Epilogue: Dear Hermione

In the basement of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, there was no shortage of large and relatively empty rooms. Disused storage chambers for casks of ale and bottles of wine, collections of old and outdated documents whose words had faded to illegibility, rows of empty shelving that had once held all manner of dark and evil artefacts before being meticulously scoured by Dobby. It was cavernous, high-ceilinged, and most definitely against some council policy.

Still, it suited their needs just fine. Once Keyes had dug out of his head Ellis Locke's blueprints and diagrams of his time machine and other associated equipment, it had become apparent that this would not be as simple as modifying a DeLorean. Hermione supposed they could cast an Undetectable Expansion Charm on a police box, but that felt a bit derivative.

Plus, Harry wouldn't get the reference.

Harry.

She missed him so much. Even the two weeks that they had been apart thus far had been agony. So many times, she had turned to share a laugh with him or taken a bite of delicious food and gotten another one to offer to him, read something in a book and nearly gone to show it to him. Each time, she had felt anew his absence, longed on a level she'd never known possible to simply…have him here again. It was painful, potent, and crushing at times.

But she had to remind herself—he wasn't gone, not in any permanent sort of way. They could get him back. They would get him back. And when they did, she would hold tight to him and never, ever, ever let him out of her sight ever again.

In fact, Hermione suspected he would have a number of rather clingy hangers-on after this ordeal. Hopefully he was ready for it.

"Hermione," Keyes said with a bow as she entered what had been dubbed the Master Control Room. The largest and centermost space had been devoted to what could only be described as some clockwork supercomputer, with innumerable rotating gears and transistors meant to essentially steer the time machine to what year it was supposed to go to. It had been a bear to put together, and the finishing touches had only been added just the previous day. Today, Keyes was running a series of tests and calibrations to determine if anything needed fixing.

"Keyes," Hermione said. "Everything ship shape?"

"Hey, it sure is," Keyes said. "I've run five-hundred and seventy-three control scenarios, and I gotta say, I'm lucky I'm incapable of feeling boredom!"

"So, this part of the mechanism is up and running?" Hermione said, and Keyes cave a whirring nod.

"You bet!" he told her cheerily. "Up next, I think we should probably rig up a control panel to connect to it. Should be easy-peasy."

"Well—I'll leave it to you, then," Hermione said. "Find me if you need an extra set of hands or anything."

"Got it!" Keyes said, striding from the room and humming a song to himself. Left alone, Hermione surveyed the room, the ticking and turning gyros and gizmos filling the place with a steady staccato that she found she quite enjoyed. It was the sound of functioning machinery, of a solution. They were making progress, and surprisingly quickly at that.

They were going to get him back. There was simply no other option, no other consideration to be given. Harry would come back. Peter had even said so.

"Oi, Granger," a voice spoke, speaking of which…

"Peter," Hermione said, frowning at the Marauder as he strode into the room. She was still a bit cross with him, though given how helpful he'd been and the fact that he had genuinely been attempting to prevent a snarl in the timeline, she knew she was being a bit unreasonable.

She simply missed Harry and was misplacing some aggression due to that fact.

"See the spinny bits are spinning like they should," Peter observed, peering at the mass of machinery.

"Is that a technical assessment?" Hermione asked with a small smile, and Peter grinned at her.

"Professional opinion, definitely," he said. "I've time-traveled, think I should know a thing or two about it."

"You were pulled here by a time vortex, weren't you?" Hermione asked. Peter shrugged, sticking his hands in the pockets of his coat.

"That's the working theory," he said. "When the time machine got blown up, it punched a hole in time and created the vortex. Pulled a few people here, flung 'em 'round the timeline."

"Who else is here?" Hermione asked.

"That, we're not sure of," Peter said. "And there's still some stuff I can't say."

"Because of causality?" Hermione asked.

"If I tell you something before you're supposed to figure it out for yourself, that strains causality," Peter said. "It creates a time loop, and not a stable one."

"What am I supposed to be figuring out?" Hermione asked, and Peter held his arms in a shrug.

"All of it," he said. "You're building this thing, you're the one with all of Ellis Locke's findings and notes and the like; you need to take it a step further."

Hermione stared at the machine before her, the clockwork ticking and whirring, the busy sound she loved so much. This time machine was supposed to be a means to an end, but after that…then what? It would still be here, still functional, and…well, Ellis Locke had left her essentially all of his notes and such in the form of Keyes, as Peter had pointed out.

Perhaps there was some merit in exploring the field of chronomancy…

"Either way," Peter said, and Hermione looked to see him now clutching a book, what looked like a handmade leatherbound journal of sorts, "I, er…wanted to give you this. And don't go flying off the handle, because I just found it in my things. He…he gave it to me years ago."

Hermione felt her heart thud a few times too quickly and then stop completely before restarting. Reaching out, she snagged the book up, opening the cover and letting a squeaking gasp when she saw a very familiar scrawl.

To Hermione. A little something to read while I've been gone.

Be nice to Peter, he'll have to keep a lot of secrets.

"Oh, Harry," she squeaked out, feeling her eyes swim with tears as she looked up to Peter. "Have you…read any of it?"

"Nah," he said, holding his hands up. "Even if I felt like snooping, I couldn't have. He made sure only you'd be able to open it."

"That was thoughtful of him," she said. Turning the page, she saw more of his writing, more of him. She could tell already that she wouldn't be able to put this book down until he was back, that she would read and reread every page until it was etched into her mind.

Happier even than usual to dive into a book, she read.

Dear Hermione,

There's so much I wish I could tell you right now, so much happening that I want to talk to you about—not just because I only understand about half of it and could really use that brain of yours to help me out. But I'm on my own right now.

Well, sort of.

I've met them, Hermione. All of them. Mum, Dad, the Marauders, their friends. They're so perfect, but so bloody messed up at the same time. But I can fix it. I evidently have to. In order to preserve the timeline, I have to change this one from how I know things went. It's complicated stuff, but…

Hermione, I'm going to be here a while. You'll probably fix things up pretty quick on your end, find some way to pull me back. But here. I'll be a while. A good while. But I promise I won't forget. I'll never forget you. I couldn't. Only they need me here. I won't let it happen the way it did. I won't let the cycle keep going, the world getting saved and then messing up their second chance and third chance and so on. Things will be different this time.

Very different.

In the meantime, I'm writing this down so I can show you. Maybe I'll send it along with Peter, see that it gets to you. I won't leave anything out, Hermione. I want you to know all of it. Even if you can't be here with me, I want you to know all of it. And I want you to know that you were all I thought about. You and everyone.

This is how it all went in 1973.

Here we go, everyone. I'm posting this at the same time as I'm posting the first chapter of the threequel, so look out for 1973, which should appear quite closely after this one.