Comfort

Comfort

I know that girls are meant to mature earlier than boys, but it's different for me. It's as though I've lived one year more than Harry and Ron. If I was ahead academically before, that's nothing to where I am nowadays. It's all because of the Time Turner.

It started by just getting me to classes. I was very good, and very careful, just as I'd promised McGonagall. Just taking those extra hours must have made me considerably older than I should be. Then of course there's the extra academic experience I have. I've taken more classes, worked with more different people, and taken more exams.

After a while I started using it a little more liberally. The amount of work I had to do was killing me. I'd go to my dorm after lessons, and take myself back an hour, then do some homework.

When I started I with the Time Turner I was living thirty-hour days. All of the six extra hours were used in lessons. When I finished, my days were sometimes more than forty-eight hours long. A lot of it I used for lessons and homework, but sometimes I'd stand still for ages working out where my other selves would be in that hour and then sneak off to sleep somewhere.

I'd always redo the Quidditch matches a few times. The first time I'd actually be at the match, that way I knew how long I would have. Then I'd go back and do some homework. Sometimes I'd redo the Quidditch match hours twice or three times for homework. Then lastly, I'd redo them sleeping. Once I just redid a few hours so I could read a romance novel, have a bath and calm down. It was easiest in these hours because nearly everyone was outside. I loved it.

I must have aged physically as well as mentally through these experiences. I wish there was some sure-fire way of calculating how much time I gained through the Time Turner, but I suppose because of how I ended up misusing it, I'll never know.

After Harry and I rescued Sirius I gave myself a few extra hours sleep. I woke up, alone on the floor of Myrtle's bathroom, and realised that my past self would arrive in less than a minute. I locked myself in a different cubicle and waited for a while, listening to myself fall to sleep. I wanted to go back another few hours and fall asleep right there, with the sounds of my exhausted other self. I wanted for there to be a thousand other Hermiones for Myrtle to stumble across. That's when I knew I had to give the Time Turner back.

I had become dependant on it. Addicted to it. I loved the freedom it gave me as well as the power. It gave me a sense of security. That if anything went wrong all I needed to do was go back for an hour and have an extra power nap. I always knew that if things went catastrophically wrong somewhere down the line, I'd be able to change things. If I was careful no one would ever know and I'd be able to keep the Time Turner forever.

Of course things had gone catastrophically wrong. We had to change things. We had to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak. We had Dumbledore's permission. The problem was, I had seen what I could do. I knew I could get out of any situation if I could get out of that. But I had made my decision. I couldn't go on like that. If I had then I would have been twenty at fourteen. I would have been shamed.

What would Harry and Ron say? I know that Harry would do his best to be supportive but Ron would be angry if he knew. I am Hermione Granger, top of the year in everything. I don't have secret little problems. The only problem I have us that I work too hard. There's nothing wrong with that, is there? Although, that's probably what led to the whole mess in the first place. I am therefore calming down a bit this coming year. Of course I'm going to work hard. It would be silly not to. But I am going to focus on other things too, like my friends. Without them, I would never have made it through those first few days. They didn't know it then and they never will, but they were there for me.

I remember saying goodbye to it. I stood outside Professor McGonagall's office with it tucked inside my clothes as usual. Just the feeling of it around my neck was comforting. The weight of it resting there calmed me, in preparation of what I was about to do.

There was no one around and so I remember that I took it off so that I could it a few final times. I watched it sadly. Then McGonagall came out of the office with a red faced Neville, who I smiled at sympathetically, and it was my turn to go in.

I told her it was because I couldn't handle the amount of extra classes that I was doing any longer. She told me that was a shame as I'd done so well in everything. I don't know if she guessed the real reason. I don't want to know.

Do I miss it? Sometimes. I miss feeling it around my neck and knowing that I can use it if I need to. I miss waking up in the common room knowing that it's ok to fall asleep there, because I'm already asleep in my bed. I miss the freedom and the power of it. But most of all, I miss it's comfort. It made me feel so safe, like nothing else ever has.

When I had it with me, I knew I could change the world. But since losing it I've had something of an epiphany. I can change the world without a Time Turner or any other device.

I can change the world as long as I have Harry and Ron by my side.