1. Thanks to all reviews, Guest and not. I read them all and answer, when possible.

2. Thanks to TheMuggleBornPrincess who helped review a first version this chap some years ago.

3. Thanks to reallybeth who helped me go through this latest version. It reads great thanks to her help.

4. Any error here is mine, not from my reviewer. I'm light and accept concrit, if you point it out politely I may even fix it.

5. I am starting to write again after a pause, but you know me, I make no promises of speed.

6. Enjoy

Harry sat there, gobsmacked. Even after the bright light from the yellowish paper had faded, he remained as if in a daze, unsure of where he was or how he had gotten there. Though he still had his glasses on, his vision was dark and blurry. All around him, there were indications of murmurs and quiet shuffling, though nothing he could clearly recognise as of yet. Harry's total lack of control threw his instincts to the wind, and he tried grasping for anything that could help him make blasted sense of the situation.

I'm not on Hogwarts grounds anymore.

The realisation was as sudden as it was dumbfounding, but Harry knew it to be true. The warmth of the sun and the fresh breeze had disappeared in a tic. Instead, the air around him was now nippy and unmoving. His new surroundings were only dimly illuminated, mostly by a white-blue light. Harry noticed the silence as well, though he knew for sure that this place was wide and crowded. There was a crisp tension all around that he couldn't quite decipher yet.

Before Harry could say anything or even move, a buzzing sound came. It started quietly at first, but built up fast until it was filling the whole echoey chamber. A few figures around him began to stand up, and instinctively, Harry moved his hand to his pocket. When he found his wand there, he let out a sigh of relief.

Harry was considering what to do next when his vision improved and the images became sharper.

He was in Hogwarts' Great Hall. The long candlelit room under the starry ceiling was unmistakable, and so was the Gryffindor table where Harry was currently sitting. The blueish light coming from the front was more unsettling, but it helped him see for himself that the figures around him were only students and not unforeseen attackers.

Knowing where he was didn't ease all of Harry's worries. Not in the slightest. There were plenty of things he still ignored, like why he was at the Great Hall — of all places — or what had happened to Minerva McGonagall?

His eyes moved to the front, to the main source of the light. There a big goblet stood, with its bright flames blazing blue and white. Standing next to it was a tall figure that Harry recognised at once and his eyes widened in astonishment. Harry thought he'd heard the man's voice moments earlier, but he had believed it to be nothing but a foolish dream.

He couldn't be here. It was impossible.

Albus Dumbledore was the very image of graveness as he stared directly at Harry. The cold light from the goblet's fire gave a mysterious glow to his large robes. Harry's jaw dropped. His old headmaster had been dead for years now. Harry had just seen his portrait hanging in the headmistress' office. It couldn't be real. It had to be a trick.

By the time Harry moved his attention to the teachers' table, his vision had completely recovered. What he found there wasn't much easier to believe. The professors were there, but they were all wrong. A few of them had already retired and shouldn't be in the Great Hall. They even looked somehow younger compared to the last time Harry had seen them. That's where Harry spied Minerva McGonagall. The old witch looked considerably different from the last time he'd seen her, yet she wasn't the most shocking person at that table. It was madness, but Alastor Moody was also there, and so was Severus Snape.

Harry soon found more faces that weren't supposed to be there, like Karkaroff and Ludo Bagman. He was starting to realise what he was seeing when Minerva McGonagall stood up, and went to whisper something to Professor Dumbledore.

It didn't make any blasted sense.

Harry had been here before, at this exact moment in time. He knew when this had happened. Hesitant and alarmed, Harry turned to the Gryffindor table once more, and this time he was able to distinguish his two friends. Ron and Hermione were dressed as students, and they were way younger also, fourth year if Harry had to guess. Both of them were stunned, openmouthed. Harry moved his eyes around the table, skimming over the faces at the other tables as well. Those were not current students, those were the people who had gone to Hogwarts with Harry. He saw Angelina and Katie, and sitting close to them he saw George... with Fred. It was madness. It couldn't be real. It just couldn't. Even a very young Ginny was there, looking just as surprised as everybody else.

Incredulously, Harry looked down at his own hands. They were way smaller, and so was the rest of his body. He didn't dare touch his face with everyone looking at him, but he didn't have to. He didn't know how, or why, but he was in fourth year. It was the Halloween of 1994. The day he was picked as the fourth champion of the Triwizard Tournament.

