Chapter 1.a.- Preface

When she had been in school, Hermione Granger was good. No, she didn't always follow the rules like she would have wanted to, but she always did everything to the best of her abilities, and for good reasons.

When she fought, she fought for the underdogs, and the underserved people of the world. She did so with a passion, no, a ferocity that was legendary.

When she finished one thing, she started something new. Once again, driving forward at full speed.

The ink had barely dried on her Hogwarts diploma when she began working at the ministry of magic. Hermione hadn't even fully made her office her own when she was dragged into the bowels of the building and inducted as the youngest Unspeakable on record.

She took to it like a fish to water. After all Hermione Granger was good at a lot of things, but she was the best at research, and figuring out the tougher bits of problems. As Ron had said years ago, she's scary, but brilliant.

Ms. Granger, in her capacity as an Unspeakable, had worked on many projects up to this point. This current one, however, was her passion. Time. Studying it, changing it, bending it, shaping it. Potentially even re-shaping it. Just, figuring it out in general. The properties and basics of time were, after all, one of the very few truly unknown things left in the world.

To the little girl who went 11 years thinking she was a muggle before being introduced to magic at large, this thought brought about all the same feelings of wonder as that discovery had. And it was amazing.

Her work took her to Asia, Africa, Europe... well, all over, really. Most recently, Hermione had traveled to America to speak to the Unspeakable department there about some discoveries she had made by combining the current knowledge of the sands of time, with some of Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel's work on alchemy. Notes that she had come across while going through the estate Dumbledore had left to Harry, and that Nicholas had left to his friend Albus upon the destruction of the Philosophers Stone, and his subsequent passing.

Such a shame the work had to be destroyed... physically, at least. Thankfully the ever resourceful Ms. Granger knew how to use her mind. Literally. She had read every bit of every journal, every note in every margin, and all the spare scraps of parchment and letters of correspondence that she could get her hands on. Then, she went home, and bottled these memories. Yes, Hermione was good at following rules these days. She was also good at reading between the lines of such rules. Loopholes do make the world go round.

She used this knowledge to figure out how the sands of time themselves could potentially be multiplied, and various ways they could probably be altered using Alchemy to achieve different results, the only problem was that the few remaining time turners were out of her reach at the moment. The MoM's had been destroyed in the war, after all. And no one was willing for her to purposefully break a working time turner on a "potential", yet thus far unproven, hunch.

The only place that had sands of time, already outside of a time turner, was the Magical Congress of the United States of America. And so, that was where she went. There, she found, Hermione Granger was not so much of a war hero that she had to be constantly hounded for autographs, or asked how she was really doing. Her feelings on any given subject weren't pressed for, picked apart, and splashed all over the newspaper. She could fade into anonymity easily. And it was just what she needed.

It had been a solid few months of research before homesickness set in. A solid few months of Pringle's and Snickers bars for quick sustenance, in between being drug out to see the real world by the few Unspeakables she came into contact with, and immensely huge breakthroughs in the newly created field of time magic. Kingsley was even considering making a new department at the ministry because of it, because of her! The Department of Time, with her as it's head!

And so, with plenty of time to spare—well, sands of time at least—Unspeakable Granger found herself returning to England, ready to set off on her next adventure. But even the best laid plans can go awry, or so they say.

Chapter 1.b.- Good to the Last Drop

Her mind was full, her hands were full, her eyes were now full— of her hair! While it had calmed down over the last few years, international floo connections had a way of bringing out the worst in her curls. The frizz that resulted was nearly unbearable!

Hermione stumbled forward, dropping her things unceremoniously at her feet. She held her arms out in front of herself to make sure she didn't collide with anything, or anyone. It was so quiet she guessed she was alone in the atrium, although she really didn't know what time it was at the moment, so it could just be a brief moment of calm before the next storm of activity. She really needed to right herself, and quickly! "Ugh, where did I put my wand?!", the former Gryffindor huffed, running her hands over the normal resting places for the missing object, finding it tangled hopelessly in the nest that her hair had become. Of course that's where it was! She huffed again.

"Her-Hermione?! Is your hair finally trying to eat you instead of anyone else? Haven't you been feeding it properly?" A decidedly male voice guffawed. Ron. She'd know that lack of tact and decorum anywhere.

Rolling her eyes, and stomping a foot in irritation she opened her mouth to respond waspishly to her friend turned boyfriend, turned ex-boyfriend, turned back to friend. "Ronald!— Don't just—" she was cut off by the fact that suddenly she could see again, and her wand was in her hand. She had been mid-struggle though, and as such her balance was thrown off by the lack of resistance, and she found herself pitching over sideways with a gasp.

Quickly squeezing her eyes shut, she braced for impact with the cold marble floor. With an oomph she landed, although it wasn't as cold, or as hard of a landing as she had imagined. It was almost... warm? Daring a peek she was confronted with crinkled green eyes, dancing with laughter. "Well hello Mione! Look, Ron, even she's falling all over me. Always knew I was handsome!"

