“A mother’s love endures through all.”
Hermione Rose Nott ran her fingers over the freshly engraved words. She knew every groove of every letter, the only difference between this time and the last is they hadn’t been smoothed with time.
They once felt like a joke. Love endures? They were words Rose had turned over in her head for years. It was what led her on this inadvisable road trip. Sure she’d seen the love between her dad and Lulu, theirs was one brought about by circumstance but strong nonetheless. Then there was her Uncle Harry and Uncle Fred, they loved each other a distressing amount, and it endured a whole war.
She came back for answers but as she faced her mother’s grave at Spinners End she only had more questions.
Rose was eager, a trait she’d been told she shared with her mother. This typically manifested in the form of asking questions. Many of them. In the span of seconds. Rose had been told repetitively this was another quirk she got from her mum.
Rose did not have a complex over the constant comparisons to her dead mother, she’d prefer people direct their concerns elsewhere.
Perhaps what perplexed her most were questions regarding the war. There were threads she’d connected from the accounts of hundreds but she was no closer to knowing who she wanted to know most. Her family was famously known for their role, yet no history book could tell her if her mum was scared when she found out she was pregnant. Did she have a preference if she was a boy or girl? Did she regret her? These were the hard things that no one wanted to tell her. Rose had been patient, consuming every story her family told but she knew there was more.
She had given them grace because even after a decade they felt her mother's loss so acutely but she was her mum. If anything their mourning told her how much she was worth knowing. Rose deserved answers and she was tired of waiting.
It’s why she ended up in August of 1997.
—
August 16, 1997
Rose stood before the white building, blending into the crowd of a couple dozen strangers and family all gathered to remember her mum. With one noticeable absence.
Hers were the only dry eyes in sight. Uncle Harry too, but she had seen him taking out his grief on the building wall, his hand suffering for it. He desperately held it together for the people who needed it most, including her. He had an excuse, but what was hers?
Was she a monster? How could she look on at the ones who raised her standing hand in hand with people Rose only knew through stories told at memorials and family gatherings, as they left tokens in her mother's casket. Was she too broken to not even cry at her mother’s funeral?
She listened while Uncle Harry delivered a beautiful eulogy. Still, no tears came.
“It’s unfair that Hermione’s daughter won’t get to be nagged at or read to or held by her mum. It’s worse when you think about how much Hermione wanted that baby.”
Her mother, whose name she carried heavily today, wanted her. Her godfather said so in front of a crowd of all their loved ones so it had to be true. Yet her uncertainty scraped at her chest.
Rose lurked in the shadows as people paid their respects to the mother she longed to know, causing her eyes to drift to the one she did. Her LuLu who held baby Rosie so gently, careful to not let her tears dampen her baby blanket. An ache similar but entirely different from the one she felt for her birth mother tightened around her heart. Rose desperately searched for the man she was used to seeing at her side, needing suddenly to be in his fierce and quiet presence. Except he was not there. Not anywhere she could see. Rose catalogued her symptoms and came to the conclusion that the dreadful feeling was homesickness. This only made the tightening worsen knowing that her trip was not yet done.
Uncle Harry (whose attentiveness had not waned in the last nineteen years) steered anyone away who got too close to baby Rosie, still so fragile and small. Even with her dad nowhere in sight, Rose could not summon the tears her mother deserved.
When her uncles left with baby Rosie held tight to her godfather’s chest, Rose let the disillusionment drop.
—
Rose often preferred books to people, a trait she’d been told she shared with her mother. But it was her Uncle Ron who objected, saying her choice in reading material was far more like her father's.
Rose loved brutally. When she and Vic broke up the first time she thought she’d die. It was her father who understood the feeling and rubbed soothing circles into her back, made them sundaes, and threatened to off Vic’s kneazle.
Rose had the tendency to wander off during family celebrations. Over the years they began to resemble the Quidditch World Cup more than a birthday party. It was when she wandered that her father, during his own attempts at escape, would find her. In those moments, they drew strength and peace from each other. Together they were a family, father and daughter, the last of the Nott’s against an onslaught of Potter’s and Weasley’s.
So she should have known that even nineteen years earlier, he would not leave her to endure the quiet alone.
Rose heard the rustle of fabric, then a familiar voice. “Either Harry drugged me or I’m more sleep deprived than I care for so who the fuck are you.”
Rose did not prepare for this. She went out of her way to avoid disrupting the space-time continuum, but she was ninety-eight percent positive this would have repercussions, and about 50 percent sure it wouldn’t change the outcome of the war that was on. All she could do was hope this didn’t fuck up the universe because that would not be brill.
“I’ll kill you if you do not begin explaining yourself.” The wand at her throat was quite convincing but for all that she was like her parents she was also raised by Harry Potter.
“Could you?” She was genuinely curious. Logically, Rose knew her dad was not in a good place right now and that war can make people a bit murdery, but she also knew she bore a striking resemblance to her mum.
“You’re not her,” he said firmly. Rose could not decipher what he must be feeling but she thought that maybe he wasn’t confident in his reply.
“No, I’m not.” He looked at her closely. Her dad was the smartest man she knew. Rose was certain, despite the absurdity of her situation that he would figure out she was his daughter.
“I… I remember you. You were there that day in the library.” Her surprise was short-lived, she achieved what she came back for then. The next part of her trip would be a success.
—
February 21, 1997
“I’m Hermione Granger, Ravenclaw Prefect, is there anything I can do to help you? You look familiar but I’m certain you’re not a student, and you’re not wearing robes. What brings you to the Library? Rather, do you have permission to be here? I will call for a Professor you know.”
