The Potter Timeline
Chapter 10 - Secrets and Discoveries
When the portrait closed, the fat lady stopped her flower arranging and glanced around the empty landing.
"Who's there?" she asked with fright.
The sound of a giggling eleven-year-old broke the air.
The lady shrieked and ran to a nearby painting, hiding behind a giant, ugly boar which seemed oblivious to the woman while chewing acorns under a gnarled oak tree.
Harry chuckled to himself and quietly made his descent to the lower floors.
He was used to the halls being sparsely populated during school evenings. But Christmas night made Hogwarts altogether empty, silent, and...spooky. The absence of late-night wanderers would make Harry's secret excursions much easier, however. The only thing he had to watch out for was Filch and his cat.
As he headed down the main corridor, he passed a couple of Hagrid's Christmas trees throwing off colorful reflections along the darkened walls. Harry heard music, talking, and laughter coming from the Great Hall several meters ahead. He was tempted to walk into the Hall with his cloak on and become an invisible observer among any staff still merrymaking at this time of night. But there was something more important to do.
He moved down an ancillary hallway toward the library. When he reached its double oak doors, he carefully tugged on one of the handles, expecting to have to use the unlocking spell to open it. But to his surprise, it wasn't locked and opened easily. The invisible boy quietly stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
The library seemed even spookier than Hogwarts corridors and held a chill from cold air creeping in through its glazed windows. Moonlight shone in, turning the bookshelves into a shadowy maze. Harry crept past the main block of shelves and came upon the single roped barrier that separated the Restricted Section from the rest of the hall. This always puzzled him. Why would Hogwarts staff separate this part of the library, containing supposedly forbidden and dangerous books, with a mere rope? It seemed too paltry to keep students out and keep its contents within. Nevertheless, Harry stepped over the rope and into the section for the first time.
He pulled his wand out from underneath the cloak.
"Lumos!" he whispered, as Hermione so deftly informed him that one need not shout out most spells.
The tip of the wand glowed with that familiar bluish-white hue and illuminated the shelves around him. Harry shivered at the sight of the old, dreary-looking books of the Restricted Section - like he had walked into some macabre library in an abandoned manor house. The air here seemed even cooler, though the boy wondered if it was just his imagination. Whatever the case, he felt uneasy standing among these old volumes and didn't want to remain any longer than necessary. He'd look for the two books Hermione mentioned, grab them, and scram.
After wandering among the black, leather-bound, and occasional mouldy tomes, Harry had no luck finding Dark Forces, A Guide to the Other Side of Magic. Some of the spine titles were faded to the point of unreadability, others were in languages Harry couldn't comprehend, and others were just plain blank. A few had stains on them which eerily looked like blood.
As Harry's excursion to the Restricted Section was spur of the moment, he wasn't able to look up the location of the book ahead of time. But at least the other book title had a name in it: "Basil". So, he scoured what titles he could read for last names starting with "b". After a few minutes, Harry noticed several in a row: Baddin, Bagsworth, Barton...Basil! The boy pulled out the worn book and lowered the lit wand to its cover. In faded, gold-flake lettering the title appeared:
Basil's Book of Dangerous Spells
A compendium of deadly, diabolical, and dastardly spells which have been, and are to this day, forbidden throughout wizardom.
Read at your own risk!
This seemed scary enough. But when Harry opened the book, the brief bits he perused had his hair standing on end.
Some of the spells seemed fascinating, such as the hallucination spell which would cause a victim to see evil monsters everywhere, thus driving them mad from fright. But most of the spells listed were downright horrific...and vicious. Through a brief glimpse of this book, Harry saw the ugly side of magic so different from the sometimes whimsical and even humorous one he'd been exposed to thus far. This realization was profound. The wizarding world he inhabited was far more dangerous than he could have imagined. The idea that witches and wizards throughout the centuries had used some of these spells on others was frightening to the eleven-year-old. Malfoy's leg-locker curse seemed like a joke compared to what was in this dark book.
Shivering with cold and a bit of fear, Harry quickly flipped through the old tome and found the section he was looking for: the unforgivable curses, including the killing curse. The boy closed the book, slid it under his cloak and headed for the main section of the library, eager to leave the creepy shelves behind. He reached the rope barrier and stepped one leg over it.
