Chapter 3

Enigma

2nd September 1991, Hogwarts.

The enigma that was Harry James Potter had been shrouded in mystery since the moment he had entered the school, the day after he had established himself as the record holder for the longest sorting early in the morning the Ravenclaws went to libraries to hit the tomes and figure out what did this mean in Political, Sociological, & Magical spheres of influence. The Slytherins sent letters to their parents, especially those who came from influential families like, Malfoy, Greengrass, Urquhart, and some others as they were baffled on how to proceed, they knew they couldn't simply make enemies out of this one enigma but trying to befriend him would rock the boat, something which they didn't want to do as it would bring in the element of chaotic uncertainty which they were against on principle of things.

One bushy haired Gryffindor also chose to follow up on her house's stereotypical tendencies and chose to grab the bull by the horns, or at least tried to, she had woken up at 05:00 AM on the dot, and by 05:30 AM she was waiting in the common room for him to come down, reading the "The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) By Miranda Goshawk".

While keeping an eye on the staircase down to the hall, time trickled away and other people started rousing from their respective slumber, and now it was 07:25 AM five minutes before breakfast began, so when she saw Neville Longbottom coming down the stairs, she plucked up the entirety of her courage and approached him, "Uhm, hello, excuse me could I bother you for a minute?" she questioned him, and then waited for him to answer, Neville's reaction to this question was blinking owlishly because he hadn't expected someone to confront him this early, that too just before breakfast, he really hoped that she wasn't a The-Boy-Who-Lived fangirl, they were annoying, really, really annoying, when he realized he was keeping her waited, he responded, "Sure, how may I help you, err miss?" "Granger, Hermione Granger, I wanted to ask if Harry Potter is still sleeping upstairs, as I wanted to ask him a few things and it wouldn't be appropriate for me to go in the boys dorm" "Hermione, may I call you that?", to which he continued when he received a nod from her, "he wasn't there when I woke up at 6, so I'd reckon he's probably gone to breakfast already." This answer wasn't what Hermione expected as she had began to frown when she contemplated how she had just spent nearly 2 hours waiting for someone who wasn't even there, which reaffirmed her sense of having to know ALL the facts to reach to a conclusion, thus reinforcing her curious nature, and then she snapped out of her thoughts when she heard actual snapping coming font front of her, and she looked up to one neville longbottom whose mouth was twitching in amusement, and then he asked, "Hermione, I'm pretty famished, what about you have any plans to have the breakfast today?" to which the girl replied by blushing, "Uh, yeah sorry I forgot all about it lets go shall we?" "certainly." And then they proceeded to head to breakfast keeping each other company in silence, but not one that was unwanted.

=0=0=0=0=0=

As the first breakfast of the year was going on in the halls of Hogwarts, a host of owls suddenly arrived in and started delivering newspapers to the student and staff body alike, apparently it was a special edition, it covered both the beginning of the-boy-who-lived' start of magical education and the new record held by the enigmatic potter heir, there were some theories ranging from plausible to general gossip and some that were outright ridiculous, like Neville and Harry being a possible dueling duo due to the old alliance between their families, or Neville being trained by Dumbledore himself, Harry trying to usurp Neville's Position as the successor to the leader of light.

As the people kept reading it they all noticed one thing, while their hero was present in the hall, the raven haired talk of the hour was missing, in fact, the Gryffindors realized that they hadn't seen him at all since this last night. Neville was simply glad to get some attention off him, it was tiresome, really, he didn't hold any ill will towards his fellow gryffindor, in fact, he wanted to befriend him, but if this mysterious nature of Harry's kept him out of people's attention every now and then he was really glad for it.

Similarly Hermione and Dumbledore were also thinking about the raven haired boy, the former was getting more impatient and curious as to what the jade eyed enigma was, the latter on the other hand was internally frowning while keeping an impassive mask on his face, it wasn't a bad thought about something sinister, yesterday after the sorting and during the welcoming feast he had observed that the boy was too withdrawn, highly unlike his two former students whose child he was, both Lily and James were highly socially active, while the former was polite yet interactive, with everyone in fact, including some unbigoted Slytherins, James on the other hand was the poster boy for being a hyperactive child, while he was more wary of the slytherins compared to lily, he did gave some of them his friendship, like Cyrus Greengrass or Raphael Davies for instance. He was worried if the boy was trying to isolate himself, having taught for nearly 80 years now he had seen many students come and go and he understood that no 2 students were alike, regardless of how much similarities they possessed, so yes, he was worried for the boy who was isolating himself now, not because he didn't trust him but he was genuinely worried for him.

