Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One fateful morning, Petunia Dursley awoke to find a small boy laying in a basket on her front doorstep. Her screaming woke the neighbors.

Where ever Harry Potter went, strange things happened.

This was the truth as far as his Aunt and Uncle were concerned, anyway. Harry had always privately thought this ridiculous; he hadn't been there the day Aunt Petunia discovered that the freezer had been filled to the brim with ice cream. He'd been at Mrs. Figg's house.

He also hadn't been there the day the neighbor's dog had ended up in a tree. Then again, it could have been so afraid of Dudley's tank that it had climbed up there itself. Harry could sympathise. But it was still a bit odd, and he still hadn't been present, which hadn't stopped his relatives from giving him shifty eyes as the neighbor explained it all to Aunt Petunia over tea.

Harry did admit that sometimes strange things happened while he was around, like the school roof, and the teacher's wig. But they happened just as often when he was off somewhere else. Harry just assumed that strange things were a fact of life, and that obviously his relatives were so caught up in being normal that they overlooked how normal these supposedly strange things were, and blamed him for them for some inexplicable reason.

As if he could have caused all of it to happen.

-Click-

"Get the mail, Dudley."

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the mail, Harry."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Poke him with your Smeltings Stick, Dudley."

Harry dodged the stick and went into the front hall, wondering how he could make Dudley's Smeltings Stick 'disappear'. As he walked slowly back to the kitchen, he sorted through the mail. A bill, a postcard from Aunt Marge, and two thick letters made of something Harry thought was probably parchment. The first was addressed to Dudley in green ink, and he flipped the second over, expecting the same, only to have his jaw drop in surprise.

It was for him.

He stared at it in shock for a moment. He never got letters. He looked from his to Dudley's. They were identical, except, where Dudley's was addressed to "The Largest Room", his was addressed to "The Cupboard Under the Stairs".

Harry continued to stare at his letter, handing Uncle Vernon his mail absently, and dropping Dudley's letter onto his plate.

"It's your letter," Harry said in response to the irritated grunt he received as his only thank you.

"What's this?" Aunt Petunia asked warmly, not turning away from the stove. "Has my Diddydums got a letter?"

Dudley grinned and nodded, before picking up the thick parchment envelope and tearing into it.

Aunt Petunia, who had turned around to watch him open it, gasped in shock and plucked the papers out of his hands. Dudley made an angry sound that sounded vaguely like "Mine!", but Aunt Petunia didn't seem to hear him. She was staring at the address on the letter as though her world had just been flipped upside down.

"Vernon, oh my...Vernon!" she cried out shrilly, looking from a curious Vernon to an angry Dudley to a bewildered Harry. Since when did Aunt Petunia take things away from Dudley? Harry shrugged and got back to unfolding his own letter under the table as Uncle Vernon looked up and saw the parchment in Aunt Petunia's hands. He took it and looked at it for a moment, before turning to stare blankly at Dudley.

"I want my letter!" Dudley demanded angrily. His parents had never done this before. "Why does Harry get to see his letter and I don't get to see mine?"

And now Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were looking at Harry, who was staring in wide eyed shock at the parchment he was reading. Aunt Petunia quickly snatched it away from him, skimming it before pushing it at Vernon and whispering, "Vernon, what do we do?"

Uncle Vernon seemed to have turned a very strange color puce. Harry watched him warily, still feeling rather shocked by what he'd just read. He'd been invited to a school. For wizards. Could it be true? Could he really be a wizard?

"The boy's gone and contaminated Dudley," Vernon said, looking outraged as he came to, in his mind, the only logical conclusion. "He's made our boy into...into...one of them!"

Aunt Petunia moaned and sank down into her chair, clutching her head with her hands. Dudley was now staring at his parents, confused and angry, wanting to know what the letter had said.

Harry had gone into shock. The way Uncle Vernon was talking, it sounded like the letter was the real thing. He was a wizard.

And so, apparently, was Dudley.

Harry and Dudley had been booted out of the kitchen, and were currently standing in the hall. Harry expected a fight over who would listen at the keyhole, but Dudley didn't even glance at the door. His piggy gaze was fixed on Harry, who had suddenly become very nervous.

"What did yours say?" Dudley asked, cracking his knuckles threateningly.

"I'll tell you," Harry said, thinking fast, "If you promise not to beat me up for the rest of the summer."

Dudley paused, his chubby face screwing up in thought. "Why don't I just beat you up and make you tell me?"

"Because..." Harry cast around, backing away slowly as Dudley advanced on him. "You won't know if I'm telling the truth. If you promise not to beat me up, or let any of your friends beat me up, I promise I won't lie to you."

Dudley stared at him for a moment, before nodding and saying, "Deal. Now tell me."

Harry blinked. He hadn't expected that to work, and definitely not that fast. Dudley must really want to know.

"Okay, it said I'm invited to Hogwarts School of...witchcraft and wizardry," Harry said slowly, and, noting the disbelief on his cousin's face, rushed on "There was some name with a bunch of titles, Dumle-something... and it said there was a list of supplies on the next page, and that I'd have to go to a certain place to buy it all, but I don't remember where."

Dudley was staring at him, wide-eyed. "You're pulling my leg."

"No," Harry said solemnly. "I swear. From their reaction, I don't think your parents expected you to get one." He frowned. "Me, maybe…but not you."

"You mean..." Dudley looked suddenly very shocked.

"We're wizards." Harry couldn't help but grin. The entire idea was surreal, and the look on Dudley's face was too priceless.

"D'you think we'll actually go to that school? Hog..."

"Hogwarts?" Harry supplied. "I have no idea. You're parents didn't look too thrilled." His grin faded as a few things sank in. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia might not let them go. Then there was the fact that Dudley would go too. Despite the fact that they'd been getting along surprisingly well for the past few minutes, he had been looking forward to escaping Dudley at Stonewall. Now it seemed they would be sharing a school again. If they got to go at all.

Dudley seemed to be thinking along similar lines. "But...magic isn't...I mean, Mum and Dad said it's not real! This is all some stupid joke or something. And even if we do go to this...Hogwarts, I'll have to share a school with you."

Harry shook his head and bent down to look through the keyhole. Aunt Petunia was talking to Uncle Vernon, waving the letters wildly as she whispered. Harry could only hear snatches, but he caught words like "freak" and "my baby".

Suddenly, Uncle Vernon crossed the kitchen and pulled the door open. He stared down at Dudley and Harry, who had been very obviously eavesdropping, and said, "Dudley...boy."

Harry held back a wince. He was in trouble whenever Uncle Vernon called him boy.

"Both of you, into the sitting room." He brushed past them, and Dudley followed. Harry stared after them with no small amount of misgiving, but eventually had to follow as well.

Uncle Vernon was seated in his chair, and Dudley sat on the couch. Harry remained standing near the exit, shifting unnoticeably from foot to foot.

"You both," Uncle Vernon said as he waved the letters vaguely at them. "Have been accepted at a school." He sounded as though it was taking an awful lot to force these words out.

"A school of - "

"What kind of school, Uncle Vernon?" Harry asked quickly, not wanting Dudley to reveal that they already knew.

"A school of..." Uncle Vernon glanced down at the topmost page before swallowing audibly and finishing. "A school of magic."

Dudley stared with wide eyes. Harry couldn't help it. He stared too. If Uncle Vernon, with his insistence that "There is no such thing as magic!" was taking it seriously, well Harry thought that he might have to believe it. Never mind that he'd never believed anything his Uncle had said before. This was very, very different.

Uncle Vernon glanced at the top sheet again.

"The headmaster of this school has written your Aunt and I a letter, explaining a few things. We'll be taking you to get your things tomorrow, Dudley."

Harry's insides seemed to explode. They were going! But wait, Uncle Vernon had said...

"What about me, Uncle Vernon?" Harry asked, trying to breathe calmly. If Dudley was going and he wasn't...

"We aren't paying for you," Uncle Vernon said flatly, his eyes swiveling around to lock on Harry. "From what this man says, school supplies are expensive."

Harry's heart sank. He wasn't going. All because the Dursleys hated him too much to spare a bit of money.

"I could...I could earn it," Harry offered quietly, feeling very desperate. "I could work for the neighbors in the summer, get a job when I'm old enough, I'm sure I could earn money when I get to school somehow. I'd pay you back in full, I promise."

Uncle Vernon snorted at him. "A likely story."

Harry's spirits sank further. "I swear, Uncle Vernon. What..." And now he had to swallow what little pride the Dursleys had ever let him have, because he didn't see any other way of going. "Whatever it takes, sir. Please."

Uncle Vernon looked at him again, and stared back at the letter. He shook his head and Harry felt like he would cry.

"Fine."

Harry blinked. Fine? Was he serious? He looked carefully up at Uncle Vernon, who had a look on his face like he'd swallowed something unpleasant.

"I'll pay your way, but only if you promise I'll get every pound back."

Harry nodded vigorously, fighting down a whoop of joy. He was going! He was going to a school of magic and he'd learn...magic! He felt positively gleeful, and he had to fight very hard to keep his face a blank slate of gratitude.

"Thank you very much, Uncle Vernon."

"You'd better not fall back on your word, boy," Uncle Vernon said, his beady little eyes boring into Harry. "And if I find out you're wasting my money..."

"I won't sir, I promise," Harry needed to get out of this room, get someplace where he could muffle the gleeful whooping that he could feel pushing at the back of his throat.

"Good. Now get out of my sight."

Harry turned around, catching Dudley's eye as he left. His cousin had the oddest look on his face, almost as if he couldn't decide if he were happy or angry that Harry was going.

But Harry didn't care. He was going to learn magic. So was Dudley, but that didn't matter. It would still be amazing, and who knew? Maybe he could convince Dudley that the best thing for both of them would be to just ignore each other. He'd been able to persuade his cousin before.

The next day found Harry crammed into the backseat of the car with Dudley. Uncle Vernon was driving them to London to get their new school supplies. Aunt Petunia had opted to stay home; apparently, she was still in shock over the entire affair. Uncle Vernon hadn't been able to convince her to come, but not for lack of trying.

Harry had watched his fruitless attempt through the kitchen window that morning as he trimmed the hedges. Uncle Vernon had talked a lot, and waved around the parchment that he'd been holding the day before in the sitting room. The letter from the Headmaster of their new school. Harry had wondered vaguely what it said at the time, but soon decided he didn't really care. It was good enough that it made his uncle willing to let them go, willing to pay for Harry, and rendered his aunt unable to object. She had just sunk down at the table and snapped something at Uncle Vernon when he shoved the paper into her hands.

And now they were in London, searching for the place indicated in the directions. "The Leaky Cauldron". Surprisingly, Dudley spotted it first, pointing it out between a burger joint and a bookstore. Harry had the feeling he'd been paying more attention to the burger joint and that spotting the place had been a lucky coincidence.

When they'd made their way inside, Harry realized that the Leaky Cauldron was a pub. Why the school would send them to a pub was beyond him, and apparently beyond Uncle Vernon too, because he muttered something that sounded like, "Bloody mad lot," and marched up to the bartender, slamming the parchment down on the bar and demanding answers.

The man behind the bar was only too happy to assist them, leading them out into a dingy alleyway behind the pub and pulling out a stick. Harry looked at him curiously for a moment before realizing with a thrill that this was a wand.

After opening the wall magically (Uncle Vernon's eyes looked as though they were about to pop out of his head. Dudley just looked awed.), he ushered them in, saying, "Welcome to Diagon Alley."

After following the directions on the parchment to a bank called Gringotts (Uncle Vernon took one look at the creatures inside and made Harry change the money by himself), they went to a robe shop, a bookstore, and an apothecary (which had smelled so badly that Harry was once again forced to go inside on his own). Harry did what he normally did when forced to go on shopping trips with the Dursleys; he kept his head down and made himself as unobtrusive as possible. Uncle Vernon bought him the bare minimum, and Dudley got whatever struck his fancy. At the wand shop, the man, Ollivander, seemed far more interested in Harry than Dudley, but Uncle Vernon forced him and his cryptic words to pay attention to Dudley and find him a proper wand.

Uncle Vernon seemed to have decided that if his son was going to be a wizard, then he was going to be a damn good one. Much better than Harry anyway. So when the store clerks sometimes seemed to brush past Dudley when they realized Harry was there, Uncle Vernon wasn't pleased, and he made this clear. He also made it clear that he was the man with the funny coins, as he called them, and that he was only going to be dishing this strange money out if the clerks did things to his satisfaction.

Harry didn't really mind his uncle's insistence that everyone pay attention to Dudley. He was used to it. And aside from that, it was very strange, the way people looked at him when they heard his name. He didn't know why they did it, and frankly, it unnerved him a little.

When they'd finished, both boys were loaded down with bags and oddly shaped packages, Harry more so than Dudley, because even though Dudley had gotten much, much more than him, he was still forced to carry most of it. But once again, this was normal. What wasn't normal was the way people were looking at him as he passed them by, following Uncle Vernon and Dudley back to the exit. Harry sped up, keeping close to his uncle, and feeling absurdly happy that he was with him. Even if Uncle Vernon disliked him, which Harry had no delusions about at all, the man had spent the entire day making sure that no one bothered Harry, if only because he felt Dudley was worth more attention.

By the time they got home, Dudley had whacked him round the head with his wand several times. Harry felt it would be prudent to keep quiet about the fact that you were supposed to use the wand for magic, not as a new Smelting Stick. He didn't want to see Dudley's attempts at magic. Harry would probably be turned into a toad by accident. He knew Dudley wouldn't be able to do anything on purpose.

Harry had spent most of the ride home pressed against the car door in a vain attempt to avoid Dudley. He also looked through a few of his books, and thought they were absolutely fascinating. Dudley had gotten the standard books as well, along with a few extra. Harry had been surprised until he saw the titles. "1001 Hexes, Jinxes and Curses" was the book Dudley had abandoned next to his seat. Harry was almost positive that his cousin would never look at this book again, but decided to wait a week or so before he rescued it, just in case.

When they got into the house, Aunt Petunia was waiting for them in the sitting room, thin-lipped and looking as though she'd spent the entire time they'd been gone sucking on a lemon.

"Mum, look what I got!" Dudley ran over and showed his mother a teacup he'd gotten from a joke shop in Diagon Alley. "Isn't it cool?"

Aunt Petunia appeared bewildered, but examined it anyway and said, "Well yes, darling, it's a lovely teacup – Aaahhh!"

She dropped the teacup as it began to wriggle and watched in horror as a rat appeared where the teacup had once been. Dudley laughed uproariously, and Harry quickly left the room, recognizing the look on his aunt's face. He felt odd, though. He'd never seen that look directed at anyone but himself before today.

As he stuffed himself and his new things into the cupboard and proceeded to unwrap and pack them all in his trunk, he thought about his aunt's expression. For a second, he could have sworn she'd looked hateful. And if it had been anyone but Dudley she'd been looking at, he would have believed it too.

Harry shook his head and wondered why he cared. Even if it his aunt suddenly hated Dudley, it was none of his concern. Even so, it was unsettling, he thought as he admired his new robes and placed them neatly into his trunk. Aunt Petunia hating Dudley. It didn't seem possible… and it probably wasn't. Harry was just making something out of nothing.

He closed his trunk and put it under his cot. It caused a slight bulge in the bottom, but it wouldn't fit anywhere else. Harry sighed and shifted, trying to ignore the new bump. He would never have imagined that he would suddenly have so much stuff that his cupboard would become uncomfortable.

He couldn't help but grin at the idea. The thought that followed was even better though, and it made him cover his mouth to stifle the happy laughter that threatened to remind the Dursleys of his presence. Soon he wouldn't even have to worry about his cupboard being uncomfortable. Soon he'd be at a new school, learning magic.

The very idea was mind-boggling, and Harry lay grinning in his cupboard until morning, mind happily boggled.

Chapter Text

A little over a month later, Harry was loading his and Dudley's trunks into Uncle Vernon's company car and feeling as though there was a balloon inflating his insides. Today was the day. They were going to Hogwarts!

He barely spared his aunt a glance as she gave them a stiff goodbye from the doorway. He did notice that Dudley seemed rather upset though. But then, after the last month, that was understandable. Harry was caught between a guilty sort of glee and pity when he thought about what had happened over the last month between his aunt and cousin. Aunt Petunia seemed torn between doting on Dudley as she always had, and being utterly repulsed by him.

The only thing Harry could make any sense of in the entire affair was that his aunt not only knew about magic, but she hated it. Passionately. And she seemed unable to decide if this hatred extended to her only son.

So Harry had spent the past month along with his uncle, watching in bafflement as Aunt Petunia alternately snapped at Dudley as though he was Harry, which upset and confused Dudley, and acted overly sweet toward him, which still confused him. During these sweet moments, she sometimes looked nauseous as she hugged her precious Diddydums, and if Dudley made one mention of school or magic or even Harry, she immediately froze up and snapped at him again.

As it was, Harry and Uncle Vernon had watched as Aunt Petunia said a brisk goodbye and gave her son a very brief hug, as though she didn't really want to touch him. She, of course, ignored Harry entirely, which was nothing unexpected.

Uncle Vernon allowed Dudley to sit in the front seat with him, which gave Harry the entire back seat to stretch out in. He didn't, of course, because Uncle Vernon would kill him if he put his feet on the upholstery, but the fact remained that he wasn't being crowded or whacked over the head by an idiot who kept forgetting he was a wizard. He smiled as he listened to Uncle Vernon swear at the radio. School hadn't even started, and here he was, already reaping the benefits.

When they got to Kings Cross, Harry nearly loaded their things onto separate trolleys, before remembering that there was no way Dudley would push his own. He steered the full trolley into the train station behind his uncle and cousin, who were discussing the matter of the platform in hushed tones. Uncle Vernon may have accepted that Dudley was a wizard, but that didn't mean he wanted people to know it.

When they got to platform ten, Uncle Vernon stopped and stared around uncertainly.

"Boy," he said, turning around and staring at Harry, who was breathing hard as he pushed the heavy trolley as best he could. "Do you see Platform 9 ¾?"

"P-platform what?" Harry panted, pulling as hard as he could on the trolley in an attempt to stop it. He sighed in relief and leaned against the trolley. "Are you sure they don't mean nine?"

"Of course I'm sure," Uncle Vernon hissed, shoving the ticket into his hands and forcing Harry to step away from the trolley. "It says it right there. Now find it."

Harry stared at the ticket in bewilderment and leaned against the barrier between platforms nine and ten, still breathing hard from the exertion of moving the trunk.

A second later, he fell through the wall and landed on his back, staring up at a sign that read, "Platform 9 ¾"

Ten minutes later found Harry loading his and Dudley's things onto the train. Uncle Vernon had been unable to get through the platform for some reason, so he'd said goodbye out next to platform ten. That is, he ordered Harry to go get on the train and said a proper goodbye to Dudley. The last thing Harry saw before falling back through the barrier again was Uncle Vernon gruffly shaking Dudley's hand and telling him how proud he was of him.

Harry thought Uncle Vernon might have been feeling slightly guilty over the way Aunt Petunia had been treating Dudley for the past month. He also thought he couldn't care less, and that he was finally rid of the both of them. As he struggled to load Dudley's trunk onto the train, he thought of various ways that he could keep Dudley from bothering him. There were a lot of people on this platform. Harry thought he might be able to lose himself in the crowd and make Dudley forget that he even existed.

It had worked before, he thought philosophically as he stuffed Dudley's trunk under a seat and set off to find a different compartment. He would start now by avoiding Dudley on the train.

He found an empty compartment toward the back and stowed his stuff there, in the luggage rack. It was more difficult than putting it under the seat, but he figured Dudley would definitely be looking for him and as long as his stuff was up high, his cousin wouldn't bother with the physical labor required to tamper with it. Harry had nearly been trunk-crushed just putting it up there.

He settled down in a chair with one of his books. It was potions, which was the one he understood the least. He had promised Uncle Vernon that he wouldn't waste his money, and he was afraid that if Uncle Vernon thought he wasn't getting much out of this school, then he would have to drop out and go to Stonewall.

He had a feeling that he was going to have to help Dudley somehow, because if Dudley did worse than Harry, no matter that Harry wasn't wasting his education, Uncle Vernon would still be upset.

In fact, Harry thought, having hit upon a sudden epiphany, if he knew the material well enough, he could bribe Dudley into leaving him alone by doing his homework for him.

And so it was with this thought that Harry returned to studying his potions textbook with renewed vigor.

They had been on the train for hours, Harry thought as he sat hidden in one of the lavatories. It looked a bit like his cupboard, only it had a sink and a toilet instead of a cot.

In fact, it was like his cupboard in more than appearance. He was hiding in here from Dudley, which made this very much like his cupboard. Aside from the toilet, and the fact that he could lock the door from the inside, and people couldn't just slam the door open and closed whenever they liked, this was very much like his cupboard. Especially since he'd been in here for the past four hours.

He'd been kicked out of his compartment not thirty minutes after he found it. Three older boys had wandered in, seen him, and ordered him out immediately. From there he'd wandered the hall, cautious to not be seen by anyone inside the compartments, in case one of those 'anyone's were Dudley. He knew what Dudley did when he was bored, and he also knew how easily Dudley could become bored, having lived with his fat cousin since his parents had died in that car accident.

Having wandered half the length of the train, and having arrived at the place where he'd left Dudley's trunk, he cautiously peeked inside the compartment to see if his cousin was there.

He was. He was sitting with two other boys, a redhead and a sandy haired boy. They both appeared fascinated by what he was saying, although Dudley didn't look too happy.

As Harry watched curiously, Dudley glanced up at the door, then did a double take and stared at him, an evil grin splitting his face.

Bugger.

It was at this point that Harry had taken refuge in the bathroom.

Much, much later, Harry awoke with a jolt as the train slowed and began to stop. He cautiously peeked his head out of the bathroom and glanced around. Dudley was nowhere to be seen. Good.

