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Hermione was sure she was going to need a glass of red or two(at least she could daydream), and a long bath with her favourite bath salts, some oysters and …
She was snapped out of her musings as she heard Chief Witch Augusta Longbottom loudly bang the gavel and ordered Draco Malfoy to shut up for good as the balding blonde scowled but zipped his trap, lest the witch ban him and throw him out again.
She ADORED Neville’s gran, she thought with a smirk.
Hermione let out a quiet sigh and saw Harry smirking at her and scowled at him, making the man grin even more at her.
She resumed looking at Augusta again lest she reacts to Harry’s blatant disregard of the decorum of the Wizengamot.
She chanted the mantra, I love this job, over and over again as she tried to remind herself why she was sitting in this place and listening to the tripe about how the idea of a primary school for magical children irrelevant of their blood status was an abomination. She had presented the same idea five years ago and it had been approved but was limited to the children of pure blood and half-blood parents back then.
She had been angry and dismayed but realised thanks to Harry and her friends that she had gained a partial victory and this is the way bureaucracy works. She had been dejected to some extent even though she had had a partial victory.
Today the notion to amend the law and introduce muggleborns to magical primary education was about to pass but the likes of Draco were still being a pain in the arse though she had gained the approval of the majority. It had taken negotiations, coaxing, networking and in some cases blackmail to get things done and Harry had teased her mercilessly how she was the most Slytherin Gryffindor ever but she had done the mature thing at the remark and asked him if he had any last wishes, making Harry gulp and shut up for good.
Hermione knew she should focus on the session even if the ferret was bound to lose, but she couldn’t.
It was impossible.
Ever since she had woken up today she had felt a bit uneasy and irritated for some reason. Her mood had been sour and there was a sense of impending chaos and doom in the air, something she hadn’t felt since the last 20 years.
On any other day, she’s sure she could have avoided it, moved past it - but today was Halloween. Shit always went down when she was attending Hogwarts on Halloween.
So she had quickly brushed and showered, had a measly breakfast of a single toast and a cup of tea and arrived at the ministry. She should have known her day wasn’t gonna improve at all.
There had been the meeting with the departments of international affairs and cooperation and sports - Parvati Kadam and Oliver Wood, who had wanted to revive the thrice-damned Triwizard tournament again, which she had promptly been riled by but couldn’t outright dismiss so had asked those two to come to her with a proper proposal with safety measures, medical teams and an in-depth layout of all the tasks they had in mind keeping in line with the education that the three schools provided across the board so no potential champion was at a disadvantage or fatally injured or worse, god forbid killed.
The two of them had scowled at her but she didn’t care. She wasn’t about to repeat the same mistakes as her predecessors had committed and if it meant she would have to make her subordinates realise what being responsible meant then so be it.
She looked around at the faces and saw the likes of Malfoy, Nott and Flint but also there was Dean Thomas, Dennis Creevey and Padma Kothari.
She inhaled thinking maybe things were bad but they had improved as well. Twenty years ago, the likes of Dean who couldn’t prove his paternity, Dennis, who was a muggleborn and Padma, a witch of an old and yet foreign ancestry would never have gained any prominence in the Wizengamot and yet here they were. Dean was deputy head-Auror, Dennis was the head of the department of muggleborn welfare, giving Malfoy a run for his money as the two argued and Padma, who had gained the position of the official Wizengamot spokesperson to address the various media outlets.
Half an hour later, the law had passed and the session was dismissed.
She had returned to her office to work through the two bills she knew were next in line and just as important even though most people had begun celebrating.
She was asked to join in too, yet for some reason, she had denied citing work and people knew better than to press her.
She had barely sat down and closed her eyes, her fingers massaging her temples as her elbows had rested on her desk when the door to her office had unceremoniously been opened and Harry had walked in looking hassled and stressed. He looked around her office before his eyes finally settled on her and she knew something had finally happened.
She didn’t believe in things like premonitions but something made her stomach twist as she looked at Harry and snapped.
“What is it?”
She had asked promptly getting on her feet, her hand reaching for her wand as she saw Harry struggling with himself when he spoke,
“It’s… it’s Katie and Nate, Hermione. Molly… Molly says she can’t find them. They’re gone. I’ve been looking for them for these past ten minutes and thought perhaps they’d be here with you.”
Whatever she had been expecting, this was certainly not on her probable list of things that could go wrong but her gut told her this was it. The thing she had been dreading the whole day.
