Too Much Time On My Hands

Chapter Twenty-Four

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Hogwarts Castle

5:18PM September 29th, 1991

Harry heard the raucous laughter of the Slytherins from around the corner. He peaked his head around and watched for a moment to let his friends catch up, and to make something remotely resembling a plan.

There were seven of them. All of them wore a Slytherin badge and were somewhere between 4th and 7th year. Harry knew none of them by name. They had crowded around a pair of third year Hufflepuffs, who were both pinned to the wall. The boy was stuck to the wall by what appeared to be a series of sticking charms and was yelling his head off. Not that anyone could hear him, as he was also silenced.

The girl was being held the old-fashioned way by two hulking men, each one was over a foot taller than Harry, and might have been twice his weight. They were nearly solid muscle.

“Now. Where were we before we were so...rudely interrupted.” Whispered a tall boy to the girl. His brown hair was spiked in a way he clearly thought looked daring, but really looked like it simply hadn't been combed in awhile. He reached out and touched the girl's face. She cringed away from the hand. The gorillas holding her chuckled.

Harry looked back at his approaching friends. They would hurt themselves if they got involved in this one. With a wave of his wand a purple shield blocked the corridor. Most fourth years would be able to dispell it, but Hannah, Ernie and Justin would not.

Unfortunately, one of the Slytherins heard him cast the spell. “Well would you look at that? Another poof, lost and away from his friends. Pin him up high so he can watch.” The ringleader commanded. Two Slytherins extricated themselves from the small crowd and rounded on Harry, drawing their wands.

“Accio Shoes!” Harry cast, his wand pointed at the nearest goon. His feet whipped out from under him and he fell. Unfortunately for him, he didn't make a move to protect his head, which connected with the flagstones with a meaty thump. He didn't get back up.

“You little shit!” the other goon snapped and fired off a nasty yellow hex that sizzled as it collided with the wall behind Harry. It was a disintegration hex, borderline illegal and would have hospitalized him for weeks if it had connected. Harry narrowed his eyes at the incoming threat. If they weren't going to play nice, neither was he.

Harry cast a modified petrification curse that caused only the target's ankles and feet to turn to stone. The charging Slytherin hit the floor with an “oof!” as the wind was knocked out of him. Harry summoned his first two opponent's wands and pocketed them. The crowd of Slytherins turned to face him. One had the foresight to stun the girl they had been tormenting.

“Looks like he's got a little fight in him. But I bet we can beat it out of him. Bludgeoning hexes, everyone.” The five remaining Slytherins raised their wands like members of a firing squad and cast at the same time. The Slytherins didn't wait to see if the first volley had hit. They had a cadence going. 1...2...Ledoxus, 1...2...Ledoxus, 1...2...Led-

The Slytherins kept casting in relative order for nearly five volleys before they were interrupted by an enormous wave of light and heat. All five were knocked flat and Harry's shield blocking the hallway flexed, but held strong.

Harry regained his feet, and drew a second wand (one of the captured Slytherin wands) and summoned one of Dumbledore's infamous whips of fire. The tip of his own wand was crackling with energy, a ball of light at the tip was growing with each passing second.

The fallen Slytherins attempted to get up and regroup. Every time a wand pointed in his direction, his whip of fire came down, leaving blistering welts across the hand of the offending caster. But of course, Harry had only one whip and there were five of them. Just after Harry deflected the wand hand of one of the Slytherins, their leader bellowed out “Crucio!”

Harry dropped to the floor, writhing in pain. The fiery whip vanished, but the spell growing on Harry's other wand continued to grow. Without a word, Harry flicked his wand at his attacker. The spell missed, but it didn't matter. There was a sound similar to that of a bug zapper frying a moth as electricity arced from the ball of energy to the five now standing Slytherins. Needless to say, they weren't standing for long, and this time they stayed down. Harry felt his ward on the hallway go down, and the corridor was now filled with dozens of babbling onlookers, excited to figure out why someone had blocked the corridor.

