1. Thanks a lot to SnowBear17 and ORCA47 for helping beta this chapter. I am sure it will be far better with that valuable advice. Also thanks to SilverySparks who helped me years ago on the initial version of this.
2. Any error here is mine and not from my reviewer.
3. I've been slow these past weeks. I know. But I'm still here.
4. There's a forum here for my stories, if people want to join for updates, discussion or general stuff. It's at myforums/Jon-Riptide/4332391/
5. I also have a twitter account that I'm going to use for similar purposes. Account is TimeTravelFFics
6. I do read reviews and appreciate all of them. As I use to answer to users directly I kind of forget at times to address Guest reviews in next chaps, but here are a couple of them:
- To CARO: Gracias, espero el capitulo cumpla tus expectativas.
- To a random Guest: Yeah, small changes matter, and are usually the ones forgotten in other fics. When will Ron start actively trying to change the timeline? Well, I can't spoil that, can I?
In certain ways, the days that followed the meeting with Fluffy were just as Ron remembered them. As expected, Malfoy was outraged that they hadn't been expelled and kept bothering them wherever they went. Harry and Ron tried to ignore the git, but in return, they were being ignored by Hermione, just as last time. Ron could tell the girl was still mad at them, even though she hadn't been dragged into the actual rule-breaking this time around.
The morning after the incident, Ron had been afraid of waking up to a strange world. After all, wasn't a small change supposed to turn the world upside down and all that rubbish? Shouldn't he be waking up to find out that the official school robes were now supposed to be as pink as Dolores Umbridge's favourite colour? Or to the Cannons suddenly ranking first in the Quidditch league?
None of that was even remotely true, however. At least in appearance, everything seemed strangely normal to Ron. Harry wasn't asking him about the Alohomora he had cast, and no one had noticed anything odd during the flying lesson. Actually, aside from his new situation with Professor McGonagall, the only difference Ron could see was that the Slytherin Quidditch team were now blaming Gryffindor for the attack on Adrian Pucey. Considering that Slytherins and Gryffindors were always at each other's throats regardless of Ron's actions, that was hardly going to be a problem.
But appearances and reality were two different things.
"Dragon training accepts no mistakes," his brother Charlie would say. "You can be the most experienced bloke in the reserve. But if you go boasting about it and grow careless, you'll soon find out that veterans and rookies can get their arses burnt all the same."
Wise words, those ones.
Ron had grown careless after his feat with the Remembrall, and he had made a mistake because of it. His biggest yet. Hermione was supposed to have been in the third-floor corridor, and he didn't know how much her absence would affect the future. More than ever, the thought that he had done wrong by not going to Dumbledore haunted him. However, that wasn't a path for Ron anymore. If he let his memories go now without fixing things first, he could pretty much blast his future away. Somehow, he had to let the younger Hermione know about Fluffy; there was just no other way around it. But since Harry was always next to Ron and the girl was ignoring them both, the task wasn't going to be easy to accomplish.
That wasn't the only thing Ron had to worry about, since there was also his promise to McGonagall. He wasn't going to answer all of the questions in class and take the spotlight away from Hermione, but at least he didn't fail whenever he was directly quizzed about something. Most of the time, Ron tried to wait for Hermione to finish assignments before getting them right himself. It was an easy task in boring subjects like History of Magic, but whenever he had Charlie's old wand in his hand, he found it very difficult to make mistakes with simple spells. Transfiguration was a special case, as Professor McGonagall kept a close eye on him, so Ron was considerably ahead there. Hermione didn't appear to be happy in slightest, but Harry appreciated the help with his homework.
Not to mention talking and acting like an eleven-year-old, which turned out to be a challenge in its own right. Even so, Ron had to blend in like any other student if he didn't want people wondering who he really was. Most importantly, he had to fool Harry.
"That package at Gringotts, whatever it is, has to be important. Why else would they keep it in there?" Harry used to say those days.
Ron tried to answer with convincing nods and short responses. He needed to look interested enough to keep Harry's curiosity going, but not too much; the last thing they needed would be for the boy to solve the puzzle earlier than required. It was a bloody hassle, really. Between his older self's worries and this younger version of himself, Ron wasn't sure who he was anymore.
