Hey everyone I'm back. I do apologize for the delay. Thank you for continuing to read. I do not own Harry Potter and any words like this belong to JK Rowling. I hope everyone enjoys this chapter. Welcome Sirius!
"Hey buddy." James said as he embraced Sirius. Sirius broke down in tears as he flashed back to the moment he saw his best friends dead body. It was a very emotional few minutes before both men were calmer.
Remus walked over to Sirius, as he grinned at him.
"I always hoped you were innocent." Remus told him, hugging him.
"I'm sorry we didn't trust you enough to tell you about the switch." Sirius told him.
"It was a bad time." Remus nodded. "You couldn't trust the wolf within me. I understand that."
Sirius grinned as he saw Lily and he bear hugged her as well. Once he let go of her he looked around and saw the face of a child whom he recognized immediately. He walked over to him, nervous.
"Hi Harry." Sirius held out his hand. "I'm Sirius Black, your godfather."
"Hi Mr. Black." Harry took his hand.
"None of that Mr. Black business." Sirius laughed. "It's just Sirius. Or Padfoot if you want."
"WAIT!" Fred Weasley stood up. "Padfoot!?"
"As in the great Marauder Padfoot!" George gasped.
"Why yes I am." Sirius grinned. "James here is Prongs, and Remus is Moony."
The Weasley twins stared at the three of them before bowing.
"We are not worthy." They chanted, and you could hear McGonagall groan at the fact that the two biggest pranksters were meeting the marauders.
"Whitetail and Serpico explained what was happening." Sirius told them. "I suggest we start the next chapter."
"There, look."
"Where?"
"Next to the tall kid with the red hair."
"Wearing the glasses?"
"Did you see his face?"
"Did you see his scar?"
"Ugh that must be so annoying." Daphne groaned to Harry. "I knew it happened but I never saw it firsthand."
Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring.
"Funnily enough me and James would have loved that attention." Sirius commented, as James nodded in agreement.
Harry wished they wouldn't, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.
There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk.
"It is a mess for the first week." Lily simpathized. "I got lost almost twice a day. Eventually I learned my way around the castle out of necessity."
"Maybe we should give out maps for first years." Flitwick squeaked out.
"That may not be a bad idea." McGonagall agreed.
"Why did we never think of that before?" Sprout commented thoughtfully.
"Someone always said that it was best for the students to find their own way." Snape commented.
The heads of house glance at Dumbledore, glaring.
The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point new Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!"
"He does that!?" James sat up. "We taught him that!"
Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Harry and Ron managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning.
"Oh that is bad luck indeed." Amelia Bones winced.
Filch found them trying to force their way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose, and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing.
Harry and Hermione glance at one another. Sure he was just passing. No way he was scoping out the area.
Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.
"Dearest ambition for multiple generations." Mr. Weasley commented.
And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.
"Of course!" Moody stated. "It's intent and CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" He suddenly shouted, causing everyone to jump.
They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.
"My favorite class." Neville grins.
"It was your mothers as well." Lily smiled at him.
"You knew her?" He asked?
"Yeah we were friends." Lily told him. "How is she by the way?"
Neville winced, a frown on his face.
"She's still alive, right?" Lily asked, horror on her face.
"Bellatrix Lestrange, her brothers, and Barty Crouch Jr tortured her and Frank into insanity." McGonagall explained to her.
Lily frowned in sadness, hugging the young boy.
Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got Emetic the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.
"He still teaches!?" Amelia Bones gasped.
"Yeah he does." Flitwick told her. "It's hard to tell him he can't teach, as he is part of the school's history."
Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.
"I apologize about that Mr. Potter." Flitwick apologizes. "I was more excited that I could teach your parents son then the boy-who-lived."
Professor McGonagall was again different. Harry had been quite right to think she wasn't a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."
"Same speech every year." James smirked. "And yet you never kicked us out."
Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger had made any difference to her match; Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione a rare smile.
"I got the same smile." Lily smiled.
The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story.
