Hermione's Riddle

Memory Box Part 5

A Promise Broken

Tom looked around the sea of students but could not spy the head of curly brown hair that he was looking for. It was almost time for them to head for the Great Hall for graduation, so where was Hermione?

"Lost, Tom, my boy?" came Professor Slughorn's overly annoying cheerful voice.

"Just Hermione," came his curt reply.

"She's outside in the courtyard."

Tom nodded his thanks before taking off. What was she doing out there? He found the answer to his question when he found her.

Hermione was sitting on the grass with her legs tucked underneath her. The black robes that she wore pooled around her. Her head was angled down as she looked at something in her hand.

"What are you doing out here?" Hermione looked up at him, her brown eyes sparkled when she smiled.

He made his way to her, unable to hide the smile that he wore, not that he cared. Hermione was the only person who could make him smile like this.

"We need to leave now before we're late to our own graduation." The chuckle evident in his voice. To be honest, he didn't mind missing his own graduation if that meant being able to spend more time with his little witch. Though Headmaster Dippet would probably be upset at not seeing his granddaughter participate in the graduation ceremony.

"Of course." Hermione said simply. She stood up and brushed off her robes.

The gold price in her hand sparkled in the sunlight, piquing his interest. "What is that in your hand?"

She dangled the necklace down for him to see. "It's the Time-Turner. I never showed it to you, did I?"

He remembered that the Time-Turner was the device that allowed her to come to his time. He also remembered a brief explanation on it that she had given. "Uh, Hermione?" Something didn't look right with the necklace that she was holding.

"What is it Tom?" She laughed, not bothering to look at the necklace in her which now had sand rapidly pouring to one side.

"Didn't you say that one was forced back to the original time of use when all the grains of sand fall to one side?"

Hermione furled her brows with his question. "Yes," she said a bit slowly as if she were expecting him to say something else.

Horror filled him as the realization hit him. He reached out a hand to grab a hold of his little witch who was already starting to fade. "Hermione!" She was gone before he even finished yelling out her name.

She was gone and he was stuck back in time. The promise that she had made to him had been broken.

Pain burst through him. His hands reached for his head as if trying to stop it from splitting open. The pain left just as quickly as it had come.

A Promise Kept

"During that time, we pretended to be the long lost granddaughter of the current headmaster." Hermione's future self explained. "But the point is that right before graduation, Hermione was whipped away from that time and brought here. Now she needs to take the Time Turner and return back to Tom so that we-" Mrs. Norris, who her future self had been calling herself,  indicated her and Tom, "-can come into existence in this time line. She has to leave now because I have no recollection of anything after this point and so she has to leave."