AN: Early update because I'll be out of town on Monday. Have a good weekend!
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The weather turned nastier with the arrival of October, and the Quidditch practices were becoming more of a chore. On the other hand, the first match was also approaching, and that was keeping Harry motivated. In fact, if it wasn't for the Traverses' letters, he would be in danger of neglecting his school work. As it was, they didn't give him a chance, constantly asking him about his assignments in such detail that he had no choice but to do them properly. He suspected they knew precisely what they were doing, too.
The approaching match also made him face the prejudices of his house once more. It would be against Slytherin, and everyone seemed to see it as a matter of personal honour to beat that House in particular.
"They always win, it's time we took that off them!" Oliver explained, when Harry asked about it.
"Um...from what I've heard, they only won last two years – before that, it used to be Gryffindor, because of Charlie Weasley, right?"
"Well, apart from Oliver, no one on this team remembers the time before that," Fred said with a grin. "So for us, that's the same as forever."
Harry couldn't help but laugh at that.
What was happening inside the castle was becoming more captivating as well. Colourful sparks were no longer the most interesting magic he could produce. He was even transfiguring things in Transfiguration now, something that he had thought would be forever out of his reach during the first class. The quality of Defence or History did not improve, and he wasn't a huge fan of Astronomy even though he had nothing against the teacher, but he had Charms and Flying to look forward to, Herbology to relax in – and admire Neville, who seemed to know everything about every plant that ever existed – and Transfiguration and Potions to challenge him. Potions especially always felt like balancing on the edge of a knife. Ever since Harry got his place on the Quidditch team, Snape treated both him and Neville worse than before, with outright hostility. His potions had to be perfect and pass the most detailed examination, otherwise he'd lose points for his House, and Neville was relentlessly mocked for every imperfection in each class.
Harry wrote to Alduin about it, but the response was not very encouraging. Professor Snape, he wrote, is being kept at school for reasons different than his teaching skill, I suspect, and Dumbledore will not let him go. And I do not have any means to make him act better towards you and Neville. We are not friends, he does not owe me anything, and I do not have anything he wants. If I can think of a way to make this better for you, I will tell you, but for now, have strength and patience, and help Neville in any way you can.
And so they endured, class after class, and Harry always did his best to make sure to talk to Neville about the herbs they used in the potions afterwards, to help him restore his confidence. He was angry, though. He didn't care so much for himself, but he was irritated by the lost points and frustrated that after he spent so long helping Neville gain some confidence last year, Snape was now trying to destroy it.
It was so bad, in fact, that even many of the Slytherins felt sorry for them. Daphne and Theo both said it was rotten, and Draco said that if he knew Snape would react in that way to his complaint about the Quidditch team, he wouldn't have made it.
"I fear Father made it worse, too," he said. "When I wrote home about it, he went to see Snape and gave him a piece of his mind about his inability to ensure the students from his house had the same opportunities as everyone else. Couldn't have been pleasant – they're old friends..."
Draco himself, however, seemed to have dealt with his jealousy and was now behaving perfectly fine to Harry again, just as Alduin had predicted. Pansy was another matter. They were currently still on non-speaking terms, with no sign of contrition from the girl. Harry didn't particularly miss her, but it was still irritating.
Ron, of course, kept telling him things like 'that's Slytherins for you' and 'who even cares about them,' which didn't particularly improve Harry's mood.
All in all, there was enough going on that he had hardly any free time left, and he was surprised to find himself at Halloween already. The whole school was aflutter, and Harry understood from Ron's older brothers that the feast was always something magnificent. Alduin wrote him a long letter about the magical importance of Halloween, too, so that made him even more excited about it. It only added to a great ball of excitement Harry seemed to always be full of nowadays, what with Quidditch and the magic they did in classes becoming more and more exciting all the time. Why, jut on Halloween morning, they learned how to make things float in Charms!
They hurried back to the castle from their flying class in the gathering dark. It had got warmer towards the end of October, paradoxically, but the evenings were still chilly, and they were all looking forward to the warmth of the feast – and, of course, to the rumoured mountains of food.
"We never celebrated Halloween much at home," Neville said as they entered the castle. "I'm really curious."
"What, no trick-or-treating?" Sophie asked, surprised.
"No what?" Ron asked, confused.
Alduin never mentioned trick-or-treating in his letter either, so Harry had rather thought it wouldn't be a wizarding tradition.
