Sitting in his office, the wizened professor ran thin fingertips through his beard. Squinting in concentration, his blue eyes seemed faded with the whites tinged red under heavy lids. Reaching down to the Healer's short note, he scanned it for the last time before crumpling the parchment and tossing it across the room with frustration.

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

We regret to inform you that patient number 364849030200184, Miss Hermione Granger, has disappeared from St. Mungos. We take no responsibility for her outside our walls..

Yours sincerely,

Healer Wipple

P.S. Please let us know where to send her bill.

The aged man flexed his wrists and sighed with idleness. He feared for her safety, but knew she must have left of her own accord. There was no way anyone could have apparated into her room or whisked her away with the tight security there. But what now? He could, of course, go about and search for her. And then what? Bring her back against her will? No, she wouldn't stand for that. If only he had spoken to her beforehand . . . But he had been concentrating on other things, still was.

It had been hours since Theodore Nott himself had flooed into the headmaster's office, bearing his terrible cargo. Dumbledore had been ready for news, and perhaps a duel – but not this. It weighed heavy on his heart. He was, after all, just a wizard. Just a man.

"Draco's gone, Albus."

The headmaster turned to his left, where Minerva McGonagall stood in the doorway with a look of defeat on her face.

"What do you mean, Minerva?"

"I mean he's left the school. I couldn't stop him, Albus – he just walked right out the gates without a word or a look back." Her chin began to wobble. "I feel as if Hogwarts has begun to fall apart . . ."

"It has."

The witch's fearful eyes traced suspicious lines over her colleague.

"Hermione has run away from St. Mungos."

"No!" The Transfiguration professor brought a pale hand to her mouth.

"Yes . . ."

"There's still Harry!" exclaimed the flustered witch. "There's still him, and in him lies our hope. There must still be hope, there's always been -" Dumbledore shook his head slowly, avoiding her eyes as she mumbled on. " . . . Albus, Albus, look at me!" she cried, almost shrieking.

"No, Minerva."

"'No' what?"

"There is no hope."

"What?" her heart thudded forcefully through her robes as Dumbledore motioned to the wide black box sitting below the sill of the far right window. McGonagall took a few quick steps towards the receptacle and threw back the lid.

Harry Potter's wide empty eyes stared apologetically up at her.

---

Hermione panicked, racing headlong into the skirmish. "Stupefy!" she kept yelling, until her throat was almost hoarse. But there were too many, the school was losing. She had to find Harry! Racing down the corridors and up several flights of stairs she saw nothing but carnage. A few first years to her left, a seventh year to her right – Professor Vector slumped over the railing on the fifth floor. Death Eaters, hooded and masked attacking from every direction. But she kept firing spells from her wand and she kept running. Most of them were preoccupied anyway, turning the many corpses into Inferi which they sent lurching towards her. She did not fear them, the empty shells. She pushed them away savagely, or hexed them, or just ran. The attack must have come around two or three in the morning, because now Hermione could see the sun begin to rise . . . it was early, so of course Harry would be somewhere near his room, yes? She hoped she was right.

It had been only minutes before that she had been sitting in Godric's study, flipping through the personal memoirs of the late, great wizard. At first she had thought it was an earthquake – then she heard yells and part of ceiling had fallen in. Poking her head out into the belly of the castle from her isolated haven, she saw people running hither and thither and hooded figures everywhere, herding the students downstairs. Slamming the door, she had retreated into her hiding place and racked her brain for almost an hour trying the decide what to do. In the end, she had stuffed a few items (the hag's bag, Godric's diary and a sharp letter opener) into her robes and fled. As she approached the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, it all seemed like she had always been running, had been for weeks, not mere minutes.

---

Hitching up her robes with one hand and grasping her wand with the other, she practically flew the last ten feet up to the vacated portrait of the fat lady. The canvas was slashed, the frame hung open on one hinge. The inhabitants of the other paintings around the castle had left as well, leaving the walls spookily bare. She hesitated before moving to enter the common room.