Harry stepped out of the lavatory, noting through one of the compartment windows that everyone else was wearing their uniforms. He probably needed to put his own on, especially since they were stopping. He darted down the hall to the compartment he'd been in and ducked inside, startling the three boys who'd stolen it from him. He quickly apologized and reached up to dig through his trunk, pulling out a set of robes before dashing out of the compartment. Those boys had looked about ready to hex him.

Newly changed and feeling much more confident, Harry joined the rest of the students as they disembarked and milled on the platform. He had just begun wondering what he was supposed to be doing when he heard a shout.

"Firs' years! Firs' years this way!"

Harry sighed in relief and followed the voice, ending up in a group with a bunch of other kids his age, all standing in front of a giant of a man. He remembered the creatures in the bank at Diagon Alley and shrugged mentally, figuring the wizarding world had all sorts. He saw Dudley and those boys he'd been with looking around and ducked to the opposite side of the small crowd. It looked like Dudley had gotten himself a new gang. Harry couldn't say he was happy that his cousin was making friends so fast.

He followed the giant man down a steep slope along with the rest of the students, and was told to choose a boat. He looked around worriedly, not wanting to get stuck with Dudley. There was a boat with only three people in it: a redheaded girl, a chubby boy with brown hair, and a dark boy with a snooty air about him. Harry quickly picked this boat, sitting down with his back to the water and keeping an eye out for Dudley.

"Hello," the girl said, "I'm Susan. What's your name?"

"Harry," Harry said after a moment, surprised that she had spoken to him. She offered her hand and he took it, feeling a little confused. He couldn't help but think of a boy who'd made friends with him back in primary school, mostly to spite Dudley and his gang. After a week, the boy had come back from recess with a black eye and hadn't spoken to Harry ever again. He hoped this girl wouldn't meet the same fate.

"Harry?" the dark boy asked, momentarily roused out of his pretentious silence. "You mean, like Harry Potter?"

"Yes…" Harry said carefully, not liking where this was heading. "I suppose you met my cousin then?"

"Your…what?" The boy seemed bewildered. "My name is Blaise. Why would I have met your cousin?"

"Well," Harry began, but then the boats pushed forward and the brown haired boy fell into his lap.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" he said, settling back in his seat and sounding positively mortified. "I wasn't expecting the boats to move!"

"It's fine," Harry said, fixing his glasses. They'd nearly dropped into the water when the boy had fallen on him. Harry was feeling confident compared to this shaking, nervous boy. "What's your name?"

"N-neville Longbottom," he stuttered. "And I really am sorry."

Harry nodded and everyone was quiet for a few moments, before Susan broke the silence with a question.

"What house do you think you'll be in?"

Harry looked at her and realized she was asking them all. Blaise gave an elegant snort and said, "Slytherin, of course."

She looked expectantly at Harry and Neville, who muttered with a sidelong glance at Blaise that he was hoping for Gryffindor, but who knew, really. Harry had no idea what she was talking about, but he didn't want to seem stupid in front of his boatmates.

"What house do you think you'll be in?" Harry asked, feigning thoughtfulness.

"All my family's been in Hufflepuff for generations," she said proudly. "So that's what I'm hoping for."

Harry nodded wisely and tried to think of something to say when Blaise spoke up.

"I'm in a boat with a future Hufflepuff and a future Gryffindor. How did that happen?" He didn't sound contemptuous, not really, but there was something in his voice that made Harry wonder what was wrong with Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. These two seemed perfectly nice, although Susan seemed a bit insulted at his tone and Neville had shrunk down in his seat and was now staring at his shoes.

Harry spent the rest of the boat trip staring up at the beautiful castle they were headed toward. He hadn't even noticed it at first, having been too busy avoiding Dudley to even look in the right direction. Now, though, he couldn't take his eyes off the sight.

I'm going to learn magic in that castle, Harry thought, and the balloon returned, expanding until he felt he didn't need the boat; he could float the rest of the way to Hogwarts.

"Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter? The Harry Potter? Is that him? D'you see his scar?"

People were standing up to look at him as he walked up to the stool to be sorted. Harry kept his eyes firmly on the Hat, but inside he was bewildered beyond expression. They hadn't reacted that way for anyone else. Dudley had gone up there, been sorted into Gryffindor (Harry thought he could understand Blaise's contempt now) and the only sound that had been made was the applause. After he'd been sorted. No one had asked if it was "The Dudley Dursley". No one had particularly cared. He'd just been another first year, as had the rest of the first years. Why were they so impressed with Harry? He wasn't anyone particularly special. He'd been a nobody at his last school. He sat on the stool and let the hat slip over his eyes, still pondering this curiosity.

"Well, well. What have we here."

Harry nearly, nearly jumped. He managed to stay still and not show any outward sign of surprise, a skill that had saved his hide on more than one occasion with the Dursleys.

Hello? he thought tentatively. Someone chuckled inside his head. Who are you?

"I'm the Sorting Hat, here to sort you."

Harry relaxed. This was supposed to happen. Okay then.

Sort away then, he thought cautiously. Another chuckle.

"Alright then, lets see what we've got here. Courage, oh my, yes…not a bad mind, either. Loyalty…and a thirst, to prove yourself…"

Well? Harry thought hopefully.

"Where should I put you?"

The thought of being stuck in Dudley's house crossed his mind. He remembered what Professor McGonagall had said, about houses being family. He'd had enough of being Dudley's family, and he thought he'd quite like a new one.

"Not Gryffindor, eh? Well, no problems there. You'd have done fine there, but you're really more of a…"

"Slytherin!"

Harry sagged with relief and stood, noting in satisfaction that the whispers had stopped. No one was even clapping. He walked to his table and sank down into an empty seat next to a blonde boy who'd been sorted in under two seconds. It was at this point that he realized that everyone was staring at him in apparent shock.

Harry shifted uneasily, wondering what he'd done now.

Harry sat on his bed in the Slytherin first year dorms, marveling at the fact that he had a bed. He'd never had a bed before. He bounced a bit, trying not to grin too broadly, and thought about what had happened at the Welcoming Feast.

After the initial silence that had followed his sorting, the table he was already sitting at seemed to realize what had just happened, and very suddenly exploded in cheers. Scores of older students had come over to shake his hand, and he had barely contained his shock. He could not, for the life of him, figure out what was going on. Why were they so happy to have him with them? Granted, it was a wonderful change from being constantly sniped at or ignored, but why? He hadn't done anything in particular. He'd hidden in the bathroom for most of the train ride! These people should have had no idea who he was!

The boy next to him, the blond one, had shaken his hand as well and introduced himself as Draco Malfoy in a very superior sort of tone. Harry could hear the italics in his voice. It appeared that he expected Harry to have some sort of reaction to his name. Harry had no idea who he was, but he nodded and smiled and shook the other boy's hand and pretended that there was a reason why everyone knew him and assumed that he knew them, inwardly wondering if he would find a sane person in this school.

The headmaster did not offer him much in the way of reassurance, ending his speech with a shout of, "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" and then sitting down in a very satisfied sort of way, as if he'd given some very good advice. Harry had tried very hard not to look confused, figuring it was a wizard thing, as some people had laughed at the other tables, and even the Slytherins he was sitting with didn't look too surprised.

Dudley's gang had all been sorted together, to Harry's displeasure. Gryffindors, the lot of them. Draco Malfoy mentioned that the Gryffindors were a bunch of goody two shoes, and Harry snorted in disbelief, wondering how anyone could think his cousin anything but a fat pig.

He said as much to him, and was surprised by the grins he got from just about everyone seated around him. An older boy, Marcus Flint, began pointing out the teachers to the first years, telling them that they would do well to remember who was who and how best to deal with each teacher.

A lank haired, hooked nosed man was introduced as their Head of House and Potions Professor, Severus Snape. He was staring at his plate in a vaguely threatening manner, and Harry decided to treat this man how he treated Uncle Vernon in a bad mood. Next to him was a man in a purple turban that Flint identified as Professor Quirrel, their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Harry watched curiously as he cut his steak with a butter knife. Then Quirrel turned away from them to talk to the teacher on the other side of him and Harry's head felt like it was being sliced with a knife. His eyes went wide and he nearly dropped his fork, grimacing in pain.

Several people noticed this, and asked what was wrong. Harry waved it off as a headache, which was the honest truth. He stared up at Quirrel, wondering what had caused that sudden flash of pain. It had happened when the professor had turned away. Harry filed that information away in the back of his mind for later.

After the feast, a fifth year prefect took them down to the dungeons, pointing out the way to the library and the potions classroom and telling them to remember the way back to the Great Hall.

Harry resolved to remember as much as he could, and paid close attention as they walked. He reflected once again on the madness of the wizards and witches he had met so far and decided to find the library when he had some time. At the very least, there should be something there about all this information he was expected to know.

The prefect pointed them in the direction of their rooms, which was where Harry was now, sitting on his bed, as amazing as that seemed to him. He was sharing with five other boys, including Draco Malfoy and Blaise, and the room was huge. They had all introduced themselves and Harry found that he was living with a Theo Nott, a Greg Goyle, and a Vincent Crabbe. And of course, Blaise, who actually had a last name (Zabini), and who could forget Draco Malfoy. He was the only boy Harry knew who had italics in his name.

Harry found though, that he wouldn't have cared if one of them had asterisks in their name, because they seemed to have decided he was a friend. Harry'd never had a friend before, unless you count Mr. Black Eye, and he didn't, not really. He admired his new green and silver Slytherin scarf and ties, set them carefully in his trunk with the rest of his things, and lay down on his bed. It was the most comfortable thing he'd ever slept on. And tomorrow he was going to learn magic. He closed his hangings and grinned like a loon. Let them all be crazy, he didn't care. He was going to learn magic, he was going to have friends, and he was going to live in a dungeon, and not even knowing that Dudley was somewhere in the castle with him would spoil this.

Chapter Text

The next morning found Harry up with the sun as usual. He was surprised when he found that, instead of a cot, he was sleeping on a big, comfortable bed.

Then he remembered about Hogwarts and his face split into a broad grin. He jumped out of bed and left the room in search of a shower.

By the time he got back, the Italicized One had risen, but no one else.

"Mornin…" he mumbled with a yawn, hair all mussed up and looking as though he'd like nothing better than to drop back into bed. "Why're you up so bloody early?"

"I always wake up at this time," Harry answered cheerfully. Draco, who had become Draco-without-italics when Harry saw his footsie pajamas with the words, "Tutshill Tornadoes" all over them, winced at his perky voice and stumbled off to the loo.

Harry grinned and left the dorm room, deciding to try and find the library before breakfast.

It seemed he wasn't the only one interested in finding out about Hogwarts. He'd had a bit of an argument with a Gryffindor girl over a copy of Hogwarts, a History. To be honest, the only reason he'd known she was in Gryffindor was by the color of her tie, and he tried to explain this to her as a reason why she should immediately relinquish her death grip on the only copy on the shelf.

She wasn't sympathetic, not even when he explained the apparent lunacy of most of the school. She'd just given him an odd look and tugged harder, and he was tilting precariously on the brink of classifying her as one of the insane. He would have too, if he wasn't fighting just as fiercely for the same book.

Eventually, they came to a truce. Neither of them would check it out from the library, and they would hide it so no one else could either. Then they could both use it, and if they needed it at the same time, they would share it.

Harry thought this a very reasonable truce. The girl, whose name turned out to be Hermione, had given him another odd look when he'd explained it to her, but went along with it for the sake of the reading. Then they realised breakfast was already half over, and rushed off to find the Great Hall.

When they found it, they rushed in together, nodding at each other before setting off to their respective tables. Harry dropped into his seat next to Draco and across from Blaise, and began loading up his plate. He only looked up when he realised he was being stared at again.

"What?" he asked curiously, poking at the pancakes thoughtfully before dishing himself up some eggs instead.

"Where were you before breakfast?" Blaise asked, eyeing him shrewdly.

"Found the library," Harry said casually, wondering if that was all.

"And a Gryffindor?" Draco asked, glancing over his shoulder at the Gryffindor table. Harry followed his eye line and noticed that Hermione was sitting by herself, the other Gryffindors ignoring her in order to stare at Harry as well.

"That's Hermione," Harry said slowly, wondering why everyone seemed so cranky today. "We had a bit of an argument over a book."

"Oh," Draco said, sounding mollified. Harry wasn't even going to try and guess why until he'd read that book. Judging by it's apparent popularity, he thought it might tell him quite a bit about all the things that were confusing him.

On the way to classes, Harry noticed that a lot of people were whispering and pointing at him as he passed. He hoped Dudley hadn't already turned the rest of the school against him, but the whisperers didn't seem hostile. They seemed almost awed, although why Harry couldn't guess. Every time he stepped out of his dormitory, the whispers started, even in Slytherin, although they were much more discreet than the rest of the school and didn't openly point or gawk at him. He desperately wanted to know why everyone was acting like this, but didn't want to seem ignorant to Blaise or Draco. They were his only friends here, and they were both so confident and had a tendency to snub people they thought weren't good enough. Harry didn't want to be one of the 'not good enough'. So as they walked to class, Harry held his head high and pretended that he wasn't royally confused.

Most of his classes didn't use magic the first day. They spent the period going over what was expected of them and such. Harry paid attention, but thought it all rather boring. He wanted to do magic.

So when Transfiguration rolled around, and they were given matches and told to turn them into needles, Harry was pleased. At least, until he tried to turn it and realized how difficult it was.

He sat between Draco and Blaise, staring at his match in consternation. It hadn't worked. Blaise was going over the pronunciation very carefully, then practicing the wand movement, before trying them out together. Harry gave this a shot, then tried it on his own match and was delighted when it turned silver and got a bit pointy. Granted, it was still wooden, but if you looked and didn't touch, it looked like a needle.

"Hey, Harry, you did it!" Draco exclaimed, looking down at Harry's work. "How!"

"I did what Blaise was doing," Harry said honestly, not mentioning that his needle wasn't actually a needle.

Draco stared very carefully at Blaise, who had yet to even attempt the transfiguration. He mouthed the words along with the dark boy, and waved his wand when he did. Then Draco turned to his matchstick and tried it all together. He managed to produce a workable needle, although it was still brownish-gold and had a red tip at the end.

"Ugh," Draco said, pushing the needle away in disgust. "That's practically Gryffindor colors."

Harry grinned and tried again, this time turning the wood to metal. When Professor McGonagall came over, Blaise finally made the attempt, doing it perfectly on the first try. She gave them all a nod of approval and awarded Slytherin two points apiece.

One thing Harry had noticed about his new Slytherin yearmates, was that they all were very rich and just a little bit snobbish about it. And if they weren't rich, they did a very good job pretending they were, and were even more snobbish because of it. Draco and Blaise in particular seemed to enjoy arguing over who had more money, and while Draco wore Tutshill Tornadoes footsie pajamas, they were very expensive custom made Tutshill Tornadoes footsie pajamas. He had told Harry this, correctly interpreting Harry's grin as he climbed into bed, and Harry had nodded, not knowing or caring why Draco like tornadoes so much, or why he felt his pajamas had to cost more than Uncle Vernon's company car.

It did not make him feel any better about his promise to his uncle, though. Harry had to find a way to pay Uncle Vernon back, and he had a feeling that his friends' opinion of him would drop a few notches if they knew about his money problems. As it was, he'd been too busy with schoolwork to even get back to the library and read that book with Hermione-the-Gryffindor. He didn't know how he'd fit a job in with all that.

As the last day of the first week of school rolled around, Harry was getting a bit paranoid. He hadn't heard a word from Dudley all week, and that could only mean bad things for him. Whenever Dudley got quiet, that meant he was trying to find a new way to get to Harry. A week was about right for this, because, as Harry well knew, Dudley was a bit of an idiot and with him, this sort of thing took a lot of time.

He told Draco and Blaise this over lunch that afternoon. The three of them were eating, noses in their Potions books, as Marcus Flint had assured them that although their Head of House clearly favoured his Slytherins, he only did so because most of them came prepared to his class. Knowing how to gain the favor of the right people was a lesson you learned early in Slytherin House.

Harry leaned his book against the milk jug and said, "Blaise, Draco?"

Both looked up from their books questioningly.

"Ah, I'm a bit concerned about…the Gryffindors." Harry knew that appealing to their sense of house rivalry would work best and quickly. "My cousin, well…he's a right prat, and normally he'd have tried something by now. I'm worried what he's planning, and if he'll get his friends in on it too."

"His friends?" Draco asked with an amused smirk. "Harry, you have got to be kidding me."

Harry stared at him, nonplussed. "What d'you mean?" he asked in confusion. "Does he not have any friends or something? Dudley's never had any problems making friends…"

Blaise stared at him, grinning now. "You don't mean to tell me you haven't noticed that your cousin is a pariah."

"Er…" Harry honestly didn't know what to say to that. "You did?"

"Of course we did!" Draco exclaimed, shaking his head at Harry. "You mentioned that you hate him, so of course we're going to keep an eye out and make sure nothing happens!"

Harry was confused but strangely touched. "Well, thanks…but why doesn't he have any friends?"

Blaise grinned. "You don't go around badmouthing the Boy-Who-Lived and expect to make many friends."

Harry nodded, wondering who exactly this 'Boy-Who-Lived' character was, and why on earth Dudley had been stupid enough to say something about him.

Draco stood suddenly, pulling Blaise and Harry with him. "We're going to be late if we don't hurry."

As Harry followed Blaise to a seat on the Slytherin side of the dungeons where Potions class was held, he glanced at the Gryffindors and noted a few things.

Firstly, Dudley was sitting by himself in the back, and looking very sulky. Secondly, Hermione-the-Gryffindor, while not by herself, was being ignored by her table-mate and had her nose in a book. And thirdly, all the other Gryffindors were staring at him openly.

That was it, Harry decided, avoiding their eyes. He had to find out why. He resolved to visit the library directly after his last class today, which was, quite conveniently, this one.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when the door burst open and everyone went very quiet. Professor Snape swept to the front of the room, robes billowing behind him very menacingly. Harry remembered this from the last time he'd met the professor, when he was welcoming the new Slytherin first years to his house and making his beginning of term speech. He'd fixed Harry with the same inscrutable look then as he did now.

Snape took roll, pausing slightly before Harry's name, but not commenting. As soon as he finished with that, he launched into another monologue, and Harry sat up and paid close attention, just like the rest of the Slytherins. When he heard that they wouldn't be doing much 'foolish wand waving' in this class, Harry was slightly disappointed. Then Snape went on to talk about bottling fame, brewing glory, and putting a stopper in death. Harry was cheered; apparently there was quite a bit you could do without that 'foolish wand waving'.

Then Snape gave him that inscrutable look again and snapped out, "Potter! What would you get if you mixed powdered root of asphodel with an infusion of wormwood?'

Harry was so, so grateful he'd spent lunch revising with Draco and Blaise. "The Draught of Living Death, sir?"

Snape nodded, jaw clenching slightly. "Five points to Slytherin." Then he rounded on the Gryffindors, and said, "Dursley! What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Dudley had started quite badly when his name had been called and stared, wide eyed, at the menacing professor. "I – I dunno."

"You will address me as 'Sir' or 'Professor' at all times, Dursley," Professor Snape sneered. "Now let's try again. Where would you look if I told you to get me a beozar?"

"Uh…a what?" Dudley said, clearly having no idea. "Sir!" he quickly added as Snape's eyes flashed.

Harry had to fight very hard to keep from grinning. He glanced at Blaise, who was sitting next to him, and noticed that his friend had no compunctions about this, and neither did Draco, or Pansy Parkinson, for that matter. She was seated next to Draco and snickering quietly with him, and smirked at Harry when she saw him looking. He allowed himself a small smirk in return before schooling his features to be neutral again and turned back to face the front.

Snape grilled Dudley with a few more questions that Harry was happy to say he knew the answers to. He would have to thank Marcus Flint. Dudley had become increasingly intimidated, until finally Snape seemed to grow tired of it and sneered, "Haven't even cracked the binding on those books, have you Dursley? For your information, there is no difference between monkshood and wolfsbane. They are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. A beozar can be found in a goat's stomach, and it will cure you of most poisons. Squonk tears are more commonly used in vanishing potions, and if you don't start showing more promise, you may be wishing for one by the end of term."

He stared around at the rest of the class, who were all watching him raptly, before snapping, "Well? Why aren't you all writing this down?"

There was a sudden scramble for quills and parchment, and Snape continued. "Today you will be attempting a simple potion to cure boils. The directions are on the board. You may begin."

Harry couldn't help but grin. The rest of his classes, aside from Transfiguration, had been spent taking notes and had all been rather boring. Professor Snape just dove right in.

Then he frowned, remembering his decision to keep Dudley's grades up. It looked as though it was going to be harder than he thought, especially if Professor Snape routinely questioned his students like this. He wouldn't buy Dudley having good homework scores if it was clear during class that Dudley had no idea what he was doing.

He'd figure something out. First, though, he needed to find out what was going on. And before he could do that, he had a potion to attempt.

After class, Harry had begged off chess in the common room, claiming he needed to go to the library. Blaise accepted this with a shrug, and in turn distracted Draco, badgering him to play instead and allowing Harry to make a clean escape.

When he got to the library, he made a beeline for Hogwarts, a History where they had hidden it between a wall and a bookshelfonly to find Hermione-the-Gryffindor already there with her nose buried in it.

"Excuse me," Harry said, and she looked up at him, startled.

"Hello," she quietly. "Did you want to use it?"

Harry grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, if you don't mind sharing."

She smiled back and offered him the seat next to hers. "You're a Slytherin you know," she stated matter-of-factly.

He blinked. "Er…and you're a Gryffindor?"

She shook her head. "You know our houses are rivals?"

"So?" he asked. "You haven't done anything to me but steal my book. And you're being nice enough about it."

