Harry Potter was lying in bed, feeling somewhat miserable.
He had just survived saving a Philosopher's Stone, an extremely rare magical artifact, from a dark wizard known as Voldemort who was inhabiting one of his teachers, after solving a series of puzzle-like defenses laid down by the staff to protect it with his friends.
The problem was, now that Headmaster Dumbledore and his friends had left, he was starting to feel like he hadn't done well enough. The Dark Lord did not get his hands on the stone, but neither had anyone else: According to Dumbledore, the stone had been destroyed, and it's inventor and his wife, Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel, had come forth and discussed it with the Headmaster, and decided it was fine, but Harry just couldn't see why anyone would think so.
This was because of what exactly the Philosopher's Stone did. It was a clear, red stone, almost like a stone-shaped ruby, and it could be used to both transform any metal into pure gold, and to create something called the Elixir of Life, which could be used to prolong someone's lifespan seemingly indefinitely.
Nicolas and his wife had lived for almost six centuries.
And now, they were going to die, because he couldn't save their stone.
He had been amazed, and Dumbledore had picked right up on it during their chat, at first, and while the Headmaster had explained it was entirely different for adults, 'like going onto the next great adventure', he still couldn't wrap his head around it, and now, since Madam Pomfrey had long since chased any guests out of her Infirmary, he had nothing to distract himself from the events that landed him in the Hospital Wing in the first place.
Well, almost nothing.
Next to the bed, there was a table, and it looked like someone had dumped half a sweet shop onto it. The Headmaster had explained it came from well wishers (and noted that the Weasley Twins, infamous school pranksters and brothers to one of his best friends, had tried to send him a seat from one of the school loos, but Madam Pomfrey put up with that as much as she had the notion of guests disturbing her patients) and had apparently been building there for three days- Until he had finally woken up. Even after a year, it seemed amazing that anyone, much less so many people, would even want to spend anything on him, time, effort, much less piles of sweets, but the evidence was right here next to him. He reached out for the pile, hoping to sort through it and find something to distract himself from his thoughts.
He succeeded. Near the bottom of the pile, there was a note.
The school year had ended, Hagrid had visited and given him a present (One that was very valuable in his eyes- Pictures of his parents, something he had never had before), Gryffindor had suddenly won the house cup due to his adventure, and he was finally home.
It was unfortunate that, for whatever reason, he wasn't allowed to practice magic over the summer, but it was a stroke of good fortune that the Dursleys, his relatives and who he stayed with, did not know this, and so were thankfully giving him a wide berth. Everything had settled down, for the moment, and he finally had time to sit down, reach down into his trunk, and pull out the simple note.
Please tap this parchment with your wand when you are alone.
It was one of the stranger notes he had received this year- Even the one that gave him his Invisibility Cloak, his father's before him, didn't require his want to... Do whatever it was this parchment would do. He felt somewhat nervous about it; it wouldn't count as doing magic, right? After all, it was probably the parchment that was magic, and they wouldn't blame him for it... Right?
So he took a deep breath and pressed his wand to the parchment, firmly.
He was suddenly no longer alone.