Friday 30 October 2020

In which the narrator receives an unexpected visitor.

Days passed with no word from Potter. I couldn't stop thinking about what he'd told me, that someone had been killed because of my Time-Turner. Though Potter had not exactly proved that this was what had happened, if I was honest with myself, it was a distinct possibility. The money involved would be enough on its own to inspire some people to commit murder. Beyond even that, however, it was becoming clear that my Time-Turner belonged to that class of magical object that starts to live a life independent of its creator, and weave a history of its own. Like the Elder Wand, the Time-Turner made the possessor uniquely powerful. Was I now to blame for any damage other people inflicted with it, or any collateral damage, just because I had made it? I didn't think so – didn't want to think so – but it was hard to repress the nagging feeling that I maybe had created something that was impossible to control.

I wondered what it meant about me, that I'd made it but had knowingly given it up. Was I lacking in imagination, or courage, and that meant that I could never really use it? Was I shallow and greedy, or did I just have my own special brand of stupidity? I was coming to realise that the Time-Turner almost certainly would be the piece of work that defined me as a wizard. I supposed I could live with that, although I'd have liked to have been at liberty to at least try to outdo it.

I wondered if my problem was that I fell between two brooms. My family history, reputation and natural proclivity led me towards magic that was illegal. My work, however, though potentially dangerous in the wrong hands, had no inherent malice in it. Perhaps that was why it had sold so well. I was no optimist on the subject of human nature, but I did not believe that cruelty came naturally to most people. A few were brutes, certainly (I knew this first-hand having grown up with Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle), but mostly I thought that vices such as selfishness, laziness, vanity, pettiness and indulging in anger were far more common. Perhaps that was a reflection on my own character, although I wasn't sure if it meant that I was exceptionally selfish, or exceptionally oblivious to cruelty. I was aware that some might consider it terribly crass for me to take such a view; I'd committed monstrous acts of cruelty after all. I might be the cause of the end of the world. But the Time-Turner was born of a yearning to truly inhabit the past again, not a malevolent desire to rewrite it. I was not the person most people thought I was.

Sometimes I would think of the past, and what I had lost, and the sensation of longing I felt was physical, almost overwhelming. My childhood had been idyllic; doted on by my nanny and my house elves and with a father who encouraged my natural curiosity, I spent many hours reading and playing with magic. My early years at Hogwarts too were wonderful, filled with possibility and new privileges. I caught a whiff of Butterbeer once when I was in a pub in the Ottery valley selling a miniature labyrinth and nearly wept, transported as I was to the joy and purity of my third year, going on my first trips to Hogsmeade and starting exciting new subjects. I barely drank it after that time, as in Slytherin one was mocked mercilessly for choosing drinks deemed unmanly past a certain age; I daresay if Ogden and co had manufactured a tar-flavoured beverage we would all have been obliged to choke it down to prove something or other. As an adult I eat and drink what I like, and my tastes have changed now anyway, but the salty caramel scent bubbling up from a foaming tankard was an unexpected reminder of what I'd had before it had all gone wrong. Things changed when the Dark Lord returned, of course. Magic was no longer a source of innocent delight, but a manifestation of the Nott family's superiority over muggles and over other, lesser wizards. The pressure was immense. It wasn't good enough anymore to be quick with the right spell, or inventive with a new twist on a hex or a jinx; my father now expected my magic to be pure and powerful to the point of brutality.

With the Time-Turner I had managed to prove that I was an exceptional wizard, to myself at least. My father had been disappointed by my poor performance at the violent magic he specialised in, and he had made it clear that he thought I would have a very limited future if I could not master it. Squeamish, that's what my father had called me, but the way he said it made it clear that I was other things too: weak, effeminate, hypocritical.

In the last few days, the hallways had become quiet and still and I supposed that most people had taken some time off for Hallowe'en. Before I'd started at Hogwarts my father had ensured that we always rather pointedly celebrated Hallowe'en, and it was a tradition that I'd continued, even though my house elves were now the only family I had left. Had I not been arrested, I would have been sitting down to a lovingly prepared feast, alone at my enormous dining table, having given myself a day off from tinkering with whatever artefact I'd have been working on. I'd almost certainly have had a potion to hand too; Euphoria Elixir was my current intoxicant of choice, laced with a touch of laudanum. Hallowe'en could be difficult for me.

