Chapter 4:

In the library of Ancient and Noble House of Greengrass:

After getting permission from Lord Greengrass to enter into the library, Harry found himself into the library of Ancient & Noble House of Greengrass. Harry came here to do some research. The world has significant similarity to his home universe, but at the same times there were many difference between them for instance Lily Evans never born in this universe. If he wanted to face this new magical world then he needed to be properly informed about that.

So soon Harry found himself with old issues from Daily Prophet and a huge numbers of books , some of them about history , some of them about tradition and some of them about other stuffs .

Harry was also feeling the curiosity to know the fate of some persons in that world. At first he started to read old issues of infamous Daily Prophet .He started to read the headlines first. The writing style of this universe's Daily prophet was strangely similar to his own universe's Daily Prophet. Some things never changed even in a different universe Harry smirked after thinking that. The Daily Prophet was filled with gossip , smearing stories and Harry had to become very cautious to determine what is truth and what is simply rumor.

After wasting several hours to read the paper, Harry was able to know some interesting fact about the new universe.

Firstly Albus Dumbledore was able to defeat Grindelwald in a famous battle but it happened two years later compared to his own universe.

Tom Riddle was a half blood student who attended Hogwarts and passed with a high marks but it seemed like in that universe he never opened the chamber of secrets and because of that no student was died during Tom's seventh year and Hagrid was never expelled from Hogwarts .

So the legend of chamber of secrets was more hidden than his own universe. But this universe's Tom was not kinder compared to his universe's Tom. This Tom was just more strategic compared to his universe's Tom. This universe Tom first tried to took over magical UK by publicly claiming himself as Lord Gaunt , but it seemed like Tom lose interest in playing direct political game his pureblood status was in doubt in the extremist pureblood circle . So after one year Lord Gaunt mysteriously disappear from magical UK and his dead body was found after 4 days of his disappearance, but interestingly after five years of the death of Lord Gaunt, a new pureblood extremist who claim himself as heir of Slytherin had emerged and called himself as Lord Voldie with a new face different than, Lord Gaunt.

So it meant that nobody knew the fact that Tom Riddle and Lord Voldie was same person. Harry doubted even Dumbledore of this universe knew the fact. Tom never opened chamber of secrets and Tom was a lone wolf in his Hogwarts years. So it meant that he never got the attention from Hogwarts teaching stuff compared to his universe's Tom.

Later when Tom Riddle became the Lord Gaunt, he and his handful followers were never engaged with any criminal activity. They brought extremist motion in wizengamot but never physically attacked any muggle or muggle born.

He was referred as loony radical in several Daily Prophet stories. He was never able to build a minimum political alliance with even the dark pureblood family. Dark pureblood families were suspicious about his Pureblood status and also found him too much crazy even for them. It was even suspected that a dark pureblood person was behind the supposed unfortunate death of Lord Gaunt.

However, after five years of supposed death of Tom Riddle Gaunt, the magical UK went into an financial and political crisis, the people were anxious about their future. That was the time when a charismatic parseltongue Slytherin heir was finally emerged who claimed to come from Norway to rescue wizarding UK from muggle filth.

Major political figures from wizengamot at first ignored him, but it later proved to be a big mistake. Heir Slytherin did not join wizengamot; his agenda was directly violent towards muggle and muggle born. His radical and violent agenda finally found a big audience among the huge part of the youth from dark political family.

Those youth from dark pureblood family were already suspecting muggle and muggle born for the financial crisis. The Lord and Ladies of wizengamot were busy in playing political chess there and failed to come with a solution for their financial crisis.

Harry also found that many members of the light fraction that time were pushing some illogical radical cultural change, they were not interested in integrating the first generation wizards and witches into British magical culture but they were trying to change the whole culture into something new. They forgot that being in order to being tolerant to new wizarding population, you don't need to insult and marginalize the native culture which have a history and root with this land. They forgot what is meant to be a liberal and become illiberal to their own native culture.

