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Chapter Text

And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three red-headed men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. Harry grabbed Hermione's hand as they staggered and stumbled over stone and wood.

'No - no - no!' someone was shouting. 'No! Fred! No!'

And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"Cor, Hermione, you just graduated, and you're already going back?"

Hermione scowled at Ron across the breakfast table, her knee-jerk retort temporarily dammed up behind a large helping of eggy bread. He'd strategically waited to start in on her until she’d bit into her breakfast, she was sure of it.

As she glared, Harry appeared behind her. He placed a fresh heap of bacon on the table, nudging the plate toward Ron. Directly after, his hands found Hermione’s shoulders.  

"Are you really that surprised, mate?" Harry asked, his tone light. "Professor McGonagall's obviously trying to lure Hermione back to Hogwarts for good, like she’s done for Neville. I bet she would’ve owled before, too, if Hermione hadn't just gotten back from Australia on Saturday."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. That was most certainly not Professor McGonagall’s intent.

"I don't understand it is all." Ron looked at Hermione. "You escaped. Graduated. And now, not even a month later, you're going back to do more schoolwork. It’s madness!"

Hermione nearly choked in an effort to swallow faster. She gulped before gasping, "I'm doing work for the school, Ron. Not schoolwork. It's not like an assignment, you know. It's because of the rooms, as I’ve been saying."

"Are you going to the library and writing up a report for McGonagall, or aren't you?"

"That’s part of it, eventually, but - "

Ron waved a stubby, bitten piece of bacon dismissively. "Sounds like schoolwork to me."

Oh, and what would he know!

Harry’s hands squeezed, his thumbs pressing pointedly into the flesh behind her tensed up shoulder-blades. She snapped her mouth shut.

She wanted to shrug Harry’s hands off of her shoulders, too, feeling a quick, ungainly surge of anger at his insight. That he was able to read her intentions so well, stop her seconds before she could form a cutting retort, and, in the process, prevent her from escalating an innocuous morning quibble into an all-out fight—it was frustrating. Infuriating.

She frowned, exhaling through her nose.

No, it wasn’t.

It was a reactive impulse, and an unfair one. Harry was only trying to help. Had been trying to help since she got here. So she swallowed her misplaced anger, keeping rigidly still.

And Ron? Well, Ron was just joking. She knew that. He was teasing her as he used to on a subject that he used to, and that was, indeed, infuriatingly familiar.

But at the same time, it wasn’t—familiar, that is. There was a bitter undercurrent to his words that she could see plain as day, even if Harry couldn’t. Even if Ron didn’t actually mean it. Or know he meant it, in any case.

Because—and this was the crux of the matter, wasn't it?—a year of distance hadn't stopped Harry and Ginny. If anything, it had strengthened them. But whatever tentatively forming thing she’d thought had been present between her and Ron had flickered, then faded. Now, there was just a wisp of a what-could-have-been where there should’ve been something solid and tangible and real.

Hogwarts, apparently, was to blame. And so was her choice to attend.

Harry gave a short laugh, breaking the silence. "Yeah, okay. ‘Schoolwork.’ Nice try pretending you don’t have to write up reports, Ron. Because those weekly papers we both turn into Robards say something different." Harry sat at the table next to Hermione and refilled his mug with strong, oversteeped black tea, having already eaten with Ginny when she’d had to be up and out the door for six o'clock practice.

“At least I’m getting paid for it,” Ron grumbled. 

"Yeah, well, you won't be for much longer if you don't finish yours up by today, mate. It was due Friday."

Ron flashed a rude gesture, but it was devoid of any real heat. He was more interested in plopping the remainder of his bacon in his mouth and chewing, looking annoyingly morose.

It wasn't until warm porcelain bumped against her knuckles that she realized she’d been clenching her hands into tight fists in her lap. After grasping the cup from Harry, she smiled at him—or tried to, anyway. It probably looked like a grimace more than anything. Harry smiled back, though, raising his mug to her in a mock salute before taking a sip.

She rolled her eyes at him but followed his lead, feeling herself simultaneously relax and perk up as the warm, bitter tea flooded her, doing a great deal to clear her head and calm her down.

She exhaled, and additional tension unspooled.

Jetlag, it seemed, still had her in its merry clutches, wreaking havoc on her mood. She should really try to remember that. Her internal clock was off, yes, but that was not an excuse to pick fights or fall to emotional extremes. She wasn’t a child anymore. She was better than that.

Merlin, though, was she tired.

Yes. Tired.

She grasped the porcelain mug tighter and took another calming sip. Things were fine and good, and she was fine and good, and today would be fine and good even if it killed her.

In the hallway, as she swallowed, an actual clock began to sound. It blared loudly, more like a siren than a steady toll.

Ron groaned, a rough, guttural noise, and buried his head in his arms, looking for all the world like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. Nine long blares rang through the kitchen, shaking the cabinets and rattling the dishes. Harry stood, knocking back his tea in two huge gulps.

Shortly thereafter, a large navy Auror robe was flung across the table, hitting Ron on the head and covering him entirely with a swish of billowing fabric.

"Up you get, you git, or we'll be late," Harry said, shrugging on his own robe. “You know it’s only set a little fast.”

Ron groaned again, but the tent-like navy fabric started moving, bits and pieces bunching up at odd, clumsy angles, as if he was trying to put it on without lifting his head.

Which, come to think of it, he probably was.

Hermione looked from Ron to Harry and back. Harry, for his part, had lifted his glasses and was pinching the bridge of his nose while glancing at the ceiling, as if beseeching some nameless yet often called upon force for strength. This was probably because Ron’s arms were high in the air, ensleeved by his work uniform. He’d succeeded in finding the armholes alright, but he’d put the robe on backwards, his face a solid dark blue mask.

The entire scene was so stupid.

Merlin, these boys were complete idiots, weren’t they?

She snorted softly into her cup, unable to help it. Issues with Ron aside, she’d missed these fools rather a lot.  

"You two are going to be late, you know,” she said, sitting up primly. The urge to smile was nearly overwhelming. “Honestly, I haven’t the slightest as to how you managed without me for an entire year."

"She's right," Harry said. "Ron, get up. Let's go."

Ron grumbled.

Harry kicked the table. "Into the Floo, Ron. Now."

“Yes, mum, alright,” Ron said from behind a mask of navy. “I heard you the first bloody time.”

“Then get up the first bloody time,” Harry mimicked. “And I am not your mum.”

“Thank Merlin for that,” Ron said, pulling the robe from his face just in time to see Harry throw two fingers at him.

