Eleventh

How do you know if you have changed?

Some say that our essence is completely transformed over a span of time of seven years. Bit by bit, day by day, small parts of one's spirit are added to or detracted from the soul, forged by experience and the irreversible force of time. Such elements are either fed to blossom or left starving and shriveling along with lost memories, shrinking in remote corners of the brain until they are swallowed by nothingness. It is the bits that are cultivated enough to stay that give shape to who we are, or rather who we evolve into.

Looking back at who she was seven years ago, Hermione could no longer recall the pieces of herself she had left behind. They were countless, scraped from her life with such brutal force that her heart was left to bleed. Parts of her that warmed her to the core like compassion, optimism and cheerfulness. Some of them no longer permeated her mind, and some were reduced to small fragments that only came to the surface when the time allowed for it.

It was like her soft side had been grinded and rasped and polished until only the sharpest angles remained, piercing and refined as a blade. She was not exactly sure what was left of the person she had been in her school days, nor did she know how to act like it.

As she plotted and schemed and weaved new threads of her plan into an intricate net, Hermione felt far from the Gryffyndor she used to be before the war. She was the spitting image of her, her features young and fresh, showing the early signs of the graceful woman she was going to blossom into, but everything else was…blurred and escaping her grasp like ineffable thoughts.

The Hermione Granger she used to know would have never, ever let tragic events unfold for the sake of greater plans. Not if it involved her two best friends. Her strong sense of morality had enveloped her like a powerful barrier shielding her from the world when it came to Harry and Ron. Sure, desperate times had called for desperate measures, and she had followed such rules with strict diligence, but this time the line between the just and the wicked was so thin it threatened to overwhelm her.

When she had told Malfoy that he was going to carry out his plans as he intended to, knowing perfectly well what the result would be, she could feel the bile raising to her throat at the thought of letting Ron being poisoned. He was going to suffer for it, but she decided to let Malfoy do it anyways. And she did it because she knew that that it was the smallest occurrence that was going to make the difference. The rest was going to be left as it was. It was clearly written in the book Dumbledore had given her.

"When it comes to changing the course time, there must be a balance between what is altered and what is left unchanged. When a wise wizard wants to skew the events through time travel, he knows he must do so by changing as little as possible."

The Slytherin had looked at her with piercing eyes, suspicion and doubt sweeping through his glare, but had not questioned her decision further. He trusted her after the vow they had made, maybe trusted her more than he should. There were always ways around deals, loopholes that could get her way more than she had asked with much less that she said she would give… and she would use that knowledge and trust to her own advantage.

That was definitely something her the old Hermione Granger would not do. But, she reflected, her old self did not belong to this world anymore.

The exchanges she had with Draco Malfoy were everything but frequent. In classes and around the Castle, he would do anything to avoid crossing her path. And on the rare occasions when their paths did cross, he met her presence with malicious smirks and derisive comments, walking with his head held high as Harry and Ron retorted with sloppy, improvised insults.

His voice was always cold, his gaze dull and uninterested, and there was something different in the way he strode slowly along the halls. It was graceful, full with pride, but yet appeared to be lacking purpose. It reminded her of the way she wandered around her old dismantled world, emotionless and completely alone, when all hope and determination had been sucked out of her. It was like watching a ghost float through rooms that he'd already crossed over and over again for centuries.

But those brief encounters did not tell the full story of whatever it was that had descended upon them. There was unspoken tension hovering around. It followed them along, permeating the room like beams of light filtering through the windows in the morning.

She could feel it like she felt the whisper of magic warming her essence. It was in the way their gaze met across the room in the distance, lingering in a mutual flicker of something that resembled reluctant understanding. It had been in the silent glances exchanged in classrooms, in the subtle shift of things that comes from the awareness of sharing the same space, in the nervousness that seeped through her bones as soon as he entered the room. It was nothing and it was silly and yet it was obvious.

When others were not looking, Harry would furrow his brows and turn to her as if to ask her a silent question. Was I right about him? What is it you are not telling me?

She would glance it back and shrug her shoulders, carrying on without looking at him again, because the guilt was stinging through her and she was scared he could read it on her face. It is not the right time, Harry. You will see.

The brief meetings with Malfoy went something like this: they would sometimes meet in the remote corners of dusty halls, their identities hidden by layers of cloth, their posture rigid and their gaze avoidant. Hermione would spend some time telling him little bits of what she thought he needed to know, skimming through the details that were connected to her past, and omitting all of those fragments he did not need to be aware of. She gave him just enough for him to trust her word.

