3

Life has a time limit, take advantage before it's over

Pansy's feet hurt. And to make matters worse, lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with her. But as a result at least now she was almost sure that wasn't dead or having a nightmare. Only the living could yawn and yearn for a soft bed.

After a light supper they both left the castle. They didn't try to find Pansy's lost wand, the task was too difficult in such darkness. Lighting every candle in the castle would have taken hours, so Granger swore to her before leaving that she would protect her. They stayed close, traversing the path students used on weekends to get to Hogsmeade, which skirted the Forbidden Forest. Normally they would use the carriages drawn by Thestrals, but since the magical creatures had also disappeared they had to walk. The journey felt eternal. The path was very dark, the light from Granger's wand didn't allow them to see much. Lumos barely illuminated a couple of meters ahead of them. Were it not for the light of the moon, they would be moving completely blind, hoping they would be lucky enough not to run into anything.

"Damn Hogwarts and its anti-apparition wards," Pansy complained.

She hugged herself, the wind making her shiver. They were lucky it was a spring night. In winter crossing this snow-covered road would have been torture.

"Once we're in Hogsmeade we can Apparate wherever we want," Granger said. "We could go to Ollivanders and get you a goddamn wand to stop you from stepping on my feet."

"I'm sorry."

Pansy took two steps to the side, away from Granger. Because of the whistling of the wind and some dry leaves that they stepped on while walking, Pansy had become nervous and clung to Granger more than necessary without realizing it.

"Why did I never know you were such a coward?"

"I don't... You're scared too, don't pretend."

"Not of silly things."

Pansy adjusted the straps on her bag. She was not frightened by "silly things", but by strange sounds, unknown shadows and forbidden forests with violent centaurs. Everyone was scared by things like that!

"Weren't you the ones laughing at Neville?" Grange added.

"Draco did."

"You joined too." Didn't he laugh at you too for being scared? Because to not do so would be quite hypocritical of him.

"No. It might surprise you, but Draco and I never walked down dark paths together for him to find out."

Granger turned her head to look at her, raising her eyebrow skeptically.

"I'm serious. We were never very close, he doesn't even know when my birthday is."

Granger didn't answer right away, she seemed to still be considering whether or not Pansy was lying.

"I thought they were boyfriend and girlfriend," she resumed.

" Meh . The most Draco and I were ever involved was as a couple for the Yule Ball."

"Almost everyone at Hogwarts was convinced that you wanted to marry him after you graduated."

Pansy reddened.

"Of course I didn't want to marry him, that's absurd."

"Not even in the early years?"

"I didn't... Just... It was admiration," she stammered.

"If you say so…"

"Excuse me? What about your rumors with Potter and Weasley?

"What?" she complained indignantly. "What rumours? That idiot Skeeter's?"

"Playing with both of their feelings... and in the end you abandoned them for Viktor Krum."

"Ridiculous."

"Please, at the Yule Ball Weasley was crowned Mr. Obvious. He was so jealous, we all noticed it and his dance partner confirmed it."

"That isn't true."

"Sooo jealous," she repeated, emphasizing.

"Think what you want," she mumbled.

"Hey, you started this," she defended herself.

"And now I'm finishing it."

Pansy sighed and refocused on the path, specifically the ground, as she didn't want to see the weird shadows cast by the trees. But it was hard to stay calm because of the unnatural silence that surrounded them. Not even the hooting of an owl was heard. It was obvious, in the silence and absolute solitude, that something was wrong. Even if they acted like it was a normal night, things weren't business as usual. Pansy recognized that if she wasn't with Granger, she'd be scared to death right now, a thousand times more than she already was. Talking about trivial things with her made this whole thing feel less strange. That's why, overcome by the eerie silence, she resumed the conversation:

"So you and Weasley weren't dating?"

Granger gave her a warning look.

"Please. Walking in silence is horrible. And I'm starting to feel sleepy. Can't we talk?"

"Of course I'm going to talk about love with the person who made fun of me and my friends for years."

"Well... I promise not to use anything we say here against you?"

"Oh wow, what a relief, thanks," Granger scoffed.

"Once we get out of this strange situation, we won't see each other again," she pointed out, trying to convince her.

"Aren't you going to finish your studies?"

"Are you going to?" Pansy was surprised.

"Of course. I care about my education."

"I don't know if I could ever go back to that castle."

