About Time

Dumbledore had always been one of the driving forces in Hermione's life.

Whether it be from awarding points last minute to Gryffindor, charming her into stasis so that she could be placed in the bottom of a lake, or dying and leaving her best friend to figure out how to save the world on his own.

Of course, he was never alone, Hermione had never abandoned him, not for one second. She tried to be there, helping and protecting him, ever since he and Ron saved her from the troll in her first year.

But even when Dumbledore was gone, it felt like he was still there, pulling some strings in their lives.

Hermione knew that the Battle of Hogwarts had been a consequence of Dumbledore's actions. She could never forget that day, even if she tried. The memories would be forever ingrained into her mind.

The days following the battle were the hardest.

The trio had to attend so many funerals that not even Hermione could keep track. They went together, always, apparating directly there and standing in silence and the dead were honoured. The hardest were the ones of people they knew, such as Fred or Lavender or Collin.

They never stayed long. Whether it be because they were overwhelmed with emotions or because the paparazzi had found them.

They were only present in the spotlight when they knew it was for good.

They spoke at a couple of trials. Ron refused, but she and Harry had spoken in favour of Malfoy and Narcissa, believing that they didn't deserve to go to Azkaban.

They tried to help in other ways, as well. They advocated for change and started campaigns to raise money for war orphans or businesses that had a hard time during and after the war.

Hermione even proposed new legislations to Kingsley that would help set some things right. They were mostly surrounding muggle-borns and magical creatures, but there were a couple that were more general.

None of them had set foot in Hogwarts since the battle.

Hermione knew that she could go back to Hogwarts if she wanted, to finish off her education, and have the Head Girl post waiting for her when she got there.

She just couldn't do it. She would see parts of the castle destroyed and retreat back into herself as she had done the day after the battle.

She wouldn't be able to handle it, so she chose to stay close to her boys.

-

The nightmares were a hard but constant part of their new lives.

The three of them knew that the war was ended, that they were safe and sound with each other in a world free of Voldemort. And yet, they still relieved the worst moments of the past year.

Harry normally had Ginny to take care of him when he woke up in the middle of the night screaming. In the beginning, Hermione and Ron would wake up and rush to their room, only to find him already calming down in Ginny's arms.

Hermione was a different story. It seemed like the only person who could truly calm her down after one of her dreams was Harry. Ron had tried, but considering that many dreams made her relieve the pain of him abandoning them, the boys both decided that Harry should be the one to console her.

They got better as time went by, but they all knew it would take years for the trio to be rid of them permanently.

-

A couple of weeks after the battle, Hermione went to Australia to try and find her parents and retrieve their memories.

She went alone. She hadn't wanted to burden Harry with more emotionally draining things, he deserved to rest and heal after all that he had been through.

And Ron...

After their kiss during the battle, they knew that there wasn't anything there. It was anticlimactic, really. Everyone had always built up a relationship between them, one that both parties were glad to say would never come to fruition.

It would've been awkward to take him with her. Besides, it would be best if Harry had one of them with him in case he needed something.

Even with the support of their Ministry of Magic, it had taken her a while to find her parents in Australia.

They were quite happy there, from what Hermione saw. They owned a nice flower shop that she went to once, almost crying as her mother helped her make a bouquet of her favourite flowers without knowing who she was.

With the help of some Australian healers, they examined her parents' minds, and when it was announced that they would never be able to get their memories back, Hermione broke.

She didn't even go back to the Ministry to take one of their Portkeys, she made one herself as soon as she had her things and went straight back to London.

It took her weeks before she got out of her room. Before she started laughing at Ron's jokes. Before she started dancing in the kitchen with Harry.

It took her weeks, but Hermione got better with the help of her boys.

It was hard, but with the weight of the world off her shoulders for the first time in a decade, she knew she would be ok.

-

About a week after Hermione started feeling like herself again, Sirius came home.

After the final battle, Unspeakables came rushing to Kingsley, the newly appointed Minister of Magic, with the news that Sirius Black had returned from the Veil.

They had never seen anyone come back from the Veil before, and they figured out that it was because none of those people had ever been involuntarily pushed in with a spell. Apparently, as soon as Bellatrix Lestrange died in the Final Battle, Sirius came back from the veil, as the magical connection that had held him there was now gone.

Every single day while Sirius was being held at the Ministry, Harry sent Kingsley an owl. Hermione would've felt bad for him if she didn't know how much Sirius meant to Harry.

The owls weren't only to ask when Sirius was going to come home. They were also to make sure that Sirius was pardoned for everything that the Ministry had accused him of.

Kingsley made sure all the charges were dropped and even wrote him a letter of apology on behalf of the Ministry.

Due to all this, and because it was Harry Potter's godfather, Sirius was escorted home to Grimmauld Place by the Minister of Magic himself, to where his godson awaited.

He barely made it through the door before Harry ran up to him and enveloped him in a hug.

The reunion between godfather and godson was one that moved everyone around close to tears.

Hermione stood to the side, happy that her best friend was finally getting good things back in his life.

A voice to her side made her jump. "Are you ok, Hermione?" asked Remus.

She had never been particularly close to Remus, not like Harry had, but he always seemed to notice her and care for her.

