The first evening at Hogwarts was a markedly different experience from Harry's first for two reasons. The obvious and expected one was that he was not a first year in need of sorting, clustering nervously together with strangers on the far side of the Great Hall's main doors. The other was that when he arrived in the great hall, as one of the last excepting the first years thanks to Hermione sensibly letting the crowds disperse before disembarking the train, everyone was staring not only at him, but also at the girl by his side. In fact, more eyes were on Hermione than on him, and now he had noticed it he realised it had been that way since Kings Cross.

He supposed he had become uncomfortably accustomed to it over the past year, what with being a celebrity people thought might also be a serial killer in the making, but why were they staring still? Why at her?

"Hey Fred," he muttered, taking a seat beside the boy who may well have been George, "why's everyone staring at us?"

Forge whispered back, "Well, you see, Harrikins… what happened between you pair and a certain professor in a certain chamber was a complete secret to anyone who isn't a close friend of yours. So, naturally, the entire school knows."

Hermione froze on Harry's other side. "Everyone?" she squeaked.

"That's Hogwarts for you," he said with a rare hint of actual pity.

Hermione's next question was growled. "Who talked?"

"Not a clue. Wasn't a Weasley, not after what you did for our sister, and she wasn't told about Lockhart 'til she found it out from the rumour mill. Don't see that any of your other pals would've blabbed either."

"Then how…?"

"As I said darlin', that's Hogwarts for you. The walls have ears, and not just in the portraits."

"So everyone knows I killed him. Everyone thinks I'm a- a-"

"A bloody hero, yeah."

"What?!"

"Miss Hermione Granger, Saviour of our Education, Deliverer from Incompetence. It's a mouthy title; we're working on shortening it up for the dumber kids."

Hermione stamped a foot. "George Weasley, this is not a laughing matter!"

"Not with that attitude," he sniffed, though it was chastisement enough to make him drop the topic.

This changes things, Harry ruminated. He had been hoping for a year where the past was forgotten, where they could rebuild bridges and get on with learning without their fellow students examining every facet of their lives. He was quickly realising that had been a foolish hope; he was always going to be the Boy-Who-Lived, and the past never went away. Old grievances left their mark; though the wounds may close, there would be scars neither time nor magic could heal. Hermione would have to live with what she had been forced to do, would have to weather the opinions and reactions of their peers. But she won't have to do it alone.

The creaking of mighty doors broke his reverie. A train of first years, tiny and terrified beneath a stormy ceiling, made its way slowly forward at McGonagall's beckoning. A susurrus rose in the room; Harry contributed by quietly describing the more interesting looking newbies to Hermione, while the twins placed bets on which house they would go to. Knowing their success rate with his own year, Harry chose not to get involved, even if he could afford the galleon stakes with ease.

Hermione was entirely silent as he whispered to her, not even moving, only acknowledging him with a snort when he made a joke about how the fattest of the kids probably needed a boat to himself. Then he was silent himself as the Sorting started proper. He applauded every placement, some much more loudly than others, but he found he didn't really care at all; he had found his friends already, and they were enough. Everything, and enough.

After the Sorting feast, for which Professor Lupin had been strangely absent, Professor McGonagall approached Hermione and took her aside. Harry gave her hand a quick squeeze before going on without her, at the professor's request, without saying a word. Hermione was thankful he held his tongue, because she knew the sort of thing he might want to say to the woman; her revelations were still a topic Harry refused to discuss, even with his best friend, like it was somehow more terrifying to talk about it than to dive into a sewer to fight a basilisk. Boys.

Not that Hermione was impressed with her head of house's failings, but she was determined to give the woman the chance to repent. She believed people deserved second chances if they were prepared to use them. She had to.

Being guided away from her friends into a rarely used and currently empty part of the castle was either a promising start or a terrible betrayal in the making. She wouldn't have thought McGonagall the type three months before. Then again, she never thought Lockhart had it in him either; her wand hand twitched as the muscles heeded instinct over logic.

"What is this about?" Hermione asked, curiosity forcing her tongue.

"Miss Granger, as you will recall, you have applied to take all electives this year, save muggle studies. Unfortunately, the reason why choices are limited is as much a scheduling issue as it is to save our more industrious students from overworking themselves. In the past we have allowed some of our brightest to study one additional subject independently, only attending a few important lessons and the exam. In your case this was deemed inappropriate."

