Preview of : All the time in the world

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

$Parseltongue$

A.N: -This is a preview of something I have been working on and I would love to hear your opinion.

This is for a future project and won't be public for quite a while. 

A bit about this fic: Is about Harry being trapped in a time anomaly where everything is frozen. He spends there an extreme amount of time and when he comes out, he is incredibly powerful. 

The pairing would be either Ginny or Hermione or maybe both of them. 

The length of the fic would be shorter than "Another Chance" since the antagonist is the canon Voldemort. Unless I can come up with some logical explanation to making stronger. -

Chapter 1: Fight at the Department of Mysteries

Lucius and Bellatrix approached the group of students, there were several more death eaters on the sides, some distance away.

“Potter, just give me Prophecy, no one has to get hurt,” Lucius said.

“Like anyone is going to believe that, you snake!” Ron yelled.

“Well, He is certainly lying.” Said Luna.

Harry looked at Hermione and Ginny who were at his right. The girls gave him a nod.

They understood as well as he did that there was no easy way out of this one.

Harry was the first one to throw a spell at Lucius.

“Expelliarmus”

Lucius deflected the spell with no difficulty but then, Harry's companions started to throw charms and jinxes at the death eaters and those started to fire back.

“Reducto!”

Ginny cast at one of the death eaters but ended up hitting one of the shelves containing thousands of crystal orbs that held the prophecies.

“It's collapsing, RUN!” Harry yelled in alarm at his friends and they all began to go in different directions.

It was chaos as the prophecies smashed against the ground and magic flew everywhere.

Harry was running with Bellatrix Lestrange in pursuit.

“Come here Potty!, if You stop running away, Aunt Bella may be nice to You,” Bellatrix said in a mocking voice.

The Department of Mysteries was a labyrinth and Harry had no idea where He was going.

As He turned a corner, He heard the sounds of a fight ahead, but He had no choice but to keep going forward. The current corridor that He was now in, had no other exit but the door at the end.

When He passed the door, He saw his friend Neville fighting against Amycus Carrow.

The death eater threw some red curse that Harry did not recognize and Neville had barely managed to get out of the way.

“Neville!” Exclaimed Harry while running. He pointed his wand towards Carrow.

“Expelliarmus!” The charm hit true and disarmed the Death Eater.

Harry ran to the center of the room and pulled Neville behind a big desk.

“You ok?” Asked Harry.

Neville nodded.

“I'm fire, but what do we do now?, they are blocking the only exit.”

Harry peeked his head for a moment. Bellatrix was walking towards the center of the room while the other one was standing at the door.

“I'll distract Bellatrix while you try to take out one the other one.”

Harry left the safety of the desk and ran as fast as he could towards the other end of the room that was filled with shelves, He turned around and pointed his wand at Bella.

“Accio wand!.”

“…………….”

Nothing happened, and then Bella started to laugh out loud.

“I'm sorry, but you really thought that would work, little Potter?” Bella said in a mocking tone.

Carrow also started laughing and didn’t notice that Neville had left the desk and was pointing his wand at him.

“Petrificus Totalus!”

Carrow was taken by surprise and did not manage to dodge in time. He then fell to the ground, completely paralyzed.

“Idiot” Said Bellatrix.

“Expeliarmus” Yelled Harry.

The blue charm collided against a barrier created by Bella.

“You need to learn more spells.” Mocked Bella.

Neville attacked too and three of them were soon entangled in a duel and it was not going well for the two boys. The female death eater was proving to be a very skilled witch.

An incendiary spell forced Neville to move far away from Harry and was now almost at the entrance of the room. Bella was still at the center and Harry was at the back.

“Confringo” Nevilled used the blasting curse against Bella.

This one raised an eyebrow in surprise but easily moved out of the way.

“Not bad, You may actually be better than the Potter boy.” Said Bella.

They all heard a loud noise at the back of the room and turned towards it.

The curse that Neville had used, hit the lower part of one of the shelves, breaking it and making it fall to one side.

“Harry!” Neville yelled, realizing what was about to happen.

The shelves were placed in a domino style, going around the circular part at the end of the room and Harry was right in the middle of the circle.

The shelf that Nevile broke ended up colliding against two other shelves, making them fall at both sides and starting a chain reaction that would end with all of them falling.

Harry tried to escape but when the first shelves fell, a strange silver mist started to fill the entire area.

Harry turned his head to one of the still intact shelves and recognized the objects stored in the room.

“Time turners!” Harry exclaimed.

Harry decided that he needed to take a risk and cross through that mist, whatever it was.

He started running as fast as he could but the moment his body touched the mist, everything seemed to slow down.

He saw Neville yelling at him but could not understand the words, his mouth was moving very slowly.

He then noticed Bella was running very slowly towards the door.

Harry felt like he was floating and could not control his body, just stayed there and observed his surroundings.

He then noticed that the movements of Neville and Bella were getting slower and slower with every second that passed.

He tried to look behind him, but everything was covered in that silver mist. He also caught that the mist was coming out of the broken time turners.

“There has to be thousands of them here,” Harry said softly.

Neville and Bella were now moving so slowly that they looked frozen.

Harry was also unable to move an inch the moment He touched the mist.

The silver mist however didn’t seem to have any problem moving and kept rising up and covering more and more of the space where Harry was, it now reached Harry's waist.

“What's going to happen to me…” Harry was wondering about his fate, unable to do anything about it.

The mist continued to rise until it reached Harry's face.

And then…everything went dark.

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 2: Empty streets

Harry woke up feeling very disoriented, He slowly opened his eyes and after adjusting his view for a few seconds, Harry noticed that He was lying on a stone floor.

