Better than Time Turners

Surprisingly positive turnout for the last chapter, thank you to all the readers, it really provides a drive for me to do better. Anyway here's chapter two, enjoy.


Harry awoke the most wonderful humming while his hair was being brushed off of his face.

He could tell that he was lying on his four poster bed in the Gryffindor boy dormitories, something he hadn't done in the past year seeing as he was on the Horcrux hunt. It was also something he never thought he'd be able to do again, since he had seen with his own eyes, Hogwarts being sucked into a transdimentional rift. The hands that held his were the only things stopping him from screaming. He calmed himself and slowly opened his eyes.

There, just as he suspected was the goddess from before, she was sitting on the edge of his bed, still humming the unknown tune.

"Surprised? Harry?" she smiled, lighting up the room as her wings grew brighter.

"You could say that, care to explain miss…?" Harry trailed off, waiting for an answer.

"Oh don't be so formal Harry,any child of mine can call me whatever they like" she laughed and it was like he was hearing a phoenix song mixed with an orchestra of angels. Harry felt his heart lifting and something close to a smile forming on his lips.

"Never mind my name, it's irrelevant for now but I wasn't kidding when I said you better let go of formalities Harry" her eyes flashed mischievously as the blue contested with the green, leaving specks of every other colour in the spectrum to float around in her perfect orbs. Harry couldn't help but stare.

They say that eyes are the window to the soul. Harry had always understood that statement better than anyone else, and once again he was reminded why. Every single flicker and swirl conveyed something new. He was completely transfixed as he deciphered the meanings.

That was when he understood.

This being in front of him wasn't just a goddess, that word didn't even begin to describe her. He could feel her power, even though he could tell she was suppressing it, it was still infinitely more pure and potent than anything Voldemort had ever achieved. The magical world had been searching for the source of magic since the beginning of time.

He had just found it.

"I thought you might figure it out Harry, it's good to see Hermione's rubbed off on you somewhat" she said, lighting up the room with her ethereal glow.

"This is the boy's dormitory in Hogwarts right?" Harry surveyed the room, noting all the drawn privacy screens.

"Yes that would be correct" she replied nonchalantly whilst opening a curtain to reveal that it was pitch black outside, likely just after midnight.

"So, how am I back here?" Harry said slowly, being careful to pronounce every syllable perfectly, as if afraid it would go away if he got a single word wrong.

"That's quite simple Harry, why don't you take a look at yourself first" she giggled and looked away muttering something about the time.

Harry looked down. His body seemed to be much smaller then he remembered it being, he could have sworn that it was almost a carbon copy of what it had been at the end of third year. The only difference was that he had much more muscle mass than he had back then and he couldn't see any hints of the malnourishment he had suffered from the Dursleys. Even more confused he looked back up.

"What do you know about time travel Harry?" she sat back on his bed and waited.

"Well, it's extremely dangerous as you can create paradoxes and time loops which can result in changing the world completely. If you go back you have to make sure not to see your past self as it will make them cease to exist and you'll have erased yourself from existence" he rattled off quickly and seeing her amused look he finished sheepishly "Hermione told me that".

"Of course she did" she laughed and shook her head "and yes you are correct on all of those points. When it comes to Time Turners" she put the emphasis on Time Turners.

"Now, what's happened here is different. Whereas with Time Turners your future self goes back and it's a separate entity from your past self, what we've done is merged your future and past selves into one. It's a much less risky and more permanent form of time travel" she explained while drawing circles labelled 'past' and 'future' coming together in the air "that's why while your body is about the same size as it was back at the end of your third year, it's just as healthy as your body that defeated Voldemort" she pointed to his chest.

Harry had been suspecting something along those lines, but hearing it said aloud drove home the significance of what had happened. His mind went into overdrive trying to process all the information he had just been given.

"By bringing the three Hallows back to me" she paused "you've given me a conduit that allows me to manifest in this world in my original form again, allowing me to intervene" she waved her hand and fireworks shot out, exploding into a wide array of colours.

"So I was able to help you Harry. You've never been able to see it but I have been with you since your birth. First it was your parents, then Cedric, Sirius, Moody, Fleur, Neville, Hermione, Luna, Daphne…I've had to see your pain so often Harry, and it's heart breaking every single time" drops of light formed in her eyes and slowly trickled down her cheek, falling onto his right hand and immediately he felt something rise within him.

It was similar to casting a Patronus but it was infinitely more powerful as his body started to shine a brilliant white, then gold and then violet. After a few seconds the glow left but the charged feeling didn't. It was still flowing through his veins and he could have sworn he literally had magic sparking at his fingertips.

"You should find that you've gained additional abilities, I know it's not much but it's my way of aplogising for how you were treated Harry" she said, a little downcast.

"Don't be like that, you couldn't have done anything about it" he hesitated before awkwardly patting her on the back. How do you comfort the most powerful being in the universe?