Figures. I suppose I wouldn't trust me to go around doing my own thing either.

"Please understand this is no reflection of your ability; it is only that, given your situation, the extra time you require to read and write will already strain your ability to study, and you have requested to take multiple subjects beyond the usual number. Unless you intend to do naught but study and sleep, which I cannot in good conscience support, there are simply not enough hours in the day. Not even for a girl of your talent."

Hermione tugged on the witch' sleeve as she protested. "I can manage it! I swear! I enjoy studying!"

And I need to know everything. The answers could be hiding anywhere.

"I know that you do, Hermione, just as I know you could easily pass every class on offer this year. What you lack the time for, is to do so whilst remaining top of the class. It is better to be exemplary in a few areas than average in them all, is it not?"

McGonagall was making too much sense for Hermione to deny any longer, much as it pained her.

"I suppose. But I could have done it."

"Indeed you could, if only you had a little more time to work with. If only it were possible to attend many classes at once; to burn the midnight oil twice in one night."

"If only," she muttered, feeling mocked though the professor's voice held no malice.

"Hold out your hand, if you please."

Confused, Hermione did so; something cold, hard and clearly intricate was placed on her palm, a delicate chain spilling over her wrist.

"What you now hold, Miss Granger, is an item of great power and potential. In responsible hands, it is a most helpful tool, with many creative applications. In the hands of the reckless, or ignorant, it is a disaster waiting to happen. It is called a time turner, and it permits one a limited ability to travel backwards through time; to live the same moment twice over."

Hermione nearly dropped the thing. Had professor McGonagall really just placed a time machine in her hands, and intended to have her use it? A TIME MACHINE?

"Professor, why? What? I can't take this! It's… it should not exist!"

"I had not expected such a strong moral objection from you," Minerva casually said.

"No, I mean it cannot exist! Time travel is impossible; it has to be. It has to be," she repeated softly, as though saying it enough might make it true. It is true.

"Would you not have said the same about magic three years ago?"

"No! I would have told you magic is not real; that it did not exist. Not that it could not! And you would never hand one to a student! Certainly not just for studying, if that is what you are implying. This is insane, this… this is some kind of ridiculous prank, isn't it? How did the twins talk you into this?"

"I assure you this is entirely serious, although you right in that you are the first student to hold one in all the time I have taught here."

"I simply cannot believe you," Hermione stated, because she couldn't. There was a limit to her ability to believe, and this went way, way beyond.

"Why don't you try it for yourself?"

Of all the bad ideas she had heard in her life, that took the biscuit. It took the whole packet.

"There is no way I am going to do that; either it is going to break horribly, or it is not, and the latter is worse!"

"How so?" McGonagall asked, sounding amused.

Hemione disapproved in the strongest terms of that amusement, and her professor's cavalier attitude in general. She was talking about messing with time, about violating one of the most fundamental laws of the universe on a whim. What of cause and effect? What of all the paradoxes? Had she never heard of the butterfly effect? One tiny change, far enough back, would alter reality as she knew it.

"Professor. do you know the laws of thermodynamics?"

"I am familiar with them."

"Then you know how transfiguration magic skirts all around it, without ever quite violating it?"

"That is NEWT level theory, Miss Granger."

She waved a hand in frustration. "It's muggle physics 101. No violating those laws. Even the magical art of quite literally changing one thing into another finds ways around it, but time travel? Time travel just wrecks it completely! You cannot mix cause and effect about like that, it is totally against - against everything! It is absurd!"

"What if cause and effect were not violated?"

Hermione felt for a moment like she was playing chess against a pigeon.

"But… But they are!"

"And if there existed a way to travel in time otherwise? Would that be 'acceptable' to your muggle sensibilities?"

"It is not muggle sensibilities," Hermione fumed, "it is fundamental physics. But, yes, I suppose if you merely redefine what time travel is until it works, then it works. Move the goalposts enough and play tennis instead."

"And so that is what the inventor of the time turner did."

"Excuse me?"

"The time turner works in such a fashion that the traveller arrives after the cause of the travel, and from there all events play out as they already have, from her perspective. The order of things is determined the first time around, as the universe and the turner's magic seek a harmonious resolution to the possible paradox."

She took a deep breath of crisp air to steady herself, as her mind reeled from yet another wild turn, this one worse than the previous few because it held a tantalising promise of making some form of sense.

