part4

by rubenisawsome

I dint write this

2. 2

Preface

Harry Potter and the Simplest Solution part V
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/26839228.

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: F/M Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Relationship: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter Characters: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger Additional Tags: Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Albus Dumbledore Bashing Language: English Series: Part 5 of Harry Potter and the Simplest Solution Collections: My Fav HP fics all in one place, Lux's fav fics Stats: Published: 2020-10-05 Words: 14,148 Chapters: 2/2 Harry Potter and the Simplest Solution part V

by evenmoreimprobable

Summary

What will Hermione do when she hears the story of Harry's first life?

This is part 5 of the story. If you haven't read parts 1-4 you should read those first (starting here).

Some genuine reader comments about this series:

"In ten years of reading HP fanfics I don't think I've read such an original and moving story."
"This has got to be one of the most beautiful, organic and satisfying Harmony fics on AO3."
"I'm just gonna call this series, 'How [the Harry Potter Books] Should Have Ended'."
"You've turned me into a crying mess! Thank you for such a beautiful story!"
"I've reread this series over ten times but I still can't stop the feels."
"Gave me chills! Even now I still have goosebumps!"
"Heart-wrenchingly beautiful."

Notes

There's some Dumbledore-bashing coming up. Sorry about that, but it's hard to avoid – he did so many awful things!

Secrets Part I

Sirius and Remus instantly whipped their wands up and trained them on Hermione. She looked thoroughly unperturbed.

Remus stepped forward for a closer look, "Miss Granger? Is that you?"

"Yes Professor Lupin it's me," she replied with a cheery smile. "You said we would meet again, and well... here I am!"

"Shouldn't you be in the UK, preparing for your final year at Hogwarts? What about your NEWTS?"

Hermione waved a hand dismissively, "Pah. I could pass all seven NEWTS in my sleep. I already waited ten months since Harry sent his final present. I couldn't wait another year! I decided to find Harry now. Dumbledore will just have to choose another Head Girl."

Sirius kept his wand trained on her, "What the hell is going on? Who is this? Where's Rose?"

"I'm sorry Mr Black," Hermione replied, "but there never was a Rose. It was always me, Hermione Granger. I took some hair from a girl I met on the way here and Polyjuiced myself to look like her."

Harry was struggling to get any words out. Fortunately Remus asked the question he wanted to ask: "But why?"

"Because I wanted to get to know Harry of course," she replied. "And I wanted Harry to get to know me. But I wanted him to like me for who I am – who I am this time, I mean, not who I was last time."

Sirius, Remus and Harry all exchanged looks.

Hermione laughed merrily, "Oh you should see your faces! Honestly Harry, did you think I wouldn't work it out? I'd begun to suspect that you must have come back in time even before you sent me the lost Diadem of Ravenclaw."

"You did?" Harry mumbled numbly.

"Of course I did!" Hermione replied, sounding mildly offended. "You sent me enough clues! As soon as they gave me a time-turner in third year I began to wonder, because you knew things you could only know if you'd seen the future. That meant you were either a seer or you'd come back from the future. We all know that seers are frauds, so it had to be the latter, and the time-turner proved that time travel was possible."

"Er, well in fact seers can..." Harry began, but stopped. "Actually, never mind. So how did you find us?"

"Harry, I have the Diadem of Ravenclaw. I can think of at least twenty ways I could have tracked you down, but I chose the easiest one – I followed Professor Lupin. In English folklore 'Padfoot' is the name given to a sort of spectral black dog, otherwise known as a Grim. It therefore seemed likely that Mr Black was an animagus who appeared as a Grim when you both escaped from Azkaban. Professor Lupin clearly knew who you were and left Hogwarts to come to find you. Since he knows you better than I, he would know where to look and possibly how to contact you. I suspected he would use muggle transportation, which would baffle most witches or wizards, but I'm muggleborn and he did not hide his trail very well. A few Confundus Charms at the largest muggle travel agents was sufficient to pick up the trail. When I arrived here I simply asked around about my long-lost childhood friend and his two guardians. It wasn't hard to track you down – people were very helpful and you're a very distinctive group."

Harry spared a moment to glare at Remus, who had the good grace to look embarrassed.

"But why do all this?" Harry asked.

"I already said! To get to know you! You've been an invisible presence in my life for the last six years Harry. You've been looking out for me, guiding me, protecting me. When you said goodbye last year I was devastated. You left a hole in my life that was too big to fill, and I refused to accept it. I realised that you're more important to me than Hogwarts, so I left to come find you. I needed to find out what sort of person you are, and to understand why you did what you did."

Harry's heart sank. She'd come to find out why he'd murdered Quirrell?

"I don't mean why you killed Professor Quirrell," she added hastily, seeing his expression. "I understand that – it was the only way to kill Voldemort before your health failed. I meant why you did the things you did for me. Everything that's good in my life, I owe to you. So I wanted to see what you're really like and whether you'd like me – not for who I was, or for how I look, but for the person I am now. So I disguised myself, and I knew that you'd probably shy away from talking to a seventeen year old, so I made myself look a bit older. Simple."

"I see. And what did you discover?" Harry asked with a lump growing in his throat.

"I discovered that you're a wonderful person. I discovered that you do like me for who I am, and I like you for who you are. But I still don't know why you did what you did for me. To understand that, I need to know what happened between us in your previous life."

She put her arms around his neck.

"Please Harry," she whispered. "Will you tell me our story?"

Harry had spent five years building a future for Hermione but he'd always known that there would be no place in it for him – that just wasn't possible. He'd never imagined actually seeing her again, and yet here she was. His Hermione! His Rose! Harry's emotions were thrown into complete turmoil.

His mind was transported back to that tent in the Forest of Dean. The memory of their dance three decades ago was as fresh as if it had happened just yesterday. Everything he'd felt came rushing back to him – the desperation and the despair of their situation, the horrors of war... the grief over those they'd lost... combined with an overwhelming relief that Hermione was there to help him through it. She was his rock, the foundation on which his confidence depended, and the only person who'd never let him down. Without her he would have been crushed by the enormity of the task ahead of him.

Sirius and Remus slipped quietly from the room, taking Nagini with them, but Harry barely noticed. He was completely consumed by memories of his previous life with Hermione. She was a truly wonderful person, he'd always known that. But now he'd learnt it all again, in the shape of Rose. He'd fallen in love with Rose within minutes of first speaking to her. She was amazing, and now he knew that Rose and Hermione were one and the same, he could see the similarities. But there were differences too. Rose had a calm confidence that Hermione hadn't developed until she became Minister for Magic. Rose was also more carefree and light-hearted than Hermione had been. All the dark events and near-death experiences in her previous life had apparently stripped her of that, leaving her more serious.

The first time they'd danced, Harry had been given a glimpse of the life he could have had... if he hadn't been fighting a war. For a brief moment, all thoughts of Voldemort and Horcruxes had fled his mind. He was just a teenage boy, holding his beautiful best friend in his arms, wondering if she wanted to be more than just friends. But when the song ended, the moment did too. Hermione had walked away, looking bereft and upset. Had she felt guilty? Harry had no idea, but he'd decided it was best to let her deal with whatever she was feeling before he went any further. So he'd carried on as if nothing had happened.

Over the next few days Hermione's mood had improved enormously. She stopped crying at night and seemed to have forgotten about Ron entirely. They became closer as the weeks passed, and by the time they visited Godric's Hollow on Christmas Eve, Harry felt like they'd more or less become a couple. He just needed to find the right moment to kiss her and make it official.

But that moment never came. Instead, Ron returned. At first Hermione had been furious with Ron, and refused to talk to him. But their goofy ginger friend was full of remorse and Hermione was too nice a person to bear a grudge for long. Soon after that they began teaming up against Harry, just like they had the previous year.

Harry was devastated. They were clearly back together and Harry's hopes of ever being with Hermione were crushed. In the silent darkness of the tent that night, Harry resolved to bury his feelings for Hermione so deep within his heart that they would never again see the light of day.

In the weeks that followed Harry told himself that he'd been mistaken – Hermione had never felt the same way he did. She saw him as a brother, not a lover. Pretty soon, he'd convinced himself that he only saw her as a sister too. Nothing had happened when they danced, he told himself, or in the months that followed. It had all been a momentary lapse of judgement brought on by the stress of their situation.

Harry doggedly held onto that belief for the next thirty years, until the day his consciousness was sent back in time.