On the whole I did not mind so much being on my own, but on holidays I was reminded of the family I had lost, and the family I would never have. It wasn't so much that I wanted a wife, kids, all the rest of it, but it would have been nice if someone had seen me, really seen me, with all my history and my flaws, and decided that they could still see something there that they could love. Unless I took pains to blot it out, at these times I would see my own sad existence as though through another's eyes, sitting reading alone, eating and drinking alone, going to bed alone, with books by Muggles and long-dead wizards my last lifeline to the rest of humanity.

I still hadn't heard from Ms Mbewe, which I was entirely relieved about, given the tone of our last meeting and the fact that I was now going to have to tell her about the conversation I'd had with Potter. I still didn't understand why Potter had that effect on me, making me yearn to be honest and open and uncynical. I was forced to admit that, in some respects at least, he was good at his job. I was relieved I'd not shared more with him; Potter could be extremely disarming, and time travel would always be a fascinating topic of discussion for me, even if it was an exceedingly dangerous one.

I wished I had the option to speak openly about my work, to take pride in my Time-Turner. The day I'd cracked it was the best of my life; the memory of it still made me shiver with excitement. I had been sitting at my desk when a shadow had fallen over me. Too tall to be a house elf. An Auror? I thought in horror, but I already suspected who this might be. I lifted my eyes, drawing my wand and saw myself standing there with a grin wider than Gilderoy Lockhart's.

"You did it," I'd said, a slow smile spreading across my face.

"You did it," he (I) said.

"How long ago?"

"Oh, you've already done it. I only went back an hour."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Because if I went back to before I'd solved it and told myself the secret, how would I actually find out how to do it?"

"You'd break the timeline. Reality would diverge."

"Exactly."

"This is a bit weird, isn't it?"

"Like a mobius strip."

"Easy enough to make a mobius strip out of matter. Why not time?"

"You remember this already, don't you? Being me?"

"Yeah. Like I said, I'm only an hour ahead of you."

"So do you have, um, free will?"

"Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it? It feels as though I do."

"And yet you can remember this conversation. So in theory you could derail it at any point."

"But how would you know about that? You can't remember it."

"But you can. And you're still following the script. I think."

"Human memory is notoriously unreliable."

"You wouldn't necessarily know if you didn't have free will though."

"Indeed. But I'm not sure adding an extra self actually changes things much. You might not have free will already and not know it either."

"True." The smug self-satisfaction in his voice made me want to hit him. Oh Theodore, you're so fucking clever. The only one who can understand you is you. I loved and hated myself in equal measure. Seeing myself standing in front of me was the weirdest thing ever, both times. The way he (I) looked at me, like I was scared, wanting approval from myself and afraid I wouldn't get it, broke my heart.

"Come here," we said roughly. I'm not sure which of us initiated it, but somehow we'd pulled ourselves into a tight bear hug. I think I was blinking back tears both times, glad that nobody else could see exactly how pathetic I was. And then there was only one of me again (and again) and I was both relieved and sad.

My elves always wanted me to go out and meet people, to stop spending so much time alone, but I hardly thought that this was what they had in mind. I'd collapse in my armchair of an evening with a tumbler of Firewhiskey and a book, and see them glaring balefully at me, knowing that they were thinking that I should be socialising at some fancy pureblood establishment, or whatever they thought wizards did. They wouldn't say it out loud, though; they couldn't, not without punishing themselves.

It wasn't exactly my proudest moment. I had been out of Azkaban for a little over a year, and it was coming up to Christmas. Daphne, unbelievably, had invited me to a party, but I didn't want to go. Her husband had been in the same house as my ex, so I was fairly certain there would be people there who I would not want to see. My elves, however, thought that I was missing out on a wonderful opportunity, and would constantly try to cajole me into going. I'd attempt to deflect them, but they'd keep coming back to the subject. Eventually, on the night of the party, they got to the point.

"But Mister Theodore, how will you get an heir? Who will Peep be looking after?" Peep was only a baby then, the daughter of Weenie and Dappy from my mother and father's estates. Unknown to me they had been carrying out an agonisingly protracted courtship throughout my late teens, the years I'd exiled myself from my old home, and during my time in Azkaban, only consummating the relationship after I'd given my blessing upon my release.

"I'm sorry?" I'd said.

"You mustn't leave it too late, Mister Theodore."

"My father was a hundred and five when I was born," I'd said. "Can we please not mention heirs again for… I don't know… at least another sixty years?" The truth was, though, that I had long ago decided that I did not want an heir.

"Ah, Mister Theodore," Dappy had said wisely. "Your father required constant reminding to find a bride and have a child. If my grandmother and father hadn't been prompting him all through his youth, he probably would never have married and had you."

