*"Maddie, where are you going?" Gray asked her as she mounted her broom for the open window.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe Egypt, maybe America, maybe to the North Pole to visit Santa. I don't know."
Gray rolled his eyes. "You have to stop doing this."
"Doing what?"
"Running from your problems."
Maddie bit her bottom lip. "I'm not running from my problems."
"Then what would you call what you are doing?"
Maddie paused. "Leaving." She grinned. "Trying to make my parents have a heart attack."
"I pity your parents," Gray said.
"Oh yes. Poor them. They wind up with me. Pathetic me."
"I don't think you're pathetic," Gray whispered softly.
"You kind of just said that I was."
"Maddie, don't go," he pleaded.
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Don't leave me. You're my best friend, Madeleine Rose Potter. Please don't go."
Maddie looked at him intensely. "All right. But only because you asked me not too."
He grinned. "Ok. Whatever you say."*
Maddie woke up from her dream. She rolled over on her stomach and pushed her face into her pillow. She felt something choking her. She felt her throat and loosened the delicate chain with the hourglass on it that was tangled around her neck. Stupid time-turner, she sneered. Stupid, stupid time-turner. She got the instinct to through it across the room, but decided against it.
She opened the photo album that was beneath her bed. It was full of pictures, all pictures from the future. There was her parent's wedding, Maddie's birth and baby pictures, birthdays and days at the beach, pictures of Gwyneth and flaming red haired William, Maddie and Grayson, and even little Jamie. There were pictures at the beach, Diagon ally, Hogwarts, their little house outside London, everywhere. She loved looking at these pictures.
She wondered why they hadn't faded yet. Weren't they dead? She was dead, Gwyneth was dead, Jamie was dead. Actually, had they died if they had never been born? She wondered. Why wasn't this showing on the pictures?
She had no clue why they had sent her for the mission. Gwyneth would have been able to do a better job. She was smarter. She understood why Jamie had not been sent though. He was too young and he looked too much like Harry. People would start to wonder.
All she really remembered was one minute she had been in the living room, playing chess with Jamie, Gwyneth reading on the couch, her parents talking. Then everything stopped. They all disappeared. She was the only one left. And she was a ghost. She remembered McGonagall coming to her, telling her the plan, giving her the time-turner, wishing her luck. It went by too fast to remember details.
She turned over and looked at the clock. Six o'clock. She sighed and got up for the next day.
***
"I did something nice yesterday," Draco Malfoy told her proudly in Potions that day.
"Really?" Maddie answered with interest. "What did you do?"
"I helped Ginny Weasley carry her books to her common room."
"I'm proud of you. Was it really that hard?" she asked.
"No," he admitted.
"Keep it up," she suggested.
"Maybe I will. As long as Potter and his gang keep off my back."
"If you don't provoke them, they will."
They poured the ingredients they had spent two days cutting into the cauldron. The cauldron bubbled for a minute, the became calm.
"What do we do now?" Maddie asked.
"We let it sit." He said. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure," she grinned.
"You're a girl, right?"
Maddie laughed. "Last time I checked."
Malfoy glowered at her. "I was being serious." He said, hurt.
"Go ahead."
"Well, uh, what exactly do girls like?" he asked nervously.
"Does Draco have a crush on someone?" she joked.
"Shut up." He snapped.
"Who's the lucky girl?" Maddie asked. She knew who it was, but she had to humor him.
"I'm not telling you."
"I think I know who it is," she grinned. Then she whispered something in his ear. His face turned bright red.
"How did you know?" he asked.
"Well, I know you haven't been bugging her brother lately, and she was the first one you were nice to."
"Don't tell anyone, ok?" he begged.
"Who would I tell?" she inquired.
"Oh come on," Malfoy barked. "Everyone crowds around you; you're the new school socialite." He grinned. "We needed a new one since Cho Chang left."
Cho Chang, that name rang familiar. She chuckled and remembered her mother mentioning her with disgust; the two did not get along.
"Really?" she joked. "I thought that was you."
"Funny," he said and gave her a friendly shove. "Just don't turn into the gossip story of the week."
"You actually think I would do that?" she inquired.
He studied for a moment before he answered. "No. You're different from them." He paused. "You're not stuck up like Potter and company, nor prissy like Brown and Patil."
Maddie grinned. "I'll take that as a complement."
***
It was a rainy and slow Friday night. Most of the Gryffindor girls sat in their dormitory, talking and laughing and gossiping. Hermione was laying on her bed reading a book, trying to ignore the other girl's giggles. Maddie shook herself from the ongoing conversations to gaze at her. I miss her, she thought. I even miss Gwyneth.
