Harry Potter and the Time Fluke

Paranoia

Harry did not sleep well that night.

True to his word, Healer Mitchell had sent Madam O'Brien down to the Great Hall later that evening after the infirmary had calmed of activity with the sole purpose of bringing Harry to the ward so he could spend the night under observation.

That wasn't what had Harry twisting and turning when he should have been asleep, though; his heart choosing the worst moments to pick up speed, hammering against his ribcage, before mellowing out again.

Any minute, now, any minute the Aurors would come bursting through the doors and arrest him for using Obliviate on a fellow student, Harry was sure of it. He wasn't qualified, he could have seriously damaged her mind, and he would certainly go to Azkaban if anyone ever found out.

Why hadn't he used his other wand, for Merlin's sake? He had two of the blasted things! His old phoenix feather wand, which still worked—even if not perfectly well—and the newer wand he'd procured at Ollivander's five years ago. That second wand was the one he'd been using, after finding out that Ollivander's warning about his bond with his first wand being weaker was true. It saddened him to think that his phoenix-wand, the wand that had gotten him out of a fair number of sticky situations, would never work quite the same ever again...

But it would have been the best tool to use in the Moore interrogation, no doubt about that. Then, if the Auror's did try to arrest him, they'd have no proof! Although, there weren't any witnesses (as far as Harry knew) so he wasn't entirely sure how the Aurors would find out what he did to Moore without him directly informing them.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

And then there was Tom. Had he already found Moore? Had he somehow slunk away to the Hufflepuff common room and confronted her? Tom was the one who'd informed him that Moore was Harry's attacker! It wouldn't be an entirely illogical conclusion for Tom to decide that Harry had something to do with Moore's missing memory, if the older boy happened to manage to track her down and attempt to strangle out of her the reason behind the attack.

Of course Harry could deny everything, but what then? His denial and Moore's missing memory would likely point Tom in the direction of an accomplice. Maybe Moore had just been the pawn in the game to hurt Harry? And if he decided upon that fact instead—no matter how true it was—Harry knew there would be nothing he could do to stop Tom from using his Legilimency skills to comb through every person's mind in the school, including Dumbledore's.

Okay, that was an exaggeration. Probably. Tom's level of skill when it came to mind-reading was not yet so precise that he could slink through any practicing Occlumens' mind without them becoming aware of his presence. So when it came to someone like Dumbledore, Tom would probably stay away.

Probably.

Harry knew Tom had very little trust in their Transfiguration professor and wouldn't put it past the other boy to convince himself that Dumbledore was probably involved somehow in Harry's incident, if he ever thought it up.

And then there was Aquila. Harry had no idea what prowess she possessed when it came to protecting her own mind, and that meant he had to find and confront her within the first few days after the students returned to school. He needed to find out what she knew, and why she felt it necessary to snoop around his room in the first place.

Not for the first time that night, he wished he had been able to spend it in his own bed. If he had, it would have meant that he could have put up protective spells around his belongings to keep unwanted busybodies from obtaining anything too personal that was still hidden there, deep within his trunk.