Harry Potter and the Draught of Living Death

Disclaimer: Harry Potter, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. and J.K. Rowling, copyright 2000. Some portions of this fan-fiction have been taken directly from the novel.

Chapter Two: Firebolts, Libraries and Information

Harry did not remember reaching Hogwarts castle, nor did he remember Snape rushing him into the dungeons and into the Slytherin common room. Harry couldn't even take the time to look around at this private place he had never seen before.

"Don't move from this spot," Snape ordered him, and with that, he disappeared out of the entry way again.

Harry wasn't sure how long he sat there and waited for someone to come and get him, but at some point he had fallen asleep. Again, he dreamed of the Draught of Living Death, and again, he wasn't sure what significance it had.

But something was different this time. After Snape explained the significance of wormwood and asphodel the scene had changed. Instead of sitting and listening, it was almost like he was watching from a corner while wearing his invisibility cloak. Snape finished explaining about the Draught, and the class was now mixing potions, when suddenly… everyone fell asleep. Harry frowned to himself. He was looking for someone in the class that he recognized when suddenly someone grabbed him from behind.

"Harry!" a voice screamed.

Harry awakened suddenly. He saw Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall and Ms. Figg standing beside the fireplace. He closed his eyes again as he realized they were in the middle of a hushed conversation.

"Why did you leave the house like that, Arabella?" Snape asked in a sneering tone.

"I informed the Ministry we wouldn't be in the house before I left. I had no idea people would be busy taking the protection spells off the house. In fact, I wasn't aware they could be broken through in the first place.

"You endangered his life by leaving…"

"Severus, that's enough," Dumbledore commanded.

Harry slowly opened one of his eyes. Snape's face still held a sour look, but he did shut up. Harry closed his eyes again.

"Really, Severus, we can't force the boy to live his life being hidden behind locked doors. He'll never get the chance to enjoy being young if we do that."

Harry was shocked. He hadn't realized how McGonagall had felt about his situation, he had never even considered that she might be sympathetic with him.

Snape spoke again. "When trouble follows a person like it follows him, it is best for him to be well protected at all times and in all places. You all know how I feel about him, but that doesn't mean I want him hurt or killed."

Harry almost smirked. Yes, everyone certainly did know how Snape felt about him.

Deciding he had heard enough, Harry yawned and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

McGonagall stepped over to him. "Are you ready to get back now, Harry?"

"Is everyone all right?" he asked.

"Yes," Dumbledore told him, "everyone is fine."

Harry inhaled the scent of boiled cabbage and was quickly calmed down. "Am I in trouble for using magic outside of school?"

"No," McGonagall said quickly, "Of course not. You used it in self defense, and no one was harmed, so there's nothing to worry about it."

"I don't want to go back to the Dursleys' he said quickly.

Dumbledore nodded. "Of course you don't. As a matter of fact, they asked us to find a safe place for you to stay after they heard about the attack."

Harry doubted that this description fitted. He was pretty sure they had clearly told Dumbledore that they did not want Harry around anymore. Dumbledore had probably owled them while they were out with Dudley, so Harry doubted very sincerely that they were pleased with him.

"Where am I going to stay?" he asked.

"Well, we were talking about letting you stay here."

Harry's face grew disappointed. He liked Hogwarts, but it had not been the answer he was hoping for.

"We were talking about it," Dumbledore continued. "But then Mrs. Weasley owled us and said she would be happy if you could spend the rest of the summer with them. We've decided we can let you go after your birthday. That will give us just enough time to get some protection spells put over the house. We do have a few special requests though."

Harry nodded in excitement. "Anything," he said.

"You will never go anywhere alone. You must have one of the Weasleys' with you at all times when you are outside the house." Harry nodded. He could live with that. "And, if anything is bothering you, scar pains, bad dreams, weird premonitions, you will owl me, Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall or Sirius immediately." Harry nodded again.

He was glad it was finally ok to say Sirius' name out loud. In his fifth year, Sirius' name had been cleared of all charges when they caught him and made him take a truth serum. Harry had vouched for his tale, and Snape had even backed him up.

"Anything else, Professor Dumbledore, sir?"

"Just one more thing, Harry. When you go to Diagon Alley, you are to carry a portkey. When activated, it will take you and anyone with you to Zonko's in Hogsmeade. Fred and George Weasley have taken over there this year and they are assigned to see to your safety if you should appear. I believe you known of a way to get to Hogwarts from that are without being seen?" Harry nodded. "Good. You must follow these instructions carefully. Understood?" Harry nodded again. Dumbledore smiled.