SCREEEEEECH!
His eyes went wide, and his heart thumped as he quickly drew his leg back, wondering in alarm what had caused that hideous noise. Nothing but silence followed, however. Harry attempted to cross the barrier again.
SCREEEEEECH!
He jumped back once more. On a hunch, he laid the Dangerous Spells book on the floor.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" he whispered.
The book rose a few feet in the air.
"Locomotor book!" he muttered quietly, sending the book toward the rope with a gentle flick of his wand.
SCREEEEEECH!
The earsplitting sound erupted as soon as the book hovered over the rope. Harry quickly grabbed it and pulled it back, the irritating noise ceasing after. He now guessed that books in the Restricted Section were charmed to howl like a banshee if someone attempted to remove them without permission.
That's why the section was barred with a mere rope!
But before he could ruminate further on this, Harry was bolted in place at the sound of the library door opening.
"WHO'S IN HERE?" Filch yelled out.
The boy's heart raced.
"Nox!" he whispered to extinguish the light from his wand.
He then quietly moved behind the shelving.
"We know you're in here, Governors, so you better show yourselves!" the caretaker uttered.
The yellow light of a lantern approached, and Harry had to act fast. He carefully placed Basil's book back in its place and stepped to the end of the shelves next to the far-right wall. The boy stood still. A cat mewed and the form of Mrs. Norris preceded the lantern light on the other side of the shelves. Soon after, the man himself appeared, swinging the light around while squinting.
"Don't make it hard on yourselves," Filch threw out while scanning the very aisle Harry stood at the end of.
An alarming thought crossed Harry's mind. While his cloak made him invisible, it might be possible for Mrs. Norris to smell him. He couldn't just stand there and wait for the two to leave. After Filch passed the next aisle, Harry quietly pulled a heavy book from off the shelf. Once the caretaker and his cat were at the very end of the Restricted Section, the eleven-year-old let the book fall.
BAM!
The lantern light immediately shifted towards Harry's position.
"We got you now, Governors!" the old man spewed out with his gravelly voice, "go on, Mrs. Norris. Sniff out the sneaky culprits!"
The cat mewed and Harry made his move, walking stealthily in the opposite direction toward the rope barrier. When Filch's lantern reached the spot where the book lay, Harry stepped over the rope and shuffled as quietly toward the library door as his feet could carry him. Once there, he stepped through the crack in the partially opened door. Harry then bolted down the corridor. Turning a corner and shooting up a flight of stairs, he stopped to catch his breath and let his adrenaline subside.
That was too close!
But this was an unfortunate development. He now realized the only way to get information from books in the Restricted Section was to read them there. The problem was, Filch was now alerted to the possibility someone might attempt to reenter the space. Harry frowned. He would most likely not find out what the two books had to say about the curse and his scar. Unless there was some other way back in.
There was one more thing Harry wanted to see, but his young body was too tired to continue. He would make that excursion another night. As he dragged himself toward Gryffindor Tower, Harry suddenly realized he had a problem: the door to the common room would be closed for the night as it was now past curfew. The fat lady was not to let anyone in after this time. How would he get back into his dorm room? Thinking for a minute, Harry devised a plan.
"Pig Snout!"
The fat lady, her face pale, and her eyes wide with fright, started whimpering at the disembodied voice.
"Who's there?" she cried out, glancing back and forth, "is that you Baron? Peeves? Sir Nicholas?"
"Pig Snout! Pig Snout!"
Then there was giggling which scared the poor woman even more. She shrieked.
"I'll have Professor Dumbledore after you, I will!" she muttered.
"Pig...snout...pig...snout...pig...snout..." the voice said slowly and eerily.
A disembodied hand appeared and reached out toward the portrait. The fat lady screamed and fled toward a painting way up top of the Tower.
"Get away! Get away!" she cried out in flight, flinging the portrait open in the process.
Chuckling to himself, the invisible boy went through and stepped into the common room. No sooner had he entered than Harry threw off his cloak and fell into an armchair laughing so hard it made his sides hurt. After regaining his senses, he grabbed up the cloak, leapt up the stairs, and headed for bed.
