And here is the fifth chapter!

* Review Response:
Wyrtha, who knows, who knows...
Tommy14, Mangahero18, talking to the portrait in parseltongue will happen. Eventually. Definitely not in this chapter or the next few ones, though.
Slytherin Studios, geetac, za worlda, jamnaz79, davycrockett100, Gracealma, thank you for your reviews, folks!
C. Wade, that's my standard footer for the stories' chapters. Is it annoying or something? As for clishe-ing the story... Well, I will lie if I say that there will no cliches, but I will try to weed out as many of them as possible.
The Richmaster, well, administrative error it is then, for you.
G, Harry is ten years old. He just doesn't have the wisdom of those older and more experienced, no matter how mature he might appear. Cut him some slack for not thinking about that.

* AN: Great thanks to Remilia - The Scarlet Moon for his help in polishing this chapter.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" franchise. No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.

"speaking"
'thinking'
written text

A Year Too Soon
Chapter V: The First Night and the First Day

"I congratulate you all on being sorted into the noble house of Slytherin. This is a great privilege and honor, and it shows that you possess such important qualities for succeeding in the magical world as cunning, ambitiousness and resourcefulness." Professor Snape said smoothly as he stopped in front of the assembled first years. "Many of the greatest historical figures of magical world were once students of this house, and I hope that you too will not be content with being unremarkable dunderheads and will rise to greatness as well." After making a short pause, the Potions Master continued: "I understand that you have had an eventful day and wish to retire for the night, but before I let you do just that I need to bring you up to speed on how the things are done here, in Slytherin."

"As some of you are already aware, Slytherin does not have the best reputation with the other three houses of Hogwarts." The female prefect, whose name still eluded Harry, said. "And as such, we can't afford to show disunity." Professor Snape nodded.

"Indeed." He confirmed. "Whatever problems you have with each other, they must be resolved here. Outside of the common room, you will protect each other against the attacks from the members of other houses. Break this rule, and I will be most displeased. Likewise, as long as you don't do something monumentally stupid, I will exercise my power to keep your official record clear. But do not believe that your foolishness will go unpunished for I will make you regret acting thoughtlessly. If you absolutely need to break rules, do so without getting caught. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir." The assembled first years chorused, some less eagerly than the others.

"The Slytherin common room is our safe haven that has not been breached in many centuries, and we all would like it to remain this way. As such, you will never reveal its location or the current password to those from other houses." Waiting for a confirmation that he was heard, professor Snape continued: "While Slytherin prizes resourcefulness and self-reliance, we understand that you can't solve all of your problems on your own, not yet anyway. And as such, if you find something that is clearly beyond your abilities, do not hesitate to ask the prefects or myself for some help. We will be very displeased, however, is you bother us with something that is not worthy of our attention, understood?"

"Yes, sir." The firsties chorused once again.

"Finally, Slytherin is not the place for dunderheads and sluggards. And while you aren't expected to be straight-O students, I'd rather you don't bring shame to the house by failing any of your classes." The Potions Master said, while sending a venomous glare at one of the older boys in the common room. Harry and his fellow first years meanwhile chorused 'yes, sir!' yet another time. "Good." Professor Snape then said with a curt nod. "This would be all for now." And with that he turned around and walked out of the common room, his cloak billowing behind him in the non-existent wind.

"Now let us show you your rooms." The male prefect spoke after a few moments of silence. "Boys, you are with me; girls – please follow Ms. Farley." And without saying anything else he headed towards the boys' dormitories, forcing Harry and the other five boys to hurry after him.

The dormitories consisted of seven blocks, each having twenty four rooms to house the students plus a lavatory and a shower-room. For a moment Harry wondered why there were so many rooms when his class was so small and the upper years didn't appear to be much bigger. Then he realized that in the past Hogwarts likely had way more students in the past than it had now. Or, perhaps, the dormitories had been built big enough to accommodate every student, even if only roughly a quarter of them actually got sorted into Slytherin?

Those thoughts, however, were quickly put out of the young Potter's mind when the prefect showed him – and the other first year boys – in their dormitory block. Not wasting any more time, the green-eyed boy went to examine the room he had been assigned. And, well, compared to the cupboard under the stairs or the attic at #4, Privet drive, it was actually pretty damn big. It also was better furnished than those places too:

In this room there were a sizable four-poster bed with green covers, a wardrobe and a chest that could fit several times the things the green-eyed wizard owned, a table with a comfortable-looking chair and several big shelves for books and other studying materials. Finally, there was an aged clock on the wall across from the bed, and, apparently, it was a bit past ten in the evening, so the young Slytherin decided that, since tomorrow was the first day of his classes, he should call it a day now.

