Harry Potter sat comfortably on the coach in the room of requirements, just an hour ago he sneaked into Hogwarts kitchen to get some food for himself - not surprisingly, rather than questioning his excessing late-night appetite or his need for raw, long lasting ingredients, the house elves just happily went to work and shortly after he received enough food to last for weeks - months even if eating sparingly.

Now the-boy-who-lived was back in the room of requirements - sitting comfortably in an armchair with eyes closed in meditation. Near him a pile of books was laid, brought from Dumbledore's vault as well as a large pile of food on another table close nearby..

Deep in his mind the boy was trying to feel his connection to the so-called 'hallows'. It did not take him long to succeed - there was as if a thread, a weak mind link leading somewhere close by in the direction of the headmaster's office. Another similar tug led outside the castle - which Harry assumed would lead him to ring and the third one just a few steps away - his cloak.

He could materialise the cloak inside his mind, the same went for the ward, but he dared not to call the stone - Voldemort's soul piece was still attached to it, who knows what it would do inside his mind.

He tried what he could to sever the link, alas there was no manual on such things and he had no idea what he was doing. He had his invisibility cloak for the longest, yet only after obtaining the mana sense did he even begin to feel a faint connection to it - spending a few hours like that, with no results frustrated the boy and he opted to focus on the books instead.

Similarly like the book on the mind arts, Dumbledore's small collection of books proved to be a good one. As the pages turned and Harry was absorbed in the wonderfully written lessons on magic inside. He even started recognizing some of the spells the headmaster occasionally used when he started suspecting him being possessed by the dark lord.

Of course, just theory was nothing much - just knowing the spell was not enough, what was needed was dozens of hours just to learn it, then hundreds in actual duelling simulations in the room to learn how to use it well as well as it's limitations, modifications, silent casting, even its weakness to know how to best deal with it in case it was used against him.

As the clock continued ticking and the night passed, Harry finally put the book down and headed to sleep. Perhaps he would stay up late longer next day, but tomorrow morning was quite interesting - or more to say, he was very curious what Dumbledore would do when he noticed that he was missing. He put Marauder's map on top of the bedside table and minutes later was already in the land of dreams.

The birds outside were chirping as Daphne Greengrass lazily opened her eyes. She spent most of last night practising patronus charm - you could say she even had some success - in the form of blueish smoke, yet she knew it would barely be enough to chase off a single dementor in the wild - against a group of them, she needed a corporeal patronus to keep her safe. It took a while to even get that part of the spell working - it truly deserved its fame for being one of the hardest spells for upper years.

She knew Harry was supposedly in the hospital wing at the moment, but madam Pompfrey was very strict on the visitors, heck even Harry's house-mates would get denied entry to visit the boy, never mind her, from 'hostile' house of snakes.

Sneaking at night was an option as well - in fact she was slowly scouting the patrol routes of this particular day to be able to dodge all the perfects wandering the halls. Compared to the fourth year, it was way harder to sneak around. She could not borrow the Marauder's map, Harrys' cloak, and the number of patrolling perfects was at an all time high due to Sirius Black…

Thinking of the upcoming repeat of transfiguration lesson she shuddered and quickly dressed up before rushing to the library - if she had to suffer that lesson again, she might as well pick something to read to not bore herself to death…

Albus Dumbledore entered the hospital wing and headed to Harry's bed - it was empty. He touched his glasses as they twinkled as it momentarily switched to heat vision - the boy's bed was cold which ruled out the possibility of a bathroom break.

Headmaster inwardly sighed - he knew he had some sort of paranoia when it came to matters related to the boy - he couldn't help it, the prophecy weighed heavily on his mind. And with such thought he double checked the school wards which confirmed that the only ones to leave school wards since yesterday night… were Sirius Black, the hippogriff, and the usual daily entries like a bunch of rats, various owls and other magical creatures who just happened to live near the ward borders, occasionally leaving and entering.

The wards were activated and tracking all entering and leaving of the school grounds, notifying him of every movement in or out. Of course during the days Hogwarts express visited school he had to turn them off - as it unfortunately interfered with the trains wards, leading to long term damage which was expensive to repair….

If only Hogwarts had a better budget… The tragedy that happened to Sirius would be prevented, Pettigrew quickly caught, no more complaints of low salaries from the staff….