Ron snorted and stood, rearranging his robes and grabbing up his wand, stuffing it into his inner breast pocket. He grabbed up the large plate of bacon, too, and made his way toward Grimmauld Place’s kitchen fireplace, munching glumly and dragging his feet the closer he got.

Hermione watched it all with fond amusement, giving into the light, pulling urge and smiling as she took in the boys’ domestic routine, like and not like what she’d imagined. Through their pouting banter, she could see the boys were happy together, content and silly and consumed with postgraduate concerns. It was normal. It was nice.

Their dynamic had shifted without her there, of course. They’d grown together, up and around the parts she used to fill. But she was back now. Could be part of it all again. Was still part of it, in a way.

"Uh, you okay if I take the rest of this with me, Mione?” Ron asked, pausing just before the Floo and gesturing to the plate in his hands.

Hermione stiffened, muscles taut and smile frozen in place. "Still vegetarian," she answered tightly. “So go ahead. Have at it.”

Ron winced. "Right. Sorry, Hermione, I knew that. My head will straighten itself out sometime around noon."

"Sure." She flapped her hand, her stiff smile growing wider and cracking at the edges. "Of course. Now go, before you’re even later than you already are."

Harry, to prove her point, had pulled his pocket watch out, the one Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had given him years ago, and started fiddling with it, an absent, nervous habit.

Ron opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to say something, but he must have thought better of it, because after half a second, he turned, went through the fireplace, and was gone.

Instead of following in Ron’s wake like she expected, Harry lingered, glancing at her.

They shared a look.

"So,” Hermione began, the word clipped. “Ron hates his job.”

Harry raised a brow. “Really?” he deadpanned. “I had no idea.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, relaxing just a little. “When is he going to quit and start working for George, again?"

Harry tsked. “Working with George. That’s a sticking point. And as for when,” Harry trailed off, shrugging. “Who knows. A couple of months? More? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was next week or next year, honestly. Both of them have their reasons for not moving faster—not that I'm even sure Ron has realized just how much he wants to work with him yet, mind.” Harry ducked his head and coughed. “It can, uh, take him a while to come around sometimes."

"That’s one way to put it,” Hermione muttered, standing. She picked up her wand and banished the used dishes into the kitchen proper with a silent swish. The porcelain vanished, then reappeared with a muffled clink in the sink basin. Another movement, and warm, sudsy water flowed from the tap.

"Ahh!” Harry cried, throwing an arm out. “No, stop! I was serious this morning. If you don't let Kreacher do those, he'll throw a complete fit."

She paused, frowning. “You’re joking.”

“I’m really not,” he said. "Kreacher’s an elephant. He doesn’t forget; you know that. He’s only just stopped going on about all the knitting and baking you did over Christmas, so for the sake of everyone living in this house, please don’t.”

“It's just a few dishes, Harry. It’ll take a minute. Less than.”

“Seriously, Hermione. Please.” He raised his hands, palms out. “Do not stand on this hill. Not so early on a Monday.”

"Fine," she said brusquely, turning off the tap with a flick of her wrist. She sat, slumping back in her chair.

"Good, okay," Harry responded, relieved, but then he fidgeted, glancing at the fireplace and pulling out his pocket watch again. "You're heading to Hogsmeade, then Hogwarts today?"

"That’s the plan," she answered slowly, glancing at him. "I’ll be back and forth for a couple of days, I think. Is it still okay for me to take the map with me? I want to see if it picks up the rooms."

“Yeah, of course. I don't care. Just try not to let McGonagall see it unless you have to.”

“Really?” Hermione blinked. “She wouldn’t care.”

“Family heirloom,” Harry said and shrugged, smiling and looking a bit shy. “I’d like to have the chance to pass it down some day, maybe. Have it be useful.”

Hermione smiled back, a little shocked at his admission—but also not, because she could see it then, too: tiny, laughing little Harry’s with clothes that fit and glasses that had never been broken sneaking along the halls of Hogwarts at night, seeking mischief and causing trouble and perhaps getting caught yet never once actually being in danger or in trouble.

She wanted that for him. In that moment, she wanted it fiercely. It’s what he should have had; what they all deserved. But just then, also in that moment, a crack rocked the room, and a sweaty redheaded blur appeared out of nowhere, clutching a broom in one hand and wand in the other.

Hair in a tight french braid, knuckles bloody and left eye newly blackened, Ginny Weasley lurched forward, carried by unseen momentum. She was breathing hard, obviously having come straight from practice. Likely, she’d apparated back as soon as her feet had hit the ground.

"Sorry I'm late!" Ginny called, and kept up with the inertia seamlessly, moving forward to lean her broom against the wall, then twirling around and bounding over to Harry, looping her arms around his neck and kissing him soundly on the mouth. Harry was ready for her, waiting. His arms were at her waist, tugging her closer, twining himself with her in a way that looked as natural and necessary as an exhale.

When Ginny finally pulled back, she straightened Harry’s wrinkle-free robes and smirked up at him playfully. "Have a nice day at work, darling."

Harry grinned down at Ginny like an idiot, smile lines crinkling around his bright green eyes. It was an open, honest, endearing expression, and Hermione went still, feeling something soft and tender move in her chest. Ginny looked up at Harry for a second, said something Hermione couldn’t hear, and pulled him down by the lapels for another searing kiss.

With no small amount of reluctance, Harry extricated himself from Ginny’s arms, his hands palms out against her sweat-soaked gold practice jersey, gently pushing her back even as his body bent forwards.

"I actually do need to get to work, Gin,” he said breathlessly, taking a small step back. “But try to get some rest before your noon practice. And drink some water, too, yeah? Three-a-days are no joke.”

Ginny laughed, the sound bubbling out of her. She bounced up on her toes, inching closer to him. "Oh, I’m fully aware of how difficult they are, believe me!" And then she laughed again, and through her laughter, she kissed him for a third and final time before turning him around and pushing him off toward the fireplace with a swat on the bum. "Now go. I’ll see you at dinner. Eight o’clock."

"Yes, see you!" Harry said, but over his shoulder, he called, “Don’t forget water!”

“Good grief, Potter! Stop stalling and get to work!”

Hermione caught a glimpse of Harry’s face right before he entered the floo; his chin ducked down, his eyes dancing. A secret smile on his lips, like he couldn't believe his luck and his life.

The fireplace flashed green, and Harry disappeared, and Ginny smiled, coming down for her bubbling high as if she were floating on a cloud, slowly and wondrously, before rocking back onto her heels and into a wistful sort of wanting.