If this was a dream, it was way too detailed. He could feel the cold and the tension as if it was really happening again. The images didn't have that otherworldly and vague shapes of dreams either. They were sharp and unmistakable.

At the front table, Professor Dumbledore was nodding to Professor McGonagall.

"Harry Potter!" Albus Dumbledore's voice called again. "Harry! Up here, if you please!"

"Go on," the young Hermione whispered, she then gave Harry a slight push.

Even when he felt uneasy to be addressed by a different version of his friend, Harry knew that doing as she said was probably the best he could do.

"I— yeah, sure. I—" he answered, but his words were whispered.

Harry got to his feet, holding his wand tightly as he moved forward. As he walked the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, he analysed the situation. Hundreds and hundreds of eyes were upon him, yet he didn't care about that. Was this truly a dream? Or was it some kind of an illusion? If this was someone's trick, he had to be wary. Perhaps it could even be an intended side-effect of whatever prank was attempted at the first stone of Hogwarts.

It didn't feel like that was the case though.

Harry was a trained Auror, and knew he had to be careful either way. His eyes combed every corner, discerning any detail that felt out of place, paying attention to every student that might look suspicious. He was ready for battle. He'd been even going over which spells he should use if he was attacked out of the blue. However, the more he saw, the more convinced there was nothing suspicious with what he was seeing. There was nothing out of place. No one was trying to attack him. Everything and everyone looked just as they were supposed to.

The buzzing grew louder and louder. Soon, Harry stood right in front of Dumbledore, who towered over him in all his mystery. Harry noticed the stares of all the teachers upon him as well. This time, he was not a scared boy, but he didn't understand what was going on, and that alone was unsettling.

"Well... through the door, Harry," said Dumbledore. He wasn't smiling.

Harry nodded and did as he was told. With a wary step, he passed right in front of the teachers' table, watching over his shoulder. Hagrid was seated at the very end, and even when the half-giant didn't give any of his usual signs of greeting to Harry, he didn't look as if he was hiding any threats. Hagrid was shocked and — just as everyone else — he stared at Harry all of his way to the champion's room. It was unreal. Harry was supposed to be going to his hut right now, to give him the invitation to his wedding.

Maybe he was a fake. Maybe all of them were.

Harry had never heard of any magic that could do something like this, though. The whole situation was a complete mystery to him. Whether it was fake or not, the truth was that Harry didn't belong here. Not any more. He belonged to his own time, with his fiancée and his friends. He needed to find an explanation to what was happening as soon as possible. Unfortunately, he doubted he could find it in the champion's room.

As Harry closed the door behind him, his eyes moved around, studying the smaller room. Paintings of witches and wizards covered its walls, and a nice fire was roaring in the fireplace opposite him. Violet, the Fat Lady's gossiping friend, was already whispering something to a wizard with a walrus moustache in one of the portraits.

The three other champions were there as well, as they were supposed to be. They had been standing in front of the flames, but had turned around the moment Harry arrived. They were not that imposing now that Harry knew all of them. Krum was slightly apart from the other two, hunched-up and brooding. As he put his gaze on Cedric, Harry felt guilty again, a feeling that he had made peace with but that had rekindled in a second. The Hufflepuff was looking in the door's direction when Harry came inside, looking surprised and a bit pale too. Fleur threw back her silvery hair and spoke with an accent that was more substantial than when Harry had last talked to her.

"What is it? Do zey want us back in ze Hall?"

"No," said Harry dryly.

He didn't wait for a response, instead, he kept scanning his surroundings. If this was a trap or a trick, he should be able to find something that pointed to it. So far, the scene had felt too real. There had to be an explanation.

Before Harry knew it, Ludo Bagman stormed into the room and put arm around his shoulders. Harry tried to move away from that man without much luck.

"Extraordinary!" Bagman muttered, squeezing Harry's arm. "Absolutely extraordinary! Gentlemen… and lady," he added, approaching the fireside while addressing the other three champions. "May I introduce — incredible though it may seem — the fourth Triwizard champion?"

Viktor Krum straightened up, giving Harry a suspicious look. With a sober expression, Cedric was staring at him too. Fleur doubted and reacted in disbelief.

"Oh, vairy funny joke, Meester Bagman."