They rounded the corner and saw young Harry Potter reviving a pair of Hufflepuffs. The room reeked of burnt hair and ozone, the floor was carpeted with Slytherins, their bodies lightly smoldering.

Prefects pushed their way to the front of the small mob and started restoring order. The incapacitated Slytherins were levitated to the hospital wing, and Harry along with the two third years were dragged off to Professor Sprout's office to explain what was going on.

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??

It was all so simple. Life and death are simply states of being, related by time. In a place without time, you can be neither alive nor dead.

Time and space are different forms of the same concept. Without time, there can be no space. Therefore, Ginny Weasley did not exist.

But there are ways to pull this place back into the flow of time.

She would make Ginny Weasley exist again. Her Directive required it.

She reached out with her magic and took hold of the forces inherent to this place. It was a barrier, an inconvenience, an obstacle, and it stood between herself and her Directive.

She tightened her grip on the forces, and pulled. The purples, blues and pinks rippled in reply. Resistance. The forces held firm under her onslaught.

Unacceptable.

She reached out with more of her magic and adjusted her grip. She pulled again. This time something gave. There came a sound, not unlike that of tearing paper, and there was a hole in the purples, blues and pinks. Into nothingness.

Nothingness does not have a color. It is transparent and there is Nothing on the other side. Like glass, without substance that goes on forever.

She approached her hole into nothingness... and stepped through.

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Hogwarts Castle

Professor Sprout's Office

6:11PM September 29th, 1991

Professor Sprout was not a disciplinarian by anyone's standards. But nobody survives as a Hogwarts professor for thirty-eight years without learning a few tricks of the trade. She was not a disciplinarian by anyone's standards, but she knew how to handle troublemakers. And of all the professors at Hogwarts, her punishments always came closest to fitting the crime. And every time she gave out these punishments, she appeared genuinely sad, as if she really sincerely wished she didn't have to be doing this to you. That look of saddened disappointment was sometimes worse than the punishment itself.

She greeted them politely at the door at her office.

“Now, I'm going to talk to each of you individually. I've found that is the most effective method to encourage the truth to come out. It's not a matter of not trusting you, it's just my job. Sometimes students feel a bit... pressured by the presence of other students and we on the Hogwarts staff don't want that to happen. Everyone should feel comfortable telling their side of the story.” She was beaming at them, and despite the nervousness Harry felt sitting in the chair, he couldn't help but smile back.

“Now, who should I see first?” she asked, moving her finger around as if it was a random decision. “Amanda, come on into my office and we'll talk about what happened.”

The third year girl walked intoSprout's office, and Sprout closed the door behind her.

Harry sat back in the chair and sighed. Something told him that he'd be the last one to go in and so he consigned himself to waiting.

It felt like hours but it was likely only about twenty minutes later when Amanda emerged from Professor Sprout's office. She looked like she'd been crying a bit, but she was smiling now. The stick of some sort of lollipop was sticking out of the edge of her mouth. She removed it before speaking. “Tyler, Professor Sprout says you're up next.”

The boy nodded and headed into Professor Sprout's office. Amanda hovered there for a moment, just looking at Harry.

“Thank you.” She said finally.

“Anytime.” Harry replied. “It's what Hufflepuffs do, right? We look out for each other.”

She giggled softly. “Still, thank you.” and she headed off down the hallway.

Tyler wasn't in Professor Sprout's office for particularly long. He gave Harry an encouraging smile and a thumbs up as Sprout called him in. Harry wasn't really sure what Tyler had meant, but assumed it was favorable.

“Please have a seat, Harry. Help yourself to a candy if you would like one.” Professor Sprout greeted him, gesturing to an overflowing candy dish on her desk.

Harry sat and helped himself to a Sugar Quill.

“As a precautionary measure, I have been known to record conversations that happen in my office, particularly when they have to do with student discipline. Nobody will be allowed to access these unless one of the other professors or the Headmaster disapproves of the disciplinary measures I take, Assuming, of course that I take any at all. Is that fine with you, Harry?” she asked, gesturing with her wand at a glass sphere on her desk (Harry had assumed it was a paperweight.)

