Harry X. Potter - Predator

Xander... no, Harry blinked and shook his head, sitting up. He remembered trick-or-treating in Sunnydale... and a lot more.

Xander had dressed as Harry Potter for Halloween... but he dressed as a soldier, didn't he? Harry could recall clearly Xander buying a Harry Potter costume, but then... everything changed and Xander had dressed as a soldier that night. Harry rubbed his temples. He could clearly recall Xander dressing as Harry, but then he remembered Xander dressing as a soldier and those memories continued on until... the unity spell?

"Damn, now I'm never going to know what happened," Harry said, just before a bushy, brown haired missile hit him. Harry pulled her into his lap and held her while she cried on his shoulder. He could barely make out something about a troll? "Oh yeah, the troll," Harry said. "So how'd that turn out anyway?"

Hermione sniffled, her eyes red from crying. "Ron dropped its club on its head."

"He didn't get smooshed under falling troll, did he?"

"Hey!" Ron complained, letting them know he was there.

"Well, Ron's fine, you're fine, I'm fine, so what's with the waterworks?" Harry asked.

"It's all my fault!" she cried and Harry found himself blessing all of his experience as Xander being a comforter.

"You mean you have psychic powers that let you know the future?!" Harry asked, wide eyed.

"No!"

"You deliberately let the troll into the castle?"

"No!"

Harry tilted his head. "Then where is the chain of logic that leads from 'I was upset,' to 'It's all my fault a troll tried to smoosh us'?"

"I - I guess there isn't one," Hermione admitted.

"So you admit it's not your fault?" Harry asked.

"Y - yeah," she said, blushing.

She tried to get up but Harry held her in place. "I still need comforting," he said.

Ron snickered.

"Whoever let the troll in was the person at fault, with a small amount of blame on Ron for upsetting you, but I think knocking out a troll completely makes up for his part."

Hermione started giggling.

"Thank Merlin. I was afraid I was going to have to apologize for a minute," Ron said, relieved.

Hermione had to bury her face against Harry's shoulder to stifle her laughter.

"Are you sure you really want to set the bar at, willing to battle trolls in lieu of an apology?" Harry asked, making Hermione laugh even harder.

It took Ron a couple of seconds to puzzle out what Harry was saying. "For making girls cry being a berk, sure," he admitted. "But for lesser offenses, lesser challenges. Say I accidentally knock her down and she skins her knee. Since it wasn't intentional, all I have to do is wrestle a house elf."

Harry joined Hermione in laughter. "Deal!"

Once they'd all calmed down, Harry asked, "So what happened?"

"You jumped on the troll's back and stuck your wand up its nose to distract it and then for no apparent reason you passed out and fell off a minute later, just before Ron dropped its club on its head and knocked it out," Hermione quickly explained.

"Aaaah," Harry said. "That explains things."

"So what happened?" Ron asked?

"You ever have your entire life flash before your eyes?" Harry replied.

"Yeah, just recently in fact," Ron said.

"Well, turns out it had a bunch of stuff I'd forgotten that was so shocking I passed out," Harry replied. "But that's not important right now."

"It isn't?" Hermione asked.

"No," Harry said. "It isn't. What's important is: ... did someone clean the troll boogeys off my wand before they hardened?"

Typed By: Ordieth

AN: Don't know how long ago I wrote this one.