On that day Hermione's last words to him had changed everything. With those final words, he suddenly knew that he hadn't been mistaken. She had felt the same way. That realisation was the final straw. Voldemort's insatiable thirst for power had cost Harry his parents, his Godfather, and then the love of his life. The mad bastard had taken away every single person Harry had ever loved. Harry had been pushed beyond endurance and as he sat in the cupboard under the stairs following his return, he had raged at the unfairness of it all. What had he done to deserve such a cruel fate?

But now, five years later, Hermione was here... looking up at him with her deep brown eyes.

It was more than Harry could take. Tears ran down his face – tears of pain and loss... and a desperate hope that he dare not even begin to entertain.

Hermione led him to the sofa and they sat hand in hand.

"Tell me the story of us, Harry," she whispered again.

And so he did. Harry told her the entire story of his first life, because that was the story of them. Hermione had been there for every important moment of it. He left nothing out – he told her everything.

His tale began on the night that Dumbledore, McGonagall and Hagrid dumped him on the Dursleys' doorstep with a letter for his Aunt. Hermione frowned at that, but didn't interrupt. She frowned even more when she heard about 'Harry Hunting' and that he lived in a cupboard under the stairs until he was eleven. Her eyes went wide when she heard about the troll and the giant three-headed Cerberus he'd encountered inside Hogwarts, but her mouth properly dropped open in shock at the revelation that she'd set Professor Snape's robes on fire in the mistaken belief that he was trying to kill Harry. By the time Harry's tale reached the end of their first year and he described the traps protecting the Philosopher's Stone she'd become almost immune to shock, but hearing that Voldemort was a face on the back of Professor Quirrell's head made her draw breath sharply. At Harry's description of killing Quirrell with his bare hands she covered her mouth in horror.

Hermione remained silent through his retelling of their second year, until Colin Creevey got petrified... at which point she gasped.

"You're joking!" she exclaimed. "You mean there was a basilisk loose in the school?"

Harry blinked at her; twice. "How did you figure that out?"

"It's obvious!" she replied. "What else could it be?"

For the first time Harry realised how formidable this version of Hermione might be. With nothing to distract her from her studies, plus the two texts he'd sent her, and the Diadem of Ravenclaw... she would no longer be the smartest witch of her age, but quite possibly the smartest witch of any age. It was more than a little intimidating.

She had listened in wide-eyed amazement to his tale of flying cars, rogue bludgers and giant acromantulas, but when he got to the part where the Heir of Slytherin had abducted Ginny and written, 'Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever' she stifled a scream and grabbed his arm.

"Oh no! Please tell me Ginny was okay! She didn't die did she?"

"No she didn't die," Harry reassured her. "Though it was a close thing..."

Hermione's expression was fearful as he described locating the Entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, being betrayed by Lockhart and having to go on alone... to find Ginny lying close to death on the cold wet floor beneath Slytherin's statue. When he described Tom Riddle's spirit rearranging his name to read, 'I am Lord Voldemort', Hermione gasped again.

"No!" she exclaimed in horror. "Don't tell me the Diary was a Horcux?"

Harry wasn't surprised she'd figured it out. Dumbledore had done the same.

"I'm afraid so," Harry replied. "And it wasn't the only one..."

"No!" she whispered, cupping her face in her hands. "He made two?"

Harry shook his head sadly, "Not two. Seven."

Hermione screamed, and slapped a hand over her mouth. "Seven!" she mumbled through her fingers. "That's... that's... monstrous!"

Her eyes went suddenly wide, "But how did you defeat Riddle's spirit then? Only Fiendfyre can destroy a Horcrux, but you were just a second year. And he had your wand!"

"That wasn't actually my immediate concern," Harry replied dryly, "because he summoned the Basilisk and ordered it to kill me."

"You fought a thousand year old Basilisk?" she shrieked. "It must have been sixty feet long! And you did it without a wand?"

"I did," Harry confirmed, "and it was more like seventy feet. Its head was bigger than I was. I wasn't entirely unarmed though. Fawkes appeared with the Sorting Hat, from which I pulled the Sword of Gryffindor."

Hermione's mouth opened and closed several times before she could get any words out. "Fawkes came to your rescue... and he brought a sword? A sword to fight a basilisk? That's insane! Basilisk hide is far too tough! Why didn't he bring Dumbledore?"

Harry shrugged, "I have no idea. I never thought to ask. Not that Fawkes could have answered... Anyway, I managed to slay the Basilisk by stabbing the sword up through the roof of its mouth."

"Harry that's... that's brilliant," she grinned, "and also insanely risky! What if you'd been scratched by a fang? Those things are razor sharp and laced with venom."

Harry sighed, "So I discovered. One of them pierced my arm and snapped off."

"But that's impossible!" Hermione protested. "There's no cure! You'd be dead!"

Harry shrugged, "Yeah, I thought I was done for. But Fawkes cried on the wound and healed it up."

"Phoenix tears!" Hermione nodded. "Of course!"

"Then I stabbed Riddle's Diary with the fang to destroy the Horcrux."

"And that worked?" Hermione replied, astounded. "How on earth did you know? I've never read that anywhere!"

"Just a hunch," Harry replied modestly. "Fortunately I was right and Riddle scattered into nothing."

Hermione shook her head in disbelief while Harry continued his story. She raised an eyebrow when she heard that none of the Weasley family thanked him for saving their daughter, and seemed very interested to hear that she'd hugged him so fiercely after she was un-petrified, but otherwise didn't comment.

The story of his third year was far less dramatic. Hermione wasn't surprised to learn that Sirius was innocent, or that he was Harry's Godfather. She'd inferred that from the lack of court documents and the fact that Professor Lupin would have turned him in if he was guilty. She was surprised to hear about Peter Pettigrew though. It had taken Ron several days to notice that his pet rat Scabbers was dead, but he'd just put it down to old age. He'd flushed the dead rodent down the toilet and forgotten all about him. There had certainly never been an investigation, so nobody ever knew that Ron's pet had been a portly middle-aged man.

Of course Harry's fourth year, and the Triwizard Tournament, contained plenty of drama. Hermione was on the edge of her seat listening to his escapades, though she did (once again) seem to be especially interested in how much she'd hugged him. Her eyes went as big as saucers when she heard that she'd kissed him on the top of the head after the second task. The faint smile was wiped from her face when Harry and Cedric were portkeyed to the Hangleton Graveyard, and she cried openly at the news that Cedric was killed.

Harry's voice cracked as he told her of his awful fifth year. Dumbledore had told everyone to keep him in the dark, which left Harry isolated and alone. He told her about his nightmares, being attacked by Dementors and the subsequent Ministry hearing as if they were nothing. Hermione's eyes narrowed but she didn't interrupt. He rubbed the back of his palm absently while he told her about being tortured by Umbridge with a blood quill. Hermione's expression turned thunderous, but she was still shocked to hear that she subsequently tricked Umbridge into being abducted by centaurs.

When Harry's tale reached the Department of Mysteries he faltered. Despite the fact that Sirius was alive in this timeline, Harry still struggled to talk about Sirius dying in the previous one. His voice wavered and his eyes prickled, but he ploughed on. The story would only get worse from here. He needed to get it all out in one go. Nevertheless, a lump grew in his throat as he described their desperate flight from twelve Death Eaters, and tears ran freely down his face as Sirius tumbled slowly backwards into the Veil.

Hermione grabbed his hands in hers, fighting back tears of her own. "I'm sorry Harry. I'm so sorry."

Harry just nodded numbly and continued on, reciting the prophecy that Dumbledore had revealed in his office just after Sirius died. To his surprise, she barely reacted at all. Clearly this Hermione was firmly of the view that prophesies were nonsense, so he continued straight into his sixth year.

Hermione scowled fiercely at the news that she'd taken a fancy to Ron, and even more when she learned that she'd interfered with Quidditch try-outs to get Ron onto the team. The news that Ron subsequently dumped her for Lavender Brown seemed to induce conflicting emotions – she appeared both relieved and insulted. The frown didn't leave her face as Harry described his lonely year of trying to thwart Malfoy while Hermione and Ron focussed on their love-hate relationship with each other. She flushed guiltily when Draco's plan succeeded and gasped in disbelief when Dumbledore was killed.

"Nobody could believe it," he told her woodenly, "but Dumbledore's broken and lifeless body lay on the ground below the astronomy tower for all to see... he was undeniably dead. The whole school gathered around and raised lit wands above their heads, paying tribute to the fallen hero."

Harry was weeping openly again. Tears ran steadily down his face as he stared numbly into the distance. Lots of things about that year upset him, though he hadn't realised it at the time. In many ways his sixth year had been the beginning of the end. For the first time since the three of them had become friends, Hermione and Ron had both abandoned him. Dumbledore was being as secretive and obstructive as ever, but the loss of Hermione and Ron had hit him really hard. He'd been too busy trying to stop Malfoy to notice, but he'd been horribly alone. He felt betrayed and unloved. That's why, when Dumbledore died, Harry felt like he'd lost everything.