"Oh, I do love that man, Hermione,” she sighed, a helpless, lovesick expression on her face.

Hermione’s hands convulsed around the table edge as she started slightly, feeling guilty. If Ginny hadn’t acknowledged her just then, Hermione would’ve sworn the girl hadn’t known she was there at all. They’d been so wrapped up in each other. In their merging worlds and blinding happiness. How was she supposed to know there’d be room for anything in their periphery? She’d probably watched the scene too much, too closely.

And as she’d watched, a warmth had taken root deep in her chest. Such good and deserving people had found each other, had begun building a life and a love with each other. There was nothing better than that, what they’d started working toward, what she was witnessing, and the warmth in her had bloomed, unfurling. Steeped and spread like her morning tea, permeating through her veins and her brain and her heart, through almost every part of her.

Almost, because it didn’t quite reach a small part. The part in her gut, hidden and huddled in on itself. Tiny and tinny and loud.

The part that said, You will never have this.

The part that said, This is not for you.

She’d fought against her focus there, but the more she'd tried to shove it away, the tighter it balled in on itself, the louder it rang out.

And then Ginny had called out to her, invited her to share in her happiness. Hermione’s hands flexed over the wooden table edge once more, then relaxed, her palms resting flat over the top.

Ginny, oblivious, turned to her and sighed again, beaming. Her blackening left eye was still swelling, and her right eye was crinkled with the force of her smile, nearly shut as well. “I'm going to marry that man one day. Just you wait and see.”

Hermione shook her head. Now was not the time to be selfish.

She smiled back at her friend and stood. "Yes,” Hermione said. “I expect you will."

◐

◑

 ◐ 

The full warmth of summer enveloped Hogsmeade, as inescapable as a fever dream. It was a sluggish, humid heat that felt out of place for the Wizarding village she’d known for the last eight, nearly nine years. Not that it ever really got too hot in the Scottish Highlands, not by Australia’s definition of the word, at least, but the temperature was such that the entire place lost a bit of its familiarity. Felt different, strange and uncanny.

And the weather was the least of it. Hermione looked up at the distant structure of Hogwarts, sweat beading along her back and forehead as she meandered through the empty streets. She continued along the path, winding her way toward the castle gates and deeper into her thoughts.

As with everything, time affected change, she knew that, but for a centuries-old immoveable structure of mortar and stone, change usually meant slow wear. Wind damage, rain damage, gradual decay.

Magic didn’t play by the usual, though, and magic imbued every piece and part of the school. It provided a layer of complication as much as it did protection, and followed its own rules. After a year of suffering and after the Battle of Hogwarts and after efforts to heal and rebuild, the castle had certainly changed—in ways that grew more apparent with each passing day. Yes, the foundation still stood as it had for hundreds of years. But inside? The castle was different, evolved and evolving.

It wasn’t harmful. She was moderately sure of that. Confusing, sure, and perhaps a little inconvenient, but the strangeness was largely benign—much like the school’s other, longstanding magical quirks.

Still, it was best to try to figure out the why and how of what was going on. Just to be safe. Just to be sure.

That was Headmistress McGonagall’s position, at least, according to her letter, and Hermione had agreed with everything she’d read. Had thought so herself during the past school year, whenever a classroom spontaneously either contained twice as many chairs as it should have or none at all, whenever a new broom closet sprang into being, then vanished after one use, like it had never been there to begin with. She'd looked into it casually, these small anomalies, a pet project on top of a side project on top of her NEWT coursework.

Now, it was to be her primary focus, and she desperately hoped she could figure it out.

Though how she expected to find answers when the school’s own Headmistress couldn’t, she had no idea.

Anxiety hollowed her insides. Her head bowed in thought.

Her shoulder clipped the solid form of a man.

She stumbled, crying out in shock.

“Woah!” A hand shot out to grab her flailing arm, steadying her in an instant. “Easy there, Hermione. No need to fall for me.”

Hermione gasped, looking up at the stocky ginger man. “George, I'm so sorry!” She pulled her arm out of his gentle grip and resisted the urge to rub her shoulder. It felt like she’d just been hit by a bludger.

Or worse, she guessed, reality: the person who hit bludgers.

Merlin, was he made of stone?

“No need to apologize, Hermione. I’m fine,” George said. “I’ve found I’m made of hardy stuff.” And, truly, he looked entirely unruffled. Perhaps even a little amused.

“That doesn’t matter. I should have been watching where I was going, instead of just assuming the streets would be empty. Which, come to think of it—what are you doing here?”

George smirked, shoving his hands in his pockets and shrugging. “Oh, you know. A little bit of this. A little bit of that.”

“In Hogsmeade?”

“I’m afraid it’s all official, secret Wheezy business,” George replied. He rocked back on his heels and gave her a mischievous grin. It was a recognizable one, and promised all manner of trouble.

Hermione looked at him sideways, and George raised an eyebrow, rocking back further still. “With Zonko’s...?” she guessed, then trailed off, finally noticing the building George had walked out of before she’d slammed into him.

It was a modest shop—more like a generously large supply closet, truly—that she remembered had once housed Dervish and Banges some years ago. Now, a large, dusty red “For Sale” sign hung in the window, the paint scraped and peeling.

“Oh.”

George caught her eye and tapped the side of his slightly sunburnt nose with a finger. “Yes, indeed. 'O' for Outstanding, angel of my heart. Your intelligence truly does precede you.” 

Hermione pursed her lips but graciously chose to overlook the ridiculous pet name, swayed by that steady glint in George’s eye. Mischievous, familiar, and new.

It couldn’t have been more than a few months since she’d seen him last, she was relatively certain, but witnessing his current state of sustained amusement—a low-level, propelling thrum of merriment that was visible across the lines and seams of him—felt achingly familiar, like an embrace with a friend after entirely too long.

Felt, Hermione thought, like she might be looking at George again.

She glanced pointedly over his shoulder at the abandoned shop and back to him. Her lips quirked up. “You don't say.”

“I don't say anything at all, actually,” George shrugged, the epitome of nonchalance, and also a liar. “Would if I could say more, dearest, but it’s all a bit early yet. You understand, of course.” 

“Of course,” Hermione demurred, feeling in on the joke for once. “Mum’s the word.”

George inclined his head magnanimously and placed his right hand over his heart. “My eternal thanks,” he said, bowing.

Hermione fought to stay in character. Truly, she did. But George continued bowing, as deep and dramatic as a vaudeville showman, and her lips trembled, twitching helplessly. By the time he stilled, George’s nose was brushing his legs and Hermione was smiling outright. 