Granger didn't reply, even seemed to hesitate, considering her words. Maybe she didn't want to go back to the castle either.

"I don't know what I'm going to do, or what I'm going to do with my studies," Pansy murmured.

Granger wasn't participating in the conversation, but she didn't care. It felt like talking to herself in front of the bathroom mirror. They were alone in the world, she felt deprived.

"I... I just want to go see my mother." Pansy's voice cracked a bit. She cleared her throat. "It sounds so silly when I say it. This is all so silly. We are here, lost, maybe we will die today or tomorrow... and I am thinking about seeing my mother again, as if it were the most normal thing in the world."

"I also want to see my parents again."

"You seem to be so fine with all of this…"

"That again? You do too, you even make jokes from time to time."

Guilt hit her again. It appeared out of nowhere, just as it had disappeared before. Everything felt volatile: feelings, people, events. At times everything felt good and at others terrible. And everything was mixed. Today, when the sun was high, there was a war. And now, facing the moon, there was absolute peace.

She looked at Granger, who kept a serious face and was attentively focussing ahead. Her grip on her wand was firm, her entire bearing was. Granger looked like someone strong, so she couldn't help but feel safe around her. She had no reason to trust her, but she did. Amid the chaos and fear, things felt simpler. Granger didn't look to her eyes like Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor student, the best of her entire year, nor like the best friend of Harry Potter, the chosen one, and curiously, neither like the Mudblood she should feel disgust for. She, now, was summed up in an ally. Simple as that, no names or labels, it was just two lost girls trying to save themselves.

"When I remember...everything, I feel sick," Pansy said in a low tone. It was weird talking to Granger about this, but in the dark, so calm, with Granger literally protecting her as they walked down the path, she felt comfortable. And anyway, Pansy was the kind of person who talked her head off, so few of her thoughts stayed a secret in her head for long. "I'm trying to focus on anything else, how to get out of here, what to do next to save us, or thinking about how I don't know where my wand is. I'm talking to you, like we never hated each other, because I'm... terrified. But how can I not think about that ? Damn, whenever there's silence, I—" Pansy shook her head, her words beginning to sound choked. "How can I even talk about you and Weasley dating, like we're not in danger? As if my best friend hadn't cracked her skull open in the middle of the hallways of my school a couple of hours ago?"

A few tears fell down Pansy's cheeks. She covered her eyes with her hands, they burned from crying so many times that day.

"I'm sorry you saw that, I wish Daphne was alive."

Pansy let out a watery laugh.

"No, you're not sorry."

"The Slytherins did horrible things, but please, I didn't want my classmates to die either, not even those who bullied others deserved that."

"She was a Death Eater," she confessed.

Granger stopped walking, taken by surprise.

"When I found her, she had the mark." Pansy met Granger's eyes. "You might well have killed her or any of your friends."

"Sorry?" Granger was incredulous at the accusation, so much so that she took a step back. "Are you blaming me for...?"

"Why?" she interrupted her. She felt so sad.

"If she was a Death Eater you couldn't expect me to…"

"Why did she have to be a Death Eater?" she asked in a broken voice. "We would never have done something like that. I know, I know... I know we weren't kind with unselfish hearts like all of you. I know that we were far from being good people, that we laughed at others... But we weren't murderers and we didn't want anything from...! From this! Even when they made us practice Unforgivable Curses in class, we couldn't. Even when I raised my wand and tried to use crucio when the teachers told us to, I couldn't, nothing happened. And I was relieved, I was so relieved that I got a bad grade for not being able to do it. And Daphne was the same! We weren't Death Eaters. We had nothing to do with this. Maybe we weren't good like you, but we weren't bad either. We didn't want them to attack the Mudbloods like that, we didn't want them to kill anyone.

I listened to my mother, I always listened to her words. I studied hard like any other student and I took care of my friends. So what happened, Granger? What happened?" Pansy felt an aching emptiness. She hugged herself, squeezing her chest. "Why was Daphne a Death Eater and got killed for it? I don't understand. Why didn't she run away with me? Why did she make me come back for her? She lied to me and left forever. She's dead and I don't get it. And I don't understand this! Where is everybody? What the hell is this, this place?"

Granger looked away. It was one of those rare times when she really didn't seem to know what to say.

