2006

St. Mungos

Hermione woke up slowly, it was difficult to move her body, there were weights on her eyelids trying to keep them shut. She could feel the presence of two people close to her who hadn't yet spoken standing too close to her. She struggled to make her muscles obey, her fingers spreading wide trying to move her hand to locate her wand. Was it still locked up? She hadn't felt this bad in a long time when waking up.

Her lashes barely parted and the light stabbed into her eyes making them water, her hand came up slowly and sluggishly to try to block the worst of the light so she could look around.

"Lower the lights." One of the two wizards in light green robes standing by her bed murmured in a soft voice. Immediately the room darkened, and Hermione lowered her hand to look at them and the room around her. She was in a hospital room, St Mungo's judging from the light green uniform robes of the wizards by her bed.

Her head hurt terribly and it was difficult to stay awake and not sink back into unconsciousness. One of the healers laid a gentle hand on her arm anchoring her to what was happening.

"My name is Healer Brown, and this is Healer Murphy. How do you feel?"

Hermione opened her mouth to reply and realized her throat was so dry she couldn't speak. She cleared her throat, trying to make her voice work.

"A glass of water." The Healer Brown motioned to his counterpart and the glass was transferred to his hand and he gently lifted her head so she could sip from the glass.

Although Hermione wanted to snatch it up and drink it all greedily, she found she could barely manage a few swallows. She sighed when the healer gently laid her head back, looking down at her attentively.

"Thank you." Her voice was scratchy and it hurt a bit to talk as if she wasn't used to it. Healer Brown observed her alertly paying attention to each movement she made.

"How do you feel?" He asked again.

"I think… I think I'm okay? It's just hard…" Her voice slowed, exhausted with just a small amount of time she had been awake pulling at her. "I'm tired."

He patted her arm reassuringly. "We'll let you rest in just a minute. Can you answer some questions for me?"

Her hands shifted restlessly on the bed again feeling the soft cotton sheets, where was her wand? Why was she here? What had happened? She nodded at the healer.

"What year is it?"

"2001."

"Who is the prime minister?"

"Shacklebolt."

"What is your name?"

"Hermione Jane Granger." She paused, thinking of the questions, why were they asking her this? Where was Ron?

"Why-" Hermione was cut off when there was a loud boom in the hallway outside her room and shouts broke out. Hermione flinched her hand moving with more urgency despite her exhaustion. Her anxiety spiked, without her wand she was helpless and no one was here that she knew, that she trusted.

The door flew open amidst shouts, banging into the wall and she sucked in a sharp breath, her heartbeat speeding up. But she calmed down when a familiar messy black-haired wizard stormed into the room. Harry's face was furious as he ignored the flapping of the green-robed healers following him. As soon as she saw Harry Potter's furious face her heartbeat slowed. Hermione relaxed with his presence, everything would be alright now. Harry was here.

The healers were trying to stop him from entering but Harry shook them off, Hermione watched half in a daze wondering why he looked so different. Bigger, scarier, more dangerous than he had-when had he last seen him? Her head throbbed as she tried to remember. Harry's hair was standing on end like he didn't know brushes existed. His face was strangely hard, he had grown a thick beard that covered the lower half of his face, there were dark circles under his eyes, and anger pulsed through his magic like waves.

What had happened to the legal briefs she had been working on for the Ministry? Had someone else completed them while she had been in hospital? Where the bloody hell was Ron? Why wasn't he here now? Harry was always working, busy either with training or cases. She hadn't seen him in a few weeks, possibly months-time had behaved strangely for her since the end of the war. Still despite the strangeness of Ron not being there and Harry's appearance -Harry was still her best friend.

Harry rushed to her bedside pulling her gently into his embrace his head burying in the curve of her shoulder his beard tickled slightly, and she lifted her arms slowly to hug him close to her. She smelled his Harry smell, sunshine, polished wood, and butterscotch. The strength of his arms was familiar, the tight embrace that had always meant comfort, safety, and love. Relief washed through her in a warm wave. Hermione felt herself relax, the fight against the exhaustion didn't seem as important now with Harry here to watch over her. Her eyes slid slowly closed as she rested against him, her fingers latching onto his shirt collar to anchor them from falling.

