Chapter Eighteen
Live Your Life
I learned from you that I do not crumble
I learned that strength is something you choose
All of the reasons to keep on believin'
There's no question, that's a lesson, that I learned from you
(I Learned From You - Miley Cyrus)August 2nd, 1971Hermione slept soundly without dreams and awoke rested and bleary-eyed in the
comfort of a large four-poster bed. Confused at first at the feel of the bed that was so
different from the smaller one in her room at Grimmauld Place, Hermione struggled to
take in her surroundings. She studied the large room from right to left, her gaze coming to
a halt on the silhouette of a figure standing before her in a blaze of sunshine.
The figure leant closer, and Hermione blinked to see a head of messy black hair.
She smiled, stifling a yawn. "Mmm... Harry?" she murmured in her sleepy state.
"Who's Harry?" a vaguely familiar, but still strange, voice replied.
Hermione's eyes snapped open, and she blinked rapidly to clear her vision. She
stared up into the face of a young boy with familiar black hair that stood up so high in the
back that she could see it from her position in front of him. Instead of the sparkling
emerald eyes she had grown so used to over the past seven years, she saw her reflection in
hazel brown.
This was not her Harry.
1971.
Hermione drew in a sharp breath as everything came flooding back: the crimson
box in the Black family library, the Time-Turner charmed into a Portkey, the letter from
Remus, meeting with a very much alive Albus Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey and a De-
Ageing Potion, Flooing into a large manor, and meeting the Potters and that incredibly
bossy house-elf.
And now there was a boy standing at the side of her bed, staring at her with a
curious gaze and a crooked smile.