The day went exactly as Harry remembered, except this time he used the protection spells they had used on the tent on the entrance to the Chamber. Once inside the chamber he didn't waste time looking in the same places, instead he crawled inside the open mouth of Salazar. To his surprise the path inside branched, the large tunnel continued to the left which presumably led to the basilisks nest, however the right path led to a door.
"Open" He said hopefully, picturing a snake as he did so. Regrettably the door didn't open, prompting him to hiss various passwords, in the hope he would stumble across the right word.
"Harry? Where are you!" Tonks yelled from somewhere outside, forcing Harry to leave the door.
"I'm here, I've found a door but I can't unlock it…"
"Well we'll have to leave it, he's here so we have to leave!" Tonks said urgently, dragging him out of the chamber, sending a wave of flames behind her.
The two then rode the broom to the end of the pipe, revealing it to be sealed shut. "Open" Harry hissed frantically, the flames having followed them up, however the entrance refused to open.
"Erm, Harry… Why isn't it opening?" Tonks asked worriedly.
Harry thought frantically, occasionally throwing out various phrases in parseltongue.
"There's a strong possibility that when you set the chamber on fire, the entrance broke."
By now the blue flames were licking at his heels, in desperation Tonks fired a blasting curse at the entrance. However rather than blow a hole for them to escape, it sent large chunks of stone on top of them. Tonks barely had time to say "Oh Shit" before the stone pelted them, breaking the broom under them.
After breaking into Hogwarts for the third time, Harry went straight for the locked door, dragging Tonks with him.
"How did you know this was here?" Tonks asked suspiciously
"... Last time I was down here I thought I saw a door there, but at the time I was preoccupied with the basilisk." He didn't think it would be a good idea to tell Tonks the truth, mainly due to the fact it would take too long to explain.
"Okay, so without lying this time, what's on the other side?"
"Yeah, I don't know. I haven't been able to open it."
Tonks waved Harry away before levelling her wand at the door and sending a strong reducto at it, only to have the spell bounce right off the door and into Tonks, sending her causing backwards into the statue which promptly collapsed on top of them.
"How did you know this was here?" Tonks asked suspiciously.
"After saving Ginny, I came here occasionally to escape the other students."
"Yeah, that makes sense, from what I heard I would've gone crazy if I were in your shoes. So what's on the other side?"
Despite the fact he was annoyed at having relived the day for three times in a row, he was proud that he was learning the rules of his situation. With all the crazy events that had happened in his life, reliving the same day wasn't all that remarkable.
"I have no idea what's on the other side, all I know is any spell you throw at it gets bounced back."
Tonks hummed and knelt down next to the door, running her wand over it and muttering a stream of incantations. Eventually she straightened and pointed her wand at the hinges and muttered "Wingardium Leviosa", then with a gentle push the door swung open.
"How did you do that?" Harry asked, amazed at how easy that had been.
"Well I just took the hinges off, the door's technically still locked."
The two stepped into the room which was revealed to be a small, cold study. The first thing Harry noticed was the large wooden desk, which had all its draws wide open and glaringly empty. There were also several books missing in the bookshelf, clearly Voldemort had cleared out the chamber when he was last here.
"Woah, that's a lot of books! Shame we don't have the time to read them." Tonks said as she inspected the room.
"Yeah… shame."
The two started poking around the room, but it seemed the only thing left were the books and furniture. It was then that Voldemort's message echoed into the chamber, Harry still couldn't understand what the man was saying.
With a heavy heart Harry left the study, promising himself he would return soon. He quickly caught up to Tonks, who was waving her wand to summon the cursed fire, grabbing her wrist just before she finished.
"What did you do that for?" Tonks demanded.
"I don't think it's a good idea to summon that type of fire down here, wait until we're outside then you can flood the chamber."
Without flames licking at his heels, the flight up to the entrance was relatively dull. Once they were safely back in the bathroom Tonks turned and shot a wave of fire down into the tunnel, leaving Harry to drop in Hufflepuff's cup before sealing the chamber, when the cup struck the flames it burst open into an oily black cloud which was swiftly devoured by the blue flames.
"Right, let's go see how the others got on." Tonks said in mock cheerfulness, it was clear she was trying to mask her worry with humour.
They crept through Hogwarts in silence, once again huddled under his cloak. In order for the both of them to fit Tonks had been forced to shrink herself and had still disillusioned their feet, occasionally they passed waves of students that were clearly searching for them but they remained unnoticed.
