Fate Rewritten: The Philosopher's Stone

by abbzeh

Sometimes, if things aren't going according to plan, Fate will step in and offer a helping hand - sometimes it's a gentle nudge, and sometimes it's a few books. / Or, Dolores Umbridge comes across a few books about her least favourite student's life and forces everyone to read them with her.

Author's note: Hi lovelies! Can you believe it's been n i n e years since I first wrote these fics (under the Reading at Hogwarts title)? I certainly can't because I'm goddamn old now. Old and cranky and full of medical issues that I didn't have at fourteen :( Anyway, since this is a) the age of remakes and Square Enix and Capcom are remaking everything, and b) the age of LOCKDOWN TIME, I figured I'd try ~remaking~ this. I hope you like this, in any case.

IMPORTANT NOTES THAT SHOULD PROBABLY BE READ: while I'm redoing this, I'm not posting all of the book's dialogue. Some words will be cut out, so lines will appear as, "blah … blah". This is to avoid setting off the plagiarism alarm at fanfiction dot net HQ. It should still be followable, though. Updates will probably also be a bit sporadic. My doctor said I have to avoid stressing myself out otherwise I'll trigger both a migraine attack and an asthma attack lmao.

As I'm going through the files, it also means that elements of the original fic may be removed so new things can be added, ie the original shippy subplot from last time. Other things may be changed. One of these things is the timeframe – instead of explicitly being in the nineties, I'm shifting it forward. It's mainly so I can reference memes tbh.

The time when this takes place in OoTP is just after Seamus and Harry make up again as friends.

And for my last note: I'm gonna be ignoring most of Pottermore/JKs tweets. I mean, I only care about my Sorting, so I'm going for headcanons instead. Much more fun.

Oh! And warning, I guess. Because some people don't like it. But there'll absolutely be swearing in this. These are teenagers in a (state-funded) boarding school in the UK. Having been a teenager in a state school in the UK, I can confirm that we all swore a lot, so it would be disingenuous to leave it out.

(notes will not be this long in future, don't worry!)

Listening to: Diving Bell - Starset

---

The end of February brought had brought with it a brusque, biting cold; winds and chills that seemed to permeate into every nook and cranny of the castle. To try and combat the winter chills, students had come across Professor Flitwick casting warming charms every few metres down the corridors and in the classrooms. Mrs Norris had been spotted sleeping in one of those spots, as though trying to soak up all available warmth possible.

As such, the resultant cold had lead many of the students on one cold Saturday morning, when the temperatures had reached minus five, to slowly, and very unhappily, traipse down to breakfast with blankets draped around their shoulders. Some had even abandoned all propriety and had come down to breakfast dressed in pyjamas and dressing gowns. Professor McGonagall eyed her House with particular disapproval, but didn't say anything.

By the time Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered the Great Hall – dressed in the temperature-appropriate pyjamas – many of the school was already awake. Harry had been cold from the very second he'd woken up, as though someone had left the dorm window open all night and let snow pile up on top of them. Like everyone else in the dorm, he had immediately just thrown on his dressing gown and slippers and staggered into the common room, crowding with everyone else around the small fireplace. It was only the growls of thirty people's stomachs that made everyone decide to leave for breakfast.

As soon as they reached the table, Ron threw himself down into the first space available, his hair bouncing with a pitiful wave. "I'll never be warm again," he announced mournfully, glancing upwards towards the ceiling. Up there, the sky was a light blue, the sun shining with no clouds in sight. What a damn lie that was, Harry thought to himself.

"Don't be dramatic, Ronald," Hermione chided, though it lacked any bite. She sat down opposite him, far more sedately, and promptly tucked her hands into her sleeves.

As Harry followed suit, Ron kept glancing towards the food sitting on the table – eggs, beans, toast, and every other good thing in the world – but made no effort to get it. Harry sighed. "Mate, it's not gonna float over to you."

Ron nodded. "Yeah. Yeah…" Still, he made no attempt to uncurl himself, and Harry nudged him in the ribs. "Okay!" With what looked like extreme reluctance, Ron reached over and grabbed a couple of pieces of toast, spooned some of the beans onto them.

"Breakfast of champions today, Ron?" came the voice of the passing Fred Weasley. They all looked up in time to see Fred and George plonk themselves down next to him. Unlike most of the populace of Hogwarts, the twins were actually dressed properly, with raindrops clinging to their hair. Hermione squinted at them from over the top of her pocket-sized book.

"Where have you been?" she asked suspiciously, putting the book down to grab a bowl of Shreddies. "You weren't in the common room this morning."

George tapped the side of his nose. "So nosy and distrustful, Miss Granger," he said dramatically, hand over heart. Hermione levelled him with another unimpressed look. George laughed slightly and seemed to relent, trading a glance with Fred. "We absolutely weren't up near Umbridge's office, leaving several surprises for her to find."

Hermione merely stared for another moment before turning back to her book and breakfast. "I don't want to know," she said after a second, spooning up some Shreddies. "The less I know, the better."

"Probably," Fred agreed easily, swiping a piece of toast and plonking a fried egg on it.

Breakfast might have continued peacefully, with only the occasional shouts of a few rambunctious students to punctuate the air, when the loud clearing of a throat caught everyone's attention. Glancing up in alarm as one, the students were met by the sight of Dolores Umbridge marching over to the podium. She looked rather smugger than usual, Harry noted with slight dread. He watched with growing trepidation as Umbridge made her way past the staff table, the clack of her heels echoing in the sudden hush of the hall. As she reached the podium, it was then that Harry noted that she was carrying a collection of books underneath her arm.

She reached the podium, oblivious to the dead-eyed stares she was receiving from both staff members and students alike, and she cleared her throat for a second time. Harry thought it was a bit unnecessary, since nobody was actually talking. Umbridge peered down at them all, her beady little eyes squinting in something like barely contained glee. Harry felt his stomach drop another kilometre beneath the school. That expression never boded well for anyone.

Maybe he still had time to move to Beauxbatons.

"Good morning, children!" she announced chirpily, sounding like a windless pair of bagpipes. From the look on Professor McGonagall's face, she'd caught that feeling, as well. "I hope you're all well!" Without pausing to see if they were, in fact, well, she hefted her armful of books onto the podium in front of her and dumped them down with an earthshattering thud. Harry stared.

"She's lost it," he heard Seamus Finnegan murmur, somewhere up the table. "She's truly gone fishing."

"Now," she continued, sounding slightly out of breath, "you may be wondering what these are." She gestured to the tower of books in front of her.

"Are they books, Professor Umbridge?" an irritated seventh year Slytherin asked dully, sounding like she didn't want to be there. Umbridge ignored her.

"I came across these in my office this morning," she continued, as though the Slytherin girl hadn't spoken. Harry and Ron whipped their heads around to look at Fred and George in confusion.

"You put books in her office?" Ron whispered quickly, darting his eyes between them and the woman in question. Fred immediately shook his head.

"Of course not!" he denied, sounding insulted at the very idea. "We – ahem – left her some special surprises. Like dungbombs and such."

"Now," Umbridge continued speaking, oblivious to the conversation happening right beneath her nose, "imagine my surprise when, upon looking through these books, I realised that they detailed the life of our very own students. A student who is right here in this very hall."

Harry felt the cold trepidation and foreboding return, and it was amplified tenfold. The way Umbridge's beady eyes seemed to laser-focus on him… no, she couldn't mean… him, could she? What were the chances that the universe would be this cruel to him?

"I am, of course, talking out our very own Harry Potter," Umbridge said, completely barrelling over Harry's hopes and dreams that the universe would give him a much-needed break. Umbridge waved her wand, and four of the books levitated to the side, dropping into an undignified pile. Harry wondered if he could get Crookshanks to steal them later. One book remained on the podium, and Umbridge carefully opened it. Her gaze was still focused on Harry, and her simpering smile was still full of poison. "We will start with the first book!"

"Ah," Dumbledore intoned from his place at the staff table, "a most excellent place to start, I've found."

Umbridge's smile wavered, as though she was unsure whether or not she was being insulted. Harry was sure he heard Professor McGonagall sigh in exasperation. A moment passed, and Umbridge's smile resumed its normal intensity. She cleared her throat for a third time, and she began to read, "The Boy Who Lived."

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley ... thank you very much.

"Oh! But you're quite welcome!" Fred said in an overly pompous manner, puffing out his chest and arcing his back in the process. Harry was reminded vividly of Percy during his prefect and Head Boy phases. Abruptly, Fred let the pose go, wincing as he reached around to rub at the centre of his spine.

"Indeed, old boy! Very welcome indeed, old chap!" George added enthusiastically, suddenly reaching into his pocket and pulling a monocle out of it, placing it against his right eye. Angelina Johnson stared at him for a few seconds, speechless.

They were the last ... with such nonsense.

"Of course not," Fred and George declared at the same time, looking extremely offended at the prospect of such untoward nonsense happening. The exaggerated expressions of affronted-ness that they wore garnered a few titters of laughter from those sat nearby.

Mr. Dursley was ... man with hardly any neck,

"Sounds like my kinda man," drawled a seventh year Hufflepuff. Harry looked across in time to see his friend give him a dead-eyed stare.

"Arin," his friend, also a seventh year, said blandly. Everyone heard the undercurrent of please stop in the single word.

The first seventh year, apparently named Arin, merely pulled a face at his friend.

although he did have a very large moustache.

"Lovely," Lavender Brown murmured, her quite nauseated expression saying quite the opposite. Parvati Patil gently patted her hand, looking sympathetic towards Lavender's plight.

Mrs. Dursley was thin ... spying on the neighbours.

"Sounds like a delightful person," Dean Thomas commented lightly. He spoke with the air of someone who poured a liberal amount of lemon juice over paper cuts for fun.

The seventh year Slytherin student from before tch'd and rolled her eyes. "She sounds like my father."

The Dursleys had a small ... finer boy anywhere.

There were simultaneous snorts from those who'd had the pleasure of meeting Dudley. Hermione turned her head in time to see Harry and Ron snorting into their glasses of pumpkin juice, Fred and George somewhere down the table alternating between cheering obnoxiously and cackling like old hags.

"Dudley? Fine?" Harry snorted again. "I mean, sure, I guess, if that's your thing."

Hermione rolled her eyes, but even she was smirking slightly. "They've taken eye of the beholder to new levels."

Up at the staff table, Professor Sinistra leaned towards her long-time friend, Professor Vector, and murmured, "And that, my dear, is why I shall remain childfree."

Professor Vector blinked, giving her a blank stare in return. "What, teenagers having conversations?"

Professor Sinistra shook her head. "No, no. I mean the parental love thing." She screwed up her face slightly. "Is there anything so blinding as the love of a parent for a child?"

"Actual blindness, perhaps?"

Professor Sinistra shot her a look. "Not when reading the stars, Septima. To read the stars requires vision unclouded, and nothing clouds your vision more than children."

