I have never worked so gosh dang long and hard (that's what she said…*facepalm*) on ONE friggin chapter. Whew! It's twice as long as the other chapters and much more complex (certainly the most complex that I have ever personally written) and I would love to hear your thoughts on it! (pwease and thankyou!) *Most* of your questions will be answered here *yay*
Now for something random to say because I want to, and theres nothing stopping me from doing so, so….I scream a lot. Like, randomly scream at the top of my lungs for no reason. It freaks out anyone near me when I do so and I find it hilarious. Now, enjoy the chapter!
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For as long as Rose Weasley could remember, her daddy had been by far the most important person in her life. While she loved her grandmum and the rest of her family very much, and enjoyed spending time at The Burrow while her Daddy was at work, her favorite part of the day had always been when he would come and pick her up to take her home. Although she was loved by so many people, she knew that her Daddy loved her differently, as if she were the most important person in the world to him, and he often told her this too. He told her that while her mum had been his greatest love, she was a result of that love, and therefore, just as special and invaluable to him.
Her daddy was tall and loud, and from an early age she had loved when he would put her on his shoulders and zoom her around the room; making her feel that she was a hundred feet tall and completely invisible to anything bad happening to her; she had always felt that way when he was around.
He would smile at her as if she were the only girl in the world and she loved that she was an only child so she received every ounce of his attention. He was almost never impatient with her, and even when she happened to be in a mood (apparently she had inherited his Weasley attitude) he would gently try and talk her down from whatever it was that was plaguing her rather than punishing her. Whenever this happened, it usually ended up with her crying in his arms and apologizing for misbehaving in the first place.
One time, when she was about five years old, she had woken up before him, and instead of walking to his room and waking him up to force him to cook her breakfast as she usually did, she wandered outside through their back door. There was a patch of trees behind her house, and for some reason she had felt like going to explore it, even though she knew she wasn't supposed to go anywhere alone. She had only been walking around through the thick woods for about ten minutes, when she heard her daddy start screaming her name, his voice panicked and full of fear. She had tried to answer him, but she knew that her small voice wouldn't be able to reach him from where she was. She tried making her way back towards her house, but she couldn't remember from which direction she had originally come from so she just walked around aimlessly, now crying too hard to even try calling back to him. She remembered how relieved she had felt when she started to hear his voice getting closer to where she was. When they had finally caught sight of each other, he had run to her before falling to his knees as he grabbed her and pulled her to him. She had felt his body shaking, and when he pulled her back to tell her to never do that to him again, she had seen tears running down his face and had realized that he was crying. She remembered how utterly shocking it was for her to find that he even could cry, as before, she had thought him incapable of such a thing.
She couldn't pinpoint an exact moment that she had come to know that he was sad, but it had become more apparent as time went on that he was. It was something that she had picked up on slowly and as she got older and was able to understand more. He would always try and hide it from her, but she started getting better at catching it as she was now getting harder to fool. It might be something like him trailing off in the middle of a sentence and staring into space, or finding him alone and hastily wiping his red and puffy eyes before pasting a smile onto his face when he noticed that she was looking. Sometimes his eyes would glaze over when he was staring at a photograph, or he would randomly let out a loud sad sigh, his mind a million miles away. Sometimes when she was talking to him, she noticed that he wasn't even listening to her at all and just adding little words of agreement to the conversation as she rattled on. Some mornings, it was harder to get him out of bed, and on those mornings she would usually have to go and make herself a bowl of cereal and eat by herself until he was ready to get up. She learned to spot the differences between his real smiles and his fake ones, and his genuine laughs from the ones that he would force out of his throat for her benefit.
She loved to make him laugh, and as she got older and her dry sense of humor developed, she knew that she could almost always drag at least a smile out of him, even when he was feeling down.
She had known her whole life that her mum had died when she was just a baby, but she had never felt that she was lacking for her because as far as she was concerned, her daddy was enough. She was told stories about Hermione of course, and although she was interested in learning about the woman that had given birth to her, it was hard to really feel a connection with someone whom she had never even known, as stories and photographs just weren't the same.
