Summary: Some people say that Prodigies are born. Other people believe that Prodigies evolve in the proper environment. What if Harry was a born Prodigy but living with the Dursleys dampened his education? This is the story of what would happen if Harry had the opportunity to develop his intelligence.
Note from SIYE: The original author of the story “Prodigy,” jmcqk6, has told SIYE he has abandoned his story and has given permission to other authors “that anyone could do whatever they want with it.” There is no issue of plagiarism involving this story. ~Sir Ollivander ~SIYE Administration
Rating: G
Categories: Alternate Universe
Characters: None
Genres: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 2007.07.23
Updated: 2009.07.21
Index
Chapter 1: Chapter 1: A New Home
Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Continued Explorations
Chapter 3: Chapter 3: New Things, New Friends
Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Ten Days That Shook The (Magical) World
Chapter 5: Chapter 5: The MagMachine: A Door To The World Of Tomorrow
Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Breakfast with Galleons
Chapter 7: Chapter 7: We're Off to See the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Hogwarts!
Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Sortin' Out The Meeting
Chapter 9: Chapter 9: The One Where All Is Said
Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Working Your Way Around Hogwarts: 1st Edition
Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Trick or Treat
Chapter 1: Chapter 1: A New Home
Prodigy - n. pl. prodigies. A person with exceptional talents or powers: a math prodigy.
Harry Potter was running. It was a situation he found himself in quite often, for when being chased by a group of people somewhat larger than oneself, it is a good idea to run. Unfortunately for the seven year old boy, there was a specific group of larger boys that took a special interest in chasing him. On the occasions that he was caught, the beating afterwards would only encourage him to run faster next time. When 'next time' came around (and it always did), sometimes he was able to run just a little faster and gain a few precious seconds needed to escape.
This was not one of those times. Harry could nearly feel the goons breathing down his back as he ran. His eyes dashed frantically to his different surroundings in an attempt to discover some safe haven. None was located.
Harry turned a corner and found himself in an alcove at the school he was currently attending. He cursed to himself for his stupidity in not looking at where exactly he was running to, but it was too late to change anything. The dumpster caught his eye and he found that it looked to be a somewhat safe hiding place. He could find nothing better in his current situation. He made to jump into it while wishing he was some place, any place safe.
He wished very hard.
Suddenly, Harry found himself in a strange place. One moment he had been in mid-air about to collide with an empty dumpster, and the next he was falling down in the middle of a strange living room. Harry pulled himself up and took stock of his surroundings.
There was a fireplace off to one side with a leather love seat in front of it. Off to another side, there was another group of furniture surrounding a coffee table covered with a thick layer of dust. When Harry noticed the dust, it was like he couldn't focus on anything else. All of the sudden he realized that everything in the room was coated in the fine gray matter, even himself; it was obvious that no one had been in the room for several years.
Harry saw something out of the corner of his eyes and felt them drawn back to the fireplace. Specifically, the mantle over it. There was a banner displaying a coat of arms in deep red and gold. The coat of arms was a silver shield with a fierce looking animal on it. The animal was something Harry had never seen before. It looked to be the cross between a horse and a bird of some sort, perhaps an eagle.
The animal was not the most important thing on the banner, however. Underneath the shield was a single word printed in bold silver lettering. It was a name: Potter.
Harry frowned at the sight. Why was there a banner with his name on it in the middle of the room?
When Harry had first arrived, his first instinct was to leave, afraid of what might happen should the owners of the house discover his presence. Now, however, his curiosity was piqued, and all worries dissipated. Perhaps this was the home of some other family he had, but didn't know about. Perhaps that other family would save him from the hell he knew as 'home.'
The fact that the room obviously hadn't been lived in for several years was momentarily forgotten with the arrival of this new idea. With a burst of courage, Harry moved towards the door and opened it.
The other side of the door revealed another room. This room had a major difference from the one he had just parted. It was a real wreck. There was a spot for a door leading to the outside that Harry supposed would be the front door. The physical door itself, however, had literally been blown across the room where it lay shattered and splintered. It looked as if an explosion of sorts had driven the door from its spot. Shattered glass and other pieces of unidentifiable material littered the floor. Harry decided it was time to leave. Wherever he was, it was not some place he was supposed to be. Moving towards the front opening, Harry looked out.
Harry discovered the front lawn of the house to be in total disarray from obvious neglect. The edge of the lawn turned into a dark forest. All ideas of departure were once again squashed. There was no way he would be able to find his way back to his school. If the silence he heard was any indication, it was obvious that he was some distance from anyone else living.
Harry turned back to the house. To the side of the room was a stairway leading up to a second floor. There was another door beside the stairwell, and Harry moved towards that. The door opened into a kitchen that was in the same state as the room Harry had just been in. There were a few dishes shattered and some metallic pots thrown around the floor. One pot even looked to be melted, but Harry couldn't figure out how that had happened. He was starting to get quite worried. This strange house was not some place he wanted to be.
Suddenly, Harry felt a strong need to go upstairs. He carefully made his way up the staircase, testing each wooden step to make sure it would hold his weight. All the steps were sturdy and he found himself a few minutes later at the top of the staircase. When he broke his attention away from his feet, his eyes widened in recognition.
He had been here before. Sounds and images flashed through his mind quickly, making it impossible to focus on a single one of them. Harry pushed open the door to his right.
This room was obviously a nursery of some sort, from what Harry could tell. It was in even worse shape that the front room. There was scorch marks on one wall, and spots of dried blood on the floor. The blood sent chills up his back and he turned to leave, determined once again to leave this place. But as he broke his attention, the images flashed through his mind once again. This time, however, one memory stuck.
There was a scream and a woman was yelling. She held a stick in her hand that was pointed to a dark looking man. The woman spoke a short sentence in a strange language before a green light hit her and she collapsed. The dark man crackled a hideous sound that must have been laughter for him and turned towards a baby in the cradle. A deep voice pronounced two words and another green light appeared. It struck the baby in the forehead, but the baby didn't collapse like the woman did. The green light somehow reversed itself at the baby’s forehead and struck the dark looking man in the chest. There was an explosion, and then everything was black.
The memory ended as Harry felt a nearly unbearable burning sensation in his scar. He collapsed to the floor in hard pain as his body jerked uncontrollably. Suddenly, it was over, and Harry's body relaxed.
Harry moved his hand up to rub his forehead, brushing against the lightning bolt scar that had been there all his short life. He gasped as he made the connection that would turn out to be the most important realization in his entire life.
The baby from the memory had been him.
hpgw***rwhg***hpgw***rwhg***hpgw***rwhg***hpgw***rwhg***hpgw***rwhg
Harry Potter sat on the floor, unable to move his body. The revelation that had leaped at him only a moment ago had struck him unable to temporarily think. Finally, his thoughts began to pierce the grey fog that had crept over his mind and he began to focus.
Unconsciously, Harry pressed his hand back to his forehead. The scar that he had been told was the product of an auto accident took on a whole new meaning. He had been lied to. Exactly how the scar had come into being was still a mystery to him, but he knew it had to have something to do with the scene he had just witnessed: the woman, the dark man, the green lights...
Who was the woman in the scene? Was it his mother? Harry didn't want to think that he had witnessed the murder of his own mother when he was a baby. How had the woman died anyway? As far as he knew, light was not known to do that, but Harry was not an expert. There wasn’t any doubt in his mind that the woman had died; it was one of the few things he was absolutely sure of. Then there was a question of how he could see himself in the vision. There wasn't any doubt in his mind that the baby had been him, but shouldn't he have witnessed the scene from his own perspective? It was almost like he was seeing through the eyes of someone else.
Harry was very close to the truth with respect to that, though he didn't know it at the time.
Harry drew himself up off of the floor. It was time for answers, and Harry knew that they would be found somewhere in this house. Harry exited the room and headed towards the next door. Opening it, a huge library was revealed. It seemed thousands of books were stacked on the shelves around the room, with more being scattered around the central table. Harry spotted some notes on the table and went over to look.
One good aspect of not having many friends was that one found other ways to entertain themselves. Harry had taken to reading, and while he wasn't all that great still, it had given him some minor comfort over the last few years. Harry hadn't really thought of it as a 'good' thing, however, until this moment. The answers to the mysteries that were plaguing him had to be found in those notes. Harry could almost feel the truth tugging on his mind to read. Without hesitation, he picked up the first one he saw and began looking over it.
10-30-81
Have put together the last piece of enchantment that I needed. The book on ancient magic Albus loaned me has helped tremendously. I just hope it will be enough to help my son. James has no doubt on the matter, but he doesn't understand the risk.
Tomorrow night will be when I cast the charm. According to the book, the charm can only be cast on Hallow's Eve. It was only luck that I was able to discover it ahead of time, otherwise we would have to wait another year to put the proper protections on Harry. Albus assured us that with Sirius as Secret Keeper for the Fidelius, we should not have anything to worry about, but he doesn’t know we changed Keepers. I'm not so sure about our safety. Peter has been a good friend, but if Voldemort were to get to him... I don't know if he would be able to hold out.
I just don't understand why would Remus betray us? And what could make him do it? At first, I'll admit, I thought Sirius was the one Dumbledore was talking about, but he made James switch with Peter, so he couldn't be the spy. Peter's nice, though. I just hope he can keep it under his hat. Perhaps I should talk to James tomorrow about switching back to Sirius.
The note ended abruptly at that point, leaving Harry even more confused. He quickly pieced together a few things, however. James was his father's name, and the woman had a son named Harry. These were obviously the notes of his mother. Harry felt like hugging the paper close to his chest like a precious artefact, but settled for holding it lightly in his hands, afraid it was going to break or tear. The letter brought more questions, though, as well. Who were these people? Albus, Remus, Sirius, Dumbledore, Peter? Harry had never heard those names before. Albus and Dumbledore were certainly strange names, but the others seemed normal, if not a bit exotic. What was this talk about enchantments, ancient magic, and charms? What was the Fidelius, and why did it need a Secret Keeper? Harry carefully placed the paper back on the table and moved onto the book it was laying next too. Perhaps it was the book mentioned in his mothers writing.
Ancient Magic by Morgana la Fey he read the title on the front of the book while scrunching his eyebrows deep into a frown. There was a strange feeling beginning to creep in the bottom of his stomach that he couldn't quite place. It made his skin tingle with the feeling of a slight electric shock. Harry opened the cover and found some handwriting inside.
For Lily Potter,
I hope you find the means to protect Harry until the time comes for him to fulfil his destiny. Good luck!
Sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore
He was right. It had been his mother's writing, but what did the note mean? Harry's destiny? What could he possibly be destined to do? Well, at least another mystery was solved. Albus and Dumbledore were the same person. Perhaps there was a way he could contact the man and get some real answers. The name conjured a silly picture of an old man with a long beard staring at his socks. Harry shook the thought from his head while giggling slightly and reminding himself that now was not the time to be silly.
Harry flipped a couple pages and began to read from the first chapter.
Magic has a long history, dating back thousands of years.
'Magic?' Harry asked himself. That stuff he had been able to glance on TV a couple times when his family hadn't been looking? Harry didn't feel there was anything too impressive about making a white tiger appear out of a seemingly empty box. For some reason that he couldn't place, he felt that deep inside was the ability to conjure up a white tiger out of thin air! But that was a silly idea, wasn't it? Harry continued reading.
When the first ancients began to discover the possibilities that magic held, the world prospered under amazing progress. The mysteries they uncovered about the universe we live in rival the knowledge of even today. But just as magic can be used for good, magic can be used for evil. Evil corrupted the hearts of men who sought power above all else, and that knowledge was lost. It is said that in those days, men did not need wands or staffs to practice the magical arts; their will and their hands were all that was needed.
Today, a very different situation is upon us. There exists only one that can manipulate the magic without a wand: my dear husband Merlin. What has caused this to come to pass? This is the question this book will attempt to unravel. I will begin with what little we know about the ancients views on willpower and projection, then move on to the importance of blood and the protections and possibilities it can empower.
Harry had to stop reading. What it true? Obviously this woman was saying that magic was real. There were a few words that Harry didn't understand, and he tried to guess their meaning, but it definitely seemed that the over-all gist of it was the magic was real. And his mother had been reading the book! If she believed in it, then Harry could also believe in it. If he had been a couple years older, perhaps the story would be different, but there was nothing more that he wanted that to be close to his parents in some minor way at least.
Harry turned the page to see... a moving picture! He knew beyond any doubt at that point that magic was real. How else could he see a hand holding a long stick making a circular motion? Harry looked underneath the picture to read the caption.
The levitation spell is a common first spell taught to all children. The needed movements are simple as well as the incantation of “Wingardium Leviosa.” Children have no problem pointing their wand at something finally and making it float a few feet in the air, making it the perfect charm for building confidence.
Harry's eyes grew wide. The book was telling him how to do it — Magic! Harry looked around the room, hoping to find a stick he could use to test it out right away, but he didn't see any. Harry left the room and quickly looked through the other places he had been. No sticks / wands were to be found anywhere. As Harry crossed the front door opening, though, a small sapling caught his eye just off the porch.
'Of course!' he thought. 'There would be plenty of sticks out there. Probably fresher, too.'
Harry stepped out onto the front porch, and immediately saw several sticks laying on the wooden floor of it. Harry looked around and found one that looked to have fallen recently, and picked it up. It was about one and a half feet long, which was too long to Harry. Harry studied the physical characteristics carefully, looking for a place to break the branch into a more manageable size. It was light gray with the bark still attached. The stick in the moving picture had a polished finish on it, but Harry didn't think that would matter at all. He may do that in the future. The stick was pretty straight, and felt very comfortable in his hand. He ran his fingers along the outside until he found the perfect spot for the break. Quickly bending it, the stick broke in half. Harry held the end that he wanted to keep in his right hand. It felt really comfortable and just... perfect.
Harry ran back upstairs to review the picture. After studying it intensely for a few moments, he felt himself ready. Harry located another book and placed it right in front of him on the table. After taking one last glance at the moving picture, Harry concentrated and preformed the movements, while speaking the incantation clearly.
The book began to rise! Harry's eyes widened; he hadn't expected such quick results! As his excitement grew, his concentration wavered and the book fell back to the table. Harry couldn't do anything but grin. Then he concentrated again and did the same charm again.
There was one thing Harry didn't know at that point: it was the fact that a wand was supposed to be created by a craftsman and hold a magical core used for focusing his will. Harry had literally just performed wandless magic for no other reason except the fact that he had no knowledge of the magical world.
So his 'wand' would stay with him for the next several years.
hpgw***rwhg***hpgw***rwhg***hpgw***rwhg***hpgw***rwhg***hpgw***rwhg
The Department of Accidental Magic Reversal was in a panic. There were papers flying through the air, and people shouting everywhere; no one was in control of the situation. Finally, a tall man with dark red hair stood up on a chair and whistled loudly, and silence settled along with the flying papers.
“OK! Now, will someone please explain what is going on?” the man said.
“Mr. Weasley, the sensors have been picking up repeated use of large outbursts of magic for the last hour, but we haven’t been able to locate the source of those outbursts yet.”
“I see,” Mr. Weasley said simply. “Do our sensors tell us anything about the source?”
“No, sir. As soon as they tell us one thing, they reverse themselves completely and say the exact opposite. For example, the age sensor originally guessed the age of the source to be seven years old. The next moment, the same sensor said fifty-two years old, and after that it said that he was eighty. The only thing the sensors have been consistent about is that the source is a male person,” an unnamed voice spoke from the crowd. There were mutterings among some of those who had been in the department for a while.
“Sir, I've been in this department for fifteen years now. Something of this magnitude has only happened once before,” another voice spoke up.
“When was that?” Mr. Weasley asked. He had been steadily working his way up through the ranks, only achieving this department four years ago.
“The night the Potters were killed and Y-Y-You-know-who was defeated.” There was a collective gasp from the crowd as the words sunk in. Had the Dark Lord returned?
“I see. Ok, Stevens, Shelly, Brooks, and Lidge, I want you to try to get a physical location of this outburst as precise as you can manage. You have my permission to create as many Portkeys as necessary to achieve this task, along with any other resources you might need. Everyone, this is now our top priority. I want someone to go to the archives of the last time this happened and compare the readings, and another person to stay on alert and call the DMLE just in case. I'm going to take this to Minister Fudge right,” Mr. Weasley finished giving out his orders. He himself was surprised at his ability to think clearly in such a chaos. He stepped down off the chair he had been standing on and left the office quickly, headed for Fudge's office.
Upon arriving, he informed the secretary that he had critical information that the Minister needed to know about immediately. The secretary eyed him curiously, but then motioned for him to enter the Minister's office. Mr. Weasley did so to find the Cornelius Fudge — the current Minister of Magic- sitting behind his desk.
“Minister, I have grave news to tell you,” Mr. Weasley began. Fudge looked up at him, finally acknowledging the red head's presence. Personally, Fudge had never liked the man, but politically, the Weasley family was well known and well connected.
“What news could possibly be so grave from the Accidental Magic Department, Arthur?” Fudge asked, more than a little condescendingly. Mr. Weasley didn't seem to notice, or chose not to show it.
“This morning, we have been getting repeated readings of large outbursts of magic. Our sensors have been unable to ascertain much information, though we have been able to discover that the source is a male from age seven to eighty,” Mr. Weasley explained crisply.
Fudge just eyed him for a moment before saying anything. “And why, exactly, is this so important?”
“I'm sure you are aware, Minister, of the accuracy of the instruments we use to detect this sort of thing. They are usually highly accurate, so an anomaly like this should give us enough reason for concern. This should be coupled with the fact that the last time this happened was Halloween, 1981,” Arthur explained.
“The night You-Know-Who was defeated?” Fudge asked, receiving a nod as an answer. “Preposterous! Are you suggesting that You-Know-Who has returned?”
“No sir, not at all. You have to admit, however, that this is a highly suspicious matter. I am dedicating the resources of my department to discover the reasons behind this as quickly as possible,” Arthur said.
“You will do no such thing! Imagine the public reaction when they hear about this! Are you trying to start a panic? You shall pull your people back at once. This is obviously the result of equipment failure,” Fudge ordered. Arthur stared back, wide-eyed. This was not the reaction he had been expecting. In fact, this was exactly the opposite of what needed to happen. He would need to look for help elsewhere — and he knew just the place to find it.
“Very well,” Mr. Weasley said curtly before turning towards the door.
“Not so fast, Arthur. We will need to cover this up in some way. From this point on, you are to move to the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office where you will be working with Perkins. Is that understood?” Fudge asked menacingly, as if daring the man to argue with him. To his surprise, there was what looked to be glee in Mr. Weasley's eyes as the man gave a quick nod and left.
Arthur thought about going back to his office to begin the move and pull everyone back, but when he ran into Lidge, decided against it. Arthur quickly explained to Lidge what had happened, and then said he was going for a walk. Lidge could take care of everything at the office for him, and was very glad to at that. After all, Lidge had been gunning for the department head position for quite some time, but still Lidge wished him luck with his new position.
With a 'pop' Arthur appeared several miles away at the magical town known as Hogsmeade. The town, however, was quickly left behind as Arthur headed towards his final destination: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Continued Explorations
Spell - n. s. spell, A form of words used as a magical charm or incantation.
Harry spent the next couple hours going over the other things in the book. He turned the pages quickly, looking for more moving pictures from which he could learn new 'spells' as they were called. Besides the levitation spell, Harry had conjured a shield (“Protego”), shot a stunner (“Stupefy”), and a few others. As Harry turned the pages, he ignored the steadily growing darkness outside the house. Soon, though, it was too dark to even read, and the night drew Harry's attention.
As Harry was pulled back to reality, he remembered he hadn't even eaten since breakfast, since his lunch time had been spent trying to get away from his cousin. Harry thought about going back to the kitchen to see if there was any food, but the darkness held him back. Instead, Harry decided just to sit on one of the armchairs and wait out the night through sleep. He was feeling slightly drained after all the magic he had been working on. Harry wondered if it was normal or not, but decided to leave that for the next day.
Remembering Colloportus, a locking charm he had read about in the book, Harry turned to the door and cast it. He tried to open the door, and, seeing that it wouldn’t open, he celebrated his success. Harry then curled up on the squashy armchair near the shelves and closed his eyes. His dreams that night consisted mostly of wand movements and incantations.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
“What brings you all the way to Hogwarts tonight, Arthur?” Headmaster Albus Dumbledore asked the red-haired man who had been his student nearly thirty years before, a companion in the first war against Voldemort and now was both one of his best friends.
“Professor Dumbledore, something...” Arthur Weasley started saying before pausing while looking for the right word, “…very disturbing occurred this morning.”
Dumbledore knew the Weasley patriarch was not easily disturbed, so his attention to the man’s words was immediate. “What happened?”
“The instruments used to detect magic use began acting wildly, apparently detecting some large bursts of magic coming from a male of undetermined age somewhere in Britain, but they were ultimately unable to locate the source.”
Dumbledore knew which instruments Arthur was talking about. He had helped cast the charms that made the current detectors at the Department of Accidental Magic Reversal work; it had taken him several months to complete all the charms that located any person trying to use magic in the country, but it was only useful when it was directed to detect those who used it in either isolated places or in the Muggle world. The implications of the instruments acting as Arthur described were enormous.
Mr. Weasley continued, “One of the older members of the department informed me that it was not the first time this had happened. It was that night, Professor Dumbledore! The one that You-Know-Who was...”
Mr. Weasley trailed off again, and Dumbledore waved his hand indicating that he knew what Arthur was referring to: that Halloween night of six years ago still hurt him a lot. The loss of James and Lily Potter had hit him very hard, and leaving Harry Potter with the Dursleys had been one of the most difficult decisions he had ever taken.
“You believe the source was under the Fidelius, then?” Dumbledore prodded.
“It would account for the strange behaviour of the detectors, certainly. The worst is that when I told the Minister this incident, he immediately dismissed it as a failure of the equipment and then decided to cover it by sending me to the Misuse of Muggle Objects Office. While it is something I am not going to complain about,” Arthur said, thinking again of all the things he would be able to do now with all those interesting artefacts Muggles had, “I do not like the fact that Fudge has rejected to work on something as important as this. That’s why I came here, in search of counsel and in order to tell you what had happened.”
Dumbledore was silent for a few minutes, stroking his long, white beard in thought. Finally he said, “Since you haven’t been allowed to investigate, I will look into this personally. I will have to pull some strings so that a few people I trust can research the source of those bursts, and I will look for possible places.”
Mr. Weasley nodded as Dumbledore mused aloud, “While there could be any number of locations under the Fidelius, most of which I do not know, I do have a starting point.”
“Where?”
“The Potters' house at Godric's Hollow, of course. I wasn’t told the secret and I cannot access the house, but I do remember the general location and might be able to discover something. I may have to visit Mr. Black.”
Mr. Weasley blanched. The betrayal of Sirius Black to both the Potters and the Order of the Phoenix still dug at him. Dumbledore noticed his reaction.
“I don't like it any more than you, Arthur, but it is a starting point, and one we can eliminate relatively easily, though I am loath to visit Azkaban for any reason.”
Mr. Weasley had to agree with that, grateful that it would be Dumbledore making that visit. He frowned and asked, “How is it that Godric's Hollow is still under the Fidelius charm? Wasn't it broken that night?”
“It wasn’t broken, Arthur, it was just temporarily turned off. Luckily for us, it gave Hagrid enough time to get young Mr. Potter out of the wreckage and to someplace safe. A few days later, I went there in order to make a few on the house for when Mr. Potter is older and, if he wishes so, to live there, but the charm reactivated suddenly and I had to leave the zone.”
“How in the world was it able to reactivate?”
“That is something I have given much thought to. I cannot be sure, but I would guess that whatever happened between the young Mr. Potter and Voldemort deactivated the charging rune for the Fidelius. When that rune managed to take enough magical energy from the ambient, the charm returned. Fortunately, I had enough presence of mind to charm a large boulder near by so that I would be able to locate the area again, even if I could not enter the property itself.”
Mr. Weasley had to agree. It would certainly help his current situation. “Fortunate indeed.”
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
As morning dawned, Harry began to stir. One good thing about being so young is the fact that you can spend the entire night in an uncomfortable position, and not feel the effects the next morning. Harry stood and stretched before making his way to the door to open it. He struggled for a few minutes to get it to open until he remembered the spell he had cast the night before. Muttering the counter spell (Alohomora) he had learned at the same time, the door pulled open easily.
Harry's stomach growled soundly, reminding him that he had not eaten anything in the last twenty four hours, so he headed to the kitchen. It was still quite a mess, but Harry had expected it. He made a note to look into cleaning and repairing charms sometime that day. He had already decided that this was going to be his new home. After all, there was no way his Uncle would take him back now that Harry knew about magic. Harry didn't really want to go back anyway. His relatives had lied to him about his parents, not to mention how they treated him. Then there was the fact that he had absolutely no idea how to get back either. It was obviously magic of some sort that had brought him here, but beyond that, Harry had no idea exactly what magic it was, or how to reverse it.
Harry moved some pots and pans out of the way so he could open the fridge. Part of him knew that logically, anything in it would have gone bad by now, but perhaps there was some sort of charm placed on it that would keep its contents fresh. Anything was possible with magic, right?
Looking into the fridge, Harry was amazed at the amount of food that was present. The entire fridge was full of food! Nor was there a wretched smell assaulting his nostrils, or mould growing out everywhere. Harry took it as a good sign, and looked for something to test. He spotted what looked to be milk, and knew it would be the prefect thing to test. He'd be able to tell just by smelling it if it had gone bad.
Harry took hold of the glass bottle brimming with the white liquid and set it on the counter. After opening the top, he leaned forward and took a careful sniff. Nothing out of the ordinary met his senses. Gaining courage, he lifted the bottle to his lips and took a small sip. It tasted wonderful! It was perfect; Harry didn't think he had ever tasted anything quite as good as that before. He turned his attention back to the fridge to discover what else might be stored there for breakfast.
Harry saw there were eggs, sausages, and bacon. It seemed to be another plus now, that he had spent the first seven years of his life living with the Dursleys, as they had forced him to learn how to cook at an early age — but, of course, he couldn’t have any of the food he had cooked, Dudley had to grow up (although Harry thought that Dudley would explode if he grew up a bit more). Harry looked towards the stove, and was startled to find that there weren't any controls on the front of it for controlling heat. He would need to learn a few more things before he would be ready to eat that day.
He rushed back up to the library as started to quickly scan the many titles for a book that might hold the information he would need. Finally he ran across Madam Stewart's Big Book of Household Spells. Harry pulled it from the shelf and opened it. To his surprise a magazine fell out of the middle. Harry looked down the fallen item briefly before his stomach growled again, pulling him back to the task at hand. He hurriedly made his way back downstairs.
Harry opened the book to the table of contents. The first chapter covered basics of magic and warnings. Harry skipped over that; after all, he'd been doing magic since the night before. The second chapter covered decorating and painting. Harry knew he would probably need that later in his new life, but for now, he needed to learn the cleaning and cooking spells that would allow him to organize the house and then make himself some food. Finding the page number for a spell called “Scourgify”, Harry quickly turned to that page. The wand movement required for the charm was only described in words, but Harry felt like he was ready to try it.
The entire room had a thick layer of dust on it that needed to be removed, and in which Harry could see his own imprints on the floor. Harry pointed his wand at some of the pots he had moved to get to the fridge and cast the new spell. He blinked his eyes a couple times as he saw the spell do its work. The whole area was completely clean! Harry quickly made his way around the room and soon, the entire kitchen was sparkling, even if everything was still out of place.
Harry flipped a couple pages to find a “tidying” spell so everything would be back in its right place, but apparently there was no spell that did what he was looking for. Sighing, he knew he would have to do that by hand at some point during the day. He turned to the cooking section on the book. The first spell was how to start a magical stove, and that was really all he needed at the time.
Harry gathered up some skillets and cooking utensils, placing them on the stove. After lighting the stove with a quick flame casting spell, Harry started cooking the eggs in one pan that he filled with oil, some long strips of bacon in other pan and meaty sausages in one skillet, then went looking for plates and silverware. The eggs would have to hold off until the sausages were close to being done, since they cooked quickly. Soon his breakfast was ready, and Harry sat down to eat, the smell of the bacon making his mouth water.
Harry surprised himself with the large amount of food he ate, and had to get up to cook some more. A little while later, though, Harry found himself content after eating enough food to feel full for what was probably the first time in his life since he was left at the Dursleys. After cleaning the dishes and cooking utensils he had used, he set about cleaning up the room. A couple hours later, the kitchen had transformed into the model kitchen it must have been once upon a time. Pleased with his hard work, Harry grabbed the household book and moved to the front room. After cleaning the dust, leaving everything quite shiny, Harry opened the book looking for repairing charms.
The entry he found was for a spell called “Reparo”. It required that the wizard (or witch) performed the spell while having a picture of the item to be fixed in their head, saying the incantation when said picture was clear. That was a problem because Harry had never even been in the house before, let alone seen what it was supposed to be like. Eventually, he decided there wasn't much to lose, however, so he started on the door.
While looking at the remains of the wooden slab that had once protected the house, Harry tried to imagine what it had looked like originally. A sudden thought interrupted his focus, however: the vision from the day before! He had been in the house before — as a baby! Perhaps buried somewhere in his subconscious was just the information he needed
Harry relaxed and tried to clear his mind. One of the most difficult things in the world to do is to think about absolutely nothing. Harry found his thoughts to be repeatedly barraged by any number of random things, none of which made sense. Finally throwing caution to the wind, he pointed his wand at the remains of the door and muttered “Reparo”.
The shattered wood began to shake, but nothing happened. Harry shook his head and tried again, concentrating more on the task. This time, some of the smaller fragments began to move and attach themselves to one another. Encouraged by this, Harry tried again. The third time was the charm, and a few moments later there was a door attached where it should be that looked to be brand new.
Satisfied with his work, Harry moved around to the other things. It would take several attempts with each item, but eventually he would get something he felt was acceptable. As soon as he was done with the last broken item, he began to notice how tired he was. There was obviously something quite draining about the constant use of magic. Deciding to take a quick nap, Harry went to the room he had originally arrived in.
The living room was pretty much how he had remembered it the night before. Harry felt his eyes drawn once again to the coat of arms hanging above the mantelpiece and fireplace and felt comforted. Looking about the room, Harry decided that the couch would definitely be more comfortable than the armchair he had slept on the night before. Deciding he could take the time to go ahead and clean this room, Harry set about doing just that. It was lucky that there was nothing broken in this room. Obviously whatever it had been, (probably that thing that had killed his mother) had left this room alone.
Ten minutes later, Harry found himself hardly able to cast the last cleaning spell because of exhaustion. Once it was done, he collapsed onto the couch while closing his eyes. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow at the end.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry woke up feeling very refreshed. After wondering for a moment how long he had been asleep, he shook the thought away. Time was no longer important to him after all. There was nothing he needed to do; only what he wanted to do. At least, that would be how it was to be for a little while. Harry made a note to see exactly how much food was in the fridge. The thought of food made his belly growl, so he headed back to the kitchen.
After locating what appeared to be some turkey, Harry decided a sandwich would be perfect, and a few minutes later was sitting down to eat lunch. While he munched, his mind was floating over the many things he needed to do. Of course, the most important thing would be getting the house back into order. After that, he could focus on learning magic, which would provide that extra bit of incentive to get the housework done. He also needed to piece together exactly what happened to his parents. At the moment, it sounded as if they had been betrayed and Harry needed to make sure that whatever had happened would not repeat itself.
After cleaning up his lunch, Harry moved to the two remaining rooms on the first floor he hadn't been in yet. The first was a formal dining room. It was completely undamaged and only needed to have the dust removed. The other room was a study of sorts. There was a chalkboard with what looked to be drawings of moves for a sport Harry hadn't heard of before. There were some books strewn about much as they had been upstairs, and a dark brown wooden desk that had been neatly cleared off, save for a stack of odd looking paper in one corner.
Harry was about to cast the cleaning spell on this room as well, but something caught his eye. There were tracks through the thick dust on the floor! Not human tracks, but animal tracks, and an extremely small animal at that.
“Must have been a rat,” Harry thought. The thought of there being rats in the house made him start looking around for any more signs. Unable to find any, he sighed and cast the cleaning spell, removing all traces of the vermin from the floor. Harry made a note to check out the household spell book for pest control magic.
After finishing cleaning up the downstairs, Harry once again made his way to the second level of the house to see what he could do with it. He first stop was the nursery he had been in first. Taking another glance at the spots of blood that were on the walls and floor, he was hopeful that the magic would be able to clean that up as well. There was a dresser in the corner, next to the crib that he hadn't taken notice of before, but looking at the amount of dust that had found a resting place on top of it, it had been there the entire time.
Without a second thought, Harry once again repeated the spell, and the room was rendered nearly spotless. Where the blood had been before, only medium-sized splotches of dark red remained. Sighing, Harry tried the spell again. This time, the final evidence of the violence that had taken place in the room disappeared.
Harry left the room and headed for the one across the hall. He hesitated when he realized that this must have been his parents’ room. Taking a deep breath, he finally opened the door to find that his guess had been correct.
It was a large bedroom with a large four post bed situated at one end with small bedside tables on either side. There was a rickety wooden wardrobe to the left and a rocking chair on the right. The chair conjured up images of a movie he had glimpsed once about a mother rocking her son to sleep in such a chair. He wondered if his own mother had ever done such a thing. He hoped that she had.
Gaining more courage, Harry moved towards the bedside table on the right when he saw there were a couple of picture frames sitting on it. Would he be so lucky to find a picture of his parents? Sitting down on the bed, Harry picked up the first one and took a long look at it.
The picture was of four young men who looked to be quite mischievous, enjoying a laugh, and it was moving. Harry looked towards the bottom of the picture and found a caption written in the same handwriting as the note he had read earlier, his mothers. It read:
The Marauders: Remus “Moony” Lupin, Peter “Wormtail” Pettigrew, Sirius “Padfoot” Black, and my love, James “Prongs” Potter.
Harry's eyes widened. The man with the jet black hair in the picture was his father! And these were his father’s friends. Harry wondered what the “Marauders” were. No doubt he would find more about them later, especially if his father was concerned. Hopefully some of them were still around, somewhere, and Harry would be able to contact them. Putting the frame down, Harry moved onto the other one.
This (moving) picture was of a woman with dark red hair and bright green eyes that looked quite beautiful. She was holding hands with his father. Harry smiled.
'I have my mother's eyes,' he thought to himself. He took a final look at the capture before setting it back in its place. Getting up off the bed, Harry cast the spell, and the room was clean.
The next room was the bathroom that held absolutely nothing interesting except a weird looking painting of a wolf, a rat, a dog, and a stag. Harry cleaned the place without a second thought, and finally found himself back in the library.
Upon seeing the books, Harry had to restrain himself from immediately picking one up and reading it, though it took only another moment before this room was as clean as the rest of the house. Feeling his immediate task was completed, Harry returned to reading the book on ancient magic he had started the night before. Skipping over the overview that contained some of the basics about modern day magic he had read the night before, Harry looked at the second chapter: The History of the Ancients. After deciding it was going to be rather useless at this point, Harry was about to turn to the third chapter when a voice in his head stopped him.
It was the same voice as before, but held much more definition. Harry could now tell that who ever was speaking to him was a woman, a very old woman.
“Read this chapter,” the voice said.
“Who are you?” Harry asked. “And how did you get in my mind.”
Only silence answered him. Harry shrugged. Maybe he was imagining it. Nevertheless, he decided to quickly skim over the history chapter.
As it turned out, not much was known about the Ancient Ones. They lived on a continent named Atlantis until one of their own had destroyed it. It was said that there was a lone survivor, a wizard named Prometheus. Not much was known about him either, except that he spent the rest of his life with Muggles who apparently hated him, which Harry could identify with to a point. There was a mention about a Muggle myth that concerned this survivor, but the contents of the myth were not given. The last page mentioned a book or journal that Prometheus had supposedly written and left for future wizards to discover. It had never been found.
It was interesting, after all, but Harry didn't think that it was all that important at the moment. There was magic to be learned, and history did not help him in that manner.
Turning the page to the next chapter, Harry knew immediately he was in way over his head. The chapter title read Ancient Projection versus Magical Focuses as a Means to Control Magic. Harry couldn't even figure out what that meant. He sighed and laid the book back down on the table. Perhaps his parents had left some simpler magical books laying around. The other books on the table contained titles such as Blood Magic as a means of Long Term Protection against the Dark Arts, Time’s Bane: Prophecies, and The Lost Druid Rituals. None of those titles seemed to be very simple.
Harry finally found what he was looking for at the end of one of the book shelves - Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1, was the title. The binding was worn as though it had been used quite a bit, and several page corners were folded to mark a place. Going back to the table, Harry began to read.
Reading the book was very difficult, especially for a seven year old boy who had had his first contact with magic the day before. While it explained the basic principals of magic and how it worked, it did so in a way meant for eleven year olds, not someone four years old younger. After having to skip several of the bigger words, Harry decided to try to locate a dictionary, or anything that might be able to help him. Once again, he turned to the shelf, and was able to find Oxford’s Unabridged Dictionary for Magical and Muggle Terms. The book was nearly a foot thick, but surprisingly, was as light as a feather. Harry guessed it was charmed in some manner so that it didn’t weigh a lot.
Returning to the table, he opened the dictionary up to the first term. Locating it, he grabbed a notebook and pen that was laying on the table beside his mother's journal, and began to take down notes.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
That was how he spent the next couple of days: sleeping, taking notes, eating, repeat. He had taken to sleeping in his parents’ bed as it made feel some sort of connection to them. Other than that, however, his only focus was learning this new and wonderful thing called magic. He had finished the grade 1 book after a few days, and moved on to the grade 2 book. As he used the dictionary more and more, he was able to begin to understand some of the words in the more advanced books, although the end meaning was still beyond him.
Harry had been at his new location for exactly a week when he first noticed the foul stench that had began to invade his lovely home. Harry looked everywhere for the source, but was unable to locate it. In fact, it seemed to be following him around! Harry tried the basic revealing charms that he had learned, and even some of the household cleaning charms, but nothing gave him any information about what was causing the odour.
One of the things he had taken the time to do was to set up the anti-rat wards around the house. It was a difficult charm to cast, since it was directed to a specific kind of being, but soon, he felt the house was totally cut off from the vermin and he could relax. While he was at it, he put up the charms against spiders, bees, mice, frogs, and a few other animals.
The only one that he had tried to cast, but found himself unable to do so, was the snake spell, which was something that thoroughly confused him. It seemed to be one of the easier spells to cast from the lot, but it just never worked for him. Harry suspected it might have something to do with the amount of power, because every time he attempted the incantation, there was a sharp pain in his head, and it was difficult to concentrate. Soon he gave up, decided to keep practicing and try it again later.
One day, he thought he glimpsed an old man walking around, looking for something, but the image disappeared as soon as he saw it. The man wore a pointed blue hat, and had a long gray beard, the archetypical image of a wizard; it was an image that would stay in his mind for several years.
Harry woke up the next morning feeling well rested. He was very happy where he was now. There was nothing for him to worry about except learning his magic, and that suited him just fine. There was no more getting up early to cook for his abusive relatives, or chases down alleyways as he tried to escape the bullies-of-the-minute. There was no laying in a cupboard late a night, wishing for something to eat, or waking up to a face full of dust falling from the ceiling over his head. No more fat, yelling Uncles, clean-obsessed hypocrite Aunts or pig-headed-and-bodied stupid cousins. It was quiet, and peaceful.
“Ah, this is the life,” Harry tried to say, but it came out as a raspy croak, and made him begin to cough. As he wheezed, he felt his throat begin to clear, and he realized what had happened. He hadn't spoken out loud for over a week. Not even for his spells, because saying the words out loud felt a bit awkward, and stupid. He didn't need to tell anyone which spell he was going to do. He knew it, and that is all that mattered.
Finally, he quit coughing and tried to speak again.
“Ah la la,” he said, not able to think of any phrase that would fit particularly well. The sound rattled in his throat, tickling it pleasantly, and making him laugh at the stupidity of the randomness of his speech and the reaction his body had to it. The experience did highlight something important he hadn't thought of yet, though. He definitely needed to figure out some way to keep them in shape.
So it came to pass that Harry Potter would spend his time reading to himself aloud, talking to himself all the time, and singing in the shower.
Amazingly, once he began to take showers again, the smell that had been following him around disappeared.
Chapter 3: Chapter 3: New Things, New Friends
Chapter 3 — New Things, New FriendsFriend — n. s. friend. A person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations.
Harry woke up with a yawn the morning of the beginning of his fourth week at his new location. Not that he knew it; time had no meaning to him anymore. What purpose would it serve him? He had no place he needed to be, nowhere to go that really mattered to him. He didn't have any deadlines, school worries, or any number of other time related issues. He simply did what he wanted when he wanted to do them, and he didn’t have to explain it to anybody. He woke up whenever his body felt the need to, and went to sleep when he was feeling tired. He ate a meal when he was hungry. He showered when he felt the need, and he had fun whenever he was bored. The human artificial constructs known as months and days of the week had quickly lost their meaning for the young boy.
That is not to say that his time was not well spent. He had completed his study of the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 book, but it had taken longer than the grade 1 book. The concepts were a little more difficult to grasp, being a more advanced book, and Harry had to skip over some of them. That didn't stop him from taking a copious amount of notes, though.
Harry did receive help every once in a while from the mysterious voice in his head. The old woman seemed to be able to say the exact thing he needed at just the right moment for him to understand the concept he was working on. All inquiries as to her identity were unanswered and met instead with a slight chuckling from the woman.
“So you've not figured it out yet, young one?” the woman had asked him once when Harry had — once again — asked her name. Harry had shaken his head no in answer. The woman explained mysteriously, “My name is unimportant, though you shall discover it when you need it. It is the will of the fates that you do not know yet, and the fates are never wrong.”
The answer had only served to confuse Harry even more, but he decided to try not to think about it. He tried to focus on learning magic, but the task was beginning to wear on him. Sure, it was still exciting, but it was so hard. Kids his age were not meant to learn the things he was doing, and the books reflected that. Luckily, though, the answer came from a completely unexpected source.
Harry was sitting down eating breakfast one morning when his eye caught the door in the corner he hadn't seen before. His curiosity was immediately drawn. How was it that he had been at his new house for so long and yet never noticed the thing sitting in the corner? Perhaps it had been previously hidden by magic? Drawing his 'wand' for protection, Harry made his way down to the door and opened it.
The door opened to reveal stairs leading down to what was apparently the basement, though the area was too dark to tell for certain. Harry willed his wand to begin to glow to illuminate the way, and descended the stairs. At the bottom, his eyes were met with the most interesting sight: several tables with vials of different substances, cauldrons of different sizes, something that looked to be Bunsen burners, and many other things that Harry wasn’t able to recognize. The one thing that was certain was what purpose the room served; it was a potions laboratory. Noticing the torches at different locations in the room, he lit them and began to look around.
The prospect of having his own potions lab was terribly exciting. Harry had read about potions in some of his mother’s old books, but he hadn’t imagined that he would be able to actually make some of them, because he didn’t have the proper equipment. Now that he had this room available to him, he would be able to work to his hearts content, or until he ran out of supplies. He knew he would need to figure out how he would gain needed supplies at some point, but since he still had plenty of food, it wasn’t at the top of his priorities.
Harry walked to the side of one of the tables and began to examine its contents. There were vials and containers with names like ‘Aconite,’ ‘Bubotuber puss,’ ‘Graphorn,’ ‘Moonstone,’ and many, many others which looked to be potion ingredients. Other vials contained substances labelled with names like “Murtlap Essence,” “Pepperup Potion,” and "Skele-Gro." There were also some books strewn about, some notebooks and other things related. Harry’s excitement was growing with every moment. There was so much he could do here, and so much for him to learn. He remembered seeing the chemistry lab at the school once, and wanting to pretend to be a scientist in such a lab. Now he didn’t have to pretend — he would be doing the real thing!
