Yet Another Year One AU - Anna_Hopkins - Harry Potter (2025)

Chapter 1: The Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea

Chapter Text

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow.

Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?

One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds. . . twenty. . . ten. . . nine -- maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him -- three. . . two. . . one. .

The door to the shack opened on soundless hinges, where earlier it had creaked and scraped terribly across the floor; and a figure emerged from the darkness outside as if made from it. Harry froze, staring wide-eyed at the face of what he assumed to be a man.

“Pardon me,” the man whispered in a voice that carried, “for the intrusion, Harry Potter. I have been sent to ensure the receipt of your letter in my colleague’s stead.”

He stepped forward into the dim moonlight; Harry took in details of the man’s face, what little could be seen of it, as he sat up from his spot on the floor, shivering a bit in the draft from the walls. The visitor’s face was thin, but showed few signs of age; he could be anywhere between twenty-five and forty-five. Harry would have tried to puzzle it out using his hair color, but the man’s head was wrapped in a black (or red, maybe, he couldn’t tell in the light) turban. The headwear probably matched the essentially-black, flowing outfit that the visitor wore, underneath the long grey coat from which he drew another envelope, just one, when Harry had tiptoed past Dudley to approach him.

“Thank you, sir,” he offered, accepting the smooth white envelope from the visitor’s hands. Harry stared down at it, thumbing over the large wax seal -- entirely oblivious to the brief surprise and twitching smirk that crossed the man’s face.

Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. Harry stifled a snort at the address. He looked back up at the visitor’s face. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t ask your name. Thank you for coming all the way out here in the rain.” Although, was it a trick of the light, or did the man’s coat seem far drier than circumstances would suggest it ought to be?

“It is no trouble, Mr. Potter. My name is Quirinus Quirrell; under the circumstances, I invite you to call me Quirinus.” Harry stepped aside as the man -- Quirrell -- strode forward into the room, hanging his coat on a coat-hook Harry hadn’t noticed on the wall before. He crouched down beside the fireplace, fiddling quietly with the bits of chip bags Uncle Vernon had left in the hearth, and a moment later, to Harry’s great surprise, a small glow soon lit the place. Dudley, for his part, barely stirred on the couch.

He glanced back down at the envelope, then back at Quirrell -- who was indeed wearing all black -- then at the door where his aunt and uncle were still sleeping. “...Circumstances, sir?”

“Indeed,” Quirrell murmured, seating himself cross-legged on the floor by the fire. “Given the extent to which your… relatives,” he said the word with some distaste, “have refused you access to your letters, I believe there is much you need to know. Let us discuss this matter where it is warm, yes?”

Puzzled, but curious, Harry took a seat opposite the man, basking in the heat of the flames. From a pocket, Quirrell produced two small, clear bags of what appeared to be mixed nuts and dried fruits. He handed one to Harry, and picked idly at the other for a moment.

The trail mix was, frankly, a godsend; Harry had been hungry for several days at this point, and had barely managed to keep down the greasy crisps Uncle Vernon had given him a few hours ago. He tried not to eat too quickly, lest he make himself sick.

After a few minutes of surprisingly comfortable silence between them, Quirrell spoke again, though he paused to take a mouthful of his own bag of mix every few sentences. “Tell me, Mr. Potter, have you ever caused, or had something happen to you, that was especially convenient or inconvenient? Something which seems almost impossible for you to have done, and yet you -- or your relatives -- are convinced is your fault?”

The shrinking sweater. The blue wig. The Roof Incident. His hair growing back overnight. The disappearing glass --

“Yes, I think so. Several times.”

“Then perhaps what I am about to tell you will not seem so far-fetched.” Quirrell leaned forward slightly, fixing Harry with a serious look. “These events, seemingly impossible, were caused by magic. You and I, and many others worldwide, are magicals -- capable of bending magic to our will.”

Harry blinked. Several times. He found he didn’t quite doubt Quirrell’s claim, when he put it that way. “So… I’m a magical.”

"You are," Quirrell agreed. From one sleeve, he retrieved a long white stick, vaguely bone-shaped at one end. “In Britain, we refer to ourselves as ‘wizards’, and to female practitioners of magic as ‘witches’. What I have here is a wand: a conduit for magic that most practitioners use for modern magical workings, generally referred to as ‘spells’ or ‘spellwork’.”

Harry gazed at the stick -- the wand -- with no small degree of wonder. “May I see a spell, sir?” He hoped he didn’t sound overeager.

Quirrell’s lips quirked up in an encouraging smile. “I had hoped you would ask that. With your permission, I would like to cast a privacy ward -- a wide-area spell -- so that we need not worry about interruptions from your relatives.”

Given how worried Harry had been about that very possibility, he nodded eagerly, and watched Quirrell direct the wand in a quick motion, murmuring several phrases in what sounded almost like Latin. Then, he clapped his hands very loudly, several times, and Harry watched, delighted, as Dudley didn’t even stir.

“Excellent. Now, if I may take a few more liberties to make this hut more comfortable…” He snapped his fingers, and the fire roared, crackling loudly, pouring out much more light and heat than it had a moment prior. Harry leaned slightly away from it, grinning, and realized he was now sitting on a very comfortable cushion, instead of the hard stone floor. Quirrell, for his part, was leaning back on his hands, basking in the heat. “Ah… much better,” he sighed. “As you can see, with magic, we need never go without basic comforts. I believe it is a prime time to mention that the trail mix bag is ever-refilling, so long as there is at least one nut or fruit left inside.”

Harry’s eyebrows climbed into his hairline. “Magic is great,” he breathed.

“Indeed.” Quirrell sat back up again, rolling his shoulders, and returned his wand to his sleeve. “But I digress. You know now that you are a wizard -- albeit an untrained one. The letter before you is an offer to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a boarding school in Scotland which is Britain’s place of magical education. I am presently employed at Hogwarts as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and it is in this capacity that I was sent to bring you your letter and introduce you into the magical world. Would you like a letter opener?”

By this point, Harry had already used a fingernail to break the wax seal and open the heavy envelope. He smiled sheepishly up at Quirrell, then went back to it, retrieving the contents with faintly trembling hands. There were several pieces of equally-heavy paper inside.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress

“What does the letter mean by ‘await my owl’, sir?” Harry squinted down at the neat script, wondering if he’d misread it. His glasses were a bit blurry.

“Magicals in Britain and Europe use owls to carry their post -- and sometimes other birds, such as falcons,” Quirrell explained. “I have also seen, on rare occasions, such different birds as ravens and flamingoes.” Harry shared the man’s smile at the idea. Flamingoes. “As I have successfully brought you your letter in person, you need not owl back if you decide to attend; I can pass that information along directly.”

“I’d like to attend,” Harry said immediately.

Just then, the door from the other room creaked open, revealing a groggy Aunt Petunia rubbing at her eyes and squinting about the room. Harry couldn’t restrain a giggle when she ignored both him and Quirrell, instead shuffling over to where Dudley lay in order to read the time on his digital watch. (It was half past midnight.) Quirrell watched her with equal amusement, eyes glittering. “At present, only magical folk can detect the presence of anything within the confines of our warded space,” he reminded Harry. “Muggles -- non-magicals -- such as your aunt here, and her son, if the boy were awake, will not only ignore us, but they will ignore that anything is here to be ignored. In other words, we are hidden so well, that we do not exist.”

“Wicked,” Harry breathed.

“Perhaps this is interfering of me to suggest,” murmured Quirrell thoughtfully, as Aunt Petunia returned to her room, “but by magical law, your Muggle relatives are considered your property, rather than your guardians. If we were, say, to erase all traces of magical activity within this hut and take our leave before they awaken in the morning…” he shrugged. “There would be no legal consequences. And I might suggest several well-reputed magical inns across Britain, several in London, where one may find a bed, a bath, and regular meals for the remaining month until Hogwarts classes begin, were you so inclined.”

Harry considered the suggestion. “Would I be able to afford it?” he had to ask.

“Certainly,” Quirrell answered immediately. “Your substantial inheritance of magical currency notwithstanding, I would be more than happy to pay on your behalf.”

Harry considered the suggestion a second time, minus that concern. He looked back to Quirrell with a small smile. “Should I leave a note?”

“Only if you wish to.”

Slowly, a smirk spread across Harry’s face. “Then… I won’t.” An answering smirk from Quirrell, a conspiratorial glint in his eyes. “When will we leave?”

The man rose from his cushion; it disappeared in a puff of silver sparks. He crossed the room to where his coat still hung on the coat-hook, and put it back on. “Now, if you like,” came the reply.

The fire faded away as Harry picked himself up off the floor. The sound of the rain grew louder; the hut went cold and drafty once more. It was incredible to think that he’d been huddled, hungry and shivering, in the corner of this room less than an hour before.

“Albus -- Dumbledore, that is -- believes I will be transporting you to London by Muggle means. Kindly allow him to keep believing that, if he ever asks.” Quirrell offered Harry his elbow. “It will be much more practical, however, if we link elbows and travel by the magical instant transport known as Apparition.”

Harry hooked his arm in the crook of Quirrell’s elbow, grinning. In a blink, they were no longer in the hut, with nary a sound to indicate their departure.

Chapter 2: London.

Chapter Text

For all that London was a busy city, some of its streets could be remarkably still and silent in the early hours of the morning. This was precisely the case for the lamplit street Harry found himself standing in, mere moments later. Instant transport, Quirrell had said, but Harry hadn’t realized it would be quite that instant. “...Where are we?”

Quirrell unlinked his arm from Harry’s, adjusting his coat. “Charing Cross Road, in London, about a ten-minute walk from our destination,” he answered in an undertone. Harry easily matched the wizard’s leisurely stroll down the dark street, enjoying the warm, pleasant breeze that blew through, and the golden light of the streetlamps pooling on the dark road. “The Leaky Cauldron, located further down, is a well-known crossroads between Muggle and Magical London,” Quirrell explained, “providing access to Britain’s magical high streets, Diagon and Knockturn Alley.”

They passed all manner of large and small shopfronts, but remarkably few people, on their late-night walk, and Quirrell described the sorts of wards that kept Magical London hidden from its Muggle surroundings. “There will likely be no one on the street to prove it at this hour, but the Leaky Cauldron is made unnoticeable to Muggles in the same fashion you and I used to our benefit earlier. Unless their attention is specifically directed to it, Muggles will glance right over the building, and their minds will perceive there to be no space missing at all.”

“Is there a version that works on wizards?” Harry had to wonder.

Quirrell was silent for a moment, considering. “Counterintuitive as this may seem,” he answered eventually, “it is in fact more effective to disguise oneself from a wizard without using magic, most of the time. There exist a plethora of rare artifacts, complicated spells, and costly rituals one may employ to achieve similar levels of secrecy, but for all that wizards will easily detect magical interference, few if any are perceptive enough when it comes to the nonmagical -- a fault I have used to great effect on my international travels.”

They had by this point reached a particularly old-looking building nestled between a bookshop and a record shop. Even if Harry had not seen the sign naming the place The Leaky Cauldron , it was unmistakably a pub. Quirrell nodded toward a shadowed alcove between the pub and the record shop. “This talk of nonmagical disguises brings me to an important point I neglected to mention earlier. For reasons I will explain once we have secured a private table, in wizarding Britain, you are currently very famous, and instantly recognizable by the scar on your forehead. Keeping this in mind,” one hand went to his coat pocket, “I have procured you a hat.”

Quirrell produced a flat black cap, which Harry promptly put on, incredulous, and led the way into the Leaky Cauldron, coat sweeping behind him.

The inside was… remarkably accurate to what Harry had expected from looking at the outside. Dimly lit, a bit shabby, but lively, with people throughout the room. One corner held a lively group of old women drinking from floating glasses. A few men were seated at their own tables, reading newspapers. Harry cast a surreptitious glance at the headlines as he passed by: Chudley Cannons to Stay in Quidditch League, read the sports section. Was ‘Quidditch’ the sport, or the name of the league itself? He looked back up to Quirrell, who had led them toward the bar counter and was addressing the old bartender in a low tone; Harry couldn’t hear what was said in the low buzz of chatter that filled the air until he drew closer.

“Quirinus,” the man greeted, smiling. His face was heavily wrinkled; Harry couldn’t help but compare him to a walnut. A toothless walnut. “Back from Albania, then? You seem in good health. Better than when you left!”

“It is good to be back,” Quirrell answered. “Albania is a bit of a frightful country, in places, but beautiful. Were it not for the vampires, I might even return.” He chuckled, leaning forward on the counter. “Though I hate to cut things short, I do need a table, and a room for the rest of the month, if you have any available.” Harry noticed that while one of Quirrell’s hands gesticulated vigorously, the other only moved in a quick gesture as he made the request.

The bartender nodded agreeably, guiding Quirrell and Harry to a booth against the wall. All the while, he never gave Harry even a single glance. “I’ll check if I have any rooms while you eat,” he announced, and hobbled off back to the counter.

Now alone, for a certain definition of alone, Quirrell brought up the privacy wards again; Harry recognized the way the rest of the room briefly quietened. He chose that moment to ask, “What did you do to the bartender?”

Quirrell’s eyes crinkled in satisfaction -- pleased, Harry expected, that he’d noticed. “Many of my acquaintances believe I’ve picked up a dreadful speech impediment on my travels,” he explained, mirth coloring his tone. “It spares me from being volunteered to do extra work, and makes me terribly easy to underestimate.” A wink. “While I can convincingly fake the same condition, I would prefer not to debase myself in front of you so early in our acquaintance; much easier to simply make people think I have stuttered, after I finish speaking to them.”

Harry put two and two together very quickly for someone who didn’t much like maths. “You changed his memories? Wicked.”

From the quirk of his lips, Quirrell had taken the word as the compliment it was. “Only very slightly,” he hedged. “It is… tedious, to repeat the spell every time. Fortunately, I have established my ‘condition’ well over the past month or two, and will rarely be expected to speak.”

A bowl of soup floated over to their table from the kitchen, landing neatly in front of Quirrell, who duplicated it with an easy wave of his wand. Harry’s mouth watered at the smell: chicken and rice and mushroom, he guessed. Neither he nor Quirrell spoke for several minutes, engrossed as they were in their dinner. The man even duplicated the goblet of wine that joined his plate soon after -- Harry took a small sip, just to be polite, and winced like he’d drank lemon juice. (Quirrell obligingly replaced the wine with water for him instead.)

When they had largely polished off their meals, Quirrell leaned back in the booth chair with wine in one hand, his other arm bent behind his head, and crossed one leg over the other. He resembled nothing so much as a villain in one of the old films Aunt Petunia played on the telly sometimes. “Regarding your fame in the wizarding world,” he began, swirling his glass. “Do you know how your parents died, Harry?”

Harry thought about it. His aunt had said they died in a car crash, but… “I don’t, really.”

Quirrell seemed to have expected that. “Then I shall be happy to begin at the beginning.

“A decade ago, Britain was in the middle of a civil war.” He sipped his wine. “A revolutionary faction had emerged in the sixties and seventies, with the goal of dismantling the Ministry in favor of a new government. In the interest of saving time, I will elaborate on the legitimate grievances of both sides, and the political significance of the revolution, at a later date. The main point to understand is that the Death Eaters -- the name of the revolutionaries -- were a fearsome military force, and their leader even more so: he was a Dark Lord, the second in Europe this century, and so feared for his power that magicals shiver just hearing his name.”

So what was it, Harry wanted to ask. The expression that crossed Quirrell’s face suggested he knew what was on his mind. “Lord Voldemort,” the man supplied, “but most people refer to him as You-Know-Who, or ‘the Dark Lord’, or formally as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The only ones who call him Voldemort outright are his staunchest opponents.”

Voldemort. Harry wondered if it meant something. “What side were my parents on, sir?”

“An astute question,” Quirrell nodded. “Your parents, Lily Evans and James Potter, were soldiers for a faction opposing the revolution, the Order of the Phoenix, led by Albus Dumbledore -- yes, the same Dumbledore that is the headmaster,” he added at Harry’s questioning look. “They became significant participants in the war in late 1980, when they went into hiding as part of a new strategy Dumbledore proposed. The Dark Lord did not locate them until Halloween of 1981.

“That night…” Quirrell took another long drink of his wine, for effect. “The Dark Lord went to their house in Godric’s Hollow, which is now a war memorial, and cast the Killing Curse on the Potters. True to its name, it kills instantly -- the incantation, for reference, is ‘Avada Kedavra’, and it produces a flash of green light when cast successfully.”

“I remember that!” Harry exclaimed, wide-eyed. “The green, I mean.”

Quirrell raised an eyebrow. “Truly? How interesting. You were quite young.” He drained his glass, then waved a hand over it, refilling it instantly. “Now, the part you are famous for comes after this: I said the Dark Lord cast the Killing Curse on the Potters, and that it kills instantly. In fact, it never fails -- except for when it did. You, Harry, are the only person known to have ever survived the Killing Curse, and no one knows why.”

“Wow,” Harry breathed. “And that’s how I got my scar?” Because that would be a lot cooler than it coming from a car crash.

The older wizard nodded. “But the curse was not merely stopped -- rather, it was reflected , back at the caster. Lord Voldemort’s body disintegrated into ash, and he has not been seen for nearly a decade since. It is for this reason that Wizarding Britain considers you a hero, and the story of that night has been told and retold so many times.”

“Me, a hero?” Harry’s nose scrunched up a little. “I was a baby . I didn’t do anything.”

Quirrell’s lips quirked up in a smile. “Obviously,” he agreed. Harry faltered, confused. “But belief matters in the wizarding world, Harry. If they believe you are their hero, is it not better to let them, and reap the benefits? Is it not easier to simply play along?” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward now, resting his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers. “In the end, how long you play the game is up to you. I can only suggest learning everything worth knowing, in the meantime: magic, politics, and the world you’ve entered, now that you’re in it. That way, the advantage remains in your hands.”

He left it at that, picking up his soup bowl and draining it just in time for the barkeeper to approach their table. The noise in the room grew louder as Quirrell dismissed the privacy wards. “Terribly sorry, Quirinus,” said the man, “but the rooms are booked up full for the month. Is there anything else I can get you?”

Quirrell smiled, shaking his head. “All set,” he replied, pulling a gold coin from his sleeve. He set it on the table. “I’ll be on my way. Have a good night, Tom.” Again, he made the minute gesture with his hand that Harry now knew was a spell. Then, he stood, and led Harry out through the pub’s back exit without a word.

The space behind the Leaky Cauldron appeared at first glance to be a standard alley between adjacent buildings, with a sizable metal rubbish bin leaning against a brick wall -- until Harry realized there was no way to exit to the London streets. “There’s no way they can pick up the rubbish here,” he muttered, brow furrowed.

“Ah, but they do not have to,” Quirrell countered. He plucked the lid off to show Harry there was nothing inside. Replacing it, he drew his wand and tapped a pattern on the bricks above the bin. “Observe: this is the entrance to Diagon Alley, high street of Magical London.” And he stepped back, letting Harry watch in amazement as the bricks shifted and twisted to form a wide archway, beyond which lay a lamplit, cobbled street. Without further ado, they crossed the threshold.

“It’s quiet,” Harry blinked on the other side. He glanced back to see the archway closing behind them. They had been on equally-empty streets in London proper not much earlier, but Diagon Alley was distinctly quieter. He wondered why, for a moment, until the obvious answer came to him: the missing noise would have come from echoes of other areas, streets and streets away. “There’s a privacy ward in place here, isn’t there?” he asked Quirrell.

“Among others, yes,” the man murmured. “If you gaze up at the sky a while, you will see that even the light from the Muggle parts of the city is diminished, here.” He raised his chin toward a far end of the street and began to make his way slowly in that direction, giving Harry time to look around while they walked. “Unlike the warded spaces we have occupied, however, the wards isolating Diagon Alley and other parts of Magical London are permanent; British magicals call such locations ‘wizard space’.”

Most of the storefronts at this hour were closed, their windows darkened; a building without a sign had lights on, and further down, they drew near enough to a shop called ‘Madam Malkin’s Robes For All Occasions’ to read a smaller sign on the door reading ‘Appointments Only until 3:00’, with figures moving back and forth behind the curtains on the windows.

“We have arrived at a peculiar hour, I will admit,” said Quirrell. “Between dusk and dawn, Knockturn Alley will be the more active street -- true to its name.” He gestured at the intersection just ahead. “Across the street there is Gringotts Bank, which we will visit tomorrow.”

Harry looked over and took in the looming marble building with columns and steps in front like a Muggle courthouse. After a moment, they proceeded along their path, taking several steps down off the cobbled street onto -- more cobbled street. Why steps? Wondered Harry. A slope would have done just as well, wouldn’t it?

“The next inn we’re heading to is called the White Wyvern,” Quirrell informed Harry as they walked. “It’s a fair ways down from the entrance, but makes up for its location by being rather nicer than the Leaky Cauldron, if you ask me.”

The lamps lighting Knockturn Alley were dimmer than those on Diagon, but more numerous, hanging from the walls of the buildings on either side of the street rather than from separate posts. In spaces between buildings, Harry could spot figures by their silhouetted shadows against the walls, and hear the low murmur of conversation from all manner of voices in the periphery.

“Stay closer to me for the time being,” the older wizard advised when he noticed Harry was distracted by his surroundings. “While Knockturn is hardly a bad area compared to places I’ve been on my travels, it’s still the middle of the night.”

“Sorry,” Harry blushed.

Quirrell waved his apology away, unbothered. “I’d offer you my pocketknife to brandish at passersby, if you were used to carrying one.”

Harry almost laughed, before realizing the man was serious. “Erm, no thank you, sir.” He glanced around again. “Is it that dangerous, here?”

“Only if they think you’re weak.” Quirrell drew the knife in question from his pocket, unfolding it with a ‘snick’. “It’s more to keep the idiots away.” The curved blade glinted wickedly in the lamplight; out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw someone backing hastily away, and hid a smirk behind his hand.

Quirrell twirled the knife in his hand before closing it and passing it to Harry. “Keep it for now,” he suggested. “When you get your wand tomorrow…” they turned down a side alleyway with a large building on their left, “I’ll teach you the Killing Curse. It’s a good beginner’s spell; with enough intent, it works on everything.”

“It’s not illegal?” Harry wondered, unfolding the knife again to trace the flat of the blade with a fingertip. The cool metal sent a thrill of something like excitement down his spine.

“Inasmuch as the knife you’re holding can be,” the man answered, turning one more corner before he drew to a stop in a small courtyard at the entrance of the building they’d passed. “Its lethality depends on how much effort you put in - the incantation alone scares off people who don’t take you seriously, but when you do actually get to use it, Avada Kedavra can be as effective or ineffective as you choose it to be.”

He held the door for Harry, who stowed the knife away in his pocket. The sign over the door was painted with a white two-legged dragon -- a wyvern, Harry corrected himself. “Now, shall we?”

Chapter 3: The White Wyvern.

Chapter Text

Through the heavy wooden door of the White Wyvern was a high-ceilinged lobby more like a hotel than an inn - larger, thought Harry, than it looked on the outside. It had been grandiose once, but now, the wallpaper was not-quite-faded, the woodwork aglow with the patina only age could provide, the leather armchairs by a large fireplace gone wrinkled in a way that spoke of comfort. Harry immediately decided he liked it.

