Sorry this took so long. Getting back into the habit of writing has proven to be far more difficult than I at first anticipated. Nevertheless, I continue to press onwards, and it is becoming less of a struggle.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~
~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

The ability to talk to Ginny whenever he wanted (for as long as he wanted), went a long way toward making the next several weeks bearable for Harry. The strain of pretending to be eleven years old and just getting to know so many of the people he'd known more than half his life was taking a toll on him, and without that outlet, he likely would have cracked.

He was making a concerted effort to expand his social circle earlier than he had before. There were a number of people he hadn't become friends with (or even known at all) until his time in Dumbledore's Army. This time around, he would make a point to talk to them at least a few times a week in passing, or when they had classes together. Though he still spent most of his time with Ron and Hermione (it would feel almost alien not to), he was struck with just how socially isolated he had been for much of his time at Hogwarts.

In this way, he not only found himself on good terms with future DA members like Terry Boot, Ernie Macmillan, and Susan Bones, but also found himself interacting with people he never really had before. He learned that Stephen Cornfoot from Ravenclaw (whom Harry had almost never spoken to in his life) was as big a fan of chess as Ron. He and his friend Natalie Moon (whom Harry had also never properly met) began meeting Ron, Harry, and Hermione in the library every couple of weeks for improvised chess tournaments (which Ron nearly always won, though Stephen was much more able to hold his own than either Harry or Hermione had ever been).

Through Quidditch, too, he expanded his social circle in ways he hadn't before. He found himself on good terms with Ravenclaw alternate Elliot Frost, who had been Head Boy during Harry's sixth year, and even (though it felt awkward), struck up something of a friendship with a much younger Cho Chang than Harry ever remembered meeting before. He made sure to tell Ginny about this immediately, lest she think he was hiding it from her. Her face indicated she wasn't exactly thrilled about it, but she said she couln't begrudge him making friends.

'I trust you, Harry,' she said that night through her mirror. 'And honestly I'm a little envious. I would kill to have more people to talk to. Not that talking to you isn't wonderful, of course!' she added hastily. Harry couldn't hold in his laughter.

'It's all right, I know what you mean,' he said. 'To tell the truth though, it's got me a little worried.'

'What does?'

'All this acting like I'm eleven years old again. There are times when I forget that I'm not. Being in this body and around so many other kids, sometimes my brain just slips into old habits and I feel like I really am back in first year.'

'I can see how that might feel strange, but is it really something you need to worry about? Honestly, to me it sounds like you're relaxing a little and releasing some of your stress.'

'Does it, though?' Harry asked, concern flowing through his tone. 'I mean, what if that's part of whatever spell put us here? What if I really do forget and actually become a child again mentally as well as physically?' He didn't even want to give voice to his other fear – that magic had nothing to do with it and his mind was just cracking under all the pressure.

Ginny frowned. 'Okay, I sort of see what you mean. I haven't really felt anything like that yet, but you might have a point about being around all the other students causing it. I mean, even without magic, if that's where you spend all of your time, it's inevitably going to rub off on you a little.' He masked a grimace, not wanting her to know that she had just casually thrown out there what he was truly most afraid of.

'What should I do, then?' he asked. 'I can't exactly start hanging around the staff room, can I?'

'No, I should think not,' she said. 'This does warrant thinking about, though. How often does this happen, would you say?'

'Not so often that I'm freaking out about it,' he said. Yet, he added in his mind. 'But often enough that I've noticed.

'Hmm, okay,' she said. 'This isn't exactly my area of expertise; I wish we could bounce ideas off Hermione. But why don't you start trying to keep track of it? Just make a note whenever you notice yourself thinking like a first year, and we can watch and see if it's happening more and more frequently as time goes on. If it doesn't, it's probably just your poor overworked brain trying to take a break. If it does...well, we'll worry about that later.'

So it was that Harry began to keep a journal on his person, in which he would jot down the date and time every time he caught himself falling into his childlike persona. After a few weeks, to his relief, it looked like it was happening far less often than he had origially assumed – only a few times a week, often for only a few minutes at a time. Perhaps it was due to the fact that he was making a conscious effort to avoid it, but if that actually worked in staving it off, so much the better.

Another thing he was noticing was that he was experiencing fewer and fewer episodes of deja vu. He knew this meant that the timeline was already diverging from his original memory to such an extent that the odds of anything other than major events happening in a similar manner as before were dropping so rapidly that it wouldn't be long before he ceased to recognize anything. He knew this was dangerous not only because his ability to predict things would essentially evaporate, but also it would make it that much easier for his treacherous brain to come to accept his surroundings as its natural environment.