Professor Vector's mouth twitched, clearly fighting back a smile. "Of course, dear," she said sagely, patting her friend's hand. "If it's children that cloud your eyes, though, you picked the wrong place to do your stargazing."

The Dursleys had ... a secret,

"A secret?" someone from the Ravenclaw table asked, eyes wide with a manic smile as they leaned forward, robe sleeves almost touching their drink.

and their greatest fear was ... it.

"Yes?" Nigel Wespurt asked, grinning eagerly like an overly enthusiastic child. Beside him, Katie Bell gingerly patted him on the head in an effort to calm him down.

"Oh please, do tell," Blaise Zabini all but purred, smiling like the Cheshire cat.

They didn't think they could bear... the Potters.

"The… Potters?" Blaise repeated, raising an eyebrow and looking towards Harry. "That's their big secret? That you're related to them?" Harry shrugged sheepishly, and Blaise scoffed. "Amateurs."

Mrs. Potter was ... a sister,

Snape snorted quietly to himself. He could relate to Petunia in this circumstance, seeing as he took every opportunity to pretend that Lily's sister didn't exist.

because her sister ... it was possible to be.

"That's not even a word!" Hermione muttered under her breath, looking at the book in offence. Ron and Harry looked at each other, mouths working to stay silent and not chuckle. Of course that would be what Hermione focused on first.

The Dursleys shuddered ... Potters arrived in the street.

"From the sound of things, they'd be relieved," mused a Ravenclaw, tapping at his chin. "Like, oh thank god we have normal neighbours now, Deidre."

"Normal neighbours, maybe," a Hufflepuff interjected before the Ravenclaw could continue his musings. "But you know full well these people live on a street full of people just like them."

"Aha!" a second Hufflepuff, seated next to the first, all but shrieked, smile maniacal. How Umbridge hadn't heard him was beyond Harry. "So they live on a street full of curtain twitchers! Which means if the Potters appeared on the street, the curtains would be all a-flutter!"

The Ravenclaw stared at them for a long moment, then glared at the first Hufflepuff who had spoken. "Why do you always do this, Jack? Why've you gotta ruin my fun?"

Jack the Hufflepuff was apparently immune to the glare. "Yep, that's me," he said blandly, face completely straight, "Jack the-Fun-Ruiner Pattillo."

The Dursleys ... had never even seen him. This boy was another ... child like that.

"A child like what, exactly?" Hermione fumed, cheeks starting to colour red as she breathed heavily. A few people began to scoot away from her, staring at her with concern and slight amount of fear in their eyes. Each of them were making mental notes to never make her angry.

When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley ... he picked out his most boring tie for work,

"This implies that he has ties that aren't boring," Fred hummed, and glanced towards Harry, his eyebrows raising.

"Bold assumption there," Harry snorted, thinking of all of the various ties he'd seen his uncle wear over the years. They had ranged from standard boring block colours to the truly horrendous patterns – those were broken out at special occasions and work Christmas parties.

"Are you sure you're related to these people, Harry?" Seamus asked, mind centring in on the 'boring' part and comparing it to the times when Harry had done something decidedly not boring. Such as flying to school in a flying car.

Harry just shrugged, sheepish expression forming.

and Mrs. Dursley ... Dudley into his high chair.

"What an awful child," said Professor McGonagall, a scowl on her face as she stared at the book with no small amount of measured contempt. Or maybe she was staring at Umbridge's back – Harry couldn't be too sure. Both were perfectly viable options.

"He doesn't actually get any better when he gets older," Harry said musingly, leaning his head on one of his hands.

None of them noticed ... the window.

"Of course not," Harry muttered under his breath. He rolled his eyes at the table, as though it was the table's fault for the Dursleys being so obtuse.

At half past eight,

"An ungodly time to be awake," groaned another Hufflepuff, this one with unruly dark hair.

"If you think half eight is unreasonable, no wonder you're always late to lessons, Wright," sniped a grey-haired Slytherin, rolling his eyes at his… friend? That confused Harry. Slytherins and Hufflepuffs being friends with each other?

Mr. Dursley picked up ... his cereal at the walls.

Katie stared at the book, speechless for a long moment. "I… of course. Because what else would you do with your cereal?"

Alicia Spinnet hummed in thought. "I dunno, there are a lot of awful cereals out there. Like if it was a choice between eating Special K and lobbing it at the wall…" she trailed off with a shrug, smiling innocently.

"Okay, but what if you were really hungry?" Katie questioned, raising her eyebrows challengingly. Alicia's face didn't change.

"I don't think you get it, Kay." She leant forward, placing her elbows on the table. "I would actually rather fucking starve than eat Special K."

"Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley

"He actually encourages this behaviour?" Professor McGonagall asked, looking at Harry, nostrils flared from the growing disgust of this family. Yes, she had seen a lot of bad behaviour the day that Harry Potter had been dropped on his relatives' doorstep, but knowing that said behaviour was not only tolerated, but encouraged, was something else entirely.

Harry nodded. "Of course. Dudley probably learnt it from him."

as he left ... number four's drive.

It was ... a cat reading a map.

"Really?" asked George, a slow smirk spreading across his face. He shared that smirk with his twin and shot a glance at their transfiguration professor. Professor McGonagall noticed their devious looks and smirks, and she glared at them in warning, eyes narrowing into cat-like slits.

For a second, Mr. Dursley ... What could he have been thinking of?

"A question I ask myself a lot, and I always come up with the same answer: nothing," mused Harry in a dreamy, far away voice, reminiscent of Professor Trelawney.

It must have ... stared at the cat.

Professor McGonagall stared at the book, lips drawn in a thin white line. Her grip on her goblet tightened the slightest bit.

It stared back.

"Scary thing, that stare," Lee Jordan said mournfully, purposely avoiding McGonagall's eyes as Fred and George nodded in agreement.

"Oh yeah, that stare could turn Medusa to stone," Seamus vigorously agreed, shuddering. "It's stone cold."

As Mr. Dursley drove ... cats couldn't read maps or signs.

"Aha! We know Professor McGonagall's weakness," Fred loudly whispered, eyes wide with exaggerated shock. He looked between his captive audience and the exasperated Professor McGonagall.

"She cannot read maps or signs!" George added in a dramatic voice, throwing out his arms for emphasis. Ginny shot him a dirty look when he nearly hit her on the nose.

"That's enough, Weasleys," said Professor McGonagall, looking sternly at the two freckled troublemakers. They both opened their mouths, and Professor McGonagall glared at them until they shut them again.

Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.

"Ah, so we now know where Potter gets his one-track-mindedness," Zacharias Smith sneered in Harry's direction, lip curling unpleasantly. Those around him sent him rancid stares, but Zacharias's smugness acted as its own mirror shield.

Harry sent a particularly sharp death glare towards the Hufflepuff. "Don't ever compare me to him, Smith," he said quietly, close to snarling. A moment, and the expression passed, leaving Zacharias blinking.

But on the edge ... his mind by something else.

"A lobotomy, perhaps?" Hermione suggested, her innocent tone ruined by her sharp smile.

"Hermione, no," Harry said blandly, without any real fight. His lips kept twitching, ruining the illusion. "That's illegal, Hermione."

As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam,

"He probably left the house too late to avoid the morning rush hour," Dean said knowingly, mind flashing back to the times when his mum had left the house too late to avoid it herself, looking harassed as she'd hurried to the car to make it to work.

"I mean, he did leave at half eight, so he absolutely left it too late." Harry shrugged. "What can you do, though? He still refuses to leave half an hour earlier."

"Seriously?" Dean blinked. "That's… kinda insane, bruv. My mum started leaving an hour earlier just to avoid the traffic jams."

"My uncle doesn't see why he should have to leave an hour earlier, though." There, Harry rolled his eyes with barely concealed disdain. "He probably thinks everyone else should leave earlier and leave the road free for him."

he couldn't help ... People in cloaks.

"The horror!" exclaimed a Hufflepuff first year, earning some chuckles. The Hufflepuff blushed at the sudden attention and they ducked their head.

Mr. Dursley couldn't bear ... whispering excitedly together.

"How come there are so many wizards together?" Daphne Greengrass questioned, frowning lightly. She glanced between the book and the staff members. "And what about the clothes? Aren't we meant to blend in with the muggles to avoid detection?"

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips again, forming them into a fine white line. "Normally, yes," she answered, inclining her head. She wasn't surprised that the eldest Greengrass daughter had caught that detail. "On that particular day, however, common sense went completely out the window." Just thinking of Dedalus Diggle and his shooting stars made her nostrils flare.

Professor Flitwick, who had been in the middle of sipping his drink, suddenly paused. He looked to Professor McGonagall and asked, in a quiet voice that only the staff table could hear, "Oh… was it… that day, Minerva?" Professor McGonagall didn't answer, but her pale expression was all the answer he needed. Professor Flitwick swallowed heavily, nodding. "I see…"

Mr. Dursley was enraged ... emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him!

"How very dare he!" Fred declared loudly, voice sliding right back into the pompous area. Once again, his chest was puffed out, and once again, he was wincing in pain within seconds.

"Oh yes! Indeed!" George added, pulling out the monocle from some hidden space yet again. This time, it was accompanied by an old-fashioned pipe. Angelina merely stared at him for a long moment, apparently exasperated beyond words.

"Why are you like this," she said blandly, and George smiled broadly at her in response, the monocle falling from his eye. Angelina smiled as he let out an inelegant squawk as he dove to catch it.

But then it struck Mr. Dursley ... yes, that would be it.

"How thick are they?" Ron asked Harry, who merely shrugged.

Luna Lovegood looked up then, her blonde hair falling around her face with the motion. Everyone around her jumped with surprise. She'd been so quiet for so long, they'd just assumed that she'd fallen asleep. "The eyes of muggles are clouded," she said, voice only slightly dreamy but full of conviction. Harry stared at her. "They cannot see what we see. They can't make sense of it if they do."

There were a few snickers around the hall, and Harry heard a few people murmuring about Loony Lovegood – he resolved to find those people at a later time, because nobody spoke ill of his friends. Mostly, though, Harry found himself considering Luna's words. In some strange way, they made sense. From the proud look that Professor Flitwick was sending Luna's way, he probably felt the same way.

The traffic moved on ... his mind back on drills.

"He has such a fascinating mind," Ginny said sweetly, smiling like the perfect cherub angel. "I wonder what you'd find if you drilled into it."

Fred and George quickly edged further away from her, their faces etched with an interesting combination of mild horror and light amusement.

Mr. Dursley always sat ... on the ninth floor.

"He has an office on the ninth floor?" Padma Patil asked, raising her eyebrow. "He can actually walk up that many flights of stairs?" From what she'd heard about the man over the years, she had her serious doubts.

