A Paradox In Time

The Evisceration of Hector Dagworth-Granger

"You know, Harry, as first dates go, this is pretty much perfect. You really do know the way to a girl's heart!"

Harry curled his eyes up at Hermione in a quirky look as she laughed lightly at his side. Behind her, tottering shelves of books and parchments rolls disappeared into the misty gloom of a high ceiling.

"I don't know about that, but maybe it's the way to your heart ... Arch-bibliophile as you are!"

"I like that ... Arch-bibliophile ... maybe that can be my new name."

"I thought we already decided on your new name ... I mean, isn't that why we are here?"

Hermione blushed adorably and threw Harry a radiant look. She wasn't confident enough right now, and their relationship wasn't quite there yet, but she was desperate to reach over and give him a little a kiss ... a chaste peck, a demure lip touch, a full on snog ... either would do. Hermione's loins mewled in frustration that this wasn't moving anything like as quickly as they wanted it to be.

So she pulled more books and parchment files towards her and took to her task with renewed aplomb. The Hall of Records, here in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic, may not have been most girls' notion of an ideal date location. But, for Hermione Granger at least, books were old friends, shields from her social awkwardness, a library the place she felt most comfortable and herself ... and besides, the smell of parchment was her most powerful aphrodisiac.

It was only a lack of courage that stopped Hermione from re-enacting her Australian de-flowering of Harry right here on the messy, book and parchment strewn kidney-shaped desk in front of them. That was a fantasy she'd indulged in on more than one occasion in both timelines that she'd lived.

But they were here to take their first steps towards getting their relationship to that level or, as Harry reminded her with his mind-bending words, back to that level. Hermione had to remember and console herself with that fact, though the whole situation was difficult to hold steady in her mind, even a mind a powerful as hers.

The best strategy, she decided, was to be playful, to pretend that the other timeline was actually the real one and that the life she remembered was simply some kind of fanfiction written by Rita Skeeter, as part of some revenge-fuelled wish fulfilment vanity publishing project or something. Hermione liked that idea, and saw her task now as a sort of homework assignment, to disprove Rita's nonsense that Harry and Ginny had any sort of romantic compatibility, that herself and Harry were platonic only, and that a big, happy Weasley family was viewed as an ideal endgame.

Purging the world of such lunacy would require a complete destruction of Rita's 'canon' ... and Hermione was determined to find cannons of her own with which to blow the idea into a million useless pieces.

And her motivation was fuelled by focusing on all the beautiful things her future self had told her about the real timeline. So she turned to Harry with a teasing expression to talk to him about it some more.

"You know, of all the amazing things that happened in our other life, I still can't believe that it was you who proposed to me!"

Harry chuckled and looked up from the file in front of him. "Why not? I'm well known for my bravery!"

"But would you have been scared that I'd say no, do you think?"

"Terrified."

"Well, there you are then! I must have left you in no doubt. So I made it easier for you which, if you look at it a certain way, means I was the one who proposed, really!"

"If that's how you look at things, I suggest getting your eyes tested!" Harry laughed. "I wouldn't have been scared that you'd not want to marry me, but you might not have wanted to get married at all. You're a modern girl, so maybe outdated ideas of bonded relationships are too archaic for you."