Chapter Nine - When Dumbledore's Away The Slytherins Will Play
The remainder of the school year passed quite quickly, Slytherin easily being in the lead for the House Cup thanks to Snape who awarded house point to Slytherin for the slightest of things and took them away from other houses for slightly larger, yet still rather insignificant things. The Quidditch Cup, however, was considered a complete lost cause because their house lacked a half-way decent seeker. It didn't matter too much though, as both the Hufflepuff and Gryffindors seemed to be even further out of the running than them. All that left was the Ravenclaws, who would, no doubt, win without trouble. It wasn't too bad though. The Slytherins could just about manage to survive if the Ravenclaws won. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff they could not live with though.
At Easter their professors started to pile them down with work for their exams, and Harry felt fortunate that he both hated flying and wasn't on the Quidditch team. Flint, the Slytherin Quidditch Captain, was working the team to the bone in the vein hope that they stood a chance to win, and had Harry been on the team he surely would not have been able to cope.
Finally, in the last week of June, the exams started for the first years, and stress level were running exceptionally high, especially for Harry, whose forehead was throbbing like their was no tomorrow half of the time.
The exams were quite unlike any that any of them had taken before. The written parts of the examinations were just like every other test Harry had taken, with the exception that the quills they used had been bewitched with a Anti-Cheating spell which stopped them from cheating by magical means. Muggle means, however, the professors foolishly trusted them with. As if they wouldn't cheat in any way possible if they could.
They also had practical exams afterwards as well. Professor Flitwick called them into the classroom one by one to see if they could make a pineapple tap-dance across a desk, the use of which was lost upon Harry, as it was with the majority of other practical tests. One such test was their transfiguration, in which they had to turn a mouse into a snuff-box, points being added for how pretty the snuff-box looked and points taken if it had whiskers, fur, squeaked or ran around. Because of Harry's persistent headache he somehow managed a perfect snuff-box through some weird fluke that he couldn't explain.
The Potion's test, however, was one Harry could see the use in. They had to make the Forgetfulness Potion from memory, whilst Snape hovered about, making every non-Slytherin jumpy and nervous by breathing down their necks and making tutting noises whenever they did something that would surely correct the mistake they made whilst he had been breathing down their necks.
Harry had done his best to ignore the stabbing pains in his forehead all week which had started bothering him shortly after Easter. Draco (and Ed, who had taken to accompanying Draco a lot of places for some reason) thought that it was simply a case of bad exam nerves because Harry couldn't sleep, but the truth was Harry was being awoken every night by an old nightmare he had in which there was a bright green light, a sudden pain in his forehead about where his scar was, a high, cold laugh, and, something which had only started appearing recently, a hooded figure dripping blood.
Harry's very last exam of the week had been, thankfully, History of Magic, and he had breezed through it, confident that if he failed all of the others he would pass that with flying colours.
The rest of the first years all headed outside to enjoy the sunshine and other things they enjoyed to do in the summer. Harry, on the other hand, shook off their questions of whether he wanted to join them or not, saying he would rather head for the library. This brought many a groan from the others, but Harry ignored them. He really just needed to be someplace where he could be alone.
On his way to the library Harry literally bumped into someone. And that someone turned out to be Professor Dumbledore. Harry was sent flying to the floor.
"Ah, excuse me Mr Potter," Dumbledore said as he helped Harry up from the floor where he was sprawled. "I have to get to the Ministry immediately, an urgent matter has come up, good day!"
And with that the Headmaster vanished leaving Harry behind, bewildered for a second, when a sly grin came to his face. Dumbledore was gone from the school. That meant that the person with the most authority within the grounds was McGonagall, and there was no was she would be able to stop him from doing what he planned. And what he planned on doing was going to see what the Philosophers' Stone looked like. Simple curiosity, really, Harry justified it to himself. After all, who could blame a first year for being curious about what was contained on the third floor?
Silently Harry picked his way to the third floor, the door already ajar. Harry scowled, knowing it either meant that Hogwarts needed better security, an idea which was doubtful at best, or someone had already gone through, a far more likely possibility. Just... who could it have been?
Harry pushed the door open, and as it creaked, low, rumbling growls met Harry's ears. All three of 'Fluffy's' noses began to sniff as he awoke.
"Dormier," Harry whispered, sending the Cerberus into an even deeper sleep than it had probably been in before it Harry had arrived. Silently Harry began searching around the room for another way in and out. Then his eyes landed on a trapdoor which Fluffy's paw was currently draped across.
"Circe, what do I have to do around here to get a glimpse at a valuable and dangerous magical artefact?" Harry muttered rhetorically under his breath as he cleared the dog's paw from the trapdoor, opened it a looked down.
Typical. All he could see was pitch black, with no way of climbing down or too see the bottom. Oh well, sometimes you just had to take risks, he thought to himself and jump into the hole in the floor, falling for what seemed like hundreds of metres.
A while and five enchanted protections later, all of which Harry managed to get past except the last two with only a few pitiful charms and spells that any witch or wizard would have known, he found himself in a large chamber which contained the Mirror of Erised and one other person... Professor Quirrell .
A/N: Sorry I took so long putting this chapter up. I just... I don't know, something seemed to be blocking me. Probably the fact my floppy disk went missing.But anywayz...
Lap: Lol, you are obsessed. But I can't blame you, I'm just as much of a sucker for Dark!Harry and Slytherin!Harry. Good point about the pairings though. A slash and a het pairing would be fun, and should keep most people please. Still, I've got a while to think about it. Yes, Harry'll be an heir, and believe me, I am near enough certain that who he is the heir of has never been done before, even though this person is not an OC. And Harry isn't the heir of Azkaban, that's been done one or two times in the past, not many though.
humg123: Oooh! Fun! Potions to use on the Dursleys! I'll probably end up using that in the future, maybe the summer after second years... Yes, I think I will. And if I d do slash with this story Harry will most certainly not be flamingly gay, nor will it be a major part of the storyline. I hope.
The ilver erpent: True, Slyth!Harry is usually gay, even though I have read a fair amount of stories where he isn't. I guess we'll have to wait and see where I'll go with this. Not even I'm too certain.
Shadowface: Ah, yes, it would be the exact opposite to the Heir of Merlin Storyline, and it would work for this story. I want to know what gave you the idea of Harry being the Heir of Morgana Le fay? Oh yeah, I'm not going to reveal what's up with Draco at this moment in time, and as for Harry finding out who the idiot who left him with the Dursleys is, give him a couple of years and let his anger grow to unknown proportions, then place the idiot in front of him and... ::chuckles evilly:: You get the idea.
alen: Yes, it is a bit early to be thinking about pairings, but it always helps to plan ahead. I'll make no promises about Harry/Draco though. It might be, it might not.