When Harry awoke, it was to the sterile serenity of the Hospital Wing. The soft hum of a healing apparatus and the scent of antiseptic hung in the air, creating an atmosphere that seemed to dull the edges of reality. As his eyes adjusted to the oddly fluorescent lighting, he took in his surroundings. Limited in vantage by drawn curtains, the few surfaces available exuded the monotonous uniformity particular to medical centres the world over.
A persistent ache in his temples directed his attention to the bandages snugly encircling his head. Snippets of the previous night played back in his mind like a fragmented movie; flashes of spellfire, acrid plumes of smoke, and a face distorted by fury lowering its gaping maw towards him. He had no recollection of leaving the Forbidden Forest; the events leading to his arrival in the hospital wing eluded him, obscured by a fog of pain and bewilderment.
Turning his gaze to the bedside table, a vase of violet flowers he couldn't immediately recognise - and a box of chocolates that he could - stood in stark contrast to the unremarkable surroundings. A small card accompanied the flowers, bearing words scrawled in a familiar hand. "Wishing you a swift recovery. Neville." The gesture brought a smile to his face and was a welcome distraction from his thoughts.
Correctly assuming the chocolates to be from Ernie, Harry spent an enjoyable few minutes sating an appetite that spoke to how much time had elapsed since his last meal. He had just bitten into his eighth chocolate frog when a sound drew his attention, the crisp click of shoes on vinyl his only warning before the curtains surrounding his bed were pulled aside.
Dumbledore eyed the vase happily for a moment before his expression grew increasingly bemused as his gaze drifted to the chocolate around Harry's mouth and then down to the nearly empty box.
"Tokens from your admirers?"
"Ah, just Ernie and Neville, sir," Harry chuckled.
"Excellent. I had wondered - after all, what happened in the forest is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school has a theory. I believe that through the act of charging valiantly into the woods in search of a wounded unicorn only to become injured yourself, you have impressed one or two more Gryffindors than you had intended; Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible, I believe, for trying to send you a toilet seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very hygienic and confiscated it."
Upon hearing that, Harry blinked several times as his mind processed the information.
"How long have I been here?"
"A little over a full day, as I make it. You'll be pleased to know that you have healed remarkably well for one who has encountered magical beings with rather fewer dietary restrictions than you are used to."
"But Professor Quirrell? And the stone—"
"—ah, you know of the stone?" Dumbledore interrupted, sounding oddly pleased.
"Not exactly, sir. I know that whatever it is, it must be important for him to be pressured into getting it so urgently; I overheard Quirrell one night, he was… talking about retrieving it, with Julian Fawley. Fawley said the Justiciar had decreed it… whatever a Justiciar is."
"Did he just," Dumbledore said, quietly. "That is perhaps even more worrying than Professor Quirrell's rather uninspired attempt at obtaining the Philosopher's Stone; the Fawley family is one that I know quite well, and I confess, I have been worried about the extent of their ambition for some time. I had hoped that young Julian might be immune to the politics of his father, but alas, he is seventeen - an adult in his own right - and we must all make our own choices."
Much of that went over Harry's head; however, one phrase in particular stood out.
"Philosopher's Stone, sir? As in the Greek myth? The magnum opus of Alchemy? Is that really why there's a cerberus on the third floor?"
"You are refreshingly full of surprises today, Harry," Dumbledore enthused, his eyes twinkling happily behind half-moon glasses. "Your Muggle upbringing is responsible for broadening your cultural horizons, I expect? Wonderful, truly wonderful - although," he added, switching seamlessly from a kindly old man to a tenured professor, "the Chinese would argue they understood the concept of the Philosopher's Stone long before the Greco-Egyptians."
"But yes, to answer your question, that is what Professor Quirrel has been pursuing this past year."
Harry mulled that around for a moment before replying.
"But why, sir? Why would something like that be anywhere near Hogwarts?"
Dumbledore sighed. "You are correct in demanding an answer to that particular question. So, to alleviate your concerns, something like that would not be at Hogwarts, and in fact, never was. The only known Philosopher's Stone is currently located in Paris with its creator Nicholas Flamel, where it has remained these last five or so years since he and his wife Perenelle moved back from Devon."
"So then why did Quirrell think it was here?" Harry continued, unabashed.
