Chapter 1

The Gryffindor Common room was covered in the usual debris and mess leftover from the day. The only sources of light were from the slowly dying fire and the lamp residing next to a table. The Common room was predictably empty at this time of night, (or this hour of the morning, it depended which way you looked at it,) except for a trio of sixth year students sitting around the lamp lit table.

"Can't you just do it for me? Just this once? Please Hermione?"

Ron was using, what he obviously thought to be the most persuasive tone of voice ever. Yet Hermione's rigid composure did not falter for a second. They must have this same conversation every day. She lifted her eye's up from the mess of parchment and books in front of her, until they met with Ron's. He was trying for the 'puppy dog-eye look', but all he had achieved so far was the equivalent expression of a young child who has just been caught stealing cookies from the jar in the kitchen. It was an expression which didn't suit Ron's features at all. Hermione simply rolled her eye's and returned to her books.

"No I cannot! Honestly Ron, how do you expect to learn anything without doing the work yourself? It's really not that difficult."

Hermione then began to replace the books, her newly finished homework, and a collection of other items such as quills and inks into her newly repaired bag. As she had stood up to leave, the seams of her bag had split, as Ron had put it 'from the weight of all those bloody books'. Thus the contents had spilled out on to the floor.

"Not difficult? Hermione, this is as difficult as it gets! Oh yeah I forgot, people of such high intelligence as yourself would find this easy wouldn't you. Well Y'know we can't all be blessed with your talents and tremendous brain power can we?"

Hermione just scoffed at that, and continued placing items in her bag. Ron tried this every time. If she refused to help, he would attempt to flatter her. But those words didn't mean a thing when spoken by Ronald Weasely, especially when homework was involved. "Shut up Ron! Do it yourself. I don't hear Harry Complaining."

Pausing in her vain attempt at squashing the last two thick books into her bag, she shot a glance at her other friend. He was also trying to finish the essay Professor McGonagall had set them, though unlike Ron he had not spent the past half an hour trying to convince Hermione to do it for him. In fact he hadn't spoken much at all, and by the looks of the almost blank piece of parchment in front of him, he had not got much work done either.

"Are you alright Harry?"

But Harry didn't even look up from his transfiguration work. In fact he made no recognition at all to the fact that Hermione had just spoken to him, but continued to stare down at his parchment, eye's glazed over, very similar to that off the expression which his and Ron's faces usually sported when they were forced to endure an hour of lecturing on History of Magic, with dear old professor Binns. So Hermione tried again, this time raising her voice slightly, and waving her hand vigorously in front of his face.

"Harry…erm Harry? HARRY!"

After Hermione's unsuccessful attempts at bringing Harry back to their world, Ron took it upon himself to do the honours, and promptly hit Harry over the head with one of the many books lying on the table. While violent, it seemed to have worked.

"OW! Huh? What?"

"Sorry mate, but you were totally spaced out."

As Ron shrugged his shoulders Harry's eye's rested on the book still in Ron's hand.

"Doesn't mean you had to hit me over the head, does it? Couldn't you have, I don't know, poked me or something?"

"We tried Harry, but you weren't paying attention. Now are you alright?"

Harry turned to face the other of his two best friends, Hermione Granger. Was he alright? Not really. But he wasn't about to say that, so back to doing whatever he did when someone asked him that stupid question, blatantly lying. He ran his hand backwards, through his mess of untidy, black hair before answering. "Yeah, I'm alright."

"Really?" Hermione didn't sound convinced.

"Really, Hermione I'm fine!" When she continued to look concerned Harry had to try very hard not to roll his eyes at her, "honestly!"

"Honestly?"

"Yes!"

"Really?"

"YES!" Harry was getting a little annoyed now.

"Your one hundred percent sure your okay?"

"Hermione, you're my friend, but ask me that question one more time and I'll curse you straight into next Thursday."

That at least seemed to convince Hermione he was fine. As no more than a second later, she had jumped to her feet, swung her bag over her shoulder and moved away from the table.

"Right, well I'm off to bed. See you both in the morning!" She had only taken a few steps away from the pair when Ron called her back.

"Wait Hermione you forgot this! Actually what is this? A necklace?" Hermione glared at Ron scathingly, but walked over to the table and took the object out of Ron's hand without comment. Harry, who had continued with his work, did not look up until a glint of gold caught his eye. In Hermione's hand was a very long, fine, golden chain. On the end was what looked like an hour glass? Recognition suddenly dawned on Harry, and he couldn't help but blurt out, "A Time Turner!"

