Scarless
Alright, given the reviews I have gotten, Neville remains a Gryffindor and Hermione is a Ravenclaw.
Disclaimer: The idea, characters, places, spells, and all things related to Harry Potter, are property of Ms. J. K. Rowling and Warner brothers. Anything not featured in the books is of my design. This story will have spoilers from the sixth & seventh & pretty much all of the books. IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE HARRY POTTER BOOK SERIES, YOU PROBABLY SHOULD NOT READ THIS STORY, but you can if you want to. This story is based on the premise that Voldemort "dies" right out of Hogwarts.
Book 1: The Sorcerer's Stone rewritten or Harry Potter and the Mirror of ErisedChapter 7: First Day
Harry yawned as he arose the next day. He put on his glasses and noted that no one else was awake. He smiled. Between his dad's early morning Quidditch training, and the fact that he lived with and had two uncles who were part of a group of the most skillful pranksters who ever lived, Harry had always been an early riser. That hadn't stopped him from getting pranked, but, because both his dad and Uncle Sirius hated the morning, (Sirius had once said, half-sleeping at the breakfast table, that he would love to find a spell to extinguish the sun) it improved his chances of getting by unscathed.
Harry walked down the stairwell to the common room after changing into his robes. He didn't see anyone out and about and decided he might as well go down to breakfast. Harry arrived in the Great Hall and settled into one of the chairs at the Gryffindor table. He glanced around and saw only four other people in the hall. There was a pair of older Hufflepuffs who were currently spending more time staring into each other's eyes than eating. Harry snorted. The Defense Professor, Harry thought his name was Quirrel, was hastily eating his food, though he poked it with his wand every few seconds. Harry raised his eye brows. A paranoid Defense teacher? He shrugged and looked at the final occupant of the room.
She was sitting at the Ravenclaw table, and Harry recognized her as Hermione, from the train. Her nose was currently buried in a book, but somehow, she wasn't spilling any of her food between her plate and her mouth. Harry smiled. She looked like his mom when she had found a particularly interesting book. Sirius had once pranked Lily while she was reading, and she had reversed the prank, jinxed him, and caught Harry from crashing into the mantle on his training broom, without looking up. Sirius, from under his now prodigiously growing moustache, had declared her "freaky", and had promptly been turned into a miniature Schnauzer. He had barked angrily, and had went off to try and find James to turn him back, while Harry had wandered after "Cutie Pafoo".
Harry shook his head. He had been thinking a lot about his home recently. He figured he must be homesick. He shook it off and had just taken a sip of his Pumpkin Juice, when the hall doors blasted open. Students literally crammed into the hall, and Harry almost spit out his drink in surprise. Had every one been bunching up in the Entrance Hall or something? He glanced and figured the Hufflepuffs must have some sort of alarm system, because most of the students streaming into the hall were Hufflepuffs.
Harry had just taken another drink from his goblet, when Ron plopped down next to him and declared, "Good Morning" and began piling food onto his plate. Harry choked, swallowed, then said, "Ron, don't scare me like that." Ron glanced at him, shrugged, muttered something around the mound of potatoes he had just transferred from his plate to his mouth, and went back to eating.
McGonagall walked down the rows, handing each of the students a schedule. Harry and Ron took theirs and looked at them. Ron made a face. "Double Potions, Herbology, and Defense against the Dark Arts. Herbology might be good, but Fred and George told me Snape is horrible, and Defense has been a joke." Harry nodded grimly. He knew Snape would probably be harder on him than most, given the fact that he was James's son. Harry had never much liked gardening, and that was what Herbology sounded like. Defense might be okay. It would depend on whether Quirrel was as paranoid as he looked.
Harry and Ron reluctantly got up and headed towards the dungeons. Harry had a vague idea where every thing was. His mother had apparently formed a sort of rough schedule of how the school changed, which Harry had been completely unable to memorize, and his dad had just said that he never had any need to memorize how to get anywhere. Lily had always glared at him when he said this, and he would go quiet before Harry could find out why. He figured his dad just didn't care. It made sense; he had probably spent more time planning pranks than studying.
