Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
...
"TROLL! Troll in the dungeon!" screamed Quirrell as he sprinted through the Great Hall, drawing the feast to an impromptu end. The odd, sudden absence of his stutter was quite amusing.. "Thought you ought to know," concluded Quirrell as he collapsed in a heap on the ground.
Harry lifted up his hands to cover his ears just before the commotion began, many of the students having been struck by panic as they started scrambling from their seats in desperation. Harry's eyes meanwhile caught the glares of both Weasley twins, the older boys suspecting something. He just merely shrugged his shoulders in response which seemed to be as good a way of communicating as any before Dumbledore bellowed for silence before giving clear instructions.
Harry only half paid attention as he looked over his shoulder at where Quirrell lay prone. Thinking back on it, it made no sense for the terrible excuse for a teacher to have even charged up here. If you qualified enough to teach children to defend themselves then surely you'd be strong and or clever enough to take on a full grown troll. Even if you couldn't kill it they were by no means the brightest creatures in the world.
Harry had to fight off the urge to track down the troll to see just what he could do against the creature.
A tugging on his sleeve brought him back to reality. Looking at who had a hold of him found Hermione looking at him with an inquisitive glare. Thankfully she couldn't openly state what she was thinking, even amongst the chaos as they began to get shuffled away from the hall.
Considering he knew where the troll would be he had little worry about running into it. While everyone else was panicking and looking down every corridor in case it was coming for them, Harry knew full well that around now it would be marching into the girl's bathroom where Hermione wouldn't be located.
Or so he had thought.
Having been moving without thinking he couldn't help but barge into the person in front of him before noticing the fact that everyone had come to a standstill. Hermione's grip found it's way to Harry's robe and suddenly the boy felt a long way out of his comfort zone as he found the entire Gryffindor house staring directly at a mountain troll, the huge club dangling in it's grip as it looked at the children before it as if contemplating what it should do.
"Everyone, behind me," declared Percy. "Fourth years and higher, stunning spell on my mark."
Harry watched as Percy did his best to take control of the situation. For once he was actually watching the house of the brave act accordingly as they lined up and pulled out their wands. Unsurprisingly Fred and George hadn't paid attention to their older brother's warning of only fourth years and above and they took positions on either side of him. Percy didn't reprimand them at the moment but Harry was certain that the older brother would scould them at a later date.
"Now!"
"STUPEFY!" shouted the Gryffindor's in chorus as the corridor shone a vibrant red as all the spells landed directly on target. Trolls naturally were magically resistant but surely the amount of firepower that it had been struck by was more than enough to put it down.
Or so they thought.
As the students started backing away slowly, the older students still with their wands out, one first year witch took it upon herself to disarm the troll. "Bombarda!" Hermione shouted as she pointed her wand at the toll's hand. While the effect should have been grander the desired result was made as the handle of the club exploded, several fragments of the weapon lodging itself in the troll's hand.
The troll screamed in agony momentarily before it suddenly became very angry. It roared before charging forward, making huge strides towards the students only to come completely undone as magical rope snagged around it's legs and tightened, the feet of the troll falling out from underneath it as it crashed to the ground.
"Restrain it, now!" shouted Harry with his wand held out, his spell having done what was needed. A roar from the troll brought everybody back to the point at hand as they did as instructed.
It would be several minutes before the professors rounded the corner to discover the troll surrounded by the Gryffindor students who were standing around idly chatting and giving each other high fives and other forms of praise. "Explain!" demanded Professor McGonagall of her students, unable to say anything else at the moment.
"You want to explain this, Harry?" asked Percy Weasley, looking atop the bound troll where the eleven year old boy sat upon his trophy.
"Sure, where do we start?"
...
Harry sat outdoors deep in thought, doing his best to replicate 'The Thinker' statue. A dozen ideas were currently rushing through his head as he contemplated the foreseeable future. Thanks to their efforts the previous night, Percy, Hermione and himself had managed to secure fifty points for Gryffindor and were the toast of the common room for much of the night.
