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It was nighttime when I finally stumbled out of the Room of Requirement, blinking my tired eyes into the torchlit darkness of the empty corridor.

Slowly, one foot in front of the other, I trudged doggedly back to the Hufflepuff dorms. My mouth was dry as sand. The Time Turner weighed nothing in my trouser pocket. I felt it clink gently against the side of my thigh.

Most of the students had turned down for bed, save for two Seventh Years sitting by the fire playing some sort of card game. They were too engrossed and didn't give me so much as a second glance as I stole towards the Eighth Year girls' dorms and knocked, furtively, on Ainsley's door.

It swung open, and I was immediately greeted with a quick, sharp slap across the face.

The sound snapped like a whip and bounced off the circular walls. When the white in my vision cleared, Hannah stood before me, tall and broad-shouldered. Fuming.

"How could you!" she cried.

"Hannah," I said, holding my stinging face. "I need to speak with Ainsley."

Hannah made an inarticulate sound, half gasp, half scoff. "As if! You have some massive fucking balls, leaving her on the street like that, then coming round here like it's nothing!"

My cheek was starting to smart terribly. "I know," I said through gritted teeth. "I came to see if she's all right."

Hannah's lashes fluttered rapidly, like she was trying to blink away something stuck in her eyes. "All right? She's got pneumonia, you bastard!"

"Again?" I shook my head. "How's that possible? It's almost summer."

"How should I know! When I saw her in the infirmary, she was coughing and saying she couldn't breathe. Thank Godric some passerby got her back to the castle. Pomfrey very well lost her mind!"

"The infirmary, you said?"

"Yeah, where else— Hey, wait! Draco, wait!" She said something else, but I didn't hear it. I was racing back through the tunnel.

The kitchens were hot and dark, the thick air trapped in there like a baking oven. Ainsley's face was the only thing on my mind as I tore through the castle to the hospital wing. Her large sad eyes, swollen and rubbed raw, looking up at me, pleading for the understanding and forgiveness I was incapable of. Her skin, so thin and deathly pale I could count the tiny lightning-shaped veins in her cheeks. How they had shifted away from my view as I turned away from her, until they were completely replaced by the street that led back up to the castle.

But I couldn't have stayed, I might have done something, something violent. To the people around me, to myself, or worse, to her. I don't think I would have, but I don't know myself anymore. I don't know anything.

The ghostly orange light of the hospital wing loomed ahead. I was about to dash in when I was greeted by a scene that made me skid to a halt.

Ainsley was propped up on a bed. By her side was Montague. His hulking figure was bent over her as he stroked her hair, murmuring something to her, the same way as I had done the last time she was sick, in his absence. My heart sank.

Get away from her, I wanted to shout. But Ainsley was in bad shape. Really bad. Even from where I stood I could see the sweat gleaming on her forehead, the pull of muscle between her brows as she hacked out wet, phlegmy coughs.

Montague was holding a paper bag by her mouth with his other hand. "Spit it out," he was telling her. "You have to spit it out." But Ainsley only coughed harder and could not expel the thick phlegm that was stubbornly lodged in her throat.

"It hurts," she gasped through laboured, wheezing breaths.

"Where? Where?" said Montague as he held her by her shoulders, trying to make her look at him. I could not tell if it was acting or genuine concern.

Just then, Pomfrey tottered out from the back room. "I've got it," she announced, brandishing a bottle in her hand. Montague snatched it from her and, without stopping to inspect it, pulled out the cork and fed it to Ainsley.

The two of them stared at her with bated breath, as if she were a werewolf and the draught was supposed to turn her back to human.

Ainsley did not stop coughing.

Montague held the empty bottle up to the light to examine it. Then he put it to his nose and sniffed. "What is this?" he asked Pomfrey.

"Lindström's garlic potion," Pomfrey replied, a little defensively.

"Hans Lindström?" said Montague angrily. "You do know he's a complete charlatan? He hasn't been practising professionally since the bloody 60s! The old codger can barely tell Gillyweed from wolfsbane!"

