Chapter 2: Back to the Past

Harry awoke on what felt like the next morning on an extremely uncomfortable mattress. Staring up at the ceiling of the second bedroom in Privet Drive he was brought out of his reverie by an indignant shriek. In the corner of his room, perfectly alive and obviously miffed about not being greeted immediately by her new owner was his beautiful owl.

"Hedwig," Harry pressed out in a low gasp and dashed towards the very surprised owl. Of course he knew that this bird had been there when he had 'fallen asleep' the previous evening, but this other Harry had terribly missed his faithful companion, his most intelligent of all the owls out there. When she had died in the old timeline he had been too ashamed to really grieve for her, after Mad-Eye had fallen it seemed so silly to be mourning a 'mere pet'.

Now there was no such thing holding him back, and even though Hedwig seemed a little disturbed, she had never been known for refusing either attention or ministrations in form of petting. As she was currently receiving both, she looked at Harry in what passed for a contented smile in an owl.

Looking down at himself, Harry tried to determine when he was, before he was taken aback at the ridiculous notion of having to ask that question in the first place. Skinny, small, overly large clothes. Nothing to find out when he was, although it could not be later than the summer before third year, otherwise he would be at least somewhat taller. There was his school trunk, so it was before his first year; he was 11 year old Harry Potter again. As for the date, the calendar on the wall with neatly crossed out dates told him it was the 24th of August, around a week before Hogwarts. It seemed like the 'Natural Order' had been disturbed very early, if the point in time was any indication.

Suddenly he remembered what Death had said about The Weasleys, about Ron and Ginny. "Ginny." Saying the name out loud left behind a strange mixture of feelings. On one hand, he still longed to see her, longed for her familiarity and for the familiar feelings for her, on the other hand the feelings he used to have for her felt distant and somehow muted like waking out of a dream or overcoming an obsession. All very weird indeed.

He decided to give it time, maybe that way his feelings would settle down somewhat. He was about to grab for some textbook out of sheer boredom when he realized something else; he was now a seventeen year old man, caught in the body of an eleven year old boy preparing to attend the first year of a school he had already spent six years at. He could admittedly have done a little better, but the content of the lessons was bound to be rather underwhelming for him, at least the first few years, before he could take electives.

"Huh Hedwig, what do you think?" he asked his owl and he could swear he got his answer in the form of an exasperated look that seemed to say 'How should I know, I don't know the problem'. He had done this a lot in the old timeline, just talking to Hedwig and then interpreting the owl's reactions any way he liked. It was fun, but it also provided a sounding board that was never judgemental or condescending, something many humans in his life did not really excel at.

He knew he had been carefully avoiding a topic Death had told him about: Ronald Weasley. Death had indicated he might not be the only one hit with some rather distasteful potion, something he still had trouble believing, and Death's words could only mean one other person, Hermione. Somehow he had never really questioned the girl's relationship with Ron, if you could call it that. In retrospect, it did seem rather iffy for smart, ambitious, down-to-the-ground Hermione to helplessly fall for someone like Ron. Not that there was anything wrong with Ron, Harry quickly assured himself, although it seemed like only 'going through the motions'.

Harry felt a massive headache coming and had no idea if it was due to the difficulties of adjusting to his 'new' life or the soul-

"The soul fragment," he exclaimed, eliciting an indignant cry from Hedwig for startling her followed by her leaving through the window, probably to find some place less loud to sleep. The walk into the forest was so far away for Harry, he would not be able to believe it, if he did not know it had just been a few hours for his consciousness, a few hours since he had made his peace, since he had been ready to die and since he had been looking forward to die, just a little.

It was painful to admit, but there it was. The moment it was clear he had to die, or at least it seemed like it, he had been relieved. All the pain, all the sorrow would end. There were his mother and father waiting for him, Sirius, Remus, Tonks and so many others. Now the only one of those he had around was Hedwig. He had even been looking forward to seeing Dumbledore even if his old headmaster would have to answer some hard questions, especially with Death's 'old meddler' comment.

