I'm baaaaaack.

September was weird, but I should be returning to weekly posts on Wednesdays.

We have a pair of Alphabets in the now! Thank you sooooooo much to RabidCommentarian and poppyflower1235! for reading through and helping me out with the hot mess that is (was?) Part 2.

We're getting some slowwww burn building now, folks!

Tuesday, January 3, 1998

Theo

When Theo opened his eyes, he was in his bed in the Slytherin dormitory. He sat up quickly and quietly made his way to the study room on the edge of the common room. He heard Goyle snoring away and saw the light shining out from Draco's curtains. He padded past and went to a thankfully empty common room, slipping into the study room.

He sat down heavily and conjured his Time Box pulling out the Arithmancy sheets he'd been working on before they had to Jump. He quietly set them aside and pulled out Mia's things including the Muggle money he knew she needed. Then he sat and waited. He was just starting to doze off when he heard a soft popping.

Bennett appeared next to him. "Mister Theo," said the well-dressed Elf with a bow. "I be bringing news from my Mistress. She be here and started the plans for the Granger Manor. Darcy be starting to find the land now,?"

Theo nodded quickly. "Here is Mia's money and a note, I want to meet her soon, hopefully we can meet once the house is done. I still have to convince Draco, I just woke up."

With that, Bennett popped out of the room and Theo sank deeper into his chair. He had work to do. After a few hours of going over their equations again, he stumbled back to the dormitory he heard Draco tossing in his bed, it was probably the nightmares again.

He shuffled over to Draco's bed and peeked his head through the curtains. "Drake," he said, shaking his friend. "Draco, wake up it's just a nightmare."

His friend shot up in bed. "Theo I told you you have to go! What are you still doing here?" Draco grabbed his left arm and saw that it was unmarked and he sighed. "How did you convince them?"

Theo gaped at him. "Draco, I haven't been marked, it's my 7th year, man. We-" This was unprecedented. He didn't think that Draco would come back too. He took in Draco's confused face and then watched as his friend reached up to his cheek, feeling for the cut that he would be given after the final battle.

"It's- have I gone mad?" he whispered.

Draco

Something was wrong. The last thing he remembered was being tortured into near insanity by his father and hoping that he could last long enough for Theo to escape. Now he was in his bed in Slytherin dorm and Theo was here, looking like he hadn't seen all the horrors of war. He pulled his friend into the curtains and cast a Muffliato. "Theo. Tell me that it was all a dream," Draco watched as a series of emotions crossed his friend's normally controlled face.

"I have some things to tell you," Theo whispered and took a deep breath. "We time travelled to the past. "

Draco sort of felt like the world was spinning, he could see the edges of his vision darkening and gasped out a breath. "Wh-What?"

His eyes darted down and saw that Theo was clutching a wooden box that had the Nott Family Crest on it and when he looked back up, Theo was weeping.

"He-he killed you, Drake. I- I'm so glad you're alive. Lucius killed you and I left!" Draco couldn't quite compute what was going on. It felt more like he was out of his body listening to Theo talk than actually sitting across from him.

After a second, he realised that Theo had stopped talking and had sunk into the foot of his bed, weeping. He looked at Theo for a second. "You were supposed to leave!" Draco said forcefully. "You made it out! He didn't mark you! Also what the hell do you mean about Time Travel? What happened after? Did you make it to Longbottom?'' By the end his voice had a high, sort of manic note to it.

Theo swallowed heavily and wiped his tears. Draco sat in shock as Theo went on to tell Draco all the things that he'd been working on in the following months. He talked about Granger and Weasley and the Grimoire and the Time Travel and the Arithmancy. Before they knew it they heard the others stirring.

"We have to stop him, Draco. Us and Hermione Granger." Draco scoffed as if she could help them. Theo rolled his eyes. "You're going to have to get over that shit, Drake. Nexus Vincula."

Draco and Theo watched as the cords spread out around them. Draco saw a new cord that he hadn't seen since the last time he'd done this ritual with his parents. It was Golden. He ran his fingers through the cord, amazed.

"You have a Soulmate?" Theo whispered looking at Draco with surprise.

"It's new…" he said awed, "well new since First Year," continuing to run his fingers through the cord reverently. It hummed with magic. He watched it fade off into the distance.

"We'll have to figure that one out too, I guess," Theo said heavily. "Save the World, find Draco Malfoy's soulmate, easy!" he socked him on the shoulder. "What I was trying to show you was this," he said pointing to his brand new silver cord. "Draco Malfoy, meet Hermione Granger."

Draco fell back laughing. "Just my luck. I'm forced back in time, from my beautiful, peaceful, merciful death by you, the most irritating person in the world and your new bushy headed companion the know-it-all swot, Hermione Fucking Granger. And now you're telling me we have to save the world." he couldn't hold back his laughter, finding tears running down his face at the irony. He sobered abruptly, "Theo, I'm not the good guy or has your time with the Gryffindors deluded you?"

"But, you could be."

Hermione

When she opened her eyes, she was staring at the burn mark in the tent that was above her bed. Is this a dream? She pinched herself. Definitely not a dream then. She rolled over and saw Harry muttering under his breath, the horcrux glinting around his neck. She cast a quick Tempus. January 3, 1998, 3:00 AM. They had done it!

"Harry!" she said, shooting up from the bed. "I've had an idea." she knew that Ron wouldn't be coming back for a bit, and that she had some planning to do to help stage them correctly. She trusted that Theo would grab the diadem and could convince Draco to get the cup from Bellatrix's vault. She had to work with Harry to figure out what the new horcrux was.

