The month really passes in a blur. People around the castle seem to get used to Harry's presence there and the teachers' attitude towards anyone who pesters him, but some continue to follow him through the corridors and the whispers don't stop. Harry really wished these kids had the discipline of Stormtroopers and Imperial Officers, and would just leave him alone. He already had enough to worry about.
After the initial backlash he experienced in his first week, Harry practically threw himself in the school books, reading them and making notes and questions to ask the teachers later on their pages in his free time. Ron looked perplexed at his studious attitude and tried to snap him out of it, but Harry would have none of that.
Knowledge is power, and he had learned that lesson the hard way; every piece of knowledge one has on their opponents give them a tremendous advantage over them. Harry was nothing but a newcomer in a world where people know his name and his story, and he was as weak as ever. He hated the feeling of helplessness with all his being, so it was best to remedy that as soon as possible, before he went mad with it.
He's remarkably good at Herbology, Potions — two very objective and practical subjects — and even Astronomy and History of Magic, though he was still getting around his difficulty with Charms and Transfiguration. The basic theoretical magical principals were already getting embedded on his brain, but the clashes of knowledge between magic and his training with the Force were a barrier rather difficult to overcome.
Magic and the Force were one in the same, but the methods mages used to manipulate that energy were much different and unorthodox when compared to the ways of the Jedi and the Sith. It was like being an apprentice all over again.
One was never too old to learn, he guessed. Patience was the key.
"I'm not too far back from the rest," he came to that conclusion by observing the other students. If anything, he was still one of the best, much because the effort he was putting into learning magic.
Among the students in Harry's year, there was one who certainly was very far ahead than the others — that was Hermione Granger. She was kind of a bookworm, a very curious and studious girl who somehow got herself sorted into Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw. She always shoots her hand up in the air when the professors ask questions — always so eager to be chosen. She answers correctly every time, always gaining a superior look when the teachers praise her.
Harry finds her a particularly amusing case, because he understands the sentiment too well to ignore it. He thinks she's desperate to be the best at everything, to prove herself equal in the eyes of those born mages, not muggle. It's relatable on a personal level — Anakin had wanted to prove himself to the entire Jedi Order, he wanted to be accepted and not an outcast.
Hermione too was an outcast, but that much was a bit of her own doing. She tried to help other students, but generally comes across as bossy and quite condescending, which makes the other students resent her for it.
"One of a wizard's most rudimentary skills is levitation, or the ability to make objects fly," Professor Flitwick started today's practical lesson with these words. "Do you have your feather? Good."
Telekinesis was a rather integral part of the Jedi training, so Harry wondered at first if the application of this type of magic was similar to using the Force to do the same thing.
"Now, don't forget the nice wrist movement we practiced last lesson. Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick." Professor Flitwick waved his wand in the air precisely. "And saying the magic words properly is very important, too — never forget the wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo in his chest."
The students laughed at Flitwick's words, which delighted him greatly.
"Now, repeat after me: Wingardium Leviosa."
"Wingardium Leviosa," the class followed.
"Well, off you go, then."
Harry understood the purpose of these incantations. They were there to assure the mage's capability of performing a specific spell of their choosing, to build up confidence and purpose in their actions and standardize results. The Force needed those two components to be properly manipulated, it was do it or do not, there was no try. Interestingly, the words and movements of a mage carried power on themselves, because one misspelling of the incantation could result in either nothing or a completely different and unexpected result.
Like how Seamus Finnegan, a Gryffindor boy, just managed to explode his feather when he got impatient and probed it with his wand.
"What a particular proclivity for pyrotechnics," Harry said with an amused smile, as this wasn't the first time Finnegan and fire mixed themselves. "Wingardium Leviosa." And with his muttering of words and the correct movement, the feather was flying in the air.
Yep. It felt very much like using the Force to do the same. He even manipulated the feather's path before directing it down to his desk.
"Excellent work, Mr. Potter!" Professor Flitwick squeaked in excitement.
Ron, on the next table, wasn't having much luck. His feather wasn't moving at all.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Ron shouted, his arms waving like a windmill.
"No… Stop, stop. You're going to take someone's eye out," Hermione snapped at him. "You're doing it wrong. It's Wing-gar-dium Le-vi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."
"You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled.
Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
Ron's feather rose high in the air, touching the ceiling.
"Well done! So good to see such dedicated students in my class," cried Flitwick, clapping his hands.
Needless to say, Ron was in a very bad mood by the end of the class. "Make the 'gar' nice and long" He parroted. "It's no wonder no one can stand her. She's a nightmare, honestly."
