One Last Try [HP Jamione fanfic]

58. Evermore

A/N: Oooohhh I have been excited for people to read this chapter since I wrote it!!

8th March 1980

"What happened in the future?"

Hermione dropped her cup, spilling tea all over the tiled floor of the sun room and shattering the hundred-year-old delicate china.

"What?" She asked her mother, voice hoarse with shock.

"The future, darling." Iphemia didn't react to the destruction of her favourite china. "What happened to send you back to us?"

"You know? You've known this whole time?" Hermione's voice was still hoarse, dry as though she was both completely parched and needed to clear her throat.

"Oh, Hermione, dear. I taught you better than this. Are you really so Gryffindor?" Iphemia waved her hand lazily, vanishing the mess from the floor. "Did you think I would let a child, no matter how innocent they may have appeared, into my house without thoroughly checking who they were?"

Hermione blinked a few times, having to reorder her thoughts to take the new information into account. "You used legilimency?"

"I'm sorry, love." Iphemia took one of Hermione's hands in hers, and squeezed gently. "Once you told me about who you were I looked through your memories. I do apologise, but it was necessary at the time."

"So all this time you've known who I used to be? Where I came from?"

"Yes, love."

"Why didn't you say anything, mum?"

"It wasn't pertinent until now."

Hermione shook her head, amused through her shock at her mother's unwavering Slytherin tendencies. "I was sent back. I've never known how, or why, or by whom. I don't even know if it was intentional."

"You didn't research it?" Now Iphemia looked surprised.

"It was during the battle at Hogwarts–"

"The what?!"

"Mum, please, if I'm going to explain, I need you not to interrupt until I'm done." Hermione pleaded. She summoned a new tea cup and filled it from the pot on the table between them. "What did you see when you looked in my head?"

"I didn't see much, just enough to confirm you weren't a danger. In doing so I saw when you were born."

"The only people I've ever told are the twins." Hermione admitted, amused that Iphemia was shocked at the revelation. "I'll start at the beginning." Hermione took a deep breath and launched into the story, "I was born in 1979 to Muggle parents, and I received my letter inviting me to go to Hogwarts in September 1990. I started Hogwarts in 1991 and became friends with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley," Here Iphemia's eyebrows shot up and she sent a glance out the doorway to the playroom where the twins were currently keeping all the Weasley children occupied while Molly nursed her new son Ronald upstairs. Hermione nodded and laughed. "Imagine my shock when I woke up to two new brothers who looked so much like the best friend I'd left behind."

Iphemia laughed lightly, still looking a little shell-shocked. "I most certainly can't imagine."

Hermione smiled, and carried on, revealing everything about her first time through the ancient institution, Harry and Voldemort's animosity, and the battle that had killed all of her friends and sent her back in time to live out her life there. "I think the spell was intended to kill me. I don't know how it didn't. I didn't hear what they said, so there was no way for me to ever research the spell or try to reverse it."

"Did you want to?"

"Go back?"

Iphemia nodded, looking saddened by the thought.