“Flexible,” Hermione laughed, impressed. 

In a heartbeat, George's head lifted, and he smiled wickedly. “You don’t know the half of it, dearest.” 

Well, she walked right into that one, didn’t she?

A blush flamed across her neck and chest and cheeks, quick as wildfire and twice as hot. The color could possibly be explained away by the heat, maybe, if George was an idiot.

Hermione cleared her throat and rubbed at her shoulder, which was starting to twinge. “Yes, well, I really should be going. I’m working with Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts. She’s expecting me.”

“And I wouldn’t dream of keeping you,” George said, finally rising, standing straight and tall like a normal human person. “I’m grabbing dinner at Rosmerta’s later today with Angelina, and,” he inclined his head to the abandoned shop. “You know. I’ll be around.”

Around. Right.

“Oh, okay. Maybe I’ll see you later, then?”

George smiled, the mischievous grin back and there to stay. “Definitely.”

◑

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◑

What a tangled mess. So much worse than she had originally thought.

“A hidden library and a dueling court? What does that have to do with chairs disappearing from Professor Binns’s classroom?” Harry asked, his bespectacled face blazing and flickering, composed entirely of flame.  

“I have my hunches.” Hermione leaned further into the Floo in McGonagall’s office. “But I'm not really sure.” 

After she’d told the Headmistress her suspicions, she’d agreed to let Hermione send a quick message to Harry, letting him know she wouldn’t be back for dinner. Judging by how things had gone, she might even be staying the night. Or, more likely, the week. 

“How could those huge spaces possibly exist in the castle without anyone finding a hint of them for a thousand years?”

“Oh, I’m sure they were found and used at some point. Besides, stranger things have happened here. Are still happening. Who would have thought an underground chamber beneath the girl’s toilets really existed either? Or a room that changed its interior based on a person’s needs and desires. The castle is... unto itself.”

“At least there were always rumors about the Chamber,” Harry pointed out.

“There weren’t for the Room of Requirement.”

Harry hummed in acknowledgment, conceding the point. “Has anything shown up on the map?”

“No, but it never showed the Chamber or the Room of Requirement, either.”

“True,” Harry conceded again, his brow furrowed. “So what are you going to do?” 

Hermione smiled. “Research,” she answered. “What else did you expect?”

◐

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◐

Books and cleverness. They weren’t everything to life.

She glanced briefly at her reference book, a fourteenth-century tome referencing a second-century work referencing ancient murmurings of ley lines and transitory spaces and liminal thresholds. She jotted something on a piece of parchment, underlining it twice. 

No, Hermione thought, books and cleverness certainly weren’t everything to life.

But, you know. They had their uses.

◑

◐

◑

 
Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsæ.

And for to see, and eek for to be seie.

They come to see; they come that they themselves will be seen.

She rubbed her eyes, the gesture conjuring red and pink floaters that danced over the inside of her eyelids. She blinked.

The light had dimmed significantly, nearly black where it wasn't speckled with bright, flesh-colored pinpricks. It was darker than it should be for summer. That is, unless she’d lost track of time and read straight through dinner and on into the night. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Ugh,” she said, rubbing her eyes again, feeling exhausted and thoroughly run down. Jetlag was truly a menace.

Her hands scrubbed over the rest of her face, then returned to her aching eyes. They were dry and strained from hours of reading. This, while not a new occurrence, was still an incredible annoyance.

After several quick blinks, her vision adjusted. Hazy golden light suffused the room, dappling books and tables and chairs, even this far back in her favorite forgotten corner of the library.

So, not bad, all things considered. It wasn’t as late as she thought, either. Perhaps only eight or nine o’clock?

She shrugged, stretching her arms above her head, then carefully picking up a fifteenth-century blueprint of the castle. Her stomach grumbled, but she ignored it. When her hunger got too distracting for her to work, she knew where the kitchens were.

Those rooms hadn’t changed, at least.

“Hermione?”

The voice was gruff and gasping. It cut through the room, and she jerked her head up. The unhinged quality of it set off alarm bells, and she turned quickly to its source, to the man standing stockstill by the open arched doorway, several feet in front of her. His eyes were wide and brown, pupils blown out almost entirely.

“Goodness, George, you look an absolute fright! What are you doing here?” She leaned over the table to scrutinize him. “Are you ill?”

For his part, he did look rather poorly, pale white and visibly shaking. He didn't seem aware of the tremors in his own hands, though, busy as he was staring at her. Gaping, really, looking more than a bit touched in the head.

Hermione rose swiftly from her chair and moved over to him, staggering for a second as she stood, her feet not quite used to her weight after sitting for so long.

But it was only a moment, and in the next, she was right in front of him. Reaching up, she placed the back of her right hand on his forehead, then copied the gesture, putting the back of her left hand on her own forehead, like her mum used to do for her.

George flinched at her touch. Then he opened and closed his mouth like a sputtering, freckled fish. “I’m - You’re - ”

“Hold still a moment.” Hermione leaned into his stocky form and pressed her fingers more firmly against his forehead. His skin was clammy, and her brows knit with concern. “You don’t seem to have a temperature,” she said after a beat, dropping both of her hands.

He swayed toward her as she removed them, forcing her to reach out quickly to catch him by the shoulders.

Maybe his fever was just starting out? Or ending, possibly? Either way, he was certainly unwell and should probably be put to bed as a precautionary measure.

She bit her lip to keep her face from showing any obvious signs of displeasure. Weasleys were horrible, stubborn patients, and George certainly wasn’t an exception. If anything, he was the rule. 

“Hermione?” George repeated in a soft, pained whisper. “Is that really you?”

What?

She jerked back and tilted her head up at him.

“Yes, it’s me. Are you...” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You are, aren’t you? You’re on something!” She scowled and would have crossed her arms if her hands weren’t busy holding George upright. She dug her fingers into the tendons of his neck, just a little. “You know I hate it when you and Ron and Lee test on yourselves. And why you’ve gone and done it just before your date with Angelina, I have no idea.”

George only stared at her, deaf to her scolding. “You’re here. You’re -” he stopped, choked, the words caught deep in his throat.

Hermione sighed and waited for him to sort himself out, but he didn't say anything else. Instead, his dark brown eyes searched hers in a way that was becoming more and more unsettling with each passing breath.

Just as she was about to say something to break the uneasy silence, George leaned forward and reached out to her, his hand hesitating and tentative. As if in slow motion, his hand came closer and closer, and she watched its trajectory, rooted in place. His touch, when she felt it, was light, tender. His fingers trailed over her cheek, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, curled softly down her jaw. With a slow, aching gentleness that hitched her breath, he tilted her chin up so all she could see were his bright brown eyes.