Hermione heard the timid steps of the healers that had run in after Harry approaching from behind them. "Auror Potter, the evaluation is not yet finished and we need you to leave the room." One of the healers said cautiously.

Harry glanced over his shoulder at them, his green eyes flashing dangerously. "I am not leaving my wife."

Wife.

His wife.

What?

Hermione tried to make sense of those words and pain stabbed into her head. Her hands released his collar, sliding down his chest and she forced her eyes open again. She pushed gently against Harry trying to get him to give her space. He reacted instantly to her gentle push, laying her back down and moving back a pace. His green eyes were concerned and intent on her face.

"Hermione?" He asked.

She shook her head at him, trying to understand why he would have said such a baffling thing. Her normally quick mind was scrambled by her exhaustion and she couldn't make sense of his statement. Her eyes flicked around the room again looking for Ron before meeting Harry's gaze. Whatever Harry saw in her eyes made his darken with hurt. He allowed the healers to drag him out of the room, not taking his eyes off hers, until the door closed quietly after him.

Healer Brown sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He reached out and took her hand gently giving it a squeeze of comfort.

"I'm sorry that happened, he's been very worried for you."

"Why would he say that?"

"Say what?"

"That—" She paused wondering if she had imagined it, her head throbbed. "That I'm his—" She trailed off.

"His wife?" The healer said understanding.

Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "Yes, why would he say that?"

The healer grasped her hand comfortingly, patting it. "When you woke up I asked you several questions. You only answered one of the three questions correctly. Shacklebolt is indeed the current minister of magic. However, it is 2006 and your name is Hermione Jane Granger-Potter."

Hermione heard the words but her mind wouldn't let her understand them. She wanted to ask questions. She wanted to see the damn marriage certificate. Was this some stupid prank Ron was playing because she had gotten sick? She wanted Harry back and to get that look off his face, maybe smack his shoulder for going along with this strange joke. She wanted to have a meltdown and take them all to task in her best McGonagall voice.

Instead, her eyes closed against her will and she passed out.

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Harry Potter

Harry sat in a tiny consultation room of St Mungos, in front of a tiny desk that was crowded with magical texts on healing. His hands gripped the arms of the chair he sat on like it was a roller coaster ticking slowly toward a deep plunge. He worked on keeping his face blank as the Healer droned on.

"We are very lucky Auror Potter that she even woke up, we have studied the corrupted snitch and the dark enchantment was quite powerful. When it hit your wife, it should have completely ceased her brain function. We're lucky the snitch was damaged and that your wife has quite a powerful shield charm, it only partially damaged her long-term memory."

Lucky.

Harry pulled on his occlumency training, walling off the need to completely lose his mind and scream at the healer that no he didn't feel lucky. He wanted his wife back. His throat worked as he tried to force the words out.

"So she's never going to get those memories back?" His voice was even but the healer must have heard something in it.

The Healer gave him a professionally compassionate look. "It would be best to move forward as if those memories are gone. The damage to her mind created a fragility to the structure, think of her mind like a castle—there are rooms for her hobbies, for her likes, dislikes, and memories. When the enchantment broke through her protection shield it blasted the foundation of her castle. Parts of her castle are gone now- and the remaining structure is precariously balanced."

The healer couldn't have chosen a worse metaphor. The images of the burning battlements of Hogwarts crumbling during the final battle flashed in Harry's mind from the second wizarding war. Hermione. How the hell was he supposed to handle this? Hadn't he survived enough to earn his happily ever after?

Harry swallowed hard, ruthlessly controlling his emotions. "That means she's still at risk of further injury?"

"It means she's in the process of recovery and the rebuilding process takes time. During that recovery period, she has to be kept calm and introduce things slowly to her. No stress, nothing that will cause high emotions, understand?"

Yeah for sure, he was going to be able to keep Hermione from pushing herself. He clenched his jaw, closing his eyes tightly for a moment, pushing down the crazy urge to laugh and cry. Get it together.

He opened his eyes, meeting the gaze of the healer, determined.

"I understand."

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Hermione

1 week later

Hermione sat up in the hospital bed, avoiding looking at her husband who sat slouched in a chair to the left of her. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, his arms crossed over his chest, his legs spread out and relaxed despite the fact she knew he was angry.

