Harry Potter and the Trip to the Past
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Chapter – 8
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They were chatting and laughing, eating the magnificent feast that the School had provided, when Quirrell came running into the Great Hall clutching his chest and stammered out, "Troll in the dungeons." before he promptly fainted.
Dumbledore flicked his wand at once and the doors magically shut up and placing his wand to his neck he spoke in a calming tone. "All of you take your seats please and continue with your dinner. After dinner you will be escorted to your common rooms where you will stay until you are informed otherwise."
Harry and the others sat down and continued with their dinner discussing very hard about the troll and the possible ways it could have entered Hogwarts. "You know I thought Hogwarts was protected enough against such things, how did the troll get inside anyway?"
"No one knows." Fred answered from a few seats away. "But they are really dangerous things trolls. They have no brain, only a desire to do violence all the time and a pat from them will probably kill you."
Neville shuddered along with Ron and Hermione. Seamus was white. "I have seen one in my village you know. They are such awful things. They have a huge club almost our size and they keep swinging it and bringing down anything that stands in their way."
This time all of them shuddered and slowly they finished dinner and were escorted to their common rooms by their professors. No one went to sleep and the Gryffindor common room was packed, all of them waiting anxiously for an announcement that the troll had been dealt with. Harry sitting there with Hermione and Neville softly said the password to release the trigger and make the troll visible.
The call never came. Instead there was McGonagall, her face white and strained worrying Harry at once. He pushed down his feeling and let only the information about the troll and his mild anxiety play in his mind.
She had a big book with her and calling everyone to settle down she started taking register. Everyone in Gryffindor had been accounted for and with a huge relief on her face she turned to leave when the door opened and Dumbledore, Snape, Flitwick and Sprout came in.
"Everyone is here professor." McGonagall told him and Dumbledore swept his eyes around the common room taking in the anxious faces. Harry's face was just like his friends, curious and mildly scared. But Snape was watching only him.
"The troll was found killed." Dumbledore could go no further because everyone started clapping. He smiled though his eyes were very serious and he looked straight at Harry. "No one knows how it was killed and if any of you have any information," Snape had entered Harry's mind at that point and Dumbledore was till talking, "please get up and inform us."
Snape saw Harry's imagination of a troll with a club swinging and after Dumbledore's words the troll lying in a heap on the potions classroom? Snape scowled and stopped his Legilimency. The boy thought the troll was in his potions classroom. Then he frowned. The images had come perfectly along with Dumbledore's speech. But once again there was nothing else in the mind except his conversation about the troll at dinner. Not even the events of the morning.
"How was he killed professor?" asked one of the seventh year boys.
"Someone had cast a Reducto to its face and chest." All the boys shuddered as one.
The students remained silent and the professors went out. "Well Severus, Flitius, Pomona, Minerva did you notice anything from any of the students?"
All of them shook their heads and Snape very thoughtfully. Dumbledore looked sharply at him, but his thoughts were far away thinking of what he had seen inside the mind of Harry Potter.
"Severus?" pressed Dumbledore slowing down and gesturing the other professors to go on.
"I peeped again today Dumbledore. All I found was the memories of dinner and his imagination of the events as we spoke. That is very unnatural. At the very least I have yet to find someone who is capable of this type of a mind that has natural Occlumency tendencies." Snape paused for effect. "Not at this age, in fact not ever."
Dumbledore agreed silently. He did not comment though. Instead he asked Snape, "Why Severus do you think Harry had anything to do with the troll?"
Snape did not answer at once. "I don't know. But there is something about Potter I really cannot seem to put my hands upon. He is," Snape paused and searched for an appropriate word that would express his opinion but coming up with nothing he sighed, "too confident for a first year, do you not think so?"
"Why would you feel like that?" Dumbledore asked him curiously. They had reached the gargoyle that stood at the entrance to his office and Dumbledore muttered 'liquorice wands' and stepped on to the stairs with Snape following him.
"Not even Potter's father and Black who, Merlin knows came form families that would make them truly overbearing," and scowled when Dumbledore twinkled his eyes and huffed a bit angrily, thinking for a second about storming off but Snape was highly intrigued about Potter and he wanted to also understand Dumbledore's reactions to the findings of Boy-Who-Lived's mind, "not even they were this confident. Not even Lucius was, Dumbledore."