One might think a legendary archmage like him was rich to shoulder all this burden, but alas, that was not the case. Yes, he did occasionally get requests to take down rare magical beasts - which in turn got him rare and precious ingredients…. But Hogwarts expenses were astronomical! Even the food supplies for the whole school amounted to thousands of galleons per year! Then there were purchases for whatever 'textbook' ministry released for the library, spare cauldrons and other equipment that broke on a daily basis….

Even 'profitable' subjects like potions and herbology were barely making ends meet - while some good students' plants or potions were being sold, majority were of quite a poor quality.

Albus shrugged his head, focusing back on the issue at hand. Just earlier he confirmed that madam Pompfrey did not discharge anyone when he asked how the students were doing…

He could see his friends in the ward, Ron was still asleep, while Hermione's concerned glance to the empty bed suggested she knew nothing of his whereabouts and that meant the boy sneaked out on his own…

Albus put a mental note to review the wards more thoroughly once he got back in his office - there was only so much he could do remotely. At least the boy was in school, he could still locate him quickly from his office.

Still, he decided, getting some intel on why the boy left on his own seemed like a useful bit of information. Most likely he was down due to dementors or the knowledge of his godfather suffering for years!

Turning to the side he passed by the still loudly snoring Ronald Weasley as he reached Hermione's bed. The girl was already awake and nose deep into a book. She was not allowed to attend the lessons today - not yet at least, but nothing stopped the girl from always pursuing knowledge with every chance she got.

"Good morning Ms. Granger!"

The girl turned towards him as a trace of panic flashed through her eyes - it did not take mind reading to guess that she felt guilty - for one reason or another, working with children for years just made one pick up little cues like that, short micro expressions in the face, body language. It truly was wonderful what one could do even without one bit of magic in use!

"Good morning, headmaster"

Unknown to her, the moment their eyes met, the headmaster sneaked into her mind. He was not a frequent guest there, but after every major event in school he always took the time to review the memories of as many involved as he could, provided their shields were weak enough to avoid notice - he did not wish for a scandal to occur!

Being a muggle born witch, Hermione had no protections on her mind, as well as no pureblood training to make mind invasion harder - most purebloods avoided interlocking of eyes, especially around old witches and wizards like the headmaster himself.

"Um, professor, where is Harry? He was not there when I woke up this morning… Did something happen to him white I was asleep?"

Dumbledore's glasses twinkled as he addressed the young witches' concerns. Casual mind reading and holding a conversation at the same time was a skill he picked up decades ago.

"Worry not Ms, Granger he is still in school - perhaps Harry felt good enough and went back to his room? I will surely find him later and bring him back for a checkup, leaving the hospital wing without Madam Pompfreys discharge is not an example one should follow!"

The headmaster waved his arm as the rest of the hospital went into silence. He could see amazement from the young girl, but it was just a basic privacy charm, nothing impressive. The most noticeable difference was that Weasley's snoring was not so loud anymore, it was somewhat distracting.

"Now we will have some more privacy, can you tell me about yesterdays 'rescue' operation?"

Dumbledore flipped through the story in her mind as she retold the events, it seemed to match, he was glad to have such an honest student, not once has she lied so far! Yet midway his flipping there was an event missing. An event that caught his eye - the time turner trembling. Even he was not aware those devices had such a function!

Casting a meaningful gaze towards the pile of 'clothes' where he felt the magical device hidden below, he interrupted Hermione's story as soon as the girl made a pause to catch her breath.

"Are you sure there was nothing else important to tell me, Ms Granger?"

The girl turned her eyes away as her hands started tumbling - "No, nothing! Ah I think I swore I saw some dementors actually disappear when hit by Harry's patronus! All literature I read says patronus charm cannot destroy a dementor and even that ways of destroying them do not exist! Do you know how it could have happened, professor?"

Albus sighted inside her mind… A brilliant strategy to redirect his focus, yet her body language just screamed she was hiding something…. But no matter he would find it out himself, a wave of Elder wand later, a couple of threads materialised, one leading to the time turner vibration he just read about, another to a page deeper into the book, curious he flipped straight there while simultaneously satisfying young witches curiosity.

"In cases the happy memory or the magic power of the person casting the spell is strong enough it can in fact destroy dementors. It is simply not in the books to prevent them from going extinct - after all, Britain still needs them to ensure the safety of Azkaban. Have you never wondered why they are not so common in other countries?"

Finishing reading the page, the headmaster furrowed his brows - he never knew such a weird message sending function existed in time turners! And that letter inside… "From Croaker ... " - he murmured as he wondered what secrets the next page would uncover, but giving the girl one more chance to redeem her honesty was a good thing to do as well.