"Well then," Snape said, "perhaps we should get his belongings transferred here until it is time for him to leave." With a swirl of his black robes, Snape was gone from the room.

"Would you like to go to your common room, Harry?" McGonagall asked kindly as she folded her hands together in front of her.

Harry nodded. For the first time he realized how quiet Ms. Figg was. He glanced in her direction and she offered him a smile.

Looking out the window, Harry realized how dark it was getting. He glanced at Ms. Figg one more time before following McGonagall up the stairs to the Gryffindor common room.

* ~ *

Once in the common room, Harry visibly began to relax.

"You're belongings are already upstairs," McGonagall informed him. "I will be sleeping down here tonight, should you need anything."

"You don't have to watch over me, Professor," Harry told her. "I'll be fine."

Harry was deeply amused by the mothering side of professor McGonagall. He had never seen her look so visibly worried before. Of course he had also never heard Snape direct a kind word in his direction. Harry was feeling a little awkward at all the attitudes that were surrounding him. McGonagall was mothering him, Snape was concerned about his safety, Ms. Figg was smiling at him, and Dumbledore was worried about him being left alone.

He couldn't figure out what was so wrong.

McGonagall had turned to leave Harry alone. "Professor," he suddenly called out, right before she had disappeared. She turned around slowly.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"What happened this afternoon?"

"A death eater attack, just like all the others." McGonagall had spoken plainly but Harry was certain that she was hiding something from him.

"No, I mean what really happened. There was something else involved wasn't there?"

"You shouldn't concern yourself. It's over now."

"No," he said, even though she had already closed the portrait hole. "It's not over."

With these thoughts in mind, Harry found his way up the stairs and to his bed. He changed into his pajamas and quickly fell asleep.

~ * ~

Harry awoke early the next morning. After he realized where he was, he opened his trunk and pulled out his firebolt. There was no way he was going to miss the opportunity to fly his broomstick when he was in the perfect place to do so.

Harry ran down to the Great Hall where Dumbledore and McGonagall were already sitting at a round table in the center of the room. Dumbledore gestured for Harry to join them, and so he rushed forwards and found a seat.

"Are many of the other teacher's here?" Harry asked.

"No, there's only a few of us who stay over the summer. I think you've already seen most of them. Myself, Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, and of course Professor Hagrid always stay. I don't think anyone else has chosen to come this time around. Our defense against the dark arts teacher should be here within the next week, but then, of course, you'll probably be at the Weasley home by then." Dumbledore took a drink of his pumpkin juice just as a few owls flew into the room. "Ah, mail is here."

Three letters were dropped beside Harry's plate by three owls. One was a school owl, the second was Pigwidgeon, and the third was an exotic looking owl that Harry did not recognize.

The letter that Pig had brought was from Ron; he was excited about Harry coming over the following week to stay with them. He also told Harry he would save his birthday present until he got there. The second was from Hagrid, welcoming Harry to Hogwarts and inviting him to come down for tea. Harry smiled, if McGonagall wouldn't give him information, he was sure Hagrid would, whether he liked it or not. Hagrid had a way of divulging information, little comments here and there, that often left his lips before he had even realized he had said something wrong.

The third letter was from Sirius. Apparently Dumbledore had notified him of the attack and he was checking to make sure that Harry was all right. Harry almost hid the letter as soon as he saw it, but then realized it was all right to be seen reading it now.

Sirius was not yet working and had not told Harry what his plans were. All Harry had been told was that he would be seeing him soon. Harry had asked why he couldn't go stay with him as soon as his name had been cleared, but Sirius had explained that there were many technicalities that had to be fixed before Harry could come live with him. The first of those was proving that Harry was in fact his godson. James and Lily had never thought that it would be questioned, but since Sirius disappeared after their deaths and then went to Azkaban, Harry was taken to his aunt and uncle out of desperation. Since they held legal custody to him, Sirius would have to bargain and beg in order to get a custody hearing in the muggle world. The magical world was hesitant to let Sirius enter the world of the muggles, even for something as simple as getting custody of Harry. In the end, the Dursleys' had signed over their rights peacefully, but now they were waiting for the official word from the courts. Sirius had mentioned something about being worried that the courts would question his legal right to adopt Harry. In other words, by the time Sirius was allowed to keep Harry, Harry might be old enough to go wherever he chose.

McGonagall looked expectantly at Harry. "Anything new?" she asked kindly.

"Just the same old stuff," Harry replied.

