Disclaimer: The characters of Harry Potter, the plot, and my attention
span all belong to J.K. Rowling. I just write down my crazy daydreams
about her books.
Author's Note: Thanks again to all the reviewers. Once again, thank you Firemask, who has faithfully reviewed each chapter so far!! And again, if anyone can tell me how to do italics and center things, help! Here's the next chappy!
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The next few days, Harry was reminded of getting ready for the Polyjuice Potion in his second year, finding all the ingredients he could before deciding he needed to "borrow" some from Professor Snape. However, this time it was without the help of his friends. He decided to get the ingredients for the necessary potion right after Quidditch practice.
When the team finished up, he told Ron (Gryffindor's new keeper) that he had to go visit the Owlery quickly and ran off before he could offer to come along. Harry grabbed his invisibility cloak. When no one was looking he draped it over himself and began to make his way into the castle and towards the dungeon. He dropped his Quidditch things behind a statue near the Gryffindor tower, noting to himself to pick it up on his way back, and continued on his way.
He had tried this a few nights already, both proving to be failed attempts, as the office was locked and Harry didn't know the password. As he got closer to the dungeons he pulled out the Marauder's Map and found the dot labeled Severus Snape to be heading towards the dungeons also, in fact, heading right towards Harry!
Harry whipped his head around to see Snape quickly walking towards him. Harry flattened himself against the wall just in time for Snape to breeze past him. Tiptoeing, Harry followed closely behind him. This was going to be interesting.
They finally reached Snape's office. Snape suspiciously looked around before muttering several different passwords to get into his office. Harry had originally planned to just memorize the passwords and come back later, but as he couldn't make them out all that clearly he just closely followed Snape right into his office, the door automatically shutting behind them.
Snape walked over to his desk and abruptly sat down. Harry noted that he didn't look in the best mood. He pulled a stack of papers out of his desk drawer and began to study them before writing letters on them with red ink. Harry recognized them as their last night's homework,
Harry quietly tiptoed over to the shelves of potion's ingredients and looked for the bottles with the things he needed. When he found each one, he would quickly glance over at Snape, who was hunched over papers muttering about ignorant students, and slip the bottle under his cloak, pour enough of it into the empty vials he had brought in his bag, and then replace them on the shelf, hoping to make it less obvious that there was any missing. He was thankful that he had his scarf and gloves on, and ended up putting them in his bag to prevent the vials from clanking together.
When he was done, Harry realized that he couldn't exactly just leave, as a door just opening on it's own might rouse some suspicion. Instead, Harry cautiously walked up to Snape's desk to see what kind of grades the class was getting, not that it was a great mystery. Harry peeked at the grade-book next to Snape and rolled his eyes as he saw the Gryffindor students having mostly C's, D's, and F's next to their names. Snape came to Hermione's paper, briefly looked it over and drew a big red C on the top, with the comment: "Too wordy." Harry almost sighed. He knew she had worked really hard on that paper, especially since her last paper bore the words: "Too brief." His paper was next in the stack. Snape barely glanced at it before writing a fat F on the top, as Harry always got.
"Damn Potter brat," Snape muttered as he marked the letter in his grade book, almost causing Harry to laugh. Snape finally came to the end of the stack of papers and went on to draw up his lesson plans for the next class Harry had with him. Harry smiled as he saw him scribble down "Pop Quiz: Properties of a Cheveux Potion." He'd have to keep that in mind. Snape's pop quizzes were notoriously random, on things he'd mentioned briefly months earlier, or not at all. Harry always got F's on them, along with most of the other Gryffindors. Not surprisingly, the Slytherins always got great scores on them, undoubtedly because Snape warned them in advance.
'Hah. Well won't Snape be surprised when the Gryffindors ace this next one.' Harry thought.
Luckily, after Snape drew up his lesson plans for his various classes, he decided to call it a night, and Harry was able to follow him closely out again and then slip away up to the Gryffindor common room, grabbing his Quidditch stuff on the way.
