I thought I had an original idea with this kind of time travel. Then, after writing about 16 chapters (out of 18), I found a few stories, not just one, that had similar ideas… :-( Well, it's hard to get any original ideas in Harry Potter fanfiction. I hope the rest of the plot is original enough… ;-)

1-Merger

The ritual was over. Despite the seriousness of their situation, Harry couldn't refrain from glancing repeatedly at Hermione. The ritual required them to be as pure as they could, sending merely their very essence to its destination, so clothing, jewellery and for most of the ritual even wands were out. He had never seen his best female friend that way, nor shown himself to her in such a way. He admired what he saw and felt that his body was also responding to the very desirable young woman so close to him. He had to refrain from acting on these feelings, though. The ritual also made them extremely sleepy. Hermione conjured a wide bed and motioned for Harry to take his place on one side of it while she let herself rest on the other side. Despite their raging hormones, they fell asleep almost as soon as they put their heads down.

\/\/\/

Harry woke up slowly. He tried to remember what had happened before he fell asleep. It was quite difficult, as if the events were shrouded in thick fog, but he could still recall them.

It was a few weeks after Halloween, when Hermione and he were alone in the tent. Ron had deserted them earlier, even before that Halloween, when they had the almost disaster while visiting Godric Hollow, leaving them with only one functioning wand. As much as they wanted to stay optimistic and continue the search, they also needed to be realistic. Two teens, only armed with a single wand, with barely any food and no other resources, could not keep fighting the Dark Lord and his minions for long. Their only chance lay in finding some obscure information in one of the books that Hermione had taken from Grimmauld Place before they had to leave.

They found nothing about how to destroy a Horcrux in those books, but Hermione managed to find a certain ritual, one that could send them back to the past, to merge with their past selves while retaining all their knowledge. They couldn't find what it meant to their current selves. Would they die? Would the whole world rewind to that moment in the past that they were aiming at? Would reality just branch, creating two separate, unrelated timelines; one where they would continue to fight and hopefully win, against all odds, and one where their younger selves would know in advance what to do and would be better equipped to survive and win that war? The book gave them no answer to that.

They were lucky to find an old summer-house, long abandoned, but just good enough to protect them for the ritual, when the tent would be too small, yet they couldn't do it in the open.

Then, at the Yule, as recommended in the book, they performed the ritual. Luckily, no wands were involved. They only needed to state the time and the location of their target as precisely as they could.

Harry looked around, trying to find where they were.

The room was quite dark, only illuminated by a single candle near the farthest wall. He was laying in a wide and very comfortable bed. Another person was still sleeping at his side, but the light was too dim to see who it was. Well, he didn't really need it. He knew this was Hermione. She was also stirring awake and turning towards him. "We did it!" she squeaked in a much higher voice than before the ritual.

"How do you know?" he asked, his voice sounding much higher than he expected.

He still couldn't see her face, but he was sure she was smiling. "Don't you see? We've both fallen asleep, and now we're both much younger than before the ritual. I wonder if we reached the right time, though."

A moment later, the room was better lighted and Harry gasped at seeing Hermione at his side, looking just the way she'd been during the first year at Hogwarts. Well, not quite. He'd never seen her naked before the ritual, and now she was completely naked. And then, he was naked just the same and they were both in their first-year bodies – just children, a bit short of puberty.

"Shouldn't we get dressed? Our previous selves may panic seeing us nude," he urged her, remembering that they had sent a message to their previous selves as a part of that ritual. He'd even written it himself.

Hermione nodded and moved her arm, silently conjuring two Hogwarts robes. "They may not be a very good fit, but we only need them for a few minutes, I hope. Now, let's see if we're at the right time."

She concentrated for a moment and an old-style digital clock appeared on the bedside table, showing both time and date. Harry noticed it was Saturday, December 7, 1991, and the time showed 19:05. "We need to wait a few more minutes before our previous selves arrive. Do you understand what we need to do?"

He sighed. Although he could recite it in his sleep, he couldn't say he understood it. "We need to approach them and merge with them, letting our current personalities take the 'back seat' and keeping their current personalities dominant."

She smiled reassuringly at him. "Precisely! Now, they're not expected here for four more minutes. Care to show me how much you love me? We won't be able to do this for quite some time after the merging."

Harry stepped forward and hugged her. It was weird hugging a twelve years girl instead of the eighteen years young woman he'd gotten accustomed to during the last few months. Still, it was the same person. Hermione engulfed him in her tight hug and they kissed, forgetting their bizarre condition for a short while. Hermione still kept one eye on the clock.

"I think they should be here any moment," she told him as they broke the kiss. She concentrated shortly, making the lights much dimmer and dragged Harry to a darker corner.

It only took seconds before the door opened and two children walked in. "Are you sure it's safe to come here? It's just an anonymous letter you've got. It could have been sent by Malfoy, for all we know." Younger Hermione's concern was evident.

The dark-haired boy at her side tried to sound confident. "This looks like my own handwriting, and neither you nor Ron were able to fake it when you tried. Besides, it wasn't anonymous. It was signed by my older self, you know."

She huffed. "That's just… impossible. As much as I checked in the library, there's no way to come back in time, except for time turners, and they are strictly controlled by the ministry due to the danger of creating paradoxes and are also able to take you a few hours back at most."

He shook his head. "The note said that you were the one who found – well, probably will find – the way to do this. Anyway, we're here, and we shall soon know one way or the other."

Young Hermione frowned. "We should still hold our wands ready."

He chuckled. "What for? We don't really know any spell good enough to battle someone if they wish us harm." He still took his wand out.

