Step By Step

The next morning, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were on their way to Professor McGonagall's office. Hermione had recounted her story the night before, about how they had stopped in the corridor on their way to Potions to help Neville, whose book had somehow sprouted wings and was flying around a few feet out of reach. According to Hermione, Hannah walked by and lent a hand as well. However, none of this was ringing any bells with either Harry or Ron. Trying to put together the events of their last day they spent in 1996 didn't seem to be helping much, especially because their memories had, apparently, been tampered with. Their only plan at that point was to request help from their professors.

"Okay. So we're just going to go in there and say, 'hey Professor, we need to talk to Professor Dumbledore about being sent back to the future?' Oh, this is never going to work!" Hermione exclaimed. There was no way anyone was going to believe them. They sounded crazy.

"Of course it will! She'll have to believe us. We're sixth year students, remember? We can do things that no first year student could ever dream of mastering. We broke into the Ministry of Magic and fought Death Eaters!" Harry pointed out.

"You're right, Mate," Ron agreed. "We can prove it, Hermione."

"Even if we do prove it, I'm not so sure that this is a good idea."

"What are you saying? We need their help! We have no idea what's happening to us right now."

"I know but… Harry do you remember what I told you when you and I used the time-turner to go back and time to save Witherwings and Padfoot?"

"Erm… Not really," Harry admitted. "But this isn't like that Hermione, we can't just lay low for a few hours to catch back up with our own time! We are our past selves this time! And we're years away from our own time!"

"But we've still gone back in time! Dangerous things happen when people meddle with time. What if we change something here in the past, and then the entire future, our present, is messed up?"

Harry stopped short. He hadn't really thought about that. Who knew what would happen if they changed something important? And who knew what sort of event would be considered important at some point in the future? But they had to get back to their own time somehow. They had to do something. This was one problem that time alone could not fix. And they had no idea how to fix their situation by themselves.

"So, what do you suggest?"

"I think we're going to have to figure this out on our own. That's the only way. If anyone found out that we're from the future, who knows what could happen? And who knows what we'd do if we gave ourselves the opportunity?"

"What do you mean? I'm not trying to ruin the future!" Ron exclaimed.

"We were all very tired last night when we went straight up to bed, so perhaps you forgot, but Scabbers is still up in your room, Ron."

Harry and Ron's jaws dropped.

"Hermione…"

"Harry, no! You can't!"

"He's the reason my parents are dead, the reason why Sirius went to Azkaban! Why he's there right now!"

"I know but-"

"Sirius could be free! He could still be alive!"

"I'm sorry, Harry, we just can't-"

"We've been given the opportunity to save an innocent man! Just like last time!"

"This isn't like last time-"

"WHY NOT?" Harry shouted, suddenly angry.

"Calm down, Mate-" Ron chimed in.

"AFTER EVERYTHING HE'S DONE FOR ME! AFTER EVERYTHING MY PARENTS DID FOR ME! I OWE THEM!"

"Please keep your voice down, Harry! We're all upset and confused," Hermione said quickly, tears starting to form in her eyes.

"It's too big a risk, Mate. We could ruin everything."

"My life couldn't get any worse!" Harry retorted angrily, though somewhat more calmly.

"You don't mean that!" Hermione exclaimed, reaching out her hand to place it on Harry's shoulder.

Harry swatted the hand away before storming off, leaving his two best friends staring after him, the bushy-haired one with tears flowing silently down her cheeks.

"Thank you, Madam Pince," Hermione said before heading off in the direction of the shelf the librarian had suggested to her. She and Ron had decided that Harry needed some space for a while, so she decided to do what she always did when faced with a difficult problem; go to the library.

Thankfully, Hermione started checking books out of the library for the purposes of her own entertainment and curiosity ever since she first arrived at Hogwarts. Therefore, Madam Pince didn't think anything of it when the first year came to her asking about books on time travel. She probably thought it was a normal thing for a muggle born who had just found out about magic to be curious about.

With a stack of books in her arms, Hermione made her way over to one of her favorite tables and cracked open the first cover.

"So…" Ron muttered awkwardly. He sat on his bed, seemingly alone in the first year boys' dormitory, facing his pet rat, which was in its cage on the bedside table. He didn't know how he felt about having a caged Death Eater for a pet. One thing was for sure; they weren't listed as one of the acceptable animals to bring to Hogwarts. Then again, neither were rats.

"I sort of wish that spell had turned you yellow," Ron admitted. Now that he knew what his pet really was, he would very much enjoy tormenting him with some spells that his brothers taught him. Of course, he couldn't let on that he knew Scabbers was really the no-good animagus Peter Pettigrew. He might try to escape. Sure, they were supposed to allow him to do that anyway, but not for a couple more years.

Ron turned away from the ugly little creature, feeling slightly sick to his stomach at the thought that he would be acting as caregiver to a Death Eater until he was able to return to his own time. He wondered if Pettigrew had any idea that his old master was somewhere in the castle, looming on the back of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's head. The thought was unnerving to Ron. He had no desire to go anywhere near that man during their stay in 1991, but they would have to go to classes, starting Monday at least. They didn't want to call the wrong attention to themselves, or change anything by accident.

