Harry sat at the shore of the lake as he watched his patronus chasing the dementors away - his body felt clumsy - all the gained muscles reset to what they were before, his eyesight and reflexes back to what they were as the ritual effects got undone as well.
But that was not why the boy was sad - He simply had a lot on his mind. All the fun times, the memories he had made - now only he knows what happened… In an attempt to push the sadness away, he focused on reviewing what he actually accomplished during the past loop.
He read a few hundreds of books - from Hogwarts library, various shops from Diagon Alley and nearby alleys as well as from Black family library and the gifts from people he knew - like Dumbledore and Krum.
He actually got good at making potions, especially ones meant for pranks to the courtesy of various books, Twins lessons as well as Daphne helping him learn - the girl clearly had a talent in this area…
Harry shook his head as he pushed the sweet, yet painful image of his girlfriend away - with the time loop she should be like all the others - unaware of what happened in the past loop, Harry chose not to dwell on it too much, to lessen the ache he felt in his heart.
He also learned quite a few rituals - of course, only performing ones he was sure would succeed without much visible signs on his body to not attract unwanted attention…
The headmaster himself proved to be an invaluable ally once on his side - the book he shared made learning legilimency a breeze compared to years he spent learning occlumency, mostly by trial and error.
Together with headmaster and Severus they uncovered the secret of the dark lord's immortality - and Harry learned the shocking truth of the soul stuck in his forehead. The boy's sad gaze lingered on his reflection in the water for a moment - his scar was back once again - he had no way of confirming, but he did not feel as 'free' as when he was scarless, so his intuition told him that dark lords soul was back in his forehead…
Of course, he did test Dumbledore's theory of avada kedavra only taking a single soul - hence he now knew how to take care of it… As well as locations of two more of the dark lord's horcruxes - but as for how many he actually made and where the rest laid - he still had no idea.
Overall the black haired boy would say he learned a lot during the past loop, alas, knowledge was not enough - Voldemort still made short work of him. Heck even that fake Moody toyed with him, and apparently cream of the crop of death eater folks were still above his fighting powers - the him of the past loop with enchanted reflexes, fixed eyesight, way more muscles due to arduous daily training….
The boy pondered his death which happened like a dozen minutes ago from his perspective, and decided that his fighting skills were the thing he needed to improve the most. After all, what good was only theory without practice? Sure, he had some duels with Victor and Fleur - yet he already reached their level during the previous loop, and of course, a duel was never lethal, it was not the same as a real fight.
He could never reach Voldemort's level in a year, but what about ten? Twenty? A hundred? He would never end the time loop even if he knew how. Without a strategy to beat the dark lord it seemed pointless - having met the crazy man a few times, he knew how obsessed he was with him, he doubted he would ever leave him or his friends alone.
Harry continued to ponder even while going back to the castle along with Hermione. In fact he was thinking so much he never noticed the girl herself seemed different.
Unlike the thousands of times they had rushed like this before, this time she too was very quiet. Just minutes ago she felt the time turner vibrating as if a muggle phone on silent mode - yet there was no time now to check it out, the two students had to hurry back to the hospital wing.
As usual, Snape burst into the hospital as soon as he learned of Sirius' escape, accusing Harry of helping 'the wanted criminal' to escape. Yet as always, Dumbledore chose not to disclose the truth and Fudge assumed professor Snape was just fuming for losing his chance on receiving an Order of Merlin for capturing the Azkaban escapee.
Once again, like a lot of times before, the three students were alone in the ward. The movable curtains expanded, to give them privacy to rest. Yet only Ronald Weasley was sleeping.
The curtains had weak silencing charms cast around them - so quiet sounds, like red headed boys snoring did not reach the other two patients who were still awake, though for different reasons.
Harry Potter grabbed the invisibility cloak as well as his wand and silently cast necessary charms to get rid of his trailing smell as well as a spell to get rid of the noise when he walked. Then, without a sound, the boy's curtain opened slightly, before closing. And a minute later hospital doors similarly opened for a moment before closing again.
Unlike all the times before, he spent nearly a year living a normal life - not fighting dementors every other day - which made him feel quite fine, not dropping to sleep dead tired like he usually did, even after fending them off today.