Sighing again, Dumbledore finally dropped into a seat beside Harry's bed.
"That would be because we encouraged him to think it was. Or, more accurately, we perpetuated a rumour that was designed to move a rather desirable piece out of reach from someone who has been operating with impunity for far too long."
"I confess, Hogwarts was decided upon as the rumoured location precisely because I had considered this to be a bridge too far; this castle has stood for almost a thousand years, and in that time, there has not been one single party foolish enough to even consider absconding with any of the many valuable items housed here."
"As such, the infiltration of Hogwarts by one of our own staff was not something I had anticipated. Indeed, it has been a sore blow to my confidence in the enchantments that should otherwise protect the castle's inhabitants from duplicitous agents. I am more grateful than ever before that the Philosopher's Stone was not brought here for safekeeping."
Silence accompanied that statement as Harry processed everything the Headmaster had said. Deciding to change tact, Harry asked the other burning question on his mind.
"What happened to him? Quirrell, I mean. I know he was wrapped up by the spiders; Lolth - the hag - showed me, and he was still struggling at the time. Did he—that is to say, did they…"
"Are you asking whether or not they killed and ate him?"
"...yes."
"No, they did not, though perhaps he would wish they had done - if he ever contemplated such thoughts again. Acromantula venom, Harry, is a most insidious thing, in that it paralyses the body through affecting the victim's neural connections."
"His body contained a not insignificant amount of the toxin, and by the time we had returned here and administered the antivenom, his mind was broken. I imagine that having been terrified out of one's wits, suspended upside down for almost twenty-four hours and confined in a manner that makes me claustrophobic to even contemplate cannot have helped his situation."
"At any rate, he has been admitted to a high-security psychiatric ward at Azkaban Prison. It is the same ward where inmates who are no longer able to bear the effects of the Dementors that guard them are placed. Given the nature of his crimes and the state of his mind, I would expect Quirinus Quirrell to remain there for the rest of his natural life."
"Lolth said he took a big risk, doing what he did, and that he paid the price for it." Harry said. "She also told me that it was a smart move - in theory. Why would Quirrell think that taking me hostage would draw your attention, sir? I know you said at Yule that you would protect any student, but he seemed to specifically think that capturing me would be his best chance at a distraction."
"Indeed," Dumbledore sighed. "Beyond the obvious bargaining power of holding The Boy Who Lived hostage, it is no great secret that I knew your parents exceptionally well - both during their time as students and during the conflict that culminated in their deaths. While many in our community celebrated on that first day of November, I mourned the loss of two of the brightest young people I have had the good fortune to meet."
Harry chewed on that for a moment before asking the question that had eaten at him ever since he was nine and his Aunt had informed him of the truth of how he came to be living with them.
"Why did the Dark Lord attack my family?"
A pained expression crossed the Transfiguration Professor's face.
"Alas, that I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will know, one day… put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older… I know you must hate to hear this… but when you are ready, I will tell you."
And Harry knew from his voice that it would be no good to argue; his best chance was to leverage this non-answer and guilt the old man into answering further questions.
"Since I got on the train, everyone has told me that no one knew who he was. He killed my parents, and we don't even know his real name! How can that be? Wasn't there a body?"
"Indeed, there was a body but," and at this Dumbledore exhaled, "the Dark Lord - Voldemort as he styled himself - had experimented on and augmented his own body extensively over the years, so much so that by the time he first came into the public's eye and began his war in earnest, he was entirely unrecognisable from anyone known to the Ministry."
"In addition to this, the damage inflicted on his body as a result of his conflict with your parents on October 31st, 1981, was so severe that even with his corpse in front of us, we were unable to conclusively identify the man he once was."
"Not that it stopped people from trying, of course; there were as many theories to his identity as there were people to hold them. I personally recall having a rather spirited conversation with the then Head of Law Enforcement, Bartimus Crouch; he was interested in pursuing an expedient resolution, as bureaucrats are often wont to do."
"The only thing that anyone could agree on was that the body was indeed Voldemort's; he had enjoyed visiting terror upon Britain personally, and as such, his visage was instantly recognizable to many of us who had been aligned against him."
"Guess all those experiments on himself were all for nothing then," Harry bit out, spitefully. "He died too."
"It does indeed appear that way," Dumbledore replied neutrally.
