THE SEARCH FOR LIFE AND DEATH

Chapter XXV

The Skip Back

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'VE BEEN HOLDING BACK IN CLASS?!"

Hermione ignored the wincing of her two best friends as she grabbed Harry's arm and dragged him over to an empty table in the Common Room. At this point, most of Gryffindor Tower, barring the first years and some second years, had grown accustomed to the antics of the Golden Trio, as they were known by many. This included Hermione's penchant for ranting and rushing off to the library in a storm of excited realization.

There was far less storming today, but she made up for it in sheer volume.

Hermione pushed a slightly concerned Harry into a chair and fell into one across from him. She noticed out of the corner of her eye a head of red hair attempting to slink off.

"Ronald!"

With a groan, Ron threw himself into another chair and sighed in resignation.

"Now," Hermione said calmly, folding her hands in front of her on the tabletop as she spoke in a faux calm, "what exactly do you mean you've been holding back in class?"

Hermione had never taken an IQ test. Her parents hadn't agreed that they were a true judge of anything beyond an ability to test well. And anyway, there was no denying that Hermione was intelligent - that had been a fact throughout the entirety of her life. She had begun reading at a very young age and she hadn't stayed with children's books for very long before she moved onto the higher levels. To be fair, she didn't remember much of her younger years and remembered very little of the time during which she was still reading children's books, so Hermione couldn't even say she had a favorite book from her childhood.

The problem with being a child genius like Hermione was that the intelligence develops so much faster than the maturity. This was a large part of the reason that Hermione had never had friends.

She had tried, of course, but while she was reading Beowulf and Homer, other children were playing with clay and learning to write their ABCs. While Hermione was researching reasons why the world ran as it did, from the British government to the rotation of the planets, girls and boys were fleeing from each others' cooties. Hermione had tried to be a part of that crowd, but she'd known her alphabet since she was two and the other children, even young as they were, didn't like a show-off. And she had tried to join in with the girls, but she had tried to understand, from their perspective, how cooties were supposed to exist. After all, Science said…

No one ever wanted to hear what Science had to say.

In the end, she had given it up as a bad job. She had slipped into her books, finding friends in those that dwelled within. She rode on horseback, armored and bearing a sword along King Arthur and his knights. She sailed the seas with Odysseus, marveling at his defeat of Polyphemus. She listened to the song of the sirens, unaffected, of course, because she was a girl, and she was there in the final chapters of Oliver Twist, when her dear friend Oliver finally found a family.

She found it an immense source of irony that her best friend, Harry, had a very similar story to one Oliver Twist. Where one had been a book character who never knew of her existence, however, the other had been a very true friend. Her second friend, the first her own age, and so very special to her. He had stopped being just a friend years ago, become family instead, and Hermione felt as though he was like a brother to her. She never told him this, of course. Hermione, despite her lack of friends, had grown up with two loving parents. While a little eccentric at times, they had been a fierce source of love in her life - something that Harry had never known.

She worried about him. She didn't tell him she felt of him as a brother because how was he to process that? He only had his aunt and uncle to compare to parents, only his cousin to consider as anything remotely similar to a sibling. The Dursleys. A bigger triad of bastards Hermione had never known. She hated them. There was a part of her, a part not so deep down as she would like, that wouldn't flinch at hurting them for all they had done to Harry. They had been dealt with, though. He wouldn't say how, but earlier in the summer, the problem of the Dursleys had been handled. Hermione didn't know what she wished for more - that they could never come back to Britain, or that they'd try.

Punishing a child if he received better grades than his cousin. Bastards. What kind of sick people limited a child's development like that? It was no wonder that Harry did just enough in classes to get by. He'd been conditioned his entire life to do poorly. It was probably only his self-preservation at trying not to be forced back at the Dursleys - or perhaps a bid at receiving as little attention as possible - that kept his grades passing and not dipping down into failure and putting him lowest on the board.

Hermione shoved her textbook into her satchel far more viciously than it deserved. She was so angry! Harry wasn't stupid. She had picked up on that right away. For all his mediocre grades, he was highly observant and capable of making split second decisions and giant leaps of logic and instinct that left even her in the dust. Not that such characteristics spoke well of his homelife. A child being able to read people and make quick self-preservative decisions was a good telltale of a violent homelife.

