And here's chapter ten. I think this is the longest chapter I've written for this fic so far, so I hope you all enjoy it!
Thanks again to my wonderful beta Secondary Luminescence for all the fantastic work she has been doing, not just helping with the new chapters, but also revising the old ones as well. Thanks as well to everyone on DLP who has given me very helpful feedback. This chapter is better because of you.
Rule or be quiet. Don't lose yourself, giving
What you do not have.
What's worth the Caesar you might have been? Enjoy
The little you are.
The vile shack gifted you is more welcoming
Than the palace owed.
Ricardo Reis
The next day, they only had time for the barest discussion of the night's events. Harry was extremely grumpy and edgy from the lack of sleep, but had come to the conclusion that keeping mum was the better idea, which was met with general agreement. Despite his wonder and slight resentment at Snape not liking him, Harry knew his Head of House was an extremely competent wizard, and if he was on the alert for potential thieves, the Stone should be safe. Besides, Harry did not think that Snape would pass on the opportunity to punish him for breaking curfew and going down the forbidden corridor, and in a happy coincidence, punish his friends as well.
The next few days went according to Harry's by now well established routine. He met up with Morag again, with whom he was developing a nice rapport. He spent most of his time with Ted and Daphne; the latter had become a closer friend after their nighttime adventure. Even though Harry was the catalyst for their friendship, she and Ted seemed to be becoming friends in their own right, which pleased Harry in no small amount. He appreciated harmony between his friends.
Soon the day dawned for the Slytherin-Ravenclaw Quidditch match. Harry was quite keen to see what the hype was all about, and Daphne's enthusiasm for the game was contagious. Sitting at breakfast in the Great Hall with Ted and Daphne on either side, he was subjected to a constant stream of predictions for the game, including an analysis of possible strategies that might be used by the Slytherin team, and the strengths and weaknesses of the Ravenclaw team. When breakfast was finished, they headed out to the Quidditch pitch, going early to find good seats. Daphne had managed to capture Ted and Blaise, who both walked next to her being treated to a dissection of the previous Ravenclaw match. Meanwhile, Harry had fallen back, smiling at his friend's enthusiasm, but feeling slightly lost as he hadn't actually seen a game played yet. He took to walking with Tracey, who had been following the group of first year Slytherins moving towards the pitch, but had not had much to say by way of comment.
Harry gave the brown haired girl a smile. "Hello Tracey. Not a big Quidditch fan?" he asked, wondering at her silence.
Tracey gave him a shy smile in return. "I'm not that into it, no," she replied. "Certainly nothing like Daphne there," she went on, pointing towards the black haired girl with her chin.
Harry grinned. "I don't think you'll find many people who are as Quidditch crazy as she is. She's obsessed with making me try out for the team next year," Harry explained.
"Oh yes, I share a dorm with her, remember," Tracey replied. "We've all heard about how stubborn you are." She paused, then added slyly. "You'd think she had some other motive for wanting you on the team."
Harry kept walking for a second without reaction before the full force of Tracey's statement hit him, upon which he flushed bright red.
Tracey laughed at Harry's embarrassment. "I just wanted to see your reaction," she said, sticking out her tongue at him. "To be honest it doesn't seem like that at all, she just really wants to have the best team possible, I think."
Harry gave a sigh of relief. He really didn't understand girls when they were being all... girly. "Does she also rant at you about what an injustice it is that first years aren't allowed their own brooms?"
Tracey laughed. "Yeah, we've heard that one a few times. Though I can kind of see her point; she's actually really good at flying. You're better, though," she added, blushing and looking down.
Harry flushed slightly at this. "Daphne thought so too. I guess I'll need to actually watch a game to know whether I'd want to or not, but I don't know. Flint scares me a bit," he confessed.
Tracey nodded, smiling. "Yeah, he doesn't seem that friendly, I certainly wouldn't want to have to take orders from him."
They were closing in on the rafters now, and they climbed the stairs, Daphne leading the way, until they finally reached a height she deemed acceptable for viewing the action. They took their seats along the gathering sea of green scarves. Here and there were students holding high banners displaying the Slytherin snake. Across the pitch from them, many Ravenclaw students had also turned up earlier. The Gryffindor and Hufflepuff stands were much emptier, only a few die-hards having bothered to show up early to save good seats.
Harry took his seat between Daphne and Tracey, while Ted sat next to Blaise in the row below them. Blaise and Daphne were hotly discussing the Ravenclaw team's possible strategies. Harry took the time to look around the pitch, taking in the scoring hoops at both ends and trying to gauge the distance between them. He wondered how fast one could fly from one end of the pitch to the other.
Ted looked up at him. "Excited yet?" he asked, a wry smile on his face, which betrayed that the taller boy was not particularly excited himself.
Harry shrugged. "Hard to be excited for something you haven't seen yet, but I'm definitely curious," he answered.
