Harry swallowed heavily as he walked down the crowded corridor of the Hogwarts express, scanning about for an empty, or at least friendly looking, compartment. Everywhere around him were students sharing heartfelt welcomes, excitedly catching up on the holiday news and new gossip. A soft babble of voices seemed to follow him wherever he went, but he was nonetheless unimpeded as he made his way down the train. Harry wondered how he was going to cope at Hogwarts, without any magical upbringing or background, but from the looks of the parents on the platform and from the clothes that many of the children on the train wore, he would not be alone in that fact.
Eventually, he came across a compartment with one single occupant, at the very back of the train. Harry knocked on the door, pulling the other boy's nose out of his book, and upon seeing the small smile and the subtle wave, he opened the door and sat down. The other boy offered his hand as Harry sat, and spoke as they shook;
"I'd be glad to have a quiet compartment if I were you," he said, "I'm Hal."
Despite appearing to know who Harry was, the boy politely waited for him to introduce himself, which Harry noticed seemed to be a theme about this child. His robes were evidently expensive, but not ostentatious, and his chestnut hair and silvery eyes seemed to paint a picture of quiet wealth. He also appeared to know etiquette; a pure blood, reasoned Harry. Despite this air of regality there was an unsettling aspect to his demeanor, some suppressed self pity, reminiscent of a routinely kicked dog. Before Harry could dwell on this, the boy spoke,
"You'd probably want someone to explain about Hogwarts, seeing as how you grew up around muggles. I can't imagine you learning about the houses or classes with them as your parents."
Harry nodded in agreement, and listened as Hal carefully explained Hogwarts to him. From Arithmancy to zoomancy, Harry listened as one in the presence of a learned teacher, drinking the knowledge of quaffles and wands and feasts in as one in a desert drinks from an oasis. The speech was interrupted three times, once by a blonde girl who curled up on the seat next to Hal and listened along with Harry, and once by the Trolley Lady, from whom Hal and the girl bought various food, drinks and sweets. The final interruption was from the boy that Harry had met in Madam Malkin's, who appeared in the doorway with a sneer of recognition.
"So, Harry Potter, the rumours were true. I see you've found your way to the side of some reputable pure bloods."
He made to sit beside Harry, but froze when the girl made a small scoffing noise.
"I don't remember asking you anything, Greengrass. In fact I think it would be better if you just stayed quiet while I talk to Harry."
Harry glanced around the compartment, noting the deep scowl on Hal's face, as well as the look of contempt on the girl's. She swung her feet onto the floor and managed to compress an impressive amount of contempt into the simple movement.
"I don't remember asking you to come in, Draco. In fact, I think it would be best if you just left." The blond haired boy flushed fuchsia and made a great deal of noise getting up, pausing at the door to speak once again to Harry.
"If you want to consort with some lesser families, Potter, I would suggest you stay here. But if you have any ambition, then we may have things to discuss."
He closed the door hard, and sauntered down the corridor, leaving before Hal's gasp of laughter could reach his ears.
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It was not long before the train began to slow, and Harry quickly changed into his robes before following the others out of the train. Harry spotted the redhead from the train station, so bright was his hair, and made a beeline for Hal and the girl, whose name Harry had learned was Daphne, so as to avoid conversation with him. Not to be deterred, the redhead strode up to the trio,
"Wow! So Fred and George were right. C'mon, Harry, I'll show you around. Don't hang out with these vipers, you don't want a reputation on your first day!"
"And yet, he already has a reputation, Weasley. As evidenced by your approaching him and warning him off of us." The boy had found words where they had failed Harry, and had managed it in a more eloquent fashion than Harry though he'd have been able to answer in.
They eventually came to a small harbour with many boats lined up for the crossing of the lake to the castle, and the trio piled into a boat and pushed off before anyone else could try to board it. In near silence, the first years glided across the lake, staring up at the towering fortress in rapture. Here and there, a splash of water would fly up, lit from within by a water fairy, and drop back into the obsidian smoothness of the lake.
It was as the boats crunched up onto the sandy bank on the shore of the lake that Harry realised that he had left his trunk on the train, but when he raised the point with his companions they laughed softly.
"The elves sort the luggage and ensure it arrives in the right room. All of your stuff will get to the right place."
Harry wondered at that fact. No longer would he be expected to do all of the menial tasks around the house, or cook food while being starved himself. Not in the magical world at least.
Harry was shaken out of his reverie by a very tall witch in green velvet, who explained about the house system before leading them into the great hall and having them line up. A tatty hat was placed on a stool, and after singing them a song which incorporated a great deal of the history explained to him by Hal the sorting began.