As he had done at the Leaky Cauldron, Quirrell approached the innkeeper at a large wooden desk, Harry at his side. Unlike at the Leaky, though, when he inquired about rooms, it wasn't a question of whether any were available. "Two adjacent suites, third floor," Quirrell informed the witch behind the desk, "until September second."

A moment later, he had two keys in hand.

"How did you know there was space?" Harry asked, accepting the key Quirrell passed him - it had the number 8 on it - and stepping onto the staircase, which moved like a Muggle escalator.

"There's always space," the man replied, leaning on the banister.

It emerged that the inn was themed by floor: the third floor, when they arrived, was done up in rich green with silver fixtures, and the woodwork and doors were stained black, engraved with snakes and tree branches. "I've never been anywhere this fancy," Harry admitted, sheepish.

"Neither had I, once," Quirrell reassured him. "You do get used to it eventually."

He unlocked the door to Room Seven, waiting for Harry to do the same before leaving him to his own devices.

Harry stood just inside the doorway to his room, aghast.

He'd thought the inn was fancy enough just from the downstairs - but this? This was opulent.

It was larger than the entire first floor of Number Four, Privet Drive, all dark wood and high ceilings and tall windows. Off of the main room stood a kitchen, a sitting room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on one wall, and what appeared to be a separate dining room. Open doors on the other side led to a bedroom and a bathroom; when Harry went over to look, he saw that the bathtub inside was easily three times the size of the one he had in Surrey.

"It'll take me ages to clean all of this," he despaired aloud.

He went back to the door, careful not to leave the key inside the room, and knocked on the door to Room Seven. Quirrell opened it after a moment; the man had already taken off his shoes, it appeared. "Is something wrong, Harry?"

"Erm," Harry could feel his cheeks going pink already, "are there any smaller rooms? I like it, but there's so much to clean - I could just share with you, and we'll split the work..?"

The man blinked at him.

"I don't mean to presume," Harry backtracked, "I'm sure I could manage if I woke up early-"

"Harry, Harry," Quirrell smiled, "You misunderstand my confusion. I apologize; I had forgotten you did not know."

"Know what, sir?"

"Magical buildings such as these are maintained and cleaned by house-elves. Come, let me show you." He exited his room on socked feet and stood by the door to Harry's. "May I?"

Harry nodded, unlocking the door again, and Quirrell followed him in, coming to stand in the middle of the central floorspace. "Observe." He snapped his fingers, and with a 'pop' like a burst bubble, a strange creature appeared in front of them. It had greenish, wrinkly skin - no hair on its head - wide, tennis-ball eyes, and big floppy ears as thin and membraneous as bat's wings.

"What is masters be needing of Whimsy?" the creature - house-elf - asked in a thin, reedy voice, looking between Harry and Quirrell and wringing its hands.

"Nothing for now, Whimsy," Quirrell dismissed. With another 'pop', the elf was gone, and he turned to harry. "That was a house-elf; specifically, the one who cleans and maintains your suite, and cooks if you request it. You can snap your fingers or simply call for her if you have a request; this is likewise the case at Hogwarts, though etiquette discourages calling for them during classes."

"Wow," Harry breathed.

"I am glad you have an appreciation for house-elves," Quirrell said, the corners of his eyes crinkling again, "as many students raised in the Muggle world do not. Some time ago they even tried to form a labor union..." He trailed off with a soft laugh.

Harry didn't get the joke. "Aren't they paid?"

Quirrell sobered. "They are, Harry, but not with money. House-elves see wizards as pets - they care for us and keep our habitats in good condition, because it pleases them to do so. After five hundred years, a house-elf grows up into a true elf, and moves on to the hidden land where true elves live. The more they accomplish in their allotted time, the more powerful they become as true elves - some former Hogwarts elves have since risen to such heights that we know them in legends.

"Paying a house-elf with physical money, then, is an insult, because it subtracts from the actual benefits they gain while giving them nothing that matters in the next world."

"It almost sounds like faeries or demons," thought Harry aloud.

"Rest assured, Harry, the house-elves have no interest in your soul," Quirrell chuckled. "Are you otherwise comfortable with your room? I will retire to my suite, if so, and meet you in the morning."

"I think so, sir," Harry nodded. "Where should we meet?"

"Knock on my door when you are ready to go out," Quirrell advised. "Though preferably no earlier than ten, as I am not much of a morning person."

“Yes, sir.” Harry was exhausted; he could sleep for a week. “Goodnight.”

Minutes later found Harry sprawled out over his bed, sinking into the bedding. The sheer size of everything here continued to impress him - it must be a wizard thing, he decided, how they seemed to spare no expense for comfort.

He sat up and kicked off his trainers, shucking off the oversized clothing and threadbare socks he’d been wearing for the past day and a half into a pile on the bench at the end of the bed. Then he climbed in under the sheets, relishing the smooth, soft fabric against his skin. The lights in the room dimmed just as he was thinking he’d like to turn them off; and soon, Harry lay in the middle of the bed in the dark, staring up at the distant ceiling.

A few hours ago, he’d been shivering on the floor of a drafty wooden cabin in the middle of the sea. Only days before that, he’d curled up on a thin mattress in Dudley’s second bedroom - not much earlier, in a smaller, dustier space in the cupboard under the stairs. There hadn’t been a single point in his life that he’d been this comfortable and warm at the same time; it was beyond heavenly.

With magic, we need never go without basic comforts, Quirrell had said, handing Harry the first real food he’d eaten in days. If this was the man considered basic, Harry wondered what constituted deluxe.

Speaking of Quirrell…

Harry rolled over on his side, pulling the second pillow - a second , as if he even needed the first, the whole bed felt like a pillow - and frowned slightly.

What was he to think about Quirinus Quirrell? The man had waltzed into Harry’s life only hours ago with the solution to all of his problems literally in hand; he had opened the door to a new and better world, and Harry wasn’t about to overlook that - but it didn’t mean he was oblivious to the danger that lurked beneath the surface.

Quirrell seemed like the kind of man who might have equals, but recognized no superiors; irreverent to society and the law. One who, long used to getting what he wanted, didn’t care if that meant using force to take it - practical, efficient, logical and ruthless . Quirrell was sly and confident and sneaky in the best of ways, so long as you were on his side - and he seemed proud of Harry whenever he acted the same way.

Harry rolled back and reached over to the nightstand to retrieve the pocketknife he'd set down there, opening and toying with it in the dark. If Harry had been oblivious to everything else so far, this alone was enough indication that Quirrell wasn't purely good or kind.

But then, he never pretended to be. He had laid out his motivations pretty clearly for Harry so far, and hadn't hesitated to explain even the less savory things in the world, and when it came down to it he'd always given Harry a choice, though it was obvious which choices were the ones he preferred Harry to make.

And that was the crux of it: that Quirrell, for all that he held no reservations about using force, relied on oil-slick charisma, persuasion, suggestion , and still got what he wanted. Sure, Harry could have been a stickler for rules, could have chosen to be difficult - but the point was he never wanted to, and in the end, he admired that. Quirrell was good to him; what did he care, really, if the man was more than a little sinister?

What did he care, at all?

Chapter 4: Diagon Alley.

Chapter Text

When Harry finally managed to claw his way out of a deep and dreamless sleep - he'd all but sunk into the mattress, far too comfortable to awaken with the speed he normally did - his jaw dropped at the sight of the clock on the wall. Noon? He'd slept till noon?

At least, he thought, scrambling to shower and get dressed in yesterday's clothes, it's technically 'after ten'. Quirrell had made that specification last night; it was late, but only two hours late, so surely he wouldn't be punished for the delay. Or so Harry reasoned, but he was no less frantic.

He knocked on the door to the adjacent suite at about twelve-thirty, fingering the closed switchblade in his pocket to try and calm his nerves. Quirrell answered just before Harry meant to knock again, wearing a slight frown that set him on edge before the man recognized his visitor and it brightened into a half-smile. "Ah, good morning, Harry," he stifled a yawn. "Do come in; breakfast is being set."

Harry politely didn't mention it was afternoon. The not-quite-breakfast spread of fruits, fried vegetables, eggs and toast occupied them both plenty in the next ten minutes; just as the night before, neither he nor Quirrell could divert their focus from the food in front of them until it was finished.

Afterward, Quirrell summoned his room's house-elf to clean up, and brought out a trunk from his bedroom. "You may already have noticed your clothing stands out from typical wizarding casual wear," he observed to Harry. "Let us choose something from my wardrobe to temporarily resize, so as not to attract undue attention."

A few minutes later, Harry was trying not to fidget too much with the collar of his borrowed shirt. "Do most wizards wear clothes this tight?" he asked, even as he hesitated to look a gift horse in the mouth. Unlike Muggle clothes, the fabric hardly had any give - Harry felt a bit like how Dudley claimed to when Petunia dressed his cousin in church clothes for Easter.

Quirrell offered an apologetic smile, as if Harry couldn't see how amused he was at Harry's expense. "Magically resized fabric unavoidably stiffens. Fortunately, you will not need to borrow these for very long. I could offer long robes as a more flexible option, but they are worn as Muggle dresses are, and I expect you'd prefer to keep your trousers."

Oh. Harry stifled a laugh. "Understood, sir, thank you." He glanced back into the mirror, studying his reflection: with his cap on, he looked like any other somewhat scrawny eleven-year-old, who happened to have a pocketknife on his belt.

"Shall we venture into Diagon while the sun is up, then?" Quirrell supposed, already leading the way to the door out into the hall. His expression turned thoughtful, however, as they descended the stairs. "You will have to excuse me for much of the day - the Alley will be too busy for me to spell everyone in the vicinity, and so I will begin my public act."

"You said it was a speech impediment?" Harry inquired, toning his voice down as they reached the White Wyvern's lobby.

"Y-yes, Mr. P-Potter, a d-d-dreadful stutter. You s-see why I rarely s-speak."

Now Harry was a bit embarrassed on the man's behalf. If he didn't know it was an act, he'd have pitied him. "I'll try not to ask you too many questions," he offered.

“Q-Quite.”

Diagon Alley was as vibrant in the day as Knockturn was at night - the only immediate difference was that passersby were much more benign than the suspicious denizens Quirrell had scared off last night. Most of them seemed to be older wizards and witches with various ages of children in tow. No one spared him and Quirrell a second glance as they came out of Knockturn to join the crowds.

(Minutes earlier, as they neared the intersection from the Knockturn side, a pair of hags had approached them to peddle trays of toenail clippings. Harry had drawn his pocketknife and opened it, gleefully brandishing the weapon until they backed off, eyes wide. Quirrell had laughed, a high and raspy sound quickly stifled, and patted Harry on the shoulder. "Hide that on Diagon, though," he whispered.)

“F-First, the goblin bank, G-Gringotts,” Quirrell announced. Harry took a moment to admire the gleam of the looming building in the sunlight as he had not done the night before; it was taller than anything else in Diagon Alley. Then he was following after the older wizard, up the steps to the oversized doorway framed by white columns and armored guards at either side.

Engraved upon the doors themselves was a rhyming warning. Enter stranger, but take heed… “..and abandon hope all ye who enter here,” Harry muttered dryly under his breath, earning a faint laugh from Quirrell and what might have been amused looks from the goblin door-guards (or grimaces. He couldn’t tell). Inside sprawled a vast open atrium of dark stone and wood polished to gleaming, luxurious in the same way the White Wyvern would have been at its prime, and even more opulent. Harry squinted up at a high ceiling hung with several chandeliers. “Wow,” he breathed.

Groups of people milled about the space, few of whom seemed to notice Quirrell and Harry in their midst; they fit Harry's image of 'businessmen' to a T, and one blond man standing in a group of several others even had a fancy cane, if Harry was seeing correctly. He hastened to catch up to Quirrell as the older wizard approached the far counter, recognizably where the tellers were: many goblins manned the spaces, counting gemstones and reviewing scrolls, and there was almost no delay before Harry and Quirrell were approaching one.

"Purpose?" the goblin prompted.

Quirrell looked to Harry - oh, right, Harry was the one who was supposed to speak. "Erm, making a withdrawal," he said, glancing at the professor for confirmation and receiving a small nod.

"Name?"

"Harry Potter," said Harry, a bit more quietly so he wouldn't be overheard.

He received something like a grimace. "Key," prompted the teller, sounding a bit bored.

Quirrell wordlessly produced a small gold key from his sleeve, handing it to Harry. "K-keep it close," he advised, "but p-present it now."

"All seems to be in order," the goblin muttered once Harry had passed him the key. He snapped his fingers behind the desk, and another goblin approached. "Griphook will see you to your vault."

What followed was a rather exhilarating ride down into the tunnels on a cart. "When we arrive at your vault, use this expanded pouch for the bulk of what you retrieve," Quirrell advised Harry on the descent, passing him a tiny black drawstring purse. "Two hundred gold Galleons should be plenty, but we can make do with as little as twelve."

"How much is a Galleon worth?" Harry wondered aloud, pocketing the purse. He also wondered, not-aloud, whether Quirrell was going to be using mind magic on the goblin guiding their cart, since he'd dropped his act.

"Seventeen silver Sickles, or four hundred ninety-three bronze Knuts - that's twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle. As for what they can buy, foodstuffs and basic trade goods and reagents are priced in Sickles and Knuts. Galleon-and-Sickle prices apply to fully crafted items such as potions, artifacts, clothing, rare materials, and services. A wand from Ollivander will invariably cost seven Galleons; twelve Galleons an ounce for boomslang skin, or eighteen on the black market; about two thousand for a skilled assassin, if you're busy enough to need one instead of doing it yourself." Harry grinned at the witticism, and Quirrell winked.

Then he did the math. "..All my school supplies for five galleons?"

A slight tilt of the head and a smirk. "One can always apply, as the Americans call it, a five-finger discount."

The cart stopped, and Griphook was the first to exit, looking almost queasy. The goblin kept a distance from them once he'd opened the vault door, shooting glances at them from afar. "Gringotts values customer privacy," Quirrell murmured as he supervised Harry's counting up two hundred gleaming coins from the dizzyingly large piles within the vault, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed. "More than that, though.. they know the price of crossing me."

Harry hummed agreeably, slipping a Galleon into each shoe and his front shirt pocket, just in case.

The return trip, he noticed, was considerably shorter.

Their next stop was Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, the tailors' that Harry remembered from their arrival in Diagon. Harry once again took point, greeting the proprietor and affirming that yes, he was here for Hogwarts robes. "And if it's not too much trouble," he added, "the clothes I'm wearing are borrowed, I have to replace them, too."

The latter task was more easily accomplished than Harry had expected from the old-fashioned shop - Malkin retrieved a shirt and trousers from the back room and only had to make a few adjustments to size them just right. Harry was so grateful he didn't say a word of complaint after, when assistants were draping and pinning fabric for his school robes.

The same could not be said of the pale boy with pinched features being fitted on the platform next to him, who muttered viciously under his breath when he fidgeted and got poked with pins, and seemed particularly fixated on his upcoming House sorting at Hogwarts.

"What house do you think you'll be in, then?" he'd asked.

"I'm not sure yet," Harry lied, to mask having no idea what Draco (heh, what a name) was on about. "You?"

"Slytherin, for sure..." Harry let his yearmate prattle on, feigning attention the way he did to Aunt Petunia sometimes; it was amusing to see that the smile-and-nod trick worked on wizards as easily as Muggles.

"That's you done," the assistant informed Harry after a while - a shorter time than Draco, whose inability to stand still was making his fitting drag on. "How many sets of robes would you like?"

"Erm, seven, I s'pose." Seven was a good number - one per day, if he wanted to be extravagant and do all the laundry on weekends.

"S-Several day robes as w-well," Quirrell spoke up to remind Harry from the waiting-chair by the door. Draco's nose wrinkled in distaste, hearing the stutter; when Harry had conveyed the request to the assistant and gone back up on the platform, the blond boy muttered in confidence, "Must be a pain having him chaperone you, isn't it?"

Words in Quirrell's defense flew to his lips, but Harry held back at the last second - play to expectations, he reminded himself, to paraphrase the older wizard's advice. Instead, he offered Draco a sheepish smile. "Just my luck," he murmured in reply.

"Better than that great oaf my father saw earlier," Draco supposed, staring up at the ceiling. "Half-giant practically stormed the bank bellowing about 'Hogwarts business' this morning, made a whole mess of the tellers' counter looking for his vault key."

"Subtle," Harry commented dryly. Draco laughed.

Not long after that, Harry was finished being fitted, and pulled on his cap again. Madam Malkin promised his clothes would be ready by the evening, and suggested a hatmaker down the street if he wanted a hat to match the uniform beyond just the 'pointed black hat' listed in the supply list. Harry thanked her for the advice, paid, and was shortly on his way.

"Well done, Harry," Quirrell murmured when they had left. Harry warmed at the praise. More loudly, the man continued, "A wand, n-next, I s-say."

Ollivanders - 'Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 B.C.' - was a little like the Leaky Cauldron, Harry thought, in that the inside was precisely what one would expect given the outside: as dusty as the wand in the window display, the store was cramped, packed floor-to-ceiling with shelves of long, narrow boxes too small to be shoeboxes. Dimly lit, it was silent once Harry closed the door, no noise from the outside got through. Wizard space, Harry realized, glancing at Quirrell.

They waited several minutes, but the shopkeeper did not appear - not until Harry's thoughts started to drift, that is. Then, the man seemed to emerge from nowhere, startling Harry badly enough that he nearly drew his pocketknife before he knew what he was doing. "Good afternoon," he offered, hastily stowing the knife back in his sleeve and hoping his face hadn't gone too pink with embarrassment at the slip.

"A good afternoon to you as well, young wizard," the silver-eyed man offered, seeming mildly entertained by it all. "I have been wondering when I would see you, Harry Potter." Harry flinched; Ollivander - this could only be Ollivander - was the first person to recognize him all day, and he was staring at him now, unblinking. Would it be rude to compare him to a fish, thought Harry - or a snake, since snakes didn't blink either.

He swallowed. "How did you know it was me?"

Ollivander's features softened, more than they already had with age. "Ah, I am sure you will hear this time and again," the man supposed, "but to those who knew them, you look just like your father, with your mother's eyes. It was not so long ago she was here herself; ten and a quarter inches, willow, swishy - the wand for a charms master, I say.

"And your father, of course, favored a mahogany wand: a stronger conduit, pliable, leaning toward transfiguration." A close-lipped smile, wistful. "I say he favored it, but really, the wand chooses the wizard, as the saying goes."

Harry thought he could see his reflection in Ollivander's eyes; but then, were his own eyes really such a bright green? The man raised a finger to trace the line of Harry's scar on his forehead, so lightly it left strange tingling on his skin. "And this is the work of that wand.. yes.. I am sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," Ollivander continued softly. "Thirteen and a half inches; yew. A powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands.. well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do.."

"You'd have sold it anyway," Harry murmured, blinking as he realized he'd said that aloud. "Erm. If the wand chooses the wizard, you couldn't stop it, could you?" he hastened to add.

Ollivander paused, looking at him for a moment. "Insightful for your age, young Mr. Potter," the wandmaker observed in an approving tone of voice. "Something of an old soul, aren't you?" The corners of his eyes crinkled, and he smiled broadly for the first time, showing off startlingly neat white teeth, but for a metal replacement incisor.

"And you," he turned his attention to Quirrell, who stood by the door, "Quirinus.. Quirrell.. walnut and dragon heartstring, nine and three-quarter inches, remarkably firm for a wand. You've had no trouble with splitting down the middle?"

"N-none, sir," Quirrell replied, and for once, Harry couldn't tell if the stammer was feigned.

"But I digress," Ollivander turned back to Harry, "we are here to find your wand, after all. Tell me - which is your wand hand?"

Harry blinked. "I'm.. I'm not sure, sir." He was right-handed, but did that mean anything? Was he supposed to use his left instead?

"Hold out them both, then, and we shall see," Ollivander told him, and retrieved a silver tape measure from his sleeve which began to wind itself around each of Harry's arms in turn, measuring all manner of specifics. "You will find," Ollivander murmured eventually, having been watching the measuring tape while it worked, "that most magicals are right-handed, and a fair portion favor the left, no more or less than would be expected - but truly ambidextrous people are less rare among the magical population than the world at large. Magic balances the body in mysterious ways..."

By now, the tape measure was studying the space between Harry's nostrils and the length of his eyebrows; Ollivander waved a hand at it, and it rolled back up, returning to his sleeve. "I do believe this rules out several dozen wands," he decided, and went to retrieve a few other boxes seemingly at random from the shelves.

"May I ask," Harry hesitated, glancing to Quirrell - who had not said a word since his earlier reply - and back to Ollivander's silhouette toward the back of the shelves, "about the wand in the window?" Was it a model? An antique?

"My, you are the curious sort, aren't you?" Ollivander said, not unkindly. "The last person to ask about it was... hmm. Years and years ago. Would you like to try it?"

"If I'm allowed to," Harry agreed.

Ollivander set three boxes down on the floor beside the chair Harry had taken a seat in earlier, and pulled back the curtain of the window display to retrieve the cushion. The light that beamed into the shop through the dusty window seemed to leach color from the already-dim room.

The wandmaker hobbled back to Harry with the cushion in his hands, as though it weighed a great deal more than it did, and held it out to him. "Go ahead, now," he said.

Harry reached out, gingerly taking hold of the smooth, pale wand where it rested on the cushion. It felt oddly light, as though it weren't really there, and pressed cool into his palm. He frowned down at it, then looked back up at Ollivander.

The man's thin eyebrows had risen in surprise. "Give it a wave, Harry," he said in a more urgent tone than Harry had anticipated.

Had he done something wrong? Harry did as he was told, and felt more than heard the low vibration that resulted, like a large bell from a great distance. One of the boxes at his feet rose to eye level, and Ollivander grabbed it quickly out of the air, then held out his hand for the wand Harry was holding. "I will return in a moment," he said, grinning at Harry - and promptly turned on his heel and disappeared with a ‘crack’ like a snapping branch.

"...Professor," Harry asked in the silence that followed, "does that.. usually happen?"

Quirrell blinked, as if coming out of a daze. "Apparition and Disapparition do usually have a sound, yes," he said. "As for the actual answer to your question.. wandmaking is a secretive and superstitious trade, the nature of which is only rarely shown to outsiders. If something exceptional has happened, here, Harry, know that it is an exception that you have earned, and not one that was laid upon you." His eyes narrowed at the spot where Ollivander had been. "Perhaps he neglected to mention on purpose.. but the last person to ask about the wand in the window was I."

"What happened then?" Harry asked, but before Quirrell could answer, Ollivander was emerging from the door at the far end of the shop, wand in hand. He seemed more lively than Harry had seen him moments earlier.

"Mr. Potter," he spoke, holding out the box in his hands, "I believe this is your wand."

Obligingly, Harry took it from the velvet where it lay, and felt the same brief chill against his skin as before - but this time, tempered by a heat from within that seemed to flow up his arm, leaving his skin tingling in a pleasant way. He gave the wand a wave, and heard - instead of the low vibration of before - a complex and happy melody, echoing against the shop walls.

