The sun rose resentfully over a bleak city street, reflected in the widows of Number 12 Grimmauld Place as though they had been set ablaze. The house was dead silent except for Ginny's soft snores. A door opened and shut somewhere, and then, muffled footsteps approached and quickly faded.

Must be Harry, Hermione thought, as she pulled on a jumper and tiptoed to the door and down the hall. She hadn't slept at all, too afraid to miss her chance - the only chance she would likely ever get. Just a scant few days ago she'd been completely despondent, convinced that she would never bring any of her plans to fruition. But then an opportunity to get into the Ministry had all but fallen into her lap. Wasn't it almost like fate?

Clammy hands grasped the doorknob and twisted - with utmost care. She edged into the shadowed room, and, seeing that Ron was still fast asleep in the twin bed by the window, breathed a sigh of relief. Harry's trunk stood at the foot of the other bed, and Hermione began to rifle through it. Finally, she felt the silky fabric of the invisibility cloak between her fingers.

Downstairs, she lingered in the shadows of the kitchen even though she knew that neither Harry nor Mr. Weasley could see her as they prepared to leave for the Ministry hearing.

The journey proved to be fairly uneventful, and she was certain that she had made her way completely undetected until Harry passed through the turnstile into the subway station, and she'd had to press against him to make it though. He turned suddenly, as though sensing a presence at his back, but his eyes searched the crowd to no avail.

After a terrifying ride in the red telephone box, where she clung like wallpaper to the glass of the tiny cabin, desperately trying to avoid bumping into Mr. Weasley, they finally arrived in the Ministry atrium. Dodging the sour-faced early morning commuters swarming around her, Hermione couldn't help but notice the enormous fountain in the center of the long hall. She saw that Harry was looking at it too. The adoring upturned faces of the house elf, the goblin, and the centaur left a bad taste in her mouth.

Security at the Ministry seemed to entail a solitary wizard in rather eccentric teal robes and pince-nez who was too preoccupied by the Daily Prophet crossword to pay anyone much mind. Hermione didn't know whether to be concerned or relieved; after all, Voldemort had just returned and would certainly have sent spies to infiltrate the Ministry. She hoped that they had had a tougher time sneaking in than she.

After following Harry and Mr. Weasley though the golden arch, she was nearly deterred when she realized they were about to board another lift. Once more, she found herself pressed to the wall, one amongst a small crowd of wizards crammed into the tiny cabin like sardines into a tin. She was immeasurably glad to have had the foresight to place a strong repellent charm on the outside of the cloak: no one bumped into her.

Seemingly oblivious to the teenager in their midst, they prattled on about regulations and traded gossip. Only the mutant fire-breathing chicken, carried in a cardboard box by some official from the Pest Advisory Bureau, seemed aware of her presence, and Hermione spent an unsettling five minutes pinned under its steely, all-knowing glare.

The last occupants, including Harry and , got off at Level 2, Department of Magical Law Enforcement. As soon as the rickety grate slammed closed behind them, Hermione reached forward and pressed the button marked with a faded "9", and waited.

Nothing happened.

Feeling the first tendrils of fear uncoil in her belly, she pressed it again but the metal cage, now hanging precariously somewhere in the bowels of the Ministry's labyrinthine elevator shafts, refused to budge. She began to wonder if the lifts were keyed to respond only to sanctioned Ministry employees, and, in a movement reminiscent of a mischievous four-year old, pressed the buttons of all the other floors. But still, nothing happened.

Shit, Hermione thought. Fucking shit. What if I can't get out? What if I die in here?

But even as she was about to give herself over to panic, the cabin lurched and she almost lost last night's dinner as she was pulled downwards with terrifying speed. The elevator came to a grinding halt on Level One and two wizards got in; one of them seemed to have a root vegetable growing on the side of his head, and the other, she soon learned, was escorting him to the Muggle-Worthy Excuse division.