"Oh god no. The office building he works at has a lift," Harry replied with a small smirk, thinking of the times when his uncle had attempted to crowd himself into one of the compact lifts. "It's not like one of the nice hotel lifts that fit, like, six people in, though. It's a right dingy little thing that barely fits a wheelchair in it. And my uncle is far wider than a wheelchair."

If he hadn't, ... owl after owl sped overhead.

Daphne frowned in thought again. What could have happened that the entire wizarding world was willing to risk breaking the Statute of Secrecy? Maybe she'd have to ask Papa if answers were not forthcoming…

Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime.

"How come?" asked a puzzled Ravenclaw second year. Harry supposed that the boy must've been a pureblood - seeing owls was an everyday occurrence in pureblood households, as Harry recalled from his summer visits to the Burrow.

"Muggles don't use owls," Hermione answered promptly, ever the font of knowledge.

"Really?" said one of the pureblood Slytherins, tilting her head to the side in curiosity. "Weird." She exchanged another puzzled glance with the Ravenclaw who had originally raised the question and looked back to Hermione. "So what do they use instead?" she asked, almost timidly, like she was expecting to get shot down for her question.

Hermione's eyes immediately lit up with a familiar fire at the question, though. "Well, they write letters just like wizards, but they're delivered by other people called postmen! They also generally call people on the phone nowadays, or just text them."

"C-call them?" the Slytherin girl repeated, looking a bit lost. "Te-ckst?"

Hermione opened her mouth again, perhaps to try and explain, but seemed to change her mind at the last second. Instead, she offered the girl a small smile. "How about I show you what I mean later?" A beat, the girl looking around nervously, and she nodded, a small smile appearing.

Mr. Dursley ... yelled at five different people.

"Such a productive life," Seamus murmured to Dean, snorting.

He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more.

"Him and Moody should own an office together," Dean muttered in reply to Seamus' last comment. "They'd be best friends. And go out and get a pint together at the end of the week."

Seamus fought to stifle a laugh, ribs almost cracking from the effort.

He was in a very ... legs and walk across the road

"Sorry, did I hear that right?" Harry asked, looking up with wide eyes. "He's walking?"

to buy himself a bun from the bakers opposite.

"Ah."

"Was it the walking itself that put him in a bad mood?" Katie wondered aloud, resting her head in her hands. "Because if so, I am very worried."

"Look," one of her yearmates said, pointing at her with a piece of mildly burnt toast, "he's a total piece of shit. I get that. But not all of us love exercise."

Katie stared at her. "Are you still miffed about that?"

Her yearmate, Ruby, sniffed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh my god you are." Ruby's silence was all Katie needed, and she sighed. "Seriously, Ruby. I dragged you outa bed once. To pick flowers."

"You betrayed me, my pillow, and my duvet," Ruby sniffed again, a tad dramatically in Katie's opinion.

He'd forgotten all about the ... to the baker's.

"The baker's, huh?" Dean said, nodding knowingly. "Figures. I wonder if it's Greggs' he's at."

Harry nodded. "Oh, you know it's Greggs'." Just thinking of Greggs' made his stomach protest angrily at the injustice of not having access to one.

"How dare he step on sacred ground," Dean snorted, absently running a hand through his hair. "I really hope a gull stole whatever he got."

"Probably not a gull," Harry said mournfully. "We're too far from the sea for them. But a massive pigeon? Absolutely."

He eyed them angrily as he passed.

In the corner of his eye, Harry could see Fred and George making extremely angry faces at everyone around them, glaring at them and squinting until their eyes disappeared.

"I can't imagine him doing anything not angrily," Ron confessed, laughing slightly.

He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy.

"You make me uneasy," Hannah Abbot spoke up, shooting an uncomfortable look at both the book and Umbridge.

This lot were ... clutching a large doughnut

Ron's eyes glazed over a bit at the thought of food, particularly a doughnut, and Hermione glared at him. She swiftly elbowed him in the ribs and he was brought crashing out of his food fantasy.

in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.

"The Potters ... that's what I heard –"

" — yes, their son, Harry – "

Harry looked down and eyed the table again with growing interest, hairs pricking on the back of his neck as people sent him looks, both curious and pitying. He didn't need to look up to know that they were doing that, and he didn't need to see them. He could do without all of that, because he didn't need their pity. Not now, and not ever.

As if on a cue, his scar gave a sharp burst of pain, and idly, Harry wondered who Voldemort was using a torture toy, before it faded back into the normal prickling sensation. Harry nearly laughed to himself – the fact that he thought of a prickling pain as normal now was the proof that somewhere along the way, something had gone quite wrong.

Mr. Dursley stopped dead.

"Big mood."

"Arin, please."

Fear flooded him ... but thought better of it.

He dashed back across the road ... no, he was being stupid.

Harry blinked in surprise. "That," he began, "has got to be the smartest thing that my uncle has ever said. And he's said a lot of shit."

Potter wasn't such an unusual ... sure his nephew was called Harry.

Hermione hummed in thought. "You know," she said, voice quiet, "I hate to say it, but he's actually being quite logical here."

Harry shook his head. "No, no. I get you."

Susan Bones shakily raised her voice, sounding quite nervous about speaking. "Isn't it a bit – well – rude that he doesn't know his own nephew's name, though?" She couldn't imagine her Aunt Amelia not knowing her name. The thought made her feel uneasy.

Daphne, of all people, jumped in to answer there. "Not really," she shrugged, delicately sipping at her drink. "It's quite common with extended families that aren't close to not know the names of cousins or nieces and nephews." She gestured between herself and her younger sister, Astoria. "In fact, we have an uncle who didn't even realise that we existed until last year!"

Despite himself, Harry found himself blinking in astonishment. "How… does that happen?" he couldn't help but ask.

Carefully putting her drink down, Daphne replied, "He's an idiot who vanished for twenty years without telling his family where he was going. Or if he was even alive," she added after a brief pause. She briefly met Harry's eyes and shrugged.

He'd never even seen ... Harvey. Or Harold.

"Harvey Potter, Harold Potter," George mused, humming thoughtfully. "Nah, doesn't have the same ring to it."

"Harold Potter is the best. Don't knock it," Fred interjected, slapping at George's arm. The intensity was broken by the quiet cackles emanating from the two of them.

There was no point in ...had a sister like that…

Harry snorted. "Like his own sister's a treat."

"His sister…" Ron repeated, trailing off as a slow grin began to spread across his face, "is that the one that you…" He made a vague gesture with his hands akin to an inflating ball, and Harry snorted again.

"Aha. Yeah, maybe," Harry admitted sheepishly, running a hand along the back of his neck. Ron let out a laugh, and even Hermione's lips twitched slightly.

but all the same, those people in cloaks…

He found it a lot harder ... left the building at five o'clock,

"Because gods forbid he stay a second longer and do – gasp – overtime," muttered a sixth year Hufflepuff that Harry vaguely recognised from Quidditch matches.

he was still so ... just outside the door.

"Sorry,"

"I'm surprised that he even knows of the existence of that word," Hermione sniffed, clearly unimpressed.

he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell.

"Poor guy," Ernie MacMillan winced in sympathy.

Over on the Gryffindor table, George suddenly turned to Angelina, grin spreading across his face. "Hey, Angelina?"

Angelina seemed to realise that whatever George was up to, it was almost certainly no good. "Oh no."

"Have you bumped into me lately -"

"Please stop."

"-because I've almost fallen for you."

Angelina merely sighed in exasperation, rolling her eyes even as a small smile appeared.

It was a few seconds ... has gone at last!

Umbridge purposely paused in the middle of reading and looked over the top of the book, focusing straight on Harry. "And he will never," she began, sickly smile slowly appearing, every bit as poisonous as her words and tone, "ever return."

"We'll see about that," Ron muttered under his breath, giving Umbridge a rancid glare that would wither even Professor Sprout's plants.

Harry just sighed and patted his shoulder. "Calm it," he said, glancing around them. A few of the students were glancing at them curiously. "They'll know soon enough."

Ron paused, then just nodded, smiling slightly.

Even Muggles ... this happy, happy day!"

Professor McGonagall let out an irritated breath. "Does this man not realise that Muggles will have no idea what just happened?"

Professor Flitwick gave her a small smirk. "As you said yourself, Minerva, common sense went out the window on that day."

And the old man ... walked off.

"How on Earth did his arms fit?" George stage whispered to Fred. Those in their immediate vicinity began to snicker, and the Weasley twins beamed.

Mr. Dursley ... hugged by a complete stranger.

"No, no. That's fair," said the grey-haired Slytherin from before, humming thoughtfully. "If I got hugged by a stranger I think I'd be shocked, as well."

His Hufflepuff friend, Wright, raised an eyebrow. "Objection," he said lazily, beginning to smirk. "Edgeworth, if you got hugged by a stranger, you'd take them to court and prosecute them yourself."

The Slytherin, Edgeworth, pulled a face. "And they'd deserve it."

He also thought he ... didn't approve of imagination.

Luna blinked. "That's not very nice…" she frowned, twirling the ends of her hair around her fingers absently.

Despite himself, and his growing bad mood and anxiety, Harry couldn't help but smile. "He's not the nicest person, Luna."

As he pulled into ... he saw—and it didn't improve his mood —

"His sister waiting for him?" Harry threw out as a suggestion, reaching to grab his goblet of pumpkin juice.

"His extra missus waiting for him?" Terry Boot smirked, and Harry nearly choked on his mouthful of juice. As Ron furiously thumped him on the back, Harry whirled around to glare at the completely unapologetic Terry.

"Why," he started, voice strained from his near death experience via choking, "have you brought us to this place of sin?" You absolute cretin.

was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning.

Despite himself, despite the fact that he knew full well that his uncle would never cheat on Aunt Petunia, Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He took the time to shoot Terry another rancid look, though, for putting the mental image in his brain. Terry merely offered him another unapologetic smirk.

"A tabby cat, you say?" Lee repeated, his pitch rising comically. He shot an exaggerated look between the open book and Professor McGonagall, adopting a pondering expression. "How interesting."

At the staff table, Snape shot Professor McGonagall a look of his own, although this one was more mildly amused than anything else – not that anyone beyond a few individuals would be able to tell. Immediately, she noticed the look and offered a sharp glare of her own, and the meaning was quite clear: mind your own business.

It was now ... same markings around its eyes.

"Definitely Professor McGonagall," Fred nodded, as though a great mystery had been suddenly solved. A beat, and he and George quickly bent their heads over their patch of table and began making exaggerating whispering sounds, looking up at the professor in question every so often. Harry thought he heard the words, 'cat', 'glasses', and 'scare', amongst many others in the sibilant, nonsensical whispering.

"Okay," Alicia said after a couple of moments, non-too-gently flicking Fred on the ear and forcing the two out of… whatever it was they were just doing. "You need to stop. All that hissy whispering shit is giving me a headache."

