Curing Ignorance – Again

by Hane no Zaia

The sort-of sequel and conclusion to Curing Ignorance.

Curing Ignorance – Again

The sort-of sequel to Curing Ignorance.

Note: Even while writing this, I knew this was a bad but oh so entertaining idea. This was done merely for the heck of it all, just to see what would happen; I have no other excuses. As for the result, some parts are certainly better than others, but… this is what any writer of fan fiction risks when including an OC. I mean really, I should have learnt my lesson by now, but maybe after this…

Disclaimer: HP = still not mine.

- o0o -

It has been said that a single meeting can change the course of history; of fate itself.

It has been said that a single unforeseen acquaintance can change the equation altogether.

During the course of a mere train ride, a wide-eyed to-be hero went from being terribly ignorant to being somewhat less so, especially when faced with a reality which seemingly confirmed his unforeseen acquaintance's thesis.

Raven Blake, then known to him merely as a nobody whose name was of no real consequence, had basically shoved her book at him after having delivered said thesis and had then looked utterly tempted to shove him out of the compartment altogether, but had refrained from doing so. Instead, she just rapped him once on the head with her wand, muttering something under her breath. Harry himself was about to protest or at least question the motion, but refrained as the door suddenly opened to admit this blond snobbish-looking guy flanked by two rather thick-looking cohorts, all of whom seemingly had a look around the compartment before their eyes came to settle on Raven herself who returned the look with equal spite, following which the blond guy sneered, said something to his companions and then all three of them left the compartment altogether just as soon as they had come.

Harry, not quite sure as to what to believe, had found himself turning towards his most recent acquaintance. "What was that all about?"

The latter paid him no heed, turning another page in the book she had pulled out of her bag to entertain herself with. "Who knows?"

Harry had found himself frowning, knowing well something had just passed right on top of his head. "You did something."

She continued to disregard him. "Possibly."

"What did you do?"

She still didn't look up. "Page thirty-seven. You might even learn something."

He looked it up, and then he looked up at her, eyes widening slightly. "Disillusionment?"

She finally looked up at him, eyeing him briefly before turning her attention right back to the book. "I'd rather not be harassed by any possible fans of yours during this train ride if I can avoid it. I have hardly had time to read all summer."

"You don't sound thirteen," Harry found himself blurting out loud.

"I read a lot of books and hang out with few people my own age," she responded in a way which signalled the end of conversation. "Hence, I have a certain tendency to sound like an old textbook."

The ride continued in silence, and leaving Harry to ponder what he had learned.

- o0o -

Harry finds that he doesn't mind Ravenclaw, at least not once the "oh-look-it-is-the-Boy-Who-Lived" craze had died down a bit. His housemates are naturally curious and inquisitive, but at least most of them seem to understand when to give him room and peace to get on with his studies, even is said studies – when conducted in the library – have a tendency of being conducted in the company – or at least physical presence – of the third-year Slytherin whose acquaintance he wants to make but who in return would be entirely content with seeing him leave and never come back. Even so – now that he is slightly more observant of what takes place in his surroundings – he can see that she doesn't really mind him that much, seeing that he seems to be just about the only person who speaks with her outside of class work, that is unless one classifies verbal abuse as a conversation.

The library is a bit of a sanctuary for them both – as suffering intellectuals in a world full of ignorance – but even so, the watchful eye of the librarian – Mrs. P-something – is not enough to deter all of those who turn up to pester either one of them.

Curing ignorance takes time, but he realises that once he has learnt to question just about everything he had been told in both the magical world as well as throughout his entire life, the rest comes fairly easy.

Citing that it is a matter of principle, Raven Blake initially refuses to help him out actively, but when he – already somewhat familiar with the ways of his most recent acquaintance – offers to pay her to be his tutor, she caves, and though Harry finds himself a decent student even without her input of criticism on his work, he finds it gratifying since he knows it will always be the other's honest opinion.

Then, around Samhain, there is an incident with some troll in the dungeons, following which Harry finds one Hermione Granger of Gryffindor joining in on their study sessions in the library. Initially, Harry finds himself somewhat irritated at this, but realising the other's relative intellect he decides to tolerate her, just as Raven Blake seems to be perfectly content to either tolerate or ignore them both.

Apparently, as he learns a bit later on, this Granger girl had been the student who had ended up cornered down in the dungeons by the aforementioned troll – which presence altogether and breaching of the school's wards ought to be questioned and independently investigated as a case of suspected negligence on the part of the school authorities in terms of student safety – and apparently, as the aforementioned Granger girl later confessed to him, Raven Blake – ditching feasts as usual – had only just been headed back to her own common room to relish in relative peace whilst her fellow housemates were off at the feast when she had come upon the scene and – using first-year spell and a distractive manoeuvre – brought a swift end to it all, knocking the troll out by dropping its own club upon its head. This in turn had apparently left the Granger girl with a relative life debt to the aforementioned, who in return decided that this relative life debt was paid off little by little through said Granger girl proof-reading her essays, since she herself could not correct her own spelling and grammar to save her own life.

It proved to be an odd arrangement – to say the very least – and Harry had found that he was not entirely satisfied with it initially, but as time went on and the Granger girl – who gradually became Hermione to him – gradually became a whole lot less concerned with school rules and directly courting to the whims of authority figures and became more concerned with actually using her own ability to think for herself. At that stage, they had already moved on from mere study partners to actual friends, and truth to be told, it was probably something both of them needed since Raven remained standoffish through it all, entirely uninterested in forming any type of relationship with either beyond some improvised kind of mentor-student relationship maintained through a few hours' worth of study sessions in the library about twice a week, study sessions which she occasionally showed up for and occasionally not showed up for, providing little or no actual excuse for not doing so once she did. She usually looked a bit worn-out when she did; worn-out and highly irritable.

