Disclaimer: This story was inspired by the Harry Potter universe created by J.K. Rowling. I do not own any of the characters and this was written purely for fun and as an outlet for myself.

This very much diverges from canon at the end of the Battle of Hogwarts at Book 7 so much that I consider it an alternate universe in itself. If it's not your cup of tea, then skip this story, but if you'd like to read something based on several 'what if's', then welcome to my imaginings.

Chapter 1

The battle was over, but somehow the war was not won yet. Hermione supposed it was better rather than having lost the war. In a sense, the Order did win in a small way, managing to reclaim Hogwarts from Voldemort.

No, reclaiming Hogwarts is a big win, she thought, walking through the rubble in the Great Hall. But somehow looking at her school, her favorite place in the wizarding world, reduced to ruins, it still felt like a loss.

The Great Hall was full of people, students and teachers and Order members, all of them wondering what had really happened. Professor McGonagall was by the large dais at one end, conversing with Professors Flitwick and Sprout and Kingsley Shacklebolt. Hermione pressed her lips together, her tired but analytical mind going over the events that happened in the last hour.

Harry and Voldemort had faced off in the Great Hall, circled by supporters from both the Light and Dark sides who stopped fighting momentarily to watch the outcome of the long-awaited duel. It was the climax of the whole war, and when Harry and Voldemort cast each of their spells at each other it was as if the entire Great Hall held its breath. Hermione saw Harry's expelliarmus hit Voldemort's avada kedavra, the dark wizard's wand sailing through the air in a graceful arc which was caught by Harry's deft hands as the avada kedavra rebounded back to its caster. Voldemort had howled in a mixture of pain and rage before staggering back, weakened but definitely still alive, grabbing Bellatrix by the arm and apparating away. Their retreat was followed by the disapparation of the other Death Eaters, and the Great Hall was oddly quiet after their departure. Those left standing did not know whether to cheer or not. They were still alive, but so was Voldemort, and the battle that they thought would be the end of the war was just another day in the war that had been going on for far too long to their liking. The uncertainty had been broken by McGonagall's voice, weary but still crisp, directing the students to help triage those injured and needing healing. After that, the Great Hall became abuzz with the low murmurs of the survivors sorting themselves out, and Hermione found herself looking for Harry.

He was not in the Great Hall, that was certain, and Hermione slipped away, walking to Dumbledore's office, knowing intuitively that Harry was going to be there. Sure enough, she found her best friend seated in front of the former headmaster's desk, his forehead resting on the polished hard wood.

"Harry?" she asked tentatively.

The young man raised his head wearily. "Hermione," he answered. "I knew you would think of looking for me here."

"What happened back there, Harry?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said honestly, shaking his head. "The horcruxes, we got them all, didn't we?"

"We did, unless he made more than we know," she said, sitting down heavily beside him.

"I came up here thinking of talking to Dumbledore's portrait, but I was surprised to find it removed," he said, gesturing to the wall where an empty space was.

"Odd," she said, staring at the space where the portrait should have been.

"Where's Ron?" he asked.

"With his family," she answered. "They are grieving Fred, so I decided to leave them alone for now. But I think they will be looking for us soon."

"I don't know what to tell them," he confessed. "I thought this war was going to be finished today. I wanted to be done with everything today. But you saw Voldemort, Hermione. He's still alive, right?"

She nodded sadly. "He looked weakened, but definitely still alive. We need to meet with the Order soon, see what the next step will be. I imagine both sides will be needing to regroup. I know we dealt them a serious blow too, Harry, taking Hogwarts from them, so we shouldn't feel like everything was a loss."

"You're right, it's not," he agreed. "I just don't feel like celebrating much right now."

"I know how you feel," she said, looking at the Elder Wand in his hand. "So that's it, then?" She said, nodding towards the wand.

"Yes, but I really don't feel like using it," he said. On impulse, he laid his own broken wand on the desk and touched it with the tip of the Elder Wand, muttering reparo and watching in growing delight as his own wand was repaired.

Hermione almost smiled when she saw the expression on Harry's face as he welcomed his own wand in his hand. She had learned to be thankful for little things by now, and she was glad that Harry at least found some comfort in the familiar feel of his first wand.

"What do you plan to do with the Elder wand?"

Harry shrugged, slipping it in his pocket. "At first I thought I should just have it destroyed, but since Voldemort is still alive and my Phoenix core wand seems to have unpredictable effects when I use it against him, Maybe it's better to hang on to it for a while."

"But you know the legend. Whoever holds the Elder wand is always sought after by others in the hopes of defeating him. You really want that target mark on you?" she said skeptically.

"I don't really see any difference as I'm always being targeted anyway," he said wryly.