"A word of caution," Dumbledore continued, softly, "It does not do to harbour poison in our hearts; even when it is justified, it harms us equally, if not more so, than those who have earned it. I tell you this, not as a professor lecturing a student, but as someone who has also experienced great loss and great pain."
Harry looked down at his hands, suitably chastised yet nevertheless still unhappy to have been effectively told to stop being angry.
Dumbledore, picking up on Harry's displeasure at being rebuked, spoke again; this time electing to try a different approach.
"I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy to be calm when you've found something going on."
Harry mulled over the elderly Transfiguration Professor's words for a few moments longer. After attempting to accept the wisdom at face level - even though he knew he wouldn't ever be able to simply move on - he suddenly sat up, confusion written all over his face.
"...Sir, did you just quote Cat Stevens?"
A pair of twinkling eyes, peering back at him from behind half-moon spectacles, was his only answer he received.
Harry was soon released from the Hospital Wing, rejoining the remainder of the student body after three days in Madam Pomfrey's care. It took a full week before the student body lost interest in him, returning instead to their excitement over Ravenclaw's narrow victory of Slytherin to claim the Quidditch Cup.
Harry, who had been quite subdued ever since he'd awoken in the Hospital wing, had no interest in discussing the events of the forest with those who had approached him. Not even Zacharius Smith, who had been present in the forest on the night and subsequently felt he was entitled to answers to get Harry to open up. He did recount the full story to both Ernie and Neville, if somewhat reluctantly at first. Ernie had adopted a rather pallid complexion upon hearing about how close he had come to being a Hag's next meal, and Neville had flat out baulked at the idea of going into the forest in the first place.
He had asked them not to spread the story around - not that he felt any real concern over them doing so; if this year had taught him anything, it was who he could trust - and both of them had proven themselves to be true friends.
Quirrell's first-year classes were covered by a rotating roster of the two Defence Against the Dark Arts apprentices, whilst Professor Green, an adept within the department, temporarily took over the senior professorship for the remainder of the school year.
After all the excitement of March, April, and May flew by in a whirlwind of assignments and warm-weathered weekends, with Harry, Ernie, and Neville frequently finding themselves enjoying time together huddled around a comic-zine or playing exploding snap in the courtyard. Harry's funk had not abated as the months past, and it took one particularly memorable Sunday when Neville and Ernie had all but dragged him to the Quidditch Pitch, handed him a broom and pointed to the air before he would finally allow himself to relax, the first genuine smile in months gracing his face.
June saw Harry and his year mates ensconced within the library, open books and hastily scratched parchment notes scattered haphazardly across the tables in their small section as the castle was full steam ahead with exam preparation.
By the time exam week came along, it was sweltering hot - especially in the large classroom where they did their written papers. They had been given special, new quills for the exams, which had been enchanted to prevent cheating. Although many of his fellow Hufflepuffs walked stiffly into exam rooms, their nerves clear for everyone to see, Harry felt at most a sombre indifference; compared to what he'd already been through that year, a little bit of pre-exam jitters barely got his heart racing.
The practical aspect of the exams had gone far better than Harry ever could have hoped at the beginning of the school year. Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tap dance across a desk, Professor Prewett watched them turn a mouse into a snuffbox, and Professor Slughorn gave them all genial smiles from the front of the room as they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion.
After navigating the History of Magic exam with significant ease, Harry found the Herbology and Astronomy exams to be somewhat more challenging, although he was certain he had comfortably passed both. The final Defence Against the Dark Arts practical was the final exam the first-year Hufflepuffs undertook, and Harry walked out of it confident that either it or Charms would end up being his highest marks for the year.
With exams completed, and less than a week remaining in the castle, Harry found bucking the trend of students clamouring to get outside, making the most of their freedom by luxuriating in the warm weather of early Summer.
Instead, he spent his final days in the Library, begging off invitations from friends and housemates alike as he flicked through a worn copy of the Standard Book of Spells, Grade Two. The only other person who seemed interested in the library other than himself was a bushy-haired Ravenclaw First Year, who spent her time alternating between devouring every book on Transfiguration she could find, and glaring across the library at Harry. Uncertain what he had done to earn her ire, Harry simply retreated further into his corner of the room.