"I'm bored," Lavender stated profoundly.
"So am I," Parvati agreed.
"Well, then you're lucky to have the acquaintance of Madam Madeleine, the wisest fortune teller of all the Northern Hemisphere." Maddie joked.
"You tell fortunes?" Ginny asked.
"You stink at Divination," Parvati pointed out.
"Well, I can tell fortunes. I shall gaze into the unknown and find the truths of the future," Maddie grinned. She heard Hermione snort.
"Fortunes indeed," Hermione grumbled.
"Would you like to be my first victim, Hermione?" Maddie asked.
"No thank you," Hermione stated, not looking up from her book.
"That's because she doesn't know how to have fun," Lavender mumbled under her breath. Some of the younger girls giggled, making Hermione look up from her book and glare at Lavender.
"You know Maddie, you can tell my fortune. Come here," Hermione said, sitting up.
Grinning, Maddie walked over to her bed and sat down next to her. "I need to see your palm." Hermione stuck her hand out. Maddie held her hand and pretended to study her palm. "Hmmmmmmm," Maddie hummed. "Calling the sages."
"This is ridiculous," Hermione whined.
"Let's see," Maddie said. "What should I predict first? Career, family, love life?"
"Love life," Lavender and Parvati said simultaneously.
"All right." Maddie shut her eyes. "This is fuzzy." She wasn't about to go ahead and say who her future husband was, but she felt she could drop hints. "I can't see him, but I can feel his presence." She heard Hermione snort again. "He's caring and brave. I can feel the closeness the two of you share in your relationship."
"Who is he?" Ginny asked.
"I told you; I can't see him," Maddie snapped. "That's all I'm getting on him. Let's move on to another topic."
"Career," Hermione said.
"I can see you in a leadership position," Maddie said. "It's a very important job. I think it's for the Ministry."
"That narrows it down," Hermione grumbled.
"Hey," Maddie barked, suddenly angry. "One more remark like that and I'll make you marry a vampire from Transylvania and have two hundred kids and be a homemaker. No job. So shut up!" Hermione shrunk back at first, then burst out laughing. She laid her head on her pillow, laughing hysterically. Maddie looked at her like she was nuts, then joined in laughing.
"Ok, I'm sorry," Hermione said between giggles. "What's next in my future?"
"Family," Maddie smiled. "Let's see." She paused. "You are going to have three kids."
"Three?" Hermione asked. "That's a lot."
"Yes, you have three children. Two girls and a boy."
"I bet they're all little Hermione clones, right? Walking brains," Parvati said. Both Hermione and Maddie glared at her.
"No, they're not," Maddie smiled. "The oldest one is a lot like her mother, and the youngest one is like his father."
"What about the middle one?" Hermione asked.
Me, Maddie thought. I'm the middle one, she wanted to shout. "I don't know about her yet. I'm still trying to figure her out."
***
The next Monday Ginny sat down at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, eating her dinner in silence. She had been held back from Potions to clean up a mess that her partner had made. Of course her partner was a Slytherin, she thought angrily. It had taken her forever to clean it up, so by the time she got to the Great Hall, it was practically empty except for a few obnoxious Slytherin six years. I'm having such a lovely day, she thought.
Her chicken was already cold, which she hated. All the good vegetables had been picked over all ready, leaving her with the ones that had been squashed or were overripe. This is great. Just great, she said to herself. I'm not even hungry.
Just then she noticed that three of the Slytherins were walking over to her. One of them was her Potions partner, who completely hated her for no reason whatsoever.
"This day is getting better and better," she mumbled under her breath.
"Well, hello Weasley," her partner, Beset, said with a mock politeness. "What are you doing here?" Not giving her a chance to answer, he went on. "I think you know Dolt and Clod here."
"Hello," Ginny said.
"What happened to all your little friends, Weasley? No Rosalie or any of your brother's friends here, are they?" Beset inquired.
"They've already eaten."
"Why haven't you?" Beset asked slyly.
"You know very well why!" Ginny cried. "I had to clean up your mess after Potions!"
Beset chuckled. "Poor little Ginny Weasley. Let's have pity on little Weasley. No money, no friends, no talent…"
"Look who's talking? No talent indeed!" Ginny yelled.
Beset's face reddened. "At least I have the money to by myself decent robes!"
"Money isn't everything," Ginny said softly.