"I quite agree with Miss Spinnet," Professor McGonagall agreed blandly, looking somewhere between resigned and ticked off. "Weasleys, be quiet."

"Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly.

"Oof, he's brave," Colin Creevey said in awe, looking between the book and Professor McGonagall with widened eyes. "I couldn't imagine telling the professor to shoo!"

Colin's amazed tone of voice caused the Weasley twins to crack up once again, low snickers drifting across the Hall. A few people looked across to the Gryffindor table, wondering what the fuss was about. Professor McGonagall merely stared at them, caught between glaring and sighing. And perhaps asking for a glass of Ogden's finest firewhiskey.

The cat ... just gave him a stern look.

'Ah, yes," George said fondly, as though reminiscing a particularly happy memory. "The look."

"A fine staple of our time here, if you will," Fred continued, resting his head on the palm of his hand. He gave an exaggerated wistful smile.

"We know it very well," George added cheerfully.

"How well?" Harry asked, tilting his head to the side, the beginnings of a smirk starting to appear.

"Oh, y'know…" Fred trailed off, smiling as well.

"I don't know."

"We've seen that look maybe once," Fred said, shrugging.

"Or twice," George added, smile becoming wider.

"A year."

"A term."

"More like a day," Professor McGonagall murmured irritably to Professor Flitwick, who smirked in response.

Was this normal cat behaviour,

"Nope!" Seamus shouted, raising his arms and flailing them. "It's normal Professor McGonagall behaviour!" He pointed at the teacher in question, smiling triumphantly.

A number of people around the hall started grinning as well, finding his enthusiasm to be infectious. Professor McGonagall gave him a stern look from the staff table.

"Quiet, Finnigan," she said, a touch sharply as she frowned. Seamus immediately quietened, although his grin didn't fade.

Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together,

"Like a pair of curtains?" Luna wondered aloud idly, garnering some strange looks from some people.

"Doctor, doctor, help!" a Hufflepuff dramatically gasped. "I feel like a pair of curtains!"

"Oh, pull yourself together, love," Justin Finch-Fletchley responded with a roll of his eyes. Ernie gave him an odd look.

"Mr Doctor Sir, please stop trivialising my patient's mental illness," Tracey Davis lazily threw in from the Slytherin table, drawing in more strange looks. "Feeling like a pair of curtains is a serious condition."

he let himself ... mention anything to his wife.

"That's the spirit, old boy," Terry said with a smile, nodding along to the words. "Don't tell the wife, because that's not asking for trouble at all."

Mrs. Dursley had ... learned a new word! ("Shan't!").

"Such a lovely child," Hermione sniffed, wondering how in the world that child had survived pre-school, or even school in general.

"He's learnt a couple of more since then," Harry casually threw out, resting his elbows on the table. Hermione looked unimpressed. "He can just about say his own name, now."

"How nice," she said drolly, rolling her eyes so hard, Harry was afraid that they'd roll straight on out of the Great Hall.

Mr. Dursley tried to act normally.

"My friend, we have a long way to go," Lisa Turpin sighed, Padma nodding beside her.

When Dudley had ... to catch the last report on the evening news:

"And finally, bird-watchers ... showers of owls tonight, Jim?"

"Well, Ted," said the ... downpour of shooting stars!

Professor McGonagall twitched, letting out a sharp, annoyed breath. That Dedalus Diggle and his damned shooting stars…

Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early — it's not until next week, folks!

"What's Bonfire Night?" questioned Anthony Goldstein, hesitation lacing his tone. From the sound of things, he wasn't sure if he actually wanted to know or not. He half expected Hermione to be the one to answer, and was surprised when Dean swooped in before Hermione could.

"It's a Muggle holiday," he replied quickly, smiling. He seemed enthusiastic about it. "On 5th November, people set off fireworks in their gardens, although a few usually start a few days beforehand."

A Ravenclaw Muggle-born frowned, crossing her arms. "I'm not keen on the fireworks. They frighten my cats."

"A few people do go overboard," Dean nodded in agreement. The Ravenclaw frowned even more.

"My neighbours start the fireworks before Halloween has even passed!" she protested, sounding very unhappy about it. Anthony wondered what sort of holiday this Bonfire Night was. Were all Muggle holidays this… insane sounding?

Justin raised a hand. "My family also has a bonfire," he said, sounding quite proud of that fact. Anthony had… not been expecting that of Justin. He'd always considered the Hufflepuff to be quite rational.

"Ooooh, look at bonfire boy over here with his bonfire," jeered another Ravenclaw – Anthony was sure that he was a sixth year, given that he'd seen him looking harried in the common room the previous year. "Some of us can't even afford sparklers!"

"My aunt and uncle have never done the firework thing, but they always go to a show," Harry added. He pulled a face. "They like burning guys."

Anthony stared. "I… they… what?" Burning guys? What? What did these Muggles do? What the hell was this holiday?

Harry frowned at him. "A guy," he repeated, like that made it any better. "You know, an effigy." People launched into more questions at that, because – what.

Unexpectedly, Tracey stood up and brought her hands down upon the table with a thunderous smack, breaking everyone out of the chaotic questioning. She glared at everyone, then focused on Harry. "Potter," she started, eyes narrowing, "what the fuck do you mean? What the fuck is Bonfire Night?"

"It's a holiday that people celebrate to remember the gunpowder plot!" Dean answered with fervour, bringing his own fists down on the table. The majority of the hall had fallen silent, the din carried on only by a select few.

"What the fuck is the gunpowder plot?!"

Hermione quickly jumped in before Dean had an aneurysm, shooting a concerned look between him and Tracey. "It was a plot in 1605 designed to blow up the Houses of Parliament… erm, the place where Muggle politicians meet," Hermione amended, seeing the blank faced stares of the purebloods. "The main objective was to kill the king. The person who got the blame was called Guy Fawkes."

"So this holiday," Blaise said slowly, resting his head on one of his hands and adopting a pondering expression, "is to celebrate an attempting murder of a king?" A slow smile spread across his face. "Interesting."

"A holiday that celebrates an attempted murder by burning stuff?" Draco Malfoy said, sniffing in obvious contempt as he regarded the book like it had offended him. "Utterly savage."

Tracey gave him a sideways glance, raising an eyebrow. "Weren't purebloods shitting themselves until the invention of the loo?"

Malfoy immediately sat up straight, pink flaring across his cheeks. "That," he hissed, tinges of embarrassment leaking into the tone, "is a myth."

But I can promise a wet night tonight."

Mr. Dursley sat frozen in ... a whisper about the Potters…

"Putting it together, is he?" Harry said, raising his eyebrows in mild surprise. "Guess he's not as thick as I thought. That brings his total brain activity up to one brain cell."

Everyone who heard Harry's remark snickered, and Fred and George high fived him across the table.

Mrs. Dursley ... He cleared his throat nervously.

"Er — Petunia, dear ... sister lately, have you?"

"No, she hasn't, and she never will again after that day," Harry commented darkly, glaring at the book again.

Ron looked at him in concern, frowning. "You okay, mate?" he asked quietly, glancing around at the students around them. No one else seemed to have heard his question. Harry tilted his head slightly and gave Ron a slight smile, a barely there nod.

As he had expected ... pretended she didn't have a sister.

Harry gripped the edge of the table whilst clenching his jaw, his knuckles turning white as he scratched the table's surface. He heard Hermione hiss something under her breath, and mutterings from Fred and George about revenge. Despite the dull feeling he'd got from hearing that Aunt Petunia pretended his mother didn't exist – something he'd already known about anyway – Harry felt a flash of warmth trickle into his chest.

"No," she said sharply. "Why?"

"Funny stuff on the news," ... funny-looking people in town today…"

"So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley.

"Well, I just thought… ... you know… her crowd."

"What does he mean by that?" Hermione asked, turning to Harry.

"Witches and wizards," he offered in reply, glaring at the floor this time. The floor was definitely to blame for his uncle's terrible mindset. "Or anything magic-related."

Mrs. Dursley sipped her ... He decided he didn't dare.

"I think he's missing a certain part of his anatomy," Daphne threw out casually, leaning her head on her hand. She sounded like she was about to start pouring a liberal amount of salt over someone's cut. Her sweet smile at the end only added to it, and the boys around her edged away from her, a couple even crossing their legs. Tracey snorted into her hand. Weaklings.

Instead he said, as casually ... Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly.

"What's his name again? Howard, isn't it?"

Harry turned to the grinning twins with a dirty look. "Do not."

"Harry. Nasty ... if you ask me."

'Yeah, well," Ron sneered loudly, "nobody asked you!" His face was slowly turning an interesting shade of red.

"I like your name, Harry," Cho said, leaning as far out as she could go from her table and smiling shyly at Harry.

"Oh, yes ... I quite agree."

He didn't say another ... The cat was still there.

"I wonder who that is…" George mused, a grin creeping onto his face. He pointedly looked towards Professor McGonagall.

It was staring down ... were waiting for something.

"Three guesses who the cat might be waiting for," Fred murmured to his twin and best friend. George hastily turned his laugh into a cough. Lee glanced towards the staff table.

"I mean, Mrs Norris is known for her legendary wandering," Lee mused thoughtfully, looking towards where Filch and Mrs Norris were sitting. As if she heard her name being discussed, Mrs Norris glared at them, her ears pricking back in warning.

"Are you suggesting that Professor McGonagall – our very own Professor McGonagall – sat around all day disguised as a cat, just to meet up with Mrs Norris?" George's tone was doubtful, but there was a sparkle of barely hidden laughter in his eyes that spoke another story.

"Look, I'm not gonna judge our Professor McGee on what she does in her free time," Lee said defensively, raising his hands up in mock surrender. "If she wants to be a cat and hang around with other cats, that's her choice."

"In this House, we respect each other," Katie absently threw in, reaching to grab a piece of toast.

"Gryffindor is the House of no judgement!" Fred declared loudly, and with quite a bit of feeling. Those unlucky enough to be sat near him moved away, rubbing at their suddenly pounding ears.

At the Hufflepuff table, a seventh year suddenly raised his hand. "Can I raise an objection to that? Because she," he pointed at Alicia, "told me to meet her in the fucking pit, and that if I didn't meet her, then I was a coward."

"Pffft," Sue Li snorted, dismissively raising a hand in their direction, "wasn't it your House that decided Potter, a Gryffindor, was the Heir of Slytherin with no evidence to go on?"

Susan, Hannah, and Justin all flushed red, averting their eyes downwards. Ernie, however, stood up, pointing at the Ravenclaw table. "Isn't it your House that hogs the library like a fortnight before exams even start because you think the rest of us won't use it?!"

"Oh my god will everyone just shut up," snapped a new irritated voice. Everyone looked around for the source, and Harry was mildly surprised to see Theodore Nott glaring at them all. "Let's just agree we're all awful and be done with it."