Fortunately, Harry was also very interested in learning about Quidditch. Even more so since he got into the team. Telling his friend all he knew about Quidditch for the second time was one of those weird things Ron could truly enjoy. He could just let those conversations flow, without worrying about pesky attackers at the Ministry or messing the future beyond repair. When he talked with Harry about Quidditch, he could just be himself and act like an eleven-year-old at the same time.
If only everything else could be that easy.
A week after the events on the third floor corridor, Harry received a parcel in the mail. Some sort of anticipation came to Ron. Not because of the package, which he knew was a broom courtesy of Professor McGonagall, but because of what it meant for Ron.
Harry's Quidditch practices were what Ron had been waiting for. He would finally be able to get some time at the library, and that would let him move forward with his plans of returning to his own time. He could find more about that ruddy mirror, if it even existed.
As they left the Great Hall, Ron spared another glance at Harry's parcel. He had been afraid of that little detail changing, but how could it? McGonagall knew Harry didn't have a broom, and he ought to have one if he was to play as a Seeker.
A Nimbus 2000, though? At least McGonagall didn't seem to be as unyielding with her galleons as she was with her students, Ron thought.
Malfoy soon appeared before them and snatched the parcel away from Harry. His two bodyguards were next to him as usual.
"It's a broomstick," he announced, throwing it back to Harry, dead jealous. "You really did it this time, Potter, first years aren't allowed to have them."
Ron smirked.
"It's not any old broomstick Malfoy, it's a Nimbus Two Thousand." Ron grinned at Harry triumphantly. "What's yours? A comet? They look flashy, I'll give you that, but they're not in the same league as a nimbus."
"What would you know, Weasley, you can't afford half the handle," Malfoy snapped back, sneering. "You and your brothers have to save up twig by twig, I suppose."
Ron tried to look as if the comment hadn't affected him this time around. "Keep your filthy money Malfoy, maybe you'll need it to get onto the team next year."
Malfoy was fuming, and even spat a few more nasty remarks at Ron before Professor Flitwick appeared. Ron got the impression that the same professor had appeared here last time, but he couldn't quite remember it clearly. It was odd how some things that Ron took for granted could change unexpectedly, yet more uncertain details stayed the same. But maybe this was just Flitwick's usual path to his classroom.
"Now go on, and don't go about arguing in the corridors," Professor Flitwick said before turning to Harry and Ron. "I'm afraid we'll have to miss our next lesson. I need to borrow the time for the fifth years; they have O.W.L.s coming up. Can I trust you to carry the message on to your classmates?"
"Sure, professor," Harry said, Ron nodding in agreement.
Then they bolted back to the common room, smirking at the look on Malfoy's face when Professor Flitwick said that Harry was allowed the broom. They also knew the reason as to why the fifth years had missed a Charms class so early in the year. The twins had told them about how the Slytherins had tried to get back at Gryffindor for the attack on Pucey, only for it to backfire. Professor Flitwick had been called out of class to help control the affair and to put a pair of dancing benches on the pitch back to normal.
Harry was laughing loudly when they recalled Fred's tale, but it was cut short when they found Hermione in the common room. The girl was quick to make disapproving comments about Harry's broom.
"Can you leave us alone? I thought you weren't even talking to us," said Harry, frowning.
Ron's gaze followed Hermione as she hurried away. "Err, Harry?" he asked suddenly.
"Yeah?"
"Don't you think that, well, maybe... she's not that bad?"
Harry stared at him as if Ron had just told him he was Malfoy's long lost brother, or something along those lines. "Are you serious? She's all bossy, and she can't seem to keep herself out of other people's business."
"Yeah, I know. We don't really know her though, maybe if we—"
Their conversation was interrupted by Seamus and Dean coming to pick up their things for their next class, and Harry and Ron had to follow them. By the time the day's lessons were over and they returned to unwrap the parcel, Harry seemed to have forgotten all about Ron ever mentioning Hermione.
It was very upsetting for Ron to look at her being so alone. He even considered sending her an anonymous sweet for her birthday, but he decided against it at the last moment. He still needed to fix his last mistake, he couldn't afford any more changes at the moment.
As much as it pained him, Ron knew the younger Hermione would have to wait a few more weeks.
o0o0o
Harry's first practice only gave Ron an hour or so, but it was enough for a trip to the library. Hopefully, there would be longer Quidditch practices later on.
