Slughorn walked to his cabinet, mumbling incoherently as he pulled out a dirty pot. In it appeared to be a dead plant – its leaves brittle and dry, its stem wilted and bruised. Murmurs broke out amongst his Slytherin & Hufflepuff peers alike, and his new Potions Professor seemed to revel in their curiosity.

Flicking his wand, the class went dark. Greengrass, who sat to his left went from curious to excited, and so did Harry when two blue orbs seemed to manifest themselves out of nowhere, hanging from the ceiling. They shifted, their lights growing to illuminate Slughorn and the rest of the class once more.

Merlin, Harry snickered to himself. Snape could never.

Taking another look around the classroom, Harry forced himself to appreciate the fact that it must've been expanded one or two times over just to accommodate the sheer volume of students. There had to be at least 30 with both houses combined. It was more and less to his liking at the same time – at his Hogwarts, there was a strange, personable atmosphere in each of his classes, but here, he knew no one and had no clue what to make of the chattering student body.

"The Will-o'-the-Wisp!" said Slughorn boisterously. It was now clear that floating in the air was the pot from before, with a very alive, very happy blue plant. Two orbs grew out of its stem, shining that bright blue. Harry wondered if the plant had a mind of its own as it floated around the class, as different students took time to feel it. Riddle in particular seemed transfixed, taking an extra-long time to stare at the plant's orbs.

"A flying plant. Very rare, and this is the only plant species known to do so," said Slughorn. Summoning it to his hands, the professor smiled at his class. "The Will-o'-the-Wisp only grows in the dark, but while wilted, it secretes a green liquid known as Veridian Veil. Does anyone," he flourished his wand, "happen to know what potion uses this liquid as its base?"

"Felix Felicis," answered Walter Elias reverently. Are we really going to brew Liquid Luck?" he heard another of his Hufflepuff yearmates ask disbelievingly. He noticed the boy turn around and begin whispering conspiratorially to a girl behind him.

"Ten points to Hufflepuff," Slughorn beamed at the boy. He turned to face the rest of the class. "Today, you have the honour of working with this plant. We are going to use some of its leaves to brew the Draught of Dreams. A potion said to allow its drinker to lucid dream the next time they sleep – for as long as they wish! I've given you the base instructions, and it's up to you all to figure out how to go from there."

Slughorn's directive seemed to kill much excitement in the classroom, but Harry fought to keep his Aspen wand still in his pocket, who was trembling.

Somniency. Dream magic. I can see if it's real, for myself.

Harry himself only ever had dreams that pertained to a murderous Dark Lord, so the thought of dreaming about quite literally anything else was quite appealing. He wondered how the potion was safe to drink if the person could dream for as long as they wished, but a glance at the instructions revealed that the potion did not last for very long, and whatever dream the witch or wizard was having would eventually stop when the Draught wore off.

His mind eventually wandered off to the First Task – one that didn't involve a dragon. CREATE A SPELL ONLY YOUR WAND CAN CAST, the book demanded. He had no clue where to start, but he could feel something, some connection between what he was doing now and the task. Maybe the spell would come to him in a dream? He didn't know.

As he brewed, Harry did his best to take note of the strangely inviting classroom he was in. He was certain that if he'd had Slughorn for an instructor, an O in potions would've been far, far easier to attain. And yet for all its warmth, Harry found it suffocating to brew under the curious, sceptical, and untrustworthy glances he was receiving. It was as though Snape found a way to sneer at him even now, by channelling all his negative energy into everyone around him.

When he finally finished brewing the potion – a long, arduous process – Harry sighed and placed his vial in front of Slughorn. He received more than a few glares from the Hufflepuffs, who had taken to the right side of the classroom. To his surprise, he had finished just barely after Riddle. Irritation coursed through his veins.

"Did you enjoy seeing the Will-o'-the-Wisp, Harry?" asked Slughorn.

"I did, Professor," he forced a smile. "I was wondering – where are they grown? I'd never heard of them before." Truthfully, Harry didn't mean to appear sour in front of the man: I just don't want to be second to Riddle. In anything.

His Head of House laughed. "They don't grow naturally, my boy."

"Wha…"

"Be on your way, I'm sure you can figure it out. Besides, it's more fun that way!"

Harry nodded with a sigh and made to gather his effects into his school bag. In doing so, he was deliberately sluggish and thus lagged behind the rest of the students who streamed out of the classroom.

There are so many, he thought again. Was this normal? Before Voldemort?

"Don't forget my offer, Professor," Harry said as he was on his way out.

"Ah, your letter. Polyjuice is a serious ask, you know," said Slughorn, making Harry turn to face the man again.

"You want Basilisk venom or not?"

"I'll believe it when I see it!" he said, wagging his fingers. "But if you get the venom, then yes, Harry. You have a deal."