"Miss Granger, I think," trilled a cool female voice from behind her.

"Expelliarmus!" cried Hermione, sending Bellatrix Lestrange's wand ricocheting off the wall and down the stairs. "You keep making the same mistakes, Bellatrix," she hissed, "underestimating youth."

"Indeed?" asked the raven-haired woman, not even flustered. "Perhaps that's true. But at least I'm not risking my neck looking for someone who is already dead. Now that's rather silly, don't you think?"

"Dead?" breathed Hermione, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well of course you wouldn't, darling," exclaimed Bellatrix with a sneer. "You've been holed up like a chicken this past week haven't you? I suppose you gave Lucius a run for his money, eh?" She took a deliberate step forward. "Well if you've been recovering from the effects of his, hmm . . . passions? I dare say . . . then of course you wouldn't know that your little Harry Potter is dead." Bellatrix enunciated the last word carefully, waiting for a reaction from her young adversary, but none came. Hermione's mouth was dry, her head reeling. Bellatrix was a dream, a figment of her addled mind. A phantom. A voice of truth. She turned tail and fled into the portrait hole.

Behind her, she heard the other woman scrambling for her wand and silently berated herself for having not hexed her. Blinded by the tears swimming feebly over her pupils, she tore up the stairs to the sixth year boys' room. "Harry, Harry, Harry . . ." she found herself panting and she ran into the room. She threw open her friend's trunk, ripping through the clothing, searching for something of use. But there was no invisibility cloak, not even his broom was there.

"You can hide, darling, but you can't run," came a cool voice from the base of the stairs. Desperate, Hermione drew the drapes closed over Neville's bed, then Seamus', all the way down to Harry's. She threw herself onto the mussed up covers before pulling his drapes closed too. She heard Bellatrix take a step into the room.

"Avada Kedavra!" she cried, and a bed (perhaps Ron's?) exploded into shards of wood. Hermione heard the footsteps patter indecisively around the room. Bellatrix liked her games, it seemed. But this one couldn't last long. Panicking, Hermione suddenly remembered what was hidden under her robes. She fumbled for the time-turner.

"Avada Kedavra!" she heard again, and another piece of furniture exploded.

Biting her wand between her teeth, Hermione finally pulled the pendulum from her shirt and tried to turn the dial back one notch, but her hold was slipping under the sweat of her fingers. Just as Bellatrix pushed aside the drapes that protected Hermione's hiding spot, the dial turned, making a soft click.

Hermione found herself crouching on Harry's bed, the day before and thank goodness he wasn't in it! Sunlight streamed in through the windows onto the unmade mattress. The covers had been sloppily strewn about - it seemed like something lumpy was hidden under them. Reaching her hand under the sheets she felt Harry's invisibility cloak and broom – just the items she had been looking for minutes earlier (or days later?). From down the stairs, she heard Dean and Seamus shouting at each other. Quietly, she donned the cloak and flicked open the window above Harry's bed.

Sitting on the windowsill, she held out the broom and with some trepidation, mounted it. Pushing away from the aperture, she felt the cool autumn breeze rush over her body and felt – for the first time in the past few weeks – liberated. Accelerating forward with what little broom-riding skill she had, Hermione headed for the Western outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. There, she thought, she could take some time to think – if Harry wasn't dead yet, she had to warn him . . . and of course, she had to warn Dumbledore that the school was going be attacked. But rest, rest, rest she needed a moment alone first. Bellatrix's jabs at her encounter with Lucius had sickened her. She could feel images pushing themselves to the front of her mind and she had to let them surface or they would torment her until she exploded from the effort of suppression. Landing with a jolt on the ground, Hermione collapsed gratefully on a patch of green moss and lost herself in tears.

