"Well, we can't just stand here, we need to do something!" yelled Mary

"Hospital wing!" I said

"Somehow I feel like this will end up needing more than that" said Hermione

The 5 of us lifted Magda out of her bed and carried her to the hospital wing.

"Oh my goodness, what happened?!" asked Pomfrey

"No idea, we thought she had the flu, but she refused to come here, and then we found her in bed like this" I said

"Silly girl, whenever you're unwell in this school you should come straight to me! But this is beyond my scope of knowledge, this looks like some sort of curse. Will one of you please fetch Professor Snape?"

Mary did so.

Snape took a long look over Magda, then got out his wand and performed some complicated movements.

Eventually, he said "She will need to go to . She has been cursed in a manner which has caused severe internal injuries. She will survive as long as she is there within 30 minutes. I have not seen this type of case since the war"

Pomfrey sent a Patronus message to St Mungo's, and a team of specialist Healers was immediately dispatched to Hogwarts. They removed Magda and disappeared down the stairs.

We made to follow them, but Snape held us back.

"Wait!" he said sharply. "It appears that the curse she was hit with was very slow acting, and disguised it's symptoms as cold or flu like. Did any of you by any chance make physical contact with her at all in the last 24 hours? If so, you may also be affected"

"Yes." I said "she sneezed all over me in Charms after I landed on top of her. We were doing the Tarrantallegra spell, Professor"

"I see. Remain still please"

He then performed the same set of wand movements over me, as well as the others.

"You are all clear, though it will probably be best if I check everyone in your class as a precaution"

So our class were called out of the common room to be checked, and thankfully, everyone was cleared. Magda's bed in our dormitory was cordoned off.

"Do you think she'll be ok?" Amy said as we got in to bed.

"She should be, you heard what Snape said, she would have gotten there within 30 minutes, surely" Demelza replied

Then Mary spoke.

"Guys I just wanted to take this moment to apologise. The whole experience tonight has made me rethink the way I act around you. I realise I was being stupid, and having given it some thought, I'll admit that Malfoy was at fault for the Hippogriff incident. Dad's not going to be happy, but it's what's right. Can you forgive me?"

I sat up and looked at her.

"Course we can mate. Always willing to give second chances to those who admit their mistakes"

"Yeah, it's about learning from it, that's the point. If you don't make mistakes you won't learn" said Demelza

Mary smiled at us

"Thanks guys"

And with that, we settled down to sleep.

A few days later, Ravenclaw and Slytherin's teams had their Quidditch matches. Both ended in narrow wins for Slytherin. According to Wood, this was good news for Gryffindor, who would take second place in both if we beat Ravenclaw too. He therefore increased the number of team practices to five a week. This was incredibly draining, but worth it, as I knew this type of thing was what happened all season in pro Quidditch, so I felt I should get used to it.

But if I thought I was being drained, it was nothing compared to Hermione. Every night, without fail, she was to be seen in a corner of the common room, several tables spread with books, Arithmancy charts, Rune dictionaries, diagrams of Muggles lifting heavy objects, and file upon file of extensive notes; she barely spoke to anybody, and snapped when she was interrupted. She was having to work well into the night now, what with all the Quidditch practice.

I felt like if she kept this up for much longer, she would start to see negative health effects, so I decided to take action. I sat down next to her one evening, after everyone else had gone to bed, and gave her a gentle prod on the arm.

"What?!" she said.

I bit my lip

"Look" I said eventually. "I know you love learning everything there is to know at school, but isn't this a bit much even for you? We can all see the toll it's taking on you. You're having to work into the night constantly, with Quidditch and all, and you're getting very irritable with everyone. Might it be worth considering dropping a subject or two?"

Hermione sighed and sat back in her chair

"You have a point, and I've been thinking about it myself recently. Divination I'm almost certainly going to drop, it's such a pointless subject in my opinion"

"How are you even doing it anyway?"

"What do you mean?

"Hermione, look, I know you're far better academics wise than I am, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid. I've seen your timetable, you're in 2 classes at once several times a week. How are you doing it?"

She sighed again

"I can't tell you. Professor McGonagall made me promise not to tell anyone"

"Look, mate, you know I can keep a secret. Think about what I did last year. As bad as I felt about it, in order to protect myself I couldn't tell anyone what was really going on with the attacks. If I can do that, I can easily keep your secret"

Hermione gnawed on her lip thoughtfully.

"Ok"

She took a deep breath, then pulled out a golden chain that was around her neck underneath her robes.

"This is a Time Turner. I've been using it to go back in time a few hours each day. That's how I've attended all my classes"

"You've been going back in time?"

"Yeah. Professor McGonagall had to write all sorts of letters to the Ministry so I could have one. She had to say things like I was a model student, top of the year, and that I'd never use it for anything except my studies"

"Wow"

I chewed my lip as I took all this information in.

"You know what, I reckon Bill and Percy must have used them too, considering all the OWL's they managed to get. My god, imagine the workload they'd have had, this is only third year stuff you're doing. I'll ask them at some point"

"Make sure it's only after I make it known, which I will do if I decide to go back to a normal timetable"

"I will. I'd very much recommend you go back to a normal timetable mate, this isn't good for you"

"I'll give it some serious thought. Thanks for having this conversation"

"No problem, goodnight"

"Goodnight"

And I headed upstairs to bed