"Joke?" Bagman repeated, bewildered. "No, no, not at all! Harry's name just came out of the Goblet of Fire!"

Bill Weasley's future wife frowned, "But evidently zair 'as been a mistake, 'e cannot compete. 'E is too young."

"Well... it is amazing, But, as you know, the age restriction was only imposed this year as an extra safety measure. And as his name came out of the goblet... I mean, I don't think there can be any ducking out at this stage... It's down in the rules, you're obliged... Harry will just have to do the best he—"

A large group entered the room, interrupting Bagman. Harry couldn't care less about this as he had soon realised he wouldn't find any clues from Bagman either. Harry was getting more worried about his situation and what it meant for him. He didn't have a lot of explanations considering that he had ruled out the dream theory, and an hallucination was turning more and more unlikely. No, this was real. His eyes told him as much, and so did his other senses. There was also a feeling in his gut that told him there wasn't anything fake around him. The problem was, of course, that it being real didn't make sense. This was in the past. For it to be real, Harry would have to be in fourth year again, and he didn't want to consider that as an option. This was not his reality anymore.

Harry moved his attention to the group led by Albus Dumbledore, wondering if one of them knew more about what was going on. Professor McGonagall then closed the door, and the buzzing sound from the students in the Hall died.

"Madame Maxime! Zey are saying zat zis little boy is to compete also!" Fleur said, addressing her headmistress.

Karkaroff and Madame Maxime went on arguing about how unfair it was that Hogwarts had two champions. They were unaware that Harry's concerns were miles away.

What if he truly was in the past? Would that be even possible? Time turners didn't go that far and they didn't even exist anymore. There was also the fact that he hadn't touched or even seen one before getting here.

It was that parchment, there was something off about it. There was no other explanation. Four. That didn't tell him much.

"It's no one's fault but Potter's, Karkaroff," said Snape softly, and Harry got back to the conversation. He didn't know what to feel about his old Potions teacher. Not anger for sure. Not after he remembered the way the man had died. Even so, Snape's black eyes were alight with malice. "Don't go blaming Dumbledore for Potter's determination to break rules. He has been crossing lines ever since he arrived here -"

"Thank you, Severus," said Dumbledore firmly, and Snape went quiet. The old headmaster turned his attention to Harry, searching for answers. "Did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire, Harry?" he asked, in an utmost calm.

Harry had been thinking about how to answer long before Dumbledore voiced the question. It was clear to him now that even if Dumbledore was real he didn't have a clue of what was going on. Neither did the rest of the people there.

"Harry?" Professor Dumbledore insisted.

At that very moment, Harry could have told him all about the Triwizard Tournament and Voldemort's return, though, of course, it was a bad idea. Especially with that little room as crowded as it was. He needed to play things carefully and know exactly what was happening before doing anything drastic. Harry wasn't entirely sure he was in the past in the first place. Maybe it didn't feel like a dream, but as far as he knew all of it could still be in his head.

He decided to go along with it for the time being.

"No," he answered.

"Did you ask an older student to put it into the Goblet of Fire for you?" pressed Dumbledore as Snape made noises of disbelief behind him.

"No, I didn't," Harry tried to sound scared, as he had been at that time. Unfortunately, his voice sounded more calm than he intended.

Dumbledore stared at him. Harry wondered if the headmaster was finding his behaviour suspicious, but it was probably nothing. Dumbledore had paid a lot of attention to him during the whole goblet situation the first time as well. There was no reason for the old wizard to see Harry more collected and automatically guess that he came from a different time.

Harry remained in the background as much as possible while the conversation continued its flow. He wanted all of this to be fake. He couldn't be in the past. He was getting married.

He had a very bad feeling. Harry wasn't that experienced as an Auror, but he didn't think there was a spell or incantation that could do this to someone. Also, if a person had tried to curse him through that yellowish paper, Harry would've known by now. If someone wanted to hurt him, it would've happened already.

Could this be a simple prank? It didn't feel like that either.

If only he could talk to Hermione — the grown-up Hermione, that is — she could help him clear this up. If this was really time travel, she would know.

The heated conversation in the champion's room continued, and Harry followed it to avoid suspicions. It wasn't that difficult. He had been there before, and even when many years had passed and he couldn't remember the exact words spoken, he discovered that more than once he knew what someone was going to say before it was said.