=0=0=0=0=0=

Soon it was the time for the first class of the first year gryffindors along with ravenclaws, it was transfiguration, only a minute was left for the class, everyone was standing in the class except for the jade eyed enigma, with only 30 seconds remaining for the class the enigma strolled into the class and took seat at the back of the class where there was an empty class, his face as impassive as ever, looking ahead of himself yet at nothing in particular.

Professor Mcgonagall began her lecture on the introduction on transfiguration, and when only the last fifteen minutes of the class were remaining she gave them a basic spell of turning a matchstick into a silver needle, the incantation was simple, Acus Argenti, which hermione later found out literally meant silver needle, the wand motions were also quite simple one clockwise round with an upward swish and downward flick to follow, and to top it off at the end of the flick the wand had to be pointed towards the needle, and soon after mcgonagall had left the class to their devices to attempt the task they had been handed she heard a loud gasp, coming from miss Granger if she was correct, what she saw had definitely left her amazed, Minerva Mcgonagall had been teaching transfiguration at hogwarts for the past 33 years now and she could swear by merlin that she hadn't seen anything like this in her entire career, a first year had just completed the Acus Argenti spell on the first day itself and within the first two minutes of being handed the assignment, even if the boy was a prodigy that was simply unbelievable, she politely asked him "mr Potter, can you once again show me how you did this?" to which he nodded, and as she was about to reverse the first spell he had applied on the needle, what was shown to her was much beyond her expectations, the raven haired boy simply pointed his wand which had been resting in his hand by his side towards the matchstick and wordlessly reversed the transfiguration, after which his hand went back into his side, then he gave it a second and once again pointed his wand towards the matchstick and viola the stick turned into a needle once again, one pristine and shiny silver needle with no blemishes, transfigured from a matchstick by a first year by point casting, wordlessly, the ringing of the bell brought her out of the daze this scene had sent her into, and she immediately awarded gryffindor house 20 points for a well done transfiguration, and then she promptly dismissed the class.

Then she proceeded to go to closed confines of her office, remove her hidden bottle of fire whisky and carefully poured it in a glass she had just conjured, then unlike as slowly and carefully she had poured it, she gulped it down in a single go, and then when she belched fire as she always did after firewhiskey, she suddenly started giggling at the prospect of teaching this prodigy, she simply couldn't wait to inform rest of the staff about the happenings of today, not to mention Severus, the man had made a mockery of the point system ever since he had begin working here, oh, she had known all about his feud with James Potter and his ragtag bunch of friends, she knew he wasn't simply some innocent victim he tried to make himself look like, she also knew the grudge he held to this date, and she knew he definitely wouldn't like the fact that his former rival who was a prodigy in transfiguration, had not simply passed on his looks but also his talent in transfiguration, not to mention that the son had already seemingly surpassed the father now how he developed here on was anyone's best guess.

=0=0=0=0=0=

Soon 2 weeks had passed since 1st of September, as Minerva had expected the news of Harry's talents was taken well by most of the staff, most, of course she was not going to lose any sleep over the dour man's reaction because it was exactly as expected.

*flashback start*

On 7th of September that year at the end of the first week, a teacher's meeting had been convened in the headmaster's office as was the tradition, to discuss both the progression and regression of the old students and the first impressions about the new first years. On the topic of the older students the teachers didn't had much to say except some surprising things like the Urquhart heir's choice to take up COMC as an elective unlike his predecessors who only studied Runes, and Arithmancy and never professed any interest in others, of course the pranks undertook by the Weasley twins were again a topic of discussion, also how the new prefects and the Head Boy and Girl pair were doing was also discussed.