"What will...?" she murmured with a broken voice, not knowing how to continue. Pansy was afraid to ask what they were both avoiding saying out loud. What if the others died too? Did they really disappear or are they already dead? Or if we are dead?

"If we think so negatively…"

"Are we really going to see our parents again?" Pansy's chin trembled. "Can I really hold on to that to carry on? They didn't disappear forever, did they? We'll be fine?"

Granger again didn't reply. She just looked at the ground, while Pansy sobbed. They stood there for a while, until her crying subsided.

"Let's keep going. We have to keep going," Granger said, her voice a little hoarse.

Both resumed the walk, they had no choice but to continue. They didn't speak any more, but Pansy hiccupped from time to time. It was as if she wanted to continue crying, but she no longer had the strength to do so. Granger began to shuffle more, not caring about kicking up dust, making the rustle of leaves louder. At one point, Pansy glanced at her and discovered that her eyes were glassy as well.

. . .

Arriving at the town of Hogsmeade any hope in their hearts collapsed. There was nobody there. No lights were on and although they knocked on the doors of houses and businesses, no one answered.

"Are we really alone?" Granger asked as she rubbed her forehead, it seemed that her head hurt.

"Well…it seems you were right," Pansy said.

"This is all so ridiculous," she complained, starting to walk in circles. "Why did this have to happen? What are we supposed to do?"

"Sleep?"

Granger looked at her like she wanted to kick her ass.

"That was your plan," Pansy stammered, taking a step back.

"I know what my plan was," she muttered.

To Pansy's horror, there was a pop and Granger disappeared. Had she really abandoned her? That sound… She had apparated on her own and left her behind in Hogsmeade! Clearly Granger didn't know their plan, because this wasn't the plan they talked about. She looked around, scared. I was in complete darkness, alone. She almost started crying again out of sheer panic, but then there was another pop and Granger appeared.

"No one, there's no one. Not in my neighborhood, not in London," she grumbled, walking in circles again, even starting to mutter to herself.

"Granger," Pansy sighed with relief, taking two long strides so she could get as close to her as possible. she was never so happy to see someone in her life.

"People just disappeared. Wizards and Muggles. There was no one in the streets or businesses. The lights weren't even on. We are alone."

Pansy didn't know what to say. What is supposed to be done in such a situation?

"I just…" she exhaled heavily. "Let's go to sleep, there's nothing else we can do," Granger decided.

She pointed her wand forward for better illumination and headed for the Three Broomsticks, with Pansy hot on her heels. They used a bombarda to open the door and luckily found the room keys behind the bar, hanging on a small hook. They went up the stairs to the rooms they rented at the inn. Granger opened the first two doors that had the numbers 1 and 2 painted on the wood.

"Which one do we sleep in?" Pansy asked.

"That's yours. She pointed to door number 2 and handed her the keys. "If you don't like it you can review the others."

"Wait a minute," she said, as Granger opened the other door, Number 1. "Are we supposed to…" Granger didn't wait for her to finish speaking, just walked into her own room and slammed the door in her face, "sleep apart?"

Pansy stared at the wood of the door for a few seconds, dumbstruck, then up and down the hall. She didn't see anything now that Granger wasn't here to cast lumos . Pansy rapped on the door with her knuckles loudly and repeatedly, faster and faster until Granger opened the door again. She was already wearing her pajamas, she was a very efficient person.

"I don't even have candles," she complained.

Granger snorted and walked into her room, this time unlocking it. Pansy smiled, relaxing, and walked into the room as well. She was about to put her bag down, but candles appeared in front of her face. Granger shook them for him to hurry up and grab them.

"Thank you," she murmured. "But if we have your wand—"

"Go to your room." She kicked her out.

Granger was undoubtedly irritated by the new information she discovered. Pansy looked at her hands. The candles were already lit, a little wax was beginning to fall from them. Granger had done nonverbal magic to start the fire?

"Do I really need to go? We're both here now..." she tried to dissuade her.

"Get out," she said, pushing her shoulder.

Before she knew it, Pansy was once again standing in the cold hallway and Granger slammed the door in her face again. Some wax fell on Pansy's finger, causing her to hiss in pain.

"Damn Granger," she whimpered.