"He was such a weirdo." Susan Bones commented.
"I hope we find out what happened to him this book." Tracey Davis told Daphne and Harry, in which Harry nodded his head.
"You will." Hermione said.
For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Weasley twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.
Harry and Hermione shared another look. The twins unknowingly said Voldemort smelled like strong Garlic.
Harry was very relieved to find out that he wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like him, hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Ron didn't have much of a head start.
Friday was an important day for Harry and Ron. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.
"Took me just as long." An unknown student spoke up.
"What have we got today?" Harry asked Ron as he poured sugar on his porridge.
"Double Potions with the Slytherins," said Ron. "Snape's Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them -- we'll be able to see if it's true."
Snape looked into his lap. He really hopes Lily won't get too mad at his behavior.
"Wish McGonagall favored us, " said Harry. Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, but it hadn't stopped her from giving them a huge pile of homework the day before.
Just then, the mail arrived. Harry had gotten used to this by now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.
Hedwig hadn't brought Harry anything so far. She sometimes flew in to nibble his ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school owls.
"Aww." Luna grinned. "I bet Hedwig can see the Nargles around you. Owls love to eat Nargles."
This morning, however, she fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a note onto Harry's plate. Harry tore it open at once. It said, in a very untidy scrawl:
Dear Harry,
I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three?
I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with Hedwig.
Hagrid
Everyone but the Slytherins all grinned at the half giant. He was always so nice to everyone.
Harry borrowed Ron's quill, scribbled Yes, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sent Hedwig off again.
It was lucky that Harry had tea with Hagrid to look forward to, because the Potions lesson turned out to be the worst thing that had happened to him so far.
James and Sirius clenched their fists, however James tried to calm down. Snape has warned him after all.
At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had gotten the idea that Professor Snape disliked him. By the end of the first Potions lesson, he knew he'd been wrong. Snape didn't dislike Harry -- he hated him.
"What did you do Sev?" Lily sighed.
Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.
"I hate the classroom." Percy Weasley commented. "However the subject itself is fascinating."
Snape, like Flitwick, started the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry's name.
"Ah, Yes," he said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new -- celebrity."
Sirius glared at Snape. Snape took a deep breath. He apologized to James, however Black had almost killed him. He won't apologize until Black did.
James whispered something to Sirius, having caught on to Snape's look at Sirius. Sirius looked like he was angry at James, but stood up anyway.
"Snape I'm sorry for trying to get you hurt by sending you after Remus."
"I'll never forget." Snape tells Sirius. "But I'll be less angry about it. After all you served 10 years in Azkaban for something you didn't do."
Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle sniggered behind their hands. Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Hagrid's, but they had none of Hagrid's warmth. They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.
Snape held in a laugh. No one ever had the guts to say that to him, but he heard students mention it before.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word -- like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -- if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
"That got me super excited to learn potions." Harry told Snape. "But then you made me hate the class."
"I apologize Potter." Snape tells him. "Maybe next year we can work on a private tutor session to help you work without sabatoge."
More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Ron exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. Hermione Granger was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn't a dunderhead.
"Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
The teachers raised their eyebrows. That wasn't taught until the end of first year.
Powdered root of what to an infusion of what? Harry glanced at Ron, who looked as stumped as he was; Hermione's hand had shot into the air.
"I don't know, sir," said Harry.
Snape's lips curled into a sneer.
"Tut, tut -- fame clearly isn't everything."
"I don't think fame could help teach potions." Harry smirked.
He ignored Hermione's hand.
"Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
"That's a third year question Severus!" McGonagall called out.
"Thank you for warning me Snape." James said. "Otherwise you'd be getting cursed now."
Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Harry didn't have the faintest idea what a bezoar was. He tried not to look at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were shaking with laughter.
"I don't know, sir."
"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He had looked through his books at the Dursleys', but did Snape expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?
"I was trying to embarrass you Potter." Snape said. "I once again apologize."
Snape was still ignoring Hermione's quivering hand.
"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
Lily glared at Snape. That's a trick question.
