The Secret Relationship: The Angelic Witch and Draco Malfoy (Book 3)

Buckbeak Talks

Harry and Hermione didn't reply to Heroneka. They looked away from the top of her head awkwardly.

"Good luck?" Harry repeated what Dumbledore had said. "Three turns? What's he talking about? What are we supposed to do?"

"Probably we should turn round and round!" Heroneka said angrily, still trying to grab something above her head. "Three of us! Three turns!" She couldn't feel anything. Why was everyone else seeing a halo hovering above her head?

"How are you feeling?" Harry asked her, his eyes fixed on top of her head as she continued to try and get hold of her halo, but it was just air.

"I don't know!" She hissed. "A little itchy and... Light. I feel like I might start floating in a few moments! I feel like -- I want to scratch everything!"

Harry gave her an awkward and confused look, shifting away from her. Hermione was fumbling with the neck of her robes, pulling from beneath them a very long, very fine gold chain.

"Harry, Snitchy, come here," she said urgently. "Quick!"

Harry and Heroneka moved toward her, completely bewildered. She was holding the chain out. He saw a tiny, sparkling hourglass hanging from it.

"You have a special locket too? Why didn't you tell me?" Heroneka touched her bottle locket. "We can be locket sisters --"

"Here --"

She had thrown the chain around Harry's and Heroneka's neck too.

"Ready?" she said breathlessly.

"For what?" Heroneka gave her a puzzled look.

"What are we doing?" Harry said, completely lost.

Hermione turned the hourglass over three times.

The dark ward dissolved. Heroneka had the sensation that she was flying very fast, backward. A blur of colours and shapes rushed past her, her ears were pounding, she tried to yell but couldn't hear her own voice --

And then she felt solid ground beneath her feet, and everything came into focus again --

Heroneka was standing next to Harry and Hermione in the deserted entrance hall and a stream of golden sunlight was falling across the paved floor from the open front doors.

"Did we apparate or something?" Heroneka looked around.

Harry seemed just as lost. "Hermione, what --?"

"In here!" Hermione seized their hands and dragged them on her either side across the hall to the door of a broom closet; she opened it, pushed them inside among the buckets and mops, then slammed the door behind them.

"What -- how -- " Harry blabbered.

"Mione, what happened?" Heroneka asked her, scratching her arm. Her skin was beginning to itch more now.

"We've gone back in time," Hermione whispered, lifting the chain off their necks in the darkness. "Three hours back..."

"Pinch me?" Heroneka said and that instant Harry had pinched her cheek so hard she hissed hitting him.

"So this is real!" He said.

Heroneka rubbed her cheek. "But --"

"Shh! Listen! Someone's coming! I think -- I think it might be us!" Hermione had her ear pressed against the cupboard door.

"Footsteps across the hall... yes, I think it's us going down to Hagrid's!"

"Are you telling us," Harry whispered, "that we're here in this cupboard and we're out there too?"