Chapter Text
April 18 th 2003
Hermione gasped at the whip of wild magic that escaped her wards. It came at her so quickly she barely had time to raise her wand before it collided with her, sending her flying across the room. She was able to rush out a cushioning charm before she slammed into the wall, but the impact still rattled her bones. A groan slipped out as the wild magic seemed to latch onto her magical core.
It wasn’t the first time magic had glommed onto her during her experimentations in the Department of Mysteries. It hadn’t taken her long working as an Unspeakable to find that wild magic liked to latch itself onto the closest stable core. That was why she was always careful to erect wards around the Veil of Death before conducting experiments on it. But today something had slipped through.
Hermione rubbed a hand over her chest where she could feel the wild magic wiggling around in her core. It wasn’t terribly dangerous, but wild magic from the Veil of Death was always a right pain to extract. Not to mention the scathing look she’d get from her superior when he found out she’d been careless in her experimentation.
The door to the Death Chamber opened and a fellow Unspeakable entered. He rushed over when he saw Hermione attempting to peel herself off the floor. “I heard a noise,” Theodore Nott explained as he came to Hermione’s side.
It was an odd thing to say, Theo knew, as many a strange noise often echoed through the Department of Mysteries. However, when Theo had heard a loud crack followed by a thump, he’d felt compelled to drop what he’d been working on in the Time Room and rush over. He’d known Granger was working alone today and he’d been concerned, although he’d never admit that to the former Gryffindor herself.
“I’m fine,” Hermione huffed when he tried to help her up, too embarrassed to accept the help of her coworker. She hadn’t made an error per say, but she’d been working to understand the Veil of Death for years and she couldn’t help but be ashamed that she had underestimated the expected magical backlash from her current experimentation.
Despite her enthusiastic assurance of her health, Hermione stumbled when she tried to stand, and Theo ended up lurching forward to support her. This decidedly did not help with Hermione’s growing embarrassment. She didn’t know Unspeakable Nott very well. They hadn’t spoken in school, but he’d been a Slytherin and the son of a Death Eater, so she hadn’t gone out of her way to approach him when they’d become coworkers. Not that she had a particular issue with the man, she just didn’t know where he stood.
He was something of an unknown quantity, and though she’d been curious about him, as she was about all unknown quantities, she’d decided to leave him alone. If she spoke to him only to find out he took issue with her blood status, it would complicate her work life. She’d gradually learned that it was better not to know when it came to the purebloods she encountered at work. They’d tolerate her if she didn’t bother them, and she’d learned to grudgingly take what she could get. Despite the fall of Voldemort, the wizarding world was still very much a pureblood world. The prejudices had just been pushed back underneath the surface.
Still, Hermione was forced to reassess her decision to leave the questions surrounding Nott unasked as he gently steadied her. The young man looked her over, assessing her for injuries, then opened his mouth to speak. He never got the chance.
The wild magic that had previously latched itself onto Hermione slipped free, diving for Theo and disturbing a layer of sand that permeated his clothes. Theo’s eyes widened as he watched the magic latch onto the dusting of time sand that often got on his clothes while he worked. There were strict rules about mixing the magics of the different rooms and Theo was usually carful to banish any clinging sand when his work was done.
Hermione gasped in realisation as magic and time sand began to swirl around the two Unspeakables. Time sand interacting with wild magic from the Veil of Death could not be a good thing. Hermione couldn’t begin to guess what the consequences would be. In the end she didn’t have the chance to guess and nor did Theo. Mere moments after the interaction had begun, the two coworkers were swept out of existence by the mixing magics.
September 1 st 1993
Hermione jerked upwards, her flailing arms knocking a pile of books off the table which her head had just been resting on. The resulting thump earned her a glare from the grouchy Hogwarts librarian and even as she struggled to understand what was going on she had the sense to give Madam Pince an apologetic look. She twisted in her seat and bent to retrieve the books, finding another pair of hands already reaching for them.
She looked up into the clear blue eyes of Theodore Nott as he crouched beside her books. Only his face wasn’t that of the man she had seen at work, it was the slightly buck-toothed face of a much younger Nott. The one she had often seen pressed to a book in the Hogwarts library that they had both frequented in their school days.
Together they picked up the three books on time travel and time turners that had tumbled off Hermione’s table. As the books were set back on the table, that was when Hermione’s surroundings finally sunk in. She was in the Hogwarts library. More than that, she was wearing Hogwarts robes. As she ran her tongue over her own bucked childhood teeth she understood than she was not the woman she had been mere moments ago. Something was fundamentally and dangerously wrong.
