By the time Harry and Daphne had finished their spellwork, they had missed dinner. Daphne had managed to freeze a glass of water, and Harry had learned how to melt a glass of ice without melting the glass.
They headed in separate directions to their respective common rooms. Harry knew one of the upper years sold candy and junk food as a side thing, so at least he wouldn't go to sleep hungry. He wished he knew where the kitchens were though.
The odd thing was that Harry didn't see anyone in the halls at all. Even after dinner, students would be milling about, going to teachers, or just going to meet with friends. But there was no one, which was strange, since there were still a few hours before curfew
Harry went up to the Ravenclaw entrance and waited for the riddle.
"How many times can you subtract five from twenty-five?"
After a few seconds of deliberation, two answers came to mind. The first was an infinite amount of times, but that didn't feel right to him, so he answered with his second. "Once. After that you would be subtracting from twenty, not twenty-five."
"Well reasoned," the eagle-knocker replied, before opening up. Harry walked in and saw the entirety of the Ravenclaw house gathered.
"Harry," a prefect jumped and yelled. "Where have you been? We were looking all over for you since you weren't at dinner."
Harry was caught by surprise. "Oh. Well, I wasn't very hungry," Harry said, quickly making up a story. "Today marks ten years since my parents were killed, so I just wanted to find a quiet place…."
Harry was surprised by how quick he thought up an excuse, and how easy it was to sell it. The prefects all looked slightly ashamed for accosting him.
"I guess you didn't hear about the incident at dinner then?" the prefect asked. It was a sixth year girl named Laura Ashcroft. Harry knew she was on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and that a lot of the boys considered the auburn-haired girl to be pretty.
"What happened?" Harry replied.
"Professor Quirrell came running into the Great Hall, saying that there was a troll loose in the dungeon."
"A troll?" Harry said with astonishment. "How the hell does that happen?"
"Beats me," Laura said. "Anyways, Quirrell and some of the other professors left to go track it down and the rest of us were sent to our common rooms. By the time they found the troll, a poor first year got hurt. What was her name again?"
"Hermione Granger, Gryffindor," the other sixth year prefect said. "Apparently she was crying in one of the washrooms and her sound attracted the troll."
"Shouldn't Quirrell be able to handle a troll by himself?" Harry asked. "He is the Defense professor after all."
"That's what we said, but it is possible that there was more than one troll. Flitwick will tell us more when he comes back. They are scouring the school to try and figure out how they got in."
Harry paced back and forth in front of a bookshelf. He was far too jittery to be able to sit down for more than a few seconds. He needed to blow something up, though his most powerful spell was a very simple flame starter, the same one Daphne had used to start the small festival bonfire. It was a special fire in that it could start in any condition, but it wasn't exactly an inferno.
Filius Flitwick arrived in the common room perhaps fifteen minutes later. Everyone gathered around the short man, but Flitwick still had a commanding presence and no one dared speak for fear of missing what he had to say. His usual cheerful self was replaced by a somberness that Harry hadn't yet seen from the man
"The other professors and I have searched every room in the castle, and only came across one troll. It was easily dispatched, but not before it assaulted Miss Granger. She's currently in the hospital wing and will make a full recovery within a few days. She said she had read about trolls in a book and thought she would be able to take it out. So let this be a lesson to you all. Books are a Ravenclaw's best friend, yet books are never a substitute for actual experience. And as Miss Granger is a Gryffindor, perhaps she will now know that bravery is also not a substitute for experience. As for where the troll came from, Headmaster Dumbledore is performing an investigation, and I am hopeful he will get to the bottom of it. As for all of you, classes will continue as normal. I suggest you all get a good night sleep."
Harry sort of felt sorry for the girl, though he had barely spoken more than few sentences to her. He didn't really like her attitude. While Granger was memorizing books to recite them back to teachers, Harry had been actually practicing the spells with Daphne. Granger had gotten Gryffindor a lot of house points, though the troll incident had cost her house fifty points. Talk about pouring salt on to a wound.
Harry found that mildly amusing actually.
The days after that were uneventful, as were the following weeks. Harry watched Hufflepuff lose spectacularly to Slytherin, and Ravenclaw picked up a win against Gryffindor, though the game was very close, and a bit on the long side with the final score being 650 to 530.
