AN: Enjoy!

Chapter 5 - Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Everything seemed normal when Harry went to the Great Hall to have breakfast the next morning. The hall was half-empty when he arrived and the Headmaster and the Deputy were not at the professors' table yet either. His eyes looked over his own house's table, searching for a particular silvery-blonde girl but he could not find her.

In his excitement, Harry had woken up earlier than usual that morning. He could barely wait to see what was going to happen next. The Minister had been assassinated and a politically powerful family like the Malfoys had been ruined too, all in one night. He could only imagine the shock of the British Wizarding World once they learnt about it.

'How is Dumbledore going to deal with this?' he thought.

He was giddy with anticipation. It was as if he was just a spectator that was watching a play at a theatre: no matter what happened on the 'stage', it would not affect the people in the stands in any way. 'In this life, Neville is the main actor on the stage. I'm a nobody. I'm just Harry.'

He piled his plate with fried eggs and crispy bacon and delved into it as if he had not eaten in days. A regular person would have not had an appetite after witnessing the violent deaths of two people only a few hours before. But death had become a constant in the latter half of his past life; if he had lost his appetite every time he had seen someone die he would have not made it even halfway through the second war, he would have starved.

As he was happily eating his food, the Great Hall gradually started to fill up with students. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall had taken their seats at the professors' table as well.

'Did Quirrell kick the bucket too?' he wondered after seeing that Professor Quirrell's seat was left empty.

"Morning, Harry." Michael Corner said and sat next to him.

"Morning." Terry and Anthony also greeted him as they sat across the table, in front of Harry and Michael.

"You think they caught the troll last night?" Terry asked while helping himself to some ham and cheese sandwiches.

"Blimey, a troll! How did it even get into the school? My mum won't be happy." Anthony said bummed out. "Wouldn't be surprised if she pulled me out from Hogwarts after something like this."

"What? Just because of a troll?" Harry asked.

The three boys threw him strange looks.

"We've only learned the Levitation Charm from Flitwick and a Tickling Hex from Quirrell so far. What good would these be against a troll? Or maybe we could beat a troll with matches and needles? We'd get killed easily," Anthony said. "Hogwarts is supposed to be the safest place in Great Britain but a troll snuck in just like that?"

"His mum wanted to send him to Ilvermorny, in America," Michael said and sniggered, making Anthony throw him a scathing look.

As the two boys started bickering, Harry looked at his food lost in thought. Facing deadly situations from the age of 11 up until the day of his death had messed up with his sense of danger. While for him a troll was no more dangerous than a stray dog, for regular children and even some inexperienced adults an encounter with a troll could very well be fatal.

'I guess no parent would want to send their children to a place that puts them in mortal danger. But if his mother is that worried, how did he stay at Hogwarts in my past life until the end? Our second year was horrible with people being petrified left and right and Dementors swarmed the grounds the entire third year...'

While Anthony and Michael were still exchanging barbs, Harry asked Terry:

"What can you tell me about that girl over there?" he said and gestured with his head in a particular direction.

"Which one?" the brown-haired boy asked in return, curious to see what girl had caught his fancy.

"The blonde one, close to the end of the table."

Michael stopped arguing with Anthony for a while and looked at him with an incredulous face: "Mate, are you serious? Everyone knows who she is, you're telling me you don't?"

Harry's 'confused' face only worked to exasperate the black-haired boy. "I wouldn't ask you if I knew, would I?" he lied easily.

"Terry, Anthony, you talk to him. He's hopeless." Michael said, making his two friends chuckle.

"He's right. Everyone knows her. She's French, a fourth year. So that's the type of girl you fancy, huh?" Terry said with a grin.

"He liiiikes her." Anthony sing-sang.

Terry leaned over the table and said in a whisper, conspiratorily: "I heard some girls saying that she might be part Veela or something because she's too beautiful to be normal. I also saw Davies asking her to go out with him on the first Hogsmeade trip two weeks from now but she refused him."

"I saw a seventh-year Puff ask her out yesterday too. Don't waste your time, mate, she's out of our league. Someone like her would never look at first years when she has seventh years asking her out. Look at Padma in our year tho. Or that second-year Asian girl. They're cute as hell." Michael said and pointed with his finger at each girl at the Ravenclaw table.

Harry made an annoyed face at Anthony; he had forgotten how childish 11-year-old boys could be. But on the other hand, he was even more annoyed at Michael who was already thinking about girls that way despite his fage. He remembered vaguely that in his past life, Michael had been quite the player, going out with both Ginny and Cho who were considered two of the prettiest girls during their time at Hogwarts. It looked like this world's Michael Corner was rather precocious too.

