I arrived in Gryffindor tower, out of breath from running away from a particularly evil witch who tried to feed me a poisoned apple. I had to tell Professor Sprout that I wasn't hungry and when she got angry, I ran for it.
"Well, at least you know who the witch from Snow White is," the Sorting Hat said as the portrait shut behind me.
Luckily, I found Hermione in one of the tall chairs, although she was crying harder than ever. I walked over to her softly, and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. She was cradling Trevor in her arms, and looked up at me with teary, red eyes.
"He's not going to change," she sobbed, "and I'll never get married."
I put my arm around her shoulders so that I could lean her forward in order to place the hat on her head. She thought I was trying to hug her, so she squeezed me into a tight, sideways, awkward embrace.
"I'll never be married," she sobbed again. I placed the Sorting Hat on her head. A frilly pink dress materialized around Hermione. The ground turned into a lily-pad covered pond. Instead of sitting on a chair, Hermione was sitting on a log. We were on an island of grass in the middle of the pond. The walls of the Gryffindor common room, though, were still there, housing the pond and getting in the way of the characters around us.
Hermione continued as if nothing had changed, as if she had imagined sitting by the lake the whole time.
"Try kissing him again," I said, pointing to Trevor.
She sobbed, so I held Trevor up for her so he was next to her face.
"Just one more try, eh?" I suggested. She sighed and kissed Trevor.
Nothing happened. Well, not nothing: Hermione did become hysterical, but the story didn't disappear like I imagined it would.
"He's not the frog prince!" The Sorting Hat yelled suddenly. "The frog prince must be another student!
"Oh no!" I exclaimed. "I have to find a student who's acting like a frog?"
"No," the hat said. "With me on her head, the student will actually BE a frog."
"With this kind of chaos in the castle, it'd be a wonder if he doesn't get stepped on," I said idly. With a sudden realization, I snatched the Sorting Hat from Hermione's head. The pond disappeared.
"Okay, at least now the student isn't a frog," I said to the hat. He agreed it would be best if we found the Frog Prince before placing the hat on Hermione's head again.
I thought about maybe forgetting about Hermione until I freed Ron, but I hadn't seen anything of the three bears so that story couldn't be completed either.
Unless... If Ron was Goldilocks, and the bears came home to find her in their house, wouldn't they just come to wherever Ron thought their house was? It was confusing but worth a shot.
I found him in the dormitory for the Gryffindor first years. He was testing out beds, just as I imagined he would be. All of them were too soft, according to him. I got him to sit still long enough for me to place the Sorting Hat on his head.
I had to suppress my laughter as locks of golden hair emerged from under the hat. A long blue dress materialized over Ron's tall body. He was even wearing bloomers. It took all my energy to keep from doubling over. The dormitory turned into a small cottage. Three bowls of porridge were on a round table in the center of the room. On one side of the room were three chairs and on the other were three beds.
He tasted the porridges one by one.
"Too hot! Too cold! MMMmmmm!" He gobbled down the third and smallest bowl.
"Just right," he explained to me through a full mouth.
He wandered over to the chairs. The first was square and made of maple.
"Too hard!
The second was made of thick, pillowed cushions.
"Too soft!
I never understood how a chair could be too soft, so while Ron found out that the smallest chair was just right, I sampled the too-soft chair. It practically smothered me when I sat myself in the middle of it. The feathery pillows ate me up like some kind of strange monster. I pulled myself out of it, gasping for air.
Ron, meanwhile, was sampling beds.
"Too high!" he said, trying to climb upon the large bed, with no success.
"Too low!" he said, looking down at the second bed, which was little more than a thin mattress on the ground.
"Just right!" he said, pulling the covers of the final bed over his head. He fell straight to sleep, the Sorting hat firmly on his head.
Now I just had to wait.
Thinking ahead, I decided I didn't want to be visible when the bears returned to their house. When they began asking who had eaten their food, I didn't want to be standing in the corner looking suspicious. So, I hid in the closet, leaving it open a crack so I could keep an eye on Ron and the hat.
Time passed slowly, and I wondered if my plan would work, if the bears would show up after all. I didn't want to have to go searching for them. Rapunzel's prince found her pretty quickly, but that also might have just been coincidence. The muffin man kid showed up out of nowhere, and his counterpart had been close by, so maybe the story's characters were naturally close to each other?
Just then, the door to the cottage opened. An awkward looking bear that walked on his two back legs came inside. He was wearing trousers. The next bear wore a dress, and the smallest wore nothing at all.