Ron and Harry arrived at the door to the Potions classroom 5 minutes before class started. Harry had no clue why Hogwarts, which was supposed to be a school, had a labyrinth of dungeons underneath it, but it did, and the duo had spent around twenty minutes wandering around them.
They entered the classroom and saw that most of the class hadn't arrived yet. They found a seat halfway to the back and quickly began to unload their equipment. Harry had been warned to set up early, so Snape couldn't take points off of him for 'dawdling'. They finished with a minute to spare, and began to just chat about nothing much. Harry had known Ron for almost as long as he had known Luna. Mom's Charming Club met at a different member's house every week and members frequently brought their kids. They chatted, and Ron reminded Harry that he owed him a game with his new Exploding Snap deck. Just then, Snape billowed into the room. Several other students had come in, and he glared at the all. None of the Slytherins had shown up yet. Harry suspected that they would wait until the last moment or after. He knew Snape wasn't overly favoring, but he did tend to lessen the punishments he gave his own house, and increased those he gave to others. The entire class was in the door before it was time to begin, and Snape turned to glare at the students, his cloak once again billowing up behind him. Harry recalled when his dad, Sirius, and Remus Lupin, one of his dad's other prankster friends, had tried to place a Anti-Billowing Charm on Snape's cloak, but they couldn't get it to stop sweeping up dramatically. It had almost driven them insane, and Snape took great pleasure in rubbing it in their noses.
Harry snapped back to reality just in time to hear Snape call, "Potter, what is the temperature at which Horklump Spores give the most potent results?"
Harry cursed his homesick mental wanderings, and focused on the question. He couldn't exactly recall the temperature, but he knew it was rather low. "Umm…63 degrees Celsius, sir"
Snape sneered and spat, "Incorrect, it is 67 degrees. 10 points from Gryffindor for not paying attention." Harry gritted his teeth, but said nothing else.
The lesson continued in much the same way, though Dean Thomas earned 5 point for Gryffindor for correctly naming a Dragon Liver when Snape showed it to the class. The Gyffindors left feeling rather disgruntled, while the Slytherins were quite smug. Once they got to the entrance hall, the Slytherins wandered off for something, and the Gryffindors headed down to the Herbology Greenhouses. The Hufflepuff students were already there. Professor Sprout bustled in from the back and told the group to each find a table. Harry got a table with Ron, Diana, and Neville. Professor Sprout gave each table a box, and informed them that they would each be expected to gather the Horklump Spores from the Horklump that was in each box, but that they should be careful not to let their Horklump out or ingest any of the spores. Harry moaned at the mention of Horklumps, after all, they had lost him ten points earlier today. Carefully they eased up on the lid. The moment the top of the Horklump was visible; Neville made a fist and punched it. The Horklump seemed to flatten, and spores literally poured out of the sides. Grabbed the Horklump with his gloved hands, Neville lifted it out of the box and told the others to pour the spores into their bowl. They did so and Neville dropped it back in the box and shut the lid. It took ten seconds and they had already filled their bowl. Neville blushed as the three of them stared at him in admiration. At the next table over, Dean Thomas was holding the Horklump upside down and trying to shake out the spores. He was having markedly less success than the other four had had.
Professor Sprout walked by their table. Her eyes widened at the sight of their bowl full of spores, and she peered into their box. She smiled and said, "5 points each to Gryffindor for a job well done." She then walked off while Ron clapped Neville on the back. Dean glared over at them, when the Horklump suddenly jumped out of his hands. It hit the floor, but Neville grabbed before it could get too far. He calmly put it in Dean's table's box, waited for several seconds, then opened the box and punched the Horklump. He then helped them pour their spores into their bowl. Soon, Neville had wandered around the room, showing all of the other students how to harvest the spores. Professor Sprout saw it and commented on how it was unorthodox, but quite effective, more so than the usual method of squeezing.