“I’m here for research, Hogwarts has one of the most extensive libraries for my field.” She was talking to her mum! She was so lovely, and—
“Oh! What’s your area of research? I’ve read nearly every text available, I’m happy to be of assistance.”
“As a matter of fact…”
They sat for hours chatting and reviewing historical texts. It went by much too quickly, but when the sound of voices getting closer drew Rose’s attention away she saw the infamous gang approaching and knew she couldn’t risk running into anyone else.
Her mom’s face lit up at the sight of her friends. She looked happy. It was all Rose could have hoped for. She gathered up her things and thanked her for her help. Before Rose lost her nerve, she pulled Hermione in for a hug at the last second then darted away into the stacks. She tried to get away from the chaos without drawing attention but it seemed there was one who wouldn’t let her mysterious appearance go.
Theo Nott did not let things go. Not the years spent under his father’s cruel hand, not the time his brother shot him, and not the random girl who hugged his girlfriend before dashing off like a criminal. For all he knew she was a Death Eater who stole one of Hermione’s hairs and was intending to use it in a brew of Polyjuice potion in a plot to deliver Harry to Timmy. Theo was taking no chances where Harry or Hermione’s safety was concerned, not after Azkaban or finding out about the baby.
Thinking she was a good distance away, Rose leaned up against the shelves feeling as if she had run ten laps around the lake. She had met her mum, had hugged her. It was surreal. The adrenaline of having accomplished what she set out for was thrilling. Time travel was dangerous they said, it would have consequences they said, well they obviously had never met Rose—
“Who are you,” Rose winced at the tone, it was all too familiar. Shit. Rose eyed the wand pointed at her and gave her dad her best ‘let me off the hook, I’m innocent’ smile. She had used it loads of times with varying degrees of success but this did not appear to be one of those times.
“Just a researcher here on business.” She said more confidently than she felt.
“And what business did you have with Hermione Granger?” Rose’s smile shifted to one of fondness. He always safeguarded stories of her mother, always sharing them at the right moment with boundless love. It was a comfort to see he had done much the same in their school days. Rose was ready to go home.
She fidgeted with the time turner she fashioned into a trendy wristwatch. At the last minute, she said something but her voice was lost in the sudden outburst of pressure that took her away and knocked Theo back into the bookshelves.
“See you soon, dad.”
—
“I didn’t hear you then,” Theo said. “You disappeared. You couldn't have disapparated, not on the grounds—”
“Yes, yes Hogwarts, A History. Any well-read first year would know that and I was a Ravenclaw so I can assure you I was.” Theo appeared to falter for a moment, looking as though he was coming to a troubling conclusion about her. “I didn’t disapparate but I cannot explain further without risk. It’s sensitive information,” Rose crossed her arms. He didn’t look convinced, his defensive stance had not eased, he was puzzling her out. She gave it five more minutes.
“I’m here to pay my respects.” She continued, “that day… In the library,” her expression became thoughtful, Rose considered every list she’d ever written, all the practiced conversations she had pretending they were with her mother, why she travelled through time to attend a funeral and meet a teenage girl with dark curls and brown eyes that matched her own. “It meant a lot to me that day, she did more for me than she knew. I was able to finish my research thanks to her. So I’m here, but I cannot stay long.” Rose could not be sure how her first meeting with her mum would unfold but she was certain these things were true.
She turned back toward the headstone. Theo settled in next to her, still on guard with his wand at the ready but accepting that the only threat she currently faced was to his solitude.
She let the silence fall over them. The reminder of home wrapped around her and it was like she remembered, comforting as a warm embrace.
Rose tilted her face skyward, she felt a drop of rain land on her cheek and went to wipe it away, only to realize it wasn’t rain but her tears breaking free at last.
—
Theo did not know what to do with this woman who looked entirely too much like the love of his life, her crying making the resemblance even more pronounced. The trembling of her mouth and furrow between her brow was all Hermione. But her nose, was it upturned like his? And her eyes, the shade of them was Hermione but the shape held a bit of him too, yes?
He was left with a thought, a farfetched one but he’d faced crazier odds. What does a possible time-traveling daughter have on a piece of Timmy’s soul taking up residency inside his brother’s head? What does it have on becoming a single father in the middle of a war? More unbelievable things have happened.
Most of all it shamed him because it meant acknowledging that he had not looked at what made Hermione’s-- no his daughter, his baby, unique. The permanent dimple on the left side of her cheek and the beauty mark under her right eye, did his baby who he had not even held once have these features? Was this truly his daughter or had he finally gone mad? If so Severus was two for two.
It had been five minutes and her tears would not stop. He was standing beside his adult daughter, he wished he knew what he was supposed to do.
Together they braved Hermione Jean Granger’s grave, but they did not have to do it alone.
“Someone told me once that grief is just love with nowhere to go. What you’re feeling is allowed because it means that you love fully. But there are people in your life who will give your love a safe place to rest, to be. When you’re willing to give it, they’ll be ready.”
She squeezed his hand briefly and walked away. They were wise words, he committed them to memory thinking his Rosie may need to hear them one day. The young woman spun the dial on what Theo was increasingly certain was an illegally modified time turner, before taking a risk and calling out his daughter’s name, braving the words out loud for the first time since her birth such a short time ago.
“Hermione Rose!”
She looked back over her shoulder and smiled wide, lifting some of his dread that had become a second skin. Surely if she could smile at him like that then he could do this, could do right by her. This time when she was swept away he heard her.
“See you soon, dad.”