Harry paid no mind to the burning of his thighs, or the roughness of his breath as he dashed up the stone steps of Gryffindor Tower. He noticed, with the absent focus of someone operating under high stress, that somehow he had scratched the palm of his hand in the mad dash through Hogwarts' corridors, and he was leaving small smudges of blood behind him each time he grabbed a door frame or corner to control his run.

He ignored it, and panted on.

Gasping for air, Harry made it to his trunk at the end of his bed and doubled over, gasping heavily.

Sweaty hands fumbled at his neck; he dragged the mokeskin pouch out from under his robes and dug his trembling fingers through the leather for his keys.

He jerked out his wand instead, then swore. Wrong thing. Harry went to throw it away – checked himself, the wand was important, after all – and instead placed it absent-mindedly on the corner of his bed.

Again. He snagged a corner of his Invisibility Cloak and tossed it to one side.

A third time. Harry found and tossed a number of his small treasures, and his coin pouch, before he realised that his mental state was getting in the way of the small magic that made the mokeskin pouch work.

Forcing himself to blink, Harry drew a deep, slow breath. In the corner of his eyes, the bed hangings seemed to waver as if in a haze. He felt his own body heat rise up around his face with a smothering touch. Harry's irritation grew.

Then he dragged his mind back to the task, his grasping fingers finally closing on something that seemed right.

Still slouched over struggling for breath, Harry fumbled for the right key and finally forced his trembling hands to insert it into the lock and turn it right.

There was a click.

Harry clambered into the trunk and stumbled down the shallow steps into the depth of his third compartment.

He lurched past the single Vanishing Cabinet that he had liberated from its spot on Borgin and Burkes. Eyes fixed straight on his target, Harry stumbled to a halt just in front of the innocuous little book sitting in the middle of the room.

Furious with the book, with himself, with the Basilisk, Harry snarled at the thing and lifted his wand arm up to curse.

A fire-curse, Harry thought. That'd sort it. Prove its nature one way or the other.

…Then, Harry realised that he had left his wand on the corner of his bed in the rush to get down here. He paused, directionless for a moment.

Slowly lowering his arm, Harry took a moment to regain himself. The diary was just lying there, after all.

Flushing with embarrassment, he glanced around the room as if someone could have been looking to see him lose control.

It was empty, of course.

Harry straightened, rolled his shoulders, clicked his knuckles. Then he relaxed, and let most of the tension and panic drain out of him. Closing his eyes, breathing in the warm and slightly stale smell of luggage air, he breathed out slowly.

"Phewwww."

He reached up to push some of the hair, plastered to his damp forehead, up and out of the way. Then he eyed the diary suspiciously.

It sat on the ground, there in his third compartment, peacefully. It looked entirely unconcerned with Harry's destructive tendencies. Its smug appearance made Harry all the more determined to sort it out once and for all.

Reaching down to grab it, Harry paused.

Then instead of using his bare hands, Harry grasped the corner of his robe and gingerly picked this slim, black book up, allowing it to dangle precariously between his fingers.

On second thoughts, Harry realised, as his brain finally pushed past the panic, setting the diary alight with all the power and rage he could muster would have been a terrible idea while both he and the diary were still inside the trunk.

What happened if magically powered flame caught an expansion enchantment by surprise anyway? He might have killed himself if the expansion charms had failed.

Remorseful and mortified, Harry left the trunk quickly and took a moment to work on his Occlumency. It wasn't worth much if he lost his common sense under threat, but hopefully he could improve things before it was too late.

Then he stooped, and returned his things to where they should be. The book, now that Harry had regained his rationality, merely taunted him while he did so. He resented its smugness, just a bit. After he tidying himself up, Harry gingerly grabbed it again and plodded down the stairs.

Despite all the time it took Harry to race to his bedroom and have his little panic attack, when he returned to the common room, his friends were still clustered around the outside of the Fat Lady's entrance.

Harry wandered over to them with merely a longing glance at the common room fireplace, burning brightly, and craned his head out the door.

"What's keeping you?"

Three faces looked up at Harry indignantly. Ironically, only Luna seemed relaxed.

"She's a Ravenclaw!" Ron protested, obviously continuing an ongoing argument.

