An Education in Magic:
"Good morning children. Welcome to your first Transfiguration lesson of your Hogwarts career. Wands away. For the first few weeks we will be working on basic academic principles. I know that this seems boring, but there is far more to a Hogwarts education than just waving a wand around. In a similar vein, Professor Flitwick will be focusing on magical theory initially. Even after we start our respective courses in earnest, what we are covering now will be referred back to and expanded on in all subjects throughout your Hogwarts career, so it is important to pay attention and take notes you will be able to keep looking back to." Professor McGonagall started her lecture.
She then set out what they would be covering for the following lessons. It would essentially be everything required for the first years to start writing essays. Practicing handwriting neatness and size with quill and ink on parchment rolls, spelling and definition of common magical terms, essay structure and source referencing among other things. Apart from how to use the library catalogue system, this was all stuff that Harry considered incredibly basic. However, he supposed that they didn't want to overload the new students as they were settling in. Also he remembered his mum had said she had never used a quill or done independent essay research before in the mundane school system, and even among the magically raised, he doubted few parents were as thorough in preparing their children as she had been. Still, he wanted to make a good impression on his first day, so he started taking notes. They left the class with their first ever piece of homework: find a copy of Hogwarts A History from the library and copy out several paragraphs they found interesting, neatly and at an appropriate size.
The Ravenclaws shared lessons with the Slytherins all morning, so they stayed together as they headed to History of Magic. Harry had mixed feelings on the way to this class. On the one hand he had greatly enjoyed the magical history and society lessons that he had had with Lady Longbottom, partly because he hadn't felt stunted by his lack of a wand. However, apparently the History of Magic subject at Hogwarts was nothing like that.. Even Harry would admit that his mother and Remus' attitude to 'learn to do anything' was slightly extreme and even they said that Professor Binns was a waste of time.
While much of the subject matter was important, the formation of important magical institutions and the history behind laws such as the Statute of Secrecy, his delivery was so dry that most people were literally put to sleep and he hadn't updated the curriculum even when he had lived, so it was at least 150 years out of date. To make it worse, the syllabus just consisted of specific events in isolation. Whereas one would traditionally teach history by focussing on an entire period at a time, drawing together some of the many threads of individuals, politics, conflict, economics and geography into a single, connected narrative, the OWLs only required students to regurgitate some names, dates and simplistic arguments copied from the handful of history books that anyone had actually bothered to write. This was then apparently further exacerbated by Binns' habit of jumping around from topic to topic without any attempt to link them.
Questioning the other Ravenclaws whose parents had gone to Hogwarts didn't raise his expectations, they had apparently heard similar things. Even prepared to be underwhelmed, once class started Harry was horrified. The ghost didn't seem to even acknowledge that he had students, he just floated into the room through the back wall, turned to face the blackboard and started lecturing to it, as he transcribed himself using what appeared to be ghost chalk. Had it worn away and 'died' as well in this classroom, or was it so important to Binns in death that he had dragged it to the afterlife with him, like the Bloody Baron's chains Harry wondered. In fact, that was pretty much the only coherent thought that Harry had in the entire hour. The stories of entire classes actually falling asleep in History of Magic probably weren't exaggerated if that was what he felt in the second period on the first day! If it kept up like this he would probably end up following his mum's suggestion and just bringing something else to do and learn from the books and her old notes for the exam.
The final lesson before lunch was Herbology. While many of the lessons would be practical and so take place in the Greenhouses, benches covered in loose soil and pots were not really conducive to easy note taking, so for theory lessons like this one they used a nearby classroom. This subject had always been quite weird at home, as this was the one magical subject that Lady Longbottom was better at than Lily, yet even for her it had been years since she had studied properly and she had to work to keep up with Neville, who had taken to it with a passion and devoured any book on the subject he could find in his free time. The first topic was the difference between mundane and magical plants, with homework to find three examples of plants that could be either depending on if they were grown in a magical environment and how to tell which was which.
As this time they had not touched any soil, they were free to head straight to lunch without needing to clean up. Harry took the opportunity to catch up with Neville and Susan and find out how they had been doing. This also involved the obligatory reactions to his name and scar from their housemates, but he reasoned it was better to get it out of the way, especially rather than get in trouble for disrupting class. Additionally, while he knew that he should just ignore the pointing and the whispering, it was nice to have his old friends at his back, who just treated him as normal. As he had a free period straight after lunch he was in no rush and decided to use the time to write and send his first letter home. This reminded several others of his housemates that they probably should too, so they made a group trip of it. Even only after a few weeks, Harry had begun to form a close bond with his new owl, Hedwig. It probably helped that his mother had insisted that he would be solely responsible for looking after her, going as far as to put the cage in his bedroom. It was definitely worth it for the looks he got when she swooped down to him as they stepped through the owlery door. In his opinion he had bragging rights even over those of his friends who had their own owls too, because Hedwig was so much more beautiful. It might not be the most mature stance, but he was eleven, so maturity was a problem for the far future.