When he eventually felt himself going cross-eyed from staring at books, he found himself wandering the empty halls, idly noting various points around the castle as he passed them, such as the corridor where he'd witnessed Quirrell attacking the head boy. This did little to improve his mood, and if anything, it drove home just how utterly impotent he had been in every situation that he'd found himself in. Curling his hands into fists, his nails digging painfully into his palms, Harry continued his solitary patrol; his mind consumed by how thoroughly outclassed he was.
The end-of-term feast passed with little fanfare; despite losing the Quidditch Final, Slytherin had still easily taken the Hogwarts Cup - helped in no small amount by the other three houses losing so many points in a single schoolyard brawl.
On the day they were due to board the Hogwarts Express, it was a conflicted Harry who attended breakfast in the Great Hall. On one hand, he was excited to see his Aunt and Uncle again, but on the other hand, these last ten months at Hogwarts had felt like a missing piece to his puzzle had been found. But on the other hand, he had almost died - twice.
Harry's grim mood seemed to be shared by a number of the faculty, many of whom were hidden behind newspapers. Plates of toast, sausages, and bacon, all but forgotten by this point, lay cold beside them. As Harry walked to the Hufflepuff table, he noticed a group of older students peering over the shoulders of friends as they crowded around a solitary copy of the Daily Prophet and spoke in hushed tones.
Harry supposed there must be something particularly newsworthy to elicit such a reaction from the upper years and faculty, but he found he didn't have it in him to care. After a long, sleepless night, he'd come to the conclusion that perhaps Dumbledore's words held more merit than he wanted to admit.
He no longer felt like the same wide-eyed boy who had arrived at the castle, eager to explore its many secrets. Yet, at the same time, moping was clearly getting him nowhere. He didn't need to make himself unhappy to justify taking things more seriously moving forward; it was time to let go of some of his anger. It was this thought that led him to take a seat next to Ernie. The two friends struck up an easy conversation as they ate their final meal for the year at Hogwarts.
Before long, Harry found himself rising from the table, moving with the crowd to retrieve his trunk from the dormitory before joining the throng of students climbing into horseless carriages and making their way to Hogsmeade station. As he and Ernie claimed a cabin on the train, they were soon joined by Susan Bones, Sally-Anne Perks, and Megan Jones. The five Hufflepuff former First-Year students spent several enjoyable hours playing exploding snap as the British countryside flew past them outside their window.
It was only as Ernie idly remarked about the absence of Neville that Harry's smile faltered; caught up as he was in the fun, he hadn't noticed that his friend was missing. Guilty, Harry stood up, an apology already on his lips as he prepared to head off in search of the shy Gryffindor when the door was wrenched open.
Neville, his face a mixture of fear and anger, stormed into the cabin, his wand grasped tightly in his right hand, his left clutching a scrunched-up copy of the London Observer which he thrust at a startled Ernie with a strangled cry.
Ernie, who had just opened his mouth, quickly closed it at the look he was receiving from their friend. After receiving another pointed glare, he levelled a concerned look at Neville before reaching out to take the proffered newspaper. As directed his attention to the cover of the publication, his eyes were instantly drawn to the large, bold headline that dominated the front page, and upon reading it, his eyebrows shot up into his hair.
Harry watched on in stunned silence as Ernie's expression changed from concerned to shocked, to worried, until it finally settled on afraid. Uncertain about what could possibly make his friends act this way, Harry made to speak, only to be beaten to it by Susan.
"Well, go on then! Don't keep us in suspense - what is it?"
Ernie slowly lowered the newspaper before staring straight into her eyes. Unflinching, she met his gaze.
"Bellatrix Lestrange has escaped from Azkaban."
And so ends the first year. I've updated the first 7-8 chapters for missing page breaks (sorry for the notification spam) and a slight change to the seeker position. It doesn't change the story as such, but chapter 6 has maybe an extra few hundred words as the HUfflepuffs walk towards the quidditch pitch. Charity Burbage's explanation also changes very slightly in the first chapter.
I'm going to be taking a break for a while - work has picked up significantly and I want to get a good bank of chapters ready before I post anything of year 2, the title of which will be: Harry Potter and the False Vigil.
A massive thank you to everyone who has read this far. If you have not done so already, favourite and/or follow this story so that you know about updates as soon as they happen - it will be this same work that will be updated for every book. As such, chapter 14 will be the first chapter of Harry's seocnd year at Hogwarts.