His Past, Her Future {Book One}

Chapter 28. Don't Touch The Apples

"Ginny, how long has she been like this?"

"I dunno. Maybe 10 minutes?"

"Oh, Merlin."

Hermione could hear the voices swim somewhere above her. She didn't dare try to move, a throbbing pain encompassing her entire body, even so, through the ache she could feel the acute pain that shot through her arm from her fingers. It was like each and every one had been bent back and snapped.

"Fre..orge?" she changed mind half way on the identity of the twin standing above her.

"'Mione?" another voice called, making the identity of the Weasley redundant as both twins now appeared kneeling at her side.

"We are so, so sorry baby," one of them soothed as he reached out a hand to brush against her cheek.

"George." The other interrupted. "Ten minutes! She was gone for months."

"What are you talking about?" the voice of Ginny Weasley joined the conversation, although Hermione couldn't tell where she was standing from her position on the floor. "What do you mean 'gone', I was here the entire time, apart from when I went to get you and she never moved. What's going on?"

"Ginny, shut up. You're being as obnoxious as Ron." George scolded his sister as he turned back to a confused and pained Hermione.

She heard Ginny leave the room in huff, but she paid no attention to it.

"I didn't - I didn't leave?"

Hermione moved her head enough to look down at herself. Her white sundress was gone and she was dressed in the pink underwear she had been wearing for the wedding... the wedding!

Hermione's breath hitched in her chest as she managed to ask the question she so feared.

"What day is it?" She looked to Fred, pleading through her eyes for things he knew not of.

"It's September 1st 'Mione. It's Remus and Tonks' wedding. It's about ten am and ..." he stopped as the tears started rolling down her pale cheeks.

George moved over to help her sit up against the wall behind her. She clung on to his neck as he moved her. "Did any of it actually happen?" she whispered in his ear as he let her go. Her voice was broken by her quiet sobs but Fred must have heard her question too for it was he who answered.

"Yes, it did. Although it would have appeared to Gin that you hadn't left. You were still here, but you were kind of ... 'fuzzy' around the edges, I guess is the best way to describe it. It was an experimental product," he sighed in obvious guilt. "There were only two of them, we were trying to make a time-travel device that would go back in lots of days rather than hours, like the time-turners would take you."

"It didn't work though," George continued.

Obviously. The word hovered in the air between them.

"George tried it out."

"I ended up living in the basement of this house for a month! And if you think Kreacher is a menace now, try sharing a bed with him... little rodent."

"But George only went back a year. And he was only in contact with the device for at most a minuet. I was there to pull him back."

"But it happened though?" Hermione seemed to have trouble absorbing all the information. It was their wedding still ...Had nothing changed?

"Fred." Her head snapped to meet his, finding it closer than she had expected.

"Where's Sirius?" Her eyes locked to his, begging ... pleading.

"Oh 'Mione," he groaned, "how far did you go back?" His hand reached to wipe away the tear that was trailing a lone path down her cheek but she pushed his hand away.