Chapter Five: Trouble

"Hey, Draco," Goyle asked contemplatively as he looked between the Cockroach Clusters and the Ladybug Lollies on display.

Draco wondered if the contemplation in his voice came from really wondering about what he was going to ask, or the decision of which candy to get. "What?"

"Do you really think it was a good idea to tell Longbottom all that stuff?" he asked, decision made, reaching for the Cockroach Clusters.

"Of course. It's the kind of thing he'd want to hear." Draco shrugged. "I didn't tell him everything."

"Yeah, but what about… you know… if it got back to Slytherin..."

Draco's lips curled into a wry smile. "Do you think anyone in Slytherin would believe a word Longbottom says?"

Goyle frowned in thought before shrugging. "Guess not."

"Hey, Draco, Goyle! Come see this!"

The two looked over at where Crabbe was pointing out the store front window. Outside, Prongs Potter and Cho Chang were walking slowly, arm and arm, from shop front to shop front, chatting animatedly.

"Well," Draco muttered as they continued up the street, "Potter-two seems to have settled in very well."

Hogsmeade wasn't really as much fun without other people to go with, Harry finally admitted to himself after walking aimlessly from store to store for an hour. The wind was crisp, almost downright cold, and he was sure there were better things he could be doing than walking around by himself.

He stalled around the Three Broomsticks, though, debating whether it was worth it to go drink a butterbeer by himself, when movement in the window caught his eye. Two of his classmates, obviously on a date from the looks of it. He turned to pass by—he'd skip the Butterbeer—when just who those classmates were hit him, and he stumbled back around to stare.

Cho Chang and Harry 'Prongs' Potter were sitting in the booth at the window, looking rather entangled with one another. In fact, it seemed as if they couldn't keep their hands—or lips—off each other. And Prongs certainly seemed to be enjoying their kisses a lot more than Harry had enjoyed the one kiss he'd ever shared with Cho.

Harry felt numb. He probably looked ridiculous, standing in the street, watching the two of them snogging, but he couldn't move, couldn't look away.

"Well, Potter, I never thought you'd have any voyeuristic tendencies. Or is it really narcissism in your case?"

Of all the times… No, actually he should have suspected it. Malfoy always showed up when Harry least wanted him to. But it was enough to snap Harry out of his numb state.

"Shove it, Malfoy," he snarled, brushing past the other boy without waiting for a response.

Malfoy called after him anyway, "Aw, don't be like that, Potter!" He sounded too pleased with himself.

Resolving to talk to Harry was one thing, Hermione quickly realized, but finding Harry was quite another. She'd started her search in Hogsmeade but then returned to the castle. It was like he'd just disappeared… or found a very good hiding spot.

This wasn't how this was supposed to go, she couldn't help thinking, wondering where exactly Harry could have gotten to. Finding Harry wasn't supposed to have taken hours, but minutes. It was supposed to be simple: find Harry, apologize for assuming that he was just giving Prongs some space to get adjusted and not making sure to spend equal time with him, hopefully have Harry apologize back for acting so rashly—so that then they could start on the process of reconciling Harry and Ron, and then explain what she'd learned about timelines.

She was just short of desperation, when she decided to head for Hagrid's to ask if he knew where Harry might be—as no one else she asked seemed to know.

Of course, Harry was at Hagrid's. When she caught sight of Hagrid's hut and the boy lounging on the front step, she could have laughed out loud. Really, it should have occurred to her to look for Harry at Hagrid's sooner!

But as she neared Hagrid's hut and Harry, she slowed, the smile falling off her face. Harry wasn't alone.

Draco Malfoy had found Harry before she had.

"I can't believe you came here to sulk!"

Malfoy's voice was amused, though derisive, as if implying that he had suspected better of Harry. Which was odd. And what he'd said had been odd, as well.

The whole thing was just… odd.

Hermione couldn't hear Harry reply, though he did turn his head to glare at Malfoy. Harry's eyes quickly caught sight of her over Malfoy's shoulder, though, and all expression seemed to freeze on his face, the anger slowly fading to an expression Hermione could only classify as confusion.

