a/n: So here is the last chapter, guys! I know I mentioned having 21 or 22 chapters but as I was writing I realized that much of what made up the last four chapters didn't actually make sense (contradicted much of what I had written in the early chapters) so I ended up actually rewriting basically the whole ending from what I had planned in the outline. I didn't change the main outcome/ending, just how I got there.

This fic has been a real journey for me … it is the longest thing I have ever written and published online and it has also been the most I've ever written in such a short period of time: 54k words in one day under 2 weeks…WOW!

A HUGE thank you to everyone who has followed, favorited, but especially reviewed (and to everyone who will still long after this chapter has been posted). Your reviews especially really warmed my heart and prompted me to keep writing and updating at a steady speed.

Thank you to NeonDomino whose requested inspired this story … without her request I would never have dreamed of having written a Hermione/James Sr. fic and now, well, heck, I kind of ship them myself! :p I hope you've enjoyed your story from beginning to end :)

And of course a gigantically enormous to my constant beta and rock luvsanime02. Without you, this fic would have been a mess with no beginning or end and riddled canon-errors from sentence 1! Thank you for keeping me in check and for putting up with me x)

And now that my big spiel is over and one with … here is Chapter 19: the big finale!

Hermione doesn't get a chance to sneak away and go to Dumbledore's office until two days later. As if sensing what she's planning, James won't leave Hermione's side. He showers her with kisses when he thinks no one is looking or when people are looking but he thinks Hermione will let him get away with it anyway. Hermione would let him get away with anything right now. She'd let him whisk her away from Hogwarts and build a shack in the middle of a forest somewhere, and they'd live off the land and be free to love each and forget about Voldemort and people dying and the future crumbling. Hermione wishes he would.

Instead, the permanent gloomy mood around the castle keeps her in touch with reality, this time around. Hermione doesn't think she's heard a single person laugh since the day the Hufflepuff girl lost control of her magic and everything went downhill from there. It's as if the whole castle is holding its breath for the Pureblood fanatic to drop the other shoe. What's next? People wonder. People dropping dead without warning?

Hermione doesn't intend to stick around and find out.

On Friday evening, she fakes a migraine and heads up to bed before dinner. She tosses and turns and watches the seconds tick by until somehow it's finally past 3 am and Hermione drags herself out of bed.

It takes Professor McGonagall a whole five minutes before answering the knock at her office door.

"Miss Granger? What in the world are you doing up at this hour?"

"I need to see Professor Dumbledore. It's urgent."

Professor McGonagall doesn't ask questions, maybe it's because of Dumbledore's request for all students to talk to him personally or maybe it's because she can hear the desperation in Hermione's voice. Either way, she momentarily disappears to change out of her night robe and fix her hair before taking Hermione to Dumbledore's office.

They don't have to wait long before being admitted. He's sitting at his desk reading a book when Professor McGonagall leads Hermione in.

"Ah, Miss Granger. Please, sit."

Hermione sits. In her apprehension, the speech she had prepared for Dumbledore slips out of her mind.

Dumbledore turns to Professor McGonagall. "Thank you, Minerva. That will be all." Professor McGonagall hesitates, obviously preferring to be here to hear the so-called urgent news, but then she relents. She smiles to Dumbledore and closes the great oak door behind her on her way out.

"I expected you to come to me sooner, Miss Granger."

Hermione blinks. Well, that wasn't the greeting she had been anticipating. "Excuse me?"

"I looked into your mind when you arrived. A strict necessity to evaluate the purity of your intentions. It was quite plain to see that you were not being entirely honest with me, and to put Minerva's mind at ease I took, as you youngsters are prone to saying these days, a little peek."

"You– what?! So you've known all along? Why didn't you say anything about the sickness? Why didn't you warn me?"

"You had to figure these things out on your own. Everything happens for a reason, Miss Granger."

Hermione wants to jump out of her chair, take Dumbledore by the shoulders and shake him so he'll wake up and make sense. She checks herself just in time, after jumping up. "But it doesn't! There is no reason here! I made a mistake. Now I've ruined everything – Lily's health, Harry's life. I've probably even given Voldemort a free pass to his unchecked reign of terror." Saying these words out loud are much more devastating than having thought them to herself all these months.