Harry was still undecided what to do now - repeating the same school year, all of those subjects… again felt like torture. Especially seeing all those people he got closer to, yet now they were back to shallower friendships or even strangers. But here was the best place he had to learn - the room of requirements provided the boy with nearly anything he could ask for - of course, except some rare ingredients or food.
The school's library was also a great resource, but the boy could hardly say it was invaluable. Even the forbidden section was somewhat lacking compared to the countless books in the Black family vault - or some exotic ones available for sale - surely, books deemed too 'dangerous' were not even present in the library.
With invisible steps Harry headed towards the room of requirements - knowing Dumbledore's vault password, he was too curious to pass the chance to check what was inside - that small book on mind arts was very useful, what if there were other good books like this inside? Even if he was caught, so what? It's not like he has anything to lose, being at the start of the loop, does he?
Back in the hospital wing, Hermione was rereading the long parchment of instructions of time turner use - of course she already read it a few times after receiving the device, but still, nothing mentioned it vibrating, so perhaps it got broken? The girl shuddered at the thought of being the one who actually broke the magical trinket! She was aware they cost a fortune to produce! What if she gets expelled from school after this?
Another rumble from the time turner brought her back to reality. Her papers fell to the floor as she reached out to grab the time turner from the pile of her clothes nearby. Her wand was pushed partly under her mattress, providing her with light dim enough to be not noticeable outside the curtain, yet barely bright enough for her to be able to read the papers - which also helped her closely inspect the trinket and notice a flashing picture of a letter on top.
The girl pressed it with her finger - yet nothing happened, even after a minute of waiting. The light from the icon was getting dimmer, and vibrations weakening. As if recalling how to enter the Diagon alley, the girl quickly pulled her wand from under the mattress and touched the icon with her wand tip.
Now there was some action - it changed colour and a very tiny compartment opened on the device, from which an even tinier parchment scroll floated out - it was only clear it was actually a parchment after the magic continued its work and expanded the scroll to normal size.
Hermione almost shouted from surprise, but thankfully she held it back - still afraid of waking up her sleeping friends. Harry dealt with hundreds of dementors today, while Ron was bit by an animagus and had to face the shock of sleeping with a grown up man for years, unaware of his rat being an animagus. Her friends certainly needed more rest than she did.
Of course, being the know-it-all of the school she had long read about the privacy wards of the hospital and how they worked at night - yet screams were not silenced, even the faint ones - there were even wards set up to wake up and notify Madame Pomfrey in case such a thing happened - which was bound to cause a ruckus and wake her friends as well….
Unrolling the scroll she started reading as her brows furrowed - it seemed to be a letter, specifically for her!
*From: Department of Mysteries, To: Hermione Granger's time turner holder*
It was from the Department of mysteries! She knew she was breaking a lot of rules by using a time turner not for her studies but for personal reasons, as well as bringing another person along…. But she thought no one would know! The girl feared expulsion and her wand being broken, or worse - Azkaban! - what if they knew she helped Black escape?
She calmed her trembling hands and as soon as the parchment stopped shaking she continued reading.
*Miss Granger (or whoever reads this) I regret to inform you, but your actions have caused a time loop to form - either you or perhaps someone you bought along or perhaps someone who used your time turner without your permission could potentially be the reason it happened, but the flow of time has been broken, and your time turner was the cause - hence you are at least partly at fault.*
*It happened roughly 5 hours ago - keep in mind this letter is generated by magic, so if you took out the scroll and waited for an hour before reading it, the time would be off by the same amount.*
*In case you were using the time turner alone, tear this page in half horizontally. In case you were together with someone else, tear it vertically. In case you have no memory of using your time turner at that time - crumple the paper*
The girl's eyes were slightly wavering from worry as well as excitement - the method of follow up action somewhat reminded her of muggles' automatic response messages, was the sender from department of mysteries a muggleborn like her? How did this magic work and how come she did not find something so interesting in the school's library? How was it possible to change what happened depending on how she handled the paper?
The girl had countless questions, but the only way to get more answers was by following the instructions. Checking the clock she calculated the time - it was roughly the time she was together with Harry in their short trip back in time to help Sirius Black escape injustice…. The girl grimaced - it seemed she truly was at fault - somehow, during that trip, either her or Harry messed up….