She entered her new room quickly, being alone in the middle of the corridor made her uneasy. She left the keys and candles on the small table next to the bed and checked the place. It looked just like Granger's, only the bed in her room was by the window, while Granger's had her bed next to the door. The Three Broomsticks was a cheap bar and inn, it was obvious because there wasn't even a closet to store her things in in the room. She changed into her pajamas and reached into her bag for her toothbrush and toothpaste. There was a small bathroom without a shower, not much bigger than a broom closet, but it served its purpose. Once she finished, she lay down on the bed. She looked around the room, uncomfortable, and got up to search her bag for her stuffed animal. It was a tiger, a gift her mother gave her when she was eight years old. She went back to bed, now hugging the stuffed animal. She tried to relax, but... there was a dead tree visible from the window that made a strange shape with its branches.

She turned her back on it, curling into the fetal position, but before she closed her eyes she noticed that there was a small vent high up on one of the walls, which looked like water had gotten in a few times and stained the wall. The dark wet marks where the water had trickled down looked like... Pansy squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want to think about that. The blood that had dripped… No. She didn't want to think about that red-stained corridor.

Pansy hated new places because it was hard for her to adjust to them. Something similar to this had happened to her in her first year at Hogwarts. She had been scared, because it was the first time she had slept outside her house. But luckily Daphne was there, they had been friends since they were babies, because their mothers were friends and made them play together. So, on her first night, when all of her roommates were asleep, Pansy snuck into Daphne's bed. They both hugged each other and fell asleep together. After a few months of that routine, Pansy was able to start sleeping in her own bed. Although every once in a while she went back to sleep with Daphne because she was nice, the pillow smelled good and the hugs were warm. None of her classmates knew about this habit of hers, since from a very young age she was a natural early riser and got out of bed before anyone else.

But now Daphne wasn't around to help her. No one but Granger was here. Pansy sat up on the mattress. Her stomach clenched with nerves. What were they supposed to do now?

"Warm milk," it occurred to her. "I just need to relax, clear my mind…"

She left the room carrying one of the candles with her, and also her teddy, since she didn't dare stop hugging it (or rather suffocate it, she was squeezing it so hard). She went down the stairs, careful not to make them creak. She went into the kitchen and checked the refrigerator, where she found a large gallon of milk. She lit the burners with the help of the small flame of her candle and grabbed a large pot that she found on a shelf to heat the milk. She grabbed one of the mugs they used around the place to serve the butterbeers and sat down to wait on one of the stools. She drummed her fingers on the wood of the counter to distract herself. She didn't want to look back at the big windows that let in a bit of moonlight. She focused on the small fire and the click of her fingers. Pansy wasn't sure how long she should heat it for, the house elves used to do these things for her.

The loud sound of a door slamming startled her. She turned, hiding behind her stuffed animal. There was nothing, but everything was so dark that maybe...

Another knock. Pansy shrank back in her seat. She took a deep breath and got up from the bench. She walked slowly, on tiptoe, hiding her face behind the stuffed animal, and peeked out of the kitchen. Again there was the loud sound of crashing wood. But a new sound was added, that of the wood floor creaking. Pansy's heart nearly jumped out of her throat as she backed into the kitchen again, trying not to make a sound. There were some strange creaking sounds, it seemed that someone was moving a piece of furniture, so she hurried to escape and accidentally hit her hip on one of the stools she was using before, causing it to fall. Pansy hunched her shoulders and in a low voice began to repeatedly pray "Don't be Death Eaters". When a white light blinded her, she closed her eyes and expected the worst.

"I have…so many questions."

Pansy opened one of her eyes, recognizing the voice. Granger was there, wand in hand and a blanket draped over her shoulders. She had a frown on her face and her arms crossed.

"Ghosts?" Pansy asked in a small voice.

Granger rolled her eyes and explained,

I blew in the front door with a bombarda , remember? The wind was making it open and close. I got used to being alert and waking up to small sounds, so those knocks were bothering me, but I fixed it, I blocked the door with a table." Granger frowned, remembering. "Wait. What did you say? Ghosts?"

"I... it was my first thought when I saw a white light," she murmured.

"You and your friends owe Neville a big apology," she said, moving closer to Pansy.

"You're not funny. Remember: I have no wand to defend myself."

"So when you get one again you won't go hide behind kitchen cabinets?"

"Exactly," she said confidently, feeling her cheeks warm.

"Good. I will remember your words."

"Great, you should," she said, because she didn't know what else to say, but she still wanted to have the last word. Her bruised ego needed some healing.