She had studied him intensely this man who was Harry Potter but wasn't quite her Harry Potter. The Harry who said they were married and had been for two years. He was different in so many ways from the Harry of her memories, but how he subdued his anger was probably the biggest.

Harry always had trouble when he became furious, the emotion bursting out of him without control, his voice rising. His anger had been rare but still very much a part of him, like sudden lightning storms when normally he was a beautiful spring day. That was the Harry she knew, the Harry she loved. Her best friend.

The Harry she had woken up to was different, she knew he was angry but he kept it tightly subdued. He smiled at her when appropriate, his voice even and his touch gentle as he interacted with her as if she didn't know him well enough to read the tiny cues of his body—of his expressions. He was like a tiger trying to be a kitten for her, cute and rolling around but every once in a while she saw the flashes of his claws and teeth. The way the healers behaved toward Harry was a perfect example of the new Harry.

She had been at the hospital a week and she had known discharge was coming, and one of the elderly healers had come to talk to them prior to release for final instructions. Ron had never appeared, whenever she asked about him Harry changed the subject. The Healer stood near her bed, keeping the bed between himself and her husband . The Harry who was her husband intimidated Healers. They all watched Harry like he might attack them at any moment and tended to speak to him from across the room only. It was so peculiar, and her mind puzzled over it. Sure Harry became angry and yelled, but she had never known him to be violent.

That wasn't Harry.

The healer finally stopped his nervous fidgeting with his papers. "After discussion, we recommend that you continue your recovery at home. Being in a familiar environment with your personal items may help your mind recover your lost memories."

The healer looked at her steadily, his gaze occasionally moving past her to Harry behind her, as if receiving some unspoken direction from him. Hermione turned and looked at Harry clearing her throat. "I suppose we live together?"

Harry's lips quirked up briefly before his gaze became impassive again. "Generally that's what married couples do."

Go home with Harry? Where was that? Grimmauld place? She didn't want to go to that gloomy house. It had never felt like home to her, her last memories of Grimmauld were the desperation she felt there during the war. Being with Ron.

She turned back to the healer. "What if… What if I stay somewhere else?"

Hermione heard a muttered fuck from Harry's direction but didn't look at him. "Mrs. Potter, it would help you recover faster to get back into your normal routine. Injuries such as yours are very delicate, there is not much we can do magically to recover them due to the nature of the damage. So, our hope is your mind will heal and you may recover them naturally."

"Can I see Ron then? Before I go?" Healer Brown's eyes went past her to where Harry still sat again receiving further silent instruction from her husband. "It might be best if you take it slow when you meet new people, your husband will help you and arrange those meetings in a low-stress environment."

Hermione's lips tightened. She didn't want anyone to arrange things for her-not even her best friend turned husband. She could arrange things for herself. She turned back to Harry wanting to argue with him. He was looking at the doctor, but it was the expression on his face that made her pause. His face was completely blank of expression, even the anger she had been feeling was gone, his presence muted. Occlumency. Harry had never been that good at it before, even after Snape's poor attempts at teaching him. When had he been able to shut down his emotions to this extent? How much had she missed?

Hermione turned back to the Healer to try a different argument but Harry cut her off. "We redecorated Grimmauld years ago, you picked out the décor. I-" His nostrils flared briefly as he took a deep breath. "I moved into one of the spare bedrooms. Stay with me, Hermione? If you still want to move after a few months w-w-we'll talk about it."

Her heart tugged at the brief flashes of pain that broke through his expression. Her emotions were a roller coaster, anger, and anxiety twisting in her. A part of her was shaking her head vehemently, shouting, "This is all wrong! It's wrong! It's a trick!" But even with the turmoil roiling through her the fleeting glimpses of pain on his face tugged at her. She needed Harry to be safe and happy, it was a singular drive that had been with her since the moment she had seen him dash into the girl's bathroom and jump on the back of a troll to rescue her in first year.

She opened her mouth and he tensed, readying himself to argue with her again. "Okay. Let's go to Grimmauld."

"Home." Harry corrected softly, relaxing slightly.

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Grimmauld Place

Hermione

Harry had side along apparated her to the front of the house. It still looked the same as during the war from the outside, dark and forbidding. Harry kept a tight hold of her hand as if he was afraid she would try to run off. He led her to the front steps, opening the door for her and gesturing for her to enter first.

