There is a disclaimer on all previous chapters and I do not recommend you reading this or any subsequent chapters before the earlier ones. There are many concepts, traditions, spells, characters and more within that are my own, however and while I cannot compel other writers to credit me in their own works, I would really appreciate it. This is a major reimagining of the original narrative of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and really needs to be read from the start.

TTTTTTTTTTT

Chapter 33: New Year, New Faces, New Feelings.

Life at Hogwarts ground almost to a halt between Christmas and New Year. On the twenty-seventh of December a huge snowstorm blew in from the north leaving only the top two feet of the eight foot tall main doors free of snow.

The window-rattling rain and howling wind kept Harry and Ron awake until four am when it eased off. They emerged from Gryffindor tower just before midday to find breakfast laid on late for the few inhabitants of the castle who had been kept awake by the weather.

The days passed and another great feast and party was put on to celebrate New Year's. Harry, Ron and the twins spent the bulk of their time practicing and for a while Harry forgot about his search for family.

TTTTTTTTTTTT

The Hogwarts Express returned on the fifth of January, bringing with it not only Harry's other friends, but also three friends of Dumbledore to help with the security of the Forbidden Forest.

Harry, Ron and the twins were at dinner when the carriages arrived from Hogsmeade. Hagrid walked in first, throwing the great main doors wide and letting in a howl of frigid air along with several hundred shivering, excited students.

The other first year Gryffindors all ran over to join them and the twins beat a hasty retreat back higher up the table as soon as they saw Wood and the other members of the quidditch team enter.

After all the students had ran through, three adult appeared in the entrance hall, stamping snow from their cloaks and boots before walking up the length of the hall. Dumbledore, back in his normal place at the head table, stood and walked round to greet them. As they foursome passed, Harry tried to take them all in.

The first was a large black man with a smoothly gleaming head and shining dark eyes. Unlike most wizards Harry had encountered, he wasn't wearing robes, but looked more like a muggle soldier with trousers covered in many pockets and a heavy jacket. He had a gold hoop in one ear and Harry thought he could see the top of a tattoo just peeping out of the top of his jacket.

The second was a tiny woman, scarcely taller than Ron who was wearing a simple robe of gleaming white linen and sandals and was carrying a long, twisted staff of some pale wood. Her thick brass-coloured hair flowed freely down her back, tied in a simple knot and her feet were dry. She didn't seem to have been ruffled in any way by the cruel weather outside. Harry couldn't see a wand on her and wondered if she was one of the exceptions to users of wands that McGonagall had mentioned.

The second woman was almost the opposite of the first: Middle-eastern, she was very tall and broad, she strode in long, slow and deliberate steps down the length of the hall. She was wearing robes, but robes unlike anything Harry had ever seen before. Where most robes were loose-fitting and billowy, great for mysterious movements or flashy incantations, this woman's sleeves were cut short to the elbow and the body had been tailored in, cinching her narrow waist. Below the waist, the robe was less full than others and had a long slash up her right leg almost to hip level under which she wore skin-tight leggings of some smooth matt-look material that didn't look like wool, linen or cotton. She wore a belt with two long, narrow sheathes on each side, each holding a wand, making Harry think of gunslingers in old films that Uncle Vernon had enjoyed.

The fourth person's appearance was by far the most alarming. He was a white man of middle height with long grizzled hair the colour of iron tied into a messy ponytail. He walked, leaning on a thick staff just too long to be a cane that was so twisted and gnarled that it looked like it had been torn straight from a tree and capped for walking. His staff mirrored its owner, who limped heavily and every other step sounded a loud wooden "thunk". Looking down, Harry saw the man had a wooden leg ending in a clawed foot with three toes, each tipped with metal points. The man was horrifically scarred over most of his visible skin and there was a large chunk missing from his nose. He turned and stared right at Harry as he passed, revealing that at some point he had lost his right eye which had been replaced by one that took the breath away from everyone at the Gryffindor table. Where the man's remaining real eye was green, squinting and suspicious, the new one was electric blue, completely round, at least twice the size of the other and appeared to be mounted into the vacated socket. There was no iris to the eye, but the pupil roved around, spinning inside his head and back to Harry which it followed unerringly as the foursome walked past.