"By the way Ms. Granger, by any chance, do you know someone called Saul Croaker?"

The story was interrupted once more and he could have some more focus for reading the next page of the book, while he waited for frustration on the young witches face to settle and for her to continue her lies or just admit the truth.

Not long after his eyes widened as he understood the situation - "so perhaps Harry is not here as he was the one who triggered this…" - headmaster hurriedly exited Hermione's mind as he realised something was very wrong - all his actions just seemed… sluggish and slow.

Slowly opening his eyes - and not by choice, he could see the girl's mouth open, reading her lips he could only guess she was saying sorry - or at least trying to, but then his own thoughts came to a stop.

Shortly before Dumbledore's visit to the hospital wing, Harry was still in the room of requirements, looking at the Marauders Map.

Unknowingly his eyes darted towards a lone circle walking in the library - Daphne Greengrass, he wondered what she was doing in the library so early before he shook his head and focused back on another dot - Albus Dumbledore.

If he ever tried to escape the school it would be good to know his actions in case he was missing. After all, Dumbledore's letters found him inside the room multiple times - yes, he needed to open the door to let them in, but the headmaster knew he was inside.

Who knows, perhaps there were more rules to the room than he knew? What if the headmasters had some sort of power to access inside, regardless of what password Harry picked?

As expected the old man was in the hospital wing, seemingly chatting with Hermione Granger. Suddenly his eyes widened as he somehow realised his eyes were getting sluggish - as the world slowed down again Harry's last night's events flashed by in his eyes before he was back at the lake with dementors.

His mind was in total confusion - how come the loop restarted… again?

Harry's patronus took care of the dementors, as the boy reviewed his memories of the start of the loop, to try to notice anything he did differently… But no, everything he did seemed very similar to what he did before. How come the loop restarted again then?.

His confused gaze lingered as he turned back to walk to the castle together with Hermione. Then it hit him - the girl herself was different. Not the same as she was during his decade of suffering or the loop before that, it was like… She suddenly had something on her mind.

As if something happened while he was busy chasing dementors away…

Along the way he reviewed his memories of this day and saw that Hermione behaved differently ever since he came back from confronting the dark lord…

As the castle got closer and closer, his brain could not come up with a reason as to how in the world that could have any effect on the time loop or Hermione at all!

The boy inwardly sighted as he unleashed his silent legilimency probe. He was reluctant to use this power against his friend, but that was unfortunately the most efficient way to understand what was happening.

Back in the hospital wing, Harry laid in his bed, not sleeping this time. He was still inside Hermione's head, awaiting the moment she deemed him 'asleep' and moved on to investigate the time turner.

He had long noticed the device was getting older with each use, but after some reading in the library and seeing they could work fine for centuries he never deemed it a concern. But what has happened now? What did the little magical trinket do to make the loop reset again, without his mind being breached?

The time quickly passed and Harry eventually learned of the Croakers message contents, and now he lay still in bed, deep in thought and despair - if the only known way to escape was to lose his memories….

Was there even a point in doing any of this? What good would it do to him for finally escaping the loop? So what if he trained hard until eventually locating all horcruxes if he had no way to pass it on? Hell, the only thing other than his memories that seemingly went back in time so far… was the weird connection with the Resurrection stone and the Elder wand - what good would come out of that?

If he 'fixed' the time loop as the letter suggested, he would no doubt tell Dumbledore about the connection… which would make Dumbledore get cursed as soon as they encountered the ring… Even while knowing it was a dangerous dark lord's artefact he basically lost an arm and most of his life span… Without knowing this, perhaps he would just die on the spot!

The bits of information about dragging others along did not motivate him all that much - the chances of that were abysmal as mentioned in the letter, if luck shined on him, Dumbledore would already be in as he spent decades in mind battles against him.

Before he fell further into despair, he reread the letter multiple times. He now understood why he was sent back again last time - Albus must have browsed Hermione's mind too… Of course, he could simply steal the time turner next time and be free from more unexpected restarts… But what was the point of it all?

After one more reread a certain sentence caught his gaze. The ones who participated in the faulty trip through time were immune to triggering the restart by just knowing of the situation…

The boy's eyes quickly darted towards another sentence - fragments of the cause of the loop, might cause a person to be added to the loop…

His eyes snapped open as he exited his mind's library. He just had an idea. If Dumbledore triggered the restart as soon as he accessed those so-called 'fragments of the cause of the loop', what if Hermione accessed them? Wasn't she immune to triggering restarts herself, as stated in the letter?

