{24-Snapshots}

Everyone had been thrilled to learn of their engagement, even Mary who had been with Severus enough times for Hermione to have thought that it might hurt her. Regardless, they were extremely happy and threw a party almost immediately for the happy couple. Harry stayed at the Weasley's that night.

Hermione had begun to reside in her old apartment again. Of course, she did not sleep in her old room, for Severus was remiss to even let her sleep on the other side of the bed let alone that far away from him.  He cherished what seemed to be every moment, positively scared of whether or not he would have her in the future.

They were able to attend happy occasions, especially when Hermione was more than willing to become Florizel Granger instead of herself. She didn't miss out on anything after that, but they did have a strange occurrence on Halloween which put everything into perspective.

It was the night of what would have been the end of the first war and the start of a miserable life for Harry, but instead... it was something much more. Lily and James had called everyone around, and they seemed very excited over something, but Hermione was simply happy to spend time with their friends.

Harry seemed to be very happy zooming around on the broom Sirius had gotten him for his birthday, the little thing quite good for such a small scale item. Hermione was impressed with the magic, even.

"So, I'm sure you're all dying to know why we're here."

Hermione glared at Lily, who cringed unsympathetically.

"Sorry, Zel, but! Harry!"

The boy came to a halt and looked at them with wide eyes.

"What did Mommy and Daddy teach you to say this week for our friends? hm?" Lily said, plucking him from his toy which fell to the ground at its loss of a partner.

"Baby!" He told them excitedly, "Baby! Baby! Baby!"

James took the boy with a large smile, congratulating him for apparently completing his task properly.

"You're pregnant?" Hermione gaped, looking about her in terror. Surely this wasn't how it had been when... certainly not she hoped because that meant that not only had both James and Lily been sacrificed for Harry's life... but also his sibling's. That would explain the reason why Harry was able to live through the killing curse, so many innocent lives had been risked just for him... and a type of innocence that was only found in the womb.

Hermione nearly choked.

"Zel?"

She shook her head profusely, "I'm fine."

"Congratulations, Lily," Severus interrupted, placing his hand gently onto Hermione's shoulder. They did not act like a couple before Harry, just to make sure that one day if Hermione retained only her memory, they wouldn't scare the poor boy in learning that the Florizel man he grew up with who had been with Severus suddenly was his best friend Hermione Granger. Well, they remained hopeful that Hermione would be herself in the future, but they did not dwell upon it.

"Thanks, Severus... we were kind of hoping you'd be the godfather?"

"You mean I don't get to do it again?" Sirius barked, looking offended as he held his own little congratulations toast with James.

"Not this time, this one's mine!" Severus replied snarkly, looking far too pleased to have been asked.

"That's fine, I have the better child!"

Remus threw him a scathing look, "You don't pick favorites, even if they aren't your kids!"

Sirius picked up Harry who seemed more than pleased to get the attention as his godfather huffed in protest, and Hermione smiled at the scene. No matter if things from this future had happened before, she was going to enjoy every moment of it.

-

"What did Remus say?" Hermione bugged Severus the moment she got home from work, her charms dissolved and girlish smile back on her face.

"He said that you fit in like a dream. You were your very know-it-all self."

She rolled her eyes and took him into a hug, "You're a saint for putting up with me now. I'm just glad you aren't my professor, that would make things very weird."

"That it would."

"And you were bloody awful at it," Hermione remarked, kissing his cheek and enjoying the annoyed look she received. His attachment to her over the years had waned off, but he did still seem to cherish as many moments as possible. It was just that if they got into a particularly bad row, he did not care about sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms of their house.

They'd gotten it just after Severus had turned twenty-eight, the apartment slightly cramped as they brought home work and watched their friends' children every so often. It was nice, really, to have the extra working space and place of their own.

But this September first was important to Hermione and she wanted to know everything as she dragged Severus down to their living area, begging for more details.

"Harry was not surprised to be sorted into Gryffindor, and then neither was Ronald. You, however, had barely any idea what was going on, and Harry did not like this. Said you reminded him of your sister and took you under his arm. Popular boy for some reason.

