PART 1: ACT 5

PART 1: ACT 5

Delphi awoke the following morning on Severus' sofa, desperately needing to pee and draped in a scratchy old blanket that definitely wasn't there when she had fallen asleep the previous night. With a small smile at the thoughtfulness of the gesture, she pushed the blanket off with a stretch and padded through the house to find the bathroom, grateful that the Golden Time-Turner now allowed her to stay in the past as long as she wanted. She made no effort to be quiet, performing her ablutions whilst singing to herself. By the time her bladder was empty, her body washed and her clothes and hair Scourgified, Severus was now up and clattering around in the kitchen and making all the hallmark noises of preparing tea.

Delphi leaned on the door jamb and watched him magically pour hot water from the boiled kettle into what looked to be a teapot from the 1970's on a faded tea-tray whilst simultaneously retrieving a teaspoon from a shabby drawer. He made no effort to acknowledge her presence.

"Sleep well?" she asked cheerfully. "I slept like a baby. Must've been good wine."

Severus ignored this, sending the tea-tray zooming out in front of him and causing Delphi to pin herself flat against the door frame as it chinked and rattled, floating past her into the sitting room. Severus strode past quickly behind it and Delphi unpeeled herself from the doorway and hurried after.

"I am interested to hear exactly how you intend to enact phase two of your plan," Severus said as he set the tinkling tea-tray down on a rickety side table. "So far, you have told me what you intend to do, but have mysteriously omitted the how."

"Always with the questions," Delphi grumbled, flopping back onto the sofa. "Can I at least have a cuppa before we start with the Spanish Inquisition again?"

Wearily, Severus conceded, sending a cup of tea over to her followed by a small jug of milk. Delphi caught the tea in one hand and the jug in the other, pouring the milk deliberately slowly and stirring the cup with a flourish, tapping the rim of the cup with the teaspoon three times to get rid of the drips before taking a loud, exaggerated slurp. She could practically feel the waves of annoyance radiating off Severus. She savoured the moment and took another large gulp before setting the cup down on the side with a rattle and a big sigh.

"Right, then. You want to know about the book?"

Severus nodded, his patience clearly wearing very thin.

"OK. Well. As you might know, Armando Dippet was the Headmaster of Hogwarts before Albus Dumbledore, back when You-Know-Who was a pupil. He thought it was perfectly reasonable to host THE most evil grimoire known to Wizardkind, called Secrets of the Darkest Art, in the Hogwarts Library, where any curious child or would-be megalomaniac Dark Lord in training could get their grubby hands on it. More like Armando Dipshit, am I right?"

Delphi slapped her thigh and let out a bark of a laugh at her own joke whilst Severus listened closely, his face as usual stoic and betraying no sign of amusement as he waited for her to proceed.

"Anyhoo. Dumbledore had the good grace to remove the vile thing when he became Headmaster but by then it was too late, You-Know-Who had already created his first Horcrux when he'd been at school."

She took another big swig of tea, smacked her lips and continued.

"Now I know what you're thinking: Who did he kill to create his first Horcrux? Well, that was an unfortunate Ravenclaw girl by the name of Myrtle Warren, otherwise known as resident Hogwarts ghost Moaning Myrtle. We know that she died on 13th June 1943, when You-Know-Who was sixteen, so therefore we know that we'll need to change the book before he starts school, so before September 1938. Are you with me so far?"

Severus narrowed his eyes. "Yes, but that still doesn't explain how you're going to change the book."

Delphi held her hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Hold your Hippogriffs! I'm getting to that bit! Patience, Padawan."

Severus looked puzzled at being called a Padawan as Delphi drained her teacup before continuing.

"OK. So, we know Horcruxes are made by splitting the soul, and one way of achieving that is by murder. But, do you know how these things are made?" Delphi reached inside her vest and pulled out both Time-Turners, dangling from their delicate chains. "THESE, believe it or not, are made in a not too dissimilar way to Horcruxes, but in a less violent way. I'm no Unspeakable and all of this information I've learned through books but it sounds like the same Dark Magic as Horcruxes to me, just a bit more sophisticated. Time-Turners are created by shaving off a portion of the creator's own timeline. Typically, for one of the usual Ministry-approved Time-Turners it might be no more than a few hours." At this, she picked up her original silver Time-Turner. "But for something more advanced, to allow you to stay in the past for longer and to go further back, it would need more time from the creator. Maybe even years or decades." She held up the Golden Time-Turner, watching the sands slowly trickle through.

Severus was now rapt with attention, his black eyes gleaming at this new knowledge as he waited for Delphi to go on.

"I suppose you could compare making a Horcrux to ripping a loaf of bread in two – it's violent and inelegant, but it gets the job done. Whereas making a Time-Turner is much more precise, it's like using a very sharp knife to slice off a tiny sliver of bread. Does that make sense?"

"I think so," Severus replied slowly.

"Good. So, in answer to your question, my plan is to replace the Horcrux spell in the Secrets of the Darkest Art with the spell that is used to shave off time in order to create Time-Turners."

Severus thought about this for a second.

"So the Horcruxes will become accidental Time-Turners instead? Won't that create even more problems? And, how do you know the spell will even work?"

Delphi shook her head fiercely. "No, no, no. It's not the complete spell to create a Time-Turner. It's just the part that shaves off bits of time. Essentially, the Horcrux receptacles will house bits of You-Know-Who's life, rather than his soul. And I know the spell works because I tried it myself."

At this, Delphi fumbled in her pocked and pulled out a large, flat pebble, turning it over in her hands before tossing it over to Severus to examine.

"Looks like an ordinary stone, right? No magic to discern of."

Severus eyed the stone carefully before passing it back to Delphi.

"But watch this."

Delphi stood and pulled out her wand. She began muttering a charm over the stone and it glowed blue, much like the sands in the Time-Turner. After a minute tiny particles of blue swam up from the stone, swirling around into a kind of small vortex before suddenly rushing towards Delphi and surrounding her like an aura. After a few moments more, the particles clung to her, making Delphi glow eerily and then suddenly vanishing as they forced their way inside her. Delphi let out a cry of pain, breathing hard.

"What just happened?" Severus asked sharply.

"You just watched me regain an hour of my life," she replied, still a little breathless. "It hurts like hell cutting the time off and regaining the time, so You-Know-Who shouldn't question that he's done something terrible. But we're not going to tell him how to regain time, only how to shave it off and save it inside inanimate objects. So imagine that: he'll think he's made Horcruxes but actually, he's shaving off hours and years of his life. Imagine what that would mean. We could adjust how much time we want him to shave off. We'd be killing him slowly and he wouldn't even know."

Delphi smiled her impish smile then, and once more Severus was forced to admit that there was more to this beautiful and dangerous witch than he'd first imagined.