In truth, the idea of House rivalry had only really come up a few times. He'd heard the upper years going on about Quidditch, which he gathered was a sport of some kind, and he knew they didn't like the Gryffindors because of that. He'd also heard Draco and Blaise talking scathingly about certain Gryffindors, and frankly, Harry could see their point. Especially when the Gryffindors were people like Dudley. But this girl hadn't done anything to prove herself worthy of the Gryffindor that Harry knew, so he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

She smiled at him again, showing off her oversized front teeth, and said, "Okay then." She pushed the book closer to him so he could read along with her, and they spent some time like that until Harry huffed in exasperation.

"Something wrong?" she asked, looking up from the book as though she'd forgotten he was there.

"There is nothing in here about what I need to know!" Harry said unhappily. "And here I was fighting with you over a useless book!"

Hermione did not appear happy that Harry was calling her book useless, and raised her eyebrow at him.

"Well, it is useful to know about all the houses," Harry said hastily. "And that you can't Apparate here…whatever that is. But that wasn't what I needed to know!"

Hermione nodded thoughtfully. "First of all, I read about Apparating. It's like…teleporting."

Harry's jaw dropped slightly. "We can do that?"

She grinned at him and pointed at the book. "Not here."

Harry shook his head and used one of Blaise's favorite words. "Wicked."

She nodded, then looked at him thoughtfully and said, "If you want to learn about something, you just have to find the right book. What do you want to know?"

Harry considered this for a moment, then answered honestly, "Well, for one, I'd like to know why everyone keeps staring at me all the time."

Hermione gawked at him.

"Yes, just like that," Harry said dryly. "But why?"

"You don't…but you have to know why!" she exclaimed. "I've read about you in…so many books! How could you not know?"

"Know what?" he asked weakly. He was in books?

"You're famous!" she said, the she jumped up from her seat suddenly and nearly ran over to one of the shelves. She stared at it for a moment before pulling no less than five books out and bringing them back to him.

Harry sifted through them dumbly. "I'm not in all these," he said disbelievingly as she grabbed one and began flipping through it. "Why would I be famous? I didn't do anything!"

"Oh, but Harry, you did!" she said earnestly, finding the page she was looking for and shoving it under his nose. "Read that!"

Harry looked down at the page with some curiosity and read:

The Dark Lord You-Know-Who (see previous chapter) brought dark times to the wizarding world. For years the wizarding population of Great Britain lived in fear and terror. His downfall was celebrated widely when, on October 31, 1981, the infant Harry Potter, now more commonly known as 'The-Boy-Who-Lived', defeated You-Know-Who. Little is known about how he was able to do this. He was found in the rubble of his home at Godric's Hollow, where he and his parents, Lily and James Potter, had been in hiding for some time before being betrayed to You-Know-Who by the spy, Sirius Black, who was incarcerated in Azkaban the very next day. Lily and James Potter were found dead, unable to survive the killing curse unlike their extraordinary son, and so the Boy-Who-Lived was sent to live at an unknown location, possibly with close relatives. Little has been heard from him since.

Harry stared at it in shock. "My parents were murdered," he said softly.

Hermione paused in searching the second book for him and gazed at him sympathetically.

"I…they told me my parents died in a car crash!" He remembered what Blaise had said earlier that day. You don't badmouth the Boy-Who-Lived. The Boy-Who-Lived. That was what Harry was supposed to be. He had lived and his parents hadn't. That was why they were all staring at him and whispering about him, and that was why everyone expected him to know things. And if they did, why had the Dursleys lied to him?

Harry snorted. That was a stupid question. Why would they have told him? The better question was: Why hadn't he found all this out sooner?

Hermione offered him the next book silently, and Harry continued reading about himself. Every book she put in front of him, he read, and he learned what the wizarding world thought about him. And when the library closed, he checked out several of the books, smuggled them back to his dorm, and read through the night.

Chapter Text

Harry woke late the next morning, thankful for weekends. He eyed the books stacked on his nightstand with slight irritation, then stuffed them all in the drawer and got dressed. Now that he knew what he was to the wizarding world, he had a better idea of where he stood.

What he'd found out was shocking, and had completely altered his perception of…well, his whole life. His parents had been young when they'd had him, barely out of Hogwarts (where they'd both been Gryffindors). His mother was muggleborn, known before her marriage as Lily Evans, and she had been good at Charms and Potions. His father was a pureblood and good at Transfiguration. They had been members of the Order of the Phoenix, an independent organization that fought alongside the Ministry against You-Know-Who.

When they had Harry, they immediately went into hiding, apparently afraid for the safety of their small family. For a year and a half, not a peep had been heard from them, and the war went on. But on Halloween of 1981, You-Know-Who (whose name Harry still didn't know, as none of the books had it actually written down) had somehow found them and cast the Killing Curse on Harry's parents, before trying and failing to cast the same curse on him. Somehow it had backfired, he had disappeared, and Harry was hailed as a hero, never mind the fact he was only a year old when it happened.

His parents had also had a best friend named Sirius Black, who had been blamed for their discovery. From what Harry had read in the books, another of their friends, Peter Pettigrew, had tracked him down before being blown to bits along with twelve muggles in a crowded street by an insane Black, who then went to Azkaban. He'd been there ever since.

Harry had read all this with some disbelief, unable to comprehend that his early years were filled with so much drama. He noted a few things he needed to find out about, he was particularly wondering what Azkaban was (He was thinking prison, but wasn't sure. It could have been a mental hospital). He also wanted to find out more about this You-Know-Who. And these were only the main things. He thought again of asking Draco or Blaise, but the sight of them, sitting in the common room with Pansy, Vince and Greg, laughing and bragging about their particular family's wealth and prestige, threw him off and he put that idea away as a last resort.

Instead, he found himself returning to the library, intending to devote himself to a day of research. He was hoping Hermione would be there. She had probably already done most of this and would be able to either tell him about it, or at least point him in the right direction. He wasn't nearly as good at this research thing as she was.

Unfortunately, this plan was cut short three corridors away from the library. Harry had been distracted by his new knowledge, and over a week of silence had made him slightly complacent. So he wasn't expecting it when he was suddenly shoved into a suit of armor and knocked to the floor.

Harry looked up, disoriented but not surprised as he heard Dudley's churlish laughter. "I don't know why they all think you're so special. I could beat you up with one hand tied behind my back."

And almost as if to prove it, he held one hand behind his back and used the other one to swipe at Harry, who was on his feet at this point and able to dodge.

"Go back to your common room, Dudley," Harry said, pulling out his wand and wishing he knew a spell. "Unless you were lonely. Did you miss me without any friends?"

Dudley scowled at him. "It's all your fault. You did something to them. All they do is stare at you all the time and ask me about you. You freak," he added, almost as an afterthought.

Harry kept his wand aimed at Dudley and remembered his plan. "Say, Dudders, are you having problems with your homework?"

Dudley scowled again, automatically it seemed, at the idea of homework. "They actually expect you to do it here," he grunted in confusion. Then his eyes rested on Harry and he advanced threateningly. "I've got a bunch of homework due." He raised his fist and said, "Do it for me and I'll leave you alone."

Harry smiled grimly. They'd made this deal before. "How much and when?" he asked.

Dudley didn't have his bag with him, so Harry told him to go get it and meet him in the library. When he got there, he saw Hermione at a desk by herself in the corner and made a beeline for her.

"I've got questions," he said. "D'you think you could help me?"

She looked up from her book and said, "What did you want to know?"

"Well, what's You-Know-Who's name?" he asked. "It wasn't in any of the books you found for me."

She nodded, looking frustrated. "I know, it's almost like they think it's bad luck to even write it. I can't find it anywhere."

Harry sighed in defeat. "I guess that'll be something to ask Draco and Blaise then."

She glanced at him again. "Your friends?"

Harry nodded, grinning slightly at the idea that he had friends. "Yeah. I really didn't want to ask them, you know, but if it's not here then I suppose I'll have to."

Hermione nodded and asked, "Anything else?"

Harry thought for a moment, then said, "Azkaban and Quidditch."

She smiled slightly shaking her head. "Complete opposites. Azkaban is the wizard prison. The guards are really creepy, I'll show you a picture later. And Quidditch is a sport, kind of like football, only nothing like it."

Harry nodded, then paused and shook his head. "Wait, what?"

"Well, there are four balls…hang on." She jumped up from her seat and disappeared into the shelves, returning a moment later with a well worn book entitled, Quidditch through the Ages.

They sat for a bit, Hermione lecturing about what she had learned while Harry skimmed the book, nodding and occasionally asking a few questions. Then, Hermione suddenly got very quiet and Harry looked up and around, wondering what had caused the change.

Dudley stood next to their table, holding his bag out and saying, "Most of it's due next week, I think."

Hermione looked at Harry, scandalized. "You aren't doing his homework for him?"

Harry grimaced. "Well, he's my cousin," he said feebly. He couldn't really explain his reasons to her, nor did he want to.

"Oh, but you can't! That's cheating!" She fixed Dudley with a stern glare. "How could you even ask him to do that? You'll be lucky if I don't report you, Dudley Dursley!"

Dudley cracked his knuckles threateningly. "If you report me, I'll -"

"Dudley," Harry said, standing suddenly. "Things aren't the same here as they are at our old school. If you even try it, I'll give you a tail."

Dudley snorted. "We haven't learned that in any of our classes."

Harry raised an eyebrow, surprised. "You actually pay attention?"

Dudley looked away, fat cheeks reddening. "I wanna learn magic, like the Great Humberto."

Hermione stood, eyeing Dudley thoughtfully. "You know he's fake, right?"

Dudley frowned and said, "But this is real, isn't it?"

Hermione nodded and said, "But if you actually want to know magic, having Harry do your homework for you isn't going to help."

"But I don't want to do it!" Dudley whined, making Harry grimace and wish he knew a spell to shut his cousin up. "It's hard and boring! I want to do real magic!"

"Well you won't be able to unless you know all this stuff first. I'll," she hesitated, then caught Harry's eye for a moment before offering, "I'll tutor you if you want."

Dudley snorted and said, "But you're a loser!"

Harry and Hermione both just looked at him for a moment, before he remembered his own lack of friends. "Oh…well okay then."

"Alright," Hermione said briskly, smiling at Harry as he gave her a look of pure gratitude, "First things first, you're going to get started on that homework."

"Hey, Draco?"

Harry, Blaise and Draco were sitting in the common room in front of the fire that night. Theo, Vince and Greg had already gone to bed, and Harry and Draco were waiting for Blaise to finish up a last round of exploding snap with Pansy.

"What?"

"Er, you know how I'm the Boy-Who-Lived?" he asked, hoping he wasn't making an arse of himself.

Draco grinned. "Yeah, and it's good to hear you actually acknowledge it. I wasn't sure if you really knew, from the way you were acting."

Harry fought a blush furiously, mentally smacking himself, and soldiered on. "Well, you know that 'You-Know-Who' guy that I supposedly defeated?"

Draco's eyes narrowed slightly. "You mean the Dark Lord?"

Harry nodded, relived at this slightly less ridiculous title. "D'you know what his actual name was? No one will tell me." And of course, what he meant by that was that none of the authors of the books he'd read would write it down, and Hermione didn't know. But Draco didn't have to hear about all that.

"People don't like saying his name, Harry," Draco said carefully. Harry rolled his eyes. He'd figured that one out on his own already, thanks.

"Could you just say it once?" Harry asked, filled with curiosity. "I'd never ask again, I just kind of wanted to know the name of this person I supposedly defeated."

Draco shook his head. "He wasn't just a person, though. He was really powerful and he was going to give the wizarding world back to the purebloods."

Harry really didn't care about all the details. He just wanted a name. "But why are you so afraid to say it, Draco? He's not even around anymore!"

"I'm not afraid!" Draco scowled. Then he lowered his voice and glanced around furtively, before leaning in toward Harry and muttering, "Voldemort."

Harry stared at him blankly for a moment. "Pardon?" he asked.

Draco frowned at him. "You heard me," he said. "I'm not saying it again."

"Then that was actually the name?" Harry asked in all seriousness. "I thought you coughed in the middle of it or something. Sorry. Voldemort, okay."

Draco could only stare at him, having flinched a bit when Harry repeated it. "You're not supposed to say it, you prat. Why do you think I didn't want to?"

Harry privately thought Draco didn't want to say it for the same reason that Harry had spent his first night in the Slytherin dorms thinking of his friend as Draco Malfoy, the Italicized One, but once again, he kept this to himself.

"Sorry," Harry said absently. "I won't do it again."

"Sure," Draco said, and then Blaise interrupted them, crowing with delight as Pansy made her way up the stairs, covered in SnapSap, smelling like a dead rodent and grumbling darkly at them. Blaise waved cheerfully at her, and she made a very unladylike gesture at him that had all three of them laughing as they went off to bed.

"Voldemort," Harry said proudly.

He and Hermione were in the library, which was almost empty aside from them, what with it being Sunday and all. Harry had come here, certain that he would find her, and had been proven right when he found her at what was quickly becoming her 'usual' spot. The only surprise so far was that Dudley was there too.

Hermione had him set up across from her, working on an essay for Transfiguration. He didn't look happy.

"Hermione," he whined, throwing his quill down in exasperation. "I don't get it!"

She tugged on his parchment and examined it. "That's because you can't do that. It's impossible. Can you tell me why?"

Dudley stared at her for a moment, then looked down at the book and his parchment. "The…bits aren't right?"

Hermione nodded. "The elements aren't compatible. You have to change one of them before you can combine them like you're trying to. Now," she said, turning to Harry and raising her eyebrow. "What was that you just said?"

"Voldemort," Harry repeated, feeling uncommonly proud of himself. "That's You-Know-Who's real name."

"Voldemort," Hermione mused. "That doesn't sound like a real name at all. I mean, who would name their child Voldemort?"

"Maybe that's why he became a Dark Lord?" Harry quipped. When Hermione fixed him with a 'that's not funny' look, he stopped grinning and said, "Sorry, fine, I won't joke about it. But if you don't think that's his real name, then what is it?"

"How would I know?" Hermione asked with a shake of her head. "You had to get your friends to tell you his name, I couldn't even do that." She did not seem happy with this idea. Harry thought back to potions class, and how the other students had been ignoring Hermione, and began to wonder if Dudley wasn't the only pariah in Gryffindor.

Harry suppressed this train of thought as Hermione began going on about various ways they might be able to get this information. They spent an hour or so discussing it, occasionally helping Dudley, who only seemed to understand when someone else walked him through the problem. Harry was starting to feel hungry, though, so after a while he said goodbye and left the library.

Harry nearly shot out of his skin when Draco appeared suddenly at the door and pulled him down the hall.

"Harry," he hissed, "What are you doing hanging out with them? They're Gryffindors and mudbloods!"

Harry had no idea what that last word meant, and he said so.

"It means…well it means they're muggleborn! They've got dirty blood!"

Harry frowned at this; the way Draco had said it made it sound like an insult. "My mother was a muggleborn! And Dudley's my cousin!"

"You don't like him anyway!" Draco said, brushing aside Harry's parentage. "You said he was a fat pig! And who was that girl?"

"Hermione?" Harry asked. "She's really smart, she's tutoring Dudley for me so I don't have to do his homework."

Draco frowned, distracted. "Why would you do his homework?"

Harry sighed. "Uncle Vernon wouldn't like it if I did well and Dudley failed, so to keep the peace, Dudley needs to do well. Hermione's helping with that."

Draco frowned, trying to understand this. Eventually he shrugged and said, "Harry, just choose your friends wisely, okay?"

Harry grinned. "I chose you and Blaise and the rest of the Slytherins, didn't I?"

Draco bestowed a smile on him. "You did, didn't you? What was I thinking? You have great taste!" They both laughed, then Draco glanced at Harry out of the corner of his eye. "Just don't make me hang out with them, okay?"

Harry mock-sighed and promised, "I'd never dream of it, Draco. Now I was going to lunch before you showed up, so…" he trailed off meaningfully. Draco rolled his eyes at Harry and pulled him off down the corridor to the Great Hall.

Classes flew by, until one day, Blaise found a sign on the notice board announcing that the first years would be having flying lessons. Draco and Blaise both moaned over the fact that they had it with the Gryffindors, but it seemed to Harry that this was more out of obligation than anything; they were too excited about flying to really care.

As the first lesson neared, Draco began regaling them all with stories about all the times he'd gone flying. Harry was highly amused to note that most of these ended with him narrowly escaping muggles in helicopters. He, Blaise and Pansy listened to these stories mostly for the entertainment value, until Blaise finally broke and began telling his own outlandish flying tales. Harry and Pansy shared quite a few laughs over some of the more ridiculous stories, and Pansy warned Harry that she would have to kill him if he joined in.

"You're the only sane one left, Harry," she'd said one day on the way to Transfiguration, when even Theo had joined in on the fun and told them all a long, twisty tale involving a muggle telephone booth, a magic carpet, and several hippogriff. "Of all the first years, in all the houses, you and I are the only sane ones left. Please don't leave me, I couldn't bear it. I'd become homicidal and then you'd become the Boy-Who-Was-Pushed-Off-The-Astronomy-Tower."

Harry had laughed and told her he'd never flown before anyway, so if he was to start telling stories about it, he'd be lying through his teeth.

"And they're not?" Pansy asked, nodding at a red-headed Gryffindor boy who was going on at length about nearly hitting a hang glider on his brother's broom.

Harry just shrugged and laughed again, and Pansy forced Draco and Blaise to go away and let her partner with Harry that lesson.

"Hermione, please, we both already read the book!" Harry said, trying to fend off his overenthusiastic friend. "You were there when I read it, remember? You've told us this already!"

Hermione, Harry and Dudley were sitting together in the library, and Hermione had foregone homework again in favor of reading flying tips out of Quidditch Through the Ages to them for the twentieth time. Harry could practically recite it with her by now.

"But Harry, Dudley might not know, and I'm quite nervous about all this flying business," Hermione said anxiously.

"You've read them to him too, you know," Harry reasoned. "And I'm sure you'll be fine, Hermione. You always worry, and you're always fine afterward."

Hermione looked the tiniest bit reassured. Then Dudley spoke up. "I don't think I can do it."

"What, fly?" Hermione asked, turning to him and preparing to start reciting her tips again.

Harry personally was very curious if the broom would actually be able to lift Dudley's weight off the ground, and it was in part for this reason that he was happy that Gryffindor and Slytherin were taking the class together.

And then Hermione began her recitation again, with Dudley paying close, almost frantic attention, and Harry said goodbye, reflecting that Pansy was exactly right and they were the only two left.

Chapter Text

The morning of the first year Gryffindor and Slytherin flying lessons dawned bright and brisk. Harry and Pansy had not been able to fend off Draco and Blaise when the two boys realized Harry had never flown before.

They sat on either side of him, giving him one tip after another, as Pansy sat across from them and attempted to look sympathetic. It wasn't working very well, Harry noted as she utterly failed to hide her snickers behind a muffin as Blaise attempted to show Harry how to properly grip a broom, using a sausage as an example.

"D'you get it, Harry?" Blaise was saying as he tried to force Harry to hold the sausage. "Here, give it a try."

Pansy hid her face in her hands and giggled helplessly.

"It's alright, Blaise, I think I've got it down," Harry said, pushing the sausage away carefully. Blaise shrugged and took a bite out of it instead.

"Are you sure?" Draco asked from his other side. "Do you remember what I told you about how to go faster and slower?"

"Yes, Draco," Harry answered, shooting a warning glare at Pansy, who was waiting eagerly for him to say it. "I remember. It's in the hips." Pansy snickered uncontrollably, and Harry glared at her again. "I'm sure the teacher will tell us all of this, you know."

"But you should know it all beforehand, Harry. You don't want to look like you don't know what you're doing," Blaise said reasonably, ignoring Pansy's hopeful offer of more sausage.

Harry grinned and said, "But I don't know what I'm doing."

"You will if we tell you." Draco informed him. "And besides, you shouldn't let other people know when you have a disadvantage." He turned up his nose and said, "It's not very Slytherin."

Harry figured, what with the way he'd not asked them about the whole 'Boy-Who-Lived' thing, that he was already acting Slytherin enough, but once again, they didn't need to know that.

"Alright, fine," Harry said, taking a bite of his eggs. "But lets have a break now and eat. If you try to tell me any more, I don't think I could bear it."

Pansy laughed and said, "Astronomy Tower!"

"Exactly," Harry grinned, saluting her with his goblet. Blaise and Draco looked between the two of them, confused.

"You had to be there," Harry explained, and they nodded and went back to their food, still discussing the lessons.

"Alright, everyone stand by a broom, go on then."

Harry and his friends quickly picked the best brooms, and Harry grinned at Hermione, who stood across from him. She looked as though she quite liked the idea of keeping her feet on solid ground. Dudley stood next to her, and appeared to be having similar thoughts.

In fact, Harry noted at least one or two other Gryffindors that didn't look at all eager to be standing next to a broom today.

"I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave," Blaise whispered, clearly having noticed the same thing. "I mean, look at Longbottom."

He pointed discreetly at a round faced boy a few brooms down from Hermione, who looked to be quaking in his shoes. Harry cast his mind back and recalled that this was the boy who'd melted his cauldron on the first day.

"Pitiful," Draco whispered from Blaise's other side. Blaise nodded in agreement and Harry shrugged.

"Now, stick your hand out above your broom and say, 'up!'"

"Up!" Harry and everyone else in the class yelled. Harry was pleased when his broom jumped immediately into his hand. Across from him, Hermione's broom had given a sort of lazy shudder and rolled over. Dudley's broom hadn't moved.

"Here, Harry, remember what I showed you at breakfast?" Blaise asked, demonstrating his grip on the broom. Harry grinned at the sausage-related memory and mimicked his grip.

"Up!" Hermione demanded, and finally her broom shot up into her grasp, nearly knocking her off her feet. Dudley had given up long ago and had simply reached down and picked it up.

