To Me, From Me // DHr ✔️

t h r e e

The clock struck signalling the beginning of dinner and Hermione slumped further down her seat in despair. She had spent her entire free period looking into time-travelling objects and came up with knowledge that she has already known - so long as a person has a Time-Turner, they can basically do whatever they want with it. The question now is where did future Hermione get a Time-Turner when all Time-Turners, including the one she's borrowed and returned in her third year, were already destroyed? Why did she feel the need to send her back a photo of herself from the future on this very day out of all days? And most importantly, who is the person she was with and why was it torn off in the first place?

The only lead she has is a ring. Whoever the other half of the photo is, they have a silver ring that was too small for her to further examine. And she knows it's a guy because the hand that was wrapped around her waist was slender but masculine, and was holding her with such possessiveness that Hermione found herself longing for such comfort.

Dinner went by quick for Hermione, as it always has been for the past two months. The monotonous tones of the days have been unnerving, but she couldn't tell anyone that. She knows how great everyone else was coping with how simple things are going right now after so many years of complete chaos and madness. She found that this letter has brought back some of Hermione's spark for curiosity and the constant need to solve puzzles, only now without the pressing fear of death looming in on her from every corner. At least, not yet.

Because she was made Head Girl this year with Ravenclaw Anthony Goldstein as Head Boy, she gets to share a separate dorm with him but he was hardly ever there so Hermione has basically made the entire dorm a space of her own. When Anthony said he preferred to stay in his house dorm in a way that Hermione wasn't even sure if she should be insulted that he didn't want to live with her or not, she definitely wasn't at all complaining because she hated the communal sleeping arrangements she's been forced to endure throughout her years at Hogwarts. Girls can be so mean sometimes.

Once she'd finished finalizing next week's schedule of patrols for the Heads and the prefects, her extra reading for the coursework two weeks from now and penning a letter to Harry and Ron (obviously excluding the bewildering letter she's received this morning), she finally headed to bed with her copy of Hogwarts: A History.

The photograph was still embedded deep within the pages of the soon-to-fall-apart book and Hermione found she couldn't even bear to look at it again. It was because of the sheer glow of happiness that bathed her profile. Her heart clenched. When was the last time she's ever seen herself that happy with someone?

Definitely not with Ron, she thought with just a hint of bitterness. Yes, she did think that after they kissed down in the chamber, their relationship would only go on from there, and it would've made perfect sense, seeing as they've both been harboring feelings for each other for so long. Too bad things don't always make perfect sense. They never talked about it of course, but Ron's rejection was painfully obvious with the way he said his goodbyes to her the day he left for Auror training - which was that he didn't. Hermione went to the Weasleys that weekend after the Battle to sort out her relationship with Ron only to find that he was no longer there. His family told her he wanted to train as soon as Kingsley allowed and she smiled, pretending she knew about it but she just forgot. It was a week later that Hermione received a letter from Harry apologizing for not telling her he'd left because he promised Ron he wouldn't. It made her realize she would always be the odd one out of the three, and that hurt a lot more than the loss of a potential relationship with Ron.

She shook her head in an attempt to clear her mind. She wouldn't let herself be bummed out. Instead, she tore off her covers and put on her robe, then headed for the door.