"How does that even work?"

"Simply turn the glass to set the moment to which you will, one hour hence, return. As soon as the turn completes, the future version of you arrives beside you."

"OK, but," Hermione stopped as she tried to wrap her head around things. "But wouldn't that future version of you then change their past? What if they told you how things went first time, and you changed it with that knowledge?"

"Then you would find yourself entirely unable to. Such is the magic of a turner. Though a word of caution: The universe itself will be attempting to prevent such an occurrence. The turner's most powerful magic is not the enchantment which transports one through time; rather it is the protection against the simplest form of paradox resolution, which is to have the user perish before the hour is up."

"So, what you're saying is, the universe agrees with me and if I use this it is going to try to kill me? And you want me to use it anyway?"

"Do calm down, Miss Granger. So long as you turn the glass without intention of altering the timeline on your second pass, you are actually very safe. Oh, and try to avoid dangerous situations for that hour, of course. Tempting fate by risking your life is unwise at the best of times, and the turner's protections can only do so much."

"This is totally insane. I still can't believe this is actually real."

"Would you believe it if you told it to yourself? Say, an hour from now, and yet also in a few seconds?"

Hermione considered that for a time. If anything was going to convince her, it was her. She wouldn't listen to the 'future version' of herself, because that could simply be a magical illusion, but if she was ripped through the fabric of spacetime after an hour, that would be rather undeniable. If she wasn't, where was the harm?

Turn it and be proven right, or turn it and become a time traveller. And maybe, with the benefit of hindsight, decide which of those she was hoping for.

"Alright. How do I do this?" she asked, cautious.

"Simply turn the glass in its mounting. Oh, and remember, make no plans to change anything after it has happened."

"And telling myself this is real does not count?"

"Not if you are already planning to do it, and to follow through on that plan. Though there is no guarantee that events will play out that way, even so."

"Was that meant to be reassuring?"

"Not at all, Miss Granger. There are few in this world who possess the necessary respect and wariness of such a device as this, and I would not seek to reduce those qualities within you."

"So you trust me to use this, because I don't trust it. Or myself?"

"Exactly correct. If you had agreed to use it without complaint, I would have taken it from you before you could do so."

"You knew I would have a problem with it?"

"It is a time machine, and you are a rational girl. That much was inevitable."

Hermione felt better about that. It meant McGonagall had thought this through, and chosen her for clear reasons. It meant her fears were justified, but had already been accounted for. It strongly implied that the person currently asking her to travel through time had not completely taken leave of her senses.

And all of that meant Hermione Granger was going to do something which had, minutes previous, been totally unthinkable. So, before she could lose her nerve, she thought up a codeword and twisted the terrifying object in her hands. There was a rush of magical energy, a weird sensation that could only be described as reality folding about itself and performing a somersault - a description that meant nothing to anyone who had yet to experience it, and everything to those who had. Then reality snapped back into place, and a loud gasp sounded from beside her.

"Holy mother of fuck!" Hermione exclaimed, except it wasn't her speaking. Or rather, if the unbelievable had occurred, it wasn't her speaking yet.

"Hello?" she ventured.

"H-Hello," she shakily replied. "Oh, uhm, the word you're thinking of is periodontitis. And I need to go."

Hermione was left speechless as she hurriedly left the room. She let the turner drop, to hang limply about her neck. She had so many questions: For McGonagall; for the universe at large; and for her future self… who had run off without answering any of them.

"Why did I leave? I have so many questions," she moaned.

"That is likely precisely why you left," McGonagall informed her, in a kind tone perfect for comforting children who had just had their entire worldview shattered. "The less information travels back to your initial self, the easier the resolution."

"Obviously," Hermione said flatly, as part of her mind had figured that out even whilst the more emotional parts were reeling. She wasn't even aware of telling her mouth to move. "This is real, isn't it?"

"It is very real."

Hermione felt a rush of blood in her head. She wasn't sure if it was going in or out, but it was definitely going somewhere at an alarming pace. Maybe it was leaving her brain by going in, but backwards through time. Why not, at this point?

"Time travel is real," she murmured. "Time travel is real, and now I have a time machine around my neck, and there's another me running around the castle and, and, and I'm going to faint," she declared, right before doing exactly that.