All the way to the library, he kept wondering if Hermione would be there. He couldn't see her at first, so he decided to focus on his task. The ginger had little time and Hermione was surely still mad at him.
Soon enough, Ron stood in front of the seemingly endless rows of bookshelves and felt as if he was faced with an impossible task.
Now what?
In all of those times they had snuck to the library to look for some obscure secret, Ron never had to guide the search. It was always Hermione choosing what books might be useful. And besides, Ron barely knew anything about that mirror aside from what he had seen firsthand. Where was he supposed to start looking for clues? It wasn't like he could just go to Madam Pince and ask her where she kept books on time travelling.
Ron let out a heavy sigh and walked towards the first shelf; he had to start somewhere. At some point, he noticed the familiar bushy brown hair at one of the tables in the back, but he forced his eyes back to the books, trying to pretend that he hadn't seen her.
As he soon found out, time travel books were pretty hard to find, if there were even any at all. He ended up picking one with the word 'Time' in its title, only to end up with a book that talked about speeding up potions. Ron felt lost and frustrated, as if he was trying to look for a needle in a haystack. Eventually, he found a book on the most mysterious sides of magic and unexplored branches of it, and he almost jumped in joy when he noticed it had a section on 'Time Travel'. However, the book only mentioned that while time travel was possible it was tightly controlled by the Ministry. And Ron already knew that.
"Bugger! This will take forever," he muttered in a low voice.
Days passed, and Ron grew more and more anxious about not finding anything. Harry's quidditch practices gave him around four hours a week to check the library, but even if it had been twenty hours, it would have been the same. Ron just couldn't find anything of value in that old place, and by the time October came, he was desperate. He had been counting on returning to his time by then, but he was just as lost as he was in the beginning.
What was he going to do? He couldn't just stay here.
"You have to stay, at least for a few more years," George said one day. The first Hogsmeade weekend had just been announced to be next week, and the twins were thrilled to see the little town.
"Hogsmeade weekends are only for third years and up, people like us. The responsible lot," Fred added with a grin. "But don't worry, we'll bring you a sweet or two."
Oliver Wood had scheduled a quidditch practice on the Friday before the Hogsmeade trip, which gave Ron a new opportunity to search the library. Not that he had much hope of finding anything, but he couldn't give up now. Hermione, the one from his time, would have insisted that he continue. Even if it meant going through every heavy, boring book in the bloody library, Ron had to keep looking. He just wasn't allowed to give up.
The trip to the library felt especially loud that day as Ron overheard some Hufflepuffs planning their Hogsmeade trips, Cedric and Audrey among them. The third years from Ravenclaw and Slytherin were excited as well, including Adrian Pucey.
Ron snorted unconsciously as he hurried along, trying to focus on finding information about that mirror. Maybe a book on recent experiments in the Department of Mysteries would be the right thing to look for, but he had come to realize that sort of book was hard to find. The latest experiments from the Department of Mysteries didn't seem like the usual book to be in a school library, after all.
In the end, he found a book on inventions from the Ministry, but Ron doubted it would have the specific information he needed. However, it was something.
Adrian Pucey was sitting at a table on the other end of the library, Ron noticed. He knew that the boy hadn't done anything to deserve being hexed, but Pucey could blame his older self for that one. That prick. How could he think that a sorry note could make up for all of his bloody mistakes?
All of a sudden, Ron remembered what the note had said and his eyes widened. Pucey had warned them to not let the Ministry attackers open the mirror. Was that what the American man had been doing when Ron found him in the Time Room? Opening the mirror? It could be that whatever he had done was what allowed Ron to cross through it.
The thought ran untamed in Ron's head. Maybe that was just the thing he had been forgetting. The mirror could exist already, but it would need to be opened somehow for Ron to use it again. That made sense.
Ron was about to put away the book on the Ministry's inventions to look for something on mirrors when a voice from behind him interrupted his thoughts.
"What are you looking for?"
It was Hermione. The girl had been giving him weird looks for the past month whenever he was at the library, but she hadn't said more than a couple of sentences to him until now. Ron had tried to tell her about Fluffy a few times, but she had always cut him off, saying that she wasn't interested in whatever they did during their rule-breaking time.