She didn't like seeing that look on Harry's face directed at her, as if wondering why she'd come to see him, as if they weren't friends and hadn't been for almost six years.

Malfoy noticed the change in Harry and turned to see where he was looking. His expression, too, changed when he saw her, twisting into something ugly, something that also questioned her presence, told her she was unwanted, and maybe called her a mudblood a couple of times for extra malice.

But there was something else in that gaze that Hermione recognized as she turned and walked back towards Gryffindor tower. It was unease, a slight fear that something was happening that hadn't been planned for.

It explained everything, and Hermione knew she would need to do more than to simply go and talk to Harry in order to fix what was going on... especially if Malfoy would be around.

And something was going on, Hermione was sure of it. Neville was right, they had been watching out for Prongs more than Harry, figuring that Prongs would get settled and then everything would work itself out. But that hadn't happened, and now Hermione knew why.

"Bloody hell, you didn't have to do that."

Malfoy actually had the audacity to looked affronted. "I didn't do anything, Potter."

"Don't get self-righteous." Harry snapped. "You didn't have to scare her off like that! Just leave me alone, Malfoy." Harry went back to staring at the cracked and chipped wall that composed Hagrid's hut, hoping that if he ignored Malfoy, he'd go away.

"Not if you're going to sit out here until you freeze," Malfoy snapped. "You're pathetic, Potter!"

The smile Harry turned on Malfoy was ugly. "I'm not planning on freezing. You familiar with warming charms, Malfoy? I can sit out here quite comfortably for as long as I want."

Malfoy sneered at him. "If you say so, Potter."

It probably shouldn't have felt as good as it did to get a rise out of Malfoy. Especially, Harry thought, shifting uncomfortably on the cold step as the Slytherin headed back for Hogwarts, since he really wasn't any good at warming charms at all.

Ron was much easier for Hermione to find; he was in the Gryffindor common room.

"Ron, I need to talk to you."

Ron shrugged, dropping his quill on his half-completed essay and leaning back on the couch. "Sure. I didn't really want to work on Transfiguration anyway."

"Obviously," Hermione muttered, eyeing the remains of a just-finished game of Exploding Snap a little ways away from Ron's homework on the table. "It's about Harry," she said, sitting down next to him.

"Which one?"

"Harry, Harry. From this timeline."

"Oh." From the look on Ron's face, that Harry really wasn't one he wanted to talk about.

"Just hear me out, Ron, please. Something's wrong with him."

"I'll say something's wrong with him!"

"Ron-"

"Yeah, yeah. Fine, tell me what you've found out."

And so Hermione told him. She started with Neville coming to talk to her—leaving out what Neville had said about Ron's actions—and continued on to finding the book he'd mentioned. Then she started explaining what she'd learned about timelines, and what happened when two people survived in the same timeline.

"So you're saying Harry's not acting like Harry because Prongs is here?" Ron sounded and looked skeptical.

"No. Harry's actions aren't…" Hermione searched for the right word, "-directly a result of Prongs being here. It's not like Prongs' existence automatically made Harry give his broom to Malfoy."

"Oh, good, because this timeline thing is no excuse-"

"But it's not Harry's fault!"

"What?!"

"I think Harry was manipulated into doing that. Hear me out-" Hermione held up a hand to stop Ron's rant before it began. "There's a very good reason."

"It had better be."

"I went to find Harry today because I don't think he knows any more than we did about timelines, and I wanted to apologize for letting this get out of hand."

"It's not your fault, Hermione. Harry's the one who-"

"Ron, that's not the point, listen. When I finally found him, Malfoy had already found him first."

"What?"

"And Malfoy wasn't very happy to see me. I think Malfoy has everything to do with how Harry's been acting lately. I think he's using the situation with Prongs for his own ends."

"But why would Harry even listen to Malfoy. I mean…" Ron waved his arms around as if to encompass the whole situation. "It's Malfoy!"