The possession of a time machine turned out to be both blessing and curse. A blessing in so much as Hermione was able to get more study done than she could have ever imagined, attending every core and elective except Muggle Studies (she had, after a little thought, entered for the end of year exam in it, but saw no reason to bother learning what she already knew from a teacher less knowledgeable than herself). A blessing because the magic of the turner recharged so fast she could turn back for every class, and then again several times in the evening for extra time to study. A blessing every time she was invited to hang out with friends, or required by her own stomach to eat, and didn't have to choose between that and learning because she could simply do both at once.

A curse because her body was utterly adamant that seven hours' sleep was all she would be getting each night, no matter if the day ran twenty-four hours or thirty-one. A curse when she had to keep track of where her other self would be; and who would have seen her; and if anyone could see her when she turned; and to ensure she was alone when she was ripped from reality and cast into the past. The turner had been laid with notice-me-not charms to prevent people asking about it, and to encourage them to neither notice nor care if she was apparently in two places at once, but disappearing in front of someone was too obvious and would shatter the compulsion entirely. The task was made exponentially harder by not being able to see anyone who might see her. She quickly got into the habit of setting an alarm for each turn, to give her a two minute warning of impending time travel, and became intimately familiar with the locations of the castle's many broom cupboards.

There was an absurdity to it, she was sure, some sort of comical existential strangeness in setting alarms as if jumping through time were no more taxing than an early lecture or scheduled study break. If her brain could just slow down and collect itself longer than a few seconds, she might see the joke. But it wouldn't, because she was busy. So very, very busy. And tired. And if she was a little ratty with people when they did things like interrupt her; or get offended when she excused herself from a conversation with a moment's notice as something buzzed in her pocket; or speak too damned loudly when is it not obvious some of us have a HEADACHE?!

Well, that was hardly her fault. She had a lot on, and would not be apologising for prioritising her education whilst in school. Forgetting her own birthday was an accident, but not one she gave a damn about. The surprise party and presents were an unwelcome distraction from more important matters. People who got in the way of such matters received the increasingly short end of her temper.

Taking that attitude with professor Snape was, in hindsight, quite the error of judgment.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor for your unacceptable attitude, Granger! And vanish that pathetic excuse for a potion immediately; all your spittle has clearly contaminated it to the point it is ready to blow up in your face. Not that you'd notice, of course, but the rest of the class might not appreciate joining you in your disabilities."

Her reply was not eloquent, nor well thought out, nor something anyone who had met the Hermione Granger who first showed up Hogwarts would expect her to ever say to anyone, let alone a teacher. But it was entirely heartfelt, and equally loud.

"Fuck you."

The collective breath from the room was so deep it was a wonder no one passed out from fume inhalation.

"Get. Out."

Snape's voice very suddenly reminded her of just who and what the man had been, or rather was. Not that she let it scare her. Half the Slytherins his age had become Death Eaters or close supporters, and not one was as deadly a snake as the basilisk. And the last teacher to threaten her…

"Thought I had to clean up after my failure," she spat, intentionally letting the spittle do some of what Snape claimed it had.

She knew her potion was still good, spittle or no. She could smell it finishing to a better standard than half the cauldrons in the room, even after all the overly aggressive stirs she had given it in the last minute.

"I shall ensure you do not harm your frien- no, my apologies - those around you. You will get out of my classroom, and report directly after dinner to my office to discuss an extensive schedule of detentions for the rest of this term."

Hermione left the room gladly. And stubbornly failed to report to Snape after dinner. When McGonagall approached her in Gryffindor tower that night, she furiously expressed to her head of house a deep and sincere concern about 'being left alone with a pureblood supremacist terrorist who had somehow managed to become a teacher harbouring an utterly inexcusable hatred for certain students'.

It was left unexplained just who Hermione felt was more threatened by such a situation. Minerva rearranged her detentions to be served with Professor Flitwick and Madam Pomfrey instead, and Hermione stormed off to bed, not even bothering with her already habitual turn to get her assignments done.

For the first morning in three weeks of term, Harry did not choose to sit next to Hermione for breakfast. The decision to avoid her was an increasingly popular one within Gryffindor as she was growing snappier by the day. Harry couldn't understand why she was so annoyed, as he'd thought the root of her low mood over the Summer was a lack of her wand; that was no longer a problem.

What he was able to do was tolerate it far better than others, partly as he was accustomed to it, partly because he was so wrapped up in his own problems he didn't care if a few overly mean words came his way.

