Pairings: Not sure yet.
Warnings: Some bashing.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling does.
Ch 6 – Halloween Feast
Albus Dumbledore was pissed. All his plans were falling apart because of one little brat. The stupid brat was supposed to be in Gryffindor and want to be just like his parents. He couldn't understand where things had gone wrong. He had left him with the Dursley's to make him weak and malleable. To make him eager to please and so he would see Dumbledore as his savior. And think, all those money he had given the Weasley's! All for naught.
He had carefully instructed Molly Weasley to be at the muggle side of the train-station and use her impressive, if not slightly weird, set of lungs to grab young Harry's attention. He had made sure Hagrid didn't tell Harry how to find the station and leave him there to find it himself. He had made sure the Granger girl would use any excuse she could find to search the entire train for him. He was after all, paying for her education. Well, Harry was but she didn't need to know that. No, the girl depended far to much on books and authority figures to really see the truth and sometimes he found himself pitying her. She would not make it far in life, especially with her attitude and rude comments. Heck, even he found himself mad at her from time to time.
The day she made honest to god friends, would be the day it snowed in Hell.
Albus sat down in the chair behind his giant desk in the middle of his office. He sighed as he looked at the statement from Gringotts. He needed to stop paying the Weasley's so much money, he had already emptied an entire vault. In this speed it would be gone before he could get his full hands on it and that just wouldn't do. Imagine the books and magical artifacts that had to be in some of those vaults. It was a shame he could only access the money.
Not that he hadn't tried of course, but he needed to bring Harry with him to get that and he couldn't do that. Surely a child even as dense as Harry would notice. Harry wasn't smart, he had looked after him and his grades in muggle school was horrible. No the only reason he was even in Ravenclaw to beginning with, he decided, was because Hagrid must of said something about Lily being smart and Harry wanted to be too then. Because Harry was just a stupid brat that didn't understand what had to be done for the Greater Good.
He picked up a Lemon Drop and started thinking. He needed Harry to become friends with the youngest Weasley boy and the Granger girl. He was sure there was a Ravenclaw and Gryffindor lesson where he could get mandatory seating arrangements done and put those three insufferable brats together. Then at least the Weasley boy would stop whinging about how Harry wasn't his friend and how it wasn't fair.
He needed Harry to go against Voldemort and die a horrible tragic death and then he would swoop in and kill Voldemort once and for all. Harry needed to die, he was a living horcrux and he couldn't take the risk of him going dark. Besides they had hailed Harry as a hero for far to long. He was the hero and they should all know that. Why they couldn't see that was beyond him.
Harry frowned where he sat in the Astronomy classroom at 11 pm. It was late at night and all Harry really wanted to do was sleep. Sure stars was fascinating and kinda cool, but he wasn't sure what the point of learning it in the middle of the night was. Just because electricity didn't work at Hogwarts didn't mean that all muggle things didn't. He was willing to bet that a muggle projector without the use of power would work just as well as looking up in the middle of the night. Hell, a muggle map would be more useful.
Wizards really were stupid.
Or perhaps it's just the light side and the Ministry of Magic.
Harry listened as the teacher, Aurora Sinistra, attempted to teach about astronomy and how it was useful in other fields of magic. Now Harry understood what she was talking about, there was certain herbs that worked best when picked in a certain part of the moon cycle and stars were cool. However it was still dreadfully boring and Harry didn't even want to be there from the start, much less in the middle of the night.
When the lesson ended Harry left with heavy eyes and a scowl on his face. He was tired and restless, he wanted nothing more then to sleep. He rubbed his eyes again on the way back to the common room, having finally been able to memorize the right way supposed that in seven years it would be a lot easier to remember when he would have walked the same way hundreds of times. His green eyes was clouded with sleep and his hair, the unbeatable mess it was, was sticking up in all directions. He walked through the door that was now protected with a riddle, barely conscious as he answered it. The riddle thing started earlier that week, the older years saying it was tradition. Ravenclaws prided themselves in being smart, so they wouldn't have any trouble answering a riddle, would they?