"You haven't seen a Quidditch match?" Tracey asked, surprise evident in her voice.
"Remember I was in the hospital wing when we had the match against Gryffindor," Harry replied, trying not to let his displeasure at recalling the incident show up on his voice. "And I just wasn't ever curious enough to watch matches between the other teams. It's not like I could try for the team this year even if I wanted to..." he trailed.
Tracey nodded. "My dad has taken me to a couple of professional Quidditch games. He's a big Appleby Arrows fan. I'm not hugely into Quidditch, but it's nice to watch the odd game once in a while, even if it's just for the atmosphere. Even here it's really amazing to watch our entire house come together for this, though all the other houses always root against us," she said.
Harry nodded. "Yeah, we're not even all here yet and it already feels pretty impressive. Is it always like this?" he asked.
"It was even better when we played Gryffindor. It's such a shame you missed that. Our rivalry with them just made it much more intense!"
Harry nodded, but as there was nothing he could do about that, he wouldn't worry about it. They spent the time until the game actually started listening in to the rest of Daphne's enthusiastic predictions, punctuated by Blaise's opinions and an occasional interjection by Ted or Tracey, with Harry asking a question once in a while.
The stands kept getting more populated, especially the sections allocated for Ravenclaw and Slytherin; the sections for Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were more vacant, but on Harry's estimate probably more than half of those Houses had still turned up. To the annoyance of the gathered Slytherin first years, the other two Houses seemed to overwhelmingly support Ravenclaw.
"I wish I could say it's just because we're leading and they want us to lose so that they would still have a chance to win the Cup, but..." said Daphne, letting the sentence unfinished because little more needed to be said.
The players finally made their entrance into the pitch, heralded by a Gryffindor boy with dreadlocks who was apparently doing the commentary from a raised stand, his voice magically projected to all spectators. He announced the names of the members of Ravenclaw team, and then those of Slytherin.
The Slytherin captain Marcus Flint looked as threatening as ever to Harry. There were rumours that there was a troll somewhere in his family tree. Having seen a troll on Halloween, Harry didn't know how that could be possible, but he would rather not dwell on that too much. Flint's demeanour certainly didn't help matters.
After the release of the small golden ball Harry had learned was called the Snitch, and the two cannon balls called Bludgers, Madam Hooch made the two team captains shake hands and then threw the large ball called the Quaffle up. Harry cheered on cue when one of the Slytherin Chasers grabbed it and, after violently shoving the nearest Ravenclaw aside, flew towards the goal guarded by the Ravenclaw Keeper. The indignant commentary from the Gryffindor commentator, whom Harry learned from Ted was called Lee Jordan and extremely biased against Slytherin, bellowed throughout the pitch as the Slytherin chaser progressed towards goal, followed by the other Chasers.
When that play led to a goal, the Slytherin stands erupted into even louder cheers, most of them rising from their seats. Slytherin gained an advantage fairly early on, thanks in part to what was borderline legal playing according to Daphne, who was keeping up a constant commentary which was much more even handed than Jordan's; some of the advantage, though, was simply because the Slytherin team was just plain better than the Ravenclaw one.
Harry knew that Seekers were supposed to try to capture the Golden Snitch, thereby earning a hundred and fifty points and winning the game. He thought that kind of made the rest of the game just window dressing for the Seekers, but didn't voice his opinion. He didn't know whether it was an illusion, but he thought he had seen a flash of gold more than once. There was no way to alert Terence Higgs, their Seeker, though. He did point this out to his friends, who couldn't confirm it either way, though Daphne looked impressed, which Harry found rather foreboding. He was never going to hear the end of her cajoling him to try out now.
Finally, when their house was ahead by 110-40, Higgs saw the Snitch. The Ravenclaw seeker was fast in his pursuit, but Higgs was better and seemed to have a faster broom as well. The game was soon over, Slytherin having won by 260-40, trouncing Ravenclaw and almost guaranteeing their victory on the Quidditch Cup. The Slytherins marched to their dorms in high spirits, though their cheer couldn't drown out the boos from the rest of the Houses. More than a few of Harry's older housemates gave the other houses' stands the two finger salute, which Harry found quite amusing.
"So, what did you think of Quidditch," asked Daphne, recapturing Harry and his friends' attention.
Harry shrugged. He didn't want to say anything that would commit him to trying out. "To answer what you really want to know, I'll consider trying out, but I'm not making any promises."
Daphne punched him in the arm and laughed. "Prat," she said. After a pause, she added. "That's good to know, though, but I'm actually interested in what you thought.
"It was interesting, but I don't think you'll ever turn me into a rabid fan," he said with a grin.
They walked back to their common room in gentle banter. Once there, they were met by a party celebrating the team's victory, which Harry found surprisingly fun. Hogwarts was awesome.
The morning of the following week's Saturday, after breakfast, Harry and Tracey were walking towards the library. Harry felt he had not spent as much time as he perhaps could have with her. She had always been really nice to him, though, and Harry was happy to help her, as he enjoyed spending time with her anyway.
