Jewel

II

She'd gone through the entrance rituals mechanically - she'd handed over her wand, walked the route she now was sure wasn't a detour practically by herself, felt the blindfold slide off her face almost before the whoosh of the doors announced the library. Even her research on Ulcridwe Castle, Romania, had been half-hearted to say the least. This was the last time she'd come here.

At half four, she decided to call it a day. It wasn't as if she'd find any more information like this anyway, and she'd rather have another good look at the library.

When she let her hands slide over the sides of the bookcases fifteen minutes later, she wondered whether she'd made the right decision. Not entering a library for four years was one thing, but knowing beforehand that she wouldn't, and especially knowing that their lives might be in danger because of it, was quite another. Would Harry and Ron have reacted differently when she would've told them in the first place?

No, she thought bitterly. They would've protected me against myself. Like they're doing now.

She should have known she was in trouble at that point. But when she was sitting in the centre of the magnificent mosaic floor five minutes later, basking in the glow of the glorious sunset and musing on the fact that Harry had never actually held the guiding globe before, she suspected as much anyway.

~*~

With a resigned look on her face, she handed the glowing blue orb to Harry. "There you go." He nodded, pulled out his wand and sent an unvoiced reducto at it.

Hermione had to bite back a yelp when the orb pulverized. "You do realize that was possibly the last active guiding globe on the planet, don't you?" she said timidly. Harry had the grace to look embarrassed. "Well, it belonged to a Death Eater. It's not like it would have done a lot of good, back where it came from."

Hermione just looked at him, then swallowed. "Well - I think I'm going to lie down for a while. I'll tell you about what I found later." Ron looked sceptical, and Hermione was almost incapable of keeping her indignation hidden. No energy left for a fight. With as much resignation as she could muster, she climbed up the Weasley brothers' attic stairs - they'd moved to the next safehouse that morning - and, once inside, silently warded the bedroom door.

With a sly grin, she pulled the real guiding globe from her pocket and quickly packed it into a second layer of magick-warding-silk, another invention from their hosts of today. Even the thinnest layer of the cloth would make sure no magical resonance could be detected from underneath it, but she'd rather not take any chances. Besides, she had plenty of "handkerchiefs" made from the stuff. After quickly checking whether it was secure, she wrapped the package into a pair of horrible striped socks.

Having stuffed the socks at the bottom of her backpack, she allowed herself a quiet guffaw. Those guys could be so dense sometimes! Of course, her trips to the library should be planned more carefully, now... but if she could pry a Time-Turner loose from Kingsley...

With a content sigh, she stared out of the window, into the brightness of an early November evening in London. And froze.

The sun had been setting, fifteen minutes ago, in the library. Now, it was still dazzling bright outside; there wasn't even a glimmer of twilight to be seen. She quickly checked her watch, almost expecting time to have thrown a loop around her. But no; ten past five.

That could only mean one thing.

She hadn't been in England.

With an oath, she flew from her bed and pulled the purse she used for her books from her backpack. A few well-aimed spells restored her yearbooks and the Great Book of Heritage and Ownership she'd bought on a whim to their original sizes.

The Moon family possessed manors in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The MacDougal Heritage apparently covered lots of ground in Russia, Korea, the east of Finland and Ireland. The Zabini family, it seemed, owned half of Italy, and had two manors in Japan and Chile besides.

Feverishly checking her watch, Hermione waited for sunset. Twilight began touching the sky at five forty. The sky was painted a vivid red ten minutes later. At a quarter past six, it was almost dark outside. When she summoned a world map from her bookbag and checked the time zones, she smiled grimly.

Italy - and thus, Blaise Zabini - was the only option. That sure was interesting.

~*~

"Ulcridwe castle? Were all the pronounceable names sold out or something?"

Harry twirled his wand around. "They're minions of evil, Ron. They use unpronounceable for kicks. I mean, what kind of a name is Voldemort?"

"It's Latin. Vola de Mortis means Palm of Death."

Ron just stared at her. "Huh."

Hermione shrugged. "It's not like dictionaries are hard to find. What I'm saying is, we most likely have a hot spot here, but it's Romania. One of the darker countries of Europe! We can't just barge in there and take our chances - we'll have to know what we'll find there!"

Harry smiled half-heartedly. "So. What do you propose we do? Find ourselves another library?"