She swallowed thickly. 

Whatever was happening felt strange and strong and intimate.

Like something that didn't belong to her.

Hermione flushed,  retracting her hands from his shoulders and taking two quick steps back.

After a deep breath, she rubbed the back of her neck. Glanced down at her shoes and the floor and anywhere but straight ahead.

“I—sorry about that, but you really do look unwell. Madame Pomfrey was here earlier taking stock of the Hospital Wing’s stores, I think, so I'm sure we’ll be able to find you a potion that will... clear up whatever’s going on. I’ll walk you. I’ll just—let me go straighten my things, George, and I’ll - ”

George caught her arm as she tried to move by him, cutting her off with a slightly unhinged laugh. “I can't believe—Fred,” he said abruptly, with fierce clarity.

Hermione froze.

Looking up at him, tense and fairly certain she hadn’t heard him correctly over her own whirling, consuming embarrassment, she chose her next words cautiously, carefully, as if on tiptoe. This was dangerous, delicate territory, as she well knew. “I’m sorry, George, what was that?”  

“Fred,” George repeated, turning his head and pointing at himself. Well, at his ear.

His wholly intact freckled left ear.

“Oh.”

Fred.

Somehow, she found it in herself to move her gaze from his ear to his eyes, to look at him, this dissonant creature, but she couldn't seem to do more than that, her brain suddenly vacant. Merlin, the useless organ wasn't even instructing her body to breathe properly, her chest was so tight—her entire body stiff and still.  

Fred.

If this was a joke, it wasn’t very funny.  

The Weasley in front of her shook his head slightly, as if dislodging the last vestiges of the stupor he’d been clutched by these last few minutes. He stepped toward her, catching her hands in his. His larger hands gripped hers tightly, tenderly, like he was holding a bird or a snitch, something small and precious that might flutter away given half a chance.  

He needn’t have bothered. She couldn’t move.

Hermione blinked up at him stupidly, her heart caught in the vacuum of her throat.

“Fred?” she asked. Her voice was weak, whispered. Barely there.

And Fred—he laughed, his face splitting in a wide and wondrous grin. He pulled her closer, looking like he might cry.

“Hermione,” he said, “you’re alive!”  

Chapter Text

He was kissing her.

Fred Weasley was kissing her.

Strong hands cradled her head, fingers driven deep into the snarls of her hair, curled and wrapped around the wavy tendrils, like he was trying to tie himself to her, to link them both together in a helplessly tangled knot.

He flattened himself against her, searing her with enthusiasm and pressure and heat. It was emotion. Pure, true, and painful. The kind she might drown in.

She hadn't even known she was swimming.

After that initial moment of elated surprise, when he'd stopped laughing, closed his eyes, and crashed his mouth down to hers, she'd kept her own eyes open, staring blankly at a blurry expanse of his pale, freckled skin. Her body had gone rigid, struck still and astonished.

He was kissing her.

Fred Weasley was kissing her.

Her mind was slow in catching up. Much slower than it should've been.

Several wide-eyed, heart-stopping seconds passed. She tried to pull back, but when she did, it was like trying to escape a vice. His grip on her hair, though not painful, was firm and unyielding.

She pushed against his chest.

He wasn't present enough to tell she wasn't kissing him back, she didn't think—didn't think he was thinking, but her shove snapped him out of the current of emotion he'd plunged into so readily. He pulled back from her, dazed, breathing deeply like he'd swum a mile. Warm brown eyes met hers, shining and slightly unfocused.

He looked happy. Incandescent, even.

He wasn't letting go of her hair.

Hermione's hand rose to her lips. Her fingertips brushed against the dry, chapped skin there, but she could hardly feel it, her mouth was so desensitized from his.

"What's going on?" she asked. Her voice was steady, detached, because she was talking to a dead man.

A man they'd buried. A man they'd grieved.

She was talking to this man, to Fred, and asking him what was going on.

He just laughed.

Laughed, like this was some kind of joke.

"I've no idea!" he said, grinning again. "But you're here, and you're real, and I'm not going to question it."

She was here? She was real?

She blinked.

They were on two utterly different realms, weren't they?

Her mind whirled, spinning and running, utterly consumed by the implications, so much so that she almost didn't notice him lean back in again.

Almost.

Her hands flew to his chest, halting him a hairsbreadth from her lips. She could smell him. Could feel his eager inhale. The strength of it dragged over her. A love and a tug and a pull.

"No. Stop."

He paused immediately.

He inched back, though it appeared difficult for him, then leaned back to a reasonable distance, his eyes fixed on her lips.

"Hey," Hermione said softly, pressing her fingers into his shirt, jostling him slightly. In answer, Fred blinked, then shook his head, as if clearing away cobwebs or shaking off a spell.

"Hey," she continued, just as gently, "you have to look at me. We have to figure this out. What's happening. Why you're here, in Hogwarts, all of a sudden. Why you're," she faltered, stumbling. "Well, alive."

If he was here. If she wasn't imagining things. If this wasn't the product of a malfunctioning illusion, an enchanted castle that was threaded with a spiraling, dispelled curse—one that wasn't finished. One that would spread, would grow, continue on and on.

She needed answers.

She pulled back from his arms, and reluctantly, he released her, his hands falling from her hair. His fingers trembled, twitching toward her once more before stilling at his sides.

Hermione's heart leapt at the helpless gesture, but she swallowed her awareness of it, pushing it down. Now was not the time.

"You died over a year ago. Fourteen months and a handful of days." Her words came out in a rush, and they hung in the air, rough and accusatory, as if what had happened was his fault.

She couldn't help it. Putting those words together and speaking them aloud—into being—made her feel like she was talking to a corpse.

And maybe she was.

She finally looked up at him and saw a gradually dimming smile, the remnants of his sudden, joyous high, trapped and wavering like an old, deflated balloon caught in the treetops.

"You think I died?" Fred asked, looking down at her. "At the Battle?"

She nodded, straightening. "Yes. There was an explosion. Rookwood, we think."

"Rookwood," he spat suddenly, face twisting into something cruel and mean and bitter. Abruptly, his eyes flew from hers, moving to some unknowable spot just over her shoulder. His fingers constricted around nothing, balled into hard fists. "Rookwood was the one - he was the one who - " He cut himself off, an expression she'd never seen clouding his face. "A Reducto and - and... stray debris. A piece of wood - of bloody timber that - " he stopped, swallowing. "It happened before any of us could blink."