Keeping in mind the girl's dilemma of confronting him to discuss the letter, he went to the bathroom without even trying to sneak out. Having lived with the Dursleys for years he knew just how loud he could be without waking up anyone already asleep - while Vernon slept like a log, Petunia was surprisingly a light sleeper.

And as anticipated, as he came back from the bathroom, he saw Hermione yawning, awaiting his return near his bed, a piece of parchment was peeking out from her robe's large pocket.

"Harry, we need to talk. Now".

The boy in question nodded to his friend - he had already anticipated this situation from having read her mind just dozens of minutes ago, he sat on one of the visitors chairs nearby while Hermione took one from Ron's bedside, the red headed boy was still deep in sleep, snoring loudly - the room was otherwise empty, besides the hushed voices of two young students discussing.

"Harry james Potter, how many times have I warned you about messing with time travel! How could you be so careless to see yourself over the lake? Look at the mess you got yourself into!"

The boy just kept his gaze on the floor, so far he only shared the time loop details with her. Nothing about the decades he was already looping. Nothing about the return of the dark lord. The soul shard stuck in his forehead - but Hermione was already having trouble keeping her voice down as she stared at him with a judging gaze.

A few minutes of more berating of the boy's actions she finally calmed down somewhat and passed the parchment to Harry.

"Here, read this so we are on the same page, thankfully it seems simple enough to fix the so called 'time-flow', heck the spell is so simple, even someone as lazy as Ron could learn in a few days"

Harry picked the parchment and gave it another read or pretended to while he considered his next words. Before he learned of the thing inside his scar, before he met Daphne, he would have gladly taken the easy way out, but alas, now it seemed not an option - he had too much at stake to let 'fate' decide what would happen in his life.

He sighed as he put the parchment down - "To tell you the truth Hermione, I have been stuck in this 'time loop' for a while now, and there are some things I must do, or my escape would be meaningless."

"Oh? And do tell, what could be so important to relive the same year over and over? Even the department of mysteries failed to find a way to escape keeping the knowledge obtained, why do you think you will do any better?"

Another long sigh escaped the boy's mouth - "Voldemort is coming back, in fact he will walk this land again at the end of our fourth year…. "

It took a minute for her to process his words. Initially she wanted to doubt him, yet the seemingly genuine letter from the ministry about the existence of time loops brought more credit to his words.

"I am sure headmaster Dumbeldore would protect us… Perhaps we can contact Mr. Croaker and make him include this in the message? That way once you escape the loop, we would know what is happening, then Dumbledore would help…"

"NO! You don't understand!. There would be no 'after' if we would contact Croaker or Dumbledroe, the loop would just restart again! Only you are immune due to travelling with me back in time all those years ago! Believe me, Dumbledore learned of this more times than I can count… and every time I just found myself back in time…"

The girl froze, her gaze filled with worry - "Years? That was just a few hours ago! Unless… Just, just how long have you been 'looping'?"

Harry roughly counted the books in his library - the quantity of memories was how he estimated the passage of time. He had long abandoned counting the days and loops, especially after that crazy decade stuck while restarts kept happening over and over.

"Unfortunately, far too long."

The duo sat in silence for a minute, before Harry took his wand to his temple as he pulled a short silvery string of memories and dropped them in a vial he had transfigured from one of his robe's buttons earlier in the bathroom.

Hermione gazed at the silvery liquid with widened eyes, being clever and well-read she quickly connected the dots and understood what Harry was doing.

"Harry, are you sure? I understand the letter might imply I am immune, but this might trigger another restart anyway! A few people are still disappearing every year due to misuse of time turners, I suspect there might be a limit of sorts to how many loops you can have. After all, with the spell in this letter in hand it would be easy to return to normal life!"

"The loop would reset one way or another… You should know Dumbledore is quite good at mind arts, but did you know he is browsing the minds of unprotected students? All for the 'greater good' he chases? And yes, while his intentions are certainly not evil, your mere presence near him with that letter in your mind would make him read it as well… And you know what that would cause now"

"The headmaster would never do that!..."

Looking into Harry's deadpan gaze, she understood no words would change his opinion. What if it was true? If he truly spent years suffering like that? Alone? With everyone just forgetting what he did? How could she just dismiss her friend… again? Like when she thought he was sick or crazy due to hearing basilisk words from the walls, or when he suspected someone was going to steal a philosopher's stone…

The boy swirled the vial, before stretching his arm forward, offering it to his friend.