"He waved at Remus with a big grin, seeming rather pleased to see him, but I doubt that will last long once he starts... socializing."

Severus ignored her snort, "And I think your past relationships are going to be okay. A couple changes I was made aware of, however include the fact that with Lucius dead, Draco seems to have landed himself in Ravenclaw, and Neville is a Hufflepuff."

Hermione grinned from ear to ear. She felt bad for Malfoy. His father was dead, his aunt was in Azkaban, and his mother had only recently made up with her sister Andromeda. He barely had any family to speak of, and she knew it had once been like that for Harry.

"Nothing terrible, I suppose. He was always right behind me in smarts, maybe this will push him past me."

"Possibly," Severus remarked, pulling her under his arm and kissing the top of her head.

"Make sure he keeps filling me in, or else I'll go down there and find out myself."

He laughed at her, but she was sure that he knew how serious she was being about it.

"As long as the other you doesn't start dating, I don't care what happens."

Hermione smacked his shoulder, merely glancing over the hurt look he gave her. How many boys had she even fancied let alone dated?

-

Severus stormed into the house that evening.

They'd been having a generally wonderful week, so his demure behavior was slightly confusing.

"Is everything alright?"

He only scoffed at her, rushing past in a flurry of the black robes he'd only recently adopted which made him look more like the old him she'd known too well.

"No," he told her flatly, and she had to hold back a laugh at the directness of it. Obviously his anger was not directed at her.

"And would you care to explain?" She inquired as he rummaged about their home, his entire demeanor a complete mess.

Severus popped back into the room she was seated calmly in and pointed his wand at her. Her smile disappeared.

"You! have just started to accept the courtship of a seventeen year-old Bulgarian brute! According to your ever vigilant professor for the Dark Arts."

Hermione stifled a laugh as he put his wand down and looked at her with utter exhaustion.

"I guess not everything changes with time, does it?"

"You mean this happened before?" He wondered, baffled.

She nodded scarcely, feeling as though she should have told him this before. Still, he was over-reacting just a bit. The new her was still her overall, and she would tire of Krum eventually.

"Yes, but I did not like him the way he did me. It was... simply an infatuation. He lacked intelligent conversation."

This did not sate Severus.

"Remus is having a hell of a time with it, though he is completely overwhelmed by his own jealousy, so he could be over-reacting," he told her factually, but also seeming to want to reason away her currently taken status.

Hermione only shook her head. They were all fretting over nothing! Just because Charlie had happened to encounter Sirius and became a little to friendly with the man, did not mean Remus needed to be putting Severus into a tizzy!

"Why were you with Remus today, anyways?"

"They needed potions to give to some of the students for one of the tasks, which I am sure you are all too aware of seeing as you will be receiving one of them."

"That happened as well," she confirmed, "Lovely."

"If you say so."

Severus wrapped her in his arms suddenly, his body shaking.

"You are really shaken up, aren't you?" She asked him nervously, embracing him back just as strongly.

She heard the hum of his sultry voice and felt terribly for him. It was moments like these where she always thought that maybe it would have been better were she to just have left everyone alone.

"It's... amusing somewhat to think about you being old enough to be with other young children your age... or about it... and then I think of how we slowly and more rapidly all at once approach the moment where you left your last life."

Hermione let out a shaky breath at his words. She did not want to think about that moment, she still hadn't an inkling into what would happen. She hadn't even looked into the matter as she'd said she would a million times. There was just something... some niggle of doubt that kept her from wanting to know because if it was bad news, she wanted nothing to do with that.

"Let's not think about it right now, Severus... I love you, and that's all that matters."

"I don't regret anything, you know?" He replied suddenly, gently stroking the back of her head and neck, his long fingers tangling in her hair. "I'll take any moment I can have with you. If they end... then so be it."

"How about we not think about it? Two-thirds of our options are good!"

He chuckled, and she felt the movement against her own chest. "Always the brilliant one."

They slept in one-another's arms that evening, as close as physically possible.

