"Harry, Jove, wake up." Hermione said, forcing my eyes open as she shook me. I was in the hospital wing, and it was considerably darker out.
"I saw my dad." Harry gasped, sitting up slightly in the bed next to me. My head was throbbing, and I felt like I could vomit up all of the cold inside my body.
"What?" Hermione asked, sitting next to Harry on his bed.
"He sent the dementors away." Harry smiled proudly. I remembered my dream, my whole body shivering as I pictured the woman's face. She was the woman I had seen in the crystal ball. She was my mother.
"Listen, they've captured Sirius. Any minute, the dementors are going to perform the kiss." Hermione said, pulling my attention back to reality.
"You mean they're going to kill him?" Harry asked, quickly shuffling out of bed.
"No." Hermione sighed. "It's worse. Much worse. They're going to suck out his soul."
The doors to the hospital wing were thrown open forcefully, and Dumbledore came marching in, his floor length robes flowing fiercely behind him.
"Headmaster, you've got to stop them!" Hermione gasped, stomping forward. "They've got the wrong man!"
"It's true, sir." Harry confirmed. "Sirius is innocent."
"It's Scabbers who did it." Ron said, and Dumbledore's crazed eyes flashed over to him in the bed across from mine.
"Scabbers?"
"He's my rat, sir. He's not really a rat. Well, he was my brother Percy's rat. But then they gave him an owl, then I got-"
"Peter Pettigrew!" I said, cutting off Ron before he could waste any more time. I sat up slightly in my bed, and I felt the world spin around me. "He's an unregistered animagi."
"And we know the truth." Hermione said, and Dumbledore looked at her with his mouth open slightly in shock. "Please believe us."
"I do, Miss Granger. But I'm sorry to say the word of four third-year wizards will convince few others." Dumbledore sighed, then walked over to Ron, who had his leg propped up and bandaged properly. "A child's voice, however honest and true is meaningless to those who have forgotten how to listen." He patted Ron's leg absentmindedly, and Ron let out several whimpers of pain, but didn't say anything.
The clock-tower began to ring, and Dumbledore's face quickly regained his usual mystical expression.
"Mystical thing, time. Powerful. And when meddled with, dangerous." Dumbledore said, walking past Hermione and to the doors. "Sirius Black is in the topmost cell of the Dark Tower. You know the laws, Miss Granger. You must not be seen. And you will do well I feel, to return before this last chime. If not, the consequences are too ghastly to discuss. If you succeed tonight, more than one innocent life may be spared. Three turns should do it, I think."
Harry looked extremely confused, but I knew exactly what Dumbledore was talking about. Hermione was going to go back in time to save Sirius. Dumbledore turned and walked back into the hallway, then looked back once more.
"Oh, and I think you'll be needing these. And Mr. Potter, the gift from your father has been tucked away in your trunk." He winked as he held out a clump of wands. Hermione scurried over and grabbed them from his hand. "When in doubt, I find retracing my steps to be a wise place to begin. Good luck." Dumbledore smiled, then shut the doors.
"What the bloody hell was that all about?" Ron asked as Hermione handed him and Harry their wands.
"Sorry, Ron, but seeing as you can't walk..." Hermione sighed, then pulled her necklace out from under her jacket. "Jove, you coming?"
"Yeah." I said, throwing my feet off of the bed and standing up. The moment I left the bed, everything began to spin again.
"I think you should stay here." Hermione said, giving me a pitiful smile as she watched me fall dizzy.
"No, I'm fine." I said, putting on my best "normal" face. "Where's my wand?"
Hermione fell silent and looked at Harry, who had turned pale. "Er..." He gulped. "Whenever you fell in the water... I dropped it when I pulled you out. It fell in the lake. I'm so sorry, Jo."
"It's fine. Rather the wand than me." I shook my head, trying to forget about it. Sirius was more important. "Let's just go."
"Go where?" Harry asked, looking around wildly as Hermione wrapped her necklace around our necks. Harry tried to touch the Time Turner, and Hermione quickly slapped his hand away. She turned the necklace three times, and everything quickly began to rewind around us. It got darker, then lighter, and suddenly it all stopped. I looked over to the bed where Ron was laying, and he was gone. We had gone back in time.
Hermione took the necklace off of our necks and shoved it in her jacket again.
"What just happened?" Harry asked frantically as he looked around the room. "Where's Ron?"
"7:30." Hermione said, looking at the clock tower across the hall. "Where were we at 7:30?"
