Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognise; you know the drill by now
Feedback: Of course
Harry Potter/Granger and the Philosopher's Stone
The next morning, after the McDonalds had left and all the dishes from the previous day had been cleaned- Boxing Day was typically a quite day at the Granger household, generally spent with Harry and Hermione enjoying their new gifts from the previous day- Harry and Hermione finally found the time to tell Alan and Jane what they'd discovered about their cousin the day before.
"Natalie's magical?" Jane said, staring at her two children in surprise as they sat on the sofa opposite her and her husband. "You're sure?"
Harry nodded in response. "Pretty sure, anyway," he said, by way of explanation. "A bunch of Marvel Top Trumps cards flew into the air and stayed there for a few seconds just when she got excited about something; I'd say that's proof enough that she's not exactly your common or garden muggle."
Alan sighed slightly as he leaned forward, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers before he looked up at Harry.
"Well," he said, trying to sound relatively nonchalant about the recent discovery, "at least we know you won't have to keep lying to everyone about your school."
"Yeah, that's certainly a plus…" Harry agreed, nodding as he mused over the possibilities in his head.
He had to admit, it was a relief that he and Hermione would at least be able to talk to Natalie about Hogwarts, even if it still had to be kept secret from everyone else…
A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he glanced over at Hermione. "You think that Peter and Janet are magical as well?"
Hermione shook her head. "No; remember, Peter cut himself when he was trying to help carve the turkey and wouldn't go away when Kathryn told him to go away?" she said. "If he was magical, I think we'd have noticed something; if raw emotion's the trigger for it in them like it was with us, he was certainly crying about the blood enough to cause something to happen."
"It makes sense, certainly," Alan said, nodding thoughtfully for a moment before looking back at his son inquiringly. "So, what do you want us to do? Tell Peter and Janet the truth about… well, your 'extra talents'?"
Harry shook his head. "No, Dad; if we can't provide any real proof of what we're telling them, they'd just think you'd gone mad or something like that," he said, shaking his head slightly. "Believe me, I wish it was that simple, but unfortunately it isn't, so we'll just have to pace ourselves a bit in telling them the truth."
"'Pace ourselves'?" Jane asked, looking in confusion at her son. "What do you mean?"
"You know, whenever we see her we try and drop subtle hints to Natalie that there's more going on than she knows about, ask her how she'd feel about being able to do magic or at least have some kind of power, that kind of thing," Hermione explained nonchalantly. "Nothing to suggest that we think she can do anything like that, just enough to give her some time to think about the idea, and then just… take it from there, you know?"
Alan and Jane looked at each other for a couple of moments as they thought over Hermione's suggestion, until, finally, Alan nodded in agreement.
"OK, we'll give your idea a try, Hermione," he said, as he looked back at his daughter. "However, if one of her parents directly asks us what's up with Natalie, I think we should tell them; I won't start lying to my family if the truth is the obviously preferable alternative."
"Fair enough," Harry said, nodding in understanding. After all, lying about Hogwarts to people who'd never be able to actually see it was understandable enough- when would they ever see that it was anything other than the deluded ramblings of a family who'd apparently snapped?- but lying to someone who'd actually have to know about it some day…
Harry couldn't see how doing that would ever be the smart thing to do.
Personally speaking, if there was something that he needed to know about himself that had been concealed from him, he'd want to hear a very good reason for why nobody had bothered to tell him earlier…
A few weeks after Christmas, Harry and Hermione were back at Hogwarts, both of them still going over possible means of helping to reveal the truth about her new 'abilities' to Natalie at a gradual pace. They'd made a start after the Trumps game had ended, watching a couple of magic-related movies and asking Natalie what she thought of the possibility of having magical powers- she seemed to find the idea 'cool', if nothing else- but they still were reluctant to specifically mention Hogwarts.
After all, they couldn't provide any evidence in the short amount of time available- it would have taken too long to have sent an owl to Hagrid or one of the other teachers to come over to provide a more concrete explanation, to say nothing of the fact that it would have been stupid to bother them over something relatively trivial- so they didn't want to tell anyone anything until the time came when such an action would be necessary.
As soon as they'd had the chance to have a decent conversation with Ron- breakfast the day after they got back- Harry and Hermione had told him about Natalie's own magical abilities, hoping that he might provide an alternative viewpoint on the situation.
So far, he hadn't managed to give them anything helpful.
"So… your cousin's a witch?" Ron said, staring at Harry and Hermione incredulously, a sausage half-way to his mouth as he stared at his friends as though trying to decide whether or not they were joking; he evidently couldn't believe something like that wouldn't have been spotted earlier. "And you only found out now?"
"Well, in all fairness, would we really have had any reason to think she was one before we came here?" Hermione asked, indicating the great hall with a wave of her hand. "Even if we did see something that might have indicated that she could do magic, we probably wouldn't have known what it was! We might have just dismissed it as some weird fluke or something like that!"