She gave him a frosty stare. "What I expect you to do is lie low while I do my research. Now that I've been cut off from that library, I'll have to be discreet, and you two suck at that. So; no skirmishes with Death Eaters, no detectable magic, no hero behaviour. Can you two pull that off?"

Their reactions were polar opposites. Harry let out a quiet guffaw and pointed out that if his wandmagic had been detectable, they'd certainly have been dead two years ago. Ron bounced to his feet and started yelling.

It didn't take long for his anger she felt boiling in through the enchanted necklace he'd given her to translate into a white-hot, fuming rage of her own. She cut over him as soon as he paused for air. "Do tell, Ron - are you so angry because you don't get to try and kill a Death Eater, or because I'm smarter than you are?"

While he was working his mouth soundlessly, she shot them both a nasty smile and glided from the room, picking her cloak up in the process. "I'm out. Don't follow me."

Harry leaned back in his chair when he heard the door slam. "Ron?"

"What!" his best friend spat.

"I think we finally got her really mad."

With a wordless snarl, Ron strode into their bedroom, slamming the door for good measure. Harry sighed. "Was it wise to destroy that orb?" he asked the magical mirror standing on the counter.

"I sure don't know, honey. But I do know that you should get some more sleep."

With a smile, he got up. Perhaps he should turn in early, he thought, closing his bedroom door quietly behind him.

~*~

Hermione thought her disguise was pretty good. Ginny, however, didn't agree. "Platinum blonde hair? Honestly." With a disgusted frown, she turned her own highlighted red locks to long, deep chocolate brown ones, fired some heavy cosmetic charms to both of their eyes and eyed Hermione's clothing suspiciously. "Is that miniskirt mine?"

"No. The jumper is, though."

Ginny grinned. "Alright then." Quickly throwing on some close-fitting jeans and a tank top, she rummaged through the magick-repelling boxes in her top drawer. "How about.. rosewood, Veela hair, nine inches?"

Giving her own wand to the now brunette, Hermione nodded and caught the spare, one of the thirty-seven Ginny owned. "No need to throw it at me."

Ginny shrugged and, when both of their personal wands had disappeared into the drawer, stepped into her stiletto-heeled boots. After grabbing two black cloaks, she threw one to Hermione and extinguished the lights. "Ready to get completely sloshed?"

"You bet."

The story of Ginny Weasley was a nasty one. The day she'd graduated as an Auror, she'd gone home to the Burrow to share the news with her parents - only to find the Dark Mark floating over the house, the corpse of her mother lying in the hall and her brother Percy, cackling madly, holding her father at wandpoint.

It was uncertain how events had progressed exactly from there, but the evening found both Mr. Weasley and Percy dead. Thorough examination of wands and corpses revealed that Arthur Weasley had died from a killing curse cast by his own wand, only seconds after Percival Weasley had fallen victim to the same curse emitted from the wand of his sister.

The Ministry decided not to lay charges for the Unforgivable cast, seeing as there were no witnesses, but they did fire Ginny as an Auror and cut her off from her parents' heritage. Some of her brothers - including Ron - had even gone as far as denying her existence.

Ginny had shrugged and disappeared. When she'd resurfaced, a year ago, no one knew what she had done in the two years she'd been gone - but everyone knew that, whatever it was, it hadn't been good. She was surprisingly rich, she was surprisingly sly in her comments and she was surprisingly cruel. Moreover, known only to the ones that knew her well enough to come over to her apartment on a regular basis, she was astoundingly good at disguises - nearly surpassing a Metamorphmagus, as a matter of fact - and she owned a disturbing amount of "spare wands".

As soon as Hermione had noticed that the ones that had been Arthur's and Percy's were among them, stored in black magick-repelling boxes - the only two black ones there were - she'd concluded that Ginny had most likely turned her Auror training upside down and used it to become a - hitwoman, by lack of a better term.

She'd never mentioned it, of course - but Ginny seemed to know she knew anyway. She'd fussed about that, at first - and then she realized that if her best female friend - because like it or not, that's what she was - didn't mind her own occupation, who was she to judge her? After all, she'd cast many an Unforgivable, herself.

Their ritual of disguising and getting drunk came from the period before Ginny's disappearance, though. Of course, it hadn't been as thorough, then, because the danger of being recognized hadn't been as lethal as it was now - but the idea was still the same.

