Thought You Ought to Know
Hermione's eyes were squeezed shut, her knees pulled tightly to her chest. The shaking stopped, just as quickly as it began. Slowly, Hermione opened her eyes, wiping liquid away from them without thinking. Had she been crying? She supposed that was acceptable after what she had just gone through. She had just enough time to see that the three sides of herself that were in her line of sight were obscured by short walls of some sort when she heard a loud roar and ducked her head as the short walls came crashing down around her.
This time when Hermione looked up, the sight of a fully-grown mountain troll greeted her. Instinctively, she scooted away from it, nearly hitting her head on the toilet behind her. Wait, toilet? Hermione thought, thoroughly confused. Why was she in a bathroom with a troll? And then she remembered. She had been in this situation before. But she'd been a first year then. She was older now. If she could survive the first time, surely she wouldn't have any trouble this time. Why would somebody try to recreate that moment?
The troll roared again and raised its mighty club before Hermione had much time to ponder over all of the questions that were forming in her head. She screamed and rolled to her left, just barely dodging the swinging weapon.
"Hermione!" exclaimed the voice of a young boy.
Hermione gasped. What was a boy doing in a girl's bathroom? Assuming she was in a girl's bathroom. More importantly, what was a young boy doing in a bathroom with a troll?
"Run!" ordered Hermione, in a voice that was clearly not her own. Her eyes went wide and she started to clear her throat, nearly avoiding a collision with the club once again. "Get out of here!" she said, more to test out her voice than to warn the young boy that time. It still wasn't quite right. It was familiar, surely, but distinctly not hers.
Deciding that rolling around in a broken bathroom stall probably wasn't the best way to fight a troll, Hermione stood up, immediately noticing that her eyes weren't as far off the ground as they should have been. She looked down at her feet, subconsciously hoping that she had forgotten to straighten her knees all the way or something, and saw that she was wearing her Hogwarts uniform. How long had she been wearing that?
"Hermione!" the young boy's voice said again.
She looked over in the direction of the voice and screamed. "That's not possible," claimed the voice that distinctly wasn't Hermione's.
"No time to worry about that now! Get out of the way, I'm going to stun him, and I'm not sure which way he'll fall!" said 11-year-old Harry Potter. 11-year-old Ron was beside him, apparently at a loss for words.
Deciding that the crazy troll probably was their biggest problem in the short term, Hermione ran over to her young friends on legs that were definitely shorter than the ones she had gotten used to.
"Stupefy!" Harry exclaimed. The troll swayed back and forth before finally falling onto his back with a loud thud.
With their giant friend out of the way, Hermione ran to a mirror and screamed at the sight of her first year reflection.
"What the bloody hell is going on?" asked Ron.
"I don't know, but we need to stay calm. We'll sort this out. Professor Dumbledore will know what to do," insisted Harry.
"Was my hair really this big?" asked Hermione.
Harry and Ron exchanged glances just as the bathroom door opened, and Professor McGonagall walked in followed by Snape, and then, of all people, Professor Quirrell. All three teenagers in children's bodies gaped at the third arrival. He was dead; he died nearly 5 years ago.
"What's going on?" Harry demanded immediately.
"Shouldn't I be the one asking that question?" asked a clearly-furious McGonagall.
"We don't know what happened!" exclaimed Hermione. "We just… appeared here like this."
"Miss Granger!" McGonagall said, suddenly surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"I just told you, I don't know, Professor! There was this bright light, and then we just ended up here."
"Do I look stupid to you, Miss Granger? I want the truth. I'm very surprised at you for lying. Why would three first year students come after a troll by themselves? Attempting to prove your bravery perhaps?"
"That was years ago, Professor," said Harry. "We weren't looking for this troll. Hermione's telling the truth, we don't know how we got here."
"Years ago?" McGonagall repeated. "You children are speaking nonsense."
"Clearly nonsense is going on here!" Ron spoke up, gesturing to his child's body.