"My lovely housemates are bothering me," she finally snaps at him.

"Okay." He leaves it at that.

- o0o -

Around Christmas, Hermione approaches him with a new project in mind. For some reason, she seems convinced that there is something going on in the school – No shit, Sherlock – and that it has something to do with Dumbledore and some guy named Nicolas Flamel. Though curious, Harry is hardly interested in pursuing the matter, but with some additional persuasion, he finally caves and invites both Hermione and Raven over to the Ravenclaw Common Room, seeing that it is mostly empty during the holiday season. As for the latter, he bribes her with chocolate and she does turn up, even though she spends most of the time in one of the armchairs inside the common room, staring thoughtfully into the fire in the hearth while he and Hermione discuss their next course of action, both in terms of study plans as well as in pursuing the matter of Nicolas Flamel.

"What about him?" Raven finally asks, and they look up at her in surprise.

Hermione springs into action immediately. "Do you know about him? Who is he?"

Raven regards her with something akin to disdain and then flicks a just liberated card from the chocolate frog she had just devoured at them. "Flamel."

Harry catches it and skims through the text on it. Then, he looks up at Hermione, his eyes wide in realisation. "The Philosopher's Stone."

"Snape's trying to steal it!"

"Doubt it." Raven Blake turns another page, the very personification of disinterest. "And even if he – or anyone for that matter – were to try stealing it, there are obviously appropriate security measures in place. And besides, if said security measures do not hold up to par, it is hardly any fault of ours."

"But…"

Hermione Granger is levelled with a perfectly disinterested look.

"You have less than four months worth of magical experience." Raven turns another page. "If we were to pretend that Professor Snape were really out to steal it, then what could you possibly do to stop him? The guy might not have the physical strength or the magical resistance of a troll, but he is evidently smarter than one and hardly one to be fooled by cheap tricks. I should know, seeing that he is my head of house."

A valid point. "What makes you think Snape isn't in on it?" Harry finds himself asking.

Raven looks up, levelling him with a short look. "Two reasons," she says, holding up her fingers to illustrate. "One: He would be too obvious, and thus the first to be suspected if anything would happen. Two: He has been working here for years and the stone was only moved here recently."

"But he could still be an opportunist," Hermione protests. "Knowing that he wouldn't get-…"

Raven lets out a longsuffering sigh, cutting her off. "Honestly, you've got a brain but you aren't using it right. Think, Granger, think. If Professor Snape would be the most likely person to go after the stone, then who would be the least likely person to go after it?"

The least likely…

Harry looks up. "Quirrell is new, in his position at any rate. He appears harmless, but there is something strange about him."

Hermione looks to him, sceptical initially but then some kind of realisation seems to dawn upon her. "Your scar," she says. "Earlier, you told me that your scar hurt when he looked at you… and sometimes, you skip his class claiming that his stuttering gives you a headache."

They both look to their self-styled mentor, taking note of the bleak but evident smile gracing the other's face. "Now you're thinking."

- o0o -

In the end, the situation with the stone is resolved without the interference of any of them, at least not beyond leaving a tip to Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick to keep an eye on Quirrell, who in the end proves to be possessed by none other than the Dark Lord himself.

Then, Hermione brings another Gryffindor – one Neville Longbottom – to the weekly study sessions, claiming that they had been forced to make up for a failed potions experiment. Initially, Harry did not know what to make of the somewhat awkward-looking and obviously clumsy boy, but as time went on, the latter came to fit into their somewhat mismatched trio – which was occasionally a quartet – as though he had always been a part of it, especially after the discovery of the boy's seeming talent for Herbology, a subject none of them were particularly adept at.

As such, by the time the semester comes to an end, Harry has made two friends and no actual enemies to speak of, seeing that while there are plenty of people – among them one Draco Malfoy and one Ron Weasley – that Harry isn't entirely keen on, he still retains a distant but civil relationship with both, making clear that he is not adverse to friendship with either but will not tolerate that either of them heckle any of his friends – as both of them had a nasty habit of doing. During the year, he has also made the casual acquaintance of several of his housemates, among those Terry Boot, Mandy Brocklehurst, Padma Patil and Lisa Turpin, as well as a few from other houses, including Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas of Gryffindor and Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones, Justin Finch-Fletchley and Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff.

None of the above were particularly close though, but they got along and as far as Harry was concerned, and that was all that mattered. Admittedly though, quite a few of them did have a thing or two to either say out loud or to whisper in regards to his equally casual acquaintance with Raven, though after thinking about it – recalling a few well-chosen words – he promptly decided that the people who had such things to say about a person he held a whole lot of respect for had little to do in his life if they were unable to overcome their bigotry, and promptly asked these people something along the lines of "Do I tell you who to hang out with? No? Then why do you?"

It wasn't a very popular decision and in return, some distanced themselves. Hermione – even Neville – told him to let them be, and so he did, thinking little of it as they went on the Hogwarts Express and headed back to London.

Upon exiting the platform, he comes face to face with the Dursleys – with his family that was not his family – and realises that he had three months worth of harsh labour to look forward to.

"Send me letters," he asks his friends. "By owl or by mail. Call me."