The older she got, the more she realized that it was because of her mum's death that her daddy was so sad. Once, when she was six and a half, she had bluntly asked him how her mum had died. His face had paled, and he had told her that he didn't want to talk about it, so she hadn't pressed the issue. She did however ask her Aunt Ginny, who told her the name of the man that had taken her mum's life, and a few details without telling her exactly how it had happened. When her daddy had found out that her aunt had told her this, he had grabbed her by the hand and floo'ed to his sister's house; enraged. Rose had listened to them argue, yelling back and forth at each other. Her aunt tried telling him to use reason, and that as Hermione's daughter, she deserved to know the truth, or at least the age-appropriate version of it. Quickly, her daddy had decided that he was done with the conversation and they had left before the argument had been settled. As soon as they had gotten back home, her daddy had screamed in frustration before punching a hole in the living room wall. He had immediately turned around to look at Rose, his face ashamed when he saw the scared look that had been on her face, and he had profusely apologized as he used his wand to mend the wall.
She knew that he was relatively famous. Whenever they were out, there were always people staring, and it was even more obvious when they were out with her Uncle Harry. Journalists would seek them out sometimes, wanting to know their opinions on certain issues, and there were always questions about the war, with them asking what exactly had they been doing during their nine months on the run while Voldemort was in power. Rose knew that Voldemort was an evil wizard, but she had never been scared of him, because she knew that he was gone and never coming back because her daddy, along with her mum and Uncle Harry, had been integral pieces in his downfall.
On Rose's eighth birthday, when her daddy had asked her what she wanted to do to celebrate, she had asked him to finally tell her everything about the war without sugarcoating it. He had thought about this for a bit, unsure, but finally he had obliged and started talking. He started by telling her that the public had never been told the whole truth, just in case someone decided to be a copycat, and that she wasn't allowed to tell anyone what he was about to tell her so she had promised not to do so.
He told her every detail of how their life had been on the hunt, from their stay at Grimmauld place to living in a tent with little to eat. He told her how he had almost died from blood loss when he was accidentally splinched and she had nodded, as she had seen the scar from it. He told her what a horcrux was, but had been vague on exactly how one was made. He told her that Voldemort had made eight of them (including himself and one by accident in her Uncle Harry) and hidden them around, and it was up to her parents and her Uncle Harry to find and destroy them before he could be defeated. He explained that the horcruxes were bad and made from very dark magic, and how one in the form of a locket had made him angry and doubtful of himself, and had caused him to make one of the biggest mistakes that he had ever made.
He told her how when he had found his way back to his friends, how a fake-Hermione had come out of the locket and spoke, telling him that he wasn't good enough for her, and how she preferred her Uncle Harry to him. Rose didn't really understand that part very much. It was obvious from pictures and stories how much her mum had loved her dad and she wondered how he could have ever doubted it, but he had told her that it had been different then and had left it at that.
When her daddy had gotten to the part of the story where they had been caught by snatchers and taken to Malfoy Manor, he had paused. He promised to tell her more details when she was older, but said that her mum had been badly hurt there by bad people and that it had been one of the worst experiences in his life. He then went on to talk of their time spent at Shell Cottage before they broke into Gringotts bank and escaped on the back of the dragon. He concluded the story with them going to fight the final battle at Hogwarts, and it had been there that many had died; including her Uncle Fred that she had never gotten to meet.
Her daddy had never seemed interested in dating and this made Rose happy as she was wary about and didn't like how random women would sometimes look at him when they were out. It irritated her when her grandmum, or various family members would try to talk him into going on dates, or meet new people. He always seemed to be embarrassed when they did this, and never seemed to be willing to even try. Rose remembered a specific incident when her Aunt Ginny had been trying to talk him into meeting a teammate of hers and he had politely declined several times. He must have seen Rose's face during the conversation because he had pulled her aside later and told her not to worry, that she was the only girl in his life and he liked it that way.
She loved her life just the way that it was, and besides wishing that her dad would be happier, she never wanted anything to change. A few months after she had turned eight though, things started changing and she had been helpless to stop it.
It had started one afternoon when she was at The Burrow and her daddy didn't come and pick her up at the time that he usually did. When her Aunt Ginny had come to pick up her own kids, she had been confused because her husband hadn't been home yet either and hadn't contacted her all day as he usually did. Her grandmum had urged her aunt to go and check Rose's house to see if they were there. Rose had been worried as well, and had insisted on going too. While her Aunt Ginny had at first refused, Rose's pleas had finally made her agree so she took her along.