Madam Hooch, the flying instructor, was now walking around, correcting people's grips. When she reached Draco, she adjusted his hands and said, "No, hold your hands a bit closer together."

"I've been doing it like this just fine for years," Draco informed her in what Harry had come to think of as his 'snooty pureblood' voice, purposely moving his hands back.

"Well then you've been doing it wrong for years, lad." Madam Hooch recorrected his grip once more and moved on.

Draco fumed at her departing back and gripped his broom his way again, hard enough to make the thing start twitching in his grasp. "I do it just fine, you old hag," he muttered darkly as Blaise and Harry nodded loyally. Vince and Greg grunted in agreement as well, and Pansy just snickered quietly.

Then Hooch was telling them to take off at her whistle, rise a few feet above the ground, land again, and so on.

"Three, two, one…"

Longbottom, who apparently had hearing problems, took off before the whistle even touched the teacher's lips. He rose rapidly with a shout of alarm, almost thirty feet in the air, before his broom seemingly bucked him off and he fell to the ground with a thud.

Harry winced. That had to have hurt.

Madam Hooch rushed forward, leaning over the boy before helping him up and setting off toward the castle. As she led him away, she called over her shoulder, "All of your feet are to stay firmly on the ground. If I find out that any of you was riding a broom, you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say Quidditch!"

Draco waited until she was out of sight before mounting his broom. Blaise copied him and said, "Harry, come on! We'll show you a few moves before she gets back."

Harry was torn. "But we'll be in trouble. You know the Gryffindors will tell on us."

Draco considered this, then yelled, "Hey, Weasley!"

A red headed boy ambled over and gave him a look. "What do you want?"

Draco smirked at him and examined his fingernails. "Bet you can't do a Sloth Grip Roll."

Weasley seemed incensed. "Of course I can!"

"Bet you I can do it better than you, then."

Weasley turned slightly red and mounted his broom as well. "We'll see about that!"

"Ron, no!" Hermione said, marching over when she saw Ron about to take off. "You'll get in trouble!"

He gave her a condescending sort of look before turning back to Draco. "You don't tell, we don't tell."

Draco nodded curtly, and they both took off into the air.

Blaise nudged Harry with a smirk. "What was that about the Gryffindors?"

Harry still felt a little torn, and Hermione wasn't helping.

"Harry, you'll be in terrible trouble," she said sternly.

Blaise raised an eyebrow at Harry, who looked between the two. "Just a few seconds, Hermione?" he asked. "I promise I won't go very high."

Hermione kept her stern face for a few more moments, but Harry's pleading doe eyes soon won her over. She sighed and said, "I saw nothing."

"Of course you didn't," Pansy said, pulling her away from the boys. "We were discussing Charms. All the way over here. We couldn't possibly have noticed a thing."

She pulled a slightly bemused Hermione toward the group that had followed Hooch toward the castle. They were milling about a few meters away from the doors, waiting for her to come back.

"Harry, come on!" Draco yelled from the sky. Blaise had already taken off too. Harry sighed and mounted the broom like they'd shown him before pushing off and soaring into the sky.

It was the most amazing thing ever. Blaise whooped and Weasley nearly fell off his broom as Harry came to an abrupt halt smack between him and Draco.

"This is great!" Harry yelled enthusiastically. Draco grinned at him.

"Told you!"

"Harry!" Blaise yelled, flying closer. "Are you sure you've never been on a broom before?"

"Never!" Harry shouted back, racing through the sky around them with ease. "Must be all that brilliant advice you two gave me!"

"Look!" Draco called, pointing at something shiny on the ground. "What d'you think that is?"

Harry, still caught up in the heady rush that he'd felt upon takeoff, immediately dove toward it amidst a chorus of surprised shouts from his two friends and Weasley.

"Harry, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Blaise hollered after him, but Harry was too focused on the shiny object to care. He neared the ground and pulled up hard on his broom, skimming the grass with his toes, before bending down and snatching it up from the grass. He landed and found that Draco, Blaise and Weasley were flying toward him, so he waited patiently, examining his prize. It was a small glass ball.

When they landed, he held it up and asked, "What d'you think it is?"

All three boys were staring at him, silent. Weasley's mouth was hanging open.

Harry was feeling a bit uncomfortable. "What?" he asked.

"You lied to us, didn't you?" Blaise asked, sounding hurt.

"Lied to you?" Harry repeated, confused. Why did Blaise think he'd lied to them?

"You said you've never flown before!" Draco said accusingly.

"Well I haven't!" Harry was slightly baffled. "That was the first time I'd ever been on a broom!"

Weasley snorted, and Blaise glared at the intruding Gryffindor disdainfully. He opened his mouth to say something scathing, only to snap it shut again and pale slightly. Before Harry could turn around to see what had shocked his friend so, a voice spoke behind him.

"That was quite the performance, Mr. Potter."

Harry froze. It was Professor Snape. He turned around to face the professor with a sinking feeling in his chest. He was going to be expelled and have to go back to the Dursleys and Dudley would come home every summer and taunt him and probably use magic on him and turn him into a frog and…

"Mr. Potter, have you heard a word I've said?"

Harry started; he'd been so caught up in imagining his dismal future that he hadn't even heard the professor speak.

"I'm sorry sir," he stuttered, looking up at the professor unhappily. Professor Snape had a slightly irritated, yet calculating look on his face.

"I asked you if that was your first time on a broom."

Harry nodded dumbly, aware of Draco and Blaise's worried presence at his back, along with that Gryffindor that had been with them.

"Follow me, Mr. Potter. I will deal with you three later."

As Professor Snape turned on his heel and swept away, Harry turned back to his friends and received two worried, apologetic looks in reply. He waved helplessly at them and noted that Weasley looked rather green at the prospect of being 'dealt with' later.

Professor Snape led him into the school, walking rapidly. Harry had to nearly run to keep up with him.

"You will have detention for a week," Snape said suddenly. Harry started, thoughts of expulsion exploding like confetti.

"I…I'm not being expelled, sir?" Harry asked hopefully.

Snape snorted. "It wouldn't be very Slytherin of me to expel you at this point."

Harry blinked, wondering how on earth Snape had gotten that idea into his head. Not that Harry was complaining, of course.

"You are to understand that what you did was a direct violation of rules, Potter," Snape said, leading him down into the dungeons. Harry nodded quickly, before realizing Snape couldn't see him.

"Yes, sir."

"You are in no way above the rules, is that understood? You are just another student at this school, and you will be treated as such. If I find that you are getting a big head, I may rethink your punishment."

"Yes, sir." Harry couldn't imagine ever getting a big head. You had to be good at something to be arrogant about it.

"Having said that," Professor Snape turned to face him suddenly, just outside the entrance to the Slytherin common room. "You will now be playing as a reserve on the Slytherin Quidditch team. Incitatus."

The wall slid open and Snape led him inside, saying, "Flint!"

Marcus Flint rose from the table he'd been sitting at and strode over.

"Yes sir?" he asked, eyeing Harry curiously. Harry kept eye contact. He knew him well enough, and he was going to be one of his reserve players. He wanted to see Marcus' face when he found out.

"Potter is to be on the reserve team. Test him out for the different spots. Seeker especially."

Marcus looked at him again, suddenly much more interested in the little first year. "Yes sir. Next practice?"

"Why don't I write you a pass for the field tonight?" Snape suggested with a smirk.

Marcus grinned and said, "That would be perfect, sir."

Professor Snape pulled out a quill and parchment and scribbled something down, rolling it up and sealing it before handing it to Marcus.

"Enjoy," he said shortly, before disappearing.

Marcus turned his attention back to Harry, who was remembering precisely what a Seeker was. He sized Harry up, walking in a circle around him, before nodding and saying, "Snape's right, you're a Seeker. Let's hope you live up to his expectations."

"Expectations?" Harry asked curiously. Marcus nodded.

"Snape must think you're really good if he put you on reserve in first year," Marcus explained, leading Harry back to the table he'd been sitting at. "Especially since it's you."

Now Harry was bewildered. "What does me being me have to do with it?" he asked.

"Well, you're the Boy-Who-Lived and all," Marcus said absently, pulling out some kind of roster and adding Harry's name to it. "Everyone else favors you because of it. He wouldn't want to look like a starstruck git."

"Oh, right." Harry had nearly forgotten about that.

"So clearly, we're having practice tonight. You'll use one of the extra Slytherin brooms. The school brooms are rubbish. I've got to go tell the rest of the team. Welcome aboard."

And with that, Marcus disappeared through the common room entrance.

Harry sank down into one of the chairs by the fire and tried to calm down. He'd thought he was going to be expelled, and instead he was on the Quidditch team. Reserve, yes, but still.

Wow.

Draco and Blaise tore into the common room at that point, spotting him by the fire and rushing over.

"Harry, are you alright?" Blaise asked worriedly. Draco stood behind him, awaiting Harry's answer anxiously. "Did Professor Snape really expel you?"

Harry looked up at them, standing by his chair, out of their minds with worry. He smiled.

"No, I'm not expelled."

Draco practically fell into his chair with relief. "Thank god," he sighed. "How did he punish you then?"

"I've got a week of detentions," Harry said slowly, watching them carefully.

Blaise winced. "Tough," he said sympathetically.

"Yeah," Draco agreed. "Wanna play chess?"

"Sure," Harry said, suppressing a grin. "But I can only hang around with you guys until seven."

"Detention?" Draco asked, pulling a chess set out of the side table.

"Nah, just Quidditch practice."

Draco dropped the chess set.

"What?"

"What are you talking about?"

Harry finally allowed himself to grin. "I've got a week of detention, and I'm a reserve on the Quidditch team. Seeker, I think."

Blaise and Draco stared at him in awe.

"You're kidding!" Blaise accused, grinning like a mad man.

"Nope, not kidding. We've got practice tonight. I don't know what I'll be doing, but you guys can come if you want."

"This is too bloody awesome," Blaise said with a whoop. "You're on the Quidditch team! Brilliant!"

Draco laughed and punched Harry on the arm. "And you just let us sit there, thinking you'd gotten in huge trouble! Harry, you're such a prat!"

Harry laughed with him, and helped Draco pick up all the chess pieces, who were making it quite clear that they hadn't appreciated being dropped at all.

Harry, Draco, and Blaise spent the remaining time until Harry's practice alternating between losing at chess (Harry) and casually mentioning Harry's new position on the team when passing Slytherins could hear them (Draco and Blaise). Harry couldn't stop smiling, and Draco and Blaise grinned whenever they looked at him. Harry could already tell he was going to love Quidditch.

Chapter Text

Harry was on his hands and knees in the Entrance Hall, scrubbing the floor while Filch stood over him and grumbled. He didn't know why he wasn't pickling slugs like Draco had suggested Snape might make him. He had been told instead that all of his detentions would be served with Filch, and he didn't think he had much of a right to complain, especially after being put on the Quidditch team instead of being expelled like he'd expected.

And it wasn't like he was a stranger to this sort of work. In fact, it was eerily reminiscent of his life at the Dursleys, especially because of Dudley, who had found out about his detentions before they even started, and usually found some excuse to get muddy and stomp around in the finished areas and ruin all of Harry's hard work. It was almost creepily nostalgic.

"Bloody maggots," Filch muttered, watching as Harry scrubbed. "Filthy, the lot of you, stomping around like you owned the place, no respect, none at all."

Harry's sense of deja vu grew as he was forcibly reminded of Aunt Petunia's constant complaints about him.

"Mud on the floor, frog's brains on the ceilings...serves you brats right to have to clean up after yourselves every once in a while...Merlin knows I haven't the time..."

Harry paused. Filch had given him an idea.

"Mr. Filch, sir?" Harry asked, pausing in his cleaning to turn and address the old caretaker. Filch glared at him, looking rather appalled at being addressed in the middle of a rant. Harry continued before Filch decided to threaten him with the racks like he had during Harry's first detention. "I was wondering...you sounded like you'd appreciate some help outside of detentions, and I kind of need some money to...pay for going here..."

Filch's dusty old eyebrows went up in surprised bewilderment. Harry rushed to explain his proposition before he was rejected outright.

"I just thought that maybe you could give me a job, you know, helping you?" Harry asked tentatively. "I'm good at cleaning and general upkeep and stuff, I promise it'd be worth it, sir."

Filch stared down at him in consternation for several minutes, and Harry began to fidget, certain he was about to be threatened with thumbscrews and told to get back to work.

"You say you need the money?" Filch asked, his face a picture of confusion. Harry nodded. Filch considered him for a few more seconds, then shrugged and said, "Not my business. You want t'earn your keep, who am I to stop you?"

Harry grinned. "So you'll take me on, then?"

"I'll give you a trial period during your last three detentions," he said gruffly. "If you pass scruff, we'll talk about you gettin' a job."

"Thank you so much, Mr. Filch," Harry said earnestly. "You won't regret this, I promise."

And with that, Harry returned to his scrubbing with renewed vigour and a certain peace of mind that he hadn't had since he'd learned he would have to pay for school on his own. He could make this work. He really could.

Harry and Filch had a decent work schedule set up within the next week. Harry worked from seven to nine on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and from two to five on weekends. He even got exceptions for days when he had Quidditch, and Filch said (in a strange pique of geniality that Harry thought might have come from having a willing worker and a future with more leisure time) that he'd deal with any detentions Harry might (inevitably) get by taking it on himself and simply not paying Harry that night. Harry did the math and figured out that, at the three galleons an hour they'd agreed upon, he'd be making about 1,632 galleons a year, which was around 8,160 pounds, which he thought should definitely satisfy his uncle, possibly even with some left over.

If not, he could always get a summer job.

Harry was plodding tiredly back to the Slytherin dorms after work. He'd just finished cleaning the third floor and he was exhausted. He'd had an early Quidditch practice that day, and he still had two essays to write for Potions and Transfiguration.

Most nights weren't this bad. It was only very rarely that Harry had both work and Quidditch practice on the same night, and normally he was able to finish his homework before Quidditch with Hermione's help, as she was always willing to lend him a hand.

Unfortunately, she'd had her hands full with Harry's cousin. Dudley just didn't understand the Transfiguration essay, no matter how hard Hermione tried to explain it to him. He'd even resorted to his old tactic of bullying Harry into giving him the answers, when Hermione wasn't looking. Unluckily for him, Blaise was with Harry at the time, and now Dudley had the problem of a Jelly-Legs jinx to add to his confusion, and once Hermione found out why he had been jinxed, she refused to help him reverse it.

"He got himself into this mess by being a bullying prat," she'd said. "He can get himself out of it."

Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes, delegating essays and bullying prats to the back of his mind while he tried to think up a suitable excuse for his absence. He hadn't told any of his friends about his job. He knew Draco and Blaise would scoff and telling Hermione meant telling Dudley, and as much as it would be a good thing for Uncle Vernon to have news that Harry was earning the money, Harry also knew this meant that the rest of the school would know as well. He wasn't keen on being looked down upon by the rest of Slytherin, so here he was, thinking up an alibi.

He couldn't very well tell them he'd been with Hermione (an excuse that had worked before), because if he had, he wouldn't have any essays to write. He couldn't say Quidditch had run long (an excuse that had never worked) because they would have to hear about it from the other team members to believe that. He'd used the detention excuse far too often for Flint's peace of mind, and his captain had already pulled him aside and told him he'd have to shape up if he wanted to be on the starting team next year.

What Harry needed was another friend, one that wouldn't mind Harry using them as an alibi. Harry had a feeling that, however well he and Filch got along these days, his friends probably wouldn't be very happy to hear Harry claim to have spent his missing hours having tea or something equally inane in Filch's office. Frankly, they wouldn't believe him, and even if they did, well, it was Filch! They wouldn't be happy anyways.

What Harry needed, then, was a believable friend, someone outside of Slytherin, who could be trusted to not ask questions and be a suitable alibi for when Harry was working. He decided to keep an eye out for someone like that, possibly a Gryffindor, as he already had ties to them. Maybe a Ravenclaw. He shuddered as he imagined the look on Draco's face at the idea of Harry having a Hufflepuff friend, then shrugged it off. If the right person happened to be in Hufflepuff, it would just ensure that Draco and Blaise didn't want to tag along when Harry went to 'hang out with his new friend.' He knew they might not be appreciative, but they had already proven that they wouldn't stop being friends with him for something like this.

Nor would they stop being his friend because he was poor, Harry knew. But they would look down on him, maybe even pity him, and he didn't want friends who pitied him.

"Hey, Anthony Goldstein, right?"

"Yes, I am Anthony," He glanced up from his book for a second and nodded. "To whom, may I ask, am I speaking?"

Harry smiled a bit and said, "My name is Harry Potter."

Anthony actually set his book down this time. "Hello. And what brings you to my little corner of the library, Harry Potter?"

Harry shifted slightly. "Call me Harry. I see you in here all the time, and you seemed nice enough, so I thought I'd say hello."

"Ah! I understand. Hello, Harry. How are you on this lovely autumn afternoon?"

"Er, fine, thanks. How are you?"

"I'm doing quite well, actually."

"Well, uhm, that's great."

Harry scratched his arm and watched as Anthony went back to his book.

"So, er, can I sit down?" Harry asked uncertainly.

Anthony started slightly, as though he'd forgotten Harry was there, and gave him a small smile. "Of course! Sit, sit, please."

Anthony nodded at Harry when he sat, and then went back to his book.

"Erm, Anthony?" Harry asked. Anthony sighed regretfully, marked his place, and closed the book.

"You're one of those talkative types, aren't you?" he asked, staring sadly at his book.

Harry's eyebrows went up. He wasn't, not really.

Anthony saw his look and immediately apologized. "I'm sorry, Harry. You seem like quite an interesting person, and I'm quite positive I'd like to pick your brain later, but this is a fascinating book."

Harry nodded in comprehension. He'd known when he approached Anthony that he was a Hermione-type, albeit a bit more absent minded. It was exactly the reason he'd approached him.

"Sorry. I guess you'd like to get back to it then?" Anthony nodded gratefully. "Well then I'll make it short. Do you want to be friends?"

"Friends?" Anthony asked, slightly bemused. "Hmmm...I suppose. What kind of things would we have to do?"

"Well," Harry said. "I suppose we could study together sometimes. I promise I'll be quiet. You won't even notice I'm there."

Anthony nodded, and opened his book again. "Okay. I can do that. I'm sure there are also a few Slytherin reasons you have for approaching me, which I'll be hearing about later. As long as you don't hurt any of my books."

Harry blinked, then reminded himself that this was a Ravenclaw he was speaking to, not an idiot. "Right then, erm...bye!"

Anthony waved him off absently, and Harry grinned as he walked away.

"What was that all about?" Hermione asked him as he returned to her table. Dudley appeared to be having some kind of fit across the table; his hands were covering his mouth and he was shaking wildly.

"Made a new friend," Harry said happily. "What's with Dudley?"

"He understands Charms," Hermione said fondly. "Some of it, anyway."

Harry nodded in understanding. He thought he could faintly hear Dudley's joyful sniggers through his fat hands. "Congratulations, Dudley," he said proudly.

Dudley took his hands away from his mouth and picked up his wand. "Watch, Harry!"

He swished and flicked, enunciating clearly. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The book on the table in front of him hovered a few feet in the air.

Harry smiled uncertainly. "That's great, Dudley..." he glanced at Hermione and whispered, "Didn't we learn that last month?"

Hermione smiled. "He's known how to do it since then, too, haven't you Dudley?" Dudley nodded proudly and made the book go higher. "It's just the one he's best at. Show him something else, Dudley. Show him the one I taught you yesterday."

Dudley looked a little uncertain, but let the tome drop and nodded. Hermione pulled out a small book with a little lock on it.

"Hermione, do you have a diary?" Harry asked in amusement. The book was pink and had flowers all over the cover.

Hermione sniffed. "Don't be ridiculous, Harry. This is Lavender's."

Harry's jaw dropped as Dudley said, "Alohomora!" and the lock clicked open. Dudley looked up for Harry's reaction and saw the shocked look on his face. He swelled with pride. "Pretty brilliant, eh?" he asked happily.

Harry nodded, looking at Hermione accusingly. She only reddened a little bit. "It's not like I'm reading it," she said defensively.

Harry shook his head and grinned. "Some noble Gryffindor you are, Hermione."

"It must be your terrible Slytherin influence that's turned me," Hermione replied dryly, as Dudley locked the book and did the spell again.

They laughed and applauded Dudley when he looked up to see what was so funny.

"Where were you, Harry?" Draco asked as Harry stepped into the common room after work. "You missed Daphne and Pansy's huge fight!"

Harry frowned and answered, "Anthony and I were hanging out. What happened?"

"Pansy called Daphne a dirty wench because Daphne broke some bottle of perfume or something." Blaise answered with a grin. "All I really saw was the yelling and the hexing. It was pretty wicked."

"Wow," Harry responded, dropping down onto the couch. "Sounds it."

"Yeah, Daphne's in the hospital wing now. Pansy's spell went wrong and they're trying to figure out what she did."

"Wow," Harry repeated monotonously. "This is almost as interesting as Halloween." Someone had let a troll in at Halloween, and they'd all been ushered back to their dormitories after a professor fainted in the Great Hall over it.

"Harry, are you being sarcastic?" Draco asked suspiciously.

"No, just tired," Harry said with his eyes closed. He'd cleaned half the fifth floor tonight. "Anthony wanted to try something out he found in one of his books."

"That boy is so strange," Draco told him disapprovingly. "Why do you hang out with him?"

"He's actually kind of interesting when you can get him to talk normally," Harry said truthfully. He'd talked to Anthony quite a lot since they'd become 'friends', and Anthony really was quite interesting. He also knew that Harry had to have his 'Slytherin webs', as he called Harry's secret job, and as such, didn't bother trying to poke his nose in and backed Harry up when he said they'd been hanging out.

"You smell like lemons," Blaise said, wrinkling his nose. Harry winced slightly. That would be Mrs. Skowers Lemony Fresh Magical Mess Remover. Harry inwardly cursed Blaise and his keen sense of smell, while outwardly shrugging.

