This Harry Potter story was written for fun. All rights belong to the wonderful lady (JK Rowling) who gave the world Harry Potter to read and enjoy.
Printed Word in letters and newspapers.
{Parseltongue conversation}
[Hogwarts speaking to different characters in the story]
Christmas 1991 and January 1992It was his first time receiving any Christmas presents and Harry enjoyed the feelings that came from unwrapping the sweater and a tin of chocolates from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and the book from Hermione. When he touched the final present wrapped in plain brown paper, he felt a welcome joy and sense of family unlike anything before in his life. Once the package was open and the contents examined, it appeared to be a magical garment of some kind.
"It's a cloak that makes you invisible, Harry," declared Ron. "Put it on."
And so, the shimmering cloak wrapped around Harry Potter and he vanished.
In the headmaster's office where Albus Dumbledore slept late on Christmas morning, several silver monitoring devices chuffed and stopped for a time before beginning to work again as if nothing had changed. From Harry's magical core, more than one tracking or behaviour modification charm was simply erased and the magic used to sustain the charm was added into the cloak.
[Put the cloak back on your bed for a moment and assure your friend that you are in wonderful shape,] a voice instructed Harry. [He is going to report to Dumblemore about this morning so let's not give him anything to tell.]
"Wow, Harry! That's a powerful cloak! There wasn't any shimmer or hints you were in the room," Ron said, almost as if someone had prompted him on what to look for when Harry tried on a magical cloak.
"Are you sure? Look again," Harry said, swirling the cloak over his head and vanishing. And this time, Ron saw the wavy lines of light that could reveal a cloak in use.
"I guess it's just a regular cloak of invisibility," Ron agreed but then asked, "Can I borrow it to prank the twins sometime?"
"We'll see. It's the first thing I have ever had that belonged to my Dad."
"But he'd want you to share with your best friend and prank the twins."
"Let's go to breakfast!" Harry declared, folding the cloak up and slipping it into a pocket of his robes where it seemed to vanish. More interested in breakfast than more talk about Harry getting a great gift of a magical cloak, Ron hurried to dress and soon the two Gryffindor boys were thundering down the stairs and out into the common room. No one got between them and the Great Hall where breakfast was underway.
Later in the morning, Ron wanted to play chess but couldn't find Harry–his built-in and captive chess partner. Ron looked around the common room and the dormitory but then complained to Fred, "Harry's got a _ and ran off to play with it."
"Potter got a what?" asked Fred, not hearing his brother say anything.
Ron stared at his brother for a moment but then not remembering what his complaint was about Harry, he simply asked, "How about a chess match?"
Feeling generous, Fred agreed and spent almost an hour in a long, bloody match before conceding the game to his younger brother.
In a deserted and dusty classroom, Harry Potter quietly closed the door and moved closer to the dirty windows to examine this cloak in the weak winter sunlight. He spread the cloak out, lifted it above his head and dropped it onto his body.
[Hello Potter Heir,] said the same voice from earlier that day in the dormitory room.
[Hello. Who are you?] asked Harry. [Where are you? What are you?]
[Excellent! You are curious and we have a lot to teach each other. Now, you will call me Iggy. I took that name about five centuries ago to honour my original owner Ignotus Peverell. He lived many centuries ago before his family became the Potters and here we are.]
[How old are you, Iggy?]
Laughing the cloak explained, [I am not alive like you or even a dragon. I am enchanted artefact with a mind as sharp as a charms master after defeating a dark lord, magic as varied as the whole of the fairie court, and a determination to help you that is as great as a librarian with the collected works of Merlin delivered for him to catalogue.]
Snickering, Harry replied, [That's a lot of stuff. Can you explain it in muggle terms? I don't know much about magic yet.]
[Your mum helped me with a lot of muggle stuff, Heir Potter,] Iggy confessed. [We'll figure it out as we go along together.]
[Did you know my Mum and Dad?]
[I did. They used me to hide at Hogwarts when they were dating and wanted to get away from everyone.]
Harry stopped talking and thought for a long while and Iggy waited patiently until the boy asked, [How normal… how often do magical objects talk to wizards? Is talking with you okay? You aren't evil, are you?]
