Chapter Four: A Second Motif
Harry's plan for Saturday was to have a long, leisurely breakfast, spend a couple hours in the practice room with Hermione, finish his homework, or at least do enough that he could do the rest Monday morning before it was due, hunt up someone to play dagarary with, and have a nice relaxing evening in preparation for doing nothing whatsoever on Sunday.
But when Harry came down for breakfast, the Great Hall fell silent, then broke into whispering, students gathered in groups around newspapers.
Harry made for the Gryffindor table, Hermione and Ron right behind him, and went to Fred and George, who each had a newspaper.
"Hiya Harry, try not to die," they said.
Fred showed him the newspaper.
SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES!Above a picture of a screaming rictus.
Harry sat down to breakfast, reading the article, Hermione reading it over his shoulder.
Ron said, "Sirius Black betrayed your parents to-"
"I read their biographies, Ron. We've been over this. There's a lot of common knowledge I don't know, and thanks for filling me in so often, but you really don't need to tell me about my parents. I've told you that a couple times, I think."
Hermione said, "Don't do something stupid."
"Of course not."
"I know you're angry."
"I'm not angry."
"What are you then?"
"I don't know. I suppose I oughta be cautious, but that was already the case."
Hermione said, "And?"
Harry said, "And I'm angry."
"You don't think..."
"Probably not, but I guess I'll be talking with Dumbledore pretty soon."
Percy tapped him on the shoulder. "Potter, see the Headmaster after breakfast."
Hermione accompanied him to Dumbledore's office, though he kept telling her she didn't need to.
She said, "You shouldn't be alone right now."
"Hogwarts has lots of security. It's not like Sirius Black is going to come around the corner."
"That's not what I mean."
He was nervous about her doing him a favor when they'd just really made friends with each other earlier in the week. But snapping at her wouldn't help. "Thank you."
They reached the Gargoyle that blocked the way to Dumbledore's office, and without either of them saying anything, the plinth it was on moved out of the way. The started through, and the Gargoyle spoke in a voice like an old radio. "Just the boy."
Harry jumped. He hadn't known it could talk. Perhaps the spear it held wasn't ornamental either.
"I'll wait," said Hermione.
Harry tapped his Expanded bag. "Would you like a book?"
For answer, she pulled a small leather bound book from her pocket. What Makes an Enchantment not a Charm: The Difference in Theory.
Walking up the corridor, Harry heard Hermione ask the Gargoyle where she might sit, but couldn't make out the tinny reply.
The door was half-open, but he knocked.
"Harry. Take a seat."
He settled into the plush leather chair in front of the Headmaster's crowded desk.
"Do you know why you're here?" said Dumbledore.
"Sirius Black escaped Azkaban."
"Tell me what you know."
"The child of an old pureblood, Slytherin family, but he was sorted into Gryffindor, where he made fast friends with James Potter. He was known as brash and talented, and during the war he became my parents' Secret Keeper. He betrayed them to Voldemort. Shortly after Voldemort vanished, another friend of my father, Peter Pettigrew, went hunting for him, and was blown to bits by Black, who was caught, convicted, and put in Azkaban, where he was held till his recent escape. The newspapers don't know when exactly he escaped, or how."
"Concise. Why do you think he's escaped?"
"I imagine he didn't want to be in Azkaban any longer. It sounds unpleasant."
"Flippant, but good. You've read that no one's ever escaped Azkaban before?"
Harry nodded. The Daily Prophet had repeated that whenever there hadn't been anything else to fill the column with.
Dumbledore continued, "How do you think he escaped?"
"I don't know. Maybe a mistake was made."
"Indeed. And the nature of the mistake, or at least one of them, is, even I admit, unnerving. A Ministry official checked on Sirius, and found him in surprisingly good health, mentally and physically. He made pleasant conversation, and was curious to know how the Chudley Cannons were getting on. So the official, as a nice, humanitarian gesture, which now looks like a grievous mistake, left him his newspaper.
"That newspaper was run the morning after the induction of the new Hogwarts students. A rushed job, with pictures of all the new Hogwarts students, house by house. You were front and center. A week later, he was gone; or, I should say, we became aware of his absence. If any other mistake was made, we haven't found it yet.
