Reviews

Helloheyhihola

You'll have to narrow it down as I have a lot of incomplete stories. Not that it matters as I don't plan on adding to any of them. I have this story and another over on Questionable Questing to work on.

Mugen-Muse

The concern was more do with his own sense of honour. Quidditch is a sport played by children, it's not a life or death struggle or even an important exam so to me it makes sense that the MC might consider it cheating and judge himself badly for it. On the other hand why bother playing if you're not going to do your best to win.

I think schools like to pretend that they are not trying to turn all their students into nine to five wage slaves. They like to act as if their students can be scientists or historians or something else meaningful so they teach all this stuff you'll never use once you end up working in an office. The truth is that a lot of education is a waste of time for most people who'd be better off focusing on acquiring more practical skills.

ZhaWarudo

Not all fanon ideas are silly. I've used some in other stories and I needed something for the MC to learn something from the portrait that he isn't going to find a book about in the school library. Elemental magic seemed right for that.

I could have added those points to the lecture, but there was already a lot there for an 11-year-old girl to digest. Overwhelming her wouldn't have helped.

Alan

Too many stories have the golden trio still getting together even with changes to the timeline. I wanted to show that the MC's actions do result in things working out differently even with Fate being a powerful force.

frankieu

You're welcome.

Shaedy Hoe

I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter.

Character Sheet

Name: Kol the Wizard

Level: N/A

Class: Red Mage

Weapons: Wand, Goblin-Silver dagger.

Armour: Thestral coat.

Angelic Powers: Shapeshifting, Illusions, Burning Hands.

FF Spells: Dia, Cure, Stone, Poison, Barstone, Barsleep, Parazlyse, Protect, Blind.

(I gave him all the spells up to level 7 since poison is a level 5 spell and adding 2 levels seem reasonable given how deadly the magical spiders can be. Each alone is considered deadly enough to kill grown wizards and he killed dozens. I took him up to level eight for dealing with Quirrell as he was a full-grown wizard)

FF Skills: Chainspell, Sword Fighting, Dagger Fighting.

Wizard Magic: Wand Magic, Wandless Magic, Mind Arts, Potion Making.

Companions: An AI called Cortana.

Crossworld 1 - Harry Potter

Part 21

Great Hall. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Bloody hell, I was so bored. I'd rather be learning from Salazar's portrait about more rituals or be taught spells by some spirit, I'd even take somewhat tedious research over sitting here.

I just didn't love feasts and talking like my schoolmates did. I would have sat the entire thing out and just waited up on the third floor if possible. Sadly attending the feasts wasn't optional according to my Head of House so I couldn't just hang out in my common room before sneaking off to the corridor.

I felt fairly certain that they were optional and that Flitwick wanted me to try socialising more despite me now being on his House's Quidditch team. Not that it was a huge sacrifice to be on the team. As planned I'd gotten Roger Davis to agree to me attending only one training session a week and I only had to play three matches in a year so it wasn't a lot of work.

"Troll in the dungeon!" shouted Voldemort's host as my boredom came to an end "There's a troll in the dungeon!".

The man and I used that term loosely, pretended to faint, then most of the students went into a state of panic. The Headmaster made his wand do something that reminded me of foghorn going off and that got everyone's attention as I carefully checked the map for any students who were out of bounds.

Granger was here. I seemed to have gotten through to her somewhat, only now she seemed to be under the impression that I actually cared about her. I made efforts to avoid her and it wasn't as if we had classes together so that easy most of the time. I didn't drive her away as she might be useful to me sometime in the future.

I'd noticed her giving me the odd glance and I had the horrible notion that she might be developing a crush on me as she did with Lockhart in her second year. That was worrying since all I ever seemed to do was lecture her when we talked. Then again she did like teachers so maybe lectures of any kind made her happy.

Dumbledore ordered half of the students to stay in the Great Hall while Ravenclaw and Gryffindor were sent to their towers, then he and a few other members of staff headed down into the dungeons which were where half the school slept. As my school house began to head to the tower under the watchful eye of our Head of House rather just prefects, I slipped away under an illusion.

