Summary: Time travel fic. Hermione gets her hands on the last time turner to try and save her beloved Fred's life. Multi-chapter post-war fic. Fremione. Rated M for language and possible future lemons/smut.

A/N: Hi everyone, this is my first ever fic and I'd appreciate constructive criticism, feedback, and love. I hope you read this and enjoy it. Just a little plot bunny that's been niggling at my brain for some time.
Obviously this is a Fremione Fred/Hermione fic, so that part isn't exactly canon, but for the most part, I've tried to keep it all within the realm of canon and possibility.

Disclaimer: I do not own or make money from any of the characters/plot lines that you recognise. They are property of the very talented JKR.

Chapter One – Out of the Darkness

"How many times are you going to go back, Hermione?" Harry's voice cracked. His worry was written all over his face, in the crinkle of his brow, "You need to accept that he's… Fred's de-"

"NO!" she cried out. Hermione looked up at him with fire in her eyes. Her voice was barely above a whisper, "I can't give up on him, Harry. I have to exhaust all of my options before I can even fathom the idea that Fred might be… gone."

"It's been over a month since you've started using that time turner. You must have gone back at least fifty times by now. Hermione, you're wasting away here. When was the last time you ate a decent meal? You haven't interacted with anyone but me in weeks. The Weasley's are all worried about you." Harry's voice was pleading with her.

For the first time in weeks, Hermione looked around her small apartment. It was bathed in darkness save for Harry's lumos because she'd accidentally blown all the lightbulbs in frustration after she'd come back from the past on a particularly bad day. There was a thin layer of dust on everything except the couch. This was where she slept – if she managed to sleep at all. She hadn't been into the bedroom since the Battle of Hogwarts; it was too painful to see his clothes in the wardrobe, the indentation in the mattress where they had lain together. Her eyes travelled to the kitchen. Takeout containers and frozen meal wrappers littered the benches and spilled out of the rubbish bin. Finally, she looked at Harry and sighed. With shaking hands and a quivering lip, she took hold of Harry's hands, "I'm sorry Harry…" and then she launched herself into his arms and sobbed. She cried for what felt like forever, Harry's arms around her as her only comfort. Harry whispered to her as she cried, soothing nonsense about Fred, but all she could feel was emptiness.

"I need you to promise me something, Hermione." Harry said into the silence that followed her sobs.

Harry shifted to grip Hermione's forearms and gaze into her puffy eyes.

"I need you to promise me that you'll take care of yourself. I know there's nothing I can say to get you to stop this quest of yours, but Fred wouldn't have wanted you to kill yourself saving him." Harry said each word carefully, urging her to understand.

"I suppose that's reasonable." Hermione said with a small, sad smile.

"Good. Now that we're agreed, I think a shower is in order. While you bathe, I'll start cleaning up this mess." Harry gestured around the room.

"Harry, I can't." she whispered, almost inaudibly. Harry looked as if he were going to say something but Hermione's quiet voice stopped him "It's going to sound so silly…" She shook her head and a breath that sounded like a laugh escaped. "The bedroom – I can't go in there – and the bathroom's just off the side. I can't get there"

Harry quelled his laughter when he caught sight of Hermione's pained face. He strode up to the far wall of the living space where, he hoped, the bathroom was connected to on the other side. He pointed his wand at the wall and began tracing the shape of a door. From the section of wall that he'd cut out, he transfigured a makeshift door to fit in the hole and walked into the bathroom. Harry gathered any of Fred's items from the bathroom cabinets and off the sink. He placed them all on Fred's side of the bed, then closed the door adjacent to the bedroom and locked it. He then began fixing the lights in the bathroom and casting a quick scourgify over the dust-filled space. He ran a bath and added some oils he found on the side of the bathtub. Once the water was drawn, he walked back into the lounge and took Hermione by the hand, leading her like a child to the water.

Hermione looked around once she stepped into the bathroom. She was worried that everything in there would remind her of Fred, but Harry had seemingly taken all his things elsewhere. Out of sight, out of mind. She could pretend that this flat had just been hers, and she'd be alright. Harry noticed her shoulders slump slightly as she visibly relaxed for the first time in weeks. He left her then, promising to clean up for her and lightly threatening to hex her if she didn't get herself clean.

"Harry," Hermione's voice made him pause at the door, "thank you for doing all of this for me, but can I ask you don't clean up the bedroom."

"Of course, 'Mione." Harry smiled at her reassuringly and closed the bathroom door.

Hermione stripped herself of her clothes, peeling off each item and questioning when the last time she had changed into new clothes was. As she stepped into the warm, fragrant water, she wondered when the last time she'd had an actual shower was. The scourgify charm was possibly the only thing she'd used to clean herself for a month. Hermione sank lower into the bathtub and thought back over what she had been doing since the Battle of Hogwarts.

