CHAPTER NINE: AFTERMATH AND A NEW PLAN

Weeks passed. Hermione had returned to her grandmother's home. She left the wards up, though the rest of the Weasleys, Neville, and Kingsley knew where the house was now. The wards ensured anyone unknown wouldn't see or find her. Fred and Harry were staying with her now. Both had initially tried to stay at the Burrow, but the overwhelming grief had taken the feeling of home from the house. Harry had felt like he was intruding on the family's grief, however keenly he felt it himself, and Fred just wanted to be left alone. He rarely left the basement anymore, obsessively working on his products despite the fact that WWW was one of the only stores in Diagon Alley yet to begin reconstruction or reopen. He had even moved the bed Viktor had been using into the basement to sleep there. No one touched the rooms that had been occupied by the Lupin family and George and Lee. And no one talked about their aversion to those rooms.

"I'm selling the house," Hermione announced one day at breakfast. "Would either of you like to come house hunting with me today?"

"Sure," Harry agreed, happy to be given something productive and out of the house to do.

"I guess," Fred agreed, feeling Hermione's intense stare on the top of his head.

"You're both welcome to move in once I find one. I just can't stay here anymore," she explained, drawing nods from the two. All three of them were a bit unwilling to leave the last place they had seen their friends and family alive and happy, but recognized how unhealthy their behavior was and knew they weren't going to be able to move on surrounded by ghosts.

After breakfast the three set out to Diagon Alley to meet the realtor that had helped the twins find their shop. By three o'clock that afternoon, Hermione was signing papers for her new home, a house a bit larger, but very similar to the one she was planning on selling, and only about an hour's drive away. It was her way of keeping what was while starting anew. The realtor gave her the keys and told her the floo would be set up by the following morning. Thanking him, they all decided to stop by the Burrow to let everyone there know where they would be living starting the next day.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Molly asked Hermione tiredly over tea. Everything the woman did was with an air of exhausted resignation anymore. She was losing an outstanding amount of weight as well in her grief.

"Yes. I need a fresh start," Hermione assured her. "Even if it's not, done is done now."

"I suppose so," Molly agreed, nodding. "I'm going to head up for a bit of a lie down. Will you lot be alright showing yourselves out?"

"Of course, Mum," Fred told her, hugging her tightly before she started up the stairs, patting Harry on the shoulder as she passed him on his way down.

"Ginny wants to help us move our things tomorrow. She'll be over just after breakfast," he told the other two, who nodded. "She's going to ask if Neville and Luna want to help as well. Apparently everyone's going a bit stir-crazy."

"Sounds good," Hermione told him, standing to head out as Ron rushed in, knocking into her as he hurried past.

"Watch it, Hermione," he snapped, continuing up the stairs while Harry and Fred frowned and shook their heads at him.

"Wonder what's got his knickers in a twist," Fred muttered, turning to Hermione who had caught her fall on the family clock and was standing stone still, looking contemplative as she stared into the distance. "You ok, Hermione?"

"Never better," she breathed, taking another moment before focusing on the two. "Let's head back then, shall we?"

That night was a flurry of wand waving to pack everything. The next morning, Ginny, Luna, and Neville arrived as promised right after breakfast to help them move. The task was quickly done with shrinking and featherweight charms and everyone took in Hermione's new home before they went out to help her pick furniture. Harry insisted on paying for the furniture, seeing as he didn't pay a knut for the house and would be living there indefinitely rent free because Hermione refused to take his money. He insisted it was the very least he could do after all her years of helping him.

The group spent the rest of the day in another flurry of wands decorating, furnishing, and unpacking. By supper time (Chinese take out courtesy of Harry again, who claimed a wicked craving), the house looked warm, inviting, and homey. Harry and Fred had each claimed one of the five bedrooms and furnished it to their liking, and Hermione had fully furnished and decorated her own room, the office she was making more of a library, and the kitchen, letting Ginny take over decision making for the two guest rooms and everywhere else. She was not disappointed in the results. Ginny had tried her best to keep Hermione and her personality in mind, but make it a bit more fashionable and modern than Hermione would have herself. Anyone walking in would have assumed it was a model for a country home in a high end interior design magazine, and Luna telling Ginny that made the girl beam in pride, her smile causing a chain reaction. Hermione was suddenly extremely proud of herself for putting them in a position that garnered the first group smiles and laughs since the war ended, knowing it had to happen sometime and somewhere, but very glad it was her first evening in her new home.

September arrived. Ginny, Luna, Neville, and surprisingly enough Ron returned to Hogwarts to complete their seventh year properly. Harry had opted out of not only Hogwarts, but an invitation to join auror training, citing himself done with fighting the forces of evil. The Daily Prophet had had a heyday with that soundbite. Instead, he focused on helping Hermione and Fred make a proper potions lab out of the basement and start an herb garden in a newly installed greenhouse to grow their own supplies in out back.

At the end of August, Snape had been released from Madam Pomfrey's care and took up Hermione's offer to stay at her home seeing as his other option was checking into St. Mungos for another couple months. He had retired from teaching for good and was almost pleasant sometimes, knowing he'd never have to teach another class again. He also helped in the creation and construction of the basement lab, though only in words and design rather than physical work, due to limitations Pomfrey had placed on him and Hermione was upholding, sometimes at wandpoint. By the time school had started, the lab was functional, and he was able to brew more uninvolved potions that didn't take too much time or energy. He spent most of his time otherwise puttering around the greenhouse to assure their ingredients would flourish. Fred and especially Harry had been slightly uneasy with the idea of living with Snape, even temporarily, but so long as they didn't provoke him, he generally kept to himself, put in for any ingredients he used or needed, and even made sure to help with the cooking and grocery shopping, which he was surprisingly good at.

