Happy Friday! This one's a bit of a depressing go but necessary to understand how this version of Hermione came to be. I hope y'all like it, writing it was a hell of a watery ride.

A reminder: Hermione will have a love interest in this one but I'm not sure who it is yet. I can see it going a lot of ways right now so I'm waiting to see how they interact. As soon as I know, I'll indicate that in the pairings but until then, I just put a few of the major characters. Also, it absolutely won't be James. James is just listed because he's one of the major characters right now and will be one of Hermione's biggest supports. In other words, James and Lily are a for sure ship in this battalion but everyone else is up for grabs (aside from Dumbledore obvi b/c he fucking sucks).

Thank you so much for being here, thanks to those who reviewed, and a special thanks to pianomouse for being the first person who sees my story (even when I'm uber late on the draw)!

Love Always,

Adrien

TRIGGER WARNING: torture descriptions (though not graphic) and allusions, brief descriptions of corpses (though not graphic).

Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable characters or settings, those belong to J. K. Rowling. I just enjoy making things in her sandbox.

Chapter Two: Pieces Of A Broken Past

August 31, 1998

"Hermione! Come dance with me!" Ginny demands, tugging on the older girl's hand to pull her away from the boys.

Hermione shot Harry and Ron a pleading glance but they only raised their glasses in salute.

"Traitors!"

Harry and Ron exchange an entire conversation in a single look. A look Hermione can read well enough to know that she won't like whatever comes out of their mouths next.

"We choose to see it as the benefit of not being either of your boyfriends anymore," Ron replies easily, a shiteating grin on his face.

Hermione flips him the bird in response but gives Ginny a good natured smile as she allows the younger girl to spin her out onto the makeshift dance floor.

George quickly interrupts the two girls, a bigger smile than either of them had seen on his face since Fred's passing as he grabs both of their hands and guides them into the reckless kind of spins that leave both girls wobbly on their feet when Bill and Charlie finally decide to come to their rescue.

A soft fondness takes over all three men's faces as Ginny and Hermione lean into each other, their own giggles taking over at how absurd they must look. Hermione felt lighter than she had in a long time, than she'd felt maybe ever if she were being honest. This was their last night before she and Ginny had to go back to Hogwarts and she was going to embrace every absurd moment of it. After all, that's what they had fought for in the end.

October 31, 1998

Hermione scoffs, slamming the joint letter from her boys on top of the article that had made her send them a letter before she'd even finished eating breakfast not even half a day ago.

Regular Death Eater activities her ass.

If they were regular Death Eater activities, the boys wouldn't have written her back so quickly, that they had known she would reach out to them and felt the need to respond instantly said something entirely different.

She loved her boys but she hated this sort of role reversal they had taken on since she'd come back to school where they had decided she needed to be protected instead of her being the one to protect them as it had been since she'd lied for them after the troll incident.

Merlin, she fucking hated Halloween.

"Not the news you expected?" Draco's voice makes her jump.

"They're trying to protect me."

"Because the Brightest Witch Our Age needs to be protected?"

Draco's clipped tone brings a smile to Hermione's face. "Where's your better half?" She changes the subject.

"Quidditch practice."

"She banned you from observing since you're captaining Slytherin this year didn't she?"

"She was right to," Draco laughed, leaning back in his seat. "Can I ask you something?"

Hermione leans forward at the sudden seriousness in the blonde's tone. They had hit it off surprisingly well after his sincere apology on the Hogwarts Express and he'd officially dating Ginny the previous week. But they weren't ones for this type of seriousness.

"What's going on?"

"If…if something starts up again, I don't want any connection to it and…this…" He gestures to his always covered left arm. "This will always connect me to that world. I know you and your boys made a new enchantment for the mini-patronuses on your rib cages…Do you think it would cover another magically placed mark?"

"I think it would…but it would hurt, likely more than it did for the boys and I."

"It would be worth it."

May 2, 1999

Hermione had lost track of time since she'd been here. The sun was high in the sky through the parlor window, so it had to have been at least a day. But she couldn't be sure. They hadn't fed her and the room she had been kept in was pitch black. This was the first time she had seen sunlight since they had taken her from Hogsmeade but she wished they had left her in the dark.

