Ch. 5

AN: Heyo everyone! Grand to see you! Glad you're all here! So, I wanted to let all of you know that there are no confirmed pairings for this story yet! I'm still working it out, but I'm primarily focusing on the story at this point and the pairing is kind of secondary for me! Either way, hope you all enjoy the story!


Routine had settled in quickly. Wake up, breakfast, classes.

Daniel would have found the entire thing mundane had it not been for the fact that he was taking notes on Transfiguration and learning wand movements to levitate objects. As a child, he had always been a dedicated student. A mantra that had been repeated by so many teachers and caretakers had been that getting into a good college would allow him to thrive. So, he had been studious, and it seemed to transcend lives.

Potions had gone as expected. Snape was vindictive towards both the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, though it seemed toned down as he had no Slytherins to give points. Not to say he didn't take points away from them, but it certainly wasn't as drastic from what he had heard from Ron and Harry.

Daniel had managed to stay close to the boys. He was able to sit with them during Charms and Transfiguration, talk with them in between lessons. He was glad that he had wormed his way into their good graces. They were good people, kind, funny, and they seemed genuine in their friendship.

Daniel smirked to himself as he thought of all the friendships he had begun at Hogwarts. He turned his head and laughed with the other boys around him. They were all on their way to their first flight lesson.

Terry could not stop talking about how much he enjoyed flying, he spoke on how his dad had taken him flying on a broomstick when he was younger. Then how his brother and him would race in the summers.

"Not to brag," Terry said puffing out his chest and striking a pose, "but I imagine I'll be a top rate flyer!"

"Not a chance!" Ron shouted, laughing and nudging Terry forward. "I've been flying for years! Fred and George are on the Quidditch team as beaters! Charlie was a seeker! Guaranteed I'll be flying before any of you!"

Daniel shook his head and nudged Harry. "How much will ya' bet that neither are the first to mount their brooms?"

"A Galleon," Harry laughed.

The four boys made it down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance. They arrived at the broomsticks just as their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She was a rather tall woman, though her yellow eyes unnerved Daniel a bit.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone, stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

Daniel took a position beside Terry. The brooms were nothing special. Old and seemed to be mostly twigs attached to a thicker and longer piece of wood.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!'"

"UP!" everyone shouted.

Daniel's face lit up in a smile and he cried out the word. His broom jumped into his hand. He cried out in excitement and looked over at terry who was beaming at the broom in his hand. Not everyone's brooms had shot up, however. Some rolled around on the ground and some grew frustrated, demanding their brooms fly up into their hands.

Daniel grinned as a sense of déjà vu came over him. The scene played out in a familiar way, he nodded when Malfoy took Neville's Remembrall when Harry had chased him down for it.

In fact, as time passed slowly more and more things had begun to happen that Daniel remembered. It wasn't easy to remember though. It was as if his memories were encased in a sealed box, his mind foggy about every aspect of what could be in there, only certain on a few events.

After dinner one evening he had rushed off to the library seeking seclusion. He had found a nice empty desk and began to write. He wrote down everything he could remember. He wrote down the events of the years, the main plot points; philosophers stone, chamber of secrets, etc. but as he scribbled out the name, Prisoner of Azkaban he stopped. Pausing for a moment.

Peter Pettigrew, Daniel thought. Scabbers. Scratching the back of his head Daniel nodded to himself. He grinned at shoved the parchment into his pocket moving into the rows of books.

His eyes roamed over the identifying signs on the rows. He passed so many rows of Charms, and Alchemy, not to mention a half-dozen other subjects before his eyes set sight on Transfiguration. Grinning he turned into a row quickly his eyes set on the spines of the books.

He felt his chest collide with someone.

A shriek went out and Daniel felt himself lose his balance before he was sent tumbling to the floor. He groaned as he sat up, his head aching but otherwise uninjured.

"Damn," He said standing up and walking over to who he had bumped into offering them his. "Sorry about that. I wasn't looking where I was going."

"I'd imagine so," Hermione Granger said. She took Daniel's hand and was pulled to her feet. "What on earth were you in a rush for anyway?"

"I was looking for a book on Animagus'. They sounded interesting and I kind of wanted to learn about them." It wasn't technically a lie Daniel figured. "Besides, what are you doing with a stack of books bigger than you are?"

Hermione scoffed and bent down picking up the scattered tomes. Moving to help her he picked up a rather hefty and dirty book. Brushing off the dust he read the title. Arithmancy: Theory of Spell Design.

Glancing from the book to Hermione Daniel raised an eyebrow. "What the hell are you doing with this?"