Hermione drew his focus back to the present. She was crying too, "Please Harry. I had no idea you'd been through so much. Please stop, I've heard enough."

Harry shook his head, "No, you need to hear it all. You need to know who I am... and why I did what I did."

His eyes found hers and he swallowed painfully past the lump in his throat, "There's worse to come; much worse."

Hermione looked stricken as Harry launched into his seventh year. It began very badly, with Moody and Hedwig being killed escorting him to the Burrow, George being maimed, the Ministry falling to Voldemort and Death Eaters attacking Bill and Fleur's wedding. Harry, Ron and Hermione fled to London but were immediately located by Death Eaters. They fought clear and found safety behind the Fidelius at Grimmauld Place. The country fell to Voldemort's forces and soon become a totalitarian state, with Muggleborns being hunted by Snatchers and consigned to concentration camps or Azkaban. Dementors and Death Eaters roamed the country unimpeded, killing muggles for sport.

Eventually they'd tracked down another Horcrux – Slytherin's Locket. But Delores Umbridge had confiscated it. After months of planning, their scheme to infiltrate the Ministry and recover the locket had worked, but Ron was badly hurt and Grimmauld Place was compromised during the escape. So they went on the run, living in a tent and moving every day. The strain of his injuries and the malign influence of the locket took their toll on Ron, who became increasingly hostile and eventually abandoned them.

"You were inconsolable for weeks," Harry told her. "Until that song came on the radio: 'O Children' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I'd never heard it before, and could make no sense of the lyrics, but somehow it struck a chord. I pulled you onto your feet and forced you to dance with me. For the first time since Ron left, you smiled."

Harry stopped speaking, lost in his own thoughts.

He'd felt a connection to Hermione while they danced, and he realised something. Hermione was his best friend, not Ron. The more they danced, the more he realised how much she meant to him. Not just as a friend, but as more than that. She was easily the most wonderful person he knew. She was also, he noticed with a start, breathtakingly beautiful. Even wearing heavy boots, scruffy jeans and a lumberjack shirt, with her unwashed hair pulled back in a messy ponytail... she was gorgeous. Her smile lit up the room, and Harry's troubles seemed to just melt away. As the song faded they had danced the last few notes in a close embrace, with their heads resting on each other's shoulders... and something had stirred in Harry's chest.

He was no longer going out with Ginny, he'd thought, and Hermione was no longer going out with Ron. He'd left them, after all. So it was just the two of them now – Harry and Hermione... fighting a war together... for who knows how long... against terrible odds. Would it be so wrong if something happened between them, he'd wondered...

When the song ended they'd pulled apart, looking into each other's eyes. Harry wanted to kiss her, to tell her what he'd realised, to tell her how he felt about her. But he hesitated for the tiniest of moments and missed his chance. Hermione turned away and stalked out of the tent. He watched her go, feeling thoroughly dejected. Did that mean she didn't feel the same way?

"We battled on alone," he said, resuming his tale, "trying to understand the objects Dumbledore left in his Will, figure out how to destroy the Horcruxes, and uncover the locations of the ones that remained. But we hit a brick wall and in the end we had no choice but to visit to Godric's Hollow, hoping that Bathilda Bagshot might know something useful."

Harry paused again, his thoughts far away.

"We didn't realise it until we got there," he said eventually, "but it was Christmas Eve."

"Oh Harry," Hermione whispered softly, squeezing his arm.

"There was snow on the ground," he continued, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "We could hear midnight mass inside the church. It was a hauntingly beautiful night. We saw the remains of my parents' house – the place where they raised me before a madman came to kill us. There's a memorial in the village square. To muggles it looks like an obelisk but to witches and wizards it's a statue of my parents, with my mother holding me in her arms. In the winter, when the snow settles, it looks like they're wearing furry white hats."

Harry sniffed heavily, and for a moment he had a haunted look in his eyes, but Hermione's trembling hands brought him back to the present again. She was staring at the floor and weeping silently.

"We found their graves in the churchyard," Harry continued. "You conjured a wreath of winter roses and leaned it against the headstone. Then we just stood, you and I, arm in arm in that silent snowy graveyard, honouring my parents' sacrifice."

He squeezed Hermione's hands and she looked up at him with bloodshot eyes.

"I never told you..." he said softly, "in all the years that we were friends afterwards, I never told you how much I treasured that moment. I went back there every Christmas Eve after that. I would stand alone at my parents' grave and on the stroke of midnight I'd conjure a wreath of winter roses, just like you did, and wish them Happy Christmas. I talked to them, and to Sirius, and to everyone else we lost. And I remembered the snowy and peaceful Christmas Eve that you and I spent together there, in the middle of a war."

"You never took anyone else?" Hermione asked in a tiny voice.

"No. Only you would have understood what it meant to me, but you were with Ron."

After a few moments, Harry continued his story. The alarming things they'd learnt from Rita Skeeter's biography of Dumbledore surprised Hermione enormously. Her faith in the Headmaster was badly shaken. The tale of Ron's return made her groan out loud, and the fact that she'd forgiven him so readily clearly angered her. But Dobby's death during the escape from Malfoy Manor upset her enormously.

"Oh no!" she wailed, her expression as desolate as Harry's.

Harry wondered how well she'd got to know Dobby in the three hours that Harry was away. With a lump in his throat the size of a grapefruit, Harry told her of the grave he dug with his bare hands, and the stone he erected that read, 'Here lies Dobby, a Free Elf'.

His voice broke and he looked away, his eyes stinging. Hermione broke down completely, bawling her eyes out.

With a loud pop, Dobby appeared. In his hands was a tray bearing two large glasses of Firewhisky.

"Harry Potter and Miss Grangy must not upset themselves," the elf declared, offering them the drinks. "Dobby is safe and well."

"Thank you Dobby," Harry replied, swigging back the whisky and wiping at his eyes. "We're fine, really."

"Harry Potter is not fine. But Dobby knows that Harry Potter must tell his story, and Miss Grangy must hear it. Dobby hopes it will be the last time."

Hermione took the other glass. With a pop, Dobby was gone.

"The last time?" Hermione asked, dabbing at her eyes with a white handkerchief from her purse.

Harry sighed, "I resisted telling Sirius and Remus the whole story for a long time. When I did, I asked Kreacher and Dobby and Winky to join us. I didn't want to have to tell the tale more than once, but it was... difficult... the first time. I was a blubbering wreck for a lot of it. They begged me to stop, but I insisted on getting it all out. I knew that if I stopped I'd never be able to start up again. I wanted them to know what happened, just as I want you to know. But it took a lot out of me, and afterwards I withdrew into myself. I didn't speak for months. In the end, Remus insisted that I see a muggle psychiatrist. He brought her here and proved that magic was real. She said I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When she heard my story she said it was no surprise – Dumbledore had basically groomed me to be a child soldier. I killed Quirrell with my bare hands when I was eleven years old, and Dumbledore brushed it off as if it was nothing. Even worse, I later discovered that my mentor, the person I trusted most in the whole world, and who I loved like a grandfather, had left me with child abusers so I'd willingly walk to my death when the time came."

"No!" Hermione gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.

"I'm afraid so," Harry declared bitterly, "but we're not there yet, and that was far from the end of it."

Harry explained how Bellatrix's panic at seeing the Sword of Gryffindor told him that one of the Horcruxes was hidden in her vault. So they'd broken into Gringotts and escaped on the back of a dragon, destroying half the bank in the process.

"I rode on the back of a dragon?" Hermione squeaked.

Harry grinned, "Yes you did. I think you enjoyed it even less than the Thestrals... and Buckbeak... and brooms. For someone who hates flying, you did rather a lot of it I'm afraid."

Hermione smiled weakly.

Harry described their return to Hogwarts, via enemy-occupied Hogsmeade, in a mad dash to find the next Horcrux before Voldemort could retrieve it. McGonagall and the other professors reclaimed the school and triggered the defences, just as Voldemort's army arrived outside the grounds.

"What followed became known as the Battle of Hogwarts," Harry told her.

"They attacked the school?" she gasped. "When it was full of children?"

"Yes," Harry replied miserably. "We managed to smuggle the younger ones out through a passage to Hogsmeade, but the older ones insisted on fighting. They wanted to buy me the time I needed so we could defeat Voldemort for good. They were incredibly brave, but Voldemort's army was vast. He had giants, werewolves, Dementors, acromantulas and hundreds of witches and wizards. He laid siege to the school and the defences collapsed. After that the fight was brutal and ugly. Half the school was destroyed."