All this brooding and fretting very nearly got him into trouble on its own. He was sitting in Charms class wondering if he should start keeping track of his bouts of deja vu as well when a sudden burst of flame mere inches from his face startled him so badly he nearly started casting indiscriminate jinxes all around him in defense.

It turned out that his partner, Seamus (who had been doing all the work so far thanks to Harry's distraction), had prodded the feather they were supposed to be levitating with his wand and accidentally set it alight. Still operating half off instinct, Harry only just stopped himself from putting it out with his wand (which he should have no idea how to do), and instead opted to smother it with his hat. He looked around to see if anyone else was watching, but they all had their own problems.

'Ron, you're saying it wrong,' Hermione was explaining patiently in the next seat over. 'You want to stress the second syllable. "Win-GAR-dium Levi-O-sa", not "Levio-SA" Make the "gar" nice and long.'

'Really?' Ron asked, sounding incredulous that it could be that simple, but he appeared to take her word for it because he readied himself for another try. 'Wingardium Leviosa!' He waved his wand, and the feather sitting in front of him wobbled a bit and tried to rise, like an old man attempting to force himself out of bed in the morning.

'That was much better!' Hermione encouraged. Ron looked pleased with the praise, even though he clearly would have liked to have levitated the feather completely.

'Thanks,' Ron replied earnestly. 'I reckon I might have it before we leave. Let's see you do it, then. We all know you can.'

Hermione flushed slightly but raised her wand and spoke the incantation. The feather floated up and hovered about four feet overhead.

'Oh, well done!' cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. 'Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!' She was asked to demonstrate again for the class, and then they went back to work. Harry reasoned that it wouldn't attract too much attention if he were to manage the spell now, so did not bother to pretend he couldn't do it.

By the end of the lesson, with help from Hermione and Harry, both Ron and Seamus had also successfully flown their feathers, and the feeling of shared success put everyone in a good mood for the rest of the day. Then, at dinner, Harry nearly emptied the contents of his stomach.

The minute they entered the Great Hall, they were greeted by a fluttering swarm of thousands of live bats, and hundreds of floating, glowing jack-o-lanterns. As though he'd been punched in the gut, Harry was rudely reminded just where and when he was, and what was to come. He pulled out what he was calling his "amnesia journal" and entered in the time and date. Somehow between the Charms lesson and dinner, he'd completely forgotten it was Hallowe'en, and that he needed to be on guard for trolls and possessed defense professors. There was no question that this was his most serious lapse yet, and after a month of no real change, he had to wonder if it was a fluke, or if he was finally starting to get worse.

He remained tense as they sat to eat. He didn't remember exactly when Quirrel had come in, but he was almost certain it had been after the feast had begun.

The food appeared on the golden plates as it always did for special occasions, and Harry was just reaching for a turkey leg when the doors burst open and the panicked defense professor ran in.

It was pandemonium such that Harry hadn't seen in a long time. He reminded himself that this would be the only dangerous or frightening incident most of these students would have ever seen at this point. Morose as that thought made him, he knew he couldn't afford to dwell on it. Dumbledore ordered all students back to their dormitories, and Percy and the other prefects were already busy rounding everyone up.

Harry followed the crowd. Now he was in the moment, he remembered everything clearly. He knew exactly where the troll was going to be, and also that all the teachers looking for it would instead be heading to the dungeons. Of course, this time Hermione was with them and in no danger whatsoever, but that didn't guarantee nobody else was. After all, he had no way of knowing what would have happened if he and Ron hadn't arrived to stop the troll when they did. His mind raced as people swarmed about him, all bustling to get out of the Great Hall while the prefects stuggled to keep order. Did he just go with them and trust the teachers to handle everything, or did he risk exposing himself by breaking away and handling the troll himself?

He knew the answer almost immediately; he couldn't take the chance that the troll might hurt someone while everyone was searching for it in the wrong place. He knew Quirrel and Snape would be heading to the third floor, but as neither of them yet knew how to get past Fluffy, this did not concern him for the moment.

He allowed himself to become separated from Ron and Hermione by the jostling of the crowd. It wouldn't take them long to notice he was missing, and he knew they would be worried, but his only other idea was to confund them, and that just didn't feel right.

