The Dark Lord's Diary

Hermione fanned through the book. When only a third of the diary remained, she finally saw something; on the upper left of a page was a date, August 29 1944. There was nothing else
written in the diary but that date.

She inspected the pages more closely, bringing them to eye level. The diary looked like new: The pages were clean, the leather was unscathed, except that there was a faint beige blotch on the center of all pages, where the Basilisk´s fang had pierced through.
The winds of time had mended only the physical and magical aspects of the diary before it turned into a Horcrux, the damage concerning the soul could never be fixed, it was gone. The stain was proof of that. She had feared to somehow fix the Horcrux when the glittering winds of the bell jar were poured. Fortunately, it wasn’t.

She then remembered the Time-Turner. Pulling the thin chain, she took hold of the hourglass that dangled from it.

It was completely empty.

With trembling legs, she got up. Suddenly, her eyesight got blurry, everything out of focus, and pain throbbed from her temples. It took her several blinks and a hand applying pressure to her head for the after effects of time traveling to vanish.

Hermione had never traveled so far back, time was not meant to be changed so drastically, and it had taken all her knowledge of time-traveling magic to pull it through. She had taken a huge leap of faith, not really knowing if her spells and diary would work, or how, but now she could guess much of what had happened. She looked at the diary; the one thing that made it possible, it was the connection to that era, to Voldemort’s past. By fixing it, the written memories of the young man in it were restored too, and by connecting it to the
Time-Turner, she had traveled back to the 29th of August of 1944.

She placed the Time-Turner inside the bell jar, filling it once more. There was nothing to back up her theory, but she guessed that if the winds transported her to the 1940´s, then they would also help in getting her to the future, her present.

There was a light knock on the door.

“Minister…” A head appeared behind the door.

The Minister for Magic, Henry Bulwark, a stout wizard on his late forties sat behind a large, wooden desk. His eyes heavily decorated with wrinkles and bags under them left the mess of papers scattered on his desk and went to the door.

“What is it Richards?” he called tiredly.

“Sir, we got –a situation,” the wizard answered hesitantly.

“Come in then! Come in!” called Henry, glad to have a reason to push away all the overwhelming paperwork.

Instead of coming in, Richards retrieved his head, talked to someone outside before pushing the door open. Richards, tall and serious, ushered inside a short, curly haired girl. The Minister eyed the girl, wondering what situation could she possible be in, or have created, to be brought with such a manner. The somber expression on her face did nothing to cheer him up.

“Pardon, but I think we’ve met young lady, what’s your name?” Henry’s eyes were now wide open, taking away the tired look.

The girl clenched her fists, her back stiffened. “My name is --,” she raised her head, a new determined gleam in her eyes, “—it is Jean Turner,” she answered, letting out a short, sharp sigh.

“Well, Miss. Turner, please sit down.” The Minister pointed at the chair before him. “And someone explain what the situation is all about.” Jean took the seat and sat up straight as a board, while Richards towered behind her.

“Miss. Turner was found wondering near the entrance of the Department of Mysteries. With no identification of any kind,” explained Richards, not hiding at all the suspicion from his voice. “All she was caring was her wand and a small, unused journal.”

The Minister raised his eyebrows. “Care to explain?”

“Actually, I do,” she answered, strength back in her voice. “I don’t know this place, when I entered I was looking for the right office to help me, I got lost.”

“You came alone?”

Jean nodded. “I’m a refugee.”

“A refugee… From where?”

Ever since the war had started, spreading all over Europe, even wizards and witches were caught in the middle of that human disaster and the battle with the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald; hundreds of wizards and witches had fled their countries.
“France,” she answered bluntly.

“France?” The Minister glanced at Richards. “You don’t have much of an accent. In fact, no accent at all.”

“I wasn’t born there.” Jean spent the next quarter of an hour explaining to the Minister how her life was now a mess; her parents were British, and so was she, but when she was ten years old they had moved to France. With the out comings of a human world war, they rarely left home. She received the letter to attend Beauxbatons but she never went; her parents didn’t want her away, so they found a witch willing to home school her. Her parents were now dead, killed by a dark wizard. She had returned to England, hoping to find refuge.
The room was quiet after she finished talking. The Minister’s eyebrows slanted downwards, deep in thought.

“So, what is it that you want help with, Miss. Turner?” the Minister asked.
“I want to enroll in Hogwarts.”

Jean exited the Minister’s office an hour after entering. The Minister himself had given her a small amount of money to find lodging for a couple of days. Tomorrow she would have an interview with the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Armando Dippet. If things went well and he believed all her lies, Hermione Granger would enter Hogwarts as Jean Turner.