Fresh air filled Harry's lungs as he walked along the Hogwarts grounds, trying to clear his head. He felt bad about the argument he had gotten in with Hermione, but for now, he just needed to calm down and come to terms with everything.

Everything Hermione had said was right, as usual. There was so much crazy stuff going on with them already. They didn't need to add messing with time to their list of worries. But Ron was going to have to keep that filthy rat out of his sight, or he was liable to snap.

So Harry, Ron, and Hermione had to figure out what was going on, possibly who was behind it, fix the problem all on their own, and, in the meantime, make sure they weren't doing anything that might change the future or allow anyone to figure out what was going on. And, apparently, resist slipping a little rat poison into a certain rodent's cage. Not to mention that Lord Voldemort himself was limiting a certain professor's privacy. But that could be put off for a while. After all, 11-year-old Harry had stopped them back when he was, well, 11, and he hadn't even fully known what was going on then. Besides, they would hopefully be back in their own time before that became an immediate issue.

"There you two are!" said Hermione as she joined Harry and Ron at their table in the Gryffindor Common Room. "I just ran into McGonagall in the corridor."

"Let me guess. Detention for missing classes today?" Ron asked, not really caring one way or the other. He would go through the motions of pretending to be his first year self, but that was just it. It felt like acting, like he was living somebody else's life. Getting in trouble for a few cut classes during his time in 1991 didn't feel like it really counted for anything. Hopefully, he wouldn't be there for much longer anyway.

"That's fine," Harry said absentmindedly, sharing Ron's view on the situation.

"Actually, no. We're not in trouble."

This news interested Harry and Ron somewhat.

"Is she sick?" asked Ron?

"She isn't onto us, do you think?" Harry asked.

"No, she's clueless. She's just worried about us is all."

"Worried? What for?"

"Well we were acting so strangely yesterday, and today we missed classes…"

"So, basically, we need to start acting like normal first years again so that she doesn't get suspicious," Ron chimed in.

"Exactly. I just made up some excuse about the troll incident shaking us up a bit, but we're doing better now and we won't be missing any more classes. She said that we'd better not miss any more classes but we should remember that we can come talk to her if we feel we need to."

"Fair enough."

"In the meantime, we have the weekend to work on our little mystery."

"Not the entire weekend," Harry said. "Quidditch practice," he added in response to Hermione's look.

"Oh, I forgot about Quidditch."

"Of course you did," Ron commented.

Hermione ignored him. "I suppose you can't skip that, McGonagall will really get concerned then. We'll just have to work around your schedule. Ron and I can continue working while you're away. We don't have much of a plan yet anyway, mostly I've just been doing research in the library."

"Of course you have," said Ron.

"Have you found anything useful?" Harry asked.

"Not yet," Hermione replied. "But there are loads of books on time travel in the library. I'm sure I'll find something soon."

"We can use my invisibility cloak to sneak into the restricted section if we need to."

"No we can't."

A puzzled look spread across Harry and Ron's faces. "Why not? We've done it before," Harry pointed out.

"You don't have your invisibility cloak. You got it for Christmas, remember? It's only the 1st of November."

Harry sighed and put his face in his hands. He'd forgotten that he was down basic resources that he'd almost begun to take for granted back in his own time. How were they supposed to sneak around the castle without the cloak? Surely their investigations would require a bit of sneaking at some point. They always did. Thankfully he'd memorized many of the secret passageways off of the Marauder's Map, another item he no longer had at his disposal, but it would still be nice to have it to keep track of people.

"It'll be nearly two months before I get the cloak. I don't want to be here for 2 months, but this is going to be tough without it."

"It's alright, Mate. We don't need it for anything yet anyway," Ron said with a shrug.

"We should just take this one step at a time anyway," Hermione suggested. "I think this is way too big a problem to try and sort out all at once. In fact, if we're being honest with ourselves, I think we're all pretty sure that we'll still be here when that invisibility cloak gets delivered on Christmas."

"Not you, you went home for Christmas that year."

"That's right, I did. My parents are expecting me to go home! Maybe I can just tell them I'd rather spend Christmas with my new friends. They'll understand, right?"

"As much as I'd love to have you here helping us out, Hermione, we're trying to change the past as little as possible, remember?" said Harry.

Hermione sighed. "I know. I just hate the idea of having to leave you guys in the middle of the investigation."

"We have a couple of months before then," Ron replied.

"Who knows where we'll be by the time you leave? Maybe you'll be able to bring some stuff home to work on," Harry suggested.

"I'll do what I can, of course. I won't be able to do any magic, though. That's so annoying! And I'm finally of age, too."

"We shouldn't worry too much about that now, you were right earlier. This thing is too big to focus on all at once."

"One day at a time, then?" Ron asked.

Harry and Hermione nodded. That was all any of them could handle for the time being.