They were going to study Transfiguration, which was still just as much of a weak spot for Tracey as it was a strength for Harry. His aptitude did not come without effort; it was the result of a lot of practice. McGonagall had started the year by warning them how complex her class was, and she had not been wrong. The odd thing was that while objectively the magic was more complicated, it always came to him easier than Charms or Potions did. Not that he had a Neville Longbottom level of trouble, but he just was not a natural in those branches of magic like he was with Transfiguration.
Tracey, on the other hand, did well in most classes, but seemed to really struggle with McGonagall's subject. Harry had helped her earlier in the year in a more focused manner, but after that they just never managed to find the time. Recently, Harry had learned about Tracey's renewed difficulties through Daphne, who seemed to be her best friend among the Slytherin girls. Their mutual friendship had not yet translated into Tracey being in Harry's inner circle of friends, but he liked the somewhat-mousy girl nonetheless. And while he did enjoy tutoring her, he did not lose sight of the fact that she would owe him a favour for the time and effort he put into helping her.
"So what would you like to cover?" Harry asked Tracey, breaking the silence as they approached the library.
Tracey looked at Harry with a slightly bashful smile, and replied, "Well, I think I've got the hang of the inanimate object transfigurations we covered earlier, but transfiguring animals into objects is still really tricky for me. I can usually turn a beetle into a button, but even then the wing marks are still on it."
Harry nodded. "Did you bring a beetle?" he asked with a grin.
Tracey opened her bag to revel a small wooden case. "In here," she said. "I'm not that dim."
Harry briefly wondered if she was upset by him asking, but her smile gave the lie to that. Keeping the case in her hand, she walked beside Harry through the doors of the library. Giving a polite nod to Madam Pince, they walked past her desk towards the secluded table Harry generally favoured. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry noticed Hermione Granger poring over some dusty tomes and wondered if she ever left the library during its opening hours. Then again, he himself had acquired a bit of a reputation among his house-mates for spending too much time in there. He couldn't help it: magic was so amazing that he always wanted to know more about it, though he liked to think he had not descended to Granger-like depths yet.
They finally reached their intended destination, and laid their things on the table before taking a seat next to each other. Tracey was reaching for the beetle case's opening, but Harry prevented her by grabbing her hand and pulling it away from the box. After a second, he realized he was holding a girl's hand and dropped it like it was on fire, looking away and feeling quite flustered.
"Leave the beetle for now," Harry said, slowly turning his head back towards Tracey, who looked slightly flushed, and was looking down in embarrassment. Happy to avoid any mention of what had just happened, Harry went on. "Not a lot of point in diving right into the magic without making sure you understand the principles. I know it's really boring, but with Transfiguration there's no way around it. It's not like Charms where you don't need to know anything about the theory, but if you just swish-and-flick and say the right words it works," Harry said, motioning with his wand as he spoke.
His exaggerated motions made Tracey giggle slightly. "Watch out or you'll put someone's eye out with a spell," she said, grinning at Harry.
Harry smiled back at Tracey. "Maybe I should be more careful," he said, laying his wand back down on the table. "But my point it, you really need to know what you're doing in Transfiguration."
He reached for his bag and retrieved the textbook, as well as a stack of parchment containing his copious Transfiguration notes. He opened the former to the first chapter covering animate-to-inanimate transfigurations. "Have you read this?" he asked Tracey, his demeanour more focused than before.
Tracey nodded. "I read the whole thing. I went through it last night again as well, because I knew we were going to work on it today. I think I understand most of it, but there's little things that I just don't get," she said, frustration mounting in her voice.
Harry nodded. "Well, let's look at those things, then!" he said with a smile. "Let's start with this first chapter..."
They spent a couple of hours going over the material. Harry tried to probe what Tracey's difficulties were, and after a while seemed to recognize a pattern in her trouble. She was thinking too much about the process of changing the object or animal in physical rather than magical terms. Consequently, the result often bore the marks of the original. He explained his conjecture to Tracey, who frowned in response.
"Hmm, I think you might be right, actually. I never realized that how I think about the change could affect how well I did things," she said, sounding frustrated but relieved. "Do you think that could have something to do with me spending a lot of time in the muggle world with my mother?" she asked warily, sounding like she was afraid of what the answer might be.
Harry shook his head. "Remember, I didn't know I was a wizard until last year, and I don't seem to have that problem," he said, trying to be modest about his Transfiguration prowess. "At least you've also been in the magical world." Harry thought there was something slightly odd in what Tracey had just said, but couldn't put his finger on it, so he decided to ignore it. "I think it's just how your mind is wired. Try not to think so much about that's happening."
Tracey nodded, though a frown still creased her brow.
"Let's get that beetle out now," Harry continued, wanting to test his theory.
