.oOo.

September 2nd, 1999

.oOo.

Lily breathed a sigh of relief after finding that her sanctuary, the Hogwarts Library, had not changed much in the 20 or so years that had passed. Granted, she wasn't entirely sure she was in the actual future or if that spell had locked her into some hallucinatory coma, but Harry and Neville were pretty convincing evidence for the first scenario.

After coming back to her senses from her little fainting spell, Lily had quickly excused herself to the library. Apparently, this was typical behavior for Hermione, because after confirming she was alright, they laughed about how things were getting back to normal already. Normal, she suspected, was a relative term for them, but she wasn't here to analyze the psyche of a bunch of strangers. She was here to hopefully save her own.

The first thing she did was check out the most recent yearbook she could find. She already knew Harry's full name, but was Neville who she thought he was? Yes, there in black ink, Neville Fortescue Longbottom. Although almost every part of her was panicking—she really was in the future, wasn't she?— a little part of her was thrilled that her closest friends and her favorite couple had clearly made it. She wondered when Frank would ask Alice, would she get to be a bridesmaid? At that thought, Lily snorted. Wizarding weddings were nothing like Muggle ones, and if they were, she'd be the blasted Maid-of-Honor. If she ever wanted to make it to that wedding, though, she'd have to survive fooling their son, so she cast a surreptitious copying charm with the wand that looked like Granger's but felt like her own, and slid the original yearbook into her bag. Maybe she could owl Alice and Frank later, they'd know how to help her, surely.

The next matter of business was to figure out what was happening to the 1977-Lily while she was here. She skimmed the vast collection of yearbook once more, finally snatching up the one from what should have been her Seventh Year. It didn't take long to find her picture, and Lily breathed out a sigh of relief. That meant she hadn't dropped dead in her own timeline. Plus, senior portraits were usually taken fairly early, so that meant she'd probably be back in no time. Curious, she flipped through the pages, freezing when she landed on a photo from what was captioned as the first day of classes.

Holy Hecate, she whispered under her breath, and the old bookkeeper let out a scandalized gasp.

After whispering her apologies, Lily grabbed the yearbook and retreated further into the shelves, plucking a few of the more modern looking history books as she went. She finally settled in a particularly isolated alcove when a person she hadn't noticed cleared their throat.

"Malfoy!" she gasped, looking at the sullen blonde. He didn't carry the air of aristocracy that Lucius had in his time at school, but even a First Year would know a Malfoy when they saw one.

"Granger," he responded, looking down. After a moment of silence, Lily hoped she could get back to her research but the boy across from her inhaled sharply, hastily getting up.

"Fuck, Granger. This—I'm…Let me get out of your way," he sputtered, and unable to contain her instincts, Lily reached out to the strange, wounded boy.

"You can stay if you like, I don't mind," she lied—damn my niceness!-, covering his hand with her own. He looked at her with wild eyes and Lily suddenly wondered what this Hermione's blood status was. Granger wasn't a name she could recognize, so she was probably a Muggle-Born. Or an unimportant Half-Blood. Either way, she was probably sullying his porcelain skin with her peasant grasp. She let go of him quickly, but he didn't reprimand her for touching him or recoil with disgust. He simply looked at the space where her hand was before with a disbelieving expression before nodding to her once and disappearing.

"What a bizarre little man," Lily whispered to nobody in particular. She'd really have to read up more about this war when she got the chance, because whatever had a Malfoy looking like a wounded rabbit could not be insignificant. Grateful she could finally investigate in peace, she turned her attention back to the yearbook. She held her breath before flipping the hardcover book open again, not quite believing what she saw. There, just next to James Potter, was Lily, handing out schedules and bending down to answer a First Year's question.

"How is this even happening to me?" Lily moaned. She had read plenty of case studies where witches and wizards would fall into a coma and wake up claiming they had gone back in time, but there she was, clear as day! Picture Lily certainly did not look bedridden, but that meant unless her timeline had been frozen until she returned—unlikely, given Neville and Potter's son—Picture-Lily wasn't her!