Malfoy would do anything but listen in silence; he would find ways to retort and object to every little detail that he thought did not work, glowering and scoffing and blaming her silliness to her inferior blood. She would roll her eyes and dismiss his words, but she would store all the fresh information in her brain.

Hermione knew that skewing the facts and convincing him of the truth of her statements would be a hard task, but she had so much more wisdom and experience on her side than he ever would at this point of time. And so, one night she showed him what he did not want to believe. All the bits of her memories he had not expected to see. It was small streams of memories gushing out of her mind and enveloping his, those she was willing to share. And it felt odd and intimate to do so, but she knew that it was the time to pull the right strings of her thread.

Flashes of wizards crawling in the muddy streets flooded his mind and shook him to the core with the force of a crashing wave. It all came back rushing over her: the despair and the desolation and the hopelessness hanging in the air, settling among the dust and the crumpled buildings that reeked of death. She vividly remembered that smell, poignant and acrid and unsettling. It had lingered on her clothes and settled on her hair as she had hidden wounded and alone like a stray dog, far away from the reality they were living in now.

Pain had blurred her existence for as long as she had remembered in the aftermath of the war, following her in every corner like her own shadow.

Not to mention the scars. The scars had been tearing her flesh apart, ravenous like a wild beast devouring their pray. Some trailed down her arms as scarlet marks that itched and did not leave her alone at night, when the vicious nightmares were not crashing her sleep. Some others were deeper and crueler, burning like blazing fire and scarring her shoulders with heavy cuts that were difficult to hide. They had tormented her every day and every hour before they had been washed out along with all those terrible years. And now her skin was smooth and clean like no curse had ever hit it. But the memories had stayed.

She saw herself sleeping in the mud and the dirt, ragged clothing barely covering her figure as she tried and tried to get some sleep. She saw herself lying on the stone floor of abandoned buildings, her thin body curled into a ball, a stream of hot tears flowing down her cheeks. She saw herself shrieking and withering under the wand of multiple Death Eaters, her wandering mind floating far away from that present, escaping from a world that was too atrocious to grasp.

At last, she glanced up and looked at Malfoy. He was silent and taut, and his eyes had darkened and narrowed, drinking the scene with unusual thirst, like it stung him see it but could not look away. His lips were pressed into a thin line, his hands were clenched into firm fists, and there were sheds of conflict and emotion in his expression. He lingered in that position until the scene disappeared and his glare was still fixated on that distant corner where her old self had been tossed into. The silence grew and grew to the point it started to feel uncomfortable.

All around them, the ruins and horrors of her memories had started fading and blurring, the shape of buildings and streets shrinking and distorting until a few moments later they were standing in the usual hidden spot, standing in front of each other and pale as marble, back at Hogwarts.

When he finally raised his gaze and looked back at her, he did not seem to find the words to spit any vicious comment back to her. He was tense. She saw it in the quivering of his lips, shaking as if they were holding something back, and in the way his brows had furrowed, as if the very thought of sympathizing with someone like her could swallow him into a black hole.

Maybe he'd wanted to say how fit and pleasing it was to see a mudblood lying on dirt like she was supposed to. Maybe he was waiting for the right moment to use this knowledge when she was most vulnerable. She did not have a clear answer for that. Hermione was about to break the thick silence that had settled between them, but he was faster.

"Why are you showing me this?" His voice was low and hoarse of emotion.

At this point in time, she realised, he had not yet assisted to that degree of horrors and despair she had just showed him with casual disinterest. What had become natural to her was not for him.

"I wanted you to see it with your own eyes. So that you could get an idea of what it was actually like to live through those years. I wanted you to have a clear picture of what my world looked like." She answered.

"And you think you would convince me by making me feel pity towards you?"

"I think it would help you understand that this outcome will not be convenient for either of us."

He assessed her with his mouth curled in distaste for what she said, but did not argue any further.

"All those Death Eaters patrolling the streets and the ones I saw…dying after they tortured you, who were they?" Malfoy's question gave her a hint of hesitancy that she was not used to.

"Many of them are part of the ancient wizarding families. Some of them attended Hogwarts just a few years before we did. Many of them just…disappeared or died."

"What about my family?" his tone was composed but yet was full with uncertainty.

"The last time I saw your father was the day I discovered how I would get here. A fight with him broke out and I stunned him with a powerful spell, but he survived. He looked quite miserable. I heard that your mother passed away a couple of years after the end of the war, an incurable illness caused by a dark curse they say… but I cannot be sure. About you…I had not heard your name in years. I don't really know."