Why had no one ever seen it before? Did they just not want to?

Harry and Ron were waiting for her in the Common Room when she headed down the staircase. Harry had promised that he was going to try to do his best in class, to not hold back. This issue had already been discussed between Harry, Remus, and Sirius over the summer and they had done what they could to encourage Harry to do better. It was up to him now to break the conditioning.

Hermione knew he could do it. He broke through everything else that had ever tried to beat him. The Dursleys would not win.

It was Monday and that meant their schedules were busy. The trio had been up late talking (or Harry and Ron had been up late being ranted at), and they had decided to have a bit of a lie-in. Since their first class was Divination (a free period for Hermione, since she'd dropped the class third year) and that wasn't until ten o'clock, they had slept in until eight and then got around to head down to breakfast, intent on leaving for class right after the meal.

The three of them walked down together in silence, something that was becoming increasingly normal around them. Where before they would converse as they walked, with Harry unable to participate without his journal or at least being able to read their lips as they moved, Hermione and Ron tended to keep silent until they were at a place where those options were available to him. It seemed such a large thing, but it hadn't been all that hard a decision to make. Harry was an integral part of their group, the glue that held them together. If he couldn't join in, conversations just didn't sound right.

Not that they spoke much at breakfast, at least to start. Ron, as per custom, piled his plate with food and dug in. Harry put some jam on toast and sat nibbling on it, studying the Great Hall's occupants, as Hermione poured herself a cup of tea and mixed some fruit into her oatmeal. They were halfway through the meal when the owls swept in, bearing the Daily Prophet and bad news.

"At least it's not Skeeter," Ron said, when Hermione opened the paper and scowled viciously at the headline before bringing it to their attention.

"I don't recognize the name," Hermione said, before reading the article aloud.

Champion Liar Returns to Hogwarts

by J. Drivelle

September first has come again and with it, a new year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The teachers have again taken their places as masters of learning, passing their knowledge and skills to our youngsters. The students have returned, their minds well-rested and open, ready to absorb all the knowledge offered them, and all of the lies.

Oh yes, dear readers, the lies are a great concern in Hogwarts, for within those hallowed halls dwell more than teachers and students. There also lurks the Hogwarts Champion, winner of the TriWizard Tournament which was hosted the previous year at Hogwarts. A tournament in which a participant died under mysterious circumstances.

Oh, our Champion tells us that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned to our world, but we know this to be false. We were not toddlers the day that the creature who once plagued our lives was destroyed. We remember! We remember his reign of terror and we remember his fall.

One questions why. Why does the Champion of Hogwarts insist that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned? Why does he insist, with no evidence to support his claim, that it was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named who killed the poor unsuspecting Cedric Diggory, beloved son and friend to many? Why is it that no one calls out for the truth from the Champion of Hogwarts? Who was it that killed Cedric Diggory?

It wasn't He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. We know this. If it wasn't him, then let us ask the only other person who was there when a poor Hufflepuff fell. Tell us, Champion of Lies, who killed the real Hogwarts Champion? Tell us, Harry Potter, how Cedric Diggory really died.

"The Prophet got a new gossip-liner, I see," Hermione growled, crumpling the paper up into a ball and throwing it at a plate of bacon.

"Hey!" Ron cried, rescuing the bacon. "It's not that bad."

"Not that bad?" Hermione hissed. "Look around!"

They weren't the only ones that had read the Prophet. All around the Great Hall, people were looking up the paper and finding the trio with their eyes. Hermione saw mixed expressions - sorrow at the loss of Cedric, confusion, anger, and then the nodding, quiet words exchanged between people as they discussed the paper, as they agreed with the paper.

"Let's get out of here," Hermione said, getting up from the table. Ron gave his plate of bacon a morose look but got up to follow after Hermione and Harry. A moment later, Neville and Ginny followed. They left the Great Hall buzzing behind them.

"I hate reporters," Ginny grumbled, as the five of them walked down the hall together.

"Me too," Hermione said. "Argh! I thought with Skeeter gone we wouldn't have to deal with this anymore!"

"There will always be some press covering a story," Neville said quietly. "In the Wizarding World, it's not considered immoral to report with a bias, as it is in the Muggle world."

Hermione was about to ask Neville how he knew how the Muggle world worked in comparison to the Wizarding, but she was interrupted by Ron's bitter response.