"I'll send you an invite," Neville offers a bit awkwardly. "I'll ask Gran if you can come stay with us for a weekend."

How about the whole summer?

Harry just nods numbly before opting to face his demons.

- o0o -

It is a terrible summer, or at least from the point when an unfamiliar house elf invades his home, tells him he must not go back to Hogwarts and proceeds to cause an incident with a levitating birthday cake which causes trouble not only with the Dursleys but also with the Ministry of Magic, since apparently, minors were not allowed to practice magic during the summers. Imagine that.

Also, said Ministry of Magic also sends out notes explaining just that, notes which can easily be snatched by infuriated guardians who can then read and consider the contents of it and then smile gleefully and proceed to turn one's bedroom into a virtual prison cell, going to the extent of installing multiple locks on the doors and installing bars on the windows. Imagine that.

Thus, Harry finds himself locked up in one room, kept on rations and separated from his stuff that was locked up in the cupboard downstairs. His only relief is that his owl – Hedwig – had been out hunting when his uncle finally snapped and had him locked up, and the owl hadn't returned since.

A week later, salvation arrives in the form of a young woman who looks the very image of frosty professionalism, who knocks on the door to the house and politely inquires about his whereabouts, hinting that certain authorities will be called in case the Dursleys do not comply. When his aunt – Aunt Petunia – tries to shut the door in her face, a stick is thrust in her face.

Five minutes later, the door to Harry's room is being unlocked and five minutes after that, he is stumbling down the stairs and into the hallway, being greeted by a familiar stranger who has already liberated his meagre belongings from the cupboard. "Hello Harry," an older girl with an unfamiliar appearance but the mannerisms of his self-styled mentor greets him. "Shall we?"

He is out of the door and down the street before he knows it.

- o0o -

They are already on a bus on its way to London when Harry finally speaks, adjusting the cap which had at some point been thrust onto his head. "Thank you… for coming for me."

"That blasted owl of yours wouldn't stop tormenting me," she snaps right back at him, but there is no malice contained within her words. "And the orphanage doesn't allow pets."

He says nothing; he has managed to get away from the Durleys so quickly and so smoothly he finds it hard to believe altogether.

"Where to next, Potter?" she asks. "I don't rescue people for free you know, so how about heading to the bank or something?"

"Why do you look like that?" Harry asks instead of answering. "I thought using magic during the summer would-…"

"Polyjuice," she responds without skipping a beat. "They only track and prohibit the use of wands."

"Ah." Harry silently wishes he had known about that part beforehand. "The ingredients must've cost you a minor fortune."

She snorts. "No shit, Sherlock."

"I'll pay you back," he immediately offers. "With interest."

"You better."

"By the way," Harry says after a while. "A house elf dropped by earlier to tell me I couldn't go back to Hogwarts or something, telling me I would get myself killed before levitating a cake and getting me into trouble."

Raven arches an eyebrow. "You got a warning from the Ministry?"

"Yes, and my guardians found out that I wasn't allowed to use magic during the summer and locked me up."

"Hoh… tough luck." Raven pulls a folded piece of paper from her pocket and hands it to Harry who unfolds it. "I had your aunt sign a slip of paper for me."

"Why?"

"Because obviously, I'd rather not be accused of kidnapping you in case someone discovers you missing."

Harry just frowns in response. "What makes you think anyone would be checking up on me? I mean, it isn't like anyone turned up to straighten things out when my uncle installed bloody bars outside my window."

Raven looks to him, smiling wryly. "Why Potter dear… aren't you a national treasure of some sort? I mean, even as a mere figurehead, they'd still need you alive, right?"

"National treasure?" Harry frowns more openly now, adjusting his cap once more. Somewhere along the way, the other's cynicism had begun rubbing off on him. "How about national trash?"

"Well… that's one way of putting it." She is reading again, though this time around it is a newspaper rather than a book on some kind of magic. "What will you do about it?"

Good question.

Harry finds himself weighing pros and cons. "I don't think Hermione's place is an alternative. Neville's maybe, but his grandmother will ask questions."

"Questions?"

He shrugs mildly. "I don't know, but I guess it'd feel like I'd be imposing upon them – like we'd be imposing."

For once, Raven looks appropriately surprised. "Wait… I'm included in this now? Haven't I already done my part in getting you out?"

"Don't joke around," Harry responds. "You don't want to go back to the orphanage for a while either, right? Not if you can help it."

Once again, a wry smile decorates her features. "You have become observant."

"You're the one who told me to open my eyes," Harry responds, returning the smile somewhat hesitantly. "Hopefully, my eyes are open now, but I'm terribly nearsighted so I hope you'll give me some advice on where to look."

She snorts. "It'll cost you," she finally says, looking out the window with a somewhat thoughtful look on her face. "But all in all, I suppose it could be seen as a lifetime investment."

- o0o -

A trip to the Diagon Alley and a few cash withdrawals later, they get a room at the Leaky Cauldron, send a letter for Neville to explain the situation – seeing that Hermione was apparently not in the country at the time – before sitting down to wait, both for a response as well as for the Polyjuice to wear off. Once it does, Raven – having regained her usual appearance – collapses onto the bed and refuses to get up, looking every bit as worn out as she had the last time he had seen her.

Harry – hovering about somewhat anxiously – tries to engage her into a conversation. "How much do I owe you?" he asks. "For the Polyjuice, as well as for coming to get me."