Harry himself had been contemplating his spell work and how he had successfully caught the troll with a wordless spell. He hadn't really put much thought into it but even he knew that he was stronger than he should have been.
Much stronger.
Even when summoning the birds a few weeks prior he had only intended to create as many as his strength would allow but no matter how many he made he never felt a strain on his magical core. Taking a moment to rub at his scar he reminded himself that he had once been a Horcrux, an accidental one but one nonetheless. He had contemplated the possibility that he was no longer one, that by having had Voldemort attempt to kill him to rid him of the Horcrux had in fact been the cause to send him back. Each of the Horcruxes they had tracked down and destroyed had had some manner of protection over them, something to give Voldemort the edge.
Considering he was an accidental Horcrux, it stood to reason that there was an accidental protection placed upon him as well, namely by being sent back in time every other Horcrux was alive once more. Which of course meant he had to destroy them all again.
He tried to deduce why his strength was so much greater however and couldn't put his finger on it. If he had been a Horcrux in the original period and now was no longer one, had the part of Voldemort's soul been blocking some of his strength? He knew that Voldemort had come after him because of the prophecy predicting that he would have the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. Did he have that ridiculous amount of strength from birth and only because he became a Horcrux was the power he could access limited?
He doubted whether he'd ever get the answers he was after.
A heavy sigh escaped his lips as he moved his head upwards, or at least attempted to only to find that he was unable. Desperation kicked in when he tried to move his limbs but found them frozen in place, even his eyelids refused to blink. He'd been petrified while stuck in his thoughts and he had no idea who had done it.
Three people swiftly came into view, each of them wearing identical plain white masks to cover their faces. Unfortunately their plan to keep their identity secret went straight out the window when he saw their hair; two identical sets of red and one bushy head of brown hair. 'Good try guys,' thought Harry as Hermione pulled out a large piece of parchment and unrolled it to reveal Harry's short term destiny.
Potter Club Presents Potter Art
'Title could have been better,' thought Harry as Hermione and the twins set about their work, transfiguring tree branches into easels and scraps of parchment into canvases. They worked relatively quickly as well and Harry suspected that they were running quite short on time, provided they didn't want to get caught.
In less than a minute they were finished and ran off, giving a quick wave of what Harry assumed was an apology. He had to give them credit, they had planned it all without his previous knowledge (hopefully discreetly) and he could only imagine how embarrassed anybody else would be with the situation. Embarrassment he would later have to feign but still.
It was then that he heard why his fellow pranksters had been so swift and while he couldn't hear the words at the moment the voices were quite elegant. The voices drew closer and closer until Harry found himself looking at women from Hufflepuff and if the Prefect badge was anything to go by they were in their fifth year.
Harry watched as they started discussing with one another what they should do and while Harry was grateful that a couple of them believed that they should undo the curse immediately it would defeat the purpose. For a full minute he watched as they debated what to do and Harry could see one of them raise their wand at him, and for a second he feared that she would undo the spell. He was surprised however that the only thing which changed was his tie fall off and the top two buttons of his shirt came undone.
Quickly the scolding began from the Prefect but it had minimal effect as a couple of the girls put down their belongings, apologizing profusely before they began working, transfiguring their quills into thin paintbrushes and inkpots into paint. Harry would have smiled if he could, sure he didn't like being the centre of attention but from his view he was getting to watch some beautiful girls study him and replicate their view onto paper.
Not the worst way to spend a Friday afternoon.
In the end the Prefect gave up before apologizing to Harry and joining her friends in creating what Harry hoped would be an accurate portrayal. He could do nothing but watch and listen as the girls before him laughed, compared pictures and went about their business. He had no idea of how much time had passed before they looked at each other's work once more before they all nodded to each other and picked up their canvas.
"Alright, firstly we're sorry about leaving you like this and we're sorry we didn't free you sooner, so we hope you forgive us," said the Prefect as she undid the Petrification spell. The elder girls waited for Harry to shout something aggressive, verbally abuse them for being used in such a way but the moment never came as he cracked his neck from side to side and stretched his arms towards the sun.
