Disclaimer: Harry Potter and Co. belong to J.K. Rowling, while Power Rangers and all related concepts belong to Saban/Disney/Jetix/whoever (Who does own the broadcasting rights to the series these days anyway?)

Feedback: Please; I'd really like to know that somebody's reading this

AN: Another chapter written in collaboration with William Lamb, set the morning after the Rangers' arrival

Harry Potter and the Hogwarts Guardians

As she sat in the library the following morning, her team's Black Ranger sitting opposite her as they went over the newspapers she'd discovered, Hermione had to admit that she was actually rather enjoying this; after the chaos of the last few weeks of searching for horcruxes while learning how to use their new Ranger powers, it was actually kind of nice to feel that she was getting back to her 'roots' and carrying out research, even if it wasn't the type she was used to.

The previous night's rest had been relatively refreshing; they'd managed to find a couple of fairly decent hotel rooms for the night, even if they'd had to just have Jason and Tommy booking the two rooms while their respective teams rested on the floors in secret as they lacked the money to get enough rooms for all of them. Apart from a brief occasion where Harry had woken up in the middle of the night due to some kind of dream that he couldn't fully recall- it had apparently reminded Ron of Harry's reaction after some of his past scar-induced nightmares, but unlike those occasions Harry had no memory of what he'd actually dreamed of-, everything had gone relatively smoothly, and they'd managed to arrange to keep the room for a few more days while they tried to work out what to do next.

Actually working out what to next was the real challenge, however. While getting around Angel Grove wasn't too hard- they might not have a car, but there wasn't enough of the city to make it particularly difficult for the two teams to walk to get their current destination-, Tommy and Jason's attempt to avoid contact with anyone until they knew where their other selves were in this timeline had resulted in them taking more than the occasional detour.

When they'd passed by the library, Hermione had suggested that she could check over the library's newspaper archives to determine where its history had diverged from what Jason and Tommy knew, with Sylvia volunteering to assist her on the grounds that she had lived in Angel Grove herself and was old enough that any 'counterpart' of hers that might exist in this time would be too young for anyone to draw any direct link between them; she could probably pass herself off as her own aunt or something if they ran into someone who became too suspicious. Ethan and Trent were checking out a few addresses that Jason and Tommy had provided for them based on the houses where their fellow Rangers had lived in their reality at this point, but in case that didn't work out, Harry, Ginny, Connor and Kira had accompanied Jason and Tommy to check out some teen hangout that the old Rangers had used in the hope that they might stumble across a familiar face or two.

Right now, however, Hermione's only concern was tracing the history of the Patronus Force Rangers; Sylvia had helped her to pinpoint the moment when history had changed from what she remembered, but from there things had changed surprisingly quickly. According to everything they'd been able to find, after the Power Rangers that Tommy and Jason had been part of had acquired the Shogun Zords- Hermione had to admit that she was impressed at those zords; the idea of zords that could all fight the monsters when giant-size one-on-one had a certain appeal-, they had mysteriously vanished, with the Patronus Force appearing to apparently replace them during an attack on a nuclear research facility.

The Patronus Force had used the Shogun Zords against some kind of shapeshifting robot car shortly afterwards, but the zords that Hermione and the others had witnessed had apparently debuted shortly afterwards against a monster known as Toadwitch who put Hermione disturbingly in mind of Umbridge. After that, a monster referred to as 'Quafflehead' had resulted in the Patronus Force not only using their Megazord, but the Megazord had actually demonstrated magical abilities in repairing the damage afterwards- something that their zord hadn't been able to do, although Hermione supposed that it might be worth seeing if that could be changed-, and then, apart from the fight they'd read about in that paper Kira had found earlier, that seemed to be it aside from various minor monsters.

In other words, while Hermione had been able to work out where this world diverged from their own, she was no closer to figuring out how the Patronus Force had come into existence than she had been when she started out, and she and Sylvia had no idea where to start looking for additional information.

"Damnit..." Ethan said, as he and Trent sat down in the small cafe where they'd decided to stop for a snack. "Hours of walking, and nothing to show for it..."

Trent hated to sound defeatist, but he had to admit that his old teammate had a good point. They'd tried to check out the addresses that Doctor O. had provided for his old team, but as far as they could tell from a casual glance- which had, admittedly, been fairly close-up thanks to Trent's camouflage ability-, while everyone who'd been on their mentor's old Ranger team had lived in those houses at some point, they apparently weren't there right now; either they'd apparently moved away, or their families were off somewhere else.

