Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading and reviewing, and for all the support. Hope you are enjoying a beautiful summer. And thanks for the BEST review ever for anon, I may copy and paste it into my profile, it's fab! Cheers to all you James potter fans!

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November 1979
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Hermione stepped across the threshold of the cottage, pushing open the squeaky gate with an unsteady hand.

Her legs were slow and shaky as she walked down their garden path to the front door protected by a Fidelius charm.

Sirius Black was their Secret-Keeper. Another choice James insisted on despite Hermione's hesistance to involve Sirius in anyway that could possibly harm him or backfire. James thought Hermione strangely protective of Sirius sometimes, despite regularly getting into squabbles with Sirius whenever he did something to prank them: like rearranging their furniture in their brand-new home or making their chairs emit farting sounds whenever she sat down.

Hermione just told James that she thought Sirius was too immature to handle such a responsibility. It was a good cover up. Because it was true. Sirius Black was immature. More so than ever in 1979. While as trustable as ever, Sirius Black verged on school-boy childish.

Yet she could never say what she really knew or why she had been so hesistant to allow Sirius Black to be their Secret Keeper. If only James understood what she really feared happening or why his wife insisted on somethings being a certain way sometimes.

She didn't want the same things happening twice.

Good Merlin. And yet something had already happened exactly as it had last 1979, despite all potions and precautions taken otherwise.

She lowered her hand to her stomach, where her secret lay.

If only she could tell her husband her fears for the future. Her fears for this child. How she lays awake every night, terrified one day they will both be killed in their own home and their child left an orphan screaming for its parents.

She told James, shortly after their wedding, when his parents tried to generously gift them Godric's Hollow, to refuse the home. She thought by changing the house from Godric's Hollow to a more cheerful cottage she could change the future.

But then how did this happen? She felt her stomach again.

If Xenophilius Lovegood hadn't contacted her, telling her his wife had a vision of her future, Hermione might have taken a potion to take care of this issue. It was only a few weeks and she could easily have swallowed a potion and then found a way to kill Voldemort herself, without involving a baby. But the beautiful blonde told her she was 'exactly where she needed to be'. Exactly in the time and era. Somehow Pandora seemed to know she was from the future without Hermione telling her anything. She could even tell Hermione details of Voldemort's future that she had no way of knowing.

Pandora, as she had the pleasure now of knowing her, was a gifted clairvoyant and an overall brilliant woman. She was three years older than Hermione, a former Ravenclaw, and they had seen become fast friends.

She wanted to ask Pandora, if she saw the future, why couldn't she foresee her own future and prevent her own death? But then one day, she
stared into the large beautiful eyes of Pandora as Pandora revealed to her that she had her own plans of jumping into another time and leaving behind this one. "But why would you leave your own timeline? Why would you leave your family behind?" Hermione asked her. Pandora had simply smiled, in a way eerily similar to Luna. "Why did you leave your own timeline, Hermione?"

"It all fits," she repeated the words Pandora Lovegood had told her. Don't worry, it all fits. The universe is self correcting.

Somehow all the puzzle pieces have fallen together exactly as they should. Perhaps it was fate all along.

'James Potter was my fate.'

How absurd.

She had been running from James all this time thinking she was screwing up the future.

'No, Hermione, you Gryffindor perfectionist,' she admonished herself. 'James Potter - this mad, handsome, bespectacled athlete - was my future this whole time.'

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James arrived home a few hours later than her. A new scrape on his face - this time on his chin. He tried to hide it right away and heal it before she could see it, but she already saw it.

It didn't matter, he was home. He was alive.

James Potter was alive. And he was her husband. And he made her so damn happy it was ridiculous.

'Why did I ever try to run from you?' Hermione asked herself as a tear ran down her face.

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"I'm so sorry," was the first thing she said to her husband as soon as she was back in his arms.

He held onto her tightly, his well-built arms enswamped her in a protective manner.

"You're shaking," he whispered in her hair. His nose nuzzled her briefly across her ear.

"I know." She blinked and tried to clear her thoughts of how she was going to say this. Instead, she mumbled again. "I'm sorry."

"Why do you keep apologizing?" He pushed her gently back by her shoulders, so he could look her in the face. His hands never let go of her of shoulders as he looked at his wife in the eye. "You don't need to apologize to me for anything."

Finally the tears in her eyes could hold back no longer.

"Or do you?" James asked with raised eyebrows. A smirk snuck onto his lips, cheering her up on purpose. "What have you done? Killed my cat? Burned down Gryffindor tower? Destroyed the quidditch pitch?"

Hermoine sombre expression was broken by a snort. She dabbed at her eyes. "You don't even have a cat, James."

James raised his eyebrows again as if this was news to him. "Oh right, I don't." He winked. "I have a dog though. Snuffles."

Now it was her turn to raise her eyebrows. Why, she wondered, did she ever pretend to not know whenever James took Sirius for those ridiculous walks or played fetch with his best friend. Or that one time in Hogwarts, James's 'dog' had snuck into her dormitory while she was changing and the dog yelped in surprise when she hexed him for trying to see her naked. "I know Sirius is your dog."

"You haven't done anything to Sirius, have you?" James asked with genuine concern for his best friend.

"I would never." Another tear fell down her face. "No matter how annoying. I promise to never let anything happen to him." The image of the haunted face of a
Sirius Black that spent half his life in Azkaban was something she could never erase from her memory. This Sirius Black was immature, very immature,
but he was also innocent and carefree. He still was a young man with life and mirth in his eyes and a jump in his step. Same with Lupin. And now, she realized, Severus Snape too - he would never lose his Lily. He would never become so bitter.

Perhaps it was better this way.

Perhaps it was all fate.

She took James's hand. Enough of joking, it was time. She let him have a few more laughs and explain to her how he had got his last scrape, then she took a breath and waited no longer to tell him.

"James, you're going to be a father."

"Wait, what-" A look of relief fell across his face as James processed this information and then a deep unconditional love began to fill his eyes.

His hand tightened its grip on hers.

"Are you serious?"

Hermione pretended to be offended. "Now, now, James, it's not the time for puns."

"Hermione!" James shook her shoulders, clearly going mad. "Quit teasing me! Is it true?"

"Hmmmmmm...," she drew out her affirmation for as long as possible, loving the anticipation in his face. "...Yes, I do believe so."

Suddenly she screamed as James lifted her up in the air and twirled her around him.

"Careful! What if you drop me?!" she shrieked. She knew James was surprised because she said she'd been against having kids and they had taken all precautions but then he was so happy now she wondered if he had lost his mind. He raised her higher in his arms, beaming up at her.

"When have I ever dropped you? Don't you trust me?"

"James put me down! Right now!"

"It will be alright, it will be alright." He kissed her neck and sung the words of their wedding song. "This is just the start, I promise. We've only just begun."

"Just begun?"

"Yes, I plan for us to have a whole quidditch team."

"James! That is not happening!"

His lips crushed against hers silencing her and she closed her eyes, surrendering her trust into her husband. She imagined their cottage filled with love like this always, Harry Potter's life filled with love.

James carried her upstairs to their bedroom as the sun set on their house.

She was exactly where she needed to be.

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~The End~

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A/N: Thanks for reading and any thoughts and reviews appreciated! Also I may put back the silly bonus chapter but i'm not sure.