Hermione simply nodded, and Ron looked down at the object in Hermione's hand. He had been in the Hospital wing whenHarry and Hermione used it before, so he had not had the chance to see one before. Harry was confused. Hadn't Hermione returned the time turner at the end of their third year, swearing she would never use one again? Besides they had destroyed the Ministry's entire stock of turners, back during their little adventures in the Department of Mysteries. So how the hell did Hermione have one now? Harry decided to put this question to Hermione herself.

"How and why exactly, do you have a Time Turner again Hermione?"

"You should recognise it Harry. It's the same one we used to res- I mean, I used to get to all my classes, back in third year." Hermione mentally scolded herself at her careless mistake. She had been about to say 'the one we used to rescue him and buckbeak', but had luckily changed it at the last minute. Hopefully Harry hadn't noticed. Looking between the two boys, she saw they had fixed her with accusing stares, so she hastily continued. "Oh, I haven't been using it, if that's what you're thinking. Goodness No, I have enough work as it is, without the extra classes again. Not that I could use it, even if I wanted to. It's broken you see!"

"That still doesn't explain how you have it now," Harry questioned his friend.

"Well when I handed it in to Professor McGonagall at the end of our third year, she sent it back off to the Ministry. But they just sent it straight back saying it was broken, and they now had no use for it. So Professor McGonagall gave it back to me. Obviously I no longer have any use for it, but she seemed to think I might like to have it ba…"

"So it's really broken then?" Ron cut Hermione off.

"Yes, Ron, it's really broken. I don't know how, but it is. I've actually been using it as a book mark!" She placed the time turner back inside her bag, and turned on her heels, heading for the spiral staircase which led to the dormitories. "Now I'm going to bed, Goodnight!" With a swish of curly brown hair, Hermione was gone. Ron was shaking his head in almost amusing exasperation, starring at the foot of the spiral staircase, which Hermione had just disappeared up.

"Can you believe that? She's kept that time thing since third year even though it's broke, AND she's using it as a book mark. Typical!" While Ron was being blatantly amused, Harry did have to admit, it was a very 'Hermione-ish' thing to do.

The two boys were silent for a moment, apart from the quiet scratching of Harry's quill. Until Ron threw down his own quill onto the table with a dramatic groan, and stretched his arms high above his head. "There's no point trying to do this now. Not now Hermione's not here to even try and persuade to do it for me." He screwed up the piece of parchment, which he had been writing on and contained many mistakes and crossings out, into a tiny ball and threw it across the room into the dying fire.

"I'm going to bed, you coming?"

"I'll be up in a bit Ron, just let me finish this bit."

Harry dipped his quill in the ink bottle and resumed writing. Ron didn't say a word and just left Harry in the common room, climbing the spiral staircase which led to their dormitory. Once he was sure Ron was completely gone, Harry dropped his quill along with his pretence of working. He dropped his head down on to his hands, while his thoughts predictably returned, to that which he seemed to contemplate far to often. He had let himself fall into a depressed train of thought earlier, all because he had seen the word 'animagus' on the page of his transfiguration book as he had flicked through it. Thankfully his friends, (or at least Ron,) had put I t down to him 'spacing out'. At a guess from Hermione's persistent questions, she at least had realised something was wrong. She always was a lot more observant than Ron. She was also a lot more tactful than Ron, but she'd slipped up earlier. By the look on her face she'd hoped he hadn't noticed. But he had. It was hard not to have, but he ignored it and pretended he hadn't heard, that everything was fine. He'd been doing that a lot lately. Okay, that was an understatement he'd been doing that for years, just a lot more frequently as of late.

He lifted his heads from his hands, instead opting for staring at the remaining glowing embers of the fire. Harry was permanently troubled by a dull aching feeling which turned to sharp pain whenever he thought about him directly, unfortunately this happened a lot. He felt a lot more tired, and did not find any enjoyment from things anymore. He'd completely gone off food for a while. Hermione's constant badgering, that he needed to eat and he shouldn't starve himself, had soon changed that. Every meal time he now forced himself to eat, closely watched by his two friends. He knew it wasn't good, nor healthy, and he knew he wouldn't have wanted Harry to be like this. But he couldn't just wake up one morning and be over everything, he couldn't just be all smiles and happy again. Not for real anyway. Besides hadn't it been in this very fire, that Harry had seen him, spoke to him.

