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Harry looked away from the stack of notes on the ‘living’ room table his dictation quill had scribed and over at one of his mothers. “Everything is sort of blurring together.”

Lily looked up from reading one of the pages of notes that Harry had dictated about his adventure in Gringotts. “In that case, maybe it’s time to change directions for a bit, we’ve been at this for three days.”

“We should go after some of the other Horcruxes,” Sirius suggested as he walked into the tent’s living room from outside.

Harry turned and looked at Sirius, “Any luck getting the locket?”

“It’s dealt with. My father was disturbingly helpful after I explained about Regulus’s death and the reason for it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him tell my mother to stuff it before, it was almost worth going back to that house.” Sirius shivered. “We apparated to the sea and my father torched the locket with fiendfyre. Kreature was disturbingly happy.”

“Good, that just leaves the diadem in Hogwarts, the ring, the diary in Malfoy’s manor and the cup in the vault.”

“Getting access to the diary should be easier after Malfoy goes to prison,” Lily mused.

The other Lily set the page of notes she’d been reading down and looked at Harry. “I wouldn’t mind trying to unravel the curses on the ring if a certain someone would tell us where it is.”

“Sure, let me just set up a time loop and I’ll tell you.” Harry reached up and touched his nose. “Save game.”

“Game Saved.”

Harry let his arm drop back to his side. “It’s under a shack. I have a feeling this might take a couple of tries before we get it right.”

“Any reason that we can’t just torch the shack with fiendfyre?” Sirius asked as he walked over and sat down in a chair.

“I want the stone in the ring, it belonged to a many many times great uncle on Dad’s side and it can be used to talk to the dead.”

Sirius raised an eyebrow, “You’re talking about the resurrection stone?”

“It doesn’t actually bring people back from the dead but yeah.”

“You mean it’s not just a myth?” Sirius asked in disbelief.

“Part myth part amazing craftsmanship is my guess. Three brothers, one stone that can talk to the dead, one legendary wand and one cloak that never wore out, sound familiar?”

Sirius rubbed his face, “How the hell did we miss that?”

Lily looked at Sirius curiously, “What are you talking about?”

“James’s cloak, it was his father’s cloak and his father’s cloak before him and so on… I figured it was just rather impressive craftsmanship.”

“It is, Dumbledore has the wand, Dad has the cloak and the stone is buried under a shack with a death curse on the ring.”

“Dumbledore has the elder wand?”

Harry grinned, “He took it from Grindelwald after their duel. I would have stolen a copy in the tutorial if I could have figured out a way to get Dumbledore to the house.”

Lily shook her head bemusedly, “Now what?”

“Considering I didn’t tell you where it is, I’m going to recreate my time loop then we’ll go see what we can find out.” Harry touched his nose and saved his game again.

“Game saved.”

0o0o0

Lily put her ear plugs in then lit the stick of dynamite she’d ‘borrowed’ from a muggle construction company and tossed it through the shack’s window and ran for it. Normally, she wouldn’t have been this reckless but Albus had placed a couple of detection charms around the shack and any magic alerted him. Normally she wouldn’t care if Albus knew she was hunting down Horcruxes but in his particular case, with this particular item, Albus had gotten himself cursed a couple of times in previous loops much to Harry’s frustration. She ran behind the cart they’d ‘borrowed’ from further down the road. It wasn’t great cover but she didn’t want to use magic unless they had to.

Sirius waited for the explosion to light the evening up then took his silenced earplugs out. “That was fun,” He stood up and looked at the destruction with a grin on his face.

Lily pulled her earplugs out and stuck them in one of her pockets. “You’re the one with dragonhide gloves.”

Sirius picked up his long pry bar and made his way over to the ruined shack. He slammed the pry bar into the rotting floorboard where Harry had shown him a memory of the box resting then ripped the boards up so that he could use the end of the bar to hook the handle of the box. He didn’t want to touch the box even with his gloves until they did more spell work but he didn’t want to do the spell work here. He carefully walked back over to the cart with the box as far away from him as possible.

Lily shook her head, “If I didn’t know you weren’t being paranoid, I’d call you paranoid.”

“Let’s get the cart out of here before someone comes to investigate the noise,” Sirius said as he dropped the box and crowbar in the back of the cart then grabbed the handles in front of the cart and started pulling it further down the road.

