A Different Possibility (improved)
Harry Potter met the Weasley family in his first day within the wizarding world, what followed including his views of the world was influenced by that meeting. Like any drowning man clutching at straws he latched on to Ron and his friendship,allowing it to color his own behavior but what might have happened if it wasn't Ron and his easy friendship he had but rather an altogether different meeting
Chapter One
The morning couldn't have come sooner for Harry, it seemed all too strange even now. The celebration of last night only made him realize that even in the wizarding world he will be different. He would have to prove himself worthy of a fame he had no right to. 'At least I will make friends' he thought watching the other students accompanying his dorm.
He got up from the bed,casting a look at the trunk lying closed beside his bed. He opened it, picking up the books he had bought. During his years with Dursley he was forced to perform badly but not any more. Soon the classes would begin and it would soon be clear that he wasn't special, that part he didn't mind but he had sworn before coming to the school that he wouldn't be looked down upon not anymore.
Placing the books properly by the desk he left the room. The snoring of others were getting on his nerves, compared to it the solitude of the common room looked quite welcoming. The sky was still dark when he made his way to the common room. The clock in the dorm said it was near 5 am , not a time for people waking up.
"Couldn't sleep I see"
Harry was startled enough to let out a sqeak, immersed in his thoughts he had missed the only other person sitting in the room.
"Good morning Daphne" he said quickly in an attempt to cover up his discomfort.
The small smile that appeared on her face however said otherwise.
"What are you doing then?" He asked trying to change the subject.
" preparing for today's classes"
"But why? Shouldn't we study after the class" Harry asked popping down in the chair opposite the girl.
"Depends on what you want," Daphne replied keeping her eyes on the book "father always said it is better this way. Helps you understand what the professors will teach and most importantly allows the mind to be prepared"
She broke off her dialogue as the confusion on Harry's face became visible.
"You don't know much about magic do you?"
"No, actually for years I have been living with the most stubborn sort of muggle possible, I didn't even know I was a wizard until a month ago. So, no I am totally and utterly ignorant about how magic works."
When Daphne was about five, she had read about 'the boy who lived'. Now seeing him up close she only wondered what kind of lies were out there. Harry Potter and the boy who lived shared a name and a scar, the similarities ended there. Boy who lived was a lie crafted by fools to delude others and yet the real Harry Potter remained out of sight hidden from a world. Where others would find it cruel, she however knew the wisdom behind.
"That's not a terrible position you know, many of the first years are that way. All you need to do is understand the way of magic, I don't understand it clearly myself but what father says is magic is basically your will made real. He was the one to tell me that studying beforehand can help you understand the mindset needed for something." She explained as best as she could.
"So, can I join you in studying?" Harry asked
"If you want to" the response lacked much enthusiasm but Harry ignored the intricacies and dived in the world which will be home.
It was nearly two hours before the studying got disturbed as other students started piling in the common room. Daphne immediately assumed her mask of cool indifference as the other students made themselves comfortable the books disappeared even before the first intruder could notice.
Harry didn't know what to make of it, he knew to respect others privacy but it seemed like Daphne just switched in to a different persona all of a sudden. Still if she wanted it this way who was he to argue.
The day went strangely, the entire castle held more tricks for the newcomers, the stairs and the doors changed places and sometimes vanished altogether. Three times Harry had lost his way and had to ask older students for direction, Ron who had been accompanying him also was baffled as well. If the maze of the castle wasn't enough the endless whispering was driving him insane, in human world he had been pointed at laughed at as the freak and for now he was hard pressed to differentiate Hogwarts from there.
"Ignore them mate, they will stop soon enough" Ron whispered in his ears as Harry felt his ire rise. Indeed the red haired boy was right as after the first week the whispering and pointing reduced significantly. Harry however by then learnt not to care, the classes took care of that. The teachers were kind enough but their subjects weren't. It was only thanks to his early morning study circle with Daphne he was able to keep ahead. Unlike the muggle universe where the practical was different from theory in the wizarding world they both completed each other. To change an object in something else saying spell and waving your wand is not enough, you have to envision the change will it to happen.
The only class he found boring was History of Magic, the old ghost droned on but never explained why the wars happened or how the magic came to be. This was the one question he wanted answer of. The books in the library gave no answer for they stopped before the thirteenth century long after the death of Merlin. Still the girls assured him that even ancient civilizations had magic, Egyptians, Babylonians they all had it.
