#tgcc

The handsome boy goes to the Headmaster’s Office - and for an instant, Dumbledore’s warm smile falters and there’s something like hate and terror in his eyes. They’re halfway through speaking when the office door pushes open and there she is, a self who looks no different from her, bushy-haired and wearing robes with a Gryffindor scarf wrapped around her neck.

“I forgot how dowdily my younger self dressed,” other-Hermione remarks. “The others didn’t want this to come so soon. But really, this is hardly the last world you want to remember when you awake.”

Time moves. Hermione dueling with this boy, lobbing dark curses at each other with ease and grace. Studying with Draco and Theo. Talking to Neville. The boy threatening Ron. Harry, then Luna joining their little group. The other Slytherins, Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle. The boy crucio’ing Goyle for calling Hermione a mudblood.

“Too slow,” other-Hermione murmurs, and waves a hand.

Images flash past. Duels. Harry looking at the boy and then killing Blaise. Studying. Hermione avada’ing Marietta Edgecombe after the witch eavesdropped on a conversation. Graduation. The Potters and Longbottoms alive. Moving into Draco’s castle. Using the imperius on Muggles. The boy, with Harry and the others, torturing a dark wizard - a powerful wizard - who’d cursed her. Draco and Harry. Draco and Harry. Other-Hermione making a horcrux from Lavender Brown. Marrying the boy naked under the moonlight, drinking the blood of a human sacrifice.

Hermione stumbles away from this other woman - this dark, dark, Hermione - away from the sight of herself doing all these horrific things. “You’re not me. You can’t be me.”

“But I am,” the dark-Hermione purrs. “You could be too, with the appropriate motivation. He contributed, of course, but we all have that inside us.”

More things. Ginny there to spy, killing Muggles to prove herself. Harry as dark as Voldemort. Luna being served with worshipful devotion by both the Slytherin goons of Malfoy’s. Pansy and Theo marrying. The Potters and Longbottoms regarding their sons with concern and uncertainty. Neville and the daughter of Regulus Black. How can Harry and Neville turn out so evil when their parents are alive? When Sirius and Remus are alive?

Their parents are alive and whole.

She looks at Harry’s unscarred forehead and screams.

“Took you long enough,” dark-Hermione sighs with an eyeroll.

She turns away, covering her face and willing to wake up. “No, no, no, this is just a nightmare -”

“I assure you, it’s a dream for us.”

“You’re telling me in another life, I could be corrupted by Voldemort?”

The other Hermione smiles. “Tom fell through time. Into our time. He didn’t corrupt us. He just… nurtured what we already have.”

She whirls back around. “Why are you showing me this? Voldemort was Voldemort in my world, not some pretty time traveler. Why show me a world I’ll never have?”

“Because we are queen enough to rule any world,” the witch says with sudden intensity as fog starts swirling again. “That is who we are, that is who we can be, and you must never, never settle for any less.”

***

This time, when the fog clears, she falls on her hands and knees and throws up. Another Hermione, this one in a tailored black suit with a pretty little crystal pin shaped like a peacock feather, hovers over her like she’s uncertain whether or not to touch her. “I told them not to let her see that world,” other-Hermione mutters to herself, extending a hand down.

Hermione takes it and pulls herself to her feet, and she feels other-Hermione shiver before relaxing. “So we are the same person,” the other witch says softly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

***

***

She wakes up to a soft fog that resolves itself into a pale version of King’s Cross Station. Oh, Merlin. Harry had told them what had happened, how he died and met Dumbledore in the afterlife. But she hadn’t done anything to get herself killed… had she?

“When you pass into the afterlife, you breach the barriers between worlds,” an older woman’s voice says soothingly. “But when you sleep, the barriers thin. How else would dreams form?”

Hermione turns and goggles. There she is. Well, not her, precisely. This is someone older, old enough to be her mother, wearing the sort of formal, expensive dress robes favoured by Professor McGonagall. “So this is all just a dream?”

Old-Hermione frowns. “More of an intervention than a dream, honestly.”

“I don’t need an intervention.”

“You cried yourself to sleep because of Ronald Weasley.”

Hermione folds her arms and looks away from this witch who is her but not-her, who looks at her so very much like her mother did. “I’m going to talk to him tomorrow. We’ll work this out. It’s not as if we’re going to marry and have children next week.”

The other witch sighs. “There are a thousand paths your life could take. Some routes have already been closed to you. Some will be opened. Soon, you will have a choice. Choose wisely.”

“Choose to what, grow up and talk like Headmaster Dumbledore?” she snarks, but the fog is consuming the world again as the old witch raises a hand in farewell.

***

The fog clears and Hermione finds herself on a balcony in Italy. Assisi, she guesses from the architecture.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” a voice asks from behind her.

She turns, and looks into her own eyes. The other witch extends a hand. “Hello, Hermione.”

***

“You’re in Slytherin?” Hermione asks in astonishment as Fred and George boo at the little girl making her way to the green table, as she looks at her younger self shaking Draco’s hand and squeezed with Theo and Blaise and Pansy.

Slytherin-Hermione gives her a withering stare. “And you’re in Gryffindor, yes, I believe that has already been established, so shall we get on with it?”