The girl tore the parchment in half vertically. She tried bending it first before tearing it precisely in half - similarly like she did with regular paper back in muggle school, yet the parchment had a different texture and the supposedly 'vertical' tear was not remotely evenly split… Well at least it was verticalish tear? Before the panic of ruining the parchment set in, the two pieces of parchment glowed in blueish magical light as the parchment pieces combined, seemingly repairing itself, just that the words on it… were now different from before. The bushy haired girl quickly picked it up to continue reading.
*Luckily it was not the third case - it is truly troublesome to contact those who steal others' time turners. After all, too much knowledge of the time loop itself often triggers the restart of the loop - you as the one participating in the problematic time travel are somewhat immune to this phenomena*
*Still, I must berate you for using it together with someone else! It is against the rules for school students! Now it is hard to tell if you or one of your tagalongs are the source of the problem!*
*You might be clueless of what the heck I am speaking about, so let me tell you a story. A short bit of a history about the time loops: A Long time ago, some young wizard accidentally triggered a time loop - the first documented time loop we know of in fact!*
*He was young and foolish and did increasingly stupid things as he found no way to fix the time flow. One day he decided to learn legilimency and practised on passerby minds. Unfortunately for him, one of them was not a muggle hurrying to work, but an Unspeakable from department of mysteries on his retirement*
*His attack, of course, failed, then the worker surfed his mind, learning of the time loop - which triggered the restart*
*Perhaps the young wizard was too prideful, and he tried again and again. And one day, after another failure, some specific memories fell into Unspeakables mind - fragments that before if he read in defence of mind attack would trigger the time loop restart, yet this time he could remember them and read the foolish young wizards mind… did not trigger the restart anymore.*
*The young wizard got scared and triggered the restart on his own by suiciding, but this time he was not the only one going back in time. The retired Unspeakable tagged along on the journey back. Curious, he reported the phenomena to the department of mysteries - seeing as he now had infinite time, he thought he might as well work some more. Yet after explaining precisely what was happening to him or showing his memories… it triggered the restart of the loop*
*Then it led to years of research on his own, the a few decades later he found that young fellow and made him join the cause - the young folk already got bored of infinite life and decided that rather than fighting the Unspeakable folk, it was better to befriend the only person who actually could confirm he was not just a madman dreaming all this up and try to find an end to this madness*
*This message you are receiving is just one of many wonderful inventions that their research brought to life among countless inventions my department achieved. Along with the invention of time turners shortly after my colleague managed to escape the loop! Before that, travelling into the past required a complex ritual spell that required a rarely occurring alignment of the stars*
*Yet for escaping the time loop… They only found one way. You see, reliving the same thing over and over is not for average minds - that once young folk eventually got tired of life itself - he just wanted to quit, yet suicide was just another trigger for the loop… And one day he just asked his friend Unspeakable to obliviate him of all the years of memories - up to the point he tried the time ritual back at home*
*My colleague agreed - it was like another experiment for him, after all, so far they found no way out, he thought there was no harm in trying - after all the next loop would come, and his memories would come back*
*Alas, while the next loop came, it was the return to normal time flow…. Months before the time loop usually began. Finding his young wizard friend he saw he was different - no memories of the loop remained in his head. Unspeakable tagged along in his time travel journey and prevented him from meeting himself from the past. They still became good friends later, but it was not the same… Without the memories of the time loop… My colleague felt like speaking to a child while always feeling a loss and pain inside him… He was glad to escape the loop, yet the price of his friends memories seemed like too steep a price*
*And after the date which marked the end of the time loop cycle came… The trip back to the past did not happen. The loop was broken. The unspeakable submitted his research to department, and this is when we became aware of the time loops*
*Since then, not many wizards have reported their time loop journeys to us… Finding an easy way out by oblivion is unfortunately the path I suspect many took. After all, why would one waste time, failing legilmency just for a chance to have someone else take all the benefits? Perhaps they did work hard to escape, yet having an easy way out is just too alluring for folks… Eventually all gave in - the reporting wizards were the ones who tagged along due to various mind arts related accidents.*
*Mind you, only erasing the time loop causing memories did not fix the issue! Only after removing all the duplicate memories of the same days did the time finally stop flowing in cycles!*
*You're welcome to try finding a way to escape with all your memories intact - in fact there's even a prize pool for doing so! Do share the details if you manage to achieve such a feat! And if you get tired and want to return to normal life - there is a self-oblivion spell attached below, along with wand movements diagram*
*Now to address the other issue at hand… You bought someone else along on the time trip… Perhaps even multiple people! It could be that you are the source of the loop… Likewise it could be one of the others who tagged along… It is your duty to share this message with them… Preferably in secluded and safe locations! After all, if others learn of this it would just trigger the loop again… And if you are not the source you would forget this all happening and it would repeat again and again!*
*Best regards - Department of Mysteries Chief of Time magic research - Saul Croaker*
Hermione read and reread the parchment before reviewing her memories and making sure she never saw herself or had multiple memories at the same time - other than her classes. Then she put the parchment under her school clothes pile as she fell back to sleep… Somehow her intuition was screaming at her - Harry messed up… again.