Fortunately, nobody was in the common room when he returned, as it was now quite late. With a groan, he realized he had spent nearly two hours in Snape's office. He crept up to the fifth year dormitory and quietly slipped in, changed into his pajamas and put his new supplies in his trunk.
As he lay in bed he decided that he would have to brew the potion at the Stensons or risk suspicion at school. Not only that, but the spell required the Muggle to know what was going on, as they had to drink the potion and focus on expelling the cancer. This was where things began to get complicated. He decided that he'd have to talk to Dumbledore to find out how he could tell them about his powers. He did live part time at their house, and they were practically part of his family now. True they weren't related to him, but there had to be a loophole in the law. Actually, he wasn't familiar with the law at all, so maybe he was allowed to tell them and he was getting all worried about nothing.
'Well, the only solution is to ask Dumbledore, so there's no use in worrying about it now.' Harry silently resolved before turning onto his side and falling asleep.
.
The next morning at breakfast, Ron and Hermione couldn't help but notice that their best friend seemed somewhat nervous. As Harry lifted his fork towards his mouth only to stop and put it back down again and swirl food around on his plates, Hermione shot Ron another worried look. They had started to notice something was strange with Harry that morning when he had put his fork in his mouth to eat, but had forgotten to put food on it, and didn't even notice.
"Er.Harry?" Hermione cautiously called. No response.
"Harry?" she tried again, but he continued to stare seemingly through the table and be deaf to all around him.
"Harry!" Ron leaned over the table to snap his fingers in front of his friend's eyes.
Harry jumped and looked at Ron and Hermione with a slightly stunned expression that melted into an embarrassed smile.
"Er.sorry, I guess I must've been dazed out there. Did you want something?"
"Yeah! We wanted to know what's bothering you so much that you didn't even realize you poured pumpkin juice on your waffle instead of the syrup," Ron said exasperated, but in a low enough voice as to not attract the attention of those sitting around.
"And also why you've been glancing up at the staff table about every fifteen seconds," Hermione added in a hushed tone.
"Oh I almost forgot to tell you guys, there's a pop-quiz on the Cheveux potion tomorrow." He passed the information on to those around him telling them to let all the Gryffindors know. He hoped Hermione and Ron wouldn't realize that he was trying to change the subject.
"Harry, don't think we don't realize that you're trying to change the subject." Ron hissed. Harry sighed.
"I just have to ask Dumbledore something that's all." Harry said, hoping that they would accept the vagueness of his comment.
"Harry, stop being so vague," Hermione scolded. "We know something's going on so you might as well just tell us!"
'Hmm.I guess Ron and Hermione know me too well," Harry thought to himself.
"Hey Hermione, didn't you say something about your aunt sending you a book on witchcraft for your birthday?" Harry asked just to change the subject, a quick thing he remembered Hermione mentioning the day before, but as soon as he said it, the full impact hit him.
"Yeah, of course, it's a Muggle book on witchcraft and has no real spells in it or anything. It was a nice thought though. But Harry, you can't just change the subject and expect."
"But your aunt's a Muggle." Harry stated matter-of-factly.
"Er, yeah, and so is yours Harry, or has that slipped your mind?" Hermione looked somewhat confused about the direction the conversation had turned.
"Well my aunt and uncle needed to know about my being a wizard because I was living with them, but why was your aunt allowed to know about it. Isn't that against the law or something?"
"No, well I hadn't really thought of it, I mean my aunt is family. I suppose if it were against the law, they would have told us. I mean we obviously haven't told anyone outside the family, and even then we only told the relatives closest to us. My mum just couldn't stand not to tell anyone; of course my aunt thought my mum had gone mad at the time. It was very interesting convincing her."
Hermione went on to talk about the struggle to convince her aunt that the Granger family did not belong in the insane asylum, but Harry lost concentration. Harry had just found his argument; he just hoped it would work.
.
When Dumbledore stood up from his seat and began to exit with a few other professors, Harry also decided that he was done with breakfast. He said his quick good-byes to Hermione and Ron and they wished him good luck on whatever he had to ask.