"Actually, now that I think about it, she's quite similar to you," Terry said.

"How so?" Harry asked, now curious.

"Well, she's a sad loner for starters," Terry said, making even Harry start laughing together with Michael and Anthony. "She's also the top student in her year. She's so ahead of everyone else that Flitwick offered her an apprenticeship at the end of last year. See what I mean? Sad and lonely nerds, both of you. Yeah, laugh it out, you're lucky we adopted you or you'd be mopping alone in a corner too, just like her."

A piece of sausage suddenly flew up from the plate, straight into Terry's left nostril. The boy cried out and recoiled in surprise and disgust at the oil and grease smearing the inside of his nose.

"W-What the hell?!" Terry sputtered amidst Anthony and Michael's roaring laughter. "How did you do that?"

"Yeah, Harry, how did you do that?" the other two also asked in amazement through their giggles. They had not seen Harry use his wand or say an incantation.

"Do what? You saw me, I was eating." He made a show out of getting his wand out from the pocket of his robes. "Look: my wand was here the whole time."

The three Ravenclaw boys shared a knowing look, not buying his innocent act in the least.

"Oh, so that piece of sausage magically flew up by itself and dug into my nose?" Terry said sarcastically as he cleaned his nose with a napkin.

"If you ask me, it looks like a spell those Weasley twins from Gryffindor would come up with it," Harry said with a straight face.

At the Gryffindor table, two third-year redhead boys sneezed at the same time.

Cries of owls came from above their heads, momentarily stopping the boys from asking any further questions. A snowy owl also flew towards Harry with a rolled newspaper tied up to one of her legs. It was Hedwig. The beautiful owl landed gently on his extended forearm and raised one of her legs for him to untie the string.

"Working so diligently from early morning, who's a good girl? You're a good girl, the prettiest, goodest girl" Harry cooed in a baby voice at her and Hedwig hooted happily and preened her feathers proudly at his praise.

He giggled at the beautiful owl and gently petted her on the head with his other hand.

"Go on, take whatever you like. You've earned it," he said and the snowy owl hopped from his forearm onto the table. But when she grabbed a kipper with her beak from Terry's plate, the boy yelled indignantly: "Hey, I was eating that!"

Hedwig barked at him and threw him a smug look as if to say - 'what are you going to do about it?'. Then, without sparing him another glance, she tore into the dried herring and ate it up in a few bites. With one last joyful hoot at Harry, she unfurled her wings and flew away.

"That owl of yours scares me sometimes with how smart she is," Terry muttered.

"She's the best owl in the world," Harry said fondly, following Hedwig with his eyes as she flew out of the Great Hall.

A few moments later, shocked cries came from everywhere around them. Having expected their reaction, Harry quickly unfurled the new edition of Daily Prophet that Hedwig had just delivered to him. Written in huge, bold letters a title occupied nearly a fifth of the first page:

MINISTER FUDGE MURDERED AT HOGWARTS LAST NIGHT

Still on the first page, but written in a slightly smaller font, there were two more titles:

TROLL KILLS HOGWARTS STUDENT

and

THE ANCIENT AND NOBLE HOUSE OF MALFOY EXTINCT

Everyone in the Great Hall craned their necks to look at the Slytherin Table to see if Draco Malfoy was truly dead as the article claimed. In contrast, Harry was peeking at Fleur Delacour from behind his newspaper, secretly studying her facial expression.

'She looks like she's surprised. Oh, she's faking it.' He was sure of it, he could see it in her eyes.

He sent a tiny Legilimency probe to gather some of her surface thoughts but he immediately dropped his attempt and looked away when she snapped her head in his general direction. She had no way of knowing who had tried to invade her thoughts but she had certainly detected the attempt. That was possible only if-

'She knows Occlumency! How many 14-year-old girls know Occlumency?' He became even surer of his assumptions that she was related to the series of killings that had happened over the past few weeks.

It was at that moment, while the Great Hall was in an uproar from the news that they had just read, that Dumbledore stood up from his seat. The man had such a commanding and authoritative presence that the several hundred students immediately quieted down without him needing to say a word.

"I am afraid that the things you have read in the Daily Prophet are true. Unfortunately, Draco Malfoy died at the hands of the troll yesterday. Professors McGonagall and Flitwick were the ones to find his body... ...we were too late to save him."