Hermione snatched the book from his hands. She huffed and set the thick book in the stack she had reformed. Daniel's eyes glanced through the pile: Transfiguration and Conjuration, Alchemy and the Alchemist, Runes: Warding and Cursebreaking.

"What the hell? Are you a first year of a seventh in disguise?" Daniel shook his head and laughed.

"Says the boy looking for transfiguration books," Hermione shot back.

"I'm curious about people changing into animals. You want to skip to the end of school."

"Shhh!" a voice hissed from behind them. Daniel threw his head back and looked. Madam Pince stood behind them, her arms crossed and her eyebrows knitted together in frustration. She shook her head and moved into one of the rows.

Daniel looked back to Hermione and saw her worried look as if a single complaint from Madam Pince would cause her expulsion from the school. He had to bite his lip to keep the laughter from escaping him. Though the look on his face must have telegraphed it, as Hermione simply glared and picked up the stack of books leaving him in the row.

Shaking his head Daniel went to work searching the rows.


The light got lower and lower for Daniel as he skimmed through the spellbook. He rubbed his eyes and sighed as he looked at how much he had left to read. He groaned. He had barely made it a third of the way through. He had hoped to find the spell he needed rather quickly. He had learned that index pages weren't a thing to wizards. So, forced to read through the book, he spent the better part of three hours breathing in dust and straining his eyes.

Closing his eyes, he sighed and slid the piece of parchment he had written his list out on into the book. He brought the book to the counter smiling at Madam Pince. The woman looked at him, with boredom or disdain he couldn't tell. He chuckled to himself as he walked out of the library with the book tucked under his arm. He was sure that Madam Pince saw the students just as Snape did, only she wasn't as vocal.

Climbing up to the Ravenclaw tower he was met by Terry Boot at the entrance. The door had swung open and Terry had taken a step in.

"Hold the door!" Daniel called out pumping his legs up the stairs.

Terry had obliged and motioned for Daniel to hurry. "Come on!"

Daniel made it to the door, grinning as he entered the common room. "Thanks, Terry!"

"Where've you been?" Terry asked plopping himself on a couch, legs kicked up and arms folded behind his head.

"Library. I needed to get caught up on Transfiguration homework." Terry laughed at Daniel's response. Even though they were Ravenclaw, it seemed that Daniel was one of the few that was proving the stereotype right.

"Of course, you were. But look, so last night you know how Harry had a duel with Malfoy?"

"Course." Daniel and Terry had been unable to attend as Ravenclaw tower was too far for them to be able to sneak away and meet Harry and Ron.

"Well, it turns out that Malfoy never showed up," Terry sat up and motioned for Daniel to come closer. Terry glanced around and whispered quickly. "They had to hide in the third corridor. Apparently, there's a Cerberus guarding something there."

"A Cerberus?" Daniel asked his eyes wide.

"Yeah, it's a three-headed—"

"I know what a Cerberus is," Daniel said quickly. "No, I mean, what is it doing in the school. What the hell could it be guarding?"


Daniel furrowed his eyebrow as he read the incantation he had been searching for. His mouth moved, reading the words silently. They sounded unnatural. He knew that most spells were derived from Latin, or used roots from it, however, this seemed nothing like Latin.

"Nochtann an duine," Daniel squinted at the words and shook his head.

He read through the description. It seemed rather straightforward, point your wand, say the words, see a blue light and then the Animagus will transform. Daniel pulled his want out and whispered the words to himself. He raised the wand and spoke the words.

He felt the wand warm in his hand but otherwise, nothing happened.

He looked to the wand and then back to the book. He reread the instructions and nodded before raising his wand and trying again.

The result was the same and he cursed to himself.

He turned the page and slapped his forehead and leaning back on the stone wall he had propped himself against.

For the spell to work, there must be an Animagus present.

He had hoped to be able to practice the spell first and ensure that he could actually perform the spell. He still had trouble turning matches into needles, let alone performing a spell that would be able to turn a mouse back into a man.

Shaking his head, Daniel wrote the spell down on his list and lifted himself out of the small nook he had managed to find on the second floor. Reading was always better in small spaces.

He moved through the halls ducking his head down. He avoided eye contact with most people, nodding whenever his eyes had unfortunately met another person's.

Slugging into the Great Hall, Daniel spotted Ron, Harry, and Terry sitting together. Glancing at his watch he saw that there were still fifteen minutes left in lunch. Nodding to himself he moved to join his friends, sliding into the bench beside Terry.

"Afternoon gentlemen!" Daniel smirked.

"Daniel, where the bloody hell have you been?" Ron asked with a mouth full of food.