"Well… yeah, I s'pose…" Ron muttered thoughtfully, as he chewed on a sausage and swallowed it. "Wouldn't know about making that kind of mistake myself, though; I mean, Mum and Dad always knew what had happened when we'd started doing accidental magic when we were younger…"
"Oh, so that's what you call it," Harry said, smiling slightly as he recalled all the times he and Hermione had done something nobody could really explain at the time. "Well, it certainly seems to fit; after all, it's not like the kids can control what they're doing…"
"Accidental magic is commonly triggered by some kind of intense emotion, right?" Hermione added, looking curiously at Ron. "You know, the kids are angry they can't get something, that sort of thing, right?"
"Yeah, emotion'll certainly cause the kids to start throwing stuff around the room if they've got magic in them," Ron said, nodding slightly, a small smile on his face. "I remember when Ginny was about three and George stole her doll; we nearly had every knife in the house flying around after him until he managed to give it back to her."
"Ouch…" Harry winced; he did not want to imagine what those knives might have done to George if they'd caught up to him, although he wasn't sure that accidental magic could be focused enough to give someone a fatal injury…
"Anyway, putting aside the details of how we know, do you have any ideas about how we should break the news to Natalie that she can do magic?" Hermione asked, looking curiously at Ron.
Ron, however, could only shake his head.
"Sorry, I've got nothing," he said, shrugging apologetically. "As I said, I've never been in that kind of situation myself, and I can't think of anyone who has right now."
For a moment, Hermione and Harry shared a disappointed glance at each other- it looked like they'd just have to tell Natalie the truth about herself the hard way- but then Hermione brightened as she looked back at Ron.
"Anyway," she said, an almost critical gleam in her eyes as she looked at her new friend, "have you had any luck figuring out who Flamel is yet?"
"Oh… uh, no, not really," Ron said, looking slightly awkward as he lowered his head to look back at his plate. "I tried checking a few things, but…"
"You couldn't really commit to anything, huh?" Harry said, sighing slightly in frustration as he finished the last of his sausages. "I don't know…maybe I should just try and figure out where I read that name before; it can't be that difficult…"
"You sure it's not just a coincidence?" Hermione asked, looking over pointedly at her brother. "I mean, you read so much fiction these days, is it possible you read the name 'Nicholas Flamel' in a book somewhere at some point and it's nothing more than some bizarre fluke?"
Harry shook his head. "No, it's definitely something recent; it must have been something I read since I came here, and we know that there isn't that much of a fiction section in the library here…" he said, frowning in thought. "Now that I think about it, it was definitely in something I read over the last few months… just once, but I definitely read it somewhere…"
"But where?" Ron asked, looking over at Harry. "We've checked over every book the school expects us to have, every book you guys ever got out the library to do some extra research, even every book you brought along for your leisure reading! What else have you guys read; the Chocolate Frog cards?"
As soon as the words were out of Ron's mouth, the three children had dropped their cutlery, regardless of how much was left on their plates, and were dashing back up to Gryffindor Tower. After a brief delay when they needed to give the Fat Lady the password, Harry had charged up the stairs to come back with the metallic pencil case where he'd been keeping his Chocolate Frog cards since Christmas, had tossed it over to Ron and Hermione, and the three of them were rapidly going over the cards until Hermione finally called out to the others.
"Found it!" she yelled, smiling up at the two boys as she showed them the card.
"The Dumbledore card?" Ron said, looking at Hermione in confusion. "What could that have to do with-"
"Just listen!" Hermione said, as she looked anxiously at her friends before looking back at the card. "'Professor Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner Nicholas Flamel'!"
"Alchemy?" Harry said, looking sharply at Hermione. "Wasn't that meant to be the forerunner of modern chemistry? The alchemists at least thought that they could turn metal into gold, that sort of thing…"
"Yes…" Hermione said, nodding thoughtfully for a moment efore sudennly sat up sharply, clicked her fingers in inspiration, and ran up the stairs to the girl's dormitories. Before Ron and Harry could do more than exchnge confused glances she was running back down the stairs, a large old book clutched in her hands.
"I never thought about looking in here!" she said, looking slightly embarrassed with herself as she placed it down on the table and began to rapidly skim through it in search of something. "I checked it out weeks ago for some light reading!"
"Light?" Harry said, looking increudlously at his sister. "Hermione, King Solomon's Mines is light reading. The Bone Collector is light reading. This is just… stupidly thick!"
"My reading material, my rules," Hermione said briefly to her brother as she continued to rapidly flick through the pages, before she finally slammed the boook open on the table in front of her, a broad grin on her face. "Got it!"
"And 'it' is…?" Ron asked, waving a hand in confusion.