Dumbledore sobered at that. At a deeper level he knew what Snape was saying. He too had peeped once before and found Harry's mind blissfully and calmly empty. That was not the norm unless Harry was doing all this unconsciously to suppress his feelings and his childhood which made Dumbledore cringe as he remembered 'the cupboard beneath the stairs' on his Hogwarts letter.
Dumbledore had expected Snape to be frothing at the mouth seeing Harry. Snape had been doing just that before Harry came to Hogwarts. But since then he had treated Harry as sulkily as he did the other students and nothing more. He had not removed a single point of Harry until now just because he was Harry Potter. Snape was that much confused.
"Almost non-verbal spells, multiple Transfiguration on the very first day, so far only expertly brewed potions turned in – not even once has Potter handed a potion less than perfect, so much confidence, what would you think Dumbledore? Or is that not my position to ask?" Snape finished sarcastically.
Dumbledore stared at Snape for a long moment and then sighed. "I don't know Severus and of course I would never tell you to stop deciphering our young Mr. Potter. I peeped once today into his mind and I found it as you said. Nothing. He is an Occlumens Severus." Dumbledore observed very quietly shocking Snape out of his mind. He looked up his eyes wide and unguarded at the Headmaster who was staring equally sombrely at him.
Already the equations had begun to change. Dumbledore was baffled and Snape was not yelling about the Boy-Who-Lived and everything was different. In the past Snape had only bad things to say about Harry and was forever snubbed by Dumbledore. Here Snape was as thoughtful as Dumbledore if not even more so and they were working together.
The Dumbledore of the past would have chewed Snape for reading his mind and Snape certainly never told the Headmaster he had been reading thoughts straight off Harry's mind. Dumbledore would have been very scathing to him. This time Snape and Dumbledore were taking turns to peep into the mind of the Boy-Who-Lived and both did not like what they saw or rather what they did not see.
"What do you mean Dumbledore?" asked Snape in a strangled voice.
"He is an Occlumens Severus. No one can do what he does. Either he is a natural Occlumens and if that is the case then he is the first Occlumens that I have seen who can hide his feelings so well otherwise he may be possessed."
"What!" Snape shouted.
"Well how can someone control their mind like this? Tell me?" Dumbledore demanded highly agitated, something Snape had never seen him being. It was a novel experience and Snape was not sure he liked it. "Since I peeped into his mind I have been very disturbed and now with the Stone here I am very worried."
"You are afraid Potter may go for the Stone?" Snape asked him carefully.
In answer Dumbledore got up from his chair and started pacing the office. "You have peeped twice Severus and I have seen the inside of his mind once. All the three times without warning and all the times we peeped Harry did not expect it. May be we can excuse tonight because Minerva was already there and Harry would have been on his guard, but not earlier today and not at first when you cast Legilimency on him. Unless he has a permanent shield protecting his mind, like the way you or I do. That automatically means Harry is not a natural Occlumens and that means he knew of magic before he came here."
They were silent for a while, Dumbledore pacing the floor and Snape staring thoughtfully at the wall opposite him, thinking of the enigma that was Harry James Potter.
"Keep an eye on Quirrell will you?" Dumbledore asked him, not stopping his pacing and Snape slowly stood up and murmuring his excuses, left for the dungeons.
The next few weeks were full of Quidditch and Harry learnt the game all over again from Oliver Wood and took to the skies with the Gryffindor Quidditch Team. He was the youngest seeker in a century and he thoroughly enjoyed his practises and his flying time in the air.
The first match of the season was Gryffindor vs. Slytherin and Harry was much exited. Sirius and Remus had got him an excellent broom a Nimbus 2000 and they had wished him all the best and told him to push the Slytherin players' faces in dung. Harry did not know how he could achieve that but was willing to try and defeat Slytherin once again by catching the snitch.
Harry woke up that morning with a sense of anticipation and totally forgot that Quirrell would try and pull him off the broom and last time it had been Hermione who had pushed against him to reach Snape and set his robes on fire, thereby distracting him and stopping the bucking of the broomstick.
This time there would be none of that since the first years had still to meet Hagrid and the break in at Gringotts though discussed avidly was left right there and not pursued further. They had not the midnight duel with Malfoy and so they had not met Fluffy the three headed dog.
He wore his robes and taking his new broom proudly with him, went down to breakfast. There Harry ate very little breakfast and was surrounded by all the first years that were encouraging him along.