~/ *** \~

Professor Flitwick poured himself a glass of Ogden's finest and was about to begin his private celebration of the beginning of the new school year, when professor McGonagall invaded his office. And she didn't appear to be in the best of her moods.

"Something I can do for you, Minerva?" The diminutive wizards asked while inviting her to have a drink with him. The Transfiguration Mistress, however, was in no mood for that.

"Filius." She said sternly. "During the sorting ceremony I noticed that Mr. Potter's sudden arrival didn't surprise you. You knew about it beforehand, didn't you?" She asked.

"Yes, I was aware that Mr. Potter would be joining us a year earlier than expected. I did introduce him to the wizarding world back in July after all." Professor Flitwick confirmed. A moment later he raised his hand, telling his colleague to let him finish before tearing into him. "As for why I didn't tell anyone, well, Mr. Potter's name was there along with other muggle-born and muggle-raised children; I was under the impression that you already knew about it."

"I see..." Was all that the deputy headmistress could say. It was really irksome for her to accept that her own blind trust into the admission system that led to the surprises earlier today. "And what should we do about Mr. Potter, Filius?" She asked after several long moments of silence. "He's very young and, I'm afraid, he'll need help in order to keep up with his classmates."

"We do nothing. Not without him asking for our help, at least." The Charms Master replied. "During the visit to the Diagon Alley I came to know that Mr. Potter doesn't like being in the center of attention. And between him being the Boy-Who-Lived and his early enrollment, he will be subjected to more attention by his classmates and other students than he would ever want to. There is no need for us to make it even worse by giving him some preferential treatment."

"Vert well." Minerva said. She clearly wasn't happy with letting Harry fend for himself, but she did agree with Filius that treating him as someone special would likely only make things worse for him... There was a pretty long moment of silence, before the Transfiguration Mistress spoke again: "Can I have a glass of fire-whiskey, Filius?" She asked. The part-goblin professor nodded a poured her some.

~/ *** \~

Elsewhere in the castle, headmaster Dumbledore was thinking hard about what other steps he should take regarding Harry's sudden and unexpected arrival to Hogwarts and his sorting into Slytherin. And while the aged warlock already decided to let the boy enjoy a carefree first year at Hogwarts – the training that the young Potter will need to fulfill a certain prophecy and finally end Voldemort could wait until later – it didn't mean that he wouldn't do his best to prevent the things from stacking against the Greater Good.

Indeed, Harry needed to be safeguarded against the worst of the surprises the life in Slytherin might present him with. And to do that, Dumbledore knew, he will have to interfere in the little savior's life even more than he already did, no matter how bad that made him feel. Indeed, the old headmaster was well-aware of the thing called self-fulfilling prophecy, and he most definitely didn't want young Harry to become an actual Dark Lord because some idiots kept telling him he was one just because he got sorted into Slytherin.

Thus, Dumbledore decided that tampering with someone's mail would be rather justified in this case: by adjusting the castle's wards to intercept the letters addressed to young Harry he will keep him safe from hateful and cursed mail. Plus, it was not like the boy had any friends that would write him at the moment... And even if he did somehow, the Hogwarts headmaster was sure that he will be forgiven for what he did to keep the young Potter safe.

~/ *** \~

As usual, Harry woke up quite early in the morning. And, after going through his morning routine, he busied himself with unpacking his admittedly scant possessions properly. Yet, despite owning only so much, it still took him quite a bit of time to organize everything at his ease. In fact, by the time he was finally done it was almost the breakfast time. So, putting on his Hogwarts uniform, the young Potter headed to the common room where the prefects were supposed to be waiting for the first years.

And, indeed, Ms. Farley was there, leaning against the wall next to the exit from the common room. It looked like he was the first one to 'join' her too as he couldn't see any of his classmates around.

"Good morning." The green-eyed wizard greeted the prefect politely.

"Mornin'." The older girl mumbled under her breath rather apathetically while also stifling a yawn. Shrugging, Harry moved to stand close by as the two of them waited for the rest of the firsties to gather up... The said wait turned out to be a little longer than the young Potter expected as it was almost twenty minutes before the last of his classmates – a boy named Roy McKinley – emerged from the dormitories and joined their little group. "Follow me." Ms. Farley commanded before setting out for the Great Hall.