The moment that she and her Aunt Ginny had stepped out of the fireplace, it was apparent that both her daddy and her Uncle Harry were at her house, as they were very loudly screaming at each other. Her aunt had instantly run towards the noise, seeming to forget that Rose had even been with her. When Rose made it to the kitchen, she stood back, slightly hidden, and watched and listened to the words being exchanged. She saw that her aunt was now standing next to her uncle, but neither of the two men seemed to notice that they were no longer alone as they hadn't even paused with their hollering.
Her daddy and her uncle were both aurors, and apparently when scrounging around an old empty building that had traces of dark magic earlier that day, her daddy had stumbled upon an old time turner. Rose knew that all of the time turners had supposedly been destroyed years ago, and she knew that her dad finding one was a really big deal. Without letting anyone know that he had found it though, her dad had slipped it into his pocket, but her Uncle Harry had seen him do it.
When they had left for the day, her uncle had confronted her dad, telling him that under no circumstance was he to use it, that it could majorly mess things up, and that no matter how much he wanted Hermione back, that using the time turner just wasn't worth the risk. This had led to her uncle following her daddy home where they had been at it for hours, yelling at each other and trying to make the other see reason.
"OBVIOUSLY YOU DON'T FUCKING CARE, NOT LIKE I DO!" her dad was screaming. Rose had never seen him so mad, and truthfully she was a bit frightened by the sight of him like this. He still had yet to see that Rose was even there, as his eyes were trained on his uncle, his face looking like he wanted nothing more than to curse him into oblivion.
"I DO CARE RON!" her uncle shouted back. "BUT WHAT IF YOU USE IT AND IT FUCKS THINGS UP EVEN MORE? WHAT IF ONE OF THE KIDS IN THE FAMILY ISN'T BORN BECAUSE YOU WENT BACK TO SAVE HER? WHAT IF OTHER PEOPLE DIE BECAUSE YOU DECIDED TO SAVE ONE PERSO-"
"THAT ONE PERSON IS MY WIFE!" her daddy screamed manically. "AND YOUR OTHER BEST FRIEND IF YOU HAVEN'T FUCKING FORGOTTEN! IF ROLES WERE REVERSED, THEN SHE WOULD WANT ME TO SAVE YOU, AND YOU FUCKING KNOW IT HARRY!"
At this, Rose watched as her Uncle Harry's eyes looked to the floor ashamedly as he let out a weary sigh, her Aunt Ginny now lightly rubbing his arm. When he quietly responded, it was like all of the fight had gone out of him."I want her back too Ron, you know I do- but the consequences might be too much-and we won't know how things will turn out until it happens."
With horror, Rose watched as her dad's upper body crumpled down onto the kitchen island, half sobbing "I have to get her back. Harry, I have to," he wailed. "You have Ginny, you don't understand what it's fucking like. I'm always alone and-" He broke off, his cries echoing loudly in the otherwise silent kitchen.
Her Uncle Harry said nothing, but Rose saw that he and her aunt were now crying as well as they watched her dad continue to break down in front of them. Rose had never felt so helpless, and she wanted nothing more for him to stop crying like he was. She didn't feel like she could handle it. She put a hand over her mouth as her own sob escaped and her daddy's head had snapped up, his tear stained face turning to look at her. She watched as his eyes widened before his face contorted angrily.
"What is she doing here?" he snarled, his eyes now trained on his younger sister.
Rose didn't wait to hear a reply as she turned around and ran upstairs, throwing her body under her covers and putting her pillow over her head, as downstairs the yelling had resumed. Shortly afterwards, everything went silent and Rose figured that someone had cast the silencing charm so she wouldn't be able to overhear.
As she lay there crying, she thought about what her daddy had said. He had said that he was alone. He wasn't alone though, he had her. Obviously she wasn't enough, even though he was more than enough for her. She knew that he loved her of course, but that was the first time that she had felt that maybe he didn't love her as much as she loved him.
After a little while, her Aunt Ginny made her way into the room and sat down on the bed next to her.
"I'm sorry that you had to see that Rose. If I would have known what we were going to be walking into, I wouldn't have brought you."
"I want my daddy," Rose whined pitifully.
