Disclaimer – Everything you recognise belongs to JKR. All the rest is simply me playing in her sandbox.

-oOoOo-

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

Chapter 15

The Saturday at the end of that first week back after the holidays turned out to be rather busy for Harry.

Hedwig began the day by soaring in through the open windows of the Great Hall during breakfast, an obviously large and heavy package tied to her leg. Harry watched, confused, as she made her descent towards the Gryffindor table. He hadn't ordered anything since before Christmas and he had no idea why his owl would be bringing him something.

The answer to the mystery was solved when the extremely tired but proud bird landed gently in front of Hermione with a soft hoot. Harry watched as Hermione's excited fingers quickly untied the parcel from Hedwig's leg before ripping open the envelope stuck to the top.

Feeling slightly affronted at the hard work that Hedwig had been forced to do, Harry pushed his glass of pumpkin juice forward as well as his half-finished plate for Hedwig to eat and drink her fill. A soft hoot of thanks was given before she dipped her beak into the goblet for a drink.

A squeal of delight erupted from Hermione causing Harry to pause in his strokes of Hedwig's feathers before his hand was squished in between bird and girl as Hermione hugged her thanks to Hedwig.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said, "you've done a marvellous job, Hedwig."

Once the owl was released, she gave a single hoot before picking up a piece of bacon and launching herself off of the table to fly back to the owlery.

"Here, Harry, this is for you," Hermione said as she thrust the package that she'd received at him.

"But you already gave me a Christmas present," Harry frowned in confusion.

"I know that, silly. This is a just because present," she beamed at him.

Cautiously, Harry held the package in his hands and stared at the girl who had turned in her seat to face him. He didn't understand 'just because' as a reason for a present, but then, he'd only received his first ever presents a couple of weeks ago.

"Well, aren't you going to open it?" Hermione asked and Harry could see her fingers twitching as though she were dying to do just that herself.

Just as he'd done at Christmas, Harry carefully began to unstick the paper in such a way as to ensure that it wasn't ripped. In front of him, Hermione giggled, but Harry ignored it. He knew that his method of opening his presents wasn't considered normal especially judging by the way that Dudley had always torn into his. But presents for Harry were something to be treasured, everything from the wrapping paper to whatever was inside.

At last the paper came free and a soft brown leather bound book tumbled into his hands along with a black box. Turning the book over, he gasped and traced his finger gently over the black embossed words: The Life and Times of Lily Evans and James Potter.

Tentatively, Hermione reached out and opened the book for him. It was completely blank except for the left hand pages that had feint lines on them.

"It's a journal for you to record everything that we find out about your parents," Hermione explained. "You can write down all of the stories that Hagrid or anyone else tells you and all of the facts that we find out and we can even put in pictures too."

At this last, she plucked the box out of his lap and opened it to reveal a camera and half a dozen rolls of film.

"I know that there's a way to develop muggle film to make the pictures into wizarding photos, but I haven't researched how to do that yet," she continued.

Harry opened his mouth to thank her but through the massive lump that had formed in his throat, all that he was capable of doing was mouthing the words. Savagely, he wiped at his eyes, not wanting to give the tears there a chance to escape.

She smiled at him and for the first time in his life, Harry wanted to give someone a hug. He'd always dreamed that one day he'd be given one, but when it came to giving one, there'd just never been anyone that he'd wanted to hug before. Certainly not the Durleys. But not knowing how, he simple settled for letting his head drop to stare at the cover of the book with his parent's names on it once more.

-oOoOo-

Hermione smiled tenderly at the boy in front of her. She'd hoped that her idea of a memory journal would work and judging by the book that her parents had sent after the four page plea that she'd sent them, she guessed that her parents had felt that it was a good idea as well.

And now, to see the way he was looking at the small book as though it was the most precious thing in the world, she knew that she'd gotten it right. For an instant, she'd thought that Harry was about to throw his arms around her and hug her, but the moment passed quickly and, while she was unexpectedly disappointed that it hadn't happened, as it turned out, it was a good thing.

"Mister Potter," a voice from above them interrupted.

Hermione looked up to find Madam Hooch standing there, a broomstick in her hand.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I thought that you might like to have your broom back," she said, holding it out to Harry.