Then as the topic turned to first years suddenly most of the first year teachers had nothing to, which was unusual because this was the time discussions about strengths and weaknesses of the new students were predicted along with their overall attitude, so every teacher usually had something to chip in, but this year the enigma that was Harry Potter had blown them away, the word of the mouth about his talents had already done their rounds, of course the credit for that belonged to Minerva.

"So how are our first years doing?" began Albus to get the ball rolling, Pomona began, "well my puffs have settled in, they seem to be doing well and from what I hear they're already putting some effort in studying also associating throughout the house, most particularly miss Abbot and miss Bones, while miss Abbot has a green thumb, she lacks in confidence, while miss Bones on the other hand, is boisterous enough for both of them and then some" Albus heard this and began chuckling fondly recalling one of his former students Amelia Bones the now Head of DMLE, both the Aunt and Niece seem alike, of course it brought along a pang of pain about the deaths of Edgar and Rachel bones, parents of young Susan, but he cleared his head from it for now was the time to think of the future.

"well my ravens have also settled in" began Flitwick, "most remarkably one miss Padma Patil, twin to miss Parvati Patil who went to Gryffindor seems to have been trying to conduct some form of research though what I do not know, but I presume it has something to do with her native roots, given the books she has been asking around for from her peers and seniors" he concluded. "Hmm, good, good" mused Albus, "Now that leaves Slytherin and Gryffindor" he prompted.

"The Slytherins are keeping to themselves as usual and have already began socializing with each other to court alliances and future contacts," began Snape "mr Malfoy has started to establish his dominance in the first years using his father's influence and the younger Crabbe and Goyle" he stated. The rest of the staff wasn't at all enthused over this fact, but knew there was little they could do about it as it was how the things worked in the snake pit, even Bathsheba the runes professor and Hooch the Quidditch and Flying instructor who were Slytherins themselves weren't fond of this but resigned themselves to it.

"Miss Greengrass and Davis are friends just like their fathers, and so it is understood that miss Davis is under the protection of miss Greengrass, and any offense towards her will not be tolerated." Of course, the Davis and Greengrass alliance was as famous as the Potter and Longbottom alliance, the former while not as old as the latter was going strong and it seemed had a bright future, while the future course of the latter was quite unknown, it didn't help that no one had seen the heirs of the two house interact at all, In fact while the Longbottom heir was polite to all and quite out going, it was a wonder that he wasn't a hufflepuff, the Potter heir hadn't interacted with anyone, almost to the point of being rude, whenever asked a question he would simply nod or shake his head, no one had even heard his voice, and when he wasn't in class performing prodigious feats, he was off to lands unknown, never seen by anyone.

And now last but not the least Mcgonagall began, "well as far as my lions are concerned, they're doing fine, in the girls section miss Patil and Brown seem to be getting along well, but they don't seem to be interested in pursuing academic brilliance, of course, it could be simply their youth and excitement of being in a new place, but, I highly doubt it after all not all fingers are of same length," she paused to take a sip from the butterbeer that had been delivered by the house elves sometime at start of the slytherin report, "then there's miss Dunbar, she's fairly average, though she also gets along with everyone, and not to forget, miss Granger, she is a genius in her own right, she soaks up information like a sponge, and has good control over her magic, she's usually one of the fastest to get a spell done in the class itself only rivaled by miss Greengrass and mr Longbottom," the unsaid mr Potter was not missed by anyone, "though she does seem to be having a hard time integrating with her peers given her drive to gather information, and their lack there of, but surprisingly speaking she does seem to get along with mr Longbottom, who for all his talents, and I'd say drive to prove himself is not a book oriented person".

taking another sip of her drink she continued, "And beginning with the boys section, there's the youngest Weasley boy, who thankfully does not share his older brother's tendency to get into shenanigans," at this chuckles went around the table, except for two, the dour man, who sneered at this, and the cat animagus who simply sighed and then forged ahead, "though he has also not inherited his other brothers academic drive, and not to mention his wand seems to be the old one used by his older brother Charlie, but there's nothing that can be done about that, the Weasleys are a family that solves their problems on their own, though hopefully this situation will get solved before anyone gets hurt," at that there were nods of understand, "there's Finnigan and Thomas who also seem to have settled in, the two usually stick with each other, and are doing well".

