Chapter 25: "Why do I give valuable time to people who don't care if I live or die?"

Circe sat in the window of the clock tower, the great pendulum swinging rhythmically behind her. She hoped she was concealed in shadow enough, having her back pressed against the wall and her legs lying on the ledge. Yet she wanted the light to write by. She had an old notebook on her lap, a few squiggles and sentences on the page, and every so often she would peer down into the stone courtyard. Circe was wrapped up in her coat; the bitter winds were chilly as they howled through the tower and her thick scarf and gloves were rather cumbersome to her writing. She groaned as another whisp of air set her scarf fluttering into her eyes. Circe bemoaned why she hadn't chosen a less blustery location for her lyric composing. But when Minerva kept secrets from her, desperate times called for desperate measures…

Hermione's behaviour had been getting increasingly more and more erratic as the months went on. In Circe's lessons, the young girl was sleepy and tired. Always thinking it was the afternoon when it was barely mid-morning. Earlier that week Hermione had been snoozing at her desk and when Circe had shaken her awake, she'd woken hurriedly reciting the fortune-telling properties of Earl Grey compared to Assam. Circe found it all odd; Divination was in the same options bucket as Ancient Studies. There was no way Hermione could have been studying both of them. She'd tried to shake off the idea that Granger could be somehow in multiple classrooms at the same time, but Minerva's evasiveness had added fuel to the fire. Before when she'd seen the girl come out of Filius's classroom, she'd put it down to stress or being upset after the boggart lesson. Now, she wanted to confirm it. The courtyard below was a little intersection of lots of different areas of the school, and one could rarely avoid passing through this space if travelling from one subject to another. During mornings at Hogwarts, as it was now, it was a veritable crossroads. Circe's location was perfect for tracking people's movements, if a damn cold spot for surveillance.

The sound of whistling drew her eyes from her notebook again. She craned her head downwards to see the top of Remus's head, sauntering at his slow amble through the courtyard. He paused for a second, taking out the Marauder's map and looking at it in rapt detail. Eventually his eyes travelled upwards and he saw Circe peering down at him.

Ugh, that damn map! Circe thought, realising that Lupin would have seen her name hovering at the top of the tower. What's any self-respecting people watcher meant to do when that thing exists?!

"How- how are you doing that?!" He called up to her. He wore a deep frown of confusion as he looked from Circe back to the map.

"What?" She called down.

"Y…. you're on here twice…" he stuttered.

He looked up at the clock tower and then put towards the grounds, spinning in circles.

She huffed and rolled her eyes. Perhaps the map wasn't as useful as she thought.

"D'ye need glasses, Lupin?" She called down teasingly.

Remus hurriedly folded the map away and waved a shy goodbye at her. Circe made the "I'm watching you" gesture and she heard the far off sound of Lupin's confused mutterings as he walked out hurriedly towards the highland hills. He'd been doing that a lot, Circe noticed. Seeing something… or someone on the map that garnered his full attention and off in a flustered sputter he would go, no word to the wise to Circe. He hadn't really talked much to Circe since his swift exit from the Three Broomsticks some two weeks ago and she was feeling considerably shunned. Shunned by Lupin, shunned by Minerva, even Myron was doing his best to piss her off.

The Weird Sisters had a gig coming up, possibly the most important one of their history so far, in this venue in Manchester. Circe wanted to debut some of her songs, perhaps even sing a few herself. But Myron had been kicking up a fuss in true front-man style and wasn't keen to have anyone doing lead vocals bar him. At their last rehearsal she'd trialed a few tunes of hers and Myron had called them "derivative" and "lacking in emotional depth". She'd almost punched him on the nose for that. But she knew he was right, she was skirting around wanting to write what she actually wanted to write about, keeping back the lyrics she didn't feel brave enough to share with anyone. It all felt very teenager-writing-in-the-journal-they-kept-under-a-pillow to her. But her heart could not deny the music that sang out of her fingertips any time she wrote down lyrics about him.

Severus. My mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma. The man who seemingly can turn on and off his capacity to emote towards me. That's a neat trick I wish I had. Circe thought as she smiled sadly to herself.

Her little snow-themed outburst the other day came back to her. Screaming her frustration at him in a moment of pure exasperation with the man. She raised her brow as a line came to her and she hurried to write it down:

"Show me how you do that trick.