The time travellers approached slowly. Older Harry was sure that his Hermione was also making the lights brighter. "Hello, I'm glad you are so punctual," she said. "You don't need your wands since we don't intend to harm you in any way. All we want to do is to transfer to you all the knowledge we have and then disappear. Once it's done, you'll know all that we've learned up to the end of the sixth year along with all that happened to us. We hope that by giving you this knowledge, you'll be able to change enough to avoid most of the difficulties that we had to tackle."

The children looked at each other with some confusion. It was evident that Hermione craved the knowledge most of all, while Harry was only interested in avoiding all the troubles. He spoke back. "Alright. What do we need to do?"

The other two exchanged an amused smile. "You don't need to do anything," Harry told them. "Just stand still for a moment and let us touch you. My dear friend also suggests that you go to bed as soon as you can after going back to the tower, to let your mind assimilate it all while you sleep. It may be a bit confusing otherwise."

Both children nodded. They then looked wide-eyed as the two others approached, looking just like a copy of themselves. As they came closer, their forms became less distinct, as if losing matter, becoming slightly transparent. The children failed to notice that they too were changing in the same way. Once close enough, the newcomers touched the children. A moment later, they disappeared, as if absorbed into the children, who looked solid once again.

"That's weird," Hermione noted.

Harry shrugged. "Everything magical seems weird, I think. Well, let's go back to the common room."

They left the room, closing the door behind them. Not looking back, they didn't notice that it faded away, leaving the wall complete and unmarked.

\/\/\/

Ron wasn't pleased to have been left alone. "Where have you been?"

Harry grimaced at the tone, that sounded as if they owed something to the redhead. "Well, you remember that note I got? We went to check that place, as I've told you. There's no room there, just a plain wall. Whoever wrote it probably wanted to prank us."

Ron frowned. "Why didn't you let me come with you?"

Harry shook his head. "We needed someone to be aware of us going there, so if we didn't come back soon enough, you could tell a teacher. You were our insurance, in a way."

Ron didn't seem to understand the last sentence, but let it pass. The-Boy-Who-Lived needed him to guard his back, and that was good enough for now.

Harry yawned. "I think I'll go to bed early. Climbing all those stairs was really exhausting. I'll see you in the morning."

Hermione didn't even need to excuse herself since Ron left her alone as soon as Harry mounted the stairs.

\/\/\/

When Harry woke up in the morning, he felt very weird. In one way, he was just the same as the previous day. In another way, he was much older, knew much more and had experienced much more. Worst of all, he knew that his ginger friend was someone whom he couldn't fully trust. He'd already noticed the jealousy that the redhead could barely hide whenever money or fame were mentioned. Now he also knew that the same 'friend' would betray him in the fourth year and desert him in the seventh, during the search. He took another look at his sleeping dorm mates. He'd not managed to become close with any of them. Was this his innate reluctance to let people come close, or was it Ron's jealousy that caused it? He decided to try and make some more friends.

Neville seemed alright. He was still very forgetful and Harry didn't think he could keep a secret, but he was a good person and always tried his best. Seamus was still too childish, easily influenced and not quite trustworthy, although usually fun to be around. Dean was somewhat more reserved. Harry suspected that Dean's colour made his childhood less than perfect. He couldn't say much more of the tall black boy. Maybe he should try to get to know his mates a bit better.

Harry knew that he hadn't tried to befriend any of these boys in his other life. Wasn't that a mistake, caused by Ron's jealousy? He should try befriending these three, at least.

His thoughts wandered to his other friend. Although he hadn't really known her before Halloween, she had become a very close friend since. It was actually a wonder how quickly this friendship formed. Unlike Ron, Hermione didn't distract him from his studies. If anything, she was actually pushing him to study more seriously and achieve better grades. She was trying to do the same for Ron, but the boy was too lazy and too stubborn to even try, considering studies an unpleasant chore, best avoided. He only belittled the bookworm. After the troll incident, he kept it mostly away from Hermione, not daring to cause another such incident, but he still didn't really treat her as she deserved. Harry thought it was time to force Ron to decide if he wanted them both as friends or not. He would no longer stand for that kind of badmouthing his best friend behind her back.

He wasn't even sure that Hermione was still his best friend only. Judging by the memories from his older self, Hermione was much more than a friend. His older self loved her dearly, although he was currently too young to feel the same. Well, that's what most people thought.

Harry felt sure that Hermione was already waiting for him in the common room. He quickly handled his morning ablutions and descended the stairs. He noticed her looking at the stairs even before he reached the last one.

Smiling brightly, he offered his hand. "Shall we go eat breakfast?"

She smiled back. "Sure!"

They felt content walking hand-in-hand to the Great Hall, not needing to speak. Once there, Harry glanced at the Head table, noticing the teachers there. Snape was looking as sour as always, eating mechanically, not quite seeming to notice the food. Quirrell also seemed to be in a bad mood. Harry already knew that the stuttering professor was possessed by Voldemort. He was determined to expose the possession as soon as possible.

"We may need access to the books at Grimmauld Place if we plan to confront Quirrell," Hermione told him, as if reading his mind.

"How can we?" he frowned.

"Free Sirius. Ask Madam Bones for the proceedings of the trial, as if you want to learn some more about that fateful night. She's bound to find there was no trial and try to correct that."

He glanced at the Head table, once again noticing Snape. "We should also plan something to get rid of Snape. No matter how much Dumbledore trusts him, he's destroying all chances of getting competent Aurors. He may be a great potions master, but he's a poor excuse for a potions teacher."

Hermione nodded in agreement. "We can do it as soon as Sirius is free. We may also start working on discrediting Lockhart. I wouldn't like to get him as a teacher next year."