"It was a strange spell he wanted to try out," Harry explained. "It required lemons."

The portrait over the fireplace snorted at him. Blaise looked for a moment as though he was going to question Harry further, but Draco cut in. "Like I said, Harry. He's weird. I mean, lemons? Really!"

"He's not that bad, Draco," Harry said firmly. "And I promise you don't have to hang out with him. Now," he continued, standing up. "I'm going to take a shower. I don't fancy smelling like lemons all day tomorrow."

Draco and Blaise waved him off, leaning their heads together to whisper about something. Harry waved to Vince and Greg as he passed, and they nodded in return, busy with their card game.

"Go Fish! …wait, never mind."

'Strange spell requiring lemons,' Harry thought incredulously to himself as he made his way to the showers. 'I am such an idiot. I cannot believe they bought that.'

Harry sat with Hermione and Dudley in the library, trying to work on a Defense essay. 'Trying' being the key word. It just wasn't working. Eventually he gave up and threw his quill down in exasperation.

"What's wrong Harry?" Hermione asked, looking up from her book. "Normally it's Dudley who gives up first."

"I dunno," Harry said irritably. "I just really don't like Defense."

Hermione put her book down and looked at him curiously. "Why not?"

"I always get a headache in that class!" Harry complained. "And Quirrel stutters so much that even if I felt fine, I'd have trouble."

Hermione frowned at him. "Do you get headaches often?" she asked in concern.

"Seems like it's only during Defense," Harry answered. "And then when class is over, I have to borrow Blaise's notes if I want to know what went on."

"Maybe you should see Madam Pomfrey," Hermione told him. "Tell her what you told me. Maybe she can make it better."

Harry nodded. "In the meantime, can you help me with this?"

Hermione nodded and he handed her his essay so that she could check over what little he'd done so far.

"Here's your first problem..."

Chapter Text

Filch had told Harry to clean part of the third floor that night, and had spent most of the time he was supposed to be telling Harry what to clean complaining about children. Harry couldn't help but be slightly amused, to be honest. What had Filch expected, working at a school?

Harry had worked his way down the hall and had nearly finished, when looked up and saw the door to the forbidden part of the third floor. He stared at it curiously for a moment, and took his rag and cleaned the doorknob thoughtfully.

Why was it forbidden? What could possibly take up an entire corridor? Why would it be in the school in the first place, if it was so dangerous that Dumbledore felt the need to forbid everyone from going near it? Harry had heard some of the upper years talking about certain classes having to be relocated because of the new rule. He wondered what could be so important that the teachers would be willing to move around, just to accommodate it. Harry wiped down the wood panelling on the door, and he could feel his curiosity beginning to eat at him.

What if he took a peek? Just a little one. This was a school, it couldn't be anything too dangerous, right? Filch would never know. No one would. Harry put his hand on the doorknob and took a deep breath.

It was locked. Harry closed his eyes for a moment and tried to remember the locking charm Hermione had taught Dudley. Alohomora? Harry nodded. That was it. He remembered Dudley whispering it giddily at him as Harry tried to do his Transfiguration homework.

He glanced around. No one was in sight. "Alohomora," he whispered, and the door clicked. Harry placed his hand on the knob and took a deep breath.

He opened the door a crack and peered around it. He stared for a few moments. Then he closed the door very, very carefully, locked it securely, and made his way back to the Slytherin common room. He was done for the night anyway.

Harry entered the common room very quietly. He saw Draco and Pansy sitting in chairs near the fire, and walked over to them.

"Draco," Harry whispered. Draco was reading a book, but he set it down when Harry sat down next to him.

Draco looked at him for a moment, and responded just as quietly. "Yes, Harry?"

"It may just be because I'm new to this whole magic thing, but is there really such a thing as a three headed dog?"

Pansy heard him, and frowned. "Of course there is! My uncle breeds them, they're called Cerberus. They're guard dogs, very useful, haven't you heard of them, Harry?"

"I've heard of them in myths," Harry said, "But I didn't know they actually existed. Is there any reason why one would be at Hogwarts?"

"What?" Draco and Pansy asked in unison, sitting up and looking at him with equal parts surprise and intrigue.

"Is there?" Draco asked in shock. "You'd think we'd see one running around, wouldn't you?"

Pansy had been watching Harry's face as Draco spoke, though, and she figured it out faster than he could say it. "That's why the third floor is forbidden, isn't it?"

Draco gaped. Harry nodded. "I saw it, just now," he said. "It was a bit of a shock."

"Well I can imagine," Pansy said sympathetically. "I got to see a few when I visited my uncle in Cyprus a few years ago, but he made sure to sing to them first, just in case. What were you doing, going in there anyway? It is still in there, right? It hasn't broken out or anything?"

She and Draco both looked suddenly very worried, and Harry rushed to reassure them.

"No, no, it's still there, I was just curious, so I took a look. And…it's a Cerberus, alright."

"Wow," Pansy said, frowning down at the book in her lap. "Wonder what it's guarding."

Harry frowned too, and tried to relax as Draco and Pansy read quietly. The dog was guarding something, then. Pansy didn't appear to be thinking about it anymore, but Harry wanted to know now. Curiosity had made him open the door, and even though it was probably none of his business, curiosity would nag at him until he found out what the dog was guarding. That was just how Harry's mind worked.

Christmas was coming soon, Harry realized one day. The castle was beginning to look festive and decorated, and snow had long since blanketed the grounds. Draco had begun dropping hints about how he wanted this for Christmas, and what did Harry want? Hermione had asked him what his favourite colour was the other day, and Harry got quite a shock when Dudley marched right up to him before lunch, dropped all pretences, and simply asked Harry what he wanted for Christmas.

Apparently he was getting presents this year.

It was a nice feeling, even better since Hermione had told him about owl-ordering, so he could buy everyone else something as well. He'd decided that taking a little bit out of his tuition fund couldn't hurt in the long run, and had even decided to buy Filch something too, just because.

Despite all this, knowing that he was probably getting gifts did not prepare him in the slightest for Christmas morning, when he woke up to find his feet nearly buried by all the presents at the foot of his bed.

Harry stared at his presents in surprise until Blaise, who had also just woken up, glanced over at his dazed state and threw a pillow at his head.

"Presents, Harry! Wake up!" And with that he grabbed one of his own packages and tore into it.

Harry picked up one of his presents and opened it. It was from Draco, a new pair of shoes. He looked over at Draco in the next bed, who had just unwrapped something small and expensive looking.

"Shoes?" he asked, holding them up for Draco to see. Draco grinned.

"Do you like them? I bought you some other stuff too, don't worry. It's not all shoes."

Harry thanked him bemusedly and reached for another present.

It was from Dudley, he'd bought Harry a book on magical pranks. In his letter he told Harry that he'd written his parents that Harry was being really helpful and that he and Harry had become friends. Harry could expect a present from them. He also warned Harry not to use anything in the book on him, because Hermione had promised that she'd teach Dudley all of it too.

Harry looked for the present from the Dursleys. It actually didn't look like an old pair of socks. Harry opened the note on top first, and read,

Dudley told me that you're helping him in school. Your aunt wanted to get rid of some of the rubbish in the attic, so we're sending it to you. Happy Christmas.

From Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia.

Underneath the note was a short stack of pictures, some of which looked badly crumpled. Harry smoothed them out and noted that they were all of the same red-headed girl, at different ages, and that the girl had bright green eyes, just like him.

He looked them over for a moment, slightly confused, and it suddenly hit him. These were pictures of his mother.

Harry had never seen a picture of his mother. The Dursleys didn't keep them out in the open where Harry could find them. Apparently they'd changed their minds. Harry flipped through the pictures. Most of them were from before she would have gotten her Hogwarts letter. There was one though, of a fifteen year old Lily, grinning mischievously at the camera and holding a teacup, and another of her at seventeen, posing with two people who looked like they might have been her parents. Harry's grandparents.

Harry remained absorbed in his pictures until Blaise and Draco looked over and realized he was neglecting his presents. They'd each gone through more than half of theirs already, and their piles were much bigger than Harry's.

"What're those, Harry?" Blaise asked, jumping off his bed to look. "Why don't they move?"

"They're muggle pictures, of course," Draco said, looking over Harry's shoulder. "Who of?"

"My mother," Harry said softly. Draco and Blaise looked at each other over Harry's head, then back at his pictures.

"She's pretty," Blaise said respectfully.

Harry nodded and set them carefully on his bedside table. Draco looked like he wanted to ask something, but kept quiet and instead shoved another present at Harry.

"This one's from me too," Draco said. "Go on, open it!"

It was a Kenmore Kestrels poster. Harry smiled and shook his head. He'd only claimed to like them to make Draco indignant.

"Thanks, Draco, it's great," he said, and at Blaise and Draco's urging, he went back to opening presents. The dorm was empty aside from the three of them. Blaise and Draco were taking advantage of it by exclaiming loudly over all of their presents and tossing things back and forth over his head.

Harry unwrapped a book from Hermione, and wondered if she would appreciate the diary he had bought her. It had a complicated lock on it, and he'd added a note: So that you don't have to resort to petty theft.

Blaise had bought him several Quidditch books, and Pansy gave him a huge pile of candy with a note that informed him that he was too skinny. Anthony had gotten him a book of archaic spells and potions that used various fruits as a base. Harry decided he should never have told Anthony about his excuse for smelling like Mrs. Skower's Magical Mess Remover.

This left one more present, a very light one that he opened to reveal a fluid, silvery gray material. Harry held it up and examined it.

"Wonder who sent me this, " he said curiously. Draco glanced over and gaped when he saw what Harry was holding.

"Who sent you that?" he asked, bounding off of his bed and over to Harry's, squishing Harry's new shoes as he sat. He reached out carefully and took a piece of it between his fingers.

"I don't know," Harry responded, now looking for a note. "What is it?"

"It's an Invisibility Cloak!" Draco said in awe. Blaise's head snapped up from his presents, and his jaw dropped.

"Wicked!" he said, and came over to Harry's bed to admire his new gift. "Who gave it to you?"

Harry held up the note that he'd just found in the folds of the cloak.

"It was my father's," he read. "It doesn't say who sent it, but they say it was my father's…"

Harry looked at the cloak with new eyes.

"Well go on, try it on!" Draco said in excitement. Harry stood and wrapped the cloak around himself.

"You're gone!" Blaise said suddenly, and Harry looked down. It was true. He had completely disappeared.

"Wow," Draco said, looking at the spot where Harry had been last. "Harry, could I borrow it sometime?"

Harry frowned. He wasn't sure he wanted to share this just yet. It had been his fathers, after all, and he didn't really have anything from him. Not even a picture, like the ones the Dursley's had sent of his mother.

"Maybe," Harry said evasively. He took the cloak off and folded it neatly into his trunk, and tried to turn his mind back to his other presents.

Later, they went down to the common room, where Pansy was waiting to compare presents with them.

"Thanks for the new perfume, Harry," Pansy said. "I suppose I can forgive you now for abandoning me." Pansy was still slightly miffed that Harry had joined the Quidditch team. When she had first found out, she had told him very sadly to come with her, and it wasn't until they got to the base of the Astronomy Tower that Harry realized what she was planning. Draco and Blaise had laughed hysterically when he came running back to the common room and explained in a panic what she'd tried, and even though she'd insisted ever since that it had been a joke, the result of it all was that Harry never went anywhere alone with Pansy again, especially after Quidditch matches or practices, even though he only really got to fly during the practices.

"You're welcome, Pansy," Harry said. "Thanks for the candy."

"Hey," Blaise suggested. "Maybe Pansy's given up on throwing you to your death and she's decided to poison you instead."

Harry's head shot up in alarm to look at Pansy, who was now glaring at Blaise.

"Quiet, Blaise, you'll ruin it!" she hissed, glancing innocently at Harry. Draco, Blaise and Pansy all cracked up, and Harry mock-glared at them.

"When you lot are finished plotting my death, I'll be at breakfast," he said, ignoring Blaise's amused offer to taste test all of Harry's candy for him as he left the common room.

They all joined him a few seconds later, and compared presents some more as they walked up to the Great Hall.

Later that night, after an enormous Christmas feast and the Slytherin Christmas party, Harry lay in bed, exhausted but unable to sleep. He closed his curtains, lit his wand, and pulled out the pictures of his mother. He stared down at them for a short while before crawling over to his trunk and pulling out the Invisibility Cloak. Pictures of his mother and something his father had owned, had actually touched himself, had probably used often. These were better Christmas presents than anything he could imagine. He looked at the note that had come with the cloak again. Use it well, it said, just before it wished him a Merry Christmas and left the gift giver anonymous.

Use it well. Harry could do that. He put out his wand and wrapped the cloak around him. He glanced over his shoulder at Blaise and Draco, sleeping soundly in their beds, and wondered if he should bring one of them with him before dismissing the idea. He wanted the first time he used his father's cloak to be special. He didn't want to share. He slipped silently out of Slytherin and wondered where to go. He decided eventually to just explore the castle and see what he could find.

He climbed a few staircases and wandered down a few corridors, just generally getting lost, before he came upon a door that was ajar. He stopped when he heard voices coming from inside. Harry would never deny being nosy. He identified the voice that was speaking now as Professor Quirrel, the stutter was a dead giveaway.

"D-don't know wh-what you're talking about, Severus…"

"Just answer the question, Quirrell."

Harry's eyes widened. It was Snape. Quirrell was mumbling something.

"I know what you're planning, Quirrell, and if you think Dumbledore will let you endanger his students and steal from him, you will find that disappointment and Dementors are harsh mistresses."

"That's r-ridiculous, Severus, I have n-no intention of endangering any of the ch-chidren or st-stealing the stone."

"You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell," Snape said menacingly. Harry shivered. He'd heard enough. He made his way as quickly and quietly as possible back to the Slytherin dorms and collapsed on his bed, mind racing.

Snape thought Quirrell was trying to steal something? Harry remembered the Cerberus and put two and two together. The dog was guarding a stone that must belong to Dumbledore. Quirrell wanted to steal it, and Snape wanted to stop him. Snape had mentioned Quirrell's endangering children. Harry rubbed his forehead absently, and remembered the horrible headaches he got whenever he was in DADA. Could that have something to do with it? He was the only one that he knew of that got headaches like that. He would have to talk to Hermione and maybe Draco about this. He stared at the ceiling for a while, wondering what could be so important about a stone that Quirrell would try to steal it and Snape would try so fiercely to protect it. Maybe it was a diamond, or a ruby or something? Maybe it was magical, and that was why it was so important. Maybe it did something special. As he finally drifted off to sleep, he resolved to ask Hermione if she'd read about any magical stones that Dumbledore might have.

Chapter Text

"You snuck out last night?" Blaise repeated, impressed. Draco was preparing to lay down several cards and ignored them.

"That's not the point, it's what I heard, pay attention!" Harry said, snatching the cards out of Draco's hand only to have them explode on him. Draco snickered.

"So you snuck out last night," Blaise repeated. "What did you hear, then?"

Draco was finally paying attention, so Harry began his story. When he finished, they both had their brows furrowed thoughtfully.

"So obviously," Draco began after a moment, "Quirrell wants to steal this stone, which is of course what that Cerberus you saw is guarding, and Snape wants to stop him."

"Right," Harry said, pleased that Draco had come to the same conclusion as him about the dog.

"And endangering children," Blaise mused. "Do you think Quirrell is causing your DADA headaches on purpose?"

Draco nodded thoughtfully. "That's possible…"

They all sat quietly for a minute, thinking.

"I've got it!" Draco said suddenly. Harry and Blaise looked up at his eager tone. "Wait, listen! Alright, so Quirrell is working for the Dark Lord but never took the Mark, and he sees Harry here and also knows about whatever this stone is because he's a teacher, and he decides to harass Harry with headaches because he figures that when the Dark Lord returns it'll get him brownie points, and he's trying to steal this stone because…well because he wants it, right? So he figures he'll get all this done this year, but Snape gets suspicious, because he used to be a Death Eater, so he might even know about Quirrell, and that's why he said he knew what Quirrell was planning!"

Blaise and Harry stared at him for a moment.

"…That's a bit out there," Blaise said finally.

"And what do you mean, 'when the Dark Lord returns'?" Harry asked. "What's to say he has to return?"

Draco flushed slightly. "Sorry Harry…I just…well, he was really powerful, and most people don't think he really even died, so I mean, what's to say that he's not going to come back? If he's not dead he has to come back eventually, doesn't he? And besides, I meant that from Quirrell's point of view. He probably thinks the Dark Lord is going to return."

"I certainly hope not, for Harry's sake," Blaise said pointedly. Draco flushed again.

"I said sorry," he muttered. Harry bit his lip and nodded.

"So anyway," Blaise said. "That was a really wild tale, Draco, but I suppose it's got possibilities."

Harry was thinking back to some of the books he'd read about himself, and remembered that one of them had mentioned Death Eaters as being Voldemort's followers.

"So Snape was a Death Eater?" Harry asked, unsure if he should be surprised or not. Snape was very intimidating, and after hearing the tone he'd used on Quirrell, Harry thought he might believe Snape capable of anything.

"Yeah, he was," Draco said. "But Dumbledore got him out of going to Azkaban because he said Snape had been spying for him."

"Not everyone can plead Imperius," Blaise smirked. Draco sneered at him. Harry frowned, feeling out of the loop, but let it slide.

"So I suppose my argument that Dumbledore wouldn't hire Quirrell if he'd been a Death Eater doesn't matter then," Harry decided.

"Well, no," Draco agreed. "And besides, the idea in my version of events is that Dumbledore doesn't know Quirrell was a Death Eater. The only reason Snape got hired is because he was a spy, probably."

Harry and Blaise nodded thoughtfully. This idea had merit.

"That's a paranoid conspiracy theory!" Hermione laughed.

Harry frowned at her. He had just told her what happened last night, and what Draco and Blaise's take on it had been. He'd been expecting a certain degree of reaction from her, and this just wasn't it.

"Well it's true that Snape was a spy, and it's true that he thinks Quirrell was trying to steal the stone thing, and endanger me. Why couldn't the rest be true?"

"Because, Harry, it's wild speculation," Hermione explained. "You can't assume that just because Quirrell is trying to steal something, and just because Snape accuses him of attempting to endanger children, by the way, not you in particular, that this makes him a Death Eater with an evil plot to give you annoying headaches and bring Voldemort back to power! Stealing and hurting people doesn't always make you a Death Eater. Just a bad person."

Harry nodded grudgingly. She did have a point. He leaned across the table (they were in the library, of course) and asked, "So what's your take on it then? What was Snape talking about, and how is Quirrell endangering children?"

Hermione's brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Well the endangering children bit could have been about the troll on Halloween…Quirrell could have let it in accidentally - "

"Or on purpose," Harry muttered.

"Or on purpose, yes," Hermione said benevolently. "And that's what that was all about. He did mention fighting a few once before, but he fainted on Halloween. But Harry, for all we know, Snape could be indulging in mad conspiracy theories himself. He could be completely wrong about Quirrell trying to steal this stone. And what the stone is is important too. If it was just some stupid valuable stone, clearly it's just greed. And if it's magical, which is much more likely, then what it does could be the key to figuring out what Quirrell wants with it, whether he's…" she paused, injecting her voice with as much scepticism as she could so that Harry knew for certain that she wouldn't believe it without further evidence, "…a Death Eater, or just, once again, greedy. Or something else altogether."

Harry nodded again. Another good point.

"What we should do then," he said, "Is try to figure out what it could be. I think it's Dumbledore's and it's more than likely something magical."

"I'll look into it, if you want me to," Hermione said helpfully. Harry smiled. "After all, I actually have all my homework finished, Harry." Harry stopped smiling. "Oh, and by the way, you shouldn't be sneaking out at night, it's terribly irresponsible! What if you'd run across Filch or Mrs. Norris? What if Snape had caught you? Be more careful!"

Harry knew that Filch would let him off easy if he caught him, and Mrs. Norris liked Harry because Filch did. The idea of having been caught by Snape, the ex-Death Eater though, sent shivers down Harry's spine.

"Alright, I'll be careful…"

The only way he could practice being careful while sneaking around at night with his Cloak, Harry decided, would be to sneak around at night with his Cloak more often. Or so he reasoned as he slipped out of the dorm for the second night in a row, Cloak wrapped tightly around him.

He thought he would do as he'd done last night. Wandering aimlessly certainly had proved it's merits before, and he was very willing to try again. He thought it might be fun to get hopelessly lost and then try to find his way back. He'd debated bringing Draco or Blaise again tonight, but decided against it again. He wanted to get a feel for his father's Cloak before he went off letting just anyone use it. It was still too new, too special.

Harry wandered in and out of rooms whose doors hadn't been closed properly, and after accidentally finding a passageway behind a tapestry, now checked every one of them. He found several, and after going up and down several hidden staircases that skipped who knew how many floors each, found himself at his goal: hopelessly lost.

Harry wondered which way he should go to find his way back. To his left was a staircase, but it only went up. That would not get him back to the dungeons. To his right was a corridor with a suit of armor and a door ajar. Harry decided to take a peek inside and see what he'd find. Sometimes they were just classrooms, but sometimes he found something interesting, like the room that reflected the sky, just like the Great Hall only smaller, and the room filled with old boxes, which he'd stopped poking through when he found a box filled with spiders. He didn't fancy finding something that bit even harder.

This room appeared to be a classroom, although it wasn't in use. All the tables and chairs were pushed aside to make way for a mirror. A rather large mirror.

Harry walked toward it, interested. None of the rooms he'd been in so far had had a mirror. He wanted to see what he looked like, invisible as he was. He noted a strange inscription across the top in a language he didn't recognise.

