The Hammer awoke with a start, his head spinning round to try and figure out where he was - his blurry vision taking in the silhouette of a bearded man smiling at him.
"Did I get him, Chief?" The Hammer asked, calming down as he grabbed for his glasses on the table next to his bed. He was back in the infirmary. If this kept being a habit he would have to buy Madam Pomfrey flowers at some point.
"Good afternoon, Harry." The old man greeted him.
"That no good rat Quirrell, tell me someone got him!"
"Harry, please relax or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out." The old man reached for a small yellow candy from an enormous pile at the foot of his bed - it looked like they had dumped half the sweets shop on the table.
"Tokens from your friends and admirers," Dumbledore said, beaming. "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so naturally, the whole school knows. I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a lavatory seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very hygienic and confiscated it." Those two actually did it. The Hammer smirked at the idea before asking, "How long have I been out, Chief?"
"Three days. I'm sure Mr. Longbottom and Miss Granger will be most relieved you have come round. They have been most worried."
"Ah. And Chief, I have to tell you - about the stone - "
"I see you are of a singular mind, as usual. Yes, I retrieved it from amongst your things, rolled up in a pair of rather comfortable looking socks. I arrived back in time to prevent Professor Quirrell from trying anything in his final moments, although you were doing very well on your own."
"You knew I had the stone the whole time? Did you -"
"Of course, it was I who replaced it with the handy tool you used to dispatch the late Professor, though my return was only barely on time. You jumped in head first without looking again - the effort nearly killed you. For a moment, I was afraid it had. As for the stone, we've taken the liberty of destroying it."
"We? Is that what Nick Flamel wanted?'
"Indubitably. We had a chat and decided it would be for the best in these trying times."
"So he and his old lady are choosing to exit, stage left?"
"They have enough elixir stored to set their affairs in order, but then yes, they will die."
The Hammer's expression darkened, looking away at the floor.
"For Nicolas and Perenelle death isn't a sad event, Harry. They've chosen it for the greater good and go gladly to their next great adventure. This is simply the closing of a very long running circle. As you know, they've been blessed with the two very things most people wish for: wealth and a long life. It is an odd quirk of human nature to lose interest in life after being given everything they would ever want."
Harry grumbled, "So what's the plan for Voldemort? Did this kill him?"
"He's still out there, Harry. I'm afraid the task is not yet done. He isn't truly alive so he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die; evidence for how much mercy he shows his followers as well as his enemies. Even so, despite this being merely a delay on his return to power, it will only take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time - all one needs to do is delay him again and again and he may never return to power."
"The world's running out of heroes, Chief."
"Why, I would think there is one right here with me." The old man said with a twinkle in his eye.
"One last thing. Well, two if you want to be a pedant about it. I still want to know the truth about…"
"Still looking for the truth with single mind. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, Harry, and therefore I beg you to treat it with great caution. I owe you some now for what you have done, but I beg your forgiveness if I withhold some. I will not, of course, lie."
"How did he get that way? Voldemort. I don't want to know how to do it, but how do we fight someone that can't be killed properly?"
Dumbledore removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion, "He was driven by a quest for power, Harry. An insatiable lust that was motivated by a fear of death. He used a means that is anathema to the essence of all life. That is all I can say."
"When we were down there, Voldemort said he only killed my mother because she tried to stop him killing me. Did this have to do with that prophecy you mentioned?" Dumbledore coughed.
"I regret using that word, and I do believe that if I were to say any more now it would be a detriment to you, Harry."
"Then why did Quirrell turn to sludge when I touched him?"
"Your mother died to save you. If there is something Voldemort cannot understand it is the selflessness of love. This is something old - ancient - before magic needed words to come into the world. This kind of magic is steeped within you down to your very soul and for Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and amoral ambition of two souls, he could not bear to touch you."
Harry fumbled for his trench coat on the chair next to the bed whilst Dumbledore became very interested in a bird on the windowsill.
"You sent the cloak to me, didn't you?" The Hammer asked, unfolding the note that had accompanied his Christmas present.
"Ah - your father happened to leave it in my possession and I thought you might like it." His eyes twinkled again, "Useful for many things… your father used it mainly for sneaking off to the kitchens to nick food when he was here."
"And something else…"
"Fire away."
"Snape-"
"Professor Snape, Harry."
"Yeah, him. He was trying to help the whole time despite hating me. What did my father do to him? I figured out that much but he didn't budge when I pushed him on it."
"Well, they did detest each other. Your father did something Snape couldn't bear to forgive."
"What?"
"He saved his life." Harry snorted.
"Funny… the way people's minds work is a funny thing. Professor Snape couldn't bear being in your father's debt."