"Going to Hagrid's." I said.
"Why?" Harry said, slightly out of breath from panicking.
"Come on." Hermione sighed, grabbing him by the arm. "And we can't be seen." She broke into a run, and Harry and I followed her.
"Hermione, wait!" Harry called behind her. "Do you know what's going on?" He asked me as we ran down to the courtyard.
"Yeah." I said, trying to keep track of my feet on the stairs in case I missed one. My whole surroundings were spinning, and I felt like I would loose my footage at any moment. I could still feel the brittle chill of the water lingering on my skin like an itch.
"Will one of you please tell me what it is we're doing?" Harry groaned as Hermione came to a sudden stop, opened a cupboard and pulled both of us in. She pressed her ear against the door, listening for something.
"Shut up, Potter!" I hissed, putting my hand over his mouth. He tried to talk again, but his voice was muffled.
"We've gone back in time." Hermione whispered. "Three hours back."
I felt Harry's mouth fall open under my hand, and it was obvious that the very idea of time travel seemed incomprehensible in his head. Although his words were hard to understand, he managed to mumble: "But-"
"Shh!" Hermione shushed. "There's footsteps. I think it's us!"
Harry grabbed me on the wrist and forced my hand down. "You're telling me that we're in here, AND out there?"
"Yes." Hermione said. "I'm sure it is. It doesn't sound like more than four people and we're walking slowly because we're under the cloak. I think we've gone down the steps." Hermione sat on a flipped over bucket in the corner of the cupboard.
"Where did you get that hourglass thing?" Harry asked Hermione, then turned to me. "And how do you know about it?"
"It's a Time Turner. If you have a brain, it shouldn't have been very hard to figure out." I shrugged, and Harry, who seemed to be very frustrated opened his mouth to retort but Hermione cut him off.
"I got it from Professor McGonagall on the first day back. It's how I've been getting to all my classes." Hermione said to shut Harry up. "But I don't know why Dumbledore wanted me to turn it three clicks. "What were we doing at 7:30 that can be changed?"
"Buckbeak!" I gasped, the dots connecting in my head.
"So you're allowed to yell?" Harry scoffed, crossing his arms.
"Shut up, Potter!" I said, holding a hand up to him.
"Saving Buckbeak is great and all, but I can't figure out how it'll help Sirius. Hermione sighed, resting her elbows on her knees.
"Dumbledore told us where he is!" Harry gasped, his face lighting up with excitement. "We can fly on Buckbeak up to the tower and Sirius can escape on him!"
"That's... that's actually genius." I muttered. A dignified grin was laid proudly across his cheeks. "Don't let it go to your head."
"Alright did." He shrugged. "You underestimate me, Black."
Something about the way he said my name, my real name, not the one I was told to believe, flushed a new wave of confidence through my bones. Nothing about my name has ever felt right, but now, hearing him say it, I forgot that it felt wrong.
"You rarely give me a reason not to, honestly." I said, leaning against the wall behind me, trying to put as much distance between myself and him as possible.
"Can we please focus?" Hermione groaned from the bucket. "If we can manage to save Buckbeak without being seen, it'll be a miracle!"
"We'll just have to try." Harry said heroically. "Doesn't sound like anyone's there, let's go." He opened the cupboard door.
As quickly, and quietly as we could, we moved down the deserted entrance hall and ran down the stone steps.
"If anyone is looking out the window..." Hermione muttered, her eyes locked on the castle behind us.
"Then we'll just run straight for the forest." Harry decided. He took off in a sprint, and Hermione and I quickly followed. With every hurried step, I felt as if I was stepping back into the lake.
"We need to sneak over to Hagrid's." Hermione panted for air as we reached the shelter of the forest. I leaned against a tree for balance, the world and my legs still spinning below me. "Keep out of sight."
We moved sneakily towards Hagrid's hut, then froze when we caught a glimpse of Hagrid opening the door to no-one.
"Yeh' shouldn' of come!" Hagrid hissed as he moved aside to hold the door open.
"This is the weirdest thing we've ever done." Harry muttered, his eyes fixated on the sight of us through Hagrid's window.
"Since when were you that tall?" I asked as I saw Harry towering over me for the first time.
"Since always?" He shrugged, running a hand through his curls.
"Let's move along a bit." Hermione whispered, staying close to the trees as she moved towards Buckbeak.
"Now?" Harry whispered as we caught glimpse of Buckbeak alone in the Pumpkin patch.
