Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: This is a weird fic. I recently reread something that I had written last April for the Hogwarts Auction due to a comment left on the AO3 posting of it. It was a Hermione/Lily fic involving time travel. So that fic was on my mind when I sat down to write about an entirely different kind of commitment (I was planning a handfasting), and so you got Hermione committed to actually giving up her life in the present for her trip to the past. You don't have to read that other fic to understand what is going on here, but if you're interested, it's in this collection under the name Time is Not a Division.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 12); MC4A
Individual Challenges: Sapphic Bribery; Fore-Touch; Clowder; The Ties That Bind; Starry Nights; Love Language; Point of Know Return; Gryffindor MC (x2); Brush; Summer Vacation; Seeds; Shipmas; Time is Relative; No Proof; Times to Come; Interesting Times; Old Shoes; Location, Location, Location; Themes & Things A [Love]; Everyone's Cousin; Lovely Triangle; Advice from the Mug; Ethnic & Present; Neurodivergent; Quiet Time; Booger Breath; Booger Breath Rider; Letter of the Day; Setting Sail; Hold the Mayo; Short Jog; Yellow Ribbon (Y); Yellow Ribbon Redux (Y); Two Cakes!; Green Ribbon
House: Hufflepuff
Assignment No.: Term 12 – Assignment 4
Subject (Task No.): Beauty Therapy (Task#4: Write about someone making a commitment.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Insane Prompt Challenge [44] (Community); 365 [72] (Devoted); Gwen's Candy Shop [3](Desi Character); Baking King Cakes [Step 1] (Green)
Other MC4A Challenges: Wi Bingo [1C] (Star)
Representation(s): pre-Hermione/Lily/James; Desi Potters; Black Hermione; Autistic Harry; Molly Weasley Adopts All the Children & Reaps All the Grandbabies
Bonus Challenges: Misshapen Pods; Yarnspinner; Second Verse (Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; Found Family; Nontraditional; Zucchini Bread; Middle Name; Mother Hen; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice; Clio's Conclusion; Three's Company; Lovely Coconuts; Grease Monkey; Bad Beans; Under the Bridge; Where Angels Fear; Esbat; Red Night); Chorus (Wabi Sabi; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Rediscovery; Tomorrow's Shade; A Long Dog; Unicorn; Wind Beneath; Abandoned Ship; Surprise!; Infinity; Messing with Morlocks; Turtle-Duck; Sitting Hummingbird; Some Beach; Strange Potatoes)
Tertiary Bonus Challenges: T3 (Thimble); SN (Rail; Ameliorate); LiCK (Amaranth); FR (Liberation; Satisfaction); O3 (Oath); HoSE (Schooner); SS (Schooner; Seduce); SHoE (Brood; Oblique); AD (Archery)
Word Count: 1071

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Over the Moon
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Hermione knitted by the light of the orb floating above her camp chair. The pale wood of her needles shown against her dark brown skin, glowing in the combination of her orb and the full moon hanging even farther above her. The field around her was filled with the raucous noise that accompanied having so many Weasleys in the same place and the gentle flashes of fireflies that many of them were chasing. The years since the end of the war had been good to the entirety of magical community, but the Weasleys had been especially lucky. They had made it through without losing a single family member, a feat in itself when so many of them had been on the front lines, and then most of them had met their soulmates to boot.

There had a slew of weddings and bond ceremonies that first year. Now, nearly three years afterwards, Molly Weasley was practically drowning in grandchildren. Between having seven children and then practically adopting several more (Hermione included), it made for a lot of potential offspring, even if some of those children had ended up in relationships where parenthood had to be more planned.

Not that having to plan for children had managed to stop Percy or the twins any. Percy and Oliver had already had a surrogate carry one child for them and who had expressed interest in at least one more. Fred and George had ended up bonding with their mutual soulmate who was no other than Draco Malfoy. While the Weasleys had been lucky, the Malfoys had not been. Among the deaths had been both of Draco's parents and Throckmorton Malfoy, Draco's uncle. Throckmorton had left behind a newborn son whose mother had died in childbirth. With no other family to care for the baby, Draco was raising Scorpius as his own, and the twins were equally devoted to the tiny trickster.

The real surprise (at least to Molly, because no one who attended Hogwarts with both of them had expected otherwise) had been Harry and Ginny hadn't been soulmates. Not that the two hadn't ended up being close—sometimes they were better friends than she, Ron, and Harry were, which was saying something—but in the end, they hadn't been soulmates. Harry had married Luna within weeks of the Battle of Hogwarts. Not to be out done, Ginny had scandalized her parents by running away to the Continent with both Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, only to return a year and half later bonded to both men and expecting their first child. Molly and Ginny had an epic row while most of the family watched.

It had only ended when Charlie had arrived all the way from Romania with three dragonets dressed in onesies that he tried to pass off as his own children.

Molly had given up entirely and decided to go lie down.

At least Charlie's dragons were better house-trained than Norberta had been. As if aware that Hermione had been thinking of them, there's a burst of fire into the sky that is accompanied by the delighted shrieks of human children. When the light of the flames fade, the stars overhead seem to twinkle just a bit more brightly as if taking up a challenge. Hermione didn't set aside her knitting to go check on things.

"I remember when you would have been over there supervising," Harry said as he dropped onto the ground by her feet. His tone had gone flat, a sign that he was probably pushing his limits on socialization, but she knew he wasn't judging her. It had taken seeing him with Luna for Hermione to finally understand some things that had nagged at her over the years. But then Harry was much better at pretending he was neurotypical than Luna was, a fact that never failed to make Hermione want to transfigure certain Muggles into bugs and squish them.

"Maybe I grew up," Hermione replied. Harry gave her an unimpressed look that made her blush. She set aside her knitting finally. "Or maybe I just want to bask in the chaos of my last family gathering."

"Maybe it's not your last," Harry whispered. He laid his head against her knee. His dark face seemed even darker against her pale blue skirt. "Maybe you'll have lots in the future, and we'll have a blast trying to figure how to explain to my best friend why she is also one of my mothers."

"We don't know how much of the past is inevitable, Harry," she reminded him. "Just because we know how to find soulmates through time and how to get them into the past, well, it doesn't mean that the past is mutable or to what degree. The technology is still untested."

What she was saying was true. They knew that the technology was sound. It would do what they wanted it to do: send an individual to the past for the expressed purpose of meeting their soulmate. As wonderful as that sounded, there was really no way of telling if they could change the past or to what degree. The return journey would have to be done through the natural course of time. Inevitability and paradox were going to be their greatest obstacles in this endeavor.

Harry had taken to the idea that his best friend should have been his mother's match better than Hermione would have thought. With no one left who was close enough to have the details, the question of if Lily had also been matched with James Potter (and Hermione just wasn't) remained unanswered. They didn't even know if James and Lily would be willing to allow some stranger to join their relationship (though Hermione would never admit to Harry just how interesting she found both elder Potters). There were a lot of unanswered questions in this project.

"I have faith that it will all work out," Harry whispered. Over their heads, the lunar eclipse they had been waiting for started, casting a bloody shade across the face of the full moon. The transition was ominous, despite Harry's hopeful words. Hermione started petting his curls like she would Crookshanks and buried her unease under his confidence.

Leaps of faith had never been her strong suit.

She was still committed to jumping.

And the next day, under the reassuringly steady gaze of her best friend and hopefully soon adopted son, Hermione did just that.