It seemed to work though as she raised her head and he saw she had that beautiful grin on again. Seeing her smile made him feel accomplished, and this time he found he was returning it without even thinking about it.

"Ok" she said after a moment "I'm not going to tell you what to do, this is a fresh start for you and I know you'll do what's right. I am going to watch over you though so that nothing goes horrifically wrong, but I doubt you'll need me. As for your three lady friends you'll have to bind their souls to their younger bodies if you want their help, I could do it but I thought you would have liked to instead" she reached into her cloak and pulled out a golden thread of light about half a metre long. On closer inspection Harry saw that it wasn't a single thread, it was four bound together, each one periodically pulsing a different colour, before returning to their original golden sheen. He felt a deep connection to all of them.

"These are what you might call your souls, they're your link to me. As you can see they're bound together willingly and are the fabled 'soul mates' which you all speak of. The condition of the thread represents the condition of the owner. The brighter they shine, the more healthy the owner is. If it starts to fade that means the owner is dying and when the owner is deceased it loses all of its colour and becomes dull. Here you'll see that the three that are bound to yours are faintly pulsing with their own light. This is because in the case of soul mates all members have to die before any truly move on. In other words the three girls Hermione, Luna and Daphne are with you in soul and essence" she pointed to the hazel, silver and blue threads respectively.

"As I said before the killing curse severs the soul from the body and even I can't bring them back. That still holds true but" she gave a smug smile "this isn't the body that was cursed so I can" Harry started to feel numb from what she was saying.

"Now, all you have to do is to fuse their soul to their bodies in this timeline, I'll explain everything else once you've done that, clear?" she asked, looking intently at the unmoving boy. Without so much as a nod of acknowledgement he suddenly jumped out of the bed and dived down the stairs to the common room five steps at a time. Seeing the sight made her chuckle as she disabled the Glisseo charm on the Gryffindor Girl dormitory stairs and magically put the other occupants of the tower into a magically induced coma before apparating onto Privet Drive. Her attire quickly becoming obsidian black and the hood coming over her face. The temperature around her dropped to negative ten degrees Celsius as her wings became bones again. It was time to for the Dursleys to meet their maker. Literally.


Unaware of this Harry rushed up the stairs to meet the girl who had taken the killing curse for him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was kicking himself for not asking how he would accomplish his task but that part was quickly covered by his uncontrollable excitement.

He ran into the girl's dormitory and immediately tripped over a trunk. Before he could stop himself he fell into a bed. An occupied bed.

"Crap". To his horror, Harry realised he had landed on Lavender Brown who no doubt would start screaming. Resigned to his fate, he closed his eyes and waited for his eardrums to break.

"Harry? How did you get up here?" a familiar voice yawned. Harry froze.

"Why are you in Lav…" Hermione cut off abruptly and he looked up. Her mouth was half open and her eyes were widening. Before he could say anything she ran down the stairs. Cursing his own stupidity, he followed, neither noticing that Lavender hadn't even woken up.


"Why am I surprised? He could have anyone he wants so why would he pick me? I'm just the know it all bookworm he befriended for grades. A real friend would be happy for him. The fantasy was too good to be true after all" Hermione slowly came to a stop as she collapsed to her knees, tears flowing controllably.

She had sprinted all the way out the gates and had gone in a random direction without paying attention so she doubted that Harry had any idea where she was.

It was less than ten seconds before she noticed that she was in front of the Great Lake. In a great bout of misguided Gryffindor courage she staggered to her feet, body numb and rational thought gone. Her sole purpose, to end the pain.

It was in this state that Harry finally found her, too far away to intervene. Seeing what she was about to do made his blood turn to ice.

"NO", desperation reaching critical levels he didn't even notice his right hand light up as he appeared within a metre of her in a flash of white flame. Without even batting an eyelid at what had just happened he embraced the grieving girl from behind. She stiffened before her legs failed as she fell back into him. Caught off guard, Harry fell onto his back with the brown haired girl on top.

"Oof", Harry quickly breathed in and out, slightly winded.

An instant later Hermione realised what she had landed on and quickly rolled herself off.

"Harry! I'm so sorry, are you ok?" tears threatened to escape again as she looked down at him, eyes brimming with concern.

"Hermione it's alright, I'm not hurt at all" Harry tried to soothe the hysterical girl as she checked him over for injuries.

"This is all my fault, some Gryffindor I am, I always need you to protect me, I'm too weak…" Hermione grew increasingly agitated, deaf to his words. He needed some way to get her to stop talking, some way to listen. He did the only thing he could.

He kissed her.

She didn't respond initially as she tried to understand the sensations that were wracking her body. She hadn't been expecting to be kissing the love of her life, it had always been an unobtainable dream to her and she found herself unable to think of what to do. After a moment she stopped trying. For the first time in her life she let her heart lead the way.

She melted against his lips.