Harry tried to remember as many of the names and faces as he could, but grew increasingly irrationally nervous as he shuffled forwards in the line. Daphne was sorted into Slytherin to loud applause, and Harry's mind went blank with panic as his name got called.
"Well, well," said a voice in Harry's head "this one is more interesting than most, yes I can see that…. A fine mind, no doubt, and a strong sense of loyalty, yes both Rowena and Helga would be proud to have you. But I can sense greatness inside you Potter. Ambition. Pride. Surely Slytherin is your home? Except you possess precisely the qualities of a good Gryffindor. You will succeed wherever you go, no doubt there. You have an unusual strength to you, but seeing as both of your parents went to Gryffindor I really have to put you there, don't I. If tradition is done away with then I would surely be the first to go. Well, then… GRYFFINDOR!"
Harry opened his eyes to the joyous whoops and cheers of his new housemates. He found Hal's face in the line and noticed his grin towards him before sitting down next to a plump boy with dark hair who Harry remembered had been called Neville.
"Selwyn, Harold!" Called Professor McGonagall, and Harry watched as his friend sat on the creaky stool, and placed the hat on his head, which immediately announced another Slytherin member.
After the sorting had ended, an old man whom Harry recognised only from the back of a chocolate frog card, Dumbledore stood up to talk. He laid down some school rules for the first years which seemed fairly standard to Harry, disappointingly so what with the magical nature of the school, and wished them a restful sleep, ready for their day of lessons then next day.
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Harry's next few days were just as exciting as they should be, starting a new magical school for the first time. His lessons were unlike anything he had ever experienced, and without the influence of his cousin Dudley the teachers were fair to him and he was actually able to form tentative friendships with people in his house. He continued to sit near to Hal and Daphne whenever the opportunity presented itself, such as in his first potions lesson.
Snape's robe billowed as he swept into the classroom, silencing the class with his presence. He immediately took a register, pausing as Harry's name and raising an eyebrow as he spotted how he was sitting.
"Perhaps you ought to have been sorted into Slytherin, Potter, seeing as how you're dangerously close to two of them."
His comment earned a chuckle from the slytherins, and he moved on.
"Now, potion making is more of an exact subject than any that you will face until you choose your options in third year. As such there will be many who fail to keep up in my class." His voice grew lower and softer as he continued, "failure to keep up will be met with… severe consequences."
He flicked his wand at the blackboard, and instructions for a boil-vanishing remedy appeared on it.
"You have the remainder of the lesson to complete this rather simple potion, Ingredients are in the cupboard at the back of the room. Begin."
The class jumped up, all except for Hal and Daphne, who began copying down the instructions from the board. They then edited them slightly, adding a stir here or a heat there. Hal turned to Harry and explained,
"Snape's famous for deliberately including mistakes in his potion instructions, by doing it this way we fix all of the ones we manage to spot."
Harry nodded, it was a sensible idea, before joining them at the back to collect the amended ingredient list.
Harry didn't feel he had done too badly, his potion was not exactly the same turquoise as Hal or Daphne's, but it was closer than the rest of the class' attempts. Goyle's potion was deep red for one. Snape walked from table to table, peering into potions and scribbling on his parchment. Ron's potion earned a special comment and a sneer from the bat-like potions master, but he passed over Harry's potion with a disappointed sniff, which Harry took to mean that he had found nothing wrong with it. Hal and Daphne's potions earned them five points each, and Snape commended them for finding almost all of his deliberate inaccuracies. With that, the bell rang and the students packed their cauldrons away and headed off to lunch.
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The next week saw the first flying lesson, with Slytherin once again being matched up with Gryffindor. Harry was one of the few who managed to get his broom into his hand on the first try, even among some of those who had apparently been flying for years prior to that.
The fun stopped when it emerged that Malfoy had somehow acquired Neville's remembrall, and was flying with Crabbe and Goyle and tossing it between them. Harry flew in between the three of them, followed by Hal, and demanded that they return it.
"Yeah, I'll return it," smirked Draco as he threw it as hard and fast as he could towards the other end of the field.
Harry barely thought before he was flying as fast as he could towards the falling glass ball, and caught it by the tips of his fingers and pulling out of the dive. He looked back to see Hal standing over Draco, who was lying on the ground coughing. A minute passed before McGonagall strode out of the main hall, shouting for Harry to follow her.
