Sins of the Father

by Sparticustodian

His godfather martyred, his mother murdered, his father blamed for both. It's a lot to throw on a young wizard. No slash. No smut.

Year 1

December 21st, 1981

Albus Dumbledore placed the put-outer back into his pocket and took a moment to smooth the wrinkles in his suit before continuing down the suburban street signed Privet Drive. With green eyes, a head of balding black hair, and a well-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard that was but a fraction of its normal length, any passerby would assume he was the grandfather of the baby boy he carried. He'd had no choice but to travel to Surrey by muggle means – it was far too dangerous to try and apparate or even use the floo network with an infant – but he had hoped that such a trip would have the added bonus of allowing him to make the journey in secret. Apparently not – with an amused sigh and making a show of not looking at the silver-streaked tabby that sat perched on the wall, he called out airily, "You may as well go ahead and give me your thoughts on the matter, Minerva. Though I'm afraid at this stage there's little room for change of plans."

The cat looked once in both directions, then jumped off the wall, transforming into a dour-faced woman with keen grey eyes, a sharp nose, and hair just beginning to fade; and draped in a heavy, dark green tartan robe.

"You can't possibly be serious about this, Albus," she whispered harshly, aware of the need for discretion given their muggle surroundings. "I have been watching these people for a fortnight, and I can promise you they are the absolute worst sort of muggles. You can't possibly want to leave Har-"

"I do not," Dumbledore interrupted, sounding very tired. "But I'm afraid that discussions in the Wizengamot since the events on Halloween have been less than productive and there is literally no place for the boy where he would not grow up tormented and scrutinized. Already, some families that we have suspected of having sympathies with Voldemort are referring to him as 'The Boy Who Lived.'" Dumbledore grimaced as if expunging a particularly sour taste as he repeated the phrase. "Needless to say," he continued after a moment, "he does not need to be scapegoated."

McGonagall looked back down Privet Drive once more, in particular at the Dursley household. "Poor Lily," she said at last. "To have grown up among such wretched people, only to die so young. She won't be remembered at all, will she?"

Dumbledore nodded. "As cruel as it may sound, that will probably be for the best. In a decade, when Harry comes to Hogwarts, he should be able to do so as just another student. Right now I'm afraid too many people are out for blood, and too many others trying to pin their own misdeeds on someone else. None of the families I approached were willing to take in young Harry in those circumstances, and those that would... I can't see anything good coming from that."

"Aye," McGonagall said at last, defeated. "I hope you're right."

Dumbledore nodded. "I hope so, too. Come, let us introduce Harry to what remains of his family. And hope that something can be salvaged from this tragedy."

And so Harry Potter, for want of a better choice, spent the next decade living in a cupboard under the stairs with a family that despised anything whatsoever that so much as hinted at magic.

---

July 30, 1991

"Mailman's here, Dad," Dudley Dursley shouted unnecessarily from the breakfast table as he grabbed another piece of toast.

Vernon Dursley did not look up from his paper as he reached for his coffee mug. "Tell Harry to get it then," he grunted back.

Dudley turned towards his much smaller cousin, beady eyes glinting with menace and a wretched little smirk on his pudgy face. "Dad says get the mail or I can hit you with my Smelting stick," Dudley guffawed, stuffing the now well jammed-and-buttered slice of toast into his mouth. "Getitf. Now."

Harry, with an air of well-worn patience, went to get the mail. Bill, bill, bulletin from the Surrey Lawns and Gardens... and a thick, creme-coloured envelope with the fanciest handwriting Harry had ever seen, clearly made out to Harry James Potter.

That was new.

"What are you dawdling for, boy! Unless you're going to pay the ruddy bills yourself, get back in here and give them to your auntie."

Harry walked back into the kitchen, examining the envelope addressed to him, fingers ghosting over the paper. He'd never received a letter before, but it was clearly his. It said so, right there on the front. And it's not like anyone would send something to him by mistake! He began to open the letter.

"Dad, Harry's opening your letters!" Dudley shouted again as if watching a particularly exciting football match. Though this time, Vernon swiveled around, mustache bristling.

"I am not. It's mine." Harry replied indignantly. "It has my name on it. See Dudley, it spells H-A-R-"

"Nonsense." Vernon bellowed. "Who would send a freak like you a letter?" His aunt, Petunia Dursley, who had been puttering around the kitchen, had grown very quiet, and Harry noted she looked very pale.

"Hand it over and we'll see what this business is about," Vernon said in a tone that Harry knew he reserved for when he would brook no argument. Harry froze, unwilling to hand the letter over, but Dudley hit him with his Smelting Stick and stole the letter while Harry was focusing on his uncle, and he watched helplessly as his uncle scoffed at the heading bearing his name before tearing into the letter.

He had not so much had a chance to read a word of it, however, when there were three short but unnaturally loud knocks at the door.

Everyone froze.

"I'll get that," Vernon said, standing up and cramming the letter into his pant pocket. "Boy, you go ahead and clear the table."

Another knock at the door.

"I'm coming!" Vernon shouted towards the door. "Ruddy busybodies," he grumbled under his breath. Harry followed, positioning himself so he could keep an eye on his uncle. "Good Morn- who on earth are you?" Vernon finished instead, staring at first in confusion and growing annoyance. Harry jerked up at that, poking his head out quickly and taking a quick look at the apparent madman at the door. It was an old man who had a long grey beard that was bound up in a braid but still fell past his chest, which would have been odd enough around Privet Drive to drive his aunt an uncle to conniptions by itself. And wearing a bright purple suit to boot! Harry knew he was the sort of man that his uncle believed had no business darkening his door.

"Good morning, Mr. Dursley. I am Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, here to see Mr. Harry Potter." He pulled out a golden pocket-watch. "Mr. Potter received his acceptance letter to Hogwarts" - a quick glance down at said watch - "A full three-and-a-quarter minutes ago, and no doubt he has all sorts of questions regarding his placement at our Magical Academy. If it's not too much troub-"

"It bloody well IS!" Vernon hissed furiously, his hand patting the letter Harry knew was hidden in the trouser pocket. "You're one of the freaks – Petunia has told me all about your type. How you brainwashed her sister into joining your little cult. Well, we'll have none of that here, believe you me. We've raised the boy for ten years now and we'll not have what sense we've managed to knock into his brains poured out by the likes of you barging in here and corrupting this family!"

The man – Albus Something Something Dumbles, paused for a moment. "I see," he said at last. "But I'm afraid you've made a slight miscalculation in your judgments, Mr. Dursley,"

"Oh I have, have I?" Vernon growled. "I think it's time for you to leave before I call the police. I'm on the board for the Christmas charity drive you know, one ring from me and they'll be around in a jiffy."

"I'm terribly sorry but I cannot be threatened or coerced," the man responded as if his uncle had not even spoken – a slight that turned his uncle a rather unattractive shade of puce. "If you don't mind." In an instant, the man stepped through the front door, Vernon – who had an instant ago been blocking the entire frame suddenly found himself standing on his own doorstep. He sputtered in astonishment. "Mr. Potter, please come forward," the man called in a raised voice.

Harry Potter shuffled around the corner, back straight but eyes clearly skeptical, considering whether this stranger would be any worse than his uncle. After surveying Harry, the man looked away and gave a sharp glance at Petunia, who had still yet to utter a word and who refused to meet his eyes.

"Mr. Potter," Albus began, softening his voice and crouching ever so slightly so as to shorten the distance between the two of them. "I am the Headmaster of a very select school for children like yourself. You have been on our rolls since your birth – it is quite an extraordinary place. I am here to discuss the school with you and answer any questions you may have – no doubt getting a letter from a school called Hogwarts seems quite fantastical!"

Harry looked confused. "Um... Hogwarts?" he responded uncertainly.

Dumbledore looked up to Petunia, and then Harry, and then a brief flash of anger passed quickly over his face. "I see," he said, looking back to Harry. "Well then, perhaps you'd better read your acceptance letter first." With that, Harry looked on in amazement as the stranger pulled a stick out of his sleeve and waved it at Vernon, eliciting a terrified scream from Petunia. And his envelope – much worse for the wear – flewout of Vernon's pocket and straight into Harry's hands.

"Right then," Dumbledore said as if nothing more extraordinary had happened than if he'd simply handed Harry the letter himself. "Why don't you take a minute to read that and I'm going to have a quick word with your aunt and uncle. I'll see you in a minute, Harry."

It was five minutes until Dumbledore returned, and Harry's head was spinning. Hogwarts? A magical school? Charms and Transfiguration and Potions and spells and pet owls!? He had so many questions and very little idea where to begin.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

"Yes um... yes sir. Mr, ah-?"

"Mr. Dumbledore will do, or Headmaster, if you prefer."

"Yes erm, Headmaster. So... this is real, right? Hogwarts is a real place? And I... I will learn to be a witch?" Harry asked, the words tumbling forth as if the whole possibility might disappear if he didn't latch on to it fast enough.

Dumbledore laughed lightly. "Male magicians are referred to as wizards, Harry. You will be a wizard at Hogwarts. Rather, you have always been a wizard and Hogwarts will teach you how to utilize your magic in a constructive manner."

"I have magic! There was this one time with my hair... and with the school roof, but... so, I'm not a freak?"

Petunia paled further as Dumbledore gave her another look.

"No, Harry. You are a wizard, just like your father was a wizard and your mother was a witch, and there are wizards and witches scattered throughout England, indeed throughout the entire world. At Hogwarts, you will be trained with scores of magicians your own age in how to utilize this gift. As the required materials are not something you would find in the muggle – what we call the non-magical – world, I am here today to take you into London to purchase your school supplies, and to bring you up-to-speed, as it were, with the magical world in general."

"Now hang on a moment," Vernon interrupted.

"Yes!" Harry blurted. Then stopped, shocked that he had dared speak over his uncle before giving said uncle a defiant glare.

"Yes, I want to go."

"You're not going anywhere at all! This foolishness got Petunia's sister killed and we'll not have it on our doorstep!"

At this point, Vernon Dursley was arguing to an empty room, as Dumbledore had walked up to Harry, grabbed the boys arm, and the pair of them had disappeared into thin air.

---

Harry blinked, fighting back a sense of nausea before looking about. One moment he had been in the Dursley's living room, and now he was... well, he was somewhere else.

He and the Headmaster were in a rather quiet and dimly lit room, but through the window Harry could see great crowds of people jostling on a narrow cobble-stoned street. There were all sorts of buildings crammed along across, some of which seemed in danger of tipping over at any moment.

"Diagon Alley," Headmaster Dumbledore exclaimed cheerfully. "The heart of magical London. We should be off then, Mr. Potter – there is much to be done. Although-"

The headmaster paused, looking Harry over. Harry refused to meet his eyes, ears burning at what he knew the headmaster was looking at: ratty trainers and clothes far too big for himself, held up by a belt of fraying rope.

"It would be best, Mr. Potter, if you and I both did a bit better job of blending it. This ought to take care of the problem for now." Dumbledore concluded, twirling his wand at Harry in a fluid but complicated motion.

Harry jumped as his clothes seemed to come alive, pushing and jumping and spinning around his form. He gasped as he looked and saw that he was now dressed in a yellow robe and smart looking trousers.

"Transfiguration – a very useful subject if I do say so myself." Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. "It was my old subject actually, before I became the Headmaster at Hogwarts. I might be a bit biased but I do hope you enjoy studying it this coming year as I enjoyed teaching it. And now I'll do myself." In a moment, the Headmaster's robes were a deep blue covered in white stars that shot across his sleeves. In addition, the Headmaster looked years younger, with a much bigger nose, no beard, and a great shock of red hair.

Harry looked again at his new robes, and decided he would enjoy studying it very much.

The day passed in a blaze of glory for Harry. Harry had expressed concern that he had no means of paying for such things as cauldrons and wands until the Headmaster had informed him that there was a small fortune held in his name. The headmaster had taken him to a bank run by goblinsand been shown to an underground chamber with more money than Harry had ever seen before. The Headmaster had collected a small number of the gold coins and a larger number of the silver and bronze in a leather bag before handing them to Harry, and after a brief explanation about how much the coins were worth had warned Harry that the money in this vault had to last for all of Harry's schooling. While it could certainly do that without trouble, he needed to not simply buy every magical trinket he came across or caught his eye or he would soon find himself in dire straights. Believing this would mean returning to his old life – the muggle world, he reminded himself of the word – he simply nodded solemnly.