"Then... why did you come down if you didn't have your wand to fight with... ghosts?"

"An hour's sleep and already you're in such a good mood?"

"I'm sorry, although I'm tired and stressed, I can only think how funny it is to see you hiding in a kitchen hugging a children's stuffed animal."

Now Pansy's whole face felt hot. she hurriedly hid the stuffed animal behind her back.

"Do you really have a stuffed animal? Aren't you grown?" Granger questioned.

"No..." she stammered, backing away until her back hit the counter.

"Let me see it."

"Let's go to sleep."

"Please." Granger leaned closer, beginning to smile. "Do you have a stuffed lion?"

Pansy was red up to her ears.

"No! Of course not!"

"It was a lion!" she laughed.

"No!" she was indignant, and showed her the stuffed animal, pointing at it desperately. "Tiger. Can't you see the stripes? Tiger."

"I don't know, in the dark…" she mocked.

"It's a tiger!" she squealed in offense, shaking the stuffed animal and holding it inches from her nose so she could get a good look at it.

Granger started to laugh, even covering her face with her hands.

"This is ridiculous," she said between laughs.

"No... don't make fun of me!" Pansy pleaded.

"I... pff ... I'm sorry," she said between laughs.

Pansy got angry. She hugged her stuffed animal to her chest and walked away from Granger. She felt so humiliated. Did she just have to make fun of her stuff?

"I'm sorry!" she insisted, grabbing her elbow to keep her from leaving. "I didn't mean to laugh... but this was so... it took me by surprise."

"Well..?" Pansy only felt more and more humiliated.

"Well… I thought it was kind of cute."

"It is not."

"Pansy Parkinson and adorable can really go together," Granger laughed again.

"Yeah," she got fed up.

"Never in a million years would I have imagined you like this. It's ridiculous."

"Could you stop teasing me?"

"I'm not teasing, it's cute." Granger's smile as she spoke was smug.

"Yes you are. And it's not cute."

Granger ignored her, leaning against the counter as well.

"It's hard for me to treat you like usual when you freak out about everything and hug stuffed lions.

"Tiger," she corrected her angrily.

She was saying the animal wrong on purpose, just to annoy her, it was obvious, and Pansy hated that she did that. Granger adjusted the blanket that covered her back better, she seemed to want to talk about something. Pansy wasn't sure what to do while she waited, so she just looked at her profile, as if that way she could figure out what she was thinking. Granger caught her looking at her, so she looked away in embarrassment.

"There is a saying that 'it is worse to be without friends than to be surrounded by enemies.'"

Pansy had no idea where that thought had come from. How the hell did you respond to a proverb?

"Eh?" she said when the silence went on too long.

Granger rolled her eyes.

"Everything that happened between us in the past feels distant and unimportant," Granger said. "When I see you cry or get scared, I forget that I don't like you. Does that make sense?"

"It does." Pansy straightened up, uncomfortable remembering her thoughts about Granger as they walked down the path.

If my parents could see me, happy to be with a mudblood, she wailed inwardly, but Pansy tried not to think about such things. her mother wouldn't approve of what she was doing, so it was better to just do it than reason it out. She could explain this as the end justifying the means. She wasn't doing anything wrong, she was just surviving.

Granger scratched her neck, she was uncomfortable too.

"Shall we go back up?" She nodded toward the stairs. "We should try to sleep more. We can work on a plan in the morning."

"Yes, you're right, but I must go get my warm milk first."

"Warm milk?" Granger wondered.

"I expect it will be. How much should it be heated? Do you know?"

Granger looked into the kitchen.

"Warm milk? Is that what you were doing here? Did you go down for warm milk?"

"I couldn't sleep…"

"It's seriously so hard for me to believe that you're the same Pansy Parkinson who made my life miserable…"

"I was going to offer you a glass, but I don't think I will anymore."

"You know it's already boiling, right?"

"Does that mean it's ready?"

"Oh dear." Granger put her hand to her forehead in exasperation and walked over to the pot. "How many people did you prepare for? You filled it to the brim."

"The bottle was heavy…"

"Wait... is there milk on the floor?"

"It was heavy," she insisted, though this time she said it more quietly.

"Using a rag to clean was also heavy?"

"I didn't want to leave it like that! It was a miracle I found the cups, how am I going to know where Rosemerta keeps the mops?"