“Come on, we’ve gotta find them.”
“I want to declare code red,” Harry told her as they swiftly made their way out of her office at the topmost floor of the ministry.
“No. Let’s look for them ourselves first. No point in raising an alarm if we can find them ourselves.”
“I hope Malfoy isn’t behind this. I’d kill him if he…” Harry had growled.
“Harry… let’s, let’s not forget our priorities. First, we need to find them and if he’s involved..”
The frantic duo had constantly gone searching each floor until they had finally only one place left and though she was panicking and was on the verge of declaring the code red she knew they had to check this one last floor into the very bowels of the ministry despite knowing that it was nigh impossible that Katie and Nate would be found there.
Regardless, Harry reached for her hand giving it a gentle squeeze before he let go of her and they marched in.
The lobby of the Department of Mysteries was eerily silent until they heard footsteps and then a loud shriek.
“Caught you!”
Identifying the voice and quickly picking up the direction it came from they sprinted through the lobby to the passage marked as time and spotted two four-year-olds rolling on the floor engaged in a furious battle of tickling and heard their loud laughter and ear-piercing shrieks of stop, I’ll call mummy, I’ll complain to daddy.
Hands on their chests, they exchanged looks of relief and amusement even as they felt their hearts finally slowing down when she loudly cleared her throat and got the attention of the two little tornadoes in the room who immediately ceased all activity.
Exchanging a look with Harry she walked towards them as they stood still as they instinctively knew that they were in trouble.
Before Hermione could get a word out, a loud rattling noise came from one of the gateways located right opposite from them and she exchanged a look of horror with Harry as the two dived in quickly and pulled the children behind them and quickly aimed their wands at the gateway.
There was debris that clouded their vision but the sounds of coughing and quickly scrambling feet were audible.
Suddenly she knew why she had been uneasy the whole day and quickly exchanging a glance with Harry she knew that he had picked up her line of thought as well.
Their postures relaxed and Hermione realised that a pair of arms were tightly hugging her waist. Before she could comfort her son however, two familiar faces had finally appeared in front of them.
Wands raised they halted in front of them, holding their free hands when the current Minister of Magic spoke up,
“Hello Harry, Hermione. You may put your wands down. You’re safe.”
She knew how this would play out as she had lived through this once already and yet it was the longest ten seconds of her life when her younger version spoke up, just as Harry’s counterpart turned to her for answers and she knew how tightly he was holding her hand.
“We … I think we travelled to the future, Harry. Isn’t it?”
Familiar faces turned towards them and Harry smiled as he confirmed.
“Right as always, Hermione.”
The younger Harry however was tightly wound like a caged animal but he began to slightly relax and turned towards his older counterpart, Hermione, however, was sceptical.
“If you’re who you say you are… then you can answer my questions.”
The older man just gave a look of fond amusement and smiled as the woman at his side scowled at him, which only made his grin wider.
“What year and exactly what day have we travelled to?”
“Today is Halloween and the year is 2016.”
The eyes of their younger counterparts widened as they simultaneously uttered, 20 years.
This was however not yet over so Hermione turned towards the older couple and spotted two pairs of hands wrapped around their waists as she looked at them.
“Who are they?” She asked pointing towards the children who had quickly taken a peek at the teenagers and ducked behind their parents as Hermione looked around the room and continued her line of questions. “What are children doing in the department of mysteries?”
The older man couldn’t help but snort out loud and quickly masked the same as he pretended to cough but was fooling nobody. A young girl chirped,
“Daddy don’t try to fool mummy. She’s too smart for you.”
Her twin chuckled at that and Hermione Potter rolled her eyes torn between exasperation and amusement.
“Don’t think flattery will help you out young lady, you and your brother are so grounded.”
“But mummy it was Nate, he was getting bored and Granny was trying to get us to eat peas but we didn’t want to eat peas.”
Though the appeal was made to Hermione, it was Harry who spoke up,
“So, you’re telling me that you escaped from daycare, had your mum and I going out of our minds because you two didn’t want to eat peas and were bored?”
Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.
Two pairs of eyes, one green and one brown looked at their father and two little voices spoke in unison,
“Yes, daddy.”
A choked sound emitted from the teenage boy’s throat as he spoke, as he looked at the family in front of him.
“Mummy? Daddy?”