With my version of the map, I was able to follow Quirrell and as he entered the room that contained Fluffy, there was no Snape to intercept him. I could hear some music starting up and I knew the guardian beast would soon be asleep.

While planning out this little operation, I'd considered trying to trap Quirrell in the room with the Cerberus, but I didn't want Fluffy to put down if anyone discovered that he'd mauled or teacher like what nearly happened to Hagrid's Hippogriff.

Carefully I followed Quirrell down a hole that was not blocked up by Devil's Snare, it must not have grown large enough yet, and I caught up to him as he was about to enter the room full of keys.

As he messed about doing something to inspect the door, perhaps looking for traps, I switched my illusion and made myself look like my Kol guise. The whole point of this persona was to have an identity that I could use to fight Voldemort and his Death Eaters without risking either of the Hiddleston personas.

"Behind you!" a wispy voice warned from inside Quirrell's turban.

I disarmed the teacher before he could make a move. I didn't even use my wand I just clicked my fingers and the magical tool went flying. I'd been practising that one for the last week or so until it was perfected. Wandless magic was much harder to learn and took a lot more effort, but it had more style I thought. Of course, I'd kept my wand in my other hand just in case anything went wrong.

"Who are you?" the teacher asked "You shouldn't be here".

Well neither should he.

"I am Kol" I stated as I took out the Stone Hallow and turned it three times anti-clockwise "Tom Riddle".

Clearly, Quirrell didn't know that name as he looked confused right up until the spirit of Voldemort was forced out of his head, a process that the educator didn't survive as the spirit was sent screaming through the wall.

The fact that I'd just killed a man stopped me for a moment as he'd not been a threat to me, at least not directly, as a Voldemort returned to power would be, but it had needed to be done. I couldn't count on things progressing as they did in canon. Not with the changes I'd made.

I didn't think that I'd gotten get rid of Voldemort that easily. He still had Horcruxes keeping his spirit linked to the mortal plane, but he wouldn't be around to try killing Potter during this school year and he had no one to help him go after the stone. I hoped that banishing him would stop him from hurting anyone for a good long while.

For a moment I considered going after the stone myself, however, I knew that the mirror wasn't in place yet and there could be other defences around here that I didn't know about. Besides, it wasn't worth the risk since I was already immortal and while more gold would be nice I had other ways of obtaining it.

"Well that was anti-climatic," I said to myself.

Perhaps dealing with Voldemort myself was a mistake since Potter now wouldn't for years and so might not be prepared. On the other hand, maybe the 11-year-old boy shouldn't have to kill someone and I had gotten some XP for killing Quirrel. Enough to unlock a new Final Fanasty Spell called Blind, that could come in handy.

I considered leaving the body here for Dumbledore to find and become confused about, but I needed to cover my tracks. I couldn't risk dumping the body in the Crossworlds because I'd risked myself when getting rid of Umbridge that way. No sense pushing my luck and there were spells to turn a corpse into something easier to transport.

Once Quirrel's mortal remains became a bone that I could rid myself of later, I took his wand and struggled with what to do with it. I would like it as a trophy, but it was also evident in a crime as such I'd be foolish to hold onto it. Maybe I could stash it somewhere or use it to implicate someone later?

Maybe adding some of Voldemort's soul to mine had influenced me after all. He'd liked to collect trophies as well. Hiding it the Chamber of Secrets was an idea but I wasn't the only one who could access that place.

I used Quirrel's wand, which responded to me, to quickly clean up the scene, and while I knew it was impossible to cover up magic as certain people could detect traces, however, my efforts should confuse anyone trying to make sense of the scene and it wasn't as if Dumbledore would suspect a second-year student.

Then I turned myself into a House Elf so I could stash the wand in the Room of Requirement. I'd secure the wand in my Gringotts vault over the holidays where I felt sure that no one would go looking for it.

I then popped back to get rid of the enchanted harp that Qurriel used on the Cerberus, that I wanted to see in person so that I could assume its form, and relocked the door before the three-headed dog woke up.

