Harry Potter and the Spirits Within
Chapter 9: Quirky Quirrell and Precious Parchment
Summary: The night Lily and James Potter died is well known. What no one suspected, or even imagined, was that their spirits remained with their son.
Disclaimer: As much as I would love to own (or live in, magic rocks) the 'Potterverse' … I do not.
September, and their first month of school passed in a flurry of note taking, spell casting, and friend making. The friends the four had made on their first nights in their new houses had all joined their crowd, including the Weasley twins who had mentioned to Neville that they admired the way he had stood up for Harry in the face of Ron's immature narrow-mindedness. As their group was now twelve students strong they took to meeting in the Great Hall before breakfast, lunch, and dinner for updates. Anything from the subject matter discussed to the temperament of the professors to any odd occurrences by the class was mentioned to the others. At the end of each day, after dinner they all met again in the library for an hour of homework, helping each other in weak areas and double-checking each other's work. While Fred and George were two years ahead of the others, and had already done the material, they were able to give them insights on easier ways to achieve the same goals and shortening their work load, while getting quizzed from their books by the others.
Professor Flitwick had warmed up to Harry after seeing his dedication and the classes were becoming more interesting, as they were preparing to begin more difficult spell work soon. Likewise, Professor McGonagall, who had started frosty towards Harry due to their previous encounter, had taken to him as she too had been impressed by his work ethic. Professor Sprout had been thrilled when Harry had been sorted into her house and had been, and continued to be pleasant and friendly to Harry. Perhaps the oddest turnaround was Professor Snape, who seemed at a loss as to how to treat Harry. He had seemed positive that he was a clone of his father, and his placement in Hufflepuff had thrown the preverbal wrench into the works. He was a smart man, whatever his eccentricities and he knew that James Potter would have never been a Hufflepuff, but he couldn't help but see James when he looked at Harry. They were, as had been made abundantly clear by anyone who had known James, oddly identical, excepting, of course, his mothers green eyes. Therefore, Severus Snape had taken to treating Harry as just another random non-Slytherin student, giving no praise and plenty of criticism, but not specifically singling him out.
The teachers Harry had that he hadn't met before school were his Astronomy, History of Magic, and Defence Against the Dark Arts professors. Astronomy was done at midnight once a week and involved long hours of staring what stars they could see and mapping their locations. Lily had explained to Harry about the planetariums in the Muggle world when he was shopping in Diagon Ally and James had mentioned what a crock Astronomy Class was due to being so far north and not able to see many of the constellations. Consequently, Harry had splurged on a miniature moving planetarium, with adjustable features that allowed him to see any constellation in the sky, and do better work than their location allowed. He also, of course, shared the model with his group of friends.
History of Magic was an exceedingly boring class, taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had died in his chair in the staff room and his ghost had gotten up the next day to continue classes. Lily and James knew from their own experience with the insubstantial instructor that Harry would never be able to retain anything if he tried to stay awake during the class. So for this lesson only, they agreed to help him. Harry spent the class meditating, working with his parents in his mindscape to organize the information his subconscious perceived into his memory library, so that when it came time to take tests he would be able to recall it. Harry was on the receiving end of a brief lecture from Hermione for sleeping in class before he explained about the meditation and gave an example; quoting a bit of the class from a point she believed him to be fast asleep. She immediately wanted to learn how to do it.
"It'll take a long time to be able to prepare your mind for that kind of meditation." Harry tried to explain.
Hermione was adamant, "I don't care Harry, if it can help me retain information from this class without writing down every word he says I need to know it."
Harry conceded, "Alright, but it will take a lot of work, I'll show the others how to do it too. It'll be part of our studying after dinner; we may have to extend the study time though.
Hermione was content with this and it was brought before the group when they met before lunch. It was greeted with much enthusiasm, as many of them did not have the ability to stay awake in the class, much less take notes.