Hermione frowned. "But it doesn't make any sense. I was fine."

"You were not fine," Fred bit out, nostrils flaring.

"No, I was. But if you were - "

"I lived through it, Hermione! I'll never forget it."

"You're missing my point! I'm just trying to figure out - "

"Hermione, stop, please." Fred looked pained. Torn. Like there was a gaping, heartsick wound in his chest and she was both the wound and the knife. "What does it matter?" he implored. "We're here now—one of us, both of us, back from the dead. I get it, and I don't care. Can't we just—have this?"

She stared up at him. Stared up at him, at George's face, and felt pulled toward him, inexplicably, an aching, empathetic rip forming in her, at her very center.

A memory. An echo.

She couldn't do as he asked.

This wasn't an everyday occurrence. This wasn't normal. People didn't just cheat death, not without dire consequences. They'd all learned that lesson well enough.

She didn't think that's what this was, though.

Think.

A conjecture. An educated guess.

She had to find out.

"It might matter a great deal, Fred," she said quietly, and it was as if she'd cast a spell. Fred's eyes fluttered closed, as if he was struck by and savoring the sound of his name on her lips. When his eyes opened again, the raw yearning in his stare scalded her, and she faltered, pieces of her resolve crumbling. "I'm - I'm not certain you understand what's really going on here."

"I'm not completely dense, you know," he said with a painful, self-deprecating half-smile. "But you're right, I don't understand. You died for me; I died for you. Suddenly, we're here—one of us, both of us, back from the dead." He stepped closer. "Aren't you happy to see me, Hermione? Because my heart is leaping out of my chest right now. I've wanted this—wanted you for so long. I can hardly form the words."

Oh god.

She stepped back. Tried and failed to ignore it as Fred took her retreat like a physical blow.

This was too much.

She didn't know what to do.

She needed—she just needed a minute. Just to figure it all out.

"Fred. Fred, listen to me. I'm not who you remember. Or think I am. Or, oh - " She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes tight. "Oh, this is complicated," she muttered to herself, then took a steadying breath, opened her eyes, and continued on as gently as she was able. "I'm not the person you think I am, and I think you know that."

"I - no. Hermione, don't say that."

She shook her head. "I don't know who your Hermione was, but we—we were never... you're not my Fred."

She was right, but it was the wrong thing to say.

"Yours?" came Fred's incredulous voice. "Yours?" He stepped closer. "Hermione, I am nothing but yours. You are the love of my life. We nearly married. Would have, before the war, if you—if we weren't so concerned about being too young."

Eighteen.

She would've been eighteen then, when he wanted to get married.

She would have only ever been eighteen.

Hermione's eyes burned. It was confusing, the what-could-have-been, and too much. Disorienting, like whiplash.

But if that's how it was for her, what must it be like for him, to see her now?

Like stumbling over a mirage, a figment of his deepest, cruelest dreams, only worse, because she was real. Here but not his.

She couldn't indulge him, though. Couldn't let him cling to false hope for a second longer. That desperate want—it wasn't just wrong, it was harmful. Would only make things more difficult, more painful.

No. The only way out was through.

"Fred, for me, that never happened. We - we never even dated. The Fred here, in my world, died, and when he did, so many people felt his loss, myself included. I loved him, I did. Of course I did. But as a brother. A friend." She sucked in a breath, tears welling in her eyes, as they often did, utterly frustrating and entirely unhelpful. Still, she continued on. "I'm not the person you know or remember," she said, "I'm sorry, Fred, but I'm not your Hermione. I never was."

Fred turned from her, swallowing. She almost couldn't watch.

Time extended in that moment, slowing and stretching between them, hollow and distant.

He nodded slowly, once, twice, collecting himself.

When he turned back, she was looking at a different person. A close-lipped smile. It was so clearly fake and so clearly for her benefit that she felt like a monster, like the worst person who'd ever lived, to make him suffer. To make him suffer and feel the need to hide it.

But this? This whole thing? It wasn't her fault.

It couldn't be.

Why did she feel like it was her fault?

"Okay," Fred said firmly, like he was convincing himself. Convincing her. "I'm okay." He smiled wider, and his forced cheer twisted her gut.

This wasn't her fault. It couldn't be. She didn't do anything except tell the truth.

"So, twins," he said kindly, taking a stiff step back and sticking his hands in his pockets, away from her. "I can think of it that way. You look the same, but you're not the same, even if you share similar experiences."

"I guess," Hermione said helplessly. "If it helps you to think of it that way."

He nodded. "It does."

And, really, what could she say to that?

A thread of silence passed between them. He looked at her, and she looked at his close-lipped smile. Attempted to take stock of the last—was it really only ten minutes?

Was the world actually capable of so much change in under a quarter of an hour?

The Fred who wasn't her Fred but was still Fred nonetheless cleared his throat and smiled wider. He was forever smiling, it seemed. That, at least, had not changed.

"Now, I'm sure that not knowing how this," he stopped, gesturing meaningfully between the two of them, "happened is driving you absolutely spare."

"Yeah," Hermione conceded softly. A guilt she didn't understand bubbled in her throat. "It really is."

"Thought so," Fred grinned, and it looked real this time, if a bit sad. "Let's go figure it out, then, yeah?"

◑

◐

◑

The logical thing was, of course, to report straight to Professor McGonagall. This was a school matter, after all, and she was the school's mistress. They both agreed it was the proper first step.

Or it should have been, anyway. Three actual steps later, and Fred nearly fell on his face, his legs buckling as he tried to follow Hermione when she went to collect her things. In a slapdash effort to keep him upright, Hermione dove for his shoulder, throwing his arm around her neck. He weighed more than she'd ever suspected, all stocky, substantial muscle and searingly warm skin. She nearly collapsed under him, and he'd tried to catch her, even as he'd been falling. 

Needless to say, the what-should-have-been got derailed.

"I'm fine, Hermione, really. It's nothing."

"Sure," she said, extracting her head from under his arm as she deposited him in the wooden armchair she'd been using minutes and hours ago. His legs stretched, sprawling, as he collapsed more than sat, unsuccessful in hiding his wince.

"Seriously, Hermione. It's fine. I'm fine. We should go."

"Right," she said, reaching for her wand.

She couldn't leave him, of course. Not now. He was hurt, nearly pale as a ghost underneath all that vexing masculine bravado, and clearly unstable. Clearly—something.

"Look, okay, so maybe it'll take me a second or two, but you could go first, lead the way and find Minnie, tell her I'm here, that I'm coming along right behind you, and - "

"Don't be ridiculous, Fred." Hermione looked away and had the strangest urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she rolled her wand between her fingers, then extended it in front of her and called on a memory. The strongest one she had.