After spending the rest of the free time in the library to look around and start on homework, the Ravenclaws went to their last class of the day: Charms. Professor Flitwick had drawn up a seating plan, so that until Christmas they would rotate who they would sit next to 'to promote inter and intra house cooperation', whatever that meant. Today he was put next to Terry Boot. Like Professor McGonagall had warned, they were starting theoretical magic from first principles.
"Alright. Everyone settle down. While I am sure you are all very keen to try out your new wands, you are going to have to wait a bit for that. There is no point waving it around if you don't have any idea what is behind how your magic works, so that is what we will be covering. For the moment we will be working out of Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling. To start with a question for you all: What is magic?"
The words had barely left his mouth before an eager hand was already shooting up towards the heavens. "Ah Miss Granger?"
"Magic is the act of a wizard or witch imposing a change on the environment by the application of their will." She blurted out.
"Ah, someone has read the textbook I see." Flitwick chortled as he turned to write the words 'user', 'will', 'effect' and 'subject' on the blackboard. Hermione blushed and nodded slightly. "This is a standard definition for those working in the fields of wanded magic, used in the book because, like we will, it builds off examples in charms to explore most of the principles. However, if we are taking the most broad use of 'magic', can we expand this?"
After a moment Terry raised his hand.
"Yes Mr Boot?"
"Well when you wrote user, other creatures can use magic too, like dragons."
"Very true. Usually the person who makes that distinction uses the example of other sapient races such as goblins, house-elves, centaurs or merpeople. However every magical object, animal, vegetable or mineral has magic. We will not be considering this 'inherent' magic today, partly because it is only really relevant in specific areas of magical research, and partly because said research is still ongoing and isn't yet well understood. Instead we will focus on conscious spells such as I will be teaching you. Any other comments on the definition?"
"Miss Patil?"
"What about potions?"
"Potions are a complicated case of this, well picked up. As a rule they are a fusion of the inherent magic of the ingredients, along with the conscious magic put in by the brewer. For the moment we shall consider them, like enchantments and runes for those who go on to study Ancient Runes in two years, as stored spells, with their creator acting as the caster or user in this analogy, even if they are not the one who does eventually 'use' it."
"Mr Thomas?"
"Well, when Professor McGonagall came round to explain that I had magic, she said that things that I had done were accidental magic. But I didn't try to do them."
"Aha! Take a point for Gryffindor for bringing up an excellent example. In some ways accidental magic is the clearest case of intent. While you are not intending to use magic, hence accidental, they arise because the individual really, really wants something to happen. They may not actively make the decision to use magic to, for example, pull the object towards them, but they want to hold it and their subconscious fills in the gaps, hence the unpredictability. When we move on to casting spells, I will spend a lot of time asking you to work out exactly what you want the spell to achieve. This is because if you don't put the effort in to get a clear picture before you start casting, then your subconscious will choose for you. In fact, this is arguably the most important thing you can ever learn at Hogwarts, and why you are not allowed to use a wand outside of education until you have passed your OWLs and are of age. The ability to direct your intent. Without, like with accidental magic, you have no way to control what the effect or the subject are, which as you can imagine can lead to some truly horrifying accidents."
With a wave of his wand the words on the board rearranged themselves. On the left was 'user', in the middle were grouped 'imagination', 'will' and 'power' and 'effect' and 'subject' were on the right. "This part in the middle here is the spell, what I will be teaching you." He drew a circle around them. "Most common theories break the spell down into three components. The names can change depending on the author's preference, especially if they speak, or write in different languages. I prefer using these. At the fundamental level any use of magic creates a change. For action to occur, some power must be put in, just as if you want to lift something physically you need to put in physical effort. This part is the simplest to understand. The more you put in the greater the effect you spell will have. You can lift a heavier object, create a brighter light, transfigure a larger object for longer. Your magical strength, the total amount you can use before you exhaust yourself, will grow until you are of age, roughly. This growth can make spell effects unpredictable at times, so you are not allowed to use magic away from supervision until then."
