My own twist on the whole travel back in time idea. Hermione is the main protagonist, naturally.

04/17 - I just went through the first chapter and edited it. I have to say, I was all over the place. Hopefully the edit makes the prologue easier to digest.

Making a horcrux does more than grant immortality to the owner. It destroys them utterly and completely. The act of splitting the soul causes irreparable damage to the maker, permanently taking away a part of that person's identity and memories. What is the soul? At least with magic you could be sure it existed, but how do you analyse and understand something that cannot be observed through your senses and whose condition and effects differ from one situation to another? It is impossible to predict what would happen, because whatever law that governs the soul is impossible to observe or understand with contemporary knowledge and technology. The wise often state that some magics should never be played around with, and they are right. Sadly, the ambitious young never listen.

Voldemort made seven horcruxes. The diary. Slytherin's locket. Hufflepuff's cup. Ravenclaw's diadem. His familiar. The resurrection ring. And his arch-nemesis, Harry Potter. To destroy him, it would require the destruction of each artifact, by no means an easy task. Insane as he was, in the matters of magic, few rivaled him. His spells were cast faster and stronger than anyone alive. The rituals that he had undertaken granting him immense power and brute force. This, coupled with his ingenuity and natural talent for the magic made him a formidable foe. The cost of such strength was his ability to rationalize and perceive right and wrong. Perhaps he fooled himself into thinking there was no such thing, and that only power dictated what was right. There is truth to this, but no human can live without a moral compass, and slowly over time, his once great mind eroded into a shadow of what it once was. He was but a shade, fueled by emotion and desire, unable to control himself. What had started as a radical political movement quickly degenerated to petty terrorism and arbitrary violence. He ruled through fear, and it doesn't take a genius to know that fear is no way to rule.

The civil war that erupted quickly divided the magical world and within three years, events spiraled out of control. The Ministry of Magic had long been compromised and even before that had been corrupt and incompetent. Nepotism and pureblooded supremacy had stagnated the magical society and any reform that held the slightest loss of power were shot down. Small wonder that the MoM had been destroyed within the first year. In the absence of a central government, Magical Britain descended into anarchy. Multiple factions stepped forward to take control of the power gap after the fall of MoM, and two factions in particular came into power.

The followers of Lord Voldemort, who stylized themselves as Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix, under the leadership of the golden trio, Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Unsurprisingly, the issue of blood supremacy was quickly abandoned during the second year of war. There was certainly differing opinions on the matter, but neither faction could afford to use that as a rallying point or platform. The Order of the Phoenix never had that to begin with, but the pureblooded faction of the Death Eaters had dwindled to a few handful. Muggleborns, toward the end of the war, outnumbered the purebloods seventeen to one. Entire families had been eradicated, some names lost to the annals of history and memory. As if this was not bad enough, without the presence of a unified government, several magical species began to make a bid for their independence.

Despite all this, the Order of the Phoenix was slowly winning. If anyone even called it such. The longer they stalled, the weaker the Death Eaters became. Voldemort's insanity became even more pronounced, and were it not for his horcruxes, the Dark Lord would have perished on multiple occasions. One by one, the trio hunted his horcruxes and destroyed them. Hermione and Ron were the only two others who knew the last horcrux was Harry. They argued and bickered, trying to find a way of getting around removing the horcrux, which would surely kill Harry. Despite Hermione's bid for time to research a counter to this magic, Harry and Ron went ahead with a daring gambit. They lured Voldemort into Hogwarts by using their double agent and ambushed him. Harry let himself die, believing in his two friends to finish a weakened Voldemort who had no idea he no longer had the protection of his horcruxes.

Out of the three, Harry had always been the most powerful, but it had been Hermione who was the strongest. So it was with little surprise that she dealt the killing blow. The fight with Voldemort was anti-climatic to say the least.

There was no gloating between the three remaining fighters. This fight had been fought over and over and by now there was very little that had not already been said before. Ecstatic at his victory, Voldemort barely put up a resistance. Ron and Hermione hammered away at the weakened Dark Lord who thought his horcruxes would keep him alive. When Hermione's killing curse finally connected, he died without ever knowing he no longer had any soul anchors left in the world. At last. It was over.