Ollivander stood back, linking his hands behind his back, and gave Harry a formal nod. "It is my pleasure to inform you, young wizard," he spoke softly, "that you have been chosen by the oldest Ollivander wand in my shop: thirteen inches, bone, with a phoenix feather core. Indeed, the phoenix whose feather is in that wand gave one other feather, one only. How curious," he stared intently at the wand in Harry's hand, "that the brother of this wand gave you your scar."

"Then.." Harry blinked down at his wand, as disconcerted by the story as by the material. Bone? Weren't wands made of wood?

"You must remember, Harry," said Ollivander, "that the wand chooses the wizard; we can expect great things from you, with this one. After all.. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things, with his. Terrible, yes, but great." The old wandmaker straightened up, having bent over to examine the bone wand more closely. "Seven Galleons."

Neither Harry nor Ollivander had turned their gaze from the wand since Harry had waved it. Just as well; if they had looked in Quirrell's direction, they would have seen the man's eyes flicker from their mild greyish-brown to a vivid, nearly luminescent red.

Stepping out of Ollivander’s shop was like releasing a breath he’d been holding in; all the tension that had accumulated in Harry in the past few minutes melted away upon their return to the sunlight outside. He took a moment to breathe in the Alley’s air, smelling food on the breeze, and rubbed at his arms to counter the chill that had settled on his skin in the dark, dusty room. “Professor,” he asked, not quite fleeing the scene, “what exactly was all that?”

Quirrell seemed equally pleased to be back outside, fiddling with the loose end of his purplish turban where it lay against his shoulder. “You will find, Harry,” he answered in an undertone, “that life can be strange, sometimes, or dangerous; one or the other makes things interesting, but I’d rather have both than neither. Wouldn’t you?”

Harry blinked at the non-answer, unable to form a reply; instead, he thumbed over the handle of his pocketknife in a vain attempt to calm down, all too aware of the wand tucked into his other sleeve. He let Quirrell lead him to the next shop, a bookstore, where Harry requested the first-years’ book set at the counter rather than pick out copies from the shelf. The professor inquired softly if Harry wished to stop at the ice-cream parlor next door on his way out, but he declined, wanting more than anything to get out of the Diagon crowds and back to Knockturn, back to his rooms at the White Wyvern, where there was quiet and solitude enough to think. His mind had latched too firmly onto the question of his wand for him to let it go.

What did it mean to have a wand made of bone? What - what kind of bone was it? Would Ollivander have even told him if he’d asked? Was anyone going to notice? Why had he been chosen by it in the first place? Because there was clearly more to it than just asking about it - Quirrell had said he’d asked about it, and it hadn’t chosen him. What makes me so special?

If something exceptional has happened, here, Quirrell had told him, it is an exception that you have earned, and not one that was laid upon you.

Harry took a deep breath, looking up from his shoes to their surroundings: the professor had guided him to a bench on the fringes of the Alley, halfway down Knockturn to the White Wyvern if he remembered their path from the previous night, and was watching Harry with polite concern, no more than Harry would have wanted, no less than he seemed to need. Unspoken, a privacy spell went up to ward off passersby.

“Sorry I got so distracted, sir,” Harry murmured, clenching his fists in his lap. “It’s just, this wand, I don’t know what to think of it and it’s bothering me-” He realized his voice had risen slightly and cut himself off, embarrassed.

“I completely understand,” Quirrell assured him, leaning back on the bench. “Single-minded obsession is a trait we share between us, it would seem.” When Harry looked up at him, forcing a small smile onto his face, the man returned it more genuinely, pointing at a restaurant across the way: The Black Antler. “Shall we discuss it over an early dinner? We have all month to get the rest of your school things; the wand and robes were today’s main focus.”

As if on cue, Harry’s stomach rumbled, and he agreed. The older wizard seemed particularly pleased by the easy acquiescence; Harry realized, greeted by the rich, warm scent of cooking meat upon entering the restaurant, that Quirrell must have been hoping for an excuse to eat here. When they sat down in the back of the room, and a waiter brought out the first of what would be seven courses, Harry quickly came to understand the appeal.

“I’ve never eaten anything this delicious in my life,” Harry vowed, taking the next bite of a pork dish he’d thought he knew how to make, until he’d tried this one.

“I daresay it comes down to the quality of the ingredients and the sourcing of the meat,” Quirrell said between forkfuls. “Once you’ve been here, nothing quite compares - not in the Muggle world, at least.”

Harry expected he was quite right about that - the food here was distractingly delicious, so much so that the matter of his wand seemed trivial in comparison. By dessert, he’d relaxed enough to give Quirrell a genuine smile again - and to remember something else worth thinking about.

“You were saying before,” Harry began, “about teaching me the Killing Curse?”

Chapter 5: King's Cross Station.

Chapter Text

At half eight in the morning of September first, a short figure in black stumbled through the Floo entrance to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at Kings Cross Station, clutching the hooked handle of a closed umbrella for balance.

Harry had anticipated rain, but the clouds gathering over London had scattered with the dawn - a dawn he’d been awake to see. Wary of oversleeping, given that he’d slept past noon every day of August, Harry had stayed up all night packing his things, with a final trip to the Black Antler before it closed for the night to pick up a boxed lunch Quirrell had suggested he order for the trip.

These circumstances combined to produce the drowsy young wizard in a black cap with a knife in one pocket and a shrunken trunk in the other, who glanced suspiciously at the scant few people who’d arrived as early as he had, and thumbed the handle of the wand in his sleeve, yawning into his hand in the next moment.

Precisely at quarter-to-nine, horns heralded the arrival of the Hogwarts Express: a gleaming red steam engine, its lettering done in gold on the side. Harry passed the groups bidding their Hogwarts-goers farewell without even looking at them, beaming instead at the conductor as he stepped up into the train. As Quirrell had told him, the magic of the Express made it appear as one long, seamless corridor with sliding compartment doors on either side, all the way to the end. He had effectively his first choice of compartment, and ultimately chose one near the very end, with a view of the platform from its curtained window.

By nine-fifteen, people were beginning to fill up the platform, students and parents and siblings; Harry finally had enough of watching them all from his window and drew the curtain closed, reaching into his pocket to retrieve what would, at first glance, appear to be a black and gold pincushion. Then, holding onto the object with both hands, he gave it a tug - expanding the pincushion into a pillow large enough to cover most of the compartment seat. Resizing travel pillow, Harry thought fondly, setting it down. Quirrell has the best ideas.

The Defense professor had given it to him as a belated birthday present on the second day of their time in Magical London - the same day he’d given Harry intensive instruction on the application of the Killing Curse for fun and profit - ahem, for self-defense. Thereafter, content to let Harry spend August as he pleased, Quirrell visited only intermittently to check on him. Harry supposed that might seem irresponsible if questioned, but the man seemed fully confident that Harry would be fine - and he’d been right, of course, or else Harry wouldn’t be on the train at the moment.

Using his outer robe as a blanket - all-weather cloaks were, Harry firmly believed, the pinnacle of wizarding fashion - he settled in for a nap in the muted sunlight filtering through the curtained window, content to sleep the rest of the morning away. He dozed, recalling all the fun he’d had in the past few weeks roaming Knockturn’s extended neighborhoods.

Easily three times the size of the Diagon shopping district, Knockturn Alley sprawled out into residential neighborhoods the further along one walked. There were shops in foreign languages selling foods whose names Harry couldn’t read, much less pronounce; there were gathering grounds where tents would pop up overnight to peddle wares of varying quality (anything from obvious forgeries to remarkably good bargains); there was a district guarded by wizards in purple robes who’d advised Harry he was too young to be visiting, though the only difference he could see was a lot of red lanterns beyond the checkpoint. (He’d shrugged and supposed he’d go back another time.)

Closer to the intersection with Diagon was a shop Harry had taken especial liking to, ‘Dystyl Phaelanges’, whose proprietor was a waxen-faced man with several fingers missing from his left hand. It specialized in bones, as indicated by the skeletons in the window display, but the man - ‘Old Travers’, as he called himself - hadn’t been able to help Harry find out what kind of bone his wand was made of, when he’d first gone in to ask. It had been crafted and polished too finely to identify beyond confirming that it was bone.

(Harry had considered pressing Ollivander for details, but that struck him as a distinctly bad idea for reasons he couldn’t explain.)

Travers had been all too happy to tell Harry about the rest of his wares, though, when he expressed a general interest. The man sold every kind of bone, from raw (for feeding certain creatures) to fossilized (mostly for art interest). There were assembled skeletons of various species, small and large: mice and lizards and snakes and even a big horse - but Travers also sold goods crafted from bone: chinaware and tea sets and jewelry beads.

“Dead useful, bones are,” the old wizard had chuckled at his own joke. “Can make all sorts of things with the stuff. Used to be, lad, St. Mungo’s kept old craftsmen like me on retainer for prosthetics. Made of natural materials as they are, they could move just like the real thing with a little extra magic. Now it’s too strange for ‘em..”

Harry was jerked out of his nap by the train starting to move; as if on cue, his stomach rumbled, and he reached into his pocket for his trunk, where he’d stowed the lunchbox earlier. He had only just set the box down on the seat beside him and closed up the trunk again when the compartment door handle rattled, and a red-haired, freckled face poked in. “All the other compartments ‘re full,” the boy at the door informed Harry, only half-apologetically. “Can I join you in this one?”

Ronald 'Ron' Weasley was the youngest of six brothers in a poor wizarding family from the English countryside, with a pet rat named Scabbers that he'd gotten from his brother Percy. Harry knew this because the boy told him so, chattering on in a mix of excitement and complaint that reminded him rather too much of his cousin Dudley. It seemed that the time for sleep had now passed, because despite Harry's minimal participation in the conversation - he hadn't even given his name yet - Ron would just not. Stop. Talking.

(In hindsight, it was the sleep deprivation’s fault. Fully awake, he’d have told him no.)

He gave up, shrinking his pillow down to pocket-sized again, and Ron's eyes went wide as saucers. "Is that an enchanted pillow? Mum always said those were expensive!"

"It was a gift," Harry answered stiffly, finding it more difficult to tolerate the other boy by the second. His stomach rumbled; ah, right, he'd been about to eat breakfast. No wonder he was feeling so snippy.

Of course, then Ron's eyes goggled at the contents of the takeaway box from The Black Antler, and he observed morosely that "Mum packed sandwiches, but she always forgets I don't like corned beef."

Harry took a moment.

What response, theoretically, would serve him better?

"There's corned beef in this too," he lied, resisting a smirk at the way Ron's expression dropped in disappointment. "I can share some of the vegetables, I guess?" he continued, holding up some of a dark leafy green mixed with golden raisins.

The other boy considered it, but true to Harry's hopes, he didn't ultimately take the offer. "I s'pose I'll wait for the trolley," he shrugged, picking miserably at the corned beef sandwiches in his lap.

Harry blinked at him. "There's a lunch trolley?"

"Snacks, mostly," Ron said. "You didn't know?"

"Figured breakfast and lunch had to be brought on," Harry said. "This is only my first year, I didn't know."

The redhead's jaw dropped. "You're a first year?"

Harry blinked at him again. "Yeah."

"Bloody hell," Ron laughed, "I thought you were older! Had me all nervous 'bout annoying the upper years." He sagged back against his seat, beaming at Harry. "Sorry I was all stiff and stuff."

If that had been Ron trying to be polite.. Harry immediately regretted telling the truth.

Fortunately, the compartment door chose that moment to open, revealing a rosy-cheeked witch and what had to be the snack trolley Ron had just mentioned. "Anything from the trolley, dears?" she asked, and the redhead leapt up to pick out sweets, counting out Knuts and Sickles as he went.

Harry stayed back until Ron was done, not wanting to get in his way. He recognized a lot of the sweets on the cart from his month in London, but picked out several he'd never seen before to sample - what the heck was an Every Flavor Bean? - and a half-dozen Chocolate Frogs in several flavors to round out the selection.

"Got you some," he shoved three Chocolate Frogs at Ron, setting aside his lunchbox to open one of the dark chocolate ones. "To make up for the corned beef."

Ron had already managed to open one and bite its head off before Harry finished speaking; "Fumfleflor,” he announced triumphantly, holding up a pentagonal portrait of the Hogwarts Headmaster which winked at Harry and walked out of view. Harry took his time eating the legs of his frog one at a time, until it squirmed limblessly in the wrapper, the better not to melt in his hands. When he did break the shell open, he beamed down at the card inside. "Finally got one!" he grinned at Ron, holding up his card. “Look!”

A tall figure in black robes raised its arm, revealing a pale hand holding a long white wand toward the viewer. A familiar green light flashed, and the figure had disappeared from view. ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,’ read the inscription, ‘also known as You-Know-Who, was the most feared Dark Lord in Britain this century. His defeat in 1981 by the Boy-Who-Lived is the only known instance of someone surviving the Killing Curse in written history.’

Ron, meanwhile, had finished his frog and gone a bit pale. "..Wicked, mate," he offered insincerely. "You don't.. like that kind of thing, do you?"

Harry's answer was interrupted by - yet again - the compartment door. Harry perked up, hopeful for a return of the trolley witch, but it was instead a round-faced boy with sad eyes. "Sorry to bother you," he said, "but have either of you seen a toad?"

Why would he have a toad? wondered Harry briefly, before remembering they were permitted as a pet on the Hogwarts list. He and Ron both shook their heads, and the boy sighed, forlorn. "I'll probably never find him.."

He left, closing the door again. (Harry vowed to learn a locking spell before next year. Or to buy a regular lock. And a chain.)

"Don't really know why he's so sad about it," Ron snorted. "If I had a toad I'd be happy to lose it. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I'm not much better." He pointed at the rat, which slept curled up beside him on the train seat.

Feeling magnanimous with a bellyful of chocolate, Harry drew his wand, about to volunteer to 'get rid' of Scabbers on Ron's behalf. Just as he opened his mouth, the door opened again: the round-faced boy was back, accompanied by a girl who'd changed into her Hogwarts robes early. The boy was trying to tell her something, but she spoke over him in a bossy tone of voice: "Have either of you seen a toad? Neville's lost his." Harry barely kept from wincing at the volume.

"We just said we hadn't seen it," Ron was saying, but - like Neville - was ignored, as the girl's attention turned to the wand in Harry's hand. "Are you doing magic?" she asked. "Let's see it, then."

Harry put his wand away. "No, thank you," he said in a clipped voice, settling back against his chair. "I don't even know your name."

"Blimey, I think I forgot to ask yours, too," Ron said, going red. "Erm. Ron Weasley," he said to the visitors at the door.

"Hermione Granger," said the girl.

"Neville Longbottom," said the round-faced boy.

When they all turned to look at him, Harry was briefly overcome with the urge to lie. It would be pointless, though, so he said, "Harry Potter," and then yawned, because he still had not gotten much sleep and wanted a nap, damn it.

The others exploded into noise - not literally, though, thought Harry, dismayed. "You're the Harry Potter?" Ron spluttered. "You've got the scar and everything?"

A bit resigned, Harry lifted his cap, revealing the mark on his forehead which was apparently the only way anyone could identify him. (Maybe he’d draw one on somebody else and see what happened, someday.) Hermione gasped, going off on a tangent about how she'd read about him in books; between her and Ron, the chatter completely overwhelmed whatever Neville would have said. Harry really, really hoped he wouldn't be in the same House as either of them at Hogwarts.

..And then the visitors seemed to take their extended conversation as cue to join their compartment. Harry had to put his lunchbox back in his trunk to make space; hadn't he gone to all this trouble to avoid noise, not very long ago? He was quickly getting fed up with the other children his age - the novelty of being popular had worn off already. What he wouldn't give to be back in his cool, plush bed in the White Wyvern...

Even worse, Hermione had left the compartment door ajar, which only invited further interruption. Harry scrubbed his hand over his face, feeling a headache coming on, as three boys appeared in the doorway: two taller boys like bodyguards at either side of - oh, Harry actually recognized the blond boy in the middle.

"I heard Harry Potter was in this compartment," he said. "Is it true?"

"That's me," Harry said, a bit wearily. "We met at Madam Malkin's, didn't we? I didn't think to ask your name at the time."

"Malfoy," the blond boy announced. "Draco Malfoy. This is Crabbe, and this is Goyle," he tilted his head in the direction of each boy in turn.

Ron coughed into his hand to hide a snigger; Draco gave him a cold look. "Think my name's funny, do you?" he sneered. "No need to ask who you are - my father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

Harry's brain abruptly made several logical jumps. "Did I see your father at the bank that day?" he asked Draco. "Long hair, a cane with a snake head on it?" (He'd remembered the snake head because it was wicked cool.)

The question completely sidetracked Ron and Draco from what would probably have been an argument, if the way Ron's face had begun to purple told Harry anything. "Sounds like Father," Draco agreed, beginning to smile.

"Does 'nasty piece of work' sound like your father too?" Ron sneered. It seemed his temper had already gotten the best of him. The brief lull in tension Harry had managed to get was gone in an instant, as Draco glared at him before turning back to Harry.

"You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter," he said. "You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."

He held out his hand to shake Harry's; as Harry was across the compartment, he stood up. "While I can usually find the best sort for myself," Harry began, "I'm always happy to take a friend's advice."

An affronted gasp sounded from behind him - probably Ron. Harry turned around to address the trio who had taken over his compartment: "It's been nice meeting you all," he offered. "See you later!"

And before any of them could stop him, he stepped out of the compartment, closed the door, and leaned back against the wall of the train corridor. "So," he grinned. "Where are we going next?"

Draco led Harry along the corridor, up toward the front of the train. He seemed almost giddy with excitement to have snatched Harry away from the interlopers that had invaded his compartment. "I can't believe I didn't recognize you in the robe shop," he was saying, gesticulating wildly.

"To be fair, I was wearing a hat," Harry pointed out, tipping the one he currently had on, which happened to be the same one Quirrell had given him that day. (It had a little snake on the brim if you knew to look for it.)

The blond laughed. "Pansy and Blaise and Theo are going to be so excited to meet you," he promised, opening a compartment door. "We got them to take down the wall between two rooms, there's lots of space-"

There really was. Harry found himself immediately relaxing in the darkened, expanded compartment beyond the door, despite it having more people in it than his previous seat. "Everyone," Draco announced once he'd closed the door behind him, "This is Harry Potter, a new friend." He laid deliberate emphasis on the second half of the sentence, as though he expected to be praised for it somehow.

The low chatter in the compartment died a bit as everyone turned to look at him. Draco conveniently introduced each of the others: "Harry, this is Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini, Theo Nott, and Daphne Greengrass - Daphne, when did you get here?" He beamed at the witch with long, sleek black hair sitting next to Pansy.

"Good afternoon, everyone," Harry offered smoothly, assuming it to be afternoon by now. "Draco invited me along; I'd be pleased to have lunch among friends." He finished the statement with a small smile just this side of smug, and a wink.

The Quirrell-ism, as Harry called it, worked wonders on the group - they seemed delighted to welcome him among them. Harry retrieved his lunchbox from his trunk a second time, unshrunk his pillow to a comfortable size, and leaned back against the seat, opening the lid in his lap.

Pansy Parkinson - whose upturned nose was a little ugly, but then, Harry didn’t really care - raised her eyebrows. “That smells divine,” she said, leaning forward to peer at the contents.

“Doesn’t it? The Black Antler really outdoes itself every time,” Harry smiled around a mouthful of his favorite item so far: a beef bun he’d had several times over August.

The statement seemed to bring the rest of them up short. “That exclusive restaurant down Knockturn?” Pansy gasped, wide-eyed. “Sweet Salazar, they do takeaway?”

“Father’s never brought me there,” Draco observed, just shy of whining.

“Who invited you in?” Blaise wondered, eyeing the next morsel Harry picked up: a cube of watermelon topped with a prosciutto rose, held together by a tiny white toothpick. “They wouldn’t let me enter unaccompanied.”

“A very good friend of mine,” Harry said, deliberately vague, licking grease and watermelon juice from his lips. He lifted the compartments of the box to reveal a second layer of food underneath. (Magical expansion was the best.) It all looked incredible; he wished the Black Antler had a menu so he could try and make some of these things himself. He’d just asked for ‘lunch’ when requesting the box last night.

Conversation turned in an unrelated direction, so Harry didn’t have any need to contribute. He relaxed, sampling bits of everything from the second layer, and let his mind drift in the low, pleasant chatter that surrounded him. It was completely unlike earlier; why, he could even fall asleep…

“..do you think, Harry?” Draco was asking him. Harry sat up, blinking away the sleep in his eyes. From the small smirks gracing the faces of his travelling companions, he’d been caught napping, but fortunately Draco didn’t seem offended by the inattention.

“I was saying, what House will you be in, do you think?” Draco leaned forward on his elbows. “I know I’m set for Slytherin, at least.”

"Me, too," Theo contributed. "Ravenclaw wouldn't be bad, but it's just not likely."

"I considered Ravenclaw," mused Daphne, "but I suppose we won’t truly know until the Sorting."

"Slytherin," said Blaise, utterly certain. "How about you, Pansy, Gryffindor, right?"

"Hush, you," Pansy snorted, entertained. "I'd choose Hufflepuff over Gryffindor, if those were my only options. At least the Badgers have big parties."

"How are we Sorted again?" wondered Harry. "I think I know which House to expect, but I really can't be sure."

"Traditional secret," said Draco, at the same time Theo said, "a talking hat," and Blaise said, "popular vote." They looked at each other, before everyone burst into laughter. "It is a hat," Draco nodded. "Father told me we're not supposed to tell, though!" He put his hands on his hips, mock-glaring at his friends.

"Hardly a secret if everyone knows," Harry pointed out. "But then, it could be something completely different than a hat, and the tradition is to lie."

They seemed to think about that for a minute. Out of idle habit, Harry drew his knife from his pocket, spinning it between his fingers. He noticed Theo eyeing it with some alarm in his peripheral vision.

In fact, everyone was watching him with concern. "Oh, sorry," Harry blinked, "probably shouldn't be playing with it on a moving train." He put it away again, closing the blade with a 'snick'. It went back up his sleeve where he preferred it to be, next to his wand.

"That's a wicked knife," said Theo at length. "Is it enchanted?"

"Maman gave me a penknife for picking locks," Blaise supplied. "I had to keep it in my trunk, though."

"You guys got knives?" Draco whinged. "Father won't let me have one."

"Probably because you'd lose it," Pansy teased.

"Would not!"

"You'd lose your Heir ring if it weren't stuck to your finger," Theo observed dryly.

"So is he bad or worse than Longbottom losing his toad?" Harry joined in, to general laughter.

By the time the train stopped, Harry had gotten a sense for Draco's friend group. He'd managed to avoid answering the question of what House he would Sort into, which was good, because he genuinely didn't know; Quirrell had advised him to let it be whatever it was, and while Harry suspected the man already knew what the result would be, he agreed that it would be more fun to find out.

A small part of him did hope that he would be in the same House as the professor had been in, though.