“Is that…you Granger?” Theo asked, staring at the face of thirteen year-old Hermione Granger. He’d know the face anywhere. He was very familiar with every stage of Hermione Granger’s appearance, as he’d spend much of his Hogwarts years staring at her from across the library. He hadn’t been brave enough to talk to her as a teenager, not only because it was hard to approach a crush, but also because he'd known that making his private affection for the muggle-born witch anything but private would bring them both trouble. Between the other boys in Slytherin, his father, and the brewing war, trying to get close to Hermione Granger would have been stupid and Theo had never been stupid.
Hermione blinked at Nott’s question, which would have made no sense if the circumstances were any different. “We’ve gone back in time,” she breathed between them even as she scarcely accepted the situation. Then she shook herself and took stock of her surroundings. She swept her eyes over the Hogwarts library, the books piled on her desk and her young looking companion. Then she leapt to her feet as the brewing situation really sunk in. With a quick wave of her wand she banished the books back to their shelves, slung her bag over her shoulder, clamped her hand down over Nott’s wrist and hurriedly dragged him out of the library.
Theo followed the witch, mildly amused by the way she was toting him through the castle. He let her drag him down several hallways and up many flights of stairs until she finally stopped in front of a tapestry on the seventh floor. He caught his breath from the hurried journey as she paced three times in front of the wall. A door appeared and Theo finally realised she’d taken them to the Room of Requirement. He’d never been inside but he’d heard stories about it from Draco after the war.
As soon as the door had finished materialising, Hermione towed Nott inside, letting the door click shut behind them. They entered the small sitting room, which Hermione noted resembled a corner of the Gryffindor common room. Now that the two of them were safely alone and away from all possible eyes and ears, Hermione rounded on her coworker.
“We’ve gone back in time!” she repeated, her voice reaching a pitch that made Theo wince.
“It…Yes, I think so too,” Theo said slowly.
“It’s our first day of third year,” Hermione continued mostly to herself as she began pacing again. “I know because that’s when I got out all those time travel books. Oh Merlin, what are we going to do? How will we get back? How are we going to do everything like we did before? How am I supposed to remember everything I did well enough to repeat it exactly? Any small change in behaviour could shatter our timeline and destroy the future!”
Theo stepped forward, catching the little witch by her upper arms. “Breathe, Granger,” he said calmly, rubbing her arms lightly. “Just breathe. Before we worry about what we’re going to do, we need to understand our situation.” Theo reddened slightly as he caught up to the boldness of his actions. He had seen her panicking and reacted before he could think better of it. Still he couldn’t bring himself to release her yet as his touch seemed to help her get a hold of herself.
She took a few breaths as he’d advised. “You’re right,” she said, she stepped out of his arms as she calmed down. “It seems like wild magic from the Veil of Death interacted with the time sand on your person and carried us into the past.”
“Our consciousnesses,” Theo added thoughtfully. “Not our bodies. But why this time? Why the start of third year?”
“…I think I can guess,” Hermione said after a moment of thought. She reached into her robes and withdrew a necklace. Theo’s eyes widened as he realised it was a time turner. “Professor McGonagall gave me a time turner this year to help me attend all my classes. It’s why I was researching time travel. You were right near me when we both arrived in the past, correct?” Theo nodded at her question. “I think we’re here now because it’s the first time in the past that we were both near a time turner. The strange magics that sent us here might have used this time turner as an anchor point.”
“That would make sense,” Theo agreed thoughtfully. He had often found during his research in the Time Room that time sand had a way of attracting itself. Really it seemed to exist outside of time. Some of the sand currently in the time turner that Granger held could very well simultaneously be some of the sand that had clung to Theo’s robes. The mind bending nature of time sand was still poorly understood, even to an Unspeakable such as him.
“Do you…do you think we’ll go back to our own time?” Hermione asked him, waiting for his expertise as an Unspeakable specialising in Time.
“I don’t feel any residual magic on us,” Theo said. Hermione nodded her agreement with his statement. “I don’t think it’s likely we’ll be sent back naturally. Whether or not we can get ourselves back…I doubt it. No one has ever successfully travelled to the future before. By nature, the future is in constant flux. There is no solid future to travel to. Even if one could, I don’t see how it would be possible to send our consciousnesses back. We may not even have bodies in the future to go back to.”
Hermione bit at her lip as she accepted his words. “So we’re stuck here?”
“I would think…yes.”
Prim and proper Hermione Granger then let out a stream of curses that had Theodore Nott both shocked and impressed. When she was done she started pacing again. “Alright, it’s alright. All we have to do is exactly what we did before. We can get a pensive and watch a day’s memories every morning so we know what to do. If we’re careful, we may be able to preserve the timeline.”