"What's he doing here?" Harry asked coolly, glaring at Quirrell. "How is he even still alive?"
"If you three are trying to avoid trouble by confusing us, it's not going to work," said Snape. "It's no wonder none of you are in Slytherin. Your manipulation skills are poor at best."
"Why are you doing this? Clearly we have a serious problem!" Harry exclaimed, frustrated. Why wouldn't his teacher's help him? And how was it possible that Voldemort's dead servant was standing right in front of them? Surely the two things had to be related. "What have you done to them?" Harry demanded of Quirrell.
"I c-can assure y-y-you I've got n-no id-dea what you're r-referring t-to Mister P-p-potter!" Quirrell stuttered.
"You're not fooling anyone with that act of yours!" said Harry.
"Harry," Hermione whispered.
"How are you still here? You died trying to get the Sorcerer's Stone, I saw you!" exclaimed Harry.
"Wh-what?" asked Quirrell, a look of genuine confusion on his face.
"How do any of you know about the stone?" McGonagall demanded.
"Harry," Hermione whispered again.
"Professor, I think Quirrell has done something to your memory! Try to remember!" Harry said desperately.
"What are you on about, Potter?" Snape sneered.
"Harry," Hermione whispered a third time. "I think it's 1991."
Harry's eyes widened in recognition. So they hadn't just been turned into their first year selves. They'd been transferred back to their first year. Meaning the troll he'd just stunned was the same troll that Ron knocked out years ago, and Quirrell was still alive, and the Sorcerer's Stone still existed. And their problem was even bigger than he thought.
"Now that we're all clear on the date, I believe some detentions are in order, Professor McGonagall?" Snape droned.
"Detention? That's completely unfair!" exclaimed Ron.
"Ron," Hermione warned.
"Oh. Right," Ron replied.
"Professor, may we please speak with Professor Dumbledore?" asked Harry.
"If you think he's going to get you out of trouble, Mr. Potter-" McGonagall began.
"No, this isn't about that. It's really important."
"Is there something wrong?"
"Kind of, yeah."
"You can come by my office and talk about it, after we get this troll business sorted out."
"I really need to speak with Professor Dumbledore, Professor!"
"Might I ask what this is about?"
"I honestly don't think you would believe me if I told you."
"I know you're new to the Wizarding World, Potter, but you would be surprised at the things I would believe. The Headmaster can't be bothered for every little thing, he's a busy man."
Hermione gave Harry a look, willing him not to push it. Harry sighed.
"Okay, Professor. I'll stop by your office later," Harry agreed.
"Now are you three quite done, or are you going to make another attempt at stalling your consequences?" asked Snape in a voice that sounded even more bored than usual.
"P-perhaps the ch-children are j-just stressed after d-dealing with the t-troll?" Quirrell suggested, taking on the persona of someone who sticks up for the students of Hogwarts. A persona that all of them fell for during the first time they were first years, but now seemed so obviously fake that they were unsure how they ever believed it at all.
"Speaking of which, how did three first years manage to take down a fully-grown mountain troll? It's not dead, is it?"
"No, Professor, it's just stunned," Harry replied.
"Stunned?" McGonagall repeated. "I assume you mean knocked out, Mr. Potter. No first year could possibly manage a stunning spell."
"See for yourself, Professor," Hermione suggested. "Show her your wand, Harry. She can see which spell you cast last."
"Oh, right," said Harry as he handed his wand to McGonagall. She took it, but was clearly confused by her young students.
"That's remarkable," McGonagall said, impressed, as she discovered that Harry's wand had, in fact, been most recently been used to cast the stunning spell.
"An older student was showing him the spell and has not been used since, perhaps," suggested Snape.
"They would use their own wand," Ron pointed out.
"Nevertheless, no student should go around chasing trolls," said Snape.
"Well now, there's something I believe we can all agree on," said McGonagall, looking pointedly at the children.
"Of course, Professor," Hermione said agreeably.