After reaching the mirror Harry swiftly opened it, a decision he instantly regretted when he came face to face with a silver death eater mask.
Waking up in Shell Cottage for the fifth time made Harry extremely annoyed. He had tried to avoid making big changes in the desperate hope that things would resolve themselves, as that seemed unlikely it was time to change the plan.
"I think me and Hermione should go down to the Chamber, while Ron and Tonks go to the Room of requirement. The chamber won't be very well guarded but Snape knows how important the Room is and we already know Ron and Tonks work well together."
Luckily everyone agreed with him, although Hermione gave him an odd look.
When they reached the cavern behind the cave in Ron and Hermione collapsed as usual, however with a shock he realised he was only slightly out of breath, as if he had done that climb several times already.
While his friends recovered he went off to help Bill and Fleur, at his insistence they taught him the excervating and vanishing charms. He then helped Fleur vanish the rubble, allowing them to get through earlier than previous loops.
Using the advanced charm had tired him out more than he had expected, but despite this he and Bill pushed onwards to the mirror.
"Bill, could you check the mirror for traps? Cause if I was Snape I would've trapped the mirror even if I knew the passage was collapsed." Harry said worriedly, pretending he had just come up with the idea.
"Good call, I guess I have time to check while the others recover their breath." Bill said easily, starting to wave the wand over the mirror. He started chanting the same words Tonks had used down in the chamber, words which Harry tried to commit to memory.
"Blimey, there was a very subtle warning charm embedded in the frame. Good thing you called it in Harry!"
Harry and Hermione made their way down into the chamber, Hermione looking around wildly trying to take it all in. He easily led her into the statue and unlocked the door using Tonks' method, her eyes fixed intently on the books.
"How long have you known about this place?" Hermione demanded, rushing off to the nearest bookshelf.
"Ehh, a while?" Harry said hopefully, assuming the lure of the books would distract her from picking up the flaws in his lie.
He had no such luck as her head slowly turned to look towards him, clearly glaring at him. "Don't lie to me Harry Potter! For a start, how would you have put the hinges back in the door from the outside? And am I meant to just ignore the fact you have never mentioned going down here before?"
"Fine… Look I discovered it yesterday when I came down here with Tonks." He decided that if anyone could explain to him what was happening, Hermione would be his best shot.
"Oh…kay? When did you and Tonks have time to come down here?" She asked suspiciously.
"Well you see, I'm stuck in some sort of time loop where every time I die I end up back at shell cottage."
Hermione stared at him for several minutes, as if expecting him to reveal this was all a big setup. Unfortunately for her he didn't back down.
"What happens if you don't die then?"
"I don't know, I've died five times so far, I've never lived past the night."
"And you aren't just pulling a prank on me?"
"Nope, I'm being completely honest."
She nodded absentmindedly and wandered over to the closest bookshelf, running her finger over the spines. "I can't read these." Hermione said suddenly, clearly upset.
Harry walked over to her and glanced at the books, as he could clearly read the titles he guessed it was some moral issue. "Why not?"
"Because they aren't in english?" She said, as if it should've been obvious.
"They aren't?" He replied, feeling incredibly foolish.
"Okay then, what does this book say?" She snapped.
"Rare and exotic defensive spells." Harry replied easily.
"Maybe it's written in parseltongue, which would explain why you can read it but I can't… Well then, you're just going to have to read it to me." She said decidedly, marching over to a cushioned chair and flopped down onto it, then started staring at Harry owlishly.
With a sigh Harry began to read the book aloud, he was soon interrupted by Voldemort's garbled speech. With a heavy heart, he made the decision to keep reading, he just had to assume he would keep looping to undo any damage that occured.
Luckily for him, he understood the premise of the spells, with Hermione helping him explain the theory. Soon the sound of explosions started echoing down into the chamber, but at Hermione's prompting they kept reading until he finally finished the book.
Once he finished, Hermione stood and motioned for Harry to follow her. Bemusedly he followed her out into the main chamber. "Right, which spell do you want to try first?"
She was referencing their strategy from fourth year, read the book once then he would try the spells, if he couldn't do it then they would read the book again until he could do it. Unlike Ron, he was capable of picking up spells from a book, however he preferred doing magic instead of reading about it.
He and Hermione quickly went through the main defensive spells, deciding to leave the rest for later. Each spell was meant to be more powerful than the basic protego, however they lacked the flexibility. For instance one shield would stop any projectile dead in its tracks but regular spells would pass right through.