For the rest of the afternoon she holed up under a broad oak tree and watched the pristine countryside go about its innocent cycle of life. There were jackrabbits and sparrows, a deer and even a unicorn that timidly poked its head out from behind a pine tree before leaping back among the greenery.

As the sun slipped past the horizon, Hermione sighed. Her responsibility now was to warn the school. Waiting until dusk had almost completely enveloped the landscape with its grey curtain, she arranged Harry's cloak over her shoulders, picked up the broom and made for Hogwarts castle. She knew the current 'Hermione' was hiding in Godric Gryffindor's office at the moment – so at least she didn't have to worry about bumping into herself – but then, that fact raised its own slew of worries. First, why had she never heard of the office before? How was it hidden, why was it hidden, and how come she had been given access? And on top of that, what was with the little bag the witch in St. Mungos had given her? She could feel its bulge in her left pocket, where she had stashed the trove. But what was the significance of its contents? She was almost sure the handwriting on the parchment was hers, but it was absurd to think that she had written it. Or was it?

Shaking any further thoughts from her head as she slipped through the entrance to the castle, she adjusted the cloak's hood around her face and waited outside the Great Hall for supper to begin. This would be the perfect time to warn the whole school – everybody in the same room, ready to hear her horrifying tale. She felt like a cursed seer, bringing the gruesome news of the future to the would-be victims of the past.

As the throng of students entering the hall thickened, Hermione dared to push herself through the doors and maneuver up to the dais in front of the staff table. A few people looked suspiciously over their shoulders for the source of her ghost-like nudges, but none saw the brunette take her place at the front of the room, readying herself to speak the unspeakable. Her peers continued shuffling into their seats for a good ten minutes. She saw Ron and Ginny, Seamus, Dean, Neville – the whole Gryffindor crew. Crabbe, Goyle and Parkinson were at the Slytherin table, but Draco was not. And hard as she looked for Harry, he too was absent. Adrenaline flooded into Hermione's blood as she put the two missing boys together in her head.

Finally, the room quieted down. But before Hermione had quite worked up the courage to lower her hood, the headmaster advanced swiftly to the dais and addressed the room.

"I have terrible news," he stated, "which I wish to deliver without unnecessary ado."

All eyes turned onto the wizened man, questioning looks given from both the students and staff.

"Harry Potter is dead."

Around the Great Hall there were blank looks and gasps of horror. A few people seemed to be stifling nervous laughter.

"I am completely serious." A tear slipped down one shriveled cheek and as Dumbledore wiped it away, even the skeptical turned grave. At the staff table there were tears and hard looks and resigned faces. For Hermione, she felt her heart fall in her chest. She was too late. She had gone back a whole day in time and she was too late . . .

She looked for Ron. His face had crumpled and he was holding Ginny in his arms as she cried freely. That was it. Harry was dead. Action and reaction, his death was literally the end of the world. Hermione felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. It hurt worse than when she had realized that she had lost her baby, worse than knowing that Sirius loved her all summer and she couldn't even remember any of it.

"The Dark Lord sent his body to me this morning," continued the headmaster. "I have notified your parents of the news, and first thing tomorrow morning the Hogwarts express will take you all home." He hesitated. "Hogwarts is no longer safe, I fear. That is all I have to say."

For once, the room did not erupt with sound after the professor had reclaimed his seat. Plates filled with food, but barely any was consumed. Nobody dared speak. Everyone realized the weight of the old man's words. And Hermione realized that she had forgotten her purpose. Exiting the hall, she wandered through empty corridors until she arrived at the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office. She still clutched Harry's broom in her hands, drawing it to her side under the cover of invisibility.

If she hadn't taken it, would he still be alive? If he had his cloak, would there still be hope? Or had he left before Hermione had even laid a finger on the treasures? The questions buzzed in her mind like a swarm of stinging wasps, numbing her desperate brain.

Could she, in fact, change Time? Or more sinisterly, were her actions simply filling the footsteps laid out for her?