Could they really claim victory? Hogwarts had been ripped apart from the fight and the magical community essentially no longer existed. Any method of detecting and tracking muggleborn wizards and witches had disappeared along with the MoM. Communication was difficult, everyone was in hiding and there was no method of open communication. It would be years before people came out, and even then it was nigh impossible to gather them together. Even worse, hundreds of years worth of knowledge was lost. The two major archives in all of Magical Britain had been burned down and destroyed. Wizarding Britain was once again in the dark ages.

"This is ridiculous. What are we hoping to find in the rubble?" Ron spat angrily on the ground. Hermione narrowed her eyes in irritation. "Anything that will help us rebuild. Books. Letters. Hell, even an official ministry order would be nice."

Ron scowled back, but there was hardly any real malice behind it. He was simply used to scowling, even when there was nothing really to scowl at. "I doubt there is anything of worth here. It's all just rubble. I think we should be cleaning up the other factions right now."

Hermione's expression became stony as she stopped levitating stones. "Are you so eager to jump back into fighting again?"

Ron winced at her flat tone and quickly raised a hand in defense. "You know that's not what I mean." He sighed as she continued to stare at him. "I'm just not used to this. Half of me doesn't even believe that he's… actually dead." It wasn't a smart move, as Hermione froze.

Ron instantly paled in realization and slowly backed away. She was mad. The type of mad that meant you were going to get hurt soon.

"Why?" She asked slowly and deliberately, her eyes shining with unshed tears. The calm before the storm. "Mione," Ron pleaded. "Please."

"How could the two of you go behind my back?" As she stalked over to him angrily, Ron cursed Harry for putting him in this situation.

"She's going to kill us." Ron remarked as he leaned against the wall. Harry chuckled and brushed his hand along the scar that ran up the side of his face. "Just you, I'm afraid. If all works out accordingly, he'll be mortal, trapped and weakened. And I'll be … going ahead."

"You don't have to do it this way. We can figure something out. Hermione said she would research how to take a horcrux out of its vessel…" He was interrupted as Harry snarled out his objection.

"No! We both know how dangerous this magic is. She's brilliant, but I won't risk her experimenting with the magic that twisted Riddle into what he is today. I cannot live with myself if she gets injured studying this magic… or worse." Ron sighed in annoyance. "What if we try to trap him? Contain his soul shard and bind it…" He broke off as he realized the implications of trapping a soul shard. What kind of payment would be required?

"At least tell her our plan."

"No. She'd just try and study the magic in secret. You know how she is." Harry's eyes were cold. "Promise me you won't tell her. I won't risk losing her over this."

Ron swallowed hard, wanting to tell his best friend that Hermione harbored feelings for him, but too scared to. "I… I promise." He muttered at last.

Harry smiled softly. "Soon. This will all be over. In truth, I'm tired. I'm so tired of all this fighting and killing." He brushed a hand along broken stone, where once a fierce gargoyle had stood silently watching, only a fragment of shattered rock remained. "Sometimes I think it might have been better if we just let him win. At least there would be a magical world."

Ron growled, and punched him on the shoulder. "First off, you promised us you'd stop pitying yourself. Never look back, that's what pushed us this far, and I won't have you quitting now. Second, you're a colossal prat if you think letting Voldemort win is better than fighting him."

Harry winced, the punch had hurt. Ron's physical bulk was nothing to be laughed at. The redhead looked at him fiercely and the raven-haired wizard gave a wry smile. "Thanks. I needed that." Before Ron could say anymore, the runestone in his hand vibrated and Draco's voice echoed out from the small flat rock. "The trap is set."

Ron felt his chest tighten as he realized Hermione was sobbing. She wailed into his chest, hammering her fist into him and although he barely felt the blows, they struck him hard inside. Hermione had always been the rational one, who never let her emotion get in the way, and small wonder she had become a master occlumens and legilimens in the later half of the war. She had excellent control over herself and Ron could count on one hand the amount of times she had cried openly. He had never seen her so vulnerable, and it hurt him more than any spell ever could. "I'm so sorry Mione. I'm so sorry." He whispered, holding on to her tightly.

