AN: AU. Strangeness. Set somewhere in season three, right after Olivia gets back from the Other Side. Mostly canon for Harry Potter, perhaps leaving out only the epilogue. *shrugs* I like alliterations and hope that you do too.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, only a book of sudoku and a blue pen.

A harsh buzzing pierces the heavy silence in a dark room. A body jerks upright, gun in hand and eyes swiveling on the look out for danger. Moonlight spills onto hair, fine strands still bleeding out a lingering red. A display lights up, flashing, and a pale hand reaches to pick up the screaming device.

"Dunham." Curt, short, harsh. No feeling, no emotion, all business.

"You're needed at headquarters. There's something you need to see. Bring the Bishops." A slight pause, before a soft inquiry laced with concern and care. "Dunham, are you sure you want to be back?"

"I'm fine sir. We'll be there in an hour." A click, followed by a sigh. Hands run through long hair, before covering the smallest of sobs. Legs swing out off of a couch, the muscles straining, to leave Olivia Dunham standing in her living room. Yes hers, not the one that she had been tricked into believing was hers, not the one that she had shared with a man who was not her lover, or sat in with a woman who wasn't her mother. There's a black cane in her hand. The initials CF are etched into the handle. Time to go face her worst nightmare.

Pounding on a door. Thumping, followed by a curse, then footsteps padding carefully. A door creaks open to reveal a man blinking owlishly. "Oh! Agent Dunham, what are you doing here? Would you like to come in, have some tea?" Walter queries amicably, smiling out at Olivia. "Peter should be down in just a moment."

A quirk of pink lips, sad eyes crinkle slightly. "No Walter, Broyles called. He said we were needed. Could you get dressed so that we can go?" Her voice is quiet, lacking in the power and confidence that once gave no doubt as to who was in charge.

Walter sees the difference. The broken woman in front of him is more like the young girl he once knew than the fierce agent who ripped him from the clutches of madness and gave him purpose and his son. "Of course Olivia, I'll be but a moment. Won't you come in while you wait?"

She acquiesces, if only so that they can be gone more quickly. She knows that he won't leave her to stand in the cold. She steps inside, carefully, as if her very presence in their home will cause a disturbance that she's powerless to stop.

Feet thunder on the stairs, and there stands Peter; glorious in his bleary gaze, tousled hair and awful glimmer. Olivia whimpers ever so slightly at seeing the sign that alerts her to the fact that Peter, her Peter, was and never has been hers. Of course, he sure isn't hers now. He stayed, whispers the voice in her head. Yes, but he also left you there. Left you to forget who you were, what you had.

" 'Livia." His voice breaks the silence that has crept in between the star-crossed lovers, partners, friends, confidants, whatever the hell they are now.

She flinches, and he winces at her reaction. Once upon a time, there would have been no awkward silence, no horrid tension. They would have smiled at each other, their secret smile that meant so many things: I care for you, I'm here, I love you, I'll never leave you. All that has been ripped from them by the woman who wears her face, and speaks her words, and does her duty to her country and her world.

Walter inches into the silence, shattering it for the moment and leaving them free to breath. She turns on her heel and strides to her car, government issue SUV; a new one, because she couldn't stand driving in the one she had driven in, had smiled and laughed in, had kissed Peter in.

They drive off, the silence still hanging over them, a giant elephant squashed into the space between.

The Fringe team strides into the FBI Boston headquarters, nodding to their boss who is standing there, proud and strong, waiting. Olivia's white hand clenches her black cane as her redheaded elephant follows them into the tight space that is the elevator. She feels squished, enclosed in such a small space with these people, unable to breath under the electricity of Peter's gaze.

Together, the four discuss their latest case as the elevator ascends.

"Three weeks ago, a young woman appeared inside of a secure military base." Broyles starts.

"Why are we hearing about it now?"

"Appeared, say you?" Walter interrupts Peter's query. "Out of thin air?"

"Yes. As I was saying, the military has kept her as a prisoner. She incapacitated a fair amount of the men at the base before almost escaping. She was shot as she was attempting to run. She has been kept at the base and patched up, but refuses to talk. They finally got a hit off of her picture. Her name is Dr Hermione Granger, she's a British citizen."

"Then why do we have her?" demands Olivia.

"Because Dr Granger talked to the General herself, she's currently at a convention in Dubai. It was decided that we were better equipped to deal with the delicate situation."

"You mean we're dealing with an agent from the other Universe again?" Walter is excited.

They arrive outside of a room with one-way glass that reveals a battered and bruised brunette strapped to a chair, head down.