He had lost count how many times he had answered riddles and someone had sneaked in behind him, thinking he wouldn't notice. They didn't even say thank you.
It made him want to hit something.
He laid down on his bed in his room that he had entirely to himself after finishing with everything else. Harry pulled the dark covers over him and before he knew it, he was sound asleep. In Harry's dream he was suddenly standing on a small road in the darkness of the night. Everything was dark and there were no stars or moon in the sky. It was cold and his breathing quickened.
Harry shivered and tried to keep his breath steady as sounds he can't identify surrounds him. He can barely see pass two feet in front of him as a thick mist suddenly covered everything. He wondered why he was aware of the dream, but quickly stopped thinking about it. He wanted to wake up. He took his skin between his fingers and pinched himself as hard as he could. Seconds later he awoke gasping for breath in his bed.
After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, Harry went back to sleep.
Harry woke up to the sound of banging on his door. When he looked out the window with sleep-lidded eyes Harry saw the sun shining in his face and was temporarily blinded. He groaned when the banging on the door didn't stop and momentarily wondered what dream it was that had woken him up in the middle of the night, but stopped when he couldn't remember a thing of it. The banging continued and Harry tore the sheets of him and strode up to the door, opening it with a furious scowl on his face.
"What?!" he snarled.
The young boy that was his age whose name he thought as Boot jumped and looked startled. "You won't have time to eat breakfast if you don't leave now. Just thought you should know."
"Thanks." Harry muttered and closed the door in the boys face.
It was the day of Halloween and time had passed so fast it was cruel. He had spent the last two months reading every book he could get his hands on and spent most of his time in the library. He didn't have any friends, not that he needed any. Though he could stand the Weasley twins, they at least had a brain unlike their younger brother, Ronald. He didn't think they had gotten any money, they didn't seem to be the type and from what he had observed their mother barely looked at them twice. She could, apparently, not even tell them apart. At first neither could Harry, until he noticed that Fred's eyes were a shade lighter blue than George's. It wasn't something you noticed if you weren't looking for it and Harry founding it had been an accident.
Today they were going to learn their first charm. Or well, they were going to do magic in charm class for the first time. They had only worked with theory up until that point and Harry couldn't be more excited. He threw on the first cloths he got his hands on and hurried through everything else to get to breakfast. Boot was right, he had woken up later then usual and he didn't want to miss breakfast. He quite liked it and he was getting three meals a day here, he was not going to ruin it. He was still taking nutrition potions for the years of malnutrition and starvation he had undergone.
He was not going to look like a walking skeleton ever again.
Harry made his way pass the hallways to the Great Hall for breakfast. He had his books and other things in his satchel. When he came there he quickly walked until he came to his usual seating and started eating as soon as food showed up. He had still not found the kitchens, but he was going too one day. He swore it!
After breakfast during which he spoke a quick expression of gratitude towards Boot and then ignored everyone else, he walked out of the hall with a ship in his steps. He had a smile on his face as he went to the classroom for DADA. He ignored everyone during that class even as he sat next to Granger and the youngest Weasley boy. Apparently the Headmaster had had the marvelous idea that mandatory seating in DADA was a good thing. Harry hated it. Those two didn't get along at all and they constantly bothered him about one thing or another. If Harry somehow got better results than them, then they instantly started accusing him of cheating. Because according to them, he was as stupid as a troll.
It pissed him off.
Especially since he was sure that Dumbledore was the one who got them thinking that.
Eventually after a day of horrible classes, it was time for Charms. Harry hurried there as fast as he could without running, as he had a terrible habit of tripping when running. He came in a few minutes before class started and sat in the middle of the classroom. Several moments passed before Harry was wondering if perhaps Flitwic had fallen down his chair in his excitement. Suddenly Flitwic appeared from behind his desk and Harry startled before he realized that he wasn't the only one shocked. Flitwic stood up on his desk and started the class.