"Look Harry, search carefully for the snitch and get it and we can wipe it in the Slytherins and Malfoy's face completely." Ron was already giddy with imagining that scene in his mind.
Harry muttered something noncommittally. "Potter," a drawl sounded nearby and Harry looked up to see Malfoy hovering nearby a sardonic look on his pointy little face.
"Malfoy hi," Harry smiled and gestured him to sit down.
He raised his eyebrows in distaste and shook his head, though to give him credit he did not utter a word, "I only came to wish you all the best and don't cry when Slytherin wipe you off the earth."
Harry only grinned and nodded his head. "I will try not to cry." He replied mockingly and laughed when Malfoy grinned, truly grinned and not smirked.
"Shut it Malfoy, no one asked you?" Ron snarled.
Malfoy looked straight through Ron who was beginning to froth at the mouth and nodded to Harry, and rolling his eyes sauntered back to the Slytherin Table.
"Why do you even talk to him Harry? He is evil as all Slytherins are." Ron told him angrily.
Harry shrugged and looked a bit helpless. "He is funny Ron." He said inadequately and concentrated on his eating wishing Malfoy had not come over to wish him and Ron was not such a git.
"What? He is insulting you and you are calling him funny." Ron spluttered.
"Oh shut up Ron." Hermione said vexed with Ron's extreme anti Slytherin tendencies. "He said Slytherin would win. So what, he will say that won't he? He is a Slytherin after all."
"You shut up, you know-it-all." Ron snarled at her extremely aggravated.
"Ron pipe down." Harry said softly. "Don't talk like that to her. She voiced only her opinion. And she is right. As far as Draco is concerned he would naturally want Slytherin to win. He is not like us Gryffindors who want our team to win."
Ron went red. "So you are supporting a slimy Slytherin?"
Harry now thoroughly exasperated, "Do I look like I am supporting a slimy Slytherin? I am merely asking you not to be rude to Hermione who is a Gryffindor."
Ron was in two minds. He could get up and walk away or even stay there and fight the losing battle with Harry. But he knew after that Harry would never speak to him. He liked Harry. So that decision was a bit difficult for him. And no one else would support him in this. Not even his brothers. So he looked very constipated for a few minutes and there was a tense silence while Ron pondered on the best way to bring back things to normal.
"Ronniekins if you don't apologize right now," Fred or was it George said,
"We will truss your pretty little mouth,"
"And make sure that you don't open it,"
"FOREVER!" Both shouted in unison, glaring at their younger brother before Fred or George continued harshly
"Harry's got to play a game and if,"
"He loses the snitch today," and left the statement hanging there.
Ron gulped and looked miserable. Harry sighed, "Ron you don't have to apologize to me." Ron looked up in disbelief at that statement and small amount of hope. "But you must to Hermione. I am more of a know-it-all than her and if you must really call anyone a know-it-all it should be me." Harry finished seriously glaring a little at Ron.
"'Am sorry Hermione." Ron mumbled and got up from there and ran outside.
Harry looked at the twins and shrugged in a kind of apology and helplessness. They understood perfectly and ginned. "Ickle Harrikins now put all the turbulent present behind you and concentrate on the great game of Quidditch." Fred told him.
Harry grinned back reluctantly and looked at Hermione. "Are you okay?" he asked softly getting up.
She nodded and smiled, "Go and beat the tar out of them Harry."
"And here I thought you did not care much for Quidditch." Harry teased her walking away from the Great Hall with all of them, looking and feeling terribly relaxed.
"Oh I don't." she retorted. "But," she continued her eyes slightly clouding with unhappiness, "everyone heard what Ron shouted and everyone saw the blasted Malfoy coming over to our table to talk to you. If you don't catch the snitch and win us the game, everyone will talk."
"Very true." Harry told her and all of them walked in a companionable and a slightly nervous silence. They reached the pitch and Harry and the twins went to join their team and Hermione and Neville went to the stands.
Harry and the twins went to the changing rooms and changed into their scarlet robes and went to stand near a highly tense Oliver Wood. He was gulping every minute and then was glaring at his team and then gulping again.
"We have the best team here today." He started abruptly. "We have to win this time. We had better. We have the best seeker, the best pair of beaters, excellent chasers and a decent keeper."
"No need to be modest Oliver and we know the rest of your speech by heart." Called out Fred understandingly, making Oliver scowl.
