AN: This chapter was getting way too long so I split it into two chapters. The other half will be up soon

Chapter 8:

Over the next several weeks, Harry fell into a comfortable routine at the Grangers. Every morning he would wake up and help make breakfast. After everyone had eaten, the elder Grangers went off to work and Harry took Snuffles for a walk around the neighborhood. When he got back, he sat at the kitchen table and worked on his homework. Once that was done, they took the rest of the day to either read, play games, or watch one of the many, many VHS tapes that the Grangers had.

After Hermione's parents got home in the evening, they would both make dinner and afterwards everyone would retire to the family room to watch TV or to their own individual hobbies in different parts of the house. After a few days, Harry learned that Dan was an avid woodworker and Emma made scented candles.

It was a normal, everyday life of the kind that Harry had never had before. At the Dursleys he had been little better than a slave who had never known kindness or decency. At Hogwarts, he was an anomaly, a living reminder of the death of a Dark Lord. Even at the Burrow, he was just Ron's best friend who just so happened to be the Boy Who Lived.

But here, he was just Harry, not special or treated differently than anyone else. He was expected to help with chores and pick up after himself like everyone else. It was wonderful. For the first time, he felt like really belonged somewhere and that people liked him for him not for being famous or important.

One benefit of living with Hermione, he quickly discovered, was that he had his summer homework done within a matter of days. And, because of the extra time and helpful comments, it was done well. Even Snape would have a hard finding fault with his essays. Harry may have even learned a thing or two more than he normally would have.

After all his homework was done, Harry found himself with a lot of free time. He devoted much of this time to his growing obsession: the study of Slytherin's writings on the Infinity Stones. Due to the massive amount of work he had been forced to do at the Dursleys, Harry had only managed to read about a quarter of the book. From the little that he managed to glean so far, the Stones were incredibly powerful magical artifacts. Far more powerful than any adult wizard he knew, including Voldemort.

If we wanted any chance of finding them, let alone using them in anyway, he needed to know exactly how they worked, and if he would die from picking one up. That's where the journal came in.

The first day that he pulled Slytherin's journal out of his trunk, he was incredibly nervous. It was not like Hermione to ignore a strange book, especially one someone else was holding. He half expected her to pull it out of his hands the moment he walked downstairs and start reading it. He had seen her mother do the same thing to Dan the other day after breakfast.

After Harry let Snuffles into the backyard to play with Rosie, Harry padded into the library with trepidation. Hermione didn't even look up from her novel as he moved past her and sat down.

Harry let out a breath he hadn't been aware of holding.

He found where he had left off and began to read.

The deeper he read into Slytherin's journal, the more intrigued that Harry became. These Infinity Stones were not just powerful magical devices, they were the most powerful that any of the Founders had ever come across. They could affect the pillars of Universe such as time, space and even the soul itself.

Slytherin even speculated that any of the stones individually could bypass the normal laws of Magic.

April 7, 1017 AD

The magic of time has become one of the great riddles of our age. It has been speculated that wizards can only travel through time up to five hours with a Time Turner before they run the risk of creating paradoxes. I have witnessed fools who have attempted to travel back in time, only to never reappear or become hideously deformed. I am sure I have witnessed many more who have changed history to the point where I do not remember them.

Time is dangerous. Every great wizard knows this.

However, today I was able to use the Time Stone to travel back to meet my grandfather in the flesh and have a meal with him. I then went to meet his grandfather and his before him hundreds of years into the past. I attempted to return expecting the worst of consequences only to discover that my travel had disturbed nothing.

I later attempted this with a conventional Time Turner for reference only to fail. The use of the stone has allowed me to shatter one of the most fundamental rules of magic.

If it can do this, what else can it do? What could we do when we use more than one at once?

Accounts like this one were littered throughout the pages of the journal. Salazar Slytherin personally witnessed incredible magic while studying the Stones, from mass transfiguration to the creation of miniature volcanoes that spewed milk.

He described visits to other worlds like a great void made entirely of mist and lightning. Another was populated by living candy people and a wizard who lived in a mountain of hollow ice with penguins.

Harry was captivated. Here, in the pages of this book, was more amazing magic than he suspected that he would ever learn in his entire Hogwarts career. Things that none of his teachers could even imagine let alone teach him. Things that would be seen as purely fictional, even in the wizarding world.

28 December 1018 AD

This afternoon, we finally achieved a fundamental dream of wizards everywhere. I took to the air and flew. Not with a spell, broom, or animal transformation but under my own power.

The Reality Stone was able to give us wings sprouting out of our backs like angels. We soared for hours over the forest, the lake and the mountains, swooping and shrieking like children. Rowena and Helga raced each other while Godric tested the limits of how fast he could dive at the ground before he had to pull. I have seen much magic in my life, but this was truly something else.