"Don't you want this chance to study without worrying about the passage of time? Perhaps you could even unravel the mystery of the time loops! Didn't you mention wanting to work in the department of mysteries after finishing school? As the letter says, only I would need to lose my memories…"

Hermione took the vial as she stared at the silvery content inside. The offer did sound alluring.

"Didn't you say last time the loop triggered because of the letter, what caused Dumbledore to read my mind this time?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders - "I would say he always did it, just that the letter only appeared recently, perhaps the ministry can see if the time turned has been used too many times?"

Hermione gazed at her device, it certainly looked older than a few days ago…

"It might be… "

Hermione finally had that glint of determination in her eyes - "Fine, I will try, if it fails you will just steal the time turner from me next time anyway, wouldn't you?"

With those words she touched the liquid inside the vial and watched as Harry was sent back in time. Of course it was not as great as using a pensieve - you could only watch memories in this way, not speed them up or slow them down, even mixing multiple memories in vials would just jumble their contents, not allow selecting each one individually. But for a short memory like this… it was enough.

Harry waited in anticipation and as they had guessed before, this did not trigger another restart, but would this cause her to be 'included' in the loop as well? Only time would tell.

"I guess we will find out tomorrow…Good night Hermione"

"Good night Harry"

As another day arrived, Dumbledore arrived to meet them as usual. Harry tried summoning the Elder wand in his mindscape first - but unfortunately, this did not prevent Albus from doing the same - and a similar scenario like a few loops ago repeated again.

But this time, Harry already knew what it would lead to, so he was more prepared. Just moments after he pushed the headmaster out of his mind, the boy blasted the wall of the castle and jumped out, stopping his free fall only near the ground before running away - at least he planned to, but Dumbledore managed to make a wall of water rise from the great lake and block his path of retreat while simultaneously levitating the ruble and fixing the damages to the school.

Harry enclosed himself in a ball of fire and ice as he tried to break through the water wall. He had read about this spell from Dumbledore's own book, hence he knew the wall of water should be thin enough for his stunt to succeed.

As soon as he passed through, he dashed towards the forbidden forest - recalling the information about the school wards, he knew they spanned roughly equally to all sides from the school, but navigating a forest was bound to be easier to shake off anyone pursuing.

Unfortunately, while Dumbledore was not much of a chaser due to his old age, his magic could reach far, like very far, especially in his own turf - Hogwarts grounds.

Various spells flew towards the boy who dodged them with ease, alas they were meant for the trees, boulders, dirt on the ground in the first place. As more and more golems materialised and started chasing him, Harry once again cursed his lack of preparation. He should have rushed and did the ritual to improve his reflexes tonight… With that boost he should be able to dodge the magical constructs with ease.

He sighted as he braced for incoming pain - his body not quick enough to defend against incoming blows.

Perhaps it was for the best. While short, this loop brought some answers to light, the ones about the time loop. With luck he would have a companion, his friend in the time travelling journey, if not he just needed to steal the time turner and lock himself in the room of requirement or even try to escape - seeing his current attempt failing only due to the poor shape his body was in he knew he could pull this off…. Maybe not on the first try, but… he felt it was possible.

Of course beating Dumbledore was clearly still way out of his reach, but escaping the unprepared old man, even if he was an archmage - somehow that seemed doable.

Now it was not long before he was overwhelmed with numbers, his wand confiscated as he once again fell to Dumbledore's mercy.

Then once again, a particular memory was seen from his mind and the time reverted back to the beginning.

Daphne cursed as she was back, once again, in her bed. She was getting so bored on that same transfiguration lesson she even skipped it last time. Heck she could repeat professors' words one by one even without reaching out for a specific book in her mind's library!

At least after all those loops and almost sleepless nights she was somewhat ready. She waved her wand as a blue butterfly appeared and after a flight around her face landed on her shoulder.

She smiled, getting a corporeal patronus was not too hard after all - all she needed was to choose a good enough 'happy' memory, and she had plenty of them with Harry.

Then the girl cast the usual set of sneaking out spells - noise cancelling, removing footprints from dusty floors, hiding smell, and finally - disillusionment on herself and leaving her room.

She was not that great on that particular spell, but in the dark of the night that was not much of a problem. She scouted the castle slowly the last night and roughly knew where the perfects, caretaker and his cat were patrolling.

The path towards the great lake was clear.