“No.”
Hermione stopped pacing at his abrupt statement.
“What?” She asked, confusion lacing her voice.
“No,” Theo said again before his brain had caught up with his mouth. “Let’s not preserve the timeline.”
Hermione gaped at him. “But-but-but!” She spluttered. “Why? We can’t ruin the timeline! That goes against every law, every rule, ever piece of advice. Terrible things happen to Wizards and Witches who meddle with time! We have to do what we did before.”
“No,” Theo said. “I can’t. I won’t.”
“Why?” Hermione repeated with much more insistence.
“I won’t let my mother die again.”
Hermione stepped back at the fierce look on his face. She had never seen her quiet coworker look less than collected. Of course she had known somewhere in the back of her mind that Mrs Nott had died just before their fifth year. However, she hadn’t considered what that might mean for him now that they were in the past.
“You must,” Hermione tried, even as she knew what she asked of him was unfair.
“I won’t,” he repeated. “And I don’t see why you would want to do things the same either. What about all the other people who died in the war. With our collective knowledge, we could stop the war before it even starts.”
“Or we could make it worse,” Hermione countered. “We may have lost people but at least we won. We won. Somehow, despite everything, we won. What if we try to make things better and instead Voldemort wins?”
He watched her silently, his eyes stormy.
“I get what you’re saying and I hate the idea too,” she admitted softly when he didn’t reply. “But so many things could go wrong. You don’t understand, Nott. You weren’t there beside Harry while we fought Voldemort. I need you to listen when I say we won by the skin of our teeth. There was so much chance involved. So many lucky moments and miraculous coincidences. We did it. Somehow we did it. But there were so many times when everything could have fallen apart.”
Even as she argued with Nott, part of her was beginning to agree with him as she remembered the immense task that was now in front of her. She’d really have to do it all again. Rehash every fight with Harry and Ron. Let the rat escape. Watch Harry go through the tournament. Stand by when Cedric died. When Sirius died. Get cursed again. Do all the battles again. Moody. Spend another miserable year in the woods. Be captured again. Get tortured again. Let Fred die. Remus. Tonks. Colin.
Before she knew it she had tears falling down her face as she understood everything she’d have to do. Everything she’d have to do again. But nothing was worse than being reckless with the past. If they tried to change things and Voldemort won…It was just too risky. For all she knew, allowing Voldemort to win was exactly what the Slytherin across from her wanted. He may not have been a Death Eater but she had never dug out his thoughts on muggles and muggle-borns.
Hermione realised she’d need to get Dumbledore to wipe her memories. Their former Headmaster was probably the only other person who would understand the necessity of it. There was no way she could do everything again while knowing what would happen. Wiping their memories was the safest thing to do. She’d have to wipe Theo’s memories first. He didn’t seem willing so she’d have to do it by force.
Hermione whipped out her wand, hoping to catch the boy opposite her by surprise. In that she had absolutely succeeded. Theo had been utterly surprised when the crying girl in front of him was suddenly pointing a wand at him. However, he had lived through a war just as surely as she had. So when she abruptly fired off an obliviate he was just quick enough to throw up a shield charm. Just.
The two adults in their childhood bodies stared each other down as they held their wands at the ready. Hermione didn’t want to fire off another spell too hastily, recognising that she had lost the element of surprise. Theo thought it unwise to attack her, even if she had attacked him first. He needed Granger to trust him and flinging spells at her would hardly accomplish that.
“I understand your concerns, G…Hermione,” he said, using her first name in an effort to get through to her. “Even when a situation is difficult, it’s scary to throw it away. Leaping into the unknown is always scary. But you’re Hermione Granger, Order of Merlin First Class, Brightest Witch of Her Age, brains of the Golden Trio, and the most talented Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries. If anyone can make the future better, it’s you. Take a leap of faith with me.”
Hermione couldn’t help but blush under his words, even as she knew better than to accept them at face value. “And what is your idea of a ‘better’ future?” She asked rather pointedly.
Theo recoiled at her question as he understood her meaning. “Not one with Voldemort in it if that’s what you’re implying,” He said ferociously.
He may not have spoken to her in school but he’d hardly been hurling slurs at her either. His father may have been a Death Eater but he’d never…He didn’t… No, he hated his father. Agreeing with his father in any capacity was viscerally disgusting to Theo. His mother had always quietly encouraged him to think critically about his father’s pureblood ideals and a mere one year at Hogwarts watching Hermione Granger severely outclass all his pureblood friends made all the arguments for muggle-born inferiority seem ridiculous.