And so it went. She'd decided that her best bet was to wait it out - someone had to go down to the Department of Mysteries eventually, right?

But unfortunately, it turned out that the D.o.M. wasn't much more popular than Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, and hours passed as she was (nauseatingly) shuttled back and forth between levels two and eight. At first it had been almost thrilling... she could be discovered any moment, she could run into someone really famous, she could overhear some Ministry secret.

But by the time the lunch-hour rush rolled around, Hermione had realized that the average Ministry employee had all the awareness of a blind Skrewt and little to talk about besides this season's Chudley Cannons roster. Also, she was now intimately familiar with the complexities of all the interdepartmental romantic entanglements, having paid embarrassed witness to more than one illicit tryst.

When the lift was stalled and unoccupied, she passed the time by reading the flying memos, which proved rather more informative. She learned that Fudge had appointed a Ministry Liaison for the Elimination of Misinformation in the Press (and was glad to see that it was not Rita Skeeter), that some witch named Umbridge (who seemed inordinately fond of sending inane but long-winded memos) was going to be evaluating standards at Hogwarts this year, that the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures had received a sizable endowment to extend "diplomacy" to the Giant colonies, and many other miscellaneous facts.

Finally, fate smiled upon her, in the unlikely form of Lucius Malfoy.

He entered, looking about, and Hermione held her breath as his gaze passed over the corner where she was pressed against the wall. But he merely turned, shutting the gate with the butt of his cane as a couple of witches rushed towards it, evidently hoping that he would hold the lift.

He didn't, of course. And though Hermione couldn't see his expression, she imagined that he wore a superior sneer as he faced the disappointed-looking witches.

Then, they were off. The lift passed several floors, and then a man Hermione didn't know got on.

"Yaxley," the blond-haired wizard greeted him.

"Mr. Malfoy. We missed you at The Twelve-Toed Troll last week."

"My apologies. I had to see a witch about a leaky cauldron." The phrase was innocuous enough, but stilted, as though it had been repeated too many times. With a flash of intuition, Hermione realized that this was some type of code.

"Perhaps you'll join us next time." Yaxley replied, and, reaching out, pressed the number nine button with the tip of his wand. Then he continued, in a hushed tone: "Is it done?"

The blond wizard chuckled, but it was a sound without mirth. "Oh yes. I think our new friend is going to prove very useful."

At long, long last, the elevator voice said "Department of Mysteries" and the elder Malfoy made his exit, followed closely by a cautious Hermione. They found themselves in a long, unadorned hallway with a black door at one end and a staircase at the other. Malfoy stood a long moment, glaring at the door as though willing it to open, but of course, it did not oblige.

"Bugger," he muttered under his breath, turned around and stalked to the stairwell at the other end. Should she follow him? Surely he was up to something suspicious?

But no. The door - as she now noticed- was marked with a small brass plaque labeled "Department of Mysteries". Everything she'd worked so hard on - all of her tireless research- culminated in this moment.

"Guess we're about to find out if I'm as good as they say," she muttered, skirting the line between arrogance and hysteria. A small opalescent vial had been sitting in her pocket all day. She pulled it out.

Had a random passerby happened upon the scene at that moment, they would have been flabbergasted to see a hand appear, seemingly out of thin air, and pour a pale liquid onto the face of the door. They may have been more shocked still, to see the door melt away into a gooey black puddle, only to reconstitute itself a moment later, as though nothing had happened at all.

But something had happened. A certain Muggle-born witch had accomplished what a half-dozen Death Eaters could not in months of trying- she had broken into the Department of Mysteries.

But her sense of victory was short lived as she found herself in a dark, circular room with many unmarked doors. She hadn't even dared imagine what she would do if she got this far. Weighing her options, Hermione realized that she couldn't simply enter a door at random: the workday wasn't over yet, what if there was someone on the other side? Reconciling herself to another long wait, Hermione found a spot between two doors where no one would accidentally trip over her and sat down.