She remains slumped on the bed. "You owe me a decent fake ID and a trip abroad," she says, her voice slightly muffled by the duvet. "I've had enough; I'm skipping town and leaving the country, preferably imminently."

"Oookay," Harry responds, not quite sure as to how to respond to that. "Am I allowed to ask why?"

She lifts herself slightly, rolling onto her side so that she can look at him. "Personal reasons," she says. "Can we leave it at that?"

Technically, he could, but still… "Did something happen?"

"You could say that." She chuckles weakly and Harry finds there is something highly unnerving about that. "I'm just a tad overwhelmed, I guess," she says. I'm very happy though, because I have had the time of my life these last couple of weeks…" She pauses briefly, seemingly contemplating her next words. "However," she finally continues. "Because of that, I don't think I can ever go back…"

"What do you mean?" he asks, while another question – What did you do? – goes unasked.

For once, she looks at him openly without averting her eyes the slightest. There is something strangely clear in them now – something bright, like a spark of life that had not been in them previously. "As you should already be aware, here in England, there is nothing for me. I had thought about continuing my education and all because I think education is important, but after these last couple of weeks, I just…"

Harry finds himself frowning openly now. "You're not going back to Hogwarts?"

She sits herself up before answering. "Truthfully, no."

"What made you change your mind?"

She shrugs mildly, her posture sagging somewhat. "As I said, education is obviously important, but there are things that are just a tad more important than that," she readily admits. "I mean, three years at Hogwarts have taught me the basics and where I go from there on is my own business, seeing that so far, no one has really stepped up to take responsibility for me in the magical world and I'm truthfully just a burden anyway over at the orphanage. I have no actual friends to speak of and my dear housemates have promised to make my life even more difficult as of late, and so far, none of the professors have done much about it either…"

Harry says nothing, waiting for her to continue.

"I mean, I gave it a shot," she says. "I gave it several shots for that matter – but it didn't work out very well and I kind of want to see whether the grass might be greener somewhere off in mainland Europe; I kind of just want to go 'Bugger this, I'll start a career harvesting rare potion ingredients instead', mostly because currently I've got little or no money of my own and there is a whole lot of money vested in that and because I prefer clean fresh air and solitude to spending my days off in some damp old Scottish castle either in classrooms full of people who hate me or attending study sessions with people who either wish for me to tutor them or think of me as something I am not."

"Harvesting rare potion ingredients?" Harry makes an effort not to look entirely dumbfounded. "Take no offence, but I have a hard time seeing it. Then again, 'Moine says you're a killer at potions but that Snape really doesn't give you the credit you should have."

She looks at him then, eyes narrowing slightly. "You might not like the man and you might be loathed in return, but if you cannot respect the man as a teacher, at least respect the man as a potions maker," she says. "I mean who knows, he might even have some halfway decent reason to despise you, but since you say the man was already against you before you even opened your mouth, it sounds like a boyhood grudge, so you probably have either one of your parents to thank for that."

"One question." Harry wants to ask a whole lot of questions, but finds it hard to do so.

Raven levels him with a surprisingly attentive look. "Yes?"

"Back when we first met…" – On the Hogwarts Express, a few months shy of a year previous – "You told me your parents were dead, but…"

Initially, her eyes narrows slightly, but then she averts her eyes, the very image of relative neutrality.

"Sometimes it's just easier to kill people off in your mind than to stand up straight and face the fact that you were unwanted," she finally yields, shrugging her shoulders. "I told you, didn't I?" she goes on, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "When I was three years old, my mother died in childbirth alongside my newborn younger brother, and my father left me at the orphanage… However, that isn't all there is to it…"

Her face remains perfectly neutral, but her voice contains a clearly distinguishable note of bitterness. "My mother's grandfather was a squib – a person with little or no magical ability born into a family of purebloods – and she, who thought she had no magic, married a muggle and had me," she says. "Upon discovering I had magic, my mother was delighted, my father horrified. Because apparently, she had never really bothered explaining to him that part of descending from a once powerful family of wizards and all as well as magic in general, so he kind of freaked. Then, he seemed to come to terms with it, and when he discovered my mother was expecting again, he was very excited. Then, something went wrong with the pregnancy and right after bringing my baby brother into this world, my mother left it, and my baby brother soon followed her. My father – stricken by grief – found that he was unable to handle a magical child all on his own and dumped me at the orphanage, probably hoping that God or whomever would be able cure me of this malady called magic…"

"I used to hate him for that," she readily admits. "But even though I'm still a bit peeved about it, I feel like I understand him a whole lot better now. He had been dealt a fate he felt like he couldn't handle and decided to take the easy way out so that he could grieve in peace and then move on with his life. Strangely, I can respect that, probably because I find myself quite keen on doing the same."

Taking the easy way out…

"I'm going to miss you," Harry readily admits in return, without the least of shame. "I've learnt a lot thanks to you."

She snorts openly, but more amusedly than disdainfully. "You'll miss me for a week or a month, tops, and then you'll already have moved on," she says, getting to her feet and up and heading for the window to let in the seemingly impatient Hedwig who had only just taken a seat on the windowsill. "You're still pretty ignorant though, but you've got a brain and you know how to use it, so you'll probably manage well even without my input."

Harry finds himself sighing, and goes up to his trunk, opening it and rifling through it before finding what he is looking for. "This is it then," he says, pulling out a pouch he had prepared beforehand, somehow having suspected such a thing would eventually come to pass, and gets to his feet.

She hands him the message she had just liberated from the owl. "I guess it is."