"No." Olivia states. "We're dealing with someone from a completely different Universe, and she's unlike anything I've ever seen before."

Brown eyes snap up, and inspect green eyes that they should be unable to see through the mirror. A hoarse voice rings out through the speakers.

"I will speak to the blond agent."

They sit at opposite sides of the standard interrogation room table. Peter marvels at how alike they are. There's a grace about them, predatory and dangerous, despite their respective injuries. Their eyes, though different shades, both hide death and despair, haunting ghosts and gruesome tales. Their shoulders, though straight, sag under a weight that he cannot even begin to comprehend. They're warriors, and currently they are engaged in a staring contest.

The blond starts. Not losing, but rather conceding that they are evenly matched. "What is your name?"

"Hermione Granger."

"Parents, and date of birth?"

"Doctors Wilemmena and Daniel Granger. September 19th, 1979."

"How did you manage to make your way onto a secure military base?"

"Magic." She says this with a small, bitter laugh. "And any hope that I had left."

Peter is excellent at reading people, or at least he was, a long time ago. He knows, maybe, that everything the brunette just said is the truth.

"Fascinating!" Walter exclaims from his perch. He has been reading over the reports from the tests that they had performed on the mysterious Hermione Granger. "The girl appears to have a genetic mutation that I've never seen before."

"Could that be why she glows?" Olivia queries.

The group looks at her speculatively.

"She glimmers, a different glimmer than the other one, but she also... glows. It's centered around her head, hands and spine." She shrugs, and lapses into silence.

Walter rushes from the room to visit his current test subject.

"My dear, do you perchance know why you glow?" He asks.

"It's still there?" She's bright-eyed and excited. "Thank Merlin." She closes her eyes and sheds pounds from her shoulders. "The glow, Dr Bishop, is the thing that brought me here. It's magic."

"Magic!" Walter states for the umpteenth million time. He is positively marveled. Of course, with what he works with, maybe he shouldn't be. "I hypothesize that this 'magic' is similar to Olivia's abilities, but that the body naturally retains them as it ages. I wonder if when our universe lost the ability, we separated." And he's off, his brain racing far beyond them, making connections and posing questions faster then they all can possibly keep up.

They, is a drab Olivia Dunham, a depressed Peter Bishop, a harried looking Astrid Farnsworth, and a distracted Hermione Granger. The witch is sitting on an examination table, a white hospital gown showing starkly on her bruised skin. She's gazing around in awe at the variety of technology surrounding her.

"Pretty overwhelming, hey?" Peter asks her. Massive Dynamic was awing.

She startles, and turns to look at the consultant. From the corner of her eye, she sees a vicious scowl cross the blond agent's face before disappearing. "Yes. Where I went to school, there was no electricity. They said that magic interfered with the use of technology. My last few years in my world were spent with the bare basics. Much of what we had created was destroyed in the War, and I never had the opportunity to see it. I can't help but wonder how this would compare."

Silence returns to the room, save for the mumblings of a mad scientist and the scribbling pen of his loyal assistant, struggling to keep up.

"War?" It's the first time that Olivia has dared approach the inter-dimensional traveler. They see themselves in each other, and that scares them both.

"Hmm?" Hermione had heard her enter, but hadn't expected the query. She was presently working with Walter to find out why her magic was still as inaccessible as it had been when she first arrived, drained from the passage. She was still technically a prisoner of the United States of America, but she enjoyed keeping herself busy and away from thoughts of her war torn world. Walter was more than pleased to have her intelligence and knowledge to help with cases.

"Yes. You mentioned to Mr Bishop that your world had been destroyed in a war. I was wondering,"

"Was I trying to save it, is that how I got here?" she snaps. "Yes. And I failed. By now, the rest of humanity has most likely died with the rest of life, wasted by the radiation of nuclear bombs which covered the surface of the Earth, seeking to rid itself of that Magic which would have saved it."

"Why?" This is pained. Olivia knows that this could be her fate. Trapped Elsewhere, while everyone she has ever fought to protect dies.

"Because, I wasn't able to save them."

Just as quickly as it had begun, the conversation ends, leaving two broken woman in a lab, each fighting to stay strong.

Hermione is stuck. Never before has she found herself in this situation. Oh, there had been plenty of times where she thought that she was as good as dead, but there had always been options, the chance to fight and go out swinging. Time she could deal with, but this?

These people are fighting their own war, one that she wants nothing to do with, and yet the longer she stays, the more invested in their end she becomes.