If they were going to get back to their world, they needed to figure out who these Rangers were, but working that out was proving to be frustratingly difficult...

Glancing at the television on the cafe wall, apparently broadcasting a local news channel at the moment, Trent's eyes widened at the sight on the screen; a large red lion-like monster in scarlet and gold armour with an eyepatch was currently fighting with the Patronus Force Rangers they'd met yesterday, with the Red Ranger launching blasts of some kind at him before the Black Ranger summoned what looked like a large rhino to charge the lion down, only for the creature to shrug off the attacks like they were nothing and continue fighting (He might have said something, but whoever had made this recording hadn't been able to get in close enough to record the sound of the conversation). Another attack from the monster nearly struck the Yellow Ranger before the White Ranger was able to intercept the attack with a blast of her own, followed by a brief pause as the Rangers seemed to be checking their 'watches' before they leapt into position around the lion-like monster, blasting it with powerful jets of water that caused it to explode into nothing, leaving only the Rangers standing around it before they vanished themselves, apparently teleporting away from the scene.

"Huh," Trent said, looking over at Ethan with a slightly stunned expression.

"Well," Ethan said, shrugging out of a lack of anything else to do with himself. "That was... different."

"Watching a fight rather than being part of it?" Trent asked, smiling slightly at his friend; they both knew that the lack of knowledge about this situation was also a factor, but right now they had other concerns. "Yeah, I know what you mean; strange, isn't it?"

"And that's without taking everything else into account," Ethan commented, indicating the area around him. "The TV's lower-quality, computers are far more clunky, there are shops out there whose brands have been closed for years by our time..."

He sighed as he slumped over the table, shaking his head in exasperation. "Just once, I'd like to get into a situation where we know how to handle it from the word go; it always sucks when we're trying to play catch-up all the time..."

"We'll work it out," Trent said with a shrug. "If I could get turned away from evil by accident, getting home when we're trying to get back should be easy."

"Let's just hope, anyway," Ethan said, shaking his head grimly as he stared at the food in front of him.

Trent could be as optimistic as he liked, but if they couldn't even really work out how they'd ended up here in the first place, it was going to be a real headache working out how to get back...

"You're sure this is the best choice?" Harry asked, looking uncertainly at the building before them; he acknowledged that he'd hardly had a traditional school life, but the idea of high school students having a bar equivalent to visit in their spare time that didn't serve alcoholic drinks still seemed strange to him.

"I'm sure," Jason replied with a reassuring nod at the young man he considered a kind of protégé, looking at the building before him with a casual smile. "It might have changed hands a bit, but the basic purpose looks the same; we all came to this place when we wanted to hang out and talk about recent events. If there's anywhere in Angel Grove where you can find out what's happening, whether it's called the Surf Spot or the Juice Bar, this is the place to do it."

"And the reason you're not going in there is...?" Ron asked, glancing uncertainly at his Ranger mentor as the two older men in the group stood in the shadows.

"Because Tommy and I are too old to pass as our other selves if we still live in Angel Grove in this reality and it would attract too much attention if we went in there and didn't know something that our other selves would even if we could come up with some kind of explanation to account for our greater age," Jason said, looking over at Ron with slight frustration. "Look, we just need you guys to see what you can find out about this world's past history and take it from there; once we know if the Patronus Force can be trusted or not, we should be able to find them fairly easily."

"All right," Harry said, glancing over at his assigned 'investigation team' of Ginny, Conner and Kira- Ron was remaining with Jason and Tommy in case magical assistance was required- and indicating the building in front of them. "Let's go."

"Just remember; be casual," Kira said, looking pointedly over at Conner as they left the shade and walked towards the building.

"What; you think I can't blend in?" Conner asked, looking over at Kira with a slightly hurt expression on his face. "I know what I'm doing, Kira-"

"Ssh, we're in," Ginny said, leaning over to whisper urgently at the other two Rangers before they entered the doors, quickly heading for a table and sitting down, glancing at the people around them.

"Well," Conner said at last, looking over at his teammates with a slight smile. "It's... comfy, anyway."

"Which at least lends some weight to the idea that it's still the meeting-place that Jason remembered it as," Harry said, as they sat down at a table, pulling out the menus to study them for a few moments before someone came over to their table, a notepad in their hand as she smiled politely at the group.

"Hi there," she said, her gaze lingering briefly on Connor and Harry before she continued speaking. "I'm Danielle; what can I get you?"

"Double cheeseburger, but without the onions," Connor said after a moment's pause to take a last glance over the menu.

"Just the taco salad for me, thanks," Kira commented.

"I'll just have the burger, but without the mayonnaise," Harry said.

"Uh... I'll have the...fish and chips?" Ginny asked at last, after spending a few moments looking over the menu uncertainly.

"Oh, and just bring us four sodas," Connor added.

"OK," Danielle said, nodding in confirmation at the group as she noted down the last detail before walking away, leaving Connor and Kira to look at Ginny with slight surprise.

"Look, I'm sorry I took a while to order, but it's not my fault if I'm a bit inexperienced with muggle cuisine; we don't really spend that much time in the muggle world..." Ginny began, trailing off as she looked up at her friends with a slight smile. "Which, now that I think about it, is slightly ironic."

"Huh?" Conner asked, looking at her curiously.

"It's just... my dad's always been so enthusiastic about muggle life, but when you get down to it, we haven't actually lived in it," Ginny clarified, sighing as she looked around at her two new friends. "Here I am, fighting to save the entire world from the most powerful dark wizard our society's produced in almost three centuries, and when you get down to it I really don't know much about it..."

"Hey, don't worry about it; nobody knows much about the world when they're our age," Kira said, smiling reassuringly at the younger girl. "I mean, I've been interested in singing for as long as I can remember, but it's only been relatively recently that I've realised how hard it is; I've gone from being a big fish in a small pond at Reefside to being an even smaller fish on the worldwide music scene, and I'm still working on getting my sound out there while Connor's started these soccer camps-"

"It's just a provisional thing at the moment; trying to give kids the opportunity to do something after school that helps encourage teamwork and physical activity, you know," Connor clarified.

"Really?" Ginny said, smiling over at the other Red Ranger, Harry's near-automatic jealousy dying down when Ginny reached over to take his hand with a warm smile. "That kind of reminds me of what Harry did a couple of years ago."

"Huh?" Connor asked, looking curiously at Harry. "What did you do?"

"Long story short, our government was trying to deny that Voldemort had come back by forcing us to accept a near-useless Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher so that they could 'control' any potentially dangerous magic we might learn, so Harry was convinced to start a class teaching us how to defend ourselves himself," Ginny said, smiling at Harry as she leaned over to give him a brief kiss before she continued her story. "It was his first time teaching, but everyone who participated got at least an E in our exams that year-"

"'E'?" Kira asked.

"'Exceeds Expectations'," Harry clarified. "The only grade higher is 'Outstanding', and after that 'Acceptable' is the minimum pass mark; everything lower than that and you're in trouble at best."

"Hello," another voice said, prompting them to halt their current conversation as they glanced up to see a young man, approximately their age, with blonde hair, wearing a brown leather jacket over a red T-shirt and blue jeans, carrying a tray with their various orders on it. "I have your orders here. I have a Double Cheeseburger without onions-"

"Right here," Connor said, prompting a look from Kira as she took it.

"Honestly, Connor," she said, rolling her eyes. "Where do you store it all?"

"A taco salad," the waiter said, cutting off Kira's interest in an answer from Connor.

"That's mine!" she said, smiling as she received the food. "Thanks."

"OK, one fish and chips?" the waiter asked, glancing at the order sheet.

"That's mine," Ginny said, smiling at the waiter as he handed her the plate, only to suddenly drop the tray as he stared at her directly for the first time since reaching the table, his eyes wide with shock as he stared at her.

"Ginny?" he said, his voice incredulous as he stared at the red-headed girl.

"Uh... sorry, but who-?" Harry began, trying not to look as confused by this turn of events as he felt- in all their attempts to plan for the possibility that someone would recognise Jason or Tommy, they'd never anticipated that someone might recognise them-, his confusion only becoming stronger when the new arrival turned to look at Harry and his jaw dropped incredulously as he stared at the Hogwarts Guardian Red Ranger.

Why do I have a feeling that things just became even more complicated? Harry asked himself grimly.

AN 2: If you've read 'Patronus Force', you should know who's just encountered Harry and the others; if not, his name will be revealed in the next chapter.