"That's quite progressive for a Slytherin," Fred commented innocently as Ernie slowly sat himself back down. Theodore focused his glare on Fred.

"The sooner we're done with this book," he said, sounding very much like he wanted to be anywhere but the Hall, "the sooner I can go back to bed."

Was he imagining ... didn't think he could bear it.

"Yeah, well, it's not nice being your relative, either," Harry retorted, grimacing at the book

The Dursleys got into bed.

"Oh gods, please stop now," the Slytherin seventh year from before said, her face going green to match her House colours. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Everyone who got the gist of what she was saying looked inclined to agree with that train of thought, and suddenly the Hall was filled with a dozen ill looking students. There were also more than a few suddenly mischievous looking faces – amongst these faces were the Weasley twins.

"Thanks," Theodore said blandly, grimacing. He looked like he was going to vomit right there at the table. "That was exactly what I wanted to hear."

"BRAIN BLEACH!" the twins yelled in synchronisation, eyes dramatically squeezed close and gesturing blindly in front of them, grabbing hold of various, unsuspecting students as they flailed wildly. Fred managed to grab hold of Angelina's shoulders, and she shrugged him off, sliding further down the bench and eyeing him concernedly.

Professor Sinistra turned to Professor Vector, her eyebrows raised as she gestured towards the performance before them. "Reason number two, my dear Septima, why I would never want children."

Professor Vector smiled over the rim of her goblet in amusement. "I can see why." She put the goblet down, her eyes sparkling in barely quenched laughter. "You'd find yourself in rather over your head." She gave her friend a sideways smile. "Which would be really something, considering you spend all your time with your head in the stars."

Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly ... it couldn't affect them…

How very wrong he was.

"And not for the first time, I wish that he hadn't been wrong," Harry murmured, although still audibly enough for the people around him to hear him. He pointedly ignored the pitying looks again. He could sense that they were getting to the main point of the first chapter, and so his mood was starting to slowly go south.

Mr. Dursley might have been ... showing no sign of sleepiness.

"She's actually like that! All the awesome parties that she's ended!" Lee said with the air of someone grieving, although only the Gryffindor table heard him. Faint, hushed laughter was heard, much to the confusion of the other tables, who looked at them in curiosity and, in the case of some of the Slytherins, contempt.

It was sitting as still ... the far corner of Privet Drive.

"That's actually Stern Look Number Four," said a Gryffindor seventh year knowingly.

It didn't so much as quiver ... nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.

Ron shuddered at having to sit still for that long. Just the thought of it made his poor body ache with phantom pain.

"You sat still for that long, Minerva?" Professor Sprout murmured in hushed tones across Professor Flitwick's head, amazement in her tone. "I get antsy after being still for five minutes!"

"Yes, well," Professor McGonagall cleared her throat, "you and I are very different people, Pomona." She cleared her throat again, glancing back towards where her House was situated. "I have also invested a significant amount of time in mediation over the years. It is a good exercise in patience."

"Really?"

"Mediation? You?"

Professor McGonagall glared at the two of them, and they both turned sheepish at their outbursts. Professor Flitwick spoke up again. "Sorry, Minerva," he said, offering another sheepish smile. "We just didn't expect that. You're the last person we expected to meditate."

"If you had to be the Head of the House that contained both the Marauders and the Weasley twins, you'd turn to meditation, as well."

A man appeared on the corner ... cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.

The Weasley twins nudged each other, grinning. Professor McGonagall eyed them suspiciously, sending them a stern look.

Nothing like this man had ever been seen ... man's name was Albus Dumbledore.

Those students who believed in Dumbledore and trusted him cheered loudly, raising glasses and banging on the table in the twins's and Lee's case. Umbridge scowled horribly, giving her the appearance of an awfully constipated toad. She glared between the cheering, enthusiastic students and Dumbledore, who was serenely watching them with a small smile, barely visible underneath the white, shining beard, as though he had instigated the cheering in the first place.

Harry remained indifferent. Whilst he was loyal to the headmaster, and he would remain so until he was given a reason not to be, it didn't change the fact that Dumbledore had been ignoring him and shutting him out all year. Dumbledore might have his reasons, Harry reasoned to himself, but it was no excuse for the behaviour, and he felt that he at least deserved some kind of explanation. Hell, it didn't have to even be long-winded. Just a word or a glance his way to break the silence.

The scar gave another burst of pain, and Harry sighed inwardly.

Albus Dumbledore didn't seem ... his name to his boots was unwelcome.

"Oh, I knew," said Dumbledore cheerfully, far too cheerfully for someone who was on the receiving end of one of Umbridge's toady glares. "I just didn't care."

"Of course you didn't," Professor McGonagall sighed, slightly resigned. She was far too used to the Headmaster's eccentricities to be fully surprised.

He was busy rummaging in his cloak ... the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him.

"Oh, I amuse you, do I, Albus?" Professor McGonagall asked him, peering at him through her glasses sternly. A barest hint of danger entered her tone.

"Not at all, Minerva," Dumbledore said with a small chuckle, his beard moving with the action as though of its own accord.

He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."

He found what he was ... out with a little pop.

"Cool!" said Seamus loudly, eyes wide in awe and general temporary hero worship. The majority of the male population in the room nodded their agreement, and Dumbledore smiled.

"How does that work?" Hermione asked, eyebrows knitting together as she stared at the book with a considering frown. She leaned her elbows on the table in front of her, fingers idly tapping some nonsensical pattern. "Does it release a spell? Does it take the light's energy? And would it disrupt the National Grid in any way?"

Dumbledore chuckled at the barrage of questions, like he wasn't being interrogated by the one student who would find out all his deepest, darkest secrets. "Who can say?" He smiled enigmatically. "I can say with the highest assurances, though, Miss Granger – it does not affect the Muggles's National Grid."

He clicked it again ... after a moment he spoke to it.

"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."

"Ha! We knew it!" Fred and George shouted at the same time, leaping up from their seats. In the space between the Gryffindor table and the table opposite, they started doing a victory dance, leaping around and yelling, all infectious smiles and enthusiasm. Students around them started clapping a beat, and the twins danced in time, their movements exaggerated and silly.

"Weasley, Weasley, SIT DOWN!" McGonagall eventually shouted across the ceiling raising laughter, watching with a stern eye as the twins slowly made their way back to their seats, still breaking out into fits of giggles.

He turned to smile ... but it had gone.

"Disappearing Transfiguration professors are becoming an epidemic," Luna said dreamily, resting her head against her hands and staring off into space for a second, then glancing back to look at Professor McGonagall. "I blame the wrackspurts."

Professor McGonagall blinked, momentarily taken aback. "I…" she trailed off. Luna Lovegood always managed to throw her off course, no matter the time of day. In some ways, she was a rather more pleasant version of Sybil Trelawney. Not that she'd ever tell the poor girl that, of course. She imagined that would be a shock for anyone to hear, especially a student that was taking electives like Ancient Runes. "Of course, Miss Lovegood."

Instead he was smiling at ... a cloak, an emerald one.

"Are you a Slytherin supporter, Minerva?" Snape asked quietly, mouth twitching in a small smirk. "I didn't take you to be the type."

Professor McGonagall shot him a dirty look, and Snape chuckled to himself. For someone who claimed to be objective, Minerva McGonagall was remarkably defensive of her Gryffindor status and had enough House pride to contradict herself. He would never get tired of provoking her that way.

Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun.

She looked distinctly ruffled.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked.

"Animagus and magic," said Lee mysteriously, grinning widely as he flapped his arms around like he was wearing an oversized cloak. "ALL THE MAGIC!"

Angelina shot him a rancid glare as she narrowly avoided being whacked in the face by his flailing windmill arms. "Can you not, for five minutes," she growled, shifting away from him. The urge to just petrify him for the rest of the chapter – hell, the rest of the book – was very overwhelming at times.

"My dear ... a cat sit so stiffly."

"You'd be ... a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.

"Why all day?" Snape asked, amusement clear in his voice as he turned to look at the Transfiguration professor again. He raised his eyebrows in expectation of an answer.

"I believe it is, as the students say," Professor McGonagall replied stiffly, shooting him another look, "none of your business."

"All day? When ... parties on my way here."

Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.

Seamus and Dean sniggered to themselves, muttering something to each other.

"How does one sniff angrily?" a Ravenclaw wondered curiously, tilting his head to the side like doing that would help.

"You just can," his friend answered tiredly, like he'd had to answer those sorts of questions before. "Don't question the professor."

"Oh yes ... all right," she said impatiently.

"Not a party person, then?" Nigel said questioningly to Colin, who just shook his head. For every party that had been hosted in the Gryffindor common room, Professor McGonagall always seemed to hear about it and appear to break it up.

"You'd think they'd be ... on their news."

Daphne couldn't help but nod in agreement. All of the carelessly celebrating wizards were risking exposure for the rest of their world.

She jerked her head ... "I heard it.

"Maybe that's how she hears the parties from the other side of the castle as well," Alicia said with a contemplative look in Professor McGonagall's direction.

Flocks of owls… shooting stars… ... Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."

"Still hasn't got much sense," said Harry to Ron and Hermione, who both grinned in response.

"You can't blame them," ... little to celebrate for eleven years."

"Therefore, that's a good reason to have a party or twelve," Katie said with a small shrug. Fred nodded and held out his hand. Sighing, Katie leaned across Angelina and reluctantly high fived him.

"Kay!" Alicia hissed, pulling her back by the shoulder and glaring at Fred, who grinned in triumph, "Don't encourage him!"

"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. ... not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors."

"About me," Harry muttered under his breath, doing his very best to glare a hole through the table.

She threw a sharp ... to tell her something, but he didn't,

"Surprise, surprise."

so she went on. ... he really has gone, Dumbledore?"

"Not enough human left in him to die," Harry said flatly, a hint of the torture he felt within his head slipping in at the last second. Hagrid had said the very same thing years ago, before the Mess, and he couldn't have been more right – after seeing Voldemort's true form in that graveyard… Harry hurriedly repressed a shudder.

"But he has gone," said Umbridge loudly in that sweet, simpering voice of hers. "He was gone then, and he's gone now. There is nothing out there."

"Then what'd you call 'em rogue dementors?" demanded someone from the Hufflepuff table. Harry couldn't see who said it, so he assumed they were sat towards the back of the Hall. "Because I reckon they're a bloody big problem!"

"With all the escaped Death Eaters," George helpfully added. Umbridge's face went an interesting shade of puce, clashing horribly with her bright pink outfit.

"Yes, thank you, Weasley," said the disembodied Hufflepuff's voice.

"It certainly seems ... care for a sherbet lemon?"

"What?" asked the purebloods, and a number of the half-bloods, not comprehending what a sherbet lemon could be.

"¿Que?" someone else asked from the back of the Hall.

"Shut up, Manuel," said Dean, saying it in the general direction of whoever said it. Those who caught the tiny reference all started cackling, whilst everyone else looked on in vague confusion.