Harry picked up one of the books and tried to find a simple potion that he could try out at once. The sleeping draught that he found seemed to be pretty easy, and he had all of the ingredients needed. Following the directions carefully, he began to slice the ingredients, and began boiling the pot of water that was required. Soon the water was at a rolling boil, and he began to combine the ingredients as the book said, stirring carefully.
Unfortunately, he was not careful enough. As soon as the moonstone was added into the concoction, there was an explosion, and Harry was thrown off of his feet and across the room, temporarily knocked out and with the points of his unruly black hair singed. The cauldron was still throwing thick grey smoke when he came around ten minutes later.
“Hmm,” he mused as he rubbed his head. “Perhaps making potions is going to be slightly trickier than I first thought.”
With a sigh, he gathered up the books and notebooks and cleared an area for him to work and take notes. Looking through the written notes, which appeared to be his mothers, Harry didn’t find anything too helpful right away. The books, though, were a different story. There was one book titled The Complete Guide to Potions Ingredients by Classification and Category, by Nicholas Flamel. It seemed to list every possible ingredient with a long list of alternate names and properties. The book appeared to side reference another: The Complete Guide to Potions, by Nicholas Flamel. Harry couldn’t find that book immediately, but made a note to look for it in the upstairs library when he had a chance.
Harry decided it might be a good idea to try to figure out exactly what had gone wrong with the sleeping draught he had tried to brew. He hadn’t cleaned up the mess yet, so maybe there would be some clues left behind that would help enlighten him.
Harry remembered that the explosion occurred right as he attempted to add the moonstone, so he turned to that page in the book. There entry read like this:
Moonstone: Gemstone known for its emotional power. Usually used in powder form for emotional balance.
Classification: Magato Gem Feelisio Luna
Category: Magical Gemstones
Commonly used in: Sleeping Draughts, Peace Potions, and Counter Love Potions
History: Discovered by Zosimus in 342 A.D. while attempting to energize a Heart Diamond.
Hazards: When adding to potions containing salamander blood, add 1 gram at a time over a period of 30 seconds to avoid explosions.
Harry double checked the recipe he was just trying to create. Sure enough, there was the salamander blood, but there was no mention of the special way to combine the Moonstone. So at least it wasn’t totally his fault.
Harry started turning the pages of the book looking at the other information in a random fashion. It was amazing how simple the book was written; he almost understood everything about it. The only thing that was consistently beyond him was the classifications, but he didn’t think them to be too important at the time being. It was an idea that would make him kick himself later.
Getting hungry after a few hours, Harry went back upstairs to grab some lunch. The fridge was still pretty full of food, which made Harry wonder if there was a charm that kept it that way. He had no way of knowing, though, and it didn’t really matter to him either way. As long as the food was there, he didn’t have to worry about it.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
About a mile away from the big house Harry Potter was living in, at that very instant, a snowy white owl was feeling restless in her small cage. She had been caught only a few days before in the north, where she lived, while she was sleeping, and did not like her new surroundings at all. She kept rattling her cage, hoping to break the door open, but she was unable to because the bars were too strong for her. The steadfast door was probably due to the wizards that had caught her.
She hadn’t really minded wizards in the past; she had even delivered a letter once for an old man that seemed rather kind. That wizard had never tried to put her in a cage, so she liked him. But these wizards were different. They kept on talking about how much money they were going to get for her, and they did not even bother to see if she or one of the other owls had any water. If they had checked, they would’ve seen that the water dish had spilled due to the rocking of the carriage they were riding in.
Suddenly, her chance for escape arrived. The right wheel of the carriage hit a pothole in the ground and sent her cage flying through the air. When it hit the ground, the side split open, allowing the white bird to get away. She took off flying as fast as she could go, evading the red spells the wizards that had caught her were shooting at her.
That was when she spotted a safe haven. There was a place on the ground not too far away that she could see perfectly, but that she knew the wizards would not be able to. The old wizard she had helped before had lived someplace similar, and she knew she would be safe there. She dived and disappeared from outside view.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry was startled out of his lunch when he saw the beautiful white owl land on his window sill. Curious, he walked over and opened it, letting the white ball of feathers into the house. The bird swooped in and headed fast towards the sink, extremely thirsty after such a long time without water. Harry stared at her for a moment while she tried to communicate with him.
“Are you thirsty?” Harry asked, finally figuring out what the bird wanted. He was amazed when the white owl hooted in response!
‘What kind of owl would just fly into a house to get water?’ he asked himself. Shaking the question, he headed over and turned on the tap before filling a small dish with cool water. The owl eagerly began drinking for several minutes. When she was done, she flew over to Harry’s shoulder and hooted a thanks, which Harry seemed to understand.
“You’re welcome,” Harry said to her. The owl nipped at his ear in an affectionate manner.
“Would you like me to show you around?” Harry asked. The owl hooted affirmatively. So it came to pass that Harry had his first conversation with someone other than himself for the first time in a month. In the end, the snow white owl decided that it might be nice to stick around for a while.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
“Did you find anything, professor?”
It had been a month and a half since the incident in the Department of Accidental Magical Reversal. Arthur was adapting well to his new job at the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Department. It didn’t pay as well as his old job, which meant that, even if he would be able to bring enough food for his extensive family, they wouldn’t be able to indulge themselves a whim but once every few years.
Arthur had arrived at Hogwarts for his weekly meeting with the Headmaster. He had asked the same question five times already, and every time the question had been negative. However, this time the answer was different.
“I'm afraid nothing specific right now, but I do have my suspicions, based on certain facts I’ve discovered,” Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry replied.
“So you are making progress?”
“Indeed, I’ve made some progress, though what I have learnt is a bit... troubling.” The headmaster had a grave look on his face as he pondered the problem once more.
“Is it what we feared?” Arthur asked shakily, not wanting to speak the thought that it could be Voldemort himself that was causing the disturbances.
“No, I don't think so.” Dumbledore answered thoughtfully and sli(this word sli is not a word and I am not sure what you are meaning maybe slyly). Seeing the look of curiosity on the red headed man's face, he decided to tell a little more. Perhaps it would be good to bounce his idea off someone else, anyway.
“Arthur, what I'm about to tell you must stay between us and only us,” Dumbledore continued seriously. Arthur Weasley nodded his head in understanding.
“When you first came to me, I immediately left to investigate the location myself. Since Godric's Hollow is still under the Fidelius charm, I was unable to investigate the house itself, but over the next several days, I spent a bit of time looking through the surrounding areas.”
“What about Sirius Black? He was the Potter's secret keeper, wasn't he? Perhaps we could get him out of Azkaban, temporarily of course, and have him let you in,” Arthur interrupted.
“I'm getting to that, Arthur. Having thought of this, and not having another alternative, I visited Mr. Black this morning in prison in an attempt to get him to tell me the secret to gaining access to the location. What I discovered was quite startling. It seems that Mr. Black was not the secret keeper to the Potters after all.”
“WHAT?” The revelation was enough to startle anyone witch or wizard that had been alive at the time. If it had been anyone beside Dumbledore that had told Arthur, he would have declared them a liar immediately.
“I'm afraid it's true. I took a bit of Veritaserum with me to help with the interrogation. As you know, Sirius Black was denied a trial by the Minister. Had they followed procedure with his case, I have no doubt that Sirius Black would be a free man right now.”
“I don't understand. What happened with Pettigrew then?”
“It seems that Peter Pettigrew is still alive somewhere and that he was the Potter's secret keeper. Unfortunately, I do not have the leverage at the moment to free Mr. Black until Pettigrew is found and tried. I did discover something that might help us in our search. It seems that Peter, Mr. Black, and Mr. Potter managed to train themselves as Animagi, without registering themselves, of course. Peter's form was a rat. Unfortunately, this also means that there are thousands of places that Peter could be hiding. Of course, the rat in question would be missing a finger, so that may be helpful.”
Arthur nodded his understanding.
“But alas, we have sidetracked a bit here. Back to Godric's Hollow. As it is still under the Fidelius, we can assume that whoever has taken up residence there was told the secret by Peter before that terrible night. As Remus Lupin, the last of the group of four, was the suspected spy, he was not told the secret. With Sirius Black in prison, it is not possible for him to be at Godric’s Hollow. Had it been Voldemort the one at the house, with the levels of magic that were detected, he would have surely started again with his attacks and Death Eaters would have been seen again, and I doubt that Peter Pettigrew would have been able to display such magical outbursts, because he was always a weak person in magical terms. So that leaves only one person…” The headmaster paused here, not wanting to speak about the only possibility that could fit the role. It was too crazy to even consider, wasn't it?
“Who is that one person?” Arthur was sitting on the edge of his seat, racking his brain to come up with it.
“Harry Potter, of course.”
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry Potter was indeed the one to have taken up residence in Godric's Hollow, the home of his late parents, and now his own. Lately, another being had taken shelter there as well, but this visitor was not human. The snowy white owl that had appeared at the kitchen window one day had swooped in and never left the house and its surroundings.
Harry was enjoying the company of his new friend. He hadn't even practiced magic in several days. Instead, he spent his time playing with the owl. He had remembered a game that he had seen people playing with their dogs in the park once: fetch. It had taken a lot of coaxing out of the dignified bird, but she had eventually given in. The game was to see if she could catch the stick before it would hit the ground. Of course, there were other games to play as well.
It had been Harry's first time to play hide and seek; it was funny that his foe had not been another child, but an avian. The game was really fun for both of them. Of course, the owl had the advantage, as she could fit into places Harry couldn't even see, like a hollow trunk, but Harry could also do things like close doors, and she wouldn't be able to open them. He remembered the first time he did that, and he still cracked up when he remembered it. The crazy bird had seemed to sense him somehow, and nearly pecked a hole in the door trying to get in.
The main problem both of them had was the lack of a real communication between them. However, the owl was so intelligent that she could understand human speech perfectly, and she always knew what Harry was talking about. Whenever Harry asked her a question, she always replied with a hoot, which depending on the tones could mean ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The young boy sometimes failed to distinguish what the owl’s answers meant, but that happened less times as time passed.
“Well, what do you want to do?” Harry asked the bird the evening of Dumbledore's conversation with Arthur and the revelations that the latter was told. He received a nonchalant hoot in reply. He hadn't really thought of naming the bird yet. Names weren't really needed, after all. There was only the two of them there, and although he would talk to himself sometimes, the clever owl always seemed to know when his thoughts were directed towards her.
“How about a game?”
There was a hoot to the affirmative.
“Ok, how about this. I saw a couple people playing this once, and it seemed interesting. One of us thinks of something and the other has to figure it out by asking questions. You have twenty questions to do so.”
There was a hoot that seemed to be a mix between 'yes' and 'how in the world are we going to play that?' Harry ignored it, though, already trying to think of something. Finally he settled on the colour blue.
“Ok, I've got something. Ask your questions,” Harry said to the owl, who just gave him a strange look. Harry realized his mistake: it had been so long since he had been around other humans, and sometimes he just forgot what it was like. It was like a part of him was trying to turn his feathery friend into another child — a human child. He sighed deeply before speaking again. “Ok, you think of something, then.”
There was a moment of silence and then a hoot that Harry interpreted as her being ready.
“Ok, is it blue?” - negative hoot.
“Is it alive?” - negative hoot.
“Can you wear it?” - positive hoot.
“Is it a shirt?” - negative hoot.
“Is it socks?” - negative hoot.
“Do you wear it on your head?” - positive hoot.
“Is it a hat?” - negative hoot.
“Is it glasses?” - negative hoot. Harry frowned trying to think of more questions. He realized he'd created a hole in his thoughts.
“Can you wear it other places on your body?” - positive hoot. Harry paused to consider his thoughts once more.
“Do you wear it on your legs?” - negative hoot. Harry was stumped. He had already used half of his questions, but still had the slightest idea what it was.
“Can you wear it on your shirt?” - the answering hoot sounded sort of like a 'yes,' and an indignant 'why would anyone do such a thing?'
“Is it made of fabric?” - negative hoot. Harry was really stumped now.
“Is it made of metal?” - another negative hoot made Harry's frown deepen even further in concentration. He was really enjoying this. What in the world was the little owl thinking?
“Is it made of wood?” - negative hoot. Harry was grasping at straws. He only had six more questions left.
“Is it made of plastic?” - negative hoot.
“Is it valuable?” - very negative hoot.
“Is it made?” - positive hoot.
“Is it hair?” - negative hoot. Harry wasn't sure hair was that valuable, but he thought he would give it a chance anyway. Only two questions left.
“Is it green?” Harry remembered he had only asked one colour, so he thought he might get some sort of clue here. Surprisingly, the hoot was positive. Harry thought hard to consider his last question. It could be worn, but it wasn't a good idea. It was green. It wasn't valuable. It was made, but not of the normal substances. It was primarily on one's head, probably. In a flash of inspiration, Harry asked his last question.
“Is it a bogey?” There was silence. Then the little owl erupted into a sound that had to be the equivalent of laughter. Harry couldn't help but join in. What a crazy little owl this was.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Arthur Weasley arrived home still thinking very hard about his meeting with the headmaster. The revelations had been a lot to take in: Sirius Black was innocent, Peter Pettigrew was the real culprit of both the murders and the treason, and Harry Potter was the likely candidate for being the one disrupting the Ministry’s sensors. Dumbledore had told him later in the meeting that he had been able to confirm that Harry had left his relatives’ house nearly a month before by unknown means.
Percy Weasley was the first of the Weasley family to greet his father when he saw the man walking through the door. He had been sitting on the floor in the living room playing with his pet rat, Scabbers, which he had found six years ago in the garden and had called him that because it lacked of one of its fingers. Arthur looked down to greet his son, but his gaze focused instead on the small ball of fur in his son's hands.
'Surely it couldn't be,' Mr. Weasley thought to himself. ‘Could it be so easy? Have we been harbouring a murderer for the last several years without knowing it?’ Arthur forced his face into a smile, in order to not make the rat suspicious.
“Hello Percy. How was your day?” He asked, trying to find a good excuse to carefully examine the rat's feet.
“Pretty good, dad. How was yours?”
“Oh, another great day in the department. Muggles are so fascinating,” Arthur replied with a smile. When he looked casually at the rat’s right paw and saw that it lacked from one of his fingers, he nearly gasped in surprise, but stopped himself before anything alerted the Animagus. While thinking about what to do with the rat, an idea struck him. “Hey Percy, have you been listening to the wireless today?”
“Not really, dad. Why?”
“Well it seems they have caught some rats not too far from here that were carrying a strange disease of some sort. It only affects rats, but it is not very harmful, just uncomfortable. I think we should get Scabbers checked out soon, so that we can make sure that he hasn’t caught it,” Arthur said, lying easily. He didn't like it, but if the rat was really Peter Pettigrew, it was a necessary precaution. Percy stood up immediately and practically threw the rat into his father hands.
“We should do that at once! Oh, I hope there isn't anything wrong with Scabbers!”
“No worries son. Why don't I take care of that right away?”
“Sure dad. I'll just go upstairs and grab my coat.”
“No need son. I'll be back in a jiffy.”
With that, Arthur Weasley Apparated away to Hogwarts for the second time that day. This time he had a companion, though.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
As Arthur Weasley appeared outside of Hogsmeade, he conjured a small metallic lock box to keep his rodent company in. After placing the rat in the box, he quickly cast several silencing and locking charms on the box in an attempt to keep the little bugger from knowing exactly what was happening to it.
Inside the box, the rodent in question was slightly confused. Ok, extremely confused and worried. He knew he wasn’t infested with some rodent disease, but he couldn’t exactly pop back into himself and explain that. He just hoped that whatever place he was heading into would not discover his… special circumstances. It didn’t even occur to him that it was all a setup. Surely the Weasley’s weren’t smart enough to figure that out, were they?
Arthur soon found himself waiting outside the Headmaster’s door with the conjured box in his hands.
“Come in Arthur. Back so soon?” Albus Dumbledore greeted his old friend.
“I’m afraid so. I have some good news and some bad news, Professor.”
“Oh, and what is that?” The headmaster’s eyes glittered with curiosity. He couldn’t imagine the extension of the things that were about to be revealed to him.
“I believe I may have located our missing rat.”
“Is that so? I assume that said rat is right now inside your box?”
“Yes, Professor.”
Dumbledore accepted the box as Mr. Weasley offered it and sat it on his desk. After casting several charms he looked up gravely at the red headed man.
“It appears you were correct, Arthur. Where ever did you locate him so quickly?”
“He was living under my very roof,” Arthur explained briefly. It sickened him that a murderer had been sharing his home for the last few years without anyone even suspecting him. “Some time after You-Know-Who disappeared, my son Percival found a rat in the garden, and it had recently lost one of its fingers. He asked us if he could take him in and have him as his pet, and since we were so happy for the end of the war, we let him do so. As you know, he is going to start at Hogwarts next year, and I suppose that Pettigrew reached us so that he could hear any news about You-Know-Who regaining his strength back.”
“I see. Well, from what I can tell, the animal contained in this box is indeed an Animagus. The fact that it’s a rat with a missing digit points that you are correct in your guess.”
Silence settled on the office as both men considered this information. Dumbledore was trying to decide what to do. He had in his possession the secret keeper for the Potters, and someone who may be able to bring some light over the mystery that had been plaguing him for the last several weeks.
Arthur, on the other hand, was facing a much more complicated situation. As an employee of the ministry, he had harboured in his ignorance a man thought to be dead. That same man had committed several murders, and was an accomplice to at least two others, and the attempted murder of a little boy. This said nothing of the fact that the boy in question was the Boy-Who-Lived himself. Throw in the imprisonment of an innocent man without a trial, and the ministry would be in a really big mess. Not to mention his family. There were so many angles to consider that trying to think about them all was making his head spin.
“What I suggest is that we take our little friend to Godric’s Hollow and attempt to gain entry there to find if it is really Harry Potter the one living there. Once that is accomplished, we can turn Pettigrew over to the Ministry, and Mr. Potter will surely be sent to live with Sirius Black,” Dumbledore said, breaking the silence and naming the main concerns that would be solved with this appearance.
“Ok, Professor. I’m a little worried about the mess this is going to cause the Ministry,” Arthur pointed out.
“I realize that, but rest assured that no matter what happens, you have my full support, Arthur. I’ll make sure nobody tries to retaliate on you or your family over this.” Mr. Weasley immediately felt much more comfortable with the situation.
“First let’s see what sort of condition our little ‘friend’ is in, shall we?” Dumbledore said with more than a little twinkle. He carefully lifted the charms that Arthur had placed on the box and opened it, dropping the animal on the floor.
The fat rat inside the box was completely disoriented. He was in a most unexpected place, one that he remembered from his past as a man, when he still had real friends. The rat forced himself to remain calm so that he could hold his rodent form, but, unfortunately for him, in this case he didn’t really have a choice in the matter. It took one blue spell murmured under his breath for Dumbledore to reveal the rat for what and who he was: Peter Pettigrew.
“Well hello, Peter. Fancy seeing you here,” Dumbledore said. Peter just look stunned and didn’t know how to react to the sudden situation. When he finally was able to gain control of himself, he tried to run, but found his feet frozen to the ground, either from fear or another spell from the wizened man standing in front of him; it was probably the former.
“I’m afraid I cannot allow you to move around freely,” Dumbledore said coldly, as ropes appeared out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around the short bald man. Dumbledore took a moment to inspect his work and casted a charm on the ropes. “Ah, very good. These ropes will prevent him from trying to change back into a rat. Now, we have one side trip before our final destination. Please grab hold of this, Arthur.”
Dumbledore was holding out another piece of rope that Arthur assumed he had turned into a Portkey. Grabbing onto it, Dumbledore took hold of Peter and in the next moment, they had disappeared.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry Potter was beginning to get a bit bored. He hadn’t studied his magic in several days now, and even playing with his friend was beginning to wear on him a little bit. He needed to find something to occupy himself with, and he didn’t think it would be found in his current location. He was laying on the sofa, listening to some music and dozing when for the first time in quite a while, the old woman that had spoken to him before made her presence known again.
“Look outside the house,” said the feminine voice. Harry didn’t even question it and headed over to the window. He saw the old, long bearded man he had seen days before, but this time he wasn’t alone. There was a tall redheaded man and a short bald man bound in ropes there with him.
“Who are they?” Harry asked aloud.
“You can figure it out if you think about it,” said the answer in his head. “They want in.”
“Why would they want that?” Harry was confused. One of the men was obviously a prisoner for the others, but why would anyone bring a prisoner to him? The bound man was faintly familiar, though, but Harry couldn’t place him.
“They are looking for you,” The woman explained.
“I don’t want to see them,” Harry said, worried that he might become a prisoner as well. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to be where he was, and anyone found him here, they would take him away. No matter how bored he was, leaving his home was not yet something he was prepared to do. The woman, however, chuckled in response, giving the sense that she knew more about the situation but was holding back.
“Don’t worry; they can’t come in.”
“Why not?” Harry asked, confused. He could see them easily. Why couldn’t they see him?
“You can figure that out on your own, but I will give you a hint. The fat man is the rat that left the foot prints in your fathers study. He thinks he should be able to get in again, but he can’t now. Do you know why?”
Harry was silent as he considered the woman’s question: the man was a rat, which would have been difficult, unless he was an Animagus, a wizard who was able to transform into an animal whose form was determined by the personality traits of the wizard, and some of the animal traits would be trespassed to the wizard. Then, in a flash of insight, he realised which the answer was.
“That ward I put up against rats?”
“Exactly! Quite ingenious really, that such a simple ward prevents him from entering. That question is going to leave them all a bit perplexed in the outside world, but you don’t need to worry about that. The important thing right now is that you get back to you r studies. You have much to learn, and time is always ticking away, little one.” The woman spoke with humour before her voice took on a more serious tambour.
“I’m having a bit of a problem with that,” Harry said, although he was sure that the woman already knew that.
“And what problem is that?” the woman asked, though her voice was stern like that of a grandmother scolding him.
“Most of the texts are too advanced for me — I just don’t understand them,” Harry sighed.
“Well perhaps you just need to get a better book,” was the unexpected answer.
“Which book is that?”
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
While the woman answered him, outside the manor Dumbledore was beginning to get frustrated with Pettigrew. He had been asking the man about Godric’s Hollow for the last ten minutes, but he had not said a thing about it, in spite of the older wizard’s insistence.
“Tell us the secret!” he demanded, losing his normal composition and giving in to his frustrations, some of them that were six years old.
“Look, I’m telling you the charm isn’t the same. It doesn’t work for me any more. I don’t know why you want in, but whoever is in there now has put their own charms up. There is nothing I can do,” Peter explained exasperatedly, cowering from the angry man.
Dumbledore decided to give up trying to get the information voluntarily and entered the man’s mind. He knew the secret to the Fidelius would be beyond his reach, but he could at least confirm the rat’s explanation about the new wards. Dumbledore quickly discovered that the man had been telling the truth and he broke the connection.
“Well, I guess it’s time to head to the Ministry, then,” Dumbledore said, causing the man to stiffen and once again gave a futile attempt to escape. In another moment, however, it didn’t matter as all three had disappeared and reappeared at the main entrance to the ministry of magic.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Back at the house, Harry was relieved to see that the bothersome men had gone and he turned his attention back to what the woman had been telling him.
“So let me get this straight, woman. The book I need was written by Prometheus himself and only has a rumoured existence. If it does exist, it is hidden in a castle in the middle of West Germany under wards that no one has ever been able to even locate, let alone break through. How in the world am I supposed to find such a thing?” Harry asked, wide eyed. In actuality, the woman had used much bigger and more difficult words to describe what it was he needed, but Harry hadn’t understood much of them. He had been able to gather that much, though.
“That is correct, and I have no doubt that you will succeed. I know for a fact that the book exists and that you can easily get to it. You’ll just have to figure out how to do so by yourself, however. Have fun!” With that, the woman’s presence disappeared from his mind and Harry sat down, thinking hard.
The woman had given him one clue to both of his mysteries: start at the beginning. By looking at all the facts surrounding how he got to his current location and also what he did after he got there, he would discover about the men outside and be able to retrieve the book he needed. Harry closed his eyes and concentrated. For the first time since he had arrived, he thought back to the circumstances that had brought him there.
He had been running from his cousin during the meal time. He had taken a wrong turn and was trapped in an ally. What happened next? A few minutes passed as Harry struggled to remember. Then he was successful. He had simply wished to be somewhere safe, although he had done so rather forcefully if his memory was correct. Perhaps all he needed to do to find the book was wish to be at the book’s location?
Harry kept his eyes closed and began to chant: “I wish I was with Prometheus’s book.” Over and over again he repeated it. On his seventh round, he disappeared with a ‘pop.’
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Hermione Jane Granger was having the time of her life. She was with her parents on their annual summer vacation and was currently spending time in West Germany. They had spent the afternoon traipsing around one of the countries’ many castles and soaking in the rich history of the place. The day, however, was to contain something that would bother Hermione for the next several years, something that she would never guess would be explained in a few years when something she had never thought about happened.
The Granger family was with a group of other tourists about to leave a room. This was not strange at all, and everything was perfectly fine. Suddenly, however, Hermione heard a crack and a door appeared one of the walls where there hadn’t been one a moment ago.
Hermione shook her head to clear it. That couldn’t have just happened. She obviously just hadn’t noticed it the first time she had looked around the room. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she made her way over to the door an opened it. The room on the other side was pretty large, but what caught her attention was the table in the middle with a large book sitting on it. When a boy who was standing up beside the table grabbed the book, she gasped out loud, drawing his attention to her.
“Hermione, what are you doing?” Her father walked up behind her, startling her and making her turn around.
“Hi daddy, I was just looking at this room. There is a boy in here, and I don’t think he is supposed to be here,” Hermione said. Her dad arrived at the door, and peered into the room.
“What are you talking about, Hermione?” he asked confused. There wasn’t anyone in the room that he could see.
“What?” Hermione asked, whipping around. Sure enough, the boy that she had seen was gone. How had he done that? “I know there was someone there, Dad.”
“Perhaps you’re just getting tired, Hermione. Let me get your mom, and we’ll head back to the hotel to rest, ok dear?” her father asked with a concerned look. Hermione sighed, knowing that it was better to agree than to attempt to argue with him. Soon the Grangers were headed back to their hotel and away from the strange room and the strange boy. Hermione thought both things were in her past; She had no way of knowing that the boy would be entering her life once again in a few years, and that a few years after that, she would be back in the summer, spending much time in the very room she had just left.
Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Ten Days That Shook The (Magical) World
Author's Notes: Sorry about the HUGE delay! It's been too much time, I know, but when you are very busy it's rather difficult to get some free time to sit in front of the computer and write, especially when you are affected by writer's block. I REALLY hope that you like this chapter!
Chapter 4 — Ten Days That Shook The (Magical) World
Freedom, n. s. freedom: The condition of being free; the power to act, speak or think without externally imposed restraints.
The commotion created by the arrival by Dumbledore and his two companions at the British Ministry of Magic would be memorable for many years to come. The sudden appearance was felt more than observed as the power radiating off the wizened headmaster grew suddenly in a raw display of magic. Dumbledore knew he would need every ounce of perception his display of raw magic would create in order to accomplish what he needed from this trip: the freedom of Sirius Black.
Bypassing the required wand weighing, Dumbledore practically dragged his hostage into Minister Fudge’s office, slamming the door open with a wave of his hand and throwing his prisoner to the floor.
“Do you know who this man is?” Dumbledore bellowed loudly as he entered, the power he contained could be felt through his voice.
“Dumbledore? What’s the meaning of this?” Cornelius Fudge, the current minister of magic asked angrily. He had been in the middle of an important meeting with Lucius Malfoy, one of his closest advisors, only to have the current most powerful wizard in the land burst into his office asking silly questions. Of course, he would just have to reign the old man in. Cornelius Fudge was the Minister of Magic, after all.
“Do you know who this is?” Dumbledore repeated himself, louder this time. Cornelius Fudge flinched and found him self trembling slightly. Thoughts of ‘putting the old man in place’ disappeared from his mind.
“What are you going on about, Dumbledore?” Lucius asked with more than a little hesitation. He had instantly recognized the man that Dumbledore had brought in, the man who had directed his Lord to destruction and whom he wanted to squash like the rat he was, though he couldn’t very well give away the fact that they had met previously. Dumbledore ignored his inquiry, however and remained focused on Fudge.
“Get Amelia Bones up here immediately,” Dumbledore ordered. Amelia Bones had been elected as the Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department after the debacle with Bartemius Crouch Jr., who had been caught torturing the Longbottoms with Rodolphus, Rabastan and Bellatrix Lestrange.
“Bones? Why do we need her?” Fudge managed to stutter out. Arthur Weasley came into the room, finally catching up to his friend. He was amazed at how quick Dumbledore could move, when needed.
“Arthur, please go fetch Amelia,” Dumbledore asked the tall redheaded man, who turned immediately to go do just that.
“Once again, Professor Dumbledore: What’s all this about?” Fudge asked, beginning to gain a little confidence back.
“It has been brought to my attention that a grave mistake has been made by the Ministry of Magic. If my suspicions are correct, that is,” Dumbledore said, not giving away the fact that he already knew of the truth. There was a moment of silence until Amelia Bones, director of the British Magical Law Enforcement strode into the room.
“Ah, Director Bones, it’s very nice to see you again,” Dumbledore said in a very nice voice. Fudge wondered where the display of power the old wizard had shown a few minutes ago had gone.
“Professor Dumbledore, it’s been too long,” Amelia Bones answered with a smile.
“I only wish it was under better circumstance, Amelia,” Dumbledore explained.
“What circumstances is this?” A confused look appeared on the Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department’s face.
“This man is Peter Pettigrew,” Dumbledore said simply, noticing the fact that Lucius Malfoy had slowly made his way out of the office and disappeared. That worked in the headmaster’s favour, as the minister quickly found himself without an ally in the room.
“This is preposterous, Albus! Peter Pettigrew is dead!” Cornelius Fudge exploded while his mind raced. What was going on? Was this the end of his political career?
“You have to admit, Professor, that the claim is rather… interesting,” Amelia offered diplomatically.
“Luckily, we have a simply way of discovering the truth,” the headmaster said with a twinkle in his eye. “Would you please, director?”
Amelia nodded her head and called for an Auror to bring some Veritaserum. It turned out to be another friend of Dumbledore’s who appeared with it: Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody.
“Good day, Albus!” The weathered man with a missing (natural) eye said when he recognized his friend. Then he turned to the woman that had summoned him. “What’s this all about, Director?”
“We have a prisoner to interrogate, Alastor,” Amelia explained, gesturing towards the bald fat man secured behind Dumbledore. Moody’s eyes brightened in prospect. Interrogations were almost as fun as captures.
“Let’s get to it then,” he said, pulling out the vial. Peter Pettigrew was pushed into a chair, and administered the potion.
“What is your name?” Moody said while is eye swirled around intimidatingly. Fudge had quieted down by now, accepting that there was no way to stop what was happening.
“Peter Pettigrew,” the prisoner replied. Amelia and Arthur gasped at the same time — Amelia because she realized the repercussions for the first time; Arthur because he was reminded of them.
The Wizarding world changed radically that day. After the questioning, the whole Auror Corps was immediately dispatched to begin righting many of the wrongs that had come to pass years ago, with the defeat of Lord Voldemort by Harry Potter. First thing, Sirius Black, who had been accused of killing Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggles — having being framed by his former friend —, was released from prison. That was a really big thing, but not the biggest. One by one, the heads of some of the oldest families in the Wizarding world were brought in for questioning — under Veritaserum. One by one they were sent to prison. Sometimes their wives, children, and other family members were sent too. Lucius Malfoy was the first to fall — in spite of Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge attempt to stop it. People with the last name Avery, Borgin, Bulstrode, Parkinson, Nott, Carrow, soon followed, with more after that.
Cornelius Fudge lasted two more days as Minister for Magic and was the victim of the quickest vote of no confidence in the history of the Ministry: all the corruption that had been the main mark of his position was the main instrument of his downfall, and his defence of the Malfoys, the greatest contributors of his political career, had been the edging. Amelia Bones, Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department, one of the few Department Heads who was not implicated in any of the wrongdoings that started all the mess, became the first woman Minister for Magic in centuries and began to clean house. Bureaucrats were given pink slips and people who could get things done were put in their place. Many unsavoury characters that had been given jobs in the Ministry thanks to their connections to Cornelius Fudge were summarily kicked out of their jobs. One of the most impressing situations was that of Dolores Umbridge, Undersecretary to the Minister, who was caught with all sort of dark objects that had been forbidden for more than four hundred years, including things like Blood Quills — only allowed for use at Gringotts Bank and in certain situations in the Ministry, none of those related to Umbridge — and other artefacts that were mainly created for the harming of others: in the accumulation of penal sentences, she would need to be a cat with its nine lives (and wizard-length sort of lives) to finish the whole sentence. On more than one occasion, the position simply was not filled and erased from the roster of the Ministry.
All because a little black-haired boy thought that he could do magic with a stick.
The boy in question was currently standing back in his library holding an old leather bound book in his hand. The book was perhaps the most valuable book in the entire existence of the world — it was definitely the oldest that existed. The book was none other than the personal journal of the last known living ancient — Prometheus.
Harry slowly opened the book and became the first human in several thousand years to glance upon its contents. Unfortunately, he soon discovered that was all he could do: look at the words; they were written in another language. Harry didn’t know which language it was; it didn’t matter. He was having a hard enough time learning the English he needed.
“Well, what does it say?” the old woman asked him curiously, once again invading his mind.
“I don’t know. It’s in another language,” Harry said.
“Well, surely you know what do to about that?”
Harry didn’t answer but merely scowled slightly. There was something, however, that seemed to stick out in his mind. Hadn’t there been a translation charm that he had read about? How did it work? Would it even work for him?
“Ah, so now you know what you need to do,” the woman chuckled.
“How do I even know if this is going to work? Won’t it just translate the book into more words I can’t understand? How is this going to help me?” Harry fired all the questions out quickly and didn’t expect an answer. He received one, anyway, though.
“You control the magic you use, don’t you?”
The question was simple, but it stopped Harry in his tracks. It was true — he did control it. What did that mean, however? Would he be able to force the translation into using words he understood?
Harry quickly fetched the book he had seen the charm in. The incantation and wand movement was simple, the spell should be easy to cast. Harry took a deep breath before trying it for the first time.
In retrospect, Harry would realize that it probably hadn’t been a very good idea to try out a spell for the first time on the oldest book in the world. As soon as the spell hit the book, it had begun to shake. If Harry had been touching it, he would have had to drop it, for it was quickly getting hotter and hotter. It began to smoke. Harry quickly broke the spell and cast a cooling charm. The book however continued to shake, and the smoke continued to roll. Harry closed his eyes and concentrated on pouring all of his power into the simple cooling spell. A flame burst from the book, and Harry was panicking. What was he going to do?
As suddenly as it had started, it all stopped. There was something different, though. There were now two books; the original lay apparently undamaged next to another, newer book, also in perfect condition. Harry cautiously picked up the original and opened it. He was relieved to see that all the text was still there, thought it was still unreadable. The new book, however, turned out to be just what Harry was looking for. The book, while still handwritten, had text that was clearly readable English.
The first entry read:
13 Ferdez 3042
I have started this journal because my friend Ebanyd suggested it would help with my studies. They let me into the school finally, so I can begin learning the ways of magic, like my brother. I’m very excited about it. See you later.
The text was definitely simple enough, but Harry was hoping to find something related to magic. Quickly scanning the next couple entries, Harry continued reading with the fourth entry.
20 Ferdez 3042
Magic is a wonderful thing. I performed my first spell today! It was a levitation spell. My parents are extremely proud of me and they even let me pick out dinner! I can’t wait until tomorrow so that I can learn some more.
Harry frowned. There still hadn’t been anything helpful there, though he was comforted by the fact that the first spell he had done was the same as Prometheus. Harry turned a random number of pages and began reading again.
9 Bogho 3042
Today I brewed my first potion successfully. It was difficult considering the teacher is a real git, but Ebanyd helped me, and I did it. Ebanyd said something about classifications, but I didn’t really understand what she meant, though. Perhaps I should look into that some more.
This jogged Harry’s memory back to his own first experience with potions in the potions lab under his feet: it had ended in disaster, but perhaps he should try that some more. He still needed to try to find the book that the ingredients book kept referencing. Hopefully it was in the library somewhere, or he didn’t know what he would do.
Shaking his head, Harry returned his attention back to the journal. He was now hooked, began reading page after page very quickly. Time seemed to lose it’s meaning to him once more as he spent the whole night in his chair, reading away.
Harry spent the next couple days reading the journal. He was absorbed by its interesting story and by the lots of things Prometheus learnt while he worked at his school: Harry learnt many things about some potions and charms which the Ancient wrote about carefully in the book, but the main importance of the book for him was providing a role model and someone that, although couldn’t talk with him, could teach him many things.
A question nagged at the back of his mind: why could the journal of the last remaining wizard of the greatest Wizarding society ever be able to be read by a seven year old, and even a seven year old that had learnt of the magical world hardly a few months ago? He decided that it would probably be a good question for the woman, if she ever showed up again. She had been absolutely quiet in his head while he read, probably doing the same as him, but Harry did not say anything to her, because now he was learning in a very nice way.
The second night after finding Prometheus’ journal, Harry realised that writing your own journal had many advantages for you: you could use it to write your progress with the things you did, and then if you needed to look at something, you could just read what you wrote and you had it there.
Harry found a blank notebook in the library and sat down in one of the tables, opening the notebook on its first page. For a few minutes, Harry thought if he should put the date at the first part, the same as Prometheus had done in his book, but decided against it: he wasn’t able to measure time like the other wizard, and besides he didn’t care a lot about what day he was in. He would just adjust it when he went to Hogwarts. Then, Harry took a quill and started to write.
First Entry
My name is Harry Potter and this is my journal. A few months ago I was transported to this place by something called magic. I am seven years old. For the first seven years of my life, I didn’t know that magic existed, but now I know that it does. In the time I’ve been here so far, I’ve been learning how to use magic, and it is really fun.
Recently, I discovered the journal of an old wizard named Prometheus. He wrote about learning magic himself, and I’m following in his footsteps...
Harry went on to describe everything that had happened so far during his stay, talking about his parents, his mothers journal, cleaning and repairing the house, the strange men outside, his avian friend, the potions experiment that exploded and all his other adventures. When he had finished, it was time to eat, and after cleaning up, he climbed into his parent’s bed and fell into a fitful sleep.
Entry 2
I do not know what day it is, really, but I know it’s been a couple days since I wrote last. I’m still learning a lot about magic, and I’ve found that as I write more, my vocabulary gets better as well. I have to use my mother’s dictionary less and less, as the words and meanings are beginning to fall into place. The owl has been most curious lately, spending most of her time looking over my shoulder or going out hunting. I think I need to find a name for her.
I made my second potion today, and this time things went a lot better. I completed a potion that would turn my hair bright green. It’s pretty useless, but it was really easy to make, and I look funny in the mirror. Tomorrow, I’ll begin looking into more complicated potions. When I’m working, it feels like I’m one of those scientists, and even better, I’m really doing things!
Entry 3
Math sucks. I’ve started rotating my studies so that I learn a little bit of everything, as that is what Prometheus is doing through his journal, “a well rounded education” he called it. He started on this thing called “Arithmancy” and it’s all about math and numbers. I don’t understand any of it yet, but I can see that there is a pattern, and I’m determined to find it.
I’ve also noticed something interesting about Prometheus’s journal. He never mentions using a wand at all. I think this means that he really was an Ancient and didn’t need a wand like I do. Well, maybe if I continue studying like he did, one day I won’t need a wand either. I’m learning as fast as I can.
In other news, I named my owl today. Well, actually, she chose her name. When I asked her if she wanted to have a name, she flew over to a history book, grabbed it, and began flipping the pages with her beak until she found a name that she pointed. I swear she’s a very smart bird. She wants to be called Hedwig, so that is what I shall call her.
Entry 4
I made a huge discovery today! There is a connection between these numbers and some of the potions I’m working on! It was a complete accident how I discovered it: Hedwig was sitting on my shoulder as usual and suddenly she flew in a fit of some sort. The papers I was working with went flying everywhere, and as I was picking them up, some of my Arithmancy notes landed on top of a book which turned out to be the Flamel potions book, which was opened at the moment. I could see a connection! Once I figure out exactly what relates those two, I can really start doing some exciting things. Right now, it looks like I can build my own potions once I figure out their properties and everything. Got to go back to work now. This is amazing!
Entry 5
Funny thing happened today. I was eating lunch and I burped. At the exact same moment, the whole house shook. I don’t know if it was connected or not, but it sure was funny. I’m glad my dumb aunt wasn’t around or I would have been scrubbing floor with a toothbrush. I don’t miss them one bit. The fun continues here.
Entry 6
The old bearded man was back outside today, with someone I’ve never seen before, or at least I don’t think I’ve seen him before, but he stills makes me remind something, because he looks a little familiar. The old man just sat on a chair he made with magic, while the younger paced back and forth and seeming stared at the house. I don’t know what they’re doing, but I just mainly ignored them. My work here is too exciting!
It turns out Flamel really was a genius when it comes to potions. His reference book is amazing in detail and just what I need to begin building equations and experimenting. I’ve started to create a table of different ingredients, based on the classification of the ingredients and on the inner magic of each ingredient. So far, I’m not having any success, but I hope that soon I’ll find the pattern.
Prometheus’s journal has stopped being useful. It seems that while he was in school he stopped writing for a while, and his next entry is after his graduation and the beginning of his business. That’s ok. I know enough now to continue on my own, and anyway I wasn’t interested on that right now.
Outside the house, Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore waited, hoping for any sign of life. It had been ten days since Sirius had been freed, ten really mad days since Arthur Weasley had found Peter Pettigrew living in his home, and ten days that had changed the whole magical world as they knew it. The first thing Sirius had done after being officially released and cleared of all charges was to go to Dumbledore and ask him where Harry was now, and he had gone a bit mad when he was told that Harry had disappeared from the Dursleys two months before, and although he knew where Harry was living, it was different from finding him. At least, Sirius had been able to secure whole guardianship for his godson, as well as a flat in which he would live until Harry was with him: then, he would live where Harry wished to, either at Godric’s Hollow or in other house.
“Surely he would have noticed us by now, Professor,” Sirius said for about the fiftieth time.
“Patience, Sirius. If Harry is indeed in there, he will come out when he is ready. I don’t expect to have to wait too long. For now, we’ll just have to sit here.”
Sirius took a long glance at Dumbledore sitting seemingly easily on the ground and shook his head. A swish of his wand later, there was a nice recliner waiting for him. He sat and waited.
“Professor, it's been a week, and there is still no sign of Harry coming out,” Sirius Black was sitting back the recliner he had conjured and was sipping a butter beer. Beside the recliner was a small hut that Sirius had transfigured to sleep in. “Are you sure that he is in there?”
“Patience, Sirius. I'm sure that he is in there,” came the reply. It was the same reply to the same question that had been asked way too many times in the last seven days. The wizened old man had exercised the difficult art of patience much lately. The Headmaster of Hogwarts was now sitting behind a desk tending to the paperwork of his station. He had moved his desk there after the second day of waiting and built his own hut for the night-time behind him. Currently there were owls flying in and out almost every minute tending to the different tasks Dumbledore set them on.