I'd privately thought my own non-existence a preferable outcome, but instead I'd said lightly, "Is it really that important? When I die, Peep can be free, can't she?"

Weenie had put her hands over the baby Peep's ears and screamed. "Mister Theodore, how can you say such things?"

"She can have the house," I'd said. "Both of them. What's the problem?"

"The shame," Weenie had said grimly. "Dappy's forefathers is taking care of Notts for nineteen generations, and my ancestors is working here in this house since it is being built, they is looking after Wilkes for centuries. We is not being the ones to let the family die out. What would my mother say if she knew you is not getting married?"

"Who's talking about getting married? We were talking about going to a party a minute ago, and now it's all marriage and heirs? That escalated fast, don't you think?"

"Mister Theodore," Dappy had said patiently. "We isn't expecting you to get married tonight, sir. But you isn't going out, you isn't seeing magical folks for months at a time. Me and Weenie, sir, we worries that you isn't going to find a wife."

"I don't want to get married," I'd said. "Besides, who would marry me?"

"There is lots of eligible pureblood witches," Dappy had squeaked indignantly. I shuddered. If there was anything less life-affirming than blood-sanctioned courtship followed by dutiful procreative sex, I couldn't think of it.

"But I don't want to go out with people. I don't want to get married, I don't want to have children, and I especially don't want to go to this party," I'd said, realising after the fact that I was sounding like a petulant five-year-old.

"We is trying to take good care of you!" Dappy had sobbed. "We is doing everything to serve you and we is still not worthy to care for your child."

"It's not about that," I'd said awkwardly.

"Hasn't we made things good for you?" Weenie had said cajolingly.

"Yes," I'd said, because they had, but the truth was that despite their best efforts I wasn't particularly happy and couldn't see that I ever would be.

"Mister Theodore, you is not going your duty to your family!" Dappy had exclaimed.

"What do I care, they're all dead!" I'd snarled, losing my temper. "I forbid you to mention this ever again! You and Weenie both. And Peep. Don't you dare put her up to anything."

So they had not brought up the idea of an heir again, not ever, but somehow I could see in their eyes that they were thinking about it, every time they brought me my evening Firewhisky, every time I retreated to my study alone. Perhaps it served me right.

I exhaled. I turned around, intending to flop onto the mattress and attempt to sleep, and almost jumped out of my skin. Granger was standing there. I hadn't heard her come in.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello." She was calm, controlled. Power suited her.

"You actually came to see me," I said. Her face had lost some of its youthful fullness, but she did not look the worse for it; it merely emphasized her elegant cheekbones, the intelligent light in her eyes. I had never been much to look at in the first place, but I knew that time had not been so kind to me. Then again, I had not treated time with the greatest respect either. She surveyed me without interest, saying nothing. The silence was uncomfortable, but only for me.

She had been my peer, my contemporary, and my rival. She was now Minister for Magic, and I was an unemployable ex-convict. Perhaps not even really an ex-convict now that I'd been detained two months and was liable to be sent down for the rest of my life. The difference in our situations was bearable only because I'd created the Time-Turner, because that was something she never, ever could have done. It felt good to at least have distinguished myself in that respect. I'd crossed lines that even the Dark Lord hadn't touched.

"Why?" I asked. "Why now?"

"Look," said Granger. "I'll get right to it. There's a chance that we might have to go back in time, further than anyone has gone before. There's very little that's been written on the subject, as you almost certainly know."

My heart lifted. "You want my help?"

"I want information from you. You've been sequestered here at the Ministry for weeks on end and it's time you started earning your keep. Harry might be prepared to take the leap into the unknown, but I'm not. You know more about this than anyone, and you're going to tell me everything."

"I've told Potter everything I could think of that might help. I really don't know how to trace the Time-Turner."

"That's not what I care about. Can you tell me how your Time-Turner works? How do we calibrate it?"

"My Time-Turner? You've not proved possession."

She made as if to leave without a backwards glance.

"But I reckon it's easiest to move in rounded increments," I said in a panic. She stopped and turned to look at me again. "Going back exactly twelve moons, or exactly five years is much easier than going back say three years, seven months, four days, six hours and ninety-two seconds."

"It's possible to calibrate going back in uneven increments?"

"I believe so, but it's much harder to be accurate. I would recommend consulting lunar and astral charts before you make any journey going significantly far back, as there's usually some unique confluence of circumstances that you can use to help navigate to the right time. I imagine."

"I don't want any nonsense from you. We both know what you did. This whole charade is pointless."

"I don't want to go back to prison."

"It's a little late for that, don't you think?"