"Expecto Patronum," she cast, and, as always, felt her heart expand and lighten in response. Tangible, intangible joy sprung from her wand, silvery and perfect.

Her otter circled, flipping in the air before swimming up and over Fred's leg, around his torso, across his shoulders, and down his arm. Then it jumped to her side expectantly, floating, buoyant and serene, as it awaited instruction.

She turned to it and cleared her throat. "Headmistress, please come to the library as soon as you can. No one is in immediate danger, but it's - there's someone you should - it's urgent."

Not for the first time, she wished for a re-record button on Patronus correspondence. Still, though. While it wasn't the most eloquent message she'd ever sent, it would suffice. Her eyes tracked her otter, watching it go, the silvery blue, almost-opaque creature swimming through the wall as easily as any ghost.

As it left, the weight of the past twenty minutes settled on her. Again and again, every minute, it took her by surprise. This thing. This rupture in the rational.

Magic.

It certainly never gave anyone a break, least of all her.

Hermione squared her shoulders, ready to find answers. To figure out what was happening, here, in this castle that was the closest thing to a home she had left.

She took a deep breath, turned, and—

A wooden desk. Scattered papers. A vacant chair.

The room was empty, and Fred was gone.

◐

◑

◐

"I'm not making this up."

"Of course not, Miss Granger."

"He wasn't an apparition. Or a - a figment of a person, something pulled from my mind like a boggart might try. He was solid. He was real. As real as you or me. I'm telling the truth."

She was babbling. She knew it, too. It had taken some coaxing to get her out of the library and up to the Headmistress's office when Professor McGonagall finally rushed in. The whole walk there, Hermione'd been muttering nonsensically, eyes roaming, searching for Fred. How mad she must have seemed, imploring her mentor to keep an eye out for the late Fred Weasley as they traversed the halls.

But Fred was real. He had been. She just had to make her see -

"Miss Granger, I believe you," Professor McGonagall replied with uncharacteristic emphatic tone.

It stopped her short. "You do?"

"Yes."

Simple. Straightforward. True.

Hermione sagged in her seat.

"I don't know that I would believe me if the situations were reversed," she admitted, running her hand over her face.

"You're a smart young woman, Miss Granger. You've never been one to stretch the truth or embellish a story, not for anyone's sake." Professor McGonagall rested her elbows on the desk and carded her fingers together, causing the sleeves of her emerald-green robes to slide down her arms, exposing thin, pale wrists. She glanced at Hermione and raised a pointed brow. "Besides, you look like you could use a little belief right now. Am I wrong?"

A shaky laugh escaped her. No, she certainly was not.

Professor McGonagall wasn't Dumbledore, didn't exude an all-knowing, otherworldly presence, but she was kind, and she was patient, and she waited for Hermione to collect herself without the slightest hint of judgment, even as her laugh trailed off, high and just the slightest bit unhinged.

When Hermione quieted, Professor McGonagall gestured to an old stone basin in the corner of the room. Professor Dumbledore's antique pensieve, looking as an unobtrusive as a bird bath and nothing at all like the expensive heirloom relic she knew it was.

"We do have a way of analyzing these things. Hindsight and pensieves go hand in hand."

They stood, and as they grew nearer to the corner of the room, Hermione found herself feeling oddly reluctant. It wasn't that she mistrusted Professor McGonagall. That wasn't it. But all the same, she almost couldn't make herself pull the memories from her head, nearly balking at the last second as if it was too private to be shared, meant only for the two of them. For her and for Fred.

But Fred was dead.

Real and dead and, in the immediate and perhaps the forever, not here. So she pulled the swirling strand of the last half hour from her head, as easily and anticlimactically as plucking a stray thread from an old sweater, and deposited it within the shimmering bowl. There was a silent splash, and that was that.

"Shall we, my dear?"

Hermione took a deep breath and nodded, accepting Professor McGonagall's outstretched hand.

And she was swimming.

◑

◐

◑

"I - well," Professor McGonagall started, her Scottish brogue spiking thickly.

A flush bloomed high across the older woman's cheeks. Looking as flustered as Hermione had ever seen her, Professor McGonagall straightened the hat on her head and fussed with nonexistent wrinkles and glanced pointedly away from her. "I had no idea Mr. Weasley harbored those kinds of feelings, Ms. Granger."

"He didn't," Hermione insisted. "The Fred we knew, anyway."

"Right. Of course." Professor McGonagall tapped her temple with her finger, walking in a straight line back to her desk if not a smooth one. "As you said, it wasn't him."

"Then what was it?" Hermione huffed a sigh, frustrated. But, no. That wasn't right. "What was he?" 

The pensieve recollection hadn't exactly illuminated anything, at least not for her. It was strange, of course, watching herself, and just as bizarrely intimate from a third person perspective as it'd been in the moment, but this time she had Professor McGonagall at her side, which bled into the experience. It was like evenings when she'd watch a film with her parents only for a sex scene to appear out of nowhere and interrupt the plot. They'd all stiffen and fidget, no one so much as breathing until the scene ended.

It was exactly like that, only there hadn't been a sex scene, obviously. He'd only kissed her. Only kissed her and held her, and looked at her with such a raw, open yearning. One she knew she wouldn't be able to shake for a long, long time.

Awkwardness and new vantage point aside, though, there didn't appear to be much cause as to what made Fred come or go. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone, almost as if it was a movie, and he'd been spliced right out of the film strip.

"I've time-traveled before, and this wasn't that," Hermione continued. "He wasn't from the past or the future. There wasn't a time-turner or magical device in the room, other than my wand. It was just... Fred."

"No, it wasn't time travel," Professor McGonagall agreed, looking worried. "This hadn't been what I was expecting when I asked you to look into the castle. I'm not certain, even now, but I'm afraid it's something far different, and much, much worse."

"Worse?" Hermione asked, beginning to panic.

Worse meant danger. Worse meant death.

Worse was supposed to be behind them.

Professor McGonagall sighed. "Dramatic of me, I'll admit, but unfortunately not wholly untrue. Rarer, perhaps, is the better word. Something vastly less common and entirely unlikely."

Hermione nodded, though she didn't understand. Something less mundane than time-travel. This was the world she lived in, apparently.

Every time she thought she had a grip on it, it was only to discover another layer of secrets, of information kept from her.

She forced her heart to calm.