Sirius took another sip and decided to wait more to see his godson. If Dumbledore was right, why wouldn't Harry come out?
Inside the Potter home, Harry was in fact looking back at the two men, genuinely intrigued. They must really want to see him if they were so persistent. But would they take him away? He didn't want to risk that. The owls flying in and out intrigued him as well. Was that how wizards communicated? Harry looked over to Hedwig contemplatively for a moment. Perhaps Hedwig would carry them a message from him, if he asked her to. What that message might be, he didn't know, but it held little risk, Harry thought. Meanwhile, he had much work to do.
The work on his potions chart was progressing well as he learned more math and discovered more patterns.
Entry 7
The two men are still outside. None of them seem to be prepared to go: I’m sure they must be waiting for me to go out.
I've finally got all the potions ingredients I could find about listed in order of magical power. Several patterns have emerged that have puzzled me, however. It seems that many of the ingredients near each other in the list have similar properties, much like in Muggle chemistry. I ran an experiment, that, although it could have gone really wrong, worked like a charm: I started to make a fairly easy potion — a boil healing potion — in which I changed one ingredient by other that had similar properties, and the potion ended just like if I had used the normal recipe. Right now, I'm trying to isolate the different components of some ingredients and see what I can come up with.
Entry 8
I've successfully created a potion with partial ingredients! It was a tough process, and I'm still learning how to do it, but by applying different systems, I can separate the ingredients into smaller components that are either effective or not. I've started a new chart / journal recording these new substances. I don't know what to call them, so I'm just assigning them a number like “a1” for now. It works, and I understand. Work continues.
Entry 9
NEVER apply heat to substance u5, especially if it’s in contact with substance h8. I better record this in several locations. The results, while spectacular, are also quite destructive: it nearly blew up the whole lab, but a containing charm kept the explosion inside the cauldron. It melted completely, but at least I know how to make a new one from the rests of the old cauldron.
Entry 10
It's been a while since I last wrote, and much has happened. It appears that the men outside have left, but it is also possible that they have merely hidden themselves. I was just about to send Hedwig out, too, but they are no more. Well, that's on less worry.
I've completed breaking down all the potion ingredients into their base substances. At first it was taking a long time to do each one by hand, but then I figured out that there is a basic system to it, and I made a machine to do it for me. Building the machine was really fun. I'm still tweaking it, making it do more and more.
Right now, I can put an ingredient on it, and it will attempt to break it down into small substances. If it's successful, then it checks a record of all the substances discovered so far and makes a note of it, or creates a new entry with all of its properties. I'm hoping to add more to the machine as I go along.
I made the machine as I went, conjuring or transfiguring the objects I needed. Getting a power source was tricky as normal electricity doesn't seem to work with magic that well. Actually it doesn't work with magic at all.
Now it does!
It was such a simple thing, once I figured it out. All I had to do was create a sort of interface for the two to 'talk' to each other. I started out trying all sorts of random things, before I realized I was going about it the wrong way. A simple look at the potions table showed me exactly what I needed. B42 now has a proper name: Liquid Lightening. It worked like a charm. NOTE: never let Liquid Lightening come in direct contact with your skin. The contact is very... electrifying.
Sometimes I crack myself up. Hedwig didn't find that joke funny at all. She wasn't even the one that experienced the truly shocking event.
I've had to start another journal recording all of my progress with the machine and getting electricity and magic to work together. The paperwork is actually getting to be quite large for all of this. I wish I had something easier to deal with than writing so many things. If only I had a computer like Vernon’s… Hey! That’s a good idea.
The idea that entered Harry's mind at that moment would eventually change the world. It was so outrageous to the magical person and impossible to the non-magical person, that no one had ever even attempted to build one. Harry, of course, didn't know any of this. He just chugged along, working on his idea. It took him two months to build, and another month after that working out all the kinks. In the end though, he had done it. He had built the first magical computer.
The interface was simple. He could record data through a keyboard, or any pluggable piece of equipment he built, including his potion ingredient reducer. Then he could display the data, or manipulate it in all sorts of interesting ways. It was a machine of endless potential, and its use would only allow him to work faster.
One of the first things he did was charm a round stone to record his voice. The programming for that was pretty simple with the help of magic. Then he built a scanner to scan in all of his notes. It turned out that it just took way too long. He wanted to progress, not take time putting notes into a computer. So he built a device that would do the scanning for him. Once all of his notes were entered, he decided not to stop there, and put in Prometheus's journal as well. Then his mothers’. Then the Flamel potions’ book. Soon, the entire library had made its way into the computer. It was categorized and numbered, and Harry was set to learn some more.
Chapter 5: Chapter 5: The MagMachine: A Door To The World Of Tomorrow
Chapter 5 — The MagMachine: A Door To The World Of TomorrowMachine, n. s. machine: any mechanical or electrical device that transmits or modifies energy to perform or assist in the performance of human tasks.
Entry 11
This is my first entry on the MagMachine, as I’ve dubbed it. This has been my most exciting project to yet, and also the most productive. The possibilities this machine gives me are nearly endless. I’m working on writing an Arithmancy program on it, but the math is giving me a hard time. I’ve gone through nearly all the books I have on the subject, but something seems to be missing. All the math was simple — really simple. There seems to be more elegant ways of doing things, but the math isn’t there yet. I’m working on it, though, and soon hope to see some progress.
In my potions related work, I’ve completed breaking down all the ingredients on hand into 250 basic substances. I’ve designed a table describing all of these, with their properties and magical power, and am very pleased with the results. There are so many patterns present, that with the proper time and ideas, I will be able to do practically anything I wish to do. I also need to get a hold of other magical ingredients and see if there are more substances that I haven’t been able to reach. I have a feeling that there are many more things to be discovered from this, but I’ve been splitting my time pretty evenly between this and the MagMachine. I’m not learning any new spells or charms, right now, but when I study enough Arithmancy, I’ll be able to build any spell I wish. If the math is easy enough, I might even be able to do it in my head!
Entry 12
I made a little breakthrough today, and it’s recorded in my math journal. I worked out the patterns of certain spells and tried graphing them on a flat graph. It wouldn’t work. There was too much information and too many ways for the spell to go. Once I got the programming right on the computer, though, I was able to map it on a graph-like object. I say graph-like, because the graph needed to be in five dimensions! I didn’t even know that was possible, because I can’t see a real way to show a graph like that one, but I may be able to make the calculations needed for that. I think that a trip to the library is on the ‘to do’ list.
One of the librarians at the Central Library of London was surprised one day to see a little boy appear suddenly in the middle of the stacks. It must have been a trick of the light, he thought, shaking his head. Anyway, it was surprising to see a young boy in the library in a voluntary way, especially when they were in the start of summer holidays and all kids were outside, having fun with their friends after the school had finished. And talking about school, the young boy was looking at books that were way too complex for kids his age (which he could calculate as eight or nine), but maybe he was searching a book for an older brother or sister, so he stopped paying attention and returned to his watch.
Harry was wide eyed at all the books he was looking at. He didn’t know where to even start, so he just started pulling out books at random and looking through them to see if he understood them. The first one was about algebra, which he knew about thanks to the simple Arithmancy equations he had learned to resolve the year before. Other book talked about calculus, which he added to the stack because it was something that would come perfectly when he started with the most complex things in Arithmancy. He also took Philosophi Naturalis Principia Matemathica by Isaac Newton, which had an explanation of calculus and applied it to his Laws of Motion. Finally, Harry took a few books on Einstein, whom he had heard about being a brilliant physicist and some books on chemistry.
The librarian was at the counter when the boy wobbled up carrying a good stack of books nearly as tall as the boy himself.
“I’d like to check these out,” the boy said simply. The librarian gave him a suspicious look.
“Do you have a library card?”
“Er, no. Can I get one?” Harry asked quickly. He hadn’t thought of that.
“You will need one of your parents here in order to get one,” the librarian said sternly. Librarians are sometimes like that.
“I don’t have any parents,” Harry answered sadly. The librarian softened. The boy was probably from an orphanage. The librarian decided it might be ok to break a few rules.
“I’m sorry. Just fill out this form and we can get you one,” The librarian said, handing over a piece of paper and a pencil. Harry took it over to a table and sat down.
Name: Harry Potter
Address: A White House in the Forest
Harry wasn’t sure what else to write, so he just wrote the first thing that came to mind.
Phone: none, but I have a white owl.
The form was completed in a few seconds and Harry took it back to the librarian, hoping that he had done it well enough. The librarian frowned when he read the answers to the questions, but decided the boy might not really know what to write — especially if he was from an orphanage. Leniency could be shown this time. The boy would probably quickly grow tired of the books, and there were a limited number of orphanages around in case the boy forgot to bring them back.
“You realize you need to bring these back within two weeks, right?” the Librarian asked Harry as he began to check the books out. Harry nodded, not really listening. Soon all seven books were completed and Harry picked them up. A second later he vanished. The librarian stood there astonished, but played it down to a trick of the light again. There was simply no other explanation.
As soon as Harry got back, he began feeding the books into the MagMachine. Once that was done, the books were set to the side and forgotten while Harry sat down to read.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
At Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Albus Dumbledore was getting into the flow of things with the start of a new school year. The summer had proved frustrating for him since the disappearance of Harry Potter and the subsequent shake-up of the entire magical government. At least things would be easier politically now that Fudge and many of the pureblood families had lost their standing. Without Lucius Malfoy on the Hogwarts board of governors, running Hogwarts would be a lot easier as well. Even with all these positive things happening, though, Albus Dumbledore was still greatly troubled. Harry Potter, the-boy-who-lived, was still missing.
Down a couple floors, down the north hall, and three doors to the right, Sirius Black, Defence against the Dark Arts Professor, was feeling much the same.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Entry 13
It’s all about the limits, stupid! Ok, now I’m starting to get a little bit of a grasp on multidimensional mathematics. Einstein had a bit to say about it, but he messed up a bit. He thought there were only four dimensions, but I accidentally discovered another one — Magic. I’m not sure if the magical world realizes this or not, but I don’t care. This stuff is really exciting, and at the rate I’m progressing, surely I can catch up with anything they’ve theorized about out there.
Ok, back to math. As it turns out Calculus was just what I needed. Once I get a handle on it (it’s all about limits), I think I can start working on my 5-dimensional mathematics. My Arithmancy books are useless at this point; I’ve learnt everything written on them. They seem so basic, but seem to be written for adults. I wonder why that is, but it doesn’t seem important.
I’ve also been thinking about what I want to do with my life. Prometheus started his own business and I’m thinking I might do the same. I have tons of ideas for different products and services, the MagMachine between them. The one thing that concerns me is this “destiny” that my mother wrote about.
From what I understand, on my eleventh birthday, I’ll be expected to begin attending a magical school, and Albus Dumbledore is the current headmaster. I got that from a book called Hogwarts, a History, but I don’t know if it’s updated or not. My plan is to keep studying until then, and once I receive my notice to attend school, I contact this man and find out what this destiny is all about. I hope it won’t interfere too much with my plans, and I don’t think it will. Right now I feel like I can do anything I put my mind to.
The old woman that had been giving me advice has been quiet for a long time now. I think she is still around, though, watching me. I don’t mind. She pushed me when I needed pushing, and now things are going really well.
Well, it seems like I’ve talked enough for one day, so it’s back to work!
Entry 14
Einstein was a genius; it is a pity that he wasn’t a wizard, because many of his theories would have worked out if he had an idea of the magical world. He was right about a lot of things, but the magical dimension has changed a lot of his theory: it resolves the theories he couldn’t demonstrate and it improves those he could. The math has completely changed, and I’ve combined his theories with something called “String Theory.” It’s really quite amazing how everything clicks together with this fifth dimension.
The interesting question that has been nagging at the back of my mind now for quite a while is why isn’t everyone magical? It’s obviously got to be something genetic, so once I get the physics worked out; it looks like I’m going to be taking up biology.
Good thing I’ve got the MagMachine or it would be tough to keep all of this straight.
Somewhere in the fifth dimension, a form floated freely observing the little boy recording his thoughts. He had been right about her, she was watching him, and watching him very closely. He had so much potential and he was actually using it! There was absolutely nothing holding him back, and when he re-entered the world, it would change everything.
Heck, his disappearance alone caused a complete power shift in the British Ministry of Magic.
Looking into the grey hazed future, the woman smiled. Things were definitely going to be exciting.
The woman, the Lady of Magic, was brought out of her thoughts by a passing darkness. It reminded her that the road would be difficult, but Harry would be able to walk it with confidence.
Entry 14
I’m starting to get frustrated. The answer to the problem I’ve been working on is between the things I know, but I can’t find which the exact answer is. I’ve got the math figured out, but what I’ve not figured out is how the fifth dimension exactly interacts with the others (three-dimensional space and time).
Here is what I have so far:
1. The fifth dimension is the magical dimension.
2. When magic is used, there is a vibration along a plane in the fifth dimension.
3. The Frequency of the vibration along with slope and location determine the effects of the magic
4. While magic is being used, there is a reaction through the first four dimensions as well, usually as some form of light.
5. Light is photons and a wave at the same time (wave-particle duality).
6. Magic can occur naturally through nature, or be controlled through some humans.
7. Everything has some sort of presence in the fifth dimension, otherwise magic would not be able to affect us.
8. Most people (Muggles) can only sense and observe the first four dimensions.
9. Some people (Wizards) can interact with the fifth dimension.
The question is, how do the dimensions interact? Is through some sort of ‘spatial fabric,’ like Einstein theorized? I might go with that for now. I need to think some more.
Entry 15
I’m going to call today my birthday. I have no idea if it is or not, but I’ve been here a while. It’s not like it really matters. For all intents and purposes, I hereby call myself an eight-year old.
I’ve made no progress on the fifth dimension problem.
Entry 16
Well, I have decided to park the problem for a bit. Maybe I will be able to solve it when I stop feeling frustrated with it. I’ve decided to concentrate on something that I read about on Mum’s journal.
It seems that Dad and his friends (save Remus Lupin) decided to turn them into Animagi, which is the ability of turning yourself into an animal. You can’t choose which animal you can turn into: the animal is a representation of your own personality and traits.
It’s a pity that she didn’t say how they managed to make the transformations, but she mentions that there is a potion that allows you to have a dream with your totem, which is the representation of your animal form. I just hope that I have a cool form!
Entry 17 (or 18)
What a mess! I was re-reading all the entries on this journal and I realised that I had written an entry 14 twice. Now, I don’t know if I should change all the numbers or keep it as before. It’ll be a work for other day.
In other order of things, I found the potion Mum talked about. It is very difficult, and you need to work for a month on it, but I think I have found a way to simplify the process: when I looked at my table for the substances that made each of the ingredients, I found that one of them, substance t3, tripled the time the potion needed to simmer, but it didn’t really do anything to the potion; and the p8 just gave the potion a horrible taste (why do nearly all the interesting potions taste bad?). I believe that if I make the potion without the unnecessary substances, I’ll have it in two weeks.
I’ll be back soon: my animal waits me!
Entry 19
I finally decided to just go on with the numbers as they should have been. At least I won’t be confused anymore with this.
The Animagus Potion is currently simmering in the bronze cauldron at the laboratory. I compared the colour of the potion with the one in the book, and it has a different colour than the one in the book. I had another look at the table and I saw that the normal colour was caused by the reaction of t3 and p8 with e0, and this colour is normal. I’ll just have to wait a few days to know which my totem is!
Hedwig has been going in and out of the house with a great frequency, too much for just hunting. I think that she must have found a boyfriend or something.
Ouch! I swear she is too much intelligent for her own good. She just arrived and gave me a huge peck when I said that thing about a boyfriend. She isn’t a normal owl: I’d bet she was a witch in a past life, a very evil witch. Ouch! Will you stop doing that?
Anyway, while Hedwig stops with her abuse of my person, I’ll try to find a book about animals, so that I can recognise it when I look at it.
Entry 20
I am officially completely confused.
The potion worked, and I was knocked out when I swallowed it (thankfully, the book talked about it, and I drank the potion on the bed). Everything was pitch black in my dream, and then I appeared in a clearing near a forest. I stood there for a few seconds and then an animal appeared, but it wasn’t like any animal I have seen on the books.
At first it looked like a grey wolf, only that it was larger than usual, but then he moved and these HUGE wings appeared on its back, and he could fly all over the clearing. After that he just came to me and bowed, as if saying that he would be my form. When I tried to pet him, I just kind of absorbed him into my body, and suddenly I was the winged wolf and I also could fly! When I woke up, I looked at the clock and saw that I had been out for twelve hours.
It’s a really cool form, and it felt very right to me. I can’t wait to turn myself into the wolf!
Entry 21
Phew! It’s been a lot of time since I last wrote here! Around ninety days or so, I’d say. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because I’ve done many breakthroughs since then!
First, I wasn’t able to find the winged wolf in any of the books about magical beings and beasts Mom and Dad had here from their years at Hogwarts, and maybe some older than that, so I figure that my Animagus form is, either an extinguished species or a non-discovered one. I think that I should give the animal a name, since I’m the first one to ever be able to describe it, so I’ll call it a Pegasus Wolf. I know that a Pegasus is in reality a winged horse (I looked for it in Fantastic Beasts and How to Find Them), but it is the best thing that can be applied to the wolf, in my opinion.
I also made some progress with the transformation, too. I accidentally found the notebook Dad and his friends had written when they did their own Animagus transformation into a secret cupboard he must have built to store his most important things. There was this photograph of Mum in her wedding dress, a golden winged ball that looked a bit like a Golden Snidget that started to fly really fast as soon as I opened the cupboard (somehow, I managed to catch the ball before it went too far!) and a few more things, the notebook between them.
Dad, Sirius and Peter (Merlin doom you, you two-faced traitor!) wrote everything they did during the three years they trained, just because they wanted to keep company with Remus (who was a werewolf, apparently: I’ll have to read about it) during the full moon. I followed their advices, and right now I can turn my left arm into one paw and I can make one of the wings, too! Thank Merlin that it is an (relatively) easy kind of wandless magic, or I wouldn’t have been able to do it!
Talking about werewolves, I made some research about what does exactly go wrong to make the man turn into a wolf. Apparently, it started as some kind of curse (Prometheus talked about a man-wolf that tried to eat him, but when the day came, the man apologised to him and told him what had happened to him), but nowadays any person that is bitten by a werewolf is automatically turned into a werewolf himself. I’d have to study it for a bit, but I’m sure I could find a way to kill or, at least, subdue the wolf part inside the person so that it can be completely controlled by the infected person. I’d bet that there could be a way to change the werewolf into a normal wolf Animagus! So far, I’ve only found that werewolves are very affected by silver, which is like poison for them. Maybe I can get something done if I start from there.
I also made some progress with the fifth-dimensional problem, but it wasn’t related to mathematics at all, and I won’t be able to test it until I have all the materials needed for an investigation: I had gone to the library for a few minutes and started to investigate the biologic side of the problem, and realised that maybe the answer to the problem is in people’s DNA. It’s possible that there are certain genes that allow a person to interact with the fifth dimension. It could certainly explain why Muggleborn wizards and witches exist, as well as Squibs: Muggles could perfectly have a few of those genes in their DNA, but they wouldn’t get activated until the whole combination of genes is made (for the Muggleborns) or nearly all of them are in the DNA but the fundamental one that allows the whole interaction is not in there (for the Squibs). It’ll be hard to prove, though: to analyse DNA, I’d need a huge laboratory, as well as samples of blood and/or hair from a pureblood and Muggleborn (I am a half-blood, so there is no problem for that one).
I think this is enough for now. I really should get back to work!
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Dumbledore sat down in his office, pondering about the two main enigmas in his life. Both of them were related to Harry Potter, and both of them were crucial to the efforts he was making in completely ensuring that Voldemort either stayed forever as a spirit or banishing him from the mortal world forever.
The first one was the Prophecy that had been told to him nearly twelve years ago, when Sybill Trelawney, who was applying for a position as Divination Professor, entered a trance and spoke the words that theoretically sealed Tom Riddle’s and Harry Potter’s lives forever: The one born with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...
Those words, on themselves, wouldn’t have done much, but young Severus Snape, then a faithful Death Eater, had heard the first half of the Prophecy and had told Voldemort, who had made the connection immediately and had gone all the way to look for the Potters and kill them and their son, believing the Potter baby to be the most likely to defeat him.
Severus had quickly realised that the Dark Lord wasn’t as great as he thought (too many Cruciatus and Avada Kedavras did that to one, the Headmaster mused) and had decided to go to him and present his services as a spy.
In the end, the Potters had gone under the Fidelius Charm, but it hadn’t been enough: Peter Pettigrew (although everybody else thought it had been Sirius Black) had committed treason and given them to Voldemort in a silver platter.
The Potters had died, but Harry had survived, and Dumbledore, believing Sirius to be guilty, had placed Harry with the Dursleys in the hopes that they would treat him as family, and that brought him to the second biggest enigma of his life.
Harry had disappeared from the Dursleys’ household nearly four years ago, when the young lad was seven, and although Albus regretted that the wards had fallen due to that action, he surely was glad that Harry was completely away from them, because their treatment of him was nearly as bad as the treatment many house-elves received in some of the darker houses, and in some aspects even worse, because Harry surely didn’t like the place he lived in and everything he was forced to do. He was glad he hadn’t told Sirius everything he had been able to extract from the Dursleys’ minds with Legillimency, or Privet Drive would have surely woken up one morning with one of its houses blown up from the foundations.
Dumbledore looked at his watch: it was nearing ten o’clock PM. In just two hours, Harry Potter would be eligible to go to Hogwarts. He would receive his letter around breakfast time, and hopefully he would answer that he would go to Hogwarts, as his parents had done.
I hope he answers, Albus told himself, sorrowfully. Not only for him, but for Sirius, who is already going mad without knowing about Harry and how he is doing. For Minerva and Filius, who hope to see their favourite students’ only son. For Severus, whom I hope is able to not let his anger towards James blind him. For Hagrid, who has always asked about little Harry at least twice a week since I had to leave him at the Dursleys.
And also for me. By now, Dumbledore was crying openly, something that he had not done in the last ten years, since the night James and Lily were killed. Because, since he was born, I’ve always felt like he was my grandson. Because every time I visited their house before they went under the Fidelius, he always liked to crawl over my lap and play with my beard. Because I promised his parents that I would take care of him, and I failed them. Because I miss him, even if I haven’t seen him since that horrendous Halloween night. Because I wish to see him grow up with Sirius and study here at Hogwarts, and make friends. Because I wish to teach him everything I can, and I wish him to be the most powerful wizard ever so that he can defeat Voldemort and live his whole life in peace.
But the most, because I wish to see him and tell him: “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry for all the hell you had to live with those sorry excuses of people. I’m sorry for the loneliness you have felt all this time. I’m sorry for keeping you from your real family. But, over all, I’m sorry for not being there when you needed me the most.
Harry Potter, whatever you are doing, I just hope that you will come back to us.
Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Breakfast with Galleons
Chapter 6 — Breakfast with GalleonsMoney, n. s., money. Something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment.
“What’s that you are carrying, Hedwig?” Harry asked the white owl, who was carrying a parchment envelope on her beak.
Harry had not seen Hedwig for the last two days, but he had supposed that she was out, having some fun away from the house, maybe hunting a lot, or even starting a family — Harry snickered at that thought.
The owl landed on Harry’s shoulder and dropped the envelope in front of him before pecking him affectionately on his ear. Harry smiled and took the envelope, which was curiously addressed to Harry Potter, The White House in the Forest, Godric’s Hollow, Wales.
Harry’s heart leaped once when he realised that, at least, now he knew where he was exactly, and if he ever wanted to come back, now he could!
The second thing he saw was that, in the back, the envelope had a wax seal with a very well known coat of arms that Harry had seen many times while reading Hogwarts, A History.
“Hogwarts! Hogwarts has sent me a letter!” Harry said, jumping up and down like the little kid he was but hadn’t been able to behave like for much time. Hedwig hooted happily at the boy’s antics.
Harry, after partying for a few moments, opened the letter and read its contents.
Headmaster Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Mr Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have a place in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
“Might as well get to Diagon Alley and buy all these things,” Harry told himself. He didn’t have an idea of what day it was right now, but if he went out that day he might be able to get an idea of how the magical world was right now. Before departing, he decided to send the answer back. Harry Conjured some parchment with a wave of his ‘wand’ (a very easy charm he had mastered the year before, you just had to pour enough power behind the charm so that the parchment stayed stable for enough time) and took a self-inking quill from his desk.
Dear Mrs McGonagall,
I gladly accept your invitation, and I will be at Hogwarts School the next 1 September to occupy my place in the school.
Yours sincerely,
Harry James Potter
Harry put the short letter into other envelope and sealed it with some wax, in which he printed the coat of arms in the house’s library with a small piece of wood he had carved one day he was bored.
“Hedwig, do you mind if you take this letter to Hogwarts?” Harry asked the snowy owl. Hedwig hooted and stuck her leg out so that Harry could tie the letter, which he did carefully — it was the first time he sent Hedwig out with a letter.
“Take care of yourself, girl. Just come here when you are finished with the letter, unless they want you to take an answer back, OK?”
Hedwig hooted again and caressed his face with one of her wings before Harry launched her into the air and took flight towards the north.
Harry smiled while looking at the only companion he had had for the last four years (well, the last living companion — he didn’t know if the old lady could be counted on as a companion, because she came and go whenever she wished to help him) going away into one mission that would change his life forever.
But now, he had to go to Diagon Alley and buy all the things he would need. He already had the wand and the pewter cauldron. He would need to buy some clothes, the new books (he could see if there were more books at the bookshop) and he may go to the Apothecary to see if there were any potions ingredients he didn’t have at his lab.
But first, he would need to get some money. And to get some money, he would need to go to one place.
Gringotts. The Wizarding Bank.
Harry concentrated and, with a small POP! he disappeared from Godric’s Hollow.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry appeared in front of a big bronze door that stood in the middle of a white marble faade that shone beautifully under the morning sun that bathed the whole street, illuminating with a reddish tone that Harry would have loved to take on a photograph if he had had a camera with him, but it wasn’t to be the case right now, because he first had to go to Gringotts and find a way to get some money. He had read that his father had a lot of money, but since he didn’t have an idea of how to reach it, he hoped that the Goblins would give him a loan.
Harry knocked on the bronze door and waited for a goblin to open the door. After a few minutes, the door creaked and a goblin appeared.
“What are you waiting for here, wizard?” he asked. “Today is Sunday, and Gringotts does not open Sundays!”
At first, Harry didn’t know what was the goblin talking about, but soon he remembered the structure of the days he used to follow when he was living with the Dursleys.
Harry had studied a few languages during the last four years in addition to all his work on magic. One of those was Gobbledegook, of which he had found a good book that helped you with the pronunciation and so he was able to reply to the being.
“Pardon me, Master Goblin,” Harry said, surprising the other, “I have been apart from the society for many years, and I have recently received word from Hogwarts School, which I am to attend soon. I came here in search of money, and I hope that your people, who I was told by a very old wizard that are trustworthy ones, aid me.”
The gobsmacked goblin opened and closed his sharp-teeth-filled mouth many times before composing himself and replying back in English.
“Sorry, Mister Wizard, for my rudeness. If you indeed have need of money in your return to Wizarding society, you have come to the right place.” And he opened the door, ushering Harry inside. “Wait here while I look for an available manager.”
“Thank you. May I ask which your name is?” Harry asked with politeness.
The goblin was surprised once more, because it was the first time he had ever heard of a non-goblin asking of the name of a goblin. “If we ever see each other again, you may call me Bladvak.”
“Thank you for your help, Bladvak. If we ever see each other again, you may call me Harry Potter. May your pockets stay filled with gold,” Harry said, using the formal form of farewell among the Goblin nation.
Bladvak was left speechless again, not only for the young man’s knowledge of their language, but also for his revealed identity. Since the secret arrival of Albus Dumbledore three years ago with the keys to the Potter Trust Vault and the Potter Family Vault to be held by the Goblin Council until such time that Harry Potter arrived to the bank and claimed access to his vaults was a story that still rang around the bank tellers and the mine-dwellers, especially when one took into account the prophecy Goblin Prophets had made around the time the young Boy-Who-Lived was born…
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
“Enter!” Chief Ragnok, the Head Manager of London’s branch of Gringotts Bank, said when someone knocked at the door with the special knock that indicated important news.
“Chief Ragnok, I have important things to tell you!” Bladvak said, entering the office at a very fast pace, faster than usual on a guard that that day was in charge of watching the door that day.
“What has happened to make you come here so fast?” Ragnok asked, curiously.
“The One is at the door!”
Ragnok dropped the quill he was writing with. “Are you sure of that?”
“Unless the one the wizards call the Boy-Who-Lived is not the One, then I think I am right,” Bladvak replied.
The Head Manager hesitated for a moment, and then said to the guard: “Tell me everything you can, Bladvak.”
“I had been watching the door until a few minutes ago when someone knocked on the door. I asked him why he wished to enter the bank and he replied — in Gobbledegook, nonetheless! — that he wanted to extract some money. He was the One without a doubt; I could see the Lightning Mark in his forehead. He actually said that he had been told by a very old wizard that goblins were trustworthy ones.”
“Was anybody else with Mr. Potter?”
“No, sir, he was completely alone!”
Ragnok pondered over the meaning of those words for a few minutes and then took a decision.
“Call the manager that takes care of the Potter Family Estate and bring Mr. Potter to him while I consult with the other Head Managers what I should do.”
“Right away, sir!” Bladvak said and ran out of the office, closing the sturdy door behind him.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Ragnok saw how the guard left his office, going as fast as his short legs allowed him to. The door closed, he started to reflect on the news that had just been told to him: the One, the Lightning Bearer, had arrived to Gringotts!
Of course, he knew that Harry Potter was one of the subjects of a prophecy that had been made by a lousy Seer a few months before the boy was born: one of the clauses of the agreement that ended with the Goblin Revolution of 1436 was that, for every Prophecy the Ministry stored in their Department of Mysteries, a copy would be sent to Gringotts to be compared with any others the Goblin Prophets had made before or after that time.
The important thing about Harry Potter was that, the day of his birth, one of the Prophets had gone into a trance and had pronounced a very important prophecy that, with time, would prove to be related to the boy:
The bearer of the Lightning Mark,
Born from the Lions
And under the Lion Sign
Shall be the One
That will lead the world
Into the era of prosperity.
Five times his life shall change
For good or for worse,
But all of those times,
The world shall change too.
The first time, Darkness will strike at him.
He will lose his loved ones,
But Darkness will recede
And vanish for many years.
The second, he will disappear,
But his power shall arise,
With the help of the Ancient One
And Evil shall lose its hold.
A third time will everything change
When Darkness tries to be eternal
But the young One will stop him
After meeting Him, his worst enemy.
Darkness shall resurrect
The fourth time the One’s life change,
But with help from those who died
He will live another day.
In the end, in the final battle,
Two forces, Good and Evil, will meet,
Lead by their two commanders,
The One and the Darkness.
A brutal fight will erupt,
That will only end
When the One defeats the Darkness
And lets the Light shine.
But only if Brutes from Earth,
Creatures from Air,
Beasts of Fire
And Beings of Water
Join the One’s army
And help him find his Mate of Love
He will prevail
And live his life again.
It had been clear to all the Head Managers of Gringotts — who were the leaders of the Goblin Nation, too — that only one person fitted the whole prophecy, and that person had just arrived to their bank!
Mr. Potter’s choice of words surprised him, as well: if the old wizard he was talking about was Albus Dumbledore, surely he would have either come with him or sent someone else as an escort, and he didn’t personally know of any wizards that could be considered as very old and that trusted goblins at all: all the .
Now, if the One’s Prophecy was to be taken as the truth, then there was someone else that could have told Harry Potter about whom to trust. The only wizard that could be referred as the Ancient One could only be Prometheus, the only survivor of the disaster that befell onto Atlantis many thousands of years ago. Prometheus was one who claimed he would always trust Goblins with his secrets over many wizards, because Goblins had stricken a friendship with him. In fact, it had been Prometheus fortune (acquired over the years through his business and gladly given to Goblins upon his death) that had allowed them to start what would become the whole net of Gringotts Banks that were spread throughout the whole Magical World - except for the countries called “tax havens” by Muggles, in which the main banks were controlled by gnomes.
Ragnok also knew of the legend of the Prometheus Journal, in which the Ancient had written all his experiences with magic and all the things he had been able to do during his long life, which were many and very powerful feats, that lied in a secret chamber supposedly situated in Central Europe. If the Prophecy was true, then Harry Potter had, once more, achieved what many people thought was impossible: if, with only fifteen months, he had been able to survive the Killing Curse and defeat Lord Voldemort — whom the Goblins knew wasn’t really dead: Goblin Magic was very powerful indeed, because they could detect if someone that had business with them was really dead or not — and had been claimed as the Boy-Who-Lived by the United Kingdom magical population, what would they say if they heard that he had been able to find what no other being, either goblin or wizard, elf or phoenix, had not managed to even locate?
All that would have to be addressed later, though: first, he would have to consult the Head Council about what should be done with the subject of Harry Potter, so he turned to the special fireplace behind his desk that allowed him to contact with all the Gringotts Head Managers without fear of having eavesdroppers.
“I, Ragnok, son of Tarnok, call for a meeting of Managers now!” he said after making sure his fireplace was connected to the other fireplaces in the Head Managers’ Offices in each Gringotts’ branch. Soon, the heads of the other Heads appeared in the chimney, allowing him to talk with everybody at the same time.
“What is so important that you summoned all of us to a meeting, Chief Ragnok?” Grisphook, Chief of the Oceanic Branch of Gringotts asked.
“The One of the Prophecy that the Great Wispon made eleven years ago has just arrived to this bank,” Ragnok said, deciding to be as blunt as possible.
“Are you sure of this, Chief Ragnok? It is a very bold statement to make,” Tirnuk from Gringotts South America replied.
“I am very sure of this, Chief Tirnuk,” Ragnok replied. “The guard that was watching the door told me that the boy known by Wizards as the Boy-Who-Lived, whom we call the Lightning Bearer, entered this bank in search of money, and told him that he trusted us Goblins because a very ancient wizard had told him we were reliable. Since he was alone, I believe this to be a sign that the Lightning Bearer has somehow claimed the Prometheus Journal.”
Silence was the only thing that met his words.
“I believe the Council had to meet so that it could decide the steps to take in this matter. Any ideas?” Ragnok asked.
“It doesn’t matter what a prophecy says, I think that Goblins should not involve themselves in Wizards matters!” Slitscythe, Chief of Gringotts Egypt exclaimed.
“Perhaps you believe that, but before Harry Potter defeated the Dark Lord, life for Goblins was very dangerous in Britain!” Ragnok snarled. “One could never be sure if he would survive staying out of the bank even for a few minutes! Perhaps it's your living in Egypt that doesn't allow you to see further than your insignificant nose!” The worst thing you could do to a goblin would be to insult their noses: the least hurt wizard that had done that had ended with one of his legs cut, had nearly died and if not for a group of wizards that had been able to calm the goblins, he would have been castrated.
“Enough! This is the Head Council, not a mere canteen brawl!” Mackrack, President of the Council and Head of Gringotts North America shouted. “If any of you have any personal issues with others, please remind that only business can be discussed here as per the Gringotts Foundation Charter! And Slitscythe, let me remind you that when you heard the One’s Prophecy, you claimed that you believed in it! What has made you change opinions so abruptly in the last eleven years?”
“I’ve learnt that wizards can’t be trusted at all! They lie, they deceive and they steal! If it weren’t for the fact that our wealth depends on them, I’d say good riddance to them and would close all Gringotts’ banks!”
“That kind of thinking is out or order, Slitscythe!” Mackrack roared. “If you believe that kind of thing, you should also start to think on a way to get out of the banking business!”
“Then I ask for the dismissal of Slitscythe as Chief of Gringotts Egypt! If he isn’t able to work with wizards for profit, he is not worthy of such an important position as his!” Ragnok exclaimed.
“Those in favour of the dismissal?” Mackrack asked. Many ‘Ayes’ were heard through the Floo.
“Against?” No one said anything, for when the Head Council decided to dismiss one of its members, the one who was being expelled couldn’t say anything in his own favour.
“Then it’s decided. Someone new will manage Gringotts Egypt from this moment on,” Mackrack said, and the connection to Slitscythe’s office was severed.
“Now, onto the discussion about the wizard child. What should Gringotts do about this?” Tirnuk asked.
“Since Ragnok is the one with the most knowledge about Mr. Potter, he should be the first to talk,” Mackrack sentenced.
Just then, a memo arrived to Ragnok’s MagicBox, which allowed contact between all the workers of Gringotts. The Chief retrieved it and read it: it was from the goblin that managed the Potter’s accounts…
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
“So, you are telling me that I am supposed to have defeated Voldemort when I was barely one year old?” Harry asked Griphook, the Manager of the Potter Family Estate.
“Yes, sir,” Griphook said. “After your parents’ death, Albus Dumbledore was forced to place you with the Dursleys, whom I know are your relatives from your mother’s side…”
“Petunia was my mother’s sister. Vernon had no blood relation to me, and Dudley was my cousin, although not by my choice,” Harry answered with a slight bitter tone.
“Well, it means anything if you aren’t living with them anymore,” Griphook replied. “When did you leave your relatives’ home?”
“Well, if today is my eleventh birthday… that would be around four years ago, a few days before Halloween, I believe.”
“Is that true? It would be just too much of a coincidence if your disappearance didn’t happen at the same time that power shift four years ago…” Griphook told himself.
“What power shift?” Harry asked. Griphook explained all the things that had happened four years ago, when what seemed to be a simple arrest like Pettigrew’s — which Harry enjoyed, since he knew the truth about the traitor — had turned out to be one of the most massive changes in the whole British Wizarding society, ousting all the Dark Lord supporters and their protgs/bribed people from the Government and into Azkaban, which was being guarded by the awful creatures known as Dementors. Harry smiled when he got the news of his godfather being free and working at Hogwarts, meaning that he would be able to meet someone that could talk to him about his parents.
“Would you like to go over your family’s assets? I quite understand they are very big, and you may wish to do so in order to decide if any change should be brought on them,”
Griphook offered.
“Mm, no, Griphook, although I thank your offer, I believe I wouldn’t understand a thing on it. Perhaps if Sirius came with me, he would be able to explain everything, since he knew my dad and all that.”
“Perhaps,” Griphook conceded. He snapped his fingers and all the parchments on his luxurious desk flew towards the filling cabinet in the corner. That made Harry’s mind spark, remembering the problem that having all his parchments and books stored all through the house at Godric’s Hollow had caused to him.
“Isn’t storing all your documents like that a bit… thorny?”
“Yes, it is,” Griphook replied with a sneer, “but it’s the best way we know to do so. The Wizarding World, in all his infinite knowledge,” the sarcasm being evident now, “hasn’t ever been able to invent a way to improve all the parchmentwork that plagues every office from Gringotts to the Ministry.”
“Well, I don’t know if you’ll want to know about this, but I think I have a way that would solve all your problems with all the parchment, storing and information-wise.”
Griphook’s ears perked upon hearing that. Gringotts had not been given the opportunity of a venture into the Wizarding business since 1929, when Randolph Keitch and Basil Horton asked them for a loan. Their petition had been dismissed, but when the Comet Trading Company started to make money, the goblin who hadn’t given them the loan had been summarily sacked from the bank and sent to the mines in northern Germany.
“Please, tell me about this offer of yours, Mr. Potter.”
“Well, one or two years ago I started to have the same problem that you seem to have, with all my parchments and books everywhere around the house,” Harry explained. “I’m not sure if you keep in touch with the Muggle world’s technological advancements…”
“I have to say that we haven’t, Mr. Potter. You see, we tend to stay isolated from wizards and we aren’t ever seen by Muggles unless they have Wizarding relatives.”
“Well, Muggles invented in the 1950s a machine they called computer, and it allows them to do many things. One of those is that they allow the storage of many dates, and Muggle banks use a lot of them. Of course, it is possible for thieves to steal from the bank by means of using other computers, but since what I am offering you hasn’t got something similar in the world and works with magic, I think that Gringotts would be able to store all the secrets without fear of others to find them. It might also help with accountancy and the like.”
“It’s sounds good, Mr. Potter. Do you have one of those ‘computers’ you are talking about with you?”
“I fear not, Griphook. It is too big to carry on yourself, but I may be able to bring it tomorrow, if you wish so.”
“Alright, Mr. Potter,” Griphook said. “Now, I suppose that, if you have come here, it’s because you wish to take some money out and buy your school supplies. However, today the shops are closed and you won’t be able to buy anything. It may be in your better interests that you come back to your house and prepare your ‘computer’. I think the high ones would like to meet you, and if your invention is as important as you say, you could ask for a patent in our offices.”
“Thank you very much, Griphook. Which time should I be here, then?”
“Perhaps it would help you if you searched for the Clock Charm in your library, Mr. Potter. It’ll tell you the hour. As for the time, perhaps you should try to come here around 8 o’clock in the morning. Not many wizards are here at that time, and I can give you permission to access the bank through one of our Portals.”
“Portals?” Harry asked.
“Oh, it’s some Goblin magic we normally use to transport ores from the mines to the furnaces. It saves a lot of time and helps to take the big mounds the mining teams get at the end of the day. I could give you one of the ends and bring the computer through it.”
“Thank you, Griphook. I’ll make sure to pull all my personal things out of the computer. I think that you would rather store the data instead of having to read my ramblings,” Harry replied with a crooked smile, to which Griphook answered with one of his own.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
“Griphook, who has been working as the Potter Family manager for years, has just sent me a memo about his meeting with Mr. Harry Potter. Apparently, Mr. Potter has stayed isolated from the Magical world for his whole life, and only learnt about magic about four years ago. You may remember the coup that happened at the end of that year: Cornelius Fudge was dismissed from his post of Ministry of Magic, every person suspect of being a Death Eater and even some people who, until then, had been working for the Ministry, were incarcerated; Sirius Black was freed and Peter Pettigrew, who was very much alive, was sent to prison. Griphook believes there is some connection between both of these incidents, and that they may be tied to the day Albus Dumbledore brought us the Potter Family Keys.”
“Has Griphook been able to hear what has Mr. Potter been doing for the last four years?” Mackrack said, totally concentrated in Ragnok’s words.
“I am afraid to say that Mr. Potter didn’t share many things with Griphook, since the main body of their conversation was about the current state of things in the Wizarding world and everything that lead to it, but he has stated that he has been able to invent something that could probably raise Gringotts’ net income by many thousands or even millions of Galleons.”
That caught by surprise to all the Head Council: it was a very bold suggestion to be made by a wizard, nonetheless a pre-tee wizard who had not been in his world for nearly all his life, but the fact that said pre-teen wizard was the Lightning Bearer they hoped to lead the change over the whole world, one that would turn it into a world in which every being, be it wizard or goblin, werewolf or vampire, centaur or merpeople, would be equal to every other without distinction, weighed a lot more into their minds, especially when it was coupled with the idea of higher income.
“Could you explain that, Ragnok?”
The goblin told the Head Council all the things Harry had explained about computers and the many possibilities those had if correctly handled by the user. To say that the Council was astonished at the sheer ability of Muggles to create such things and for a young wizard to even improve their work was just putting it mildly.
“If what you are saying is true, perhaps we have done the same mistakes wizards have done for many years: ignoring the Nomag world can be perhaps one of the worst mistakes this world has ever made,” Mackrack stated. ‘Nomag’ was the name given to Muggles in North America. “The wizards here in the United States have a better understanding of Nomags than anywhere else in the world, but even American wizards and witches stay well away and separately from the Nomags. If this ‘computer’ thing Mr. Potter has talked about is really such a powerful tool, perhaps Gringotts should do a good research within the inventions the Nomag world has created.