"UUUGH!" The bespectacled boy let out a frustrated grown, and again ran his fingers backwards through his hair, making it, if possible, even more untidy than before. He had to stop this, everyday it was the same, and it just got worse. It was no better during the night either. Harry's dreams were filled with the events of that night. It was similar to when he had witnessed Cedric die, and Lord Voldemort return. He'd had nightmares for weeks, Something Dudley; his fat lump of a cousin had been quick to pick up on. Hell who was he kidding, it was bout one hundred times worse then when Diggory died.

Harry looked around the room contemptuously, before sighing and moving away from the table. Just as Ron had done, he left all his things lying on the table and headed for the spiral staircase. His foot was on the first step when a glimmer of gold made him stop. He'd just seen it out of the corner of his eye, hanging off the arm of the nearest chair. He wondered how it had got there, as he had watched Hermione herself put it back in her bag. He supposed it must have fallen out again. Dangling right in front of him was Hermione's Golden Time Turner.

He picked it up, and slipped the fine golden chain around his neck. The metal felt cold against his skin. He held up the time turner in one hand, so it was level with his face .It didn't look any different to how he remembered it all those years ago. There was no visible damage to it, and if Harry had not known better he would have said it was a perfectly working time turner. Oh what Harry wouldn't give to go back in time? But really what was the point? You weren't supposed to change the future by going back in time, were you? But surely any change made to the present or future could only improve it. There was no way in hell it could get any worse. At least by Harry's reckoning. It certainly wouldn't make him feel any better. Going back to when he was alive, would basically just reinforce the fact that Harry had lost him. He remembered his last encounter with the turner, and one phrase seemed to jump out at him, 'We must not be seen!' Hermione had drummed that in to him. But that didn't stop him imagining, no, dreaming about what he could do if he could go back in time. He'd be able to see him again. Hear him talk, see him smile. Harry superstitiously twisted the time turner around, so it ended up doing a one hundred and eighty degree turn. But unlike before when Hermione had turned it, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

"You really are broken aren't you?" Harry stared at the object in his hand disdainfully, as if it was the time turner's fault it was broken, and therefore deemed unusable. He sighed and flicked one end of the hour glass shaped object and watched it spin quickly in one direction on the end of the chain, before unwinding itself and spinning twice as fast in the opposite direction. He would return the useless thing to Hermione in the morning, but for know he actually wanted to sleep.

Before Harry could even take so much as one step back towards the spiral staircase, the room appeared to be spinning. Harry hoped it wasn't because he was about to pass out, from lack of food or sleep. He was quickly surrounded by a rush of wind, and he could no longer see the common room clearly. Everything was moving so fast it appeared to be simple flashes of colour and light. He could hear noise. Voices, and laughter, though he couldn't make out who they belonged to or where they were coming from.

It was over as quickly as it had started. Harry rubbed his eye's attempting to get rid of the streaks of colour which had, it seemed, imprinted themselves upon Harry's eyes. For one brief moment, just before it had stopped. Harry had blissfully wondered whether the time turner was as broke as everybody seemed to think it was, but this thought had soon dissolved as he had been returned to the darkened common room. Nothing had changed apart from the glowing embers leftover from the fire had finally burnt themselves out. He glared at the time turner hanging around it's neck. Had that been it's idea of a cruel joke. As powerful as it was, it was still, in some sense, an inanimate object. Incapable of it's own thoughts. Yet why did it feel like it had done that on purpose.

Ignoring the impending feeling of doom, which seemed to have settled in somewhere around his stomach, Harry climbed the stairs, and entered his shared dorm room to be greeted by the site of crimson coloured curtains, drawn around four of the five beds. These belonged to his friends and fellow Gryffindor sixth years, Dean, Seamus, Neville and Ron. From the sounds of the heavy breathing and light snoring coming from the occupants of the beds, they were all asleep. Walking over to his own bed, Harry did not bother to get changed, or pull the red hangings closed around his bed. He fell fully clothed on top of the covers, and was asleep within minutes.

A/N – Well that's the first chapter done. The next one will be up, well as soon as I put it up! Now in the mean time Charii would love you to Review. Charii wants to know exactly what you think of the first chapter. Constructive Criticism is loved of course. But please no flaming, and/or being deliberately mean or offensive. The next chapter will be a bit more….interesting. There'll be a bit more going on!

Warning – This story will contain relationships between people of the same gender, and opposite Genders. Don't like. Don't Read, Kay! SBHP JPLE.

Disclaimer – I obviously do not own Harry Potter. Or any of the related Characters, names or places. JKR however does.