Hermione knew what he was referencing. When she landed in the past, with nothing more than Bellatrix’s time turner still clutched in her fist, Tom had utilized his connections to learn more. An Unspeakable loyal to him had agreed to study the device in secret and concluded that it would eventually send her home, but the exact date of her return was incalculable. The magic that whisked her away had been too unpredictable and only became noticeable when the device that sent her back in the first place had begun to act up, sending out progressively stronger, strange flares of magic at random. Eventually, the Unspeakable had explained, the flares would grow strong enough to return her to her own time. It was an event they had both prepared for but when her body had begun to fade away before her eyes, she had seen the fear in his expression and had known it was reflected back in her own. It had only been a few hours since then for her, but over fifty years for him.