It’s so strange to see their first year play out. Insulting Harry when he gets a new broom and a spot on the Quidditch team. Wingardium Leviosa and Ron saying she has no friends, only this time, she has the Slytherins. No troll. A glass bead bracelet from Draco for Yule and little cakes from Narcissa. Trying to get Hagrid in trouble for his dragon. Slytherin losing the cup after all her hard work because Harry and Ron and Parvati had saved the stone.

Summer and going to Diagon Alley and meeting Lucius Malfoy, who seems quite fond of her here. The incident on the Quidditch pitch and Ron calling her a filthy little Mudblood. The Chamber opened and Slytherins escorting her everywhere. Brewing polyjuice in Snape’s lab to find out if Harry is the Heir. Dinner with the Malfoys. Petrified again, and Lucius storming up to Hogwarts to remove Dumbledore. Draco half out of his mind with worry.

Being shown off by the Malfoys over the summer. Third year and no Time-Turner, not for Slytherins. Draco continuing a sort of half-dating thing with Pansy. The boggart lesson with Lupin. Draco strolling out of that cupboard and calling her a Mudblood. The werewolf lesson, but here, Snape likes her. Enough to teach her how to make a patronus. Slowly resenting Draco and Pansy. Crookshanks catching Scabbers for real here. Starting her own thing with Blaise. The encounter at the Willow that goes so differently but ends with her helping Sirius to escape on the hippogriff anyway.

“I don’t see much difference,” she says. “At least, not in the outcome.”

Slytherin-Hermione smiles. “Watch.”

The Quidditch World Cup, spent under the Malfoys’ aegis. Threatening Moody after he turns Draco into a ferret, then writing to inform the Malfoys about it. Resisting the imperius in DADA. Snape being all sympathetic when Harry curses her with long teeth. Going to the ball with Viktor to make Draco jealous. Starting a thing with Draco, properly this time. Rita Skeeter being a pain in every world. The end of the Tournament going exactly the same.

The Malfoys making a show of keeping her under their wings. Kissing Draco. Not being a prefect. Luna - and Blaise. Umbridge attempting to use a blood quill on her and failing. Making her patronus, a snow leopard kitten. The D.A. - Delle Arti, at Blaise’s suggestion - for Slytherins. Harry and one of the Weasleys beating up Draco after a Quidditch match.

Dinner with Tom Riddle and impressing him. Impressing him enough to be given his Mark on a necklace.

Hermione’s eyes flick to her counterpart, horrified. Other-Hermione cups the silver pendant around her neck and smiles viciously as the heart turns into a skull and snake.

The breakout. Warning Snape that Voldemort knows. Draco making an otter patronus. Working against Harry. Sending Umbridge to the centaurs, again. The battle at the Ministry, only this time she’s not there.

Spats with Bellatrix, who’s so maddened by the Dementors it’s almost pitiful. Riddle’s pet. Draco and Theo screaming as they take the Mark. The Slug Club. Trying to get the Death Eaters in. Draco killing the Lestranges for threatening her. The necklace and the mead because Draco has a fondness for overly convoluted plans. Sectumsempra. Killing Dumbledore and getting his wand, then killing Bellatrix and Greyback too. Handing the Elder Wand to Riddle.

Lucius back home. The obvious oppression of Muggle-borns being opposed to Riddle’s goal of power. Killing Hedwig and cutting off George’s ear. Riddle getting the locket back from Umbridge before killing her. Spats with the Carrows over their tendency to insult her and hurt children. Being kind to Michael Corner and Neville but neither of them appreciating it. Identifying Harry and Ron at the Manor, but Dobby rescues them anyway. Saving Lupin and Tonks. Killing the Carrows. Ravenclaw neutral in the battle. Narcissa saving her from Molly’s curses. Riddle avada’ing Harry then burning the body, no resurrections here. Neville swearing allegiance.

Hermione opens her mouth, but Slytherin-Hermione shakes her head. “Wait. Watch.”

Imperio’ing her parents to stay in Australia. Neville taking the Mark. Draco and Theo destroying the horcruxes. Neville killing Nagini, then slipping poison into Riddle’s cup. Planting the trees, one for every person they murdered.

“So you did get rid of him in the end,” Hermione murmurs.

Slytherin-Hermione laughs. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking it was for some noble misguided Gryffindorish honorable aim. I just wanted to rule the world, and he was in my way.”

“No wonder you’re in Slytherin.”

“Oh, please. The Hat put me there because of who we are already. Don’t think that being a lion makes you better than me. We’re the same person, down inside.”

“I’m nothing like you,” Hermione says, shaken.

The other Hermione laughs. “Really? Rita Skeeter in a jar? Umbridge and the centaurs? Scarring Edgecombe for life? Lighting Snape’s robes on fire? Your dream of being Minister?” She steps forward with every statement until Hermione is pressed up against a tree. “You are just as ambitious and cunning as me, and don’t you imagine otherwise.”

The fog sweeps her away before she can reply.

***

She finds herself in a sitting room that, through her many trips through worlds, she recognises as being in Malfoy Manor. The rose garden outside the window is unmistakable. There’s a ugly, agonised, disjointed cubist portrait of Professor Snape on the wall.

