Hermione felt her legs jerk up as she landed on her back. She looked in her hand and saw that she was still holding Daisy's toy. As she sat herself up, she looked around the room and saw that it was the same storage room that was in her and Tom's house. There was dust coating the desk and she saw her typewriter on it now. The color was a little worn on it and there was a thinner layer of dust. She wobbled as she stood up and opened the door.

There were a few frames on the wall that weren't there before. Tom and Daisy, whom was about six, were sitting on a park bench and Daisy was laughing. Maybe ten years had past at most. Yes, yes it had to be ten years. Oh, that felt like a lie in itself. It was relatively quiet in the house. She went into the nursery, although the door was closed. It creaked open as she pushed forward. There was a queen sized bed, with a dark blue comforter on it. A photograph without a frame was hung on the wall of a girl about sixteen. She had her head tilted up and a smug look of superiority on her face. Her dark hair was bushy and she had a trench coat on as she stood next to a girl that looked similar to her, although the other girl had a more sinister look. Hermione traced her finger on the other girl, Bellatrix Lestrange. She looked sadly at the girl that was Daisy.

She looked around the room and saw the desk had a few muggle books on it as well as Hogwarts, a History. It was the copy Tom had given her for Christmas that one year. There was a Ravenclaw banner on the side of the wall with the picture. Daisy had been a Ravenclaw. At least fourteen years. She had to have been gone for fourteen years. That'd be awkward to explain to her daughter. She put the pegasus on the pillow. Looking around she saw that there was a lion, a snake and an eagle plush on a bench in the corner. She smiled. Then she walked out of the room and wondered where Tom was. He was probably doing a lecture with the sun still being up.

Hermione walked down the stairs and felt the house was rather lonely. There was a picture of Daisy at her graduation on the wall. Longer than fourteen years. Then she went into Tom's office. He was lying on the couch, sprawled out and he didn't look any older than thirty five at best. Then she looked at the frame above him. It was the front of the Daily Prophet "Hogwarts Professor Ends Reign of Lady Slytherin" with a picture of Daisy lying on the ground, dead. There was a side article that went on about Tom, however he looked solemn trying to avoid the camera's. She felt her chest constricting.

"Who are you!" she heard him shout, he had his wand pointed at her.

"Tom, Tom it's me," Hermione forced out, shocked.

"I'm not falling for that again, Bellatrix! How did you get out of Azkaban!"

"Tom, Tom it's me."

This was horrible, this was a very horrible dream and she was going to wake up with Daisy still being two, and Tom was going to laugh as if it was a joke. Except there was a very dark and pained expression in his eyes now.

"Tom," she said, her voice cracked. Damn. "I'm back, I don't. I don't know how long I was gone."

He lowered his wand as he stood up. She ran into him, embracing him.

"Hermione," he said in disbelief.

"I'm, I'm so sorry," she said.

They were like that for a while before they sat on the couch and Hermione leaned on Tom.

"What year is it?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"Two thousand and five," Tom said.

"I've been gone that long? But you... you look so young."

He laughed. She felt herself ease a bit as he ran his hand over her arm.

"I've used this potion to... slow down my aging. If you ever came back I didn't want to look like an old man and scare you," he said.

"It would look weird to anyone else but I wouldn't have minded," Hermione said.

"Liar."

"So what... happened when I was gone?"

"I raised Daisy with the Potter's help. She was so, so bright. She reminded me of you in so many ways. But I don't know where I went wrong. She had plenty of friends but there was something always odd about the group. At the time I lied to myself and said she was just like you, but she was me. She organized her group of Death Eaters right under my nose and I didn't have a clue."

His voice started to break and Hermione ran her thumb over his hand.

"And then she left home after graduation," he continued. "The war that you described happened. Only Daisy didn't make horcruxes, just wanted superiority for playing the descendent of Slytherin card. I don't quite know what her problem was with James so I tried to protect them. But once I found the shields had been broken, Lily and James were dead and she was about to kill Harry. So I fought her in Godrics Hollow, I tried to get her to turn herself over but she didn't give me a choice."

"You killed her," Hermione mumbled.

"I retired shortly after that. It was also good too, avoided running into you once you started Hogwarts," Tom said.

"Why?"

"I think it would've been incredibly odd even if I had stayed. I wanted you to live like you would have if Voldemort never happened, if I wasn't around."

"So you just became a hermit and stayed in our house for the rest of your days."

"I wasn't a hermit. Actually, one time I went to visit Minerva for tea. You caught a glimpse of me and, there was this odd look in your eyes. Afterwards Minerva told me you dropped Divination."

"So, my timeline didn't change that much."

"If you would've kept taking that class you might have found out more about us, or anything really."

"It's a pseudo science, it's not reliable."

