I've totally been distracted by Umbrella Academy and have written two chapters of a new fic. I still brought you this though. Enjoy x.

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He sat in the back of the classroom with Nott at his side, half listening to the Astronomy teacher's opening lecture about the year ahead and what they would be covering and what was expected of them. Much the same as all their teachers that week. Harry wasn't sure why they had to have the class at night when the actual stars were out. Surely someone had come up with a magical equivalent to those projection things, a home planetarium. Dudley had had one for about all of five seconds before he broke it.

It was a much better view than he would have got back in Surrey had he been locked out for the night. There wasn't a muggle town for miles and Hogsmeade only had a few lamps. The sky was awash with stars. That didn't mean he wanted to stay up late every Wednesday, freezing, as he charted the constellations and other heavenly bodies.

He was a bit curious on how the stars or even the moon had an affect on magic though. They'd learnt a bit about the solar system in science class at his primary school. Harry knew that the stars they were looking at were so very, very far away that the light they were looking at was millions of years old. Some of the stars in the sky had died, exploded into supernova millions of years ago and that they wouldn't be able to tell until the light reached the Earth. There were probably new stars out there too that they couldn't see yet, whose light hadn't reached them. Did the magic move with the light?

He might have enjoyed pondering that thought if it weren't for the tension headache that was forming behind his eyes.

Nott was taking notes beside him so Harry decided to slip into his mindscape and begin to unravel his problem and hopefully relive his headache. He kept enough awareness of his surroundings so he would recognise his voice or know if the door behind him opened.

The even corridors created by the tall shelves was just the same as it normally was. It was lit in pleasant peach sunset tones from unseen windows. Familiar oak shelves held familiar books and familiar nick-knacks and placeholders. Strolling deeper in he came to the wider space created to house the invading memories that had appeared in his mindscape not half an hour earlier.

They swarmed in a tight circle, rolling and roiling over each other, seemingly attacking the edges of the magic that held them in place. They reminded him of piranha or some other deadly fish, ready to clean his bones of flesh within moments. But he was holding them at bay; it wasn't even a strain.

One memory chain hung outside the others, in mid-air twirling on a non-existent breeze. The memories themselves were like liquid mirror, warping gracefully and wrapped around each of them, but in no way binding them, were delicate silvery chains. Instinctively he knew that each memory was different, held different knowledge, had happened at different times but through all ran a common thread, a common theme that linked the knowledge together into a whole picture.

It was the thread he had pulled at subconsciously when the invasion had peaked. Nott hadn't spoken about anything like it when they were talking about risks and Harry was hesitant to tell him. He just didn't know him well enough yet and after a lifetime looking out for himself against the world, he couldn't just trust someone he didn't know.

He reached out and touched the thread. Like before, almost as if someone was reading him the title, the word Occlumency popped into his head. The Art of protecting ones mind from outside influences. Something he wanted to know about.

He reached out with both hands and sort of absorbed the knowledge held in his imaginary palms. Suddenly he knew what he had been doing. He'd created a shield and imprisoned a perceived intruder in his mindscape. It was made of magic and he could use something similar to protect his whole mind.

He'd been practising the beginner steps to Occlumency his whole life with his visualisation and memory techniques accidentally. Like he had known without knowing. He had a problem though. Without knowing his mind could be attacked or infiltrated, and it could with Legilimency, he had left himself wide open for attack. Anyone with the skill could waltz into his mind and , thanks to Harry's organisation skills, find anything they wanted. Anything he had experienced, anything he knew. They could know it to. Or change it.

Anyone rifling around his head was unacceptable. It was his and his alone.

But a problem for later, as he needed to know what was going on with the foreign memories that were swirling in front of him. Knowing now what he did about the Mind Arts, he delicately used his magic to pull out some of the memories without releasing the rest of the storm on himself. It was a familiar sensation although not one he had ever experienced. Concentrating he followed the familiarity to the ball of memories before him.

The first memory he pulled out was of a boy. He was in one of the Slytherin bedrooms. He climbed under the bed with green sheets that matched Harry's own, when he was sure he was alone and carved his name to the underneath of it with a pocket knife. Harry had always wanted one, he'd reached for it even though he had never owned one. There were other names there too. Hogwarts alumni probably going back centuries. Tom Riddle.

The next showed an older Tom. Out of Hogwarts and working in Knockturn Alley. A place called Borgin and Burkes. It was primarily a pawn shop but Borgin dealt on the side in questionable artefacts and books. Tom had worked in the front sometimes and tidied up and sorted through inventory but his favourite part had been acquisition. Spotting the treasure among the rubbish. Finessing people into selling their family heirlooms to him at a much lower price than they had originally been willing.