This world’s Hermione reclines on a sofa, heels kicked off on the floor, a diamond bracelet on her wrist. She sits up when she sees her. “I heard you had some problems with Ron,” she says casually. “He gave me some trouble too. We’re still friends, but well, it is easier to be friends with someone who hurt you when they’re living in another country. France, to be exact.”

***

She remembers this. Coming back. Settling into the Slytherin girls’ dorms because they were the least destroyed. But the blonde head in the common room is something new.

“And of course it’s Malfoy,” she says, unable to conjure up any surprise even as the past-Hermione goes “Malfoy. Bloody hell.”

She looks at the other witch, and they snort in unison.

Walking to dinner together and talking about Macbeth. Helping in the library, separately at first then together. Arguing - a brief moment of shared misery at being able to see thestrals - then right back to arguing. Apologizing for mocking him about the ferret incident. Shakespeare and Titus Andronicus and the atrocities humans committed during war. More cleaning of books. Complimenting each other until he brings up Ron and she can’t help but wonder what happened here. Did he cheat on her? Hurt her? Do some other atrocity she hasn’t seen in any world?

“No, no, and no,” Other-Hermione says, and she realises she asked that out loud. “You’re allowed to break up with people who aren’t evil, you know.”

“Then? What was it?” she asks as she watches Draco apologise, as they bare their wounds to each other, as they watch the stars.

“You’ll know soon enough.”

There’s a long silence as past-Hermione says that he was forced to be a Death Eater but that doesn’t make him one. The two tentatively flirt before tension descends, past-Hermione mercilessly breaking down every reason why being with him would be a constant battle. Somehow easing into another quiet rapport.

Cuddling in the Slytherin dungeons and talking about their parents. Watching the fish and falling asleep in his arms. A kiss. Conversations in the library that make her wish she hadn’t gone through her eighth year alone, that she’d had someone like Draco to bare her soul to. More kissing. The pureblood and his pity date. The war heroine and her walk on the wild side. “It will be awful.” “It will be the only good thing in a sea of awful.”

Theo arriving and the tension that ensues. Getting drunk. Going up to Gryffindor Tower. Hurling fierce, angry words at each other. “Easy to offer forgiveness to the boy you want to shag, isn’t it?” and even though it’s been so long, Other-Hermione still flinches at the accusation.

Breakfast. Theo taking care of Draco like she takes care of Harry, the loyal friend who looks out for them because things in their life are shite. Theo, who loves his father and didn’t know he was a Death Eater. Theo, who’s gay here - why does his sexuality seem to vary between worlds? Reaching a sort of detente.

Then Ron comes into the library, full of accusation and cruel words and - “You abandoned us!”

“That’s why you broke up with him?” Hermione asks, stunned.

“He abandoned you and you didn’t break up with him?” Other-Hermione throws back.

The fight is hard to watch. The words “Death Eater’s slag” even harder to take. But she can’t bring herself to be surprised. Her Ron could do this. If she ever got together with a Slytherin. Her Ron could call her that.

Conversations and explanations. Ron going to the Prophet, to Rita Skeeter, to claim that Draco had imperiused her. Proving it wrong, going after Rita, sending Ron a Howler, and she recognises past-Hermione’s viciousness with the discomfort of one who knows she’s capable of the same. Teaching Draco to make a Patronus. Matching otters.

“You two really are in love,” she says with soft wonder as they watch the summer fly by.

Other-Hermione smiles faintly. “The Patronus always tells.”

The Sorting Feast. Pansy and Neville and Ginny. Molly as DADA professor. Having a panic attack. Ginny defending Draco. The Gryffindors hurling cruel words at her even as the children insist that he didn’t crucio them, that he faked it. Waking up to find “Death Eater’s Whore” tacked to her door. Class and cruelty and being ostracised and Molly and more panic attacks.

Recovery Group, something that’s supposed to help them get over the trauma of the war but turns into angry sniping. Hannah and Padma. Susan Bones, angry and wounded after her family died, lashing out at Theo and Pansy until they walk out. Getting into a screaming match that reduces Susan to tears.

Classes. The eighth years studying together. A second session of Recovery Group, this time with the little Gryffindor boy - Andy - joining them. Pansy being a secret master of household magic. Susan trying to fuck her sorrows away. Theo trying to drink them away.

Rebuilding Day, a big production of inviting parents to Hogwarts to show them that all is well, a production that means people coming with their petty cruelties. Susan defending Theo with the sort of righteous passion only Hufflepuffs can muster. Narcissa and Lucius being polite to her even though it’s clear that they’re doing it to rehabilitate their social image and ward off Posy Parkinson. More cruelty from Ron even as Harry drops a kiss on her hair. Finally alone with Draco then finding out he’s been cutting himself.

“Don’t you dare judge him,” Other-Hermione bites out before she can even say a word.

“I wasn’t going to,” she protests, but she knows she’s lying.

Time passing in school. Suggesting a Yule Ball. Theo and Neville starting a thing. Padma having food issues. Pansy helping her to put Draco back into some semblance of togetherness after he breaks down. Confronting Theo about his drinking. Draco buying brooms for the little first years, trying to atone for his deeds last year by helping them now.