As the first-years were ushered away from the main body of departing students and down toward a quiet lakeshore, Crabbe and Goyle, who had secluded themselves one compartment over from the rest of the group, rejoined Draco's entourage, of which Harry currently was part. They seemed surprised when Harry made small talk with them; his initial impression of them had placed them more along the lines of his cousin Dudley, and now Harry almost felt bad.

He ended up on a boat with just Theo, gliding across the almost glassy surface of the lake. It was peaceful, dark and quiet, and Harry trailed a finger in the water, at least until something emerged from beneath the surface to touch it. Then he jerked back, giving Theo a sheepish smile as he rocked the boat, and settled in to admire the scenery instead.

Hogwarts Castle was beautiful. Harry thought he could gaze at it for the whole night, sleep be damned; when the first-years made their way inside, and the tall, broad man escorting them passed them off to a stern-looking witch - Professor McGonagall - who led the group beyond the castle doors to the entrance hall.

And, soon after that:

"So it is a hat," Draco muttered, looking in Harry's direction. "You almost had me convinced it was something else, you berk!" he complained without heat. Harry smirked back at him, but then caught Ron's eyes over Draco's shoulder - the redhead was glaring at him. What was his problem?

He decided to just ignore it, and watched the Sorting instead. Hermione and Neville, both ahead of him, went to Gryffindor; Daphne, Draco, Theo and Pansy went to Slytherin. And then, the Hat was going on Harry's head, amidst whispering and murmuring from the crowd of older students.

Well, aren't you a treat to Sort, mused the Hat's voice in his head. Harry flinched a bit, hand twitching toward the sleeve with the knife in it by sheer force of habit.

Erm, hello, he offered.

An instinct for violence, very Gryffindor, the Hat observed in a teasing tone. But Sorting is about values, not habits. Something like laughter; Harry smiled. You might have been in the House of the Lions once, but this recent improvement in your life has really brought out a different side of you, hasn't it?

Harry thought of Quirrell, of the man's wit and self-serving generosity, his hands-free approach to guiding Harry and the edge of danger that glinted in his eyes - all things he found he had come to admire. I guess so, he agreed uncertainly.

No real question about it then, the Hat agreed, cheerful. You'll be great, young man, in - "SLYTHERIN!" the Hat called out to the Great Hall, and Harry joined the table in green and silver, taking a spot next to Draco. Blaise, the last to be Sorted, ended up across from him.

As he picked at his portion of the Welcoming Feast, minutes later, Harry briefly caught Quirrell's eye and received a wink.

That's the second time I've been told I'll be great, he thought over dessert. First Ollivander, now the Hat.

He found he'd begun to warm to the idea.

Chapter 6: Hogwarts, Part One.

Chapter Text

The Slytherin common room reminded Harry of the White Wyvern - if the White Wyvern had been done in white and pale grey stonework, meticulously carved into fanciful brick, and had an entire wall of clear glass with a view into the depths of Hogwarts' Black Lake. An enormous fireplace was lit against the subterranean chill that pervaded the castle's lower levels even in late summer, its oblique light just enough for Harry to spot the large circle of entwined snakes cut into the floor from where he stood. He grinned down at the nearest such serpent; was it just his imagination, or did its carved pupil swivel in his direction, gazing back?

"The corridors there lead to the male and female dormitories, respectively," their prefect guide was saying. "The stone arch there-" she gestured to the wall opposite "-leads to the House library. Further questions may be directed to any of the prefects or, in urgent situations, Professor Snape, the Head of House."

The professor in question did not make an appearance, for which Harry was grateful: he had had a very long day, even by his standards. Stifling a yawn in his hand, he went straight to the first year dorms, picked a bed against the dark room's far wall, and was asleep in minutes.

Thus occupied, he missed both the excited chatter of his peers and the suspicious murmuring of the upperclassmen - and dozed straight through the night.

Or most of it.

The dorm was as dark when he awoke as when he'd gone to bed, but Harry had expected that, given the lack of windows. (In fact, he quite preferred it; his eyes were sensitive to bright light after years in the cupboard.) He sat up, stretching, and regretted not buying a proper clock in the secondhand store back when he'd seen it, because there were no timepieces in view: - if his yearmates had bedside clocks of their own, he couldn't see them past the curtains drawn around each four-poster.

None of the others stirred in the slightest as he slipped out of his own bed to get a good, long soak in a bathtub and fix himself up for the day, moving by the faint light of a single flickering candle hung from the ceiling. Harry had brought the full complement of toiletries at the White Wyvern along with him to Hogwarts: potions for soap, shampoo, conditioner, moisturizing lotion, and a sort of edible toothpaste-mouthwash combination called Through-Clean that tasted a lot better than anything he'd used in the Muggle world. By the time he'd finished his morning ablutions, exiting the bathroom in a black silk robe, Harry felt truly refreshed and ready for breakfast, and was halfway to snapping his fingers when he remembered he didn't have a personal elf attendant anymore.

And more than likely, he thought, trading the silk for his school robes, summoning an elf into the dorm would've woken everyone up.

Better to use what he had left of yesterday's lunchbox to tide him over on the way to the Great Hall.

The castle corridors were quiet, and still dark - only every other wall sconce was lit. Harry scratched at the hem of his sleeve, shifting his gait so his steps were silenced, and thumbed the handle of his pocket knife as he made his way up to the main level of the castle. Just in case. The actual time only registered when he reached a floor that had windows: he peered out over the grounds to find dawn only just spilling through the treeline of the forest outside. Even the portraits he was passing, on this alternate route from the dungeons, were dozing in their frames.

Harry concluded it might be 'early' by normal reckoning.

A shape rounded the corner ahead of him, and Harry's hold on the knife tightened before he realized it was just a cat - a great fluffy tabby with sharp yellow eyes, which upon spotting him, trilled a greeting Harry recognized from time spent with his many-catted old neighbor, Mrs. Figg. He crouched down to pet her - she seemed like a 'her' - taking some jerky out of the pouch he kept in the pocket with his knife. "Good morning, dear beauty!"

The cat ate the jerky right out of his hand, purring, and let Harry scratch behind her ears and around her cheeks and chin. She wound contentedly around his ankles, meowing for more of the morsels; Harry crumbled a little more, left it on the floor, and with a final goodbye, continued on his way.

His next encounter was equally pleasant: not far from the Great Hall, if Harry's sleepy memory of the castle's layout was correct, a door opened just as he passed it, and a familiar voice called out, "Mr. P-Potter, awake s-so early?"

Harry brightened, making a sharp about-face. "Good morning, Professor! I was headed to breakfast."

"A w-worthy endeavor," the turbaned wizard nodded, "b-but an ill-t-timed one. The house-elves are s-still c-c-cooking."

"Oh!" Harry blinked; he hadn't thought of that. What now, then?

"Perhaps a brief t-tea in my office?" Quirrell tilted his head toward the door he had just opened, inadvertently answering the question in Harry's mind.

Quirrell's office was lovely, all dark lacquered woods and deep greens - far more comparable to the White Wyvern suites than the Slythern common room had been, in fact. Harry took a seat by the low-burning fire, basking in the warmth, and accepted a mug of herbal tea from Quirrell, sipping it while the man called up the privacy wards to which he'd become accustomed.

Finally, Quirrell sank into the opposite chair, summoning his own tea from across the room, and put his feet up on an ottoman that hadn't been present when he first sat down. "Much better," he sighed, crossing one ankle over the other. "So - Slytherin?"

Harry grinned into his cup. "I let the Hat sort me where it thought best. It said I could have been a Gryffindor, 'once', but not now that I've seen the better life." A more subdued, sheepish smile. "Well, that's pretty much what it said. And I can't imagine pretending to be a Gryffindor when I'm not - Malfoy and his friends were much better company on the train."

"Fair enough," Quirrell shrugged. "It was my House, too - the advantages of wearing green far surpass the looks the other Houses will give you - ah, but you probably heard the whole speech last night." A knowing smirk.

Except, Harry didn't know. "Erm. No, sir. Either I went to bed too early, or there wasn't one?"

"What?" Quirrell set his cup down hard enough to chip its fine porcelain, brows climbing up toward the edge of the purple turban he once again wore. Harry was used to his histrionics or he'd have flinched. "Sweet Salazar, they skipped the speech?" He ran his hand down his face, aghast.

"I'd like to hear it, though?" offered Harry gently, taking a small tea cake from a tray that floated over.

That seemed to be the right thing to say: Quirrell's expression softened into something wistful, almost fond, as he gazed into the fireplace. "Let me tell you about Slytherin, Harry," he smiled, turning, "the real traditions of our House..."

Harry leaned forward.

"Each of the four Houses inspires a core trait in its members." Quirrell began to conjure colorful lights to illustrate, as he had done on several occasions over the summer for Harry. "A virtue in common - or a fundamental flaw.

"You have Ravenclaw, the thirst for knowledge-" An eagle, outlined in blue, with a book in its talons.

"Gryffindor, the adherence to moral justice-" A red lion with a set of scales held in its paw.

"Hufflepuff, the strength of loyalty-" Three yellow badgers, their forelegs linked like paper cutouts.

"And Slytherin, the will to power." A green snake emerged from his fingertips, growing larger than the other drawings, with a wand in its mouth that showered the other figures in silver sparks.

"These are normally shortened to the Houses of the bookish, the brave, the hard-working, and the cunning." A flippant hand-wave dismissed the illusions; Quirrell leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "Perhaps the Hat told you outright: students are Sorted into the House whose values they most agree with, not the one whose values they most exemplify. If the latter were the case, I would have been a Ravenclaw, and you, perhaps, a Hufflepuff." His eyes crinkled at the corners, and Harry returned the expression, grimacing at the very concept. He'd seen the group hug at the Hufflepuff table last night.

"Slytherin," Quirrell continued, "is the House of the illustrious, the driven, whether they seek a specific goal or merely desire to better themselves, and while many students in green will find themselves in politics, the truth is that regardless of our eventual places in life, we rise to the top - and have no qualms about how we get there."

He pursed his lips. "I'm sure you can see why Slytherin gets stereotyped as the 'evil' House, compared to the others." Harry nodded. "Gryffindors especially have upheld an ages-long prejudice against Slytherin, as we don't hold ourselves to the same code of good and evil that they do, and Hufflepuffs distrust the time-honored Slytherin tradition of working around obstacles rather than against them."

Harry snorted.

"In order to go on in the face of others' suspicion, Slytherin stands united - what disagreements we may have with each other are settled behind closed doors. We are a brotherhood, Harry, a circle within circles. A true Slytherin thus recognizes and aids his own."

"Is that why you helped me?" Harry had to wonder.

Quirrell chuckled. "Yes and no. I suspected you would sort into my House, but more than that, I suppose you could say I saw some of myself in you."

He rose from his chair, floating their finished teacups away through the open doorway from whence they'd come, and turned back to the fire with his hands clasped behind his back. "My life before Hogwarts was.. less than ideal, as yours was. I vowed never to return to it, and I like to think I was successful."

Funny, Harry thought, he'd decided to do the same.

The Great Hall opened for breakfast at six-thirty for professors, and seven for students, and would continue serving until the first bell for class at nine-thirty, Harry now knew.

("Your best option outside of standard serving hours is the kitchens - at least until you can conjure your own food," Quirrell advised.

"I could've done that the whole time?"

"It was one of the most challenging things I ever learned to do. I will teach it to you later - so long as you avoid using the ability in public view. Wizards consider it unnatural.")

Harry snuck in at ten-to-seven, flipping closed the pocketwatch he'd borrowed from Quirrell until he learned the Tempus spell. Which table was Slytherin again? Oh, there - Harry took his seat at the head of the table, saw it was currently barren, and snapped his fingers to call for an elf as he had done over the summer.

One appeared moments later, blinking wide round eyes at him. Harry took in the grey patchwork apron, dusted with flour, and the tea towel with the Hogwarts insignia, and offered the elf a polite smile. "Good morning," he greeted. "I'm a bit early for breakfast, I know."

"Harry Potter is calling on Lippy for breakfast?" The elf - Lippy - twitched, standing up straighter. "Lippy is not to let students call on her or the other kitchen elves," she recited, before glancing around the otherwise-empty Hall and continuing in an undertone, "but Lippy has heard of Harry Potter, and Lippy thinks she will make an exception, yes, as no one is seeing."

"Thank you, Lippy," Harry murmured, deferring to the apparent elf etiquette of not being overheard. "Should I request from what's already being prepared?"

"Harry Potter may request anything he pleases, and Lippy will inform him if it can be done."

"In that case - a scrambled egg, an apple, and a slice of buttered toast, please. And goat's milk, if you have it?" Harry had taken a liking to the stuff over the summer; it was popular on Knockturn, particularly in the hole-in-the-wall eateries that seemed to appear and disappear on a whim every few days in its more distant residential areas.

Lippy bobbed her head in a nod, popping away and back within a few minutes. "Is Harry Potter needing anything else from the kitchens?" she asked, ears twitching like one of Mrs. Figg's cats'.

Harry thought about his nearly empty lunchbox, shrunken down and stowed in his sleeve pocket. But then he remembered the ever-filling trail mix in the other pocket, and shook his head. "That's all, thank you, Lippy."

Some time later, just as he was finishing his toast, the dark-haired professor who'd been watching Harry over last night's dinner appeared at the faculty table, slumping into a chair. A large mug appeared on the table in front of him; he appeared to down half of it in one go, blinking blearily at the Great Hall until he spotted Harry - then sat up, prim and proper, and fixed him with a stern look Harry interpreted as 'you didn't see anything'.

Harry let his gaze pass over the man as though he couldn't see him, polishing off his glass of milk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the professor withdraw something from his sleeve that floated over to Harry's plate: a folded slip of parchment that turned out to be his class schedule. Was that Professor Snape, then? The Head-of-House? Harry stifled a grin - the man's personality already reminded him of Old Travers. He met Snape's eyes, gave a curt nod, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and took his leave.

Monday: Morning - Transfiguration. Early Afternoon - History of Magic. Late Afternoon - Potions.

Even leaving out the third-floor corridor (which Quirrell had reminded Harry to avoid before he left that morning), the castle was massive and easy to get lost in, which meant Harry spent his morning doing just that until his pocketwatch read nine-fifteen. Somehow he still managed to be early to Transfiguration - Salazar, did people really take that long to eat? The room beyond the open door appeared empty at first glance, but then Harry's eyes lit upon the cat sitting at the lectern. Not the same one he'd seen at dawn - this was a shorthair, with dark rings around its - her, he thought - eyes like spectacles. "Good morning," Harry greeted, leaving a few bits of jerky on the lectern. She shied from his hand, though, so he offered a closed-eyed cat smile and took a seat near the front of the room, by the windows.

People began trickling in at five minutes before the beginning of class: it was a Gryffindor-Slytherin split, with the students in red taking seats along the opposite wall, while Harry's housemates sat near his desk - or in Draco's case, right beside it.

"You weren't at breakfast," the blond accused with a pout. "I held a seat for you and everything."

He had? Why? "I woke up early today," Harry informed him. "Thanks, though? I'll probably sleep in more tomorrow, so I'll join you then."

The bell chimed to mark class beginning, and the professor was still absent; just as some of the Gryffindors began to loudly whisper (didn't they know whispering was louder than murmuring?) about McGonagall being late, the cat at the front of the room leapt off the lectern and, as her feet touched the ground, transformed to reveal that she had been their professor all along.

It made for an interesting start to the class - even the hour of note-taking that followed didn't completely dampen Harry's enthusiasm. Could anyone turn into a cat? A dog? A bird? Did they get to pick? What would he want to be-

"Practical lesson Wednesday," McGonagall informed them at the end, giving a preview of the matchsticks-to-needles transformation they would be doing for the next lesson. "Those of you who did not bring their textbooks today-" she eyed Ron Weasley sharply where he sat toward the back of the room "-will require them then. Dismissed."

Harry's farewell earned him just a nod, but as he passed the lectern on his way to the door, he saw that the bits of jerky were gone, only crumbs left.

Lunch was the exercise in patience Harry had suspected it would be the moment Draco started dragging him to the seat next to him by the wrist - the blond's real motive for saving him a space was to chatter endlessly about everything that had happened so far, never mind that Harry had been there for most of it. He was still less annoying than any of the Gryffindors who'd invaded Harry's train compartment the day before, on the sole virtue that nodding and half-listening worked just as well as his full attention.

(Which went a long way to explain the glazed look in Crabbe and Goyle's eyes.)

"-flying lessons next week," Draco was saying, gesticulating wildly, on their way to the History of Magic classroom. "Father has petitioned to exempt Slytherin from the broomstick rules every year since I was born, to no avail, but he says he might donate a new set to the school for lessons this year. The Nimbus Two Thousand and One, the prototype batch to be released next year-"

"Good afternoon, students," interrupted a - well, a ghostly voice. Draco flinched back as Professor Binns approached them, floating up to the classroom door. Harry politely did not acknowledge the professor's differently-alive status, responding with his own greeting. "How was your summer, Professor?" he asked.

Binns laid a chilly hand on Harry's shoulder, walking (floating?) him down to the front of the lecture hall. "It was no more or less than usual," the ghost supposed, monotone. "And yours? How go your independent studies, Mr. Riddle?"

The impulse to correct Binns on his name was one quickly stifled - Harry's second instinct, the better one, was to play along. "I believe they've progressed well, sir," he offered his best smile, setting his satchel down at the front-center desk. "But do you believe I should continue with the topic for this term, or branch out?"

Binns' eyebrows shot up. "I confess I had never thought you would be swayed from the subject of ancient necromantic arts, Mr. Riddle, but there is always so much to study - for example, the last of the Egyptian goblin clans, which I will discuss today," he continued to the class at large, many of whom had been staring in Harry's direction with shades of disbelief. As the professor began to lecture in a droning voice that could make anyone fall asleep, Draco elbowed Harry from the adjacent seat he had once again taken. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Harry murmured, letting Binns' discussion of the branch clan whose gambling victories led them to found Gringotts in Britain wash over him.

"Father said Binns doesn't talk to students - what did he say to you?"

Harry gave a minute shrug, noting down interesting bits of the lecture. The game Fortuna was banned in Goblin Britain between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries after Gur'dun of Regenot, leader of the now-extinct Regenot clan, gambled his position and lost... "He mistook me for someone doing independent study."

"Studying what?"

...power vacuum in Egypt with the extinction of the third line was not filled for four hundred years after, during which most goblin settlements fell into ruin. Modern excavation... "Necromancy, apparently. I didn't know wizards could raise the dead," Harry mused, thoughtful.

It would explain why some wizards he'd met seemed so old and so weird, if they'd been resurrected a couple of times. Was it a money thing? Was it expensive? Old Travers' friend Nott did seem really old and rich-

Draco's eyes were even wider now than they'd been before; if he kept being that surprised he'd get wrinkles. "They can't," he said sharply, side-eyeing the nearby tables. Nobody wanted to sit in the front of the room beside Harry, so they were empty. "Necromancy is the darkest art - you don't just, just study it - I wonder who the student was?"

"He didn't say," Harry lied.

Toward the end of class, a few students pulled out snacks and - to their surprise - were reprimanded for it. "Miss Perkins," Binns informed a Ravenclaw whose name was probably not Perkins, "this is a lecture hall, not the Great Hall, do attend the difference." Amid the snickers, Harry made to put away his never-ending trail mix, only for the ghostly professor to catch his eye and give a subtle nod.

Damn. Whoever Riddle was, he'd clearly had an in with Binns.

Harry resolved to study necromancy in his spare time, in case the ghost ever asked.

Harry's fast favor with the other two professors that day was drawing attention within Slytherin House on par with the attention other Houses gave him for his 'famous' scar, as Draco was all too happy to proclaim on the walk down to the dungeons. The noisy blond was in the middle of re-enacting Binns' greeting - complete with the hand on his shoulder, were all people Draco's age this clingy? - when the door to the Potions classroom opened and Snape cowed them into silence with a glare.

The layout of the strange-smelling, chilly room was such that Harry by necessity took the front middle worktable, for fear of misreading the blackboards otherwise; this put him right on the Gryffindor-Slytherin divide, with Draco at the table to his left, and Neville Longbottom joining him at the front of the room.

The Gryffindor, it emerged, was actually afraid of Snape. Lord knew why. He flinched every time the professor even looked their way - which happened a lot - and kept a white-knuckled grip on the tabletop the entire first half of class, faintly trembling.

Harry suspected the terror entertained Snape; it was the only explanation he could think of for why the man kept calling on him to answer questions. "Potter - what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" "Potter - where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?" "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?" Harry earned three points for Slytherin for answering correctly - an added bonus, as he was already excited to be called on during class, something his primary school teachers had never done.

(Hermione Granger shot him looks of envy the whole first half of class.)

Then it was time for practical brewing, during which Harry was pleased to discover Neville's redeeming qualities in handling botanical ingredients. "Nice work on those nettles," Harry murmured, attending to the stewing of the horned slugs which Draco's table had apparently done very well, according to Snape's loud observation.

Neville proceeded to flinch and drop porcupine quills into the cauldron several minutes ahead of schedule, despite Harry's overt use of the pocketwatch for timing. Before the potion could react too strongly, Harry snapped his fingers to extinguish the flames, and used a skimming tool he'd bought to fish them out. "Patience," he corrected the other boy, guiding the clammy hand still holding some quills over to the cutting board.

"Sorry," Neville whimpered. Whimpered! Harry almost laughed.

"Let it cool another few minutes and we'll add the quills back in," Harry pointed at the pocketwatch still open on the worktable.

"Indeed, Mr. Potter," drawled Snape from just behind them, looming overhead. Harry pursed his lips against a smirk at Neville's stifled squeak, attention on the potion, which had fortunately not reacted any further to the mistake. "Explain your procedure," the professor demanded, quieter.

If Longbottom would quit writhing like a salted slug, Harry mentally appended to the beginning of his answer, "the early-added quills have been fished out, and so long as the potion cools to the right temperature without reacting to any traces, we will be able to add the quills in as planned, sir."

"Adequate," Snape agreed. "Mind that the quills you removed do not go back into the potion, and add the remainder in three parts rather than all at once, as a precaution." He straightened back up. "A point to Slytherin for flexibility in the face of error. Longbottom-" the Gryffindor flinched again - "review the safety procedures described in the appendix of your textbook before the next class."

Draco, Harry knew without even looking, was staring open-mouthed at the back of his head.

"Can't believe you managed to salvage working with Longbottom," Draco said at dinner, plucking a roll off the platter in front of Harry. "And got points! Sit with me next time, will you?"

Something in the boy's voice told Harry he really was offended not to have been included. Thinking quickly, he applied a Quirrellism: "And deprive the masses of greatness, Draco? Surely you jest."

At the Head Table, one wizard hid a smirk behind his goblet.

"Besides," Harry went on, casual, "he does know plants better than me. I focused on animals over the summer."

"You had a tutor?" Draco's expression had gone envious again.

"Sort of," Harry hedged, plucking another slice of roast beef off the nearest serving dish and layering more gravy on. Old Travers had been quite happy to teach him about bones, tissues and sinews - the old artisan had guided him through rendering several whole specimens purchased from the apothecary on Quirrell's advice, and even given him a manual issued by the German Apothekers Guild on the butchering of everything from shellfish and insects to Muggles and wizards.