As soon as he had a chance, he slipped away. As a fully trained auror with no small amount of experience, it was easy to avoid the attention of the prefects, who were mostly concerned with keeping other first years from panicking.

His destination, the ground floor corridor containing the girls' toilet, was forever stamped on his memory, so he arrived quickly. He kept to the shadows, waiting. He saw Snape on his way to the third floor, and moments later detected the smell of old socks and public toilets. This was followed with a slow, lumbering sound accompanied by deep grunts. He was briefly startled as the troll came into the moonlight; it was bigger than he remembered. Or maybe that was simply because he was used to seeing trolls from an adult's perspective.

He watched as the troll paused in the corridor, seemingly trying to decide what to do. He wondered if it would go into the bathroom as it had before, or if it had been the scent (or sound) of Hermione that had lured it there the first time. After a few moments, the troll wiggled its ears, which Harry recognized as a sign that it had reached a decision. It lurched forward and through the door into the bathroom. Evidently there was something else drawing it in there; perhaps the smell led it to believe there was another troll.

After a quick glance to make sure nobody else was watching, Harry darted out of his hiding place and bolted over to the bathroom door. The troll was in the middle of the room, looking around and blinking stupidly. Not wanting to repeat past mistakes, Harry cast a quick Homenim Revelio to ensure there was nobody else present, just in case. They were alone.

With a grin, Harry recalled an eleven year-old Ron's first successful hover charm, and his first of many victories against dark creatures. Without even drawing the troll's attention, he silently levitated the club out of its hand, spun it around in the air, and crashed it onto the creature's head. The troll dropped to the ground, never knowing what hit it.

Knowing he had very little time to get back before his absence was noticed by more than just Ron and Hermione, Harry quickly disillusioned himself and darted back across the corridor into the shadows. Taking careful aim, he sent a blasting curse at the suit of armor situated a few feet away from the girls' toilet, then a few seconds later another at the door itself, smashing it to pieces. He could only hope the noise was enough to attract at least some of the staff; it wouln't do to leave the troll in there without anybody knowing where it was.

After that he made a beeline for Gryffindor Tower. He ran as hard as he could, using every shortcut he knew (which, after all, was all of them), hoping that if he stumbled in only a few minutes after everyone else, he could claim that he'd just gotten stuck in a trip step in the panic or something.

As luck would have it, wrangling the entire student body turned out to be more trouble than he'd expected, since students were still filing in through the portrait hole under Percy's supervision.

'Come along now, don't shove, we're miles away from any trolls,' the older Weasley boy was saying. Harry removed his Disillusionment Charm and dashed to the back of the line when Percy wasn't looking behind two boys who were too busy jostling for position to pay him any mind.

'Enough horsing around, Bonham, McClaggan,' Percy chastised the two boys. Then his eyes landed on Harry. 'Harry! There you are! Ron and that girl have been going spare asking me about you.'

'Sorry,' Harry said, unable to hide that he was out of breath. 'Got caught in a trick step.' He didn't dare say which one, not knowing which route they'd taken.

'Well, all right then,' Percy said. 'Hurry up and come in. That should be everyone.' Harry wondered if he'd bothered counting or was merely assuming.

Ron and Hermione were beside themselves when they saw him. So were the other first years, who had apparently all been roped into seaching for him the moment Ron noticed he was missing.

'What happened?' Hermione asked.

'You were right next to us one second and the next, you were gone!' Ron accused.

'Did you get lost?' asked Dean.

'Did you see the troll?' asked Neville. He looked like he didn't really want to know the answer.

'I just got bounced around while we were leaving the Great Hall is all,' Harry explained. 'I swear every single person in Gryffindor bumped into me. Anyway, I got caught in one of those bloody trick steps and everyone had moved on by the time I got myself out.'

'You're lucky,' said Lavender, looking at him with concern. 'I mean, what if you ran into the troll?'

'Come off it, Lavender,' said Seamus. 'You heard Quirrel. It was all the way down in the dungeons. If anyone ran into it, it would've been the Slytherins.'

'We don't know there was only one troll!' Lavender countered defiantly. 'If one got in, who knows if another one didn't, too? Harry's really lucky he wasn't hurt!' Her eyes were wet, and Harry fought back a grin. Before, he likely would have thought she was just overreacting as always. Now, he realized she was thinking like an auror.

'I didn't see anything,' Harry assured her (and everyone else). 'I didn't smell anything either, and if there had been any trolls around I probably would have.'