The girls teaming up to go after the Gryffindors and their cruel note. Pansy vicious and hard. Padma wielding Ravenclaw wit and words like a sword. Susan accusing them of being unkind. Hermione wandlessly setting the note on fire. She wishes she had more girlfriends in her world. Girls, together, smashing injustice.

Neville confronting Molly. McGonagall refusing to do anything about it except allow them to self-study DADA. She feels her respect for the old witch drop.

Chanukah at Hogwarts. Shopping for the Yule Ball in Muggle London. Dancing and romance. Harry being all chummy with Draco for her sake. Neville ending it with Theo at the Ball and Hannah going after him. Spending winter break at Hogwarts with Theo while Draco goes back to the Manor. Bonding. Getting each other gifts, a dragon charm bracelet for her and a comically long Gryffindor scarf for him. Draco returning with a pygmy puff and an engagement ring. Percy visiting and flirting with Theo, who’s too busy bemoaning his breakup to notice it.

Time passes. The eighth years bond. Hermione curses a rude student, marking his arm with “bigot” and filling his mouth with soap. Draco doing the only thing he can to make it better by telling his parents that he’s proposed. The Malfoys ignoring it.

Going with Theo to visit his mother’s grave. Helping Padma to eat. Valentine’s with Draco and their first time. Holi at Hogwarts, celebrating diversity and triumph and good winning.

“Look at the hope,” other-Hermione murmurs as they watch the bonfire burn. “It’s always there.” Then she cocks her head. “You’ll have to go soon, I’m afraid. Morning is coming.”

“Tell me how this story ends,” she says. She needs to know.

The other witch smiles. “Theo and Percy adopted Andy - long story. Susan and Blaise. Neville and Hannah. Ron and Tracey Davis - he didn’t know she was a Slytherin. Pansy married Charlie. I married Draco. We all collectively moved into Nott Manor. The Malfoys accepted me because, well, Draco. Even went so far as to bury Regulus and the rest of Riddle’s inferi on their property. Padma used some Muggle techniques to help Lucius handle his post-Azkaban chronic pain. We got Susan on the Wizengamot - well, originally we wanted to get Theo’s dad out of Azkaban, and that was part of it, but he died a day after he was released. Draco and I were DADA professors for a year before I retired to start on independent research. And we lived,” she says. “We live, and we live happily. You can have a happy ending too.”

“And why can’t I have it the way I am?”

“You’re with Ron,” the other witch says simply. “You won’t be happy. He won’t help to put you back together. His broken edges will rub up against yours, not fit into yours to make something new and beautiful.”

“I’m not you. I don’t get panic attacks and need draughts. I’m not broken.” She doesn’t know why she’s so defensive.

“We all have trauma,” the witch says softly, reaching out to cup her cheek. “It’s just a matter of how it shows. Like clinging on to relics of the past, for example.” Mist swirls slow and soft. “The war was hard on everyone. It broke something in us. But we must be stronger for having been broken.”

***

She lands back in King’s Cross, where the first Hermione waits for her. “Do you see now, child? Who you are, who you can be?”

She nods, mind still spinning from everything.

Old-Hermione folds her into a fierce hug. “Then it’s time for you to…

Wake up.”

***

The images slow again. Dragged up and thrown before Theo, looking as beautiful as he does in all the worlds, a Dark Mark searing his arm. Getting her wand back. Being told to wash. Drawers of jeans, long-sleeved shirts and cashmere jumpers. Enjoying his collection of Muggle books. An odd pride that he found her useful, mixed with fear. His words, whispered to a dark room when he thinks her asleep. “I’ve got you. I really do.” Food and occlumency lessons.

“How much of a bastard are you?” “How much of a bastard do we want these people to think I am?”

Dinner in public. Permission to eat. Malfoy being a thorough creep. Hannah, oh, Hannah. More occlumency. Agreeing to let him threaten and hurt her because it was too obvious she trusted him. Displaying her bruised cheek at dinner. Learning a wandless spell for diarrhea because Montague deserved it. Turning Theo into a ferret so they could add the hair to polyjuice. An argument. Kissing each other.

“That was the best part of it,” Other-Hermione says wistfully.

Arithmancy and kissing and Stockholm discussions. Truth and lies. Theo afraid to do anything because her mind wasn’t hers anymore. “I don’t want your body without… and I don’t want your heart because you’ve been broken by being locked in here.”

Graham groping her. Malfoy turning into a half-ferret like they planned. Blaise and Luna. Luna, alive and well. Knowing all the boys were dead. Arithmancy calculations on how to kill Voldemort. Dolohov. Tired, so tired of playing Broken Granger. Theo bringing her home to picnics and duck ponds. Horcruxes. Nott Senior, an old weak man, like the man who fathered her in the other world and yet not quite the same. The creeping nature of evil. Theo’s long, quiet crush on her. Sex because she needed to know what it felt like.

Other-Hermione blushes and skips past to the two of them cuddled up. Then she stills. “I forgot how hard this was.” Past-Hermione tells him to call her a mudblood whore. And he reluctantly, miserably, complies.

Dinner. Discussing how to take down the inner circle. Arithmantic models to predict that Bellatrix Lestrange would betray Voldemort. Using it to kill Bellatrix and Montague and have Theo elevated into the inner circle.