"Yeah, probably. You'll send me back to that miserable stone box and I'll die there, this time."

"You deserve it. Toffee?"

"What?"

"Do you want a toffee?" she said, pulling out a large bag and taking one for herself.

"Aren't your parents dent-" I said. "I mean, aren't you worried about your teeth?"

"Not you as well."

"As well?"

"Harry tells me that sugar's addictive."

I sniggered. The idea that Potter was stressing out about a few sweets with all the other things that were going on was kind of hilarious. I wondered what he thought about my potion habits, if he was going to take that kind of puritanical attitude; that I was an incorrigible reprobate, probably.

"'We're off sugar at the moment.'" Granger said, rolling her eyes. "When did we get so boring? I don't even offer them to Ron any more. I keep telling him beer's just sugar in another form but-"

"I'll have one," I said, holding out my hand, into which she placed a fat Honeydukes toffee wrapped in striped gold paper. Her fingertips brushed my palm and my hand tingled, elation spreading up my arm, across my whole body. "Thanks." I unwrapped it and popped it into my mouth, holding her gaze while I did so. She had already started eating hers.

Chewing, she said, "You know, of all the people in our year, I always thought you would do great things. Your magic was always so creative, so polished." I gaped at her. I'd thought about her often, at school and afterwards, but I'd never dreamed she would have held me in such high regard.

"But it was you," I said. "It was always you."

"It could have been you too," she replied. "Up until... well..."

"Becoming too depressed to function and going to prison for a decade will put a dent in anyone's career."

"I meant afterwards. It didn't have to go the way it did."

"You say that," I said. "But it doesn't look that way from here."

"You didn't need the money. You could have taken your time, done the right thing."

"You don't know anything about it. Try applying for jobs with a name like Nott, you'll see what it's like. See how many people want to hire you."

"A good pureblood family? I'm surprised."

"Times have changed."

"Not all that much. There's still a cadre of wizards who believe that purebloods are superior."

"You're Minister for Magic aren't you?"

"A Minister for Magic who is constantly challenged to prove her magical ability, whose legitimacy is questioned every single day, while Muggleborns in all walks of wizarding life face the same headwinds."

"You being Minister counts for something though, doesn't it?"

"I suppose, but it doesn't really do anything about the broader structure of power in magical society. Muggleborns like me still always have to prove ourselves… you think you've got it harder… you lost your ability to do magic almost entirely, and you got away with it. Nobody questioned you about it. Nobody even suspected."

"I wasn't in a job where that was particularly important," I said.

"Nor am I," said Granger. "Funny how spellwork only started being important now that a Muggleborn is in charge, rather than say, leadership."

"But your spellwork is excellent."

"I know, but it shouldn't have to be, and nor should I be called upon, over and over again, to prove that it is. It's just playing into the idea that Muggleborns are lesser."

"You have some advantages that we purebloods don't have. You get to walk in more than one world. We don't. No wonder we don't trust you. You cite the fact that nobody challenged my diminished magical capabilities as en example of privilege, but had you been in the same situation, you would have had more options. You could have gone back to your parents' world. That wasn't an option for me. I don't understand Muggles, or how Muggle technology works."

"A lot of Muggles don't either."

"The ones that don't know enough to survive. I don't. I never belonged there. But my place in this world was contingent on my magical ability. Maybe I 'got away with it,' but I lived in constant fear that someone would find out that I'd lost my magic. That I'd have nowhere to go. And then I… well… I found I couldn't go on. You know what happened next. I confessed to killing that Muggle woman. It was just a relief to tell someone, I didn't really know what would happen after that. I'm not sure I thought I'd even have an afterwards. But then I found myself out of prison after ten years, not knowing what to do."

"You made your choice," she said. "You tried to take a shortcut."

"I've worked bloody hard. I had a lot of time to make up."

"Dark magic always is a shortcut," she said. "Seeing as most people won't touch it, it's not like you have to be that exceptional to be noticed, is it?"

"I don't do Dark magic," I said. "And I am exceptional. Anyway, if I did want to take a shortcut, so what? I lost a decade of my life."

"Turning yourself in was the best thing you ever did."

"Spoken like a true Gryffindor," I said scathingly. "Those years I spent in prison were good to nobody."

"They were good for you."

"Good for me?" I said. "I could have died."

"You didn't," she replied. "And you're stronger now. A better person for it, too, although that's not saying much."

"You still think I'm scum, huh?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"You're not going to answer my question?"

"I don't owe you a response. It's not as though you've been particularly forthcoming."

"That's not fair. Potter's asked me some stuff already. I've helped you."

