Time Has No Boundaries

It was a cold, windy October night when Hermione Granger decided to visit her best friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. She was carrying two roses, one for each of them. Even though the wind ravaged her hair, and her body was chilled to the bone, Hermione had to pay her respects. She tiptoed through the graveyard, trying her best not to trip over any headstones in the dead of the night.

"Lumos," she whispered through chattering teeth.

She had tried her best to come during the day, but couldn't escape from the teachers' watchful eyes. No one was allowed out of school for any reason whatsoever, and this was going to be the last day before the Ministry permanently shut down Hogwarts, due to the outbreak of student deaths in recent years.

It was all Voldemort's fault, that bastard! After Dumbledore died in his sleep of old age (supposedly) during the first week of her fifth year, Hogwarts was nowhere near as safe as it used to be. Voldemort must have known it as well. Just a week after the headmaster's death, when the school was extremely vulnerable, he struck, and this time he didn't miss. Harry was dead. Ron, being the courageous best friend, tried to save Harry. But he died as well, alongside Harry. Two fifteen-year-old boys were added that horrible day to the ever-growing death toll of the Dark Lord's revenge.

Tears started rolling down Hermione's cheeks as she laid the flower delicately on Ron's grave. He was buried right next to Harry.

"Oh, Ron! You could have saved yourself, but you didn't! Why didn't you run with me when Harry told us to? Why?" Hermione cowered over Ron's grave, crying her heart out.

"Why didn´t I stay?" she yelled in frustration. She should have died along with her friends, but instead she chose to save herself. This haunted her memory every day, and she would never forgive herself for being so selfish.

Rain began to pour as she turned toward Harry's grave. The only comforting thought Hermione could think of was that he was now with his parents.

"At least you're happy and safe, Harry. How does it feel to be with your parents now?" Too bad that time had come too early for Harry. Hermione stayed at the graveyard for a little over an hour. When she could cry no more tears, she left, and headed back to the castle.

Hermione put Harry's invisibility cloak back on before cautiously going back into the castle. Ever since Harry´s and Ron's deaths, she wanted revenge. Voldemort's power was dramatically on the rise, and she felt like it was her duty to stop him, for Harry and Ron's sake.

She crept back into the castle, trying her best not to run into any of the teachers on patrol, and walked up to the Gryffindor girls' dorm. She slowly walked over to Ginny´s bed and laid her head down.

"I´m so sorry, Ginny. It´s entirely my fault your brother is dead. I know you say that none of this is my fault, but deep down I know I´m really the one who´s responsible. I´ll make everything better. I promise."

Tears once again began to fall, and Hermione forced herself to hold them inside. She didn´t want to wake Ginny. Sleeping helped Ginny forget about her pain, and Hermione didn´t want to disturb that.

She made sure everyone was still sleeping as she quietly gathered up all of her luggage, as well as the invisibility cloak. Before she left, she mouthed a silent goodbye to all her friends. She would never see them again.

She went outside and stood near the entrance to the school. When she had gathered up enough courage, she pulled out of her bags the small, golden timeturner that Professor McGonagall had given to her during her third year. Hermione was so grateful that she had convinced her teacher to let her keep it, and now was the time to use it.

She had been doing research on time turners for the past month and a half since the death of her friends. She had been sneaking out of the dorm at night to the restricted section to learn more about them, because they were now illegal in the wizarding world, as well as every other form of powerful magic.

Hermione knew the risk she was taking, going back in time. But she felt as if she had no other option. Her two best friends were dead, and who knew how many more were to come. She clutched the timeturner, trembling slightly. She was travelling to the year of 1942, when Voldemort was in his fifth year at Hogwarts. 54 years was the most the timeturner could go, or at least that's what all the books presumed. No one had ever attempted to go that far though, since timeturners were invented in 1970, so there would be no possible way that anyone could ever come back if they used it before that date.

Hermione was going back to try to do everything in her power to stop Tom Riddle from becoming Voldemort. That way her friends would be alive, as well as Harry's parents, and everyone else that Voldemort and his followers had ever killed. She didn't know how she was going to do this, but she had to. The fate of the wizarding world was on her shoulders. Everything she did would affect the world in some way.

"Well," she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, "here it goes."