“Hopefully this works,” Lily muttered as she helped him with the cart

Sirius snorted as they hauled the cart down the road back to where they’d ‘borrowed’ it from, “If we can move the box to a secure location, Harry can start another loop and we can work on the box without Albus showing up to ‘help’.”

“That brings up another question, do we tell Albus about the Horcrux in Hogwarts or do we just sneak in and grab it?”

“Considering the sheer number of ways into Hogwarts, I’m inclined to just sneak in and steal it, that way we don’t have to explain how we know what we know until after Voldemort is completely gone.”

Lily shook her head, “I’d rather not have him looking at Harry too closely.”

“Yeah, he might try to obliviate Harry so that he can grow up normal or something stupid like that.”

Lily scowled as she thought of anyone hurting her son, “If he tries, I’ll kill him.”

“It shouldn’t come to that. He has a lot on his mind right now with all of the trials,” Sirius pulled the cart back into place where they’d grabbed it from then walked around to the back of the cart and looked at the box. He picked up the pry bar then used the tip to pick up the box by the handle and move it to the ground. He wedged the pry bar into the crack between the lid and the box and twisted.

Lily frowned slightly as she watched the tip of the pry bar turn black and crumble as the lid was forced open, “Nasty.”

Sirius dropped the pry bar as the curse quickly traveled up the shaft, “Yeah, I’m starting to think that Riddle didn’t trust people.”

Lily smiled slightly, “I don’t think he did either.”

Sirius pulled a pair of metal tongs out of his expanded belt pouch and used them to reach in and grab the ring resting ‘innocently’ in the box, “I feel like I’m back in potions waiting for something to explode.”

“The only reason one of your potions would have exploded was because you put something in it to make it explode,” Lily pulled out her wand and used it to turn the box into slag so that it wouldn’t curse any innocent muggles that happened to find it.

“Back to the tent?”

”Remember that patch of brambles about a mile away from the tent?” Lily asked with amusement.

“You mean the one with a very narrow area without brambles?” Sirius laughed softly.

“That’s the one. Give me ten seconds then follow me.” Lily apparated to the ‘safe’ area in the patch of brambles then lit her wand and slipped through the opening and out on the trail being careful to avoid the thorns. She turned and smiled as Sirius appeared. “We should probably move the camp.”

Sirius carefully made his way out of the brambles holding the ring as far away from him as he could using the tongs, “Probably,” he agreed with a shrug.

“I was thinking about Severus and Peter,” Lily increased the light coming from her wand as she walked down the trail toward camp.

“What about them?” Sirius asked as he followed Lily.

“I was thinking about coming out with a story about Severus and Peter selling Voldemort down the river to make sure that Albus can never hire Severus. I actually like Peter’s parents, they don’t need to know that the war broke him.”

“So you’d make them heroes?” Sirius asked in disbelief.

“Of course not, Severus made his own choices despite his family and Peter… I don’t know what the hell happened. Maybe Voldemort cursed the hell out of him or put him under a curse, I’d like to find out before I toss him to the wolves. Considering Snape tried to make a deal with Voldemort so he could have me, I want him locked up or dead. If we come out with a story about how Snape sold out the Death Eaters then they’ll be gunning for him if he ever gets out of prison.”

“Never piss off a redhead,’ Sirius muttered as they walked down the path back toward the tent.

“What was that?” Lily asked with amusement as she’d heard exactly what he’d muttered.

“Nothing, I was just thinking about ways that we can spin things.”

“What do you mean?” Lily asked curiously.

“If we spin Peter as a hero that tragically died destroying Voldemort then nothing stops us from locking him in a rat cage for a couple of years.”

Lily snorted, “Let’s figure out how guilty he is before we throw him under the bridge but I like your idea for how to deal with Severus. I don’t want him anywhere near Hogwarts or children, ever.”

“I don’t either,” Sirius fell silent as they walked through the woods.

0o0o0

Lily grumbled as they got closer to the door that lead into the Chamber of Secrets, “I can’t believe I let you talk me into sneaking down here.”

“Do we have a plan if the basilisk is loose?” James asked cautiously.

Harry glanced down at James from his spot on his mother’s shoulders, “If I die the loop resets; if you get turned to stone, I’ll reset the loop,” he glanced over at the sleeping rooster Sirius was holding, “we have a sleeping rooster, I’ll call the basilisk forth while we have our eyes closed then we shake the rooster awake and the basilisk dies, simple and much easier than the last time around.”

James held up one of his family’s goblin made blades, “At which point we stab the creature so our weapons can destroy Voldemort’s horcruxes?”