It was pure luck that the students had left the castle for the holidays, so we were not distributed.

After we grew bored with the air, we traded our wings for fins and gills and explored the lake with the agility of Mermen. Helga and Godric claim that they found a small village of water creatures, but I never found anything. They may have been pulling on my robes but who knows? Anything is possible now

As the pages and years went on, Harry noticed a pattern. At first every entry in the journal seemed to be filled with new wonders and discoveries. The Founders appeared to be on the verge of changing magical research forever.

But slowly things changed.

Where Slytherin had once been full of optimism and camaraderie, his words now turned bitter and spiteful towards the other founders. The four frequently had loud and personal arguments that would interfere with classes and their research. They no longer freely shared their discoveries but instead hid secrets from each other. This divide grew greater and greater with each passing year slowly seeing the former friends grow further apart. Still they were at least able to act civil towards each other and run their school effectively.

And then tragedy struck.

4 of September 1024 AD

Fate has seen fit to take my youngest son from me today. My dear Richard, who was not even four yet, was struck down by a violent strain of Spattergroit. I held his hand as he died, saw the light leave the eyes.

No parent should have to live like this, feel this pain. Mere words on a page can never express the depth of sorrow that I feel. It is as if my soul has been extinguished and I feel nothing. Nothing can save me from this quiet hell.

The light has left my life.

8 of September 1024 AD

I will have my son back. If the world must burn, so be it.

This was where the writing stopped.

The next several sections of the book were all missing . The edges of the pages were jagged if they had been torn out in a great hurry.

Harry frantically flipped through the rest of the book, looking for something else. Anything else. That couldn't have been it.

But the rest of the pages were filled with incoherent scribbles, diagrams, and long complicated equations that he couldn't follow.

Several of the remaining pages were dominated by sketches of a large, jewel encrusted glove. Another page depicted an enormous bald man with scars and grooves running across his face. He was fighting a group of faceless, unidentified figures: a man with a pair of shields, another man with a large ax, a woman in a tight jumpsuit and what appeared to be a raccoon standing on two legs.

It was madness, all of it. Pure insanity.

With a sinking feeling, Harry realized that Slytherin had probably gone absolutely insane in his later years.

There were no other coherent entries. Whatever Slytherin did, he had destroyed all the evidence to cover it up. This was a dead end.

Harry threw the book on the ottoman in frustration, startling Hermione from her book. She looked at him in irritation.

"What did the book to do you?" snapped, annoyed at being interrupted.

Harry didn't answer her. As the book had hit the ottoman, he had seen something. A brief flash at the end of the book. He picked it up and flipped to the very last page. There at the very bottom of the page, squeezed underneath another equation in cramped handwriting, was a small paragraph.

The Time Stone has been sealed away in the hidden library. High above yet underneath the world, it awaits you. Behind glass and next to bone, it hungers for someone to show their dedication to free it from its bonds. Seeker beware, that once you taste its power, everything else will fade away. Even in death we will never be free of its pull.

That was it. Five sentences. But it represented the first real lead that Harry had to finding one of them. And where one was, maybe others would follow. He read the paragraph again and again and again. Hoping that something would jump out at him. But nothing did.

He let out a sigh. Riddles had never been his strong suit. Even this almost clue was going to vex him. He would need to think this over carefully before he did anything else.

Over the last week of August, the riddle was never far from Harry's mind. The words were seared into his mind.

What library? How could it be both underground and high in the air? What kind of dedication would he need to show the stone? One day Harry grabbed a notepad and began to jot down all of his potential theories in a list. A pitiful half page later, he realized that he needed some help.

His first thought turned immediately to Hermione. After all, she was the brightest witch of her age and she lived in the room down the hall. She probably could figure out the riddle before lunch.

But he was hesitant to confide in her. It wasn't that Harry didn't trust her; he absolutely did. He would not be staying at her house if he didn't. But some part of him deep in his mind warned him that she wouldn't understand this. She would try to get someone else involved, and that was the last thing he wanted. Even telling Ron would be too far. He had some gut feeling that he was supposed to do this quest himself, find these Stones on his own.

But by the third day of thinking, Harry was growing a little desperate. The words seemed to be taunting him as they swam around the page. So he decided to ask Hermione in the most roundabout way possible, hoping she would take initiative and not ask questions.

He cornered her after dinner.

"Hey Hermione" he began, "I have a question I have been meaning to ask you. It's something that Professor Binns mentioned in one his lectures late last year. You know… when you were petrified" He cringed at the horrible lie.