Not this day, however. Hermione in a bad mood was one thing; Hermione visibly shaking, with what he suspected was barely repressed rage, was another. Still, he might have gone over and tried to help her through it, or ensure it all came his way as he could handle it, except he was fresh from a night of sleepless tossing interspersed with fits of nightmarish dreaming and knew he would snap back.

He went to sit with Luna and her one Ravenclaw friend; one of the firsties had taken to her as some sort of idol of serenity and emotional wisdom, which was what Harry could do with too. Luna didn't greet him, engrossed as she was in a discussion about where humdingers might go to hibernate, but she did push a pot of raspberry jam his way before he had to ask for it or settle for plum. Neither of them appreciated plums of the non-dirigible variety.

He watched Hermione while he ate, and was glad to see Sally brave the brooding tempest and sit beside his friend to keep her company. Sally was a quiet, keep-to-herself type, and possibly the only Gryffindor whom Harry didn't think had done something to rile Hermione in the past, so she alone should be safe from any sudden fits of recriminatory pique.

It still only took three minutes of human company for Hermione to slam her coffee mug - seriously, where do people get coffee in this castle? - on the table and storm off, though by the way Sally dared to follow, calling her name, Harry didn't think it was anything the girl had done.

He was just rising to reluctantly join the pursuit when Alicia appeared before him, kitted out in her full chaser gear.

"Hey Harry, you ready for practice?"

He knew there was something he'd forgotten.

"Uh, yeah, yeah, I'll be there... When is it again?"

"Five minutes. Wood told me to come get you."

Oh.

"Five minutes? I'll be late!"

Alicia drew her wand and twirled it with a menacing grin. "He also told me I could hex you as much as I like if it makes you get there faster."

Harry knew from Fred and George's many tales how credible that threat was.

"Alright, I'm coming. Sorry Luna, gotta go."

"Oh, hello Harry," she said as she spun around, apparently surprised he was there at all. "Good luck with landing. Or I suppose if you must crash, do it gently."

He didn't get to reply because Alicia was shooing him, at wand-tip, to get his arse in gear. The pitch was more than a five minute walk away, and he had all his gear to get into... Wood was going to kill him. With a fleeting glance at the doorway Hermione had left through, he abandoned all pretence of dignity and ran from the Great Hall.

Seven minutes later, and on a promise of a serious talking to which Wood only put off because it would eat further into practice time if he had it out immediately, Harry stumbled out onto the pitch, broom in hand and padding mostly strapped on tight. He'd forgotten an elbow pad, but it was too late to turn back for it.

A dart of red, both by robes and hair, swooped down to meet him. The way Ginny could pull out of a dive, Harry half-wondered if she shouldn't be main seeker after all, but she seemed happy enough Wood had named her first reserve for both the chaser and seeker positions. With the frequency of injuries in the sport, and an expanded roster of games since McGonagall had finally convinced the headmaster twelve games across all matchups in the whole year was not enough, Harry expected Ginny would see almost as much game time as he.

Two second years on the team... For a House so obsessed with quidditch, they were weirdly shot on people both willing and able to play.

"Harry, you made it!" Ginny shouted, once she'd spit enough hair from her mouth - she was going to have to learn the ponytail charm Angelina used.

"Duh! Can't have you nicking my spot completely, can I?" he jested, the prospect of a good flying session clearing the miserable funk from his mind.

She looked abashed at his comeback - almost ashamed, even. It was a face he'd seen from her a lot, following that damned kiss at the end of the last year, and he was getting tired of it. Sure, he'd been annoyed at her, and still was to a degree, but he was getting more annoyed it was coming between them so much. He still wanted to be her friend. Just nothing more.

"Come on, race you to the hoops," he challenged as he mounted up, eager to get flying, and get away from the ground where professor Snape, as their appointed overseer for the morning, prowled.

He was rewarded with a fierce grin, which was far more fitting for Ginny's face, and they set off. He won, because he was on a Nimbus and she rode the least-knackered of the school brooms, but it was closer than it had any right to be. The girl was scary fast.

From the new vantage point he could see for miles, all the way out to - actually, he couldn't see as far as normal, because the cursed dementors whipped up a permanent fog about the castle grounds. The far banks of the Black Lake were the limit; the fog became suddenly much thicker at the edge of the wards where the foul creatures patrolled.