Ron was so surprised she had started a conversation with him that he almost dropped the book. "Err, a book?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "I know you're looking for a book, we're in a library after all. I meant what book are you looking for in this aisle?" she asked in confusion, moving her gaze to the shelf behind him.
"Something for homework. Er, Flitwick's that is."
The girl raised an eyebrow sceptically. "Charms? There are no Charms books over here. Only books about magical institutions and famous discoveries."
And that was exactly why Ron had been there in the first place.
"Er, I know, I have my Charms book at my table. I came here for some background reading."
Hermione stared at him as if she was trying to decide whether or not she should believe him. Ron wondered if she had been paying attention to what he had been picking out in the library in the last month. He hoped not, but it was quite possible since the girl didn't want him to beat her in class. Hermione was ahead of him in almost every single subject, and that was partly because Ron was still a bit lazy at doing his homework. Even so, she didn't seem entirely satisfied. There was always something for her to learn.
"Inventions Born in the Ministry of Magic: Marvels and Mistakes?" she asked seriously.
Ron realized he had left the book's title quite visible and that Hermione was staring at it. "Yeah, well, background reading," he said, smiling nervously.
She clearly wasn't convinced. If there was something as bad as McGonagall keeping an eye on him, it was Hermione thinking that there was something suspicious going on. She always found out eventually.
For a crazy moment, Ron wondered what would happen if the young Hermione discovered his past, or future, rather. It would definitely mess everything up, but on the other hand, Ron wouldn't feel so alone. Hermione would understand him even at her age, and she would be of great help to him in trying to solve this mess about mirrors and how to open them.
That was bonkers of course; he couldn't do it. In order to have his life back, he had to let her know about Fluffy, not change time beyond repair. However, talking to her about some other rubbish for a while would do wonders in loosening the knot Ron had in his stomach. The frustration of being so close for so long, and yet so far away.
Suddenly Ron felt a little brave, and even while he wasn't supposed to be her friend yet, he tried his luck. "Erm, wanna share a table? We both have Charms homework and we can... Well, if you want to, that is."
Hermione opened her eyes wide and seemed to be considering it for a blissful second. "No, thank you, I'm leaving already. See you in class," she said, walking away hastily.
It was then Ron remembered that he didn't have a Charms book on his table, and had Hermione accepted his offer, she would've realized that he had lied. Ron really had to think things through, otherwise he could get himself into a lot of trouble.
o0o0o
The thing that Ron dreaded the most happened: Halloween came and he was still not even close to knowing how to return to his own time. He missed his old life and was once again facing something he could drastically mess up. If he managed to do things right, he could end up being friends with both Hermione and Harry by the end of the day, but if he failed... Well, he didn't want to think about that just yet.
For the past few days, Ron had fretted a lot on the situation, but that morning he woke up knowing there was no other way around it. Hermione had to be in that bathroom, and for that to happen, Ron would have to upset her again.
He could barely stand the thought of it, hurting her like that, but he had to if life was to return to normal. Maybe once they were friends again, she would listen to the third corridor story and time would get back on track.
All the way to Charms he was on edge. It had been years since he had promised himself that he would never hurt her again, and here he was, planning on how to say those dreadful words.
How could he be the cause of her tears again?
Memories haunted Ron. He had hurt Hermione so many times before, but nothing as bad as in the Horcrux hunt.
"You came back, that's what matters. You always come back," were Hermione's usual words whenever Ron brought it back.
But Ron wasn't satisfied with that. Returning didn't erase the pain he had put her through any more than Pucey's note. Perhaps Hermione had put it behind her, but once in a while, it would come back to Ron. As if returning would make the deed right every time. As if wrongs could be forgotten. As if an apology would make what he was about to do to the younger Hermione okay.
Rubbish, that was what it all was. However, Ron didn't have half the ideas Hermione was capable of creating, and he couldn't find another way around it. He had to upset Hermione, for the sake of the timeline.
Bill would surely agree; he had always given Ron sound advice. His brother would urge him to do the least amount of damage possible, but he would have insisted on Ron doing it. Maybe Ron could get her in that bathroom without being such a git this time.
The plan wasn't that brilliant though. Ron was a good student now and he couldn't just fail the levitation spell. He had to try though, or even make Harry partner with Hermione this time. Harry could be the one bickering with her now. Unfortunately, all of Ron's possibilities vanished once the class started.
"Attention class, today is going to be our last day working on the smokescreen spell. Don't hold on to your questions as everyone should get good results by the end of this class," Professor Flitwick announced with his usual excited tone.
"Bu—but what happened to the levitation spell?" Ron asked terrified, his voice suddenly high-pitched.
"Oh, you know our program! Good for you, Mr Weasley," the small professor said, "but we lost a class some weeks back and we need to finish this spell properly before moving on to the next one. Nothing to worry about, we'll finish the program on schedule. You can rest assured that we're going to start levitating objects next week."
Ron was gobsmacked about the change, but Flitwick took his reaction for excitement. He wasn't expecting to lose the levitation charm for the troll fight and. Just as he was going through the ramifications of it, Professor Flitwick paired Hermione with Dean of all people.
Time was such a bloody prick. Apparently, it was okay for Flitwick to pass by at the same time when Malfoy grabbed Harry's broom, yet it had to change stuff that mattered.
Harry was assigned to partner with Parvati as Ron went to work with Alice Tolipan. After a few weeks in the past, Ron was getting used to seeing Alice in classes, yet he still couldn't forget the ill fate that awaited her. Ron thought about saying something nice to her, but he didn't know what. 'Sorry you're going to die' didn't seem to cut it.
To be honest, Ron didn't pay the girl much attention. He was focused on Hermione, who was working quietly with Dean across the room. He was hoping they would have some sort of conflict, anything that could upset Hermione enough to put her in that bathroom would have to do.
"Fo-oumus," Ron heard Neville try a few seats away, causing an explosion of something far too solid to be considered smoke. The boy ended up completely covering Seamus and himself in soot.
Minutes later, Ron heard a huff much closer to him. It was Alice, who was struggling to produce more than a few puffs of dark, wispy smoke.
"You have to move your wand more fluidly, like a spiral," Ron told her.
The redhaired girl was surprised by Ron's sudden comment, but she tried to do what he had suggested. "You mean like this?"
"Almost. You need to move your hand a little faster, and make the spiral wider," Ron answered. After that, her spellwork improved considerably. "There, you got it."
"Thanks," Alice replied with a shy smile.
Ron nodded absently, then turned his attention away from her. Professor Flitwick was helping Lavender, while Harry and Parvati appeared to have the gist of the spell already. However, there were no loud words exchanged between Dean and Hermione whatsoever, and unfortunately, that continued until the end of the class.
When Professor Flitwick dismissed class, Ron realized he had to improvise. He hurried away from Alice with the most rushed of goodbyes and went over to Harry. On their way out of the classroom, Ron kept throwing little glances behind them, waiting for Hermione. Once she was close enough, he proceeded just as last time, hoping that the lack of a struggle in class wouldn't affect the outcome.
Ron took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and forced himself to go on with it. "Did you see Dean in class? He wasn't having such a nifty time with Hermione," he said in a loud voice.
A befuddled Harry turned to him, and with good reason. Dean had frowned a little when he was teamed up with Hermione, and she had been rather bossy, but Dean managed to learn a thing or two by the end of it without an issue. Surely he had a better time in class than Seamus and Neville, who were still shaking some dark off of their robes.
"Err, I reckon some people have said she's a tad annoying," Ron continued doubtfully.
As expected, Hermione rushed past them, bumping into Harry as she left.
"I think she heard you." Harry looked at Ron awkwardly. For the first time since he had met her, the boy seemed to feel bad for Hermione.
Ever since their meeting on the train, Ron hadn't said a single bad thing about Hermione. Sometimes he tried to push her away for the sake of the timeline, but he was never as rude to her as Harry. But now, even Harry looked uncomfortable at Hermione leaving like that.
For the rest of the day, Ron felt like a pile of dung. Hermione didn't show up for any other classes and, while that was a good sign, it still made Ron miserable. From time to time, he stared at the door, a part of him hoping she would appear. Even if that would be the last thing his plan needed.
Harry noticed that Ron's attention was on Hermione's desk, but he didn't say anything about it. He had asked Ron before what he had been doing in the library, but Ron had just shrugged.
"I think I heard Parvati say that Hermione was crying in the girl's bathroom, do you think that was because of what I said?" Ron asked Harry a few hours later. Ron hadn't actually heard that, but he had to find a way to let Harry know.
Harry raised an eyebrow, surely wondering when Ron had heard that, but he merely shrugged. They were walking into the Great Hall when Harry said, "Guess you didn't hear her right."
"Ehm, what?" asked Ron, confused. But then he followed Harry's line of sight and what he saw there made him turn pale. Hermione was at dinner, her eyes a little red and puffy, but it seemed like she had been calm for some time now.
Ron's jaw dropped.
Now what? Ron hadn't been rude enough, or maybe some other thing had changed, but he wouldn't know. In the end, all that Ron had said was useless if she was in the Great Hall. It had been all for nothing.
Harry dragged him to a seat where Ron threw the occasional glance over at Hermione, thinking of what he could do now. The girl noticed him once, but simply moved her eyes away and frowned.
Ron had to do something, and he had to do it before Quirrell came through that door. He couldn't make Hermione go to the bathroom now, but he had an idea. It was mental and unlikely to work, but desperate times required desperate measures. So, as the delicious food appeared before them, Ron forced himself to his feet.
"Err, Harry? Have to go to the loo," he said, loud enough for Hermione to hear a couple of seats away. Then he ran out of there in a hurry.
While running through the first floor, Ron kept hitting his head with the palm of his hand, blaming himself for everything that had turned out wrong. He had done it again; he had messed up big time. If Hermione or Harry were here instead of him, they surely wouldn't have made a mess like this one, not this big.
Ron was good enough, he knew that. But his set of skills weren't nearly as useful as Hermione's or Harry's in this situation. He could fight till the very end and make a brilliant chess play when least expected, but making decisions? Taking the lead? That wasn't his thing. Everything that was happening was more than enough proof for that.
He had messed with the needle, and then with Snape. But Hermione not being on the third floor corridor that night was a major wrong as well. And now he was about to ruin things once more with the troll. Bigger than ever.
The troll incident was what had made them friends in the first place, and his chances were looking dire. His only shot now was that Harry and Hermione would decide to come after him as he and Harry had gone after Hermione. The odds weren't good, but it was all he had.
Soon, he heard the troll, but he kept his distance. He had to give Harry and Hermione enough time to come and help. Harry would surely come, but what about Hermione? She was mad at him, and he couldn't fix things by saving her from a troll this time. Would she come?
Then he saw it, a big, grey, lumpy body. It was hard as a rock and had short thick legs. The smell wasn't better this time either.
Ron knew he could take the troll out swiftly; it would only require two or three flicks from his wand. If he did so his plan might not work though, so he waited. He tried to think of what to do, but tricking it into the girl's bathroom was pointless now. After a quick choice, he rushed towards the mountain troll, diving at the last moment.
"Depulso!" he yelled, smashing the troll against the opposite wall. If Harry and Hermione came, they would have the troll blocked on both sides and they would get to participate.
Shaking his head as chunks of the wall fell to the floor, the monstrous creature moved towards Ron with a growl. He toyed with the troll for a few minutes, keeping it from leaving but not quite defeating it either. Suddenly, he heard rushed footsteps and his heart raced. It sounded like only one person, but who? For an instant he found himself hoping that Harry had stayed behind so that it could be Hermione coming to him. But he wasn't that lucky.
"Ron!" a voice yelled and the redhead felt a mix of relief and disappointment. It was Harry, only Harry.
"Harry! Where's Her— What are you doing here?" he asked, trying to control his surprise.
"Professor Quirrell said something about a troll, then he fainted," Harry shouted, his eyes widening at the troll. The lumpy thing tried to hit him with his huge club, but fortunately Harry moved faster and the damage was done to the wall.
The troll had hit the hallway walls a lot before Harry had arrived, so Ron had his fair share of things to throw. He couldn't be using spells that he wasn't supposed to know in front of Harry, after all.
Ron managed to hit the troll on the head with a heavy rock. It was a move worthy of a chaser, since that head wasn't exactly the biggest of targets. "Over here, you bloody monster!" he shouted.
Once he got its attention, Ron hurried inside an empty classroom and the smelly thing followed him in there.
"Fumos!" Ron quickly cast the smokescreen spell they just learned in class. It was pretty basic, but good enough to confuse the troll.
The classroom was briefly filled with a thick layer of smoke. The troll tried to swing its way out of the smoke, but the club only found student desks, sending them up in the air with each hit. Ron threw more rocks at it and, by the time Harry came running inside the room, the smoke had gotten thinner. Shapes and figures could be seen more easily now.
"Do something!" Harry yelled, coughing on the receding smoke. The boy's attention was then caught on a heavy book resting on a table, and he hurried to throw it without much success.
"Me?"
"Yes, you! You're better with spells!"
Ron had been trying to let Harry take part in the action too. After all, he had to be ready for things like this. Even so, Ron couldn't deny that the boy expected more from him now.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Ron said, pointing his wand at the club. It was the only spell he associated with this event, but it was not the brightest of choices. He would have to tell Harry that he was reading ahead after.
The club floated away from the troll's hand and into the air, but Ron stumbled a bit and missed the thing's head. He couldn't blame himself, that head was like a pea compared to the rest of the troll's freakishly large body.
The troll's heavy feet started moving toward Ron with a nasty shout, but he was clubless at least. Ron was trying to think of what he could do with the small number of spells he was supposed to know when Harry reacted. The boy must have thought Ron was in danger.
"Locomotor Mortis!" Harry yelled in desperation.
Harry's spell wasn't strong enough to bind the troll's legs together, but it did manage to make it stumble and fall with a loud bang. Giant splinters of wood flew into the air as a result of the crash. When the troll didn't immediately stand up, Ron ran over to Harry.
"That was brilliant!" Ron shouted, smiling for real for the first time that day. However, they were both covered in dust. That dust wasn't black, but it still reminded Ron of that day at the Ministry's Atrium.
"It didn't work! Look!" Harry shouted suddenly.
Whirling around, Ron saw with mounting horror that the mountain troll was rising from the floor. And even worse, it had managed to find its heavy club again. Ron began to wonder if rushing out of there and leaving the thing for the professors was a good idea. But then the door swung open with a bang and a red spell hit the troll, causing it to descend towards the floor, landing with a resounding thud.
Professor McGonagall had been the one to throw the spell, Ron saw. Snape and Quirrell were with her, as Ron expected. The man with the turban forced a sick look on his face as he stared at the troll on the floor, quivering.
"Merlin! What on earth were you thinking?" demanded Professor McGonagall, her eyes open in surprise. "You're lucky you weren't killed."
"I needed to go to the loo, professor," said Ron awkwardly. "I didn't know."
"I am aware of that, Mr Weasley, but I don't see any of you in a bathroom," she said, looking serious. Ron was about to reply when she turned to Harry. "And Mr Potter, you should've come to warn us instead. Can you imagine what could have happened here if Miss Granger hadn't let us know?"
Ron's eyes widened. Of course Hermione's first impulse had been to inform someone who was more capable of dealing with a troll. He wondered if she had tried to stop Harry from coming, or if Harry had tried to convince her to follow him.
Professor McGonagall asked for the whole story, and Ron and Harry told them everything. McGonagall was impressed that the both of them had managed to hold the troll off for that long. This time, they went back to the common room with house points for the both of them and without Hermione losing any.
Naturally, the twins wanted all the details, which they promptly got. However, Ron's attention was fixed on Hermione; the girl had been rambling anxiously, but when she saw them enter the common room she let out a sigh of relief. She didn't talk to them but from the conversations he overheard, Ron found out she had tried to follow Harry after letting McGonagall know. The professor hadn't let her, of course. It turned out that Ron's last minute plan had been very close to working out.
Much to his surprise, Alice Tolipan came to Ron as well, telling him that she was glad they were alright. The girl had been paying attention to Ron when he had announced his bathroom trip in the Great Hall, and she had let Percy know. However, Hermione had been faster in finding McGonagall than Percy was. Ron thanked Alice anyway.
Even when things could have gone a whole lot worse, they were still nowhere near to being okay. Ron didn't know if Hermione was still mad at them or if she would try to talk to them the next morning, but he knew for sure that they weren't friends yet. It was only Harry and him for now. There was no Golden Trio and without it, the entire future was at risk.
Suddenly, the search for a way to return back to his time had become less important. Ron had made too many mistakes already, and he knew he couldn't leave without fixing this one.
Next Chapter: Quick Jynx