"True," she murmured, shaking her head.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, allowing the gravity of the situation sink in on them, before Harry moved to stand. "I think we should get back to the others?"

Hermione nodded, getting to her feet as well. "The whole school is a mess," she said sadly.

Harry managed a chuckle. "Figures you would be the one to lament that the most."

She shoved him away playfully as he tugged at her ponytail. They made their way back to the Great Hall, where immediately upon entering they were accosted by Ron. "Where have you two been? I was looking everywhere for you!"

"I went to Dumbledore's office, and Hermione found me there. I just felt like I needed a break away from it all." Harry cast a brief glance around and saw Ginny with the rest of her family. She was being held by her mother, and Harry turned his attention back to his friends. "I need to speak with McGonagall and Kingsley."

"They are over there by the dais," Ron said. "Harry, what happened?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "I saw the curse rebound on Voldemort, but it didn't kill him. That's why we need to get the Order back together."

They walked as they talked, and soon they joined McGonagall and Kingsley by the dais. "Professor," Harry said tentatively when the adults were within earshot.

"Harry, there you are," McGonagall said with relief. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I just... needed some time for myself for a bit," Harry said. "But now I need to talk to you about... Voldemort. I haven't really seen you for a year, you and the Order both, but we've been doing some things on Professor Dumbledore's... Well, he left me some things to do, and it was supposed to work towards finally defeating Voldemort, but that didn't exactly go as expected."

"We will talk about this in the headmaster's office," McGonagall said. "Kingsley, meet us there. Pomona and Poppy are already managing the injured so we are no longer needed here."

A few minutes later found the five of them gathered in the headmaster's office. McGonagall briefly wondered aloud at the missing portrait before allowing Harry to recount their past months hunting and destroying horcruxes.

"I thought that I would be able to defeat Voldemort today," Harry confessed.

"When the spell rebounded on him, it was similar to what happened when you were a baby and he tried to kill you," McGongagall said.

"So he is still alive but weakened?" Hermione said. "But then, how do we finish him?"

"Do you think he may have made more horcruxes when he realized we were destroying his other ones?" Ron asked.

"He might have, though having split his soul into half seven times I don't know how much is left in him to make another one. He would have become very, very unstable," Hermione said, having read more on horcruxes than both of the adults in the room with them.

Kingsley's voice was heavy when he spoke. "As much as we were hoping to put an end to things today, we will just treat it as any other day and continue the fight against Voldemort. We have lost valuable Order members today, but the other side has suffered some losses as well. Minerva, what do you plan to do with Hogwarts?"

The professor rubbed her arm as she thought. "The teaching staff and I will stay here and rebuild. I doubt if we can finish fixing everything by the time September comes, but the school will be open by then to receive those who are willing to continue education. Many families would undoubtedly leave the country for their own safety, if they haven't left already, but Hogwarts will not close. Closing the school would be almost like admitting defeat."

Hermione nodded at this, understanding the older woman. "If you're going to rebuild, Professor," she said, "I would like to help. I need to do some research in the library anyway, and... and I don't plan on returning to my parents' house for a while."

"I would appreciate that, Miss Granger," McGonagall said. "But I'm afraid the dormitories are in poor shape. I suggest starting to fix those places up first before you start with the library."

"Or I could sleep in the library," Hermione said with a small smile. "I won't deny that I will not find that nice."

"True," Harry said wryly. He looked at Kingsley. "While Hermione is doing her research, I will join you, Kingsley, and see about regrouping the Order."

Hermione looked at Ron. "Ron, it's all right if you want to spend some time with your family. When you're ready, you can join me here or Harry and Kingsley."

Ron nodded slowly. "I think I'll head back to the Burrow with them. Mum is very upset, and it would comfort her to see us all around for a bit."

The three of them excused themselves as McGonagall and Kingsley continued to talk about Order matters. At the entrance to Dumbledore's office, the stone gargoyle that stood guard before looked at them lifelessly as it lay on its side. Hermione stopped and looked at her feet. "I need to go to the library right away," she said. She looked up, met Harry's eyes briefly before looking away. "I hate not knowing what happened, Harry. I need to find out what happened and how we can kill Voldemort."

Hours later, Hermione sighed quietly as she rubbed her hands up and down her face several times. Her eyes were getting strained with the dying light of the sun, and the library, what was left of it, had only a few lamps left functioning. More than half of the library was in ruins, torn books lying haphazardly about and tearing at Hermione's heart. The restricted section which contained the horcrux books she was interested in was towards the deeper part of the library and therefore sustained less damage, but she still had to spend a quarter of an hour clearing a spot in one of the corners until she could be comfortable enough to sit and read.