A couple of hours later, Unspeakables began to filter out of their respective departments. Each came to the center of the room and called "Exit!", opening the way to the hall.

Eight o'clock came and went, and even the most dedicated were long gone, yet Hermione still waited. Her stomach rumbled furiously: the last thing she'd eaten was a rather indifferent mince pie pilfered from a lunch-trolley in the lift. Little did she imagine how much the endless evenings spent in a stiff-backed chair in library would have prepared her for this moment: her limbs were numb from stillness and cold, and her hunger pangs were nearly intolerable, but her mind was crystal clear.

Only when the hands on her wrist-watch read midnight, did she stand and approach a door at random. Entering cautiously, she saw that the room beyond was drab and dimly-lit, filled with rows of desks. At the center stood an enormous glass tank filled with dark liquid, through which several white orbs drifted languidly. Approaching, she was horrified to realize that the orbs were in fact floating brains; a morbid sort of curiosity drew her closer still and she reached out to touch the glass.

Stop it, Hermione! This isn't what you came here for!

Snatching back her hand, she continued on to the other end of the long, rectangular room, and was confrontod by another set of nondescript doors without handles. All this damn place has is doors and more doors, she thought, entering the one on the right. While the brain room had been desolate and rather mundane, the room she entered now was otherworldly, filled with hundreds of glowing blue lights that stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see.

Soon she realized that it wasn't lights she was seeing, but many tiny glass orbs that reflected the blue flames of the torches on the wall. She approached one of the shelves and saw that beneath each orb was a small plaque with a name and a date on it. A strange solemnity hung heavy in the air, as though she were standing in an old cathedral or some ancient shrine.

A faint cough echoed somewhere, and Hermione froze.

Footsteps approached, achingly slow. Someone was muttering:

"Cartwright… Let's see…Cole… pronounced in 1764, how fascinating….hmmm, Cupplebottom… ah there you are!"

Between the shelves, Hermione spied an ancient witch, who removed a glass ball from her robes and placed it in its spot with utmost care. The witch squinted down the row, and with a small clucking noise, approached another ball and, taking out a rag, proceeded to wipe the surface furiously. Finally satisfied, she walked on, aisle after aisle, straightening, rearranging and cleaning the small orbs.

Hermione wondered how long the poor woman had been doing this job. A century at least, by the look of her.

At one point she passed right by the invisible Gryffindor, and Hermione held her breath as the old woman's surprisingly shrewd eyes seemed to look right at her, but she turned away to continue her endless patrol.

As silently as she could manage, Hermione went back the way she had come, and into the brain room, where she tried another door.

Finally, she entered the room she'd come here to find. It was surprisingly bright inside and the air was filled with the incessant rhythmic chatter of a thousand different clocks. It was like a scene out of Alice in Wonderland.

Hermione didn't dwell too long on what possible purpose all these clocks could serve, but walked through the maze of desks towards the cabinet against the far wall. The cabinet which held the Ministry's entire collection of Time-Turners. There were instruments of many different sizes, with the largest used for traveling back a millisecond and the tiniest used to go back as much as a single day.

Hermione picked out one of the latter and pocketed it, resisting the overwhelming urge to bounce with exhilaration. Although she would never, ever, admit it to anyone - least of all her best friends, whom she had lectured far too often- breaking the rules gave her a feeling of euphoria she couldn't get from anything else. Especially when breaking rules got her what she wanted.

The next task proved to be significantly more tedious. She searched the shelves and drawers for research she could use, but was frustrated to discover that most of the employees in the department seemed to be working on theoretical models of time travel, which, although employing some fascinating Arithmancy techniques, were virtually useless in helping her actually travel back any significant length of time. Nevertheless, Hermione made copies of many files using the Geminio charm (courtesy of Curiously Convenient Charms of the 11th Century) and decided that it was time to leave.