The one that makes me scream, she said…"

Circe paused. Hovering her pen over the page. Forcing herself to think of Severus as the inspiration surged through her. It ached to think of Severus, but somehow that's when she was at her best. She thought of him stood alone against the white, snow-filled sky, looking almost frightened and intensely vulnerable. Shrouded in black, dark and strange in her mind's-eye like the absolute antithesis of an angelic visitation. The laughter in his eyes as he sat beside her in the snow drift, and now quickly that look had been replaced by a lost loneliness.

"You, soft and only.

You, lost and lonely.

You..."

She closed the notebook sharply, breathing out a heavy sigh as her heart ached. She decided to shelf the lyrics for now and re-visit them with a big bottle of red wine in the privacy of her conservatory later that evening. Myron would be happy enough to play their regular covers, but perhaps if she came up with one good thing, one decent song, then she might just be able to convince him to let her have it for the Manchester gig.

The sound of heels clacking on the cobbles below made Circe jolt from her ruminations. She looked down and gasped, shrinking back into the shadows as she spied Hermione. Circe checked the clock behind her.

She's five minutes early. This lesson period hasn't ended yet.

The young Gryffindor walked with a fast pace from one end of the courtyard to another, having seemingly left her class before the end of the lesson. The girl carried a thick textbook with her, just leaving Minerva's Transfiguration classrooms Circe guessed by the general direction she was striding in. She saw Hermione fiddling with something about her neck, the briefest flash of gold glinting in the light, but she was gone before Circe could see what it was.

Great, well that's a whole morning wasted. Just to see Granger walk from one classroom to another. And now I owe Filius two hours of cover as he managed my lessons for m-

Her thoughts halted in her head as she saw, from a completely different end of the courtyard, Hermione emerge again. This time, she was holding a potted shrivelfig plant and was trotting away from Sprout's greenhouses, no-doubt having just left Herbology. This time the golden necklace sat on top of her grey school jumper and Circe squinted with all her might to see what it was. Hermione gasped and almost dropped her shrivelfig as she tried to stuff the necklace away back down her shirt. She grunted in frustration and stopped in the center of the courtyard. Circe watched as Hermione lay down her plant on the floor, removed the gold chain from around her neck, and hastily stuffed it away inside her satchel, all the while casting secretive looks about her.

What is that…? What are you so keen to keep hidden, Miss Granger? Circe thought, wishing desperately her eyesight wasn't as bad as it was.

She could cast an oculus charm, but she didn't want to risk being spotted by Granger or having her whispered spell being heard on the wind.

Her leering was interrupted by a screech and a flap of wings in her face. She squealed as the noise took her by surprise and looked up to see Ziggy's confused face, perched on the ledge with a parcel for her in his beak. The poor owl felt rather put out that Circe had greeted him with a scream and not the normal doting stroke of the head. Circe took a second to calm herself and muttered a swear word under her breath. She glanced back down to the courtyard and Granger was gone. She looked dead-pan at her owl and sighed.

How the bloody hell did he find me up here? Am I not hidden well enough? Circe thought, annoyed at herself. Wait, can someone see me?

She peered down into the courtyard, but it was still and quiet. No one was there. Puzzled, Circe grabbed the parcel that dangled from the bird's mouth and gave him a scratch behind the ears. He flew off into the open sky again, giving Circe's scarf another flutter into her face. She blew the fibers out of her mouth with a huff. Her package was weighty and dense. It almost felt like a massive stack of cards. As she tore open the parcel, she recognised Myron's elaborate handwriting on the paper that bound it and she knew what it was.

Oh good Lord… she thought. Lifting one of the thin, glossy papers from the top of the pile she saw the photo of her and Myron that had appeared in the Prophet. However, this time it was stagnant and unmoving, but still as cringe-inducing as ever. Our flyers…

Of course Myron had decided to go with that picture. It was everything he wanted The Weird Sisters to be: wild, bold and completely rock and roll. The flyer also displayed the band name in big scratchy white letters that reminded Circe of Pink Floyd's lettering, as well as the date and time of their upcoming gig. If Myron had chosen to go with an unmoving picture, then that could only mean he'd decided to widen their fanbase out to a more muggle based audience. It was a risky move. Myron had been known to set off Zonko's fireworks and perform levitation charms whilst onstage. Circe grimaced as she thought of the possibility of more Ministry aurors having to turn up to their show to completely wipe the whole of the audience's minds.