Hermione found herself desperately wanting to believe what Nott had said. She wanted to believe that she could save everyone and that he was on her side. She may not have payed much attention to Nott at school but she’d seen at work that he was also unflinchingly brilliant. She’d been surprised to hear him call her the best unspeakable in the department, because she’d always thought the title belonged to him, the man who’d been singlehandedly reinventing all the destroyed time turners. The reminder made her go cold. Had this been his intention all along? Had he started work in the Time Room hoping he would be able to go back in time and change the past?
It was clear to Theo that Granger was not convinced by his words. Desperately he wondered how he could get through to her. How could he convince her, not only of his good intentions, but also of his conviction that the two of them could save his mother and the world?
He may not have spoken his desperate need aloud, but the Room of Requirement heard it all the same. As the two former Unspeakables stood with their wands pointed at each other, a pensive materialised between them. Hermione furrowed her brow in confusion at its appearance, but Theo understood.
“You don’t trust me,” he said. “I understand. Let me show you my memories. You can see how I truly feel.”
It was a good solution. Hermione could see that. While memories could be altered, such things were always very obvious. If Nott showed her his memories then she’d be able to trust what she saw. She knew that shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter if Nott supported Voldemort or not when she should be obliviating him either way. She shouldn’t been entertaining the idea of discarding the timeline and agreeing to this mad wizard’s proposal. Only she did want to agree. Despite everything she knew about the dangers of messing with time, the longer she considered the situation, the more irresistible the idea became. She wanted to give Nott a chance. A chance to convince her.
“Okay,” she agreed, wand still pointed at him. “Put your memories in.”
Nott relaxed slightly at her words. “You’re not going to obliviate me when I move to retrieve my memories are you?”
“No,” she said honestly, even as she acknowledged privately that obliviating him should have been her primary intention.
Theo assessed her honesty as best he could, but realised he was just going to have to risk it. Slowly, he turned his wand away from her and brought it to his temple. He extracted any memories he thought would convince her that she should trust him. Then he walked towards the pensive and let the silvery collection of memories fall off his wand and into the basin.
Hermione walked forward to meet him in the middle. “We go in together,” she said, not wanting him to get the jump on her as soon as she’d stuck her head in.
Theo nodded his agreement. As one they lent forward and fell into the memories.
Hermione and Theo watched as the first memory formed around them. A young Theo sat in his bed, his mother beside him. This memory was before he’d been Hogwarts age. His mother held a book aloft, reading aloud from it as his childhood self followed her finger that brushed the words as she spoke them.
“The Hobbit,” Hermione realised aloud.
Theo looked away as he remembered what happened next. His father burst into the room and his mother tried to hide the book under the bed covers. It was no use, his father had seen it. Joseph Nott ripped the covers away and snatched the book, shoving it angrily into his wife’s face.
“What have I told you about reading filthy muggle books to my son?” Joseph Nott demanded.
Theodore’s mother tried to back away but her husband grabbed a fistful of her hair and shoved her head back towards the book. “What have I told you?” He repeated.
Meanwhile, their child shrunk away, trembling.
“I-I’m sorry,” Mrs Nott said, looking pitiful as she cowered. “It won’t happen again.”
“Good,” Mr Nott said darkly. He pushed his wife away and released her, then stormed out of the room with the book.
Mrs Nott straightened and turned back to her son. Her face had been wiped clean of all fear, as if they’d never been interrupted at all. “We’ll have to make sure he doesn’t catch us next time,” she whispered to her son with a sly smile and a wink.
The memory went up in smoke and a new one materialised just as quickly.
They were now in a corridor at Hogwarts. A first year Hermione Granger was walking up ahead. Younger versions of Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were following several paces behind her. Finally a first year Theo was waking several paces behind them, a book held in front of his face.
“Look it’s the mudblood know-it-all,” Malfoy sneered to his cronies. Young Theo jerked his head up at Malfoy’s words. He watched as Malfoy drew his wand and pointed it at young Hermione’s back.
Swiftly, young Theo drew his own wand and fired a tripping jinx at Goyle, who fell into Malfoy, knocking the three of them down. Young Theo stowed his wand before anyone could see it, tucked his nose back into his book, and walked past them as if he hadn’t even noticed them.