"It's as if he was simply waiting around in Azkaban, with nothing better to do, till he was prompted, by your smiling face, to escape a prison which has never before been escaped from. Do you see my concern?"
"I'm surprised you're telling me this."
"Only the bit about the newspaper is secret, and the press will find that out within a few days. Still, I'd like you to keep the contents of this conversation between the two of us. And maybe a close friend or two. The Weasley, for example."
Harry said, "I'm not sure he could keep his mouth shut."
"You might be surprised."
"Telling him wouldn't be much use, I think."
Dumbledore said, "You should confide in someone."
"I don't want to be a bother."
"Harry, as you get older, I think you'll find that one of the surest ways to bother your friends is to push them away."
Harry was silent.
"If you did talk to someone, who would it be?"
"...Hermione Granger."
Dumbledore laughed. "The smart one."
"I'm smart too," said Harry.
"Yes, but she's smarter."
"That's rude. She's better at describing ideas," said Harry.
"Articulating abstract concepts, you mean. And she's more sensible."
"I'm sensible."
"You're thinking of how you dealt with the remembrall situation?"
Harry's jaw dropped.
"Very little happens in this castle that I don't know about. Deceiving Madam Hooch was a high-risk choice, and, say what you like to justify it, you did it on instinct. I'll agree that you have thus far evinced more evidence of considering your options than the average first year Gryffindor, but that is a very low bar to clear. And you still haven't answered my question. Do you see my concern?"
"You're afraid he's coming for me," said Harry.
"Do you see my other concern?"
"I'm not daft enough to go after him. If I was a fourth or fifth year maybe I'd be able to convince myself I could do that, but right now it would be a very bad joke. If I happen to see him, I'll run."
"That's what I wanted to hear. You learned the Alarum spell in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Make sure you can cast it quickly. Don't hesitate to use it, if things seem off, even if you're not sure. Better a false alarm than the alternative. Professor McGonagall tells me you also bought a safety necklace at Diagon Alley. May I see it?"
He took it off. The chain and clasp were both of some jet-black metal. Inside the clasp was a little button of red jade, which you were supposed to press in an emergency. He handed it over. "When I bought it, I didn't realize it's useless without a connection to someone."
Dumbledore said, "If it were useless, Professor McGonagall wouldn't have let you buy it. It automatically detects and alerts security wards. Such as those of Hogwarts. But I can make it more useful." He took from around his own neck a necklace of silver and blue stone. He placed the necklaces together, waved his wand, put his necklace back on, and returned Harry's.
"Your safety necklace now has a direct line to me. Additionally, Shelby Blank will accompany you to and from Hagrid's cabin. Those are the only additional security precautions that you need worry about for now."
"But there are others?" said Harry.
Dumbledore tossed him a necklace with a platinum phoenix at the end. "You are taking lessons in occlumency. Hermione is not. Her mind ought to be protected if you're sharing your secrets with her. This necklace will do little to defend her mind from legilimency, but it will give warning, to her and to me, if legilimency is tried against her. It's already adjusted for her."
"You had it ready," Harry observed.
"Very little happens in this school that I don't know about."
#
#
Harry found Hermione sitting on a velvet cushioned purple bench that stuck out of the wall.
"Well?" she said.
He sat on the bench next to her and filled her in in as quiet a voice as he could, at the end unclenching his fingers to show her the platinum necklace resting on his palm. "I understand if you don't want to hassle yourself. You probably shouldn't."
She took the necklace and put it on. "We should look at a copy of the newspaper Sirius Black saw."
Having spent his free time either in the practice room or the Gryffindor dorms, Harry hadn't seen the inside of the library since orientation, when it had blurred together with everything else-moving staircases had taken up most of his mental space at the time.
The library was vast, shelving on the walls reaching from the floor to the high ceilings, ladders reaching up, row upon row of standing bookcases, aisle upon aisle.
Nodding to the librarian as they passed, Hermione led Harry to what he'd thought was the back of the library, but opened into another, vast, book-lined chamber.
Harry tried to count it up in his head. If each shelf, held, say 30 books, and each section had about 15 shelves, and there were hundreds or thousands of sections... "They must have tens of thousands of books in here. Hundreds of thousands even."