A half hour later, Professor McGonagall arrived to inform them all that the troll had been found unconcious in the girls' toilet on the ground floor, all signs pointing to it having knocked itself out with its own club. She also assured them that the teachers were confident no other trolls were present within the castle, but that a thorough search was being performed regardless, just in case.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

The troll was the talk of the castle for the next several days, with everyone swapping theories on how it had gotten in, why it had knocked itself out, and what it could possibly have been doing in a girls' toilet.

'Imagine if someone had been in there!' Hermione exclaimed, horrified. Harry had to pretend to cough to hide his laughter.

Ginny merely rolled her eyes when he told her what he'd done that evening during their mirror conversation.

'I don't suppose there's any point in telling you that you should have just left well enough alone,' she said, smiling fondly.

'Not particularly, but you can if you want.'

'Cheek. Well, that's one less thing to worry about, I suppose. You said Quirrel didn't try anything else until the end of the year?'

'If he did, I never heard about it,' Harry confirmed.

'So we're back to waiting?'

'Seems like it. Although I'm getting worried again, Ginny. I'd copmletely forgotten today was Hallowe'en until I saw the decorations. We've been talking about it for weeks! How could I have forgotten?'

Ginny frowned. 'Is this another one of those times when you felt like you were a kid again?'

'No, this is different,' he said. 'I mean, I did have one of those too, but this was just an adult falling into a routine and forgetting something important. I feel like even when I do remember who I am, everything's so peaceful that I'm getting complacent.'

'Never would have thought you'd describe any of your years at Hogwarts as "peaceful",' Ginny joked.

'It sure didn't feel that way at the time,' Harry acknowledged, 'but looking back, it was a walk in the park compared to later on.'

'I suppose,' Ginny agreed. 'What's next, then?'

'Well, the first Quidditch match is coming up,' Harry said with a grin.

'I know that,' Ginny said. 'And I hope you enjoy yourself. Wish I could be there to see it. I meant what's next with Quirrel and the Stone?'

'I still think it's best to wait until after Christmas,' Harry said. 'After Dumbledore puts the Mirror down there and we know exactly where the Stone is. We can decide what to do about it then. Quirrel won't make his move until June, after all.'

'You want to be careful not to take that for granted,' Ginny warned. 'We have seen some changes already. There's no guarantee he might not try to steal it earlier than we expect.'

Harry hadn't considered this; he didn't think it would be a problem, but knew she was right to be careful.

'You're right,' he said. 'After break, then. As soon as the new term starts, I'll try to engineer a way to come into contact with him and expose Voldemort in front of Dumbledore. The back up plan will just be going down to steal the Stone myself, though it probably won't come to that.'

'It would certainly be difficult to explain to Dumbledore and Flamel how you got hold of it,' Ginny said.

'Among other things, yeah.'

Talk of the troll died down faster than it perhaps otherwise would have due to the excitement over the first Quidditch match of the season. Gryffindor vs. Slytherin was always a big event, and having them face off right out of the gate was bringing everyone's enthusiasm to a fever pitch. This match could very well serve as a bellwether for the rest of the season.

Harry would never forget his first Quidditch match. He had a feeling that would still be true even if he hadn't almost been murdered, but it was that attempt on his life that was on his mind when he placed the most powerful protective charms on his broom that he knew of the morning of the match. Let Quirrel's silly little jinx break through that.

That breakfast was the most enjoyable he'd ever had before a Quidditch match. Even in his later years as a veteran player and then as captain, he'd never felt this confident, and there had always been that little bundle of nerves deep in his gut. Even though he knew someone was going to try to kill him, he felt nothing but exhiliration as he filled his plate with sausages, toast, eggs, and bacon.

'Not nervous, Harry?' Fred called over from where he and George were heaping piles of food onto their own plates. Angelina Johnson was watching them with incredulity.

'What have I got to be nervous about?' he called back, spreading a generous helping of marmalade onto his third slice of toast. 'It's only Slytherin.'

'That's the spirt, Harry!' said George, his mouth half full of sausage. 'Nothing to worry about! Party in the common room after, yeah?'

'Sounds good!'

'You're not nervous at all?' Neville asked disbelievingly.

'He's got to put on a brave face, Neville,' Dean explained. 'Even if he were nervous, it would only help Slytherin to show it.'

'That's true,' Harry agreed, 'but I'm really not. We practiced really hard, and Quidditch is fun. I'm excited, not nervous.'

