Harry, having finished eating and being patient, looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin. It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell's turban straight into Harry's eyes — and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry's forehead.
Harry didn't react, Manny however repelled the probe the man to shake off was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher's look — a feeling that he didn't like Harry at all.
"Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" he asked Percy. "Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he's looking so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to — everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape." Harry watched Snape for a while, but Snape didn't look at him again. He did note himself that Snape's privacy was irrelevant with the obvious dislike.
At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent. "Ahem — just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins.
"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. "Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch. "And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
Harry couldn't resist- the blasé attitude with which that was said didn't bode well. "Why is such a corridor even possible at Hogwarts!? Am I supposed to simply accept that there is life threatening danger in the 'safest place in the world' and go on with our life!?" He stood up and asked.
The Hall erupted with a gasp. It was magnificent, in Harry's opinion. "Would the parents of us students even approve of this situation, if they were informed? For that matter, were they even informed? There is a reason for the phrase 'Curiosity killed the Cat', you know!" Harry ended his minirant and Manny just watched with awe as his soul twin (as he views the situation) acts with a spine.
The entire school was silent, seeing Harry berate the supposed greatest wizard since Merlin. Susan was wondering if she should message her aunt about this, it was strange, after all.
"Mr. Potter, would you please calm down? That is why the warning was given" Professor Dumbledore tried covering up the situation.
"You've really lost touch with the world if you think this situation is acceptable! I'm wondering if I should've looked for other schools of magic as it is!" Harry dropped the other shoe of his outburst. He looked around, seeing that most students were now thinking about the obvious danger.
Having said his piece, he sat down. He knew that he had made an empty threat, but it was necessary to think of the present while planning for the future. In any case, he stirred up the hornet's nest. The rest is up to the students who have well-meaning guardians.
Hermione stared somewhat disapprovingly at him. Manny noted that there was some obvious fear in the eyes she showed him. Trauma, he decided. Neville was strong at him with actual awe- his belief in Harry was now solidified. Some students that the scarred protagonist was interested in were wondering if they should try to contact their parents as soon as possible. Others were just shocked thoughtless
The staff was in disbelief. No one had EVER dared to backtalk them this openly before, so they were shocked that it even happened. The wiser of them were agreeing with them. The followers among them, Hagrid included, were glaring at him like he had said that the Virgin Mary was not, in fact, a virgin.
The students were dismissed soon after that. The Gryffindor first years followed Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Harry wasn't surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice Percy led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climbed more staircases, most of them yawning and dragging their feet, and Harry was calculating how much farther they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.
A bundle of walking sticks was floating in mid-air ahead of them, and as Percy took a step toward them they started throwing themselves at him. "Peeves," Percy whispered to the first years. "A poltergeist." He raised his voice, "Peeves — show yourself." A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered. "Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?" There was a pop, and a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks. "Oooooooh!" he said, with an evil cackle. "Ickle Firsties! What fun!" He swooped suddenly at them. They all ducked. "Go away, Peeves, or the Baron'll hear about this, I mean it!" barked Percy.
Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on Neville's head. They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passed. "You want to watch out for Peeves," said Percy, as they set off again. "The Bloody Baron's the only one who can control him, he won't even listen to us prefects." Harry decided he had a challenge here. "Ah, here we are." At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress. "Password?" she said.
"Caput Draconis," said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs. Percy directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase — they were obviously in one of the towers — they found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed. "Get off, Scabbers! He's chewing my sheets." Harry was awake as the rest of them fell asleep, and he held a council with Manny.
"D'you think that we should hold back? I know how it sounds, but showing off might prove to be trouble! There is something wrong when everyone gasps that much over an obvious question!" Manny presented his obvious concern.
"I dunno, Manny, but I agree, we should hold back. Just… how do we get ourselves some allies without showing them a few of our fangs?"
"Isn't that obvious? Make yourself a group of people you trust… You HAVE got a head start with Hermione, Neville. Susan and Hannah…"Harry was starting to see issues with the result of the scan he had performed on the castle just showing up. Nothing was good. No people were scanned specifically, but the general scan already showed large-scale conditioning.
"Manny, have you 'read' the scans yet?" Manny, who had been thinking about ways to keep their plan alive, immediately did so… and paled considerably. He started hyperventilating even more than he did when they first met. While Manny panicked, Harry started planning moves for the war, or possible battle that would eventually occur this year, and in the far off future.
"Sleep's for the weak now- that meditative technique supplemented with magic should hold us up for a good night's sleep with about 2 hours' worth of the technique." It would also calm Manny down enough to let him think things through.
Harry immediately entered that technique, and allowed his magic to permeate his body for 2 hours. When the two hours were up, he felt refreshed. He then went down to the common room which was empty, since EVERYONE was tired. There the duo worked for an hour on mastering ALL of the non-combat spells they gleaned to perfection… for all the classes they would take of course. Then they worked on doing them all non-verbally. That took an additional half an hour. THEN they worked on doing the spells wandlessly.
Of course, during that month they spent as Mitchell, they learnt every spell to the standard any normal wizard would even know of while working on making runic arrays in his head. This meant that he would have a relatively easy time, enough to rank above average to fool everyone while they learnt more in private to surprise any enemies that could appear, but the cause of his orphaning possessing a teacher in the castle changes things immensely. Neither were happy about it, but this showed the incompetence of the Wizards more than ever.