"Well, I most certainly did not know that!" sputtered Pomfrey, now thoroughly offended.

Montague threw his head back to the ceiling. "Sweet Salazar," he muttered. "It's April, for Merlin's sake! She can't be having pneumonia in April! Why was she alone in Hogsmeade, anyway? Who brought her back here?"

I slunk further back into the shadows, until the two bickering figures were completely obscured by the wall, and then a little further until my back hit the cold, dead stone.

This was all my fault. If I hadn't left her on the street, if I hadn't brought her to Madame Maudlin's... Could it have been Maudlin's dusty shop, some leftover bacteria from a previous patron lingering in the musty air? Or had it been the food we'd eaten during our dinner with the elves? But it couldn't be, because I wasn't sick and as far as I knew, Potter wasn't either. Besides, we were Wizarding folk. We don't get sick, not like Muggles. Not like how Ainsley was sick now. I could hear her wet coughs above the low, urgent intonations of Montague and Pomfrey's conversation.

If there was ever a good time to use the Time Turner, now would be it, right? I could go back to that moment in Hogsmeade, stop myself from leaving — it would be slightly past the time limit of Time Turners, but it can't make much of a difference. I would be angry and hurt all over again, but at least I would be there to bring Ainsley back safely, so a stranger didn't have to do it, so Montague wouldn't be there with her now. I would.

No, I could go even further back than that. If I were to use the Time Turner, it would have to be to go back to a bigger moment, one that set in motion the consequential events. I had to go back to the genesis of this shit show. Which moment that was, I did not know, because I could not think, not with Ainsley's terrible coughing and Montague harshly berating Pomfrey and this heavy darkness dark that would suffocate me if I stayed here too long.

Quietly, I slunk back to the Hufflepuff Common Room. The two students playing cards had gone to bed by now, and the last remaining fires in the sitting area had been put out. In the silence, the place looked vast and overly large. Its circular shape spun like a top and made me dizzy.

My body didn't seem to know what to do with itself. I stood in the middle, suddenly overcome by the feeling of being lost. In my pocket, the Time Turner now felt like a boulder, a deadweight, an anchor, sinking me down. Down, down, down into the floor, where I would disappear forever. I didn't dare take it out to look at it. Not now, when anyone might walk in and see me. I knew the consequences of being caught in possession of a device like that.

Time, despite its shape-shifting nature, is strict. One can only bend with it, willingly or unwillingly, but not change it. To attempt to do so would cause irreparable damage, to oneself or the very course of history. I'd heard the stories: witches stuck in time for centuries, wizards who wanted to play god. I was no god – that I knew too well.

And yet, there must've been some reason that I had been gifted this very precious tool. Someone or something — whatever force powered the Room of Requirement — thought I was the perfect recipient for this gift. And the Room never makes mistakes. It only gave things people inherently needed, not based on whims and fancies. It would have let me cry and scream for hours, and let me go empty-handed if it didn't think I would find purposeful use for it.

Steeled by this thought, I forced my body to move, to do something, anything. Naturally, I gravitated toward the bookshelf. I pulled down a random title and went back to my room.

Ernie and I shared the room with Wayne Hopkins and Oliver Rivers — or rather, they shared the room with me. This was a kindness on their part. There was a spare bed that had belonged to Justin Finch-Fletchly, who was held back in Seventh Year because he'd been pulled out of school during the final year of the War. Hopkins and Rivers have not forgiven me for that, though they will never say this out loud. It was awkward staying with them, but because it had been decreed by Ernie, who was somewhat the commander of the Eighth Year Hufflepuff boys, they tolerated it the best they could.

Now, from outside the room, I could hear the two of them talking, in rather lively tones, something about cigarettes, toads, and Ron Weasley, but the moment I opened it and stepped in, they both fell quiet and looked at me.

They didn't say anything for a moment. Then Rivers nodded at me in greeting. I nodded back and went to my bed, but they didn't continue their conversation. I collected my bedclothes and went to the toilets to change. I heard their voices as they resumed their conversation, but in lower tones.