Looks like I'll be having words with the lighting crew at the venue to make the stage as dark as possible… Circe thought cynically.

There was a small note attached to the top of the pile of flyers and she picked it up cautiously.

"Cee,

Get these out to as many people as you can. If we get 500+ then you can do one of your songs. We'll talk about which one you wanna do at our next rehearsal.

Myron

xx"

"Well I don't know who the bloody hell he expects me to hand these out to…" Circe said aloud to the wind. "I can't have students at the gig."

She gritted her teeth and seethed to herself. Myron was becoming a bit dictatorial, letting their measly amount of fame go to his head.

He'll graciously let me do one of my songs, will he?! Circe thought bitterly.

Myron was giving some of the best divas out there a run for their money. She placed the stack of flyers down on the window ledge and fiddled with her scarf, trying to pull it out of her mouth. She'd had quite enough of sitting in the cold for one day, and it looked like she had a lot of lyric writing to do to impress her own Axl Rose. But then, a gust of wind howled through the clock tower and her scarf flew up into her eyes. Circe exclaimed in surprise, temporarily blind. She heard the rustle of paper as she grappled at the thick wool scarf and tugged it from her glasses, but it was too late. The wind had taken the stack of flyers and scattered them all over the courtyard below… She stood up and peered over the ledge at the mess she'd created and found a lone, dark figure standing in the courtyard's center with a flyer directly over his face.

Severus!

She saw Snape grab furiously at the flyer plastered to his face and tug it from him viciously. He unballed the fist of paper and Circe saw his eyes pop as he saw their picture. She couldn't help but blush furiously, but a small nervous giggle gave her position away. Severus looked up at her sharply and she saw his face soften into something more reproachful rather than bloodthirsty. Still, she thought about making a run for it and hurrying away back to her classroom before Severus had the opportunity to accost her. Yet he was the one to break the staring competition first, and she heard his quick footsteps coming up the stairs before she had gained movement back in her legs.

"I'm sorry about that, Severus-" she started.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked her sharply, waving the flyer at her.

"It...it's a flyer for our upcoming gig."

"I know that!" Severus said, annoyance in his voice. "What are they doing all over the courtyard, Professor? I doubt you want the students to see this picture of you…"

Circe sighed, it had been a while since she'd had a Snape-lecture. "Myron sent them to me, to hand out to potential gig-goers. Not here. In… in… Hogsmeade?" she offered with a confused smirk.

Severus frowned deeply at her. "Big music scene in Hogsmeade, is there?" he asked in his slow, sarcastic drawl.

"I don't exactly know what he expected me to do with them. But no, they're not for students. The wind took them before I could stop them."

"I see."

Severus took another look at the flyer and then back to Circe. She rather felt like she was being expected at border patrol and Snape had her passport in his hands instead . She raised an open brow at him, inviting him to say something.

"This… this looks rather important." he said simply.

"Yeah, it will be. By far the biggest venue we've booked so far."

"The Hacienda? Never heard of it."

Circe recoiled slightly. A little offended by Snape's indifference.

"Yeah, well… it's not exactly The Royal Albert Hall, but it's an important place for up and comers. The Smiths and New Order used to play there before they got big. Absolutely mental place, I've heard."

Severus's eyes brightened slightly at the mention of The Smiths.

Of course you like The Smiths. Circe thought to herself. Every teenager who grew up in the seventies and eighties had a Smiths/Morrisey phase at one point or another.

"When is it?"

"Next week." Circe responded. She delved deep and found her courage. "You should come… to the gig."

Severus blanched slightly at her offer. No one had actually invited him to something for a very long time. He couldn't quite entertain the possibility that anybody wanted him to be present for something. He thought back to Circe's birthday party, and how his missing presence had gone largely unnoticed by her. It had been the same that New Year's in Edinburgh where she'd danced and drunk the night away with strangers, happy in the haze of many a drunk hour. Then, he'd been happy to lean against the bar and steal a few whiskeys as he watched her, but now Severus doubted whether he could just linger in a dark corner and go largely ignored by her. The spare lemon. The forgotten "weird friend" that she'd invited along out of politeness. It was selfish, but he would rather spare himself that pain. The mere thought of it made him feel miserable.