Even so, there was enough in the small pile Dumbledore had collected for him to purchase his potions supplies and spell books and robes and even have enough left over for, a small sampling of sweets that the shop keeper promised would be like nothing he had ever experienced before, several extra books on beginner's Transfiguration – much to Dumbledore's amusement, and even a beautiful Snowy Owl named Hedwig, which Dumbledore explained was an apt choice as owls served to deliver the wizarding post in addition to being family pets.

The only sticking point had been purchasing the wand, where the Wandmaker, Mr. Ollivander, had gone through a massive number of wands before seeming to stumble into the correct one for Harry. He had grumbled something about it being a very peculiar choice with an odd history, but had not elaborated and ultimately Harry was content to pay his seven gold pieces – galleons, he had to remember to call them – in exchange for his very own wand, Holly, eleven inches, with a single phoenix feather. Nice and Supple and excellent for Transfiguration. He wasn't sure what it all meant, but he was thrilled that his wand was a good fit for Transfiguration.

As the afternoon began to fade however, Harry's excitement began to disappear as well. "I suppose I have to go home now," Harry said at last, poking at the last few bites of a delicious steak and kidney pie at The Leaky Cauldron, a pub that was constantly jostling with people going in and out and a great roaring fire that lit up the entire room but produced no heat on what was a rather pleasant summer's day.

"I think," Dumbledore replied after a moment, "it might be best if you were to come to Hogwarts for the remainder of the summer, if your aunt and uncle will agree to it. A number of the professors are back preparing for the upcoming year, and as long as you promise to keep yourself out of any mischief I do not foresee any problems. You understand that as you are not technically a muggle-born wizard, your classmates may assume you have some knowledge of the world that many of them grew up in, and a month will be plenty of time to become acquainted to ghosts and moving portraits and the like which will be part-and-parcel of life at Hogwarts."

If Harry hadn't been so pleased at the revelation he wasn't going home, he might have expressed more of a shock at the idea of ghosts and animate paintings. As it was, he simply nodded vigorously. "That would be great. If it's not too much trouble."

"None at all, Mr. Potter. You will, of course, return to London on September 1st so as to ride the train into school with your classmates. The Hogwarts Express is not an experience to pass over and will give you the first chance to interact with your peers."

Harry nodded, happily finishing his meal.

---

It was an exciting month for Harry. He had been sternly informed that he was not to practice any magic until he had officially begun at Hogwarts, but the Castle was full of so many amazing things that this was less of an imposition than it might have been. He spent most of his time exploring the grounds and talking to the paintings and hearing all sorts of outlandish stories from their own times or what they had witnessed going on at Hogwarts. He ate meals in the Great Hall - which was the largest room he had ever seen and the ceiling was enchanted with spells so as to look match the actual sky overhead - with the staff, which so far consisted of a very strange woman who foretold the doom of everyone she came across, a giant man with a beard even bushier than the Headmaster's who introduced himself as Hagrid the Gamekeeper who was friendly enough but seemed unsure of what to say to Harry, and a very small man who introduced himself as Professor Flitwick who was very friendly and enjoyed showing off all sorts of Charms at the table, Harry's personal favorite making a pile of chips perform acrobatic feats on Harry's dinner plate.

There were staircases that moved on their own accord and statues that switched places and a lake with an enormous squid. It was brilliant.

Time flew by quickly, and it was at last his last night before the Hogwarts Express. Unexpectedly, he was summoned to the Headmaster's office.

"Have a seat, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said with a smile, before gesturing towards a bowl of candy. "Lemon drop?"

"No sir, thank you." Harry replied, taking a seat opposite the Headmaster, feeling a little nervous but more mesmerized by the gadgets that filled the room. "Have I done something wrong?"

"Not at all," Dumbledore said, though his look was serious. "You will understand that even a wizard in charge of a school can have a fault or two, and I confess mine is a very strong desire to avoid painful conversations. But tomorrow you will meet your peers, and while most of them will have little clue to who you are and will judge you on your own merits, there are a few who are connected to families of importance who may dredge up the past at your expense. I want to brace you for that."

Harry frowned, unsure what to make of this unexpected development. Taking his silence in stride, Dumbledore continued.

"What do you know of your parents, Mr. Potter?"

Harry's frowned deepened. "Nothing really. Aunt Petunia never said more than my mum fell in with a bad crowd, and that she and my dad ended up dead because of it. That my dad was, you know, one of the baddies."

"That must have been very difficult for a young man to have to hear, and without his parents able to refute it, or defend themselves," Dumbledore said softly. Harry just shrugged, but his eyes were focused intently behind Dumbledore, avoiding the headmaster to stare at an empty bird-stand. "It is a bit more complicated than that," Dumbledore said with a sigh.

"Before you were born, there was a very dark and very powerful wizard who went by the chosen name of Lord Voldemort – a name I ought stress you should take care with, as many wizards react badly when hearing the name out loud. Nonetheless, this wizard was determined to remove all magicians without pure-blooded ancestry – those who could not trace their families back through generations of witches and wizards – and rule over this select group with absolute power. They were as you can imagine dark and dangerous times, and I myself led a faction that opposed him. Your parents were both a part of this faction, as well as several of their friends, including your God-father, Sirius Black."

Harry grew more animated at that. "I have a God-father? And you knew – you were friends with my parents? Is that why you were the one that came to pick me up? Where is he now?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "Sirius Black is dead, I'm afraid. You see, once Voldemort was defeated and a number of his followers were interrogated, we discovered that Voldemort had entrusted Sirius's younger brother Regulus to protect an artifact of immense power, and though none of those captured knew specifically what it was, it was known that Voldemort feared that its destruction would greatly risk his position of power. At the time, all that we knew was that Voldemort had recruited Regulus Black into his camp, and shortly thereafter killed him before turning his energies entirely onto locating and killing Regulus's brother, Sirius. It is now assumed that Voldemort believed Sirius was in custody of this artifact, and sought to kill Sirius in order to retrieve it."

Dumbledore's voice grew weary as he continued. "To wrap up a long and winding story, Sirius went into hiding under a rather complicated bit of magic called the Fidelius Charm, a very interesting and difficult piece of magic that prevents anyone from finding you unless your location is revealed by a party to the spell known as the Secret Keeper. I myself cast the spell for Sirius, and though as neither the Secret or the Keeper I was not privy to the Telling, I was later told the secret by none other than Sirius's best friend, your father, James Potter."

The horror had not yet crept up Harry's face, and Dumbledore did not pause, as if hurrying to finish his story. "Suffice it to say, when Voldemort showed up at Sirius' hideaway, only the Secret Keeper could have betrayed that knowledge. The events of the night are jumbled and the records have been sealed by the ministry under the Official Secrets Act, but that night not only did Voldemort and Sirius apparently kill one another, but your mother was killed in a separate attack and your father was killed by aurors – you might call them wizard policemen – after he killed Peter Pettigrew, another childhood friend of Sirius and your father."

The full force of what he was hearing hit Harry. "So my dad, my dad really was a baddie then. He helped kill two of his friends and – did he kill my mum as well?"

Dumbledore gave him a look of sympathy before shaking his head. "As I have said, the records were sealed, in the confusion following the abrupt demise of Voldemort there was never a trial for a man who was already dead. There are no reliable witnesses, the best we have are scraps of information from a group of very evil people under interrogation. I will say that none of those interrogated ever directly named James Potter as a follower of Voldemort."

"Of course not," Harry spat out bitterly. "He was a spy, a traitor. In Dudley's films even the bad guy's minions don't know who the secret baddie is."

"I'm very sorry, Harry," Dumbledore consoled. "This is a lot to put upon you – too much for a young man to have to bear. But understand that there are likely to be a few children – mostly from families that were busy trying to hide their own involvement in the war – who may see this as a weapon to be used against you, should they feel the need. I can assure you, everything they say is at best, hear-say and half-truth. Something I have found over the years to be more dangerous than the deliberately malicious lies. Do not let them use it to destroy you."

Harry nodded, more dazed and shocked to inquire any further into who these children might be or if he'd jumped from the muggle frying pan into a magical fire.

"So Sirius Black was the hero who ended the war, and my dad helped kill him." Harry whispered. "They're going to hate me, aren't they? What does this mean about me. If my dad did those things, does that mean I-"

"It means, Mr. Potter, no more or no less about your own character than you choose it to be. I have seen students from respected wizards and witches go on to perform atrocious abuses of magic, and I have seen those whose parents engaged in the worst aspects of magic go on to become pillars of our community. You are your own man, Mr. Potter. Regardless of what happened long ago."

Harry just shrugged, and looking up he noted that even the Headmaster seemed at a loss for words. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Dumbledore continued.

"I will send a request to Madam Pomfrey to have a Draught of Dreamless Sleep waiting for you at your bedside. Please remember what I said – facts are more complicated than they might first appear. When you are older, once you've had some time to settle into our world, I promise we will talk again. For now, I will walk you back to the common dorms."

Harry nodded again, no longer up properly listening. Trance-like he stumbled out of the office, Dumbledore walking with him as far as the portrait of Sir Frederick the Fanciful fighting a Cockatrice that guarded a small flat that was part of the unused staffing quarters. A vial of dreamless sleep was already waiting on the bedside, and Harry remembered to drink it, soon after collapsing into oblivion.

---

The train ride was wholly anti-climactic after the previous day's events. Harry simply sneaked on board before most of the students arrived and found an empty carriage, scrunching into a corner behind a copy of Transfigure It Out!.Headmaster Dumbledore had said earlier that the train was an excellent opportunity to meet his new classmates, but the idea held much less appeal now than it had originally. A loud, bushy-haired girl had wondered by briefly asking if he'd seen a toad, another girl with a black bob and a small snubby nose had asked if he'd seen Draco something-or-other, and three older boys in blue robes had eventually come in, ignoring him completely in favor of making dragons out of parchment and having them fight each other in the air throughout the cabin.

Which to be fair, was really fun to watch.

Eventually they'd arrived at the school and he had been herded with all the other first years across the lake and up to the castle where they were told they would be sorted into one of four houses, though they had not been told how they would be sorted. Harry had picked up that there were four houses, but with so many interesting things to see and do and ask about the castle he hadn't gotten round to worrying about something as apparently mundane as houses, which even Dudley's school had.

Which is how he found himself on a dais in front of the whole school underneath a very large and pointy hat.

Well, another Potter! It's been quite a while since I've sat on one of your heads. Let's see, let's see... Slytherin would do well for you, ambition, a fair bit of cunning. Not too shabby a mind but not quite the fit for Ravenclaw. Not the boldest little wizard I've had a look at but you wouldn't be a bad match for Gryffindor. I think you'd grow into it quite well, matter of fact. You know, your father was in Gryffindor-

No!Harry screamed inside his head, shocked at the implication of similarity. NOT Gryffindor then. Anyone but Gryffindor. I'm not like him. Not like that. NOT Gryffindor.

Loyalty, eh? And a hard worker by the looks of it to. Not Gryffindor then, if you haven't the courage to face it.

HUFFLEPUFF!

Relieved, and to polite applause, Harry joined the table decked in yellow and black below the giant herald of a badger. At the professors' high table, a plump, friendly-looking witch was clapping the loudest, so Harry assumed she was his new Head of House.

"Harry, is it? Welcome to Hufflepuff!" Harry found himself slapped cheerfully on the back by a well built older student with wavy brown hair. "I'm Cedric – third year, and across from you is Justin Finch, who is starting this year just like you." Satisfied at introducing the two younger boys, Cedric turned back around applauding when Someone Thomas was sorted into Gryffindor.

"It's Justin Finch-Fletchley," the other boy introduced himself properly when at last Blaise Zabini joined the Slytherin table. "You must have been born a wizard - you don't seem nearly half as shocked with all the pomp as I am!"

Harry shrugged. "My parents were wizards but I grew up around muggles," Harry replied, deciding glossing over his past was the best course of action. "I only really started seeing magic recently."

Justin Finch-Fletchley nodded. "My parents had no idea. I was down for Eton, so I think my parents were actually a bit put out when I got a letter from a place called Hogwarts. Still, you should have seen the looks on their faces when Professor McGonagall transformed our dining room table into a hippo. I knew right then and there that this is where I wanted to go!"

Another boy next to Justin introduced himself as Edward Moon and mentioned that he too had muggle parents, and soon he and Justin began to hit it off about what had amazed them the most so far. Harry contented himself with the occasional response when a question was directed to him, but otherwise he let the conversation pass around him. The scar on his forehead, which had never given him any trouble before, throbbed as the evening went on. But he was getting tired, and it had been a very stressful twenty-four hours.