Her aunt sighed. "Your daddy is not...he's very upset right now, and he needs his space."
"He's never needed space from me before," she sniffed.
Her aunt gently started stroking her hair. "Just let him calm down a bit okay? He'll come and talk to you eventually."
Rose turned fully around. "Is he going to use it?" she asked.
Aunt Ginny pursed her lips. "I don't think that anyone is going to talk him out of using it, no. There's not much that your uncle and I can do short of letting the ministry know that your dad has it, and since he's liable to get into a lot of trouble for stealing it while on ministry business, we don't want to do that."
"Please don't tell them!" Rose pleaded. "I don't want my daddy in Azkaban."
"No, no," her aunt assured her. "Of course we won't tell. We are just worried, that's all."
Aunt Ginny stayed for a while, stroking her hair until she finally fell asleep, exhausted.
The sound of her door gently being pushed open woke Rose up from her sleep. She could tell that it was really late and that she had been asleep for quite a long time. She knew from the footsteps that it was her dad walking into her room and she kept her eyes shut, pretending to still be asleep. She heard as he bent down, and felt his hand gently push her hair away from her face before kissing her softly on her forehead.
"I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely, before standing upright and walking out, closing the door behind him.
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The next morning, when Rose walked out of her room, her daddy was already awake and making her pancakes. One look at his face and she knew that he had hardly slept last night; if he had even slept at all. He said nothing, but smiled at her and gave her a quick kiss on the top of her head before loading her plate and setting it in front of her at the table. He sat down as well but she noticed that he didn't grab any food for himself and she found that odd. She also realized that it was a Thursday, but he was still in his pyjamas and obviously not going into work.
"Rose, about last night, I-"
"Are you going to use it? The time turner, I mean," she asked quietly, cutting him off.
"Yes," he answered immediately. "I am."
Rose felt her stomach drop. "What if you mess things up like Uncle Harry said you might?"
"Some things are worth the risk," he said before clenching his jaw tight in what seemed to be determination.
Rose didn't say anything else.
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From then on, things only got worse and increasingly fast at that. Every day, her dad would leave work, pick Rose up from The Burrow, and then rush straight home. He explained to her that he couldn't just jump back in time at any moment, that it was going to be more difficult than that. Every twist of the time turner would take him back in time one hour, but since Hermione had died eight years ago, twisting it that many times would be impractical. He decided to learn how to magically combine the magic of the time turner with the magic of a pensieve, so that if it worked out the way that he hoped, he would be able to pour his memories into the pensieve and then jump through it as if he were going into a memory, but would actually go back in time. He asked to borrow the pensieve from her uncle, and he had grudgingly allowed her daddy to take it. Her dad told her that he had been lucky, as the specific type of time turner that he had found allowed him to go back as long as he needed to, and he seemed very optimistic that he would save her mum and be able to do so fairly quickly.
He started buying and checking out all sorts of books, getting his hands on any written words that had any information on how to combine magical objects or anything even remotely similar. He would study them religiously, fully educating himself so that he could be confident that he would be able to combine them flawlessly. He told her that he wouldn't be able to afford to make any mistakes, because this was too important and he wouldn't allow himself to do anything less than perfect when it came to saving her mum's life.
It took longer than he would have liked, and it wasn't until almost a month later that he felt as if he had done it correctly. Right before the first time that he actually traveled, he assured her that he would just be going for a trial-run and didn't plan on changing anything just yet, he just wanted to test and see if his magical combination had worked.
He had Rose sit in a chair right next to the pensieve before making her promise not to move at all. She had watched as he poured his memory of the day her mum had died into the pensieve before putting his face into the circular dish and then had watched as his whole body had then disappeared. Not even five minutes later he was back, instantly falling to the floor and sobbing, distraught because he had seen her mum alive for the first time since she had died and the sight had affected him so. Even though he had stayed a safe distance away and hadn't let her see him, the trip had left him overwhelmed and extremely upset and he couldn't bring himself to travel back until almost a week later.