By the stares he was drawing from further up the table, and the faintly green cast to Draco's face, Harry deduced that human dissections were an inappropriate dinner topic. The smile he offered the eavesdroppers didn't seem to put them at ease.

Fortunately, he didn't have to stay in the Great Hall for the entire meal. Harry gleefully skipped dessert and, for the second night in a row, forwent mingling in the Slytherin common room in favor of exploring the castle. Specifically, exploring the library, which he hadn't yet discovered. It wasn't hard to find once he went looking, though: you couldn't miss the big double doors at the end of one large corridor.

Inside, he dodged the librarian's desk and set to work mapping out the space from top to bottom, right to left: there seemed to be sections roughly divided by subject, such as history, art, a surprisingly large music collection given that it wasn't taught as a class, potions, and herbology. The largest section was on the ground floor, and proved to be the least organized from what he could tell at first glance - Harry had no idea why spells for healing were grouped with something called the Patronus Charm, but he soon determined that more practical magic was further to the left, relative to the library's entrance, and meandered down the shelves in that direction.

Just as the titles were getting more interesting - '101 Hexes' and 'Curses & Countercurses' - Harry realized a little rope fence was blocking his path. Who had left that there? Shrugging, he stepped around it, and continued on his way, reading titles and opening books at random. Magick Moste Evile looked promising - hadn't Quirrell mentioned it over the summer? Harry plucked it off the shelf, leaning back against a column to scan the table of contents.

The book shuddered in his hands as though it meant to flee, but only for a moment; Harry smoothed his thumb down the page he had it open to, browsing the chapter titles. Nothing in particular stood out, so he returned it to the gap in the books where it had been, and continued exploring.

The lights in the library flickered, curfew bell ringing throughout the castle. A silvery grey volume with creeping black etching like brambles over its surface caught Harry's eye as the room dimmed. The cover squirmed under his hands as he opened it, tickling his palms. Secrets of the Darkest Art, read the title page, and where had he heard that phrase before-?

"Oh, sweet," Harry breathed. Necromancy - Draco had called it 'the darkest art' during History - this was perfect! Beaming, he stowed the book in his satchel and made his way out of the library with some upper-years, passing unnoticed into the corridors beyond the closing double doors.

Chapter 7: Hogwarts, Part Two.

Chapter Text

For all that its title had looked promising, Secrets of the Darkest Art turned out not to cover necromancy as a whole, but rather, a small part of it: something called a 'horcrux', which was old enough to count as ancient, but this Riddle person Binns knew was studying necromantic arts, plural, and horcruxes were only one, so it just wouldn't do.

He skimmed the book anyway - murder, ritual sacrifice, splitting of the soul, it sounded like standard dark arts stuff to Harry - and returned to the Hogwarts library early the following morning to continue his book hunt only to be stopped by an aghast Madam Pince and informed in no uncertain terms he was Not Allowed in the Restricted Section Without A Pass, Young Man!

Then she kicked him out.

So the Slytherins arriving to breakfast found Harry in a sour mood, glaring into his platter of fried pumpkin ("isn't that a lunch item? How'd you swing that, Harry? ..Harry?") and fighting the urge to borrow some of Quirrell's histrionics. Flinging fire about the Great Hall and swearing in several languages would be really cathartic, but people were already staring at him with expressions verging on alarm-

"Erm - Harry? Your fork is melting," Draco whispered, pointing.

Harry blinked down at it: the metal was indeed glowing red-hot and curling in on itself in his grip. "Oh," he sighed. "So it would seem."

Crabbe silently offered him his fork, since he was having oatmeal and didn't need it.

Crabbe was nice.

Tuesday: Morning - Herbology. Early Afternoon - Charms. Late Afternoon - Defense.

Of course, the downside of staying up through most of the night to read was that Harry found himself due for a nap once he'd finished his breakfast - which, now he was at school, he couldn't actually do for another couple of hours yet. This meant that Harry stifled yawns for the entire walk down to the greenhouses, and couldn't muster much more than polite interest as a beaming Neville passed over the other Gryffindors in the greenhouse to ask if Harry would work with him for the first day of class. Naturally, he accepted; and it was good that Harry was used to being stared at already, because the looks of envy he got from the snubbed individuals as they sat down were about sharp enough to sting.

As for the class itself, they started out with basic plants, getting everyone used to a magical gardener's tools; this made Harry and Neville a powerful team, fertilizing and watering their assigned mundane seedlings with devastating efficiency. Their cooperation pleased Professor Sprout so much that she gave them each another House point, which Harry privately thought were supposed to be harder to earn, but he wasn't complaining - and, in true Hufflepuff spirit, a tray of enchanted string bean seedlings to transplant into individual pots as a challenge.

Here, Neville's experience with magical plants shone through, and Harry was attentive to his friend's instructions, retrieving a different kind of potting soil and a bowl of fertilizing powder from the supply shelves near the doors. He sifted the latter through his fingertips, squinting at the pale greyish dust. "I bet this is bonemeal," he beamed. "Did you know they used to grind up wizards' bones and sprinkle them on magical plants to make them grow faster?"

Neville, for his part, paled considerably. "M-my Gran said they outlawed that," he said quietly, reaching for the trowel.

Oh, right, they were supposed to keep their voices down. "Since you can grow back limbs with potions, sometimes they still do," Harry whispered, beaming down at the tiny seedlings left on the tray. Old Travers had confided this to him over the summer. "They outlawed hanging people from wand-trees to make stronger wand woods, too, but that was only in the past ten years, so lots of people could still be going around with wands made from hanging-trees! Especially old wands."

"U-um." Neville edged away from Harry, sprinkling more powder on the seedling they'd just transplanted.

Harry's stomach chose that moment to rumble. He sat back from the worktable, stripping off a glove, and retrieved his bag of endless trail mix from a side pocket of his robes. "Anyway," he continued through a mouthful of nuts and raisins, "what do you have in the afternoon? We've got Charms, then Defense."

"Free period after lunch," the other boy said, seeming.. relieved? "We'll see each other in Defense though, I think."

"Wicked," grinned Harry as he finished his snack. (Or as close as, given it was never-ending.) "Maybe we can duel for the first day!"

"..Maybe," Neville said, rushing to transplant the last two seedlings. He didn't talk to Harry much for the rest of class, but they did get to leave a few minutes early, which Harry guessed was the point.

"..rry? Harry! Wake up!" Draco was shaking his shoulder.

Harry squinted up into his friend’s pointy little face, backlit by the sun overhead. Right - he’d laid down in the grass for a short nap to occupy his spare time between Herbology and lunch. He checked the time on his borrowed pocketwatch: that had been a very refreshing half-hour nap.

“C’mon,” the blond whined, “we’re going to the Great Hall.” He nodded at Blaise and Theo where they watched from a few feet away. Everyone was giving Harry a weird look as he put his shoes back on and shrank his travel pillow down to pincushion-size again, brushing dust off his robes.

“Do you just carry that around with you all the time?” Blaise wondered on the walk up to the castle doors.

“Of course.” Harry cocked his head at him. “It’s a travel pillow, that’s the whole point.” He patted his pocket. “What else would I do with all this pocket space?”

He was surprised to learn, in a lively discussion over the lunch hour, that this was not what everyone else used their robe pockets for. Apparently, school robes were considered more decorative than functional, and as such did not contain - per Quirrell’s suggestions - two bezoars, three phials of standard poison cures, a venom, an antivenin, a ritual athame, charcoal sticks, scrolls of spare parchment, six candlesticks in white and three in black, a sewing kit, a first aid kit, a box of owl treats, a spare hat, a false moustache, a decoy money purse, a real money purse (stowed where one would least expect it), a set of eating utensils, two handkerchiefs, a waterskin, an extra pair of socks, an all-purpose rag, and the aforementioned endless trail mix and travel pillow.

“So, what, don’t you have anything?”

“Sweets, mostly,” Draco shrugged.

It transpired that Harry's sleepy start to the day had left him bereft of one very important thing: his satchel. (“Wouldn’t put it past you to have it in your pocket, now,” Blaise teased.) Retrieving it from the dorm after lunch meant he rejoined the Slytherin first-years at the Charms classroom, where Draco proceeded to introduce him to the Ravenclaws they shared the class with - or more accurately, the ones he already knew, which left out at least half. The blond appeared to be trying to snub anyone who wasn’t already his friend, which struck Harry as a bit rude, so he made a point of sitting with the ones who’d been left out.

Ravenclaw being Ravenclaw, this put him in the very front of the room again - “Good thing, too,” Harry joked with one boy on his left, “or I wouldn’t be able to see the board.”

“Preaching to the choir there,” the sandy-blond boy tapped the frames of his glasses, which boasted lenses at least as thick as Harry’s. Then he held out a hand. “Anthony Goldstein.”

Harry took it, grinning at the easy camaraderie. “Harry Potter.”

Somewhere in the back of the room, he heard Draco take in an affronted gasp, but ignored it: class was beginning.

Professor Flitwick reminded Harry very much of Professor Sprout in that he seemed surprised to see him socializing with other Houses. Definitely not because both professors were very short, Goldstein. (“Call me Anthony.”) Apparently the diminutive Charms professor was, besides being the Ravenclaw Head of House, also a part-goblin, wasn’t that neat? Which, Harry had been a little curious about, okay, the man had had to stand on several books to reach the podium.

Speaking of ‘curious’. Harry thumbed over his wand in his sleeve as Professor Flitwick demonstrated several different charms they would be learning that year. Would it make any difference that his wand wasn’t made of wood? Would anyone notice? What about him having learned a spell already - would that make it easier? He was pretty familiar with the twist of magic that got you a Killing Curse, and Quirrell had said that willpower was the foundation of all magic…

He supposed he’d get to ask Quirrell about that, and about other things, soon enough, as class was dismissed not long after that. Anthony was offering to introduce Harry to some of his friends, which turned out to be the entire half of Ravenclaw that Draco had neglected at the beginning of class: Anthony’s two best friends Michael Corner and Terry Boot, and the three other witches of their year - Mandy Brocklehurst, Su Li, and Lisa Turpin. (Harry really hoped nobody expected him to remember names on the first try. He was hopeless with names.)

Kevin Entwhistle, who Draco had introduced earlier, also came over - introducing himself a second time with a handshake and inviting Harry to call him Kev. “Nice to meet you for real this time,” the boy joked, adjusting glasses that Harry now noticed were a vivid purple. “Wasn’t sure if you were really interested in getting to know us, or if Malfoy was being his usual self, you know?”

Harry kind of knew what he meant, but more importantly, he was very good at pretending he knew. So he smiled and chatted with Anthony’s friends a bit longer, and then joined Draco and company on their way out. Whatever Draco had been frowning about earlier seemed to be long forgotten as they left for Defense.

The afternoon schedule allocated a twenty-minute block for students to cross the castle if needed, which was especially helpful if you were a first-year Slytherin who needed to pick up textbooks from the dungeons, but Harry had already taken care of that earlier, so he split up from Draco's party and headed to the Defense classroom alone.

On the way, he passed a group of upper-years who gave him funny looks, but at this point Harry couldn't care any less about people giving him funny looks, they'd been doing it all day. Was the whole Boy-Who-Lived thing that interesting? He shook his head, exasperated, and kept his hand on the handle of his knife, just in case.

A group of sixth-years was still in Quirrell's classroom when he arrived, talking about owls and newts (weird subject for Defense, but okay) and study guides for their year's material. One girl - a Gryffindor, by the colorful red and gold flowers in her hair - outright admitted it was because of the professor's stutter, though she apologized right after for being so blunt about it.

"N-not to worry, M-Miss Dogwood," Quirrell assured her, "I t-t-take no offense. My c-condition should resolve b-by mid-t-term."

It should? Harry had wondered for how long the man planned on keeping it up.

Just then, he was spotted. "Ah, Mr. P-Potter," Quirrell called, "Early for c-class, I s-s-see?"

"Yessir," Harry nodded. "I can, erm, wait outside if you need?"

"No, no, b-by all m-means," he was waved into a seat in the front of the room, "Your y-yearmates will surely s-show up m-m-momentarily."

This cued the sixth-years to leave, so that Harry and Quirrell were momentarily alone. The professor seated himself on his desk and took a moment to seal the room before he turned back to Harry. “You wished to see me, I gather?”

Harry offered a shy smile, caught out. “Are you free later? Or tomorrow? There’s a whole thing-” with Binns thinking I’m someone else, and the quest for books on necromancy-

But a chime interrupted them, heralding the arrival of the other students, and Quirrell merely winked at him in answer as the room filled up, posture and mannerisms changing to suit the scene.

Harry had to admire the man’s dedication to his act; other students less so, by their dissatisfied expressions as the professor spoke. By the time the hour was up, everyone had been exhausted by the effort of trying to listen, even Harry, who had resorted to drawing little symbols in the corner of his notepaper with a charcoal pencil in order to look like he was taking notes. Dismissed for dinner, no one lingered in the classroom; Harry let himself be carried along in the crowd instead of staying back - he could just visit Quirrell after-hours instead like he did yesterday.

Dinner was a loud and hearty affair, heavy on the potatoes and gravy, and saw Harry as distracted from the meal as he’d been at breakfast, but in much better spirits. He nodded along to Draco’s chatter as the blond ran commentary over the day - complaints about Quirrell first and foremost in his friend’s monologue - and relished the buttery crust of a meat pie.

When exactly the distinct red head of one Ron Weasley ended up in his peripheral vision, Harry couldn’t say, but it did encourage him to put down his cutlery and get ready to leave, expecting some new bickering between Weasley and Malfoy - they obviously didn’t like each other - only for Weasley to walk up to him and loom over his seat at the Slytherin table, all puffed up with indignation, demanding to know what he meant by picking on ‘Nev’ while a distressed Neville lingered in the background, wringing his hands and sending apologetic looks in Harry’s direction.

“When exactly did I pick on Neville?” Harry asked, voice calm, but body tense. How dare this berk accuse him of being mean to Neville! The boy was his friend!

“You were - scaring him in Herbology this morning,” Weasley insisted, face purpling. “Talking about how you were going to sacrifice him for fertilizer!”

“What the hell?” Harry hadn’t said anything like that!

“How dare you, Weasley," Draco turned around in his seat to sneer, "Harry would never make threats like that in public-"

Not helping, Draco-

"Ron," Neville was trying to intervene, now, "I didn't-"

"SO YOU ADMIT IT," Weasley roared, pointing his finger right in Harry's face, between his eyes, "Neville is my friend, Potter, I won't let you hurt him-"

Harry blinked, realizing what this was actually about. He wanted to say so, to smoothly stand up and look down his nose at Weasley and sneer as much, but he was so mad at the accusation he was starting to shake in his seat. But oh, there was burning rage within him now.

It must have shown in his eyes, because Weasley faltered, just enough for Draco to stand up and proclaim, “And Harry is my friend, Weasley! I won’t let you besmirch his good name - I challenge you!”

By this point a hush had fallen over not only their House table, but much of the Great Hall. Harry felt stares not only from the other students, but from the Head Table, and chanced a glance up to find Snape and Quirrell both watching, the former's expression blank, the latter's threaded through with amusement at Harry's expense.

"I'll take that challenge," Weasley jutted his chin out, "Neville will back me up."

Draco bared his teeth, getting in Weasley's face. "Duel in the trophy room, midnight tonight," he hissed, "if you're not a coward." He whipped around to face Harry. "You'll be my second, right?"

"Sure," Harry said, with only a vague idea of what a second was for.

Weasley harrumphed, spun on his heel, and returned to the Gryffindor table, leading Neville by the wrist before he could try and defuse the situation. Chatter resumed among the audience, including plenty of gossip Harry was choosing not to overhear, lest he invoke the temper he’d just managed to tame. He got up to leave; after a moment’s pause, so did Draco and his clique. It made Harry feel rather special and important to stride out of the Great Hall with this little procession after him.

Outside the doors, Draco caught up to him. “That was wild,” he giggled, not that Harry would tell him it was a giggle. “Let’s go tell Filch before we get back to the Common Room.”

“Tell Filch what?” Harry blinked. “Is he cleaning up the mess?” (Though, there were house-elves, so perhaps he was some kind of licensed referee?)

Blaise choked on a laugh.

“No, we’ll tell him Weasley and Longbottom will be out after curfew,” Draco explained, chin in the air, “then they’ll get detention and we can rest easy knowing Gryffindor’s lost points!”

Harry stopped walking. “So we’re not going to the trophy room at midnight for the challenge?”

“Heavens no,” his friend snorted. He scuffed the bottom of his shoe on the ground, hands in his pockets. “Would be a poor show anyway, can you imagine? Weasley’s barely literate, and Longbottom’s an herbologist.”

A landslide victory would have been just as satisfying, Harry thought, but on second thought, he was probably the only one who owned a proper pocketknife, and the Killing Curse did seem a bit excessive for a first-years’ honor duel.

“C’mon, Filch’s office is this way,” Draco pointed down a side corridor. “Father told me about it before term began.”

With a shrug, Harry let his friend lead the way.

Chapter 8: The Castle At Night (Hogwarts, Part Three).

Chapter Text

Draco.. did not know where they were going.

Harry had pieced this together about ten minutes into their little trek; for all he knew, they were headed there eventually by sheer coincidence, but he was quite sure the caretaker's office had been on the same floor as they'd started on - and they were currently three floors up and two down and heading up one more short, disused flight of stairs right now. Even Crabbe and Goyle were starting to get winded from all the climbing. (Harry surreptitiously downed a phial of minor stamina restorative elixir so as not to fall behind.)

Blaise and Theo had figured out the situation about five minutes after Harry did, and had snuck off to the dungeons with a jaunty wave to Harry while Draco wasn't looking. Harry briefly considered joining them - but then he'd miss out on whatever Draco did lead them to, and it wasn't like he had any plans until after curfew anyway: conspiring, as Quirrell liked to say, was best enjoyed after midnight. So he kept on walking as if he truly believed in Draco's sense of direction.

And when they came to a locked door on a corridor even Harry hadn't reached in his wandering so far, and Draco huffed that they 'must have made a wrong turn', he pretended he was surprised.

"Blast," Draco muttered, pushing on the doorknob with all his might, "it's really locked. Does anybody know a lockpicking charm?"

Crabbe and Goyle looked at each other. Harry glanced down the rest of the corridor, and the absence of anything preventing them from continuing in that direction instead of opening a random classroom door, but did not voice his confusion.

"Could try a hammer," Goyle suggested, squinting at the door.

"No, that'd be too obvious," Draco waved him off. "And I don't know Reparo for afterwards."

"Hinges're on the inside," Crabbe frowned, "or we could detach 'em." He was peering closely at the edges of the doorframe opposite the knob, poking at the smaller stones that made up the archway.

The blond wasn't listening; he had begun feeling along the edges of the arch, where it met the wall, muttering to himself. "There's always a key, or an engraving of the password..."

Harry got the impression his new friends had a penchant for breaking and entering. Inwardly, he praised himself for his good networking. Watching them work, he considered offering to shoot a Killing Curse at the lock - that took care of most things - or maybe trying to melt the doorknob with concentrated rage like he'd done to the fork at breakfast. Hell, the door was just wood, he could probably set it on fire-

"Aha!" Draco plucked a tiny, glittering silver key from a crack in the stone arch at the very bottom, where it met the floor. "Knew it - there's always a failsafe-"

(Why, Harry wondered, would they need a failsafe for just a locked door? It wasn't a load-bearing wall, they could just blast their way through-)

Draco plugged the key into an equally-tiny keyhole and turned it; the resultant 'click' echoed in the corridor, raising hairs on the back of Harry's neck, which was never a good sign, so he opted to take a step back. "See?" the blond threw the door open, stepping inside the classroom with a triumphant smirk. "Never.. doubt.. me..."

He trailed off, going white as a sheet. In the next instant, a black blur had appeared from Harry's peripheral vision to seize Draco around the waist and haul him back into the hall, just in time for a humongous paw to slam down on the stones where the boy had been standing with a thunderous thud.

Before Harry could even react, the door slammed shut, to muffled growling on the other side; behind him, there was a whimper, and Harry turned slowly to see Draco clinging to the robes of his rescuer: none other than their Professor Snape. "..foolish boy," the man was muttering, "not all doors are meant to be unlocked.."

Draco was nodding, responding into the front of Snape's robes; Harry realized with some surprise that the blond was crying, shaking under the careful hold of one of Snape's arms across his shoulders. So Harry did the polite thing and averted his eyes from the show of weakness; Crabbe and Goyle had done the same, looking down at the floor and up at the ceiling, respectively. Snape ignored them for the moment, busy.. comforting Draco? How weird. Harry'd expected him to scold him for the outburst. Was Snape just soft, or something? "There, there," the man was murmuring, "you're uninjured, Draco, all is well."

Finally, Draco stood back, wiping his reddened face on his sleeve. "I think," he proclaimed, sniffling, "we got a bit lost."

Crabbe muttered something under his breath that sounded like you don't say.

"Indeed, Mr. Malfoy," Snape straightened up, spelling his robes to rights. "You and your friends are out of bounds, and on the second day of term, no less. Even the Weasley twins have managed to resist the urge so far."

With that wording, thought Harry, he must have bet on it.

"The third-floor corridor?" Goyle gasped, looking back at the door in fresh horror. "We're not dead, though."

"The headmaster warned of a painful death, not an instant one," Snape reminded him. "You will all do well to avoid this danger in future - is that clear?"

Harry nodded along with the others. Snape's eyes caught on the movement - for an instant, Harry saw surprise there, as if he hadn't known Harry was present. "I will escort you to your destination," the Potions Master informed them, brooking no argument.

"Filch's office," Crabbe spoke up.

Black eyes narrowed. "Am I to assume you meant to report Mr. Weasley's upcoming venture after curfew?" he asked Draco, who nodded. "Two points to Slytherin for plotting as befits our House. One point from Slytherin for getting caught. We will return to the dungeons, and I will apprise Filch of the situation myself."

Following behind the group, Harry revised his opinion of Severus Snape. The man's personality didn't just remind him of Old Travers; he was just like Old Travers.

And Draco's sense of direction wasn't broken, precisely, he corrected himself, tracing his fingers over the tiny key in his pocket. It just led to adventure.

Harry liked adventure.

And so did Quirrell.

"Fascinating," the man murmured, floating the stolen key in the middle of his office for them to examine together. "And you saw the Cerberus, too."

"Just its paw," Harry amended, filing away the word 'Cerberus' to look up later. "Draco didn't want to talk about it, considering he cried in public right after."

"That would be embarrassing," Quirrell agreed absently, squinting at the edges of the key. "Hm. I think I can duplicate this."

That was excellent news. Harry had considered the merits of returning the key to Snape, but hadn't been keen on losing access to the door, just in case. Spare house keys had saved him on numerous occasions at the Dursleys'. He watched Quirrell wave his wand over the key, whispering incantations; soon there were three keys, one of which went in the professor's pocket, the other two to Harry's.

"So," Quirrell settled back in his chair, "what else is new?"

Well. Harry told him about the past two days - McGonagall's hat trick and how he'd earned four points in Potions. "And Binns thought I was a student he liked," he added in afterthought, "he called me 'Riddle' and asked how my necromancy studies were going."