“Ragnok, I wish you to ask Griphook if he wishes to take charge as the head of a new department that will only answer to the Head Council and will deal with introducing Nomag inventions into the magical world and ask Mr. Potter if he wishes to join him as a co-head. I want every Gringotts’ wizard employee to be asked if they come from a Nomag household, and if they do you are to ask them if they wish to play a part as an advisor in the new Department for Magical Development.”
The orders were met at first with astonishment at the idea of a wizard being the head of a department in the Goblins’ bank next to the goblin that was taking charge of his accounts, followed by the applause Ragnok started and the others continued: it was truly a great idea, to find many products that could be introduced in the market, allowing a bigger level of transfers to be done through Gringotts, which would give them bigger profits. That day would be marked in the future in Goblin calendars as the milestone of the changes that would herald the arrival of a new era of prosperity and equality among every being in the planet Earth.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry worked very hard the rest of the day, but not on his magic or in his books, but in his magical computer, and more precisely on a new model of his MagMachine, one that would work even better than his first model (which he was beginning to refer as Mark I) and that was smaller so that he could transport it on his own, perhaps on a bag on his back designed to keep it from harm.
Now that Harry knew how to connect everything to make a good MagMachine, he was able to do it faster than the first time and he also knew how to build it in a better fashion. He also added a few more things he had invented after he had finished building the MagMachine, so he had to connect it through external conducts, but now he could add everything to the machine and be done with it. Of course, he would still have to keep some outer connections if he had any ideas about more things that could be connected to it.
However, Harry wasn’t able to complete the work before the day ended, but at least he had been able to create a good memo-crystal in which he stored all the data he had stored on the MagMachine Mark I in order to introduce it later in the MM Mark II. In the MM Mark I, he left a few non-important things that would help him show Griphook how it worked, like a simple Arithmancy program that could deconstruct a spell thrown to a charmed stone and reproduce the five-dimensional graphics correspondent to any spell (which was something that had taken him two weeks, but in the end he had been able to make a projection into thin air that showed the whole graphic) or the program that he had designed to write as he spoke to the stone. From the few things he knew about Goblins, Harry thought those two programs were ones they would like to have, especially if he coupled it with all the tinkers he had done through the years. The book scanner was surely going to be a hit in Gringotts!
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
“I trust that you have had no problems with the transportation of your computer, no?” Griphook asked.
Harry shook his head. “No, I haven’t, Griphook. This portal of yours is absolutely amazing! It was just like having a walk in the park!” he said. At Griphook’s blank look, Harry felt the need to explain himself. “It’s a Muggle expression. Its meaning is that something is really easy to do.”
Griphook nodded, too, understanding what Harry was saying. “We do have our own saying about that. I believe that, roughly translated into English, it would say ‘Easier than digging on clay’.
“Perhaps you wish to start with business so that you can go on your shopping spree as soon as possible, am I correct?” Harry nodded, and Griphook grinned. “Then, please follow me. Head Manager Ragnok has taken a great interest in your project and asked me that I brought you to him when you arrived with your invention.”
Harry raised an eyebrow at hearing this, but decided to keep quiet about it. Instead, he just took his wand out and muttering Wingardium Leviosa, he made the MM float in front of him while he followed Griphook to the sturdy ebony and gold door that simply said “Head Manager Ragnok”, followed by a short sentence wrote with strange symbols that Harry thought would be the translation to Gobbledegook.
With hardly a fast knock to announce their arrival, Griphook opened the door and said, “Chief Ragnok, Harry Potter is here, as you instructed.”
“Very good. Bring him to the desk so that he can show us his idea,” Ragnok replied. Griphook entered the office, being followed by Harry’s computer and by Harry himself, who carefully let the MM down over the space Ragnok had made for it.
“Greetings, Mr. Potter. I hope I find you well in this morning,” Ragnok said.
“Greetings, Chief Ragnok, and may your pockets fill with gold,” Harry said, bowing lightly to show his respect for the Goblin.
“I see that Bladvak wasn’t lying about your knowledge of our language,” Ragnok replied.
“I fear that I don’t know much else, Chief Ragnok. But I think that being called ‘Pickaxe’ must be a bit strange, don’t you think so?” Harry said. Ragnok chuckled.
“Must be, and I think that being called like an insect, like Mr. Dumbledore is, is even stranger.”
Harry had to laugh at that.
“Now that we have finished with the pleasantries, we should start with business talks, no?” Ragnok said.
“Yes, sir,” Harry said. “I don’t know how much Griphook has told you about this…”
“When you left, Griphook sent me a memo with all the things you told him about computers, and I shared it with the rest of the Head Council, who is by the way very interested in your invention if it’s able to provide such margin of incoming as you told Griphook.”
“Yes. If you let me, I could start to show you the workings of my MM.”
“Of course, Mr. Potter, please start doing so.”
Harry turned the MM on and started to show the Head Manager of Gringotts London the intricacies of working with a keyboard, a mouse and the simplest things.
Taking the round stone that served as a microphone, Harry said, “I’m sure this thing will interest you. It writes on the computer what you want it to write,” and, as Harry was talking, those words were written one by one in a very stylish handwriting that could pass as a perfect scribe’s one.
“And does this stone really catch anybody’s voice and writes it?” Ragnok asked, and then saw that his voice had been caught by the stone and the computer had written what he had said.
“As you have seen, yes,” Harry replied with a smile. He put the stone aside and took the bar that ‘read’ books and stored them into the memory. “If you could give me some document, I could show you how this thing works.”
Intrigued, Griphook gave him a parchment in which he had been taking notes on the workings of the MM and Harry put it under the bar. In a matter of seconds, the document appeared in the MM’s screen, which surprised both Goblins.
“Although I knew your idea had a lot of potential, Mr. Potter, it is now when I realise how much this will change the structure in Gringotts. Being able to store all those documents without any problem for size, but perhaps it would be slow to make the artefact read each page on its own.”
Harry’s smile turned a bit wicked. “I believe that that is not worth getting worried about. Could I take one of those books of yours, so that I can show you this function?”
Ragnok wished to see the other things Harry had managed to do, so he handed him a thick book on the engineering of mines and artificial caves — something that he had been interested in as a youngster — and Harry put the scanning bar over it. The bar gleamed and seemed to disappear into the old book, but in a few seconds it went back up and shone with a furious red that gradually turned down as the MM started to absorb all the information contained in the book. Harry pointed to something and all the pages of the book were laid out on the screen.
“This idea was one of the most important I had, because it allowed me to store all the books in my private library in the same place. That way, I am able to access any book I wish to consult without having to fumble through the whole library.
“But there is still one last thing that, although it may not interest you at first, it could be potentially important. Look at this,” Harry said, casting a simple Stunner at the stone that generated the magical graphics. Immediately, the graphic Harry knew so well from having studied it so many times appeared into thin air, wholly surprising the Goblins, who hadn’t been expecting such a display.
“Impressing, Mr. Potter. If I may ask what this represents…”
“No problem. This is an approximate representation of the effects a Stunning spell, based on a theory I developed while I was at my parents’ house about magic and its true causes, something that explains why there are people that can do magic and people that can’t. I’ve been able to make some progress to answer the true nature of magic and why can some people interact with it and others can’t.”
“Every time I think you couldn’t impress me more, you come up with something even more surprising,” Ragnok said, honestly. “Mr. Potter, I think that I am in liberty to say that Gringotts is very interested in acquiring your computer for a big quantity, and if you register the patent in Gringotts’ Register, you are very on the way to be very rich, although I hold to know that you are already very rich, from what Griphook has told me.”
Harry nodded.
“Mr. Potter, how much would you like to be an advisor to Gringotts Bank?” Ragnok said, changing matters.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Minerva McGonagall was a very proper witch, something that came from her Scottish upbringing in a medium-sized house fifty kilometres to the north from Hogwarts. Her father, a gentle person at home yet imposing when out of it, had taught her how to show determination and to use her look to keep any undesired person at bay, something she had perfected over the years and nowadays used to keep her pupils in silence while she gave them lectures over the subject of Transfiguration, which had been her favourite one since she started going to Hogwarts, when the Transfiguration Professor was the handsome Albus Dumbledore, on whom many girls her age — including her — and older ones had a crush back then.
However, the woman who was currently running towards the gargoyle in the seventh floor of Hogwarts that held the Headmaster’s office didn’t look a lot like the Scottish witch, with the hair that was usually tied up in a bun completely loose and slightly frizzled with the humidity that, even in the middle of summer, inhabited the air within the castle. Her robe wasn’t better looking, especially after Peeves dropped an ink pellet over her: the lack of reaction from the Deputy Headmistress had left the poltergeist completely stunned, because he ALWAYS managed to elicit at least some shouts from the old woman. Unfortunately, he decided that if McGonagall hadn’t shouted at him was because he wasn’t trying hard enough, so he just took flight and went around the place, trying to find someone more to torment, mainly the caretaker, Argus Filch.
Minerva finally reached the entrance and, muttering the password — ‘Ice Mice’ — she entered the room.
“Good morning, Minerva. What does have you so excited?” Albus asked. McGonagall didn’t say anything, but she gave him the letter she had just received. The Headmaster looked at it and smiled in happiness.
“Finally. Now we can be sure Harry has been living at Godric’s Hollow since he left the Dursleys,” Dumbledore said with twinkling eyes. “And he’ll come to Hogwarts, too. Sirius is going to be really happy to hear this.”
“Why don’t you call him then? He is dying to hear about his godson since he was released from Azkaban,” McGonagall replied with a smile and opened the door to come back to her office.
While she was coming downstairs, she couldn’t help but grin in delight when she heard a yelp of pure bliss from behind Albus’ door.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Special Correspondent Nick Haydyn
It’s been ten years since the last time we ever heard of Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, and the sad night of James and Lily Potter’s death to the hand of You-Know-Who, which hasn’t been forgotten by the Wizarding population. Ten years since that hectic Halloween day in which all of us were able to breathe once more with calm after the great sacrifice that this event supposed for the then toddler. During these years, many people have been dying to see the saviour of our world again among us, and some have actually seen him while he was either travelling or shopping with his relatives. However, after the great political shake up of four years ago, in which many former supporters of You-Know-Who — like the prominent pureblood Lucius Malfoy, who had evaded incarceration thanks to huge expenses of money in bribes to Cornelius Fudge — and corrupt members of the Ministry — the aforementioned former Ministry Cornelius Fudge and his Under Secretary Dolores Umbridge — were sent to Azkaban after the discovery of the truth behind the Black Massacre — being it that Sirius Black was completely innocent of all the crimes he had been accused of, having been framed by his former friend Peter Pettigrew —, no word has been heard of the young saviour of the British Wizarding World.
Sirius Black was supposed to have taken young Harry as it is within his rights as Godfather and appointed legal guardian by the elder Potters, but apparently he disappeared from his relatives’ house a few months before the Ministry sweep-up started and changed everything. Those who might know the truth about his disappearance have stayed tight-lipped even now.
However, yesterday in the morning many people who had gone to Diagon Alley — Hogwarts’ students buying school supplies for the upcoming year, mothers buying clothes at the shops and scholars interested in the newest books — were surprised when they saw young Mr. Potter walking out of Gringotts Bank and shopping around like many of his future schoolmates were doing at the moment.
“He was really polite,” says Madam Malkin, owner of Madam Malkin’s Robes For All Occasions. “He entered the shop and asked for a whole wardrobe for Hogwarts. He was a bit small for his age, I say, I’ve seen many young boys his age and he was smaller than them, but one could feel his power coming from him and he treated all my girls and I in a very nice way. He didn’t even complain when I pricked him with one of my needles, he said that I needn’t apologize as it was just an accident.”
“Very curious, that young man,” says Oliver Blotts, shopkeeper at Flourish & Blotts Bookshop. “I still remember when Lily Evans came to our shop for the first time: those emerald green eyes of hers were really shining with pleasure when she saw all of our stock. Her parents had to forcibly remove her from here before she tried to buy more books than the ones in the list!” he laughs. “I have one photograph of James and Lily in one of my books, so when Harry opened the door, I realised it was him. He really looks a lot like his father, but his eyes… they were emerald green and they were shining exactly like Lily’s did so many years ago. And he really is his mother’s son, because he took a good part of the books in my store!”
During the day, many people saw Harry go from shop to shop, buying his supplies. However, no one ever saw him go near Ollivander’s, the only wand-maker in the whole England, so this arises a series of new questions: Where has Harry Potter been living all these years? Who has been taking care of him? Has he been able to talk with any wand-makers somewhere else abroad?
But no matter what the answer to these questions is, we only want to say something: Welcome back, Harry Potter.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
The last month of summer rolled over at a heightened speed, and before Harry noticed, it was September 1st, the first day of his new life at Hogwarts, which he had been awaiting with anxiety — he knew about it because he had bought a calendar and had been crossing all the days on it.
Before going out of the house in which he had been living for the last four years, he had a look at all the rooms in there. He would especially miss his bedroom and his potions lab, because he had had much fun and joy in both rooms, but he would surely miss even the bathroom.
Finally, he made sure that he had everything he needed on his trunk: clothes, check; books, check; Potions ingredients, check; MagMachine, check; gadgets for the MagMachine, check; owl treats for Hedwig, check…
When he noticed that all his personal effects would stay in his trunk, Harry closed the lid, reduced the trunk to a size that would allow him to take it on his pocket, and closed his eyes, concentrating: ‘Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hogwarts…’
With a small ‘POP’, Harry disappeared from Godric’s Hollow.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
I think that this is the part in which I start to make explanations about why so much time has passed since the last update and many other things. First of all, I am really sorry, but I am really busy studying my exams and don’t have much time to steal to my study time, but I still work as hard as I can on this story and on Harry Potter and the Unexpected Visitor. I hope that you don’t hate me for this.
In other order of things, many people — even the managers of the page! — have been asking when Ginny Weasley will appear in Harry’s life. She is bound to meet Harry the day after Halloween, but I won’t say why, I don’t want to spoil the beans right now! *grin*.
Finally, if you ask me ‘When will next chapter be updated?’ I’ll have to answer ‘I don’t know, but I’ll try to make it as soon as possible’. University life is really stressful when you double as an amateur writer — and considering that I am using the background other person invented… However, I won’t leave this story unless I feel forced to do so, so don’t worry about that!
EDIT: This chapter of the story was temporarily erased by the managers of the site (Sir Ollivander) because the scene in the bank among the goblin Chief Managers was very similar to that in Jeconais' "This Means War". I admit to using it as a model, but when Sir Ollivander told me this problem, I sent an e-mail to the author and he gave me permission to use that scene without a problem. Sorry for any problem this may have caused you.
Chapter 7: Chapter 7: We're Off to See the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Hogwarts!
Impossible, a., impossible: not able to occur, exist, or be done; very difficult to deal with.
There is a running joke among the Muggle scientific community about bumblebees: supposedly, according to certain mathematical equations and physical models, bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly, yet they do, because they don’t know how to read.
Other kind of a bumblebee, namely a certain Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, who was currently Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, had heard of this joke, and also knew that Apparating into Hogwarts was impossible for wizards because of the strong Apparition wards around the school that stopped every wizard who tried to enter that way. That didn’t stop other beings like house-elves or phoenixes from doing so, but it was a good defence against wizards.
That was why, the first of September, a few hours before the students were supposed to arrive, Dumbledore didn’t realise that a small dark-haired and green-eyed boy had suddenly appeared in his office.
Harry was amazed to appear in this huge office, with so many portraits of old people, a red bird — a phoenix, he remembered from his mom’s old book — on a perch next to a table in which an old white bearded man wearing a purple robe was sitting down.
Before Harry could say anything, one of the portraits talked: “Albus, you seem to have a visitor.”
Dumbledore looked up in surprise, since he hadn’t heard the door opening. When he found the young boy a few inches in front of him, he did a double take and was about to curse the boy into smithereens when he recognized him as Harry Potter. Immediately, he left his elder wand into its holster and breathed to calm his rapidly beating heart.
“My goodness, Harry, why did you do that? And how did you manage to enter here unannounced?”
“How do you know my name?” Harry asked, a bit suspicious.
“Oh, forgive me, then. I am Albus Dumbledore.”
“Nice to meet you, Professor. I am Harry Potter, although you already knew that.”
“True, Harry,” the old man conceded with a chuckle. “As you may know, I was Headmaster here when your parents studied here, and I knew who you were because you really look like your father, but you have your mother’s eyes. Well, I’m sure that there may be some questions you wish to ask me, since I have a few of my own which I hope you will be able to answer, if I am not too inquisitive…”
“There is no problem about that, Professor. If I may start with one of my own…”
Dumbledore nodded.
“When I first arrived to… well, I think you know where I was?” At Dumbledore’s subsequent nod, Harry continued: “When I arrived to my parents’ house, one of the first things I found was a book you apparently lent to my mother. In it, you told her about my destiny. Would you tell me about it?”
Dumbledore’s only visible reaction to this was the widening of his eyes upon Harry’s mentioning of the note.
“If you wish to know about it, I’d like to be sure that you will be able to cope with it. Also that you can keep the secret safe.”
“Why? I think that, if my destiny was somehow tied to Voldemort’s and he is dead, then it wouldn’t hurt anything if I knew, and if he is alive then knowledge of that could help me to survive, don’t you believe that?”
Dumbledore, surprised about the maturity Harry was displaying, thought about what he should tell him. The Prophecy was a really delicate matter, and he hoped that he wouldn’t have to tell Harry, but he showed maturity beyond many people his age (and even some older ones) had ever had. Perhaps asking him if he remembered something about Halloween ’81 would be the best introduction to that subject.
“I know this question might be a very hard one for you, Harry, but… do you remember anything about the day… your parents died?”
Harry’s tight control over his emotions faltered slightly at the mention of the night Voldemort killed his parents, but he was able to recover the control soon, and he closed his eyes.
“When… I lived at the Dursleys’… I had a nightmare that I wasn’t able to explain: a green light, coming at me, a strange sound as if something was rushing to me, an evil laugh in front of me, then a sharp pain in my forehead, right were my scar is, and in the end a strange shriek, as if someone was really hurt. My relatives told me that my parents had died on a car accident, but I didn’t believe that because many things didn’t fit on that.
“But when I arrived at my parent’s house, and I found the room in which I was sleeping, I suddenly could see everything: my mother pointing her wand towards Voldemort and saying something, Voldemort killing her with Avada Kedavra and then turning to me and doing the same, but the curse rebounds on me and hits him on the chest, and then everything turns black.”
Dumbledore gasped internally upon hearing Harry’s words. Having been nearly killed by Voldemort was bad, but actually being able to see his mother’s death and what could have been his… Once more, Dumbledore berated himself for the horrible life Harry had had at his relatives’ home and his well-meaning but ill-causing actions upon the young child, and again promised to do his best to prepare Harry for his destiny.
“For the last ten years, I have held the opinion that, in spite of what transpired at your parents’ house then, that Voldemort did not truly die when the Killing Curse rebounded from you over him. Do you know what Death Eaters are?”
Harry nodded. “Griphook explained to me everything that has happened for the last years when I first met him at Gringotts.”
Dumbledore nodded again: he hadn’t met Griphook, but he knew that he was the current manager of the Potter Family assets at the goblin-run bank and that he had been in that position since Charlus Potter, Harry’s grandfather, had asked him to do so. “When someone dies, nearly every kind of charm they have cast, save for the most powerful and lasting of them, fail in a matter of a few days, weeks at most. A few years ago, many Death Eaters that had managed to get free around the time of Voldemort’s defeat were imprisoned after it was discovered that they had been able to get free through bribing those who were in charge in that time. You may not know this, but Death Eaters had a mark tattooed on their left arms, which was the way Voldemort communicated with them, to let them know when he wanted them to go to him. Well, I was able to look at those arrested people’s arms, and they still had their Dark Marks. It was faint, but it was still there.”
“So, you think that, since those marks are still on their arms, Voldemort is still alive?” Harry asked.
“Yes. I don’t know how he managed to survive, but I my sources tell me that, right now, he is a disembodied spirit currently living at the Albanian forests.”
“And I suppose that you haven’t sent anyone there because he could possess whoever tried to catch him.”
Dumbledore nodded.
“That was my conclusion, too.”
“Will you tell me that thing about my destiny, then?”
Dumbledore considered it. “If you knew how to protect your mind, I would tell you right now. If you don’t know about Occlumency, I would gladly teach you how to do it, if you wish.”
“There is no need, Professor, although you could tell me if I’m doing it well.”
“You know Occlumency?”
“Yes. My parents had one book about it in their library, and once I saw how important it could be, I practised the exercises, but as I couldn’t use Legilimency on myself, it was impossible for me to tell how well I was doing it. Would you mind doing it, Headmaster?”
“I can do it without a problem, Harry. However, I promise that, if I manage to get through, I won’t try to see anything, I’ll just get out in that case.”
Harry nodded at him and, taking out his ‘wand’, conjured two balls with which he started playing. Upon seeing Dumbledore’s puzzled face, Harry explained: “Well, it’s not as if Voldemort is going to wait for me to concentrate, no?”
Dumbledore nodded, acknowledging the idea as a good one, and, taking out his wand, he pointed it at Harry and whispered, “Legillimens!”
The first few seconds, Dumbledore was able to penetrate easily into the child’s mind, but after what should have been the outer shield, he found… nothing. No matter where he searched, he couldn’t find anything that actually told him that he was trying to enter his mind: no instant memories, no clue of the emotions he was feeling… if he hadn’t known that Harry was in front of him, he would have sworn that there was no one there! He cancelled the charm and looked impressed at him.
“That… that is incredible, Harry. I’ve never met anyone with such a control over his mind, enough that it appears to have disappeared completely!”
Harry grinned. It seemed that his idea, which he had based on his computer’s workings, had worked. He had spent many nights organizing his mind into something similar to a computer, but with the addendum of being able to hide everything from any possible Legilimens. The fact that he had derived this ability from a Muggle contraption was what made it so revolutionary, because no one would have eve thought about it before.
“I had thought that perhaps I would have to teach you, but it seems that it’s you the one who could teach me. Even Severus might be able to learn from you,” Dumbledore said.
“Severus, as in Severus Snape?” Harry asked.
“Yes,” Dumbledore asked, a bit surprised. “How did you know about him?”
“My mother’s diary. She said that she was good friends with him, and that he was great at Potions.” He didn’t mention that they had stopped being friends after he had insulted her, as he supposed that perhaps Dumbledore already knew it.
The older wizard nodded. “Yes, they were very good friends, and two of the best Potions students Hogwarts has ever had. Severus is, at the moment, the Potions Master of the school.”
“Do you think he would like to talk with me? While I was at Godric’s Hollow, I discovered a few things that he might be interested in.”
Dumbledore thought about it. For the whole summer, he had heard Severus rant about Harry, assuming that just because he was the son of James Potter he would be an identical copy of his hated school enemy. However, Harry was really far from being a bit like James: from the few minutes they had talked, Harry seemed to be polite, kind and frightfully intelligent for an eleven-year-old, much like Lily Evans was. His accomplishments with Occlumency could either impress or anger Severus, and his ability with his wand was incredible… wait a moment.
“Harry, could I see your wand for a second?”
Harry shrugged and took it out of his pocket, where he had put it after conjuring the juggling balls, and put it over the table, a bit ashamed. He hadn’t ever remembered to re-design it after having taken it from his house’s garden four years ago, and it still had some bark on it. Perhaps Dumbledore would teach him how to make it more better looking.
The first thing Albus saw was that what Harry had given him wasn’t a real wand, but rather a tree branch that had been broken on one of its sides to shorten it. It had bark on one of its sides — presumably the side that wasn’t the handle — and was a bit twisted in the middle part, but it just looked like a typical tree branch.
It was when he started to look it under mage sight that things changed. Mage sight, a complex ability that allowed one to ‘see’ the magic within an object or the wards in a building if one was enough concentrated, allowed Albus Dumbledore to see what no one had ever seen before: a wand with a core that didn’t come from a magical creature, but which was pure magic on itself! That on itself surprised Albus a lot: he was friends with Marcus Ollivander, the current owner of the wand shop in Diagon Alley, and sometimes they met for tea and talked about the things both of them had discovered. He remembered that, a few years ago, Marcus had told him about a theory one of his ancestors had postulated: if someone was able to pour enough magic through a piece of wood or metal, no matter its form, that piece would be able to act as a wand. Unfortunately, it meant that one had to emit a lot of magic in a short period of time, too much for normal wizards to be able to do it without suffering magical exhaustion, which made the point of making the wands that way a moot one.
“When did you acquire this, Harry? As far as I know, this looks like a broken tree branch,” Albus asked.
“Some time after arriving at Godric’s Hollow. I had just found one of my mum’s books and I decided to try a few of the charms in there, but I didn’t have a wand, so I went out and picked one of the branches on the floor. I intended to make it better looking, but I forgot about it with all the things I’ve been doing there.”
Alas, Albus thought, connecting the dots, that’s another mystery resolved. He hadn’t thought about it since he had told Arthur Weasley nearly four years ago, but what Harry had just told him connected with the incident that had started all the mess that ended with every known Death Eater in prison, Fudge and his clique of pure-blood sympathizers ousted of the Ministry and/or in prison as well and Sirius Black free from prison. He had thought then that Harry had been the one to create the magic that was detected by the Ministry then, but he had had no proof about it.
But first, he had to disabuse Harry of a certain notion he hadn’t noticed. “Harry, wands aren’t made out of simple wood. They are made by artisans who use parts of certain magical animals like phoenixes or dragons to provide a magical core so that wizards can channel magic with more ease, and then they use the wood of certain trees that, in their opinion, make the best combination for them. You have been casting wandless magic for a good part of the last four years, something that I myself wasn’t able to do until a few years ago.”
Harry’s eyes opened a lot after that. Wandless magic? Is Dumbledore saying that I could be using the same kind of magic as the Ancients? Well, there is only one way to try it. He pointed his right hand towards the bowl of lemon drops that stood on the Headmaster’s table and thought, Wingardium Leviosa!
The bowl started to float.
Dumbledore was truly impressed again. Wordless magic was taught to N.E.W.T. year students: four out of each ten students were able to use it for many different charms, but only one out of twenty was able to somehow master it. Watching an eleven-year-old use it with such ease, and combining it with wandless magic, was something unseen. Tom was able to do things without a wand when he was younger, too, Dumbledore thought. But I honestly doubt that Harry will go through the same path. For starters, he knows about his parents and knows that they loved him. The lack of that was one of the things that started Tom on that path.
“Well, Harry, you have again surprised me. And, before I forget, I’ll tell you about that thing you just asked me.” Albus then Summoned a stone bowl marked with runes to him and put it on the table. “This, Harry, is a Pensieve,” Dumbledore said, answering the un-asked question. “It is used to store memories and then watch them, and allows people to replay a memory of a past event in far better detail than one would be able to normally. One can either enter into the Pensieve to observe the scene as if one was there or just project it on the surface of the magical essence that helps to store the memories.” He stuck his wand on his right temple, and, muttering “Memoria quaere”, a silver strand glued to his wand, which he used to put the memory into the Pensieve.
Soon, the face of Sybill Trelawney, current Divination Professor at Hogwarts School, appeared at the surface of the Pensieve and started to talk on a rash tone: The one born with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...
Harry’s first reaction was fear. It was something that he hadn’t felt since the day he had accidentally Apparated, while running away from his cousin Dudley while he was practicing ‘Harry Hunting’ with his friends. If he was correct in his assumptions, this prophecy meant that he — Harry — was the only one who could defeat Voldemort.
The next thing Harry did was to think about what the rest of the prophecy meant. Most probably, the ‘thrice defied him’ were his parents, since they had been on the thick of the fight against Voldemort. The mark was obviously his scar, which had been given to him by Voldemort that Halloween day. The most problematic thing he could think of was the part about ‘neither can live while the other survives’: it was obvious that himself and Voldemort were alive — well, Voldemort was less than alive -, so that part wasn’t correct. Yet, Harry told himself.
Dumbledore looked at the young boy in front of him with concern, as what he had just revealed to him was sure to rock something inside Harry, just as it did with James and Lily when they were told that either their son or the Longbottom’s would be the one who would defeat Voldemort in the future.
After that, Harry and Dumbledore discussed a few more things before Dumbledore had a look at his clock. “Oh, my, I’m running late right now! I am supposed to have a meeting with Minister Bones in ten minutes. You don’t mind, no, Harry?”
Harry shook his head. “I might even be able to have a look around the castle, to find my way on it.”
“I would tell you where your godfather Sirius is, but right now he is not here, but at London, helping a friend of his.”
Harry thought about last night and remembered the full moon that had illuminated his room as he fell asleep. Then he remembered that one of his parents’ friends had something that was affected by the phase of the moon. “Remus Lupin?”
Dumbledore nodded. “You know about him being a werewolf?”
“I do.”
“And it doesn’t matter you?”
Harry shrugged. “Why should I care that he is a werewolf? If my father was friends with him, then I’m sure that he is a great person, and even then werewolves are only dangerous on a full moon, something that I know he takes care not to be near anyone to whom he could be a danger.”
Dumbledore nodded again, smiling at both the intelligence and the open-mindedness of the young boy. “You said before that you wished to meet Severus. If you go all the way downstairs towards the Great Hall and then take the door next to the stairs you might find him.”
“Thank you, Professor,” Harry answered as he stood up.
“Let me be the first to congratulate you and to welcome you to Hogwarts School, Harry.” Dumbledore shook hands with Harry and, after seeing him to the door, took the Floo to the Ministry, where Amelia Bones was waiting for him. She would love to know who had been the one to start all the mess that had helped her to get her post!
While Harry was going downstairs, a Potions Master known as Severus Snape decided to get out of the dungeons in which his potions lab was installed to have some air outside of the castle and have a walk. Yes, even the ‘overgrown greasy-haired bat’ — as he knew he was called by many students — liked to feel the sun on his skin. However, today’s walk around the Hogwarts ground was not to be, because when he reached the main hall, he found there a boy.
It’s Potter’s damned scion, he bitterly thought. He certainly looked like his school enemy, and he was sure that he would be as bigheaded and bad-behaving as his father was! Of course, he was already here. No doubt he was already using his fame to get something special! He went towards him to give him what would probably be the first lashing the spoiled brat had ever received.
However, as soon as he reached him, Harry looked at his eyes and smiled.
Lily’s emerald green eyes, shining with joy. Lily’s smile, always warm and welcoming.
Severus was painfully reminded of the last time he had seen those eyes and that smile. It had been a few days before their O.W.L.s started. They had been practising some potions that could likely end in the exam in the Potions lab with the permission of old Professor Slughorn, and he had accidentally dropped an incorrect ingredient into one of them. The result, which fortunately wasn’t catastrophic as it might have been, had left him with a completely black face. Lily had tried to hold it, but in the end she had given in and started to laugh uproariously at his face.
It had taken him five minutes of hard brushing to rinse all the ashes in his face, but he would have gone through it again just to hear her laughing again, because it was really heartening for him and made him happy. When a few days later, after the DADA exam, he accidentally called Lily ‘Mudblood’, it was the end of their friendship. From there, he had never said that word again, and after Lily’s death, he had never allowed anyone to say it in front of him, even if it meant that a mere meeting turned into a quarrel with one of his students.
Severus was brought back to the present when Harry went to him and stuck his hand out.
“Hello. Are you Severus Snape?” he said.
“Yes, I am. How is it that you are already here, Potter? Shouldn’t you be riding the Hogwarts Express, with everybody else?” Snape asked with a sneer.
Harry opened his eyes a lot. “Oh, they take a train to come here? My letter didn’t say anything about taking a train, and it didn’t even have a ticket to ride on it, so I just teleported myself to the Headmaster’s office.”
Snape raised an eyebrow. “And how did you, pray tell, were able to ‘teleport’ to the Headmaster’s office, when it is known that no one is able to Apparate into Hogwarts?”
Harry shrugged. “I’m not sure if what I do is really Apparating. It surely doesn’t feel like what my mother’s books on Apparation say about it.”
Severus gasped internally. Potter has Lily’s books? But I thought they had been destroyed when the Killing Curse rebounded on Potter! Perhaps some of them got spared, but how did Potter found those books anyway?
Harry hadn’t noticed the Potion Master’s reaction to his comment, so he decided to go on with what he really wanted to talk about. “There was something I wanted to talk about with you, Professor.”
“About what did you wish to talk with me?” Snape asked in spite of himself. He had to admit that, after the Lily’s book comment, he was a bit curious about what Potter had to say.
“Have you ever made a potion with ingredients similar to those in the recipe, but not the same?”
Obviously, this wasn’t what Snape was waiting for, as his face showed surprise, both at the mention of the Potions subject from a mere student, and the fact that it was a Potter the one who talked about it.
“Sometimes, when I had no other option. However, I’ve always found that it makes the potion work worse than when followed the normal recipe,” Severus replied, asking himself what this would be going.
Harry smiled. It was the answer he had been waiting for. “Well, while I was living at my parents’ house, I was able to develop a theory about why that happens, and a few other things that I’m sure you will be interested in your position of Potions Master.”
That picked on Severus’ interest. His mind immediately started to war against itself: ‘I hate Potters’ vs. ‘I love Potions’ first and last round was won, in the last second and by knock-out, by the latter. Thus, Severus nodded and told the child to follow him to the Potions lab in the dungeons.
As soon as the door to the lab was closed, Harry sprung into action. First, he took out his reduced trunk and expanded it with a hand wave. Severus was greatly surprised by this.
Wandless magic? Potter is a bloody wandless magician???? he thought.
Next thing, Harry took out his MagMachine out of the trunk, as well as his first invention, the ingredient reducer. As he put both things on the biggest table in the room, Severus asked himself about what this contraption had to do with Potions.
“Sir, these things I am showing you are two of my inventions,” Harry said, proudly. “Although this might surprise you,” There is something more surprising than this? Severus thought, “these were created as an idea that popped in my mind after making some potions. Once, I had a small accident in which some of my Arithmancy papers flew over my Potions book, and I realised that many of the ingredients, if not all, could be related with numbers and equations, and that Arithmancy tied directly into Potion making.”
This, Severus knew, as it was something any Potion Master knew; if you wished to invent a potion from scratch you first had to work out an equation that could tell you if you were on the correct way and if it would work at the level one desired.
“After that, I started to write down a list in which ingredients that had similar properties and magical power were together so I could find a relation between them.
“When I first created a potion that used only partial ingredients — that is, those that were similar but different to the ones in the official recipe — I started to think: what if there is something more to the similarities and the differences in the ingredients? What if what we know as ingredients is nothing but a sum of different composites that can be held for having the magical proprieties ingredients are said to have?”
If Severus thought the surprises had finished after the wandless magic, he was sorely mistaken: if he was hearing correctly, an eleven year old boy — scratch that, he had to be much younger than that to have been able to develop those ideas — had found out the answer to a question absolutely no one, not a bloody Potion Master ever, had been able to find in the whole history of potion-making: why does one ingredient work in one way on one potion but doesn’t work the same on any others?
“That’s what I was thinking on when I built this,” Harry said, pointing at the reducer. “I had to work on this a lot, but I feel that it was well-spent time, as this is able to reduce a potion ingredient to its most magical components, each of has one magical propriety, common or not with any other component.”
Severus was completely shocked by the last bit: this would completely change not only potion making as a career, but the whole subject of Potions as well, maybe even more than that!
“I’m not sure how familiar you are with the Muggle world, Professor, but there is something there called computer, which is something Muggles developed around forty years ago to help them make calculations and store information. After I built my reducer, I realised that I could make a computer that worked on magic rather than electricity, like Muggle computers do, and after a few too many tries, I created the first version, which I managed to sell to the goblins at Gringotts, who were really impressed by its functionality and prospective selling to the public shall I decide to do so.”
Harry had to say that he couldn’t really decide what he liked the most of the appearance Severus was wearing at the moment: his mouth was hanging open in surprise, his dark eyes were nearly coming out of their orbits or the drool that was coming out of his mouth.
Severus managed to recover from this surprise rather quickly (for Harry’s chagrin), and asked, with a shaking voice:
“Gringotts bought a machine you built based on a Muggle thing?”
“Sure,” Harry said with a bit of smug. “They were really attracted to the fact that it would save them a lot of time in the management of the accounts and Estates they protect. However, I think that one thing I shall show you is what I like to call the Table of Magical Elements.”
Instantly, without any kind of movement from Harry, the Table was projected onto the MagMachine’s screen, which once more surprised Severus, although he was already getting used to being surprised by the kid he — in spite of himself — was starting to look in respect and awe. But when he looked at the table and Harry started to explain him all the things he had studied to develop the Table, how useful the reducer had been for that and how he had researched the proprieties of each element, Severus had an epiphany.
He had prepared himself the whole summer to hate James Potter’s only son, believing him to be a spoiled brat much like his school enemy had been… but the boy in front of him didn’t behave at all like James Potter did: although he looked like him, he was more like Lily than he thought possible. It was then when he realised that this moment was the one in which he would have to make a choice.
He could choose between the two options that Harry had, unknowingly, presented him: keep up with the path he had been in for his whole life, or change his loyalties onto something else, and what Harry Potter was showing him definitively made the choice for him: he knew that, when the Dark Lord surged once more, his die would be cast next to Potter.
The next few hours had been well spent, in Harry’s opinion. Both he and Snape had discussed many possibilities Harry’s discovery could be used for and compromised on a schedule to work on those ideas. Severus himself couldn’t still believe how incredibly intelligent the young boy was, and he was really looking forward to meeting again with the bright child.
When the clock behind them struck five thirty PM, Snape looked up and realised that they had been talking without stop for nearly six hours.
“I think we should stop with this conversation, Potter. It is nearly the time for the Sorting and you should join the other students. You’ll have to go upstairs and find Professor Minerva McGonagall, don’t worry about recognising her, she will recognise you on sight.”
“Okay. Thank you for talking with me, Professor, it’s been nice to be here with you.”
“You are welcome, Potter.”
Severus watched the kid take his MagMachine — as he called the machine he had shown him — and put it into his trunk, which he reduced and put into his pocket. As soon as Harry closed the door, Severus sighed. For the last hours, although he had really liked the conversation, he would have to remind himself from time to time that the boy wasn’t James Potter, but rather his son. He had been helped out in that task by the fact that Harry had green eyes, like his mother did, and the fact that he was able to talk in an intelligent way had really helped him to distinguish the truth.
Perhaps this would be a good time to stop carrying on with the feud he had with James Potter and his friends. After all, the man had been dead for ten years (something that he had been indirectly involved in); he was — nearly — in civil terms with Sirius Black, who after six years in Azkaban and three as the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor had tempered his once young and boastful nature into a more mature one, especially considering that he would need it when Harry went to live with him; and, having brewed the Wolfsbane potion for Remus Lupin for the last few years, they enjoyed some academic conversation about Potions and many related things.
Closing his eyes and sighing once more, he stood up and followed the example of the boy that had just turned his life upside down.
Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft and current Transfiguration Professor of said school, was just about to go and meet the first years that would start their studies soon. She was hoping to see a certain boy, the only son of two of her favourite and most gifted students she had had in her tenure at Hogwarts. It remained a sore point in her life leaving Harry at the Dursley home and never checking on him once, but at first Albus’ reasons seemed to be good, and after Harry disappeared nobody had had any kind of contact with him until he answered Hogwarts’ letter. She was really looking forward to having him in her class, especially if he had inherited his parents’ ability for the subject.
She thought he would see him with the other children, but as soon as she stepped out of the Great Hall, she saw a James Potter look-a-like coming out of the dungeons. This boy was Harry, she was sure. Allowing herself a small smile when remembering how cute Harry was as a baby — even then he had the famous Potter mop of untameable black hair — she approached him.
“Harry?” she asked.
“Hello,” he replied with his child smile. “Are you Professor McGonagall?”
“Yes, I am. May I enquire why were you looking for me?”
“I was told that I would have to search for you, so that I could go to my Sorting. What do I have to do?”
“I was just going to receive the other first years. If you just wait here, you will be able to join them in the waiting room,” she replied, regaining her usual stern demeanour.
Harry smiled and stood near Professor McGonagall as someone knocked strongly on the main doors of the school. McGonagall opened the doors and behind them there was the tallest man Harry had ever seen, easily reaching three metres. He had a huge beard covering his smiling mouth and his black beetle eyes shone in the middle of the hair that nearly covered them.
“The firs’-years, Professor McGonagall,” he said in his thick West Country accent.
“Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.”
As the children started to filter into the main hall, Hagrid’s eyes momentarily passed over Harry’s small form and he did a double take while the young boy followed his future peers.
“Is he…” Hagrid asked in a whisper.
“Yes, he is,” McGonagall replied. “Albus will explain later in a staff meeting. You’ll have occasion to meet him later, Hagrid, don’t worry,” she said, blowing him one of her rare smiles — full knowing of how much Hagrid cared for the young Harry — and going towards her future pupils and directing them to a small room just in front of the door that led to the Great Hall.
After McGonagall finished her explanation about how Hogwarts worked and she retired to wait aside, Harry subtly looked around to see his new schoolmates. There were around fifty kids in the room, including himself, and all of them were in varying grades of nervousness. He could see a red haired boy telling a sandy-haired one that his brothers had said something about wrestling with a troll, and a bushy-haired girl — whom he thought he had seen somewhere else, but couldn’t place it — whispering, if Harry wasn’t mistaken, about a few simple charms. On one side, a blonde boy, flanked by two burly boys, sneered at everybody else. In the middle of the room, a boy holding a toad was slightly trembling with his nerves. Harry, feeling a sort of connection with this boy, decided to approach him: he felt that the trembling boy was sort of like him when he was going to school with his cousin Dudley.
“Hello,” Harry said, sticking out his right hand. “I’m Harry.”
The brown-haired boy jumped a bit when Harry talked to him: it was obvious he hadn’t been expecting someone to talk to him.
“Oh. Mm, hi, I’m Neville,” he muttered.
“Neville? As in Neville Longbottom?” Harry asked. He knew that Neville had been born just the day before he had, and his mothers had been great friends both at school and out of it. The last thing mentioned about the Longbottoms in his mum’s journal was that they had hidden like she and James Potter had done.
“Mmm, yes. How is it that you know about them?” Neville said, slightly astonished.
“My mum was great friends with yours, I think our fathers worked together at the Auror Corps during the war, and we were born with just a few hours difference,” Harry explained.
Neville opened his eyes a lot. “Are you Harry Potter?” he whispered, his voice nearly drowned among the other students’ noises.
Harry nodded. “My mom’s journal talked a lot about your mum, and I think that she is my godmother, but it wasn’t very forthcoming on that point. How are your parents, by the way?”
Neville’s face fell at the mention of his parents. Harry realised that perhaps something had happened to Neville’s parents sometime after Harry’s had died.
“Erm, Neville, sorry if what I said disturbed you. I - I don’t know what happened to them. See, I’ve been out of the Wizarding World for nearly my whole life and…”
“Don’t worry. I know that you haven’t been at our world for a lot of time, especially since… you know…”
Harry nodded, understanding that Neville was referring to his parents’ death. He had been able to overcome his own parents’ death — which was very hard, considering that he had seen his mother’s death as if he had been there —, and he respected the sacrifice both of them had done, but it still pained him that they weren’t there with him.
The awkward silence that fell upon the two boys was thankfully cut by Professor McGonagall, who had just arrived to the small room.
“The Sorting is about to start. Follow me.”
All the children in the room lined themselves behind Professor McGonagall. Harry got right in front of Neville and behind a medium-sized dark-skinned boy and followed the line that took them to the Great Hall.