Harry hid a victorious smile.

Greed has many hands, but no heart.

When he stepped out of the classroom, Harry was surprised to find Riddle waiting for him, leaning a foot against the wall.

"You nicked a vial, too?" she asked amusedly. He hated the lilt in her voice, the levity, the carefree nature of the question, how on Earth she even knew he'd also grabbed a vial of the potion-

"I won't tell," she said, a scary smile on her face. "We brewed the potion, so we earned it, you agree?"

"I… agree," he said slowly. Riddle nodded, turning right to walk the path to History of Magic.

"I think you will rather enjoy Professor Binns, Harry. I'm curious to know what your impression of him will be."

"I had a ghost teach me History once," said Harry. "It was the most boring lecture I've ever listened to."

Riddle seemed amused, probably taking his actual interaction with her as a sign of his willingness to cooperate. This was no such case; Harry merely wanted to reflect on his dismal state of affairs.

"The other staircase," she corrected gently when Harry took a left. He blinked in surprise.

Binns' class was always this way…

"Rather confusing, this school," Riddle sighed, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear. "You'll get used to it."

No! This staircase never changes!

He begrudgingly followed Riddle, who had definitely noticed that something was off with his attitude but said nothing. To his surprise, he was not being led into a trap but rather into another classroom that had been abandoned during Harry's own time at Hogwarts.

"A new student," the familiar sound of Binns' drone came from the door. "Mr Harry Evans, a pleasure. Welcome."

There is no pleasure in this. "Hello, professor."

He made eye contact with Jules Lockhart and decided to sit next to the boy, which appeared to annoy his Gryffindor yearmates. The class around them was plain and rigidly organised with six rows of desks. There was a podium at the end from which Harry guessed Binns lectured. Again, the size of the classroom was much larger than anything Harry had to sit in before.

The rest of his Slytherin yearmates filed through shortly after he entered. Did they take the same path that Riddle had dragged him through? They did leave Potions before he did…

"Guess I was wrong," the scrawny fifth-year murmured to Harry. "You weren't a Gryff after all."

"No hard feelings, right?"

"No hard feelings," he hummed, though there was scepticism in Jules' voice that implied otherwise. The venomous stares from all the Gryffindors and some of the Slytherins were not lost on him.

Harry didn't get to question further when the door slammed shut, and Binns floated to the centre of the class. He wasted no time.

"For years, I have relayed the histories of our world linearly. This has primarily been," he stressed, "for accessibility purposes. However, this year marks the beginning of your political education. Such accommodations for the less capable of you will not made."

"What is the Wizengamot?" he asked no one in particular.

"It makes laws, right?" a pretty blonde-haired Gryffindor girl spoke to his right. Harry, who had been taken aback by Binns' complete lack of an introduction, decided that perhaps there was something more to the ghost after all.

"It's a court too, sometimes," said one of Harry's dormmates – Millard Fawley if he remembered correctly.

"True, true," said Binns dismissively. "But any idiot can tell me what the Wizengamot does. I want to know what it is."

"What's the difference?" interjected Harry. His voice seemed to turn many heads, and it was then he was reminded of his strange status – or lack thereof, as a transfer student. To be so openly disliked by the House of the Brave felt so odd, so foreign, in a way Harry disliked. But the Gryffindors were all wrong and foreign, too.

"I mean," he stumbled as Binns gazed at him curiously, "it makes laws, so it's a legislature. It hears civil and criminal cases, so it's a court, too. What else?"

"The new kid can speak," drawled a tall, brown-haired boy in front of him. "I'm impressed," he said under his breath. What's his problem?

"Silence, Mr Relio," Binns said in a low voice. "Our transfer has asked an excellent question."

"You think too small," Binns turned his attention back to Harry. "just because something has practical consequences does not mean it is what the thing is about. The word you are looking for is institution. The Wizengamot is one. And all institutions have gone goal in common - does anyone have any ideas about what that goal could be?"

"Self-preservation," Riddle answered smoothly. "No matter the intended purpose, all institutions want to preserve themselves. Even if they don't start that way."

"Very good!" Binns clapped, but no sound came from his ghostly hands. "And the Wizengamot is no such exception. The goal this year is to have you well-versed in the institutions that our society depends on. The Wizengamot is of paramount importance, so we shall begin there."

"Professor?" asked Harry. "Institutions change, don't they? If their goal is self-preservation, does that mean they're always averse to change?"

Riddle's stare burned a hole into his side.

"Not necessarily," Binns denied. "It depends on how they're built and what their purpose is. Most attempts to reform or change institutions fail, even the good ones. As well or malintentioned they can be, you can't force a society to change. No matter how backwards you think it is." That seemed to appease many of the on-edge pureblood heirs in the room.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try! Harry wanted to protest, but he knew it wasn't wise.