Quirrell's hold on his teacup faltered. "Did he now," the man murmured, raising a brow. "What did you say?"

"I played along, of course," Harry shrugged. "And went to the library to look for books in case he ever called me on it, but." He retrieved Secrets of the Darkest Art from his pocket. "This was the only one I could find, it wasn't very helpful. Then Pince kicked me out," he wrinkled his nose.

"I assume you didn't officially borrow this," Quirrell flipped through to a particular section, bookmarking it and setting it aside, "as Madam Pince would have reported you to Dumbledore immediately."

Harry kept his mouth shut. The professor nodded his approval, a small smile crossing his features. "Most books on necromancy and its umbrella of subtopics are in the Restricted Section, meant to be accessible only to students with a pass from a faculty member. The headmaster has neglected to give me any blank passes to sign, this term, for some reason," he said lightly. "Lord knows why."

"Lord knows," Harry echoed, agreeing, sipping his tea.

"And signing a pass this early in term would reek of favoritism." Quirrell unpinned a small gold pin from his coat, laying it on the small table beside his chair. "I'm sure you understand."

"Of course, sir," Harry nodded, very sincerely, deliberately not looking at the pin.

"And speaking of favoritism," he changed the subject, "we had best not be seen interacting in public, or have these fortunate meetings too often." By which he meant the 'coincidence' of Harry meeting Quirrell when he snuck out to wander the castle at odd hours, and being invited back to his office.

"Should I stop visiting for now?" Harry wondered. He would rather miss the biscuits, but then, he had snuck several into his pockets. "I wouldn't want you to be in trouble."

"I am of course always available for an emergency," Quirrell rose from his chair, empty teacup set aside, and retrieved the purple fabric of his turban from its shelf by the door. "But the next few days at least, yes, particularly after tonight's escapade. Now, Severus will be expecting me to take over the early-morning curfew patrol, so I had best be out." He tied off the end of his turban, and opened the door to leave. "I will see you in class, Mr. Potter."

"Good night, sir," Harry nodded.

Quirrell hadn't given him a hall pass, either, but that was all part of the game. Harry made sure to sneak the entire tin of biscuits from the kitchenette into his pocket, along with the remainder of the plate on the coffee table, and oh, was that shiny object always something in Harry's possession? Why, it must have been, for he couldn't ever remember not having it in his sleeve pocket now, right where it belonged.

Harry's route back to the dungeons passed by the House hourglasses, and he noticed Gryffindor had several less than it had at dinner. He would have to share the news of a successful plot with Draco in the morning.

Chapter 9: Hogwarts, Part Four.

Chapter Text

Wednesday morning meant practical Transfiguration after breakfast, which had the first-years’ section of the table abuzz with speculation; several of Harry’s yearmates had already surveyed the upper-years for advice, or were doing so now. The general consensus was that they were going to turn matchsticks into needles - one fourth-year insisted it was the other way around - and that it was ‘pretty damn hard’, so they oughtn’t expect to get it right on the first try.

“Oi, Harry,” Crabbe grunted, “you’ve got matchsticks on you, right?”

“Hm?” Harry blinked up from his breakfast. “Uh, yeah, probably, why?”

The boy gestured in the direction of the noisier side of the table. “Let’s get the upper years to demonstrate.”

Draco, in Harry’s periphery, raised his eyebrows. “That’s a capital idea!” he exclaimed, way too loud for this early in the morning.

Now everyone was eyeing him, so Harry went through his pockets; several people looked very surprised at the first-aid kit he pulled out of his robes, but that might have been because it was about the size of a textbook and twice as thick. Quirrell had simply recommended a medkit, but it was Old Travers who had told him to get this one, muttering something about equipment shortages in the field and staring off into the distance for a minute before they changed the subject. The matchsticks were tucked in a jar inside: Harry took out a handful and saw the jar replace them again shortly after, much like the endless trail mix. “Here,” he said at last, laying them out on the table.

The upper-years exchanged glances between themselves now that Harry had called their bluff. But before anyone could draw their wands, someone jerked their head sharply in the direction of the teachers' table and they all blanched, very deliberately going back to their food.

Huh. Harry looked over; the only professor facing their way was Snape, but he was a total softie. He revised his opinion of the older students, if they were really so scared of the school's nicest professor.

This meant Harry didn't have any hints whatsoever as to the day's Transfiguration practical. He would have much preferred some kind of advice to figuring it out on his own - every time he made assumptions, things happened. (See: the Restricted Section, and yesterday's adventure through the castle.) But if he was destined to puzzle this out on his own, then so be it.

Granted, McGonagall did explain the process to them before passing out the matchsticks. "Unlike Charms and Defense," she repeated the tail end of Monday's lecture, "Transfiguration does not have individual incantations for every spell - you can all guess how much work that would be to memorize." Her lips quirked in a thin smile, but Draco, sitting beside Harry, didn't seem to pick up on it, drooping in dismay. (Harry knew his friend secretly liked studying. He would never call him out on it.) "This field depends more than anything on your ability to focus on the result you want. For first-year level Transfiguration, however, there is both a simple general incantation and a wand movement you can use to help focus your magical intent, if you wish to use it. I will demonstrate..."

The incantation, commuto, and the straightforward circular motion with the end of one's wand, found immediate popularity with most of the people seated near Harry. The Gryffindor girl who'd pestered him on the train, Granger, got three House points for managing the spell with just the wand movement, forgoing the word - she probably found incantations a bit silly, too.

He shrugged and rolled his shoulders, drawing his wand from its place in his sleeve. Draco shot him a curious look; Harry realized he was the last to start the practical in their vicinity. Well, here goes nothing, he thought.

Quirrell had taught Harry the Killing Curse more by feel than spell; which was to say, he'd laid his hand over Harry's, and gathered the magic for him, and Harry had spoken the incantation. After that, he'd simply supervised while Harry got the feel of it on his own. The Killing Curse is arguably the hardest spell to learn, even if its casting is very easy afterward, because the spell is all willpower. This in mind, having mastered the Killing Curse enough to use it casually over the summer, Harry assumed that Transfiguration, being will-based, could be accomplished the same way.

So he laid his wand on the matchstick and took a deep breath, thinking about the way it'd felt to cast the one spell he already knew: power gathered in his palm, then his fingertips, tingling where he held his wand, and he had a sense of it gathering, concentrating, at the rounded point of the polished bone implement, so that he needed only choose to let it go-

(Remember that observation about assumptions?-)

A flash of green light and a bang, and his desk dented in like it'd been hit with a stone mallet. Harry blushed furiously at the looks and the murmurs everyone was sending in his direction. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Are you quite all right, Mr. Potter?" the professor blinked owlishly behind her glasses. She must have hurried over while he was still rubbing the echoes of the bright light out of his eyes.

"Erm, yeah, sorry," he said again, quashing the old urge to shrink under all the attention. He was better than that, now, he didn't need to hide.

"Do you need another matchstick?"

Did he? Harry lifted his hand from where he'd been futilely trying to cover up the big dent in the wood, and raised his eyebrows at what he saw:

In the center of the singed circle, glittering as the light hit it, lay a shiny metal needle where the matchstick had been.

"A bit less power in the next one, I should think," said McGonagall with obvious amusement, restoring both desk and needle to their previous states with a flourish. "But good work. One point to Slytherin."

People were still muttering about Harry's mishap at lunch, especially at the Gryffindor table - Weasley was sending Harry looks every few minutes, gesticulating wildly and miming a big explosion to the entertainment of the upper-years at his table. What a jerk. "This is why I asked for an example to follow," Harry griped, seizing the last tea sandwich from the serving plate. "Isn't there anything better to gossip about?"

"Well," Draco started-

Flying lessons were set to begin the following week, if the school followed last year's schedule, though the announcement hadn't yet been posted on the bulletin boards in House common rooms. Draco claimed he already knew how, which gave Harry hope for it being rather easy, and improved his mood immensely with the prospect of such an exciting bit of magic - at least until he listened a little more attentively to the story his friend was telling, and blurted out, "Wait. Flying is on brooms?"

"Ugh, I know," Draco whinged, "the school doesn't have a stable for winged horses - not even ponies. Mother says there used to be one in Hogsmeade village when she was a student, with Pegasi and Abraxans and even thestrals, but after the equestrian club disbanded, the stablemaster up and left for France with the whole building..."

(Harry wanted to know what he meant by 'the whole building' but that would keep for another time.) "I thought we were just flying, he mumbled into The Translated Book of the Dead. "You know, like floating ourselves and then moving around."

"Wha-"

"It's a thing," Goyle piped up. "But it's not taught in school."

Harry sighed.

"Hey, don't be disappointed!" Draco poked his hand with the handle-end of his soup spoon. "Broomstick flying is so much fun, Harry, I promise."

But Harry couldn't quite muster up the enthusiasm he'd started with; Quirrell had mentioned flight offhand over the summer, as if it were something he did all the time, and Harry'd been all hyped up to learn so he could float around the castle instead of taking the stairs. And climb onto the castle's roof, to survey the landscape from a good vantage point. He doubted something like a floating broomstick would measure up.

Until, after a week of moping, he actually gave it a try.

"Whoa, this is awesome!" Harry exclaimed, tilting this way and that several feet in the air and circling Draco with ease.

Blaise and Theo were watching him wide-eyed from much closer to the ground. Draco beamed back, going up to Harry's level and doing a controlled spin to show off. "Told you!" he proclaimed, doing a loop.

They swooshed over to the Gryffindor side of the roped-off practice field to see Neville struggling with his broom and Weasley, predictably, doing nothing helpful from the ground. "Oi, Nev, you gotta hold on," the redhead called, over Madam Hooch's shouted instructions, but Neville was only rising higher, broom wobbling as he shook with fright.

"Merlin, what a jackass," Draco declared of Weasley with the enthusiasm of someone who'd just learned a new swear and was making a point of using it a whole lot.

Harry sped ahead, not listening, because it looked like Neville was losing his balance, and he was right - he got there just in time to grab the Gryffindor under the armpit and haul him back upright. Neville was sweating and palefaced from his close brush with a high fall, and stuttering out something like thanks as Harry guided both their brooms back down to the ground.

"No problem, Longbottom," Harry dismissed. "I have a medkit, so even if you had fallen, you'd have been fine."

Draco swooped up from below them before Neville could reply. "Hey, Longbottom, I've got your Remembrall," he said. "Here." He held it out-

But Neville's hands were sweaty, and he fumbled it, so it fell with a solid thud back down onto the grass at his feet.

There was a moment of silence between the three of them. Then, the three of them burst out laughing, Draco unsurprisingly the loudest of all, as Neville picked the crystal ball back up and stowed it in his pocket.

"Thanks, Malfoy," he managed a shaky grin. "Potter. Um. Sorry about all that."

"No need to apologize," Draco said magnanimously.

"You can call me Harry," Harry told Neville.

It looked like Neville was about to offer the same thing, but they were interrupted - as usual - by Weasley shoving his way bodily between Neville and them, in some kind of belated defense of his 'friend', who cringed in embarrassment in the redhead's shadow.

Harry didn't know what to make of it when instead of confronting them (like some part of Harry had expected), Weasley turned to Neville and laid two hands heavy on his shoulders, demanding to know if he was "alright, Nev?"

"I- I'm, I'm fine-" Neville stammered, blinking up wide-eyed at the slightly taller boy who was shaking him for some reason. Draco sent Harry a look, raising his eyebrows and nodding in Weasley's direction; Harry mouthed back 'jackass' and got a vehement nod.

"Oi, Weasley," Draco spoke up, "you can quit pretending you care, we all saw you do nothing to help!"

"That's because Madam Hooch told us not to get on our brooms yet!" interrupted Granger shrilly. "Just because you all were fooling around doesn't entitle you to-"

"You should be grateful," said Harry icily, "that we were on our brooms. Gryffindor bravery must be in short supply lately, seeing as none of you even tried."

Before she or Weasley could reply, he'd gotten back on his broom and kicked off back to the Slytherin side of the field, Draco on his heels. "Hells, Harry, you really showed them!" Draco beamed.

Harry shrugged. “Let’s just forget about it,” he said, and pushed the whole incident out of his mind for the rest of the lesson, before it soured his mood too thoroughly.

Hooch took them through a set of exercises once things had calmed down, starting with the very basics and moving on to - among other things - how to regain control of an unsteady broom, which had several Gryffindors looking in the direction of a bashful Neville. After that, a brief introduction to Quidditch, wherein Harry learned he was quite good at the sport for a total novice, and he and Draco competed between themselves to catch a training Snitch for an extra half-hour of their allotted ‘field time’.

So it was that the Slytherin first-years returned at last to their dorms in late afternoon, worn out and grinning at each other, with just enough time to shower and change before the Great Hall opened for dinner. “You know,” Draco said as they tromped through the common room, "I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smiling as much as you are now."

Harry's cheeks heated, and he quickly composed himself.

"No, I didn't mean it was a bad thing-"

Chapter 10: The Library, At All Hours (Hogwarts, Pt. 5)

Chapter Text

Having a hobby in common with the rest of his House meant Harry formed up a routine that in the rest of September quickly became established: classes during weekdays, homework in evenings, flying with Draco and the others on weekends, and when he had time - or when he made time - his more-than-occasional nightly ventures into the Restricted Section (as he now knew it was called) for his… extracurricular studies.

If that meant being awake at sometime past two in the morning, well, he was used to interrupted sleep from his days at Number Four, and accustomed to late hours from a summer on Knockturn - it was the only time Old Travers’ friend Thaddeus Nott ever visited, and he’d looked forward to seeing him. And besides, there were regular opportunities to nap between classes, if he felt like it. So there was no real reason to miss out on a bit of nighttime adventure.

Adventure, of course, being the best word for some of the weird and wild things he found.

Midway through the month, Harry discovered a narrow passageway not far from the History classroom that, when he followed it, appeared to lead right into Binns’ old office. He hadn’t gone into the office, respecting the ghost’s privacy, but the door was open, so that he could see the thick layer of dust over most of the room. Binns had died in there, the upper-years had told them; there was an air about the place that curbed even Harry’s nosy tendencies, that told him to stay away.

The footprints, though, leading between the fireplace-facing armchair and the open door - those were fresh.

Huh.

Nope, not going to ponder that any further right now, he thought firmly, and went off to the library as he’d originally planned for the night.

Quirrell’s (ahem, Harry’s) shiny gold pin afforded whoever wore it access to the entire library at all hours, by unlocking a side door just off to the side of the main entrance, out of view. Harry had never noticed it before affixing the pin to the inside of his over-robe - whether that was a specialized bit of wizard space, or simply misdirection, he had no idea.

That train of thought quickly dissipated, though, when he stepped into the vast space beyond the door and knew with utter certainty that he was not alone.

He quieted his breathing and advanced into the library, clinging to the shadows; the nighttime torches burned a very dim greenish-blue that was nonetheless plenty to navigate by. Harry didn’t anticipate getting in trouble, per se, if he were caught - but he did not want to, anyway, not this early in the year. So he went right for his destination, pulling up the hood on the black cloak he wore for these adventures further forward, to better obscure his face, and thus distracted, didn’t notice the figure in front of him in the Restricted Section until he nearly walked right into them.

Harry backed up rapidly, stifling a swear before he said it; “Sorry,” he whispered instead, a flimsy attempt to conceal his voice.

There came a noncommittal hum from above him; Harry looked up, now, taking in the features of his fellow night-venturer, and found they were even more obscured than he was in the dark: a scholar’s wide-sleeved over-robe draped the figure from the shoulders down, and what skin would have been visible appeared to be wrapped head-to-toe in a black silk much like Quirrell’s turban. But all the layers did little to obscure just how thin they were, underneath - shockingly so, when one thought about it.

Not nearly as shocking, however, as the voice they spoke with, as it was one he recognized.

“Why, Mr. Riddle,” mused - Professor Binns? “It is a pleasant surprise to meet you here at such an hour.”

To his credit, Harry only stared at him for a moment before he answered: "Likewise, sir. I apologize for disturbing you."

"Oh, it is no disturbance at all," the ghost murmured, reaching for a book on the shelf and actually picking it up. How was he doing that? Was that enchanted silk, or something? A golem? A doll?

Binns seemed to sense his confusion, then, for he tucked the tome under his arm and turned to face him. "I apologize," he said, "I forget you would not have seen me in this form before."

"Sorry, Professor, I don't mean to be nosy-"

A skeletally thin hand waved. "No, not at all. You have every right to wonder. As I said, this is a rare shape for me to be seen wearing; even my fellow ghosts of Hogwarts are divided in their views of such a practice, nowadays. Heart-softened and over-fearful, they are, I should say." The last part he muttered, under his breath (or what passed for it). "Britain is terribly intolerant of anything other, nowadays."

This was much in line with what such men as Quirrell and Old Travers, and Travers’ friend Nott, had told Harry in confidence over the past few months. He found he entirely agreed, and said as much to Binns, who seemed... amused? His face beneath the silk did not move enough to tell.

"Some decades ago, things were not so insular, you see. The current Headmaster and his views of the 'delicate' minds of children are responsible for much of it - in my younger days, I would not have had to bother with all this cloth and covering-up! But no, it is too disruptive-" Again, Binns muttered under his breath, this time too quietly for Harry to hear exactly, but it sounded like he was cursing Dumbledore a bit. Heh.

Harry wondered, though. "What exactly is so shocking, sir? Underneath the wraps?"

"Oh, of course, I meant to show you..." Binns raised a hand up to the silks binding his face, and let one layer unwind, once, twice, thrice, until it pulled away-

And only Harry's experiences with Old Travers kept him from flinching, because yes, the bare skull underneath was a bit of a surprise, if you were as softhearted as adults seemed to think many children were. More than that, though, he was fascinated. "That's incredible," Harry blurted out. "Is it like a bone prosthetic? How much maintenance do you need to do? Can you cast magic, or is it not quite like that-?"

He cut himself off, embarrassed - that kind of rapidfire questioning was, he knew, very rude, and also something he normally saved for Quirrell, who tolerated it. "Sorry," he started-

The skeleton threw back its head and laughed, a vibrant sound that no one had likely heard from Professor Binns in any form in a very long time. "I should not forget," the ghost chuckled, "that you are the sort to enjoy this type of thing, Mister Riddle!"

Harry grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. "I studied a bit about bone over the summer," he admitted, which was true. "The artisan, Old Travers, taught me a lot - he was the one who mentioned the modern, erm, distaste for the art."

"Travers, hm? That's an old, old name in bone," Binns nodded, rewrapping the silks around his head. "Very good family - knowledgeable, the lot of them, and practiced in such magics as you may find interesting later. They were the singular sponsors of the Ghoul Studies program at Hogwarts for some centuries."

Harry listened attentively - it seemed Binns could be very interesting and well-spoken when he wasn't reciting his lectures from rote. The professor led him down the aisle to a shelf not far from the books Harry had actually come down to search, and extended a hand toward a high shelf, summoning another dusty book from where it was practically hidden away up there, down into his hand. (Which answered Harry's question about magic, he supposed.)

"Now, I imagine you have your ways of borrowing without need of the librarian," Binns tilted his head in what Harry interpreted as a smirk, and Harry nodded. "Good. This grimoire should answer most of your questions. If you like, you may consult me in my office about it, during these hours. Do you know where to find it?" Another nod. "Right then. I can be found there most days and nights, when I am not preoccupied with... teaching."

(Binns said 'teaching' like Snape might say 'points to Gryffindor'.)

"Thank you very much, sir!" Harry beamed, clutching the book tightly in his arms. "Erm, should I - make an appointment?"

Binns hummed. "If you do not chance to meet me here beforehand, I suppose. Owls do not deliver to ghosts directly, but I do keep a postbox. Number Zero-Zero-One, Hogwarts. That should avoid any scheduling conflicts with my research."

Oh, right, Binns had been working in a different section a moment ago. "Research, sir?"

The professor held out the book he was carrying: One Thousand Formulas For Minerals And Metals, by 'dyvers hands'. "Yes, I have recently taken up an interest in alchemy."

So now Harry had two professors as friends, for all that he couldn’t be seen talking to either of them by the general public. Binns seemed to relish written correspondence - his letters were some twenty inches long, describing the latest in his research, and often incorporated passages from the books he was reading. (He didn’t dumb anything down, which Harry appreciated, even if it meant he added a large dictionary to his pocket stash.) It was all in all a nice contrast to Quirrell, who could not write him without raising unnecessary suspicion, or Old Travers, whose only letter so far had been a brief exchange early in the month, after Harry found the slip of paper with his address in the inside cover of the butchery manual he’d given him at summer’s end. (Harry would have never guessed the man’s first name was - well, it didn’t matter, he was Old Travers everywhere else.)

It amounted to about one letter a week, all told, usually delivered by the same grey school owl; so Harry was very surprised on October first when the evening’s owl post - already a quieter affair than the morning post, for most students - brought not one, but multiple birds to his place at the table.

And not all of them were owls.

Harry reached for the nearest letter, recognizing a reply from Binns by its familiar grey school owl and the somewhat faded, dusty envelope it was carried in, sealed with plain white wax. A few owl treats from his pocket and a muttered ‘thanks’ placated the bird while he opened the letter; as expected, the first few lines were a continuation of their conversation from last week’s letter, so he folded the parchment back up and pocketed it to read later.

The second envelope was a deep green, carried by a small, dark-feathered owl Harry hadn’t seen before; the letter ‘Q’ was pressed into its black wax. He raised his eyebrows - Quirrell, talking to him where people would see? It was probably a private matter, though, knowing the man, so he stowed that one away too.

The third messenger-bird was a crow, which gurgled and chirruped at him, bouncing around his plate as he untied the ribbon on its leg. Its envelope was black, with an unadorned black seal; he wouldn’t have been able to guess at its origins, except that the side where his name would have been written instead bore a drawing of a human skull facing slightly to the left, and - oh, that’s clever, he thought, realizing - an elaborate rack of antlers. He grinned, opening it to read now.

Mr. H., it began, The Black Antler extends its good wishes to you for the upcoming festive season. We have included our latest set menus and ordering information, as well as the list of standard (non-holiday) catering boxes offered by mail-order, to best accommodate your regular patronage through the winter. Please contact us with any questions or special requests…

“Sweet,” Harry said aloud. “I didn’t know I could owl-order.” He pursed his lips. “But isn’t it too early to start offering Christmas specials? It’s only just October.”

Draco, beside him, covered a snort.

"What?"

“Harry, Christmas isn’t the next holiday to look forward to!” Draco slumped dramatically over the table. “How could you forget - Samhain!” Blaise elbowed him. “I mean, Halloween!”

“Oh, all right then,” Harry said, because he could pester Draco for more details later, but not right now, because the remaining birds were beginning to draw more attention the longer they sat there waiting for him.

(“Are those buzzards?”)

The vulture closest to Harry shuffled nearer; both birds loomed in a way no other species could quite manage, their dark feathers offsetting beady eyes that glittered with keen intellect just as the crow’s had. He took both envelopes from them without opening them yet, expecting the birds to fly off, but they remained on the table, watching him, and forming somewhat of a barrier for anyone who wanted to read over his shoulder.

