Impatiently Harry paced his floor until night, waiting for Hedwig to come with a reply.
"Harry! Dinner!" came the shriek of his aunt Petunia from the kitchen. Harry walked downstairs and sat at the table.
"So then, Dudders, when's your next boxing tournament?" Uncle Vernon asked his son, completely and determinedly ignoring Harry.
"Nexfft weurk," Dudley replied. He was too busy shovelling food into his mouth to actually swallow and speak clearly. Harry rolled his eyes and quickly finished eating so that he could go back upstairs. Just as he gulped down his last morsel there was a low swooping sound, aunt Petunia's scream, and uncle Vernon's yell of:
"Ruddy owl!"
Hedwig dropped a neatly folded parchment onto Harry's lap and flew up to his room again. Seeing the glowering faces of his Uncle and Aunt Harry dashed upstairs before they could say anything. He jumped onto his bed and with excitement opened up the parchment to see Hermione's tiny, neat handwriting.
Harry,
I do still have the Time Turner. McGonagal was supposed to take it from me but never actually got the chance. By fourth year she forgot.
You want to meddle with time, don't you? Well, first read the rest of this letter.
Remember:
You must not be seen! Wizards that have meddled with time before have been seen by either their past self or other people, resulting in a dead future or past self. You cannot let this happen. You also must be back at the spot where you first meddled with time before time reaches that point. If not… Just get there in time, all right?
Whatever you do, don't do something stupid, and be careful!
P.S. Every turn you do goes back an hour into time. Calculate carefully what time you'll need and don't lose track of the turns!
—Hermione
Harry shook the paper a little bit, hoping that she'd have given him the Time Turner. The tiny hourglass landed on his outstretched palm and he immediately sat down at his desk, pulling out parchment and quill.
"Let's see," he said to himself, "I'm three weeks into the summer holidays. Umm… Twenty-four hours in a day, multiply that by seven, that gives me one hundred sixty-eight hours. Multiply that by three… Five hundred four…" he paused in his calculations. Just where in time did he want to go to save Sirius? To tell himself that everything was all right, that Sirius wasn't with Voldemort? Did he want to go to the curtain to prevent Sirius from falling in? To Grimauld place to tell Sirius to stay? Or he could go to Grimauld place and strangle Kreature. Tempting.
He then remembered the third year experience with the Time Turner. He'd still be where he was now and he'd have to get to wherever he wanted. He could always fly on his firebolt with his invisibility cloak… Or wait the one-week until he'd get to go to number 12 Grimauld place. It was true that his aunt had his mother's blood in her veins, and while he was there Voldemort couldn't touch him, but he still hated it there and everyone knew it. So he was going to be at the Head Quarters for the Order of the Phoenix at least for a week. Besides, that place was probably next safest, seeing as there were so many enchantments and such. Then he could try the Time Turner to tell Sirius to stay… and strangle Kreature.