In return, he holds out the small pouch to her. "Take care."

She looks mildly surprised for a moment before her facial expressions once again smoothens out. She accepts the pouch, weighing it in her hand momentarily before putting it away. Then, she holds her hand out for him to shake and he does, experiencing this eerie foreboding feeling it will be the last time they'll each other. "If you need some advice from someone reasonably sensible, send me a note," she says, squeezing his hand gently once before letting go altogether as though she had just hugged a poisonous snake. "That blasted owl of yours will no doubt be able to find me, regardless of how far I run."

It is sound advice and he takes it to heart.

- o0o -

Several months later, Hedwig – who has been missing for the last week or so – returns with a small package which is later revealed to contain a carefully wrapped mirror along with a small note. "Writing letters is troublesome. I'll be in touch," Harry reads and is unable to refrain from grinning. "Wicked."

- o0o -

Before long, he finds himself needing some advice, and he along with Hermione and Neville sit in a strange room up on the seventh floor of the school – the Room of Requirement as Hermione for some reason decides to dub it – trying to reach her.

After a long while, she does appear, looking just as sleep deprived as she did the last time around. "Do you lot have any idea what time it is?"

"Sorry, but it is a bit of an emergency," Hermione cuts in and Harry surrenders the mirror to her. "Harry's a parseltongue!"

That earns her a twitching eyebrow. "And?"

"The entire school thinks he's the Heir of Slytherin!"

There is a snort heard from the other end. "So? The general wizarding population consists of idiots. Tell me something I didn't know already."

"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened again! People have been petrified!"

This time around, Raven's face reappears within the mirror with a mildly surprised expression; surprised and intrigued. "Petrified? Really?"

She directs her attention towards Harry. "Say Harry, have you gone about petrifying people as of late?"

Harry, taking no offence as he clearly detects the strangely jovial hint to the other's tone, responds in the negative. "Nope."

"Experienced anything strange lately then?" she goes on to ask. "Found yourself in any strange places or situations as of late?"

Earlier, Dumbledore had asked him whether or not he had something he wanted to tell him. Earlier, he had responded in the negative. Now however… "There are voices in the walls."

"Hoh…" There is a brief pause. "Does anyone else hear them?"

He spares a glance at Neville and Hermione, both of whom are watching him somewhat warily. "Nope."

"Do they think you're crazy?"

Harry gives his companions a meaningful look. "I hope not."

"Have your housemates been looking at you strangely as of late?"

No. "Not before tonight."

There is a slight sigh from the other end. "Then… let me see if I get this straight," she finally says, once again showing up within the frame of the mirror. "You lot have the reason to believe that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, as I presume by someone claiming to be the heir of Salazar Slytherin, and since Harry – for whatever reason – seems capable of communicating with snakes and has as such fallen under the suspicion of prowling the halls and petrifying people. Did I miss out on anything?"

They shake their heads.

"Then…" Raven turns her attention towards Neville and Hermione instead. "Have any of you noticed anything in particular or heard anything in particular that you would deem as unusual?"

Neville shifts slightly, looking mildly bothered by the sudden attention. "Ron Weasley came in a bit pale the other day. We're in the same dorm. I think he mumbled something about spiders…" he begins, looking thoughtful. "Come to think of it, I really haven't seen any spiders as of late. And speaking of Weasleys… Ginny's been acting a bit weird lately."

"Ginny?" Harry asks, all while vaguely recalling having seen a younger Weasley – a girl – get sorted into Gryffindor earlier in the year. He doesn't know her – not in person at any rate – but he knows of her. "How so?"

"She's pale," Neville responds. "She seems bothered about something."

Hermione frowns openly at him. "Can't it just be because she's worried about schoolwork?"

"There's another thing," Harry says, returning the conversation to the issue at hand. "I heard from Hagrid that someone snuck in and killed his roosters."

"Harry," Hermione admonishes him. "What does that have to do with anythi-…?"

She pauses suddenly, eyes widening slightly. Then, she gets this strange – almost terrified – expression on her face. "Killed roosters, no spiders, snakes… but…" she says before looking to Raven. "They're petrified, not dead. If it was a basilisk, then…"

"Mirrors," Harry finds himself saying, a theory already halfway formed. "You die if you look directly into the eyes of a basilisk, but what happens if you don't look at it directly?"

"There was water on the floor," Neville quietly notes. "Then there was a camera, and then…"

"Moaning Myrtle," Hermione fills in. "The girls' lavatory. It was flooded."

"Voices in the walls," Raven cut in from the other side. "Voices only Harry – a speaker of Parseltongue – seem to hear. No spiders. Killed roosters. The Heir of Slytherin. Overflowing lavatories. Make the connection."

Hermione stands up. "Pipes," she says. "The beast of Slytherin – it could be a basilisk or some other kind of snake – it's moving around using the pipes, which is why Harry hears voices in the walls… and no one has died yet because no one has looked it directly in the eye."

Harry nods once, reasoning that it makes sense.

Neville – already somewhat pale – looks about halfway petrified already at the thought of having a basilisk roaming the school.

Raven's face is no longer visible in the mirror.

"We need to talk to Dumbledore," Hermione decides.

Harry and Neville have no particular qualms about going along with that.

"Do whichever," Raven finally responds, showing up briefly within the mirror. "I'll be off."

They let her leave and Harry in return hides the mirror into his bag before all three of them get up.

"We need to talk to Dumbledore," Hermione repeats.