"It's not like we can do anything against them." His voice dropped to a mutter and Hermione thought he said something that sounded like "Checkmate." She frowned.

"You know," Ginny said thoughtfully, "Luna's father owns The Quibbler. We could talk to him about doing an interview or something."

"No one would believe it. And I'm not just saying that because it's The Quibbler."

Hermione had stopped listening when she heard Ron say "checkmate." Chess. Chess was Ron's game, but Hermione did know how to play. It was all about setting things up, playing three moves ahead of your opponent so no matter what they did, you always had the upper hand.

Briefly, Hermione wondered if Ron had used Chess terminology before in common conversation and she'd just never noticed it or if that was something new. But her mind was more sternly focused on an idea that had begun to form. The press had the upper hand because nearly everyone read the Daily Prophet and the people who worked for the paper wrote what they wanted. Hermione had no illusions that they didn't publish the articles that they did simply for greater readership. Drama sold, and what was more dramatic than bringing back the tragedy of the year before and not-so-subtly calling the Boy-Who-Lived a murderer?

For the second time that day, Hermione heard her own inner voice snarl "Bastards."

But that idea nibbled and gnawed and she found herself wondering if it would work. What the Daily Prophet wrote, the people believed, no matter how outlandish…

"I need to use the toilet," Hermione murmured, slipping away from the group and down the hall to the public restroom on this floor. She felt a sudden spark of relief when she realized which one this was.

The furthest stall in this restroom had an out of order sign on it. It had been there since the middle of third year. Hermione knew this because she had put it there, as well as the Notice Me Not charm that kept professors from making sure whatever was wrong with the toilet was fixed.

Glad that there was no one else in the bathroom, but aware that Ginny might well be following behind, Hermione walked the length of the bathroom and slipped into the last stall. She felt the familiar whispering sensation of a Notice Me Not charm enveloping her. She closed and locked the stall door and turned around to come face to face with herself.

Hermione grimaced at the smile on her other's face. "This never stops being weird."

"Oh, I know," the other Hermione said. "In fact, I knew before you."

"So… does it work?" Hermione asked, nervously playing with the collar of her robes.

Other Hermione grinned that feral little smile she got when she'd found something devilishly good in a book. "Spin back and find out for yourself. Mind Madam Pince, though. Someone ripped out a page from the history section. She's in a foul mood."

With that, Other Hemione unlocked the stall door and slipped out, just as Ginny entered the bathroom, asking if she was there. Hermione remained silent while her doppelganger washed her hands in the sink and chatted idly with the youngest Weasley. She sighed when they both left and she was alone again.

Slipping her fingers under the collar of her shirt, Hermione pulled out the long golden chain she had worn since the beginning of third year, when she had needed to get to numerous classes that occurred at the same time.

Hermione gripped the time turner in her hands and wondered at how far she should go back. It was nearly ten now and her future self would walk with Harry and Ron to Divination before going off to find something else to do. Officially, the library opened at five during this time of the year, although nothing stopped her from sneaking in earlier than that beyond the ire of Madam Pince if she found someone was nosing around her library when she wasn't there to supervise.

Not that such worries had stopped her before.

Deciding not to take a risk with the librarian this early in the term, Hermione spun the time turner back four times.

The world around her blurred momentarily as time rushed around her. She didn't close her eyes, finding the stillness in the center of a temporal hurricane far more disconcerting when she couldn't see, but she tried not to focus too much on the lines of time rushing by. It made her want to be sick.

When the world stopped moving around her, Hermione quietly tucked the time turner back under her shirt, made sure she had everything, and quietly left the bathroom. The halls were empty this early in the morning and Hermione made good use of the bare hallways to move toward the library.

In all honesty, Hermione should not have still had the time turner. It had been given to her at the start of term in third year by Professor McGonagall on the condition that she kept her grades up, didn't abuse the privilege, and the time turner was turned back in at the end of the school year. Hermione had only managed to maintain the first condition, unless you considered her dropping Divination so abruptly as failing her grades, although she hadn't been concerned, considering Professor McGonagall's views on prophecy and its related branches.

When she had used the time turner at the end of the year to take her and Harry back in time enough to rescue Buckbeak and Sirius, Hermione had known that she was breaking the second condition. Even with Professor Dumbledore's permission, the unlawful use of a time turner was punishable by time in Azkaban.

