A/N: Most of the characters and the main plot belongs to J.K Rowling.
Harry made his way down to the Great Hall where he found Neville. They had put the four large house tables back in place, and it made the hall feel quite empty. He went over to the Griffindor table and sat down opposite Neville. "Good Morning Nev, Merry Christmas"
"Morning Harry, merry Christmas to you too. Did you like my present ?" he asked, a hopeful glint in his eyes. He had never been the type of person who was sure of himself, but it was improving.
"Yeah, thanks, I've already tried it out, and it'll help out a load." he replied with a smile to make sure his friend saw his happiness with the present. "Did you like mine ?"
At this, Neville's eyes had a spark of happiness in them. "Yeah, I love it, it'll help me with my bubotubers back at home. My Gran thinks I should start making potions with the things I get off of my plants, but I told her I'm useless at potions, especially with Snape hanging over my shoulders all the time."
"Well, you might like it without him over your shoulder" he said with a light shrug of his shoulders. He started filling a plate in front of him. He knew that he wasn't at his table, but it wouldn't bother anyone because there was still enough space for all the students left in the castle to sit down.
"Maybe. I'll have to try this summer when I go back. It'll give me something to do over the summer at least" They ate in silence for a couple of minutes while Neville was reading the Daily Prophet. "Harry ?" he asked
"Yeah, what's up ?"
"Nothing I was just wondering what Dumbledore had called you for last night." At this point, Harry remembered he hadn't told Neville about his father's cloak.
"Oh yeah, I didn't tell you did I. Come with me" Together they both got up and made their way to the Ravenclaw common room and Harry went up to his dormitory to get the cloak while Neville waited in the common room. A few seconds later, Harry came back down. "He asked me to go with him, so he could give me this." he said handing over the cloak over to Neville.
He had a confused expression on his face, so Harry answered the unasked question. "It's an invisibility cloak," he began "it belonged to my father, and he had left it with Dumbledore before he died, although I don't know why, but at least it didn't fall into the wrong hands" Neville observed for a little while longer. "Go on, try it on" Harry said to him. Going by his surprised face he wasn't expecting that
"Are- Are you sure ? I mean it's really rare, and it belonged to your father, you should keep it for yourself" Harry nodded and Neville slowly pulled it around himself. Harry admired how it just sunk into the background without any effort. After a few seconds, his friend removed it and handed it back to him. "That's really cool, but I would have thought the enchantments would have stopped by now considering it was your father's before you"
"Dumbledore said that it's been in my family for generations, and they've never stopped. I don't think he understood it either.
"Neville's eyes widened at this. He had never heard of a cloak like this, it must have been some runes out into the cloak or something of the sort he thought. "Oh I've also finished the book, there's nothing important in it, the part about Flamel is only short so not much point in keeping it." Harry nodded his agreement, and they headed off to the library with the cloak so that they could put the book back.
The students had just come back from the holidays and had begun to pour through the doors to the entrance hall. Harry and Nevillle went over and greeted Hermione. Together they made their way into the Great Hall and went to their tables respectively.
"Hermione, I've got something to show you later on when we get back to the common room." Hermione seemed intrigued at this but nodded her head. So while they were in the Great Hall eating, Harry and Hermione shared stories of their Christmas and talked about classes. Harry had heard that in third year he had to choose some electives, so they spoke about the ones they'd be interested in.
"What electives are there ?" Harry asked her. He knew that she would know because she was Hermione, and what didn't she know.
"Well, there's Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Muggle studies and Divination." She said the last one with quite a bit of disgust
"Well I'm glad we've got time to choose then, although I'm sure I won't be taking Divination or muggle studies. Divination seems like a load of crap, - "
"Language Harry !" she interrupted rather brutally
"Sorry, anyways," he continued as if nothing had happened "and muggle studies, well I've lived in the muggle world for 10 years, I think I know enough about it."
"Yeah, but it would be interesting to see what wizards think of muggle things, and also I'll be able to see if they are behind in terms of technology."
They continued like that for a little while until they left for Ravenclaw tower. Once they reached the common room, Harry went up to his dormitory to fetch his cloak and brought it down. However, this time he didn't use it in the common room there were too many people around, so he motioned for Hermione to follow. Before leaving, she looked at the time to make sure that they had enough time. Turned out that they had an hour before curfew, so they made their way through the castle in search of an unused classroom.
They were just about to enter one when they heard a voice coming from inside.
" - too well protected, I couldn't even get past the beast !" the voice said.