The dark fraction was not any better; they were also not interested in integrating first generation of wizards and witches into a British wizarding society. They were happy to preserve top position of the ministry and some of them were even happy that muggle born were providing cheap labor for some low profile job. They were even not interested in new ideas that will make British wizarding culture popular to non dark pureblood and half bloods. So the once enriched British wizarding culture that could be inclusive were starting to disappear from public life as the number of muggle borns and light purebloods and half bloods were increasing in numbers and proportion . The so called conservative failed to conserve British wizarding culture from its slow decline.

Those youth from dark family became attracted to the simple and violent solution of Slytherin heir to a problem which was very complex. Once the youth of various dark pureblood families were convinced, they started to apply heavy pressure on older generation and with the time the older generation bow down to pressure from younger generation, because those heirs were the future of their house.

And rest of the history was not so different than from his own universe, Lord Voldie formed his loyal death eater and the second British wizarding war of this century was started. One day he attacked the ancestral home of Weasley and for some unknown reason his killing curse backfired when he cursed young Ronald Weasley with that.

Harry was suspecting some kinds of prophecy were also involved in the case of Tom attacking Ron. The death of Ron were also tragic when after few days 50 death eater attacked the ministry where whole Weasley family were came to join official celebration of the death of you know who. The ministry was still filled with many secret death eater and they were also infiltrated in auror force that were in charge of the security of that occasion. Bellatrix Black casted the killings curse on Ron to avenge the demise of her master. Besides Ron, 38 people were killed on that incident including the minister.

The ministry caught several death eaters and they were swiftly given dementor's kiss including Bellatrix Black.

Harry was very much stunned to know the level of cunning Tom had showed he somehow convinced the whole magical UK about his death as Lord Gaunt who was a loony radical. Then after five years he had returned with the new face, new identity, and new personality. He was successful to exploit the economic and cultural anxiety of a section of pureblood youth and directed their anger to muggle born and blood traitors in order to gain power.

Harry thought about whole situation about Tom. He was the only person in this universe who knew Tom and so called you knows who basically the same person is. He could not share this information with anyone for now, because he won't be able to prove and explain the whole thing without answering some uncomfortable question and he did not wanted to answer those questions to anyone.

Harry thought about others in this universe. Hagrid completed his study and now the owner of a shop in Diagon Alley about selling various pet animals.

The Weasley family was shocked after the death of Ron; because of their status as the family of fallen hero they were given financial assistance from the ministry. But now apart from Bill Weasley no other Weasley live in magical UK.

The Weasley family excluding Bill now lives in Australia. Molly Weasley after losing her parents, brothers and her youngest son were not ready to live in UK and she forced Arthur to leave magical UK.

James Potter as fate told him is now living in USA and he is happily married.

Sirius Black was fled from his house at the age of 12 as he did not have the presence and friendship of James Potter in his life in this universe. He was properly disowned by the Black family in that universe. He is now living in France and happily married to a French veela.

Lucky dog Harry thought about Sirius of this universe. Harry was happy that finally Sirius found some happiness in some other universe.

There was no death eater attack on Longbottoms, so both Frank and Alice is alive and doing fine in this universe, Harry was hoping because of that Neville would have a normal childhood.

In Hogwarts Horace was still teaching potion there instead of Snape and Snape was teaching Mind Arts, which is an optional subject in third years in Hogwarts. Snape was never a death eater in that universe and he was a Ravanclaw in his student life. Minerva and Filius Flitwick were teaching Transfiguration and Charms respectively. History of magic was thankfully not taught by a ghost in that universe, it was taught by Jennifer Prince who is incidentally a cousin of both Severus Snape and Liberian Patricia Prince.

In this universe Hogwarts have eight years instead of seven like Harry's own universe. It was done in order to make students more mature before they enter into the job field.

Fudge was the minister of magic in that universe too and Harry had no doubt that he was equally incompetent like his counterpart of Harry's home universe. Fudge was only interested in how to hang on the power and he was also corrupt just like the other Fudge.

