Father,
I accept your terms. But I will not become one of you. Your failures have taught me well, dear father, and though the Dark Lord may have postponed your sentences until he is less preoccupied, I have no Fear that you will get no more or less than you deserve, whoever administers the consequences. Perhaps next time you will not be so lucky in escaping imprisonment in Azkaban – or perhaps you would prefer the haven it offers? No matter.
In any case, I thought you should be aware that you will be a grandfather before the summer solstice. She is not pureblood, unfortunately. Perhaps a little slip on my part. If you go ahead and disown me, I would have expected no less from you and as I have no designs on the Malfoy inheritance there is only one thing I ask. Either do what you have promised or leave me alone!
In all earnest,
your Son.
---
The morning light was hazy as it filtered through Grimmauld Place's ancient windows, making it seem as though the entire atmosphere was made of a suffocating, dusty fog. A piece of parchment lay on the ancient dining table, drawing a pair of dark eyes that kept fighting the urge to open it.
Sirius sighed, laid down his burnt toast, and picked up the letter Harry had sent him.
Sirius -
Gryffindor is well on its way to winning the Quiddich Cup, I just hope I don't fall short as team captain. And schoolwork sure is piling up... I think Hermione's the only one who's staying on top of it.
But I am worried about her again. She's been admitted to the infirmary, and we don't quite know why... It's quite a mystery actually. She fainted in Transfiguration and she hasn't been looking well lately. Anyway, we're not sure how long she'll be in the Hospital Wing, but Ron and I are going to visit her as soon as I'm done writing this.
Love, Harry
Sirius set the letter down beside his coffee, his usually lively face now ashen, fearing the worst. Rising from the table, he aborted his breakfast and walked feebly up the stairs to the library. There, he sat down in a large, musty chair, and picked up the thick tome he had been reading, desperate to take his mind off Harry's words.
The minutes slipped by, then the hours. Sirius did not feel the pangs of hunger, neglected the stiffness of his back. If he had all the time in the world, he would have stayed there, reading mindlessly, toiling onwards, anything to keep his thoughts from staying back to the inevitable: Hermione.
If he had all the time in the world, he would spend it thinking about her.
---
Hermione had spent a second night in the infirmary. More of Madame Pomfrey's potion for Dreamless Sleep had made her doze straight through to Monday morning. Sighing, she abandoned sleep and rose to a sitting position up against the headboard. She reached over to the bedside table for the glass of water she had perched there, but her hand fumbled around in the semi-darkness of the early morning without finding it.
Exasperated she leaned back and thought about the time turner, envisioning its form before her eyes.
The time turner, the time turner . . . How in Merlin's name did it end up in my coat pocket? Just like in my dream, it was there. Did I do it by sheer mental force, like how Harry retrieved the Sorcerer's stone from the Mirror of Erised? But that seems too bizarre to even consider! There must surely be some strong magic behind this, all of this. Why am I seeing things? Am I going completely insane? I'm almost afraid to sleep without a potion. I'm afraid . . . of what I might see. The dreams are so real, and when I do remember them, it's almost like something that happened yesterday, or last week! I can remember the smells, how things felt or sounded – not like your average dream where it seems as if something quite beyond you is the catalyst, as if fate propels the actions. Whereas – I feel quite lucid in what I've been experiencing. Even so, I feel so out-of-control of the situation. I don't know what to expect from my own mind anymore!
Clenching her fists in frustration, she threw back the bed-sheets and tiptoed across the infirmary and out the door. Peeking around each corner, she finally made it back to her bedroom and pulled a wool blanket around her shoulders, groping in the semi-darkness for her Muggle coat. Fingers sensing the felted fabric, she delved into its pocket, pulling out again the flat red box. Her fingers shook as she opened it, not wanting to believe that it was really there – but it was. Nestled across a bed of cotton, the time turner lay innocently shimmering. Hermione reached for the delicate chain and pulled it out of the box. It was larger than the one she'd had for classes her third year, and had - she counted, squinting – twenty four tiny notches in between each of the thirty large notches every centimeter around the circumference of the device. Her mind worked quickly, doing the math.
Twenty four for each one notch and thirty of those is a whole cycle, then –
Shocked, she realized the power of what she held in her cold little palm.
This time turner doesn't just do hours, it does days . . . and months . . . and therefore – years!
It was beautiful and horrifying, to hold so much power in her own hand. The Lunar time-turner which followed moon-cycles, not paths from day-to-night. A time turner that gave the holder power, in retrospect, to change truly significant events . . .