Hermione had an odd relationship with Remus. They weren't very close and he wasn't as much of a parental figure to her as he was to Harry. He did, however, always reach out to her when he thought she might need it, and they even traded book recommendations once in a while, always recommendinng books that she fell in love with.

He started coming to Grimmauld Place more after Hermione came back from her trip. She assumed that it was because he knew that Sirius could come home at any moment. He started to become a comforting presence.

"Oh, yes. It's just amazing to see good again in the world. After all that we went through this past year, Harry deserved to get Sirius back." she whispered, not wanting to ruin the moment. "I suppose you must be thrilled as well, getting your best friend back and all that."

Remus just hummed as an answer.

She took her time to observe Sirius as he hugged Harry. It seemed as if not a day had passed for him since he was thrown into the Veil. In fact, he even seemed a bit healthier than before, with a light shining in his eyes that she had never noticed, making him look a lot younger than she knew him to be.

In her fifth year, she had a small crush on him. It was hard not to, considering how he looked like and how mysterious he seemed to be. She and Ginny used to giggle whenever they saw him throughout Grimmauld Place during their stay there.

After he fell through the veil, her crush on him was something she never thought of again.

Until that moment.

When they broke off their hug, Sirius looked towards them, and almost involuntarily he whispered, "Kitten," and came striding to give Hermione a hug.

She found it quite odd, considering that every time she had come into contact with him previously he had kept as far away from her as possible, but brushed it off when Remus joked, "After years alone you must've missed human contact, right mate?"

She missed the slight shake of his head that he gave Sirius.

Sirius looked disappointed when he broke off the hug but quickly disguised it by saying, "When a bloke comes back from the dead, Moony, it is only polite for his friends to hug him, throw him a party and give him many gifts. And seeing as you did none of the latter, I do expect the former." Making everyone around him laugh.

That was something that she had always admired of Sirius, he always seemed to know the exact moment that people needed to laugh.

She forgot all about the odd moment.

After everyone had a chance to give Sirius a hug, Mrs Weasley rushed them all into the kitchen, where a feast of Sirius' favourite foods awaited them.

-

It had been two months since then. Hermione, Harry, Ron, Ginny and Sirius were all living in Grimmauld Place together.

Ginny was the only one who had already started to work. The Holyhead Harpies had given her a proposition before she had even gotten her Hogwarts letter. She knew that they would hold the spot for her if she had wanted to complete her last year, but after all that she had been through there, she didn’t think that she could go back and accepted the offer of a lifetime.

Harry and Ron had been offered positions as Aurors by Kingsley, but, much to Hermione's delight, they denied it, claiming they needed a bit of time away from the action.

Hermione felt a bit lost, which was something she wasn't used to feeling. She always seemed to have some sort of a plan, and for the first time in her life, she didn't.
-

The trio and Sirius ended up spending their days in Grimmauld Place, not wanting to venture out due to the sheer number of paparazzi that followed them around wherever they went.

They started catching Sirius up on all that he had missed while he was in the Veil.

"I remember that curse from our Hogwarts days." He told them vaguely when Harry mentioned Sectumsempra. None of them tried to push the matter.

"Harry, Snivellus was not a great man in any way. He was creepy and did the bare minimum, so you best get that through your head." Hermione was just glad that someone other than her thought that as well.

"If Dumbledore were alive right now, I'd hex him for all that he made you go through alone." That earned a chuckle and a nod of agreement from many.

It took about a week to get Sirius caught up, and for him to get back on his feet. By then, everyone in the house started to feel restless.

In an attempt to start fresh, they all agreed to start working on cleaning the house and transforming it into their own place, brightening it up to erase the years of bad memories and dark magic the place held.

They each got a floor, and Hermione had volunteered to go through the attic, thinking it would be the most interesting place to clean.

She had been wrong.

Most of the items there were charmed to repel, burn or attack muggle-borns, so she spent most of her time testing each item out rather than doing any actual cleaning.

By that point, she had spent almost a week going through the attic, not finding anything of value.

That is, until she noticed a box right behind the door, hidden behind a painting of a (horrible) Black ancestor.

She was quite cautious in opening the box, afraid that something would jump out and attack her.

Hermione was quite pleased to notice that nothing of the sort would happen and quite surprised to see that the box actually contained some of Dumbledore's things.

They seemed to be pretty insignificant. A sneakoscope, a journal with drawings of toilets at Hogwarts, fabric swatches for what she assumed were robes.

What took her a second to notice, though, was the engraved box at the bottom.

The small box itself was beautiful, but it didn't compare to what she found inside.

A time-turner.

She had her fair share of experience with time turners, knowing how dangerous they were. This one was different, though. Instead of the usual golden sand that rested inside it, it contained sand so blue that one would have thought they were ground up sapphires.

It was also covered in runes she had never seen before.

Hermione had no clue of why this could've ended up here, or how Dumbledore had it in the first place since all of the time turners were destroyed in the Battle at the Ministry.

Not knowing what else to do, she decided to go show it to Sirius, who was cleaning out the rooms on the ground level.

She went down the stairs two at a time while shouting, "Sirius! I need your help with something that I found."

She saw him coming out of one of the rooms, eyes locking straight onto the time turner in her hands.

She didn't register the look on his face, though, because before she managed to do anything, she was suddenly falling towards the ground and the world went dark.