The name of Lord Black in that universe was Rodger Black, who was incidentally step brother of Sirius and after death of Regulus and Sirius getting disowned from the family, he was the last male heir of the Black family. After Orion Black's death, he became Lord Black. He had no clear position on anything and he was too busy on enjoying Black family fortune. His son Chris Black will be a classmate of Harry and Harry decided he would keep an eye on Chris Black in Hogwarts.

Remus Lupin was not a wolf in this universe; he was saved by his father from the attack of Greyback and killed the werewolf. Remus Lupin was now representing Noble House of Lupin in wizengamot and he is a strong ally of Albus Dumbledore there.

The last but not the least fact Harry found interesting that there was no Lumos spell in this universe wizards here conjure light from a spell named Lux caligo , incidentally it was a seventh year material and is tough to be learned just like patronus charm . Wizards usually here carry some magical torch which lasts for one year to remove darkness.

It was great news for Harry, because now he will be credited as the inventor of this charm in the near future .It will be great for his public image and will send a great massage to everyone about his magical strength and intelligence. He will wait for sometime before he accidentally invents this charm off course. It will sure make a great headline for Daily Prophet.

Harry decided he will identify the spells which does not exist in this universe and will try to master those spells which is exclusive to this universe.

"Now I had to read some more books about magical theory." Harry told himself.

Daphne's POV:

After returning from Tracy's house I had come to know that Hadrian Sayre was still busy in the library. He was there since the morning and called a house elf for giving him lunch. So my cousin is very studious and a secret book worm, though he behaved differently than your average bookworm.

The boy was still a mystery for me; despite being his cousin, I did not know many things about him. I was planning to talk with him about my strategy in Hogwarts and wanted to know his opinion about it. I will also inform him about Tracy, Zabini, and their meeting in Diagon Alley.

I decided that I will talk with him after dinner and it will be alone in my rooms. Now I decided to study First year DADA books, I was near to finish the first year course of DADA and Charms and I read other subjects. She was targeting to be best in her class and wanted to outshine Malfoy and Nott politically and academically.

Dinner time in Greengrass Manor:

Harry joined with Greengrass family for the dinner. Everyone was present there and various kinds of dishes filled the table, which the house elf from House carefully prepared by Greengrass.

"So, Harry I heard you were busy in library in the whole day, are you a secret Ravenclaw?" Shawn asked with a smiling face.

"I was busy in gathering information about magical UK and studying some first year spells from some very educative book. I must say Uncle Shawn, you should be proud of your family library and I think it properly reflecting House Greengrass rich wizarding heritage. As far as being secret Ravenclaw I just do not read for the sake of read, I read because I believe knowledge is a weapon to achieve the goal in your life. I wanted to use my knowledge for the betterment of me and my close relatives." Harry responded.

Daphne observed that Harry mentioned about betterment of his close relatives. At that moment his only close relatives were the Greengrass family. It pleased her that her cousin is already considering her family as his own and he understood the importance of family in pureblood culture and it made her hopeful that her cousin will be a great ally for her in her's future life.

" You are a perfect Slytherin Harry , one should know how to utilize his / her knowledge in real life and by the way thanks for the compliment about the library but it was mostly my ancestors doing . " Shawn told Harry.

"Harry you are just like Daphy, she also studied a lot." Astoria suddenly told Harry.

"And it is a good thing Tory; you will also need to study just like your sister and cousin in future." Athena reminded that to Astoria.

"So, it seemed like we have something in common, we both want to study in order to achieve knowledge that we can use in some important purposes." Harry told her.

" I think it is a good thing that we have found a common ground here in the matter of studying , I hope we will discover more common ground between us in coming days that will take our understanding into a satisfactory level. " Daphne told Harry.

Harry wasn't surprised about the way Daphne responded. She was maintaining water down version of ice queen, but he was also determined to know the girl behind the mask, the real Daphne.

After the dinner was completed, Harry noticed that Daphne wanted to say something to him. He was already guessing that she will talk with him about upcoming Slytherin house politics.

"Harry will you walk with me for some time, I have something to discuss with you." Daphne told Harry.