So he opened one. It was a fancy envelope, too, a waxy sort of grey parchment with a black pattern, that Harry finally discerned was not polka dots, but tiny skulls, inside thinly-scribed diamonds. He hadn’t the slightest clue who it was from until he looked closer at the seal on the other side, and recognized a more elaborately stylized version of the Dystyl Phaelanges shop sign. Beaming, then, he broke the seal, and was delighted by a wave of cold, floral-scented air, the same perfumed oil the artisan used in his shop. Very fancy. “Let’s see what Old Travers has to say,” he murmured gleefully to himself, entirely oblivious to the susurrus of whispers from other people at the table, and unfolded the letter inside.

It wasn’t just from Old Travers, after all.

The House of Travers greets Scion Potter, of P., etc, and conveys its well-wishes for Samhain. Harry had to squint a little to comprehend the fancy, narrow script. (Even without the vultures present, he doubted anyone could read it from afar.)

The next couple of paragraphs were the sort of flowery prose that he would have to get Quirrell’s help to decipher, most likely; something about hawthorn, and ‘wand forests’, and consecrated ground. …extend an invitation to the Travers Estate for such a time as Scion Potter is next available, with the understanding of his restricted schedule during term at Hogwarts…

"Oh, so it's an invitation," Harry nodded to himself. "Cool." He made to put the letter away to finish reading later, and realized everyone in his year was staring at him.

"What?"

“You got invited to the Travers Estate?” Blaise whispered, somewhere behind the vulture that’d given Harry the letter. “How do you even know anyone from there?”

Harry stared at him. (Or he would have, if not for the birds in the way.) “I told you guys I spent the summer studying bones and animals with Old Travers,” he reminded them, a bit snippily. “Did you forget?”

“I didn’t believe you,” Draco corrected. “I mean, I do now, but…”

“They’re supposed to be a super reclusive family,” Theo explained, with what sounded like a grimace. “My family is friendly with them, and I’ve still only ever met a Travers once or twice.”

“The rumors about them are frightening,” Daphne contributed from further up the table. “About the same as your family, actually, Theo.”

“Let’s not even mention my family,” Theo definitely grimaced this time.

Harry just sighed, reaching for the other letter. It was a deep reddish-brown, like dried blood, its black wax seal marked with a pair of open skeletal hands. The H.P. addressed on the other side was in familiar script.

“Oh! It’s from Uncle Thaddeus,” said Harry brightly, and Theo flinched.

Draco’s head whipped around. “Isn’t that Theo’s uncle?”

(“Speak of the devil,” muttered Blaise, sardonic.)

“More than that, he’s… been unwell, for some years,” Theo said carefully, which Harry took to mean he’d been resurrected and the recovery process was slow. “How in the world did you meet him?”

“Oh, it was over the summer,” Harry handwaved, “Old Travers introduced us one day. Uncle Thaddeus-” again Theo twitched, uncomfortable - “is one of his good friends. He even gave me a bird-”

Theo held out a hand to interrupt him. “Please don’t,” he said, nauseated. “I don’t want to know.”

That was a bit rude, but fine, Harry would keep his treasure to himself. “Anyways,” he went on, as though he hadn’t been interrupted at all, “this one says,

‘Thaddeus of the Under-House of Nott sends his festive wishes for the season to Mr. Harry James Potter, etcetera, and expresses his hope for his nephew’s health and happiness. Please find enclosed a token of festive spirit, and a small gift to be opened at your leisure.’”

With the last of the vultures relieved of its burden and departed, Harry could see his friends again. “A… festive token?” Draco wondered, intrigued. “What, like a paper charm?”

Theo was white as ash and inching away from Harry at the table. “No, it’s - an invitation to the Estate,” he explained of the shiny trinket that had fallen into Harry’s palm: a ring, shaped from a glossy black feather. “Or more like a demand. All family members have to go.”

“He’s a Potter, though, not a Nott,” Crabbe pointed out.

Slumped against the table, Theo sighed, “He’s claimed you as a nephew, it’s as good as. Even Dumbledore couldn’t stop you from attending.”

“Well, alright then,” Harry shrugged; he, for one, was always happy for an excuse to adventure. “Sounds good to me. A big Halloween party-”

“Samhain,” Theo corrected-

“-and all I have to do is show up? Of course I’m going.” He put the ring on his middle finger, where it seemed to fit best, and grinned at the way it gleamed.

“Oh Merlin, he just put the ring on,” Theo groaned into the table. “Bloody hell, Harry…”

“Also,” Daphne butted in, “you do realize Halloween is a gifting holiday?”

.

..

…

Harry paled. “Oh, no.”

What was he going to get for Quirrell?

Chapter 11: The Forbidden Forest.

Chapter Text

Samhain and Halloween gifts, wrote Quirrell in the appendix of his letter to Harry, are not meant to be elaborate. Small things, tools or materials or foodstuffs, are the most common presents, exchanged very casually between friends and acquaintances. As a student, and particularly as a first-year, you are not expected to give anything to upperclassmen, teachers, supervisors-

(The parchment had gotten so crinkled by the force with which Quirrell had written ‘supervisors’ that he left off and started a new page. Harry wondered who on the staff was pestering him.)

-or other figures of authority. Unless you are in the business of bribery, of course, but I cannot imagine you have any need for that.

Your needs should be well-served, then, by the owl-order catalogues that will start arriving this week under the pretense of early Christmas shopping. Several copies from a variety of shops and merchant groups should be delivered to the Common Room for students to browse; you can write out what you want from each catalog on separate pieces of parchment and mail out the lists to the ordering address listed in the back of the respective book. Pay with coins in the envelope, or charge it directly to your vault by leaving your name and imprint in wax at the bottom.

He offered to show Harry how to create a wax imprint later; unbeknownst to the man, Harry already knew, as Uncle Thaddeus had found out he didn’t know over the summer and spent several days teaching him how to carve one. (The jagged lightning-bolt-shaped rune and asymmetrical ‘H’ on the stamp in his pocket weren’t much, but both he and Old Travers had insisted that was the point, and he could get fancier when he got older, ‘no need to be pretentious’.)

Quirrell had ended his letter with an apology for the ‘brevity’ of this explanation - ironic, given he’d still managed to solve Harry’s first conundrum well before Harry even knew he had it - and a promise to explain the rest of the customs for the Samhain holiday in person some night that week, as such talk was nowadays passed on by word-of-mouth for secrecy. And before you ask, insisted a postscript hastily appended to the bottom of the page, I really don’t need any presents, Harry, so please don’t pressure yourself.

Which Harry decided just as insistently that he was going to ignore.

It was not so with Professor Binns, who was as up-front with listing what he did want as Quirrell was with saying what he didn’t: strong cheese and wine and under-ripe grapes, a ghostly delicacy, written at the end of the festive wishes expressed in the ghost professor’s letter. Even Professor Snape, who Harry was determined to bribe, was no challenge: Harry just asked Lippy, the house-elf nominally in charge of feeding the staff, what tea and coffee Snape seemed to favor, and ordered several packages off a merchant caravan’s owl-order catalogue. (Then, to avoid singling the man out, he made similar orders for Sprout, McGonagall, and Flitwick.)

Quirrell, though, was special, and therefore required special attention. Harry thumbed through several Knockturn catalogues, late at night when the common room was empty - a fifth-year had tried to stop him when he reached for them during the day, out of some misplaced sense of responsibility - and fought the urge to sigh. What in the world was he to do for his favorite professor?

Nothing in the listings stood out, and the question had him pacing the floor before the fireplace two nights in a row. On the third night - just after Theo pulled him aside to insist that they needed to speak about the Nott family gathering tomorrow, okay, so please don’t wander off after dinner - Harry at last grew frustrated.

It was the kind of agitation that had seen a younger Harry learn to unlock his cupboard from the inside - though at the time, ignorant of magic, he’d just found it conveniently unlocked - and sneak out of Number Four, Privet Drive to wander the street at late hours, lurking in shadows of buildings and the neighbors’ hedgerows. By the time he returned to the cupboard, he would always be dirty, twig-scratched, and fundamentally calm again.

Harry-of-the-present needed that calm. And the place to find it, he decided, was outside, on the castle grounds.

Temperatures had dropped precipitously that night in October, compared to the daylight highs, with gusts of cold air bursting across the grassy fields outside the castle. Harry had started carrying his enchanted winter cloak in his pockets weeks ago, but tonight was the first time he really needed to use it, activating the enchantments to compensate for the wind.

He crept along in the shadows, avoiding the light that spilled out from first-floor windows, and walked a good distance along the castle’s perimeter, toward the Forbidden Forest. The way the roar of wind in his ears deafened him to everything else had Harry relaxing, a faint smile growing on his earlier-frowning face.

By the time he neared the forest edge, he was ready to turn back. But the clouds moved to cover the moon, then, and at that moment, Harry felt - a Pull.

(Months earlier:

“Listen carefully, now, Nephew,” Thaddeus leaned forward in the armchair Old Travers reserved for him in the shop. He spoke the word as a title; that was how Harry knew to pay close attention.

“I have tutored you in the very basics of this magic, but it is plain to me that you have a great talent for it. What this means is that there will be times, in the near future, that you feel drawn to a place, for a reason you will come to understand.

“It is not an undeniable urge - those are compulsions, and they are a spell someone else would have cast on you. What it is, is a pull, and if you can, I recommend you follow it.”

Harry nodded, committing this to memory. “And what do I do when I’ve followed it?”

Uncle Thaddeus’ smile made the wrinkles by his eyes deepen into grooves like tree bark. He pulled a velvet drawstring bag from his sleeve. “Well, it will probably be something like this…”)

Harry’s newfound calm evaporated in the face of absolute delight. Uncle Thaddeus hadn’t expected him to feel any sort of Pull until he was at least thirteen - he would be so thrilled to learn otherwise at the Nott family gathering! (Harry had already decided he would surprise him.) Just to be sure it wasn’t a compulsion, he turned and took ten steps the other way; when it didn’t get any stronger, he turned right back and let his feet lead him where they wanted him to go.

For what better thing to do, when one heard the call, than follow?

Cold grass felt crisp beneath his boots as he approached the Forbidden Forest. The air across the line - from the first step into the trees- was heavier, denser, greener than the castle grounds; Harry breathed it in and couldn’t help but grin. An unseasonably warm breeze encouraged him in traipsing through the undergrowth, though he still thumbed the button on his cloak that warmed it.

It was dark here, beneath the canopy, the kind of darkness that Harry had really been after to quell his frustrations; moonlight gleamed ever-so-faintly through the leaves, just enough to light his way, to catch on a gleam of silver atop a protruding tree root.

Unicorn hair, Harry thought, approaching, until he got closer. No - unicorn blood.

He walked on, not daring to touch the stuff, and as he followed the Pull, saw more of the blood, in glittering drops and puddles on the ground. There seemed rather a lot of it, and very fresh, almost steaming in the night air.

Then Harry reached the clearing and the Pull stopped.

“Whoa,” escaped him without conscious thought. He had never seen a unicorn before, outside of the illustrations in the Apothekers Guild bestiary; the pictures didn’t do justice to the sheer size of it, laid sprawled on the moss in the moonlit clearing. Cautious, he walked along the edge of the clearing, unable to tear his gaze away-

And met its eyes, for it was looking back at him. Something beckoned Harry closer, then, until he knelt down beside the great beast’s head, each heaving breath sending fog into the air.

He knew, instinctively, that it was dying: that the Pull he had felt had belonged to the unicorn, calling him here to witness its end. That did not mean Harry was prepared for the creature to move, to lift its head with great effort and lay it in his lap; for its visible eye to blink once, slowly, and then go glassy as it took one last shuddering breath and went still.

“Oh,” Harry whispered, blinking several times, with a new tightness in his chest. The silence in the clearing was greater than he would have expected; it felt like the world, too, had stopped, in acknowledgement. He reached out and ran a trembling hand over the unicorn’s cheek, raising goosebumps on his arm; his other hand went to his own cheek, wiping away tears that had fallen there.

The diffuse glow that had radiated from the unicorn, in life, appeared to coalesce, then, and darken. It rose as a fine mist off of the body and slowly reformed into another, solid shape: a skeletal mimicry of the great beast, shadows as dark as its counterpart had been bright. Milk-white eyes opened and fixed on Harry; he shivered, despite the warmth of his cloak, and broke out into a cold sweat.

In barely a flicker of movement it was right in front of him - and Harry flinched at the huff of air against his brow. What in the world? But before he could try to get away, he felt something drag over the middle of his forehead, between his eyes.

It was - licking him. “What..?”

Harry honestly just sat there, flabbergasted, while the new creature born of the dying unicorn licked the tears off his face with a raspy tongue like a cat’s. When it stepped back, nudging the body of the unicorn with its head, he didn’t completely get the message.

Then it clicked, pages from the bestiary appearing at the forefront of his memory: this was a thestral. And - the thestral wickered, repeating its gesture - it was giving its once-body to him.

“This is… for me?” Harry asked, just to be sure, as he got unsteadily to his feet. In response, the thestral pressed its muzzle to his brow, and wickered again, before turning and trotting away to the edge of the clearing, where he could see, now, several more of its kind waiting in the trees. They moved soundlessly away, like the near-ghosts that they were; and now Harry was alone.

A unicorn’s body… that was a powerful gift, one he didn’t think he deserved. The flesh and blood of a unicorn were imbued with near-legendary magics: a vial of unicorn blood could preserve a dying man for an entire lunar cycle, and old texts in the Restricted Section had made mention of ritual tools hewn from certain of their bones, daggers and needles that would become stronger with every use. But unless they were freely given, the books all said, then the one who used a unicorn’s body would be afflicted with a terrible curse.

Here Harry was with an entire unicorn, freely given, and no idea what he would do with it yet.

“Harry!” Theo hissed. “Where have you been?”

He was clearly furious: after all, it was past midnight, nearly six hours after they’d last spoken. From the way Theo was swaying where he stood, he’d clearly pushed himself to his limits waiting for Harry to return to the dungeons. So Harry forgave him for taking a minute to notice what was unusual about his appearance - the way he was mud-stained and worn, bits of greenery still caught on his cloak and in his hair. Theo’s eyes widened as his brain caught up to these details, and his tone when he repeated his question was not one of anger, but concern. “...Where have you been?”

Harry gave him a weary smile. “It’s been a long night, Theo,” he said quietly. “Can we talk tomorrow?”

“...Okay.”

Harry patted him on the shoulder as he headed for the dorms, and went to bed.

Chapter 12: The House of Nott, Part One.

Chapter Text

The week leading up to Halloween found the castle populace in an especially festive mood: massive pumpkins were carted in from somewhere on the grounds, Professor Flitwick demonstrated a charm that conjured bats in the Great Hall, and the night-time torch lights were dimmed from yellow to a darker red-orange. Even the portraits were more energetic; the quieter and less animated of them grew surprisingly lively.

Like ghosts, older portraits are invigorated by the thinning of the Veil between the living and the dead, Binns noted in the preamble of a very long letter, as if to excuse the prolific scrawl that followed.

Harry spotted several instances of people passing envelopes and gift boxes to each other during meals, as well as in the common room - and was the delighted recipient of small favors from his own friend group one afternoon, when Draco revealed the box of chocolates shaped like tiny pumpkins that his mother had sent, and distributed them with great enthusiasm.

(For some reason, the skull-shaped marshmallows Harry gave out were met with weird looks from some of the others. He wondered if he should’ve stuck to gummy snakes instead.)

The festivity gave way to a solemn quiet after dinner, though, in the dungeons. It was Draco who eventually explained to Harry that the study room at the far end of the corridor, which seemed to be occupied night and day, was in fact being used as a public space: a wall-to-wall collection of altars, for them to lay out family remembrances. He showed Harry his own arrangement, tucked away in one corner: a pair of grey candles on a silver platter with a crystal locket in the middle, containing a coil of bright blond hair.

“My grandfather, Abraxas,” Draco explained softly. “He’s the first person I knew personally that’s died.”

This wasn’t a strict rule: other altars paid tribute to more extended family, celebrities, or friends. One arrangement had a drawing of a cat, captioned with its name - Wily Furball, 1975-1990, sorely missed. For some reason, Harry found the whole concept fascinating; he toured the room, looking at figurines and written names, photographs and drawings. If there was any meaning to the color and shape of different candles, he didn’t know it, but despite being lit, they never got any shorter.

Later in the night, he returned, leaving bits of nuts and raisins from his infinite trail mix in the offering-bowls that were available. Alone, Harry stood a while before the largest altar, a black candle some seven feet tall, which had no name, but an offering bowl larger than his arms could encircle, into which the last of his skull-shaped marshmallows got to go. A pair of seventh-years saw him do it, and sent him startled looks.

He related this interaction to Quirrell shortly after, when he went to ask the professor for a spare candle. Quirrell’s eyes scrunched at the corners like he found it hilarious, but he didn’t explain what was so funny, only provided Harry a pair of dark red pillar candles and a bag of salt to outline his territory with. “Give your parents my regards,” he added, passing Harry a purse of gold Galleons and a black stone bowl.

A vague shiver passed over Harry later as he completed the salt border, like the breath of the thestral in the Forbidden Forest. He closed his eyes, and lingered there a while, until the feeling was gone.

As the moon rose on the night of October thirtieth, a figure emerged from Hogwarts Castle and trode the path to Hogsmeade station. Its journey was silent but for the footfalls on the gravel; the hem of its grey hooded cloak swept its path behind it, fraying on the sharp edges of the tiny stones.

The wrought-iron gates at the far end of the way had been left slightly ajar, just enough to squeeze through - so Harry did, and then nearly leaped out of his skin when he spotted the other hooded figure lurking in the shadows on the other side.

“You’re late,” Theo - clad in black - whispered harshly, sending him a sharp glare and crossing his arms.

“I didn’t mean to sleep in,” Harry grumbled. ‘You could’ve just gone ahead, you know.”

Theo opened his mouth to grumble something back, then looked up past Harry’s shoulder and stifled a shriek. Harry whirled around, wand drawn on sheer reflex, but relaxed immediately when he recognized the looming silhouette. This third party was twice the height of either of them, and shrouded in a fabric even darker than Theo’s, glimmering in the moonlight like the surface of the Black Lake.

Harry had seen this color before.

“Good evening, Professor,” he smiled. “Going our way?”

“Indeed I am,” murmured Binns warmly, holding out a silk-wrapped hand to them, palm-up. Upon his middle finger, shimmering with a faint light of its own, was wrapped a thin black feather, and the hands that reached out to it - Harry’s comfortably, Theo’s trembling - both wore the same.

The feather-rings flared blue, and without a sound, they were borne away-

-to arrive onto a stone medallion some thirty feet across, its center inscribed with the compass that denoted a formal Apparition point, and bordered by an intricate pattern of curving leaves. Harry stepped back to admire the stonework; the one in Knockturn Alley was much more run-down. At all sides, a high, dense hedge grew, perhaps three times as tall as Binns himself was; that is, except to the south, where there stood a stately gate of ancient wrought-iron, which had a skull on it.

“Wicked,” Harry beamed, and walked right up to the gate, the others trailing behind.

Despite the hour, as soon as they was close enough, a raven - no, a crow - flew out of the hedge to perch on the arch over the gate.

In the odd speech crows could approximate, it warbled: “Who goes there?”

Binns stepped up first, ring-bearing hand held up for the crow to see. “Cuthbert Binns, a friend, returning for the gathering.”

(“Wait, that’s actually Professor Binns?” hissed Theo in Harry’s ear.)

The crow let out a caw that echoed through the night. Wow. Harry hadn’t realized how quiet it was.

“Be welcome, friend, to the Under-House of Nott.” The gate opened just enough for Binns to pass, and with a polite nod, he went ahead, leaving Harry and Theo behind.

Theo went next, presenting the ring the same way. “Theodore Junior, of the Over-House of Nott, returning for the gathering.”

The crow peered at him, or seemed to, for a long moment, before it cawed again. “Be welcome, kinsman, to the Under-House of Nott.”

Unlike Binns, Theo waited for Harry on the other side of the gates.

“And you?” inquired the crow, bobbing up and down on the gate-arch.

“Harry Potter,” said Harry, holding out the ring-wearing hand… with a handful of trail mix to boot. “Would you like some snacks?”

Could crows gape? This one sure seemed to. “Are you bribing me?”

“Er, do you want me to? I have a pouch of beef jerky in my other pocket, it’s pretty good.” Old Travers had sent it to him for Samhain gifting, and he’d been nibbling away at it ever since.

Theo facepalmed.

The crow cocked its head, peering at him. “You’re an odd one, aren’t you?” it murmured, before it flew down and perched on his arm.

Harry, preoccupied with getting some pieces of jerky out of his pocket to share, shrugged. “A good friend of mine says ‘life can be strange, or dangerous. One or the other makes things interesting’-”

“- ‘but I’d rather have both than neither’, eh? HA!” The crow cawed out a laugh that shook its whole tiny body. “You’re all right, little wizard.”

Harry nibbled on jerky as the crow scarfed down the rest. When it was done, it peered at him with one beady eye, then the other, and hopped up onto his shoulder. “So,” it began, “you’re here for the family gathering? Haven’t seen you before.”

“I’m new,” Harry agreed easily, rummaging in his pockets for more sweets. (Draco had had some good advice this term, not that he’d ever admit it.) “Uncle Thaddeus invited me, we met over the summer.” Ah, there was the drawstring bag of chocolates. “What should I call you, by the way?”

The crow clicked its beak excitedly at the sight of the foil-wrapped bonbons. “Everyone calls me Gatekeeper, but if you unwrap a few of those for me, you can call me Valdus.”

With a clever little twist of magic, Harry did just that, popping one bonbon - caramel - into his mouth and letting Valdus have the other three. The crow fluttered its wings as it swallowed them whole, and then cawed out, “Be welcome, visitor, to the Under-House of Nott!”

The gates opened again, and Harry made his way through at a sedate pace, munching on another chocolate - crisped rice, his favorite - as a weary Theo led the way down the path. They were a good ways away when he realized the gates had closed behind him, but Valdus’ weight was still on his shoulder. “Hey,” he wondered in an undertone, “don’t you have to stand guard?”

“Nope,” Valdus cackled. “I’m just there for atmosphere. The gate does all the work!”

“It what,” Theo whispered, like his whole world was being turned upside-down.

Chapter 13: The House of Nott, Part Two.

Chapter Text

Once past the gate, the rest of the walk was pretty short. Harry passed the time listening to Valdus’ stories of past parties at the Nott House, and secretly wondering whether the crow on his shoulder was alive, or, ahem, differently alive, since it didn’t seem like Valdus got out much.

Soon, the three of them - Theo was still there, he’d just been really quiet for some reason - reached the entrance to the gathering-ground, marked by a stone archway that was carved like a big pile of skulls.

“Whoa,” Harry breathed, “awesome.”

(Harry’s aesthetic tastes might have been influenced by his summer in Knockturn Alley.)

“Do I hear my favorite nephew?” called a voice from beyond the archway. Harry turned to look and beamed at the figure shuffling out of the shadows.

“Uncle Thaddeus!” he exclaimed.

“...Uncle Thaddeus,” greeted Theo, much more reserved.