Daphne had watched the games with him as well. She had no interest in playing, though years of listening to her father and grandfather prattle on about the sport has ingrained it into her mind, so she did follow the matches, and she also listened to professional matches that her family was involved on, over a radio she had. Harry wasn't quite that involved with the sport yet. He couldn't name half of the teams even in the professional league.
The days grew colder as well, even though it had never exactly been hot up in the hills of Scotland. It had been in the 70's at the beginning of September, and now Harry was finding himself thankful for his robes, and his ability to do a warming charm. It took some practice to not set his shirt on fire every time he did it, but Daphne had been adamant that it's an important spell to learn, and Harry tended to agree.
The effects of the Rite had turned into a dull buzz. It was ever present, but he found himself looking forward to the Midwinter Festival so he could perform the next rite.
Something interesting happened before winter even came. Classes had been going well, though Harry mostly stayed quiet through them, just listening and taking down notes. Any shred of new knowledge was filed away in his mind.
But it was nearly a month after the Rite of Flame, when the school suddenly found itself a bit of a conspiracy.
It was lunch time, and Harry found himself chatting with Lisa Turpin about how long it must have taken Rowena Ravenclaw to enchant the ceiling, which had just begun to show snow falling outside. They just got to discussing how many different spells had to be weaved together to get such a realistic effect, and how powerful they had to be to last for a thousand years, when the side doors of the Great Hall opened, and several wizards, and one witch, all wearing dark red robes, entered into the room.
The professors didn't seem to be surprised by their presence, and it looked like Dumbledore was actually expecting them. The headmaster talked in hushed tones with what Harry took to be the leader. Despite everyone in the hall watching the exchange and keeping deathly quiet, Harry didn't pick up a single word.
And then Dumbledore and the group left, leaving the entire hall to converse in whispers.
"Those were Aurors," Lisa said. "My aunt works in the DMLE. If they were here to arrest someone, they would have been in more of a rush, I'd imagine. Perhaps they're here to investigate the troll incident?"
"Wouldn't they have done that weeks ago though?" Harry asked.
"Politics, maybe?" Lisa replied with a shrug. "Hogwarts mostly operates autonomously, so the Ministry has little say in what goes on here. If the headmaster request Aurors, and the Minister was feeling resentful or something, then the request could be bogged down going through the right channels…"
"Granger could be suing them maybe," Harry said. The girl came back to the classes as soon as she could, but her normal demeanor as replaced with a sullen, downcast one, and she barely raised her hand in class anymore.
"Maybe, but it's hard for any Muggleborn's legal action to get anywhere in a court. It's probably something unrelated."
Harry shrugged. Still, it wasn't every day that a unit of Aurors arrived at Hogwarts (according to some of the seventh years, they hadn't ever seen that before). And the teachers weren't very forthcoming about why, so the students took it upon themselves to make up stories.
Stories about illegal love potions seemed to be the most popular, though Harry wasn't sure why. Making a girl obsessed with you to the point where'd she'd do anything didn't seem like a joking matter.
Dark magic was also a popular theory. Usually such instances that were detrimental to other students were punished within the school's rules, but if a spell was dangerous enough, the authorities would be called. Still, illegal love potions and dark magic were some of the more tame ideas.
Harry thought that if it was something truly serious, that it would be reported in the Daily Prophet, but nothing out of the normal had appeared in the paper the next day, and the paper did tend to report on just about everything.
The one thing that was known was that every student was healthy and accounted for, as were all the teachers. That was the odd part, the fact that the incident just didn't add up with anything else, though it pointed to the troll investigation as the most likely reason, just for lack of any other apparent explanation.
But at the back of Harry's mind, he wondered if an outsider had tried to break in and steal the Philosopher's Stone. Only he and Daphne knew about it, as far as he could tell, and they were both good at keeping secrets, and that could explain why no explanation was forthcoming.
So it was to Harry's surprise when a week later, an explanation was given, and it had nothing to do with anyone's' speculation. At dinner, Dumbledore stood up and got everyone's attention.