"Traditionally," Binns continued, his voice turning quiet and controlled – some of the old monotone that Harry was used to was shining through – "there has been one way the most extreme of us have tried to reform institutions."

Silence befell the room for an extremely uncomfortable minute until Harry answered the open question.

"War," he whispered, and the room somehow grew even more quiet.

"Not just any kind of war," Binns' form shimmered in a way that made Harry's spine crawl. "Total war. Brutal war, barbaric war. The worst kind of war there is – war in the style of Rome. The kind of war that destroys a society and forces it to reconstruct all that it had built. The kind of war some scholars have taken to calling Bellum Romanum."

The Aspen wand churned in Harry's pocket. He found it hard to focus on the rest of the lecture.

"I'm excited to see you duel," admitted Jules as they walked to the Great Hall. It had taken the boy some time to get past Harry's sorting, but Harry strongly suspected that Jules had few people who sought friendship from him.

"I don't think you've actually told me where you lot meet," said Harry dryly. Lockhart turned beet red.

"Professor Neara's class - she's our sponsor." Harry's eyebrows rose in surprise. "The Ancient Runes professor?"

"That's the one," said Jules. "No one knows how Charlus got her to agree to it."

Now, he froze. "As in Charlus Potter?"

It shouldn't feel this strange, saying my own last name.

"I didn't know there was another Charlus around," Jules snickered. "Yeah, Potter. Do you have a problem with him or something? Did Riddle get to your head already? Though you and him look quite alike, come to think of it."

"No…" Harry trailed off. "Wait, does Riddle not like Potter?"

"Riddle hates Potter."

"Why?"

"Well," Jules scratched his hair. "The story goes that there was a mystery petition to expel Riddle from the school that went to the Board. Most people, including Riddle, think Charlus sent it since he's the most vocal and the only one whose family has enough power to make it happen."

"Yet it still failed."

"Well, yeah," murmured Jules. "She has the headmaster in her pocket. Of course, it did."

Harry frowned. "Why would Charlus want to expel Riddle, anyway?"

"Because she overshadowed all of his work in Transfiguration when she got invited to some bigshot conference and outscored him."

Harry paused. "Can I be honest with you, Jules?"

"Sure."

"I think it's a load of shite," he deadpanned. "Riddle probably made the whole thing up so she could look like a victim."

Lockhart shrugged. "I don't know, mate. Ask Charlus about it when you meet him."

When I meet him… when I meet my grandad. Harry resisted a bitter laugh: it had taken bloody time travel to allow him the opportunity to meet his family. Not that I'm the only one, far from it.

How am I going to not lose it? Fuck. He really hadn't that one through. Not breaking down in front of Charlus was going to be extremely difficult.

"Harry?"

"I'm not going to dinner," he said to Jules. "I'll be at the Quidditch Pitch."

"Tryouts aren't until," Jules began but was cut off by a sharp look from Harry, and he nodded sagely.

"Cover for me, yeah?"

Jules was growing to like him enough to do that. Harry was sure.

He knew the castle by heart, so taking the detour was no challenge. Walking through Hogwarts was somewhat of a balm for his soul, even though most of the people he made eye contact with looked mighty suspicious of him.

This probably wouldn't help.

It took Harry some time to reach the first floor again, but when he did, he was greeted by a much cleaner and better-kept series of hallways. He frowned. Hogwarts, in general, seemed less clean than he knew it to be.

There were also far too many people. Most should've been heading to dinner, but the larger student body probably meant more people did things they weren't supposed to.

I guess I'm one of them, Harry thought amusedly.

If only Ron and Hermione could be here…

"Focus on the fresh air," he chided himself.

It felt amazing to step out onto the Quidditch Pitch. A cool breeze swept over Harry, and he took a moment to stare at the night sky. He wasn't sure, but he thought that it rather resembled the sky when he was standing on that mysterious balcony with Dumbledore.

To his surprise, no one else was on the pitch. It didn't take Harry long to identify the old wooden shack that housed the school brooms: just as rundown and dusty as it was in his time. Falling apart at the seams, he wasn't a fan of the old, stained windows that had been cracked or, in the case of some, smashed.

Some things don't change.

The nasty rustic smell of the shack overwhelmed his nose as soon as he stepped in. A rickety staircase led to the broom storage, but Harry decided against going the simple route when he noticed the nails that stuck from out the ground and walls, and half the stairs were missing. The roof was covered in moss and missing several shingles. Harry missed the fresh air already.

He cringed when he saw various garments lying around the dilapidated wooden… conglomerate. Calling this a building was a disgrace to buildings.

"Come on, guys," grumbled Harry. "I can think of at least ten better places for a good shag than this shit-hole." He drew his wand.

"Aeria Scourgify!"

"Accio broom!"

