Jul 22 1999
Tick tock.
The busy, hustling ticking loaded the chamber like thousands of minuscule, marching footsteps. Every kind of clocks—large and small, grandfather and carriage—was hung in spaces between the bookcases or standing on desks ranging the length of the room. Clocks could be found on every surface. At the far end of the room, a huge crystal bell jar erected on a table, darting beautiful, dancing, diamond-sparkling light all over the place.
Inside the jar which appeared to be full of billowing, glittering wind, a tiny object rose and fell on the current, moving through an endless loop. The object was a small hummingbird. At the bottom of its circuit, the bird was within its egg. As it rose, it hatched and grew into a mature bird by the time it reached the apex of its cycle. On the way back down, it became a fledgling bird then re-entered its egg, which reformed around it, before everything repeated all over again.
The bell jar never failed to mesmerize her. Hermione could stare at the life cycle of the bird all day. Her chocolate eyes reluctantly shifted from the jar and landed on the large glass-fronted case standing against a wall. Hourglasses of various sizes and colours dived from the shelves before they soared back to where they'd been in mere seconds ago, replaying the movement. The magical devices were trapped in an infinite loop of falling over, un-falling, and then re-falling, in an endless cycle. The turbulent Time-Turners were what she came here for.
Since the defeat of Voldemort, Hermione had worked for the Ministry at the Department of Mysteries. Told by its name, it comprised loads of mysteries. Employees of the department were forbidden from discussing or disclosing any information about their duties. Little was known about their workplace, and even less was known about their jobs, the name "Unspeakables" was granted to the workers at the incomprehensible division.
As an Unspeakable, Hermione couldn't divulge any detail of her jobs to anyone, even her best friends. Ron, being the gossipy man, always tried to trick Hermione into spilling confidential information, however with her mouth professionally zipped up, she never granted him any detail. Violating the personnel regulations of her job was the last thing Hermione would do.
The plummeting tiny machines derived every ounce of attention from Hermione. Time-Turners were rare in the Wizarding World and they couldn't be easily replaced. During the Battle of the Department of Mysteries in 1996, the full stock of Time-Turners in the Ministry had been rendered useless—not destroyed—just unusable. It'd all happened due to the way one of them had fallen at the moment their counter had been knocked over, they're trapped in an endless loop for all eternity. They no longer had any functioning Time-Turners after the battle. As of now, it's Hermione's job to fix them.
To make the devices usable again, freeing them from the repetitive pattern seemed to be the only way. Yet, it's easier said than done. It'd been months since Hermione and her co-workers began to work on the project, but not a solution had been come up with. Frustrated by the snail-paced progress they'd made, many of her colleagues had become frustrated while some had even given up already. Still, being the brightest witch of her age, Hermione was positive about the challenge and confident in overcoming the difficulties ahead.
The hour-arm of a clock pointed at 7, suggested that Hermione had worked overtime again and she's the only person left in the department. Inspired by the Muggle physics book she'd just finished, she decided to come back to the Time Room to give her hypothesis a try before she called it a day.
Pointing her vine wood wand at the drifting pile of Time-Turners, she uttered an incantation, "Immobulus."
Nothing happened as she'd expected—the Freezing Charm had no effect on them. She'd known this a long time ago. She just needed to make sure.
Although the Time-Turners were right in front of you, it didn't necessarily mean that they're sharing the same space with you. Once entangled in the descending and ascending loop, they're no longer in the same dimension; they're in the fourth-dimensional world while you're in the third. Stopping them from moving with a simple Freezing Charm wouldn't work because pausing the motions of the devices was equivalent to pausing the time itself. Basically, the devices were trapped in the alternative world created by one of the Time-Turners and they kept going back to seconds before and replayed the falling and un-falling process.
Hermione contemplated, is it possible to return them to the time prior to the fall? Like an hour ago or more before any of them fell off the counter?
However, Hour-Reversal Charm had been cast on every single Time-Turner in the Ministry. It's used to reverse time by one hour, up to a maximum of five hours. Under the restrictions of the charm, there's no hope of sending the Time-Turners back three years ago, to the point that the battle hadn't happened yet. You had to remove the spell from the Time-Turners first, which could be dangerous. Hermione hesitated for a brief moment. If you don't try, you'll never know.
Pointing at the magical devices, Hermione muttered a sing-song incantation that she'd read from an old document in the data room. It said without the spell, one flip of the hourglass would take you back one year in the past.
Everything still looked the same. The sand in the hourglasses of the Time-Turners remained flowing through the narrow, implying the looping time-travelling process was unaffected. Hermione squatted in front of the counter and stared at the one that always dropped closest to the floor. It's apparently the first one fell from the shelves and trapped the following others into the loop. It's the start of the chaos.
