A/N: Man, the distractions continue. I also had standardized testing this week, which I think was a waste of time because of how easy they were. They were a complete insult to my intelligence.
Luna's Meow: Oh no! The dreaded reviewer's block!
The Angel of Chaos: Thanks a bunch for the link It'll be very helpful if Gohan gets sent there.
Helen: Wow, I'm amazed. Someone who doesn't like this kind of story reads it, and finds it funny. blink Cool.
Hiaburi: Sarcastic in what way?
Disturbed One: You lucked out; they just started showing Yu Yu Hakusho again and are starting in the finals of the Dark Tournament. Talk about convenient...
To some reviewer that didn't leave a name, I just want to ask in which book it is stated that electronics don't work at Hogwarts. I have only seen it in other people's fanfics, but never any place reliable that states that. And even if they don't work, he isn't on Hogwarts grounds when he's training, he goes far away so that he doesn't disturb anyone- which would cause them to find out about his powers.
Disclaimer: HA! Yeah right. I own these stories and all politicians are completely honest.
Chapter 6
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were constantly talking about the new information regarding what was believed to be the Sorcerer's Stone. They kept trying to find new ways to prove that Snape was behind this, while Gohan continued to mention his suspicions of Quirrell and the ominous second presence.
Gohan, much to his frustration, still didn't have the slightest clue about what that weird energy he felt was, much less how to get to it. He had almost gone up to super saiyan three because of his frustrations on several occasions. His friends had found out once when he powered up and blew them all out of their beds. As a result, he had stopped trying to get to the power in the dormitories.
The arguments and classes continued as normal, and before they knew it, the holidays were approaching. The mid-term exams had already been completed, and all the students were anxious for the holidays to start. More snow had covered the school grounds and the temperatures were still dropping lower. The lake had been frozen solid and the quartet of troublemakers where bewitching snowballs to follow people around and bounce off of them.
A sheet was being passed around the school for students to sign if they were staying over the winter break. Very few people were staying over the break in favor of going home to spend the holidays with their families.
"I'm going to be staying over the break," Ron told the others. "There's a change in plans and my family is going to be visiting by older brother Charlie in Romania so they won't be home."
"Good," Hermione said. "Then you can help the others try and find out more about the problem we've got with the Sorcerer's Stone."
"What else is there to find out?" Ron queried. "We already know that it's most likely Snape that wants the stone. He is probably intending to give it to You-Know-Who who will come back to life and give him some grand reward of some kind."
"You're forgetting, though, that these are merely presumptions," Hermione stated. "We don't know for a fact that Professor Snape is even the one going after the stone. And we can't be sure if the person wants it for the Elixir of Life to keep someone immortal or to turn things into gold and become rich."
"Of course we're sure that Snape wants to get the stone. We saw the limp he had when he tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween and Harry saw the wound."
"Perhaps Professor Snape was attempting to stop someone else from retrieving the stone. You have to admit that Professor Quirrell does seem suspicious and is acting most peculiarly; around Professor Snape especially."
"I act differently around Snape too, and I don't see you accusing me or anything. We know that Quirrell is too incompetent to be able to do something like stealing the stone; and quit defending your boyfriend like that," Ron teased. Hermione blushed a bit, which made Ron snicker.
"He's not my boyfriend!" Hermione stressed.
"Of course he isn't." Hermione sighed in relief that he actually understood that. "But I can tell that you definitely want it to happen." Okay, maybe he understood it a bit too well.
Hermione left quickly, mumbling about having to finish her packing. Ron shook his head then followed her back to the common room to meet Harry.
The holidays had started and Hogwarts was all but deserted. There were not even twenty students left at the school for the break. Harry and the Weasleys were the only ones left from Gryffindor. Gohan, however, was the only boy from Slytherin still there, along with five girls in third year or lower. Harry and Ron were constantly meeting with Gohan in the common room to talk about random things, like finding different ways to expel Malfoy, even though none of them would work.
Ron had decided to teach Harry how to play wizard's chess. It wasn't that hard for Gohan to pick up; it was the same as he remembered it except for the fact that the pieces moved of their own accord and actually destroyed other pieces. Harry, however, didn't understand the game very well and the pieces didn't trust him very much, whereas Ron's pieces had full trust in him; one of the few advantages of having old things.
Christmas came soon, and the few students there were mostly excited, except Gohan who didn't really care about the holiday since he didn't have anyone to get presents from. That's why he was surprised when he came in the next morning to find a fairly decent sized pile of presents at the foot of his bed.