"I believe I am indisposed on that day." he spoke in a low voice, avoiding her bright green eyes.

"Oh…" Circe said, unable to keep her disappointment hidden.

Perhaps she'd wildly overestimated how Severus felt. All those looks and stolen moments obviously meant more to her than they did to him. Her whole chest swelled as a confused hurt filled her. Being around Severus was exhausting, especially when she was on the cold end of his ever-shifting moods. There he went again, doing that trick of turning off his interest in her and making her feel as small as a mouse. Circe wanted to trust her feelings with him. Surely he must know that he had them in the palm of his hand? But how could she when he seemed to drop them on the floor when it suited him.

Perhaps I should have insisted that he take that guitar back… she thought bitterly. She looked at her feet and pushed past him, wanting that huge bottle of red wine she'd promised herself more and more. I could tell him that Remus is coming. Really drive the nail in. But what's the point? I don't want him to come just to spite Lupin.

She left Severus staring into the wind. Both of them felt like they were wasting their time on someone who was apathetic towards the other. And it hurt. It tore at both of them.

"Accio flyers!" She said, pointing her wand into the courtyard.

In seconds it was like time reversed backwards and the scattered papers flew into her hands, back into a nice neat pile.

She tried to keep a brave face on as she walked away from the clock tower. But all she had swirling around in her head was Morrisey's droning voice. Morose, maudlin words and rhythmic guitars. She couldn't quite pinpoint why she had their music stuck in her head as she reached the bottom of the steps, until she realised that the only part of the conversation Severus had shown interest in was The Smiths. Circe hated that she remembered that. She also hated that she knew exactly where her copy of 'The Queen is Dead' was, and it would be that album that she'd be having a dramatic, teenagery, stress-relieving cry to over her red wine. For now, she'd have to pick up the remains of her pride off the floor and carry on with the teaching day.

Severus was still in the clock tower, standing in the punishingly cold wind, already regretting his hasty rebuttal of Circe's kind offer. He watched her walking across the courtyard, humming to herself. The wind carried a strange melody on it. He could just about pick out the tune it was, and he almost sobbed as he recognised it.

"In my life, why do I give valuable time

To people who don't care if I live or die?"

-----

Circe was sitting under the boughs of an old oak tree, watching her Third Year class scouring the edge of the lake for old runic stones. Her research last year had turned up much more about the grounds than just the sewage network. She'd pretty much discovered three different locations that were abandoned later on in the castle's history. One had been the old Slytherin dormitories, now absorbed by the greenhouses. The second was an old smelting forge for imbuing metals with magic, the foundations just visible near the edge of the forbidden forest, and probably had been abandoned once the practise fell out of fashion and passed into the strict Union regulations of the goblin metalworkers. And the last discovery was an old gatehouse where guardians of the castle used to monitor all who passed in and out of its grounds. The founders had placed protective, warded stones, at the foundations of all of them. Circe had seen them when she' gone exploring, lying in the grass and mud, etched with ancient runes, still pulsating with protective magic. She suspected the same protective symbols were embedded into the foundations of the castle too. And despite being half-buried in dirt and damp, they made for an excellent practical lesson.

Yet, she still hadn't managed to get 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' out of her head… She hummed it to herself as she kept a watchful eye on her class. Her notebook of scribbles open on her lap, largely forgotten in her morose mood.

Circe wasn't brave enough to even entertain the idea of taking children into the Forbidden Forest, and the ruins under the greenhouses were mostly inaccessible now. That only left the lakeside ruins. The remains of the old gatehouse were the easiest to access, even if the ruins were less obvious. But if you squinted at some of the larger rocks and followed the loose lines of debris on the lakeshore, you could just about see the east wing of it. The other half was now submerged in the lake itself and Circe had to call out to Hermione.

"Granger, get back on the shore! I don't want to have to wrestle you out of the tentacles of the Giant Squid!"

