Credit: vueren suggested this chapter a long time back, and I got around to writing it just now. Thanks a bunch, vueren!

Chapter Seventeen : In Which Arms Are Crossed

Hermione sat down on an upturned bucket, looking desperately anxious, but Harry wanted a few questions answered.

"Where did you get that hourglass thing?"

"It's called a Time-Turner," Hermione whispered. "and I got it from Professor McGonagall on our first day back. I've been using it all year to get to all my lessons. Professor McGonagall made me swear I wouldn't tell anyone. She had to write all sorts of letters to the Ministry of Magic so I could have one. She had to tell them I was a model student and that I'd never, ever use it for anything except my studies. . . . I've been turning it back so I could do hours over again, that's how I've been doing several lessons at once —"

Harry chortled.

Hermione frowned and crossed her arms. "What?" she said irritably. "Keep your voice down!"

Harry clutched his chest as he tried to control his laughter. He started, "You have a time machine —"

He burst into laughter again. "Sorry, sorry," he said, raising his hands in apology. "You have a freaking time machine and you use it to — excuse my bluntness — go to extra classes?"

"Well — yes. There wasn't any other way to attend them all, so I had to —"

"Had to? I thought after the Basilisk last year nothing would surprise me, but this is too much. You're telling me the teachers would rather hand over the power of time to a third-year student than rearrange their schedules? Even by Hogwarts' standards, this is over the top."

Now that Hermione came to think of it, making more time was just about the most convoluted solution to the problem.

"I can't believe I never thought of it before!" Hermione said, with growing horror. "How could the Ministry ever approve this?"

"You do know the whole reason we're on this time-traveling quest is because of the Ministry's stupidity and corruption? Sirius Black is innocent but was in Azkaban for twelve years. Buckbeak's innocent but is sentenced to execution. It hardly surprises me that they would be stupid enough to do this. What shocks me is the fact that McGonagall went along with it."

AN: What were they thinking? Oh right, they weren't really thinking at all. They were just handing away Time-Turners off to students who wanted to take extra classes.

Here's what I imagine went on in the staff room:-

"Headmaster, Hermione Granger wishes to take all the electives."

"So?"

"Classes are simultaneously held."

"I see. We just need more time, then! Apply for a Time-Turner from the Ministry!"

"I was kind of thinking we should keep different timings for classes so that she is able to take them."

"Don't worry Minerva, it'll work. What could go wrong?"