Gohan sighed as he saw that a good number of them were from the large number of girls that liked him. He found a box of Every Flavor Beans from Hermione, which he ate happily. He even found a sweater from Mrs. Weasley that was in dark colors with a 'G' in the middle. Malfoy had, surprisingly, sent him a Nimbus 2001, which had just been released. Chris gave Gohan a book with some of the more complex spells used for fights.
Gohan used instant transmission and reappeared in the Gryffindor room next to Ron and Harry. Both of them were staring in shock at a silvery cloth that Harry was holding.
"What's going on here guys?" Gohan asked to break the silence.
"Someone sent Harry an invisibility cloak," Ron gasped. "The only thing he got with it was a card saying that it was his father's and to use it well." The three shrugged, having no clue about it, and went down for lunch.
After they ate, they went outside with the Weasley twins and had a massive snowball fight. Harry and the Weasleys all had bruises from some of Gohan's throws, who didn't try and hold back too much. Though more often than not, the snowballs melted before they hit the person.
They eventually went back to the castle dripping wet and made it just in time for dinner. They ate their delectable meal, filled with all kinds of food like turkeys, roast, potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Everyone went to bed soon after that, and almost everyone fell asleep right away from stuffing themselves. Gohan stayed up as usual; free to meditate without having to worry about disturbing any of his roommates.
Gohan came out of his meditation early, however, when he felt Harry's energy signal moving out from the Gryffindor common room. Gohan got up and quickly left the Slytherin area to see what Harry was up to.
He ended up following Harry to the library, where Harry wandered into the restricted section to check out what books they had in there. Gohan stayed around him constantly in super speed so that Harry wouldn't notice him.
Gohan nearly fell over in shock when Harry opened a book that let out a shrill bloodcurdling shriek. Fortunately, Harry was too worried trying to silence the book to have noticed him anyway. Harry quickly closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and rapidly fled the library.
Gohan followed Harry out of the library, as he felt Mr. Filch coming to the library. Gohan allowed a smirk to cross his face when he sensed Gohan heading straight towards were Professor Snape was standing.
Gohan decided to get out of there so he raised two fingers to his forehead and reappeared above Harry, who was wearing his invisibility cloak. Harry, who finally noticed Snape standing ahead of him, rushed into a room that had an open door, with Gohan close behind.
The room they were in was old and probably unused anymore. It looked like it had probably once been a classroom by the posts that stood around the room as in all rooms. At one end of the room, there was a seven-foot tall mirror with golden framing. On the frame was an inscription in a language Gohan wasn't familiar with.
He watched as Harry walked in front of it, and was surprised when Harry jerked around like someone was standing behind him. Harry returned his attention to the mirror and started to...smile? What was so happy about seeing his reflection?
"What's up there Harry?" Gohan asked, scaring the shit out of Harry, who jumped up in surprise but managed to hold back a scream.
"Don't do that!" Harry scolded. "What are you trying to do, scare me to death?"
"Something like that." Harry had long since gotten used to this kind of humor from Gohan; some were actually amusing. "So, why are you smiling when you look into that mirror?"
"Huh? Oh, I can see my family when I look into it. My parents are right behind me; come on and see."
Harry led Gohan to the mirror and stood in front of it. When Gohan looked in, all he saw was what any normal mirror would show; an empty room except for Harry and himself. He blinked a couple times when he felt something, but ignored it for now.
"Can you see them?" Harry inquired.
"No. I just see the empty room and us."
"Well, maybe you're not doing it right. Here, stand here and look."
Harry moved aside and pushed Gohan into the spot where he had been standing. Gohan stared in shock at what he was seeing.
"So? Can you see them now?"
"No. But I am seeing something else though."
"What? You can't see them? Well, what do you see then?"
"I see... my family; actually being a family. My dad is there, with that large grin of his on his face, spending time with us. He's actually paying attention to me." Harry blinked not quite understanding anything that was happening with this mirror.
"This just doesn't make sense." Harry complained. "We should probably be getting back to our dormitories now. Good night, I'll see you tomorrow." Gohan nodded, but remained in the room. Once Harry was a good distance away, Gohan went back to the mirror.
"What is this thing Professor?" Gohan asked a surprised Dumbledore. Gohan smirked when he felt the surprise.
"Well, that is the Mirror of Erised. I trust, by now, you've figured out what it does?"
"I believe it shows us the thing that would make us happiest," Gohan said, though he had long given up hope on achieving happiness.