The first time they'd done it had been the day when Neville Longbottom had died. Fiancée to the also deceased Hannah Abbott, Neville had been Ginny's best friend - losing him to cancer had been worse than losing Hannah to a killing curse of Lucius Malfoy. Hermione had changed their appearances and dragged Ginny along to the shadier spots of Wizarding London, where alcohol flowed freely and dance music boomed.

They had woken up way past noon, both still in their party clothes, feeling completely knackered and, moreover, completely free - something that hadn't happened for a long time.

Since then, the event had repeated itself on an almost regular basis.

Now, Hermione wasn't even surprised anymore that she felt more comfortable sitting behind the bar in the nefarious disco Hades with Ginny, flirting with possible Death Eaters and downing obscene amounts of shots, than she had ever had in the bed she shared with Ron.

~*~

When she woke up the next morning, lying sprawled over the sofa in Ginny's bedroom, Hermione's headache was so blinding that she couldn't even remember how she got there.

Two large mugs of coffee, both made with lots of hangover potion dissolved in it, sorted that out quite nicely, though. After a bit of bickering with Ginny about who got to use the bathroom first, she took a long hot shower, borrowed some clothes, turned her hair into an ebony braid, elongated her cheekbones, changed the shape of her eyes and left.

Apparating into the Ministry of Magic was a lot harder now than it had been, once, but with Hermione's determination it seemed the opposite. Finding Kingsley Shacklebolt proved to be a tad more difficult, though.

Cursing under her breath, she wrestled herself through the throng of people clotting the halls. It was as if half of the wizards in England had taken refugee here! Why wasn't Shacklebolt in his office, anyway? By all means, he was supposed to be - never mind that he was probably spying for the Order of the Phoenix.

She spotted him while she was making her way through a corridor on the second floor. He seemed to be heading in her direction, towards the elevators. With a few quick steps, she was next to him, and with a half-turn she had firmly attached herself to his left arm. "Kingsley," she hissed before he could protest, "it's Hermione. Take me somewhere private." His eyes darted towards her, measuring. Then he stopped fumbling for his wand and nodded curtly, steering her into an empty office and closing the door quietly.

He hadn't even turned around when he saw a silence ward flashing by. The next moment he found a very angry Hermione Granger, now looking like herself again, in front of him, jabbing his chest painfully with her index finger.

"Do you have any idea how worried we were? Don't you play dumb with me! We've been waiting for you for hours, Kingsley, and..." The pained expression on his face grew deeper and deeper while her stream of accusations flew on. He tried a few "buts" for good measure, but the trouble was, she was absolutely right.

He had been supposed to meet the trio three nights ago, to restack them with magical supplies and give them the last Order updates - a ritual that Minerva McGonagall had initiated, when she found out that most of her former pupils had joined the Resistance. Unfortunately, an emergency had erupted near Wells, five minutes before he was planning to leave, and the Head of the Auror Department could hardly be seen slinking away in the middle of a crisis.

He had arranged for someone else to meet them the next day, of course, and he knew that leaving them to worry wasn't entirely his fault, but he still felt guilty.

And he was damned if Hermione didn't know that.

"All right, all right, I get it! I'm sorry! Tell me what I have to do to make it up to you!" he cried after five minutes of being screeched at. Hermione tilted her head and blinked at him owlishly. If she would have been anyone else, he would have called it slyly, but this was Hermione! She didn't have a mean bone in her body!.. Did she?

"You can get me a Time-Turner and an invisibility cloak," she said finally. He groaned and threw his arms up in defeat. Gryffindors of today.

~*~

Wearing a smug grin and once again sporting the ebony braid, but this time without the facial changes, Hermione stepped out of the Ministry and into Muggle London. Getting those items from Kingsley had proven a lot easier than expected. She even had time left for a latte before she went back to the Weasley brothers' joke shop.

The Starbucks was packed with Muggles, but she saw some wizards in there as well. Mellie Hatchett, for instance, talking animatedly with Stephan Recks - both Unspeakables - and there was another guy she was sure she'd seen before as well. She was pondering who it could be when she picked up her take-away latte and turned around - and noticed too late that the man standing behind her had taken a step forward.

"Shit!"

She tried to jump backwards, of course, but to no avail - hot coffee was spilling all over her hands - and his - already. The man apparently had attempted to step sideways, as well; in the wrong direction, though. Cursing, she chucked her now empty cup into a wastebin.