With a deep breath, Harry tried to regain some semblance of control over his erratic thoughts, knowing full well the only thing that could calm him down right about now was one of Madam Pomfrey's calming draughts.

OOOOOOOO

Hermione Granger was giddy. She was so giddy, she was almost giggling. It was very much unlike her to be even almost giggling.

She just could not help herself, she was excited. In only a few short hours she would be sitting on the train, she would go to a new school where hopefully everyone was as interested in learning as she was. No more taunts, no more glares or cruel pranks. No, just other people like her, she was sure.

She had already read all her books cover to cover at least once, including those she had as light background reading. Her parents did not mind at all, they were just happy she occupied herself and was not taking up any of their oh-so precious time. The last rather sobering thought brought to her other reason why she was happy to go to Hogwarts: she was able to get away from her parents.

It was not that they disliked their daughter, Hermione knew that, but she was an attentive girl and could see quite well there was a barrier between her and her parents, it had always been there and had only grown stronger after Professor McGonagall's visit. This teacher, who Hermione immediately liked very much, had informed her and her parents about Hogwarts, the wizarding world and what Hermione was; a witch.

All in all, Hermione was one excited little witch.

With an unusual spring to her step she made her way from her upstairs bedroom down to the kitchen, where she found her parents reading dentistry journals and drinking tea. She slowly went towards her father and waited for him to finish the page to start talking.

"Father," she greeted him evenly. Horatio Granger looked up at his daughter without saying anything and just raised one brow slightly, signing for her to continue. Hermione, adept as she was at reading human faces by now, immediately caught it and continued, "Would it be possible to leave for Kings Cross early? I don't want to be late…"

She was interrupted by her mother, Phyllis, "I will drive for 10:30. Was there more?"

"No mother. Thank you," Hermione closed the petty excuse of a conversation and went up to her room to once again read 'Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts'. Yes, she was definitely looking forward to conversations with some actual human beings.

Maybe 'Hogwarts, a History' would make for a good conversation starter.

OOOOOOOO

In a car outbound out of Surrey, Harry was on edge. His state of mind was not so much rooted in his anxiousness about what he would find, but far more in if what he had found the last time was the truth. Starting to question everything you know would be difficult for just about everyone, so it came as no surprise that Harry Potter was not faring any better than could be expected from the average seventeen year old.

Shortly after arriving in this time, he had already decided to at least give his suspicions about the Weasleys time to carefully simmer inside his mind. What he had come up with was neither pleasant nor particularly joy-inducing.

Firstly, the meeting at King's Cross seemed to be too much a coincidence by now, especially considering the fact that Mrs. Weasley, who by this point in time must have made dozens of trips there, would loudly ask for the track, let alone shout out her frustration with all the muggles around her.

Secondly, neither his nor Hermione's relationship with the youngest Weasleys seemed completely unsuspicious. While he was not completely sure about Hermione, he himself was by now convinced there had been some potion involved between him and Ginny. How much she knew Harry had no clue and he was still desperate for her to have been kept in the dark about the whole thing, but at this point he thought he was ready to accept nearly anything. Come to think of it, her infatuation with him had always bordered on pathological. Very worrying indeed, especially in hindsight when it was not overshadowed by the hilarity of her distracted antics.

His thought process was interrupted by his uncle pulling into the parking lot of the train station, bellowing for Harry to "make it quick". Just like last time he was 'escorted' to the wall between platforms nine and ten, given a few nasty remarks and an even nastier smile and left alone.

However, this time around Harry was not a clueless eleven-year-old. Confidently he walked towards the wall between the two platforms and promptly found himself in front of the scarlet steam engine that was the Hogwarts express. He had already decided to settle in a compartment early, ward the door with notice-me-not charms keyed to him and (hopefully) Hermione. Of course, it would only work if her magical signature was the same one he remembered from the countless times of raising wards around their campsites during the hunt for the Horcruxes.

Otherwise, it would be Plan B. He hated Plan B.