"Harry!" She turned and threw her arms around her dark haired friend, "Sorry for falling all over you! Maybe America has turned me into a fan girl for the boy-who-lived!" She made a kissy face and lunged toward him playfully. Laughter suddenly gone, his eyes widened comically and his mouth fell open. She relented, laughing, "Kidding, Harry. Nice wordless casting by the way! Been practicing?"

He chuckled, "Just a bit. It's still pretty hit or miss, apparently it's better with motivation though. You know me and my hero complex!" Harry was silently checking her over, she had been gone a long while and had a tendency to stop caring for herself when she got wrapped up in her projects. He nodded, apparently through with his appraisal, and satisfied with his findings. "I'm impressed Herms, you're dressed properly, and it appears you managed to both bathe and eat during your research trip!"

She stuck her tongue out in response, "Oh, look who found some jokes! Funny, boy wonder." A quick tempus confirmed it was indeed the end of the day. "Fancy a drink boys? I'm parched!"

Without sparing a glance back, she shrunk her trunk, shoving it in her pocket while stooping to pick up her dragon hide purse, and waltzed off towards the ministry's apparition point.

The boys shared a brief "what's got into her?!" look, before scrambling to catch up. Moments later they found themselves in Diagon Ally, being dragged towards, and into the Leaky, and squished into a corner booth in the back of the busy pub.

Hermione was almost vibrating with energy, her mouth was opening and closing like she had so much to say, but couldn't figure out where to start. "Good trip?", Harry had decided to take pity on her, aiming to give a bit of direction to her obviously busy mind.

She smiled brightly. "Yes! Oh, Harry, it was amazing!" She grinned, before looking saddened "There's so much I can't tell you! But... oh, uhm, I should be able to replace what was destroyed in the battle, and more! The notes we found in were invaluable, and I made some new... things... to work on. New types of the old things. Is this making any sense?" This Unspeakable thing was harder than it seemed to be. It was a struggle to explain what she knew without breaking her oath, and the boys absolutely hated being in her workspace after the war, so she tried not to drag them down there.

"Uh, kind of? Wait... yes!" Harry laughed. His friend was amusing.

Ron, however, wasn't amused. He never did get their female counterparts ambition. Which is probably why they fizzled out pretty fast as a romantic pair. "Ok, we get it, you have doo-dads and what's it aplenty! Can you not talk about work for once? Do you even know how to have actual fun?!"

She cringed. That hadn't taken very long. However she had expected it, and therefore didn't get hurt by his outburst. Brushing most of his statement off as rhetorical, she instead rolled her eyes before responding. "I missed you too Ronald. How's the shop?"

He had taken to helping out with his brothers joke shop, after one half of the pair of twins had gone missing during the final battle, presumed dead but no direct evidence. The Weasley family still held out hope for his reappearance, but were begrudgingly accepting the likelihood of his demise. "George is still... you know..." he sighed, "he's so used to working with Fred to make new products, that he... well, we have nothing new to offer and the customers are starting to express their displeasure."

Hermione nodded sadly. She had taken few shots of firewhisky since they arrived, and she was just coming to realize it was a bit stronger than the shots she had become used to in the states. This could be a good thing, or a very bad thing. Depending on what came out of her mouth next. "I could help—" she broke off into a sudden yawn. And suddenly there existed an intense flare of excitement in her red headed friends eyes. Uh oh, bad thing! Bad thing, retreat! It was too late though, before she could finish with the " talk to him" she had been trying to add, her friend had tackled her in a hug.

"Really?! Oh Mione I take back every thing I've ever said about you and your work, and your hair and your... uh, never mind, anyway— George would be so excited he would forget to mope for a bit! We always knew she was the best, right Harry?" He nudged Harry, who had been worriedly studying Hermione, with his elbow.

Sure he saw the terror in her face, but unwilling to publicly call her out for it. Harry just shook his head reassuredly, and told her sincerely that it would be great for George.

"Well... ok then! Yay!...?" Hermione dropped her head to the table. She promised herself right then and the that she was never drinking firewhisky again. "So, uh, I should— go? Harry? Headed back to Grimmauld?"

He chucked, then took pity on her. "Yeah, yeah. Catch up in a few days, Ron? Let this one readjust to... life in good old England!" The redhead nodded his agreement with a laugh, before apparating back to the flat he shared with George, to presumably tell him of this new development.

"What did I just do? Oh Merlin, Harry! Stupid Firewhisky!" She worried. He just laughed, and drew her into a side hug, saying "It'll be ok, you know you have plenty of ideas laying around. Just throw the poor boy a bone, it'll be ok!"

"For George..." she reassured herself, throwing a nod to her companion. That settled he apparated them home, where she promptly passed out in the room she had claimed as her own. Her last thought before sleep claimed her was that she really needed to update the decor, there was way too much... Slytherin... in this room.