Luna seemed strangely interested in the stonework under her feet. She contemplated it closely, a thoughtful, untroubled look upon her brow.

Neville spoke with slow, purposeful, and surprisingly irritated clarity. "Harry might need her."

Hermione wavered. "Well, the rules…but Harry…Neville, I just don't know." She looked at Harry hopefully. "What do you think, Harry? Can she come in? Hogwarts: a History always did say that access to common rooms were restricted."

Harry raised his eyebrows. Since when had he ever...? He realised that this Hermione had never been influenced to ignore the rules when it suited her. He paused. "Better let her come in for now," he finally managed, visions of student interrogations about red writing on the wall flitting across his eyes. "We'd better stick together at the moment."

He stood back and gestured for all his friends to enter the room, Luna coming in last and gazing at him with questioning eyes.

He smiled her way. It was meant to be encouraging, but it may have come out a bit wrong.

Once his friends were all in the room, Harry turned suddenly and strode across the common room to in front of the fire. He passed the soft chairs with focus, strode over the ember-burned rug purposefully, and to Hermione's little gasp of surprise and Ron's mumbled shock, threw the diary into the blaze.

Stooping, Harry watched closely.

For a moment, as Harry stood there, heat beating on his face, orange tongues flickering, he thought things would be simple. The book sat there quietly, the flames grasping around it. Satisfaction began rising up from his gut like heat; things would be simpler if...

Then, with a little hiss and a small slow creep, a corner of the book caught alight and a tongue of flame slowly crept along the front cover. The diary curled at the edges, glossy writing faded, and the white pages began to turn black.

Harry heard only the hissing and flicker of flames as the diary began to turn into ashes.

It was merely a book.

He turned, numb, to face the curious looks of his friends.

"What's happening, mate?" Ron asked worriedly. "What was that? Why did we come here?"

Harry fidgeted slowly, wiping his damp hands on his robe, running his hands through his hair again.

His mouth worked silently for a moment as his brain rushed through what he could say.

Hermione did not wait. "Why did we come back? We need to tell someone," she suggested. "Maybe it was a prank? Was that a collar? What did you hear?" She paused. "Was that a library book just now? What have you done, Harry?"

"No! Not at all," Harry desperately denied. "Just, just some old notes." She looked at him searchingly. "Of mine," he added. "Which were mainly wrong. I just thought I'd get rid of them while I remember." He watched as Hermione's hackles settled down and returned once more to his more momentous thoughts.

Ron shuffled over to Neville and murmured something that Harry didn't catch.

Instead, Harry's mouth worked, his brain spinning but the words he was reaching for never really came.

"Uh," he managed, looking at his curious friends blankly. His voice broke awkwardly under the pressure, and he squeaked, "Um?" Harry coughed. "I thought…well, it was a really bad idea to be caught there, ah, with the…writing I mean."

Hermione was giving him a very worried look. "That's true, Harry. Look, why don't you sit down? You're looking a bit peaky."

"Yeah," Harry nodded numbly. "Right."

His friends looked at him uneasily while Harry stumbled over to the closest chair and collapsed into its cushiony-softness. They continued to stare at him as they also sat down, much more sedately than he did.

"So?" Ron finally asked, breaking the awkward silence, leaning forward in his chair. "What's going on? Do you need help?"

"Help," Harry managed. "Right."

He paused again, unsure of what to say. While his mouth seemed empty, however, Harry's thoughts were rushing a mile a minute.

If the diary was fake, Harry realised slowly, then it must have gone missing from his trunk. How could that be? Who had access to the boys' dorms? A lot of people, Harry was dismayed to realise. All the Gryffindor boys, to start with. And girls, house elves, teachers…had a prefect done a check for contraband? When was it taken, Harry wondered? He'd been at school for weeks.

He continued to obsess. Who did the writing? Would they have skipped the feast? Could he check, somehow?

Whoever had the diary was presumably the same person controlling the basilisk.

His thoughts trailed off in the face of his friend's expectant expressions.

"Uh..." Harry tried, "I thought I heard...slithering... in the walls. Through the pipes, maybe." His mind raced to come up with an explanation that would not sound mad. "I had to run to keep up, but it got ahead. When it disappeared...I, uh...wanted to check if the dorms were safe."