All the while he had been collecting and amassing knowledge, acquiring magical power and gaining political capital. He began lobbying the Wizengamot and rallying the people but nothing was working. He was losing his patience. The Knights of Walpurgis weren't enough.

The last began in semi-darkness and Harry struggled to see what was happening. People moved around him. Then a light flared and he caught sight of Tom. He had changed, his skin was pallid instead of porcelain, his pale blue eyes burnt a blood red, his handsome features distorted until what was left was reptilian and repelling. He waved an arm and the people around him moved forwards, spells flying from their wands. Across from them was a building and in the moment he could not recognise it because he suddenly knew who Tom was.

The Dark Lord Voldemort.

Harry pulled away from each memory and absently watched them hover in front of him. The first had been emerald green and felt sort of hopeful and determined. The second had been made up of two or three parts and seemed metallic and pointy. The last didn't just hang suspended like the other two, it moved slightly side-to-side and dripped without ever dripping a dark rusty colour.

They were the Dark Lord's memories. In his head. A lot of things made a sudden sort of sense. Impulses he'd never been able to explain. Things he'd sort of just known. Why he had such an urgency to buy a wand even though at the time he hadn't known why he had thought it so important. Why the common room felt so familiar and why he felt like he already knew the castle when he'd only just gotten there. Hell, maybe it was why he had been so quick to believe in magic when everyone around him was telling him it was impossible.

Obviously something more had happened that night than Voldemort losing his power. He'd left something with Harry.

He put the memories about Occlumency in his pocket to find a place for it later and used his Occlumency to make the memories follow him. He walked to the back edge of his library and built a door like the door on the Restricted section in Hogwarts Library. When he pushed the door open he found a room much like the one he had left behind except it was marginally darker, the shelves were mahogany and it was much smaller and cramped.

The pulled the writhing mass of memories in with him and closed the door so none could escape, before he released them. He roped the memories of magic Tom had studied and shoved them to the front shelves leaving personal memories to shuffle themselves further back.

He locked the door behind him with four heavy padlocks. It would have to do for now.

Harry knew he wouldn't feel happy until he knew every inch of his brain again. Everything had seriously unbalanced him and he needed time to recover. He would go through everything tomorrow. And he would try to decide how he felt about have the-most-evil-wizard-in-living-memories' memories stored in his head.

Part of him was freaking out, screaming 'What the FUCK does this mean!' but another, larger, probably the Slytherin in him, was saying Tom Riddle went to Hogwarts. He studied all kinds of things, must have to be as worshiped as he was. And all that knowledge was in his head to do with what he pleased. It had already helped him by providing him with Occlumency shields and pointing out a giant flaw in his mindscape that someone might have taken advantage of. Not everything in the Wizarding world was going to be learnable through books and he had to know he didn't know something to ask Nott about it.

He filled the Occlumency memory chain on an appropriate shelf, leaving it looking as it did.

He had to be careful. He had to watch his behaviour and his thinking. Making sure it was only him and that he hadn't been affected in some way. He didn't feel like he was about to go on a murderous rampage but that was right then. He would be on high alert.

He would practise his Occlumency shields every night and begin building traps and tricks into his mindscape. He would begin to sort through the Dark Lord's memories for anything useful but that would take some time. He would control his magics, he would control his mind and continue to improve his body. Soon he would be able to manage three full meals a day without throwing it all back up and he would begin jogging in the mornings.

He had everything under control.

Harry came back to the class room as Professor Sinatra handed out their individual star maps that they would be filling out as the year went on to get a proper feel for the sky above. Nott side eyed him and he thought he had probably noticed him check out. Nott just twisted his notes so that Harry could read them in the hazy blue lights that were around the edges of their desks so they could see without losing view of the stars.

He picked up his quill and jotted down the main bullet points of the lecture he had missed. For a moment his handwriting shifted into something familiar as he remembered writing a random essay through Tom's eyes. Muscle memory, he reasoned. But nothing was really in the body was it? It was all in the mind, that was what really remembered. Either way the quill was easier to use.

He managed to get it so it looked more like his handwriting and less like Tom's but it was neater than he had managed with a quill so far. He would probably have to re-write the essays he had done so far for continuity. He couldn't let anyone know he had someone else's memories and he could already imagine the uproar if anyone found out they were the Dark Lord's. Some people thought he was the next Dark Lord just because he had been sorted into Slytherin. It would be no use adding fuel to the fire.

He received his empty star chart and they were finally dismissed.

"You alright?" Nott murmured once they were back in Slytherin territory, hanging back from the others a bit.

He hummed an affirmative.

Harry changed into his pyjamas in the bathroom once they had gotten back and brushed his teeth. As he did he remembered the spell for cleaning your teeth. It was in the second year charms textbook. He hadn't actually seen any of the others clean their teeth and he wondered if they all knew the spell already.