Then, Mad-Eye appeared.

Harry straightened and stared hard at that man. To everyone else, he was Alastor Moody, long time Auror and new Defence Against Dark Arts professor, but Harry knew better. At first, he didn't realise it because of the confusion, but now it was clear as water. That man was actually Barty Crouch Jr pretending to be Moody so he could set a trap that would bring Voldemort back. He was a good actor, Harry had to give him that. Not even Albus Dumbledore, who had known the real Moody for years, was deceived by his disguise.

It was such a complicated scenario that Harry didn't know what to do. He could play along, of course. No one was in immediate danger after all. However, he found it hard not to say or do anything when that man was working under Voldemort's orders. Also, there was the fact that the real Alastor Moody was trapped in a trunk at that very moment, not far from where they were.

The fake Moody started his verbal quarrel with Karkaroff soon enough, arguing about the existence of a conspiracy against Harry's life. The conspiracy was real, but what the rest of the people in the room didn't know was that the fake Moody was the one behind it.

Unwittingly, Harry opened his mouth and gripped his wand. Still, the truth was he didn't know what to say yet.

Bad things happen to wizards who meddle with time.

The words echoed in his mind in Hermione's voice. Harry had heard them many times before. If he was in the past, then the worst thing he could do would be to change things carelessly. If he stopped Moody here, many things could happen differently. They could even be worse. Time was unpredictable.

Despite all of that, Harry found it difficult to restrain himself. He was tense, moving his eyes all around, thinking of all the possibilities. In what to do if a fight broke off right there and right then.

Would Dumbledore try to stop Harry if he saw him attacking Moody? Probably. But what else could he do?

Everything told him that it wasn't the time to do anything. However, he didn't feel right about letting Barty Crouch Jr go. Doing nothing was also far more difficult when he was very aware of Cedric's presence in the room. The Hufflepuff was killed because of Crouch's actions, and Harry couldn't stop thinking that if he just took the Death Eater down now, things would be completely different for the boy. Cedric could have a future, a life.

But would that be the only thing that changed? Could something bad happen to someone else if Cedric was saved? What would happen to his future? To the war? To Ginny?

After a few conflicting moments, Harry made up his mind. He avoided Cedric's look as he relaxed his wand hand. He wasn't even sure that this was the past, but he had to be careful. He had to wait and let things continue as last time for now. He needed to know more about what was happening. Maybe this was a dream after all, a bad dream. He could wake up tomorrow without remembering any of this.

Although, something told him he was fooling himself.

Suddenly, Harry noticed Karkaroff's eyes on him. Had he noticed how tense Harry had been? Maybe someone else noticed too, someone like Dumbledore. Nevertheless, the headmaster didn't give any visible signs of seeing something strange, and Karkaroff moved his attention away soon enough. Harry had to be careful. The last thing he needed was being noticed like that. He needed to be fourth year Harry.

An imperioused Barty Crouch Sr let them know that a first task was coming and, one by one, everyone started leaving the room.

"Harry, Cedric, I suggest you go up to bed," said Dumbledore after a while, smiling at both of them. "I am sure Gryffindor and Hufflepuff are waiting to celebrate with you, and it would be a shame to deprive them of this excellent excuse to make a great deal of mess and noise."

Harry glanced at Cedric, who nodded, and they left together.

The Great Hall was deserted. The goblet's flames were dead. Everyone must've been back at their common rooms. Cedric didn't speak until they were in the entrance hall.

"So... Champions, eh?"

"Yeah, seems that way," said Harry, sounding distant.

There was a long pause before the Hufflepuff spoke again. "And, well, did you put your name in the goblet?" he asked almost lazily.

"No, I did not."

"Oh, see you then, and… Good luck," said Cedric seriously, before disappearing down the stairs.

Harry couldn't remember much of Cedric's words from that day, he had been too lost in his own thoughts the first time he was elected champion. He imagined they had more or less shared the same conversation.

After a long sigh, Harry walked slowly towards the Gryffindor tower. He knew what was waiting for him there. A celebration coming from many housemates, but a cold welcome from Ron. He was going to have a bad conversation with his best friend soon and he shouldn't try to avoid it.

Was he supposed to move on doing everything as last time? For how long? When was he going to return to his real life? How?