Then there was the oddball Professor Quirrell. The stuttering Defence professor seemed ill suited for the job, and as time wore on Harry and his parents started to notice more and more curious behaviour from their twitchy teacher. His first oddity was, of course, the most obvious: his turban. A putridly purple affair that reeked of garlic and rot, it was widely rumoured that it was stuffed with actual garlic to ward off vampires, however the Weasley Twins admitted in private that they had started the rumour as a joke. Of course, anyone who would really look into this rumour would discover that it was absolute malarkey.
The other peculiar thing about him was not as easy to notice: his stutter. It wasn't that the stutter was hard to hear, on the contrary, one could barely understand him at times. It was that, occasionally, it seemed as though he 'forgot' to stutter, and he would complete full sentences before starting again. Every now and then, if Harry paid close attention, he would notice Quirrell catch himself and twitch or shake his head minutely. As if to remind himself that he was supposed to be stuttering. After the second time this happened Harry started looking for and finding it more and more frequently. The Potters couldn't figure out why someone would want to fake a stutter. As James so eloquently put it, "That would get bloody annoying." It was Lily who pointed out that it would make one seem less of a threat and easily underestimated. Thinking on this they decided to keep an eye on Quirrell, especially when he forgot to stutter.
As the days moved into October, another abnormality of Quirrell's surfaced. While in all their other classes they were beginning to practice actual spells and potions, Quirrell still had them studying and doing book work. They never used their wands and never had a practical class. The other students were either miffed at the lack of learning or pleased at having such an easy class. Harry however, was suspicious, and after mentioning to his group of friends the mounting bizarre quirks of their professor, they were as well. In fact, Quirrell seemed to be getting more and more nervous as the end of the month drew near; shifting around in class, jumping at sudden sounds, and talking to himself under his breath with nary a slur. Everyone agreed that he seemed to be psyching himself up for something and decided to prepare as well. Each house specific cluster of friends started to follow him in shifts, with the twins taking a shift to themselves, sticking together so no one was caught on their own with him. Finally, a week from the 31st, they had a breakthrough when Padma and Hermione overheard him mutter; "I'll do it on Halloween, during the feast. Yes, that will be best, no snotty brats in the way then."
With this bit of information, Harry and the others stopped following him, waiting for the fateful night for him to act. That evening the twins, after a whispered conversation between the two of them, gathered the group together in their usual spot in the library and presented them with an old, blank piece of parchment. Most of the crowd were confused, waiting for the punch line to this bizarre joke. Harry however, due to James whooping like a school boy and shouting about his lost map, grinned widely. This did not go unnoticed by the twins, who had been looking to Harry, as the unofficial leader of the group, first for his reaction when they 'turned it on'. His grin gave them pause, however, and they shared a glance before laying it on the table in front of Harry and crossed their identical arms in unison. Harry looked from them to the map and back again.
"What do I do?" he asked James. He knew the phrase to activate it, of course, but to do that would invite a slew of questions he was not prepared to answer.
Fred interrupted his internal conversation before it got started, "Well Harry, care to explain why you are so excited to see a bit of old parchment?"
Harry blinked a few times; buying his time while James gave him hurried instructions. "Well, you guys presented it with such flair, and, you're you. I've come to expect something really brilliant to happen when you give such a mundane object such an exciting introduction."
The twins preened at the praise and accepted the excuse, turning with the rest of the group to the parchment and Harry visibly relaxed, until he noticed Neville still watching him and growing more and more curious. Realizing he had been caught in his lie he minutely shook his head and mouthed 'later'. Breathing a sigh of relief as Neville nodded, he turned to the twins just as they intoned together, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
James was dancing around Harry's mindscape with Lily as the black lines wove themselves into the map of Hogwarts, popped up into wee footprints complete with names, and finally scrolled out into intricate writing, proclaiming: Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs present The Marauders Map. James started babbling on about the spells they invented to get it to show people and how it couldn't be fooled by polyjuice, animagus forms, or invisibility cloaks. When the writing appeared he grew more nostalgic and murmured that it was Moony's handwriting, as he had the best penmanship. How it was Padfoot's genius with spellwork that got it to show movement. How he himself had spent hours in this very library trying to find a spell to see through invisibility cloaks. He begrudgingly admitted that it was Pettigrew - he refused to use his marauder name, saying he had lost that privilege - who thought of having it insult who ever gave it the wrong password.