But then a high, cold voice spoke out. "You fool, I told you to work it out ages ago ! Now, tonight you will go down and get it, I need it !"
"Yes m-master" Harry and Hermione decided to hide and see who came out but no-one did, so they decided to go in and see if he was still in. As they opened the door, they noticed the room didn't seem to have been used in ages, but there was nobody inside. They searched for a couple more minutes when they found a door on the other side of the classroom and opened it. What they saw, squashed any hope of finding out who it was. The door opened out onto another corridor.
They decided to find another classroom so that Harry could show Hermione the cloak. Her reaction was similar to Neville's. So was the speech that followed, although hers contained parts that definitely came out of a book which she had previously read and remembered it word for word.
"Harry, what do you think that person in that classroom was talking about ? And to whom ?"
"Well," he began going through the things he had gathered about the situation "first of all he mentioned a beast and there's only one beast that we know of in the castle, and that's Fluffy. He obviously found out how to get past him, which we discovered was whistling, but maybe music would work too. As to who he was talking to, I have no idea, I've never heard a voice so cold, but I felt like I knew it, but from where, I don't know, it's not like anyone in this castle has a voice like that"
"I don't know Harry, the voice said he needed something terribly, and if it's gold or immortality that he wants, then the stone is what he's after. I agree on the fact that it's probably the stone, but what if we're wrong, and it's not ? Should we go tell a teacher ?" Harry saw the benefit of telling a teacher, he wouldn't have to see for himself, but that was the problem, he wanted to see what was down there, if there were traps or other things protecting it.
So he voiced out his thoughts to Hermione, and with her being so curious, she understood his standing point completely.
They wanted to go fetch Neville, but they couldn't go fetch him as they didn't know the password. "How about this ? Around midnight, we put my cloak over the two of us, and we go see if we see anyone trying to go in, if we don't by one o'clock, we go back to the common room, but if we do, we go fetch a teacher."
"If we do that, we would just be in soooooo much trouble, imagine seeing who it is, we go see a teacher and then what, how do we explain the fact that we were out of bed at midnight ?"
He hadn't thought about that, he was glad he had Hermione with him. "Well we follow the pesron in then, but not straight after him so we don't arouse any suspicions, we wait a couple of minutes"
Hermione thought about it for a couple of minutes. "Oh alright, but I want to leave a bit before" Harry nodded his consent to this, and they returned to Ravenclaw tower.
Daphne had just come back from the Christmas holidays, and thoughts of that night she had returned had plagued her mind all the time. She really wanted to know what was behind that door, but she didn't want to be caught and expelled or worst, die a most painful death, as Dumbledore had said at the start of the year. Tracey seemed to have noticed the conflict in her best friend's eyes.
"A sickle for your thoughts ?" she asked as she approached Daphne's bed.
"I want to know what's in the third floor corridor. It's been going through my head since I came back from the hospital wing, and it plagued me almost throughout the holidays, and I couldn't come up with any sort of explanation as to what had happened." she said, she really did want to solve this
"Well how about we go check it out tonight then ?" Daphne's head shot up at this. She hadn't expected Tracey to say this. Sure, Tracey didn't exactly follow the rules, but still, to willingly break them just to see what was behind a door was still quite a shock. "What don't you want to ? Are you scared ?" Tracey teased, hoping to get her to accept the offer, after all, Tracey also wanted to know what it was behind the door.
"I'm not scared," she said in the strongest voice she could muster "and of course I want to, it's just I didn't expect you to want to break the rules for something so small." She replied sincerely, although she was a bit nervous as to what might happen.
"How do you know it'll be something small ? It might a dragon or something" she joked
"Ha ha, very funny. We'll leave around 11.30, yeah ?"
"That's fine by me. Make sure to bring some calming potions, your nerves seem to be a bit on edge" she laughed at the glare Daphne was sending her way.
Harry and Hermione left the Ravenclaw common, room under Harry's invisibility cloak at 11.20. They wanted to be sure to catch whoever it was they heard in the classroom earlier. They didn't know any silencing charms yet so had to move slowly when they heard any footsteps, which only happened once as they passed Filch and his cat, Mrs Norris. After the caretaker and his cat had passed, Harry and Hermione continued down towards the third floor in complete silence.
When they arrived, it must have been about 11.35, and so they found a corner with a bench that had a view over the door to the corridor, and they waited. About two minutes after they arrived they heard two voices coming from the stairs. They made sure the cloak was over them so that they couldn't be seen and waited for the two people to appear. The two of them were whispering to each other, or more accurately, arguing in a whisper.