Hermione had requested a year off before heading to school in Melbourne. She had no intention of going back on her promises, but told the dean she needed time to herself to grieve and heal. The Melbourne University of Magic and Sorcery was quickly becoming a highly sought after school, thanks in no small part to her efforts to help put them on the map and Harry's glowing endorsement at the end of the war, so the dean was happy to grant her a year off to take care of herself instead of the rest of the world. Fred had asked her about her parents only once, but she had told him she wasn't ready to face them. He had offered his assistance when she was, which she gratefully accepted, but hadn't brought up since. One night at the end of October, she rolled over and shook Fred awake from the place he had been taking on the other side of her bed for the last couple months.

"What's up, babe?" he asked sleepily.

"What would you say if I told you I could fix this?" she asked, clutching the strange stone amulet she never removed from around her neck.

"Fix what?" he asked, started to wake up and get suspicious.

"This," she said, gesturing around them. "The whole world. What would you say if I could stop the war from ever having happened? If I could make sure none of them ever died?"

"I'd say you were half asleep and not thinking clearly," he told her, voice uneasy. "Are you keeping something from me, Hermione?"

"Sometimes when I touch things I see things," she told him, clutching the amulet tighter. "It's this. It lets me see the whole story. The past, present, and sometimes future. That's what I've been doing these last few months. That's where I've been going. I know everything big that happened during the first war now and a lot of smaller details that will make everything easier. And Snape's helped me procure what I need to destroy the horcruxes."

"And how will you go back and destroy the horcruxes before the war starts?" he asked, intrigued.

"Don't you think it's funny that time turners only work for a few hours at a time? And only go back? You have to live your way back to the present. Kinda seems like someone left the job half done," she commented, having spend a lot of time dwelling on that idea since the afternoon she had touched the Weasley Family Clock and gotten numerous flashes of a different pair of ginger twins that looked more like Bill than Fred and George. They included some where they were making the clock and presenting it to Molly for Bill's first Christmas. Gideon and Fabian Prewett, she knew. They were killed by death eaters in Diagon Alley not far from where their nephew's store now stood empty and broken, she knew, fighting like heroes according to the also deceased Alastor Moody and the flashes she had gleaned from the wall Snape had hidden the felix felicis in. She wondered if Snape had been aware of the location or if it had just been convenient.

"I wouldn't let you go alone," he told her.

"I'll give you my notes to prepare while I try to figure out the time travel thing," she offered.

"You've kept notes?"

"That journal wasn't just for communication," she assured him. "I could change the charms so you could read it too. Then if it were stolen in the past, no one else could read the future either."

"We could save George and Percy and my dad," he breathed, staring past and through her.

"We could save a lot of people. Moody could live. George will never have lost his ear. Harry and Teddy and Susan Bones could have parents. Colin Creevy can become the wizarding world's greatest photographer. Lavender Brown could be a fashion editor. Alicia Spinnet could start for the Holyhead Harpies. Charlie could keep wrangling dragons. Sirius could never go to Azkaban. You could have uncles," she told him, causing his eyes to snap back to her.

"You'd do this for me?" he asked, looking awestruck.

"We'll do it for everyone," she corrected, smiling softly.

"Marry me."

"Seriously?"

"I've never been more serious in my life," he told her. "Merlin knows I've been a terrible person to be around, but you've been there working hard to try and make me smile at least a little every day. You sacrificed your place by Harry's side in the war to include George and I. You made sure I had somewhere to fall apart and stood strong for me when I didn't have the strength to do so myself. Now that we're free from war and you have a wonderful future ahead of you, you're willing to throw yourself back into battle to give me my family and twin back. You're an incredible person, Hermione Granger. I've never loved anyone, not even George, as much as I do you and I don't want to spend another day of my life without you."

"Then I suppose we'll have to find some time for you to get me a pretty ring so everyone knows I'm off limits then, won't we?" she asked, smiling at him with unshed tears in her eyes.

"That's a yes?"

"That's a resounding yes, Fred. I love you," she told him, laughing with him as he pulled her close and kissed her thoroughly.

"Tonight we celebrate. Tomorrow, we'll go out first thing and get you that ring. Can't have anyone thinking you're available. After that, we visit the Burrow. This will cheer everyone up until we can fix things. Then the plotting commences," he decided, feeling lighter than he had since the war ended with the promise of her love and the direction such an important mission gave him.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Author's Note: I've posted the sequel (finally). Link's on my profile page for part two: Back to the Disaster. Warning: it IS a time turner fic. I know they're terribly overdone, but I almost always enjoy them immensely. Probably because I've always been distracted by the first war. Details are brought up, but there's no real explaination of who these people were or why, say, Gideon and Fabian Prewett were in Diagon Alley fighting like heroes to the death, or why they only found bits of Benji Fenwick. What lead to it? This story line won't really cover it, but I've got plenty of other ideas that I will probably write at least one or two of that start with all the terrible things that happened to the original Order of the Phoenix. So...yeah...now that I'm done with that tangent, go check out the new story: Back to the Disaster.