Draco sneaking in when Theo forgot to lock the door. Trying to rape her. Avada. Getting rid of the body. Learning imperius so she could finally end this mess.

Luna killing the snake. Voldemort arrogantly, foolishly, stepping through the veil. Ginny alive to kill Yaxley. Pansy, leader of the rebellion. Dolohov falling at Theo’s wand. Theo transferring Rookwood’s fealty to himself, the magic of the Mark sealed to him instead of Voldemort.

Ginny and Pansy in love, the latter to be the head of the Wizengamot while Theo made himself Minister. Spitting on Lucius Malfoy. Becoming an untouchable queen even amid the whispers that she’d forsaken her ideals. Saving the world but losing their souls.

Hermione shudders as they return to the duck pond. “That was uniquely terrifying.”

Other-Hermione shrugs. “Easier to see than to live.”

“Again, why? Why show me a path that’s been closed?”

“We are resilient,” the witch says fiercely. “We overcome. And if we can survive this, we will not be devastated by Ron Weasley being an idiot.” The world starts to fog and shift again, and the witch’s volume increases. “You are better and stronger than that!”

***

When she opens her eyes, Hogwarts is some distance off, and she’s in a circle of trees that she presumes is growing on the school grounds. There’s a heart with initials carved into the bark of a beautiful walnut, two intertwined trees, and another tree winding around nothing.

A beautiful Hermione leans against one tree, dressed so simply it screams wealth, a silver heart hanging from a chain at her neck and jade beads on her wrist. “Me, friends with Potter, dating a Weasley,” the witch says with dry amusement. “Your world is an odd one, isn’t it?”

***

“You mean-”

“I think you need to see it for yourself,” other-Hermione says with a sort of stiff finality. “I think you need to see everything.”

The world fades, darkens, warps, and they find themselves in a bar, past-Hermione sitting in the shadows and watching Harry and Ron surrounded by admirers, basking in their post-war glory. Then Malfoy slides into the seat opposite her.

“Don’t blame Draco,” other-Hermione says as they watch the conversation, the slow and careful words with the strong current of I want power running underneath, the mutual agreement that making people give you power was far more effective than seizing it. “I’d been thinking how I could run things better for a long time.”

Hermione watches her past counterpart point Draco’s own wand at him, then return it and give it to him, and leave together. No, Draco Malfoy likely couldn’t be blamed for this Hermione’s darkness.

Veritaserum and questions, and Draco already sitting at her feet, willingly placing himself under her thumb. Their plans to make her Lady and Queen. Draco comes to pick her up from the ratty old flat she was in at the start, armed with a snake bracelet to court her. Huh. Dinner and a quiet walk where people look at them with cool speculation. Kissing and flirting in front of the bookstore where Harry and Ron are signing. Waving the bracelet plaintively, all the while confirming her relationship with Draco and goading Ron into pushing her. A wary conversation - what the hell did Ron do in this world? - and then a kiss, a real kiss, not a public show.

Inducting Theo into the inner circle and inserting a kill switch into his head with legilimancy. Lunch with Harry and his refusal to reconcile with Draco. The most inelegantly expressed proposal in history.

Lady-Hermione laughs, and Hermione realises she said that aloud. “It doesn’t really matter, since marrying Draco is part of the game. I suppose he’s lucky that I’d have married him no matter how he proposed.”

The inner circle expanding to include Blaise and Pansy and Greg. Meeting in her old flat and discussing traditional morality. Planning how to gain power through articles about the Order living lives of hedonistic decadence with money from the war. Making herself look like a figure of purity, living in simplicity. Meeting Narcissa and learning about the old custom of fostering. Volunteering at a pathetic little orphanage. An orphanage, that according to official records, is very well funded, and in reality, even better funded than the records suggest. A conversation about changelings and blood magic.

A cold, numb shock slowly creeps up her spine. Yes, blood magic was - blood magic - but was it really Dark to take down a regime like this? A regime that deprived children and laundered money? How could the Order act like this and still be Light?

Inducting Astoria and Luna, Luna who speaks in metaphors upon metaphors that make everyone think she’s Loony because they’re unable to understand her, that make Theo drop to his knees and beg Hermione not to trust her. Meeting Greg and Astoria and - “I don’t understand.”

“You will,” Lady-Hermione says in a low, flat voice.

Tiring of their constant prejudice, the assumption that she must be a pureblood because Draco would never touch her if she was a filthy mudblood, even though that’s the assumption she’s using to gain power. Arguing with Draco and ripping through his brain with desperate ferocity. She needs to know if he despises her. Has to know. And a proper proposal.

“That would have been more romantic if you hadn’t tortured him first.”

Lady-Hermione shrugs. “I wouldn’t have accepted his proposal if I didn’t know.”

Quiet conversations with Draco. Being snubbed by Ginny. Discussing Luna and muggleborns with Blaise. Reassuring him that she has a way to solve the risk of discovery they pose. Finding out Ron hit Draco - and once more Hermione wonders who this Ron is, what he did to her, because he’s not the Ron she knows. Theo giving them proof of the Order’s creative accounting. Him accidentally letting slip that he knows she isn’t a pureblood, and having a wand shoved into his neck for it.

