Harry Potter is not mine, the original story is from Maritza chan and I have help translating/editing it from ArwenFairTinuviel. I'm just making this for fun.
Hello! Happy New Year! First chapter of 2013. I hope everybody is enjoying this fic and please leave your review at the end :)
**There was a mistake in the name of the last chapter. Originally chapter 9 name is 'Halloween'. Sorry for the confusion it may cause**
Hermione was great to have as a friend. She didn't go so far as to let them copy her work, but she did help them a lot. And most of all, she helped Neville in Potions and Transfiguration, the classes in which he had the most problems.
It was the day before the first Quidditch match of the year and the three of them – Neville, Ron and Hermione – were huddled around a fire she had conjured at break time, when they saw Snape limping. He noticed them watching him and as Neville had a panicked, guilty look he made it his business to see what they were up to. Snape found nothing so in bitterness he confiscated Neville's library book on magical plants and took five points from Gryffindor. All three watched him leave with hatred in their eyes.
Neville wanted his book back so badly he did not even bother to pay attention to Hermione while she was explaining a class to him.
"I'll go and get it back," he said with a sudden rush of courage.
"I wouldn't," they warned him, but he didn't care.
Thus he discovered that Snape's limping was caused by a wound from the three-headed dog on Halloween. Luckily Neville didn't faint and made it back to the Common Room without being yelled at by Snape. He immediately relayed the news to his friends: whatever was in the filthy package, Snape wanted it – badly.
xXxXx
"You're nervous" Richard said yet again, with his head deep in a book.
"I'm not!" Harry said, nibbling a chocolate frog nervously.
"Why do you eat like that then?"
"Charles does."
"But Charles is an animal with two legs," Richard explained innocently, narrowly avoiding a book that had been chucked at his head by the accused.
"I'm not an animal! Now let me concentrate."
"Are you studying?" Both boys asked, surprised.
"I'm trying," he answered, and they still stared. "So what?!"
"It's just that you haven't done it since we left primary school..." Richard kept saying, in shock. "Do you want any help?" Another book was launched at him with force in response. "Well Harry," Richard continued, rubbing his bruise, "why are you still nervous when you're so good at flying?"
"I've never played Quidditch in public before," he answered, blushing.
"The poor boy has come over all shy!" joked Charles.
"Shut up! The reason why I didn't play football like you in primary school is mostly due to the fact that… I don't like being looked at…" His friends burst out laughing.
The match went smoothly except that in the stands Neville attempted suicide. While everything in the field was perfectly normal – Gryffindor beating Slytherin – in the stands it was very much otherwise. Neville was excitedly watching the game with his friends when quite suddenly he began to feel particularly bad. Nobody noticed at first because at that moment the Slytherin team captain nearly knocked Harry off his broom, but when Neville tried to jump from the stands everyone turned their eyes to him. How the poor guy was still alive was a miracle, for his body was moving involuntarily with the aim of falling to the ground.
But Hermione came to his aid: setting fire to Snape, because he was sinisterly not breaking eye-contact with Neville, and that way she managed to break his curse and uplift the curse. In moments, Gryffindor won.
While the house was celebrating its Quidditch victory, Neville and his friends were drinking strong tea with Hagrid. It was there where he revealed his theory of Snape and the package to Hagrid, finding out that the horrendous three-headed beast was called Fluffy and that a certain Nicolas Flamel had something to do with it all.
From then on, classes with Snape were simply torture for all in Gryffindor, but especially for Harry and his friends. He forced them all to sit apart, next to the bullying Slytherins, and at the slightest infraction heaps of points were taken from them, and they were sent off to detentions that were hours long. But the boys were already learning to live with such ordeals and behave. Snape and McGonagall seemed to be the only teachers who could hold them off mischief at school.
"I'll be happy once I'm home, eating delicious homemade food and not being told off," sighed Charles after a difficult class.
"Yeah, me too," Harry agreed, already tasting the food, he was dreaming so hard.
"I want to see my dad," Richard lamented.
"I want to go with my dad," sneered Malfoy behind him, but he was not fast enough to dodge the vengeful punch that Harry delivered to his snooty face.
"You know Malfoy, if there is someone I hate more than Snape, it is you – you deserve that and far more besides!"
"Oh yeah?" mumbled Malfoy, through a mouthful of blood.
"Yes," Harry said firmly, "and if you keep bothering us, you will regret it."