He then tried to recall his last memories and they soon came to him.

Sirius being kidnapped, the encounter with death eaters at the Department of Mysteries, and…the fight in that strange room, surrounded by time turners.

Harry then opened his eyes widely.

“Neville!” Harry yelled before quickly standing up and looking around, expecting to still find Bellatrix and Neville fighting. But there was no one.

The room was the same one as before, but there was no sign of people.

“What happened here?, where are the death eaters and Neville?.”

He looked behind him, expecting to find a mess of broken time turners, but there was nothing there. The shelves were lying on the ground and many of them were broken, but they were completely empty.

But the most unsettling part was the silence for some reason.

‘Everything is too quiet.’ He thought.

Just moments ago, the Department of Mysteries was filled with total chaos, people throwing spells at each other and things being destroyed left and right, but now…the place was quiet as a tomb.

Harry had a very bad feeling about this, so He adjusted his glasses, held his wand firm in his right hand, and started running towards the exit of the room.

He then turned right and continued running, trying to find some of his friends.

Harry went through several corridors and passed many strange rooms, but again, He could not find anyone or hear anything.

The place had a very confusing layout but eventually, He managed to make it back to the room of the prophecies where everything started.

The room was a complete mess, there were broken shelves everywhere and pieces of glass that must have belonged to all of those orbs that contained the prophecies.

“Hermione!, Ron!, Ginny!, Luna!. Is anyone there?” Harry started calling.

‘Could they have all left?, but…they wouldn’t forget about me. Besides...’

Harry opened his robes and pulled out a glass orb that somehow managed to remain intact.

‘This is what the death eaters came here to acquire. They would not have just left without it.’

Harry was trying to understand what could make everyone just leave the department in such a rush and abandon him there, but nothing made sense.

“I need to get out of here.”

He remembers well the way from the room of prophecies so it didn’t take him long before He arrived at the elevator area and went in.

Harry pressed the button that would take him to the first level and the elevator started moving.

He gave a sigh of relief, some part of him was expecting it not to work for some reason.

He left the elevator on the first floor and looked around, he remembers the day that he came through here for his trial after using the Patronus on those dementors. This floor was completely busy with people going around. But now…it was so empty and silent that was making his skin crawl.

“Let's get out of here.” He reminded himself.

He found one of the many exits that would lead him to the busy streets of London. They had left the thestrals close by.

Harry went into one of the small capsule-shaped chambers and pressed the combination of numbers that would take him outside.

The capsule closed and was shot up, Harry shut his eyes for a moment at the sudden movement and when He opened them again, He was inside a familiar phone bot, right on the streets of London.

He opened the door, went outside, and looked around, but what He saw made his blood run cold.

This busy street of London was as empty as the Ministry…

“This can't be possible…”

Whatever happened down at the Ministry should not have any effect on the muggle's lives, so why would they all leave?

There was something else that caught Harry's attention. They all came to the Ministry at night, but now it was daytime.

‘I must have been unconscious all night.’ He concluded.

Harry looked up, towards the sky.

“But why does everything look so…off.”

It was daytime, but it wasn’t very bright, He could not see the sun anywhere, and everything had a strange look. It was hard to explain but everything looked desaturated, there was still color, but it seemed to be a lot more muted and subtle, like someone had put a grey filter over his eyes.

Harry had already passed the point of being worried and was now straight-up terrified.

Whatever had happened down at the Department of Mysteries seemed to be affecting the muggle world too.

Harry rushed to the place where they left the thestrals but he was not very surprised to find them missing.

“I need to find another way to make it back to Hogwarts, maybe Professor Dumbledore is back by now and has some answers. He always seems to know everything that is going on.”

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 3: Trip to Hogwarts

It must have taken him at least an hour before He made it to Kings Cross station.

He now had the plan to make it into Hogwarts, albeit not a great one.

“I wish Hermione was here, She could probably have thought of something better.”

As He expected already, the station was completely devoided of people or animals of any kind.

However, everything else was still there, the shops were filled with goods and the trains were in place, waiting for someone to drive them.

He entered a sports clothing store and started to look around for something specific that He would need.

“There it is.”

Harry walked to one corner of the shop that had a lot of different bags.

He picked up one of the school bags and placed it on his back.

“Sorry, but I need to take this.” He told no one.

He then went to one of the several kiosks of the station, this one contained all sorts of snacks and beverages he would need for his trip.

Harry filled his bag with chocolate, candy, chips, some sandwiches, several cans of cola, and two big bottles of water.

When He put the bag back on, it was fairly heavy, but He could handle that much.

He walked a very familiar path for a while until He stopped at platform 9 ¾.

“This will work.” He reassures himself before walking quickly towards the wall.

He made it through the barrier and arrived at the platform that took people to Hogwarts every year.

“Yes!” Celebrated Harry.

His happiness was lessened a bit when He saw the train missing.

“That’s too bad, I was kinda hoping to drive the train to the school…oh well, walking it is.”

All He had to do now was to follow the tracks and He will arrive at Hogwarts…eventually.

“The train ride is six hours, how long is it going to take on foot? At least I have enough supplies.”

Harry took firm hold of his bag, jumped into the train tracks, and started his trip.

<><><><><><><><><><>

He must have been walking for hours and all He could see around him were mountains.

Harry decided that now was a good time to stop for some rest and a quick snack.

He took out a can of cola that unfortunately was room temperature since He could not find any cold ones.

Harry opened it up and took a sip.

“Blehhh”

He spit up the liquid.