The cloak was silent for a moment before speaking again. [Fair question! There's someone else who wants to talk to you. Her name is Hogwarts and she is the castle and all the magic that built her. You have to reach out and touch the wall with the palm of your hand to hear her.]
Hesitant to speak to another object so soon after hearing the first one, Harry slowly lifted his hand and touched the nearby wall. The first sensation was love and happiness to touch Harry. Then he felt and understood three ideas that 'tasted' like a different magic than Iggy's magic. This magic was saying, [Safe. Friend. Protector.]
[When you are older and your magical core is larger, you may be able to talk to Hogwarts,] Iggy explained. [Right now, you just feel her emotions.]
That first conversation between Iggy and Harry continued for almost five hours in Harry's mind and when the cloak decided the boy had had enough, he brought Harry back to the dusty room where only fifteen minutes had passed.
[Now, as your cloak of invisibility, I am going to make a few changes.]
[Like what?] asked Harry. [My life is complicated enough!]
[Your mum and dad worked very hard to protect you from that stupid dark lord Voldie-shorts. That's the first thing I am going to do. And there are people here at Hogwarts who have ill-intentions toward you. When I figure them out, they will not be able to see you, find you, cast spells at you… anything.]
[What are ill-intentions? You mean like my uncle and my cousin?]
[What uncle and cousin?] asked Iggy. Once informed about the Dursleys, the cloak sighed and said, [We'll make certain they leave you alone this summer. Muggles are easy to send in another direction.]
Headmaster Albus Dumbledore never noticed the devices in his office were simple toys now and no longer true monitoring devices. He also seemed to forget about Harry Potter unless he concentrated very hard and then dealt with a headache afterwards. Ron Weasley continued to be Harry's friend but more casually now and no longer demanded all of Harry's time. Consequently, Hermione Granger's prompting for homework made a difference in Harry's classroom performance.
Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout both praised Harry's hard work but Professor McGonagall's sour face never softened when anyone mentioned 'Mr. Potter'. His performance in her class was excellent but she found herself with headaches when she tried to correct his behaviour or to chide him for some imagined infraction of the rules.
Professor Severus Snape approached 'Potter' in exactly the same manner the first day of classes in the New Year and woke in the infirmary the next morning, a blinding headache still incapacitating him. It was another day before he could rise from the bed and still another day before he could return to the classroom.
Professor Aurora Sinistra assumed the role of Head of House for Slytherin for the week and Snape spoke to no one outside of his potion classroom, taking all meals in his private chambers. Snape managed to restrain himself for the balance of January, but then in early February, he again attempted to 'attack' Harry Potter in the potions classroom.
When the Gryffindor first year students arrived for their potion's class that morning in February, Snape snarled at Harry Potter and caught the boy's eyes for only a moment before once again collapsing. When he finally awoke after two days in the infirmary, Headmaster Dumbledore insisted on examining Snape's memory of the event despite Mediwitch Pomphrey's warnings against doing anything like that.
His mind shielded (he thought), Dumbledore looked into Snape's eyes and fell into a whirlwind of a blinding mental attack from some entity that threw Dumbledore's probe backwards with extreme prejudice. Watching the headmaster fly backward across the next two infirmary beds, Poppy Pomphrey sighed before levitating Dumbledore fully onto the cot where he had landed. First, she checked Severus who was once against unconscious from the pain in his mind, and then she checked Albus who had a few broken ribs and a blinding headache. She set to work and patched both men up as best she could–headache potions could only be taken once a day and Poppy estimated that each man would suffer for several more days. For two days, both men remained insensate in her infirmary.
Early one morning, Professor Quirinus Quirrell came to her with a dog bite on his left arm that she treated without comment. The man had changed so much since the previous year, she hardly knew how to address him.
Immediately upon waking in late afternoon that day, Dumbledore staggered from the infirmary to check on a hidden treasure somewhere in the castle. The Cerberus had been wounded by someone the previous day but Hagrid treated Fluffy with potions and salves so the dog would recover without difficulty. And the other defences remained in place with the treasure safely hidden in the final trap, the Mirror of Erised.