The memory changed to the Hogwarts library. Young Theo, a second year, was browsing the stacks, and a young Hermione was not far away, stretching to pull out a book that sat just beyond her reach. The real Hermione realised she remembered this memory. She watched as young Theo came up behind her younger self and plucked the book off the shelf. Her younger self turned, surprised, and young Theo handed her the book without a word. Her younger self thanked him and left the aisle with the book. What she hadn’t seen the first time was the gentle blush and goofy look on second year Theo’s face as he watched her walk away.
Hermione’s eyes snapped to her coworker in realisation. Theo steadfastly avoided her inquiring gaze. He’d thought there was no better way to show her he was on her side than revealing the hopeless school boy crush he’d had on her. Still, it was terribly embarrassing and he couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
The memory shifted to show Hermione in third year asleep at a library table among a stack of books. It was today, Hermione realised. She watched as memory Theo walked past with his nose in a book, then pulled up short at the sight of the sleeping girl. The memory Theo gave her a fond smile, picked up her robe which lay discarded on the floor and laid it over her shoulders like a blanket. The boy blushed and moved on. She remembered how she’d woken up in the original timeline with the robe around her shoulders, and hadn’t thought anything of it.
The memory switched to a fourth year Theo gaping at the sight of Hermione entering with Victor at the Yule ball. Hermione saw a Slytherin she recognised as Blaise Zabini reach over and close memory Theo’s mouth. “Your crush on Granger is getting less and less subtle by the day,” Zabini commented lightly. Memory Theo blushed and elbowed his friend.
The memory changed again, back to Theo’s childhood room. It was the summer between Fourth and Fifth year. Mrs Nott burst in, surprising memory Theo, who had been lounging in bed with a book. “Mum?” The memory Theo questioned as Mrs Nott summoned his trunk and started shoving his things in.
“We have to go,” Mrs Nott said. “We can’t stay in England anymore. Not now he is back. I won’t let your father drag you into that horrific cult.”
When the memory Nott didn’t move his mother urged him on. “Hurry and help me. Your father could be back any minute.”
Memory Theo scrambled out of bed. “Mum, if we leave, he’ll find us.”
“I won’t let him,” Mrs Nott snapped. “I’ll protect you. I’m your mother and I’ll protect you. I wish I’d taken you away from here years ago but I was too cowardly. Sticking with what you know always feels easier, even when it’s wrong.” Mrs Nott paused in her packing to reach forward and hold her son’s face. “Take a leap of faith with me.”
Hermione gasped as she recognised the words that Nott had said to her earlier.
Memory Theo nodded against his mother’s hands and his mother sighed in relief. “I don’t want to be a Death Eater like him,” memory Theo admitted. “You’ve taught me far too well for that.”
Mrs Nott smiled at her son, stroking her thumb over his cheek before she began to withdraw. Hermione’s eyes were so fixed on the touching scene that she hadn’t noticed Joseph Nott arrive in the doorway to Theo’s bedroom, a look of rage on his face. Memory Theo and his mother hadn’t noticed either.
“Avada Kedavra,” Mr Nott hissed.
Mrs Nott didn’t even get the chance to turn towards him before she died.
Memory Theo cried out as his mother crumped to the floor. He caught her on the way down and ended up on the floor with her lifeless body cradled in his lap.
Mr Nott turned his wand on his son. “Crucio.”
The memory dissipated just before the curse hit.
The next memory took place in the hospital wing. Fifth year Hermione was lying unconscious on a bed. It was clearly night time as almost no one was around. No one except memory Theodore. He was sat in a chair beside memory Hermione. “I hear it was you who stunned my father,” Memory Theodore said to her. “You really are a wonder, Hermione Granger….He’s in Azkaban now, and I know you can’t hear me, but I needed to say…thank you and…get better soon.”
Memory Theo took out his wand and conjured a small bouquet of forget-me-nots which he placed on her bedside table. Hermione remembered finding those when she’d woken up. She’d figured one of her friends had left them and hadn’t thought to wonder about it.
Hermione and Theo emerged from the pensive. Theo watched cautiously as Hermione absorbed everything she had seen. He hoped she didn’t find him creepy now. Although he much preferred seeming creepy for his one-sided crush over being mistaken for a follower of Voldemort. He wouldn’t have shown her his memories otherwise.
Hermione’s eyes swept over Theo’s rabbity third year form. She considered the person in front of her as she processed everything he had shown her. She thought about their past with the context he had just added. She thought about the future and all the death and destruction that lay between them and victory. She thought about the two of them as they were now: two brilliant Unspeakables with vast amounts of knowledge in their childhood bodies. The unknown was always scary. There were always risks. Things could always go wrong. If she’d come to the past alone she wouldn’t have even tried. But…
“Yes,” she said breathlessly.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I’ll take a leap of faith with you.”