“What is this?.”

The cola tasted off and it had no fiss in it, like it had been left open for hours.

“Could it be spoiled?” That seemed very unlikely considering that this was being sold at one of the busiest stations in the world.

He still checked the date of expiration and it was perfectly fine.

Harry threw the can out and picked another one. The moment He opened his one, He did notice the lack of fiss the moment He opened it.

He took a small sip.

“Is the same, it tastes off.”

The flavor was still there, but it was very mild like someone had mixed it with water.

“I'll just drink the water.”

He then took one of the sandwiches out. It was a simple cheese and ham one with some mayo and a slice of tomato.

Harry was a bit distrustful now so he only took a small bite, which he promptly proceeded to spit out.

“The food too?.”

Like the cola, the flavor was different than he expected. It didn’t feel right so he opened the sandwich and examined the contents.

There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the ingredients at first sight, he got his nose close to it and smelled it.

“It doesn’t smell to anything at all.”

He could not understand how could there be no smell whatsoever. In the end, he decided to eat the sandwich anyway. He needed to eat something and the worst that could happen was to get a bit sick.

After the very disappointing meal and some rest, Harry continued with his journey.

<><><><><><><><><><><>

“I wish I had learned that tempus spell that I have seen Hermione use a few times.”

He didn’t have a watch either so He had no way to know how long has he been walking, but he felt that it should have been getting darker by now, yet, the sky was as bright as it was when He came out of the Ministry.

“More strange things.”

He was however getting very tired already, so he decided to grab something to eat and sleep a little bit.

After another disappointing meal, this time consisting of a tuna sandwich and a chocolate bar, Harry then realized his oversight at not taking anything that could be used to cover himself.

He had no choice but to lay on the grass, next to the rails. He used his bag to rest his head and covered himself using his robes.

“At least is not cold today.”

Harry closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 4: Back at Hogwarts

Harry woke up the next morning, or at least He thought it must be morning since the sky looked the same as when he went to sleep.

“Does it never get dark?.” He muttered before standing up.

Harry then got ready and continued his walk at a brief pace.

<><><><><><><><><>

After walking for what felt like forever, Harry was getting very tired and was considering stopping for some rest when He finally spotted a castle in the distance.

“Yes!, I made it.”

With renewed energy, Harry continued walking towards the castle, thinking about how was he going to explain what happened at the Ministry.

The castle was getting closer and closer, and he could now spot the train station with clarity.

“Just a bit more.” He told himself.

The station was in the middle of a small forest and once he made it past that, he crossed the bridge and was once more at the gates of the castle.

There was an eery silence at Hogwarts and Harry was fearing for the worst.

He had to use all of his force to push one of the doors open enough for him to enter.

He then found himself running through the entrance hall and making his way to the great hall.

Harry had completely forgotten his exhaustion and was glancing around, trying to spot someone in the hall or to hear anything at all.

The castle was never completely quiet, not even during classes.

He turned a corner and entered the great hall.

“No……”

Harry rubbed his eyes and looked again….still empty…

“This is not possible, not here…”

He continued running and started to open all of the classrooms that He came across.

“Hello?, Is there someone here?, please, anyone!” Harry yelled with desperation, but no one answered his call.

He went to the Gryffindor dorms, but as soon as He stood in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, Harry noticed that it wasn’t moving.

“Lady?. The password is Orange Sorbet….Hello?.”

Harry looked around at the other paintings and they were all still, like normal muggle paintings.

“Open!” Harry slammed his hands against the painting once.

“OPEN!” He slammed them again.

He then repeatedly hit the painting while yelling at it to open, venting his frustrations.

The sound of fabric being torn was heard and Harry looked up to realize that He had ripped apart the painting, revealing the wall behind. But there was no entrance.

Harry made an exasperated sound and left the place. There was one last area that he had to check and for that, he would need to reach the seventh floor.

He was forced to stand before the moving stairs as they were now out of position for him to get up and refused to move, he was wondering how he was going to reach the next floor when he heard a loud rustling noise, and when he looked up, Harry saw the stairs moving once more.

He gasped in surprise at something that he had seen hundreds of times because there was a part of him that was already convinced that the castle had lost its magic.

He then looked at the stairs and smiled, maybe there was still hope.

Harry rushed to the seventh floor and arrived at the entrance of the headmaster's office, guarded as always by a gargoyle.

“Hello?, can you talk to me? Please. I need to see the Headmaster.” Harry asked.

There was no response.

“No…please, open.” He put his hands on the gargoyle and tried to move it but it didn’t budge.

<><><><><><><><><>

“What am I supposed to do now?...” Harry has been sitting in front of the entrance to the headmaster's office for at least an hour, not sure what to do next. His ideas have run out.

“What if I'm the only person left in the world?... If only Ron and Hermione were here… I'm sure

Hermione would say something like…” Harry's eyes opened up widely.

“Of course!, the library!. Maybe there is something there that can help me explain this situation!.”

He stood up and grabbed his belly.

“Maybe I should eat first…is weird, I haven’t eaten all day, but I'm not particularly hungry.”

He shrugged and decided to eat anyway. The last thing he needed was to get sick when there was no one to help him.

After eating his last sandwich, He went to the library.

“It seems like a different place when is empty.”

It was a good thing that he remembered how the books were arranged thanks to all of the times Hermione had dragged him to the place.

Harry managed to find several books on the subject of time-related magic. He was convinced that this mess was started by those time turners breaking.

“Maybe if I learn how those things work exactly, I'll know how to reverse this.”

The idea seemed simple enough but Harry knew that it was not going to be so straightforward.