Harry followed a small distance behind Dumbledore so he wouldn't interrupt the conversation he was having with Professor McGonagall, but as soon as she left to prepare for her class on Monday, Harry seized the opportunity, speeding up his pace to quickly close the gap between him and his headmaster.
"I assume there's something you wish to speak to me about Harry," Dumbledore said smiling at Harry. Harry saw that Dumbledore knew he had been following him.
"Er, actually I had something I needed to ask you, sir," Harry cautiously began. He didn't want to have this conversation in the middle of the hallway.
"Let's step into my office then and you can tell me what's troubling you," said Dumbledore who seemed to have sensed Harry's anxiety about the conversation.
Harry followed Dumbledore to the stone gargoyle, all the while going over in his head what he was going to say. They stopped briefly for Dumbledore to give the password, "Canary Creams," leaving Harry to wonder how he knew about Fred and George's invention from last year.
Harry entered the office very nervously. He watched the headmaster settle into his chair and motion for Harry to also take a seat, which he did quickly. It was all down to this if it was to work at all.
"So Harry, what question would motivate you to follow me throughout the castle?" Dumbledore asked smiling, looking over his half-moon spectacles at Harry.
"Well sir," Harry began with a deep breath. "I was wondering if, well I know that, actually I don't know, but what I mean is, er." Harry paused and mentally reprimanded himself for sounding so stupid. "All right, well you see, there's a family that I've been staying with. A lot. I mean, they're practically my family now, more than the Dursleys have ever been. And I know that there are students at this school who have relatives out of the home knowing that they're a witch or wizard and I was wondering if I could tell these people too." Harry didn't feel like that was convincing enough and launched into another spiel figuring that the more arguments he got in, the better his chances were. "You see, I've been staying over at their house and everything and it's getting to be pretty difficult to hide all of this, and I'd really like them to know so I don't have to lie to them and could talk to them about it. If it's a question of blood connections, my uncle Vernon isn't blood related to me but he knows because I live with them, so couldn't I tell these people too since I'm living with them part time too?"
Harry knew that was a bit of a stretch, being that he hadn't stayed at the Stenson's house much since the trial, and had not spent a single night there since then, but he knew he might be going back for Christmas to stay with them and that counted, didn't it? Harry realized that Dumbledore had been silent for a while. He lifted his eyes from his knees to look into the unreadable ones of his headmaster.
"Well, Harry, I must say it is rather fuzzy where these types of laws are concerned. It seems they don't want to pass a law that they may later have to break, and would be already breaking. High people such as the Muggle minister, and rulers of most countries know about the magical world. On the other hand, it is important that knowledge of magic stays as much within the magical community as possible. But, yes, you probably just want to know a straight answer to your question. Unfortunately, I can only leave you with a slightly crooked one," Dumbledore warmly smiled at his own joke.
"What is generally decided among the magical community" he continued, "is that Muggles may be told of our presence under a few conditions. First of all, there must be a valid reason, as you seem to have. The other part lays more on your judgment. If you tell this family, you must be sure that they will tell no one else. The secret must stay with them and they cannot tell even their closest friends. If that does occur, you could be in serious trouble with the ministry. Therefore, I can only say that it's up to you, but be very sure of the character of those you tell."
Harry was filled with joy. Everything was going to work out after all. He had no doubts of the character of any of the Stensons. The bright smile that erupted on Harry's face made Dumbledore's eyes twinkle.
"Thank you sir! I know they won't tell! Thank you!" Harry stood up with a smile of relief and turned towards the door.
"Harry," Dumbledore called after him. "Is there a specific reason you feel they must know this?"
Harry halted. If he hadn't been facing the door, Dumbledore would have noticed a torn expression on his face. He didn't like lying to his headmaster, but he just couldn't tell anyone. He turned around with a big smile on his face.
"No, sir. I just would like them to know." With a nod of Dumbledore's head, Harry turned and walked out the door, now both anxious for and dreading winter holiday. This finalized it for Harry. There was no turning back now.