"One of a wizards most rudimentary skills is levitation, the ability to make objects fly. Do you have your feathers? Good. Now, don't forget the nice wrist-movements we've been practicing. Swish and flick, everyone. And pronounce, Wingardium Leviosa. Now you try it." Harry picked up his wand with the rest of his class and carefully said the latin based words. Nothing happened. Which was stupid because he had done this before. It should bloody well work! Unless of course, his new wand messed up more then he thought.
He did it again. He could see the feather quiver, like it was trying to resist something that wasn't there. It was frustrating. When he looked up he could see Granger and Weasley sitting next to each other, the girl trying to teach Weasley to say it right. When Weasley dared her to try it since she thought she was better then him (he didn't say that outright, but there was no need), she picked up her own wand and said the incantation. And it worked! Either she had had prior training or she was simply good at it. Weird that that didn't translate into DADA.
Harry grumbled under his breath about spoiled brats and tried again, this time concentrating as much as possible. And it moved! The feather arose! He was mentally dancing in his head now.
And maybe he was smiling smugly at Granger, but there was no need to mention that right?
Harry was walking pass Weasley when he heard him say that Granger didn't have any real friends. While Harry did not approve of bullying, the boy was right. The girl was in the wrong house if she wanted friends, she was to smart for them. But still, Weasley was a bully, and a stupid one too, and Harry thought that perhaps he should say something. However before he got the chance, the girl had already run off, probably to cry.
He sighed and mumbled troublesome under his breath. Hogwarts wasn't as great as he thought it too be. Sure it was a castle, and that was awesome, but the bullying was everywhere. And not only in Slytherin like everyone had said, there was actually the smallest amount of bullies there. No it was the other houses, and the worst thing was that they let all Hufflepuff's and Gryffindor get away with it. They called it misunderstandings and pranks. The favoritism was the worst though. He got picked on by the Gryffindor's and called a traitor and no-one did anything. Because Gryffindor was apparently the same as good.
Harry managed to not hex someone until it got time for the Halloween Feast, by staying in his room and reading books he had stolen from the Restricted Section of the library. It was a book about different specie's, like vampires and werewolf's. Why it was in that section, Harry couldn't be sure. It was completely harmless. It hadn't tried to eat him even once.
He grabbed the pair of dark blue robes with silver linings and pulled them on. He was just so thankful he no longer had to use glasses, they were simply put, hideous. His hair, which reached his shoulders, were pulled into a low ponytail. He slid the small hoops into his ear-piercings and smiled to the mirror. Hopefully no-one would bully him, he really didn't need that. He was already tired and wanted nothing more then to go to sleep.
The Great Hall was filled with pumpkins hanging from the ceiling and the tables were filled to the brim with candy and other sweets. People were loudly talking with one-another. Harry sat in his own little corner of the Ravenclaw table and ignored the food on the table. He didn't think he would be able to stomach it. No what he needed was healthy food, not this shit they made the students eat. Harry sighed once again as he thought about what Weasley had told Granger. He didn't have any friends either, but he did not think it was something to cry about. Maybe he really was a freak.
Another sigh escaped his lips as Harry stared at the teachers. Dumbledore in particular was looking happy. And Harry had a feeling a happy Dumbledore was an evil Dumbledore.
The doors to the Great Hall were violently opened and Professor Quirrell ran in. "Troll! Troll in the dungeons! Just thought you'd want to know." and he promptly fainted forward. Silence. Panic. Screaming giving Harry a headache. Harry put his hands on his ears as hundreds of students simultaneously screamed and panicked. Dumbledore's voice suddenly cut out through the hall and Harry sighed and rubbed his ears at the blessed silence.