After dinner and a few brief notices for the coming year, the Hufflepuff prefects led Harry and his new classmates to their new dorms. They left the Great Hall and continued past a stone stairway flanked by a Sphinx and Lion-goat-snake thing, down a hall with an enormous mural of fruit, and then another corridor until they reached a perfectly spherical door.

With a flourish, the fifth-year prefect - a gangly-looking boy with messy light brown hair and eyes that seemed a little too large for his face - opened the door. "In you go!" He declared.

Harry, along with his the rest of the first-years entered, only to find themselves in a dreary room with nothing in it save a painting of a funny looking fellow dressed in a patchwork of reds and yellows and playing a harp by a river.

"Hello Gadamere!" The prefect said to the painting. The fellow in the painting – Gadamere, Harry supposed – waved back, one hand still strumming the instrument.

"Mr. Rosewater, the same, the same!" Gadamere sang. "Will you be going back the way you came?"

"He likes to rhyme," the prefect stage-whispered, "but he's not particularly good at it."

Harry was beginning to wonder if this was a first-day prank.

"Fredrick now a prefect and so full of sass, better tell Peeves to put a boot up his -"

"If it's not too much trouble. Password is Sprocklewart." Rosewater interrupted, though Harry got the impression that he and the painting were on good terms... and how odd was it to be on terms with a painting!

"So it is, so it is, now off to your beds; for tomorrow with knowledge they'll be stuffing your heads."

And with that, Rosewater opened the door they had just come out of...

… And into the most amazing room Harry had seen since he first entered the Great Hall. An enormous room greeted them, a roaring fire bathing the room in a soft light that bounced off shining copper lanterns that hung from the ceiling. The walls were covered in tapestries of yellow and black with a running – literally, Harry's eyes widened as a doe jumped off of one tapestry to appear on another – motif of forest animals. The ceiling was round, as if they were inside a great stone barrel, though great wooden beams crossed the width of the ceiling at regular intervals, and from these hung all sorts of exotic plants. In front of the fire were two groups of overstuffed chairs, and towards the back of the room several wooden tables were scattered, in front of a row of bookshelves. There were windows just below where the curve of the ceiling butted the walls, great circles that reflected the firelight.

Already, Harry felt that seven years here wouldn't be long enough.

It was only later, tucked in his new bed in the Hufflepuff dormitory and drifting towards sleep, did it occur to him that every muggle-born he had spoken to had been introduced to magic by Professor McGonagall, and Dumbledore had never actually answered his question as to why he personally had come to see Harry.

---

It was late into the first week of school and Harry was heading down to the Great Hall, reminding himself to pay special care not to activate the jinxed step on the staircase near the statue of the hunchback, when he heard a harried shout from behind.

"Excuse me, Pot- Harry!" Harry turned around to see Hannah Abbott a skinny blond girl with pigtails who was also in his year in Hufflepuff, frantically waving him down, while trying to keep the contents of her bag from tipping out. Walking behind her at a much more reasonable pace were three more of his Hufflepuff housemates: Ernie Macmillian and Wayne Hopkins, as well as Susan Bones, who looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Yes?" Harry asked, stopping to allow the other first-years to catch up.

"We're going down to the lake; Ern here asked Professor Sprout if we could borrow a box of matches, so we're going to turn them into needles until we can't see straight," Wayne explained happily, blithely ignoring Ernie's eye-roll at the diminutive.

"Oh. Okay." Harry replied.

"... And we we're wondering if you'd want to come with us..." Ernie threw in, somewhat hesitantly after Harry's apparent dismissal.

"Oh. Oh, yeah! Yeah that would be nice," Harry said after a second's pause.

Hannah smiled. "Great. As you and Susan we're the only ones who figured it out in class – well and that Gryffindor, I suppose. But we would really appreciate your help."

Harry gave a small smile back. "I'd be happy to, but I dunno what I can really say, it just came to me is all... and anyway I didn't get a proper needle exactly."

"Don't worry about that," Wayne interrupted, chivying the group down the staircase and – carefully – over the jinxed step. "We all heard McGonagall – precise movements, good concentration, it's only going to get worse throughout the year and so on. Just come on!"

They spent the afternoon by the lake, time spent carefully transfiguring matches into increasingly accurate needles giving way to conversations about Hogwarts and watching the giant squid, whilst enjoying the last of the late summer warmth.

"I have to go back in," Susan Bones said at last. She had been very quiet and, of all the Hufflepuffs, had seemed the one to be least enjoying herself, being very distant and speaking very little. "I promised my Auntie I would write and I haven't done it yet."

"S'alright, you can do it later," Wayne said, not turning around as he continued to try and skip stones across the lake using a bouncing charm he insisted was real but showed absolutely no signs of working. "Not like the Owlrey isn't going to be open tomorrow."

"No, I think I should go ahead and write," Susan mumbled, packing her things back into her bag and heading back up towards the castle.

"Spoilsport," Wayne grumbled as he threw another rock that immediately sank into the depths of the lake. "You know, I think Jenkins gave me the spell wrong."

"Couldn't possibly be you, could it, Hopkins?" Ernie asked, amused, not opening his eyes from where he lounged on the bank. "Try it again, with precise vision and clarity of thought about what you are trying to accomplish."

"Alright, Professor, if you insist," Wayne responded, casting the spell once more and then giving the rock a great throw.

Plop.

"Nope, still completely useless." Wayne announced dramatically.

"You think she's alright?" Harry asked, watching as Susan disappeared into the castle. "She's not sick or anything?" Harry didn't really have anything to go by – of all his housemates she hadn't said a word to Harry directly until today, and even that was just 'hello'.

Harry didn't miss the quick look Hannah shot to Ernie, who had now opened his eyes and looked slightly uncomfortable as well. "I'm sure she's just a bit homesick," Hannah said after a moment. "She lives with her aunt and growing up they were very close. I think we all miss home a little bit," she finished hurriedly.

Harry didn't, not in the slightest, but felt that it was probably not the appropriate time to enlighten Hannah.

"Well if she's alright," he said instead.

"I'm sure she is," Hannah replied. Suddenly she seemed very interested in all the needles scattered on the ground. "We should probably go ahead and clean up, she considered, "before it gets to dark. Do any of you know how to make all the needles turn back into matches?" She asked.

"Even if I did, it wouldn't do much good," Wayne shouted back as another rock went splash.

Hannah sighed. "Harry, do you mind giving me a hand just picking them up then? I supposed Professor Sprout can help us out, or they'll just turn back to matches after a while anyway, maybe?"

Harry shrugged. He knew that some things could be transfigured permanently, but he didn't really have any idea as to the specifics.

"We'd better head back up then, it's almost supper time," Ernie said at last, all the needles now back in the matchbox. Harry looked out over the lake, noting the lengthening shadows on the other side and nodded in agreement.

"Yeah," Wayne replied, echoing Harry's thoughts. Then without warning he jumped up and poked Ernie in the side. "It!" he shouted. "Last one to the gate is Old Mother Crone!"

"Oh what an idio-" Ernie huffed, but not without jumping forward and trying to tag Harry. Harry dodged though, earning a giggle from Hannah as she too scrambled up, followed closely by Harry.

"Hopkins, you cheated, you ought to be in Slytherin!" Ernie shouted without any real animosity as he chased after the other three.

"Better Slytherin than Old Mother Crone!" Wayne's voice trailed back down the hill. Ernie ran faster.

The rest of the first week of lessons went by quickly and enjoyably. Charms was more difficult than Transfiguration had been but Professor Flitwick's enthusiasm was catching, and for all the griping he had heard about the Potions class, Professor Snape seemed content to ignore Harry entirely, doing little more than giving class-wide threats of horrific punishment should anyone be so foolish as to pay less than due diligence to the preparation and brewing of potions, and that on the off chance that one of them would prove competent enough to branch out from rote procedure to artistic experimentation, that day had better not arrive a moment before an Outstanding in the OWL examinations.

In all, it had been a good week, and Harry was able to put the shocking revelations about his father to the side for the time being, focusing instead on meeting his classmates and discovering magic. There were a few students – from magical families, all – that Harry noted were a little more awkward around him: Susan Bones continued to be hesitant to say more than a half-dozen words to him even when they were paired together in Herbology, a red-headed boy in Gryffindor name Weasley who had at least three older brothers kept looking at Harry from across the Great Hall at mealtimes and then quickly pretending that he wasn't, and apparently the entire house of Slytherin. But all in all it had been a good week as Harry got ready for the final class before the weekend, Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Still, even being included Harry felt a bit of a distance between himself and his classmates, and he was definitely the odd man out in the first year Hufflepuff dormitory. The first person at Hogwarts that Harry would go so far as to consider a friend would turn out to be Professor Quirrell.

---

"Books away", Professor Quirrell remarked as he strode into the classroom, his purple turban bobbing slightly as he did so. "After the Christmas break we will be in a position to start examining the intricacies of why and how curses and hexes work, as well as begin an in depth look at a number of wizards and witches who made use of them – but there is little point in doing so without some practical knowledge on the subject." His tone commanded attention, and as his eyes surveyed the room, a roll of parchment leaping from the desk into his hand in a single fluid motion. Unfolding it, his eyes left the utterly attentive class to scan the roll. "Let's see... Terry Boot," his eyes lifted, and a mousy-looking boy half-raised his hand.

"Mr. Boot, stand up if you would. Grab your wand – that's a good lad." Quirrell commanded, and Terry rose up, looking nervously around the class.

"A Ravenclaw, I see. Well Mr. Boot, you've been at Hogwarts for a week now, no doubt you've had a look at one of the joke books that seem to multiply throughout the school whenever students are here. What spell have you learned?"

Terry looked uncomfortable. "I'm not sure I know what you mean, Prof-"

Quirrell laughed. "Don't be shy Mr. Boot. In my own Hogwarts years, the prank de jour was a simple charm that placed one's eyebrows under the nose like an eccentric mustache. As a first year, it wasn't twenty-four hours before my dorm mates and I were making one another belch rather odious green bubbles. What are the lads in Ravenclaw tossing at one another these days?"

"Err well... I've read about the Jelly-legs jinx. But I haven't used it on anyone..."

There were hushed snickers in the audience that both Terry and Professor Quirrell ignored.

"The Jelly-legs, an excellent choice for the amateur hexer. Very well then, curse me."

Absolute silence.

"Well go on then, throw your very best Jelly-legs jinx at me." The silence continued. "Mr Boot, if you make me wait any longer it will be five points from Ravenclaw." Quirrell held his own wand loosely in his left hand.

That seemed to settle it. With a look of confused resignation, Terry lifted his wand, and with the slightest flick-and-wave, yelled "Locomotor Wibbly!"

A bright yellow light flew from Terry's wand... before dissolving in mid-air.

"Well done! 2 points for Ravenclaw," Quirrell declared. "If you know what spell your opponent is going to use, it is possible to diffuse its essence – making the spell 'fizz' if you will, as you all just witnessed. Again, Mr. Boot."

More confident this time, Terry tried the curse again. This time, the curse made it all the way to Quirrell, only to stop and shimmer directly in front of him before disappearing once again.

"If you cannot dissolve the spell itself and are caught in the open, then your best fallback is a shield charm. The incantation is Protego, and will stop most curses and hexes provided you are under a constant barrage. It is however, a spell that is nearly useless if you cannot cast it silently, as to say 'Protego' in the amount of time you'll likely have is generally insufficient. And it is quite a difficult spell to master - even the spoken variant is something you will have to wait a few years before tacking, I'm afraid. Something to look forward to, no doubt. One more time, Mr. Boot. Protego."

This time, the air in front of Quirrell shimmered, the shield translucent but visible to the transfixed group of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff first years.

"Locomotor Wibbly!"

The spell went forward with gusto, and then bounced off Professor Quirrell's shield, flying directly the way it had come. With barely a moment to register this turn of events, Terry fell down, legs twitching uncontrollably.

Professor Quirrell marched forward and quickly canceled the spell, turning back to the class which had broken out in nervous titters. "It's not a laughing matter to be hit by a curse," he said sternly. "Nothing we do in this class is to be taken lightly and while I know full well that students will have their jokes and pranks on one another, we will treat curses with the gravitas they deserve within these four walls. Am I clear? Thank you, Mr. Boot. Another three points for Ravenclaw."