Hermione doesn't want to lose anyone else. She knows that if she stays much longer, she may never be able to leave, and she will lose everyone. Harry, Ron, Luna, Neville, Ginny, Minerva, Kingsley, Tonks, Remus. She will lose them forever, and then she might lose these wonderful, broken people too.

Hermione Granger just wants to go home, but she doesn't have a home anymore.

They're sitting together, quietly. The silence is slightly awkward, hanging in the space between empty words that have no purpose other then to try to erase the awful silence. Neither one of them likes to sit. Sitting quietly inevitably leads to thinking, and thinking leads down terrible terrifying paths that neither wants to travel. They are so alike, the two of them. They live each day with the knowledge that the future of their world is laying on their shoulders. They should be able to empathize, but they aren't really very sure how to anymore.

The blond cracks first, she was never meant to be stationary. "I want to hate her."

The brunette with the glimmer and threads that weave and entwine around her cocks her head, curious. Her posture is an open invitation for the blond to continue.

"The other Olivia Dunham I mean. The one who replaced me, and who I replaced. I want so badly to hate her, but I can't. I want to hate Peter too, and Walter and Astrid and Broyles and Rachel and Ella. They're easier to hate then she is. I don't want that." Her voice is pleading, she's asking her companion to tell her that it's going to be fine. That the world will right itself and that she will hate the woman that stole her life.

"Why don't you hate her?"

Not the answer that she was looking for. "Because I was her, I am her. I know why she is the person that she is. I've seen every memory, felt every joy and sorrow. I know exactly what motivates her, and I know that I would have done the same thing if it had been asked of me."

"I see. Olivia," the name is spoken cautiously, carefully, a shred of the woman that the brunette had once been shining through. "You are hurting, and all you want is your life back, but it's been stolen from you and then been given back turned on its head. I think that I'm not the person to talk to about it though. You and I are similar in many ways, but this isn't something that I can help you with. You and Peter need to work this out."

Green eyes throw up barriers. "This has nothing to do with Peter!"

Brown eyes stare back, sadly, but not without compassion. Oh Olivia. "Olivia, this has everything to do with the fact that Peter slept with your doppelgänger, and didn't notice that it wasn't you."

The silence returns, after the slamming of a door. This time without the awkwardness, just a heavy sorrow.

"I don't know where I belong." The statement is tortured and filled with longing. The longing of a lost boy, of a tarnished man.

"I don't know where I belong either. I was born to two worlds, neither of which cared for me. In each I was teased and ridiculed. In each, I wandered looking for my place, only to have it ripped from me every time I thought that I might just be able to rest. I hope that you find yours."

"I thought that I had, but then I lost it due to my own stupidity. I broke her, Hermione." Gone, gone, gone. Everything they had worked for, ripped away. The anguish is almost tangible. It surrounds him and blackens the room.

"Oh Peter. I wish that I could fix it, but I can't."

"What do I do?" Desperate, pleading.

"You forgive yourself. Or you let her forgive you."

A silent swish, and a man is left with only hope.

The sight of the lab that was once the home to Fringe Division is a strange one. Black boards line the walls, covered in the tidy scribbles of a language that does not exist. Tubes boil over fires, and an eclectic collection of scientific equipment, books, and occult paraphernalia litter the many tables. In the midst of the organized chaos stands a young woman. At first glance, she is nothing extraordinary; bushy brown hair pulled back into a sloppy bun with strands escaping and the whole thing practically bursting from its restraints, brown eyes crinkled under furrowed brows, white teeth gnawing on a chapped lip, and nimble hands fiddling with instruments, papers and chalk.

To Olivia Dunham, nothing about the woman standing in front of her is normal. For one she glimmers. Hers is as bright as a flashing neon sign and screams that the woman does not belong. Hers is a different glimmer than the other glimmer though, Peter's glimmer. No, hers is white, blinding in its intensity. But that is not the only unusual thing about this woman. She has a glow, one that covers her hands, threading up her arms and twining around her torso. It flutters up her chest and neck, transforming the mane of hair into a halo. It surrounds her, pulsing, as if in time to the beating of a heart. It is not one colour, but many. Gold and bronze, red and green, blue, violet, yellow and orange. The colours swirl and shift with her breaths. It is beautiful to watch.

Olivia doesn't like it.

Olivia doesn't like Hermione Granger. Probably because the other woman understands her more than anyone else ever has. Or because Peter gravitates towards the witch, pulled like into a black hole, as if the other woman is gravity, and he can do nothing to escape. She's jealous that she can barely be in the same room as the consultant, but that Hermione manages to make him laugh.