McGonagall had grown very concerned about where Harry was living over the last year. Especially after hearing how the muggles had treated him when Cedric Diggory had died. They had locked him in his room for most of the summer, stating that he was a danger to Dudley, after all, what if he pulled another stunt like he did at school, and this time Dudley got taken away with him? Harry was disgusted. He thought that they would at least leave him alone, not mention it, not react at all. He hoped that at the least, they would act normally, like nothing had ever happened. Apparently he hoped too much.

McGonagall had been one of the leading people who had pushed the Ministry to accept Sirius' application for custody. Now that it was all pulling to a close, she was very anxious to hear something official.

"There is something you might be interested in, though. I don't have to stay at school this Christmas."

McGonagall smiled, and for a second, even Snape looked pleased. After all, if Harry Potter went home, then no one would be at school for the holidays.

"Sirius says I can bring my friends and come stay with him over Christmas. He even says we can invite Ginny so she won't feel left out."

Ginny feeling left out had recently become a major concern with Hermione. She mentioned that since the twins began their joke shop, there was just no one else at home except Ron, and when Harry and Hermione were visiting, Ginny had no one to talk to or spend time with. Harry agreed with Hermione and had made a point of including Ginny in a lot of the plans they had been making for the last month of the summer.

Dumbledore nodded. "I think that idea is most excellent. I feel the youngest Weasley might benefit from spending some quality time with her older sibling and his friends.

McGonagall didn't look so sure. "I don't doubt she would enjoy it, but it would be like having the marauders causing trouble again. I'm not sure that would be such a good idea."

Snape looked thoroughly annoyed at the thought of having a second group of marauders in Hogwarts.

"We don't cause as much trouble as they did, do we?" Harry asked innocently.

"Harry," McGonagall started, "I don't think that it's the fact that you find trouble, I think it's that trouble finds you. One of these days I'm going to find out who gave you James' invisibility cloak."

Dumbledore winked at Harry when McGonagall looked away.

Harry tucked away Sirius' letter and hurriedly finished his meal so he could go ride his firebolt and then tell Ron the good news.

* ~ *

Harry spent most of the morning flying around the Quidditch pitch. He tried dives and swoops, millions of different turns and spokes that he had never had a chance to experiment with before. He remembered a lot of the football games that Dudley had watched on TV. He thought that, with practice, he could learn to use some of the things they did in the games in Quidditch. After all, it was the closest thing he had ever seen to the game that plagued Hogwarts grounds. With a little thought he was sure that he could even teach things to the Chasers.

Oliver Wood had always told Harry that he seemed to have a talent for all of the positions in Quidditch, though he was obviously best at Seeker. After about three hours of playing with his broom, he began to wish that he had someone to play with. There was no one else here for him to experiment with and he was growing quite bored with playing by himself. He landed gracefully on the ground, dismounting his broom before his feet even touched the ground. Harry walked inside the school and then realized another thing he might be able to do while he was stuck at Hogwarts. He ran to the Great Hall with a purpose in mind. He was just hoping a professor would be present to help him.

* ~ *

Harry found Professor McGonagall sitting at the table that was in the center of the room. She was reading through a book and making notes on the parchment beside of her.

"Professor?" Harry asked quietly, hoping not to interrupt anything important. McGonagall looked up at him in surprise.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"Am I allowed to practice Magic while I'm here?"

McGonagall looked stunned for a moment. Apparently she had never been asked a question like that before.

"I don't see why not," she said after a time. "The rules are only to prevent underage witches and wizards from causing mayhem in the muggle world if they should cast the spells wrong. There's not much damage that you could inflict while inside the school's grounds." She paused for a second. "If you want to check out a book from the library, I'm sure Madame Pince will not mind as long as you write her a note and have the book back to her by the time you leave."

Harry smiled and nodded. "Thank you, professor. Will the library have any of next year's text books in it?"

"Yes, I believe it does." McGonagall smiled. "I'm happy to see you so anxious to study, Harry. It should help you to get ahead next year."

Harry decided to sit down and eat before he rushed off to the library. He wasn't sure why he was so anxious to get ahead, but he was sure of something else. He was going to get so far ahead even Hermione would be surprised.

* ~ *

By dinnertime Harry was already halfway through Miranda Goshawk's guide to self-transfiguration. Harry, not being very hungry, decided to continue studying. By 9:00 he was finished with the very long book. He wanted to go ahead and start over and try some of the tasks set forth in the book, but he knew it was getting late and he didn't want to chance messing himself up and then having to wake someone up to fix him. He set the book on the side of the table and pulled out the next book in the stack.