"The second part I have already touched on, imagination. This is the part where you create the shape of the spell, which determines exactly what it does. The clearer your imagination, the more nuanced the spell can be. A levitation spell that lifts a group of objects as one, versus the same incantation and wand movement that also stacks them in mid air in order of size. The final part is what unifies the previous two: willpower. Magic is naturally chaotic. You just have to look out of the window to the Forbidden Forest for proof of that. It doesn't like giving in to do what you want, so it requires willpower. For most spells you will use in day-to-day life this can be mostly ignored. It becomes imperative though when casting spells which require a large amount of power and imagination. There are schools of thought that say that even the greatest magic wielders such as Merlin or the Founders had little if any more power than any of us, they just had the willpower to channel it in larger quantities. Everyone's relationship with their magic is different, and can change depending on circumstances, and as they change throughout their lives. I always describe mine as a bouncing ball of energy. It doesn't like being held down, so I need to catch it and hold tight when casting near my limit. Obviously there are tips and tricks to help you focus your willpower, for example through incantations and gestures, hence why these are taught to you. This is why non-verbal and point casting of a spell usually makes it harder and weaker."
The tiny professor finished his lecture and surveyed the class. It was easy to see by the expressions who had been introduced to this theory before. Interestingly, along with young Mr Goldstein, Miss MacDougal and Mr Potter (Lily had lived and breathed this stuff) was Mr Longbottom. He had been raised by Lady Augusta after that terrible business with his parents, he remembered. While the Dowager Lady may be a canny political veteran, she had never seemed the sort to indulge in magical philosophy.
Still, people could always surprise you. Miss Granger was also an interesting case. He looked over the new class list before each year and he thought she was a muggleborn. She was very keen, and had obviously read the textbook, but had seemed slightly crushed at the implication that the quoted answer wasn't perfect. The paucity and, though he hated to admit it, often suspect quality, of magical literature, as well as its individual nature meant that finding your own answers was often better than searching out someone else's in his opinion. She would not be the first muggleborn to enter Hogwarts with stars in their eyes, needing a little nudge to see this. He would see how she developed, but might have to take her aside for a chat later in the term. Minerva's heart was in the right place, but she just never found the time to give her lions all the attention they needed.
"For your homework I would like you to read chapter one of Magical Theory and make note of any questions you have to ask in the next lesson."
The next morning Hedwig swooped down to meet Harry at breakfast, clasping a short note from his mother, congratulating him on his sorting and wishing him luck. Even with all of the bustle and excitement of Hogwarts around him, this was still the longest he had ever spent away from home, and it was nice to have a reminder. He offered the owl a couple of pieces of bacon, which she deigned to accept, before fluttering off back to the owlery.
The first lesson of the day was Defence Against the Dark Arts, the last of the 'wanded' subjects. Even knowing from Transfiguration and Charms that they wouldn't be casting any spells any time soon Harry was excited. While the adults were careful to try not to glorify the fighting and pain they went through, he had been raised by people who had actively fought in the war and by necessity it featured heavily in many stories he was told, especially those about his father. In the way that many children do, he had decided from an early age that he would become an Auror and fight the good fight.
Unfortunately for the school subject, it seemed that the supposed 'curse' on the professorship had gotten even worse than when his parents were at school, with many not lasting longer than a single year. According to a few of the older students, Professor Quirrell used to be the Muggle Studies teacher, before taking a sabbatical to prepare for his new job. The general consensus seemed to be that he had gone from inoffensive, if uninspiring, to an incredibly boring nervous wreck. The class itself didn't improve on this assessment, with the added issue that the pungent smell of garlic emanating from that ridiculous turban seemed to be giving Harry a splitting headache for most of the lesson.
Next up was Potions. Apparently, in spite of his blatant favouritism, even many Slytherins couldn't stand their Head of House, let alone everyone else. At least he reportedly conserved his most potent bile for Gryffindors, so for Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff lessons he should be merely passive aggressive. Any hope of that flew out of the window as soon as Harry's name came up on the register.
"Mr Potter."
"Here Sir."
"Ah. Our resident celebrity. In this class you will not get any of the preferential treatment you are used to, you will have to earn your grades like everybody else."
"In this class you will not have the frivolous wand waving other teachers let you get away with. Potions is a refined art and I don't expect you will ever 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." Despite being the youngest teacher they had had so far, and having the general demeanour of a greased corpse, Harry had to admit Professor Snape did know how to hold a room.
"Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
"Um" Harry thought quickly back to his lessons, as well as anything he had picked up around his mother's brewing or Neville's plant obsession. The concentrated glower focussed at him really wasn't helping. "Asphodel is a powerful sleeping agent, and wormwood is used in some dream suppression potions, so in high concentrations maybe some sort of coma inducer?" He could have sworn that they were mentioned specifically at some point in the textbook, but he was never good at remembering fine details.
"It is in fact the Draught of Living Death, so fame isn't everything after all. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?" The teacher sneered at him.
"They are both names for the aconite plant." Harry replied promptly
"I suppose your family would be most … disappointed in you if you didn't know that." Snape spat in almost malevolent glee. Harry's brow furrowed for a moment as he thought that statement through, and then realised that it was a jab at Remus, who was the reason he knew it, and glared back. How did he know that anyway?
"Potter! Where would I find a bezoar?"
Fortunately this was one thing that had been drilled into him as soon as his mum had taken up brewing again, so he easily pointed to the red painted drawers under some of the desks. "All ministry regulation brewing labs have emergency kits with common counteragents and antidotes, including a bezoar. They are harvested from the stomach of a magically raised goat. There are also rumours about more powerful bezoars from the goat stomach of a chimera."
"Hm. It seems you can regurgitate some facts."
Without giving him a second glance, Professor Snape dismissed him and turned to the rest of the class, who were taken aback by the blatant, unprovoked attack they had just witnessed. "Well, why are you not writing this down?"
With that the lesson proper began. Potions classes were a single and a double lesson a week, the former devoted to theory, and the latter to allow them time to brew. Like the other subjects, they would be going over just the basic theory in the first few weeks. Unless, like Harry, you had already practiced, there was no point wasting ingredients on students who didn't yet know how to cut them, or set the fire.
After the class, when the professor was well out of earshot, Susan came up to him to provide moral support. She had also not missed the barely veiled werewolf reference. It was not officially a secret, but it was not public knowledge and they intended to keep it that way.
"That was so uncalled for." She ranted. "He doesn't even know you and he is just declaring that you are spoiled. Anyway, all of that stuff was in the footnotes of the textbook at best, I checked. Why should he expect you to know everything he is paid to teach us before you step in the classroom. What about that thing." She gesticulated vaguely, not wanting to give anything away to their year mates, who were listening in with interest. "I am going to send a letter to Aunty."
"No point I suspect." Harry replied morosely. "I think they suspected something like this. I know mum is good at Potions, but it is the only subject that she made us do almost all the first year course for beforehand. I think we just suck up and bear it, and get help over the holidays."
"It is still not right." She insisted. "Tell your mum what happened, and I will back you up. If they can't do anything, fine, but at least we have tried."
The final class was Astronomy, which Ravenclaw had that afternoon. As well as classroom lessons, there were stargazing sessions where they got to put it into practice. However, they were not timetabled, as they were highly dependent on the weather, the Scottish Highlands not known for their constant clear skies. Also, sticking a bunch of children at the top of the Astronomy Tower in January was both unnecessary and frankly dangerous when it was equally dark at 5pm. While Harry knew that the phases of the moon, and to a lesser extent the positions of the planets and some key stars could be important in caring for and harvesting certain magical plant and animal products, as well as affecting some complicated potions and rituals, he didn't quite see why that justified forcing everyone to take it as a full time class up to OWLs. Still, it was a formal subject whether he liked it or not, so he would do the work and come out the other side with the correct piece of paper so he would never have to worry about it again.
In this fashion, Harry began to settle into the school routine.
The most interesting development after the first lessons was with Draco Malfoy. Having completely missed the tone on the train, he seemed to have assumed that Harry had been waiting all of his life to join Crabbe and Goyle as his minions. A few days later, once the first years were beginning to salvage lucid moments amongst the avalanche of new experiences, Draco approached Harry outside of a shared Transfiguration class as they were waiting for the bell.
"Potter, Goldstein, Corner. Just informing you that you are of course welcome when you wish more proper company." Malfoy nodded to them imperiously before turning back to his own court.
After a moment of stunned silence from the Ravenclaws and more self-aware Slytherins, Sui Li shattered the tension by breaking out into guffaws. This set of all of the others, not helped by a couple of the Slytherins obviously straining to suppress their own giggles, and one girl at the back, out of sight of the others, actually facepalming. Malfoy whipped around, seething at the disrespect, but fortunately for him the bell rang, forcing him to bottle his ire or face a dressing down from Professor McGonagall.
It wasn't until the end of the next day, the two houses shared a class again. As Herbology was the final lesson of the day, once they had all left the classroom, Malfoy felt he was free to carry on where he left off. Striding up to Sue he sneered at her.
