Harry woke gradually, his ears becoming alert quicker than his other senses. He could hear arguing.
'What did you do to him?' a girl said furiously.
'It's only a Body-Bind Curse,' another cried petulantly. 'I wasn't aiming for him, you know – I was trying to hit James Potter! I didn't expect it to get Harry – or that he'd roll all the way down …'
'Finite Incantatem.' It was the same voice as the first, but now somebody was shaking him. 'Harry? Harry, wake up!'
'Wha–– what?' He sat up slowly, suddenly aware that he was covered in bruises. 'Damn … who did that?'
'I did,' said a small voice, and Harry turned to see Lily, her dark red hair falling down over her eyes. 'But I wasn't trying to hit you, I swear –'
'It's OK,' Harry told her, 'never mind.' He scrambled to his feet quickly – too quickly. The world spun around him and he swayed. Hermione grabbed him. 'Harry, you should see Madam Pomfrey.'
Harry suddenly realised who was missing as his brain started to catch up with him. 'Where'd the others go? And Snape?'
'Potter and his friends left,' Lily said in a hard voice. 'And Severus's there.' She tipped her head over towards a birch tree. Snape was leaning against it, watching the proceedings with a curious expression on his face.
Harry resisted the urge to swear under his breath. He felt oddly light-headed, and when he raised his hand to the back of his head, he could feel a lump swelling there. He looked slowly around, as sharp jolts of pain shot through his brain if he moved too quickly. He could see the place where they'd been standing before. Man … I fell down the hill all that way? No wonder he'd been knocked out – he hadn't even been able to put his hands out to break his fall or shield his head.
I don't care what Hermione says, I'm going to get those idiots back, was his last though before his best friend dragged him off to the hospital wing.
While Madam Pomfrey insisted on checking up on him, Harry's brain was whirring with thoughts. He was sick of this; they had to get back to their own time, and the sooner the better. Dumbledore was working on a way for them to return, but there were still several small mysteries left unanswered. He spent a lot of time just sitting in the library or the common room, thinking about these.
Such as:
How are Snape and my Mum friends?
Well, he could always just ask them, but it would be too personal. The most likely answer was that they had simply met at school or on the train, but he doubted this a bit because they were in different houses.
Why are my dad and his friends such prats?
If my dad was such a prat, and my mum hated him so much, how did they end up married?
Harry hated the idea that his parents hadn't really been in love, but try as he might, he couldn't think of any other reason, other than that his father had changed, or his mother had gotten used to it. Maybe they hated each other when they were younger, but grew to love each other? Harry wasn't good at that kind of stuff, but he didn't want Hermione's help right now.
Why did the Time-Turner send Hermione and me back in time?
Mmm, tricky one. He supposed this had something to do with the Sorting Hat's challenge, which was to prove that he wasn't in Slytherin. Which prompted the next question:
What do I have to do to prove I'm not in Slytherin?
'Something worthy of a Gryffindor' was the obvious answer, but what?
Why did I never hear of Snape and my mum's relationship before now?
Well, it's not as if the Dursleys or Aunt Petunia would have told me anything, Harry reflected bitterly. But why not Dumbledore, McGonagall, Hagrid, Lupin or Sirius? He mentally crossed out McGonagall (she had never told him anything about his parents other than that his dad had been an excellent Quidditch player), but Lupin and Dumbledore were still especially high on the list.
If Snape hates me in our time because he hated my father, then why did he save my life in first year? Is it because of my mother, or another reason?
Can 'going back in time' mean that we didn't travel from the present to a fixed past, but from a possible future to the present? Does this mean we can change things in the future which have already happened, or not?
This was the only question he discussed at length with Hermione. Hermione was adamant that the future – their future –was fixed, could not be changed because whatever they had done had already happened. So they couldn't change things dramatically (i.e. make Peter Pettigrew, the traitor, 'disappear'), because future events wouldn't be able to happen without them. Harry was sure that they could change the future, partly because he wanted that to be the way the timeline worked. He wanted to take action, not stand around and wait for things to happen.
And then, suddenly, Harry knew what he was going to do.
It was time to pay a visit to the Chamber of Secrets.