"Studying," Daniel said, his eyes moving to Scabbers who was resting on Ron's shoulder.

"Ravenclaws," Ron shook his head, smirking.

"Hey!" Terry said. "We're not all like that!"

"Terry, as soon as you learned Lumos you've used it to read until two in the morning every night," Daniel rolled his eyes.

"How do you know that?"

"Because it's a bright light and you sleep next to me!" Daniel shook his head and glanced at his watch again. "We'd better hurry up gents, we got charms soon."

The four boys left the Hall, moving to charms. They all discussed the upcoming quidditch season. Everyone saying that Harry was going to lead the Gryffindor team to victory, though Daniel and Terry did say that it would most likely be close with Ravenclaw. Even though they were friends with Gryffindors, they did have Ravenclaw pride.

When they arrived at Charms Professor Flitwick announced that they would be starting to make objects fly.

Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice. Daniel and Terry had gotten together quickly watching as Harry and Ron were left on their own to find partners.

Harry's partner was Seamus Finnigan. Ron, however, was to be working with Hermione Granger seeing it, Daniel sighed as he realized what it would lead to. He knew that Hermione would get hurt, that she, Harry, and Ron would battle a troll, and that It would lead to their friendship.

He had weighed the pros and cons of it. Leaving this to happen would be for the best, intervening would cause a few ripples that would lead to trouble. So as the class, as Hermione corrected Ron and he complained and said she had no friends, Daniel felt a feeling of confidence. For it would leave to the Golden Trio.

Though he hated the thought of lesser and greater evil, he allowed himself to feel less guilty about this one.


"I still don't think Snape is trying to steal whatever the Cerberus—"

"Fluffy," Harry, Ron, and Terry corrected.

"I refuse to call him that. But I don't know why Snape would be trying to steal whatever it is that it's guarding." Daniel shook his head and continued to flip through the copy of, Alchemy and the Alchemist. He flipped through the massive tome until the name Nicholas Flamel appeared. "Here it is! Nicholas Flamel. Alchemist from the fifteenth century. Credited with, oh well how about that. Credited with the creation of the Sorcerer's Stone."

"What's that?" Terry asked grasping the book and pulling it over to himself. He skimmed the page and read, "Blimey! He and his wife are over six hundred years old!"

Hermione snatched the book and read over a few more passages out loud. "The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. The dog must be guarding Flamel's Sorcerer's Stone! I bet he asked Dumbledore to keep it safe for him, because they're friends and he knew someone was after it, that's why he wanted the Stone moved out of Gringotts!"

"A stone that makes gold and stops you from ever dying!" said Harry. "No wonder Snape's after it! Anyone would want it."

"And no wonder we couldn't find Flamel in that Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry," said Ron. "He's not exactly recent if he's over six hundred like Terry said."

Daniel couldn't deny the appeal of the stone. It seemed amazing and promised so much. Gold and time to spend it. It sounded amazing. But then he supposed that having it and having everyone that would want the stone after you did seem to be a major downside.

The group concluded their research and began to pack up.

"So how long until you lot go home?" Terry asked, slinging his book bag over his shoulder.

"Tomorrow," Daniel said. "McGonagall is taking me."

"You're not ridding the train?" Hermione asked.

"No. Frank can't pick me up." Daniel said absentmindedly.

"Who?" Ron asked.

"I thought you lived with your aunt?" Harry said.

"Yeah," Terry nodded.

"Oh. Well, Frank is," Daniel paused and swallowed nervously and fidgeted nervously. "I, he, um."

Daniel cleared his throat and his throat felt dry. He looked up to his friends and his face felt unbelievably hot. He felt like when he had been eight for the first time and had been caught stuffing a bad grade he had gotten deep into his backpack by one of the caretakers.

"Who's Frank?" Harry asked.

All of his friends looked confused. They seemed lost, and a feeling of guilt began to creep up his spine as he tried to think of anything he could say to divert the conversation. To avoid telling them his dreaded title: Orphan.

He swallowed and sighed. Just like when he was eight, he was caught red-handed.

"I—Frank is my…" he paused and chuckled to himself. "Frank is someone close to me. He's looked after me for a few years. I don't, my aunt isn't real. I don't have one. I'm… I grew up in an orphanage."


AN: Well, I hope you guys liked it. The next chapter should be the final one for first year! Also with the whole Daniel being revealed as an orphan thing, I was just thinking that from his perspective, he's always been pitied and treated differently for being an orphan. Getting to start over at Hogwarts he would, at least to me, understandably want to leave that baggage behind. Anyway, I hope you guys are liking the story and I will see you next time! Please Review!