At the time, it hadn't mattered, though. An innocent man was to be given a fate worse than death - a man who had already suffered and who her best friend, Harry, cared about deeply. Even without Professor Dumbledore's permission, Hermione wasn't certain she wouldn't have gone back in time anyway. She couldn't be sure, though. Even then, after everything that had happened that night, she had still been worried about the rules.

The time turner had been marked as returned, Hermione knew, because Professor McGonagall had spoken to her that morning, before the rescue, about returning the time turner that night. She had invited Hermione into her office to remind her that the device needed to be returned. There had been someone else there, but they had been wearing a cloak with a deep hood that shadowed their face, keeping Hermione from even telling if they were male or female. Professor McGonagall had introduced them only as Hermes, a strange choice of name, but that combined with the black cloak lined with what she only realized later were tiny runes sewn into the sleeves like a border, told Hermione that Hermes was an Unspeakable - one of the groups of the Ministry that controlled the distribution of time turners.

Hermione had agreed to return the time turner that evening, somewhat confused about why they weren't collecting it then during the meeting, but not wishing to argue. Hermes had only nodded, never speaking, and marked a book Hermione hadn't noticed before, noting the date and time of the device's return. Hermione had been intending to ask why they were marking the time turner's return when she still had it when they had been interrupted by a floo call from someone who called themselves Mercury, and Hermione had been escorted from the room.

After the term was over and Hermione had been on the train heading home, she had finally realized that she still had the time turner. Professor McGonagall had never come to her asking for it back and she had received no nasty letters from the Unspeakables like she sometimes got from Madam Pince when she got distracted and forgot to return a book on time. In all the fury and panic of Sirius Black's escape, the time turner had been forgotten.

She had fretted about it during the beginning of summer, thinking about going to London to use the owl service to send a message to Professor McGonagall, but every time she went to do it, something happened to interrupt her. Old friends who hadn't been around for years showed up to visit with her parents, her father's brother, who he hadn't spoken with in five years after a massive falling out, turned up with an apology and three little nephews to introduce. Once, a water main had broken in the middle of the road just outside their house and Hermione had been stuck at home because they couldn't get out of the garage. Completely random things, but they kept happening every time she moved to go inform Professor McGonagall.

When her father ended up falling down the stairs and needing to go to the hospital, Hermione had panicked. Instead of doing nothing, of just ceasing her attempts to go to Diagon Alley, she had used the time turner to spin back in an attempt to prevent her father falling down the stairs.

Instead, she ended up causing his fall by accident, the incident reminding her rather forcefully that time turners didn't work the way she had been attempting. It was the first rule of temporal travel: certainty equals immutability.

She had learned more than that, though. Hermione had gone back in time with the time turner, but neither Ministry owls proclaiming underaged magic nor the Unspeakables showed up. She had used magic outside of school and no one knew.

Hermione had resolved that it was a bad idea. She couldn't turn the time turner in without causing bad events to occur, so she wouldn't do that, but she wasn't going to use it, either. It was wrong. She wouldn't abuse it like that because the time turner no longer belonged to her. She would be good.

Her resolve lasted all of three days.

The possibility for knowledge had been too great for Hermione to ignore. She was extremely cautious at the start, nervous that the first use was a fluke and the second one would have wizards portkeying in on top of her. She'd only gone back one hour the first few times, spending that time working on homework assignments in her room while her future self was either elsewhere or distracting her parents. Her attempts became braver, however, the longer she went without drawing attention and by the middle of August, Hermione was spinning back a full twelve hours, spending her days at the library, researching whatever she desired, or going to London and browsing through Flourish and Blotts and wandering Diagon Alley. Once she had stopped trying to go the owl office, the bad events had ceased occurring. Hermione could wander the Alley all day without tripping over her own feet, and there was no way she could give up the time turner on her own merit. Not now. She was addicted to the chance she had before her.

Sometimes Hermione wondered why she wasn't in Ravenclaw.