If there was one thing the young Potter definitely liked about Slytherin, it was the fact that the absolute majority of the house pretended that he was nothing special. Or, at very least, they didn't openly stare at him or gossip about him within his earshot. The students from the other three houses, unfortunately, weren't as nice. Thus, the moment he emerged from the Slytherin dungeons, Harry found himself in the center of their pointed attention. And he didn't like it at all.

Thankfully for him, though, Ms. Farley decided that this was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate what Slytherin Unity was all about, and proceeded to shield his from the unwanted and much unwelcome attention. And since she was a seventh-year prefect, it even worked somewhat, allowing the young Potter to enjoy his breakfast in relative peace.

And what a breakfast it was! The dishes was varied and aplenty – though not as much as they were during the feast yesterday – and quite delicious too. Even a simplest porridge was tasty! Whoever were the cooks here, they certainly had Harry's compliments.

Around the middle of the breakfast, the owls with the morning post arrived, startling Harry and others who weren't used to this. Even the first years raised in the fully-magical households didn't seem to be immune to this as they have never seen this many owls make their deliveries at once... Understandably, though, none of owl had anything for the young Potter: the Dursleys would never send him anything even if it didn't involve anything they considered 'freakish', and he knew no one else who would even have a reason to write to him. He accepted this, but he still felt a prickle of jealousy when he saw other kids receive packages from their homes.

Once the owls flew away, professor Snape descended towards the Slytherin table, carrying a stack of parchments in his hands. Those turned out to be the timetables, and when the Potions Master gave Harry his, he paused for a moment, almost as if wanting to say something to the green-eyed wizard. Ultimately, however, he decided against it and continued handing out the timetables... Shrugging, Harry studied at the piece of parchment laying on the table in front of him:

And, well, today he had History of Magic first thing in the morning, followed by a double Defense Against the Dark Arts. There were no classes in the afternoon, but there was an Astronomy class late in the evening. All in all, the green-eyed boy decided, this wasn't a bad first day of classes...

Harry's hopes for interesting lessons about the past of the magical world were cruelly dashed when he discovered who was teaching the class. Professor Binns was a ghost. And beyond that he seemed to no longer possess any drive to teach, instead chanting monotonously on and on, and thus managed to make the class deathly boring. The fact that he made absolutely no deviations from the textbook didn't help sparking any interest in his lectures either... By the end of the class, Harry decided that as long as professor Binns was teaching History, it would be just an extra hour for him to sleep or do other classes' homework. His classmates seemed to agree with him there as quite a few had fallen asleep during the Binns' lecture.

On the other hand, the Defense Against the Dark Art turned out to be as interesting a class as its name implied. Even if professor Armstrong was yet to teach them any actual spells and instead concentrated on explaining the difference between hexes, jinxes and curses, as well as the best ways of avoiding getting hit by them. It was an... informative class, even if Harry and many of his classmates would rather be taught some flashy spells than be instructed on how to run away and hide in order to survive until someone better versed in magical combat showed up to deal with a dark wizard attacking them.

After the lunch, Harry dropped by his room in the Slytherin dormitories to drop off his schoolbag, and, just like he had decided when he got his timetable earlier today, went to explore the castle. Indeed, it sounded like a good idea to know where each of the classrooms was located: if it wasn't for the prefects showing them where the DADA classroom was located, the entirety of Slytherin first years would have been late for the class. And professor Armstrong didn't look like someone who would overlook such tardiness, even on the first day. With that in mind, Harry took his timetable as well as a piece of parchment and a quill to take notes with him on his little 'adventure'.

His exploration of the castle started well enough as he managed to locate the Hogwarts Library pretty quickly. Unfortunately, this good luck didn't hold, and, almost as soon as the young Potter finished mapping the important locations on the first floor and went up to the second, he ran into trouble:

"Look, what do we have here?" A hateful voice asked. It belonged to a rheumatic man with hunched shoulders and a hunchback. The man had a horribly pouchy and pasty face, bulging pale eyes and sunken veined cheeks... Far from a pleasant visage. "Some annoying little bugger who wants nothing more than make the life of old Argus Filch a living hell..."

"I'm only exploring the castle so that I wouldn't get lost, sir." Harry tried to placate the man.