"I really must have been slipping into insanity for a little mudblood like you to have gotten away from me unscathed," a chillingly smooth voice draws Hermione's attention away from the window to the woman who had been continuously casting the Crutiatus at the younger witch for what felt like forever.

Bellatrix Lestrange held the beauty and grace of the Black bloodline in a calm, confident way that felt more dangerous than the previous unhinged woman's ramblings ever had as she glided across the marble floor toward Hermione.

"It seems my spellwork doesn't impress you," the older woman tisked, her gaze trailing over Hermione until it landed on the words the previously insane woman had previously carved there. "Perhaps you prefer a more hands-on form of art. After all, you are a muggle."

Hermione tried to look away as Bellatrix unsheathed the all-too-familiar knife at her waist but a silent spell from the older woman had Hermione's face freezing exactly where it was.

"If I'm going to accommodate you, you're going to watch. If you want me to stop, all you have to do is tell me how you destroyed my master's Horcruxes when they are supposed to be indestructible."

Bellatrix stares at her expectedly but Hermione only glares in return. Even if her vocal chords weren't shot from screaming, she wouldn't have told that bitch anything.

"Pity, it looks like you aren't the brains of the Golden Trio after all."

The knife presses into Hermione's arm, avoiding any major arteries as Bellatrix slices a new word near her wrist. Foolish. Hermione makes it halfway through the second word before a particularly deep press of Bellatrix's knife makes her scream. Worthless. After that the words begin to blur as the pain takes over completely but Bellatrix "accommodates" her again by reading them outloud with every word she finishes: Unwanted. Failure. Inferior. Ugly. Weak. Alone.

Bellatrix pauses at Hermione's shoulder, her attention drawn by something Hermione can't hear as rage flashes through the already dangerous woman's gaze.

"It seems we're out of time and you're in no shape to come with me so it's your lucky day."

Bellatrix raises the knife above her head and Hermione closes her eyes.

But the knife never lands.

Instead there is a loud crash followed by the all-too-familiar feeling of spellfire nearby.

"Mione!" Ron's voice has Hermione's eyes snapping open as he falls to his knees beside her, Harry watching his back as the redhead scans her injuries. "Merlin, Hermione. Hold on. We'll get you out of here. Just hold on."

June 28, 1999

Kingsley's lynx races into the room like a chilling bit of deja vu as Ron applies a solvent to Hermione's arm because she still can't get all of it on her own: "The ministry has fallen. I am trapped. Do not come for me."

Harry's fist goes through the wall in the same moment that the lid to Hermione's solvent flies across the room.

Had they been younger, even at the beginning of the war against Voldemort, Hermione would have done everything she could to hold them back but she didn't have to do that now.

They knew what was at stake and they knew why Kingsley had sent that message to them specifically. They were the wizarding world's best chance at survival. Again.

"There's only one reason she would have kept questioning me about how we destroyed you-know-who's Horcruxes when there was no way to bring him back one last time. She made a Horcrux sometime after, probably soon after given how much sanity this form of her holds, you-know-who gave her his Horcrux to hide. That's how she came back and that's why she's more put together than we have ever seen her. This is probably what she was like before Azkaban."

"She's still insane."

"But she's also insanely intelligent, cold, and calculated. She's someone people would stand behind even without fear because she can make her ideology sound like something our society needs to come together again. This is the version of her that made you-know-who make an exception in his rule of only marking men. We're going to have to be careful."

"She may be intelligent but she doesn't have the Brightest Witch of Our Age on her side."

Hermione's shoulders slump as her gaze drifts to her arm. Foolish. She should have seen this coming when they had realized Voldemort had entrusted a Horcrux to Bellatrix. Worthless. She couldn't even save herself, how could she save anyone else? Unwanted. Always unwanted. Everywhere she—

"Hey," Harry's firm voice pulls Hermione out of her thoughts as he clasps her good hand in both of his. "Don't do that. She doesn't know you. You are brilliant and worth it and wanted more than anything in this world. Anyone who has seen you for who you are knows the amazing human being you are."

Ron nods in agreement from her other side, his hands gentle as he picks up where he left off with her solvent on her bad arm.

Hermione takes a deep breath, her eyes flicking from her boys to the new scars marring her skin then back again.

"Would you…would you cover them like I did Draco's mark? Eventually, I'll be ok but right now…I just can't see them every day."