She would let her friend sleep for today, but tomorrow… they would need to have a talk! The girl tossed and turned as now a new worry was added to her list - how the heck would she find time and place to speak alone with a boy? Heck, as far as she knew, Ron was by his side nearly 24/7! And school was ending soon as well! Perhaps she can just pass him the parchment secretly…? But when…?
Harry watched in anticipation as the all familiar door outlined itself on the wall on the seventh floor, then opened the door to head inside. Unlike the last time, the vault was not empty.
Inside he could see a small pile of galleons, sickles and knuts mixed together, estimating by its size, it was around a few thousand galleons in total. The boy left it alone - he had way more money in his own vault, perhaps it was headmasters retirement fund, or even fund for school supplies - he knew just how much cauldrons Neville, Crabbe and Goyle alone ruined each year!
His eyes lit up as he noticed a modest bookshelf filled with various books - some even looked handwritten! He even recognized the book headmaster lent him last loop - the one about the mind arts.
The boy quickly cast various diagnostic charms in search of wards - thankfully there were none cast on the bookshelf or books themselves. Then he cast the strongest expansion charm he knew on his robe's pocket and put all the books inside. It was not as good as the pocket trunk he bought in the alley last loop, but it would have to do for now.
Surveying the remaining items he saw some old trinkets, a photo of a girl who somehow resembled headmaster himself - Ariane was written at the bottom. Harry decided to keep it alone - he came here for things that would help him out in his goals, not to clean out the headmaster's vault or steal his clearly sentimental items.
Another section of the room had various magical ingredients neatly lined up as well as well preserved corpses of magical beasts - Harry's eyes lit up, yet he refrained from picking anything up. While he could identify all the ingredients, they no doubt were in use for some sophisticated rituals and potions - and while he knew some of the recipes or rituals that used a minority of ingredients here, he did not deem them useful enough to perform, or brew. Well except for the couple of rituals he performed last loop - having tasted the improved quality of life, the boy was eager to get it back.
But there was no need to scan for wards - the visible runic array surrounding this part of the vault made it clear that something would happen in case the boy took it. He was not too confident to dismiss it as some sort of preserving array - what if it froze time or decreased temperature to insanely low amounts inside the array? He might die and trigger the loop… While he could remove it by pure strength… as caster of the array, Dumbledore would become aware of it….
He put a mental note to not abandon the runes - both Voldemort and Dumbledore were clearly experts in the field, wanting to reach their level… someday he certainly needed this knowledge. Thankfully a couple of books he just 'borrowed' from the vault seemed to be about this topic - 'The basics of runes and how to learn them' and - 'Clever rune applications for curious minds'. Perhaps titles did not seem promising, yet those were the thickest books he got today - each over a thousand pages long!
Surveying the remaining space inside the room he noticed more heavily warded areas, containing various artefacts - only a couple which he actually recognized - The mirror of Erisid as well as the Goblet of Fire.
While Harry was somewhat curious to see what they were and what they did - he was not confident in breaching the wards and runic arrays without sounding the alarm - or whatever contingency plan the headmaster placed there…. Based on the runes around some of those things it seemed like most of the wards were meant to protect the vault from artefacts rather than artefacts from thieves, but a basic ward detection later made it clear that headmaster would become aware of anyone bypassing that section of the vault or taking the items out.
Hence Harry decided not to bother with it - if those artefact could help him in any way, he was sure Dumbledore would have mentioned it. After all, he was on his side in the last loop.
Harry smiled as he left the room - thankfully the bookcase had no wards and runic arrays around it - after all there was no need to preserve books in arrays if one could simply make them self-repairing and indestructible.
