Yet another idea: Option the 4th: Still in 3rd Year
Scene: The Hogwarts Express
"Why have we stopped?" Ron asked, confused as to the grinding stop the train had just undertaken.
"Do you think it's a problem with the train?" Neville Longbottom asked, beginning to look outside.
"SHH! There's something moving outside." Hermione, being seemingly the smartest of the group had the presence of mind to look out the window to see of anything had happened. She saw shadows flickering about outside, moving closer and closer to the train. Suddenly the window felt very cramped as everyone grouped together around the portal to the outside world.
They all watched as the window grew a fine layer of frost as the water in the air latched on to the glass before freezing. Were it not for the horrifyingly ominous aura that had descended upon the train the effect would have been very interesting and noticeably beautiful. Unfortunately for the crowd of children trying not to wake the sleeping vagra…. Professor in the cabin the palpable feeling if fear and terror descended upon their fragile psyches and began to work it's wondrous magic of making about eighty out of a hundred of them into nothing more than vegetables frozen in place by their own fear.
The children in the last cabin heard a rasping breath and saw the door open, revealing a clammy nigh-skeletal hand which held the doorframe.
Harry's eyes darkened around the edges as his mind began the rather reasonable operation of shutting down out of sheer terror and the inability to handle that much of a chemical imbalance at one time with very little buildup. He was hearing a woman's voice shouting, "Please, not Harry! Take me, anything but Harry!"
A responding voice which brought to Harry's mind images of a face in the back of Quirrel's head, "Stand aside, foolish girl!"
More pleading followed before a green flash of light blinded Harry.
The rest of the cabin watched as the creature swept into the room, waking the Professor, who was about to shout something along the lines of Sirius Black not being in there, obviously, when a white light washed out everything else in the room.
Harry stood, surrounded by a white light, reminiscent but not quite like a Patronus' light. He was surrounded by geometric shapes which resembled, form a certain view when the light hit them just right, a huge gemstone. Harry turned to the creature that until that moment had been inspiring such terror in him that his muscled had frozen. Shaking his head lightly to clear out the lingering mental influnce of the creature, he steadied himself before launching himself at the creature. His fists hit like stones striking the relatively weak flesh of the disgusting creature. The crack of bone breaking and the sickening squelch of muscles tearing as Harry screamed out his anger at the creature resounded throughout the train. The light grew in intensity and the ground began to shake around the train. Rocks began to float into the air as Harry continued to pummel the creature, long since having become a dark grey-ish pile of goo.
A simple stunner from Professor Lupin had Harry down for the count…
When he woke up again, harry was very curious as to why everyone thought he wasn't perfectly justified in doing exactly what he did. He could feel the very bones of the earth beneath him, the stone of the castle beneath him, the veins of ore beneath the foundations, even the Chamber of Secrets. He could see all of these things through the very stone. It was fascinating His eyes were no longer needed (though they did help quite a bit) just to know where things are.
Inside of himself he could feel the strength of those same stones, a reliable and steadfast strength that would not fail under any but the most dire of circumstances. He could feel it there, resting just beneath his flesh. While he would normally expect such things to be roiling and trying to break free, it felt more like the energy was simply sitting there. Slow to move but unstoppable in the end…
AN: So, who can guess this one, then? Gotta say, it's not that hard to figure out… this is kind of just to keep me writing so I don't just leave off and never do anythign more with it, so please feel free to say "He's drunk/high/out-of-his-mind/blitzed/what have you" as long as you also realize I currently have no beta, and thus no check on my insanity.