"I… I could have … found another way." She sniffled. "All I needed was time. I could have made a receptacle and trapped Voldemort." She was talking faster, she always did that when she felt nervous or scared.

"No! You can't." He said firmly. "Some magics are never meant to be played around with. Harry and I both agreed it was too dangerous."

Hermione snarled at him, pushing him away. "What a pair of hypocrites you are. Willing to sacrifice yourselves, but won't even acknowledge I'm willing to do the same." She was shouting now, all the while tears flowed from her eyes.

Ron was staunch and resolute, bearing her anger like a stone statue. "I'd live with being a hypocrite if it meant it kept you safe. Harry would too."

"You don't get to make that choice for me." She yelled at him. Ron felt like he was being torn apart. She must have seen the pain reflected in his face because she abruptly turned away, suddenly ashamed of her behavior.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lash out at you." She said softly, slumping against a broken piece of stone nearby. She let herself slide down the wall and curled into herself. "I just wish we had more time to find a solution. I'm hurt and mad that you guys went behind my back, but… but… I know I probably would have done the same in his shoes. It's just... Harry's ... dead now." She stammered, her voice cracking slightly. "I didn't even… even tell him..." She trailed off abruptly. Ron didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. Long ago, he would have opened his mouth and stuffed his foot in it. The war taught him a vital lesson. Silence was golden. The void stretched on and on, like a dagger twisting in his gut, when all of a sudden Hermione stood, wiping away her tears. Her voice was steady again, filled with sadness, but determined. "Let's get back to clearing this out. Maybe we'll find something useful."

"Hermione." She looked back at him, expression softening at his pained look. "I'm sorry."

"I know." She said after a long pause. She flicked her wand and vanished a portion of the debris, "I am too."

As they headed back to their dingy little headquarters to break the news to the Order of the Phoenix, Hermione fingered Harry's wand in her pocket. Ron hadn't known the lore of the Deathly Hallows, so he had no idea that they were in possession of the remaining two. Only Dumbledore, Harry and herself knew what it was and she was going to keep it that way. With Voldemort's death, there was now only one person in the world who knew what the wand was. She knew that she should destroy it, but the allure of the wand made her hesitate. She wasn't interested in power, and knowing that the wand amplified certain spells to a degree made it a useful tool, but she couldn't afford to destroy such an artifact. Along with the invisibility cloak and resurrection stone, they were magnificent pieces of magic. If she could reverse engineer them, then the possibilities were endless. They had lost so much in the war, books and knowledge and techniques were all gone. She couldn't bear to destroy another artifact, especially one so powerful and useful as the deathstick.

The wand was a magnificent artifact. It did more than just amplify magic as she had initially presumed, it could naturally overload the spell as well. In any spell, knowledge of what was being cast was required. If you cast the killing curse but thought it was a cheering charm, the curse would completely fail. Not so with the Elder Wand. The deathstick actually negated the need for knowledge of the spell. In the hands of a first year, it would cast the killing curse as long as the wand technique and intonation were correct. It also meant that the caster could use any spell in any field of magic without suffering any loss in power. Devastating in the right hands, and she could see why people coveted the wand.

At first, she had been ecstatic at possessing a wand that enabled her to cast anything she wanted without having to have mastered the spell at all. As long as she knew how, she could. Then she realized what it possibly meant. A killing curse could only be cast if you knew what it did, so for the wand to be able to circumvent the caster's lack of knowledge, it would have to know that the curse it was using was the killing curse. In other words, the wand might be sentient. Dangerous. It was certainly bewitching. Was it a horcrux? She analyzed it and quickly rejected that hypothesis. Having known what a horcrux was first hand, it was clear the wand did not hold an actual sentience in the literal sense. Instead, if anything it was like a computer. Capable of storing immense amounts of data, but incapable of acting upon it. Her initial wariness faded, but she was ever careful to never use the wand too much afterwards.