'I can't decide if you're brave or stupid,' said Seamus, shaking his head. 'Seekers are always the ones the other team goes for, after all.'

'I've been called both,' replied Harry, shrugging and taking a bite of toast.

'I hope you win,' Lavender said from a few seats down. 'Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass have been horribly obnoxious all week, even though neither of them care about Quidditch at all.'

'Neither do you,' Parvati pointed out from next to her.

'I do!' Lavender insisted. 'Just because I don't play...!'

'All right, all right,' Parvati said, laughing. 'I know. And they have been awful, you're right about that. It really would be great if you won, Harry.'

'I'll see what I can do.'

In the changing room, Harry felt a wave of nostalgia as he listened to Oliver Wood's big game speech. With it came a rush of excitement – he hadn't played a proper Quidditch match for ages. More than that, here was something that his memories of the future would not help him with. A Quidditch match was sufficiently random that there was no way to predict anything at all, even if he could pefectly recall every single moment from the original timeline. How the bludgers would fly, what each individual player would do with the quaffle, when the snitch would appear and where, there were so many elements involved that it was like playing a whole new match. As such, even though he was still in his eleven year-old body surrounded by younger versions of everyone he knew, he truly felt like himself again for the first time in months, since his first fire chat with Ginny.

As they marched out onto the pitch, Harry saw the other first year Gryffindors in the stands with the great big Potter for President banner they'd made. He smiled. This was what school should have been like for them all along. If there was one upside to any of this, it was that he would be able to shield everyone else from all the horrors they'd had to go through for seven years in his timeline.

He mounted his broom. It still felt strange being back on his old Nimbus Two Thousand, even after weeks of practicing. There was no denying that it was an excellent broom, but it just didn't have the speed or the fine-tuned handling of his Firebolt. No matter. It was more than enough to outfly a team of school children.

He kicked off into the air at the whistle and immediately started looking around for the snitch. He was confident his protective charms would hold, but all the same there was no reason to take any chances.

The game was off to a fast start, with the chasers of both sides swapping possession repeatedly, but no one had yet taken a shot on goal. To Harry, who had been playing Quidditch for more than half his life (and for the last few years, had been flying with a professional), the game seemed to be going in slow motion. He knew from his memories that none of the house teams in his first year had been on the level of those in his later years (it had been a rebuilding year for most of them, and Hufflepuff was simply having an off year), but he hadn't counted on the difference being this pronounced. The bludgers may as well have been balloons wafting in the breeze for all the trouble it was to dodge them, and the Slytherin seeker might well have not even been playing at all. Harry hated to admit it, but Malfoy was definitely more of a match for him than Terence Higgs.

'GRYFFINDOR SCORE!' Lee Jordan cried out. Angelina Johnson had just slipped one past the Slytherin keeper for the first goal of the game.

Harry did a loop to celebrate, but didn't keep his eyes off the pitch. He didn't want to get overconfident and then end up missing the snitch. That would just be embarrassing, and Ginny would never let him hear the end of it.

Still, he was having a lot of fun maneuvering around the pitch. He felt like he was riding a motorbike, weaving it through traffic on the motorway. In his search for the snitch, he made an effort to get in the Slyther chasers' way as often as possible, and it seemed to be working, for after a few minutes Gryffindor had scored two more times.

'Thought you were supposed to be staying out of the way,' Wood called out to him as he swung past the Gryffindor goal posts.

'I got bored,' he called back, unable to resist being cheeky. 'Don't worry, I'm still looking for it.'

'You'd better be. If we lose because you got distracted showing off...' he left the threat hanging, but Harry knew what was being implied. He nodded to show he understood and then sped off toward the other end of the pitch, casually ducking under a bludger as he went.

He was right around the center of the pitch when he felt it. A slight twinge, indicating that something was trying to penetrate his wards. He didn't risk looking over, but he knew that if he did, he'd see professors Quirrel and Snape staring unblinkingly at his broom, muttering under their breath. No doubt Quirrel had to be wondering why his jinx wasn't working; he would probably assume either Snape or Dumbledore had done something to the broom beforehand, or else he would simply overestimate the power of Snape's countercurse.

A gasp rippled through the crowd, and Harry looked over to see the Snitch. It had just whizzed right past Adrian Pucey's face, causing him to miss an easy interception and allowing Katie Bell to make a run on the keeper.