Harry isn't surprised to hear Ron hearing that — it was a matter of time. He was even less surprised when someone knocked into Harry as they rushed past them in tears, which turned out to be Hermione. Harry can't help by sigh.
"W-Well, she must have noticed she got no friends," Ron said rather uncomfortably. Harry shot him a disapproving look, which he withered under.
Ron was too bluntly honest for his own good, which was sometimes refreshing and other times extremely unnecessary to the point that Harry felt like kicking him for it. Regardless, he put a hand on the other boy's shoulder.
"She doesn't deserve to hear that, you know," was all he said.
Hermione ended up not turning up to the next class and actually wasn't seen all afternoon. On their way to the Great Hall, Harry and Ron overheard Parvati telling her friend Lavender Brown that Hermione was crying in the girl's bathroom and wanted to be left alone. This left Ron feeling even more awkward than before, but Harry thought it served him right. Judging by how he was feeling, he'd probably apologize to Hermione when they next see each other, so that problem would soon resolve itself — even if the girl didn't feel like forgiving Ron at that moment.
On an unrelated note, today was Halloween, so the Great Hall was decorated accordingly for the occasion. A thousand animated candy bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in rainbow flocks of colors.
The prospect of commemorating this day, 31 October, was something that left Harry feeling very conflicted. Although he doesn't remember, today marks 10 years since his parents were brutally murdered by a dark wizard and he was left at the Dursley's doorstep. He could understand the mages around him celebrating the day of Voldemort's defeat, but Harry felt like… like he should be doing something else.
It's very odd, because he really didn't get know his parents all that much. He even felt himself caring more about Anakin's mother than his own, but he still had great curiosity about them. It was something he always wanted to know as a kid and the feeling stayed even after he regained Anakin's memories. Perhaps Harry couldn't help but to wonder if they would help him feel this… void… he felt in his life if they were still alive.
He felt like honoring their lives, their sacrifice… Without them, perhaps Harry would never have a chance to live again.
Even on top of that, there was another feeling. Maybe he was just a bit oversensitive tonight, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was happening. The Force was restless, almost animalistically so, like something bad was about to happen.
The students helped themselves with the food when all of a sudden Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped. "Troll! Troll in the dungeons! Thought you should know."
Harry watched in disbelief as the man sunk in the floor in a dead faint. Pandemonium flooded the Great Hall a second later, with the students screaming and trying to get up from their seats. When Ron tried to get up too, Harry made sure to pull him back down and secure him under his grip.
"SILENCE!" Dumbledore's voice boomed across the Great Hall and the double doors that gave room to the exit closed in a bang. Everybody stopped dead in their tracks.
"Prefects," he rumbled, voice now completely serene. "Escort your houses back to the dormitories immediately. I want upper years to form a defensive line for the youngest students. Stick together at all times. Teachers will follow me to the dungeons."
As Dumbledore gave the orders, the students began to organize themselves and left the Great Hall in a much orderly manner. It was then that it clicked to Harry something very important.
"Hermione," he muttered to himself.
"What about her?" Ron asked frowning.
"She's not here! She doesn't know about the troll because she had been crying in the loo all day." Ron' face suddenly became very white. "We have to warn somebody."
Harry's first instinct is to look around for a teacher, but they were all gone in search for the troll, leaving the prefects to escort the students. Harry then tries to warn the first prefect he comes across, a Sixth-year Ravenclaw girl, but she brushes him off.
"Now is not the time. Go back to your prefect, Potter," she said and turned to aid the Ravenclaws out of the hall.
Percy's next, Harry guessed.
"Follow me and stick together! Make sure to stay alert. Only older students will stay on the front, you hear me?" Percy tells Harry when he approaches him, immediately dismissive of anything he had to say.
"Damn it! Is this school of idiots?" Harry said with frustration as he turned to Ron. "I'm going after Granger. Go to the common room and see if you can talk sense into your brother there."
"What? No way! I'm coming with you," Ron said valiantly.
"I doubt you're equipped to deal with a troll."
"And you are?" Ron asked in disbelief. Color seemed to return to his face. "You might be good at class, Harry, but we are just First-years, mate. You can't handle a troll either."
Harry makes a face and says, "I don't have time for this. Follow me if you must, just don't get yourself killed."
As they were passing through a crowd of Hufflepuffs, Harry and Ron decided it was the moment to hop up with the other group and change directions. Harry, being better with directions, leaded Ron down a deserted corridor and they both hurried off to the girl's bathroom. They had just turned around the corner when they heard quick footsteps.