"Forgive me, Hermione. This past year—it wasn't something I considered, even in passing," Professor McGonagall continued, perhaps understanding the look on Hermione's face. "As we feared, it appears the damage done during the battle indeed triggered something, but the damage was also worse than anticipated. It must have gone right down to the central node of our ley line, in many of our worlds."

Hermione blinked. "I'm — I don't understand, Professor. Did you say 'worlds?'"

"Yes, my dear. Our worlds." Professor McGonagall sighed, and quite uncharacteristically, and perhaps a little disturbingly, reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Give me a moment to collect my thoughts, if you would, but I think you can follow the implication of my words."

She could. For a few paces, at least.

Our worlds as in plural. Plural as in many. Many as in hers.

As in Fred's.

Professor McGonagall spoke up a minute later. "Our world, but other distinct timelines. Lifelines, if you will. There are an infinite number of them, purportedly, according to the Founders, though I suppose we can't ever really know for sure. How could we? How could anyone?"

"I -" Hermione shut her mouth, frowning. More information she didn't know. This hadn't been mentioned, even once, in anything she'd ever read, and she'd certainly read an awful lot, especially on Hogwarts and the Founders. "There are an infinite number of worlds?"

"Yes. But I'm specifically talking about our world. Within the infinitesimally small subsection of worlds that are similar to ours, there are still iterations that span on forever."

And what a sentence that was.

Hermione shifted in her seat. "I think I follow, Professor, but that's a lot to take in."

"Yes, it is. Especially when you consider that infinite is more than just extremes: our world but Voldemort won, or our world but Mr. Potter was never born. Infinite is our world where I wore maroon today instead of emerald, and our world where everything—everything—is exactly the same, up to this very conversation, only I said 'interaction' instead of 'conversation.' The problem is the infinites are supposed to be separate. To be distinct."

"But then there's Fred."

Professor McGonagall nodded. "Indeed."

"And what happens now that they're not? Distinct, I mean."

"That, Miss Granger, I do not know."

◐

◑

◐

Hermione woke up the next morning face down on a couch in the Gryffindor common room. There was a crick in her neck and a pressure building behind her eyes.

She turned, uncomfortable in more way than one. The room was unsettling. Quiet and empty. It should have been buzzing; a crackling fire, scratching quills, chattering students. But that was summer, wasn't it? Quiet. Empty.

She hadn't made it to bed last night, clearly. There had been too much to go through, too much to read. It'd been a feat in itself that she'd remembered to Floo Harry and tell him that, once again, she'd be staying at Hogwarts overnight. After the call, she'd been consumed by research, hardly stopping to eat. A fit of weakness sometime in the early hours of the morning must have convinced her that moving to the couch was a good idea. She'd likely read all of two pages before falling asleep.

Rolling over, Hermione spied evidence supporting that theory. A ruddy brown leather book was upside down on the carpet. The spine was bent fully open, the pages splayed out. She panicked, quickly reaching out to rescue the text, sighing in relief as she found it undamaged.

A second, then third check confirmed it.

The book was from Professor McGonagall's private library. Or, rather, the Headmistress's. It was a theory text, and more. A private exploratory journal written by one of Hogwarts' earlier Headmistresses, Phyllida Spore. Spore specialized, oddly enough, in Herbology, and she wrote extensive theories on how Hogwarts was much like a rhizome, built on a node of many worlds. Not all of them, of course. Not even close to all of them. But it was a fixed and central point for many. For enough.

For hers and for Fred's.

That's what had happened the past year, apparently, and was happening still. Initially, Hermione found it hard not to be frustrated with Professor McGonagall, though she certainly tried her best to fight that feeling. Professor McGonagall'd had the answer, after all this time, all this work. Hermione couldn't begin to count the number of hours she'd spent researching, and she'd had the answer all along.

The more she read Phyllida Spore's journal, though, the more she conceded that their current circumstances truly were improbable. Who wouldn't think shuffled about chairs and broom closets and miscellanea were vanished or duplicated? She couldn't exactly blame Professor McGonagall for thinking a zebra a horse.

Having an answer wasn't the same as solving a problem, though. They still had to corral the beast. And it was only getting worse as time went on.

Thank goodness they hadn't lost a student to the unfolding chaos.

Although, Hermione supposed with a painful twitch and remembered flash of red hair, now they had.

And there were only two months left to fix it.

More of Phyllida Spore's published and unpublished works were in the library, according to Professor McGonagall. In the Restricted Section, specifically, not for any innate dark and dangerous properties but because they were delicate historical artifacts that Irma Pince would never allow out of the library, even if it meant the dissolution of their world.

After a hasty breakfast of toast and eggs and strong black coffee, Hermione barrelled into the library, making her way straight for the Restricted Section. Madam Pince, to Hermione's immense frustration, hovered over her shoulder as she navigated the stacks, either because she was still untrusting of her after all these years or because there were no other students for her to haunt. It took twenty minutes before she finally, reluctantly, left Hermione and returned to the front desk. For the moment, at least.

It was enough. Hermione pulled another text from the stacks. This one was black, overlarge, and the last book she could responsibly carry to her table, as levitating some of the older books could damage their preservation charms, which was not something she was willing to chance. Was not allowed to chance, she mentally corrected, thinking again of Madam Pince.

One of the worst lectures she'd ever received had happened in third year, when she'd been in the midst of finals stress and had been stonewalled by Harry and Ron and hadn't slept properly in weeks, if not months. She could remember it so clearly. She'd looked about furtively, a pile of rare books stacked on the floor in front of her, the tallest reaching the hem of her skirt, and decided to cast a quick, covert Leviosa so that she could move them all at once. Madam Pince had caught her. Of course she had. And the woman's harsh, cutting words had dissolved her instantly to tears.

Hermione walked at a brisk pace, trying to shake off the memory. When she reached her destination, she gently deposited the four delicate volumes on her table and scowled. Thirteen shouldn't be allowed to follow you forever.

She took a deep breath and exhaled roughly through her nose. They had two months. It was time to get started.

"I was wondering if you'd be here. You keep disappearing on me."

Hermione jumped. Actually jumped, straight in the air, not unlike Crookshanks when she accidentally stepped on his tail. Whirling around, hand on her chest, Hermione sucked in a breath at the flash of red hair. It was him.

Well, not him him. Not hers.

And not yesterday's either, she didn't think.

This Fred was teasing, mischievous. He leaned against the far wall, his legs crossed at the ankle. A thin, raised white scar bisected the left side of his face, starting at his chin and trailing off into his hairline.

"Fred?" Hermione asked, despite knowing the answer.

"In the flesh," he said. And he laughed.