After that, I checked the map to make sure that somewhere within Ravenclaw tower was clear and then popped myself as a House Elf into that room.

"Were you always here?" asked a Prefect as I came up down the stairs and entered the common room "I could have sworn I did a headcount".

I acted as if it was no big deal.

"Oh, I just wanted to check on something in my dorm room," I replied.

He accepted this and I realised that I must not have been gone for very long if no one was worried about me being missing.

"I'll let Flitwick know you're all present and correct," the Prefect said.

I'd seen on the map that the teacher was guarding the tower. I was glad that I'd made my own map or someone might have noticed me sneaking about and I couldn't have that.

(Line Break)

Quidditch Pitch. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

A few weeks after Halloween it was time was for the Hufflepuff vs Ravenclaw match. This was the second match of the season and it took place in late November, rather close to my birthday, not that anyone knew about that and I didn't fancy sending myself a present even as Tom Hiddleston as that would just be sad.

"Okay we've got this team," said Davis, who was trying to give an inspiring speech "Just as planned".

I was confused at this point.

"We have a plan?" I asked.

I didn't recall any plans during the training session just lots of diagrams and heated debates followed by yelling.

"Yes, you catch the Snitch" Davis told me.

That was the long and the short of it. As long as the beaters kept the bludgers off me and the Hufflepuff chasers didn't turn out to be World Cup level superstars it really came down to which Seeker caught the shiny golden ball first. I had help with that, but luck could be against me and so I needed to keep focused.

"Now let's go out there and win for Ravenclaw!" Davis shouted.

With that, we headed out onto the pitch.

"Someone really needed to add points to their charisma stat" I muttered.

No one other than Cortana heard that and she didn't think it was funny so I just took to the air and waited for the match to begin.

"This should take about five minutes" my AI assured me "There's only so much space for the snitch to be and it has limits on its speed, so let's start a search pattern".

Once I got moving I saw Cedric Diggory the Hufflepuff Seeker giving me some odd looks as he sort of followed me around. I imagined that he was just curious.

"Hey, Edward," said with a wave.

The werewolf in Twilight was called Edward, right? The werewolf was Jacob for sure.

"Focus on the game" chided Cortana who could tell that my mind was drifting "Becoming a respected Seeker is important for your civilian identity and to having a healthy social life outside of study".

She had a point I mean Voldemort never played Quidditch and look at what happened to him. He died and then came back as a snake-faced monster after being killed by a magic baby only to be killed by a person that baby grew up to be a decade and a half later.

Besides people don't tend to credit those who are good at a sport as being blessed in the brains department so it should help keep suspicion off me.

I received a few more odd looks from Diggory as he examined what I was doing. I got the impression that Seekers don't use proper search patterns to maximise their chances and he flew off after a while once a bludger got sent his way by a Beater on my team.

"There is it" reported Cortana "Four minutes and twenty-seven seconds. I knew that my plan would work".

She'd used the data from the practice matches to estimate how far a snitch would move during a game and how fast so I just had to go where she told me. This might also be cheating, but I wanted to win and if Batman, I mean Cedric Diggory, was allowed to keep looking his superior flying skills would allow him to win.

Oddly catching the Snitch right away isn't always the best course of action if you want to win the season because goals count towards your team's overall points, so you could win matches and still lose the cup if another team scored a lot more goals than your team. However, this didn't matter much since it was so early in the season

I dived for the snitch, letting Cortana guide me as she had before, and in less than five minutes I had ended the game. 170 - 20, the score had been even before I'd gone for the shiny gold ball.

When the team landed and hoisted me up into the air I almost went for my wand as I wasn't used to groups of people coming at me in a friendly way. I didn't care much for the attention, I tolerated it because I knew that it wasn't really about me. The group needed to share in the success as much as they wanted to praise their seeker, and it did help with my cover.

(Line Break)

The Library. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

It was a somewhat common sight for me to find Harry Potter hiding out behind a table covered in books. I didn't even think he was studying much, he just came in here to hide away from the unwanted attention.