"As you are all aware, a squad of Aurors visited Hogwarts last week, and it was for a very specific reason. We have waited to reveal that reason until we were confident of its resolution. I have heard some quite amusing rumors, such as someone using Polyjuice to streak through Hogsmeade naked looking like me… though that could just be me using Polyjuice as an excuse to hide the fact that that actually was me… but I digress."
No one laughed at his lewd idea of a joke, though McGonagall did cough to get his mind back on track.
"Yes, hmm. I will explain what happened as best as I can. To begin, it was discovered that one of our student's pets was an unregistered animagus. I will not disclose which student this was, but I will say that the rest of your pets, and all of the school's owls have been thoroughly checked. This animagus that was in hiding has been hiding for the last ten years. You all know what happened ten years ago, and there's not a day that goes by when we forget."
Dumbledore had Harry's attention now. In fact, it looked like the headmaster was staring right at him as he spoke. Harry was well aware of what happened ten years ago, every second of every day since he had started Hogwarts.
"Few details of that night are public knowledge, some because we're still not exactly sure why it happened. For the last ten years, we were fairly confidant how it had happened. Of course, we are talking about October 31st, 1981, the night Voldemort killed the Lily and James Potter and left their son an orphan, and the night his power was destroyed. The Potters had been in hiding for many months, behind very powerful magic. The magic relied on a Secret-Keeper, and as long as the Secret-Keeper kept the secret, the Potters would be safe. This is important to the story," Dumbledore explained. "But the Potters' were betrayed, this much is public knowledge, but it is essential to note. Sirius Black has been in Azkaban for the last ten years, for the betrayal of the Secret, and the murder of thirteen muggles and his friend Peter Pettigrew. This last name is important, but so is one more detail, so please just bear with me."
Dumbledore paused for a second to happily note that everyone in the hall was listening attentively. "Measures were taken back then, deadly force was authorized when appropriate, and putting people in Azkaban without a trial was common, since you didn't know who to trust, and our manpower was spread thin. It was all we could do to keep the tide of darkness in check. Sirius Black was one of the people never given a trial, as his case seemed closed and shut. He all but admitted to killing the Potters."
"So you all may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with today? As it turns out; everything. The animagus we caught was none other than Peter Pettigrew. Unbeknownst to me, or anyone else save the Potters and Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew was named the Potter's Secret-Keeper at the last minute, and with Sirius Black in Azkaban, the truth never came out. But now it has, and we have spent the last week getting the real story. Peter Pettigrew was the one that betrayed the Potter's. Peter Pettigrew was the one that murdered a dozen muggles to frame his own escape. The story of that day says the only part of Pettigrew that remained after the explosion was a finger, and that is because Peter Pettigrew cut off his own finger, and escaped in his animagus form."
"Now, justice has been given. Both men were put on trial in front of the full Wizengamot and Minister Fudge himself oversaw the proceedings, and to separate the current Ministry from that which was run by his predecessor, Minister Bagnold. Peter Pettigrew was given the Dementor's Kiss, and Sirius Black is now a free man, innocent of any wrong doing. He will be spending the next several months at St. Mungo's recuperating from ten years of exposure to the Dementors, and he will be compensated by the Ministry for is his false imprisonment. Expect a full story in tomorrow's Daily Prophet, and with this bit of drama finished, I bid you all an enjoyable dinner."
Harry frowned. He couldn't help but notice the stares that were directed his way. He knew well enough who his father's friends were. That was one of the first things he researched. James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin. He knew that Black was in prison, and Remus Lupin was somewhere out of the country and had been for some time, having left right after his whole world fell apart in front of him. His mother's best friends were Frank and Alice Longbottom, who were permanent residents of the psychiatric ward at St. Mungo's wizarding hospital.
These were all names that he looked up, as he desperately wanted to get away from the Dursley's permanently. Sirius Black was interesting though, since people started calling him Voldemort's second in command after that night, and how everyone always knew he would follow his family's path to evildoing (that word made Harry snicker). Harry wouldn't pretend to understand that time period and everything the people then had to go through, but it seems like one of those 'hindsight is 20/20' sort of things.
Harry didn't know what to feel. He didn't even know if he should be feeling anything. Harry couldn't remember his parent's friend's faces, so he had no connection to them. Hell, he couldn't even remember what his parents looked like, since he was just a baby when they were killed. He couldn't find pictures either, though he didn't exactly search high and low for them.