Hermione slumps back down on the chair. She feels like crying. "I don't want to go home to a ruined future," she whispers. "But I know I can't stay here." Hermione wouldn't be happy leading a wandering life, like Warghollow, and she knows she couldn't tolerate living in the middle of nowhere in a makeshift shack hunting for food every day. She needs her friends. She needs Ron and Harry, although she may have ruined that for herself forever.

"The answer will come to you." The way Dumbledore looks at her, Hermione thinks he looks rather sad, almost defeated.

"Wait. I came here to you for help. You're supposed to help me get out of this mess. You gave me the time-turner in the first place!"

Dumbledore shakes his head sadly. "I have much knowledge and many answers, but this one is not one of them. If I gave you the time-turner, I know that I had a good reason. Unfortunately, even I cannot know the mind of my older self. This is something only you can fix, Hermione."

What a waste of time! Hermione thinks as she storms out of the office. She should have known. Aren't Harry, Ron and herself always the ones who put their lives in danger and fix everything at Hogwarts? Dumbledore imparts his words of wisdom, but in the end he's a back-seat spectator. Hermione heaves a sigh. Well, maybe she'll be glad to hand the reigns to someone else when she's 150 years old as well.

Still, the bottled rage pushes against the cork stopper. Hermione watches the gargoyle statue swing shut behind her. She pulls the time-turner out from beneath her collar and then slips the necklace off altogether.

She hates this little, malicious timepiece with a burning fervor. How many problems has it generated over the centuries? It's a good thing that they all were destroyed last year. Hermione wishes Dumbledore had never given her this one.

Hermione has half a mind to smash it against the solid stone wall.

A distant crashing noise snaps Hermione out of her angry stupor. It takes her a moment to realize that she is no longer holding the timepiece.

"Oh no!" Hermione runs to the gargoyle statue and kneels. The time-turner must be made of something stronger than delicate glass because on first inspection, it looks fine.

Hermione slips the necklace around her neck and turns the timepiece over in her hand. There's a fissure along the side of the hourglass. Hermione puts a very gentle finger to it, but even that pressure is too much and the hourglass suddenly shatters. Tiny pieces of glass and sand spill out into her open palm.

Hermione blinks awake. Except she hadn't even really been sleeping in the first place. She recognizes the feeling of having time-travelled instantly, that sudden awakening of the conscious mind. Hermione's hand is still spread open before her, filled with sand and small pieces of glass.

It takes Hermione a moment to realize where she is – outside of the Great Hall. She can hear the loud and excited clattering of voices. She looks at the clock above the Great Hall. It's nine.

Hermione tips her hand and watches as the sand trickles off her palm and onto the floor. She knows, instinctively, that she's no longer in the Marauder's era. She's almost too terrified to walk through the doors of the Great Hall and find out what timeline she is in. Hermione takes a deep breath. She only has herself to blame for things being different.

She steps through the doors. A few heads turn at her entrance, but they don't stare. Their eyes wash over her with little interest.

Hermione's heart hammers painfully against her ribcage. Some faces look familiar – is she just imagining it? She turns her head toward the Gryffindor table and her heart soars at a glimpse of red hair, then it plummets again. The hair is much too flamboyant to be Lily.

In her trance, it takes Hermione a few moments to actually recognize the faces – Ginny, Fred, Ron… but no Harry.

She's returned. This is her present. Hermione can barely allow herself to breathe as she sits at the table across from Ron, who's in a lively discussion with Neville.

After a few moments he realizes Hermione is there and turns to her. "Blimey, Hermione, you look like you've seen You-Know-Who or something."

Hermione looks at him, terrified. "What?"

"Terrible. You look terrible." Ron is already losing patience with her. He's drumming his fingers on the table, and despite the ruckus the noise is driving Hermione mad. Not knowing what she's changed is driving her mad.

Obviously, her friends are still alive. Obviously, her friends are still her friends. But that doesn't mean everything is the same. Hermione can't bring herself to ask about Harry. What if no one knows him?

A gentle hand on her shoulder startles Hermione. It's Ginny, looking over at her with frowning eyebrows. "Are you all right? I saw you come in, but not Harry. Is he okay?"

It's like a feeling of déjà-vu and Hermione wants to stand and hug Ginny and whisper to her thank you thank you thank you. Instead she remains seated and shakes her head.

