Dragon pottah

by Dextrode

A

2. 1,10 - 2,5

1.10 In which certain truths are uncovered

1.10.1 An unpleasant surprise

As the first month of the fall term drew to a close, the usual group of Hogwarts professors met for their now-customary ancillary staff meeting regarding the young Great Wyrm resident in the adjoining forest.

"So, we meet again to discuss our progress with young Harry," Albus began, again accepting a drink from his charms professor, Flitwick, who seemed to have developed a penchant for tending bar. The drink of choice this time was a faintly glowing golden brew provided by Pomona Sprout. Served in a beer stein, the brew was apparently a derivative of mead which was smooth, sweet, and which — the woman assured her peers — kicked like a mule.

Albus continued, "I for one, have been amazed at his progress with Occlumency. We proceed slowly, for I am loath to push too hard or too fast, but he has taken to the practice like a duck to water. I daresay he will come through the learning process unscathed." He took a celebratory draught of his glowing liquor, joined in doing so by Madame Pomfrey, who looked eminently relieved. Both then nodded their appreciation to the herbology professor. "What other progress is there to report?"

There was some back-and-forth among the group clustered about the staffroom fireplace to see who would report next. The group had expanded once again, this time, in addition to the four Heads, the Headmaster, Madams Pomfrey and Hooch, and Septima Vector, they were joined by Bathsheda Babbling, Professor of Ancient Runes, and the perpetually-intoxicated Sybil Trelawney, Divination instructor, the latter drawing an unpleasant look from Minerva McGonagall even before any words were exchanged.

"He's reached the end of what I can teach him," Madame Hooch began, apparently chosen as the first speaker by unspoken acclamation. "We've got him able to take off and land smoothly, and he can avoid stationary obstacles. The rest will simply have to come through practice, which he can do on his own. Teaching precision means close quarters flying, and I for one am not willing to risk my neck there."

That prompted an understanding nod from her colleagues. No one wanted to be in that position. Albus stroked his beard thoughtfully, though. Perhaps he knew someone who might be interested in helping…

"I take it that it that Mr. Potter's flying lessons have come to an end, then Rolanda?" Minerva confirmed.

"Indeed, that slot on his schedule is now open, at least until broom lessons next fall."

"I suppose I should continue then," the transfiguration professor said. "Mr. Potter has mastered transfiguring himself into a human form, as I am sure you have all seen. Additionally, he has extended his repertoire to include a centaur form as well as two bird forms, a seagull and a common pigeon," she relayed proudly. "I must admit, I was somewhat concerned about his choice of animal forms, as both are quite vulnerable to various predators, but it seems he maintains his strength in any transfigured form." The woman chuckled, "I was quite horrified when a hawk stooped on him in pigeon form, until he rounded on the bird and beat it senseless with his wings before proceeding to eat the creature."

"I believe my lessons with the boy will taper off into periodic sessions to check on his progress with new forms as he chooses," Minerva concluded. "At least until next school year, of course. I look forward to seeing what he can do with transfiguration outside this narrow application." Her voice turned challenging, "What news do you bring, Sybil? I have difficulty imagining young Mr. Potter taking an interest in divination of all things."

At this, Flitwick stepped in before Sybil could pull herself out of her glass — she was halfway through her second and had already been deep in her sherry before the meeting began. "Sybil is actually here because she was helping with a joint project I've been working on with Septima and Bathsheda."

As Minerva backed away from her aggressive stance, he continued, "In our last meeting, Septima sprung that aura estimate on us," while everyone chuckled, the young arithmancer's contribution sounded rather sheepish, "so we set out to examine the stone ring at Avebury."

The small man spoke further, "The device is surprisingly elaborate, and analyzing it has proven fascinating. As it happens, the standing stones are only the smallest part of the whole, the magical structure extends deep into the bedrock of the site — deeper than my spells can penetrate, in fact. There are inscriptions carved into the bedrock, on many levels of it, which led us to bring in Bathsheda. The languages involved are ancient even by her standards, so they have thus far defied translation, but examination of the rock that young Harry encountered allowed me to pull traces of the energy flow from the incident."

Flitwick's eager expression turned somber. "If anything, Septima's estimate was conservative — understandably so, since she was measuring the end effect rather than the causative flow from the incident itself, and there will always be losses. The energy transferred during that incident, if it were to be channeled into an equivalent blasting curse, would have left a crater miles deep and stretching from Dublin to Paris."

His audience gasped, stunned at that scale. Before they could speak, he continued, grimly, "That is the effect if the energy were channeled into a purpose; left unchanneled, the blast would have been smaller — still large enough to annihilate an area the size of London, mind — but the wild magic effects would have been devastating." His knuckles whitened as his grip on his glass tightened, "Everything from Iceland to the Urals, from the Arctic to Tunisia, would have been just as magical as the less pleasant portions of the Forbidden Forest! A full fifteenth of the world would have been rendered effectively uninhabitable." The half-goblin paused to take a drink.

"And what is the bad news?" Snape asked.

"Severus, this is no joking matter!" Minerva exclaimed.

"Had we dodged such a fate cleanly, Filius would be back to his usual cheerful self, as he is still attempting to fortify himself to continue, the explanation must indubitably get worse."

"Well reasoned, Severus," Flitwick acknowledged. "During our examination, Septima noted that the entire ring occupied a convergence of ley-lines and was intimately entwined with them, and Bathsheda thought to ask whether this was the only one. It seemed a decent question to ask, so we approached Sybil to scry for the other such intersections nearby." He nodded to Minerva, "No matter what you might think of divination as a means to predict the future, there is no denying its utility in learning about the present, and such magical flows are some of the easiest things to scry."

He took another drink, glass nearly empty. "With Sybil's help, we visited three such ley-line intersections within the Isles, there are several more, but those three were enough to give us an idea of what was going on."

Snape took a swig of his own, "I take it there were more of the things?"

"Of course there bloody well were! Every intersection we checked was home to one of those devices, all of them holding back tremendous amounts of energy. I have no doubt whatsoever that there is one of them at every intersection, at least in the Isles, probably around the world." The half goblin knocked back the rest of his drink. "Every single one can potentially end civilization as we know it and there are hundreds of the blasted things!"

"Have you any idea what triggers the rings?" Albus sounded troubled, and everyone in the room knew to be nervous when Albus sounded anything other than grandfatherly.

"No, and I am supremely reluctant to putter about with the things when a single misstep could annihilate Europe."

"We do have a single example of a safe activation and draining in the form of young Mr. Potter," Albus mused. "Can anything be gleaned from his experiences?"

"I have already approached Mr. Potter, and he was willing to share his memories of the event," Flitwick spoke again, "but his memories are fragmented due to the great strain he was under at the time. I was unable to glean anything useful. Anything we learn from Mr. Potter will need to be deduced from his transformation."

"It seems that Poppy and I will have a new project, then," Minerva spoke up, accompanied by a nod from the school Healer.

Snape spoke up again, "There are three witnesses remaining in the form of Mr. Potter's relatives."

"Will they be willing to share their memories?" Minerva asked doubtfully. "They did not seem terribly accepting of their nephew, nor of magic in general. I doubt they would agree to sharing memories."

"They will," Snape assured her. "One way, or another."

On that ominous note, the entire group finished off the remainder of their drinks. That hinted at things they felt they would be better off forgetting.

"Severus, be cautious," Albus cautioned. "We can ill-afford undue attention at this juncture."

His only answer was a dismissive scoff.

1.10.2 Reunion

The neighborhood had not changed in the last two years, it was still dull, pathologically conformist and shockingly self-absorbed. The houses were still disturbingly similar, to the point that even long-term residents would need the house numbers to tell them apart, but the atmosphere was quite distinct from that of his last visit, as Severus again approached Number Four, Privet Drive.

Where before the atmosphere had been stultifying, crushing those around it into its own pedestrian normality, now the house seemed to exude a sense of unassuming but still warm welcome, despite remaining otherwise indistinguishable from its neighbors. Had the boy's family moved? Or, and this was a horrifying thought, had he softened this much?

He supposed there was only one way to find out. Severus knocked on the door before retreating several steps away from the entrance. He could hear a cry of 'I'll get it' followed by the heavy clamor of a sizeable body roughly navigating a set of stairs, only for his knock to be answered by a young boy who was quite large for his age. The young man was heavyset but appeared to be in decent condition if his even breathing after his apparent hurried traversal of the house was any indication.

"Is this the Dursley residence, young man?" Snape asked. The question was only a formality, as the resemblance between the boy and his father was patently obvious, but even Snape felt the need to observe certain social niceties, particularly with those who had yet to do him any wrong.

The boy nodded, wide-eyed, as an irritatingly familiar female voice rang from deeper within the house. "Don't open that door!" Another, significantly lighter clamor followed before the voice sounded again, this time much closer. "Dudley Vernon Dursley! What have I told you about answering the door without waiting for me to come with you?"

The young boy, apparently named Dudley — an inward shudder of sympathy passed through Snape at the name; he'd thought 'Severus' was unfortunate — quickly turned to face his mother, a look of horrified contrition on his face.

"I've told you not to, that's what!" Petunia Evans's voice continued. Well, it was Petunia Dursley now; Snape had to remind himself. At her son's apology, she bent to give him a hug, before continuing, "Son, we ask you to do these things to keep you safe. Who knows who might be coming by? You should wait until your father or I are there before you open the door, do you understand?" He nodded. "Good! Now then, who is it at the door?"

"I don't know yet, he's just finished asking if this is the Dursley residence." At his mother's encouraging gesture, Dudley asked the obviously practiced question, "May I ask who is calling?"

"I am Severus Snape," he could see Petunia pale at the name, her eyes snapping to meet his through the partially-opened door, "and your mother and I were acquainted in our youth. I have come to ask some questions about a certain incident, some two years passed, involving your cousin, Harry Potter."

On hearing this, the young boy's eyes lit up with an enthusiasm to match the magnitude of his mother's apprehension. "You know Harry? How is he doing?"

"He fares quite well, young man, and has adjusted to his new home. I will inform him that you asked after him; I am certain he will be appreciative," Severus said before turning to Petunia, "As I mentioned to your son, I have some questions for your family, both you and your husband. Is he available at this time?"

"It will be a few minutes before Vernon gets home. May I offer you tea in the meantime?" The offer only came after a glance at her son. Presumably she realized that she had to set a proper example of hospitality for the boy. Severus got the impression that, had she her druthers, Petunia would throw him out on his ear. Though, judging by her whitened knuckles, she might settle for wringing his neck as well.

Naturally, Severus accepted her offer; tweaking Petunia's nose was a reminder of older, more pleasant times.

The tea was a tense affair. Dudley had rapidly realized that this was going to be one of those boring adult things and retreated up the stairs, declaring to anyone interested that he was going to finish his homework. Meanwhile, Snape sipped his tea after discreetly checking it for any deleterious additives; he was a potions master, after all.

The time before Vernon's arrival passed in tense silence with Petunia managing to show a truly prodigious degree of antipathy without actually saying anything. It was rather impressive; Snape hadn't known she was capable of expressing herself so effectively.

He was tempted to take notes.

It was this scene that an unfortunate Vernon Dursley encountered on his arrival home after work.

1.10.3 Unpleasant reminders

It had been a good day at work, Vernon Dursley thought as he pulled into his driveway. Ever since his nephew had moved to new accommodations, everything had been going his way on the job.

Despite taking almost a three-month sabbatical to look after his nephew the year before last, Vernon's sales figures since had more than made up for the loss. The additional contacts he had made while scrounging for scrap to feed the insatiable young dragon had expanded his customer base threefold, many of whom were small machine shops willing to deal with him almost exclusively because they were impressed by his character, and that he would go so far to look after his nephew's interests — he had presented it as feeding a hobby for the boy, rather than a thoroughly unbelievable medical issue.

His supervisor was impressed for much the same reason. Any man willing to take the time to look after his family despite financial hardship was a straight shooter in his boss' mind, and he'd made sure that Vernon would go far at Grunnings.

It helped that it was the truth from Vernon's perspective as well.

Life at home was another matter. Vernon's eyes had been opened by his enforced time at the house, and he was deeply disturbed by Petunia's behavior. She had misled him regarding both Harry's and Dudley's behavior, and in his ignorance, Vernon had almost done irreparable harm to both boys. Thinking back on his treatment of his nephew before the incident at Avebury still turned his stomach.

He had nearly filed for divorce until he had a solid man-to-man talk with Richard from down the street who had similar problems with his wife, Hyacinth. Richard had suggested counseling, and he and Petunia were able to work things out. Pet had been getting counseling of her own as well. It was expensive, but Vernon figured it was worth it to have a happy family. Dudders was healthier and happier than he'd ever been before, and Pet was much nicer to be around.

As he opened the door, his wife called out in that brittle voice she used when she was straining to keep from lashing out at something, "Vernon, we have a visitor."

As Vernon entered the sitting room, he understood why Petunia was having such difficulties. One of the freaks who had helped move his nephew had shown up and was seated, drinking tea. Vernon had decidedly mixed feelings about that sort, and Pet was much worse off than he was.

"Pet, would you like me to handle this?" he offered.

"Please," came the flat reply.

"You just go try to relax, Pet." As his wife walked stiffly out of the room, Vernon turned back to the dark-haired man. At least this one was dressed sensibly, if a bit old-fashioned.

He held out a hand, "Not sure if we were properly introduced last time, given all the bustle. Vernon Dursley."

"And I am Severus Snape," the now-named man replied, giving his hand a firm shake.

"You were one of the fellows who moved my nephew, right?" Vernon confirmed. When the visitor nodded in confirmation, he asked, "How's the boy doing?"

"The young man is doing quite admirably," the man said.

"That's good to hear," Vernon sighed explosively, "was afraid you were here to tell us something had happened to him."

"I am somewhat surprised to hear your concern," Snape remarked, "given my conversations with the boy and his recollections of his time under this roof."

Vernon had been afraid of that. His treatment of his nephew was a lingering source of shame. "I can understand that. I'm not proud of how I treated the boy back then. I… I was misinformed about the boy's behavior and was trying to correct things my son was doing, and my wife was blaming on Harry." He leaned back heavily in his chair. "Obviously didn't work since there was nothing to correct, and in hindsight I'm sure it drove the boy to distraction as much as it did me. It also let Dudders get away with all kinds of things. I just got more and more frustrated, and I was starting to turn into a person that I really don't like very much, looking back on it."

"I see."

"That thing at Avebury was probably the best thing that could have happened, really," Vernon mused. "Pretty sure a few more years would have ruined us all… By the way, I apologize for my wife's hostility. She's been working through some things, a lot of grief over the loss of her sister that she's just coming to terms with. She's got a lot of anger bottled up over your lot for stealing her away, right or wrong."

"I see; that is a depth of emotion that I had not anticipated from Petunia Evans," Snape remarked, surprised. "Congratulations on your wife's development as a person."

"Now see here! Where do you get off making remarks like that?" Vernon demanded.

"I grew up down the street from the Evans household, in my youth," the dark man replied calmly. "The sister you speak of was my best, and truly only, childhood friend. I knew Petunia quite well when we were younger, and it seems that she is much matured since then, if your statement is true."

"Oh," Vernon said, mollified. "I see." This was awkward, perhaps a change of subject?

"Ah, to go back to Harry, you see him often?" The man nodded, and Vernon continued. "Do you think you could give him a letter? I've been working on it for a while, so I could try to apologize. I would have sent it, but I don't know where to address the thing. Pet still breaks down every time I try to ask."

"I would be pleased to carry such a missive," it was hard to tell, but Vernon thought there might be a glint of approval in the man's eyes. "Perhaps, though, we should go on to the reason for my presence here?"

"Right!" Vernon was mightily embarrassed. That should have been the first thing he asked! Where was his professional demeanor? Business first, then personal talk.

1.10.4 Pleasant surprises

"I have come seeking additional information regarding the events which led to Mr. Potter's transformation," Snape began. "While Mr. Potter is quite disgustingly healthy, issues have arisen regarding the means which made his change in nature possible."

Snape had come to this house expecting to find a pair of at least semi-hostile dunderheads, instead he found a couple struggling through their preconceptions and repentant for past actions. This was rare enough in Snape's experience to warrant significant surprise, and he was impressed enough to offer more information than he otherwise would have.

"My colleagues have investigated the amount of energy which was discharged during that event, and it could have quite severe consequences if released incautiously," the potions master began, "Consequences to the tune of rendering Europe uninhabitable."

"My God!"

"Indeed, Mr. Dursley," Snape agreed. "It seems that the stone circle at Avebury was, in truth, a device intended to store tremendous amounts of energy for future use. If it were the only such device, there would be little cause for concern, as it has safely discharged with the only consequence being a rather oversized lizard who is thoroughly pleased with his new circumstances."

"Sounds like you've found more of them, though," Vernon said.

"Quite right. At least three more confirmed in the Isles, and possibly several dozen, with potentially hundreds or thousands worldwide," Snape elaborated. "Faced with such a clear and present danger, we are investigating just how the things work, but we are reluctant to meddle with any of them when the potential consequences are so high. I have come to attempt to convince you to share your recollections of the event, so that we might have a first-hand account of the activation of one of the devices."

"I'd like to help you, but I don't know how much I can tell you; I don't really know what you're looking for."

"With your consent, I can extract a copy of your memories of the event which we can then examine in great detail using a device available in our world," Snape offered. "The process is painless."

"I get keep my memories, right?" Vernon's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I know Pet said something about removing memories before…"

"That is known as obliviation, the process of blocking memories from future recall," Snape volunteered. "I find it to be a generally detestable practice, but this, I assure you, is a completely different process which copies the memories in question leaving your original memories fully intact."

"I'll help you out with that, then." Snape was pleasantly surprised by this development.

After an anticlimactic exchange in which he filled one of his ever-present sample bottles with Vernon Dursley's memories of that evening in Avebury and received an envelope to go with it, Snape thanked the man briefly and stood to leave.

"I must say, Mr. Dursley; I went on this errand expecting a distasteful chore based on what I had understood of Mr. Potter's past situation, but I find myself pleasantly surprised. You have recognized your own failings and are making admirable efforts towards correcting them, a quality that is all too lacking in most."

Snape nodded to the man, "I daresay you may well be able to repair your relationship with your nephew, as he is an agreeable sort. As the product of an… unpleasant family situation, myself, I can assure you that those willing to make such an effort as you have are rare, indeed. My own father was certainly not one of them. I offer my heartfelt felicitations."

With that, he swept out of the house and away to a secluded spot for his portkey transit. Vernon was left gaping on the doorstep.

1.10.5 New reading material

Time passed as it usually did, and Harry once again had a great deal to occupy his time. In addition to his games with Suze, he now had his first taste of letter writing, as the correspondence from his Uncle Vernon touched off a regular exchange among Harry, his uncle, and his cousin, who Harry had now learned was no longer nasty. His Aunt Petunia was apparently still working through things, but Uncle Vernon held hopes that they might eventually accept Harry's offer to host a Christmas celebration at the Lair someday.

Uncle Vernon said she was still working through guilt over how she behaved before. Harry didn't really understand why that would make you spend less time with the person you behaved badly towards rather than more trying to make things up, but he eventually accepted the explanation at face value. Aunt Petunia had never made sense before, so he figured there was no reason for her to start now, even if she was apparently nicer.

With his new experience at letter writing, Harry also struck up a correspondence with Corporal Hookknife, the engineer who had visited a while back. Harry hadn't yet been able to get the books on the list that the good corporal had left for him, and since he couldn't go to Diagon Alley until after summer solstice, Harry was at something of a loss on how to proceed.

The return letter got him all fired up for a new project.

It seemed that the books on the list weren't magical books at all. Apparently, the best books for the sorts of things he wanted to do to the Lair were written by the not-glowy people, and Corporal Hookknife suggested he go visit a public library. They might have the books there, and if not, Hookknife said they'd probably know where he could order them.

His glowy friends were really busy with the students, and they didn't have any new books for him to read in any case, not ones he could bring home, anyway. This new idea meant Harry would be awash in new reading material for years 'cause there were libraries all over! And he could fly all secret-like using the seagull and pigeon forms he had worked on over the summer for just that purpose, so that meant he could go anywhere in Scotland and back in a day. There were loads of libraries within that distance!

A quick bit of work gave the boy a second human form, this one an older gentleman who looked to be a little into retirement age modeled heavily on Magorian's human bits with human legs tacked on instead of horse — Hookknife had suggested it for actually going into the library, since they'd insist to see his parents if he went in looking like a kid, but people tended to ignore older people for good or ill. Harry soon found himself winging halfway across Scotland to Inverness, much faster than a pigeon could normally go on account of Harry's much greater strength.

1.10.6 An old Scotsman is surprised

It was looking to be a cold winter this year, he thought looking out at the steel-gray sky above the rooftops of Inverness.

In his youth, Aengus Leith had moved to Inverness to work in one of the distilleries, and over the course of his career there, he'd developed a liking for their product that was perhaps a touch excessive. Aengus had never found the right lass, and he was now the only member of his family still kicking, though he was proud of the wealth of good friends he had to his name. He now spent his twilight years in a miniscule flat one of those good friends was willing to let him use for cheap, freeing up the bulk of his retirement income to fund his lifelong love affair with single malt. He spent his days drinking and watching the birds as they flitted about the town.

He had just seen one particularly quick pigeon — male to judge from the iridescent green throat feathers — swoop down to a landing on the roof below his flat and walk with an odd sense of purpose to the edge of the roof, looking down the street towards the local library. It was odd but unremarkable, aside from the fact that its path took it perilously close to the local alley cat which was sunning itself on the roof in the autumn afternoon.

Aengus took a sip as the cat, a grizzled old tom, smoothly picked itself up and slinked off in pursuit of the bold grey bird. It looked like the old cat was going to eat well tonight. The old drunk lifted his glass in salute to the poor bird, only to be surprised when the cat's pounce ended with the cat falling flat as if it had jumped face-first into a fence post. The bird's head turned halfway around to stare with unnaturally green eyes at the bewildered cat half-draped over its back end before it let out a coo — a call that somehow managed to sound threatening even to Aengus' ears — and turned around with a deliberate stomp.

As the cat was shaking off its surprise, it was sent for another tumble as the odd bird puffed up threateningly before belting it with a wing, sending the old tom flying off the roof and into the alley with a yowl. Again, the pigeon surprised Aengus by following after the airborne feline with a deliberately predatory gait before gliding down into the alley and out of the old man's sight.

Perhaps he should have saluted the cat instead?

Old Aengus looked down at his glass before looking back out the window at the edge of the roof where the pigeon had disappeared. There was now a collection of other birds looking down into the alley with a sort of avian awe as a loud yowl echoed up from the alley until it was abruptly cut off by an unpleasant crunching sound.

That did it. The old man finished off his current glass before carefully capping the bottle and levering himself up out of his chair by the window. As he went for his coat, he shook his head. There'd be no more drinking alone if he was starting to hallucinate about god-pigeons that ate cats. It was time to go down to the bar, where at least a story like this one might get someone to buy his drinks for the night.

Properly attired for the evening, Aengus left the front door to the building just as a young lad who looked about eight years old ran out of the alley and almost bowled him over.

"Watch whaur ye'r gaun thare, young un'!"

The boy turned back to offer an apology, and then sped off toward the library after Aengus nodded in acknowledgement. The old man chuckled at the boy's enthusiasm before he was struck by just how unnaturally green the lad's eyes were…

He turned back to the alley next to his home that the boy had run out of, the same one the cat and the weird pigeon had disappeared into, before looking back toward the boy who had already disappeared from sight.

He shook his head. "Na, thay wull ne'er hawp it."

1.10.7 Schooling approaches

Harry's new library card soon took a proud place among his treasures, and he used it to its limits, quickly filling it with due date stamps as he read through dozens of books every week. He began with Hookknife's suggestions, but the public library stocked very few of them. The librarians were happy to direct either the friendly older gentleman or his eager young grandson — depending on whether he remembered to change before entering the library — to publisher's catalogues and book clubs that he could order books from — a service that Harry was quite willing to take advantage of — but order processing and shipping took six to eight weeks, and Harry needed something to read in the meantime.

Harry's horizons broadened considerably during that free reading time, and eventually he came to be almost grateful for the delays. There were so many things he never would have thought to look for if he'd been able to get just what he wanted exactly when he wanted it, and his almost random walk through the library were expanded in his book orders. Books on philosophy, religion and ethics shared shelf space with the Machinist's Handbook and a soft-cover DIY hydroelectric book. Architectural studies joined biology texts which sat next to physics treatises and political discourse, and books on every subject under the sun followed along in time.

Suze discovered just as much of a love of reading as her dragon did, though her pace was much slower, and many lazy autumn afternoons saw the pair lounging in the sun at the mouth of the Lair reading something esoteric and enjoying each other's company, but time passed as it always does, and with it, autumn passed into winter.

It was a stormy one that year, enough that Harry's offer to dig out a shelter for the Black Woods Clan at the base of the cliff around behind his Lair and out of the worst of the winds was gratefully accepted. Suze and Harry had to move their reading sessions inside, lest the winter gales steal their books from them, and the firelight proved decidedly inadequate for the task which brought Harry full circle to the reason he had gone on that trip to the library in the first place.

Much banging and frustrated book consultation ensued until eventually, there was a small waterwheel — built from a salvaged furnace fan and an alternator he picked out of his most recent lunch — installed at the mouth of the Lair which powered a small reading lamp for the two of them. After that, the violent weather became much more pleasant.

The winter gales continued to hammer the land through the solstice and Christmas and eventually transitioned into heavy rainstorms in the early spring. It was about this time that a new visitor began to appear at Harry's Lair.

On one of his visits, Mr. Dumbledore had brought along a phoenix by the name of Fawkes. The bird, a red-gold creature about the size of a very large swan and looking for all the world like a roiling mass of animated flames took an instant liking to the young dragon and his damsel and soon became a regular visitor.