He decided he wasn't going to do anything. He figured that if Sirius wants to get to know his best friends son, he could contact him, but Harry wasn't going to initiate it.
Harry did learn a lot the following days, as there was many newspaper articles about the case. He learned a lot about the wizarding justice system, and that the case was big enough to have warranted an emergency Wizengamot session. The whole thing was meticulously recorded and done by the books. Minister Fudge was gaining popularity, since he was fixing the mistakes of the previous Minister.
Harry hadn't grown up during the worst of the war, yet he was still appalled by the measures the Ministry was forced to take to ensure its integrity. There were magics so powerful that they could control a person's actions without anyone being aware. It reminded Harry of the early Communist scares of the 1950s that he had learned about.
He learned that Sirius Black wasn't the only one shuffled away without a trial, and the Ministry would be reviewing old cases to make sure there were no more mistakes, but that could take them months or even years.
The young wizard found himself with a lot on his mind as the weeks passed by. He had found it hard to study at times, so he had taken to playing exploding snap with some of his housemates. The wizarding game turned out to be quite fun, and a good distraction from everything that had happened. The case was all the world could talk about, even weeks later, and it was getting annoying.
Winter break snuck up on the castle while the Ministry was still covering the Sirius Black case. Harry was the only first year staying for the break, since everyone else had families at home. Without Daphne there, Harry didn't know what to for the Midwinter Festival's Rite, but he doubted anyone still at castle could or would help.
A foot of snow had come from somewhere, seemingly overnight. Left to his own devices, Harry didn't do much, rather, he just enjoyed the silence of the castle. The only spell Harry worked on was a flash charm which was like the normal Lumos, except it was a very bright flash that lasted a second and meant to disorientate. It wasn't terribly difficult, which was just a flash of light that didn't have any impact on the physical surroundings at all, but it wasn't in the first year or second year curriculum, and Harry had checked. He didn't want to spend time learning a spell just to have it taught during class.
Harry knew it was dangerous to be practicing magic and learning spells on his own time, but he did have a slight sense of adventure, though he was very meticulous in his procedure. There was a fine line, and Harry didn't feel like he was anywhere close to crossing it.
The students had only been gone three days before Midwinter was upon them. Harry was surprised to find a package on his nightstand, addressed from Daphne. He was glad to see that Daphne hadn't forgotten about him, and included the verses to a song commonly sung at Midwinter Festivals. In addition, she included a bracelet of charred wood strung on a piece of unicorn hair. Daphne explained that the wood was from her village's bonfire, and that it would bring him good luck in the upcoming year. He folded the song in half and put in his pocket, and immediately fastened the wood bracelet to his wrist. He could feel the subtle magic coming off of it, sticking to his skin. It reminded him of nature.
There were very few people in the castle for meal times. There was Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall and the Ancient Runes Professor, Bathsheba Babbling, who looked to be even older than Dumbledore. There was a scattering of students, the youngest of which was probably a Hufflepuff third year by the name of Charles Sterling. There was so few people at Hogwarts that there was only one table set up for everyone, and they filled maybe a fifth of it.
Dinner wasn't the interesting part though; it was what Harry did afterwards. There was nothing in the castle at all to signify the Winter Solstice, so Harry had to make due by using the same room he and Daphne had used for Samhain.
Harry knew there were many types of magic, and not all of them were so easily categorized as charms or hexes and the like. During the sorting ceremony, they had sung the Hogwarts anthem, and Dumbledore had commented that music was a magic greater than any they taught there. Harry took those words to heart as he created a small bonfire in much the same manner that Daphne had done, and he began to sing the song of Midwinter.
It was a song about the last feast of the year, before the deep cold settled in. The last of a village's cattle would be consumed, as to not have more mouths to feed through the winter, and the first of the fresh batches of beer and wine would be drunk. It was a song about merry singing and dancing, and about community. It was the observance of the passing of the Sun god to that of the Moon god, and for the next six months, prayers would be dedicated to the Moon.
The song itself was more like a story, and it was long. And Harry couldn't carry a tune to save his life, but it was fun – though that was mostly because no one was there to make fun of him. He had trouble finding the rhythm to the words, but the story itself interested him greatly, as it was made during a much simpler time where magic was the primary focus in one's life, rather than just a tool.