She paused for a moment and took another sip from her mug, "on the topic of mr Longbottom, I'd like say he has done better than my expectations, he has handled his fame brilliantly, isn't into posing, and gets along with everyone, yet understands that he holds a significant position in our society and has some responsibilities," she paused for a moment and then began "he seems to be quite good in all fields of wanded magic, though he does have an affinity for herbology quite like his mother, and is quite close to miss Granger as I had stated earlier."

Now Mcgonagall stopped once more, and took another sip from her mug, a quite long one in fact, then she began, "mr Potter, seems to be an unique one alright, I mean, in all my years at hogwarts I've never seen someone so.." "extreme," she said the word as if testing it out, "his magical skills have been adequately demonstrated by him in the classes already, and though it'd be considered quite early I'd say that he I quite possibly the most talented child to wander these halls, no offense to anyone," at which again almost everyone chuckled and nodded, except for the potions master who simply scowled deeply.

Flitwick also decided to throw in his two knuts, "well the boy is exceptionally talented, why of course, in his first class alone he demonstrated multiple charms and casted them at point and utterly silently, as usual I had them start with the Lumos charm, and while I had just started to get them to follow my wand moments, the boy had simply pointed his wand skywards, and suddenly blindingly bright light came from it, I had to ask him to turn it off, and then when I asked him if he knew any other charms, he simply proceeded to nod once and perform nearly every charm in their first year book in the same point cast and silent manner, and didn't show any sign of stopping except when the bell rang he suddenly stopped, gathered his things and walked out as if nothing happened." This got the attention of every person in the room, most were either blinking owlishly, or trying to pick up their jaws which had dropped, Snape too had blinked, once, which was his equivalent of bulging eyes.

"He reminds me a lot of Pandora Lovegood nee Mcleod" began Mcgonagall once again "both magically talented yet socially inept, what was the term muggles used, ah, yes, an idiot Savant, brilliant at one field yet average or below average at all others. Well the comparison isn't all that fair, while pandora was bad at socializing and generally made bad first impressions she was quite outgoing, and did try to mingle with her peers, he on the other hand has shown no such drive. Not to mention aside from a physical resemblance to his parents he is quite different from them at the same time, James was one of if not the most active and boisterous child to set foot in this school, it was a rare day when he wasn't heard laughing in the halls going around managing mischief with his friends" commented Mcgonagall, and promptly took a sip from her mug to hide any physical reaction from the pang of sadness that had hit her, the professors who had taught or studied with the boy, man, in question solemnly nodded, while others chose to keep their silence, of course the potions professor was fuming thinking about his dead rival, and sneering at how he was being remembered, something everyone took note of but chose to not comment, and then Mcgonagall continued "his eyes are so much like his mother's but different at the same time, his mother's eyes were the perfect example for the saying that the eyes of a person are the windows to their soul, so expressive, she cared for everyone, was relentlessly kind, and was quite friendly with everyone, she was no saint but knew her limits and fault and to top it all had the courage to accept them something her husband had trouble with, while his windows seem…. Barred for a lack of better description, they express an emotion I cannot put my finger on, yet it also doesn't make me uneasy as whatever lies behind them gives off a feel of innocence for whatever reason."

At this Snape got up and in a tone that conveyed his annoyance, he declared, "that boy is nothing more than an attention seeker just like his father, and that boy is… playing all of you around his fingers."

As he proceeded to storm out of the room, he was stopped by a voice. "wait, Proffesor Snape!" came the authorative voice of Albus Dumbledore, not the barmy old coot who was used to giving nonsensical answers to confuse people and generally make people forget why he was one of the greatest wizard of his age, everyone in the room had taken note of the fact that Dumbledore had called the potions master by his title rather than name which he usually did with everyone, and knew that in that moment Snape was in for a dressing down or a warning at least, "I know of your dislike towards the Gryffindor house and particularly some of its former members, but I will not tolerate you bullying a student for any reason, is that clear?"

