After the war, Hermione met an unlikely friend in Theodore Nott. The last thing she expected was for him to understand the pain that she went through losing her parents. He had lost his mother at a young age and then his father during the war, although losing his father didn’t seem as painful as it did relief.
When they were paired together in Potions class and then again in Arthimancy she figured her eighth year at Hogwarts was doomed. Much to her surprise, the studious Slytherin proved to be an excellent partner and that is where their friendship began.
Midway into the year, when the snow lay heavy on the ground, she relayed to him the story of her parents. They were still safely tucked away in Australia, but she hadn’t relayed to anyone exactly what she had done more than a year and a half ago to keep them safe.
“Bloody hell, witch, you did what?”
His face had gone white with shock, and she found herself, not for the first time, drawn into his steady blue gaze. Shrugging her shoulders as if there was nothing she could have done, she told him, “What I had to do, Theo, and I’d do it all over again if I had to.”
He shook his head like he was trying to rid himself of the image she had given him. “But, what if there was a different way? Would you do it differently?”
“It doesn’t matter. There wasn’t, and it’s done now.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down hard in the attempt to stifle the tears that stung her eyes.
He had pulled her into his arms in that moment, the first embrace they shared, and she had felt at home for the first time since she left her own.
Months later, just a few weeks shy of graduation, he pulled her into a hidden alcove on her way to Transfiguration. “I found a way, Hermione.”
“What are you on about? C’mon, we don’t want to be late for class.”
Placing his fingers over her lips, he quieted her. “Shhh . . . We don’t want anyone to find us.”
He smiled, leaning down to give her a quick peck to her nose before removing his finger from her mouth and pulling something from his robe pocket. A silvery glint sparkled in the dim light from the window. In his grasp, she recognized a time-turner - the very same time-turner she had once used herself.
Her gasp was quickly covered by his mouth, and she couldn’t help but mold her lips against his until she remembered what had made her surprised in the first place. She pushed him back with a hand to his chest and threw the strongest muffliato she could at that moment.
“First, Theodore Nott, where did you get that, and second what do you intend to do with it?” Overwhelming emotion clenched low in her stomach, and she was sure he could feel her heart beating against his chest as he pulled her close to him.
His smile did nothing to reassure her. Instead, she saw that glint that she regarded as his Slytherin side slide over his features. “I’ve managed a way to save your parents,” he said simply.
The audacity of him being able to do such a thing hit her, and she huffed a laugh.
“Just give me a second,” he pleaded, his eyes boring into hers in a way that she knew meant he was serious and passionate about what he was saying. “Let’s go back and save them. I’ll help you hide them. You won’t have to erase yourself from their memory.”
Hermione was speechless, the tremendous burden she always carried was momentarily lifted but only until it came crashing back upon her with more weight than she could possibly hold. Her shoulders dropped and she sagged against him, letting her knees give out as he slowly lowered her to the ground, his arms wrapped tightly around her. She sobbed into his robes, and he murmured words she couldn’t comprehend.
At last, she lifted her tear-stained face to his. She knew she looked a mess, and his concerned eyes echoed the pain she knew was written across her face. “It won’t work, Theo.”
The tilt of his head was a challenge she was used to when they discussed certain antidotes to a potion. He challenged her, and she loved that about him. This was different though. He was asking her to relive the hardest part of her life over again. And not just to save her parents; what if they altered time?
“It’s too dangerous. We could mess everything up. What if we saved them, but Harry didn’t win. What if Voldemort won?”
Theo flinched and the scowl that ran over his features was one she didn’t witness often - in fact, only once before when he spoke of his father. After physically shaking the poisonous thoughts from his mind, he turned back to her, his face passive. “It won’t. I have a plan. It’ll be quite simple.” At her look of apprehension, he continued, “A time-turner can only go back, right? Well, what if we . . . you know . . .”
“Spit it out, Theo!”