Saying those words, Dumbledore looked like he had suddenly become ten years older. The Great Hall was dead silent. After a few moments passed, the Headmaster spoke again:

"I have strong reasons to believe that the one responsible for bringing the troll inside the school was Professor Quirrell. My suspicions were confirmed when I went to his quarters and saw that he had left the school. I do not know why he had done something like that but I assure you that I will not rest until he is brought to justice for his crime."

Anticipating the students' next question, he said:

"In regards to Minister Fudge's unfortunate end, I only know what the Daily Prophet described: that Lucius Malfoy had cast the Killing Curse on the Minister with no prior signs of hostility and that he also fell at the wands of the Aurors. The investigation is still ongoing. Until the investigation ended, the Board of Governors and the Ministry of Magic have decided for the school year to be temporarily stopped."

A loud chorus of murmurs and questions followed as everyone started to talk amongst themselves.

"As of now, it is unknown whether classes will start again in January or if Hogwarts will stay closed until next September. We will keep you informed. I do hope that classes will resume as soon as possible but that will not happen until all the concerns regarding your safety at Hogwarts have been addressed. Furthermore, I will have to find two new teachers for Potions and Defense Against Dark Arts. As it stands, until further notice, this is your last day at Hogwarts this year. Please make sure that you have packed your belongings and that you will be ready to take the Hogwarts Express from Hogsmeade, at 3 o'clock sharp. Your parents have already been informed, they will be waiting for you at King's Cross, in London."

'Bollocks. I didn't expect the school to be closed but in retrospect, I should have seen it coming.' Harry thought.

A deep sigh came out of his chest. He stood up with everyone else from his house, intent on returning to his dorm and pack up his things. But when he was about to leave the table, a fifth year Ravenclaw prefect came to him and handed him a folded note.

"Professor Dumbledore wants to speak to you in his office in 15 minutes. The password to his office is inside," he said and gestured towards the piece of paper that he had handed to him.

"Ok," Harry said calmly.

⁂

As he followed the fifth year prefect towards the Headmaster's office (a first year student was not supposed to know where it was), Harry was wondering what did Dumbledore want from him? In this life, he was just a normal child - albeit a gifted one - but still a child nonetheless. He had not been caught snooping around forbidden places nor had any prefect or teacher ever caught him on the corridors after the curfew. He was a model student.

'Did he catch wind of my Nimbus? But how? I made sure nobody saw me.'

He woke up from his thoughts only when he found himself in front of the gargoyle staircase.

"Alright, you go ahead." said the older boy. "Tell the password to the gargoyle, I won't be tagging along." Then, he left to perform his other duties as a prefect.

"Sherbet lemon," Harry said and the circular staircase started rotating and carried him up like an elevator.

Knocking on the office's door politely, it opened silently for him.

"Please come in, Mr Potter."

The Headmaster's office was as eccentric as he remembered it. Walls covered by portraits of the former headmasters, several bookcases filled with ancient-looking tomes and two cupboards and a few tables were displaying all kinds of strange contraptions and instruments which Harry had no idea what their purposes were even despite the knowledge he had accumulated in his past life. The only difference compared to his memories was that Fawkes, the phoenix, was not on his perch at that moment.

He had not seen Dumbledore's office in more than two decades; a wave of nostalgia washed over him.

And there he was, towards the back of the circular room, sitting on the plush chair behind his desk: Albus Dumbledore, as strange and as old as he had always known him to be but far less jovial than usual.

"Hello. You wanted to see me, headmaster?"

Dumbledore did not reply right away, his eyes peering at him intently over his half-moon spectacles.

"Yes, I did. Take a seat please."

Harry did not know it but the old headmaster was inwardly weirded out by his unnatural calmness. Even most adult wizards were either excited or nervous when they met him face-to-face for the first time, to say nothing about an eleven-year-old boy.

"It has been brought to my attention that you have broken a rather important rule. First-year students are not allowed to have their own broomstick at Hogwarts. Even more, you've been flying alone, unsupervised, at night."

Whatever reaction Dumbledore had expected from the boy, it was certainly not a sigh, nor a 'good grief!' kind of look on his face.

"How did you find out, professor? Who snitched on me?"

Dumbledore revealed a small smile.

"It was not a student, you need not worry about that. To put your mind to rest and not sow discord between you and your housemates, I will tell you that it was a ghost."

'Funny how he caught me flying because of a ghost but he couldn't find the Chamber of Secrets all these years despite that Moaning Myrtle was inside the castle all along...' he thought but he did not let his thoughts be seen on his face. He remained silent, waiting for the older wizard to say what he wanted from him.