At that moment however Harry Potter had a more important issue, he clenched his teeth silently tolerating the throbbing pain in his scar. Every single class with Quirrel he endured the pain, it was all he could do to keep his cries silent. He thought of sharing it with others but immediately dismissed the thought. Thankfully the class ended just then, Harry rushed out of the class.
Daphne watched on as Harry rushed out of the room, this pattern was bothering her, every other class he waited for his friends to join but in the class which he was most eager to study he acted abnormally. She knew that she should talk to him, in a way her friendship with Harry was the closest she got to any one apart from her family; seeing him in pain hurt her as well but she couldn't the image she portrayed to him wouldn't allow her that.
By the time she reached the next class everything had become normal, Harry stood out of the dungeons. The potions class was a bit of a bittersweet experience for them. On one hand the discipline required logic more than any other and that made it desirable but at the same time Harry and by proxy the rest of the gryffindors hated the teacher with a passion seldom seen.
Harry felt relieved inside the cold and damp chamber, as bad as Snape was, anything felt better than the pain. He had prepared himself today, studying up the principles by which the potions worked, Snape will not find him with his guard down. Or so he hoped, he had just stepped in the room when his hopes died a brutual death.
"Five points from gryffindor for being late" professor Severus Snape was a odd man, he didn't seek the respect or reverence the other teachers sought, he simply demanded obedience. The man was one of the few whose personality it self silenced the class but for his gifts he was hated by the students outside his hous for his prefential treatment.
Harry shut out the rebuttal that came to his lips and simply went ahead, the room was still almost empty but for only a couple of Slytherin first years. Harry took a seat near the middle away from them and their snide comments. He didn't get it why but the Slytherins led by Draco Malfoy seemed hell bent on irritating him. Just their bad luck that the abuse of eleven years gave Harry a thicker skin than others. Snape waited for five more minutes before he swiftly moved in front of the board, he flicked his wand creating lines of writing to appear on it.
"You have your instruction, now you may begin"
Harry ignored the sudden mad dash of activity around him instead his attention was on the board. The potion was designed to create a medicine to treat the common cold, on the surface it was simple enough but there was a nagging feeling in his mind that just wouldn't die down. He studied the instructions carefully and it was on his third reading he found it. On the third step Snape had commanded them to mix salamander blood and immediately followed it with the extract of Bryonnia. Now Harry didn't know much but he knew from chemistry that adding coolant on a volatile object directly like adding water to strong acid was certain to create a mess it had to be other way around.
"Harry, what the hell are you doing, time is running out?" Daphne whispered through her teeth
" the instruction is a trick? I think Snape is tasting us"
"What are you talking about?"
"The extract of Bryonnia must go first not the salamander blood"Harry whispered back sure of the knowledge.
The tone of certainty gave Daphne pause, while it was tough to think Snape would make a mistake, the certainty of Harry's voice couldn't be wrong either. She nudged the bushy haired muggle born sitting in front, if someone would spot a mistake it had to be Hermione.
Harry however had started working, he knew he was behind others but he did as best as he could. His experience in the chemistry helping him to catch up. Around him other students had just started to discover the problem, cries of shock kept on ringing around but as he expected Snape paid no mind to it. He slowly cut the flowering bryonnia at the apical bud as described in the instructions, draining its juice in the base potion simmering in the cauldron in low heat.
Snape kept watching the class with a blank face, their failure to grasp the little switch was nothing new. For fifteen years he had seen the continuous stream of students making the same mistake, the first test he always set the brats and as expected they failed. Even his own batch of Slytherins fell for it. All of them the same bunch of morons, for the first three years it was kind of entertaining watching their pride crumble around to dust. Then it became boring a routine job, this year however for the first time some of them got it right. That strangely didn't gave him the satisfaction it was supposed to give, for one thing none of them were from Slytherin on top of that one of them was the spawn of bloody James Potter. How much like his father he was, the same willingness to disregard authority, the feeling that he was the center of the universe. He had really hoped to see the boy fail and be put in his place. Ignoring the small group of Gryffindor students he strode up and down the class, the brats were about to give up.
"Potions more than all requires application of knowledge, here you are bound by your logical choice, the waving of wand does little here. All of you today here failed because you didn't stop to think about the steps did you? Blood of salamander contains a potent pyrogen and you mixed hydragenum to that didn't you think the pyrogen would suck out the heat and burn. Pack up for today and I need a twelve inches of parchments explaining the basic properties of the potion elements and how do they combine. Class dismissed."
