Dumbledore turned to Hermione, his voice carrying a note of praise.
Hermione waved him off.
"All right, all right, I can't handle this sentimental stuff. I'm heading out."
With that, she turned and left without the slightest hesitation.
"That girl..."
Dumbledore shook his head helplessly.
Snape watched Hermione leave and snorted.
"Hmph. One of the few decent things Granger has done, though the process was full of her twisted sense of humor."
Elsewhere.
Hermione walked out of the Great Hall and stretched.
"Ugh, boring."
"Hogwarts really is dull without Voldemort to play with. All I can do is pick on Harry and Ron to scrape by."
Hermione's private laboratory on the top floor of Stark Tower.
"Still no luck?"
Hermione sighed softly and set the Time-Turner on the lab bench.
With her brows tightly furrowed, she stared at the parchment spread across the table, densely covered in formulas and symbols.
These were the results of her recent research.
She had tried every method she could think of to make the Time-Turner withstand more powerful magic and extend how far it could turn back time.
That included charging it with the Time Stone, but the results had been minimal.
"Looks like simply charging it won't meet my needs anymore."
Hermione rubbed the space between her brows and murmured to herself.
"To break through this bottleneck, I'll have to modify it through alchemy."
Knock, knock-
Suddenly, a knock sounded at the door.
Hermione put down her quill and rubbed her aching temples.
"Come in."
Happy pushed open the door. "Miss Hermione, someone's here to see you."
"Who?"
Hermione continued leafing through the documents on her desk without looking up.
"Thor. He brought a young woman with him, but she looks very weak."
"Thor?" Hermione looked up in surprise.
She had assumed