After the second time, he started traveling daily. He still did not attempt to change anything, but instead would just stand there hidden, watching as Hermione walked Rose in the park, making plans in his head about how exactly he would go about things once he did take action. He always left before anything bad happened to her however, unable to watch and vowing that he was going to change it soon. In the beginning, once the initial shock had worn off, he had been so much happier just to have seen her again, but eventually that wasn't enough for him anymore, he wanted her back permanently and it was obvious that he would do anything to make it happen. He admitted to Rose that he was scared though. He was terrified of making other things worse, or causing horrific alternate futures for those that he loved. He wanted to save Hermione, but change as little as possible so he was meticulous in his planning.
The very first time that he had attempted to prevent Hermione's death, he had succeeded. A simple spell to bind up Lucas Miller in ropes and put him in a place where he would easily be found by aurors had made it so that when Hermione had walked by the place that Miller had originally been, Miller wasn't there to hurt her, therefore, seemingly making it so that she would be okay. However, Once Ron returned back to the present, it was as if nothing had changed at all. Hermione was still gone, and no details of her death had changed; despite the fact that Ron had traveled back and prevented it from happening.
Thirty two times her daddy traveled back and saved Hermione, and thirty two times, the present didn't change at all. Her daddy became almost crazy; obsessed with figuring out how to overpass the current block in his plan and determined to figuring out why his tireless efforts were resulting in nothing.
The next few weeks and even more tries had only made him more insane, the sights of Hermione driving him to the point of desperation. He took an extended leave from work and turned his office into a space where he would go and try to work out how to get his long-lost wife back. He would spend hours up in that room while Rose would be left to entertain herself. While at first, she had tried her best to be understanding of his feelings, that changed when he started turning into someone that she no longer recognized. Her feelings were hurt, and she slowly grew to resent the way that things were for her now. She was angry at Hermione for dying, and angry that her death was causing her daddy to no longer take care of her as he once had. She wished that her daddy would just go back to being the way that he had been before. She could deal with him being sad sometimes, she however, couldn't deal with the obsessed and time-travel consumed man that she lived with now.
There were very very few books on information regarding time travel, but he went to the library and checked out anything that he could find. Only one book had the information that he sought and it was a very short book about things called 'timelines'. Her dad had explained to her that time was straight like a string (hence why it was called a timeline) and if something had happened so far back in the line, then the past was already 'set'. Once the past was 'set', it was impossible to change the future. Even if one were to go back in time and change things, as her daddy had been doing, the effects from it would fade away quickly, reverting the line straight back to as it had been before.
He then started looking to find a way that he could alter the timeline. In his research, he discovered that there was a stone called the 'permanence stone'. It was used to make one thing of your choosing 'permanent' and he figured that if he traveled back with the stone, he would be able to make the 'change' (saving Hermione's life) permanent instead of his efforts fading once he went back to the present. However, he hadn't read of any instances where the stone had been used in that particular way, or even with time travel at all, so he was only riding on hopes and assumptions that it would be able to work out for him in that way.
Unfortunately, permanence stones were extremely rare and his life started being dominated with his need to find one. He was contacting people who were experts in such things, hoping to find one, but always came to a dead end. He would even travel sometimes in search of one and would leave Rose with her grandmum for days at a time. Rose could tell that he was getting increasingly frustrated, but still, he showed no signs of giving up.
One night, when she was supposed to be asleep, she heard the sound of voices and slowly crept out of her room into the hallway to listen. It was her daddy and her Uncle Harry and they were in the room that held both the pensieve and all of her daddys research, a room that she was no longer allowed in once he had deemed it too dangerous for her.
"You don't even know if the stone would work in that way though," her uncle was saying. "And what if something goes wrong?"
"What do you mean?" her daddy asked, and she could tell by his voice that his question was genuine.
"Ron. What if taking the stone back makes you stay 'permanently' in that time? What if you can't get back to the present once you use it?"
Rose almost gasped. No. She couldn't bear the thought of that happening, She couldn't lose him.
"I haven't thought of that," she heard her dad admit. "But if I do things right, that won't happen."
She heard the frustration in her uncle's voice. "You can't know that! What if you can't get back? Are you just going to leave Rose here without either of her parents?"
Rose heard her daddy getting frustrated as well. "That won't happen. I'll make sure of it."
"You are being so selfish lately. Everyone is trying to talk reason with you, but you're not listening! You've been neglecting your own daught-"
"I'm doing this FOR my daughter!" her daddy almost yelled.