"A little bit, maybe. But not enough."

"I gave him the help he asked for. I'm not sure what else you want from me."

"Did he tell you what the stakes were?"

"His kid," I said wearily. "And Draco's. I get it."

"More than that: a different history. Voldemort coming back."

"Well, yeah, that's always going to be a risk with time travel."

"Only a Death Eater's son could say that so casually."

"Hey, I never wanted that to happen."

"No? Why should anyone believe that?"

"If I'd wanted the Dark Lord to come back, he'd be back, wouldn't he? I could have changed history if I'd wanted to."

"Why didn't you want to? You don't exactly sound happy with the way things are now."

"Things could be better for me," I admitted. "But they could be worse. A lot worse. It took me a while to really understand that, because I'd been raised to hold your side in contempt, but when you defeated the Dark Lord you saved me from a terrible fate too. And I might not seem grateful, but I am, Granger."

"Why would you risk undoing it, then?"

"I don't know. I guess it didn't seem like that much of a risk. I mean, if I changed history, I could always go back and undo it, couldn't I?"

"You sold the Time-Turner to Lucius Malfoy. You lost control of it then."

"I knew Lucius Malfoy. He talked big, but he didn't want the Dark Lord to come back any more than I did. He had a miserable time of it in the last war, even if he never admitted it."

"But anyone could have got hold of the Time-Turner. You must have known that. I mean, that's what happened."

"It wasn't my preferred outcome. Although nothing bad did happen until you lot got involved."

"You knew what the penalties were for tampering with time. Surely you must have understood that this was why? That you could undo everything we'd fought for in an instant?"

"Well, OK, it's a risk, but there's also a risk that Bulgaria won't win the 2014 Quidditch world cup, or that Bertie Botts will celebrate their fiftieth birthday with a Marmite flavoured bean rather than a pumpkin one."

"Don't be facile."

"I didn't think this would happen."

"I don't suppose you did. But the damage you've done to reality is unprecedented."

"The damage I've done? I've had more than a little help."

"No. You broke reality. Once you made that Time-Turner it was inevitable that time itself would become damaged."

"The damage isn't certain."

"The form of the damage isn't certain. But you have altered reality forever simply by creating the possibility that the past could be altered. Don't you see that? Events could change, history could be re-written. Voldemort might re-emerge, invincible. How could you be so reckless as to even countenance the possibility?"

"I wasn't thinking about it that way, I guess."

"You knew what the penalties were. Why did you think they were so stringent?"

"I found them…disproportionate. Illegal is not the same as immoral."

"Perhaps not," Granger replied. "But they overlap more closely than you seem to think. Laws exist for a reason."

"They're a reflection of the values of the people who are in power," I said. "Not everyone shares them. You stopped making distinctions between illegal and immoral when you started making the laws."

"You haven't exactly demonstrated a particular capacity to make good moral judgements."

"It's a work in progress," I said.

"But you ignored the laws. These are laws, not some silly school rules. They are not optional. Everyone has to follow them."

"Well, obviously I didn't expect you or anyone who cared to find out, did I?"

"I guess it's a pureblood tradition to bend and break the rules, after all. You never obeyed the Restriction of Underage Sorcery while you were at home, did you? Your father was hardly going to report you for using magic at home, and the Trace is useless in a wizarding household without parental enforcement."

"Everyone's parents let them do magic at home," I said. "Everyone I knew. We were just taught not do do it in front of people."

"Rules were for other people, weren't they?"

"I never really thought about it. I guess I thought everyone did the same."

"Muggleborns couldn't. The Trace ensured that they couldn't do magic."

"Well, what do you want me to do? It's unfair, but I didn't choose it."

"You killed someone by magic when you were underage."

"Yeah, and I wish I hadn't," I said. "I didn't want to do it then and I've regretted it every single day since. I would never hurt a Muggle or a Muggleborn now."

"Maybe not directly. But you're perfectly happy to take risks that could result in the slaughter of countless non-magical people. You think you've changed? You haven't, not enough. Let the little people obey the law, the Muggleborn people. You're a pureblood, after all. Why should your right to use magic be restricted?"

"It's not like that."

"Maybe you don't think about it like that," she said. "But your sense of entitlement is appalling. You can change time, therefore you will change time, no matter how many lives you endanger."

"I'm not entitled."

"What if everyone was like you? Imagine a world where everyone from Hogwarts students to Quidditch players to the dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron was experimenting with time. It would be chaos, wouldn't it?"

"But they're not," I said. "They wouldn't be capable of it."