"Somewhat over 20 million books, I'm told. The goal is to have a copy of every book Wizarding kind has ever produced, with translations when needed. Plus, there's a muggle section. And there's journals, newspapers, fragments, letters, museum objects, all sorts of stuff."
"How do you even find anything?"
"There's a very good system of organization, I'm told. I think I'll understand it by my third or fourth year. This way."
Up a flight of stairs, into another cavernous room, this one, like the room at the entrance, with a set of writing tables, a few students at them.
"Oops, wrong turn," said Hermione.
She led him back through the corridor, then down another corridor that was right next to it.
Harry stopped, The previous room had opened far to the left, and this room opened far to the right. They were not, however, the same room.
Harry said, "I'm a little confused about the layout."
Hermione clucked her tongue. "If you'd read Hogwarts: A History,you'd know the library is like your expanded bag. It's bigger on the inside."
"Oh." He swallowed. It can't, like, suddenly implode, can it?"
"All of Hogwarts, the castle, the lake, the forbidden forest, are inside a single small ravine that muggle shepherds occasionally run sheep through. Diagon Alley is the same. It's all inside a little closed off alley between a few buildings."
Harry said, "So this room we're inside of is an expanded space inside an expanded space which is inside an expanded space, and when I stick my hand inside my moleskin bag I'm sticking it inside an expanded space that's inside all three expanded spaces?"
"I don't understand it," said Hermione, "but apparently it's fine. Come on, we're about there."
The newspapers were against the wall, in a set of rotating cases that could be ruffled around like feathers.
"Here's The Daily Prophet," said Hermione. "I missed reading it, so I've come here a couple times."
The Daily Prophet was in some ways like a major national newspaper, discussing politics, national policy, and foreign affairs. In other ways, it was like a small local paper, talking about the new shop opening on Thistle Street, who had died of old age, and what was going on at the school.
"This should be it," said Harry, pulling out an edition dated September 2nd.
The cover page was the new Hogwarts inductees. A photo of the new Gryffindors, of the new Slytherins, the new Hufflepuffs, and the new Ravenclaws, text below laying out who was from what family and who had been sorted into what house.
Harry was in the center of the Gryffindors, and was, to Harry's surprise, genuinely smiling. Ron was next to him, head tilted to the left, holding his rat still on his shoulder, since his rat had kept trying to escape back into his pocket. Hermione, like most of the girls, was at the back, the first-years being at the age where girls tended taller than boys, her grin so wide Harry thought it must've hurt.
Like all wizard pictures, they moved, a few seconds that weren't quite continuous replay.
So Sirius Black had seen this, and that had somehow prompted him to do the impossible? There shouldn't be anything horribly surprising about Harry Potter going to Hogwarts.
They read the rest of the paper. There was more about the sorting and the start of the year, including a few inches on Harry, just saying that he had been sorted into Gryffindor after spending a bit longer under the hat than was average, and seemed to be a healthy, serious-minded boy. Then a little family context, reminding readers that James and Lily Potter had both been Gryffindors, and had been Head Boy and Head Girl.
Ron Weasley had been the year's longest hatstall, taking just over five minutes.
There was a short profile on Professor Quirrell, in which he was asked if he believed in the curse, and Quirrel said he wasn't sure, but if there was a curse he aimed to be the one to break it.
"The curse?" said Harry.
Hermione frowned. "I have no idea," she said, and the paper didn't explain.
There was an article profiling all the TAs, most prominently Shelby Blank, the talented young dagararist, and the article said that, while anyone who cared to know could find out, The Daily Prophet would, as always, honor Hogwarts' request to not mention the former houses of TAs.
Then there was politics, the dramatic events in Korea, and the new charmed jewelry shop in Diagon Alley.
Harry and Hermione read it again, but nothing stuck out as being relevant to Sirius Black, so they went to find Ron.
#
#
"Blimey, you didn't know?" said Ron. "There's been a curse on Defense Against the Dark Arts position for ages. No one can teach it for more than a year."
"But Professor Pratchett has been here for decades," said Harry, referring to the old man who taught Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"Exactly. He already had his position before the curse was laid, and these sorts of curses only apply to new people. Putting a trap on a door doesn't affect people already in the room."
Hermione said, "Do you understand what you're saying?"