<><><><><><><><><>

“Ugg.”

Harry dropped his head in defeat.

“I'm tired of this…I need a break.”

He has been reading for hours but hasn’t managed to find anything useful.

The books talk about the dangers of time travel, some theory mixed with speculation, and the mention of some experiments performed by the Ministry in the past, but nothing that he can actually use to solve his situation.

But, he wasn’t giving up. Hogwarts was filled with information, and he was bound to find an answer eventually.

To clear his mind a bit, Harry decided to do something He had been wishing to do for months.

He entered the office that has been used all year by Umbridge.

The place was very tacky, the walls were filled with pictures of cats and everything was pink.

"What a terrible taste..."

Harry started to inspect the place and didn’t take long to find what He was looking for.

On top of a shelve, Harry spotted the familiar object and pulled it down, holding it in his arms once more.

“I missed you,” Harry told to his beloved broom.

The firebolt was covered in dust, but other than that, it was intact.

He was about to leave when he remembered something else. Harry opened the drawers until He found the blood quill that was used to torture him during the year.

His jaw clenched in anger at the memories. He then took the quill with both his hands and snapped it in half.

He then stood the for a moment, looking at the broken quill before he took his broom the left the office.

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 5: Study time

“Yes!” Harry yelled as He flew around the castle, dodging the towers and passing under the arcs.

He then flew all over the quidditch field.

“I missed this!.”

After getting a bit tired He stood floating in the air over the field, looking at the castle.

While doing so, an idea came to his mind.

“Of course, why didn’t I think of that before.”

Harry flew towards the Gryffindor tower and started to look through the windows until He found the room that he was looking for.

He went in and started to look around his room, not really surprised to find it empty, but it was still disappointing.

He found his old trunk in the same place he left it.

“Well, at least I can change clothes now.”

He decided to take a shower and go to sleep since He was feeling very tired after the long day.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

The next morning, Harry went directly to the castle kitchens, using the secret entrance behind the fruit painting.

“Good thing that Fred and George told me about this. Otherwise, It would be a pain to find food.”

As Harry went through the newly open door, he realized something and turned around to look at the entrance.

“Wait…why did that entrance work, but the one at the Gryffindor room didn’t?.”

Harry felt that he was missing something. There must be a difference between the painting of the ‘bowl of fruit’ and the one of the ‘fat lady’.

“Is it because the painting of the ‘fat lady’ is a living painting?...”

He then shrugged, He had too many questions, but not many answers. So for now, He just wanted to have some breakfast.

Harry was very impressed by the amount of food that was stored in the kitchen.

There were cabinets containing hundreds of pounds of meat and shelves with boxes of vegetables and fruits of all kinds.

“If the preserving charms still work, I have enough food here to last me a century.” Harry chucked at the ridiculous thought of being stuck in this empty world for that long.

He decided to prepare some sausages and fried eggs. Once the meal was ready, he sat down at one of the kitchen tables and started to eat.

He frowned as he took the first bite of sausage.

“I was hoping this would be better…”

The meal he had just prepared had the same problem as the sandwiches and snacks he had eaten the previous days. There was barely any flavor there, but he made sure to season the food properly and he remembered these sausages being delicious in the past.

<><><><><><><><>

After his, once again, disappointing meal, Harry went to visit the owlery.

He did expect it to be empty, not this empty. Not only the owls were missing but the place was completely clean of any mess the owls made.

“There isn’t even a single feather here.”

It was like there had never been an animal here. And like the rest of the castle, there was a characteristic lack of smell in the place.

Harry looked towards the spot where his owl usually rested.

“Hedwig…I hope you are doing fine, wherever you are.”

<><><><><><><><>

A few days had passed and Harry hadn’t made much progress. He has gone over all of the books that even mention time travel or time turners but they had nothing that could explain his situation.

Harry turned his gaze toward the forbidden section of the library.

“Well…is not like anyone can stop me now.”

This section of the library was very small and only contained around one hundred texts.

Harry only found one book on the relevant matter, but he also found a book about occlumency called “The Mind Arts.”

“This is what Snape was trying to teach me if you can call that teach. Maybe I'll just learn it on my own. That would show him!.” Harry chuckled and went back to his table.

<><><><><><><><><>

The next day, Harry was walking around the seventh floor.

The book that He found in the Forbidden section was a very detailed report about a time travel experiment conducted during the 20s.

A woman named Penelope Lothart had managed to travel almost three hundred years to the past and came back to tell the tale.

However, soon after she returned, she started to suffer the side effects of time travel.

She was perfectly fine during her trip to the past, but after coming back, her skin started to wrinkle and her hair turned gray. She was aging at an accelerated pace. The woman only lasted three days and the other researchers came to the conclusion that when someone come back to the present, that person would age the total number of years that they had just traveled.

In the case of Penelope, she had aged three hundred years in a period of three days, turning her into a corpse.

After that day, the Time Department of the Ministry declared that the maximum amount of time that one was allowed to travel was one week, and later on, was changed to one day.

Harry found the story interesting, but it had nothing to do with what happened to him.

Whatever the time-turners did, they did not send him back in time. This was neither the past nor the future.

Harry stopped in front of the gargoyle that leads to the headmaster's office and pulled his wand.

During these last few days, Harry had been learning more than just time travel theory. He had also been looking for one particular spell that would give him access to Dumbledore’s office.

“Bombarda!”

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 6: A goal

The Gargoyle exploded in a thousand pieces of debris.

“Ha!, take that! for ignoring me.”

