Chapter One
Once she was in the safety of her dorm, Hermione collapsed onto her four-poster bed and drew the curtains shut. Then she buried in her head into her feather pillow and cried her heart out, thankful (if she could be thankful about anything at all right now) that no one was there to hear her sobs.
She couldn't believe this was happening. How could Ginny leave her after all they had been through together? All her memories of their eight-month relationship came flooding back to her: their first kiss at the Burrow, the summer after Hermione's sixth year, when she finally admitted that Ginny and not Ron was the Weasley that she'd really been crushing on all these years. The first, awkward time they'd made love, when neither one of them really knew what they were doing but Hermione felt sure that soon they'd learn and it would get even better. (She was right.) Returning to Hogwarts that fall, and keeping their relationship secret for a couple months but eventually plucking up the courage to come out to their friends. How Ron was so shocked when they told him that he accidentally let it slip to the rest of Gryffindor house, and it wasn't long before the entire school knew about them.
It wasn't easy for Hermione to find herself being viciously labeled a dyke as well as a mudblood by Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherins, but she was so in love with her gorgeous, feisty, red-haired girlfriend that she convinced herself that it was worth it. She thought she'd found exactly what she'd wanted: a girl who could be her best pal and her lover. And for awhile, Ginny did seem to fit that description. Hermione never felt happier than when she and Ginny were walking hand in hand by the lake on the Hogwarts grounds would stop to kiss under the trees; or that time when, over last Christmas break, Ginny had come to visit Hermione at her parents' house and they spent most of their vacation snuggled on Hermione's bed, watching episodes of Hermione's favorite Muggle TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They always compared themselves to Willow and Tara, the two lesbian witches on the show. But now it seemed that like the television couple, their relationship was not meant to last. Hermione had risked so much in finally coming out as a girl who liked other girls, and telling Ginny how she felt about her, only to have her heart broken.
What could I have done to drive her away? Hermione thought helplessly to herself. Because she just couldn't believe that Ginny had never loved her --- it seemed impossible in light of the incredible bond they'd shared. No, she must have done something that made Ginny want to go back to Harry. And Hermione was still so in love with Ginny that she felt a rush of determination to figure out what that was, and to fix it.
C'mon, Hermione Jane Granger, think. Was there a time when you sensed that Ginny's feelings for you might be fading? Looking back, she realized there was. A month ago they'd had a rather bitter argument when they were in Hogsmeade. Ginny seemed to be on edge all day, and all that day they couldn't agree on anything: they fought about which shops to visit, which pub to stop at and get a drink, and whether to stay in Hogsmeade or go back to the castle. Hermione could definitely sense that Ginny was annoyed with her, and she was just as annoyed at Ginny. Finally she snapped at her,
"If you're going to disagree with absolutely everything I suggest, why don't you leave me alone and go hang out with Harry and Ron instead? You can go shop for Quidditch supplies, or do whatever boring things you guys like to do."
She remembered Ginny's brown eyes flashing angrily as she retorted, "Fine! I'm perfectly happy to leave if you don't want me around. And if you think the things that I like are boring, you should look at yourself. At least I do more than sit around the library all day." Ginny walked huffily away, her red hair streaming behind her in the wind, before Hermione could say anything else to her.
They patched things up later that day after they both arrived separately back at Hogwarts. By then their tempers had cooled, and they snuggled together on Hermione's bed again like nothing had ever happened. But now that Hermione looked back on this incident, she realized what she must have done to drive a wedge between herself and Ginny.
I more or less told her that she has more in common with Harry than she does with me, she thought with horror. Merlin, I'm such an idiot! If only I hadn't snapped at her and said what I did, she might still be my girlfriend now…but there's nothing I can do to change it.
But then suddenly, Hermione sat bolt upright in bed, hope shining in her tear-stained brown eyes. There was, possibly, a way to fix the damage she'd done to her relationship --- if only she could bring herself to break a major school rule, as well as the laws of Time Travel.
Hermione was so frantic to get Ginny back that she found herself not giving a damn about any rules. After all, desperate situations called for desperate measures. So she reached into the drawer of her nightstand, and pulled out the thing that was going to save her…the Time Turner.
She smiled as she looked down at the silver hourglass, recalling how she'd told Harry and Ron that she'd returned the device to Professor McGonagall at the end of their third year. In truth she'd kept it, just because she had a feeling that she might need it again someday. All the other Time Turners in existence had been destroyed at the Ministry of Magic in their fifth year, so she was holding the last one in existence. Thank Merlin she had listened to her intuition and kept it after all.
If I can just take myself far enough back in time to when I had that fight with Ginny, she said to herself, I might be able to keep it from ever happening. I'm not sure exactly how yet, but I'll figure it out. Now, if I can just remember the exact date… She set the Time Turner down on her bed for a moment, and then pulled out her diary from under her pillow. She flipped through the pages and found the entry in which she'd recorded her memories of that day in Hogsmeade; it was the twelfth of February.
She then turned her attention back to the Time Turner. She'd read in a library book, one day when she'd obtained permission to peruse the Restricted Section, that there was a way to set a Time Turner to go back in time even years before the present time. All you had to do was put the chain around your neck, turn the hourglass around one rotation, and tap the Time Turner with your wand as you spoke aloud the date you wanted to go back to. Hermione had been surprised that the spell was so ridiculously easy, but probably so few people knew about the spell (and had permission to use a Time Turner in the first place) that most never attempted it.
Without wasting another moment, she put the chain around her neck, turned the hourglass and tapped it with her wand, saying in a clear voice, "February 12th, 1998." Then she held her breath in anticipation as she waited. After what seemed like forever but was only a few seconds, she felt the old sensation she'd gotten used to when she was in her third year: the feeling of the world spinning around her, as if she were twirling herself around in one spot, then everything around her disappearing. At last the spinning stopped, and she dizzily fell to the cold, hard floor with a thud.
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