The only feasible solution she could come up with was that Hermione Granger wasn't the product of some spell gone wrong, but rather a living, breathing person, one who was currently occupying her body and living out her Seventh Year.

.oOo.

September 3rd, 1977

.oOo.

Hermione was currently snuggled within a duvet, flipping through the 1976-1977 yearbook she'd stolen from the library last night. Although the whole situation was still quite disorienting, research was something Hermione could do, and do well. She'd know everything there was to know about Lily Evans she could glean from print soon enough, the hard part was balancing that with trying to figure out how to quit being Lily in the first place. The name situation seemed a little more immediate, so Hermione spent the morning memorizing the Gryffindors first, before branching out to the Ravenclaws and then the Hufflepuffs. The Slytherins would come eventually, but flipping through the names of men who would go on to cause so much mayhem made her homicidal, and she'd already promised herself she wasn't going to kill anybody. Yet anyways. If Hermione discerned there was no feasible way to return to the future she was from, the first thing she was going to do was learn how to become an animagus so she could murder the rat in cold blood and chalk it up to instincts. But if she was right and Lily really was in her body, her future still existed and thus had to be preserved, lest they all wake up with The Dark Mark floating over Hogwarts, or something equally awful.

Out of habit, Hermione reached under her pillow for her journal in which she sometimes wrote to clear her thoughts. Realizing her mistake, she Accioed a piece of parchement instead, before considering something.

"Accio Lily's Journal," she tried, and just as she suspected, a leather-bound notebook came flying out of her shelf. Hermione debated for a moment, and then slipped the journal in her bag, all's fair in love and war, right? There was another hesitant knock on her door, just like the first morning, and after a moment, James called in.

"Are you feeling well this morning? I can handle breakfast if you're not," he asked, and Hermione steeled herself for the day. She would not, she would not get upset when she had to talk to James or Remus or the rest of them. She had cried herself out last night, now was the time for action. Are you a Gryffindor or not? She thought sternly to herself.

"I'm fine, thank you. If you wait for a moment we can walk down together!" She called.

"Oh, erm, alright then." Whatever had happened between James and Lily the year before really seemed to work in Lily's favor, because he seemed to be surprised she would want to spend time with him. Of course, that didn't help Hermione's case in the least.

"Why couldn't you two idiots just fall in love like you were supposed to," she scowled at her reflection, scrubbing her face a little too roughly. She'd have to give Lily a stern talking to if they ever figured out how to communicate. She quickly got ready and met James in their Common Room.

"Ready then?" she asked, still not used to the way her hair swung so easily when she walked. Lily certainly was pretty.

"Uh, yeah." He opened the door politely and the two walked down the halls together. It was uncomfortably silent, and Hermione resisted the urge to scream. This was not how a couple that would get engaged the night of graduation should be behaving!

"I liked that little bit you did last night at dinner," she tried, and James looked at her in shock.

"You did?"

"It was sweet! And everyone seemed to have a good time, I think. Were you lot trying to impress anyone in particular?"

"And if we were?"

"I'd say it was a job well done." Hermione wasn't sure she had a lot of experience with flirting, but she had certainly read enough and spent enough time with boys to know that her last comment combined with her little sideways look should have had James blushing. Instead, James grabbed her by the shoulders, whirling her around to face him.

"Merlin's Beard, Remus was right. You are going soft."

"Excuse me?" What had she done wrong now?

"Shouldn't you be telling me that it was unfair of Sirius to put Mary on the spot like that?" Asking Mary out in the public eye like that with little way to reject Sirius' advances was rather rude, now that she thought about it. It was the kind of disrespect Lily Evans, Head Girl and SPEW Vice President, wouldn't have missed.

"Well it was unfair, but I thought they had an understanding." That wasn't the right thing to say either, because James looked even more flabbergasted.

"Because that matters? Who doesn't he have an understanding with?"

"McKinnon," Hermione replied tersely, hoping the conversation wouldn't get too out of hand.

A curious expression passed across James' face, but he said nothing. Hermione wondered if she couldn't squash some of Alice's suspicions.