"Chief," Harry interrupted, "Would you thank Professor Snape for me? Tell him to let Potter rest. I already told him once that my father is Grant Mason."
The ghost of a smile came to Dumbledore's lips, "I will, Harry."
"One more thing, Chief."
"Hm?"
"What was the trick to getting the Stone out of the Mirror?" Dumbledore raised both of his eyebrows in mild surprise,
"Why Harry, I would have thought you would have pieced it together by now."
"You're supposed to want something other than the stone?"
"Not quite. I think it was one of my cleverer ideas, and between you and me, that's saying something. You see, the rub was that you needed to want the stone for the stone's sake, not to use it."
"So since I just wanted to solve the mystery by itself, that counted as wanting the rock."
"Indeed, Harry. Though I very much did not expect you to have taken the stone so soon and with such brazenness."
"You would think that after my last few incidents you'd figure that's just how it is with the Hammer."
Dumbledore chuckled, "I believe that's enough, Harry. You should make some headway into these sweets. After all, there are still the midterm exams to worry about and I'll have to arrange a temporary professor to fill in for our very sudden loss of Defense Against the Dark Arts staff. Perhaps Professor Snape?" Harry grimaced. Dumbledore smiled, "Perhaps someone else then. And Harry -" Dumbledore set something weighty onto the end of the Hammer's mattress, "Please refrain from using this on students or any other staff unless absolutely necessary." He turned and left. The Hammer unwrapped the fist sized bundle at the end of his bed: it was the set of brass knuckles he had hit Quirrell with.
Nice as she was, Madam Pomfrey was a stickler for the rules.
"Absolutely not, no visitors."
"Then I'm going to drag myself out of bed, stumble down the hall, and go see my friends. What's the better option here, sister?" The Hammer was serious about it.
"Oh very well, but five minutes only." She gave up and let Neville and Hermione in.
"Harry!" "Hammer!" The two rushed in, each taking a side of his bed.
"The whole school is talking about it! There's so many rumours!" Neville spoke breathlessly.
"Sorry...?" The Hammer trailed off uncertainly.
"No, no, it's amazing!" He was grinning ear to ear.
"What happened, Harry? You passed out and we couldn't wake you but then suddenly the Headmaster was upon us. He picked you up and just like that we were all here." Hermione told him.
He told them what he could remember and the things he and the Chief discussed.
"-and that's about the gist of it. Are you two alright?"
"Yeah, not a scratch! After our spells bounced off Quirrell's back there were a few moments there I was worried." Neville said.
"Though, I wonder about the Headmaster…" Hermione trailed off.
"If we should trust him? I think he's playing a bigger game than we are. It's the game I want to play, but I don't know that we can at our current level. We'll have to trust him as being on the same side." The Hammer played with the blanket covering his legs.
"I think he's more than proven himself." Hermione said.
"Hopefully you'll be up and around again soon," Neville plucked a few of his favourite candies from the pile, "We've still got the rest of the year to finish."
"Me too. Now that we've solved the first big case here, I was thinking about starting up a detective agency for real. We'll have to hunt down some space to use as an office."
At the mention of more Hammer hijinks, Madam Pomfrey bustled over, "you've had nearly fifteen minutes, now OUT."
Hammer felt tremendously better after a good night's sleep. Madam Pomfrey looked him over after bringing him a tray with breakfast and told him, "Once you've eaten, you have another visitor." Harry practically shoveled the meal into his mouth, relishing in the plate full of a Full breakfast before washing it down with a mug of strong tea. Waving to Madam Pomfrey, she took the tray from him before opening the door to allow the visitor in.
Hagrid squeezed himself through the gap she had provided, looking too large for the interior of the castle, as was his habit. He took a seat next to Harry's bed, under the creaking protest of the chair beneath him before bursting into tears.
"It's - all - my - ruddy - fault!" He sobbed, his face in his hands. "Yeh told me he was plannin' summat the whole time! Yeh could have died! All fer what? Secrets?"
"Hagrid!" The Hammer interrupted him, "He'd've done it anyway. He was working for Voldemort."
"Yeh could've died!" Hagrid sobbed again, "An' don' say the name!"
The Hammer reached out and patted Hagrid on the knee before saying very clearly, "Vol-Deh-Mort." Shocking Hagrid out of his crying, "I finally met the no good louse. I'm calling him by his name, maybe even a few other ones when I think of them. He didn't win, so grab some sweets, help me finish this lot."
Hagrid wiped his nose on his sleeve, "That reminds me, I've got yeh a present."
