Chapter 2

Hermione steeled herself for a moment, reminding herself that everything was going to be fine and to just act normal, before pushing open the door to the Auror office. It was her first day back and she was dreading people asking about where she had been, or worse, people offering their sympathy. She just needed to focus on the job.

She had almost made it to her desk when she was accosted by Roger Davies.

'Hey Hermione, long time no see. Been up to anything fun?'

Roger was harmless enough, but his eager, optimistic energy was the opposite of what she wanted right now.

'Just… personal stuff…' she said stiffly, hoping he would get the message.

He did not.

'Oh yeah? Like what?' he smiled.

She clenched her jaw in frustration and turned towards her desk.

'You know…' he continued, like an annoying mosquito, 'I was just finishing up the filing on some of your jobs whilst you were on leave. I just wanted to say that your codebreaking work from last month was seriously cool.'

'Thanks Roger,' she said dismissively, and thankfully he then left her alone. She checked her watch. She had 30 minutes until mission briefing and so she busied herself tidying her desk which had lay abandoned for a few weeks.

Once it was time to go she made her way down to the 3rd floor and crossed the atrium into the Department of Magical Transportation. She followed the winding corridors until she came to a set of heavy doors which led to the experimental laboratories. She flashed her badge and the guard let her through. Finally she arrived at room 7B and was greeted at the door by Harry.

'You alright?' he asks. She nods stiffly, and he nods back, before pulling her into a hug.

'You're going to be fine,' he reassures her, and she nods again. He smiles, then opens the door to admit them both.

The room was shaped like a round auditorium, with a circular walkway around the edge overlooking an enormous machine which sat below them. Hermione gripped the handrail and stared at the machine, feeling the knot in her stomach tightening. The Chronoflux looked magnificent, standing over three meters tall with light dancing off thousands of tiny lenses. Distorted shadows were cast onto the walls as the technicians tinkered with the lens positioning. On one side of the machine there was what resembled a time turner, only much bigger and made from thick, black metal. On the other a simple wooden chair, which looked rather out of place alongside the extravagant machine.

She followed Harry around to a large desk on the other side of the circular walkway. They exchanged brief pleasantries with the chief engineer before Harry handed her the mission briefing. She scanned the familiar text to remind herself. Her target was Rudolphus Lestrange.

She watched as one of the technicians carefully uncorked a glass vial and loaded what looked like silver strands of hair into the machine. Memories, she recognised, extracted from a captured death eater pertaining to an exact meeting, on the 26th January 1980. The lenses whirred and rotated, each clicking into their precise position.

Her job was simple. Go in, place a tracking spell on Lestrange, and then apparate to the extraction point within the 5 minute safe limit. The Ministry had been working on this technology for three years, and now it was finally time to use it for real. She had aced all the training and was ready. She exhaled deeply, then felt a hand on her shoulder.

Harry was smiling at her.

'Don't worry, you'll be back in 5 minutes,' and she smiled back and nodded.

She descended the steps of the auditorium and took her place on the wooden chair. The huge machine towered over her making her feel very small, and she found herself thumbing the tooth in her pocket to steady her nerves. Another witch was fussing with her hair, trying to disguise her with straight, dark hair and a heavy fringe. The chief engineer repeated the importance of making the extraction point.

"Remember, whatever you do, you need to be at the extraction point at that time. Abandon the mission if you have to. If you fail, the contingency extraction is the same location exactly 24 hours later."

She nodded. After that, there was no contingency. Testing had revealed that staying for 24 hours was dangerous enough; no one knew what the dangers were beyond that point. She didn't want to think about it.

She watched as the technician heaved the enormous time turner and it groaned and began to turn. The Chronoflux whirred to life as the lenses dazzled her. She caught one final glance at Harry who wore a serious expression before everything began spinning so fast that she could no longer make anything out in a sea of colours dancing past her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut to stop the nausea from setting in and waited. After a few more seconds the spinning stopped and she landed with a thud on a soft floor.

It was dark and she felt wet leaf litter between her fingers. She rose to her feet, heart beating fast from the adrenaline and looked around for a place to hide. The Chronoflux should have pinpointed mere moments before the donated memory. She quickly settled into a bush and waited. A few seconds later she heard a hushed rasp from nearby.

'I thought perhaps you weren't coming,' it hissed.

'I apologise. Interrogation took rather… longer than expected. I'll say one thing for muggles, they may be stupid, but they do love to play the hero. We got what we wanted out of them eventually though.'

The second voice was higher, younger. From her hiding place Hermione could make out two tall figures dressed in black, their faces shaded beneath dark hoods. But which one was her target? She checked her watch. 3 minutes 20 remaining.

'Did you bring it?' asked the first voice, glancing around as if nervous.

'Of course.'

'Well, give it over then,' it said impatiently.

'And what of my payment?' asked the younger.

In an instant the raspy voice had drawn his wand. Hermione saw a bright red flash and the younger wizard writing on the floor in pain, no more than three meters from her hiding place. She could see his face now, probably scarcely 20, and not her target.

'Consider it payment enough that I don't kill you right now, Avery,' he spat, wand still drawn.

Two and a half minutes left.

Hermione rose into a half crouch and began creeping forward, trying to get as close as possible without being detected. Getting within touching distance was going to be tricky. She drew her wand, took a steadying breath, and whispered,

'Periculum'.

Thick black smoke erupted from her wand, and the two men shouted in alarm. Hermione wasted no time running at Lestrange and whispered,

'Invenio vinctum,' as her wand connected with his back.

Then she was running, red blasts erupting around her as she ran. She ran as fast as she could, pushing twigs and leaves out the way, until with a thud she collided with something solid. Before she could make out what it was she felt a blow to the back of her head and everything went black.