At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.
"I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?"
The Weasley twins winced. Sass and cheek never worked on Snape.
A few people laughed; Harry caught Seamus's eye, and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.
"Sit down," he snapped at Hermione. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"
"Because you never told them to?" Sprout questioned rhetorically.
There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter."
Things didn't improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.
"You must have added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire." Lily realized. "I think your father did the same thing."
"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"
Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.
"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Seamus. Then he rounded on Harry and Ron, who had been working next to Neville.
"You -- Potter -- why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor."
"That wasn't his fault!" Sirius shouted.
"I know Black" Snape rolled his eyes.
This was so unfair that Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Ron kicked him behind their cauldron.
"Don't push it," he muttered, "I've heard Snape can turn very nasty."
As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Harry's mind was racing and his spirits were low. He'd lost two points for Gryffindor in his very first week -- why did Snape hate him so much? "Cheer up," said Ron, "Snape's always taking points off Fred and George. Can I come and meet Hagrid with you?"
At this Hermione glances at Ron to see him sighing. Almost as though Ron never actually wanted to go.
At five to three they left the castle and made their way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door.
When Harry knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rang out, saying, "Back, Fang -- back."
Hermione grinned. She loved that boarhound.
Hagrid's big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.
"Hang on," he said. "Back, Fang."
He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.
There was only one room inside. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.
"Father wasn't joking." Malfoy scoffed. "It's a shed, not a house."
Harry shot up, wand pointed at Malfoy.
"Calm down Harry." Daphne told him. "He'll get his."
"Make yerselves at home," said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Ron and started licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.
"This is Ron," Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.
"Another Weasley, eh?" said Hagrid, glancing at Ron's freckles. I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest."
The mentioned twins smirked.
The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but Harry and Ron pretended to be enjoying them as they told Hagrid all about their first -lessons. Fang rested his head on Harry's knee and drooled all over his robes.
Harry and Ron were delighted to hear Hagrid call Fitch "that old git."
"An' as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D'yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her -- Fitch puts her up to it."
"I hate that man." Hagrid growled.
Harry told Hagrid about Snape's lesson. Hagrid, like Ron, told Harry not to worry about it, that Snape liked hardly any of the students.
"But he seemed to really hate me." "Rubbish!" said Hagrid. "Why should he?"
"Because I bullied him and you look like me." James commented nonchalantly.
Yet Harry couldn't help thinking that Hagrid didn't quite meet his eyes when he said that.
"How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asked Ron. "I liked him a lot -- great with animals."
Ginny smiled at the mention of her favorite brother.
Harry wondered if Hagrid had changed the subject on purpose. While Ron told Hagrid all about Charlie's work with dragons, Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet:
GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST
Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.
Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.
"But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.
Whispers spread throughout the hall. By the time it was silent, most people had come to the realization that the attempted theft was for the object Hagrid had removed.
Harry remembered Ron telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn't mentioned the date.
"Hagrid!" said Harry, "that Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!"
Harry nodded to himself. That's why Quirrell was in the Leaky Cauldron.
There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn't meet Harry's eyes this time. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Harry read the story again. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?
As Harry and Ron walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they'd been too polite to refuse, Harry thought that none of the lessons he'd had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did Hagrid know something about Snape that he didn't want to tell Harry?
The chapter ended and all of Hogwarts sat trying to put what they know together. Daphne glanced at Harry and he nodded at her, confirming that he knew the answers.
Dumbledore was panicking, if Amelia found out about the stone she would never rest until she had him incarcerated for eternity.
Serpico teleported in, a smile on her face.
"I'm glad that you have forgiven one another." She tells Snape, Sirius, and James. "Because of that, I have decided to give you guys something."
"What is it?" Lily asked.
"Nothing much." Serpico said. "Just a bunch of Licorice wands."
The three boys grinned at their favorite candy.
After a few moments everyone settled down for the next chapter.
I will see you all later! Have a nice day!!!
-Beware The Weeping Angels.