Ron came to the realization that he loved her. It was something he had known a while ago, but had hidden away deep inside of him. Too scared of shattering their bond, uncertain if she reciprocated his feelings. The war was no time for romance, and he knew he made the right choice. But the war was really over now, and for the first time in a long time, he dared to confront his feelings for the brunette witch. At first, he brushed it off, trying to dismiss it as a fleeting fancy.

Hermione had grown into a beautiful woman, he thought to himself. He was just lonely and looking for companionship. He tried to flirt with some of the others, but he always said something wrong and scared them off. The war had scarred him and left him prone to anger and despair, and nobody seemed to be able to deal with his mood swings except her. She never faltered in the face of his anger and whenever he was lost, she always seemed to know what to do or say. Slowly, his excuses ran dry and he began to sneak glances at her whenever she was distracted. He learned that she had a habit of chewing her lower lip whenever she was unsure of something. That she always pouted in that adorable way when she didn't get what she wanted, and Ron realized he was going to go insane if he didn't say something. Soon.

"Mione?" He asked quietly one day, as they lazed about in the afternoon doing absolutely nothing. She looked up at him quizzically from where she had been writing. Okay, he was doing nothing and she was busy trying to decipher an equation that he did not understand in the slightest. Judging by her chewing of the lower lip, Ron knew she was stuck. Recently, with the loss of so much knowledge, Hermione had decided to write down all that she could remember. Her near eidetic memory helped enormously in preserving general knowledge of magic. The others pitched in whenever they could, but the bulk of it came from her.

Hermione's eyes were a deep brown, he thought to himself. Deep pools of chocolate that seemed to draw him in, trapping him in their depths, and he realized that he had say it. He had to confess his feelings, because it was eating away at him from the inside. He feared her rejection, but he desired her acceptance more than anything in the world. The intense feeling warred inside him and he opened his mouth and closed them soundlessly, at a loss for what to say.

"The others are thinking of maybe sending a patronus beacon to try and search for any surviving families." He quickly looked away, his heart pounding so fast he swore it was going to burst out of his chest. He knew he was being a coward, but honestly he'd rather tango with the Dark Lord than confess to Hermione. At least he knew what to expect come the former.

"Hm, it's an interesting idea. Luna's, I take it?" Hermione asked, and her gaze was unfocused as she began to think of how to do such a thing. "I can see how it would work. An amplification rune for the sound, a muggle repellant ward that would follow the patronus, hm... some sort of automatic locator?" Ron couldn't help but laugh.

"What?" She asked him crossly, annoyed that he was laughing at her.

"Nothing," He choked out in between bouts of laughter. "You're so beautiful when you're thinking that hard." Then he realized what he had said and froze as panic flooded him. "I … I mean…" He stammered, trying to backtrack.

Hermione had frozen, her expression a cross between shock and surprise. "You… I…", she seemed at a loss for words. In less than a blink's worth of time, her expression became guarded and Ron felt his stomach drop as if he were free falling. After a long pause where she looked at him in bewilderment and … was that fear? He turned and left. He could not bear looking at her.

"Dammit." He cursed at himself for being such an idiot. How could he have let his guard down so completely and let slip his feelings for her? He wanted to at least confess properly. But it was too late now. He knew why it was so easy to forget to be careful around her.

He felt safe with her. Simply being near her brought him a feeling on contentedness. She was everything to him, his anchor, his compass and his guide. If anything should happen to her… he would become nothing but a broken clock slowly ticking away to oblivion. He knew he needed her, but she didn't need him. But he had hoped... he wasn't sure what he had hoped...

Unraveling the wand was difficult. There wasn't any particular danger to it, the wand wasn't going to blow up or anything like that, but trying to unravel the magic behind it was akin to trying to move a hundred pound statue without magic or tools of any sort. Nearly impossible. Just like Ron. Hermione felt a different vein of frustration overwhelm her. She wasn't sure what she felt for him. Certainly, she loved him. That was true. But did she love him like that? She knew she'd walk to hell and back for him. That she'd give her life to protect his. Just as he would for her. They were brothers in arm, bound by duty and love, but could she go beyond that? Truth be told, she had once desired Harry. But as the years went by, she grew less sure of her feelings for him. Maybe if he had lived, she would have seen it blossom into something.