OOOOOOOO

Harry's future/past best friend was a little indignant. Although her mother had promised her she would be at the station by 10:30, it was almost ten minutes later that she actually got there and if they had been in a traffic jam, they should have just accounted for the possibility and started fifteen minutes earlier, at minimum.

They came by a large group of redheads so utterly abnormal they could only be magical, at least considering what Hermione remembered from her visit to Diagon Alley. They were just standing there, the portly woman who seemed to be the mother looking around probably searching something, the two boys who could only be twins, a boy and a little girl.

"Strange bunch," she thought, before continuing on her way.

Phyllis Granger was as unfazed as ever in light of her daughter's mood and simply stalked towards the wall between platforms nine and ten. With a rather stiff smile she looked at Hermione and started talking, "Enjoy your time at school, Hermione."

"I will. Thank you, mother," Hermione answered and unceremoniously went through the divider, even though she flinched slightly as the wall drew ever closer.

OOOOOOOO

Harry was settling into his compartment, nice and cosy behind his wards. After the last year he just could not feel safe without some added magical protection, so deeply ingrained had the instincts and tactics of survival become. He was monitoring the platform for any interesting developments, but so far he had just seen the same as the last time. There was Neville looking for his toad, Lee Jordan with his overly large pet spider and all the other chaos he had come to expect with large groups of wizards and witches.

About ten minutes before the scheduled departure something finally caught his eye; a large group of redheads entered the scene. Just like last time Ginny was crying and her family tried to soothe her. Except Percy of course who had gone off to strut around with his prefect badge.

"Hey, next year you can go too," one of the twins tried to soothe their sister.

"Yeah, and well send you tons of letters, maybe even a nice Hogwarts toilet seat…" the other twin finished off, followed by a glare from their mother which quickly made them flee, ostensibly to look at Lee's giant tarantula.

"And…" Ginny continued to sniff a little. "What about my Harry?"

"My Harry?" Harry thought to himself. Hearing that from a ten year old Ginny Weasley was rather disconcerting.

"Ron will look for him on the train, dear, then you can meet him next summer when he comes to visit," Mrs. Weasley continued to soothe her daughter while immediately cranking up Harry's concerns to new levels. How could she know he would be there next summer?

Harry put thinking this particular revelation off for some later date, because for now he had something else to concentrate on. He fished the parchment he had found in his pocket after returning out of his bag and began to review it.

This ritual will allow one person, no more, to regain the memories they had on the old timeline up until the point you 'died'.

Choose wisely.

The rather short note was for some reason signed with an hourglass and accompanied by another sheet of parchment with detailed instructions on how to proceed.

Harry needed help, he knew as much. What he also knew was that he needed a confidante, someone he could trust completely and without reserve, who never hurt him intentionally. That meant Hermione.

It was also the reason he hated Plan A as much as he hated Plan B.

OOOOOOOO

Hermione was looking for a toad. Some boy named Neville had come by her compartment earlier looking for his toad and immediately she knew that maybe he could be a friend. Also, she loved helping people with things.

She had canvassed almost half of the train when she came to a compartment with a single occupant. Said occupant was a small, skinny boy with raven-black hair and clothes that were obviously cast-offs. But more importantly, he seemed to be doing magic.

"Have you seen a toad? Some boy named Neville lost his earlier, I'm helping him search," she started the conversation, before quickly berating herself for her rudeness.

"Damn Granger, next time introduce yourself first," her sometimes surprisingly foul-mouthed inner voice chastised her.

"No, sorry. But it's nice of you to help him search. Do you want to join me for a quick break?" he invited her. His voice seemed honest, but she had learned all too often not to be too trusting of other children. Therefore, she carefully made her way into the compartment to sit across from the boy.

Before she could get anymore out, suddenly distracted by the boy's hypnotizing eyes, he started to talk again.

"I'm very sorry, Hermione. Stupefy!"

And she was out cold.

OOOOOOOO

AN: Hope you enjoyed the 2nd chapter and like always leave a review.

Enjoy your day,

alexandertheII