"Not really, but I'd wager the people who told me that did. And it makes sense, right? Dumbledore is supposed to be desperate to weaken the curse before Pratchett retires."
Harry said, "Why can't he just break it?"
"Because the curse was set by You-Know-Who. Or at least that's what everyone says. He wanted the position, probably so he could get followers and teach students Dark Arts, this was before he was You-Know-Who, and when Dumbledore wouldn't give him the position...
Harry said, "How do you weaken a curse?"
"If someone managed to teach it for two straight years, the curse would weaken, so it would be easier to survive it next year, and the curse would weaken again, and pretty soon it would be gone. It also should just get weaker over time. That's one reason some people think You-Know-Who is still alive. Everyone says he cast the curse when Dumbledore wouldn't let him be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and the curse should've started getting weaker after he died, but it hasn't."
Hermione nodded. "If a curse prevents people from doing X, managing to do X-"
Harry said, "Go back to the part where You-Know-Who isn't really dead."
"I don't know," said Ron. "That's just what some people say."
The Muggle-born's Guide hadn't mentioned that possibility. For some reason or another, the Killing Curse had rebounded on Voldemort, and anyone who was hit by the Killing Curse died. Ergo, Voldemort was dead. End of story.
Maybe not. He'd have to ask Dumbledore, when he got the chance.
Having spent an hour kicking around whatever ideas they could without telling Ron about Sirius Black reading a newspaper, Hermione asked Harry what he would've been doing if he hadn't found out that Sirius Black had escaped.
Harry said, "I thought we might go to the practice room. I want to control Lumos better, and I should work on Alarum."
"Let's do that," said Hermione.
"The practice room again?" said Ron.
"You don't have to come," said Harry, hoping Ron would stay.
"I'll come," said Ron.
The practice room was a lot emptier than it had been the Saturday before. Rather than looking for an empty table, they looked for an empty section.
"Enthusiasm runs out," said Ms. Kransterry when Harry asked.
"Mine hasn't. I'd like to practice the Alarm Spell. Could you set up a space?"
She pointed to a square that had been drawn on the floor.
When Harry walked into the square, all the other sounds of the room, breathing, talking, students shifting in their seats, vanished. His steps were all he could hear. When he stopped moving, he heard his pulse.
He put a cotton ball in each ear, raised his wand, and said "Alarum."
Nothing happened.
He tried again, and set off the whirring, siren-like racket that was his goal.
His third try was a half step back, producing a quiet whine so high-pitched it hurt.
He kept at it for twenty minutes, till he felt comfortable with it, then took the cotton balls out of his ears and joined Hermione and Ron.
Harry worked on Lumos, Hermione worked on "extras" in the textbook that they were skipping because there wasn't enough time, and Ron talked about some book he'd read which had nothing to do with any of their classes.
"..Six hundred and Ninety years old..." said Ron.
"...of course, everyone has a Philosopher's Stone, but only Flamel has thee Philosopher's Stone..."
"...this was all back in the days of Medieval France, and they hadn't really worked out expansion charms yet, so..."
"...I would like to be immortal..."
Finally, Harry said, "Ron, if you don't want to practice, why are you here?" said Harry.
"The other boys say I'm annoying."
"Oh." Harry felt bad for asking. "Sorry."
"No, it's fine, I don't mind. I like the idea that I'm the terror of Gryffindor. All tremble as I approach. Plus, they say they like me in small doses. But now a lot of them won't play me at chess."
"If I beat you at chess will you be quiet?"
Ron took a small chess board from his bag.
Harry felt a bit of tension over the idea that Ron carried a chessboard with him wherever he went, but told himself he wouldn't lose to Ron.
"It's a little different from muggle chess. You can-"
"I know."
"suborn pieces. Capture them so that they're on your side. You have to-"
"I know. Let's start."
Eight moves later...
Harry said, "That was just a practice game. I've never played with these rules before. I didn't think suborning would be so important." Not when it was so hard to suborn, and easier to reclaim a piece that had been suborned. "Let's go again."
Nine moves later...
"I'm getting the hang of it. Again."
Six moves in, and it wasn't going well.
Hermione said, "Maybe if you move the bishop there."
Five moves later...
Hermione put her book away. "Let me try."
9 moves later...