Granger doused the fire and whispered two spells: Accio and Wingardium Leviosa. The first to get another cup and the second to raise the pot and be able to serve the hot milk. Granger scourgified to clean the floor, then grabbed both drinks and left the kitchen. She sat down at one of the tables with armchairs in the main room of the tavern. When the business opened, that was the table that was always occupied by the first customer who arrived, since it was the most comfortable seat. Pansy grabbed the candle she had left on the counter and went to the table. Granger watched her, waiting for her to sit down, and once she did, she took a sip of her drink.

"You could have added cinnamon and honey," Granger commented, moving the candle so it was exactly in the center of the table.

"I'll take notes for next time," Pansy said sarcastically. She took a sip as well, nearly dropping the cup as it burned. "It's boiling!"

"You scare easily, you cry all the time, you hug stuffed animals to sleep, and hot milk is too hot for you," she listed. "How can I take you seriously?"

She shrank back in her seat, embarrassed. She tried to drink the milk again, but this time she did it more slowly, touching it with her lips first to get used to the heat. Granger giggled dismissively, but didn't comment on her drinking.

"I'm sure everyone's fine," Granger murmured, having already downed half her drink. "Harry, Ron, my family... And your loved ones too."

"Why do you say that?"

"Voldemort…"

"You-Know-Who!"

"You-Know-Who," she corrected herself, "wouldn't have done this. It wouldn't have done him any good. Even he disappeared! I don't think this is the work of evil magic."

"Perhaps it was by accident?"

"If it was just Hogwarts, for example. But Hogsmeade too? London? Why hasn't an Auror come from somewhere in England yet to check on what happened at Hogwarts? Everyone heard about the battle, people talk. Most of the students escaped from the castle, by the time we met in the Great Hall they were already with their families. The whole country should be aware of the situation. But there is no one. And not just humans. And the pictures? And the ghosts? And the animals?"

"Vold… You-Know-Who," she corrected herself, "is powerful. But isn't this too random? What kind of magic does something like that? Why would this happen to a wizard like him by accident?

"You're saying that I did this again…"

"It's the most logical thing."

"Well, I have no idea how to undo it."

"We'll investigate the files on accidental magic. There must be a case similar to this."

"But why do you think everyone is okay? Whether You-Know-Who or I did it, it doesn't mean that everyone... How do we describe this? Did they cease to exist? Did they evaporate? Did they explode?"

"They definitely didn't explode."

"Great, they evaporated, a much better prognosis."

"Did you notice anything in the sky?"

" Uh... Right?"

"The weather changed."

Pansy tried to think of the sky. What had changed? The sun sank below the horizon and the moon came out, not a gray cloud, it was as cold as ever...

"Think about it. What clothes were you wearing at Hogwarts?"

"Clothing?" Pansy frowned. "Granger, just say what you know. My brain is mush, I don't even know how you can keep analyzing things at this hour."

"The battle began at dawn on May 3. You got up at dawn in your pajamas. You left the castle when it was dawn and you came back already in the morning. I'm not sure of the time, but it must have been ten in the morning at the latest when everyone disappeared, probably earlier."

Pansy cocked her head. Why did the time of day matter? She didn't even know what time of night it was right now... Pansy gasped.

"Why did it get dark so soon?" she finally understood.

She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed it before. She was so overwhelmed with so many things that she hadn't been aware of the great leap in time.

"Exactly! It was morning, just after sunrise, but by the time they all disappeared, it was evening, almost sunset, and by the time we reached Hogsmeade it was dark."

"Did we move forward in time?"

"Well I don't know. But we already know that not only did they all disappear, but that time was affected."

"You can't move time forward or backward without a time-turner. I'm flattered that you think my magic is so powerful, but it's not."

"Clues are clues."

"I still don't understand why all these clues make you think we'll be able to make them all reappear."

"Because maybe we were the ones who disappeared. My theory is that they are fine, maybe the war continued for them normally, but we... disappeared."

"Sounds like a fairy tale."

"I used a time-turner once."

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Not with the permission of the Ministry of Magic, which I had. But that's not what matters about the time-turner, it's that I know how they work. When I used it, I had to hold it to go back in time and it only affected me. When I used it on Harry we both had to hold on to both of us back off and it only affected us. I held you when they all disappeared…"

"Do I look like a time-turner?"

