The last day of October dawned cold and brittle. The air outside was sharp enough to sting the lungs, and the lake shimmered like a sheet of black glass. Inside the castle, however, warmth pulsed through enchanted braziers and the promise of celebration thrummed in every hall.
Banners draped themselves in orange and gold. Pumpkins floated along the ceiling of the Great Hall, glowing from within like captured suns. Even the suits of armor had been polished until they gleamed.
For the students, Halloween meant laughter and feasting.
For Harry, it meant something else entirely — memory.
He had lived this day before.
He remembered the troll, the panic, Hermione's tears, and the strange, unplanned friendship that had followed.
But this time, everything felt fragile — the air itself, as though aware that time could be rewritten with the wrong breath.
Dinner began in a blaze of sound. Music from the enchanted orchestra filled the Great Hall, and laughter spilled from every table. Harry sat between Ron and Hermione, trying to let the noise ground him. Food appeared in waves — roast chicken, pumpkin pasties, treacle tart — but Harry's attention wandered to the flickering candles overhead.
They swayed slightly out of rhythm, almost as if responding to something beneath the music.
He frowned. A disturbance — faint but real — brushed the edge of his senses.
The castle was humming wrong.
"Harry?" Hermione asked softly. "You've gone pale."
He forced a smile. "I'm fine. Just… thinking."
Ron leaned around a plate of roast potatoes. "Mate, it's a feast, not an exam."
Harry chuckled, but unease prickled at the back of his mind.
He could feel the wards shifting — not violently, but restlessly, like a living creature twitching in its sleep.
Then the first scream echoed from the corridor.
The Hall fell silent. Every conversation stopped mid-word. A moment later, Professor Quirrell burst through the doors, his face white as chalk.
"TROLL — in the dungeon!" he shrieked. "Thought you ought to know!"
Then he collapsed in a heap.
Chaos erupted. Harry didn't move. He just listened. The panic around him blurred into noise, but beneath it he could feel the castle's pulse — magic tightening, corridors sealing, wards fluttering open like eyes. The troll wasn't the danger; it was the reaction that mattered.
Dumbledore's voice rose, calm and commanding. "Silence!"
The Great Hall quieted at once.
Prefects were shouting orders, shepherding younger students toward the dormitories. But Harry knew where the troll was headed. He'd lived this before.
He glanced at Hermione. She hadn't yet gone to the bathroom — not this time. She sat at the table, wide-eyed, clutching her wand.
Good. He could change it.
Ron tugged his sleeve. "Come on, let's go with the others!"
Harry's voice came out steady, quiet. "You go. I'll help the professors."
"Are you mental—?"
"Trust me."
There was something in his tone — not force, but certainty. Ron hesitated, then nodded reluctantly and ran after the group.
Harry slipped out the side door before anyone could stop him.
The corridors were empty now, echoing with distant footsteps and the faint, wet scrape of something massive dragging a club along stone. The smell hit him first — sweat and decay.
He followed the trail easily; the castle almost guided him, opening paths before him. When he turned a corner, he found it — enormous, grey, and lumbering. The troll's head brushed the ceiling, and its skin gleamed like stone slicked with oil.
Harry's heart didn't race. It focused.
He didn't raise his wand immediately. Instead, he watched.
The creature's magic — faint, primal — pulsed visibly to him now. It wasn't evil. Just confused, frightened, misplaced.
He whispered, "Lumos."
Light bloomed in his hand, warm and steady. The troll flinched, blinking rapidly.
"Easy," Harry murmured, his voice low, calm. "You don't belong here, do you?"
The troll grunted uncertainly.
He raised his wand slowly. "Somnus."
It wasn't a spell he'd used since adulthood, but the motion came instinctively — a wave of quiet will, not dominance. The light of his wand dimmed into a golden haze, soft and rhythmic. The troll blinked once, twice, and then, with a heavy sigh, sagged to its knees. The club hit the floor with a dull thud.
Harry exhaled. The spell was simple, almost gentle — a lullaby for magic rather than a command.
"Sleep well," he whispered.
He heard the footsteps before he saw them. Dumbledore's robes swept into view, followed by Professor McGonagall, Snape, and a handful of prefects.
The sight that greeted them froze everyone mid-step: Harry Potter standing calmly before a sleeping mountain of grey flesh, wand still faintly glowing.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
McGonagall was the first. "Mr. Potter—what in Merlin's name—?"
Harry looked up, expression quiet, almost apologetic. "I followed the disturbance. The troll wasn't attacking anyone. It was scared."
Snape's voice cut through the silence. "You cast Somnus."
It wasn't a question.
Harry nodded. "It was the least harmful option."
Snape's eyes narrowed, calculating. "That charm isn't taught until—"
"Fifth year," Harry finished softly. "I read ahead."
McGonagall's mouth opened, closed, then opened again. "Ten points to Gryffindor for… remarkable initiative," she said finally, though her voice trembled between pride and disbelief.
Dumbledore, however, simply watched him. Not with surprise. With understanding.
"Mr. Potter," he said quietly, "I believe the castle guided you here."
Harry met his gaze. "Yes, sir. It did."
The old wizard's eyes twinkled, but there was something sharper behind the warmth. "And did it tell you why?"
Harry hesitated. "To remind me that fear doesn't always mean danger."
Dumbledore's smile deepened. "A lesson worth learning early."
He turned to the others. "Let us escort our guest to a safer place. He will wake, I think, with a terrible headache and no memory of this unfortunate evening."
As they moved to levitate the troll, Dumbledore lingered a moment longer beside Harry.
"Most students," he said softly, "would have struck first and asked questions later."
Harry looked down at his wand. "I've done enough of that for one lifetime."
Something flickered across Dumbledore's face — a brief, almost sorrowful knowing — before he nodded. "Then perhaps, Mr. Potter, you are exactly where you're meant to be."
That night, Harry couldn't sleep. The castle was too quiet, too alert. His body was calm, but his mind buzzed with the echo of Dumbledore's words.
He slipped from bed, barefoot, and followed the faint tug he'd come to recognize — the whispering pulse of Hogwarts itself. It led him again to the old classroom, the one with the mirror.
It was waiting for him.
This time, when he stood before it, the surface shimmered immediately. But instead of the static glow of recorded spells, it reflected a swirl of gold and blue — threads of light that converged around a single shape: himself.
Not older. Not different.
Just… aware.
He watched the threads stretch outward — some bright, some dark — touching other figures: Hermione, Ron, Draco, Neville, Dumbledore. Each line pulsed faintly, vibrating with potential.
It wasn't showing him desire or even the past.
It was showing him connections. The living weave of cause and consequence.
He whispered, "Threads of destiny."
The reflection smiled — his own face, faintly illuminated. Then the light faded, and the mirror dimmed once more.
When dawn crept over the castle, Harry found himself sitting at his desk, his journal open to a new page.
He wrote without thinking:
Lesson of Halloween:
Power is not what you do. It's what you choose not to do.
Magic answers intent. The world answers kindness.
Even destiny listens, if spoken to gently enough.
He set down the quill. The ink shimmered faintly before drying. He smiled, leaned back, and let the sunlight pour across the page.
The mirror's afterimage lingered behind his eyes — a network of threads, alive and shifting.
He didn't know yet what they all meant.
But he knew this much:
He wasn't just walking through the past anymore.
He was rewriting it — not with defiance, but with understanding.
And the castle approved.