Higgs was closer, but Harry was faster. He did a somersaulting about face and shot toward the end of the pitch where the little golden ball was flittering about. A bludger came at him from the right, but a casual half roll was all he needed to avoid it. He was almost on top of the snitch when the Slytherin captain, Marcus Flint, appeared right in front of him.

Had he been less experienced, Harry might have tried to swerve or pull up, but either one would have resulted in a collision. Instead, he rolled over and dove straight down, righting himself and swooping back up just as he was passing under Flint's toes. His eyes never left the Snitch. In just a few more seconds, it was in his hand, and the stadium was exploding with cheers.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

'Brilliant! Effing brilliant!' Fred Weasley was shouting in the dressing room, clapping Harry on the shoulder (rather harder than was necessary, Harry thought). 'That was one of the greatest moves I've ever seen! Who taught you how to do that?'

'Not me,' said Wood, who was looking at Harry with an expression somewhere between rapture and awe. 'Were you just operating on instinct, Harry?'

'I guess you could call it that,' he said. It wasn't really a lie; he just happened to have thoroughly trained those instincts.

'I thought for sure you were going to plow into him,' George said. 'Can't imagine what he was thinking; that would have hurt him as much as you.'

'Well, maybe not as much,' Harry said. 'He's a lot bigger than me. And it's easier to win without a chaser than without a seeker.'

'I still can't believe he'd try something like that,' Angelina said angrily, shaking her head. 'Madam Hooch was telling him off after the match; I heard.'

'What does it matter?' Fred said, still exuberent. 'We won, and we've got ourselves a world class seeker! The cup's in the bag this year!'

'And Harry's only a first year. We could be looking at the birth of a seven year Gryffindor dynasty,' said George.

'All right, let's not get ahead of ourselves,' Wood said, suddenly all business again. 'Yes, Harry flew fantastically, but that doesn't mean the rest of us can start sitting on our laurels. The other teams are going to be gunning for us now, you know. We'll have to work twice as hard to make sure we don't squander this early lead.'

'Oh come on, Oliver!' said Fred. 'Take a night off for once. You can go back to drilling us like a madman on Monday. Today and tomorrow are for celebrating!' The rest of the team echoed his sentiment, and before long Oliver was browbeaten into accepting that the Gryffindor Quidditch team would not be doing anything other than partying for the remainder of the weekend.

The other first years all swarmed around Harry to congratulate him when he returned to the common room. The girls, Neville, and Dean were all just excited that they'd won, but Ron and Seamus couldn't get over the maneuver he'd used to end the match.

'What even was that?' Ron asked, after the three of them had verbally reenacted it for the third time. 'It looked kind of like a sloth-grip roll, but with kind of a long-stitch lunge mixed in. I've never seen anything like it.'

'I thought you were going to pull up,' Seamus said. 'I probably would have pulled up.'

'Me too,' Ron agreed. 'I think that's the natural reaction. I reckon Harry didn't panic, so he realized that wouldn't work.'

Seamus whistled in admiration.

'Fred and George weren't kidding, Harry,' Ron said. 'You really are a natural.'

He accepted the praise as humbly as he could manage, but he felt guilty because fond of all of them as he was, he couln't wait to get away from them and call Ginny. He knew it would be a while yet before anyone in the whole of Gryffindor was ready to let him go to bed.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

The Quidditch match had reinvigorated Harry in more ways than one. In addition to the exhiliration putting a damper on his ever-present sense of despair at his situation, it also served to remind him who he was. No eleven year-old played Quidditch like that, and his lapses in identity had thinned out considerably. In the first week after the match, he only lost track of himself once. It helped that nobody in the castle could stop talking about what a flying prodigy he was, thereby keeping the experienece fresh in his mind, and reminding him that he was truly an outsider in all of this.

Students Harry had never met in either timeline were approaching him in the corridors to compliment him on his flying skills. Professor McGonagall had given him ten points for demonstrating proper wand technique in his first class after the match, even though her usual standard was five. And, in a turn of events that surely would have sent a younger Harry into a panic attack (or perhaps not, since he hadn't yet noticed her in his first year), Cho Chang came up to him at breakfast the next Sunday morning and asked for flying tips.

'I think she might fancy you, Harry,' said Fred after he left, clearly taking the mickey. Harry assured himself that his faint blush was instinctual and meant nothing.

Ginny laughed when he confessed this reaction to her the following night, reminding him that he was still allowed to be embarrassed by the thought of pretty girls liking him. 'It's part of your charm,' she said. He had no idea what she meant by that, but if she truly wasn't bothered (and he could usually tell when she was lying about it), then he wouln't let himself fret over it.