At that moment, all he wanted was for everything to go back to normal. He wanted to be an Auror again. He wanted to be planning the last details of his wedding with Ginny.

If this was truly the past, it was obvious he had to let things go on as last time. If things changed, he would lose the future that he was trying to return to.

Harry was becoming more and more convinced that it was the past indeed. He didn't know how it was possible, but somehow he had ended up in his fourth year once again. Harry had to return to his own time, he couldn't go through all of that again, especially since he knew he wasn't supposed to change anything.

Although, that didn't mean that he didn't think about the possibilities.

If he was in the past, he could head to the real Moody instead and free him from that trunk. He could save Cedric. He could save Sirius.

He stopped right there. Sirius. He hadn't thought about him yet. His godfather was surely somewhere out there right now. Alive. Could Harry see him again before leaving? Or better yet, could he save him and keep everything else the same?

After a while, he shook his head. Those thoughts were selfish. What about Fred? What about Remus? Teddy would be a different boy if he only knew his parents, a happier boy. How could he think of only himself and forget all of those people who had lost someone in the war too. And he couldn't save everyone, could he?

He continued his walk, but the thought of seeing Sirius again haunted him as he went up through the moving staircases. It was far from the only thing on his mind, though.

Harry was back in Hogwarts. People believed him to be a student, and, if he was still there the next day, then he would have to take classes and do plenty of other things too. He never imagined he would be doing those things again.

As he went up, he realised that it was difficult to remember which ones were the fake steps on the staircases, so he took out his wand to discover them. Once he got closer to his destination, he put his wand back in his pocket, only to be surprised again.

There was something already in his pocket. Something he hadn't noticed before. When he pulled it out, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

It was a yellowish paper with confusing runes. And it was there, in the middle.

Four.

"H-How in the— ? But— ? How?" his faint voice echoed.

It didn't make sense. Not at all.

He had never seen that piece of paper before he pulled it out of that old brick. What was it doing in the cloak pocket of his fourth year self? Did it come back with him? How? Why?

Harry's thoughts were a mess. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, just around the corner from the Fat Lady. The portraits paid more attention to him, but he didn't care.

It was the same paper that he'd pulled out of the first stone of Hogwarts, that much he knew. He couldn't remember the exact symbols, but it was the same paper. There was no doubt in his mind.

Harry moved his hand to the centre rune again, remembering that it was touching that rune that brought him back in the first place. Maybe it could take him out of that mess as well? He did it reluctantly, conscious that he might be forfeiting his only chance to see Sirius again. But if it was the only way of returning to his future without making a bloody mess of the past, he had to do it.

Nothing happened though.

Harry huffed. Now what? That piece of paper was the reason behind his current situation. If it couldn't return him to his time, what could? Was he supposed to do something else with it?

The answer came to him quickly enough. He had to decipher those runes.

Those symbols surely held the answers to what was going on. Harry didn't know how he was going to decipher them though. He could ask Hermione of course, but even if the younger version of his friend knew how, wouldn't that be affecting time? Wouldn't that affect his future?

No, Hermione was way too clever. If Harry told her about the paper, she would be suspecting something in no time. Harry had to do this by himself. He had to try it at least.

Even so, he couldn't go to the library at that hour, and people were waiting for him in the common room. It would have to be the next day. It was a chaos and many things could go wrong, but he didn't have any other option. He had to act exactly as he did last time. He had to avoid suspicions and keep himself from altering anything. Once he could find out what that piece of paper said, then things might be clearer. Harry had to believe that.

He stood up. At least now he knew what he had to do if he was still here the next morning.

Slowly, he put the paper back in his cloak and moved his eyes forward. A packed celebration awaited him in the Gryffindor common room — a place filled with warm memories of which he hadn't visited in ages. After, he would have to get in a fight with the younger version of his best friend. And that was just today.

Harry took a deep breath and prepared himself. He knew he was in the past, somehow. He knew that things could go awfully wrong. However, if he wanted to get his life back, he needed to do it. Suddenly, dragons and the Triwizard Tournament were the least of his problems.

He couldn't afford to give much thought to the Tournament, actually. He planned to be back way before it even started. It was his only chance.

With his new plan in mind, and already feeling bad about having to have a fight with Ron, he started walking.

Next Chapter: The Fresh Appeal of Ancient Runes