"Daphne if you want to talk with me about Slytherin house politics, then I think we should go into a room to discuss that. " Harry was hoping to surprise her by his answer and he was somewhat successful to do that. Daphne was little surprised that Harry was able to guess about the intention of her topic but the look of surprise soon disappeared from her face and the confident Daphne was back in form.

"If you want to discuss it in a room, then I suggest we can do that into my bedroom. " She suggested.

"I have no objection about that, besides I have curiosity to know about my cousin's bedroom." Harry smiled.

Daphne's bedroom was very much organized; the whole room was filled with the color of green and silver.

"Harry I think you already know that, house politics is much more intense in House of Slytherin and if I am not wrong I think both of us will be sorted into House of Slytherin. So I think we should both discuss what will be our political position there and how we can maintain our ground against a rival fraction." Daphne wasted no time to get into the point after entering her bedroom.

"I agree with you Daphne that we should have clear political position before joining in Hogwarts. I think both of us can agree that position won't include following Malfoy, Nott, Parkinson and Moon, but I think we should be patient in our approach, because both of us know that we will be minority at start and many people in that house thought the neutral houses as semi Blood traitor. " Harry cautioned Daphne.

"I know we have long road ahead of us in that matter, because of the polarizing nature of Hogwarts student politics but I think we can put a formidable fight against the dark fraction. " Daphne responded.

"Yes, I agree we will have to be satisfied with only resisting them for sometimes , but if we played our cards right then we will be dominant fraction in the long run ."

Harry told Daphne.

"It seemed like you put a lot of time in thinking about the whole thing just like me." Daphne asked him with curiosity.

"Yes, it seemed like we have a lot of things common between us. Yes I think the path of becoming dominant force in Slytherin will also have to include offering an alternative vision to those students who give a damn about British wizarding culture besides our opposition to Malfoy and his allies. We may not have quantity but we have quality among us, we will have to outshine our rivals in every front. If we have a good massage and real magical and political power to back it, then I think we can turn it around when we will be in our fifth years. "Harry explained to her.

Daphne was also thinking about outshine their rivals but her cousin was right the dark fraction was very powerful in Slytherin house for very long time they will have to have a massage that can resonate other members of their house.

"I am glad that you have a vision for our fraction. I am thinking to introduce you to Tracy Davies and Blaise Zabini when we will visit Diagon Alley tomorrow. I think they will be our important allay in that house. "Daphne informed Harry.

"I have no problem with that, both House Davies and House Zabini are respected house in our country. I want to know about their opinion and suggestion before we can make an effective strategy. "Harry told her.

"Then, it is final that we will meet them in Diagon Alley, tomorrow. " Daphne informed him.

"Ok, now as all the political stuff is over, I want to talk with you Daphne. " Harry told her with a smiling face.

"But you were talking with me even few seconds ago. "

"No I was talking with Heiress Greengrass in the capacity of Heir Sayre, but now I want to talk with Daphne who is my cousin." Harry told her.

Daphne realized that she did not try to know Harry at a personal level .

"Daphne, our houses are politically ally of each other. So , I will be your strong political ally in Hogwarts , but besides all the political calculation , you are my cousin , one of the few people in this whole world who I can call as my kin . I want to know you personally; I want to know who you are behind the political mask. Besides, being your cousin I want to become your friend, because I believe friendship is the base of a strong relationship between two individuals.

Daphne was touched by her cousin words. She did not have any true friend besides Tracy, in the pureblood society it was tough for her to get a true friend and somehow she knew in her heart that Harry had a potential to become a true friend to her.

" I have no problem to become your friend Harry Sayre but , you have to tell me what you most like to do in your free time besides reading . " Harry saw the rare smile on Daphne's face when she was telling him that.

"Then, you should know that I love to do dueling in my free times but I think when I will be in Hogwarts I will visit the various section of castle preferably with a friend. " Harry was looking straight into the eye of Daphne when he told her that.

"Good. I am glad that we will have more common ground as friends about how to pass free times. Now do you want to know some idiotic things Draco Malfoy did when we were kids?" She asked Harry with a smiling face.

"You have no idea, my friend." Harry responded.

Chapter end

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