At first none of his shields worked, but after some trial and error he started seeing some results, it was like when he had learned the accio charm. With his shields starting to work, they built up to bigger and tougher spells until he could deflect some of Hermione's strongest spells.
Suddenly he started feeling incredibly weak and barely dodged Hermione's spell before collapsing to his knees, he vaguely noticed a golden aura surrounding him as black spots filled his vision. With a start his vision returned to reveal his room in Shell Cottage, only to be struck by vertigo as he instantly went from sitting upright to lying down.
Several loops later he had gotten his initial interaction down to a fine art, when the group reached the cavern he began writing his letter. Then later, once he opened Salazar's study and Hermione had finished her rant he silently handed her the letter, it began by listing each and every question she had and then answering them all.
It then simply went 'Yes I'm stuck doing the same day over and over again, I have written this letter 5 times.' He wished he could take the credit for himself, however Hermione had figured it out the second time he revealed his 'secret'.
Every loop he would pick a new book to study, however issues started occurring when the books referenced previous books. Normally Hermione would've memorised the passages from both books, however now it was down to Harry to remember the necessary details.
He was just glad he was somewhat interested in the subject material, if he had been learning history of magic he would've died of old age long before he managed to memorise anything. As it was, his spell repertoire was slowly increasing with new and powerful spells.
He was currently learning a modified mining spell, it would send an incredibly powerful bolt that would cause a strong but small explosion. The catch was that the bolt was the size of a needle and when combined with its below average speed made it easy to dodge in a duel, however it would be devastating if it hit.
"Acus Bombadus!" Harry yelled for what felt like the 50th time. It started out well with a dark orange leaving his wand, however halfway to its target it seemed to split and burst open and expanded rapidly before dispersing into nothing.
His issue was if he put too much power into his spell it would burst, but put too little and it wouldn't form. It required control that he hadn't properly developed in his past, of course he had the time to learn the control now. He was slowly decreasing the amount of power he was putting into the spell, in the hope that he would eventually stumble onto the right amount.
'With time he would become as strong as Voldemort, and then it will be him depending on others to save him.' Harry promised himself viciously, forming the spell yet again. With a grin he watched it sail across the chamber until it hit Hermione's target and reduced it to ash.
'I have written this letter 8 times.'
"Svermjeger" He intoned, twisting his wand before waving it in a giant arch. During the arch small lime green projectiles periodically flew from him and high into the ceiling, he then arched his wand back the other direction which summoned even more of the projectiles. He then pointed his wand at Hermione which sent the swarm flying towards her, as they flew they zigzagged and summasalted.
The swarm wouldn't hurt her, as they were known as 'blunt spells', meaning they were completely harmless. However they were very good at destroying shields, which could then be combined with more dangerous spells to make a deadly combination, such as a bludger like curse that they would follow its target until it either hit or was blocked.
He was reaching the point where he could consistently beat Hermione in their duels, even if she started with an advantage. For the first time in his life, he felt like finally had a chance against Voldemort.
'I have written this letter 13 times and it's starting to get annoying.'
He very carefully pulled out the last few books, it surprised him how quickly he and Hermione had devoured the small library. It could've been explained away by Hermione's frightening ability to absorb knowledge and his own ability to learn spells relatively quickly, however he was starting to suspect the time turner magic was responsible.
It felt like he remembered every detail of his loops perfectly, which meant that as long as Hermione explained it to him in terms he understood he wouldn't need to relearn it the next loop. He decided he would learn the last few books and then he would begin planning Voldemort's death, with Time on his side how hard could it be?
'This is the15th letter, just trust me.'
"Wait so you stuck -"
"Yup." Harry said shortly, having already answered the question far too many times.
"Well… you had better -"
"Use the time to learn. Yes I've been doing that, I've read every book in this library and I think it's time to see how far I've progressed."
"But Harry, you can't just fight him without a plan! It would be suicide."
"Of course I've got a plan, keep attacking him until I can beat him. And if I die I'll know to do something different during the next loop." He said confidently.
"At least spend this 'loop' planning, we have the marauders map and you could use it to see where people will be."
With a sigh Harry retrieved the map and the two spent the loop sitting in the study. They decided to find their friends first and were shocked to see Ron and Tonks outside the Room of Requirement along with two other names, Amycus and Alecto Carrow. From the way the names were jumping around it was clear they were dueling, although it was impossible to see who was winning.
It took everything Harry had to stay seated as his instincts screamed at him to go up and help his friends. Soon Ron's name faded to a light grey and stopped moving, eventually followed by Tonks' name also fading. The two carrows then moved off, although judging by how slow they were moving at least one of them had been severely injured.