"I know you are new to our world, but you need to learn respect for your betters. You might be safe at Hogwarts, but once you leave you will find my family can make it very difficult for you."
The other Slytherins and Ravenclaws, who had been drifting away from the class in small groups, noticed the confrontation and gathered to observe. Malfoy had assumed that if even Harry, whose mother, he had been told, was a mudblood who had fled the wizarding world, knew his name then everyone would. It genuinely had not occurred to him that a muggleborn whose sum total exposure to the magical world was a visit from a teacher, a day in Diagon alley, a train ride and four days of classes would not have. Therefore, rather than the stammered apology he had expected, he was taken aback at her blatant disrespect.
"Aw dear, am I bullying you? Do you need to run to daddy? Is being laughed at too much for you? If so, ha!" Sue spun around and marched off down the hallway without looking back.
Flushed red with fury Malfoy began to pull out his wand. "Nobody gets to speak to me like that!"
Genuinely worried for his new friend's safety, Harry intervened, stepping between them.
"Malfoy! Don't you dare threaten to curse somebody in the back."
"What do you care Potter? If you decide to soil yourself with mudbloods then I suppose the House of Potter can't fall any lower."
Neville had agreed to meet up with Harry after his last lesson, and chose this moment to arrive. Along with him came a couple of Gryffindors, Ron Weasly and Seamus Finnegan. Presumably they were bored and were hoping something interesting might happen, or at least they would get another chance to gawk at the 'Boy-Who-Lived'. While they had not heard the full conversation, they at least had got the gist.
"Oi Malfoy. I bet a coward like you wouldn't dare fight fair. Attacking someone in the back is the only way you would win." Ron yelled.
"I'll take you anytime Weasley." Malfoy spat back. He looked around and realised that he had just Crabbe, Goyle and Nott enthusiastically backing him up against several Ravenclaws and Gryffindors. "'Tonight. Wizards duel - wands only. In the trophy room, at midnight, if you are brave enough."
"Yeah, ok. Seamus, you want to be my second." A whoop of agreement from the other boy. "Who is yours?"
Malfoy looked back over his shoulder at his posse of goons. "Nott. See you then." He then dramatically spun around and marched off with half the Slytherins trailing him. Harry idly wondered whether if he waited a few minutes he would come back, or he would walk all the way round the outside of the castle to get back in, given the corridor ended at the greenhouses.
"Idiots." Padma muttered.
The next day at lunch, the Ravenclaws cornered Neville so he could fill them in on the details of what had transpired the night before. A couple of curious Hufflepuffs were drawn in as well.
"So my dorm mates were talking about it all evening. Ron realised he did not know any spells, so he was just hoping if he waved his wand enough it would spray some sparks at Malfoy. I think he was just planning to punch him if that didn't work. The problem was that they were talking about it so loudly that Hermione, you know, the bushy haired girl, caught wind of it, and got in such a huff. All 'You are going to lose us points' and 'You will get in so much trouble' until Ron told her to shut up." Neville blushed at this point, realising that his inaction at this point sounded worse than it had felt at the time. "Then when the time came we all sneaked down to the common room. Only Ron and Seamus were going, but we were going to see them off and wait to get the story as soon as they got back. Well, the common room was all dark, and just as they were reaching the portrait hole, a light came on at a side table. There was Hermione, obviously waiting for them. Anyway, she started going off on them, and they just ignored her and left the room, so she followed. We just heard some muffled voices from the other side after the portrait had closed, then nothing, so we waited for them to come back." At this point Neville paused his story to get his thoughts in order for the next chapter.
"It must have been nearly an hour before they returned. They were all out of breath and panicking. Apparently Malfoy had chickened out and tipped off Filch that there would be someone in the Trophy Room." At this a couple of the listeners hissed. Baiting someone out at night, then bailing and dobbing Filch on them was a low blow, even for the reputation of Slytherin. "Fortunately they ran into Mrs Norris first, so they ran away. They ended up at the third floor corridor without realising it, and tried to get into the forbidden room. You know, the one Dumbledore told us about at the beginning of the year. You know, 'die a painful death' and all that stuff. Hermione apparently had practiced all of the charms at home, so got the door open with an unlocking charm in our textbook. They ran in and shut the door behind them and waited for Filch to pass. Then they looked behind them and there was this massive, three-headed dog chained to the floor in the middle of the room, looking at them. By the sound of it they only just got out. Then they ran all the way back to the tower." At the looks of scepticism on the faces of the audience Neville finished with a plea to logic. "Look, Ron and Seamus might make this stuff up, but I don't think Hermione is the sort, and she was near hysterical. Go and look for yourself if you want."