The man looked at her with evident concern. "Are you all right, miss?"

"I'm fine," she almost spat, and managed a wry smile while trying to shake the hot liquid from her hands.

"Here," he said good-naturedly, giving her the handkerchief he'd used to wipe the coffee from his own hands. Hermione accepted it gratefully, and shot him a real smile.

"Thanks. I'm really sorry about all that.. it's just that - "

"No matter. There's no harm done, anyway. You don't mind having coffee here, do you?" Flashing her a most disarming smile - his eyes were too blue - he ordered two lattes and ushered her towards an empty table.

At first, Hermione had been too baffled to protest. Now, she was too intrigued to. "So..." She smiled after her first sip of coffee. "Is this a new way to chat girls up? Spilling coffee?"

"Actually, no. It is generally the male doing the spilling, but the idea is still the same. I just thought it'd be nice to give it a little twist, you know..."

She laughed, and his eyes sparkled with amusement. She took her time taking her next sip; time enough to observe her companion thoroughly. Caramel blonde hair, slight tan, blue eyes. His clothing practically screamed wealth. She wondered what an obviously rich male was doing in a Starbucks in downtown London.

"So, miss.."

"Sand. Natelle Sand. It's a French name."

He nodded. "A connection with Georges Sand, perhaps?" Smiling, she shook her head. "Ah well, celebrities in the family are horribly overrated anyway. But, Miss Sand, would you mind me asking what you were doing in a place like this?"

She raised an eyebrow.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Well.. it might have something to do with the fact that they serve excellent coffee here.. On the other hand, it might not," she said with a wink.

He smiled and leaned back in his chair. "I wonder how many have been brought together because of coffee..."

"What are you implying?"

"What do you think I am implying?"

She just stared at him. The man was making a pass at her! And she hadn't even altered her face! Suddenly blushing, she looked at her hands. "I'm sorry, monsieur..."

"Brooks."

"... Monsieur Brooks, but I am afraid I'll have to go now." He was cute, sure, but his knowledge of French literature wrote Muggle all over him.

"Ah... a boyfriend?"

And there was that, too.

"You could say that. It has been a true pleasure, Monsieur Brooks. Thank you for the coffee," she said, while standing up and offering him his handkerchief back.

He shook his head. "You keep that. I think you might find it useful."

She clutched the cloth to her chest as she walked outside. Find it useful?

She ducked into an alley and, after checking it hurriedly for witnesses, Apparated herself back to Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes. She'd probably left Ron and Harry to worry for too long, and she wanted to check on the supposed usefulness of the piece of linen a total stranger had given her. She'd started doubting if he had been a Muggle.

~*~

Apparently, it hadn't been necessary to worry about Ron. He'd been out himself, and he wasn't back yet. Harry awaited her, though, with a smirk on his face.

"You had fun with Ginny?"

Hermione's jaw very nearly hit the floor. Harry barked a laugh. "I do trust you, you know." She flashed him a grin. "Actually, I did have fun. Thanks, Harry." Producing the hanky from her coat pocket, she did her best captivating smile. "I was in a Starbucks just now, and a stranger gave it to me. It seemed a chance encounter, but it might've been staged. Could you check it for me?"

He grinned. "You don't have to try and charm me to get me to do something like that, 'Mione. C'mere."

Taking the cloth from her, he frowned upon it. "You got this from a stranger?"

"About six feet tall, blonde hair, blue eyes. Slight tan."

"Huh. Well, the wand magic looks familiar." He scrunched his eyes at it. "Hmmm...." Picking up his wand, he started muttering spells under his breath. At the fourth syllable, the cloth started glowing blue, then purple, then beige. When he'd stopped chanting, the handkerchief had turned into a piece of parchment.

Exchanging a look, Hermione let out a worried sigh and reached for it. "Let's see what it says, then."

Granger -

The lunacy has been going on for too long, and I know you'll agree with me on that.

I know this may come as a bit of a surprise, but I have neither the time nor the resources to convince you. We - that is, me and a few other so-called Death Eaters - have been.. questioning... the sanity of our leader for some time.

We've thought about contacting the Order of the Phoenix, of course, but seeing that this organisation is closely monitored by a lot of our spies, and that not all of those are trustworthy, we decided against it, and chose a different direction. Am I right to assume that the Golden Trio is still not totally in liege with said Order?