The first thing Harry could see was the great number of students that were sitting down in the four huge tables on both sides from the central corridor the new students were running along. As he rose his head to better contemplate the floating candles, his gaze caught up on the marvellous scenery above everybody’s heads.
He had read his mother’s copy of Hogwarts, A History, and one of the things that featured in the large book was the charms that allowed people to see how the sky was in the outside… but the words didn’t do justice to the wonderful spectacle that was in show for the students every time they ate.
That night, there were no clouds in the sky, and all the shining stars could be seen from their position, forming a breath-taking landscape for all to see. Harry wondered about the constellations and their meanings: perhaps he would learn those in the Astronomy class.
When he looked back at the floor, he saw that, in the biggest table that presided the room, there were many people. The giant man he had seen before was sitting down on one of the ends of the table, with a very short bearded man next to him. Next to a turban-wearing man stood a dark-haired hooked-nose woman, and next to her there was an empty seat, which Harry supposed was Professor McGonagall’s. In the centre of the table, Albus Dumbledore was looking at all the students with a benevolent and grandfatherly smile, and to his left there was a dark-haired man which Harry could identify as his godfather, Sirius Black. Next to him there were three women, one with a slightly dirty robe, the next with small glasses and grey robes and the last with immaculate white robes, and in the end of the table stood Professor Snape, who was looking at all the new students with a mixture of hope and disdainfulness.
Then Professor McGonagall put a three-legged stool in front of the professors and an old hat on it, and stepped back.
Oh, it’s been a very LONG time! I truly apologise for your wait, but I have to do and study many things at the Uni! I just hope that you like this chapter enough to make up for the wait!
Anyway, this chapter here is the first where everything starts to fall apart from jmcqk6’s original story. In his/her story, Harry was very asocial, hardly talking with anybody else, and only with Hermione and Sirius at random intervals. However, I like to think that Harry really wants to make an effort and find what he has missed for so much time and wishes to make friends. He chose Neville because, as he says, he looks like a bullied boy like he himself was once. The idea of Alice Longbottom being Harry’s godmother is a very used one, but, considering no one truly knows who Lily’s friends were, apart from Snape, I think she is a good choice. Talking about Snape, he is going to be very different from the bitter man in canon, especially after Sirius, Remus and him have talked about their teens and did it in an adult and civil way (SURPRISE!!!!). His initial reaction to Harry is motivated by the fact that James was the one who lead the “war” against him and he “stole away” the girl he — Snape — liked the most. However, after meeting the true Harry Potter — that is, the intelligent, eager-to-learn boy who has even discovered many things about his favourite subject, Potions — he has a change of heart since someone he thought would be an idiot in reality shares many things in common with him. So, the Nice!Snape will appear slowly through Harry’s first year.
Now, 10 points for the one who is able to guess who the people in the Head table are! *grin* Now, Siriusly, you may have realised who the “turban-wearing man” is, and the answer to why he is at Hogwarts is because of something JKR said about him. I hope you know what I am talking about!
Lastly, I’m sure you are eating your nails waiting to know when our dearest Ginny Weasley — the future Mrs. Potter — will appear. She will do it — as I have stated many times — the day after Halloween. Circumstances are still to be chosen, but I have the rough draft of it in my mind. Please be patient, it’ll pay well.
One last thing: I hope that you like the rest of the story!
Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Sortin' Out The Meeting
Meeting, n. s., meeting: an organized gathering of people for a discussion or other purpose, a coming together of two or more people.
Harry immediately recognised it as the Sorting Hat. His mum had written on her journal that she had really enjoyed the songs the old pointy hat had sung while she was at school, as they always described the qualities of the houses in good and sometimes funny ways, and that she looked forward to hear the new song it performed every year, for it never used the same lyrics more than once. Harry really wanted to hear what the hat would come up with in his first year.
His wish was instantly granted when what Harry supposed was the hat’s mouth opened and started to sing:
(Insert Song Here. I am not providing a song because it is rather difficult to find something original and just putting the canon song would be too much clich. My girlfriend has been working on this a bit, and if she sends me a good idea, I'll put it in heρe)
Harry enthusiastically applauded the song with everybody else in the Great Hall and waited patiently for his name to be pronounced and be Sorted with everybody else.
As Professor McGonagall started, calling ‘Abbot, Hannah’ forward, Harry reflected on which house he would like to be sorted. He knew that his parents, as well as Sirius Black — who he could currently see warmly smiling at him from the Head table — and Remus Lupin — whom he hoped to meet as soon as possible — had been sent to Gryffindor, although his mum had thought she would have been sent to Ravenclaw, considering that she was really intelligent. He didn’t know much about Hufflepuffs, who were considered the most unimpressive students in the school by anybody else, but he knew that many people had gone there and were important in the British Magical world: the same Minister for Magic, Amelia Bones, had been a Hufflepuff herself — Lily had met her a few times in the Ministry and she knew that Amelia was a very proud and hard-working witch. About Slytherin… well, he didn’t want to think about them too much: he knew that nearly all the English Death Eaters had come from that house and that it was really possible that many of their children were already there or about to be sorted, so he wasn’t looking forward to go there.
His train of thoughts was interrupted when he heard McGonagall say “Longbottom, Neville!”
“Good luck!” Harry whispered to the brown-haired boy that was nervously going towards the stool without falling down. He wasn’t sure if he had heard it, but he grinned to him when he sat down facing the whole school and the old Scottish witch put the Hat on his head. After a few seconds, the Hat opened its mouth and shouted “GRYFFINDOR!”
Harry applauded with everybody else as Neville pulled out the Hat, gave it back to Professor McGonagall and went to the table on the far left who was cheering on a lot.
The line kept diminishing as McGonagall kept calling for names. The blonde kid Harry had seen before, identified as ‘Malfoy, Draco’, ended up in Slytherin — much to his delight, Harry saw. ‘Moon, Laura’ was sent to Ravenclaw. ‘Nott, Theodore’ and ‘Parkinson, Pansy’ to Slytherin. Two twin girls, ‘Patil, Padma/Parvati’ went to Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, respectively. ‘Perks, Sally-Anne’ was made a Hufflepuff. And then, at last…
“Potter, Harry!”
Harry stepped forward with a content smile while he heard the whispering around him.
“…the Harry Potter?”
“…wonder where he has been all this time…”
“…smaller than I thought…” Harry nearly laughed loud at that one. Then he sat on the stool and waited for McGonagall to put the Hat on him, aware that every student and professor had his eyes on him.
For a few seconds, nothing happened, but then Harry heard a voice.
That’s all? No more people to Sort after the ‘P’s? War must have been worse than I was lead to believe in the last years!
Pardon? Harry thought.
Oh, my! Sorry for that, young man! I couldn’t find your mind, so I honestly thought that the Sorting had finished already! the Hat said.
Oh, that must have been my Occlumency shields, Sir, Harry replied in his mind.
Hmmm, what you have is not a shield, young man, because I can normally trespass the normal shields an Occlumens has; it is like if you were wearing an invisibility cloak! And I have to say that you have been well educated, as no student here has called me Sir in many, many years.
Then, how should I call you?
Floppy, as I was named by Godric Gryffindor, Mr…
I’ll bring down my shields for a moment, so that you can see for yourself, Harry thought, while mentally pulling down the shields that protected his mind.
Aha! Floppy shouted. We meet at last, Mr. Potter. During these last four years, Albus has been going down with worry after your disappearance, and I can tell you that he truly regrets having to put you with those despicable relatives of yours.
That’s water under the bridge as I understand it, Floppy, Harry replied. Anyway, we are here so that I can be Sorted, no? I doubt the others would be happy that I was holding up their dinners.
Floppy chuckled. Perhaps, Mr. Potter, perhaps.
Just call me Harry, please. Every time you call me Mr. Potter I feel the urge to look around for someone else.
Floppy chuckled again. Sure, Harry, I have no problem with that. Now, let’s see what you are suited for…
A minute later, Floppy ended his search and talked again to Harry: Harry, you can raise your shields again. I’m sorry but we’ll have to re-schedule your Sorting for a bit later. You are a truly difficult one to place, as you have abilities that all four Founders would have truly prized to have in their own House.
I have no problem with that.
All right, then.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Albus Dumbledore watched as the young black-haired boy he had talked with that same morning was sitting down on the three-legged stool that had supported the weight of so many students along the years — him included — and that was the second most important element in the Sortings.
Apparently, the Hat had been a bit confused at the start, because he had started to stir as he did every year after the Sorting, but then he concentrated back into the task. The two of them — boy and hat — must have talked quite a bit — perhaps two or three minutes — before the Hat opened its mouth, but, to his surprise, the Hat didn’t deliver a House’s name, but…
“DUMBLEDORE! I NEED TO TALK WITH YOU!”
Everybody was truly surprised at what the Hat had just shouted. However, Albus stood up, going next to Harry and gently lifting the Hat from the boy’s head before donning it himself.
What’s the problem, Floppy? Albus asked.
There is no problem at all for me, Albus, but I felt the need to immediately inform you that this young man might be able to take your job before he even reaches forty years of age.
Albus was dumbstruck at the bold statement. Why do you say that, Floppy?
Albus, for nearly a millennium I have Sorted eleven-year-old children and sent them to different Houses that would perhaps suit well to their personalities. I have met hard-working and lazy children, intelligent and stupid, courageous and coward, cunning and straight-forward… but never, in my whole tenure at Hogwarts, have I met a boy of this calibre! Harry Potter is one among millions, Albus, and not only because of your prophecy, but because he is going to rock the main foundations of Magic itself!
Really? What can you tell me about him, Floppy?
Sorry, Albus, but that’s for Harry to tell and for you to be amazed and astonished at, Floppy replied smugly. Anyway, I know that you plan to make a meeting so that you can tell the other Professors about your meeting with Harry. I strongly suggest that you don’t force young Harry to go through Hogwarts’ normal curriculum until you call a few people that will help you measure the level of intelligence the young man possess. Nicholas Flamel, Remus Lupin and Alastor Moody would really love to meet him. Oh! And don’t forget to talk with Severus; Harry had a most interesting meeting with him.
I’ll do that, Floppy, but would you mind Sorting Harry? At least, do it a temporary measure until we can make sure that he will have the best curriculum available to him. You know that the dinner can’t be started until every student is Sorted into a House.
I’ll do that, Albus, if you place me back into Harry’s head.
Albus did as he was asked and returned back to his seat, a slight smile on his lips.
What was that about, Floppy? Harry asked when the Hat came down again.
Oh, I just needed to tell Albus a few things. Don’t worry: all of your secrets are safe, as I was bound not to relay the students’ secrets by the Four Founders. Anyway, you get to choose what House you want to go to, young man. You are quite equilibrated between the four houses, and you would do well in any of them.
Hmm, can you send me to Gryffindor then? It was where my parents and his friends went, and since you have sent Neville there, it would be nice to have a known face in there.
All right then, young man. Just come some times to talk with me. It is really boring to stay the whole year in the Headmaster’s office.
I will, don’t worry, Harry promised.
“GRYFFINDOR!”
Harry pulled off the hat and gave it to Professor McGonagall, while the people in the left table shouted “WE HAVE POTTER! WE HAVE POTTER!” After shaking hands with many people — especially three red-headed boys, two of them twins and the other a Prefect — he sat down next to Neville with a smile that the other boy returned.
“Hey, it’s great to see you. Congratulations on being a Gryffindor,” Harry told the other boy.
“S-same to you, Harry,” Neville replied with a small smile. “I can’t believe I am in Gryffindor, I thought that I would be in Hufflepuff.”
“Hufflepuff isn’t that bad,” Harry replied. “Sure, they might be looked down because they are supposed to be the ones who don’t fit in the other houses, but they are hard-working and loyal. I think that those are very good traits for a good person.”
“It’s true,” the older red-haired boy said, offering his hand to the recently sorted boys, which they stretched. “Mr. Potter, Mr. Longbottom, I am Percival Weasley, Gryffindor fifth year prefect. If any of you has a problem or needs help with something, don’t doubt to ask either me or any one who wears this badge,” he said, showing a gold-and-red badge with the form of a P. Just then, McGonagall called ‘Weasley, Ron’.
“Oh, knock it off, Percy, you don’t have to be so pompous,” one of the twins said. “Fred Weasley, this is George, and the one being sorted right now is our ickle brother Ronniekins,” he said sticking out his hand. Harry snorted.
“GRYFFINDOR!”
“Well done, Ronald,” Percival told his brother, who sat down next to the twins, while ‘Zabini, Blaise’ was sorted into Slytherin.
“Thanks, Perce,” the youngest read-haired said, grinning from ear to ear.
“I think presentations are due, my dear twin,” one of the twins — George, Harry thought, as he wasn’t the one who had talked before. “Ron, these are Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter, firsties like you.”
“Oh!” Ron said, surprised. “It’s great to meet you, Harry. I didn’t see you back there in the train, so I didn’t know if you would be coming in the end.”
“I managed to come on my own,” Harry replied to the boisterous boy. “My letter didn’t say anything about taking the Hogwarts Express, so I took the Floo here from my parents’ house,” he said. He knew that it was a huge lie, but it wasn’t as if he wanted to tell everybody he met about his ability to ‘teleport’.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
In the end of Prometheus’ journal, he described what happened after Atlantis fell and he was stranded in the European coast with only his journal, what he was wearing and a few personal objects he had managed to pack before the huge island sunk into the Atlantic Ocean. He had been the only survivor.
After weeping about the death of everybody he had ever known in his life and honouring their spirits in a ceremony he made on his own based on those he had seen when he was, he had set out in search of the goblins. Atlantean people had always kept good relationships with the Goblin nation, and they were sure to have known what had happened: Goblin magic, although very different from wizard magic — excellent for things like metal melting or tunnel and mine construction, bad for conjuration or transfiguration — was very effective when it came to knowing if someone was alive or not, and they were sure to have noticed the cataclysm.
After some time of searching without luck, he decided to stay in a Muggle city where he started a business that would help him win enough money to live, but soon he was winning large quantities of money.
However, one day one of his customers had seen how exactly he made the goods that he sold to people, and in a matter of days a furious mob had assaulted his shop. He had been able to hide the money he had won with so much efforts, but unfortunately he hadn't been able to get away. After a few minutes, the mob decided that, so that they wouldn't be infected by his freakishness — something Harry could relate to — they would chain him up to a mountain.
When he woke up, he was already up there, and he was held up by two iron chains that were tied to the mountain.
For months, he stood there, surviving only thanks to his vast magical reserves. From time to time, he was able to muster enough energy to conjure some food and water, but he didn't unchain himself: he had felt that this was a punishment he deserved, for trying to bring magic to the Muggles.
However, one day he realised that he was not to be blamed for their reactions. They had reacted against that they couldn't truly understand, and thus they had attacked him. It was then when he freed himself, healed all the wounds the chains and weather had caused on him and claimed that he would never let things like these happen to him again.
The last paragraph in the journal related that he would keep searching for the goblins and that he would leave the journal somewhere where only one with a power akin to the Ancients' would be able to find.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
“Wow! It's a pity, then. Coming on the train it's great, you can meet with old and new friends in there, and you can always have a snack while you are coming,” Ron replied.
Harry would have said more, but then Albus Dumbledore stood up and everybody fell silent.
“Good evening to all of you, old and new students,” he said with a warm smile. “If I were at the Ministry, I would be giving you a really boring lecture that surely none of you would pay attention to,” some chuckles were heard, “but since we are not there, I only give you these words: Nitwit! Blubber!Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!”
Everybody clapped at the end of the short speech as food magically appeared in the plates in each table. Harry, having read his mother's books as well as his father's journal, knew that somewhere else in the school, a few metres down from where they were, there was a huge kitchen where many house elves lived, cooking from hours before every meal and going to clean out the dirtiness when it was needed. His mum had been appalled at the fact that there was something so akin to slavery in the magical world, but her talks with the little green beings had showed her that they were well treated at Hogwarts.
As the evening kept going on, the conversation turned to the matter of families and upbringing.
“I'm half and half. Me Dad's a Muggle, and Mum didn't told him she was a witch until they were married. He got very scared about that,” said Seamus Finnigan, who was Irish. Everybody laughed.
“My mother is a Muggle too. My stepfather too, but I don't know if my dad was one, 'cause he disappeared when I was very small,” Dean Thomas, a black-skinned boy, said.
“My family is completely pureblood,” Ron replied, like giving no importance to it. “We are six boys and a girl: Bill is a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts, Charlie works in a Dragon Preserve, Percy is a Prefect, Fred and George are born pranksters, then there is me and finally Ginny. She is coming to Hogwarts next year.”
“Pranksters, huh?” Harry asked, grinning. “My father and his friends were great pranksters, too. They really drove the professors in here mad with their jokes.”
“Anybody here said 'pranks'?” Fred asked.
“Yeah, if you want to talk 'bout them...”
“...talk with us...”
“...'cause we are...”
“... the Fabulous Weasley Twins!” they said.
“Bah,” Harry said, dismissing them. “What's your personal best?”
Fred and George looked at each other, surprised that Harry Potter was actually asking them that, and seemingly conversing about it.
“Well...”
“...if we had to choose something...”
“...it would be...”
“...charming the entrance...”
“...of the Slytherin common room...”
“...so that anybody who went out...”
“...had his robes painted in red and gold.”
Harry laughed. “I know of someone who has bested that a hundred-fold.”
“Whom might that be, Harry?” one of the twins asked.
“Only one group of people...”
“...might have been able to best us...”
“...at all...”
“...our heroes...”
“...our idols...”
“... those whose steps we wish to follow...”
“...Moony...”
“...Wormtail...”
“...Padfoot...”
“...and Prongs...”
“The Marauders!” they exclaimed at the same time. Harry grinned.
“Well, I'd bet that, if you mentioned those names to a certain Professor and you showed him where exactly you found those names, perhaps said Professor might shed some light on some of their pranks and even... help you with some of them.”
“Oh! Do tell, Harry, who is this mysterious Professor?” one of the twins asked.
“Yeah, who is this mysterious Professor that knew the Marauders? Or that was a Marauder?” The other twin said.
“Oh, come on, who do you think it might be?” Harry asked.
The twins looked at each other again. Then at Harry. Then at the Head Table. Then at Harry again.
“Professor Black?” they asked.
“Bingo!” Harry replied. “But I'm not going to tell you his relationship to them, that's something you have to discover.”
“Fair enough, young Harry,” the twins said. “We're good enough with extracting secrets from people.”
“But this merits a reward for young Harrikins here, no, Fred?”
“Of course, George, this young man deserves something good for his services to the Weasley family.”
“But not today, but tomorrow, as the ickle firsties are sure to need to go to bed very early tonight.”
“Sure they have to.”
“Well, ickle boys...”
“Bye!” the twins chanted and left to their seats.
All the first years looked at Ron, whose ears reddened slightly.
“They have always been like that, finishing the other sentences, as far as I know. Must be one of those twin things, and they have always liked pranks. They were born the first of April, you know.”
Harry laughed. It was certain that date suited the twins very well.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
After the dinner finished, Albus watched as Harry and his newly made friends — coincidentally, Neville Longbottom, the other person that could have been the one in the Prophecy, was one of them — followed Percival Weasley to Gryffindor Tower for their first night there.
As soon as the students left the Great Hall, Albus stood up and went towards the room were the teachers held the staff meetings. He had only told Minerva and Sirius what was going to be treated in the meeting, as he wouldn't like for the only item to be discussed. Save for Quirrell, who begged off a headache, Trelawney, who had retired to her quarters sooner than normal, and Binns, who had never attended a meeting since his death, everybody else in the staff would be in there.
One by one, all the Professors that were to attend and Hagrid entered the staff room, which expanded to allow the attendants enough space. Everyone sat in their designated seat — Hagrid had a gigantic armchair designed for him especially — and looked at the Headmaster.
“Good evening to all of you,” Albus started. “I called all of you here so that we could treat a very important subject: Mr. Potter and his reappearance in the Magical World.”
Everybody — save for Minerva, Sirius and Severus — gasped. They had, of course, known that Harry had just appeared back from wherever he had been hidden, but they didn't know that they would know what exactly had happened to the young boy. A few of them looked at Severus, expecting the typical diatribe against the last of the Potter line, but were surprised to see the Potions Master nodding in understanding.
“Now, what I am about to tell you is not to be mentioned to any person, not even those Professors who have not attended this meeting, and certainly it won't be talked out of this office, for the information I am about to share with you is of the biggest importance and shall be regarded with the utmost secrecy. That's why I'll require you to swear a Wizards Oath to never reveal anything that I am about to tell you unless Harry Potter deems it opportune.”
Everybody was surprised again. A Wizards Oath was something just below an Unbreakable Vow in its scale: while the Unbreakable Vow would kill someone that made it and then tried to go against it, a Wizards Oath would leave the oath-breaker without magic, turning him or her into a Squib.
To level the things, Albus took his wand out and said: “I, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, swear to keep anything that is revealed about Harry James Potter in this meeting secret from those who don't know it unless Harry James Potter himself allows me to talk about it with those he deems trusted. So I speak, so I intend, so mote it be.” A bright flash signed the seriousness of the situation, and one by one all the professors swore their Oaths, and light flashed from all of their wands. Once that was done, Dumbledore cast a privacy ward that wouldn't allow any kind of sound made within the meeting room be transmitted to anywhere outside of the room.
“Very well, now we can start,” Albus said with a smile. “In first place, I can reveal you that, since he disappeared, he has been living in his parents' former house, in Godric's Hollow.” He looked around and saw that neither Severus nor Sirius were surprised by that. Floppy said something about asking Severus. Perhaps Harry met him? Dumbledore thought.
“I can also tell you that Harry Potter is an incredibly, frightfully intelligent child, much more intelligent than many people of his age, and a very gifted one, that is: he was able to Apparate through Hogwarts wards without breaking a sweat, and landed into my office without me noticing.”
All the professors were astonished by that: an eleven-year-old boy going through centuries-old wards merely on wish?
“If I may, Albus,” Severus said, jovially, “I believe that the word you are looking for is 'Teleporting'.”
“You have met him, Snape?” Sirius Black said.
“Yes, Black,” Severus replied. “If you remember, this whole summer I have ranted against Harry and James Potter quite a lot...”
“Understatement of the year,” Filius muttered to Hagrid, who was next to him. Hagrid chuckled.
“...but, upon meeting him, although I still have resentment against James, I have to say that Harry Potter is nothing like I had expected him to be. But I think I will keep back what I know about him until Albus tells us what he knows.”
“Thank you, Severus,” Albus replied, grinning at the man he had cared of since Voldemort had been defeated for his maturity and how well he had been able to connect with Harry. “Upon arriving, I held a conversation with him, in which he showed both his maturity and some of his knowledge. One of the first things he asked me was about why had Voldemort killed his parents and tried to kill him. I didn't know if I should tell him, but he showed me an ability with Occlumency that I doubt no one here would ever be able to win against.”
“Care to expand on that, Albus?” Septima Vector, Hogwarts Arithmancy Professor, asked.
“I hope that some of you know the theory behind Occlumency and how to protect your mind, no?” Seeing Severus, Sirius, Minerva and a few others, Albus kept talking: “For those who don't know, one of the things one must do to protect his or her own mind from a Legillimens, a representation of your own mind, normally based on a place where you would feel secure, must be placed on your mind through meditation, then your memories must be organized so as to help with the protection. If you don't do the representation within your mind, a Legillimens will be able to find memories with ease, but will have to sort through them. Well, when I used Legilimency on Harry — with his whole support, I have to add,” he said to cut a few of the well-meaning staff members, “I wasn't able to find anything, it was as if his mind didn't exist at all.”
Snape raised his eyebrows at that. His respect for Harry grew a bit more.
“He also told me that, somehow, he remembers his parents' death. This was, certainly, most disquieting for me, as that kind of things would surely be a bad shock for someone his age. However, he told me that, although it was really shocking for him, at least he was able to know how exactly did his mother die, as, apparently, the Dursleys had told him that James and Lily had died in a car crash.”
Sirius' eyes darkened, as they always did when he was reminded of things like his unlawful imprisonment in Azkaban or Lily's sister and brother-in-law. He muttered something about getting even with them for their lies, but let Albus continue with his recounting of his meeting with Harry.
“Other thing that I discovered was related to the article written about Harry in the Daily Prophet after he went to Diagon Alley. Do you remember that he didn't go to Ollivander's in no moment?” He didn't wait for an answer to his rhetoric question. “Harry told me that, as soon as he arrived to his parents' house, he found a book about magic, and he 'found' a wand with which he started to make magic. Only thing is, his 'wand' was no more than a common feet-long tree branch he had just picked up from the garden.”
The Professors reactions were clearly divided between laughing at the fact that Harry had been using a tree branch as a wand and let their jaws hanging open at the fact that Harry had actually been able to make magic without a wand. Snape, knowing already that Harry could do wandless magic, just chose to chuckle.
Albus then related a few of the small things Harry and him had talked about after telling Harry about the Prophecy and then gave the floor to Severus, as the Hat had told him the child and the Potions Master had talked.
“I do have many things to tell about Harry Potter, one of which I have already said. For starters, when I met him before, and during the talk we held, I realised that, although he might look like James Potter, Harry is more like his mother in personality and brains, perhaps even more intelligent than both of them put together.
“It is true that I dislike James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin for all the things they did for me, but the years have shown me that, although I was really hurt by their treatment of me, their behaviour and mine was that of kids, and therefore it should be — at least partially — forgiven. And, after meeting with Harry this morning, I realised that I could let go of the hatred I was prepared to feel towards him when I thought he would be like James was at his age.
“However, this isn't only about my feeling about the boy. In my conversation with him, I discovered that he is well mannered, magically powerful — as Albus told you before — and has a level of intelligence I've never seen in my life. Many adults I know would have a hard time trying to understand what he can do.”
“Explain us, Snape, please,” Sirius said.
“Well, for starters, I think that Potter would be perfectly able to get a Potions Mastery right now.”
Sirius and Dumbledore raised their eyebrow while the other Professors seemed to be shell shocked by the information.
“Not only that,” Severus continued, enjoying his colleagues' faces, “but he has come up with many interesting and important theories on potion making and spell building that have truly caught my interest. Actually, Black, there is an important matter I feel I'd like to discuss with you later.”
Sirius nodded.
“Also, he has demonstrated a good level of knowledge in many other fields of magical knowledge, especially Transfiguration, and many things that, unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to explain, and, from something he told me, he apparently was able to make out something based on Muggle technology. That's why I think that Potter should be tested by all of us, as well as any person Albus deems well professed in the Magical Arts, so that a regime of private tutorials could be held for him instead of some of his normal classes, which I think would hinder more than help him.”
“Shouldn't Harry keep with the normal classes? Maybe he would like to make friends with the other students,” Bathsheba Babbling, the Ancient Runes Professor, said.
Snape shook his head. “It would be too much detrimental for his intelligence if he was forced to go through classes that talk about knowledge he already knows of. He would grow bored and wouldn't feel the need to exert all his potential at a time. Perhaps there are some classes he doesn't know much about, but that should be known if we plan that meeting I'm suggesting.”
“Interestingly enough, Severus,” Dumbledore said, “Floppy, the Sorting Hat, told me the same thing before Harry was sorted into Gryffindor. Since tomorrow it's Saturday, I'll have enough time to call those who might help us understand Harry's knowledge. Sirius, I'm sure that you really want to meet your godson. Perhaps you could go to Gryffindor tower tomorrow and stay with Harry and his friends. As far as I know, he is already friends with Neville Longbottom and perhaps the three youngest Weasley boys.”
Sirius smiled widely. “Of course, Albus. I would really like to meet, not only Harry, but Neville and the Weasleys too. If Harry has been able to make friends with them, then I feel that I should try to know about them.”
Dumbledore smiled back. “One last item, before we retire to our bedrooms. I feel that, for this meeting Severus suggested, we should invite some people from outside of Hogwarts. It is very possible that some of the knowledge Harry possess could be a bit far from what we know.”
“I'd like to invite Remus,” Sirius said. “He is really intelligent, and I am sure that he wants to meet Harry; it's been ten years from the last time he saw Harry.”
“Nicholas Flamel, also, would like to come here, if only to see what Harry came up with,” Snape suggested.
“Arthur Weasley,” McGonagall said. “If Severus is right about Harry's making something from Muggle technology, he might be able to help.”
“What about Alastor Moody?” Flitwick asked. “You know that James Potter was one of his trainees back there in the war, and since he retired he doesn't have anything to do. He might even teach Harry if he finds it useful for him to know some Auror spells.”
“All right, then. Those four people will be enough for the meeting,” Dumbledore said. “Is there something else any of you wish to discuss?”
When he saw the other professors shake their heads, Dumbledore said, “Then I consider this meeting adjourned.”
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Sirius entered his office, followed by Snape. While the latter sat down in one of the chairs around the round table at one side of the room, Sirius searched in one of the drawers in the office and took out a bottle filled with a red, crystalline liquid and two small glasses.
“Ogden's Fire Whiskey?” Snape said.
“Yes. But I only drink it when I am having a really bad day,” Sirius replied, pouring the liquor in the glasses.
“Cheers,” Snape said, lifting the glass and drinking. Sirius did the same.
“OK, Snape. What is this that you want to talk with me about?” Sirius asked.
“Straight to the point, no? Well, I'd like to ask you something before: you are Potter's guardian, so he will be living with you, no?”
“That's the plan,” Sirius said. “I'd really like to live with him, and perhaps with Remus too if I can convince him to join us.”
“Then you might like this. One of the things Potter showed me was a theory of his that could, perhaps, help to find a cure for werewolves, among other things.”
“Is this related to that thing you said about Harry being able to earn his Mastery in Potions right now?”
“Yes. And there is other thing I'd like to ask you of, a favour if you will. The next winter holidays, Marseilles will hold the International Potions Masters Congress, and I think it would be truly beneficial for the magical community to know of this, so I would like to ask you that you let me bring Potter to the Congress. Both you and Lupin would come with him, of course, since every Master is allowed to invite a certain number of people.”
“Why, Snape? You could present it as your own theory and become the greatest Potions Master ever, which, if I remember well, was one of your dreams when you were younger,” Sirius said, not in an accusing tone, but on a curious one.
Snape smiled. “Believe it or not, Black, I have a set of morals, and one of the things I would never do was to steal other person's work. Anyway, although I understand the workings of Harry's theory, many of the things needed to truly explain it are all in Harry's hands, and even if Harry lent them to me, he would have to spend too much time teaching me how to use them.”
“Hmm,” Sirius muttered. “Moony would love going to that Congress, he really likes to hear about potions and perhaps a cure... and, if Harry is as intelligent as he is, perhaps he might like it, too. Maybe I'll get bored, but I could have a look around... Yeah, it could be done. But, don't tell Harry yet, Snape. I think that this could be a surprise for Christmas. Merlin knows that the poor guy hasn't gotten anything as a present since his first birthday.”
Snape nodded. He hadn't been at the meeting in which Dumbledore told Sirius how had Harry lived at the Dursleys, but the portraits at the Headmaster's office still trembled whenever the black-haired grim Animagus entered the room. Sirius' screaming rant had been the stuff legend was made of.
“I know that you will tell Potter everything you remember about his parents, Black,” Snape said. “I just wish one thing. If you did it, it would be nice, but you don't have to do it if you do not want.”
“Just tell me, Snape. I'll do it unless it's an outlandish idea,” Sirius said. Internally, he felt that he might do it even if it was an outlandish idea: he still felt guilty over both the hell he and his friends had pushed him through, and his idea of sending him to the Shrieking Shack while Remus was a werewolf hadn't been the best, exactly.
“When... you decide to tell him about Lily, or... about the time in which we picked on each other... allow me to be there. There are some things that I think he should better know from me,” Snape said.
“No problem with that, Snape. The story will make more sense if the both of us tell it, anyway. You were Lily's best friend, after all.”
“Yes, I was,” Snape said, and both adults fell silent while remembering their best friends from school.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Dumbledore arrived to his office and sat down in his chair, breathing deeply. The meeting had gone well, in his opinion, and he was savouring the success in convincing the other professors to help him to sort out Harry's knowledge. He truly hoped that the meeting helped them to know what Harry would need to know in order to defeat Voldemort.
“Albus? How did the meeting go?” Floppy said, startling him.
“It has gone well, Floppy,” Dumbledore replied, catching the Hat with a good Summoning Charm and donning it.
Aha, the Hat said, upon seeing Dumbledore's memories of the meeting. Yes, indeed the meeting went well. I feel it is good that Sirius Black and Severus Snape were able to work together in such an important thing as Harry's well being.
Yes, Sirius has changed much in the last four years, Dumbledore replied. He has stopped being so rash and know he is thinking more responsibly and carefully. As much as it pains me to say this, Azkaban helped him with that.
I am still surprised that he was able to go through six years in Azkaban just by thinking that he was innocent, the Hat said.
The human mind is something really powerful, Floppy, as you know very well, Dumbledore told him.
It is, Albus, it is, Floppy chuckled. You might want to call Nicholas before it is too late. You know that he really likes to get into his bed soon.
Thank you, Floppy, Albus said. He put the Hat back into his shelf and went to the fireplace. He drew out some green powder from a pot in one side.
“Flamel Castle!” he said, throwing the powder into the fire and stepping into the fire. Soon, he was shot upwards towards the fireplace in the castle where his old friend, Nicholas Flamel, and his wife Perenelle lived.
“Albus!” a grey-haired woman said when she saw the wizard come out of the fireplace. “What are you doing here? Has anything happened to the Philosopher's Stone?”
“Don't worry, Perenelle,” Albus said, “I only came here to ask both of you for a favour. Would you call Nicholas, please?”
“No need, Albus, I'm here,” the ancient wizard said, entering the room. “I hope that nothing has happened to my stone, boy!” he said in a half-angry tone.
“No, Nicholas, nothing happened to the Stone,” Albus said, smiling. “It is perfectly safe right now back at Hogwarts. No, what I wanted to talk with you is about Harry Potter.”
“Ah! I read that he had gone to Diagon Alley a month ago. What's the matter with him?” Nicholas asked.
“Well, the thing is that Harry is a very intelligent child. As you know, he has been living alone at a place I can't disclose, because I made a Wizard's Oath to not reveal anything about him unless he gives me permission, but I can tell you that Severus requested your presence to ascertain the level of knowledge Harry has.”
“He does?” Nicholas asked, surprised. “Well, it might be nice to meet the young man, if he is as intelligent as you say.”
“Thank you, Nicholas. Perenelle, would you mind coming with him? Your knowledge of Charms is truly extensive, and would help much if you decided to help Filius when it comes to teach Harry.”
“It's been a hundred and thirty years since the last time I taught someone, and it was you, Albus!” Perenelle said, chuckling. “I do really miss teaching students, but I fear that my teaching style might be out of style.” She laughed softly at her own joke.
“Don't worry, Perenelle,” Albus said. “I'm sure that Harry will like being taught by you. After all, both of you are legends in the magical world!”
“But we are two very old legends, Albus. Two more-than-six-and-a-half-centuries-old legends, in fact,” Nicholas said, acknowledging his age. “Both you and Harry Potter are more recent legends in the magical world's eyes, especially considering that both of you have each defeated your own Dark Lord.”
“And the ironic thing is that both of those Dark Lords are alive,” Dumbledore said, a bit sad. Gellert Grindelwald, the Dark Lord he had defeated back during the Muggle Second World War, had been a good friend of his when he had come to the village of Godric's Hollow — incidentally, the town where Voldemort had been first defeated, an event recognised by an statue that portrayed James, Lily and Harry Potter as they had been when the adult Potters were killed, based on a photograph Dumbledore had found between Sirius' belongings — and, after he beat him, Grindelwald had been sent to the prison of Nurmengard, where he still lived, and was apparently very repentant of all the things he had done.
“Yes, Albus, and I know that Voldemort is still a spirit. Why do you think he didn't die when the Avada Kedavra curse hit him?” Nicholas asked.
“I have many theories about it, some of them more probable than others, but I don't have enough proofs to actually demonstrate them,” Dumbledore said, shaking his head.
“Well, I think that I'll join this meeting of yours, Albus,” Nicholas said after thinking for some time. “Are you coming too, Per, or will I have to go alone?”
“No, I'm going too, if only to keep you away from doing something you may regret later,” Perenelle said, earning a laugh from the two wizards.
“Thank you very much, both of you. The meeting will be next Sunday at 10 AM. Don't come later, please,” Albus said with a smile.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
While Albus was telling the Flamels about Harry's prowess, Sirius was engaged in a similar conversation with one of his best friends from school, Remus Lupin.
When they were eleven, James Potter and Sirius Black — who were already friends from before they had picked the Hogwarts Express — had met a young brown-haired boy called Remus Lupin. During their first year, they made friends also with the mouse-like Peter Pettigrew, and James and Sirius had found a strange thing: Remus had to leave once a month, apparently to go and meet his mother who was ill.
However, by their second year they realised that Remus was always gone on the night of the full moon, and he always looked worse when he came back, almost as if he had been ill instead of his mother. Through their pureblood raising, both of them knew that werewolves always changed on the full moon, and so they realised that their good friend was a werewolf.
Normally, the bias and prejudice of the magical world would have meant the end of their friendship, as many people thought werewolves were dangerous, but James and Sirius knew otherwise, because they knew that Remus was far from dangerous. Well, perhaps he was while on the full moon, but twenty-seven days out of every twenty-eight he was the nicest and most intelligent guy they had ever met. So, armed with their knowledge and their Gryffindor courage, they confronted Remus and asked why he hadn't told them about it.
Remus had been stricken by the question, thinking that he would lose his friends, but then James and Sirius told him that they weren't about to leave him just for a 'furry little problem'. That made Remus laugh a lot.
It was that day that the legendary group of pranksters known as The Marauders — which would, later, be the inspiration of two twin bundles of dynamite named Fred and George Weasley — was born. Soon, Peter would join the group, and surprisingly, it had been him the one who gave them the idea to turn themselves into Animagi, when he mentioned that werewolves were only dangerous to humans.
By the time they were fifth years, James, Sirius and Peter were able to turn themselves into a stag, a dog and a rat, and then they got themselves nicknames related to their forms: Remus would be known as Moony, James would be Prongs, Sirius Padfoot and Peter Wormtail.
By the end of their sixth year, they had managed to explore nearly all the school, and had made a map of it. Remus had been the one who had found the charms that would allow only them and those who knew of the password to open and read the map, which would also be able to tell the readers where each and every person within the school was.
Unfortunately, on their seventh year, Peter had been caught by Filch and they lost the map. At least, Peter had managed to clean it before the caretaker could see what exactly was the piece of parchment the boy was keeping on his hands, but the Marauders weren't able to recover the map before of their graduation.
James and Lily Potter's death nearly broke the friendship between Remus and Sirius, as the former thought the latter had been the betrayer of the group. It hadn't been until six years later that the truth came out, Sirius was freed, Peter shown to be the traitor, and Remus and Sirius mended what had been nearly broken then.
They planned to get the Marauders Map in order to give it to Harry when he came to Hogwarts, but by the time they were able to find a way into Filch's office, the Map had already been taken by Fred and George Weasley, fresh into Hogwarts School and already two great pranksters in their own.
Remus and Sirius had been patiently waiting for Harry's arrival to Hogwarts, and right now Sirius was talking with Remus:
“...you should have seen it, Remus, it was so fun to see the Hat shouting at Dumbledore during the Sorting, and then in the meeting Dumbledore told me a lot of things that showed he was really intelligent, but I can't tell you more because I made a Wizard's Oath...”
“Wow, wow, wow, there, Sirius. Go slower, please, and what was that about a Wizard's Oath?” Remus said, overwhelmed by the information Sirius was providing him with.
Sirius breathed and then, in a slower tone, told his friend all the events that had happened before that day, starting from the moment he had left the flat he shared with him to the point Snape had left his office, leaving out the parts that would concern the Wizard's Oath.
“The point is, tomorrow I am going to try and meet Harry, and the day after we are having a meeting so that we can attest to what knowledge Harry has about magic. I suggested that you could come here, as you were the most intelligent of the four of us and the one who has more possibilities to understand what Harry can do. Heck, the main reason I'm telling you this is that I know that you want to meet Prongs' son as much as I do, so get your arse over here tomorrow ASAP!”
“All right, Padfoot,” Remus said with a laugh. “I'll see you tomorrow, then, and for Merlin's sake I hope that you do not try to prank your godson!”
“You wound me, Moony,” Sirius said, pretending to be hurt. “You really think that I would be able to do such a callous thing as pranking Prongs Junior?”
“If you thought it would help as an introduction to the pranks world, yes, you would,” Remus replied, rolling his eyes.
Sirius fell to the floor feigning paroxysms of pain and sorrows.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
OK, I think that this was enough, as so many people were calling for a new chapter. I had planned to have the first meeting between the Marauders and Harry in this chapter, and then continue with the staff meeting with Harry at the next chapter, but figured that it would work better if both of them were in the same chapter.
As for the arrival of Miss Ginevra Molly Weasley (the future Mrs. Ginevra Molly Potter) to the life of Harry James Potter, it will most assuredly happen in Halloween. As for her abilities, I have decided that she will be a Prodigy in the Magical Arts and Healing. Of course, she will still be pretty powerful in magic and will understand Harry's theories, but she won't have that innate ability of Harry's to understand a problem magically speaking. Instead, she will have a great ability in Arts and Healing.
EDIT: In the first version of this chapter, there were some problems that I didn't realise about until someone pointed it out to me: in it, Albus and Sirius told people who weren't at the meeting about details that were covered by the Wizard's Oath they made at the start of the meeting. Now, both of them say things that aren't within the Oath, either for being too general to affect — Harry is very intelligent — or are talked about OUT of the meeting — Snape's idea to take Harry to the Congress — which I hope keep the story within the limits.
Chapter 9: Chapter 9: The One Where All Is Said
Chapter 9The One Where All Is Said
School, n. s., school: an institution for educating children, any institution at which instruction is given in a particular discipline.
Harry woke up the next day in a very good mood. It had been a bit strange not to see the light blue wallpaper that decorated his parents' room at Godric's Hollow, but once he realized that he was at the first-year boys' dormitory in Gryffindor Tower, he had jumped out of his bed in joy. Classes started in two days time, so today and tomorrow meant that he would have time to meet his godfather, read some books, get to know Neville and the Weasleys and perhaps some others, and a lot of things.
While he waited for Neville to wake up, so that they could go down together and have breakfast together, he went to the bathroom, where he had a long, hot shower. When he came back, Neville was getting ready to have a shower.
“I'll be waiting for you, OK, Neville?” Harry asked. The slightly chubby boy nodded and smiled at him.
When both boys got dressed in their robes and shoes, they went downstairs, being accompanied by Ron Weasley, who, on instance from Harry, was telling him about his family.
“Ginny's the youngest of us,” Ron explained with a smile. “She is really outgoing, talks a lot, and she is quite like the twins, 'cause she loves their pranks. She likes painting, and listening to music too.”
“She paints?” Neville said. “I thought no one used to do that, still.”
“Well, she does,” Ron shrugged. “And she is quite good with it. You give her some parchment and a piece of coal and in less than half an hour she makes a good portrait of you. Doesn't move, of course, but she is great.”
“Talkin' about...”
“...lil' Gin-Gin?” the twins said.
“You shouldn't call her that, you know she hates it.”
“As much as she hates...”
“...her full name...”
“...which is Ginevra...”
“...by the way...”
“...but what she doesn't know...”
“...won't hurt her.”
“She's called Ginevra? That's a pretty name,” Harry said.
“Aye, lad, it is,” one of the twins — George, Harry thought — said.