Ron was so difficult. Whenever he looked at her, there was a longing, a desire that burned behind his black eyes like the fire from a thousand suns. It scorched her and even though her element was fire and she did not fear heat, she was terrified of the depth and brightness of Ron's love. She feared she could not give him what he wanted, and she would sooner cut off her own limb than pretend to love him the way he wanted her to. And worst of all, she feared that if she didn't love him the way he did her, than they would never be able to talk to each other again.

So she pretended nothing had happened and he did the same and they tried hard to forget it. But everything was different now. She was skittish around him, uncertain and afraid. He was colder, not crueler, but more distant. Afraid of coming closer. Once burned twice shy. In the end, he resorted to using his humor as a shield and she used her projects as an excuse. It was ripping them apart, but neither of them knew what to do.

Luna came into the room one day and frowned at her. "You've got to stop hiding." Hermione pretended she didn't know what that meant. "I'm not hiding. I'm almost finished with the modifications for the patronus." She tried to distract Luna with the patronus, and together they hashed out some of the kinks in the spellwork.

"This is great, once Bill finishes his ward sigils we can start looking for others out there." Luna smiled happily, carefree and light. It reminded Hermione of better days. "But don't think I've forgotten why I came here." She scolded lightly.

Hermione smiled sheepishly. "I had hoped you might." Luna reached out and hugged Hermione. She returned it gently.

"You're the bravest person I know, Hermione." Luna said at last, letting go of the brunette and sitting beside her. "Nothing good comes from ignoring a problem. I would know." The blonde grinned at the older woman and began to run her hands through her soft brown hair.

Hermione hesitated, trying not to think about it and failing. "You're right. I have to do something. Heaven knows he won't." She thought about how stupid Ron could be and how stubborn he was sometimes. Luna giggled and Hermione's face softened. "I'll talk to him." She promised.

She played with magic skirting the edges of her limits, taking apart spells and modifying them, changing swishes to flicks and experimenting with the changes. She knew she was now treading dangerous ground, but she was meticulous in her procedures. There was so much to be discovered about how magic worked and they needed it. Already, several muggleborns had been found, and they were at a loss on how to teach them. They were warriors and fighters, not teachers. So she pushed herself harder and harder, writing all that she could remember from her years at Hogwarts.

Although she had been offered the position of head of the order, she had refused it. She could not afford to juggle so many things at once, and so Ron became the defacto leader and she focused on preserving and recording what she could for future generations. Somedays, she cursed Voldemort for what he had done. So much knowledge had been lost.

But there was a more pressing issue she needed to deal with.

"Ron." He jerked at her voice and turned around with a brittle smile. It hurt her that he was hiding his feelings, but given the past few days it was only to be expected. "I don't think of you in that way, not the same you do." She put it bluntly, refusing to dance around the subject. His face fell and she knew that he was going to run. Quickly, Hermione reached out and grabbed a hold of his arm. "That doesn't mean I can't. I've just never thought of you that way." His expression was befuddled. She laughed softly, and slowly leaned up to kiss him on his cheek.

"Convince me. Show me how to see you in that way. You have all the time in the world, I'm not going anywhere." She whispered softly in his ears and turned around to leave.

Ron watched her leave with fondness. Hermione was the most infuriating person he had ever met, and that coming from the best friend of Harry Potter was saying something. Convince her, he mused to himself. Happiness bloomed like a flower inside of his chest, each petal unfurling and filling him with hope and joy. Challenge accepted.

In many ways, Hermione thought to herself, life has a way of not conforming to what you thought it should. She had feared it would be difficult to see Ron in that light. After all, she had never thought of him like that before. Ron was her best friend, a brother in all but name and blood. Now her romantic interest? Wasn't it supposed to be hard? They had never had time to develop relationships with anyone. The war had seen to that. Perhaps the seeds of desire had been planted long ago and now as the slow realization that Ron loved her more than just a brother dawned, the little seedlings began to bloom. It was the little things, his smile, his laugh, the way he moved, the way he talked. He knew her so well, and she knew him like the back of her hand. It had taken less than a month before she admitted to herself that she liked Ron. Certainly, he infuriated her sometimes, his bull-headedness and insensibility drove her mad at times. But she had long figured how to coax him into seeing things her way. Maybe if … she cut the thought before it fully developed. No ifs. Never any ifs.