"Now?" Neville asks a bit weakly. "Can't we wait until tomorrow?"

"Look, Neville," Harry says, giving him a meaning look. "If you want to go back to your common room on your own while we head to seek out Dumbledore, that's entirely fine with us… right Hermione?"

The aforementioned bites her lip, suddenly unsure about herself. "It's late," she finally decides. "If we get caught outside after curfew…"

Harry cannot resist rolling his eyes, but obliges nonetheless.

- o0o -

The next day, they all head to see the headmaster.

Despite the comments Raven had given on the old man's behalf, Harry himself had few quarrels with the man in general even though he had initially been a bit unnerved by the man's calmly calculating and manipulative side hiding beneath the man's seemingly harmless and grandfatherly demeanour. However, he found that he could not help but be mildly impressed by the ease with which the old man had handled the incident with Hagrid acquiring a dragon's egg and hatching a dragon away in his wooden hut – even naming the thing Norbert of all things. Harry and his friends, already foreseeing an eventual catastrophe, had swiftly discarded any rasher plans and went for a fairly simple and direct one instead, heading straight to Dumbledore who in return swiftly swept the matter under the rug before other authorities could get themselves involved.

As such, they are surprised to find that the old coot himself is nowhere to be found, seeing that an ever vigilant Board of Governors had already decided to have Hagrid – why Hagrid of all people? – arrested and sent to Azkaban – the wizard version of Alcatraz, as Hermione helpfully informs him – and left Dumbledore to deal with quite a mess, seeing that this was not the first time the beast of Slytherin had run amok inside the school.

At some point, someone – Harry could not quite remember who and when – had laid claim to that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was the safest place in the whole of Britain. If this – petrified students and a bloody basilisk roaming the castle this year, and, if rumours were to be believed, a three-headed dog and a bunch of other potential death-traps from the previous year – was what the wizards called safe then Harry found that he seriously had to question their judgement. Then again, perhaps the comment about inbreeding hampering intelligence – or rather, the ability of rational thought – that Raven had given during their initial meeting was truer than he had actually given her credit for.

Seeing to the fact that the people in charge once again had proved unreliable – either in the sense that they were not around or would not believe them – they are forced to deal with the matter all on their own when Ginny Weasley is seemingly abducted and brought to the Chamber of Secrets. In a matter of minutes, they have put their intellectual resources into a makeshift plan, somehow – courtesy of Hermione's keen ability to observe and to put two and two together – managing to find not only the chamber but also managing to put an end to the whole affair with a mixture of knowledge, skill, cooperation, recklessness and a whole lot of luck along with a keen usage of the invisibility cloak – once belonging to his father that Dumbledore had decided to return to him during the previous year.

To Harry, the school year ends when Neville – armed with a sword he has somehow pulled from the Sorting Hat, brought there by Dumbledore's pet phoenix – drives the sword of Gryffindor through the roof of the basilisk's mouth, ending up with a poisonous fang in his arm of the trouble. Said basilisk fang is then used by a crafty Hermione while Harry busies himself with keeping the seeming antagonist – some guy named Riddle who is apparently a memory previously contained with a diary who is now more or less corporeal courtesy of having sucked the life out of an unsuspecting first-year Gryffindor – busy while Hermione snatches the diary and stabs it with the fang, destroying what he later learns is a horcrux of none other than Voldemort himself.

In the aftermath, they get a rundown of how one Tom Marvolo Riddle became Lord Voldemort, or rather, how Tom Marvolo Riddle decided his name wasn't cool enough and decided to scramble the letters of his name, ending up with I AM LORD VOLDEMORT. Flight of Death, really?

Harry finds it hard to decide whether or not to laugh or quietly pity his foe. In the end, he is undecided.

- o0o -

Summer comes and Harry finds himself back in the tedious chores of Privet Drive.

With all due honesty, he would rather have spent his summer elsewhere, but since the Dursleys don't try to lock him up this time around. However, when word reaches him that Uncle Vernon's sister will come and stay with them – along with Ripper, one of her many dogs – Harry finds himself contemplating whether or not to make a run for it.

He doesn't; at least not initially, but then the woman just had to go and insult his parents and all, and with Harry unable to openly retaliate, his magic does so instead by blowing the woman up – like a balloon, mind you, not like a bomb. Nevertheless, Harry does not stay around for long enough to see how it all plays out. He had already packed most of his stuff beforehand – just in case someone would turn up to spirit him away like the last time around – so it takes little time for him to get his things together and to be out the door and out into the darkening night, moving down the street. Thankfully, his coffer has previously been shrunken down to the size of a pack of cards, leaving him with only a backpack full of his utmost necessities along with some money, both wizarding and muggle.

Initially, he considers pulling his wand out and calling the Knight Bus he has heard about from Neville, but discards the idea quickly, wanting little to do with wizards and wizarding authorities now that he has just accidentally blown up his uncle's sister and possibly even managed to get himself expelled from Hogwarts seeing that this is technically his second offence as far as the Ministry of Magic is concerned. This should make him more distressed than it does, but instead of thinking about the bothersome things yet to come his thoughts focus more on the present.

Once again, Hedwig is out hunting, and since Harry has no doubts she will find him again in no time at all, he doesn't think much about it. Neither does he think about his possible imminent or already carried-out expulsion, seeing that he is already very much aware that there is a life for him even if he manages to get himself expelled, though he does admit that it would be a tad troublesome if the ministry turned up to snap his wand. Then again…

Having found a low garden wall at a comfortable distance down the street, he takes a seat and reaches into the pocket of his thin jacket, pulling out his two-way mirror, speaking to it, hoping there will be someone there to hear him on the other end. "I'm in trouble."