“It is far safer to be feared than loved,” she quotes.

Her counterpart laughs. “But every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. And to avoid being despised and hated. That was the Order’s mistake, and I don’t repeat mistakes.”

Coming to an agreement that involves him walking her down the aisle in loco fratris. The importance of the Nimue symbolism. More conversations with Narcissa about fosterage. Meeting Harry and Ron.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” this Harry says, and past-Hermione throws it back in his face even as he excuses whatever Ron did as “not a big deal”, as “you’re obviously fine and it’s not you were like this innocent victim”. Ron grabbing her wrist so hard that they can almost hear the bones grind together. She glances at other-Hermione and sees the witch’s frozen expression. These aren’t her boys. Whoever they are in this world, they’re not her boys. Ron would never lay hands on her. And Harry would never, never allow it. He would never excuse it with pretty words and cut her off. She wants to applaud when past-Hermione tells them to bugger off.

Getting Blaise to contact the bargirl who gave her ice for the wrist, who’s part of some underground anti-Order movement. Draco finding out that Ron hurt her wrist and promising to kill him. Her allowing it. She doesn’t blame her; if Ron treats her like that in public when they’ve broken off, what did he do to her when they were together? Could her Ron ever do that?

Visiting Astoria and Greg, Astoria who’s now pregnant but the child isn’t Greg’s. Her Slytherin boys dragging back some Order informant to her flat so they can pick through her brain. She goes to the kitchen to prepare snacks, and when she returns, the boys have done their work. Is it more evil to do your dirty work yourself, to feel the weight of it on your conscience and blood on your hands? Or is it more evil to have someone willingly stain themselves with evil at your command while you remain technically pure?

Marrying Draco in a humble wedding at the park, her hair braided in a subtle circlet, the simplicity of her robes a beautiful contrast against the Order’s lavishness when they’re side by side in the papers. Their wedding night, Draco gentle and sweet until he finds out -

“Ron did what?” she gasps.

“I was weak,” Lady-Hermione says, her words hard and cold in a way she recognises. It’s the way she speaks when she’s afraid of her own emotions. “Weak and silly. I’m not anymore.”

Working out the money system with Theo. Embezzlement and illegal seizure of assets and debased coinage and nepotism. This Order disgusts her. They need to fall. Meeting with the photographer who took shots of the orphanage, because every regime needs someone in the media. Telling Pansy to start a column painting Harry as the right candidate for Minister because of his unblemished morality.

Meeting with the inner circle in her bright new flat - a circle including Daphne Greengrass as writer of mocking limericks. The girl has a talent for it. Planning for the orphanage to be exposed and Astoria to out Harry. Listing potential adoptive families for the orphans and the changeling project. Changelings. Astoria and Harry. This should make sense, she should be able to put the pieces together, but she can’t grasp it. Theo wanting one of them for his heir and having the life hugged out of him. Yes, this Hermione knows how to use love and fear both.

Spellwork and planning with Blaise and Draco. Why do they want to make someone get drunk, and what’s this about transfiguring wood into babies? She wants to think, but then the scene shifts to her ascertaining Luna’s loyalty - which is strong, contrary to what the boys think of her dotty reputation - and she can’t be lost in idle musings.

Reconciliation with her Slytherin swains after they’re nearly broken by her displeasure. Blaise accepting her real blood status and nearly crying when he finds out she’s got a plan to ensure all children are raised in the magical world.

“At least you managed to restore their memories,” she says bitterly as she watches past-Hermione tell Blaise about her parents.

“Is it better to have them know me and hate me, or not know me at all?”

Astoria delivering the baby. Daphne delivering a spell to make Ginny a cheap drunk. The pieces come together.

“Astoria has Harry’s kid,” she says slowly. “That’s why you did all that. Make people want him for Minister for his morality, then destroy it with the affair, and of course Ginny will get drunk when her marriage publicly falls apart. That’s how you’re getting him off the chessboard.”

Lady-Hermione claps as the world swirls and they find themselves at Harry’s press campaign and how it all falls apart when Astoria comes with the baby. “You realised it just in time. A little slow on the uptake, aren’t you?”

“And the changeling project,” she says as they watch past-Hermione with Theo at the orphanage with the press. coincidentally managing to goad Ron into boasting the Weasleys are responsible for these “character building conditions” and going on the record with it. “Bring in the muggle-borns, leave some dead baby behind transfigured from wood or whatever it is, and have them fostered. No more muggle-borns.”

The other witch looks at her with faint surprise. “Perhaps you aren’t so slow after all.”

Shopping with Theo. Telling Draco she’s pregnant. The orphanage expose hitting the papers. Networking with the purebloods at a party for the kid Theo adopted, Æthel. Becoming godparents for Alicia, Astoria’s daughter, and a public proposal from Greg.

She looks at the other witch in surprise. “I take care of my people,” Lady-Hermione says simply.

Bringing Marcus Flint in. Resigning from the Ministry in protest over the orphanage, then running for Minister herself. Sending Luna and Æthel to feed misinformation to Harry. Meeting Neville and Hannah at the orphanage and being warned about Ron.