She had stopped using the time turner at the end of August in preparation for the return to Hogwarts. She didn't want to muck up her journey to the school and once she was there, she waited a couple days, unsure of whether or not she should attempt to use the device while back within the Hogwarts wards. But the temptation was too great to ignore for long and Hermione had spun back, invading the Hogwarts library and spending long hours in her empty dorm room with the curtains pulled around her bed while future Hermione went to classes and lunch and continued on with daily life. Eventually, she'd meet up with her past self and then she would become future Hermione and get to go to classes and learn.

And then the TriWizard Tournament had happened.

After Harry's name had been pulled from the Goblet (and how had none of them seen that coming?), Hermione had spun back in an attempt to discover who had put it there, even though she knew she couldn't prevent it - certainty equals immutability. No matter her attempts at getting to the Goblet, however, she could never do it. The Bad Events had started again, beginning with staircases moving her out of the correct path to walls shifting to her bag's bottom shredding open like wet newspaper to one poor Hufflepuff's sleeve spontaneously catching fire next to her. Leery of someone else falling down the stairs, Hermione had given up her attempts at playing detective and had instead used her ability to spin back to scour the library for information that could help Harry. Spells, curses, hexes, anything she could come up with she wrote down in order to teach him. It was during one of her spin backs in the library that she overheard some Quidditch fanatics talking about the ruination of the Quidditch field by the tournament's stupid maze - their words, not hers. Hermione was by far the furthest thing from an idiot and the only thing you did with a maze was get people lost in it so they had to find their way out. She began scouring the library for some sort of spell to help Harry keep his bearings in the maze, eventually resorting to asking Madam Pince, only to discover there was no such spell.

Knowing that such a spell would be beyond useful, furious that one didn't already exist, Hermione had set out to make one. That was how she spent two weeks spinning back to lock herself behind shielded bed hangings and work out the arithmancy needed. It took her a week and a half alone to get the calculations correct and she surprised herself by linking them with the constellations, but she could see why sailors used the stars to navigate, though she'd never thought she would ever use Astronomy so practically.

In the end, she successfully created the Point Me spell, or Compass Spell, depending on what you used it for. Compass Spell because it would point you North if used basically, but she'd calculated in perspective searching, as well, and that allowed for the Point Me feature, to direct the user to a specific person or thing. It made much more sense for Harry to use the spell to direct him to the TriWizard Cup than simply to supply him a direction. If he really needed that, he'd taken the same classes in Astronomy as she had.

When he'd disappeared from the maze, Hermione had nearly had a breakdown. Her desperation to spin back and do something foolish, likely causing a paradox in the process, was halted only by Professor McGonagall's hand on her shoulder and the briefest of glimpses at a cloaked figure with rune-bordered robes.

There had been no explanations, no questions, but Hermione had been, in that moment, almost completely certain Professor McGonagall knew she still had the time turner. That the Unspeakables knew and were content not to take it from her.

Since then, doubts had surfaced again. She was sure McGonagall had only been offering comfort in that moment, that she couldn't know Hermione had the time turner and not feel obligated to remove it from her. And of course she hadn't seen the Unspeakable. Probably just some kid's parents in a weird cloak.

Then Harry came back, injured, in shock, with Cedric dead and the whole audience in an uproar. He had spent time in the hospital wing but the end of the year seemed to go by so quickly, and suddenly it was summer again and Hermione wasn't sure what to do.

She finished her homework without the use of the time turner, her mind wandering constantly. She'd tried to reassure her parents that she was okay and, when that didn't work, she spoke with them plainly.

Hermione had never lied to her parents. She had never even toned down her stories, with the exception of her crush on Lockhart, because that had been beyond embarrassing considering how big a fraud he turned out to be. Not that her parents didn't see right through that anyway.

They had been disturbed, of course. Hogwarts wasn't as safe a place as they had hoped, but then, they weren't foolish. Magic wasn't all turning things different colors and making trainers smell like roses. McGonagall had tried some little magics like that, cosmetic magic, when she introduced Hermione and her parents to the truth of magic existing, but she had also vanished a table and transfigured a vase into a pig.

Hermione hadn't come by her intelligence from nothing. Both of her parents were geniuses and it didn't take one to realize that if you could vanish a table, you could vanish a person. If you could turn a vase into a pig, it stood to reason you could turn a lamp into a rattlesnake. Magic was just a tool like any other, and Hermione and her parents both realized it could be used as weapon if the wielder chose to do so.

