When Envy walked into breakfast the next morning with Ron and Hermione, everyone near the doors fell silent. The rest of the students were quick to notice what they were all staring at, and also stopped talking. Then the whispers rose, and a flood of questions rushed toward the three of them.

"What happened down there?"

"Is Harry okay?"

"Is it true that the Philosopher's Stone was under the school?"

"Are—"

"Ahem."

Everyone froze and looked toward the front table, where McGonagall was gazing down in disapproval.

"This is breakfast, not a press conference."

There was a general feeling of embarrassment and the students returned to their meals, glancing at the subjects of their interest every once in awhile.

When the trio sat down at the Gryffindor table, a wave of people craned their necks to see them, but McGonagall sent them back to their food with a sharp glare.

They ate mostly in silence, the only exceptions being when they asked for someone to pass the ketchup, or some such thing, and when they agreed that it was time to leave.

As soon as breakfast ended and the students had exited the Great Hall, the questions started again. They were almost exactly the same as before.

Envy proudly explained what had happened in explicit detail, leaving nothing out and relishing in the attention. Ron looked a little crestfallen, as he wasn't the one regaling the other students with their adventure, but out of the three of them, Envy had made it farthest through the chamber and therefore knew more then the entire quad excluding Harry. Hermione shared what she had done after she had gone back through the flames—speaking of which, she had been quite worried when Envy didn't follow her and was relieved when he arrived at the Hospital Wing unharmed.

After that, the questions were few, which was good as it gave them peace. They mostly lay around, anxiously waiting for Harry to wake up. By the second day after the whole Stone adventure, their friend's bedside table was overflowing with get well cards and magic sweets. Ron had already eaten several of Harry's Chocolate Frogs, and was disappointed each time when he didn't get an Agrippa card.

The second day also happened to be the last Quidditch match of the school year—and Ravenclaw flattened Gryffindor. Even Hermione, who wasn't sure why anyone liked Quidditch, was mournful about the whole thing, but there was always next year.

Envy could remember one of the Bludgers coming so close that it grazed his nose—he still had the scrape because he hadn't bothered going to Madam Pomfrey about it.

The third day, Envy and Ron were neck-deep in a game of exploding snap and Hermione was rereading their Potions textbook when they were informed that Harry had regained consciousness.

As they had been hoping to get the chance to do for the past few days, they leapt to their feet and, without further ado, sprinted to the Hospital Wing.

Indeed, Harry was sitting up in bed looking quite healthy, and also very happy to see them. Despite being given just five minutes to chat, Harry took a whole ten minutes explaining everything. The others gasped at all the right moments, but Envy just let various emotions flit across his face—he was used to situations similar to this, after all, although the fights he used to get in always used alchemy rather than magic.

He was a bit shocked to find out that Voldemort had been sticking out of the back of Quirrell's head (how did that even work?), and angry to hear how touching Quirrell had hurt Harry.

He really was turning out like the Fullmetal shrimp.

"What happened with you, Envy?"

Harry's words snapped him out of his thoughts. "Well, I just stood around and heard a lot of yelling. Eventually Dumbledore came along and got rid of the fire, and we came and got you," he said with a shrug. "So, nothing much."

Harry nodded and they continued to chat for bit before Madam Pomfrey came in and shooed them away.

'-'

"Aww man!" Envy groaned. He was barely able to hear himself over the cheering. "I don't really like the Slytherins, but this is completely unfair!"

"Come on, mate!" Ron's grin looked like it was about to split his face in two. "We haven't won in years, and besides, we deserved those points."

Envy gave a sigh of mock resignation. "Yes, you're right. At least I got some points too." It was true—Envy had received twenty-five points for something-or-other. Something about friends.

Friends.

Humans were so much better than Father had made them out to be.

'-'

The next morning, other Slytherins couldn't be bothered to pick on Envy—everyone was too busy trying to get packed in time.

Envy's owl, which he had called Nipper due to its tendency to snap at his fingers, finally came back just as he was about to leave the castle, much to his relief. It bit a lock of his hair in greeting and flew into the open owl cage strapped to Envy's trunk.

As slips of parchment saying they weren't allowed to use magic during the summer had been handed out earlier, they made the most of their magic on the train—making objects fly about their compartment, repairing things that they happened to break, and practicing different transfigurations. That last bit was mostly Envy.

They made it to Kings Cross Station all too soon. Envy stuck around long enough to be hugged by Ron's mother (which gave him a nice, warm feeling), see Harry's unpleasantly walrus-like uncle, as well as his horse-like aunt and and fat cousin, and have a short but not uncomfortable chat with Hermione's parents, who were dentists.

Then he was off, back to the orphanage.

'-'

When Envy opened the door, he was greeted by a cry of, "Mr. Novus!" and a large hug from Eliza Todd, who seemed to have missed him, despite his supposed bad behavior in the past.

"Oh, everyone will be so happy to see you!" Eliza didn't seem to realize how disliked he was. She pulled him to another room where all the children were sitting around doing various activities.

They stopped when Mrs. Todd cleared her throat, and that's when they all saw Envy.

The loud girl from when he first woke up, Abigail, groaned. "Did he have to come back?"

Envy couldn't stop the the grin that stretched across his face. "I'm home, brats!"

'-'

That night, lying on his cot, Envy could help thinking about what he'd seen in the Mirror of Erised.

Standing there had been himself—surrounded by friends.

I have now discovered that "Hospital Wing" isn't capitalized. *face-keyboard* I'm going to keep capitalizing it, though, for the sake of consistency. I could go back and edit, of course . . .

Anyway, this chapter should not have taken this long. It's also a few hundred words short of what I would have preferred. *sigh* Well, that's okay. It's the end of the school year in the fic, it has every right to be short. I also meant to post this way earlier today, but I got sidetracked and my computer was being slow.

Hope you all enjoyed that! Next book shall be started in the next chapter, everyone be prepared for an encounter with Gilderoy Lockhart! :D Please leave a review. Pleeeeeeease. It's the last chapter of first year, after all!

-Quiet Leaf