This Potter was not his house's Seeker as such he'd not become popular for something he'd actually done. I figured that this explained why he'd not gotten used to people talking about him.

If asked I would have told him that popularity was overrated. Sure the free food and drinks at the party had been nice, but since everyone thought I was 12 it was all chocolate and butterbeer, the latter of which I didn't like, mixed in with people going on about our victory when it had been me doing all the work. Well, it had been Cortana who did the hard stuff I'd just flow around on a broom.

"Good afternoon Sally" I greeted him.

He gave me an odd look.

"Sally?" he asked.

I sat down at the table.

"There are only so many boys names that rhyme with yours" I explained.

Perhaps he found my efforts to avoid calling him Harry Potter somewhat endearing because he didn't complain.

"Are you going home for Christmas?" I was asked.

I planned to, although if anywhere was my home it was Hogwarts, I did like the castle as a building even if the school still needed some improvements.

"Yeah, my cousin has a place in Godric's Hollow," I told the Chosen One "It's close to where you and your parents used to live before... well you know what happen. I've seen what's left of it".

That got his attention.

"Wait does that mean I have a house?" he asked.

Seemed an odd thing to focus on, but then I recalled who he was forced to live with, so it made sense that he'd latch onto the idea that was an alternative even if it meant living alone during the holidays.

I wondered for a moment if there was any sort of Potter Manor hidden away like in so many fanon stories I'd read over the years.

"No, it was turned into some sort of memorial," I told him "I don't know how that happened. Maybe you should hire a solicitor and find out if you can get the house back".

I felt fairly certain that governments aren't just allowed to seize property like that.

"Where would I find a solicitor?" I was asked.

I gave it some thought.

"My cousin handles most of his business through Gringotts" I mentioned "And there are departments at the Ministry that handle legal affairs".

He knew about Gringotts and the Ministry at least.

"Just go along during the holidays and ask someone in the legal department about how property is handled" I advised "You're famous so I doubt they'll turn you away".

He didn't like being famous, so I could see him trying to balance having to use his fame with the idea of being able to move out of Privat Drive as soon as possible.

"Can you go with me?" the Chosen One requested.

I didn't want to get too involved with Potter's life as that would make Dumbledore pay attention to me. So I thought about it and I figured something out that the Headmaster simply wouldn't allow to ever happen.

"Are you staying here for the holidays?" I asked.

He nodded.

"If you want you can stay with me" I offered "My cousin's not around much and I mostly study, so if you don't mind being bored most of the time we can go check out the Potter's cottage, go to the Ministry and see your parents".

He blinked at me.

"My parents are dead," he said, in confusion rather than in sadness or anger.

I could have phrased my last sentence a bit better.

"They have graves," I told the Chosen One "We can visit them. Pay our respects".

He liked the idea of that. Well maybe like was the wrong word. It was an activity that interested him and it wasn't as if he had Ron to hang out with. That was my fault so guilt played a role as well.

"Okay, I'll come to yours" decided Harry Potter "Neville's busy, something to do with visiting his parents and his grandmother. He didn't give me any details".

Longbottom's homelife sucked as far as I knew. His parents were in a coma, his Grandmother sounded more than a little intimidating, and his great-uncle once dropped him out of a widow just to test if he had magic. The Wizarding World really could do with its own version of social services.

(Line Break)

Hogwarts Express. Wizarding World.

I never would have made the offer if for even a moment I'd thought that Dumbledore would have allowed Harry Potter to spend a single second in the home of Tom Hiddleston. The Headmaster was supposed to be controlling the boy's life like an evil puppet master, keeping the Boy-Who-Lived in his proper place.

Yet here he was sitting with me in the Dining Carriage of the express, which I felt fairly certain hadn't been part of the train when I'd last used it. Perhaps it had something to do with there being a lot more students in Potter's year than in mine. An increase in students meant more customers. The setup here was run by the same witch who pushed the trolly and she seemed happy with more to do.

