Hermione was a dedicated researcher. She prided herself on being patient, insightful, meticulous and precise. She was mostly right in that assumption – she sometimes really, really lacked patience, but hadn't found a problem sufficiently difficult to really frustrate her.

Now, she knew what it was like.

She resisted the urge to throw the table with all her work out the window, and sat heavily on her seat, letting go of a very annoyed breath.

He hadn't left anything near the crevice to help identify him – nothing. The smallfolk that lived a few miles north had nothing on the mysterious sorcerer that had plagued their lands – they all described him differently. Not even a single fingerprint on the rock he had perched himself onto. It was infuriating.

"Death!"

The entity entered from the hallway at a leisurely pace.

"Is there any… record of people that have all the Hallows, in every dimension?"

Death snorted.

"No. Maintenance alone sounds exhausting and despite the problems you lot cause every now and then, it's not worth it."

"Is there any way I could create it?"

"Unlikely."

Hermione threw Death a look.

"All right, impossible."

Hermione fought the urge to yell in frustration and ran a hand through her hair, only to find it stuck and she hurt her scalp as she yanked at it.

Sometimes the best way to find things is to stop looking, a memory echoed in her mind, and she huffed out her breath through her nose, almost snarling.

How that saying had infuriated her. How pointless it was, for a mind like hers, to simply let things rest and come to her in due time. She was obsessive. She was relentless. And she never, never failed to find something.

Until then.

She was going in circles, she knew, metaphorically and literally; if the carpet beneath her feet had been made of actual atoms, actual wood, it would have probably been worn out by her ceaseless pacing. Still, it remained pristine.

"Have you considered he might already know you?"

"Yes," Hermione snapped aggressively. Death cocked her hooded head, her only way of manifesting emotion other than talking, and Hermione winced internally but refused to apologize. Death knew her now. She was in a mood. Death should know better than to come and poke at her anyway.

She knew she was being unfair but elected to change the subject.

"But I don't remember his face. I really don't. If he's from my dimension, well. Either he's younger than me and then I'd have to go and – and check," she said with the slightest waver in her voice.

Going back to her own dimension filled her with dread. The accusatory looks. Harry's dead remains somewhere in the ground. Her own war, lost in everything but in the ultimate demise of their foe.

"And that sounds like a hassle. No, I quite hope he's from my past, but –"

"You should ask them, then."

"No."

Death didn't say anything, letting the silence speak for them.

"They're dead. They're resting. They should keep doing that."

Death sighed and Hermione set her jaw. "I said no."

She was left alone with her thoughts after that, to no result whatsoever.

It was as if something was triggered in her mind, she knew, but she couldn't do anything about it but go with the flow. The dream fought her trying to wake up despite her mastery at Occlumency, and she had never felt as mentally powerless as she did now.

And then he was there.

"Hello," he said softly. "I'm assuming you have questions."

She opened her mouth to reply, probably seethe something and demand to be let go at once, but he kept on talking, his eyes not really focused on her. "If you're seeing this, you haven't found me, but you've been searching for a while. It's all right. I'm difficult to find. You should pace yourself and remember that time doesn't matter, even to you."

She gnawed on her tongue to prevent her from answering, knowing now it was useless.

"When you do find me," he said carefully as if he was reciting words, "you will have to keep an open mind. Remember that there are as many versions of you as there are realities in which you appear in one way or another, and that it is the same for me. Please seek me out when you do – the gem is a Portkey. You just have to say my name."

And just like that, it stopped.

She was abruptly wide awake in her bed, her breath even, her hair as tidy as it could be in the middle of the night.

The silence in the room was absolute. Hermione mindlessly soothed the fabric beneath her fingers, shifting her feet under the warmth of her blanket.

And then, she took a sharp intake of breath.

"Oh, fuck me."

Death chuckled and Hermione almost jumped out of her bed.

"What are you doing here?" she shrieked around a mouthful of hair.

She shoved the hair that had gone out of its braid furiously, wandlessly lighting the room with a crude, bright neon light. Death's face was still veiled by their hood.

"I wanted to be there when you figured it out, of course."