The outline of a door on the wall disappeared and the corridor was once again empty and silent. Well Harry was already on his way back to the hospital wing, but wearing an invisibility cloak and leaving no smell or sound in his passage made it hard to tell for Ms Norris who happened to be passing by. Her cat senses were screaming at her that something was wrong, yet she could not catch a whiff of anyone sneaking around here.
Suddenly the cat felt the fur rise on its head as it quickly turned around - it felt as if someone just passed her! She even felt the slight rush of wind! But there was no one here! No sound! No smell!
Poor cat decided that it's enough patrol for the day… Perhaps that churu she had found earlier in the day really was expired?
The sun was shining and the chirping of the birds was heard from outside the castle as Daphne lazily opened her eyes. Glancing around the room, her sweet mood from sleeping so well plummeted - it was the same as in her nightmare or better say last night - her room how it had looked in her third year of school.
The girl was still confused by the phenomena, did she really travel back in time? Or perhaps she had awakened the seer talent her grandfather kept boasting ran in the family a few centuries back? Perhaps it was… a sort of vision for the next year to come?
Regardless of the reason, she had one way to test it out - her memories. Navigating her mind's library she picked a book about today… it seemed, any moment now, Tracey would come knocking and drag her off to breakfast as she apparently overslept last time this happened… Perhaps the vision was wrong? Or was it the butterfly effect of having memories of the future?
Daphne did not mind restarting the year - sure redoing all homework was bound to be annoying, but transcribing from her already existing memories of finished homework would make things way easier. If she had to name one thing she missed it was Harry - the girl could only hope the memories she had of the boy would repeat themselves. She reviewed her memories of the boy before encountering him at the bus and grimaced - yes, before she was not paying him much attention, was she? Harry himself had told her about his trip through time to save his godfather…. But could she trust those extra memories in her mind? What if all that was just a long dream? A vision of a possible future that would never come?
*Knock* *Knock*
The girl jolted back to reality from her thoughts as she let her friend in. As expected Tracey too was younger compared to when she last saw her. About a year younger.
"Hey, Daph. It's not like you to be sleeping so late! We are going to be late!"
Her bestie's words - which were exactly the same as in her memories - brought more hope to the girl's heart. Similarly to her memories she groaned and hurried to change before following her to the great hall while chatting.
Sitting back at the Slytherin table after such a long break felt somewhat weird, glancing out of the corner of her eye she surveyed the Gryffindor table - but Harry Potter was not there, neither was Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger.
Daphne did not know whether to feel disappointed on not seeing the one she wanted to see or glad that so far events followed her memories? Dream? Whatever it was, she wanted events to repeat. So she could be with Harry again.
Once again Dumbledore came to visit the-boy-who-lived in the hospital, and like all the countless times before, the headmaster just had to invade the boy's mind - to check for potential possession by the dark lord as well as satisfy his own curiosity on the events that transpired in the previous night.
Meanwhile, Harry himself already cleaned up his mind's library, moving the original events to the front and hiding the rest in another room, with an invisibility cloak draped over it, unseen, unless one knew it was there. The boy focused on his surface thoughts, carefully repeating his long memorised script which helped him pass this hurdle the previous time.
Dumbledore walked along the library and picked a book about the previous day. The old man did not bother using any searching for information spells - after all, he knew this place quite well as he checked on the boy after each event he got dragged into. As well as randomly during the year. First Quirellius in first year, then the Tom RIddle diary in the next, and now in the third year there was another interesting event for him to examine in more detail.
Similarly as last time, the headmaster did not find any signs of possession, even in the boy's surface thoughts, yet somehow he did not leave right away.
The Elder wand appeared in his arm as he stared at it in confusion and contemplation. It was… as if the wand was acknowledging not only him, but Harry too as its master!
Curious, the headmaster used the searching spell - he did not recall the wand leaving his side, but perhaps being an owner of another Hallow made the wand acknowledge him as an owner as well? If so, why has this never happened before? It was not like it was his first visit to the boy's mind after he returned the cloak to him!.
Dozens of threads materialised - Albus was surprised the boy even knew of the Elder wand, but then his brows furrowed. The threads… seemingly lead into a wall.
He reached with his hand and it passed right through, moving the cloth out of the doorway. Just a glance inside to see the numerous rows of bookshelves made Dumbledore's paranoia strike again - was Tom RIddle already possessing the boy?