"yes, headmaster." Gritted out Snape and made his exit leaving the door open behind him. Dumbledore closed his eyes for a few moments and took in a deep breath, and calmly said, "ladies and gentlemen, I believe that our meeting for today has met its end", most of the teachers took the dismissal for what it was and left the room, heading to their respective quarters and mulling over the whole spectacle that had taken place, once again, though indirectly, caused by the raven haired enigma.

Mcgonagall had other plans it seemed, "Albus, I hope you plan to hold onto your words because in the case Severus tries anything with mr Potter, for all of his…. Uniqueness, this time I will come after his myself", the said heamaster's face suddenly seemed loose all of its energy causing it to age well beyond his years, which was quite contrary to the indecency it possessed to belie it, "Yes Minerva, I pray to every deity in existance that it doesn't come down to that and that Severus can come over his grudge of James Potter and look to young harry for what and more importantly who he is, not only the child of his school time best friend, but also a person of his own," "yes Albus, we can but hope".

*flashback end*

She was brought out of her musings by the bell that was rang before the breakfast, to alert people about it and wake up those still sleeping, not that it usually worked on those determined to sleep in, but it was still rang, and then she proceeded to join her students and fellow Professors in the great hall for the start of the day.

=0=0=0=0=0=

Unknowingly, but, the students were having a discussion similar to the one their teachers had last week, everyone had gotten to see each other and make a judgement about their personalities and abilities, of course these judgements were quite black and white on the most part laced with a dose with prejudice, for they were children and weren't familiar with the shade of grey, the raven haired enigma was missing from the great hall as was par for the course, no one had seen him in the great hall ever since from his first appearance and presumably last appearance, in it for the sorting, they had seen him perform feats of magic which were mind boggling and got everyone's rapt attention, everyone, especially the older students, who wanted to know where he stood with, the pureblood supremacy or the muggleborn moment like Dumbledore and Longbottom. Of course no one had been able to get a hold of him much to their frustrations, he came to the classes at the last moment, followed the professor's instructions for the day, or at least tried to, as he simply, came sat at back end and performed the spell for the week, and removed a random tome and began reading.

Hermione Granger too had been simply getting more and more frustrated with the boy as he was simply escaping her grasp, which for some reason seem to endlessly amuse her only friend, the-boy-who-lived. He had also denied to help her corner the enigma for two reasons, 1) He found it amusing, 2) unlike her he thought it was wrong to ask the boy questions he didn't seem interested in answering, unless he was doing something that'd hurt others he was free to do as he pleased. While she always told him that it was probably more because of the former reason rather than the latter, to which she only received a mirthful smile, in person she believed it was actually the latter.

She understood how fans had harassed him and how difficult his fame was for him, fame which had cost him dearly, and was unasked for. But she held fast unto her convictions too, she believed that knowledge was to be spread and free by nature and one person who hogged all of it was not correct, she was the same age as him and had same magical education as him as she had learned that children do not have access to wands before age 11 because it could hurt their magical cores. So it only made sense for him to have started at the same time as them, yet he was casting spells as if he had done so for years, oh how she yearned for the possibility to ask him all about it.

While the bushy haired gryffindor was contemplating the possibilities of interrogating the enigma, a blonde haired slytherin girl had been also planning to have an audience with him, nothing as extreme as the gryffindor though, obviously, Daphne Anna Greengrass the oldest of the two sisters had been advised by her father to initiate a possible alliance with the enigma after she had informed him of the event that had taken place in the charms class, because it could be quite fruitful if they forged some kind of friendship with him, after all while money was mighty, nothing was mightier than Magical Might in their society. And so while she had thus far failed she knew how to keep her calm, and would strive for it as long as possible, another blond slytherin, Draco Lucius Malfoy had also been tasked by his father to approach the boy and offer their hand towards him, or at least a neutrality, of course they had no intention to keep the neutrality, because if he denied their friendship letting such a boy grow into his powers could be quite troublesome, so he had been trying to talk to him but kept failing much to the displeasure of both his own and his father.

A/N: That's it for today folks, the chapter wasn't harry centric because that is how I want my Harry to be, he is an enigma, a walking contradiction, he is really simple at first sight but has so many layers to him that reaching from first to the second would require a lot of effort, so see you guys later, oh and the next fic will be harry centric where I will give you a better example of his personality in depth, or atleast try to do so.