The nights grew longer and colder as the year slipped towards halloween, with the usual candles being replaced by floating carved pumpkins and flocks of bats. As the year progressed, Harry settled into life at Hogwarts, completing his homework well before due and even reading ahead and practicing thing she had learned. Away from the classroom, Harry had become fast friends with Neville, as well as being at least on speaking terms with the rest of his house. Despite the unease of most of his house, he continued to remain friends with Hal and Daphne, which seemed to offer him some protection from Slytherins, as the houses of Selwyn and Greengrass were two incredibly old, wealthy and politically powerful houses that the politicking Slytherins such as Draco Malfoy didn't want to get on the bad side of.
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For the first time, Harry was putting on weight, He'd filled out with muscle and grown a good few inches, probably down to the fact that he was being properly fed for the first time in almost his entire life as well as the hard quidditch training that he was having to do, meaning that he was kept tired and busy. Nothing could have stopped Harry from being the happiest he had ever been.
Except for the troll, of course.
As Quirrel had burst into the room and proclaimed the presence of a large mountain troll, panic erupted. The prefects did their best, and soon everyone was leaving the great hall in an almost orderly way. Harry had just reached the main corridor when he felt someone roughly grab him and steer him down a side passage. Hal let go of him, and Harry spotted Daphne just behind him.
"Hermione is in the girl's toilets, she needs to know about the troll, but i think it was going that way and I'd rather not fight it alone," said Daphne.
They took off at a fast pace towards the second floor, and saw the back of an enormous troll going into the bathroom. Seconds later they heard a piercing scream. The trio sprinted into the bathroom to see Hermione curled up on the floor with the troll standing over her, club raised to smash her into the tiles.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" said Harry, levitating the club out of the hands of the troll.
Daphne dashed around the legs of the monster and dragged Hermione away from danger, while Hal shot a jet of flame at the confused beast.
"Confringo!" yelled Hal, causing the belly of the beast to explode outwards, showering the walls in gore. Harry released the charm on the club, causing it to fall from the high ceiling onto the head of the wounded troll, causing a loud crack to be heard as the neck of the monster broke.
The door behind them banged open as the teachers burst into the now ruined bathroom, and stopped abruptly when they caught sight of the blood soaked children.
"What is the meaning of this - carnage?" said Professor Snape in his icy tone reserved for true anger. Hermione had gone into shock by this point and couldn't form a coherent sentence, and so Daphne spoke up,
"I knew that Hermione wasn't at the feast as a result of the Weasley boy mocking her relentlessly. As such, I was aware that she had no idea about the troll. I was going to go to her alone, but I heard the beast approaching and I didn't want to risk fighting a fully grown mountain troll alone. I went and found these two and they helped me kill the troll and save Hermione's life."
"Miss Greengrass, you are - I hope - aware of the fact that in doing this you have broken nearly twenty separate school rules. As such i will be removing ten points from Slytherin. However, it must be said that it is an impressive feat to kill such a beast - even for a fully qualified adult - and so to each of the three of you I will award twenty points," said McGonagall.
"We must get that girl to the hospital wing, unless we want to have Madam Pomfrey after our heads," said Flitwick in his characteristic squeak. "You three are to go straight back to your dormitories, and are not to tell anyone about what has happened here."
Naturally, the entire school knew before lunch the next day.
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"Look, I'm telling you, he's up to something!"
Harry was pacing back and forth while Hal, Daphne and Neville lounged on chairs or desks in an empty classroom.
"Voldemort wants the stone, and whoever is working for him in this castle will go for it, and soon!" Harry continued his rant.
"Harry," began Daphne, "It's been months, why would they go for the stone now, there's no escape plan for if they get caught. Besides, we don't even know who they are, so how could we hope to stop this?"
"Look Harry, how about if I stationed my elf to warn us if whoever it is goes for the stone?" said Hal in a placating tone. Harry walked to a table and slumped down on it with a sigh.
"Want a game of chess?" suggested Hal, and Harry shook his head,
"I always lose to you!"
"You're on," answered Daphne.
Half an hour later, and the game had almost ended, it was a tense position with Hal being up an exchange, but even to the end it remained close.
"Checkmate!" exclaimed Hal, breathing a sigh of relief and picking up the pair of golden galleons that had been set on the side of the board.
"I almost had you though!" moaned Daphne, brushing a finger over her eyelid to energise herself.
"Almost isn't good enough though," said Hal, stretching luxuriously.
"Cocky bastard, I'll get you next time!"
Meanwhile, Harry was grinning to himself over his transfiguration homework, listening to his friends bicker while he finished off his twelve inches of parchment on the process of transfiguring a pencil into a paintbrush. Neville came in and closed the door behind him, dropping his bag near a desk and slumping into a chair. A few moments later he ragged his bag towards him and pulled out his charms work. Daphne went over to help him with the wandwork while Hal packed the chess set away, checking each piece for damage and placing it carefully into the magically enchanted case.