Shutting myself in a cubicle, I took the Time Turner carefully from my trouser pocket and, without looking at it, slipped it into the pocket of my pyjama trousers. When I came back out, the two boys stopped talking again. They pretended to prepare for bed, faffing with their covers and the things on their nightstand.

I got in bed and curled up under the sheets with my book, and tried to make myself invisible. I saw that I had taken Emma by Jane Austen, a novel I was only vaguely familiar with. I pretended to read, but it was difficult. It was getting hot under the covers, and I was painfully aware of the looks they were exchanging. It acted as an overdue reminder that even though I'd been staying here for a whole week, I did not truly belong here. This behaviour around me isn't unique to the Hufflepuff boys; it would be the same if I went back to the Slytherin Common Room.

I realised I do not belong anywhere. Everywhere I go, the spaces feel like they already belonged to someone else. There is nowhere to claim as mine; the entirety of Earth feels like foreign land to me. The only times I've ever felt like I have been home are when I'm with Ainsley.

She is so small, but her body feels like it had been enchanted with an Extension Charm, expanding into a house big enough for me to crawl into, to seek shelter. When she cries, I am watching the raindrops sliding down the glass windows. When she smiles, I am standing in the warm squares of sun on the floor. When she sits next to me and her arm brushes against mine, I am sitting by a fireplace in the winter, a fireplace I've sat in front for aeons, in a different lifetime, and lifetimes before that. With her, I am on the inside looking out. But Ainsley is not here now, and I am wholly terrified of the world.

Again, I tried to distract myself with the book, burying my consciousness under Emma's meddlesome antics, Mr Knightley's swift and unrelenting criticism of her annoying but well-meaning tendencies. My eyes skimmed over the pages without really reading. I wondered where Ernie was.

An hour or so passed, agonisingly, until Rivers waved in the air to get my attention. "Do you still need the light, mate? We're going to bed." I was startled by this question, since I was still holding the book open and very obviously needed light. I shook my head, and they promptly put out all the candles.

I stared at the ticking clock next to me, delineated by the blue-silver glow of night. It was then the curtain fell, and the full memory of the day's events came crashing down upon me like a collapsed ceiling. Ainsley was going with Montague, and I will likely never see her again. It was the end of April now. May will fly by, and June will be upon us like a pack of hounds. And then N.E.W.T.s will be done, and she will pack her things and set off on a train for a faraway land, while I returned to an even further place, forced to face the grimacing portraits and marble busts alone.

I have forgotten what the silences sounded like before Ainsley's busy chatter, the infernal whirling of her Muggle recorder, the scratching of her quill. My parents must have forgotten too. Anxiety gripped me suddenly. How would I even be able to speak to Mother and Father? How could I even bear to look at them across the silent dinner table, cutting into our roast chicken and sipping our wine, with our faces on store shelves across the country while the girl who made it happen is sitting in a glass prison?

With a jolt, I remembered the Time Turner. It was still in my trouser pocket, I could feel its weight pressing against my thigh. I took it out, and was about to bring it up to the light from the window when I heard footsteps outside the door. I managed to shove the Time Turner under my pillow just as Ernie came in.

I shut my eyes and pretended to sleep. There was the pungent smell of weed as he threw his wand and emptied his pockets onto his bed behind me, before he went about his nightly routine. In the bathroom, I heard the shower turn on, and then off ten minutes later. His permanent sniffling punctuated the quiet of the room. The trickling of water from the decanter on the communal desk, sparkling and popping into the glass. Three gulps. Finally, he padded over to the bed.

The springs squeaked as he climbed in. There was some shifting of the sheets, and then a long pause. I could feel his eyes boring into my back, and I was relieved that I was facing away from him. He looked at me for a long time, as if waiting for me to speak or do something. Then he settled down, turning the other way so that his back was facing me. There was a coldness in this motion, not like ice, but like darkness. Empty. I knew he was angry with me.

I had a wild thought: What if I showed him the Time Turner? He might be angry at first, but if I explain to him everything, the disastrous deal Ainsley had made with Montague, he will understand. Surely he won't object to my using of it, then? Perhaps we could even decide on the exact moment in time to go back together.