"It's what Muggles do," he explained. "Children go 'round their neighbours' houses in scary costumes and ask for sweets."
"And people just give them some?" Ron asked, surprised.
"Well, it's tradition..." Dean said hesitatingly.
"It wouldn't really work in the wizarding world," Neville pointed out, "except in the Diagon Alley enclave and Hogsmeade, maybe. I mean, we don't really have wizarding neighbours, do we?"
"You don't?" Sophie asked, surprised. "How do people live, then?"
"In separate houses," Ron explained. "Like, there are a few other wizarding families close to us, but from what Mum told me, we're more of an exception than the rule..."
"I certainly don't know about anyone close to Travers Manor," Harry nodded.
"Yeah, I don't think there's anyone close to Longbottom Hall either."
Sophie shook her head. "It's just so weird," she said, "all of you living in those mansions."
"Not all," Ron muttered.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Ron, from what you told us, your family has a house with, like, seven rooms and lots of land around it. You're hardly beggars. I'm with Sophie, it's super weird."
Seamus shrugged. "It's cheaper to maintain and expand a house when you have magic. Dad always says that's one of the things he really likes about it."
Before anyone could respond, they entered the Great Hall, and the decoration put a stop to their conversation by taking their breath away.
The feast was indeed magnificent, hundreds of carved pumpkins everywhere and thousands of live bats flying around the room. The food was as excellent and plentiful as at the welcoming feast, if not more so, and Harry was feeling entirely happy and blissful...until Professor Quirrell burst into the Great Hall, sprinted to the High Table and announced to Dumbledore: "Troll — in the dungeons — thought you ought to know." And then he fainted.
Oh dear. Seemed like another mirror call home was in order.
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Harry was called to the Headmaster's Office the next day after lunch. Confused, he followed Professor McGonnagal to a stone gargoyle, and ascending a moving staircase, he appear in the most fascinating room he had ever seen. However, he had no time to study it, nor the magnificent bird he found there, for there in the room stood – Alduin!
"Cousin?" Harry said, shocked. "What are you doing here?"
"I was quite alarmed by your message from last night," he replied. "I came to talk to the Headmaster about the safety at the school this year. I'm not happy with it at all. But now I would like to talk to you, Harry. In private, so if you could perhaps walk with me to the gates?"
Harry nodded, and giving a nervous goodbye to the Headmaster, he followed his cousin outside. "You didn't have to come just because there was a troll at school last night," Harry said as soon as they left the office, feeling embarrassed.
"Oh, I know that, Harry. But it was a brilliant excuse, and I couldn't pass it up. Now, lead me to the forbidden third floor corridor!"
Immediately understanding, and his embarrassment replaced by excitement, Harry showed his cousin the way. Once there, he asked: "Could we get my friends? They could serve as a look out."
"I suppose. I will wait here, and Harry, hurry – I do not want to stay suspiciously long."
Harry ran at breakneck speed to Gryffindor tower. Fortunately, at least Neville, Ron and Sophie were there, and Harry led them back to his cousin, panting.
"Cousin Alduin," he wheezed, "this is Sophie Roper. Sophie, my cousin, Mr. Travers."
"Nice to meet you," Alduin said pleasantly to the girl. "Now, if you could all stand guard at the nearest corners…?"
That accomplished, he waved his wand, and suddenly the door was see-through. What was behind it gave Harry the goosebumps. No wonder they heard growling! There was a huge three-headed dog inside!
"Wow," Sophie said, excited beyond herself.
Neville seemed mostly incredulous. "A Cerberus?" He said. "Why would anyone want to keep a Cerberus at Hogwarts?"
"I will leave you to discuss this later," Alduin said, charming the door back to non-transparency. "I'm in a bit of a rush. Harry, can I have your company?"
Harry nodded, waved to his friends and fell into step with his cousin. "Harry, this is serious," Alduin said in a low voice. "Cerberi are very dangerous. I will look for a way to incapacitate it for you, if it ever escaped, but my first and most important advice is: stay away from it!"
"Of course."
His cousin seemed to hesitate, then he said: "I would feel better if all the students knew how to incapacitate it, in fact, but unfortunately, that is not feasible. I don't know if you noticed, but-" Alduin paused as they passed a group of portraits, and only when they were out of hearing distance, continued quietly: "-the dog was standing on a trapdoor. It is guarding something, and if I had to take a guess what it was, I would say that it is the same thing that someone attempted to get from Gringotts during the summer, or rather, that it's related to it."