"I beg to differ, Weasley. My father has power. I have power. My family name has power. What power does the Weasley name have? None!" Beset said, regaining his cool.
"What does power do if you don't have the brains to correctly use it?"
Beset grinned. "To make sure people like you never have power. You're nothing, Weasley. You're just a little speck of lent. You won't make a difference in the world."
Don't let him know he's upset you, Ginny thought. Never let on. "And you will?"
"Of course. You're nothing, Weasley," he repeated.
"Leave her alone," a voice said from behind Ginny.
"What are you talking about, Malfoy?" Beset asked, confused.
"I said, leave her alone," Malfoy said again.
"What?" Beset repeated, so confused he felt dizzy. Malfoy sticking up for a Gryffindor? That didn't connect.
"Let me see if I can make this any clearer," Malfoy said. "Take your dimwit 'friends' here and get out. Comprehend?"
Beset took one last bewildered glance at Malfoy, and then Ginny, and left the Great Hall. Ginny didn't feel much better herself. First Malfoy helped her carry her books, then stood up for her in front of his fellow Slytherins? She was extremely confused.
"Are you ok?" Malfoy asked her with concern.
"Uh, yeah," Ginny said dumbly. "I'm fine."
"Good," he said. He pulled out a chair and sat down beside her. "Why are you eating so late?"
"Snape made me clean up Beset's mess in Potions," she said.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because Snape hates me and adores Beset, for some strange reason."
"Beset is a self-obsessed, spoiled ass," Malfoy grumbled.
Much like yourself, or like you were, Ginny thought. "He is. All he can talk about is his family fortune and his 'connections'."
"Money and connections aren't everything," Malfoy said.
Ginny was dumbstruck. Was this Malfoy? Had someone human taken over his body? Why was he acting like this?
"What's wrong?" he asked her.
"Why are you doing this?" she finally asked.
"Doing what?"
"This? Being nice, helping me carry my books, standing up for me? And then thinking money and connections, which you used to brag over, are nothing? What's going on?"
Malfoy stared at her and then blushed. "I…I guess I realized that money and connections and being mean wasn't really getting me anywhere, so I decided to change."
"You just decided one day out of the blue to change your ways?" Ginny asked.
"Well, I had a little help from a friend," he said, thinking of Maddie.
"Well, I guess I like the new Malfoy better than the old one," she said softly.
Malfoy felt his heart jump with joy. "Really?"
"Really!" she laughed. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Looking for McNestrelle," he said.
"Maddie?"
"Yeah. She left her bracelet in Potions and I was going to give it back to her." He held out Maddie's charm bracelet.
"That's Hermione's," Ginny said.
"No, it's Maddie's," he argued. "She's worn it every day since she came."
"Hermione has worn hers everyday since Harry got it for her sixteenth birthday. Poor girl, she's probably in hysterics with it missing."
"It's Maddie's," he snapped.
"Why are you so sure?"
"I saw her take it off to stir the Potion this morning. She left it on the table. Can't it just be a coincidence that they have the same one?"
"No, Harry had that one especially made for her. There's an engraving somewhere…" she fingered the bracelet. "I can't find it, but I know it was kind of hidden, somewhere…"
"Well, Maddie was wearing it in Potions today. Can you give it back to her?" Malfoy asked.
"Sure," Ginny agreed.
"Thanks," he said. Just then Ron walked into the Great Hall. "I've got to go. Bye Ginny," he said quickly and left.
"Why was HE here?" Ron asked in disgust. "What did he say to you?"
"He wasn't being mean, Ron. And it's none of your business," Ginny said. Ron eyed her suspiciously.
"What did he do to you?" Ron inquired.
"Nothing!" Ginny cried. She picked up her things and left the Great Hall, with Ron in shock. How dare he butt into her private life? I wish I were an only child sometimes, Ginny thought. ***
Hermione was laying on the couch in the common room, reading ahead in Charms. She wasn't behind, she just would feel better if she was a bit ahead of everyone else.
"Hello," she heard a voice coming from above her. It was Harry.
"Hello," she said. The two had not been really speaking to each other since they had almost kissed a few days before.
"What are you reading?" he asked.
"Charms," she answered.
He groaned. "Will you ever forget about school work?"
She grinned. "Probably not."
He glanced down at the couch. "Can I sit here?" he asked.
"I really don't feel like moving," she joked. "You can go sit there," she said, pointing to an adjacent chair.
"Ok," he said and lifted her feet up. He sat down at the other end of the couch, then placed her feet back in his lap.
"Or you could do that," she said. "I don't care. Just don't bother me. I really have to read."