Tracey reached for the case and opened its top. Underneath were small wooden bars which prevented the beetle from escaping, though they were wide enough that a wand could fit between them.
Harry reached for his wand again, and held it above the beetle. "Watch closely," he said, and proceeded to cast the spell to transform the beetle into a button, taking care to do it at a deliberately slow pace so that Tracey could notice all the required wand movements. Once he was done, he looked back at her. "Did you get all of that?" he asked.
Tracey nodded. "I think so."
"Good," Harry said, and then turned the button back into a beetle. "Do the wand movements now, but don't actually cast the spell, and don't worry about what you need to think. Just do the wand movements until you're sure you can do them without thinking. That way you can focus more on the magic when you're actually casting it."
Tracey nodded and, after grabbing her own wand, performed the movements a few times. Harry gazed intently at her simulacrum of casting, trying to detect any missteps. He only stopped a small mistake once, which he didn't think would have affected the end result much, but there was no point in letting bad habits go unchecked.
Finally, when he judged she had the movements down well enough, Harry said, "Good, I think you've got that. Now, try to cast it. Don't worry about how it's supposed to happen, just do it. It might help you to focus if you imagine it happening in your head. Harry didn't think that was needed to have the spell work, but figured it would boost her confidence in her success.
Tracey nodded and pulled the beetle's small wooden case towards her. She looked intently at it and, with a determined glint in her brown eyes, raised her wand and cast the spell.
Harry had been looking at her as she did it, trying to look encouraging while analysing the wand movements. He did not detect any mistakes in her technique, and indeed, when he looked down at the case, he found it no longer contained a beetle, but a perfectly transfigured button. He looked up to meet Tracey's smiling face, her eyes beaming at him with joy.
"It worked! I can't believe it, it actually worked perfectly. Thank you so much, Harry!" She said excitedly. Her voice rose perceptibly as she spoke those words, with the final sentence being hard enough to earn them a sharp 'shh' from Madam Pince, who was nowhere to be seen but seemed to be magically aware of where and when noise levels were getting too high.
She cringed at the reprimand, but still eyed Harry with a grateful look which made him slightly embarrassed.
Harry smiled softly at her. "You did it, I just gave you some pointers. I think you worry too much," he went on, hoping he wasn't widely off base. "You seem to be worried growing up in the muggle world affects how well you can do magic. That's just our Housemates' talking getting to you! I thought your dad was a wizard, anyway," he went on, finally connecting the dots as he spoke to what he had thought seemed off base earlier on.
Tracey blushed at his words, and looked slightly embarrassed, but didn't seem angry at him. Harry had hoped she remembered their talk earlier in the year and wouldn't think he would think any less of her for growing up in the muggle world.
"I sort of had one foot in each world growing up. My mum and dad just didn't work out. I don't think it was the magic issue that made their marriage not work, but it didn't anyway. So I sort of spent time with both of them, and although I went to muggle primary school, I got to meet other wizard kids who were children of dad's friends or family. I actually knew Daphne from before school. Her mother is dad's cousin," she said, speaking really quickly, her cheeks bright red.
Harry raised his eyebrows at this unexpected revelation, but managed to restrain his curiosity. He hadn't known closely anyone whose parents had split up, so he didn't really know how to handle the discussion, but he would try to be tactful. "I'm sorry about that. I shouldn't have asked..." he trailed, twisting his mouth into an apologetic grimace. He didn't think he was being very eloquent, but he hoped Tracey wouldn't hold it against him.
She smiled at him. "Oh, don't worry about it. I don't even really remember them being together, and they seem to get along well. In fact," and here she grinned mischievously, "they've got back together for a few short times. I can't really figure them out sometimes, but I don't really have a problem with it." She paused for a while, then went on, while Harry was still wondering how to reply. "I really hadn't given a lot of thought to what house I'd be in at Hogwarts. Dad was a Ravenclaw, but I don't really take after him in that way, I'm not as studious or as smart," she said, looking slightly abashed.
"You shouldn't say that," Harry interjected lamely, but again he was a bit lost. He felt almost as lost as when he had talked about being an orphan with Morag, his childhood of emotional neglect having left him less prepared to deal with emotional exchanges than even the average eleven-year-old boy. Tracey seemed about to reply with a shrug, but suddenly a better retort occurred to him. "You were put into Slytherin, not Hufflepuff! The Hat may not have thought you were Ravenclaw bookish smart, but it must have thought you had cunning and resourcefulness," he said, hoping this hit the right note.
Tracey gave him a small smile in return. "That's nice of you, Harry. I suppose I must have been put here for a reason, and I suppose you're right that I do second guess myself most of the time. I don't really understand why the Hat thought I belonged here, to be honest," she said, her frown returning as she vented at Harry.
Harry raised his eyebrow in an exaggerated manner at this. "You think you had a shocking Sorting," he said, smiling.
Tracey looked back at him and laughed quietly for a few seconds, looking down in slight embarrassment.