"Silence! Prefects will lead their houses to their common-room. The Professor's will deal with this, there is no need to worry." Harry stood with the rest of the Ravenclaw's and quickly went to follow the prefects. He had no desire to meet a troll. Honestly, he would have screamed as well had that not been incredibly embarrassing. When he screamed, he sounded like a drowning cat. It was not a pretty sound.
It was on the way to their common room in the hallway that he overheard Longbottom say that some Hermione girl was missing. Harry thought the name sounded familiar and it very well could have been, but he had been studying so much lately that he just couldn't remember where he had heard it. But that wasn't what was important, what mattered was that a girl his age were crying in the girls bathroom without any cue that there was a troll running around. Now Harry was pretty heartless and nothing really mattered to him, but he would not have a death on his conscience. He just wouldn't. Especially when the dead girl was his age.
So Harry sighed again and left the horde of students that was slowly making their way to the Ravenclaw common room. Hopefully he hadn't just signed his death warrant.
Harry walked few the corridors at a relatively slow pace, he couldn't smell that awful smell that the books stated all trolls had. He continued walked until he came upon the door to the girl's bathroom and was just about to go in when a smell so awful he just wanted to run away hit him. It took a moment for his brain to catch up but when it did, Harry opened the door as fast as h could and closed it behind him. The troll was awfully close and Harry did not want to be eaten. He did not delude himself thinking he could take on a fully grown troll, he was a first year student!
He looked around and thankfully he could hear the sound of someone crying in one of the stalls. "Hello!" he called out. The sniffling stopped for a second before it was back.
"W-what do you want? Here to make f-f-fun of me, are y-you?" The voice was easy to recognize, even though it was clearly hoarse from all that crying she had done. Apparently Granger really had gone to cry after what Weasley had said to her. Or well, about her, as she wasn't meant to hear it.
"Look, Granger, there's a troll in the school and it's coming this way, can we please leave?" For once, Harry wasn't ashamed to say that he was begging. He did so not want to meet a troll and die, he was only eleven years old. He had a whole life ahead of him!
A sniffle. "Your lying, your just trying to embarrass me."
The smell was coming closer. "No Granger, I'm not. Everybody is meant to go back to their common rooms while the teachers deal with it."
Harry stared as the girl slowly opened the door to the stall and stepped out. Her face was red and blotched and she had tear-streaks down from her eyes. Eyes that were red and puffy. "Good now why don't we sit down and hide as the troll is coming closer by the second."
He stared at her until she stopped sniffling and sat down with his wand in hand just in case. Not that he could do much. He was a first-year for crying out loud!
A boom stopped his thinking and Harry's eyes went to the door that was now bent as if something massive had hit it. The room shook slightly as the troll put more pressure on the door. It must have smelt them or something.
Harry's grip on his wand tightened as the troll kept smashing into the door in its attempt to bring it down. After only three more times, the door gave way and the troll went bumbling in. Harry was shocked at how ugly the thing was and for a moment could barely think as he was overtaken with fright.
The scream Granger let out could have woken up the dead. For a moment, Harry thought he had gone deaf. He rolled away as the troll tried hitting him with its giant wooden club.
For the next ten minutes, Harry had no idea what happened. All he knew was that there was a lot of rolling and dodging going on. He kept using every single spell he knew of but nothing worked. The few things that did were always useless after only a few seconds. He could see his life flash before his very eyes as he realized that this is what death to him looked like. Getting smashed by a troll. For a few terrifying moments, all he could do was stare at the thing as the club gets closer and closer to his head. It's not until Granger screams again, this time his name, that he wakes up. As he follow his instincts, he say the first spell he could remember.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" However he missed ad instead of hitting the troll, the spell hit the club, forcing it out of the trolls grip. Harry stared at it for a moment, enough for him to loose concentration and the spell is instantly broken. The club fell. Harry's breath left him as he stared down at the still form lying not more then ten feet away from him. How the hell did the stupid troll get in anyway? Wasn't Hogwarts suppose to be the safest place in the world?