"Now, am I correct to assume that the Jelly-legs jinx has more-or-less circulated through the school at this point?" Enough heads cautiously nodded to confirm this. "Then we'll go ahead and use it for today's practical. You all paid attention to Mr. Boot's performance I hope – incantation is Locomotor Wibbly – emphasis on the first syllable of both words. Wand motion is flick followed by a wave away from the body. Keep your wand point up at a slight angle for best effect, you want a yellow, ball-like result as Mr. Boot presented, but perhaps one that travels a bit quicker if you can manage it. You'll shoot the simulacrums" – with another wave of his wand a closet at the back of the classroom opened up and four scarecrow-like bags flew out and came to a rest in front of the class, inflating as they did so.

"Anyone who aims a curse at one of his classmates will enjoy their first weekend at Hogwarts in detention. Line up, four rows then. Your goal is to focus on achieving a consistent result, and getting a sense of how your wand feels when casting magic."

It was a brilliant class, and though originally skeptical, Harry soon understood exactly what the professor meant. Unlike Transfiguration or Charms, there was a definite sense of magic flowing out of him, through his... want, for lack of a better word, when he cast the jinx, as if the spell was in its own way alive, and Harry was in partnership with it, suggesting to it his desire to make the simulacrum's 'legs' twitch and shake. It was more personal than the other branches of magic that he had experienced, he concluded.

"That will do it for the day," Quirrell remarked after assisting a boy in Harry's dorm, Wayne Hopkins, with his wand movements. "No less than ten inches on why the Jelly-legs jinx is a jinx, and not a hex. Mr. Potter, if you could stay behind for five minutes – I'd rather not wait until next week to fix a slight issue in your flicking motion. Very good – I will see you all again next week."

The class filed out, several of the Hufflepuffs and even the Ravenclaws giving Harry a look of sympathy. Harry shrugged – it was nice of a teacher to help, even if it took time out of the long-awaited weekend.

"Your spellwork is fine, Mr. Potter," Quirrell began. "If anything, you might be slightly ahead of your peers – though at this stage those are hardly laurels to rest upon."

"Thank you, Professor," Harry replied cautiously.

"I didn't want to alarm your classmates, but it has come to my attention that a few students are preparing to single you out, specifically." Quirrell continued slowly, drawing Harry's attention in. "I trust you are aware of why this might be the case."

Harry nodded, grimly. "Nobody has done anything to me all week though."

Quirrell let out a short, and surprisingly bitter laugh. "Of course not – the Headmaster is quite skilled at ensuring that mischief during the school week is kept to a minimum level that won't disrupt studies. It's the weekends, Mr. Potter, where students with an inkling to misbehave tend to do so."

"As such, you will come to my office Saturday mornings at eight, after breakfast. I will be teaching you some basic defensive spells and... perhaps, we might find the odd hex that might be appropriate. You will not," Quirrell interrupted himself, "use any of these spells outside of strict self-defense should it come to that, is that understood?"

Harry nodded.

"Very well. Off you go then, and I'll see you tomorrow morning."

---

The next two months passed in a similar fashion. Harry remained friendly with his dorm mates if slightly distant, a situation he was content to maintain after years at the Dursleys where the alternative to isolation was unpleasantness. He had quickly distinguished himself as one of the top students in Transfiguration, surpassing the Gryffindor girl – Granger – much to the delight of the other Gryffindor first years, who seemed delighted to see her coming in second-best at something. Charms and Potions plodded along, competently managed and clearly one of the better students but by no means exemplary. Herbology was dull – a disappointment given the house association, and Quirrell continued to enthrall the class in Defense, as they slowly moved from the standard house joke spells that Quirrel used as a jumping point to new and exciting jinxes and counter-curses, including one spectacular spell that caused one's opponents wand to go flying across the room. This one, much to the class's excitement, they were allowed to practice on one another, with a warning that disarming a wizard in normal everyday life was an enormous slight that could cause quickly spiral out of hand, and the penalty for doing so outside of class would be correspondingly painful.

And of course, there were the special classes with Professor Quirrell. Delighted with the opportunity that had presented itself – if not for the reasons why it had done so – Harry threw himself into the lessons with gusto, as Quirrell taught him a variety of minor hexes and counter spells, as well as offer suggestions of books that Harry might find of particular interest. While the lessons tended towards practical magic, Quirrell would occasionally give Harry a small talk about the spellwork behind the magic involved, why a particular curse emitted a particular color, or required a particular movement. Afterwards he would offer Harry a practical example of how Defense Against the Dark Arts were applicable, even in today's post-Voldemort world.

"Take a look at today's paper," for instance, he said during their meeting at the end of October, summoning a copy of a newspaper, The Daily Prophet, from his desk. "Break In At Gringotts, Culprit Still At Large!" He passed the paper to Harry, and sure enough, someone had broken into Gringotts, broken into a high security vault, and made off with... nothing, according to the paper.

"You'll note that the actual attempted robbery happened months ago, and it's only just being reported. That means that for months now, a highly skilled wizard has been running around the world without anyone having an inkling of it. If it hadn't been such a high profile vault as the Flamel's, it would never have been reported, most likely. He's a good friend of Headmaster Dumbledore, you know."

"This happened the day I went to the bank with hi- when I went to Gringotts to get my school supplies," Harry amended quickly. "Wow, the goblins told me it was the safest place in the world, and this happened the same day... Professor?" Harry had looked up and away from the paper as a lance of pain went through his scar, and saw that Professor Quirrell was looking directly at him with an intense stare, drilling holes into Harry's head.

"Oh... sorry, Mr. Potter. I'm afraid I got lost there for a moment." He sounded oddly disappointed. "Nothing to worry about – just an example of why one must always be prepared, but I think we are getting off track. We won't meet over the weekend of Halloween – you'll likely appreciate a few extra hours of sleep – and we'll pick up again the week after that. I will expect an adequate babbling hex in a fortnight."

---

Halloween was exciting, but not for reasons anyone had expected. Though the Great Hall was even more enchanting than ever, with floating jack-o-lanterns and flying candles that would at random transform into bats, it was how the evening ended that would be remembered, Halfway through the banquet a giant silver jackal came pouncing into the main hall, stopping in front of Dumbledore and in Professor Quirrell's voice, exclaimed "Trolls in the dungeons."

Pandemonium threatened to break out until Dumbledore silenced the hall, instructing Prefects to return the students to their dorms. As the students headed out, Harry heard two of the Gryffindor first years whispering anxiously that Granger was missing, and that they were the cause of her absence. Weasley had apparently snapped at her early in the day after the Gryffindor's Charms class, and the last anyone had seen of her was when she had run into the girl's lavatory on the 2nd floor. The argument between Weasley and... Finnegan, that was it, was whether they should alert the prefects and then be forced to explain their own complicity, or keep quiet, it was a ways from the dungeons to the 2nd floor, after all...

Harry, in a pique at the bullying involved and considering Granger something of a kindred spirit - if a more loud and bossy one – acted impulsively, jumping out of line and running off to the bathrooms. Weasley was right – it was a long way...

Which didn't do him a lick of good when he heard a scream, and ran into the girl's bathroom to be confronted with great big troll. It turned towards Harry, who was staring at Hermione cowering in the corner, one good troll swing away from oblivion.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, aiming his wand at the troll's burly arm bringing the club up once more. The club flew out of its grasp, the troll stupidly swinging its arm uselessly as the club crashed into the ceiling and then skittered across the floor towards Harry. Not knowing what else to do with such an enormous club, Harry's first instinct was to transfigure it into a giant needle. As Harry picked up the now more pointy-stick-with-a-loop-at-the-end-than-a-needle, he held it like a spear and with no better idea, charged the troll.

Simultaneously, Hermione had gathered some semblance of wits, and shouted at the troll, "Wingardiam Leviosa." Her aim however, was less accurate than her spell-work, and she caught Harry just as he was about to attempt to skewer the troll in the groin.

Which is how professor McGonagall found them not five minutes later, collapsed next to a dead troll with a club jammed through the roof of its mouth well into its brain, Hermione torn between horror at the sight and staring at Harry with a look that ranged from undisguised adoration to outright worship.

She had covered for him then, claiming she had read about trolls and thought she could help, and Harry had seen her leave and come to rescue her. She had lost fifteen points and he thankfully lost nothing (or rather, he lost fifteen and then was immediately rewarded the same for 'sheer, dumb luck'.)

---

Harry was working in the library when he heard the plomp of books and parchment falling onto the table just across from him. He gave a quick nod but didn't look up from his notes – this was the fourth day in a row now that Hermione had sat across from him, writing on endlessly in her tiny, tidy scrawl without ever saying a word that wasn't a direct response to his own "hello" or "good afternoon." He figured he'd just let her get on with it.

Which was why it came as a bit of a shock when out of the blue, she blurted, "Lavender says you're really good at flying."

Harry looked up, and Hermione ducked her head, picking up a quill and writing furiously in her notebook.

"Um... thank you," Harry said, unsure of how to respond. "I really enjoy it."

Awkward silence filled the void and Harry figured the best thing to do was to go back to his books.

"Well, Lavender didn't really tell me. She was talking to Parvati and Ronald and I overheard," Hermione continued and-or clarified, Harry wasn't really sure which.

"Oh. Okay."

Minutes passed. "Had you ever flown before coming to Hogwarts? Ronald said you were from an old magical family but didn't say anything else, he seemed quite put out to say even that much. Malfoy was going on and on about how he used to fly all the time and liked to bewitch muggle Helio Cops," Hermione gave a slight tsk of annoyance, then looked abashed. "I think he was making it up. Also, they're called Helicopters – it's like... well it's what muggles use to fly, like a broom only it's powered by an engine not magic. Um... an engine is-"

"I know what a Helicopter is, Granger," Harry said with a slight laugh. "I was raised by muggles."

"Oh, good," Hermione said, sounding relieved. "It's so difficult to explain things like electricity and helicopters to people who have no idea that such things even exist!" Then Hermione seemed to recognize exactly what Harry had said and her face lit up. "So you're just like me then, trying to figure it all out as we go along. Did you read all your Hogwarts books before the term started? I did, I was so scared that I would show up to Hogwarts and not have a clue what was going on while everyone else already knew all sorts of magic."

Harry shrugged. "A few," he said. "I was interested in Transfiguration, mostly. It's brilliant."

Hermione faltered at that.

"Yes, you're very good at that," she said at last, looking slightly pained.

They went back to their reading for the rest of the afternoon.

The next day, Hermione had only the two books from History of Magic and a scroll of parchment with which to plomp, but she did so with obvious aggravation and sat down across from Harry, looking absolutely furious. "Do you know Fred and George Weasley," she asked with a hiss, causing Harry to look up.

"I think so," Harry whispered back. "Twins right, a few years above us. Red hair – brother in our year, yeah?"

Hermione nodded, "Yes, Ronald's brothers but even less interested in their studies, if that's possible," she said as if sharing a great scandal. "Somehow they hexed the entire hallway around the Fat Lady with a babbling curse and nobody can get into our common room. Professor McGonagall is furious – she thinks some of the seventh years must have helped them so they're all in her office, but in the meantime I can't get to any of my things."

Hermione looked to be very close to a complete meltdown.

"Who's the Fat Lady?" Harry asked, figuring it best not to bring up the twins.

"Oh, she's a portrait on the seventh floor that guards Gryffindor Tower," Hermione replied, staring forlornly at her two lonely books. Then her eyes shot up, and she looked very pale. "Don't tell anyone I told you that," she whispered, looking very agitated. "I'll lose points for sure, I might even get expelled!"

Harry snorted, rolling his eyes. "They won't expel you for accidentally revealing where your common room- okay, okay! - I won't tell anyone," Harry finished quickly as Hermione seemed close to crying. "Secret between friends, alright?"

"Alright. Erm... Friends?" Hermione squeaked.

Harry had no idea what to say to that, as Hermione fluttered her hands for a moment before sticking one arm rigidly at Harry.

"Hermione Granger – you can call me Hermione," she said quickly.

"Um, Harry Potter – just Harry." Harry said, shaking her hand.

"Pst – Potter, you have a second?" The rather strange introduction was broken by Terry Boot, who came round just as the two were unclasping hands across the table.

"Oh, hi Boot," Harry replied, as Hermione rapidly opened one of the two books seemingly at random and made to look very busy in her reading.

"Hey. So Gibbons went ahead and duplicated my history notes. Here," he said, handing Harry several pieces of parchment, the top one covered in a scrawl about the life of Ogard the Ostentatious broken up by doodles of stick figures fighting each other on brooms. "You got yours? I'll give it back tomorrow."

