Harry found out a few days later that he had broken Hogwarts record for the fastest time to catch the snitch. This made him almost as happy and smug as 'accidentally' knocking into Professor Quirrell in the stands at the end of the match. He gave the defence against the dark arts teacher a pointed glare and a muttered 'oops' as the man picked himself up, and raced up to the Ravenclaw fourth year who had caught the Nimbus 2000.
He didn't mention anything to his friends, and the next few weeks passed in an uneventful blur, the only occasion of note being when a Hufflepuff second year went into anaphylactic shock at dinner one Saturday when he didn't realise the pasta sauce he was eating contained milk. Professor McGonagall had spelled him alright in less than 4 seconds and quickly escorted him to the hospital wing, and Harry had gone back to staring at the parchment in front of him.
He was sat alone at the end of the Gryffindor table, the other first years having gone to the Ravenclaw common room for an exploding snap tournament. The parchment contained columns and scribbles and arrows and lots of crossings out, and was causing him endless problems. Apparently going back in time to stop a war before it happened was stressful. Harry was stuck in an endless loop of needing to change things to stop the bad things from happening, and not wanting to change a lot because he wouldn't know what was coming. He had thought that writing it out would clear things up in his head, but all it had done was impress upon him how much was at stake.
He read the list over again.
! HORCRUXES !
! SIRIUS !
- need pettigrew - from Ron
Inter-house relationships
map from twins (marauders info?)
cloak from dumbledore
a🀰🀰🀰🀰🀰🀰🀰?
Dursleys
🀰Visit g🀰🀰🀰🀰🀰🀰 - Arthur? Sirius? Lupin?
🀰🀰 DA 🀰🀰🀰?
Yearly problems:
1st:
Stone
Quirrell
2nd:
CHAMBER
Hermione
Colin
Justin
Nick
Mrs Norris
Penelope
Ginny
PROTECT ALL OF THEM - NO ONE GETS PETRIFIED THIS TIME
! DIARY !
Dobby - Malfoys, barrier, bludger
Parseltongue? - Heir of Slytherin nonsense
3rd:
Dementors ⟾ get Sirius pardoned?
Fi🀰🀰🀰olt
4th:
Tournament
CEDRIC
Crouch jr
world cup
5th:
Umbridge
DOM - prophecy ⟾ 🀰st b🀰 it / view over summer
Skeeter
6th:
D🀰🀰E🀰🀰
D🀰o
⬉WILL NOT HAPPEN.
PLANS:
1. get scabbers, free sirius - do 🀰 chr🀰🀰as🀰 / over summer
2. stop bullying and encourage inter-house events:
snap/gobstones/jenga
quidditch/football games
meals
studying
Clubs
3. find and destroy horcruxes:
r.o.r.
gaunt shack
random cave
scar?
GRIMMAULD
…Gringotts
Nagini?
4. come up with plan for Dursley situation - Sirius?
5. get new clothes
6. make sure dobby doesn't kill me next year
It was an upsettingly vague and difficult list of tasks.
He had absolutely no idea how to get rid of half of Voldemort's horcruxes, a task that was rather necessary to be able to kill the bastard.
Every time he saw Scabbers he was reminded of Sirius, wasting away in Azkaban, but if he set him free now what would change in the future, but was he really considering needlessly letting his Godfather suffer for so long? But if he could fix everything this year, would the changes in the future matter?
He could wait until Christmas to get his invisibility cloak from Dumbledore, but if he could get Barty Crouch Jr. discovered and Sirius freed, and get Dumbledore's help in locating the remaining horcruxes, there was a strong possibility that he could stop all of the bad things that were coming from happening at all before the ripples made big changes he couldn't predict.
It was exhausting.
"Hard at work?" Angelina said, dropping into a seat next to him.
"Hardly working." Alicia smiled from the other side of the table.
Harry scrambled to cover the parchment in front of him and the girls grinned.
"What's that?" Angelina asked, wiggling her eyebrows and trying to peer between his arms. "You writing girls love notes?"
"It's nothing." Harry said, managing to get his wand out of its holster on his wrist and tap the parchment. "Just blank parchment."
Alicia managed to slip it out from beneath his hands and brandished it triumphantly. Her face fell when she saw the spotless parchment. "But…"
"I told you." Harry shrugged, taking it back and pushing it into his school bag.
Lee, George and Fred were making their way noisily down the Gryffindor table.
"What are you doing all the way down this end Harrikins?" George asked, ruffling Harry's hair as he sat down on his other side.
"Where are the other firsties?" Lee asked. "You guys normally travel as a pack."
"Michael and Tony invited us all up to Ravenclaw for game night." Harry replied. "I wanted to finish my homework before tomorrow and being around people makes me actually get work done."
It was a blatant lie, but they didn't know that.
"They're in the Ravenclaw common room?" Alicia asked. "Is that allowed?"
Harry pretended to look baffled. "I mean, I don't think we're allowed in people's rooms but why wouldn't we be allowed in common rooms? Isn't that the whole point of them? We can't exactly have game night in the library."
Fred looked wistful. "I've wanted into the Slytherin common room for years."
"It's in the dungeons. I'm pretty sure it's under the lake." Harry shrugged. "Like the light's all green. You need a password to get in, and I can't imagine anyone telling you guys what it is. Or where. It's actually pretty cool how its hidden."
The third years were all staring at him like he'd grown a second head.
"What?"
"You've been in the Slytherin common room?"
"No, but I've spoken to Theo and Adrian."
"Who?"
"They're Slytherins in my year." Harry replied.
"You're on first name basis with the Slytherins in your year?" Lee looked incredulous.
Harry shrugged, mopping up the last of his soup with a slice of warm bread. "Well, I'm not going to go around calling them 'Mr. Nott' am I? Malfoy still calls everyone by their last name and everyone thinks its really weird and annoying."
"But you still call him Malfoy." Angelina pointed out.
Harry shrugged again, standing up from his seat. "It's what he wants people to call him. For all I know, he hates the name Draco and wants to go by Isobel. I think of it like a nickname. Like, Moony, Malfoy, Padfoot and Prongs." He grinned at the boys' flabbergasted looks. "I'll see you guys at practice tomorrow." He waved to Alicia and Angelina, and left the Great Hall before Fred and George had finished gaping at each other.
A/N: The list is full of 🀰 to show where Harry has crossed things out, to hopefully show you a bit more of his thought process. When I first wrote this out I simply used strikethrough so you could still read it but it was crossed out, so that there were ideas that he has thought about, but which aren't a priority. The idea is I want you to be able to see what things Harry has changed his mind on, but are definitely not on his active 'to do', and honestly wasn't sure what the best way to format that on ffn was. If this is confusing/makes no sense/just looks stupid, let me know and I'll change it, or if you can think of a better way of showing this please let me know! Either way, think of the list as straight up brain to paper, with lots of things scribbled out, arrows pointing all over the place, opinions and thought process scattered over it. Unfortunately I can't come up with a way to accurately show that!