Hermione took one step into the house and stopped shocked. The house must have been completely gutted to make such a drastic change possible. The walls were painted a soft eggshell white and the floors gleamed cheerfully with honey maple wood. The furniture had the same effect, lighter colors, and they looked comfortable and inviting.

"Wow."

"Yeah, you did a good job," Harry gave her a slight smile, his eyes watchful. "You should see what you did with the library."

Her eyes widened. "The library?"

Harry laughed. "I guess I should have brought that up first when you were hesitating to come home."

Despite his small laugh, other emotions lurked in his tone. Hermione stared at him assessing, and he looked away from her, unwilling to let her see.

"So, what's the plan?"

"Rest."

Hermione made a face. "I feel like I've been sleeping for weeks, I'm done with rest. I need to catch up on what I've missed."

"One hundred and three days."

"What?"

"One hundred and three days. That's how long you were in the coma."

"Oh." She couldn't figure out his tone, he was still looking away from her. "Where's my room?"

He started walking to the back of the house, going up a staircase, and motioning her to follow him. He entered a second-floor hallway opening the first door they encountered.

"Here."

She stepped inside the room, and the first thing that caught her eye was the large bed in the center of the room. The canopy surrounding the bed had dark red drapes that were tied back but looked like they could be closed, like the ones they used to have at the Hogwarts dorms. The room itself was Gryffindor-themed colors, red and gold with cherry wood furniture. The room felt comfortable to her, the décor and the colors bringing to mind comforting memories and putting her at ease. She did like this room.

She turned back to Harry who had remained in the hallway, not entering the room. "I like it! I love the colors."

He nodded. "The second door right there is mine, the last one at the end is the library. We do have a third floor, it's smaller though and we split it between a brewing room and a training room."

"Training?"

He paused staring at her, his tongue briefly coming out to lick his bottom lip. "We practice dueling a lot together, to stay sharp."

Hermione tried to imagine it, dueling Harry in their house. Husband and wife. That didn't feel like her. She wanted to be Minister of Magic and fix everything wrong with wizarding Britain. She wondered what had happened with the legislative proposal she had been working on. It felt so recent to her, but they were telling her it had been years since that happened.

Instead, she was playing Auror with Harry. Five years and her life had completely flipped?

She must have made a face because Harry's eyes sharpened on her and there was a flash of anger on his face.

"I'll let you settle in then." He said abruptly and walked off to his room, the door closed with a firm finality that somehow communicated how badly he had wanted to slam it.

She sighed and went back to her room. She went to the dresser inspecting the pictures displayed there.

There was one picture of her and Harry, their arms thrown around each other's waists dressed in Auror robes. Her right hand raised and rested on his chest and he leaned over to kiss the top of her head. She watched it repeat several times, looking at the expression on their faces, how queer it felt to see a picture of yourself and have no memory of the event.

The picture next to it was even more unsettling. She was in a white thin strapped wedding dress, her curls loose but perfectly behaved. Her arms were around Harry's neck as they danced in the middle of a large crowd. She couldn't see his expression from the way they were positioned her face was front and center. Love, tenderness, desire. That other Hermione looked deeply in love.

She stared at the picture until it blurred, their faces stretching oddly as her eyes watered. Her hand shook as she put the picture carefully back on the dresser. She was in some bizarre reality and the one person she should have had to help her felt like a stranger.

The Harry down the hall was off-putting as if he was wearing the mask of her best friend.

Her eyes widened at that thought. A mask. Polyjuice potion.

She threw open the door and stormed to his room, knocking angrily.

Harry opened it cautiously looking at her like she was some time bomb about to go off.

"What did you give Dobby to set him free?"

"My sock."

"Who identified us at Malfoy manor?"

"Narcissa Malfoy."

He was good. She hesitated to ask the last question, only the real Harry would know. Hermione's voice lowered as she asked her last question.

"What did I tell you in the tent, after Godric's Hollow?"

Harry's green eyes darkened, and for just a minute she felt the thrill of fear, why hadn't she brought her wand? She had gotten so caught up in exposing him she hadn't thought it out.

"That you didn't want to die a virgin."

Oh.

She stared up at him the memories of that night between them. Harry never would have told anyone about that night. Even they had never talked about it afterward. She backed up a step slowly, then turned and fled back to her room.