"Yeah, gimme a second – it's in here somewhere." Harry rummaged around in his bag. "Here we are – I think I blanked out for a bit in the middle, sorry about that," Harry apologized somewhat sheepishly.

"Rats," Terry sighed. "Me and Kevin, too. Su won't share with us but I think it's mostly because she doesn't want to admit she can't stay awake either."

Harry saw that Hermione was no longer "reading" her book, but looking between Harry and Terry with a confused expression on her face.

"Nobody can stay awake listening to Binns," Harry explained, referring to the ghost that taught History of Magic and universally recognized as the most boring professor at Hogwarts. "So we came up with an idea where we all agree to copy one another's notes outside of class and hope that between all of us we managed to catch everything," Harry said with a grin. Then he added, mostly to himself, "I really need to look up the duplication charm, it's annoying having to ask the fourth years."

Hermione paused, chewing on her lip. "You can use mine, too," she said quickly, as if trying to get the words out before she changed her mind. "But only for History of Magic, it's just-"

"Thanks, Granger," Boot interrupted happily. "That it, there?" He pointed at the parchment rolled up next to her open book. Hermione nodded. "Can I take it then?"

"Yes. But give it back and – and don't let a teacher catch you with it," she finished in a whisper.

Harry gave a soft laugh. "I think if the teachers found out they'd be more pleased we were at least making an effort," he replied. "Thanks though, Hermione."

Hermione gave a slight, cautious smile. "A secret between friends."

The run up to Christmas progressed in a similar vein, and Harry slowly came to terms with the fact that through Hermione he had, quite by accident, made a genuine friend. His relationship with Hermione was odd – they continued not to speak very much, occasionally sharing a story from one of their lessons, or Hermione allowing that for Harry – and only Harry – they could share notes for all classes since, she said crossly, there weren't many other students who she could cross-reference with who had made a full effort. Having seen the tidy scrawl of her notes that appeared to capture every sound a professor uttered and ran for feet despite its tiny size, Harry found it hard to blame the other students for failing to match her standards. But other than a few inevitable snickers about how Harry had picked up a Gryffindor Girlfriend, and perhaps her penchant to talk about anything that popped in her head, Harry didn't mind. The rest of the classes continued as usual, and Quirrell continued to tutor Harry though at this point Harry wondered if it was really necessary, as nobody had said anything even the least bit threatening towards him. Still, private lessons where he got to use actual magic were not something to complain about, and if every now and then Quirrell would bring up Nicholas Flamel, or mention that the man was famous for creating something called the Philosopher Stone, then that was Quirrell's business. Sometimes the topics were on the more bizarre elements of the wizarding world that Quirrell thought Harry might find interesting, such as the fact that prophesies were real and many a dark wizard had been tricked down such a path by the words of a seer, deceptively applied.

It was just before the Christmas holidays, when students were preparing for the end of term examinations, that Harry's past truly caught up to him for the first time. Having established himself as a bright but quiet student, combined with a few rather wild rumors about his heroic battle with a troll, Harry found his study time increasingly crowded by a small group who decided that they were now a study group. Hermione of course was omnipresent, along with another Gryffindor in his year named Neville Longbottom that Harry privately thought was completely useless but clearly in need of some sort of companionship. There were others too – Terry Boot and Kevin Entwhistle joined them from time to time from Ravenclaw, as did the boys in Harry's year in Hufflepuff. And even more rarely two Hufflepuff girls, Hannah Abbot and Megan Jones. Surprisingly, the only 'regulars' that emerged were a trio of Slytherins; Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, and Millicent Bulstrode, who made it quite plain that while they were in rather desperate need for assistance they would deign to give Harry's group their presence. This declaration was somewhat tempered with a very large bag of chocolate frogs that were plopped down in the center of the table and a pronouncement that Zabini might know a thing or two about charms, the sole class he had somewhat made a name for himself. As for the other two...

"This is hopeless," Daphne grumbled, blowing wisps of honey-blonde hair out of her eyes in order to better glare at her failed transfiguration; her attempt to turn a saucer into a teacup fizzled for the umpteenth time. Millie grunted in agreement, the larger girl going one step further and smashing her fist down on her own saucer.

Harry sighed at the theatrics while Hermione simply ignored everyone and ducked her head deeper into her book.

"Reparo," Harry responded, twitching his wand slightly at Millie's saucer, the two halves melding back together. It had been the first spell he had made sure to learn when he realized he'd be practicing magic outside of class without a teacher in the immediate area.

"Thanks," Millie responded sullenly.

"Right, try again. You both have the motions down right. You just have to," Harry frowned, trying and failing to come up with the words to explain the transfiguration process. "I don't really know how to describe it, picturethe saucer transforming in your mind, think about exactly how you want the cup to end up, where the handle will be, what color it will be, and how the magic ought to feel-"

"Harry," Daphne replied sweetly, "how would you feelabout doing it for me? We could transfigure you into meand you could sit the exam instead." Hermione perked up at that, though whether in indignation at the idea of cheating on an exam, or to see if Harry could do human transfiguration, Harry couldn't have said.

"Yeah... I don't think I'm going to be doing that, Greengrass," Harry snarked back instead, though he chuckled at Daphne's crestfallen expression. "Very cunning idea though, so fifty points to Slytherin," he tried his best to imitate Professor Snape.

She gave him a sunny smile at that, and mock-griped, "It's not very Slytherin to need help from a 'Puff. And our Head of House isn't that lenient with points, no matter what the Gryffindors claim."

Hermione coughed.

"If you're quite finished," Millie interrupted, "I'd like to finish this before teatime." Trying the incantation once more, Millie managed to give the saucer something that might generously be considered a handle. "Bah! Stupid bloody spell!"

"Stupid bloody you, to be needing help from a Hufflepuff. Course, you're not even succeeding, so I don't even know what to call it," A new voice cut in.

Brilliant,Harry thought, just brilliant.

Draco Malfoy had already proven himself to be a complete git in Harry's eyes, and Harry suspected – though had yet to confirm – that he was one of the instigators behind Quirrell's decision to give him private weekly lessons. He was constantly going around telling everyone how powerful his father was, and how he had been doing magic since he was old enough to hold a wand. A lot of it sounded like complete bollocks, but his father might actually be quite powerful given that people at least pretended to be interested in what Malfoy had to say about whatever garbage he was spouting.

Up till now, he and Harry hadn't really crossed paths, though apparently that happy period was at an end.

"Slytherins shouldn't be going around begging other houses for help. At least Zabini has something to offer, but you two ought to know better," he sneered. "It's a disgrace."

"Bugger off, Malfoy," Harry jibed, surprisingly earning him a supportive snicker from Blaise.

Malfoy sent Blaise a glare before turning his attention towards Neville. "Longbottom, what a surprise to see you here," Malfoy continued, suddenly grinning. "I mean, it's shameful enough that Slytherins are in this group, but look at you, begging to hang out with the son of one of You-Know-Who's most loyal followers. Tell me Longbottom, do you think Potter's dad helped torture your parents... oh no, he was already dead by then, wasn't he? So I guess it's okay for you to lick Potter's bottom."

Neville had turned deathly pale, and so help him but Harry was going to curse Neville himself if he started to cry in front of Malfoy.

"We're not – that is I'm not, I'm not Potter's friend." Neville mumbled. Harry stared at him in disgust. They weren't close it was true, but to have Longbottom of all people go out of his way to disassociate with him after these past few weeks... it was a bit much.

Malfoy caught onto that, of course. "Well Potter, how pathetic must you be for Longbottom to want nothing to do with you. What does that leave you with - nothing but a filthy mudblood-"

Hermione, who had been looking at Neville with a look of betrayal, snapped towards Malfoy at that, a slight gasp coming from her lips. Harry, sensing that something worse than he could really make heads or tails of was happening, stayed silent a moment too long. Daphne filled the void with quite possibly the worst show of support Harry had ever witnessed.

"Well... yes. So what?"

Hermione did let out a sob at that, and started scrambling her notes together and putting them back into her bag. Zabini looked uncomfortable, Millie inscrutable and Daphne completely bewildered. Malfoy, obviously delighted at the damage he had caused, sauntered out of the library, his two larger minions in tow.

They had not studied as a group for the rest of term after that, and Harry found himself uncomfortably flatfooted. Hermione still sat with him, though their conversations were even more stilted than before, and tended to consist entirely of practical study information. The Slytherins stayed away, and as the exams came to an end and all of his friends – however tentative and perhaps shaken – left the school, Harry decided that the sensible thing to do would be to make sure to all of the core group – minus Neville, who had made his stance quite clear – be bought some sort of Christmas gift, along with his dorm mates, lest he accidentally cause greater offense and make the situation worse.

On Christmas day he found the gamble had been a wise one, receiving an assorted selection of sweets from all of his group, except Hermione who had given him a small bound journal with a note that she had observed he tended to keep track of lots of scraps of parchment with spells he wanted to study and having a book to keep them all in one place might be useful; and Daphne who had sent him a teacup with a family of rabbits painted on that occasionally hopped over the rim of the cup. She mentioned she had tried to find a badger but this was the closest thing Ceramagics had, and personally she thought the rabbits were cuter anyway.

There had been one final gift, wrapped in plain packaging paper with a small white card that simply had his name on it and a curious message on the back in a gracefully looping handwriting: This belonged to your parents and was left in my care. It's time it was returned – use it well.

He'd had no idea what to expect, or even what it was, but after a bit of experimentation and not a massive fright that he was vanishing, he concluded he had a robe that would make him invisible.

He grinned. Sure, he was opening gifts in the solitude, but he had gifts. From, he admitted, friends. And one very interesting new thing to explore. It was his best Christmas ever.

Feeling it best not to advertise to the few students that were still in the school that he was now capable of being invisible, but unwilling to miss out on having an adventure entirely, he had snuck out one night on the holidays to test out his new toy. Deciding that the Restricted Section or the Forbidden Forest – exciting though they might have been – were not the best places for a test run, Harry instead mapped out a route to the first-floor girls' bathroom, which all the girls claimed had its own ghost. At this rate, Harry figured, he'd be an expert in all the girls' bathrooms around this time next year.

It was impossible to think what he would have thought a year ago if someone had told Harry he would be having a conversation with a ghost in a girls' loo. But Myrtle had been thrilled to have a visitor, claiming that nobody had visited since Halloween and they hadn't had the decency to make themselves visible, like Harry had – though she had been a little put out when she realized Harry was still alive and had no intention of changing that just yet – but Harry promised he'd come back and visit again which seemed to lift her spirits.

On the last day of the holidays his classmates returned, and then Harry's Slytherins cornered him while Hermione was animatedly telling him all about her skiing vacation in France.

Cautiously, Daphne stepped forward to Harry and Hermione clammed up.

"I had written to Daddy about how you were helping me with my studies, and so he was not very pleased when I did less well on the examinations than I had promised him I would. I told him that we had not been working together for the last few weeks of the term, and he made me show him the memory of our last study time together. Daddy then said I was to apologize to Granger and then thank you for helping me as much as you did. So Granger, I offer you my sincerest apologies and Harry, thank you."

The whole thing was said with an air of rote memorization, but Harry supposed it was the intent that counted. Hermione seemed to agree.

"Thank you, Greengrass" she said.

Daphne nodded, a smile blossoming beautifully on her face when Harry said the same. "Wonderful. So we will all go back to studying together this week. Daddy made it quite clear that I would need a better semester that last's. Come on Millie, I want to make sure Pansy had an absolutely miserable Christmas before I rub it in her face that Daddy took me and Astoria to see the Weird Sisters."

Zabini looked at the departing girls and shrugged. "It's a Slytherin thing," he said at last, "and thanks for understanding. She... well, she means well. Wait until third year when her sister comes to Hogwarts – completely the opposite."

Harry just shrugged. "Her heart's in the right place, I get that. She's just... I dunno. Girls, I guess?"

"Sums it up," Blaise agreed. "So, good Christmas?"

Harry nodded. "Nice and quiet. I made a snowman and Professor Flitwick added a spell to make him dance. Then Sanders – seventh year 'Claw, made one as well and we made them chuck snowballs at one another. I got clobbered when he cheated and transfigured his snowballs into stone. Fun though. You?"

Blaise gave a put-upon sigh. "Mother insisted on spending Christmas in Zurich. Don't misunderstand me – lovely place – but absolutely crawling with gnomes."

Harry sat back as Hermione jumped in and she and Blaise compared their Alpine experiences. He hadn't realized until now just how much the four of them meant to him until he had seen his friends reconcile. It felt good.