Harry had initially wanted to take his time, since he initially assumed that he'd have 7 years, but Voldemort's spirit form meant that they had to plan for battle, which meant that they had no time to waste. They would find an abandoned classroom that was secure and further secure it to make it theirs… then they'll train to make Dumbledore cry… They had to copy Dumbledore's memories for that, but, eh, he stole their childhood, so fair in their opinion.
Of course, that opened a new can of worms… namely-
"THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES… BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES… AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT… AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES… THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES… Pretty sure this is bullshit, but whichever motherfucking Death Eater it was who heard this bullshit went and told Voldemort… Do his memories hold the culprit's identity?" Manny asked with a scowl marring his face. "This is a self-fulfilling prophecy after all…"
"You're not gonna like it…" Harry replied grimly "Since it's the Potions teacher here at Hogwarts, and considering that it was the one guy who hates everyone while poorly imitating emo culture, I'm thinking Dumbledore wants him here as a spy… shows what he knows. I've learnt just about the 200 magical languages he has on the bright side, so there's something that he learnt."
"I'll hold back on revenge for now, but it's decided that we don't like him, right?" Manny said to break through the silence that follows, and Harry agreed vehemently. No room for mercy for him. "Still, nice enough to know that we're marked for death by a maniac, innit?" With that, they returned to bed for the night, conserving energy. It was roughly 2:30AM
The next morning, Harry woke up at 6:30 AM, fresh as a leaf. He then woke up Neville, who was thankfully a morning person. He then asked Hedwig, who had come to see him just after freshening up, to wake up Hermione and pass on a small message telling her to meet him at the common room. The two boys were patiently waiting for about 3 minutes when Hermione came down in her pajamas. Noticing that they were dressed, she sheepishly went back up and came down 10 minutes later in her uniform. She sat across from Harry, since Neville was seated to his right.
"So, Mike" she began, since they had privacy (A privacy bubble set by Absolute Aegis, though neither of the other people knew) "Why would you hide that you're Harry Potter? You're mentioned in so many books you know, and I've read them all- you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century, for crying out loud!" she seemed betrayed that anyone would hide who they are, especially when famous. Harry put that down to bad parenting, not that he could say anything on the topic.
"Because I didn't need any 'friends'" he sneered at the friends part "who see me as the Boy Who Lived. Those kinds of people tend to be fickle as all fuck ("Language!" Hermione automatically said)! And I dunno about you, but since those books seem to forget that there were only 2 people at the scene, and one was barely able to talk, while the other seems to have either died or gone into hiding, allow me to doubt that those books were even factual in nature." Harry shut down two arguments that she wanted to make. "To be clear, those books were almost insultingly deifying me, while my mother, who I clearly remember dying while pleading for my life, by the way, was barely mentioned. She had to have set up some kinda sacrificial ritual, which activated with her life as the price! There is no way anything else would apply. I only remembered that when it was mentioned to me! Those books, based just on that, aren't worth the parchment they're written on!" That delivery was way too calm to anyone who heard it for it to be a lie. The part where he clearly remembered that was worse for anyone who could understand the implications.
Hermione seemed taken aback, and was about to ask him how he could question the knowledge in books, when it struck her that the person who the books were talking about was calling them lies… The implications of what he said at the end didn't hit her at all, but that wasn't important when she revisited the fact that he refuted her sanctuary, and that was when she learnt something- that books didn't always hold the answers to her questions, and an education didn't tell anyone anything about the sort of person one was
"I'm sorry, Harry" she morosely apologized, voice wracked with guilt "I didn't think of that when I asked… it's just, why would anyone hide their identity when they could use their fame to be popular? It doesn't seem fair, now that I really think about it, that you had to be reminded of your parents' deaths, when others just wanna be your friend." She seemed close to tears, but was able to keep stutters out of her voice, a good sign.
"Don't worry about it, Hermione, I didn't blame you for it, now did I? Besides, you should imagine my shock when I entered the Leaky Cauldron after just being introduced to magic, only to have dozens of people mobbing me… Hagrid didn't help much when he was next to me… then again, my working theory is that Dumbledore didn't really think I'd be willing to doubt someone who'd come there…" Harry trailed off in a low voice about that last mutter. "Anyway, now that you know that I despise my fame, we can get to know each other… Neville, is there any rule against sitting at the tables of other houses?"
Neville, who had been listening to the conversation till now, was jerked back out of his reverie. After thinking about it, he answered "I don't think so, but we might need to do so today… timetables are handed out after breakfast in the morning after arrival. Still, you aren't thinking what I think you're thinking, are you, mate?"
"Spot on, man! I think we don;t need to attend any meals other than the major feasts in our house tables… Lemme check my Hogwarts Rulebook…" Harry took out the rulebook he managed to get from Flourish and Blotts and thumbed through the rules… "Ah, here it is… lessee then… 'It is not required to have your meals at your house tables unless there is a major feast or an inter school event going on. Major feast include- the Samhain/Halloween Feast, Christmas Feast, Welcoming Feast and Leaving Feast. Should a student tragically lose his/her life during the year, the night after said death will be a major feast.' Well, come on then, let's go… Neville's probably right tho, so if we see Susan or Hannah, we should ask them to wait for us, since we'll do the same."
Hermione and Neville followed him, having brought their bookbags along as well.
Next chapter is going to be about the classes- so the teachers are going to be subject to MY criticisms. As I mentioned in my newest fic, Decades of Evolution, this is the first of three fics in a series, The Redo- How it should've been-ttebayo! being second, and Decades of Evolution being third. That is in chronological order, and the three fics are only loosely connected to each other, but they are connected. Read DoE for details about the series.
R&R
Seiichi