"So it's Magic is Might all over again."

"No..."

"You're a careless person, Nott. The Great Gatsby, maybe you've read it? No? I suppose I've never mentioned it in the press."

"About that–" I began, but she cut me off.

"You can read whatever you want," she said. "And if you're reading Muggle literature, maybe that's a good thing. Only I would have hoped it'd have had more of an effect. But you don't care, do you? You'll break things, time, history, other people's lives, because you want to play with them, and then once they're damaged, possibly beyond repair, you'll swan off, letting someone else clear up the mess."

I gazed at her steadily. Though I would have liked to argue, really she hadn't said anything that was terribly untrue.

"Well, like it or not, the danger is very real," said Granger. "She's his daughter."

"What?"

"The woman who kidnapped Albus and Scorpius is Voldemort's daughter."

"The Dark Lord had a child? I don't believe it."

"You never heard about this?"

"No... it doesn't make sense."

"You don't think Voldemort would have wanted an heir?"

"Well, no, actually. If you're not planning on dying, surely you don't need an heir? A child of Voldemort would just be a rival."

"Perhaps. But whether or not you believe that this witch is Voldemort's child, the important thing is that she does believe it, and she's set on bringing him back. And she's hidden herself in time."

"You know that, do you? It isn't just some random hunch of Potter's?"

"Yes, we have proof now. We know when she dragged them back to."

"What proof?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"So I know how to help you."

"Is that all you've got?"

"I guess," I said. "I mean, I still don't know what you want from me. You've found the kids, and you say you've got another Time-Turner to take you to them."

"Also your handiwork."

"No comment."

"Do you get how serious this is?"

"Yes," I said. "I get that it's bad. Although without wanting to sound flippant, I still don't really know what's going on."

"You don't have to. This isn't a partnership, and even if you confessed to all your crimes and named all your accomplices, we will never be on the same side. All I need from you is a quick how-to on that Time-Turner. Then I'll be on my way and you'll still be here, in this cell. Got it?"

"Uh huh."

"You want to tell me about it, don't you? It's an incredible object..."

"Have you held it? The gold one, I mean?"

"Not yet."

"The weight of it," I said. "I found that very satisfying. But, you know, you're not supposed to hold it."

"No?"

"It'll float, if you let it. It's better to do that."

"How come?"

"Complete freedom of movement. You can direct it with your mind, it'll take you whenever you want to go."

"I thought you said it's easiest to move in rounded increments?"

"It is."

"Well, why wouldn't it take me to a specific point in time if I was willing it hard enough, rounded increments or not?"

It was a good question, but one that demonstrated the difference between our styles of magic. I tried to answer in a way she would understand. "I mean, you could," I said. "But I wouldn't. Time has… I don't know, I guess you could say maybe a grain to it, like a piece of wood."

"Really? I've never heard anything like that before. How do you know?"

"How do you think? You get a feel for these things, you just know… there's a slight… resistance if you try to make the Time-Turner go to a time that's not right, it's just better to work with it. Safer, I'm sure."

"I'll bear that in mind."

"If you're paying attention, you should be able to feel it."

"Feel it how?"

"I don't know, I can't really articulate it. You kind of just… know. Moving by itself, it's harder to make it go against the grain like you could with a handheld one. You maybe could, if you were determined enough, but I wouldn't advise it."

"I guess that makes sense."

"When are you going back to?" I asked again.

"I told you, it's really not your concern."

"I care about it," I said. "About you. I am sorry you're doing this."

"I have to do it."

"I'll go," I said. "I'll fix it."

"You know we won't let you do that."

"Yeah," I said. "I did really mean it though."

"I know."

"Thanks."

She looked at me thoughtfully.

"You don't get it, what you did, even now," she said. "I can see that. But it doesn't matter. If you can't or won't imagine the results of your actions, there's no way you can act morally. Evil can be a negative quality, an absence, just as much as a presence. Perhaps more so; some call it the banality of evil."

"Evil," I said skeptically.

"Do you have another word for mass murder, torture and terror?" she asked coldly.

I lowered my gaze. "No."

I didn't really know what else to say. I gripped my left forearm, my thumbnail slowly scraping down my old scar.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Really I am. I… I tend to block out things I don't want to deal with, avoid facing up to things so that I can do the things I want to do. I'm really good at it until I'm not. The big things, they always seem to come back. It was a bad error of judgement, and I guess I always knew that. But sorry's not really going to cut it at this point, is it?"