He also spotted Hermione, the gold satin blindfold he'd bought her for her birthday - one charmed never to slip, even if the knot came undone - standing out to his seeker eyes. She was crossing the grounds at a pace with Sally at her shoulder carrying several things his friend must have dropped or thrown. Wood's voice dragged him away from the building worry, and practice began in earnest.

It was during a visuals drill - Wood sent Harry on up high, released five faux-snitches and would return in a few minutes expecting his seeker to be able to point out each and every one without hesitation - that Harry spotted Hermione again. That satin really was a perfect snitch-gold, and wondrously shiny.

She was by the shore of the lake, hard to make out through the mists but surely sat down, with Sally... lying on the ground in front of her. He wondered, for a horrible moment, if his friend hadn't cursed the girl, before he saw the real reason and horror turned to icy dread. A dementor floated above them, spiralling down like a vulture coming to feast.

He shouted for Wood's attention, then Katie's as she was closer, but his voice was lost to the wind. Cursing himself for not learning the sonorous charm - a spell above his level, but one he was sure Hermione knew by his age - he did what he did best, and threw himself into danger for his friend.

A steep dive to gain speed, levelling out just high enough to almost brush the stands, then another once he was clear of the stadium wall, had him racing over the grounds. The air tore at him, ripping a hastily strapped kneepad off, and he pushed himself even lower into the broom, willing it to somehow go faster. The dementor was low, maybe twenty feet, and he was still hundreds, thousands away. Hermione was not sat, she was kneeling, wand out but held limply at her side.

At five feet, as close as the dementor in the train had come, this one stopped to toy with its prey, circling instead of attacking. Harry hated it all the more for its brutality, even as he thanked the stars for the time it bought him - before it could finish its sick game, he barrelled into it at full tilt.

You couldn't kill a dementor, he'd heard it said, but you sure could give it a shock. The anti-impact spell on his broom pulsed and collapsed, overcome by the sheer force of the blow. Harry was thrown from the broom, smashing into the dementor which turned out to be more solid than he had hoped. He caught a flash of the sky, the ground, the sky again, then felt pain and cold flare in his body as he and the dementor tumbled across the pebble beach and into the shallows.

He came to rest face up; thankfully, because when he tried to move his body screamed in protest and left him lying there, limp. His left shoulder felt wrong, his ribs hurt worse than after a tumble down the stairs, and he fervently hoped the tingling in his feet was due to the cold water and not something more... spinal. Really should have taken Luna's advice on crashing.

Less fortunate than his own position was that of the dementor, which was already rising from the floor not five yards from him, either feeling no pain or simply not needing use of mortal things such as muscles. He could only watch as it regained its full height, and a little besides, floating across the stones toward him. When it loomed over him it blocked out the weak sun, plunging him into a darkness he felt in his very soul. The corona of sunlight around it turned a sickly green hue. The screams filtering through the ringing in his ears were his mothers, and fathers, and Hermione's all at once. As it reached out toward him its sleeve rolled back, to reveal a clawed hand which was rotting away; it had once been pudgy, like Vernon's, but now death was taking hold and exacting the final toll on the flesh.

Harry thought he might have slipped into another nightmare, like on the train, but that was not to be. It might have been a mercy had it happened; to be so utterly at the mercy of such an abomination was worse than any imaginary uncle's ministrations. The air in the little space between their faces began to mist and swirl; there was a strangeness to it, a tugging that reached right through his skin and pulled on his very being. The worst of it was in his scar, which felt at once as though it had burst into flame and been plunged into ice water.

The world was spinning, the dementor splitting in two, one for each eye, and a brilliant blue-white light bloomed at the edges of Harry's vision. Just as he slipped into unconsciousness, he wondered if that was the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, and if so, what on earth was that great glowing doe doing there?

A/N

Big thanks to Branmacmorn for the slew of reviews as you binge-read my story.
And to the others reviewing, thank you. It all keeps me motivated, so know you are appreciated.

Hopefully at this point people all realise I have changed time-turners considerably. This is because the way they work in canon.. doesn't. Introducing time travel is possibly the worst thing you can ever do for a story if you want things to make sense from there on out. My version is far more limited and sensible than Rowling's, and I still ummed and ahhed over introducing one at all. If not for an idea I am in love with for Act 3, I think I would have dropped it.

It is also a part of the reason this book is titled 'Hermione Granger and...'. You can't really give someone intelligent a personal time machine and claim they're not the main character.