If so, please contact me as discreetly as you can. You have no idea how much it pains me to write this down, but I'm confident that, with your intelligence, that shouldn't be a problem.

Yours sincerely,

Draco Malfoy

~*~

Ron barged into the attic room to find Hermione and Harry sitting at the kitchen table, apparently deep in conversation. They started as he entered, Hermione looking at her hands, Harry standing up and almost rushing towards him.

"Ron! Where on earth have you been, man - it's almost four!"

He gave Harry a hard stare. "I've been out. Why? Did you think I couldn't handle myself?"

Harry stopped dead in mid-stride, his hands falling to his sides. "We were worried, is all," he said harshly. "Is that a crime?"

Ron looked away. "What've you two been up to, anyway?" he put in, changing the subject. "It sure looked serious."

Hermione cleared her throat. "It turns out that some Death Eaters might be interested in an alliance, of sorts. Draco Malfoy contacted me, today." She picked up a note, which had been lying on the table, and held it out to him. He reached for it tentatively.

The room was quiet for a few minutes. Ron got paler and paler, while Hermione seemed to be fidgeting anxiously and fingering her necklace more and more. Then, all of the sudden, he burst out. "And you were planning to go along with this?"

"Well..."

"Of all the stupid things, Hermione - of all the stupid, dim-witted, moronic ideas..."

"It was my idea, actually," Harry tried to interrupt, but Ron went on.

"You have to be completely insane not to see the catch in here! It's ridiculous! I - "

That turned out to be the last straw.

With a snap, the chain of the necklace Ron had given to Hermione - the necklace, he had said once, resembling their love - the necklace he had fastened around her neck himself - broke, only to leave the sparkling jewel dangling from her fingers. "That was it, Ronald Weasley. You have just called me stupid for the last time in your entire life, because if you do it again... - "

Hermione took a deep breath, then suddenly threw her chair back and flung the broken piece of jewellery at his face. "Who do you think you are, trying to tell me what to do? Trying to intimidate me into making decisions I don't want to make? Trying to live my life for me? I'll tell you what, Ronald. You are free to go out and find yourself some girl dumb enough to let you control her, but you won't control me. Not anymore. Consider yourself single."

She swept from the room, but turned in the doorway. "Accio guiding globe!" It took the pulsating blue globe two seconds to find its way to her hand, leaving the two males to stare at her in horror. "Yes, that's right. I kept it. And right now, I am going to use the Time-Turner I got from Kingsley to go back to the library of that Death Eater. You'll probably see me again in an hour, Harry. Cheerio." With that, she slammed the door closed.

~*~

Flipping the time-turner four times back, she waited until the dizzying flickering of movement had stopped, then Apparated. The globe took her to the pentacle without any trouble - luckily, it wasn't affected by its other self, also existing in this timezone. Zabini stood waiting for her, masked and ominous-looking as always. "You're late," he said.

Trying to come up with a solid excuse, but finding none, she shrugged. "Sorry."

"No matter. Your wand?" She gave it to him with a slight smile. It was unnerving not to be able to read his expression - but on the other hand, she'd rather be unnerved than still wearing that damned necklace, and still be chained to that idiot Ron.

She was blindfolded, and led to the library. He didn't even bother anymore to give her directions; he knew she knew their route as well as he did. Twenty-five minutes later he was in for a surprise, though. The library doors had whooshed open, Hermione's blindfold had been removed and the doors were about to whoosh shut again, when she turned and said, "Oh, and Blaise, is the whole mask thing really necessary?"

She smirked as she saw him tense slightly. She didn't need the necklace to read Zabini, after all.

Almost five hours later, her mood had dipped a - or rather, a lot of notches.

She'd found what she had been looking for, and it wasn't good.

Ulcridwe Castle, Romania, was the Heart Mansion of the Fyula Vampire Clan around the middle ages. In 1769, the Heart Mansion was moved to a larger Castle in Hungary, named Rouliche (see page 6893). After a few decennia of deterioration, Ulcridwe Castle was re-taken by the Fyula Clan. This time, however, it was used as exile. After the events around the dark Wizard Grindelwald in 1942, the Castle was believed to be deserted, but recently, a steady stream of vampire sightings has come from the local villagers.

"Damn," she whispered. This certainly made barging in there and destroying the Horcrux a lot more difficult.