He kept looking at her in the eyes and then simply nodded.

Not all of it was completely true, of course. She had no idea what happened to Narcissa Malfoy after the Battle of Hogwarts, but she knew that one lie is the most effective when surrounded by truths.

Hermione needed Draco Malfoy to have a strong motive to help her through this, and this was the perfect opportunity to give him one. She had shown him her vulnerabilities, they had flashed through his mind. She was sure he would listen. And he had. After that day, he stopped questioning many of her claims like he used to.

After that, things were just a little different.

With time, Hermione realised that she had succeeded in giving him just enough truth to believe the rest. And whatever it was that swept through his eyes when they landed on her, she knew it was a good sign. She had planted seeds of doubt in his mind and then had let them flourish and feed on her memories like a starving man. And now she could sit and watch the conflict on his face grow larger and larger until he could no longer contain it, spreading like wildfire in wheat fields.

She saw him trying to unfold the paradox that was presented to him. A clever, experienced, powerful mudblood. One that had found a way to reverse back time, erase a war and countless deaths like they had never existed, and that had come back driven by the ambition of change the course of events, of turning their future upside down.

A mudblood that was supposed to be the source of the issues of the wizarding world that was now offering him the escape route that she knew well he was craving.

It crashed against what he had ever been taught and she knew he must be loathing himself for accepting her offer. She saw the hatred harboured for her kind battle with the willingness of getting out of the situation that was so evidently consuming him.

And she watched him and observed his behaviour and her eyes would always scan her surroundings to look for his presence and it bothered her so much that she often forced herself not to dwell on such thoughts. But she could not help it. And she could not allow herself to believe that it was him bringing the fragments of who she used to be back to the surface.

Towards the young Death Eater, she used to feel blind hatred and resentment for all he'd done to her and how he had contributed to shatter her hopes. But now there was a hint of compassion blossoming in her chest that she could no longer ignore.

When she looked him in the eyes now, there was much more that she could see other than cruelty and arrogance. There was conflict and there was pain and there was fear, and she did not know how to handle that, especially when she knew there had been a shift of things after that day in the library.

The day of Slughorn's Christmas Party came as cold and as windy as it could have possibly been, much more than she had remembered. Gusts of chilly air seeped through her long golden dress and glided down her exposed back without warning.

She stood in front of the mirror, minutes before she was supposed to leave her room and with a hundred questions in her head, sucking in deep breaths to soothe her rising nerves. Tonight was going to be important, and there was a devil on her shoulder whispering to her that things were not going to play out the way they had in the past, no matter how much she would try.

Her rounder cheeks were tinged with just a little touch of pink blush, and a line of makeup had come emphasizing her wide brown eyes, which wore less of the innocence and more of the wilderness of an experienced witch these days. Her fiery curls were cascading down her shoulders, smoother and softer thanks to the help of subtle charms that she only used when the time was right.

And the pearl earrings adorning her figure were bright and sophisticated and reminded her of the precious ones on her Time Turner. She had bought them with Ginny just a few days earlier, in one of those rare moments she allowed herself to be carefree once again. It had been a joyful and wonderful snowy day, full of laughter and chatter and a little too much butterbeer. She hoped that in the future she would be able to live every other day like that.

Watching herself and pondering her actions in silent moments, Hermione was unsure whether it was the fear of the known or the fear of the unknown that terrified her the most. She had the power to make choices, even the smallest ones, and to change forever the course of time. Was she scared of taking action or was she scared of the prospect of not doing so, knowing well that this would be a clear reflection of her questionable morality?

Hermione decided that following the events as much as she could. Thus, when Cormac McLaggen had asked he to be his date for the party with boisterous confidence, she had said yes like she was supposed to, a fake smile plastered on her face. She did not like the arrogance and rudeness of that boy, but she was convinced that she needed to alter the timeline as little as possible, and only when needed.

This time, Slughorn's spacious office shone in a different light.

The yellow glittered in the countless bright moving lights she'd conjured and illuminated the ambience like starts cutting through the darkness of the night. All around them, there were red and green animated butterflies dancing around the room with a soft flutter of their glittered wings. Right at the center of the office was an abundant banquet, overflowing with champagne and all kinds of delicacies, and a crowd of students were lining up and milling all around it.

To further enhance the festive atmosphere, loud and cheerful Christmas music was playing in the background, and some students had already started dancing to the rhythm.

Harry was waiting for her at the very corner of the room, fiddling nervously with a small glass resting in his hands. Professor Slughorn was talking to him with animated speech, and Harry kept nodding although it was evident that he was not pleased by the interaction.