Harry closed his eyes against the pain of those memories.

"How many died?" Hermione asked brokenly.

"Too many," Harry replied bitterly. "On our side we lost Remus and his wife Tonks, Fred Weasley, Lavender Brown, Colin Creevey, Severus Snape and fifty other students. On their side they lost hundreds. Quite a few pureblood families came to an end that day."

Hermione shook her head in disbelief as Harry resumed his story. He'd figured out where the diadem was but got into a fight with Malfoy and his goons in the Room of Requirement. Crabbe was consumed by his own Fiendfyre, while Harry and his friends managed to save Goyle and Malfoy. They were barely free of the flames when the battle found them. Percy made the first joke of his life, just before a massive explosion threw them all from their feet and killed Fred.

Harry took a moment to shake the image of Fred lying dead on the stone floor from his head... and resumed his monologue. Only Nagini remained, so Harry used his connection with Voldemort to find him and his snake skulking in the Shrieking Shack. Harry, Ron and Hermione raced through the castle with people fighting all around them. They saw Lavender Brown fall from a balcony and get ravaged by Fenrir Greyback. Hermione blasted the werewolf clear as they ran past, but it was obvious that Lavender wouldn't be getting up. Hagrid disappeared under a tidal wave of acromantulas, bellowing at people to not hurt them. But Harry couldn't stop to help anyone; he had to kill the snake.

He didn't get the chance. Voldemort ordered Nagini to kill Snape and swept from the Shack before Harry could make his move. Instead, the dying Snape gave him a set of memories that might answer Harry's remaining questions.

Voldemort called a cease-fire and offered the defenders their lives in exchange for Harry Potter. Harry and his friends returned to the castle, where Ron and Hermione joined those grieving for the dead in the Great Hall.

Nobody had noticed when Harry slipped away.

Secrets Part II

Chapter Notes

This chapter contains a poem which is very much in the public domain, so there's no copyright infringement.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Harry had gone to the Headmaster's office and used the pensieve to view Snape's memories.

Learning the secrets that Dumbledore had kept from him all those years was a deeply bitter experience. Not only had Dumbledore been raising Harry like a pig for slaughter, but he'd manipulated Harry's life so that Harry would embrace his death without complaint.

The worst part, in Harry's opinion, was that Dumbledore was thoroughly unrepentant about his cynical and despicable manipulations. He demanded payment from Snape before he would agree to protect Lily, and then he demanded payment again after he'd failed to protect Lily. The man literally had no shame. He'd even implied that he was blameless – that Lily and James brought about their own deaths by trusting the wrong person. (He'd sounded rather petulant in fact, now that Harry thought about it. Had Lily and James turned down Dumbledore's help with the Fidelius? Had they bruised his pride? It kind of sounded like it.)

When Snape accused Dumbledore of protecting Harry just so he could die at the right moment, the Headmaster had made no effort to deny it. Furthermore, in his single-minded pursuit of that goal, Dumbledore had ordered Snape to tell Voldemort the exact date of Harry's departure from Privet Drive. Harry had been too preoccupied to realise it at the time, but this meant that Dumbledore was directly responsible for the deaths of Alastor Moody and Harry's beloved owl, Hedwig.

Hermione was appalled, "Dumbledore wouldn't do that! He wouldn't!"

She jumped up and started pacing; muttering angrily to herself, "Do that to a child? Endanger a dozen lives to maintain Snape's cover? It's unforgivable! He isn't that cold... or that cruel... Is he? I mean, Crookshanks never liked him..."

Harry made no effort to persuade her. She would either believe him or she wouldn't. His heart was already breaking at the likelihood that she would never want to see him again once his story was complete. He sighed wretchedly and remained silent.

While Hermione paced, Harry thought again about everything he'd seen in Snape's memories. Snape had begged Voldemort to spare Lily, and then he'd begged Dumbledore to protect her. Not her family, not Harry, just Lily. Even Dumbledore had been appalled by that. After Lily died Dumbledore took advantage of Snape's grief to get his word that he would protect Harry. Snape had kept his word, but he had also made Harry's life as awful as he possibly could, assisted others (like Draco Malfoy) in doing the same, and played a significant role in the deaths of Sirius, Moody and Hedwig. When Dumbledore had accused Snape of growing to care about Harry, Snape had denied it angrily, calling forth his patronus to prove that he protected Harry only for love of Lily, and after Dumbledore's death Snape had gone to Grimmauld Place to retrieve a photograph of Lily. He'd torn off the side showing James and Harry and thrown it on the floor in contempt. All in all, it was pretty clear that Snape cared absolutely nothing for Harry. Why on earth had Harry named his son after the man? He really wasn't sure any more. Some sort of post-traumatic displacement probably.

After several minutes Hermione sat down again. Her expression was icy, "Please continue."

Harry didn't know if she believed him about Dumbledore or not. He suspected not, but he resumed anyway.

"Finally, I had the truth. Lying with my face pressed into the dusty carpet of the Headmaster's Office where I had once thought I was learning the secrets of victory, I discovered that I was instead learning the secrets of my own defeat. My job was to walk calmly into Death's welcoming arms, disposing of Voldemort's links to life along the way, so that when at last I flung myself across his path, and did not raise a wand to defend myself, the end would be clean, and the job that ought to have been done in Godric's Hollow would be finished. I never thought to question my assumption that Dumbledore wanted me to live. Now I saw that my lifespan had always been determined by how long it took to eliminate all the Horcruxes. Dumbledore had passed the job of destroying them to me... and I in foolish obedience continued to chip away at the bonds tying not only Voldemort, but myself, to life. It was a neat solution, don't you think? How elegant not to waste any more lives, but to give that dangerous task to the boy who had already been marked for slaughter, and whose death would not be a calamity but another blow against Voldemort. Dumbledore thought of everything. He even allowed me to confide his precious secrets to my two best friends, so that they could continue the quest in the event that I died prematurely."

Hermione's expression was murderous, but she made no comment.

"As I lay alone in the Headmaster's office, you and Ron seemed a long way off. I felt as though I'd parted from you months ago. The destiny that Dumbledore had secretly mapped out for me sixteen years earlier had finally arrived, and there was no avoiding it. There would be no goodbyes and no explanations, I was determined of that. This was a journey we could not take together, and the attempts you would make to stop me would waste valuable time. Only half an hour remained of Voldemort's cease-fire, so I had to get moving. Since everyone was gathered in the Great Hall, I stumbled numbly through the castle, confident that nobody would stop me. But I was wrong. You were sitting on the stairs, comforting Ron. I didn't see you until it was too late – you'd already noticed me."

"You knew something was wrong immediately of course. You always knew when I was upset. I didn't even have to tell you why. I just said there was a reason I could hear the Horcruxes; that I'd suspected it for a while, and that I thought you had too. You started crying, because you knew what I meant."

Abruptly, Hermione screamed and leapt from the sofa, backing away in dismay.

"Please no! Not you! You're not a Horcrux!"

Harry couldn't bear to look at her. His heart felt like it was breaking in two. Seeing the disgust or pity on her face would undo him completely.

"I'm afraid so," he intoned numbly. "Nagini was not the last horcrux after all, I was, and we both knew it. You said you'd go with me, but I refused. I told you to kill the snake, and then Voldemort would be mortal. You hugged me for the last time, and I walked away."

"I let you go?" Hermione demanded incredulously.

"You had no choice. It was my task and mine alone. I would never have expected you, or anyone else, to come with me. What purpose would it serve? He would have just killed you."

Hermione growled and turned her face away in disgust, "I shouldn't have let you go at all, never mind go alone!"

"Hermione..."

"Would you have let me go?" she demanded angrily. "Alone?"

Harry tried to keep his expression neutral, but he failed.

"Exactly!" Hermione spat. "You would never have done that to me!" She shook her head heatedly. "I'm not sure I like the person I was."

Harry felt the need to defend his best friend, even though he was defending her to herself.

"You've always been fiercely loyal, Hermione, and in that moment you had to choose between loyalty to me and loyalty to Ron. Going with me would have meant certain death. Staying with Ron would give you a chance at life. You made the right decision."

Hermione was unconvinced, "If I was in love with Ron then maybe it was the right decision. But if I was in love with you, as I suspect I was, then it was the easy decision, and I was a coward."