As expected, Hermione's eyes light up at the mention of magical history. She had always wanted Harry to show some extra interest in the subject. "How can I help?" she asked eagerly?

"Last term, Binns mentioned that, during a goblin rebellion, two of the great hidden libraries of Europe was sacked and destroyed. I just wanted to know if there were any of those libraries left standing?"

Hermione cut him off sharply. "We studied Goblin Rebellions? And you didn't tell me?!"

Harry's heart froze for a second. "umm… we briefly went over them. More important things were going on at the time! Like the Chamber and the petrifying..."

Her face fell slightly as she remembered. "Oh right, there was that. I guess I'll have to study even harder to catch up then. I don't know about any hidden libraries off the top of my head. They wouldn't be very good at being hidden if we knew about them! But, when we get back, I can look it up in the library to see if there are any well known rumors. We could write an extra credit paper on them for Binns!" Her voice began to rise in pitch as she began to describe the different ways they would have to research this.

This was better than Harry could have hoped for. With Hermione on the case, he would have an alphabetized list of every magical library in Europe and their exact coordinates by the end of the week.

Three days before they were to return to Hogwarts, Harry tripped on the way to breakfast. The offending object that had snagged his foot appeared to be an old, tattered feather duster that was laying at the bottom of the stairs.

Upon closer inspection Harry realized that it wasn't a feather duster at all, but the Weasley's incredibly old owl Errol with a letter tied to his leg. He had flown in an open window in the living room but had passed out before he could made it up the stairs.

Harry carried the owl into the kitchen only to find Hermione pouring over a letter of her own.

"Harry! Our Hogwarts letters came today! About time too! I was thinking that they had forgotten them…what's that your holding?"

"Errol. He was at the bottom of the stairs."

He opened the letter and briefly scanned the contents. A grin formed on his face.

"Hey Hermione, listen to this! We have been invited to go shopping for school supplies with the Weasleys on the last day of summer. We would then stay at the Leaky Cauldron with them and all go to Platform 9 ¾ together the next day."

Hermione turned to her parents with pleading eyes. "Can we go Mum? Please?"

Dan and Emma shared a silent conversation. Dan took his gaze off the pancakes on the stove to look at her "That shouldn't be a problem. You need to get your school supplies somehow. Your mother and I want to spend as much time you as possible before you go away again so we will try to get someone to cover our clients that day."

Hermione let out a whoop and grabbed both of her parents for a hug. Somehow, Harry and Errol found themselves drawn into the middle of the pile as well. Overall, it was a happy kitchen that sat down to breakfast that day.

The morning of the 31st of August dawned earlier than Harry would have liked. He had been up late packing his trunk and preparing Snuffles to travel. He knew a dog was not on the list of approved animals for Hogwarts, but he didn't care. He had grown attached to him.

He would have to save some of his meals every day until Emma could send him some dog food and let him sleep in the common room during the day, but he could make it work.

Dan and Emma had been helping him prepare Snuffles for a few days. They bought a leash and collar for him. In addition, Dan had built and painted a kennel for him to travel in. There had also been the memorable occasion when they had taken the former stray to get all his shots before he left. Snuffles had looked particularly unhappy with this development and it had taken all four of them to wrestle him into the car to the vet.

Harry tried to pay the Grangers back for this, but they refused to hear it, saying that it was the least they could for Harry being such a good friend to their daughter.

After eating, Harry got the collar and went looking for his dog so they could go on one last walk around the neighborhood before they left. However, there was a problem.

Snuffles was gone.

Harry searched every room for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Even the backyard, where Snuffles like to lounge on the patio, was empty. Harry was sure that he had let him into the backyard last night, but couldn't remember seeing him after that. The entire family spread out and search the surrounding streets and yard but came up empty.

Eventually, it was time to leave to go to Diagon Alley.

As Harry picked up his trunk, he stared at the brightly colored kennel and collar in the corner. He felt a deep sadness inside him and a slight moisture in his eyes. He had become really attached to Snuffles. He had been there when Harry was at his lowest and now he was gone.

He loaded his trunk into the boot of the car and got in the backseat with Hedwig's cage. Emma shot him a small smile in the rear-view mirror and Hermione gave a supportive squeeze on his shoulder.

The car pulled out of the driveway and started towards London.

Behind a large tree on the other side of the street, a man watched the small sedan pull away. He wanted more than anything to be inside it with Harry but he knew he couldn't be. Not right now. If he tried to go onto that train in his dog form, he would set off all kinds of detection spells and be sent back to prison.

He could not be caught. Not yet. First, he had to make sure Harry was safe. If he happened to catch a rat while doing that, all the better in the end.

The man's form blurred, and a large black dog set off down the street.

Sirius Black was headed north.