If it weren't for his reflexes as a Seeker, the ratchety old broom would've slammed into his face, but Harry caught it in time… only for the broom to snap in half.

"Accio broom!"

Another broom sailed towards him, and that one also snapped in half.

Do they even give flying lessons to the First Years here? He supposed he could ask Mia or another one of them soon enough. He expected the brooms to be of low quality but not falling apart.

"Accio broom," Harry said slowly. It was a subtle nuance when it came to casting that he had only begun to learn before the disaster at the Department of Mysteries. Being able to control the strength with which a spell was cast with your incantation and will in a specific way.

One. Two. Three. Four. Those were the brooms that Harry had gone through with these attempts, but on the fifth try, he finally had an unbroken Oakshaft seventy-nine in his hands.

"Made in 1829," Harry amused himself. "This is not a safety hazard, nope. Not at all."

Regardless of the quality, Harry went in knowing that fixing up the old broom would become another pet project of his, and it would be some time before he could fly to and away from the castle as he pleased. The pitiful state of these brooms just meant that he had his work cut out for him.

I have too much to do, Harry thought with a grimace. He ran down the list in his mind: Getting rid of Dippet and Riddle, dealing with the Chamber, the wand tasks, this broom, classes, Slughorn, going back to the Department….

And it was only day one. But more than anything else, Harry needed allies. People he could trust.

That one was hard. He supposed he could settle for the next best, for now.

"Serpensortia," he hissed. After a minute or so, Harry summoned four snakes all staring at him.

"Greetings, serpents. I require a task of each of you."

Hissing in satisfaction, the adders Harry had summoned seemed perfect for their jobs. He hoped they were as intelligent as most snakes were. "It is an honour, Sspeaker," they said in unison.

"I require information to be gathered discreetly at Hogwarts Castle. You," he pointed at the first snake, "are Padfoot. Your job is to spy on the Headmaster Armando Dippet. Under no circumstances do you reveal yourself. Use the portraits. Do what you must."

Harry turned to the second snake. "You shall be Moony. You will report to me on the dynamics of students in the castle. All houses are to be observed. I want to know how often every student in that castle blinks. Do not be seen."

"Prongs," Harry hissed. "You shall search for the King of Serpents. It is a Basilisk. Do not try to contact it. When you find it, you four will negotiate for its venom after you let me know."

Harry turned to the final snake. "You will be with me, Mars. You shall serve to aid any of our allies should they need it."

All four were staring at him in a stupor, and each snake slowly began to take note of their surroundings. Prongs, in particular, seemed proud about his task, flicking his tongue out to the other serpents. After all, he got to "search" for Slytherin's fabled monster.

Harry had no other ideas about how to make sure if the Basilisk would be poised to attack as soon as he entered the chamber or not. And he needed a good sample of its venom anyway. Something that would be much more plentiful if the snake was alive.

Like killing a Basilisk is easy. Honestly, how did I even manage it the first time?

Dumb fucking luck, another part of his brain replied.

"There is another speaker in the castle," Harry said to the snakes.

"Another sspeaker…" trailed Mars, but Harry silenced him and the other adders. "She is not to be interacted with. You are to avoid any other serpents whom you may suspect of acting as spies. You are to avoid Emily Riddle at all costs, and if she takes an interest in any of you, play along and report back to me."

"A bad sspeaker?" Trailed Padfoot confusedly. "Sspeakers are good."

"Not this one," denied Harry. "She seeks to undermine all it is your kind strive for. I have reason to believe she wishes to bewitch the King of Serpents and unleash him on the castle."

"No one controls the king…" said Prongs. "We will be wary of this false speaker, Master."

Harry grimaced. "Remain silent, and strike only if your life depends on it. You will report to me every Tuesday at a different location that Mars will relay to you. Contact Mars if there is an emergency."

Harry took a moment to cast Sequor on each of the snakes, but they slowly slithered away, abandoning the creeky wooden shack.

Despite all he expected to come, a little smile played on Harry's lips. He was, after all, up to no good.

A/N: A shorter chapter as we begin settling into Hogwarts. Thanks to Gladiusx for giving this chapter a much-needed once-over before it went out, and thanks to all for reading!

Guest: Harry had to break into an owlery just to send some letters to Dumbledore, Ollivander, and Slughorn. He's not contacting the Potters because there's simply nothing he can do: telling them he's a time traveller and their grandkid from years into the future is pretty ridiculous. I know it's a common trope in a lot of time travel fics, but it destroys any immersion for me.

Dubious Destiny: thanks for the reviews/criticism! For the magic system, I'll say that Harry isn't exactly the most reliable of narrators here. He will have something of a power progression arc, but he isn't being portrayed in a poor light per se. Harry has just been making some poor decisions, and it's only now he's grounding himself. Fair enough on Riddle: these next chapters will lean more into the worldbuilding for sure.