"You're judging yourself far too harshly!" Harry objected. "You've certainly never been a coward! You're the bravest woman I know. I was a typical Gryffindor back then, always rushing in with no plan and no consideration of the consequences. I wasn't brave, I was reckless and stupid. You, on the other hand, knew exactly what you were getting into. You knew how unlikely it was that we would succeed. You knew what the consequences of failure would be, and how dangerous it was for you to be the muggleborn best friend of the Boy Who Lived. Despite all that, you did it anyway. That's bravery. And we were at war, don't forget. Victory was the most important consideration. Everything else was secondary, and we each had our roles to play. Perhaps you realised in that moment, as I did, that your role was to fight on after I was gone... not to die uselessly by my side. Letting me go was an act of bravery and sacrifice, not cowardice. And if you had been in love with me, well then it was an even more selfless and courageous sacrifice wasn't it?"

Hermione huffed dubiously, "Maybe..."

Harry decided to move on quickly while he was ahead, "I didn't think I could tolerate meeting anyone else so I threw the cloak over myself, but I bumped into Neville and Oliver Wood carrying Colin Creevey's body towards the Great Hall. I told Neville to kill the snake too so that once I was gone there would still be three people who knew. I dove under the cloak again and stepped out into the courtyard, where I saw Ginny. She was crouching over an injured girl who was crying for her mother. Ginny was telling her it would be alright. The girl said she just wanted to go home and she didn't want to fight any more. It was the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen. That little girl haunted my dreams for years afterwards. She fought for me and I didn't even know her name!"

Harry ground his teeth in impotent fury, frustrated tears falling mutinously from his eyes. "She didn't make it, that little girl. I looked for her afterwards, but she didn't make it. I found her body in the Great Hall."

Harry's tone hardened, "Whenever I wonder if I'm doing the right thing, I just think of that little girl. When I killed Quirrell five years ago, I did it for her. When I slaughtered those Death Eaters in Azkaban, I did it for her. When I killed Barty Crouch Jr at the Quidditch World Cup, I did it for her. That girl deserved to live, but these vile scumbags do not. I couldn't give her justice in that world, but I can give it to her in this one. The only exception is Fenrir Greyback – when I tracked him down and removed his head, I did it for Remus and Lavender Brown."

Hermione dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, "Mr Black and Professor Lupin... they don't help you?"

"No," Harry replied firmly. "I don't want anyone else to have blood on their hands. They help me to maintain the Exclusion Zone, and they were very keen to assist in sending Lucius Malfoy to Azkaban, but that's it."

"That was you?" Hermione responded with a start. "I read about that on the Daily Prophet. An anonymous tip-off led to the Ministry discovering a cache of dark artefacts in a secret room under Malfoy's Dining Room floor."

Harry smiled coldly, "Yes that was us. We also slipped Lucius some Veritaserum just before the Aurors arrived, so he confessed to everything."

"How did you do that?" Hermione exclaimed, taken aback.

"Ah. Well, that's a whole other story. Let's just say that it's unwise to mistreat your house-elf, because if you get tricked into accidentally freeing them, they might come back and spike your food." Harry grinned, but the humour quickly fell from his face. "The rest of the Death Eaters who'd avoided prison were not so lucky. I tracked them down and executed them. Malfoy was only spared because he defected in the original timeline. In twenty years, when he's paid for his crimes, he'll have the chance to rejoin his family. The others were irredeemable monsters."

"Draco was never quite the same after his father was imprisoned," Hermione noted. "Without his Dad to protect him, and without his supposed standing in the now-extinct Death Eater organisation to intimidate people, he became a bit of a laughing stock. The crimes his Dad admitted to were so shocking that even his Slytherin friends had to distance themselves, so he pretty much keeps himself to himself. I never read about those deaths in the Prophet though..."

"I made them look like accidents. They were only reported in the Obituary section, but I'm sure it didn't go unnoticed in Death Eater circles..."

Hermione's expression was unreadable as she asked, "What's the Exclusion Zone?"

Harry was happy to change the subject, "In his current form Voldemort is, as he put it to me in the Little Hangleton Graveyard, 'as powerless as the weakest creature alive'. All he can do is 'force himself, sleeplessly, endlessly, second by second, to exist'. Only one power remains to him – he can possess the bodies of others. But he dare not go where humans are plentiful for fear that Aurors are still searching for him. So he sometimes inhabits animals – snakes, of course, being his preference – but he's little better off inside them than as pure spirit, because their bodies are unable to perform magic... and his possession of them shortens their lives; none of them lasts long."

"How awful," Hermione whispered quietly.

"I agree," Harry concurred fervently. "In his efforts to avoid death, he's consigned himself to a living hell. In some ways it's a fitting punishment for killing my parents; maybe even worse than Azkaban, but it's not enough. He deserves no mercy, and is thoroughly unworthy of our sympathy. He's a depraved sociopath who lacks the tiniest shred of decency. He kills, tortures and corrupts those around him for his own amusement. While he lives, the entire world is at risk. But I don't know how to kill him. There must be a way, otherwise he wouldn't hide in fear like he does, but I haven't figured out what it is. Nor has Dumbledore, I guess, or he'd have done that instead of offering me up as a human sacrifice."

Harry became suddenly animated. "But what if Voldemort ceases to 'force himself to exist'?" he asked excitedly. "Presumably he will cease to exist and fade away to nothing!"

"But don't you have to destroy the Horcruxes before destroying his spirit?" wondered Hermione.

"I don't think so," Harry asserted. "By his own admission, he has to force himself to exist. If the Horcruxes were enough to keep him alive that wouldn't be the case. I also think his choice of words is important. He said 'exist' not 'live'. If he stops trying to sustain himself, I don't think he'll die, I think he'll cease to be."

"But isn't that worse?" Hermione objected. "Why would he go to all this trouble to avoid death, only to willingly cease to exist instead? Surely he'd try even harder to avoid that?"

Harry shrugged, "I can only speculate, but I wonder if his fear of death isn't so much a dread of dying as a dread of what comes after. Nobody ever really talks about it, but the magical world knows a lot more about the afterlife than the muggle world does. Witches and wizards know with absolute certainty, for example, that souls exist. As a result, we know for sure that there actually is an afterlife. Now put yourself in the shoes of a young Tom Riddle, who's spent his entire life terrorising others and committing all manner of evil. Having grown up in a muggle orphanage he'd be well acquainted with the concept of Heaven and Hell. Then he goes to Hogwarts and discovers that there is definitely an afterlife. He would surely conclude that he was destined to burn in hell. Faced with an eternity of torment in the afterlife, he sets about finding a way to avoid death. But should that endeavour fail, he would rather cease to exist than be consigned to an eternity of suffering."

"Good heavens!" Hermione exclaimed. "No pun intended. But what if you're wrong?"

Harry pulled a face, "Well that would be a bummer, because destroying all the Horcruxes would be a bit tricky. We got rid of five of them, and even figured out how to remove a Horcrux from an object without destroying it, but there's one left," he pointed to his scar, "and the only way to destroy that one is to kill me."

"No!" Hermione gasped, flinging herself at him and attaching herself to his chest like a limpet. For the first time, Harry was reminded that this wasn't just Hermione he was talking to; it was Rose – the girl he'd been dating for several weeks. If all the kissing was any indication, she had become extremely fond of him. He might even go as far as to describe her as his girlfriend, though he hadn't had the courage to actually say it yet. Even more ridiculous, he was still thinking of her as a muggle when she was of course a witch. He'd thought she would be disgusted at the things he'd done, and revolted by the fact that he was a Horcrux, but if Rose was in love with him and was as smart as he suspected... then she would want to understand his actions and she would want to help him get rid of the Horcux.

Harry wrapped his arms around her, grateful beyond words that she hadn't run screaming from the house.

"Don't worry, as long as Voldemort is safely contained within the Exclusion Zone, that won't be necessary. But if a magical creature happened to cross his path he might gain some strength, or even some magical ability. That would be disastrous. So we've set up a massive network of charms around the forest where he's hiding. Muggle repelling charms, animal repelling charms, protective enchantments, concealment charms... and intruder charms linked to a caterwauling charm here. That's what you heard earlier. If anything larger than a mouse gets within ten miles of Voldemort we grab our dragonhide robes and head over there to deal with it. Tonight was a Class 4 incursion, which means a XXXX magical creature had breached the barrier – in this case a family of Graphorns. We don't know if Voldemort has the strength to possess something like that, but nor do we want to find out. We herded them away from him, out of the Zone, and another twenty miles beyond. While we were doing that we stumbled on Nagini, so I stunned her and brought her back."

Hermione nodded, "I assumed as much." She looked pensive, but asked him to continue his story.