~HP~
Harry decided not to try another night excursion for at least a couple of days. He came across Filch the following morning and it appeared the groggy-looking man had stayed up all night searching for the library intruder. The caretaker eyed Harry suspiciously as he headed to the Great hall for breakfast.
"Good morning, Mr. Filch," he told the man with a smile.
An angry grunt was all he received back as the man moved on down the corridor.
It would definitely be wise to wait.
Harry spent the final holiday week in something of a routine. After breakfast, he would take a walk around the black lake, his feet crunching in thick snow while gazing across the partially frozen water in search of the giant squid. He then spent a few hours flying his Nimbus around the Quidditch pitch, using the gloves Hermione had given him while chasing after the chocolate Snitches. The gloves were perfect. They kept his hands warm and allowed him to hold onto the broom handle so well he could lean far out to catch any flying object without fear of falling. And his practice Snitches were delicious!
After lunch, Harry would spend time practicing spells by himself in the empty classroom.
"Colloportus!" he uttered while pointing his wand at the classroom door one afternoon.
There was a squelching noise followed by a soft THUNK. Harry stepped up to the door and confirmed it had locked. The boy smiled.
He also spent time reading back through The Standard Book of Spells in hopes of improving his wand work. Hermione would be proud - she was definitely rubbing off on him.
A few days after Christmas, Harry was sitting in the Great Hall for lunch when Hedwig dropped a letter in front of him. Seeing his name written in familiar handwriting, he eagerly opened it.
Dear Harry,
I received your note. I'm thrilled you like the gloves and the Snitches. I'm sure they'll help with your practice. And thank you again for the amazing gifts! I've been using them every day. I'm writing this letter to you with the automatic quill, in fact. The cauldron is perfect for holding all of them and I love the glow-in-the-dark quill too! My parents and I spent Christmas at my grandparents' house in Cornwall. It's been fun, but I miss you and Hogwarts and can't wait to return next week. Have you found out anything further for our investigations? I've been thinking over a few things and will tell you about them when I return next week. I hope the rest of your holidays are fun. Be safe!
Love, Hermione
Harry beamed at this while rising from the table to head back to the dormitory. His Christmas break had been fun thus far, though he did feel a bit lonely at times. This letter from Hermione brightened the boy's day. He looked forward to seeing her again.
When Harry entered the common room, he was struck by the sight of four redheads lounging on its furniture. Fred and George were sitting on either end of the sofa, laughing over some prank they pulled on Professor Sprout during the Christmas feast. Percy was sitting in one of the armchairs intently gazing at a chessboard on the small table before him. But Harry was surprised and a bit miffed when saw Percy's opponent in the other armchair: the redheads' younger brother, the Hufflepuff kid, Ronald Weasley. And all four were wearing those atrocious sweaters with their first initial sewed on them.
"Hey, Harry!" George shouted.
"Hi, Harry!" his twin followed.
"Hey, guys," the black-haired boy responded with a grimace.
"Oh, hello, Harry," Percy muttered with a brief glance at the boy as though he might lose the chess match if he let his eyes wander from the board.
"You remember our brother, Ron, of course," Fred spoke.
"Yeah, Ronnie was sitting all by his lonesome over in Hufflepuff, so we invited him into enemy territory," George threw out.
Ron looked at Harry with an uncertain expression.
"Hey...Harry," he muttered nervously.
"Hi," he responded with a stern look, still recalling the kid's ugly comments toward Hermione.
Ron swallowed hard.
"Come and join us," Fred spoke, "we've got loads of goodies from the Christmas feast. Percy and Ron are playing wizard's chess..."
"...And we were just debating with our little brother over who will be the better Seeker at the upcoming match," George said, "you or Cedric Diggory."
Harry gave them a faux smile. While he was fond of Fred and George, and was warming to Percy, he really didn't care to hang around Ron Weasley. Besides, Harry wanted to practice his spellwork and had extra incentive to do so - he hoped to impress Hermione with what he had been working on while she was away.
"Thanks, guys, but I've got some things to do. Maybe later."
"No worries, Harry. We'll save some of the treats for you," Fred told him while rummaging through the mound of candy on the book table in front of the sofa.
The eleven-year-old turned to head up the stairs to his dorm room.
"Harry!"
He stopped and turned around to find it was Ron. The lanky redhead slouched toward him with his hands in his pockets as though shy.