"Of course Harry wouldn't listen to him right away, but Malfoy's had almost two months now to work on it! Think Ron! Think about when Prongs first got here, when he was just settling in and Harry wasn't around as much."

"I just figured he was probably giving Prongs some space to get his bearings."

Hermione nodded. "Probably. But while we were all helping Prongs, Malfoy starting hanging around Harry. Think about what Malfoy could have said!"

The realization was staring to dawn on Ron's face. "All sorts of things. And no one realized it because no one was with Harry… no wonder he's been acting so strangely!" Ron had finally caught on. "Wait! What about Neville? He's been around Harry a lot lately, too, right? Do you think he would know what Malfoy's been doing? Do you think Harry would have told him, or that he might have seen something?"

"It's possible. If anyone would know, he'd be the one." Hermione agreed.

"We have to go talk to him-"

"No!" Hermione had to physically hold Ron down in his chair. "Think about how that would look if Harry found out about it!"

"What?"

"It might look like we're going behind his back to talk about him with Neville! Think about what Malfoy would say about that!"

"...You're right."

"We have to talk to Harry first and try to fix things. Then we talk to Neville and try to figure this out."

Neville wasn't sitting at his usual spot in the Great Hall when Harry made his way down to breakfast that Monday, still half-asleep and wishing that sleeping through Potions class was an option. It took him a moment to find him, and when he did he could only blink and stare.

Because Neville, Hermione, and Ron were all waving at him to come join him.

For a moment, all he could do was stare. Neville sat with an empty space on either side of him, as if to really give Harry the option of sitting with his old friends or not. But on the other side of Neville was Hermione, and across from them sat Ron and Prongs. And Prongs…

Prongs looked completely pole-axed! Harry wished for Colin and his camera to immortalize the expression, it was just that good.

Harry couldn't help the smile that spread over his face as he quickly sat down in-between Neville and Hermione.

That breakfast was, purely in Harry's opinion, one of the best meals he'd ever had. Conversation was a little awkward at first, they way they always were when friends were trying to make up for time spent apart, but they quickly settled back into how they'd always been. Ron, he noticed, pointedly stayed away from mentioning Quidditch, and Harry supposed he would have to apologize for not letting Prongs ride his broom later. Prongs didn't say all that much, but what he said was polite—some of it was even funny.

It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough for Harry, and it made having to leave for Potions class even less appealing, especially with Ron's comments about how glad he was not to have to take a Potions class ever again.

When Hermione demanded that they leave in order not to be late, Prongs didn't stand up when Harry and Hermione did.

"I'll catch up to you in class," Prongs waved them away.

Hermione leaned towards Harry to mock-whisper, "He probably wants to say 'hi' to his girlfriend before he goes to class," loud enough so that most everyone around them could hear it. Prongs' face took on a put-upon expression; he'd obviously been teased about this before.

As Harry and Hermione headed out of the Great Hall towards the dungeons, Prongs made no move towards the Ravenclaw table, instead leaning over towards Ron to hiss. "What was this all about, Ron?"

"We think we've figured out why Harry's acting the way he has."

"You mean supporting Slytherin like the backstabber he is?"

"Trust me, Prongs, Harry's no more a backstabber or a Slytherin supporter than you are. He's not been acting like himself, and now we—well, Hermione figured it out first—know why!"

Prongs still looked skeptical. "All right. So what's his excuse."

"Hermione saw Malfoy talking to him."

"What?! That's it? Malfoy?! That's no excuse!"

Ron glared over at the Slytherin table, at the spot where Malfoy had been sitting only minutes before, leaving an empty spot in-between Crabbe and Goyle. "Given how oddly Harry's been acting and the fact that it's Malfoy, my first guess would be Imperius. But Harry isn't affected by that, so that option's out."

"What!?" Prongs looked decidedly ill at what Ron had just said.

"It's true, mate." Ron said gravely. "I don't know what Malfoy was like in your timeline, but in this one, he's trouble."

to be continued...

status: beta'd by Ayeshah Harvey-Lomas