---

"I believe that will do it for today, Mr. Potter," Quirrell declared as Harry's spell fizzed yet again. The spell Harry was trying to master was one that would reveal invisible trespassers, a spell that suddenly seemed very important in light of Harry's own disappearing cloak. It was the first time Harry had asked for Professor Quirrell's help on a particular spell rather than simply learning the spells Quirrell assigned to him and though he had been warned that it was a very advanced piece of spellwork, he had been determined to try and Quirrell had seemed curious as to whether he would be able to do it. So far, his results had been less than entirely encouraging.

"Homemnum Revello," Harry called out once more, frustration evident in his tone.

"I said enough, Mr. Potter." Quirrell called out curtly, disillusioning the caged mouse on his desk.

Disappointed, Harry dropped his wand arm to his side, suddenly very tired.

"Sorry, professor," Harry replied sullenly. Quirrell nodded. "I believe it would be best if we move on. Next week, we will begin summoning and banishing." He was staring at Harry and Harry's thoughts seemed to drift - oddly enough to the memory of the first time he entered Gringotts with Headmaster Dumbledore.

"Next week, then," Quirrell broke his thoughts, sounding annoyed. "Make sure you get something to eat – spells of this level will tire you out more quickly than you might expect."

Harry nodded, leaving quickly. Professor Quirrell seemed to be increasingly short-tempered ever since Christmas, and though he had never outright snapped at Harry he didn't want to try the man's patience and find himself cut off from his favorite professor. The after-class conversations about fantastic wizarding artifacts or the mysteries of magic had been abandoned, and Harry had once – accidentally – overheard a hushed but heated argument between Quirrell and Snape that suggested Quirrell had lost something important and suspected Snape of knowing where it was.

He trudged back to the Hufflepuff dormitories – the spell really was draining, and Harry hoped to grab a nap and a shower before worrying about the afternoon.

He arrived at the Hufflepuff common room and was just heading down the corridor to the first year boys' bedroom when he heard, "Oi! Potter!"

Turning around, he saw Wayne Hopkins waving him down, where he was sitting with the other four boys in Harry's year. Harry just nodded back and was about to head back to the bed when Wayne continued, "Zach's parents sent him a copy of Cerberi and we need one more for a full game. Come on."

Harry suppressed a wave of annoyance, knowing that his roommates meant well and had no idea that he had spent the morning in a very draining private lesson with an annoyed professor. They were nice enough – even Zacharias Smith who was a bit of a cocky git – but Justin and Edward both came from well off muggle families and Wayne, Zacharias, and Ernie were all raised in the magical world – combined with Harry's inherent social awkwardness he'd ended up the dormitory sixth wheel.

Still, they were nice enough.

"All right, then," Harry said, turning back around. "But only one game,"

"Yeah, yeah" Wayne waved him down. "You're with me and Zach. You take left."

Five minutes later the two Cerberi were clawing and biting, each player on a side giving commands to one particular head. Supposedly there was a strategy to the game where heads were supposed to defend one another or work together on an attack, but the other boys seemed content to just yell orders and enjoy watching the two enchanted figurines tear themselves apart, and Harry was happy to go along with it.

"Oh, rotten!" Justin groaned when his own head went flying across the room as Zacharias's tore it off at the neck and threw it aside with gusto. "Get him!" He clomped Edward on the back enthusiastically as Harry's head was torn off as well. "'Howzat!"

It was fun, so much so that Harry kept playing until Amanda Falconer, the sixth-year Hufflepuff prefect, came down and told the first years to shut their gobs or find somewhere else to play.

"Will you be in the library this afternoon, Harry?" Ernie asked as they packed the game away. Harry shrugged, "Nap first," he said, "but yeah, probably. You too?"

Ernie gestured towards the window, where thick sheets of water were rolling down in unending torrents. "Might as well," he said. "Charms essay."

Harry grimaced in understanding – his own was still several inches too short, and he'd jammed every bit of rubbish he could find about color-changing charms into it. The teachers had apparently decided that now that they'd had their first taste of 'practical' magic in the first term, it was time to add the much less exciting spell theory to the lessons. Harry found it much less interesting than the spells themselves.

"Harry just wants to go see Hermioooooone," Zacharias snickered.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm off to bed. Have a nice lunch."

"Maybe I should go see Granger," Wayne grumbled half-heartedly when Harry left. "I bet she can prattle on for two feet about how to make red turn green."

"Better than you can, at any rate," Justin replied cheerfully.

"Shove off," Wayne replied, the five boys laughing as they headed down to the Great Hall.

Harry did not end up going to the library that afternoon. He woke up, much later than he had intended, and found the dormitory practically deserted – it was dinner time, apparently. Deciding it was too late to bother with the library, Harry grabbed his disappearing cloak and headed out into the castle, checking that nobody was around before down a thus far undisturbed third-floor corridor.

It had become something of a game for Harry, continuing his time exploring the castle from the previous summer. Clearly, Hogwarts had been built with a much larger group than a few hundred pupils and a dozen professors in mind, and entire wings and towers went more-or-less unused. Harry had scrawled notes about where was what, and had begun to consider making a map as he went along, before admitting that the real fun of it was having an excuse to play with his magic cloak. Tonight, he had discovered a room that was completely empty, save for a giant trapdoor in the floor. "Alohomora," Harry whispered, disappointed but not entirely surprised when it failed to open. Oh, well.

He looked around a little longer then headed down a great stone staircase that led back to the first floor. A door up ahead opened by itself, before gently shutting. It was, Harry realized, a familiar door – it lead to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

I didn't know ghosts could open doors, Harry thought, frowning. Well, except Peeves. Harry stopped, careful not to jostle his cloak as he pulled out a quill and a scrap of parchment. Underneath 3rd floor, past portrait of dancing goat, trapdoor, he scrawled, ghosts and poltergeists – differences? Harry grinned – he might be the first person this year to actually have a question in History of Magic.

The school year continued. Other than one excitable day in the library where Blaise and Hermione had conflicting stories about a dragon that had led to Longbottom and Malfoy losing fifty points apiece for their houses – good riddance to both, Harry had thought – the school settled into the routine of the new term. For a time Harry had assumed Longbottom would attempt to come back to Harry's little group, and was somewhat relieved when he did not, though on a few occasions he had hovered around their corner of the library.

"I didn't think he'd ever finally leave," Blaise remarked as Neville finally decided to call it a day, trudging alone out of the library. "He should change his name to Leonidas the Brave."

Daphne and Zacharias both snickered at that, but Harry and Hermione just looked confused.

"You're horrible, all of you," Hermione grumbled, feeling a need to stick up for her housemate. "He's not that bad, even if he wasn't very nice to you," she said the last bit apologetically to Harry.

"I didn't say anything!" Hannah shrieked, affronted.

"Well, not you." Hermione admitted. "And not Harry either, but those three shouldn't be laughing at another student."

Harry shrugged, not really bothered about Neville anymore. "Who was Leonidas the Brave?" Harry asked Blaise, genuinely curious.

Zacharais cut in, "You know, Leonidas the Brave, the cowardly lion who everyone mistakes for the hero but is completely useless." At Harry's blank expression, he sighed, "You know, Beedle the Bard. The Micemen come to ask Leonidas to protect them from the Kneazles and Leonidas agrees but then runs away but accidentally tricks the Kneazle King and – how do you not know this, we've all heard the story a million times!"

"I haven't," Harry said peevishly. "I didn't grow up with magic stories."

"Neither did I," Hermione added.

"Don't we know it," Daphne mumbled just above her breath. "Harry," she said louder, giving him a small smile of sympathy. "Smith just forgot because you're so good in class it's easy to forget you were raised in another place."

Hermione rolled her eyes at the apparent euphemism for 99% of England.

"Yeah, I forgot. Sorry." Zacharias said, the normally brash boy sounding somewhat bashful. "Anyway, it's just a story. Neville's in Gryffindor, so the lion... well, you know."

"I still say it's not very nice," Hermione huffed.

"If you prefer," Daphne responded, saccharine sweetly, "we can go with a different tale. How about Queen Mab and the Seven Squibs?"

"Maybe we should concentrate on floating charms," Harry interrupted, hoping to end the bickering before it blew up completely. "Flitwick did hint it would be on the end of term exam."

"I've already got it down, thanks." Hermione said overly cheerfully, making a bit of a show pulling out her potions book. "I'm going to work on Professor Snape's essay on Bezoars. How about you, Greengrass?"

Daphne scowled.

They eventually settled back down, Harry helping to correct Daphne's charmwork again before pulling out his own Potions essay as well. They worked in general quiet for about an hour, before Zacharias threw down his quill with a grunt.

"I'm knackered," he announced, as if he'd just come back from a hike through the Great Forest. "Harry, Ernie and I are going to go ride for a bit, you want to join us?"

"Yeah, alright," Harry said with a grin, throwing his mostly-completed essay back in his bag. "I'll go on down and ask Madam Hooch for the brooms?"

Zacharias nodded. "Better make it four," he amended. "Edward and Wayne are pants but Justin will probably come with us."

"Right," Harry said, hoisting his bag onto his shoulder. "Blaise, you want to come too?"

"Bad enough I study with 'Puffs – As if I'm going to go flying with them as well... Yeah, alright."

"Maybe you'll learn something," Zacharias said, then gloated, "Remind me again who caught the snitch, Ravenclaw or Slytherin?"

"Yeah well, I'm flying with you, Smith, not Diggory, aren't I?"

Daphne was also getting up from the table. "If everyone's leaving, I'm going to go find Millie or Pansy. Bye Abbott, Smith, Blaise, Harry."

"I'm staying," Hermione said.

"Me too – Susan said she might come by later," Hannah added.

"Later, Hermione, Hannah, Daphne." Harry responded with a small wave, then hurried to catch up to the other two boys.

"Blaise, can I ask you a question?" Harry asked as the two of them were floating above the quidditch pitch, the other three boys having started a pick-up game of quidditch with two older Ravenclaw boys and a Gryffindor girl named Katie Bell who was actually on her house team. Unsprisingly, the three Hufflepuff boys were being trounced quite badly, but were taking it in stride.

"No," Blaise responded, "Professor Snape won't let you move into Slytherin. Sorry." Blaise didn't sound sorry at all.

Harry snorted. "Git. No, I wanted to talk about Hermione and Daphne..." Harry trailed off.

"Ah." Blaise simply said.

"Well... maybe you haven't noticed, but they don't really get along," Harry continued, stumbling somewhat.

Blaise looked at Harry with wide eyes. "Really!? I hadn't noticed. When did this start?"

"It's been since before Christmas, probably – oh toss off." Harry finished somewhat grumpily, realizing a bit too late that Blaise was having him on.

Blaise shrugged, then tightened his grip on the broom as it seemed to interpret his shrug as a command to drop three feet. "Girls, I guess." He said at last.

Harry didn't look convinced. "Maybe. It's just that whenever, you know, muggles, come up... well, Daphne doesn't seem to like them at all. Or muggle-borns. But she's nice to me."

Blaise looked confused. "Why wouldn't she be? You're alright. And you're not muggle-born anyway."

"No," Harry said softly, "but my mum was."

"Ooooooh," Blaise responded. "Yeah but she married a proper wizard, didn't she? Even if-"

Blaise cut off, looking highly embarrassed, and Harry wanted to do nothing more than disappear. Even after the confrontation in the library with Malfoy, none of his friends had ever mentioned his dad; Even Hermione had never asked for a clarification of what had happened.

"I get it," Blaise whispered, as if afraid his voice would carry to the players at the other end of the quidditch pitch. "My dad died shortly after I was born. And my mum's been married four times since and they've all, you know..."

Harry nodded, suspecting he did know how Blaise's thought ended. "So... your mum, and my dad..." Harry looped around an actual suggestion, but Blaise responded anyway.

"No," he said a tad too forcefully. "I love my mum, she just has rotten luck." Blaise didn't look entirely convinced and Harry kept his mouth shut. "She thinks I don't know, but I've heard the rumors," Blaise said bitterly, his hands tightening on the broom this time purely in anger. "That's why none of the other boys in Slytherin won't have anything to do with me. And why we spend every holiday on the continent, because mother is never invited to anything at home."

"Anyway," Blaise interrupted his own rant, voice strained to be lighter. "You have to admit that Granger can be a bit much. I know she's your friend but she deliberately antagonizes Daphne and Millie – you heard her back in the library: I already know how to do all the spells."