They found the remaining Weasley's into the Headmaster's office, clearly waiting for the signal to lower the wards. Although he didn't know why the signal was taking so long, Bill had said the Order would be ready to infiltrate Hogwarts shortly after they arrived.
Entrusting Hermione to find the good teachers, Harry moved a short way away and formed a messenger patronus. He hadn't done it before but he hoped it wouldn't be hard.
"Bill, where's the order? I thought you said they would be here by now?" He felt foolish asking his patronus, but it's what Dumbledore had done in his fourth year. It seemed the patronus understood, as it bowed deeply before bounding off up into the ceiling.
"Harry… I've found the teachers but it isn't good." Hermione said softly, sounding like she was about to burst into tears.
He hurried over and gently took the map from her shaking hands, the teacher's names were still in their office, just done in the light grey of death. Several grey names were dotted around the teachers, one such name being 'Greggory Goyle', giving Harry his first target when he next looped.
Bill's patronus interrupted his mounting rage, the squirrel bouncing off the walls until it came to a stop in front of him. Under normal circumstances he would've found it funny to see the small and fidgety squirrel open its mouth and speak in Bill's deep voice.
"Harry, the Order has fallen. They got word that giants and snatchers were attacking St Mungos but it was a trap… it's just us, Charlie, dad and Aberforth left. Apparently there's a tunnel into Hogwarts through Aberforth's pub that dad's going to use to try and get some students out to safety, it's up to us to buy the students enough time to leave. We are currently waiting for Charlie to arrange transport, will let you know if anything changes."
Harry admitted it was a good plan, but it would only temporarily move the problem. Voldemort would still be alive to hunt them down and would take steps to protect his final Horcrux, maybe even find another way to assure his immortality.
He couldn't help wondering why it hadn't happened the last few loops, as the only major change had been swapping Tonks for Hermione several loops ago. His question was answered when Voldemort appeared at the edge of the map and made his announcement, causing the remaining Weasleys to leave the office.
Fred was the first to leave and the moment he crossed the threshold his name went grey and stopped moving, Bill, George and Fleur seemed to fight their way into the corridor and started backing up only to run into a large group of names. Their names swiftly faded to grey and started being dragged away.
With their friends dead they had nothing to do but wait, until Arthur Weasley appeared a floor below the Gryffindor common room, followed by Neville and Dean Thomas. Harry was fairly sure they had left Dean at shell cottage, but evidently he had made his own way to Hogwarts.
Looking around he spotted Luna and Ollivander making their way to the Ravenclaw common room, scanning through the map quickly he soon found Aberforth Dumbledore and an assortment of Hufflepuffs making their way down to the Hufflepuff common room.
Slowly students started trickling from the common rooms to the Room of Requirement and disappearing, sometimes being replaced by older students Harry recognised like the old Quidditch team. Once more he had to fight his instincts to go up and fight, it killed him inside but he knew he could do more good if he knew what would happen.
Names started to assemble in the entrance hall, some of which he recognised from the DA, while others engaged the groups of students searching the school for him and Hermione. Luckily the students didn't seem capable of killing each other as while some names stopped moving, none had faded.
Then Voldemort made his move, his name seemed to fly towards the doors before stopping for a moment. Suddenly the names closest to the doors faded and Voldemort moved inside, his death eaters moving across the grounds behind him. Upon his entrance the names began to move around, but despite this their names faded one by one, with Voldemort staying perfectly still.
Slowly the fighters started to retreat backwards, pursued by Voldemort. He was like a deadly plague tearing through a city, he would walk into clouds of black names and leave a trail of grey behind him.
The explosions Harry had heard every loop started, which were made worse as he could now see flocks of names fade seconds before the rumbles reached the chamber. But with Voldemort and his Death Eaters already within the school and the teachers dead, what little resistance remained quickly died, the only solace being the hundred odd students that hopefully escaped.
Looking at his watch, Harry knew he only had a few minutes left before the loop reset, he would just have to make up a plan for the next loop as events unfurled. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one final name, Neville Longbottom, fade from black to grey just before he felt the familiar weakness overwhelm him.
Turns out I'm bad at finishing stories... so there will be yet another chapter to come!
For those interested I will be releasing a Dying Light chapter next week.
This chapter was based on a few things, mostly Groundhog day and videogames. The beauty with this type of story is I can make Voldemort strong enough to explain why everyone was scared of him, without making Harry unexplainably strong enough to beat him.