Hermione had been nearly eleven when she received her letter, her birthday too late in the year for her to start until the following, but once Professor McGonagall introduced her to magic, Hermione spent that year learning about it. Books were wonderful things and Hermione, who had always been close with her parents, shared what she learned with them.

If she didn't go to Hogwarts (or another magic school), she could become a danger to herself and those around her. Because untrained magic was naturally unstable, it would grow as she matured and become even moreso. They really didn't have an option to not go, and both of her parents knew that Hermione really wanted to go. Here was a whole new world for her to explore where she might not be as complete an outcast as she was in this one.

And it had been dangerous. Perhaps more dangerous than they had anticipated. Hermione had written home during the year and over the summer told her parents of what had happened, and of her friends, and of the apparent underlying danger that still existed in the Wizarding World, just below the surface.

Hermione confided in her parents that summer after fourth year, about the death of her classmate, Cedric, about the return of the dark lord whose name people feared to speak. About her best friend, Harry, who had the worst luck imaginable.

And about the time turner.

That's when Hermione, who had always been mature for her age, was suddenly in a very adult discussion with her parents about using what she had against those who would seek to harm her or her friends. And then Hermione had started to make some changes.

For starters, it wasn't just about reading and gaining knowledge anymore. Voldemort was back. A classmate was dead. Harry was being actively hunted and it didn't appear that anyone spent much time bothering to help or even believe him, asides from her and Ron, so she would just have to make sure that they were prepared. In short, Hermione started planning for a war, and she used the time turner liberally to get ready for it.

Hermione stepped through the archway that led to the library and saw what her future self had meant about Madam Pince. Her head snapped up like a tiger scenting danger and she looked Hermione over like she was trying to find a reason to ban her from the library for the rest of her time at Hogwarts.

"Bit early for you to be wandering around, isn't it?" she asked sharply.

"I just have some things I needed to look up for an essay, Madam," Hermione said politely, not slowing her walk over to the bookshelves. She heard Madam Pince huff but her lack of verbal response was permission enough. Besides, the two of them had had a sort of working relationship ever since first year, when Hermione spent the majority of her first two months at Hogwarts in classes or the library. Madam Pince wasn't a friendly, approachable woman by any means, but if you showed her and her library respect, she reciprocated. Mostly.

Hermione wandered the bookshelves for a few minutes, just in case Pince was keeping a wary eye on her, stopping and looking at this or that text. After a few minutes, she wandered over to her favorite part of the library. It was a corner blocked off by two shelves of parchment no one ever seemed to have any use for. Hermione had discovered it early in her second year, when she had been scouring the library for answers to the Chamber of Secrets. She began to slip back into this corner when she wanted to be left alone, and eventually, some large pillow had materialized, no doubt thanks to the house elves.

Right, there was another thing she needed to deal with. But not now.

Hermione sat down on the large cushions and settled her bag in front of her. It was loaded up with far too many books, even with the mild expanding charm it had on it, and Hermione was beginning to feel the weight of it again. She appreciated that the shops in Diagon Alley sold such bags, but she wished they weren't so expensive, and offered a bit more room. She had already resolved to charm her own bag, however. She simply needed to get a new one and find the proper charm. So many things to do…

Hermione pulled a small journal and a self-inking quill out of her bag. The journal looked similar to the one that Harry had to help him communicate, but hers was a dark blue instead of black and had a mild Notice Me Not charm on it so people like Draco Malfoy would bother with it if they came across her using it. She also didn't want anyone reading what was in it over her shoulder, as it was full of her plans.

Hermione briefly considered letting Ron and Harry in on what she had planned, but she didn't think that would be a very good idea. Ron, to start, was notoriously bad about keeping his mouth shut when he was angry. While they wouldn't have that problem with Harry - she cringed at the thought - she wasn't sure he would approve. Better to get what she had in mind going and then bring them in later, and ask forgiveness if she needed to. Beg forgiveness.

"It's a good idea," she told herself quietly. Ron was right, the press held all the cards at the moment. They could do an interview with another reporter in a different paper, but it would be reactionary at best and people wouldn't listen to it. No, what they needed was a reporter on their side. Someone who would report what they wanted and needed them to report. The truth. Hermione had yet to meet a reporter like that in the Wizarding World, but she did happen to have a reporter in her pocket.

Or in her magically-expanded bag, to be more precise.

