Stop all the clocks || Theodore Nott

I. An Unexpected Letter

It came as a great surprise to Hermione when she received an owl from Theodore Nott asking to meet. He was reclusive at school, preferring the company of Draco Malfoy and the rest of his unpleasant gang. She had labelled him as a bad egg, stored him away on the dusty shelf of 'out of date' and payed no attention to his little smirks and sniggers. It was only until after the war that his name surfaced from the rubble as one of the few students in their year who returned to Hogwarts to take their N.E.W.Ts. He was quiet, studious and minded his own business. Perhaps it was that relentless Slytherin ambition that kept him to his studies, perhaps it was that old pureblood snobbery telling him to steer clear of the dirt. After their graduation Hermione heard no word of him until a curious little letter landed on the windowsill of her flat asking her to meet at a curious little muggle café on Thursday, 1pm sharp.

He had changed, as they all had since their school years. His face was sharper, more angular, his eyes a little further sunken into his skull looked a deathly grey in the low light. His skin was very lightly freckled, with untidy stubble on his cheeks - not yet a beard, but not clean shaven either. His dark ashy blonde hair which was once cut with immaculate precision was unkempt and a little longer than Hermione remembered. He had always been handsome, in a sort of strange way, but now that atmosphere of still calm he carried in his childhood had turned to a grey and exhausted state. She'd seen in before in the faces of her co-workers, stressed, tired and unhappy. Oh, the joys of adulthood.

He told her she looked well, and she returned the phrase despite her discomfort with lying. When she asked him what he was up to these days he gave an odd answer, explaining he was working on something, whatever that meant, but also a day job as an archivist.

"How's the ministry?" He asked, pursing his lips.

"Complicated."

"Yes." He paused, then continued, a little sheepishly. "You're the only person I know who's got a job there. Or, a job of remote significance." Hermione had managed to get a job working under the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She knew it had been a tough couple of years for applicants, and on reflection she had got very lucky with a vacancy that wasn't just making tea.

Hermione sighed, starting to wonder if he really had just wanted to spend his lunch break complaining to her. She certainly wasn't going to waste hers on him.

"Look, Theodore, we both know that you didn't bring me here for a catch-up. We were hardly best friends at school. So what do you want?"

Theodore looked a bit taken aback, and leaned back in his chair, those intense sea-blue eyes fluttered under his eyelids. He inhaled slowly before speaking.

"I need you to get me in the ministry."

How pathetic.

"I can't just get you a job. It doesn't work like that, you know it doesn't-"

"No, not like that. That's not what I mean." He interrupted, sounding a little irritated. "I need to get inside the ministry."

Perturbed and hungry, Hermione asked him why he needed so badly to get inside the ministry. Theo paused before answering, biting his inner-lip in what she presumed was boredom. Hermione was fairly good at reading people. She was certainly better than Ron or Harry, but Theodore was difficult. She hadn't cracked him yet.

"Research," he answered bluntly. For a clever boy he certainly did have a wonderful way with words.

"What research? Can't it be done somewhere else? The ministry isn't an exhibition or a public library, its the engine of the British wizarding world."

Theodore ran a thin hand through his hair in a fairly unrelaxed manner, shaking his head vehemently. Of their little face-to-face time in all her 23 years, Hermione had never seen him so unsettled.

"It has to be done within the ministry, it's complicated research and I need to access-"

"To access what? And why can't you just apply for a visitors grant?" Silence. "What research are you doing Theodore? Because I'm starting to loose my patience."

He started to fumble around in his jacket pocket, and produced a little black box and placed it on the table. Hermione frowned, as if to ask him what relevance this had, and he for gestured her to open it. She did, and pulled out a little metal object of a golf ball size. Hermione picked it up delicately, holding it up so it caught the lamp-light. It was an disk constructed of rings that orbited around the centrepiece. She knew exactly what it was. Or what it was trying to be.

"Where did you get this?"

"I made it. It's not finished. That's why I need to get inside the Department of Mysteries."

Hermione's mouth dropped open a fraction. "The department of mysteries - are you serious Theodore? You're asking me to smuggle you into one of the most secretive and protected places in the wizarding world."

"You've done it once before." He rebuked calmly

"What do you need it for?" She asked, her voice turning hard as a sea of doubt came pouring into her thoughts. He was a Nott after all, his family were death eaters, his friends too. Though most of his housemates had detached their ties with the death eaters, most surprisingly Draco, some of them were not willing to give up easily. Only a few months ago she'd heard Marcus Flint and Miles Bletchley had been arrested for conspiracies against the ministry.

"Do you really think I'm that stupid?" Hermione challenged, leaning forward in her chair. Nott said nothing, but squirmed in his seat uncomfortably. "You know, Nott, I thought- I was beginning to think that you might be a little different. That you had other interests besides being cruel to Muggleborns and wanting to watch them suffer. I haven't forgotten that your family were death eaters so-"

"My family!" Theodore raises his voice and noticed a few stares from the two other inhabited tables at the other end of the room. "I didn't expect you of all people to judge someone on their family." He shook his head, biting his lip in frustration. "You don't know the first thing about my family." He spat with surprisingly venom. He looked over at Hermione with a hostile gaze that made her shiver. After a hot silence he stood up without a word, pulled his denim coat over his shoulders, slapped a muggle note on the table and dragged the box across into his pocket. He walked out, the bell over the door ringing pathetically after him.

Without any cognitive recognition of her actions and moving instinctually, Hermione stood up and followed him. It was raining outside, but she felt strangely compelled.

"Theo, wait!"

He turned, his hair flattened slick over his eyes from the rain. "What do you need it for?" She asked, surprised at the kindness in her voice. "Why do you have to turn back time?"

He looked at his feet - at the darkening navy of his shoes before answering without eye contact. "I want to bring my mother back."