"All good," he finally said. "I mean at the end of the day nobody was hurt and I think that was the point."
"Point?" repeated one of the girls.
"I've been noticing lately that magic is primarily used to function from day to day, it's so common that people forget that magic is meant to be the opposite of the mundane," said Harry looking towards the sky. "Mundane magic, while it has it's place just feels...off...you get what I'm saying."
The girl's looked amongst one another for a moment before the Prefect walked up to Harry and placed a hand on his shoulder. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to hear more about your views on the world, Harry, if you'll give us the time of course."
Harry, being the perfect gentleman that he was, accepted.
Like all boys would.
...
"Welcome, thank you for coming on such short notice and for those of you who have yet to be personally welcomed, we are Potter Club."
"That's all good and all but who are you?"
"I believe that would defeat the purpose of having used voice altering charms and covering our appearances with masks and hoods."
Fair point."
"Now, I assume that you all are capable of casting the spell we sent you and as such we request that you follow us down to the Quidditch pitch."
"Won't Filch catch us?"
"Let's see, Filch is currently patrolling the fourth floor so I doubt he'll find us anytime soon."
"How do you know that?"
"Magic."
"Smooth..."
"Can I ask a question?"
"By all means, go ahead."
"Is this all of Potter Club?"
"Yep."
"Were you expecting more?"
"Well, kinda. I mean the amount of magic that it would have taken to summon all those birds should have worn out a dozen people but since I didn't take part the seven of you must be incredibly strong."
"Actually, I didn't take part in that one."
"Neither did I."
"Wait, I didn't either so does that mean that the four of you did it by yourselves?"
"Actually the entire thing was orchestrated by our illustrious leader."
"Didn't even let us know what he was doing, had us all fooled."
"Wait, you did it...by yourself...just how strong are you?"
"No idea, haven't been bothered to push myself further."
"That's crazy."
"Alright, since we got a bit of time on our hands, who was the one who pranked Professor Quirrell?"
"I..I did."
"For an initiation, it went as well as we could have hoped."
"Alright then, who did the rainbow over Slytherin table?"
"That was actually a combined effort, they and I did the research and when the time came those two were able to keep Filch busy while I did all the hard work."
"You do know I would have liked to help out there as well."
"Technically you weren't part of Potter Club then, I was getting you to help me without your knowledge."
"I know."
"So you used her?"
"Not really, I lost a bet beforehand and he didn't abuse the authority he was given."
"So our leader's a 'he' you say."
"Well there was a fifty fifty shot."
"You guys really couldn't tell?"
"Well considering your strength I wouldn't have been surprised if you'd changed your voice to mimic a guy's as opposed to just being a guy."
"That may be a touch out of my league."
"Doubt it."
"Alright, another question, who stunned Harry Potter and set up the impromptu art class?"
"You three hey?"
"Good bit of fun that."
"Had no idea what was going on."
"Do you know what happened afterwards, once Harry was unfrozen?"
"No."
"I'm not one for gossip."
"Well, word around the common room was that Harry was found by a few of the fifth year girls including a Prefect, who after enjoying what was before them invited Harry to the Prefect baths."
"You're kidding me right."
"No way."
"So in the end we helped a kid become a man?"
"I don't know for certain what happened but something did and gossip is spreading like wildfire."
"I wonder if Harry would ever forgive us if he were to learn of our identities."
"Oh whatever shall we do if he were to find out."
"I imagine he'd say leave it be and focus on the fact that we've reached our destination."
"What are we doing here?"
"I know the first game's on tomorrow, we're not going to sabotage it are we?"
"No, but we're going to make all the games a lot more interesting from now on."
...
Katie Bell was ecstatic that she had been selected for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, although the yawn she did her best to cover up would say otherwise. "Katie, I told you to go to bed early last night," declared Wood. "Any more late night shenanigans before a game will cost you your place on the team."
Katie knew that Oliver's words were mostly hot air, she had been the only person who had tried out even capable of riding a broom at the pace Wood demanded and as such her place on the team was secure for the year. Hopefully though her obligations to the Quidditch team wouldn't clash with her time with Potter Club, she had thoroughly enjoyed herself last night. The excitement of being up after curfew mixed with the fear of being caught had been adrenaline pumping.
