Just Takes Time

2.

"Harry."

The boy blinked, tearing his eyes away from the window with the same guarded look he had held since fifth year, maybe even before that, if Hermione really thought about it.

"Yes?"

"I've said your name four times. Come down with me for dinner."

"I'm not hungry," Harry declined quietly, returning to the window.

"I know you're not, but you have to eat."

Harry barely even seemed to hear her, his attention already back on the window. Hermione sighed and turned to Ron.

"Ron? Dinner?" she asked, begging him silently to agree.

He just shook his head. "Can't. Ginny's not doing well, I want to stay nearby."

"Okay," Hermione whispered. "I'll bring something up."

She blinked hard and stepped out the door to walk to the Great Hall.

It wasn't that she wasn't traumatized as well. She had a word carved into her arm that would scar forever, and a lifetime of memories she would never be able to share with the people that brought her into the world, and enough past pain to last a lifetime, but she supposed she just... compartmentalized it. She knew it had happened, and she acknowledged it, but she was okay.

And she knew not everyone healed the same, but she was so terrified for Ron and Harry. She so badly wanted them to have lives of their own, to be okay again, and she wasn't sure they ever would. She was so worried that they would be stuck here forever, ghosts of the bright-eyed eleven-year-olds they had once been.

She missed her friends.

She stopped walking. Her feet, without her permission, had not taken her to the Great Hall, but to McGonagall's office again. The darkness under the door told her that nobody was in there, and before she could really think it through, she was inside the office and closing the door behind her.

It was ridiculous. McGonagall had expressly stated that she had already given away the Time-Turner, that it was destroyed with all of the others.

But a small piece of Hermione had taken note of the look McGonagall had given her when she first stepped in, the flash of minuscule panic, of the glance of her eyes from Hermione to the drawer when she said she had handed it over.

Hermione could recognize the signs of a lie, even a small one, from a mile away, and some part of her knew that McGonagall had lied to her.

She took a deep breath and opened the drawer.

There it was. It was one of only a few things in there, but the glittering gold was easily distinguishable among the dull objects in the drawer. It was in her hands in seconds, shining in the low light of the moon through the windows.

Time-Turner. Time-Turner. Time-Turner.

It was all she could think about. It was drawing her in, like a soul to a Horcrux, and she jerked back at the mental connection, throwing the Time-Turner into the drawer and slamming it shut.

Time-Turner. Time-Turner. Time-Turner.

"Hermione," Parvati said quietly, leaning forward. "You haven't eaten anything."

She blinked, looking up from her empty plate and glancing around her at the table. "Yeah. Sorry. Just... in my head a bit."

Parvati nodded sympathetically, before her eyes trailed back to the empty spot where Lavender always used to sit. Nobody took the seat anymore. In fact, there were several spots that remained empty in the benches. Three Slytherins had shouted at a freshly-sorted first year for nearly sitting in Vincent Crabbe's empty spot at the beginning of the year.

She scooped some mashed potatoes onto her plate halfheartedly, spooning them into her mouth without really tasting them. Harry wasn't at the table again. Ron was having a better day, muttering to Dean across from him.

Time-Turner. Time-Turner. Time-Turner.

She shook her head. It was too dangerous. No one had been known to go further back than a few days when Time-Turners were illegal. There was no telling of the effect it would have on her to go back years.

Plus, even if she (hypothetically) went back in time, when would she go? 1997, to stop the war? 1981, to stop Harry from becoming the chosen one? 1926, to kill Tom Riddle just after he was born?

There was no right answer. There was no safe answer.

A Ravenclaw a couple tables over accidentally dropped a fork. Everybody jumped, and a stillness went over the room. Ron and Dean stopped talking, shuttered looks coming over their faces.

That night, Hermione stole McGonagall's Time-Turner.