Beta love to CarbConnoisseur.
"Good day?" Alastor queried, taking in a smiling Hermione and a sullen Alex.
"Yes," she agreed, holding up her bags. "I'm just going to take these upstairs."
Alastor turned to Alex the moment she left the room. "What happened?"
"Caradoc sodding Dearborn happened," Alex muttered.
Alastor froze. "Pardon?"
"We met Fabian Prewett and Caradoc Dearborn, and Hermione agreed to go to lunch with them."
Alastor nodded. "And?"
"And? And that sodding arse flirted with her throughout lunch and she agreed to meet him for lunch in two days! Alone!"
Alastor's eyebrows rose sharply. "Oh she did, did she?"
"She says it's to discuss some research he's doing on combining charms with potions but it sounds like a Gods be damned date to me! Dearborn certainly seemed to think so!"
Torn between amusement at the tantrum Alex was throwing and annoyance at the thought of some wizard putting his hands on his little girl, Alastor merely hummed.
Ten minutes later, Hermione bounced back down the stairs. "I hear you've got a date, lass," Alastor remarked casually. She froze.
"It is not a date. It's lunch."
"Because he wasn't flirting with you?" Alex countered
Hermione frowned. "Not seriously."
Alex's jaw dropped. "You cannot be serious," he breathed. "That… sweet Merlin, Hermione. He was absolutely serious."
"What?" Hermione mimicked his frown. "Don't be absurd."
"I'm not… I… fuck, seriously? You thought he was joking?"
"I assumed he was flirting because he flirts with everyone. Like Fabian," she countered.
"I… No. No, Kitten. I don't know him from Merlin, but I do know that that man was definitely interested."
"Oh," she murmured. "I… I don't know what to say to that."
Shaking his head with exasperation, Alex huffed. "You can always cancel?" he suggested.
"Why would I do that?" she asked. "The research sounds fascinating! I wonder if he's what paves the way for Wolfsbane."
"What is wolfsbane?"
"Oh, it's a potion that allows a werewolf to keep their human mind during their transformation. It was invented by Damocles Belby… soon I think. 1979? But it requires the Myhr to be charmed before you pickle it. I wonder if this research is where Belby got the idea."
Alex and Alastor stared at her, both slightly stunned. "Merlin that's… do you know the recipe?" Alex demanded.
"Yes," Hermione hedged, knowing where he was going with this. "But how are you going to explain how I know something that hasn't been invented yet? From what I read, Belby's discovery was well publicised."
"I don't know," he admitted. "But it would make such a difference for Remus."
"I know," she murmured. "Let me think on it. I can't take credit for someone else's work."
Alex sighed but nodded, knowing she was right, but wishing there was a way around it.
"That doesn't change the fact you have a date," Alastor cut in pointedly.
"Oh, that's enough!" Hermione exclaimed. "It's just lunch!"
"Aye, but I know Caradoc Dearborn."
"Do you?" she frowned before it dawned on her. "Fuck," she hissed.
Alastor took into her paling face and immediately knew she had remembered something. "You knew him?" he hedged.
Hermione shook her head, feeling sick at the idea of the man she met today meeting the fate she knew he had in her time. "They never found his body," she murmured.
"What?" Alex asked horrified.
"They never found his body," she repeated. "Sometime in 1981, September I think, he disappeared. They never found his body."
"Fuck," Alex muttered, wrapping his arm around her. "We can change that, Kitten?"
"Can we?" She asked bleakly. "I don't know anything! I have no idea what happened! I don't know if he was just going to work or if he was on an Order mission! How the fuck can I warn someone against something I don't fucking know!"
"Hermione," Alastor interjected gently. "You are not responsible for keeping everyone alive."
Her eyes met his and he bit back a grimace at how empty they looked. "How can I live with myself I don't?" she murmured.
"Oh, lass," he whispered, tugging her towards him. "You are one person. You cannot make yourself responsible for everyone." He felt the wetness spreading where her face was pressed into his chest.