"They're a muggle sweet," Hermione quickly supplied before things could get too out of hand. "Although personally I prefer Foxes."

"Justin probably likes Worthers," Dean said with a smirk, ignoring the mildly insulted shout of "Hey!" His look turned contemplative for a second. "I suppose I've gotta go with Cadbury's. You can't go wrong with a good Freddo."

"You can afford a Freddo?" Sue drawled, raising her eyebrows. "In this economy? They're, like, 60p each now."

"I think they're dearer now," Hermione helpfully chimed in, and both Dean and Sue looked horrified at the prospect. Harry didn't blame them.

"Is no one going to talk about the fact that Dean said he prefers Cadbury's over Lindt or Milka, or even Galaxy?" Justin said, raising his hand slightly.

Dean pulled a face. "It's a valid choice!"

"It's still better than the chocolate my cousin brought back from America," Colin offered, shuddering as he apparently thought of the chocolate. "I'd eat even Gulliver's over that."

Almost like he was afraid to know the answer, Dean carefully asked, "How was it?"

"Absolutely rank," Colin replied flatly. Justin and Dean winced at the same time. "It tasted like vomit and betrayal."

"A what?"

"A sherbet lemon ... rather fond of."

"No, thank you," ... moment for sherbet lemons.

"Aww, but Professor!" whined Fred, looking like a crestfallen puppy.

"It's always time for sherbet lemons!" George cried, pouting and making his eyes water.

Professor McGonagall rolled her eyes, not moved in the slightest by their dramatic attempts. At least she knew that if their apparent ambition of opening a joke shop went up in flames, there was always room for becoming actors. Well, perhaps with some fine tuning, she mentally amended, watching their performance fall apart into giggles and grins.

"As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone —"

"My dear Professor ... call him by his proper name: Voldemort."

As she read out the word, she tripped and stumbled, words getting caught in her throat much like flies in the web of a spider, and Harry smiled down at the table in amusement. He looked back up in time to see the rest of the Hall flinch, as though burned by the name itself. Well, except for himself, Dumbledore and, Harry was pleased and proud to note, Hermione.

Professor McGonagall flinched, ... reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."

"Of course you haven't," Snape muttered, resisting the urge to look down at his arm. He could almost feel the weighty burn of the mark, even when it was covered.

"I know you haven't," said Professor McGonagall ... all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."

"You flatter me," ... powers I will never have."

"Only because he's too good to use them," said Hermione, shaking her head slightly.

"Only because ... noble to use them."

Hearing that, Hermione blushed at having essentially said the same thing as her professor, and the twins looked at her with varying expressions of horror.

"It's lucky it's dark ... she liked my new earmuffs."

"Urgh!" Lee groaned, miming vomiting. "Did we really need to know that?"

"Old people flirting," Tracey said with a small grimace, hands on her stomach. "It's like watching my uncle flirt with every woman his age that comes near him." She paused, then scrunched up her face. "Actually, just make that every woman, full stop."

"Crime against nature," Theodore nodded in agreement, going a bit green from thinking about it. His bed had never seemed further from him than in that moment, and he let out a despondent sigh as he realised that it would probably be several more hours before he would be allowed to return there.

Watching them, Madam Pomfrey blushed and looked down. While she hadn't been flirting with Dumbledore, she knew nothing she could say would clear her name of this now. Damn these books.

Professor McGonagall shot a sharp ... finally stopped him?"

The teachers and staff members who had a shred of decency in them – so all but Umbridge – each bowed their heads as a mark of respect, and Professor Trelawney murmured a few words under her breath. They might have been a prayer of some kind, or just words of parting, but either way, the parts that Professor McGonagall caught sounded nice.

It seemed that Professor McGonagall ... sherbet lemon and did not answer.

Harry snorted to himself, unable to stop the bitter feelings from clouding his mind again. Dumbledore was refusing to answer her, just like he was refusing to answer Harry himself. There was a part of him that took a small measure of comfort in the fact that Dumbledore seemed to be like this with everyone – evasive when it came to answering certain questions – but at the same time, the bitter voice was asking, why are you making her say it? He thought it with no small amount of desperation, and that desperation stemmed from the fact that he didn't want to hear about his parents being dead, especially not from a book and especially not from the mouth of Dolores Umbridge.

"What they're saying," ... Lily and James Potter are — are — that they're —dead."

Professor Sprout and Madam Pomfrey were dabbing at their eyes with tissues, as many of the teachers wore pained expressions. Professor Trelawney cast her eyes skyward and murmured something, perhaps another prayer of some sort. The majority of the students looked sad, and some sent Harry pitying glances again, eyes darting back and forth between him and the book. Harry resolutely ignored them all.

Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.

"Lily and James ... I didn't want to believe it… Oh, Albus…"

Professor McGonagall had also taken out a tissue and started dabbing at her eyes, sniffing and even now, mourning the loss of two of her favourite students and two of her friends. But then, that pain was also added to the vault of it she had within her mind, a vault she never visited. The pain there, she knew, was enormous and she knew that if she visited it, she would cry her eyes dry for days.

Snape clenched his jaw, looked down at the table to hide his true emotions. Even after fourteen years of a mainly monotonous life of teaching, the pain he'd first felt when Lily died was still there. Maybe it had dulled a bit the way a knife would eventually begin to blunt, but it was still there. Still ever-present.

Dumbledore ... I know… I know…" he said heavily.

Professor McGonagall's voice trembled ... tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry.

"Story of my life," Harry muttered, but loud enough for everyone to hear him. Some teenagers worried about girls and exams – he worried about an egomaniacal mass murder, one who had made it very, very clear that he wanted to kill him.

But he couldn't. He couldn't kill ... that's why he's gone."

Harry kept his gaze firmly on the table in front of him. He could feel the gazes of many of the students in the hall on his back, and he had no desire to look at their expressions. He knew that they'd pity him, be sad for him and send commiserations in the form of saddened looks.

Dumbledore nodded glumly.

"It's — it's true? ... he couldn't kill a little boy?

"Of all the things to be famous for, and it's because a homicidal psychopath murdered my parents and tried to kill me," Harry muttered grimly, pulling a face. He added with a slightly hysterical, quiet laugh, "I'm famous for surviving past my second birthday."

His friends and teachers, excluding Snape and Umbridge, all shot pitying and concerned looks his way. Harry paid them no mind, being too caught up in his staring competition with the table to notice.

It's just astounding ... heaven did Harry survive?"

"Because he's Harry Potter!" Fred and George declared loudly across the room, trying to diffuse the tension slightly. It didn't seem to work too much.

"We can only ... may never know."

But you know, sir, Harry thought grimly, shooting a quick glance towards Dumbledore. Dumbledore had to know – he had hinted at something in his first year, after his encounter with Voldemort and Quirrell. He had said that he would tell Harry the truth about why Voldemort had come after him all those years ago.

Well, Voldemort was up and walking around at that very moment. If now wasn't the right time to tell Harry 'the truth', whatever that entailed, then he didn't know when it would be.

Professor McGonagall pulled ... little planets were moving around the edge.

"Ooh, I want one!" George said loudly, trying to diffuse some more of the tension. It earned a few weak chuckles.

Professor Sprout glanced in Professor Sinistra's direction, raising her eyebrows questioningly. "Haven't I seen you with a watch like that?"

Professor Sinistra's face lit up and she nodded animatedly, dark hair bouncing with the action. "I do!" she confirmed happily. She pulled at a silvery chain leading to her pocket and retrieved a silver pocket watch, its description similar to the watch in the book. The biggest difference, aside from the colour of the device, were the engraved letters around the smooth metal.

"Yours is still truly unmatched," Dumbledore intoned quietly, inclining his head in Professor Sinistra's direction. "Your grandfather truly is a masterworker."

Professor Sinistra quirked a small smile. "Nonno would be flattered to hear you say that, I'm sure." She paused to put the watch back in her pocket. "Just as he was flattered to work on your watch."

It must have made sense to ... I'd be here, by the way?"

Harry, looking up at Ron and Hermione at last, exchanged a wide-eyed look with them. For the first time since the chapter had begun, he wondered about the possible reactions that might come of a book like this. How would the rest of the teacher body react to Hagrid's accidental hint giving during their first year, when the Fluffy Incidents had happened? Or the flute that Hagrid had sent to Harry that had eventually led them through the third floor corridor?

"Yes," said Professor ... why you're here, of all places?"

"Holiday home hunting," Dean said matter-of-factly, nodding to himself. "In summer the prices are sky high. The time to buy is November."

Justin wrinkled his nose. "A Place in the Sun taking place in Sussex is far less glamorous than Spain."

There was a snort from the Ravenclaw table. "Oh, I'm sure bonfire boy needs his holiday hunting programmes to take place exclusively in Greece, let alone Spain." It was the sparkler boy from the Bonfire Night debate. "God forbid he take a footstep further north of the equator."

"I've come to bring Harry ... family he has left now."

"Maybe, but I still hate them," Harry muttered under his breath, glaring at the book again because why were they still reading it?

"Technically, he's probably related to every wizard who comes from a pureblood line," Astoria Greengrass hummed, sounding eerily like her sister. She paused to pick some petals off a flower head. "Due to all the inbreeding and all that," she added after a moment, smile bright.

She tilted her head to the side and glanced at Malfoy, smirking lazily in his direction, only becoming more amused when he spluttered with indignation.

"You wanna come here and say it to my face?" Pansy Parkinson said loudly, deafening everyone around her as she glared at Astoria. Astoria eyed her with a lazy confidence that a third year really shouldn't have and smirked again, flicking her fringe from her eyes.

"Yeah nah. I'm good. All I have to do is point at you and say exhibit A," she said lightly, examining her nails and smiling beatifically at the outraged spluttering she heard.

"You don't ... the people who live here?"

"Thank you, Professor!" Harry said loudly, a ghost of a weak smile appearing on his face. "At least someone's got some sense around here."

He glanced pointedly at Dumbledore, who ignored him once again. Harry hadn't really expected anything less at this point. It was par for the course now.

Professor McGonagall smiled slightly in response, understanding what Harry was feeling in regards to that family. She had had her own reservations about leaving the boy with them – reservations that were about to be voiced in full, no doubt - and based upon the snippets that she'd heard from the Gryffindor table, she had a feeling that her reservations had been well-founded.

cried Professor McGonagall ...pointing at number four.

"Dumbledore — you can't ... mother all the way up the street,

"He still does that, actually," Harry mused idly, tilting his head to the side and looking off into space. His mouth twitched the slightest bit at the memories of it happening.

Hermione opened her mouth, then paused. "Isn't he fifteen, though?" she asked, frowning in what appeared to be both confusion and disgust.

Harry nodded, mouth twitching again.

screaming for sweets.