Almost four hours later, Hermione packed up her things and made her way back to the bathroom and into the stall with the out of order sign. She stood there in silence, thinking over what she had worked out in the past few hours, waiting for her past self to show up so she could walk her friends to the Divination classroom.

A few minutes later, she heard the sound of her own footsteps and she walked into the stall, locking it behind her. She took a moment to marvel at her own obvious excitement, her face flushed with the rush of an idea. That look faded for a moment, replaced with a grimace, and Past Hermione grumbled, "This never stops being weird."

"Oh, I know," Hermione said in complete agreement. There was something enormously creepy about watching yourself out of synch with your own body. She suspected the reason that time travelers were not supposed to approach themselves was because some people might get violent and attack themselves on instinct, potentially creating a paradox. If she encountered herself without planning to, without expecting to… Hermione restrained a shiver. "In face, I knew before you."

"So…. does it work?" Past Hermione asked. She was playing with the collar of her robes, no doubt itching to reach for the time turner, that expectant look on her face, eyes burning with excitement and nervousness.

Hermione grinned at the thought of all she had accomplished this morning, aware that her smile was just a little this side of feral. If Skeeter had just agreed to work with her, Hermione wouldn't have needed to go this far, but what's done was done. The Certainty Principle was already at work. There was no going back.

"Spin back and find out for yourself." And get that work done. Can't have me erasing my own accomplishments by not getting it all done in time. Oh, right. "Mind Madam Pince, though." She had been a thorn in Hermione's side this morning, never mind their working relationship. Apparently Hermione had been quiet too long and Pince had come looking for her, worried she was doing something nasty to the books. As if Hermione would ever. "Someone ripped out a page from the history section. She's in a foul mood."

With a final encouraging smile at herself, Hermione slipped out of the stall just in time to encounter an arriving Ginny. The two chatted aimlessly as Hermione washed the scent of beetle from her hands. Ginny had Ancient Runes next and was worried about being able to keep up this year. Hermione offered to lend the younger girl the notes she still had from her previous years. That should help her keep up if she was having problems. Not that Hermione thought Ginny would. She was a lot smarter than her brothers gave her credit for, though like Hermione, Ginny was better at Arithmancy than Ancient Runes. If the two had to test combatively, Hermione was mildly concerned that Ginny would beat her score in Arithmancy. After all, she had created the Bat Bogey Hex before she even started Hogwarts.

I guess I need to practice more on spell creation. Well, I do have those on the list.

The two left the bathroom and rejoined Harry, Ron, and Neville. Hermione was aware that her past self would be spinning back to six o'clock, but that part of her day was over and she put it out of her mind.

While she had been in the bathroom, the topic had been switched from their issues with the Daily Prophet to Quidditch. Ron and Neville, who was a closet supporter of the Falmouth Falcons, were arguing over the best Quidditch tricks. Ron, of course, was taking all of his examples from the Chudley Cannons, who had not had a decent game in years, never mind a decent player to do stunts. Neville, far more knowledgeable about Quidditch than any of them would have given him credit for before the truth came out over the weekend (when he reacted to Ron's exclamation that the Chudley Cannons would have a comeback, just you wait), was taking his examples from any and all teams, with the exception of the Tutshill Tornados, who he disliked because they had a habit of cheating.

Their pace had slowed because Harry had taken out his journal to keep up with the conversation. He was fine with not participating, as, for all his love of playing Quidditch, he knew next to nothing about professional Quidditch, asides from the Chudley Cannons. Thanks to Ron, Harry knew just about all there was to know about the Chudley Cannons.

The friendly argument continued until the four of them reached the Divination Tower, Ginny had waved a farewell as she broke off from them for Ancient Runes. As Hermione had hoped, Lavender was waiting outside the classroom, talking to Pavarti. Hermione walked over to her.

"Morning, Lavender."

"Oh, hello, Hermione," the other girl said. The two had a sort of mild friendship. They weren't really close, but since they lived in the same dorm for the past four years, going on five, they needed to get along, so they chitchat now and then about little things. "What class do you have now?"

"Free period," Hermione said. "I was actually wondering if I could borrow your Hogsmeade catalogue? I need to order some new robes and I know you keep yours updated."

"Oh, sure," Lavender said, smiling. She pulled a thin pamphlet from her bag. "You can give it back to me tonight after dinner."