"It's not some black market magical creature is it? I'm terrible with pets." Hagrid gave a weak chuckle, tugging at his collar,
"Nah, Hammer. Dumbledore gave me the other day off to get it together - anyway got yeh this…"
It was a handsome, leatherbound book with ornate metal corners. Opening it, the Hammer found it full of wizard photographs. Smiling and waving at him from every page were James and Lily Potter.
"Sent owls off ter yer parents' old school friends' askin' fer photos… Knew yeh'd have a time findin' them. D'yeh like it?"
The Hammer had to grab his hat to hide his face behind it. Hagrid understood.
Madam Pomfrey let the Hammer go later that day after one final checkup. He still had to go and attend DADA for the day. In class he was greeted by enthusiastic whispers igniting a new round of rumours from his classmates. They were shushed by Professor Longbaugh who had drawn the short straw as the junior teacher on staff. "Yes, yes. The DADA position is cursed, I'm sure something terrible will happen to next year's teacher as well since I'm not planning on covering two subjects at once. Now take a seat, Harry, and turn to page 287 in the text so we can finish learning about first-aid against a werewolf bite."
Longbaugh's lessons turned out to be radically more practical than Quirrell's previous stutter-stumbling through theory textbooks. The room also smelled a lot less like garlic without Quirrell around.
In his hard earned free time, the Hammer began to walk around the castle again, stalking the grounds in search of a room to use as his office. He found a few that were in the running, but nothing that satisfied his desires. He wasn't entirely sure what it all needed to have, but he was sure he wanted a slow spinning, creaky ceiling fan. One day, while pacing in front of a tapestry of trolls being taught ballet on the seventh floor, he noticed a new door he definitely didn't remember seeing before.
Unlike all the other doors in the castle, it seemed to be a reasonably sized interior door with a smoky plate glass window in the upper half. Harry felt like he had seen it before somewhere. Feeling his heart pounding in his throat, the Hammer opened it up to find exactly what he was looking for. It was a small office scaled to his size - the room was darkly lit with a window covered in venetian blinds and an incandescent bulb hanging underneath a slowly spinning ceiling fan. His heart skipped a beat as he bounded inside and took a seat on the chair, putting his feet up on the desk. It was perfect.
The rest of the year passed by peacefully while the Hammer's legend only grew. He had his suspicions that it was the Weasley twins helping to make up wild stories about the incident with Professor Quirrell and why the third floor corridor was suddenly no longer forbidden. It certainly was a boon - there were people wanting to ask him for his detective services thereafter.
Harry passed with excellent marks for the year and Neville had managed to pull in above average with tutoring from him and Hermione, but the Hammer was content with giving her the credit for that. She had come in at the top of their year, after all. The end of term feast was decorated in rich red and gold to celebrate a Gryffindor victory in the contest for the House Cup, which was an upset to Slytherin's six year streak. The Hammer was looking forward to the food rather than the baubles of winning, but Hermione had sunken into a mood about the whole affair. She insisted that they should have been recognised with at least a few house points for their services to the school. Everyone knew they had been the ones to stop Voldemort, why shouldn't they be the ones to reap the rewards?
The way Harry figured, he, Hermione, and Neville had been enough trouble for their houses and Slytherin was adept in getting in trouble on their own, so it was a fair shot at the he hadn't been caught up in solving the mystery of the Cintamani Stone, Harry probably would've put money on it when the twins were playing bookie. After the meal, on the way back to their rooms to pack, Hermione kept on talking about how they should appeal the decision and try to get some more house points.
"Forget it, Hermione," The Hammer said, "it's Hogwarts."
Before they knew it, the three of them were disembarking the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9 ¾. "Hammer, Hermione this is my Nan." Neville introduced his friends to her on the magical side of the platform.
"Hermione Granger"
"Harry Potter-Mason. Call me the Hammer."
"Augusta Longbottom. Neville, you never told me you were friends with the Harry Potter. Why if you could only do as well as your parents you might be able to live up to the Longbottom name."
"Lady, treat my friend here with some respect, would you? He's saved my life at least three times now and that's just the ones I remembered to count." The Hammer laid into her. She was flustered into silence as their group crossed over onto the muggle side of King's Cross station, the other two children finding their parents in the crowd and waving to them.
"Solve any good mysteries?" Grant asked him once they had cleared the crowd.
Harry smirked as his father ruffled his hair. He turned back for a final moment with Hermione and Neville.
"Hope you have a good holiday. Don't forget to call!" Hermione told him with a hug.
Neville shook his hand, a goofy grin on his face from how the Hammer had treated his grandmother, "Find a way to write, yeah? You should come over during the holiday."
"Neville, Hermione, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."