September 19, 1999

"This isn't safe," Ron states gruffly, his eyes continuously scanning the room around them even though next to no one knew about this safe house. It was the first Order Of the Phoenix meeting place and it had fallen before the Prewitt brothers had passed in the first war so no one from the old Order had trusted it during the second war but when the trio had checked it on a whim with the rest of the safe houses after Voldemort's death, it hadn't been disturbed in years and there weren't even remnants of magical signatures. So Hermione had set up the strongest wards she knew and cast the Fidelius just in case they needed somewhere to crash because of the uprisings while the boys had fixed up the inside. After Bellatrix took over the Ministry, she had come back on her own and set blood wards from the Black library to make it even safer.

"Sending this through any sort of communication would have been a bigger risk," Draco replies briskly, squeezing Hermione's shoulder affectionately as he drops into the seat beside her.

"What did you find?" Harry asks, getting straight to the point. He, understandably, still wasn't Draco's biggest fan. Ron wasn't either, though Ron had an extra layer of wariness considering the blonde was sleeping with his baby sister.

Neither of her boys had had the months she'd had to get to know Draco when he was one of the only people to treat Hermione like a human instead of a hero. Neither of them saw the way he tried so hard to be different, be better than the boy he had been raised to be. Neither of them saw how beautifully he treated Ginny, how he was there for anything and everything she needed before she even realized it sometimes but also didn't take her shit if she went a little too far in one of her Weasley tempers. Neither boy trusted Draco fully but they knew Hermione did and that was enough for them.

"They have access to a time turner. I don't know where it is yet but I know they're planning to use it. She asked my mum for the tomes on time magic we have in Malfoy Manor. I told them that I had allowed you to borrow them in an effort to get a better standing in society after 'our' side lost."

"But I never asked–" Hermione starts, confusion coloring her tone, but Draco cuts her off by upturning his magically extended bag onto the table and dumping out a plethora of texts.

"You three get reading. I'm going to keep my ears open for any new information on this time turner."

January 1, 2000

The house was dark and the silence eerie as the three entered the premises, Harry in the lead with Ron covering their backs while Hermione scanned their sides. It was a familiar formation, one that usually brought her comfort in dangerous situations. But seeing the Weasley house like this, not knowing what they were walking into…nothing could have brought her comfort right now.

Because, for the first time ever, the lantern on Molly's front porch was out and there wasn't a single sound coming from any room in the house.

As the Golden Trio crept through the hallways of a home all three of them knew like the back of their hands, they knew it was a trap. They knew this was a bad idea but this was their family. They couldn't just back out when there was the smallest chance that they could help.

A soft glow from the family room pulled the three young adults further into the house. They could see the words "Happy New Year" sparking in the air from the hallway but when they crossed the final threshold to the family room, every light flared on and they realized that they were too late.

Every Weasley was present, their vacant gazes trained on the shirtless blonde man strung up in the center of the room.

Distantly, Hermione heard a choked sob rip through Ron's chest as he ran to his parents at the same time that Harry dropped to his knees but Hermione couldn't take her eyes off of the blonde man who had gone from being her nemesis to one of her best friends. A man who had risked everything he had because he wanted to be a better man.

A man who, for the first time since she'd placed it on him, didn't have his mini-patronus activated. It should have still been activated, it didn't feed off of his magical core or life source. Unless he had purposefully deactivated it.

It takes three sharp strides to reach his body and press her wand into the dried blood obscuring his Dark Mark.

"Scourgify."

The blood vanished, leaving enough space for his mini-patronus to shine clearly and revealing the newly carved word in his skin: Bloodtraitor.

"Redemption," she activated the enchantment she had placed.

As expected, her enchantment immediately covered the Dark Mark and the new scar marring his skin. What she hadn't expected was a new set of words to flare brightly beside her dragon: I didn't break .

The rest of his body began glowing moments after his words flared and her sharp gasp grabbed both of her boys' attention.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"The ministry?" Ron recognizes the floor plan but still has confusion coloring his tone.

"A plan," Hermione replies grimly.

The trio works methodically to clean Draco's body and slowly peruse every glowing hint he had given his life to leave them so that they can pull all of their memories for more in depth viewings once they were safe.