But there was one more thing she had to see first. After trying her luck with a couple other doors, she found herself in a records hall of some sort. There were rows upon rows of filing cabinets; in fact, it could have been any ordinary Muggle office if not for the enormous map pinned to one wall, on which many tiny glowing dots scurried about like insects.

It kind of reminded her of the Marauder's Map, but much larger. Each dot seemed to represent a person (whose name was written below). Several were familiar: Colin Creevey and his brother, the irritating Hufflepuff Finch-Fletchley, Dean Thomas, a couple of Ravenclaws in the year below… and Harry Potter.

His little dot was glowing gently in the region of Islington, and she hoped that he was alright. She looked at it fondly for a moment and then her gaze drifted to central London, where she realized that something was missing. Her own dot.

She cast Specialis Revelio at the parchment. Twice. When that produced no results, she scanned the entire map for her name, but it wasn't there.

For a single surreal moment, Hermione looked down at herself to make sure that she still actually existed in this world...and panicked when she saw nothing. Her eyes widened in terror…. but then she remembered that she was still wearing the invisibility cloak.

It was time to find some answers. Approaching a cabinet at random, she yanked out a drawer, and to her great surprise it extended an entire six feet, full to bursting with what must have been hundreds of files. Each was labeled with a name and date, much like the glass orbs in the glowing chamber. She was in the "M"s, and soon her eyes alighted on "McGonagall, Minerva (b. 1935)". The folder was much thicker than it initially appeared, and inside she found a dozen photographs of her Head of House, as well as excruciatingly detailed reports on everything from the witch's Gringotts transactions to the way she took her tea, and, apparently, every single article she'd ever published in Transfiguration Today.

I knew the Ministry was spying on all of us! Hermione thought furiously. She wasn't even a tiny bit surprised, considering everything they'd done - or failed to do - over the years. After ten minutes of searching, she tracked down her own file: "Hermione Granger, (b. 1981)" was wedged between, seemingly, every Greengrass and Goyle that had ever lived.

There were many photos: mostly of her, Harry and Ron, but also some that had Ginny and the other Weasleys.

And there was one of her parents, taken on a vacation when she was six years old. Back when we were still happy, Hermione thought. Looking at it now - at her younger self grinning from ear to ear, cheeks smeared in ice cream, at her mother fussing with what was already a bushy mane, and her father captured forever in the middle of an enormous laugh - made her chest feel unbearably tight. She crumpled the photo in her fist.

But then she smoothed it again, and put it in her pocket.

Rifling through the other papers, Hermione found clippings of Rita Skeeter's odious articles, a couple of her best Arithmancy essays, a memo questioning Crookshanks' Kneazle ancestry, and her petition requesting the use of a Time-Turner from two years ago.

Attached to the petition, she was surprised to find a list of what appeared to be the date and duration of every single time she'd used the Time-Turner. Unrolling the parchment, she saw that it nearly reached the floor and raised a sceptical eyebrow.

Surely there was no way she had travelled back so much? But it was true: at the very bottom, the period she'd spent out-of-time was tallied at nearly ten thousand hours.

"WHAT?" Her panic-stricken yell echoed through the long room. The consequences of extensive time-travel were poorly understood and potentially very dangerous.

Her thoughts were tripping over each other: Is this why I've been feeling so off lately? Is this why strange things keep happening, with that locket and my wand? Is this why….

Shaking fingers flipped to the first page of the file, the one that listed name, place of birth, blood status, age-

Hermione nearly choked on her own tongue.

She was seventeen.

In fact, she'd been seventeen for nearly three months, if you counted every hour she had lived and re-lived, and re-lived…

It was a nightmare. Anything could happen to her now, and there was no one she could tell since, technically, she'd been legally permitted only enough hours for extra classes.

But suddenly, a lot of things made sense. Why there was no Trace. Why the Ministry never found out what she'd done. Why she wasn't in Azkaban.

Realizing that no one could ever see the file in her hands, she whispered "Incendio" and watched it burn.