This was a disaster, not the Dining Carriage because having a cup of tea and a sandwich was actually nice as the alternatives are pumpkin juice and sweets. No the issue here was that I had Harry James Potter coming to my house and that Dumbledore wouldn't fail to notice that.

Sure he would be busy trying to find a replacement for our Defence teacher, and figuring out what happened to Voldemort, the latter of which I knew he'd not managed to do anything about as that class was now a bunch of study periods, but he would notice Harry's absence sooner or later.

The lad never should have made it to the train station. The Hiddleston family weren't the Weasleys we didn't drink Dumbledore's kool-aid.

"So did you tell anyone where you were going?" I asked.

The Boy-Who-Lived shook his head.

"I just didn't write my name on the list of students staying in the castle over the holidays," he told me.

So it might be possible that Dumbledore thinks Potter is going to his aunts and uncles, but he knows that it isn't a pleasant home environment, he has that Figg woman reporting to him. If nothing else she's going to notice that Potter is not in Number 4 and then the Order of the Phoneix will start looking for him.

Someone on the train has to report to the Headmaster and once he finds out the Boy-Who-Lived sat with me on the train, he'll know to find Potter at the home of Tom Hiddleston. I doubted that Dumbledore would come himself, he doesn't interact with Harry much during his first few years at Hogwarts. No, he'll send Mad-Eye or Shacklebot to make it look all legal.

It wouldn't even be an unreasonable thing for him to do since the Headmaster does have some authority over the students and he could just say that he simply asked someone to check up on the lad, to make sure he was somewhere safe.

To counter this I'd have to contact the DMLE before that happened and let Madam Bones or someone in her office know that Tom Hiddleston has Harry Potter at his home so that she knows that there is no kidnapping. To make it legal I'd need permission from Harry's aunt and uncle.

There was also the issue of me not being in two places at once. I'd have to use illusions to let see Tom Hiddleston around the house. I could just tell Potter that he works in the basement and goes out a lot. The older Hiddleston can take Potter to the Ministry if needs be well John has an excuse to be elsewhere.

"Okay so here's what we do," I told Potter "Once we get to London we'll take the Knight Bus..."

He stopped me there.

"The what?" he asked.

It was a good thing he had me around to explain these things.

"The Knight Bus is a wizard bus" I informed the ignorant boy "If you need a lift somewhere you put your wand in the air when you're near the road and the Knight Bus will appear. It goes everywhere in the country as far as I know. I'll show you when we get into London".

I soon got back to what I'd been saying before.

"We'll go to our aunt and uncle's house to get written permission for you to stay with me" I went on to say "That way we can't get into trouble if anyone accuses me of abducting the Boy-Who-Lived".

He seemed confused.

"You can't kidnap me you are a kid," he said.

Technically true and I was worried about Tom Hiddleston, not John Hiddleston, getting into some sort of legal trouble.

"Yes but my cousin can" I pointed out "Anyway assuming they say yes, then we can go to my house and hang out".

The next two weeks would be boring for me as I normally spent my time off, researching or doing other interesting things. Now I'd have to entertain an 11-year-old for a fortnight. Not to mention visit Luna. Maybe she'd like to meet Harry Potter?.

(Line Break)

Hiddleston Residence. Godric's Hollow.

"No offence Harry, but your relatives are terrible people," I said as we entered my house "I've never heard someone say the world freak so many times in one conversation".

Not that it should be called a conversation it was more like a verbal assault until I'd stepped in and explained that I wanted to take Harry away. After that they couldn't have gotten me out of the door fast enough, not that getting in had been at all easy.

I'd considered buying the Grunnings drill company just so I could put pressure on Mr Dursley and force him to be nicer to his nephew by threatening his job. I'd not gone ahead with that plan due to concerns of gaining the wrong kind of attention. Now I was reconsidering as soon Dumbledore would soon know that Potter was here and the Hiddleston family had an interest in the Chosen One.

"None taken," Potter assured me "That wasn't actually so bad for them".

I had the note granting Tom Hiddleston permission to have Harry Potter stay over at his place for the holidays that was all I needed from those horrible people.