"Were you flying on your broom yesterday night, Mr Potter?" Dumbledore asked while looking him in the eye.

'Legimency probe, huh? Can't say I'm surprised.' Harry inwardly thought when he felt the headmaster's magic reach out to him.

But he pretended he had not noticed anything - he did not want to act like Fleur had done and tip Dumbledore off that he knew how to protect his mind. There were more ways to hide one's thoughts other than to simply bash out any intrusions. Instead, he started thinking about how great his Nimbus 2000 was and focused on the feelings of genuine happiness he experienced every time he flew and felt the chilly breeze of the night against his face. That was all that Dumbledore could see in his mind.

"Yes, I went flying for an hour or two," Harry said, not seeing any point in lying now that the cat was out of the bag. Even if Dumbledore wanted to punish him or even expel him, Harry was not concerned in the least. Hogwarts was closing today anyway. He would not give him detentions nor would he confiscate his Nimbus 2000 either.

"Did you happen to see what happened to the Minister?"

"No, professor," Harry said and shook his head.

Dumbledore stood up from his seat and walked back and forth for a few moments.

"Would you be so kind as to let me take a look at your wand?" the old wizard asked but it was not a question. Harry recognized a demand when he heard one.

"Um, sure," he said and handed his wand over to Dumbledore as if he was not aware at all of what the old wizard was going to do. He played the part of a naive 11-year-old boy.

Gently picking the wand from Harry's hand, the headmaster studied it with great attention.

"Supple, eleven inches, fir wood and... ...dragon heartstring as the core, did I get it right?" At Harry's nod of acknowledgement, he muttered to himself: "Hm, interesting, very interesting."

As someone who had once sought the Deathly Hallows and as the possessor of the Elder Wand, Dumbledore was well-versed in wand lore. He could understand many things about someone's personality simply by taking a look at their wand.

Fir wands were called 'the survivor's wand'. They were very suited to powerful wizards that excelled in Transfiguration but not only. It favoured strong-minded and often intimidating people. Its elasticity also let him know that Harry had a flexible personality, that he could easily adapt to new environments and situations. As for its core being the heartstring of a dragon - wands with this core favoured magically powerful wizards. Dragon heartstring wands produced the most powerful spells.

'Calm, adaptable, magically gifted, and if his grades are anything to go by, very clever as well. A very promising young wizard...'

Without warning, Dumbledore brandished Harry's wand and said:

"Priori Incantato!"

Several images depicting various spells appeared one after another. First, it was a Household Charm (Harry had used it to make his bed that morning when he woke up), then it was a Locking Charm (used by Harry to lock his trunk when he returned from his flying session) and then-

"A Disillusionment Charm?!" Dumbledore asked, his eyebrows shooting into his hairline due to his surprise.

New images of spells being cast appeared after that but they were mostly mundane spells used for homework or during classes by regular first-year students.

"I had to learn it so I could sneak out with my broom." Harry lied and did his best to sound sheepish. He looked down as if he was nervous after being caught breaking the rules.

"Could you demonstrate it for me, please?" Dumbledore asked and gave Harry his wand back, handle first.

Harry grabbed his wand and twirled it above his head while speaking the incantation out loud:

"Indespectus!"

Dumbledore could not hide his astonishment when he saw the effects of Harry's Disillusionment Charm. It was not true invisibility and it was not quite as good as the charm he was capable of casting himself either, but it would be enough to impress the Charms examiner during the OWLs in the fifth year.

"Most impressive!" Dumbledore whispered in awe and looked at Harry as if he had just discovered a rare treasure. A first year student performing and OWL-level charm was formdibale to say the least.

Inwardly, Harry was starting to become nervous.

'Maybe I revealed too much of my talent?' he thought. He could not remember Dumbledore ever showing that much surprise on his face in his past life.

But the headmaster quickly schooled his expression and returned to normal. He sat back on his seat at the desk and then he asked a question completely unrelated to what they had been talking about until then:

"What will you do once the school closes?"

"I will return to the orphanage," Harry said. "I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Do you like it over there?" Dumbledore asked and Harry got the feeling that whatever answer he gave next was going to have a great influence on the nature of his future interactions with the headmaster.

Harry made an uncomfortable expression.

"I'm not sure," he replied. "I had a nasty accident a month before I got my Hogwarts letter. I-, I don't remember much from the time before that. But I think it's not bad, the caretakers treat us well if we don't cause trouble. But the food at Hogwarts is so much better than at the orphanage! I am going to miss it!" he said sincerely.