"Riiight," Hermione responded. "And the diary?"

"…might have been cursed?" Harry squeaked. It was a pathetic explanation. Harrey cringed.

"Mate," said Ron, looking properly awed. "You don't want to get caught by a cursed diary now, sharing all your inner thoughts and stuff. That stuff powers strong magic, that does."

Neville nodded, and Hermione's scepticism settled down as she looked incredulously at her magic-raised classmates.

"Really?"

Harry zoned out a bit as his mind returned to the problem at hand. Although he didn't know where the diary was, he did know how to access the chamber.

Why, he could pop off tonight and kill the Basilisk while people slept. Or maybe tomorrow night. Better make it a week, Harry amended, suddenly deciding he would take the mature approach for once.

He'd get Pookey to buy him some roosters, Harry decided. Take a few tools along. That would solve the worst of the problems. It would only take a short while to organise.

Then Harry hesitated. There was something niggling at the back of this brain, something just out of his reach…

Luna spoke up, looking entirely unconcerned about the bigger picture, but solicitous of Harry. "Are you worried about the paradoxes?" she asked out of nowhere. "Sometimes things have to happen before other things, and sometimes they have to happen together."

Hermione, interrupted from whatever segue she had gone off on, rolled her eyes. Harry, on the other hand, paused his thoughts.

"Happen together?" he repeated. He looked searchingly into Luna's eyes, but the Ravenclaw girl didn't seem to have any idea what he was wrestling with. Still, there was that thought just out of his grasp…

"Ah." All conversation paused as Harry clapped his hands when the thought connected.

He couldn't kill the Basilisk just yet, Harry realised, because an unknown student would still be possessed. He didn't know what Tom Riddle would do to the school if the Basilisk was suddenly killed just as he was beginning his plans, but Harry was sure and certain that he didn't want to find out.

He'd have no way to find the possessed student, Harry realised with a shiver, if they had no reason to wander on through Myrtle's bathroom. He'd have no idea how to stop Tom's new plans if he didn't know what those plans were.

"Paradoxes," Harry repeated, suddenly cold with horror at what he had almost missed. "Thanks, Luna."

A few minutes passed while his friends muttered cautiously around him, and Harry regained his equilibrium.

Then he turned to Neville and Ron, and asked the question at the forefront of his mind.

"So, ahh...how is Ginny doing this term?" The teens looked at him in surprise.

"...Alright, mate?" Ron offered.

Neville confirmed. "She seems fine. Happy. Making friends. I do homework with her sometimes," he admitted, sparing a sideward glance for Ron. "Since you asked me to look out for her. She seems normal?"

"Huh," Harry subsided, and blushed as the group looked at him curiously. "It's alright, Ron," Harry quickly defended. "I don't fancy her or anything," ...yet, he added mentally. She was far too young. "It just seemed like a rough thing to worry about in her first year, so I'm glad she's got friends to look out for her.

"It." Hermione raised a sceptical eyebrow.

Meanwhile, "I don't see you worrying about Luna's friends," Ron mumbled suspiciously.

"Well, she's with us, isn't she?" Harry's thoughtless words nevertheless caused the blonde Ravenclaw to draw herself up with a pleased blush, and she took her curious gaze off the Gryffindor common room fittings to sit taller in her chair, a little closer to Harry.

A short while later, Harry returned from his thoughtful musings to realise that the banquet would be finished shortly, and Luna should probably not be found inside their common room. Harry allowed Hermione to organise them out of the tower and back towards the scene of the crime. They were met halfway by a gaggle of students being herded in their direction.

Hermione and Ron were quick to find out all the rumours: a prank gone wrong, Slytherin's heir returned, muggleborns in danger, Mrs Norris killed and eaten, Mrs Norris kidnapped as revenge on Argus Filch for a previous punishment. Possibly an alumnus, Lavender had whispered dramatically. Someone who gained power after school and returned to revist their old tormentor.

Harry shivered at the parallels.

Alternatively, Draco Malfoy was plotting to take over the school in a bid to support his father's candidacy for Minister of Magic. Peeves had apparently denied all responsibility. The rumours grew.