“What if we stayed with your parents to keep them safe?” Her eyes widened and the wheels in her mind started spinning as Theo kept talking. “We can stay away from the war, away from ourselves. We don’t have to be there. That way we will do nothing to change the future. Once we catch back up to the present, we’ll come back and act like we never had a two year holiday.”
He took a breath and met her eyes again before bringing the hourglass up and placing it in her hands. He wrapped her fingers around it and squeezed. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and down her face. This could work; Theo was right. If they could go back and convince her parents to leave - that she would go with them, they would heed her advice; they would go. They could all go to Australia and leave no trace of them behind. The war could go on as it did without anyone being any the wiser of the fact that Hermione Granger and Theodore Nott from the future were lurking across the world waiting to catch up to their original timeline.
“Okay, let’s do it,” she whispered. His smile warmed her heart and made her feel like, together, they could do absolutely anything. “You’ll have to help convince my past self of this plan . . . Do you think a note is enough?”
Theo found himself standing in the middle of what Hermione told him was her room as a child. Bare lavender walls and empty built-in bookshelves gave no hint to her occupying it recently. “What happened to all the stuff?”
“I packed it up and had it stored when I had them move.”
He nodded and squeezed her fingers against his own. She bit her lip and lifted the chain of the time turner around both of their heads. “Ready?”
Before answering, he leaned down, kissed her forehead, and then her nose. Resting his lips against hers, he said, “With you, always.”
“Don’t distract me, prat.”
He chuckled and lifted his head so she could concentrate on the many spins of the time-turner she was about to make. At the last spin, the world around them faded and blurred and then became clear once more after many minutes.
It worked; it bloody worked. He wouldn’t tell Hermione this, but there had been a tiny doubt that they would bugger it up and they’d be lost to oblivion forever. Instead, they stood in her room, and now it was full of her belongings. The shelves were lined with books and her bed covered in stuffies. His eyes lingered on a poster of a guy above her bed. “Who is that stud?”
She scoffed and audibly laughed, and he turned to see her cheeks tinted a light pink. “A childhood crush, that’s all.” At his persistent look, she complied, “Fine, his name is Jonathan Knight. He’s an American singer in a band called New Kids on the Block.”
“Hmm, Jon,” he pondered, tasting the name.
She turned to him, eyes narrowed defensively. Hands up in surrender, he turned his attention to the bed next to him. Sitting down, he found it rather comfortable and noticed a stuffed white cat with orange and black markings at the front of the herd. He picked it up and waved it towards her. “Is there a story behind this one? It doesn’t resemble Crooks much.”
She smiled at him. “My Nan gave me that when I was young. Her name is Blossom.”
A sound from below reminded them that they were here for a reason, and it was time to set their plan in motion. Downstairs and into the sitting-room he followed her, where her parents both sat reading the paper and drinking their tea. He watched as his witch took a deep, shuddering breath, and he moved to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. Her body relaxed for a moment and she moved forward into the room.
“Mum, Dad, I have someone I want you to meet.”
It wasn’t as easy as he had hoped. Mr and Mrs Granger were smart people and they questioned not only the entire story that Hermione told them but Theo as well. The hard look both of them gave him brought back the days when he was never good enough for his own father and worth even less. He kept quiet letting Hermione take the lead until her parents asked her to leave them to think.
On the back porch of the Granger home, he sat next to her, an arm around her shoulders as she was unsettlingly quiet. Finally, she asked, “What happens if they refuse. Will I have to do the same thing over again?” He shrugged, unable to honestly answer her.
They spent a week attempting to convince the Grangers to flee the country and go abroad with them. Each day, it was a new tactic, but essentially the same story as to why. They were running out of time and feeling desperate when Richard Granger cornered Theo and they had a ‘man to man’ talk. Theo could earnestly express how much Hermione meant this to take care of her parents. That she wasn’t lying, and he was the reason she was trying to change the outcome of their future.
He wasn’t sure of the exact thing he had said that had convinced Hermione’s father, but the next day her parents were packing the house and making arrangements with their dentistry office to take an extended holiday. And Hermione was preparing to deliver herself a letter.