"Try it, you bastard."
Only the appearance of Snape himself stopped the punches and spells of the six incensed boys.
"Enough! Potter, Lupin and Black to my office! You know the way by now…" he said with a vindictive grin, "and off you go, the three of you," he said, favouring the boys in his own House most dreadfully.
Once they were in the office, shaking with fury, Snape turned slowly to face them, his black eyes glittering.
"Since today is your last day here before the holidays, you deserve a severe punishment."
"Professor-?" Lupin's quivering hand rose into the air, tempting fate.
"What?" Snape growled irritably.
"Malfoy started it, he made fun of me and the guys just defended me…"
"Everything repeats again!" he muttered acidly and then the leer on his face made them know that it would not be pleasant afternoon, however much they protested at his injustice. "You lot are identical to your parents..."
"But Professor – "
"Silence! I want you all here at five o'clock sharp. I'd like to see you do something that will make you remember your arrogant, mulish behaviour will not be tolerated here while I live."
xXxXx
"You scrub well, Potter," Malfoy mocked Harry from a distance in the boys' toilets.
"When I get my hands on you, Malfoy..." Harry muttered angrily.
xXxXx
Neville spent that Christmas at Hogwarts with Ron, while Harry and his friends returned to their homes. Christmas morning Neville received among all his gifts a book from Harry, Charles and Richard entitled 'SPELLS – silly but useful'. As he had nothing else to do, he began to leaf through it and discovered a spell that would make him become pretty much invisible.
That night, after spending an amazing day amid Hogwarts' extravagant celebrations, he conjured the spell and headed to the restricted section of the Library in search of information on Nicholas Flamel. Luckily the spell lasted long enough to conceal him while he was hiding in a classroom as he tried to escape Filch and Snape. There he accidentally found the Mirror of Erised and for the first time in his memory he saw his parents.
Harry also saw his own parents at St. Mungo's, like every year. His only wish was that one day they would speak to him.
Neville rapidly became obsessed with the Mirror. He took Ron to see his parents but Ron just looked at himself excelling over his brothers, and the pair were almost caught by Mrs. Norris. And still, in spite of Ron's advice, returned again. He was there gazing at the Mirror when someone's voice surprised him from behind. He almost fainted when he saw Dumbledore himself there, but he was relieved to see that the Headmaster was smiling. Dumbledore knew that Neville had been there last night with Ron, and he kindly explained how the Mirror worked and gave him a warning not to go looking for it – and that if he ran into it again, he should be prepared.
xXxXx
Christmas passed and classes resumed. Quidditch training was becoming tougher for Harry. One day after a grueling practice, he had barely reached the Common Room when Neville hobbled in with his legs stuck together. Malfoy had accosted him outside the Library and poor Neville's self-esteem was very low on the ground. Harry had always appreciated the Boy-Who-Lived, though it seemed he had few talents.
"Here," he said, passing Neville a chocolate frog, "you shouldn't let that scum upset you."
"Thanks, Harry…" Neville mumbled sheepishly.
"You're welcome. And if he bothers you again, just let us know, he owes us a few."
"Okay. Here, do you want the card?"
"No, I have that one already, thanks," Harry replied. But Neville looked at the card more carefully and suddenly noticed the name of Nicholas Flamel. Now they knew was what Snape wanted to steal: the Philosopher's Stone!
It seemed that Snape was aware that they knew what they weren't suppose to know, because in the second game of Quidditch (which Neville went to by persuasion of his friends) Snape had the evil intention of sitting near them, perhaps to resume his attack on Neville. Luckily the game was brief and normal, besides that a bludger hitting Snape in the head, to their delight. Then in the stands Neville clashed with Crabbe and Goyle, and Ron fought with Draco. Subsequently Neville spent the next two days in bed in the Hospital Wing.
Before he went to celebrate Gryffindor's Quidditch victory with the others, Harry was walking over to the broomshed to leave his Nimbus 2000 there, when he saw Snape entering the Forbidden Forest. Curiosity got the better of him and he decided to follow Snape.
Thus Harry saw and heard the strange conversation between Snape and Quirrell. It was strange, uncomfortably so. When he finally returned to the Common Room, where there was a big party, he ran into Ron and Hermione and told them all that he had heard. After all, they also knew about the three-headed dog and were close friends of Neville, and by the significant looks on their faces they also knew something else that he did not.
Thanks for reading.