"Let's do it together," said Harry, as a Hermione put the pieces back in their starting positions.
A TA said, "The practice room is for practicing."
"Just a minute," said Harry. "We'll be done soon."
Three moves...
"Move the rook up."
"But then the queen."
"If the queen goes over, the knight gets suborned.
"He'll take the knight back real quick, and we'll almost be in check. Let's castle."
"I don't think castling is as good in this game."
"Why wouldn't it be? Everything's next to something else. They literally can't be suborned."
"Let's ask the pieces."
Harry tapped their remaining knight. "Hey. What do you think? Should we castle?"
"You can't win," said the knight. He's the Dread Lord, the scourge of Gryffindor. All we can hope is that the war be short."
"Alright, let's castle."
It seemed like a good idea even afterward, but it didn't matter.
"Play again?" said Ron.
Three games later, Hermione turned back to her wand practice. "It's pointless, Harry."
"But-"
"It's pointless."
With a sigh of indignation, Harry returned to making Lumos brighter, then dimmer, and Ron joined him at it.
As the weeks went by Harry and Hermione's haunting of the practice room became increasingly lonely. At times, it was empty but for them. Harry mastered all the spells they were taught, and some that were skipped, while Hermione mastered all the spells that were taught, all that were skipped, and some that weren't in their textbooks at all. Then she attempted some of them wandless or wordless, to no result. Then she read books.
Sometimes Ron came, and sometimes he practiced.
Harry went to his twice weekly sessions with Hagrid. When Hermione asked where he disappeared to, he said it was private, she didn't pry.
It was disheartening that, hard as he tried, the gap between he and her only seemed to widen, but comforting that, in the wand-based classes at least, a gap between he and the others appeared.
He dragged her out as often as he could to play dagarary, since he wasn't second best at that.
Finally, Halloween came.
Halloween being what it was, Harry wasn't much in the mood to attend that party, though he kept telling Hermione that he thought he was being silly, since he didn't even remember his parents.
"It's not silly," said Hermione, shouldering a knapsack filled with food. "I wouldn't feel like feasting either."
"You at least should go," said Harry. "The ghosts are doing a dance, and the Performance Club is doing a light show. I know you want to see it."
"Come on," said Hermione, leading down the hall.
The library and practice room were both closing for the party, and there'd likely be students going in and out of the dorm, who'd invite them to come back to the feast, so Harry and Hermione went to the set of indoor dagarary courts in one of the dungeons. The courts hardly ever got used except when the weather was bad.
They sat on a bench, eating the dinner Hermione had packed, and when they'd finished, rather than playing dagarary as planned, they talked about nothing till Harry said, "Do you smell something?"
"The cheese is a bit-"
It's like very old socks and a public toilet that never gets cleaned." His nostrils flared.
"Like I said, the cheese. It tastes good, but the smell..."
"It's not the cheese."
Hermione sniffed. "I think I do smell it. Maybe a pipe burst?"
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Harry said, "Do you hear that?"
"Footsteps? Coming from the entrance to the lower dungeon?"
"Sounds forceful for just footsteps. Like something very large." He took a step closer to the entrance to the lower dungeon, and shouted into the darkness, "Hagrid, is that you?"
Thump. Thump. Thump.
"Harry, let's get out of here."
He hesitated, but the smell was getting worse. "Let's watch from the top of the stairs anyway." He walked back toward Hermione.
Her eyes went wide, and she screamed.
As Harry turned to look, Hermione grabbed his hand and ran for the stairs.
Looking over his shoulder as they ran, Harry finally saw it. Taller even than Hagrid, green-grey in color, large ears like bat wings sticking comically off its squint-eyed head. He would've recognized it from muggle stories even if had hadn't seen pictures in his History book. A troll.
It took two vast strides, and Harry and Hermione swerved away from the stairs to avoid being stepped on.
They ran to the far wall, the troll staring up the stairs, trying to decide, perhaps, whether it would fit.
Harry stopped a sigh of relief from coming out, afraid it might attract the attention of the troll, which hadn't seemed to notice them. They were rather low to the ground from its perspective, after all.
Hermione put a finger over her mouth to suggest silence, and Harry, nodding, struggled with the clasp on his safety necklace.
