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Saturday was a day of relentless rain.
It lashed down in sheets, hammering into the Black Lake. A fierce wind whipped broken branches and clumps of grass against the castle stone. Several unlucky owls, disoriented by the storm, had crashed into windows and broken bones. Students who found them brought the birds to Madam Pomfrey.
The Albacore Club's lakeside Mermish practice session was cancelled. The members sat in the castle hall instead, polishing ram horns and ox bones—liberated from the generous kitchens of the house-elves—as gifts for the merpeople.
"Good morning, Professor Anthony. I didn't expect to see you in the library at this hour," said Professor Flitwick cheerfully, craning his neck to see the titles in Anthony's arms. "Secrets of Time and… oh, a Honeydukes stock list?"
Anthony smiled and nodded. "Yes, Professor Flitwick. I was planning a trip to Honeydukes, but the weather didn't cooperate."
In the dead of night, at the precise moment Anthony least wanted to deal with his pet—namely, when he was peacefully resting beneath his blankets—the Cat had helpfully leapt into one of the unsecured boxes. After a series of strange scratching and rustling sounds, Anthony awoke to find a sticky, pink-powder-coated skeletal cat sprawled on his pillow. And a box of what was probably the corpse of a coconut ice.
He disposed of the coconut ice coffin and decided to treat the remaining two boxes as decorative furniture. It was only then he realized, with immense relief, that he could now buy some new snacks.
"Yes, yes, dreadful weather today!" Flitwick agreed. "So glad there's no Quidditch! I had planned a little drink at The Three Broomsticks myself, a chat with friends. But with rain like this? Best to stay snug in our chairs with a good book." He floated two or three impossibly thick tomes from a shelf—Madam Pince watched him with a stern eye—and cast a shrewd glance at Anthony's books. "Developing an interest in temporal magic, Professor Anthony?"
"No. Not exactly," Anthony said. "Strictly speaking, I'm just curious about how Time-Turners work. Did you know a student will be using one next term?"
Flitwick chirped, "I know a student uses one every term. But I take your point, Professor Anthony. Your first time encountering a student with a Time-Turner?"
He steered his floating books with his wand and walked with Anthony toward the exit.
"Yes. Hermione Granger, next term," Anthony said. "If I'm still teaching third-years, she'll be in my class. She's taking Muggle Studies, Divination, and Arithmancy all at once. Hard to imagine."
"Miss Granger has a great passion for learning," Flitwick praised. "And she's a most talented witch." He suddenly backtracked, bent down to scan the lowest shelf, and pulled out two more books. He checked their tables of contents, critically shoved one back, and then hurried to catch up with Anthony.
"What I mean is, the Time-Turner still sounds impossible to imagine," Anthony explained. "I've always known they exist. Minerva told me. And I know better than to try and logic it out. But my Muggle part—which is most of me—keeps stubbornly screaming that it shouldn't be real." He smiled at Madam Pince by the door and showed her the book spine. "Just this one today, Madam Pince."
Pince glanced at it and nodded.
"These four, Irma," Flitwick said. "I do like your hat. A very fine point. Is it Madam Malkin's work?"
"Twilfitt and Tattings," Madam Pince said flatly. "Thank you for the compliment, Filius, but you still should have returned The Origin and Evolution of Charms and A Study of Italian Wizarding Customs two days ago. Incidentally, Curses and Counter-curses, Charms Without Incantation, and One Thousand and One Consequences of Mispronounced Charms are due in three days. The Invention and Application of Precision Charms has four days left."
Flitwick beamed. "Of course, Irma. I'll have Guppy bring them over the moment I get back."
Madam Pince scrutinized him with deep suspicion before reluctantly allowing him to borrow the four books, but only after his repeated assurances.
"I think Irma dislikes me," Flitwick mused as they walked away. "Probably because I lent some books to Albus, and now they're stuck in the Headmaster's office… though they weren't really suitable for the general library anyway… Where were we? Ah, yes. The Time-Turner. What about it seems unreasonable?"