For several minutes, nothing happens and he sits in darkness, looking down at the piece of looking glass in his hands. Then, with a sigh he flips it back over and prepares to put it away, but right when he is about to he pauses slightly and speaks to the mirror once more. "I accidentally blew someone up. Like a balloon. I think I've managed to get myself expelled."

There is a slight groan heard from the other end and before long, a severely exhausted-looking Raven comes into view. "Already?"

She does not seem to be entirely present mentally and he does not ask about it, explaining his own situation and possible dilemma to her instead. "I think I'm expelled already. They're going to snap my wand."

Raven blinks slowly, once-twice-trice and then she puts a hand over her mouth, covering up a yawn. "So?"

"My wand is going to be snapped," Harry elaborates, emphasising his statement. "And I am currently on the run. Got any advice to spare?"

She blinks again, tilting her head slightly to the side. Then, she disappears from sight. "I need a minute."

About five minutes later, she returns, looking far less like a zombie and much more like a human on caffeine or a witch on the wizarding equivalent. "It's just a tad peculiar, don't you think?" she begins, picking the mirror up and carrying it around as she moves about, showing Harry the dimly lit interior of some cave-like room. "How wizard folk are the only magical beings who seemingly require a crafted tool through which to channel their magic…"

She wanders over to a bookcase at one end of the room, picking out a volume Harry only catches a glimpse of. "A wand is not a tool which enables people to use magic; it is a tool through which the wielder's own magic is channelled and at times amplified," she says. "As such, and as proven by what wizard folk refer to as 'accidental magic', wands are not technically required in order to wield magic."

Yeah… he knows that already, seeing that he just proved it.

"You don't need a wand to get by," she goes on to claim, giving him a meaningful look. "I haven't used mine in the last six months to get by…" – It is easy for her to say, seeing that she has not been in school and is talented enough in things such as potions to get by. – "Yet, the first thing stuck into the hand of an eleven-year-old magical is a wand, and once a decent fit has been made, the bouts of 'accidental magic' gradually lessen, often to the point of near-inexistence. Now, why is that, pray tell?"

She is lecturing him again, probably because he had the indecency to call for her very late again. He lets it pass, seeing that he has little else to do to be completely honest.

"In schools – at Hogwarts as well as elsewhere, in this part of the world at any rate – children are taught how to wield magic using their wands – in other words, how to channel energy from their magical core through the core of their wand and how to make it manifest as they desire through spouting Latin phrases and whatnot – even when neither wands nor spells, in Latin or otherwise are really a requirement to perform magic… because in magic – however labelled – the intent of the caster is the most important. Intent and the ability to visualise how one wants said magic to manifest, be it harmful or harmless. Words – Latin or otherwise – and fancy movements with a glorified stick are essentially crutches; whether the magic works or misfires depends on the person's ability to channel, control and visualise the outcome of their manifesting magic, and not on whether or not they pronounce the spell properly…"

Lovely. "Raven…"

She finally looks at him again, as if only then really acknowledging his presence. "Yes?"

"Help me out here."

"How?" she swiftly inquires, leaning closer to the mirror. "I'm kind of in Russia right now."

"Give me a few basic escape routes."

"Hoh…" She sounds positively intrigued. "Leaving the country?"

"Not necessarily, but I'd like to keep my options open," he responds, having a keen look around before leaning in, lowering his voice noticeably. "Though I could use a few pointers."

"How much money to you have on hand?"

"A few hundred pounds and a fair amount of galleons," Harry responds. "Should I start heading for the bank?"

"Don't," she keenly advises him. "And stay away from the Diagon Alley as well. If you really want to stay undetected for long, you should probably disguise yourself without being too obvious about it and travel by muggle means rather than by magical. Also, don't use your wand."

"Yeah… easy enough for you to say."

"I mean it," she says. "If you use it, you make it a whole lot easier for them to track you down."

Lovely. Just perfect.

Harry sighs. "I'm going to relocate now. I'll be in touch."

- o0o -

The next time he contacts her, a whole lot of things have taken place. Among other things, he has been made privy to the fact that he apparently has a godfather and that said godfather is apparently a criminal and that said criminal godfather has recently escaped from Azkaban, and the person who makes him privy to all of this is none other than the escaped convict himself who is apparently also an animagus – using his dog form to sneak up on him and to keep his guard down before abruptly transforming back into a wizard and then apparating the both of them someplace before proceeding to plead his innocence in Harry's parents' murder, claiming some guy named Peter was the one to betray their location.

Mildly shell-shocked or not – not to mention nauseous following the unexpected case of teleportation – Harry finds himself strangely calm and compliant when the man proceeds to bring him to some shabby place, claiming he will explain everything in detail once they are indoors. Harry knows it is a foolish thing indeed to follow along without any discrimination, but his gut feeling tells him the man before him – the escaped and possibly deranged convict Sirius Black – is not out to harm him, and whilst the man continues to explain how things really went down once upon a time, all while Harry – with Sirius Black's reluctant permission – contacts Raven, asking her to verify whether or not Black's story checks out.

Raven herself looks noticeably impressed when Harry hands the mirror to Sirius Black who stares right back, curiously, as the man has recently been told about Raven's involvement in Harry's life. "For a Slytherin, you're okay," the escaped convict says, grinning wide and showing off a two rows yellowish teeth.