"What you three did was very dangerous, that can't be ignored. However, I would be inclined to let you all off with a warning, considering your remarkable success, if it were not for the lies. As it is, I believe a week's detention is more than fair, don't you?"
"Yes, Professor," chorused the youngsters.
"Now, then, let's all get out of here before the troll wakes up. You three should join your housemates in the Gryffindor Common Room," McGonagall said in her authoritative voice. Everybody obeyed, and the bathroom was emptied, save for the unconscious troll.
As Harry, Ron, and Hermione climbed the staircase to the seventh floor, they tried to piece together everything they knew about their strange situation, but there was so much that didn't add up.
"The last thing I remember is being in the Forbidden Forest," Harry began.
"There was a gnome-crow," Ron contributed.
"And it was glowing," Hermione added.
"Then it started glowing brighter, so we ran," said Harry.
"But it got so bright that I couldn't see anything," Ron continued.
"Then the ground started shaking, and the next thing I knew, I was in the bathroom," Hermione said. "And I think we all remember quite clearly what happened next."
"So, the biggest mystery is what happened before that," Harry concluded.
"Well the hole in our memories has to start somewhere," Hermione pointed out. "It's not as if everything we know started at that moment in the Forbidden Forest."
"So, what do we do?" asked Ron.
"Try to remember something from yesterday. Anything at all, and we'll start to build on that until we can't remember anything else," suggested Hermione.
"I… I remember we were at lunch yesterday," said Harry. "I had the chicken and… green beans? No, wait, potatoes."
"That's right," Ron said, suddenly sounding the most confident he'd sounded since before this crazy mess began. "I had the ham, and then I couldn't decide between the potatoes and the green beans, so I just had both."
"Leave it to you to remember the part of your day that involves food," Hermione teased, in spite of the situation. "I remember I wasn't very hungry, so I just had a sandwich and a salad. Okay, this is a good place to start. What happened next? Every detail you remember."
"Ron was saying that he hadn't started his Charms essay that was due the following day," Harry said, saying the following day in place of today or tomorrow because he wasn't exactly sure how right now fit into play, given that they were years into the past. And he had thought time travel was confusing that one time he and Hermione traveled just a few hours into the past.
"Oh, yeah. And then I asked if you would help me with it, Hermione, seeing as you'd already finished yours," Ron recalled.
"And then I assumed that by 'help,' you'd actually meant 'do it for you,'" Hermione countered, rolling her eyes. "But I agreed to allow you to use my notes."
"And I was eternally grateful!" Ron declared.
Hermione rolled her eyes again, but smiled. At this point, they were climbing their last set of stairs before finding themselves in front of the familiar painting of the Fat Lady, who guarded the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room.
"Erm… Does anybody remember the password?" Harry asked.
Ron and Hermione groaned. Of course none of them could remember one of the passwords from their first year. They'd gone through so many in the time that they'd been Hogwarts students.
"Well, now what are we going to do?" asked Ron. "Everyone else in Gryffindor is already inside because of the troll."
"Excuse me, Ma'am," Harry said, addressing the Fat Lady.
"Hello, Dear," the Fat Lady said kindly. "Shouldn't you three you be inside? There's a troll inside the castle, you know!"
"We know, we got a little… sidetracked."
"Very well, give me the password, and head inside, then."
"Well the thing is… We don't exactly remember the password."
"Don't remember the password? I'm sure people have told you how important it is to memorize it! That prefect Percy in the very least has made it his mission to drill the concept into every first year students' head!"
"Yes, ma'am, we're sorry. Can't you let us in? Just this once? You said it yourself, there's a troll."
"I can't let you in without the password! That's the rule! I'm sure they'll clear this troll business up soon, and someone will be up to tell the Gryffindors that it's safe. I'd recommend that you wait here until then."
Harry sighed, defeated, and the trio sat on the top stair, just waiting. Meanwhile, they were displaced in time for some unknown, likely sinister purpose, and had no idea of how to get anyone to help them. It was looking as though they were facing one of their biggest challenges yet.