Quickly, Hermione plucked the journal and the camera out of Harry's hand so that he could take back his Nimbus Two Thousand.

"Thank you, Madam Hooch," he said and Hermione could hear that he was struggling to talk normally, "did you find out what was wrong with it?"

"No, I didn't," Madam Hooch scowled. "I stripped it down and even called in Professor Flitwick, but neither of us could find any hexes or jinxes on the broom at all. It seems perfectly fine now. Whatever the problem was, I don't think that it originated with the broom."

Harry looked relieved. "Well, I'm glad there's nothing wrong with it. Thanks for checking it out for me."

"That's what I'm here for, Mister Potter. I'll see you on the Quidditch pitch," Madam Hooch smiled as she took her leave.

Leaning the broom against the table behind him, Harry turned back with a frown on his face.

"I wonder what made the broom act the way it did during that match?"

An image of a pair of professors staring intently at Harry on his bucking broomstick, their mouths moving, flittered through her mind and she gasped.

"I think I've just realised something. I need to go to the library," Hermione said, as she quickly gave the journal and camera box back to Harry, grabbed her bag and stood up. "Meet me in the library soon?"

Harry smiled. "Yeah, okay. Oh, and Hermione," he said, stopping her after her first step away. "Thank you for this, it's absolutely brilliant."

Her smile lit up her face, "You're welcome, Harry. I'm glad you liked it."

-oOoOo-

Harry walked tentatively in through the library doors, unsure of whether or not he should actually be there. It wasn't that he'd never been there before, but usually, his method of interacting with the library was to simply get in, retrieve the book or books that he needed and retreat back down to his cupboard as quickly as possible.

But this time, he'd agreed to meet Hermione there and he was sure that she wasn't going to let him run away any more. Besides, he owed her. Not only for the journal which he couldn't wait to start writing in, but also for helping him realise that he shouldn't be afraid of doing well in class. Besides that, he liked her and wanted to study with her and the library was a better place to do that than the small dark cupboard under the stairs.

After taking a single step to the side so that he wasn't standing in the doorway, Harry looked around for his friend.

In front of him, the large circular counter type desk that defined Madam Pince's area dominated. The stern librarian was looking over the top of her glasses at him from behind her counter and he purposefully refused to look her way.

To either side of the door, a dozen large tables were set aside for students to work at. More tables, both large and small dotted throughout the library were currently hidden amongst the hundreds of bookshelves that held the greatest concentration of magical books in the wizarding world.

One section to his left was cordoned off with a small magical three foot barrier preventing students from entering the restricted section without Madam Pince's direct knowledge and permission.

As it was still early, not many of the desks were currently in use, although there was a group of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first years that Harry recognised clustered together at one of the desks. Two of the Hufflepuffs, Susan Bones and Zacharias Smith looked up at him and waved. Somehow, he managed a weak smile and a nod in return.

And then he saw her. Or more correctly, them.

Hermione and Neville were almost hidden in the back right hand corner by the enormous pile of books stacked in front of them. Walking as quickly as he could, Harry negotiated his way to them through the other desks.

"Harry, what took you so long?" Hermione asked when she noticed him slipping into the chair beside her.

"I wanted to put my package away safely in my trunk so that nothing would happen to it," he explained.

She gave him a quizzical look before understanding dawned on her face. He guessed by her next comment that she understood that he didn't want to draw any attention to either the journal or the camera.

"I think I've worked out what was wrong with your broom at the Gryffindor Slytherin game."

"You have?" Harry asked as surprised as Neville appeared to be when his head came up out of his book to look interestedly at them. "What was it?"

"I think your broom was being hexed. I saw both Professor Snape and Professor Quirrel were staring at you, muttering incantations. More importantly, neither of them were blinking," she explained.

Harry stared at her, bewildered.

"But why would Professor Snape or Professor Quirrel try to kill Harry?" Neville asked, taking the words right out of his mouth.

At this Hermione frowned. "I don't know. But I know an incantation when I see one."

"Snape definitely hates me. I wouldn't put it past him," Harry pointed out grimly.

"I don't think anyone'd doubt that," agreed Neville. "But what about Professor Quirrel?"