Harry went on. "Yet here I am. Honestly, I couldn't see myself as fitting better anywhere else, despite McGonagall probably thinking Gryffindor had some sort of claim on me. Do you think you'd be better somewhere else? I can't really see you as a Hufflepuff," he said, hoping his tone conveyed the light-hearted teasing he meant it as.
Tracey actually looked up to face him and smiled. "No, I suppose you can't. You're right, it's my fault for obsessing about it so much. I don't even know why I do it; most people in Slytherin are really alright—in our year, at least. I guess what my dad told me about the houses has influenced me a bit. But he wasn't in Slytherin, so how would he know what it was like?!"
Harry smiled at her and nodded. "Yeah, look, you're doing fine." He paused for a second trying to choose the best words for what he was about to say. "Feel free to talk to me about things if you think it'll help you. I don't bite, honest," he finished.
Tracey actually blushed at this, which wasn't Harry's intention at all! He wondered if he would ever understand girls. Casting her eyes down at her hands, she said, "Thanks, Harry. That's really nice of you. I really appreciate you taking time to help me." She looked up at him and flashed him a grateful smile, before getting up. "I should go now. I promised mum I'd write her more often this term. See you later," she said, and took her leave down the library's many book cases before Harry could stop her or say anything in retort.
He blinked. He hoped he hadn't said anything too stupid, and going over his words and Tracey's responses, he didn't see anything that would have upset her. Deciding to attribute it all to the mysteries of the female mind, Harry glanced at his watch and realized he still had a bit of time left before lunch in which to do some of the research he had been putting off.
While the subject of the Philosopher's Stone had been dropped, he had certainly not forgotten about it. He was still quite keen in finding out more about what exactly was involved in alchemy. Rising, he headed towards the shelf where he knew the library catalogue to be located.
Once he obtained the magically updated folio, he flipped to the letter 'A' for 'Alchemy'. It didn't look like there a wealth of information on the subject, especially not as an introduction. It seemed a bit strange to have advanced books without introductory ones, but then again, was the introduction contained in something like Potions? In all fairness, Alchemy was not taught at Hogwarts, at least not that he knew about. There was no way he was going to ask Snape about anything unless he really had to, so he would have to find out for himself.
Shaking his head, he skipped a few books with were located in the restricted section, as he was never going to get a pass for that either. Most of the available books that did not look extremely advanced seemed to be only tangentially related to what Harry would really like to know. Finally, Harry located one book that seemed to be of the right level, but sufficiently focused on the topic, and that was not on the restricted section. His eyes scanned the page trying to find its current location. Harry cursed softly under his breath when he found that the book was already checked out. Wondering who had requested it, his eyes drifted further across the page, reading the words 'Checked out by Hermione Granger (G).' Of course.
Harry closed the catalogue with an angry snap and replaced it on the shelf where he had taken it from. Of course, of all the students in Hogwarts, it had to be her. He walked slowly towards his table. Did this mean she had figured out who Nicholas Flamel was? Quite possible, though she didn't seem to be doing anything with that information. Harry snorted to himself. All that commotion with Weasley for nothing. Harry stopped on his tracks and smiled. That memory gave him an idea.
Turning on his heels, he headed towards the table at which he had seen Granger earlier. Fortunately, she was still there. Her unmistakeable bushy hair hid her face as she pored over a book and made copious notes.
With a sigh, Harry steeled himself for what he was about to do, hoping he hadn't made a tragic miscalculation somewhere. He strode towards the table where the Gryffindor girl sat, moving as silently as he could. He stopped directly behind her, having been successful in his aim of remaining undetected.
After quickly glancing around to make sure no one was nearby to mess things up, he raised his hand to his mouth in a closed fist, and coughed with a soft 'Ahem' intended to get the attention of the girl sitting in front of him.
It worked better than Harry expected, as she jumped in her seat and, he was sure, would have shouted were they not in the library. She quickly turned around and faced him with a scowl. Upon seeing Harry, however, her scowl gave way to a confused look, though an undertone of annoyance at having had her study interrupted was still present on her features.
"Potter? What do you want?" she said curtly. "Where's your mopey friend or that harridan you had with you last time?"
Harry blinked at this. He didn't think Granger would have had it in her to try to insult his friends, though he actually just found the description amusing. "And good morning to you too," he said, remaining collected. "Nice weather we're having," he finished, now just taking the mick. After a pause, he added. "Daphne was helping you, you know. You could be a bit nicer when you talk about her."
Granger snorted, but seemed slightly less on edge. "Quite," she said. "And it was not at all that she saw a chance to curse a Gryffindor? Mind you, Weasley was being a twat and fully deserved what he got, but don't expect me to believe she did it out of the goodness of her heart."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Have you ever even spoken to Daphne? Gryffindors..." he scoffed. "Anyway, as eye opening as all that is, I'm really not here for a chat," he said. He had let himself get sidetracked and lost a bit of the surprise effect he had been relying on, and he didn't want to earn Granger's hostility needlessly.