"We might be able to stop her," she said. "Harry, Ron and I are going to find Albus and Scorpius and we're going to stop her from reaching Voldemort. Trying to defeat her might go badly wrong, of course, but if we do nothing and she succeeds..."

I wondered why she was taking Weasley; he'd be about as useful as a chocolate cauldron. Old time's sake, probably. I felt a stab of envy. Weasley was so ordinary, but it was him she loved, not me. It was stupid. It wasn't that she was the only person I could love, or that I expected or even wanted anything to happen between us, but still I could not stop thinking about her. I would never tell her. I wondered if she suspected, or even knew; the Legilimens Auror could have passed this information on. There was nothing to be gained by either of us in articulating it. I stared at her helplessly.

"How far back have you been with it?" Granger asked.

"Decades," I said quietly. "I went back to the fifties, to see my mother as a child. The nineteen-thirties, when my father was in his prime. The eighteen-eighties, when he was a child himself. I wouldn't have gone back that far with the prototype, but the gold one's safer, more reliable."

"How come?"

"It's goblin-wrought, the frame. Stronger than the prototype, but less brittle. It lets the spells breathe, I guess, even as it contains them."

"I thought you told Harry you didn't collaborate?"

"It wasn't really a collaboration. I commissioned exactly what I wanted for the frame, and a goblin made it. Cost a fortune, because it wasn't a complete piece on its own and I made it clear that if goblin ownership applied to the frame, it also applied to the glass and the spells and therefore it would remain in the possession of wizards."

"That doesn't seem fair, if you couldn't make it yourself."

"The unfair thing to do would have been to let the goldsmith think she'd tricked me so that she gave me a knockdown price and then apply my maker's rights retrospectively anyway. I didn't do that. I've got proper respect for goblins; most wizards don't."

"I knew you'd made another one. I knew it." She looked extremely pleased with herself.

"Why did you think that?" I asked, a bit sourly.

"You always were a perfectionist," she said simply.

"Oh, yeah?"

"I remember in Potions once you ran out of lacewing. Slughorn told you to substitute moth but you didn't want to. I remember you asking him to wait and mark yours later so that you could get more. And I remember that he refused; you weren't one of his favourites, were you? But you held off and brought the potion in later anyway. You made it your way, even though you knew you'd get zero for it."

I couldn't believe she'd remembered that. Perhaps she had been paying much more attention to me back then than I had thought.

"That first Time-Turner was made out of tin," she continued. "You must have realised it was restricting your Time-reversal charm. It only made sense that it was a practice version, not the finished product. You were selling this stuff. You wouldn't put your name on something inferior. I know you."

"My name isn't on any of it," I said, but secretly I was pleased she'd spent this much time thinking about me.

"It doesn't have to be. I know your style well enough."

"And what do you think of it?" I asked softly, looking her directly in the eye, before I could stop myself. The husky note in my voice was deliberate, but subtle enough to deny if challenged. She did not answer immediately, but she did not look away. I was not prepared for the intimacy of this moment; I felt suddenly vulnerable, as though it had been a question whispered between sweat-touched sheets.

"I think it's a shame," she said carefully. "What you've chosen to waste your talent on."

I felt a little deflated. "I would hardly call it wasted."

"I don't get why you're satisfied with trinkets," she said. "Curiosities for wealthy purebloods, novelty items, cursed tat."

"There's very little in my life I'm satisfied with," I said irritably. "Making this stuff was hardly Plan A. And a Time-Turner isn't a 'trinket.' What do you think I should have been doing all this time then?"

"I don't know. Finding a cure for Dragon Pox? Teaching? Healing? Something useful, anyway."

I snorted. "Me, a Healer? You think they'd let me anywhere near the lab at St Mungo's? Or a classroom? No one will even interview me for a job, no one at all."

"Poor you."

"What do you know about it?"

"Self-pity isn't a good look on anyone, but especially not you."

"Sorry," I said, regretting the note of sarcasm in my voice as soon as I heard it. "I can't help myself sometimes. I didn't choose this path-"

"Yes, you did. Nobody made you make these things."

"I had to do something with my time." I looked down at my feet; one of my socks had worn through at the toe. I'd known that this would happen eventually, but I felt embarrassed that this was how Granger had to see me.

"You shouldn't confuse infamy with achievement, you know."

"I guess some of us just have to make do with infamy," I said. I curled my toes, trying to hide the hole in my sock without her noticing. I'd never felt less like an infamous Dark wizard in my life.

"Why does it matter, being famous?"

"I don't want to be famous," I said. "Merlin's name, you think that's why I did this?"

"I have no idea why you did it."