"Bloody git" Ron cursed he was one of the majority who had failed to make the potion work and Snape's taunt therefore was kind of personal and add to it the huge essay, he definitely wasn't happy.
"So mate, how did you manage it?" He asked as they made their way to the library.
Daphne herself was thinking about it, she knew better than others how little Harry truly knew about magic and yet he picked on the test before anybody else.
"Well I think, the muggle chemistry and potions are quite similar, the reactions follow the similar paths" Harry spoke, he enjoyed when he managed to do something faster than others.
Daphne had her brows furrowed , she was curious and skeptical, while she did know that muggle borns were no less to the pure bloods she did believe that muggles were nothing compared the wizards. The century old prejudices still remained true, it was the first time she had even found evidence to defy her conception.
"Hermione, you felt it too" He asked immediately, in the last one week he hadn't learnt much about the brown haired girl except her love for learning. While all other students barely managed to cover the chapters already covered in the class she had nearly finished half of the curriculum.
Their conversation stalled there as Hermione had pulled out the books needed for Snape's essay.
PAGE BREAK
Harry saw the nightmare again, the green flash of light and a cold cruel laughter. He now knew what the dream meant but before coming to Hogwarts the nightmare was a rare occurrence but now every day it haunted him. The scream of terror had stopped after his seventh birthday but now that he knew the truth it left him shaken. The dream actually made sure that he never got to sleep a full night's sleep. The eastern sky was still dark when he got down the common room.
Every time the dream left him feeling nauseous but he was getting tired of it. The whole deal was freaking him out, first the continued headache in Quirrel's classes and then the dreams its as if his head was being messed with. Fate really hated him it appeared, today the first years were supposed to learn flying. He was so looking forward to it but tired from lack of sleep he hoped that he wouldn't make fool of himself.
The breakfast was merry affair, Harry had never seen so many owls in one place let alone in day. Almost all the students had the owls sweeping down before them. Harry however knew there will be no letter for him and he accepted it but what brain accepts readily heart doesn't and so he kept his head down and swiftly left the hall. He needed to be alone, when he came to the school he had hoped to be closer to his parents but so far all he had was some useless comparisons and a huge legacy to live up to.
Aimlessly he travelled around the castle before he caught sight of the gigantic game keeper. Hagrid was carrying what appeared to be a big sack full of something. "Good morning Hagrid" he called out from behind. He knew that the large man hadn't seen him but the startled expression on Hagrid's face was unexpected. The gamekeeper swiftly changed his expression of shock to a wide grin, "how is you doing kid, finding the classes hard."
"Well classes are hard but I am coping well." Harry told him as they walked out of the castle to the small hut of the game keeper.
PAGE BREAK
Harry's mood refreshed remarkably by the time he left the hut. Near the gate he found his friends waiting for him worriedly. It felt good to see that they cared but he kept the feelings hidden as the rapid fire of questions barraged him. The attention soon shifted to the flying lessons they were about to have today. Muggle borns swallowed the tales of wondrous flying of the pure bloods. On one hand Draco Malfoy the de facto alpha of first year slytherins claimed loudly against the injustice of forbidding the first years from trying out, on the other even gryffindors like Ron and Seamus also told how they practically spent hours flying.
Harry listened to the stories and felt his anticipation grow. He had been looking forward to this experience a lot. The small trip to Hagrid had more than refreshed his mood and the fatigue from the lack of sleep was almost forgotten. Soon enough the announcement for the first years to gather in the courtyard was made. Never before did any class had this kind of enthusiasm as the first years of all four houses rushed outside.
In the courtyard Maddam Hooch their flying instructor was waiting for them. In two sides of her nearly a hundred broom sticks lay in four rows. She signalled for the students to take their places once the first years had arrived. Harry went to stand with rest of the griffindors, Ron stood at his right the bravado of earlier completely wiped clean. He took a deep breath and straight ahead. By some coincidence the slytherins were the one standing opposite them.
Madam Hooch watched as they lined up neatly, then cleared her throat once pointing her wand and muttered 'sonorus'.
"Everyone put your hands over the broom, and say 'up'" she demonstrated it "now you do it." Her broom leapt to her hand.
"Up" a hundred voice echoed as one but only two brooms rose up.
A/N: this completes the chapter hope u guys like it please read and review. Thanks to all who reviewed or followed and favorited the story