"What I mean," she said exasperatedly, "is that no one, not even Voldemort, would be powerful enough to wipe everyone out. But it's possible that you just disappeared the two of us. To another timeline maybe? I don't know. But I really think everyone is fine. What we have to do now is not make the others appear, but we have to find our way out of... this place, this parallel timeline or whatever this is."

"I don't know if your discovery makes me feel better…"

"They didn't die. And clearly, neither did we. In our situation that is great news."

"By Merlin... did you think of all this in a few minutes?"

"Actually I thought about it in the room, before sleeping, there was a clock in a drawer and I noticed the inconsistency of time."

Pansy took a couple of sips of her drink and commented,

"I never thought I'd be so glad you're such a know-it-all."

"We'll get out of this. We just have to stay positive."

Pansy sank into her thoughts, drinking all that was left of her lukewarm milk.

"This place scares you that much?"

"Are you going to tease me again?"

-It's not that. I say this because you came to get warm milk. What is it that scares you? There's no one, Death Eaters aren't going to show up…"

"You're going to laugh."

"I promise I won't."

Pansy raised one of her eyebrows.

"Okay, maybe I'll laugh, but I promise not to tease you about it."

Pansy sighed.

"Is it because you don't have a wand to defend yourself?" she tried to guess.

"No…"

"Come on, tell me."

Pansy ducked her head and murmured,

"I'm afraid of the dark."

"What?"

"I'm-"

"No, no," she interrupted her. "I heard you. It's just... How old are you? Eighteen?"

Pansy reddened.

"I know it's silly, you don't have to point fingers at it."

"But why?" she was surprised.

Pansy rested her head on the table and covered herself with her arms, letting out an embarrassed groan.

"Okay, okay. I am sorry. I was just surprised," Granger apologized.

"Let's not talk about this. Ever."

"Fine," she relented.

"Just... let's go back to sleep."

"Sure, just let me clean the cups and…"

"Are you going to clean?" she asked in disbelief. Seeing Granger get up and go into the kitchen, she added, "I thought it was already clear that no one was here? Not even cockroaches."

"It doesn't mean we have to be dirty," she complained as she put the pot, which still had milk in it, back in the fridge so it wouldn't go bad.

Pansy shook her head, not believing her ears, but got up to help her, preferring that to talking about her fears.

AUTHOR'S WILL

Hello mortal readers! Are you excited for this story? I am, a lot, so much so that I died and now I publish and communicate with you from beyond. Booooo.

I thought for a while if writing "author's will" instead of "author's notes" could be considered a plot spoiler. But please, the fanfic is called «Limbo», it is set in the last Harry Potter book, 'The DEATHLY Hallows', and the whole concept of the cover, the typography for the title of the chapter is very dark. Not even a teenager is as fatalistic as the beginning of this story. So since it is not so difficult to understand that the main theme of 'Limbo' is death, it does not matter if it is cheeky and makes a will theme for my goodbyes at the end of the chapters.

Never do a normal farewell, obviously HAHAHA.

In theory, I told myself that I wasn't going to publish this chapter until next week because I had two exams and I shouldn't be distracted, BUT TODAY I GOT THE NEWS THAT ONE OF THE EXAMS WAS DELAYED A WEEK and to celebrate my luck I said "well, I'll post now". In short: I wanted to procrastinate. When there are exams, I do happen to be an author who updates a lot, who would have thought...

OH, in case someone didn't see it: I published a Blackpink fic. Even if you don't know that fandom, if you like the way I write, you might enjoy that story. I think it will have an "air" to Muda de Piel, in terms of humor. Also, the first chapter of that Blackpink fic is as long as the first 3 of Limbo. This chapter that I published here has 5,500 words approx, but the first chapter of Blackpink is 17,000. You will be able to entertain yourselves for a while!

I do not promise that next week there will be a Limbo chapter, because I still have to study HAHAHA. But maybe I'll update a bit of Shedding Skin.

Which by the way, about Shedding Skin: I'm making corrections to make it a more enjoyable read (it was my first fic and it's full of mistakes). But, I recommend that you be attentive because it is almost 99% certain that it will add extra things to the story. Maybe even a whole new chapter!

Now yes, I say goodbye. Thank you for reading. Don't forget to vote and comment. Those kinds of interactions help authors grow.