the_debt_of_time

Ginny might never be born? You would give Harry back his parents and then take away
the love of his life."
"No, but I―"
"You can't change anything, Mia," Hermione said firmly. She held out the
parchment with the Arithmancy equations on them, showing her the actual results.
Mia frowned at the sight, double-checking the calculations only to come up with
the same answers. Nothing mattered. Nothing changed. "No."
"Remus has already told you this," Hermione stated, "which means that sometime
in the future you will have told him. You've figured it out yourself. You know that his letter
to you is just your words repeated back through time in his handwriting, don't you? You
tell him, he tells you, it's a circle—just like you've been told."
"I feel like a failure if I don't at least try," Mia admitted sadly. "Like this second
chance I've been given will have been for nothing if it means that Jamie and Lily still die.
How can I love them, be with them, and let them trust me, only to willingly step aside and
let them walk to their deaths?"
"What about Sirius and Remus?" Hermione asked, the parchment and quill
vanishing into thin air. She stood and reached her hand out again to comfort Mia.
"What about them?"
"You made a promise to yourself, years ago, that you were going to do everything
in your power to ensure they were loved enough; to enable them to survive what's to
come," Hermione said as she turned Mia forcefully by the shoulders to face her. "You
saved Sirius's life, Mia. He would have been killed by his own family, in his own home,
were it not for your emergency Portkey. That was brilliant, by the way."
"Thanks."
"And Remus? You befriended a boy who needed love more than anything in the
world. You've seen how terrified his parents were of him. His father still is." Hermione
scowled at the thought, and Mia nodded firmly. "Now look at him. He's strong enough to
stand up to you of all people, and that took a lot of courage for him to do that. You've
helped make him strong. You even provided him with the Wolfsbane Potion."
Mia lifted a brow. "You mean I stole the Wolfsbane Potion from its actual creator."
"Well, you were almost put in Slytherin," Hermione muttered.
Mia grinned. "Fair point."