The wand's origin made no sense. How can it be that the core was non-identified? The spell she used did not have a setting for non-identified and she knew she had not miscast the spell. Something impossible was going on and she was going to solve it. After dealing with the goblins. Preferably non-violently.

She needed to do a few ritual in order to determine what the Elder Wand ritual in question would help her determine the wand's origin, which upon finding out would quickly lead to a list of possible cores. Unfortunately, the ritual needed some ingredients that could only come from another wand, and seeing how wands were in very short supply these days, she chose to use her own. Initially, she had rejected the whole idea. But nothing was working and eventually she decided to take the risk. Without her wand she would be unable to use her magic, at least not in its full capacity, but with the war over she could afford it. Besides, she had the Elder Wand. If anything happened, she could just use that.

The wand's origin was not death as she had suspected, which meant her initial theory that the wand's core was a thestral body part or a dementor's body part, two of the only magical creatures linked with death, was wrong. The wand's origin was time. It made no sense. How could a wand have for its core something that has an origin with time? Time was a concept that had very little actual material reflecting its nature in real life. The only thing she could think of was the time turner that she had used in her third year. She now knew the theory on how the sands worked, and realized that it wasn't as amazing as she had thought. A closed loop in time meant it wasn't even real time travel.

The wand, however, was driving her nuts. At least one mystery had been partially solved. She now theorized that the wand was able to use any spell because it had a memory bank. Since the origin of the wand was time, it had no doubt been subject to all sorts of spells. Which meant that the wand was capable of retaining and using any spell it had ever cast. The ability to amplify the user's magic was also explained by its origin. The MoM had developed an amplification filter that enhanced the magic cast by a wizard or witch. The reason it had been scrapped? The filter required a full day to enhance the magic required for a simple levitation charm. It was theorized that for a stunner to be amplified, the filter would require up to a year to charge. If the wand had time as its origin, it could circumvent this problem.

Hermione felt excitement well inside her as she inched closer and closer to unraveling the wand. The sheer amount of applications for this technology was endless. Since she didn't want anyone knowing what it was she was doing, she moved her experiments to Hogwart's dungeons. The castle was broken, but the dungeons had not been touched. Slytherin's common room was miraculously intact and she spent most of her time there, testing out theories and experimenting on the wand.

"Marry me?" Ron asked a year after they moved in with each other. He went on bended knee and offered her a beautiful ring made of white gold and inlaid with a diamond. Hermione had looked at him stupidly for all of a second before smiling so widely that she felt her cheeks hurt.

"Yes. Yes. Yes." She was crying, and for the first time since she could remember, they were tears of joy.

She had been able to confirm her theory that the wand had an internal memory bank for spells. She had spell-crafted a new curse, a slight alteration to the standard bone-breaker that made the spell not only break bones but also rend the muscles. The first time she cast the spell, she used occlumency to fool herself into thinking she was casting a stunner. The spell failed. Something that had never happened before in all the time she had been using it. She tested it again, thinking of a shield piercer instead of a stunner. Again, it failed. Heart thumping in her chest, she chose another spell at random and cast the modified bone-breaker. Like before, it failed. She cast the spell perfectly for the first time, and quickly ran through the same drill as before. All three times, with her occlumency firmly in place, the spell succeeded where it had failed before. One step closer to unraveling the mysteries of the wand.

Time was the greatest healer of all. A full year of peace where she pursued her projects of unraveling the Elder Wand and spell-crafting helped too. The rest of the time was divided between helping the order rebuild and spending time with Ron. The war seemed so far away. It was absolute bliss. In a week, they would have their wedding. Everything was perfect.

The end. Just kidding.

Feel free to review and drop some comments, it'd make me a very happy person. And if I'm happy, I write more! Also drop a review if you have questions.

By the by, I'm rather fickle and prone to making changes in the storyline. This may cause some inconsistencies. Your more than welcome to point them out to me, and I'll see about making some adjustments.