"You knew?"

"I might explain how if I can be bothered, but in simple words, yes, I knew. What are you going to do?"

The raspy, metallic voice had a certain eagerness to it, and Hermione had the sudden and infuriating feeling that she was treated as a particularly interesting character in a soap.

"A gem. He said a gem. I don't have one. Do I have one?"

Death wordlessly gestured to her nightstand and sure it was, glittering in the light. Her wand was hovering above it barely a second later, shooting rapid-fire identification spells.

"Portkey, I'm assuming linked with time magic, extremely-strong Notice-Me-Not, and it has traces of a… strange magic…"

She trailed off and glared up at Death. "When did you handle it, exactly?"

"Oh, some time ago. I was instructed to. Will you take the Portkey then?"

Hermione sighed and glared some more. The effect was somewhat mitigated by the fact that she was still in her pyjamas and half-lying in bed.

"It's not safe."

"No, it's not."

There was a pause.

"But I'm furious."

Death tilted their head and Hermione exhaled slowly through her mouth.

"I'm furious and I want to rip his head off for playing with me like that. What's his angle? What does he want?"

"You should go and figure it out," Death said simply.

"And you shouldn't encourage me to take stupid decisions. I'm half out of my mind."

"Oh, as if that's relevant. You haven't seen danger in decades. Some theorize that it's danger and adrenaline that keep your species alive. I'm inclined to agree."

Hermione hummed, getting out of bed and walking to the mirror. There were wrinkles from the linen she had slept on engraved on her face, and she sighed before applying a spell to vanquish them. Then, the hair, and then getting dressed. She shrugged out of her clothes without minding Death's presence – they'd probably seen everything humanity had to offer, after all – and put on a proper day outfit.

Was the outfit something you could murder someone while wearing it?

Yes.

Purely coincidental.

"Are you very angry, though?"

Hermione glared for the sake of it but knew that the question was coherent.

"I don't know. I'm mostly – I feel violated somewhat. He was in my dreams. That's – intimate. And I have to admit, very frustrated, since I've apparently spent months researching how to get to him for nothing. Also scared. And – excited. Something is happening at last."

"See. You lot just wilt under comfort."

"I don't have comfort, Death. I have eternity and boredom. But – at least he is something. Even a foe is better than nothing, I think."

"You don't even know if he is a foe yet."

Okay, now she definitely felt like a scrutinized soap opera character. Some twisted part of Hermione's brain wondered if Death was maybe looking for romance in all this, for recreational purposes. The thought alone was gag-worthy.

"I'm inclined to think so, given the time he's spent trying to kill me."

Although she knew that he was not from her own dimension and that her assurance was shaky, at best.

"Hmm."

Hermione returned to the nightstand and picked the gem up, letting it roll onto her palm. It was a small pebble, but still beautifully cut and polished. The colour of the rising sun. Hermione almost thought she could see swirling magic inside.

"I guess I'll figure things out, then."

She took a deep breath, grounded herself, and then –

"Tom Riddle."

The gem flashed a deep yellow, engulfing her, smelling faintly of parsley of all things – and she was away.

Hermione opened her eyes. She was in a back garden somewhere. The sun was high up in the sky, and there was a table with tea served on it, biscuits and cakes, next to a tree that provided a cool shadow. Hermione stood on her feet next to the table, her wand in her hand.

Minutes passed and she stood, waiting for someone who didn't come. She was quickly getting impatient – running anxious hands in her hair, second-guessing her decision to come. Eventually, she left the side of the table and paced a few times before stepping hesitantly towards the house – maybe she was supposed to get in?

"Look at you. It's always so bizarre," rang a very familiar voice behind her.

Hermione didn't even raise her wand. She turned around slowly and was confronted with a mirror, only not really. The Hermione Granger in front of her was dressed in a long robe of which fashion she didn't recognize. Her hair was longer, easily reaching the small of her back, the curls beautiful and healthy. It was almost her.

But the eyes were all wrong. They were harder, so much older, and had a streak of danger and unpredictability in them. Maybe even a hint of cruelty, she thought, but she could be imagining things.