In dribs and drabs, when none of the teachers or ghosts were looking, some people did. From the upper years too as parts of the story spread through the school. Soon it was common knowledge that there was a cerberus locked up on the third floor classroom, seemingly over a trap door. Speculation ran rife over what it could possibly be guarding. There was even a rumour that it was the same object that the break in at Gringotts over the summer had been after, moved to Hogwarts for safekeeping. Another claimed that it was the Philosopher's Stone, of all things. A few children had even written home about it, as evidenced by an article in the Daily Prophet, deriding Dumbledore's sanity, panicking about the safety of the students, bemoaning the quality of education nowadays etc. etc.
Upon discussing it with his own family via Hedwig, Remus ideally suggested that if anybody knew what was going on with a monster in the school it would be Hagrid, the giant gamekeeper who had shepherded the first years across the lake on that first night. On the understanding that it would stop him going anywhere near the dog itself, he suggested Harry might go to him as an avenue of investigation. It also helped that the Marauders had remembered Hagrid as a kindhearted fellow whose freely dispensed knowledge had been (unknowingly) indispensable for their moonlight runs in the Forbidden Forest. While he wasn't encouraging Harry to investigate this himself, he recognised that the boy was terminally curious enough to probably do it anyway, so he might as well direct him to a safer avenue of approach. Also Remus sort of wanted to know himself what was going on.
The final act of that busy week was the oft-mentioned Ravenclaw quiz night. As this was the house of the inquisitive, this was to encourage students to explore areas outside of the typical school subjects. This also allowed for closer competition between years, as it was more a question of what had happened to catch your fancy while browsing one day, than if you had covered it in class already. For the first week, each year had their own set of questions and were split into teams of three or four. The topic this time was trivia about magical plants and animals in the wild, with the winning team getting a bottle of butterbeer to share. Other frequent areas of interest included trivia on international magical culture, history (the fun parts, not the drudge of Binn's class) and legends. Anything that may catch the imagination of a bright young mind and inspire them to explore it further. Harry was with Morag and Terry, but the win went to Antony, Padma and Lisa.
It was a couple of weeks later that Harry eventually got around to sending an introduction to Hagrid via Hedwig. He felt a bit silly using an owl to contact somebody who lived ten minutes away from the front door and ate meals in the Great Hall, but it was the most convenient way he could think of. That weekend he, Neville and Susan trooped down to the rough cabin in the grounds. As they approached a great barking came from inside.
"Down Fang! Down!"
The door opened and Hagrid's huge frame filled the space. He was gripping the collar of a giant black hound, which was trying to hurl itself at the children, drool flying from its mouth.
"Hello there yeh lot." He greeted his visitors as they took a step back. "Don' worry about Fang here, he is jus' a big softy."
Tentatively they approached the slavering beast. After a quick sniff and lick, which they surreptitiously wiped off on their robes, the dog calmed down and they could enter the hut. As they had all been brought up in the magical world, they weren't that surprised to find that the hut was quite a bit roomier on the inside than it had looked. They were in a combined kitchen eating area, with a table and chairs roughly hewn from wood, and a merry fire burning away in the hearth. A couple of doors led off to other rooms.
"Well, yeh said yeh wanted to see me." Hagrid prompted after they had sat down and he had got them all tea.
"Well, Remus remembered you from when he was in school, and suggested it. He said you knew everything that was going on in the school and about the grounds." Harry replied.
Hagrid laughed. "I remember them. Remus Lupin, yer dad James Potter, Peter Pettigrew an' tha' Sirius Black…" He trailed off awkwardly. Harry took a moment to work out why, before he remembered that everybody else was apparently convinced that Sirius was guilty, but that was an argument he didn't want to get into, mostly because he didn't understand it. "Thick as thieves they were." Hagrid recovered. "Always chasing 'em away from the forest. Did it so often tha' Fang knew their scen'. Had ter take 'em on a few detentions too. Always gettin' inter fights with Slytherins they were." He smiled to himself with a far away look in his eyes.
Neville piped up. "Do you look after some of the animals for Care? Are there any cool ones at the moment?"