“That’s the plan,” Harry focused on the door and hissed, “Open.”

Lily kept her off hand on Harry’s ankle and her right hand on her wand as the door opened revealing the so called Chamber of Secrets, “Let’s get this over with.”

Harry almost felt sorry for the sleeping basilisk when he woke it up and called it forth only for Sirius to wake the rooster up which let out a cry and killed the beast. “Killing it with a sword was more impressive.”

Lily opened her eyes and and looked at the massive snake in horrified awe, “Seeing it in a pensieve just isn’t the same.”

James opened his eyes and stared at the basilisk in disbelief, “Damn…”

Sirius laughed, “And I killed it, that should be good for getting some tail.”

“No one will believe you,” Harry snickered at the look of disappointment on Sirius’s face.

Sirius mock pouted. “Don’t ruin the moment.”

James walked over and worked on carefully propping open the beast’s mouth with so they could stab through the roof of its mouth and coat their collection of goblin forged blades, hopefully without getting any of the blood on them considering how toxic it was.

Harry opened his inventory and pulled out one of the goblin forged chalices that they’d brought to store some of the blood in for future use. He was just glad that his inventory would keep everything fresh until they could find a use for it or a buyer. “Let’s carefully grab what we need then we can sneak up and grab the diadem.”

James couldn’t help the smile on his face as he worked. ‘If this works, Voldemort will be dead and we’ll have most of his supporters in prison by Christmas.’

0o0o0

Harry floated over the tent’s living room end table where half of the Peverell family ring was sitting innocently or not so innocently. Sirius had used one of the daggers and a hammer to cut the ring in half as they didn’t want to damage the stone, “The stone looks intact so I think we’re in business.”

“Good, now get back over here and set up a loop so that we can keep testing things,” Lily replied.

Harry flew back over to where his mother was standing and touched his nose, “Save game.”

“Game saved.”

“The loop is set up.”

Lily pointed at the ring with her wand and flicked then twisted it causing the gold to ‘melt’ off of the stone.

Harry blinked, “Where did you learn that?”

“On one of my trips to the restricted section to look up spells for a transfiguration project. It was used in the old days to refine metal to an acceptable level. They’d just crush the rocks containing the ore then use the spell while focusing on the metal and the precious metal bits would liquefy so they could collect them.”

“Why don’t they teach that at Hogwarts?” Harry asked in frustration.

“Lack of interest for the most part. The goal of education is to teach you the skills you need to teach yourself or at least that was how it was explained to me.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard … but I guess I just sort of skated through last time…” Harry trailed off rather embarrassed that he’d slacked off as much as he had the last time around.

“The last time around you had to deal with a rather large number of distractions. I’m sure you’ll do better this time around,” Lily replied firmly.

He quickly reassured his mother, “Of course, I’m planning on keeping up with Hermione this time,” He was looking forward to seeing how many records he could break while having more fun than the last time around.

“Good. Hopefully you won’t have to worry about Snape and Trelawney this time around.”

“I think I’d quit if I had to put up with him again and I’m not planning on taking Divination so I shouldn’t have to deal with Trelawney. If I can figure out a way to get Binns to move on I’m going to, preferably before I start school,” Harry mused thoughtfully.

“Best of luck, I hated that class.” Lily smiled at Harry in a conspiratorial manner. “Don’t tell your father but I used earplugs and a dictation quill. It was easier to just read the textbook during class and the notes later than try to pay attention to Binns.”

Harry laughed as he pictured his mother pretending to be paying attention while people fell asleep around her, “That’s not a bad idea.”

Lily turned and looked at the stone sitting innocently on the table, “Who are you going to call first?”

“I’m not sure, I have the names of several dead goblin smiths and a couple of historical figures that were supposed to have some interesting tricks that I wouldn’t mind talking to. Do you have anyone that you’d want to talk to?”

Lily considered the question for a couple of seconds, “Not really, I was fairly young when my grandparents died and Mum and Dad are on a world tour so I don’t think the stone will help.”

“They’ve alive? Aunt Petunia said they were dead,” Harry sputtered.

Lily snorted, “Right because she’s the most trustworthy person in the world. It’s possible they died in your original timeline but it’s much more likely that Petunia just didn’t want to talk about them and someone reported you dead with the attack. They reacted rather poorly to her deciding to marry a fat loudmouthed bigot, words were exchanged and Petunia stormed off.”