When the group left the greenhouse, Neville had earned back all of the points lost in Potions and then some. The Gryffindors were congratulating him, and he was flushed red. Ron said that Neville ought to try out for Sprout's job when he graduated. Professor Sprout, who was walking behind the group, agreed. Ron blushed bright as Neville when he realized that Professor Sprout had heard his comment.
Harry, Ron, Neville, and Diana all sat down at the Gryffindor table for lunch. Neville was still glancing embarrassedly at his plate. Ron and Diana were currently in the middle of heated argument about Quidditch. Harry was listening as Ron defended the Chudley Cannons, while Diana firmly extolled the virtues of the England Eagles. Harry just shook his head. Of course, he supported the Eagles, but he had to admit, the Cannons had some decent talent, if only their coach was smart enough to use it correctly. Ron noticed Harry shaking his head and said, "Harry, you have to agree, the Cannons are the best team in the League."
Harry shook his head again. "No, actually, I believe the Falcons have the best chance of winning the League this year."
Ron and Diana looked dumbstruck. Ron shook his head. "Wait, you support the Falcons? But, how…"
"No, I support the Eagles. But, honestly, the Falcon's team this season is the best unit in the league. Both of my dad's team's Beaters are nursing injuries, so they aren't at their peak, and he is training a new Keeper since Rolana had to take maternity leave." Harry turned back to his meal as Ron sputtered, "But that's not the point…"
The four of them headed off to Defense against the Dark Arts class after lunch. They got lost on the way up, and had to flag down a Ravenclaw prefect to point them in the right direction. The lesson was, quite honestly, a joke. It was a doubled class with the Ravenclaws, and Harry soon realized that he was going to learn more from Hermione, who was sitting a row back from him whispering to Zachary Devon, than he was going to learn from Quirrel. Most of the class was spent with him trembling as he tried to explain how different wand movements affected different hexes. He seemed to be terrified that one of the students was going to hex him. The moment class ended, Quirrel practically bolted from the room. the class looked after him for a second, then started talking and packing their bags. Ron commented loudly to Diana about how he had seen grass blowing in the wind that trembled less than Quirrel. Hermione heard him, and marched forward to begin lecturing him. Ron stood there staring at her dumbly as she talked on and on about experience and how he should show more respect. She cut off when Zach grabbed her arm. He shook his head, gestured towards the door, and then practically dragged her away. Ron continued to stare after Hermione, then weakly, he said, "Blimey, she sounded like my mum." Harry, Diana, Neville, Dean, and a couple of Ravenclaws who were standing near by, all burst out laughing. Ron smiled weakly, and they headed out the door.
They had a free period, so the four of them headed up to the Gryffindor Common Room, and began a game of Exploding Snap with Harry's deck. The most spectacular moment of the game, was when every card in Ron's hand went off, they shot across the room, and slammed into Fred and George, who had just entered through the portrait hole. The look on Ron, Fred, and George's face was priceless. The group was still laughing as they went down to dinner, partly because of the cards, and partly because, when Fred and George found out who was responsible, they shook Ron's hand, congratulated him on a prank well done, and then turned him three shades of shocking blue. He was desperately trying to turn himself back, but so far, all he had done was switch it from blue to green. He finally managed to turn himself neon orange, and seemed to be much happier with his new coloration, which caused the group to laugh even harder. At dinner, several people stared at Ron, but he was devouring a pair of turkeys and was oblivious. Finally, McGonagall raised her wand, and ended the spell on Ron. When Ron finally noticed his normal coloration, he didn't seem to be able to choose whether to be happy or sad. Most of the Gryffindors laughed at the torn expression on his face. In the end, he settled for starting on his third helping of mashed potatoes.
That night, as Harry stared at the ceiling, he realized that he hadn't thought about about home for the entire latter portion of the day. Maybe, being here wouldn't be that hard after all.
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Alright, I finally got some more inspiration, dedication, and time to write on this story. I seriously considered dropping this story, but one of my friends convinced me not to give up. However, if you visit my profile, you will notice that I intend to shorten this story down to one book only. So, the timeline will be speeding up, and I will be trying to cram more in each chapter.
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