But something prevented me from moving. Another thought: I now owned something more valuable than all of my family's treasures combined. It was the key to helping Ainsley and me escape, my last remaining fragment of hope. There was no rush to change things now — I could do that whenever I wanted. I decided it was something I want to keep just for myself, for just a little while longer.

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I visited her every night for two days. However, I never went in, did not sit beside her and hold her hand. Instead, I remained by the entrance, in the blind spot behind the pillar where the torches do not shine, not so much because I hadn't thought of what I would say to her — I was too overcome by the shame and guilt of our last meeting — but more so because the Hufflepuff dorms have now become yet another cold, unwelcome place for me.

Despite his icy glare that night, Ernie was carrying on as if nothing was wrong. We bantered, ate in the Great Hall with Hannah and Susan, and studied together at the large table in the common room. But underneath that, there was a hatred and anger that emanated from them. Whether it was towards me, for my irresponsibility that day, or towards themselves, for being unable to help Ainsley's circumstances, I could not tell. They still did not know about her deal, as far as I was aware.

On the third night of her illness, I'd crept to my usual hiding spot, and to my surprise, saw that Ernie was in there, conversing with Madam Pomfrey.

"It's April," he was saying to her, and she gave him such a severe look that even he shrank back.

"Don't worry, she's cared for," Pomfrey said with finality, fishing out the garlic potion from her apron and brandishing it at Ernie, as if to prove she was doing her job. The truth, I suspected, was that it was the only thing that was helping Ainsley now.

I briefly wondered if they have Fluxweed in Switzerland, for the potion, though I doubt Montague even knew the recipe. He probably doesn't know how to powder the asphodel root properly, or how to measure a pinch of salt (he has comically large hands), or the exact number of swirls it takes to mix the concoction together.

I wondered if he knows that, if this fever was anything like the last, Ainsley always gets sweaty and cold at around three in the morning, and to remove the blankets on just one side of her body, so her temperature can regulate while allowing her to keep sufficiently warm. I wondered if he knows the exact spot on her head to stroke to calm her feverish fits, the precise pressure and rhythm he needed to exert to lull her to sleep even on the most difficult of nights.

I know he doesn't. Because those are things I'd asked and learned on my own. Night after night of guess-and-check to the tune of "Is this okay?", "What can I get you?", "Are you too hot or cold?", "Are you hungry or thirsty or bored or tired or nauseous?"

The Captain had never had to bother with such trivial matters, not in the last year at least. He was now a shell of himself, or perhaps his cabinet story is an excuse for something that had never been there at all.

Now, however, it seemed he'd learnt his lesson. He visited Ainsley more often in the daytime, always looming close by as if not to watch over her, but to watch out for... me? No, he was asserting his dominance over her, like a dog peeing on its kennel, marking its territory, stinking up the air with his cloying sweet-salty cologne and scented hair wax. He lingered even when her three friends visited. I could tell they didn't like this, but they could do little, since he was always polite and tolerant.

The second night, Hannah had kept Ainsley company. To my relief, she did not simply sit by idly waiting for time to pass. She bustled about, tidied the bedside table, refilled Ainsley's glass, and sat her up to plump her pillows. More importantly, she uncovered one of Ainsley's legs at night.

She did all these things with an ease and dexterity that hinted at the possibility that this had once been part of a routine. When every task was finished and she ensured that Ainsley's glass was filled to the brim, she finally sat down in her chair. Ainsley was awake, and the two of them were chatting. I only caught snatches of the conversation, something inane about Terry Boot giving Leanne an expensive necklace with an opal pendant. I was busy watching as Hannah began to perform a strange routine.

First, she dipped a muslin cloth into a bowl of water that sat next to the bed. Folding the cloth over her fingers, she wiped gently at Ainsley's face. Starting at her forehead, she wiped in gentle, downward strokes, then sideways, down her nose and over her cheeks in circular motions. Ainsley closed her eyes as they continued talking, their mouths working furiously, occasionally giggling and gasping at something the other