"Well, I was in the back when you graduated. Then you were in a relationship with that Weasley, and about five years ago you disappeared."

"What do you mean disappeared?"

"You were working in the DMLE, and then one day you told everyone 'hey I'm moving to France'. Didn't elaborate any further and nobody heard from you after. Even I tried to find you and I couldn't."

"You looked for me?"

"I gave up after two years before determining it was the mirror, or history, retconning itself for you to come back. After all, there wasn't a Voldemort that influenced your decisions for the mirror anymore. Tea?"

"Sure."

They walked into the kitchen, nothing much had changed.

"And what about Daisy?" Hermione asked. "You kind of jumped away from talking about her."

"Fine," he said, heating up the pot. "Eventually this Lady Slytherin came to light and it wasn't hard for anyone to recognize her as Daisy Riddle, Head Girl. Yes, she was head girl. She hated me because I refused to talk about what happened to you, maybe some other things too. I'm not sure. But one night I'm part of a mission by the Order and we're close to finding Daisy. Then I hear you scream and there's this room. And it was you, or Bellatrix impersonating you. Daisy tortured me, they got a kick out of their prank."

Hermione stared at the cup Tom put in front of her.

"That's why you accused me of being Bellatrix," Hermione said.

"I'm sorry," he responded.

"Don't be. I'm just... it's my fault."

"Don't blame yourself Hermione. If you do that you'll drive yourself insane."

"I'm not talking about that! When... when we were in Paris that one time, there was this psychic I guess. I thought she was a fraud but she told me that if I saved you, then someone else would take your place. I just, I never thought it'd be my own daughter."

"Time has to correct itself. Don't blame yourself for saving me."

"I just, I've had my life ripped out from under me again. I thought I'd die on my birthday so the time stream would correct itself but I'd at least see Daisy grow up and... And now I don't even know what my life is now when this alternate me was here."

"What do you want to do then? We could stay here if you'd like."

"You're what seventy now, that's not even long enough for me to have a life with you."

"On the contrary, I explained the situation to Dumbledore with the mirror. I didn't trust him to have it once he asked. But he talked to the Flamels and they gave me a small dosage of the Elixir of Life. Really enough for me to extend my life a little past the average wizards life so I could live long enough to see you. Maybe have a life if you wanted."

"Then lets, lets go away somewhere. If nobody's actually seen you for years, and nobody has a clue where I am, maybe we could go somewhere and pretend like the last fifty or so years didn't happen and we could just be us."

They stayed in Hogsmade while they tried to figure out what to do next. Hermione noticed Tom having nightmare's too. He woke her up screaming at times, she would try to hold his hand until he woke up. He'd say he was sorry when the dreams ended and they'd go back to sleep. She was still in her twenties, and Tom, Tom had nearly lived a life without her. She would try to push these thoughts away, and he wouldn't talk about what happened during his war. It was fine. It wasn't fine.

Her nightmares would occur too, not as vivid as they used to. But they were still there. It was easier to pretend like they hadn't gone through their own things. That they were still just an average, beyond intelligent, couple. She found herself lying on her side, facing away from Tom whens she cried. There were parts of her life she was missing, things she hadn't been able to experience herself. And she had essentially given birth to the anti-Christ. She made Tom kill their child, someone he loved, so that she might have a chance at a better future. Why would he do that? She had put Tom through hell as much as she'd damned their child. Daisy. She cried about Daisy too.

One night she woke up trying to breathe. Tom was on top of her. Choking her. His eyes were glazed over and he was calling her Bellatrix again. She clawed at his hands, crying. Everything was ringing in her ears before she found her wand under her pillow. She forced a stunner out and Tom rolled over onto the floor. The spell wore off and Tom didn't remember much of what had happened. He was concerned about the marks on her neck but she shrugged it off. She couldn't blame him for his nightmares.

It had been almost a year since Hermione came back. They'd moved to a cottage just outside of a small town in Scotland. Tom had considered Italy or France, but Hermione had insisted on staying on the island. He'd thrown out Ireland at one point, in an attempt to compromise. The mirror had been too valuable to destroy to Hermione. Tom would've wanted to blast it to bits. Instead they'd left it in the Room of Requirement before leaving.

Hermione had tried to write poems for the towns newspaper. It was muggle, which Tom had hated. But it did give them more privacy from Tom's reputation he'd built since being redeemed. She crumbled up the piece of paper and tossed it behind her. Another draft for the stupid poetry column. The premise was to be hopeful and inspiring. Throw in love every once in a while. And she felt herself slipping. Slipping the same way she had after the war.

