A/N- *dodges all thrown objects* Hello, everyone. I want to thank you for clicking on this, especially considering my extended absence.
It's been two years since I first uploaded Reading the Sorcerer's Stone to this site. It was my first uploaded fanfiction ever. I'd like to say I've come a long way since then, and I feel as though I have. I admit I have a fair bit of nostalgia surrounding it, even as it currently stands incomplete.
Take this as a bittersweet prequel, of sorts.
I'd like to thank everyone – reviewers, alerters, and readers alike. Thank you for being so encouraging and helping me to realize more about myself than I expected to find just by posting to this site. You don't know how influential you are.
A very happy New Year to you. Cheers.
Disclaimer – I only own the rights to tug maliciously at Harry's heartstrings, but not the boy himself, nor anything surrounding him.
I'll Tell You Later
Chapter 4- A Little While
It was extremely early in the morning. Three-thirty, to be specific. The quiet of the dark dormitory was disrupted only by the snores of one of the occupants. It was Christmas day, and the house elves had recently been by Gryffindor tower to place all gifts at the feet of the four-posters of the young men who resided in this room.
A mouse - or rather, a rat - may have been stirring, but he was not here.
Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light, and a figure appeared in the middle of the room.
The figure tensed, wary and nervous, studying the beds surrounding him against the walls for any signs of moment. His breath caught as sheets rustled, but it was just one of them turning over in sleep.
He released his breath in a rush of air, and tip-toed over to see who the bed belonged to.
It was a black-haired young man, splayed out and taking up the bed with haphazardly placed limbs. He breathed softly, his lips barely parted.
The figure had to catch his breath again. He closed his eyes, wondering if he could really do this.
He'd been planning this for months. He, Ron, and Hermione had worked out most all of the details, had been carefully creating the spell that would get them here, had gone over everything that could go wrong and came up with ways to bypass most of them.
But now, standing here, looking down at this man who, with his eyes closed, could pass as his reflection while sleeping… could he sit around, talking to him and joking with him and telling him all about his life because he would never get to experience it, and not fall apart?
Merlin, he felt like doing that already, right here on the wooden dormitory floor.
There was also Sirius to think about, and Remus, who slept peacefully in beds on either side of James', and Lily, who was just one tower over and he would be seeing her, too, in only a few hours' time.
He pressed cold fingers to his face. He was suddenly glad he had requested to come a few hours earlier than his friends.
He took steadying breaths, before reaching into his bag and pulling out a wrapped gift. It was hard and book-shaped. He carefully slid it under the gifts at the foot of James' bed, so that it rested on the bottom of the pile.
He took another fortifying breath, and pulled himself together. He had told himself this would happen. He thought he would be ready. He thought he could withstand the painful panging in his chest and heart at the sight of them.
He knew now that he would never be ready.
But it was time to be a Gryffindor, to plunge in and do it because there was no turning back now.
It was time to make his parents proud. Time to show them who he was and what he accomplished. He managed to conjure a smile.
The bag was placed in the corner, his wand pulled from his pocket in order to tap on his head. The feel of the magic trickling down him and taking his appearance with it, making him not much more than an oversized chameleon, steeled his resolve.
It would be nice, having his parents knowing who he was.
If only for a little while.