Disclaimer – I do not own any fictional character.

Legilimens-Chapter 7

THE-BOY-WHO-LIVED Enters The Wizarding World

Yesterday was a normal day at Diagon Alley until Mr. Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper at Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry appeared at leaky cauldron along with our boy-savior, Harry Potter. Walking along Mr. Hagrid it appeared that Mr. Potter was in a deep conversation with Mr. Hagrid and it appeared to be a start of good friendship. Mr. Potter was asking some questions until someone recognized him and Mr. Potter was mobbed by the patrons present. This reporter himself was having breakfast until shouts of welcome back Harry Potter reached him. As a good reporter he could not miss his chance to try interview Mr. Potter on his first public appearance. The duo was walking towards gringotts when Mr. Potter said he did not have any money. This made me stop dead in my tracks as the potter family is considered one of the wealthier families in Britain. The next question asked was even more startling, in his own words- "Hagrid, Why were the people there seemed to know me? Why am I famous?" Mr. Hagrid then tried to explain the events that led to defeat of the Dark Lord. It appeared that before today Mr. Potter did not have any knowledge of his heritage and existence of magic! Then Mr. Potter after some thought and hesitation fired another question – "If I am so famous Hagrid, then why did no magical family take me in, why was I left with muggle family that hates me and I am not treated well?" Mr. Hagrid's reply was even more startling, He said that Albus Dumbledore placed him there and he must have good reasons. This reporter asks as to why the Supreme Mugwump felt the need to interfere in a matter that needs to be handled by child services. All Half-blood and Pure blood children if living with muggles are notified of the magical world and their heritage at the age of 8, why was the rule not followed? It bore further investigation and I decided to ask some question directly from Mr. Potter who was very hesitant to answer at first but reluctantly agreed to.

"Mr. Potter is it true that you did not know the existence of magic before today?"

"No ma'am I did not know until yesterday when Hagrid arrived with my Hogwarts letter."

"Was a letter not sent to you with an owl?"

"It was but my relatives did not allow me to read it, they burned those letters."

"But your aunt knew of existence of magic, did she not?"

"She did but I was never told"

"Did no wizarding authority arrive for inspection of your living conditions?"

"No ma'am I was not visited by anyone from wizarding world before yesterday." It was a scandal as all the children in wizarding world hear stories of Harry Potter, and Mr. Potter himself knew nothing about it.

"How was your life living with muggles?"

"It was good, I like school and friends there, but my family never talked much to me. I have top grades and I am proud of them. I can't wait to learn magic!"

"What is your opinion on wizarding world, Mr. Potter?"

"I do not know what to say, magic seems wonderful to someone who has not seen it except when I once turned my teachers hair blue. But I still do not know as to why I was not told about magic if I am so well known. People know more about my parents then I do! You say that I defeated a dark wizard but I do not even remember doing something like this, if I try to think I just remember a green light and nothing more. I have yet to form an opinion about anything and I think I have a lot to learn before I form my opinion about the wizarding world as whole."

"Thank you Mr. Potter and good luck, Congratulations on your entrance to Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry."

So here was the first interview ever given by Mr. Potter and it carried some startling revelations that bear further investigation by authorities. It also appeared that Mr. Potters muggle family did not wish him to go to Hogwarts and went as far as to burn the letters sent to him. We at Daily Prophet wish our best to our young boy savior.