No, Olivia Dunham does not like Hermione Granger. She wants her gone. But if the woman leaves, Olivia knows that she'll never find her way back to the man that she crosses universes for.

Hermione has started to despair. With every day that she spends here, in this beautiful broken world with its twisted mirror twin and courageous crumbling heroes, she finds it harder and harder to search for a way home.

She can feel her magic slipping from her grasp, like sand through her fingers. It's always there, but she is unable to hold onto it. With each tick of the clock, she forgets why she is needed back home in her broken world. It isn't easy here, wherever she is. Life is dark, and hope scarce; but she is drawn to them, these people, like a moth to flame. More and more, she finds herself abandoning her notes, arithmancy, and books to lend a hand in the gleaming structure housing Massive Dynamic.

She does prefer the Harvard lab though, which is ever so slightly comforting. Occasionally, she finds herself looking around, as if expecting a cloaked figure to appear in the doorway, calling her into battle, or to a meeting, or for supper.

And so time passes, and she finds herself making subtle jokes with Peter, assisting Astrid with Walter or baking, getting caught up in discussing the good doctor's insane theories, and helping Olivia. At least she thinks that she's helping.

Every night, she returns with the blond agent to her new apartment. They sit in the dark, glasses of whiskey in hand, frightened to sleep lest the nightmares come. Oh, the nightmares. Screaming faces, help, help us, why aren't you helping us? All faces that she knows. Some that she saw die, some she found dead, some she's watched come into the world. And Olivia's; no, Peter please, Rachel, Ella, please let me go, leave them alone!

The screams echo in their heads as they cling together in a dark living room. Hermione knows that Olivia wishes Peter were there. She isn't sure anymore just who should be in the room with her.

The names Harry and Ron are becoming foggy shadows in the recesses of her mind.

Astrid likes her, this mysterious and damaged woman who has found herself in their midst. She knows bits and pieces about her, only what has been mentioned in passing. She's good company; a reprieve from Walter's babbling, Peter's brooding, and Olivia's broken frame. Her insight on cases has also been wonderful.

Under the slight smiles though, Astrid senses pain beyond imagining. She doesn't dare ponder what it must be like to be ripped from your world and thrown into a inter-Universal war. Although there must be more to this woman. Her stance is rigid, like that of a soldier and not of a scholar. Her intelligence is enough to rival many of Massive Dynamic's top scientists, even Peter, and maybe Walter. She's often found somewhere in the building, reading texts, asking questions, or giving advice. Then, there is the magic. Most days, Astrid doesn't believe it, despite everything that she has seen. But, there are times when she can feel it radiating. A warm glow in the chilly labs, or a harsh crackle, like lighting.

There is also the look in her eyes. The same one that if you look carefully, shines from the green orbs of a certain Cortexiphan test subject.

She scares Peter, mostly because she knows too much. When she looks at him, he feels as though every thought and memory is on display, and that he has failed a test.

He knows that she's so alike Olivia that it's terrifying, the similarities. In many ways, those two are closer than his Olivia, is she even his anymore?, and the Other are.

He cares too much, he notices too much. She barely sleeps or eats. She doesn't laugh. She bites her lip when she's thinking. She doesn't like loud noises or sudden movement. She walks like a big cat; carefully stalking, waiting to pounce. She and Olivia can communicate without words. Walter adores her. She's brilliant.

Someday soon she will leave. He doesn't know if they'll recover when she does.

He doesn't want her to leave. She's the only way he might get Olivia back where she belongs. With him.

Walter knows something that the rest of them don't. She was trying to go back, back in time, when she made the jump. He knows that her calculations were perfect. He knows that something brought her here, to them.

He forgets, and asks Apostrophe to fetch him some Red Vines.

He wonders at the feeling that has invaded his body. It's hope.

Olivia comes home, is it really home?, one day to find a paint splattered Hermione, and a red kitchen. She stops in the doorway to the apartment, shocked.

For the first time, she sees the blood rush to the other woman's face as the witch blushes. "Well," she tries to sound matter-of-fact. "I like red. I thought that it was time to personalize the flat a bit."

Olivia says nothing, just raises her eyebrows. "Fine, just no yellow."

Hermione nods, she can work with that.

So, for the next few days Olivia walks in, only to find her bathroom a sea green or her hall a warm brown with gold geometrical shapes.

With each day, Hermione imprints herself into every aspect of Olivia's life. Slowly, the blond agent begins to heal, and finds things that are hers, and hers alone.