Author's Note: Thanks again to all the reviewers. Once again, thank you Firemask, who has faithfully reviewed each chapter so far!! And again, if anyone can tell me how to do italics and center things, help! Here's the next chappy!
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The next few days, Harry was reminded of getting ready for the Polyjuice Potion in his second year, finding all the ingredients he could before deciding he needed to "borrow" some from Professor Snape. However, this time it was without the help of his friends. He decided to get the ingredients for the necessary potion right after Quidditch practice.
When the team finished up, he told Ron (Gryffindor's new keeper) that he had to go visit the Owlery quickly and ran off before he could offer to come along. Harry grabbed his invisibility cloak. When no one was looking he draped it over himself and began to make his way into the castle and towards the dungeon. He dropped his Quidditch things behind a statue near the Gryffindor tower, noting to himself to pick it up on his way back, and continued on his way.
He had tried this a few nights already, both proving to be failed attempts, as the office was locked and Harry didn't know the password. As he got closer to the dungeons he pulled out the Marauder's Map and found the dot labeled Severus Snape to be heading towards the dungeons also, in fact, heading right towards Harry!
Harry whipped his head around to see Snape quickly walking towards him. Harry flattened himself against the wall just in time for Snape to breeze past him. Tiptoeing, Harry followed closely behind him. This was going to be interesting.
They finally reached Snape's office. Snape suspiciously looked around before muttering several different passwords to get into his office. Harry had originally planned to just memorize the passwords and come back later, but as he couldn't make them out all that clearly he just closely followed Snape right into his office, the door automatically shutting behind them.
Snape walked over to his desk and abruptly sat down. Harry noted that he didn't look in the best mood. He pulled a stack of papers out of his desk drawer and began to study them before writing letters on them with red ink. Harry recognized them as their last night's homework,
Harry quietly tiptoed over to the shelves of potion's ingredients and looked for the bottles with the things he needed. When he found each one, he would quickly glance over at Snape, who was hunched over papers muttering about ignorant students, and slip the bottle under his cloak, pour enough of it into the empty vials he had brought in his bag, and then replace them on the shelf, hoping to make it less obvious that there was any missing. He was thankful that he had his scarf and gloves on, and ended up putting them in his bag to prevent the vials from clanking together.
When he was done, Harry realized that he couldn't exactly just leave, as a door just opening on it's own might rouse some suspicion. Instead, Harry cautiously walked up to Snape's desk to see what kind of grades the class was getting, not that it was a great mystery. Harry peeked at the grade-book next to Snape and rolled his eyes as he saw the Gryffindor students having mostly C's, D's, and F's next to their names. Snape came to Hermione's paper, briefly looked it over and drew a big red C on the top, with the comment: "Too wordy." Harry almost sighed. He knew she had worked really hard on that paper, especially since her last paper bore the words: "Too brief." His paper was next in the stack. Snape barely glanced at it before writing a fat F on the top, as Harry always got.
"Damn Potter brat," Snape muttered as he marked the letter in his grade book, almost causing Harry to laugh. Snape finally came to the end of the stack of papers and went on to draw up his lesson plans for the next class Harry had with him. Harry smiled as he saw him scribble down "Pop Quiz: Properties of a Cheveux Potion." He'd have to keep that in mind. Snape's pop quizzes were notoriously random, on things he'd mentioned briefly months earlier, or not at all. Harry always got F's on them, along with most of the other Gryffindors. Not surprisingly, the Slytherins always got great scores on them, undoubtedly because Snape warned them in advance.
'Hah. Well won't Snape be surprised when the Gryffindors ace this next one.' Harry thought.
Luckily, after Snape drew up his lesson plans for his various classes, he decided to call it a night, and Harry was able to follow him closely out again and then slip away up to the Gryffindor common room, grabbing his Quidditch stuff on the way.