Harry sat on the table where Tibby was serving breakfast, reading the newspaper where he made the headlines. It was his move to tip off a reporter anonymously about Harry Potter's entrance to wizarding world. Harry received his vault keys and after seeing the key, with no small amount of disdain the goblin led him to his own vault. Harry filled a few moneybags not battling an eyelash to hagrids protests. Harry bought his wand after trying about all wands available, a Griffin feather rosewood wand which he fell in love with. His other wand was good but it was not as good as a match. Harry bought a 4 compartment trunk with best available protection and four times the amount of potions ingredients required, he figured with Severus Snape teaching, he might not have free access for supplies from school. He already had many potions in statis. Harry also had Tom's old school books that tom had somehow left with other precious tomes he had acquired. It seemed Tom had some sentimental attachment towards his school books. Who would think that the young Dark Lord would be a bookworm, now come to think about it Tom might have had pimples for all Harry knew! These thoughts were best left alone. Speaking of books Harry bought various reference books for all subject including History, He outright laughed at the books written on mind magics available to common public. Had he not known better he would have started building shields in mind. It was laughable. Occulmency meant one had to shield his mind from magical attacks that stole away the magical residue created by a probe, much like a muggle camera , you throw light and capture the reflected. One could build shields, but they were then dependent upon imagination and a Legilimens could simply convince himself that it did not exist or project emotions to weaken the state. The best way was to suffuse the mind and repel magical attacks with magic. Let the other person's magic be cancelled or send false images by detecting and redirecting the probe. One could even open a backdoor as Harry discovered with Alice when she tested his occulmency and Harry instead somehow broke in her mind while she was distracted with Harry's memories that he was projecting.

Harry also acquired an owl for himself and named it Hedwig. She was a white beauty as Harry called her in his mind and seemed to very intelligent. Harry suspected that he may have acquired a true familiar. He would have to wait and see if their bond developed further than of a human and his owl and Hedgwig acquired some magical gifts.

Meanwhile Augusta Longbottom was in process of filing discharge papers for the Longbottoms and Mr. Diggle had mysteriously disappeared on one of his rounds at St. Mungo's. Nobody found him missing as he did not operate anyone who was not screened by juniors and hence he had relatively less workload and only the more complicated cases were handled by him. It was all the perks of being the senior most healers. Dumbledore would know hours later that while Diggle was knocked out because he slipped in one of the staircases (which were suddenly under a silencing charm) the Longbottoms were on their way to France for alternate treatment by a mysterious healer from somewhere east who only took some cases if he saw fit.

Harry was meanwhile buying clothes all of the highest quality without the Potter crest as according to the world he did not know about his heritage. Harry and Hagrid had left without buying clothes as he did not want Dumbledore to know if he knew about acromantula silk and he did not trust Dumbledore to watch all his shopping to know more about him. Hopefully the questions now asked to Dumbledore would keep him off radar. Harry also bought skin tight Dragonhide armor and a necklace that many wore which would check for active enchantments that could be considered harmful. Like potions in food, cursed objects etc. It was blood bound and invisible to all, bought from nockturn alley, along with the vanishing cabinet that Tom could never figure out how it worked. Tom had once sent a rat with tracking charms and he never could find out where the rat went. But harry figured if the rat could go, meant it was sent somewhere probably unplottable as the rat was alive when Tom performed the experiment. But Tom in his fascination of other dark artifacts never pursued the matter further. Harry had a long list of projects which he wanted to finish. Currently he was fascinated by muggle computers and what they called programming languages. It was very similar to runes, but it was not advanced enough as runes but was more organised. Muggles had ways of using these languages that wizards did not. All the calculations done by wizards was done by hand, there simply wasn't any concept of calculator. Harry wanted to correct that, but for that he needed to learn more of the core branches of magic. He had his aims such as in first year he wanted to reach atleast 5th year in transfiguration and in Tom's time it would have been 3rd year. The education level was going down and Harry would not drown himself with a sinking ship. BY giving the interview Harry had painted a target upon himself so that he was portrayed as an ignorant person and everyone would love to have their hands on him , this also changed peoples view that approaching Harry was a lost cause because he was Dumbledore's lapdog.

Soon the day for boarding the train with ridiculously red colored engine came up. Harry did not bother with his relatives and simply shrinking all his possessions' apparated near King Cross station, honestly what were they smoking when they made this platform, why on a muggle place, if any muggle-ignorant wizards did visit the muggles will notice them, they were a sore thumb amongst muggles, not to mention owls and those damned frogs that people carry. Honestly Toads, who in their right mind would like to carry a toad of all things. Simply useless things go to Hogwarts and throw those toads in lake and forget about them. Why couldn't they arrange portkeys which were a much impressive way to travel and would impress the superiority of magic upon muggleborns instead of a Steam engine which although was faster than any muggle train still did not convince anyone who knew of muggle world. Even if they wanted a train ride why not make a separate platform away from muggle station, understanding wizards sometimes was simply impossible.

