I do not intend to lead you to believe that I own Harry Potter, in fact I intend for you to believe quite the opposite; I adore it, J. K. Rowling.

Chapter One:

Harry Potter lay in his bed, still not completely aware of what had just happened.

Had it really?

The muted sounds of an arousing set of teenage boys told Harry that yes, it had.

Ron Weasley was the first to make any audible sound.

"Bloody hell." He grumbled from his bed, directly adjacent to Harry's. "What was he on about?" Ron asked, peering around the room as if expecting one of his chamber mates to have an answer. Non of them did however. Neville, Seamus, and Dean all seemed quite as confused as Harry and Ron obviously felt.

There was a long period of silence.

"I don't know, but I'm going back to bed." Said a grumpy Seamus before disappearing under the stark burgandy of his bed coverings.

"Yeah me too," agreed Dean, which left Ron, Neville, and Harry to stare at eachother in the darkness, trying to wrap their minds around the recent event.

Outside the room a commotion could be heard, apparently Dumbledore's dramatic announcement had pulled sleeping Gryffindors out of their beds, and assembled them in the common room. Chairs seemed to be scraping across the hard wood floor, and loud whispers carried to Harry's ears.
There was only one thing to do.

Harry stood slowly up from his bed, placed his feet into the puffy red fabric of his slippers, and began to pace across the carpeted floor, making scuffing sounds as he went.

"Where are you going mate?" Ron's voice asked, a bit ignorantly through the darkness. Harry decided to ignore him. But that, of course, didn't work. Ron came jogging up from behind, and caught stride with the slow moving Harry long before he had even reached the bottom step of the curved staircase that let into the warm glow of the common room.

The space was packed. It seemed that Dean and Seamus had been amongst only a few Gryffindors who had decided to wrestle themselves back to sleep after Dumbledore's booming announcement. Every possible seat was occupied and people had began taking to gathering in circles on the dusty floor to discuss.

Hermione, as predicted was placed near the edge of the fire place, as far away from everyone else as possible, with a rather large leather bound book placed upon her crossed legs.

Harry circled through the growing crowd, forcing his way over to her, navigating through the dozens, and dozens of bodies traipsed in every possible direction with Ron close on his tail.

"'Morning Hermione." Harry greeted, squeezing himself in beside her on the floor.

"Oh, hi Harry. Ron." She said, nodding to each in turn. "It's fascinating, don't you think?" Hermione said, turning her attention back to the book that she was cradling with a bit of unnecessary care.

"Erm, sure." Ron said, finding a place to set as well, while nearly knocking a wizards chess board off of a near by table.

"It is, really. Something like this hasn't happened in ages."

"But it has in before?"

"Well, of course." Hermione responded in that unnecessarily cocky voice of hers.

"It's tradition for each headmaster of Hogwarts to create a scavenger hunt, of sorts. In the end revealing a secret or 'treasure' which he views as important."

The dumbfounded expression on Ron's face was priceless. Hermione glanced in his direction, but looked quickly away and down at her book, apparently not impressed.

"But it hasn't happened in generations," she continued. "Not since-"

"Voldemort was a student." Harry finished for her, and she nodded.

"Apparently, Riddle won the challenge his year."

"I wonder what the prize was."

Hermione just shrugged.

"But whenever it was must have scared enough people to discontinue to event. There hasn't been a Headmasters Challenge since 1944. Tom Riddle's seventh year."

It seemed as if Dumbledore's announcement had fueled the students with a second wind, for the body of Gryffindors rarely showedany sign of fatigue as they perched around the fire heated room, and talked avidly of possibilities far into morning.

Only once or twice could a student have been caught yawning, or rubbing gently at their heavy lidded eyes. They seemed not to feel effects of the early morning sleep disturbance.

Eventually Hermione's story made it's way around the room, and now whispers began to question what item indeed, Tom Riddle had received all those years ago. But this topic only remained of interest for so long. Soon the students became more interested in the possibilities of what item lay in store for one of them to receive. Minds swelled with ideas, both reasonable and unimaginable, but onr thing was agreed upon. The item would be incredible.

Although the most important aspect of the message was not so often discussed - how one would were to unravel the riddles - the talk remained live and vivid. The glamor of the idea of possibly winning was enough the keep discussion rates high.

Hermione however, as usual, meant business. While Ron's mind wandered and explored various vain ideas, Hermione discussed lightly, with a rather uninterested Harry Potter, what Dumbledore's hint could mean. 'The best place to start is the beginning.' But they always got stuck at the same point.

The beginning of what?

Their minds had perused this topic for quite a white, but they always hit a brick wall.
Quite plainly, they had no idea.

While the Gryffindors' minds realed, the pink in the sky turned to purple, and then to a transparent blue which was streaked in the yellow of the sun's beams. Morning time came with it's usual sounds and colors, and lit the Gryffindor common room. Beams of dust shone in amongst the student, and mixed matched furnishings.

Harry Potter now found himself forced and smashed into the Great Hall amongst the unbearably loud entiredry of his school. Discussion had dissembled up in the Gryffindor common room solely to cease the persistent rumbling sounds which emitted from each students stomachs at a not ignorable rate.

Two plates of eggs for Ron, and a biscuit a piece for Harry and Hermione later, the trio was joined by a crowd a welcomed faces. Fred, George, their friend Lee Jordan, Neville, Ginny, and Luna found their respective ways to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. It was one of the twin's brilliant ideas to find a place more quite to discuss, which was all very well, because it quickly began apparent that most other students were more interested in the talk of this newly formed group then of their own. And so, together, each holding a piece of warm jam slathered toast, bee lined out of the Great Hall, into the quite of the hall outside the gleaming doors, and then outside even further into crisp day that waited.

Again,

Comments are always greatly appreciated.

And I will more the gladly take any ideas that you may have regarding this story in particular, but also any other story that may be entertained in the future.

Thank you for reading.

Ashley Ann xx.