"Hello?" a voice called out, and Hermione nearly lost her balance as she leapt aside, ducking under a desk and hastily throwing the Invisibility Cloak over herself.

Footsteps approached, unhurried but methodical. "Is anyone there?"

A tall wizard with a mournful face came into view. He paused right by the Trace map and studied the room minutely.

"This is Senior Unspeakable Bode. I urge you to reveal yourself now, and punishment may be mitigated. If not ..." Lightning quick, he turned on his heel and cast a disillusionment charm right at her.

Hermione held her breath, even though she knew the cloak was impervious to that particular spell.

"Hmm...I was so sure, but I suppose…" he muttered. Suddenly something on the floor caught his attention and he approached. It was the pile of ash left by Hermione's file. He knelt down and traced a single finger through the debris. Then, he put the finger in his mouth and squinted.

"Interesting."

Stupid girl, she chided herself. You could have just Vanished it, but nooo, it had to be dramatic….

Senior Unspeakable Bode continued his odd investigation by carefully sniffing the handles on the cabinets, and Hermione took her chance: she crawled out from under the desk and made her way around the corner on all fours, agonizingly slow.

With the door in sight, she realized she'd never be able to open it without tipping him off. Could she afford to wait it out? What if he managed to find her?

She was just beginning to contemplate Stunning him and running for it when the persistent , emerging from one of the aisles, rounded upon her and raised his wand, a look of triumph on his sallow face.

"Homenum revelio!"

The tip of his wand shot out a yellow beam, but before Hermione could even pray for deliverance, the door opened.

Never had she thought she'd be so grateful to see the ancient witch from earlier; in that moment, she could have leapt up and kissed those sunken, papery cheeks.

Bode's spell hit the woman square in the chest and she glowed yellow for a moment.

Raising a sardonic eyebrow, she said: "Ah...Broderick. Should've known it was you. Working late again, are we?"

The wizard fingered the hem of his sleeve, now looking like a contrite schoolboy.

"Well - ahem - yes, I had to come back to get my report for the Obliviator Squad. Fudge needs it first thing."

"What Fudge needs is a good thrashing. Set his priorities straight," the woman muttered, inspiring a twinge of admiration in Hermione.

"Agatha!" The wizard stared, incredulous.

"Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist, you old tweed coat," she replied with a bare grin. "Anyhow, I didn't know the new security protocol calls for throwing spells at your colleagues?"

A slight flush coloured Bode's cheeks. He must have been feeling foolish now, having discovered no intruders. "Well I wasn't aware that the Keeper of the Prophecies had any business in the Surveillance Department!"

The witch snorted. "I founded this department when you were still a snot-nosed little troglodyte. Now, go home before I make you help me lotion my bunions."

Looking more than a little revolted at the prospect, Senior Unspeakable Bode bid a hurried "Goodnight!" and made his exit.

The venerable witch opened one of the doors, but instead of walking through, she stood still, wearing an increasingly irritated expression.

"Well?" she rasped. "Are you waiting for your rear to grow roots in the floor, or are you coming?"

"Me?" Hermione said, and immediately felt stupid. There was no way the woman could see her, was there?

"Yes, you. Now hurry up before some other overzealous soul comes back to straighten his quills."

Utterly discombobulated, Hermione managed to stutter, "Umm...alright."

She passed right in front of the witch into the circular chamber, still cloaked. Unsure of what exactly she was expected to do, and scarcely daring to believe that she may yet walk out of there unscathed, Hermione asked: "Aren't you going to report me?"

Her unlikely savior gave the idea some thought, but discarded it soon enough. "I could, but the paperwork alone would take me a fortnight, and I'm far too old for that."

"Oh. Well, I don't know what to say. Thank you."

The witch nodded stiffly and turned her back on the invisible girl. But, just as she was about to withdraw back into the Hall of Prophecies, she paused with her back to Hermione, and said: "I recognize a fellow traveller when I meet one. Good luck to you."

And then she was gone.