"Still does that, too, now that I think about it," Harry added on, sounding faintly amused. He was fairly sure that Dudley had screamed for sweets as recently as the summer just passed – when his friends weren't around to see or hear, of course.

Harry Potter come and live here!"

"It's the best place for him,"

"You might want to rephrase that, chief," Harry muttered, tone deliberately light. It was, however, the antithesis of the swirling emotions in his chest. What on Earth had Dumbledore been thinking?

said Dumbledore firmly. ... I've written them a letter."

"There was a letter?" Harry asked, a touch blandly. He frowned. "I've never seen this letter."

"And even so, do you really think all… this," Hermione paused to gesture vaguely around them, "can be explained in a letter?"

"A letter?" repeated ... can explain all this in a letter?

"Oh gods, Hermione thinks like Professor McGonagall!" Lee gasped dramatically, bringing a hand to, pretending to faint and earning a few laughs from the Gryffindor table.

"She's changing," George said in horror, looking at Hermione in fear.

Hermione eyed them shrewdly, raising an eyebrow. For a split second, she looked eerily like the professor in question. "You say that like I haven't broken up parties before," she replied, a touch of a challenge in her voice. George shrank back, and Fred's eyebrows rose even further as Lee paled.

"By gods, she's right!" Fred stage whispered, not seeming to mind becoming the human cushion for his brother and best friend. The three of them bent their heads together for a brief few seconds and made a show of 'whispering', before coming back up for air to stare at Hermione. "She has broken up our parties before!"

"And only ours! She'll let Angelina and Alicia host a quidditch themed poker night but not let us have a small, innocent party?"

Both Hermione and Angelina's eyes narrowed in on Lee, and said boy shrank back again, clearly feeling the combined weighty gaze. A beat, and Hermione rolled her eyes, turning back to her friends to resume listening.

Up at the staff table, Professor McGonagall was privately relieved that there were at least some people who could put the fear of the gods in the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan, besides herself and Molly Weasley.

These people will never ... Harry Potter day in the future

Harry glanced over at the twins, only to see them wearing expressions that could only be described as 'meticulously plotting Cheshire cat'. "Do not," he said, tone deliberately light yet laden with warning. He narrowed his eyes for good measure.

"Oh, Harry," Fred replied, grin widening a touch, "Harry, Harry, Harry." Harry's eye twitched.

"How could you possibly know – " George continued, expression matching his twin's.

" – what we're thinking of doing?" Both of their faces held expressions of pure, manic glee, a promise of something in their eyes if they were allowed to run amok.

"I don't need to know," Harry responded crisply, narrowing his eyes again, "to know that it's something unholy and terrible." Besides, he could already read the mind of one psycho. He didn't need to read the minds of these two.

- there will be books ... will know his name!"

"Ah, that unfair thing," Harry mused lightly. He spoke like he was talking like the weather, not the thing that was a reminder of his parents' murder.

"Is it really that bad?" Ron asked quietly, glancing around them at the other students, probably to make sure that there weren't any nosy eavesdroppers. "You've always seemed so…" he trailed off, apparently unsure of which word to use next.

Harry sighed, thinking about how best to phrase his answer. "People gawk at my forehead wherever I go," he started, voice quiet. It wasn't a topic he ever really spoke about. "Just because my name is known, people think it's okay to come up to me and talk to me." He sighed again. "And they fawn over the physical reminder that I lost my parents without thinking that I'd happily swap them."

Ron winced, averting his eyes for a moment. "Sorry, mate. Didn't think about it like that before," he said quietly. There was a pause. Judging by Ron's pale expression, he seemed to be thinking about the first term of the previous year.

"It's okay. You didn't know," Harry muttered, wincing again as his scar gave another stab of hot pain. Another reason to hate the scar.

"Exactly." said Dumbledore ... Famous for something he won't even remember!

"Mmm… not quite right, chief," Harry threw out, once again keeping his tone light.

Several faces turned towards him as one at that; a few of them were students, curiously questioning, but the majority of them were teachers. Even Dumbledore had turned a serious eye in Harry's direction.

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips, regarding her student with a serious look. "Potter," she began, deadly serious, ignoring the venomous look she was receiving from Umbridge for daring to interrupt the reading, "what exactly do you mean by that?"

Harry shrugged. He considered being formal and answering her fully, but considering the entire student body was in the Great Hall – and worse, Umbridge – he thought better of it. "It means what it means." Professor McGonagall stared at him. "Dum-the Headmaster, I mean, wasn't quite right."

Professor McGonagall inhaled sharply, but otherwise showed no other reaction. "Is that so?" She turned her steely gaze on Dumbledore at that, who wilted near immediately under the weight of it. Harry inwardly smirked.

Can you see how much ... until he's ready to take it?"

"Imagine how it'll be when he finally realises that he is famous, though!" said Ginny heatedly, looking at Harry.

"Or imagine how everyone else will take it when he returns," Hermione added with a small frown.

"So assuming that he isn't exposed to our world until Hogwarts," Sue mused, "and add that to people's reactions… he's expecting an eleven year old kid to be able to handle sudden fame?" She shook her head, furrowing her eyebrows. "Yikes."

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth ... she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it.

"Albus Dumbledore: Baby Smuggler," said Michael Corner seriously, causing a few people to snigger at the image of Dumbledore carting babies around with him under his cloak.

"Hagrid's bringing him."

Hagrid suddenly jolted at the mention of his name, then rubbed at his wild hair sheepishly.

"You think it —wise ... as important as this?"

Professor McGonagall turned to Hagrid. "My apologies, Hagrid," she quickly apologised, realising how rude that had sounded in hindsight.

Hagrid waved her apologies off unconcernedly. "'s'okay, Professor," he replied good naturedly, smiling at her for good measure. "'twas a stressful day."

"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore.

"We all do," said Ron solemnly, as though he was about to enact a solemn vow. Hagrid beamed at him, beard twitching.

Harry was sorely tempted to remind Ron of the time that they had nearly been eaten by giant spiders in the Forbidden Forest because Hagrid had sent them in there with cryptic advice, but then decided against it. Mentioning something like that at a time like this probably wouldn't be a brilliant idea.

"I'm not saying his heart ... He does tend to — what was that?"

"What was what?" asked a Hufflepuff second year in anticipation. The Hall seemed to snap out of its previous stupor, coming alive with murmurings over what that could be. Professor McGonagall seemed to sigh at the memory, and Dumbledore's eyes twinkled the slightest bit.

A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them.

"Oh, sorry. I had a Mexican last night."

"Arin."

It grew steadily louder ... huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.

Lee stared at the book with wide eyes for a good few seconds, mouth open, before saying, "I want one," in an utterly awed voice. He turned to Alicia, offering her a pleading, wide-eyed look. Alicia just edged away from him.

If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it.

"Hagrid!" someone from the Ravenclaw table shouted excitedly, lost in the sea of blue and bronze robes. Several others added cheers of their own, some clapping and some whooping in excitement.

He was almost twice ... He looked simply too big to be allowed,

Umbridge nodded approvingly, sniffing in disdain. She remained oblivious to the rancid stares being directed her way, though.

and so wild ... leather boots were like baby dolphins.

Filthy half-breed, Umbridge added in her own head, grimacing. It turned her expression into an ugly caricature of a cartoon frog, something that Fred was very keen to emulate with gusto.

In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.

"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding ... did you get that motorcycle?"

"Oh, yes, do tell, Hagrid," Lee all but purred, nodding maniacally, and grinning widely. Harry was reminded vividly of the Joker in that moment.

"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore ... he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me.

Umbridge's eyes lit up as she read. Past association with a convicted criminal, one that later escaped? And he had met with him on the night that he had murdered the Muggles? What a very fortuitous turn of events. Umbridge's eyes gleamed as she filed the information away for later, unaware of the bright blue eyes carefully watching her.

I've got him, sir."

Sirius… Even then, when he'd been both grieving for his best friends and beyond furious to the point of murder at Pettigrew, he'd still made sure that Harry been safely swept away. Harry shook his head slightly in admiration of his godfather and smiled to himself. What was Sirius doing now, Harry wondered. He wondered if Sirius was arguing with Kreacher again, or chilling out with Buckbeak.

"No problems, were there?"

"No, sir — house was almost destroyed ... asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."

"N'aww," cooed the Weasley twins in unison, semi-mockingly. They looked at Harry with what could only be described as 'anime eyes', and Harry wished he had a big goblet of unsee juice.

He was about to say something, but Ginny spoke first. "One more word, and I'll hex the both of you!" she hissed, pulling her wand out of her robes frighteningly quickly.

Fred and George immediately shut up, although their cocky smirks didn't quite fade. It seemed they feared more for their lives than cared about a quick joke. For now, anyway. Harry had a feeling that they'd soon be coming up with a schematic for some sort of Sister Proof Anti-Hex Thing, if he knew the twins.

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward ... baby boy, fast asleep.

There was a symphony of 'awws' and cooing from around the hall, some of it mocking as the Weasley twins had been, but the majority appeared to be genuine.

"It's a pity there isn't footage to go with this," he heard someone sigh wistfully, and he had clench his jaw. It was alright for everyone else. They weren't getting their life trotted out on display like the newest play of the year. It was a small saving grace that there wasn't accompanying footage, otherwise he'd have just burned into flames, right there on the Gryffindor bench.

Under a tuft of jet-black hair ... shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.

"Bloody scar," Harry muttered darkly. He subconsciously flattened his fringe over it so that people couldn't see it. He could already see people trying to surreptitiously gawk at it.

To his surprise, though, Ron immediately moved himself front of Harry. Harry caught a glimpse of Ron's expression, and saw that he was near snarling. "Piss off, you lot!" he growled at the onlookers. The outburst, surprisingly, seemed to snap people out of their lapse and they quickly averted their eyes. A few mumbled apologises reached Harry's ears, most people blushing and looking down.

"Thanks, mate," Harry said quietly, once everyone had stopped looking their way. Ron turned back to look at him, and he ran a hand through his hair.

"It's fine," he replied, looking away again. Harry could see the tips of Ron's ears burning red. "Just being a good friend, you know?"

"Is that where —?" whispered Professor McGonagall.

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever."

"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"

"Even if I could, I wouldn't.

It was Madam Pomfrey's turn to turn her steely gaze on Dumbledore. Dumbledore, noticing with his otherworldly senses, immediately wilted under the stare. "What do you mean, 'you wouldn't'?" she questioned, her tone as unyielding as iron. Dumbledore tried to avert his gaze, and Madam Pomfrey narrowed her eyes. "Albus Dumbledore. Do you not realise how detrimental scars can become later in life if they're not treated properly?!"

"Furthermore, Headmaster," Snape added silkily, black eyes glinting, "scar tissue can sometimes be extremely painful. Was this not considered?"