He looked in the mirror, and got the shock of his life. He could see himself. Not only that, he could see a whole group of people behind him! He looked down at himself and noted that he was still quite invisible, and looked behind himself to note that, to his eye, the room was empty. When he reached out, he touched nothing, even though there were so many people that they couldn't possibly have avoided his reach. Then he looked back at the mirror and got another shock as he recognised the woman standing at his shoulder.

"Mum?" he whispered. He looked at the man at his other shoulder. He looked a lot like Harry, but older. "Dad?"

Harry took a few steps closer and stared up at them. Looking at the rest of the group, he realized that they all looked like him, somewhat.

Harry spent the rest of the night with his family.

"Look, do you see them?"

Blaise shook his head. "I only see us, standing here."

Harry had decided to bring Blaise and Draco back with him tonight to show them his family. Draco had refused to wake up, though, so he and Blaise went by themselves.

Harry looked himself. It was just him and Blaise, standing in front of the mirror in their pyjamas. His heart sank. Maybe it only worked once?

"Hang on," Harry said, taking the cloak off of both of them and stepping away from the mirror to set it on a chair. Blaise gasped and stared at the mirror.

"It's changed," he said. Harry looked at it. He couldn't see anything different.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Do you see them?"

Blaise turned a bit red. "No, it's something else…" He tore his gaze away from whatever was so interesting in the mirror and looked at the inscription. "Erised…"

Harry looked at it too. Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on woshi.

"That's ridiculous," Blaise said after a moment. "That's not a language at all. No language that uses our alphabet has all of those words in it. It doesn't even look runic."

"So what are you saying?" Harry asked. "It's gibberish?"

"No, I said it's not a language…I think…it is! It's spelled backward. That is ridiculous."

Harry frowned up at it. Ishow no tyo urfac ebu tyo urhe arts desire…

"'Arts desire' is the only part that makes any sense now," Harry said in confusion.

"No, it's 'Heart's desire', the words aren't separated properly," Blaise said distractedly. "It says 'I show not…your face, but your heart's desire'!"

He abruptly blushed again, and looked back into the mirror.

Harry's eyes widened. This made sense. He'd been thinking it was a mirror that showed you all your family or something.

"Cool…can I see mine again?"

Blaise didn't miss the eager tone in Harry's voice. He pulled his own gaze away from the mirror and said, "I don't know, Harry…"

Harry frowned, almost angry. "Why not?"

Blaise shook his head. "This is dangerous, especially with the way you're reacting to it."

Harry blinked. "You mean, my being able to see my family is dangerous?" He actually did feel kind of angry now. "Just get out of the way, Blaise. I want to see them again."

"Harry," he said, standing firmly in between Harry and the mirror. "It's showing you want you want to see."

"Yes, 'Heart's desire', I got that. So?"

Blaise sighed. "If there's one thing you should learn from being in Slytherin, Harry, it's to never trust something or someone that gives you exactly what you want, but doesn't ask anything in return. This is definitely dangerous."

Harry sighed. That did sound reasonable. But he didn't want to be reasonable; he just wanted to see his parents again.

"Harry, promise you won't come back here, especially without me or Draco. It really isn't safe."

Harry looked back at the mirror with longing in his eyes. Blaise stepped in front of the mirror again and said, "Harry, promise."

"Can't I see them just once more?" Harry pleaded.

Blaise frowned, but gave in eventually. "Fine. Just once. But only if you promise."

Harry promised. Blaise sighed and stepped out of the way, and there they were. Harry stared at them again, memorizing every inch of his parent's faces in particular. Then Blaise was pulling him away and Harry had to put the Cloak back on and leave.

Harry was very tired the next day, having spent most of the past seventy two hours awake. Draco sulked when he found out what they'd done the night before, especially when Blaise teased him about sleeping as heavily as Vince and Greg. He had agreed with Blaise, though, about Harry's not going back to that mirror.

"You're just lucky we don't have classes for another week or so," Pansy said, looking down her nose at Harry in disapproval. Harry was sprawled out on the couch next to Pansy, half dead to the world and watching Blaise and Draco play chess. It suddenly occurred to him through his stupor that Blaise, Draco and Pansy had all stayed over break. The castle had otherwise pretty much emptied out. At the Christmas feast, there hadn't been enough people in the entire Hall to fill up the Slytherin tables, let alone all the rest. Hermione had stayed too, although Dudley had gone home, after inviting Harry along with him. Harry assumed it would be a much happier Christmas all around if he stayed at school and had refused, but he had to wonder why his three Slytherin friends (and Hermione) hadn't gone home as well.

He wanted to ask them, but he thought he might have fallen asleep, because the next thing he remembered was Pansy telling him it was time to go to lunch, even though he knew they'd only just decided to skip breakfast. He trailed groggily behind her and sat down gratefully when she pushed him into his seat. Blaise took one look at Harry and started filling up his plate for him.

"Harry," Draco said, waving a hand in front of Harry's face. Harry yawned at it. Draco dipped his hand in his goblet and flicked the liquid in Harry's face.

"Stop't Draco," Harry muttered in irritation, waving his hand half-heartedly.

He heard a conversation going on around him, but couldn't be bothered to listen until someone poured what felt like a bit of ice-cold water down the back of his robes.

His eyes flew wide open and he yelped in surprise, but it was drowned out by Blaise and Draco's laughter.

"I didn't mean for you to actually do it, Pansy!" Blaise was saying through his snickers. Harry turned and glared at Pansy, who shrugged.

"You needed to wake up," she said reasonably.

"She's right, you know," Blaise said. "I think Dumbledore wants to talk to you. He's been looking at you all through lunch."

Harry looked up at the staff table. It was true, Dumbledore was looking at him. When he made eye contact, Dumbledore nodded at him. Harry looked back at Blaise, flummoxed.

"What did I do?"

"Well you were practically sleeping on your plate, Harry," Blaise said, smirking.

"Or maybe he knows what you two were doing last night," Draco added with a slight pout.

"He doesn't look stern enough for you to be in trouble," Pansy pointed out. "Eat your lunch and don't worry about it."

Blaise turned out to be right. Once Harry had finished his plate, Dumbledore stood and swept over to them.

"If you would come with me, Mr. Potter? I'd like a word in my office."

Harry nodded and stood slowly, hoping that Pansy was right and he wasn't in trouble. Blaise gave him a hopeful thumbs up and Draco mouthed 'good luck' as he walked away.

Dumbledore had settled himself behind his desk and offered Harry a lemon drop already. Harry refused, too busy staring around himself in awe. Dumbledore had a fascinating office. Harry was currently staring at a large bird on a perch in the corner, and he missed Dumbledore's question as it cooed at him. Harry tore his eyes away from the bird and looked at Dumbledore.

"I'm sorry sir, what did you say?"

Dumbledore smiled cheerfully at him. "A phoenix is the best sort of distraction, isn't he?" Harry looked at the bird again and nodded. It was very beautiful. "His name is Fawkes."

"That's a nice name."

"I like it too," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. "My question though, before we were so happily distracted by my beautiful phoenix, was to ask you how you are adjusting to Hogwarts?"

"Oh," Harry said, wondering what he should say to that. "It's great… The classes are really interesting, and I've got a lot of friends."

"Yes," Dumbledore said with a nod. "Friends are a wonderful thing. They can sometimes give very good advice."

"Sir?" Harry asked, a faint suspicion growing at the back of his mind.

"You have a very good friend in Mr. Zabini, for example." Dumbledore smiled at him, and Harry knew he was right that Dumbledore knew somehow about his discovery of the mirror.

"Sir," Harry began slowly, "If I may ask, how -"

"I don't need a cloak to become invisible." Dumbledore allowed him to digest this information for a moment before continuing. "The Mirror of Erised is indeed a very powerful and dangerous artifact, Harry." Harry was relieved to see that Dumbledore didn't look angry at all. "Men have wasted away before it, or been driven mad by the possibilities it holds. I would not leave it unsupervised in a school. As it is, the Mirror has been moved to a new home. I'll ask you to take Mr. Zabini's admirable advice and not go looking for it again."

Harry nodded. "I've promised Blaise and Draco that I won't go looking for it again, sir. I won't."

"Thank you, Harry. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that."

Harry nodded again, and Dumbledore dismissed him.

Chapter Text

Hermione was not pleased when she heard what Harry had been up to over the past few days.

"Sneaking around all night and playing with dangerous magical artefacts?" she whispered shrilly at him, so as not to be kicked out of the library. "Harry, what were you thinking? I told you to be careful!"

"I was being careful," Harry tried half heartedly. "I didn't get caught -"

"Unless you count Dumbledore," Hermione said pointedly. "Which I do."

"I'm sorry, Hermione. I've already promised not to go looking for it again, and I promised Draco I wouldn't wander around at night without him anymore, so -"

"But Harry, I thought you promised me that you wouldn't do it at all."

Harry saw that Hermione was actually upset. It made him feel rather guilty. He realized, in retrospect, that telling her what Dumbledore had said about people going mad and wasting away in front of the Mirror probably hadn't been the best idea.

"I suppose you aren't going to let me go without another promise, are you?"

She shook her head, eyes narrowed.

"I'm really sorry, Hermione," Harry said sincerely. "I promise not to sneak around at night again unless I actually have a very good reason."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "That's the best I'm going to get, isn't it?"

Harry nodded with a small, charming smile he'd seen Draco use to get his way with Pansy.

"Fine." She marched into the stacks, and gave Harry enough time to worry that perhaps she was angrier than he'd thought, before reappearing with a few books.

She plopped them down on the table in front of him, and he looked up at her in confusion.

"About magical stones, remember? I said I'd find out about them?"

"Oh, right. These are it, then?" Harry looked at the books with renewed interest, and opened one curiously.

"Yes, but look at this one first." Hermione pulled out one of the bigger books at the bottom of the pile and put it on top of his book, before flipping briefly through the pages and pointing. "There's an entire huge section on magical stones, so I thought we should start there."

Harry walked down the stairs to the dungeons slowly. He'd spent the morning working, and the afternoon with Hermione, looking up various possibilities for Dumbledore's stone. They had decided it was to do with alchemy, since Dumbledore had done quite a lot in that area, according to Hermione. She was going to go back to the book she'd found that information in and see if there were any clues.

Harry entered the common room quietly, exhausted and planning on heading straight up to his bed, but he saw Draco and Blaise sitting in their customary chairs, heads bent together, whispering seriously. He didn't think he'd seen them at all today, so he went over to say hello.

"Hullo Blaise, Draco," he said tiredly, plopping down in a chair next to them. They both looked up at him guiltily.

"Hi Harry," Blaise responded.

"Where've you been all day, Harry?" Draco asked innocently.

"I was studying with Hermione just now," Harry said with his eyes closed. "She thinks she has a pretty good idea of how to find out what the stone is."

"Really?" Blaise asked. "That's great. So you did that all day?"

"No, before that I was with -" Harry froze. Anthony had gone home for Christmas. He'd been so tired he had forgotten.

"With?" Draco prompted. Harry opened his eyes and realised that both his friends were watching him closely.

"Er…"

"Anthony's gone home for Christmas," Blaise said, echoing Harry's thoughts exactly.

"I…er…"

"We know you don't hang out with him all the time, anyway," Draco added, eyes narrow. "Where do you disappear to, Harry?"

"We're your friends," Blaise said cajolingly. "You can trust us."

Harry sighed.

"It's personal, okay?" he tried. The portrait on the wall above the fireplace muttered something that sounded like 'rubbish'. Harry tried very hard to ignore it and looked at his friends for their reaction instead.

"Do you have a Hufflepuff friend you're ashamed to admit to?" Draco asked sympathetically.

Harry was confused. "What?"

"Do you have a girlfriend?" Blaise tried.

"Er, no…"

Draco tried again. "Do you have a Gryffindor friend you're ashamed to admit to?"

"You both know all my Gryffindor friends," Harry replied, a smile tugging at his lips.

"Are you under Imperius?" Blaise suggested.

"An affair with a house elf?" Draco tried with a grin.

"A boyfriend?"

"Are you having an affair with Hermione Granger?" Draco asked, looking suddenly worried.

"Do you secretly hate us?" Blaise asked mournfully.

"What?" Harry couldn't help but laugh. "No, no to all of those!"

"Oh, good," Draco said, relieved. "I was worried I might have been right about you having an affair."

"I'm eleven!" Harry said in exasperation. "And which one did you think you were right about? The house elf or Hermione?"

"I wasn't sure which one would be worse," Draco said teasingly.

Harry glared playfully at him and said, "I'll have you know Hermione is much less annoying and much less likely to cry all over the place than the house elves, but maybe that's because she doesn't have you demanding things from her every second of the day. I'd cry all the time too."

Draco looked like he wanted very badly to stick his tongue out at Harry, but thought he was too dignified to do it. Blaise intervened.

"Honestly though, Harry. We wouldn't have minded if it was any of those things. Could what you're doing possibly be worse? Just tell us. We won't tell anyone." Draco nodded along with him.

"Fine, fine, I'll tell you," Harry gave in. "Just… promise you won't laugh?"

Draco and Blaise both promised.

"My…my uncle told me before I came here that I had to pay him back for my tuition and everything," Harry began. Draco and Blaise nodded, frowning. "And, I mean, I had no idea where I was going to get all that money, so I asked Filch and he said he'd pay me to help him around school, so I work for him now, and I think if I keep working for him, and maybe get a summer job when I'm older, I'll probably be able to pay it all back by the time I graduate, hopefully…"

Blaise and Draco were staring at him now, Harry noted nervously. Blaise appeared to be rather bemused. Draco was biting his lip.

"Harry," he said carefully. "I'm sorry." He had an odd look on his face. Harry was concerned.

"What?" he said. "No, it's fine, I -"

"No, I mean I'm sorry, I'm going to break my promise." Draco looked up at him and started snickering helplessly.

Harry glared at him. Blaise shrugged at Harry and grinned slightly himself.

"I'm sorry, Harry, it's just funny…"

"What wonderful friends you two are!" Harry said, standing up angrily. Blaise seemed to have realised that Harry had the wrong idea about why they were laughing and stood too, serious now.

"No, Harry, you don't understand! Let us explain, please. Trust me."

Harry sat down warily and waited for Draco's snickering to end.

"I'm sorry Harry, but how can you not know?" Draco asked with an incredulous look on his face.

"Know what?" Harry said icily.

"That you're rich of course," Blaise stated as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Harry's jaw dropped.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"The Potters have always been rich, Harry." Draco explained. "I'd bet my magic you've got a trust fund hidden away somewhere. I'm sure if you'd asked about it before you'd have all the money you need and more by now."

"But no one's ever mentioned anything like that to me!" Harry said in shocked denial.

"Maybe they just assumed you knew…" Blaise mused. "People assume a lot about what you know, don't they?"

Harry flushed and wondered exactly how much Blaise knew about how confused he'd been the first couple weeks of school.

"So you've really been working for Filch all this time?" Draco asked. Harry nodded. "How does he treat you? Is he really nasty?"

"Actually, he's pretty nice. We exchanged Christmas presents, even." Harry didn't mention that Filch had given him Mrs. Skower's Scentless Magical Mess Remover. It was a thoughtful gift, and Filch had been more than thrilled at getting a present in return, even if it was just a new cat bed for Mrs. Norris, and that was all that mattered. "And we have tea sometimes, in his office."

Draco cracked up. "Honestly?"

Harry nodded, and Draco shook his head and laughed some more.

"I just can't picture it, Harry. I really, really can't."

"Maybe you should continue working for him," Blaise said thoughtfully. Draco and Harry gave him curious looks.

"Why on earth would he do that?" Draco asked incredulously.

"Well if he treats you well, Harry, it wouldn't hurt to keep his in his good books. Filch could be a useful ally."

Harry nodded. "He did say he'd take any detentions I get, and excuse them for me if they're scheduled during a practice."

Draco whistled. "I can see how that'd be useful," he agreed. "Do you think we could get in on this?"

"Not a clue," Harry said. "This might be a good idea, actually. It'll give me an excuse for having enough money to pay Uncle Vernon back and buy things for myself too. I'll just say Filch pays really well."

"Brilliant," Blaise said happily. "So you shorten your hours to, say, once a week, and see if you can figure out a way to make Filch warm up to Draco and I as well, and you get to have all sorts of extra money without your uncle catching on to the fact that you're filthy rich."

"Filthy rich?" Harry asked curiously. "Really?"

"Filthy stinking rich," Draco assured him happily. "Richer than Vince and Greg, at least. Probably both of them put together. Not richer than me, though," he added quickly.

"You've got, what? One more summer house than Harry?" Blaise deadpanned. "Oh wow, Draco, that's impressive."

Draco glared at Blaise, who had no issues with sticking his own tongue out at him. Harry was awed. "I'm really that rich?"

"You can't touch most of it yet, of course," Draco explained. "For now you'll have whatever trust fund your parents left you, and you might be able to look into how the goblins are dealing with your vast fortunes since you're probably the only Potter left for them to deal with, but when you turn seventeen you'll have total control of all of it."

"Wow," Harry said quietly. "I certainly never expected this."

Blaise and Draco both grinned at him. "And to think," Draco exclaimed, as if the notion Harry had been living under all his life was completely ridiculous, "That you thought you were…poor!"

"Not that it would matter if you were," Blaise reassured him, and Draco nodded along in perfunctory agreement. "Now you look exhausted. Go to bed."

Harry nodded and wished them both a good night before dragging himself up the stairs. He wondered who he was supposed to ask in order to gain access to his trust fund. This would make his life so much easier.

Christmas break was fast coming to an end on the day that a beautiful snowy owl swooped into the Great Hall and landed by Harry's plate at breakfast, holding out her leg to present Harry with a letter.

Harry took the letter curiously, wondering who would write to him, and fed the owl a bit of bacon. The owl hooted gratefully at him and settled in to eat Harry's breakfast as he read his letter.

"Who is it from?" Draco asked, petting the owl as Harry glanced over the note.

"They have a beautiful owl, whoever they are," Pansy cooed, stroking the owl from across the table. "You are a beauty, aren't you?" The owl preened and strutted along between the plates of food as Pansy praised it.

"It's from Dudley," Harry said, still reading. It seemed Aunt Petunia was still unsure if she even liked Dudley anymore, so he'd had a pretty horrible Christmas. On the upside, Uncle Vernon had felt bad for him, and bought him more presents than usual, which was saying something. "My Uncle Vernon took him out a few days ago and bought her for him, apparently."

"This gorgeous owl belongs to your cousin?" Draco asked in disbelief. "He doesn't deserve a pet this nice."

"He's not so bad, lately," Harry said, thinking about the way Aunt Petunia had been acting toward her son before they left. Dudley didn't deserve that, even if he had been a horrid bully before Hogwarts. He was certainly improving now, having become a lot less bullying and a lot more friendly over the past few months, not to mention that Hermione's tutoring had gotten him up to average in just about all of his classes now. "Hermione is turning him into a pretty decent person."

Draco snickered. "I'd noticed her training him up. She doesn't let him take any more than seconds at dinner, you know. I've seen her slap his hand."

Blaise hooted with laughter. "Granger's got your cousin on a tight leash!"

Harry shook his head with a smile. He hadn't seen Hermione stop Dudley from overeating at meals, but he wouldn't doubt her ability to do so. She could be very assertive when she wanted to be.

"She's good for him, though," Pansy put in, allowing the still-present owl a sip of her pumpkin juice, to Draco's disgust. "He needs someone to boss him around, spoilt brat that he is."

"True, just look at this owl of his," Blaise said. The owl really was beautiful, Harry noted, watching Blaise stroke it's wings. "Did your cousin say what her name is?"

Harry scanned back through the letter again, re-reading the sentences Dudley had written about his new owl. "He says her name is…" Harry faltered for a moment. "…Whitey…"

"Oh, you poor dear," Pansy clucked sympathetically, stroking the bird and feeding it a bit of Harry's bacon. "Such a plebeian name for such a beautiful bird!"

"Your cousin is terrible at naming things," Draco said, his nose in the air. "I refuse to call her that."

Blaise laughed. "Well she doesn't exactly belong to you, Draco, so I doubt you'll get the chance to call her very much at all."

Draco made a face at Blaise. "I suppose you like it, then?"

Blaise gave a little mock shudder. "Not at all. But it's his owl to name, not ours."

Draco muttered something about Dudley having his naming rights taken away, if he was going to do such a poor job of it. Harry just shook his head. He had to agree that the name wasn't quite right, but he also agreed that she was Dudley's owl to name, not theirs.

"Harry," Blaise asked suddenly, "By the way, what are you going to tell your cousin about your recent discovery?"

Harry frowned. He had thought about it, and still wasn't sure what Dudley would do if he found out about how much money Harry had. Filthy rich, Draco had said, and Harry thought that Dudley would likely end up telling his parents about it, even if he didn't mean to do any harm, and they would immediately try to take all of it away from him.

"I haven't a clue," Harry said. "I thought about maybe bribing him, but I don't know if I can take the chance that he'd let it slip accidentally."

"Maybe you could have him swear an oath of silence?" Pansy suggested.

"Or just not tell him at all," Blaise added. "The best kept secret is the one you don't share."

"I don't know," Harry said thoughtfully. "I do sort of want to tell him. And you lot knew about it, didn't you?"

"It is common knowledge if you're not muggleborn," Pansy agreed.

"Right," Harry said. "So what's to say someone else isn't going to mention it, and he'll tell his parents without my even knowing it's a possibility?"

"Gossip does travel fast around here," Draco agreed. "You're right, you'd probably better make sure he knows, and make sure he doesn't tell."

"So an oath of silence?" Pansy asked.

"In order for it to work without a doubt, he'd have to know what he was swearing not to tell first, else it'd be too general and he could slip out of it," Blaise said pensively. "And what if you tell him, and then he doesn't agree to swear the oath?"

"Blaise is right, he could blackmail you over it," Draco said. "Unless you made him swear an oath that he'll swear an oath to keep the secret once you tell him, before you tell him what it is."