'Hi Kingsley!' shouted a girl from further up the table. Every eye in the hall immediately turned on her as she waved. Harry had a vague idea that her name was Imogen, but beyond that he knew nothing of the pretty mixed-race girl with a huge cloud of fuzzy brown hair. Looking back, the tall black wizard raised a large hand and waved back with a wink.

Dumbledore was joined by McGonagall as they met the newcomers.

'My dear friends!' he said, holding his arms out and embracing each in turn. The scarred man stiffened visibly when it came to his turn but he bore the hug without complaint before accepting a kiss on the cheek from McGonagall willingly enough.

'Albus, it's been too long.' Said the solider-looking man, shaking Dumbledore's hand.

'It has indeed, I'm very glad you could all come.' Dumbledore said, leading the foursome to the head table where he cleared his throat and addressed the whole hall. 'First of all, welcome back from your winter holidays. I would like you all to welcome the four individuals next to me. They are: Kinglsey Shacklebolt,' he indicated the black man, 'Seren Greenleaf,' the tiny woman, 'Nina Cadarn,' the gunslinger, 'and last but never least, Alastor Moody.' He paused long enough for the rumbling whispers to die down before continuing. 'They are all here at my request to lend a hand in an issue that has arisen in the Forbidden Forest that demands specialist attention if the forest is to be suitable for the Defence Against the Dark Arts NEWT year examinations that are going to be taking place in early February. You may see them in and around the castle over the next several weeks and Kingsley and Nina will be filling in cover for all D.A.D.A classes for all years until they leave. All four of them are good friends of Hogwarts, but I will ask you all not to harass them with questions when out of lessons. Now, to dinner!' He said finally, waving his arm and renewing all the food on the tables for the newcomers before leading the four guests and the rest of the teachers and Hagrid out through the teachers' door.

The room burst into excited shouting the moment the door clicked shut. Speculations and conspiracy theories on every subject from the NEWT exams to the escape of Quirrell from St. Mungo's. The conversation was so loud that people sitting at the same table had to shout for their neighbours to hear. The first years spent the rest of dinner going over all the things they'd received for Christmas and Harry, feeling very guilty for not buying any of his friends anything, apologised profusely until they told him to be quiet.

'Don't worry, you can buy me a double-gift for my birthday in March!' laughed Fay.

Two hours after they had arrived back, Professor Flitwick re-entered the hall and dismissed dinner, telling them that all students had free time until nine o'clock when they had to all be back in their dormitories. A few seconds later, Harry noticed that his glasses were becoming smudged. As he was about to pull them off for a quick clean on his robes, he saw that the smudges were actually tiny words written on the outside of the lenses.

"Alright scar-head, coming to the clubhouse?"

Harry stood, wiping his glasses clean and saw Lee Jordan, Fred and Boris all leaning on the doors to the hall smiling at him. There was a strange neon-orange quill in Lee's hand with which he wrote in the air and words again appeared immediately on Harry's glasses.

"Take that for a yes?"

Harry laughed aloud and nodded.

TTTTTTTTTTTT

Harry and Fay arrived at the clubhouse on the third floor thirty minutes later having managed to leave the others behind. The windows were magically blacked out and when they moved inside they were suddenly blasted by a wall of sound.

Music was playing at ear-splitting volume from the throats of a dozen grammar phone horns that had been wired together with lengths of wire.

Inside the bubble of magical darkness was bedlam. The clubhouse was as full as Harry had ever seen it with students of all years dancing, drinking and - on a couple of the enormous old sofas – snogging.

Boris was the first person Harry specifically recognised and the big seventh year gave him a big thumbs-up and a wink as he carried on dancing with a fiery haired Hufflepuff girl.