Dumbledore smiled a little at the last part but then he asked seriously: "You don't remember anything from before?"

Harry could tell that the old wizard was listening to his words with rapt attention.

"The caretakers at the orphanage told me that I fell off from the second floor and cracked my head open. I still got the scar from it," he said almost proudly (as if he was boasting) and parted his messy locks of black hair to show Dumbledore a thin scar on the side of his head, a sign of his previous injury. "The doctors at the hospital said that I am lucky I didn't die."

The headmaster momentarily closed his eyes, seemingly deep in thought. A few long seconds passed, almost half a minute, without him saying a word.

'Did he fall asleep?' Harry said to himself incredulously. "Professor?" he called out timidly.

"I apologize. At my age, people tend to get lost in thought sometimes and forget the world around them." Dumbledore joked lightly. "I was wondering, Mr Potter, would you be interested in spending your summers with a wizarding family instead of going back to the orphanage?"

Harry made a very strange face. The headmaster's unexpected interest in him was starting to worry him. Even in his past life, when he had been the Chosen One, Dumbledore had not shown that much interest in him. He had not even stepped into his office in his first year at all. Furthermore, in his past life, Harry had been the one to beg to not be sent back to the Dursleys yet now Dumbledore was asking him if he wanted to live with a wizarding family instead of going back to the orphanage... it was as if the world has been turned upside down.

"I don't know what to say, professor," Harry said awkwardly. He did not even have to fake that emotion. "Why would anyone want to take me in? I'm just a stranger."

"Be that as it may, you will find out in time that in the Wizarding World, children are very important, more important than for non-magical people. I assure you that many families would be willing to open their arms for a young child, especially one as gifted as yourself."

Whatever Harry expected when he heard that Dumbledore wanted to talk with him was certainly not that the old wizard was going to put him up for adoption.

'If everyone had been that eager to adopt orphans, Voldemort wouldn't have grown in an orphanage.' Harry thought sarcastically.

However, his expression visibly changed as he recalled his very first meeting with a Horcrux, in the Chamber of Secrets, nearly 30 years ago, in his past life. He still remembered the words that the 16-year-old Tom Riddle had told him back then as if it was yesterday:

'There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike...'

Once he remembered that memory, Harry glanced at Dumbledore again. The calculative and intense look in his twinkling blue eyes seemed much more obvious now than before. He did not need to be a Legilimens to understand what was going through his mind at that moment:

'He's comparing me to Voldemort.'

In this life, Harry was even more similar to Voldemort than in his past life. He even grew up in an orphanage and he was much more brilliant than he had ever been as a child in the past too.

'As the saying goes - once bitten, twice shy. He's probably thinking of ways to make me get attached to a family and discover the joys of being loved. He doesn't want a repeat of what happened before.'

Reaching that conclusion, Harry realized that giving him an outright refusal would not stop Dumbledore from doing what he thought was right. For better or worse, one way or another, the old wizard always got what he wanted.

Besides, Harry had no reason to be at odds with him. It would certainly open up more opportunities for him in the future if he were to be part of a regular family instead of being just a muggle-raised orphan boy. After all, the fact that in his past life Puddlemore United had accepted him so eagerly in the starting team had been at first because of his feat of killing Voldemort. It had been a massive boon for their publicity to have the Vanquisher of Voldemort in their team. His application would not be so easily accepted in this world where he was just a regular boy and he would definitely be nothing more than a substitute player for the first year or two.

"You don't have to give me an answer right away," Dumbledore said kindly. "I don't want to force you into it. Whatever choice you make, it's entirely up to you. I will give you one week to think about it. In one week, I will come personally to your orphanage and talk to you again about it."

Harry fidgeted with his hands, pretending that he was nervous as he asked: "Do you have any people in mind that would want to take me in?"

"I was thinking about two families that would most likely be more than willing to take you in: the first would be the Weasley family-"

"The Weasleys?" Harry interrupted him in surprise. "Why would they want another child?! They have seven already, don't they? I heard they have money problems too. I'd be a big burden for them."

Dumbledore had the decency to at least look sheepish. He faked a cough in his fist once and said:

"The other family, well, you are actually distantly related to them through your father. I believe that the Blacks - Bellatrix Black - would be willing to take you in."

Even with his mastery over Occlumency and control over his emotions Harry almost choked on his spit.

AN: I misspelt "goodest" on purpose. We all know how we talk when we interact with our lovely pets haha. If you found other typos and mistakes, well, those were not intended.