It sniffed at the air like a dog, sniffed as they had a minute ago, and turned toward Hermione and Harry.
He saw the moment it recognized their presence, and Harry met its eyes, and tried his best Charismancy, telling it they were uninteresting, unappetizing, and it should go back into the cool, comfortable dark it had come from.
The troll's war-cry drowned out Hermione's Alarum spell.
Harry finally got the button on his safety necklace pushed.
Hermione shouted from behind Harry, "Lumos!" and the dungeon was bright as outside at noon. The troll screamed again, shutting its eyes, and in the flash, Harry disappeared.
Where Harry had been, a lion was. Juvenile, a lightning bolt scar on his forehead, with just the faint, scraggly beginnings of a mane, yet as a big as a fully grown lion, his teeth, when he snarled, shining as if they were made of something harder than mere bone.
As the troll cautiously reopened its eyes, the lion roared.
The roar shook the walls. The roar made Hermione clap her arms over her ears before realizing that somehow, the sound didn't hurt. It was heard all through Hogwarts, and outside Hogwarts, louder than Alarum. In his cabin, Hagrid stood up, and birds took flight at the edge of the forbidden forest.
The troll took a single step back.
The lion roared again, and for a moment thought the troll would run.
But it swung its club, bellowing its own battle-cry, and the lion dodged inside the swing of its club.
Hermione shouted, "Incendiare," and a little burn mark appeared on its brow, just missing an eye.
A trolls skin could blunt well-forged steal, so a lion's claws had no chance of penetrating.
The lion's claws tore a long, deep gash in its leg, and the troll screamed.
"Incendiare," yelled Hermione, again just missing the right eye.
The troll's stomp missed the lion entirely. He was already jumping onto the troll's back, all four sets of claws tearing rents, jaws closing around the back of its neck.
The lion leapt off, and in the air, the troll's arm struck him, smashing him into the wall. His ribs ached, but he shot back to his feet, roared again, and as he roared, Hermione shouted "Incendiare."
The spell flew wild, but brightened, expanded, larger than the previous attempts, as if the roar were a fierce wind behind it, striking the underside of the troll's jaw. The air filled with an acrid scent, the flesh burning to the bone, the damage much deeper and wider than what Hermione had managed before.
"Slomnium,"said a voice.
The troll's eyes rolled back, and it crashed to the ground. A moment later, despite all its wounds, it began to snore.
Dumbledore stood in the hall, flanked by Shelby and Professor Pratchett, the Advanced Defense teacher.
The lion growled at the sleeping troll, a half-throated roar that rumbled through the castle like deep bass.
Shelby and Professor Pratchett pointed their wands at it.
The lion transformed.
Shelby's mouth dropped. "Harry? What? How?"
He shrugged. "I'm a lion animagus. I figured I'd have a lot better chance that way rather than trying to fight a troll with Wingardium Leviosa."
"Indeed," said Dumbledore. "I advised Potter to keep that talent secret, for obvious reasons. I trust you'll do the same."
"But," said Shelby, "A lion couldn't-"
Dumbledore said, "Don't ask. Don't even wonder. We ran down here and saved two first-years from a troll that got in somehow or another. That's all."
"Potter! Potter!" A voice coming down the stairs, resolving into a very out of breath Quirinus Quirrell, who put his hands on his knees when he saw Harry. "Oh thank Merlin," he said between breaths. "I thought it was just a distraction, so I was going to the third, but when I realized you'd activated your safety necklace..."
"The third?" said Harry.
Dumbledore's voice was sharp. "Compose yourself, Professor Quirrell."
"Don't worry Headmaster, Snape and a couple of others were going-"
Dumbledore's volume rose. "You are in front of students."
"Oh, right." Quirrell mopped his brow.
"Quirrell, go let the others know that it's alright now, but I'd like more Professors in the dungeon. Pratchett, you're in charge of the troll, direct Shelby as you'd like. When you've got enough reinforcements, investigate, carefully, how the troll got in. And you, Harry." Dumbledore sighed. "Let's talk. Hermione-"
"Can come with me," said Harry.
#
#
Harry and Hermione sat in twin seats before the Headmaster's desk, drinking hot cocoa and telling their short story.
At the end, Harry asked, "How did the troll get in?"