"Yes...and no. The Mirror of Erised shows us nothing less than our deepest desires. I must stress, however, that you forget about this mirror and what you've seen. It merely shows hopes and desires; it doesn't tell the future or anything of the sort. Many people have died believing what they saw would happen."
"No. It doesn't really matter anyway. My father is dead. There's no way that what I saw could ever happen, not that it could if he were alive anyway. Well, I'll just head back then." Gohan nodded his head at Professor Dumbledore, then left to return to his training.
The holidays soon ended, and with their ending came the return of all the other students who were still buzzing about the exciting things they had done over the holiday break. Hermione was disappointed that the guys failed to acquire any more information about what to do with the stone and such. They didn't even know when the person was going to retrieve it.
Classes weren't to start again for about a week; but there was till a Quidditch match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff during the week. Ravenclaw dominated the match and easily won 190-10 in about fifteen minutes.
Soon afterwards, it was back to classes just as they had been during the first part of the year. Well, Snape was being harsher on the Gryffindors now than he was before. People were saying that a Gryffindor sixth year had pulled a major prank on Snape, who definitely didn't appreciate it. Most people didn't really believe that, just accepting it as part of Snape; or that he was in a bad mood for some unknown reason.
Which is why the Gryffindors were even more upset when they heard that Snape was to referee their next match against Hufflepuff. It was obvious that Snape would be making unfair calls against Gryffindor and giving Hufflepuff penalty shots for no reason at all.
The match came quickly, and Gohan followed Hermione and Ron up to the stands on the Gryffindor side next to the other Gryffindor first years. They chose seats that were the closest to the pitch that they could get. Malfoy, who was still sour about their lost match against Gryffindor, came walking by soon after with Crabbe and Goyle at his side and decided to taunt Ron.
"You know what? I think I've finally found out how Gryffindor chooses its players," Malfoy informed them. "They chose people they feel sorry for. There's Potter, who's got no parents, the Weasleys, who've got no money... you should join the team Longbottom; you've got no brains." Crabbe and Goyle broke into fits of laughter while Gohan rolled his eyes.
"I'm worth twelve of you, Malfoy," Neville stuttered. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle broke out howling with laughter.
"If brains were gold, you would be even poorer than Weasley there."
They turned their attention back to the match when they heard a collective gasp. When they could see the match, they saw Harry diving down, obviously having spotted the Snitch.
"You're in luck Weasley. It looks like Potter found some gold on the ground," Malfoy taunted.
Ron's face became red from gritting his teeth so hard and he clenched his fists tightly. He started trembling a lot, before he flew at Malfoy and jumped on him, wrestling him to the ground. They started rolling around and Ron started throwing punches at Malfoy, gladly taking the opportunity to unleash some of his pent up anger on him for all the evil things he had done to him, Harry, and Hermione.
Crabbe and Goyle went to help Malfoy get Ron off of him, when they both received a fist to their face from Neville. They, too, broke out in a fight with fists flying all over. Crabbe finally managed to punch Neville in the gut and knock him unconscious.
Hermione, who was oblivious to the fighting, was cheering as Harry chased after, and caught, the Snitch, ending the match in a Gryffindor victory. Cheers arose from the Gryffindor section of the crowd and they all rushed onto the field in joy; aside from Ron and Neville who were lying unconscious on the ground. Malfoy and his goons, who had been smirking, were now being yelled at by Professor McGonagall for attacking Gryffindor students.
Hermione and Gohan didn't see Harry again until dinner, by which time Ron had been brought back to consciousness. Harry told them how he had followed Snape into the Forbidden Forest and was talking with Professor Quirrell, asking if he knew how to get past the three-headed dog.
"So the stone's safe as long as Quirrell doesn't go blabbing to Snape about how to get past Fluffy," Ron stated. "It'll be gone by next weekend."
"You're assuming that Quirrell even knows," Gohan said.
"Yeah, that's true. We aren't positive that he knows how to get past Fluffy."
"He's got to know how to get past it," Ron proclaimed.
"Why does he have to know? It's entirely possible that he's as clueless as us about getting past Fluffy."
"Okay fine. So it just seems like he has to know because someone has got to know."
"Hagrid probably knows how. He is the person that brought it here after all so I should hope he knows how to calm it."
"Yeah, but we can't just go and ask him about it. That would never work," Harry pointed out.
"Well, we can go and visit him. We haven't been to his hut since he let it slip about Nicolas Flamel and we found everything out."
"Go right ahead," Gohan said. "I'm not going though, so just go ahead. I've got other things to do."