He should really learn more spells. Perhaps some curses just to be safe.
Harry sat down and for the net half hour, he and Granger sat in silence while waiting for someone to show up. He had a feeling Granger was going to yell at the first person she sees. Not that he would mind, he wanted to yell at someone too, but he had a funny feeling that there weren't many teachers that would tolerate to be yelled at. If she pissed off the wrong person she could very well be expelled. Which reminded him, he needed to find the Hogwarts Charter. Surely it would have some kind of mention of trolls and what to do about it in there, right?
Eventually the teachers came. Granger was up so fast, he thought she would fall down from dizziness again. Harry frowned as Dumbledore awarded points for courage and the will to save a friends. Snape was busy staring suspiciously at Professor Quirrell and McGonagall was looking stern as she took points for running towards danger. But he could see a proud look in her eyes, was she proud he had ran towards danger like a Gryffindor would, or that he had saved a Gryffindor from certain death? He couldn't tell. From what he knew, McGonagall was a former Gryffindor herself, perhaps she thought it was acceptable if it saved someone else and was noble. Apparently Gryffindor put a lot of value on being noble and a gentleman. Of course, everyone ignored the blatant bullying they got away with.
After receiving praise for his "heroic acting" from Dumbledore and a glare from Snape , Harry returned to the Ravenclaw common room. Though not showing it, the troll had affected him. He had almost died, for gods sake! Why wasn't anyone doing anything?! He needed to study harder,learn more things. He should start running every morning to increase his stamina, too. In case he lost his wand, he needed to be able to run away and duck, preferably at the same time.
Yes, it was decided.
He was going to train harder.
A/N: Ok, I'm sorry for the long wait, I really appreciate all the reviews, they make me so happy.
So someone told me that Harry has to much. That's not really true. Think about it. The Slytherin line is completely broke or the Gaunt's wouldn't have lived in a shack. The Potter's are descendants of Peverell and Gryffindor, both of which are noble houses with a lot of history. Some of the properties will be in terrible condition and it will cost a lot of money to renovate them. Ravenclaw I think, valued books and knowledge over money. Some of the vaults will be empty. With the amount of money Dumbledore gives away like it's candy, that wont take long. The Potter's are a Noble and Ancient House, they are naturally rich. The Black's, yes I will admit they have a lot but with the amount of money that is being stolen from Harry's vault, he will need that. I'm thinking that the Amour family is probably extinct now and married their last daughter into the Potter family to give her a chance to a better life as they them-self was broke. And even without this, his name carries a lot of weight and he is famous. The Evans are now only a line of squibs, Harry's mother being the first one to have gotten magic in generations. In this story, the Evans are the last descendants of Le Fay and at some point they gained the Merlin lordship through the right of conquest. Harry is therefor not related to Merlin. The Hufflepuff line has ended and as Harry is the heir to the other three founder's, he gains that lordship through some old line in Helga Hufflepuff's will.
I also hope that this help with the questions regarding Dumbledore. He's simply been the hero so long that he's gotten use to it. He's addicted to the way people look up at him and like they say, power corrupts. At some point, I'm sure he had honorable intentions,but that was a long time ago. He is convinced that he is the one to save the wizarding world and that the sacrifice of one matters less then saving thousands. In his mind, the wizarding world is his to do what he pleases and Harry is threatening that.
I'm sorry for the spelling and grammar mistakes, English is not my mother tongue. I've recently started watching anime and so far my favorites are KHR and Naruto. I'm thinking about writing a KHR fan-fiction, but I don't know Japanese so I would have to research that first. Especially honorifics or I'm afraid I'll make a complete fool of myself.
Anyway, thanks for sticking with me! School starts again in a week so there won't be any updates for awhile just so you know. I was sick a lot last semester, so I need to pick up my grades. Hopefully this year will be better.
-FantasyDeath