"She doesn't sound like that," Harry replied in reference to Blaise's overly high-pitched imitation of Hermione. Then he shrugged. "Okay yeah, they both drive each other round the bend."

Blaise nodded. "So you do what you want, Harry, but I'm going to be the cunning snake and not throw myself between the two of them."

Harry grinned at Blaise. "That sounds less snake and more like Leonidas the Brave to me!"

"We'll make a real wizard out of you yet, Potter," Blaise declared. "C'mon, It doesn't look like Diggory is going to show up and save your 'Puffs from getting beat by a girl, so let's go over and help."

"They're also getting beat by two... at least third-years, I think."

"Two third-years and a girl. Don't forget that part."

"Who won the Slytherin-Gryffindor game?"

"Don't be a prat, Potter – let's go help your friends."

---

"Mr. Potter, today we are going to do a little experiment. Follow me," Quirrell stated when Harry entered his classroom one Saturday in mid-April. Harry noticed that Quirrell looked much more agitated than normal – even sickly, and said nothing as they headed back out into the school. Once more, Harry found himself heading in a familiar direction.

"Are we going to see Myrtle, sir?" Harry asked. "Are there spells that work on ghosts? I don't know if Myrtle would like th-"

Quirrell turned sharply, staring at Harry. "You are familiar with that ghost?" he spoke quickly, staring at Harry inquisitively. Harry's mind jumped to his single meeting with Myrtle.

"Just once," Harry relied cautiously. "I erm... heard about a ghost in the loo and I was interested. I didn't go in to peek at girls or anything," Harry finished quickly.

Quirrell's lips almost twitched at that. "No, I didn't suppose so." Then he continued towards Myrtle's bathroom. "I have detected a strange set of magics coming from that bathroom. Quite harmless, but I have been asked by the headmaster to dispel them. I thought you might like to see a disenchanting first-hand.

Harry frowned, recalling Myrtle mentioning that someone else had been sneaking into the restroom. Surely Professor Quirrell wouldn't need months to dispel something. But then, he realized somewhat guiltily, he hadn't visited Myrtle since – even when he had learned that ghosts couldn't open doorways. Perhaps whoever Myrtle hadn't seen was the culprit, and Quirrell was now fixing the problem.

"Who's there?" Myrtle wailed when they came in. "Nobody can leave me to be dead in peace. Just come by whenever you want, because it's only Myr- oh, Hi Harry," Myrtle finished, sounding almost bashful. Then she frowned again, "I haven't seen you in a long time."

"I'm sorry," Harry replied, somewhat chagrined. "I've been very busy..."

"Everyone's too busy for Myrtle," she wailed, before realizing that there was someone else with Harry. "Oh... hello. I don't know you," Myrtle finished somewhat accusingly.

Harry found Myrtle's constant emotional changes to be annoying, though he thought it best to keep that to himself.

Quirrell ignored Myrtle completely, heading to one of the sinks and whispering "open".

Harry watched, transfixed, as the sink opened up to reveal a dark tunnel. Quirrell whispered again – Harry wasn't paying attention to what exactly, and there was a low rumbling sound before a quick series of clicks.

Harry's concentration was broken by a high "eep!" He turned to see Myrtle – now so pale as to be almost translucent – shoot down one of the toilets.

"Come along, Mr. Potter," Quirrell continued, completely unperturbed.

"I don't know, Professor," Harry said, for the first time feeling uneasy about something in Quirrell's presence.

Quirrell sighed, turning towards Harry. In an instant, before Harry could react, Quirrell flicked his wand, and Harry just jumped out the way as a blast of heat hit his face, and a barrier of flame rose up, blocking the doorway but burning nothing.

"Not a word, Mr. Potter," Quirrell continued, stone-faced. "Down the stairs, and not so much as a twitch towards your wand."

Harry's heart was pounding, while his brain tried to grasp just what had happened. Quirrell had followed behind him, first down a long staircase that had seemed to go on forever, and then through a foul-smelling tunnel until at last they reached a room about half the size of the great hall. Thankfully, once the sink had closed behind them, A series of lanterns had come alight, and so Harry now stood in this chamber in the half-light, his hands raised away from his sides, the weight of his wand tantalizing in his front pocket. The chamber was made of stone with no decoration save a very ugly statue, and puddles of scummy water collected here and there. It was not a pleasant place.

"This has been a most aggravating year," Quirrell said at last, wand carefully pointed at Harry as he fidgeted with his turban with the other. "I was given a single task, and I missed it by a single day. I was so sure it would be brought to Hogwarts, I thought I might still succeed, and of course I felt you when you entered Gringotts the day before, I couldn't believe it could be a coincidence."

"But you know nothing," Quirrell sneered, voice rising. "Nothing about the Philosopher's Stone. And then my master set me a new task, and you knew nothing about that either," Quirrell said with increasing frustration. "How did you do it, Potter? How did you vanquish the greatest Dark Lord of all time?"

"I don't know what you are talking about," Harry responded, terrified.

"You impertinent - "Igni-"

"Stop!" A third voice called out, not particularly loud but booming in its authority. "Cast no spells on the boy. It is not a risk I am willing to take."

"I am sorry, Master," Quirrel whispered in a tone equal parts worship and desperate apology.

"Turn around, let me see the boy," The voice continued.

"You are... Master, with all respect, you are not yet strong enough-"

"I am strong enough for this," the voice hissed.

Quirrell turned to the side, keeping his wand carefully aimed at Harry, while the other slowly unwound the great turban.

Harry suppressed the urge to scream or heave up his breakfast. Out of Quirrell head was a second face.

"Tremble," the face hissed. "It is right to fear the visage of Lord Voldemort."

"He's... you're dead," Harry declared. "Sirius Black killed you."

The face hissed. "Sirius Black was a noble fool, and a reasonably powerful wizard with a powerful heritage. But any threat he posed to me ultimately proved to be circumstantial. It was not he who reduced me to this pathetic state." The eyes started back at Harry, malevolent. "That was you. How did you do it?" The last came out as little more than a hiss.

Harry stayed silent.

"I was once the most feared wizard in the world, my power rightfully recognized as being worthy of worship by the highest and noblest of our society. And now, I live like some parasite on a wizard of mediocre ability, spending the better part of a year trying to reclaim the magic that is rightfully mine by blood! It took months to channel my magic through this useless body to open my bloodline's right!

"Yet you know nothing. I have seen your mind and you are as ignorant as the muggle filth you were raised with. So mindnumbingly frustrating."

A rumble in the center of the chamber caught both of their attention and both Harry and Quirrell turned as the mouth of a statue of the very ugly looking wizard opened.

"But you will frustrate me no longer. Whatever your destiny was, it can be circumvented. I will circumvent it. I will not kill you myself."

"Quirrell, avert your eyes. Kill the boy."

Harry saw Quirrell scrunch his eyes shut. And then a giant snake seemed to pour out of the statue. Harry ran.

It did him no good. He clutched his wand - now held tightly in his hand after fumbling it out of his pocket – and tried to go back into the tunnel. Ahead of him, a wall of stone jumped out of the floor, sending Harry tumbling backward. He turned to see Quirrell pointing his wand forward, though Quirrell's eyes were carefully focused on the floor.

Which was strange, why would one want to not look at a snake? The only magical snakes Harry could think of were the ones from primary school when they had read the story of Medusa, where the snake-haired monster could – Ah.

"Kill" the voice – Voldemort – called again.

Harry could hear the snake advancing, and against all instincts forced himself to close his eyes. All the spells that Quirrell had taught him fled his mind, and instead he shouted, "Stop".

There was silence.

"What is this!" Voldemort's voice called out in astonished fury. "Impossible." he finished in a rage. "Kill the boy."

"Kill him instead," Harry blurted, and in a moment too miraculous for words, the snake turned.

There was a furious shout of rage, followed by a large explosion. Harry dared open his eyes, though kept them focused on the floor and his heart lifted as he realized that Quirrell was in a desperate duel with the giant snake,

"Keep going" Harry cheered the snake on, and it struck forward, Quirrell just dancing out of the way before twirling his wand, a great purple flame bellowing from it that moved like a whip across the snake's flank.

Harry realized now that Quirrell's eyes were closed and his face oddly glazed. It hit him, at last, that he was watching Voldemort. And despite the horror, it was an almost beautiful thing to watch. Harry barely remembered to continue ordering the snake, just in case Voldemort was able to command it again.

The snake continued to coil back and lash forward, then re-calibrate itself to Voldemort's movements and try again. It would only take one success to rip Quirrell's body to pieces.

Voldemort gave it no such opportunity. On each strike, Voldemort would launch an attack of his own, before dancing out of the way a fraction before the snake hit home. He seemed to favor the fire whip and a spell that looked like thousands of tiny sickly yellow balls that crackled into the snake's hide, but his spells were very varied. At one point he had blown loose a large chunk of the floor, and would summon slabs of rock to either banish at the beast or transfigure into another weapon. He couldn't begin to imagine what sort of power Voldemort would have commanded in his own body, if he considered this form of himself to be little more than a parasite.

The snake was weakening. Its attacks were slower and there was more time between them. A conjured spear had destroyed one of the snake's eyes, a ball of fire the other. There was a sickly squelching noise a chunk of the serpent's jaw gave way, a chunk of meet and tooth hurling towards Harry. It would not be long now until the snake was defeated and Harry could not hope to compete against such a wizard.

"Kill him," Harry encouraged the snake, more for form's sake than anything else. Then, finally, his mind came up with a desperate idea that included more than simply cheering on the snake. "Accio, fang," he cried out, pointing his wand at the lump of flesh. With a squelch, the serpent tooth came loose, and rushed towards Harry. Before it arrived, Harry aimed his wand at Voldemort. "Depulso!"

Voldemort turned towards him, eyes wide and furious, just as the fang sunk into Quirrell's torso.

Harry didn't know it, but Quirrell was effectively dead before the dying snake made its final frantic strike.

It took an exhausted Harry several hours to break through the rock barrier Voldemort had created, and already in a state of shock, he was in a very dazed state indeed when, covered in filth and robes torn ragged, a large cut on his face caused by a sharp piece of blasted rock, he entered the great hall.

---

"Miss Pomfrey, he's awake! Oi, Harry, you awake, right?"

Harry blinked, fumbling for his glasses, which should be on the bedside – He was in the hospital wing, not his bed in the Hufflepuff dormitory.

"Oh right, here you are," Someone handed him his glasses.

"Thanks," Harry said, putting them on. "Wayne."

"Are you alright? Everyone's worried sick but Pomfrey said only one of us in here at a time while you were sleeping. Want me to go get the others? Well Granger's in class and I dunno where your Slytherins are, but we can go find them. Everyone back in the common room will want to see you."

"Yeah, alright," Harry said, not really sure what was happening but needing Wayne to stop talking.

"I'll be right back then. Then you have to tell us all what happened!"

That's not quite how it played out. Madam Pomfrey had insisted on being present during Harry's reunion, and had made it quite plain that nobody was to ask Harry about his ordeals until he was properly on the mend. Harry was grateful – he had no intention of telling his classmates about a duel between a giant snake and a supposedly dead dark lord under the bowels of the school, which ended with Harry killing their defense teacher.

Still, it was nice seeing them all. Granger had started to lecture him about not going off alone and doing whatever he had done – presumably snuck out to the Forbidden Forest based on her assumptions before she had babbled herself out and threw herself on him in an enormous hug, saying he couldn't go anywhere because nobody else would study with her. His roommates had the grace not to snicker, though Harry was sure they would tease him about it later. Even Blaise, Daphne, and Millicent had shown up, and Blaise had asked if it wasn't too much of a bother for Harry to stay out of trouble until the term was over and he had fulfilled his usefulness regarding Blaise's final term results.

"I hope you're not hoping for a hug from me as well," Daphne had said when Hermione let him go, poking at him gingerly. "You're a complete mess."

Then they had left for the evening with Madam Pomfrey shooing them out, saying Harry needed a good night's rest and would be joining them tomorrow so anything else could wait.

---

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Harry asked when his Head of House had disappeared down the spiral staircase of the Headmaster's office.

"I did," Dumbledore replied, indicating that Harry should sit. "Lemon drop?"

"Thank you," Harry replied cautiously, slowly taking and unwrapping one of the sweets.

"I take it your exam preparation is going well. You seem to have acquired quite the following in the library again this term."

"Yes, sir." Harry replied.

Dumbledore gave Harry a small smile. "I am sure you have a rather large number of questions, and I will do my best to answer them to the best of my ability."