“If they’re alive, why did I get stuck with Petunia?” Harry asked in disbelief.

“I’m not sure. It might have been because of the anti tracking bracelets we charmed for them kept the ministry from tracking them down or maybe Albus just lost his goddamned marbles and decided that placing you with Petunia would work out. How the hell he came to that conclusion, I have no idea.”

Harry took a breath then let it out as he realized that it didn’t matter, his parents were alive and he’d never put up with living with the Dursleys a second time. “On that cheerful note, I think I’m going to update the time loop and we can test the stone on some goblin smiths and try to figure out where we need to start for turning silver into goblin silver.”

“We have to start somewhere.” Lily was hoping they’d be able to recover a fair number of secrets using the stone.

Harry touched his nose, “Save game.”

“Game saved.”

“The new loop is set up, go ahead and pick up the stone.”

Lily walked over and carefully touched the stone. It felt cool to the touch but other than that no different than most stones. She pulled her finger back from the stone and examined it, “It looks the same and doesn’t hurt which probably means that we removed all of the curses on the stone.”

Harry sighed in relief. He’d had enough of watching his mother die even if he could just reset things by loading his saved game, “In that case, give it a whirl.”

Lily turned the stone three times and focused on calling Ignotus Peverell.

A remarkably solid ghost like figure with wild black hair and black robes appeared after the third twist, “Ah, my brother’s stone.”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way but is the story true?” Lily asked curiously.

Ignotus smiled in a knowing and slightly mischievous way at the toddler, “I presume you are talking about the tale of the so called deathly hallows?”

“I’m guessing by your response that the story isn’t true?”

“Not as such. While the cloak, wand and stone exist, they are merely exceptionally crafted magical items that took on a bit of a legend. I blame my older brother, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut when he got drunk.”

“Is that how he died?”

Ignotus glanced at Harry then back at Lily, “Nah, he died in bed at a hundred and fifty with a couple of muggle girls.”

Lily shook her head, “Does that mean that Cadmus didn’t kill himself?”

“Ah, nah he transfigured a body and faked his death after moving most of his inventions to a different town. A couple too many close calls with people trying to steal the stone for one reason or another.”

Harry asked, “Do you have any tricks that you can share?”

Ignotus grinned, “I was hoping that you’d ask. Tell you what, if you tell me how you came to have several copies of my cloak, I’d be more than willing to teach a descendant magic.”

“When I first got sent back I might have been in an alternate world,” He wasn’t sure how else to explain being stuck in a videogame to someone that had been born in the middle ages. “I managed to grab a copy of my parents and the cloak and then things shifted and I was back with my parents. I grabbed another copy of the cloak... and long story short I ended up with several cloaks and an extra set of my parents and godfather.”

Ignotus laughed, “Interesting, any idea how you came back in time?”

“No, the last thing I remember was getting hit by a bus, a large horseless carriage.”

“I’m dead, not stupid. I know what a bus is, we can peek into the real world in various situations and on various days. How much do they cover enchanting at Hogwarts?”

“They cover charms…”

“Blah, I don’t mean the crap that fades in a couple of months or years, I mean stuff that will last centuries or thousands of years.”

Other than his cloak, various parts of Hogwarts, the Arch of Death and artifacts from the founders Harry couldn’t think of too many things that had that sort of lifespan, “Dumbledore created a magical item that captures light and restores it, most of what we learned only lasted a couple of years at most.”

Ignotus shook his head and said, “In that case, let’s start from the beginning.”

“How long can you stay?” Lily asked.

“As long as I need to.”

“The stories said it caused the ghosts pain to stay.”

“Eh, yet another thing the stories got both right and wrong. Then again I shouldn’t have expected much from that hack bard. Cadmus called his lost love for weeks on end before she got tired of him not living his life and told him that he was causing her heartache by not moving on. Our situation isn’t even close to the same. You’re here to learn a skill. Once you get the basics down, you shouldn’t have to call me other than the occasional project or to give me updates on your progress. In other words, don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks. Where do we start?”

“Do you have a wand you can use?” Ignotus asked.

“Every wand I have is rather large,” Harry admitted.

“In that case, we’ll start with crafting wands. I’m not an expert like my brother but few people are or ever were. Your mother can help.”

Lily nodded her agreement, “I’d be happy to.”

Harry listened intently as Ignotus launched into a spirited explanation of wand crafting.