“And quite a pretty lady she is,” the other — Fred — replied.
“Just remember that...”
“...if you want to get near her...”
“...she has six brothers...”
“...that are more than willing to beat you...”
“...and our sister packs quite a punch!” they said.
“Don't remember me,” Ron replied with a grimace. “Nearly knocked me out when I teased her about her Harry Potter doll.”
“What? A Harry Potter doll?” Harry asked, blushing. He didn't thought that he was so important to the world, but apparently he was.
“Oh, yeah,” Ron said, chuckling. “After... er... that night,” he said, trying not to mention Harry's parents' death, “everybody got really mad, and they started to make a lot of things about you, and how you managed to defeat You-Know-Who.”
“Dad and Mum gave it to her in her third birthday,” Fred said, smiling. “They would have gotten her the whole set, with the wand, the figure of You-Know-Who and even the white horse that the doll could ride, but Ginny only wanted you, or rather the dolly you.”
“How fast does the time pass, eh, Gred,” George said, faking a tear.
“That it does, Forge,” Fred replied.
“Anyway, young Harry...”
“...there is something...”
“...that yesterday we promised...”
“...to deliver you...”
“...as you are...”
“...if we aren't mistaken...”
“...its true owner...”
“...and heir to this artefact.”
“But let's not dwindle in here...”
“...as we have to go to the Great Hall...”
“...and we are sure ickle Ronniekins..”
“Do not call me that,” Ron tensely said. The twins ignored his comment.
“...wants to eat something.”
“We know better to put ourselves...”
“...between a Weasley...”
“...even ourselves...”
“...and food!”
Right in that moment, the three Weasleys' bellies roared, making Harry and Neville laugh. The five boys were then joined by the bushy brown-haired girl Harry had seen the day before mumbling some charms before the Sorting started. In Harry's opinion, she seemed to be pretty intelligent, and she looked nice, too.
“Hi,” she said. “I'm Hermione Granger. Would you mind if I came downstairs with you? I wasn't able to memorize the way up here yesterday...”
“No one at this school expects someone who has recently arrived here to memorize the ways through this hallowed halls, Miss Granger,” one of the twins said.
“They only hope that you are able to remind it by your second week,” the other twin said.
“Don't worry, you can come downstairs with us,” Harry said. “And, as these two seem to have forgotten their manners, I'll present us. The twins are Fred and George Weasley, the other redhead is Ron Weasley, this is Neville Longbottom and I am Harry Potter.”
“Oh, are you really Harry Potter?” she gushed. “I've read all about you, of course, and you are in Modern Magical History...”
“I read that one, too, and when I read about that Halloween's night, I found it was woefully incorrect in many of what it said.”
“Oh?” she mumbled, pulling out a face much like many kids would have if they were told that Christmas would be cancelled. “If it was incorrect, why would it be written in a book?”
Harry instantly noticed this girl was one who believed in books a bit too much. From his first (and only) year in primary school, he remembered one boy who was like her, and the children in his class laughed at him for being a teacher's pet. He trusted what the figures of authority — teachers and the headmaster, in this case — told him completely, and was always trying to do as they asked him.
Harry knew that this kind of people were always frowned upon by the students, and considering that she was, most certainly, a newcomer to this world — only a Muggle-born would have said that about reading about Harry instead of hearing about him — Harry thought that someone should help her to overcome the idea that books held all the answers before it crashed on her.
“Well, if they had presented it as a possible theory of what happened then, I would not have had any problem with that, but the writer said that he knew that what he said was the complete truth, when I was the only person to survive the attack and I am very sure that I wasn't interviewed by anyone about the fact: for example, the writer said that my parents were caught by surprise and killed before they could answer, when I know that both of them fought Voldemort back before dying.”
“And how would you...” she started to say, but stopped herself, blushing when she realized how rude would that question have been. Harry suspected that she might shed a tear or two if someone pushed her a bit too much. “Sorry about that, it's just...”
“Don't worry, Hermione,” Harry told her. “Just remember something: books don't always hold the answers you seek, because sometimes the answers have to be discovered out of them.”
Hermione sniffled a bit. “Th-thank you, Harry. Would you mind if I...”
“Hermione,” Ron said, “you can come downstairs with us. You just made a mistake, you only have to make sure you don't do something like that again.”
Fred snorted as he opened the portrait that acted as the door to Gryffindor Tower. “You are one to talk...”
“...Mr. I-Jumped-With-A-Broom-That-Didn't-Fly.”
Ron's face reddened. “I was only six then! How was I supposed to know then that not all brooms fly!”
“Brooms fly?” Hermione asked, curiously.
“Yeah,” Ron said, apparently happy as this was something he seemed to know a lot about. “The broomsticks are built with special flying and braking charms so that you can control them, and then they are designed for different things. For example, there are some models that are especially designed for flying long distances if you have to travel...”
“Sounds pretty uncomfortable, sitting on a wood stick for a lot of time,” she replied.
“Nah, there are cushioning charms on it, they are actually pretty comfy.” George said.
“But the best thing you can do with brooms is...”
“...playing Quidditch!” Ron said.
“Quidditch?” the girl said, confused.
“It's a very popular sport, much like football is for Muggles, which is played on broomsticks,” Harry said. “Seven against seven playing with four balls: one Quaffle, which is used to score points by the Keeper and the three Chasers, two Bludgers used by the two Beaters to hit the other players and stop their moves, and a Golden Snitch that the Seeker has to catch so that the match ends, and its value is one hundred and fifty points to the ten points a normal goal is worth.”
“Fred and I are the Beaters in Gryffindor's Quidditch team,” George said. “We have the Chasers — all of them girls — and the Keeper, but we are short a Seeker.”
“Yeah, good old Ollie is trying to find one like mad,” Fred replied. “He's holding the try-outs in two weeks, I believe. Pity that you ickle firsties can't get your own broom, or some of you could try. Most of the guys that tried out before really sucked on it.”
The group of children came downstairs, with Hermione pumping the twins out of all the information she could get about the Professors, the classes and the castle, which the two Weasleys answered with varying grades of success.
As soon as they reached the Great Hall, they sat down in both sides of the table so that conversation could be held better, and as soon as Hermione ended her interrogation, it was her turn to be questioned, as she hadn't presented herself the day before.
As Hermione talked about her parents — who were dentists, something that amazed the Weasleys and Neville, because wizards never got cavities, plaque or similar things — the owl post arrived.
Harry and Hermione were amazed at the great number of owls that suddenly entered the Hall: they hadn't certainly seen an spectacle like it ever, because owls were naturally nocturnal avians, and tended to live alone and thus they didn't fly on big groups.
As the two children looked at the owls, two of them landed in front of Harry. One of them was Hedwig, and the other was a barn owl that had a small piece of parchment tied to its leg. As the owls landed in front of the people the messages they carried were for, Harry untied the parchment and gave both Hedwig and the barn owl some bacon — which he knew, from his experience with the white owl, that they liked it a lot — which both owls ate gratefully. The barn owl left flying, but Hedwig hooted and leaned on Harry's caress.
“Oooh, he is very pretty, Harry,” Hermione said. Hedwig looked at her a bit disdainfully. Harry knew the reason.
“She is called Hedwig, and is a very smart owl. And she certainly doesn't like to be confused for a male owl,” Harry said, chuckling a bit while he unrolled the piece of parchment, which had a handwriting he could recognise from some of the doodles Sirius had made in some of his dad's books.
Dear Harry,
I don't know if you remember me, or even if you know about me. I am Sirius Black, your Godfather.
I would really like to meet you before we get tied up with classwork and lessons. Would you mind meeting me at 10 AM near Hagrid's hut? Please, bring your friends if you wish, for I'd like to meet my Godson's friends, since they must be some great children.
I'd tell you more about me, but this parchment it's too small and things can be told better in a face-to-face meeting.
I also invited Remus Lupin here. I hope that you want to meet him (again), because he has been your honorary uncle since you were born and he misses you terribly.
See you soon.
Sirius Black
Harry looked up and saw a very funny scene: Hedwig, giving the cold shoulder (or wing, more likely) to Hermione, and looking far from her, who was trying to apologize for her mistake. However, Harry knew that it was just an act. After having lived for nearly three years with her, he knew how to read her moods by the position in which she was resting.
“She loves when you scratch her head,” he told Hermione. “If not, you can try to bribe her with some pumpkin juice or food, she likes bacon a lot.”
Immediately, Hermione tried both approaches to calm the owl and, after a bit of coaxing, she relented and let the girl caress her. While this was happening, Harry said:
“Want to join me later? My godfather says he wants to meet me later at Hagrid's hut, wherever that place is.”
“Oh, Hagrid's hut...” one of the twins started.
“...is out there in the grounds.”
“You just have to go out the door...”
“...and you'll see it...”
“...rather easily.”
“Thank you, guys,” Harry said.
At 10 AM, while Sirius was waiting for his Godson near Hagrid's hut in the grounds, Harry was coming out of the main doors while he was talking to the Weasleys, Hermione and Neville, feeling that the five of them were going to become very good friends. However, in spite of the easy-going nature of the red-haired boys and the intelligence of the brown haired girl, he felt a better connection to Neville; maybe it was the fact that both of them had been born hardly twenty-four hours apart, or that their parents had been great friends, or that Neville's mother was Harry's godmother... Harry wasn't sure, but to him Neville was starting to be some sort of a brother to him.
Perhaps, if everything had gone other way, Neville would really be his brother. If Voldemort hadn't attacked his family, perhaps they would have ended being something akin to brothers, but if it hadn't happened Voldemort would have probably stayed alive and kept attacking the magical world, and soon violence might have spread further into Muggle Britain.
It's not worth keep thinking in the history's 'what if's, Harry thought. For the moment, just go and meet Sirius and Remus.
When the six teenagers reached the hut, they saw the three adults sitting next to the small house. One of them stood up when he saw Harry, and practically run towards him, being followed by the others. Harry recognized the first as Sirius Black, his godfather, and the other two as Remus Lupin and Rubeus Hagrid, Sirius' best friend and the Hogwarts' caretaker, respectively.
Suddenly, Harry was engulfed in a huge hug courtesy of his godfather, which he awkwardly tried to return, remembering what the children at his old school did when their parents came to take them back to their homes. However, he couldn't do anything because Sirius' hug was trapping his arms, and he was embracing him with so much strength that soon air was becoming a luxury for him.
“Sirius!” Remus shouted. “Unhand Harry, he is turning blue!”
“Oh. Sorry for that,” Sirius said, leaving Harry on the floor. Remus didn't hug Harry as hard as Sirius had done, but he was able to lift him without effort.
“Hi, Moony,” Harry managed to say into his embrace, smiling.
Remus smiled when he heard Harry say his nickname from school and left Harry on the floor so that he could have a good look at him.
“It's been ten years since the last time I saw you, little Prongs, but you still look a lot like the little baby I used to take care of,” Remus said, giving his deceased friends' son a good look.
Harry blushed slightly.
“Yes, and he looks a lot like James. Do you remember him the day of our Sorting? Always trying to tame that mop of hair Harry has, unfortunately, inherited.”
Remus chuckled. “Yes, but he has gotten Lily's green eyes. They do really stand out in his face.”
Harry smiled at that. He knew that he looked a lot like his father (the photographs in the house showed an incredible resemblance among the two of them), but he hadn't known that his mother's eyes were green like his, because the photographs were in black and white, and thus didn't show any colours.
“Aye. Now, who are these young people who have followed you to these premises? Apart from the Weasley twins, I haven't ever met anyone.” Sirius asked.
“Well, this is Ron, one of the twins' brothers,” he said, pointing to the red-haired boy, “Hermione Granger, Muggle-born witch; and Neville Longbottom.”
“Neville Longbottom?” Remus repeated, raising his eyebrows and looking at the brown-haired boy with interest. “We were there at the hospital when you were born. Lily's labour had started a bit earlier than expected, and when we arrived your mother was just giving birth. I believe that your father had to regrow a few bones in his right hand after your mum broke them with her magic-enhanced hand.”
“James was left a bit deaf after his own first encounter with parenthood,” Sirius remembered wistfully. “We teased him so much after we realized what had been going on in there.”
“Excuse us for interrupting this wonderful conversation...” one of the twins said.
“... but we couldn't stop but wonder...” the other twin continued.
“... what relation young Harry here has...”
“... to the great Prongs...”
“... as to merit being called 'little Prongs'.”
Sirius smile broke into a full smirk. “James Potter, Remus and I had a group of pranksters back when we were here at school. I was Padfoot, Remus was Moony and James was Prongs.”
“What about Wormtail?” Fred asked. Remus' and Sirius' faces darkened.
“He was Peter Pettigrew,” Sirius replied. The twins, Ron and Neville understood it, but Hermione didn't.
“Excuse me, but who is Peter Pettigrew?” she asked. Sirius and Remus looked at each other and tried to explain, as much as they could, the events starting on November 1st 1981 after the attack on the Potters by Voldemort and Pettigrew's betrayal to his former friends. The man was nowadays rotting away in the prison of Azkaban next to the prominent purebloods that had supported Voldemort and then had managed to keep their privileges under the Fudge administration, like Lucius Malfoy or the Notts. The only good thing Azkaban had now was that the Dementors had been expelled from the prison and had been isolated into a cave that had been completely closed through magic so that they couldn't escape, and according to specially equipped people, their number was dwindling slowly due to the lack of nourishment they were facing.
Once Hermione was satisfied by the explanation, Sirius turned to the twins with a smile. “I can't help but wonder how you, Messrs. Weasley, have heard about us the Marauders.”
The twins smirked and produced a piece of parchment that Sirius took as soon as he saw it.
“Aha! So, it was you two who took the Map? When did this happen?” Sirius asked.
“First week into Hogwarts.” The twins replied.
“We had dropped a Dungbomb in the corridor...”
“... Filch got upset with us, for some reason...” Sirius snorted at that.
“... and he caught us...”
“... and took us to his office...”
“... where he started to rant about the usual...”
“... detention...”
“... and disembowelment...”
“... and it was then that we couldn't help noticing a drawer in one of his filing cabinets marked...”
“... Confiscated and Highly Dangerous,” Sirius said. “Filch used to put in there all the things he couldn't work out. Poor guy never noticed that it was too easy and too tempting for us to get into it and steal anything in it. Of course, the only way to enter into Filch's office was to do a good prank in front of him without any Professors near and not too far from his office.”
“It was a pity that he caught Peter red-handed with it. This was the only copy of the Map we had managed to do before leaving Hogwarts,” Remus said.
“Now, the sad moment in which I have to demonstrate that I am a responsible Professor comes. I fear that I can't give you this back,” Sirius said. Upon the stricken faces of the twins, Sirius winked and gave it to Remus, then turned his back on the group and covered his ears.
The werewolf snickered. “Now, considering that I, unlike Sirius here, am not a Professor, I have no qualms on giving this to Harry under the proviso that he shares it with his friends. Understood?”
“Crystal clear, Moony,” Harry replied, gladly accepting the treasure and putting it into his pocket while Remus tapped Sirius on the shoulder.
“OK, thank you for understanding the hard work I have to go through as a Professor.” The children laughed. “Now, Harry, we just wanted to spend some time with you and your friends for the morning. It's been ten years since each of us saw you, and we haver missed you a lot. And, well, we just wanted to make sure that you knew everything there is to know about your parents,” Sirius said, smiling.
Harry grinned, too. “What was this thing about a yellow dress with roses?”
Sirius turned beet red, and Remus started to laugh loudly. “Where did you found that, young man? You shouldn't have known about it!”
“Dad's diary,” Harry replied cheekily.
“I will have to hide that so that you don't get any ideas from there,” Sirius stated.
“Too late, Sirius, I already know all of your dark secrets, and Moony's too!” Harry said. Moony stopped laughing in that moment. Harry supposed that this sudden change came from the fact that Remus was a werewolf. “Oh, don't worry, Moony, I'm not scared about your 'furry little problem' at all.”
“You know about it?” Remus asked, worried.
“Yes, and I know that it was the reason you were called Moony,” Harry said. The brown-haired man seemed to calm down at that.
“Sorry, but what are you talking about?” Hermione said, obviously curious.
“Miss Granger, I am very sorry, but this is a secret of my friend that only he can reveal,” Sirius said in a serious tone. “I do understand your thirst of knowledge, as Remus was driven by the same thirst when he was your age, but there are some things that can't or shouldn't be known by anyone unless they deserve the possibility. I know about it because I have been his friend since our first year, and Harry knows thanks to his father, although his position as an honorary nephew to Remus gives him the same right.”
Hermione bit her lip, as if she was trying to swallow her questions, but seemed to understand that it would be better not to make them at all. Sirius smiled at her.
“Don't worry, Miss Granger. I'm sure that you will find things that can satisfy your curiosity today. Harry, do you have any question about your parents that you want to know the answer of?”
Harry smiled again and started to ask.
Remus looked at his watch and was surprised at the time. “Oh, it's late! You should get going back into the castle, it's nearly dinner time!”
The three adults (Hagrid had joined the conversation, providing comments not only about Harry's parents, but also about the Weasley's parents and older brothers and Frank and Alice Longbottom) and the six children had talked for hours sitting down next to Hagrid's hut, having lunch in the grass thanks to a picnic basket Sirius had brought there. Their time had passed in a very enjoyable way, and Harry had liked to hear about his parents from the point of view of those who had known them better (although the journals told a lot, there were things that friends knew better, and Sirius had the best way to tell the funny stories, one that made you laugh yourself silly, while Remus was the one who knew how to pick out the best anecdotes). The twins and Ron liked to hear about the pranks the Marauders played, Hermione was fascinated about what Remus had to tell about their studies, and Neville enjoyed to hear about what they said about his parents.
At the time Remus had seen his watch, it was half-past six, and it was indeed time to have dinner. Remus had to leave because of his duties, but promised to come back the next day, while Sirius and Hagrid took the children back to the castle. Once the eight people entered the castle, Hagrid went to the table and Sirius set Harry aside for a few seconds.
“Harry, there is something Dumbledore asked me to tell you: last night, during the Sorting, the Hat apparently told Dumbledore that he should concert a meeting between the Professors and you in order to ascertain the level of knowledge you have on every subject Hogwarts has to offer, and then, based on that, decide if you would be better being with the students in your year, in other year or perhaps with a tutor. I don't know when will it be, but Dumbledore will send you a letter to tell you, OK?”
Harry nodded. Sirius smiled at him.
“Of course, Harry, this doesn't mean that you have to keep studying the whole time you are staying here at Hogwarts, OK? I want you to have fun with your friends, play Quidditch if you can, fly, play chess, play some pranks... whatever you'd like to do.”
“Padfoot, I might have spent the last four years nearly alone and working on magic, but I know where my limit for a day is,” Harry said with a childish smile. “However, I'd still like to meet with you, not as professor and student, but as godfather and godson, so that you can tell me everything you can remember about mum and dad.”
Sirius grinned. “I'd really like that, Harry. Just remember, if you have a problem, don't doubt to come to me, all right, Prongslet?”
“All right, Padfoot,” Harry replied, giving his godfather a hug.
“Headmaster? May I talk with you?” Snape asked Dumbledore after dinner ended. He seemed slightly surprised at the fact that he wished to talk with him, because he thought he would be preparing for the next morning's meeting with Harry. However, he knew that Severus would not do this unless he had a big reason, so he accepted.
“Come with me to my office, we will be comfortable in there,” he said, following the path towards the seventh floor, where the entrance to his office stood, with Snape two steps behind him. Upon reaching the gargoyle, Dumbledore said, “Bertie Bott's Beans”. Snape rolled his eyes: he had never understood why Dumbledore was so fascinated with sweets.
To Severus' surprise, Albus didn't sit down in his chair on the other side of the table, but took one of the chairs normally reserved to those coming to talk with him and sat on it.
“I am at your disposition. What is it that you wished to talk about?”
“Do you remember our conversation three years ago, when Lucius Malfoy was convicted and sent for life to prison?”
Albus nodded. “I remember telling you that, with Mr Malfoy's imprisonment, along with the whole leadership of the Death Eaters, you should level down your Slytherin bias to a smaller grade, similar to the one Minerva demonstrates. We also discussed the fact that the Dark Mark in your arm, alongside with the ones in the Death Eaters' arms, are still there, and we both accepted it as a proof that Voldemort is still alive.”
“It has to do with the latter thing, Albus. Last night, just before the Sorting, the Mark started to tingle.”
Dumbledore was truly surprised now. If the Mark was tingling, it could only mean one thing. “You believe that Voldemort was near you in that moment?”
“Not only that, but I was able to determinate that he is possessing one of the Professors, specifically Quirrell. I accidentally heard him maintain a conversation when he was completely alone, and there was someone actually answering him. I fear this might be a signal that Voldemort's possession of Quirrell might have gone too far for exorcizing him without killing him,” Severus revealed
“Quirinus?” Albus asked. “It makes sense. This summer, he had gone to Central and Eastern Europe 'to find some experience' in case Sirius couldn't teach a class. He behaved too strange when he came back, and has done his best to avoid me since then.” Albus reclined over the back of his chair and sighed. “If Quirinus had been stronger, he would have managed to resist Tom's possession for enough time to reach a magical town and have someone exorcize him. It's too late now to save him,” he noted, sadly.
“Anyway, I feel that we should do our best to make sure the Dark Lord doesn't learn of Harry's abilities,” Severus stated. “If he somehow managed to find a way to recover his body, it would be best if he didn't know about Harry's true abilities at any time.”
Albus smiled. “He must have truly impressed you, for calling him by his given name.”
Severus rolled his eyes. “Believe me, when he shows you what he discovered, you will be stunned.”
“Very well. Those in last night's meeting are, as far as I know, the only ones who know of his true abilities. The Oath all of us made there will keep them from accidentally telling Quirinus, and I doubt he will try to use Legilimency on them, since he won't know about the importance of the meeting. However, that won't keep him from trying to use it again. Any suggestions?”
“It's obvious that they will need to learn Occlumency,” Severus replied. “Between both of us we could teach the other Professors the basics, and if Harry is as good as you said yesterday and is willing to do it, perhaps he would help them with their mental defences.”
“True. There would be no problem with any classes, because, as Harry isn't a third year yet, he wouldn't have to meet him. Do you think that the Occlumency lessons could be extended to his friends? If Harry tells them something important, they could be in serious danger,” Albus said.
“They are already in danger just by being friends with the Boy-Who-Lived, Albus,” Severus countered. “Voldemort might feel tempted to use Legilimency at full strength against them, no matter what happened to their minds, if he ever thought that they could have been told something.”
“Then, it might be fundamental that they are taught Occlumency. They might find it useful for their studies since it helps with memorizing,” Dumbledore said. “It might be better if we leave this task to Harry, because his Occlumency method worked perfectly on him and those children might find it easier than the normal method both of us learnt.”
“I am not sure if Harry will be able to stand the curriculum you are going to launch him into,” Severus said. “You are going to make a good bunch of people teach Harry an assortment of magical skills that many people would kill to have, and now you plan to have him teach his friends one of the most obscure branches of Magic?”
“Only if he finds himself able to do it, Severus,” Albus stated.
The next morning found Harry having breakfast with his new friends, enjoying the conversation with the Weasley twins over some of the pranks they had managed to pull out through their first two years at Hogwarts, Ron's inputs about his life at his house — which was called the Burrow —, Neville's work in his greenhouses — apparently, he already knew a lot about Herbology — and Hermione's life with her parents.
At the same time Harry was having a few strips of bacon, the owl post arrived, making the same noise it did the day before. Hermione was so surprised that she started to choke on the pumpkin juice she had been drinking at the moment, and Ron had to palm her on the back to help her clear her throat, for which she thanked him afterwards.
Two white owls — one of them was Hedwig — landed in front of Harry. Apparently, Hedwig just wanted to see her human and have a bit of the nice food he was eating. Harry smiled at her and caressed her soft head as she was swallowing some bacon before paying attention to the other owl, which was holding a small parchment in a pouch in her leg. Harry took it and offered some food to the owl, which she accepted, and then flew back to the Owlery. Hedwig stayed, though, and Harry was happy to talk with her about what had happened the day before while he read the note in his hand.
Dear Harry,
There is going to be a meeting at 10 AM today in order to better understand your level of knowledge and help you choose what subjects you would like to study this year. Please, come to the High Table once you have finished having breakfast so that your Godfather may help you bring whatever you need for this meeting.
You don't have to feel nervous, as this isn't an exam, just an evaluation.
Apart from some of the Professors, there will be a few people in there who might be interested in your ideas.
I look forward to meet you again.
Albus Dumbledore
Harry was a bit surprised with this. While he knew he had studied a lot of things in Hogwarts curriculum and a few others that weren't, he had supposed that he would be going to the classes in the normal curriculum the school provided, not that he would get to choose what to study! Perhaps this would work well, he would have gotten really bored if he had to go through the normal classes for Potions, Transfiguration or Charms.
Since he had already finished with breakfast, he told his friends that Sirius had asked him to come to talk with him about something important. Hermione seemed about to ask about it, but even she understood that there were some things that should be kept private.
“You said you wanted to talk with me, Professor?” Harry said, talking to Sirius. He smiled at him and nodded.
“Follow me, Harry,” he said, standing up and going out of the Great Hall. Instead of going up the stairs, Sirius stopped in one of the corridors in the first floor and knocked thrice in one of the walls, which turned into a door and opened itself.
“Secret passage, this will get you faster when you go from your Common Room to the Great Hall and vice versa,” Sirius said, leading Harry up into the passage, which they left at a point which left them near the Fat Lady's portrait.
“Good morning, my lady,” Sirius said. “Will you let us go inside the humble abode you protect with your own portrait with so much efficiency?”
The Fat Lady blushed slightly — Harry was surprised that she could do it at all, since she didn't truly have blood that could go to her face — and pointed one of her fingers to Sirius: “Oh, Sirius Black, you silver-tongued devil, I still don't understand how you managed to get such an important job in this school when hardly a few years ago you were still sneaking around under James Potter's cloak and philandering around in the middle of the night!”
“Yeah, those were the good times,” Sirius said, reminiscing. “Caput Draconis!”
“You may pass,” she replied, and the portrait swung outside, letting them go into the Gryffindor Common Room.
“Harry, do you need help with getting whatever you feel you will need for the meeting?” Sirius asked.
“No, Professor, I can reduce nearly everything to a size small enough to carry it on my pockets, and what I can't reduce I can carry or Levitate it,” Harry said.
“Harry, when we are alone, you can call me Sirius, you know,” Sirius replied with a grin.
“Yeah, maybe, but it wouldn't do to just start calling you by your given name, because that could make the snowball run and suddenly no one would ever respect you,” Harry replied back, pulling the input and output devices out of his trunk. Then he silently Levitated his MagMachine pointing it with his wand. Sirius could admire both the design of the MagMachine and his godson's magical ability, but kept silent about both. Since he knew Harry was able to do wandless magic, he supposed it was just for the show.
“Nah, all the children in here love me. Well, there are a few that don't, but they tend to be the children of the haughty pureblood families that don't like me for being a 'blood traitor',” Sirius said, making the quote marks with his fingers.
“A what?” Harry asked.
“Well, I don't suppose you would have found that term in any book, and I doubt either James or Lily would have mentioned that in their diaries,” Sirius replied, “because it's more of an inherited thing that goes down on the pureblood families. Basically, to those pureblood families that believe that having only magical ancestors makes them better than those who don't have it, a blood traitor is one who doesn't believe that tripe. My whole family save for me and my cousin Andromeda were obsessed with that, and both of us ended being cast-outs in the black family. The Potters, as far as I know, didn't care at all for that.”
“Could you tell me more about my grandparents?” Harry asked. He had read his parents' diaries and journals, and knew a lot about them, but there wasn't much on James' and Lily's parents.
“One thing I can tell you is that every Potter has always had this mop of black hair you have,” Sirius laughed, carefully stroking Harry's hair. “When I was sixteen, I was really fed up with my family, for the whole 'pureblood-is-might' crap, and I decided to do a run-away. Your grandparents, James' parents, took me in and treated me like they would treat their son. I lived with them until I found an apartment for me, although I was always welcome to their house for lunch in the weekends.”
“What happened to them?” Harry asked as they reached the staff common room.
“Died. They were very old, even by magical standards, when they had James, and they died a few weeks after you were born. They loved you a lot, and they would have taken you in if they had been alive when... James and Lily... died.”
Harry nodded, and Sirius opened the door, letting Harry enter first with the MagMachine.
“Welcome, Harry,” Dumbledore said, not commenting on Harry's computer, guessing that this might be what Severus had talked about something based on Muggle ideas.
“Good morning, Professors,” Harry said in his most polite tone.
“Good morning, Harry,” Dumbledore replied with a smile. “I think that, before we start talking, presentations are due. You already know Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape and Rubeus Hagrid. These are Filius Flitwick, Head of the Ravenclaw House and Charms Professor; Septima Vector, Arithmancy Professor; Kevin Kettleburn, Care of Magical Creatures Professor; Bathsheba Babbling, Ancient Runes Professor; Pomona Sprout, Head of the Hufflepuff House and Herbology Professor; Aurora Sinistra, Astronomy Professor; Arthur Weasley, Head of the Muggle Relationships Department in the Ministry; Alastor Moody, former Head Auror; Nicholas Flamel, Alchemy Master, and Perenelle Flamel, Nicholas' wife and an important Charms and Duel Master.”
Harry was surprised. He had wanted to meet Nicholas Flamel a lot since he read his book about potions and ingredients, especially considering that it had been his book the thing that had started him on his research. However, he hadn't expected him to come here at Hogwarts.
“Nice to meet you all,” Harry said.
“The reason I invited all these people here, Harry, is that all of the Professors, knowing that your level of knowledge is much bigger than other students, felt that it would be better to test you. Mr Weasley, Mr Moody and the Flamels are here too because there are certain things we hope they can help us to understand,” Dumbledore explained.
Harry nodded. “It's fine by me. Shall we start then?”
“Yes. Does anyone wish to talk first?” Dumbledore asked the other adults in the meeting.
Arthur Weasley raised his hand. “I myself would like to do it. Harry, would you mind explaining us what is this artefact you have brought with you? It certainly resembles a computer,” he said, noticing the other people's faces at the strange word.
“Certainly,” Harry replied with a smile. “For those who don't know, a computer is basically something Muggles invented so that they could store ample information and do mathematical calculations at a speed greater than a person would be able to do. This artefact, which I call MagMachine, is able to work much like a computer, but this one uses magic to power everything up.
“However,” Harry continued, “its potential isn't restricted to mathematics and knowledge storing, although it is related to them. For example, you can use it to store a document, either one which is written on parchment or paper, or it can write what you are talking. You can even project what you are doing in a screen. Shall I show you?”
“Yes, please,” Dumbledore said. Harry, without drawing out his wand, Conjured a white cloth which he then fixed to the wall using a wandless Sticking Charm. This drew looks from both Flitwick and McGonagall, who, although already informed on Harry's wandless abilities, were impressed at how easy it had been for Harry to do that.
Harry then drew out his voice recorder and put it next to the computer. He clicked on a few things and then asked three people to say a few words in order. Mr Weasley, Sirius and Professor Sinistra volunteered for that, and after Harry recorded the voices, he told them that they could start a conversation. For a few minutes, the three adults talked about the Quidditch League — Sirius supported the Ballycastle Bats, Mr Weasley was a avid fan of the Caerphilly Catapults and Sinistra liked the Holyhead Harpies — and their talk was registered, word by word, on the computer’s screen and from there to the screen in the wall.
“Impressive, Mr Potter,” Nicholas Flamel said. “I haven't ever seen anything like this in my six hundred and sixty six years of life. I'm sure that, should you decide to go public with this, you would be able to easily sell a good lot of them without a problem.”
“I already sold one to Gringotts, Mr Flamel,” Harry said. “It was my first prototype, and it is bigger than this one. Once I knew how to build a MagMachine, I solved the problem of the space, and this, which is my MagMachine Mark II, is the result.”
“You sold one of those artefacts to Gringotts?” Sirius asked, flabbergasted. Not many people — no one alive, in fact — could show off about being able to sell something to the goblins, as their main thought was about money.
“Sure. When I showed them, they realized that they could save a huge lot of money, time and parchment, they bought it. They were really glad to do it,” Harry replied.
All the professors and guests looked at each other with amazement. If the fact that Harry had sold something to the goblins was strange, the fact that they liked buying it was even stranger.
“My MagMachine can also read and store entire books within its memo-crystal, and those books can be read any time you wish to do so. Let me show you this,” Harry said. He searched for one of the books he had stored, The Complete Guide to Potions, by Nicholas Flamel, and opened it. “Mr Flamel, I'm sure you might recognise this book, as you wrote it.”
“I suppose that the book was Lily's,” Sirius said with a small chuckle, “because James was never interested in Potions unless they were used for pranks.”
“Indeed,” Severus replied. “Harry, would you mind showing everybody here your theory on magical ingredients? I'm sure they will be very interested in it.”
Harry shrugged and opened his Periodic Table of Magical Elements, which appeared at the cloth. The next twenty minutes, in which Harry exposed his theory to one of the leaders of the United Kingdom, the most famous Alchemist of all times and several of the most intelligent minds Britain had provided to the world were, for them, eye-opening and world-shattering: although no one knew it then, those twenty minutes Harry talked would eventually be regarded as the first step towards a new era in the Magical World.
“This morning has been a very informative one, young man,” Nicholas Flamel told Harry. “I hope that we meet again soon in order to apply your ideas to alchemy.”
The meeting had just finished, and all the Professors had been truly astonished at the intelligence and knowledge the eleven-year-old boy had. His theories about magic had been well received, and the Muggle-based new approximation to Arithmancy and spell-making were truly fascinating, especially for Professor Vector, who actually got into a discussion with Harry over any possible applications of the new theory for ten minutes.
For a few seconds, every professor in the room, all of those who had met James and Lily Potter, thought of the same thing, although with different words.
Sirius was the one who expressed it better: I'm sure as hell that James and Lily are really proud of their son. I know I am.
“Of course, Mr Flamel,” Harry said, shaking the alchemist's hand. “It might be interesting to learn about alchemy and see the difference between it and potions.”
“You may call me Nicholas, Harry,” the older man replied with a smile. “You have earned that right after sharing your well-thought theories with me and my wife.”
“Harry,” Dumbledore said, approaching the pair, “do you feel that you can decide what do you want to study? I think some of the Professors here would like to express some concerns over their subjects, but overall they were pleased.”
“I think I already know what to do this year, Professor Dumbledore,” Harry replied.
“Very well,” Dumbledore said, and called the other people to order. Once all the Professors had sat down, he asked if anyone wished to say something. Sinistra raised her hand.
“I think that Harry should take lessons in certain subjects, like Astronomy and Herbology. He hasn't demonstrated what he knows in them, although I know that his knowledge of magical ingredients will surely help in Herbology,” she said.
“I already planned to go to those subjects, Professor,” Harry answered to the witch. “I know a lot of theory about Herbology, but I am sure that I could use the practice in the greenhouses, and I have always wanted to know about the stars and constellations.” Sinistra seemed pleased by that.
“I couldn't help but notice that Potter didn't show anything about offensive and defensive magic,” Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody remarked. “Mind you, that thing about the spells and the graphics was really interesting, but Potter would surely benefit from going to Defence Against the Dark Arts, as well as having a tutorship in duelling, especially if, somehow, the Death Eaters managed to get out of Azkaban. ”
“Would you like to take charge of that, Alastor? I'm sure that both Sirius and Severus would help you gladly,” Dumbledore said.
“Gladly, Albus. I sense great potential on you, Potter. I hope that you don't disappoint me,” the ex-Auror said.
“I'll try not, Mr Moody,” Harry said with a small smile.
“Anybody else desires to talk?” Dumbledore asked.
“I do, Albus,” Snape said. “I'd really like to spend time with Harry. I would really like to learn more about his theories, and also I believe that, between us, we could invent many potions that could help the world.”
“Indeed, Severus,” Albus said. He was about to talk about the Potions Masters Congress, which he knew Severus would attend in December, but a message from him stopped his mouth.
Please, Albus, don't talk about the Congress. The Mutt and I plan to give a surprise to Harry for Christmas, he said. Albus smiled slightly at seeing that the two former enemies were going to work together on something for Harry. And he supposed that Harry might enjoy it a lot.
“Perenelle and I would really like to teach Harry about Alchemy,” Nicholas Flamel said.
“And I am sure that, between Filius and I, we could teach Harry about Advanced Charms,” Perenelle added.
“I'd be glad to work with you, Madame Flamel,” Flitwick said in his high pitched voice.
“Minerva,” Sirius said. “Would you mind teaching him Advanced Transfiguration?”
“With the prowess he demonstrated, I don't see why he can't learn more,” Minerva said with a smile.
“Does anybody else wish to say anything else?” Dumbledore asked. When he saw that no-one was trying to talk, he smiled and stood up. “Then I declare this session closed.”
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
OK, it's been way too much time since I posted the last chapter, I know. I'm sure that some of you are disappointed with the fact that the next things will never appear in my story: a) Hermione as Harry's lover, b) Ron as a jealous idiot and c) Ginny as a stalker fan girl.
The thing is that, although I can enjoy stories in which things b) and c) might happen, I absolutely abhor the couple Harry/Hermione, because there is never anything on the books that might point to this couple, and I have always felt that their relationship was more of a brother-sister one. Anyway, I don't feel that I can write an acceptable Prat!Ron or Fangirl!Ginny, so I just write them in good lights (after all, this is MY story, and I won't change those things just because some misguided person believes that's the true nature of the characters).
Here, I am already setting down Harry's friendships: Neville as his best friend, Ron and Hermione as good friends, like the Weasley Twins. Once Harry starts to meet people in the other houses, he will make friends with them. The one person I will not make Harry make friends with at all will be Draco Malfoy. He might make friends with Blaise Zabini, though. If any of you think he should be friends with someone in particular, don't doubt in telling me: the only catch is that they can't be chosen as potential lovers for Harry. Ever. Not even if you think Harry is suited to them. The only girl Harry will love as a girlfriend will be Ginny Weasley, but that won't happen until Harry's fourth year, approximately.
I am also introducing some ideas that will appear full force in the future:
Harry's knowledge and classes: Harry doesn't know much about offensive/defensive spells because, since he didn't have anyone at Godric's Hollow to practice with, he just didn't concentrate on them. He knows of them, of course, and the incantations, but he hasn't had anyone that helps him. About Herbology, he has the books, but he doesn't have the plants to practice with. And Astronomy, he might have found a telescope, but he doesn't know how to find the constellations and such.
Ginny's ability with drawing: this is something a reader suggested to me: Ginny could be a prodigy in Magical Arts and Healing. I think I might have said this before, but it's better if I reiterate that I won't have Ginny as a normal person.
* Quirrell as Muggle Studies Professor: Sirius is holding that position, and has somehow managed to break the curse on the position. Quirrell does the same thing as in canon, but it doesn't land him in the DADA job. Since he had the MSP before, he just gets it back. It will also provide some protection for Harry, since he won't have classes with him.
* Neville, Ron and Hermione: both of them will change subtly after making friends with Harry: Neville will be more confident, magic proficient and out-going; Ron will be less lazy and the brotherly jealousy he has will dwindle (Harry will show him that he can find his own way to succeed and stand out), and Hermione will learn to concentrate less on her books and more of the people (this will be actually more the work of Remus and Sirius). Harry will also change subtly: he will be still a very intelligent and hard-working person, but he will see the value of relaxing around with his friends. Hedwig will always be his first friend ever, so expect her to appear from time to time.
* Sirius: he has matured. Seriously! (Heehee) The six years at Azkaban have changed him. Most of you will argue that when he got free in canon, he was only driven by his wishes of getting his revenge on Wormtail. However, knowing that Peter was sent to prison, and realising that his recklessness was what sent him to prison, has helped him to grow up. He still enjoys pranks and jokes, but he knows that one thing is pranking and the other is humiliating other person (he now knows that he was too hard on Snape, and that his idea of sending him to Remus in the full moon was a very stupid thing to do). He will teach Harry the art of pranking and tell him more about his dad, but he will also advice him on how bad can a situation go if you don't think well on the possible consequences and that humour should be painless. As for couples... well, he tends to go after women he meets either through his friends (mainly Remus) or ones at the Ministry. None of the main characters of my stories will ever have an homosexual relationship, although there might be some in the background.
* Remus: for the first months after learning of Sirius' innocence, he felt very guilty about not believing his friend, but Sirius has forgiven him. His financial situation is better than the canon one, because after nearly all the pureblood fanatics were sent to Azkaban or heavily fined, nearly all the racist laws have been replaced by more benign ones. Remus has a good job that allows him to live on his own, although Sirius always tries to convince his friend to come and live at Grimmauld Place (which has been rebuilt after Sirius' mom death. Her portrait was unstuck and sent to a Black vault, and Kreacher died of the shock). I might set him up with Tonks or with someone else, but always an old enough witch (no, I won't put Hermione with him, the difference in age is way too much).
* Snape: put simply, he has matured, like Sirius (Remus was already very mature). He is still a bit of a bitter man, but his hate for Gryffindors in general has mellowed slightly after he, Sirius and Remus had, somehow, a series of civil conversations. He acknowledges that he wasn't exactly an innocent in the 'war', and Sirius has apologised for the 'incident', as the three of them have taken to call. About his hate for Potters, Harry has squashed that soon enough before it becomes a liability. In the ship department... he might meet his special someone. If you have read Bobmin356's Dumbledore's Army, just imagine someone like Serena. If you haven't, read it and tell me your opinion of Serena.
* What happened in the meeting: basically, Harry showed the Professors all the things he knows (well, nearly all — he isn't about to tell them about Prometheus' journal, for example) and the Professors asking Harry questions and providing new ideas for Harry. I didn't wrote it because the chapter was already long enough and I didn't know what to put, exactly. Although Arthur Weasley doesn't talk, he is very forward with his questions on the MagMachine, the charms Harry knows and, especially, the Liquid Lightening (about this, it should have been Liquid Lightning, but I made the mistake and now it will have to stay). Arthur Weasley will be also the one who will present Harry to Ginny.
* 'The Old Lady': she hasn't appeared in many chapters, and I ask for your forgiveness. I had forgotten about her, but just treat her non-appearance as her not having to act or tell Harry important things. In the original story, Lucius Malfoy escaped from Azkaban and kidnapped Harry, but was stopped from using the AK on him by her. I don't think I will put this scene in my story, but I might have her appearing in physical form. After all, Harry is now at one of the most important magical centres in Britain. Ten points for whomever guesses who she is! *grin*
For those who have reviewed and thanked me for my story, I thank you for being there and review. For those who have pointed out the mistakes in my story (mistake meaning grammar mistakes), thank you for being attentive.
Finally, I hope that you keep reading this story and that you recommend it to your friends and family.
One last thing: LONG LIVE THE CANON COUPLES!!!
A/N: Ron trying to fly with a normal broom is something that happens in the Dangerverse stories.
Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Working Your Way Around Hogwarts: 1st Edition
Working Your Way Around Hogwarts: 1st Edition
Castle, n. s., castle: 1. A large fortified building or group of buildings, typically of the medieval period. 2. (Chess, informal) Old-fashioned term for Rook.
The next day, Harry woke up a bit late, having stayed up talking with his friends Neville and Ron, and taking to know a bit more about them. Neville seemed to be enthusiastic with starting Herbology the next day, as he particularly loved taking care of plants, but he didn't look very much to Transfiguration, as he didn't feel very confident with using his wand (actually it was his father's: apparently, Neville's grandmother had forced it on him with the hope that Neville could act like a second version of his father Frank; Neville didn't like this a bit, but he hadn't been able to convince her to give him a wand that was really attuned to him). Ron wasn't looking forward that much to classes, but he was still interested in what they were going to learn in their first year, and he shared some information he had picked from comments his brothers had made when they had started their first year at Hogwarts - “Bill told me that McGonagall starts by teaching you how to transfigure little things, like matches into needles,” - and several things that he had heard about the Professors - “Flitwick is really funny, his classes are the best, according to Fred.”