She eyed him disapprovingly. "I figured, which is why I asked what you wanted," she retorted shortly. Trying to look as mild as possible, Harry replied, "According to the library catalogue, you have one book I want to read," he explained, trying to sound as nonchalant about it as he could. "An Overview of Lesser Used Magics, I believe the title is. Do you think you'll be done with it soon?" he asked.
At the mention of books, Granger seemed to soften just the slightest bit, slumping down slightly in her chair and losing a bit of the tension on her body. "The library has a catalogue?" she asked, and raised both her hands to rub her eyes and face, as if she had overlooked something obvious.
Harry blinked. "Yes. You can just ask Madam Pince for it. It magically updates itself to tell you where each book is, as well. Much better than muggle libraries," he finished with one of those childlike grins which the existence of magic still elicited in him from time to time. He quickly smothered it, though, because he didn't want Granger to think he was mocking her.
"You mean all this time I've been walking around the library looking at book titles on the shelves and trying to guess if they'd help, when I could have just consulted a catalogue?" she asked in an almost anguished tone.
"You know Granger, sometimes a little common sense is worth a lot of book learning," Harry replied. He didn't want to anger her too much, but couldn't resist needling her a bit about it.
Granger frowned. "How would you know what a muggle library is like anyway?" she huffed.
"I'm surprised the whole school doesn't already know I was raised by my muggle relatives," Harry replied, happy to see the shock in Granger's face as he said it. He was actually not unhappy about people knowing that particular fact, as it went a long way to excusing a lot of social faux pas. He hadn't considered what muggleborns might think about it, though. He supposed Granger would not be the most popular person in Gryffindor, and therefore might not be privy to most of the rumours going around the school.
"Go on, you're having me on," she replied. "How did you end up in Slytherin, then?"
"Same way as everyone else, I imagine: the Hat sorted me," Harry replied dryly. "But to answer what you're really asking, I don't know. The Hat obviously thought it was the best fit for me." After a few seconds of awkward silence, Harry added, "Anyway, the book?"
Granger seemed to shake herself and replied, "Well, I picked that up for a bit of light reading a while ago, but I've been so busy I just haven't had time to open it, between revising for exams and researching..." she managed to stop herself from revealing what it was that she was researching, unaware of course that Harry already knew all about it, "...researching other things," she finished lamely. "I still want to read it, though," she continued. "Why do you want it anyway?"
Ignoring the last question, which Harry did not want to go into, he replied instead, "You're already revising for the exams?" he asked, actually worrying for a second about whether he should be doing that as well. Then he remembered who he was talking to, and went on. "Never mind that. I'll be really quick with that book. I just need to check something, I've no intention of reading it all, don't worry. Should be done with it in about a week," he said, thinking that that was on the upper range of how long he thought he'd take. He was getting to be a quick reader.
Granger looked torn. Harry wondered if even her who prided herself in being so intelligent was suffering from House prejudice, or if it was just something against him in particular. He still remembered the last time he had tried to talk to her in the library, though to be fair most of that commotion was Longbottom's fault. Finally, she managed to speak. "I don't know….what's to stop you from just keeping it for ages once I give it to you?"
Harry rolled his eyes again, which seemed to be a constant feature of his interactions with Gryffindors. "I thought you just wanted it for a bit of light reading anyway. What would it matter even if I kept it for longer?" He sighed. He was going to have to play his trump card. "If you give it to me, I'll tell you who Nicholas Flamel is," he said with a sly smile.
He certainly got the effect he hoped for. Grange's chin even hung open for a few seconds, before she realized she was gaping and shut it with a snap. "Nicholas Flamel? And why do you think I care about whoever that is?" she replied nervously.
Harry wasn't fooled for a minute, but of course, she didn't know how much he knew. "You can drop the act. When we got our Potions textbooks mixed up, you had a piece of paper in it with his name written on it," Harry replied, not having any intention of revealing he knew a lot more than that.
"What makes you think I don't know who he is, then?" Granger asked, looking even more shifty and nervous than before.
"If you did, why would you pretend you didn't know before? Anyway, call it Slytherin intuition if you want, but I've got the feeling you'd like to know. Am I right?" Harry replied, dangling the morsel of knowledge in front of her. She was so close to biting...
Granger sighed. "Well, alright," she said, still looking quite suspicious and unwilling. "I'll go to Gryffindor tower to bring the book down." After a pause where she scowled at Harry, she told him, "Don't even think about touching my things while I'm gone."
"I wouldn't dream of it," said Harry, trying to keep his nonchalant attitude, although he was pretty annoyed that she assumed he would do a thing like that. "I'll just be at my table over there," Harry said, pointing to the table where his school things still laid, scattered from his study session with Tracey. He started walking towards it to demonstrate how he had no intention of touching Granger's stuff.