"They get along though, it seems like, when they're not taking the piss," Hermione tried hesitantly, regurgitating her friend's earlier opinions. "D'you think they'd ever work out for real?"

James' mouth twisted into a small frown, and Hermione felt her heart drop. Alice couldn't be right, could she? He was silent for a few moments before he responded.

"Marley's too smart to think she could make an honest man out of Sirius Black," he said plainly. "I'll start on the left and you on the right?"

Hermione merely nodded, James' little term of endearment for the stern Ravenclaw girl leaving her sick to her stomach.

.oOo.

While waiting for her friends to come down to breakfast, Hermione began to draw up a plan, marking the piece of parchment she was holding down the middle, the left side labled "Now" and the right labeled "Later." It wasn't her best work, she'd admit, but it wasn't like she could entitle it "How to Get Back to the Future Without Totally Bungling up the Past," too risky.

She was so engrossed in her thinking that she didn't notice when Alice and Mary came down to sit next to her, the latter snatching her list up in her hands. From what she could tell, Mary was a pretty witch with questionable morals, and thus appeared to be a particular favorite of Sirius Black.

"Another one of your lists, Lils? What's on your plate today?" Alice asked curiously. Alice was bright eyed and excitable and a fan of conspiracy theories which now revolved around schoolyard romances but might one day be honed under Mad-Eye's tutelage.

"A way to communicate no matter where we are, trying to pass notes in class? That doesn't seem like fitting Head Girl behavior," Mary sing-songed.

"First Romulus and now this? Will the accusations never end?" Hermione lamented, trying to take their attention off the list. This was apparently a tactic they were familiar with. Being in a trio of girls was, in ways she continued to learn, fundamentally different than with Ron and Harry. "If you must know, it's for my parents," Hermione lied quickly, and Alice and Mary stopped their teasing.

"It's been scary, I bet, with all the attacks," Alice said, placing a soothing hand on Hermione's. Mary, however, looked deep in thought.

"I've got it! The Marauders have these charmed little mirrors, I'll see if I can't get them for you."

Ah, how could she have forgotten about those? If Hermione could hide one somewhere Lily would find 20 years later, maybe it'd work! Come to think of it, there were a lot of things the Marauders had that would come in handy. She'd have to nick the map, at some point.

"It's not as though they're just going to give it to us though, you know how they are with their toys," Alice sighed. "Maybe you can look past some of their transgressions as a trade?"

Before Hermione had to consider how Lily Evans would respond to such a proposition, she was interrupted by her blonde friend.

"Oh please, a trade off on the rules? So uncouth."

"And how do you suggest we get them to hand it over, Miss Confident?" Alice shot back.

"Oh," Mary replied airily, casually tossing her fair hair over her shoulder while casting Sirius a sidelong glance. "I can think of a couple ways. Bet on it?"

"Fine. If you don't have the mirrors in a week—"

"A week? Alice, you underestimate me. If I don't have the mirrors to you by breakfast tomorrow, I'll ask Severus Snape to Hogsmeade. If I do, you can." Mary said, vanishing the rest of her breakfast. "I'll see you in History?"

Alice let out a low whistle, watching Mary saunter out of the Great Hall.

"She's barking mad, but I can't get enough of it. Can you imagine the look on his face?"

Thinking of her ever sour Potions professor, Hermione couldn't hold back a laugh. "I really, truly, couldn't even begin to imagine."

"What I can't imagine, actually" Alice said, dropping her voice to barely above a whisper, " is why the only thing on your 'Now' side of the list said figure out James and Marley, but let's work on one task at a time, shall we?"

.oOo.

September 3rd, 1999

[Harry's POV]

.oOo.

Harry Potter paced back and forth. He hadn't seen Hermione since she ran off to the library yesterday and she hadn't been in any of her classes, either. He wasn't foolish enough to think that coming back to Hogwarts was going to be a piece of cake, but missing class meant she must be miserable. Although, he supposed her habits as a fastidious student before the war couldn't necessarily be counted on now. He teetered between wanting to seek her out and giving her space, but it was Ron's longing expression towards her door that finally sent him knocking at room she was staying in by the Kitchens. It wasn't that Ron didn't adore her, he just wasn't always the most sensitive bloke.