"Nicolas Flamel's the only wizard alive capable of making the Philosopher's Stone!" Hermione said, grinning broadly at her brother and her friend, only to be disappointed when Ron's expression just showed confusion while Harry's was more thoughtful; evidently he thought he knew what she was talking about, but wasn't entirely sure if it was correct.
"It's all here," Hermione said, glaring critically at Ron for a moment as she turned the book around so they could read it and tapping the relevant passage.
The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal.
There have been many reports of the Philosopher's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera-lover. Mr Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).
"Of course…" Harry whispered, enlightenment dawning in his eyes as he, Ron and Hermione looked at each other. "No wonder Snape seems to be after this thing; anyone would want it!"
"As much gold and life as you could ever want…" Ron whispered, staring up at the ceiling in awe. "Wow…"
For a moment, the three friends could only sit and think about the possibilities offered by the possession of such an item, but then Hermione slammed the book shut, bringing the three of them back down to Earth.
"We can't let anybody else know about this until we've got a better idea of what's going on," she said, looking up at Ron and Harry. "The more people who know about this, the more risk there is that Snape will find out about it; we've got enough problems with him as it is without him suspecting that we're on to him."
Harry and Ron could only nod in agreement at that; they certainly weren't going to give Snape anything else he could use against them to take points off Gryffindor…
Still, Harry couldn't deny that he hoped Snape showed his true colours soon; he was just itching for the chance to punch that bastard in the face…
Unfortunately, the chance to get his own back on Snape for going after the philosopher's stone (If that was what they were dealing with) didn't seem to be forthcoming; indeed, baring the usual Potions lessons, the only significant thing Snape did over the next few weeks was, for reasons Harry couldn't even begin to guess at, decide to referee the next Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff.
George's thoughts on the matter once they first heard the news summed up Harry's own concerns rather nicely, even if his reaction was a bit overdramatic; if he'd been any higher up when he fell off his broom, he'd have broken something.
"Snape's refereeing?" George said from where he lay on the ground, spluttering through a mouthful of mud as Fred landed beside him to make sure his twin was all right. "When's he ever done something like that? You know he's not going to be fair if we look like we're winning!"
"It's not my fault!" Wood yelled at the team as they gathered around him, voicing their own protests. "We've just got to make sure we play a clean game, so Snape doesn't have any reason to pick on us!"
As Harry walked back to the dorms that night, he privately reflected that it wasn't Snape marking them down he had to worry about; if Snape wasn't going to try and take advantage of this somehow, he would be very surprised.
As he entered the common room, he smiled slightly as he saw Ron and Hermione sitting in a corner playing chess; for reasons he couldn't understand, Hermione had always found the game rather difficult, while Ron, despite his generally relaxed attitude to things like schoolwork, was actually rather good at the game.
How something like that could happen, Harry had no idea; maybe the universe had decided it was being too harsh on Ron and given him a decent tactical mind to make up for his apparent ineptitude in dealing with people's feelings…
"Something wrong?" Hermione asked, glancing up as her brother walked over to their table; she'd always known when he was worried about something just from the way he was walking.
"Snape's refereeing the next Quidditch game," Harry said.
Hermione and Ron's reactions to that statement were blindingly obvious; they both instantly jumped to the conclusion that Snape was going to use the opportunity to attack Harry.
"Don't play," Hermione said at once.
"Say you're ill," Ron suggested.
"Pretend to break your leg."
"Really break your leg," Ron put in, only to have Hermione hit him sharply in the ear with her hand.
"That is not helping the situation right now, Ronald," she said, glaring at her friend before looking back at Harry. "Look, you can't play with Snape on the field; there's going to be too many chances for him to take you out-"
"What, in front of a stadium full of people?" Harry retorted, looking critically at Hermione. "Even Snape wouldn't be desperate enough to try and kill me there; what have we actually discovered, even if he knew about it? That he's after the Stone? That there's a big dog guarding the entrance? That Nicholas Flamel made the Stone? How is that enough knowledge to pose a threat to him?"
He shook his head in a determined manner as he looked at his friends. "No, I'll play the game; if I don't, the Slytherins will just think I'm too cowardly to face Snape, and I am not going to give Malfoy another excuse to get on at me!"
Hermione rolled her eyes slightly as she turned back to the chess game in mock frustration, but Harry noticed the small smile on her lips and knew that he'd managed to reach her.
She saw the validity of his argument.
He just hoped he hadn't made the biggest mistake of his life…
A few days later, as her brother walked off to the field, Hermione couldn't help but grow increasingly concerned about her brother's chances of actually surviving this whole mess. Oh, she understood and agreed with his reasons why Snape wouldn't do anything- too public a place, they couldn't actually prove he was up to anything yet- but still… he was her brother.
She was allowed to be a bit nervous, right?