As was his habit, Harry soon worked out a new game with his avian friend, tag. Fawkes was a wonderful flier, and their games of chase filled a gap in Harry's schedule that he hadn't realized he missed after his lessons with Madame Hooch ended. Harry was significantly faster than his new friend when traveling in a straight line, but Fawkes proved devilishly hard to catch, particularly when he did fiendishly devious things like changing direction. When the young dragon was all played out, Fawkes would often join the pair in the Lair for times filled with song and companionship.

Fawkes particularly enjoyed being bathed in Harry's fire for one reason or another.

As the heavy rains of spring gave way to the heat of summer, the school year came to a close, and the time for contacting new students approached. Several of Harry's professor friends came to his Lair for important discussions.

These discussions entailed important arrangements for Harry to attend Hogwarts as a student, starting with the subject of keeping his dragon-ness quiet and rapidly spiraled out of control after Harry apologetically explained his inability to sleep in any shape but his natural one, or rather, his tendency to spontaneously revert to his natural form if he was in any other shape when he went to sleep.

Considering that such a reversion would spell instant death to any of his roommates if he were to live in the standard accommodations, the school rules were quickly consulted to find some way of making alternative arrangements. Once that little wrinkle had been resolved by citing a rule about permitting students who live close enough to the castle to attend as day-students rather than boarding — it was a rule which was rarely exercised in the five hundred years since room and board fees had been lumped with tuition rather than charged separately; this coming year was unusual in that there would be a few other students in addition to Harry making use of it — they got on to the subject of where Suze was supposed to stay.

Harry got rather cross at the suggestion that it might be better if she were to stay with the other centaurs, and he got even more worked up at the suggestion that he might not be allowed to go to his Lair whenever he needed to make sure those nasty but tasty spiders weren't going after the centaurs again. After some snarky remarks from the resident potions master, who had once gotten rather ill from some badly-cooked acromantula, this was again resolved by reference to assorted entries in the mind-bogglingly complicated, not to mention huge, book of Hogwarts school rules. The thing was the size of a dinner table — one that could seat a family of five.

Predictably, Harry asked if he could read it. A question which was answered, "Yes, but not until later."

From there it devolved into chatting about all sorts of stuff ranging from what to do about Harry's dietary requirements to what to do if Harry found any more damsels at Hogwarts. This particular point raised a hullaballoo until Harry put the kibosh on the discussion by declaring that it wasn't 'if' but 'when', and when he did he would just carry her off as was good and proper, thank you very much, and they had all better stop being so silly about it at once — or else.

With that put to rest and the thin curls of smoke accompanying Harry's last declaration still lazily rising through the air, the topic of guns was raised, and with it came another uproar. Once again, Harry had to snap a bit to get everyone else to start being sensible. As guns were hard to get, it was obvious that they were a kind of treasure, and anyway, Sergeant Major Hooktalon said that if anyone wanted Harry's guns then they should have to prize them from his cold dead fingers, so everyone had better stop being silly about it at once.

Once Snape had got done with his snigger-fit — it wasn't giggling, for Snapes never giggle; Snape had made that very clear — they started poring over the rules to work out how to make that not break the rules. The thing about guns was solved by citing a rule about carrying swords that never specified the sort of weapon it was talking about, and the thing about damsels was solved by the same bit of the rules they were using to let Harry stay at his Lair during the school year. Nothing said students couldn't go stay over at a friend's house overnight if they were invited, so that was okay.

Some further discussion later, Harry wished his grown-up friends a cheerful good night as they departed for their own homes.

He had trouble getting to sleep that night because he was excited, and he spent the following few weeks counting the days until July 28th when the Hogwarts letters would be sent out.

It arrived in its own good time.

Last edited: Jul 16, 2020

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Dunkelzahn

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Threadmarks Section 2.1 - Final preparations

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Dunkelzahn

Dunkelzahn

No one of consequence

Jul 11, 2018

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#25

2 Harry goes to school

2.1 Final preparations

2.1.1 A friendly shopping trip

Diagon Alley was strange place.

The first clue had been the terrible pun in the name, but Tony Granger's first visit had made the state of things abundantly clear.

It had started with the way he and his wife were unable to see the entrance until their daughter towed them there by the hands, and even when they could see the place, it was just a dingy hole-in-the-wall pub. What degenerate sort of society put forth that as their public face?

Then there was the entrance to the alley itself, which had been a plain, even grungy, brick wall behind said run-down pub. The bricks of that wall had folded away revealing the third clue in the form of the architecture, which not only looked to have been lifted from several centuries previous and not cleaned since — which to be fair, was not an unusual look for London — but also looked to be in need of drastic reconstruction. Half the buildings appeared to have somehow been halted right in the process of collapsing in on themselves. The wares on sale had done nothing to dispel the image, nor had their prices. Then there were the people and their absurd sensibilities regarding attire.

Robes were one thing, but the vivid colors and garish patterns were quite another.

However, in the face of all that, the thing that grabbed, and held, Anthony Granger's attention was the centaur loitering outside what seemed to be a second-hand shop near the entrance to the alley.

She was a gorgeous creature, not that he was sure any of those were the right term. From the bits that humans used as hips on up, she was the very picture of classical Grecian beauty, only departing by being somewhat wider and more muscular. From there down was what looked to be one of those mobile slabs of lean muscle that people who know about horses bandy terms like 'thoroughbred' about. Her hair and fur were a deep russet, and every part of her human-equine mish-mash anatomy was tightly defined. And if he'd thought that was strange, her clothing and the assorted equipment she carried on her person really took the biscuit.

In large part because she was quite visibly armed to the teeth.

Attached to the web-work of leather straps she had fitted tightly to most of her body — the interaction of which with her human-bits had captured Tony's attention for longer than he was strictly comfortable with — the centaur carried a military-looking gun, one of those with the bullets stored in a little metal box forward of the trigger, a disturbingly large number of extras of those little ammunition boxes, a second gun that looked like a hunting rifle with a very long barrel, yet another gun that he recognized as a shotgun from the westerns he used to watch as a child, a sizeable variety of knives of various makes, and a very modern high-powered pulley-operated compound bow — he was pretty sure he recognized it as a top-of-the-line Browning — complete with a quiver full of equally modern carbon-aluminum arrows.

In short, she looked like she was carrying enough weaponry to field a full squad of modern infantry in a combat zone.

Underneath that leather harness, her upper human-like parts were clad in a greenish-brown shirt of what looked like linen, cut in an unusual, vaguely-Asian, style with a deeply plunging neckline and accented by what looked to be carefully chosen furs of a soft grey-brown. She wore a brightly polished choker around her slim throat which carried an intricately engraved seal on its silvery surface centered under her chin. Her lower, equine, parts bore a western-style saddle and associated tack with several canvas shopping bags slung over it and, now that he'd gotten a better look, yet another gun attached to it, partially hidden under the bags. This time some sort of old-school bolt-action rifle. She also had some sort of bridle, complete with reins, strapped around her head, though the bit was currently missing from the ensemble.

It was about that time that Tony realized something very important; the oddly-dressed people around him in the alley — the ones he'd been very busy being unsure how to react to — very obviously didn't know how to react to the centaur either.

"Okay Suze, now we gotta go get a wand!" said a cheerfully energetic, and very young, voice, and the centaur visibly perked up as a small boy — perhaps two or three years younger than Tony's daughter by the look of him — came running over in that hyper-small-kid-running kind of way, carrying another well-packed cloth shopping bag with him. "Mr. Dumbledore says the best place for wands is a place called Ollivander's Wands Shoppe; he says it's just down thattaway past the expensive potions place."

"Okay, Harry," the centaur said, calmly taking the new bag from him and hooking it to her saddle alongside the others before giving the boy a hand up into said saddle and ambling off in the direction the boy had indicated, though Tony noticed that the reins remained looped over the saddle horn rather than in the boy's hands.

Then the boy seemed to notice the Grangers.

"Oh, hi!" he said in a bright, friendly tone. "You look kinda lost, 'bout as lost as me and Suze were the first time we came around here."

"Well… actually, yes," Tony admitted, dubiously glancing from centaur to small boy and back again several times. The centaur noticed his expression, giving him a wink and a shrug that did nothing to alleviate his confusion.

"Aw, don't worry about it, Diagon Alley takes a lot of getting used to at first, but once you've gotten used to it it's cool. Um, have you swapped out your pounds for galleons yet? They're not proper gold, but that's because goblins are sensible, and they keep most of the gold to themselves."

"…well, no." This time it was Sharon, Tony's wife who spoke up.

"Okay, then you gotta go to Gringotts. That's the bank; they're just over there." The boy pointed out an imposing white and gold structure at the central intersection of the shopping district directly across from an oddly empty lot. Given how crowded the rest of the alley was, Tony would have thought someone would have snapped up such a prime piece of real estate. As Tony frowned contemplatively, the boy offered brightly, "Hey, you want me to, you know, show you around? I've been here like six times, and I know the way everywhere here. Oh, but we haven't been introduced! I'm Harry, Harry Potter, and this is my centaur damsel, her name's Suze. Hi!"

Well, the kid was certainly friendly. "I'm Anthony Granger; call me Tony, everyone does. This is my wife, Sharon, and this is our daughter, Hermione."

"I'm the first witch in our family," Hermione volunteered. Tony had to smile at how pleased with herself she sounded.

"Wow, that's awesome! I didn't know not-glowy people could have kids who glow!" Harry enthused, obviously beyond delighted. "Hey, c'mon, there's all sorts of awesome stuff I've gotta show you! But first off, we gotta go to the bank. Let's go!"

Closer inspection showed the bank to have a set of broad steps leading up to an entrance guarded by a set of imposing silver doors and a pair of brightly attired guards carrying very nasty looking halberds. The guards were short, broad men with yellow-brown skin, protruding chins, neatly cropped white hair, long noses, and beady black rodent-like eyes. Those bright uniforms looked to be painstakingly maintained, and there was something about their manner which was reminiscent of the guards at Buckingham Palace as they stood there, alert and keeping a sharp eye on the passers-by.

"Are those goblins?" Tony asked as they approached.

"Hmm… Yeah, they sure are," Harry replied. "The one on the left is Corporal Mantrap, and the one on the right's a private, though I don't know his name."

"They're kind of fierce looking," Hermione muttered.

"G'morning, Corporal Mantrap!" Harry enthusiastically greeted the guard on the left, who promptly saluted.

"Mornin', Mr. Potter," the goblin growled. "Here to speak to the Vice Chairman?"

"Nah, I'm just showin' these guys around; they were kinda lost."

The corporal nodded politely and touched his cap, "Mornin' ladies, gentleman. A profitable day to yeh all."

"Morning," the Grangers said in a ragged chorus. Sharon, Hermione, and Suze immediately followed Harry into the building, while Tony paused to read the inscription on the silvery doors warning against thievery.

"Has anyone ever been stupid enough to try to steal those doors?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

Corporal Mantrap let out a rough chuckle. "A time or two," he said. "That's why the lot across the street is empty, the Bofors and Vickers make a bit of a mess." There was another dry chuckle. "Being un-magical and all, you'd know well what that means, eh lad? Head on in, yer missus'll be wonderin' where yeh've gotten to."

"…right," Tony said and entered the bank. The name 'Bofors' was vaguely familiar from his father's war stories, and 'Vickers' rang a bell too.

Weren't those the names of some very large guns?

"Okay, now you gotta go queue," Harry was just saying as Tony caught up with the rest of the group. "It shouldn't take too long because you picked the right sort of day and time to come. It's always quietest on Wednesdays and halfway between when people start work and lunchtime."

Business in the bank was swiftly concluded; goblins and non-magical bankers seemed to have similar ideas on the equivalence of time and money. There were odd looks from the rest of the clientele when those other customers realized how polite the goblins were being to the otherwise unremarkable group of muggles and muggle-born.

"I'm guessing there are male and female goblins," Sharon suddenly said, just after they'd left the bank.

Tony was wondering when she'd ask that, Sharon had been big into the feminist thing at university, though she'd calmed down a lot since graduation. He'd figured she'd feel the need to say something after the bank visit and its strangely uniform staff.

"Well of course there are," Harry said, shrugging matter-of-factly. "Where'd you think little baby goblins come from?"

"…er, right. So where are they?" Sharon asked.

"Where's who?"

"The lady goblins."

Harry snorted, "Didn't you smell? The goblin you changed your money with is a girl. I think her name is Meatshred Slackhammer; she's my friend, Mr. Vice-Chairman Slackhammer's, niece, I think. Oh, of course you didn't smell! Your nose ain't as good as mine or a goblin's." The boy nodded sagely at that odd statement. "You know, I think she might be going into heat, that's the only time it's easy to smell if a goblin's a mister or a madam, normally they just smell of goblin." The boy's face screwed up in confusion. "I'm not really sure what going into heat means, Mr. Vice-Chairman Slackhammer got all sorts of embarrassed when I asked, but I think it's got to do with that kissy-face making-babies stuff some grown-ups are into."

"…oh," Sharon said. "I suppose I shouldn't have expected them to be like humans, should I?"

"It ain't real important anyway," Harry continued. "When I asked, Color-Sergeant Griphook said that if you ain't certain whether a goblin's a boy or a girl, the proper thing to do is call 'em 'Mister' and if they're bothered by it, they'll tell you, and there ain't many that're bothered. I think Madame Axetalon's the only girl goblin I've ever met who makes a point of it, and I know lots of goblins."

"I take it you're quite familiar with goblins then?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, they're my friends," Harry said with a firm nod. "They're all sorts of fun, and treasure 's got to come from someplace, right? Anyways, I'm guessing you gotta get everything, right?" This last question was addressed to Hermione. "'Cause half the places on the school list are kinda expensive, and I know a couple of real neato shops where you can get half the school stuff for like half the price. 'Specially the potions stuff, the big place is a real rip-off." He indicated the bags hanging off Suze's saddle horn. "I've got my potions stuff already, an' I was going to head to get a wand next."

With that decided upon, they set off for the wand shop. All three Grangers were given quite a fright by the thinning-haired man who seemed to appear from nowhere, only for Harry to ask why he smelled like fish, and the rather crestfallen man, who introduced himself as Ollivander, explained that small quantities of cod liver oil were used in the making of the glue used to hold the different wand components together and the finish used to polish them. Thereafter, each child was subjected to a seemingly excessive battery of measurements of odd pieces of anatomy — why on Earth was the distance from left eye to right thumb with arm extended important? Particularly considering it would change as the owner grew, or even as the owner shifted posture for that matter — before being offered a whole string of wands to try.

Here, Harry became quite visibly concerned at the comments about the usage of 'dragon heartstrings' in wand construction, and he became even more concerned about Hermione being told that she was well-suited for wands constructed therewith, only to just as visibly calm down when Hermione — who had remained completely oblivious to his concern — spurred Ollivander into a twenty minute explanation of the behavior of various wand-construction materials including the various different heartstrings from different breeds of dragons. Apparently, Hermione's new wand contained a heartstring from a female Hungarian Horntail, a breed renowned for their strength and stubbornness under pressure and suited to people with the acumen to stand up for their beliefs even through immense difficulties.

With Harry relieved for reasons that escaped Tony, and Hermione pleased with the implications of her new wand, Harry was then subjected to a similar set of measurements before going through even more wands than Hermione had in the process of selecting one which was apparently the 'brother' of the one that had put the scar on his forehead; a scar that the Grangers hadn't noticed on account of it being hidden by the boy's immense mane of scruffy black hair.

After the wand shop, bags securely secured in either Tony's hands or on Suze's saddle, they headed towards the place Harry claimed had the best price on potions supplies. The trio of Grangers were somewhat nonplussed at the 'Oh no, not again' reactions from the staff on seeing the young boy marching in the door.

They were confused, that is, until they discovered how much of a skinflint he could be. He pissed, moaned, bitched, complained, criticized, questioned quality, and haggled the sweating shopkeeper down to just over half the stated price.

"We could have afforded, heck, probably thirty cauldrons at the price he was asking," Tony remarked.

"Sure you could," Harry allowed, "but money's gotta come from somewhere and why go spending more than a cauldron's worth when it's a cheap cauldron that ain't hard to melt, and you'll probably go through like a dozen of them? Especially when he was asking like twice what it was worth; it's just pewter and the bottom's kind of thin, and anyway, if you don't gotta spend another knut on something then your hoard's a knut bigger, isn't it?"

The boy finally paused for a breath before continuing, "Plus, Mr. Snape always says you should pay exactly what something is worth because if you overpay for things, then you're encouraging bad habits in the craftsman who made it, and if you underpay for something, then you're cheating an honest man out of the fruits of his labors. Those cauldrons were cheaply made, so you shouldn't pay too much, or you'll encourage people to make things even cheaper."

"Harry, how old are you?" Sharon asked. Tony could guess from her tone that she was getting rather irritated with the pint-sized boy's rambling.

"I'm going to be eleven next week."

"You're not very big for your age," Tony remarked. Then he winced as he realized how offensive that could sound.

Not that Harry was phased by any such implications. "Well, that's because I'm between growth spurts," Harry explained with a pragmatic shrug. "I grew real fast for 'bout eight months before I was nine, then it really slowed down; I only grew like an inch in the past year. I figure I'll catch up next time I have a growth spurt, so that's okay. Y'know, I've been a lot hungrier the past couple of weeks than since my last growth spurt stopped; me and Hagrid and Mr. Kettleburn think that means I'm gonna start growing real fast again pretty soon. It's gonna be a pain 'cause I'm gonna have to start eating tons again, but oh well, you can't grow without enough to eat, so that's okay, I guess."

No more was said on the subject as the group tore through the remainder of their shopping lists with little to remark on aside from Harry tearing huge chunks out of the list prices through unashamed haggling until the visit to the book store provided Tony with a revelation. His daughter was going to be a long-time friend of the boy for their shared love of reading, if nothing else. The two children had identical reactions to the store.

Hermione quickly blew through all the extra money Harry's skinflinting had shaved off their supply budget by loading up on even more books than those named on the school lists, while Harry, declaring that he already had most of the books on the list, headed off to load up on more esoteric books in languages and covering subjects that left Tony thoroughly bewildered.

Once they'd finally managed to drag the kids out of the bookshop, there was a brief upset with what seemed to be a family of Neanderthals in robes, during which Tony found his attention very firmly drawn back to the bewildering assortment of firearms Suze was carrying, specifically the old-style bolt-action rifle which had been attached to her saddle and which Harry had now shoved up the left nostril of this 'Crabbe' character.

As the group of troglodytes moved on in an uncharacteristic fit of prudence, Tony asked, "Mind if I have a look at that gun, Harry?"

"'Fraid I can't do that, Mr. Granger," Harry sounded apologetic. "Sergeant-Major Hooktalon would have my nadgers for boot-leather if I let anyone he wasn't sure knew how to safely handle a firearm handle it, and anyway, Mr. Slackhammer says that it's the duty and privilege of all thinking beings to have weapons and if anyone thinks different they can have our guns when they pry them from our cold dead fingers, and the same goes for swords and knives and such."

"…nadgers for boot-leather…?" Sharon sounded vaguely nauseated.

The clangor of a bell rang out over the alley and Harry froze, raising a finger.

BONG, one finger, BONG, a second, BONG, a third, BONG, a fourth, and silence.

"Four, phew, it's not five, so I'm not late. Um, I think that's everything you need for school, and I really oughtta go. I'll see you guys outta the alley, then I gotta go get my bum into gear. I've gotta be back to the Lair at half-past four so I can meet with Mr. Ronan to talk about seasons at a quarter to five, and then once it's six, I've gotta meet with Mrs. Sprout and Mr. Snape to go harvest potions ingredients that it's the right sort of time to harvest now."

Hermione checked over her shopping list.

"Yes, I think we've got everything," she said, "Did we remember the potions supplies?"

"Yes," Tony confirmed, "that was the third shop we visited."

"Oh, I must have forgotten to tick it off. In that case, that's everything."

"Okay, then I'll see you at the end of the month!" And the whirlwind that was Harry blew out of the alley with his centaur in tow.

2.1.2 Professorial speculation

Albus Dumbledore settled comfortably into his favorite armchair, a soft, velvety number that was tailored to his posterior — he wasn't a master of transfiguration for nothing, after all — and came complete with a matching footstool on which he rested his stockinged feet. He was seated across from the fireplace, currently dark on account of the summer weather, in the sitting area of his office, joined by the four Heads of House for the school.

The meeting had nominally been called for academic planning for the next school year, and the majority of the normal crowd that assembled to discuss their resident dragon was still off completing their various summer projects. Of course, this didn't keep the remainder of group from their usual ritual of passing around a drink, though it did influence the variety. Today's drink of choice was chosen by Minerva, and it was, predictably, a single-malt whiskey brewed and distilled not far from her family's home. Filius had once more volunteered to serve the drinks. Albus idly wondered whether he should introduce the charms master to his brother, Aberforth. They might strike up a friendship over a mutual love of tending bar.

The five professors had finished the necessary administrative tasks and were now lounging about, relaxing while they could before the noisy, hormonal gaggle of teenagers flooded into the halls with the beginning of the autumn term. The room was dimly lit by flickering flames in the gas lamps, and the companionable silence was broken only by the occasional clink of a glass against the table until Pomona Sprout spoke up.

"Hufflepuff, I think," she stated before taking another sip of whiskey.

"Hmm?" Albus said, echoed nonverbally by the inquisitive looks from her fellow Heads.

"I think Mr. Potter will be one of my Badgers."

It seemed that the young dragon would be a topic of conversation after all.

Albus had finished off his glass and retrieved his pipe, filling and lighting it in lieu of refilling the liquor. After he took an initial puff, he asked, "What makes you so confident, Pomona? Not that I disagree, I am simply curious."

"I stopped by Mattias' shop at the start of August to pick up some mandrake seedlings for the second years. A young muggle-born witch was there with her parents trying to shop for her supplies, and they were looking a tad overwhelmed with the sights, particularly a certain well-armed centaur. Young Harry noticed and took them under his wing — metaphorically speaking," she clarified at Severus' worried look. "The lad almost drove Mattias' poor apprentice to tears with his haggling over their potions ingredients. Last I saw, Potter had dragged the family into Flourish and Blotts. Any such good Samaritan is prime Badger material."

McGonagall gave an unladylike snort, "The boy stands up to authority and leaps to the defense of his friends in an instant," she countered. "He's as much one of my Lions as either of his parents. His constant talk of rescuing damsels speaks to his innate nobility. Mark my words, he'll be in my House come the Sorting."

"Ah, but he has an incredible love of learning, even an obsessive one at times," Flitwick interjected mildly. "I believe the boy's library is already larger than my own, and it continues to grow unabated. When he gets access to the school library, I'm sure there won't be a volume outside the Restricted Section he hasn't memorized by next summer. He takes the time to think through what he learns, too, and he is proving quite adept at logic and philosophy. I am convinced he'd do quite well as one of my Ravens."

Four heads turned expectantly to the potions master, the only Head who had yet to speak up. The man was quietly sipping at his whiskey. At their looks, he calmly asked, "What?"

Albus covered a smile by gripping his pipe stem between his molars. "I believe they are expecting you to claim that Mr. Potter is destined to be a Slytherin," he said before issuing another puff of blue smoke.

Snape snorted a far more impressive snort than that issued earlier by his colleague; his substantial snout giving him a decidedly unfair advantage in the contest. "That dratted dragon is about as subtle as, well, a dragon in a pottery shop — as ironic as that simile is. He has so little grasp of anything so much as resembling cunning that he answered every question put to him by Odd Lovegood last year without giving any thought to why the man was asking questions or what he was going to do with the answers. He didn't even bother to try to persuade you all to let him stay in his Lair or to continue expanding his collection of damsels from the student body; he just made the declarations and you scurried to distort the rule book in order to allow it. Your mental gymnastics in those attempts would not have been out of place in the muggle Olympics. The boy has developed nothing in the way of cunning because he has had no need of it."

His earlier snort was reprised in even more impressive fashion, "The boy has little ambition other than to be the best dragon he can manage to be, and while he may accomplish some very impressive feats along the way to that admittedly laudable goal, given his natural talents he will require little in the way of ambition to succeed at them. With neither cunning nor ambition, there is little to warrant the wretched lizard's inclusion among the Serpents, despite his scaly integument."

"Here I thought you had come to rather like the lad, Severus," Filius chimed in.

"I do not like the blasted lizard, Filius," Snape insisted flatly. "I will admit that the boy is tolerable company, and he is far and away the most interesting individual I have ever encountered. I could happily spend the remainder of my career exploring the functions of his bioalchemy, and I daresay I would expire before I ran out of new material to examine." Snape took another drink. "But for that very reason, I refuse to misrepresent the boy's capabilities. I would not do that to an enemy, much less someone I find passingly acceptable to deal with."

"I suppose that the large pile of galleons you have made from those studies does nothing to influence your opinion then, Severus?" Minerva asked archly before she savored another sip of her precious single malt.

"I will not deny it," Snape shrugged. "It was implausibly satisfying to buy a lifetime membership at Barret's and eat a celebratory meal there while Lucius and Narcissa waited impatiently to be seated. Though I honestly have no idea what I am to do with the rest of it. My laboratory is already superbly equipped, and I can only eat out so much before it eats into my research time in turn."

"I'm sure something worthy will come up eventually, Severus," Pomona assured him, "perhaps it will even be someone, hmm? It's not healthy for you to mope for so long after that blow-up with Lily — it's been over a dozen years! But regardless of his House, are you not looking forward to teaching the boy? Beyond the tutoring you have given him so far?"

Severus deliberately ignored Sprout's dig about his lack of a love life; she did that to everyone, and it wasn't worth the trouble to complain about any longer. He was firmly convinced that Pomona Sprout wouldn't be happy until everyone of an appropriate age for such things was paired off and happily turning out sprogs by the dozen; he suspected she might also insist on the ones still too young having someone already lined up for the job, too.

"I do look forward to exploring his capabilities with the practical side of brewing when we can finally get him into one of the safeguarded laboratories, yes. He has memorized all of the common potions books, and many of the less common ones in my own collection. Should he prove able to live up to my expectations, I would be willing to grant him access to my private notes in hopes that he might prove to be capable of attaining his own mastery and advancing the state of the art even further."

Snape then paused, taking another drink. "I am not, however, looking forward to the chaos that will inevitably dog his steps through these halls."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Severus, Harry is nothing like his father," Minerva said exasperatedly.

"I know that," Snape said, rolling his eyes. "And I feel the need to thank you for recalling that mental image, Minerva, I had almost managed to put it out of my mind. Merlin knows what the world would come to were it to house a dragon with James Potter's attitude! More than half the school would have been levelled by now, I am certain. I shall need to be cautious around boggarts in the future, for surely the next I encounter shall take the form of James Potter as a bloody dragon!"

"James was…" Minerva began.

"He was a bully," Snape interjected flatly. "And I was his favorite target." He held up a hand to forestall Minerva's counterargument, "I am not interested in debating ancient history, Minerva. I can admit that he may have changed somewhat after he and I no longer interacted, if for no other reason than respect for Lily's judgment — I checked her for love potions more than once, I assure you — but that does nothing to change my impression of the man. The last few years have convinced me that young Mr. Potter is nothing like his father; if not for his voice and choice of human form, there would be nothing to link him to the man. I will always hate James Potter, but I can accept and respect that his son is very different. His nature is all too painfully like his mother's."

"Is the comparison between father and son fair then?" Pomona asked.

"It was not I who made the comparison," Snape said as Minerva looked away in embarrassment. "I merely said I was not looking forward to the upheaval his presence will cause. You must admit we have contorted the spirit of the student rulebook and interpreted the remaining rules in a bizarrely creative manner in order to accommodate the blasted beast. I saw the draft of the acceptance letter for the first-year students, 'a cat, owl, toad, or centaur' as a pet? Until the students send their first letter home, I'd wager a month's royalties that the parents of the older students will have thought it a joke."

Pomona held out her glass for a refill from Filius, who obliged with a superbly smooth levitation charm without bothering to retrieve his wand — the undersized man was feeling lazy that evening. "If he is not like his father, then why do you expect him to cause so much chaos, Severus? Lily was one of the most even-tempered witches I have ever met — I mean, she was vicious when she finally got her dander up, but that took a great deal of doing."

Snape sighed and drained off the remainder of his whiskey. "Believe me, there is no comparison between the kinds of havoc the father raised and those his son will raise. Potter, that is James Potter, tormented other children under the guise of playing pranks for his own amusement. Harry Potter will turn the school on its ear by virtue of his species, not his attitude."

Albus puffed again on his pipe, eyes distant in thought. "Come now, Severus, surely it won't be that bad…"

"Have those execrable muggle sweets of yours rotted your brain as well as your teeth? Pomona just told us the boy has already made friends with a muggle-born first-year witch. I would not wager against her be becoming his newest damsel before the end of the year. If the boy's pedigree breeds true, and he is sorted into Gryffindor, someone like young Mr. Malfoy will see him and his blasé attitude towards blood status as a natural enemy. And because of the wretched lizard's relative immaturity, any malicious pranks played on him or his friends will be met with a direct response that will no doubt be swift, shocking, and most of all, childish, but it will be a childish response backed by enough force to level a small town! What do you suppose will happen when the son of a Governor ends up as a pile of malodorous fertilizer somewhere in the forest?"

"I doubt things will go that far, Severus," Albus assured him affably.

"Indeed," Minerva agreed, "If young Draco is anything like his father was at that age, young Draco will probably be unpalatable even to Harry's digestive tract."

"Minerva!" A trio of shocked voices drowned out a quiet snicker from the fourth.

"Oh, come now, I was being facetious," Minerva paused just long enough for her audience to calm down. "Harry drinks fuel oil like water, if anything the Malfoy propensity for oily hair products would make the young lad irresistible."

This time she was met with groans, to which she continued, "Seriously though, Severus has raised a good point. We have no idea how or at what rate Harry will grow. Intellectually he will certainly be capable of completing his schooling — even were he to stay just as he is now — but his emotional maturity seems to be several years behind his forthcoming classmates. If he continues to mature slowly, we may be faced with a situation in later years where his classmates are entering adulthood while he is still a young child, an exceptionally powerful young child."

"That's true," Sprout agreed. "If they survive their mating contests, dragons can live into their sixth century, but despite Lovegood's observations, we have no idea what species Harry is or what his expected lifespan might be. "If he's going to live for several centuries, he might well still be a child by the time he takes his NEWTs."

Flitwick chuckled aloud, to the surprise of his colleagues. "What?" he asked, taking in their expressions. "I'm beginning to suspect that young Mr. Potter will usher in a new era of civility at Hogwarts, at least when his fellows come to realize that they have the choice between being civil to each other and being sat-upon by a dragon the size of the Hogwarts Express engine."

Dumbledore echoed his charms professor's chuckle. "Indeed. Mr. Potter is quite fond of threatening to sit himself down upon those who annoy him. I think we shall have to impress upon the lad that sitting on his classmates is not a valid form of retribution."

"What would be a valid form of retribution, then?" Pomona asked, pointedly. "For a student who could, with little effort, lay waste to the entire school should he so desire, what is acceptable?"

Snape shook his head. "As usual, you have missed my point. I was not referring to the difference in maturity between the boy and his classmates. That will certainly be an issue, but it is not one that we are inexperienced in dealing with; our other students are hardly uniformly mature in any case. Though that does promise some small amount of amusement as well." He paused thoughtfully before continuing, "But no, I was referring to the boy's propensity for disproportionate physical responses. While I unfortunately missed the actual encounter, his centaur pet was, once suitably persuaded, willing to recount it to me. Those monstrous acromantulas happened by the centaur colony in search of a quick meal of horse-flesh. Instead, they met several thousand degrees of dragon-flame face first and have since almost been hunted to extinction."

Flitwick gave Severus a sly glance, "You wouldn't happen to have insisted on the story being recounted to you because of what happened immediately prior, would you?"

A smile of heroic proportions made itself known on Snape's normally stoic face. It was self-satisfied. It was smug. It proved beyond a doubt that even pleasant expressions were made thoroughly irritating by being displayed on the man's face, but it also indicated the success beyond even his wildest expectations of a well-laid plan. "Filius, I have no idea what you mean."

"The expression you wear suggests otherwise, my friend."

Pomona tilted her head to the side, "I appear to be missing some context…"

"Do you recall the gift Severus gave young Harry some two years ago, on his ninth birthday. The first birthday he spent in his Lair?"

Sprout frowned in thought, "Wasn't that the saddle and harness contraption for Miss Suze? The one he got so… oh dear!"

Snape's thoroughly smug smile looked like it wouldn't be shifted by anything less than a major tectonic event. "Oh yes, though the final trigger was not, in fact, my gift. Rather it was a thoughtful addition Mr. Potter came up with himself. In any event, when Bane encountered Harry in the process of asking about his new addition for Suze while she was wearing the saddle, the blowhard went berserk, snatched up a cudgel and charged in to attempt to beat the stuffing out of our young dragon."

"Oh, dear," Sprout repeated.

Nothing could convince Snape not to recount the story at that point. "Potter transformed back into his native form and backhanded the arrogant poltroon so hard that he skidded for some thirty yards across the forest floor and saw naught but his precious stars for the next several hours," the potions master sighed happily. "As attitude readjustment tools go, there are few more effective than the back of Mr. Potter's hand."

"What does Bane's humiliation have to do with the acromantulas?"

"After Bane could regain his feet with the help of fewer than two of his compatriots, Magorian, the centaur chieftain, persuaded Mr. Potter to allow them to relocate under his Lair, and not halfway through the move, they were assaulted by the spiders. The centaurs were trussed up almost without exception before Potter arrived on the scene. He hit the arachnids so hard that sympathetic resonance has probably instilled a mortal fear of dragons in spiders all across the globe."

Pomona looked concerned, "Does Bane still hold some ill will for the lad?"

The smugness in Snape's expression dialed back a few notches, but the man still looked inordinately pleased with himself. "No, oddly enough Mr. Potter's attitude readjustment backhand seems to have worked exceptionally well. He is still antisocial, of course — I expect nothing short of a complete lobotomy would change that — but Potter's hand seems to have instilled a new sense of caution and a reason to deliberate before taking action." His expression sobered, even turning a little grim. "If Potter decides to provide an encore of similar attitude readjustments to the student body, there is little beyond careful verbal persuasion that we could do to stop him."

Dumbledore glanced down, noting that his pipe had gone out. A quick flexing of magic remedied that, and the pipe flickered back to life. He absently blew a few smoke rings while he considered the account. "You may be right," he eventually acknowledged. "We will need to guide Mr. Potter gently and very, very carefully."

"Of course, I am right!" Snape once again proved his reputation for irritating abrasiveness well-earned. "I already plan to warn my Serpents against any action towards Potter, no matter what House he ends up in. Most will accept it, but I'm afraid a few die-hards will insist on learning the hard way."

He issued another of those very impressive snorts. "Having him here only during class time will help immeasurably, if only by reducing the number of opportunities for covert mischief by removing him from the halls and dormitories in the evening, but I hold little hope that the infirmary will not be heavily occupied with a number of long-term residents by the end of the year."

Minerva winced, but she nonetheless nodded, acknowledging the point. "Much as I am loath to admit it, I can easily envisage Mr. Potter inadvertently injuring a student enough to put them in Poppy's care for the long term. Even with his," she paused, her eye twitching, "exhaustively merry attitude, he won't let bullying slide. We will need to be even more vigilant for, and intolerant of, intimidation amongst the student body."

Dumbledore nodded, absently puffing at his pipe. "It is a fine line to walk. You know how much our society prizes secrecy, and how difficult it is to establish the truth. Even for children, without delving into restricted potions or legilimency, establishing a chain of evidence is often impossible; bullies don't generally act with unfriendly witnesses about. If we start punishing infractions on the basis of hearsay, I foresee a torrent of accusations from students with no true cause for complaint." He paused for another puff, "How to separate the kernels of truth from the chaff, though — that will require some thought."

"Perhaps we should not be too hasty," Snape said thoughtfully. "I find myself morbidly fascinated by the idea of how Potter would react to those insane Weasley twins. Perchance a single, sanctioned, attitude adjustment would be appropriate?"

"Severus!" Minerva protested, "That is beneath you!"

"Perhaps a smaller adjustment," the potions master mused, seemingly not noticing his colleague's protest. "But not too much smaller — yes, that would be most welcome."

"Severus!" This time it was Albus' turn to protest.

"Oh, settle down, Albus; I am only stirring the cauldron. I am sure those twins will fall afoul of Potter at some point, however. They will not be able to help themselves, if past experience is any guide. I am certain they will make a point of it, if only because their usual fare of prank potions will not influence Mr. Potter in the slightest. The two brats will likely take it as a challenge. It would be best, though, if Minerva, Pomona, Filius, and I impress upon our charges the magnitude of this shift. We are already warning them away from the third-floor corridor, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to include a new standard of behavior."

Dumbledore nodded, still absently puffing away at his pipe. "I suppose that is a reasonable course of action. Whichever of you is fortunate enough to have the opportunity, please ask Mr. Potter to see me after the welcoming feast so that I might discuss it with him personally." He sighed, breath laden with fragrant blue smoke, "I do agree though, that we must impress upon the students that from this year forth, any hint of intimidation tactics will be met with a swift response."

"From us, or from Potter?" Filius asked.

"Yes."

"Ah."

A few more moments passed in companionable silence before Albus' office clock chimed marking the transition from very late night to very early morning. Filius took this as his prompt to get some sleep.

"Well, I believe that I will seek out my bed. Good night to you all!"

Minerva and Pomona quickly followed along, leaving Albus and Severus alone. Albus slept less and less as the years passed and his magic took over more functions from his failing body, and Severus was long used to the irregular hours required of a potions master. When a brew required seven hours of stirring before introducing a critical ingredient, it didn't care if that seven hours would mean stirring until three in the morning.

"There is a possible solution," Snape offered, "though it smacks of using a flame whip to swat an annoying fly…" He paused as a thought struck him before clarifying, "…a normal fly, not one of Hagrid's."

There were flies, and then there were flies, Snape thought with a shudder.

"Oh?"

Snape nodded, deep in thought. "A time turner and an invisibility cloak, if any student is injured or makes an accusation, one of us could use them to verify the events in question, unnoticed. It would likely take only a few incidents before the students learned to behave themselves."

"You are right, that does sound excessive," Albus agreed. "What is wrong with engaging the portraits to assist?"

"Aside from the fact that the portraits sleep and move around? There is a significant fraction of the school which is free of portrait frames. Despite their perennial dunderheadedness in my classroom, the students are not stupid, Albus. If they get caught every time they are near a portrait, they will soon learn to avoid them."

"Perhaps a compromise then? We recruit our pigmented spy network, and I will fish out my time turner for those situations in which the portraiture fails."

Snape raised an eyebrow, "You are actually going to use my idea?"

"It is a bit drastic," Albus shrugged, "but it is certainly feasible. And the consequences of failure are quite… unpleasant. There has not been a violent death among the students during my tenure as headmaster, and I would prefer to keep it that way, particularly when the death would likely fall on the conscience of young Harry."

"Agreed." Snape nodded emphatically, thinking back on the first man he killed. That had been accidental too, but at least the man had richly deserved it.

"That should definitely not be on the boy's conscience if it can be avoided. Combat is one thing, but accidental killing eats away at you." He finished off another glass of Minerva's whiskey. "I confess that my Slytherins will likely be difficult to rein in. Perhaps four out of five automatically translate 'do not do something' into 'do not get caught doing something'."

"Hmm, it sounds as though you have a challenging year ahead."

"Indubitably."

Last edited: Jul 16, 2020

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Dunkelzahn

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Threadmarks Section 2.2 - Encounters on a rail

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Dunkelzahn

Dunkelzahn

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Jul 11, 2018

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#26

2.2 Encounters on a rail

2.2.1 Proper livery

The platform was thoroughly intimidating.

Hermione Granger was on her own for the first time in the magical world. Her parents had been unable to negotiate the concealed entrance the Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and unlike the Alley, she could not lead them through. She had had to go in on her own. Between the trauma of having to walk face first into an apparently solid brick wall — out of curiosity, she had kept her eyes open, and she was still cursing herself for that decision — and being alone among a massive throng of new people while attempting to manage her absurdly heavy trunk, Hermione was more than a little nervous.

She was certain everyone else on the platform knew more about what was going on than she did, an intolerable state of affairs for someone who prided herself on her intellect. Unfortunately, she had no idea of what to do about it. The introductory packet she'd picked up at the bookstore had been thorough only in its inadequacy.

"Huh, that's interesting…"

Hermione perked up at something she recognized. That was the voice of that hyper gun-nut boy that had shown her and her parents around Diagon Alley back at the beginning of August. He'd been a bit irritating to be around, what with how energetic he was, but… well, she was sort of adrift at the moment, and any familiarity was good at that point as far as she was concerned.

Plus, anyone who liked books that much couldn't be all bad.

"What's interesting?" Hermione asked, wandering over in his direction. Suze was there too, informing her that the letter was probably not joking when it said 'cat, owl, toad, or centaur'. She also found herself wondering absently how it was that Harry was visibly taller than he had been the month previous.

Kids didn't grow that fast, did they?

"Hello, Hermione," Suze greeted her while Harry was still musing over whatever it was that had caught his imagination.

The centaur was, oddly enough, on a leash, which seemed rather strange to Hermione, but that was quickly overwhelmed as she was once again struck by how impressive a creature the centaur was. Suze topped out at eight feet to the crown of her skull — delicate for a centaur, not that Hermione knew that — and for a pre-teen girl, eight feet oozed 'wow'.

"Hmm, oh hi Hermione!" Harry finally managed to take note of her presence. "This train's interesting, that's what."

"Why? It's just an old train."

"Yeah, but everything else here is magic one way or another, and the train, well, it ain't magic. I mean, there's some fire magic in there, and I think it's sorta partway alive, but not the rest of it. It's just a big old steam engine, and I'm tryin' to figure out how you sneak a big old steam engine from London nearly to Mallaig."

"What's a Mallaig?"

"It's the muggle town a little way up the coast from Hogwarts. There's lots of boats and a really cool toy shop there, and it all sort of smells of kipper." Harry frowned thoughtfully at the train engine and failed to notice the amused glance from the soot-covered man who was watching from the locomotive's cab. Nor, for that matter, did he notice the dubious look Suze directed towards said soot-covered man when she noticed his interest.

"We'd better get on the train, Harry, or it might leave without us," Suze prompted. She seemed heartily amused by something about her own statement.

"Hmm, oh yeah, I guess we should," Harry agreed and followed along towards the carriages.

He glanced back at the engine again, "Y'know, it's funny, but it still seems like that engine is supposed to be black."

Hermione, trailing a little behind the duo while she struggled with her book-laden trunk, found herself wondering why the driver had responded to this by bursting out laughing.

2.2.2 Trouble boarding

Hermione had allowed herself to be swept away by Harry's exuberance. There was little choice, he looked like he knew where he was going, she didn't know anyone else on the train, and it would have been rude to leave without some sort of excuse, so she hurried along behind the boy and his centaur.

As the trio approached the train, they tried to board through the side door.

'Tried' being the operative word. As a centaur, even a petite centaur, Suze was pushing eight feet in height, and she was literally as big as a horse. Passenger trains, even magical passenger trains, would pose a bit of a challenge for the girl.

"Um, Suze, could you duck down a little?" Harry asked after looking at the situation with a puzzled frown for a moment.

As the centaur maid obligingly contorted herself in an effort to fit through a door designed for creatures of at most a third her size and of quite different proportions besides, Hermione stared incredulously.

"Harry," the frizzy-haired witch protested, once she had managed to register what she was seeing, "Suze will never fit through there!"

The small green-eyed boy scratched at his unruly mop of shaggy black hair. "Umm, maybe? What do you think, Suze?"

"I can manage," the centaur replied in a voice muffled by the fact that her body was currently filling the entirety of the entrance stairwell of the train car. "It's a bit of a squeeze, but I can manage." With that, she gave a final push and forced her way into the train, looking for all the world like one of those wildebeest she had seen on those television specials struggling to force its way up a steep muddy riverbank. Her abrupt passage prompted a chorus of protests from the other passengers displaced by her energetic entrance.

"Well, there you go," Harry said, his usual good humor back in evidence. "I'll grab Hermione's trunk and follow along." With that, and without even a by your leave to the owner of said trunk — not that she would have responded, gaping as she was at the spectacle of a centaur forcing her way into a passenger train — Harry hefted the monstrously heavy thing over his shoulder and followed along after his centaur.

Finally tearing her eyes away from where Suze had disappeared into the train when she felt the handle of her trunk pull away from her slack grip, Hermione was struck by yet another odd spectacle. Harry who, despite his recent growth, was still an inch or so shorter than her, had picked up the heavy trunk — the weight of which Hermione had been struggling to drag across the platform despite its wheels — with one hand as if it weighed nothing at all, slinging it over his shoulder casually and setting off after his centaur.

Her father had struggled, red-faced, under the weight of that trunk when he pulled it out of the boot of the car. It was heavy enough to squeeze an assortment of unrepeatable words from the usually well-mannered man regarding the sheer volume of books she had packed away for school.

In the moment it took her to process the scene, Harry had bounded up the stairs and disappeared around the corner, at which point she thought to call out, "Wait, Harry! You don't have to carry that; my trunk's got wheels!" while hurrying after the boy who had just absconded with the sum total of all the supplies she had brought for school.

As she rounded the corner into the central corridor of the passenger carriage, she absently took note of the various scrapes and tufts of hair that stood in mute testimony to the passage of an equine body rather too large for the vessel it was being shoved through.

Hermione had to wonder whether she'd be able to hold on to her sanity if this was what passed for normal in the magical world.

The somewhat frazzled girl finally caught up to her companions — and her trunk — only to be struck by a new spectacle. Suze had found an empty compartment about halfway through the carriage, only to get rather firmly wedged in place when she tried to enter through the door.

The centaur had managed to get her human-part into the cabin and the shoulders of her equine part before the tight quarters and her lack of lateral flexibility caught up with her, leaving her in quite the awkward predicament. The corridor was too narrow for her to twist her body the rest of the way around, and the polished wooden floor was too slippery for her hooves to find purchase to force her way through the door.

Harry was between Hermione and the discombobulated centaur maiden, and every cabin Suze had passed sported at least one curious soul peering out the door at the unusual sight of a centaur attempting to board the Hogwarts Express. It was a sight that was probably a historical first.

Just when Hermione thought she had reached her quota for surreal sights for the day, Harry once again proved her judgement to be hasty.

"Hang on, Suze," the boy said, setting down Hermione's trunk with a dull thud that belied any thought that he might have used magic to reduce the thing's weight in order to handle it so easily. He ran up behind the centaur maid and placed his arm under her barrel before calmly stating, "Ready? One, two, three…" and lifting Suze's entire back end just as easily as he had Hermione's trunk, using the height of the corridor and his own strength to realign the centaur's back end so she could pull herself into the passenger cabin with a flurry of thrashing hooves.

With the hallway now cleared of half a ton of centaur, the rest of the corridor became visible, revealing a half-dozen or so other students sprawled in a steaming red and angry heap where they had apparently been pushed back by Suze's passage. They did not look happy in the slightest.

Even though she technically wasn't responsible for the debacle herself, between the spectators and the angry glares, Hermione was flushed red with mortification. Once again, though, Harry's obscenely cheerful attitude seemed to turn the situation on its metaphorical ear. Despite the fact that the angry students had obviously been forced back and bodily piled up in the corridor, Harry simply picked up Hermione's trunk once more and gave a cheerful wave and a friendly, "Hi there! Thanks for letting us through!" before disappearing into the compartment after his centaur pet.

Left alone facing the glares of a corridor full of angry older students, the highly embarrassed first-year girl could only stand there, cheeks flushed.

One of the larger students who had been barreled over by the centaur on her way to the compartment finally regained his equilibrium enough to clamber to his feet and storm up to the cabin door, yanking it open and storming in with a blustered shout of "WHY YOU LITTLE…" before he was cut off mid-sentence by a mule-kick from the centaur he had previously been unpleasantly acquainted with. He skidded across the corridor, slammed into the opposite wall, and folded up on the ground with a pained grunt. Bent double, the upperclassman clutched low on his belly, curled up in a private ball of pain on the floor beneath the spiderweb of cracked paneling on the wall where he impacted.

Harry stuck his head back out the door with a concerned expression on his face. "Are you alright? You shouldn't sneak up behind a centaur, you know. It's not safe, 'cause they can't see back there and their first reflex is to kick first and ask questions later. It's instinctive, they can't help it."

Another older student from the tangle on the polished floor of the corridor — this one a girl with a pale complexion, dark chestnut hair, and matching eyes, whose green and silver-trimmed robes bore some kind of official-looking golden badge pinned to the breast — also struggled to her feet and approached the downed boy. She waved her wand a few times then nodded, seemingly satisfied with the results of whatever she had just done before she rounded on Harry with a heated glare.

"What is that creature doing on the train?" the witch demanded.

Hermione watched with bated breath as the affable cheer faded from Harry's face in an instant, replaced with something the frizzy-haired girl couldn't properly identify, "She's not a 'creature', she's my friend! And she's allowed on the train; it's not her fault this poo-head yelled at her from behind!"

Hermione had quailed at the older girl's tone, particularly coupled with that official-looking badge, and she was quite thoroughly impressed that Harry didn't so much as flinch. It seemed that the older girl was impressed too, since she quickly backed off from the much smaller boy.

Seeing the opportunity to temporarily remove herself from the spectacle of the hallway — and not incidentally, reunite herself with the comforting weight of her trunk and the books held therein — Hermione made a break for the doorway Harry was standing in. Harry almost automatically shifted to the side to allow her entry while keeping his oddly intimidating gaze on the older girl in the green and silver-trimmed robes until she finally turned away with an exaggerated huff and busied herself with the injured boy still leaning against the wall.

Shutting the compartment door behind him, Harry turned back to his friends. "Well, Suze, it looks like there's a bunch of grumpy bums here on the train."

In the meantime, the centaur maid had claimed one of the bench seats for her own exclusive use, settling with startling grace for such a large being with her legs tucked up underneath her on the cushions, her human-like torso twisted at the waist so she could lean back into the wall, hair just brushing the bottom of the luggage racks.

"We've only met a couple people, Harry," she offered. "The rest may be nice."

"Maybe," he said doubtfully.

Feeling more than a little overwhelmed by the entire sequence of events, Hermione began, "Um, maybe I should go…" before she took note of the dark looks on the faces peering in through the glass of the door to the hallway, "stay right here for a while."

Harry dropped Hermione's trunk onto the free seats opposite his centaur. "You can stay as long as you like!" he said cheerfully. "Did you bring anything to read?"

"Of course," she said, mildly scandalized at the thought. Hermione had not willingly gone without readily available reading material since she had grown old enough to hold a book unaided. "Didn't you?" She looked at the boy more closely, wait… "Didn't you bring a trunk with you?"

"Nah," Harry grinned at her cheekily. "I live near the castle, so I'm just going to classes during the day. The train ride's a tradition, though, so here I am. You should get out the books you want now, though, and I'll put your trunk up on the rack for you. This is the book I brought along to read." He pulled out a tiny box which rapidly expanded into a book the size of his torso with a tap from his finger after he set it on the leather seat next to her trunk.

Hermione opened her mouth to object that her trunk was too heavy for someone his size before she remembered the way he had manhandled it down the hallway as if it were weightless. Shaking her head, she quietly undid the latch, removed the four books she was currently reading, then paused for a moment and thought before she picked up a fifth and closed the trunk. Again, she was amazed as the slight boy picked up the trunk with no apparent effort — this time grabbing it by one end and lifting it by the handle as if it were no heavier than an empty cardboard box — so he could rest the other end on the rack and then slide it the rest of the way because he was too short to reach the rack normally. The fact that he pushed it in the last few inches using a single finger at full extension did nothing to diminish her amazement.

As she settled into the familiar comfort of her books, Hermione could only come to one singular conclusion.

The Wizarding World was mental.

2.2.3 All aboard!

James Coates, the regular driver for the Hogwarts Express, was still chuckling to himself as he hauled on the chain hanging from 45401's cab roof and the ever-faithful Stanier Class Five's strident whistle blared across King's Cross.

How that young whippersnapper with the pet centaur — must be a rule change — had known that a Black Five was supposed to be black without knowing what a Black Five was, well, that was anyone's guess, but given the chance he'd enjoy finding out.

"Wotcher laughin' at, Jim?" Michael 'Mac' McDonald, Jim's fireman, asked, his query punctuated by the responding whistle from the guard. As if it had been waiting for that sign, the starting signal dropped.

"I'll tell yer later, Mac," Jim said, patting the drake-dog who kept the fire nice and hot. "Okay, Smaugey, give the old girl a touch o' hellfire."

Smaugey gave out a happy little gronk and blew a jet of blue-white flame into the firebox. The drake-dog knew his business — he'd been part of the Hogwarts Express crew since its inception nearly a century past, and by human standards, he'd been old then. The little critter had fired many an engine in his day, and he'd likely stay on for a great many more — no one knew how long drake-dogs could hang around for.

Smaugey had picked up his current nickname from Jim's predecessor back in the forties, named after a character in some book or another, but he didn't care what they called him; so long as he had good company, good food, and a good job to do, the little drake-dog was happy as could be.

Jim's smile broadened as he gave the whistle another blast, heaved 45401 into gear, and began to ease the brakes off and the regulator open. Jim was of much the same mind as his drake-dog partner.

No railman, and very few others outside the profession, had ever been able to stand next the hissing, spitting iron monster that is a steam locomotive without half believing that the mighty steel behemoth is somehow alive, and Jim Coates was no exception. He'd been driving the Hogwarts Express since before any of its current passengers were so much as a funny glimmer in their parents' eyes, and he fully expected to man her footplate for decades to come. As long as his heart held out, he'd be right there at the regulator when the kiddies needed their ride, and between times he'd be right there keeping the supply runs going to keep them fed at their great drafty castle of a school.

Steam burst from her chimney like the hissing of a gigantic snake as the sixty-odd-year-old iron horse began to move with a great groan of bearings and a nice, solid clang as her pony truck battered across a rail joint. Mac grinned and slung another shovel of coal into the firebox in time with the chorus of clangs from her driving wheels hitting the place marked by a fishplate, and Smaugey gave it a good huff and a puff as the brakes came off completely and the first proper chuff burst from the faithful old locomotive, making the fire roar as the steam blasted its way through her smokebox and into the summer air.

The world had changed out from underneath the steam locomotive; the modern diesels had become cheaper and easier to run. It didn't take so much skill to drive a diesel; a diesel didn't need a talented fireman who knew when you'd need more steam and had her coaled up and ready to deliver. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry could have a diesel up and ready to roll easy as starting a car. The pragmatic side of Jim Coates knew that a Class 37 was a good, efficient locomotive, but that 'tractor' just wasn't the same.

It wasn't a hissing, spitting metal beast; it didn't have the pounding white-hot heart and soul of a good old Black Five. You couldn't hear every part respond to the rails — it just wasn't proper.

Real locomotives, in his considered opinion, were seventy-odd tons of British iron, steel, and engineering with a hand-stoked fire, at least two big pistons, six or more driving wheels, and no fewer than two honest, highly-skilled working men paying her the attention she deserved from the footplate.

And, for as long as steam ruled the wizarding rails, as long as some bright-eyed kid from down south would pay for a ticket, he would be right there amidst the fire and the fury, listening to the wheels clickety-clack across rail joins and the exhaust hammer away like a machine gun with no need for any nancy heater as the roaring fire at her heart lifted sweat from his wrinkled brow.

This was most definitely life at its finest.

2.2.4 Awkward kids

An hour or so into the ride, Hermione was startled out of her reading by a knock on the door of their compartment, followed almost immediately by the knock being rendered irrelevant when the door was opened from the outside.

The interloper was another boy of about the same age as her, only this one actually looked like it. He sported orange-red hair, a threadbare checked shirt, patch-kneed denim trousers, and a rather baggy, dilapidated corduroy jacket.

"Heya!" he said in a cheerful voice. "Everything else is full, mind if I sit here?"

"Sure, c'mon in!" Harry's reply was immediate and equally cheerful.

Hermione gave a smile and welcoming nod before she frowned as a thought occurred to her. "Wait, the train's been moving for an hour now, what were you doing before if you hadn't found a compartment?"

The newcomer colored in embarrassment, fidgeting a little, "Ah, well, I was sitting with a couple of my older brothers, but their friend brought a tarantula, and they got it out in the compartment, and I kinda don't like spiders, so I thought I'd go somewhere else…"

"Oh, that makes sense," Hermione said, nodding.

"Yeah, spiders are the worst," Harry agreed with Suze nodding emphatically. "Though some of the big ones are real tasty; just make sure you cook 'em up right, or you can get food poisoning. Mr. Snape says they taste a lot like shrimp, but I always thought they tasted kinda like chicken."

"Harry, blathering," Suze interrupted. The new boy had been turning steadily paler during Harry's discourse on fine arachnid dining, and Hermione couldn't say she blamed him.

"Oh, sorry, I have a problem with that sometimes," Harry apologized sheepishly.

"…I just hope that my brothers don't put that tarantula in my trunk while I'm gone. It'd be just like them to do something like that," the redhead said, obviously just wanting to put the topic of spiders behind him. "My name's Ron Weasley, by the way."

"I'm Harry," Harry said immediately and enthusiastically. "And this is Hermione, and this is Suze. Suze is with me."

"Hi," Hermione offered.

"Well met," Suze said.

The newly introduced Ron finally took in the centaur in the room as he looked up, and then further up, to see the source of the latest voice. "Wow! I guess they weren't kidding about centaurs in the letter this year. I thought the twins were just having me on."

"Well, actually that's 'cause of me. I said I weren't gonna come if Suze couldn't come-with, and Mr. Dumbledore said he couldn't be having that, so, well, Mr. Flitwick said he twisted some arms, but that doesn't sound like something Mr. Dumbledore would do, so I guess that's gotta be one of those 'idiom' things, and anyway, that's why they added centaurs to the list," Harry explained. "I mean, Mrs. McGonagall says there's more allowed than what's written down; she says that rats and hamsters and stuff's okay too, and she said a kid was once allowed to have a chicken, and Madame Pomfrey said there was apparently a girl who graduated a couple years back named Mindy that brought her collie named Buttons who was always getting himself hurt which was why Madame Pomfrey remembered them specifically, but they added centaurs just so there weren't gonna be any arguments."

"Yeah, I sorta knew that," Ron volunteered, digging a rather mangy-looking rat, greying with age, out of his coat pocket, "because Scabbers here wasn't against the rules or nothing when Percy had him."

"Huh, that's weird," Harry said, sounding puzzled. "Is that some sort of magic rat or something? Because it don't smell completely of rat."

"I don't think so," Ron said glumly. "All he does is sleep, eat, and, you know, widdle."

"Oh," Harry scratched his head, "I guess it musta just picked up your pocket smell."

"Hey, I don't smell!" Ron protested. "I had a bath this morning, and my clothes are right out of the wash."

"I didn't mean it like that," Harry protested. "You had bacon and eggs for breakfast, right? And I think, pork sausage with… sage."

"How'd you know that?" Ron asked, giving a suspicious look to his shirt front.

"Because I got a really good nose, see," Harry said, scratching his head. "I can smell the last few things a person ate for a few hours after they ate it, and everything smells of something. I mean, you smell like a person who had fried grub for breakfast and whose laundry got dried on a line close to an herb garden, and Hermione smells like someone who uses lemon-scented soap for their washing and handles books a whole lot, and Suze smells of person and horse and gun-smoke and that special kind of wax they use on composite bows, and this carriage smells like linseed oil and warm wood, and the engine smells like axle grease and coal smoke and hot metal, and the air 'round here smells like exhaust pipe and dead pigeon, and I guess I smell like Harry what slept in and didn't have time for a bath this morning."

"Huh," Ron said, "that's gotta be pretty awesome."

"Yeah, sometimes it's real good," Harry agreed. "Like when you're up on the moors and you can smell all the plants and where there's rabbits and deer and sheep and stuff, though deer poo kinda pongs, and then there's when the wind comes in off the sea and you can smell the salt and the seaweed and maybe a bit of engine oil from the fishing boats or the trains. Mallaig's nice, it all sorta smells of kipper and fishing boats when there ain't too many tourists around, but the seagull poo can get a bit much. London stinks though. I think it's because there's too many people what ain't washed and all them exhaust pipes and jet planes and somebody else's rotten kebab in the gutter and all that chewing gum and dog poo and things what died and went manky and all them stinky pigeons…"

"Harry, you're blathering again," Suze interrupted again.

Harry stopped halfway through opening his mouth to continue, considered that for a moment, then looked highly embarrassed, drew several deep breaths, and sat back down. It was at that point that Hermione realized she didn't know when he had stood up and started pacing the crowded compartment during his rant.

"…sorry," he apologized. "Like I said before, I kinda tend to blather when I get worked up about stuff."

"I'd noticed," Hermione said.

"Er, yeah," Ron said, obviously unsure what to say in response to that. "Hey, what Houses do you reckon you'll be in?"

This was something Hermione had thought of, so she chimed in, "I'm hoping for House Gryffindor! I read all about the Houses in Hogwarts, A History, and it sounds best."

"Well, my friend, Mr. Snape, says that there aren't any good Houses really," Harry said, frowning. "I mean, he says Gryffindors are mostly blood-crazed dolts who don't know how to identify a fight they can't win, and Hufflepuffs are mostly half-witted dunderheads who likely don't know how to tie their own shoelaces, and Slytherins are mostly degenerate sophisticates who can't get over some ancient foolishness about bloodlines, and Ravenclaws are mostly ivory-tower intellectual snobs who can't tell the difference between theory and practice, but Mr. Snape's kinda sarcastic like that."

"…oh," Hermione said in a small voice, her initial impressions crashing and burning.

"Well, so long as I don't end up in Slytherin, I'll be okay!" Ron chirped. "Mum says there ain't a wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin House, and they're all slimy gits, and everyone knows Gryffindor is best because they're all heroes like Dumbledore and Harry Potter."

Harry looked at him for a moment before he started reeling off a list of names, starting with 'Roderick of Fife' and ending with 'Sirius Black'.

"…huh?" Ron asked.

"Well, those are all the Gryffindors I can think of that went all murderous and dark-magicky," Harry said, scratching at his head again. "And, y'know, Mr. Dumbledore was in Slytherin, and Harry Potter ain't been Sorted yet, so who knows where he's gonna be, so I guess your mum's either dumb or making stuff up, and making stuff like that up is, well, a pretty dumb thing to do. I mean there's already a billion-and-one stupid reasons for people to look down on other people, so why would you make up another one because of what a hat said to 'em?"

"…uh," Ron began uncertainly, "what? Hey! Mum's not dumb! You take that back!"

"Well, if she's not dumb, then why's she making stuff like that up?" Harry asked, crossing his arms stubbornly. "Only other reasons I can think of for someone to do that sort of thing are a whole lot worse than just bein' dumb."

"I don't have to listen to this rubbish!" The ginger one beat a hasty retreat back to the hallway.

"Yup," Harry said, exasperatedly. "Dumb."

2.2.5 Serious conversations

"That was kind of rude, Harry," Hermione said.

"Mr. Snape says being rude to people who are being rude to you is perfectly fair play as long as they aren't goblins or teachers because being impolite to goblins is bad for your financial status, and being impolite to teachers is bad for your academic standing," Harry said with a shrug. "And I don't like people assuming dumb stuff about me; it takes loads more than just not being dead to be all hero-y. If you ain't never had a rank to go with your name, then you ain't a hero, 'less you got something like a Gee-Cee tacked on instead."

"Gee-Cee… rank… wait, what? You mean you're that Harry Potter?" Hermione finally registered the implications of that statement. "That's what that strange Mr. Ollivander meant about wands and scars? Your wand is a copy of You-Know-Who's wand!"

"Well, if you mean that Voldemort guy what bounced a killing curse off my face, then yeah, that's me, and yeah, I guess that's what Mr. Dumbledore's friend, Mr. Ollivander meant, and yeah, that Voldemort guy's wand had a feather in it what came offa the bum of the same phoenix as my wand's feather came from, and that phoenix is Mr. Dumbledore's friend, Fawkes. He hangs out with me and Suze sometimes."

"Headmaster Dumbledore hangs out with you?"

"Well, sometimes," Harry allowed, "but I was actually talking about Fawkes, the phoenix."

"Oh, okay."

"But, anyway, the only way anybody knows about what happened to that Voldemort guy is because Mr. Hagrid — you'll like him, he's nice — says so, and he's real bad at lies, and he found me in what was left of Mum and Dad's house, and there was squished Voldemort-guy all over my bedroom, and I had blood all over my head, and my Mum was dead on the floor, and I don't remember any of that stuff, so I really can't say what happened."

As Harry's monologue continued, his voice got more and more agitated. "And how'd people know he bounced a killing curse off my face, anyway. I mean me and that Voldemort guy were the only not-dead people there until that Voldemort guy splatted, so how'd they work that stuff out? For all I know, Mum coulda jumped in the way and killed him back. I mean, sometimes when I useta get bad dreams, I'd remember this sorta green light coming for me and this really crazy voice laughing, and then I can't remember anything else, and there weren't anyone else there, so it's kinda weird that everyone assumes that that Voldemort guy bounced a killing curse off me."

"Harry, blathering," Suze broke in once again.

"…drat."

A freight train passed in the opposite direction. First announced by its brisk, twin-tone horn, the heavy roar of the diesel locomotive followed, and then there was the rapid-fire repetitive, slam-slam-slam of air hammering between the wagons and the carriages. All told, the encounter shook the entire Hogwarts Express and its passengers, serving as a nice punctuation to their conversation.

"You know, it said how they worked out what happened in Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts," the interruption had also given Hermione a chance to think on what was said. "It says they used the Reverse Spell on You-Know-Who's wand, and it came up with the killing curse as the last three spells cast. It also says the Killing Curse leaves a distinctive residue of dark magic on the victim, and you had that residue."

"Yeah, I know," Harry nodded, "but the Killing Curse leaves that same residue on everything nearby, so if he used it to kill Mum, then I'd have gotten it on me at the same time. And all the spells out of the guy's wand were killing curses as far back as they could read — which is seven according to some arithmantic principle I still ain't wrapped my head around proper, according to Mr. Flitwick — but that's not really saying much, 'cause when you cast one of those things, it blurs out over everything so you can't really tell if something else was cast or even how many of 'em were cast. And anyway, don't go believing stuff you read outta Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts too quick; it says stupid stuff about me what ain't true," he scratched his head. "I mean, I know that's what the government says happened, but governments are governments. Being stupid is what they're there for."

"You should respect the government!"

"Government's made of people, and Mr. Snape says they tend to attract the worst sort to 'em, usually the sort of people who want to run a government because they get an erection when they boot people around," at this point, Hermione started blushing madly; Harry, of course, didn't notice, "at least that's what Mr. Snape says, and I guess he'd know even though I still ain't sure what that means, and no one'll tell me because they say I ain't old enough if I don't already know, which is real dumb because how're you gonna find out in the first place if nobody explains it?"

"I guess…" Hermione said uncertainly.

"Anyway, you're gonna want to get over that automatic respect for the government, at least in the Wizarding World. I'm not really up to snuff on the current not-glowy-people's government stuff, but the one here ain't very nice at all," Harry elaborated. "Lot of bad sorts in there, and they do what the people with money tell 'em to do, and a lot of the people with money are even worse sorts…"

Hermione wasn't sure how to answer that; she had trouble believing that the government was as corrupt as Harry was implying — that sounded more like some sort of third-world tin-pot dictatorship than any sort of government that could possibly be tolerated in the British Isles! Instead, she decided to change the subject, "Harry what do you think happened with You-Know-Who, then?"

"Well, I dunno, do I?" Harry said. "Whatever happened, it left dark magic gunk all over everything, left a bleeding bit on my face, left my Mum and Dad dead, blew the wall off my room, and made that Voldemort guy go splat, and that's about all I'm sure of. I mean, they found that Voldemort guy's wand in its holster, so he couldn't have been pointing it at me when he went splat, and whatever they did with it, they couldn't have checked it out too well 'cause it got nicked by someone two days later — and if I ever find out who did it, I think I oughtta nick it right back, 'cause I figure any weapon somebody tried to slay me with is worth keeping — so that's a pretty big hole in the whole 'bouncy killing curse' idea."

Harry took a breath, continuing before Hermione could say anything, or for that matter, think of anything to say. "I know I didn't do anything, 'cause I was just a little kid, and what's a little kid gonna do if he's got that Voldemort guy screaming 'I'm gonna make you a dead little kid' in his face? And I don't think that Voldemort guy did extra stuff to make himself go splat because, well, what kind of rampaging dunderhead makes himself go splat on purpose? So, I guess Mum musta done something, but I don't know what, and all the books I could find made it out to be something special about my face. I mean, my face is special because it's my face, but not the making-Voldemort-guys-go-splat-when-they-Killing-Curse-it kind of special."

Hermione thought about that for a moment before deciding that she wanted to do more research. Harry's arguments made sense, once she was able to parse through his colorful phrasing, but they were in direct contradiction to her books — in contradiction with multiple sources even! She decided to change the subject, "What was that you were saying about 'Gee-Cees' and 'ranks' earlier?"

"What? Oh, the stuff it takes to be heroes, right?" Harry checked. He was now walking a bronze coin, a knut if she remembered correctly — Hermione rarely paid attention to money, leaving it to her parents for the most part — across his knuckles.

"Yeah, that."

Well, I was talkin' about soldiers and stuff," Harry said, flicking the coin up in the air, and then catching it with the same hand before it could hit the floor. "I've been reading a lot of stuff on history and wars, and I'm pretty sure hero-ing is part of being a soldier nowadays, especially if they've got medals and stuff, well, unless they're Nazis or Soviets or some-such. And I threw in the Gee-Cee bit cause that's the best they give to non-soldier types who manage to do the same kinda stuff. All the history books are way clearer on that than they are on any of the stuff I've managed to find on dragons, that stuff's hard to work out, and everybody seems to get bits wrong." Harry was then balancing the coin on one finger before the train hit a rough patch and dislodged it.

While the boy was recovering his coin, Hermione considered that. "I don't know, Harry. I mean, all that killing and, you know, bombs… it just can't be good."

"Well, that's all well and good if you ain't got some giant spider or something charging at you and wanting to eat your face," Harry said with a shrug. "Then if you ain't as awesome as me, you're gonna be real glad if you've got a well-tuned Ess Em Ell Ee or Ess Em Ell Arr or something else what's good at making holes in stuff." He held up his bronze coin at eye level and contemplated it for a long moment, "Or what if some barking-mad little guy with a stupid mustache went 'I'm gonna invade Poland, and you're next'? Then, well, you've either gotta really do for anything that tries to get you, or you're gonna get proper squished," there was a loud wrenching sound as he crushed the bronze coin between his index finger and thumb, "like that."

"It would be nice if we lived in a world where bad things only happened to bad people," Suze chirped up, giving Hermione an intense side-on look and reminding her that the centaur maiden was in the compartment with them.

It was amazing how Harry's presence seemed to overwhelm even that of a full-sized centaur stuffed into a train compartment, Hermione thought.

"But we do not," Suze continued. "The acromantulas have treated my kin as prey, as a tasty delicacy, for longer than I have been alive. Are you saying that we should allow them to devour us because they are thinking beings? Do not try to tell me that we should attempt to talk to them; that attempt was made in a time when I was but a pleasant thought in my father's head, and it is quite difficult to talk reason into any being that simply will not listen."

"It weren't my centaur friends that started the fire, and it weren't me neither," Harry said, flicking the mangled coin onto the floor, "but I'm sure gonna fight it, 'cause there ain't nobody what messes with my friends. There's this real good saying Master-Sergeant Griphook told me a while back, 'let he who desires peace prepare for war'. I reckon it makes sense, 'cause if you're ready for bad stuff to happen, then if it does happen, it's way likelier you and your friends are still gonna be alive when it's over."

"I guess…" Hermione said uncertainly. What was it with this conversation that brought up all these uncomfortable topics?

"That's what soldiers are for, Hermione," Harry solemnly continued, "That's what they do, it's their job to save the world."

Hermione paused while she digested that, before she picked up the coin Harry discarded. It was twisted and crushed to the point where it looked like a small piece of modeling clay someone had squeezed in their fist.

"…how strong are you, Harry?" she asked.

"Way stronger than I look," Harry replied matter-of-factly.

"He can pick me up without strain," Suze helpfully added, affectionately ruffling Harry's great black mop of scruffy hair.

Looking from the pint-size boy to the much, much larger centaur, Hermione found that hard to believe — temporarily forgetting the earlier incident where he did just that to get her into the compartment in the first place — so she said so.

"I find that hard to believe."

Harry shrugged, not at all put out, while Suze stifled a snort and wryly shook her head.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked, slightly put out. Were her new acquaintances having her on?

"I apologize, it is merely that Harry seems to have that effect on people. The legend and the reality are so far separated that few know how to respond."

"Oh…" the cabin fell silent for a time with Harry playing with another coin and Hermione contemplating everything she had just heard.

"Hey, Harry?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, Hermione?"

"What was that you said about something a hat says to someone?"

"Well," Harry began, "it's supposed to be a big secret because someone ages back thought that keeping everyone guessing was funny, but first-years get sorted by having a magical hat named Donald sat on their heads, and he has a talk with them in their heads and figures out what House they're gonna be in. I tried to get him to tell me how he works that stuff out, but he just laughed and told me he'd let me know if I ever needed to know."

This time, Hermione couldn't keep herself from stating it out loud, "The Wizarding World is mental!" to which her cabin-mates could only nod understandingly.

2.2.6 A boy and his toad

It was about this time that their cabin was visited by another boy who appeared to be about Hermione's age, this one in a kind of dumpy-looking tan-and-red-striped sweater who looked nervous to even be knocking on their cabin door.

"Um, hello? Has anyone seen a toad around here?" the newcomer asked.

"Nope," Harry said as cheerfully as ever.

"Did you lose one?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah," the boy said, sounding depressed. "He was a gift from my uncle for getting in to Hogwarts, and now he's run off…"

"Maybe we can help?" Hermione offered.

"Ah," Harry sounded uncertain for once, "I probably shouldn't; animals always run away from me — except those stupid midges in summer — I'd probably just make things harder for you, sorry."

"That's okay," Hermione said brightly, "I'll still help you look… Um, I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name?"

The dumpy-looking boy now looked mortified that he'd forgotten to introduce himself, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I'm Neville Longbottom."

"Charmed," Hermione said in a perfunctory sort of voice, "I'm Hermione, this is Harry, and that is Suze," she said, indicating the relevant persons as appropriate. "Now let's go find your toad." With that Hermione briskly marched out of the cabin.

2.2.7 Coasting into the station

It was nearing the last light of day when 45401 came pounding her way down the glen towards Hogsmeade station, the beat of her exhaust hammering off the mountains and echoing across the moors, the elderly carriages of the Hogwarts Express clattering along the well-beaten rails of the West Highland Line behind her as Jim Coates closed her regulator and eased her brakes on. Steam hissed from her glands as she drew to a stately halt in the branch station that marked the sole ingress of the so-called 'muggle world' into the village of Hogsmeade across the loch from Hogwarts, and she sat, simmering, as her passengers poured from the coaches.

She was a notorious locomotive amongst the railway enthusiasts of Britain; her Midland Railway-style livery had drawn a lot of critical remarks, but her owners — an oddly hard-to-contact conglomerate known as Hogs Haulage, PLC — had so far proved unavailable for comment and had failed to return her to her proper livery despite myriad scathing letters from fans and old hands of the London, Midland, and Scottish.

Her haunts were hard to pin down, too. A lot of enthusiasts had tried to book a ride on the daily workings undertaken by Hogs Haulage from the far northwest to London and back without success; whatever the run they hauled those trains for, it was decidedly private indeed, as was the exact location where their locomotives were stabled and just why their owners had seen fit to paint them in such unprototypical livery.

Tut, tut!

At least 45401 and her stablemates had been saved from the cutter's torch. The number of fine old locomotives that had dwindled down to nothing in the scrap-lines was all too large as it was; for every locomotive that reached preservation, dozens had been met with the ignominious fate of being cut up for scrap.

Some had been less than twenty years old when they were withdrawn, a terrible waste of a perfectly good locomotive.

Most of the people who kept a weather eye out for the Hogs Haulage trains would have been quite scathing in their disbelief if told what the purpose of those trips was, but not all; one tiny handful knew what those trains stood for.

And the majority of that handful could use magic.

To the bulk of her passengers, 45401 was beneath notice; just the engine that hauled the Hogwarts Express today, nothing special.

To the few, she was a slice of history in carefully preserved steel, and in her time, she'd transported her fair share of fellow slices of history; the Boy-Who-Lived was merely the latest on that list.

Thirty feet from her smokebox and completely oblivious to the significance of the simmering sixty-odd-year old locomotive, Rubeus Hagrid was busy bellowing, "Firs' years this way, firs' years this way!" at the top of his lungs. To him she was just a big old lump of red-and-black metal.

Her crew was already checking her over in preparation to return her to her place in the Hogsmeade motive power depot as the first-year students boarded the boats at the nearby jetty. Mac was unfastening her couplers as Jim went 'round seeing that the guard, Ivor McIver, had the coaches prepared for the shunter — an Andrew-Barclay 0-4-0 saddle-tank, originally purchased to help build the Hogsmeade spur line itselt — to haul them back to the carriage sheds for cleaning and for the Hogwarts house elves to transport the children's luggage up to the castle. The children always made a heck of a mess on the train, and the small contingent of Hogs Haulage house elves always tut-tutted about the drifts of sweetie-wrappers, soft-drink bottles, used chewing gum, and other such detritus.

By the time Hagrid was calling for the first years to mind their heads as they passed under the low entryway for the tunnel that led to the Hogwarts docks, more normally used to transport the food that those children would eat, Jim was backing 45401 past the coaches towards the point that led to the turntable and engine shed; as the students filed into the Great Hall, they were seeing that old Smaugey was fed and settled into his kennel; and by the time the Sorting began, they were leaving the shed on their way down to the Hogs Head Inn and a well-earned pint of Honest Abe's Old Peculiar.

Last edited: Jul 17, 2020

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Dunkelzahn

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Threadmarks Section 2.3 - Arrival at a fairy tale castle

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Dunkelzahn

Dunkelzahn

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Jul 27, 2018

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2.3 Administrative details

2.3.1 Arrival at a fairy tale castle

Hermione stepped off the train down onto the platform, taking a deep breath of the cool evening air as she did so. Even with the omnipresent scent of coal smoke from the old steam engine, the atmosphere on the platform was decidedly refreshing when compared to that of a train cabin occupied by a centaur for upwards of seven hours.

Thankfully, Neville's toad had proven more skilled at evasion than its pursuers were at tracking, and their search had stretched on until the announcement that the children should don their uniforms prior to arrival. Hermione had returned to the cabin long enough to retrieve her uniform, and then changed in the restroom before killing time wandering the train for the rest of the trip.

Hermione had been quite grateful for an excuse to get out of the cabin for a while, over and above getting away from the horsey smell. In truth, Harry was a bit much for her.

It was not that the boy was mean, or nasty, or anything — perhaps a bit rough-around-the-edges sometimes, but some of Hermione's uncles were like that, and she knew how to sort that sort of thing out. The problem was that Harry Potter was forceful. She felt like she got dragged along with him simply on the strength of his passage, like a leaf tumbling along before a breeze.

Sure, he was a friendly breeze, but that didn't do anything for the helpless leaf, now did it?

"Firs' years this way, firs' years this way!" a hearty voice rang out across the platform.

Hermione turned to look, and her eyes bugged out at the sight of the voice's owner. He was enormous, not just impossibly tall — taller even than Suze — but impossibly wide as well both in shoulder and in girth. His hair and beard ran together into a mass of sufficient volume and density that he could be mistaken for a particularly prolific ambulatory shrubbery, and two beetle-black eyes peered out from the small patch of ruddy face not hidden by his bushy brown hair.

Hermione had thought her own hair was uncontrollable!

"Hey Hagrid!", Harry's familiar voice rang out with energy and enthusiasm as the small boy bounded across the intervening space. Hermione noted that Suze was nowhere in evidence.

"Hey, Harry," the massive man said in a friendly tone, his voice still ringing across the platform, even though he had lowered it to a more conversational tone. "I though' Suze were travellin' w' yeh?"

"I sent her home with my portkey," Harry explained with a shrug. "We couldn't get her turned around to get off the train." He looked over at Hermione, who had been absently followed Hagrid's instructions by walking over. "This is Hermione Granger," he introduced her, "I met her in Diagon Alley."

Hermione found herself quailing under the massive man's gaze, and she offered a timid, "How do you do?"

"'Ello, Miss," Hagrid said in a booming voice and with a broad, friendly smile. Hermione couldn't help but smile back. "Lookin' forward t' Hogwarts?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Hagrid," she was much reassured by his friendly manner.

"Jus' Hagrid, Miss; Mr. Hagrid was me Da'. Yeh stick t' young Harry 'ere; he'll make sure yer all right."

Harry smiled proudly, "Hagrid here is Hogwarts' Groundskeeper, Gamekeeper, and Keeper of the Keys, and he knows absolutely everything there is to know about all sorts of really cool creatures! Centaurs, hippogryphs, unicorns, thestrals, even dragons! He's even helping me farm acromantulas, and he bakes the best rock cakes you've ever tasted!"

Hermione craned her neck to look back up at the large man, noting with some surprise that the small patches of his cheeks that were visible were flushed red at Harry's effusive praise.

"Go on, ye' little scamp! Head on o'er t' the boats, an' I'll gather the rest o' the firsties."

Harry nodded agreeably and took hold of Hermione's hand. "C'mon the boats are over here."

Hermione allowed herself to be dragged along; it seemed to be Harry's normal mode of travel, grab a nearby female by the hand and haul her along. Since she wanted to go that way anyway she decided not to object. "Boats, Harry?"

"Yeah, first years go to the castle in boats. The first time you see Hogwarts is from the shore of the loch."

"How did you know that? It wasn't in Hogwarts: A History?"

"'s what happened last year and the year before that," Harry explained. "I've been around Hogwarts since I was eight and I had to leave my aunt and uncle's house. It's okay though, 'cause I wasn't too happy there before… well, before I had to leave."

Before Hermione's curiosity could latch onto that suspicious pause, they arrived on the jetty, and he said with a theatrical wave of his arms, "Ta-da! There you go, Hogwarts!"

Hermione blinked at the marvelous sight before her, across the loch, gleaming like a jeweled crown in the gathering twilight was a castle properly deserving of being called 'magical'. Towers and turrets stretched up to touch the sky, impossibly thin for their stone construction, and the walled edifice spread out to encompass a massive area. Best of all to Hermione's young mind, was the reflection duplicating the vision in the dark, still waters below.

"It's not bad, eh?"

"It's incredible… beautiful…"

"C'mon, lets grab a boat."

2.3.2 Disciplinary inquiry

As the Great Hall slowly filled, Abigail pushed her way through the press on her way to the staff table. She had been selected as a Slytherin Prefect at the end of the previous year, and she took her duties seriously, both because she had agreed to do them and in hopes of proving herself worthy of being named Head Girl in her coming seventh year.

Flint had been kicked by a centaur on the train, and it was her duty to report it to her Head of House, so report it, she would — no matter how much he deserved it. Flint was a right prick.

Eventually, she managed to force her way through and found Professor Snape waiting impassively for the firsties to arrive for the Sorting. "Excuse me, Professor Snape?"

Snape glanced down at her, dark eyes noting the glittering new addition of the prefect badge, "Yes, Miss Abercrombie?"

"Sir, there was an incident on the train. Flint was injured when he was kicked by a centaur, and I escorted him to the infirmary. Madame Pomfrey instructed me to inform you of the situation and that he should be fine in a few hours but would not be able to attend the feast tonight."

"I see, thank you for your diligence, Miss Abercrombie. Was there anything else?"

Abigail's brown eyes blinked at the lack of surprise, "Er, there was a centaur on the train, sir, it kicked him."

"Yes, I heard you the first time, Miss Abercrombie. And?"

Abigail shifted defensively, "Um, I didn't think they were allowed, sir. I thought the Express was reserved for students only."

"It is."

There was another uncomfortable silence. Her Head of House's terse responses were not helping with conversational flow. "Er, the centaur can't be a student, can it sir? In Care, Professor Kettleburn said that centaurs are inherently magical creatures due to the circumstances of their creation, but they are unable to channel wanded magic."

A thin smile appeared on Snape's face, "Two points for your applied knowledge of centaurs, Miss Abercrombie. That will be all." He then turned back to scowling at the student body which was slowly separating itself into Houses.

Abigail frowned in surprise at the abrupt dismissal before nodding respectfully and stepping backwards. The Professor obviously knew of the centaur and appeared to have no objection. There was something odd, though. Professor Snape had confirmed that the centaur maid was not a student, but he was still unconcerned that she had been on a train exclusively reserved for students.

She would have to unravel that puzzle at a later date. For now, she needed to take her place at the Slytherin table and prepare to welcome the new students.

She barely managed to take her seat in time.

2.3.3 The Sorting

Out of all the incoming first-year students, only one knew what to expect, and since that one was Harry Potter, he was predictably far too excited about the situation to be coherent.

Hermione, still attached to him by the hand, found herself wanting to put her hands on his head to stop him bouncing as they listened to the scruffy magical hat he'd earlier claimed went by the name, Donald, singing some kind of vaguely bawdy doggerel. The hall was very impressive, and she supposed a singing hat was neat, but having an outrageously strong and hyperactive small boy fidgeting, giggling and pointing random things out tended to detract from the majesty of the spectacle.

The Sorting proceeded alphabetically by surname, and Harry amused himself by spotting kids he recognized as their turns came up, marking each with an 'I know him/her'; first in that category was one Hannah Abbot who he'd met in Diagon Alley that one time, quickly followed by her friend Susan Bones. They both ended up in Hufflepuff. Then Hermione ended up in Gryffindor, which Harry supposed was a good thing since that's where she said she wanted to go.

That Longbottom guy who, judging by the squirming lump in his pocket, had eventually managed to find his toad, got sorted into Gryffindor. Then there was that mad Draco kid, whose awesome first name did nothing to make up for his personality. He'd almost gotten his head sat-on on principle that one time they'd met in Hogsmeade on account of him being dumb and giving dragons a bad name by association. The blond dunderhead ended up in Slytherin, and Harry was sure Mr. Snape wasn't going to like that one bit. Then Mrs. McGonagall said 'Potter, Harry', and he bounded up to the stool for his turn.

While the other children had been nervous to one degree or another at facing the ordeal of being Sorted in front of the entire school, Harry was quite eager, enjoying the whispers and bated breath throughout the room. He was a dragon after all even if he didn't look it at the moment, and dragons were supposed to be impressive and awe-inspiring.

He figured he needed all the awe he could get.

2.3.4 Surprise!

As the Hat descended on the still slightly undersized boy and his great shaggy mop of black hair, the Hall was hushed in anticipation. This made the truncated scream of pure astonishment from the Sorting Hat all the more piercing in contrast.

"What the fu…"

The small figure seated under the recently screaming hat had already been the focus of attention for every person in the hall, but now each and every eye widened.

Snape leaned across to the Headmaster, "I thought the two had already met?"

"They have," Albus looked puzzled. "I wonder what's gotten the Hat all up in a tizzy?"

2.3.5 Sorting the dragon

Harry looked up as far as his eyes could go, even going so far as to tilt his head back a little. "Is there something wrong?"

In his mind, Donald's voice sounded like he was hyperventilating. "Oh my, you're a, a… I've never… Oh my!"

Harry reached up with his still very human-looking arm and patted the ancient hat reassuringly, "Are you alright?"

"I am most certainly not alright! That bast… er, never mind. Ooh, the Headmaster deserves a good… aargh!" the Hat paused and seemed to collect itself. "My apologies, Mr. Potter, and for your reference, you don't need to speak aloud; I am quite capable of communicating via your thoughts alone."

"Like this?" Harry thought very loudly.

"Perhaps not quite so forcefully," Donald gave the impression of a wince. "Goodness, I've never had to sort a dragon before. Have you always been a dragon? I didn't notice any indication when we met previously."

"I transformed into one when those standing-stone thingies went all crazy back a month or so before I turned eight," Harry explained in a much quieter, but still excitedly bouncy, mental voice. "I didn't meet you, though, until after I'd learned to transfigure myself into a human again."

"…and since we were speaking aloud rather than with me on your head, I didn't have the senses to tell the difference, I suppose," Donald concluded. "Understandable, though it still doesn't excuse Albus for not telling me ahead of time."

"Is there something wrong with me being a dragon," Harry asked, troubled.

"No, nothing wrong," Donald assured him, "I just like being informed of these things beforehand. Don't like surprises too much, you understand."

"Well, it's supposed to be a secret," Harry offered. "Some of the glowy people wouldn't like it too much if they found out I was a dragon instead of a person… well, I'm still a person, but a dragon-shaped person rather than a people-shaped person. Maybe that's why he didn't tell you."

"Well, I don't care if it was supposed to be a state secret, the old whiskered bastard should have bloody-well told me," the hat groused. "Please pardon my language, Mr. Potter. I find myself somewhat overwrought."

"Huh, why did he need to tell you?" Harry's face twisted into a confused frown. "Does it make some sort of difference in where you sort me?"

"No, it was more along the lines of not scaring the stitching out of me," Donald sighed. "Ugh, I'm too old for this sort of excitement."

Harry perked up; that sounded interesting. "How old are you, exactly? I mean, Hagrid said I might be around for a really long time because dragons can live for hundreds of years, and Madame Pomfrey said I might well live even longer than that, so I was wondering about…"

"Well, perhaps we should get on with our business first?" Donald interrupted before Harry could really get a good blather going. "As fascinating as your observations are, I fear that if we take too long to sort you there may just be a riot after my little slip up at the beginning. Feel free to visit during the year, it is always nice to get some company, and we could converse at our leisure, then. I'm sure the Headmaster would be amenable to allowing you to visit his office. I might even get you to play a prank on him for me. Well, on to the job at hand, hmm, interesting…"

The chance to talk to the hat sounded like it might be great fun, but Donald did have a point, Harry reasoned. "Your song said all the clever glowy-people get put in Ravenclaw; I like reading, can I go there?"

"So I see; so I see. You do have a powerful intellect indeed, Mr. Potter; however, I suspect your phenomenal rate of learning and memory retention would earn you more resentment than fellowship there. It is one thing for students to engage in friendly competition with others of similar ability, but to be effortlessly outclassed is another thing entirely. Your time in Ravenclaw would be troublesome, and while character-building, I dare say that annoying a dragon would turn out to be a little too exciting for members of that House."

Harry considered that. He had never really considered himself to be particularly smart, but he figured he'd take Donald's word for it. The hat was supposed to be the expert here. "If you say so. I don't want to annoy anyone if it's not for a good reason, and just being better at schoolwork seems like a pretty dumb reason to me. How about Gryffindor? I'm brave — I've even got a damsel — and you sorted Hermione there, and she's my friend."

"Mr. Potter, you are fearless, and with good reason! But I'm afraid courage is a very different thing from fearlessness. Courage is acting despite your fear, and you have yet to face any situations sufficiently dangerous to showcase your courage. Gryffindors as a group tend to leap into dangerous situations readily, yes, but a situation which is dangerous for a wizard would pose little challenge to one such as you. Conversely, a situation even mildly dangerous for you would be beyond deadly to a wizard, and I shudder to think what would happen should your housemates leap into such a situation after you. I suspect that my sorting you into Gryffindor would quickly lead to a marked decline in the House's population through attrition."

"Oh!" Harry said, taken aback. "That's not good at all! I guess Hufflepuff is the only one left then? Mr. Snape said I wouldn't make a very good Slytherin."

"Severus Snape's opinion matters to me not at all, Mr. Potter," the hat said testily. "For your information, I do not necessarily sort students into the House which most closely mirrors their personality."

"You don't? I thought you said in the song that that was your job?"

"It usually turns out that way, yes, but my purpose is to sort students into the Houses where they will grow and develop properly, the place where they would best succeed. When a student holds the attributes of several Houses, I try to sort them where they would be most effective. Now Hufflepuff would be delighted to have you as a member."

"You mean I'm going to be a Badger? Wicked!"

"You would certainly fit in there quite well; Hufflepuff itself would fare better for your patronage. The honor and prestige alone would do wonders for the House's reputation."

Harry frowned; the hat seemed to be stalling. "But where else could I go? You don't think I'd be any good with the sneaky people in Slytherin, do ya? Mr. Snape seemed to think the idea was pretty funny when I asked him."

The hat gave the mental impression of an exasperated sigh. "Mr. Potter, Professor Snape was correct to point out that you are not really cunning, or sneaky as you would call it. You are arrow-straight in a world full of curves. You have a child's view of the world, a view which would attract some derision from your fellow Slytherins. I wouldn't even consider putting you in that House were it not for one thing…"

"Really, what's that?" the young dragon asked curiously.

"You have an ambition Salazar himself would never have dreamed to even consider. You wish to change the world."

"Oh, that," Harry mentally shrugged, finding the action to be oddly comfortable despite doing it for the first time in his existence. "Well, Mr. Snape and Suze and me have all been trying to figure out how to overthrow the glowy people in charge so we can fix things up — when we're not learning potions, that is. Mr. Snape gets really loud when I try to talk about overthrowing while he's talking about potions."

The hat paused for a moment, "Yes, well, Professor Snape's protestations aside, that's my dilemma. I could put you in Hufflepuff, and you would be welcomed there, but the House would be the greatest beneficiary rather than you. Or I could put you in Slytherin, and you might not be so happy there, but you might be forced to develop some more subtle skills which would prove most useful for your grand ambition. Essentially you would cultivate a more delicate touch, an attitude that would serve you well with your goal."

"You know, from the reading I've done and the conversations I've had, I never would have guessed it would come down to deciding between Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Those two don't really have a lot in common."

"Ah, but a good Slytherin knows how to work hard for his goals, though there are precious few in that House these days," Donald countered. "And few Hufflepuffs work hard for the sake of hard work, rather they pursue a goal, in other words, an ambition."

"Oh, okay. So where am I going?"

"Yes, yes. Where are you going? Hufflepuff, where you would do well, but the House would be great, or Slytherin where the House would do well, but you would be pushed on the path to true greatness?"

Harry waited with bated breath. This was perhaps the defining moment of his childhood… well, apart from the whole turn-into-a-dragon thing, it would be pretty hard to top that one.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat shifted back to audible speech to declare Harry's fate at Hogwarts.

"Not Slytherin?" Harry thought. He figured it might have been nice to be in the same House as Mr. Snape.

"No, Mr. Potter," Donald replied in kind, "if placing you in Gryffindor would have decimated the House through attrition, putting you in among the Serpents would have led to their near-complete annihilation. As I said, the good Slytherins are rather light on the ground at the moment. I daresay that you will achieve true greatness eventually regardless of your House, and weighing a few years' delay in what promises to be a truly prodigious lifespan against the lives of a quarter of the school, well, it wasn't too difficult a choice to make. Good luck to you in Hufflepuff, and don't forget to visit!"

Harry took off the hat, set it on the stool and gave it a quick pat, "Thanks, Mr. Hat!", before he trotted over to the table trimmed in black and yellow.

2.3.6 An unexpectedly friendly outcome

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Up at the staff table, Snape looked faintly surprised at the outcome before muttering, "Blasted reptile."

Then he stifled a chuckle as he scanned the Gryffindor students' poleaxed looks, the Ravenclaws' wide-eyed startlement, the Slytherins' equally startled but calculating expressions, and the wild cheering and applause from the Badgers.

It seemed that Harry had, as expected, put a cat among the pigeons from the get-go.

2.3.7 Feast

After the uproar following the Boy-Who-Didn't-Snuff-It becoming a 'Puff, the Sorting proceeded apace, with the last student Harry had met, Ronald Weasley, joining the Lions, and some kid named Zabini — who Harry only remembered because his name was kind of unusual, what with starting with a 'z' and all — going to Slytherin.

It was followed by a brief bit of buffoonery from Dumbledore in which he imparted the grand words of wisdom, 'nitwit', 'oddment', and 'tweak' — from which some of the more obsessive Ravenclaws would spend weeks attempting to derive hidden meanings — which then led directly into the feast wherein a large room full of teenagers and near-teenagers consumed their fill, and a little bit more, of greasy, starchy, calorie-dense food.

Harry once again shocked the rest of the student body by practically inhaling the equivalent of an entire roast cow by himself while enthusiastically chattering away at a mile-a-minute with his new housemates. Harry counted it a great success when he managed to get the girls he ended up sitting between, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot, giggle fits and managed to get the older boy seated across the table, who'd introduced himself as Cedric Diggory, to snort so hard pumpkin juice came out of his nose.

Once everyone had eaten their fill — except for Harry, who regarded just one cow as little more than a light nibble and fully intended to eat enough to feel full when he got back to his Lair for the evening — Dumbledore again took center stage for a few announcements regarding a new staff member and some rule changes.

"The Forbidden Forest is, as its name suggests, strictly forbidden to anyone not accompanied by a staff member or a registered resident of the Forest. Lastly, but certainly not least, there is a hallway on the third floor which is likewise strictly off-limits as it contains a certain death for any who venture therein. It is marked and locked in a way which will require considerable deliberate effort for any student to unlock. I trust that no one will make the attempt, as doing so would be quite remarkably foolish."

Harry frowned for a moment at that. He alone among the student body had some idea of what was going on with that. A few days before, a fist-sized package had been delivered to the castle via armored car under the watchful eyes of no less than a full platoon of armed-to-the-teeth goblins led by Sergeant-Major Hooktalon. They'd even brought rocket launchers and a weird sort of gun with six barrels that rotated through one after another that they'd said they were going to mount on a stand inside the door.

The squaddies had seemed almost giddy about the thing, so Harry figured they didn't get to use it very often; when he had asked, they said they only got to use it this time because the client had a whole lot of money and he was willing to pay for the ammunition. It was called an 'Em-One-Thirty-Four Minigun', which seemed like an odd name to Harry since between the gun itself, the specially shielded battery pack, and the ammunition boxes, it probably weighed as much as two of the goblins themselves.

They apparently had orders to keep everyone but a few specific people out — namely Dumbledore, Hooktalon, Slackhammer, and some guy named Flamel — using force if required, and that was all they'd been willing to tell him. Their tone had let him know that it was something he ought not be pushing on, so he left them to it after extracting a promise to come by and look in on his marksmanship progress when they got a chance.

"Now then, it is time for us to get some sleep," Dumbledore concluded, snapping Harry out of his thoughts. "We've a big day tomorrow, after all."

Prefects went around gathering their respective Houses' first-years, and led each group out of the Great Hall in a great disorderly mob. Once everyone had been directed to their common rooms, it was time for the few students who would not be living in the dorms to be shown the way out, since it wasn't through the docks they came in by. In Hufflepuff's case, this group had two members, Harry and another boy by the name of Zacharias Smith who lived down in Hogsmeade, but the group included some few from the other Houses as well.

Escort duty was being handled by none other than Professor Severus Snape, and as the other students left with their parents, he intercepted Harry before he could trundle off into the Forest. "Mr. Potter, the Headmaster would like to speak with you before you head home for the evening. Please follow me," without waiting for an acknowledgement, Snape strode off.

Harry, quite used to this sort of behavior from the man, gave an acknowledgement anyway, "Okay!" and made good time keeping up with the older man's longer stride.

"Did Mr. Dumbledore tell you what he wanted to talk to me about?" Harry asked as they walked.

"I have an idea, but as there may be other things I will not speculate so as not to mislead you unintentionally."

"Umm, okay," Harry said uncertainly. "When do you teach us first-years?"

"Your class timetable will be issued tomorrow at breakfast, but traditionally I teach the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff first-year students on a Thursday morning."

Harry nodded happily at that. He was beyond pleased that he would finally be able to be a student at Hogwarts and spend more time with his professor friends. Admittedly, it would mean less time spent galloping with his centaur friends, but that time was kind of limited anyway at this time of year.

As the pair continued to walk down the byzantine maze of Hogwarts' hallways, the companionable silence was broken again, this time by Snape. "Out of morbid curiosity, Mr. Potter, how many students did your centaur damsel's hooves injure on the Express?"

Eyes wide with awe, Harry asked, "How did you know Suze kicked someone on the train?"

Snape was disciplined enough to keep his tongue in check, and rather than retort that his last name was Potter, and therefore injuries among innocent bystanders were to be expected as he would have done with any of his peers in the staffroom; he instead went with, "I am a student of human nature."

Harry wasn't sure what to make of that reply, so he just decided to explain the incident to his friend.

"As you were not Sorted at that point, I shall hold off on deducting points." Snape sighed, "However, please direct your considerable intellect towards anticipating and avoiding such problems in the future. I am not so naïve as to imagine that you will be able to avoid trouble entirely, but if you at least promise to attempt to do your best to avoid discovery and keep collateral damage to a minimum, I believe I will have to be satisfied."

"Okay, Mr. Snape!"

There was that weaponized level of exuberance again. The blasted lizard was going to ruin his reputation at this rate.

They had finally managed to arrive at the gargoyle which concealed the entrance to the Headmaster's office. "My office is in the dungeons near the potions classroom, though I can be contacted using the fire in any of the common rooms in an emergency." He broke off for a moment to provide the password for the entrance, currently 'lemon drops', before continuing, "Now off you go, you wretched reptile. Our tutoring sessions will continue, but the location will shift to the potions classroom. Good night to you, and sleep well. You have a big day tomorrow."

"Good night, Mr. Snape! I'll see you tomorrow."

2.3.8 Gentle reminder

After Mr. Snape had left in a great sweeping billow of dark robes as was his custom, Harry bounded up the cool moving stairs into Mr. Dumbledore's office. The large office, more accurately an office suite, was mostly filled with interesting things. Little devices that spun about and periodically emitted puffs of smoke, moving magical portraiture, all sorts of colorful knickknacks glowing with various kinds of magic to Harry's senses, and reams upon reams of parchment. Mostly though, there was Fawkes.

Harry really liked Fawkes.

The phoenix made for great company. He was nearly as cheerful as Harry was, and he made you feel better just by being around. Harry aspired to do the same someday, though he had no idea how he might manage it. Phoenixes apparently had some innate magical effect that did that, and Harry would probably have to make a similar thing if he wanted to brighten up people's moods with his mere presence.

The roiling mass of vaguely bird-shaped flame chirped a friendly greeting to Harry, followed by a hopeful questioning tone.

"It's good to see you too, Fawkes," Harry said, fearlessly reaching his hand out to pet the incarnation of fire. "And sorry, but the room's too small to transform and give you a fire bath. If you come by the Lair when I get back though, I'd be happy to, and I'm sure Suze would like to see you too!"

"Ah, Mr. Potter, it is a delight to finally welcome you to Hogwarts as a student!" the Headmaster said, stepping out of an adjoining room that appeared to consist mostly of a cozy-looking sitting area before a fireplace. In the time between the welcoming feast and his current meeting, the man had exchanged his relatively subdued robes with multicolored stars and moons for a much more lurid set with animated patterns and everything. "I do appreciate your self-discipline in refraining from transforming within my office, as well; I know how persuasive Fawkes can be when he wants something. Sorting the paperwork again would be quite tedious."

"You're welcome, Mr. Dumbledore," Harry said, perfectly seriously.

"Yes… did I hear you say correctly that Fawkes enjoys being bathed in your flames?" the elderly man asked. "I must say that I had not realized such things were enjoyable for phoenixes or I would have sought to provide him with such previously."

"He said that other fires aren't hot enough for him when I asked before," Harry explained.

"I wonder if that is why he has seemed so much healthier recently?" Dumbledore mused, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "He hasn't undergone a burning day in six months or so, and his flames have seemed much more energetic than usual… hmm, most remarkable. In any case, I suppose we should get back to the topics at hand."

"Right!"

"How was your train ride, young man?" Dumbledore asked. "The Express has been a beloved tradition for the best part of a century. I trust that it was quite memorable for you?"

"It was great!" Harry said enthusiastically. "I sat with Suze and a girl I'd met at Diagon Alley before, and we read lots, but Suze had to take the portkey back to the Lair because we couldn't get her back out of the compartment."

The Headmaster nodded sagely, "I suppose I should have anticipated that, though it does beg the question of how you managed to get her into the compartment in the first place — an enigma I am sure to enjoy pondering at a later date. As it is, there was no lasting harm done. Please take a seat, there are a few things to discuss." As his young guest took a seat on one of the visitors' chairs arranged before the desk, Dumbledore indicated a candy dish on the edge of said desk. "Lemon drop?"

The young dragon looked longingly at the sweets, he could certainly smell them from here, and they smelled delicious, the same sort of tangy acid smell to be expected from good, strong, goblin tea — or a leaky car battery, they were pretty similar.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to pass for now. Hagrid left me a couple of cars up on the bluff by the Lair, and I don't want to spoil my appetite. Maybe next time?" he finished hopefully.

"Quite responsible," Albus approved, nonetheless popping one into his own mouth, "and I will quite happily offer you the same opportunity on your next visit. Now, have you had an opportunity to read the copy of the school bylaws I lent you?"

Harry nodded, "I did, though Suze and me had a bit of a laugh at some of the sillier rules. I hope you don't mind?"

"Of course not, some of those rules are quite silly, indeed," the man's long white beard danced as he gave a hearty chuckle. "My favorites are some of the rules regarding the etiquette involved in the concurrent carrying of swords and wands put in place in the thirteenth century; why, to follow them all would require no less than three hands!"

Harry grinned, recognizing the rules the man was referring to. "It got even worse in the sixteenth century when they added the ones for guns, 'cause they didn't do anything to invalidate the earlier ones for swords and they used 'and' instead of 'or' for left or right-handed carry, so by the rules you technically need to be carrying four swords, two pistols, two rifles, at least seven knives, and thirteen wands with a hand for each one."

The old man laughed delightedly, "I must admit I had not made that connection before, though I see it now that you've pointed it out. Come to think of it, that would have been a much better choice when we were trying to find a way to justify carrying your armament on campus, hmm. Well, what is done, is done, I suppose."

"Yeah, well, I've been thinking, remember how the goblins helped Suze and me to get away from that crazy toad lady in the alley last year? All those laws with numbers after the names?"

"I do have a passing familiarity with the legal code, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore assured him, amused. "It is, after all, my responsibility as the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot to be the highest arbiter of such matters in the land."

"Right!" Harry said enthusiastically, completely unembarrassed by what many others would consider a major oversight. "Anyway, the rule book sorta reminded me of them, and I was wondering whether I could get a copy of all the rule books with the laws that I could read? I don't want to have to bother the goblins all the time whenever someone tries to be a poo-head, so I figured if I knew all the laws, I could make sure to only do things that are allowed, even if everyone thinks they're not allowed."

There was a slight pause as the older man waded through that morass of dialogue, "I see. Are you thinking of practicing law when you graduate from Hogwarts? Do you wish to become a solicitor or barrister? With your prodigious memory, you would be a formidable opponent in the courtroom."

"Nah," the dragon waved the idea off. "They sound like really boring jobs. I just want to know so I can deal with it if I have to. Plus, if we ever want to change the laws to be fairer, I need to know what we've got now to avoid running into the same problems."

Albus beamed at that, it seemed that his earlier urgings about working within the system had borne at least some fruit after all. "Well, it is always a good thing to have more people familiar with our legal system, and I am certain I could authorize an expenditure from your trust account for the purpose of acquiring the relevant materials. The legal code is quite extensive, however, so you will be in for quite the read, and keeping up with the continual additions, modifications, and indeed, contradictions, can be both tiresome and expensive."

"Thanks, Mr. Dumbledore! Um, before I forget, Donald also invited me to come talk to him from time to time during the year, is that okay?"

"Donald?"

"Yeah," at the elderly wizard's puzzled look, Harry offered, "You know, Donald, the hat?"

"The Sorting Hat is named Donald?" that was news to Dumbledore. He'd always just called it the Hat.

"Uh huh," Harry nodded. "He told me when I first talked to him last year."

"Well, I suppose you learn something new every day," Albus mused. "I will certainly not get in your way on that front, though if you wish to meet with him in my office, I will of course, need to be present. There are a great many fragile and important things in here, after all. Perhaps…" He stood up and went to a shelf, withdrawing the Sorting Hat and setting it on his desk, "Hat — or Donald, I suppose — Mr. Potter tells me you would like to speak with him during the year?"

The Hat awoke groggily, "Yes, yes I did. Why, is he here to talk already?"

"Hi, Donald!" Harry greeted.

"He is here, but I daresay it is too late in the day for a proper conversation when he has classes tomorrow. No, I wished to ask whether you would like to be relocated outside of my office so that you might be available for discussions with students without requiring my presence? The castle certainly is in possession of a surfeit of rooms, it would be no trouble to set something up."

The hat scrunched itself up in concentration before it responded, "You know, that sounds rather nice. I think I'll take you up on that."

"Then it shall be done," Dumbledore said grandly before faltering slightly as a though occurred to him. "Though it may take a few weeks to set up the appropriate wards, Merlin knows what the Weasley twins would load you down with without proper warding."

The hat shuddered, "Take your time, then, Headmaster. No need to rush, and it would be good for Mr. Potter to get a few weeks of class under his belt before we talk again anyway." Donald turned to the young dragon, "You've got a lot on your plate right now, don't be too rushed about coming to see me while you're so busy. I've got plenty of time, and from your statements earlier, you're not hurting for it either."

"Okay, Donald!"

"Before you put me away, Albus, I insist on attending that staff meeting you lot always hold after the Welcoming Feast; I've got some things to say to you," Donald said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Now finish your discussion with Mr. Potter before it gets so late the boy falls asleep on the way back to his Lair." Its piece said, the hat returned to looking like an ordinary, if battered, piece of apparel.

"Yes, well… I suppose that brings me to the first item I needed to discuss with you, Mr. Potter. I understand that several of the Hogwarts faculty are your friends and you are accustomed to referring to them as such, but during the term, you should address them by their proper titles. It is a sign of respect for their positions, and it is intended to help maintain discipline among the students, which can be quite necessary due to the oftentimes hazardous nature of magical instruction. Thus, Severus should be referred to as Professor Snape during the term, for instance. When in your Lair or during breaks, you may of course refer to us by whatever moniker tickles your fancy. Indeed, whilst there, you may refer to me as 'that barmy old codger' should you feel so inclined."

"Okay, Professor Dumbledore."

"Excellent, now, additionally there are a few things I must discuss with you about how you interact with your peers…"

2.3.9 Laying down the law

Snape strode purposefully down the corridor towards the Slytherin common room, his darkly dyed robes billowing about him. Arriving at his destination, he whispered the override password from within a silently-cast muffling charm; the potions master had no desire to see what mischief his Serpents could cause with an override password at their disposal. As it was, he still changed the thing every other week.

All conversation ceased as the potions master billowed into the room like a particularly taciturn storm cloud, and every head turned to face him.

Snape took his time looking around the room at the faces of his students, not incidentally allowing time for tension to build. Say what you would about his social acumen, Snape certainly knew how to work a room.

"I have announcements to make. Prefects, summon our wayward Serpents."

All six of the prefects nodded and immediately bolted for the various dormitories to roust up any students that had thought to go to bed early. Snape meanwhile glared at the rest of the student body. When all had been assembled, he spoke in a low, clear, but still vaguely ominous voice.

"This year, things have changed."

The students knew better than to interrupt.

"Historically, punishments for rule infractions have been dispensed only when there was sufficient evidence to support such actions. There have been instances in the past where rules have been broken, but in the face of limited or inconclusive evidence, punishments were avoided."

"This state of affairs is no longer in effect."

Several hushed conversations sprang up almost immediately, only to be quelled by Snape with a sharp gesture.

"The unofficial rule, 'no witnesses, no crime' should be considered obsolete. If an allegation is leveled against you, you shall be punished. If it later turns out that you were falsely accused, then your accuser shall be punished twofold. This warning is being given to every student in the school. There will be no bullying, no intimidation, and no extortion. There will be no accidental spell-fire in the hallways when no witnesses are present. There will be no sabotaging of equipment or schoolwork when no one is watching. The rules have not changed, but the level of evidence required for their enforcement has. Neither I nor any other staff member will protect students from the consequences of their own actions."

"Are there any questions?"

A few hands rose, causing Snape to sigh internally. What was unclear about his speech? He had attempted to make it as clear and unambiguous as possible. He nodded to the nearest hand, belonging to Mr. Flint, who had not been present at the feast as he recalled. Poppy had done good work, it seemed.

"Does that include the Express, sir?"

"Naturally."

Flint grinned as if he had just won the lottery, "I was attacked by a centaur on the train, sir. Whoever owns it is responsible…"

Snape kept his face deliberately blank as he interrupted his student, "Have you been practicing quidditch over the break, Mr. Flint?"

"Yes, sir," the boy seemed puzzled over the apparent non-sequitur.

"Did you sustain any injuries to your eardrums?"

"Sir?"

"Is your hearing compromised?" the potions master clarified.

"No sir."

"Did you happen to be struck about the head by a bludger repeatedly, perchance?"

"No, sir," Flint repeated, confused.

"Odd, you seem to be rather less intelligent than I recall. Perhaps Madame Pomfrey released you from her care prematurely? Did you not hear me say that false accusers shall be doubly punished? Detention, Mr. Flint. Tomorrow with me, and next Friday with Hagrid."

"But I was kicked…" Flint objected.

"You stormed up behind a centaur while screaming threats at her master," Snape raised his voice over the boy's objections. "Had that particular centaur been carrying her customary armament, I would either be filling out the reams of tedious paperwork associated with your gruesome demise while the elves were scrubbing your remains off the inside of that carriage, or you would be spending the entirety of the fall term under Madame Pomfrey's tender mercies."

Snape turned away from the rapidly paling Marcus Flint and toward the rest of the students watching raptly. "How much clearer can I make myself? Every student in this school is being told exactly the same thing. I suspect the many, many dunderheads amongst your number will take quite some time to comprehend what is essentially a very simple concept, but the few among you blessed with even a modicum of critical thought should come to grips with it quite easily."

One trembling hand rose from the mass of quivering students.

"Yes, Miss Smith."

"Why, sir? I mean, why the change?"

Snape stared at the fourth-year girl until she thoroughly regretted asking the question. "The reason matters not; I am not interested in your objections, only in your compliance. Is that understood?"

"Good, now there is one thing left to drill into your thick skulls," Snape took a deep breath. "Potter is to be left alone."

That pronouncement triggered another wave of whispers. Abigail Abercrombie, his promising sixth-year prefect raised a tentative hand.

"Yes, Miss Abercrombie?"

"Do you mean Potter is to be… alienated?"

Snape almost snapped at the girl before he thought back on his statement and realized it was a reasonable interpretation of his words. "No, no, by all means, associate with him, befriend him, do your homework with him, or ignore him as you will. In that respect, he is to be treated as any other student at this school. But he is not to be targeted for any prank, bullying, or scheme. Leave. Him. Alone."

"Sir? You just said any bullying will be punished…"

"Do not be an imbecile. I am well aware that many of you are even now reworking your various schemes with the new rules in mind, trying to find some way around them, so that they cannot be traced back to you. I know that in the past, many of you have come to equate the admonishment 'do not do something' with 'do not get caught doing something', and I fully expect some of the more cerebrally-deficient among you to test our resolve. Hopefully, after the first few are sent home in disgrace, the rest will get the hint and fall into line. Beyond that, I am giving you one warning, and one warning only. Leave Potter alone."

Glaring about the room, he noted that all the students were nodding in acceptance. Whether they acted the part would remain to be seen.

"Very well, if there are no more ridiculous objections, I will retire for the evening. Prefects, drill the usual expectations into the new students. The rest of you, off to bed."

With that he swept out of the room amid his usual billowing robes. He was almost to his quarters when he was interrupted once again by a voice calling out his name. He turned to see the same sixth-year prefect jogging up behind him.

"Yes, Miss Abercrombie?" he prompted harshly.

The girl winced before soldiering on. "Sir, many of the students are talking, wondering why Potter is getting such favorable treatment. I'm afraid I already overheard the first-year Malfoy saying he was already planning a prank on him."

Snape closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Surely Lucius had drilled at least a modicum of subtlety into his son. For all his numerous and grievous faults, at least the elder Malfoy knew when to be discreet, but apparently his son was cut from a different cloth. As a Slytherin, being overheard planning rule-breaking was even worse than getting caught doing the deed. "Very well, I shall see to it that young Mr. Malfoy learns to regret his actions. Perhaps dodging a bludger with 'Potter' written on it for an hour will hammer the lesson home?"

"Yes, sir," Abigail said. "Um, is Potter going to be a problem for the school?"

For a long moment the potions master regarded the young witch before asking, "What makes you ask that?"

Abigail fought to keep herself from biting her lower lip. "Well, such a fundamental change in the school culture would only come about after a major incident in the school, probably something happening to a student from a powerful family. I can't think of anything from last year that might have prompted such a change, so logic dictates that the change must be because of something new to the school this year. The only incoming student with political connections is Bones — at a stretch, maybe Malfoy since his father is a governor — but neither one of those is really prominent enough for this, nor are they at any particular risk that I know of, certainly not enough to precipitate such a massive cultural shift."

"Continue."

"Well, eliminating political weight, the only name with enough cultural weight to warrant such a thing is Potter." At her Head of House's nod, she continued. "Er, well… I only really worked it out after you told us about the changes. You said there would be zero tolerance for any intimidation, even assigning a couple of detentions to Flint for claiming he had been attacked on the train. Even after that, though, you still singled out Potter and warned us away. It would be one thing if Potter were some special snowflake who couldn't take the pressure and needed that level of protection, but I met him on the train. He seemed unconcerned about the stares he got there and later at the feast, and he stared me down on the train after Flint got kicked. I was going to lecture him about respect, but… sir, I couldn't meet his eyes."

"His eyes?"

"He… there's something about him, sir, something… powerful? And I think you know what it is too, and that's the reason for the warning."

The potions master leaned back, face expressionless for a long moment before it suddenly broke out in a smile. "Miss Abercrombie, I am delighted that someone in Slytherin with the ability to use their brain is finally doing so. In the few hours since you have been back at Hogwarts, you have shown that my decision to make you a prefect was well-considered. Take twenty points. Continue as you have been and there is no doubt in my mind that you shall be occupying the Head Girl's suite next year."

Abigail brightened inwardly at that, long conditioning in Slytherin keeping her from showing any reaction externally. "Thank you, sir."

Snape nodded. "Good, keep an eye on things. I will not ask you to be a snitch, but if Potter ever looks to be losing his temper, get a staff member, any staff member. The portraits will assist."

"Yes, sir. Um, sir, if he's so dangerous, should he be here at all?"

Snape gave a smile of pure satisfaction. "Oh, yes. That is unquestionable. Tell me, Miss Abercrombie, have you ever heard of the supposed Han curse, 'may you live in interesting times'? With Potter here at Hogwarts, times will be most interesting indeed."

Uncertain how to respond, Abigail simply nodded. "Good night, sir."

"Good night, Miss Abercrombie," he turned to go on to his quarters, before he said over his shoulder, "It is a pity you did not follow your train of thought all the way to the final station."

Abigail fought down an embarrassed blush as the Head of Slytherin strode away in his cloud of billowing robes.

What had he meant by that?

She strolled slowly back to the dormitories, pondering those parting words. She was certain that the rule change had come about due to Potter's arrival, Snape had all but confirmed it, but what conclusion should she have drawn? What else was there?

She absently answered some questions from the first-years and shooed the rest off to bed, still thinking hard as she settled into her private room.

What had Snape meant?

What was the rule change meant to accomplish? Originally, she had assumed it was for the protection of some incoming student, but as Potter was the cause that couldn't be the case. She had quailed under those emerald eyes, and he had only been mildly put-out with her. Any new first-year who could stare down a sixth-year prefect before attending his first classes needed protection from no one.

If the rule was not in place to protect Potter, then what was it for? Rules were always put in place for a reason. It might not be an altruistic reason — as a Slytherin, Abigail was certain most of them probably weren't — and for older rules it might not be a currently relevant reason, but there was always a reason.

Then the epiphany struck.

The rule wasn't put in place to protect Potter from the students; it was put in place to protect the students from…

Abigail swallowed as the implications sunk in. The professors had introduced an incredible change — a change of rule and tradition, of culture that had been in place for the better part of a millennium — to protect the student body from one, single, first-year student.

Just how powerful was Potter?

The ambitious teenaged girl licked her suddenly dry lips. Add a few years, several inches, and some weight to the boy's young frame — yes, yes, that image was — hmm. Abigail turned out the lights and settled into bed pulling the covers up to her chin and squirming about a little to get comfortable, glad once again for the private room that came with the prefect badge.

It was only five years' difference in age, practically nothing for a witch — well, for now it was a problem, but that would cease to be an issue long before she had planned to snag a husband. She could afford to wait, and the thought of such a dangerous individual was… intoxicating.

In the meantime, that intense emerald stare would feature prominently in her dreams.

2.3.10 Always attend the organizational meeting

At approximately the same time that Abigail was riding her train of thought to the final station — a station which was a few stops down the track from the one her Head of House had intended — the professors had once again gathered in their customary conference room. There were class schedules to finalize for the coming morning.

Almost the entire staff had chosen to attend, with three exceptions. Hagrid had opted to stay with his pets at his hut since he didn't teach classes and wasn't much of a night-owl unless he had a solid, practical reason. Filch, the perpetually grumpy Caretaker, declined to attend because he also had no classes and was rather bitter about his station in life anyway. The new Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, one Quirinus Quirrel, declined with only the stuttering explanation that he had something better to do.

Naturally, his colleagues decided to stick Quirrel with all the worst time slots in return.

This time, the professors had chosen to forego their usual alcoholic adventures in deference to the early school day on the next morning. Well, that, and the fact that everyone was still stuffed almost to bursting with the elves' cooking from the feast.

"Lemon drop, anyone?" everyone, that is, except Albus Dumbledore.

Magic was powered by food, and the stronger the magic, the more food was required. Albus had eaten more than anyone but Harry Potter at the feast, and yet he was only pleasantly full at the end of it and, not even two hours later, was already game for more. Harry of course, had gone on to consume another three tons of scrap metal, coal, and diesel immediately after the appetizer that was the Welcoming Feast.

That was not to say that anyone would have taken the man up on his offer even if they weren't stuffed to the gills. Albus' tastes in lemon drops tended to be — unique. Everyone present had, at one point or another, taken him up on his offer, to their immediate regret. The things were just about acrid enough to etch glass, and the entire ordeal had taken on the character of an informal hazing ritual over the past few decades.

When no one accepted his offer, Albus tucked the tin away into his robe pocket before he began, "Well, that was an eventful Sorting, I suppose. Does anyone have anything to bring up before we get to the meat of this discussion?"

"Aye, that I do!" came an unexpected voice, one originating from Albus' own robe pocket. "And get me out of here, you bearded twit! Who carries ancient magical artifacts wadded up in their bloody pocket like a used handkerchief, anyway?"

"Ah, yes, Donald," Albus said, fishing the Sorting Hat out of his robe pocket and setting it on the table. "I presume that this is the reason you insisted on attending this meeting?"

"Yes, it is," the hat agreed. "I felt the need for an appropriately appreciative audience for this. Ahem… Why, you smarmy, inconsiderate, scraggly-whiskered bastard, did you feel it appropriate not to warn me that young Mr. Potter was in fact a bloody dragon? Was it some sort of prank? A 'let's see if we can scare the old hat enough for him to crap out his lining on some poor child's head' sort of thing? How would you like it if I went and dropped you on some dragon's head out of the blue? Huh? You wouldn't, that's how!" Donald's rant reached a crescendo. "Just for that, I'm going to get back at you, somehow. I don't know how, and I don't know when, but someday, when you least expect it, pow! You'll get yours, Albus Dumbledore! And then you'll be sorry for trying to put one over on old Donald."

The entire room sat in shock for a moment at the Sorting Hat's unexpected vitriol before Albus managed to shake off his shock. "You mean to say that you were unaware of Mr. Potter's nature before the Sorting?"

"Yes, you geriatric imbecile! Has your comprehension of the language gone the same way as your sense of common decency?"

"But how?" Albus actually sounded bewildered, a first for many of the professors. "You spoke with him several times; how could you not have known…?"

"I spoke with him, 'spoke'. I didn't Sort him. There is a difference. When speaking with someone, I only have what is said to go on, and… well, it's a sort of rudimentary short-range vision. Nothing in my conversations with Mr. Potter prior to the Sorting gave me any indication that the boy was aught but human."

"I see, then I must humbly apologize, Mr. Donald, as the incident was caused by a defect in my understanding."

"In that case, I suppose I will spare you the worst of my eventual retribution, but you should fully expect pranks! And… what are you laughing at, Severus Snape?"

The potions master had been chortling since the hat's rant had revealed its prior ignorance of Mr. Potter's nature. At being called out by the sentient apparel, be explained, "I was simply amused that you were unaware of the boy's nature before the Sorting and the remembrance of the Sorting ceremony in light of that new knowledge. I assure you; no insult was intended."

"No insult was intended, eh?" Donald said. "Well, then I'll tell you that no insult is intended when I say that you should keep your crooked beak out of matters of Sorting!" the hat rounded on him.

"Excuse me?" Snape was confused.

"Mr. Potter was quite insistent that you had told him he wouldn't be well-suited to Slytherin House, as if you had some special insight into the Sorting process," the hat explained. "On the contrary, I'll have you know that my final decision came down to a close judgement between Slytherin and Hufflepuff for the boy, so kindly keep your conspicuous conk out of the Sorting! I do not dictate matters of potioneering to you, and I won't suffer such meddling in my own field."

Snape ignored most of that statement in favor of wondering, "How on earth could Mr. Potter be considered for Slytherin?" His tone was much the same as one a man might use upon being told that the moon was, in fact, made of cheese.

"It's not just a matter of where a child will fit in best, but rather where they will succeed best. The boy is lacking in cunning and soft skills, true, but where better to develop them than Slytherin?" the hat explained. "In any event, my piece is said, carry on." And the hat stilled once more.

The staff sat in bewilderment at that odd interlude for several moments before Pomona spoke up, "What a day to have to stay dry!"

"Hear, hear!" or similar came from her colleagues.

Albus cleared his throat, calling the attention of the staff, "There is one important item we must address before tomorrow — the question of class schedules."

He was answered by a round of groans. This was a chore they all hated, hence their tendency to put it off until the very last moment, such as midnight on the evening before said schedules were to be handed out.

Thus, the arguments began. At least it had been several years since the last time one of them devolved into a fistfight.

There was, however, one notable exception — to the arguments that is, not the fistfights.

"Severus, Minerva, and Filius, are you certain you wish to handle all four Houses in one session per week per year?" Dumbledore asked, his voice doubtful. "I know it has been some few years since I was in the classroom rather than administration, but that number of students in one room seems a recipe for disaster, particularly in your practical classes, Severus."

"No, Albus, I am not certain; I tend to agree that it will be pandemonium for at least a time," Severus agreed, "but we have little choice. Our research into the circumstances and particulars of Mr. Potter's transformation require more time than we would otherwise have available."

"Aye, we're this far," Minerva held her index finger a short distance from her thumb, "from finally working out exactly what young Harry managed to do to himself at Avebury, and I, for one, am increasingly certain that we must pin that down sooner rather than later. Everything indicates so far that Filius' estimates of the potential destructive power of these devices was spot-on."

"Yes," Filius agreed, "and we will not possibly be able to repeat what Mr. Potter managed until we know exactly what he managed to do — well, I suppose we might have been able to manage it by simply trying things until it worked, but I suspect the error rate in that process would leave the entire planet uninhabitable in more cases than not."

There was a round of nodding from the various professors who had been present at the previous meeting, before Albus spoke up.

"In that case, it is perhaps time for me to reveal the results of my own investigations regarding the incident."

Snape sighed, "Is there a particular reason you declined to mention these studies at any previous meeting?"

"For one, I was not certain they were cogent to the topic at hand, it was a research project I had taken on in conjunction with one of my own mentor's longest-running experiments, and though the timing was highly suspicious, I had no confirmation that the events I was investigating were, in fact, directly related to the incident at Avebury," the elderly wizard offered. "Closer analysis has revealed that the coincidental timing was indicative of a causal relationship, and with that, I received permission from Nicholas to let you in on the results."

"You received permission?" Filius asked, intrigued. "This was a secret project, then?"

"Yes, though I remain uncertain why Nicholas insisted on it being so. The project is one to provide a long-term baseline measurement of magical background field," Dumbledore explained. "As you might expect, the work is just as tedious as it sounds, and I do not really see what harm could come from publishing the results." He sighed, "Sometimes I wonder whether Nicholas keeps secrets simply because he enjoys keeping secrets."

"I feel as if I should make some sort of comment about pots, kettles, and the color black at this juncture," Snape said wryly, "but in the interests of keeping the conversation going, I shall refrain." The exasperated looks from Minerva, Filius, and half the remaining staff told Albus that Severus was not alone in that sentiment.

He coughed uncomfortably before resuming, "Well, yes. In any case, in the weeks after young Harry's transformation, the average magical background levels rose by nearly ten percent before levelling off again. Most of my time on the project over the last two years was spent verifying the clocks on the various sensors to account for instrumental error in the recorded logs, and the end result of that has allowed me pin down the point of inflection at which the rise started… to a time coincident with moonrise in Avebury on the 1988 summer solstice."

"Precisely the timing associated with Harry's transformation, as we determined from Mr. Dursley's memories," Filius concluded.

"Exactly," Albus agreed. "That was the piece of evidence that convinced Nicholas to allow me to include the rest of you on this. The two events were too closely synchronized; the idea that they might still be unrelated strained credulity."

"So we have another consequence of draining the devices," Filius summarized. "Apparently, draining this one increased the… global?" at Albus' nod, he continued, "…global magical background energy by ten percent. I'm not sure off-hand what that means for our investigation but thank you for sharing the information."

"What it means, is that this fits the pattern of the Anomalous Excursions of 1883," Albus interjected. "Which in turn means that we have another datum."

"So, this is not the first time?" Minerva asked.

"No, it is not," Albus confirmed. "Though, as indicated by the name, we do not know the cause of the Anomalous Excursions, we now have two incidents to investigate, and with two incidents, we might perchance be able to learn what is common between them and what is unique."

"Thank you, Albus, that is most helpful," Filius said.

"I believe Nicholas shall be amenable to sharing our log data in the future, given the current situation," Albus continued. "In the meantime, confirmation that the event is not unique has lent a little more urgency to our research here, I do believe. Given the consequences of a single event, with multiple ones looming, the survival of all life on this world, not just magical life, appears to be hanging in the balance."

There was a round of solemn nodding, and the class schedule was argued no more.

Last edited: Jul 17, 2020

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2.4 In which Harry goes to Class

2.4.1 First class jitters

As he winged his way to the shore of the loch — the closest point to the castle which was both open enough to reach by flight and still hidden from the castle by the tree-line — carrying his centaur damsel carefully in his forepaws, Harry considered the previous day.

It had been eventful one.

Taking the train to Hogwarts had been silly, but he supposed it had been fun nonetheless. Harry figured it was okay to do silly things if they were fun — so long as they didn't hurt anybody, anyway. Mr. Dumbledore had insisted it was traditional.

Maybe silly-but-fun things were what 'traditional' meant?

He thought it meant something that was done the same way for a real long time, but there were other things that were done the same way for a real long time — like breathing — and they didn't get called 'traditional'. It was just the only way anyone knew how to do them. So, he guessed 'traditional' meant there had to be some other way to do whatever it was, and people did it the 'traditional' way because they'd been doing it that way for a long time.

Come to think of it, didn't that mean that the traditional way had to be a little bit silly? People didn't talk about 'traditional' when they were doing something the easiest or slickest way it could be done — then they talked about 'simple' or 'optimal' — and if they weren't doing that, then Harry figured they were being at least a little bit silly.

Good thing he'd figured out being a little silly was okay, because doing stuff the optimal way all the time sounded like it'd be right boring!

The pair had reached the shore during Harry's musings on the nature of tradition and constructive silliness, and Harry and his damsel had wordlessly switched roles, with Suze now carrying Harry in his human form as she jogged toward the castle — it was definitely a jog, not a trot. Centaurs do not trot, canter, or gallop, and they take grave exception to any insinuation otherwise; any similarity between their gait and the aforementioned methods of equine locomotion is pure happenstance.

Anyway, practicality aside, the train trip yesterday had been fun, and Harry had confirmed his opinion that trains were cool. He'd long wished he'd had a train set ever since some vaguely remembered event in which Dudley had played with one when they were younger, and he'd not been allowed. The misty remembrance of the event had lasted much longer than the train set itself, but spending time around that big snorting, chuffing, smoking beast of a locomotive had crystallized that desire and brought it to the fore.

Harry couldn't help but feel an odd sense of kinship with the thing given their similar physiology.

Searching out a dragon-sized train set would have to wait, though, because classes started today, and Harry was really looking forward to them. Over the years since he'd left Privet Drive — of the time before which, only the very last was remembered with any clarity — his lessons with his professor friends had got him caught up with what most of the Wizarding-raised students would have learned before attending in matters practical. A few fields, such as advanced transfiguration topics, actually saw him years ahead of his peers, and, on matters theoretical, he was far ahead of his peers in every subject taught in the school — and not a few others besides.

Honestly though, Harry wasn't sure how all that learning would hold up when he actually got into classes, so he was looking forward to finding out even if he was a little nervous.

With a cheerful wave to a small patrol from the Black Woods Clan led by one of Suze's cousins, the pair left the forest and continued up the lakeside path to the castle. Another wave to Hagrid in the middle of mucking out the thestral stables saw them to the castle gates, and Harry leaped down lightly from Suze's back. They had foregone the saddle recently as it was really quite a lot of work to put on, and since Harry had recently learned that bouncing as he did was rather uncomfortable for Suze when he was on her back he had stopped doing so quite so much. As they entered the courtyard he saw Mr. Filch busily sweeping up the small amount of detritus which littered the area, mostly a few leaves and some sweetie wrappers which had stuck to the older students' robes when they left the train.

Mr. Filch was a real sourpuss, but Harry paid it no mind. According to Professor Snape, the man was a squib, which Harry had learned meant the man wasn't able to cast magic, even though he could see magical stuff. To Harry's senses he looked like a sort of dimly-lit glowy person — like his glow was shining through that dark glass they use for some bottles when there's stuff in them which doesn't play nice with light. Since Mr. Filch was like that but he was still in charge of cleaning up a magical school, Harry figured he had some decent reasons to be kinda grumpy. Regardless, Harry didn't think that him being grumpy was a good reason to be rude to the man, and so he gave a cheerful good morning as he headed into the castle.

On their way to the Great Hall, the pair caught up with a few of the other non-boarding students who were suitably gob-smacked at the looming presence of his centaur damsel — centaurs were really good at looming, and Suze managed well even though she was rather petite as centaurs went. For her part, Suze was marveling at just how small humans looked from her angle. Unsurprisingly, Harry was a special case in Suze's mind — she always saw him as the Great Wyrm who happened to be masquerading in a human shape.

Harry had already eaten a good deal of breakfast, so he was treating breakfast at the castle as a bit of a top-up for the morning. Of course, despite that fact, he still ate enough to make even Ron Weasley, the other big eater of the student body, feel a little inadequate, and Ron ate enough to make other people sick to their stomachs just looking at him eat. The important bit for Harry was getting the class timetable, and he was absolutely delighted to learn that, despite his statement of the usual schedule the previous night, Professor Snape's was the first class of the day!

"I heard this Professor Snape bloke's a right arse," Zack Smith said, dubiously contemplating the timetable.

"He used to be pretty difficult to deal with," one of the upper-years — a lanky sort of girl with shaggy bubblegum-pink hair — said, "but he's gotten a lot better over the last couple years."

"Well the important thing with knowing Mister, sorry, Professor, Snape is being able to tell when he's actually angry and when he's growling because he likes growling," Harry volunteered. "You can tell when he's really angry because he goes even whiter than normal, and you can't see his lips anymore, and he stops using complicated insults and starts shouting."

"You know him?" another upper-year student asked, one to whom Harry had not yet been introduced.

"Yeah, he's one of my business partners, and we get along pretty good," Harry said, nodding firmly.

"I must admit, I'd never realized he got along with anybody," Cedric Diggory — the older boy who'd snorted his pumpkin juice because of one of Harry's jokes at the feast — spoke up.

"If Mr. Snape doesn't like someone, they really know it," Harry explained with a shrug, "and if he says something is 'acceptable' or 'tolerable' that's him saying he really likes it."

"I thought he hated my guts!" the pink-haired girl said, startled.

"Huh?"

"Oh, sorry, I'm Tonks," she said, "and…"

"You're the Tonks what gets worked up about her first name, right?" Harry butted in. "'Cause he said something about you right when last school year would've been ending. We were talking about how to tell the difference between properly-made and badly-made-but-still-works potions, and he used some of yours as examples of how it ought to be done. He said something about them being good enough to sell, and, well, he's real particular about what he will and won't sell. I asked, and he said that any customer with the sense to approach a master craftsman deserves the absolute finest quality regardless of product."

"Huh…"

Harry shrugged, "I told ya' it's real hard to tell what he's thinking."

2.4.2 To the laboratory!

Having spent a couple minutes silently stalking about the room, dark robes billowing, Snape stopped in front of a blackboard and whirled around and spent a moment contemplating his significantly-larger-than-normal class. Having all four Houses in a single laboratory class was proving to be an intimidating prospect.

Snape had always been one to attempt to accomplish as much as possible with any given action, and his teaching had been no exception. By careful application of bias and psychology, he had long been tailoring his classes to produce useless cronies among his enemies, and tough competent survivors, ready for anything life threw at them, among the few fair-minded children that passed through his classes.

After less than a decade of such work, he had already managed to clean up the youngest of the Auror corps by weeding out the undesirables from their applicant pool on account of the potions requirement. Miss Tonks — set to graduate with honors this year — was one of his most recent successes, though he was certain she was under the impression that he was out to get her.

On the other hand, Bole, a seventh-year of his own House — both an unashamedly violent bigot and descended from a long line of such, whose father had been an enthusiastic participant in the Dark Lord's little power play — was set to graduate in the middle of the pack and had been forced to abandon his dreams of entering and perverting law-enforcement in favor of a sinecure in his uncle's pub.

A little constructive mollycoddling went a long way.

The approach made him more enemies than friends, but Snape had long despaired of having friends — and if he was going to have enemies anyway… well, he figured it might as well be for a good cause.

This year, though, was different.

Enforcing the necessary discipline in the lab was always a challenge, and if he were to use his traditional methods… well, he didn't want to imagine the likely results with this large a group. He could only keep a good eye on so many cauldrons before something would slip. Snape might be willing to destroy potentially innocent children's dreams in pursuit of his goals, but he fell short of being willing to write off the survival of two-thirds of the class as collateral damage for the cause.

It seemed he would actually have to teach properly for once — Minerva was sure to be delighted.

"I must admit," he began, "that I am stymied. It is my tradition to, at this time, single out the most prominent member of an incoming class of students and demonstrate how little he or she knows of the exacting and magnificent art of potions, but at this moment in time, our most prominent incoming student is, of course, Mr. Potter, and I am aware that his knowledge of potions is acceptable."

He paused while everyone looked at Harry, who didn't know to get uncomfortable or anything — dragons liked to be admired.

"Thus, Mr. Potter, for the next few minutes, you will keep your eternally-ravenous jaw firmly shut. Is that understood?"

Harry made an enthusiastic affirmative noise while keeping his mouth firmly shut as requested.

"Good," Snape said. "Now then, might anyone among you — excepting of course, Mr. Potter — be aware of the precise reagent composition of orichalcum?"

Silence — apart from Harry's enthusiastic nodding with his teeth clenched together which was managing to rattle his stool a little.

"Hmm, so none of you are up to date on recent alchemical discoveries — perhaps I should enlighten you. Orichalcum, also known as mage-bronze or mage-glass, is a structured phlogistonic nitrate of aluminum, known to muggles as aluminum oxy-nitride. The material draws its name from its thaumo-chromic reaction to magical fields, transparent in low-magic environments and gaining a greenish-brown metallic luster in the presence of large amounts of ambient magic."

"Interestingly, it is the muggles to whom we owe the rediscovery of the material, for the magical methods of its creation have been lost since the library of Alexandria was misplaced during the Roman conquest of Egypt. Now, who, if anyone, among you might tell me where one would acquire a bezoar if one were seeking to harvest a replacement for the one in your potions kit?"

Hermione Granger's hand shot up.

"Well, young lady?" Snape growled.

"In the belly of a goat, sir."

"Correct, perhaps there may be some hope for you after all," he said. "That said, do not call me 'sir'; I work for a living. The correct term of address is 'Professor Snape'. Might anyone, excepting Miss Granger, be aware of the difference between aconite and wolfsbane?"

There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence replete with rolling of eyes from the resident boy-shaped dragon and squirming effort to keep from raising her hand again from Hermione. Eventually, the same chubby dark-haired boy who had lost his toad on the train raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Longbottom?"

"Th-there's n-no difference; th-they're the same p-plant," the boy stuttered.

"Are you certain, Mr. Longbottom? You wouldn't want to be embarrassed on your first day, would you?" There was some tittering from the Slytherin quadrant of the room.

Longbottom swallowed nervously before continuing, "I'm s-sure, Professor Snape."

"Good. You are, as it happens, quite correct." Snape's glower swept the room. "You, you, you, and you!" he pointed out four of the Slytherin students who had giggled at Longbottom's nervousness, "Three days' detention each! I will not have cronyism or toadying within this chamber! The preparation of potions is an exacting art, and if you mess it up — which judging by the unutterably gormless expressions on most of your fool faces, you most assuredly will — it can be quite decidedly hazardous!"

"You will all be quiet! You will speak only when given permission! You will pay attention! You will be careful! You will follow instructions religiously! Because if you fail to do so, you will likely blow yourself sky high, and I. Will. Make. Your. Life. Unutterably. Miserable. Do you all understand me?"

"Yes, Professor Snape!" the entire class chorused.

"We shall see," he drawled. "By the by, Miss Granger, Mr. Longbottom, five points each for actually possessing the intelligence to both await permission to answer and for possessing a modicum of knowledge of matters alchemical. Mr. Potter, you may now cease to keep your mouth quite so rigidly closed."

From there, the potions professor launched into a five-minute lecture on the preparation of the potion they would be working on for the day; a potion used for cleaning metals which was easy to prepare — according to Snape — but which would usually produce a rather loud bang if the preparation was done improperly.

Nearly half the class got bangs and got snapped at. Most of the remainder got a sharp nod when Snape checked out their potions, while a few got a quiet "Acceptable" and a handful of points.

Those few were Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, and a Slytherin girl named Pansy Parkinson.

One unfortunate, Neville Longbottom, found himself on the receiving end of a rapid string of spells aimed at his cauldron by Professor Snape — who none but Harry could tell was mildly panicked — and was then the subject of a sharp five-minute lecture on safety protocols after his cauldron started to melt.

Snape then proceeded into a lecture on what made the potion work, and how to tell — and cause — the various failure modes of the potion. It mostly seemed to boil down to how the ingredients were sliced and what order they were added in. What had gone wrong with Neville's potion — an issue of improper order of addition — had produced a potion which, according to Professor Snape, was caustic enough to etch glass. He then assigned homework for the next lecture later that week, and dismissed the class, calling Harry back for a quick word.

"What's up, Professor Snape?" Harry asked once the other students were gone.

"Two subjects," Snape said, pointing at Harry's cauldron, "Although a passable effort, you and I both know you are capable of better than your efforts today; you have achieved acceptable quality on this brew in the past."

That was true; he had used it to clean his gold properly last winter. The sea-stains were finally gone. "I'm sorry, I just was kinda excited, y'know, and I messed up choppin' the spriggan leaves, right?"

"Indeed, kindly be more patient in the future."

"I'll do that!"

"Good."

"What was the other thing you wanted to talk about, Professor Snape?"

"Mr. Slackhammer has requested a meeting at our earliest convenience, and I have suggested we visit Gringotts this coming Saturday, if you have no objections?"

"Yeah, that works for me."

"Good, I shall make the necessary preparations. Do you still have the rechargeable portkey in your possession?"

"I sure do!"

"Good, I shall see you later then, young man."

2.4.3 First-world problems

Following Potions, a simple pattern began to emerge which boggled the minds of all those who were not on the staff, starting in Filius Flitwick's classroom when — on his first attempt to cast a levitation charm — Harry's feather proceeded to launch itself into the ceiling with a mighty crack, leaving a smoking hole in the stone lined with the charred remains of the feather. The distinctive whip-crack of a small object breaking the sound barrier had a student hailing from Dublin — who had been raised in Belfast up until his parents relocated to avoid certain unsavory recruitment efforts — ducking under his desk.

The pattern continued in the first Defense against the Dark Arts class, when a simple stunning hex more-or-less obliterated a practice target and reduced the enchanted stone wall behind it to sand. The incident left Quirrel incomprehensible from stuttering for a week and his classes as little more than a study hall for the same period.

In transfiguration, Harry turned a simple matchstick into a 'needle' which would look more at home on a construction site than in a sewing kit. Minerva would later admit to her colleagues that she had never seen anything like it, and she was tempted to donate the results to Barrs for the production of Irn Bru.

Flying lessons — the first for Harry since Madame Hooch had pronounced him 'good enough' with his wings — saw Harry attempting to fly a broom for the first time, only for the broom to shoot off with a horrifyingly loud 'twang' and bury itself to the bristles in a grassy knoll before bursting into flames.

It quickly became apparent that Harry was suffering control problems to a degree that Septima Vector declared to be 'epic'. It didn't take long for her to figure out that Harry was putting more magical energy into his casting than all his classmates put together — though honestly not too much more. A situation that led her to the conclusion that his control was actually quite good, proportionally speaking, considering his reserves were proportionally far higher than the cumulative reserves of his classmates. This was a good thing, for if his control was proportionally bad…

Well, if his control was proportionally bad, his classmates would not have survived the aftermath.

Proportionally good control or not, it was not good enough to effectively use the spells he was learning, which led to the staff quickly devising an intensive series of lessons and exercises to help Harry drastically improve his control of his magic. Harry's classwork quickly devolved to listening to the lecture, trying the practical once, having the professor clean up the aftermath of his attempt, and then spending the rest of the time practicing his control.

To say that Harry was unimpressed with this intense regime of finesse and control training would be… well, it would be to lie through one's teeth. Harry being Harry, he took it all in stride and — once he wrapped his head around why he needed all the extra work — became quite smug about the whole business. It was a turn of events that prompted Snape to comment jokingly to Minerva that if the boy's head continued swelling it was likely to burst, which was answered with an amused chuckle by the older Scotswoman.

By the time Friday evening rolled around, a twofold set of rumors were flying around the school. The first was regarding the Boy-Who-Lived's apparent power level — several upper-year students, including notably one sixth-year Slytherin girls' prefect, had connected the dots about why half the firsties were treating Harry like his wand might go off any minute. The second was about why the staff seemed to be in such universally high spirits, sans Filch who was always grumpy and Quirrel who hadn't been the same since that unfortunate vampire encounter in Albania the previous summer.

The other conclusion that everyone had arrived at — based on direct evidence rather than rumor — was that the Boy-Who-Lived was immature, hyperactive, almost obnoxiously good-natured, self-assured to the point of outright arrogance, and so completely laid-back about everything it was a wonder the boy wasn't horizontal.

You'd have sworn he was eight, tops, but nothing phased the kid.

Nothing.

2.4.4 Product rollouts

Saturday arrived, and with it, Snape and Harry were in Diagon Alley bright and early for their meeting with Slackhammer. On arriving at the Bank, they were ushered into his office with a series of salutes from the guards resplendent in Gringotts Regiment dress uniforms.

"Ah, Mr. Potter, Mr. Snape, welcome, welcome," Slackhammer greeted them in his usual manner, rising to his feet and bowing a greeting to his business partners. Despite Harry's best efforts, he had never managed to get the dapper goblin to use any form of address more familiar than 'mister' — he had a suspicion that the attempts had become a game between the two of them by this point.

The broad, shark-like grin on the goblin's face told both Snape and Harry that the news was good and that the scent of profit was in the air.

"A seat, gentlemen," Slackhammer offered, gesturing for them to make themselves comfortable in the armchairs which found their way into his office whenever he was expecting important guests like his business partners. Harry knew that because the few times the dapper goblin hadn't been expecting him, he'd seen the chairs brought in. "Would you care for a refreshment?"

"A small firewhiskey please, Mr. Slackhammer," Snape requested.

"I'd like a cup of goblin tea, please," Harry added. Goblin tea was strong stuff and would certainly not suit the palate of the small human boy that Harry currently seemed to be, being ferociously acrid and enough, even when at room temperature, to take the roof off one's mouth. Served at the preferred temperature of just below boiling, well, few non-goblins tried it more than once, but the young dragon found it to be to his liking, reminding him of the tangy gush of biting into a car battery with just a little charge left but without the sweet aftertaste from the lead.

The dapper goblin rang a small bell and his batman immediately appeared, bowing in response to Slackhammer's, "The usual, thank you, Corporal Steelhammer," before disappearing to see to it.

"Now then, gentlemen" Slackhammer continued without waiting for the drinks to be served. Time was money, money was ammunition, and ammunition was freedom, and as a consequence, waiting around while there was business to discuss was considered boorish — possibly treasonous — behavior by right-thinking goblins. "I have recently had some quite intriguing possibilities brought to my attention concerning your analysis of the materials composing Mr. Potter's brain and nerves."

"Concerning my examination of Mr. Potter's central nervous system?" Snape asked, very surprised. "While the materials involved are quite fascinating in their make-up, I confess I fail to see how they might be applied in practice, hence why I have not endeavored to refine my methods for producing them artificially once I made enough to explore their energy of formation. Their mechanical properties are little different than those of mild steel, and their thermal properties, while impressive, are far inferior to those of our current refractory product."

"For an answer to that, Mr. Snape, one must look to the fields of electronics and electrical engineering," Slackhammer told him. "It seems Mr. Potter's nerves are composed of what is referred to as an ultra-high-temperature superconductor, a substance which has been highly-desired in those fields of endeavor for many decades but had long been considered unobtainable. As a member of our company, in the person of your esteemed self, has developed the means to produce the given substance, and as it happens, it is cheap and easy to do so — and judging by your statement it may become more so in short order — well gentlemen, if you thought the sum we earned from NASA was substantial, you haven't seen a damn thing yet!"

Corporal Steelhammer returned, placing a tray carrying the requested drinks on the coffee table and passing them around.

"Thank you, Corporal Steelhammer."

"M' pleasure, Mr. Vice-Chairman, sir," the other goblin replied before seeing himself out.

"How might such a material be so valuable?" Snape asked.

"In order to explain that, Mr. Snape, we must delve into the nature of non-magical technology and its relationship with the fundamental natural phenomenon known as electricity. Just as magical technology does, all non-magical technology is designed to use one or another form of energy in order to do something else. In the magical world this is generally done by using magic to accomplish some task. In the nonmagical world, the process is somewhat more complicated, since magic is not available to work as a near-universal mediator. In its place, specific tools are built for specialized purposes, which has led to the plethora of different technologies seen in the modern world."

Slackhammer's explanation paused for a moment as he sipped his drink, "However, non-magical humans have, over the years, developed a tremendously deep understanding of electricity, producing ways to convert it to and from almost any other type of energy imaginable — with the obvious exception of magic, since that has been thus-far concealed from them. Thus, electricity has become the basic means of energy exchange in their technology, providing everything from heating and movement to process control, communications, and information processing. To put it bluntly, in a very real sense electricity is to modern non-magical technology what magic itself is to technology in the wizarding world."

That triggered a gasp from the potions master and a sharp look of interest from the young dragon.

"A major limitation of electricity, however, is the difficulty inherent in making it go where you want it to go, as should be readily apparent any time you look out into a thunderstorm. Non-magical humans do this through the properties of various materials which either permit or resist the flow of electricity through them — called, rather sensibly, conductors and resistors — but all these materials have their own limitations and caveats. Any conductor actually presents a small amount of resistance to electrical flow, a resistance which manifests itself in problems ranging from minor inefficiencies all the way up to excess heating and catastrophic failures — any conductor, that is, except the class of materials called 'superconductors'."

Seeing the dawning realization on his partners' faces, the dapper goblin continued, "A superconductor is a material which, at some range of temperatures, has precisely zero resistance to electrical flow, a property which makes such a material much sought-after in the development and improvement of technology. Many such materials have been discovered, but all have exhibited this property only at exceedingly low temperatures, temperatures so low that the high-temperature superconductors developed some five years ago are so called because they exhibit the property of superconductivity at temperatures which can be attained by cooling the material with liquified nitrogen alone, rather than requiring even more elaborate cooling measures — measures which, as you might guess, are both technically difficult and quite startlingly expensive."

"Thus, a material which could provide such performance all the way up to the temperature of molten steel…" Snape had managed to find his voice.

"…would be in startlingly high demand?" Slackhammer finished Snape's statement. "Yes, it would indeed. We are currently sitting on a material which could not only improve the performance of nearly every industry on earth by a considerable margin, but which could also usher in entirely new industries by means of making previously unattainable design parameters practical. The engineering corps assures me that an initial introduction into the power distribution industry will be well received, as a drop-in replacement to their current lines will provide them with an immediate fifteen-percent reduction in overhead by eliminating transmission losses, and they suspect introduction into the computer industry will be just as profitable in the long run, both because of the superconductivity and the nanostructure of your neural tissue. Other markets are still being explored."

"The computer industry?" Snape asked.

"What do you know of the internal function of computers, Mr. Snape?"

"Very little, I must confess," the potions master replied. "I am aware of their existence, but even in my excursions into the muggle world I have not interacted with them at all that I am aware."

"I ain't used one since I turned into a dragon," Harry volunteered. "They had Commodore C64's and BBC Micro's at the primary school I used to go to when I lived at the Dursleys, and we used 'em for some of the classes, but it was mostly learning to type, I think." He hadn't really thought about that in ages!

"You lost me at the 'see-sixty-four' part," Snape muttered.

"And how much do you know of said computer's construction?" Slackhammer asked intently.

"Well, not a huge lot, I mean, I know they got microchips and stuff in 'em, and I know those are made out of silicon with really, really tiny wiring and stuff on 'em, and I know what transistors are and how really, really tiny they can get, and I know what bits, bytes, and kilobytes are, but…"

"That knowledge will suffice here, Mr. Potter. If I were to tell you that your brain matter functions much like a vast network of computers formed by transistors manufactured at the molecular scale, well, do you understand what I mean?"

"Wow! Um, well, I think so…"

"And if I were to tell you that our, as of yet small, number of employees believe that they can reproduce that material in the form of a processor chip for a computer?"

"Oh, wow! That'll be worth a whole lot of money, won't it?"

"Am I to understand that these materials would allow us to corner the market on these 'computers', Mr. Slackhammer?" Snape asked, doing a darn good job of pronouncing a word he had heard perhaps ten times in his life, most of them in this conversation.

"Quite correct, Mr. Snape," Slackhammer confirmed. "And the market for that technology alone is enough to make a king's ransom look like the sort of pocket change one might find dropped carelessly in the street. Should we go ahead with this, barring some unspeakable disaster, everyone within this room will become so phenomenally rich that I guarantee we shall not need to work another day in our lives, or in our children's lives, no matter how long those lives might be," he nodded to Harry, "and that is without mentioning the myriad other potential uses for such a material."

"Mr. Slackhammer, what sort of money are we talking about here?" Snape asked.

The dapper goblin let out a dry chuckle, "Frankly, Mr. Snape, of the two technologies the bulk superconductor is the more valuable by far; there is barely an industry which could not put it to good use. Yet Mr. Potter's brain matter is worth enough, as a technology, to earn an estimated two to three billion galleons per annum at current market levels."

The sharply dressed goblin noted his business partners' flabbergasted looks.

"Gentlemen," he said, "welcome to the big leagues."

2.4.5 The afterglow of a good deal

It didn't take House Hufflepuff long, a few hours, tops, in fact, to notice that Harry seemed a little dazed when he came to visit on Saturday afternoon. He spent the time wandering around with a big, silly grin on his face, but when asked about it, he could do nothing but giggle. It had raised the suspicions of a few of the older girls who looked at their fellows speculatively with eyes narrowed —

Nah, he was way too young for that.

By the time Saturday evening rolled around, the House had collectively dismissed the matter as the Boy-Who-Lived being weird.

Out of everyone, Suze came the closest to getting a straight answer on Sunday, and that was a huge, cheesy grin and a mutter of something about gold.

She shook her head; he'd tell her when he felt like it, and that was good enough for her.

When the Hogwarts rumor mill noticed that Snape also seemed to be in a similar daze and was being far less unpleasant than normal, it really got going — for a few hours before everyone quashed the rumors out of fear that someone might jinx it.

They knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

2.4.6 With great power comes great…

"Ladies, gentlemen, other beings, welcome back," Snape greeted his class. It was now Monday morning shortly after breakfast, and the first-year students were back for another laboratory session in the potions classroom.

He gestured at their readied potions kits, especially Neville's cauldron.

"It has come to my attention that I have failed to properly impart to you the true hazards that the ingredients upon your desks represent. You may believe me to be severe, particularly in light of my first name, but I assure you I am not demanding of you simply for my own amusement."

He paused for long enough for the students to recognize the fact that he had not only made a joke, but he had made a joke with himself as the butt. There were some obedient giggles from the class, to which he replied with one cocked eyebrow and a faint smirk. The discussion with Mr. Slackhammer had left him with an uncharacteristically sociable disposition for the past few days, and the entire student body had absolutely no desire to be the one to trigger a relapse back into his usual dour mood.

"In this room, there are a great many layered charms and wards intended to ensure the safety of all who prepare potions herein. These charms are placed for a vital purpose: to blunt the effects of the potions brewed herein. This might seem counterintuitive, but it must be understood that potions are uniformly volatile. They must be in order to attain the spectacularly useful results that they are intended to produce. It is an unfortunate corollary to this, that errors in the brewing process will often produce equally spectacular unwanted effects."

"The metal cleaning potion we prepared last week, for instance, will with a certain combination of errors, produce a substance capable of dissolving glass as easily as water dissolves table salt. Within this room, those effects are blunted, suppressed, and controlled. Mr. Longbottom, if not for those charms, your attempt would have melted clean through your cauldron, your desk, and the floor underneath, taking your legs off at the knees in the process. Even with the charms, had I not acted as quickly as I did, you and your neighbors would still have been subjected to corrosive fumes which would have been survivable only through the rapidly applied talents of our admirably capable staff Healer."

"I clarify that, through her efforts, you might have survived, not recovered, as you would have been rendered quite permanently blind. That, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely how deadly potions can be if improperly prepared, and that is the potential hazard of a very simple and mostly safe potion considered suitable as an entry to the subject."

"For those of you who choose to pursue the art as a career — even as a practical hobby — rest assured that the risks will only worsen," Snape continued. "Those same charms which blunt the effects of potions mishaps also blunt the effects of potions successes. There is a reason that even those potions which are brewed properly in this class are discarded, and that reason is that they are mostly ineffective, performing the correct actions, but with so little power as to be ultimately useless. In order to produce potions possessed of their full advertised effect rather than a pale echo, they must be brewed outside of such protections. Potions masters such as myself are in high demand for precisely this reason."

"Frankly, I am severe and exacting as any failure to do so on my part may cost you your lives in the future. I am demanding of you because I must be so — that is the nature of potions as an art."

"I trust that you all understand this?" There was a round of nodding and 'Yes, Professor Snape'-ing. "Good. Today, we shall be preparing a potion for the treatment of burns such as those which would have resulted from improper preparation of last week's potion. Note that, if prepared incorrectly, it may explode with sufficient force to drive fragments of your cauldron clear through a thick stone wall, a force that, despite my perennial complaints regarding the thickness of your skulls, would prove quite decidedly lethal for you and anyone standing near you. I add that, within this room, said detonation would simply blow unpleasantly spicy muck to ceiling height and earn you a detention. The primary reaction concerns…" and Snape went off on a five-minute tangent about reactions and reactivity and precautions for the prevention of making things that blow up unintentionally.

Once again, on the completion of the class, Hermione, Draco, and Pansy got approving nods and points, this time joined by Harry. Neville didn't manage to get his cauldron to erupt, but did earn a lecture on how, again due to the addition of ingredients in improper order, his potion would cause a horrific, scarring rash, and if applied to burns as intended, would likely result in the even more horrific death of the recipient.

Once he'd explained about the differences between failures, mediocre successes, and superb results, how they could be detected, how they could be produced — this time, the issue was mostly the timing of additions, though ingredient preparation was still critical — how it all worked, and what homework would be required, Snape dismissed the class.

"A moment of your time, Miss Granger," he added, shaking off a shudder at the way Harry bolted out the door with a declaration of hunger.

Hermione warily waited as the rest of the students departed; she received puzzled looks from several students, especially Draco Malfoy, whose puzzlement was also tinged with jealousy.

"What is it, Professor Snape?" she asked once they were alone.

"Mr. Longbottom needs help, young lady, and your attempts have so far proven to be of acceptable quality," Snape informed her, tapping her cauldron. "I would appreciate it if you were to render to Mr. Longbottom a little assistance in comprehending my lessons; in future lessons, students shall be paired, and I wish you to work with Mr. Longbottom so that you might prevent any further catastrophic failures on his part."

"Will it impact my grades?" Hermione focused on the important bit for her.

"Frankly, young lady, if Mr. Longbottom's performance should improve due to your assistance, I will happily apply his improvements to your grade as extra credit. The young man is lacking in confidence, and that lack translates into a failure to add ingredients in their proper time and order, I believe. I hope your surprising levels of attention to the subject might guide him onto a path that will not result in blowing himself to pieces and rendering the Longbottom family extinct."

"Okay, Professor Snape."

"Good, and Miss Granger?"

"Yes, Professor Snape?"

"Please do not attempt brewing outside the class as yet. Seeing you blast yourself into a grease smear would be most unpleasant, and the vast majority of potions are not so forgiving as those I give my first-year students."

"Yes, Professor Snape."

"Good, run along, young lady. I have kept you from your meal long enough."

Snape watched her go, then sighed as he glanced back at her cauldron.

It was a perfect burn treatment potion, Snape sighed as he set about emptying it out for disposal. It was a shame it had been brewed under the suppression charms, the quality was more than good enough for sale, and it would have reduced his workload for supplying the infirmary significantly.

As he moved on to cleaning up Longbottom's — attempt — he sighed again. The only other cauldron of saleable quality was produced by Mr. Potter, and Severus knew well enough that no matter how much talent the wretched lizard had for the field, he would not be making a career of it. There were too many other things he needed to do, many of which were — much as Snape loathed the admission — more important than potions.

At least he knew he had one student who might go on to become great in the field. If she produced work of this quality as a first-year, what might she do later on?

After his friendship with Lily had collapsed, Snape had always thought his prospects for immortalizing himself by contributing to the next generation were nonexistent, and he had focused on working in the shadows where his efforts would be remembered by neither friend nor foe. He still had no prospects for contributing his blood to the future generation —he doubted he ever would, better to let his cursed father's legacy die with him, rather than pass it on to another unfortunate soul — but the possibility of an apprenticeship…

Perhaps he would be able to leave a legacy after all?

Last edited: Jul 17, 2020

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Dunkelzahn

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Threadmarks Section 2.5 - In which there are growing pains

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Dunkelzahn

Dunkelzahn

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Jul 27, 2018

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#52

2.5 In which there are growing pains

2.5.1 Ravenous appetite

By the time Snape had finished his cleanup and arrived at the Great Hall for lunch hour, the scene he had vaguely feared was already in progress. Harry Potter was eating. No, that statement was insufficient —

Harry Potter was EATING, capitalization required.

He would later learn that Harry was working on his fourth roast cow when Snape entered the room, but he could tell enough from the deadly hush in the hall; the bug-eyed, slack-jawed looks on every face present as they looked at the scene of gastronomic devastation taking place at the Hufflepuff table; and the disturbingly small population of cutlery remaining near the boy.

As Snape approached, another fork — this one previously resting beside the plate of a bewildered Cedric Diggory seated across from the ravenous first-year — vanished into the rapacious maw of the boy-shaped young dragon.

Snape's gaze swept up to the staff table and caught Madame Pomfrey's eye who gave a slight nod and quietly withdrew from the table. For Snape's part, his wand flicked out, and a quick spell levitated the loudly complaining Lizard-Who-Would-Not-Stop-Eating by means of his school uniform, quickly dragging him out of the Hall and off to the Infirmary.

"What the hell are you thinking, you bloody reptile?" Snape growled as soon as their odd march took them out of earshot of the Great Hall.

"Hungry!" Harry declared, attempting to swipe off the head of one of the animated gargoyles which had replaced the suits of armor as castle defenses. He only succeeded in catching a horn, snapping it off at the base as the construct dodged out of the way. In between bites of his new prize, he elaborated, "I ain't never been so hungry before, I swear I could eat two whole trains!"

"If you eat the Hogwarts Express, I shall be downright furious, you idiot lizard!"

"But I'm HUNGRY!" the preteen dragon wailed.

"And you shall have all you can eat shortly, just remain calm!" Snape snapped, failing to take his own advice.

"Getting' hungrier," the severity of the situation made itself clearly known as the boy's voice dropped to a wall-shaking inhuman bass.

A moment later, the door to a side chamber next to the infirmary which had been prepared on the suggestion of Silvanus Kettleburn and Hagrid after they had judged Harry's appetite to be again rapidly increasing, burst open and Snape just managed to get the young dragon through the door before his levitation charm failed as Harry resumed his natural form, removing the clothes that had been anchoring the charm into whatever magical condition such things go into — it was still a current topic of investigation, fourteen thousand years after the question was first posed, though the investigation had restarted independently several times during that period.

The dragon, now the size of a small locomotive, fell on the extensive piles of things only he would find tasty, or for that matter, edible, like a ravenous… well… dragon as the rest of the staff finally caught up with the potions master at a dead run. Metal, glass, and frozen meat splintered as draconic teeth closed on them, and the small group of Hogwarts staff beat a hasty retreat from the carnage.

Meanwhile, back in the Great Hall, the rumor mill had long since passed the point of 'batshit crazy' and was rapidly approaching 'tinfoil-hat crazy' — a term that oddly enough was independently developed in the wizarding world after the 'tin' in 'tin-foil' became aluminum, with the ignoble metal believed to block supposed broadcast mind-controlling magic just as well as the conductive barrier blocked supposed broadcast mind-controlling radio waves.

2.5.2 Logistical difficulties

"So, Potter's appetite," Snape began, killing the mood in the staff room, "how are we going to deal with it."

After a decidedly eventful afternoon, the staff had gathered once again after dinner for an informal meeting. Oddly enough, Quirrel was still involved in whatever that 'other business' had been which had kept him from attending the start-of-term staff meeting and gotten him stuck with all the worst class time slots. One would think that after getting stuck with office hours during both lunch and dinner hour as well as both the first and the last time slots every day of the week, he'd be more eager to attend these things.

Albus was beginning to wonder if the man was really fit for the academic life at all — he wasn't even showing up to meetings for the free booze!

"How is he?" Minerva asked Poppy in concern.

"He's stopped eating — finally. I… well, Rubeus and I had to refill that room twice over — the elves refuse to go anywhere near him in this state. He's eaten three times his weight over a period of four hours. I've no idea where he put it all — there must be some sort of expansion effect on his stomach, or possibly a pocket space. I've got a weighing charm on him, and his weight stayed the same through the entire ordeal, so wherever he put it, it is not currently interacting with gravity." Poppy sighed, "Once he finished eating, he demanded the company of Suze, and on her arrival, he curled up around her and promptly fell asleep."

"Reckon he'll be growin' like a mushroom now," Hagrid said happily, with a bright look most of the staff had come to associate with Hermione Granger after having her in class for the past week. "Yeh see, it's usually the way o' things fer young dragons ter get mighty hungry fer a few days before they go inter a big growth spurt," he nodded to Madame Pomfrey, "In the run up t' it they're likely t' eat sev'ral times their own body weight each day."

"Are there any warning signs we should be watchful for in the future?" Snape asked.

"Nah, well, nothin' anyone e'er wrote down. Some o' the best dragon-handlers say they get a feel fer it, but…" Hagrid shrugged expansively, and when a half-giant shrugs expansively, he takes up most of whatever room he's in.

The room settled into a contemplative silence before Hagrid spoke up again, "Sorry, but, er… I need t' go get a couple o' extra loads o' feed fer young Harry an' contact the suppliers t' let 'em know t' up the shipments fer a while. We only got enough fer t'morrow if he keeps goin' like this, an' we can't afford the fees to portkey tha' much stuff las' minute." With that ominous pronouncement, the half-giant exited the room.

"What are we going to tell the weans?" Minerva asked.

"A very good question," was Snape's non-reply.

"I seem," Filius offered, "to remember a certain magical disease which causes massively increased appetite accompanied by a related lack of expansion in girth. As I recall, one of my distant cousins died of it, though for the life of me I cannot recall the name. It was before my first days as a student here."

"Babington's Syndrome," Poppy interjected with a snap of her fingers. "One of the few commonly fatal forms of accidental magic. It is usually indicative of a massively powerful youngster coming into their magic too early, their magic uses more calories than they can eat, and they instinctively try to compensate but make the situation worse in the process. It'll fit with the rumors about Mr. Potter's magical strength, and it's also easily, if tediously, treatable when caught early enough, so there won't be any awkward questions when Mr. Potter survives. It's even commonly recurrent until adulthood, so we won't have to look for new explanations in the coming years." The Healer nodded to her diminutive coworker. "A very good suggestion, Filius."

Her colleagues were looking at the Healer with undisguised shock.

"What?" she asked, nonplussed.

"How do you remember all these things?" Minerva asked. "I know it's in your field, but I know I still have to look up obscure transfiguration methods. You just recited minutiae about a rare childhood ailment with only the barest hint of the symptoms — you didn't even take a moment to think about it!"

"I am a pediatric Healer," Poppy replied, as if that explained everything. Seeing the uncomprehending looks, she elaborated, "There is a reason pediatrics is considered to be the premier specialization in magical healing."

"I suppose there is, at that," Minerva said in admiration.

2.5.3 Shared worries

Hermione Granger was consumed by a singular, vitally important question — one she shared with the entirety of House Hufflepuff — what was wrong with Harry Potter? The odd boy felt like her only friend in the whole wide world, though she didn't fully understand why she thought of him as a friend — she'd only spent time with him twice, once shopping at Diagon Alley, and then on the train. Hermione hadn't even seen him outside of classes for the last week!

Maybe it was because he was the only one who had reached out to her?

Well, if that was the reason, she supposed she had a second friend now.

Susan Bones had invited her to join the Hufflepuff vigil as they waited for news about their missing housemate's health, and Hermione found herself currently in the homely Hufflepuff common room — cutely called the Sett — ensconced between Susan and her best friend, Hannah Abbot, while being kindly introduced to everyone by a dashingly handsome third-year by the name of Cedric Diggory.

The Sett had a totally different feel from the Gryffindor commons. In Gryffindor, you were expected to fend for yourself — you stood on your own two feet or you got flattened. Conflicts between Lions were their own business, and the rest of the House would step back unless things got truly out of hand. Oh, if you were facing a fight outside the House, then your housemates would step in, but Hermione gathered that was more to get in on the action than out of any sense of protectiveness.

Hermione was sure the Lions didn't mean anything bad by it; in fact she had a sneaking suspicion that it was their way of being friendly — refraining from butting in on other people's fights as a sort of weirdly-twisted courtesy. That said, it was a courtesy that Hermione could do well without.

Honestly, it was only a bit over a week in, and Hermione was already regretting talking the Hat into sending her to Gryffindor. She could hold her own — at least verbally — but Hermione was not good at making friends, and without someone like Harry who would barge in and make himself her friend by hook or by crook, well… Hermione was feeling more than a little lonely in the House of the Lions. She had yet to find any sort of refuge in her House, and she had no idea how to go about carving out a place for herself.

Having seen the alternative, she was kind of wishing she'd argued Donald into sending her to the Sett. In fact, hindsight being what it was, and Hermione being who she was, she was already constructing the set of arguments she could have used to achieve that outcome. Here, even though her uniform was trimmed in Gryffindor red and yellow, she was already one of the 'Puffs, simply because she had a friend among their number. Just by stepping through that door, she was already part of the group.

It was something of a revelation for the perennially lonely girl.

Her parents were good people, but they were busy good people, and the bushy-haired girl had spent more than a few birthdays home alone with a good book. Sharon and Tony Granger's patients came first at all times — that was how they'd built a very successful and well-to-do private dental practice. Being willing to go in to the office at stupid o'clock in the morning to deal with someone's toothache came with the territory. It was also — when Hermione thought rationally about it — the reason they could afford to pay the cringeworthy price-tab of a Hogwarts education, for which she was grateful. However, at the end of the day, that gratitude did little to blunt echoing void of an empty house.

Hermione had grown up lonely, and that sort of thing was rarely rational.

Thus, the feeling of belonging that permeated the Hufflepuff common room was pretty alien to her, almost — but not quite — enough to make her shy away from the unfamiliarity of it all.

Almost, but not quite. And when it comes to things like that, 'not quite' means 'making this lonely child latch on like a drowning person clings to a lifebuoy'.

House Hufflepuff makes you feel like you'll never, ever be abandoned again, and when you've spent most of your life mostly alone, that feeling is something which should probably be a controlled substance.

Thus, she was almost, almost but not quite, disappointed when Professor Sprout arrived at last with news.

2.5.4 Growing closer

For once in her life, Hermione had a book in her hand which she was ignoring in favor of something else. It was not another book — that had happened often enough to be unremarkable by this point — no, this time, Hermione was ignoring her book in favor of a boy.

After Harry's episode in the Great Hall the previous Monday and her nervous wait for news of his condition in the company of the amazingly welcoming Hufflepuff House, Hermione had made it a point to spend more time with the small, hyperactive boy in hopes of being able to use the term 'friend' to refer to at least one person without any further qualifications necessary.

Today found her spending the morning free period in the library, reading with Harry and Suze.

Finding common time had been difficult for the last few days, as Harry routinely disappeared into the infirmary for large stretches of time for the treatment of his strange illness called Babington's syndrome. She had tried to look up more on the condition, but it was apparently rare enough that it was barely mentioned in any of the books in the Hogwarts Library.

Professor Sprout had been rather reticent about the whole thing when she explained the situation, which — she revealed when asked — was because she was just as unfamiliar with the condition as her students. She did say that Madame Pomfrey had recognized the illness as soon as she learned of Harry's symptoms, though, which Hermione found duly impressive.

Harry was currently fidgeting a little while still somehow remaining completely absorbed in his current reading, a dusty-looking volume detailing the runic schema and internal energy flows of the so-called lighting-rod enchantments. It was a topic quite beyond her, an in fact, she only knew that much because she had asked him outright. She couldn't even read the title.

The book was written in Greek — an ancient scholarly dialect of Greek at that — and Harry had explained that he was reading this book, rather than one of the hundreds of derivative works written in a more accessible language, because the other ones all glossed over some of the minutiae he was interested in.

Between today's reading and his other eclectic choices over the past few days, Hermione had learned that her friend was able to read at least seven different languages beyond his native English, four of which were dead. The ancient form of Greek the boy was reading was a new one, one he was apparently learning on the spot judging by the translation dictionary — a centuries-old text itself, matching the ancient Greek dialect with Latin equivalents — which lay open on the table and the slowly increasing rate at which the boy was turning pages.

Hermione found that fact more than a little intimidating.

The bushy-haired girl was quite confident of her own intelligence, and she was game for learning almost anything, but the idea of sitting down to read a scholarly tome on a subject that wouldn't even be available for her to take a course on for another two years, written in an ancient language that she didn't know… well, that was a little much, even for her. It was the first time she had encountered another person her age who was objectively better than her at an academic pursuit, and Hermione wasn't precisely sure how to handle that.

She was sure, however, that she wanted to be friends with him.

Now she just had to figure out how to start a conversation. She'd not realized just how useful Harry's 'blathering' was for that purpose — no matter how irritating it could be.

2.5.5 Self-examination

With the end of October was fast approaching — and with it, the end of Harry's second month of schooling — Harry found himself lounging on the lip of the Lair, Suze tucked comfortably into his side, and gazing out over his domain.

The forest below the Lair had nearly donned its fall vestments, painting the glen in reds, yellows, and oranges. The flowering heather on the coastal moors even cut a thin strip of purple in the distance dividing the waters of the loch from those of the sound beyond. Beyond that, the blue-gray of the water merged smoothly into the gray-blue of the cloudy twilight sky. Not ten minutes before, the vibrant sunset had lit up those clouds to match the fall foliage below, but now there was just enough haze in the air to hide the Isle of Skye in the distance.

For all the world, it looked like the ocean just went on forever.

It had been nice to meet so many new kids, Harry reflected. He hadn't had so much fun meeting new people since that first winter with the Black Woods Clan! The Hufflepuff students were almost universally friendly, which was real nice, and Hermione had been practically glued to his side whenever she could manage it ever since that embarrassing incident at lunch when he'd lost control of his appetite.

Had he been in human form, Harry's embarrassed blush at the memory would have been quite obvious. Being levitated out of the Great Hall by Mr. Snape while whining about being hungry was indubitably the lowest point of his academic career to date. It seemed Uncle Vernon had been right all those years ago about hunger doing strange things to people. Harry would have to let him know in his next letter.

The time spent with Hermione as a result, though — that was nice. She didn't seem to talk very much on her own, but she was always game for a good conversation, and they'd started talking more in the last few weeks. It was fun! Lately she'd seemed kind of sad about something, though. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

He shook his great draconic head in dismissal. He'd have to give that a bit more of a think.

On the topic of his unreasonable appetite, Hagrid had predicted the really intense hunger would taper off into a slightly elevated appetite during the rest of the growth spurt, and Harry was happy to confirm that was indeed the case. He was now eating about twice as much as he was before the spurt started, but nowhere near what he had been during the transition. Regardless, he was still putting on a steady inch every night, according to Madame Pomfrey's now daily checkups.

Harry's massive head turned to eye his damsel for a moment before turning back to the slowly darkening Highland landscape. Suze had nodded off at some point as she leaned against his front-shoulder, sheltered under his wing as she watched the sunset with him. Letting out an almost inaudibly-deep rolling chuckle, pitched beyond the range of most human's hearing but still intense enough to feel, he gently gathered her up in his forepaws and carried her into the Lair proper to sleep, away from the autumn chill.

Lots of new friends, lots of old friends, lots to learn, lots to do, and lots and lots to eat — it sounded like a recipe for good times to Harry.