Harry grinned to himself. All this was just like last time. And he still did not think to remember what the game itself would bring.
They went out behind a nervous and hopeful Oliver and lined up on the pitch to encouraging screams from the Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and half of Ravenclaw stands. The Slytherins booed and shouted at the Gryffindors.
Harry took to the air and felt the wind whipping his hair and was swaying on the broom with happiness. He heard Lee Johnson comment with McGonagall restraining him now and then and flew lazily as both Gryffindor and Slytherin posted goals.
At that time a bludger came narrowly just missing Harry as Harry swerved and flew a bit higher. The bludger came at him once again and at that time Harry's broom started to buckle and threw him off. Harry went up into the air and came down and managed to catch the broom with one hand. The bludger that came at Harry once again hit Harry straight on his stomach and Harry lost the control and went spiralling down from more than a hundred feet in the air.
Normally Harry would have used his or even his wand to slow himself down but being hit by the bludger very hard made Harry lose consciousness and Harry fell like a rock not hearing the panicked screams from the crowds or knowing that Hermione and Neville had tears running from their faces and had started running down from the stands to try and catch a fast falling Harry.
Nor was Harry aware that his team mates were screaming with fear and were now trying to catch him but Harry was a dead weight and Fred and George and Oliver who came whistling through the air to try and catch Harry all failed and Fred was dangerously hanging by his hand and had to be rescued by his twin for leaning too far.
Twenty feet from the ground Harry started slowing and he hit the ground at a far slower rate than he would have had he crashed at the original speed he had been falling.
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Snape had been asked to keep an eye on Quirrell by Dumbledore and Snape seeing Quirrell looking frequently at Harry and focus on him all the time after the Gryffindors had taken to the air had made Snape suspicious and he had kept one eye on him. A while into the game he had suddenly seen Quirrell start muttering something inaudibly as if he was singing to himself; but his eyes had been strangely fixed at something high in the air. Snape had turned around to see Potter's broom buckle and he had at once flicked his wand and had started chanting the counter to the buckling broom.
But barely a second later a bludger had hit Potter at a tremendous speed and Harry had let go of the hand catching the broom and had started the fast and free fall to the ground. Snape glanced at Quirrell who was wearing a self satisfied expression on his face and had immediately turned around and held his wand pointing it at Harry and at the same time making sure that Quirrell would not be able to see his actions by casting a disillusionment charm on his hand and had cast the slowing charm usually used to stop falling objects.
By the time Snape had cast the slow down spell at Harry, Harry was only about twenty feet from the ground. So he still hit the ground with some force and crumpled onto the ground. Snape lifted the spell, just in time to see Hagrid run to Harry and pick him up with that Granger girl and Longbottom openly crying and Weasley looking very white running along with Hagrid, who was almost running to the infirmary.
Snape cast a notice-me-not charm on himself and turned to Quirrell. He was standing and stretching himself to look at the fallen boy. He had a look of satisfaction on his face that was very disturbing for someone witnessing a rather serious accident that may have been deliberately caused. Snape looked at him and removing the notice-me-not charm upon himself, when he saw Quirrell looking around and briskly started walking away towards the direction of his dungeons as if he was not bothered about the Boy-Who-Lived, his robes billowing behind him.
He went to his office and using the floo reached the Headmaster's office and waited in the empty room. It was more than an hour that a very worried Dumbledore came inside and seeing Snape smiled tiredly and went around and sat down in his chair.
"How is the boy?" Snape asked him.
"Harry is not fine Severus." Dumbledore replied sombrely. "He has crushed his ribs and a portion of his lungs is also damaged. He has cracked his skull and also has multiple fractures on his arms and legs. Did you see what happened?"
Snape told him and Dumbledore closed his eyes and leaned back. "There is so much darkness in Quirrell, Severus." He told Snape with his eyes still closed. "I am afraid his mind has been somehow manipulated by Voldemort"
"What!" Snape shouted. "What are you saying Dumbledore?" he asked the Headmaster who had still not opened his eyes.
"I told you Severus, did I not that Voldemort would return. I am afraid with Harry's entrance into the Wizarding World and into Hogwarts had tempted Voldemort to continue from where he had been forced to leave ten years ago. I am afraid Quirrell is acting somehow under Voldemort's order's and that was why I had told you to keep an eye on him." Dumbledore opened his eyes now and stared deeply at a very frightened and uncomfortable Snape. "It paid off today. Because of your prompt action Harry was saved from a sure death, thank you."