Honestly she wondered if the game she was about to take part in would excite her to the same degree.
As she put on her arm guards she glanced around at the rest of her teammates, from Wood fretting about nervously to Harry calmly polishing the Nimbus 2000 that had landed on top of his breakfast that morning. Finally her eyes fell upon the Weasley twins, knowing full well that one of them had partaken in the night's activities with her. While she couldn't tell which was which she was more than aware that Fred Weasley was one of the members of Potter Club and had accompanied her back to the common room safely the previous night.
The boy lacked any bags under his eyes meaning he had had little trouble falling asleep but considering how notorious the twins were she doubted that Fred was worried about getting in trouble. She imagined though that the witchcraft they had performed was far greater than the small pranks the boys had gotten into trouble with in the past. Well, small in comparison.
"C'mon Katie, focus!" shouted Wood before starting to spur up the rest of the team. Katie meanwhile chuckled wondering just how focused their Captain would be once he saw what had happened to the stadium.
...
Susan had to hide her admiration of the previous night's handiwork, instead having to gasp in shock at the blatant disrespect to school property. That being said their masterpiece was quite joyful to behold as the lion they had animated walked back and forth amongst its barriers, the club having been quite certain that the ferocious animal couldn't make it's way to the side where the other house mascots were. Even though she couldn't see it, Susan assumed the badger they had animated beneath them would be snarling at the snake located beneath the Slytherin cheer squad. The huge serpent was hissing viciously back and forth as if beckoning both the badger and lion to battle it.
On the other side of the stadium however the raven however just seemed to be cleaning itself, having already figured out that there was no danger to be had.
The eight students had spent a good chunk of time the previous night both drawing and animating the creatures as perfect as they could with the time they had. Sure the colours didn't flow right when the animals moved but none of them had actually practiced the spell with coloured images from her knowledge. Also the lion's limbs didn't quite move as they had anticipated but all around they were proud of the work they had accomplished.
"Who do you reckon did this?" asked Hannah Abbott, Susan's fellow first year Hufflepuff. The two of them were the only first year girl's in their house, the Sorting ceremony having been a bit gender biased by having only those two to work alongside seven boys.
"I can think of someone," said Susan slyly as she smiled, leaning her arms on the protective railing. She completely missed the next thing Hannah said before the Quidditch players started making their way onto the pitch, the Slytherin players leaning away from the Gryffindor stands as the lion roared at them. Lost in her own thoughts, she drowned out the rest of the world as she focused solely on the lion opposite their stand.
This was what magic was about.
...
Harry lazily soared over the Quidditch pitch, his eyes scanning the field for the elusive Golden Snitch. He was also holding onto his new broom with a vice like grip knowing full well that in the original timeline before he had a chance to win the game he would nearly be bucked off the Nimbus 2000. It seemed like a pointless way to try and kill someone, I mean the vast number of professors in the vicinity assured that even if he were to fall there was little chance that he would go splat.
Harry veered to the left and avoided the bludger that had threatened to smash into his ribs, watching with satisfaction as the iron sphere of destruction began chasing one of the Slytherin chasers. Somehow with the knowledge that in order for time to go as it should then he would have to be thrown off his broom before he had a chance of catching the elusive golden ball. Or if memory served him right, he only caught it by nearly swallowing the damned thing. How he hadn't choked to death was still a miracle in and of itself.
Watching as Katie Bell scored past the Slytherin Keeper put a smile as his face as the animated snake on the wall hissed violently. It had actually been Fred's idea the previous night to add noises to the animals, and there had been a brief discussion between all of them as they worked about setting the project up and how only the House animals in play would react at certain times. Arguably it had made their little pet project take an extra half an hour applying the correct charms and they didn't really have a chance to test it. Harry wouldn't be surprised if the animals in question would be able to become silent once they had been given voice which he'd have to try and find a way to rectify down the track.