There was still a wall behind the statue that led to the stairs, and Harry needed two more uses of the bombarda spell to break a hole big enough for him.

He then climbed the stairs and found himself inside the headmaster's office.

Harry has been in this office during many important moments of his life during the last five years and now, all of those memories were coming back to him as he observed the empty office.

He looked behind him, at the paintings of the previous Headmasters. In the past, He had talked with them a few times, but now, they seem to be just normal paintings.

“I'm sorry, Professor about the invasion of privacy, but this is necessary.”

Harry then, started to go through every nook and cranny of the office, looking for anything that could be remotely useful to him.

He found the destroyed diary of Tom Riddle from his second year. A drawer filled with lemon candies and another one containing some strange tools. There was a small device with a wheel, mounted on a bronze structure that was constantly spinning. The other object was a sharp crystal with runes carved into it, a small red dot inside, and a rope tied around it.

“I wonder what that for…”

A bit disappointed with his lack of findings, Harry finally turned towards the small library, located on the furthest corner of the office.

Even a novice like him could tell that the tomes in that small library were all extremely rare.

<><><><><><><><><><>

Harry was comfortably seated on the headmaster's chair, surrounded by books. He was taking his time going through them. He didn’t want to risk missing anything important.

There were books about all sorts of subjects like Alquemy, Transfiguration, History…Harry even found several books that went into very detailed explanations of rituals and other forbidden magics, much to his surprise.

“I suppose you need to know about the dark arts in order to oppose them.”

It would take him two weeks to go through all of the books in that small library and he only did a surface reading of them. The contents of the books were very complex and his understanding of the subjects was lacking.

He did however find one book that went great deep into the topic of time travel and time turners.

The book contained a description of how to make a time turner, but it purposely omitted several steps and ingredients, claiming that only the Department of Time in the Ministry possesses the full instructions, guarded under the watchful eyes of the unspeakables.

Harry also found another interesting thing in that book. There was a section containing warnings when handling the dust inside the time turners. It says that if someone comes into direct contact with it, the effects can be unpredictable.

It details several examples of real incidents that occurred to Ministry personnel like people jumping back or forward in short amounts of time. But the most interesting incident was one where a researcher was accidentally covered by a mysterious dust. The witnesses mentioned a small silver mist that appeared close to the researcher's face.

What they described next made Harry's blood run cold. After being touched by the mist, the researcher seems to have been frozen like a statue for five seconds before disappearing.

A very rugged researcher then entered the room and told his companions that He had spent an entire week in what seemed a world frozen in time, with no people or animals.

“A week…and He was only touched by a tiny amount of that mist. The one that hit me came from hundreds of broken time turners. How long will I be here if I don’t find another way?...a year?...a decade?....or maybe forever.”

Harry decided that he didn't want to think about it. He needed to stay positive and believe that he would find a way to fix the problem.

“Right…the next step is to search the Ministry until I find what I need. If I can discover a way to create another time turner, I can probably use it to kickstart time or something….I know it sounds ridiculous but it's all I have, okay?”

Harry told to no one in particular. Recently, he has started to pretend that he was talking to someone in order to ease his loneliness.

“That can wait until tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to make myself a tasty meal and rest.”

Harry smiled as He left the office. His situation may be dire, but at least now He has a clear goal in mind now.

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 7: Research at the Ministry

The trip to the Ministry was a lot more pleasant than the previous one to Hogwarts.

This time, Harry had brought his supplies in a shrunken bag that was stored inside one of his pockets.

He also had a lot of fun riding his broom all the way to the Ministry without having to worry about any muggle spotting him.

Harry entered using the phone boot and made his way to the Department of Mysteries where this whole mess had started.

“This place is bigger than I remember.”

It was going to take a long time to find what He was looking for. He was sure that the complete instructions to create time turners were one of the Ministry's best-kept secrets and would be well hidden and protected.

“Well, if there is one thing I have is time I suppose…”

<><><><><><><><><>

It didn’t take that long to find the library pertaining to the Department of Time Regulation, but the information He wanted was not there.

He still took all of the books and placed them near the entrance of the Ministry. He wanted to take them all back to Hogwarts once He could get his hands on one of those dimensional suitcases that could store entire rooms worth of stuff.

Later on, he found the Aurors Headquarters, and again, Harry brought all of their books to what He named ‘The book dumping area’ near the entrance of the Ministry.

Finally, he had access to the Unspeakable Headquarters. The place had been hard to find but even harder was gaining entrance to their vault.

It took him an entire month of going through every document and book they had there until he found the protocol necessary to open the vault.

The task had left Harry mentally exhausted, but the reward was immense.

The vault was easily three times the size of Hogwarts library and contained every bit of restricted or straight-up forbidden magic that the Ministry could get their hands into.

Seeing the colossal task ahead of him, Harry had to take a day off to regain his wits before getting started.

<><><><><><><><>

Six months. That was the time that it took him to find the documents that he was looking for and he didn’t even go through half the vault to get there.

He didn’t just read the manuscripts and books but also took some time to learn about what he was reading, otherwise, it would be a waste of time.

He also took the extra effort to catalog and place all of the material that he was going through at the ‘book dumping area’.

He may want to study those further at a later time since he found a lot of interesting pieces of magic and rituals in there.

The book containing the instructions to create a time turner was a lot thinner than he expected and it had a blue cover with the word ‘Time’ on it.

The was no hint on who wrote it or when, but it looked very old. The instructions were very detailed and easy to follow.

The time turner was basically composed of three important parts. The metal casing, which needed a special alloy, the time sand, and the runic work carved on the casing.