It was Bertha Handrake's Art of Healing Potions. He looked at it with interest and then looked up at the clock again. It was getting late, but he was so excited that he wasn't even tired. He did, however, figure that the normal rule of students not wandering the halls after hours would still apply, and so he wrote a note detailing which books he had taken and carried them back to the Gryffindor Common Room.

Harry opened the old text and started to read. It was nearly midnight by the time he looked up from the book again.

He had never realized that potions could be so interesting. Harry was half tempted to approach Snape the next day and ask if he had any books that he could borrow. However, Harry knew that Snape would probably see this as an attempt by Harry to suck up to him and quickly dismissed the idea. It was two hours later that Harry realized that he would never get through the next day if he didn't get at least a little bit of sleep, and so Harry closed all of the books and made his way up to his bedroom, deeply intrigued by the amount of information that he had already consumed in one afternoon. He already knew that Hermione would be very jealous that he had gotten to spend an entire week in the library.

Harry also remembered Hagrid's invitation to join him soon for tea, and made a note to go see him the next afternoon. Harry still wasn't sure what exactly had gone on the previous afternoon and it would soon be time for him to do some investigating. Hagrid would definitely be his first stop. With this in mind Harry fell quickly to sleep.

* ~ *

It was 11:00 before Harry awoke the next morning. He tumbled out of bed and rushed into his clothing. He grabbed a hold of the books he had borrowed before he realized how much his stomach was rumbling. Remembering that he had skipped dinner the night before, Harry decided to go visit Dobby and the other house elves to procure a snack. He also realized that he had still not written to Ron telling him about the good news that Sirius had sent. Grabbing some parchment and a quill he rushed out the door and down to the hidden kitchens of Hogwarts.

* ~ *

The last person Harry expected to find in the kitchen was Dumbledore, but there he sat, having a very amiable conversation with Dobby, who appeared to be wearing a brand new pair of socks.

Dumbledore smiled at Harry as he entered while Dobby rushed back to the kitchen to get a basket of snacks for Harry.

"With the way he's already rushing to the kitchen, I'd think you'd been here before." The smile Dumbledore wore told Harry that Dumbledore already knew that Harry had many times come down to the kitchens for a midnight snack. Realizing that Dumbledore might be willing to tell him things about the situation at Ms. Figg's house, Harry sat down across from him and helped himself to a piece of fruit from the basket that had been deposited beside them.

"Professor, can I ask you something."

"You can ask anything you would like, Harry," Dumbledore replied.

"What happened at Ms. Figg's house the other day?"

Dumbledore was silent for a time. "You're more perceptive than most people would think." Then the old man was silent again.

"That's not an answer, Professor."

"Harry, I will tell you some things, but that is because it would be better if you did not go snooping for answers, which I already know you have the intention of doing." Harry blushed. "The death eaters have apparently been watching Ms. Figg's house. When they saw the two of you leave the other day, they decided that was there chance to attempt to take some of the wards down. You see, the wards are only as strong as they are because Ms. Figg is there. That is why she very rarely leaves the house. They had thought of attacking you both while you had been shopping, but had decided against it, because there were so many muggles around. The last thing they had needed was to make such a scene in front of muggles. Do not get me wrong, it is not that they do not want them gone, but they do want to stay silent for a while longer. When you returned, the death eaters were waiting."

"Professor, that's not everything."

"Harry, I don't intent to tell you everything today, maybe soon, but not today. Come now, I'm sure you'd like to get back to your books and you have a meeting with Hagrid this afternoon. You don't want to get yourself worked up, now do you?" Harry saw a misted look in his eye and was suddenly very curious. Something was going on, and Harry was determined to find out what exactly it was.

* ~ *

A/N: Ok, I don't generally write a whole lot of author's notes, but every once in a while I like to say a few words. I would like to thank all of the people that reviewed and assure you that fully intend to continue writing this story. I can't wait to see what you guys think of this chapter, I really value all of your opinions, so don't forget to give me a heads up if something doesn't seem right or if you have questions about something that I've written. I don't mind flames as long as they're not too mean. As far as any H/G stuff, I will get around to that in the next few chapters. Right now I'm trying to set the scene.

Sincerely,

Jynx Ashley

H/G shipper forever

If you enjoy any of my stories, please be sure to check out www.gryffindortower.net for a site completely devoted to Harry/Ginny fan fictions. This is one of my favorite places to read. Especially be sure to check out the Carpe Diem compendium. It is a very well thought out story with fluff added here and there, the perfect story for someone who enjoy action and adventure with romance on the side.