"What're your plans for christmas?" asked Harry tentatively, fully expecting to be alone once again for the festive season.
"I'm staying at hogwarts, Gran's visiting friends so it seemed sensible," said Neville,
"I'll stay here too, I think. I'd like to experience a hogwarts christmas at least once," Hal answered,
"Same here," said Daphne.
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Christmas came and went, and still there was no attempt by anyone to take the stone from its hiding place. Hagrid's hut burned down and there was curiously no explained reason why, but Harry supposed that the half giant had tried to cook something and had it go severely wrong.
As spring broke through the ice of winter and faded into the heat of summer, the Gryffindor quidditch team, with the help of Harry, destroyed all opposition.
As exam season approached, the first years spent more and more time in the library, and on one such evening a sharp crack could be heard.
"Quirrel is going after the stone right now, he's already got past the cerberus."
Hal looked up sharply, and whispered to Daphne and Harry as the elf disapparated.
"Lets go after them, you've got the cloak, we need to make this work, or Voldemort will return and then we'll all be screwed."
"Where's Neville?"
"Detention with Snape, come on we don't have time."
They all piled under the invisibility cloak and made their way as quickly as they could to the third floor, where a harp was still playing softly to the enormous cerberus guarding the trapdoor.
They made their way quickly through all of the rooms, ending up with the three of them staring at the flames stopping them from passing through to the next and the tiny vial of liquid that would help them through the enchanted fire.
"I'll go on, you two go back and get help from a teacher, i just hope that i can delay whoever it is long enough that the help arrives," said Harry.
"Are you mad? None of us would last a second against a death eater, let alone Voldemort himself! I'm coming too, maybe with both of us we'd stand a chance of delaying. We have to play defensively, whoever it isn't going to be scared of cursing two kids, especially if it's Voldemort," replied Hal.
"Okay, while you two play the hero, I'll try to find flitwick, Snape, or McGonagall. They're powerful enough in their own right. Please, please be safe."
With that, Daphne drank from the larger of the two vials and ran through the purple-tinged flames. Her footsteps receded quickly, and the boys looked at each other. Harry drank first, taking a tiny sip from the small flask, then jumped through the fire, followed closely by Hal.
Before them stood Quirrel, sans turban, staring at a mirror and muttering to himself. He started as the two boys entered, and the face on the back of his head opened its eyes.
"Well, well, Potter," it said in a bone-chilling voice, "we meet at last. Perhaps you can solve the riddle of this infernal mirror?"
Harry looked into the mirror, and saw only himself, placing a large red stone into his pocket. His eyes widened, and he made to turn and run, but Quirrel was faster. He drew his wand and tripped Harry, before immobilising Hal.
"Give me the stone, boy!" shouted Quirrel, striding towards Harry as he lay on the ground.
Harry scrambled backwards, but Quirrel landed on top of him, hands gripping his throat, but Quirrel suddenly began to scream in pain, skin on his hands slaking off in chunks where it contacted Harry. Nonetheless, Quirrel continued, biting deep on his lower lip to stop the noise, but still his flesh eroded.
He fell back, his hands now nothing more than bare blackened bone, unconscious from the pain, yet still the man's flesh eroded. Harry had lost consciousness from the strangulation, and Hal was helpless in the full body bind curse that he had been put into.
Suddenly, Dumbledore appeared in the doorway, and leant down just as the poor man's heart eroded and Hal was released from the body binding curse. Hal fell forwards, catching himself on his hands and retching as he had been unable to look away from the grotesquery that was Quirrel's corpse. Dumbledore flipped the man over with a his shoe, and nodded grimly as he observed the face on the back of the man's skull, now dissolving. He lifted Hal with surprising ease, and levitated Harry's prone body. The last image Hal saw before he lost consciousness was Dumbledore's hand entering Harry's pocket, and removing the stone.
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Harry sat back in his seat, watching as his friends bantered in the compartment on the hogwarts express. He felt a slow smile spread across his face, and watched as Hal and Daphne argued lightheartedly with Neville and Hermione, who had joined their little group after the news about the events with Quirrel had broken over the school. He felt a twinge of sadness as he realised that he would be cut off from them for a month and a half while he waited at the Dursley's. His grin reasserted itself as Hal turned to him and said;
"I forgot to ask, would you like to come over to my house for the summer, get you away from those muggles?" Harry responded with a simple nod.