"No, I didn't see him."

Ginny keeps frowning at Hermione, although her expression morphs slowly from one of concern into one of confusion. Hermione knows she's acting oddly, but this is too much to take in all at once. They're all alive, they're all friends, Harry is still missing and yet Hermione knows she didn't just drift off and dream up her whole experience.

She can feel it in her veins and in the way she lets her eyes wander around the Great Hall, and the way her breath hitches when she catches glimpse of dark red, nearly auburn hair. It wasn't a dream. It was all real and there were repercussions. There have to be.

Suddenly, a shadow slumps down on the bench beside Hermione. She turns and for a second she thinks she's gone insane. It's James, sliding down beside her like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Before she can stop herself, Hermione grabs his arm. Her first instinct is to pull him close and kiss him and thank him for following her here. Instead, her reasonable self kicks in. "What are you doing—" The words die out in her throat when James turns his head and those green eyes connect with hers.

It's not James. Of course, it's not James. It's Harry.

Disappointment and relief tear at Hermione's heart. She lets her hand drop and looks away. This isn't possible. She knows that this isn't possible. She changed everything, she took James away from Lily… How can Harry exist, still looking exactly the same, still with that lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.

"Are you all right, Harry? What in the bloody hell happened? Hermione was ready to wait for you in the hall all night!"

Hermione half-listens to Harry's story about tracking Draco down, getting found out and hexed and kicked in the face.

Hermione rubs her eyes and reaches up to her neck where she can feel the line of the necklace beneath the collar of her robes. Maybe she has gone insane after all? Maybe she broke the time-turner before turning it, and then she went into shock and her brain created all of her adventures, her love for James Potter, to absolve her guilt?

It doesn't sound like her at all, but listening to Ron rage about that bloody dirty bastard and the revenge they should execute, Hermione can't think of any other reason that this future, her past present, is still the same. It should have been altered. By all dictates of logic, Harry shouldn't exist and so many of them should be dead from Voldemort's reign.

For the next month, Hermione finds herself just going through the motions. How could she have dreamed everything when this is the reality that feels like a dream to her? She breezes through the assignments handed out in her N.E.W.T classes as though she had just done them recently, which in a way she has. Although some of professors are different, most of them are the same and they've changed their curriculum very little in the last eighteen years. Hermione's professors don't treat her any differently than before and none seem to remember her from what seems to Hermione as being only a few days ago, but what to them is nearly two decades.

At first, Ron and Harry try to talk to Hermione, deduce some logical explanation for her behavior, but Hermione can't very well tell them the truth and she brushes them off – feminine worries, she mutters – and after that they don't ask any questions. Hermione is thankful that they don't follow her up to the library either. Every time she sees Harry, that stabbing needle resurfaces. Hermione is certain she must have serious internal bleeding by now.

In a way, the painful ache inside of her reassures her. She's never been in love before, never been heartbroken, so how could she feel this miserable if she had dreamed everything? She tries to act like she's fine around Ron and Harry and everyone else, and even though they can see something is off, they have no idea what it is. At night, Hermione casts a soundproof spell around her curtains and she cries herself to sleep.

It's not only that she misses James, and his easy smile and his immature, boyish jokes, or the way he looked at her like she was someone special. She misses all of that, yes, but what really tears her heart apart at night is that she knows he's dead. If Harry is still alive, if he has that scar, that means Hermione didn't change the future and James and Lily are both dead. It makes no sense, how this has happened, and Hermione is glad that Harry was born and is still her friend, but another part of her hates him for it now.

Hermione floats through the days, trying to not think of James and Sirius and Lily every waking moment, but it's hard not to when these people she was good friends with only the other day are now dead, and have been for over fifteen years now. It's a bad nightmare Hermione knows she can't wake up from.

She keeps the time-turner around her neck. It's stupid, because the hourglass isn't even there anymore and all that remains are the two welded rings and a circle where the glass used to be.

Hermione puts her finger through the two rings. It's hollow, just like how she feels inside. She's lying in bed, and tonight the pain is stronger than usual. There's no one she can talk to about what she lived through. Harry and Ron wouldn't believe her, and even if they did how could she explain that she fell in love with Harry's dad and acted on it knowing full well the threats it implied to their lives? It would be the ultimate betrayal.