"So many things," Anthony said. "Forget complex scientific experiments. Take a simple daily example. Suppose I give a pop quiz in class, explain the answers, and let the students keep their papers. Miss Granger stuffs her quiz into her bag, turns back time one hour, and goes to Divination… Does her bag now contain a quiz paper from the future? Does her mind hold a memory from the future?"
"I believe so," Flitwick said brightly. "And there's nothing unreasonable about that, Professor Anthony."
"But it completely scrambles the definitions of past and future, Professor Flitwick," Anthony countered. "For the Granger in the Divination classroom, the Muggle Studies quiz is in her past. But for the Granger who just walked into that classroom, and for all her classmates, it's supposed to be the un-happened future. Theoretically speaking… isn't that a perfect cheat? Couldn't a Time-Turner holder ace any exam? Just read a note from their future self."
"In theory, a Time-Turner is quite unsuitable for cheating," Flitwick said. "Countless magical experiments have proven it's a dangerous device. It can cause a slight blurring of the line between past and future…"
Anthony mentally added heavy quotation marks around Flitwick's "slight blurring." He'd always felt temporal magic was the kind of weirdness that turned everything into a tangled mess, one that slid too easily into fatalism.
Flitwick continued, "…but it cannot cause massive changes to any established future. The danger is primarily to the user. The user must undergo rigorous testing and verification. They must be extremely careful not to see their other self at any point, nor attempt to alter events that have already happened. Otherwise, the individual can become lost in the magic itself. Among the students permitted to have a Time-Turner, none would risk cheating under such conditions."
Anthony let out a deep sigh. Raindrops hammered against the corridor windows. Water seeped through the frames, dripping onto the floor and spreading into a wide, dark puddle.
"What's the matter?"
"It's worse," Anthony said. "It sounds exactly like fatalism… and a particularly rigid kind of fatalism."
Flitwick looked puzzled. "But fate does exist, my dear fellow. Divination exists precisely because there is fate. And Centaur star-charts…"
Anthony shook his head. "No, Professor Flitwick. Here's the thing: At any given moment, people can go back to the past. And people from the future can come back to the present. The very existence of someone from the future implies a fixed, determined future, precise down to the second, with no room for variation… That's completely different from 'I see misfortune looming before you.'"
A group of students passed by, catching Anthony's exaggerated, airy imitation of Professor Trelawney. They shot curious glances their way.
Anthony deliberately turned and met one student's eyes. The student instantly grew flustered, offered a stiff greeting to both professors, and hurried away with their friends as if misfortune was indeed closing in.
Flitwick waited until the students vanished down the staircase before chuckling. "I see. No, Professor Anthony. While a faction of scholars might agree with your description, the mainstream view in magical academia is that the future is not entirely fixed. Albus has stated quite clearly that it is people's choices that determine how events unfold—the shape of the future."
"But the Time-Turner…"
"Precisely. That's why the conditions for using a Time-Turner are so strict. Aside from a few research Unspeakables, only a handful of students receive authorization. And what they can do with it is heavily restricted," Flitwick explained, making his books bob along in the air as they ascended another staircase. "A friend of mine—with certain internal insights, purely for academic discussion—mentioned this is precisely to avoid 'over-locking' time."
"Hmm… That makes sense."
Flitwick elaborated. "As long as no one returns from the future, the future is not determined. Class schedules are highly regular. And a few students appearing in different classrooms simultaneously have a minimal impact on others' futures. Furthermore, the students must sign a mountain of guarantee forms and swear not to tell anyone they possess a Time-Turner."
Anthony frowned. "If it's so troublesome, why not just stop issuing them to students? It sounds like, aside from high-level magical research, its main purpose is to produce students with insane schedules and multiple qualifications, with a side of extremely dangerous side effects."
"Quite right, Professor Anthony. But sometimes, one good reason is enough to persuade people to do seemingly unreasonable things."
Anthony asked, "And that good reason is?"
Flitwick answered with grave sincerity. "The Ministry of Magic wants to see some practical use for the things the Department of Mysteries makes. The Time-Turner research cost a fortune."
Anthony nodded slowly. "A compelling reason."
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