"Where was I? Oh yes, in the courtyard. So I didn't speak to Ginny. I didn't look back. I just walked on, through the rubble and the wreckage and the mangled bodies. When I reached the Forbidden Forest I knew it was time to open the snitch that Dumbledore had left me. The inscription on it said, 'I open at the close'. Can you guess the password to open it?"

Hermione thought for a moment, but then shook her head.

"The password," Harry said evenly, "was 'I am about to die'."

Hermione whimpered.

Harry tightened his arms around her, "Dumbledore isn't like the rest of us, Hermione. He doesn't realise how cruel his actions will feel to others. He thinks dying is just the beginning of another grand adventure. He doesn't fear it and has little sympathy for those who do. He wouldn't view that password as a knife to the gut, like we do. He'd just see it as a clever way to conceal a secret until the time was right for me to figure it out. Regardless, the snitch opened and the Resurrection Stone inside brought forth the ghostly spirits of my parents, along with Sirius and Remus. They told me I'd been really brave, that they were proud of me, and that I was nearly done. I asked if it hurt, to die, and Sirius said it was as easy as falling asleep."

Hermione gasped, "They... Did none of them want you to live?"

Harry shrugged, "Apparently not. I didn't see it like that at the time though. I thought they were being supportive in the face of my inevitable demise. So I just asked them to stay with me, until the end. In subsequent years I did wonder whether the Resurrection Stone is actually a dark artefact that encourages the holder to commit suicide. Dumbledore always said that nothing could bring back the dead, so were they really my parents? I don't know. Maybe they're constructs from my subconscious mind, like the reflections in the Mirror of Erised. Anyway, I stumbled across Yaxley and Dolohov in the forest and followed them back to Voldemort's camp. Hagrid was there, tied up for their amusement. Unfortunately Nagini was protected by a magical cage, so I couldn't kill her. In any case, Voldemort's entire inner circle had their wands trained on me. I didn't have a plan. All I knew was that I had to die, and Voldemort had to do it. In retrospect, I was lucky. He didn't torture me, or hurt Hagrid to torment me. He just wanted rid of me, so he cast the Killing Curse... and I died."

"You died?" Hermione repeated in disbelief.

"Well it's not entirely clear, but yes I think so. According to Hagrid, Voldemort cast the Cruciatus Curse on me to prove that I wasn't faking. I didn't even twitch. That's when Dumbledore's plan really came together. He knew that when Voldemort used my blood to create his new body, he'd assimilated some of the protection from my mother's sacrifice. That created a blood bond between us, tethering me to life while he lived. It's old magic that only someone like Dumbledore would know, so Voldemort had unwittingly become the only person who couldn't actually kill me. Not fully, anyway. Instead, he killed the Horcrux within me, and sent me into a sort-of limbo. I was like those people who die on the operating table and have an out-of-body experience. They see a light or a tunnel or something; if they enter they die and if they don't they come back. In my case, I saw Kings Cross Station; if I took the train I'd die, and if not I'd live. To be honest, I wanted to die. I was tired of fighting, being manipulated, and losing those I love. But voluntarily leaving my friends to face Voldemort without me wasn't an option."

"Oh Harry," Hermione whispered, sounding broken-hearted. "But at least Dumbledore knew you wouldn't die!" she added, hopefully. "He didn't raise you like a pig for slaughter after all!"

"If only!" Harry scoffed bitterly. "The plan was always for me to die. That was necessary because of the Horcrux in my head. From the moment Dumbledore dropped me on the Dursleys' doorstep until the end of my fourth year at Hogwarts, that was the entirety of the plan. But after Voldemort used my blood to create his new body, Dumbledore hoped that Voldemort would kill me himself. If so, then it was possible that I'd survive. On the other hand, if anyone else killed me I'd be dead for good. Dumbledore was gambling on Voldemort's vanity driving him to complete what he'd started sixteen years earlier, along with my uncanny good luck to ensure that I didn't die some other way first. On the other hand, the fact that Dumbledore kept risking my life unnecessarily along the way suggests that, despite his protests to the contrary, he firmly believed that the prophecy would ensure my safe arrival at the final battle. Either that or he didn't care about me at all. He did once describe caring for me as a trap after all – a flaw in his brilliant plan. Maybe he managed to talk himself out of caring about me? He certainly avoided me like the plague in fifth year, and again in sixth year, apart from our ridiculous 'private lessons' that is. The only person he seemed to care about was Draco Malfoy, for some reason."

Harry went on to describe Voldemort's triumphant return to the castle, with Harry's limp body draped over Hagrid's arms, the angry uprising that Harry's death precipitated, his return from the dead, and Voldemort's eventual defeat.

It had taken six hours to cover his life up to that point.

It took another three hours to cover the thirty years after that. At various points Hermione laughed, groaned, gasped, squeezed his arm or wept quietly. The first rays of dawn were streaming across the terrace outside as Harry completed his tale.

"We thought Delphi was safely locked up in Azkaban, but we were wrong. I can't believe we were so stupid! The Dementors betrayed us every time Voldemort snapped his fingers. Why would his daughter be any different? They set her free along with a bunch of others. By the time we figured out what she was up to, Theodore Nott had built her another time-turner and she'd disappeared into the past. We'd destroyed the only one we had, so we had no way to follow. Within hours people started to vanish. Delphi was changing the past again. Our children were the first to go. They just faded away and were gone, as if they'd never existed."

Hermione stared at him in wide-eyed horror. Harry gave her a hollow look and continued in a voice devoid of emotion. It was impossible to convey the anguish of seeing your children just fade away to nothing.

"Members of the Order and the DA went next – Mr and Mrs Weasley, Shacklebolt, Charlie, Neville, Luna, Ginny and the rest. The other you guessed that Delphi had probably gone back to 1997 and told Voldemort what the future had in store. He must have abandoned his search for the Elder Wand and returned to the UK to wipe out his enemies instead. The Order and the DA were all being watched you see; he knew exactly where they were. He must have found Shell Cottage soon after, because Bill, Fleur and Ron went next. Pretty soon you and I were the only ones left, because back in the past we were on the run. Nobody knew where we were, so it was hard for them to kill us, but it was only a matter of time. The fabric of our reality was starting to fray. Objects were disappearing and buildings were falling into dust. Whatever Delphi was doing, it was changing everything. It wouldn't be long before our timeline simply ceased to exist."

"It was you who realised what had to be done. It was the only thing we could do really. There was no way to send anyone back in time without a true time-turner, but you knew of a ritual that would send someone's consciousness back. It was a one-way trip of course, but in the circumstances that didn't seem to matter. I argued strongly that it should be you, but you refused. You pointed out that whoever went back would have to defeat Voldemort, and only I could do that. You created an insanely complicated runic circle and stuck me in the middle of it. You hugged me fiercely, then stepped outside the circle and started chanting. I barely had time to get my head around what was happening when you went suddenly quiet. The Ministry building around us began to crumble. You gave me such a look of sorrow and regret. I'll never forget it. Then you mouthed three words to me and jabbed your wand into the runes. They exploded into life, and I felt pain like nothing I've ever felt. When I woke, I was in the cupboard under the stairs at number four Privet Drive, a few months before my first year at Hogwarts."

Harry fell silent, his story at an end.

Hermione said nothing for the longest time. When she eventually spoke her voice was gravelly from crying.

"I know what you're thinking, Harry. You're thinking I'll be horrified that you're breaking the law and dispensing vigilante justice."

Harry nodded mutely.

Hermione snorted, "You're forgetting all the times I did the same. I set a professor on fire because I thought he was trying to kill you. I used a time turner illegally to free a convicted murderer. I kept Rita Skeeter imprisoned in a jar for months. I arranged for Umbridge to be abducted by murderous centaurs... I may not have done those things in this timeline, but I'm largely the same person. I understand the need for direct action when the alternative is worse."

Silence stretched between them. Harry was too overwhelmed to respond.

"The three words I mouthed to you," Hermione said suddenly, "they were 'I love you' weren't they?"

Harry's voice had deserted him. He just stared at the floor and nodded.

"Then why was I with Ron?" she exclaimed. "I don't understand. I've never had anything in common with Ron. In fact he's always been perfectly horrid towards me! He doesn't have any admirable qualities..."

Harry shrugged, "I don't know. Girls are a mystery to me. But Ron wasn't that bad. He may have been a bit... unreliable, but he almost always came through in the end."

"Well I need to know!" Hermione declared firmly.