Hermione turns the two rings. She's disappointed when she doesn't feel that tell-tale gap of memory when you know you've fallen asleep at one point. She closes a fist around the two rings and brings it up to her forehead as she feels the pain evolve into sorrow and the tears start falling down her cheeks. It's a feeling she's coming to know well.

Later, after she's cried her heart out and she feels empty and worthless, Hermione gets up out of bed. The time-turner was bad news from the start. It got her into the mess in the first place and then it broke her heart by tearing her away from there. Its emptiness does nothing but remind her of her own. She hates it; its weight and presence burns at her mind every waking moment. She opens her trunk and throws it carelessly inside. She shuts the trunk and crawls back into bed, trying hard to forget everything that has happened.

One morning, well into October, Professor McGonagall stops Hermione as she, Harry and Ron are heading to class.

"Headmaster Dumbledore would like a word with you," she tells Hermione.

Hermione had debated going to see Dumbledore herself when she'd returned, but she couldn't bear to think of him being disappointed in her for having misused the time-turner, and when he hadn't called on her himself Hermione thought that maybe he'd forgotten about having met her so many years ago.

Her heart sinks when Professor McGonagall delivers the message. Ron and Harry stare at Hermione, puzzled.

"Blimey, Hermione, what did you do?"

"Should we come as well, Professor?"

"No, you two can head to class. The headmaster wants to see Miss Granger alone."

Hermione swallows thickly and mentally prepares herself to be berated. Dumbledore, she knows, would never yell at her or even be condescending but also she knows he can be disappointed, and that this can be much worse than having someone yell or be angry at you.

Professor McGonagall doesn't lead Hermione to the gargoyle statue, however, but to the Hogwarts entrance. Hermione is about to ask Professor McGonagall what's going on when the doors open and someone enters the castle.

Hermione feels as though her heart stops. "Professor Lupin," she whispers. Except he's not only her former professor anymore. Finally, Hermione's fears and hopes are confirmed as she and Remus lock eyes and she sees sorrow and joy and all the conflicting emotions she's feeling reflected there. She isn't crazy. She wasn't dreaming or compensating for her clumsiness. It happened and Remus lived through it too.

Hermione looks over her shoulder but Professor McGonagall has left and Hermione realizes there was no meeting with Dumbledore. She walks up to Remus hesitantly, almost scared of how their meeting will go.

Without even speaking, Remus holds the door open for her and they walk down the steps. They walk in silence until they reach the lake. It's a Tuesday morning and everyone is in class. The Quidditch pitch is completely deserted and it's quiet and peaceful by the lake. It hasn't snowed yet but the temperature has dropped since September. Winter can't be far off. The slow swishing of the water is comforting, although it reminds Hermione of the night James and she spent here.

When they stop by the dock, Remus takes Hermione by the shoulders and pulls her into a hug. Hermione hugs him back, but this is more than a hug and she can feel it too. It's a reunion. It's a confirmation that they share a link only they can understand, one to Lily and Sirius and James. Hermione knows she's about to cry but then Remus pulls away and the cold rush of air where Remus' body just was calms her.

"I thought I dreamt it," Hermione whispers finally, as they both stare off into the distance of the lake's surface. It's crazy to imagine, sometimes, that there's a whole population beneath the calm surface, a city holding people who have a hierarchy and rules and feelings. "It doesn't seem real or right that nothing has changed. I thought everything would be different."

Remus nods. "Dumbledore told us you'd come to see him and that you wanted to return home."

"You must have hated me." Hermione can't speak with more than a whisper. Otherwise, she knows she'll cry. She must have disappointed them all.

To her surprise, Remus shakes his head. "I won't deny that you broke James' heart, but none of us could believe that you'd hurt us on purpose. After you left, there were no more mysterious causes of students falling sick or losing control of their magic, or losing their magic entirely. Eventually, the girls at St. Mungo's got better and they returned to Hogwarts, and things just went on as normal."

"It was because of me," Hermione says eventually. "I didn't understand it then, but I think somehow I must have been draining their magic to sustain myself, because I didn't belong. Lily suffered the worst of it because of our proximity."