Thaddeus Nott smiled brightly to see him, too. “Why, it’s two of my favorite nephews!” he chortled. “Harry, Theo, you both look well!”

Towering over them now, the man clapped Harry and Theo on the shoulders. Valdus, who’d been on Harry’s shoulder first, jumped onto his head in a flutter of affronted feathers. Thaddeus was even more surprised to see him: “Eh? And Valdus the Wild, as I live and breathe!”

“Ha! You don’t!” the crow cackled, leaping away - and changing shape into a wizard with a crow’s head, as smoothly as McGonagall had transformed from a cat on the first day of classes.

(“What the-” Theo blurted out, under his breath.)

Valdus-the-wizard clasped arms with Uncle Thaddeus, with a gesture that must be some kind of secret handshake, and waved farewell to the rest of them, disappearing into the party beyond.

“So he’s not a crow,” Harry observed. “Interesting.”

Thaddeus barked a laugh. “No, no, he’s an Animagus. But never mind that - let’s go introduce you to everyone! The elders have been almost dying to meet you, you know…”

Harry spared a glance for Theo as he let himself be led away. They made eye contact: he waved. Theo closed his eyes, exhausted, and flapped a hand at him to say, just go.

There must have been a silencing ward up - Harry really ought to start expecting those when he went places - because the inside of the party grounds were abuzz with what must be hundreds of partygoers. Uncle Thaddeus kept a hand on his shoulder so they wouldn’t get separated as they wandered through the crowds - and perhaps also so Harry wouldn’t stop to chat with all these interesting people just yet.

There were skeletons, like Binns, with varying levels of coverage on their bones; ghosts, aglow in several different colors, floated slightly above the heads of the embodied guests. The building up ahead, where Thaddeus was leading him, had huge paintings on stone walls extending into the garden, upon which portraits had gathered in a crowd of comparable size to those outside. Harry was pretty confident that the pale-but-lively-looking people interspersed throughout the grounds were vampires, and he definitely recognized the Inferi, thralls, and ghouls that were in various people’s retinues.

One group of mummies was gossiping louder than the rest: “-giving up the rest of his eternity, what a waste!”

“If I had a philosopher’s stone, why, I’d-”

Harry’s head swiveled around, curious what that conversation was about: Binns had rambled about the philosopher’s stone in at least four of his letters. It was an alchemical catalyst and all-purpose, well, thingy, that everyone wanted and almost nobody had. He resolved to find the mummies later and hear the gossip firsthand.

Every once in a while, Thaddeus would stop to introduce Harry to a specific person in the vicinity: other members of the Nott family. They were numerous, he learned, and often ancient - Thaddeus was the most junior of the post-mortal, but his father Thornton was still alive, having been draining the lifespan of his wife’s stillborn children for the last hundred years or so. (He was divorced.) Thaddeus’ brother Theo Senior - that is, his classmate Theo’s father - was also still alive, and tucked away against the wall with Theo’s mum, both of them looking quite nervous.

(“Nice to meet you!” Harry beamed, offering a hand for a handshake. “Cousin Theo and I are classmates at Hogwarts. He’s really smart!”

Theo’s parents glanced aside at their son, who had his face in his hands.)

Thergothon Nott, meanwhile, was four generations preceding Thaddeus, and the head of the Root House of Nott: Harry was beckoned closer to the overstuffed armchairs where many of the elders were sitting, in the back of the gathering-grounds, and found himself enthralled (not literally) by the lich’s tales of the discovery of the New World, which were joined by Theo’s great-great-uncle Thoreau Nott’s travel and nature stories.

Most of the Root House Notts seemed to be men, in fact. Thaddeus, when he returned from the banquet tables with plates for him and Harry, explained this was because many of the women in the family went adventuring after retiring from the mortal coil, or married out of the family and declined the privilege of resurrection.

“Happens with sons of the family too, sometimes,” Thoreau shrugged a mummified shoulder. “They go out and come back with ideas of undeath being evil or dirty and reject our traditions. But it’s their choice, you know? Can’t invoke an unwilling soul into form.”

“Though you can call up one, if ye have the essential saltes,” Thergothon rasped a laugh. He leaned closer to Harry, conspiratorial: “Listen carefully, young one! Y’ai’ng’ngah - Yog-Sothoth-”

“Oi, oi, there’s too much dead in these grounds for that!” cried Theles Nott, one generation younger than Thergothon. He glittered golden in the torchlight: a product of the honey he’d been mellified in. “Bloody hell, you addled lich, what if you’d woken something that wouldn’t be put down?!”

“Bah, you’re no fun,” Thergothon grumbled. “A little zombie infestation keeps the mind sharp!”

"Settle down, you lot," harrumphed Cathar Nott, the oldest of the bunch: thirteen generations removed from the living world, he was a sun-bleached skeleton with engravings down his skull that were at least ten times cooler than Harry's lightning-bolt scar, and had an attendant sponging wine onto him from a large wooden bucket - somehow, it seemed to be working. "Young Thaddie here's got a brand new nephew, and all you want is t'play with old bones?"

He reached over to the table beside his chair, which was elevated from the rest like a throne, to pick up a polished wood gavel and strike the arm of his chair with it - three times, startlingly loud for its small side. (Harry jumped.) Within seconds, the entire party seemed to have quieted down, all eyes turning in the elders' direction.

"HEARKEN ALL O'YE," Cathar announced, "TO OUR NEWEST MEMBER OF HOUSE NOTT!"

He passed the gavel to Thergothon, who continued: "Witness him, and the proof he brings."

Ah, right, this was the part Theo had told Harry about. He'd thought it would be saved for later, but then, to people this old, what was time anyway?

"I'm Harry," he announced, not as loudly as the elders, but loud enough, "and here's my proof."

From a pocket, he withdrew a drawstring bag - upended it - and poured out the unicorn.

Chapter 14: In A Garden With A Corpse. (The House of Nott, Part Three.)

Chapter Text

The uproar was greater than he expected.

Harry had watched some footage of Muggle Parliament in action before, news bytes glimpsed on the Dursleys’ telly; the surge of partygoers toward the circle, the incoherent shouting from any number of people in the crowd, and the strike of Thergothon’s gavel as he futilely demanded order, you lot, order! - reminded him very much of what he’d seen before.

“Harry,” Uncle Thaddeus hissed, “did you hunt a unicorn?”

Eh? “No way,” Harry exclaimed. “It called me! I felt a Pull and everything!”

The shouting stopped.

“You what?” asked Thaddeus.

“A month ago,” Harry repeated, louder, so everyone could hear him, “I felt a Pull to the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, and it led me to the unicorn when it was dying.” Low murmurs broke out. “Then its thestral gave me the body. I would never hunt a unicorn!”

“If that is so,” Cathar rested his mandible on his knuckles, “then surely you know the thestral’s name, as well?”

“Sure,” Harry shrugged, and opened his mouth to intone the weird name in question, that had popped into his head when he first met the thestral weeks before-

But apparently just thinking it was enough. Gasps rang out as the thestral poured out of Harry’s shadow as easily as the unicorn’s body had come out of the expanded bag; it trotted forward in the grass to stand between him and the Nott elders, black and shining. Milk-white eyes cast their gaze over the bystanders; dark hooves pawed at the ground. The thestral lowered its head to nose at the unicorn’s flank, then trotted closer to Harry to eat a bit of jerky out of his hand.

“That settles it, then!” announced Thergothon, which started a round of applause. “Be welcome as our kinsman, Harry Potter! Tonight, we celebrate!”

“And someone bring more meat!” Thoreau shouted over the cheers.

The celebration of Harry’s formal induction to House Nott lasted the rest of the night, or at least, Harry thought it must have; after the third cup of whatever the Nott elders were giving him, things started to blend together.

(“Thought you’d just show ‘em the sparrow,” Thaddeus chortled, passing the second cup of steaming purple something from where he stood by Harry’s chair. “To think you’re this talented, lad! Bonding with a thestral at your age!”)

What would come back to him the following morning were flashes. Shaking hands with dozens of people, accepting murmured congratulations and various tokens and gifts-

The second half of a Roman drinking song-

Sitting down next to Binns at an improvised Fortuna table with the portraits on one side-

Hauling over half a cow for the thestral to gnaw on in its place of honor-

Cathar Nott tracing the lightning bolt on his forehead with a distal phalanx-

A salt circle with the unicorn in the center, glowing like the moon, as Harry repeated words someone was speaking in his ear-

Finally catching up to those mummies and loudly requesting their gossip about the philosopher’s stone-

("Ah, how are you enjoying the festivities, Mister Riddle? This is my colleague, the dean emeritus of alchemy at Durmstrang Institute-")

“By the Yellow King, Harry, help me out a little here,” Theo grumbled, staggering under Harry’s weight.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie-”

Theo clapped a hand over his mouth, exasperated. “None of that! Come on, we can’t get caught like this-”

“Like what, Mister Nott?” asked Professor Snape from the shadows of an alcove near the Common Room entrance. “And Mister Potter, I should have known-” He paused. Gave an audible sniff. “What. Is. That.”

“We, er,” Theo stammered-

“Explain, Mister Nott.”

“Eep!”

Aww, Harry thought giddily. Was Theo really scared of Professor Snape of all people? “It’ss not Theo’s fault, ssir,” he slurred, shrugging off Theo’s supporting arm to stumble forward. “Twas an obliga-tion.” He fixed Snape with a gimlet eye. “You’d know ‘bout that, wouldn’ ye?”

Before Snape could say anything else - he was staring at Harry like he’d never seen him before - Harry glided past him and into the Common Room, barely stopping to bid the door open. He made his way toward the dorms, but paused halfway across the empty room as his nose was hit by a delicious smell.

What was that?

Harry rounded a doorway in search of the source-

-and woke up sprawled over his bed, still in the clothes he’d gone out in, with a vile taste in his mouth, his wand under his cheek, and the clock on the bedside table saying it was nearly time for dinner.

“...Ugh.”

What a party.

A freshly bathed and re-dressed Harry meandered upstairs to the Great Hall. It was a good hour into dinner, so nobody was expecting him - Theo looked shocked to see him at all.

He handwaved aside their questions in favor of eating - Salazar, he was so hungry - and good thing, too, because he'd only just finished when the Feast was interrupted by Quirrell bursting into the Great Hall in utter panic, running faster than Harry had ever seen him. He stumbled to a halt in front of the teachers' table, gasping out, "Troll! Troll in the dungeons! Th-," he heaved, doubled-over, "thought you ought to know."

Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed, unconscious, on the floor.

Harry was of half a mind to get up and check on the man as chaos erupted around him; he decided not to do so only because Professor Snape was already on the case, kneeling down beside Quirrell to check his pulse and rearrange him in a recovery position. Telling that Dumbledore just stands by and watches, Harry thought acidly, remembering Quirrell's offhand dislike of supervisors from early in the year.

The headmaster then proceeded to send everyone to their dorms.

Of which Slytherin's were, naturally, in the dungeons.

Draco pointed this out at great volume, but, Harry thought, didn't do anything else to fight the decision - he shuffled along out of the Great Hall with the rest of them. Was he as confident in Harry's Killing Curse as Harry was?

Across the hall, a flustered Neville was saying something to Weasley, and glancing his way. Harry wanted to find out what they were up to - adventure called! - but one of the upper-year prefects stepped in the way. "Move along, Potter," the boy said. "No time for wandering."

Well that was just rude.

All of Slytherin House was thus assembled in the Common Room to wait for news.

There were more people here than Harry had thought: even with the doors to adjacent rooms thrown open, and extra chairs conjured on a mezzanine level overlooking the main floor, nearly every space was filled. It was the perfect time for someone to make some trouble, he realized, vaguely excited - and just his luck, they started it with him.

A shadow fell over the table the first-years had gathered at. Harry turned to find one of the upper-years, twice his size, looming threateningly over him. "Evening," Harry offered, letting Draco nudge him to his feet. "Did you want this chair? It's cozy, but I can probably get another one."

"What I want," the boy sneered, "is for you to learn your place in this House, Potter."

Oh? "You have me at a disadvantage," Harry smiled, playing dumb. "I don't believe we've met."

The boy drew his wand. "Miles Montague," he spat, "as you'd know if you weren't such an arrogant mudblood shit."

From the gasps he heard in the group that had begun to encircle him and Montague, Harry assumed either 'mudblood' or 'shit' was considered a rather bad word. He hadn't heard any wizard swears yet, so maybe it was 'mudblood'? "Surely," he began, "we can discuss this civilly-"

"Civility is for equals," Montague's lip curled.

"So you're... threatening me?" Harry's heart skipped a beat. A bright-eyed, beatific grin twitched across his face as he drew his own wand.

"This isn't a threat," Montague informed him. "It's a beating."

The older boy had taken a few steps back, which Harry thought weird at first - was he scared or something? - before he noticed the medallion graven in the stone floor. A fighting ring! Slytherin House was so cool. Ignoring Draco's whispered warnings, Harry stepped across the boundary, assuming the casual duelling stance Quirrell had taught him over the summer, the words to the Killing Curse forming on his lips-

(He'd just kill Montague a little, he'd gotten enough practice to tone it down to a knockout-)

"Expelliarmus," Montague snarled, and Harry's wand flew from his hand.

Well that was anticlimactic.

Apparently it wasn't the end of the duel, though, because Montague advanced on him, jabbing the end of his wand up under Harry's chin. "Not going to beg for your life, Potter?" the boy jeered.

"All right," Harry grinned. Then, with a flash of metal, he slashed the knife in his off-hand (which he'd kept at his side, so Montague wouldn't notice) deep into and - grunting with effort - across the boy's stomach, taking a quick step back from the spray of blood that followed.

Montague crumpled to the floor, gasping, his face contorted in agony. Blood was pooling fast on the pale stone floor, filling in the lines of the medallion and lapping at Harry's shoes. In the background, people screamed. Someone fainted. "What the fuck, Harry," Theo cried, the tone of voice strikingly familiar from the vague memories Harry had of the previous night.

No one, Harry saw, came to Montague's aid, or went to get Snape. That was telling. It meant they wouldn't have helped him, either.

A small hand gesture summoned Harry's wand back into his hand from where Montague's grip had gone slack. It was a little gross, warm and sticky in his palm. "One of you," Harry informed the crowd at large, "is going to have to heal him. The only spell I know-" he chuckled, "-will put him out of his misery."

People murmured, looking at each other, no one daring to get involved. Harry had looked carefully, though, and spotted one sixth-year taking half a step closer. "You," he called out, pointing at her with his wand. "Come forward."

The witch shuddered, but knelt, shaking, beside Montague, murmuring spells under her breath. No one else in the audience had dared to move, which meant nobody had left, either, and it occurred to Harry then that if he were so inclined, now would be an excellent time to uphold Slytherin tradition with a monologue.

"Slytherin House," Harry began, both addressing them all and naming the subject of his impromptu speech, "is a brotherhood. We are the House of the driven. United against the outsiders who see only 'the evil House'." He scoffed. "A man I admire" - indeed, the same man whose speech he was paraphrasing - "will tell you there is no good or evil: only power. And those," he gestured at Montague, "too weak to seek it."

The silence that had fallen was disrupted only by Montague's muffled sobs and the continued incanting of healing spells. Harry felt giddy; he'd been hoping to get to use that quote ever since Quirrell said it over the summer.

Now, a final word. What to say? Harry let his gaze pass over each of the onlookers, a part of him thrilling at the attention, the fear in their eyes, in a way he never had before. Draco's eyes were comically wide, gone even paler than his hair.

(Theo had his face in his hands.)

"It should be clear now," Harry murmured, "just who is weak."

With that, he stepped out of the circle, picked up his satchel from the table, wiped the blood off his wand with a kerchief, and retired to the dorms for another bath.

If chaos erupted in his wake, he didn't care to know.

Chapter 15: Quirrell's Office The Next Day.

Chapter Text

“You didn’t,” Quirrell gasped, delighted and scandalized. “You knifed him?”

Harry settled back in ‘his’ chair in the professor’s office, pulling out the knife in question from his sleeve. “You did say it was for idiots,” he recalled, summoning a scone and some clotted cream with an absent hand gesture. “I even got to give a speech afterward.”

Quirrell doubled over, shaking with suppressed laughter. He was even more entertained by this than he’d been in August, when Harry cast the Killing Curse correctly on his first try. “Two months into your first year at Hogwarts,” he wheezed. “Two months! And this happens!”

Harry added more clotted cream to his scone. Shyly, he wondered, “D’you suppose I’ll get in trouble for it?”

Quirrell scoffed. “You? In trouble? Hardly, Harry.” He summoned the teapot to pour more into his cup. “All of Slytherin was there to witness - so of course, nothing happened.”

“Will they really not say anything?” Harry considered the flavors of jam set out on the coffee table. He’d been meaning to try the blackcurrant. “Well. Assuming Montague survived.” He hadn’t checked.

Quirrell generously refilled Harry’s teacup. “When you go to the Great Hall for breakfast, Harry, you will see. Only the upper-years will dare to look your way - and them only because they do not wish to tip off the staff that something has changed.”

In a way, Harry was looking forward to it.

“So tell me,” Quirrell went on after a while. “What did you say for your speech?”

“The second half of the traditional Slytherin monologue,” Harry supplied. “And I quoted you about good and evil, that was a really good bit, they all went extra quiet-”

Quirrell nearly dropped his teacup on the floor this time, he laughed so hard. “You quoted me? To Slytherins?” Tears of mirth welled at the corners of his eyes; a sympathetic giggle bubbled up in Harry’s chest, then bubbled over.

Between the two of them, it took several minutes to recover. Quirrell sagged back against his armchair, fanning himself and wiping at his eyes. He had a very villainous laugh when he really got going - Harry was impressed, and a little envious.

“Right, then,” the man managed, spelling his eyes dry with a gesture. “How was the Nott House gathering? I know you went, but I didn’t see you return.”

Harry brightened, telling him about it - what he could remember, at least. (Quirrell raised an eyebrow at the mention of the drink the Nott elders had poured for him.) “And I think there were mummies? Huh. I wanted to talk to them about something, but I can’t remember what…”

“Eh, it’ll come back to you,” Quirrell shrugged. “Tell me some other time.”

Harry glanced at his watch. Right, it was almost breakfast time in the Great Hall now. “See you later, then.” He headed out with a spring in his step and the last scone in a napkin in his pocket.

Quirrell’s predictions about the behavior of House Slytherin had been spot-on. The sixth- and seventh-years at the far end of the table glanced Harry’s way when he sat down, but nothing else; the fifth-years and below eyed him with varying degrees of discomfort, or swiftly averted their gazes to something, anything else. Of his yearmates, only Theo didn’t flinch when Harry picked up a butter knife, and none of them were much for small talk, but that might have been the early hour.

Under ordinary circumstances anyone should have been able to tell that Something Was Going On, but today was a special day. Today, any unusual activity in the Snake House had been overwhelmed by the other gossip currently spreading through the student body like Fiendfyre.

Namely, the troll in the castle last night.

Judging by how attentively people at the Slytherin table were listening to their neighbors’ gossip, at least, Harry was not alone in having forgotten about that whole incident in favor of bloodier matters. By the time Neville, Weasley, and Granger appeared midway through breakfast, looking more exhausted than usual, Harry had gotten the gist of what else had happened in Hogwarts the night before, other than the whole… Montague thing.

Speaking of, Montague hadn’t appeared at breakfast. Harry wondered if he would return for dinner, and had the sudden mean idea to ask the kitchen elves to serve the boy spaghetti. With red sauce.

Harry's burst of inappropriate giggles, stifled behind his hand, had the rest of his yearmates going very still. Neville looked over from the lions' table at the commotion; Harry recovered himself and offered his friend a supportive smile, to which Neville nodded back, before proceeding to devour his breakfast with a gusto usually reserved for Weasley.

Having gotten his fill of breakfast at Quirrell's office earlier, and his fill of gossip in the past hour, Harry decided he had no need to remain in the Great Hall after that, and went up to the library instead. Morning classes had been canceled - probably for the professors' benefit, he'd seen how much coffee was on the staff table - so he settled into his favorite alcove with another book on alchemy, the better to understand Binns' latest letters. The 'universal catalyst' this chapter was talking about sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn't remember where from...

Neville found him there a while later, Weasley and Granger bookending him like Crabbe and Goyle bookended Draco most days. Harry generously allowed the hangers-on to sit at the table with him and Neville, as the latter recounted the tale of last night’s troll firsthand.

“-and I wanted to thank you,” Neville said, wringing his hands on the tabletop. “For what you told me about wand-trees, on the first day.”

Harry blinked. “Oh, the hanging-trees?” He’d forgotten he ever mentioned that.

(Weasley and Granger both looked queasy.)

“Yeah. I - I know you don’t think it’s creepy, but for me…” Neville shook his head. “I owled my Gran, because my wand belonged to my dad, before. It never really liked me, I think… and I didn’t like it either,” he admitted in a rush. “So I told her what you told me, and we went to Ollivander last week for a new wand, one that chose me.”

He reached into his sleeve, and held out the wand in question: a pale wood, though not nearly as pale as the polished white of bone. “It’s yew,” Neville confided, tracing the geometric carvings down the handle with a thumb. “Twelve-and-a-half inches, with unicorn hair. He said it was - portentous.”

“‘Borne never by one weak or fear-full’,” Harry murmured, remembering the line from some book over the summer, “‘oft in the hands of heroes’.” He looked up to meet his friend’s eyes, finding a shy smile on Neville’s face. “Congratulations, mate. It suits you.”

Neville’s cheeks pinkened further, but he gave a little nod. “The spell I used to beat the troll yesterday - I couldn’t cast it with the first wand no matter how I tried. If I hadn’t had this one instead…” His expression firmed. “It saved my life. You saved my life.”

Weasley startled, seeming to realize something. “Er, Nev,” he reached toward Neville, as if to stop him, “hold on-”

But Neville held up a hand to brush Weasley’s aside. With the other, he raised the yew wand, pointing it straight up at the ceiling. “Harry Potter,” he spoke, tone formal, “I, Neville Longbottom, do acknowledge the life-debt between us, incurred by your good advice.”

A wave of something washed across Harry’s skin, like a chill breeze in summer.

“On my honor,” the other boy finished, “I do swear to someday come to your aid the same way.” He held out a hand, and Harry shook it.

Neville departed, then, his friends on his heels. Harry returned to his book, a small smile on his face to match the little glowing feeling that had settled in his chest. Where had he left off again?

Just as a catalyst in mundane chemistry reduces the energy demand upon a reaction of substances, without being itself consumed - a magical catalyst, as applied in many branches of the Arts, reduces the demand upon a caster to power their ritual. In both mundane and magical contexts, these substances or artifacts are specific to the process or family of processes for which they are being used; a master’s workshop might contain a hundred or more such materials awaiting the day they are needed again.

Alchemy is therefore unique in the magical disciplines for its scholars’ insistence on a theoretical universal catalyst, a single artifact to serve all purposes in their craft. Millennia of records in the masters’ high towers reveal intense debate even within their circles: for what eternal substance could wield the same unbridled power as a fleeting human soul? The properties of which, of course, are the study of necromancy…