But when they attempted to undo Draco's binding to give him and the Weasleys the best burial three people on the run in the middle of a war could, they felt a magical trigger snap.

They were barely able to activate their emergency portkey before magic resistant flames engulfed them with the rest of The Burrow.

May 2, 2000

They should have had more than one portkey. They'd always just kept one between the three of them for escape so that a spare wouldn't get lost without their knowledge and give away their safe space. It had seemed like a great plan at the time. It had kept them safe. But they hadn't taken into account what would happen if their only means for escape got damaged.

Especially if it got damaged in the middle of what was likely the most important ministry raid of this war.

Hermione's eyes met her boys' and she knew their minds were all on the same wavelength: they weren't going to make it.

"I'll draw them toward the apparition point near the east entrance. That should give you enough time to make it to the west." Ron's voice is gravelly with the knowledge of what the decision means for him but firmer in his decision than Hermione has ever heard him.

"Ron, you can't!" Hermione's voice breaks. It feels like their first year all over again but this time…this time she knows for certain he won't be coming back from this sacrifice.

"I have to. This is our best chance."

Hermione threw her arms around the redhead, her tears soaking through his already grimey t-shirt.

Harry's embrace quickly follows, smashing Hermione even further into Ron's chest. She isn't sure whose tears bleed through her curls to her bare cheeks but it's at least one of her boys'.

The thundering of feet nearby forces the Golden Trio to break apart for what they know will be the last time.

"I love you guys," Ron's voice breaks as he wipes away his tears, readies his wand, and forces his back straight.

Harry's hand clasped Hermione's and she wasn't sure if he was doing it to hold her back or to hold himself back.

"We love you," Hermione's voice is tight as she wipes away her own tears and readies her wand.

"Until the very end," Harry adds, his voice rough as he follows his best friends' leads.

Ron checks the hallway and looks back one more time before sprinting down the hall.

The last thing the remaining two thirds of the Golden Trio hear is Ron's shout of Fred and George's familiar enchantment for colorful explosions as he rounds the corner before the sound of hundreds of bodies moving toward the east drown out any sound of their best friend.

Hermione and Harry make a run for it when the noise feels distant enough, their steps in sync as they sprint toward the west.

They almost make it to the apparition point before they are made.

The air around them fizzes with unmet energy as incapacitating spells fly in their direction.

They keep low to the ground, bobbing and weaving as one but their pace remains the same.

Just a few more steps.

Harry's hand clasps Hermione's and he turns his body to more accurately defend them so that Hermione can side-long them without distraction.

It was a move they had pulled at least a thousand times.

Only this time…a familiar purple hex makes its way through Harry's defense and crashes directly into his chest.

July 31, 2000

"I love you," Harry's voice is clear but his hand is shaky as he cups her cheek.

"Don't say that…If you say that it means…There's still…I can…" Hermione's vision blurs with tears as her words flounder because she doesn't know what else she could do.

"You've done everything you can. If it had been anyone else taking care of me, I would have died a long time ago."

"Don't say that. I made it through Dolohov's curse, you can too."

"You made it through with Madam Pomphrey, Severus Snape, and an endless supply of healing remedies at your disposal after you'd already silenced Dolohov's casting. I didn't silence him and we're in an undisclosed location with an extremely limited supply of healing remedies. You did everything you could with what you had and you managed to keep me alive for months but even the Brightest Witch Of Our Age couldn't hold this off forever. It's literally eating my magic, love."

"Please. I can't do this without you, Harry."

"You can and you will. You've always been the strongest of us all, Hermione."

"Harry–"

"Promise me. Promise me that you will finish what we started."

"I promise," Hermione replies because she could never say no to Harry when he really needed her. No matter how much it hurt her and no matter how much she wished she could just go with him.

Harry nods slowly, his hand finally dropping from her cheek to the bed in exhaustion and she knows he doesn't have long now.

"You're the best brother I ever could have asked for," Hermione tells him honestly because she knows she would regret keeping the words in for the rest of whatever life she had left to live. "I love you, Harry James Potter."

"Until the very end, Mione," Harry's words are barely a whisper but his lips turn up in a weak smile and that is enough for Hermione to know that her words had made it through to him. Harry deserved to know how much he was loved. How much he would be missed.

"Even after."