0o0o0

James wanted to smirk as he blasted open Malfoy’s drawing room floor much to the other man’s complete disbelief and horror.

Sirius stared at James, “That’s one way to do it.”

“I had a tip,” James walked over and picked up the diary with his dragon hide glove then pulled out his dagger and stabbed the book causing it to leak black ink.

Malfoy pulled himself together and drew his wand on the two aurors. “I’ll have your wand-” he fell silent as Sirius’s overpowered confusion charm caused everything to get fuzzy.

Sirius snorted, “So much for a nice clean job.”

Dobby popped in and blinked, “What happened to the floor?”

Sirius looked at Malfoy and ordered, “Give Dobby your cloak.”

Malfoy frowned slightly as he tried to figure out why he needed to take his cloak off but at the same time it did feel sort of heavy.

Dobby’s eyes widened as his master handed him the cloak, “Master has given Dobby clothes. Dobby is a free elf!”

Malfoy pulled his mind back from the fuzzy state when he heard those alarming words, “What? I didn’t…” He brought his wand back up only for Dobby to hit him in the chest with a blast of magical force that caved in Malfoy’s chest sending bone shards into his heart.

James sighed as he looked down at the soon to be dead wizard, “That’s going to cause a mess.”

Sirius glanced down at his watch, “Nah, Narcissa is out showing off Draco. We’ll just write down that we showed up and that the house elf showed us around.”

“And Malfoy?” James asked curiously.

“The coward left the door to his drawing room hidey hole open and fled while the house elf distracted us or at least that’s my best guess. I’d rather not let the ministry chop off Dobby’s head.”

Dobby shook his head rapidly, his ears flapping, “Dobby doesn’t want to die, Dobby likes his head! Dobby didn’t mean to kill bad master.”

James flicked his his wand and transfigured Malfoy into a rock then scoured the floor removing any trace of his death. He repaired the floor safe he’d blasted apart with another wave, “Which means that Malfoy obviously pulled a runner when we showed up.” He tossed the damaged book back in the open safe, “Let’s call in another team to pick up the evidence.”

0o0o0

Umbridge scowled as someone knocked on her door. “Come in.”

Sirius walked in, “Hello.”

“What do you want Malfoy? You’re supposed to be on the run… why does your visitor badge say kill Umbridge for-”

Sirius raised his silenced shotgun and blow a hole through her chest then stuffed the gun in his bag, ‘No anti werewolf legislation or muggleborn registration laws for you bitch.’ He knew he should feel guilty about the fact that he’d just murdered Umbridge but he really didn’t considering all of the memories Harry had shown him of what she’d done the last time around.

He headed out of Umbridge’s office and gave one of the ministry wizard a leer much like he’d seen some creepy bastards give various waitresses over the years and continued on his way out of the building rather glad that the other Sirius was in the director’s office getting yelled at for letting Malfoy escape. He frowned slightly as he saw Albus Dumbledore heading toward the Director’s office. ‘Time to get the hell out of here.’

He reached into an empty office, pulled his hood up and floo’ed to the Leaky Cauldron. He sneered at the barkeep as he made his way out of the place just so he’d remember seeing Malfoy if anyone asked. He quickly walked around the corner then apparated back to Godric’s Hollow to continue fixing up the cabin. ‘Hopefully the other me isn’t having too horrible of a time of it.

The other Sirius looked over at Albus as he walked into the Director’s office, “Albus.”

Crouch looked up as Albus walked into his office holding a newspaper, “Can I help you with something?”

Albus glanced over at where Sirius and James were sitting looking less than happy, “Ah, forgive me for interrupting but I’d hoped to talk to you about Severus Snape.”

Crouch scowled at the barmy old coot, “I realize that your plan resulted in Voldemort’s death but I would have liked to be kept in the loop. Using two recent graduates as moles that led him into a trap was risky even if it by all appearances worked.”

Albus looked at James, “I wasn’t aware that Severus was helping you.”

James shrugged in response, “As I told the reporter, Severus Snape told Voldemort about the prophecy which allowed us to ambush him to weaken him. That should be enough to get every Death Eater in the world looking for a piece of him. I may have implied that he was helping us but I never actually claimed that he was on our side. Either way, he’ll certainly never find work in the British Isles which means that he’ll be somewhere else, annoying other people.”

“You ruined a man’s life for petty revenge?”