Fortunately, nobody was in the common room when he returned, as it was now quite late. With a groan, he realized he had spent nearly two hours in Snape's office. He crept up to the fifth year dormitory and quietly slipped in, changed into his pajamas and put his new supplies in his trunk.
As he lay in bed he decided that he would have to brew the potion at the Stensons or risk suspicion at school. Not only that, but the spell required the Muggle to know what was going on, as they had to drink the potion and focus on expelling the cancer. This was where things began to get complicated. He decided that he'd have to talk to Dumbledore to find out how he could tell them about his powers. He did live part time at their house, and they were practically part of his family now. True they weren't related to him, but there had to be a loophole in the law. Actually, he wasn't familiar with the law at all, so maybe he was allowed to tell them and he was getting all worried about nothing.
'Well, the only solution is to ask Dumbledore, so there's no use in worrying about it now.' Harry silently resolved before turning onto his side and falling asleep.
.
The next morning at breakfast, Ron and Hermione couldn't help but notice that their best friend seemed somewhat nervous. As Harry lifted his fork towards his mouth only to stop and put it back down again and swirl food around on his plates, Hermione shot Ron another worried look. They had started to notice something was strange with Harry that morning when he had put his fork in his mouth to eat, but had forgotten to put food on it, and didn't even notice.
"Er.Harry?" Hermione cautiously called. No response.
"Harry?" she tried again, but he continued to stare seemingly through the table and be deaf to all around him.
"Harry!" Ron leaned over the table to snap his fingers in front of his friend's eyes.
Harry jumped and looked at Ron and Hermione with a slightly stunned expression that melted into an embarrassed smile.
"Er.sorry, I guess I must've been dazed out there. Did you want something?"
"Yeah! We wanted to know what's bothering you so much that you didn't even realize you poured pumpkin juice on your waffle instead of the syrup," Ron said exasperated, but in a low enough voice as to not attract the attention of those sitting around.
"And also why you've been glancing up at the staff table about every fifteen seconds," Hermione added in a hushed tone.
"Oh I almost forgot to tell you guys, there's a pop-quiz on the Cheveux potion tomorrow." He passed the information on to those around him telling them to let all the Gryffindors know. He hoped Hermione and Ron wouldn't realize that he was trying to change the subject.
"Harry, don't think we don't realize that you're trying to change the subject." Ron hissed. Harry sighed.
"I just have to ask Dumbledore something that's all." Harry said, hoping that they would accept the vagueness of his comment.
"Harry, stop being so vague," Hermione scolded. "We know something's going on so you might as well just tell us!"
'Hmm.I guess Ron and Hermione know me too well," Harry thought to himself.
"Hey Hermione, didn't you say something about your aunt sending you a book on witchcraft for your birthday?" Harry asked just to change the subject, a quick thing he remembered Hermione mentioning the day before, but as soon as he said it, the full impact hit him.
"Yeah, of course, it's a Muggle book on witchcraft and has no real spells in it or anything. It was a nice thought though. But Harry, you can't just change the subject and expect."
"But your aunt's a Muggle." Harry stated matter-of-factly.
"Er, yeah, and so is yours Harry, or has that slipped your mind?" Hermione looked somewhat confused about the direction the conversation had turned.
"Well my aunt and uncle needed to know about my being a wizard because I was living with them, but why was your aunt allowed to know about it. Isn't that against the law or something?"
"No, well I hadn't really thought of it, I mean my aunt is family. I suppose if it were against the law, they would have told us. I mean we obviously haven't told anyone outside the family, and even then we only told the relatives closest to us. My mum just couldn't stand not to tell anyone; of course my aunt thought my mum had gone mad at the time. It was very interesting convincing her."
Hermione went on to talk about the struggle to convince her aunt that the Granger family did not belong in the insane asylum, but Harry lost concentration. Harry had just found his argument; he just hoped it would work.
.
When Dumbledore stood up from his seat and began to exit with a few other professors, Harry also decided that he was done with breakfast. He said his quick good-byes to Hermione and Ron and they wished him good luck on whatever he had to ask.
