Author's Note: A warning to those of you about to read this that, one, this is a side fic to the very AU fanfiction "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" and if you haven't read at least part of that you'll be more than somewhat confused, and two, that this is NOT CANON to that story.

Almost immediately Lily felt out of place, true she'd agreed to do this, had felt almost responsible for everything, but all the same she felt it. She didn't belong in this house, far too similar to the Dursley's house for comfort, only their pictures of Dudley were still empty, Hermione still erased from inside by either Quirrell or else the ministry of magic.

She was sitting on the sofa, in plain sight of the rest of them, but to them she was no longer sitting there at all and perhaps did not even exist. They were hugging, crying, asking how could they have possibly forgotten and Hermione was crying and truly smiling for the first time in a very long time.

And Lily was just sitting on the couch, a cup of tea in her hand, thinking about how she'd never realized how there were places she didn't fit. When she'd lived with the Dursleys, inside the cupboard, she hadn't realized there was a world outside of there. Well, she had but it hadn't sunk in. She hadn't been back for some time though and now, just by sitting here and drinking tea, she knew that she no longer could. That perhaps Lily had always been out of place there, just as she was here, uncomfortably in a state of non-beloning.

She found herself looking at Hermione Granger, who suddenly seemed so much younger than she had looked only an hour or so ago, like all the misery had been stripped from her leaving a fresh new Hermione in her place. What would Hermione do now? Would she fall back into her old personality, would she put her faith back into all those old authority figures who had failed her and go back to Hogwarts like nothing had really happened? Because in a way Lily had undone everything for her.

She'd undone Hermione's broken hands and now she'd undone the final ramifications of Quirrell's actions. Making it seem, for Hermione at least, like that fateful night in December might not have even happened in the first place.

Except that it had happened, and Hermione shouldn't run from that, because the problems didn't really go away. Sure, the symptoms were now gone, but Quirrell still existed somewhere, probably, and it didn't change the fact that she'd been a pawn in a game that she didn't understand and could expect to be a pawn again. And maybe next time Lily wouldn't be conveniently around to fix everything.

"Does it really bother you that much?" Wizard Lenin asked, surprising Lily out of her own musings, she kept watching the family now caressing Hermione's face and asking her everything that had happened and telling her how much they loved her.

In a way, it sort of did. She didn't know exactly why, maybe because she'd never had that easy closeness with anyone, maybe with uncle Death but even then… Even then things were more complicated than that.

Maybe that wasn't entirely it though, maybe it was just getting to her because now Hermione didn't have a reason to think about Quirrell anymore, or really hate Dumbledore. Hermione could go on with her life and go back to being the only Hogwarts student who'd ever managed to memorize Hogwarts A History. Now it was just Lily's problem.

It could also be that moments like this always brought up Dumbledore's ineffable love speech about the Dursleys which she still didn't entirely understand and never failed to give her a migraine but that probably wasn't it either.

The fact that Wizard Lenin wasn't even that irritated over the mention of Dumbledore went a long way to prove it.

"You remember that I was an orphan." Wizard Lenin commented, almost out of the blue, since he rarely talked about his past and even then he talked about his childhood even less. Being a poor orphan wasn't necessarily something that Wizard Lenin was proud of.

"There was a time, I think all through my adolescence, where this would have bothered me as well." And there was a flash of something then, of bombs in the city, of looking out the window and seeing families walking down the street, of the couples that would come to adopt and then hesitate over him before moving to whoever was next, and then there was a darker image that was strangely blurred of a man that looked almost like Wizard Lenin, standing in the doorway of a great and elaborate house.

Her situation was a little different from that but all the same, he understood exactly what she meant, that he too did not belong in this suburban house with this loved and remembered child.

She didn't regret it, it had to be done, and when Hermione had asked there'd been no real thought of saying no. All the same though, that didn't mean she was enjoying watching it unfold before her.

"Well then, there's no point lingering here, is there?" Lily asked and dematerialized the tea and cup, turning it back into the air and the wood of the table, she stood, a ward of disinterest hanging like a cloak over her shoulders.

Lily walked to the doorway and spared them all one last glance before stepping out into the suburban daylight.

Author's Note: I just couldn't do it, I just couldn't make this a completely happy scene, it seems to be beyond me. At any rate for the 2400th review of Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus by Random number generator who asked for a fic where Hermione successfully reunites with her parents.

Thanks for reading, reviews are always appreciated if you wish to leave one.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter