Ah- my next deadlines on Wednesday and oh so much stress! Managed to get this out for everyone though :) Also a friendly reminder that this is (at heart) a crackfic.
"It's the day!" Screams Hermione on the thirty-first of October, diving beneath the table at breakfast.
For the whole way-more-than-four weeks they'd been in October the girl had become more and more paranoid. Ron had barely noticed and Neville had shown quite a lot of worry for her. Harry had been confused by her behaviour at first but as he'd slowly come to realise the reality of her ramblings about time being broken he too had become a subject of concern for both their more observant friends and their teachers.
Numerous times he and Hermione had been called in by Professor McGonagall to ask about sleep patterns or their childhoods and anything else under the Professor could think of. Unfortunately for her (and the rest of the faculty enlisted to help the two problem prodigy) the issue of time falling seemed to be deeply seated in their psyche. If it went on for much longer Harry expected they would call in mind healers just to try and fix the perceived problem.
Regardless for the appearance of sanity when much greater is at risk Harry too ducks beneath the table with a terrified shriek.
Minutes later they are fished out but an extremely tired Professor McGonagall who looks to Dumbledore desperately.
"Time isn't working and Ravenclaws are zombies and the sky might fall on us if reality collapses because time is broken!1!" Shouts Hermione before somehow freeing herself from the Head of Gryffindor's grip and running out of the corridor, eyes wild, hair frizzy and custom-enlarged bag in tow.
Everyone stares after her. Even Harry.
"She's right you know!" He says nobly. The short boy manages to escape McGonagall's grip too, he stands on the Gryffindor house table majestically.
In some poor other Gryffindor's bowl of cereal.
Still majestical though.
He raises his head to the ceiling and addresses the room.
"All of you- students of these hallowed halls- these times are troubled. Literally. Time is falling apart around us- before and after everything- even at this current moment. We can just stand by and watch this happen- let ourselves be sucked into the void which would likely result after the destruction of time itself. That or we could stand up and fight!" He rallies the crowd who are oddly silent, staring at him in utter confusion and some (two ginger haired Gryffindor twins) who are clapping and whooping loudly, "Around us we have everything we could need- specialists of every kind of magic and the knowledge of centuries to-" Luckily someone decides to take this moment to intervene and the small ranting child flops down.
There is silence.
"Somebody had to do something." Sneers the bat-like Potions Master. His wand remains trained on the boy. McGonagall stares at him with an expression even Dumbledore himself can't identify.
"I can't believe I'm saying this but thank you Severus." McGonagall levitates the boy and Professor Snape finally lowers his arm. He frowns.
Harry Potter is duly removed from the Great Hall and placed under Madame Pomfrey's care.
Only ten minutes and two Calming Draughts later he is released back into the wilds of the Hogwarts corridors.
He makes it to Charms in good time. Everybody tries to ask him questions except the zombie Ravenclaws. They just amble around the classroom until Professor Flitwick arrives to field questions off of the boy-who-is-too-calm-to-notice-anything-right-now.
Eventually the Gryffindors return to their seats but the Ravenclaws are a different matter. No matter what their Head of House does they continue to ramble, both physically and through speech.
"Tim is great."
"Isn't Tim the greatest?"
"My mind is Tim's."
"Everyone loves Tim."
"Isn't Tim great?"
"Slytherin must be converted too."
"Best Tim is."
"Ravenclaw for Tim as Headmaster."
"Orangine is a colour."
"Kevin supports Tim."
"Evil he is not."
"Never forget Tim."
At this moment Harry breaks through the haze of two Calming Draughts and runs from the room screaming.
Professor Flitwick stares after him for a moment then back at his unruly classroom and begins to weep for the state of education.
The boy runs for the Great Hall, hoping to pick up the Hermione trail there and find his only chance of surviving the time-zombie apocalypse at the end.
He just forces his way through the heavy doors when suddenly it is the evening. Harry yelps as someone runs right into him.
"Troll- in the dungeons- thought you ought to know." The man says quickly before collapsing on Harry. The boy prys his way out from beneath the man with a sigh of relief.
Whilst everyone is still reacting to the shock and confusion of a) Harry appearing in the middle of nowhere having been unable to be found for the entire day by anyone and b) Quirrel falling over and almost crushing Harry who had supposedly been kidnapped for a strange blood ritual (as the rumours had circulated) and c) troll- Harry Potter, nerd tracker extraordinaire, makes a stealthy escape from the Great Hall.
He follows Hermione's magical signature and the strongest smell of books in the whole castle and finally finds his friend in the library.
Sitting beside her as she reads one of her books is a tall, grotesque creature with a graduation cap wearing a black loincloth (Harry hopes despite not being able to see given the beast is sitting because otherwise it would be really quite unacceptable in public) and a grey waistcoat with a pocketwatch in the pocket.
"Harry! Meet Gerald- he's my new friend! He believes in time breaking apart too!" Says the girl delightedly, making her place in her current book. Harry inches forwards, not sure what his reaction is supposed to be.
"It is a pleasure to meet you Mr. Potter. My kind tell so much of you- Gerald Quinton, Time Travelling Troll. I've come to fix your reality now so there is one later." The boy-who-lived nods in response.
"Oh. Well I guess you already know me. Harry Potter- scar faced wizard." Harry smiles awkwardly. Mr. Quinton lets out a booming laugh.
"A comedian too- it seems your records are a little lacking in the future. I'll fix that for you mate." The troll quiets himself, sighing a little as he speaks.
"Now- onto business." Gerald claps his huge grey hands together, "I believe you have some time troubles? What exactly has been happening?" The two humans tell the troll about their continuity conundrums between them. When they have finished the troll sighs.
"That's not good. It sounds like you have a severe case of time distortion centred around Hogwarts." Quinton sucks in a breath that whistles through his disturbingly clean teeth. The human children look at each other in panic and confusion.
"What does that mean?" Asks Hermione worriedly. The troll grimaces.
"I'm afraid there's nothing I much I can do for you. You said it's been doing this for about a month?" Gerald's nose squishes further into his face as he speaks. Hermione nods in response to his question.
"In that case you just have to wait it out now- the distortion will even out eventually now. They don't tend to last longer than a month." Says the troll, leaning backwards.
"All you have to do is wait."