Harry made his way to the division where a group of red heads was rushing to, according to their clothes they were definitely purebloods, but then what was a group of purebloods doing on the muggle side of platform? And the obnoxious woman was shouting out the platform number and asking her children to remind her of it. Really! The floo address was platform 9 ¾ and looking at her children there were enough of them to get your eyes bleed just by looking at them. Harry just on instinct tried a legilimency scan on the woman and found she was looking for him! But how did she know that Hagrid never told him about the platform number. He did not need to guess this one. And the girl accompanying was dreaming of a fairytale meeting with him where when he met her red and white roses would fall from sky. That made Harry sick, quickly activating his notice me not pebble he simply passed the group of red heads of which a pair of twins and a spectacled boy had already left. Harry did not take much time to find a compartment but he soon find a few more people lurking around who seemed to be looking for someone. Deciding that whoever came looking for him would not be on guard he just sat down and started reading a book on transfiguration, a subject on which tom did not pay much attention. Sure he did get good grades but those could be attained by simply performing spells, not mastering them and Harry had a one sided competition with Tom on achievements. Neville and Harry had decided to "introduce" themselves to each other in front of others so Neville would come looking for him during the train ride. Soon enough a pink haired girl came looking for him if her darting eyes were any indication. A subtle scan showed she was looking for Harry and was nervous meeting him; she also had some knowledge of occulmency. She seemed to be a second year or a third year and was she remembered a bit about HIM! As a toddler Harry had met this girl and those memories were in front of her mind. A little blurry as they were they were of harry and this girl when harry looked to be about 1 year old. Harry was intrigued as his parents were supposed to be in hiding and yet they either visited or were visited by this girl's parent. The girl opened the door and-

"May I sit here?"

"Sure, I don't mind"

"I'm Tonks" the girl said expectantly and was somewhat hesitant to tell her full name. Harry smirked

-"Hello Tonks; I'm Potter, why don't you tell me your full name?" Tonks hair cycled colors and set to a red and replied haughtily (which harry knew was a façade) "It's not important, just call me Tonks." Harry could not let this opportunity go. "O.k. then I guess we would not be able to become friends and I won't tell you my name is Harry Potter." Harry grinned. Now Tonks was in a fix, if she had to call Harry as Potter then any way to gain friendship. "Fine, my name is Nymphadora Tonks, but you may only call me Tonks or else.."

"Else?" Harry asked expectantly. For some reason she was to gain Harry's friendship and it seemed to be important to her. Harry could not yet figure out why and he did not dare go deeper in her mind if he might get detected. Tonks did not answer it so Harry hedged on

"Ok how about Nymmy if we become friends eh Tonks?" Harry grinned it was so much fun!

They were disturbed as one of the redheads from the redhead brood opened the compartment door and said/demaned/stated "Do you mind if I sit here, everywhere else is full." Without waiting for a reply he just settled his trunk and stated, "Hello, I'm Ron Weasely"

"Hello, I'm Harry Potter and this lovely lady here is N "Tonks glared and Harry corrected himself – "Tonks"

The redhead openly stared trying to look at the scar which Harry maintained with the help of his metamorph ability. He expected Harry to showcase it to him, "how creepy" Harry Harry did not seem interested to show it to him he finally broke the silence-

"Do you have the scar?" Tonks look scandalized at the lack of tact, while Harry answered – "Stop gawking will you Weasely and stop staring, I do not like boys that way, It's creepy!"

Tonks burst out laughing at Weasley's expense whose face had gone as red as his hair.

The compartment was silent and Harry resumed his reading which was sadly interrupted again by a Blonde boy who looked as if he owned the place.