"Look, I...know this is really late-coming, but I...wanted to apologize for what I said about Hermione."
Harry stared at the kid with a frown.
"It is late-coming. But perhaps you should apologize to Hermione herself when she returns," he told Ron in no uncertain terms.
"Yeah...right," the redhead responded with a downcast expression, looking at the floor in embarrassment.
While the boy seemed sincere, Harry still wondered, especially after seeing him, his pal Sean, and the other Hufflepuff first-years together. But perhaps Ron wasn't so bad by himself. Perhaps he was just a twat when he was around his gang, like Fred and George once commented.
"Thanks for saying something anyway," Harry gave out.
"No problem. Oh! By the way, me and the other Hufflepuffs were rooting for you against the Slytherins, and...we'll do so again when they hold the rematch. Just thought you'd like to know."
"Okay," Harry told him, ready to end the conversation and head upstairs. But Ron wasn't finished.
"And...good luck during the match with Hufflepuff!"
Harry nodded at Ron and finally smiled.
"Thanks, Ron. See you later."
The redhead smiled at him with relief and returned to the chess match with his older brother.
Harry headed upstairs.
~HP~
The hallway was silent and empty. Being very cautious, Harry crept along the edge of the wall and stopped just before the double doors. Despite wearing his invisibility cloak, Harry wanted to make sure neither Filch nor his cat were on some kind of stakeout around the library, ready to snatch whoever might attempt to enter its off-limits domain.
Pausing for several moments and hearing no sound, Harry moved to the door on the right. He reached out and tried pulling on the handle. It wouldn't budge - someone, perhaps Filch, had locked it. Swallowing hard and throwing a quick surveillance glance around him, Harry pulled out his wand and pointed it at the lock.
"Alohomora!" he whispered.
The lock didn't move.
"Alohomora!" he tried once again but still nothing happened.
Harry frowned and realized that Filch didn't need a stakeout around the library doors - they were not only mechanically locked, but now apparently charm-locked as well.
So much for getting into the Restricted Section.
Harry pocketed his wand and dejectedly headed back to his dorm.
He sat in his pajamas in the small nook looking out one of the casement windows. It was a beautiful, moonlit night and had been for several in a row. He kept going over ways he might be able to get back into the Restricted Section before second term officially started in three days. But nothing came to mind. He really wanted to know more about the killing curse and his scar, and this series of developments had put a hitch into that. But maybe all this sneaking around was silly to begin with. Perhaps he should simply ask Professor McGonagall or Professor Dumbledore. It seemed like a logical solution.
After ruminating further on the subject, Harry decided to do just that.
As he gazed up at the stars outside the window, the dorm room felt muggy all of the sudden. The small fireplace near the back had been burning constantly since it automatically popped on at his appearance earlier. He leaned forward and unlatched the lock to the window and pushed it slightly outward. As cold air rushed in, something suddenly dawned on Harry. He got up and pushed the window out until it sat perpendicular to the nook. He then stepped forward and, hunching over, looked down from the tower. It was a precipitous drop all the way to the ground from here and a shiver went down Harry's spine. But that didn't matter as he realized...there was another way into the Restricted Section!
Harry turned and jumped down from the nook, running to his trunk. He quickly exchanged his pajamas for regular clothes and grabbed the invisibility cloak as well as his new flying gloves. He then marched over to his Nimbus and hauled all the items back to the nook. Harry stepped up and let his broom stick hover over the nook as cold air poured in through the open window. He put on the gloves, threw the cloak over his body, and climbed onto the Nimbus, making sure to wrap the cloak under his legs on one end and his hands at the other.
Silently and slowly, Harry flew through the open window into the freezing air outside Gryffindor Tower. A thrill and sense of adventure rushed through him. Not only should he be able to enter the Restricted Section through its casement windows, assuming they weren't charm-locked, but this would allow him to bypass the fat lady's portrait past curfew. And his cloak would allow him to do all this in complete invisibility! A huge grin crested on his face as he turned the broomstick to face the window of the dorm room. He pulled out his wand.
"Colloportus!"
The casement window sealed tight as its latch locked back into place. Harry laughed out loud.
This was perfect!
