Chapter Text
The school year finally draws to a close and the specter of future exams looms over the students of Hogwarts. The subsequent increase of students in the library disgruntled Harry, but they all knew to avoid his back corner by now. It was obvious to all the first years that Harry would take the first place in their class. Normally, wizards and witches in that position are barraged with requests for help and revision guides. Harry was left well enough alone, although there were more longing glances thrown his way in class than ever before.
Jealousy. Even though he was cursed, the boy had talent the wizards envied. Well, let them stew in their ugly emotions. Harry held his head high walking through the halls, when he wasn’t invisible that is. It's an interesting dichotomy, Harry’s presence at Hogwarts. He is proud to be special, yet at the same time he fears the consequences of being too special. He can only bear the stares, and glares, for so long before the cloak comes out.
Harry’s studies go well and he is ready to just sit his exams already, but first Beltane. It will be the last ritual he performs this year at Hogwarts. He just hopes wherever Dumbledore sticks him for the summer he can sneak away and perform some ritual for Litha, the celebration of the summer solstice.
After the enormity of the vision magic guided him to last time, Harry is nervous to craft another ritual, but the end result would outweigh any troubles along the way. At least, Harry hopes it will be worth the effort. He settles for something easy and not so provocative as a burnt sacrifice.
The morning of Beltane is quiet. It’s long before sunrise. The torches burn low. Harry, invisible, walks through the halls. This time he hasn’t prepared much. Admittedly, that’s the point and it had actually taken more effort on his part to concoct a ritual this simple rather than just follow in the vein of a traditional one. When he reaches the outdoors, the sky is brighter than the dark of night, but the sun isn’t quite visible yet. A grayness settles over the world. The grass is wet with the dew of morning.
Harry sits in the wet grass. His hands press into the ground and stay there. Grass smushes against his palm. The soil is soft. He closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. A form of meditation, but this time magic makes him wait. Minutes pass of even breathing and clearing his mind before the vision falls over him.
– ⵢ –
The halls of Hogwarts are bright with day. It’s a hallway Harry recognizes, as he passes through it with regularity. It is just a few turns away from the large doors of the library. Light filters into the hall through the ancient glass. Harry has never really taken the time to stop and stare at the way light moves through the castle, but the vision holds him in place, just staring at the long length of an empty hall.
Then, the vision pushes the focal point from down the long hall to one of the heavy doors. The door opens and closes with no one in sight.
– ⵢ –
Well, that was quite anticlimactic. Was that me? What do a stranger with a ring, Dumbledore’s murder, and me wandering invisible in the halls of Hogwarts have in common?
Truly, he is entirely stumped. Harry sits, invisible on the grounds of Hogwarts, pondering next moves. Asking Dumbledore is completely out of the question, even Madam Pince probably couldn’t make anything of it.
As Harry pushes off the ground, he puts the whole thing out of mind. Magic would show him what he needed to know. That was that. Harry reaches into his large pockets for the one thing he prepared: a spare potion vial. The cool glass is filled with dew with a wave of Harry’s hand and some intent.
Beltane could be celebrated by another fire, but Harry was tiring of lighting fires in the woods all the time. Dew on the morning of such a day was also significant enough to work in the long term, better than another vial of ash.
A vial of ash from Yule, a waterlogged straw doll from Imbolc, dried thistle from Ostara, and now a vial of dew from Beltane. The next ritual, Litha, would mark half the year gone. Then, all of the pieces would be in place for a final ritual on Samhain.
Harry returns to the castle thinking of all the things that could happen to him between now and Samhain, particularly fretting about this summer and the guardian Dumbledore found for him.
– ⵢ –
Exams fly by, as is the case for a naturally gifted student. There is no overnight studying or cramming as much information into his head just before sitting down to take the test. Well, there is all of that, but Harry doesn’t need to take part in that kind of nonsense. Harry easily scribbles away on his parchment all the things that the professors have tried to stuff in the first years’ heads. His hand flies, but his mind is on other things. Like how he will organize and pack away his things into his trunk, what kind of books he will prioritize taking with him, and reminding himself to say farewell to Pince and Ditzy.
Avoiding everyone else in the castle during exam season is a matter of course, which ends up making it quite difficult for one of the prefects to deliver a message to Harry. As the only student who had not attended meals in the Great Hall since the first week, often tosses an invisibility cloak over himself at the first opportunity, and did not have any classes to attend in the exam season, Harry is a difficult person to track down. All of these are the places the prefect look first. He is disappointed and annoyed at first but by the time he finally thinks to ask someone where the hell Evans spends his time he is angry as well.
The prefect finally tracks Harry down where a Ravenclaw student directed him to: Harry’s corner of the library. The library is empty of all but Harry, Pince, and a couple seventh years. It is the final days of school after most of the exams have wrapped up. The upper years still had some exams, but since the first year schedule was lighter with fewer electives, they just had free time until the train departed. All of Harry’s classmates had found other more diverting ways to pass the time. The specifics of which Harry could not find it in himself to care about, he would be where he always was: the library.
The sixth year prefect found Harry in his usual position, head bent over a book and one hand writing down notes as he read.
“Here. Why is it so difficult to find you?”
The prefect slams his hand on the table, leaving behind a note as he moves to cross his arms and glare down at the first year. However, this is not the usual firstie who cowers and falls over themselves to apologize. No, Harry was not like that at all.
He glances up at the prefect and then ignores them. Picking up the note, he reads it, then packs up all his things.
“Are you seriously ignoring me right now? Do you know how annoying it was to track you down? Huh?”
Harry nods. “Yes.” And walks away.
Or tries to.