Hermione wheeled around to Circe, holding her robe in her arms as she paddled knee deep in the murky waters. Circe could have predicted that Granger would have been the most enthusiastic of her Third Year class to go hunting for the old rune-embossed foundation stones. She'd already found three that Circe didn't recognise and had to look up in her advanced runic catalogue. The enthusiasm of her other students, on the other hand, left something to be desired. Malfoy and his cronies were pratting about on the shore, more concerned with skimming stones than completing the worksheet she'd set for them. Circe had no idea why he'd chosen her subject. But old wizarding families were known to get snobby over which options their children took, and she shared a bucket with Sybill's Divination class. Divination was still seen as a bit of a 'nothing' subject by many in the wizarding world.

Circe looked long and hard at Hermione, rifling through some stones in the shallows of the lake. Getting the girl out into the open air was a stroke of genius Circe had had that morning. Hermione was finding it increasingly difficult to stay awake for the whole of her lessons. Once or twice Circe had tried to peer into her open satchel at her side, but couldn't see a familiar glint of gold before the young Gryffindor woke up again. She was preoccupied. Busy and distracted. And the whole class' bags were under the oak tree with Circe. Her eyes flicked from Granger's huge, bulging satchel, and back to the girl wading in the water.

No… Circe… It's immoral. She chided herself.

A stone that Malfoy was skipping bounced once...twice...three times off the water's surface and was suddenly caught in the grasp of a long silvery tentacle. Malfoy gasped as he saw the huge limb protruding from the murky black lake.

"Look! There!" he shouted.

Everyone turned their head to where he pointed, mouths hanging open in awe, as the long tentacle of the Giant Squid rose higher and higher into the air. With everybody distracted, Circe's moral resolve fell and she leapt for Granger's bag.

She threw back the lid and hastily pulled book after book from it. Circe didn't know what she was looking for. A necklace? It certainly looked like that from her spying session that morning. But how would a necklace enable Granger to be in multiple places at once?

And this'll be a completely pointless endeavour if she's wearing the th-

Circe's thoughts halted as she delved her hand into a zipped pocket and touched upon a metal chain. Her eyes widened as she slowly drew it out of the satchel and held it in front of her face. It looked like a big medallion, and Circe squinted at the delicate glass ornament in the center of it. Toying with the dials, playing with the manœuvrable discs.

Is… is this a- My God, I've only ever seen pictures of these…

The class shouted in amazement as the tentacle rose some fifty feet into the air and went slamming into the water. The tentacle came down in a crashing thud, sending a torrent of water down upon the happily giggling class. Circe turned the spinning discs around the hourglass just the once…

There was a flash of light. A smash of noise. And time ground down to nothing. Then, all of a sudden it went spooling in the wrong direction. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster…

And Circe went spinning backwards in time.

The world reeled around her in a sickly daze. As if someone had pressed rewind on the video player. The tentacle of the Giant Squid sank below the water, Hermione walked backwards through the lake's shallows, she even saw herself with her class receding up the hill and back towards the castle. When she came to a standstill, it felt colder and crisper. The sun was still fairly high in the sky and there was nobody around her as there had been moments ago. She rose to her feet, feeling breathless and dumbstruck, and as she tried to swallow what had just happened, the clock tower behind her struck one o clock.

An hour ago… I've gone back in time an hour!

Circe thought furiously from under the boughs of the oak tree. Where had she been an hour ago?

Her eyes were drawn to the clock tower in the distance, the sound of the bells still reverberating in the still air.

Sitting in the clock tower…

She gathered her courage, cramming the timeturner in her coat pocket and raced up to the castle. As she reached the walls of Hogwarts the sound of whistling made her halt. Where had she heard that tune before?

Remus! She thought.

She was about to rush to her friend when she hesitated, thinking of what she had read about time travel and the dangers of making your presence known in the past. What would happen if she changed time? Messed with what had already happened? She shrunk back into the shadows, hiding in the bushes just by the entrance to the stone courtyard.

"How are you doing that?" she heard Remus ask again.

"What?" her own voice called back to him from up in the clock tower.

Circe shivered. That's my voice. MY voice…

"Y…you're on here twice."

Circe's eyes widened in alarm. She remembered the odd comment from the first time she'd had this conversation. Remus was seeing her on the Marauder's map twice because she was there twice. She clamped a hand over her mouth, desperately trying to calm her ragged, panicked breathing. What if Remus came looking for her? Her legs began to shake as she heard Lupin walking from the stone courtyard and out towards her hiding spot in the bushes. She sucked in a long breath and stepped out of her hiding spot, a mask of calm indifference falling into place just in time. She smiled brightly at Lupin as he emerged from the courtyard, a deeply puzzled look on his face.