As Harry and Neville saw Luna quietly back to her tower safely, Neville was most concerned about her health and state of mind, but Harry himself was somewhat distracted.

He was running over his plan of action.

Finally retiring to bed after the fuss, Harry drew the drapes around his bed, set up a silencing charm and promptly rolled over to make a list. With a whispered "Lumos," his wandtip lit and Harry began scratching his quill on a spare piece of parchment.

Diary stolen. Fake diary in trunk.

– Protective wards still seem to be intact?

Security? Someone in my luggage? Who? When?

– How to break into my luggage? Dark magic?

He paused in his scratching to chew his quill tip and consider what his priorities would be.

Stop attacks, Harry finally scribbled down.

– Mrs Norris: petrified or eaten?

Find/destroy diary, or kill Basilisk? – Which to do first?

Timeline: when/where were the petrifications?

Harry wished again he had a Penseive. That would solve so many of his problems. How could he keep the students safe now?

– Mirrors for sale, he finally scratched out along the bottom of the parchment. Start habit? Why buy?

After a generous half-hour of brainstorming, he had a basic plan. He extinguished his wand with a breath and curled up under his sheets. It had been a long day and an unwelcome surprise, and tomorrow would be busier than ever.

The next morning, Harry woke early and completed his Occlumency exercises according to his habit. Then, as soon as he heard his dormmates begin to stir, he rose out of bed and headed straight to the Hogwarts Owlery, the first step in his plan.

He climbed the steps with a pang in his heart. He had discovered not long ago, that his Hedwig was a happy occupant of the Owlery, but under a different name. He had a tendency to avoid her when possible since it always felt uncomfortable when she failed to recognise him. She never bothered to look at his reproachfully any more, or pecked his ear gently, or flew down to settle on his shoulder. Her absence stung. Nethertheless, Harry huffed up the stairs, feeling as though his thighs had been getting a better work out than usual recently.

And that was saying something, since Hogwarts was full of staircases!

It was with disappointment and relief that he soon saw the Owlery empty of Hedwig; she must have been out flying somewhere as he arrived in the airy little room at the top of the tower, and the small act felt like a moment of mercy.

Harry didn't know how much more guilt he could cope with at the moment.

The Hogwarts Owl he borrowed was directed to fly straight to Stowe and Packers to enquire as to how his luggage might have been broken in to. What damage might be identified if that was the case?

He had briefly considered calling Dobby, but soon dismissed the errant thought from his mind. If Dobby knew Harry had lost the diary, he would think Harry was once again in danger. His well-intentioned attempts to 'protect' Harry might get out of hand. And now that Harry had changed so much of the timeline – asking Dobby not to interfere, telling Dobby he had stopped the crisis – he would be unable to predict what enthusiastic form of crisis management Dobby would attempt to try next.

Harry gazed around the Owlery with a cynical eye. It was times like this he missed Hedwig the most, a loving, non-judgemental being to comfort him and scold him, a companion and provider of moral support. But he thought he knew which student she belonged to now, a Hufflepuff prefect he had never spoken to. Hopefully they were happy together.

He descended the stairs slowly, and continued through the day with a preoccupied air.

Hermione pulled him aside at lunch.

"I know last night was strange," she began without preamble, "But why are you looking at Neville like that? You're making him feel awkward."

Harry shook himself alert.

"What? Neville? You think he's acting strange then?"

Hermione snorted. "No. You're the one acting strange. What's wrong? Did Neville do something?"

"Oh...so you don't think he's happy?"

"Not right now," Hermione answered with a scowl. "He thinks you're mad at him. Did he do something?"

"Oh," Harry deflated. "Probably not. Healthy?"

Hermione shot him a concerned look and nodded without speaking. The two friends shared a moment of preoccupied silence before Harry spoke again.

"What about Ron then? You think he's alright?"

"Probably," proclaimed Hermione irritably. "How should I know, after all? It's not like Ron confides in me." She huffed, then continued on with more concern. "Is this about last night? It's either a prank, Harry, and it doesn't really matter, or it's the Heir of Slytherin, isn't it?"