"Percy," Ron hissed, pulling Harry behind a large stone griffin. Peering around it, however, they quickly discovered that it was Snape, not Percy. He quickly crossed the corridor and disappeared from view.
"Do you think he can help us?" Asked Harry.
"With how much he hates you? Doubt it," Ron offered. That was actually a great point, so they didn't follow the teacher. "What's he even doing here? Aren't all the teachers supposed to be searching for the troll?"
"Beats me. We'll think about it later. It seems he's going to the third floor."
Ron held up his hand against Harry's chest. "Can you smell something?"
Harry sniffed and a foul odor reached his nostrils, a cursed mixture of sweat, rotten flesh and a terrible breath.
"Kriffing hell," said Harry while closing his nose.
"L-Look out…" Ron grabbed him by the robes and dragged him into the shadows. Seconds later, a low grunting and shuffling foot falls of gigantic feet could be heard getting closer and closer. It was the troll, with his shadow being casted on the wall. Harry did not dare to take his eyes off the foul creature — he didn't even dare to breathe too hard. A moment later, the troll passed through the doorway and disappeared from view.
Mere seconds later, a petrified scream echoed throughout the corridor.
Harry looked at Ron. "That's where the girl's bathroom is…"
He barely heard Ron's "Oh, no…" before he was running for the doorway. He found Hermione shrinking against the opposite wall to the troll, looking as if she was about to faint. The troll approached menacingly, knocking the sinks off the walls as he went.
"No, you don't!" He doesn't even bother reaching for his wand. Instead, he leans into the Force and fills himself with determination. Harry gestures with one hand and the wooden club is ripped from the surprised troll's grasp. He thinks fast and immediately slams the club back on the troll's head.
Hermione screamed yet again, as the knocked-out troll started to fall on her direction. Harry, seeing all of this happen, reaches both his arms towards her and pulls her with all the strength he has.
"WOAH!" Hermione came so quickly that Harry didn't even have the time to prepare to grab her, so she slammed into him and both were knocked into the ground.
"Oof!" The sound came out of Harry's mouth. He quickly looked at Hermione's face, she was shaking heavily. "Is everything alright? Are you hurt?"
Still quite shaken, Hermione shook her head. She looked at Harry quite differently than before, with a mixture of bewilderment and gratitude. "I… I'm a-alright."
"Good," he said. "Can you get off me? I wasn't expecting you to come so quickly."
Hermione seemed to get a hold of herself and blushed heavily, getting into her feet in an instant. Harry followed suit and turned to see Ron staring at him in shock on the doorway.
"That was wicked! How'd you do that?"
"Is… Is it dead?" Hermione asked while looking hesitantly at the troll.
Harry walked to the creature and took a closer look at it. The creature's belly slowly rose and fell and air escaped its nostrils and mouth. There was a large wound gushing a very dark blood on the floor.
"It's still alive, but I probably gave it a concussion." Harry realized he was panting heavily. He hadn't realized such a use of the Force would leave him so worn out. He was out of touch. If the troll woke up, he probably wouldn't be able to pull off what he just did.
It was better to get this option out of the way.
"What are you going?" Hermione asked behind him.
"Finishing the job. Can't risk having it get back up," said Harry with a foot placed on the monster's neck. He stomped on it, hard, multiple times, hearing sickening cracking noises each and every time. He heard his companions gasp behind as the troll made helpless noises, until it had stopped breathing.
"Did you really had to do it?" Ron asked a bit pale.
"Dunno…" Harry admitted once he was done and rejoined them. "I'm just not taking any chances. Let's get back to the common room before —"
But Harry was interrupted by a sudden slamming of the bathroom's door and loud footsteps coming their way. Someone upstairs must have heard all the commotion. A moment later, Professor McGonagall had come bursting into the room, followed closely by Professor Snape dragging Professor Quirrell by the arm.
Snape bent over the troll. McGonagall looked absolutely livid; her lips compressed so badly that the blood just wasn't present anymore.
"Oh, my goodness! Explain yourselves, all of you!" She demanded, her voice shaking with fury.
"The troll is dead," Snape said, stunned, much to McGonagall's surprise.
"What?! Please tell me the three of you didn't kill a troll alone."
"Technically, it was all just Harry," the words slipped Ron's mouth and he received a glare from Harry.
"Is that true, Mr. Potter?" Professor McGonagall demanded shakingly.
"It's all my fault, professor," Hermione interjected, adding up to the confusion.
Harry sighed internally and turned to face his Head of House with a solemn expression. "I wish it hadn't come to this, professor," he said politely, but in a cold tone. "Hermione wasn't present at the Great Hall at the time. I tried to get a hold of one of the prefects, but they wouldn't listen, so me and Ron and I went to fetch her ourselves."