He only had half a tube of tooth paste and he had began rationing it straight away wondering how he was going to make it last a year. Suddenly he had the answer. He wouldn't have to. He just had to learn the charm. He knew their were other personal grooming spells, he over heard a group of girls talking about it and had listened with half an ear, storing the information. He knew they didn't need a lot of power but some where a bit finicky. He didn't want to turn his teeth green or lose them all together.

By the time he had gotten back in the room the others were all passed out in their beds. He put away his stuff back into his trunk and hung his uniform back in his wardrobe ready for the morning. He set his alarms around the wardrobe. On impulse he found himself on his knees and slipping under the four-poster bed.

Names had been carved into the base. A long list; some of them were familiar. A Malfoy had slept in his bed and probably all the beds. A Burke, a Nott, a Black, another Malfoy. Three before the end, Tom Riddle. He climbed back out, opening his trunk and pulling out the small knife he had bought to sharpen his quills. Crawling back under he soon added his own name to the list of Slytherin Alumni. The first Potter on the list. It had been eight hundred years since one of his ancestors was sorted into the House of Snakes. That was what the Bloody Baron had said and he had been at Hogwarts since nearly the beginning according to Hogwarts, A History.

That was a long time.

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The next day started with a headache followed by transfiguration. The very walls of Hogwarts seemed to hum more noticeably than before and he thought it was purposefully brushing against him, as a giant invisible cat might. It was like the castle was aware that he was aware. He was even picking up on something almost female about it. Her.

Colours he hadn't seen before moved around and through his classmates bodies, flaring with emotion or as a spell was cast. Doors and tapestries and portions of staircases glowed slightly. It was like he had peeled back a layer of reality but it was a really distracting and bright section of reality. He knew he probably was beginning to get almost noticeably twitchy before him and Nott had even made it to the Great Hall.

He strengthened his Occlumency barriers as he had been practising since he had awoken that morning, focusing on his body. He wasn't going to draw attention to himself. Nott was already looking at him funny and that was more than enough.

He managed to eat three rations of bacon, two slices of buttered toast, two fried eggs and a sausage as he subtly looked around the Great Hall. The field of colours whirled around the student body like an ocean with its own currents and eddies. The teachers were much more restrained but he could see the colours shift just the same; there was noticeably more of it and it was brighter than the children. Even the projection of the sky outside that sat above them was subtly effected by the magics below it. Around the edges of the illusion he could see the magic that linked it to the walls and floors of the Great Hall, anchored to the building itself. It was a more impressive piece of magic looking at it like that.

He led Nott to another short cut so they got to Transfiguration with plenty of time and found seats together at the back of the class. A cat sat on the desk in front of them. It wasn't uncommon. Familiars were given practically free reign of the castle, especially animals like cats and owls. Some followed their masters to classes and the Great Hall.

But as Harry looked at the cat he noted that it didn't have the small, dull shift of browns he had noticed in other animals. The cats aura, for lack of better word, was strong and bright, shifting like that of the teachers he had seen at breakfast. It was a wizard.

An Animagus, his brain supplied. A witch or wizard that could turn them selves into an animal at will. It wasn't a transfiguration. There wasn't a wand movement or an incantation to trigger the change. In fact you didn't even need a wand. It was a very difficult process though. And you didn't pick the animal, it was a refection of the wizard in some way.

Everyone was settled, getting out their parchment and quills and Harry hadn't taken his eyes of the cat that sat assessing the students in front of it.

"What is it?" Nott asked from besides him.

"It's an Animagus." He murmured back as low as he could, leaning in slightly.

"Huh?" Nott watched the it with narrowed brown eyes. "I did hear that McGonagall was one."

"Don't be so obvious." Harry told him and Nott went back to reaching into his bag for something.

It was then that two Gryffindors burst through the doors at a run. They slowed down as they made their way down the middle aisle.

The Ginger one made a loud huffing noise and laughed. He was a Weasley, the sixth son. Nott had said that he thought Dumbledore had done a favour for the Weasleys by giving all their children a place at Hogwarts, places they couldn't afford on their own. Mrs Weasley's brothers had died working for Dumbledore in the last War.

"She's not here yet." He said to his companion.

Next to him was Seamus Finnegan. His mother was an Irish witch from a Pureblood family. He'd heard that she married a muggle man and didn't tell him about magic until Seamus got his Hogwarts letter. Seamus had described it as a 'bit of a nasty shock'. Harry wondered how long the relationship would last. One with a secret that huge couldn't be a healthy one.

Then the cat was leaping off the table towards them. Mid-air she changed and took the form of their very stern professor.

"Take your seats Mr Weasley, Mr Finnigan." She said as she looked down on them. "If you make a habit of being late to your classes I shall see about turning one of you into a pocket watch. Surely then you will be on time."