"I can't pretend that I don't know though. I have to do something." she insisted, all at once deciding to move up Sauls deadline dramatically.
"Then we do something," he soothed, reaching down to wipe her eyes as he forced her head up to look at him. "I'm not asking you to do nothing, but… this is a war, lass. Despite your best efforts, people are going to die, and you cannot hate yourself for it when they do. You are not a God, Hermione, and you do not have the power to save everyone."
"But how do I spend time with them, knowing what I know?" she asked, silently begging him to have some answers.
"You treat them as if you don't know," he replied gently. "And we do everything we can to make as many people as safe as possible."
"What if it's not enough?"
"It won't be, not for everyone," he admitted, wishing he could give a different answer, "But for some, hopefully for many, it'll make a difference." Sighing as the tears started falling again, he couldn't help but wonder if she needed this. She'd been so determined to fix things from the moment St. Mungos had released her, that he wasn't sure she had properly grieved. Hugging her close, he rocked her as he had done when she was small, torn between hating the tears and revelling in her allowing him to take care of her, even if just for a little while.
Alastor spent the rest of the day with Hermione ensconced in the library, having sent a visibly reluctant Alex home. As if aware of her fragile state, the elves doted on her, wrapping her in a blanket, and keeping her supplied with comfort foods. In testament to how unsettled she was feeling, she allowed it. "Are you still meeting your grandparents tomorrow?" he checked when she finally looked up from her book, surprise evident on her face when she realised he was still there.
"Yes," she murmured before her mouth twisted and she continued wryly. "I don't imagine I'd be allowed to cancel."
"Probably not. Janet would be here to drag you there whether you wanted to go or not. The woman is terrifying."
She smiled slightly, "I can imagine she'd need to be to keep up with the rest of them."
"True enough," he agreed. "Are you going to be alright, lass?"
She shrugged, sighing as she closed the book. "I think it hit me that these people you and Sirius and Remus used to tell stories about, they're real and alive and here. I… I knew it on some level but I didn't know it, not really. They were stories, tragic stories but not real people and now… now they need to be real and I don't have any answers, not enough anyway, and I don't know what to do with that."
Alastor hummed, moving closer so he could manipulate her until she was burrowed into his side, blanket and all. "You cannot save everyone," he reiterated. "But we will save as many as we can. Once you're back tomorrow, we will write a list of everything you know, and all the people you can remember and we will work out a plan. You like this lad?"
Hermione shrugged awkwardly. "I don't know him. He was… interesting and intelligent. Before… not many people were able to keep up with me. He could and it was refreshing but…" she sighed, allowing herself to sink into the comfort of someone offering to take the reins, just for a little while, as she attempted to find the words. "More than one person has mentioned marriage or a relationship," she began. Alastor had to fight the urge to bristle at the very idea. He'd just got her back for Merlin's sake! "But I… how do I even consider one when I cannot be honest, when if I am allowed to be honest, it sounds utterly unbelievable. Add in that I know the current fates of so many people, what if it's their family, their friends, will they hate me if I can't save them? What if I fall in love with someone and I can't change anything? How do I… how do I live like that? And… and what if… we all know fighting again is dangerous. I can't be lucky forever. It's… better not to consider it, isn't it?"
Alastor remained silent for several minutes, his heart hurting at the burdens his daughter carried. He'd never considered how difficult it would be for her if she wasn't able to change someone's fate, nor had he considered how challenging relationships, of any kind, would be in the event that history played out as it had before.
"I don't have answers for you, lass," he said eventually, tugging her closer as he felt her wind an arm around his middle, her shoulders shaking as she cried again, "But I do know you have to live. It's… it is going to be difficult, more so than it should be. But you deserve to live. Don't waste the second chance you've been given."
They were silent for a very long time, his free hand pressing her head into his chest as she sobbed as if he could protect her from the pain that she was feeling, and as much as he didn't want to admit it, the pain that was surely to come.