"Thanks," Hermione said, putting the pamphlet carefully in her bag. "Enjoy class."

She waved to Ron, Harry, and Neville as she left, heading back to the Gryffindor dorms, deciding not to go back to the library and tempt Madam Pince's ire.

When she made it into her dormitory, blissfully empty, she climbed onto her bed and closed the hanging, casting sticking and silencing spells on them. She sat crosslegged in the middle of her bed and took out the pamphlet Lavender had given her. Like most Wizarding catalogues, it looked small, but wasn't.

The catalogue worked by continually flipping it to browse through various products. When you found the type of product you wanted, you flipped the pamphlet upward and the opposing side would show various kinds. You could then specify, flip it upward again, and browse through available products. Hermione had said she needed new robes because she knew wearable fashion would excite Lavender and give her a greater chance of letting Hermione use the pamphlet. As opposed to bags, which Lavender really had no interest in beyond the one she carried to classes.

Hermione tapped the image of a bag on the front of the pamphlet with her wand and flipped it upward. The side she looked down at showed various kinds of bags. Some looked like briefcases, some like messenger bags. There were even ones that had a similar appearance to duffle bags. Hermione caught sight of some smaller bags tied with string which were meant to hook to your belt or the inside of your robes. Small enough to even be a money bag. She tapped that section with her wand and flipped the pamphlet.

In the end, Hermione chose a small drawstring bag woven with multicolored threads in darker shades. She would be able to clip it to the inside of her robes, and no one would need to know it was there even while she charmed it to carry everything she could conceivably think of.

That done, Hermione began to sort through her bag, pulling out everything except her textbooks for Ancient Runes, Transfiguration, and Potions, the three classes she had after lunch. She then put some spare parchment, quills, and ink into her bag and set it to the side.

Taking her extra books, Hermione put them in her trunk, along with the empty unbreakable jar she had used to house Skeeter.

Hermione was glad she had gone against her initial thoughts and not told Harry and Ron about catching Rita Skeeter in her animagus form. She wouldn't have been able to pull this off if they had known Skeeter was under lock and key in her hands. She just hoped it worked out like she was planning.

Performing a quick tempus spell, Hermione realized it was only half after ten. Harry and Ron would make their way back to the tower to drop their Divination book off before heading to lunch, so she had time to get a little reading done.

With a smile on her face, Hermione pulled her Potions book out of her bag and lay on the bed to skim through the potions they would be working on this year. She'd already read through the book, of course, but she didn't have a perfect memory no matter how much she wished. Settling her head against the pillow, Hermione propped the book against her chest and began to read.

She was asleep within ten minutes.

Hermione opened her eyes in the White World. For a moment, she simply stared around, mouth open. Then she grabbed her hair and made a sound in the back of her throat like a snarl as she stomped in rage. "Why did you make us forget?" she shouted, but no one answered her.

She stomped around for a few minutes in anger, but the rhythmic thrumming of Cor wouldn't let her deviate long from her duty. With a harsh sigh, she turned and followed the steady beating, her mind whirling over the trouble this daytime amnesia would cause.

We don't remember while we're awake. Why don't we remember? It's surely Phoenix making us forget but I don't understand the purpose of doing so. How can we prepare if we don't know what's going on?

Hermione ran her hands through her hair in frustration.

What about the things we learn here? How are we supposed to help?

Maybe we're not supposed to. She shook her head sharply, tossing her hair side to side. No, I don't believe that. Voldemort keeps coming after Harry and Ron and I'll be there when he has to face him again. I'll just have to find a way to make us remember.

Arooooooooo!

Hermione staggered to a stop, her heart racing in her chest and the chill of ice settling deep in her stomach. She knew that sound. The howl of a werewolf… she'd never forget it.

""But it's not the full moon," she whispered.

A long-limbed creature, covered with fur and with a long snout appeared over a rise Hermione hadn't realized was there. Its body was riddled with scars and its golden eyes were fixed firmly on her.

Hermione's breath shuddered in her throat.

The werewolf, for it was most assuredly a werewolf, let out another long howl and bolted down the hill in her direction. With a sound in the back of her throat like a whine, Hermione turned and ran, knowing full well even as she tried to put distance between her and the beast behind her that no human could dare hope to outrun a werewolf.