"What are you doing," Hermione breathed. "It's dangerous!"

The Other Hermione laughed without mirth, and it was a grating sound. Mocking. Hermione was inexplicably hurt.

"Oh no Harry, you mustn't be seen! Think about it, we would go mad," the Other Hermione said in a high-pitched voice, morphing her face into something more naive, more like what the teenager they had been back in third year. "Professor McGonagall trusted me with it, so we must be careful, Harry!"

Hermione ground her teeth. The smirk returned on the Other Hermione's face.

"Try to calm down and accept that I likely know better than you. Meeting like this will cause no paradox or insanity – well, further insanity. It's just tedious. Since it's your first time, I'll give you a few rules for this. Write things down. Write the date, the setting, the things that led to it, everything. The exact wording. And then you'll have to meet your old self. Just like I did."

"What if I don't?" Hermione asked because when she was at a loss, she asked questions.

"Timeline split, and a chance of one more of us running around with the Hallows. It's a headache waiting to happen."

Hermione didn't reply. She was trying to process everything.

The Other Hermione kept smirking at her, and then, as if on cue – she probably was – she motioned to the chair in front of her. "Sit and have some tea, we'll be here for a while."

Hermione sat automatically and said, "Are you saying that we've had this exact conversation in your own past? That everything I'm saying, you've said before?"

"Yes, and it is a very tedious way of communicating."

"Did you – the other us – the future me, I mean, say that the first time as well?"

The Other Hermione nodded. She rolled her eyes and poured some tea for Hermione, who took the cup in her mildly shaking hands.

"To the point then. You have exactly one question you can ask after I've said my piece, and then I'll be gone. You should talk to him. I will give you a way to talk to him. You should for several reasons: you're lonely, slowly going mad, and he's up to no good and you're the only person in the universe that actually knows about it."

"But I don't know about it."

"Don't interrupt. You will. If you talk to him. Do you recognize a pattern here?" The Other Hermione sighed, before resuming with a monotone voice. "He's not the man you knew in your reality. He's less criminally insane. He's not normal either, of course, but he doesn't have as many Horcruxes and he was smarter about it. No snake face. A worthy foe, and a worthy friend. You'll have to choose, eventually. Talk to Harry and Ron, you have to, it's important. Okay. Now your question."

Hermione took a few seconds to gather her thoughts. She only had one. She had to make it count.

"I'm assuming you chose to know him, so I'll just ask – do you regret it?"

The Other Hermione took a long time to think about her answer. The boredom was gone from her face, as was the cruelty and sarcasm. She was pensive, seriously mulling over her words.

"I do not."

Hermione nodded in thanks, another question on her lips still; but a blink later, the Other Hermione was gone, and there was a slip of parchment where she had been seated.

Hermione sighed and picked it up, glanced at the incomprehensible notes jotted down in her own writing, and sighed again. Another riddle it was, then.

It took her an embarrassing time to figure it out. The parchment was, indeed, written in the secret language developed by Parvati and Lavender back in fourth year so they could talk about their crushes in front of Hermione, who was not to be trusted with the only secrets they wouldn't tell the whole school.

Young Hermione had, out of spite, learned it secretly, spying on them and even – she did feel a bit ashamed – searching through their belongings and reading their inane journals. Apparently, having the creativity for a whole secret language did not warrant the good sense of hiding the key better or even destroying it.

Hermione had rubbed it in her faces by answering in their code, they had been scandalize;, and then had promptly switched to learning secrecy and privacy charms (that Hermione could have taken down even back then, but, slightly mollified by the fact they'd actually spent willing time in the Library and learnt something useful, she had refrained. Also, she'd had better things to do at the time, like keeping Harry alive, and not hurting too much over her complicated relationship with Ron).

At least, Future Hermione still had a sense of humour.

Hermione cracked the message, jotted down the time, space and dimension coordinates, and was about to head off when Death stopped her.

"So? How was it?" Death asked eagerly.

Hermione had not seen Death since before meeting with her older self, which she had been a bit surprised about. She told Death so.