Harry reflected gloomily on Mrs Norris' empty collar. She had been eaten, he had come to conclude, by the Basilisk, who must have regurgitated her collar like it also did with bones. No petrified body had turned up, which added to Harry's anxiety. There was no guarantee that no one would die this time around, after all, and the death of Mrs Norris really didn't bode well.

Filch, of course, was hysterical. But with the lack of proof or other clues, the rest of the school was still unsure as to whether the chilling message should be taken seriously.

Not even Dumbledore would be aware of the Dark Magic at work in his school, Harry reasoned slowly. He had supported Harry last timeline because Petrification was too advanced for a student to manage, but kidnapping a cat? Anyone could manage that. The teachers probably thought it was a malicious prank!

Harry knew, however, that Hagrid's chicken run was probably a little emptier this morning.

"Alright, fair enough," he returned, having forgotten precisely what he and Hermione were talking about. "Everything's fine, I promise. I'm just sleepy."

With that excuse, Harry rejoined his friends in conversation, but kept a suspicious eye out for people acting out of character.

After an anxious day in class, Harry threw himself into his self-directed study with a fervour unseen since the previous year. He friends exchanged puzzled looks over his head, but Hermione at least seemed content to let Harry work off his strange mood through study and the others followed her lead. At the end of the day, Harry was visited in the common room a large brown owl with a letter. He pocketed it smoothly, and returned to his studies to avoid attracting the attention of his friends, but later that night in bed was quick to break open the seal.

As he eagerly scanned the words, he felt a rush of confusion.

Dear valued customer,

Thank you for your enquiry. Regarding your query, I am pleased to inform you that it is simply impossible for the locks on an enchanted dragon-leather trunk to be breached by force in the absence of evidence. As the protections of the luggage you purchased from us some time ago are indeed the strongest enchantments we currently have, if an attempt on the lock in the absence of the keys had been made, only two things are possible.

Ordinarily, the thief and his magic would be frustrated, totally unable to damage the protections in any way as the dragon leather repels offensive magic from its surrounds. However, if a particularly powerful wizard managed to overcome the leather and charms through pure force, then the lock and other metalwork would be visibly melted and buckled, immediately revealing the breach. Even if the thief attempted to repair the external damage to hide the incident, access to the trunk would thereafter remain impossible as the Undetectable Expansion Charms would have failed, and the multiple compartments collapsed. Widespread damage to the contents would immediately be apparent.

Our only suggestion would be to consider any times that you misplaced your keys.

Regards

Horatio Packers

Stowe and Packers Magical Bags

Harry sighed in frustration, and picked up his wand to banish the offending parchment. It was pure chance that he let his eyes linger on the words, as he reached over to grasp his wand and then aborted the attempt with a gasp.

As he reread the letter a second time, Harry's eyes lit up. His mokeskin pouch still hung around his neck, as it always did. When not using his luggage keys, they constantly lived in the mokeskin pouch, and as Hagrid had told him specifically a lifetime ago, only the owner can remove anything from such a pouch. More particularly, no one but Harry had used his keys.

With a rush of optimism, Harry's thoughts raced ahead. There was one other way to access the third compartment of his trunk; namely, the Vanishing Cabinet he had ironically placed there as a security measure. Which was broken, unusable, and besides, no rumours of students getting lost inside its companion had reached his ears.

He'd have to sort that out soon anyway, Harry reasoned. No reason to put that off, after all.

As Hermione had taught him what seemed like such a short time ago on their hunt for Horcruxes, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. His luggage was therefore safe. All his notes about the future timeline remained secret and unseen. Nothing and nobody had travelled into his trunk compartments. Somehow it all meant that the diary had been switched before he placed it into his third compartment.

After a careful mental search, wishing so hard for the Pensieve that it hurt, Harry could determine that the only day in which the diary might have been stolen was the day of his trip to Diagon Alley. There had been lots of people on the streets, he remembered with a sinking feeling, but he'd only been with the Weasleys and his friends. He poured obsessively through all the details he could remember, but whatever had happened, he had honestly not noticed a thing. Perhaps, an invisible assailant?

With the bud of a plan in his mind, Harry settled down for the night to sleep.