As they came downstairs, the three boys found Hermione ready to come downstairs and seemingly bursting with elation at the fact that they were going to start classes that same day.
“How difficult do you think classes will be?” she asked Ron. “I hope they aren't, I spent so much time reading the books that I think I can hold my own, but I am still not sure if the professors won't choose to teach something different in the first classes...”
“Wow there, Hermione, hold down!” Ron exclaimed. “My brothers told me that they always start with some theory, and then it's just small things, nothing too serious or difficult until we have picked up the basics. Of course, History of Magic is only theory, but my brothers always say that the Professor is dead boring,” he said, and snickered at the double-entendre.
“What's so funny?” Neville asked.
“It's just happens that the History Professor is a ghost,” Ron replied, “because apparently Binns just fell asleep in front of the fire one night and when he woke up he had left his body behind.”
Hermione gasped and put her hand over her mouth.
“That's terrible!” she let out.
“Well, yeah,” Harry said, “but I don't believe that he minds about it. My mum's journals say that Binns might not even be aware that he is a ghost. Anyway, if he hasn't changed, you will need a good cup of tea or coffee, because he would be able to make an insomniac fall asleep in a matter of minutes.”
Neville chuckled and told the others that they should be going downstairs to have breakfast. Harry showed them the secret passage Sirius had used the day before, something that all of them were glad to have, especially Ron who was hungry and wanted to have a good breakfast before classes started.
Sitting down in the middle of the table, with Ron and Hermione in one side and Harry and Neville on the other, they served themselves a big, hearty breakfast. When Harry was helping himself to a glass of pumpkin juice (which still surprised Hermione, as she was more used to orange or pineapple juice), Professor McGonagall started to pass around the timetables for the Gryffindors. As she reached the black-haired boy, she handed him his timetable.
“Mr Potter, after yesterday's meeting, we discussed which should be your timetable. You'll find it's very much like your classmates', but with some differences considering your level of knowledge.”
“Thanks, Professor,” Harry replied, taking the parchment. He had a look at it and saw that he had Charms and Herbology in the morning, and DADA in the afternoon. He supposed that the first one would be the Advanced Charms one, but he didn't know how the Professors would teach him something different from what the others were learning without calling attention to himself.
“What was Professor McGonagall talking about, Harry?” Neville asked with curiosity.
“I'll tell you later, OK?” Harry replied. “Somewhere where I can be sure no-one hears us.” Neville nodded.
A few minutes before breakfast ended, Hermione dragged all her friends to the Gryffindor Tower so that they could take the books for their classes. Harry also took the Marauders' Map with him, so that he could direct the others towards the Charms classroom.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
In the surroundings of a small town in the South of the island of Great Britain called Ottery Saint Catchpole laid a big multi-stored house. At first sight, one would normally wonder how could the upper levels, as well as the outer rooms, sustain themselves without falling to the floor. The answer was easy: Magic.
In that house had once lived a big family, comprised of seven children and two adults, all of them with the same special flame-red-coloured hair adorning their heads. This didn't mean that the house was abandoned. Oh, no! Far from it! Although it may look like that to any person who didn't have magic, that house was still inhabited, but right now only three members of the family lived in it right now: the two parents — named Arthur and Molly Weasley - and the youngest child, a lovely girl named Ginevra Weasley, although she preferred to be called 'Ginny', the diminutive of her Italian name.
Today, the 4th of September, Ginny woke up from her slumber and rose from her bed with a slightly sad look on her face. The reason for this was that her favourite brother, Ron, had left three days before for Hogwarts, the school where wizards and witches learnt how to use magic. This was the first time both of them were separated for more than a day, and she already felt a bit depressed, as she missed him a lot. Sure, they got into small fights from time to time, but they always made up soon.
Yesterday, she hadn't seen her dad in the whole day, because apparently Professor Dumbledore, Hogwarts' Headmaster, had called him to do something very important. Her mum was a bit mollified by that, considering that it was her dad's free day, but he had calmed down her and promised to come back as soon as possible. However, by the time Ginny went to bed, he had not come back yet from Hogwarts.
When she entered the kitchen, she was surprised to see her dad still having breakfast at the table: he normally left for work before she woke up.
“Hi, Daddy!” she said, hugging him with all her worth.
“Good morning, princess,” Arthur said, kissing the top of his daughter's head. “I hope that you slept well tonight.”
“I did. Where were you yesterday?” the girl asked. Arthur smiled.
“I suppose that this won't hurt. After all, he allowed me to tell you this,” he said.
“Who?” Ginny said.
“Well, this might take some time, so just sit down while I help your mother finish making breakfast, OK?”
Ginny nodded with a smile, and sat down at her favourite chair. It wasn't long until the delicious smell of a Weasley breakfast flooded the kitchen and her parents sat down next to her, waiting for the eggs to get a bit colder so that it didn't burn their mouths.
“When Professor Dumbledore called me, he told me that he wanted me to help him test the abilities and knowledge of a new Hogwarts student. Before I could point out that this was not normal, he said that Professor McGonagall had asked for me, knowing that said student had some knowledge about Muggle machines and she thought I was the most able man for that job. It wasn't until a few minutes before the meeting that I learnt that the student in question was Harry Potter.”
Ginny opened her eyes a lot and blushed a bit at the mention of Harry's name. When she was very small, she had liked to hear the tale of how the Boy-Who-Lived had survived nearly every night, and when she was three her parents had given her a Harry Potter doll which was her favourite doll and which she had taken to sleep with and play with, imagining that one day Harry would came for her riding a white horse and wearing a shining armour.
That dream disappeared when she was five. Some nights, she had dreams that were not about a knight in shining armour. They were about a little green-eyed boy who was always cowering in fear in front of a walrus-like man or shaking into a dark cupboard, with bruises covering his small body. When she compared him to the doll, she realised that the boy was Harry, because those green eyes were unmistakable.
Fortunately, those nightmares had ended just a year after they started. From then on, the dreams had started to be more pleasant: she could see Harry walking around in a big house, reading books and having fun with a white owl. One of those dreams stood out from the others: she had seen Harry standing on grass, watching a winged wolf flying around him and then it landed in front of him, letting Harry pet it. Harry was nearly always alone, but he always was happy. Ginny was happy for him.
Ever since she had started to have those 'dreams', she had started to pick up drawing as a way to deal with the bad dreams, and by the time the nightmares finished she had figured out that she was very good at drawing, perhaps even better than what could be explained by just having practised for a few years.
Molly Weasley had been surprised as well. She had worried a lot about Harry's disappearance when he was seven, and had received his return with a big smile. She wouldn't have thought that her husband would meet the young boy so soon.
“What happened with Harry Potter? Was he right?” she asked.
“He was perfectly, Molly, in fact I have not seen such a lively boy outside of our own family,” Arthur said with a smile. “Talking about our family, it seems that Harry has already made friends with our youngest sons, and the Longbottom's boy as well. Anyway, it seems that while he was away he studied quite a bit on his own and did a lot of very interesting things. One of them had to do with some Muggle things he managed to invent on his own, and it was very enlightening to see him and his inventions.”
“How so, Daddy?” Ginny asked.
“It would have to be something that he would explain better than me. Maybe he would like to receive a letter from you. I'd wager that you should thank your brothers, apparently they told him about you and your drawings,” Arthur said with a grin.
“Where has he been living all this time?” Molly asked.
“Apparently, some time before Sirius was freed, Harry had accidentally Apparated to his parents' house. That's where he has been ever since he disappeared.”
“He lived on his own for four years?” Molly was a bit scandalized that a boy that young had lived alone for so much time.
“From what Albus told me,” Arthur told her, “the Fidelius Charm at Godric's Hollow had somehow been modified when Harry arrived to the house, changing it so that Harry himself was the Secret Keeper and then neither Sirius nor Albus could find the house. Probably Harry didn't want to come out because he didn't know about them, or he didn't see them.”
Molly seemed to be yet somewhat angry at Harry's loneliness for so much time, but she accepted what her husband had told her and asked him more about Harry.
As Arthur explained to Molly all the things that weren't kept under the Wizard's Oath he had taken, Ginny was deep in thought: the fact that his father had said that Harry might like to receive a letter from her had really surprised her, and that her brothers had talked about her ability to draw without saying anything bad was really a new thing for her.
She decided that, when she finished breakfast, she would write a letter for Harry, accompanied with a drawing.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville reached the door to the DADA classroom after having had some food at the Great Hall. Harry had been suitably interested in some of the things he had been taught that day.
During Charms (which they shared with the Ravenclaws), as Professor Flitwick had given the others a lecture over the use of the first charms they would learn to use, he left a small booklet on Harry's desk about several advanced charms that normally were only taught to N.E.W.T. Charms students, and some of them were part of the curriculum a Charms Journeyman hopeful had to learn during his Apprenticeship with a Charms Master. Harry was really interested in the book, and although he wasn't able to practice them in class, he absorbed each of them as a sponge would absorb water. Hermione had looked at him strangely when she noticed that he wasn't paying much attention to Flitwick, but she decided to ask him later, as he seemed to be really concentrated on that book he was reading.
In Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, they faced a very different teaching style, as Professor Sprout was more of a hands-on teacher and didn't like to have her pupils take notes save when she stressed the information about how to take care of plants. Neville certainly stood out in this class as he perfectly trimmed the small Wyrd Roses without breaking any of their petals, which was difficult since the roses always moved a lot when they sensed something potentially harmful coming towards them. Professor Sprout had given him fifteen points and a good compliment for his ability, which Neville took with a small blush.
During lunch, Hermione had asked Harry about the book he had been reading during Charms. Having been caught out, Harry said that he couldn't tell anything right then, but promised to tell them about it that afternoon after classes. That promise held Hermione away from asking that question again before the afternoon, but Harry could not shrug off the feeling that the young girl would have pumped all the information he had out of him. He figured that Hermione would become a great interrogator in the future.
When the door opened, all the students entered the classroom to see Sirius — or, as they should call him, Professor Black — standing up in front of his desk with an inviting smile. When everybody sat down in their places, Sirius felt that he should present himself.
“Good morning, class. My name is Sirius Black, and I am going to be your Defence Against the Dark Arts for at least one year, and probably more. I pity your poor souls for that.”
Harry smiled. He knew that his godfather liked joking, and from what he could see, all of his friends had seen that as well.
“My job here is to teach you about spells that can be used for self-defence, as well as any creatures deemed dangerous that don't fall in the subject of Care of Magical Creatures, which is an elective you will be able to choose starting on your third year of education at Hogwarts,” Sirius explained to his pupils who were paying attention to him.
“During our first term, I will teach simple charms that can be used to get out of a bad situation, and you will be practising them in here in front of me so that I can reverse the consequences of what you cast. Our second term will be spent reviewing several of the most recognisable Dark Creatures: their weaknesses and strengths, as well as the most likely areas in which they live. The spring term will be dedicated to some more advanced things, as well as a small project about which I will talk when it is due. Is that understood?” Sirius asked, and everybody nodded at the same time.
“Then, we shall start with a hex that, well used, could give you an advantage. Has anybody heard about the Jelly-Legs Hex?” he asked, and noted several hands going up. “Mr Weasley?”
“It's a hex that makes your legs behave like jelly, so they wobble and can cause you to lose your balance,” Ron said, remembering the one time the twins had used it on him.
“Very well, take two points for Gryffindor,” Sirius replied with a smile. “As Mr Weasley has said, this hex turns your legs into jelly. Depending on the strength applied to the hex, its effects can go from a slight wobbling of your knees from making you fall down to the floor because your legs aren't hard enough to support your weight.
“Although those who have lived with Wizarding families and may have suffered it once or twice may think it's only worth for a joke, it can be a good weapon in the right hands. Ms Brown, would you be able to present an example to us?”
“Err,” Lavender Brown said, slightly flustered at the fact that Professor Black — admittedly a very attractive adult — had asked something to her. “You could use it on someone else and push them so that they fall to the floor, and then you could escape” she said.
“That's a good one. Two points for Gryffindor. As I said before, it could be a good weapon, but it can also be used by a person with bad intentions that wants to harm someone else. Let's say for example that you are going downstairs and someone throws you the Jelly-Legs Hex. What do you think would happen?”
Everybody nodded, a bit grimly.
“The reason I tell you this is so that you don't use it — or any other charm, jinx or hex — on someone else just for laughs and kicks. Sure, you may find funny that someone is just trembling, unable to stand on their own, but I am sure you wouldn't find it funny at all if it were you the one trembling around. Remember that even the most harmless-looking spell can be used for bad things, and vice-versa,” Sirius stated, very seriously.
“Now, put the sad faces aside, because you have to learn this. If all of you manage to master it before the class ends, I will teach you the counter charm to it.”
Harry had read about the hex, but he hadn't practised it before because he didn't have anyone on whom he could use it, so he paid attention to the movement of the wand and memorized the incantation. It wasn't something as advanced as what Moody had promised to teach him after the meeting ended, but it was surely something that, if he got into a fight, would make the other underestimate him, as well as annoy the hell out of him.
One by one, all of the students were able to correctly cast the hex at least once on dummies Sirius had in his stores for this kind of situation, and with five minutes left, the eight children had been able to somewhat master it. Sirius smiled at the children and gave Gryffindor five points for each of them.
“It's a pity we have so few time. However, I am still going to tell you the counter-charm. I'm sure Filius will thank me for cutting him some teaching time, as he teaches this midway into your first year. Anyway, this spell can be used to counter most spells, save for some very specific ones that have their own special counter or none, or very powerful ones that require either several people casting it at the same time or a person who is able to use the same level of power.
“The counter-charm is Finite Incantatem, and it's used like this,” Sirius said, showing them the movement, which Harry immediately filed within his mind. Just then, the bell rang, signalling the end of the last class period of the day.
“Very well. As homework, I want you to write an essay over the Body Bind charm, its effects and uses, due next Monday. Mr Potter, please stay behind.”
Harry was a bit surprised with this, but he was glad because he wanted to ask Sirius for some advice regarding Hermione and her sharp look, which was currently being bored onto him as if she wanted to drill into his head and find the answer to her question on her own, no matter the personal risks and/or damage that could be caused to Harry.
“Just wait out there if you want, it'll just take a few minutes,” Harry said, before running up to his Godfather just in case Hermione decided to go with the skull-drilling plan.
“Hello, Harry,” Sirius said. “I just wanted to ask you about your first day here.”
“It's been good,” Harry said, and made a fast summary about all the things he had done that day. Sirius was indeed very glad that the staff had thought up that special training regime for him, as it was very obvious that Harry was indeed a very bright child.
“Sirius, I need to ask you something,” Harry said once his narration of the day had ended. “When I was at Charms, Hermione saw the book Flitwick had given me and she started to do her rendition of the Spanish Inquisition.”
“The one nobody expects?” Sirius said, cracking a smile. Harry didn't understand the joke, but he kept talking nonetheless.
“I had to promise that I would tell her why I had a book with much more advanced charms than the ones they are learning out there, and I'm sure she is going to hound me until I tell her!”
Sirius grinned. His first impression about the girl had been spot on.
“Harry, when you get older, you'll find that many more witches are going to hound you, just because of your looks, so you'd better get used to it.”
Harry glared at Sirius. “Sirius, this is important! What should I do with her?”
“Easy there, Harry. Dumbledore had already planned something for this situation, as he knew you would like to tell your friends sooner or later. Just bring them here and I'll call Albus so that he can explain.”
Harry shrugged and came out of the office. It was pretty clear that Dumbledore didn't want anyone but those that could be trusted to know about his abilities, and he didn't either, considering that Voldemort was still out there and might be able to get the information from any of them.
He stuck his head out of the classroom and saw that his three friends (in spite of having known them for hardly three days, he already thought of them as friends) had stayed in front of the classroom, obviously waiting for him to come out.
“Hey, guys, would you mind coming in?” Harry said. “Sirius would like to talk with us.”
Neville moved from his position next to the door, as Ron raised an eyebrow and imitated him. Hermione was looking at Harry as if saying that he wouldn't escape her interrogation no matter what happened or he tried to do or say. Harry didn't say anything, but rather led his friends into Sirius' office, just as Dumbledore arrived into the office through the internal Floo office that only worked for the Professors save emergencies.
“Good morning, Harry, Miss Granger, Mr Weasley, Mr Longbottom,” he greeted each of the students in turn. Hermione was a bit flustered with the presence of the headmaster, and Ron and Neville were surprised that one of the Wizarding world idols was treating Harry with such familiarity.
“Good morning, Headmaster,” Harry said. “I suppose Sirius told you what I told him, no?”
“Indeed he did,” Dumbledore answered. Then he turned to the other children in the room, and he smiled. “I must commend you on your intelligence, Miss Granger. I had not counted on someone catching on Harry's getting an advanced training until at least one month into the year, yet you have seen it in less than a day.”
“I had just seen Harry with a different book and when I asked him why he had it, he just said that he would tell me about it later,” she answered, flushing under the attention.
“You don't have to worry about that, Miss Granger,” Dumbledore replied, waving his hand. “You aren't going to be punished for just asking a question.” Hermione slightly relaxed upon hearing the Headmaster.
“What are we going to do, Albus?” Sirius asked.
“I'll get on that with time, Sirius,” Dumbledore replied. Then he turned to the children. “Miss Granger, how much do you know about what happened to Harry when he was one?”
“What most do,” she said. “You-Know-Who found about the Potters through Peter Pettigrew, who was their secret keeper, then he killed both of them with the Avada Kedavra curse and when he tried to kill Harry, the curse somehow rebounded and killed him.”
Harry cringed at hearing about his parents' death like that, as if it were only history and not something that had marked his life so much and in such a hard way. Sirius noticed it and put his hand over Harry's shoulder to remind him of his presence.
Dumbledore nodded. “That's the most known theory about what happened in Godric's Hollow. However, there are several things that were left out of that theory, which the Ministry wished to keep in secret as it might have been dangerous to let it known to the general populace.” He turned to Harry and asked him: “Harry, do I have your permission to tell them about yesterday's meeting?”
“I had already told them a bit, but if you think they should know, then there's no problem, Headmaster.”
Dumbledore nodded. “The main reason why Harry is being taught more advanced knowledge than you, as the book you saw contains such knowledge, is because he has been studying magic on his own for the past four years and is at a level where the teaching of the basics wouldn't do well for him. The secret has to be kept because, even with Voldemort,” the children — save Harry — shuddered, “disappeared, there are still several sympathizers around that might wish to do something with this information.”
“So,” Sirius said, re-starting from the part where Dumbledore had left, “as you know about Harry, I think that we help you to keep things in secret.
“There's no way that we are going to Obliviate you,” Sirius assured the boys and girl. “Even doing it to an adult is very risky, something only people with special training are able to do, and a child's brain is far more fragile than that of an adult.”
“Obliviate?” Hermione asked.
“It's something that can be used to erase your memories,” Sirius replied. “There is a team in the Ministry of Magic that takes care of changing Muggles' memories whenever they have witnessed something that could put the International Confederation of Wizards' Statute of Secrecy in danger.
“As for the possibility of you swearing an oath... I'm not sure if it would be a good idea. It might work, but I wouldn't like to make you risk losing your magic because you might accidentally said something you shouldn't. That's why we — that is, Albus and I — think that learning Occlumency would really work well with you.”
“What's Occlumency?” Ron asked, obviously curious in spite of the fact that he hadn't tried to ask anything to Harry, and thus shouldn't have been there.
“It's a rather obscure subject that deals with protecting your mind from external influences,” Albus said, “such as reading your mind or trying to change your memories with an Obliviate. Also, since one of the most important things is to keep order within your own mind, it helps very much with memorizing and remembering things.”
Neville seemed to be interested in the last thing — Harry remembered that the other night he had said that he tended to forget things, although nothing that was related to Herbology. Hermione did, too, showed her interest through the expression in her face.
“It would take some time for you to be acceptable in it, but I'm sure that, with enough training, you would be able to do an excellent work,” Albus stated. “Harry, do you think you would be up to teach them your brand of Occlumency?”
Harry was surprised. Teaching his friends Occlumency? Sure, he was good at it, but he doubted that he would do well at teaching. “I'm not sure if it would go OK, I don't know the last thing about teaching,” he said, lamely.
“I wasn't suggesting that you do everything, Harry,” Dumbledore replied. “Either Severus or I would be able to teach them the basics, and then you would only have to show them how you managed to hide your mind so well.”
Harry thought about it. He had spent quite a lot of time — he wasn't sure how much, as he hadn't made the measure, but it certainly was more than a month. However, he knew that his friends had the right to learn how to protect their minds, because one never truly knew if someone around you was able to read your mind.
“OK then, as long as you take care of the testing, I have no problem.”
“It's a deal, then,” Hermione said, shaking Harry's hand.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
The children were soon used to the routine that supposed going to class at Hogwarts. For Harry, it was quite manageable, because he had been used to work a lot when he was at Godric's Hollow. Hermione, who was a studious girl, also managed to get into the fold very soon. However, it took nearly two weeks for Ron and Neville to get used to the homework frenzy that they had to live in at least once a day, but with Harry's and Hermione's help they managed to do their homework in an acceptable, sometimes very good, way.
The four had quite a lot of extra time dedicated to other subjects, but as they did that at the same time, they had no problem with keeping together. As Hermione, Ron and Neville learnt from the Headmaster how to properly meditate in order to start building their mental shields, Harry spent his time working with the Professors in what could be done. It wasn't always the same: sometimes Flitwick and Sirius coupled to teach Harry about duelling, other times McGonagall was teaching him very advanced Transfiguration spells and a couple of times the Flamels found the time to be at Hogwarts and teach Harry the art of Alchemy, which truly fascinated Harry.
However, the times where Harry had the most fun was when he and Snape discussed about the possible applications his Magical Elements Theory could have. They had already started to find how many of the most common potions used by Healers and the such could be improved through the elimination of the elements that complicated the process. In just two meetings, the Pepper-Up Potion and the Sleeping Draught had been improved, both in taste and in potency, something that had been tested by Madam Pomfrey when she — reluctantly — used it on one of her patients, who had somehow gotten a very hard cold that had required the use of both potions on him. The poor boy had spent a whole day asleep before waking up and noticing that his cold had completely disappeared. Madam Pomfrey had given Severus a good earful for giving her such a strong potion, until Severus said that he had already advised her that it was stronger than the normal Sleeping Draught, thus making it her fault for not following his instructions.
That left the Medi-Witch stunned. Sirius then congratulated Severus for being the first person to leave Poppy Pomfrey without words.
Harry also had a pleasant surprise in the form of a letter, coming from Ginny Weasley. Apparently, Arthur Weasley had told her that Harry might like to meet her and the young girl had decided to send him a letter, presenting herself and providing many details about how was life at the Burrow — the name of the house where the Weasleys lived. As he advanced through the letter, he could see that she had a very outgoing, happy personality, and she was mischievous — not as much as Fred and George, but near. The drawing Ginny had included of her own family standing in front of the Burrow had really impressed him, as the level of detail the girl was able to put into the parchment was truly amazing. When they saw it, Hermione and Neville had been as astonished as Harry, but Ron only smiled proudly.
That had initiated a correspondence between the two children, with letters exchanging hands twice a week. Hedwig really enjoyed her visits to the Weasleys' home, as she really liked the red-haired girl and how well she treated her. When Ginny sent a drawing of Hedwig flying around, the owl hooted very happily as she recognised herself in the drawing. There were even a few times that Harry could swear Hedwig was asking him to give her a letter for the girl.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry had been excused from the normal flying lessons for two reasons: one, because the time those lessons were given coincided with one of his meetings with Professor Snape; and two, because Sirius had asked Madam Hooch to let him teach Harry how to properly fly a broom, to which she had accepted.
That was why the Saturday after the first flying lesson Harry was walking out of the castle next to his Godfather, who was holding up two Cleansweep 7 brooms, which were quite good for a novice, as they were easy to handle, but at the same time were fast enough for someone who already had a good grasp on flying. Harry's friends had joined the group, truly interested in seeing how good Harry was on a broom, while Sirius told them of the aerobatic exploits James Potter was able to do at Hogwarts.
Unknown to anyone but Sirius, there were two other people who were watching intently on it. One of them was Albus Dumbledore, who was staying behind the open window in the tower where his office was, with his companion Fawkes at his side. He remembered very well how good James Potter was on a broomstick, having lead Gryffindor into victory quite a few times while he was at Hogwarts. He wanted Harry to have the childhood his big mistake had denied him, and while he thought that it was a bit late already, he at least hoped that Harry could find some joy from playing the game his father had excelled on.
The other one was Minerva McGonagall, hiding with her Animagus form between some bushes as she followed Sirius and the children. Like Dumbledore, she wanted to see if Harry was any good with the broomstick, but she was also there because she needed someone with some ability on a broom. Oliver Wood had come to her a few days before, saying that he lacked of a Seeker for the team, and nobody he had tested had come out as a half good one. She had been quite sad at that, but she told Oliver to keep looking for someone, before she realised that Harry was due to have his flying lessons soon. She remembered that James Potter had been quite proficient on a broom — which he always played out as being a natural — and James' father had also been a good Quidditch player. Each had played different positions: Charles had been a Beater, but James was a Chaser. Perhaps the talent of a Seeker would be built in Harry Potter. She might have to get her hidden Slytherin side to the light, because she didn't want to have to overrule the rule that forbid first years to own brooms.
As Sirius explained Harry how to fly on the broom, she peered intently out of the bushes she was hiding behind: seeing the look of interest Harry had on his face, she knew that she might hit the jackpot — using a Muggle expression — with this one. His face was nearly identical to James' the first time he got to ride a broom.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry's first seconds on the broom were quite a bit uncertain. He had — for obvious reasons — never been able to ride a broom, although he had read about it in his mom's journals. As the first seconds rolled around, he found himself more comfortable over the broom, almost as if he already knew how to do it. It wasn't coming from learning the moves, it was as if he was born to be on a broom and fly with it.
He really liked the feeling of flying. He really wanted to keep training on his Animagus form, which he had not done in the last months because of the thrill of being about to come to Hogwarts. Slowly, his feet were separating from the ground, a few more inches at each impulse he gave the broom, until he had reached a height of twelve feet, then fifteen feet, eighteen feet. Without stopping for Sirius to tell him what to do next, he willed the broom forward, slowly at first, to get sure of how fast it could go at first. Then, he started his experiment.
He shot forward.
Sirius' face would have been quite funny had the situation not been as serious as it was right now. Harry's friends had also paled a lot, thinking Harry might have lost control of the broom he was riding. Albus was about to ask Fawkes to flash him down to the grounds and Minerva was already changing from her cat form, ready to do something to ease the stopping of the broom.
Just as Sirius was trying to jump on his broom to catch Harry, the dark-haired flew over his friends.
“WHEEEEE!” They heard him shout in joy.
Sirius was petrified by that. It was obvious that Harry had not lost control of the broom. Harry was taking the Cleansweep 7 at neck-breaking speeds. This was compounded by the rather sudden movements the young boy was making, that would put several pros in shame. It was then when Ron noticed that the moves Harry was doing resembled those from Quidditch matches. Quidditch professional, international matches.
“Wow!” Ron said.
“HARRY JAMES POTTER!” McGonagall shouted, in an angry, yet terrified, scream. “COME DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!”
“Ouch, Minerva, you have left me deaf,” Sirius said, though he quite admired his godson for having managed to get the Deputy Headmistress to shout his full name in his first month. It had taken James and him three months to reach that point.
Harry came back, landing between Sirius and McGonagall without missing a step and a huge grin on his face.
Much to the surprise of everybody else, McGonagall dropped to her knees and hugged Harry, after which he checked over him to make sure that he had every piece of his body on himself. Then she decided to go straight forward to the verbal lashing Harry had earned himself for his stunt.
“How could you be so incredibly irresponsible to fly around in such a dangerous way?” she said. “You could have broken your fool neck with those moves! You should be thankful that you didn't have an accident!”
“But, Professor, I wasn't going to have an accident...” Harry said, but this went completely unheard by the Scottish professor, who kept lashing at him for the risks he had taken with that flying for the next fifteen minutes, with neither of his friends being able to get Harry free. Finally, it was Sirius the one who saved Harry from the Deputy Headmistress' ire.
“Minerva, please, You can see that Harry is perfectly OK. No injuries of any kind, and he seems to have had a lot of fun while he was flying,” Sirius told her, while Harry made use of the distraction Sirius presented by trying to sneak out of McGonagall's view.
“Nonetheless, Sirius, he should have been more careful! And you should be ashamed, to let Harry go like that without supervision!”
“It wasn't as if I had time to tell Harry anything before he sped up the broom!” Sirius replied.
“Anyway, you should have jumped on that broom you have with you as soon as he started to fly so recklessly!”
“I'll have you know that I was about to do that in the moment Harry started to shout how happy he was!”
“It doesn't matter, he was still in danger! And where do you think you are going, young man?” she asked Harry, who winced at being caught.
“I was going to put this broom back at its place,” he replied. And myself back to Gryffindor Tower before any of you explodes, he thought.
“Not so fast, Mr Potter,” McGonagall said. Her burst of anger had passed mostly, and now she had been reviewing Harry's flight in her mind, she realised that he had indeed inherited the natural abilities James had had, and his frame made him quite useful for the position she had hoped to fill today. “Come with me right now, there is something we need to talk about. Sirius, please take the other children back to Gryffindor Tower and tell Oliver Wood to come to my office immediately.”
Harry, bewildered, followed the old Professor, and wasn't able to see Sirius' gleeful face as he heard Wood's name mentioned.
As Sirius took Hermione, Ron and Neville through the well-used passage connecting the main hall and the entrance into Gryffindor Tower, the girl asked Sirius who was Oliver Wood.
“He's the captain of Gryffindor's Quidditch team. I heard Minerva saying that the team didn't have a Seeker, so I told her about Harry's flying lesson, and apparently she might have decided that Harry is good enough to join the team.”
“Wow!” Neville said.
“I thought that you couldn't join the team if you were a first year,” Ron said.
“Correction, it says that first years can't bring brooms to Hogwarts,” Sirius said. “The non-joining of the teams is just a given, because playing on a school broom is quite difficult unless you are practically a professional, and normally you would need your own broom because it's not normal to just ask someone else to lend you a broom. However, I figure that I'll buy myself a new broom and lend it to Harry so that he can train and play with the team, if he gets chosen.”
“Lucky guy,” Ron said.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
“Did you call for me, Professor?” a burly fifteen year old boy said, after opening the door to Professor McGonagall's office.
“Yes, Wood. Please enter and close the door.”
Wood did as he was asked, and sat down next to Harry, who was a bit nervous about what was going to happen.
“As I know how much you have been searching for one, I'm not going to go around the subject. Wood, meet your new Seeker.”
Wood looked at Harry, and he could see that the older boy's face had illuminated as if Christmas had arrived earlier than usual. Harry felt very happy, too: Seeker was one of the positions in Quidditch, and if Professor McGonagall said he was one, it was obvious that she wanted him to play the game.
“Are you sure about it, Professor?” Wood asked.
“Completely. I've just seen him flying around with a Cleansweep 7 and he has been pulling out many difficult manoeuvres that even the Seekers at the World Cup Finals would have difficulties to even imitate. And this was his first time on a broom.”
Harry averted Wood's eyes. Frankly, the look the older boy was giving him made him feel weird, and, if he wasn't mistaken, Wood seemed to be about to have an apoplexy from the sudden influx of blood into his face from the excitement.
“He seems to have the perfect size for a Seeker,” the fifth-year stated, looking at Harry after two minutes of silence. “He's going to need a good broom, like a Cleansweep 9 or a Nimbus...”
“Something will have to be done to get around the first-year rule. Although, knowing Sirius, he is already planning something about it,” Minerva replied. Then she smiled, as she looked at Harry. “Your father would be awfully proud of what you have been able to do, but I'd say that your mother would either have had a heart attack or skin you alive for your stunt,” she chuckled.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry was immediately admitted into Gryffindor's Quidditch team, much to the surprise of the members of Gryffindor House, as well as the people from the other houses, particularly Slytherin. There were quite a lot of people in that house that complained (especially one Draco Malfoy, who was being the loudest of all of them) because a first year had been able to enter into the Quidditch team, but when one of the twins made the suggestion that perhaps the Slytherins were scared because Gryffindor would be able to beat them even with a first year as one of its team players, they (at least the upper-class men) shut up.
Harry joined the team, and practised the moves with them twice a week. It would have been thrice, if Wood had had his way, but McGonagall had put her foot down on the two days, saying that all members of the team should also have enough time for their studies and that the thrice-a-week training should only be done for the two weeks previous to a match. Wood didn't protest at all, but Harry could see him always muttering that Gryffindor would lose the Cup if they didn't train enough.
But not everything was Quidditch. Harry was still doing a lot of job next to the Professors. He had finally managed to complete the Table of Magical Elements to include those few that were used in Alchemy exclusively with the help of Nicholas Flamel, who had provided him with several of his own ingredients. Nicholas had been very glad to have a copy of the Table, and promised to keep it a secret until Harry unveiled it at the International Congress of Potions Masters (this was actually promised to Severus, as he had intended this to be his gift to Harry for the next Christmas).
He was also learning heaps from Moody, who behind his gruff demeanour could be a very nice person — only if you really took your time to meet him — as the old ex-Auror taught him very advanced charms of the offensive and defensive kind, much like what Sirius was doing in their official DADA classes, but where Sirius' (who had by the time taught them some more jinxes and the Protego charm) were more akin to what a child would be expected to use, Moody's tended to be quite strong. Moody also taught Harry how to wield his wand for maximum efficiency — not that he really needed it, but he could see that there were several aspects in which wandless magic was surpassed by wanded magic.
His time with Snape was well-spent time, as well. Between the two of them, they were currently improving every potion they knew about, and they were tested as soon as possible. Madam Pomfrey was still miffed up with them for the incident with the sleeping draught, but she would still use their potions to treat those students that suffered any kind of accident or some illness that would require her to work. Fortunately, the fact that the potions tended to be more concentrated than before, were given in the same quantities as before and nearly all had lost the awful taste they tended to have, made the hospital wing less hated by the students.
Once every three days, Ginny sent him a letter, detailing some of the things that were happening at the Burrow, as well as telling something more about herself or her family, which Harry always liked to read about, as well as one of her beautiful drawings. Harry answered with the things he did with his friends, some of his time with the Professors and the fun he had with Sirius as he shared some of the stories about his parents.
Harry's time at Hogwarts passed really fast, between his friends, homework, private classes, Quidditch and working on with his MagMachine — which he was planning to duplicate, as he wanted to give one to each Professor — and before he knew it, the day of the year he liked the least arrived.
Halloween. The day his parents died. The day Harry was named the Boy-Who-Lived.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
A/N: I know, I know, it's been a LOT of time since I updated chapter 9. I just hope that I made your wait worthwhile, as it has been very hard for me to find the time to write, especially since my exams are coming up in a matter of weeks and I recently had to undergo surgery to correct a problem in my body.
Please, don't forget to review to make your opinion known about how the story is developing. Flames to tell me that any of those falsehoods in the world of Harry Potter (AKA Ron Is A Prat, Hermione Should Be Harry's Girlfriend and Ginny Is A Psycho-Fan Stalker, among others) or any combination of them is true will be completely ignored. Those who wish to point out any grammar mistake in my story will be thanked. Those who want to tell me how much they loved this story, I will be eternally grateful to them!
About the development of the characters, I am sure that many of you are quite surprised by how Harry managed to get Hermione to relent about what happened with the book, and how fast Dumbledore admitted to tell Harry's friends the truth. It's just that I was short in ideas, and it was the best I could produce.
I know that I promised that Harry and Ginny would meet in this chapter. However, I realised that, to do that, I would have had to speed up the story too much, and the meeting would not have happened until the end of the chapter. I hope that the pen-paling is enough for you. But don't worry, I'm 100% sure that the two future sweethearts of the Magical World will meet in next chapter.
If you keep not liking Ginny Weasley or the fact that she is destined to be with Harry, please do the following:
a) Close this window.
b) Put me in your Ignore list.
c) Never, ever, ever, read one of the stories in My Favourites
If you think that Hermione is better suited to Harry than any other person, please do the following:
a) Close this window.
b) Put me in your Ignore list.
c) Send me your nickname so that I can do b).
d) Never read the most worthwhile stories.
e) Get used to fire. You will live in it after you die.
Of course, there is the alternative:
a) Kiss your brother/sister. In the mouth. With tongue.
b) Vomit all over yourself.
c) Realise that this would be as if Harry kissed Hermione.
d) Erase all stories that put the H/Hr couple in a good light.
e) Find the salvation by reading H/G.
Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Trick or Treat
Trick Or Treat
Spirit, n. s., spirit: 1. A person’s non-physical being, composed of their character and emotions. 2. This regarded as surviving after the death of the body, often manifested as a ghost. 3. A supernatural being.
It was certainly sad for him that one of the days the Wizarding World celebrated the hardest was also a day that he didn't like to celebrate at all. Although he understood now why people celebrated the day like that (after all, the defeat of one of the most dangerous Dark Lords in history was something to celebrate), Harry didn't feel like it was cause for much celebration. He knew from the Dursleys — probably one of the few things that were true that they told him — that his parents had died in Halloween, and thus had never felt any joy about the day.
Especially today, since was the tenth anniversary of James and Lily Potter's deaths.
He wasn't the only one in the school hit hard by the constant reminiscing of that loss: Sirius would have to remind every ten minutes since he woke up that he couldn't have known that Peter would betray them and that now he had Harry to take care of; Severus was depressed over the death of his best friend ever at school for the whole day — not that he would show it to the students; even Dumbledore remained sad about the incident, and had to do his best to get through the morning without breaking down and cry.
The day dawned cloudy, much like Harry's mood that day. His friends, knowing how much it pained him the remembrance of the loss of his parents — whom he had hardly known — gave him the space they knew he needed, although they also tried to keep him with them so that he was never alone. The twins even pulled through a small prank so that all the students robes featured a jack-o-lantern on their backs, which made Harry smile a little.
During the Charms class, Flitwick said that they were ready to try the Wingardium Leviosa Charm, that allowed you to make things float in the air. After practising the moves a few more times and reminding them of the correct pronunciation of the charm, he gave them feathers so that each couple of students had one to practice the charm with.
Harry had been paired with Neville, and, since he already knew how to do the Wingardium Leviosa Charm (it had been the first spell he had ever done), he did his best to help the boy control his magic. Since Neville's wand wasn't attuned to him, it was obvious that he would need to train a lot to be able to do something good with it.
Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione were paired together. In spite of her bossiness — a habit she was trying to fight back — and his small problem with understanding the most technical things — although his upbringing in a magical environment helped him understand several things due to the education his parents had given him — they got on rather well, and although they had discussions from time to time, they always made up later. From his position, Harry could see Ron moving his arms forming wide arcs, and Hermione catching him by his wand hand's wrist. Both of them blushed a bit, but that wasn't impediment for Hermione to mutter something to Ron. Ron then answered something to her, and Hermione brought out her wand and, with a swish and flick, managed to make the feather float half a meter from the desk.
“Oh, look at that! Miss Granger has done it!” Flitwick squeaked with delight. Ron seemed to be a bit miffed that Hermione had been able to do the charm at her first try, but he didn't give it much importance. He just took his wand and repeated the moves Hermione had done, and soon the feather was floating.
“Well done, Mr Weasley!” Flitwick said, eager as he saw other of his students succeed in the task. Ron smiled at his success at the task.
However, not many people would be able, in the end, to do what Ron had done. Only two Ravenclaws would manage it by the end of the class. Professor Flitwick just asked them to practice the charm out of class, and bid them a good morning.
As they came out of class, both Harry and Neville were slightly depressed, the one because of the day, the other because of the lack of results his wand had. They were approached by Ron, who had noticed the state his friends were in and tried to lift their spirits by reminding them of the decorations in the Great Hall, which wasn't enough to make them happy, but at least brought them out of their depression.
“Why don't we go to meet your godfather, Harry?” Hermione suggested, obviously caring for her friend. “Perhaps he could tell us something else about your parents. Like that time your mother make him lose all of his hair.”
Harry smiled at the mention of that incident, which Sirius always remembered as one of the funniest moments in his life. Apparently, in their third year, James had tried to pull a prank on Lily — it was the way James dealt with his attraction to her, according to Sirius — and not only it backfired, but Lily, enraged, used a depilatory charm on James, leaving him bald as an egg. He spent a whole day whining about the pain of having every hair of his body pulled out at the same moment, but he never told on the girl, and instead said he had misspoke a charm and had ended that way.
“Alright, let's see him,” Harry said, leading his friends towards the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor's office. He knew that Sirius didn't have any classes at that moment, so he supposed that there shouldn't be any problem to talk with him. He knocked on the door and opened it, having a look to make sure that he was inside. Sirius was sitting down in one of the sofas, his head reclined back as if he was sleeping, and in the table in front of it, a bottle of Firewhiskey and two glasses.
“Sirius?” Harry asked, worried.
“Whozzat?” Sirius replied, sleepily. When he opened his eyes, he found his godson standing behind the door. “Harry! What are you doing here? Don't you have any classes today?”
“Charms just ended, and Hermione thought you could tell us some more about Dad and Mum,” Harry said.
“Oh, of course I can!” Sirius said, brightening. “Just come in, Moony should be about to arrive,” he said as he was taking away the Firewhiskey bottle.
“What's that?” Hermione asked, looking at the bottle.
“This?” Sirius replied. “This is Firewhiskey, an alcoholic drink, and, since you are a minor, you shouldn't be able to taste it, it's too dangerous for your health.” He put it in a cupboard at a side and locked it with a flick of his wand. Just then, Remus appeared in the fireplace.
“Sirius?” he asked, before stepping out and seeing Harry and his friends sitting in front of the sofa. “Harry! What are you doing here?”
“He wanted to talk about Prongs and Lily, Moony.”
“Ah, good, I suppose that's why you have put the whiskey away,” Remus said. “That's something you could use without, you know. It's been ten years.”
“Yeah, Moony, I know that, but it still makes me sad,” Sirius told his friend.
“I know, but I suppose that James would have preferred us to remember the good times.”
Sirius snorted. “Yeah, like that time he got stuck in the middle of his Animagus transformation.”
Remus grinned, and Harry as well. The other children were a bit puzzled, but seemed to catch on that being a funny thing.
“What happened?” Neville asked.
“You know that James and I trained to become Animagi, no?” Sirius asked, and the children nodded. “Well, it was on a Saturday, and we had decided to train a bit as there was no one else woken up at the moment. James had managed to do every part of his stag, and he was about to do the whole transformation at once, but Peter sneezed then and James lost his concentration. All of his clothes had been replaced by fur, he had hooves instead of his hands and feet, but he still had his normal face. But the best was that he had the antlers, and he got stuck with his bed's curtains.”
Everyone laughed aloud.
“He spent nearly the whole day and night like that, because we couldn't find what exactly had gone wrong, but in the end we managed to do it,” Remus remembered, his eyes shining. “Ever since then, we always called it 'James' first stag night'. The day of his wedding, I have to say that Lily was extremely amused by it.”
That set the children off again.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
After a very thoroughly interesting and funny three hours, and a soporific History of Magic class, Harry and his friends were ready to go to the Great Hall and attend the Halloween Feast, for which the Hall was decorated with themed things, such as floating jack-o'-lanterns or animated bats that flew around continuously.