"How…?" he muttered at Circe.

"D-Do you like my gemini charm?" Circe sputtered.

Remus looked back to the clock tower, unable to see Circe from where he now stood. He then returned his gaze to the Circe in front of him with a deeply troubled look on his face.

"Gemini charm?" He asked. "Why are you practicing that?"

"Uhh… good for Duelling and distractions isn't it. I wanted to see if a Dementor could be fooled by the charm. Go for my clone rather than me. You know?"

"Oh no, Dementors can see through all of that." Remus added helpfully. "They can latch on to your scent. They can't be deceived with an imitation of you."

"Ah, shame." Circe said with a tut.

"It's funny…" Remus pondered, touching a hand to the map concealed in his inside pocket. "I thought the map saw through illusions and disguises."

"Perhaps it's broken…"

"Perhaps." Remus said with a far off look in his eyes.

He cleared his throat awkwardly and went on his way, off to somewhere or to meet someone that obviously made him shifty and uncomfortable. Circe didn't have time to be suspicious of Lupin though, being too relieved to have fobbed him off enough that he didn't ask any more questions about her.

Circe sat down in the grass, her head in her hands as realisation of exactly how much of a precarious situation she was in. She almost felt like not moving, staying stock still and hiding somewhere until time caught up with her… or she caught up with time. A familiar screech in the skies made her raise her head from her hands. Ziggy swooped low and settled on the bush that she had previously been hiding in, looking at her with a neatly wrapped parcel in his beak. She remembered the owl coming to her earlier that day with his delivery and she smiled as she reached out to him to take it. She stopped as she realised that if she took the parcel now, then she would be altering time yet again.

"Ziggy…" she cooed at the bird. He shifted on his branch, agitated that Circe hadn't taken her delivery from him yet. "Ziggy, look! I'm up there!"

She pointed up to the top of the clock tower and hoped the owl followed her. Ziggy looked from Circe to the tower and then back to her. His dappled head almost spun off him in confusion.

"Ziggy, up there!" she pointed again, shooing him into action.

The bird spread its wings and took off into the air. He circled in the sky above Circe for a few seconds, before flying up towards the clock tower. Circe sighed, relieved that she'd managed to set the order of things right.

So Ziggy startles me...and she heard a small, quiet screech from herself up in the tower. Then I unwrap the package and put the flyers down on the windowsill. And then the wind…

Almost on cue Circe heard the rustle of the wind and the flutter of many papers being spewed into the air. She could only imagine what the mess of the courtyard looked like from the ground. A single flyer drifted outside of the courtyard and Circe watched it dance in the breeze and come to settle just by her feet. She picked it up with a heavy sigh, cringing again as her eyes settled on the photograph of her and Myron.

A muttered collection of colourful expletives shook her from staring at the unflattering picture. A voice she recognised in an instant, a voice that sent a shiver down her spine.

Severus!

Circe cautiously peered around the entrance to the courtyard and saw Snape striding purposefully towards the stairs of the clock tower, a crumpled flyer in his hands. She cast a cautious glance up, and saw that her past self was not peering down into the open space. She sucked in a deep breath and stole away inside the courtyard, running to the base of the tower. She wanted to hear the conversation between her and Severus again, perhaps so she could work out what went wrong. Why it had left such a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. She heard Severus's deep voice echoing through the wooden rafters above and she chose a spot under the stairs that left her concealed but still able to listen.

"I don't exactly know what he expected me to do with them..." She heard herself explaining in her decidedly less velvety voice than Severus's.

"I see. This... looks rather important."

"Yeah it will be."

Circe lay her head against a wooden beam and eavesdropped on her own conversation. She could feel the knot of disappointment reforming in her stomach as the inevitable let down was coming. Her voice was lost in the caverns and space of the tower, carried away by the wind. But Severus's voice penetrated deep into her chest and reverberated around her ears.

"I believe I am indisposed on that day."

Hearing it a second time didn't ease the stab of pain for her. She closed her eyes and waited for her flaccid response.

"Oh."