She reached into her purse, pulled out the glittering Diadem of Ravenclaw and placed it on her head. Her expression became serene and she sighed softly. Harry imagined it must feel quite liberating to be suddenly more intelligent, but he had no regrets about not trying the diadem himself. He already felt guilty enough about all the mistakes he'd made in his life... the last thing he needed was to realise how many more he'd made. Hermione looked pensive for a few moments, and then her mouth opened in an "Oh" of understanding.

"What?" Harry asked, struggling to ignore how much Hermione looked like a princess.

"I got together with Ron... to be near you."

That made no sense at all. "Huh?" he grunted.

"I was in love with you from the moment you saved me from the troll, but I didn't know it. For one reason or another neither of us ever made the connection. We thought we were just friends, and whenever it seemed to be more than that we just put it down to relief that we'd survived some near-death experience. We did that so often that we started to recast our love as more of brother-sister thing, because that was the only way to make sense of it. But that was stupid. A brother-sister thing doesn't happen in those circumstances. I was in love with you but I'd subconsciously categorised you as off-limits, so I fixated on the person who'd keep me closest to you instead – Ron. Then you did the same thing – once I started to show an interest in Ron you suddenly developed an interest in his sister Ginny, to ensure that you we always near me. The only time we ever came close to realising the truth was when we were alone in that tent in the Forest of Dean. The 'O Children' song came on and we danced, knowing in our hearts how we truly felt. But when it ended the reality of our situation reasserted itself. I didn't want to be a distraction to you, so I buried my feelings. By the time the war was over we baulked at betraying our other halves. Ron and Ginny had lost a brother; it didn't seem right to add to their pain. We each persuaded ourselves that our feelings had never existed, and that was that. But we didn't speak about those months we spent alone together did we?"

Harry shook his head, "No, never."

"And that exposes the lie we were living. If we truly felt like brother and sister, we would have had no problem talking about it."

Harry nodded, knowing the truth of it in his heart.

"But there's another thing," Hermione added. "You named your sons after your father and the three most important men in the fight against Voldemort – James, Sirius, Albus and Severus. But you named your daughter after your mother and... Luna Lovegood. That's a rather curious discrepancy, isn't it? When it comes to the two most important women in the fight against Voldemort your mother is obviously number one, but there was a very obvious candidate for number two, wasn't there? Was that person Luna Lovegood?"

Harry shook his head, refusing to meet her eye.

"No," Hermione declared, "of course not. It was me. So tell me Harry, why didn't you name your daughter Lily Hermione Potter?"

Harry flinched guiltily, "I... Well, that is we... I mean erm... Well..."

He spluttered into silence. He felt like Hermione's eyes were boring holes into him.

"You thought that naming your daughter after me would raise awkward questions, didn't you? You knew that Ginny wouldn't like it, so you suggested Luna instead."

Harry sighed heavily, "Yes."

"That's not all though is it?" she asked.

Now Harry was genuinely bewildered, "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Well," Hermione said, turning to face him fully, "How do you feel when you hear me say the name 'Hermione Potter'?"

Harry somehow managed to choke on nothing, and started coughing violently. To hear that name coming from her lips, in her voice... It took him several seconds to pull himself together, and he still felt like his heart was going pound itself right out of his chest. His emotions were in total disarray and he had no idea how to respond to her question.

"Do you know why I chose to call myself Rose?" Hermione asked unexpectedly, letting him off the hook.

"Because you've always loved the name Rose?" Harry replied doubtfully.

Hermione gave him a withering look. "No. It's because I've always loved roses. That's why I conjured winter roses for your parents' grave. I should have conjured lilies really, but I guess I didn't think of it. Anyway, I read a few years ago that your mother was called Lily, so I thought Rose was a nice choice for my fake name. If I'm honest, I also thought that you might like it." She looked suddenly sheepish, "You know... subconsciously."

Harry raised an eyebrow and Hermione flushed. It almost took his mind off the 'Hermione Potter' thing.

"I have to wonder though," Hermione continued quickly, "why did I name my daughter Rose? I called myself Rose because I was thinking of you and your mother. Did I call my daughter Rose for the same reason? Was I thinking of you? Was it to remind me of that Christmas Eve in Godric's Hollow, perhaps? Or was it to send you a message – that I hadn't forgotten what happened?"

Harry's mouth went bone dry. That had never occurred to him. Of course it hadn't! Only Hermione would think of something as convoluted as that. Was it possible though? Had she been trying to tell him that she'd felt the same – that she loved him? Had he just been too stupid to get the message?

"I'm pretty sure that only you would think of that," he said finally. "We're not all geniuses like you, you know."

Hermione scoffed, "A genius? Hardly! In five years of receiving birthday gifts from you, it never occurred to me – not even once – to tie a letter to Hedwig's leg to write back to you."

Harry grinned, "Yeah that is pretty stupid."

Hermione slapped him playfully across the shoulder, "Harry! Don't be so mean!"

"Sorry," he mumbled, still grinning.

"You said that Ron and I named our son Hugo," Hermione continued, "Did we ever say why?"

Harry wracked his brains. "No, I don't think so. It was your choice though, I'm sure of that. Ron wanted to name him Gordon Horton Granger-Weasley after the keeper for the Chudley Cannons, but you put your foot down."

Hermione pulled a face, "Gordon Horton? Ugh! And I insisted on double-barrelling our surnames did I? That's interesting. Anyway, if Hugo was my choice, then I think I know why. You see, Victor Hugo is my favourite French poet. The name Victor would have been out of the question of course, given the whole Viktor Krum debacle..."

Harry guffawed, "Merlin yes! Ron would have gone berserk if you'd suggested that!"

"Quite," Hermione grinned. "Well, setting aside the possibility that I called my son Hugo as a private joke at Ron's expense, there is another, more likely, possibility. Victor Hugo's most famous poem is called 'Demain dès l'aube' which means 'Tomorrow at Dawn'. It's about him visiting his daughter's grave. She was nineteen years old and pregnant when she died. She drowned in fact, and her husband died trying to save her. It was all terribly sad. Anyway, the English translation goes something like this:"

Tomorrow, at dawn, at the moment when the land whitens,
I will leave. You see, I know that you wait for me.
I will go by the forest, I will go by the mountain.
I cannot stay any longer, far away from you.

I will walk eyes fixed on my thoughts,
Seeing nothing outside, not hearing a noise,
Alone, unknown, back hunched, hands crossed,
Sorrowed, because the day for me will be like night.

I will not look at the golden evening that falls,
Nor the faraway sails descending upon Harfleur.
And when I arrive, I will put on your tomb
A bouquet of green holly and heather in bloom.

Hermione's eyes were glistening as she finished. Harry stared at her, struck mute by the parallels between the poem and their brief time alone together.

"I don't think that's a coincidence, Harry. In fact, I'm certain of it. I can think of no other reason why I would name my son Hugo. I like Victor Hugo's work a lot, but in this life I wouldn't name my son after him. Something must have happened in my other life to make Victor Hugo much more significant to me, and that poem leapt into my head the moment you said the name Hugo. I think that calling my son Hugo was a reminder to myself – a reminder of the day we visited your parents' grave... when the land was white... and I laid a bouquet of flowers upon their tomb. And if I was thinking like that for Hugo, then I was probably thinking like that for Rose too. So you see Harry, there can be no doubt. I named both my children in remembrance of you and of our time together. I was, without question, completely in love with you."

Hermione held his gaze, daring him to disagree. But Harry couldn't. He sensed the truth of it, and something in his chest sang with joy at Hermione's proclamation. The previous timeline may be gone, that reality vanished forever, but what had happened in it still mattered to him enormously. He turned his head away to hide his tears, but he had to wipe his eyes on his sleeves. If Hermione noticed his distress, she was kind enough not to mention it.

"Thank you for telling me our story, Harry," she concluded. "Sometime I'll tell you the story of my life – the life you gave me, I mean. But for now I want you to know something. I've learned a lot about you over the last few weeks, and even more now that you've told me of your previous life. I know enough to know that you think I'm going to be horrified by what you've told me. You think I'll run a mile because you've killed people, in the previous reality and in this one. We can talk in detail about why that's not the case some other time, but for now I just want to reiterate that I understand, okay? I understand why you did what you did, and I'm not going anywhere."

She switched to French, clearly quoting from something:

Vois-tu, je sais que tu m'attends
et je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.

Harry didn't know what it meant, but it sounded beautiful and sad.

Hermione repeated it in English:

You see, I know that you wait for me
and I cannot stay any longer, far away from you.

It was two of the lines from the Victor Hugo poem, he realised.

Without warning, Hermione cupped her hands on his cheeks and kissed him firmly on the lips. Harry completely froze.