"Were you now?" Filch said, clearly not believing a word the green-eyed boy had said. Then he noticed the parchments in his hands. "What's this?" He asked while tearing those our of Harry's grasp. And, unfortunately for the said wizard, his barely-started hand-drawn map of the castle was on top. "Aha!" Filch exclaimed triumphantly. "Planning some big, nasty prank are we? We can't have, now can we?" And with that he tore both Harry's map and his timetable underneath it into tiny pieces. Ignoring the boy's protests, he continued: "I would love nothing more than to hang troublemakers like you by their toes in my dungeon and lash them until they repent for their sins, but the old fool of the headmaster has forbidden such practices... Now I can't even give the brat like you a detection if I didn't catch you in the act..." Shaking his ugly head as he kept recalling the good old times when corporal punishments were the thing, Filch announced: "Twenty points from Slytherin for open trouble-making!" The young Potter stared at the man in utter shock, unable to fully process the injustice he had just been subjected to.

"B-but, sir, I..." He began, only to be interrupted by Filch.

"What more do you want from me, brat? Get lost before I too decide to forget about the rules and lash you till you scream and bleed!" After this, Harry wisely decided that arguing with this abhorrent excuse of a caretaker would only make his situation even worse, so he fled. Once sufficiently far away from Filch, the young Potter tried to think of what he should do next, and he definitely needed to do something: not only did he lose more or less all of the points Slytherin had at the moment, but he also was in the need of a new timetable now... And seeing as it was professor Snape who gave it to him this morning, Harry decided that paying his head of the house a visit was the best course of action.

Unfortunately for the young Potter, the Potions Master wasn't in his office in the Slytherin dungeons. And checking the Potions classroom nearby revealed that the man was teaching a class at the moment and likely wouldn't like it if he was disturbed... Letting out a heavy sigh, the green-eyed wizard leaned against the wall as he waited for the bell to ring.

He had to wait for fifteen or so minutes – which felt like several hours – but, eventually, the class was over. And once the older students began leaving the classroom, Harry walked in and approached his head of the house, who looked like he wasn't in the best of his moods.

"Something you need, Potter?" Professor Snape asked while trying to bore a hole through the green-eyed wizards head with his glare.

"Ah-... Yes, professor." Harry wizard replied with fake confidence. "You see... I was exploring the castle... Trying to find where all of the classrooms were located so that I wouldn't get lost and... I ran into Filch." Snape shifted a little at the mention of that man's name. Meanwhile, Harry continued: "He took my map of the castle, and my timetable... And destroyed them. And took points from me because he thought I was staging a prank or something."

"And were you?" The Potions Master asked, his glare now so intense that Harry felt like he was looking straight into his soul.

"O-of course not, professor." The young Potter replied, utterly terrified of the wizard in front of him.

"I see." Professor Snape said. "How many points did Filch take from you?"

"T-Twenty, sir." Harry replied.

"Very well." His head of the house said with a small sigh. "I will revoke this points loss, Mr. Potter. Also, take ten points to Slytherin for not being a dunderhead and ensuring that you will be able to find your way around the castle without getting lost."

"T-Thank you, sir!" Harry said quickly, not truly believing his luck; he hadn't had high hopes about professor Snape revoking the unjust loss of house points, and he certainly hadn't expected the man to actually praise him – by the way of giving him house points – for anything at all. Perhaps, the green-eyed wizard decided, his head of the house wasn't as bad man as his unfriendly appearance or the rumors spread by the students from other houses might suggest.

"And about your timetable, Mr. Potter." The Potions Master continued. "There were no extra copies made, so I can't give you a replacement right now, but I promise that you will have it given to you by the end of the dinner tonight." Harry nodded.

"Thank you, sir." He thanked professor Snape again. The man nodded, before continuing:

"And a word of advice, Mr. Potter: do your best to avoid Argus Filch. As you've experienced it yourself, he would not hesitate to punish you even if you did absolutely nothing wrong." He then made a pause for a brief moment: "Now get going."

"Yes, sir!" Harry replied as he hurried out of the Potions classroom.

Astronomy, in Harry's opinion, was an ...okay class. It was important, and professor Sinistra was quite passionate about it, but, honestly, being forced to point his telescope towards a certain star or planet took a lot of fun out of stargazing. The fact that the class took place so late in the night and he had to fight his sleepiness throughout the entire lecture didn't help any.

Still, like professor Sinistra had explained at the beginning of her class, Astronomy was a very important subject as good knowledge of skies above was quite necessary for achieving good results in several other branches of magic, such as astrology or rituals. Thus, despite being quite indifferent to Astronomy itself right now, Harry made a silent vow to study hard as he found himself quite interested in the ritual magic and decided that he wanted to study it one day.

That's all, folks!
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