The casing will require him to learn some smithing, the sand was a work of alchemy, and the runes…well, they required him to know how to write runes.

“I should first make sure to have all of the ingredients, then I can start learning how to crat the individual parts…that’s going to take a while.”

The components for the alloy were not that rare, gold and gobbling steel. He was sure He could find those at Gringotts.

As for the time sand. The main component was fairy dust. He wasn’t sure how rare that was. However, the Ministry may have a storage area for potions and alchemy materials. That was a good starting point.

<><><><><><><><><>

It took him less than a day to find the ingredients storage areas. He had grown very familiar with the Ministry in the last six months.

There was one inside the Aurors Headquarters and another one in the Unspeakables one.

Harry was sure that the collection of materials at the Ministry would make Snape drool like an idiot.

Rows and rows of shelves filled to the brim with things. He managed to find all of the ingredients on the list in great amounts, except for the fairy dust.

“That’s bad…if it's not in here, the chances of finding it somewhere else are dim. But, I guess is time to visit Diagon Alley.”

<><><><><><><><>

He landed in the middle of the main street and looked around with interest.

“It's been a while. I have missed this place.” He said with a smile.

Harry directed his view towards a shop called Wiseacre’s Wizarding Equipment.

“If I remember correctly, they had some of those luxury multicomparment cases.”

Harry entered the shop and started to look around. He soon found the expensive section of the shop.

There were several briefcases and suitcases. Harry opened one of them and went inside it to take a look. The inside of the briefcase was as big as his dorm room back at Hogwarts.

“This one will do for now. If I need more I'll just come back here...is not like anyone will miss them.”

He took the briefcase and went to the Apothecary. Harry then started to go through the many ingredients containers, looking for his missing fairy dust.

“Sigh…is not here.”

Harry was starting to lose hope, He was sure that he would not find it at Hogwarts. That ingredient was at the very least regulated by the Ministry, if not illegal.

“Dumbledore would never let Snape have something illegal at the scho-”

Harry then came to a realization.

“Wait a minute… illegal. Of course!. Knockturn Alley!.”

He had only been there once, but Ron had told him after that, how dangerous that place was. It was filled with criminals and shops that sold illegal artifacts and ingredients.

Harry ran to the entrance of the alley and went in without hesitation, there was nothing to fear in there after all.

He went to Cobb & Webbs, a shop that sold of sort of dark artifacts but no ingredients.

His next stop was Borgin and Burkes. This was the shop where he appeared during his floo powder incident, during his previous trip to the alley. The shop was very creepy and dirty but he took his time to look around, there were many old books that he stored inside his case, but he did not dare touch any of the artifacts since he had no way to know the effects they could have.

He also found some potion ingredients but unfortunately, no fairy dust.

Harry was once again losing hope when he came across a shop called Mr Mulpeppers Apothecary.

The front of the shop contained a great variety of ingredients that Harry was now familiar with, and none of those were that rare.

He knew that there must be more to this shop, so Harry started inspecting every inch of the place until He found a hidden latch below the carpet that led to a basement.

He opened it and went down into the dark room.

“Lumos”

A strong light illuminated the place and as Harry suspected, this was where the owner kept the rare ingredients.

As he started looking around, he recognized some of the labels, like basilisk venom and unicorn blood.

“That’s some crazy illegal stuff.”

In the corner of a shelf was a small wooden box with beautiful gold decorations that called for Harry's attention.

He approached and picked up the box. His hands were shaken with anticipation as he opened it….and there it was.

“Yes!. I found it.”

A tiny glass jar containing a shiny powder was inside. Even without reading the label, Harry already knew that this was the real deal.

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 8: Gringotts

His next stop was Gringotts, but he decided to stop at the Leaky Cauldron to gather some supplies and get some rest.

He wasn’t really worried about the food going bad. After spending so much time in this frozen world, Harry learned that food never spoils. You could leave an uncooked steak on top of a table for a month and it would remain fresh. It would still have no taste, but fresh nonetheless.

<><><><><><><><><>

“I thought I had gotten used to it by now, but seeing this place without a single goblin in sight is so bizarre,” Harry said as he walked through the bank.

He jumped behind the counter and started to explore the insides of Gringotts that were usually forbidden for any non-gobbling to step into.

There were mostly offices, some bedrooms, and a big kitchen.

“Where would they put the smithy?.”

Harry had been told that the Goblings had a huge forging area where they created the coins used by the wizards and where they also made all of their artifacts.

After exploring the entire place, Harry came to a grim realization.

“It must be underground…”

Harry had only been there once, during his visit with Hagrid, but he remembers it well enough to know how complex those corridors are. One wrong turn and You may never see the light of day again.

“Well, I don’t have much of a choice ...good thing I already got supplies.”

He went to the entrance to the vault system and jumped into one of the mine carts. There was only one lever so He moved it and the cart went on.

Harry didn’t know where to stop, so he just kept going and going until it reached the deepest parts of the mine system after a long time.

He got out of the cart feeling very sick. After recovering a little, Harry inspected the place a bit more.

Unlike the cave-like structure from the rest of the mines, Harry could already see a large part of the place had proper walls made with stone bricks and cement.

The whole area was well illuminated and soon enough, Harry found himself in an empty but huge circular area. As He went deeper, He spotted some colossal chains secured to one of the walls, at the end of the chains was a huge metal collar.

It seems like it was designed to keep a very big animal secured in place.

Harry paled a bit, after thinking about what kind of animal would the goblins use for security.

He has heard rumors about Gringots having dragons protecting the deepest parts of the mine.