Rose gritted her teeth, her eyes filling up with angry tears. He wasn't doing this for her, he was doing this for Hermione. Not once had Rose expressed that she wanted or even needed a mum around. Her daddy was lying.
"It's no use talking to you when you're being like this," her uncle said, sounding exasperated.
"Then don't." her dad snapped.
When Rose heard someone's hand on the door handle, she ran back to her room and got back in her bed.
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Her dad still hadn't found the stone, and a few months after all of this had first started, Rose, as usual, had been in a bad mood. Her daddy hardly even noticed her bad moods anymore, as preoccupied as he had been lately. He had called her down to the dinner table, and when she had sat in her seat, he was already sitting and pouring over yet another book and shoveling food into his mouth, presumably so he could get back up to the room and look more into places where the stone might be. When he hadn't even looked in her direction, Rose had sat back in her chair, refusing to eat the plate of spaghetti that he had put in front of her.
It took him a bit to even notice that she wasn't eating, but when he did, he promptly closed his book and looked over at her before letting out a loud sigh. "I'm sorry." he said earnestly. "I know that this is all that I've been doing lately, but as soon as I find the stone and once use it to save your mum, things will be better, I promise."
Rose glared at him."If you use it, then I'll have a mum again, but you're still not going to pay any attention to me because you are only going to care about her."
Her daddy looked taken aback by her words and he shook his head. "No, it's not going to be like that. My love for you won't lessen just because your mum will be here. You will have two parents who love you unconditionally. Don't you see Rose, I'm doing this for us, for you."
She was tired of his obsession. She was tired of being left alone all of the time. She was tired of him not caring about anything else but saving Hermione. Furthermore, she was worried that if he did find the stone, then he would be trapped in the past as her uncle had said, and that he would then be lost to her forever. Every emotion from the past few months was coming to a head and she couldn't control her anger any longer. "I DON'T WANT HER BACK!" she screamed.
He had looked at her then as if he didn't know who she was. "She's your mum Rose. She loved you, she should be here to-"
Rose jumped out of her chair, enraged. "I DON'T CARE! I DON'T WANT A BLOODY MUM!"
For the first time that she could ever remember, he had glared back at her. His face was red, and his jaw was clenched as he barely held back his anger. "Go up to your room. Now." he seethed.
She crossed her arms, just as mad as him. "No."
He stood up slowly. "Rose. Now," he demanded.
"I HATE YOU." she screamed, as she ran upstairs and threw herself onto her bed, her body shaking with her sobs.
About ten minutes later, she heard her door open and heard him slowly come into her room and sit down on the side of the bed.
"I'm sorry Rose." she heard him say quietly. "I know that I've been too busy lately, and that I haven't been fair to you. I just need to do this," he paused. "I know that you don't understand it, I mean, how could you? But I need her back." his voice was pleading for her to understand."I love you so much, but I love her and need her too. I never imagined that I'd be left alone to raise a child by myself. Especially now that you're getting older, and I worry that I don't know what I'm doing, or that I'm not enough. I only want the best for you, That's all I ever wan-" his voice broke.
She chanced a look at him and saw that he was openly crying now and all of her anger disappeared as she threw herself in his arms.
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That Saturday, her dad was again going out in search of the stone and her aunt had offered to take her shopping and out to dinner for a girl's day. It was summertime and the weather was warm and she ended up having a great time with her aunt and her younger cousin Lily. When they arrived back at her house, it was quiet, even though her daddy had told that he had planned to be home by then. Lily told her mum that she was thirsty, so her aunt went to get her some juice from the kitchen.
Rose decided to go see if her dad was upstairs so she made her way up. She noticed that his office door was slightly open, and she chanced a peek inside. She saw that there was a piece of paper near the pensieve and even though she knew that she wasn't supposed to, she walked inside to read it.
Harry. I found the stone. I know that I told you that I would let you know before I went, but I couldn't chance you trying to talk me out of using it. Hopefully I'll be back before you find this, but if not, take care of Rose until I come home. Ron.
A fear as she had never known gripped her, and she looked at the pensieve that her daddy might never come out of again. There were many vials, and she grabbed one that was closest to the pensieve and poured it in as she had seen her dad do on numerous occasions. Using her anger at him for leaving without telling her, and her determination to follow him to wherever he was, she quickly stuck her head in and was gone.