Megan felt like she was about to have a panic attack. And as soon as she thought it safe to leave the Great Hall without raising suspicion, she fled to the nearest girl's bathroom.

It was a complete disaster. Without that duel at midnight, Harry would never meet Fluffy. Therefore, he would never learn from Hagrid about Nicolas Flamel. Then Hermione would never figure out that Voldemort was after the sorcerer's stone. And Harry would never meet Voldemort at the end of the year.

She might end up crippled with further penalties if she did not find a way to get the story back on track, so Harry would face the challenge he was supposed to meet. After all, she had already lost too many points with Sirius, Peter and Barty.

The next time Harry should be out after curfew that was not directly related to learning about Flamel was Noberta's exfiltration. But as she just learned, that too was not guaranteed to happen. In addition, Harry finally meeting Fluffy at the expense of the little dragon did not sit well with Megan. And it would be too little too late.

She needed a plan for Harry to meet Fluffy, so the timeline should fix itself and hopefully go back on track. But she could not think of a way to achieve that without being directly involved or becoming one of the story villains by helping the wrong people. So she needed to think harder.

Even if Harry met Fluffy, there was no guarantee that his talk with Hagrid would be the same. It was because Hermione saw the trapdoor and intuited that the three-headed dog was guarding something that Harry, seeing Severus Snape going there, thought he was up to no good and told Hagrid so.

There were four points of divergence that might irreversibly change the events. First, Hermione had to be present, which would only happen if Harry was breaking the rules as he did. Second, Harry had to see Severus Snape trying to get past Fluffy on Halloween. And this part would only happen if Harry went to warn Hermione about the Troll. Third, Harry had to talk to Hagrid about it, which meant he had to be assaulted by Quirrelmort on his first quidditch game. Fourth, their talk would have to play out similarly enough for Hagrid to have the same slip of the tongue, which might not happen because Harry and Ron were not on the best terms for whatever reasons.

So to summarize: whatever she did, she was on a deadline because it had to happen before Halloween. She also had to rekindle Ron and Harry's friendship, or it would be for nothing. And she had to let ethically questionable things happen for the slightest chance that things might turn out the same. It was a bad idea. About nearly as bad as Voldemort's schemes in the Goblet of Fire.

And she would do all that, purposefully endangering Harry's life so she would not lose points to the system? The risk-benefit balance was not worth it.

But staying in the back seat doing nothing while the entire plot of the sorcerer's stone went down the drain would royally piss off her audience. Who wanted to read a book where absolutely nothing happened to the hero?

Sure, Harry could still meet Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. And Voldemort would try to kill Harry in that Quidditch game regardless of Megan's involvement. And Voldemort would never get the stone no matter what. But the journey was more important than the destination, as Voldemort and Harry got back to square one by the end of the first book.

The friendship and mystery were what sold the plot to the audience. Assuming that she was now a character in the novel, her previous knowledge was a huge spoiler against the mystery part of the novel anyway. And Harry's friendship was different this time around.

It was as if Harry was trying to replicate the marauders, hanging around with four friends, antagonizing kids he did not like, and all-in-all looking happier than his book counterpart. Sirius's influence was showing, and Harry would stop at nothing to feel closer to his parents, so it was entirely plausible.

The question was: how could she fit in the new narrative and ensure things did not get boring?