"The plan was to grab her and go back to the common room as soon as we did. We were expecting the troll to still be in the dungeons, but when it came after us, we had little choice."
"And what did you do to the troll, Potter?" Professor Snape asked in his silkiest, most threatening voice.
This man, honestly, has been trying to get in Harry's nerves since the start of the term. Almost ruined the whole Potions experience for him, if it wasn't for his unending determination with the subject. Harry gritted his teeth, pulling the chains on his anger and said:
"I knocked him out with his own club, Professor, then stomped in his neck." It all came out in a matter-of-fact manner. There was this disbelieving look flashing across Snape's expression that was just really satisfying to watch.
"Please, professor, don't punish them. Had they not found me in time, I'd probably be dead by now," Hermione pleaded to McGonagall, which looked rather conflicted. Seeing this, Hermione added, "it was about to finish me off when they arrived."
"Well…" The witch drew a shaky breath as she started at them. "In this case… It can't be helped. I think you were all rather lucky; today could have ended with 3 deaths, after all… But I guess it's not every First-year who can kill a troll just like that. 5 for Gryffindor, Mr. Potter, for your extraordinary efforts."
"Now," Professor McGonagall amended. "You must return to your common rooms. Me and the other teacher must report to the Headmaster, now."
They go without another word, leaving the teachers behind, but once they were out of earshot, Hermione grabbed Harry be the arm and demanded: "How did you do that? I've seen it before, at the first flying lesson. You did wandless magic! They say that's really difficult."
Ron looks just as eager to know all about, so Harry resigned himself to explaining. "If it's not normal, then you better not tell anyone. I suffer enough scrutiny already."
They both nodded rapidly.
"Right… I call this ability as the 'Force'. It's actually just magic as you know, an energy field which is generated by all living things, but I discovered a way to manipulate it on my own which is different from using a wand." He danced around his explanation, giving half-truths and convincing lies to them. It's not like someone could fact-check him in this reality.
"Woah! That looks difficult," said Ron.
"It actually came very naturally to me," Harry commented. He had an extreme sensitivity to the Force in his previous life. In this one, not so much as your average Jedi, which actually made him feel very normal.
"But wait, you said it's an energy generated by all living things. Muggles can't do magic," Hermione exclaimed and Harry stopped on his tracks, turning to them.
"That's a very ignorant assumption," he said with finality. "Sure, muggles aren't nearly as sensitive as we are and they can't dream of ever using magic the way mages do, but I can feel the Force in them just fine."
Hermione and Ron shot glances at each other for a brief moment, clearly confused.
"You can 'feel' it?" Ron asked frowning.
It occurred to Harry that perhaps he was the only one in the group who could. "I couldn't when I started developing this ability, but I've been practicing for quite some time now."
Hermione's eye shinned in the dark and she immediately asked, "can you teach us?" Harry's eyebrows almost shot out of his head in surprise.
"What?!" He couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Yeah, that sounds so cool," Ron said with a hopeful smile.
"Uh… I… I will think about," he said with uncertainty. "Let's go back to the common room first. I'm exhausted."
That night, when Gryffindor Tower was asleep, Harry stayed up at night, feeling restless. He was looking out of the window into the Great Lake with a pensive expression. He carefully considered today's events after the Halloween feast was interrupted.
"I'm going for a walk," he muttered to no one in particular and tiptoed out of the dormitories, descending the stairs into the common room. There he passed silently behind two upper year girls leaning on each other while they stared at the lit fireplace — they hadn't known he was there because they were both sleeping at the moment — and exited the common room.
"Psst. Student, you can't be out after curfew," the Fat Lady portrait told him, sounding very sleepy.
Harry gave her the most puppy eyes possible and told her, forcing a stutter, "s-sorry… It's just that it's too tight there. I'm… I'm claustrophobic."
"Oh, poor thing. Alright, just make sure to not go too far, dear, unless you want to lost your way." He should really ask himself if the lady on the portrait was ever inside the common room he was talking about, because it wasn't lacking in space at all. Oh, well…
"R-Right…" He continued on his path, wherever the Force was telling him to go right now, passing through staircases and tight corridors. He arrived at the moving staircases, now completely unmoving, and descended in one of two possible directions. He traversed more corridors before finally arriving at a place where it felt right.
He couldn't see a thing, really. It was way too dark aside from very few torches every now and then. Harry relied on the walls to continue navigating towards the closest light, which was coming from a semi-open door. Entering it, he found himself on Hogwarts' Trophy Room, which was decently lit for him. He continued walking until finally found what has been calling him to his place.