"Ok."
About five minutes went by. Hermione could feel Harry playing with her feet but tried not to notice, unsuccessfully. She put her book down and was ready to give him a lecture when she noticed how bad he looked.
"Are you ok?" she asked.
He looked over at her and she saw the dark circles under his eyes. "No," he said bluntly.
She sat up and scooted closer to him. "What's wrong?" she asked. "What happened?"
He put his head in his hands, then looked up at her. "Can we go outside?"
"Let's go," she said quickly, helping him up. The two walked outside in silence. They sat down on the bleachers, watching the Slytherin Quidditch team practice.
"Well?" she started.
"Dumbledore and I had a little 'chat' today," he said.
"And…"
"And the rumors are true. Voldemort is gaining power and he already has followers."
Hermione closed her eyes. "Why you?" she whispered.
"I asked Dumbledore that too," Harry said. "According to him, I'm very powerful. My dad was powerful, my mum was powerful, so I'm even more powerful."
"Powerful enough to beat him?" Hermione asked hopefully.
"Not if he has full power," Harry said.
"Then why does he want you! If you can't beat him, and you're not going to join him, why does he care?" Hermione yelled.
"Dumbledore has a 'theory' on that," Harry scoffed.
"Which is…"
"He most likely doesn't want revenge. But Hermione," he paused. "If he lets me live, and if I marry a powerful witch, than my children will be strong, so strong that they could easily destroy him."
"You-know-who just doesn't want you to have children?"
"Basically."
"That's pretty stupid," Hermione said huffily. She wrapped her arms around her legs. "Why doesn't he just kill off all the powerful wizards and witches then?"
"Because I'm more powerful than all of them," he said softly. "I have this… thing. Quality. I don't know. It's very rare among wizards." He paused for a moment and wiped a tear from his cheek. "It's like this extreme strength, but it could only be used for good. It's part of the reason I lived." He looked at her. "That's the best I can explain it, because I really don't understand it."
"If you have this, then why can't you beat him?" Hermione asked.
"Because the dark arts are much, much stronger than most light magic. What I don't understand is why my children would be that much stronger than me."
"Maybe…" Hermione began, but stopped.
"What?"
"It's nothing. Stupid."
"Nothing's stupid. Tell me."
"Well, is it possible that he already knows some how that your children are so strong? What if he used a time-turner or something?"
Harry studied her for a moment. "I guess it's possible," he admitted.
"Why would they be though?" Hermione asked, looking up at the sky.
"Let's not talk about this anymore. It's depressing," Harry said.
Hermione nodded. "You look awful," she pointed out.
"Hermione!"
"Well, you do. Are you not sleeping?" she asked.
He sighed. "Not really. Sleeping doesn't really seem important when you're going to die."
"Don't say that," she said softly.
"Why not? It's the truth, isn't it?"
She grabbed his hand. "You're not. We'll figure out something, ok?"
"Ok," he said, not wanting to argue with her. He brushed a strand of hair back from her face and behind her ear. He felt the same feeling that he had felt the day they were sitting by their tree. He looked at her eyes and realized how close they were.
Don't be scared, he told himself. He leaned in closer to her, gently put his hand to her cheek and kissed her.
***
Ginny walked into the common room in search of Maddie. I really thought this was Hermione's, she thought. She found Maddie lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
"Maddie?" she asked.
Maddie rolled over to face her. "Hey Ginny."
"Uh, Malfoy found this and told me to give it to you. He said you left it in Potions," Ginny said, handing her the bracelet.
"Thank you!" Maddie cried. She went and hugged Ginny. "Thanks!"
"Sure, anytime," Ginny said, confused. No one's acting normal today, she thought. "I've got to go. Bye!"
"Bye!" Maddie called out to Ginny as she exited the dormitory. Maddie looked at the bracelet and kissed it.
"I missed you," she said, then giggled. She looked at a charm pieces, one in particular. One was shaped like a hippogriff. She looked at the underside of the animal.
"To Hermione. Love Harry," she read of the engravement. She wondered if Hermione had hers on now. She guessed so, she had never taken it off.
She clasped her mother's bracelet around her wrist. She felt tears run down her cheeks, but she was smiling at all the happy times her family, Hermione, Harry, Gwyneth, Jamie, and herself, had shared.
And hopefully they would share many happy times to come.
A/N: Please review! I'm sorry it took so long for part 3&4 to come out. I have no clue how long this story will be. PLEASE REVIEW! Pretty please with cherries on top? J