"You need not worry yourselves," Dumbledore intoned, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. Of all the possible things he'd anticipated, the thing he hadn't foreseen was Severus Snape teaming up with Poppy Pomfrey against him in matters relating to healthcare. "I knew that young Harry's scar wasn't an ordinary scar."

Rather than placating her, Poppy's eyes narrowed. "Did you, now?" Oh no. Dumbledore knew that tone. "May I see your qualification in the treatment of scars?" A pause, and Poppy crossed her arms. "If you thought that it wasn't an ordinary scar, you should have brought the boy straight to me." She paused again as she seemed to consider her words. "Seven hells, Albus, you should have brought the boy to me regardless of a scar or not! You-Know-Who had just tried to kill him! What if he'd been seriously injured in the altercation?!"

"Poppy, I assure you, I ran cursory health scans before leaving him with his aunt and uncle."

Poppy snorted inelegantly. "Cursory health scans? Albus, a scan is not the same thing as a check-up and adequate treatment!" She leaned back in her chair with another fierce look towards him, and Dumbledore just knew that this conversation was far from over. He resisted the rather juvenile urge to gulp in horror.

Scars can come in handy.

"You call this scar handy?" Harry questioned doubtfully, resisting the urge to laugh slightly. The scar had caused nothing but trouble and pain for him. Additionally, it had also earned him the title of Lying Schizophrenic from the masses. "I mean, sure, if you need someone to be a Dark Lord detector, but I'm a but faulty right now." The scar gave another painful burst, as though in vengeance for calling it faulty.

Daphne leant forward slightly, tilting her head to the side. "Really? You can detect Dark Lords with it?" she questioned, sounding faintly interested. Thrown off-guard, Harry nodded uncertainly, and Daphne hummed. "Interesting…"

"It's just the one Dark Lord, though," Harry quickly clarified, before she got any funny ideas. He didn't really know what Slytherins were thinking, even the ones that seemed (relatively) okay.

I have one myself ... map of the London Underground.

"That scar isn't natural," the Slytherin, Edgeworth, immediately declared. A few people immediately sighed.

"You know, Edgeworth, this is why no one likes watching mysteries with us," his friend, Wright, sighed. Based on the long-suffering injected in the tone, it was a topic that had come up many times in their odd friendship(?).

"So what'd you do to end up with a scar like that?" Seamus asked, grinning in curiosity. A few people in the immediate vicinity rolled their eyes.

"That, Mr Finnegan," Dumbledore said with a chuckle, clasping his hands over his beard, "is a quite interesting tale from my youth, and it may involve me losing a bet in a pub to an Irishman and something going quite wrong."

Seamus looked like he was about to start questioning Dumbledore right there and then on the specifics. However, a sharp glare from Snape and a slap from Lavender deterred him from that particular One Track Train.

Well — give him here, Hagrid — we'd better get this over with."

Dumbledore ... turned toward the Dursleys' house.

"Could I — could I say ... been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss.

Harry sent Hagrid a small smile as a few people around him cooed, the loudest being, of course, the Weasley twins. Hagrid seemed to be reliving the moment, as big, watery tears were beginning to well up in his eyes.

Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.

"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "You'll wake the Muggles!"

"Oh sure. Because a giant motorbike rumbling in the dead of night won't wake them up," Dean snorted, rolling his eyes. He was well aware of how loud a motorbike could be, especially at night when everything was quiet. His mum had let out enough complaints when she'd been trying to sleep before starting a twelve-hour shift, only for a careless neighbour to start revving their bike at five o'clock.

"I wonder if Sirius enchanted the bike to be silent," Hermione hummed, her voice quiet enough to only be heard by Harry and Ron. Harry nodded slightly in agreement. Knowing his godfather, it would make sense.

Then again, Sirius Black was a loud person who had deliberately decorated his bedroom with garish red and gold to tick off his Slytherin parents. It also wouldn't surprise Harry if Sirius hadn't enchanted the bike to be silenced, and had instead let the noise run free. He'd probably call it 'the sound of his people'.

"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid ... Lily an' James dead — an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles —"

"Cue the worst ten years of my life," Harry muttered, only loud enough for Ron and Hermione to hear him. He noticed them looking at him with concern clear in their eyes, and he rolled his eyes. "Dudley is a nightmare to live with."

Over at the Slytherin table, Blaise leant back in his chair, a calculating look on his face. "If this was all about sending Potter to live with his family, then why'd Dumbledore send him to Muggles?"

Theodore shrugged, face smushed against his arms on the table. It was the closest thing to a pillow he could get right now. "The giraffe necked one is his mother's sister, therefore his aunt. Pay attention." There was a thinly muttered, "This is why you're failing Charms."

Blaise shook his head. "No, I think there's something else. Think about it." Theodore didn't want to think about it. He wanted to go back to sleep, preferably in his dorm bed, but anywhere would do in a pinch, but Blaise kept talking. "Mini Greengrass was right. Potter's related to just about all the pureblood families. Dumbledore coulda found someone fairly closely related to look after him."

Theodore lifted his head to offer a sleepy glare. "Well, maybe he didn't want Baby Vanquisher being raised by Dark Lord sympathisers."

Blaise ignored him. "Or he's up to something…"

"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm

"And there's the Professor McGonagall we all know and love," Lee whispered to the twins. Fred and George grinned widely in response, looking at the professor in question. Truly, Professor McGonagall was something else.

as Dumbledore stepped over the ... tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back to the other two.

There was a stunned silence for a moment, then: "I'm sorry, what?" Hermione shrieked, her face beginning to turn red with bouts of righteous anger.

Harry and Ron's hands flew to cover their ears, to protect them and their hearing from Hermione's banshee-like shriek.

Hermione turned her furious gaze on the Headmaster. "You left him on a doorstep!" It wasn't a question. She was breathing heavily, and a red was spilling over her cheeks as she blushed in her fury. People stared at her in awe and fear as she proved that anger was, in fact, red.

Dumbledore waved his hand slightly. "I did what I had to do," he said calmly, ignoring the tiny voice inside him that had the niggle of doubt attached to it.

Hermione was not that easily calmed down, though. "You left him on a doorstep, in November, when Death Eaters were still wandering around!" she shouted. In another life, she would never have lost her temper at a member of staff like this, especially not Dumbledore, but the thought of her best friend being left on a doorstep in the freezing cold, whilst the danger from the wizarding world still reigned strong, brought on a fury she didn't know she had. "What if he'd frozen to death? Or what if a Death Eater had seen him and had decided to finish the job?"

Around her, people winced at the implications she was throwing left and right. Others were glancing at Dumbledore, wondering what he would say in response.

"I placed various protection spells around him, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said carefully, apparently choosing his words carefully, lest he upset her anymore. "The cold would not have permeated the warming spells, and no Death Eaters – or anything that wished to cause him harm – could have got close to him."

Hermione continued to glare daggers at him, not calmed in the slightest. Wary of her clenched fists and skill in magic, George carefully pulled Hermione back down onto the bench. It was with great reluctance (and resistance) that Hermione went, slowly sitting down and seething in her anger, breathing heavily as she glared at Dumbledore and the book.

For a full minute the three of them ... Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.

Harry shuddered. He had seen Dumbledore without that twinkle in his eye, and he hadn't seemed the same. He'd seemed so much older, somehow, and the power that everyone spoke of Dumbledore having seemed to suddenly be visible to the entire world. Then again, the old man had been furious at Barty Crouch jr. at the time, and Harry had been close to terrified at the power radiating from the old wizard.

Or maybe he had been slightly delirious from the pain. Harry's memories of anything following the Maze Incident were fuzzy at best.

"Well," said Dumbledore finally ... go and join the celebrations."

"You know, I would pay so much money to see Dumbledore get down and breakdance," Lee said with a faint laugh, trying to break through the tension that had formed in the Hall again.

"Imagine Dumbledore playing Dance: It's Your Stage," Seamus snorted, "and dancing to Mothers Be Aware."

"Thanks," Dean deadpanned, "I didn't need that image in my head." Despite his tone, his mouth was twitching, clearly holding back a smile.

"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled ... Professor Dumbledore, sir."

Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket ... rose into the air and off into the night.

"I shall see you soon, I expect ... Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.

"That's a bit rude, Professor," Fred mockingly scolded, looking quite offended. He was silenced by a look from his head of House.

Dumbledore turned and walked back down ... see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.

"Good luck, Harry," he murmured.

"He didn't give me enough luck," Harry muttered softly. He stretched his arms and winced as seemingly every bone cracked.

He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of ... last place you would expect astonishing things to happen.

"And then, suddenly, it became the centre of all things interesting," Terry predicted, giving his voice an otherworldly, dreamy quality.

Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up.

Fred opened his mouth to say something, mouth twitching. In response, Harry narrowed his eyes at him, the warning very clear on his face.

One small hand closed on the letter ... woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream

Harry shuddered. He hated that scream. It seemed to tear through his eardrums and leave it pieces. Not to mention all the glasses it could probably break. Hell, his aunt could probably rival the Fat Lady for the amount of glasses she'd broken through sheer pitch problems.

as she opened the front door to put ... prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley…

Nothing new there, then, Harry thought to himself. His cousin still did that.

He couldn't know that at this very ... hushed voices: "To Harry Potter — the boy who lived!"

Umbridge stopped reading and looked up from the book. "That's the end of the chapter," she announced, sounding slightly disappointed. It seemed like she really had been hoping for the book to reveal Harry's deepest, darkest secrets – not be his origin story and introduce his Muggle family.

"Ah, in that case, I believe I will read the next chapter, Dolores," said Professor McGonagall crisply, getting up and snatching the book from Umbridge with ease, not giving Umbridge a chance to even object to this. Umbridge stared after her for a moment, then grudgingly returned to her own seat at the staff table.

Her own mouth twitching in victory, Professor McGonagall turned the page and began to read.

---

A/N: So, I'm really hoping that it turned out okay. I don't really have a motive for redoing this other than 'I'm in lockdown and need something to do lmao' and 'this could be fun'. Any story notes in the future (if you like this enough for me to continue this, that is!) will be down here rather than at the top - that was just a one-off! Hopefully this format was also followable - unfortunately I can't upload the fic with the full book like I used to :| fanfiction dot net will drown me so this is the next best thing haha.

Anyway, that's about it, so hopefully this turned out okay, and please review :) let me know if you want me to continue this :)

Extra story notes:

* I wanna give some background characters a bit more life this time around (eg Professor Sinistra and Daphne Greengrass)

* There is an actual plot around it this time (!)

* Some characters reacting to the books are from other fandoms. There's not really any reason for this - it's more to make me laugh while I'm writing it

* The 'idiot uncle' story mentioned by Daphne is a true story. The idiot uncle is my uncle. He's also a twat

* Also a few references because why not

* Blaise is a conspiracy theorist lmao

* Slytherin positivity!

Listening to: Song of Time and Song of Storms (From Ocarina of Time) - Taylor Davis