'To be honest, you're probably going to get a lot more of that,' she said. 'From what you've told me, you're being a lot more sociable than you were before; it makes you more approachable. And based on how you flew in that match, a lot of people are going to want to talk to you.'

'Is it really that big of a deal, do you think? I mean, I've never exactly gone unnoticed, you know.'

'Harry, you flew like a professional in your very first match at eleven years old. Yes, it's a big deal. Oh, I so wish I could have seen it.'

'A professional? Come off it.'

'You keep up with me when we fly together, and I'm on one of the top teams in the league. You could play for any team you chose if you wanted to, and not because you're "the Savior of the Wizarding World", but because you're brilliant at Quidditch. It comes naturally to you so you don't see it, but you really are.'

'Well, shite,' he said, deflating a bit. 'Maybe I should have held back a little after all.'

'No,' Ginny said firmly. 'This was good for you, Harry. You said it made you feel like yourself again, and you needed that. You said you've only had one episode this week, and you've been stressing about that so much. You should have seen yourself when you were telling me about the match. I haven't seen you light up like that in months. Since we first talked. Promise me you'll keep letting yourself have fun at Quidditch. I want you to be happy when I finally get to see you again.'

'Of course I'll be happy,' he said immediately.

'I meant in general,' she clarified. 'We left gloomy Harry behind years ago, remember? We promised after the war.'

'We did, yeah,' Harry agreed, smiling. 'But part of me wonders if "gloomy Harry" wasn't – at least in part – caused by the horcrux I was dragging around. If that's the case, and I'm stuck with it again...'

'Don't even finish that thought,' Ginny commanded roughly. 'Even if it is back, to say that it's affecting your mood is to imply that he has any kind of power over you, which he doesn't. You were a moody teenager, just like millions of others around the world, and you lived in difficult times, but those times are over and you grew out of it, just like everyone else. And don't give me any excuses about reliving the difficult times, because we both know very well that we're not going to allow any of that to happen again. Right?'

He sighed. 'Right.' It wasn't worth starting an argument over.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

The rest of November passed without much of note. Harry had followed Ginny's instructions and allowed himself to continue riding the high of his Quidditch victory as long as it would carry him. It was starting to wear off by the end of the month, but he was still averaging only one or two episodes a week, which was encouraging. And if he once again found himself getting stuck in a routine, at least he managed to remember who he really was most of the time.

His first serious wake-up call came in early December. They had just finished another rather dull Defense Against the Dark Arts Lesson and were packing up to leave, when something altogether unexpected happened.

'M-mister P-P-P-Potter, a w-word after c-c-class, if you p-please?' Professor Quirrel stammered. Harry nearly froze, but forced himself to project calm. Never, not once, did he recall being asked to speak with Quirrel at any point throughout his entire first year. That meant this was novel, which meant it was either a result of a change he had made, or...

'N-nothing to w-worry about,' Quirrel assured him jovially. As jovially as he could ever manage, anyway.

'Of course, professor,' he said, dropping his bag back down onto his chair and indicating to Ron and Hermione that he'd meet up with them later.

Harry approached the professor's desk as casually as he could, while inside he was a whirlwind of different thoughts and emotions. With any other teacher, he would have regarded such a deviation from his memory as simply curious. With this particular teacher, it had the potential to be so much worse.

'H-have a seat, Mr P-Potter,' said Quirrel, gesturing to a large stool next to his desk. Harry sat. 'I've b-been wanting t-to speak to you since your Q-Q-Quidditch match,' Quirrel said.

'Oh?'

'Yes. I d-d-don't know if P-P-Professor Dumbledore t-told you, b-but someone tried to j-j-j-jinx your b-broom.'

Harry just barely managed to mask the shock that he felt. What was Quirrel playing at? Or rather, what was Voldemort playing at, since he was obviously the one calling the shots. Was this some ploy to find out how much Harry knew? But why would they think he knew anything in the first place? Maybe their goal was to frighten Harry with the knowledge that someone was trying to kill him. Even then, there was no reason to expect he wouln't talk to Dumbledore about it. No matter which way he looked at it, there was no logic behind this move. That in itself made the situation especially dangerous, since if you don't know what your enemy wants, you have no way of preventing him from getting it. He would have to handle this very delicately indeed.

'A jinx, sir?'

'Yes. Were you n-n-not aware?'

