "I am so sorry about all of this."

Harry wrapped his arms around Hermione."We should be thanking you," he said. "Wait, patronus...where is he, that he needed to send for..."

"No idea," Ginny said, "The only thing I gathered from it was that you were in some sort of trouble." She brushed her long red hair behind her ears. "Who the hell has a scorpion as a patronus anyway? Everyone was too busy running from it or trying to stun it to realize it was trying to tell us something."

Hermione laughed. "Always wondered what his would've been if we'd had him in the DA," she said with a small smile. "You...you're not upset with Harry, are you? The way Ron is?"

"Are you mad?" Ginny said, narrowing her eyes. "We all understood. We were all prepared to die during that battle, and everyone...well, all except for Ron...we accepted that some of us would give our lives. Ron blamed you, Harry, but we weren't just fighting for you. None of this was your fault, at all, we know that." She tilted her head. "Mum wants to know if you'll spend Christmas with us, by the way. She's already started off knitting you a new jumper." She looked at Hermione. "Of course, that goes for you as well, as long as you're not still bitter about my part in..."

"Please," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "Dumbledore had a way of getting a lot of us to do a lot of things we never really wanted to, and I know where his heart always truly was." She looked up at Harry with a smile. Her head fell against his arm as she looked back at Ginny. "Tell your mother we'd be honored." Her eyes darted downward. "But, what about him?"

Ginny's mouth opened and closed, like a suffocating fish. "Well, I...I don't, um..."

"Surdis mutis tacitum," Draco's voice called into the room, and instantly Ginny stopped moving, stopped speaking, and seemed as though she could no longer see or hear anything at all. He stepped into the room. "Sorry I'm late," he said, "Glad to see she's not as completely cracked as her brother."

"Where were you?" Harry asked, holding out a hand to his friend, "And why did you just..." he pointed inquisitively toward Ginny.

Draco looked at her as he rolled a bit of tension out of his shoulders. "She shouldn't hear what I'm about to tell you." He turned back toward Harry and Hermione. "I was with Sirius. He used that bloody time-turner again, it's probably why Weasley went flying off the handle. There are things...things he changed that...look, he tried to stop all of this but he only made it worse. That time-turner is cursed, all right, in a number of ways. It used to belong to Marvolo Gaunt."

"You must be joking," Hermione said, her eyes blank and her face twisted in disbelief.

"I wish I was," Draco said. He held out the golden necklace, the widest ring of the turner gripped between two fingers. "We can use it, and that wheel of yours, and go back home, tonight, but there's no telling what we'll find there, unless..." he looked at Ron's limp, still body on the carpet. "Unless we wipe his memory entirely before we go."

Harry blinked. "That seems so unfair." He scratched at his scar, suddenly itching. "There's no alternative? Won't his life be a mess? I couldn't live with myself if..."

"We'd have to make it a very specific mind-modification," Draco interrupted, "Figure out how to leave him mostly in tact, only removing the bits and pieces involving you both...and me, for reasons Sirius wouldn't explain." He looked at Hermione. "You think you can do that?"

Hermione heaved an exasperated sigh. "Hold on, this is a lot to take in, here, I mean...a week ago I was fighting with you over holding onto my own memories of Ron and everything, so to be asked, now, to..."

"I'm telling you we don't have a choice," Malfoy said. "As for your memories concerning Ron, thanks to your Godfather, who thinks he's bloody HG Wells, half of them never actually happened." He pushed up his sleeve and the Dark Mark he'd long ago had seared into his skin was gone, but a thick, raised scar resembling his own slanted penmanship had taken its place.

Harry looked at it, and then shit his eyes toward the back of his right hand. "I must not tell lies," he whispered, running a finger over his nearly identical scar. "You mean to tell me..."

"I came back from the dark side long before the war," Draco said with a nod. He shot his eyes toward Ron again. "Seems Weasley and I have traded places."

Peace and Love

Jo