He had thought he was all alone, until he heard a hauntingly melodic and beautiful voice take up the song. He looked around to see who it was, as he hadn't heard a door open. It was obvious why after a few seconds.
The voice belonged to the Ravenclaw ghost, the Grey Lady. Harry hadn't ever heard her speak before, as she was a very sad, lonely ghost, but her voice was lovely to listen too. The ghost was even dancing in the light of the small bonfire, causing her ethereal form to flicker oddly. She was twirling herself around, causing her ghostly dress to fan out, and there was an odd grace to her movements. It was an interesting experience, all things considered.
"That was beautiful," Harry said to the ghost after they finished the story song. The ghost just looked at him back, though the sadness that was usually present in her face had turned into a small smile.
"It is always nice to see a child partaking in the old ways. So few do…"
"I love it," Harry said honestly. "The feeling of the magic, the knowledge of the culture, the sense of belonging I feel, which I didn't have before Hogwarts…"
The ghost floated closer to Harry. "You have been blessed, child, I can see it in your soul. Continue on this path, and you will do great things for our world, I can see it."
"Blessed? How so? I've only just started learning about the old ways…"
"It means somehow in the past performed the Rite of Life upon you as a baby. When I was still alive, the 'old ways' as you refer to them we all we knew, so every child had the Rite of Life performed. It helps in early childhood where many of us would die before we would come into our magic."
"When did you live?" Harry asked curiously. He realized it was a bad question when the ghost suddenly turned away. But he was still surprised when she answered.
"The 900's," the Gray Lady said simply. "Even with the Rite, which some would call a prayer, more children would die than live to adulthood. But your generation has standardized medical practices, spells, and potions, which ensures that nearly every child has the chance to grow up. So, many of you think the old songs are unneeded now, and many have been forgotten. It saddens me, since there is so much more to magic than that."
"The 900's?" Harry asked with surprise. "Did you know the Founders?"
The ghost turned around and bored her ethereal eyes into Harry's. "You are an inquisitive child," the ghost said. "My mother would approve of you."
"Your mother?"
"Rowena Ravenclaw. I was once known as Helena."
"Oh, wow," Harry said with awe. That the Gray Lady was the daughter of one of the Four Founders was astonishing. He would never have guessed.
"Very few know that information," the ghost said. "I do not give my name out lightly, for reasons you will probably figure out when you inevitably leave this room to go digging into my past."
"I won't tell anyone," Harry said firmly.
The ghost nodded her head. "It was nice speaking to you, Harry James Potter," she said, before fading out from the room.
Harry looked around to see that she had truly left, and she had. The magic of the bonfire had made itself known, even though he hadn't actually performed magic. There's power in words though, and in song, and he was feeling giddy about the whole thing. Hell, he talked with Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter, and that seemed like a special moment that might not ever happen again.
Harry sighed as he extinguished the bonfire. Chances are, that would be the best night of the whole winter vacation, and there were still two weeks left. That was not a good feeling.
He wished he knew how to clean a room of all magical traces, if that was the right phrase, or if it was even possible. He knew a spell to freshen the air, and he knew a spell to scrub the stone with, but that just removes the physical trace. He'd have to think on it.
It wasn't that celebrating around a bonfire was illegal or anything, he'd just rather not have to answer those kinds of questions. The Boy-Who-Lived shouldn't be practicing the old pureblood traditions, he should be singing about Santa Claus and reindeer, and other nonsensical, whimsical flights of fancy.
But no, Harry much preferred the songs about the harvest and the moon. After experiencing the magic, he couldn't see it any other way.
Notes: I didn't trust my songmaking skills to come up with a long ballad to be sung. You can just imagine some song from your favorite folk band. I have a bad habit of naming stories after songs, and this story is named after a song by Blackmore's Night called fires at midnight.
Also, a note about chapter 3. There is a difference between a Rite and a magically binding oath. Harry said some words and evoked some magic, but he in no way restricted his future use of magic, that's not the purpose behind the Rite. It's just something Harry will think about as he grows older, and he will come to realize that someone like Voldemort has gone against all of it.
As usual, if you see any glaring spelling/grammar errors, feel free to tell me.