"You know, I'm not really sure either. Lots of reasons really. I mean, you don't just wake up one day and decide to make a Time-Turner. I've been interested in time travel for years," I said. "Since third year at Hogwarts, actually."

"Oh yes?"

"You know, if I'd asked for a Time-Turner I don't think I'd have got one, do you?"

"Perhaps you should have tried to take more subjects. Then you'd know."

"My father would have disowned me if I'd said I wanted to do Muggle Studies. Plus Divination is a colossal waste of time."

"And here I thought we would never agree on anything."

"It's a worthless subject," I said, warming to my theme. "It can't tell you anything definite or valuable or true. But it can frighten you, and make you fixate on unhelpful things."

"The prophecy about your Time-Turner seemed like a warning."

"They always do," I said dismissively. "A stopped clock is right twice a day. It doesn't mean anything."

We were silent for a moment. Then I asked, "Have you still got it?"

"Got what?"

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Your Time-Turner. The one you had in third year. The one that… started all this."

"Of course not. I gave it back. And then it must have been destroyed just a couple of years after that. The fact that you even asked me that… no wonder you were never entrusted with a Time-Turner."

"I thought maybe you got to keep it, I dunno."

"No, that would have been ridiculous. Professor McGonagall had to write to the Ministry and tell them that I was a model student before they agreed to let me have a Time-Turner, and that I would never use it for anything other than my studies. Of course I had to give it back when I didn't need it anymore. You had to have a reason to have one, even then."

"Oh."

"Why did you make one?"

"Money, I guess. Do you know how much Time-Turners are worth these days, even fairly run-of-the-mill ones? And glory.But it wasn't just that. I was obsessed with the idea of getting my power back, that this would be the thing that proved that I wasn't the weak, ineffectual loser who was sent to Azkaban with almost no magical abilities left at all."

"Proud of yourself?"

"A little bit, yeah. I guess it was the challenge of it. I mean, nobody had done it before. And I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't totally useless."

"That's a very selfish reason."

"I know. I'm a selfish person. But I really don't want to be known for something awful."

"That broomstick's already bolted, I'm afraid. You should have destroyed it."

"Easy for you to say."

"You'd proved to yourself what you could do. You weren't going to use it. Why risk keeping it, let alone selling it?"

"I… don't know. I guess I didn't want to destroy the one thing I'd really been proud of accomplishing in my life. I'm scared of being forgotten. I mean, I'm going to die. We're all going to die. I know what that means and what a life is, OK? And I want the life I've lived to have meaning, beyond destruction and pain. I spent long enough on that work, and I brought the best of myself to it."

"And if the meaning is still a bad one? What then?"

"At least I tried. But there's no way I'd have… how can I explain? There are times when I've been so ashamed of the things I've done, of what my family have done. I literally wanted to erase it, all of it. Don't intentions count for anything?"

"Not really. You know that, I think."

"I wish..."

"What?"

"Oh, well... I... it's just... I have a lot of regrets... that's why... oh, nevermind..."

"Regrets are useless. How many times do you want to confess and absolve yourself? At some point it all wears very thin, I'm afraid. How many second chances do you need? You're a spoiled brat, Theodore Nott. You want to break the law, but you don't want any consequences. If you really regret it, prove it. It's what you do now, with the situation at hand, that matters. Don't waste my time and yours on pointless regrets."

"Easy for you to say. What have you got to regret?"

"Enough," she said shortly.

"I don't believe it. Have you got blood on your hands like I do?"

"No, not like you do," she said. "But as Minister I have to make decisions that are matters of life and death. I haven't always made the right call."

"You don't blame yourself for that, do you?" I said, thinking of my own rather more serious transgressions.

"How can I not? McGonagall said I was reckless and negligent."

"You? Why?"

"Because I kept your Time-Turner. I didn't keep the old Ministry one, but I kept yours. In case it fell into the wrong hands. In case we needed to understand how it was made. In case there was another one. There was always some excuse. But really, it was because it fascinated me. And you know what? McGonagall was right. So here we are."

"I'm sorry," I said. "It's my fault, not yours."

"Believe me, I know," she said. "But I should have known better too."

We were both quiet for a moment.

"You put something in that toffee, didn't you?" I said. "So that I would talk to you? And tell you the truth?"

Granger did not reply but grinned, a mischievous smile that I'd only seen a couple of times, and then only for Potter and Weasley. Despite the fact that I'd fallen into her trap, my heart sang to see her smile at melike that.

"Granger," I said. "Don't do it." Stay here with me, was what I wanted to say, for as long as we have left. But she was already gone.