Hogwarts watched all these things quietly. Her protections around the stone had grown stronger with every headache 'Dumblemore' suffered. Professor Quirrell might get through the defences set by the professors and the headmaster, but the castle kept the stone safe, hidden in plain sight as a stone embedded within the doorway to the kitchens. Hidden by the castle's magic and the flood of house elf magic in the area, no one would find it there.
Once his initial panic faded, Dumbledore slowly made his way to his office, ignoring the scowls from the portraits along the way, and the slow reaction of the gargoyle that protected his office. Standing still as the stairs rotated and lifted him into his office, Dumbledore steeled himself to wait until he had time to meditate and dispel the remnants of the headache before attempting to examine the memory from Snape's mind.
The next morning at breakfast, McGonagall informed Albus that she had hired a temporary potions professor, some non-entity from Gringotts the bank provided for a nominal fee 'until Severus could resume his duties'.
"Where is Severus?" Dumbledore asked, after nodding once at the witch seated in the place where Snape usually sat at the staff table.
"He remains in the infirmary and Poppy has forbidden anyone from visiting him. She has him in a dark room without any noise allowed in the area for all but thirty minutes a day. Something about treatment for a migraine headache." She paused before she said, "And I advise you to stay away from the infirmary. She swears what you did made Severus's headache much worse."
"It will all be resolved," Dumbledore assured his deputy who merely pursed her lips and determined to help keep the headmaster away from the infirmary.
It was another two days before he dared to open the memory from Snape's mind and the shortest possible glance still blinded the headmaster with enough pain that he remained in his office for the balance of the day.
'It felt almost like something from the wards here at Hogwarts… but stronger,' he finally decided though he locked every millisecond of the memory away behind the strongest locks in his mind.
Severus Snape remained bedridden in darkness for almost two weeks. When he returned to his rooms, all lights remained extinguished and the house elves cared for him very well in the darkness. In mid-February, Severus Snape appeared in the Great Hall for dinner one night but refused to return to the classroom. After an argument with Headmaster Dumbledore behind a privacy ward that the Weasley twins penetrated and allowed everyone in the hall to hear, Snape refused to ever set foot inside the potions classroom again.
"I will brew for you, but my days as a professor are ended, Dumbledore. When I look at any child – boy, girl, blond, dark, or bald, the headaches come rushing back. Leave me alone or I shall share the headache with you once again!"
Life for everyone in the castle–except for a lone Slytherin first year named Draco Malfoy–improved with Snape's now permanent absence from the classroom. He was available as a consultant for the seventh-year students who were working toward their NEWTTS and he brewed high-quality potions for the infirmary and for Dumbledore to provide to his allies in the Wizengamot. Professor Phoebe Pretzel was extremely popular with her first year and second year students. She reviewed brewing and potion qualities for all of January and February and began teaching the students how to brew properly in March.
Draco Malfoy remained in continual detention because in every potions class, he tried to sabotage the potion cauldron of some student in Gryffindor. Finally, Professor Sinistra and Professor Pretzel met with Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy about Draco's behaviour and attitude.
Mrs. Malfoy asked to view some of Professor Pretzel's memories before asking to speak alone with her husband and son. Professor Pretzel and Professor Sinistra remained in the potion professor's office while Mrs. Malfoy spoke with her husband and son in the classroom. Even with the door closed, the two professors heard the loud bangs as Narcissa Malfoy nee Black expressed her disappointment in her much-beloved son to her tolerated husband. Draco was amazed at his mother's power and spell selection as his father was slammed against the walls of the classroom without being able to shield himself from the embarrassed and angry witch. Then Narcissa Malfoy turned her attention to her son and the boy felt fear and shame to have disappointed his beautiful mother.
When the Malfoy family returned to the office, Draco apologised to his head of house for causing a problem that required his parents to visit, and then he apologized to the potions professor and offered to continue aiding her with cleaning cauldrons for an additional week without being assigned such as detention.
"And your behaviour in our class?" asked Professor Pretzel.
The boy inclined his head in a proper pureblood manner before replying, "I shall be a model student and diligently work to brew my potion properly as well as helping any other student as needed."
Lucius Malfoy remained silent as his wife thanked both professors for their diligence and care in the education of her son.