Dumbledore said, "At the moment, I don't know. When I do know, I probably won't tell you."
"That's not fair," said Harry.
"It's not. But I'm one-hundred and thirty-seven years old, and if you were too, I'd be more forthcoming. Alas, you're eleven."
"I'm twelve," said Hermione.
"You're twelve?" said Harry, who'd turned eleven recently enough he sometimes forgot he wasn't ten anymore.
"As of September 19th."
"Twelve is closer," said Dumbledore, "but not near. Now, as to the topic of transformation abilities..." He cast a glance at Hermione.
Harry turned into an owl and back.
"A double animagus," Hermione breathed. "Isn't that..."
"It's exceptionally rare," said Dumbledore. "Further, unlike most animagi, he's not turning into the muggle version. As an owl, you flew through the shadow gates. Wasn't too unusual though, all owls are at least a little magical. But now I find you can become a Nemean lion, which is to a muggle lion as a basilisk is to a cobra."
Harry nodded, feeling warm. "I can also partially transform." His ears turned to cat ears, his canines extended, his eyes slit, his nose extended a little and sprouted fur. His voice rumbled. "Not ornamental. I can see in the dark like this, and see and hear better." He held up hand, fingernails turned to claws. "I can cut rock with these, if I like."
Dumbledore sat back. "Embodiment," he murmured.
Harry shifted back to normal. "I'm not very good at it, it's different and harder, but I can change my looks in normal ways." He closed his eyes, concentrated, and his bangs grew. A lock of hair grew red. His nose hooked. Then he put it all back how it had been.
"Metamorphmagery," said Dumbledore. "I'll arrange a tutor.
Harry smiled, enjoying the looks. "Pretty cool, right?"
Hermione said to Dumbledore, "Do you know how his parents did it?"
"Huh?" said Harry.
Hermione said, "Harry, think. Your father specialized in transformation research, and your mother specialized in magical heredity research. Now you have rare, even unique transformation abilities. That's not a coincidence."
Harry's mind rummaged in a moment through everything he knew about his parents' careers.
His father had studied not only how wizards transformed, but also how a wizard might willfully embody certain of the animal's aspects even when not transformed, and had taken a deeply unusual, often controversial interest in what he'd considered to be the mirror image of an animagus, a wizard afflicted with the werewolf curse, which had led him to invent the Wolfsbane potion with his collaborator, Damocles.
His mother's study of heredity had focused on the interplay between what muggles called biology and the abstract objects that determined magical heredity, trying to alter or select traits to prevent curses from passing down, or to prevent a child from being born a squib, her greatest triumphs being cures for the Blood Wasting curse and the Fireborn curse. As a sideline, she'd written a few treatises that convincingly argued that intermarrying with muggle-borns did nothing to decrease magical purity or fertility, which hadn't endeared her to the Death Eaters.
Harry said, "My parents experimented on me?"
"Your parents were bringing you into a violent world torn by war. I assumed they were working to equip you to survive in that world, but I thought selecting for talent and ensuring you were an animagus was as far as they went. It seems they went further. It is even possible, though I consider it unlikely, that the work they put into you is why you survived Voldemort's curse."
Harry stared at his lap, at once grateful to his parents for 'putting so much work in,' and upset that they'd used their own child as a lab rat. Then realized that what he was really upset about was that a moment ago he'd been very proud of his abilities, and had been happy to have to show them off, but now it felt like they didn't really belong to him.
Dumbledore said, "If it's any comfort, Harry, I'd wager they did most or all of it well before you were born."
Hermione said, "If James Potter was in the habit of turning people he cared about into animagi, does that mean Sirius Black is an animagus, and that's why he was able to escape Azkaban?"
Dumbledore said, "Azkaban has housed a great many animagi."
Hermione said, "Is Lord Voldemort dead?"
"They are no publicly available facts that suggest otherwise, but my opinion is probably not, and if you look you'll find that that opinion is publicly known."
Hermione said, "Is Sirius Black's escape connected to Voldemort's return?"
"Possibly."
"On the first day, you very ostentatiously warned us to avoid an area of the third floor. Just now, Quirrel said something about the 'Third', which is, I assume, the third floor. You could've cut him off a lot more quickly. Did you really let that hint slip by accident?"