He pocketed his wand and flew down to search for the library from outside the castle. To Harry's left, he saw the enormous expanse of the Forbidden Forest and just at its edge near the castle, Hagrid's circular hut sat, looking like a small saucer plate from this height, smoke rising out of its top and a faint light coming from one of its windows.
As the boy flew alongside the castle walls, he noted that most of the windows were darkened, but a few were on in various towers. Passing one of them, Harry caught a glimpse of Professor McGonagall sitting in front of a large mirror combing her long, brown hair speckled with flecks of gray. He'd never seen her without her green hat, or her hair tied into a bun. This image of the professor made the usually stern lady appear like a...normal woman. But the boy didn't want to stare and hurried along toward the library.
Scanning a section of the castle where the main corridor should be, Harry moved close to a set of tall casement windows which he assumed was the library. Peering inside of one, the sight of darkened bookshelves confirmed his guess. The boy flew to the very end. Moving to one of the windows, he pulled out his wand and pointed it at the latch.
"Alohomora!" he whispered.
The latch released!
His heart beating rapidly, Harry put back his wand, turned his broom sideways, and tugged on the window. It opened without a hitch. He was concerned Hogwarts staff might have charm-locked these windows or put some kind of alarm on them. But the possibility somebody might try to enter the library this high up, through a window, on a broomstick, with an invisibility cloak, seemed so remote as to be laughable. Who would consider such a silly notion?
Nevertheless, Harry waited a few minutes, just in case Filch was hanging around inside. But he heard no noise nor noticed any movement. The boy silently flew into the Restricted Section and upon hovering a few feet above the floor, stepped down.
He made it!
Harry turned and closed the window behind him leaving his Nimbus pointed outward in case he needed to make a quick escape.
"Lumos!"
The light from his wand lit up the spooky books around him. He immediately headed toward the shelf containing Basil's book. He pulled out the musty smelling tome, sat down on the floor, and opened it to the section regarding the killing curse. Harry was surprised at how little there was on the curse in this book, considering its terrible nature and fearful reputation. Basil described it with a single paragraph:
The Unforgivables - The Killing Curse
"Evoked by an incantation which shall not be mentioned here, the killing curse is one of the most diabolical spells used by dark witches and wizards. It is characterized by a brilliant green flash of light accompanied by a rushing sound. Death is almost always instantaneous depending on where the curse strikes the body. If struck in the chest, the victim suffers immediate cardiac arrest. If struck in the head, instant brain failure occurs. One devious aspect of the curse is that it leaves no physical damage to the victim, though through magical forensics, it can be ascertained that the curse was indeed used. Further, aurors who investigate killings suspected to be from this dreadful curse report they can analyze the body and trace the curse to a specific wand and arrest the owner of said wand if found guilty of the crime."
Harry sat back and thought about this horrifying information.
"No physical damage? How come I got a scar from it then?" he wondered out loud.
As far as the tracing element, there was no question whose wand was used on him, his mother, and his father: Voldemort's. But unfortunately, Basil's book didn't provide any further information on "residue" the killing curse might leave. Harry checked the front of the book for the published date: 1923. This was long before he was even born. Unless Voldemort was using a modified version of the curse, or something else occurred in the process of using it, Harry's case seemed...unusual. But so was his survival. And none of this explained the burning in his scar. He'd have to wait and find out from Hermione where she saw the Dark Forces book located to see if that work had better, more up-to-date information.
Harry got up, returned the book to its place on the shelf and moved back to his Nimbus. Mounting the broomstick and securing the cloak, he floated out of the library, closing and locking the casement window behind him.
As he flew back up toward Gryffindor Tower, he gazed out over the Forbidden Forest. The moonlight made the leafless trees appear like tentacled monsters. And yet, Harry was fascinated by those foreboding woods. Making a brief detour, he flew over Hagrid's hut and out several meters over the forest to get a glimpse. Staring down, he could see moonlit patches of rocky or moss-covered ground scattered with bits of snow through openings in the trees. To his right, Harry swore he saw something move. But upon closer examination there was nothing.
Then, in a strange twist of coincidence, he was startled to see a green flash of light beneath some trees about fifty meters in the distance. His heart started hammering. Did someone just use the killing curse he happened to read about only ten minutes ago? His curiosity went into overdrive.
Making sure his cloak was secure around him, Harry flew off to investigate.