Harry followed a small distance behind Dumbledore so he wouldn't interrupt the conversation he was having with Professor McGonagall, but as soon as she left to prepare for her class on Monday, Harry seized the opportunity, speeding up his pace to quickly close the gap between him and his headmaster.
"I assume there's something you wish to speak to me about Harry," Dumbledore said smiling at Harry. Harry saw that Dumbledore knew he had been following him.
"Er, actually I had something I needed to ask you, sir," Harry cautiously began. He didn't want to have this conversation in the middle of the hallway.
"Let's step into my office then and you can tell me what's troubling you," said Dumbledore who seemed to have sensed Harry's anxiety about the conversation.
Harry followed Dumbledore to the stone gargoyle, all the while going over in his head what he was going to say. They stopped briefly for Dumbledore to give the password, "Canary Creams," leaving Harry to wonder how he knew about Fred and George's invention from last year.
Harry entered the office very nervously. He watched the headmaster settle into his chair and motion for Harry to also take a seat, which he did quickly. It was all down to this if it was to work at all.
"So Harry, what question would motivate you to follow me throughout the castle?" Dumbledore asked smiling, looking over his half-moon spectacles at Harry.
"Well sir," Harry began with a deep breath. "I was wondering if, well I know that, actually I don't know, but what I mean is, er." Harry paused and mentally reprimanded himself for sounding so stupid. "All right, well you see, there's a family that I've been staying with. A lot. I mean, they're practically my family now, more than the Dursleys have ever been. And I know that there are students at this school who have relatives out of the home knowing that they're a witch or wizard and I was wondering if I could tell these people too." Harry didn't feel like that was convincing enough and launched into another spiel figuring that the more arguments he got in, the better his chances were. "You see, I've been staying over at their house and everything and it's getting to be pretty difficult to hide all of this, and I'd really like them to know so I don't have to lie to them and could talk to them about it. If it's a question of blood connections, my uncle Vernon isn't blood related to me but he knows because I live with them, so couldn't I tell these people too since I'm living with them part time too?"
Harry knew that was a bit of a stretch, being that he hadn't stayed at the Stenson's house much since the trial, and had not spent a single night there since then, but he knew he might be going back for Christmas to stay with them and that counted, didn't it? Harry realized that Dumbledore had been silent for a while. He lifted his eyes from his knees to look into the unreadable ones of his headmaster.
"Well, Harry, I must say it is rather fuzzy where these types of laws are concerned. It seems they don't want to pass a law that they may later have to break, and would be already breaking. High people such as the Muggle minister, and rulers of most countries know about the magical world. On the other hand, it is important that knowledge of magic stays as much within the magical community as possible. But, yes, you probably just want to know a straight answer to your question. Unfortunately, I can only leave you with a slightly crooked one," Dumbledore warmly smiled at his own joke.
"What is generally decided among the magical community" he continued, "is that Muggles may be told of our presence under a few conditions. First of all, there must be a valid reason, as you seem to have. The other part lays more on your judgment. If you tell this family, you must be sure that they will tell no one else. The secret must stay with them and they cannot tell even their closest friends. If that does occur, you could be in serious trouble with the ministry. Therefore, I can only say that it's up to you, but be very sure of the character of those you tell."
Harry was filled with joy. Everything was going to work out after all. He had no doubts of the character of any of the Stensons. The bright smile that erupted on Harry's face made Dumbledore's eyes twinkle.
"Thank you sir! I know they won't tell! Thank you!" Harry stood up with a smile of relief and turned towards the door.
"Harry," Dumbledore called after him. "Is there a specific reason you feel they must know this?"
Harry halted. If he hadn't been facing the door, Dumbledore would have noticed a torn expression on his face. He didn't like lying to his headmaster, but he just couldn't tell anyone. He turned around with a big smile on his face.
"No, sir. I just would like them to know." With a nod of Dumbledore's head, Harry turned and walked out the door, now both anxious for and dreading winter holiday. This finalized it for Harry. There was no turning back now.