"An old wizard can be expected to let very few hints drop by accident."
"Is that a yes or a no?"
"It's a 'what do you think, Miss Granger?'"
"Is any of this connected to the break-in at Gringotts a few weeks ago?"
"What?" said Harry.
Hermione said, "It was in The Daily Prophet."
Dumbledore's mouth quirked. "Everything in the universe is connected, my dear."
"Is the Gringotts break-in a few weeks ago connected to anything we've discussed today by a particularly short causal chain?"
"Possibly."
"Is the troll in the dungeons today connected to Voldemort, Sirius Black, The Third Floor mystery, or the break-in at Gringotts? By a particularly short causal chain?"
"It's probably connected to at least one of them, though it could also be a random sympathizer trying to kill Harry, an unconnected plot that the two of you had the bad luck to be swept in, or even a completely random event, though how a troll would randomly get into Hogwarts is hard to say. And I notice you say Voldemort, not You-Know-Who."
Hermione said, "Is that a question?"
"Why do you say Voldemort, rather than You-Know-Who like any sensible girl would?"
"Because my best friend, who I am beating at every subject but broomstick riding, vanquished him before he could walk without leaning against a wall. And because the old man I'm talking to is supposed to be the only person he was ever frightened of. I'll use 'You-Know-Who' in other company."
#
#
The Gryffindor dorm broke into pandemonium when Harry and Hermione came in, each student wanting to be personally told the same story about how they'd been in the dagarary court in the dungeon, and the troll had come up, and it'd been scary, then Dumbledore had come and put it to sleep with a single spell.
"What about the sounds we heard?" said an older Gryffindor girl whose name Harry couldn't quite remember.
"I dunno what you heard. But the troll was really loud, and I kept messing up Alarum."
Ron said, "Why were you even down there instead of at the feast?"
Fred whispered in Ron's ear, and Ron said, loudly, "Oh yeah, it's the anniversary of when You-Know-Who killed his parents."
Harry fought his way eventually to bed, and Hedwig settled in with him. Stroking her feathers, he fell into thought.
He'd clung to his gifts as proof that he was in some ways better than Hermione, but now it seemed those gifts really had been given to him. But wasn't that true for everyone, that your talents came from your parents? This was the same. Wasn't it?
Why had he even survived Voldemort's curse anyway? What was on the Third Floor? Was Sirius Black really going to come try to kill him? Had Sirius Black let the troll in? If so, Sirius Black had snuck into Hogwarts. Why not just kill Harry himself?
Despite his exhaustion, his mind churned on, chewing over the day that was, that days that had been, and the days that might have been, getting sadder and sadder, flat out depressed. His parents had probably had him just as something to experiment on. Hermione would always be better than him. He was a horribly insincere little boy, lying with ease, and the Dursleys had been right to keep him in the cupboard. He should throw himself out a window, and be done with it.
He got out of bed, and padded to the window.
Cloaked black shapes were gliding around the foot of the castle's wall, visible by the light of the large, waning moon.
Harry watched them, feeling worse and worse with each passing second. Finally, he went to Ron's bed and shook the red-head's shoulder.
Ron jerked, screamed softly, and swung a palm into Harry's chest. Panting, he opened his eyes. "Sorry Harry. I was having a nightmare."
"It's fine. Look at something with me." He pulled Ron out of bed.
"Harry, it's cold."
"You're in pajamas. Come on." He dragged Ron to the window, and the two of them stared out the window at the shapes like giant crows.
Ron began to tremble.
Harry said, "What are those?"
"Dementors," said Ron.
:::
Big thanks to Flashx11 for proofreading!
A reviewer expressed a desire that I not do the troll scene. Sorry, but I hope you liked how I did it.
I assure you, I'm not planning something quite as simple as a straight simultaneous re-write of books 1 and 3.
Thanks for reading this far. Perhaps consider checking out a book I self-published. Monstrosity, by JLL, available on Amazon kindle. 'Vampires and werewolves and witches, oh my.' It's fun, I promise. Review it, and I'll love you forever. (Getting reviewed bumps you up in the algorithms. Also, I love reviews. Including fanfic reviews.)
An earlier version of this chapter included Harry speaking while in lion form. I'm not sure what I was thinking. It's cut.
Later