She had gone into Diagon Alley with a polyjuice potion. Then she came to the familiar corner of twin's joke shop; it was still there. There were more shops open since Voldemorts reign never happened. She'd gone into Flourish and Blotts after seeing that some author would be having a book signing. Some petty memoir. She'd crept onto the stairs, hiding behind the main crowd. Apparently the older woman wrote about how she'd evaded capture by that horrible Lady Slytherin and how her family was tortured. Hermione felt her chest constrict as the woman went on about that war period. Hermione stormed out of the bookshop.

There was the echo of thunder in the distance. The impact that Daisy had didn't quite register with Hermione until this moment. She apparated back to the cottage and the spell she'd used to light the fireplace had made purple flames. If she'd listened to that stupid woman in Paris, she could've prevented anything close to Voldemort. Instead she'd been selfish enough to believe that the evil was behind them after Tom had, attempted to be a better person, and had damned her daughter to take over Voldemort's place. Time was a river, it would recorrect itself when needed. She laid on the couch, wondering if there was even such thing as free will. She'd hated divination because it meant that things were predetermined and she didn't have control.

She should've used the accio spell instead. She should've ran out of the storage room. So many things she could've done differently to save Daisy. Of course it had been an abrupt shift to come back to her time period, a few years late and some things changed. And yes it had been easier to shove her old friends out of her life since she didn't really know them anymore. And it was, knowing she'd lost her daughter to a wickedness that couldn't save her. That was worse than finding out she'd just died, just died too soon or had lived a fulfilling life Hermione hadn't been apart of.

Tom had noticed her slipping sometimes. He could try to bring her back to reality. And Hermione still felt that gaping wound of loosing the Potters and the life she'd been content with. There was one Friday that Hermione had started getting ready to go to dinner for before Tom reminded her it was 2005 and not the fifties. Tom. Everything was his fault. It was his fault!

She stormed into his office. Tom was still at work, he'd started working at some shop down in the town but he didn't fancy going back into teaching. The office was as pristine as always. A bit more cramped than their house back in Hogsmade. She blasted the bookcase. Her head tilted as she contemplated setting the thing on fire. Of course, fire's weren't always able to be contained so she turned her attention to the desk. She lounged in the chair, wondering what she could do it. Her eye caught the attention of a locket. It was a round silver thing and she was able to open it without a problem. On one side there was a picture of Tom and a young Daisy messing around in a field, and the other had a picture of Hermione. Euphemia must have sneaked it at Christmas. Hermione started to cry and she threw the locket across the room at anger. She casted a number of blasting hexes on it with no avail.

Her feet thudded on the stairs as she went up to the attic. They'd kept all of Daisy's stuff in boxes. She ripped open one box, there were records and books and the picture of Daisy and Bellatrix slipped out between them. Hermione glared at the picture in her hand and sneered as Daisy looked at Bellatrix with... fascination after the initial cocky attitude. She ripped the picture down in half between the two. Her attention went to the second box and found that damned pegasus toy. A horrible sounding cry emitted itself from her. She didn't notice the sound of hurried footsteps coming up.

"Hermione," Tom's voice echoed.

She kept crying, not bothering to pay attention to Tom kneeling next to her to hold her. Eventually she choked herself up on tears and started to regain herself. Hermione looked down to see Tom's hand holding hers before she ripped her hand away and stood up.

"Hermione, you can't... change anything that's happened," Tom said, struggling to find the words.

"I saved you," Hermione snapped.

"And I don't know if I'll be able to live without you again if you ever tried to go back!"

"You're such a drama queen!"

"Hermione, we got rid of the mirror because we decided to stay here. In this time. Not send you back and hope the result comes out differently."

"It's your fault!"

"How is it my fault!?"

"Because you, I don't know what you did in raising her but obviously you fucked her up! You fucked her up and she became just as wicked as you would have!"

"I tried, Hermione! I tried caring for a child with whatever help I could get, at the same time wondering if you'd ever return!"

"Really? Because I wouldn't hold it against her if you were as distant and pretentious and held her to unreasonable expectations because that's who you are!"

"I tried to treat her like I would any student but I made sure she knew I cared about her and that I loved you. Doesn't that count for anything?"

"No, Tom, it doesn't. I just..."

The tears started coming again. Holding Tom accountable for something she hadn't witnessed was unfair. She didn't want to yell at him for her displacement in time and not knowing how she was supposed to react.

"I'm going to see my parents," she said firmly.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Tom said.

"Oh really."

She'd summoned her coat before diasapparating.

/

It was the same house, same car in the front, only they had been able to stay in England for the last seven or so years. The rain seemed like it was letting up. She went up to the porch and peaked in the window. The telly was on and her mother had walked in with a mug in her hands. Hermione saw a girl, a bit younger than her, sitting next to her dad. The girl bared a striking resemblance to herself, only the girl had long straight hair that looked like it never held a curl in her life. She had on a black shirt and jeans and was rather enthused about the football match. There was a crack behind her and she glanced behind her shoulder to see Tom.