There’s a thud as her counterpart punches the wall. “I should have listened then,” the other witch says with a sort of miserable fierceness.

Bringing Percy in by promising to bury his involvement in the embezzlements, and him endorsing her in exchange. He’s always been the pragmatic one, the ambitious one. Harry fighting for custody of the baby. At least he’s got enough of a conscience to want to take responsibility, but past-Hermione doesn’t seem to agree. Working with Pansy and Daphne on restoring pureblood power, their lands and Wizengamot seats. Painting Arthur Weasley as a fool and Shacklebolt as a villain who crippled the economy and stole from the old families. Astoria’s wedding. Ginny finally drinking herself to death.

Charming the populace. Making the common people root for the wealthy to have their estates and vaults returned to them. Inciting protest marchers in the streets. Publicising Ron’s sexual exploits in the papers. Narcissa tacitly admitting she knows the truth about Hermione’s blood and doesn’t care. A spat with Molly. “I should have listened,” Lady-Hermione says again, and Hermione feels a slow, dawning dread.

George joining the service organisation she set up, perhaps the only Weasley who’s actually innocent in this whole mess. Giving a speech that has people chanting her name. Winning the election, as expected.

Then Ron coming out of the crowd with accusations. Cursing her, a curse that would have dealt more than a glancing blow if Æthel hadn’t sent off a quick stunner. Blood soaking her robes as she lost the baby, as Ron lies dead on the floor from Draco’s curse.

“No,” she gasps, horrified, as the world dissolves. “What - how could he -”

“I lost the baby,” she says simply. “Nearly lost my mind. The boys took revenge, but it didn’t help me. By the time they crowned me I was about ready to break down. Power changes you, but not always in the way you expect.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, wondering if this Hermione means herself or the Order.

“It seems blood sacrifice, and a million people wanting to believe in a myth, have a way of inviting the unexpected in. And that’s all I’ll say on the subject,” she adds with a hard expression when Hermione opens her mouth.

So she changes her question. “Do you regret any of it?”

“I’m probably the only one who wishes things could change, you know. Among the dark witch versions of us. Riddle-us, whatever she says, is probably the only one of us who knows she’s evil and likes it. The rest of us…” she shrugs. “Darkness is useful, until one day you wake up and you don’t know who you are anymore.”

“But you - who made you like this? Why are all of you like this here?”

Lady-Hermione shrugs again. “The Order corrupted the world. I tried to fix it, ruined lives in the process. Ron killed my son, died for his trouble, invited her in. Who knows where the blame goes? Does it even matter?” She turns, starts walking away as the fog rolls in. “Watch yourself, Hermione. Do what you want but try to remember some things can’t be undone.”

***

When she lands in the grounds of Hogwarts, she knows somehow, instinctively, this is the last world.

A Hermione who looks ordinary enough stands there with a smile, wearing two simple rings, a peacock drawn in brown adorning her hand, and yet another diamond tennis bracelet. “A gift from Theo,” other-Hermione says. “An adopted sibling thing. I’m not actually a Nott. And it’s not a portkey or anything.”

***

She can’t imagine that. “That’s awful!” Consent and free will and self determination all thrown out the window, just like that. “How is that any different from an imperius?”

“It wears off after a few seconds of separation,” Veela-Hermione says after a few moments. “But well. Perhaps we should go back to the beginning.”

The world ripples. Meeting Fleur and being introduced to a beautiful blonde man. Showing him around London. Dinner and candlelight and - oh.

Veela-Hermione flushes. “Not that far back,” she says hastily, waving her hand.

“Is that how-”

“Transmission occurs? Yes. And in case you’re wondering, the rumours aren’t true. Veelas are not automatically good in bed.”

Time speeds up. Hermione sickening. Miserable. Flinching away from touch. Hugging Harry anyway. Visits to St. Mungo’s. Research. Knowing what she was. A tearful apology from Fleur. Confirmation. Registering as a sentient magical creature, no longer a witch. Knowing she’d die if she didn’t find that magical mate, the one whose touch would save her. An endless, creeping discomfort. Feeling like death on her skin every time someone touched her.

Then brushing against Malfoy and knowing it was him and crying, certain he would laugh at her and condemn her to death. Going to the Manor. Trying not to have a panic attack as she passes the room. Malfoy’s horrified face when she tells him. Tea and pity and fainting in shock when she realises he’s not monster enough to let her die.

“Malfoy?” Hermione asks in shock. “Of all possible soulmates - Draco Malfoy?”

“It was hard to understand,” Veela-Hermione admits. “We took a while to get that.”

Moving in together to a flat where the doorman sneers at her, a flat that shows off the kind of money she can’t imagine. Being given a little orange kitten. Shoulder rubs. Not saying anything about Malfoy’s past actions because she needs him to survive, and him knowing it. Meeting this world’s Blaise.

“I should have known,” Veela-Hermione says, mostly to herself, as Blaise says something insulting and Draco threatens him. “It’s so obvious in hindsight.”

A housewarming with Draco’s friends. Pansy pushing her at Draco. Cuddling up against him, cooing with pleasure, a mindless animal. Licking him. Draco cursing Pansy and throwing everyone out.