"Do you really think anyone would agree to being boxed in like that?" Pansy asked doubtfully.

"She's right," Harry said. "Even Dudley wouldn't agree to that, and if Hermione was there she'd never allow it even if he was willing."

"Maybe you could bribe him to take the oath?" Blaise suggested.

"But then he'd know how important it is to you and he'd take advantage," Draco reasoned. "He'd probably try to take half your money or something."

"He might..." Pansy agreed. "How about if you got Granger to convince him instead?"

"Thats an idea," Harry said thoughtfully. "She'd probably be able to convince him to take the oath..."

"Tight leash and all," Draco snickered.

"Alright, I'll talk to Hermione, and tell him when break is over," Harry decided, looking down at his now nearly empty plate and the decidedly full looking owl perched on the table nearby. "Pansy, did you feed her all my bacon?"

"I would never do such a thing," Pansy said defensively. "She took most of it on her own."

Harry shook his head and refilled his plate, and they managed to finish the meal in relative peace.

Chapter Text

"What!"

Harry was sitting in the library with Anthony, who had gotten a lot of new books for Christmas. When Harry had asked how his break had been, he had immediately and enthusiastically begun explaining a theory he'd found in one of them that sounded very worrying.

"It's a muggle theory, only they use decaying atoms and a machine with a killing device attached to it pointed at them behind a curtain, instead of runes and levitation spells."

"It sounds suicidal," Harry said doubtfully.

"The muggles do call it 'Quantum Suicide'," Anthony said eagerly. "The idea is that you die in this universe, but you couldn't possibly know it, because the whole thing is random and you can't see the weight above your head, so you move on to the next universe without realizing you died in the first one, and that proves that there are multiple universes out there. But because everyone in your universe sees you die, there's no way of telling if it'll work until you try it for yourself."

Harry was starting to become extremely worried that Anthony was leading up to asking him if he wanted to try it, and was therefore enormously relieved when he saw Hermione enter the library with Dudley and another Gryffindor Harry remembered as the boy who'd fallen off his broom during their first flying lesson.

"That's really cool, Anthony," he said. "Hey, er, I'm just going to go say hello to Hermione, okay?"

"Have fun," Anthony said, going back to his book contentedly.

Harry walked over to Hermione's usual table, where she, Dudley, and the boy (Harry was pretty sure his name was 'Longbottom') were setting their bags down and pulling out papers.

"Hi," he said, sitting down next to Dudley. "Doing homework already?"

"Of course," Hermione said. "How's Anthony doing?"

"He's doing great…I think he wants to try and kill me for an experiment."

Hermione nodded with a slight frown. "You're going to say no, right?"

"Of course."

"Good. Oh, and this is Neville Longbottom." She turned to Longbottom, who had been very quiet so far, and smiled. "Neville, this is Harry Potter."

"Nice to meet you," Neville said politely, holding out a hand for Harry to shake. "I've heard a lot about you."

Harry shook his hand. "I've heard a lot about me, too. It's strange."

Neville laughed, and Hermione said, "He's going to be studying with us from now on."

Harry nodded. "Happy to have you, Neville." He glanced at Hermione again and asked, "So have you had any luck finding out about the stone?"

"Oh!" She jumped in her chair and reached down for her bag. "I'd nearly forgotten to tell you!" She pulled out the book she'd shown Harry before, the one with the section on magical stones, and opened it about halfway through. "I saw a biography on Dumbledore in one of my other books, so I looked at that, and it mentioned that he had worked with Nicholas Flamel at one point, who, of course, created the Philosopher's Stone!"

Harry's eyes widened as he read the passage detailing the discovery and uses of the Stone. "So you think Dumbledore is keeping it for Flamel?"

"It has the closest connection to Dumbledore I've found," Hermione explained. "It's the best choice."

"And look at what it does," Harry said. "Makes gold and makes you immortal. What do you say to that, Hermione?"

"I say it could still be greed," Hermione said stubbornly. Harry gave her a skeptical look. "But I suppose the immortal part is likely to be for Voldemort."

"What?" Neville cried suddenly, nearly upsetting his ink bottle. "What are you talking about You-Know-Who for?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Neville, I forgot some people don't like hearing his name," Hermione said apologetically, glancing around to make sure no one had heard Neville's outburst. "I won't say it any more if you don't want me to."

Neville still looked horribly confused. "It was just a shock, that's all. You just said it out of nowhere. Could I ask why?"

Hermione and Harry looked at each other. What were they supposed to say? 'We think Professor Quirrell is a Death Eater trying to resurrect Voldemort'?

"Harry thinks Professor Quirrell is evil and working for Voldemort," Dudley said absently. Neville flinched again. "Hermione thinks Harry is crazy and that Quirrell is just really greedy. They think he wants to steal that stone they were talking about, because the headmaster is keeping it hidden behind that three headed dog in the third floor where everyone isn't supposed to go, and Harry overhead Snape threatening Quirrell over it when he was sneaking around one night."

Neville blanched. Hermione glared at Dudley.

"What?" he asked in surprise. "You think I don't pay attention when you two go on about all that? It's interesting."

"Dudley, just do us a favour and don't tell anyone else," Harry said, thinking that he had been exactly right that Dudley would have told his parents about Harry's money if he hadn't convinced Hermione to make him swear an oath. "Alright?"

"Okay, okay," Dudley said, rolling his eyes. "Hermione, can I have a break?"

"Twenty minutes, then come back," Hermione said with a nod. Dudley left, and she looked over at Neville, who seemed to be staring at them both in shock. "You won't tell anyone, will you Neville?"

"Do you really think Professor Quirrell is a Death Eater?" Neville asked fearfully.

"No," Hermione said consolingly.

"Yes," Harry said at the same time. They looked at each other.

"We haven't decided yet," Hermione compromised. "Don't worry about it, though."

"It sounds like something to be worried about, if you ask me," Neville muttered.

"But if Harry's right, and Professor Quirrell is a Death Eater," Hermione reasoned, to both Harry and Neville. "Then Snape is already dealing with it, and we don't have to worry about it. Do we, Harry?"

Harry frowned. He'd been afraid Hermione would say something like that.

"But how do you know Snape isn't helping Quirrell?" Neville asked suddenly. Harry and Hermione looked over at him in surprise. He blushed at the sudden attention, but continued. "I mean, did you know he was a Death Eater in the last war?"

Harry nodded slowly. "Yes, but didn't Dumbledore pardon him?"

Neville nodded. "That's true. I suppose I can just really see him doing something like this."

"It doesn't make much sense with what Harry heard," Hermione said. "He heard Snape telling Quirrell off for threatening the students and trying to steal the stone…"

"Maybe he thought Quirrell wasn't being subtle enough?" Neville argued. "Maybe he thought he was going to get them caught?"

"I don't know…" Harry said thoughtfully. "But if that was the case, Hermione, then just leaving it up to Snape to take care of things will only make it all worse."

Hermione sighed. "Neville, you do make a good point, but it's extremely unlikely. And Harry, let me emphasize this for you.Extremely unlikely. Let's not decide Snape is evil because you want to handle this on your own."

Harry agreed unwillingly. Sometimes Hermione could be too persuasive.

Months passed, and winter turned into spring. Harry kept an eye on Quirrell, and Snape now too, but did nothing about the Stone.

He pleaded exhaustion to Filch, because of schoolwork (Hermione had them studying for exams already) and Quidditch piled on top of having a job, and Filch agreed to lessen his work schedule to once a week. Harry, who felt slightly guilty over this, convinced Hermione to start studying cleaning charms with him in their spare time, and now Harry was able to fit three days worth of cleaning into one.

Draco had now begun routinely pestering Harry about borrowing his cloak. It was a late night in mid-April when Harry finally broke down and agreed to a late night trip to the kitchens.

"Don't get caught, you two!" Blaise called from next to his bed, where he was pulling on his pyjamas.

"Bring me back something," Theo requested as they disappeared under the cloak. "Some biscuts, or something."

"Let's bring him back spinach," Draco whispered as they left the dorm. Harry laughed.

"You're mean, Draco."

"Oh, come on," Draco said cajolingly. "It'd be funny!"

Harry shushed him as they entered the common room. There weren't many people left at this late hour, and none of them would notice the door opening on its own if they were quick.

"This is so wicked," Draco whispered. Harry wasn't the only one picking up on Blaise's slang. "I could kick Adrian Pucey right now, and he'd never know it was me."

"We're going to the kitchens, Draco." Harry said quietly. "You're not kicking anyone. Why we have to go all the way down there when you could just tell the house elves to bring you something is beyond me, anyway."

"It's the spirit of the thing, Harry!" Draco argued. "Have a sense of adventure!"

It took them a while to find the kitchens, despite the directions Draco had extracted from a house elf earlier. They spent twenty sugar-filled minutes stuffing their mouths and pockets, and soon they were saying goodbye to the house elves and heading back to their dorms.

"I can't believe you actually got him spinach," Harry said with a laugh.

"I can't wait to see the look on his face," Draco said happily. "And you got him biscuts, didn't you? No harm, no foul."

They turned a corner and stopped short. Professor McGonagall, the transfiguration teacher, was patrolling the corridor just ahead of them. Harry suddenly realised that they'd forgotten the Invisibility Cloak in the kitchens.

Draco grabbed Harry's arm and started backing them down the corridor in the direction they'd come from. It was too late, though.

"What is the meaning of this?" McGonagall descended on them in an instant and had them both by the ear.

"Er-"

"We-"

"Detention for both of you!" McGonagall snapped. "And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you! Mr. Potter, I would have expected better of you!"

Harry and Draco trudged sadly along with Filch toward the gamekeepers's house the next night. Filch had already told Harry apologetically that he couldn't excuse him from this one; Hagrid had specifically requested that he take the next detentions so that he would have some help with whatever it was he was doing in the forest.

Draco was not happy with having to go into the forest, and after Filch left, complained to Harry under his breath that it was called the Forbidden Forest for a reason. Harry agreed sympathetically and told Draco that he could hold Harry's hand if he got too scared. Draco glared at him, and they spent the rest of the walk to the forest traipsing along behind the gamekeeper in a sullen silence as he explained that they were looking for something that was killing unicorns. Harry still wasn't very happy that Draco's insistence on wandering around at night had gotten him a detention that even Filch couldn't get him out of, one that involved hunting something that would kill a unicorn, even, and Draco still hadn't apologized. Draco just was lucky that the house elves had brought his Cloak back when asked. Harry had been worried it might have been lost for good.

They were well into the forest by the time they reached a split in the path. Unicorn blood pooled on the ground both ways, and Hagrid split them up. Harry opted to go with Fang and started off down a trail by himself after assuring Hagrid that he knew the spell to send sparks into the air.

Harry followed the trail until he found the unicorn, dead already. Unfortunately, he also found whatever it was that had killed it. As he fell to his knees, pain splitting his scar open, something leapt over Harry's head, charging the creature.

"He actually told you that Voldemort is here, at Hogwarts?" Hermione said worriedly. "How would he know?"

"He seemed to know quite a lot that I wouldn't have thought he would," Harry said tiredly. He hadn't slept very much the night before. "He knew about the Stone, and that we know about it. How would he have found out all that?"

It was the next morning, a Sunday, and Harry had brought Draco and Blaise with him to the library to meet Hermione so that he could talk it over with all of them at once. Dudley and Neville were still in bed, as it was quite early.

"Your scar was hurting, Harry," Blaise reminded him. "That only happens when Quirrell is around. I'll bet that thing in the forest was him."

"Firenze told me that the unicorn blood keeps you alive inches from death," Harry said suddenly. "Isn't Voldemort supposed to be half dead?"

"What, do you think Quirrell is Voldemort in disguise?" Hermione asked, intrigued.

"Would you two stop saying his bloody name?" Draco asked in irritation.

Harry and Hermione looked over at Draco and realised that he was looking rather pale.

"Look," Blaise said softly. "If that centaur was right, and…You-Know-Who is really in the castle, and he really wants this Stone to bring him back to power, then the last thing you should be doing is saying his name like you two are."

"I've read about why people don't like saying his name," Hermione said. "They think there's a curse on it, right?"

Draco and Blaise nodded uneasily.

"I've also read that that's just rubbish spread around by his followers to create fear," she finished pointedly. "Harry and I have been saying it all year, and nothing's happened to us!"

"Aside from finding out that the Dark Lord is at the same school you are, this close to coming back to full power and killing you both," Draco snapped. "It might be rubbish and it might not, Granger, but either way, it's not necessary to say it so damned often. We're trying to concentrate here."

Hermione gave in with only a mildly irritated look on her face, and Harry was impressed. He'd never won an argument with her that quickly.

"Alright, anyway, Harry. You know what we have to do, right?"

"We could -"

"Tell a teacher." Hermione said firmly. "Snape, preferably, as he seems to have a notion of what's going on and would be less likely to dismiss it all."

Blaise sighed. "She's right, Harry. We should tell Snape. He's already suspicious of Quirrell, if that conversation you overheard meant anything we thought it did, and he'll handle it."

"But what if he doesn't?" Harry asked in frustration. "What if he's working with Quirrell, like Neville said, remember? What if he just tells us not to worry about it, and the next thing we know, Vol- You-Know-Who, sorry, is back in power and killing us all?"

"Harry, are you going to take Neville Longbottom's word over ours?" Draco exclaimed. "Snape was a spy, remember? He'll help us, you'll see."

And then Hermione, Blaise and Draco were all standing up and looking at Harry expectantly, and he had no choice but to follow them down to Snape's office.

"I see," Professor Snape said, tapping his desk with one long finger. They had just told him their suspicions, leaving out anything that would get them detention, of course. "So you think that Professor Quirrell is trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone that this centaur told you was hidden behind a Cerberus in the third floor corridor, because Professor Quirrell's class makes Mr. Potter's head hurt?"

Put like that, it sounded a bit ridiculous, and Harry nearly began to doubt it himself. Blaise and Draco looked slightly uncomfortable. Fortunately, Hermione was there.

"Yes, sir," she said confidently. "It isn't just that his head hurts. He can't concentrate at all when it happens. It's very painful; we've all seen it happen to him, but only when Professor Quirrell is around. And the same exact thing happened to him when he was in the forest, with the creature that was drinking the unicorn blood. It all seems to fit, sir."

Professor Snape looked at them all contemplatively. "I will bring this to Professor Dumbledore's attention," he said, and Harry couldn't tell what he was thinking.

After they'd been ushered out, Hermione said goodbye and went back to the library. She seemed happy enough about the situation. Harry wasn't, though. He wasn't any more certain than before that Snape would do as he'd said he would.

Harry didn't say anything, though, until that night before bed. Blaise put his pyjamas on and went straight to sleep, and Harry immediately went over to Draco's bed.

"Draco, can we talk?" Harry had decided that Draco would be the least likely to try to talk him out of what he was about to say.

Draco, who was already under the covers at this point, looked up at him expectantly. Harry sat down at the foot of the bed, crossing his legs and gazing seriously at him.

"I don't trust Snape," he said without preamble.

Draco sighed. "We already told him, Harry. It's too late for that."

"No," Harry said forcefully. "It isn't too late. He's still not done anything about it."

"He hasn't had very much time, Harry," Draco said uncertainly.

"He's had since this morning," Harry said. "And we haven't heard a thing."

"It's the weekend," Draco reasoned. "We're not likely to hear much about the teachers."

Harry frowned. "Alright then. How about this, Draco. If, come Monday, Quirrell isn't gone, or if there isn't at least some sign that Professor Dumbledore is doing something about him, then I'm taking this into my own hands."

"Harry," Draco tried.

"No, honestly, Draco, I feel it," Harry interrupted unhappily, rubbing his scar. "I know it's Quirrell. I just know. And if the teachers are going to ignore that, then I won't."

Draco stared at him for a moment, waging an internal battle. Harry stared back calmly.

"Don't do anything without telling me first," Draco finally said. "I want to come with you."

Harry blinked, then smiled.

"Deal."

Chapter Text

"Drink it."

"Are you sure it's-"

"Yes, drink it and go," Draco assured him. "I'll figure something out."

Harry downed the potion in one gulp, and stepped through the black flames.

Just as Harry had thought, Snape had done nothing. Quirrell was still teaching, and he didn't even looked worried. Not anymore than he usually did, anyway, and that wasn't good enough for Harry. He had waited until classes were over and told everyone that he and Draco were going to go mess around on the Quidditch pitch. Then they grabbed Harry's Cloak and went straight to the third floor, where Draco sang nervously at the dog like Pansy had told them, while Harry discovered a trapdoor and got them both down it.

They were both nervous balls of energy, which was good because it meant they kept moving and avoided getting caught by the Devil's Snare that Draco identified weakly after he'd lit his wand. They'd found the flying key that hadn't been difficult to catch at all after Draco told Harry which one they were looking for, and in the next room, all those games of chess they'd played by the fire paid off.

Harry had been forced into the King position, and stood sullenly the whole time, making sure Draco didn't kill himself. The only consolation was that he could tease Draco for playing as the Queen, no matter what Draco said about it being the most powerful piece.

They'd had a bit more trouble with the troll, who, despite the fact that it hadn't really been expecting visitors and was asleep, woke when they were halfway across the room and nearly got Harry in the head with it's club. And then they were in a room with several potions on a table, and Draco had read through the paper a few times and abruptly handed Harry a bottle and commanded him to drink. Harry had read through the paper as well, and could see that there was only enough in the bottle for one, and had protested as much. Draco had shoved him toward the fire and repeated the command.

Which was where Harry was now, standing in the chamber with the mirror. Alone. He walked toward the mirror, wondering if he'd see his parents again, remembering Blaise and Dumbledore's warnings. And as much as he wanted to see them, he had other things to worry about at the moment. Like what he was doing here, making sure that Quirrell and Voldemort never got their hands on the Stone. And how they were going to get out of here, with that troll waiting for them. Harry was starting to think this might have been a bad idea. He turned and looked back at the fire, wondering what Draco would say if he went back through and suggested that they go to Dumbledore.

It was at this point that Draco burst through the black flames, panting and looking rather worse for the wear.

"Draco! What happened?" Harry exclaimed, dashing back to the flames and grabbing Draco's arm to support him.

Draco caught his breath and tried to explain. "I thought, if maybe I went back and forth, the bottle might refill itself. I was right."

"You went back to the troll?" Harry cried. "Draco, you idiot! What do you think you are, a Gryffindor?"

"Well pardon me for not wanting to let you go in here alone!" Draco said defensively. "And it worked, didn't it? Now, what's this mirror all about, then?"

And he walked past Harry, ignoring his flabbergasted expression, in order to examine the mirror more closely. "Hey, I see us with the Stone!" Draco sounded surprised. "What kind of mirror is this, anyway?"

"It's the Mirror of Erised," Harry explained, momentarily distracted. "Remember, I found it at Christmas? Where do you see us?" Maybe it would show them where the Stone was hidden?

"We're in the Slytherin dorms," Draco said. "It's sitting on the nightstand, and we're playing Snap."

Harry knew for a fact that the Stone was not currently sitting on his nightstand. Draco must want this whole ordeal to be over with, then.

"Let me try," Harry said. "I think I want to find it badly enough, it might show me." Draco stepped aside, and Harry took his place. His reflection stared hopefully back at him for a moment, then smiled and held up the stone. Harry's eyes widened as it put the stone in his pocket. He reached for said pocket, and there it was.

"Draco, I've got it!" he said excitedly, pulling it out of his pocket and holding it up. Draco stared at it in shock.

"You know, I never really thought this would work." He grinned suddenly. "Good job, Harry. Now let's get the hell out of here."

Harry nodded, and they both made their way back through the black flames. Draco was already immune to the purple fire, so Harry drank that potion too and they both poked their heads tentatively out the door to see what the troll was doing. It looked angry.

"Now what?" Draco asked after they'd pulled their heads back. Harry looked at the ceiling and bit his lip.

"We could catch it by surprise and run," he suggested helplessly.

"Now who's the Gryffindor," Draco muttered, deep in thought. "What do you say to taking all these potions and chucking them at the troll's head? Some of them are poison according to the paper, and we wouldn't even have to stick any more than our arms and heads through the fire to do it."

"Would they affect it?" Harry asked doubtfully. "It's pretty big…"

"Couldn't hurt to try, could it?" Draco asked philosophically, picking up the bottle second from the left. "It said the two second from the outside are poison, so let's try those first."

Harry carefully picked up the bottle second from the right and hefted it in his hand. "Are you any good at hitting what you aim at?" he asked Draco hopefully. "Because honestly, I could be better."

"Pick another bottle then, and lets see how good you are," Draco suggested, taking the poison. "If you miss, I'll throw the rest. It's not a very big room, it shouldn't be too hard."

Harry nodded and picked up the bottle in the very middle. He ducked his head slowly through the fire and looked out at the troll, who was looking like a rather angry and dimwitted lion in a cage. It really wasn't a very big room. Harry took a deep breath and waited until the troll looked in his direction before chucking the bottle at it's head and ducking back into the potion chamber.

"Well?" Draco asked. A furious roar met their ears in response.

"I think I got it," Harry said hopefully.

"Good. It's my turn, then," Draco said, handing him his bottle of poison back. The troll still sounded very angry. Harry held the bottle with both hands and watched anxiously as Draco stuck his head out the door and chucked his own bottle. Draco waited a second longer than Harry thought necessary, probably to see if it hit, before ducking back in and grinning at Harry.

"We both hit!" he said gleefully. "Yours had some horrid poison in it that melted a lot of his skin off! It's positively gruesome!"

Harry, while happy that it sounded like they were getting out soon, felt a bit guilty about melting off half the troll's skin and lost a bit of enthusiasm for the plan.

"D'you want to throw this one?" he asked, offering his bottle to Draco. "I think I've rather lost my taste for it."

Draco nodded generously and took it from him. "Allow me," he said, ducking his head into the fire.