She walked off the porch closer to him.

"What happened? With me and my parents, and who's the girl?" Hermione asked.

"That girl is your sister, Bianca," Tom explained. "She's muggle from what Minerva told me. Apparently you'd had a falling out with her sometime after your fourth year, I believe. A bit like Lily and that snot of a sister she had. You'd also grown distant from your parents."

"The magic thing?"

"Yes the magic thing."

"You never spied on me, did you?"

"No."

"Tom."

"I didn't. It was weird enough having Minerva chew me out over marrying you, once she figured it out. Couldn't hear out of my right ear for weeks."

"So that's it. I can't really talk to my friend because, well things are different. I can't talk to my sister because she's what jealous that I'm a witch? And my parents..."

"Hermione, think about what makes you calm down."

"I... I don't know anymore. I don't know anything anymore."

They went back to the cottage. Hermione didn't want to blame Tom for acting distant, but it was more apparent as the year had gone on. She wondered if he ever blamed her for how Daisy turned out. She had moved herself closer to Tom that night when they slept. They still had nightmares, they still comforted each other after them, but they skirted around them.

When he was gone she started using dark spells on the field mice she'd find. It had given her a disorienting feeling of control that she didn't necessarily want to let go of. Her curiosity got the better of her as she fell back onto her dependency on dark magic. She'd been on a high one day and had forgotten it was the day Tom came home early. He'd chastised her about it, and her nose had scrunched up in anger. As if he hadn't been the one to really push her into dark magic, or encouraged her with the practice. She'd thrown a cruciatius at him when he threw Daisy in her face.

She hadn't necessarily felt remorse. She just needed that dependency. It made sense to her, when everything else felt off. And Tom had to remind her he was still technically older than her, and it had been seeing Daisy go down a route he'd nearly done so himself that pushed him into avoiding the dark arts. They decided that Tom would attempt to help her wean herself off of the magics to keep her from relapsing. It was, a little degrading for Hermione at first but the dark magic fix had to end.

They'd taken a walk through the nearby field one day. The wind wasn't harsh and the sun was bright. Hermione had asked Tom if they could try again. He became frustrated and yelled at her that he didn't want another child. She let the conversation drop but anything after that felt more tense. Even the weather became unpleasant as they walked back to the cottage.

It was a month before Hermione's twenty ninth birthday when she found herself nauseated. The following weekend she was excessively tired that Tom grew wary. Then it happened. Hermione was pregnant again. She'd taken a deep breath and blamed the routine of the potion she'd taken in the fifties. Tom had freaked out and kept talking to himself. He was worried that Daisy would repeat despite Hermione trying to tell him that this time it would work out. This time they would both be around to parent. But even she had to admit she was worried when she'd had a miscarriage and the one child she'd ever been able to hold had become a psychotic monster.

Early June, and they named the boy Pierre Thomas Riddle. This of course, was after a very long drawn out argument since Tom insisted on choosing the first name this time. He teased her about how he picked the name out from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Hermione picked the middle name in spite. He had Tom's dark wavy hair but his features were softer like Hermione's.

A few times Hermione contemplated talking to her friends again. She refrained as she didn't know who the alternate her had been, since the memories were different. The original ones she had hadn't changed but it would be horrible for everyone to talk about things she didn't know as if she was there. It was strange as the time went by and she had to adjust back into modern society. The fifties after all, weren't that pleasant. Only this time she could see the effects her papers and Tom's influence had had on the wizarding world.

They dropped Pierre off at the train when he started Hogwarts. Hermione had noticed Harry and Ginny with their kids. She held onto Tom's hand, and wasn't sure how to feel when they hadn't noticed her. He wrote them back after his first day to tell them he'd been sorted into Gryffindor and was friends with Lily Luna Potter. He'd also made a point to ask why his father was younger than what he was, since after all a former Professor Tom Riddle had never had any sons, and if he was related to Daisy Riddle. Hermione felt her heart break since she and Tom had tried so hard to shield him from the truth of his older sister. Of course, this made it difficult to explain and they told him they'd tell him when he was older. Tom had tried to jokingly chastise her for that being the reason he didn't want anymore children.

She hoped that the danger was truly behind them and that Pierre could have a normal life. Explaining how his mother was an accidental time traveler would be strange to tell him once the time came, but that seemed like a minor problem for the moment. They sat in front of the fire place reading once Tom had gotten home from work. Hermione felt her eyes growing tired and laid herself across Tom's lap to his amusement. And then she thought about how similar it was to how they first met. A fire and books. Only this time, she felt good about her life and everything that had gone on since.

Authors Notes: Thank you for all of the support on this story, hope you enjoyed this ending. I do not plan to make a third installment, however something else that's also Tomione? That is way more likely to be seen. Feel free to leave a review!