"No!" Hermione and I both hissed.
"Fudge needs to see Buckbeak, or else he'll think that Hagrid set him free." I explained.
"But that'll only give us about a minute." Harry sighed, his confidence fading quickly from his green eyes. There was a loud crash of glass from inside Hagrid's hut.
"That'll be Hagrid breaking the milk jug." Hermione said. "I'm going to find Scabbers in a mome-"
Sure enough, a scream rang out from inside.
"Hermione! What if we just ran in there, and grab Pettigrew and-" Harry started excitedly.
"No! We can't be seen!" Hermione snapped. "Don't you understand? We'd be breaking one of the most important Wizarding laws! What would you do if you saw yourself bursting into Hagrid's hut?"
"I'd think I'd gone mad." Harry muttered, realizing he was wrong.
"You wouldn't understand. You might even attack yourself-"
"Shut up!" I hissed, nudging both of them. Fudge, the executioner and Dumbledore were walking through the pumpkin patch. Hagrid's back door opened, and the four of us came running out of his hut and ducked below his pumpkins right in front of us.
"Is that really what my hair looks like from the back?" Hermione asked quietly, causing a branch to snap as she peeked through some leaves to herself. As the four of us turned around, we hid behind the trees, holding our breath.
"What?" Harry asked from the pumpkins.
"Nothing." Hermione muttered as she unraveled the cloak from her arms and threw it over ourselves.
As we heard ourselves run away, we creeped behind the pumpkins. "Go, Harry, go." Hermione urged, and Harry quickly walked over towards Buckbeak.
"Off." He muttered as he started to kick his leg. A flock of birds were starting to peck him.
"I'll untie Buckbeak, you calm him down." I whispered to Harry, hoping it would give us more time. I snuck past him as he nodded and continued to shake the birds off of him. I carefully unraveled the chain that was tied around a pole as Harry bowed to the Hippogriff.
Buckbeak nodded his head to Harry just as I got the chain loose, and we began to tug on Buckebak who wasn't moving from the patch.
The door began to open, then we heard Dumbledore's voice from the hut. "Minister, I really think I should sign as well." It shut again.
"Okay, Buckbeak?" Harry whispered. "Come on. Quickly." He tried to tug on the chain, but Buckbeak didn't move an inch.
"It's a very long name, Minister." Dumbledore said, buying us more time. He knew what he was doing.
"Come on, Buckbeak. Come get the nice, dead ferret!" Hermione said, holding out a limp ferret. She threw it in the air, and Buckbeak leapt up to catch it.
"Come on!" Hermione called as Harry and I pulled the chain as quickly as we could towards the forest. "Come on, Beaky!"
"Now, look there, you see?" Dumbledore said as Hagrid's door opened. He was pointing in the opposite direction towards the mountains. "Professor Dippet had that long planted when he was headmaster."
"Come on, Buckbeak." Hermione said, dangling the ferret, and we lead him into the forest just as Fudge turned around.
"Where is it?" Fudge gasped as we hid amongst the trees. "I just saw the beast! We must search the grounds!
"How extraordinary." Dumbledore sighed with a smile on his face. "Well, search the skies if you must, Minister. Meanwhile, I'd like a nice cup of brandy."
The executioner took out his axe, and swung it on a pumpkin, splitting it in half.
We ran through the woods, Hermione still dangling a dead ferret in front of the creature. It was getting darker, meaning we were losing precious time to save Sirius. We reached a small clearing in the woods, and stopped to catch our breath after running through the forest for so long. I tied Buckbeak's chain to a smaller tree, and Hermione fed him the last ferret.
"Now, what?" Harry asked, his hands on his knees as he painted for air. I let myself fall against a tree. It felt like my legs were going to give out at any moment, and soon enough, my consciousness too.
"We save Sirius." Hermione said confidently, and she took off running again. A small groan escaped my lips as Harry and I followed her. It was becoming obvious that neither of us had the stamina Hermione did.
We reached the edge of the woods, and the Whomping Willow came into sight. There was a figure nearing it.
"Look, it's Lupin." Hermione said.
"Immobilus!" Lupin called out, and the tree quickly froze.
"Why didn't we think of that?" I scoffed, crossing my arms.
"Snape's coming."
Snape followed Lupin down the tunnel, and suddenly, all went quiet again.
"And now, we wait." Harry sighed, and we all fell to the ground.
"And now, we wait." Hermione repeated with a last breath of air.