Harry paused, unsure what to say. The general consensus in the hospital wing had been that Harry had ventured too closely to the forbidden forest early in the morning, and Harry had been too tired and too unsure what to say to correct the notion. Dumbledore's question implied he was not convinced.

"I'm sure you are aware that Professor Quirrell has disappeared," Dumbledore prompted.

Harry panicked. "I didn't mean to kill Professor Quirrell," he blurted instead. "I mean, I guess I meant to but I didn't mean to -" Harry clamped his mouth shut.

Surprisingly, Dumbledore did not appear perturbed. "I believe I understand you perfectly, Mr. Potter. During your hospital visit and combined with Professor Quirrell's disappearance, I took the liberty of searching his office and private suite for any clues." Dumbledore pulled a single piece of parchment of his desk. "While nothing I found would have been entirely incriminating in and of itself, it paints an interesting picture to an eye that knows what to look for."

Dumbledore stood up, walking over to table in his office and picking up a shallow stone bowl that rested upon it. "This is a rather interesting bit of magic," Dumbledore continued, unconcerned with the apparent jump in thoughts. "It is called a Pensieve, and it allows one to examine memories. As a man of many hats, I find it very useful from time to time to be able to go through my memories in a more dispassionate method." He turned to Harry. "With your permission, I should like to see exactly where you and Professor Quirrell were."

Harry nodded.

"Very well then. Simply think about the memory. You do not have to focus on the details, simply recalling the event will suffice for the spell to take hold." Harry watched as Dumbledore pressed his wand just above Harry's ear, slowly withdrawing it as a wisp of silver followed from Harry's head, before the headmaster dropped it into the bowl – the Pensive, he had called it.

"Give me a moment, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore replied, before dipping his head into the Pensive.

Harry felt very silly, sitting there with the headmaster bent over completely still. He wondered if he ought to go and call for a professor. He didn't want to get caught with a drowned Dumbledore just after killing Quirrell; he was sure the wizards must have a prison, and he didn't want to end up there.

Just before he decided to go and try and catch Professor Sprout, Dumbledore lifted his head, looking grim but not entirely surprised.

"Before we go any further, I believe the school owes you a debt of gratitude for destroying the Basilisk of the Chamber of Secrets."

"It is difficult to know where to begin," he said after a pause. "First and foremost, I do not blame you in the slightest for your actions. That being said, you might be wise to keep the details of this adventure to yourself. Your fellow students will inadvertently do you a great favor by spreading all kinds of fantastic rumors, and you would be well advised to let them do so until the next great scandal occurs." He gave Harry a knowing smile, "Take it from me, Mr. Potter, the gossip produces every kind of imaginable explanation except the one that is completely true."

"That being said... there are a few things I will tell you in confidence. I will admit now that I cannot tell you everything. There is a rare branch of magic called Legilimency, which enables one wizard to read the mind of another. Voldemort was a master of this branch of magic, and it is clear that throughout the year he used it against you on numerous occasions."

Harry looked up, feeling disgusted and violated. "He can do that?" He sounded ashamed, that he had failed in some great way.

Dumbledore nodded. "He can. It is not something that is tolerated within civilized society, but that is hardly something to stop Voldemort. There is a counter, and I shall find time to teach you personally next school year."

Harry looked hopeful. "Thank you." he said gratefully. "Though – I don't understand why Voldemort would bother. I'm a first year, and I was raised by muggles. Why would he care?"

Dumbledore sighed tiredly. "For many years, I have had half-theories and grasped at ethereal straws of conclusions, conjecture, and hear-say. But yesterday's events lend them significant weight: it is my belief that it was you, and not your God-father Sirius Black, who vanquished Voldemort during his first reign."

At Harry's skeptical look, Dumbledore continued. "I cannot give you the full details of this theory – as you heard yourself, Voldemort is also no entirely sure of what happened that Halloween night, and we would be wise to ensure his continued ignorance. As long as he fears the possible consequences of facing you directly – as he clearly did, refusing to aim a spell directly at you – it offers you some measure of protection should he return again."

"There was a prophesy," Dumbledore continued. "That was linked to Voldemort's potential downfall. Voldemort is aware that a prophesy was made, and to whom it was made, and who we both suspect the prophesy refers to... but his spy, too young and too eager, did not capture the critical fourth component of how each of these players were to come together."

"It never sat well with me, the events of that day and how they played out. Based on the prophesy, Sirius Black should not have been the one to kill Voldemort, and it seems that once Voldemort heard the partial prophesy, he came to the same conclusion, acting on the very same night, perhaps immediately after Sirius Black's unfortunate demise."

Dumbledore looked very tired. "There are branches of magic that are very dangerous, Harry, because they lead us down paths that have no end, and one can spend their entire lives journeying them without ever reaching a single step closer towards a satisfactory discovery. Prophesies are one such branch – one can quickly be ruled by declarations that come true because the victim believed it must. Let it suffice to say that Voldemort told you himself that he believes you to be the cause of his downfall, which gives credence to the idea that he was at your home, and that he was foiled attempting to kill you. He would have been the only witness to the tragedy of that night, at any rate, save yourself."

After he killed my mum, Harry thought angrily, leaving the thought unsaid, though Dumbledore caught the darkness on his face.

"There was something else, sir," Harry said instead, changing the subject. "Voldemort mentioned the Philosopher's Stone. What does that have to do with anything?"

Dumbledore let out a chuckle. "The stone was an artifact of immense power, as I'm sure you are aware."

"Yes, sir." Professor Quirrell, Harry paused, thinking about how much time he had spent with the murderous man, "He um... brought it up with me one day. It's a stone developed by a French alchemist that can create gold and the Elixir of Life."

Dumbledore nodded. "By Nicholas Flamel, a very good friend of mine. And, until the day you and I went to Gringotts, the stone rested within that institution." Harry's eyes grew wide. "I confess it was an extra precaution that I chose that particular day to send out Hogwart's letters," the headmaster smiled. "No disguise is perfect, so while I escorted you to your family vault to buy your school supplies, a trusted but less well-known friend of mine removed the stone from Gringotts and ensured it arrived safely back in France. Where it is now, I cannot tell you."

"So Voldemort assumed it was here, because if you were protecting the stone and had to move it..."

"A rather short-sighted assumption to make, but one no doubt fueled with desperation. It cannot have been pleasant, spending the past decade as a wraith. And the stone would have been a tempting solution to that state."

Harry nodded, relieved that the stone had never been in danger of Voldemort's capture.

"I think that is enough for today," Dumbledore said. "Again, please be discrete. I cannot make it clear enough that the wizarding world will not take kindly to an eleven year old boy with a... murky history taking credit for a man revered as a martyr. I apologize for being blunt-"

"I understand, sir." Harry said, somewhat bitterly. "The son of a murderer taking credit for the victim's success. I won't tell anyone."

"I am sorry, Harry," Dumbledore said gently. "Is there anything else?"

"This summer... would it be possible for me to stay at Hogwarts?" Harry blurted, ears burning after he did so. "The Dursley's... I don't want to go back there."

Dumbledore looked at Harry carefully. "There was a student some years ago who asked a similar question, and to this day I wonder what could have happened had it been answered differently," the headmaster replied with saddened nostalgia. "A compromise, Mr. Potter. As your legal guardians, you will need to return to your Aunt's home. But," he continued, at Harry's disappointed expression, "I believe that you need not stay longer than two or three weeks. I will find alternative arrangements for you for the summer, and perhaps you ought to write your friends and see if they would be amicable to a summer outing or two."

Harry smiled. "Thank you, sir!" he said, getting up as Dumbledore did so as well. "I'll see you later, sir, he replied as he headed down the stairs and out of the headmaster's office. "Oh, one final question, sir – why did the snake listen to me?"

"There is a rare branch of magic, called Parseltongue, that enables a wizard to communicate with snakes. It is not one held in high esteem and you would be wise to keep it to yourself," Dumbledore said. "Voldemort was one such wizard with this skill, and it would appear that Voldemort's hold on the snake was tenuous, given his reliance on Quirrell's magic. Certainly, Voldemort alluded that he had significant trouble opening the Chamber of Secrets – a bit of Hogwarts history you might look up – and I can only assume that given conflicting orders, the Basilisk was compelled by the more pure of the two speakers. That however," Dumbledore continued, "is pure conjecture, as I myself lack the talent. It leads to more questions than answers, in particular to your own capabilities in the subject. Were you aware you could speak to snakes?"

Harry paused, remembering the summer before with his cousin Dudley. "There was a snake once that I thoughtcould understand me, when I went to the zoo with my aunt and uncle and cousin," Harry said at last. "But I don't remember the snake talking to me or anything just... sort of listening to me, and pointing at the sign that said it was from Brazil." He finished, the story sounding lame and bizarre to his own ears.

But Dumbledore nodded. "Something else for us to look at when we begin our studies next year, then." Dumbledore replied with a sense of finality.

The year ended well. Ravenclaw won the House Cup but Hufflepuff took the Quidditch Cup, which seemed to satisfy the house. Harry had thoroughly enjoyed flying classes and had been disappointed that first years could not try out for Quidditch, only to later discover that the team was quite young and there were unlikely to be openings for some time anyway. Still, he happily joined in with his housemates in the celebrations when Cedric Diggory caught the snitch in a neck-and-neck competition with Slytherin. Exams had ended and Harry was confident in his performance, as were most of his group except Hermione, who kept going on about how her dancing pineapple in the Charms examination had been off-beat.

"Oh shove it," Millie had finally exclaimed in exasperation as they rode the Hogwarts Express back into London. "Mypineapple didn't dance at all, it told a dirty joke. I'm sure you did just fine."

"Just because some of us aren't satisfied with anything less than excellence-"

Harry tuned the girls out – it seemed that overcoming the Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry was easier difficult than the Pureblood/Muggleborn one... mostly.

"So where to this summer?" Harry asked Blaise, who seemed torn between cursing both the girls or adopting an air of total indifference.

"Vienna, possibly Prague," Blaise responded airily, which caught Hermione's attention, who suddenly seemed much less interested in pineapples. "Mother has tickets to all the social events on the continent, and has decided that Austria agrees with her this year," He shrugged. "No doubt it will be delightful."

"I've always wanted to go to Vienna," Hermione gushed. " Is it really true, that there's an entire cadet branch of the Hapsburgs who were magical? I mean obviously they didn't run the muggle Kingdom but it's so fascinating about how muggle and magical governments work in parallel, and if there were Hapsburgs running the magicians of Austria... do you think they lived in Hofburg Palace, or did they have their own home..."

Blaise very smugly (and Harry suspected, very much out of his arse) bragged to Hermione about the adventures he would be getting up to over the summer across Europe, while Hermione lapped it up.

"What about you, Harry?" Daphne asked, looking up from her Witch's Weekly, "Are you doing anything fun."

"I dunno," Harry grinned. "I have to go back to my aunt and uncle for two weeks, but then I think I'm allowed to leave, so then it should be pretty good."

Daphne nodded, shuddering delicately. "I can't imagine having to put up with muggles for two weeks," she said with solemn sympathy. Thankfully, Hermione was too enraptured with Blaise's stories to take offense. "But do write – I would love to introduce you to Mum and Daddy. They are already acquainted with Millie and Blaise and I'm sure they wouldn't mind having them over as well."

Harry noted the one particular absence, but took it in stride. He had come to peace with the fact that Hermione was his friend, and as long as Hermione and the Slytherin girls could maintain some level of civility, he wouldn't press the issue. Sometimes, the girls pushed and made that difficult.

On the other hand, Daphne had hexed Malfoy and accepted without complaint a detention when she caught him laughing about Harry's stay in the hospital wing and suggesting he was as useless as Longbottom, so things balanced out.

"That would be lovely." He said instead. Daphne nodded, going back to her magazine and inviting Millie to join her in giggling about something Harry had no interest in asking about.

Soon the train arrived at King's Cross and Harry went out through the entrance to the muggle station, blinking at the sudden crowds that greeted him. Soon enough, he found his Uncle and Aunt, looking quite put out.

"Come on then," Vernon grunted in Harry's direction, turning around and heading out as Harry hurried to follow. Two weeks, Harry thought with a smile.

Thank you for reading.

NB: They are 11. This is not a prelude or a hint to hawt Harry/Hermione, Harry/Daphne, Harry/Hermione/Daphne, or Blaise/Hermione. I won't even toy with the Harry/Millicent shippers, because they have a tough enough row to hoe as it is.