Harry and Fay wandered around, taking glasses of iced pumpkin juice from a table near the door and wandered around. They recognised most people they saw and chatted briefly before wandering on until they ran into Oliver Wood who was perched on the edge of an armchair, chin resting on his fist, deep in concentration, his brow knitted so tightly it looked like a map of a very hilly area.

'What's the matter Oliver?' Harry asked, waving a hand in front of Wood's blank face.

Wood blinked twice and focussed on Harry. 'Oh, hi Harry, nothing really, just having trouble with the team line up again: Kristiana found me in the hall and resigned as seeker, so we're back to square one.'

'I love quidditch,' said Fay, 'I want to try out next year when I can bring my broom from home. I want to be a chaser.'

'You'll have some stiff competition from Angelina, Alicia and Katie. It's not chasers we need right now, though.'

'Is there no one you can think of?' Harry asked.

Oliver shrugged. 'Alicia played reserve seeker last year but she's a better chaser. I might have to put her back as seeker and find someone to replace her as chaser.'

'Why don't you hold another tryout, just open it up to the whole house? There has to be someone in Gryffindor that's good enough.'

'I wouldn't be so sure.' Wood grumbled, 'they'd have to beat him.' He looked up his eyes flicking across the room to a tall, very handsome boy wearing a Huffelpuff yellow sweater and somehow still looking good in it.

'Cedric Diggory?' Asked Harry.

Wood nodded. 'Yep, he's in fourth year now and he's taking over from Sammy Brooker who can't handle the pressure of being seeker for the house team and her NEWTs. He's really good too and has eight weeks to train before we play Hufflepuff.'

Fay giggled and turned away from looking at Diggory who was sitting so close to the girl next to him that their knees were touching.

'Yeah, I need to have it all sorted out soon.'

Fay managed to stop grinning. 'Harry's right you know, why not just have another try out? No one will knock you for it because Kristiana quit didn't she?'

'I'll think about it, s'cuse me.' Wood said, standing and walking off in a bit of a daze.

Harry and Fay drank more of their pumpkin juice – which tasted a little odd – and carried on moving through the party.

The music changed while they were talking to Selene Reacher, the sixth year who had been chosen as that year's representative of the Junior Dark Force Defence League.

'I love this song.' Fay said.

Harry listened to the song and the lyric "Rhythm is a dancer, it's a soul companion, you can feel it everywhere."

All around the room people were cheering at the song.

'Come and dance!' Fay said, grabbing Harry's hand, 'This is being played everywhere back at home.'

Harry was dragged along a few steps before realising he'd never danced before and noticing how all the girls in the room were headed into the middle to dance and sing, the boys were holding back, forming a distinct line of separation.

'I… I don't dance,' he said, trying to pull his hand free.

'Don't be silly, everyone dances!' Fay said, laughing.

'No, no you dance, I'll watch, I'll join in later.'

Harry didn't, but he watched Fay from the sidelines, feeling less exposed and more comfortable standing with Fred and George who were watching Angelina and several other girls dance. As he looked at Fred and George, he thought they looked hungry somehow, despite having helped devour piles of snacks and pints of the weird-tasting pumpkin juice. Fay danced for what seemed like hours and as he watched, Harry felt something change inside him; a wave of some feeling he couldn't understand or describe that made him forget about all the bad things that had happened in his life, which changed everything about him in a tiny way. In that frozen, frantic hour, he became dimly aware that the dark, cold part of him had never known and that he wouldn't understand for a very long time. It was in the way she jumped, the way she laughed and the way she tucked her hair behind her ear. It was the shape of her jaw and the shape of her hands.

The thing he knew was vague and barely formed but at the same time carved as if by diamond blade on his soul. He knew that there was something in the world he cared about more than his own life.

TTTTTTTTTTTT

Read and review please, don't pull any punches.

CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK IS ALWAYS WELCOME