She drew a small note with her neat handwriting out of her pocket and read:
The Battle of the Department of Mysteries (18th July, 1996)
Present (22nd July, 1999)
3 turns 22nd July, 1996
4 turns 22nd July, 1995
"Four turns will be fine," she murmured to herself as her hand stuffed the paper back into her pocket.
She laid her elbow on her knees with her forearm slightly slanted, her opened hand waited at the level where her target would land. Once the cold metal collided with her palm, she folded her hand around it. Other Time-Turners no longer fell but froze in the air as if time was paused. Wasting no time, she quickly held the tiny handle of the device and turned.
One. Two. Three. Four.
The surrounding changed rapidly. Then she realized she had miscalculated something.
There's no way to only bring the Time-Turners to the past. The moment you touched the Time-Turner, you'd be pulled into another dimension where you experienced time at a different rate. It explained why time appeared to be frozen when she was in contact with the device. But none of this was important anymore because there's another challenge she had to face.
She had gone back to the past.
It felt like ages for her to wait for the surrounding to stop changing. It stopped eventually. She was no longer in the Time Room, nor the Ministry. She wasn't even inside a building. Still squatting, she gathered the thirty Time-Turners on the stony road and placed them inside her magically expanded pocket. Scanning around, she tried to figure out where she currently was. She's on the rampart of an old Norman castle. Before her, there was a river which provided a natural barrier to the castle. On the other three sides, the castle was defended by deep trenches. She knew she had read it in a book but couldn't recall the name of the castle.
She heard noises of people talking coming up from the river. Gripping her wand tight, she cautiously headed towards the edge of the rampart.
"Just kill her!"
Hermione looked down and observed from afar. A large group of people had gathered at the riverside. They're wearing antique clothing that she only saw in artworks; men in stockings or tunics while women in long gowns with sleeveless tunics. They're in the process of something. None of them noticed Hermione's existence as every pair of eyes were focusing on the same spot at the front. She couldn't tell what's happening though. Then a scream rang out, but it got muffled immediately.
Someone was getting tortured.
"Kill! Kill! Kill!" someone among the group shouted, and the others followed suit.
An object rose above the crowd as they yelled. It's a woman tied to a cucking stool. She was in her undergarments and her long hair was damp and messy, covering half of her face. That was dunking. Hermione had read that in history books but never seen it in person. Dunking was a form of punishment that was widely used in Europe in 17th and 18th Century. The victim was tied to a chair which could be elevated or lowered by the torturer. If he noticed that the victim was going to pass out, he elevated the chair. When he needed information, and the victim was unwilling to cooperate, he lowered it. The victim was usually intermittently submerged for many hours until he or she revealed information or death occurred. It was barbaric.
Hermione tightened her hold around her wand as she continued to watch. She wanted to save the woman, but the situation didn't seem fit. There were way too many people. She could've got caught even if everyone here was a Muggle. Besides, if there were wizards around too, not only would the rescue be completely unachievable but also she would've put herself in a dangerous position.
A few men released the woman on the chair and forcefully dragged her towards a large stake of wood. They made her stand on her wobbling legs and bound her to the wood. The woman struggled and screamed in vain. None of the onlookers seemed bothered. No one pitied the woman who's going to be executed. Later, the pile of logs underneath her were ignited. Flames slowly grew and engulfed her relentlessly. People catcalled and clapped their hands at the sight, while the woman's deafening screams hit the walls and echoed. The agony in the voice sent shivers down Hermione's spine.
It's almost 21st Century! I can't believe people are still doing this, she thought.
Dumbfounded and nauseated by the barbaric acts, she ran away as what her intuition told her. She ran and ran until she's out of breath. While her chest heaved as she panted, she found herself standing in front of the castle keep. Her feet had brought her to a spacious courtyard. Suddenly, she knew where she was. She was in one of the most famous Norman castles in England, Northampton Castle.
The castle looked very different from the photos she'd seen. Every photo she'd seen of the castle showed how ruptured and ruinous it was. However, in front of her was a much less damaged version.
Hermione's face went white as she collapsed to the lawn.
The castle was demolished by the London and North Western Railway for the construction of Northampton Castle railway station in 1878.
According to Professor Croaker's law, five hours was the longest someone could go back in time without a possibility of serious harm to the traveller or time itself.
Four years was dangerous enough. A century or more?
She vomited.
Author's note:
Thank you for checking out my new story! Tell me what you think because I'd love to hear your opinions!
And English is my second language. I'm sure that there must be some errors here and there within my story. I hope they wouldn't bother you much during your reading. Again, thanks for spending your time reading my story. Love you guys!
-Cathy