Sharing a bed at Blaise’s suggestion. Nietzsche. Slowly getting used to him. Lunch with Narcissa, past-Hermione wearing the same suit as present Veela-Hermione. Being turned away even after saving the Wizarding World, because of course the Malfoys would bring her to an aristocratic pureblood restaurant. Draco assaulting the manager for turning them away. Draco and Harry playing Quidditch at the Manor. Harry going into a strange fit of anger when Draco teases her.

“There’s something in your touch, isn’t there,” Hermione says with sudden understanding. “Why they’re both so insanely protective of you.”

Veela-Hermione looks at her with shock, then laughs. “You got it a lot faster than any of us did.”

A costume party, crow and obscurial. Draco threatening another person, being a bulldog for her. Flirting with pretty, pretty Blaise. Pansy bringing Fleur’s cousin. Pansy becoming another Veela. Dinner with Blaise - and Ginny. Kidnapping the Veela man and making sure he took his potions to clear up the infection. Along with an impotency potion, just to be sure. Harry and Pansy.

And then finding out that Lucius Malfoy had been trying to figure out how to make more of them, mindless adoring Veela pets.

Leaving Draco. Research with Pansy, trying to figure out the answer before the Malfoys did. And the realisation of how the mates were chosen. Harry choking Ron for insulting Pansy. The knowledge that as devoted as the Veela was, their mate was violently, murderously, equally protective of them.

Moping until Pansy and Harry finally drag her back to the flat. Draco trying to make a potion to set her free from him. Reconciliation. A very… intense reconciliation.

Veela-Hermione flushes again and waves a hand. The amorous memories dissolve. “Anyway. Yes. I don’t know how things are for you- probably not quite the same- but that’s what happened to me.”

“My world’s Malfoy looked at me too, that day,” Hermione says softly.

She smiles a little at that, then wraps Hermione in a hug. “Allies can be found in unexpected places. Understanding, and love.” She steps back as the mist thickens into fog. “It’s a matter of being open to it, wherever it comes from.”

***

She finds herself on a graceful white bridge above a duck pond, across from a Hermione wearing well-made jeans and a black cashmere jumper, with guarded eyes and a substantial ring on her finger bearing the Nott family crest. She frowns in confusion. “Are you Theo’s sister too?”

Other-Hermione makes a face. “Merlin, no! We’re not related!”

***

A solicitor’s office. Adoption papers being unsealed. A slim, dark-haired boy she vaguely remembers as being in Slytherin. A ball of white light between them. Bared forearms and toasts.

“That’s Theo,” other-Hermione says, with obvious fondness. “Theo Nott.”

Hermione opens her mouth. Closes it. “Are you saying I’m actually a pureblood?”

“Only in this world. I’m not-you, or if you prefer, Nott-you. I’m the only one who’s not-you.”

Being greeted by a dark-skinned boy this Hermione says is Blaise. Malfoy bending over her hand, ready to charm now that she’s not a mudblood. A heated tirade.

Nott-Hermione shakes her head. “He really was an idiot back there.”

Coffee with Blaise. Harry and the Weasleys still loving her no matter whose child she is. Bringing Theo to the Burrow for dinner. Thai restaurants with her new brother. Lessons on pureblood etiquette.

“Why is this world so different?” she asks.

“If you think this world is different, you’re in for a shock.”

“No - why am I adopted here?”

The other witch laughs. “There are dozens of worlds where you’re adopted. Secretly a Potter. Malfoy. Zabini. Nott. Carrow. Black. Riddle, even. Any pureblood family you can think of. This was just one of the easier ones for you to be introduced to.”

A visit from Malfoy that involves snarking and insults and finally an apology. She only hears snatches of conversation. Dinner at the Thai place. Ice cream in Diagon and whispers and a very public kiss. Hyde Park. Dinner with Blaise and Ginny. Slowly, slowly falling in love.

“Malfoy?” she asks in vague shock. “Really?”

“He was a boy,” Nott-Hermione says softly. “A boy raised to know nothing but hate. A child soldier. All of us were.”

Visiting the Nott patriarch in Azkaban. Bringing Draco to Ron and Lavender’s tacky wedding. A marriage proposal. Meeting Parkinson. Harry dating the girl who wanted to turn him over to Voldemort. Theo marrying Luna Lovegood, of all people. Meeting the Malfoys, an ordeal in itself. A marriage at the Ministry. A honeymoon in Assisi.

“And here we are now,” Nott-Hermione says.

She doesn’t quite know how to reply. “You seem happy.”

The other witch shrugs. “I am. And you’ll be going soon.” She shakes Hermione’s hand as the fog starts billowing in. “There are many ways to be happy, you see. We’re happy. In every world. Even when we’re not who we thought we were.”

***

She opens her eyes to the Head dorms in Hogwarts and scrambles away from the witch seated on the bed. Bellatrix Lestrange. How did Bellatrix Lestrange end up in this awful nightmare of hers?

The witch, in all black from head to toe, a corset on the outside of her dress cinching her body in and pushing her body out all at the same time, tilts her head to the side. “Bellatrix is in St. Mungo’s here,” she says with perfect enunciation. “There was nobody for her to follow.” Her blood red lips curl into something like a smile, and Hermione recognises her features with slow shock. “I’m you.”

***