Far away in the Dursley household Death felt a rush of warmth as a black portal opened on the street outside, a golden beam burst out and launched directly upward. The three bound Dursley's looked even more terrified and whimpered. She smiled, glad that he had succeeded in his first task already.

Hermione was in a daze.

Pleasure pulsed through her body as she felt her very being light up with something she had never felt before. She shuddered as she felt him bring her closer, the warmth of his body pressing against her heightening the sensations she was already feeling. The doubt and insecurity she had felt before were quickly melting away and erasing themselves from her consciousness. Everything about the moment was perfect and she knew that he felt the same.

Harry was surprised.

He couldn't understand what was happening. He still remembered his kiss with Cho but it was nothing like what he was sharing with Hermione. Every movement she made caused him to gasp inadvertently. The only thing anchoring him to consciousness was the feeling of her lips and body. He held on even tighter.

The golden beam descended, landing on Hermione.

The night sky lit up in a kaleidoscope of colours as the glowing girl vibrated with power. A full minute later the light finally disappeared, the two lovesick teens hadn't bothered to move the entire time, opting instead to deepen their kiss further in celebration.

Hermione Jean Granger had returned, and Harry's heart had recovered one of its three missing pieces.


Inside Hogwarts two girls awoke. Both knew something had changed and both felt a strange sense of excitement. Neither had ever come into contact with the other before but both opened their eyes in synchronised motion, one in the towers and the other in the dungeons. An overwhelming desire to go outside assailed them.

Daphne was confused. What had happened? There was absolutely no reason that she should go out after curfew, yet the burning desire in her heart told her to disregard that and move. She cursed herself. She had always prided herself on being able to control her emotions and not do anything rash, yet here she was, restraining herself from leaving. She took deep breaths as she set about convincing herself. Eventually after a long argument with her intuition, common sense won out and she returned to bed. There was always time tomorrow after all.

Luna felt a smile on her face. She wasn't surprised; it was a pretty ordinary expression for her after all. She could tell that something was different though and the Snorkacks told her that it was connected to what had just happened outside near the lake. That was all the justification she needed to leave and she skipped to the door.

It wouldn't open.

Before she could ponder why a glimmering white figure appeared beside her, gentle smile gracing her features.

"You're Aedifex" Luna mumbled as she felt her eyelids droop, being apparated onto her bed once again.

"Trust Luna to know my name" the goddess muttered as she put the blankets over her.

Aedifex stayed there for a while, watching the little blond lose consciousness, chuckling at how accurate her predictions were. She had guessed that Daphne would stop herself by force of will but knew that Luna would not. Not because she was weaker, but because she was more of a free spirit than Daphne. While Daphne was bound by her reputation and responsibilities, Luna didn't have any such restrictions. She had always been different from others and they found that difficult to understand so they singled her out.

Luna took it all in her stride however and gave no consideration to what others thought of her. Aedifex found that this made her proud of Luna and extremely disappointed in her antagonists. No one should have to deal with that and if it wasn't for the fact that Harry would want to be the one to talk to them, she would have approached them already. Finding it difficult to control her anger she kissed Luna's forehead and prepared to leave for the lake.

"Harry, we have to bring them back as soon as possible" Hermione said, finally pulling away from Harry, lips swollen and face flushed. Harry, in the exact same state took a second before replying.

"First of all, how long do we have until the end of this year? "Harry asked as he looked longingly back at the castle.

"It's Wednesday on the final week" an extremely familiar voice came from behind him as the air grew clearer and the lake started to shimmer.

The goddess had returned.

"Ok so if it's the last week we'll bring Luna and Daphne back before we leave for the holidays and we'll try to spend some of that together. After we come back I'll make sure to stop Cedric from going to the graveyard and capture Peter while I'm at it, that way we can also clear Sirius's name and then work on taking down Voldemort from there. How does that sound?" Harry said after thinking for a moment.

"We'll have to add to it later but it'll do for now" Hermione replied, pressing her face into his chest.

"You two look tired. I've slowed down time temporarily so go get yourselves some rest" Aedifex cut in and without another word apparated all three of them into the Gryffindor common room.

"I guess I'll see in the morning then?" Hermione approached Harry with a gentle smile on her face.

"Hasn't been a minute and you're already missing me?" Harry teased with a mischievous grin.

"Prat!" Hermione was about to say more but Harry quickly cut her off with another passionate kiss.

The moment forgotten, Hermione melted into his embrace once again.

Aedifex watched from the sidelines with a raised eyebrow and an amused smirk, trusting them to keep it quick.


It was ten minutes later when she finally forced them into their beds and locked them inside their dormitories.

"Teenagers" the goddess scoffed as she stepped outside once more and breathed in deeply.

"They won't notice if I'm gone a couple of hours" she thought to herself as she glided her way forward, flowers and fresh grass forming a path behind her. It was time to enjoy the world she had created.


Not sure about how this one turned out, if there are any ways you can see for me to improve please don't hesitate to tell me. As always feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading.