And the tenth chapter is finally here, enjoy!

* Review Response:
kazikamikaze24, sorry, man, not happening.
ViktornovaMk2, The Sinful, Scarlett Woman, SleepiPanda, Ranmaleopard, JPElles, thank you for your reviews, folks!
TheBlackCatSwordsman, magitech, Kingdark, Harry did include the reasons, though the chapter isn't describing much of what Lucius does in response to that. Nor do I have any plans for him confronting Dumbledore about this yet.

* AN:
Great thanks to Remilia - The Scarlet Moon and greysongarr for their help with the 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 X: Holiday Time

Lucius Malfoy let out an uncharacteristic sigh as he looked up from an old journal he was studying. Apparently, the Hogwarts charter indeed granted the acting headmaster quite a lot of power over the lives of the students who had no magical guardians. And Dumbledore certainly was a man who would go out of his way to keep the Boy-Who-Lived as far away from those who followed the Dark Lord as he possibly could... Perhaps, the lord Malfoy thought, Harry Potter was completely honest about the reason why he won't be able to attend the Yule party.

That certainly was a point in Mr. Potter's favor. Too bad, his good opinion of the boy did little to help dealing with the problems the rejected invitation created: somehow – here Lucius suspected his own son's big mouth – the information that he was inviting the Boy-Who-Lived to the Yule party got leaked, and now a good number of people assumed that the boy will be there. And, of course, these people will be much displeased when the reality doesn't match their expectations...

And while letting the boy take the fall would be an easy way out of this situation, Lucius didn't believe that this was how he should proceed. It was just not right. Plus, while placating all these people might not be all that easy, he was quite willing to do that as shielding Mr. Potter from the fallout of this whole mess would make quite a good foundation for a future consociation between them. A consociation that Lucius really would like to establish.

Now, if only there was an easy way to placate all those people who will be majorly disappointed when the Boy-Who-Lived doesn't show up at the Yule party he's hosting...

~/ *** \~

It took Harry a few days to realize it, but the headmaster forbidding him to attend the Malfoy's party was actually a good thing. Indeed, with how excited he had been about receiving an invitation, he had completely forgotten about the potion he was brewing in his secret 'lab'. Or, to be more precise, it was the fact that he needed to perform certain crucial steps in brewing it on the day of the party that slipped from his mind. Of course, that didn't mean he suddenly wasn't angry at Dumbledore anymore, but...

Anyhow, now that he got his mind back on track, the green-eyed youth concentrated on making sure he doesn't screw up and ruin his brew. And on getting good marks on the upcoming end-of-semester tests too, of course. He, after all, greatly enjoyed the peace that came with being an exemplary student in Slytherin, and didn't want to lose it.

The next few days flew by without anything notable happening at Hogwarts. Even the Weasley twins seemed to have cut back on playing pranks on the castle's inhabitants. Then, on the Friday of the penultimate week of the semester, some excitement was brought into Harry's life: when he was leaving the Great Hall after his lunch, he was approached by one of his Ravenclaw classmates, Marietta Edgecomb. The brown-haired witch practically shoved a folded piece of parchment into his hands, before beating a hasty retreat back to the 'Claw table.

Letting out a small sigh, the Potter heir let his curiosity get better of him and, stepping into a small alcove next to the entrance into the Great Hall, opened the note. It turned out to be a formally-written message from some older students. And while it was signed, Harry had never come across those names before, so he had about zero idea who these upperclassmen were... Anyway, this message was an invitation to a study group that the older 'Claws ran for they housemates as well as for some picked out students from other houses.

This 'Ravenclaw Study Group' was quite well known throughout the school and much coveted by the student body. Being invited into it was considered an honor... And, to his best knowledge, he was the first Slytherin in his year to get an invitation. Also, while he might never know exactly why he was chosen, Harry certainly wanted to think that it was him being always polite and respectful to others was paying off big time...

Anyhow, there study group held a meeting that day and, since he had no other plans for the evening, the green-eyed wizard decided that he might as well go there and see just what this all was about.

As it turned out, the much-coveted Ravenclaw Study Group wasn't all that different from the normal ones. The biggest difference probably was the presence of the older students, who mentored their underclassmen in whatever subjects they were having difficulties. This study group also had an organized schedule for the meetings and a nice room with a small library of textbooks and reference literature that covered all seven years of Hogwarts curriculum.

Still, not being outlandishly-different didn't mean that this group wasn't any good. Because it was great! Even though he attended only a single meeting so far, Harry already knew that this was the best study group ever and that he would be quite sad, should his privilege of attending it be revoked. Indeed, despite being an good student who got mostly Os these days, he still learned more than a few things from listening to his seniors explaining stuff.

More interesting than the Ravenclaw Study Group itself, however, was the reaction of Harry's housemates to him being invited there – How did they all know about that anyway? He hasn't told anyone about it, nor has he shown anyone the invitation – all of them, even the people he wasn't exactly on the good terms with, congratulated him on earning this distinction and honor. Even professor Snape, who generally kept his distance from him, told him how proud of him he was.

What the scion of the house Potter wasn't aware of, however, was the fact that this all caused his already non-dismissible reputation among his housemates grow even more. To the point where he was, without knowing it, well on his way to becoming the unofficial leader of his year. Or maybe even more than just that, seeing as even some of the older 'Snakes' were looking up to him a bit.

~/ *** \~

Even though the castle had been decorated for awhile now, it was only after the end-of-semester tests were over that the Christmas spirit finally took a firm hold over the student body. And, unfortunately for Harry, it meant that pretty much everyone was now discussing their plans for holidays and how they were going to celebrate Christmas with their families: he was quite used to being without a (real) family – the Dursleys were relatives and nothing more to him – but it still hurt a little...

Still, this was going to be his first Christmas without the Dursleys in the way, and Harry would be damned if he didn't enjoy the celebrations as much as he could. And that, most definitely, included exchanging gifts. Of course, finding good presents while stuck inside Hogwarts was not easy for the Potter scion, especially when he still couldn't claim that he knew his ...friends really well, but sending them even token gifts like Honeydukes' chocolates and some postcards he had made himself still made him feel good.

And when, on the Boxing Day morning he discovered quite a few gifts (also token ones) addressed to him under the Christmas tree in the Slytherin common room, Harry was over the moon. These were the first proper gifts he had ever received – or, at least, remembered receiving – and, despite being nothing special, they still made him feel like he was the happiest person in the entire world!

~/ *** \~

It was early evening of December 26th when Harry made his way into his secret 'laboratory' to check on the potion he had been brewing for the past month. It was done, at last. And, if his senses weren't lying, he managed to brew it satisfactorily. Not perfectly as the color was a little off, and the fumes didn't swirl exactly like the recipe said they should, but it was close enough to call this attempt a success. Which was a great relief to the green-eyed wizard as he greatly doubted he would be able to pull off a second project like this without being found...

Setting the thoughts on how lucky he was to never get caught aside, Harry took the cauldron off the fire and poured its contents into a large bottle he had prepared earlier. The maturation-accelerating potion had a shelf life of over a year, so, unless something happened to this bottle, he won't have to worry about brewing it ever again.

Once all of the potion was emptied into the bottle, Harry poured off about a spoon-worth of it into a cup he fetched for today. It was the time to test his brew... And, the young wizard would be totally lying if he said that he wasn't quite scared at that moment: there were just so many things that could go wrong despite the potion appearing to be safe and brewed correctly. But nothing at all would happen if he just continued sitting there, eyeing the potion apprehensively, so Harry picked the cup up and brought it to his lips.

"Cheers." He said to himself, before gulping his brew down. And, well, while it certainly didn't taste great, it wasn't disgustingly-vile either. It also didn't make him keel over right away; his head didn't suddenly explode in unbearable pain and his skin didn't turn green or anything like that. In fact, the aftertaste in his mouth aside, Harry didn't feel any different now that he did a minute ago... Which, probably, was a good thing. This potion wasn't supposed to have any immediately-noticeable effects after all; it merely accelerated the rate at which one's body matured.

After waiting for another half an hour or so, just in case something unexpected did happen to him because of the potion, Harry decided that it was the time for him to head back to the Slytherin common room. And, thus, the green-eyed Potter began his journey back to the dungeons, the bottle of his precious potion in his hands...

The castle was so empty with the absolute majority of its usual inhabitants celebrating the holidays at home – even Mr. Filch wasn't stalking the corridors as much as usual – that the young wizard found himself paying a bit less attention to where he was going than he normally did. And this almost cost him his brew when he practically ran into not-exactly-sober professor Babbling near the entrance into the Slytherin dungeons.

"Mr. Potter?" The female professor asked, a note of surprise clear in her voice. There was a bit of a pause, before she continued: "What are you doing here? And what's that?" She asked while nodding towards the bottle in Harry's hands.

"A-ahm!.." The green-eyed boy 'replied' as he did his best to collect his thoughts. "I was... ah... doing some self-study for Potions... You know how professor Snape is, always expecting the perfection..." He tried to make up a plausible excuse as to why he was out there with a bottle full of a potion most people probably didn't even know existed. Professor Babbling eyed him for a few drawn out seconds, long enough to make him really scared that she saw right through his lie, before shrugging.

"You should've used one of the laboratories in the dungeons." She pointed out. Then, without waiting for him to say anything in response, she headed up the Grand Staircase, leaving quite a mixed up Harry behind. Shaking his head, the Potter scion resumed his journey while deciding not to dwell too much on what has just happened.

Still, he couldn't help but think that he should be a bit more aware of his surroundings. And, should he do more 'secret projects' in the future – which, actually, was not unlikely – he would also need a way to check whether there was someone behind a door or a corner. After all, it would be really bad if he lost hours upon hours of his hard work just because he crashed into Filch right at the doors of his 'secret laboratory'.

~/ *** \~

The next morning Harry found himself in the Hogwarts library, browsing through the many magical tomes there in searches for some useful detection spells. Thankfully for him, such spells weren't some sort of a forbidden topic and he needn't sneak into the Restricted Section to find books describing various methods of magical detection.

Alas, most of those methods were a bit too complicated for him right now... Most but not all. The basic detection ward and the Homenum Revelio charm looked to be simple enough that even a first year could master them after just a couple of days of practice. They also appeared to be useful in about every situation that the Potter heir could think of. Thus, he saw no reason not to try them out. And if they turned out to be not what he needed, well, he could always come back to the library and pick something else...

Anyway, having copied down what he needed from the books, Harry retreated to his 'laboratory' to practice these new pieces of magic in peace. And he decided to experiment with the detection ward first as it was a bit more complex and couldn't be used without marking the boundaries one wanted to monitor with (thankfully very simple) runic arrays.

It took him a few hours of trial and error, but eventually Harry got the ward to work, somewhat. At least, it now reacted to him crossing the boundary most of the time... Deciding to call this a success, the young Potter switched to experimenting with the human detection charm: its incantation was kind of tricky, but it didn't require any complex wand movements learning it wasn't especially hard. And after spending maybe ten minutes, memorizing the incantation, Harry decided that it was the time to try casting the spell:

"Homenum Revelio!" He intoned, waving his wand in the general direction he wanted to 'scan'. Surprisingly enough, the spell told him that there was someone close by. Which was quite strange given how there were pretty much no students in the castle right now and the professors (and Filch) usually didn't patrol this corridor. Plus, Harry couldn't hear anyone out there... Perhaps he made some sort of mistake that caused the spell to give a false-positive result? "Homenum Revelio!" He tried again, this time getting the result he was expecting: he was alone in this part of Hogwarts.

And now that the spell was working like he expected it to, Harry decided that it was the time to test it in the situation where there actually was someone to detect. And for that he'd need some help... Perhaps, it was the time he made friends with the his upperclassman?

Peter Pettigrew, disguised as Scabbers the rat, was now hiding in a dark corner, doing his best to recover from a heart attack he had moments ago when he was suddenly hit by a human-detection spell. Was his disguise somehow compromised? He certainly hoped it wasn't so as he'd rather not leave the comfortable life he enjoyed as Weasleys' pet rat behind...

It looked like Lady Luck was on his side tonight, though: whoever cast that spell apparently wasn't expecting to discover him and thought that the results he got were a mistake... Peter let out a sigh of a relief. He wasn't in danger of being discovered. Not right now, at least. Still, perhaps he should be more careful from now on and stop wander around as much. After all, were the person who cast that spell a trained wizard and not some wet-behind-ears youth, he'd be in great trouble.

With that thought in mind, Peter began his journey back to the Gryffindor tower, cautiously navigating through the corridors as he did his best to remain unseen and unnoticed by the castle inhabitants.

That's all, folks!
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