---
By the time the sun had risen that morning, Hermione had already decided what she needed to do. Moving her frozen muscles from the cramped position in an armchair that she had maintained for the last several hours, she dressed. It was hard to go through the day without jumping at everything that took her by surprise, whether that was Ron calling her name or Professor Flitwick handing her back a paper while her mind was other places. She even jumped when Ginny waved hello to her in the hall. It was hard not to be nervous – the cold chain of the time turner was wrapped three times around her neck and its large body lay across her chest.
---
The sparkling early-Autumn sunlight stretched through the open window, but did not quite touch Hermione as she dashed up a flight of stairs. After her last class, Arithmancy.
My next-to-last class, she reminded herself.
After waiting for the hall to empty, she crept into an empty classroom. Taking the time turner in her hands, she carefully rotated the device exactly one, tiny notch. The once-so-familiar feeling of time revolving backwards surrounded her, slowed, and then stopped, leaving Hermione mildly nauseated.
She wrinkled her nose and, tucking the chain back under her robes, walked out of the room up the wooden ladder to where she knew Professor Trelawney held her advanced Divination class.
The old classroom was just the same as Hermione had remembered it: stuffed with fluffy armchairs and padded poufs, teacups lining the shelves, and incense stifling the air. Hermione pulled herself up the ladder into the room slowly, curious to see who was actually taking such a class.
Luna Lovegood, she had somehow expected to be there, even though she was only a sixth year. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were also present, curled up in identical pink armchairs. There was also a trio of Ravenclaw girls, a boy from Hufflepuff...
...and Blaise Zabini?
The entire class consisted of only eight students.
A Slytherin taking advanced Divination. How come that seems so odd to me?
She sat down at the closest table, meaning that it was also the farthest away from the front of the classroom. Hermione was did not want to be the center of Professor Trelawney's attention, or preferably, even noticed by the teacher until the end of the class... Though with eight students, that probably wouldn't be the case. The table she had chosen, closest to the door and situated by a breezy window, also happened to be the one occupied by Blaise and Luna. Blaise gave her a nod in recognition, which she returned hesitantly, and Luna waved a dreamy 'hello.'
A couple minutes passed without conversation before Professor Trelawney floated into the room, her bird-like frame draped with chiffon and beads.
"Ahhh..." she said, rubbing her temples with red-tipped fingertips, "Our new student... I knew exactly what the spirits meant when they told me that one who was lost would return to me today."
She flitted gracefully over to Hermione and clasped her hand.
"My dear child, what brings you back to me on this special day?"
"Er..." Hermione looked around at her classmates. "I actually just wanted to ask you a few questions about . . ." she blushed fiercely, ". . . dreams."
"I did See the other night that a student might be having Visions..." said Professor Trelawney.
Parvati and Lavender gasped, perched on the edge of their seats to better hear the conversation. The teacher now had her eyes closed, and was gripping Hermione's hand quite tightly.
"Tell me about them, my child!"
At this point, Professor Trelawney's face was only a couple inches from Hermione's, and she could smell the strong scent of firewhiskey on her instructor's breath.
Lingering effects of Umbridge's reign?
Dissapointed by Hermione's silence, she continued, "We must all loosen ourselves from the binding ropes of the physical!" declared the Professor, drifting to the front of the room. "Today, we will begin our section on dream interpretation... so marvelously introduced by the lovely -," her hand waved absent-mindedly in Hermione's direction, - She."
Hermione made a face and the Ravenclaw posse laughed. "Isn't she batty?" said Luna dreamily.
"Quite," said Blaise, not looking up from hastily scribbling what looked like a Transfiguration essay.
"Completely batty." Luna was staring fondly at the teacher... if one could call it staring as her eyes were quite unfocused.
Hermione shook her head and pulled out her quill and a fresh piece of parchment.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black...
---
When the class ended, Hermione gathered her books quickly and was the first out the door.
What a bloody waste of time, I didn't learn a thing, she grumbled in her mind, promptly doing away with the idea of continuing to audit Trelawney's classes.
"Hermione."
The voice tasted her name; the syllables toyed with on a feminine tongue. Hermione turned around to see who had called her.
Luna.
She really didn't want to speak to the girl, without quite knowing why. It might have been the fact that she was an odd duck... or that Hermione was just really, really hungry and wanted nothing more than to go eat lunch.
"Yes?" She paused impatiently and waited for the blonde to catch up. Luna skipped down the stairs, grinning broadly at the older girl. She looked Hermione up and down, hands clasped underneath her chin with joy.
"Hello," she said breathlessly. "I just wanted to be the first to congratulate you."
She gave Hermione a beaming grin and then ran off down the hall, giggling.
Hermione watched the other girl skip away from her, confused.
"Congratulate me for what?"
But Luna had already turned the corner and was gone.