"Peter was the one who lost it," James said, sitting back down, "In our sixth year. By then he was the only one who needed it on a regular basis, the rest of us had the castle memorized. He was cutting through a secret passage when he ran into Filch, how he didn't see him on the map I'll never know. He was able to wipe it, though, before Filch took it from him."
Meanwhile, everyone was pouring over the map, amazed at the detail and spellwork. Hermione was especially amazed, "There are a lot of complicated spells on this! Who made it?"
"We don't know their real names..." George began.
"My dad and his friends made it." Harry said, surprising everyone, including his parents. Internally he said, "I want you to be remembered for more than being the parents of The Boy Who Lived, and I can chalk this one up to memories. After all, I do remember Moony and Padfoot." He had intentionally left out Peter, following his father's lead. The glow of pride on James' face gave Harry a small grin in the face of all of his friends' stares.
"How do you know that, Harry?" Draco asked, looking amazed and confused.
"I remember those names, I had an Uncle Moony, Uncle Padfoot ... Uncle Wormtail, and I remember my dad being called Prongs as often as he was called James." Harry took a deep breath, staring at the map, "Remus Lupin was Moony, Sirius Black was Padfoot ... Pe – Peter Pettigrew was Wormtail."
There was a shared glance throughout the group; obviously there was something they didn't want to tell Harry. Guessing, correctly, that it was about Sirius Black he headed them off, "I know what you're going to say about Sirius, and you're wrong." He smiled slightly at their shocked and indignant faces, "When I first entered the magical world, I went to Gringotts and saw my parents will. It stipulated that I was to go to one of five different people and was to NEVER go to my 'relations'. Those people were Sirius Black, Alice Longbottom, Remus Lupin, Poppy Pomfrey, or Amelia Bones. When I asked why that hadn't happened the goblins told me that Sirius was falsely imprisoned and that Peter Pettigrew was the true betrayer and murderer. Remus was and is a werewolf and was denied my custody, and Madams Pomfrey and Bones were never told, because of Dumbledore." He purposefully left out Neville's mum, letting him tell that story when he was ready. He had thought that everyone would focus on Dumbledore's interfering. However, it seemed Neville would have to decide now as Padma had picked up on the omission.
"What about Alice Longbottom, is that your mum Neville?"
Neville nodded and sighed deeply, "My mum ... and my dad ... were tortured into insanity with the Cruciatus Curse by Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange and Barty Crouch Jr. They live in St. Mungo's now, in the long term ward." He paused and took a shuddering breath, as Harry placed an arm around his shoulders, "I visit them every holiday, they ... they don't recognize me."
The girls in the group by now were in tears, and the guys were in various levels of discomfort, none more so, however, than Draco. After a moment he got up and stood before Neville. Holding out his hand, he spoke in a wavering voice, "Nev, I am so sorry for what my family has done to yours. I want you to know that I will cast my aunt out of the family as soon as I have the power to do so, and I wish I could do something now to make up for what happened to your parents."
After a moment of shock Neville rose to his feet and took Draco's hand, "Draco, you have nothing to apologize for. You were only one when your aunt and uncle tortured my parents, though I do appreciate your offer to remove Bellatrix from your family. I know there is nothing able to bring my parents back, but having you and everyone else as friends has made it easier to live without them. "
Draco stood and they shook hands warmly, though Draco made a silent vow to do anything he could to return the Longbottoms to their right minds. Everyone smiled and the girls dried their eyes before Ernie blinked and turned to Harry, "Have you told Suzan that you were supposed to be in her Aunts care, or Madam Pomfrey?"
Harry shook his head, "I never had the opportunity as it's not really a good conversation starter. I'll try talking to them both after this Halloween mess is over."
With that the group broke up and headed to their dorms, heads filled with thoughts of Harry, Neville, Quirrell, and the manipulations of their Headmaster.