"'Mione," he called gently, armed with a tray of dinner from Winky. "Can I come in?" He heard shuffling steps and she opened the door a fraction.

"Harry," she breathed out shakily, before opening the door and letting him in. He was shocked by the state of things. She was wrapped up in her bathrobe and there were tissues and open books on every flat surface of the room. She padded back to the nest of blankets she had made in her bed, and Harry put the tray on her bedside table, gingerly sitting next to her. He was silent for a moment before he spotted a copy of The Trials and Tribulations of the Golden Trio: An Unauthorized Account of the Second Wizarding War by Rita Skeeter.

"What are you reading this shite for," Harry asked, perhaps too harshly, snatching the hardcover.

"I'm sorry, Harry, I had to know-had to remember," Hermione warbled, and Harry sighed, sweeping the distraught witch into her arms. She looked so young, so unlike her usual self.

"I know what you mean," he said, arms tight around her shaking frame. "It's strange being here, during dinner I kept thinking Colin should be sitting with the Seventh Years and Gin but," his voice caught and he stopped. "He was so brave," he managed finally.

Hermione turned around, placing a cool hand on the side of his face. "You were so, so brave, Harry. You shouldn't—"

"None of us should have, but we did." After a moments more of silence, Harry covered his hand with her own, threading their fingers and bringing them down into her lap. "You know I couldn't have done it without you, Mi."

"But you did, didn't you?" she asked with a watery grimace, and Harry furrowed his brow.

"Just because I didn't let you come with me to meet that monster does not mean you weren't with me until the end. You can't really think that, can you? I think your hunger has made you delirious," Harry said, reaching for the platter and placing it in her lap.

"You might be right, I—ugh, I don't know what's come over me," Hermione said, furiously swiping away her tears and sniffling hard. Harry gathered her hair up away from her face carefully, charming it into a bun.

"Nothing you should be embarrassed about. Do you want to talk about it, or?" he asked one of his oldest friends, knowing full well that a discussion of all her feelings wasn't always what she needed. Sometimes it was just a friendly presence, something Ron handled most of the time after he and Ginny got serious. But Hermione and Ron were on and off, perhaps they had been neglecting her.

"No, I mean, I think it was just everything at once, you know? Needed a bit of a cry."

"Hermione Granger missing all of her classes doesn't sound like a bit of a cry, but I think we can make an exception. Missing dinner, however," he said in a fake admonishing tone, deciding that a bit of humor was what she needed, "is entirely unacceptable. I may have to take points."

"I don't know if I can stomach it," Hermione groaned, looking peakish as she stared at the forkful of mashed potatoes Harry was offering her.

"Well I haven't had dinner yet either and I'm not going to eat until you do. It's hardly good form."

"I suppose I've got to eat now, if I'm taking care of your best interests," Hermione laughed, wrenching the fork free from Harry's grasp and eating the potatoes.

"You always have, you know. You're probably stuck with me 'til the day you die, if you'll have me so long, anyways." Harry said, leaning in to press a kiss into her hair, stilled when Hermione took his face in her hands once more. Hermione wasn't a cold person, but he couldn't remember the last time she was so tactile.

"Even after," she whispered.

"Hmm?"

She reached up gently and brushed his unruly hair off of his face, fingers tracing the now innocuous scar.

"Even after," she repeated, her eyes curiously far away. "I'll look after you 'til the day I die, and even after."

.oOo.

[NatNicole: YOU'RE awesome!] [Guest: Thank you for the birthday wish! There are a ton of things I'm trying to work out, especially with the way the war plays into how Hermione acts versus Lily, I hope I don't disappoint! Any suggestions would be more than welcome.] [Guest: Thank you!] [Guest: Hermione and Lupin have an interesting relationship because Lily and Lupin do, one she is trying to figure out fast!]