The older couple looked at each other and though no words were spoken, to an observant pair of eyes it was clear that the pair had communicated something significant silently as they turned to their younger counterparts and reaching out to the children each held a hand as the man spoke,
“I know you have it hard Harry and while there’s so much that we wish we could tell you but you know that’s not possible. We’ll make sure you get back to your time. Right now all I’ll say is that while it may not seem so now but you’re going to be happy Harry, you’ve got the one person who’ll never abandon you right at your side.”
The younger Harry looked at his older counterpart with rapt attention and turned towards the girl by his side whose face had turned pink as she ducked her face and averted looking directly at him, only to shyly sneak a glance at him through her lashes as she quickly looked away from him and he followed her line of vision to take a look at the children in front of them.
They were dressed in muggle clothes of jeans and T-shirts. The girl had Hermione’s brown curls and his green eyes as she was sporting a T-shirt with a fox and a bunny and the words Zootopia Police while the boy wore faded blue jeans, similar to his sister, had his unruly hair and Hermione’s curious eyes as he sported a T-shirt that said, my dad rocks but my mom rules.
It was then that his eyes spotted that the older Hermione was cradling another bump as her face grimaced and she placed a hand on her back.
Before his eyes, he saw his older version immediately noticing her discomfort and closing the distance between them in two quick strides,
“Love, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, just a little tired and all this running around has made my back hurt a bit.”
Two pairs of concerned young eyes turned to Hermione as they chorused,
“We’re sorry mummy. We didn’t mean to worry you and daddy.”
“I’m sorry too.” Harry quickly told her.
“Why? Why are you sorry?”
“When I realised that the kids were gone I started panicking and stopped thinking. You shouldn’t have to exert yourself in this condition.”
“I’m fine Harry and seriously how long do you think you could have kept this from me? Even if you had eventually found them on your own just the same Mr Potter, don’t you forget I’m your boss - both at home and here. You have no secrets from me husband just as the head of DMLE can’t keep things from the Minister of magic.”
And then young Harry Potter had felt his heart thunder in his chest as he had watched Hermione leaning into his older counterpart as she kissed him softly as one of his hands gently rested on her back as he placed the other on the swell of Hermione’s baby bump, and gently ran a thumb over the hand cradling it, as Harry spotted the glint of a diamond shaped like a heart on Hermione’s ring finger.
The next three days would go on to change Harry and Hermione’s life forever as they spent them in 2016, after being snuck out of the ministry while Hermione discreetly arranged for the DoM to fix the damage of the gateway in the timeroom.
Their older counterparts had flooed them in their home as things had to be kept hushed.
While Hermione was unusually shy and quiet around him, he could easily make out that she was just as overwhelmed and awed as him.
They had spent the first evening tiptoeing around each other after they had showered and ate dinner, quickly opting to turn in for the night.
He had slept in one of the bedrooms on the second floor of the house as the four year-olds, whose names were Katherine and Nathan, and who were lovingly called Katie and Nate slept on the first floor, which also had a nursery and the master bedroom.
Their future home was huge and beautiful and for a boy who had lived in a cupboard under the stairs, he had a hard time believing that he would one day own a house with 9 bedrooms.
On the second night when he had been unable to sleep despite his best attempts, he had quietly tiptoed and walked around the house. He had spotted an immaculate large and open kitchen, a garden with swings, slides and a monkeybar already on the day they arrived. Using his wand and casting a faint Lumos he finally made himself take the tour that he had been offered earlier in the day but had denied citing exhaustion.
He knew Hermione had been a little off-kilter too but she had made good of the offer that had been extended to them as she had spent a couple of hours exploring the house until she had found the library and lost herself in the bliss of her comfort zone.
Though he knew that this was his house he felt a bit weird and yet finally had caved in to his curiosity as he paced quietly along the living room. His eyes hungrily drank in the sight of the beautiful home he had made with Hermione as he saw the plush and comfortable furniture, so unlike the broken things in the cupboard or even the smallest bedroom of Privet Drive.
The beige walls of this home were filled with a lot of pictures too, just like the home of his relatives but unlike the pictures littered around that place, he was in almost every photograph - muggle or magical.
There were pictures of his children, their children and some solos of himself and Hermione. There was a frame where he stood with an older couple he recognised as Hermione’s parents.
His hungry eyes devoured them. Finally, he came across a frame over the fireplace as he saw Hermione dressed in a flowing white gown while he wore a black tuxedo. The figures in the picture looked happy as they exchanged rings.