She seemed to accept this, at least outwardly. With a curt nod at Harry, she was gone, walking out of the library in as quick a pace as she could manage without actually running. Harry rolled his eyes yet again, but decided to ignore it and continued back to his seat. Granger's trip gave him time to look at his second research project.
He opened his bag and retrieved a decent sized tome from it. Blaise had not been idle nor forgotten his promise, and Harry held in his hands the product of his request: Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. Finally, he would be able to find out whether there was any truth to the claim that he was related to the Peverell's, and whether their association with the Tale of the Three Brothers had any substance behind it.
The book was bound in leather, riddled with many cracks and creases which underscored how old it was. Harry leaned back in his chair, propped his knees up against the table, rested the book against his legs and began flipping through it. Annoyingly, there was neither a table of contents nor an index, probably because the book was either too old or deliberately made to appear archaic. Whatever it was, it forced Harry to try to gauge from the title and number of the chapters whether there would be anything that interested him. He flipped the pages back and forth, looking for anything that seemed relevant to his search. He thought he was on the right track when he found a rather extensive discussion of families who were extinct in the male line. These families no longer had any descendants who carried the family name, but many of them were related to extant families through female descendants: their offspring, while still related, no longer carried the female's maiden name.
Harry was quite excited by this, as the Peverells certainly seemed to fit the bill. He scanned that extensive part of the book with more care, trying to find the name Peverell. One, two, three pages of unknown families went by, until he finally spotted it. Peverell. He was about to look for the beginning of the paragraph when -
"Ahem," a small, affected, girlish cough was heard. Granger. Startled, he pushed the table with his knees, causing it to screech slightly and earning a 'shh' from God knew where. He grabbed a piece of parchment from the table and stuffed in the book as a marker, before straightening himself and facing Granger, who was looking at it with distaste. She was holding a large, dusty tome.
"Ah, Granger," Harry said, regaining his composure as best as he could. "That was really quick."
"No it wasn't," she replied, sounding annoyed. "You were probably just distracted with your book of pureblood propaganda," she went on sharply.
Harry sighed. "I don't know whether it's propaganda or not because I just started reading it. At any rate, I'm just using it to research myself," he said. "I know you might not care much about that, but as an orphan who until a few months ago had no idea where he had come from, or even how his parents looked like or what they did, I think I'm allowed a little interest on my family's history, no matter how distant." He knew that perhaps he shouldn't divulge his interest on his genealogy so widely, but he was actually quite annoyed by Granger's assumptions about him; besides, he hadn't said anything about the Peverells, and the book was after all not from the library. "Even if the book did come from a pureblood supremacist, it doesn't mean it doesn't have any useful information on it. You have to be discerning about what you read. I'd've thought someone who reads as much as you do would understand that," he finished in a harsh whisper.
Granger looked slightly ashamed of herself. "I... I'm sorry Ha-Potter," she said, casting her eyes towards the floor. Harry frowned at the abortive attempt at familiarity, but decided to let it drop. Meanwhile, she went on. "I never thought of you like that."
She seemed intent on continuing, but Harry cut her off. "What, as a person?" he asked bitterly. She looked startled and abashed, but Harry raised his hand to prevent any more discussion. "Look, just drop it. Do you have the book?" he asked superfluously, for it was obvious she was holding it.
She snapped her mouth shut and handed the book to Harry with a dejected look. "I've checked it back in. You can go and check it out to take with you," she said in a barely audible whisper.
Harry took it from her hands and opened it to check whether it had really been checked back in, before laying it on the table with his things. Then he turned back to Granger and spoke in a quick whisper. He didn't want to prolong the conversation any more than necessary. "Nicholas Flamel is an alchemist who lives in Devon," he said, taking more pleasure than he probably should in adding that bit of useless information. "He's done some work with Dumbledore," he finished, leaving out any mention of the Philosopher's Stone. Let her find that out for herself if she wanted to.
Granger looked confused at his pronouncement. "An alchemist? That's it?" she asked. "What does an alchemist..." she stopped suddenly, and Harry could almost see the cogs turning in her brain. She turned around and mumbled "Goodbye, Potter," over her shoulder, and Harry had to conceal a smile. Let her entertain herself with that.
He now had to decide between reading the book he got from Granger and the one he had been reading when she arrived. After a few seconds of thought, he decided to continue with Blaise's book, as he already knew where to start with that. Taking the same position in his chair as he had before, he opened the book to the page he had bookmarked and looked for the beginning of the section on the Peverells, reading it carefully. He read through the few pages that mentioned them in a kind of frenzied rush, faster than he would have thought possible. If what he had previously learned was true, these people were family, even if they had been dead for centuries. For someone who had only known the degenerates Petunia and Dudley as blood family, it was a consuming drive to learn more.
