You Do It To Yourself

Hermione suddenly found herself in King's Cross Station. She had felt none of the usual hallmarks of any kind of magical transportation. And as she took further stock of her situation, she realized that she wasn't in any pain. All the minor injuries she had picked up during the battle thus far had disappeared, leaving her in perfect condition. Even the residual ache from the scar she had picked up in the Department of Mysteries was gone. She didn't feel good, not as an active condition; she simply felt nothing. Nothing wrong with her, for the first time in what felt like ever; certainly the last two years. She hadn't even realized how weary and tired she was from months on the run, eating poorly, until she was no longer feeling the effects.

Turning around slowly, scanning for threats, she took in how barren the station was. There was, with a single exception, no one else present. Every other time she had been here, the station had been bustling with people and motion, and to see it so empty was strange. Her eyes settled on the only other figures visible; two men, both instantly recognizable to her, sitting on a bench across the platform from her.

Seeing Dumbledore caused her to realize where she actually was; the afterlife. So there is one, she thought, suppose that answers that question. As she was about to call out to Harry, however, she startled in shock at a voice coming from right behind her.

"It should be me over there, you know," the obviously feminine voice said.

Hermione whirled around, reflexively reaching for her wand before the figure that had appeared behind her registered in her mind.

"Miss - Mrs. Potter?" She asked, frozen halfway through tracing out a spell pattern, the shock stunning her into inaction; the first time she had frozen since the end of her fifth year.

"Lily," the redheaded woman said, gently, so, so softly, but with a core of steel. "I willingly tied my life to my son's with magic, to protect him, knowing what it could, would, cost me. As the only other woman to do so, you have more than earned the right to be on a first name basis with me."

She gestured behind them, at the bench against the wall, before sitting down, the motion finally allowing Hermione to resume moving and sit down herself.

"By all rights, it should be me to talk to my son," Mrs. Potter - Lily - repeated herself, gesturing at the two men mirroring their pose across the station. "But if I were to be the one to speak to him, he wouldn't be able to make the choice that he has to. Not objectively."

"What choice?" Hermione found herself asking, even as her mind raced. "This is the afterlife, isn't it? We're dead?"

"We're not in the afterlife, not exactly," Lily explained. "We're more in, hmm, a halfway point. From here you can go forward ... or you can go back." As she spoke, Lily gestured towards the train tracks that stretched off in each direction.

"The Horcrux," Hermione stated, mind seeing the solution. "It anchored Riddle's soul to Harry, but also vice versa."

"Partly. All soul magics are complex, and poorly understood. Combining them can have -"

"- unforeseeable interactions," Hermione finished, in sync with the older woman.

"Exactly," Lily continued, a smile playing across her face. "When Harry was struck with the killing curse in the forest," and Hermione startled slightly, at the confirmation of what had happened while she was speaking with Ron and Neville, "There were several magics at play. My original protection that I placed on Harry, seventeen years ago; the unintended Horcrux that was placed in him that same night; the soul bond that you and Harry created, several months ago; and the fact that Harry was recognized by magic by all three Hallows."

"What?" Hermione asked in shock, before realizing, "That flash of insight and relief that Harry felt a few minutes ago, he found the last Hallow, the ring. It must have been ... in the Snitch?" she half asked, half stated, her eyes flicking across to the man who had willed the piece of Quidditch equipment to Harry. Lily simply nodded at her deduction.

"Wait, you said there was a choice," Hermione continued. "So we can either continue on, to actual death ... or return to the living."

"When Harry's soul should have moved on, where anyone else's soul would have, all those soul magics at once, they tied his soul back. It's impossible to tell which of them specifically it was, if it wasn't the combined effect of all of them together. But they pulled you forward with Harry - and placed you both on the knife's edge," Lily said, making significant eye contact with Hermione.

"We're balanced, he and I, between life and death. Perfectly so. It's up to us which way we go, we can force ourselves one way or the other."

Lily nodded, beaming at Hermione. "And if I were the one to be speaking to my son ..." she said, before trailing off.

Hermione understood instantly. "We've done our part - the actual battle still has yet to take place, but all the parts that only we could accomplish are finished. Our friends can finish the fight. Whichever way he goes, I go with him, so he knows he'll have me by his side whatever he chooses. But on this side ... he would have you. And his father, and Sirius – and the pain is gone. Our work could be done."

Lily nodded again, her smile still present at Hermione's reasoning, but grimmer now.

"My son never had to do anything to earn my love. And even if this is when he truly dies, I will be so, so proud of everything he has done, the man he has grown to be," Lily stated. "But ..."

Hermione was staring at Lily, as it was now her turn to look across the station to where Harry was talking to Dumbledore, a wistful expression on her face.

"But," Lily finally continued, "I wanted more for him. I wanted more for myself, for that matter, I never wanted to die this young. I was willing to, to save him. But of all the ways he could follow in James' and my footsteps, this was not the path I wanted for him. I don't want him to die even younger than I did."

Hermione looked at the older woman then, really looked. Dumbledore had appeared exactly as she remembered him from a year ago when he was still alive; she knew from her own examination of herself that, aside from her injuries disappearing, she was exactly as she had been mere minutes ago. She had extrapolated that in this in between place, people appeared as they were when they died. It was easy to know, in her head, that Lily and her husband had died almost two decades ago, that they had been young when they died. But it wasn't until now, really taking in her appearance that she realized the redheaded woman was almost the same age she was, that she had lived only a scant few years more.

"Whichever way he goes, I go with him," Hermione repeated, the words having an entirely different meaning now, a vow this time. "And -"

Hermione paused, trying to find the right words, before continuing. "Lily," she said placing careful intent behind the other woman's name, finally calling her as she had been told she could. "I won't force him to go back. All the things I've dragged him into over the years, all the things he has had forced on him, I won't take this choice, this one choice, away from him. We are at peace here; our work could be over. But if he does choose for us to go back ..."

She trailed off, not needing to speak the words, not able even to find the words to cover the enormity of what she was promising.

"I couldn't have picked a better person for him to spend the rest of his life with if I had been alive to choose, Hermione," Lily said. "I know it's not my place, but I'm not just proud of him - I'm proud of you too. I'm sure your parents would be as well."

Something in the air around them changed then, and Hermione looked across the station at where Harry still was, and she knew that he had made his choice. Looking back over at Lily it seemed she sensed it as well.

"Tell him that we love him so very much, James and I both, and that we're so proud of him. We will be so happy the day that we get to see him again. But he better live to be at least five times as old as we were, because if that day comes any sooner - well, you can't kill people from the afterlife, but I can be very creative when I need to be, and he shouldn't test me."

Lily paused for only a moment, her and Hermione both knowing that their time together was almost over, and every second was a chance to say something. "Take care of each other. Make each other happy. That's all that we need."

As the world around them faded out, and gradually disappeared, Hermione said one last goodbye.

"We will, Lily."

And all Hermione knew was white.

"We'll meet again."