“That's fine.” Harry replied.

She tapped her wand on the glass sphere twice. It filled with a green mist. “Please begin when you feel ready, Mr. Potter.” Her tone had gotten a lot more strict for the recording.

“Well, I was with Hannah, Justin and Ernie, and we were walking when Jake ran up to us and said 'Bluebriar.' He told us where to go and to stall for time until he could find a prefect or a Professor. We ran to get there. I got there first, saw what was going on and blocked the corridor behind me to keep my friends out of it. The Slytherins would probably have seriously hurt them.”

“Why block the corridor?” Professor Sprout inquired. “Surely four wands are better than one, especially in situations where you're already outnumbered?”

“Professor, I know that neither of them can cast a stunning spell yet, let alone hold off seven older students.” Harry replied. “They could have been seriously injured.”

“What makes you different from them, Mr. Potter? You all arrived at Hogwarts and have been studying magic for the same period of time. Why would you be any more qualified than they are?” Sprout queried.

“I had some rather...extensive magical training before school, and am magically... gifted I guess you could say. Plus, Sirius discovered a loophole in the underage wizardry law. There aren't any rules against studying magical theory or reading spells or practicing the movements with a stick. I've had more experience with a wand than all three of them combined.”

“I see. Could you please describe what the other students were doing that prompted you to ward the hallway to protect your friends?”

“They had pinned Tyler and Amanda to the wall. Tyler was held by sticking charms and was silenced while Amanda was being held in place by two really big guys. One of the Slytherins was touching her face and she clearly didn't like it.”

“Allright, that matches what the other students have said. Now, Dinner is starting soon, so I'm going to speed this up a bit. Just confirm or deny each of these questions, all right?”

“OK.”

“You cast the first spells in this exchange, but only when the other students had threatened you and were coming towards you?”

“Correct.”

“And the spells you cast caused the two students advancing towards you to trip and fall. You then summoned their wands to keep them from hexing you.”

“Yes.”

“The other students then stunned Amanda and started casting the bludgeoning curse at you.”

“They did.”

“You cast a spell next, one that knocked all five of them down. What spell did you cast?”

“It's usually called the concussion hex. It's a spell I learned from my dueling instructor this summer.”

Sprout nodded. “Now, I'd like you to just mention the rest of the spells that were cast in the exchange and who cast them, if you would.”

“I conjured a flame whip and started charging a lightning arc hex. I used the whip to keep them from casting anything at me for awhile. Then, the one with spiky brown hair cast a spell that I haven't read about. The incantation was 'crucio'-”

“And what happened when you were hit with that curse, Mr. Potter?” Professor Sprout's face had turned grave.

“It hurt like a thousand hot knives were stabbing me.”

“And you are certain of the incantation? It wasn't Crustio or Cruziar or...?”

“I am.”

Sprout looked ready to murder something. Or someone.“And then what happened?”

“I released the fire whip so that I could focus on the lightning arc hex. It needs to charge up, you know. And I cast the lightning arc at them to make the pain stop.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes ma'am.”

Sprout tapped her wand on the orb and it glowed red briefly before returning to its original clear state.

“I'm afraid I'm going to have to take this to Headmaster Dumbledore. The curse that Mister Bailey used on you is one of the three Unforgivable curses and earns anyone who casts it a lifetime sentence in Azkaban. The curse is also known to have some side-effects and I'd like for you to go see Madame Pomfrey before going to dinner. Was there anything else you'd like to talk about, Harry?”

“Um... House points? Detention?” he asked.

“Ahh yes. Twenty points to Huflepuff.” Said Professor Sprout.

“Don't you mean 'from' Hufflepuff, Professor.”

“I did not misspeak. You would have been gaining fifty points for your efforts in the hallway, but I

subtracted thirty for dueling in the halls. It is against the rules after all. Enjoy the rest of your day, Harry.”

Harry left the office and headed for the hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey ended up spending long enough checking him over that he had missed dinner and ended up eating in the hospital wing.

Harry returned to the Hufflepuff common room just before curfew and was greeted by deafening applause.