Something about the wording of the question seemed off to Harry. Not 'Did no one tell you?' or 'Did you feel anything strange?', but simply asking if he had been aware of the jinx being cast. Then he remembered that Voldemort's legilimency could detect a lie even without direct eye contact. So they were after information after all; they were trying to corner Harry into giving away something. He couldn't say no, because Voldemort would know he was lying, but if he said yes, they would want to know how he knew.

'I thought I felt something once,' he said, disguising the careful planning of his words as simply trying to recollect something. 'Like a twinge, near the end of the match, just before I saw the Snitch.' He did not elaborate further. That would at least line up with what they expected, but he hadn't given away anything.

'Yes, that w-was the j-j-jinx. It was actually q-quite p-p-powerful. Sh-should have knocked you r-r-right off your b-broom. You were f-fortunate to have such p-powerful p-p-p-protection spells. Whom did you ask to c-cast them for you?'

Harry almost gave himself away by smiling. Without realizing it, Quirrel's line of questioning had saved Harry rather than cornering him. If he had instead just asked 'Who cast it?', or 'Do you know who cast it?' there would have been no real way out. Luckily, however suspicious they might have been, it would likely never occur to them that he would have cast it himself. They were trying to figure out whom he would trust to help him, and that was the mistake that would get him out of this.

'I didn't ask anyone to, sir,' he said, earnestly as he could. He almost added, 'Why would I even think to?', but decided not to push his luck.

'I see,' said Quirrel, nodding slowly. Harry wondered if Voldemort was capable of communicating instructions to his servant without speaking aloud. He suspected he could. 'You have a m-mysterious b-b-benefactor, Mr P-P-Potter.' That was exactly what Harry wanted him to think. Let them think Dumbledore was already on to them, or that somebody else in the castle was looking out for Harry. Might make them think twice about trying to kill him again, since obviously they were deviating from the original timeline now.

'D-d-do you have any id-d-dea who would want to t-t-try to hurt you?' Quirrel asked after a few moments of silence.

Harry opened his mouth to say he had thought Snape might have been responsible, since when it had happened the first time, he really had thought that and thus it was technically true. Then he considered that Voldemort's legilimency was probably not based on precise wording, but rather on the intent to deceive. He didn't think it wise to test just how finely tuned it was.

'I'm sorry, never mind,' he said, closing his mouth and shaking his head.

'No, g-go on,' Quirrel encouraged, unable to restrain his enthusiasm now he thought he had something to go on. 'Anything you t-t-tell me will be c-confidential, I p-p-promise. Unless I think you are in d-danger, of c-c-course. I am only t-t-trying to help you, Mr P-P-Potter.' Harry inwardly scoffed at how obvious he was being. Voldemort really was in dire straits if he was forced to rely on such an amateur.

'Well,' he began, making a big show of being reluctant, 'I was going to say I thought it was Professor Snape,' he admitted. He looked at the floor as if he'd said something shameful.

'I see,' Quirrel said again, a hint of satisfaction in his voice. 'Well, I will k-k-keep an eye out for you, b-but I assure you, M-Mr P-Potter, you have nothing t-to fear from the t-t-teachers here.' He said it in a such a way that it was clear he did not expect Harry to believe him.

'If you say so, sir,' Harry replied, keeping his eyes on the floor.

'Th-that will be all, Mr P-P-Potter. You may g-go. B-b-but please come speak t-to me if you ever feel unsafe.'

'All right, professor,' he said, avoiding saying he would do so, since that would be a lie. 'Thank you.' He retrieved his bag from his seat and began making his way back to Gryffindor Tower.

His first instinct was to relay everything that had just happened to Ron and Hermione, but then he remembered that this version of them knew nothing whatsoever about his troubles with Voldemort. A sense of sadness and loss washed over him at the thought, but he pushed it away, not allowing himself to be dragged under. He still had Ginny, and she definitely had to hear about this. Things were already changing; the time to hash out a specific plan for dealing with Quirrel and the Stone had come. This time it had only been a mild interrogation. The next time he found himself blindsided might very well be by a wand.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Oh gods, writing Quirrel's dialogue is exhausting. I swear, he'd better hurry up and die so I don't have to do any more of that shit.

...He said, as if he didn't have complete control over if and when that happens.

Anyway, I didn't revise this chapter as much as I probably should have, but I feel like it's been long enough already and it's driving me mad. I want to be done with this, already. Do let me know if it's completely awful though, and I can come back and fix it.

Thanks in advance to those who review.