As if confirming his thoughts he felt a strong force push him out of the boy's mind as Harry stared at him with murderous gaze. But the headmaster did not was in his castle with all the wards at his disposal. If he did feel something it was surprise and regret, regret for not protecting the child from what became of him.
The duel that followed further confirmed the headmaster's suspicions - Harry should not know all those advanced spells! He should also feel comfortable in his own body - but he could clearly see that 'Harry' was unused to his current muscle and reflex capabilities - but perhaps this was a good sign, it meant possession only happened shortly, perhaps there was still a way to save the boy..
The wand seemed reluctant to go against him, so the headmaster swapped it with his old one he always kept on a hidden wand holster under his long sleeves.
After disarming the boy and feeding him lots of veritaserum the headmaster finally was able to read his mind in peace.
Harry himself could only monitor the headmaster while cursing in his mind as the all familiar wall of clocks appeared again. He thought he got over this hurdle for good! Who knew accepting the Elder wand for a moment would ruin his future loops like this? And why the hell did the Elder wand behave in such a way? Even while Dumbledore was walking in his library he could feel the familiar connection to it… How come Voldemort's soul shard came back to his forehead, but the Elder wand still remembers the events that happened?
Still, as he was back near the lake and summoned his patronus again, the boy pushed those thoughts to the far corner of his mind - it did not matter much of why, rather it was more important how he would escape from Dumbledore… again.
Harry pondered and realised it was not as bad as last time. Now he was not passed out during the whole night after chasing dementors away… He could read books in Dumbledore's vault… Heck even hoard some food and hole up in the room of requirements or chamber of secrets to train! Perhaps Dumbledore would know he was inside… but could he even get him out of those places easily?
Also this time he had quite a lot more skills - which made the actual escape from school more approachable, if the headmaster himself did not chase him…. Perhaps he would be able to escape with ease. Knowing wandless apparition and other wandless magic spells would make his escape so much smoother without the Trace notifying the ministry of his whereabouts.
Perhaps it was even better - with increasingly more competent aurors looking for him, he could further improve his fighting skills…
Harry smiled as he heard dementors screaming as they ran away - it truly was not as bad as the previous time, when he was stuck in a single day without any resources to improve or ways to escape. Now he had multiple ways to deal with the situation, all which gave him time to practise his skills.
Daphne yawned for the seventh time already - transfiguration was quite a boring subject - of course the first half of the lesson was enough for more talented kids like her to cast the spells and practise all variations… then it was just waiting for it to end… Perhaps spending the 'free' time doing homework.
But now - as she already knew the lesson like the back of her hand, she was done in minutes. Then a dozen minutes for all the remaining homework for the rest of the year… And she had nothing to do, she regretted not taking some book to read to have something to do.
She did help Tracey with the spell, but the girl was now busy doing her own homework, so she did not really have anyone to chat with as she did not have other friends besides Tracey… yet - if events in her dream repeated, she would befriend Harry in the summer, then his circle of friends the next year….
Suddenly she noticed that her classmates were moving weirdly - as if slowed down. In panic she glanced around, seeing the now familiar wall of clocks all around as she herself slowed down.
Then the time rewinded once again, and she was back in her room.
The girl looked around in confusion - the weird phenomena happened again… It was hard to tell what triggered it, but now she was more inclined to her time travel hypothesis.
Something must be special about this particular day for her to keep coming back at this specific time…
As if recalling something, she went back to her mind's library to browse the memories about this day…
She recalled Harry's time travel adventure to save his godfather… which should have happened tonight!
Then she recalled all the weird memories she got from Harry, occasionally when he failed his mind attack.
Previously they seemed like dreams or nightmares, but now…
Perhaps it was real, the same days, just in the past? Another version? She noticed all those suspicious memories were mostly in his fourth year or summer before…. Or the end of third year!
Was it possible that Harry too was sent back in time to this specific day?
Daphne wanted to rush out and confront the boy, yet she recalled the horde of dementors…. Going outside the castle after curfew was plain suicide for third years. Heck even most seventh years failed to master patronus charm to ward off such large groups of dementors. What would she do if she was attacked? Her clumsy time travel theory sounded nice, but it was just that - a theory.
Gritting her teeth she went to the common room to pick a seventh year textbook, then walked back to her room. She spent like two hours awake before being sent back in time… Hence she did not feel sleepy at all, and learning the patronus charm was a nice way to pass the night…