This prefect, although a sixth year, is infamous for a short temper, all the firsties knew this, well, all but Harry. As Harry stands and begins to move toward the entrance of the library, he is yanked backward by the back of his school robes. He jolts but does not fall. Harry turns and gives the seething teen his full attention.
“You should really leave me alone,” Harry warns. “Or haven’t you heard? I’m cursed.”
“I don’t care if you're cursed, I’ll still bloody your nose,” the prefect says, pulling back a fist.
How did this guy become a prefect?
The prefect has a fist-full of Harry’s cloak in one hand and the other is quickly approaching Harry’s face. For a moment that is, until something strange happens. The fist stops an inch in front of Harry’s face, hitting into something invisible with an audible crunch. The boy cries out in pain and lets Harry go.
Harry fixes his robes and tells the boy who is curled over his broken hand, “You should probably go to the Hospital Wing.”
Then Harry turns and begins the hike up to Dumbledore’s office for the long awaited news of what the hell he would be doing over break.
– ⵢ –
The statue, the stairs, the door which opens on its own. It's all the same. Harry stands before Dumbledore and it's a strange experience now after seeing something so incredibly personal and harrowing from the man’s past. No longer was Dumbledore a name in a book, if he ever was to Harry, whose first introduction to the wizarding world would always be threats and bargaining from that very man.
“Welcome, Mr. Evans. I hope your exams went well,” Dumbledore smiles at Harry and waves him into one of the chairs in front of his desk. “I have some news for you, but first some bad news. Unfortunately, your muggles have not resurfaced. I have evidence that they boarded some muggle transportation in London, bound for another country. One where it is difficult for me to intervene carelessly, therefore, I will monitor the situation and inform you if there are any changes.”
No news is good news had been Harry’s motto, but this seemed even better than he could hope for.
“Alright. Thank you. And a place has been found for me for the summer?” Harry takes the news in stride and gets to the other thing that had been gnawing away at his nerves for weeks. He hopes his worry does come through his tone quite as strong as it is.
“Yes, yes. An old associate of mine has agreed to house you and based on your behavior would be willing to put you up for any other future holiday. Someone will meet you at King’s Cross and accompany you to your lodgings. Remember, stay alive and things will fall in place for you, alright?”
“Yessir.”
“Well then, off you go. Enjoy the final days of your first year, Mr. Evans.”
Dumbledore turns back to whatever he was doing when Harry arrived. The boy slides off the chair and scurries out of the room. The wand from his vision had laid on the desk during their talk and Harry swears it rolled ever so slightly toward him while Dumbledore was talking down to him.
– ⵢ –
The last day of school arrives. Harry passes through the library to say farewell to Madam Pince, and grab a couple books for the summer. He traces his way down into the kitchens for one last meal with Ditzy, who gets a bit misty eyed at his goodbye. Finally, Harry climbs the tower to add his books to his bags and then plans to head down to the station.
Unfortunately, Cornfoot sits on his bed, trunk open before him and a large pile of things scattered all around him.
Without looking up, he asks, “Marcus, have you seen-”
Stephen’s head comes up before he can finish his question.
“Oh. It’s you.”
The boys stare at each other. Harry is so rarely in their room, arriving after curfew and leaving at dawn most days, that Stephen had almost forgotten about him.
“Well, Evans. Seems you survived our first year. My mother told me to not bother with you, and I’ve decided she’s right. You aren’t worth my time. Be wary though, Evans, because we won’t stop trying to get you expelled. Watch yourself.” Standing and shoving past Harry roughly, Stephen exits the room.
That went better than expected. And if am I truly not worth his time, then why does he feel the need to obsess over expelling me? Harry thinks as he finishes packing by dumping a few more library books into his trunk before slamming it closed. Taking a few breaths to center himself, Harry reiterates in his mind that he didn’t care, not about the other boys, or about any other wizard. Everything would fall into place exactly as magic wanted it to.
He casts a glance around the room. Already with just a year of growth, Harry feels the room is much smaller than when he first saw it. The furniture isn’t quite so looming any more. Even the hangings around his bed are now a comfort to him rather than an oddity.
Harry sighs and walks down to Hogsmeade Station along with a flood of other students.
– ⵢ –
The train ride is fine. Harry finds an empty compartment and wards the door from being opened by any unwanted disturbance. He reads a book and ignores when anyone knocks on the compartment door. The scenery flashes by and distracts Harry quite a bit. It's beautiful. Steep cliffs with thicket clinging to them, lochs lying far below them as they pass over tall bridges, and all sorts of creatures roam the fields they rush past.
Trains are a strange choice to cart around a bunch of wizards, but Harry found he was quite looking forward to the train ride back to Hogwarts come September 1st.
At last, the train jolts to a stop at Kings Cross Station. Harry steps off the train with a crush of students behind him, they slowly disperse through the crowd on the platform. Noise floods the area. Students shout farewells and yell greetings to their parents.
It's overwhelming for an anti-social wizard such as Harry.
It takes a few minutes for the crowd to thin, wizards disappearing through the arch or spinning on the spot and vanishing. Finally, Harry spots a familiar face. Standing along the back wall with his arms crossed over his chest is the man from the Hospital Wing. The injured wizard whose first instinct on seeing Harry’s eyes was to whisper Lily. His dark eyes are already on Harry when Harry notices him. Harry walks towards him, drawn to him and the answers he most desires.
Standing in front of the man for the first time, Harry feels nervous looking up at him. Dark as the rest of him, the man's eyes stare down at Harry.
“My name is Severus Snape. I’m here to escort you, Mr. Evans.”
Maybe that murderer Dumbledore isn’t so bad after all.
END OF YEAR ONE