Before he knew it, his feet had taken him to the nursery on the first floor which was painted in yellow and had a cradle and a lot of toys as well as a cupboard he didn’t open but just instinctively knew was brimming with supplies.
His next stop was the second bedroom on the floor where he saw little Katie sleeping. Her eyes were closed and her little mouth open and he realised he had made a sound as he couldn’t help the soft watery chuckle at the sight. Her hair was so very much like his own and Hermione’s and she was in lilac floral pyjamas. He quietly picked up the blanket she must have thrown in her sleep and softly placed it over her. Gently touching the girl’s hair and finding his eyes brimming with tears as his heart exploded with emotions he couldn’t recognise. He saw Hermione in her features. The cute little nose, the unruly curls and of course the intelligence in her eyes. But he knew those eyes were green, much like his own too and now that he had allowed himself to look at her he couldn’t help but spot she looked like she had his cheekbones and a mole on the side of her neck, much like he did.
Wiping away his tears he walked out of the room into the one across it and found himself gazing at a little boy with hair much like his own as he too slept like his sister. Nate’s face was relaxed in his sleep and he couldn’t help the smile that crossed his lips as he recognised his son was wearing pyjamas with Spider-Man and looking around the room saw his little boy was a fan of superheroes but he was Hermione’s son too as a whole wall was dedicated to various kinds of books in his room too much like Katie’s. There was a toy broom in a corner that had filled his heart with the kind of joy he couldn’t even describe as he saw a picture just on the wall above it. His children were on similar brooms and he had his arms around Hermione as they floated no more than a couple of feet from the ground.
Taking one last glance at Nate he walked out of the room and was about to climb the stairs to reach the room he had been allotted on the second floor when he heard noises coming in from the master bedroom.
Unthinking, he strode towards the source of the noise, concerned if something was wrong when he stopped just as he was about to knock on the door.
His face turned red and he felt hot all over as he realised those weren’t sounds of distress but of love, of passion. The sounds of the moans emitting from the room soon had the sound of skin slapping against skin and he stood a bit rooted as he couldn’t deny that the coupling didn’t just seem zealous but there was laughter mixed in sometimes as well.
He finally turned around and walked away from the room and quietly slipped into his bed.
He couldn’t help but think about the things he had heard moments ago and compared the same to what he had often heard over the summers at 4, Privet Drive. He had heard uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia through the walls of the second bedroom at times and the sounds were not at all like what he had just heard. The only common thing that they shared was the slapping of skins, there was no laughter, no moaning and certainly no passion there nor a bit of friendship that would have his uncle encourage his aunt.
The previous two summers he had even heard sounds coming in from the tapes that Dudley would watch and while he had thought that the couples in them were quite robust and ardent… based on just the sounds he heard, even they seemed hollow in comparison.
He had often wondered what kind of a marriage his parents had had. Even though he never knew them, something had always told him that they weren’t like his uncle and aunt, no matter what he was told about them. As he got to know the Weasleys, he wondered if this was what a good marriage was supposed to be like as well but something told him that while Mr and Mrs Weasley might be happy, he was looking for something else.
As he closed his eyes and his mind conjured the vision of Hermione; the way he saw the older her care for him and their children, the way she was concerned about everyone and the tender kiss she had bestowed upon his older self, something begins to settle in his heart - something that felt like peace and awe and happiness. His mind recalled the sound of her laughter as he heard it through the close door from moments ago as she moaned his name and was encouraged to find her bliss, to let go and she had screamed his name and he had heard the joy in the sound of his older counterpart as he had declared how she was beautiful, how he loved her; 15-year-old Harry Potter finally realised he knew exactly what love was. He drifted into a blissful sleep with the certainty that he knew what a happy marriage and family was supposed to look like as he dreamed of giggling children jumping into a pool as he played with them and stole kisses from his wife, his Hermione.
Dressed again in their clothes, they had snuck in the ministry back on the third day late into the night and walked back into the past, into 1996.
Harry didn’t know how things were going to happen in the future but as he was about to enter the gateway yet again, he couldn’t help but turn around and gaze at his older counterpart and Hermione’s. They hadn’t said anything about the future to them, and yet he had learned enough. As he took Hermione’s hand in his, he knew with certainty how it felt right to be holding it and could see the same emotions reflecting in her eyes. They gave soft smiles to their future versions who bid them a farewell and squaring their shoulders, inhaling deeply, they finally walked into the gateway.