"Is it true?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"." Malfoys and their flair of dramatics, Harry thought as he rolled his eyes. Lucius sure bred a clone for himself Harry thought amusedly. "Yes," said Harry. He was looking at the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards. And he brings a pair of bodyguards to boot! Definitely comes to impress, poor boy Tom had played these games and forgot them for better ones. Seeing that Harry was eyeing his little bodyguards Malfoy spoke further-

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle, and my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Draco Malfoy looked at him. "Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

He turned back to Harry. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."

"Sure you can Draco, may I call you Draco?" at his nod he continued "But I want to find out on my own, surely you understand that due to my new found fame people will try to influence me, so I will try to form my own opinion and friends. That's why it's too early to call someone friend, but I assure you that I am not out to make any enemies either, this world is rather new to me and I will like to explore it a bit further. If I accept your help now, how can I trust you to introduce me to right sort of people?" Seeing this Draco nodded, it was a very Slytherin response after all, cautious, well thought, and downright oily. But his father did say it would be beneficial to get Potter as an ally and things could have gone worse. Seeing Potters attitude it became rather necessary to not make an enemy out of him. "Well I will see you at sorting I guess, I hope you are in Slytherin."

At this Ron interrupted - "Harry Potter in Slytherin! He is not a slimy snake." At this point Harry intervened- "Shut up Weasely no one asked for your opinion, it is not up to you to decide where I will be, as far as I know it is not up to us to decide where we will be sorted. And all houses have their positives. Slytherin is cunning and ambitious, Hufflepuff is hard working and loyal, Gryffindor is brave, and Ravenclaws are seekers of knowledge. Let the hat decide where I will be. Personally I prefer not to go for one single house as all qualities are rather tempting to have in a person. For now let's not worry about it. And it would be better if you do not interrupt rudely in other people's business."

Weasley flushed red and blurted – "How can you say that I am you best mate."

Nymphadora snorted and Harry looked incredulously at Ron – "since when are you my "best mate" we just met a few minutes ago? I think you just wanted to be friends with me because of my fame weren't you Weasley. That's why you just came barging in and sat down saying everywhere else is full."

If possible Weasley turned even redder and shouted – "FINE if you don't want me to sit with you, I was just trying to help you by being your best friend, if you do not want me to sit here just say so." Weasley promptly walked out of compartment.

"Well, so nice of him to remove himself from our presence" said Draco dryly. Well I will see you around Potter. Nodding he left as well.

The rest of the train ride went in comfortable silence but Harry could see that Tonks was trying to start up a conversation but was failing. She kept fidgeting and Harry did not dare to try read further than surface thoughts in case he was detected and only he was around to take the blame.

The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?"

Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads.

"C'mon, follow me — any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Oooooh!" Hogwarts look even more magnificent than he remembered.

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore

Harry sat down in a boat with 3 people already sitting in it, one was a girl with red hair, another one had black hair and both seemed to be friends. There was a boy who looked to be muggleborn judging by the looks he was giving to everything such as self rowing boat, clearly unaccustomed to magic.

"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then — FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff;

Harry saw the Weasley boy in another boat and was glaring at harry; upon noticing that Harry had noticed he looked away. Suppressing a malicious grin Harry wandlessly helped Weasley get off the boat at the middle of the lake. Honestly Harry was just helping Weasley show his Gryffindor bravery by a firsthand demonstration of jumping from the boat. Surely jumping in the black lake at night was brave. A tentacle rose from lake lifting Weasley and trying to put him back on lake, but trying was the operating word as when harry saw it he wandlessly helped Weasley off the tentacle too, really this time he helped because Weasley was thrashing. This would embarrass Weasley enough for trying to manipulate Harry.

Harry briefly wondered how Hedwig was finding the place as she had departed from him before the train station. Probably at a perch in owlery reject some owl trying to woo her Harry mused. Hedwig was as vain as she was intelligent.

Soon enough they were climbing out of the boat and Hagrid Knocked the gate thrice with his massive fist.

Next- Sorting (for those who did not know )