Before he could do anything, though, the roaring stopped. Draco paused, and pulled his head back out. He didn't seem quite as gleeful as he had been a second ago.

"He's collapsed," he said, looking down at the bottle in his hands. "I don't think this'll be necessary."

He set it back down on the table and looked back at Harry.

"Shall we?" Harry nodded and started for the fire, but before he could go through, Draco stopped him. "Try not to look at it, okay?" The solemn look on Draco's face kept Harry from doing anything but nodding as he stepped carefully into the flames.

"So what do we do with it?" Draco asked, tossing the Stone from one hand to the other absently. Their quest had only taken a couple hours, so dinner hadn't even started yet. No one had even missed them. They were sitting on Harry's bed in the dorm, planning.

"Hermione would kill me if she found out what we did," Harry said. "So I think we probably shouldn't tell her, at least."

"I'm fine with that," Draco said, grinning. "And let's leave Blaise out of this too, okay? He'll make us feel guilty for being 'irresponsible', and probably make us give it back."

"Well, we aren't exactly going to be keeping it," Harry said with a frown. "We're just keeping it from Quirrell, not Dumbledore."

"Right," Draco said, nodding quickly. "But if Dumbledore was so bad at protecting it that we could get to it, then what's to say he'll protect it any better when we give it back?"

"That's true," Harry said slowly. "But I wasn't planning on giving it back any time soon, anyway. I'll definitely wait until Quirrell's been discovered or at least sacked."

"Right," Draco said. "And in the meantime, what should we do with it?"

Harry frowned. "I dunno, put it at the bottom of my trunk and forget about it?"

Draco raised an eyebrow at Harry. "You're not serious."

Harry shrugged. "Think about it. If no one knows we have it, who's going to go looking for it there? It could just sit quietly at the bottom of my trunk until it's safe to give it back."

Draco shook his head. "Harry, if Dumbledore wasn't protecting it enough with all that stuff we had to get past, then how do you think putting it in the bottom of your trunk and forgetting about it could possibly be any better?" Draco folded his arms and frowned at Harry. "At the very least, put some protective charms on the trunk. No one would suspect anything. You're a Slytherin."

"That's a good idea," Harry agreed. "But do you think I should just leave it here, then, in the meantime?"

"You can put it in my trunk," Draco suggested. "My father would never have let me leave home without scores of protective charms on it."

Harry considered the idea, and decided that, yes, he did trust Draco that much.

"Alright," Harry said, handing him the stone. "Don't do anything with it, though. Just leave it in there in the bottom or something."

"Right," Draco said, opening his trunk and tucking it neatly away under a pair of socks at the bottom. "Now, let's go down to dinner. Saving the world makes me hungry."

Harry laughed at him and they left the dorm, the Stone quickly falling to the back of their minds and out of their thoughts.

And for the next two months, that was where the Stone stayed: out of their thoughts. Harry carried on with his Quidditch training, and Marcus told him that if he beat out the current Seeker at tryouts next year, which was likely, then he'd be playing first string in all the matches.

Harry continued studying with Hermione, Dudley, and Neville for exams, and after the meeting with Snape the day before Draco and Harry had gone and gotten the Stone, Blaise joined them regularly, and Draco and Pansy dropped by sometimes too. Neither Harry nor Draco said a word about the Stone after that day, and aside from a few questioning glances, none of the rest mentioned it either.

Harry also convinced Blaise and Draco to join him for tea with Filch a few times, and aside from a few awkward moments when Filch accused Draco of having tracked mud in from Herbology that day, and Draco became affronted at the idea that he would have mud on him, it went well. Harry thought it was unlikely, though, that Filch would extend any modicum of leniency to his friends unless they both got themselves part time jobs like Harry, which was quite plainly never going to happen.

Dudley and Harry began talking more often outside Hermione's study groups as well. Dudley had told Harry he could use Whitey whenever he wanted, as long as he asked first. Whitey had taken a liking to Harry, and would often perch at the Slytherin table after dropping off letters for Dudley. Harry secretly thought this had more to do with Pansy's habit of feeding her from Harry's plate than anything Harry had done, but was happy to agree to Dudley's terms, as he really did like the owl. Dudley had also told Harry he could use his extra bedroom when they got back to Privet Drive for the summer. Harry had been caught off guard by the casual way Dudley had bestowed such an uncharacteristic kindness, and resolved to buy Hermione something very nice for her birthday. Dudley too.

Anthony, as it turned out, hadn't really planned on having Harry try out the Quantum Suicide theory after all, for which Harry was grateful.

"There are rumours about you, anyway," Anthony had explained. "That you can't actually die normally, because of what happened, you know. You would throw the entire experiment off, I think."

Harry had been mildly disturbed at this, especially when Anthony had continued on after that to wonder why, how, and if that particular state of affairs had actually come about, and how to test it, but was relieved that his Boy-Who-Lived status had at least saved him from this particular experiment.

Exams finally came, distracting Harry completely. The day after they were finished, Harry sat with Draco and Blaise in the common room, feeling confident that he had done fairly well, and debating the merits of challenging Blaise to a game of chess. It was at this point that Pansy came over and dropped down on the couch next to them, clearly full of news.

"Have you heard?" she asked, looking as though she hoped they hadn't.

"Heard what?" Blaise asked distractedly. He looked very much like he would like very much to not have to think about anything at all after all those tests, which was why Harry had been thinking of challenging him, as Blaise would be much more likely to lose in that state of mind.

"About Professor Quirrell!" Pansy said, clearly thrilled to be the one telling them this news. Harry's head snapped up to look at her, Draco's not far behind.

"What about him, then?" Harry asked impatiently.

"He's disappeared!" she told Harry, leaning toward him on the couch, eyes wide. "Everyone's saying that he and Dumbledore duelled, and that Quirrell lost, and now he's gone. No one knows why though, it's strange. Do you think this has something to do with -"

Harry interrupted her with a sharp shake of his head, and she quieted immediately. He looked over at Draco, who shrugged and said, "We should probably be positive, first."

"What are you talking about, Draco?" Blaise asked, shaking his post-testing lethargy off and eyeing him shrewdly.

"It'd be a pretty pathetic rumour if he wasn't actually gone," Harry reasoned.

"He's gone," Pansy assured them, looking back and forth between Harry and Draco. "What are you two talking about?"

"We should be completely certain first, though," Harry nodded. "He'll have to announce it at dinner or something, won't he?"

"What did you two do?" Blaise demanded, sitting up straight and staring at them both.

"To dinner, then," Draco agreed, fighting back a smirk. He and Harry rose to leave.

"It's not even four o'clock yet!" Pansy objected as they passed her chair. "Stay here and tell us what you two were talking about! Draco!"

But Harry and Draco had already escaped.

"Damn them both," Blaise muttered, going back to his blank staring. "If I felt like it, we'd track them down and torture the information out of them."

Pansy gave him an amused glance. "Of course, Blaise. We'll find out at dinner, I suppose."

Sure enough, at dinnertime, Dumbledore announced Professor Quirrell's resignation. He assured them distractedly that they'd have a new Defence teacher next year, and until then, those classes would be free periods. Afterward, he sat down and leaned toward Professor McGonagall, who listened with a worried expression on her face as he spoke to her.

Harry whispered to Draco he was going to give Dumbledore the Stone after dinner. They agreed that Draco would stay behind and give Blaise and Pansy the required explanation, although Draco refused to tell Hermione, and told Harry that he had to do that himself. Harry agreed reluctantly, and that was how he found himself standing outside Professor Dumbledore's office after dinner that night, staring at the gargoyle and wondering how to get inside.

Chapter Text

"Good evening, Mr. Potter," Professor Dumbledore said as he stopped next to the gargoyle. "Cockroach Clusters."

"Hello, Professor Dumbledore," Harry said, suddenly nervous as the gargoyle jumped aside to reveal the moving stairs. "Could I talk to you for a minute?"

"Certainly," Dumbledore replied. "To my office, then?"

He stepped aside and allowed Harry to go first. Harry took a breath and stepped onto the stairs.

"You did not

."

Draco grinned. "We did."

"And you didn't get caught?" Blaise sounded sceptical.

"Harry's going to tell Dumbledore and give it back now. You'd think if he knew about it, he'd have said something by now."

"So that's why Quirrell got kicked out, at least," Pansy said. "He was going for the Stone, and Dumbledore caught him." A thought struck her. "Oooh, do you think Dumbledore knows it's gone now?"

"If he doesn't, he's an even sadder excuse for a legend than I thought," Draco said scornfully. "I mean, Harry and I got through all those obstacles that were supposed to be protecting that thing. If he's not even aware now that it's gone, what with Quirrell…"

"I think he does," Blaise disagreed. "He looked worried at dinner."

"True," Pansy agreed. "Quirrell trying to steal the Stone wouldn't be cause for worry now unless he wasn't sure if Quirrell has it or not."

"We'll ask Harry when he gets back," Draco suggested.

"Now what was it that you wanted to talk about, Harry?"

Harry looked down at his shoes nervously. They were the ones Draco had bought for him at Christmas. He regretted the decision to have Draco stay behind with Pansy and Blaise. This would be easier if he wasn't by himself.

"I…you announced at dinner that Professor Quirrell got sacked," he began haltingly. Dumbledore nodded in encouragement. "I just wondered if it had anything to do with the Philosopher's Stone?"

Harry looked up. Dumbledore was looking very composed and slightly curious.

"And how would you happen to know about that particular Stone, Harry?"

"Well, er, I heard about it a while ago, and I was worried that Quirrell was going to steal it because of something a centaur told me so…" Harry realized he sounded ridiculous and gave up. "I'm sorry sir." He pulled the Stone out of his pocket and set it carefully on Dumbledore's desk. "It'll be safe from Voldemort now, right?"

This time, when Harry looked up, he saw the stunned and elated expression on Dumbledore's face.

"I think I am correct in assuming that there is a very long, very twisty story behind this?"

By the delighted tone of his voice, Harry felt that Dumbledore might not be too mad at him. Emboldened by this idea, he nodded and began his tale.

Harry was bombarded with questions the moment he entered the common room. He dragged Blaise, Pansy and Draco down to the library with him so that he wouldn't have to explain everything twice.

Hermione was not pleased with what Harry had done behind her back.

"So that's why you stopped worrying about it, and why you wanted to learn about protective charms!" She sounded annoyed. "I can't believe you, Harry."

"Alright, Granger knows now, so what did he say?" Draco interrupted eagerly.

Everyone turned their attention to Harry. Even Dudley and Neville, who technically had nothing to do with it. Harry thought absently that, if they were there, he might as well have invited Anthony to listen too. He would have, if Anthony had been in the library like he usually was.

Harry paused for effect. "His exact words were something like 'I can't believe you did all that without my knowing.'"

Draco and Pansy laughed delightedly. Even Hermione smiled in spite of herself.

"Brilliant!" Blaise said happily. "So did you get in any trouble?"

"Knowing Harry, he's been promoted to prefect," Draco said.

"Professor Dumbledore wouldn't do that!" Hermione disagreed, aghast. "You only get to be prefect in fifth year, and he did something wrong!"

"Professor Snape put him on the Quidditch team after he did something wrong," Pansy said, looking amused at Hermione's antics. "Harry follows a different set of rules."

Harry appeared stung. "I do not," he disagreed. "I just…the circumstances were different, then and now…sod off!" He reached across the table and swatted at Blaise, who had been snickering at him and mocking Harry's best innocent face.

Pansy laughed at them both, and Neville interrupted after a moment to ask, "So did you get in any trouble?"

Harry frowned at them all for a moment, and said, "He gave me sixty points for Slytherin."

Draco burst out laughing, and Madam Pince gave him a reproving glare from her desk. He quieted immediately, although he snickered when he looked at Harry again.

"Quiet, you," Harry scolded him. "You got sixty points too."

This quieted Draco for a moment. "Really? I got points?" Draco looked highly pleased with himself. "This puts us in the lead for sure, doesn't it?"

"Hermione got fifty, so maybe not."

Hermione blushed. "Me? Why did I get fifty?"

"For all the research, of course." Harry paused, and unwillingly added, "He also said 'for attempting to restrain your peers'…"

Pansy snickered. "Good luck with that."

Hermione was still flushed with her reward, and grinned at Pansy before asking, "Did anyone else get points?"

"Pansy got ten, I'm not sure why, and Blaise got twenty-five. I think Dumbledore just likes you," he explained at Blaise's curious look. "He told me before how wise you were being about the mirror, remember? But he said it was for the same as Hermione. Attempting to restrain and such."

Blaise appeared to be unsure of how to handle Dumbledore's apparent fondness for him.

"I suppose it's a good thing, isn't it?" Draco asked after he'd finished laughing at the bewildered expression Blaise was wearing. "I mean, you're bound to be let off easier for a lot of things, Blaise. It's like Harry with Filch. Now Pansy and I just have to find our own pet teachers and we'll all be set!"

"How about Madam Pince?" Blaise suggested with a grin. Draco scowled at him.

"If I had a pet teacher, it would not be the librarian," Draco said haughtily. "I mean, for Merlin's sake, I could have Professor Snape if I wanted!"

Pansy snickered. When Draco looked over at her, she smirked and said, "Not if I get him first…"

The resulting argument got them kicked out of the library, to Hermione's dismay, although after a few apologies she calmed down and agreed to a walk by the lake. Soon after that, Dudley asked hopefully if they thought he could have a pet teacher, and they spent the rest of the day arguing over possibilities.

The last few days of the school term were spent in this carefree manner, and when it was time to board the train home, Harry felt it was too soon.

"It won't be so bad, Harry," Pansy assured him when he expressed this to her. "Blaise and Draco and Hermione and I will owl you all the time, and you and Dudley get along now, don't you?"

Harry nodded unwillingly. Dudley really was loads better than he'd been before school. He thought he could actually claim Dudley as a friend now, instead of just the cousin with whom he shared an intense mutual dislike.

Blaise reappeared from the compartment where he'd been stashing his trunk.

"If you find that you really can't stand it, Harry, ask Dudley if you can borrow his owl and we'll plot your grand escape."

Harry smiled in spite of himself.

"Get on the train already, you three!" Draco called from an open window. "It's going to leave without you!"

Harry took one last look at Hogwarts and followed Blaise and Pansy to their compartment, where Draco was waiting for them along with Hermione, who had been reading a book which she put down when they came in, and Neville and Dudley, who were playing Exploding Snap.

"I cannot believe that you three would just leave me to fend for myself in a compartment full of Gryffindors," Draco said severely. "They could have gone mad, overpowered me, and done horrible and unmentionable things to my person."

Neville seemed alarmed that anyone thought he would do such a thing and nearly let one of his cards blow up. Hermione laughed.

"What sort of unmentionable things do you think us three first years are capable of?"

"I did say they were unmentionable. Do pay attention, please."

Draco was trying very hard to keep a straight face, and failed when Harry laughed at him. "Quiet Harry," Draco scolded him with an amused smirk. "You've been hanging out with them all year, who knows what they've taught you?"

"You're right, Draco, they've taught me awful things," Harry agreed darkly. "Now remember that next time you feel like being whiny, or I'll Scourgify you until you beg for mercy."

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"Isn't Scourgify a cleaning charm?" Pansy asked finally. Hermione snorted and elbowed her.

"Are you trying to say something about my hygiene?" Draco demanded. Blaise snickered.

Harry looked nonchalantly out the window at the flashing scenery. "If the shoe fits, Draco."

Draco glared at him as the rest of them laughed. "You're one to talk, Harry. I mean, look at your hair! Have you ever? I'm going to buy you a mirror for your birthday."

Blaise snickered again. "He has a point, Harry. I'll buy you a brush."

Pansy smiled. "And I'll buy you hair-care potions! We'll make it a theme! Hermione, you can get him muggle hair-stuff!"

Harry began to feel worried when Hermione suggested a hair-straightener with an evil sort of grin in his direction.

"You guys don't have to buy me anything," he tried. "It's nice of you to offer, but please…"

"Of course we're going to buy you presents, Harry," Draco assured him blithely. "And that reminds me. You're coming with me when we go to Diagon Alley. Dudley too, if he wants," he added as an afterthought, glancing at Harry's cousin.

"Sure, thanks," Dudley agreed as he and Neville began another game.

"Perfect," Draco said. "I'll owl you about it later this summer. It'll be fun. Father always has other things to do, and if you two are with me, then he can just leave us in Diagon Alley."

Harry agreed, and Blaise suggested a game of chess. They alternated for a while, and eventually Harry joined Dudley and Neville instead, in order to boost the small part of his ego that hadn't been crushed in the chess matches. Anthony found them after a while, and stayed for a few hours, discussing something about electricity with Hermione that Harry wasn't going to attempt to follow, as he'd never known much about it even before Hogwarts. The whole trip was very peaceful, and by the time the train arrived at King's Cross, Harry almost felt that this summer wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Welcome home, Dudley," Uncle Vernon said gruffly, clapping a hand on Dudley's shoulder. He nodded at Harry, who had followed Dudley out of the barrier. "Harry."

"Uncle Vernon," Harry replied uncertainly. Hermione broke the tension by appearing suddenly from the barrier and waving at Harry and Dudley before running over to a couple standing nearby and hugging them.

"Is that one of your friends, Dudley?" Uncle Vernon asked as Dudley and Harry waved back. He eyed her and her parents as Hermione smiled and pulled them over. Dudley nodded and grinned.

"That's Hermione, she's really smart," he said. Hermione reached them and beamed.

"Mum, Dad, these are Harry and Dudley. They're friends of mine. Dudley, Harry, these are my parents, Jane and Howard Granger. They're dentists."

"Nice to meet you, Dr….and Dr. Granger," Harry said.

"Nice to meet you," Dudley echoed.

"Lovely to meet you, Harry and Dudley," Dr. Granger said. "Hermione has told us so much about you in her letters." She then turned her attention inquisitively to Uncle Vernon, and Dudley belatedly realized he was meant to give an introduction.

"Erm, this is my dad," he fumbled. "Vernon Dursley. Dad, this is Hermione and her parents."

Uncle Vernon and the Grangers shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.

"What do you practice?" Uncle Vernon asked interestedly.

"I'm a BDS, and my wife is a BChD," Dr. Granger explained. He smiled at his wife. "We run a dental office near London. We were terribly surprised when the Hogwarts letter came, weren't you?"

Uncle Vernon had visibly brightened. Harry thought it might have to do with the fact that these people were so clearly and irrevocably normal.

"You have no idea," Uncle Vernon said jovially. Dr. Granger checked her watch.

"I hate to cut this short," she said apologetically, "But we really must be going. We're taking Hermione to a show to celebrate her return, and we'll be extremely late if we stay any longer."

"Of course," Uncle Vernon said graciously. "Don't let us hold you up."

"I'm sure our children will be in contact over the summer," Dr. Granger said, pulling a card out of his wallet and writing something neatly on the back. "But here's our home number, just in case."

He handed it to Uncle Vernon, and they shook hands once more before saying goodbye and leaving with Hermione, who waved as her father pushed her trolley away.

The meeting with the Grangers seemed to have put Uncle Vernon in a very good mood, Harry noted as Uncle Vernon congratulated Dudley (and Harry, indirectly) on having made such a fine friend. He even pushed the trolley that Harry had loaded both their trunks onto, having expected the same as last year.

Harry and Dudley followed Uncle Vernon out of the station, and Dudley filled the silence with talk about Hogwarts. Uncle Vernon shushed him a few times for using words like 'magic' or 'spells', but he mostly just let Dudley prattle on excitedly about school. Harry noted that Uncle Vernon already seemed very well informed about who and what Dudley was talking about, and realized, possibly for the first time, just how often Dudley had written home that year.

At the car, Harry helped Uncle Vernon load their trunks into the boot, and Harry and Dudley sat together in the backseat as Dudley continued to regale his father with stories about Hogwarts on the ride home. Harry was even asked to contribute every so often, and his stories were greeted with a nod and sometimes a question, just like Dudley's. At one point, Dudley asked him to explain the whole issue with the Philosopher's Stone, and Uncle Vernon actually chortled when he explained how they'd fooled the Headmaster. Harry wondered exactly what Dudley had said about him in his letters home, to make Uncle Vernon so…not hostile toward him now. The change between now and last year was positively eerie, if Harry stopped to think about it.

When they got home, Uncle Vernon carried Dudley's trunk inside, and Dudley helped Harry with his own. The surreal feeling Harry had had in the car intensified when Dudley reminded him that he wasn't sleeping in the cupboard anymore. Apparently this had already been discussed with Uncle Vernon, because he made no mention of it as Harry and Dudley dragged Harry's things upstairs and stowed them in Dudley's second bedroom.

Harry had a moment to wonder if he'd stepped into a parallel universe where everyone was bizarrely nice to him as he walked downstairs to the kitchen, where he would normally be helping with dinner right now.

He went inside, and it was as though he'd stepped back through to his old universe. Aunt Petunia was standing at the sink, peeling potatoes with a tense expression on her face, and when she saw him, she snapped at him to finish the job and turned jerkily to the stovetop, where water was boiling.

Harry fished the peeler out of the pile of potato skins in the sink and got to work while Aunt Petunia fidgeted at the stove. Normally by now, she would have told him what he was making and let him get on with it, but today, she seemed reluctant to leave the kitchen. Harry wondered if she thought he might have forgotten how to make dinner since he'd been gone.

They worked in painful silence for a few minutes, meaning that Harry worked and Aunt Petunia pretended to look busy, and soon the television came on in the other room. They heard Dudley laugh at something on the telly and Harry saw Aunt Petunia flinch out of the corner of his eye.

It dawned on Harry what was happening here, and he frowned at the potatoes he was now chopping up. She was avoiding Dudley. Harry wasn't sure what to think about this. He finished the potatoes and handed the chopping board to Aunt Petunia, who dumped it all in the water and stared at it unhappily. Maybe this wouldn't be such a great summer after all.