Harry shrugged. "No idea."

"Perhaps he wasn't trying to make your broom buck you off. Perhaps he was trying to save you," Hermione said slowly.

When both boys stared at her incredulously, she continued.

"He could have been saying the counter-incantation."

"I guess," Harry said slowly. "But do you really think he'd know it? I haven't learnt anything in his class yet. Everything I know about Defence Against the Dark Arts is purely from reading the text."

"I agree with Harry, Hermione. Professor Quirrel's almost as bad a teacher as Professor Snape," Neville shuddered.

"You've got to admit that neither of them are very good teachers," Harry said quickly to the scowling Hermione. "Quirrel's terrified of his own subject and with all of the stuttering that he does, I can barely understand one word in ten. And Snape! All he does is write up the instructions on the board and walk around insulting us. I don't know why Professor Dumbledore keeps them around, there's got to be better teachers out there somewhere."

"You could add in Professor Binns as well, Harry. I can barely keep awake in History of Magic," Neville added.

"Professor Quirrel and Professor Snape, Harry," Hermione corrected.

But Harry only grinned. If correcting how he addressed the two professors was the best that Hermione could do, he knew that she agreed with him even if she wouldn't admit it.

"That still doesn't explain why they were saying an incantation while staring at you on your broom," Hermione stated.

"I doubt we'll ever know. I'm definitely not going to go and ask them, Professor Snape terrifies me!" Neville stated adamantly.

"Perhaps we should get to work," Harry stated, cutting off Hermione's next retort. "What are you guys studying?"

Hermione looked at him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

"That's something that we wanted to talk to you about," she said.

Harry looked between his two friends. Both of them looked nervous all of a sudden and it was all that he could do not to dash from the room.

"Go on," he finally said through a mouth gone suddenly dry.

"I know that you prefer to study in your … normal … place," Hermione started with a nervous look in Neville's direction. "So, we're really happy that you're here, Harry and we're both really looking forward to studying with you."

His eyes flicked to Neville to see him nodding furiously in agreement with Hermione.

"But just before Christmas, we started meeting up with some others and studying with them and we were hoping that you'd join all of us, not just Neville and me."

Harry blinked at Hermione's hopeful expression. He looked down at his hands in his lap and then up to the ceiling and around, thinking desperately. Finally, he looked back at Hermione.

"Who?" he near whispered.

Hermione nodded towards the group of first years that Harry'd noticed earlier.

"Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot and Sally-Anne Perks from Hufflepuff, and Terry Boot, Su Li, Lisa Turpin and Lil Moon from Ravenclaw."

Harry turned in his chair slightly to get a better look at the group at the near-by table. All of them had stacks of parchment in front of them, piles of books scattered around and quills in their hand. It was easy to see that they were there to study, not to simply goof off or gossip.

While he was looking, both Sally-Anne and Lil snuck glances at the Gryffindor trio but quickly turned back around the instant that they noticed Harry looking at them. He knew them all from class. He'd spoken to them all and had even been partnered with some of them. They'd all been friendly and while they, like everyone else, had stared at his scar, they'd managed not to do it after the first couple of weeks of starting at Hogwarts, unlike others that he could name.

With a sigh, Harry turned back to the hopeful Hermione and the bewildered looking Neville.

"Alright, I'll study with both them as well as the two of you," he conceded and instantly held up a hand to stop Hermione from gathering all of the books in front of her. "But not today. Can it just be the three of us today?"

"Sure, Harry, we can start studying as a group next time," Hermione conceded.

With a grateful smile, Harry opened his bag, "so, what are we going to work on first?"

A/N – For those who either haven't looked at my author profile page or for those that looked at it before I actually put something on it, I'd like to point out that my intention is to tell Harry, Hermione and their friend's Hogwarts story all the way through the years. The Cupboard Under The Stairs will only be covering their first year. Subsequent books will deal with the other years. There are some things that I've got planned that will impact future books that I've already begun alluding to or setting up for in this story. While for the most part I'll be sticking with events that happened in canon, the further in time the books go, the further afield the actions and emotions of the characters will stray from JKR's original books.

Once again, I'd like to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to read my story. All of the hits, reviews, favourites and follows mean the world to me and I cherish every one.