"We figured it out, you know. Well, Lily and James did. They suspected there was something more that you couldn't tell us because it was bigger than all of us. When James told Lily your real name she insisted they go back to the Restricted Section because she remembered how you looked that night you both went there. She said you'd looked like you'd received the worse news in the world, like your parents had died. So they went back and they found the book on time travel and it all made so much sense."

"But… James and Lily," Hermione shakes her head now. Her mind is reeling with all of this new information. They'd found out. They hadn't hated her but they'd found out and somehow it didn't change her world. She feels like she doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve Remus talking to her like an equal, a friend, after what she put them through. She doesn't deserve Harry's friendship after what she almost did to him. "Nothing has changed. How is that possible?"

"I can only tell you what happened as I know it. Whether this is the past as you knew it, you'll have to tell me. What I do know is that Lily and James would never have gotten together if you hadn't brought them close as friends first. Lily would never have believed James could change if you hadn't changed him. After you disappeared and Lily got better, she and James grew even closer. I had Sirius, but it was like you left a hole in their lives that they tried to fill as best as they could with each other.

James really changed after you left. He was more serious and focused, and I think Lily felt like she could really rely on him. And then there was the war, and it seemed normal for them to lean on each other and support each other. I suppose it was really only a matter of time before they fell in love. It was nothing like how James loved you, I don't think, but I also don't think Lily minded him thinking of you from time to time because she never forgot you either. It was more like he'd loved you and now he loved Lily but your memory remained with both of them. It just seemed right."

Hermione has to sit. The grass is cold with mildew, and it soaks right through her robes but she doesn't care. She hasn't fucked things up. She feels so terribly happy that she starts to cry. It's not just happiness either, but for the first time since she's been back she mourns Lily and James as a friend mourns a friend and as a lover mourns a lover.

Remus sits beside her and pulls her close to him so that her head is pressed up against his chest. He doesn't talk, only rubs her back until finally she's cried herself out and she can only breathe heavily through her mouth.

"When Harry was born, James insisted on the name. He said that was the first thing you ever said to him. You were this bizarre, gorgeous girl who'd barged into our compartment and called him Harry and barged your way into his heart at the same time. Naming their son after you was Lily and James' way of keeping you close to them, I think."

The situation is so absurd, so paradoxical, that Hermione starts to laugh. She pulls back from Remus and is startled to see him smiling as well.

Hermione reaches out and takes Remus' hands in hers. She doesn't ask him about Sirius because she knows they'll talk about it, eventually, when Remus is ready. "It's so good to see you again, Moony." Hermione feels like she can call him that now, after everything.

Remus squeezes her hand. "I'm glad to have you back, finally."

Hermione nods and they both fall silent again. They must sit like that, bums wet and growing cold, staring out at the lake for a good hour or so. Hermione knows that she has a long time ahead of her before she can learn to deal with the pain of having lost James, before her heart mends and before she can let herself love someone else.

In this moment, however, as she sits beside Remus, knowing that he understands her pain and that he shares her past, the weight she's been carrying around with her since she's been back suddenly lifts off of her shoulders and chest. Hermione can see that future day when she knows she'll wake up and no longer feel like this empty shell, yearning for a time when she wasn't even alive.

She knows this day won't be any time soon, but in this instant she knows it'll come, and right now, that's good enough for her.

Hermione inhales deeply. The cold air is sharp in her lungs. The feeling of it wakes her up.

After they part ways, Hermione runs back to the Gryffindor common room. She rushes to her dorm and throws open her trunk. Her heart is beating wildly as though she's not even sure if the necklace will be there, but it is – it slid down to the bottom of the trunk but Hermione pulls it out.

Her relief is so strong when she holds the two circles in the center of her palm that she brings them up and kisses them. She was a fool to think she could forget everything happened by throwing the necklace into the bottom of the trunk, but worse of all, it's an insult to her friends – to Lily, James, Sirius and Remus who believed in her long after she'd left them.

Hermione slips the necklace over her neck and puts it under the collar of her robe. The metal rings reach down her chest, right past her bosom; the metal rings are heavy and warm against her skin, but Hermione knows that they're right where they should be: by her heart.

"Our achievements of today are but the sum total of our thoughts of yesterday.
You are today where the thoughts of yesterday have brought you and you will be tomorrow where the thoughts of today take you."
- Blaise Pascal.