"What is it?" Harry asked, excitedly.
"I don't know. I can only surmise it is something of Dumbledore's, because Hagrid is Dumbledore's man through and through. But why should it suddenly emerge now, why should someone make an attempt at it just now...I have no idea. And what I would like to know even more," Alduin added as he opened the heavy front door of Hogwarts, "is what makes Dumbledore think he can endanger children in this school to keep his private possessions safe! I mean, it is likely that the whatever the object, it is not actually there, that the dog is just a decoy to fool the thief – indeed, it would be reasonable – but the thing is, that doesn't diminish the danger to students in any way."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, speeding up to keep up with Alduin's lenghtened steps now they were outside.
"Well, it the best way to hide something is never tell anyone hat you have it. So I'd have expected Dumbledore to do that. If he mentioned the danger in the seventh floor corridor to all and made it accessible, there must be some purpose to it, and my best guess is that it's where the thief is meant to believe the object is. Only...well, if it works, it still means the thief will operate at Hogwarts, and he's clearly a dangerous wizard. Plus the Cerberus is here, too. That is a danger in itself. The door to that corridor is hardly warded at all."
"Why is Dumbledore doing this, what do you think?"
"I don't know. I will have to think about this a lot, Harry. You can certainly tell about this to Ron and Neville, and your other friends if you trust them, but I would ask you not to spread the word further. As uncomfortable as it makes me that the other students will not know about the danger, I do trust Dumbledore enough to believe there is a good reason he is protecting that thing, whatever it is. I will get back to you as soon as I know more."
And with that promise, Alduin bid him farewell and disapparated from behind the Hogwarts gates.
Harry went back in a pensive frame of mind. He'd certainly have to tell Sophie about what Alduin said, given that she had been there and seen the Cerberus, but what about the others? He knew perfectly well that Draco and the others from Slytherin were out of the question, because of who their families were. He'd have liked to tell all the Gryffindor first years at least, but he hesitated. Alduin trusted him to decide this well, and a lot depended on it.
He bit his lip. He'd like to discuss this with Neville, but how to get him alone without Ron? He didn't quite trust the redhead to give him good advice.
He entered the Gryffindor common room, and found his excited friends waiting for him – and discovered they'd already told all the other first years about the Cerberus. Well, he should have expected that, really.
He stayed at the edges of the speculation about the dog, afraid to betray what Alduin told him, and when they all finally went to sleep, he pulled out a piece of parchment of his bag, wrote 'I need to speak to you' on it, and gave it to Neville when the others weren't looking. Neville seemed surprised, but left his bed curtains on Harry's side opened and they waited for the others to fall asleep. When they finally heard their rhythmic breathing, Harry gestured towards the bathroom and they tiptoed there.
"What is it?" Neville asked anxiously.
"Alduin told me some things," Harry whispered back. "The Cerberus was standing on a trapdoor. He thinks it's guarding something, or...pretending to, kind of-"
"What does that mean?"
"Look, it's really complicated, I'll tell you some time that's not the middle of the night. The point is, Alduin thinks it's the thing that was almost stolen from Gringotts in the summer."
Neville's eyes widened in shock. "Really? Here at school?"
"Yeah. He reckons it's Dumbledore's, but doesn't know what it is. So he warned me against telling too many people about the Cerberus, and especially about what it's guarding. That's tricky, though – all of the firsties already know, and we can't really tell them not to tell other people about the dog if we don't tell them why not..."
Neville nodded. "You heard Parvati, she wants to tell her sister immediately, and then Padma has probably some friends in Ravenclaw she'd want to tell..."
"Exactly. So I wanted your advice on whom to tell what. I'll tell Ron and Sophie everything, because I think they deserve it when they were there, but what about Dean and Seamus and the other girls?"
"I think we can tell Dean and Seamus," Neville replied. "I mean, it's not like they talk to other people too much, so there isn't much danger they'd tell anyone. But like I said, Parvati would want to tell her sister, so I'm not too sure about the girls."
"You're probably right...and I guess we just have to deal with others knowing about the dog's presence." He hesitated. "I'd kinda like to tell Horatio and Roger, or the Shacklebolts, to see what they think about it, being older and all, but I don't really know them that well, and I don't know who else they'd tell..."
Neville nodded. "Let's keep it in our house and year for now."