Neither likes to shop, so when Astrid drags them out, they go grudgingly. For a day, they pick out furnishings to replace those that Olivia had sold, or trashed as was the case of her bed. They try on clothes, the Bureau paying for new wardrobes for the both of them. Olivia still chooses her muted whites, greys and blacks, but she is surprised to find a few bright pieces are mixed in. Hermione sticks with traditional trousers and sweaters, she's always cold here and her many scars are a gruesome sight, but she feels more at home in her Gryffindor red and woven woolen jumpers.

When they go out for dinner afterward, they both eat. Astrid leaves them at home with hugs, cookies, groceries, and the faint whiff of vanilla comfort.

The case is gruesome. Bodies ripped to shreds, barely identifiable. Also, the looming threat of the Secretary and the questions brought on by the appearance of the Observers.

Hermione doesn't tell Olivia about the bald man with no eyebrows that told her she was here to help bring balance. She figures that the other woman doesn't need more to think about.

They sit together, huddled under heavy blankets that the witch insisted they buy. The Discovery Channel is on. They lose themselves in flickering pixels, drowning out the dreams with whiskey.

Neither ever mentions again that they fall asleep, arms around each other. Little girls holding one another in the hopes of staving off monsters.

Heated looks. Hermione notices them. They sizzle, burning the air between the kick-ass FBI agent and her sidekick consultant. It's been a long time since looks like those have slithered around her; Harry and Ginny, Ron... She shakes her head, and smiles at Astrid.

Walter, unusually, is oblivious to the tension between his son and Olivia. He is happily puttering around his white lab, muttering and waving Red Vines.

"Well," she states. "I'm off, back to Harvard. Walter, are we still on for tonight?"

"Hmm? Oh, of course my dear. Don't forget, you're on drinks duty this evening."

"I won't." She pulls on her coat and brushes past Olivia's perch by the door.

As she leaves, she hears Peter ask Walter, amused; "What do you do every Tuesday evening Walter?"

The old scientist chuckles. "Why, I cheat woman out of their money of course!"

"We play poker with some of Massive Dynamics scientists, Peter." Astrid translates.

"Ah."

When she creeps into the flat in the early morning hours, her head is filled with smoke and laughs and numbers and patterns. She hears a giggle and a moan as she trips over shoes and discarded jackets. She curses, then smiles, and tidies the hallway as she goes by.

She falls asleep to breathy names and rustling sheets.

The heavenly aroma of coffee permeates the room, her nose twitches under the curtain of brown locks that obscure her face.

"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty."

Hermione jerks her head up off of its wooden pillow in the lab. She'd stumbled in after a few hours sleep wanting to try out a theory. She hadn't gotten past the desk. "Does your girlfriend know that you flirt shamelessly with other woman?" She queries, dryly, as she reaches for the sweet temptation that her alarm clock is holding.

"What?" He's spluttering, unsure as to how she knows. After all, he and Olivia had just reconciled, returned to where they were going before.

"Oh. I suppose that you didn't hear me last night when I stumbled in, probably slightly high from the fumes of whatever it was that Walter was smoking. You must have been making too much noise. Now I know how to surprise you if I ever need to kill you." In the past, she never would have been this brazen, but that Hermione Granger is long gone.

Peter is left, speechless, as she downs her coffee.

Olivia walks in. "Hey, I didn't hear you come home last night. Oh." She looks up, and blushes as she sees an embarrassed Peter and a laughing Hermione. "I'll just be going." She turns around, and walks back out.

"Aren't you going to follow her?"

Peter sprints out after his blond lover.

She's laughing, when the world lurches and her coffee drops.

"Who is she?" Whispered words.

"Shut up Padfoot, you're going to wake her."

"Should we go get Minnie?"

"Are you crazy Pete, she'll kill us for being out!"

"Well, we can't just leave her here."

"Remus..."

"Hullo?" Her voice is husky and confused. Four pairs of eyes are peering over her; grey, gold, blue, and hazel. She sits up, startled, to find herself on stone.

The four boys jump back.

"Oh, no. Please, no, I want more time." Standing in front of her are a young Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and James Potter.

She had completed her first task, it was time for her second one.

In another Universe, Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham gasp as they separate to head off to Massive Dynamic. Unbeknownst to them, the lab that they just left behind is now empty.

It will be a day before they realize that Hermione is gone.

Ella will spend nine months asking for her. Walter will just smile and wish her the best, before forgetting and asking for some ice cream. Astrid will bake cookies. Peter will pull Olivia to him as she stares at her rainbow walls, and asks him silently if they can name their daughter Hermione. Because, Olivia now has hope for the future.