"Ah, well. I dragged some Hippogryphs here for the firs' lesson. Proud creatures they are. Won' let yeh go near 'em unless you bow firs'. They normally live up on the mountain slopes beyon' the forest. You can sometimes see 'em flying over the lake, they prefer deer or lambs, but they 'casionally grab a big fish. We keep some of the small critters in paddocks, the flobberworms, the nifflers, fairies and gnomes." They passed a pleasant afternoon listening to Hagrid lecture on all sorts of magical plants and animals that were cultivated or had made their homes within the Hogwarts grounds. In fact, Harry was slightly sad he had not brought quill and parchment, as he was sure that this was the sort of stuff that would come up in Ravenclaw quizzes, and butterbeer was always worth working for. There was just one awkward moment when Susan asked what the largest thing they might see, after the giant squid, might be.
"Well there is Fluffy in the school." Hagrid answered immediately, before suddenly closing his mouth.
"Fluffy? Is that the cerberus in the third floor classroom?" Harry asked, intrigued. "The one that is guarding something."
"How do yeh know 'bout that?" Hagrid demanded in panic.
"Everyone in the school knows about it. It is a giant three headed dog, and the door can be opened with a first year unlocking charm. A couple of Gryffindors in my year found it first when they got lost." Neville decided not to mention that they had been out after hours and running away from Filch at the time. Hagrid might be friendly, but he was still one of the staff.
"Never yeh mind 'bout that. What is in there is 'tween Albus Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel." Hagrid closed off the subject. The children were happy not to push it, they already had more information to research.
It was dinner by the time the three friends left Hagrid's cabin to head back to school. As soon as they were out of earshot of the cabin, they were furiously discussing what the gentle giant had let slip.
"Nicolas Flamel. Isn't he the alchemist."
"He made the philosopher's stone. Made him immortal. Maybe that's what they are hiding."
"Don't be silly, why would you put that in the school? Wouldn't they need to keep it so they don't die."
"I read that he has lived for hundreds of years. I bet he has loads of valuable stuff that needs guarding. Wonder why he gave something to Dumbledore though."
"Didn't he teach Dumbledore at some point. Worked on the twelve uses of dragon's blood together or something?"
Round and round the discussion went, until they reached the Entrance Hall and had to change the subject so others couldn't overhear. They would send owls with what they had found to their parents and see what would happen.
"Remus! Read this!" Lily yelled as she burst through his front door, waving a sheet of parchment.
"Merlin's toenails Lily!" Lupin exclaimed as he nearly poured his tea down himself in surprise. "Would it kill you to give a man some warning. Give it here." He snatched the letter away from her. After taking a moment to read it he went silent as he thought. "Well, Dumbledore is obviously up to something. The Cerberus over the trapdoor in the basically unsecured classroom, was bound to be found, especially if he explicitly told the entire school not to go there. I am amazed in fact that it took nearly a week for everyone to know. Many of the children would have written about it to their parents so the whole wizarding world now knows he is hiding something."
As he took a break to breathe, Lily jumped in the gap. "And Hagrid might be a dear, but he can't keep a secret to save his life. Look how everyone knew about Harry's scar. By getting Hagrid to help with the protection, especially with an animal like a cerberus, which he will be so proud of, he is making sure every patron of the Hog's Head hears about it every weekend. I doubt he would recognise Flamel if he walked into his house, although to be fair neither would I, Hagrid could only know he is involved if Dumbledore told him specifically."
"There is no reason Flamel would give the philosopher's stone to anybody, he has held onto it for hundreds of years perfectly happily. However he most likely has loads of other stuff he might give away which are probably of great value to us lesser mortals, or at least people will think." Remus continued. "Why does it seem to me that Dumbledore is setting a trap and Hogwarts is bait?"
Lily pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down heavily. "I was so hoping you wouldn't reach that conclusion as well. 'Everyone says'" She made air quotes. "That Hogwarts is the safest place in Britain, so it sounds plausible that you would put something there to keep it safe, especially after that break-in scandal at Gringotts this summer. But the way Dumbledore has advertised its presence. He wants everyone to know it's there so he wants people to try and get it."
"How safe is Hogwarts anyway?" Remus asked. "I know during the war Voldemort never attacked it, and I can understand not wanting to face Dumbledore, hell the whole teaching staff, on their home turf. But that would have been him trying to storm the place. He would also have to have been careful because if he hurt the children of his supporters they might turn on him. But if you just wanted to sneak in? The place is full of people coming and going. The teachers are too busy to leave their classrooms and the prefects are just students. If we could sneak into the forbidden forest every full moon for two and a half years, how easy would it be for someone to get in for a single night?"
They stopped for a moment to think over this. Lily was the first to speak up again. "Well the Map managed to track the names of everyone in the castle. Sort of. We think. So the castle wards must have that capacity to an extent. Maybe there is a better version of the Map in the Headmaster's office? Pings a notification when someone enters the grounds?"