There, in front of Harry, was wooden shield inside a glass panel. It had various golden shields in circular pattern around the words "Gryffindor Quidditch Team, Inter-house Quidditch Cup of 1976". Each of these golden shields had a name on them, but one immediately grabbed Harry's interest.
"James Potter, Chaser A position," Harry read the words out in a whisper. His fingers carefully touched the glass and he sighed.
Anakin never had a father, not really. His mother always told him he was conceived without one and the Jedi later corroborated with this story by affirming his status as the chosen one. Palpatine did stepped to fill the role in the absence of anyone, but he never did it out of kindness or without an ulterior motive — he had only been on Anakin's side with the intension to groom him to be his next apprentice. He had succeeded in deceiving Anakin. He was no father.
The man whose name he was seeing right now, however, had been Harry's father once. He was under the impression that the man probably gave his life for his son, much like Anakin did for Luke, protecting him at the very end of his life. James Potter sounded like a very honorable man, if taking into consideration what other people — mainly Hagrid and other professors — told Harry about him.
"What would I turn out to be if you were still alive?" Harry wondered. "How would you have reacted, knowing the kind of son you secretly had?"
He felt a phantom pain over his limbs — his chest — his throat. They'd hate him, Harry's parents that is. Darth Vader was a monster so full of darkness that he just couldn't shrug it off like nothing from one moment to the other.
"Just today… I killed that troll," he muttered breathlessly. "I… Why did I do that? It's… It's not the Jedi way. The creature was knocked-out and I knew it wouldn't get up so easily."
But he was no Jedi, was he? He hadn't been one for more than 3 decades as of now. Was it the right thing to do? To follow the example of the Jedi and not spill blood unless strictly necessary was to follow a path that vowed to give way to the love for life in general.
"Am I even capable of that?" He questioned himself. "I did… so many things, so terrible and cruel. I enjoyed it, you know, seeing them all suffer by my hands." He admitted.
"I'm sorry…"
He stepped backwards, taking one last look at the glass before striding out of the Trophy Room. Harry was ascending the stairs that had brought him there when suddenly it decided to move.
"Shit. This is bad," he hissed. When the staircase stopped moving, Harry saw himself walking in a deserted corridor. This place didn't feel familiar at all. "Damn it, where am I?"
"Meow!"
Harry turned around, startled, to see none other than Mrs. Norris, the demon cat of the goddamn Caretaker. He had to get the hell out of here before Mr. Filch arrived, because wherever this damn cat was, that terrible man followed suit.
"Mrs. Norris, see something?" Filch entered the corridor with a lamp, carefully investigating the surrounds. It was all empty, no sign of life. "Nothing here, it seems. Come on, lady. Let's go down the second floor. This place is dangerous, you know?"
As Filch got out with his damn cat in hands, Harry breathe a sigh of relief before getting out of his hiding spot behind a stone gargoyle — they were all over this castle, honestly. At least Filch gave Harry a clue to where the hell he was.
"This is the Forbidden Corridor, isn't it?" He looked around closely. "It's all too much of a coincidence. It must be the Will of the Force that brought me here… but why?"
Harry briefly stopped to ponder on that question, before deciding to investigate further into the corridor. He walked slowly through it, taking everything very carefully — whatever it was in here, it was enough for the staff to warn students to not go here.
It really appeared to be nothing especial, Harry had thought, but then he arrived at the very end of the corridor where there was a wooden door blocking his access. He checked — it was locked, no surprises here — and then reached into the Force to try unlocking it, but really…
"Oh… I almost forgot," he smirked and grabbed his wand from his pocket. "Standard Book of Spells, Volume 1. Here goes nothing…
… Alohomora," Harry said the incantation and the door unlocked. Satisfied, Harry slowly opened the door and entered the room.
"Oh, shit."
Whatever it was he was expecting to see, this completely exceeded any of his expectations. Inside the room at the very end of the Forbidden Corridor, behind a mere locked wooden door, was a giant fucking three-headed dog laying on his – their? — belly, fast asleep.
"What the hell is going on in this school?" He hissed the question to himself. He assessed the dog carefully, taking some serious caution to just not awake the beast in front of him. Harry could faintly see that, just under the giant black hound, there was a trapdoor.
What was even more unbelievable is that the Force was screaming to him to see past that goddamn trapdoor. Harry promptly turned around and noped out of the room as fast as he could without making a sound and locked the door behind him.
As he found his way back to the common room, eventually, he promptly declared this godforsaken school of magic "beyond insane".