“For once I'm glad the animals are also gone. I rather not face another dragon in my lifetime.”

He walked past the circular area and found a small corridor. After walking through it, Harry found himself in another huge chamber, but this one was very different.

The chamber was incredibly beautiful. The decorations reminded Harry of the ancient palaces depicted in his history books.

“This must be the entrance to the Gobling kingdom.”

Harry was sure that this was the place where He would find the smithy.

<><><><><><><><><>

The goblin city was a lot bigger than He expected. It was divided into four distinctive sections.

The living quarters, the industrial area, the recreation area, and the royal quarters.

Harry found all of the materials and tools He needed in the industrial area. He also found a huge library in the recreation area and took a lot of books that looked to be about smithing.

Unfortunately they were written in gobbling tongue, but He may be able to learn enough to read them.

He doesn’t really need to learn how to create the gobbling steel, just to shape it.

By the end, the expanded space inside of his briefcase was almost full of things. But Harry was happy to be done with his task and it was finally time to return to Hogwarts.

“All that is left is to leave this area and go back to the surface. How bad can that be?.”

<><><><><><><>

One month later.

A very battered-looking Harry was leaving Gringotts.

“I swear. I never coming back here if I can help it…”

Describing Gringots mines as a labyrinth was an understatement. It was easy to get in, but almost impossible to leave. Many of the tunnels ended up in a dead end and the others would divide into many more tunnels, making it impossible to keep track of where to go.

It was just by trial and error that Harry had managed to find the exit. Had the goblings been there, they would had a million chances to hunt him down.

After that traumatic experience, Harry decided to rest for the day at the Leaky Cauldron and have something to eat, since he had exhausted his plentiful supplies in the mines days before.

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 9: Progress

Once back at Hogwarts, Harry started to make plans.

“So, I need to learn some metallurgy to mold the metals, runes, and alchemy.”

The first one shouldn’t be that hard since He only needs to mold the already crafted metal and give it shape.

Runes would take more time since he hasn’t taken a single runes class in his life. Ron convinced him to choose divination and muggle studies since they seemed the easiest classes to pass with minimum effort.

“And now I'm regretting listening to him…”

But the one that worried him the most was learning alchemy. For what Harry knew, alchemy was a mastery branch that first required a great knowledge of potions, something he didn’t have, and it was extremely difficult.

If that wasn’t enough, the amount of fairy dust that he has acquired would only be enough for one try…and it would be improbable to find any more of that super rare ingredient.

“I ought to make sure that the process will not fail.”

He will need to start by mastering the brewing of potions before moving on to more complex stuff and that was going to take some time.

Harry started setting up his things in the great hall since He was going to require a lot of space for his experiments.

Once he was done, he sat down to rest and looked around the hall, memories of his years at Hogwarts came rushing at him and started to remind him how much he missed his friends.

Harry clenched his fist and lifted his gaze, determined to complete the great task ahead.

“Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville, Ginny…I will see you all again...one day.”

<><><><><><><><><>

Forty-six years later

Harry walked through the halls of Hogwarts with a smile on his face. Today was a big day for him.

Finally, he felt that he was ready to make his attempt at creating the time-turner sand.

After many years of self-study at the castle, Harry had mastered many skills that include, runes, potions, alchemy, and smithying.

But the one that gave Harry the most happiness and allowed him to keep his sanity was Occlumency.

“Hey mate, how is everything going today?.” Harry said as he sat down in his usual spot at the Gryffindor table and placed down his tray with food.

He then turned to his right.

“Good Morning, Hermione. I see you are studying as usual.”

On both sides of Harry were humanoid objects that could be described as mannequins wearing faces that looked exactly like his old friends, Ron and Hermione.

The model of Ron was playing chess while Hemiones was reading a book.

The models were made using transfiguration and his now perfect memory, capable of recalling even the most minor of details.

It was all thanks to his mastery of Occlumency, a skill that Harry had discarded at first since it brought back those bad memories of his classes with Snape, but later on discovered all of the benefits that could bring to him.

His first years of studying alone at Hogwarts were rough and Harry had to make heavy use of the pensieve that Dumbledore had in his office, just so He would not forget about the people he cared about.

But after He started gaining control of his own mind thanks to his practice of occlumency, he could go back to his own memories without the need of the Pensieve.

Then he came up with the idea of recreating some of the people he knew by using transfiguration and placing them around the castle, to make it feel less empty.

Harry made models of hundreds of students, he even made models of Draco Malfoy and his cronies just so that he could throw some insults at them once in a while.

As Harry was looking around the great hall, one thought came to his mind.

“If any of them were actually here, they would not recognize this place anymore.”

The hall had changed a lot over the years, there was now only one of the four long tables that Harry used to place some of the models of his housemates.

One could find the Wesley twins, Neville, Ginny, Parvati, Agenlica, Katie, and many others, sitting at the table and pretending to be eating or having conversations.

Some of them had already graduated but Harry didn’t care about that, he wanted them all here to keep him company.

In place of the other three large tables were now many small tables covered with books since Harry found it easier to move to a different table once it was too full, instead of organizing them since he was the only one using the space.

The great hall now resembled more a library than the actual library since Harry had brought books from many different places like Gringotts, the Ministry, or Diagon Alley.

There was also a huge laboratory filled with all sorts of equipment to make potions. Harry thought that Snape may have been proud of what he had accomplished if the man wanst so petty.

<><><><><><><><><><>

Harry finished his breakfast and got up from his seat.

“Ron, Hermione. Wish me luck…I'm going to do it today!.”