Plus, there was the unnerving way Snape kept on looking at her in class; every time she looked up and saw him looking at her, she suddenly had a sharp headache behind her eyes and felt as though she suddenly needed to put on her 'lying face' where it was impossible for anyone but Harry to know what she was thinking…
In any event, so far Snape seemed unaware of what they suspected about him and the stone, but, as she and Ron sat in the stands beside Neville, their wands up their sleeves in case something went wrong, Hermione couldn't help but be grateful that their school taught something she could actually use to protect her brother…
As the two teams flew up into the air in front of them, spreading out in preparation of the game ahead, something suddenly struck Ron in the back of the head.
"Oh, sorry Weasley, didn't see you there," the familiar drawl sounded from behind the three Gryffindors.
Hermione rolled her eyes slightly as she glanced back to look at the three Slytherins she'd come to call 'The Bad, the Ugly, and the Brain-Dead' (With Malfoy, naturally, being the 'Brain-Dead'; Crabbe and Goyle were just as thick, but Malfoy was so stupid that he actually tried to be clever).
"Tell me, what, beyond being the human equivalent of dog's droppings in the soles of your shoes, are you actually doing here?" she asked, smiling sweetly at Malfoy with a broad grin on her face.
Malfoy opened his mouth to say something, but Hermione held up a hand to stop him. "No, wait, don't answer that; you're just doing that and nothing else, aren't you? You know, one of the signs of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time…"
Malfoy just stared coldly at Hermione in frustration for a moment, and then groaned and turned to look back at the game. Glancing at the field, Hermione saw that Snape had just awarded a penalty to Hufflepuff because a bludger thrown by George had come too close to him, but otherwise nothing seemed to be particularly wrong.
And then, of course, Malfoy had to go and try to make a comment.
"You know how I think they pick people for the Gryffindor team?" he said, in his ever-superior drawl, as though he thought he was doing everyone a favour by acknowledging their existence and they should all automatically listen to whatever he had to say. "It's people they feel sorry for. See, there's the Weasleys, who've got no money, and then there's Potter, who-"
He then found himself with Hermione's wand in his face.
"If you even think about finishing that sentence," she said coldly, her eyes narrowed as she stared at the Slytherin on the other end of her wand, "whatever you were going to say, you'll soon find yourself with your legs stuck together. Got me?"
Malfoy sneered at Hermione, but he was evidently unwilling to talk back to someone pointing a wand at his nose, and just sat back down in his seat to sulk. Hermione smiled teasingly at him and then turned around to continue watching the game (Snape appeared to have just given Hufflepuff a penalty for no reason, but that aside it all seemed to be going fairly well…).
And then, just as Hermione heard a brief intake of breathe from behind her that sounded as though Malfoy was about to speak again, Harry made a spectacular dive to the ground.
"You're in luck, Weas-" Malfoy began, only to have Ron and Hermione's wands pointing in his face, cool, calculating expressions on their faces as they studied the three Slytherins behind them.
"In the words of Clank Westwood," Ron said, staring harshly at Malfoy, trying to avoid turning around to look at the game behind him, "'Now you have to ask yourself one question… Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya? Punks?'"
Hermione shook her head slightly at Ron's poor imitation- he didn't even get the name right, she thought to herself in frustration- but she couldn't argue with the results; Malfoy turning slightly pale as he studied the wands before him and sank back into his seat. Hermione just managed to turn back to the game before her when Harry hurtled up from the ground, one fist clenched before him and a wide grin on his face.
"We've won…" Neville whispered from beside Hermione; in all the bother of telling Malfoy to shut up, she'd barely managed to register the other Gryffindor's presence. A part of her felt slightly guilty about that- Neville was rather poor in his subjects, but he was a decent enough person despite the fact that he constantly worried he was going to cause a major accident- but right now, she was too grateful that her brother was safe to focus on apologising.
Unfortunately, that still left them no further along in regards to working out what, exactly, Snape was up to, nor why he was waiting so long to actually try and get at the Stone…
As she and Ron headed down to the field to join Harry, Hermione was already going over what they knew already about the situation, trying to come up with an explanation for the fine details that were still confusing her; Snape's lack of activity at the match had made her realise, if they were ever going to crack this, they'd need to spend a bit more time thinking rather than just hope everything would be discovered at the right moment.
Thinking about it, Hermione supposed there might be some extra defences around the Stone that were stopping Snape from just going in and grabbing it- after all, big as he was, Fluffy alone was hardly going to stop someone who really wanted the Stone- so maybe Snape was trying to find out what those were?
Come to think of it, Hermione had seen him trying to question Quirrell once or twice; maybe that had something to do with it?
Great… she thought to herself, as she glanced over at what had to be the only Defence Against the Dark Arts professor in history who seemed to be terrified of his own shadow.
No offence on Quirrell, but if he was one of the things standing between Snape and the Stone, Hermione might very well see about moving schools; an immortal Snape was not something she wanted to have to deal with…