He looked up at her, dark circles under his eyes. He looked rough as he gripped her wand in his hand. "An idea?" he said tiredly.

"Yes, I think that we should make a board. A board of all the things that could be a horcrux. Sometimes seeing them laid out helps."

She conjured a chalk board and started off with what she was sure they knew. She crossed off the book and the ring, and added the locket.

Horcruxes

Something from Ravenclaw

- Diadem

- Book

- Something at Hogwarts

Something from Hufflepuff

- Cup

- Painting?

- Something at Hogwarts?

Others?

- Something of Gryffindor's

- Something at Hogwarts?

- Something related to the Death Eaters?

How to destroy them:

- Sword of Gryffindor

- Basilisk Venom

- Fiendfyre

- ?

He stood behind her and added suggestions as they went. He sounded more energised than he had before they started. She made sure to write down the Diadem and the Cup as options, so that they wouldn't be quite as far behind as last time, and they began hypothesising about what other Horcruxes could be.

After their board was as filled as they could come up with, she sat heavily at the table as Harry cooked a bowl of rice and a can of beans. She'd forgotten just how weak her body had gotten during this time. She'd have to have Darcy and Bennett figure out how to sneak them some food. So that she and Harry could bulk up.

She looked over at her tired friend as they quietly ate their dinner. "What do you think you'll do after all this, Harry?" she asked quietly.

"I'm not rightly sure, but I think I'll marry Ginny, maybe have a couple of kids? I've always thought I wanted to be an Auror, but I'm not sure. I think I might be tired of fighting the bad guys by then."

"That sounds about right, you're an excellent teacher. Maybe the curse on the post will be gone and you can be the Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher? You must miss her a lot," she said, attempting to sound like she hadn't heard the younger witch's true thoughts. "Can I look at the map tonight? I wanted to see if I could figure out some of the magic during my watch."

He barely nodded and got up to grab it for her. When he came back, she reached out her hand for the locket and could see the weight lift off his shoulders as it left his hand. "Goodnight, Harry," she said softly as he lumbered off to bed.

She moved to the front of the tent and pulled out the Map. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good!" she said to it and watched as Hogwarts lined up before her. She saw Neville in Gryffindor Tower, and remembered that Luna was already at Malfoy Manor. She found the Slytherin dorms and saw Theo and Malfoy in the common room with Parkinson and Zabini. She tried to picture what they might be doing, but couldn't for the life of her.

She watched as they all moved to their dorms and could only assume they went to bed. After a while, she watched as Theo got up and made his way to a room off of the Common Room, probably one of the study rooms he'd mentioned.

Hermione watched his little name sitting and began to work through her own to-do list. She needed a place to stay. In their research it became obvious that tying her land to her Family Magic would create a similar bond as she'd created with the elves. She needed to find a place that had been relatively untouched as far back as their longest potential jump, just in case they needed to go back again.

There was still quite a bit of land in some of the forests that had been protected for various reasons. She should be able to find a spot in one of them. She knew that creating the blood wards and filing the correct, backdated paperwork with the Ministry should allow any Ministry bureaucracy to be negated.

She'd spent a bit of time looking into how to build the house, but was hoping that Darcy and Bennett had gotten further than her. She'd taken copious notes in one of her journals, but that was in Theo's family box, and she had a good memory, but it wasn't good enough to remember everything.

She cast a Muffliato and called "Darcy, Bennett!" who popped in quickly.

"Hello!" Darcy squeaked, throwing her arms around Hermione. "We is being glad you made it!"

"Of course, Darcy! I'm glad you still recognize me, I was a bit worried that our plan wouldn't work!"

"Of course Mistress' plan would work!" Bennett huffed with a shake of his head. "Mistress and Mister Theo did so much planning with Mister George. We be looking through all the equations. We is ready!"

She, as always, blinked back tears, "I'm so glad to have you two!" she cleared her throat and got into 'business mode,' "Bennett I need you to find Theo and tell him that I made it and that we have the locket. He should be in the study room off of the Slytherin Common Room. Then you can join Darcy in her task. Darcy, I need you to find the land for the house. Theo has my notes on the practicalities of the building process. "

"Yes, Mistress!" she squealed.

"Alright once we've found the land we'll look over my notes and decide what we want the house to look like. It needs to look like it's been abandoned, but if we have to go back in time it needs to look grand enough to entertain company."

"Yes," rasped Bennett, "Darcy and I were studying and learning from the Nott elves before we left."

"How long do you think you'll need to get the land, Darcy?" she asked.

"I don't be knowing exactly," Darcy said quietly.

"That's quite alright, Darce, we just need to find something soon. I just don't want to be out here in the tent for too long," Hermione said, smiling softly at her elf. After a moment she continued, "Bennett, off to Theo, Darcy off to start the house hunting process."

She gave them quick hugs and they popped away. Hermione cancelled her Muffliato and looked at the Map again. House Elves didn't show up, of course, but she could tell when Bennett popped in because she saw Theo's little name move quickly across the room.

She fingered the chain of the horcrux between her fingers and sighed, hoping that Darcy and Bennett wouldn't take too long to find a place to live.

Yay! Welcome to the story, Draco Malfoy! Glad to have him back in the picture, I know we've all been so very curious about what he's been up to.

Let me know what you think!?