He then walked towards the laboratory. On top of a big table were many ingredients, all carefully weighed and placed on individual containers, ready to be used.

Harry looked at his notes and made sure that everything was correct several times before starting. He only had one try at creating the time sand and he could not afford to fail.

“Alright…. everything is ready.”

He sat down and started the long alchemical process.

<><><><><><><><><><>

Six hours later, Harry was standing over a small cauldron containing a light blue thick liquid.

Surrounding the cauldron was a small magical circle created with some black powder.

Harry cleaned the sweat from his face and kept his eyes on the contents of the cauldron with intensity.

The color of the mixture started to change as it moved and it was beginning to lose the blue color, becoming more of a light grey tone.

“It's ready…”

Harry carefully opened the glass container with the fairy dust and emptied it into the cauldron.

Then placed his hands at specific points of the magical circle and activated it.

The concoction inside the cauldron started to emit a bright silver light as it moved around, incorporating the fairy dust.

After a minute of this, the light got so intense that Harry was forced to close his eyes but he did not move his hands off the circle, he knew that everything would fail if he stopped injecting his magic into the circle.

Then a ‘puff’ sound was heard and the light started to dim. Once the process ended, Harry took a look at the cauldron contents.

His face turned into a bright smile as the resulting silver dust sparkled in different colors.

“Yes!. I did it!.”

Harry wanted to take a break and celebrate but he could not rest yet. There is a limited amount of time to put the time dust inside the time turner before it loses its effect.

He brought the circular golden pendant that He was keeping inside a small box close by.

They then carefully opened the hourglass and filled it with the time dust.

As He closed it back, the runes on the outer circle of the pendant, illuminated, indicating that the time turner was now sealed and ready to use.

Harry placed it back into the box with care and then proceeded to collapse on the ground, completely exhausted, physically and mentally.

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 10: Disappointing results

“The books did say that the creation of time turners required a minimum of three wizards. Now I know why.”

After recovering a little bit, he stood on the floor and went back to the table.

He set the box containing the newly crafted time-turner and examined it for a while to be sure he didn’t make any glaring mistakes.

Harry smiled in satisfaction after finding no problems with the artifact.

He wanted to use it right away, but he had already decided that it would be better to return to the point of origin where the temporal anomaly started.

Harry gathered his things, mounted his broom, and flew to the Ministry.

<><><><><><><><><><><>

Soon enough, Harry was once again standing in the room of time, where it all had started.

“It's been a while since I've been here.” Harry smiled bitterly.

He took the time turner out of its box and held it firmly.

“If my theory is correct, by doing a reverse turn, I would be moving time forwards, it doesn’t matter how much, even one second would be enough to put me back in the real world. Sigh…here we go.”

Harry activated the time turner and saw the runes illuminate. Then waited in expectation for the results.

“What?“

He looked around but saw no change.

“No…this should work!.”

Harry checked the time turner and everything seemed correct. The artifact should work, so He tried again.

He did one turn and the runes illuminated, but once again, nothing happened.

Harry was getting anxious.

“OK, calm down. Maybe is not supposed to move forward. I'll just move backward.”

He turned it in a clockwise motion and waited…

“This doesn’t make any sense. I know I built it properly. I have studied this for decades! The time turner should work…so why…”

Harry started to rack his brain for an explanation and he soon recalled an idea he had a long time ago about the nature of this place that he was in.

An idea that he decided to ignore and placed in the back of his mind while he was working towards his goal.

“There is no time in his place…”

That would explain why the time-turner can't work. The artifact works by moving the fabric of space and time, but without time, there is nothing for it to move…

“I should have considered that possibility a bit more…no…I couldn’t. That would have been like admitting that there was no way out of there.

Now, the only chance I have is to wait for this plane of existence to collapse on its own, but even then, there is no guarantee that I will be able to go back. And…”

Harry could not bring himself to say it. Years back, after learning some arithmancy, he made some calculations based on the only incident recorded that was similar to his. In that incident, a researcher was hit with a tiny bit of the silver mist that appears after the time dust contained in a time turner gets disrupted, and it was trapped in a frozen world for a week.

He was doing an experiment with a mere five grams of time dust. A single time-turner contains fifty grams of the substance.

In Harry's case, He was hit by the combined mist of at least three hundred time-turners. A linear calculation would indicate that Harry would only be trapped for around sixty years, that would not be a problem since He had already spent almost fifty.

However, He knew that it was not that easy. Increasing the amount of time dust would increase the intensity of the silver mist, but the increase would not be linear, but exponential, and without being able to perform any tests, there was no way to make an accurate measurement. He could be trapped in this place for centuries for all he knew…

“I can't do this anymore…” Harry collapsed to the ground, completely drained.

<><><><><><><><>

He lay on the floor what it felt like days without eating or drinking anything and he didn't even miss it.

It has been decades since he stopped getting hungry or thirsty and had to force himself to eat and drink to himself healthy.

For a while, Harry thought that at some point he was going to die, and he was fine with that.

The human body is not supposed to function for more than two or three days without water…but he didn’t die. And he just kept resting on the ground of the time room without the will to move anymore.e

<><><><><><><><>

“This is pointless…” He eventually said after being silent for so long.

“I need to do something…nothing is going to change if I just lay here forever.”

Harry stood with a surprising lack of difficulty considering how long he had been lying there without moving.

He stood there for a while, thinking.

“I have still so much to learn about magic. I can't really know for certain that there is no other solution with my current lack of knowledge. If I keep studying I may find something, and if the answer is not in Hogwarts, there are other magical schools out there.”

With renewed determination, Harry made his way out of the Ministry.