James snorted derisively, “He tried to talk Voldemort into killing myself and Harry so he could have Lily after he drugged her full of love potions or maybe he was just delusional enough to think that if I died, she’d run to him for some reason that makes no sense. Either way, I want him nowhere near my family and if you ever offer him a teaching position I will use every,” he glanced over at Crouch, “legal method in my power to destroy both of you.”

Albus sighed, “And Voldemort?”

“Officially, he was injured and had to retreat.”

Crouch asked, “Unofficially?”

“Unofficially, he’s dead. Sirius and I tracked down his last Horcrux today and destroyed it.”

Dumbledore blinked in shock, “Last? As in he had more than one?”

“Thomas Marvolo Riddle made several.” James gestured toward the damaged diary on the table, “He gave it to Malfoy to protect.”

Crouch frowned thoughtfully, “Is that why you wanted in on the raid?”

“Yes. I wanted to make sure he was dead.”

“What made you suspect that he had Horcruxes?”

Sirius spoke up, “My brother found one of them but died in the process. He set up some safeguards in the event of his death. I received a letter with certain information that started our hunt. Either way, Voldemort is dead and not coming back which means that you can find a decent divination teacher or not. Your problem with defense teachers was a result of him hiding one of the Horcruxes in Hogwarts but we dealt with that.”

Albus sighed in relief, “That will certainly make things easier.”

“How long has he been dead?” Crouch asked.

James grinned slightly, “Since Halloween, he didn’t make it out of the house. If you release that information I’ll claim that you’re lying.”

“Why didn’t you tell people? People have a right to know.”

“Because I wanted to make sure he was completely dead before the various Death Eaters had a chance to go to ground and hide his Horcruxes. I also didn’t want them gunning for me or my family beyond the attention they pay any auror. That reminds me, I quit.”

Crouch blinked in shocked disbelief, “What?”

“I’m rather wealthy, I don’t actually need this job and honestly I don’t want this job anymore. The various Death Eaters are already buying buying themselves out of prison and the imperious defense is ridiculous. I can understand not wanting truth potions used in most criminal investigations because of fishing expeditions but for marked Death Eaters claiming the imperious defense, I think a truth potion should be required or perhaps a magical oath to prove their innocence, not how much they can afford to pay,” James replied.

Crouch scowled darkly, “You’re leaving me short staffed.”

James stood up, reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out his badge and tossed it on the table, “Hire some muggleborns, oh wait, most of the smart ones headed to America when the Death Eaters started their shit. Either way, I’m not going to put my life in danger for a system this screwed up when I can make more of a difference taking my family’s seat on the Wizengamot.”

Sirius pulled his badge out of his pocket and set it on the table, “I joined because I wanted to make a difference. I think I’ll start a joke shop, it’s more honest and probably less stressful. Best of luck keeping the various Death Eaters in prison.”

Albus sighed heavily, “We need qualified aurors.”

“There are a fair number of them running around,” James turned and headed for the door.

Crouch scowled at his back, “Don’t expect to come crawling back here.”

Sirius resisted the urge to insult his ex-boss as he left.

Crouch turned and glared at Dumbledore, “Did you put them up to this?”

“No, I saw the story about Severus in the paper and wanted to find out what was going on,” Albus sighed as he realized that his plans for hiring Snape for a potions teacher had just went up in flames. ‘Ah well, maybe I can talk Lily into teaching potions.’ He made a mental note to ask them the real story behind Voldemort’s death once James had a chance to calm down.

0o0o0

Harry wasn’t sure what hurt more, seeing the lack of recognition on Hermione’s small face as she looked up from playing in the sandbox with her unicorn toy as he walked over or the fact that she was sitting on the snow alone. It might have been because it was a rather cold December day which required them to be bundled up but it felt like more than that, “Hi, I’m Harry Potter.”

Hermione smiled hesitantly, “Mione.”

Harry forced himself to ignore the pain that ripped through his chest as she obviously didn’t recognize his name. He’d been holding out some shred of hope that she’d somehow come back with him. He knew it was stupid and crazy but he still wasn’t sure how he’d come back so it might have been possible. He forced himself to give her an honest smile despite the fact that he missed his friend, “I like your unicorn.”

Hermione tilted her head slightly as if she was trying to figure out if Harry was teasing her then held it up so that he could see it. “Bella.”

Harry glanced at a pile of snow on the edge of the sand box, “She needs a castle, do you want to help?”

Hermione glanced over at her mother then back at Harry, “Yes.”

Harry smiled as he ‘helped’ Hermione make a snow castle.

0o0o0