Ask him what he's doing! Ask him why? Say something, Circe! She screamed internally. But all that followed was the laboured steps of her former self descending the stairs in grim defeat. She pressed herself further into the shadows as past-Circe walked out of the clock tower and away across the courtyard. It didn't help to have heard it again. All she felt was hollow regret and despondency. She almost forgot that Severus was still in the tower above, he'd gone so quiet. A few moments later she flinched and her eyes flew open as she heard the slow, thudding footfalls of Severus descending the stairs. Again, she pressed herself back into the shadows and held her breath as his black silhouette filled the doorframe. For a while she watched him, leaning heavily on the doorframe, his face turned out towards the highland hills. She tried to keep her breaths as shallow and even as possible, not daring to move an inch. He was a tableau of anguish. A stark black figure framed against the overcast sky. Despite her own pain, Circe's heart ached empathetically for him.

Why does he feel so conflicted? If he didn't want to come… if he doesn't care… Then why does he act like this when I'm out of sight?

The wind picked up and howled through the tower. Severus's cloak kicked up dramatically around him and for a moment he looked raven-esque, like he had huge wings. Circe took the opportunity to rifle in her pocket for the flyer she'd picked up earlier. With the wind as her cover, she took her wand out and scratched a final message into the gloss. A final hand of friendship. If this didn't work in the way she wanted, then perhaps it was best to let Severus slip away.

She glanced down at her hastily drawn message and sighed, giving it a good luck kiss, before folding it up small and levitating it in front of her. The strength of the wind sent it floating off to the left and Circe sucked in her breath as she fought to set it right. She strengthened her concentration on the spell and hovered the piece of paper over Severus's pocket. With a final burst of effort, she guided it into his cloak pocket and let her wand drop. Severus swooped away, off about his business, when the wind dropped and she was finally left alone.

Circe let out a long held in sigh of relief. She resolved to stay in her secluded spot, no matter what tempting opportunity to sneak around presented itself. She waited for the minutes to tuck by, mentally tracking what her past self would have been doing. She knew that her lesson with the Third Years would be well underway by now, but how long into the lesson it was she couldn't say. She had to time her run down to the lake just right, as there were no convenient bushes to hide in if she was spotted. Circe rose from her spot and cautiously made her way over the courtyard. Peering down towards the lake, she saw her class spread out in all directions and Hermione wading in the shallows. She herself was concealed by the trunk of the oak tree. Malfoy and his cronies were already skipping stones and ignoring their worksheet.

Almost time… she thought.

She steeled herself, ready to run into place.

The great tentacle of the Giant Squid rose from the depths of the lake and Circe watched as her students rushed forward to gawk at the creature.

Now!

Circe sprinted down the hill, hoping that the lake monster served as enough of a distraction. She reached the trunk of the oak tree just in time to see her past-self disappear into the ether, the timeturner in her hands. She panted and leaned against the tree, a wave of relief washing over her as water splashed down around her. The students squealed in delight and shouted "Again!" at the beast. Malfoy and his cronies threw more stones at it to invoke another splash.

Now what to do with Granger's little secret?

Circe touched a hand to the time turner still stored safely in her pocket. She enclosed her fingers around the gold chain and lifted it out into the air, watching it swing in front of her face. She looked at Hermione's satchel on the floor and then at the bushy haired girl stood in the lake's water. She picked the bag up, a wicked thought passing through her head.

Definitely immoral… I shouldn't keep it…

Circe threw caution to the wind and hastily shoved the timeturner into her pocket. She bundled the textbooks back into Hermione's bag and shuffled over to the Slytherin boys.

Circe walked over to Crabbe and leaned in close to the stout, stocky boy's ear.

"Ten galleons to you if you throw this into the lake."

"Wot?" The boy asked, looking gormlessly at his Professor and then at the satchel.

"You heard me. You want the galleons or not, Crabbe? That's an awful lot of Honeydukes chocolate…"

The Slytherin needed no more convincing. He grabbed Hermione's bag and swung it around him like a shot-put. When he finally let go, the bag and its contents went soaring over the lake waters and landed with a heavy splash some thirty feet from the shore.

Hermione turned to Crabbe, open mouthed and ashen faced.

"What did you do?!" She screamed.

Circe watched with a hand over her mouth, feigning complete surprise as Granger's satchel sank below the black water.

I'm definitely going to hell for that… Circe thought, a slight smile concealed by her hand.