Gohan was shocked, to say the least, when he heard the news of the trio's trip to Hagrid's hut. It seemed as though the school keeper of keys was in possession of a dragon egg, which was quite illegal. Gohan smiled anyway. He had always liked dragons too.
He was even more surprised when, a couple weeks later, he heard that Malfoy had discovered the dragon, which Hagrid had named Norbert. They had sent a letter to Ron's brother, Charlie, in Romania to ask if he would take Norbert and raise him. It didn't take long for the response, which was an affirmative that a couple of Charlie's friends would come by and take Norbert away Saturday night at midnight.
Even worse news came when the letter with that information was stolen by Malfoy, who would no doubt tell Filch or some other teacher. They couldn't reschedule it because it would take to long, so they had to hope that they managed to get Norbert away and still sneak back without being seen. Which was pretty easy because they had the invisibility cloak.
Gohan, who could really care less about getting rid of the dragon, just went to bed to meditate as usual. He didn't expect that he would have the chance to do his physical training the next morning since Harry and the others would no doubt be up pretty late. Thus, Gohan decided to try and figure out where the huge source of power was coming from.
Harry and Hermione went to Hagrid's at around eleven that Saturday night. Norbert, who had been put in a cage along with some food, was given to the two, who put it under the invisibility cloak before getting underneath it themselves.
The two slowly proceeded to the astronomy tower, where they had agreed to meet
Charlie's friends. It took them a long time, as they were slowed by the additional weight of the dragon they were carrying. When they were almost to the bottom of the tower, they heard Professor McGonagall's voice.
"Detention!" she shouted. "And thirty points from Slytherin! Wandering the halls in the middle of the night, honestly."
"But professor," Malfoy complained. "Potter is going to be coming later- he's even got a dragon with him."
"That's rubbish. I'm taking you to Professor Snape to deal with you. I can't believe..."
They couldn't hear her anymore as she had walked out of their hearing range, though it was no doubt complaining about Malfoy's actions and why he was up so late like that.
"Wow. Malfoy's got detention. I'm so happy to hear that," Harry stated. Hermione nodded her agreement before they continued their ascent of the stairs.
They reached the top of the stairs with about ten minutes to spare. They sat down and waited, keeping a constant eye out for Charlie's friends. It didn't take long before Harry and Hermione saw four people on broomsticks heading their way.
The four landed and prepared the harness they were using to carry Norbert back to Romania with them. It took them awhile to do it, but were eventually done with it. Harry and Hermione stayed and watched as the four flew off until they couldn't see them anymore.
"Well, glad that that's over with," Harry stated.
"Yes, we were definitely in a tight spot there. Now we can go back to worrying about the Sorcerer's Stone and how to get past Fluffy." They both sighed in relief of being done with that task, and headed down the stairs so they could get some much-deserved rest. They were in such good moods that there wasn't anything they could think of that would ruin it.
Of course, nothing ever stays good when you've got one of those feelings, and this time was no exception. As soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs, they saw Mr. Filch seem to appear out of nowhere.
"Oh crap," Harry whispered. "We are going to be in deep trouble. It's bad enough that Malfoy had already been out saying that I would be."
The two of them were pondering how Filch could even see them, until they realized the problem; they had left the invisibility cloak at the top of the astronomy tower.
Well, there is another chapter complete; I hope it was worth the wait coughyeahrightcough. You can thank my English/ history teacher for helping to get this chapter out. No, she didn't actually help me, but she gives us fifteen minutes at the start of class to write about whatever we want; I write new chapters for both of my stories. It makes it much easier when I already have ideas.
Also, I'm not positive, but there may be a long delay until I can get my next chapter up. We're in the last month of school, which, ironically, means that major projects are being assigned. The one that's going to cause problems is the portfolio, which is a collection of all the work I've done in both my freshman and sophomore years at DATA. Since it's a computer school, I have to make a web page and find some things that I probably lost at some point.
I'm already starting to write down ideas for when Gohan goes to other dimensions and such, but won't be using any of them for awhile because I intend to take this through at least Gohan's fifth year, depending on if I get bored with typing this or not. So any extensive plans for alternate dimensions or DBZ universes are still greatly appreciated.
OH! A note to people that aren't reading Saiyan Upbringing, or haven't read the last chapter, I got bored with saying things like Gohan's clone and such when he used multiform so I gave his clones names, Phantom and Damien. I'm not sure if I'll end up using those names, but I most likely will at a later point in the story. And extra points to anyone who can figure out why I chose Damien. Though I doubt anyone can guess it grin
Sorry if anything seems whack about the chapter; the new quickedit thing doesn't allow me to put up special characters like astericks