"We got lost, Professor." Finnigan pipped up as they shuffled into two seats on the Gryffindor side of the room.

"Perhaps a map then." She cleared hr throat and turned back to the classroom. Unrolling a long scroll she began calling their names out and marking off on the register. Once she was done she rolled it up at put it on her very organised desk.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts." She said. "Anyone messing around in any class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. Some made impressed noises and whispered to their neighbours. They proceeded in taking a lot of complex notes about the basic tenets of transfiguration. He'd read just over half of their text book and he knew to be good at transfiguration one had to be good at visualisation and be creative. Harry thought he had both of those down.

The theory was a bit harder to get his head around but by the time they were moving on to the practical he was pretty sure he understood. Professor McGonagall handed out matches to each of them and went over the incantation one more time.

With the familiar warmth of his wand in his hand, Harry practised the wand movement a few times to make sure he was getting it right. Then he took a moment to picture the needle he was going to change the match into. It was silver, pointy at one end, a small eyelet at the other for the thread to go through. He'd spent time sewing, darning socks and repairing whatever Petunia threw his way.

Then he moved his wand, said the incantation, holding the image of the needle in his mind. He felt his magic shift and flow down his wand. The match shifted becoming metallic and pointy. He picked it up. It felt like metal in his fingers. He rubbed it across his desk. It didn't light and the metal of the symmetrical eyelet didn't even tarnish. He'd done it!

Now what?

The Professor was at the front of the class leaning over someone's desk. Nott was still trying to get his match pointier as it was made of metal now even if it was the wrong shape. He looked back at the Professor and saw her stand up straight and give the class a once over. He lifted his hand into the air.

"Yes, Mr Potter?" She asked with pinched lips when she had reached his desk.

"I've done it, Professor." He showed her his transfigured needle.

She picked it out of his hand and he subtly wiped his hand against his robes to get rid of the itch she had left behind as her fingers brushed his hand.

"Well done, Mr Potter. Two points to Slytherin." She said as looked it over. "Your father was always good at transfiguration. It was his best subject."

She said it as if that explained why he had done so well. He refused to let his face shift from polite respect even as he wished to tell her his father had nothing to do with it. He'd read ahead and tried to understand the theory unlike some people in the class.

"Thank you, Professor." He nodded to her.

"Why don't you help Mr Nott there." She said as she turned away back to the Gryffindor said of the class.

"Do you want my help?" He said through his teeth without turning to look at Nott.

"No, I've almost got it." He answered before repeating the incantation again.

He looked back to the needle his professor had left on his desk. He finite'd it and returned it to it's match-like shape. Then he pictured another needle, slightly bigger than the match, with intricate vine design going round it in a spiral pattern until it formed a point at one end and split to shape the eyelet at the other. He spent a bit more time picturing it than he had the first, trying to remember all the details from all sides.

When he said the incantation again he put a little more power into it to compensate for the added size. The match shifted once more and what he had imagined appeared on his desk in front of him. He glanced a Nott and saw him blinking at the intricate needle in front of him.

Nott gave him an acknowledging nod before turning back to his own nearly perfect needle, at least in look. It turned out it was still as soft as the wood it had been originally by the end of the lesson. McGonagall had given Granger five points when she achieved her transfiguration though.

It was a double so they had lunch followed by their first Défense against the Dark Arts lesson with Professor Quirrell. The whole room stunk of garlic. Word had already spread through the Slytherin grapevine that Quirrell was useless and the older students had started organising independent study groups so they wouldn't fall behind.

Harry wasn't going to fall behind either. He was 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' and he was fully aware he couldn't risk not being able to defend himself. He was already worried about the food and the many poisonous potions ingredients he, and therefore everyone else, had access to. He'd asked Nott on Wednesday about Owl ordering stuff and was waiting on a box of bezoars and some more parchment because it had become clear he had seriously under estimated how much he would need.

Quirrell's magic was weird though. Around his turban sat an icky gross something. So weird he hardly noticed the man's stutter and hesitant countenance. It was almost like a fungus if light and colour could be a fungus. It was puss-y and had a half dead feel about it. As he watched it would shift and Quirrell's magic would shift with it. Like the thing was sucking at his magic. It made him feel ill and the feeling only intensifies when the man caught his eye and a pain lanced through his head, centring on his scar.

It was a legilimency probe and he focused on strengthening his shields as he felt himself tense all over. It was gone as suddenly as it was there but he watched Quirrell wearily after that. Nott had noticed to and it was only the fact that they sat at the back again that no one else had. He was going to stay as far away from the defence Professor as humanly possible.

The headache he'd had all day was throbbing by the time they got back to the common room after dinner. Still, he sat with the others and worked on his essays and rewriting the three he had already finished. They looked much neater.

He took the time to meditate and work on his shields once he was secure in his bed. It had been a long day.