Lupin snorted. "Even if there is, don't tell me you truly believe that would be working as intended. It will be as broken as the magic in the rest of the school. I refuse to accept the founders built a school intending to have that deathtrap of grand staircase, that trickstep in the shortcut at the bottom of the divination tower that grabs your foot then reverses gravity so you are hanging from it, or that gargoyle on the bridge near Arithmancy that seems to run a pigeon BDSM club." They exchanged a glance and shuddered. "Frankly, if it was fully functional then there would have been no way a group of teenagers, however lucky, could have tied it to our own map. Think what a security disaster that was."
"Even if you could do that, and sneaking in after Hogsmead weekend with all the students wouldn't work, you would probably never need to enter." Lily realised. "There are about three hundred students in the school. All it would take is for one of them to act as an agent. A cerberus is frightening, but with enough preparation not insurmountable even for the younger ones if they are following instructions. Take a communication mirror or something similar and you could talk them through as they went. If you couldn't find one willing then Imperius Curse, love potions, or just good old fashioned blackmail would work. Especially for a muggleborn, whose family has no way of protecting themselves." She sighed into her hands. "What can we do about it though?"
"Go to Dumbledore and ask him directly?" Remus suggested.
Lily laughed bitterly. "He has been inundated with letters and howlers and Daily Prophet articles from the cerberus alone, and it is clear that this is well planned. Why would he change his mind for little old us? If there is one thing I have realised about Dumbledore since the war, it is while I still believe he means well, he is so used to being in charge that it never occurs to him that other people can have ideas of their own. We would just get fobbed off with some platitude about how it is a delicate matter or some such. He is over a hundred years old, Remus. We are just young students of his who were his happy little soldiers when he needed us."
Remus opened his mouth to object. After all, without Dumbledore's willingness to take on a severe risk to his reputation, he would have never even been able to go to Hogwarts. But then he realised that he had not spoken to the man since the ending of the war, so perhaps they had been forgotten. After all, new students arrive at Hogwarts every year. You couldn't expect Dumbledore to take a personal interest in all of them for their entire lives. Also, perhaps using the fact that the Headmaster arranged for a werewolf to live at a boarding school for seven years, without telling anyone, was not the best argument for trusting him unconditionally with the safety of her child.
"Um, talk to Augusta? People listen to her. If the worst comes to the worst she might know if Amelia can do anything. After all, if we think it is a genuine safety issue, that is her job." He finally decided.
A few days later, after letters had flown thick and fast, Madam Bones, Lady Longbottom, Lady Potter and Remus Lupin were all gathered in the receiving room of Longbottom Manor to collate their findings.
Lily started proceedings. "So we are all agreed that Dumbledore seems to be hatching some sort of private plot using something in the school as bait, but we can't do anything about it?"
"That seems to be the case." Augusta replied. "Linneus wrote back to say that the board of governors hasn't been consulted about anything like keeping a cerberus in the school. I asked him not to bring this up at the next meeting, as however suspicious Dumbledore is acting right now, I would still rather not hand ammunition to Malfoy on a plate."
Amelia then added her contribution. "Given that this is plausibly a serious security threat to Ministry citizens if someone does try something, I sent an official missive to Flamel to ask for clarification. He hasn't sent a reply, so until he does I assume he doesn't want to admit or deny anything officially." At the askance expressions on Lily and Remus' faces, she clarified. "It gets his message across without risking a protracted argument with the Ministry which could end up with Fudge or his ilk wading in and saying something rash. Not sure I can really blame him for wanting nothing to do with us anyway. Even the DMLE was blatantly a leaky sieve during the war and nobody truly believes that we found all of the informers. I wouldn't trust us with delicate information either. Also there is no telling what parts of the Ministry itself would do for a chance to get at some of Flamel's stuff. There are occasionally rumours that the Unspeakables keep trying to break into his house. My main hope was to tip him off. From what I could dig up about him, he normally tries to stay out of the limelight. Using his reputation to attract the attention of the sort of people who may attack a school doesn't seem like him. I wouldn't be surprised if Dumbledore didn't tell him everything about what he is doing and if there is somebody who could call that old man to heel it would be his old Alchemy Master."
"So we are back to square one then?" Remus stated morosely. At the nod he received he just sighed. "Well, we will just have to tell the children to keep away from anything to do with that corridor. If they stumble upon anything else, then they should tell a teacher and let them deal with it. Maybe let them know it is probably a trap, so there is no need for heroics."