-

"Oh, you're going to be furious when you hear this," Remus said to her across the table of the small cafe they occupied. It was mid first-semester of what should have been her sixth year, and Remus looked as though he held all the dirty secrets of the world.

"And what's that?" She asked.

As of late, she'd been rather out of the loop. She'd quit her job and begun to do independent research in her home which was rarely occupied. Severus had been piling in money due to wonderfully thriving potions sales, and she wanted Florizel to be able to fade away... there had seemed no better time. They were getting very close to her merging with this new side of her, and Hermione knew so very little about her new self... she was hoping just to learn it when the time came.

Besides, the knowing stressed both her and Severus out. So, they let Remus and the Potters fill her in on whatever it was she was up to in small details.

"Ron is dating Severus' god-daughter."

Hermione's jaw could have hit the table, "Wow, that's... so not how it was supposed to happen. What about Harry and Ginny?"

Remus shrugged, "I don't even think she cares for him. Especially since that isn't even the juiciest details I have for you."

For a moment Hermione felt that he was just a tad bit too invested in the teenage drama going on around him at work. It wasn't as if his own social life was lacking, in fact, Sirius and him kept it very exciting.

"Well," she urged.

"The rumor is that Harry has a hot fancy for Malfoy."

This made a creepy amount of sense to her, and though they tortured one-another in the first five years. Sixth year Hermione had wondered if they were going through a torrid affair Harry din't want to admit. The wonderance had been squashed, however, when he started dating Ginny.

"You need a life, though I do appreciate the details."

"Anytime, now do you want what's going on in your life?"

Hermione moaned.

"I'll tell you anyways," he said impatiently, "Since you and Ron didn't quite work out the year before-" (Hermione was very thankful when she'd learned that) "- You went on to Dean that summer, and then a few other Gryffindor boys. Now... you're currently on Blaise Zabbini-"

"A Slytherin!"

She needed to get a life.

"Oh, yes. He's been a terrible influence on you, too, you got an Excellent on one of your assignments instead of an Out-standing."

Hermione could have killed him.

"Can't you do anything? Like... give me detention and talk me through it... or," she tapered off as he shook his head.

"No can do. You never deserve a detention, let alone give me reason enough to talk to you privately."

Severus would love to hear this one. The only Slytherin she ever wanted was him. He knew that, but there would certainly be some teasing coming from him.

"Good to know my entire social life went to hell."

Remus only chuckled.

-

Hermione looked in the mirror nervously that day. Since Severus had been a good friend to Lily and James and in Harry's life as a positive influence, as well as his sister's, he'd been at Harry's and her own graduation. He'd also seen just how much like herself she'd become. There was a slight difference in her scar, but other than that, Hermione was soon to become only one person. There would no longer be two of her... and she suddenly felt not even good enough to become herself if time decided that she would retain her memory.

Luckily, the new her was single and doing something Hermione was very excited to do once she was her. She was currently interning in the Ministry department of Magical Creatures, and she was so ready to put up a fight to be the best advocate for them that she could be. Her excitement was immense, and since she'd been doing nothing but research for years, it was wonderful to finally be able to be hands-on.

There were plans in place for Severus and herself no matter what came of her waking up as the new her in a few hours. They were sleeping in their home that evening, and when the time came, if she awoke as the other her... then Severus would obliviate her and place her in her apartment where she belonged. If not... they would rejoice, and everything would be okay. Still, her job at the ministry opened up a few good doors that September first, for if she did remember her time in limbo, then running into Severus a lot at the ministry for his monthly approvals of testing and such would be good for their image once they came out as engaged.

If Hermione happened to have both memories, however, they were going to cross that bridge when they got to it. Hermione knew everything would be okay if that was the case, but she also knew that getting memories that she hadn't had before could cause a lot of confusion and mixed emotions. Parts of her could love Severus... and parts of her could not.

She went to bed that evening with the help of a calming draught, her head on Severus' chest and her heart beating through the floor boards.

A/N

This one is extra long because I went ham on writing all these vignettes lol.