He did find it amusing however as the snake continued hissing and while nobody else in the pitch could determine what the snake was saying Harry understood it perfectly. 'Yes you fool, swiftly now, claim the golden egg!'
"Golden egg?" repeated Harry.
"SLYTHERIN WINS!"
"...Shit."
...
"I guess the pressure just got to me?" said Harry apologetically with a shrug of his shoulders. The verbal lashing Oliver had given him for simply remaining aloof during the game had been vicious and Harry didn't blame him. He had been so focused on keeping a grip when his broom went haywire but the moment never came. Thinking about it, Harry knew that it was unlikely that Voldemort would get Quirrell to try the same thing twice. Once could be seen as an accident, two however would raise suspicions. Unfortunately it made sense.
Harry paid little attention as his captain complained once more before heading towards the showers. Harry meanwhile was contemplating whether or not in the first instance Quirrell hadn't accidentally targeted Hermione but had purposefully done so. If he had lost his friend, Harry would have undoubtedly snapped and while he may not have been killed he would have become weak and as a result made himself an easy target down the road.
Again, this was all theoretically speaking, there was no way to really divulge the true intentions until he confronted Quirrell towards the end of the school year. Provided he could stop himself from just killing the man straight up.
"Are you alright Harry?" asked Angelina as she took a seat next to the youngest student in the room.
"What? Oh yea, I'm fine," said Harry quickly.
"Don't let Wood get you down," said Angelina. "When his predecessor named him Captain he locked himself up in his room for three days or so they say, determined to work on strategies and to come to grips with the responsibility thrown at him. He changed that day and his studies have struggled as a result of. I think that he's forgotten that Quidditch isn't just about winning..."
"It's about having fun," concluded Harry.
"Exactly, perhaps having someone so young on the team will help remind him one day," said Angelina patting Harry's shoulder a couple times before standing off and heading towards the showers.
"Well then, this'll be a challenge," said Harry softly as his eyes fixed on Katie. He figured it was time that the older girl gave her best shot at a solo mission.
...
"So Harry, do you have much planned for the Christmas Holidays?" asked Hermione from the dinner table, her question practically drowned out by the noise of everyone else around them. With it being so late in November it wasn't surprising that a good deal of conversation topics were centred around the Yule event.
"Not much, probably scour the library for all kinds of useless bits of information," said Harry with a cheeky smile.
Hermione mimicked his smile momentarily before her glance changed upwards slightly, causing Harry to look over his shoulder at where Susan Bones stood. "Hey Harry," she said in a tone that lacked confidence, something unbecoming of the Hufflepuff student. Harry glanced at her inquisitively having unexpected this moment. "Could, you come with me for a moment?"
Harry looked to Hermione for guidance and the brown haired witch was only able to come up with a supportive shrug of the shoulders. "Thanks," he said dryly before turning his attention back to Susan. "Yea sure."
Getting to his feet, Harry was taken aback as he suddenly found his fingers wrapped in a warm embrace. Susan's grip was ever so gentle yet absolute at the same time as she dragged Harry away from peering eyes, doing her best not to pay attention to the vast amount of eyes glaring at the pair.
Harry said nothing as he watched people turn to one another and start speaking in hushed whispers. It didn't take a genius to figure out what they were talking about and he felt as if something monumental needed to happen over the Christmas Holidays in order to stop the rumor mill from spinning too quickly.
He'd definitely need the twins' help for that one.
After what seemed a small eternity, the two first year students were free of prying eyes in the safety of the corridor. Harry half wanted to make a joke but didn't want to destroy whatever confidence Susan had left. "So..."
"Harry, I was wondering, I mean if you want to of course, it's not like I'm forcing you..."
"Susan," said Harry stopping the girl dead in her tracks. "Calm down for a moment, take a deep breath and then ask away."
"...Would you like to spend Christmas with me?"
Harry's mind shut down at that point, overheating from trying desperately to figure out the pros and cons of going and spending the time with Susan and her family. Before he could restart his central thinking however he found himself victim to what he only knew as 'Puppy dog eyes.'
And just like that, all plans he had had for Christmas were shattered.