They each sat down around the round table, and saw that their spoons were in their porridge.
"Someone's been eating my porridge!" the father bear said in a loud voice. There was something familiar about it.
"Someone's been eating MY porridge," the mother bear said in a dreamy voice, and I knew she was Luna Lovegood.
"Someone's been eating my porridge and it's all gone!" The baby bear started to sob. I didn't recognize his voice.
They each saw their chairs, and the baby bear cried that his had broken. I sat up straighter, knowing that they would find Ron soon. At least it would be over for him soon.
"Start looking," the father bear said. "He can't have gone far.
Instead of looking in their beds, the bears started lumbering around the cottage, looking under the table and behind furniture.
"Someone's been sleeping in my bed," the father bear said suddenly, but at that moment the closet door opened. My eyes grew wide.
"I found him!" Mother bear growled.
"No! I'm not the one!" The bears advanced towards me. This was all wrong! They were supposed to find Ron!
"You ate all my porridge!" the baby bear cried.
The father bear grabbed my by my neck with his huge paws and pulled me out of the closet. He shut the door, and pinned me up against it; my feet couldn't touch the ground. I gasped for air, but none could reach my lungs. I frantically kicked my legs, but the bear was so large, I didn't even make contact with him. So much for saving the castle, I thought. I'm going to die and be another story in Hogwarts a History about the dangers of Fantasy Tonic.
Just as my vision started to grow hazy, I heard a yawn from the other side of the room.
"Someone's in my bed!" the baby bear cried, pointing to Ron. I felt the grip around my neck loosen, and I inhaled as large a breath I could manage. The mother bear roared at Ron, who woke with a start. He ran from the cottage, except the cottage had turned back into the first year boys' dormitory.
The hairy paw around my neck shrunk into a hairless human hand. Its owner gasped, and stopped choking me. I coughed and sputtered, trying to breathe again.
"I'm so sorry, Harry!" Neville Longbottom said with a worried face. "I don't know what came over me!"
"It's okay," I gasped.
Luna just stood by the door, looking confused, while a small second year boy wondered why he was crying.
Ron came back into the room, holding the Sorting Hat in one hand and scratching his head with the other.
"You okay, Harry?" he asked, seeing me choke in my next breath.
"I'm fine," I said, finally regaining control over my breathing.
"What in the bloody hell is going on?" he asked. I explained quite quickly about the fantasy tonic and how he had been Goldilocks and how Neville and Luna and the boy (whose name was Ryan) had become the three bears when I placed the hat on Ron's head.
"So now we have to make everyone live happily ever after with the Sorting Hat on someone's head?" Ron questioned as he, Luna, Ryan and I went down to the Gryffindor common room.
"Yes," I answered.
"Where's Hermione?" Ron asked.
I pointed as we entered the common room. She was still crying in the chair.
Ron went over immediately to try to console her, but her grief couldn't be contained.
"We should split up," Luna suggested. "It would take too long to tackle each story one at a time."
"Well, we can only resolve one story at a time, because of the Sorting Hat" I explained again.
"But we can each take a story and get the characters together," she said, "and whenever you get to each of us, we'll be all ready.
I thought about it, and it was a good idea.
"Okay," I replied. "But be careful about the evil characters. Don't let them hurt anyone until the Sorting Hat is on. Keep the evil witch away from Snow White, and keep the three little pigs away from the Big Bad Wolf."
Luna and Ryan nodded, and went out of the portrait hole to begin their quests, but I just stood there.
Professor Snape... He was out cold and I had no idea how to bring him back. How could I finish Little Red Riding Hood, if he isn't awake to do it?
I groaned, and Ron asked what was wrong.
"Nothing," I lied. "Let's just find Hermione's prince. She'll be able to help us out.
"Okay," Ron agreed. He turned to Hermoine. "Now, Hermione, you stay here, okay?"
She didn't say anything. She just stroked Trevor and sniffed. I carefully walked over and picked Trevor up from her lap. She watched me take him, but didn't protest. I took him out of her sight.
"Try talking to her now," I said from behind her. Ron placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
"Hermione?"
Her eyes changed to normal.
"Ron?" she asked.
"Hermione, you have to stay here for a while. Don't go anywhere else so we can find you."
"Sure," she replied, and she turned to stare out the window.
"Do you think that did anything?" Ron asked.
"I hope so," I answered. "I don't want to have to find her again."
Ron sighed and looked at the portrait hole. "Okay, let's go."