The book did not have as much information as Harry would have liked it to have, but a few things were clear from it. According to its author, the Peverell family had indeed died out through lack of male descendants. They had also been notorious for performing many incredible magical feats and creating magical items. The three brothers, Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus had indeed existed, though no mention was made at all of any connection to the Tale of the Three Brothers. What was mentioned, however, was the intermarriage of their female offspring with other magical families: the Gaunts and the Potters!
Now Harry was excited. He flipped back to the beginning of the book to try to find any mention of these Gaunts. After a gruelling search, he found a reference to them in the discussion of the families of the founders of Hogwarts: Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. The book explained how all of the Founders' family names had died out, but most of them had left descendants who did not bear their name.
The Gaunts seemed to be one of these families, the only known extant descendants of Salazar Slytherin—at least at the time the book had been written. Their descent from Slytherin was obvious due to the abundance of Parselmouths in the family. Harry did not know what a Parselmouth was, but from what he could deduce from the text, it had been a magical gift possessed by Slytherin that was passed through his bloodline. The Gaunts had at some point also married a female descendant of Cadmus Peverell, the middle Peverell brother! Harry's heart beat faster in excitement at this discovery, and he proceeded jot it down quickly in his notes. Not only was Cadmus the brother who was associated with the Resurrection Stone, but these were people who in an extremely distant way were related to him, if they indeed still existed.
Meanwhile, the Potters were confirmed as descended in some manner from Ignotus Peverell, though the book was remarkably short on specifics. Still, the author seemed reasonably confident in his assertions, which Harry found encouraging.
After copying down the most important references as well as their page numbers, he spent some more time looking through the book in search of any further information, but the remainder held nothing of interest to his search. He would have to look up further details on his own. He would remind Ted to bring his grandfather's book, and also just ask him if he knew anything about any of these people.
Harry's stomach gave a groan of hunger. 'Must be getting close to lunch time', Harry thought, but he decided he would go towards the end and have a look at Granger's book instead. It wasn't like the food was going to run out: magic was awesome!
Lifting its extremely large cover, he pored over its contents. Even though this book looked even older than Blaise's genealogical tome, it did have a table of contents, which Harry found very odd. He didn't understand wizards, sometimes. Was there a spell to look for something in a book? If so, no one had told him about it, and he hadn't seen anyone do it either.
The presence of the table of contents meant he was capable of locating the section on alchemy fairly quickly. It seemed he had been right in his earlier speculations. Alchemy was indeed mostly considered to fit into the subject of Potions, though it incorporated some elements from Transfiguration as well. Harry sighed. It didn't seem he would be getting rid of Snape any time soon, then. Well, at least he had some motivation to work harder at Potions, if nothing else.
He kept reading. There seemed to be many secondary uses of alchemy, but its main goal was summed up by a short paragraph:
"The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal.
There have been many reports of the Sorcerer's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight)."
It did sound like Ted was absolutely right. Harry wondered what it would be like to live to six hundred and sixty five. When he was living with the Dursleys, he thought life couldn't go by quick enough until he would be able to get them out of his life. Days, month and years seemed to drag by. But now that he had magic, he just found something new and amazing almost every day, and being magical himself, even if he ran out of new things, he could make them. And with the Stone, he would never have to worry about money.
He sighed. He doubted he would ever be clever enough to make a Philosopher's Stone, but that didn't stop him from thinking about it. He shook himself and continued to read, finding out more about alchemy and its many contributions to what he came to know as Chemistry when he was in muggle school, back in the days when wizards and muggles still lived peaceably together. That made him wonder absently what exactly had happened to drive wizards into hiding, but the thought was quickly lost as others took its place. He definitely would be working a lot harder at Potions, he resolved. Maybe this was what Snape had meant at their first class when he said he could teach them how to stopper death, though how Snape would be able to teach that, he didn't know. It's not like there's a second Philosopher's Stone made by Severus Snape, he thought with a grin.
His stomach gave another rumble, which made Harry look at his watch, only to realize it was actually three o'clock in the afternoon and he had completely missed lunch. He had been so excited by what he was discovering that he hadn't even given a thought to the time or his body's signals of hunger, even though they were becoming painfully evident now. After packing his things up, he hurriedly made his way down to the Slytherin dorms, where he hoped to find some sweets left over from Christmas to tide him over until dinner. He just knew Daphne would tease him forever for missing lunch because he was reading.
And here we are. I keep meaning to make this story more faster paced, but the characters just refuse to do it and want to spend whole chapters developing themselves. I apologize to those who like more plot, but it is there, even if it only rumbles along.
It never made any sense to me the way Harry and Co. did their research in canon. They just seem to read through books at random without any rhyme or reason: their research for spells that would help breath under water in GoF is the worst offender for this, as surely that kind of information should be readily accessible. If anything, magic would make the creation and upkeep of a library catalogue easier, not harder. So here we have Hermione being confronted with it.
Anyway, massive thanks to all those who have been reading, following, favouriting and reviewing. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and leave a review. Concrit is strongly appreciated, but again, all reviews are appreciated.