It had been exactly fifty-three days, twelve hours, and twenty-two minutes since she last saw Fred's motionless body at the funeral. She had been an absolute wreck and the only people who truly knew why were Harry and George. How exactly do you tell the Weasley family that you'd been dating their now dead son for the past four years, moved in together and gotten engaged, all without any of them knowing? She'd become a recluse, actively avoiding anyone who wasn't Harry. George came by a few times in the beginning and they'd leant on each other for support, but seeing him, so similar to Fred, made her cry every time. She didn't want to put George through the pain of watching her cry for his twin, not when he himself was desperately trying to stay afloat. That was when she had the stroke of genius or madness, one could argue for either. In fifth year, back in the Department of Mysteries' Time Room, everyone had thought the entire collection of time turners to be destroyed. Hermione had, however, taken one identical to the one that she had used in third year, and kept it in her nightstand – 'just in case' she told herself. It was the only time she'd ventured into their bedroom since the Battle.

The first week of her using the time turner, she couldn't do anything but bear witness to the horrific event. It was as if her limbs wouldn't move. Hermione willingly subjected herself to watching the man that she loved die on repeat. Twenty times he died without her trying to do anything. She had sunk into a recess in the wall, surrounded in rubble, and sobbed until she couldn't breathe. Her tears mixed with the dust of the nearby exploding wall, and she watched as his body fell, lifeless, to the floor. Since then, she had tried countless different variants of saving him, taking out the death eater only for another to kill him on the other side, physically taking him away only to have Percy killed in his place, having heated conversations with him prior to the battle – begging him not to go – but his stubbornness, or was it bravery, forcing him into the fray regardless. Harry was the only person to know about her ventures into the past, and although he didn't particularly approve, he knew he had no power to stop the mourning woman.

She was drawn from her reverie with a knock on the bathroom door. The bath water had gone cold and her skin had begun wrinkling with the oversaturation.

"Hermione, dry yourself off and come out into the kitchen." Harry's voice was gentle on the other side of the door.

She nodded, obviously not realising that Harry couldn't see her. Hermione pulled the plug and towelled herself dry. Only then did she notice a clean pair of pyjamas sitting on the counter for her, 'Harry must have fetched them for me' she mused. As she slipped into her pyjamas, she waved her wand to dry her hair and then grabbed a hair elastic to put it up in a messy bun.

Hermione padded out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, distracted by how clean the apartment looked, impressed with Harry's handiwork. As her eyes travelled to the kitchen, she was halted in her tracks. There stood George, a sad smile on his face but immense warmth in his eyes. Her eyes were frozen on his face and she didn't know what to say.

"Come, Hermione. Let's get you eating, then we can talk." George reached a hand out to her and after a moment she took it, relaxing at the warmth his hand brought.

A lasagne had been brought over with George's explanation of "Mum" and she made a mental note to send an owl off to her almost mother-in-law. Halfway through her slice of lasagne, she turned to Harry and praised him for how clean the apartment looked, then continued by scolding him for bringing George.

"I mean no offense to you, George. I have missed your company and you are always welcome here, but I didn't want you to have to see me and be reminded of... him." Hermione apologised.

"Hermione, look at me! I'm reminded of him every time I look in the mirror." George said sadly.

Hermione smiled a little at this. He wasn't mad at her for pushing him away. Although she was still hesitant to tell him about her quest to save Fred, she thought now would probably be a good time. She pushed away the remains of her lasagne and mumbled her excuse, "Stomach kind of shrinks when you don't really eat properly."

Harry got up then and put on the kettle, "Tea always calms you." He told her pointedly, as if he knew what she was about to tell George. A thankful smile graced her lips and she began wrapping the leftover lasagne and placing it in the fridge.

Once the tea was made, Hermione took a sip and sighed. Harry excused himself, claiming to need the bathroom and squeezing her shoulders on his way out. She knew that he'd left her to tell George on her own and was grateful that he'd allowed her some privacy. Her hands were shaking and when she heard the new bathroom door click, she settled the cup back on its saucer. "George," she began, looking up at him with the rest of her sentence dying in her throat. It was suddenly very stifling in the small kitchen.

George reached a hand out to rest on her wrist, effectively dulling her shakes. "Hermione, you've always been able to tell me anything. What's troubling you?"

She took a deep breath, settling herself. "Do you know what this is?" Hermione pulled the time turner from inside the pyjamas, she never took it off.

"That's a time turner, Hermione where'd you get that?" George looked at it curiously for a moment as Hermione was silent, then, "No. No Hermione you can't be. He wouldn't want you to. You're breaking yourself over this."

"George, I can't let him go. What am I supposed to do? Move on? Find someone new?" She took a breath and then spoke with renewed fire in her voice, "I love him! I will never stop trying. You should know how it feels – to have the other half of you ripped away. He was my everything. I can't be happy without him. I won't let him go."

George looked thoughtful for a minute, then his hands moved to grasp Hermione's, "You're right. I understand exactly what you're going through. Sometimes I still tell the start of a joke and expect him to finish it for me." George took a breath as a pained expression crossed his face, then his featured hardened and he gazed into Hermione's anxious eyes.

"Let me help."

A/N: Leave me a review, hopefully you lovely readers like this enough to let me know to keep going with it.

See you on the flip side!