Luna stood by his side with her usual eccentric and dreamy aura, a pink extravagant gown enveloping her. She looked as out of place as a fish in the desert, but she did not seem to notice it. A wide smile illuminated her expression as Harry's discomfort grew more and more evident by the minute.

Hermione took the opportunity to put some distance between her and McLaggen, who was always trying to get close to her, and seized Harry's arm to come to his rescue. He responded to the gesture with evident relief and glanced at her with the intensity of someone hiding a mutual secret.

"Hello Harry, Luna, Professor Slughorn. If you don't mind, I'm going to talk to Harry for a little while."

With these words, she left an irritated Cormac McLaggen dealing with Slughron's invasive questions and flung herself toward the crowd, Harry striding along and tempting to keep up with her pace with difficulty. When they finally reached the other side of the office, they halted under a hidden shadowy column, both drawing heavy breaths as the chatter and the music grew louder in the background.

"Thank you for rescuing me, Hermione. I had been trying to get away from Slughorn all evening. You look wonderful by the way."

She had to warn him about the night. If she didn't, he would hate her for what she'd hidden from him.

"Thank you. Listen now. I need you to know that tonight is going to be… difficult for us. There are things that will happen that you will not like, now and in the future, and if you want to be mad and scream at me after, I understand. But now I ask you to trust me and do as I say."

Harry immediately knew that the seriousness on her face meant something important was going to happen. His gaze grew narrow and firm, a hand came stroking her arm as a sign of reassurance. I am with you, it told her.

"What is it?" he asked.

"You are about to discover something extremely relevant for the course of time, Harry. You have to pay careful attention, but you need to promise me you will stay calm. I know all of it. I am handling it. I anticipated it already and I have decided not to act against it. It will be fine."

"You are not making sense, Hermione. You haven't told me a single detail of what's going to happen, who is involved in this?"

"You will see it with you own eyes very soon. I will be right behind you in every move."

The evening went by with tension and the premise of an inevitable event about to crash down on them.

They spent a while chatting with other guests, trying at all costs to avoid Hermione's date always glancing around as if the ground was going to swallow them at any moment.

In the other timeline, Hermione had not been with Harry when he overheard the conversation between Snape and Malfoy. This time, she was going to be there, just in case. And it was not only because of the need to know all the details of the conversation to have a better picture of how to change the events later on. It was also because curiosity sparkled within her with great force, and it was too much of a temptation to ignore.

The truth was she was looking for something in Malfoy's behaviour. Something that even herself was not able to grasp fully. Deep down, Hermione wanted to see more of the emotions that she'd caught a glimpse of. Curiosity and intrigue were feeding on such small bits of goodness that she had been able to see, no matter how faint and rare they were. Maybe she was being silly, and maybe he accepted her offer only for his own survival. But there was also a silent thought drilling in her mind, and it was that he might be starting to question the morals of his family and what Voldemort stood for.

And so, when they saw Flinch dragging inside a sneering Draco Malfoy, and shouting that he had been attempting to break in, Hermione felt her heart jump into her chest so fast that it could explode. Harry was glowering at Snape, who stayed composed and impassive as if such silly interference was not affecting him at all. Of course, she knew well this was not the case.

Draco stood tall and straight in front of their Potions professor, his light brows furrowed in confusion, and his mouth curled in disgust. She noticed that the shade of his skin had turned even paler than it originally was. The black robes emphasized the gloom that he wore on his face, and his grey eyes were hardened by anger and stress as he looked at Snape with annoyed countenance. From the corner they were both resting in, they could see the back of their professor's slumped figure, his long cloak f loating behind him as he stepped closer and closer to his favourite student, while they had a clear view of Malfoy's expression.

Although she was painfully aware of his presence, she did not dare look at him too closely. He did not tear his narrowed gaze away from Flinch, looking disgusted that a squib had even dared to touch him. At last, Slughorn came to interrupt them and gave Malfoy permission to stay at the party, followed by Snape's urged request to have a word in private.

A few minutes after Snape and Malfoy had disappeared behind the curtains, Harry exchanged a significant glance with Hermione and excused himself to go to the bathroom. She followed him immediately with rushed steps and a well-placed disillusionment charm. She knew that this was it.

It didn't take long before she and Harry slid into a corner to hide from their sight, their attention focused on one hidden spot where the two wizards had come to a halt. After a few seconds, they saw the pair enter an empty classroom and then shut the door with a thud. She could swear she saw Malfoy quickly glance behind him, in their direction, as if he could feel their presence around them. But it lasted only a brief second, and then his head turned towards Snape once again. They pressed their ear to the door and waiting for something to happen.