"Now I see why you'd prefer to stay at friends or the castle for the holidays," I said.

Well, I'd already known that, I just had to act as if I didn't know far too much about his personal life for it not to come off as super creepy.

"Just leave your trunk in the living room for now," I told the young wizard "I need to contact someone at the DMLE".

I decided to send an owl since Harry had his snowy one here with him. I'd not known that he had the bird until today despite having shared a carriage with him on his first trip up to Hogwarts, and Potter didn't mind me sending using her to send off a letter To Whom It May Concern, at the DMLE letting them know that I had Potter staying here.

The idea that a Death Eater might get the letter did concern me, but I had really good wards here and Potter might not be here tomorrow night as Dumbledore had a lot of influence in the government. He could get the poor boy dragged off back to school. Thinking on that made me realise that I should take Potter to his parent's grave now rather than wait.

"Are we friends?" Harry asked me once I was back in the living room.

Until now, I'd not really seen it that way. I gave it some thought.

"We must be I've never had anyone else over," I answered.

"Then why did you look unhappy when I found you on the train?" he asked.

My control must have slipped. Normally it is hard to tell what I am feeling.

"I didn't think you'd be able to stay" I admitted "You've been isolated from the wizarding world since you were a baby and I figured that you'd be forced to stay in the castle. I'm glad that you are able to leave if you want. Since you are free I'll do my best to make you welcome and we will try to have fun".

This seemed to make him happy as he smiled at me and I realised that I might really be his close friend. Aside from Longbottom I'd never seen him just spending time with anyone and Neville wasn't the most outgoing of people.

"Your house is very nice" Harry commented "I imagined that it would be more old fashioned".

He'd seen the train, Hogwarts and Diagon Alley so it made sense that he would assume that all wizard places were like that.

"Some magical families have muggle friends over so they need homes that Muggles can enter and not see anything magical" I explained, "That's why we keep the potions lab in the basement and the books on magical subjects upstairs".

I'd been concerned that someone from the orphanage might come to check on John Smith as they knew him. As far as I knew no one ever had.

"Let's go check out your old house" I decided as I grabbed a few things and headed out the door "We can give it a proper looking over tomorrow when we have daylight".

I wanted to do this now in case there wasn't a chance to later.

"Over there is Professor Bagshot's home" I let Potter know "She knew your mother so we should see if she's in if we get the chance".

I knew that Bagshot didn't have much family around so she might have stayed at the castle over Xmas.

"She's never mentioned anything in class" Potter let me know.

I was sure she had her reasons. She might not care for Harry that much even she had known Lily. It wasn't like she was godmother or something like that.

"There's your place," I said once we were walking through the village "It's hidden from the muggles".

We saw a two-story building with a small gate that led into a yard that was surrounded by hedges. Oddly the little garden seemed well maintained even if the house wasn't.

"The house was left in its ruined state as a testament to the violence of the First Wizarding War, and to the lives lost here," I said to my friend, "No one bothered to ever ask your opinion on the matter, and I can't help wondering if they just didn't want to pay for a proper restoration".

I knew that baby Harry's bedroom was located on the first floor, close to the staircase in the living room since I'd been here before.

"That was your room," I told him.

Wasn't hard to guess since it was clearly a baby's room or what was left of it. Following Voldemort's attack on the cottage, Harry's room was blown apart by Voldemort's backfiring killing curse. The lad didn't say anything he just used the muggle torches that I kept at home to look around.

"I'm surprised that your godfather didn't bring you here" I mentioned once he'd rejoined me "Or take you to your parent's grave".

Harry sighed so softly I almost missed it.

"Azkaban wasn't easy for him," he let me know "I've only met him once in person. He says will live together, but I don't know when that will happen".

Never, more than likely unless it suited the plans of the Headmaster.

"Well I'm sure they'd like a visit," I said "Then we'll go to the chip shop and get some dinner".

I'd even considered calling up their spirits and would have if Harry could prevent Dumbledore from getting into his head. Perhaps one day that would change, for now a visit to the graveyard would have to do. Then we'd have chips, it could be nice.