At that moment, she heard the whoosh of the doors again - and her heard skipped a beat. Blaise Zabini was standing in the doorway, wearing a charcoal sweater, dove-grey trousers and a half-smirk on his unmasked face. "Hullo. You coming?"

Swallowing, she nodded and crammed her notes into the leather tube.

With a few determined steps, he was behind her and quickly wound the blindfold around her face again. "Can't have you distracted," he said in a low voice.

She smiled. "You didn't think I'd figure it out, did you?"

He laughed. "Of course I knew you'd figure it out. I just didn't think it'd be this soon."

Their journey down was without further incident, but when the blindfold slipped off her face, he stepped in front of her. "Did you get the... handkerchief?" She nodded, and he exhaled in what would almost have been a relieved way for anyone other than Blaise Zabini. "Good. Now. I know you'll be planning to go to Ulcridwe soon. Don't go tonight. Wait a few days. Just... trust me. Us. I'll see you tomorrow."

With that, he pushed her wand back in her hands. She looked at him for what seemed ages but couldn't have been more than a few seconds, then Apparated away.

~*~

The silence was a surprise.

She would have expected some sort of greeting from Harry - it wasn't as if you'd miss the telltale crack of Apparition in a time of war - but the attic remained quiet. When she barged inside and slammed her notes on the kitchen table, it began to dawn to her that the silence might have something to do with the fact there was no one home.

Quickly, she searched the place for any indication of where those two bone-heads might have gone. Their backpacks were still there, so they definitely were coming back - but other than that, nada.

With a sigh, she threw herself into a kitchen chair and settled in to wait.

The next surprise was a lot more alarming.

Without any warning, Hermione saw herself bursting out of her bedroom. She appeared to be tucking something which might have been a time turner away. The younger Hermione couldn't help it that her mouth sagged open, though. Her other self made some kind of gesture - possibly to soothe her - then said hurriedly, "Don't worry. I'm going to the South Gate of Ulcridwe Castle." Drawing out her wand, the other Hermione Apparated.

Leaving the current Hermione to stare after her. Ulcridwe Castle? Why on earth would her other self be going to Ulcridwe Castle? Zabini had just told her not to go there! And the South Gate, no less. Her other self obviously had some extra information.

But from whom? She had been wearing the same clothes - meaning that she couldn't have been older than a few hours. Who would be likely to give her more information between now and a few hours' time?

The answer was so obvious, it hit her like a stone. Harry and Ron. And the only option where they could give her more information - and the most likely reason for her to go back in time and hurry off to Ulcridwe Castle - was that those two had gone off there themselves.

Cursing, she drew her wand - and lowered it again. If she Apparated there now, she'd walk into her other self, who would probably assume she was a disguised Death Eater. She'd end up in a matchbox.

There was only one option left - waiting. Hermione hated waiting.

~*~

It was past midnight when she finally heard the crack of someone Apparating. She rushed to the door, throwing it open - and stopped dead in her tracks.

Harry was standing there. And he was holding a limp, deadly pale Ron in his arms.

"Hermione," he wheezed, "quick, change our appearances. He needs to go to St. Mungo's." Shakily, she nodded and drew her wand.

"What happened," she breathed after muttering the necessary spells.

"He's been bitten by a vampire. It doesn't look good."

Hermione swallowed, started shaking. "I just found out there were vampires in there. I should have warned you. I should have - " and then she remembered. "Harry, what happened to me?"

"To you?"

She nodded feverishly. "Seven hours ago, I saw myself coming from the future, and I told me that I was going to Ulcridwe. You didn't see me?"

Harry shook his head. "I didn't. Did you really think I'd have left you behind if I'd have found you in there?"

"It's not that.. it's just... how did you know it was a vampire attacking Ron?"

"I didn't know. Someone else - I don't know who - had already killed... it before I had even aimed my wand. The fact that it turned into dust when it died told the story."

"That must've been me," Hermione whispered, "I was the only one I knew you two were down there. Oh, God - I've got to go there. Now. I've got to find out what happened to me!"

Harry looked at her, then nodded. "I'll take Ron, then. You go on. Go!"

She'd already stumbled into her bedroom, started to close the door - and then stopped. "Harry - did you get the Horcrux?"

He grinned. She smiled back and closed the door, but when she drew out the time turner, there was only one thought left in her mind. What had happened to her future self? Or rather - what had happened to her?