"I knew something was up with him! Why didn't you tell me anything about this?" Harry whispered to her ear with urgency and a pinch of saltiness in his tone.

"Just watch, we'll talk about this later" she answered.

"We better do."

Snape's hushed words brought them back to the scene.

". . . cannot afford mistakes, Draco, because if you are expelled —"

"I didn't have anything to do with it, all right?"

"I hope you are telling the truth, because it was both clumsy and foolish. Already you are suspected of having a hand in it."

"Who suspects me?" said Malfoy.

There was a pause, and he was speaking again.

"For the last time, I didn't do it, okay? And don't look at me like that! I know what you're doing, I'm not stupid, but it won't work — I can stop you!" She heard the exhaustion in Malfoy's voice.

She saw Snape pause for a moment, and then he continued with suspicion in his glare "Ah . . . Aunt Bellatrix has been teaching you Occlumency, I see. What thoughts are you trying to conceal from your master, Draco?"

If only he knew. Hermione thought. If he knew that he is now on our side.

"I'm not trying to conceal anything from him, I just don't want you butting in!"

"Listen to me. I am trying to help you. I swore to your mother I would protect you. I made the Unbreakable Vow, Draco —"

"Looks like you'll have to break it, then, because I don't need your protection! It's my job, he gave it to me and I'm doing it, I've got a plan and it's going to work, it's just taking a bit longer than I thought it would!"

"What is your plan?"

"It's none of your business!"

"If you tell me what you are trying to do, I can assist you —"

"I've got all the assistance I need, thanks, I'm not alone!" Malfoy hissed.

She raised her brow at that, wondering if he was talking about her.

The interaction ended with Snape muttering a few curses under his breath and leaving the room as fast as he'd entered it.

Malfoy was left alone for a few moments, they heard him moving around the room in silence for a while, before he made his way out the room. Harry and Hermione had moved away from the door, hidden by their charms and Harry's cloak in the dark. They watched as the blond wizard walked away without turning back.

Harry's eyes were widened in surprise for what he'd just heard. He turned around and looked at her with, a silent invitation to give an explanation.

"I know you have a thousand questions in your head, Harry. I need to gather my thoughts and I will tell you everything. As you can see, he is involved in this. But I know."

"How bad is it?" Harry said tiredly.

"Can we talk about this in front of a hot chocolate?"

"No later than tomorrow." He answered.

"I promise." She stamped a kiss on his cheek and their meeting was settled.

After Harry left, back in time for the end of the party, Hermione lingered in the hall for a while, wandering the empty corridors with more questions than she ever had before. Should she tell Harry about Malfoy now? If so, how much should she tell him? Maybe this would change everything, maybe she just had to intervene in changing the smallest details. But what if this would help her avoid many more awful things?

Before she could figure out an answer, a voice she knew too well broke the silence.

"Spying on me all night, Granger?" Malfoy asked.

He kept his hands tucked in his pockets and his chin high. He was trying to look composed but the dark lines under his eyes spoke volumes. He did not fool her one bit.

"Why do you say that?" she spat with a sarcastic tone.

"No need to see you to know that you did. That was quite a dramatic exit you made with Potter, by the way."

"What do you want?"

"I was waiting for you to reveal Potter that her precious best friend is allied with a Death Eater. It would have been so much fun to see you struggle half as much as I did tonight."

"You would enjoy it like Christmas day, wouldn't you?"

He took a few steps closer to her, and his eyes scanned her figure. She felt uncomfortable and exposed by her long silky dress.

"If I have to suffer through this shitty year, then I might as well not be the only one. And I am glad it is you suffering with me, Granger." He said, almost in a whisper.

It was meant to be a cruel remark, but there was an odd inflection in the way he spoke the last sentence, and it sparked a rush of adrenaline within her that started warming her like a hot beverage. She raised her chin to look at him and saw him swallow, lower his gaze down her body, and then bring his eyes back to hers.

She abruptly broke the eye contact and turned to leave. What was wrong with her?

"Enjoy the holidays. I'm sure there are great things waiting for you at your Manor." She said as she turned around the corner.

She hoped the second half of the year would not bring as much turmoil as it was intended to.

Notes: Hope you like it. Feel free to leave a little comment to let me know what you think :)

I borrowed some dialogue from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince book, particularly the interaction between Snape and Draco.

See you soon!

Ari