The house elves had also prepared many dishes that seemed to be related to the holiday, with the desserts being the stars of the night: candy apples, bonfire toffee, roasted sweet corn, pumpkin pie and chocolates with the form of bats and such.
However, little did they know that their fun would be cut short due to the actions of a certain Professor who wasn't exactly intent in helping the students keep their good health. Rather, his current actions seemed to be bent towards causing grave injuries and perhaps death to the students of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft.
“Imperio,” the Professor said, pointing his wand at the gigantic, green-skinned creature. “You are to go to the Great Hall, and when you get there you are to attack anything you see around. You are not to stop for anything. Don't make any noise.”
As soon as the troll's minuscule brain managed to process the instructions that had been given to it, he walked off, dragging his club along the floor, stomping his way towards the Great Hall. The Professor then cast other spell at the back of the troll, with the intention of masking the disgusting stench of the creature and thus preventing those in the Hall from detecting it until it smashed its way in there.
“It's been done, Master, that will keep the old fool distracted while I retrieve Flamel's Stone,” the turban-wearing Professor whispered as he ran upstairs.
“Well done, my servant,” a sibilant voice said from inside the turban. “Soon, I'll have my body back and my reign over the magical world will resume where I left it.”
“Yes, Master, your reign will be eternal, as my loyalty shall be,” the Professor said, stumbling slightly with one of the stairs.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
This was his best Halloween night without a doubt, Harry told himself. Of course, he couldn't remember what his parents had done in his first Halloween, the second one was the death of his parents, the following five had been spent in the cupboard as Dudley stuffed himself with sweets and candy his parents had bought him and the last four he hadn't even noticed that it was the day, so it wasn't as if it had a tough record to surpass.
“I think I won't be able to eat, ever,” Neville said, putting aside the candy apple he had taken before from the central plate.
“Neither do I,” Harry agreed. “I haven't eaten this much in my whole life.”
“I'm finished as well,” Hermione said. “I want to go to the Common Room and have a look at my Transfiguration homework before going to bed. Do you want to come?”
Ron vacillated between following the smart girl or trying to eat some more sweet corn, but in the end he decided that he had eaten enough as well and stood up as well. The four friends walked towards the door and had just crossed the threshold when a ghost appeared through the wall.
“Albus! There is a troll right outside the Hall!”
Just then, Harry stepped out of the Hall, and then he heard the roars of the Troll as it stamped its way towards him and his friends. Harry was shocked. The troll was about to strike them with its club.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Albus was happily enjoying his conversation with Severus. The Potions Master had changed since the start of the school year, and, while he was still a dour man, he now allowed his feelings appear in the surface from time to time. He seemed to be quite enthusiastic with the last project he and Harry were working on, which was a wide-spectrum cure-all potion that would cure people from most low illnesses such as colds or migraines. The table Harry had designed was certainly worth its weigh in gold (so to speak), because Severus and Harry were very much extracting lots of information from it that Harry hadn't been able to use before.
It was certain that Harry's arrival to the school had changed every staff member, in some way or other. Minerva and Filius were really enjoying having such an intelligent boy as a pupil, and encouraging his friends to do the same; Septima had already engaged Harry in some projects regarding the possible improvement of several spells, and Sirius was certainly more alive and happy than ever since ten years ago.
He saw that Harry and his friends had just stood up from their seats in the Gryffindor table and were going towards the door, no doubt to play chess or study some more before retiring for bed.
He then looked at both sides, and suddenly realised that there was one empty seat.
Quirrell's seat.
“Does anybody of you know where Quirrell is?” Dumbledore asked, trying not to show his concern at the non-presence of the Muggle Studies Professor.
“He said that he had a headache and wouldn't be able to join us tonight,” Poppy said. “I gave him some Headache Elixir and he retired to his rooms.”
Dumbledore paled. He should have realised that this situation would be perfect in a sense for Quirrell, if his suspicions had been correct: with everyone in the feast, this would be a perfect moment for the man to sneak off and try to steal the Philosopher's Stone from behind the traps he had put in there. Also, the symbolism of the date wasn't lost on the wizard: resurrecting the Dark Lord just in the tenth anniversary of his 'death' would certainly be very symbolical.
However, before he could stand up and ran to the third floor, where he had hid the Stone, one of the ghosts that haunted the dungeons flew inside the Hall.
“Albus! There is a troll right outside the Hall!”
Those eight words chilled Albus' old bones. Quirrell must have sent that troll to distract everyone!
He looked at the door, and saw Harry looking at a side and his face pale very fast. Too fast.
Albus then took out his elder wand from its holster and blasted the Head Table so that it couldn't stop his advance, being followed by Sirius and Minerva, but before he could give more than three steps, a triple scream of horror was heard.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Sirius could say, without a doubt, that this was the best Halloween day of his life. Of course, it wasn't as if there was a huge record to beat: although they had been very nice during his time as a Hogwarts student, there was always something that happened outside that dampened his joy, with Voldemort being at his height in that time. The following two Halloweens had been spent fighting Death Eaters that were attacking Muggle towns, and then the next Halloween was the one when James and Lily were killed. Seven Halloweens more in Azkaban, probably the least conducting place for someone in need of happiness, and then three more drowning his sorrows in alcohol next to Remus as they mourned their best friends.
Having Harry there had changed everything. Just with his presence, he was able to remember that, even if James and Lily were dead, they were still alive through him, and his questions always helped him to remember the best times he had spent with them both, which he now knew was what James would have wanted from him.
Right now, he was enjoying a pastry made with pumpkin and chocolate, which he didn't understand how the house elves had come up with, but nonetheless liked as it was really sweet. Remus was at his right, having been invited by the Headmaster to join them for the night, and was enjoying a pumpkin pie onto which he had dropped a good lot of syrup. Sirius could bet that Remus wouldn't be sleeping much that night, because he was going to eat so much sugar that he would go hyperactive: it had already happened several times, and the results had been hilarious.
He saw as Harry was already leaving the Hall, probably to go to their Common Room and enjoy the last hours with a game of cards before tucking in.
We really need to teach him how to pull up a few pranks, Sirius thought. James would really enjoy to see his son following his steps, although I'm not sure whether Lily would neuter me or just hex me.
He snickered at the thought when a ghost — Robert the Right-Handed-Leftie, from the dungeons near the Potions classroom if he remembered correctly — flew in the Hall.
“Albus! There is a troll right outside the Hall!”
Sirius was sure his heart had just stopped in that moment. There was a troll outside the Hall, and Harry was a step away from going outside the Hall. He saw as Harry looked at a side and paled really fast.
Sirius stood up in order to save his godson and his friends from what probably could mean their death or grievous injuries, and he didn't notice how Albus blasted the Head Table, being bent on reaching the doors of the Great Hall as soon as possible.
Three screams were heard from the door.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Molly was embroidering a jumper for her son Percy's Christmas present. Even though Arthur was now winning much more money ever since he caught Pettigrew, she still gave their sons a jumper with their initials on them for Christmas, as it had been a tradition of the family ever since she made Arthur one jumper in their first Christmas after getting married.
She looked at her left and smiled as her daughter Ginny worked with the needles she had given the girl. For the last few weeks, she had been teaching Ginny how to sew, and she had taken to it like a duck to water. She had taken a ball of green yarn and was making something that certainly didn't look like a jumper, although it was clear that what she was making would keep warm whomever wore it.
She then looked at the grandfather's clock by the chimney and smiled again as she saw Arthur's hand going from 'Working' to 'Travelling' and soon after that to 'Home'. The distinctive POP of an Apparating person was heard.
“Molly! I'm home!” Arthur said, entering the house. Ginny was the first to greet him, as she had jumped when she had heard the POP and had just jumped over him, hugging him.
“Hello, princess,” Arthur said, chuckling and hugging his daughter back. Then Molly came and kissed him.
“Arthur! How is it that you have come so early? I thought you wouldn't be able to come until nine at least!”
“Well, the malicious attacks against Muggles at this time have dropped considerably in the last years, so they have let us out as a present for a very good job,” Arthur replied with a grin.
Molly chuckled as well, and she turned towards the kitchen in order to heat the food that she had prepared earlier for dinner.
However, she didn't know that she wouldn't have the chance to do it. For in that moment four hands in the grandfather's clock started to move with a creak.
Molly and Arthur looked at the clock, surprised because they hadn't expected it to move. That was suddenly the least of their worries, as they saw which four hands had just moved.
Percy, Fred, George and Ron's hands had moved from 'School' to the position where the twelve o'clock is in normal clocks. 'Mortal Peril'.
Molly's shout of horror could be heard at the other side of the town.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
As the troll's club came onto their heads, Harry, acting on instinct, did the first thing that passed through his mind. He cast a magical shield that was created by will alone, and powered up with his magic.
A golden dome covered him and his friends, and it did it just in time, for just a few milliseconds after that, the club crashed into the shield.
Once it touched the dome, the club exploded into many tiny wood splinters, some of which hit the shield and exploded again, but most stuck into the troll's skin, waking it up from the Imperius Curse Quirrell had used on it.
His friends' screams of terror left Harry half-deaf, but that didn't make his concentration waver from the protection of his friends and himself. However, the total disintegration of the club with his shield forced him to spend much magic, and instinctively he knew that he wouldn't be able to keep it up if the troll decided to attack them physically, so he dropped the dome.
“MOVE!” Harry shouted to his friends, and their bodies moved, obeying the order, before their minds had managed to engage back from the shock they suffered. Each of the children jumping into one direction, they managed to avoid the troll's stampede as it tried to run over them.
However, the troll wasn't finished. His primal rage had managed to expel the remnants of the Imperius Curse he had been thrown, but that would have probably prevented the troll from trying to attack the four children and enter the Hall. Now, with his rage controlling him and fuelled up by the shards of wood in his skin, he wanted nothing else but to smash those tiny wizards into nothingness. He became fixated with the one that had the most head-fur, and thinking this one was the most dangerous, he charged again at it.
Hermione couldn't think. A troll had nearly killed her and her friends, and Harry had saved them from being hit by the club, but now the enraged troll was running towards her, and her panic prevented her from moving.
Ron couldn't think either. However, if there was something he knew how to do, was to act without thinking. While this normally had put him into problems in his house, now it would be very useful. Running towards the bushy-haired girl, who was being charged by the furious troll, he tackled her out of the way, protecting her from the creature and, in the process, getting it to run into the wall. This would probably have had him chuckling, but he had been hit by the troll and his left leg had been broken. He fainted from the pain.
Neville was very scared. Not even the time when Uncle Algie dropped him from the second floor had been this scary. At least at that time his accidental magic had made him rebound on the floor. But in here rebounding wouldn't help him. He took out his father's wand from his pocket and pointed it at the troll, shouting the first thing that passed through his mind.
Harry was surprised to see the troll's legs wobble and tremble, while the troll on itself didn't seem to be able to keep his balance. Jelly-Legs Jinx, he thought. He then pointed with his hand at the creature and shouted one of the offensive spells that Moody had taught him a couple of days ago.
“REDUCTO!” he shouted with all his forces.
Now, normally the Explosive Charm would, at most, make the troll stall, perhaps push him back or maybe blow up a bit chunk of his skin and flesh. That would be the norm for a typical wizard, in a calm situation. Harry Potter never was the norm, wasn't a typical wizard, and wasn't in a calm situation. Shouting the spell really added strength to what Harry was casting.
The troll was blown into smithereens. The walls of the hall behind the troll, from Harry's perspective, were showered with troll's blood. Small chunks of burned out flesh remained around the position where the troll was. Ron and Hermione had somehow managed not to be hit by any of the remains of the creature, but it was obvious that both were in shock, as they weren't moving at all.
Harry's vision started to blur, despite the fact that he had his glasses on. He was really tired, and he really needed to sleep.
He fainted, after having used such a great quantity of magic in just a few seconds.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
The first to arrive to the Hall was Sirius, his youth and despair being more than enough to outrun Remus, Dumbledore and Minerva, and was amazed at the fact that the troll had disappeared. As the most immediate danger had disappeared, Sirius looked for his godson, and saw him sprawled on the floor, unconscious. He ran towards him and tested his pulse. It was there, thank Merlin.
Remus, Albus and Minerva were next in arriving at the scene, and soon realised what had happened. They couldn't be more surprised at the fact that Harry had destroyed the troll with one spell. Then, Albus started to deliver orders.
“Minerva, Remus, Hagrid, bring the children to the hospital wing. Poppy, go with them and heal the children. Severus, come with me!”
All the mentioned people nodded and set out to their tasks, Sirius leading the way to the hospital wing with a limp Harry in his embrace.
Meanwhile, Albus and Severus ran to the third floor corridor, expecting to see the door open and the Cerberus Hagrid had provided for the protection asleep or dead. However, what they saw was a carnage, even worse than the one back in the hall. Quirrell's body seemed to have been bitten several times, and the floor was full of the man's blood. The turban Quirrell wore had fallen to the floor, and in the place where his nape would be a face had appeared, but it didn't seem to have any defined form. It was still clear what had happened.
“Our suspicions were true, then,” Dumbledore said. “Quirrell had been possessed by Voldemort and attempted to steal the Stone.”
“We'll have to thank Hagrid, his Cerberus stopped Quirrell before he could do anything else,” Severus said. “But where is the Dark Lord?”
“I'd guess that he must have left the school,” Dumbledore said. “I doubt that he would be able to live easily as a spirit in a place like Hogwarts. Severus, please, go to the hospital wing and see if Poppy needs some potions. I'll deal with the traps and send the stone back to Nicholas. It wasn't a brilliant move to keep it here, but Nicholas had asked me to keep it for a time while he upgraded his house's protections.”
Dumbledore then Conjured a harp that started to play a melodious music that soon had the Cerberus asleep. Levitating himself down the hole, he cast a fire to keep the Devil's Snare away, and then he Summoned the winged key — which would only answer to his and Filius' call — and charmed away the chess pieces. Then, he had to surpass Sirius' trap — a very ingenious combination of charms and hexes that could nonetheless be nullified by using the correct password - “I'm solemnly swear that I am still up to no good” - and Severus' logic problem, which he soon solved, and was able to reach the last room, with the Mirror of Erised. He easily extracted the Stone from the Mirror and then made his way back to the school, as he was going to give the stone back to Nicholas now.
When he arrived to his office, he saw that Molly Weasley's head was appearing through the fireplace.
“Molly! What's the matter?” Albus thought, although he supposed that she would have seen that something had happened thanks to her grandfather's clock.
“Albus! Finally! We have been trying to call you for fifteen minutes! We saw that our sons were in danger!” The woman was hysterical, and Albus couldn't blame her.
“Just step through, Molly, and I'll explain it all to you.”
The red-haired woman's head disappeared and soon after that the fire went green. Molly came through, and he expected Arthur to come behind, but it was the Weasley's daughter, Ginevra if he wasn't mistaken, who stepped through. Arthur did come after the young girl.
“We couldn't find the Lovegoods, and I didn't want to leave her alone at home,” Arthur said, explaining the girl's presence.
“Very well. The Muggle Studies Professor, Quirinius Quirrell, attempted to steal an important magical artefact tonight. He let a troll loose in the school and it reached the Great Hall before we knew about it. Harry, Ronald and his friends were just leaving as the troll arrived to the hall outside the Great Hall.”
Molly and Ginny paled a lot, but Arthur managed to keep calm and took the two most important females of his life by the arm and gently pulled them forward, as they followed Albus to the hospital wing. Albus resolved that he would have to send the Stone to Nicholas later.
Once they arrived, they saw four beds occupied by the affected children. Madam Pomfrey was next to one of the beds, that had a black-haired boy in it — Harry Potter, unquestionably. Two of the other beds had two sleeping children — Neville and Hermione, if Molly wasn't mistaken — with Professor McGonagall sitting between them, and Ron was next to Harry's bed, his eyes wide open and surrounded by his brothers.
“Mum!” the red-haired boy said. Molly launched herself at the young boy, sobbing with relief that he seemed to be well.
“Oh, Ronnie, I saw the clock and I thought you...” the woman said between sobs, kissing his face, as her sons hugged her, trying to calm her down. Ginny also jumped in the family hug, while Albus asked Poppy what had happened to the children.
“Mr Weasley is lucky, he only had a broken leg. Mister Longbottom only has a shock, and Miss Granger is the same although she has a bruise at a side, and I gave both of them a Dreamless Sleep potion. As to Harry Potter, he seems to be magically exhausted, only Merlin knows how he managed to do that!”
Albus nodded, and then turned to Ron, who had been extricated from his mother's hug by Arthur, who had then given her a Calming Drought and sat her down on a chair near his bed.
“Mr Weasley,” he said, “would you mind telling me what happened?”
Ron shook his head: it was obvious that the events of the night had traumatised him. Albus understood that, at this moment, he wouldn't want to go through what had just happened.
“There is other way we could do it,” Albus said. He called for Fawkes and asked him to bring him his Pensieve. “If you allow me, I could pull your memory out and put it in this Pensieve so that we can see it. I would have to enter your mind in order to help you, but, as you know, it shouldn't be much problem.”
Ron nodded and closed his eyes.
“What are you talking about, Albus?” Arthur asked.
“I have been training Ronald and his friends in the art of Occlumency due to his friendship with Harry, so that he could keep both his and his friends' secrets safe from potential attackers. Fortunately for us, the most dangerous one that could have attacked them has already been ejected from here.”
“Whom?”
“Professor Quirrell, although I fear that he was being possessed by Lord Voldemort.” Everyone but Sirius shuddered when Albus pronounced the Dark Lord's name.
“Are you sure about this, Albus?” Arthur asked, shaken.
“Yes. That troll had been let out by Quirrell on his orders, and if it hadn't been for these children, it would have entered the Great Hall. As for the magical artefact he was trying to steal, I'll deal with it as soon as I can. But first, let's have that memory so that Ronald can rest,” Albus said, and then looked back at Ron. “Are you ready?”
Ron nodded again.
“Good,” Albus said softly, and spoke the Legillimens Charm. He soon noticed that the boy had opened a way in for him, which he was glad for, because he didn't want to cause him a headache while trying to reach that memory. He soon found the memory he was looking for, and 'copied' it into his own mind. Then he left Ron's mind and helped him 'close' the hole in the shields.
“Thank you very much, Ronald,” Albus spoke, satisfied, and then concentrated in the memory he had just gotten, putting it into the Pensieve. “Minerva, Severus, Remus, Arthur?” he asked. The five adults put a finger into the Pensieve and entered Ron's memory.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Ginny was really scared. First, Mum had nearly had an attack when she saw that her brothers were in mortal peril, and then she had to go with her parents because Luna and her parents were away for some reason. Then, as soon as they arrived, Mum had jumped over Ron and she had joined her brothers in hugging her mum. Then, Professor Dumbledore had said that You-Know-Who had something to do with this and had somehow picked a memory from Ron to see it, and now Dad and the Professors had gone into the memory.
She looked at the bed beside her and saw Harry Potter, who was asleep and had one of the other Professors sitting next to him, looking completely broken. She could see Harry's green scar over his right eye and his chest rise and lower itself with his breathing. She had been exchanging letters with him for so much time that she felt she knew him fairly well. She also knew that he had saved Ron from something worse than just a broken leg, and she wanted to thank him for saving her favourite brother.
She slowly reached and took his hand into hers, noticing that it was slightly bigger, and caressed the back with her small thumb. She really wanted him to wake up and thank him for being so nice. She just stood there, caressing Harry's hand and just waiting.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Once the four adults finished watching the memory of the troll attack, Arthur went towards his son and hugged him really strong.
“I'm very proud of you, Ronald. You really gave us Weasleys a good name with the way you saved the girl,” Arthur told his youngest son.
“Hermione,” he mumbled, his ears reddening as every time he was embarrassed or angry. Arthur inwardly smiled: Ron wasn't the first son to get embarrassed when talking about a girl, and even Percy and the twins had gone through that in their first year. Arthur suspected that his son had a crush on the Muggle-born girl, and that it had hit him hard. The fact that he had jumped to save Hermione without thinking on the consequences only added to his suspicions.
“Hermione,” Arthur repeated. Everyone's attention was put into the two Weasleys. That was why no one saw a black cloud enter the room and throw itself at Harry.
Harry's scar turned red, and he started to scream, convulsing as his scar burst open, bled and sent waves of incredibly high pain through his body. Ginny held his hand tightly, even though she was very scared. She didn't know what to do for Harry.
“Miss Weasley, please stand back,” Madam Pomfrey said, brandishing her wand and ready to cast a Sleep Charm over Harry.
“Don't!” Dumbledore said, guessing what the Mediwitch was going to do, and he cast a Shield Charm over Harry.
“Honestly, Albus, this is not the time to start playing around!” Madam Pomfrey shouted over Harry's shouts.
“That's why I stopped you!” Albus replied, raising the shield and frantically casting several diagnostic charms. The results chilled him for the second time that night.
“He has been possessed,” he whispered. “Voldemort didn't left Hogwarts as I thought. And we can't do a thing to help him but supporting him.”
“WHAT?” Sirius shouted. “VOLDEMORT IS POSSESSING HARRY?”
“Yes,” Albus replied softly. “I do not know what he believes he could be winning with possessing Harry, as it should be incredibly painful for him, but, if I am not mistaken, he might believe that he could expel Harry's conscience out of his own body and take over it.”
“No,” Sirius whispered, hugging his godson as he still convulsed. “Not Harry!”
“Sirius, do not fret, I am sure Harry will be able to expel Voldemort,” Dumbledore said, confidently.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry had retreated into his own mind, the pain was so intense that he couldn't stand it and had gone to the only place where he, at least, could find some peace. Or so he thought.
Harry's mental shields were still formidable, because all the training he had done had certainly stuck. However, his magical reserves were very low, and the special protection that made those shields invisible needed magic to stay up. Not much, mind you, but still his magical core had partially shut down, and that meant the overlaying invisibility shield had disappeared, making his remaining shields visible to a Legillimens. Once he looked outside of his mind, through the shields — something he could do as the 'owner' of the mind — he saw a grey-haired man of about fifty or sixty years using a wand and trying to batter down the shields. Harry did his best to reinforce the shields, but he couldn't do much because of his magical exhaustion, so it was a matter of time before the man managed to enter his mind.
Then, a hand fell on his shoulder. Harry yelped and jumped away from the hand. “Who are you?” he asked, turning to see who had been there.
It was an old lady, wearing a white robe and holding a cane — a staff, Harry corrected himself — and an old magical hat. She was smiling, proudly, at Harry, and her eyes were twinkling like Dumbledore's did sometimes. “It's nice to finally meet you in person, young man,” her rich voice said, and Harry soon realised who he was talking to, even though he hadn't heard that voice in years.
“You are the lady that helped me when I arrived to my parents' house!” he exclaimed.
The lady nodded, pleased that he remembered. “I am, young man. And I have to say that I am very proud of all the things you have been doing in the last few years, all that hard work while you were at your parents' house and then while you have been here at Hogwarts. Your Professors are certainly glad to have you here.”
Harry blushed as he was complimented. “Erm, thanks, I think. I'm not sure if you have noticed, but I have a bit of a problem in here,” he said, pointing to the old man out of his mental shields.
The lady smiled again, and waved one of her slightly wrinkled hands. “Don't worry about him. As long as I am here and I wish it, he won't be able to break your protection, very good they are indeed.”
“But, how?” Harry asked.
The old lady just chuckled and two armchairs appeared, with a small table in the middle that held two cups and a teapot. Harry was amazed at what the woman had done.
“Let's sit down, and I'll tell you everything,” she said, sitting down on the nearest armchair, and resting against its back, and Harry imitated her.
“First of all, I must confess to a few things that you don't know the whole truth about yet,” she said, with a soft smile. “I hope that you still remember the time that you arrived to Godric's Hollow.”
Harry nodded.
“I helped you reach Godric's Hollow that day,” she simply said, sipping into her tea. Harry spluttered with his.
“Pardon?” Harry asked her, astonished.
“Oh, you were the one that subconsciously chose that place, and obviously you were the one that did the accidental Apparition,” she replied, “but I had to act, because of a series of things, and if I hadn't done that, you would haven't been able to reach further than the railings surrounding your school or perhaps the school's roof. I knew that you had much potential, and that if you were to stay with the Dursleys that potential would have gone to waste,” she kept explaining.
“I wasn't able to help you before because my own power limits itself at things such as outright influencing the outcome of events in the real world, or influencing the free will every being has. Had I been able to do so, I would have certainly prevented Tom Riddle — which is Voldemort's true name, by the way — from being able to do magic, or I would have stopped Peter Pettigrew before he could kill all those people and framed your godfather, Sirius. However, in your case, I was able to act.
“Your upbringing with the Dursleys, who punished you whenever you accidentally used your magic, forced you to repress what was your own nature, that of a wizard. Of course, you still did several magical feats thanks to your own magic, but the block you had put on yourself prevented you from doing really powerful things, which you would need in the future.
“Fortunately, when you jumped behind those trash cans, you were so much concentrated in the fact that you needed to get away, as well as panic within yourself, that I managed to unblock your magical core and that allowed you to Apparate to your parents' home.”
“Well, then I think that I should thank you,” Harry said with honesty, “but I still don't know who you are. Would you mind telling me?” he asked.
“Ah, young man, you asked me that question four years ago,” she answered, “and then I told you that you would figure it out in time. Now that you have more information than four years ago, I suppose that you should be able to guess my identity.”
Harry racked his mind, oblivious to the presence of both the old lady and the strange man out of the shields, and tried to ascertain the lady's identity. She was really old, old enough to have known, if not Prometheus, at least about him, and she must have been with him for enough time to have known where his diary was and how to reach it. Whenever he had heard her at Godric's Hollow he had never seen anyone, so she either had the ability to talk to people at a distance (improbable, but not impossible — Harry knew that, as long as it couldn't be demonstrated through all means, it wasn't impossible) or she didn't have a body, which would mean she was a spirit. However, she had been inside him from the start, as he doubted anyone would have been able to sneak behind his shields without detecting it — although there was the chance that it could have happened, he wasn't arrogant to believe that he was all-powerful — and, if he were to take that road, he supposed that it couldn't be any true person, because as far as he knew he had no spirit latched onto himself, but... there was one thing that would make sense, as it was very old, it was everywhere, and he definitively had it inside himself.
“Are you... Magic?” Harry asked.
The old lady — Magic — smiled. “Yes, I am, young man,” she replied. “And it only took you three minutes to guess it, so very well done.”
“Not to be rude, but how is it that you are talking with me?”
“Young Harry, along the times, ever since humanity managed to grasp control over the magic, things have changed. At some time, many thousands of years ago, for some reason not even myself have managed to discover, about 90 percent of the people lost their magical abilities. This didn't happen overnight, but it was spread out over several generations, and soon only a part of humanity still had their magical abilities.
“In that time, wands weren't used, not even staffs, as those were a Celtic invention in order to train their people and later to cast magic with more precision. No, the wizards and witches at that time were able to mould their magical abilities to their will, although they never used it for evil purposes, as they understood that equilibrium was — and is — a very important thing in people's lives. After so many people lost their magic, the ones that still had it would start to drift towards other places, where they started to build their own magical communities, still in sporadic contact with the non-magical people but more isolated from the rest of the world as time passed. There were several of these in the world. One was in a city that would pass onto the non-magical people as the legend of Shangri-La, which still exists, but others were lost due to the arrogance of a few condemning the rest or to natural catastrophes. You already know of one of these.”
“Atlantis, the Ancients!” he replied.
“Indeed. In the island of Atlantis, people learnt to control their magic as the first wizards did, and soon they started to create magical instruments and potions to cure themselves and help to find things, such as iron ores which they needed to create special cauldrons and such. Prometheus would be one of the last people to be taught in Atlantis before it sunk into the ocean waters, and that was how the Atlantean Magic was lost, until it came back to you in his journal,” she said, mentioning the book that had helped Harry so much in his first year learning magic.
“Now, several hundreds of years before Atlantis fell, there was a boy who had lost his parents in a horrible accident, and there hadn't been time to save them. As he was in the middle of his education in Atlantis, he suddenly had the idea that he might be able to resurrect his parents so that he could make them proud of his abilities at the school and so that he could be back with his loving family. He didn't realise that, once one's soul leaves the body, it will never come back to it. With that idea in mind, he started to work on trying to revive living beings. He managed to revive a plant he had killed using salt, then a fish he had kept out of the water until it died, and thus he went up. He was the one who invented the magic that is currently known as Necromancy, which is probably the worst kind of magic as it goes completely against the real flux of life.
“However, as he advanced, going with beings that were more similar to a human being, he became more corrupted by what he was doing, and he slowly turned into what people would call a Dark Lord, the latter of which, Voldemort, is currently out there trying to bring down your shields,” she stated, pointing out to the man that was still trying to destroy Harry's shields, without success.
“That's Voldemort?” Harry asked.
“Yes. Now, to continue with the story, the boy became corrupted, and when he tried to revive his parents — this was a few years after he graduated from school — the only thing he obtained was two zombies, two shells of what his parents had been. It was then, when he saw that all his efforts had been for nothing, that he cracked and totally turned to the Darkness, shunting the balance within him at a side and starting to plot. He somehow managed to find many wizards and witches that had dabbled too much with the darker side of magic and he declared war on the rest of Atlantis. The war lasted for three years, until one of his former friends, who had truly found the balance between Light and Dark Magic, managed to defeat him in a long fight that ended with the Dark Lord dead.
“Unfortunately, those who had turned to the Darkness hadn't been finished with, as several of them had survived the war and had run away to Europe and Africa, where they found that magic had not been extinguished between the non-magical humanity, but that some of them had managed to recover the innate magic within them. Some of them, through their greed, joined their numbers in an attempt to control the non-magical ones, but the rest stopped them thanks to their magic, which several of them had managed to control in an instinctive manner and had taught this to others. Most of the dark ones would die in this second war; once more a few would survive, but this time they learnt their lesson and only passed their knowledge to apprentices that would pass them to other apprentices.” Magic sipped on her cup and continued with her story.
“It was the Celt druids that created the staff, as they had been trying to find a way to channel their power into doing more powerful things. They were successful — it was how they built Stonehenge, after all — but, as time passed, people got used to the staffs, and thus were not using their core to their full potential. This trend only worsened when the Romans brought their own kind of magic, wand magic, that could only be used with their special wands, each of them with a core taken from a magical creature. This helped those who had weak magic within themselves to cast magic, but it was counterproductive for the stronger ones, as they couldn't use all of their potential, and thus in a matter of several generations the wand became the norm and the myth that wandless magic was nearly impossible was spread out. Harry, you have been the first person in centuries to achieve the ability to make wandless magic before learning to use a wand, and that makes you one of the most powerful wizards in existence, because you already know how to mould your magic to your will. Of course, you still use the Roman spells, but soon you will find that you don't even need them.”
Harry was overwhelmed by the quantity of information that had just been dumped onto him by Magic. She smiled again and waved one of her wrinkled hands, and Harry soon realised that the whole story had been organised within his mind in a couple of seconds. This helped him recover from the feeling of overwhelming.
“That's better, don't you think so?” Magic asked. After Harry nodded, she looked at Voldemort — who still hadn't tired of trying to break Harry's shields down. “I think we are going to need reinforcements if we really want to deal with him,” Magic said.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Sirius was crying unabashedly over his godson's body, as it twitched in pain every few seconds — although Harry had stopped crying so loud in pain, which he hoped was something good. His scar was covered with a gauze, but it was still bleeding despite Madam Pomfrey's attempts to close it.
At the other side of Harry's bed, the young Ginny Weasley still had Harry's hand between hers, and she was also crying over the pain that was going through him, and this was happening half an hour after he had been possessed — by You-Know-Who, said Headmaster Dumbledore — and started to scream. She really wanted him to get better, no one deserved to go through what Harry had had to stand during his life.
Then, suddenly, the Headmaster's phoenix, Fawkes, flared into the hospital wing, bringing the Sorting Hat with him. He pecked Sirius on his shoulder and trilled, something that helped everyone in the room feel better as the song penetrated into their own souls. Only Dumbledore understood what the phoenix had said, and thus acted accordingly.
“Sirius, put the Hat on Harry's head,” he told the younger man, who did that soon.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry was flabbergasted when he saw that Voldemort — or his spirit — was shrinking back from his attempt to destroy the barriers, as if in pain of something, but then the phoenix song could be heard and Harry understood that the Headmaster's phoenix must be out there, singing, as the phoenix song caused pain to those that were evil and helped the good people to recover and rose their spirits.
“Is that Fawkes?” Harry asked to Magic.
“Yes, it is,” she replied with a calm voice, standing up and Vanishing everything she had conjured before.
“Jolly good!” a man's voice was heard. “That phoenix surprised me in the middle of the first stanza of next year's song, although I see now that this party is far better than the boredom of being at the Headmaster's office!”
This voice was also one Harry instantly recognised. “Floppy!” he said, surprised.
“Indeed I am, Mr Potter,” Floppy replied. He also seemed to be slightly old, but not as old as Magic, as he had a lot of red hair and he didn't have many wrinkles in his face and hands, although he carried a cane, much more elaborate than Magic's, with a lion engraved at a side, and a sword's hilt on his left hip.
“Floppy, I see that you have taken your former owner's body to deal with Harry and Tom,” Magic said, smiling.
“M'lady,” Floppy said, kissing her hand. Then he turned to Harry, and held his hand out. Harry shook it.
“It's good to finally meet you like this, Mr Potter. And, yes, this is what Godric Gryffindor looked like when he created me,” the Hat said.
“Nice to meet you as well, Floppy,” Harry replied. “Sorry that I can't offer you something better, but we have a small problem out there that I need to solve soon,” he said, pointing to Voldemort.
“Alas, you don't need to worry, Mr Potter. The two of us should be more than qualified to expel him out of your outer mind. And by the two of us, I mean you and me,” Floppy replied, pointing at Harry and himself.
“How are we going to do that?” the boy asked.
“Don't worry. The first thing we are going to do is to sneak out of your shields while Madam Magic keeps the fort, so to speak. Then, things will become more interesting,” Floppy replied, taking Harry to the shields, to the opposite side of the position where Voldemort was right now.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
When Voldemort entered the Boy-Who-Lived's mind, it was the first time he was able to see the mental shields the child had somehow built, as Quirrell had never had the chance to get near the boy and cast Legillimency on him without causing suspicions within Dumbledore. They were impressive, sure, but Voldemort was sure that they wouldn't last much, because he knew that he was much more powerful than this child, since he was a Dark Lord and the child had just started his magical education, so he started to hit the shields with everything he had.
After thirty-five minutes, the boy's mind shields hadn't even moved an inch from their initial position, despite the strength of the attack of the mighty Lord Voldemort against them. He refused to admit defeat and instead continued to attack the shields, knowing that, when they fell, he would be able to fully possess the boy and steal the Philosopher's Stone from wherever the fool Dumbledore had hidden it. The fact that, once he recovered his own body, he would be able to destroy the only true obstacle towards his complete dominance of the world, as it would be right next to him once that happened, was a bonus.
However, he didn't know that he would never be able to actually bring down those shields, as Magic herself was taking care of making sure those shields didn't fall, and when you compare the power of a spirit — a weakened spirit, at that —, no matter how powerful the man was in life, with the power of the magic present in the whole world, there was no comparison.
It was then that he heard someone behind him, a voice he remembered very well from a lot of time ago, from the time before he became the mighty Dark Lord Voldemort.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Tom, Tom, Tom, don't you remember what I told you fifty-three years ago, when I sorted you into Slytherin?” the old Sorting Hat asked.
Voldemort turned around and saw an old man, accompanied by a small black-haired child, both of which were glaring at him.
“My name is not Tom, I am Lord Voldemort,” he said, angrily.
“There is no need to lie, Mr Riddle. Remember that you wore me once, and that I live in the Headmaster's office. Surely you must remember the time you tried to get the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, when you cursed that position. Funny that it fell down when Malfoy was kicked out of the Board of Governors and straight into prison, don't you think so?” the Hat replied. Voldemort's left eye twitched, then he looked at Harry and realised who he was. He jumped towards the boy, attempting to touch him so that he could overwhelm him and fully possess the body, but he was stopped by an invisible barrier which he couldn't pass.
“What the hell is this? I demand that you drop this barrier immediately, you stupid old rotten hat!” he shouted.
He was shocked when the answer came in the form of a cane hitting him on the head, which pushed him back, away from the barrier and Harry.
“You obviously never learnt a thing from Mrs Cole, didn't you, boy?” the Hat asked. “She taught you that you should never demand something, but to ask for it nicely: I suppose that the objective of the lesson passed over your head. Along the others about being a decent human being and all of that,” he taunted.
“And, anyway, even if I wanted to drop this barrier, which I don't, I wouldn't be able to do it, because it was created by young Harry here. You know, you should have known that, once you are in someone else's mind, that person has the advantage as they are playing in their home turf, if you pardon me the Muggle expression. Although I suppose that you would already know about it, considering that your father was a Muggle.”
“His father was a Muggle? Considering that he was constantly sprouting stupid things about the supremacy of the purebloods, I'd say that it is very hypocritical of his part, don't you think so?” Potter said.
“Indeed, Mr Potter,” the Hat replied. “Now, will you do the honours of expelling this idiot out?”
“No problem,” Potter replied, and he started to grow up until he reached a height of 1.90 metres, more than enough to take on him.
“This is a little trick I learnt from my mother's diary,” Potter said, and he reared his leg back.
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Harry was particularly amused by Voldemort's face after he had kicked him in every man's weakest point. He knew that it had been hit way below the belt — literally — but since when did Voldemort care about that? The funny thing was that, even though he was a spirit, he could still be knocked out with a good kick.
Harry then picked the man by his robe's collar — easy to do as he was able to change anything within his mind, even the gravitational constant — and whispered.
“Look here, Voldemort, if you ever try to do this again, you won't like what I can come up with. I may be only eleven, but that doesn't mean I suck my finger. Got that? Now, scoot away,” Harry said, and threw him out of his mind with nary an effort.
Floppy laughed. “That was certainly a very interesting way to deal with him, Mr Potter. Now, let's get inside your shields and then you'll wake up again.”
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Everyone was duly surprised when black smoke suddenly jumped out of Harry's forehead and flew outside, wailing and attempting to put as much distance between the school and itself. Albus had tried to catch the cloud with a charm designed to keep spirits trapped, but the cloud had left too fast for him to be able to do it.
“Was that Voldemort?” Remus asked, his eyes wide.
“Yes, it was him,” Albus said. He then turned to Fawkes — something he had forgotten to do before, in the middle of the confusion over Harry's possession — and gave him the package with the Philosopher's Stone. “Please, my friend, take this to Nicholas.” Fawkes trilled and picked the package with one of his claws, and then flared away.
“Harry should be about to wake up, I hope,” Albus said, then he asked Madam Pomfrey to run up her tests again on Harry. She was puzzled at this petition, but nonetheless did them again, and the results were somewhat surprising. She repeated them again, and the same result appeared.
“Well, if I wasn't the one doing these tests, I'd say someone has done something disrupting with the results,” Madam Pomfrey said.
“What does it say?” Sirius asked.
“He seems to be totally recovered from the magical exhaustion bout from earlier. I don't know how this happened, but aside from some soreness, he is perfectly healthy right now.”
That surprised Dumbledore. After being possessed, even for a relatively short amount of time, one normally had several sequels on their magic. He had thought that Harry would have a stunted core or something similar, as it was the norm between wizards that had been possessed by a harmful spirit. It seemed that, once more, Harry had demonstrated that he wasn't a normal wizard.
Just then, Harry opened his eyes, blearily. “Wha's goin' on?” he asked. Immediately, Sirius pounced on him and hugged him like there was no tomorrow. Harry tried to shoo Sirius away, but he was using a lot of strength.
“Padfoot! He's turning blue!” Remus said, attempting to pry Sirius' arms away from Harry, without much success.
“Mr Black! Your godson has just recovered from a painful possession!” Madam Pomfrey said. “Don't force me to Stun you!”
It took a few more seconds, but in the end Remus, with the help of Albus and Arthur Weasley, had managed to separate Sirius' arms from Harry enough that the young boy managed to get away, coughing and breathing deeply. Remus then applied some of his knowledge of Sirius to either calm him down or distract him. Hitting him on his nape was the best way to do this, so he did so.
“OUCH! Moony, why did you do that?” Sirius said.
“Padfoot, you nearly killed Harry with that bear hug of yours! It was the only thing that I knew would stop you from carrying on!” Remus replied, keeping Sirius where he was by grabbing him from the shoulders and looking at him on the eyes.
While Remus kept Sirius busy, Harry recovered his ability to breath and looked around, seeing that Hermione and Neville were sleeping, Ron was next to the rest of his family, and a pretty red-haired girl was sitting next to him. It was pretty clear who she was, considering that she had already sent him a photograph of hers a few days ago.
“Hi, Ginny.”
hpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhghpgwrwhg
Author Notes: And thus ends chapter 11. Harry and Ginny finally meet in person, Voldemort gets what he deserves (well, the first part of the payment) and we discover that Ron has a crush on Hermione! (The latter was a given in canon, but here it is more clear since they are better friends).
Flames that support the *ahem* “facts” “Hermione-loves-Harry”, “Ginny-the-Stalker” and/or “Ron-the-Prat” will be summarily ignored, so please don't send them.
Reviews about possible grammar mistakes are welcome. No, my saying that Harry & Ginny are the best couple ever in the story of HP is not a grammar mistake. Nor is it that Ron & Hermione are the second best couple ever. Only Oxford dictionary's grammar, please, not “I live in a weird land where incest seems to be acceptable” dictionary.
Reviews that congratulate me for writing a good story are more than welcome.
Last chapter's list about things that H/Hr lovers and/or H/G haters should do was only for laughs. Anyone that felt offended, sorry. You have the right to have an opinion, but please do not push it through the reviews. If you don't like H/G and/or R/Hr, well, then you won't like the rest of this story.
For those that are afraid of this story turning into a clich filled story, Harry and Ginny are not suddenly going to bond and then do so many things that no one can do like talk in their minds or transform into phoenixes. Too much of a clich. Ginny seeing Harry in her dreams was not the sign of a bonding, it was just that she had, subconsciously, wanted to see Harry, and Magic let her see Harry — thus providing her with the push that will spark her ability with the arts, as well as helping her get over the crush on the Boy-Who-Lived and setting the future grounds for what will become one of the best relationships Hogwarts has ever seen (by the time Harry is a third-fourth year, sorry, so there is still 2-3 years till they actually become boyfriend and girlfriend).
Oh, yeah, the old lady is the personification of Magic. That was jmcqk6's idea, but I expanded on it. Some extra history on how magic appeared on Earth, when the separation between wizards and Muggles started and how Dark Magic came to be was also a very nice addition to the story, as well.
Any questions you might have about how this story will go are also accepted, provided that you don't try to pry into matters too far into the future. I'll have to repeat it again, because I'd bet that there are already several reviews prepared to either admonish me or insult me about the fact that I made the correct choice of couples but they don't see it that way:
Harry and Hermione are SIBLINGS, and thus, will NOT become lovers.
Harry and Ginny WILL become lovers, although there is still some time till they reach that part.
Ron and Hermione WILL ALSO be lovers (their first date will be around their third year, more or less).
Now that my opinion has just been exposed, please, send your reviews (reviews, not flames). Remember, don't like, don't read!
A/N: For the SIYE readers: the author notes are mostly for the benefit of the FF.net readers. There are still several people that like Harry/Hermione. Hope that you liked this chapter (I counted more than 10000 words)