Snape flushed uncomfortably. "There is no need to thank me Dumbledore. I would have done this for any student." He sneered and got up. "If that is all?" Dumbledore looked at the thin, ungainly man and slowly nodded his head.
Snape turned on his feet and walked to the floo and throwing a pinch of floo powder into the fire, flooed into his office and went to his chair and slumped into it. The Dark Lord was back! Merlin! He would have to go back and spy for the Order. It was so scary and frightening. The killings would start all over again and he Severus would be burning from both ends to the middle, where he would just burst, he knew.
But he could not keep away; would not. That would be his redemption, his personal salvation for the atrocities he had committed as an enthusiastic death eater and for causing the death of Lily. Her child would be hounded even more than he, Snape would be and what a burden he had handed on a platter to her child. It was all because of him, Snape thought bitterly, summoning a bottle of strong Firewhisky and a glass, absentmindedly pouring himself a shot and sipping the fiery liquid.
It was all because of him and his prejudices against people like his father that hurt Lily and made an orphan of her boy who made him clench with guilt inside every time he looked at her eyes; every time he looked at Potter. Snape stayed there drinking and brooding for a long time and did not appear for lunch or dinner. At around ten in the night, he took a hangover potion that he had sensibly summoned to him when he had started drinking in earnest and feeling steadier and better, his awful headache reduced to a dull throbbing at the back of his mind, Snape stood up deciding to go over to the infirmary to see the state of the Boy-Who-Lived.
He swayed on his feet and cursing softly, he snapped his fingers.
"Yes Master Snape? What may Tippy do for yous?" the elf bowed and asked him.
"Bring me some dinner." He replied curtly, sitting down again.
In a minute there was hot steaming dinner and Snape ate quickly and stood up feeling much better and able to think clearer. He paced his room for a long time before he turned and walked out. It was almost two in the morning and Snape had been brooding over everything the whole of yesterday.
He cast a disillusion charm on himself and walked out, casting a cleaning charm on his robes that reeked of Firewhisky. He walked up to the infirmary, thinking about the buckling broom, the way the bludger had hit Potter and the way he had fallen. He would survive, but it had been a very close thing. Had he not acted so quickly, Snape knew this time they would have been in mourning for the Boy-Who-Lived. He shuddered a little and slowed down when he reached the floor where the infirmary was.
He walked into the infirmary and saw that the boy was sleeping. He flicked his wand and found that his bed was completely warded. So Dumbledore had not taken any chances. Snape walked up to the edge of the wards and peeped. Potter was sleeping and his breathing sounded very shallow. Snape stayed there for a few minutes staring at the Boy-Who-Lived and was about to leave when he saw Harry's wand on the small table. He sneered. How foolish! Dumbledore had not placed the boy's wand inside of the wards. Really he was losing his touch Snape though with a sneer. He went close to the wand and slowly picked it up.
He almost dropped it. It was so powerful and it was vibrating warningly in his hands. On an impulse, he cast the priori incantatem on the wand, wanting to know the type of spells the boy wonder had been casting. The wand still vibrating started off with the spells they had been learning and slowly the spells kept coming, going backwards in order of the casting.
Snape watched with a desultory interest when the many first year spells came out and was about to cancel the spell and keep the wand back, when suddenly, the wand showed Reducto, an invisibility charm and an enervate and a non-tracking spell. Then the priori incantatem continued with all the harmless spells they had been taught in School and some harmless charms including Accio, the banishing charm, the cleaning charms and the like before it finally stopped.
Harry had used his second wand for all of his undercover activities, but one Reducto and the invisibility charm and the enervate he had cast from his first wand because he had used his first wand in his wand hand and the other wand in his left before casting the Reducto at the troll. Then forgetting, in his anxiety to be away safely, Harry had cast the invisibility charm on the troll and the enervate on Quirrell and followed it by the non tracking spell before tucking his wands into his robes and flashing away.
Snape stared at the wand and re cast the priori incantatem once again. The spells came in the same order once again and Snape's eyes narrowed impossibly. He cast the priori incantatem for a third time and seeing the spells disbelievingly and then he looked long and hard at Harry before swirling on his feet and leaving the room.
End of Chapter – 8
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