"For a supposedly deranged convict, you don't seem half bad yourself," she responds, smiling wryly. "Then again, that dear godson of yours is pretty alright too, for a delinquent."

- o0o -

He spends the next month or so in Grimmauld Place, because that is the name of the place Sirius brought him to, and they spend that time both cleaning the place up and talking, making up for lost time so to say. There are wards protecting it and according to Sirius it is also unplottable, courtesy of some more paranoid ancestors of his. Even so – supposedly unplottable or not – Hedwig finds her way back to him and when she does, she is accompanied by another Snowy Owl, swooping down with a carefully wrapped package.

Paranoid as ever, Sirius insists on checking it for curses and tracking spells and Harry lets him, and once the other has managed to confirm that there is nothing malicious about it, Harry takes the package and unwraps it, and finds himself entirely unsurprised at its contents. The other mirror lays there and along with it is a small note. Harry reads it carefully.

"You have the money, the means and the brains and possibly even the sliver of common sense necessary to manage them all. You don't need my advice and I have other things to prioritise. I could use some money though, so if you've got any galleons to spare then give them to Lumi. Do NOT send your owl to terrorise me. I'm very busy. Cheers," he reads out loud, and upon reaching the endnote, a smile creeps onto his face. "P.S. You seem to have a deranged godfather looking out for you now, so make sure you look out for him as well. For future reference though, you shouldn't follow strangers in the future, because that might get you killed one day. Have a nice life."

"Sounds like you got ditched," Sirius noted.

"Maybe." Harry finds himself smiling somewhat wryly. "I really can't say I wasn't expecting it though. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised she stayed in touch for as long as she did."

"An old flame?"

He snorts in something akin to belief. "More like my role model," he finally says, pulling out a bag of galleons he had prepared beforehand.

It has been said that a single meeting can change the course of history – of fate – even if everyone must part eventually and depart for their respective destinations whenever their time comes, because a meeting – however fleeting – is a ripple upon a previously still surface, and the consequences of it spreads far and wide like rings upon the water's surface when one throws a pebble into it. However small a pebble and however seemingly insignificant the act, they all hold significance of some sort whether it'd be for a single individual or society as a whole because they can set things in motion and something has been set in motion – once the figurative boulder has been dislodged and pushed down the figurative hill – it takes a lot to stop it.

- o0o -

It is September the first and he is seated in his own compartment on the Hogwarts Express, having arrived early and in disguise to minimise the risk of being seen before making it onboard all whilst trying to placate a Sirius in dog form with a severe case of separation anxiety. Once onboard and safe in a compartment of his own, he had promptly shed the disguise before putting a notice-me-not charm on the door leading in to the compartment. As such, he is appropriately surprised when a girl suddenly enters, looking about with a strangely owlish expression on her face as she notices him. "Oh," she says, greeting him with a slight wave and seeming familiarity. "Hello Harry."

He looks at her for a brief moment before finally coming to a decision, at which a smile graces his features. "Hello Luna," he says, because he feels like he knows this person even though they have only encountered briefly in the Ravenclaw Common Room and had only exchanged very few words along the way with the supposedly loony Luna Lovegood. "How was your summer?"

He knows they view the world quite differently, but he is neither stupid nor arrogant enough to assume that he automatically knows better, and he knows far better than most how much difference one meeting can make in a person's life. Supposedly deranged or not, Harry knows that Luna has the potential to keep his life interesting – possibly without putting him or his other friends in mortal danger – and in the end, with the recent loss of his self-styled mentor, he could certainly use a new addition to his more closely-knit circle of friends, for a change in scenery if nothing else.

"Dad and I have begun planning an organised search for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack," Luna finally responds, a distinctly absent-minded look to her even though Harry knows that he is being watched and carefully evaluated. As such, Harry swiftly discards his initial reaction – A crumple-horned what now? – and leans closer instead, displaying honest interest.

"Sounds interesting. Can I tag along?"

He receives a bleak but honest smile in response and he returns it in force.

In the end, humans are defined by their actions and their actions and choices in turn are what shape the future, and that day, Harry Potter's already strange path took off in yet another interesting direction, to the bafflement of most of those who thought they knew him. Some even went as far as to say that he had gone a bit loony himself and even sought to lay blame on his latest change in behaviour on his fugitive godfather. Some even went as far as to call him "Confunded", though they admittedly found themselves at loss when Harry actually agreed to be checked out by a healer and since the latter came up with nothing, some – more or less versed in muggle psychology – began to speculate whether or not it was just another case of teenage rebellion. Harry himself concludes that if anyone has been put under the influence of a Confundus Charm, it's them rather than him, seeing that only people under some sort of influence – be it the influence of a particular spell or mere stupidity – would think about letting a bunch of soul-sucking Dementors guard a school and search a train because they thought an escaped convict was after Harry's life and limb.

The utter stupidity and recklessness of the latter decision is proven when Harry himself – already expecting as much from wizard folk and having prepared himself both mentally and magically for the eventuality of a possible assault – sends his recently acquired Patronus off in their general direction, blasting them right back and out of the compartment, sending them scurrying away in search of other potential victims.

"Chocolate?" Luna offers him a chocolate frog and he accepts it gratefully.

"Prepared for all eventualities, are we?" he responds as she too takes a bite out of one.

"Uh-huh."

Oddly enough, Harry has a good feeling about this new potential friendship of his.

- o0o -