"How could I have known Filch would be there, I can't see through walls you know" one of the voices say. It seemed familiar to Harry, but he couldn't place it. That's when the two of them reached the top of the stairs, and he saw his two Herbology partners. He was curious as to why they were here but didn't say anything. He and Hermione were here to see who had spoken to that other voice earlier.
"You can listen you know, it's not like it was hard to hear, you're just lucky I pulled you out of view before he saw you." the voice that he now knew belonged to Tracey. Daphne huffed at this and they both concentrated on the door Harry and Hermione were keeping an eye on.
Harry found this curious but didn't think much of it until the two girls headed straight for it. Harry and Hermione shared a look that asked each other 'What do we do ?' until the two of them decided. They both got up at the same time and followed the two girls. Just when they were about to open the door Hermione popped out of the cloak. "What are you doing ?" she asked while the other two girls let out a low 'eep' at the sound. They hadn't noticed anyone after all.
"What are you doing ?" Daphne asked in a cold tone, but nowhere near as cold as the voice they'd heard earlier. Hermione seemed to stumble on this, so Harry decided it was his turn to intervene, so he hid behind a corner and removed his cloak. He didn't want people to know about it after all.
"Good evening ladies," all three of the girls' eyes flickered over to Harry "trying to get past Fluffy ?" Harry chuckled at the expression on their face full of confusion and intrigue.
"What or who is Fluffy ?" Daphne snapped at Harry, although he didn't know why she snapped at him, possibly because he obviously knew something she didn't he concluded.
"Oh so you came to see what was behind the door then."
"You already know ?" This time it was Tracey who asked, obviously she thought that with Daphne's tone, she wasn't going to find out what was behind the door.
"Of course we do, we've known since October actually." He saw a flicker of respect in Tracey's eyes but in Daphne's it was a flicker of annoyance.
"Good for you Potter, now just tell us, or we'll go see for ourselves." Harry nodded at this and led them through the door leading to the corridor before heading to the door at the far end of the corridor.
"Are you sure about this Harry, we could just tell them ?" Hermione asked, a bit of a nervous voice taking over her regular confidant voice.
"It'll be fine Hermione, we can just peek inside, I'll whistle the whole time, so it stays asleep. Hermione nodded at this. She stepped up to the door and unlocked it with the strongest 'alohamora' she could. They heard a click, and they pushed the door open.
What they didn't expect however was the trap door to be open with a harp playing a melodic sound. Harry and Hermione shared a look of worry when they saw this. It meant that someone had already passed Fluffy, and was currently down there. He hadn't even heard the gasp leave the other two girls had let out.
"What is this thing -" Tracey began talking loudly, but Harry put his hand over her mouth, and out a finger over his own mouth telling both girls to be quiet.
Harry pointed to the trap door to answer the question that he knew to be coming. The two of them seemed to understand but not fully.
"What's so special about the trap door ?" Daphne whispered to Harry as he removed zhis hand from Tracey's mouth.
"Someone's down there. Hermione and I, know what it is down there, and the person who is down there right now wants it for a purpose, and we came to find out what and who."
"What is it that's down there ?" Tracey asked in a whisper barely loud enough for Harry and Hermione to catch it.
"The Philosopher's stone" Hermione said after sharing a nod with Harry that they would share the information.
The two girls eyes widened at this. They had both heard of the legendary stone, but what confused them was, why would the stone be at Hogwarts. So they asked.
"After what we've gathered, it's here because Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel are friends and Dumbledore is protecting it." The two girls nodded their understanding. They all approached the trap door to see if they could spot anything at the bottom, but they couldn't.
Suddenly the harp stopped and the room got darker, as if a shadow was covering the room. They all seemed to understand what that meant. "Jump !" Harry said hastily to the other three. Hermione was the first to jump, closely followed by Tracey and then Daphne. Harry looked up and saw the dog's eyes fully on him, and that's when he heard growling. Without a moment's hesitation, he jumped down.
A/N: Thank you for all your reviews, I appreciate it a lot.
Replies:
Sorry about Cedric, I thought he was a seventh year in the fourth book, sorry.
Good point about the fact that it would only benefit Harry if he told Dumbledore about his Lordships. Due to that fact, Dumbledore will soon know :)
About Pettigrew being in the will, I find it's normal as the only way they would have been found would be if Pettigrew betrayed them or died and someone who knew the secret told Voldemort, and they knew he wasn't dead, ,so it had to be him that betrayed them. As for them mentioning the Dursleys, they know for a fact that Petunia, at least, doesn't like magic, so it wouldn't make sense to send him there.