It was true when she told Harry she was eager to find answers to her questions, but the real reason why she sought refuge so eagerly in the library using research as an excuse was to get away from Ron and his questioning looks. She had been avoiding it ever since they shared an impulsive kiss in the Chamber of Secrets, something she was now regretting.

Leave it to me to stop thinking for even half a second and allow that kiss to happen, she thought ruefully, tossing another useless dark arts book into another pile. It wasn't that she wasn't partially attracted to Ron. He was quite all right for a bloke, but the timing of it all... She didn't want to talk or even think about starting relationships at this time.

"I really wish he'd just let go of it for now," she muttered, her voice breaking the silence in the darkening room.

The sound of her voice brought her a little reassurance, but when she stopped talking her ears registered a lingering noise, an echo of a footstep coming from the direction of the library entrance. Quickly, she grabbed her wand-Bellatrix's wand- from the table, standing up and angling her body so that her back was to the wall. "Who's there?" she asked, her voice betraying a hint of apprehension. Had a Death Eater been left behind at Hogwarts?

"You have no need for the wand, I am unarmed and I only wish to speak with you."

The voice was unfamiliar, but it sounded soothing to her and its tone was reassuring. However, Hermione had not spent the last year running from Death Eaters that she was easily lured into false security. Her wand remained raised. "That wasn't what I asked you," she said, her tone biting.

A young man who appeared to be around her age stepped forward, his arms casually raised, palms outward as if to show her he really meant her no harm. "We haven't met yet, so giving you my name would be quite pointless," he said, a terse undertone now evident in his speech.

Hermione took in the handsome face, the wavy black hair and the deep dark eyes. She remembered that face from Harry's memories viewed through a pensieve. Her grip on the wand tightened. "I do know your name," she said, stepping back but meeting the unyielding wall behind her. "Tom Riddle. Or, as you prefer to be called, Voldemort."

His eyes flickered at her words but he kept his hands up and slowly stepped forward to slide into the seat at the other side of the table, keeping the books in between them. "I didn't consider anyone alive today would know the name that was given to me."

"You have given me more than enough reasons to find out things about you," she said.

"Will you put your wand away? I already said I only wanted to talk. Stop holding me at wand tip like I am some miscreant."

"That's a tall order," she scoffed.

He flexed his fingers and her wand flew to his hand after his nonverbal and wandless expelliarmus. She gasped as he twirled the wand almost lazily in his fingers before pointing the tip to her, his black eyes glinting in the low light. "Then I suggest you start working on it," he said, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly in satisfaction as their situation was reversed. He held her at wand tip for a few more moments before he twirled the wand again in his hand and handed it back to her properly. "I did say I only wanted to talk, Hermione."

"How did you know my name?" she asked, reaching out to take her wand back and sliding down into the seat across from him. She figured that if he already had her and wand tip and gave her wand back to her, then he wasn't going to hurt her. Not at this time, anyway, and besides, she was curious.

"I was at Dumbledore's office when you were there both times today. I hid myself with a disillusionment charm when you came in." He rested his hands on the table, his fingers folding over each other. He looked at the books on the table briefly before meeting her eyes again. "Tell me, what year are we in?"

"It's 1998," she answered. "Did you come from the past?" It was a far-fetched idea, but this Tom Riddle sitting across from her looked to be about her age. His first question to her was about the year, which meant that he knew this Hogwarts was radically different from the one he knew from his schooldays. However, that was near impossible. There has been no record of anyone jumping forward in time. There were only spells and magical items to transport a person back, but even then few people messed with time as it was a delicate matter.

"Forward time travel has not yet been made possible to my knowledge," he said. "I woke up in this form a few hours ago in the Chamber of Secrets, right after you destroyed one of my horcruxes there."

Hermione gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "Are you... Are you the part that was in Hufflepuff's cup?"

He nodded slowly. "And the diary. When the diary was destroyed in the chamber years ago, my soul was released. However, I could not gain a corporeal form until tonight when you released the soul from the other horcrux and there was enough magic in the castle that the chamber was able to give me this body."

Hermione's mind was already working. She began murmuring. "Of course, years ago, Voldemort was able to gain a corporeal form but it involved a spell, and... But you, how could you gain a body just like that?"

"I only have theories. But the chamber of secrets has always been a place that is imbibed with strong magic, magic from Salazar Slytherin himself. It is deep within the castle and draws power from the whole castle as well. My only theory is that the chamber recognized me as Slytherin's last heir and found a way to bring me back to this world."

"Unfortunately," Hermione muttered, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. "Now we've got two of you to deal with."

"Yes, I had gathered that much while listening in on you earlier. Unfortunately for you, I have no intentions of being 'dealt with', as you put it so eloquently." He paused at this, and Hermione considered him.