"Oh. Oh, well, I do have more interesting things to do," Death said haughtily.

Hermione snorted. "Mmh," she prompted with a raised eyebrow.

"And you were in a mood because of the coded message and you're always insufferable to be around when you're in one of those. So? How was it?"

"Weird. Not in a nice way. I become something of an impatient, demanding… well, bitch, don't I?"

It was Death's turn to snort, and Hermione glared but since she had actual things to do, she moved to sidestep Death without saying anything more. Death let her pass, amused.

"Oh, and did you talk to them?" Death called back as Hermione went for the courtyard.

"Oh, she, she said best not to, yet," Hermione lied automatically, cringing as she did. Death's hum was doubtful of her words, but the entity didn't press the matter, and after a few fleeting seconds, Hermione resumed walking.

And then the portal was intimidating and she was stuck there, a bit of parchment in her hands, for a very long time.

She sighed and turned around, only to find Death watching there.

"Fine," she spat, suddenly angry. "You win. Give me the fucking stone."

"I thought she said best not to?" Death asked, because Death was an arsehole.

"I lied," Hermione said through gritted teeth. "I'll change my mind if you don't give it now and shut up about it."

Death inclined their head and dropped the stone in Hermione's outstretched hand.

"Thank you," Hermione said with all the venom she had.

"You're welcome," Death said in a detached tone, because, again, Death was an arsehole and now Hermione felt bad.

Heedless of this particular feeling, she left the courtyard and locked herself in the crypt, because the low ceilings and flickering torchlight were all her current mood could allow.

Hermione stayed there, the stone inside her hand, for the longest time. If she had been in the real world, the cold would have seeped through the stone, leaving her shivering in her robes. Fortunately, the temperature was mild, having no impact on her whatsoever. The only feeling of cold was from the timeless pebble in her palm.

Hermione glared at it as she spun it, not thinking of anyone in particular.

She'd thought she'd have Harry. Harry was her brother, her kindred spirit, her first priority. Harry had been the very air she breathed, the only thing to keep her going, because if she failed he would die and that meant the end of her, too.

So, when Hermione's eyes met Ginny Weasley's, warm and brown, she paused in surprise.

"Oh," Hermione mouthed. "Hello."

"Hullo, 'Mione," Ginny said easily, perching herself on a high stone bench. One of her knees found its way under her chin, and Ginny just looked at her, an arm around her ankles, her feet moving slowly as if to an unheard rhythm.

This was Ginny in every one of her mannerisms, in all her restlessness, but yet there she was, still and watching.

Hermione fought the urge to ask how she was because Ginny was, well, dead.

"You thought you'd get someone else, didn't you?" Ginny asked softly.

Hermione took a slow, deep breath while considering her words carefully.

"I did, yes. But I'm very glad to see you."

Ginny smiled, the small, crooked smile she always gave when she was sad.

And it was only then, with the confirmation that she knew Ginny Weasley, maybe not as intimately as her best friends but she knew her, like a little sister that she'd never known how to get so close with, like a constant in her teenage years, that Hermione smiled genuinely for the first time, and that seemed to drain a bit of the tension out of the room. Tears pricked at her eyes and she exhaled a bit shakily. "I'm really, really glad to see you," she whispered again.

"Me, too," Ginny murmured.

They stayed there in silence, never breaking the distance between them. Funny, that. Ginny had been a hugger, Hermione had been a hugger, but they had never shared this particular intimacy, not in a long time even when they were both alive; and now they didn't know how anymore.

It was fine. War did that to people.

"So," Ginny said finally. "You met Tom and you want to know what we all think about it."

Hermione nodded, uncomfortably.

"Short answer: we don't think anything about it, as in we've never chatted about it, because that's not how the afterlife works. But now that I have an opinion, I can say it."

Hermione thought that Ginny would have, once upon a time, not been as careful and just say and/or scream her opinion to whoever would listen.

That was a daunting improvement, she thought.

Being yelled at would have been better. It would have been familiar.

"Okay," Hermione eventually said.

Ginny nodded and got up, pacing slowly. "When I met Tom Riddle, I thought he was the most amazing boy ever. He ended up not being that. But he had some qualities, some things I found in him that I never, ever found in anyone else. Cunning. A charming, charming personality when his mind was to it. And his intelligence was terrifying and incredible."

Ginny looked up briefly. "Rather like you, except you couldn't lie to save your skin and you loved school and teachers too much to break any rule if you could help it."

Hermione said nothing, trying her best not to show any emotion.

"The first time you reminded me of him, it was with the Rita Skeeter incident. I brought it up to Ron, because it scared me when I learned about it – of course, back then, you lot didn't say anything, and Ron let it slip months afterwards, when Harry gave his interview to Umbridge. He said that laughing, actually. It scared me because one should never laugh about kidnapping and sequestration, even when it's done to mean, selfish people in the beginning of a war."

Hermione felt a spike of indignation but remained silent because all that was very true and the only reason she was angry was because she had spent hours trying to convince herself that she was doing the right thing, on the verge of a panic attack in her childhood bedroom, while beetle eyes were staring at her.

"Then I asked a few follow-up questions about it to Ron, because I wanted to see how he felt about it. And he said, sure, that's ruthless, but that's Hermione and it ended up being the right thing to do. He said the right thing. Not the useful thing, not the strategical thing, he said the right thing. And to be fair, I don't judge you for that. It did get her to help during Umbridge's tyranny, it was the right thing for us, and it stopped torturing me after a while, because less than three years later I was confronted with killing someone and then it wasn't as high on the list of things that tortured my ethics."

Hermione chewed on her tongue to prevent herself from demanding Ginny get to the point. That had never really worked when they were alive.

Ginny stopped and looked at her sharply. "My point is, you reminded me of him then, and other times after that. But it's not necessarily an insult and I just wanted you to know that we don't care anymore. Any of us. We're on your team, we'll always be, but we're also dead, and while I understand why you've been scared to talk to us – don't be. We're – the afterlife is – we're rather like paintings, but without the judgemental aura about them if you can get what I mean? We're not really there. We're drifting, happy but drifting, and inconsequential because we're dead, 'Mione. And more than anything else, I think your particular situation would warrant for any decision, even the stupid ones."

Hermione let a little laugh cross her lips. "And meeting him is stupid."

"Oh yes," Ginny confirmed, nodding with a wide smile that was totally inappropriate to the matter they were discussing but was also so comforting and familiar. "But I think it's a dumb decision everyone would consider and even I would think about it and the fucking bastard terrifies me because he's been in my head. Also, he's pretty, isn't he?"

Hermione laughed too, shaking her head. "He is. That's just plain unfair."

"Tell me about it."

Their laughter died and they stared at each other. "So," Hermione said after a short while. "How is the afterlife? How does it work?"

Ginny shook her head. "I can't tell you, because I don't even understand it enough myself," she said apologetically – withholding an answer for Hermione, she knew, was one of the worst tortures. "But it's nice. We don't actually have a heavenly garden party, but it's as if we were all connected, sharing whisps of thoughts, but still resting. It's peaceful, and nice, and inconsequent."

Hermione liked and was terrified of the idea all at once, and nodded slowly.

"Talk to us, whenever you want to. We're… updated once summoned, we know what's in your mind when you call us, so we're always be able to support you, okay? Even me. Especially me, if you need girl advice," she said with a wink.

Hermione pinched her lips because despite her numerous years, she might very well, one day, need girl advice, but was loathe to admit so.

"I'm sure Parvati and Lavender would love the idea to finally get to do a make over of you."

She disappeared after saying that. Hermione blinked and she was gone, the only imprint of her presence in her memory. She was comforted.

Huh.

Death had been right.

"I know," the cavernous voice echoed in the crypt.

Hermione jumped and almost laughed.

Welp, bit late, sorry about that. Here we go! There are a lot of very, very important conversations in this chapter. Oh how Hermione lacks self-awareness. Calling Death an arsehole while she's pushed back on every (good) suggestion Death has given. Oh well.
But, still, set-ups! And payoffs to come!
Please tell me what you think, I'll gladly reply if you're logged in!