He'd kissed her before, of course, but as Rose not as Hermione. Intellectually, he knew it should make no difference, but emotionally... it did make a difference. It made all the difference in the world. He loved Rose, and he loved Hermione, and now he was kissing a woman who was both of them.

Harry had been very careful, in his previous life, to fiercely repress any temptation to imagine what it would be like to kiss Hermione. He told himself it would be weird and wrong, like kissing his own sister, if he'd had one. But Hermione was kissing him right now, and it wasn't weird. It wasn't weird at all. It was wonderful – just like kissing Rose, but even more so. It didn't feel wrong at all. It felt very very right.

Now he knew that Rose was actually Hermione, everything made sense. That's why he'd been drawn to her the moment he saw her! That's why he'd fallen head over heels in love with her so quickly. That's why it felt so incredible when he kissed her – because Rose was Hermione, and his soul recognised her, even if he didn't.

Any further analysis was impossible. Harry's thoughts scattered to the four winds and he lost himself completely. His eyes closed of their own accord, and he lost all sense of the room around him. All he knew, all he sensed, was Hermione's soft lips pressed against his. Time itself ceased to have meaning.

An eternity later, and yet far too soon, Hermione broke the kiss and pulled away.

"You have given me many wonderful gifts, Harry. But the greatest by far was the gift of knowledge. Bathilda Bagshot's book was a revelation, as was the Room of Requirement. Both gave me insights and resources I never would have had otherwise. You introduced me to Ginny and Luna, each of whom brought something unique and precious to our merry band of misfits. Ginny, in particular, never would have become my friend if not for your introduction. She could fit in anywhere, and had no need of a group like ours. And yet she joined us, because of the curious mystery of who you were. It was she who brought us slowly into the mainstream of the school, bridging the divide between us and the rest of the student body. My first year at Hogwarts was characterised by loneliness and isolation, but in subsequent years I was increasingly welcomed as a valued and popular member of the school."

"Ginny and Luna helped me to develop the people skills and emotional intelligence to properly understand others, and to better understand myself. The Arithmancy and Runes texts that you sent contained notes and theories that vastly accelerated my understanding of all branches of magic. Even Crookshanks made a tremendous difference to my personal and professional development, with his calming influence and sixth sense for who I could trust. He taught me that people are not always what they seem. I'm far from infallible, and have a great deal yet to learn, but I'm confident that I understand the world, and the people in it, much better than most. I have knowledge and wisdom far beyond my years. Of all the things you've given me, those gifts are the most valuable, because knowledge and wisdom are the skills through which a person can bring happiness to their life. If you can correctly perceive the motivations and aspirations of those around you, then you can speak openly to those people, without fear of rejection or ridicule."

Hermione ran her fingers across his cheek and smiled at him softly.

"And that is why I have no fear of telling you that I love you."

Harry froze.

He would not have been surprised to hear Rose say that she loved him. They'd been getting on so well. He'd certainly fallen in love with her and he'd hoped... though he would never dare to presume... that she felt the same. But to hear the words from Hermione! It was beyond his wildest dreams.

Abruptly, Harry realised that Hermione had planned every aspect of their reunion. He could picture exactly how it would have played out, probably while she sat in a quiet corner of the Hogwarts Library. She would have figured out that if he was from the future he was most likely older than her. He'd known events up to at least her fifth year, when she fluffed the Ehwaz question on her Runes exam. That would make him no younger than sixteen when he returned, and hence twenty two now, but he was probably older than that. Either way, he would consider a seventeen year old like herself to be a mere child. She might be an adult in the Wizarding world, but in his eyes she'd still be the bushy-haired little schoolgirl he'd sent presents to every year. And so she'd tricked him. She'd disguised herself so he wouldn't just dismiss her. Then spent time with him so he'd get to know her... and, she hoped, fall in love with her. Only then would she reveal who she truly was – when it was too late for him to save himself.

It was a clever and manipulative trap – a plot worthy of Dumbledore himself. And yet Harry just couldn't find it in himself to be angry at her, because of course he was in love with her, and he couldn't feel anything about that but joy. And therein lay the difference between her deception and Dumbledore's – hers was designed to bring him joy, not misery and death.

Hermione took his hands in hers. She had the softest skin, he noticed.

"I loved you in our last life together," she told him, "but I love you even more in this one. I won't be stupid enough to let you get away again! Ginny's always stealing my stuff, but she won't get to steal you this time!"

To his surprise, she dragged him to his feet and pulled him across the room to the fireplace. She removed something from her purse. A black box that was far too large to fit inside there. She placed it on the mantelpiece – a cassette player.

"Your first life was filled with tragedy, sacrifice and war," she told him. "Your second life began the same way. But you've done enough Harry. You've done more than enough. Nobody should have to sacrifice as much as you have. The life that you glimpsed when we danced in the Forest of Dean is within your grasp. Reach out Harry. Reach out and take it. Stop putting everyone else first and allow yourself some happiness for a change."

"I designed some protective runes so this will work in a magical environment," she explained, and pressed the play button.

Strumming guitar sounds emerged from the machine, instantly transporting Harry's mind back to that tent in the Forest of Dean.

Hermione wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, "We have finally found each other, Harry, and we owe it all to this song. If this song hadn't played on the radio in that tent, you wouldn't have been inspired to dance with me, and we would never have realised how we really felt about each other. So dance with me Harry. Dance once more to our song, and let's finish what we started in that tent."

The guitar gave way to the first haunting lines:

Pass me that lovely little gun
My dear, my darling one...

More by instinct than conscious thought, Harry wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight. He couldn't believe that she'd stayed after what she'd heard. He couldn't believe the words she'd just spoken. His Rose! His Hermione! He just couldn't comprehend the enormity of what was happening. It seemed like an impossible dream, but the feel of her warm body pressed against him and the soft curves of her waist beneath his hands disproved any suggestion that this wasn't real.

We have the answer to all your fears
It's short, it's simple, it's crystal clear

Hermione nestled her head into his shoulder and moaned contentedly. Harry's head finally caught up with events, and he realised this was really happening. He was dancing with Hermione, just like he had in that tent, but without any of the problems that had conspired to keep them apart. He'd told her everything, and she was still here. As he finally accepted that simple truth, his eyes drifted shut and he rested his cheek on top of her head. This was the position in which they'd ended their dance half a lifetime ago. And yet, despite that vast gulf, it felt to Harry as if they'd never parted. Just like back then, all his troubles simply faded away. Nothing mattered; nothing existed apart from this amazing woman, right here in his arms.

Hey, little train! Wait for me!
I once was blind but now I see

He opened his eyes to see the two of them reflected in the mirror above the fireplace. Hermione's eyes were shut and a broad smile lit her face. The ivory-coloured flapper dress she'd transfigured for herself hugged the seductive curves of her slim figure to wonderful effect. Harry had never seen anyone more beautiful in his entire life.

Hey little train! We're jumping on
The train that goes to the Kingdom
We're happy, Ma, we're having fun
It's beyond my wildest expectation

Harry closed his eyes again and let the memory of their dance in the Forest of Dean wash over him. Gradually, ever so gradually, he felt a tremendous weight that he didn't know he'd been carrying begin to lift. The pain and grief of his previous life, the bitter sorrows of war, and the cruel fate that held the woman he loved forever beyond his reach... all began to float away, like leaves on a breeze.

As the last notes of the song faded into silence, Harry looked down into the upraised eyes of the most amazing woman he'd ever known. She understood him better than he understood himself. In one night she'd uncovered his deepest secret – something he'd kept hidden from her, Ron, Ginny, and even himself for more than three decades. It was a secret that would have torn his family apart, but which now held no such peril. And so, for the first time in either of his two lives, he spoke that final secret out loud:

"I love you, Hermione," he whispered. "I have always loved you."

With a delighted and very un-Hermione-like squeal, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely. Harry wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her so their faces were just inches apart. Hermione's eyes twinkled with mischief and expectation. Very slowly Harry closed the distance between them. When their lips finally touched Hermione's eyes drifted shut and she moaned in pleasure. Harry wasn't far behind. He completely lost himself to the kiss that he'd been waiting to give her since their very first dance in the Forest of Dean.

THE END.

Chapter End Notes

That is the end of this story. I hope you enjoyed it!

I might follow-up with a short epilogue just to tie up any loose ends and expand a little on Harry and Hermione's happy-ever-after. If there's something you'd like me to include in the epilogue let me know and I'll see what I can do. :)

If this fanfic gave you pleasure, please take a moment to hit the Kudos button. Thank you!

I'd recommend subscribing to the series so you'll be notified if / when I post the epilogue.

Afterword

Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!