He was the same person as Voldemort, they had the same soul, or parts of it anyway, but this person sitting in front of her was very different from Voldemort as well. Voldemort gave in to rage, to fury, and she was sure that if that Voldemort was sitting in front of her now she would have been subjected to a dark curse. This Tom Riddle in front of her was contemplative, with some restraint, and she could clearly see the intelligence that had made him Head Boy during his time at Hogwarts. Was it because he had more of his original soul within him as compared to the small fragment in the other one? Just how different were they?

"I didn't mean to kill you," she said, belatedly realizing how he interpreted her words and wondering why he wasn't more violent about it. "I just meant-"

"You do realize how horcruxes work, right?" he asked her snidely. "As long as the soul has another fragment existing in this world, it will not pass completely into the afterlife. You mean to say you don't plan on killing me?" He tipped his head to one side, as if mocking her if she had the gall to do it.

"That is for the Order to decide," Hermione said.

"The Order?" He asked.

"The group that fights against you," she said.

"Not the Ministry," he murmured.

Hermione pressed her lips together. Voldemort had gained control of the Ministry before it had even organized a counteroffensive for the Death Eaters, but she didn't want to admit it to the man in front of her. However, he read into her silence, and he smiled. "I see the Ministry has been useless to you," he said. "Which makes me wonder how I was defeated."

Twice, she thought to herself. She was sure he wouldn't like knowing that he had been defeated twice by children. "You, the other you, have made some bad decisions. Underestimated some things."

"Tell me about everything that happened," he said.

"How much do you know?" she countered.

"I remember everything that happened until I made the cup into a horcrux," he admitted.

She sighed, secure now in the fact that he was not going to hurt her. She was useful to him because she knew things he didn't, and he was at least secure also in the fact that she wasn't going to kill him. It was as if they had reached an unspoken truce, and she flexed her fingers around her wand before setting it down on the table, watching him as he eyed her lowering her guard.

"I'm not sure how much I should tell you," she said. "I don't want you to get that hindsight and have another go at taking over the wizarding world."

"Whether you tell me or not, I will find out these things through some other way. Wouldn't you rather choose what I learn and how I learn about it?" he asked.

She lowered her eyes and pulled her lower lip between her teeth. "I can see you can be manipulative," she said.

"Of course, I'm a Slytherin," he said, leaning back now, looking more at ease. "And I would take it you are a Ravenclaw?"

"Gryffindor," she corrected him, not helping the note of pride that crept into her voice.

"Oh, that is unsuspected," he said. "Though it makes sense, with you being involved more in the fighting. When I was in Hogwarts, all Ravenclaws were good for were exams and libraries. I'm assuming they remain so today."

"There are a few Ravenclaws in the Order," Hermione said.

"A few," he pointed out, smiling at her. "My point exactly. Any Slytherins?"

"One," she said, her face falling slightly as she thought so Snape. "But he was one of the best men I have ever known."

He was quiet after that, as if sensing that she was thinking of something sensitive. Hermione forced herself to take deep breaths. She will not allow herself to show him how much the war was affecting her, how bad it really was. Without a word, she stood up, taking her wand and stepping away from the table. She took a few steps in the direction of a broken window and gave her wand a wave, quickly fixing the window. She stepped over to the next window and gave her wand another wave, fixing it too.

"You are good at nonverbal spells," he observed, walking a few paces behind her.

"I'm a muggleborn," she said over her shoulder.

"I guessed as much," he said. "Is society still as discriminatory as before?"

She looked at him incredulously as they continued walking. "Of course. You perpetrated that discrimination strongly and violently." She yanked her right sleeve up and showed him her wound. It was still a little fresh, but the word 'mudblood' was clear to see. "This was the handiwork of one of your best followers."

His eyes widened a fraction, and he caught her wrist before she could lower her arm. He brought his other hand up to trace the wound with a fingertip. "Done with a cursed blade, too. It's reeking with dark magic. I presume you will carry that scar for the rest of your life."

She pulled at her hand, and he released his hold. She lightly rubbed her wrist, willing away the tingle she had felt when his skin had touched hers. Who would have thought that the young Voldemort could have hands that knew how to be gentle? "I guessed as much," she said wryly, repeating his earlier words.

They stopped walking when they saw the library doors. Hermione paused, and regarded him seriously. "What are you planning to do, Riddle?"

He leaned against a bookshelf, crossing his arms. She knew he was thinking, and even as his face was unreadable, she knew that he was uncertain. "I still need to learn everything that had happened, Hermione."

"I will tell you," she said. "But I am tired. It's been a long day, and... Riddle, please. Just not right now."

He was not pleased about it, apparently not used to being turned down, so she hurriedly got her next words out. "Tomorrow morning, I promise," she said. "I just want to rest so badly."

After what seemed like a long time, he nodded. "Fine. I will find you tomorrow morning."